patch update

[christian brown]

Some of the comments above seem to have been written without having read the arguments in this stream.
To reiterate:
CVs will remain first target choice for CAGs, weighted hugely in their favor.

The essence of the rule change is this:
CAGs will choose unique targets, starting with CVs, then BBs and so on, just as before. The change is that 2 or more CAGs will be less likely to double CVs since each air unit will select it's own individual target.

Here is an example:
6 CAGs attack 2 CVs, a BB, an LF and a TF.
2 CAGs will almost certainly match up with the 2 CVs, one for one. The next CAG will (probably) choose the BB as its target. The next CAG selects a new target, probably the LF. The next CAG takes on whatever unit has not already been attacked = the TF. The 6th CAG repeats the process, targeting a defender by weight (CV, BB, LF, TF, SF.) Since all units have already been targeted once, it is possible that this last CAG could target any of the other units but will usually go after one of the CVs for a double up.

The purpose of the rule change as I understand it:
Giving incentive to a player to commit all air assets to one battle (using 3 air units against 2 TFs can and often does result in a single TF being targeted 3 times, thereby allowing the second TF off the hook.) A "smart" AWD player would currently send their air in one at a time to avoid double up attacks and wasting air assets. This is counter-intuitive and should be dissuaded.

Giving a purpose to protecting CVs with a screening fleet.

There are other (IMO) less important issues at stake, but these seem to be the main ones.

The bottom line is that this rule change will result in more damaged as opposed to destroyed fleets, CVs in particular.

[Forwarn45]

What Christian said. I'd also emphasize you'd still see quite a few carriers sunk. With torpedo and anti-ship improvements to CAG, it's not unusual for both to hit (or to get one autohit) - resulting in a sinking.

[Lebatron]

Thanks Chris for helping the case[:)]

[GKar]

I see. Sounds like a reasonable change then.

[SGT Rice]

I thought MrQ summed up the gameplay problems pretty nicely.

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

I have no strong opinion on this subject except I would like to see carriers not be forced to stack up with other carriers in order to avoid gang bang attacks from a thousand miles away.

But even just removing the auto CAG double-up vs Carrier will make Carriers much more survivable and will lead to more damaged Carreir Fleets than destroyed which I think would be better. Its that second Cag attack vs Carrier with reduced evasion and possible damage that dooms them most of the time. Meanwhile there are other fleets in the group not even getting targeted. Realistic, probably. Good for cool global strategy game? I would prefer to see high value assets more distributed in the theater/s.

I certainly appreciate folks intent here; the carrier war in AWD does tend to be a war of big stacks. But if you think about it, so does the ground war and the air war ... its generally suicide to disperse your forces in anything approximating their historical deployments. The air war in Western Europe usually sees one big stack of WA aircraft facing one big stack of German aircraft; the land war in Russia sees 1-3 big stacks of ground units on each side warily stalking one another. I don't think this problem is easily solvable; isn't it an inevitable consequence of having an IGO-UGO movement system with no stacking limits?

I still respectfully submit that the CAG double team realistically reflects the tactical imperative of the day; CVs were the queens of the sea and opposing carrier pilots pursued them to the exclusion of all other targets. The mechanics proposed in this thread suggest that the proper defense of your carriers is to surround them with lots of other targets so that the enemy CAGs get distracted and bomb something else.

Here's a gamey situation that could easily arise with the proposed unique targeting rules. It's late 43, the US is starting to move across the Pacific. A Japanese force of 4 CV/CAGs is in Truk with a light surface escort. The US has 2 CV/CAGs within striking distance with more on the way. US CAGs have an edge in air-air/evasion ratings; both sides have raised CV evasion ratings. What does the US do? Answer: He goes straight at the Japanese CV group, "defending" his own carriers with as many transports as he can spare. Faced with 2:1 odds against him, the WA player can basically guarantee 2 strikes on Japanese CVs while only exposing himself to 2 strikes against his own. If he has enough extra trannies (or BBs or DDs) lying around he might divert three or even all four of the Japanese counterstrikes onto other targets.

Historically the US fleet commanders DID surround their CVs with as many WARSHIPS as they could. But this did not result in Japanese carrier pilots diverting bomb runs onto lots of BBs, CAs, & DDs. It resulted in huge concentrations of flak. This suggests a different game mechanism than dispersing CAG strikes across an enemy fleet; it suggests allowing multiple defending ships to target incoming aircraft with their flak. I would suggest that a more realistic solution to the problems of protecting CVs might be to resolve AA combat at sea similar to the way its resolved on land. Treat any ships with AA ratings >3 as if they were flak units. Let the ships with the highest AA ratings (typically BBs) always shoot first and give additional modifiers if the defending 'flak' ships outnumber the attackers, just like its resolved on land.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice

Here's a gamey situation that could easily arise with the proposed unique targeting rules. It's late 43, the US is starting to move across the Pacific. A Japanese force of 4 CV/CAGs is in Truk with a light surface escort. The US has 2 CV/CAGs within striking distance with more on the way. US CAGs have an edge in air-air/evasion ratings; both sides have raised CV evasion ratings. What does the US do? Answer: He goes straight at the Japanese CV group, "defending" his own carriers with as many transports as he can spare. Faced with 2:1 odds against him, the WA player can basically guarantee 2 strikes on Japanese CVs while only exposing himself to 2 strikes against his own. If he has enough extra trannies (or BBs or DDs) lying around he might divert three or even all four of the Japanese counterstrikes onto other targets.

A good point. However this gamey exploit could be handled by excluding trannies. If CAG's could be programmed to select one unique target down the line and loop back to CV's once trannies came up this would solve that problem. Perhaps it's as simple as entering 0 for the trannies weight %.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice

Historically the US fleet commanders DID surround their CVs with as many WARSHIPS as they could. But this did not result in Japanese carrier pilots diverting bomb runs onto lots of BBs, CAs, & DDs. It resulted in huge concentrations of flak. This suggests a different game mechanism than dispersing CAG strikes across an enemy fleet; it suggests allowing multiple defending ships to target incoming aircraft with their flak. I would suggest that a more realistic solution to the problems of protecting CVs might be to resolve AA combat at sea similar to the way its resolved on land. Treat any ships with AA ratings >3 as if they were flak units. Let the ships with the highest AA ratings (typically BBs) always shoot first and give additional modifiers if the defending 'flak' ships outnumber the attackers, just like its resolved on land.

At first glance this seems like an excellent idea. In particular, I would like to see HF's act like land flak and get 2 shots, plus allow them to receive AA support bonus from other HF's, LF's, and CV's when they have no target of their own.

Even with this good idea, I still support adding unique targeting.

So lets see, it looks like we have a synergy of 3 ideas that may go together very well.
1. Unique targeting of naval units by air.
2. Eliminate trannies as a CAG choice unless they are the only ships present.
3. Improve fleet AA as described above.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

on the list - maybe

• more robust file access routines to avoid save-incompatible caused crashes ... ? it is worth doing? This would (ironically) break save compatibility, because I would need to add a new version field to the save files.
• change CAM for bombers: remove HB.

Aren't we all in agreement to remove HB's from CAM?

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

unlikely due to difficulty or lack of unanimity

• change CAM for bombers: require more attacking TB than defending TB (making CAM easier or harder, depending on precise definition)
• change date displayed in View Mode after end of player turn, to reflect completed turn instead of next turn.
• change German snorkel tech even to 1942.
• make all tech events mod-able
• stacking limits for islands

The above statement about CAM does not reflect the current consensus. As stated I would not support the change either, because of the problems pointed out by myself and others, but my follow up alternate suggestion received complete support. At least no problems with it have been pointed out. I like it because it's actually simpler to understand than the current CAM rule, and it more accurately reflects when an attacker deserves CAM. Here it is again.

Alternate idea.
Attacker gets CAM when
1 The attacker has the full spectrum and the defender does not.
If the defender does have the full spectrum, then attacker gets CAM when...
2. Attacking force has a greater sum of armor and TB's than the defender.

Moving the snorkel event to 1942 did not achieve a high level of support so I can see why its unlikely to be changed, but there was support for the compromise. That is to give the snorkel event the large point bump instead of the small one it now receives. Also a related topic was the increase in actual reward for the tech events. Here is what I said in another thread "I agree with MA that the current 1+d4 or 6+d4 bumps could use a little extra muscle. However I would prefer more base and not more randomness. So I feel the d4 works well enough. We should start with at least +2 more on the base. 3+d4 and 8+d4 seem like a good starting point. But I would even support 4+d4 and 9+d4 if others felt it needed it. This second option is closely related to MA's suggested amount but without using a d6." Are there any that think it would be a bad change?

Are there any that would second that either of these two topics be moved from the "unlikely due to lack of unanimity" category to the "will do" category?

[Marshall Art]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron



So lets see, it looks like we have a synergy of 3 ideas that may go together very well.
1. Unique targeting of naval units by air.
2. Eliminate trannies as a CAG choice unless they are the only ships present.
3. Improve fleet AA as described above.

Does this mean that only for CAG the trannies have avalue of 0 but still 1 for all other aircraft? Because a general rule for all aircraft would not make sense at all. In fact, I would even propose to give DDs a lower or identical at best probability as trannies, when attacked by other aircraft. For instance in Europe German bombers cared less about DDs but went straight for the trannies if they could.

I like the "Naval AA" idea very much as it really beefs up anti-air tactics at sea. There was little use for BBs and their AA capabilities so far, but all powers used BBs and Cruisers as AA defense for carriers.

[Marshall Art]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron

Alternate idea.
Attacker gets CAM when
1 The attacker has the full spectrum and the defender does not.
If the defender does have the full spectrum, then attacker gets CAM when...
2. Attacking force has a greater sum of armor and TB's than the defender.

ORIGINAL: Lebatron

But I would even support 4+d4 and 9+d4 if others felt it needed it.

Are there any that would second that either of these two topics be moved from the "unlikely due to lack of unanimity" category to the "will do" category?

I find both ideas easy to understand and believe they are simple to be implemented. Both seem not to have any disadvantages.

Any opposite views?

[christian brown]

It is a pity this was not thought out before. A combined fleet AA defense modifier seems like a great idea, it may even make BBs worthwhile apart from shore bombardment for a change. This does not cancel my agreement with the other proposed change regarding unique targeting for CAGs...............

Hate to spew, but while we're at it (CAM and so on.)

Why not include a simple rule giving whoever has an air unit other than a fighter a +1 to defense/offense in the region where combat occurs? If both sides possess an air unit, the modifier would be negated. No one can doubt the huge advantage the side with air cover had across the scope of WWII when the opponent lacked a present air force. This would again encourage the construction of TA. Just a thought.

[GKar]

ORIGINAL: christian brown

Why not include a simple rule giving whoever has an air unit other than a fighter a +1 to defense/offense in the region where combat occurs? If both sides possess an air unit, the modifier would be negated. No one can doubt the huge advantage the side with air cover had across the scope of WWII when the opponent lacked a present air force. This would again encourage the construction of TA. Just a thought.

Sounds reasonable, but such a bonus should be capped at +3 or so.

[goodtimes]

Re: stacking limits on Islands (as discussed earlier this thread)
 
Instead of stacking limits, maybe there could be stacking limit penalties. (Units of an overstacked Island could suffer combat modifiers, be 'unsupplyed' etc.).  A true limit could be set on supplies, where at the end of the movement phase, any supplies over the island limit would be destroyed.
 
If you want different Islands to have different capacities, you could use the current graphical depiction of Islands:
               Large, single island graphic  -  no limit
               Small, single island graphic  -  20 points    
               Small, double/triple Island   - 30 points
               Multiple Island graphic        - 40 points
               Port                                - +20 points                         
           
 
Re: A different kind of Stacking Limit...
 
If some players find the size of stacks in general too large or ahistorical, maybe a future version could have stacking penalties based on the amount of your forces commited to an attack or defence.
    example: if you commit more than 1/3 of your total (l/a/s) forces to an attack  -  small penalty
                                    more than 1/2                                                       -  larger penalty
If defensive stacks are too large or ahistorical something similar could apply (although defensive force strength can't be checked by the combat analyzer the way attacking forces can)
                              say, more than 1/2                                                       - small penalty
                                     more than 2/3                                                       - larger penalty
(a minimum number-of-total-units threshold would need to be met before applying)

[WanderingHead]

I'm trying my best to balance what I think folks want .

This is already more protracted than I had hoped. I had wanted to be done a month ago.

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
Alternate idea.
Attacker gets CAM when
1 The attacker has the full spectrum and the defender does not.
If the defender does have the full spectrum, then attacker gets CAM when...
2. Attacking force has a greater sum of armor and TB's than the defender.

My issue with this rule is ... well, I don't actually care all that much. I prefer it as is because it is simpler.

The real issue with this rule is that I really cannot tell what people want. Recall when I said I didn't understand which way the rule was intended?

• Option 1: make CAM easier to attain (as described above, because now TB can fill in for armor count).
• Option 2: make CAM harder to attain (a different rule, where we say that in addition to satisfying the "full spectrum" and the "superior armor" requirements, the attacker must satisfy a new "superior TB" requirement.

I oppose option 2. I don't care too strongly about option 1, but I don't like it. What is the real value it adds? I'd suggest that the WA would end up buying more TB and less armor (the TB are useful earlier), contrary to the original intent of the armor rule. I think we'd be back to the WA buying exactly 1 armor to use in the European theater.

More to the point, now Jesse supports making CAM easier to obtain with TB, but earlier someone else was expressed for the opposite option making CAM harder to get if the defender has TB. Which is it? It begins to feel like monkeying with the rules for no good reason.

If the CAM rule is not forcing enough diversity in unit builds then let's come up with one generic rule that can be applied to all units and be done with it. No more special cases.

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
So lets see, it looks like we have a synergy of 3 ideas that may go together very well.
1. Unique targeting of naval units by air.
2. Eliminate trannies as a CAG choice unless they are the only ships present.
3. Improve fleet AA as described above.

How about this. It will be easier to code, and is largely the same.
1. Unique targeting of naval (non-transport) units by CAG.
2. Once all naval (no-transport) units are covered by CAGs, independent selection using the normal (weighted) CAG probabilities.

Transports would be possible after all naval vessels are chosen, but unlikely with the target weighting. If you have more CAGs than naval targets, you'll almost certainly be doubling on CVs.

As for improving fleet AA, I would like it to be consistent and minimize change. The first thing is to simply increase AA capability (Glory does this with a research bump in AA for HFs, maybe it could be larger). Hitting AA=4 for fleets is a big difference from AA=3. For consistency, the best thing would seem to be that if the number of naval vessels is more than twice the number of attacking air, the AA gets a bonus like land flak does in the same condition. IMO, this would be a huge change making land based air a lot less effective in places like the Med, where I usually see just a couple of air units supporting the navies.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: christian brown
Why not include a simple rule giving whoever has an air unit other than a fighter a +1 to defense/offense in the region where combat occurs? If both sides possess an air unit, the modifier would be negated. No one can doubt the huge advantage the side with air cover had across the scope of WWII when the opponent lacked a present air force. This would again encourage the construction of TA. Just a thought.

IMO, the creeping-play-complexity to realism-enhancement ratio does not warrant the change.

[MrQuiet]

My issue with this rule is ... well, I don't actually care all that much. I prefer it as is because it is simpler.

The real issue with this rule is that I really cannot tell what people want. Recall when I said I didn't understand which way the rule was intended?

If you are looking for oppinion on this I will offer mine.
Personaly I like it the way it is and I dont think I would change it except to maybe remove HB from the CAM qualifying air arm.
I would aslo consider removing the +3 (+6 after doubling) CAM Bonus from Artillary fire which would reduce the Russian incentive to go all out on Art.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

My issue with this rule is ... well, I don't actually care all that much. I prefer it as is because it is simpler.

The real issue with this rule is that I really cannot tell what people want. Recall when I said I didn't understand which way the rule was intended?

If you are looking for oppinion on this I will offer mine.
Personaly I like it the way it is and I dont think I would change it except to maybe remove HB from the CAM qualifying air arm.
I would aslo consider removing the +3 (+6 after doubling) CAM Bonus from Artillary fire which would reduce the Russian incentive to go all out on Art.

I can remove HB, no objection and almost everyone wants it.

I'm not going to change TB unless it were part of some comprehensive change that makes global sense, somehow consistent or nearly consistent across units. CAM works pretty well, the last thing I want is tweaks that feel tweaky and make it more confusing.

I actually like Marshall Art's (do I credit this correctly?) idea that you get CA "points" depending on how many unit-class "teams" you have. IMO, TB needs more weight than other units. So I end up with something like this:

• every arm/inf/art/TB "full team" you have, each member team gets the CAM.
• for each arm/inf/art "partial team" you have, not to exceed the number of TB, each member gets the CAM (this gives the overweight of TB, which basically gets to contribute to 2 teams instead of 1).
• In addition, each such (full or partial) team could provide one other range 1 unit (outside of a team, and note that range 1 excludes art) a CA benefit.

For example, with 4arm+10inf+8art+2TB, you'd get 2 full teams, and 2 partial teams. These 4 teams provide 4 extra CA units (in this case, infantry units not in a "team"), so that in total you'd have 18 units firing with CA (4 arm + 8 inf + 4 art + 2 TB).

This is a little more complex, but it's still fairly straightforward (the combat pop-up would display "number of CA teams" instead of the current "Attacker has CA"). And all CA benefits are simply proportional to how much balance you have.

I think I prefer either leaving it alone entirely, or going to something like the above.

[SGT Rice]

I actually like Marshall Art's (do I credit this correctly?) idea that you get CA "points" depending on how many unit-class "teams" you have. IMO, TB needs more weight than other units. So I end up with something like this:
every arm/inf/art/TB "full team" you have, each member team gets the CAM.

for each arm/inf/art "partial team" you have, not to exceed the number of TB, each member gets the CAM (this gives the overweight of TB, which basically gets to contribute to 2 teams instead of 1).

In addition, each such (full or partial) team could provide one other range 1 unit (outside of a team, and note that range 1 excludes art) a CA benefit.

No objections from my perspective.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: GKar
I'm not really convinced of removing the CAG double team of CVs either. What's the reasoning behind it? Making CVs less likely to be sunk?

ORIGINAL: GKar
I see. Sounds like a reasonable change then.

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice
I certainly appreciate folks intent here; the carrier war in AWD does tend to be a war of big stacks. But if you think about it, so does the ground war and the air war ... its generally suicide to disperse your forces in anything approximating their historical deployments. The air war in Western Europe usually sees one big stack of WA aircraft facing one big stack of German aircraft; the land war in Russia sees 1-3 big stacks of ground units on each side warily stalking one another.

I still respectfully submit that the CAG double team realistically reflects the tactical imperative of the day; CVs were the queens of the sea and opposing carrier pilots pursued them to the exclusion of all other targets. The mechanics proposed in this thread suggest that the proper defense of your carriers is to surround them with lots of other targets so that the enemy CAGs get distracted and bomb something else.

Looking to convince hold outs .

GKar seems OK.

I think that one of the main points was made by Uncle Joe long ago was that this is not a tactical game. True, tactically air may completely prioritize CVs. But what does combat represent in a 3 month IGOUGO turn structure? At sea, with these huge sea zones, there is much more of an impact from luck. Which ships happen to be spotted when. Whether planes happen to be refueling at an inopportune time. Etc.

If you have complete air superiority, you could still phase your CAG attacks so each one targets a CV. If not, you may consider that some are sinking straggling non-CV fleets when the rest of the fleet has succesfully fled over the horizon.

I think that the bottom line is the playability. Yes, even with the great supply innovations of this game stacks still dominate. But in this case a mechanic exists that makes the stack, and non-diverse unit compositions, extremely and overly important.

IMO, the Pacific war will be greatly improved by this. Its a small tweak, not a major overhaul.

As an aside, the Pacific would also be greatly improved with a new map. One of the big issues is that it is just to far from the SW USA to Australia, proportionally farther than real life. The adoption of a consistent hex lattice (using staggered rectangular regions) through the whole Pacific would be a huge improvement, making the SW USA to Australia much closer, changing the current 10 sea zones to 7 or 8 zones. This is the only map mod I would be particularly eager to see (for all oceans; I hate inconsistency, and I'm not fond of the partial staggering applied to only the western Pacific).