Future plans inc. Pacific theatre?

[ringoblood]

Looks good, I like it.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

Good luck with this. It looks very promising.

Can you tell us any more about naval combat? I've found it pretty much has to be a Grigsby game for naval combat at this scale to work well.

Cheers,
CB

Surface and Carrier naval units are groups of 2 capital ships and support ships.
Submarines are 10-15 subs operational at anyone time.

a port may hold any number of groups

Out at sea a group is limited to 9 groups forming a fleet.

Fleets are limited to 3 carriers at most.

Fleets at sea may not have subs and surface/carrier groups. A sub fleet is a sub fleet a naval fleet is only surface and carrier ships

Land and air may transport in a fleet and count as a ship.

Fleets have 2 operation points with a 24 range.
double move
move and attack
attack and move (very difficult)

You only attack on your turn.

Fleets lower port supply and provide shore supply.

Further away from enemy shores harder to spot your fleet.

Surface fleets range 1 attack
Carriers range 5 attack (surface fleets attacking carrier fleets usually wont succeed)
Sub fleets have a range 5 attack (they are on patrol spread out being patient)

groups have 5 health.
Carriers are relative in strength to land based air. Usually 2 carrier groups = 1 land based air in health.

So example how it could work. Take the Battle of Midway.

Japanese forces....
sub fleet of 2 within 5 hexes of Midway.
carrier fleet with 2 carriers and 6 support ships that have moved into area from the North West with 1 operation point and attacked Midway airfield with 1 operation point.
transport fleet which is 10 hexes away from Midway island.

American fleet now sees where the Japanese fleet in the ocean tile went.... Midway. The American fleet 20 hexes North East of Midway.
They have 1 carrier fleet with 2 carriers groups and 3 support ships. One carrier group damaged.
They have 1 sub fleet North West of Midway within 4 hexes.

The carrier groups uses one operation point to move within 5 hexes of the apparent Japanese carrier fleet. It uses it's 2nd operation point to do an air strike. Because the Japanese fleet is 5 hexes from Midway it has a medium recon level. The Americans spot it and sink 1 carrier group, damaging another. The Japanese fly a counter mission doing little damage to the American fleet.

End Turn

The Japanese thinking there is only 1 damaged carrier group in that American fleet that just got super lucky they use their remaining carrier group that is damaged to attack the American fleet. It uses it's 1st operation point and doesn't find the American fleet at a low recon level. It uses it's 2nd operation point to search again and finds the American fleet. It scores a sink on the damaged carrier group. But the American counter sinks the last carrier group of the Japanese.

The Japanese player isn't sure how many carriers were at Midway.

This is a possible example that could happen.


Hunting the Bismark would be the following.

German player sends fleet in raider mode which consists of one battle group (effectively 2 BBs + support ships). It uses both it's operation points to sail north of Iceland 10 hexes to get the lowest possible recon level.

On the Allied turn the UK sends out one cruiser group in a fleet to try and search for the German fleet. They miss. IK sends a small carrier fleet from Gibraltar just south of England.

The UK player sends a 3rd and 4th fleet of 3 surface ships each from the UK and Gibraltar to the Southern Atlantic using all their operation points.

Turn 2.

German player - Sails the fleet near Iceland Greenland in a convoy lane. It is a low recon level.
UK player - German fleet sinks a merchant marine. UK player Uses a strategic bomber with an anti-sub advancement to search for the German fleet. Finds it but does no damage.
The UK player sends a surface fleet to attack the Bismark of 1 battle group and one destroyer group. Finds the fleet. Germans get a lucky 2x crit and cripple a battle group. UK player gets the short end of the luck die roll and does 1 damage to the German fleet. The UK carrier fleet moves within 5 and performs an air strike with their remaining operation point but misses spotting the German fleet.

The UK sends the cruiser fleet to be within 3 hexes of the German ship but does not attack.

Turn 3.

German player moves the fleet to a Southern Atlantic convoy route clear of the coast line. It has 1 supply left. The German player uses and oiler and brings the fleet's supply level to 3. The German player has 1 operation point remaining.

UK takes 2 merchants sunk in it's Southern Atlantic convoy.

The UK uses the cruiser fleet to move (1 operaiton point) then to to attack the German fleet and misses finding it in very low recon level (1 more operation point)

The UK uses surface fleet one to move next to the German fleet and misses a search in very low recon level.

The UK uses uses the carrier fleet to move next to the German fleet (1 point) and attempts an airstrike that finds the fleet (1 operation point) doing 1 point of damage.

The UK uses the second surface fleet to move (1 point) and to attack (1 point) the German fleet which is now in a medium recon level due to previous combat increasing it's spotting. The second surface fleet consists of 1 battle group and 2 cruiser groups. They score 4 hits and sink the Bismark fleet.

INVASIONS....

Pretty straight forward. If you don't have a fleet to support invading units they will lose all their supply and be vulnerable on shore.

NIGHT MISSIONS....

Any surface fleet moving 6 or less hexes is considered on a night mission and has their recon level find chance lowered. They may only be attacked by sub and surface fleets.

TRANSPORTING....
Italy can move units directly from one port to another without interception. But sea control is still the most important aspect of the system since port supply is limited to port size and distance to a port.

LAND BASED AIR...
Incredibly deadly to fleets as they generally were in WW2. They also have to search and find fleets.

PORTS...
Surface fleets may attack other fleets in port. All ports have naval defenses. Ships are hard to sink in port and usually instead bottom out reduced to 1 health.

FOG of WAR...
Unlike most games you can see all the pieces on the map. But they are limited in what they are by recon levels. You will see fleet and sub counters. But a player doesn't know what those counters have in them. So potential deception is added in place of invisible.

That sums it up with examples to the best of my memory.