From: mustafa+@CMU.EDU (Mustafa Unlu)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: EIA: General things(moderately long)
Date: 16 Oct 92 21:52:55 GMT
Organization: Doctoral student, Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I'll try to cover most of yesterday's and today's postings.

o I agree with Gary and Alec that port attacks are not handled well by
the game. Nor are they adequately handled in the _General_ variant
rules.

Suggestion: Quick fix. Double port strength of certain ports in the
game. Clearly, historical/geographical research is needed before this
is attempted.

o Optional rules: In the same issue of the General as the new naval
rules, there is an article about crossing arrows as well. Did this
one cover the Channel arrow? I though that its treatment of channels
was quite well done and easy to implement.
4~
Suggestion: Allow the channel arrow (either the vanilla arrow from
opt. rules or as a Type II arrow from article) but allow no crossings
between December and April inclusive. This crossing in winter/spring
couldn't even be attempted during 1944! Or allow only corps of 5 factors
or less, to simulate small raids.

o House rules: I promised that I would post some of ours: Here are the
ones that I can remember (Eiji, can you check me out on this?):

	1. Artillery Corps in sieges: Gets a +1 to siege die roll.
Needless to say, favors the Russians and the French. Highly arguable,
but we used it anyway.

	2. Liberation of serfs: Russia abolishes serfdom. Economic
values of Russian provinces drop, but manpower is increased. Economic
values go back up after a while, manpower drops to serf times. Can't
remember the details on this one. This was suggested but never
implemented.

	3. Scorched Earth: We allowed only Russia to do this. Any one
province can be declared to be scorched per turn if Russia is at war
and enemy corps inside Russian border. All areas lose two forage
values for one year. Cost is 1 PP per scorched province. I see no
reason why other powers should not be able to do this, perhaps at a
higher PP cost.

	4. Nizam-i Cedid: These were the "Guard" of the Turkish army.
Led by Western educated leaders, they were certainly better than the
normal Janissaries. They held Napoleon up in Syria in 1802(?). So they
get 3.5 morale but cost 1 more than normal infantry/cavalry.

There were more of those but I can't remember them now.

o Casi Bellorum: I *like* the idea. But definitely implement Alec's
idea of casus belli only where you can have a +1 modifier. But what to
do if you're in the Dominant Zone (and therefore have a +1 for
everybody)? But this rule is the best tweak to the diplomacy system I
have seen so far. No more the mad and total rush to minors before
someone else gets them. The fear of a casus belli should slow that,
but not for France, hmmm.

Suggestion: How about letting each MP start with a number of
'interests' (yet another stolen idea from Pax Britannica). These are
placed in minors of your choice. Initial interests can only be placed
in minors where you have a + modifier from the Minors Table.
They have to be secretly written and placed during the 1st Diplomacy
Phase, two interests placed in the same minor are treated like two
DoW's on the same minor, but the power that backs down gets a Casus
Belli and if none back down, they both get a Casus Belli. 
A major power gets free access from only those minors that they have an
interest in; otherwise, they have to force access. (I've always
thought that being able to romp across neutral space with huge armies
was not quite right) The minors that you have an interest in are
considered to be in 'your sphere'. If someone DoW's a minor where you
have an interest in, you get a Casus Belli.
Interests can also be purchased and placed anywhere during play, again
during the 1st Diplomacy phase of each year.
Placing in a minor where you have no natural + modifier costs money.
These purchased interests  should be pretty highly priced. One can
also 'upgrade' interests (at a high price again) and 'acquire' the
minor through peaceful means but not before 12 months of having placed
the interest.

I'm just churning out these ideas as I type. They might be totally
outrageous and unworkable. So go ahead flame me.  :-)

o Variant rule: As long as we are considering tweaks to the game, how
about adding the following as a peace condition?

B.7 (or whatever number is next) Lend-a-Leader: The victor has the
right to use any one of the loser's leaders for a year. The chosen leader
is retired; and immediately appears during this Reinforcement Phase with
one of the Victor's Corps. He is thereafter treated as a leader of
that nationality except that he is always inferior to all the other
leaders of the winning nationality. 'A' leaders and Nelson are exempt
from this rule. If the lent leader is captured during his service to
the winner, he is immediately repatriated to the original owner.

and addition to the A table: Need not lend a leader.


OK, I have rambled enough.. I like the discussion though. Keep posting
and (maybe) we'll surpass the BattleTech posters (Not!)

M.