Newsgroups: bit.listserv.dipl-l
Date:         Sun, 27 Sep 1992 10:11:53 EDT
Reply-To:     Tony Dugdale <CXAD@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>
From:         Tony Dugdale <CXAD@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Re: Youngstown Query

> > 1.  Why doesn't off-F and off-E touch each other? Logic
> > tells me that either Fezzan touches off-D or the above-
> > mentioned offboards should touch each other.
>
> Using the (recent) map and rules published by the Schenectady
> Wargamers Assoc., movement between off board boxes isn't even
> permitted. You move into a box and then to a remote province. In
> Loeb's version you move into a box and then to other boxes. So Loeb's
> map and the judge rules is a slightly different variation of the
> youngstown variant. His map is consistant; you can't move into a box
> from two different provinces, only from the one it is in. So you can't
> move fez-obd for that reason. And obe and obf touch obd but not each
> other.

I assume that the judge uses Loeb's version (!).  Not moving
between boxes make more sense to me, and seems to make round-
the-world travel much more effective.  But, concerning the
previous map, it still doesn't make sense.  Think of the offboards
as provinces and not just as magic boxes of transport.  Either
Fezz touches off-D or off-E touches off-F in the same way that
either Kiel touches Baltic or Denmark touches Berlin.  In the
way it's set up now, Fezzan extends out to infinity, and Off-D
teleports around underneath it.  ANother logical possibility would
be for Sudan and Sahara to touch.  Anything else make no sense.
But maybe it shouldn't make sense ...
>
> > 2.  Why do the following areas exist?  They seem kinda
>       [ ... ] Stuff deleted.

OK, the answers here make a lot of sense.  I assume Hokkaido
exists for the same reason.  I had just thought that they were
as useless as Syria in the original (there are SOME times its
important, but the game wouldn't suffer immensely if it weren't
there).  Good points.  Thanx
> > 3.  Why is the Suez as weird as it is?  Why not just make
> > it a province like any other (like Constantinople)
>
> Suez is a province like any other. It is egypt that is wierd. Why is
> egypt+suez unlike const? Well, to permit a convoy through the suez for
> one thing. Can't do a convoy through const.

Then why not just say "a fleet in Suez can convoy" instead of all
the weirdness about armies going straight from Jordan to Egypt.
Just asking (it makes for some interesting strategies to be sure,
but I'm just interested in the history and the "why")
>
> > 4.  This is probably the strangest question.  Why is Caspian Sea impassable?
>
> Don't know that one. Maybe because it is in the original game.
>
> > True enough, anyone who would put a fleet on the Caspian would be
> > kinda dim, but it would allow for interesting retreats and would allow
> > a fleet in Sevastapol to touch Iran, not to mention giving Omsk two
> > coasts and making a fleet built in Moscow possible!!
>
> Are you the same person who asked question number 2? :-)
>
> George

Touche!  :-)  But I never said I had anything AGAINST useless
provinces ...

Perhaps a variant on the judge could support Caspian as a
province in the same way that one variant disallows fleet
movement through Omsk.  It wouldn't be too hard, would it?

Tolara
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