Operational Movement and the Ottomans

[mdsmall]

Hi - just completed my third play through of the 1914 campaign, this time as the Central Powers. It has been a very enjoyable way of spending my considerable time at home these days. In the course of playing this time, I noticed three odd things about the ability of the Ottomans to use Operational Movement.

First, it seems that Ottoman land units stationed east of the Bosphorus (ie in Anatolia or Palestine) can not use Operational Movement to move west of the Bosphorus. Their units have to stop in that hex. But the next turn they can use Operational Movement to go anywhere in Europe or back to Asia within normal Operational Movement limits. On the other hand, Ottoman units stationed west of the Bosphorus do not have to stop there and can use Operational Movement to go anywhere in range in Europe or Asia. The same one-way interruption to Operational Movement across the Bosphorus seems to apply to other Central Powers units as well. Is this a design feature (like the one-way navigability into the Baltic through Denmark)? If so, how come?

Second, I found a curious exception to the above. Ottoman air units stationed in Palestine can use Operational Movement in the same move to travel west across the Bosphorus but only into European hexes that were owned by the Ottomans at the start of the game or which had been captured by them when they conquered Greece. They can not use Operational Movement to travel into Bulgaria or Austria-Hungary or beyond. This is the only time I have seen an exception made to the inter-operability of rail lines between Central Power Major units. Why this exception for air units and this limitation on their travel?

Third, Ottoman air units using Operational Movement seem to be able to move to Ottoman controlled hexes in western Greece well beyond any rail line e.g. on Corfu. This is very handy but seems to violate the restrictions on Operational Movement that you can only use it to move one hex beyond a friendly controlled urban resource connected by a rail-line. Why is this?

Looking forward to your explanations.

Michael

[BillRunacre]

Hi Michael

1) You are right, this is a known issue.

2) Ottoman air units can operate within Ottoman controlled territory, but not elsewhere. This is to help keep them largely focused on serving within their own territory, though they can be moved elsewhere in the normal way.

3) That is correct as air units can operate to locations that aren't connected via rail, essentially they just have a slightly different setting to land units in that the resource they fly to can be at lower strength too. It therefore provides the ability to send air units a bit further afield, and makes up for them not being transportable by sea like land units are. Whether it's a wise idea to move them to such locations is of course a decision for their commander to take...

[mdsmall]

Bill - thanks for the response. What is the rationale for the one-way interruption on Operational Movement across the Bosphorus?

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Mdsmall,

There is no rationale, it is just a known issue in the game but the good news is that this has been fixed for the next update.

Hubert