some more suggested improvements

[WanderingHead]

I realize this is likely to go nowhere, but I only make these kinds of suggestions because I love the game so much.

Here are suggested fixes to what I see as some unnecessary limitations of the game. Lebatron has been diligent about pointing out some flaws and trying to fix them in his mod, but he can only go so far without rule changes.

Joel, tell me, should I keep this dream alive? Or extinguish it?

1. the Russian Far East needs to be cut up!

I think that this is so obvious that I'm really rather surprised 2by3 hasn't done anything about it. Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Mongolia definitely should be cut into east/west halves, and Western Siberia possibly.

Personally, I wouldn't like to see it implemented exactly as Lebatron did it, with 4-cornered meeting places (like squares), I'd rather see the borders staggered (more like hexes) to allow for a little maneuverability along the front. With only one rail corridor it wouldn't amount to much anyway. Also I'd probably prefer some of them be single borders. The point is more to delay movement and force rail repair than to increase the supply expense of doing so.

2. resource flow from the 3rd world is too easy!

Resources shouldn't flow so easily through non-railed land territories. My suggestion is that resources can flow by strat movement from where they are (exactly like units, i.e. either starting on a land zone and moving onto transports in an adjacent sea zone, or by starting on a rail zone and moving on rail), or by moving one space onto a rail land territory and strat moving from there. To ride transports, you must be adjacent to the sea zone with the transport (or ride rail to the sea).

I might even go a step further and say that the rail must not be damaged to level 2, i.e. it must have some non-zero capacity.

This would require the WA to maintain better links to S America and Africa, and require Russians have the rail link to the far east to get some of those resources. Some other small effects, but it all really makes much more sense.

I note that Russian couldn't get resources from southern Persia, but in fact they had a small north/south rail line in Persia exactly to get resources to Russia. I might fix it by adding a rail line in northern but not southern Persia, but I'd rather have the rule change even without the rail addition.

3. op-fire should require supply be available, but not consume supply

It is reasonable that op-fire doesn't consume supply, but at least it should require it be available.

4. it'd be nice to loosen the restriction on taking allied territory

Like if it was not original to that ally, and it is empty, you could take it. For example, I just played where the Russians took Norway, but they could not abandon it and let the WA take it over, which would be really helpful.

5. give some real value to ports!

I think that ports should really help somehow with shipping.

Jan had a very good suggestion on the "the Pacific War and amphibious invasions" thread tm.asp?m=1039460. The more I think of it, the more inclined I am to his original, simplest, suggestion. This penalized transport capacity (perhaps to 20) if the sea zone was not adjacent to phasing power land or within some range to a phasing power port or it is an allied power port sea-zone.

Another idea I think makes sense is as follows: any unit that has already strat moved may not strat move to a transport from a land zone unless that land zone is a port. The restriction does not apply if the unit has not yet strat moved. Also, any unit that strat moves from a transport to a land zone that is not a port may not strat move again that turn.

I had originally considered requiring the sea/land border to be a port border to get the benefit, but that may be too restrictive for places like England that have several sea borders only one of which is a port.

This would eliminate all of the oddities like freely transporting supplies across Greenland (!) or bypassing the straights of Gibaltar by landing on the west end of Morocco and picking up on the north end of Gibraltar (as I've done in the past to invade Italy), or doing the same thing in Ethiopia to avoid artillery opfire at the narrows from Saudi-Arabia (as I did in my current game).

It really has no effects on Islands, except perhaps if units are moved in heavy bombers.

There would be some significant effects around the Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas, but again I really think it makes sense as a representation of the benefits of having access to significant port facitilies.

[toddtreadway]

What would you think about requiring transport capacity to be used to transport resources, at a rate of say five points per resource? If you didn't have the capacity at the start of your production phase, it wouldn't move the resources.

[WanderingHead]

Darn, I'd really like to see at least the Russian Far East fixed in a real live official patch. I remember long before the game was released a gaming buddy and I were looking at some screenshots, fantasizing about when this would come out, and he commented "but look how close Japan is to Moscow."

The other things are, I realize, sort of pipe dreams.


Anyway, three other suggested improvements, varying degrees of difficulty to implement.

6. remove the connection from Greenland to "19 North Atlantic 8"

The map shows ice here, such that one actually expects that it is impassible. Removing the connection would remove the odd transporting of supplies through Greenland phenomenon.

Very easy change to make.

7. put all "Gary Grigsby's World At War\dat" files in a directory specified in the scenario file

This would be map mod friendly, in that different maps could coexist with one installation.

In principle very easy, but I just realized that I think the game loads the map at start up so this might not actually work very easily given the way it works right now.

8. rule change: convert attacked neutrals to a combatant alliance after combat, before retreat

This would mean that, e.g., if Germany attacks Spain the combat is determined with the Spanish as neutrals, but then the surviving and damaged units would be converted to WA and could retreat to/through Gibraltar (assuming it is still WA controlled).

This would be a small disincentive to attacking some neutrals, since it turns units over to the enemy. Also, it makes sense. I'm sure that the British in Gibraltar would have welcomed their new retreating Spanish compatriots rather than turning them away to surrender.