the Pacific War and amphibious invasions

[Daykeras]

hmm... why not make it a bit farther from a port? Like 2 or 3 areas away? I'd need to look at the map, but what's the distance from london to the closest eastern port in North America in WaW? Whatever that distance is, halve it and make that where the limiting factor starts.

That should be about the distance from hawaii to the next island as well.

If we impliment it that way, the game doesn't change much except ports/islands are more likely to be taken to make sure the game doesn't change.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Daykeras
hmm... why not make it a bit farther from a port? Like 2 or 3 areas away?

You don't need it, and hence it would be too much. If the port coverage extends to all sea zones adjacent to a sea zone with friendly port access, then the ports of England, Scotland, Eastern Canada, and NE USA adequately cover all of the north Atlantic routes.

Due west of Western France there is a one zone gap, which can be eliminated by taking either Western France (port) or the Azores.

Due west of Gibraltar there is a one zone gap, unless you divert a little southward along the South American coast.

Due west of Panama there is a one zone gap, which is why I would put a port in Panama.

Getting to Hawaii from western USA is double covered (from Hawaii and SW USA).

From Hawaii, you cover to Midway, which is adequate to supply the sea zone of Wake (adjacent).

I'd make one modification to the rule, which answers my phasing power/side question, by adding the last bullet below:

IF a sea-area

• does not contain an island controlled by the phasing power AND
• does not border a land region controlled by the phasing power AND
• is not a sea-area adjacent to a sea with a port controlled by the phasing power AND
• is not a sea area with a port controlled by a power allied to the phasing power

THEN all transport capacity (including amphib) is cut by a factor of 1/2 (round up).

In this way, the port of an ally can help you to lend-lease to that ally. In particular, Russian control of Archangel will help the WA to lend-lease to Russia if the WA don't control Norway.

[JanSorensen]

Wanderinghead,

That is probably a good way to handle ally areas. I did not want to give the same value to those areas as areas of the phasing player so the far east Russian areas didnt suddenly supply the WA invasion fleet. Your suggestion seems to work though as only areas with a port help and only for their own area. Good idea.

The question concerning naval vs air range is a good one. Logically it should be naval range - which clearly is more limiting - but I am not entirely certain which will work best.

Lowering by 10 cap or halving. I am a little worried about making too large a change - but its definitely something that could by play tested. The same goes for halving the amph value.

As for adding movement cost. 2 MP is probably too much - but I do like the idea of adding 1 MP cost atleast. This will make surface raiders less able to roam far from their own bases - something I find a bit too easy currently.

As for extra ports.
- I definitely concur with adding a port to 315 Central America.
- I would also like to add one to 15 Azores to give the Allies a staging area of sorts if England should fall - as well as bring some of the significans this area had in the real war to it.
- Finally, I would like to add a port to 214 Formosa as a stepping stone between Luzon and Japan.

More comments are definitely welcome to see if we can flesh this one out. It may not be implemented in this game but no harm in debating it and who knows what the future brings.

[JanSorensen]

A less restrictive idea than

• is not a sea-area adjacent to a sea with a port controlled by the phasing power

would be to make it

• is not a sea-area with a naval range of 4 or less to a port controlled by the phasing power (ignoring enemy units).

This will give a slightly larger projection from some ports - most noteable ports located on small islands as moving to and from those cost nothing. I will need to look some more at the map but my initially impression is good.

It would make Hawaii project to Wake, Scotland to Berents Sea, the Italian ports to all of the Med and the proposed Azores port a better come back port if England falls to the Germans.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: JanSorensen

A less restrictive idea than

• is not a sea-area adjacent to a sea with a port controlled by the phasing power

would be to make it

• is not a sea-area with a naval range of 4 or less to a port controlled by the phasing power (ignoring enemy units).

...
the Italian ports to all of the Med

Italy, that's an important one I missed.

I think this looser range is too far. Ports cover about everything. With Hawaii, we're back to being able to just take Bonin to get to Japan.

Taking this into account, I might say "naval range of 3 to a sea zone with a phasing power controlled port", which covers the Mediterranean from Italy. Unfortunately, it also projects Scotland to Barents ... I like the idea of Archangel helping the northern supply route. Oh well.

Even this extension is arguable to me. I mean, if Italy has north Africa they are still good to go without the extension. But it is nice to project further in single border areas, and given North America's double borders (I never really liked that) that is how you would have to do it.

I think that 1/2 for transport would be good, a real noticeable hit. I'm less certain about 1/2 to amphib. For one, it would apply to the taking of most of the Pacific Islands you now want to take. It would also always apply to taking Japan unless the WA take some land in mainland Asia or the Philippines (with the above extended port projection), or a newly built port in Formosa. But hey, it's all the more reason to retake the Philippines, right?

As for movement, I dunno. The distance from bases I agree with. That's what I was hoping could be addressed by supply rules.

I'd also kind of like to see out of supply fleets easier to hit. It's annoying the way the WA can just park HFs in the sea lanes in the late game far from any supply and leave them there. I don't know an easy way to address it. Maybe halve the naval value used to determine retreat for all fleets out of supply (could be only a subset of the fleets in the zone if they have received reinforcement).

[JanSorensen]

Interesting idea to make it the range to the sea area with the port rather than the range to the port itself. That does indeed change things a bit as the difference between 0 MP (islands), 1 MP and 2 MP costs to move to port vanish.

I will need to consider that some more but it certainly has merit.

[WanderingHead]

I still like the idea of adding oiler units the best. I'd make them move supplies the same way that CVs move CAGs, with the exception that the oilers could not grab supplies from transports in mid-ocean.

What this means is the oilers could pick up supplies as strategic movement _only_ in ports. For other land territories (including non-port islands), picking up the supplies would require tactical movement of the supplies. Hence, loading the oilers in a port can be "faster" if you are strat moving the supplies from faraway, whereas from other land zones you'd only be able to pick up supplies previously stored there.

And again, only the oilers could refuel fleets from sea. They could also move with fleets so they are self supporting, you'd just want to be careful that they don't get sunk. Capacity, probably 15. Movement, probably 12.

But anyway, I've been thinking of the variations of Jan's more likely implementation (by which I don't mean to say it is in fact likely). Two downsides so far: no consideration of enemy holdings, and makes it more difficult in the wide open ocean.

So, a revision:

• start with a base transport capacity of 30
• if this sea zone is adjacent to enemy controlled land, subtract 10
• if this sea zone is not adjacent to enemy controlled land, AND it is adjacent to a sea zone which is adjacent to enemy controlled land, subtract 5 (this is non-cumulative with the first bullet)
• if this sea zone is not adjacent to land controlled by the phasing power, subtract 10.
• if this sea zone is within a naval range of 3 to a sea zone with a phasing power port, OR if this sea zone has an allied port, add 10
• cap the total to no larger than the base transport capacity.

So, the open sea ends up at 20. Enemy waters with no friendly land territories to help get as low as 10.

Note that each bullet adds with the others, but each bullet counts only once. I.e. you do not get +20 for being within range to 2 phasing power ports, you still only get +10.

I think I would not make this impact amphib assaults at all (a change of opinion).

Some analysis:

• German control of Norway would limit transport capacity to 20 in one sea zone.
• Italian ports project through the whole med, but if there are no adjacent Axis land territories for Eastern Med then WA holding of Cairo would still impose a penalty of -10, leaving capacity at 20 in eastern Med. This doesn't really matter at all, in this case there is nothing to transport anyway (except amphib, uneffected, and if it succeeds then the capacity will bump up anyway).
• Japanese held islands project a little, so that the straight route from W USA to Bonin is penalized to as low as 15 if e.g. Wake is held by Japan, or would be limited to 20 if Wake were WA held (this latter is just the "open ocean" penalty, since these rules make it easier to transport adjacent to phasing power land).
• still need some new ports, like Panama and Azores.

Thoughts? I think it's pretty good. Simple enough to keep track of. I see one coding gotcha. The capacity can only go up during the phasing power's turn (by capturing territories), which is fine. But the capacity can go down in enemy turns (again, capturing territory). So in that case you'd have to handle any goods that have remained at sea in the transports. A rare case, but it would need to be addressed.

[Lebatron]

I had an idea a while back that would make islands with ports more valuable than those without. Maybe it could mesh well with these ideas. Its a simple idea really, so here it is. Allow ports to hold unlimited supply and restrict islands without ports to say 5 or 10 supply. In other words, just enough supply to allow air missions and defense, but not enough supply to move a rather large fleet. In this way its a bit more difficult to stage a large naval offense from a non-ported island. As it stands now, you can transport as much supply as you got room for to a non-ported island in preperation for next turn. If the island could hold only 5-10 supply then on the turn you wish to move your rather big force you would be forced to eat up more of your available transport capacity trying to move a lot of supply to move your fleet.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron
Allow ports to hold unlimited supply and restrict islands without ports to say 5 or 10 supply.

Hmm, it seems to decrease the value rather than increase the value of the islands. Sort of the opposite of what I thought desirable. There are no stacking limits anywhere else, I'd personally prefer not to add them here.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: JanSorensen
As for adding movement cost. 2 MP is probably too much - but I do like the idea of adding 1 MP cost atleast. This will make surface raiders less able to roam far from their own bases - something I find a bit too easy currently.

You know, this could be another good application of oilers (in the hoped for GGWAW II). Allow naval vessels to fuel up only so much at a time, even within a given turn, so that exercising a naval unit's full movement would require refueling somewhere near the midpoint. This midpoint fueling could be made difficult if that midpoint is far from any friendly bases and in the middle of enemy waters.

There are a few ways to implement this, the trick would be to come up with the simplest way.

For example, say you divided supply consumption for naval movement into 3 types:
1) 1 supply to move the first zone
2) "short range fuel cost", can be loaded/consumed at any time, allows movement to 2/3 (round up to integer) of total range (I mean "speed").
3) "long range fuel cost", can only be loaded after the unit has already travelled 1/3 (round up to integer) of total range.

SRFC for LF=1, for CV=2, for HF=2.
LRFC for LF=1, for CV=1, for HF=2.

So the total costs for full movement would still be the same. This would also allow shorter movement to consume less supplies.

So, e.g. a HF could move 1 zone for 1 supply, or up to 7 for 3 supplies, but if it wants to move 10 it will consume 5 supplies and the last two supplies must be loaded after the HF has already consumed 4 movement points, which in this case limits its range into enemy waters without an oiler going with it.

If an oiler has a capacity of 5 and movement of 10 (that's about the same as transports ... it would take 6 oilers to move 30 supplies 10 movement points, and it takes about 5 transports to move 30 cargo over 5 double borders) it can support 2-5 naval units that are operating at max range but starting from adjacent to a supply stockpile. If the naval units remain close to the stockpile, the oiler could make multiple trips to support more units. But it would take more oilers to support naval units operating at maximum movement and never coming close to a land based stockpile for refueling.

It's not that this makes long distance operation impossible. It just gives it its own set of costs and tradeoffs, since you'd have to stock up on oilers which aren't good for all of the other stuff transports are good for.

Not perfectly worked out, but it seems like something along these lines could be made to fit in perfectly within the scope and scale of the existing game, and help fix some of the weakness of the naval model.