[WarInEur] Flexibility for house rules.

[Hansen]

You asked what else to have "flexible".

When it comes down to it, there are several common elements that were in the
discussions. Essentially the ideas work out to "If X, then Y". While it is
very nice to have the computer keep track of things, a reasonable set of
house rules lets us set the X. As an example, I and my opponent can agree
that 10 BEF divisions have to have fought in France '40, can't be withdrawn
as full divisions until Paris falls (or the Germans are next to Paris), but
can be withdrawn as BG. Maybe the rules are more detailed, but as humans we
can work that out. The real problem is implementing Y. Ideally, we have a
table that allows for a wide variety of Y results to be implemented, even if
it requires human editing. 

So what are these Y elements?
1) Increase or decrease German political points.
2) Increase or decrease loot (production and personnel) points for every
country.
3) Allow control of countries to change (e.g. Yugoslavia joins the Axis).
4) Allow restrictions on countries army movement to change.
5) Allow for units to be added, deleted or changed.
6) Allow for control of hexes to be changed and for features (e.g. Cities,
rail lines, etc) to be added to hexes.
7) Allow for railroad/port status to be changed.
8) Allow for the Mediterranean restrictions to be turned on/off (so Axis
allowed to transport into western med or allies not allowed to transport
into middle med).
9) Allow for amount of transport to be changed (whether this is done by
TRANS units being added/subtracted or just designating number and scope of
permanent transport.
10) Allow for the Axis high seas interdiction to have a modification to the
die role (to make it more or less likely the interdiction takes place).
11) Allow for supply ranges to be changed (preferably by different
zones/countries).
12) Allow for air ranges to be changed.
13) Allow for production rates and production points to be changed.
14) Allow for additional random numbers to be generated between a min and
max inclusive to be used by players.
15) Allow for combat modifiers in a hex to be changed (both as +/- to die
roll, +/- to defensive strength and as multiplier, should be assignable to
attacks through any or all of the hex sides).
16) Allow for editing the combat results table.
17) Allow for changing unit strengths for all countries to be designated
(both increase and decrease) with the trigger points being able to be set by
calendar or by manual change.
18) Allow for changing the air combat results tables including making the
automatic shooting down of support air be a combat result instead.

There should also be a list of all the changes made during the game.

Note that all of this gives the computer game the flexibility to be more
like the board game and thus amenable to house rules. Any house rule you
implement in the computer game could also be done in the board game.

Given all the above, I have a hard time thinking of any "If X, then Y"
option that has been discussed that we couldn't implement. Want to test what
would have happened if the Maginot was longer, #15 gives you that ability.
Want to see what would happen if the rail net into southern Russia was more
historical, #6 allows that.

The different ideas of pro-axis Vichy, additional political/loot points, etc
for not deploying sufficient BEF can all be done.

If we find house rules that are really nice, we can look to a glorious
future of implementing them as options. But at least we would have a
reasonable way of implementing them in the computer game.