Some new air balance ideas

[Lebatron]

For UV 2.0 I've been thinking of increasing the heavy bomber cost by 1 for everybody. Japan would now pay 4, everyone else 5. As a result, tac air would hopefully become more popular. And I'm about to suggest a heresy. Increase fighter cost to 3. I'm kind of tired of seeing 20 plus fighters, almost no tac air, and to many HB's. Changing the cost of fighters to 3 would go a long way to balancing the distribution of air types. And what about carrier air? It would now appear cheaper to build since the difference would only be 1 production point between them and fighters. But rather than increase their cost to 5, I would reduce their world standards by 1 in EV and AA. What do you guys think?

[christian brown]

Increasing the value of Tacair sounds great, not sure if making HB's and fighters more expensive and time consuming is the way to do it.
My main worry would be that once someone got the upper hand on fighter superiority, it would be even harder to get back to a balanced situation. I worry that someone could really go all out for air superiority and then maintain it indefinitely no matter what the opposition did. This is somewhat analogous to tank production, but that's way different because the tanks can "hide" behind other forces they share a region with, fighters can't.
How about:
1) increasing the Tacair LA world standard by 1
or
2) increasing the start levels in Tacair by a few points
or
3) make HB's ineligible for CAM
or
5) increasing the effectiveness of flak AA or even LA a few points, even a full level to help encourage their use
or
6)a combo of 1, 3 and 5

I've always found it semi-annoying that flak is rarely built even though the record shows a massive investment in them by the major powers during the real conflict.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
For UV 2.0 I've been thinking of increasing the heavy bomber cost by 1 for everybody. Japan would now pay 4, everyone else 5. As a result, tac air would hopefully become more popular. And I'm about to suggest a heresy. Increase fighter cost to 3. I'm kind of tired of seeing 20 plus fighters, almost no tac air, and to many HB's. Changing the cost of fighters to 3 would go a long way to balancing the distribution of air types. And what about carrier air? It would now appear cheaper to build since the difference would only be 1 production point between them and fighters. But rather than increase their cost to 5, I would reduce their world standards by 1 in EV and AA. What do you guys think?

Ironically, I had only last weekend been thinking of the same thing, particularly about fighters. The unit ratios are just way off in this regard. I think that air power clearly involved a completely different proportion of manufacturing resources in comparison to manpower than the game portrays.

The USA at peak mobilization had about 12 million men in arms. In AWD, I think we see on the order of 100 to 150 USA units at peak. So, a unit is ~100,000 men. 20 fighter units is .... 2,000,000 men in fighters and supporting fighters at airfields? I don't think so.

IMO, the air penalty at max range is a good part of making this work. It allows one to survive a little with fewer defensive fighters.

Also, if you want German fighters in the Battle of Britain, I think that you may need to make them more expensive.

I think it is a great idea to play with.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: christian brown
I've always found it semi-annoying that flak is rarely built even though the record shows a massive investment in them by the major powers during the real conflict.

That is troubling.

IMO, only a relatively radical in the suppression system can really improve that. But getting everyone to agree on WHAT it should be would be impossible.

Jesse, it has always bothered me that German HBs for some reason are intrinsically worse than the Allies, in that they have no armor. Maybe German HBs could remain at cost 4PP, they really don't get over built. Just a thought.

[MrQuiet]

 
Very interesting ideas here.
An offensive penalty of one attacking die for fighters at max range does sound practical, and would help when trying to defend with less.
 
If I were modding air power attributes I would do the following.
(note: these are based only on game expierence and have little or nothing to do with history)
 
I would leave fighters at cost 2.
I would modify fighter speed/range as Lebatron has done in UV2.0
 
I would set TacAir cost at 2 for all nations.
I would set TacAir torpedo attack at 3 for all nations.
I would set TacAir torpedo attack WS at 3 (i.e. 6 research points to get to ta4)
I would give TacAir a couple research points in LA for all nations
I would give TacAir 1 or 2 reseach points in ASW for all nations.
 
I would leave CAG as is currently.
 
I would set Heavy Bomber cost at 5 for WA (I think it is already at 5 for RU)
I would leave HB cost as is for the Axis.
I would place a partialy built HB in USA and maybe another in UK.
 
That would definately give incentive to build Tac in my opinion.
When damaged they would return on your next turn like fighters do.
They would be a cheaper, quicker choice for ASW.
For a little more investment they can become more effective/flexible in Anti Shipping.
With a head start in LA research they can become very efective at rail disruption.
 
I changed WA HB cost to help with what I see as a slight percieved game ballance issue and to encourage TacAir production.
Also damaged/destroyed WA HBs would sting a little more.
 
-MrQuiet
By the way you guys are talking my language since air power tends to be a major part of my game strategy.
 
 

[BoerWar]

ORIGINAL: christian brown

3) make HB's ineligible for CAM

I like Mr. Quiet's points, but I also think Christian has a pretty good idea here.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: christian brown
I've always found it semi-annoying that flak is rarely built even though the record shows a massive investment in them by the major powers during the real conflict.

I wish I could find some stats on how effective flak was.

I googled "historical effectiveness of flak WWII" and got this hit at Amazon: Flak

(a reviewer)
Westermann masterfully weaves all aspects of the development of the 88 with the other less-well-known and understood defenses used by Germany such as smoke screens and decoy sites, the high-level of damage to bombers from Flak that increased fighter kills as they pounced on stragglers, the decrease in accuracy from bombers trying to evade Flak, the coordination with night-fighters (the Wild Boars), as well as the development of improved targeting devices such as radar.

I've always thought that since flak is suppression fire, and suppression fire mostly helps OTHER units to hit things, flak should fire before fighters. Then the fighters would have the advantage of firing on suppressed air units.

It is easy with this mechanic to imagine that flak includes RADAR early warning that assists defending fighters.

This is a kludge to the combat system, but maybe defending fighters could get a direct bonus based on how much flak there is. Unless it really were changed so that flak fires first. Note also that we'll kind of already get this when the "already fired at" evasion penalty is added to flak firing on units that were fired on by fighters.

I also thought it made sense to allow research in evasion for infrastructure, to model things like decoy sites, hardenning, undergrounding, etc.

[christian brown]

I also thought it made sense to allow research in evasion for infrastructure, to model things like decoy sites, hardenning, undergrounding, etc.

This was mentioned during beta and I still support it......is it feasible?

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: christian brown

I also thought it made sense to allow research in evasion for infrastructure, to model things like decoy sites, hardenning, undergrounding, etc.

This was mentioned during beta and I still support it......is it feasible?

I was actually thinking that it could be modded. But now you've prompted me to actually look into it, and ... the only reason it cannot be done is that there is row for factories in the research screen. That is, the engine can support it except that there is no GUI for it.

Adding the support to that screen is a huge task (changing any graphics is very difficult) which is not going to happen.

Shame, I really think it is a good idea.

[Uncle_Joe]

I'll make the same comment on Flak that I made in the beta...you have to be VERY careful about increasing the effectiveness of Flak in the game. Even a little increase could very easily lead to people creating 'no fly zones' that rival the SAM belts of the '73 Arab-Israeli War.
 
And I still think players under-rate Flak as is. Until the very late game (when aircraft attack ratings are extremely high) they are a good low-cost/high survivability way to reduce enemy air effectiveness....just like they should be. IMO Flak should NOT be shooting down large numbers of aircraft at this scale.
 
If Flak 'needs' to be improved, IMO it should definately be in the ground combat effectiveness to enable Flak to fulfill dual-role duty (giving them some diversity from Fighters). Because in the end, if you make them so effective that they can 'replace' Fighters then we are going WAY outside the realm of the believable and if you dont, then whats the point? No one is still going to buy them. You have to create role for them, not try and have them fulfill the exact one that Fighters already do.
 
In fact, one easy way might be to classify them as Artillery. That way enemy air targets Flak or Arty randomly. That might even be TOO good, but it would likely lead to more purchasing of Flak without making them over-effective at shooting down planes. To me, that is the type of 'solution' that should be looked for if one is truly necessary.

[MrQuiet]

 
In just about all of the games I have played I have never really noticed any opponents without flak.
It certainly ways heavy on my decisions of where to do strategic bombing, and I have lost many many aircraft to Flak.
Personally I buy them throughout the game as Germany. As Rus I like to have enough to protect my infrastucture within reach of the enemy and important rail lines. I dont buy many as Japan mostly due shortage of everything else.
 
The only issue I see with them currently is that I think they should fire before Air to Air and:
They are not very effective against WA HBs that are researching there way up to the bomb. (ie HBs with land attack 6,7,8 are not really going to mis rolling a 12 due to flack, but they should sometimes.)

[Uncle_Joe]

In just about all of the games I have played I have never really noticed any opponents without flak.
It certainly ways heavy on my decisions of where to do strategic bombing, and I have lost many many aircraft to Flak.
Personally I buy them throughout the game as Germany. As Rus I like to have enough to protect my infrastucture within reach of the enemy and important rail lines. I dont buy many as Japan mostly due shortage of everything else.

Which has been my experience in casual play as well. I dont see wanting to make them into something that people will mass as a good change. I tend to build a few here and there to discourage smaller attacks. I dont want to see them be used as an ALTERNATIVE to building Fighters. In WW2, that level of effectiveness just did not exist.

The only issue I see with them currently is that I think they should fire before Air to Air and:
They are not very effective against WA HBs that are researching there way up to the bomb. (ie HBs with land attack 6,7,8 are not really going to mis rolling a 12 due to flack, but they should sometimes.)

And honestly, I think that models changes in aircraft fairly well. I believe most Flak was quite ineffective against late-war bombers like the B29.

To me, it all depends on how your opponent is playing the game. If they are building a-historically large high-tech air forces early in the game, then of course Flak is going to be somewhat ineffective. But if that is the case, then that is a problem with the way players are able to build and mass an air force rather than with Flak itself. If you play reasonably historically, Flak performs reasonably well. But from my readings and discussions in the beta, it seems that people like to create massive high-tech airforces and proceed to level opposing infrastructure. Doing so does indeed make Flak less effective (2-3 Flak vs 6-8 Bombers isnt going to do much). But IMO it shouldn't be too effective in that situation.

As an experiment, fire up a single-player game and try sending a few planes into territories with 3-4 Flak guns. I did experiments like this in the beta and the results were quite impressive for the Flak guns. They shot down a fair number of planes and 'aborted' the attacks of many others. That +2 (doubled to +4) for having addtional guns adds up pretty well.

The bottom line here is that if you make Flak effective enough to deal with the massed teched up airforces then pretty soon air becomes an all or nothing affair. You cant use just a few planes here and there if Flak is going to be boosted enough to matter against the former tactic. And to me, I'd rather see Flak underpowered than overpowered and cutting down options on how to play the game.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: christian brown

Increasing the value of Tacair sounds great, not sure if making HB's and fighters more expensive and time consuming is the way to do it. My main worry would be that once someone got the upper hand on fighter superiority, it would be even harder to get back to a balanced situation... I worry that someone could really go all out for air superiority and then maintain it indefinitely no matter what the opposition did.
How about:
1) increasing the Tacair LA world standard by 1

3) make HB's ineligible for CAM

5) increasing the effectiveness of flak AA or even LA a few points, even a full level to help encourage their use

I've always found it semi-annoying that flak is rarely built even though the record shows a massive investment in them by the major powers during the real conflict.

I hear your concerns. But consider the British position in 39-41. As your building its air force, your slowed by manpower and not the cost of the aircraft. So increasing the cost to 3 will not really change the number of fighters you build in the early years. But I think it will surely have an impact later when more production needs to be shifted to other things. Your also concerned about someone getting the upper hand on air superiority and keeping it to easily. Well I think this change will actually reduce this trend somewhat, but it can't really. It's entirely normal for this to happen in games. In general, if the Allies have it, then lose it later on, they must be doing something wrong.

Your suggestions.
1) increasing the Tacair LA world standard by 1

I was already thinking of putting it at 6 so you could go to 7 without extra cost penalties.

3) make HB's ineligible for CAM

I like this idea. Good one.

5) increasing the effectiveness of flak AA or even LA a few points, even a full level to help encourage their use

In UV2.0 flak is more effective at preventing damage to infrastructure, but has a much reduced chance to damage aircraft. At 6 AA Flak causes about 1-13 suppression, which is just enough to make LA 3(Japs) miss most of the time and LA 4 to only hit occasionally. If Flak is improved, it can somewhat keep up with improvements in bombers, but at LA 7 the Allies are going to get their factory hits anyway, which is the way it should be. I like it a lot better this way. The dreaded rolls of 1 are no longer possible but the 5% autohits can still shoot down aircraft. Here's the suppression formula I'm using in UV2.0. It can be found in the WawGoldScenExtra.txt file.

//BombardSuppressionRule(100,0,1,0,500,1,5) original

BombardSuppressionRule(0,2,1,0,1000,1,0) new

Basically all suppression is divided by 2. The advantages to this are that tech increases in Arty and Flak are now worthwhile again. Any extra dice rolls you gain give, on average, 3-4 more suppression points because of doubling. To compensate for the increased suppression dividing by 2 will generate, I upped the hit points on everything. It now takes 30 instead of 15 to damage tanks, Arty, etc. And 40, instead of 20, to damage Infantry. That's where the 500 to 1000 change in the formula above comes in. Also the 5 at the end of the original formula was changed to 0. That was to remove the naval bombard penalty for no land units in defending area. It was no longer needed, plus its more realistic since bombardments proceeded landings anyways. I reduced HF and LF LA by 1 to balance.

I've been reading the recent suppression changes Brian wishes to make and been wanting to say that I believe starting with a fixed divide by 2 and tweaking from there will give us better results. The only 2 things I wish would get added to the suppression formula as new rules.

1. An option to turn a bell curve on and off. Say 18 suppression is inflicted. Instead of the engine just randomly assigning 1-18 to the firing unit, a number from the middle would be weighted the most. Like 9-12 would be most common. Perhaps Brian can figure out a way to take any suppression spread from 1-x and turn it into a bell curve. Gone would be the silly 50+ suppression ending up being 1, and a small number like 10 out preforming 50.

2. Since I like a fixed divisor the best, a way to represent addition toughness to units hit points via EV increases could be added. Say for every increase in EV a unit gets a boost to his hit points. For instance, an infantry's 40 hit points become 44. In the suppression formula I use the 1000 would become 1100. An extra 100 would be added for every units EV increase above a certain level.

I been thinking that with changes like this to the suppression formula a divide by 1 might even be the best route. Or in other words just getting rid of any divides to make the battle results as clean as possible. With a bell curve in place, a way to turn off doubling suppression(forgot to request that also), and a way to reflect addition unit toughness along with other changes in tech levels, a plain old straight suppression roll can work.

[Lebatron]

Concerning the issue of Flak firing after fighters being a problem, I believe that that is actually how it went in the war. Flak was concentrated near infrastructure to be proteched and hence was the last defense. Defending fighters peeled off once attacking bombers reached the flak kill zone so as not to get hit themselves.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
I've been reading the recent suppression changes Brian wishes to make and been wanting to say that I believe starting with a fixed divide by 2 and tweaking from there will give us better results. The only 2 things I wish would get added to the suppression formula as new rules.

I hear you and agree, but I'm not going to enter into that discussion with Joel again. All my proposals were for stock AWD, small tweaks that could get past the gatekeeper, they are not what I would propose for a more thorough rework.

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
Since I like a fixed divisor the best, a way to represent addition toughness to units hit points via EV increases could be added.

I did add an evasion modifier to the die roll, so you can take a*evasion (mod-able value "a") and have that subtracted from the firing dice. I thought that this would be useful for a combat system based on a fixed divider like you are proposing. It is in the recent test version that I sent you (not publicly available).

[Marshall Art]

A few comments from what I remember having read about WWII, hope this fits into the discussion:

Typically, Flak/AA fire never PREVENTED an air attack, it only made it less effective. Thus allowing air units to still attack a target but at reduced effectiveness (due to suppression) seems reasonable. Of course, some planes get hit and destroyed during the attack. This seems well portrayed by the game to me.

Bomber losses due to Flak:
From all US bomber losses over Germany (mostly) and the rest of Axis occupied Europe a very small portion was attributed to Flak fire. The vast majority was shot down by Axis fighters. A lot of aircraft was damaged but it took a direct hit or a near hit to damage a bomber enough to be put out of action (and out of the sky). Many bombers made it back in a condition one wonders how the pilots managed to get their crew home. It certainly was a huge psychological test for the bomber crews and caused some damage but IMO if the 1,000s (Yes thousands) of AA guns that were stationed in Germany to shoot at planes were send to the ground fronts to replace Artillery losses they would have been better used. Not to mention the artillery shells. It was one of the major Axis (German) mistakes to think AA would stop the Allied bomber streams. Only in 1944 that mistake was corrected, a huge number of fighters built. By that time the refinery/fuel plant in Germany were already bombed to pieces and since the German Airforce had also too few pilots most of those planes were either destroyed on the ground or manned with rookie pilots with limited success.

From this the criticism that too many fighters are being built IMO is misleading. More fighters are built by the Axis powers to prevent being bombed by the Allies, an approach that does not mirror history but COULD have occured. Of course the Allies counter that strategy by building even more air units. Both strategies, while they may be annoying, seem valid to me.
I do not have numbers for manpower allocations, but to state that from 12 Million US soldiers 2 Million were in the Air Force, including all the supporting units sounds fairly reasonable. The US did not field such a huge Army like Germany or even Russia, since their focus was on Air and Naval supremacy first and advance on the ground later (after an invasion for example).

Another point to the picture is the fact that while own defending fighters were in the area no AA fire was used since you do not want to shoot at your own guys. Also AA "traps" mostly defended vital spots while fighters could engage incoming bombers everywhere. So the defending fighters should fire first and then the remaining attacking aircraft should be fired at by AA. To make bombers that were attacked by interceptors more vulnerable to Flak (due to the "was shot at" status) would give an incentive to purchase flak AND fighters in matching numbers.

Other than that I find the Air attack efficiency of Flak units balanced at the beginning, but later with increased AA Flak rating too strong. it is too easy to tech up Flak, the Average tech level should be decreased by one or even two.

Bomber cost and armour:
What has been historically built by Germany were semi-heavy bombers compared to the US and British models. A B-24, Lancaster or even B-29 was much bigger, could carry more bombs over a longer distance and was heavier armed and armoured than the German Ju-88, He-111 or other models. The intention of the Allied bombers was mostly strategic massive bombardments of cities or factories, they were built to withstand enemy fire since they were sent deep into enemy territory. The German Airforce never focussed on that, since it's primary task was the achievement of (local) air superiority and tactical support for the German Army. German bombers were not designed to be challenged by significant enemy fighter forces. Thus the "missing" Armour rating is valid, also a smaller investment and build time as compared to the WA is historically correct. I am not sure about the Japanese bombers but except for the heavy "Betty" model I cannot recall any significant types.

I go along with Mr Quiet's suggestions for possible improvements to make tactical bombers more useful. In addition I would increase fighter range to 2 for all nations, combined with the long range modifier. It is not realistic that fighters cannot reach Britain and vice versa until 1941. While the range of the early war fighters was limited they still could appear over the target areas, but with reduced "engagement/fighting time". This could be portrayed by Lebatron's modifier.

I also would suggest to give AA a status similar as artillery during ground combat. Most of the AA guns we are talking about are 10 to 15 cm (or 4-6 inches) which match medium or heavy field artillery. The famous 8.8 German AA gun was a prime example for use in ground battles. Smaller calibers (1 or 2 inches) were rather used as low-flying aircraft defense which I see covered by AA ratings of Infantry and Armoured divisions. If Flak did not shoot at aircraft (due to lack of significant enemy air forces) it should receive first shot capability as regular artillery. Since the Flak crews were not trained for that so well their effectiveness might be lower but this would further enhance the value of AA guns.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Art
German bombers were not designed to be challenged by significant enemy fighter forces. Thus the "missing" Armour rating is valid, also a smaller investment and build time as compared to the WA is historically correct.

IMO this difference should be reflected in the Germans purchasing Tac Bombers, not in preventing the Germans from ever having the the equivalent capability. Tac bombers give the CA bonus which is the "achievement of (local) air superiority and tactical support for the German Army". The Germans COULD have built heavier bombers (just as they COULD have built more defensive fighters).

IMO making the TB so much more effective, and cheaper, as Mr Quiet suggests would be rather too much.

I've played a couple of games with Global Glory and a test version of software with fighters costing 3, HBs costing 5, the air penalty at max range, and air able to fly over narrows. I think this narrows rule is much better than increasing fighter range, because it targets allowing air to move between regions that are clearly nearby pieces of land (that's why we call it narrow!) instead of impacting every theater of the game.

I also added armor to German HBs, but of course compensated by reducing start evasion by one. The net effect at start is roughly zero, but the long term effect is that the Germans aren't inherently disadvantaged in their ability to tech up their bombers (in stock AWD, German bombers must have evasion 1 greater than WA bombers to have the same defensive ability, so the Germans run up against World Standard limits more quickly).

Personally, I like the way it feels, though I can't claim it is balanced yet (the changes are rather large). Everyone will still be building as many fighters as they can. I don't think that this will change that at all. But it is more expensive and more difficult. Given the industrial requirements for building air units (and training for pilots, for that matter), it seems perfectly reasonable.

Also, with these changes I no longer think flak is underpowered. I think it is just a cheaper and less effective defense than fighters.

[WanderingHead]

BTW, it's not like I'm 100% certain yet. Just like I said, I like the way it feels so far.

At any rate, clearly no major changes like this are going into the stock scenarios. Just for mods.