AARHE: Rule files

[tekkyy]

ok so thats one round or every round? If just round one its not enough juice.

hehe I was worried about too much juice
in OOB you can win battles with SB and not actual infantry

anyway this is related to the model of how many cycles is amphibious landing and how many cyles is the overall battle…see below

ok then out of this defender will stock more armor for defense and not just have infantry. script it.

for amphibous assault…
Step: Conduct opening fire
In the first cycle of combat, defending artillery and tanks only fire in this step only.

the +1 mountainous/snowy defense bonus was about defensive terrain bonus
I don’t think it should apply to the above preemptive shot
if you agree I would move the rule to the particular step:
Step: Defending units fire
In mountainous or snowy terrain territories, defending land units have their defence increased by 1 on the first cycle of combat.

no it can only hit what lands, so 6. On round 2 you got 12 coming in.

I am having second thoughts
normandy landings (days) is a small part of the operation overlord (months)

its best we model the landing in first cycle of combat
also makes the rules simpler

like we already have
defending artillery/tanks preemptive fire…1st cycle only
+1 defense bonus for mountainous/snowy…1st cycle only

so should try to make
shore bombardment (SB)…to be 1st cycle only?
landing limit…to be 1st cycle only?

yes the 2 limit applies now to small islands/groups ( not Philippines, Borneo or east indies.)

yeah the old list only contains Wake Island, Midway, and Gibraltar
all below 10km^2

[Imperious Leader]

Quote
ok so thats one round or every round? If just round one its not enough juice.
hehe I was worried about too much juice
in OOB you can win battles with SB and not actual infantry

ok one round.

Quote
ok then out of this defender will stock more armor for defense and not just have infantry. script it.
for amphibous assault…
Step: Conduct opening fire
In the first cycle of combat, defending artillery and tanks only fire in this step only.

ok fine…

the +1 mountainous/snowy defense bonus was about defensive terrain bonus
I don’t think it should apply to the above preemptive shot
if you agree I would move the rule to the particular step:
Step: Defending units fire
In mountainous or snowy terrain territories, defending land units have their defence increased by 1 on the first cycle of combat.

ok thats fine.

Quote
no it can only hit what lands, so 6. On round 2 you got 12 coming in.
I am having second thoughts
normandy landings (days) is a small part of the operation overlord (months)

invasions need to occur less frequently and be less easy. This is an easy way to not allow a bunch of builds landing every turn just taking stuff for the hell of it.

like we already have
defending artillery/tanks preemptive fire…1st cycle only
+1 defense bonus for mountainous/snowy…1st cycle only

so should try to make
shore bombardment (SB)…to be 1st cycle only?
landing limit…to be 1st cycle only?

ok first turn = IPC determines what can be landed

Quote
yes the 2 limit applies now to small islands/groups ( not Philippines, Borneo or east indies.)
yeah the old list only contains Wake Island, Midway, and Gibraltar
all below 10km^2

Add Hawaii, Solomon, and Okinawa, and list to include 1939 added islands which are small.

[tekkyy]

ok first turn = IPC determines what can be landed

proposed script:
_Step 1: Place units on battle board
In the first cycle of combat the attacker offloads from Transports a number of land units equal to the territory’s IPC value. Units remaining on Transports do not fire and may not be taken as casualties. In the second cycle of combat (or at the end of first cycle if combat is won by attacker) the attacker offloads remaining units.

Step 1: Place units on battle board (territories marked as small)
In the first cycle of combat the attacker offloads from Transports two land units. Units remaining on Transports do not fire and may not be taken as casualties. In subsequent cycles of combat the attacker may offload from Transport a number of land units to ‘‘top up’’ to two land units on the battle board._

Add Hawaii, Solomon, and Okinawa, and list to include 1939 added islands which are small.

Wake Island, Midway, and Gibraltar are <10 km^2 and marked as small in AARHE

Hawaii, Solomon and Okinawa are large enough as staging area and hence not marked as small in AARHE

Hawaii 28,311 km^2
Solomon 28,896 km^2
Okinawa 2,271 km^2

Allied forces in Battle of Okinawa is huge, 50% that of Battle of Normandy

last thing before moving to naval combat
if partial retreat is not hugely important I would prefer to get rid of it

[Imperious Leader]

I got an excellent solution for Shore bombardment!!!

A player may bring any number of ships he wants, what they now do is this:

The ship rolls out its attack roll and the number of what it rolls is the defending unit that is suppressed. A suppressed unit cannot fire but cannot also be taken as a combat loss. Its basically useless and should be retreated because it wont get to fire at all. So if you got a BB and it rolls a 3, then any unit that defends at 3 wont be firing and does not defend. Its not exactly destroyed but its basically a broken unit.  So a battleship can suppress all land units and air units that defend at 1-4, while a cruiser can effect only units 1-3.

Reasoning: SB had the goal of rendering the defender (which is dug in and at the advantage) basically unable to make use of his environment so he cant fire back. I would take this to mean he cant fire back from these prepared positions. The trick was to make it so that the attacker could have some choice on what unit he wanted to suppress because  the attacker had vital information prepared in advance as to where the defender had his strong points, which were blasted before the landings. This in terms of gameplay allows a stronger naval unit the opportunity to effect a wider range of units.

The other idea was this:

The BB or other SB unit rolls out and any time he hits he can select the unit that now defends at 1. So if a BB rolls a one, it can assign a defending tank a new defensive value of one.

in both systems no restrictions on naval units you bring in.

Quote
ok first turn = IPC determines what can be landed
proposed script:
Step 1: Place units on battle board
In the first cycle of combat the attacker offloads from Transports a number of land units equal to the territory’s IPC value. Units remaining on Transports do not fire and may not be taken as casualties. In the second cycle of combat (or at the end of first cycle if combat is won by attacker) the attacker offloads remaining units.

this is good.

Step 1: Place units on battle board (territories marked as small)
In the first cycle of combat the attacker offloads from Transports two land units. Units remaining on Transports do not fire and may not be taken as casualties. In subsequent cycles of combat the attacker may offload from Transport a number of land units to ‘‘top up’’ to two land units on the battle board.

Quote

Add Hawaii, Solomon, and Okinawa, and list to include 1939 added islands which are small.
Wake Island, Midway, and Gibraltar are <10 km^2 and marked as small in AARHE

Hawaii, Solomon and Okinawa are large enough as staging area and hence not marked as small in AARHE

Hawaii 28,311 km^2
Solomon 28,896 km^2
Okinawa 2,271 km^2

Allied forces in Battle of Okinawa is huge, 50% that of Battle of Normandy

ok thats fine your list is what will be used.

last thing before moving to naval combat
if partial retreat is not hugely important I would prefer to get rid of it

partial for attacker or defender?

[Imperious Leader]

OK perhaps this:

each SB successful changes the defensive value of the unit it rolled to one.

so if your BB rolls a 3 ONE tank or less is reduced to defending at one.

if you got 2 SB hits and roll a 4 and a 2, then ONE defending fighter or less is reduced to one value, and a unit either artillery or infantry also goes to one ( attacker choice) The new value of one will last for all combat rounds.

[tekkyy]

I would prefer it simple but yeah we could consider new Shore Bombardment ideas

1. to be simple, instead of reducing to 1 its ok to just make it not fire at all

2. effects has to be 1st cycle only, naval ships should never excert power inland or through out the entire campaign

3. still has to be 1-to-1 with invading land force, defender wouldn’t over expose themselves nor send excessive forces down the beach

partial for attacker or defender?

I was thinking of both
when would you want to do a partial retreat anyway?

[Imperious Leader]

I would prefer it simple but yeah we could consider new Shore Bombardment ideas

1. to be simple, instead of reducing to 1 its ok to just make it not fire at all

2. effects has to be 1st cycle only, naval ships should never exert power inland or through out the entire campaign

Well in OOB the effects are permanent. The unit is destroyed. Under this it just has a reduced combat value of 1, so it can either latter retreat or get taken as combat loss, and the # rolled determines the type of unit thats effected. IN this manner the attacker is pinning down units of his choosing ( done randomly) going after the strong points.

New we add to this our previous rules that the defender fires first and the attacker is limited to the number of invading units = to IPC for the first round…. and i feel we modeled the invasion as well as possible given what we have to work with in this game.

3. still has to be 1-to-1 with invading land force, defender wouldn’t over expose themselves nor send excessive forces down the beach

ok 1:1, but it may be a two round affair, ( example: landing in Norway) and having 3 SB but only able to land 2 units on first round , with latter SB on 2nd round?

Quote
partial for attacker or defender?
I was thinking of both
when would you want to do a partial retreat anyway?

yes definatly partial retreats for both sides as usual.

[tekkyy]

actually this supress rule may unrealistic
even all the naval support at normandy the landing wasn’t exactly easy was it? still plenty of losses

I think its because naval bombardment is during landing of friendly troops
once friendly troops start charging up the beach or hill naval bomardment STOP or else there’ll be horrible friendly fire

so bombardment does not exactly “suppress” the enemy while your troops walk all over them

I think we should stay with BB supporting infantry with a +1 like an artillery

ok 1:1, but it may be a two round affair, ( example: landing in Norway) and having 3 SB but only able to land 2 units on first round , with latter SB on 2nd round?

note its actually:
mountainous = IPC limit
small = limit of 2

so Norway = 3 land units first round

anyway I think there can’t be any SB effects in 2nd cycle
the beach battle is over
defender bonuses for example do not appear in 2nd cycle

partial for attacker or defender?

I was thinking of both
when would you want to do a partial retreat anyway?

yes definatly partial retreats for both sides as usual.

confirming whether you understood me correctly…

I am saying lets remove partial retreat for both attacker and defender

its not obvious to me why you want to do a partial retreat
(as we no longer have any complex retreat without firing or capture-enemy-troops rules)

[tekkyy]

lets resume
still waiting for your response to my last post

summary:
1. I feel suppression is unrealistic and prefer bombardment to be supporting infantry with +1 instead
2. bombardment effects (in fact, all amphibious bonuses) would be first cycle only for realism and easier game execution
3. not obvious to me why the player would want to perfrom partial retreat, give me an example when you would do it

(refer to my previous post for my reasons)

[Imperious Leader]

actually this suppress rule may unrealistic
even all the naval support at Normandy the landing wasn’t exactly easy was it? still plenty of losses.

I think its because naval bombardment is during landing of friendly troops
once friendly troops start charging up the beach or hill naval bomardment STOP or else there’ll be horrible friendly fire

so bombardment does not exactly “suppress” the enemy while your troops walk all over them

I think we should stay with BB supporting infantry with a +1 like an artillery

The suppress idea applies to the first round SB only. What is going on is the defenders position is ruined and the hard points of his defense have been neutralized. The way to simulate this is to reduce his effectiveness and not add attack value to the attacker. So we reduce him to one and to overcome the fact that the defender will always choose infantry as his loss, we assign the roll of SB to determine which unit is suppressed, so now the defender has the decision if he thinks the battle will not go well be will allocate the reduced unit as a combat loss.

Also, we install the limit of landing units on the first round to the IPC value and give the defender the opportunity to fire his artillery and non-infantry after SB to simulate the advantage of the attackers resolve. Now both seem like a smooth system  to balance out all the invasions each turn.

Id also add a new idea: For invasions we could bring back the old “co-exist rule”  Which in this case simulates a bridgehead for the invasion. In doing this the attacker does not keep any IPC and is merely holding a small portion of the territory. the defender may have the opportunity to counter attack on his turn.

Example: US and UK land in france and establish a bridgehead with say 12 units. When they landed they could have decided to keep attacking until the defender was eliminated, but the odds were not in favor of success, so they decide to rest on what they have, which gives the German the opportunity for counter attack, except now the allies are defending ( which is some cases is a good thing).

If the Germans don’t push them off, the Allies can stay put or bring more forces to france and attack with a larger force. Note: that once they have a bridgehead they no longer get more SB.

Play this out and note how it looks more like D-Day and how that went.

Quote
ok 1:1, but it may be a two round affair, ( example: landing in Norway) and having 3 SB but only able to land 2 units on first round , with latter SB on 2nd round?
note its actually:
mountainous = IPC limit
small = limit of 2

so Norway = 3 land units first round

ok this is fine

anyway I think there can’t be any SB effects in 2nd cycle
the beach battle is over
defender bonuses for example do not appear in 2nd cycle

right

Quote

Quote
Quote
partial for attacker or defender?
I was thinking of both
when would you want to do a partial retreat anyway?
yes definatly partial retreats for both sides as usual.

confirming whether you understood me correctly…

I am saying lets remove partial retreat for both attacker and defender

its not obvious to me why you want to do a partial retreat
(as we no longer have any complex retreat without firing or capture-enemy-troops rules)

ok well how bout the Jeff rule from his world war two game?

Partial retreat allowed, if attacker rolls up and the remaining defenders are not sufficient, then additional hit allocations go against retreated units…

[tekkyy]

The suppress idea applies to the first round SB only. What is going on is the defenders position is ruined and the hard points of his defense have been neutralized. The way to simulate this is to reduce his effectiveness and not add attack value to the attacker.

but in the end both landartillery and naval artillery (shore bombardment) does the same thing
neutralise the hard points, soften the target

provided its supporting an advance, the attacker has a easier time
the basic axis and allies artillery +1 philosphy

So we reduce him to one and to overcome the fact that the defender will always choose infantry as his loss, we assign the roll of SB to determine which unit is suppressed, so now the defender has the decision if he thinks the battle will not go well be will allocate the reduced unit as a combat loss.

why would defender allocate the reduced unit (instead of infantry) as combat loss?
unless the suppressed unit is suppressed for 2nd, 3rd, 4th…eycles

in the end I feel the suppression rule is a little complex and not entirely realistic

Id also add a new idea: For invasions we could bring back the old “co-exist rule”  Which in this case simulates a bridgehead for the invasion.
…
Play this out and note how it looks more like D-Day and how that went.

probably more suited to a different level of abstraction
like, would it make sense for the timeline of 6 months per turn?

note, the current plan isn’t to add further complexity to AARHE
we’ve been through adding and removing complexity previously
I kind of would only consider new rules if its a simpler way to do things (replaces a string of other rules)

ok well how bout the Jeff rule from his world war two game?
Partial retreat allowed, if attacker rolls up and the remaining defenders are not sufficient, then additional hit allocations go against retreated units…

I wasn’t talking about adding penalty to defender retreat
my question is the worthiness of a partial retreat rule

is there a need for it?
what situation would you want to perform a partial retreat?

[Imperious Leader]

Quote
The suppress idea applies to the first round SB only. What is going on is the defenders position is ruined and the hard points of his defense have been neutralized. The way to simulate this is to reduce his effectiveness and not add attack value to the attacker.

but in the end both land artillery and naval artillery (shore bombardment) does the same thing
neutralize the hard points, soften the target

no they destroy units. This is wrong. Its impossible to destroy an army from a Battleship, but the unit can be reduced in effectiveness and i feel this is a good model. And since the BB can effect units defending in a range of 1-4, while cruisers its 1-3. This gives the BB a new advantage as well.

Quote
So we reduce him to one and to overcome the fact that the defender will always choose infantry as his loss, we assign the roll of SB to determine which unit is suppressed, so now the defender has the decision if he thinks the battle will not go well be will allocate the reduced unit as a combat loss.

why would defender allocate the reduced unit (instead of infantry) as combat loss?
unless the suppressed unit is suppressed for 2nd, 3rd, 4th…eycles

Because the invasion may be very close to winning and the defender might want to take out the suppressed unit as combat loss in order to inflict maximum loses and deny losing the battle. The choice is tough, because the unit suppressed may be a tank and these cost more than infantry.

in the end I feel the suppression rule is a little complex and not entirely realistic

did you play it? Its as simple as any rule from OOB.

Quote
Id also add a new idea: For invasions we could bring back the old “co-exist rule”  Which in this case simulates a bridgehead for the invasion.
…
Play this out and note how it looks more like D-Day and how that went.
probably more suited to a different level of abstraction
like, would it make sense for the timeline of 6 months per turn?

yes thats right, but just looking at the problem with some territories that are very large like france. The rule could solve the idea that the allies keep taking the money, then get pushed off when its Germany’s turn, and then they keep coming back. Play it out. This may solve the constant invasion problem. Id like the allies to come ashore and really mean business and hold france, rather than get pushed off each turn and basically be regulated to nuisance raids.

Quote
ok well how bout the Jeff rule from his world war two game?
Partial retreat allowed, if attacker rolls up and the remaining defenders are not sufficient, then additional hit allocations go against retreated units…
I wasn’t talking about adding penalty to defender retreat
my question is the worthiness of a partial retreat rule

This goes back to the idea of allowing either side to protect its better units from counterattack. for the defender the trade off is they may face retreating fire.

is there a need for it?
what situation would you want to perform a partial retreat?

The defender may have 5 tanks and 2 infantry and the attacker has 6 infantry and 4 tanks. The defender retreats his tanks and the attacker only gets 3 hits on the first round. That saves most of the tanks and its realistic.

If we only allow full retreats the defender gets to fire for free with all his units and retreat, because retreat allocations are announced at the end of battles.

I propose they are announced at the start of the round and retreating units allocated for retreat do not fire. Play it out and see.

[tekkyy]

I would like to reiterate that we were supposed to keep it simple and produce AARHE 4.1
removal of certain rules and simplifications was the focus
introduction of new rules was not sought after, it would be counter productive to the removal and simplifications we made earlier

no they destroy units. This is wrong. Its impossible to destroy an army from a Battleship

yes , this is why I sugguest shore bombardment to be +1 to infantry instead of OOB’s shore bombardment where the ship gets to roll a combat die

but the unit can be reduced in effectiveness and i feel this is a good model.

I see what you mean but as mentioned I feel the reality is that you can’t just keep shelling the area once friendly troops are in the area
the suppression rule just feels too powerful to me, I much prefer them supporting the attacking land units

we might be simply over doing al this amphibious assault bonus for defender and attacker
maybe it would make sense to not have this suppression and also not let defending non-infantry land units fire in opening-fire
(my worry is that powerful bonuses is not realistic as the beach fighting is overly emphasised while in reality most fighting is the inland battle afterwards…your territory-IPC-based amphibious landing limit already adds the amphibious favour to the land combat)

And since the BB can effect units defending in a range of 1-4, while cruisers its 1-3. This gives the BB a new advantage as well.

we’ll worry about that in future version when we reintroduce optional units

why would defender allocate the reduced unit (instead of infantry) as combat loss?
unless the suppressed unit is suppressed for 2nd, 3rd, 4th…eycles

Because the invasion may be very close to winning and the defender might want to take out the suppressed unit as combat loss in order to inflict maximum loses and deny losing the battle.

hm….
the defending unit allocated as casualty still gets to return fire
unless it was opening-fire
but the only attacker opening-fire for OOB style shore bombardment, which is no more and replaced by my +1 to infantry rule or your suppression rule

The defender may have 5 tanks and 2 infantry and the attacker has 6 infantry and 4 tanks. The defender retreats his tanks and the attacker only gets 3 hits on the first round. That saves most of the tanks and its realistic.

um…yeah thats if we go and add a new rule for the parting shot idea

If we only allow full retreats the defender gets to fire for free with all his units and retreat, because retreat allocations are announced at the end of battles.

well…if we have a parting shot rule it would apply all the time…no reason to let full retreat be exempt

I propose they are announced at the start of the round and retreating units allocated for retreat do not fire. Play it out and see.

yeah I saw that…all that you said sounds better if yet another rule (declare retreat being combat die) is added

I think the reason why in axis and allies you don’t declare retreat at the beginning of the cycle is the time frame
it would be stupid when one side performed well in the cycle but retreats at the end of the cycle because that side declared retreat before the dice rolling
and this would be funny for a turn that represents months

[Imperious Leader]

I would like to reiterate that we were supposed to keep it simple and produce AARHE 4.1
removal of certain rules and simplifications was the focus
introduction of new rules was not sought after, it would be counter productive to the removal and simplifications we made earlier.

yes that is true

Quote
no they destroy units. This is wrong. Its impossible to destroy an army from a Battleship
yes , this is why I sugguest shore bombardment to be +1 to infantry instead of OOB’s shore bombardment where the ship gets to roll a combat die

+1 is not enough juice to make it worthwhile. The design had it more strong in effect and our solution needs to be something only more realistic, but have a decent weight of effect. +1 one round is nothing

we might be simply over doing al this amphibious assault bonus for defender and attacker
maybe it would make sense to not have this suppression and also not let defending non-infantry land units fire in opening-fire

well we need something with flavor. Let just artillery get preemptive return fire, and limit invasion by IPC each round and leave the SB as per OOB.

Quote
And since the BB can effect units defending in a range of 1-4, while cruisers its 1-3. This gives the BB a new advantage as well.
we’ll worry about that in future version when we reintroduce optional units

ok fine.

Quote
why would defender allocate the reduced unit (instead of infantry) as combat loss?
unless the suppressed unit is suppressed for 2nd, 3rd, 4th…eycles
Quote
Because the invasion may be very close to winning and the defender might want to take out the suppressed unit as combat loss in order to inflict maximum loses and deny losing the battle.
hm…
the defending unit allocated as casualty still gets to return fire

it returns fire at its reduced combat value. thats the difference.

Quote
If we only allow full retreats the defender gets to fire for free with all his units and retreat, because retreat allocations are announced at the end of battles.
well…if we have a parting shot rule it would apply all the time…no reason to let full retreat be exempt

the new idea is retreat is announced before the start of combat. Retreat declarations do not fire. Extra hits go against retreating units. that solves it.

I think the reason why in axis and allies you don’t declare retreat at the beginning of the cycle is the time frame
it would be stupid when one side performed well in the cycle but retreats at the end of the cycle because that side declared retreat before the dice rolling
and this would be funny for a turn that represents months

In the war game it works very well.

[templeton]

@Imperious:

no they destroy units. This is wrong. Its impossible to destroy an army from a Battleship, but the unit can be reduced in effectiveness and i feel this is a good model. And since the BB can effect units defending in a range of 1-4, while cruisers its 1-3. This gives the BB a new advantage as well.

I like this idea - I don’t know if you have played The Napoleonic Wars, Wellington, or Kutuzov by GMT games - but their combat system is one dice per unit - or three dice per ship - and each ‘6’ is a kill, and each ‘5’ is a disrupt - which means in the next round of combat those units don’t get to fire.

So, the idea that naval bombardment hits ‘supress’ enemy units is pretty cool - and something I’m going to house rule. I also like where you are going with artillery discussions… do you use them for a preliminary bombardment to ‘supress’ enemy untits or save them for combat to kill - knowing that killed units fire back, but supressed units (whilst they will survive) will not get to fire - and may be killed by other attacking units.

Have no idea how that will work without testing - but there have been some really interesting ideas thrown about on the board.

[tekkyy]

I’ve been busy and will be for some time

also, this phase of AARHE can’t progress if we keep getting side tracked

or maybe our goals are too different
maybe you don’t see my passion for making a palatable AARHE (for the possbility of making AARHE more relevant)

@Imperious:

well we need something with flavor. Let just artillery get preemptive return fire, and limit invasion by IPC each round and leave the SB as per OOB.

well OOB SB is too juicy, its god-like

don’t mind the high value of 4 for battleship nor make destroyer SB standard
its the preemptive fire and lack of 1-to-1 thats crazy
hate to see combats decided mostly by shore bombardment

the new idea is retreat is announced before the start of combat. Retreat declarations do not fire. Extra hits go against retreating units. that solves it.

In the war game it works very well.

better if there was a simpler way
ideally one or two sentences, a modification to existing rules rather than a rewrite of the sequence

anyway all that talk branched from partial retreat

[Imperious Leader]

Quote from: Imperious Leader on April 30, 2009, 08:42:29 pm
well we need something with flavor. Let just artillery get preemptive return fire, and limit invasion by IPC each round and leave the SB as per OOB.
well OOB SB is too juicy, its god-like

ok lets do that make it so.

don’t mind the high value of 4 for battleship nor make destroyer SB standard
its the preemptive fire and lack of 1-to-1 thats crazy
hate to see combats decided mostly by shore bombardment

ok keep it as it is then.

Quote
the new idea is retreat is announced before the start of combat. Retreat declarations do not fire. Extra hits go against retreating units. that solves it.
Quote
In the war game it works very well.
better if there was a simpler way
ideally one or two sentences, a modification to existing rules rather than a rewrite of the sequence

what wrong with: Retreats are announced before the start of combat. Units that have made retreat declarations do not fire. Extra hits go against retreating units.

[strategic planner]

Does this work for global or spring 42?

[Imperious Leader]

No it is for AAR

[PeterSteele]

Hey Guys, we enjoyed your rule files, we did even print this great AARHE Map. Very Helpful and much more interessting then the orignal rules, but it seems the rulemaking died somewhere in 2009.
The last rulefile i got is from march 2009.
Is there some progress? I could help with some clarifications (we stumbled on a few things)
Greetings and thanks