How much is the land airbase worth?

That's a tricky question. We ran into basically the same issue when making the Forward Airbase card.

So how much is the land base worth? It is technically worth nothing if you don't use it. If I had a build that did not have any aircraft and you asked me how many points I would give you to not use your airbase my answer would be zero. The cost of the land base is already zeroed out in the base value of the game. It is a "common denominator" for both sides. I think what you would need to do is keep the land base in the game or take them out for both sides. Then the cost is approximately the value of a similar capacity carrier. But if your additional bases still restrict the aircraft to every other turn then the value is less.

One way to look at it is the somewhat "standard rule" that we used when putting a cost on carrier based aircraft. Based on RB's aircraft we came to the conclusion that an aircraft that could be based on a carrier was worth 1 extra point all else being equal. That is actually an insanely good value for being able to use the aircraft twice as often - every turn as in the case of the Airstrip. But the cost of the carrier is the other offsetting cost. So if a Capacity 3 carrier costs 21 points then you could say the carrier aircraft cost 1 pt plus 7 points (1/3 of the carrier). But the carrier does have some other value. It is a surface ship that has to be sunk to recover the victory points and/or qualify for the surface fleet destruction bonus. It can also take objectives. Plus a carrier allows you to increase the number of aircraft you can put in your fleet. The land base has no victory point value and can't take objectives. Then there is the value of the individual aircraft. Three USN Corsairs on a carrier are worth more than three Vals. Yes, the Corsairs cost more, but "carrier cost per plane" is the same if I put both on a 21 pt carrier.

So by that "1 pt plus 7 points" formula we come up with 8 points per aircraft if it can fly every turn, or about 3-4 points if it can't. Right where mnnorthstars came to. But again, I wouldn't give you any points if my own build didn't use the land base. The land base is a "sunk cost" to me. Both sides would have to give up the land base to make it fair IMO.

The values of the other bases (Forward Naval Base, Seaplane Base) all had to be costed based on an independent assessment of their value. There wasn't a "one formula fits all" solution.

The base rules of this game are fairly simple. The complexity is in the cards.

Hard to point the discussion went on for a long time, my input was the bombload.