VC House Rules II

I just have a feeling that there enough people out there that would want to play the game with just the victory cities/infantry placement + sub interdiction/sub warfare + fighter movement/strategic bombing rules to make it worth it to hold off on all the other rules until phase 2. I’m afraid of making phase 1 such a big change and so long that it will put people off. Since the rules are so dependent on each other it’s hard to find a place to divide the rules into separate phases, but I think I nice partition exists here by leaving all the other rules for latter phases. Do you agree?

I think we need to include the 3 aforementioned areas of rule changes together because they play such a fundamental role in bringing a ton more realism to all of the fronts around the world and bringing much better balance to the game. I think these 3 can stand on their own, separate from all other rules, and I think we should take advantage of that.

Don’t get me wrong, a ton of people we love the new combat rules, but I’m just saying that enough people want the old combat rules to necessitate keeping them separate in phase 2.

1. the act of firing in combat and non-combat sequence makes the odds of hitting more than one plane is greater than 10%.This is because each plane that flies during the turn has a 10% change of going down, so say if you get 5 planes moving each turn the odds are 50% of at least one plane getting hit. The 10% is a figure that covers the entire war and the ability of Flak batteries to hit planes. Somehow each turn we need a 10% chance so perhaps the anti aircraft fires only once?

I like your idea of just rounding the percentages to the nearest 10% for the purposes of making the conversation easier so I’ll stick with that.

Minor point, but if each plane has a 10% chance of being hit, and you have 5 planes, then the chance of at least 1 being hit is not (10%)*5=50%. It’s = 1 - (prob. of none being hit) = 1 - (90%)^5 ~ 40%.

If there is a 10% chance of all planes being shot down, and 10% of 5 planes is between 0 or 1 plane, then isn’t between 0 and 1 plane being shot down realistic? I’m not seeing what you mean by these rules not being realistic. Isn’t 10% chance of a plane being shot down (like it is in these rules) the best way to model that 10% of all planes should be shot down (like in history)?

I want to point out that the worst case scenario of a plane being shot down is 10%. That’s when it has to fly over an enemy AA gun in both the combat and non-combat move phases. Also, since AA guns fire during non-combat in the box rules, there wouldn’t be any extra rolling exept when appling to an AA gun in the same territory as the one being bombed.

Most tactical combat missions won’t be this bad because if the fighters are attacking a territory with no AA gun then generally they won’t have to fly over one to get there. If instead the fighters are tactically attacking a territory with an AA gun, then they will probably end up taking the territory and thus only have a 5% of being shot down since the taking of the territory makes it so that AA gun can’t fire in the non-combat move phase.

Generally, only when bombers are strategically bombing are they fired on both the combat and non-combat move phases. This is because territory isn’t taken and the territory being bombed has an AA gun. Historically, bombers were at greater danger of being shot down on the return trip because of the lack of escorts then. This is why I think it’s important to have them fired on in the non-combat move phase as well. I also like the fact that this allows bombers to be shot down and the bombers still do economic damage (unlike in the box rules).

3. The naval interaction is original and accurate. I prefer this method over #2. Lets keep it!

I still want subs to have the opportunity to evade (as you proposed under method 3)

Method 1 plus the ability to evade is just method 3 anyway, so you like method 3 better than method 1?

I like method 3 the best, but my only fear was that it might be viewed as too complex because it involves a lot of rolling. First opposing units roll to detect the sub, then those subs that are detected get to roll to evade if they choose to, then combat begins. I think people could get used to it, but I’m not sure.

under no means can the following occur:

1. subs taking off hits from other subs
2. subs taking hits and involved in interaction in naval combat or taken as loses from surface naval combat ( no fodder)

I agree. This was the main reason why I came up with the 6 types of combat rule. I think it’s the easiest way to make the restrictions, much better than having a million seemingly arbitrary combat restrictions for 1 type of combat.

under no means can the following occur:
also, we have to explain how destroyers can “protect” ships from attacks. Under your system it is not clear how loses are chosen. The subs should be able to “target” the ship they wish to hit, however the presence of a destroyer can “screen” out this target.

Do we really need this? I’m really asking, not trying to imply that we don’t. This is my thinking:

On defense I don’t think subs should be able to choose their targets, after all, realistically didn’t subs generally just try to evade the attackers anyway? This goes well with the rules I came up with because mathematically subs should almost always try to evade on defense.

On offense I don’t think subs should try to attack a surface fleet, unless it consists on a single weak unit. How many times did subs attack a surface fleet that wasn’t part of a convoy? Didn’t subs just tried to attack merchant shipping while avoiding opposing military units? That’s what I went for with my rules… It’s mathematically advantageous with my rules for Germany to build subs and move them out to the Atlantic only for the purposes of draining Allied income while trying to avoid combat.

I think that since subs are trying to avoid combat, we shouldn’t give them the advantage of being able to choose hits. It would then make subs try to gang up on BB’s and carriers far too often IMO.

another point is we need is a cruiser unit which has special anti-aircraft attributes under aerial attacks. So as you buy destroyers to protect the fleet from subs, you also need cruisers to protect the fleet from planes.

also we need the planes to be able to “target” ships in the same fashion as subs target ships. Something that you made with subs needs to be addressed with aerial attacks on surface ships. A cruiser will have a powerful roll in this.

I’ll start thinking about cruisers when we’re done with phase 1. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself. I already worked on a set of rules where fighters attack and defend at 2 instead of 3/4 but get to choose their targets. I think they ended up working really well, not too powerful or anything. We can employ all those new combat rules in phase 2.

I’ve tested out the 3 methods I talked about earlier, and they are all pretty well balanced. Giving subs the extra ability to choose their targets when a destroyer isn’t present might make them too powerful. As method 3 stands now, it will be mathematically advantageous for Germany to buy 1-2 subs a turn. The Allies would be lucky to sink 1 sub a turn, which will create a buildup of subs in the Atlantic and allow the Axis to have the upper hand there (all realistic). I know tech improvements are important to the Battle of the Atlantic, but we can wait to add techs until phase 2. Back to my main point, which is that with Germany having all these subs, adding any small new advantage like subs getting to hit carriers instead of transports when a destroyer is not there would be too powerful for all those subs. We need to make it disadvantageous for all those subs to gang up on the surface fleet. I only want it to be advantageous for all those subs to drain a lot of IPCs. Let’s playtest phase 1 without the subs able to choose targets and see how it plays out balance-wise. If we feel we can add in the new choose target rule, then I’m all for it. I want to add that rule, but I don’t think we can.

We can wait and introduce techs and NAs in phase 2. I have some good ideas to improve techs so that an opponent can counter tech once a player gets a certain tech. More on this later, I don’t want to add new tech material until we’re more done with phase 1.

A ton of good info here to help us design commerce interdiction rules:

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/submarines/centennial/wwii-campaigns.html