• '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    One thing I miss from classic is that you cannot build a fleet in a sea zone that is occupied by the enemy.  Since they decided to bring back that defenders of shore bombardments can fire back and they implemented rules that you can only fire one shore bombardment for each unit landed in the invasion (up to the maximum number of cruisers/battleships present), why couldn’t they have restored that rule too?


  • I actually like the navel bombardment rules as they stand now. You can’t abuse offshore bombardments by sending a single inf in with a ton bombards (a favorite cheap tactic of mine with jpn previously). As far as being able to build in a contested sea zone. It’s a way for the defender to stop a bombard (albeit expensively) and also not get penned in. Defenders being able to retaliate seems to have kept abuse down too. To each their own though. I don’t like heavy bombers, and wish they had kept the LHTR regarding that tech.

  • Official Q&A

    The rule against mobilizing in a hostile sea zone was just too restrictive.  It allowed a player to effectively blockade a nation with a single ship.  That’s why mobilization in a hostile sea zone was added as an optional rule in 2nd Edition, and then made a standard rule in Revised.


  • I miss convoy zones, or some kind of bonus when you controll strategig sea zones. Lets say if UK controll sea zone 1, 2, 7 and 12 with a surface warship, then UK get a 5 IPC bonus.


  • @GUY:

    I don’t like heavy bombers, and wish they had kept the LHTR regarding that tech.

    I agree the LHTR rules are better. Heavy bombers are too much of a gamebreaker. However, with my playing style, if I’m rolling for tech it’s usually because I’m losing and a gamebreaker tech is what I need so…

    @Adlertag:

    I miss convoy zones, or some kind of bonus when you controll strategig sea zones. Lets say if UK controll sea zone 1, 2, 7 and 12 with a surface warship, then UK get a 5 IPC bonus.

    I’d like to see some N. Atlantic national objectives too.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @Krieghund:

    The rule against mobilizing in a hostile sea zone was just too restrictive.  It allowed a player to effectively blockade a nation with a single ship.  That’s why mobilization in a hostile sea zone was added as an optional rule in 2nd Edition, and then made a standard rule in Revised.

    But in AA50 submarines and transports would not block you from placing surface ships. wink

    So we’re already talking an investment of 8+ IPC per sea zone and for England, that’s a bloody awful lot of ships and they have to survive being attacked!

  • Official Q&A

    True, it’s hard to blockade the UK, but there are other nations, such as Germany, Italy and Japan, whose ICs border only one sea zone.  In that case, a single destroyer could prevent naval builds.  If that nation had no allied units or air units in range to take that destroyer out, it would take two rounds of play, and possibly an air unit purchase, to clear the sea zone in order to allow for naval builds.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I accept that theory, Krieg, but keep in mind, that’s a strategy issue, not really a game breakage issue.  If Japan, who starts out with a massive, clustered fleet and an insane amount of air power, cannot muster enough firepower to take out a lonely destroyer, then perhaps the destroyer is the least of his problems?

    Germany and Italy are a more hurtful target, they cannot necessarily be expected to just have the equipment handy to open the sea zone to builds, but also, in their case, odds are they are not focused on building naval assets at that time?  When they want to be focused, they should have some firepower available, failing that, there’s no law against an IC in Norway or France or somewhere else that would allow them to build up a fleet if the one in the Baltic or Central Med Seas are too powerful to attack with air-power alone.

    I don’t know.  I’m not necessarily saying that this HAS to be a rule in order to make the game functional.  I’m just pondering on why it was not included and how it might make the game more exciting if it was included - maybe as an AA:50-Enhanced rule.


  • I have to agree with Cmdr. Jennifer here.  That rule’s like a given in the house rules of the groups I play with, and I’d argue for it in any group I’m playing with.  It gives sea control some payoff… and gives Mahanites just a little consolation in the otherwise very Mackinderite-friendly world of A&A…

    Aaron


  • @Adlertag:

    I miss convoy zones, or some kind of bonus when you controll strategig sea zones. Lets say if UK controll sea zone 1, 2, 7 and 12 with a surface warship, then UK get a 5 IPC bonus.

    I agree Adlertag, convoys are a strategic deployment, not modeled in a strategic game abstraction.  Yet, Larry likes them in Tactical setups- slightly different cup he’s drinking there-LOL.

  • Customizer

    But sea zones have no inherant value - the point is to stop units being transported across.  As I’ve said, if we had a wider Atlantic this would be mirrored much more interestingly, with a mid-Atlantic battle between convoys and U-boats beyond standard bomber ranges.

    If these issues are handled properly there’s no need for abstract rules like convoy zones and national objectives.


  • Perhaps a simple way to simulate an effective naval blockade against the UK would be for the Axis to block all direct sea routes to the UK with any naval units.  That way there is no one space that becomes all important but instead forcing the Axis to actually blockade the UK from the rest of the world.  So, if the UK can trace a sea lane from the US or its holdings in Asia or the Pacific then the Axis has failed to blockade the UK. Now as to the effect of such a blockade that is up to some speculation since who is to say what percentage of their IPC’s can be “blocked” in this fashion or are they just lost.

    Perhaps you force them to seperate their income like in A&A Pacific.  In that case you could say these “blocked” IPC’s be spent only on colonial builds by IC’s built hopefully in India, Australia, South Africa, or Canada.  This could just complicate the whole thing which many ruin the fun and easy pace at which the game progresses though.

    As to the original question I think that it is silly to have a nations Naval builds blocked by some naval units floating nearby.

Suggested Topics

Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

30

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts