What PBEM House Rules do you suggest?

[ComradeP]

I would be less happy with starting a PBEM game without some house rules or at least appeals to common sense, as there are a number of things that can be exploited.

1) You can't place more than a certain number of squadrons, as agreed to by the players, in the national reserve for more than 1 turn. You can essentially remove your air force from the map, so some measures should be taken to prevent gamey abuse of that.

2) No farming of AP's through placing a unit on static, having the enemy bump it out of a hex, and placing it on static again. The rule would be along the lines that units can only be placed on static in actual quiet sectors or areas where you're constructing forts.

3) You can't place more than a certain number of units, as agreed to by the players, on refit. How anyone can claim placing the entire Soviet army on refit is not gamey is still beyond me.

One other problem with the game is that leaders can't increase their skills past 6, so that the best leaders have their skills set to them at the start of the game. This means that Axis and Soviet leaders that started the campaign with (extremely) limited experience but turned out to be great leaders will be significantly overrated at the start of the campaign. The Axis have a whole bunch of great leaders, not all of whom actually did something that would warrant such high figures at the start of Barbarossa.

Likewise, the Soviets have great mechanized leaders for their future Tank armies, even though the majority of them had at best theoretical experience with modern mobile warfare, considering the limited amount of large scale mobile operations the Soviets participated in prior to Barbarossa (essentially only the battles against the Japanese, Poles, and the Finns, and some experience from the Spanish civil war, and none of those with commands on the scale of the later Tank armies).

A debate about Soviet leader quality on the tester forum ended with me being told I was reading the wrong books and the impression that a number of Soviet mechanized leaders are underrated, rather than overrated, so that kind of killed the debate.

[Redmarkus5]

Interesting comments. Let's wait to see what the buying public think after they have tried the Campaign. Those that visit the forums, anyway...

[76mm]

Yes, interesting...the actions that ComradeP describes certainly sound gamey.

In most games I would just play the game without worrying much about a gamey opponent, and simply try not to play that opponent again...but with WitE I would hate to get 6 months into a campaign and realize that my opponent is using all of these gamey tactics and more...

That said, the thought of using pencil and paper to track how many units I've got in "refit", or worrying about whether I can properly put a unit in "static" status under house rules, is also a huge turn off...

[Redmarkus5]

Once I find an honourable opponent (I know a few) I stick with them for games like WiTP and WiTE. Nothing worse than investing 6 months in WiTP and then seeing that a whole Japanese army has just seized Panama (to prevent your fleet from moving through and is making its way up the East coast to NYC on a pile of AKLs and Sub chasers. LOL

[ComradeP]

In most games I would just play the game without worrying much about a gamey opponent, and simply try not to play that opponent again...but with WitE I would hate to get 6 months into a campaign and realize that my opponent is using all of these gamey tactics and more...

That said, the thought of using pencil and paper to track how many units I've got in "refit", or worrying about whether I can properly put a unit in "static" status under house rules, is also a huge turn off...

Most monster games need house rules of some sort due to their scale and the fact that there will always be some problems that can't really be ironed out.

In WitP:AE's case, for example, there are often houserules for only one port strike and only moving existing fleets on turn 1, as well as houserules for "buying" units crossing national borders or from the Kwantung Army.

I guess that a similar houserule could be implented for WitE, where you need to pay AP's to attach units to a certain front or army group (or its lower formations) instead of having units of a different front of army group operate in the area of a certain front or army group.

I agree that manually keeping track of refitting units would in some cases be tedious, but developing a feel for it should not be too tricky as when you really want units to refit, there's only so many units you can place on refit without either completely draining the pool for the normal replacement phase or your supposedly refitting units getting minimal replacements because too many are set on refit compared to the number of replacements you get.

The refit issue is mostly problematic in 1941 for the Soviets, as it's plain and simple ahistorical morale padding. You're not using the refit setting to actually refit units (placing your entire army on refit means your units won't be getting many replacements, after all), you're using it to artificially give units a higher morale.

The static unit issue is a form of AP padding that can unbalance the game, again especially when a Soviet player does it as it will speed up corps and unit creation. I don't really place units on static unless they're in urban areas (I usually either intend to let them die in place or intend to rail them out. I also place part of the anti-partisan garrison on static normally if there's more than 1 unit in a city). Placing your units on static in the open just to get more AP's should be frowned upon.

[Joel Billings]

FYI, the only amphibious capacity in the game is Soviet and in the south. There is no German amphibious capability, and no Soviet capability in the Baltic.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

FYI, the only amphibious capacity in the game is Soviet and in the south. There is no German amphibious capability, and no Soviet capability in the Baltic.

Aha - thanks. Edited the list.

[Joel Billings]

One house rule that a tester proposed was that only Rumanian units can attack Odessa (and perhaps within 3 hexes or so of the city).

[FM WarB]

If an aspect of gameplay requires a "Gentleman's Rule" to fix it, why not request it be fixed in an official update?

The less Gentleman's rules, the better the game.

[ComradeP]

The problem with the national reserve for air units, is that it's also the thing you use to move air units between bases, so in order for the national reserve issue to be "fixed" air units would have to be able to move between bases in a convenient way.

The problem with refitting is that it would be tricky to try and establish a maximum amount of units that can be placed on refit, as the effectiveness of refit varies per year. and the Soviets can generally place more units on refit than the Axis (that is: the Soviets get more replacements, so they can place more units on refit for the distribution of those replacements).

One suggestion for the static issue thus far has been to prevent units from being able to switch to static mode unless they're in at least level 2 forts.

[PyleDriver]

Oddesa, why, that city needs to go down. House rule for that, please...

[raizer]

Im slowly learning this-for pebm-if I were the germans and found that my russian player moved All his aircraft into the strategic reserve to avoid be destroyed on the ground, I would call that gamey as all heck.  That would be one house rule I would support and Im sure there are many more to come.

[amatteucci]

I think it's too early to have a comprehensive list of houserules. I guess that one should wait for the first campaign games to finish. Many possible problems simply hadn't surfaced yet and, I presume and hope, many of those that will surface will be probably dealt with future patches.

Anyway, just to speak about one can already see, I don't think that Soviet early war Mechanized Corps are to be further restricted by HRs, they're already hampered enough as they are.

Perhaps some restriction on putting units in "refit" mode could be considered. It seems that units refitting get only advantages and no disadvantages.

[Dr. Foo]

I am not a fan of House Rules and I do not care to use them. It is what turned me off of FiTE. I have so many things to keep track of as it is I doubt I'll remember that a certain corps is not allow to cross a certain river or that unit A should not be moved until turn X.

[Flaviusx]

Red Air Force isn't very good in 1941, guys. After losing 5k+ planes in the opening surprise attack we are talking about evacuating dozens of shattered air groups down to single digits to recover and train as best they can. For months.

If not allowed to do this...I would simply disband the lot and save you the trouble. They are quite literally useless and will not fly missions worth a damn. Might as well start over from scratch with new groups. New groups are formed in the national reserve, btw. And I'd let them train there for a good long time.

In the end, all of these gymnastics and handwringing about the Red Air Force just don't matter very much. The Luftwaffe will rule the skies in 1941, rest assured.

Pieter, we've been through this on the refits. My answer now is the same it was before: it's just a replacement tool for me. Get rid of the morale benefit and I'd still use refits exactly as I do now to deal with my replacement situation.

Finally, you know where I stand on static unit AP farming. I think it's tactically stupid and more trouble than it's worth. I flatly refuse to base my tactical deployments on it and believe it could wind up costing you more APs and units than otherwise. As cheats go, it is imo self defeating.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

One house rule that a tester proposed was that only Rumanian units can attack Odessa (and perhaps within 3 hexes or so of the city).

I oppose this on principle, even as the Soviet.

These sorts of operational/strategic decisions are best left in the hands of the players, in the end.

If the German wants to commit units to taking Odessa, then let him do so. Those units will be missed somewhere else. There are no free lunches in the Eastern Front.

The moment we open up this can of worms the possibilities are endless on both sides. Let it alone.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: amatteucci

I think it's too early to have a comprehensive list of houserules. I guess that one should wait for the first campaign games to finish. Many possible problems simply hadn't surfaced yet and, I presume and hope, many of those that will surface will be probably dealt with future patches.

Anyway, just to speak about one can already see, I don't think that Soviet early war Mechanized Corps are to be further restricted by HRs, they're already hampered enough as they are.

Perhaps some restriction on putting units in "refit" mode could be considered. It seems that units refitting get only advantages and no disadvantages.



I agree with you 100% here. Myself i bought the game day of release,played tutorial and road to Minsk numerous times now and gone back to read the manual. other than the extreme "putting the whole RED army on refit to bump morale up" I don't see anywhere that there is enough info to make educated house rules. Also ComradeP speaking of hiding the Red airforce in the national reserve sounds potentially annoying.

other than those 2 items I would suggest coming back to this thread in 3 months or so after we have some campaign pbem's to reference.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Pieter, we've been through this on the refits. My answer now is the same it was before: it's just a replacement tool for me. Get rid of the morale benefit and I'd still use refits exactly as I do now to deal with my replacement situation.

Agree completely. The Refit function seems to perform two rather different operational functions:
1) Replacement control- use Refit to determine who gets replacements and who doesn't
2) "Real Refit"- pull a unit off the line and allow the troops some R&R to recover morale as well as rest and absorb replacements


I would suggest a code change rather than a House Rule: Units receive special morale recovery benefit ONLY if in Refit Mode AND not adjacent to an enemy unit AND have not moved in the turn

[Flaviusx]

Pompack that's a pretty good suggestion, actually.

[ComradeP]

Flavio: the morale benefit is there, which is the whole issue. You can say that you'd still use it without that benefit, and of course I believe you, but that doesn't change that the morale benefit is currently there, and that refitting everyone quickly gets Soviet morale to 50, which is what I would call gamey.

The point that placing everyone on refit is a way of getting the Soviet army in shape is also something that I still don't believe. Placing everyone on refit means minimal replacements per unit. The only thing it does do for all units, is increase morale when below 50. On those grounds, I oppose it.

The national reserve rule is also for the Luftwaffe, which doen't even technically have room to retreat to in later war campaigns due to the Allied bombing campaign.

pompack's suggestion sounds good.