Allied Air Power needs to be adjusted

[smckechnie]

Air Power problems with this game
Playing game as Axis with these issues with Air Power in the game

1. Allied Player has moved most of the USAF into Russia by mid 1943. US strategic bombers can easily destroy all supply in Russia for the Axis as most of the captured cities only provide supply at 5. This halts any axis advance.
2. Unlike previous versions of the game there doesn't appear to be anything to penalize the US for making this move.
3. Axis have built up Air force and Air Defense (AD) , but supply is still easily wiped out by Bombers. German forces essentially can't move forward.
4. Japan invades India, captures half of India including Bombay, but strategic bombers hit all the supply points. Even with Japanese air defenses at some level, supply is wiped out. Allied forces then slowly destroy all Jap forces with mostly airpower. Which is ridiculous.
5. Allied bombers hit all supply points in Libya, despite having significant axis defenses, supply is wiped out between bombers and Malta. Allies then just slowly move across Libya destroying all axis units in low supply. Strategic bombing played no real role that I know of in North Africa campaign. Note that this is easily accomplished by the end of 1941!
6. Carrier air wings destroy all axis HQ's in Africa after supply is destroyed by bombers. Call me crazy, but I do not remember carrier air wings having really any effect attacking axis in North Africa. HQ units aren't that dumb in real life and usually have some of the heaviest AD units always with them, so AD of HQ's should be increased.


If the game stays as is, basically all the allies have to do is build up strategic bombers, tac air, and deploy it to Russia, Africa, and India to halt and then destroy the axis with waves of tac bombers. I personally think that the tactical air damage done has to be adjusted down. We are talking about tac air in World War 2, not now days, where I would agree, whole units can be wiped out.

[sveint]

I was going to rebut your claims point by point but I think I'll just say that outside of American air units operation in Russia, I strongly disagree.

[Steely Glint]

ORIGINAL: sveint

I was going to rebut your claims point by point but I think I'll just say that outside of American air units operation in Russia, I strongly disagree.

Agreed. I can’t even deploy American air units to the USSR. Am I doing something wrong or is he?

The rest of his points are, well, pointless, and should be ignored.

[smckechnie]

Now there are fully supplied US tanks on the Eastern Front!!!

Resigned from the game.

You guys can ignore unbalanced play of the game, but I think my points are valid otherwise the game is just a waste of time and will get people to quit playing after they have figured out the best unstoppable strategies.

1. USAF and British AF (and Armies) being in Russia makes it so Germany will be defeated by 1944 in every game with a competent player.

2. Strategic bombers never historically in WW2 destroyed all supply in a theatre of war. Degraded or reduced supply, but never completely eliminated supply. Not sure why you guys would disagree with a historically accurate fact.

Part of the problem with this game is that even with strong air defenses the supply will still be destroyed. (Allies take losses but not stopped)


3. The tac air strategy of just lining up 5 of them and mowing down units never happened in the war either. The carpet bombing at ST Lo, in Normandy helped allies break out of Normandy, but the carpet bombing of Caen was an allied disaster. It gave the Germans great defensive positions.


4. In my opinion the tac air is just to try to give the allies a chance to turn the tide against the Axis if the axis get way ahead in the game. I would much rather give more resources (troops) to Russia and the US to reflect what really happened in the war. As the game sits right now, it is pretty hard for the Russians to halt a German advance.

5. The CV's ability to wipe out units (other than naval and air units) in this game is ridiculous also. Asks the marines at Iwo Jima about how much the entrenched enemy was destroyed by tac air, helped but not as decisive as ground units.


This is not a hard thing to fix in the game if you ask me. You reduce the effectiveness of tac air, don't allow US/ british supply in Russia, you limit the effectiveness of strategic bombers on supply (not of resources though).

I have played all of the Strategic Command Series of games for the past 10 years or so. I have had a great time playing. But, one of the bigger problems of the games is that after you play a number of times you learn how to game the system to win through flaws in the scenarios. The research playbook for each country is a perfect example. If you have level 4 German Panzers by November of 1941, you are pretty much going to win.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

Hmmm, not sure, haven't play tested. With the Japs about ready to take India, and strolling thru Russia with Superman Tanks & experience, guess the United States gotta do something extreme. Supply is good India. Spain, nah. Russia, not sure. You're not able to Operand in Russia with ground units, haven't tried Air.

[smckechnie]

You can't operate US and British units into Russia, but in current game you can fly or drive units in through the middle east. It takes some time, but with new flight range of air units, it isn't that hard. Strategically deploy to middle east, then fly units up to Moscow. My opponent in my last game had British Bombers in the Far East knocking out supply of Japanese moving West from Irkusk too.


With the strategic bombers, you then wipe out all the supply across the Eastern front. Unlike Western Europe where that is hard to do. It is really easy to knock out supply in Russia (India and North Africa too.) I looked to see if there were any settings that should have been adjusted, but didn't see any. I think the US took some heavy casualties initially, but then after the air units had some experience, they seemed to not take hardly any casualties.

[HamburgerMeat]

I agree with pretty much everything smckechnie has said.

In our current game, even after he's annihilated most of the allied navy, there's very little he can do to stop my airpower at this point.

I would suggest:

1. Increasing HQ air defenses, to stop the war of HQ "sniping".
2. Weaken strategic airpower
3. Increase soviet MPP generation or decrease costs for garrisons/corps/armies like in WiE
4. Decrease costs for Chinese units (China falls too quickly)
5. Increase partisan activity in China (to help simulate the logistical nightmare it was for the Japanese when trying to go deeper into China).

As for bringing the US and British forces in the USSR, I feel like that's the only way to really stop the Russians (better to merge into one giant front rather than opening a new front).

I'd be fine getting rid of US and British being able to resupply in the USSR if the USSR wasn't so weak as it is currently.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

Yeah, figured this would get play tested eventually. Swing some HQ's via the port off Murminks Convoy. Grab a city or just use a close place and bunny-hop the Air behind Russian lines. Sniping HQ always been standard tactic. Russian collusion might need modification.

[Xenocide]

I thought the US and Britain cannot use Soviet supply points. How are they being supplied for these raids in Russia?

Try playing with the force caps in place so the US and Britain can only have a few strat bombers.

[smckechnie]

Well in this game it appears that Russian supply can provide supply to US and British units.

When I conceded the game to HamburgerMeat, I think he must have had the entire USAF in Russia!! Hit me with at least 6 tac air, and 3 strategic bombers per turn. Knocked out all supply to forward units, then started to advance with Russian tanks. Not much the axis can do to counter that. No need for a second front, as with that kind of firepower it is just a movement to Berlin.

[Hubert Cater]

In the next update, Western Allies will have much more limited supply in the USSR.

[HamburgerMeat]

Hi Hubert,

Reducing their supply sounds great. But this strategy was born out of the necessity from the current meta (of high level german tanks crushing USSR while being assisted by Japan). Hope that you also address the USSR's situation as well.

[Steely Glint]

Hubert, please don't fall into the trap of focusing on PVP issues and ruining the game for normal players. I've seen all too many games ruined for normal play because some PVP player found a bizarre exploit.

If you have to, make a separate set of rules/options for PVP players. But don't ruin the regular the game for their sake.

[amandkm]

ORIGINAL: Steely Glint

Hubert, please don't fall into the trap of focusing on PVP issues and ruining the game for normal players. I've seen all too many games ruined for normal play because some PVP player found a bizarre exploit.

If you have to, make a separate set of rules/options for PVP players. But don't ruin the regular the game for their sake.

Maybe a supply toggle to turn off/on restricted supply?

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: Steely Glint

Hubert, please don't fall into the trap of focusing on PVP issues and ruining the game for normal players. I've seen all too many games ruined for normal play because some PVP player found a bizarre exploit.

If you have to, make a separate set of rules/options for PVP players. But don't ruin the regular the game for their sake.

Thanks and we are looking at a few key changes that will resolve these types of issues all around. These will include but not be limited to, minor adjustments to help improve the situation for the USSR, an adjustment to lower the Western Allied supply in the USSR (not entirely eliminate it) as well as to resolve the supply issue that happens when Germany and Japan meet at let's say the Middle East or India etc.

We never want to eliminate viable strategies, just create a better balance or risk/reward when warranted for those strategies that might possibly break the game. For example, while Germany and Japan going all in to defeat the USSR is fair enough (albiet its quite possible at the moment that this is not risky enough for Japan game play wise), if the Allied strategy of moving its entire air into the USSR ends up being more powerful as a counter strategy that will always win games, i.e. to the point that it doesn't matter what the Axis choose to do, then this is a potential issue that needs addressing.

Our goal is to always find the right balance, or at least as close to it as possible.

[sveint]

Thank you Hubert, fantastic game!