AA50:Enhanced

If there are serious questions or concerns please ask them.

Be serious I mean if there is a question as to the rules or why we selected a rule over another rule I’ll be happy to fill in the blanks.  Believe me, nothing we did was done lightly, we took a lot into consideration before making any change.

Remember, the ultimate goal was to incorporate the rules of Revised:Enhanced into Anniversary for Anniversary:Enhanced.  We did not want to scrap either system and start over.

If there are concerns that something we did might unbalance the game or that we did not hold true to the ideals put forth by Cousin_Joe and the creators of Revised:Enhanced, I will attempt to address those as well.

As you can see, we made very little changes to Anniversary and Enhanced.  Those we did and did not make might be out of balance after years of play and exploitation.  Heck, the designers of AAR and AA Classic thought the game was balanced when they released them, it was only later they learned it was unbalanced!

@axis_roll:

@Cmdr:

Heck, the designers of AAR and AA Classic thought the game was balanced when they released them, it was only later they learned it was unbalanced!

So do you believe AA50 is unbalanced?

That was a main driving reason behind creating Enhanced.

I believe it is unbalanced in so much as Germany has no realistic ability to have a fleet and that results in the allies being slightly over powering in the Atlantic.

I believe that the basic rules from Revised:Enhanced brought a lot of naval assets into play and made the naval game a real game instead of just a means to continue the war on the shores.

I believe the allies might have an unfair edge in a defensive campaign since the Axis will eventually be out purchased if the allies are left alone long enough.  This is especially true  in 1942. (See my game with A44bigdog; England fell in Round 6, the Allies had complete, global domination in round 35.  That could only have happened if the allies could out produce the axis even without one of their nations.)

I believe that the basic rules from Revised:Enhanced had a good method of solving this crisis, by offering an alternative victory condition.  We found that more Victory Cities or re-staged Victory Cities did not solve the problem like it did in Revised:Enhanced, so we thought of making the National Objectives act like Victory Cities.  Since it is almost as easy for the axis to get 6 National Objectives in Anniversary as it was for the Axis to get 10 Victory Cities in Revised:Enhanced.

We also missed the ability to use technologies for specific functions or to defend against specific functions and that things like Heavy Bombers on USA 1 put a serious hindrance on the ability to win the game.  Instead of nerfing Heavy Bombers (as many have called for in the house rules section) it was easier to allow for targeted technologies.  So USA gets HBs on round 1, Germany gets Radar on Round 2 and Improved Factories on Round 3…now those HBs are powerful, but they are not completely crippling.

So, long answer short, I feel (and many seem to have agreed with me, or maybe they just missed CRD, dunno for sure) that Anniversary Edition was either slightly unbalanced or grossly unbalanced depending on which version you played and what technologies you achieved and when they were achieved.

PS: On a personal note, I feel that paratroopers is at least as strong as Heavy Bombers.  Many seem to discount the amount of pain that can be inflicted by paratroopers both by bringing units up from the rear super fast and by liberating/taking territories grossly out of reach without them!

They were play tested, unfortunately, you always run into situations where everyone understands what’s going on but players who are unfamiliar with the changes and the reasons behind the changes may not understand exactly what is meant.

Hell, Anniversary has multiple threads of multiple pages on multiple gaming sites with questions from players as to what does this or that mean or work.  They had to come out with a FAQ and then update it a few times and there’s still questions.  Same reason I think.  The game testers who devised the rule knew what it was meant to do but the person who recorded it may have not worded it very well.  The rule still works, it just might be confusing to some until it is explained. (Kinda like submarine rules in Anniversary!)

Also, remember, the idea was to make the minimum number of changes possible to combine AARe rules into AA50 rules and map.  Kind of like AARe uses rules from LHTR and Revised.  The concept was to encourage global play which is why there is a national advantage in middle Africa now and why National Objectives (which encourage global play) are a method to win the game.

Trust me, once you realize how easy it is for the axis to snipe a fast victory if the allies are not on the ball in the first couple of rounds, you’ll see how the allies really, REALLY need to focus on the entire game board, not just Germany or Italy or Japan.

Likewise, Japan does not even have to attack Russia for the Axis to win now.  Outside of the national objectives victory, Japan can easily sap England and America’s strength instead of spending 5+ rounds walking to Moscow.

That was the big thing for me.  While the big thing for Cousin_Joe and the team for AARe was to stop the mindless slaughter of Germany first each and every blasted game, my opinion was that we needed to stop the mindless slaughter of Russia first in each and every blasted game too.    Hell, even Larry Harris and the original development team saw that the mindless slaughter of Russia each game was getting old, that’s why they dumped a bunch of new territories between Japan and Russia.  Good start, bad finish, IMHO.  The Non-Aggression Treaty of AARe + the ability to win without attacking Russia at all is superior IMHO.

There is no mention about how the optional NA’s are incorporated into the game.

First, let me remind the audience that National Advantages are now classified under the optional rules section.  As such, they’re going to be incorporated differently by different players if they are used at all.

Second, the NAs were tested with each side getting 6 NAs split evenly amoung their nations.  That would mean that two allied nations would only get 1 and the other two would get 2.

Why are paratroopers a minor tech when you have declared them as the most powerful technology in other threads?

Unfortunately, I was out voted.  It was felt that rockets, improved factories, LRA and HBs would be easier to abuse than Paratroopers.  It was also felt that the benefits of improved factories, jets and shipyards was stronger than Paratroopers.

I don’t know if I agree whole-heartedly or not.  I do recognize that some of the abilities of the other technologies were increased and that some of these new abilities (such as -1 to hit AA on Jets, etc) could decrease the value of paratroopers in relation.

I was also voted down on my opinion that there should be three strata of technologies.  Major, Normal and Minor with 6 IPC per roll, 5 IPC per roll and 4 IPC per roll as costs.

And non-combat capabilities have been added.  But the must stop in the first HOSTILE territory rule applies, confusing

The first hostile territory rule prevents your bombers from transporting paratroopers over hostile terrain to reinforce allied or axis positions.

We ran into a problem where America or England would get paratroopers but have no naval forces controlling the Atlantic.  There was no way for Germany to cut off these reinforcements from landing in Moscow because AA Guns only fire when the territory they are in are attacked in Anniversary Edition.

The solution we came up with was to state that bombers and infantry entering a hostile zone must be attacking that zone and in NCM, since you are not attacking, you therefore must stop there.

This allowed Germany, in the previously mentioned example, to take ownership of Arkhangelsk and Karelia and stop British and American bombers from transporting infantry into Moscow.

Why is Italy’s second NA almost an exact repeat of an existing NO?

Actually, if you look closer, it’s an expansion of the existing NOs.  In addition to the NO, Italy will need SZ 16 (Black Sea), Gibraltar, Egypt, Jordan and Italian Africa.

Basically, it is adding a 3rd NO to Italy which brings it on par with the other major nations (Germany, Russia, Japan, England and America.)

Not so sure I like the extra bump ($6 roll another die) in the War bonds weapon.

The extra bump made the technology more desirable.  Blowing 16-24 IPC for a 1-6 IPC per round technology was not occuring often.  To make the technology more desirable, it was determined that you would be able to earn 1-5; 7-12 IPC from the technology.  Since odds are 1 in 6 you’ll roll a 6 on the first round, most times the technology still resulted in 1d6 IPC anyway.  But when you did roll a 6, it was nice to get the extra boost of IPC.

When are newly acquired techs effective?

As per Anniversary rules.

Germany can build undetectable subs by getting improved shipyards tech (-2 modifier)

-2 for improved shipyards
+1 for super destroyers (which replaced super submarines)
+1 for airpower; +2 if you have LR Air present

So there exists the possibility for the enemy to have the chance to detect an enemy submarine even if the enemy has improved shipyards.  However, yes, theoretically if the enemy has improved shipyards and you have not done research to counter them, then they would be undetectable on the first round of combat.

Note, unlike in AARe, in AA50e it is no longer possible to attain a detection value of 6.  The best you can attain is 5 or less now, the worst is unable to detect no matter what.  Kinda the lesser of two evils thing.

Immediate use on the Advanced artillery…  Does that mean Germany can place in Berlin on G1 and then transport that unit into Baltic states for any G1 battles?

Yes, just like German 88s were in AARe.  The unit is placed on the board immediately and can be used just like any other piece.

In fact, you’ll notice this is virtually identical to the German 88 Rule, it’s just been generalized to apply to any nation who happens to get the technology.

China’s 1st NA should be to collect their inf at the end of the turn (like how everyone else collects income’, not rounding up (very weak NA)

We can agree that determining number of new infantry is better at the end of China’s round instead of the beginning.  The argument against it was that China is basically spending their “money” from last round and not collecting their “money.”  I don’t know if I buy into that argument fully.  That’s the problem with the democratic process I guess.

Anyway, I don’t agree that it’s “very weak.”  First off, China’s not meant to be a major power, it’s sort of a way to slow down Japan without buffing America, IMHO.  Thus, rounding up is a significant increase.  It means that Japan has to take two territories instead of one to drop China by one new infantry.

Anyway, I rarely see China survive past 3 or 4 rounds anyway.  In the cases it does, it’s normally just Chinghai and in that case, China would suddenly get 1 infantry a round instead of none and that, in turn, could free up a Russian infantry a round.

Auto-Tech with 6 dice is part of the 4:2 rule from AARe.  It’s assumed a player has played Anniversary and AARe.

As for Japan getting LRA on round 1, it is highly improbable.  Long-Range Aircraft is a Major Technology and Japan would have to purchase 4 dice at 4 IPC (assuming Germany got the technology before them, else it’s 5 IPC and at 5 IPC it is not possible since Japan only has 17 IPC, not the 20 needed.)

This means that Japan has to spend 16 of 17 IPC to get LRA.  Unless my math is wrong, and it could be since I’m a math major, not a stats major and stats has always been challenging to me; that means Japan would pay almost their entire round 1 income for LRA with a 48.5% chance of success.  So more than half the time they will fail to get the technology.

Now, for the slightly less than half the time they do get the technology, I am not seeing how this is

pretty damn devastating

unless I am missing something serious.

The way I see it, even with LRA, Japan’s got to do basically the same combat moves as before.  The only change comes in how they can move in Round 2.  Therefore, I can see how they have an increased threat to America and to India/Australia but not how it is devastating in round 1 (not really devastating in Round 2 either, IMHO.)

I can see how this has completely destroyed the Axis financially however.

Germany spends 30 of 31 IPC to get LRA.  (Yes it helps take Egypt more often, but that’s okay since we want the allies to have to focus globally, not just on Rome and Berlin.)

Japan spends 16 of 17 IPC to get LRA.

Therefore the only axis nation that is spending money on ground units is Italy.

Furthermore, Germany’s already hamstrung with a round 2 lag (round 2 is usually dead since Germany has to walk infantry through Poland before getting them in range to attack.)  And now Japan has no ability to bring reinforcements to SE Asia (assuming they made attacks on the islands to get their NO.)  Furthermore, Japan may have taken a pounding in the mainland which is a distinct possibility.

I don’t know if spending all of the axis income on LRA is a wise move.  I just don’t see how it is devastating for Japan to have them nor how Japan and Germany can recover after losing units to take their first conquests, losing units defending their conquests and not having any new units to refill their ranks and cover their losses.

I’m not poking fun, I’d really like more details as to why you think LRA for Japan (48.5% of the time) at the cost of not building any units for Germany or Japan in round 1 is devastating to the allies?

If you can explain it to me, then I’d gladly investigate a bit to see if this is a problem that should send the team back to investigate. (Though that could be difficult since we’d have to wait for Spring Break to hit March 7th-March 15 when I can get most of them to sit down at the tables.)

Most of the dev team were gamers who live in Northern Illinois.  After the rudiments were put in place, we had a month of online gamers testing it from the four major gaming sites that I know of: DAAK, FOE, AAMC and here.  (Note:  DAAK players invited were from personal invites since I lost my PW to the DAAK site, actually, it’s been so long since I’ve been there, I dont even know if it is still online or not.)