I should also add that for a “bid”, we give the US “improved shipyards” and that seems to balance things out.
"East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion
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@The-Janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
you either get them or you don’t
You’re going to have to unpack what you mean by that.
If China is allowed to effectively be a 16 IPC swing on a random die roll, I’m calling bullshit.When you “get” a major neutral, would you get all of their units/territories? Or if they can still be influenced back to the other side, are you basically suggesting we compress the 9-point influence scale down to just 3 (positive, neutral, negative)?
Yes, you are correct I am proposing effective a 3 point scale.
An alternative would be variable entry. China always comes on the Soviet side, OAS on the NATO side. The Arab League would still be random.
As this a mod, I could have different scenarios with different rules.
Looking at the East & West rules, it seems unlikely that you could ever bring a major neutral over. You only have a 1/6 chance to move it one step and your opponent can deploy spies to counter you.
As E&W is set in 1948, the Chinese Civil War is still raging and a Nationalist victory possible.
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I think its best for the mod to function with basic unit attack and defense values and just use the forum dice roller and edit mode for the neutrals, spying and tech.
Just having that would be leagues better than what we are currently using, lol.
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@The_Good_Captain Tech will be optional
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@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Looking at the East & West rules, it seems unlikely that you could ever bring a major neutral over. You only have a 1/6 chance to move it one step and your opponent can deploy spies to counter you.
Have you considered the knock-on effects of changing those mechanics?
Would you want China and OAS to become active powers?
Or would they just swing all their income, units, and territories to USSR/USA in one dice roll?Genuinely curious as to what you’re thinking this implementation would look like.
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@The-Janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Have you considered the knock-on effects of changing those mechanics?
Would you want China and OAS to become active powers?
Or would they just swing all their income, units, and territories to USSR/USA in one dice roll?I was assuming they would become active powers on their own. But that is not the only possibility. You could have them join the power recruiting them.
The problem with E&W rules for neutrals is that they are just passive sources of income, that can also be attacked. That is not very interesting.
We could also try eliminating major neutrals entirely. The major neutrals could be handled like minor neutrals and recruited through technology or events. That is arguably more realistic and probably more interesting with wars breaking out in unexpected places.
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@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
The problem with E&W rules for neutrals is that they are just passive sources of income, that can also be attacked. That is not very interesting.
I think you’d just be swapping one problem for another, because making them function in more “interesting” ways would throw the game balance completely out the window. Also, the USSR can attack any neutrals at any time, but NATO can only attack major neutrals, and only if they are providing their full income to the USSR. So generally speaking there isn’t a military solution to the passive income provided by major neutrals.
Without getting long-winded about it, China basically serves as a buffer for the USSR, keeping the US and UK to the perimeter; if the Americans could just land anywhere along the Pacific coast of Asia, that’s a whole different ball-game – and not in a way that’s good for the USSR.
The other function of major neutrals is to prevent the game from being bogged down with roughly double the number of minor neutrals on the map. Having them function as a bloc and then tying them into things like nuclear complications, controlling the Suez Canal, and North Korea rules are what make the system really shine. This also circles back to the rule allowing the USSR to attack neutrals; there’s more of a downside if attacking Iraq means that Syria, Jordan, et al. also turn against you. If you get rid of the Arab League as a major neutral, I imagine the USSR would start gobbling up the middle east piecemeal in probably every game. (And I have to imagine the major neutral mechanic is an outgrowth of the original designers having tested these kinds of strategies, and found them to break the game.)
If you wanna rebalance the game around an “active China” paradigm, be my guest – but depending on things like turn order, they either get dogpiled, or they win the entire continent pretty early on. These are the types of bog-standard house rules that people immediately tried once they got their hands on the game 25 odd years ago, and couldn’t get to work. I remember those discussions, trust me.
E&W is much more about ‘politics’ mechanics than any other A&A game, full stop, and basically the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you swap out one mechanic for something you think is more interesting, that doesn’t immediately mean it’ll be better or that the game will even still function properly from a balance perspective. Trying to reinvent the China rules is probably the biggest hornet’s nest you could kick, and it’s not much less perilous to mess around with how the Arab League works, either.
Honestly, if you feel the need to strip things down, but maintain the flavour of it, I can definitely give you some suggestions in that regard – I’ve written an E&W scenario for Risk. But I’d lean more towards major neutrals not having any mechanics for getting active, than to add mechanics making that easier to do.
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@The-Janus So is there any plausible reason to attack a major neutral except maybe USSR attacking the Arab league? It sounds like there isn’t . Which is easy enough to handle in a scenario.
It seems a shame to have deployments defined for major neutrals, and not get to use them.
As always, I can have multiple scenarios which handle the major neutrals differently.
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@RogerCooper After reviewing maps, I concluded that the East & West map is closest to the TripleA Big World map, so I will implement it first on Big World and then use the actual map.
In terms of neutral handling I see the following possibilties
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Major neutrals impassable except that Russia may attack the Arab League.
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Major neutrals are fully playable and can be allied through the diplomacy technology table.
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Major neutrals can be allied through the diplomacy technology table and are absorbed into the allying power. They are impassable until then.
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@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
is there any plausible reason to attack a major neutral except maybe USSR attacking the Arab league?
It’s kinda been theorized that USSR might want to attack China, in certain situations.
If China isn’t defending North Korea, or worse, if they’re actively letting NATO move units through their territory, the USSR might be better off attacking.
The other thing is that the complication table is weighted more toward China’s outrage than the other 2 majors, so if the USSR has the ability to send nukes, it’s also generally assumed that they will, whereas the US is less likely to use them; in a long enough game, that will swing China towards favoring NATO, so the USSR might pre-empt that at some point.The other option is as a game-ender, towards obtaining an economic victory. In fact, such a thing is probably pretty impossible without invading most of the neutrals on the Eurasian continent.
P.S. I still think modeling neutral contributions as N.O.'s is an option to keep in mind
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@The-Janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
is there any plausible reason to attack a major neutral except maybe USSR attacking the Arab league?
It’s kinda been theorized that USSR might want to attack China, in certain situations.
If China isn’t defending North Korea, or worse, if they’re actively letting NATO move units through their territory, the USSR might be better off attacking.
The other thing is that the complication table is weighted more toward China’s outrage than the other 2 majors, so if the USSR has the ability to send nukes, it’s also generally assumed that they will, whereas the US is less likely to use them; in a long enough game, that will swing China towards favoring NATO, so the USSR might pre-empt that at some point.The other option is as a game-ender, towards obtaining an economic victory. In fact, such a thing is probably pretty impossible without invading most of the neutrals on the Eurasian continent.
P.S. I still think modeling neutral contributions as N.O.'s is an option to keep in mind
Implementing the complication table would be difficult. The game rules already suggest dropping the complication table as an optional rule. Note that it would be possible to use having a nuclear weapon as trigger but not using a nuclear weapon. I think that in practice the high cost of nuclear weapons is more of a deterrent than the nuclear complication rules.
Using National Objectives for neutral contributions is fine.
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