General Social/Chatter Thread

[Kaiser Kirk]

Are folks spending on coastal defence installations? I poked around the encyclopedias a bit but didn't see anything.

Parthia is now investing in (more) coastal defenses.
I am slowly building them up, you'll find them on the turn sheet under the Non-Naval tab
where at the bottom - beyond the air point allocations - is the fortifications.

Because of the "Region" aspect of them, it's a little frustrating, as really I want to guard my ports with guns,
and have watch towers scattered elsewhere.

Land Forts in colonies, the way Snip wrote it, don't pay off as well. Less bang for the buck...overall I think I made the Japanese forts in the Mayan war overperform.
Coastal defenses though, we ran into the "what does this "point" mean problem" in the Sino-Japanese and so there's the coastal fort table for what it means.

[Kaiser Kirk]

We might be able to hang some WesWorld players.
We have free Empires...

It would be lovely to get more players.
That's why I kept the PCs and NPCs expanding during colony acquisitions, to make viable positions.
Both the Norse and Iberians would make life more interesting.

After that, there's some major NPCs that could be played.
I think seating someone in Ethiopia is too late right now, complicate Byzantine's plans to much.
Rajasthan and United Berbers are a bit of the same- little late to introduce.
But Laksmanavati would be fine, Foxy might enjoy a resurgent China, and the Deccans would work.
5 Tribes has a reasonable setup, squished between two majors but with some territories.

[TacCovert4]

Are folks spending on coastal defence installations? I poked around the encyclopedias a bit but didn't see anything.

Parthia is now investing in (more) coastal defenses.
I am slowly building them up, you'll find them on the turn sheet under the Non-Naval tab
where at the bottom - beyond the air point allocations - is the fortifications.

Because of the "Region" aspect of them, it's a little frustrating, as really I want to guard my ports with guns,
and have watch towers scattered elsewhere.

Land Forts in colonies, the way Snip wrote it, don't pay off as well. Less bang for the buck...overall I think I made the Japanese forts in the Mayan war overperform.
Coastal defenses though, we ran into the "what does this "point" mean problem" in the Sino-Japanese and so there's the coastal fort table for what it means.

I do wonder if one of us needs to whip up a similar table for 'land fortifications', just so we know where the breakpoints are in flavor.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Honestly, a replacement of the land/air/fort combat rules with something stolen from a game might be best,
but the entire Region vs. Point interface continues to cause problems.  Land/Air/Forts are all regional and cost the same regardless of the number of provinces in that region, while our navies are point. Answer the question of what happens when this squadron goes here is problematic. 

"The first sub-category of non-naval forces is Fortifications. Fortification points are placed in a region when constructed and cannot be moved. Fortification Points provide a 1% bonus per point to the side on the defensive in an engagement. Fortification points in the homeland provide a 3% bonus instead. There is a cap of 50 Fortification points per region."

Is what's in the rules. Nothing about how coastal def are supposed to work. Which is why I had to 'come up with something' in the Sino-Japanese war when Fox wanted to know what the coastal defenses of various ports was. Worked up the chart post war based on what I roughed out.

The use of % for various non-naval warfare is why I had to invent a system that was kinda 1-100 based instead of just pulling out a wargame and adapting a 1d6 or 2d6 system.

However the % is so low, that it means investing in extra land forts is silly in the territories....and likely at "Home" where you don't need DP to support them. Though masses of forts would add up.

When I saw that Fox had put $/BP into some forts in Central America, and was obviously counting on them to DO SOMETHING...
just giving him a +/-1% per fort modifier would have led to no chance at all. Which seemed unfair. Rebalancing the forts seemed needed.

I departed from the rules* and tried to make them 'worthwhile' , still cost $1 and 1 BP,  but stationary/all defense/no offense point vs. a land point ...
so they became a 6th a "target" per unit, which I think wound up being slightly too powerful, they should have just been a bonus "hit"...I think.
LPs are 4 maneuver units + Fire support (art/tanks/etc)
A unit that lost 3/4 of it's maneuver portions kept 1 maneuver, 1 FS and 1 fort. ...for each province in the region.

*probably shouldn't have without a roundtable discusion , but I have been jammed for time for years, so just went for it.

[The Rock Doctor]

I can see the land forts working as you've got them, if positioned in a specific province rather than a region. 

Coastal defence...well, I kind of like the idea of a coastal watch, but not the cost of one.  If we go to province-by-province thing, though, I'd just skip it entirely. 

Perhaps we could work out a simpler and less expensive table for coastal defence, and apply that to individual provinces.  Skip the garrison bit, maybe skip the minefields since I think all of us build small minelayers anyway.  But build stats for some generic shore batteries that can be bought, like (hypothetically, costs strictly for example):

-Basic battery (6 x anti-TB guns (50-75mm), machine guns, light AA coverage:  $0.1, 0.1 BP
-Light battery (Add 6 x anti-DD guns (76-119mm), MG defence against landings increases to X, AA rating increases to Y):  $0.2, 0.2 BP
-Etc

[Kaiser Kirk]

That was the old system that Snip discarded.
From what I understand, He really wanted to avoid *making* people detail such things for a couple reasons.

First he felt extra complexity was detrimental to gaining and keeping players, so he wanted to keep it simple.
I tend to like to go for complexity myself, but...
Tracking what the provinces are named, what the ports are named, and what's at each specific location adds a burden
that not everyone would want - or in my case- have time to do.

Second he wanted the land to be very secondary to the Naval aspects, hence the point and region system.
I believe his idea was small territorial wars. I think that was part of the 3% Home Fort vs. 1% territorial,
Wars between Homelands were intended to be non-productive WW1 type affairs, which is also why the
delay in turning captured homelands productive is longer than captured territories.

I think there was a third as well, it might be that the starting BP was based off a guess as to
the construction needs for an Italian-Japanese size combat fleet, with things like tenders, minelayers, etc
being optional. Again to reduce the required workload. You can build and maintain defensive minelayers- which are mobile,
or simply invest in defensive points...which aren't but are simpler for bookkeeping.

[The Rock Doctor]

Fair.

Alternately, scale something along the lines of:

Province's defensive value = IC in the province, + 1 if a port, + 1 if the regional capital/fleet base/special place (max one per continent?)

0 = Coast watch
1 = Anti-TB and light AA
2 = Anti-DD
3 = Anti-cruiser
4 = Anti-BB and heavy AA

Although that leaves the problem of "I have spent all this cash and BP on specific fortifications, now what?"

Edit:  To clarify, that'd be defensive value against naval bombardment, amphibious landings, and air attack.  Figure out land stuff some other way.

[The Rock Doctor]

Doing that thing where I have 0.28 BP unspent and have an urge to spend it on something weird and small rather than save it to the next turn.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Fair.

Alternately, scale something along the lines of:

I try not to repeatedly jump into rule proposal conversations, as I don't want dampen player debate.

So, if we come up with a more popular alternative to my Draft...that's fine. That is why it still has the draft moniker.

In discussion of the current iteration,
-It would simplify the chart if minor/major/naval had simply higher CD numbers.

- I have no objections to upping the 0 coast defense to 'coast watchers', I will observe that even a watchtower and communications sytem takes organization and resources and historically has been a matter of investment- even the Australian coast watchers of WWII was a deliberate force established and provided with equipment.  We can however handwave and say it's base level of defense. Heck we could specify batterys of 75QF everywhere if folks wanted.
- I do have objections to the coastal defenses scaling up so fast. If we want to have base strikes and port bombardments be reasonable, then Anti-BB level defenses need to be rare and precious investments. If 4 BP is all it takes, then build coastal def instead of building 2 modern battleships gives Anti-BB level defenses to ~22 provinces..which would cover most players main bases and ports. Right or wrong, in the draft I was trying to make it hard to heavily fortify all over, making it a real choice to make.
- I am still hopeful that we can see fights by distant raiders or Von Spee style divisions against sprawling empires like Parthia. Having BB level defenses be easy and possibly common could make that very difficult. Amphibious attacks on peripheral territories could also become much harder.
- I don't think complicating the tracking by changing from Regional to Province is a winner at this time. It could make defending a region more difficult (build per coastal province) and so offset the lower fortification levels, but as many regions only have 1 major/naval base, I think generally it would make such things more easy to give battle-ship level defenses.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Doing that thing where I have 0.28 BP unspent and have an urge to spend it on something weird and small rather than save it to the next turn.

I have a casement armorclad design for rivers that's about 200 tons.
If you want, you could buy me one...

[TacCovert4]

Fair.

Alternately, scale something along the lines of:

I try not to repeatedly jump into rule proposal conversations, as I don't want dampen player debate.

So, if we come up with a more popular alternative to my Draft...that's fine. That is why it still has the draft moniker.

In discussion of the current iteration,
-It would simplify the chart if minor/major/naval had simply higher CD numbers.

- I have no objections to upping the 0 coast defense to 'coast watchers', I will observe that even a watchtower and communications sytem takes organization and resources and historically has been a matter of investment- even the Australian coast watchers of WWII was a deliberate force established and provided with equipment.  We can however handwave and say it's base level of defense. Heck we could specify batterys of 75QF everywhere if folks wanted.
- I do have objections to the coastal defenses scaling up so fast. If we want to have base strikes and port bombardments be reasonable, then Anti-BB level defenses need to be rare and precious investments. If 4 BP is all it takes, then build coastal def instead of building 2 modern battleships gives Anti-BB level defenses to ~22 provinces..which would cover most players main bases and ports. Right or wrong, in the draft I was trying to make it hard to heavily fortify all over, making it a real choice to make.
- I am still hopeful that we can see fights by distant raiders or Von Spee style divisions against sprawling empires like Parthia. Having BB level defenses be easy and possibly common could make that very difficult. Amphibious attacks on peripheral territories could also become much harder.
- I don't think complicating the tracking by changing from Regional to Province is a winner at this time. It could make defending a region more difficult (build per coastal province) and so offset the lower fortification levels, but as many regions only have 1 major/naval base, I think generally it would make such things more easy to give battle-ship level defenses.

I concur.  I don't think at this juncture it's really reasonable to do that.  Unless we were to greatly increase the cost or something to account for the positions.

[The Rock Doctor]

It was an example rather than a proposal.

For my part, I was quite satisfied with our approach in N3: Here are the guidelines for simming coastal defences, go sim them and stick them precisely where you want them.

As in that sim, I would sim out a few generic units and then spam them around much as I do with minesweeping/MTB/light ASW forces already.

As a general principle, I'd rather have that than a thirty-row table which applies to an entire region.

[TacCovert4]

Even with the 30 row table for coastal defenses as we have, I see it more as a 'guideline' of what's there.  And that the actual importance given to specific pieces in that 'region' is what defines, subjectively, how things are distributed.

Take the Caicos for instance, as they're one of the most heavily fortified per acre area on earth at the moment.  Most of the islands aren't major installations, so they've got something along the lines of 'concrete lined trenches that won't just collapse on their own weight' and 'pillboxes' covering beach approaches etc with some more field artillery positions with ammo bunkers.  Basically something designed to give a Company and a Battery a strong fighting chance against a regimental force trying to make landfall.  In the middle, Providenciales has about the same, but also with a somewhat significant light and medium gun array including permanently emplaced guns because it is also the location of the primary airfield for the northern portion of the Outer Gates.  And then we have Grand Turk, which is literally the HQ of SubFlt, as well as being a major naval base, acre for acre rivaling Veracruz in importance and size.  This is where I consider the bulk of the artillery positions, including all of those heavy mortar and heavy artillery positions, to be placed, along with significant command complexes and other bunker complexes turning the island into a warrens den of tunnels between positions.  Not to Atlantic Wall yet, but definitely VERY heavily fortified compared to the other islands because of its relative import.

[Jefgte]

For Byzantium, Perim island & Dardanelles are the most fortified.

It is obvious that fortifications are all placed in strategic places.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Well this seems to have hit pause, so I'll try to respond :)

Let's start with a bit of background, and my view as the difference between 'Rule' and 'Draft' 
I'll put it in italics so folks can skip if they want.

First, as a general guide...my role as "mod" is a little undefined.
Basically I figure that when we choose to play, we accept the ruleset...which needs a bit of interpretation.
That's what I do, with input/oversight from Snip, the designer of this particular version.
Snips approach was simplification, mine is more detail...but I try to do it his way.

BUT New rules need to be gone over by the players and crafted to be generally acceptable.
Like the carrier rules. That was a good group effort.

The Land/Air/Fort points were not defined, and what I understand, were a bit of a placeholder
so the game could get started and we'd figure that detail out later.
Thats why the 1910 "no wars" rule..which thwarted my plans...

Fast forward to 1912...and I was now wearing the mod hat, and had to answer questions
about first the Sino-Japanese war then the Azteca-Roman war.  Part of that was
landing of scout parties and raids on various ports...which led to the question...what do
these Coastal Fort points MEAN at this fishing village vs. this island vs. this major naval base.

Now, not surprisingly since I came up with chart, I'm fine with it... but
Like I said, I tend to like complex, so I simply asked what were the various types of areas
that we needed to define the defense at so naval forces could interact.
Then folks could provide a specific level of coastal defense to meet their need, while avoiding
tracking of whats at Point A, vs Point B, and having to do maintenance and what ever.

That worked in the Mayan war, they had a defined level of coastal defense, higher by the
Aztec, and weaker in the south. The chart worked well for deciding what defenses were
at any given spot. The only place I had difficulties was when Foxy tried to ascend the river that
formed the former border, where the Mayans had pretty heavy land fortifications. Batteries to
control the river crossings would be a logical part of that design on top of the coastal defenses.
The river meant short engagement ranges with flat firing QF gun emplacements, and little maneuver room.
For the minor ports in the south it meant the lagoon entrances in the south had batteries of QF 75mm class guns,
which could hammer small combatants, but would not have stopped a large landing force,
while the naval bases on each coast were fairly heavily fortified and hard to attack without serious losses.
So overall for my purposes...it worked.

However, the Coastal Forts are Draft, and can be changed around minorly easily, and could be adopted...
but we could even take time to try to scrap and replace with a new rule if that's a big need. I'm not partial to the latter.
And someone else gets to work up the proposal !

The easiest part would be to move certain categories - like minefields- up or down the chart columns.

Looking at Rocky's take, I'm getting that simplification of the chart is his main thing.
With a little redesign we could probably change the chart to be the +1/2/3 system
he proposed.

Since Tac's committed a fair bit to Coastal Defense, the 'Naval Base' level should remain the same,
and have the others scaled off that.

Not looking at the chart, that would be  Fort Value = Naval Base, -1 =major port -3 = minor port -5= country side....

Looking at Jefgte's comments, I noticed long ago he was specifying that his coastal forts were controlling
the entrance to the Red Sea, and I kinda viewed that as 'storytelling' as the ruleset clearly sets them up as
Regional and dispersed.

However, it would be pretty easy to add "Strategic Points" to the 'Naval Bases' category, so the
straits get their guardian batteries. For me, that would be a huge incentive to fortify the Kingdom of Svrivijaya,
controlling the straits of Malacca and Sunda.  It would also mean Hormuz was guarded by batteries on each shore,
in addition to the scores of MTBs that hide in the inlet leading to Khesab harbor on the south side.