Houserule for planes / navy?

[unmerged(8114)]

I think most will agree that air / navy warfare is broken beyond repair.

Right now our games basically follow the scheme - player A build 50 planes. Player B counters with 60 planes, so player A builds more etc. In the end you have a stack of 200 planes fighting each other - whoever wins this fight wins the game.

Large plane stacks become so powerful (they wipe out a 12 div tank unit in no time), there is nothing you can do to counter them but to build a larger plane stack yourself.

What would you think about a houserule that would limit the max. number of planes that could be used in one province to 12 or 24? (Same idea for fleets - not more than 12 or 24 ships in one sea-province?)



Any other ideas?

 

[unmerged(16020)]

You could say no more than the leader's rank says (12 for Air Marshall, 9, 3, 1).


Ships..that rule couldn't apply really, there aren't enough leaders and 12 ships is a little small, and 125 ships is too much, so I'm not sure here. Maybe a cap at 30 ships per water province?

 

[Diefledermas]

stacks in general are a problem

intersting aircraft issue- i usually see a lack of aircraft in games I play (i.e. the opposite problem-too much land)

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Originally posted by Diefledermas
stacks in general are a problem

intersting aircraft issue- i usually see a lack of aircraft in games I play (i.e. the opposite problem-too much land)

Build ~75 dive bombers (as Germany, 50 plus some techs might already be enough) or ~40 tactical bombers (as UK) plus a number of fighters to gain airsuperiority- and you will wipe your opponent from the map. Division by division.

 

[unmerged(2966)]

would it be to complicated to allow stacks of twice the leader ability. 24, 18, 6, 2

 

[unmerged(9612)]

Ise,

Is that not what happened to the Iraqis in 1991 and recently... wiped off the map by overwhelming airpower ?

And to the germans starting in 1944 .....

I believe 10,000 allied aircraft were involved in d-day , probably about 100 units in HOI terms ....

Also in our game we did not really yet try AA brigades, maybe they help ? or alternative tactics such as saturating the opponent... Of course when the fighting happens in one or two provinces only, concentrated air power is devastating...

Regarding stacking limits s.o would need to do some research to see what was historically done... I know at sea and in the air the US had humungous stacks by the end of the war

Die Fledermas,

You are probably playing mostly 36 scenarios .. If you start later there are plenty of planes around (40+ for Germany at start in 39)

 

[Andrej]

Yes, both air and naval combat in multiplayer comes down to “pile em all into one huge stack” until you have wiped out your enemies huge stack and have gained air/naval superiority.

When it comes to naval combat the only problem I find with this tactic is that it is a pretty boring way to play. Getting naval superiority is a good thing but not really decisive since players can always try to avoid hostile navies.

When it comes to air combat on the other hand getting air superiority is a decisive advantage as there is nowhere to hide. As Tomar says it’s highly historical tho, you control the airspace in modern (ww2 and beyond) warfare you will most likely win. The biggest problem with this as I see it is that what I think makes combat in HOI fun is the chess-like strategy for encircling and destroying enemy units. Setting your huge pile of planes on repeated tactical bombing simply isn’t as much fun.

Eventually when everyone discovers the effectiveness of aircombat in HOI houserules might come down to a limit of total planes, just use the planes you start with or simply no use of planes at all.

However, since massive airwar in most multiplayer groups seems to be a pretty new thing effective counter-tactics might develop in the future. High-tech AA-batteries for instance can be pretty effective and since the buildtime is just 90 days you can get a pretty solid defense if you start building them early. AA-brigades is a another thing that needs more serious testing and so on… Guess we’ll see what works in a few games from now.

If no good countertactics emerge I think a good solution might be if we could convince Paradox to treat planes the same way as ships, slow repairs instead of immediate reinforcements. It needs more testing tho, looking forward to see how tonights game turns out.

 

[unmerged(12221)]

Also, the leader penalties that reduce efficiency by controlling too many units does not apply to air and naval.

Good going Paradox.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Originally posted by Tomar
Ise,

Is that not what happened to the Iraqis in 1991 and recently... wiped off the map by overwhelming airpower ?

Yes. But a crucial point is that even nowadays you cannot win a war by airpower. You always need ground-troops. While in HOI if you have air-superiority you can bomb the enemy units into pieces in no time.

Also in our game we did not really yet try AA brigades, maybe they help ? or alternative tactics such as saturating the opponent... Of course when the fighting happens in one or two provinces only, concentrated air power is devastating...

I tried AA brigades once as SU. I build 15 motorized inf with anti-air. That is rather expensive, and they had basically no effect (well, they make good anti-tank units). 15 planes would have been more effective.

Regarding stacking limits s.o would need to do some research to see what was historically done... I know at sea and in the air the US had humungous stacks by the end of the war

Die Fledermas,

You are probably playing mostly 36 scenarios .. If you start later there are plenty of planes around (40+ for Germany at start in 39)

Our groups uses massive airpower since patch1.03, there is no other way to counter than to have more planes.

I have a new idea for a house rule, that should be easy to use and have a historical correct result (although I'm not bothered by historical correctness at all, I'm more concerned about the fun in the game):

Tactical bombing is only allowed, if you have groundtroops in the same province, either fighting the enemy or the enemy is retreating.

Maybe one should limit this to "fighting the enemy". Bombing retreating units into peaces would be historical correct, but would again make it to easy to win by pure airpower.

I think this could be a solution to tone down airpower a bit. And it should be quite easy to implement.
It would also simulate the fact, that in WW2 airbombardments against troops without proper reconnaisance on the ground was rather ineffective.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Another point about historical correctness:

Airsuperiority was crucial. But it was not archieved by having one large airflottilla, but rather having planes at every part of the front.

As it is now, the *only* succesful strategy is to put all planes into one stack. If you do anything else you will most likely lose.

Another point:

Think about German player having 100 planes and 20 tank divisions. SU has 100 Tank divisions and 20 planes of the same tech.

If the results resemble anything close to reality, the German player should stand no chance. In HOI he will win in a couple of weeks.
Airpower had a devasting effect in reality , but not on an army level. I doubt that even a complete division was ever annihilated by airpower.
Or the battle of Stalingrad - in HOI as we play it this will never happen. Instead the German army would be bombed to dust (if SU has air-superiority). Could you imagine that a whole army of 400.000 people, entrenched in a fortress, could be destroyed by airpower?

That is even with nowadays weapons impossible, in HOI it is a question of days.

 

[unmerged(9612)]

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Tactical bombing is only allowed, if you have groundtroops in the same province, either fighting the enemy or the enemy is retreating.
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2 potential pbs I see with that... First it does not allow you to "soften up" the enemy before the fight... Second, the limitation can be "bypassed" by sending in just one fast and expandable unit (say cavalry) to attack the target to allow massive bombing

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I tried AA brigades once as SU. I build 15 motorized inf with anti-air. That is rather expensive, and they had basically no effect (well, they make good anti-tank units).
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This is worrying .... I would have tought that massed AA, would extract such a toll on the attacking planes, that ground strikes would not be worth the expense

 

[Andrej]

Originally posted by Isebrand

I have a new idea for a house rule, that should be easy to use and have a historical correct result (although I'm not bothered by historical correctness at all, I'm more concerned about the fun in the game):

Tactical bombing is only allowed, if you have groundtroops in the same province, either fighting the enemy or the enemy is retreating.



That’s an interesting idea Ise but I do see some serious problems with it. One of the main reasons for using planes is to slow the enemy down in order to get time to bring in reinforcements to the province being attacked. Atleast that’s how I used to use them before the massive airstacks made me change my tactics.

If we use the proposed rule stopping enemy units (paratroopers, cavalry etc) running wild behind your line will be very difficult. You’ll basically have to deploy troops in all adjacent provinces and hope they gain org fast enough since you aren’t allowed to send planes to slow the enemy down. Course we could add a rule saying that cutoff units can be bombed even if you don’t have any groundtroops in the province… I simply don’t know, all these rules are bound to cause confusion. Maybe we should just finish this game with the set of rules we started with and see how it turns out.

If it doesn’t make for a fun game I wouldn’t mind trying a game with the simple rule NO air at all next, even disband the ones you start with. Perhaps not historical but IMO makes for a more strategic game. That offcourse doesn’t solve the problem with stopping units running wild behind your line but atleast you won’t have to worry about paratroopers, not paratroopers dropped from transports anyway

 

[unmerged(9612)]

Sounds like Andrej has a lot of planes he wants to try out (not to mention tanks and hordes of infantry)

What time we start anyway ?

 

[Andrej]

I’ll be home and ready to start 19:00 latest, hopefully a bit earlier.

Tomar, you’ll see. Russian high command has payed a lot of attention to the kind of warfare taking place around their borders. Hopefully they’ll be able to surprise their hostile neighbours if they ever dare to attack the big bear. Starting to doubt that will ever happen tho, Barbarossa already 1 year late… but maybe insulting remarks like this one will speed up Axis preparation

 

[Armfeldt]

Perhaps AA-brigades should be stronger. This would maybe make ppl build masses of these, but perhaps lower the other ATK and DEF values to half of vanilla inf or something.

 

[tank_buster]

house rules for when you may use planes? Ugh. . .

No planes at all? Double Ugh. . .

We haven't had the problems you guys have had but one fair rule I have used for navy stacks is you are limited to the capacity of the leader, with marshalls limited to 24. That way you never have a stack larger then 24 and you actually will have a few groups running around.

As to AA brigades they are effective. Especially with the increased supply requirements in 1.04 for aircraft after a few hits on a well equipped AA stack you will notice the enemy is not pounding you so much anymore, because he is out of supplies!

And have you noticed that an AA brigade has a very decent anti-armor value? And they are cheaper and faster to build.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Originally posted by Andrej

If it doesn’t make for a fun game I wouldn’t mind trying a game with the simple rule NO air at all next, even disband the ones you start with. Perhaps not historical but IMO makes for a more strategic game.

That is the solution I'm leaning towards, too. As it is now, it is a waste of time playing HOI.


For everybody not believing this - simply build a huge stack of bombers (improved tactical, if you have the time, but basic dive plus some tech should also do) in your next MP game and see how it works out.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Originally posted by tank_buster
house rules for when you may use planes? Ugh. . .

No planes at all? Double Ugh. . .

We haven't had the problems you guys have had but one fair rule I have used for navy stacks is you are limited to the capacity of the leader, with marshalls limited to 24. That way you never have a stack larger then 24 and you actually will have a few groups running around.

As to AA brigades they are effective. Especially with the increased supply requirements in 1.04 for aircraft after a few hits on a well equipped AA stack you will notice the enemy is not pounding you so much anymore, because he is out of supplies!

And have you noticed that an AA brigade has a very decent anti-armor value? And they are cheaper and faster to build.

To counter a stack of 75 dive bombers effectively you probably need at least 30 (wild guess) inf with AA. But those dive bombers can strike wherever they want, so you basically need stacks of 30 AA in every frontline province.Believe me, AA brigades are not the solution.

 

[Vissarion]

I agree that naval and air combat is messed up.

I suggest that you can not tac bomb with more than 20 planes at once, and not have naval groups bigger than 30. EDIT - Ise pointed out that a group of 30 subs would beat any other group of 30 ships, so maybe we should only allow 10 or 15 subs per stack? (a lot of rules...)

It should be possible to bomb before your ground troops reach the province. However, stupid as it may seem, I think we should be obliged to tell your opponent when you're tac-bombing him, as there is no way to get an in-game message.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Considering how much fun we had before 1.03, maybe one should go back to a total ban of airplanes?