Marines continuous Amphibious assault to keep supplied / game exploit?

[ninyure]

Hello! I'd like to raise this question!

A marine unit can keep fully supplied for ever as long as it makes amphibous assault, returns to the same hex and even attacks, all in same turn.

Is that a game exploit players should avoid?
or is intended to be within the legitimate mechanics of the game?.

thanks!

[crispy131313]

Well it's not a free action (costs MPP) and the coast is clear (so to speak) so it's just a nuance of the rules really. Moving some naval assets along the coast line will prevent the Marines from disembarking and receiving any new supplies while at sea. Given that it can be countered, and is not free I don't think we can call it an exploit.

[Hubert Cater]

That's a good question as this is a relatively new feature and as such you are right it is currently possible to do this. However, it is not without cost so it could be argued as fair as players need to pay for the ability to keep the Marines supplied via the new mechanism.

But at the same time I can also see your concerns as well.

Thoughts?

[fireston]

I think if you are paying 50/70 MPP to turn into a ship for resupply is enough for balance purposes. Actually that would be a cool feature to have in game, once per turn you can do an emergency supply of a unit, this would simulate emergency air lift/ road supply situations that did in fact occur during WW2. (Demyansk Pocket, Stalingrad pocket)

[gdpsnake1979]

Personally and to be more accurate, it would be a cool feature to have nations build supply ships for just this purpose. The ship 'parks' on a coastal hex and acts as an invasion force supply point. Once "parked" the ship will be lost after providing supply to ground forces. The amount of supply? I suggest probably 5 although the Allies should be able to build two 10's to represent mulberry ports. And length of use? I suggest 3 turns and 5 for the mulberries. This will also add an element of risk/reward to a game as a player will need to protect his "parked" units from enemy sea, land and air operations just like in the real war. Plus it means invading more prudently as you can't expect to defend your supply deep into enemy held areas so no more hail Mary's into ridiculous locations.

an added feature of these supply ships will be to act as an evacuation from a non port coastal hex like Dunkirk. "Park" your ship and then units can load into transports (not amphibious transport) and head to a friendly port. You could also use them as temporary boosts or efforts in supplying at risk units such as the Afrika Korps in North Africa. Spending MPP to build a supply ship or two to counter the effect of Malta or Suez. Opens the game up a bit more for allocating already scarce resources.

With supply ships, you can remove the ability of most units like marines being able to embark almost anywhere into amphibious units. You still can have a few specialized units with the ability, notably royal marines, rangers, maybe two SNLF, a soviet marine, A German marine unit etc. And these units should be at most, corps size not army.

I believe this will make for more interesting counter build choices and be more representative of the real world problems and logistical considerations that invasions represented.

Finally, amphibious research becomes more valuable as a nation would not be able to build such units until a certain level of research is reached which would be different for different nations.