Hex Modern wargame: Avoid the RPS immunity between units?

Here are some screen shots of 3 different games that has this issue:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-eZhn3KD5_8/maxresdefault.jpg

https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/screens/0/6/8/gfs_40426_2_5.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51t9h1Ld51L.jpg

So it's modern hex war game without unit stacking, except for 1 game where different height can stack. The second exception for one of the game is that you can have a plane hangar on airports, carriers and factories.

The notion of air superiority is interesting, I have seen it in some pacific WW2 game. The problem with the games above is if I have 10 fighters and my opponent has 1 fighter I clearly have air superiority, but sending my bomber still makes it vulnerable to attacks. The only way to prevent it, in certain games above, is to surround the bomber with 6 different units to make the attack impossible. Rarely occurs during the offensive.

In certain WW2 games, fighter will encounter each other, and the excess fighters of the player with air superiority will target the bombers. Here such mechanism is not possible. The only way to do that is using escort and interception. There are 2 ways to do that:

1. Allow unit stacking, which I don't like much. In that case I might be more tempted in using larger hexes with unit stacks, but that would change the look and feel of the game too much.

2. Allow interception of the surrounding area. If the interception range is more than 1 hex, a bomber could be covered by multiple fighter which would protect the unit.

It's OK for the enemy to have a defensive position, and try to work on disassembling that defense. But when I cannot use any bombers because there is 1 fighter in range on the map (fighters have large range), it's just boring not to be able to use those units. I should be able to use those units to target certain objectives, with some degrees of risk. Else it's like playing rock paper scissors without any rock.

I think escorting, even a 2 hex radius escort could be a solution. Not sure which other kind of unit could be escorting other units. I thought of maybe infantry, but they have a slow movement compared to fighters. Or tank destroyers since they are fasters.

I consider that Air units does have a certain advantage over ground units, since they are not restricted by terrain and they have higher mobility. But they don't get terrain defense either. In dai Senryaku, some assault helicopter can even capture locations, making it possible to win by using only air units, still, you will not be able to defend cities without ground units unless you blow them first using air attacks. So I am wondering if both air and ground units not equally strong.

The problem in many of the games above is that air units is a rich man's thing. And if you are short in cash because you are losing the game, you lose all possibility to make air units, cutting yourself severely again in the rock paper scissor relationship. So I was thinking either using similar price air vs ground, slightly more expansive air, or all units have the same price, since each unit has it's role to play.

In the games above. The older games only use adjacent attacks, so AA can run after planes to attack them, which makes no sense. In the more recent game, AA have a range, but using move or attack remove the running after planes syndrome. The drawback, is that now ground units are paranoing and moving constantly escorted by AA, which is in theory logical and it allows the player to take certain risk of not using AA cover to reach certain critical targets.

So the best solution so far seems escorting. It also seems to make sense with real life combat. Not sure if escorting is effective against ground AA, they could simply wait and target the unit they want. But ground AA is less a trouble because it defends a small area than you can deal with it using ground units, or low altitude units.

Another interesting aspect. One idea was that instead of having a restriction of moving 3 units per turn, you could move 5 ground, 3 air and 2 sea units per round. Faster units moves first so both players move air, both players move ground then both players move sea. I am not sure yet, but that is just an idea. Another vairation is that only combat movement is used for the number above and all other units can perform non combat movement. Allowing transports and reinforcements to still reach their destinations. But it makes it less deadly than if all units could move an attack each turn.

What you seem to be using or suggesting is that grouping units by types. Like all direct attack units moves first, all indirect attack units move seconds, etc. That could be an interesting split. But I am not sure yet. I'll see when I have a running game.

Fuel is also a problem, thematically, when you cannot move all units. Idle units remains in air losing or not losing fuel, but the move X unit per turn might prevent you not to move any unit. This is why I am thinking that if I use fuel, I might need to move all units. But I still find some kind of charm in a move X unit per turn. It reminds me of blood bowl where you know you will not be able to move everybody, so you focus on the most important part of the game. But when map get's larger, that has the problem that reinforcement can never reach their destination, so it's good for small map and quick battles.

There are 2 options, free attack, or engagement. For submarines and AA, free attacks seems more logical. For air vs air, engament seems more logical. Still in dai senryaku, sparrow missiles can target 2-3 hex away, that could make them perfect for free attacks.

The problem with free attacks is if a certain number of units have restricted movement and attack. Because it could multiply the number of activated units in a turn. If you can move 3 units per turn, you could make 4 additional interception giving you 7 attacks. A possibility is to have a kind of overwatch mode like in Xcom. Else a move OR attack could be the solution in most situations.

Exactly.

Well, one solution would be to make Air units the same price as land units. I and trying to consider the tradeoff between both and it might be balanced. Here are a few issues:

Pro
- Air units moves faster and have no terrain movement restriction
- most air unit target ground units but monst ground units does not target air.

Con
- Air units has less fuel than ground units
- Air units has no terrain defenses, while grond unit can hide and get additional protection.
- Air units are more likely to die after beign hit once, while ground units are more likely to survive (that could be a key point)

About the damage system, to simplify keeping track of health, I want to use a 2 status HP, Normal and damaged. If you get hit once, you get damaged. If you get hit a second time, you are destroyed. But air units are much less armored than ground units. It's impossible for a fighter to survive a missile attack, but it's possible for a tank to survive a cannon attack. So air units woould be more likely to be destroyed on first hit, while ground units will possibly hold longer.

Than could be an interesting factor to make air and ground units have the same cost. So I could match the cost of ground and air units. The high tech plane will have the same cost than the tank. And if you are very short on resources, you might be able to build at least helicopters.

So if the cost are similar, sacrificing air units to destroy important ground units whould not be that much an issue because they can easily be replaced. This way, the RPS remains, it keeps the battle interesting and the player might be willing to take risks.

It's true that zone of control could help for example protecting bombers from other planes.

Well, If I can put the few rocks I have to good use, it's might not matter so much. It's like making a sacrifice in chess. Sometimes, the sacrifice is worth it, but you are able to make the sacrifice. Else you end up in a situation where you want to make a sacrifice, but you just can't. So in chess, it would be like I want to sacrifice my rook, but for some reasons it cannot move to the opponent's half of the board.

I consider advance war to be very RPS, in fact it's the kind of game I am looking into building.