ORIGINAL: WanderingHead
The problem with this is resource flow. It would be nice if resources actually required rail/transports to flow. I'd think that the rule should be "must flow through rail/transport in adjacent zone", so they could effectively move one zone to reach the rail and then flow from there. I think that would usually have no effect at all with the current map (some requirements on WA shipping near Africa which actually make sense anyway), but make rail/transport links more important with the changes I'd like.
I totally agree. Were you aware I did exactly that in Franco v2.2? You could have read it under the section South America and Africa while I still had 2.2 posted. But its a little late now as I just deleted it last night and replaced it with v2.3 In my new version I of coarse kept these changes, but I chose not to go into any great detail to keep the readme as short as possible. Here's a clip from my old readme which has the long version.
South America and Africa:
27. One of the issues with this game design is that the UN player can pull almost all his transports from around the world and still collect resources from continents like South America and Africa. After a few turns the picture looks nothing like it does at start. The transports will be pulled from the coast of South America and other places and placed neatly into strait lines. If the Germans sink a couple transports the UN just pulls a few from unneeded places without affecting the collection effort at all. This can go on for a while since very few transports are needed to collect the worlds resources. This has created the problem of what many have said to be an overly large amphibious capability early in the game. This problem comes from the fact that many of the transports are not needed to collect resources, yet the designers placed many on the map with the impression that is what they are for. It seems like they had some intent to make it necessary to move resource production by transport, but in the end didn't do the code. And so we end up with resource production magically making its way through thousands of miles of jungle and rough terrain. I find it flunky and unrealistic that the UN does not even need a single transport for South America. All its resources can flow back to the US via land bridge. In Africa only one transport is needed off French West Africa and magically all resources are collected there too. In real life most things produced for the war effort were shipped out of ports, not sent by mule train through jungles. I have come up with a way to simulate what should have been standard. I changed it so that in some places the resources will sit where they are unless a linked transport is adjacent. In South America most areas have been isolated in this way and require a transport. In Africa I isolated the deep south. South Africa and its rail link to Rhodesia sends its 4 resources to Cape Town port. By doing this the UN player can't get all of Africa's resources with one transport off the west coast. He will need to have a link all the way to the port. I also fixed the port in South Africa so that it connects to both sea zones.
Patch 1.070 moved some transports away from South America. Because of my changes, the original setup works better. I also took 2 transports from the Irish sea and put them on the west coast of South America to collect the resource production from Chile. I also removed 1 resource from French West Africa and put it in Madagascar.
One of the best things 2by3 could do, would be to change the code on how resources trace over land. Right now the distance is unlimited. It should be changed to only trace to an adjacent zone. If that adjacent zone has rail or a transport in it, then the resource can travel that path. For instance, in Siberia there is rail within one zone of the resources there so they could trace a path. But in South America, where there is no rail, only adjacent transports could pick up the resource production. In Africa all territories adjacent to South Africa and Rhodesia can feed their resources into this rail link and from there a transport off of South Africa can continue that link. If this change was made it would be very similar to what I just did.
That was rather long hey[:)] Which is why I don't continue to repeat it in new readme's. I figure that once I explain my reasoning for a big change like that the first time around, I don't need to continue to repeat myself. If many miss it the first time around what can I do?Anyway, as I said a rule change on how resources trace would be a welcome change. Resource collection around Africa and South America would be more realistic as this change would require transports in this case. It wouldn't effect Siberia because the areas with resources are all adjecent to rail somewhere. The only time the resources in the Soviet Far East could be isolated would be when the Japs take the Russian territories directly below leaving them without any adjacent rail. That would be fair and realistic. The only place on the map where it could have a negative impact on gameplay would be North Africa. If this rule was adopted then the Germans would not be able to collect the resources from Morocco and Algeria by placing a transport in the Central Med. But that can be simply solved by creating a rail line from Morocco to Tunisia. Actually Algeria to Tunisia would do, since the rail at Algeria would auto collect Morocco's resource. Was there even a small amount of rail in these areas to justify this? There must have been.
Well even without a hard coded rule change I was able to simulate this effect pretty well. In South America the effect I achieved is identical to my proposed rule change. Transports are required off the coast of all the territories since there is no rail. The only effect my mod causes is that units if landed there can't move by land to another adjacent territory. Thats not much of a concern since the area is without a doubt beyond the area of normal play anyway. Besides I think its more realistic to use amphibious assaults to take each area. Since most of South America at the time was very inaccessible you can't really expect an army to march through the jungles of Bazil to Argentina for instance. But that is exactly what they can do now, which I feel is unrealistic. In real life, only port towns and some up the river a little way would have been a target for capture. Once these important areas were secured the invading army would have reboarded their ships and moved onto the next target down the coast. This is exactly how it needs to be done when using my mod.
In Africa I had to do things a bit different, because I had to allow for the chance of a German unit going on the raid. Which is S.O.P. when that militia in Italian East Africa wins that first fight. In this case, units had to be allowed to cross some borders, because this part of Africa can sometimes come into play, unlike South America. Basically I cut Africa in half. A north and south, with the dividing line along Angola, Rhodesia, and Mozambique. In the north, German raiding units are free to move around this area, but are cut off from moving further south into places like Rhodesia or Mozambique. Thats realistic anyway just like in South America. How far can you expect an army to travel through Africa starting from a place like Italian East Africa? Just moving from Italian East Africa to British East Africa by land is a feat in itself. The artificail barrier that prevents units in the north from entering the south was neccessary to keep several resource points from the south down there. In this way the UN can't collect all of Africa's resources unless they keep a chain of transports connected to South Africa. If they don't they would lose out on 4 regular and 2 free trade resoures per turn. I think that's enough to keep the UN player honest.
Give Franco v2.3 a try. I included a standard Spain for players like you who want the option to attack Spain.
