[WarInEur] Re: ZOCs

[Kent & Sue Haunschild]

Keeping it simple is what I am trying to do.

Whether we agree on what is represented by a ZOC or not, the simple fact is that when SPI designed the game they wrote that ZOC did not extend beyond the border when a country was first attacked.  Whether they felt this was a surprise effect of the DOW or something else in game terms is really immaterial.

They wrote the rules as follows: "Allied ZOC do not extend across borders during this [the Axis initial] movement phase" and "Soviet ZOC do not extend outside of the Soviet Union during the Axis initial movement phase."  The Soviet situation does not directly apply as they are land locked and surrounded by enemies (Except if they decide to go to Limited War and try to knock out Rumania while the Germans are busy in France).  However, the rule for the invasion of France is pretty clear.  ZOC do not extend across "borders."  The implication of this is that, French and CW ZOC do not extend into Belgium, nor do Belgian ZOC extend into France,  Dutch ZOC do not extend into Belgium and Belgian ZOC do not extend into the Netherlands.

These two rules, have been extended by common usage and various erratum to include the invasion of Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece which are the only three countries with significant land forces that usually get invaded.  However, these all get attacked sequentially so the question about whether or not their ZOC extend into adjacent countries if they receive a DOW in the same turn is left to the imagination.  

One of the errata had a rule that said if the country's military forces were restricted to the national borders then their ZOC did not project outside the country nor could they attack enemy units in hexes adjacent to the border.  I don't regard the errata as necessarily "official" but they do indicate how groups have wrestled with this subject in the past and the decisions they arrived at.

The "intent" of the designers seems to be to restrict a countries ZOC to within it's own borders during the initial movement phase of the attacking player and that is the way I believe CWIE2 should be coded.
  In game terms:  "Zones of Control" are pure game constructs.  We use them for whatever we want to use them for, so it is just as valid to see them as an artifact of the defense which activates instantly as to see them as something that acts as a force field along a political boundary for half a week.  The use is whatever the game needs.


  I fail to see a crying need to facilitate cross-border attacks during the first phase of an attack on a neutral.  So addressing the programming need to KISS would seem to be preferable.
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