Larry Harris: Strategic Movements Mechanic

Quick summary of the first couple of turns of a game using this system (if I understand it correctly):

Austria moves in to contest Venice and Poland, the intention being that Germany will also push north to try reaching Karelia before the British. The entire Budapest army hits Serbia, but a single Russian is left contesting it.

A huge stack supplemented by new units is assembled in Vienna and is railed out to create a super-stack in Poland.

Russia withdraws the Polish garrison into Belarus but makes no attacks. An even bigger stack than Austria’s is assembled in Moscow and promptly railed into Serbia, threatening undefended Budapest and Trieste. Serbia is now defended by a Russian army of 26-10-2 units.

Some thoughts:

Despite what LH has said, I do think this system creates super-stacks, and the game is likely to focus on a dance of death between them.

I would much prefer limiting each rail move to 10 units; OR allowing any number of rail moves, but with only 10 units permitted in each tt railed into. Therefore you could reinforce weakened fronts without creating monster-armies.

Railing into contested tts seems over powerful, especially those you’ve just entered to contest.

I would consider modifying the phase order to:

combat moves
non-combat moves (SM)
combat
place new units

banning SM into, through or from contested tt.

I can see no logical reason for excluding rail movement in ally controlled tt.

Most important of all:

When you perform your SM move, you MUST make a noise like a steam train!

Aside: my new chipping system already seems to be speeding up the game. By pooling all the chips from all my A&A games I’ve just got enough chips, and having just one stack per army is a lot more manageable.

The only downside is that stacks have to be mixed old and new styles, which don’t stack too well together, but having some powers using only one type for infantry and artillery makes it workable. So:

grey - infantry
red - artillery
dark blue - fighters
brown - tanks

The super-stacks are rather tall, but less likely to get knocked over because there’s much less messing about swapping chips around.

I’ve even pressed my MB white chips into service to mark contested tts - this is useful in reminding you to adjust the IPC chart when a tt becomes contested, something rather easy to forget otherwise.

Note: other thing I’m trying here: Switzerland is impassable. I think it should be 4 IPCs/8 defenders, but I want to see the effect of it being off-limits.

Flashman,

I had similar fears of how the game might be distorted, but your explanation of super stacks gives a concrete demonstration of what I was afraid of.  I will try a system similar to what you are suggesting.

1.  Allow rail movement through allied terrritories.

2.  No rail movement through contested territories.  However, I think I’ll allow movement into and out of contested territories, provided they were already contested - and the player had at least one unit present - at the beginning of his turn.  The logic being that if they have been fighting there since last turn, they’ve had time to change the gauge of the tracks on their own side of the trenches.

3.  Any unit that moved or engaged in combat earlier in the player’s turn is ineligible for rail movement.

4.  With the restrictions in 2 and 3 above, I think I’ll allow any number of eligible units from as many territories as the player desires to use rail movement.

5.  I’m still up in the air on allowing newly mobilized units to rail move.  I’ll try it both ways.

Edit:  It just occurred to me that I didn’t cover railing into territories the player invaded this turn, but captured them outright instead of just contesting them.  I guess you could say they haven’t yet had time to change the gauge on the tracks.  On the other hand, if they overcame enemy resistance that quickly, maybe they did.  It would also reward players for invading with enough force to win in one round.  If you allow this, I guess you also have to allow rail into minor powers that have just been mobilized to your side (like Russia moving one unit into Rumania at the beginning of its turn, and then reinforcing by rail).

I suppose its reasonable that Romania can be used by Russia since it had not been enemy occupied; the assumption is that the countries as pre-alligned had some sort of “understanding” about the movement of troops.

Less so with Serbia, since it is contested. My original conception of rail movement was to build up forces at railheads behind the front line, not move units straight to the front. No piece should be able to move twice in a turn; it can either move into combat using the standard movement rules, or SM in non-combat; but not both.

I suggested that SM is done before combat exactly so that you do not get confused about which tts you controlled at the start of the turn.

But don’t forget to make those choo-choo noises! Â

Germany moves:

As usual:

Sinks UK home fleet,

Ruhr army moves in to capture Belgium,

Alsace army moves in to contest Lorraine,

Munich army moves in to capture Switzerland (decided to play OOB + SM).

Four African armies capture undefended tts,

THEN

Every other German land unit, having converged on Berlin and being joined by a stack of new units including 2 fighters, jumps on the west bound train to contested Lorraine.

So Germany now has 5-3 in Belgium, 9-3 in Switzerland, and 42-16-3 in Lorraine. Not a single unit remains in Germany, while the big Austrian stack in Poland guards the eastern front.

The Lorraine stack is so tall I’ll have to consider using white chips for 10 infantry.

Like I said on HGD, superstacks were my worry as well. It’s unfortunate they were the result of your game. Definitely something to keep in mind when tweaking.

Well, I deliberately created them to see how far the concept could run. But a totally empty Germany on round one is a pretty drastic change from the old rules, which saw an empire without rail movement having its road network clogged with troops marching to the front.

But being able to rail such a huge stack to a tt you’ve only just made contested seems downright wrong; it should at least have had to stop in tt controlled at the start of the turn such as Alsace.

Also, SM should not be permitted involving Africa, Persia, Arabia or Afghanistan.

Hmm, moving as much as you can to berlin and then SMing to Switzerland seems pretty interesting. France can only build so much.

I’m going to play with whatever rules Flashman proposes, as LH is too busy to correct the many errors.  We as an internet community should come up with our own official rules.

Also please see my rail unit image below.  When we do RR movement we run this guy around the board and whistle the tune to Thomas the Tank Engine.

@loki17:

I’m going to play with whatever rules Flashman proposes, as LH is too busy to correct the many errors.  We as an internet community should come up with our own official rules.

Also please see my rail unit image below.  When we do RR movement we run this guy around the board and whistle the tune to Thomas the Tank Engine.

Really?

Then let’s add the house rule that infantry for Germany roll twice to represent their extensive training. Then Canadians from the start get to roll three times because everybody knows we are awesome eh ;)

Yesterday i finished a game which lasted ten hours in total. We used the SM rule and the plus one from ports movement.
The allies did win, but were in much trouble throughout the game. I was the allies and am a way more experienced played then my opponent, but still it hang in the balance for the first eight rounds. Then Rome fell, but the Germans before that thought they had Russia on their knees and started sending their new troops to Paris. But it was one turn too soon and Russia with an income of only eight did fight back and got back into the game.
Austria did help by sending a large army back from Italy to Russia, but that army was needed to invade Southern France. Because that didnt happen the French could win back Belgium and invade Germany.

Even though the allies won again, this was the first time they were in trouble. And the first time they captured a capital. Tomorrow we re playing another game and then im the CP.

So far i love these new rules.

So did your game revolve around super-stacks?

No, not really. Strategies were used where the opponent had to chose between multiple targets. And if not doing that then would lose out on loads of ipc.
One solution, if it does get out of hand, is to do the sm move BEFORE placing new units. But so far in our games there hasnt been a need to.

One thing that really worries me and might bring it about to superstacks the more it is played is the fact that you only get one move. There is little reason to spread out your armies when they need to be in one spot (well, for some powers, they need 2 spots) to take advantage of this rule.

That sounds right, Von. It is true that the Turks moved all of their troops to Meso at a stand off with theBrits.

Maybe an alteration that it is not one move you can do but up to a max of, say, ten and to and from all kinds of tts, as long as you own them.

What also could help is that you arent allowed to move to or from contested areas.

I’m reminded of something I suggested a while ago - before the actual war starts each power starting at war has a “mobilization” turn. This is a single simultaneous turn for all such powers in which they can move units anywhere within their own tt. The moves are written down in secret, then enacted.

This would get those starting units to the front lines in time to give the CPs a chance, while allowing future SRM to get newly built stacks out there every turn. In this case, perhaps ONLY units starting in the capital can use SM.

I am in Maui right now with an iPad I don’t understand how to use at a Starbucks with free wifi.  This is last day of ten day vacation.  I brought copy of 1914 to look at in spare time.  I wrote up 2 essays on navy and rails issues and can’t figure out how to post them as I wrote them up as emails. I will figure this out when I get back to mainland I guess.

Anyway, concerning rails i think new units arriving anywhere in home country as a mobilization center duplicates history as rail use and should be incorporated.

I also think that moving a group of six units from one non contested location to another in Europe only in the movement phase as movement for those units involved constitutes the actual scale of use for all historical use contestants. Except the Germans who actually used it more and better.  The Austro Hungarians and Russians made hilarious mistakes in their rail use.  I think this would also be a way to show a German strength compared to the other powers by adding an attrition die roll to this type of strategic move varying as to quality of nationality moving.

Chacmool,

In my latest posting I made a slight change to allow land units to end their move in a contested (but NOT hostile) territory. This would allow units to get into an already established ongoing battle which I thought appropriate. I don’t think it’s a big change, but if you see a flaw let me know,

Larry has already stated his SM rule WILL NOT be official in any way, more like HIS house rule. That’s OK, but I really would like to see something that can in fact be a real rule change to the came rather then a house rule. Larry’s rule I think is a bit to much.

As for the naval movement, my ideas or Taveniers idea of +1 move when starting from a naval base I think are both better then Larry’s 5 SZ move. The +1 move from a base may be the best hope for an actual rule change as it is consistent with Global 1940, so I’m good with that.

All the “Rail Move” ideas are fine, but just going with the 2 territory move is less conditional I think.

We’ve been playing OOB rules for now just to see if there is any way the CP can make a go of it based upon strategy, and so far have not seen it. Will probably start using my idea next game. Will let you know.

Kim