Just how balanced is the Balanced Mod?

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    So where can I read the complete rules with all the changes?


  • It’s stickied in the league forum - says “rules and download”

  • '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    The USA NOs are very powerful.  Balanced Mod is great because it forces the axis to do their thing FAST before the allies get the economic advantage.  Just as it should be.


  • Giving the Axis split victory conditions over-compensated for the earlier Allied advantage.  The breaking up of the previously automatic USA Homeland NO (and maybe was reduced too?) was good for gameplay but was also a big blow to the Allies.  As variance noted, the Balanced mod gives a lot more money back to the USA.

    The Berlin complex was made major (as it should be) and the Ukraine complex added (which of course helps Germany a lot).  Good changes, but all helped the Axis a lot.  It is rather staggering that in the league the Axis, with 15-30 or so in Allied bids, is winning over 60% of the games this year in the league

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Never tried it myself, but if it’s popular enough that probably won’t matter. The nice thing about a mod is that you can always mod the mod. The kind of players who are willing to try a modification  are the sort who are probably willing to accept minor tweaks to that mod later on, if it still ends up tilting to one side over the other.

    I think the hardest thing to do, is simply to persuade enough people that its worth their time to try something new, or something that departs from OOB with the aim of making the game more fun. Usually the problem is an overabundance of mods or HRs, such that its hard to popularize any one mod or rules change over another. Thankfully the people in my playgroup have been pretty open to house rules or set up changes, but even then they sometimes suffer from an HR overload. The desire for consistency sometimes trumps other considerations.

    I still wish that alternate scenarios would receive some official support. It wouldn’t be very hard to do. All it’d require is a new pdf set up chart that players could download, or an addendum to the manual/faq providing some different official alternatives.

    Unfortunately in the cases where this is done, it’s usually meant as a fix to some oversight or some misprint for the boxed game, rather than as an optional alternate game.

    Even the most popular kind of alternate scenerio, the bid game, has never been addressed officially. It’s kind of a bummer, because absent some official guidence/sanction from the designers, the player base tends to splinter over these things, with lots of different ideas, none of which ever seem to gain enough traction to provide a long term solution to perceived imbalances with the OOB game.


  • I found a few things called balanced mod just by doing a Google search, but could someone help me out and post a pink to the most recent interaction for me?


  • @nicbizz:

    I found a few things called balanced mod just by doing a Google search, but could someone help me out and post a pink to the most recent interaction for me?

    Here you go nicbizz:

    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37341.0

  • '14 Customizer

    @Gamerman01:

    @The:

    Therefore, I don’t want to render judgment myself on BalMod. But I feel as though the Axis still have a strong advantage. How do more experienced veterans of the league feel about it?

    The Axis do not have a strong advantage in the balanced mod game.  The Allies were given many, many advantages that in my opinion offset or more than offset the standard need of an Allied bid.  You will get more Italy action again (taking the bid away) but the Allies are given a lot.  A LOT

    I need to play more Balanced Mod games at least with the Allies.  It is an interesting Mod.


  • @cyanight:

    Sealion is much easier now with the NO +5 for capture of London.  It makes it easier for Germany to sustain an early economy. With an more powered Italy now it is easier to assist Germany in Sealion.  Germany doesn’t have to waste planes on taking down ships in the Med anymore.

    Make sure you guard London round 1.

    Unless the BalMod has been, well, modded, my Game Notes shows no revision to any German NOs, to include an addition of a +5 for London cap.


  • Thank you, sir. I find the marine idea interesting, but I’m not a fan of loading troops onto warships….why not just give transports the ability to carry a marine in addition to their normal compliment (infantry, tank, marine)?

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    @nicbizz:

    Thank you, sir. I find the marine idea interesting, but I’m not a fan of loading troops onto warships….why not just give transports the ability to carry a marine in addition to their normal compliment (infantry, tank, marine)?

    That sounds reasonable, I guess they wanted to give extra value to warships.


  • @variance:

    The USA NOs are very powerful.  Balanced Mod is great because it forces the axis to do their thing FAST before the allies get the economic advantage.  Just as it should be.

    Exactly!

    Also, cyan, the +5 for german control of London has not been implemented yet. Just an idea were tossing around


  • @nicbizz:

    Thank you, sir. I find the marine idea interesting, but I’m not a fan of loading troops onto warships….why not just give transports the ability to carry a marine in addition to their normal compliment (infantry, tank, marine)?

    Why aren’t you a fan of loading marines onto warships? Have you tried it?

    Also, we did toy with the idea of increasing transport capacity to allow carrying a marine as a third unit (or to allow 3 marines to a transport). The result was that marines were invariably purchased for every transport, as a consequence of which they were vastly overrepresented on the board.  You really should try playing with marines on warships, if you haven’t. Its a lot of fun and has a firm historical justification.

  • '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    Marines make kamikazes more valuable


  • I don’t think marines were transported by destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, or made beach assaults from the same. I see your point with the extra capacity for a transport though, it would be annoying having everyone just buying marines lol.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Had a chance to look over some of the specs. I’m not familiar with the mod as a whole, but a lot of the individual rules and some of the objectives it uses. Looks pretty solid. Sounds to me like the most complex part of it is probably the rules surrounding Vichy, and Guerrilla Chinese since those introduce concepts that don’t really have analogs in the OOB situation.

    One thing I’d suggest, make Sierra Leone a starting British territory!

    Having Sierra Leone neutral, as it is OOB, is an oversight/error of the boxed game.

    True neutral makes no sense for this territory, both from an historical and a gameplay perspective.

    Sierra Leone was a British Colony “At War” with the Axis from 1939, and played a major role as a convoy staging area. The capital Freetown was heavily militarized after the fall of France. There was also a large RAF presence in this broader area of West Africa, that involved the colonies of Gambia, Nigeria and Gold Coast as well, it was called the West African Reinforcement Route (WARR).

    Getting Aircraft to Egypt and the middle east was a major logistical challenge of the British war effort, and a major part of the way they solved it was to use the West African Reinforcement Route. Aircraft were actually shipped in pieces to West Africa, assembled there and then flown in stages all the way to Cairo and beyond.

    It makes complete sense for the British to be able to build bases in Sierra Leone! I can’t think of a single reason why Sierra Leone should not be made a normal British Territory from the outset, so they could build bases there from the very first turn. This would improve the Allies situation considerably. The historical and gameplay justifications are compelling, and it only requires a single roundel change, and moreover it allows you to sidestep the French West Africa exception under your Vichy Rules for territory control.

    An Airbase in Sierra Leone would allow fighters to move between that territory and Egypt in one move.

    A Naval Base in Sierra Leone, would allow transports to cycle between sz 101 and sz 87 in one rotation.

    I think I have to post a Sierra Leone Question, to see if we can get to the bottom of this…

    Ps. Ok posted the Q in couple places, it’d be nice if they included the change as official, but if not I’d still suggest you do so in the mod. It gives the Allies a decent alternative to Gibraltar for staging their expeditionary forces.

  • '17 '16

    @nicbizz:

    Thank you, sir. I find the marine idea interesting, but I’m not a fan of loading troops onto warships….why not just give transports the ability to carry a marine in addition to their normal compliment (infantry, tank, marine)?

    I would advocate a cheaper Marines unit, but I’m not writing any Triple A codes.
    Here is also an explanation for Marines aboard Warships:

    From a game perspective, an interesting and very specialized unit would be like this one.
    It has low cost but also lower combat values to balance with its carrying capacity on Cruiser and Battleship.
    Try to see the game at army group level, Marines combat unit division are certainly smaller than a full fledge army unit. That is why I suggest low offense / defense values except in the one combat situations which gives Marines their reputation: amphibious assault.

    Marines as simply Marines and nothing more
    Cost 3
    Attack 1-2
    Defense 1
    Move 1

    Sea movement bonus:
    1 Marines unit can be carried on 1 Battleship or 1 Cruiser.
    Transport can load 2 Marines or 1 Marines plus any other 1 ground unit.
    Gets +1A on amphibious assault only.

    No combined arms with Artillery.
    No production limit number.

    That way, 2 Marines for 6 IPCs, A4 D2 on amphibious assault will be better cost ratio than regular Infantry paired with Artillery A4 D4 C7.
    But, in defense, 2 Marines Defense @2 cannot hold the ground as 2 Infantry Defense @4.

    And also 2 Marines being weaker if going inland combat by themselves because of the no pairing bonus with artillery. But they stay on par 1:1 compared to a single Infantry on offense.

    Also, in amphibious assault, Marines will be probably taken amongst first casualties compared to regular infantry because it is the same attack factor than Inf with Artillery (but have a lesser defense factor (very low 1), unless you keep them to move on a Cruiser or BB and want to spare TP to turn back home for new supply on next turn. So, such Marines unit will more often die during debarkment and regular Infantry will last longer, in anticipation of next assault going inland.

    So, it provides a different kind of tactical combat with 2 Marines on TP and still keeping Inf+Art a competitive combination too.

    D1 was to reflect the smaller number of soldiers involved per unit compared to standard Infantry unit.
    It is not for lesser morale but for less logistics and support required by this unit.
    Lower defense @1, come from the lesser number of individuals being less equiped than regular Infantry unit.
    Attack @2 on amphibious assault is balanced by lower defense @1 to allow a more balanced Cruiser and Battleship carrying capacity. This unit have a better attacking factor because of abilities, training and surprise tactics despise their fewer number of soldiers. They can do a lot with less but not for an extended period.

    In addition, their lower defense factor would make them amongst the first casualty during counter-attack which can figure for they high risk mission they undertake.
    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36518.msg1476045#msg1476045


  • Gentlemen, this topic is about how balanced the new introduced Mod on this Forum is.
    Please let us not get away or off the thematic of it.

    Thank you


  • Marine carrying capacity was added to cruisers so there might actually be a reason to buy cruisers. Still isn’t, IMO, but it does buff the initial cruisers a little bit and doesn’t make the purchase quite as bad as it is OOB.

    Given that it’s a balance mod, it seems appropriate to make an effort to balance the least purchased unit in the game by making it a little bit more useful.


  • @nicbizz:

    I don’t think marines were transported by destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, or made beach assaults from the same. I see your point with the extra capacity for a transport though, it would be annoying having everyone just buying marines lol.

    In fact, there is significant historical precedent for warships carrying detachments of marines into combat. For starters, virtually all US battleships, during World War II, carried marine detachments (between 50 and 100 men), who, in addition to manning ship guns, served as ship expeditionary forces. See, e.g., http://seastories.battleshipnc.com/marines/

    Smaller warships also carried marines. For example, it was a group of ship-borne Royal Marines that proved decisive in the Battle for Madagascar. From the relevant wikipedia article:

    “The French defence was highly effective in the beginning and the main Allied force was brought to a halt by the morning of 6 May. The deadlock was broken when the old destroyer HMS Anthony dashed straight past the harbour defences of Diego Suarez and landed 50 Royal Marines amidst the Vichy rear area. The Marines created “disturbance in the town out of all proportion to their numbers” and the Vichy defence was soon broken.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Madagascar

    Also noteworthy, the Japanese’ made extensive use of cruisers, destroyers, and even battleships as troop transports throughout the war. A few examples:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Kitakami
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Kirishima
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_destroyer_Hayanami

    So, yah, the idea of cruisers and battleships transporting small land forces is not only fun and good for the game, its historically accurate! HF!

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