Larry Harris: Strategic Movements Mechanic

The way I use the SM as follows:

Only move through your own provinces.
You can move from or to an area contested by your units, but you cannot move through a contested area. So you have to stop at the first contested area you encounter.

What happens is that the Germans and Austrians get the most out of this. But the others can use it as well. Very handy for hit and run tactics, or reinforcing critical areas.

I love this new rule and hope it will become official.

@Aristokles:

So, it’s unclear to me whether, under this proposed rule, you can only do one strategic move per turn, or you can do as many as you’d like, provided they all qualify.  This rule, along with allowing all ships to move 5 spaces, seems like a radical change to basic game mechanics.  (It also makes cruisers even more worthless.)

My impression is that a change is needed, but this seems like a severe overreaction to me.  It seems like the much simpler option would be to just allow all ground units to move two spaces, provided that none of their movement was combat-related.  So no blitzing, no moving two spaces into combat, if you withdraw from a contested territory you can only move one space.  To me that seems to address the basic imbalance in the game without fundamentally changing the nature of the game.  Don’t destroy the village in order to save it.

Once per turn ffs

I really can’t buy the idea of not being allowed to SRM through Allied controlled tt.

To all intents and purposes, each alliance had a single rail network (at least in connected regions), and indiscriminately transported units around it regardless of nationality.

Even in the case of German and Russian areas (which had different gauges), new lines would be laid down, and rolling stock converted to join newly won areas up to the networks. Why not allow Germany to rail an army from Berlin to Baghdad; isn’t it up to the Allies to cut the link by capturing a connecting tt?

Another thought: all SRM must involve your capital. That is, the army to be railed must either start or end the move in the capital, but can travel to or from any other connected friendly tt. That way the capital acts as a natural hub of your movements, but you cannot simply warp an army from one front to another; in effect it must return to the capital for redeployment. Think of it recharging its batteries and refitting before being sent to a new hellhole.

The problem is for the UK and US; could they use Paris as a transport hub for units on the continent?

Perhaps a power can use any friendly capital as a SRM hub?

Hurray for another spaghetti throwing contest

Honestly what’s wrong with simple tried and true g40 mechanics?
Naval base gives +1 capitals give +1 easy and not absurdly game altering

Leave the risk mechanics out lol

I have changed my mind about this, I do not want magical movements in my A&A games

We mustn’t disagree with Larry; we’re here to test his ideas, not come up with our own.

Personally, I think moving 2 spaces for all units might do the trick.

Larry what you gotta do is make a second edition and have railroads printed on the map so people can only transport someways. Would work extremely well :D. This would be an awesome mainly because Indian units should not be allowed to help fight the Germans and Austrians on the Eastern front on turn 3

(Waiting for 2nd edition)

@Flashman:

We mustn’t disagree with Larry; we’re here to test his ideas, not come up with our own.

Personally, I think moving 2 spaces for all units might do the trick.

you say we’re here to test his ideas and not come up with our own and then share your own idea on the subject ftw…

@Uncrustable:

Hurray for another spaghetti throwing contest

Honestly what’s wrong with simple tried and true g40 mechanics?
Naval base gives +1 capitals give +1 easy and not absurdly game altering

Leave the risk mechanics out lol

I have changed my mind about this, I do not want magical movements in my A&A games

How about a new unit similar to naval bases or air bases in 1940?  This would be a Railroad or transportation hub which would allow land units plus 1 to movement?  Or all units moving from a capital can move two spaces.

1914 was broken oob just like global was.  Cut corners to increase profits.

@loki17:

How about a new unit similar to naval bases or air bases in 1940?  This would be a Railroad or transportation hub which would allow land units plus 1 to movement?  Or all units moving from a capital can move two spaces.

1914 was broken oob just like global was.  Cut corners to increase profits.

Let capitals increase movement by 1, i just said this

I posted this on Larry’s site Monday with little response:

Strategic Movement

"During the move phase any land and naval units may move up to double their normal move rate provided they move entirely through Friendly territories or sea zones "

Comments: Kills 2 birds with one stone. This is a simple and clean compromise. The extra movement is for strategic redeployment only, you cannot move into a combat situation. Subs may move through hostile sea zones at double per their normal special ability. Cruisers are now a little more valuable, being able to go 6 sea zones and get in position to threaten shipping lanes or provide quicker support.

Land units can get to the front a little quicker, and can go from one front to another much quicker, but it’s not a game breaker from the current rules. They cannot move into a combat situation with this move, but will be able to reinforce areas much quicker. These rules do not apply to Fighters (Naval and Land units only).

This is not as radical a change as what Larry proposed, but it does give those that complained about the slowness of getting units around without being abusive. The rule covers both land and sea in a single simple descriptive sentence with little complexity.

Lets hear what you think.

Kim

Bwaaa Haaa Haaa Haaa, a lurker no more! :evil:

I’ve been looking at the boards and finally decided to comment on some of the topics.

First off, I think Kims idea sounds like the right one.

As for you that are ragging on the MOD Larry put forward….

I think a sense of scale might dispel some of the misconceptions that are running rampant.

First the duration of one turn is about 8ish months. I base this on the rules concerning the introduction of tanks, the soonest the Russian revolution can start and the turn the US gets activated.

So, what can you do in 8 months? In 1812 Napoleon and his army marched from what was then the Duchy of Warsaw to Moscow, fought some battles along the way, took Moscow, were told to shove off in the following peace talks, started the march back home with starving troops, bad weather and the Russians being generally poor hosts. The last French troops left Russian soil less than 5 months after the main body of the Army entered Russian soil back in the summer. Lets see,  over 3 months left in the turn… How about the army march back to Paris. The French could march 500 miles in forty days, so if they had been in good shape, this would have been plausible. This would bring the total territories covered by the army in one turn to 10. All this done with marching songs and shoe leather. No site to site beaming, no bikes on steroids, no warp drive, no SRM.
Think this was a one-off? In 1813 the 104th Regiment left Fredericton and arrived in Kingston about 2 months later. Well over 600 miles in a Canadian winter, with a 2 week stop in Quebec city.

As for a move of 5 for all sea units… The submarine Deutschland made the trip from Bremerhaven to Baltimore in 2 weeks. That’s 6 sea zones. If you extend that out to 8 months you get 96 sea zones per turn. Yikes! But this wasn’t a combat mission and you would have to add in time for fuelling and stuff.

So, how about s surface ship instead? The SMS Wolf left Kiel on 30 November 1916 and returned home on 24 February 1918. this was a touch under 15 months, so call it about two turns. Total sea zones travelled? Well, lets see, she departed Kiel and headed north of Scotland and then took a left. She then took another left at the Cape of Good Hope and headed up to India to lay mines outside of two ports. Then headed through the waters of South Asia to the waters of Australia and New Zealand. She sunk 37 vessels(two of which were warships) for a total of 110,000 tons. And, for good measure,  she returned home with 467 POWs and many tons of valuable loot. But, just how many sea zones did she travel in two game turns, all the while fighting battle after battle? Lets see, 13 gets her to India, at which point they are off the map, lets say another 7 for off map movement for a total of 20 sea zones there and assume another 20 for the return trip.

So, 20 sea zones a turn combat movement for ships anyone?
Or all ground units being able to march 10 territories before engaging in combat?

No, I didn’t think anyone would.

The rule Larry suggested is unrealistic, but not in the way you think. And it isn’t SRM.

Welcome to the boards, and I personally appreciate the well though-out post, but I have never been one to get too bogged down in exact correctness in terms of one turn counting as X amount of time for any A&A game. Time has always been quite abstract in A&A.

do you really want to play a game where every turn any unit can move anywhere on the map?
seriously?

lol

the argument that ‘well a turn is 8 months’ is pure sillyness, noone would want to play that very long

not to mention naval movement at 5 would make cruisers an absolutely worthless bonehead purchase
usa could attack autobots capital turn 4 with 12 units
germany could make a huge stack and just rampage around like an out of control wrecking ball

dont get my wrong i do enjoy a game of risk everynow and then

Von, I agree that A&A time is abstract at best, that’s why I qualified my “about 8” months by adding “ish” onto the end of the 8. Double the fudge factor to cover my bases  :wink:

As for you Crusty, why wouldn’t you want to play a game with a turn scale of about 8ish months? It doesn’t mean you have to take that long in real time to play each turn.

And rules don’t have to reflect real world travel times for the units depicted. In fact, my post was an argument against such a thing. I started off by … lets see

@Grognard:

First off, I think Kims idea sounds like the right one.

That’s right, I started off by saying I liked Kims idea best. If you haven’t read Kims post yet, please do so at your earliest convenience.

Then I continued to my modest proposal with the express purpose of quieting thous who were giving Larry a hard time.
I know, I know
@Grognard:

As for you that are ragging on the MOD Larry put forward….

I think a sense of scale might dispel some of the misconceptions that are running rampant.

and concluding with

@Grognard:

So, 20 sea zones a turn combat movement for ships anyone?
Or all ground units being able to march 10 territories before engaging in combat?

No, I didn’t think anyone would.

Might have given you the idea I was advocating increasing movement rates by an order of magnitude, but I was subtly advocating against it.

@Uncrustable:

@Flashman:

We mustn’t disagree with Larry; we’re here to test his ideas, not come up with our own.

Personally, I think moving 2 spaces for all units might do the trick.

you say we’re here to test his ideas and not come up with our own and then share your own idea on the subject ftw…

:-DI thought the same!

I think no one likes the sea movement of five. But most of us like the plus one from ports. Maybe lower cruiser to eight IPC and we are done on the naval side of the game.

I have onlyone game under my belt with the SM but liked it a lot. The CP stand more of a chance, while it also helps the allies.

It IS SRM, not a bicycle race.

Cruisers are not worth buying already, unless some form of naval retreat/pursuit as I’ve proposed is introduced.

The problem with unlimited sea movement is that in reality the enemy would get the chance to move and intercept, clearly not possible here unless we introduced a complex hidden sub placement.

A reasonable limit of 10 units in SRM eliminates the super stack menace. Enough to reinforce a front with new units, not enough to move an entire front in the blink of an eye.

Well my post was not directed at anyone in particular
I just wanted it abundantly clear that I am 100% against this movement, even though at first I thought it sounded good

I don’t see why can’t use simple not so radical mechanics such as the bonus movement from bases in G40

i still prefer my version: you can only move through your original home territories that way. you can use those of your allies aswell, but you’d need to move to the new railway network. so troops from berlin move from berlin tot munich G1, G2 they move to tyrolia, G3 they can move to budapest (and stop), G5 they move into serbia or romania, even if it’s austrian controlled etc. so it gets troops faster to the front, but not to the battleline (i can imagine quite well there weren’t that many efficient operarating railroads in Western-Flanders by the fall of 1918)….

I think the biggest problem for the CP is that they chose for a strategy, namely Paris or Moscow, and can impossibly alter that after a couple of turns. And the allies see it coming from G1 so can act accordingly. With this drastic new rule the Germans can alter their plans if they need to and the fact the allies need to be alert on that means they have to always spend IPC in case the Germans decide to attack the west instead of east. With the plus one from capitals it doesnt change much, because troops from Poland cannot move fast to the other side.

And the mega large stacks moving around the board will perhaps happen every now and then. But I dont think we’ll see Germans moving 100 units to the west and the turn after that to the east. I think you’ll see it once, after Paris or Moscow has fallen.