Possible Rules Change

@Krieghund:

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

Clearly, it is NOT too early for rules changes, since there have already been several, including a MAJOR overhaul of the Russian revolution.

Technically, the only rules change has been to the Russian Revolution rules, and even that was more fleshing out than changing.  The remaining items are all errata and clarifications, most being the latter.

US transports would beg to differ, but I don’t think my debating this will help this thread much unless it becomes the idea that this fleshing out of the movement rule  :wink: is too big of an out-fleshing. If the situations are as rare as some of those who are expressing doubt about this adjustment would suggest, then it is a lot smaller an adjustment than the Russian Revolution out-fleshings.

Perhaps this is a question you can’t answer Krieg for certain reasons, and if it isn’t that’s cool, but if this idea (to allow movement into a friendly territory from a contested if the moving power already had at least one unit there) was thought of (or if it was thought of, considered more) during testing, would it likely already be the case?

It seems to me that if the prohibition on more logical movement was due to the obstacle of fear of can opening, and since the idea on the table avoids that obstacle, there are no more obstacles in the way of more logical movement.

@Krieghund:

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

US transports would beg to differ

I have neither confirmed nor denied that was a change, nor will I.

Sorry about that. It was the only thing other than the Revolution in red and there was no mention of it in the rules, so it seemed to me to be new. I’ll try not to assume next time.

So the US transport thing was changed or wasn’t it?  Is it just under consideration?  I am confused.

Oh okay, got it.  Thanks for the clarification.

vonLettowVorbeck1914 writes:
I think a lot of the posts on this topic come from not knowing why the rules are as they are in the first place regarding movement from contested TT’s to friendly one.

Not sure if you are in a position to answer this one, but what was the rationale behind not allowing Germany to move from a contested territory to an Austrian-controlled territory but allowing them to move from a contested territory to another contested territory that happens to have 1 (or more) German(s) there?

The reason for this rule is unfortunately very fiddly.  It’s there to prevent can openers, which were way too effective against Russia in playtesting.

It needs to be understood that the rule is as it is now because of the can opener worry. It also needs to be understood that the change does not allow that can opener, since an infantry of the moving power would already need to be there at the start of the turn.

A power would have been allowed to move into a friendly if not for the can opener worry. This particular rule change provides a means for allowing such movement without allowing the can opener. Thus, the obstacle to allowing it is gone, and there is not nearly sufficient reason to maintain the illogical rule as it stands.

By the way, there are more examples of this rule in action than just Russia. Refer to the FAQ thread and the rule change thread for some of them. Russia is the example I used most often since it was easy to imagine as it could happen quite early in the game relative to the other examples.

The simplest solution to me would seem to disallow movement from one contested area to another contested area altogether. This is what most wargames do and for good reason.

Exactly like in the other game. You move out of contested area, like ZOC ( they don’t let you move into another ZOC, you must move out first)

Played using this rule this weekend and it worked fine. I would probably refine it to count friendly allied original territories as counting as having a unit in for movement purposes just so allied troops defending home countries have the same rules for retreats, but its not that big a deal.

Our group will continue to to play with Kriegs rule proposal and report back. Out first game it worked very well with no problems.

As for the Russian Revolution, I tend to agree with Krieg that there are still ways to abuse the rule and its optional anyway. We played without using the revolution rules this week end and it was clear that had the rule been used it favors the allies and hurts the Central Powers. Being an optional rule, I would never agree to use it as a Central Power player.

Less so denying the CP a victory city (which it does) is denying them the Russian IPCs for capturing Moscow and the rest of her territories. There are about 12 IPCs that can be captured without using this rule and there simply is no advantage to the Central Powers.

The only way it might help is if Russia retreats to Moscow without fighting any major battles and forces a multi turn battle for Moscow, but even then it would only be a couple turns as she would not be able to hold on long.

My group is working on some Ideas, but for now, we wont be using this optional rule (see my game report).

Kim

I have yet to have any problems with this rule being abused (although since I came up with it I am probably not a good tester as I proposed it because I was already confident there would be no abuse).

We are coming up on two weeks since release, is there a chance of this being made official before the release of the official FAQ?

Another nail in the German coffin.

The only way they can reinforce a defensive western front already is to “ripple” units down from Kiel, each region reinforcing the one to its immediate south.

Not allowing any movement from contested would have to be combined with rail movement.

@Koningstiger:

The simplest solution to me would seem to disallow movement from one contested area to another contested area altogether. This is what most wargames do and for good reason.

We used Krieg’s new and improved movement rules, and had no hitches; in fact, it DID prevent one instance of ‘can-opening’ into Russia.

@MistuhJay:

We used Krieg’s new and improved movement rules, and had no hitches; in fact, it DID prevent one instance of ‘can-opening’ into Russia.

Could you elaborate a bit more? In testing the rule before I proposed it I found that it allowed no more can opening than before, but I didn’t notice too much can opening being prevented.

@Krieghund:

An example would be if there were a German force contesting Poland with Russia, then Austria-Hungary on its turn moves into and contests Ukraine.  The current rule prevents Germany from abandoning its fight in Poland to jump into Ukraine and get one step closer to Moscow without having to fight to get there.  Leap-frogging is basically taking advantage of the turn order to capitalize on your allies’ advances, which circumvents the purpose of contesting territories.

What is the consensus on moving troops out of a contested territory into a territory that an ally controls (not contested)?

Do you already have to have a troop in there? The possibility exists for Austria to attack with overwhelming force in somewhere like the Ukraine which could allow Germans to leap-frog into there without the “one troop” stipulation.

But then you have the odd problem is that German and Austria are probably going to be slicing up Russia in odd ways, which means some retreat options that seem plausible would suddenly become disallowed.

For example: in our first game, German troops were advancing on Moscow and were in Livonia, contesting it. An unforseen landing by the UK in Karelia stopped the German’s plans and they decided to retreat, except that Poland was controlled by Austria and Germany did not have one unit there. Belarus was being contested by Austria so Germany obviously couldn’t jump out of their battle and into there.

It seemed silly that Germany couldn’t retreat to Poland via virtually any version of the rules so we let it happen.

Another good example is if Austria controls Switzerland, without a unit there Germany could not retreat there from a contested territory around it (maybe to avoid a big allied counter-attack, or to regroup, etc). Having to leave a token infantry all around you just in case you need to retreat to a friendly territory seems clunky.

To me it seems the easiest application of the rule would be that you can move units out of a contested territory and into an uncontested allied territory as long as the destination territory has been held by that ally for one round (thus stopping you from just smashing a territory with one power and then immediately moving another power’s troops in).

This combined with the provision that you have to have one troop in a contested territory at the start of your turn to move units from another contested territory into it seems to pretty much solve all of the problems with the rules except a couple scenarios.

While it works good for the “can opener” protection, here is an example where it might be a little  :?

Let’s say that Germany invades Moscow and captures it. On UK’s turn the send units to Karelia. Then on Russia’s next turn, for some reason they had some troops that were slow getting back from beating up Turks, Russia reinvades Moscow and liberates it. Now, knowing that the UK is going to try to reinforce it, Germany sends over a token force to contest Karelia with the UK. When the UK’s turn rolls around, under the above rule, they cannot send troops to reinforce Moscow because Russia has not held it for one turn (maybe they need to rebuild a few bridges). Of course that wouldn’t be possible anyway in any of the rules, so maybe it’s not too bad.

@MistuhJay:

We used Krieg’s new and improved movement rules, and had no hitches; in fact, it DID prevent one instance of ‘can-opening’ into Russia.

I certainly do have the impression that the suggested rule change is an improvement over the current rule.

yes to this proposal, which we have played three times without any problematic effects, and feel to be rather more logical than the original rule.

We’ve yet to see any problems with this, and it seems like the support for it is very solid. What’s the word on this becoming official?