Larry Harris: Strategic Movements Mechanic

For what it’s worth, I also think that S-Movement should be allowed into but not through Contested Territories. That seems to make more sense to me.

@Flashman:

I agree, its ridiculous that Germany cannot move units by rail through Austrian and Ottoman territory.

The players should not have to think “do I want to take that tt if it stops my ally moving armies through by rail?”

So yes, make it unlimited through friendly tts, but it must stop in contested. Make sea movement unlimited as well, but not into combat, including mined areas.

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

The requirement that your power controls it or contests it is going to lead to that same ridiculous situation we had before the change to movement out of contested territories, where the enemy is going to move out of a contested territory or avoid contesting a territory to avoid making that a possible route.

It will be once again easier to move into a contested territory than into a TT your ally controls.

Allowing movement through allied territories will make it tougher on the CPs.  You could have Italians landing in Paris from Rome each turn.

Allowing movement through allied territories will make it tougher on the CPs.  You could have Italians landing in Paris from Rome each turn.

Until Rome is taken by Austria, then you’d just have stranded Romans in Paris.

Or the flip side, Britain once it lands can reinforce Italy without ever entering the med. France can do it on any Italian front immediately. Broken and I’m glad they saw that before posting this optional rule.

I’m not sure I see a problem with Italian units moving by rail to reinforce Paris, or British units reinforcing Rome after landing in Brest.  How would this break anything?  I know it didn’t happen historically (at least not in any major way).  But I think that was more a matter of Italy not being able to spare any troops, and Britain and France being similarly unable to divert anything from the Western Front meat grinder.  I don’t think it had anything to do with a lack of roads, rail lines, and ferries being available between France and Italy.

Moving through is not the same as moving to.  :wink:

Let’s not forget that you currently CAN under the rule move through originally allied territories-if they are contested.

Guys if we let strategic move through allies territories withou restrictions, we will see odd things like a full german attack on India round3.

I don’t understand why Larry would want to mess with this game right away like this. He prepares player for the slow moving type of game in the forward of the rule book, …
“While playing this game you will quickly realize that this is not World War II. There are no massive sweeps across continents
with blitzing armored divisions and aircraft. Instead, there is a series of determined offensives resisted by equally determined
armies dedicated to holding the line. You will find that your depleting resources of men and artillery must be deployed with
great thought and efficiency.”

Seems like this proposed additional rule is abandoning the essence he was trying to capture? Anyone else think so?

“Seems like this proposed additional rule is abandoning the essence he was trying to capture? Anyone else think so?”

Sort of.  I haven’t had a chance to play it out yet with strategic movement, but wouldn’t it also help defenders reinforce critical areas, evening things out?

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.

@Noll:

Guys if we let strategic move through allies territories withou restrictions, we will see odd things like a full german attack on India round3.

Who mentioned 0 restrictions?

Well Cruisers additional movement is useless if you use these optional rules. Guess they made cruisers even more useless

Today I played a game with my friend with the SMR. We altered the movement of ships by +1 if you leave from a friendly port.

It was a way more fun game. Chances shifted from him to me, but after six rounds, when time was up, we had to write everything down to play again another time. I never, ever did this btw. Never in all my 200+ games of an Axis and Allies game.

Rome s about to fall, France and Russia are holding their own, the British have no fleet and Turkey is setting foor in Africa while their main army is at a standoff with the British in Persia.

It helps the defender as well. Especially in cases where Moscow s surrounded and the Russian army can make a move on one of the German held provinces and then move everything back to defend Moscow. Same with Paris and Rome.

I love the rule and i think the port rule is enough to help the fleet gain movement while leaving the cruiser faster to keep its admavtage.

For people who’ve tried this, is there a “super-stack” issue?

That is: Germany builds a massive stack of 100 units, and just sends it around the board crushing any enemy stack that begins to approach it in size.

This is not practical under standard rules because movement limitations mean a power cannot afford to have that many units stuck in one area of the board. But if it can warp from Lorraine to Belarus…

If this is a problem, maybe restrict SRM to a maximum of 10 units?

Or a stacking limit on all tts, 20 units?

Today I played a game with my friend with the SMR. We altered the movement of ships by +1 if you leave from a friendly port. �

I like this. It is a well tested rule from Global 1940 that works well, the Naval Ports are already on the map board, and still keeps Crusiers somewhat valuable (they would be worthless if everthing moves 5 SZs).

the 5 movement for ships is a bit much. I wouldn’t mind a double move in a non-combat situation, but the +1 you used is a very idea and has precident from other versions of the game that have already proven to work well.

The Strategic Movement still needs some clarity though as the total implications are not yet obvious.

Kim

If this is a problem, maybe restrict SRM to a maximum of 10 units?

Or a stacking limit on all tts, 20 units

There never has been any stacking limit for any of the World A&A games (ie, there is in D-Day) so I can’t see this. As for a limit on how many units might be able to move, that is worth considering. I can see a problem with creating a giant roving “ameba” that devours everything in its path and then moves across the galaxy (oops, game board) to kill something else.

10 unit limit might work. Still not sold on any of this in Africa though.

Kim

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