Axis airpower

[Twiddle]

How do you defend against 18-20 axis air? The Italians slugged through Turkey and the Germans just pulverize Russian entrenched garrisons. The Russian air can not stand against a single german unit (jet L4} and the Italians match the Brits at L2.

The allies have Brest, but it is a big prisoner of war camp. As soon as they advance they lose at least one full army. African Vichy, Portugal, Italian Africa and Iraq are allied.

The russian are at the gates of Moscow which can fall any turn with eight german air within four hexes.

[Piumarcobaleno]

German Jets are at level 3, by the way!

[KDG]

I must agree air power is too strong. It is the only research that bumps up attack & defend vs all other units, and the max value of strength.

There is no corresponding research that you can do to counter it besides anti-aircraft, and this only works on strategic resources.

If anti-aircraft research could be increased to include strategic resources and all hexes surrounding them, then we might see this research used and be more effective.

I say change anti-aircraft research, or reduce the effects of Jet Air, or increase the cost for chits for this research.

[Yohan]

the Gulf War era airpower impact on this game is one of the reasons I gave it up a few months ago.

[Shaka of Carthage]

The effects of aircraft should be changed. Against ground targets aircraft (and naval) should only be reducing the readiness level.

[KDG]

Looking at what I wrote above, I did some reading and calculating, and discovered this:

The manual says that jet research only effects air attacks and air defense. It shouldn't do anything to improve attacks vs. tanks, armies, or corps.

In my expierience, jet research seems to affect all attacks. Is this a bug? Comments and expieriences from others would be appreciated.

[Piumarcobaleno]

For what i have seen, jet doesn't affect directly ground attacks, but consider that

A) it helps gaining air supremacy

it allows an air unit to have even 14 or 15 strenght points, and i think that this helps too when calculating damage

C) usually while times goes on, your aircraft tend to be quite experienced, so i think it may seem that this effect can be misjudged for jet effect.

[kurt88]

Playing Axis against the ai the only thing you have to do to succesfully counter an Allied landing.If Axis has the same lvl in Jetaircraft and like the Allied place one or two HQ's with their airfleets,they can damage or destroy enough transports.Result:the Ai CANCELLS the invasion,they just turn back.

I think this problem could be adressed by changing ,as Shaka said,strength damage to readiness loss.

[kurt88]

Also suply for air units in Russia should be harder for Axis

[KDG]

The extra strength(say +1) does little in the way of changing the outcome of a plane attack, only increasing the damage by about 8%, while the xtra experience (say +1) does about 45%.

If as people say, that research isn't helping the attacks vs. ground units, then maybe reducing experience gained for planes in attacks would do the trick.

Or make it that a Plane(or ship) can't reduce a unit below 5(or 3 or 1, whatever number is chosen).

Changing experience gained for planes should be an easy patch.

Can someone verify if jet research isn't helping ground attacks (I mean by more than 10%).

[Liam]

Twiddle retreat your air units beyond German reach until they have better tech and keep HQs with them when you do use them. Also, try not to lose the Suez..Iraq is key for the Allies..

[Fubarno]

Come on! When the Axis has that much air, the only thing to do is put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

I actually haven't seen this too much since the final patch decreased the ratios on industrial tech and the prolifference of the Dutch gambit in HtoH play retarding the Axis ability to invest in tech early in the game.

[Steve C]

Hehe, I have to agree with you Fubarno. But,I am inclined to agree with some of the other posts though, that air is a bit too powerful in the game. And given how expensive it was, perhaps there could be a cap on the number of air units in the game, just as there's a cap on how much MPP you can invest in research. Still, if you didn't do enough earlier in the game to prevent a huge Axis build-up, you're probably gonna bet beaten one way or another.

It's been suggested elsewhere to add tactical bombers to the game, sorry I don't remember who posted it. I think there's some real merit to this idea. Let's look at the scale of the units for a minute. If we suppose a tank unit to be a combined arms unit depected at a larger scale and then an air fleet would seem to = a German Luftflotte or American Air Force, with 100's of planes of all categories.

However, the presence of strategic bombers and individual carriers in the game negates that concept. Further, the carrier (which played a limited role in the European theater) could carry, we'll round off 100 planes for the sake of arguement, yet these are the equal of the air fleets in fighting power in the game.

So I think there's a real place for tac bombers in the game such as the IL-2, JU-87, HE-123, Typhoon, P47's outfitted for close air support, etc. Then you add the effect of three different types of air units and add some interesting choices to the player - do I buy fighters or tac bombers if I can't afford both ?

On the topic of jets, I agree also that this research should be restricted to fighters. Not to suggest spoiling the "what if" element of the game, and correct me if I'm wrong on this point fellas, but did anyone develop effective jet bombers even by 1947 ? I don't think so.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot the Arrado (sp?). Any others ?

[ February 17, 2003, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

[Scorpion_sk]

LOL, here we go again...

I advocated this thing in my time, and now, after having given up on the game, I find the same old discussion again....

My suggestion is still the same - disallow the usage of "air fleet" units against ground targets with a house rule. You will have to use "bomber" units to do this.

This way, you won´t gain any experience from ground attacks to help you clean the skies and vice versa.

And you can´t have a cheap "air fleet" to do everything for you....

[Sand Castle]

I have to agree that the carrier strength is over rated, compared to the air fleets, against land units. If you assume that a german air fleet represents an average luftflotte then you would expect that to be around 1000 aircrft of all sorts. The british carriers were designed to carry the following complements: Glorious-48 aircraft, Courageous-48 aircraft, Ark Royal-60 aircraft. I just don't see how those numbers could stand up to a luftflotte in head to head combat or inflict the same amount of damage to a land unit. I think that aircraft carriers should have a much lower strength-2 or 3, but have a much higher attack rating against other naval units, ie make them good at what they were designed to do-control the seas.

[Tigleth Pilisar]

From a gaming standpoint, I'm not sure it will work to eliminate strength damage air units do to ground units.

Ultimately, a large part of the Allied strategy (particularly in Russia) is to build many corps. By only exposing two hex-sides to an attacker, the defender can only be subject to two ground attacks, which is usually insufficient to kill even a corps - especially in 1940-41 when only a few tech advances have occurred. Add forcing the attacker to be in a river, and the Axis advance will be all done by the time the swamp is reached! The only way to "punch holes" in the line in this game is through aircraft because it increases the attacks to 3-6 times on the same unit.

On the other had, if aircraft decreased readiness, maybe Russian corps could be destroyed with two ground attacks.

From a game standpoint, the only other way to increase # of attacks on the same unit is by Rockets, which are by and large ineffective until tech is very high.

So in the end, I agree aircraft is probably too powerful. But it is necessary. I also think that the suggested reducing readiness vs reducing strength points amounts to the same thing. If it takes 4 hits (2 from air and 2 from ground) to kill a Russian corps, then who cares if the readiness comes down and the ground hits harder or if the air unit reduces enemy unit strength instead? Still takes 4 hits, and I guess the air attacks would have to go first instead of mop up later - so they might be damaged more.

KDG, I read Jet improvements the same way. Air fleets have an attack strength of 2 vs hard or soft units, no matter what you research. Perhaps your suggestion of reduced experience for a ground attack vs an air to air one makes sense.

[KDG]

Here is why jets get so much experience.

They can attack every turn.

1st turn: Use two armies, attack a unit, then hit with three jets, unit killed.

2nd turn: Original two armies reinforce or advance, use two new armies, attack a unit at different place, then hit with same three jets, unit killed.

This plays out turn after turn as the jets keep gaining experience faster than other units.

Don't have anyone to attack, you can hit a resource with a Jet and gain experience. All other units don't have the oppurtunity to gain experience like this. A jet can hit a city, a port, a resource, or another unit and gain experience.

Played right, you can have a 2 or 3 experience level Jet Fleet that is unstoppable towards the middle part of the game.

For balancing purposes we have two options:

1) Jets must gain experience slower than other units.

2) Increase the cost of Jets by 20%.

Otherwise the main strategy will remain research and buy as many jets as possible.

Just one man's opinion.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Tigleth Pilisar

You can still "punch a hole" in the line, with a two hex attack, as long as your attackers have three (3) experience bars and are armies. It is possible with a two (2) experience bar unit, but you have to be extremly lucky on both attacks. This assumes the defender is at an entrenchment level of zero (0). And while the reduction of readiness would help such an attack, the air unit would be more valuable in the role of reducing any entrenchment value.

So while your statements are correct regarding increasing the number of attacks, I don't agree that the Air unit attacks are necessary to be able to puncture a line.

The reason I belive it makes a big difference in wheter the air does readiness or strength points, is that air units, by themselves, should not be able to eliminate ground units.

Quite a few of you have made good points about the relative strengths of a carrier group not being the same as the relative strengths of a air unit. Even with multiple carriers in the unit and increased sortie rates, the combat power between the two different units is not equal. Does tend to suggest that the carrier unit should have a reduction in something to reflect this.

[SeaWolf_48]

For Shaka

I agree with your comments, About carriers and the rest. SC is still the best Strategic Game to date, but like all games it can improve.

Airpower was rough on ground troops, when they had complete control of the air as in Poland 1939, Russia 1941, No. Africa 1943, and Normandy 1944. But the most that a Corps should loose is 1 maybe 2 pts. max from airpower, and never be completely destroyed. Carriers on the scale of SC, well, what is a 100 planes, when a Air Fleet is atleast 1000 to 2000 planes. But units in SC are more like chess men, and not specific units.

[ February 19, 2003, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: SeaWolf_48 ]

[HankWWIIOnline]

What about having a minimum strength reduction for planes? At L0, they can only bring units to strength 5. Anything more only effects readiness and entrenchment. With each Jet Level gained, the air unit can drop a target lower than 5. So a L4 Jet could drop a target unit down to 1 strength, L5 can destroy them.

[Steve C]

Originally posted by SeaWolf_48:

But units in SC are more like chess men, and not specific units.

That's an excellent point, SeaWolf and I suppose we should accept that premise. The infantry and tank units seem to be reasonably accurate in scale, but there's bombers, individual ships instead of task forces. Then you have the rocket units: a huge corps of Katyushas, V1's, V2's ? No - they are an abstraction. They could even be giant rail guns if you imagine it so.

Just like in Panzer General, I never really could figure out what the unit scale was, it seemed to vary from scenario to scenario. The whole Russian front one moment, only Kursk the next. And entire units of just PZIVs, KV1's, etc. ? Not realistic, but who cared, the technology of the different units was cool and the gameplay was compelling. Like SC.

[John DiFool]

Everyone is looking at the outcome side of things.

The problem with air in this game is that the

huge logistical tail which is vital to keep air

units functioning as effective combat units is

[pretty much] not modeled. Think about it-in

addition to such things as high octane avgas and

spare parts (planes are more fragile and complex

than say tanks), aircraft require highly trained

personnel to man them-traditionally, it took

awhile (400-700 man-hours) to train a pilot, not

to mention all the avgas that entailed. That

last one is probably the biggest bottleneck-in

1944 Germany had lots of planes, but nobody

competent to fly them (Japan had a similar problem).

IOW, why didn't Hitler form a huge Luftwaffe like

we see in this game? Because, aside from failing

to get a war economy going earlier on, it is

expensive to run an air force-he would go

bankrupt trying to do it-and the manpower costs

by themselves would have been prohibitive.

So in SC2 air needs to have a extra cost associated

with its use. The simplest (tho not most satisfying)

option would be to double the cost of reinforcement.

John DiFool

[Shaka of Carthage]

Regarding all the suggestions about lowering the strength damage that air can cause, etc... I don't see how that is superior to simply having the air only cause damage to the readiness factor of a unit. Then, it doesn't matter if you hit a unit with six (6) air or one (1) air, you won't be able to eliminate the units unless you use a ground unit.

Regarding the logistical cost of the air unit: It is already reflected in SC, in the economic unit we use... which is MPP's. Inf Corp is 125, Army 250, Air is 400. Replacement costs are based on a percentage of the original costs (if I remember correctly), so the Air unit replacments are already costing us three (3) times as much as an Corp and one and a half (1.5) times as much as an Army. Relatively speaking, thats about right.

Not unless we start to make the distinction in different economic units, can we account for the differences between trained manpower for the army, air force and naval as well as the other deciding factor, oil.

Oil was the real reason that the Luftwaffe didn't grow any larger. Losing the pilot instructors on the Eastern Front didn't help either.

[KDG]

Jets gain experience to fast, this is really the only main problem with them.

Jets can attack units every turn, & can hit a resource and gain experience. All other units don't have the oppurtunity to gain experience like this. A jet can hit a city, a port, a resource, or another unit and gain experience.

Played right, you can have a 2 or 3 experience level Jet Fleet that is unstoppable towards the middle part of the game. This allows Jets to take off 3-4 points at a time from a unit.

For balancing purposes we have three options:

1) Jets must gain experience slower than other units.

2) Increase the cost of Jets by 20%.

Compare a Jet to a Tank, both cost close to the same, most people would take a Jet. Plus there is a counter research to Tanks.

3) Make it that Jets can't reduce units below 1.

This takes out the kill experience and req. more ground troops.

I like options 1 or 3.

Otherwise the main strategy will remain research and buy as many jets as possible.