PBEM and House Rules

[delatbabel]

I though I'd post this link here since I found it useful.

http://www.mounet.com/~edcogburn/wir-house-rules.html

I saw one other set of house rules around but can't find them now. They included things like can't reload the game during a turn, etc. If someone else knows where they are please let me know.

I'm also after one more PBEM game. Me: Russia. You: Well, Axis I presume. Any campaign.

[fengjian]

I was a novice .sorry,My English is very poor?D
about SAVE/LOAD is No mention in the  your House Rules?D
How do you view this issue?
 
 

[JagdFlanker]

i don't remember physically seeing rules on saving/reloading the same turn, but it should not be allowed in any game because everytime you reload a game you saved without sending it to your opponent you get a full turn's production added every time, including extra squads!

here are the house rules i usually use if you are interested:


War In Russia HOUSE RULES

1) No HQ rules. However, to prevent HQ airforce centralization;

2) No HQ may launch more than two (ground) interdiction attacks per turn. No single enemy unit may be (ground) interdicted more than 4 times per turn.

3) To plot more than 2 hexes of movement an armored Korps/Army must be composed of AT LEAST TWO Panzer, Tank, Motorized, PanzerGrenadier (PZG), Mechanized or Cavalry Divisions FOR EVERY ONE non-mobile Division. If an armored Corps does not have the minimum amount of mobile Divisions in it, it may only plot 2 hexes as if it were an infantry Korps/Army.

4) All Soviet HQ's within 3 squares of the eastern edge of the map, are considered to be "beyond the Urals" and MAY NOT be attacked by player directed air missions, such as an airfield attacks. The air groups in these HQ's can't fight however, they must be in training mode only. This rule no longer applies once the HQ has one or more enemy corps adjacent to it.

5) No Hungarian, Rumanian, or Finnish units may be sent to the West or Italian Front HQs. No Italian units may be sent to the West Front HQ.

6) Finnish forces MAY NOT attack Leningrad (40,7) or it’s supply hex (41,6). The Soviets are required to garrison Leningrad with MINIMUM 3 Divisions even though Finland may not attack. If the Germans capture Leningrad, Finnish forces are allowed to enter Soviet territory and engage in combat but they must remain on or above the 12th parallel.

7) No more than ONE THIRD of total tank factories ROUNDED UP may produce heavy tanks. Tank factories do not include Tank Destroyer/Jpz/StuG factories nor factories whose production may not be altered (Italian tanks, lend-lease, etc).

8) No more than TWO THIRDS of total aircraft factories ROUNDED UP may produce Fighters. This does not include aircraft whose production type cannot be altered (lend-lease, Italian aircraft, etc).

9) Axis bombers MAY NOT conduct Strategic Bombing attacks before July 20, 1941. This prevents the Axis bomber fleet from gaining a free hand over the skies of Russia gained from massive German airfield attacks on the first turn, and allows the Soviet Airforce to recover slightly. Hitler ordered the long range bombing of Moscow on July 22, 1941.

[fengjian]

Thank you Flanker Leader

I am interested in PBEM game, though this is my first pbem game
Please send me a mail, if you are interested

scenario:41-45

EMAIL:fuzhengxiong@gmail.com

[delatbabel]

Obviously no reloads should be permitted, that's just taking advantage of a game bug.

In reply to flanker leader's "No HQ rules", I think one thing that shouldn't be permitted is switching a unit's HQ more than once in a turn. Apparently (and I've never tried it), it is possibly to special supply a unit, then switch HQs, then special supply it again, then switch HQs again, etc. Obviously you'd need to have your HQs close enough together to do this.

I agree with the no-stacking of Hungarian and Rumanian units, and the restrictions on the Finnish units.

Not sure about the strat bombing rules. Historically, the Germans very rarely did strat bombing anyway, and even in the game it's going to be of limited effectiveness because of the fact that you're going to be outranging your fighter cover, plus there just aren't enough German heavy bombers in the air. I am playing a game against someone who has strat bombed Maikop several times, but at a huge loss to his bombers and he's really only reduced my total oil production from around 120 to about 110. Not enough to cause readiness loss. I note that in the last turn or two he's stopped doing that, mostly because he's needed the bombers to run supply to a few cut-off units.

Airfield bombing Stavka on the first turn, however, which appears to be a common tactic, is a bit of gamesmanship. The Stavka "units" aren't really all in one place just outside of Moscow, Stavka represents the overall Soviet "high command", and the transport planes represented there are really spread over a wide area. Perhaps just disallow long range bombing on the first few turns. An intelligent Russian player should either disperse or withdraw the TB-3 units on the first soviet turn anyway.

[JagdFlanker]

as far as strat bombing goes, if germany makes a concentrated effort right from the start they can do SERIOUS damage to soviet industry and there's nothig the sov's can do about it. i guess the best way to see is to try it out yourself next PBEM game. don't waste time doing interdiction strikes with bombers - every turn find a city with air/armour/heavy industry in range to bomb and try to flatten it. if you nail kharkov early there's 3 factories you can deny the sov's from railing out by damaging them so much they disappear. if you know you can take out moscow in '41 then don't worry about bombing it too much, but it wouldn't hurt to do it occasionally to keep sov air defences scattered. as soon as they are in range concentrate on stalingrad, kazan, gorkii, and saratov snce you can't take those in 1941. keep switching targets every turn, again to keep sov defences scattered. you will be very surprised how quickly you get results when you can bomb from the get-go (i'v had it done to me several times)

[JagdFlanker]

i forgot to mention in regards to the HQ rules, although there are little tricks here and there you can use to help yourself out here and there, the bottom line is that you only have so many OP points and you can only really supply 1/3 of your units on any turn anyways so i think HQ rules, although well meaning, unnecisarily complicate things. btw each corps unit may be supplied only once per turn so changing HQ's doesn't allow a second fillup. what i do disagree with is changing each HQ's command HQ to put "more distance" to hitler or stalin. although i'l admit i personally do change HQ's command HQ for the "recovering airforce" HQ's next to the sov eastern map edge to make a little room for new units coming into STAVKA, i personally NEVER change the command of any HQ's up at the front, and i don't touch german HQ's PERIOD.

[delatbabel]

Flanker Leader, I think you are correct in most regards.

I haven't tried the trick of changing the HQ heirarchy for the soviets. However by the winter time I find that the units coming in via Stavka en masse have mostly dried up, and I never have enough rail to move them all out in the early turns anyway (well, Stavka + RGVK + move a factory every turn or two).

As far as strat bombing goes -- well, for every good attack there is a good defence. I would note where the strat bombing comes in and (a) start moving those factories first and (b) put some CAP around. If the German player is going to use his air to interdict my front line units, well let him, I can't spare the fighters early in the game to put my I-15s against his FW-190s. However if he's going to start strat bombing en masse then I don't mind my fighters tackling his bombers, which will for the most part be unescorted at that range. Plus it's one way to build up experience in the fighter units, which is all good for the soviets in the long run.

Also, if the German player eschews interdiction in favour of strat bombing, then I'm likely to have more tanks and troops on the ground in the blizzard as well as right through 42/43 etc. Doesn't matter how good your air force is, you can't use it to hold the ground if all of your infantry and armour is dead.

There is always a way in this game for a reasonably intelligent player to blunt any strategy. I don't think there's a perfect always-win strategy for the Germans or for the Russians, it's a matter of how you play against what your opponent comes up with.

What I was looking for, originally in this thread, was a web page / text file somewhere which listed a small pile of bugs and house rules to be used not to activate them. e.g. I saw once that it was possible to somehow trick the system into giving you 65,000 rail points, and there was a house rule listed that said "don't do this". Now I forget where I saw it, I was wondering if someone else had seen the same thing.

[delatbabel]

Ah, found it.

tm.asp?m=1002021

Not sure how relevant to recent versions these are, but I'll reproduce them here:

--

House Rules:
1. A corps can only change HQ before it has been special supplied (Bug #1- special supply is limited by Operational Points in a single HQ and Issue #1).
2. Each HQ may air attack any single enemy Corps/HQ only once per turn. No single enemy Corps/HQ may be air attacked (interdict or bomb AF) more than 3 times per turn. Any airgroup can fly only one airmission per turn (Bug #6, Issue #4).
3. A corps must have x+1 Mobile division sized units in it to plot more than two squares of movement where x=number of Infantry division sized unit in it (Issue #5, Issue #6).
4. Usage of naval transportation is limited to 3 stack points per turn. Destination hex must be a port (Issue #8).
5. Players cannot change a structure of command and Hitler\Stalin leadership (Bug #2, Bug #3).
6. Players can change a production of no more than one tank and one airplane factory per turn. Players cannot change a production of factory with delay.(Bug #5).
7. Usage of bugs #8, #9, #10, #11 (players has to set “human production upgrade control”), #12, #13 (65000 railroad points) is cheating.
8. (Issue #16) Finnish forces cannot attack but can bombard Northern
Leningrad (40/6). The Soviets are required to garrison North-Leningrad
with minimum 3 division sized corps. If this corps is withdrawn (only
in full size) Finns are allowed to attack Leningrad City with all
means in range of other House rules.
-Any airgroups operating from Finnish soil can comission all the same
attacks that airgroups in normal Axis HQ's are allowed. Finnish and
other axis airgoups can be mixed in any HQ.
-If Axis capture and hold 44/6 untill next Axis turn the Finns are
allowed to attack with all means in range of other House rules.
-Finnish forces are allowed to enter Soviet territory and engage in
combat IF Leningrad (40/7) is captured, Finnish forces are allowed to
enter Soviet territory and engage in combat but they must remain on or
above the 15th parallel. Exept 5 full divisions which can be deployed
under other Axis HQ's/Corps. IF Moscow is captured all finnish
restrictions are removed.
-IF Soviets re-capture and hold for an axis turn one of the cities of
Pskov, Minsk or Odessa with an army or corps (not partisan) all the
Finnish forces in "south" must be withdrawn to 5th or above parallel
in two axis turns.
9. Training bomber fleets with air transporting missions in the
back-lines is prohibited. (Issue #17)





List of bugs and issues:

BUGS

B1: Special supply through renaming
A corps can be special supplied repeatedly if it is renamed.
B2: High command leader change
Stavka and OKH can be removed and placed again; this changes their leaders. However, if a player does this he will no longer receive new formations.
B3: High command circumventing
A circular order of command can be established among HQs with the Alt-H command, thus circumventing higher command completely.
B4: Free transfer
All units assigned to HQs with zero OPs can be transferred out at no cost.
B5 Factory delay reduction
A factory with a delay level over 4 can be converted, reducing the delay to 4.
B6 Fighter bomber repeated interdiction
If an interdiction mission is conducted, all fighter-bomber groups have their "u" marker removed and can be used again to interdict.
B7 Repeated attacks stop
A player can have overwhelming odds against a repeated attacks hex but these will stop if other combat takes place elsewhere.
B8 Half-way saving
If a player saves during the turn and restores the game, he will get extra reinforcements, entrenchment, readiness etc.
B9 Restarting the turn
A player (especially Soviet) can restart their turn to influence the following: leader resignation; unsuccessful USAAF missions; weather
B10 Editors
The save files are weakly encrypted, making it possible for players to use editors to affect the game stats directly.
B11 Fast production change
Under computer control, a factory will upgrade its production with only a delay of 1, even if it has just been changed to the previous item. This makes it possible to change production in just 2 turns instead of 4 for items that can be upgraded to.
B12 Assigning enemy units
Players are able to change the HQ assignment of enemy units.
B13 Fantastic railroad
Players can gain 6500 railroadpoints

ISSUES
I1: Mules
A corps can fight under the command of a different HQ than the one that gave it special supply.
I2: Fighting HQs
HQs can be stuffed up with units and placed on the front line for overstrength defense.
I3: Excessive production of heavy tanks
A player can produce unhistorically high numbers of heavy tanks and use them to great effect.
I4: Repeated interdiction
It's possible to bomb a single hex with single groups of bombers, to great effect, especially if combined with B6 above.
I5: Isolation at low cost
Small formations can be placed in mobile corps sent to cut the enemy's lines of supply.
I6: Fast infantry
Mobile corps with few mobile divisions and a lot of infantry can plot 5 and will restore their readiness quickly, especially during German blitz supply
I7: Minor allies in the west
The German player can send minor allied formations to fronts they could never have fought on.
I8: Naval transport
Units can be sent or retrieved from a city in naval supply using rail transfer.
I9: Exclusive air supply
An isolated corps can still advance and attack if it is well supplied from the air.
I10: Airfield vulnerability
With only two exceptions, airfields can be hit anywhere on the map, even at great distances.
I11: Overproduction of a single type
Some items are very powerful in the game and players will produce many more of them than was historically the case. Some of the problems of these items are not reflected in the game though (e.g. the He177 had very unreliable engines).
I12: Finnish politics
Finland's war aims were limited and their troops wouldn't have attacked Leningrad or advanced very far within the USSR.
I13: High readiness shattering
The Soviets in the summer of '41 and the Germans during the blizzard of the same year shatter easily at high readiness levels. The problem is supposed to be fixed for the Germans with v3.3
I15: Extremely long marches
Divisions can be moved from one end of the map to the other without using rail points if all the corps they pass through are special supplied.
I16: Political restrictions are real and good to use - but "what would
have happened if" scenarios are always arguable. I tend to see Finnish
gov. quite agressive at the begining of the war and agreeing with most
of the goals of Hitler and there is even documents that show how
Finnish and Natzi officials agreed on horrible goal of destroying
totally the city of Leningrad as a "permanent and ancient threath to
Finland". Finnish politics definately changed more defensive when the
war started to seem lost (quite early actually).
So if you read mine proposal of Finnish restrictions you might find
those quite a good compromise still. Even added a clause for the
Soviets counterattack.
I17: Bomber formations get experience with transfer missions even thousands of kilometers away of frontlines.

Unruled Bugs and issues:
B#4: It is generally bad to have a HQ with zero Oprerational Points. So I think this bug cannot be abused.
B#7: This bug is out of human control.
I#3: See I#11.
I#7: No problem here.
I#9: No problem here.
I#10: Never expirienced this problem.
I#11: (and I#3) Mono type production is not very historical, but the reasons for multi-type producing were: 1) Nobody knew the real “stats” of new equipment. 2) Lobbies of various groups existed in both countries. 3) Concept of main battle tank was not introduced.
As we are beyond these restrictions...
I#13: Just play around it.
I#15: You have to spend a lot of Operational points for such march.


---

Also (from the same thread, these are similar to yours FL):

1. A corps can only change HQ before it has been special supplied
2. No single enemy Corps/HQ may be air attacked (interdict or bomb AF) more than 3 times per turn.
3. A corps must have x+1 Mobile division sized units in it to plot more than two squares of movement where x=number of Infantry division sized unit in it
4. Usage of naval transportation is limited to 3 stack points per turn. Destination hex must be a port
5. Players cannot change a structure of command and Hitler\Stalin leadership
6. Players can change the production of no more than one tank and one airplane factory per turn. Players cannot change a production of factory with delay
8. Finnish ground forces cannot attack but can bombard Northern
Leningrad (40/6). The Soviets are required to garrison North-Leningrad
with minimum 3 division sized corps. If this corps is withdrawn (only
in full size) Finns are allowed to attack Leningrad City with all
means in range of other House rules.
9. Training bomber fleets with air transporting missions in the
back-lines is prohibited
10. No cheating, replaying turns or saving during mid turns

[delatbabel]

The options above are:

(from Lorenzo)

2) An HQ can't launch more than two interdiction attacks against a single corps in one turn, however a corps can be interdicted two or more times from different HQ's, as long as each HQ attacks no more than twice.

(from Flanker Leader)

2) No HQ may launch more than two (ground) interdiction attacks per turn. No single enemy unit may be (ground) interdicted more than 4 times per turn.

(from Savanniperkele)

2. Each HQ may air attack any single enemy Corps/HQ only once per turn. No single enemy Corps/HQ may be air attacked (interdict or bomb AF) more than 3 times per turn. Any airgroup can fly only one airmission per turn (Bug #6, Issue #4).

Bug 6 Fighter bomber repeated interdiction
If an interdiction mission is conducted, all fighter-bomber groups have their "u" marker removed and can be used again to interdict.

Issue 4: Repeated interdiction
It's possible to bomb a single hex with single groups of bombers, to great effect, especially if combined with B6 above.

What I've discovered in one game of PBEM is that it's possible to destroy a hex, regardless of enemy strength or fortification levels. For example, on one occasion my moscow (major city) hex was interdicted 9 times, then attacked by a single corps. The units defending included 2 x tank corps, 5 x inf corps, in a shock army, and had just received special supply, and were at entrechment 8 and supply 6. They started the german turn with 95% - 99% readiness. After being attacked by a single panzer corps they shattered.

The tank divisions arrived back in RGVK the next turn, and had approximately 4% of their tank strength left. I assume from this that they had 4% readiness (from the rules) at the time of shatter, so would have had their total readiness reduced from 95% to 4% with the massive amount of interdictions (in fact there weren't a large number of planes flying interdict -- most of those interdictions had a single unit of fighters / bombers only). However each interdiction causes around 10% readiness loss regardless of the number of planes flying or if any interdiction causes any damage to the ground units.

I think for the sake of sanity the number of interdictions per hex needs to be limited. I think that if a unit can take 10% - 15% readiness loss from each interdiction then a limit of 3 sounds sane.

What does everyone else think?

Is there a "most commonly used" set of house rules, out of the 3 above?

[delatbabel]

These are from "kingtiger_501", a fellow aussie:

Playing a possum game with Germany skipping the 1st turn is how I would play. I would use these rules.

1. A corps can only change HQ before it has been special supplied
2. No single enemy Corps/HQ may be air attacked (interdict or bomb AF) more than 3 times per turn.
3. A corps must have x+1 Mobile division sized units in it to plot more than two squares of movement where x=number of Infantry division sized unit in it
4. Usage of naval transportation is limited to 3 stack points per turn. Destination hex must be a port
5. Players cannot change a structure of command and Hitler/Stalin leadership
6. THERE IS NO RULE 6 !!!
7. Players can change the production of no more than one tank and one airplane factory per turn. Players cannot change a production of factory with delay
8. Finnish ground forces cannot attack but can bombard Northern
Leningrad (40/6). The Soviets are required to garrison North-Leningrad
with minimum 3 division sized corps. If this corps is withdrawn (only
in full size) Finns are allowed to attack Leningrad City with all
means in range of other House rules.
9. Training bomber fleets with air transporting missions in the
back-lines is prohibited
10. No cheating, replaying turns or saving during mid turns

Note: If u dont like or can not follow rule 10, you r wasting your time playing against me. If you chose to use these cheats, I will give you the easy victory you are after

(Note, rule 6 above was put in for my amusement value -- I assume that people know all about "THERE IS NO RULE 6").