Gibraltar as an island?

[mcaryf]

Jan has been kind enough to try out my mod designed to make defeating an AI controlled Axis more difficult. The mod does this partly by reducing the ability of air units to destroy ground forces - my hope was that invasions are then much harder thus slowing the Wally return to Europe.

Jan neatly sidestepped this by invading Europe through Spain from Gibraltar.

In real life of course this would not be possible for two reasons. Gib itself is too small to accommodate the size of invasion forces needed and attacking across the very narrow land bridge between Gib and Spain would really be rather worse than attempting an amphibious invasion.

Now the game mechanics do not allow us to restrict the size of stack in any one region so the first limit is not currently implementable in GGWAW but it would be quite possible to set up Gib as being an island and this would restrict the ability to attack in either direction.

I would be interested to hear other people's reaction to the idea that Gib might be reclassified as an island for movement purposes.

Regards

Mike

[mcaryf]

Just as an update - I have changed Gib to an island - it is very simple to do just remove the connection to Spain in the Region's file and there is an island. The graphic representation on the map still shows a link but that is an unrealistically large connection including all of Algeciras as well as Gib so it is already wrong.

I guess that a more accurate implementation might be to allow a link as in Sicily but I am not sure if that would still allow you to dodge into Gib to avoid Op Fire from Spanish Morocco etc.

Mike

[Oleg Mastruko]

LOL I have no problems with your logic but find it interesting that in my mod I did exactly the opposite - I made Gib more connected, by adding railway to it (even if there is no railway in real life). I gave my explanation and rationale for this change in DOC accompanying my mod.

O.

[Lebatron]

Wow thats a Eureka moment you had there. Congrats, I wish I thought of it.

The ability to invade from Gibraltar with everything in one neat stack sidesteps the need to do any amphibiuos landing in Europe D-day style. Since there is no stacking limit on Gibraltar its far to easy for the WA's to defeat the defenses in Spain. Another way to get on Europe without a fight is to just take Portugal. It really does the same thing only you pay 10 supply. This is why I gave Portugal a few troops in Franco's Alliance. But I never saw a way to prevent the WA from exploiting Gibraltar as a free beach-head. Your idea prevents this exploit nicely.

There is one flaw in this otherwise great idea. You see it works great in one direction but not in the other. Thats is, it prevents the British from rolling into Spain, but prevents the Axis from attacking from Spain. Gibraltar should be attackable via Spain. If only it could be set up this way. To allow land units to cross the border from Spain but not the other way around. This would be a good comprimise. You should experiment with the connections to see if this is possible and let me know.

A house rule limiting Gibralter to 3 land units works too. 1 inf, 1 art, 1 flak or any combination. Air can be exempted from this limit, or if you must have a limit then 3 or so would work nicely. So if disconnecting Gibraltar doesn't work well a house rule like this can fit the bill.

[mcaryf]

Hi Jesse

I have a timeshare villa down near Gib (which is where I am going next week) so I have visited it several times.

The causeway from Spain to Gib is really quite narrow and dominated by the cliffs of Gibraltar. These cliffs are tunnelled through with gun embrasures so there is no way that the land bridge is useful going from Spain to Gib. Going the other way the problem is that you could not assembled the forces on Gib to make a realistic attack on whatever defence the Spaniards have around Algeciras.

The onlty solution for both sides would be to bomb or shell the other into some state of non-resistance, it would be this that might win rather than a land force travelling in either direction. Thus I think the island concept works well in both situations. You only get across if there is nobody left to stop you or if you land on a broader amphibious front.

Mike

[toddtreadway]

Lebatron, I'm not familiar with the data files, but it seems like every space would have a set of fields declaring what other spaces are adjacent to it (and maybe what the borders are). Would it be possible to have the Gibraltar space say the connection is a strait, while the Spain space say it was a normal connection?

[mcaryf]

Interesting idea Todd but it does not actually work. In the version of my mod I just sent to Jan I had changed the Gib definition but forgot to do the Spain one, as it happens it stops movement either way. I guess it might be checking retreat paths or some such.

Mike

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron

There is one flaw in this otherwise great idea. You see it works great in one direction but not in the other. Thats is, it prevents the British from rolling into Spain, but prevents the Axis from attacking from Spain. Gibraltar should be attackable via Spain. If only it could be set up this way. To allow land units to cross the border from Spain but not the other way around. This would be a good comprimise. You should experiment with the connections to see if this is possible and let me know.

Well I went ahead and played with this myself and I discovered that you can make it one way. So it can be set it up so that the British can't attack into Spain from Gibraltar, but from Spain you may attack Gibraltar. Make one way a strait(7) the other standard(6)

This solves the issue of Gibraltar being a free beach-head onto the continent. Now the Allies will have to amphibiuos assault to gain a foothold.

[mcaryf]

Good research Jesse - sounds like an OK solution.

Whilst I know it would be very difficult to attack from Spain due to the terrain (a narrow flat approach dominated by Gib's cliffs) I was worried that the Spanish/Axis forces ought to be allowed to use artillery on the defenders. Now your solution is undoubtedly correct as it will allow this.

I hope that Joel et al will implement this in the standard game.

Mike