Hey Sired,
Corpo24 and I printed out your notecards and tested out your tournament rules yesterday for a full game. It was a lot of fun! We may wind up playing some games in the tournament format even when we’re just doing casual pickup games. I especially like the way the railroad movement makes it possible to launch and complete multiple invasions within the 8-round turn limit. The railroads are limited enough that you can’t just pick up a massive stack of infantry and teleport it to the center of the board, but they’re useful enough that you can actually get significant forces across Poland, Siberia, China, etc. in just a few turns, leading to a more dynamic, complex, and interesting set of front lines. Less mindless marching, more tactics, and an overall faster pace to the game. Thank you very much for developing and sharing all of this!
I wanted to make sure we got one detail right about the technology rules. It sounds like the major powers start at Phase I for one technology, and can pay 4 IPCs to raise that to Phase II on turn 1. Then, on turn 2, they can pay another 4 IPCs to raise that to Phase III. Then, on turn 3, they roll a die. Assuming the die isn’t a 6, they can pay the value shown on the die (call it 3 IPCs for the sake of argument) to advance to Phase H. Finally, at the start of turn 4, they can pay 1 IPC per die to roll some dice to try to achieve the technology, which would then kick in immediately. If a major power wanted to develop a second tech, they could not start development until turn 5, at which point they would pay another 4 IPCs to get the new technology to Phase I. The technology would hit Phase II on turn 6, Phase III on turn 7, and then you would need to roll a 6 to develop the second tech on turn 8…otherwise turn 8 just lets you move the second technology to Phase H, and then the game ends before you can advance the tech off of Phase H and have it actually take effect.
So, unless you roll a 6 on at least one of your two advance-from-Phase III die rolls, it’s not possible to discover two technologies within the standard 8-round turn limit. Is that correct?
And, to discover even one technology, even as a major power, you will typically need to pay about 14 IPCs: 4 to move to Phase II, 4 to move to Phase III, 3 (or whatever is shown on the die) to move to Phase H, and about 3 more (depending on how lucky you feel) to get some dice to roll to try to move from Phase H to achieving the technology. A minor power would need to pay about 18 IPCs, because in addition to all the above costs, they would also have to pay 4 IPCs to get to Phase I in the first place. Is that correct?
