Mountains

[Flashman]

Brief suggestion for some tts being treated as mountainous terrain.

These would be:

Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Tyrolia, Bohemia, Budapest, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Smyrna, Ankara, Persia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, S. Africa?

“Sevastopol” really should be divided west-east with Caucasus mountain; similarly “Mesopotamia” north-south with highland Armenia to the north.

Congo, Rhodesia & French Equatorial Africa could be considered Jungle for the same effect.

Effects would be:

Infantry & Artillery attacking into mountains cannot be promoted.

Tanks cannot take part in combat in mountains (though they can move into or through them (by train!)
If tanks remain in a mountain tt after a decisive battle they are captured and converted to the colour of their new owner.

[mattsk]

Hi
good idea, but:

These would be:

Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Tyrolia, Bohemia, Budapest, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Smyrna, Ankara, Persia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, S. Africa

I suggest Galicia instead of Budapest, since Budapest represents today`s Hungary, which is 99% flat.

[Flashman]

Galicia is flat; the area NORTH of the Carpathians.

The main arc of the Carpathians, including Transylvania, are included within “Budapest”  on this map. Personally I’d have redrawn the area with Transylvania and Budapest (modern Hungary) as separate areas. But I had to deal with the map everyone has.

[mattsk]

Thank you, It is a bit confusing because the High Tatras (part of Carpathians) seem to be right on the border of Hungary and Galicia in this game. I have thought that the rest of Carpathians is part of Romania.

[Razor]

There are some types of terrain that favoures the defender, like mountains, marshes, swamps, forest, winter and snow. They act like giant fortess and protect the defender. At the same time, they slow down the attacker. Not only do they attack uphill, but also a lorry with supply need ten times more fuel to drive in Mountains and snow compared to Plains.

Taking this to A&A will be like this:
Defending units hit at 4 or less in Mountains.

Attacking units hit at 1 in Mountains

All units move 1 Space only in Mountains, no blitz

I think only Norway, Schwitzerland and Tyrol should be Mountains. This areas had narrow passes, snow, and swamps together with high Mountains. I dont think a hill in summer Greece could stop an attacker in the same way as the Brenner pass during Winter

That said, the whole map and the movement system is insane. It takes several A&A years to drive trough Belgium and France with its highways and railways, because this small areas are cut in hundreds of territories, but luckily its the opposite in the wasteland since the Polar Express let us walk a inf unit through Russia and Canada in no time even if they have dirt roads only in the real world. Same at the sea. In real world at ship used two weeks to cross the Atlantic but it need a year in this game. Even a 1600 sailboat is faster than the AA cruiser

[Flashman]

There are indeed houserules allowing unlimited non-combat movement. I’ve always advocated this for land (rails); never been quite convinced it would work for sea transport; how much is a ship slowed down by mined waters?

[Razor]

Attached pics of mountains from Tyrolia and Spain.

Its pretty obvious that high mountains with snow like the ones in Norway, Tyrolia and Schwitzerland is far more difficult to attack than the hills of Spain, Bulgaria, Greece etc

[Razor]

@Flashman:

There are indeed houserules allowing unlimited non-combat movement. I’ve always advocated this for land (rails); never been quite convinced it would work for sea transport; how much is a ship slowed down by mined waters?

If a turn is equal to 6 months, I hardly doubt the Atlantic convoys was slowed down that much. This issue have several options, though.

1. The typical AA house rule. Ships move unlimited spaces in noncomb movement.
2. The fix. Ships move 4 spaces. Need a special rule for debarking and embarking though, since no real ship use half a year to do that.
3. Use the rules from WiF. A turn can have several movement phases.

But now we are off topic

[Razor]

On another note, terrain rules to resolve combat and movement in mountain territories, should be easy to incorporate in online games, like the ones from Gametable online. But it would be a challenge in a board game, to keep track of different battleboards, considered the attitude of the casual player

[Dukla passer]

I think the game should be about have a fun not about ‘paper work’,really if people like really difficult stuff they should go for comp.games.

[Flashman]

Theoretically a single transport could move an entire army of 50 units across the Atlantic in a single round by shucking backwards and forwards.

There has to be some limit, so deciding that unloading ends a turn seems reasonable.

Reminder of one of my own favourite house rules:

Each and every ship must on each and every turn refuel. It does so by being alongside any friendly land tt including islands, which are all assumed to contain refueling facilities. It can do so at any time during its turn.
The aim is to limit ships to a certain range dependent on friendly refueling stations. Ships therefore cannot remain at sea indefinitely.
But the whole question of sea movement/convoys/submarines in Axis and Allies needs a complete rethink.

On the subject of mountains, it could surely be argued that tanks, certainly WW1 models, would have great difficulty operating in the mountain ranges in such regions as Spain, the Carpathians and the Balkans.

Would it not also be true to say that aircraft would find it harder to observe enemy positions, and that artillery would be less effective against ground targets? But perhaps there should be 2 levels of mountain cover.

[Razor]

On the subject of ship movement, I think its derogatory that shipping one unit from USA to Morocco is equal to shipping one unit from UK to France. My suggestion to improvement will be to give ships a 4 movement, where debarking and embarking count as a move. Embark in US is 1, move to sz is 2, move to next sz is 3 and debark in Morocco is 4. Then a tranny in the English Channel can bridge units from UK to France 2 times in a turn. Embark a unit is 1, debark in France is 2, embark next unit is 3 and debark again is 4. Of course the turn cant end with a debark. You should be able to debark in Caroline island on 1 and then move 3 more spaces.

On the subject of mountains. Yes, there should be several levels of terrain modifiers. Alpine mountains with snow should be the highest, almost impassable, all units defend on 5 or less, and attack on 1. Then forest, swamp, marshes and low mountains, all units defend on 4 or less. Inf with art attack on 2 or less. No tanks
But how to tell Larry

[Flashman]

Leave it to me.

I can be very persuasive…  :-D

[Razor]

….or…we could just make a house rule and keep Larry out of the loop ?