[WarInEur] Flexibility for house rules.

[Kent & Sue Haunschild]

> 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 that 10 BEF divisions have to have fought in France '40, can't be withdrawn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 can be withdrawn as BG.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). We can do this manually now with an in game edit. but not automatically in response to a Political point trigger.  That will require a code change..
> 4) Allow restrictions on countries army movement to change.
> 5) Allow for units to be added, deleted or changed. We can modify setups Add/Delete/Move units with editor now. Creation of new units not completely coded yet.
> 6) Allow for control of hexes to be changed and for features (e.g. Cities,
> rail lines, etc) to be added to hexes.  Can do with editor now.  (However, the code does not support multiple maps at present.  So if you change the map you change it for all games in progress and both players have to use the same map).
> 7) Allow for railroad/port status to be changed. Can do with editor now.  (However, the code does not support multiple maps at present.  So if you change the map you change it for all games in progress and both players have to use the same map).

> 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). You can create a player scenario in which you change the sea Zone restrictions.  We have also added an Option that allows transport to Tobruck if Malta is Axis controlled.
> 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. (Amount of permanent transport is editable)
> 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. (editable now)
> 14) Allow for additional random numbers to be generated between a min and
> max inclusive to be used by players. (Not sure why this is needed. The program in CWIE2 generates a new random number for each combat or chance of interception.  CWIE1 was flawed in that it generated a string of random numbers for each turn.  Once you determined the order of the string you could vary the order of your attacks to maximize you success.  Thus we had the North to South convention to "prove" you weren't selecting your attacks etc. in CWIE1).
> 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).  (Can change location and type of fortifications now,  but not the combat modifiers for terrain at this time.  We do want to add a minor river hexside so we can treat rivers differently in the future).
> 16) Allow for editing the combat results table. (maybe editable now, tables are accessable, haven't tried)
> 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.  (What we have is the ability to edit the maximum number of AP that each player may: assign to a Front, the maximum number of Ap that may be assigned to Air Superiority, the Air to air combat odds, and the ratio of Airsuperiority Ap required to eliminate an Air/Ground or Air/Sea AP. Example if I want to change Set the Maximum Axis AP on  the eastern Front I can set it to 30, if I want to reduce the number of Axis AP available for air superiority missions I can set it to 20, which will mean only 20 of the 30 will be able to engage in Air to air combat, If I think that the Air to Air combat is too bloody and players don't fly enough as a consequence then I can change it to 1/10 by inserting a 10 instead of the 6 or 1/6.  If I want to make it less likely that the weaker airforce will see all its Air Ground AP eliminated then I can change the ratio to 3 or one AP lost for every three enemy AP rather than the current 1:2 ratio.  The purpose of these edits is to allow player to experiment.  The table is preloaded with the SPI/DG default values.
> 
> There should also be a list of all the changes made during the game.

Any in game edits are recorded and sent to the other players.  This includes a count of how many times the file is reloaded to check if players are replaying the turn to get better results.  However, since new random numbers are generated each time the game is loaded and for each combat it is rather pointless to try reloading anyway.  CWIE2 has much better tracking of those players who like to try shading their luck.

> 
> 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.
> 
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