Helpful House rules!

[CSS]

I PBEM SC with my gaming buddies of over 30 years. To make the game MUCH more realistic, we use a few very simple house rules that greatly enhance the game.

1. HQs can only be destroyed by land combat.

2.Any land unit may only be struck by two air units per turn.

3. HQs make only be struck by one air unit per turn.

4. While nuetral The US can only move fleets on the 48 contiguos coastline

5.Italy may only move on her coastline or port to port in Afrika.

6.No Nuetral ship may block any shipping route at all.

These simple rules have GREATLY enhanced the fun and realism of our games. We almost exclusivly play Brute Force, but look forward to Nupremal's Masterpiece once I upgrade my PC's power.

[david12345]

I like these.

I think it is unrealistic to have air totally wipe out units. I think the game should not allow a unit to go below 2 or 3 strength from an air attack.

I also ignore the usa congress crying about me moving units around the pacific, Japan will declare war eventually, so why not garrison all the islands ahead of time? Some bombers can really tip off the allied player as to the Japanese intentions. I think the patch should not allow USA units to pass the marked zone while neutral.

[Chargin Smith]

CSS,

I'm curious as to why these rules enhance the game? Is this unique to your group? The basic rules of the game already make it challenging. I may try this anyway.

[Gronq]

Interesting points about the HQ's and air attack.

One could possibly make an argument that HQ's would be smaller and, therefore, harder to spot and attack than other land units. As such, they could be made harder to kill using air units. Any views?

In terms of Tactical Bombers I do feel that they can get too powerful, especially when teched up and with elite reinforcements. Davids idea of only allowing units to be reduced to, say 2, with air units I think is good.

[xwormwood]

A bit far stretched, as HQ are the supply source of their attached units as well.

Think about supply stocks full of fuel, ammo, equipment, food, trucks etc.

Not to forget the reserves of the attached units.

If you follow this thought you can come to the conclusion that HQs most of all should be vulnerable to air attacks and complete destruction.

[heatrr]

1. HQs can only be destroyed by land combat.

3. HQs make only be struck by one air unit per turn.

What if the air unit, doing its once per turn hit on an HQ, destroys it?

[pzgndr]

I think it is unrealistic to have air totally wipe out units. I think the game should not allow a unit to go below 2 or 3 strength from an air attack.

I disagree, based on the Panzer General style game mechanics. The game is an abstraction, not a combat simulator for what happens between specific units during a single attack or single turn. Since the game only allows sequential single-unit attacks versus single defenders, it should matter not who got in the kill shot or how. Is it OK for an air attack to inflict a 2-3 strength loss at the start of an attack sequence but not at the end? I don't worry about this. What's more important is what happens between a group of opposing units over the course of several turns; are the overall outcomes reasonable or not.

There are other options available for reducing certain bloody combat results, where air power or something else may be too powerful. Adjust the CTVs, change research, revise the force pools, etc. Something Hubert could consider for the future is to create a separate air combat loss evasion category. Right now it's just land and naval combats, and no good way to set loss evasion for certain unit types against just air attacks.

[Gronq]

@xwormwood. Good point, well made! However, all of that 'kit' wouldn't necessarily be that concentrated in reality. A lot of it would be fairly close to the units themselves.

In terms of air attack, one question that's perhaps worth asking is what actually happened during WW2? Did air units at any point manage to wipe out entire corps, armies and/or tank groups?

Having said all of that, you have to adjust to the current game play set up e.g. keep HQ's out of reach or make sure they have adequate air defence etc.

[PowerGmbH]

Interesting points about the HQ's and air attack.

One could possibly make an argument that HQ's would be smaller and, therefore, harder to spot and attack than other land units. As such, they could be made harder to kill using air units. Any views?

In terms of Tactical Bombers I do feel that they can get too powerful, especially when teched up and with elite reinforcements. Davids idea of only allowing units to be reduced to, say 2, with air units I think is good.

BTW, why not making the HQ's like Subs? they receive (depending on Intelligence level ) a Percentage of "damage evasion" Text Saying "Headquarters not Strategically damaged/touched by offensive"

or they may even "flip away" like subs...

[Gronq]

Put them all in hunt mode, that's what I say!

Maybe it would be worthwhile to amend how spotting works for air units. For example, if a land unit is away from the front line and is within range of friendly aircover make it more difficult to spot. This would simulate fighters harrasing any reconnaissance aircraft in the area or terrain with good cover. Parameters may include number of fighter/air units available for air cover/rec, their tech level and strength and the type of terrain the land unit is in.

[CSS]

Well to answer the questions I served activelly in the 12th Group special forces for eight years during the Reagan administration.Havin a library of over 4000 books is infinately ore pleasurable than playing Soldier real time. The only time Air power stopped an attack on its own was the German Averanches campaign of 1944.

No unit that could be classified as an HQ was ever destroyed by air power. In the Game you literally can snipe HQ's with Air power alone and create completly ahistoric realities.

Our house rules make the game much more WWII similar and Victories are won by Strategy and planning , than by mere brute force. Battleships and Cruisers become essential for Amphibious landings.

Offensives and defensives become much more the ground of terrian and finess. It is no longer a case that you can hit the all important hex with 20 airstrikes and crumble the enamies line.

Try it if you are doing a PBEM, the game becomes much more historical and breathtakingly tense.

[Bluestew]

Well to answer the questions I served activelly in the 12th Group special forces for eight years during the Reagan administration.Havin a library of over 4000 books is infinately ore pleasurable than playing Soldier real time. The only time Air power stopped an attack on its own was the German Averanches campaign of 1944.

No unit that could be classified as an HQ was ever destroyed by air power. In the Game you literally can snipe HQ's with Air power alone and create completly ahistoric realities.

Here here! I was trying to relate actual military experience, training and study to Hubert when I told him that tactical airpower was far too powerful in this game. I also don't like how air units clog the lines for the ground pounders. The betas and really experienced players fall back on the idea that this is just a game, not a simulation and that is ok and true. However, I STILL feel air power is waaaaaay too powerful in this particular game.

When I PBEM, I will try some of the house rules suggested.

One other thing, does the nerfed speed of AV units bug anyone else? While they did have speacialized ships, they didn't really sail landing craft across the Pacific. They loaded off of shipping assets. Granted some of the specialized ships didn't have battle fleet speed but it wouldn't take them 4 months to sail from India to Australia. I'll have to check to see if I can mod the AV speed. I find it very annoying as is.

Still learning all the nuances and work-a-rounds. Still enjoying myself so I don't want any SC groupies to think I'm pooh-poohing the game as a whole.

[Chargin Smith]

Firepower, movement and strategy is the name of this game! You set your "armies" up with HQ, Anti-Air, Engineer, Tanks and Infantry, get them more experience, then you have a shot at success!

The amphibious attack mode is really different. I am trying to strategize this new concept!

[Bill101]

Supply lines are very hard to change so I'm not convinced that evasion would be the most appropriate answer here.

If one wants to give them some protection then the easiest and quickest solution would be to just give HQs higher Air Defense and Carrier Defense values so that they cannot be attacked with impunity.

[Hubert Cater]

Regarding the ranges for AVs, this is a tough one as we found early on that with really long ranges you can unrealistically land troops without having the chance to defend against them, i.e. think Germany attempting a Sea Lion from Kiel etc., if they can reach from such long distances in one shot it makes things a bit unrealistic so this is why we included the Amphibious Warfare research which results in increased range as needed.

[Hubert Cater]

CSS, that is a nice set of house rules and glad to hear they are working for you to improve your enjoyment of the game

[SeaMonkey]

Hubert, whatever happened to the degradation to readiness and morale that AVs used to experience when at sea for extended periods?

And I checked the pass-through features for subs...it is working as designed.

[Bluestew]

Regarding the ranges for AVs, this is a tough one as we found early on that with really long ranges you can unrealistically land troops without having the chance to defend against them, i.e. think Germany attempting a Sea Lion from Kiel etc., if they can reach from such long distances in one shot it makes things a bit unrealistic so this is why we included the Amphibious Warfare research which results in increased range as needed.

Hubert, I assumed as much. Figured it was a balancing design decision. Not having anywhere near the experience with the game as others, I'm unable to offer other ideas at this time. I still find paddling the AV canoes irritating.

[Hubert Cater]

SeaMonkey,

I believe it is still there as supply should drop while at sea for a prolonged period of time, i.e. which in turn results in lowered readiness etc.

Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

Perhaps Hubert, it just didn't seem as great as before, I could be mistaken. I've got a model setup to check it, so I'll report later, just wondering if anyone else has observed it.

I haven't had a lot of time to play lately.

[SeaMonkey]

So Hubert an AV could essentially hover within supply proximity of a port forever?

I'm thinking if so, the cramped conditions and inhospitable environment that AVs represent should eventually degrade the fighting abilities, I mean we're talking two week turns here. There should be a provision to make capturing nearby island/ports for staging amphibious operations a desirable action, as it was historically, to negate the degradation.