I want to start by saying that this game is one of the best games I’ve ever played. I’ve only gotten to play it twice, but we had a blast both times. We did run into a few odd situations in our games that wouldn’t have happened in real life, though, and these rules suggestions below are an attempt to address a couple of them. I don’t know if these ideas have any merit, or if they were already tried and discarded as part of the design process, but I thought I’d go ahead and post them here for consideration/discussion by those who have more experience with the game than I do. At any rate, here they are:
1) Sea Patrol
Planes may patrol a sea zone. During the Air Unit Movement, a plane may be moved into a sea zone within its range and be declared to be patrolling that sea zone. The aircraft remains in its designated sea zone “on patrol” until the beginning of the owning player’s next Initial Strategic Phase unless it engages in combat.
This unit may engage any enemy ships that attempt to move into or through this sea zone. If combat occurs, any planes adjacent to this sea zone may fly to reinforce this battle (see Air Interception/Defensive Air Support). If the patrolling plane engages in combat, it must land at the conclusion of that battle per the normal aircraft rules. An aircraft on patrol may fly defensive air support (only) in adjacent sea zone (if it has the range); it must land at the conclusion of combat per the normal aircraft rules. Other than engaging in combat in the sea zone it is patrolling or flying defensive air support in an adjacent sea zone, an aircraft on Sea Patrol may not take any other action until it has been landed at the start of the owning players’ Initial Strategic Phase.
COMMENT: As I said, I’ve only played two games so far, and although the game is great, we have run into a few odd situations that wouldn’t have happened in real life. One of them is the situation where ships will go right through a sea zone containing an island with enemy aircraft based there. In real life these ships would have been engaged by the aircraft; in the game the ships are allowed to move through unmolested. This is especially unrealistic in the case of strategic movement; you simply couldn’t run supply lines through areas that were within the operational radius of an enemy airbase. This is the reason why the Americans neutralized Japanese island airbases as they advanced across the Pacific (and a reason the Japanese had those bases there in the first place). By allowing aircraft to intercept enemy shipping, I believe it might give the Japanese player an incentive to fortify the islands with aircraft as was done historically, which would force the American player to have to deal with them. Another possibility to try with this is to say that an enemy aircraft patrolling a sea zone prevents supply from being traced through that sea zone.
2) Admirals
A fleet of 5 combat ships or fewer may deploy in a sea zone as normal; fleets consisting of more than 5 combat ships must be commanded by an Admiral. Admirals cost 1 point and take 1 turn to build. With an Admiral, a fleet may consist of up to 10 combat ships. Fleets larger than 10 ships may be deployed, but each combat ship in a sea zone over the limit of 10 requires the expenditure of one production point each. This represents the strain created by trying to keep a large force properly supplied. The check for stacking is made at the end of the movement phase, and payment of production points for any over-stacked ships is made at that time.
COMMENT: This is the other big thing we’ve seen in our games – Japan and the US end up with one big fleet each and have a big Jutland-style Throw Down. While a battle involving 90% - 100% of each side’s fleet could have happened, in reality both sides had enough strategic interests that they had to be dispersed into smaller fleets in order to accomplish all their goals. As it is, it looks like deploying smaller naval forces is just asking to have them all get whacked. In the game system I don’t think there is any way to give players an incentive to deploy in smaller groups, so I thought perhaps giving a disincentive for recreating the Spanish Armada by having to pay production points for the privilege might be effective.
I didn’t want to suggest a flat stacking limit, since there might be valid reasons for creating a vast armada, but I’d like to see doing this as an option, and not as a matter of course. The production point required for each over-stacked ship make sense to me – trying to supply a naval force larger than a certain number of ships would begin to overtax the supply system at some point.
Frankly, I don’t know if this is a good idea or not. I haven’t played the game enough to know if our experience is unique or common to everyone. The numbers I threw out for how many ships could end their movement in the same place is completely arbitrary; the numbers 5 and 10 “felt” right. Playtesting (if this idea is considered to have merit) might show these numbers need to be adjusted.
Anyway, those are my ideas. Any comments, suggestions, threats, etc. are welcome.
