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CM: Risk - version 2.0

With no new rules to read I'll comment on the old ones. :)

Armour: current rule is that if if you have armour chits in the battle you can spend the % of chits as % of points in the battle for armour. So far so easy.
Problem: the CM size of a battle is the same for every number of units participating - be it 2:2 or 8:8. But for one armour chit in a 2:2 battle I can spend half of my points on armour. Good. But the same chi in the 8:8 game gives me just 12.5% to spend - that might just be enough for one tank. The Risk unit costs the same for both battles but it is much more useful in small armies.
Obvious solution: grow or shrink CM battle sizes with number of participating units. But this creates other problem as the length of the battles had to be adapted, too. Which prolongs the tournament.
Other solution: reduce maintenance costs of armour units by 1 for every two infantry units in the same area (minimum 1). Also allow at least to buy 1 tank no matter what it costs (if you have an armour chit).
 
poesel71 said:
With no new rules to read I'll comment on the old ones. :)

Armour: current rule is that if if you have armour chits in the battle you can spend the % of chits as % of points in the battle for armour. So far so easy.
Problem: the CM size of a battle is the same for every number of units participating - be it 2:2 or 8:8. But for one armour chit in a 2:2 battle I can spend half of my points on armour. Good. But the same chi in the 8:8 game gives me just 12.5% to spend - that might just be enough for one tank. The Risk unit costs the same for both battles but it is much more useful in small armies.
Obvious solution: grow or shrink CM battle sizes with number of participating units. But this creates other problem as the length of the battles had to be adapted, too. Which prolongs the tournament.
Other solution: reduce maintenance costs of armour units by 1 for every two infantry units in the same area (minimum 1). Also allow at least to buy 1 tank no matter what it costs (if you have an armour chit).
Click to expand...

I agree.

The new battle system will work entirely different -- each army chit on the map will represent a certain number of points available in a definite category for purchase for the QB to resolve the battle.
I will explain this system in more detail very soon.
 
Disclaimer: this may sound very negative but isn't meant as such. I really enjoyed Risk 1.0!

Now with victory achieved I can talk about why we really won. ;)
  • capital: Mesopotamia is THE best spot for a HQ. It has only two non-sea territories bordering it. Its the only one with this property. The other HQs had it much worse. We didn't actually have to defend it but it would have been much easier compared to the others.
  • German mechanized infantry: Stummels and 20mm Flak are close to tanks in effect. Red tried to use Humber IVs but their performance was lacking in comparison.
Other 'loophole' I'd found:
  • having the most numerous army is over proportional useful: you cannot be attacked so the space you are on is safe. You can attack everyone around you which in turn denies the target any other attack which secures another space. With one army you are thus dominating three spaces. Example: we've attacked N. Germany from S.Germany so Reds N.G.s could not attack empty Poland. So we could take Poland with a single army from Hungary.
Some strangeness:
  • units that fight can move two spaces per turn while those who don't only one. Should be the other way round.
  • it is actually cheaper PP wise to disband and rebuild a unit than to move it more than two spaces. And you save time.
  • the enemy can attack into any of my territories but I can not. Thus own spaces limit my movement more than enemy ones.
Other observations:
  • being able to build everywhere is a huge help for bigger sides. Being far away from the main country should make things somehow more difficult
  • tanks are less useful in bigger armies (see above)
  • fleets are only useful in very specific circumstances. And they are a high risk investment. The granularity of their effect is binary. :)
And finally some opinion about capitals: that a side perishes with its capital is nice for a dramatic effect but makes decapitation the most useful tactic. In Risk 1.0 all sides that perished died by this method. But the Soviet Union would not have lost the war if the Germans had taken Moscow.
I suggest to take Diplomacy's approach: there are territories where you can produce and get PPs for (your homeland), some where you get PPs but can't produce and some where you can't do either. A side perishes when it can no longer sustain at least one unit. So you can loose your homeland and still be in the game (but cannot build new units). And you'll have to transport units from the homeland to the front.
 
poesel71 said:
Disclaimer: this may sound very negative but isn't meant as such. I really enjoyed Risk 1.0!

Now with victory achieved I can talk about why we really won. ;)
  • capital: Mesopotamia is THE best spot for a HQ. It has only two non-sea territories bordering it. Its the only one with this property. The other HQs had it much worse. We didn't actually have to defend it but it would have been much easier compared to the others.
  • German mechanized infantry: Stummels and 20mm Flak are close to tanks in effect. Red tried to use Humber IVs but their performance was lacking in comparison.
Other 'loophole' I'd found:
  • having the most numerous army is over proportional useful: you cannot be attacked so the space you are on is safe. You can attack everyone around you which in turn denies the target any other attack which secures another space. With one army you are thus dominating three spaces. Example: we've attacked N. Germany from S.Germany so Reds N.G.s could not attack empty Poland. So we could take Poland with a single army from Hungary.
Some strangeness:
  • units that fight can move two spaces per turn while those who don't only one. Should be the other way round.
  • it is actually cheaper PP wise to disband and rebuild a unit than to move it more than two spaces. And you save time.
  • the enemy can attack into any of my territories but I can not. Thus own spaces limit my movement more than enemy ones.
Other observations:
  • being able to build everywhere is a huge help for bigger sides. Being far away from the main country should make things somehow more difficult
  • tanks are less useful in bigger armies (see above)
  • fleets are only useful in very specific circumstances. And they are a high risk investment. The granularity of their effect is binary. :)
And finally some opinion about capitals: that a side perishes with its capital is nice for a dramatic effect but makes decapitation the most useful tactic. In Risk 1.0 all sides that perished died by this method. But the Soviet Union would not have lost the war if the Germans had taken Moscow.
I suggest to take Diplomacy's approach: there are territories where you can produce and get PPs for (your homeland), some where you get PPs but can't produce and some where you can't do either. A side perishes when it can no longer sustain at least one unit. So you can loose your homeland and still be in the game (but cannot build new units). And you'll have to transport units from the homeland to the front.
Click to expand...

Thanks @poesel71 -- very useful feedback.

"The granularity of their effect is binary." -- that sounds like Deepak Chopra quote :D
 
Some good points @poesel71 , although my Humbers and Daimlers came up short in my battle against you, I noticed post battle that your crews were generally 'crack' or even 'elite' experience. Mine were 'veteran', and I think the superior experience of your crews, your use of them, as well as the higher number of armoured vehicles you deployed, accounted for their success against my armoured cars. That was the only battle I lost all campaign, and in my other CM battles I enjoyed great success with the Humber IV and Daimler III, including one battle where I KOed around 11 sdkfz 20mm quad flaks for the loss of only one or two armoured cars. So personally I wouldn't worry too much about the abilities of the Humber IV and Daimler III. I think your victories could be more accounted for by good play on your part, higher crew experience, and overwhelming numbers of armoured vehicles, rather than the quality of Allied armoured cars.

As @PhilM pointed out, what I would say is that the 75mm sdkfz is the only armoured vehicle in the game (tanks and SPGs aside) which can KO a medium or heavy tank by penetrating its frontal armour, it is also far more effective against infantry than Allied armoured cars. This was a definite advantage for German sides, because in reality why did they need to bother with the extra cost of armoured units in the campaign game when the Stummel could do a very good job?

From what I understand @Rico, I think you plan on introducing mechanised infantry and non-mechanised infantry, in the next game? I think this will go a long way to evening things out. You could possibly ban the 75mm stummel due to its firepower advantage over other armoured cars, but I think this would be a tight call.

Re the 'capital decapitation' thing, while I agree certain sides had a definite advantage depending on where their capital was located, I do think the ability to take out a capital was a great help to keeping the pace of the game going at a good rate. Also, I wouldn't have wanted to have played months of CM battles getting slowly strangled, when in reality I knew that I had no chance of winning the campaign game.

I posted a couple of suggestions in the Endgame thread, which I'll also post below.
 
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I posted the following in the 'endgame' thread, but its probably more appropriate here:

'One of my suggestions for 2.0 would be allow a quicker movement of units. EG allow infantry to move 2 spaces per turn, naval units 3 spaces, and mechanised infantry and armour 4 spaces. At the moment, if you have a unit in the wrong strategic location, it makes much more logistical sense to just disband it and then reform a new one in a different location. Had the game continued, we would have done this with our Mid Atlantic fleet.

Another suggestion, to help make things more strategically exciting, would be to incorporate a rule that if a Power has one of its territories cut off from a direct territorial or sea link to its capital (a fleet could also act as a link) then said Power can't create any new units in the cut-off territory. I understand this may make things difficult at the start of the game due to the odd random territory being positioned in a far flung spot on the map, so maybe the rule could come into play at the end of turn 1 or 2? I think such a rule could encourage teams to try and cut off their opponents through pincer movements, and make for exciting scenarios with sides trying to break-out or break-in into encircled territories, or dispatch a fleet to open up the supply chain again. It'd also ensure a good pace to the campaign, with whole armies cut off.'

PS I'm not sure if this is already a rule, but a fleet should only be able to be created in sea 'sqaures' off land territory controlled by the side creating the fleet. As I mentioned sometime ago, to make fleets more effective, it'd also be nice if they could bombard adjacent seaboard territories and possibly destroy an enemy army if the bombardment scores over a certain number on a GM's role of a dice.
 
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Yes, version 2 will have the feature where only connected territories can pool their production sources -- so a regime might have two or three separate areas supporting their own armies.
These off shoot territories might be connected to the "Motherland" by open, neutral seas allowing free flow of supplies or by seas controlled by their own of by friendly, allied powers.
 
@Odin reminded me of two things I forgot:
  • Experience should be capped at veteran or better regular. With 30 minutes time there is no time for maneuvering. So there's immediate action. Winning the spotting contest is crucial and for that only troop experience counts. But inexperienced troops are much more fun to play.
  • When a side reaches and holds more than half of the available PP production for one turn it should immediately declared winner. If you get that far you can't be a bad player and if you can out produce the rest you are the winner.
 
I really like your PP idea @poesel71, I'm not keen on the other 'limiting experience idea' though, I love having the variety of sometimes facing hordes of green pixeltruppen, while other times facing a few crack troops.

Also, although I initially didn't think 30mins would be enough to manoeuvre, when I started playing the matches I found it was, provided I was aggressive with my movement.
 
CM Risk: EUROPA -- Version 2 -- some ideas

Finally get to type up some more of the ideas/concepts for version 2.

THE MAP
The map stays pretty much the same, but with one important difference -- the REGIONS and REGION bonuses fall away, so regimes will have to rely on their cities and territories for PP's (production points)
Good news is that enemy cities can now be captured and regimes no longer collapse if their capital city is captured.

I am toying with the idea of adding 6 more territories to the map to give each side 7 starting territories -- these would be:
1. Cyrenaica (Libya split in half)
2. Ankara (Anatolia split in half)
3. Sardinia & Corsica
4. Cyprus
5. Crete
6. West Ukraine (split Ukraine in half)

Not sure about this, as it might shift too much focus on the naval war in the Med. (still thinking this over)

So the territories would be coloured in to indicate ownership like on the map below:
RiskEUR-vers2-sample-map.jpg

CAPITAL CITIES, CITIES & NAVAL BASES
In addition to the Capital City which is placed randomly in the starting territory draw (with a 1 territory-wide buffer region around it), each regime will then get to place a secondary CITY in any friendly territory of their choosing other than the Capital City territory.
This city region produces 3 PP's (the Capital City 5 PP's).
Also, each regime gets to place two NAVAL BASES in any friendly territory with a coastline (also those containing Capitals or Cities) -- these will be used as the construction sites for FLEETS and also as supply bases for the fleets.

cities-ports.jpg

All cities and naval bases can be captured and used by the capturing power with the following limitations:
1. Captured CAPITALS will revert to CITY status and only produce 3 PP's for the foreign occupying power
2. Naval Bases will be considered DAMAGED and out of action for ONE TURN after capture (to reflect battle damage or sabotage by defenders)

PRODUCTION
Only geographically joined territories, or those connected through sea areas that are neutral, friendly navy-controlled or controlled by an allied regime which allows for free traverse of merchant marine traffic, may pool their production points to build or supply armies/units.
This means that a regime's PP's might be pooled in two or more PRODUCTION ZONES -- and each area may only build or supply as many units as it can support with it's own PP's.
Bonus PP's earned for VICTORIES will accrue to the Production Zone the battle occurred in.
If a Production Zone gets cut off from the main regions for any reason, it will have to disband enough units in the next Production Phase to cover the shortfall.

BATTLES and COMBAT
This is where a major change is planned from Risk Europa Vers 1.
Units will be generally cheaper to build and supply -- although there will also be less PP's to go around.

Each unit on the map will have an equivalent value in terms of QUICK BATTLE points and UNIT TYPES that can be used in the CM battle.

RiskEUR-vers2-unit-chart.jpg
In the chart above, the unit counters with two white stripes are HALF STRENGTH units

In the CM battle OOB, each ground unit counter is represented by a separate COMPANY in which units can be bought to the points limit in the chart above and ONLY from the Unit Type allowed.

This sounds complicated, but it is quite simple (may require the use of a calculator :D) -- let me explain with an example below:

YELLOW attacks RED from Moscow into Belarus:

YELLOW attacks with: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Mech Inf (half strength) 1 Air Support unit (total QB points: 4750 )

RED defends with: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank (half strength), 1 Artillery (total QB points: 2750 )
RiskEUR-vers2-battle-sample.jpg This will require setting up a QB of sufficient points to allow for those unit purchases.

YELLOW purchases units in the following way:
1. Infantry: buys up to 1000 points of any units available from "INFANTRY ONLY" Menu by using a Company as a base unit and renaming it "1 Infantry" *
2. Tanks: buys up to 1500 points of any units available from "ARMOR ONLY" Menu by using a company or platoon as a base unit and renaming it "1 Tank"
3. Mech Inf (half): buys up to 750 points of any units available from "MECH INFANTRY ONLY" Menu by using a Company as a base unit and renaming it "1 Mech Infantry"
4. Lastly RED buys up to 1500 points from the "AIR SUPPORT" Menu. **
* Armies/Units counters will probably be numbered on the map to make the naming and keeping track easier -- so it might be "10th Infantry" once armies get larger
** Always ensure that one or more of your ground units contain FO's to make use of the air or arty units.

RED purchases units in the following way:
1. Infantry: buys up to 1000 points of any units available from "INFANTRY ONLY" Menu by using a Company as a base unit and renaming it "1 Infantry"
2. Tanks: buys up to 750 points of any units available from "ARMOR ONLY" Menu by using a company or platoon as a base unit and renaming it "1 Tank"
3. Artillery: buys up to 1000 points of any units available from "ARMOR ONLY" Menu

The separate COMPANIES in the ground unit OOB's will facilitate CASUALTY counts after the battles -- which I will explain later.

The OOB set up files must be saved and then be sent to the Tourneymeister (me) which will then be compared to the final file to determine casualty counts.

BATTLE RESOLUTIONS
The CM battle result will reflect on the strategic map in the following way:

Attacker TOTAL, MAJOR or TACTICAL VICTORY will result in the DEFENDER retreating from the territory and BOTH sides' units are reduced/eliminated according to the CM battlefield casualties.
(if the defender is unable to retreat, his armies are eliminated)

Attacker TOTAL, MAJOR or TACTICAL DEFEAT will result in the ATTACKER retreating from the territory and BOTH sides' units are reduced/eliminated according to the CM battlefield casualties.

Attacker MINOR Victory, DRAW or MINOR Defeat will result in a CONTESTED TERRITORY. -- both sides's forces are adjusted to reflect CM casualties and both armies REMAIN in the territory to fight a MEETING ENGAGEMENT battle in the next turn.
Both sides may feed in reinforcements in the next turn's movement phase from any direction to be added to the battle.
If despite the DRAW/MINOR results one or the other side's units are all eliminated after casualties, then the side with surviving units in the territory claims ownership.

CASUALTIES

After every CM battle, the OOB's are assessed and casualties counted.

If a full strength unit suffers more than 50% casualties, it gets reduced to half.
If it loses more than 75% casualties, it is eliminated.
If a half strength unit loses more than 50% casualties, it is eliminated.

With TANK units, we count vehicles.
With INFANTRY we count troops lost.
With MECH INFANTRY we combine combat vehicle (halftracks, armoured cars and AA vehicles) and troop loss percentages.

So even if you are defending with weaker armies, you might lose the battle from the start, but if you can inflict painful losses on the larger force (ambush his tanks, catch his infantry with nasty artillery strikes) it can make a big difference to the strategic battle.

ARTILLERY and AIR SUPPORT unit casualties are handled differently.

ARTILLERY: every time a Artillery Unit is forced to retreat, it loses a STRENGTH LEVEL -- this applies to both as attacker or defender.

AIR SUPPORT: If both sides have Air Support units assigned to a battle, a AIR SUPERIORITY battle is fought using a combat results table (CRT) similar to the one used for the NAVAL battles. Surviving Air Units can after that take part in the land battle.

WITHDRAWAL & RETREATS
There are FOUR options for withdrawal:
1. STRATEGIC WITHDRAWAL: Before the CM battle is set up, the DEFENDER may decide to voluntarily retreat from a hopeless battle into an adjacent territory. (artillery retreat casualties apply, the ATTACKER will gain ownership of the territory and earn the victory bonus point) This also applies to MEETING ENGAGEMENT battles in CONTESTED territories.

2. BATTLE RETREAT: Any time after 15 turns/minutes, the DEFENDER may announce he is RETREATING from the battle, the battle is immediately cease-fired and casualties assessed. Any units in the DEFENDER"s WITHDRAWAL ZONE will be deemed safely withdrawn -- any units still on the rest of the map are lost and added to the casualty count. -- (WITHDRAWAL ZONES will be explained below)

3. ATTACKER WITHDRAWAL -- Any time after 15 turns/minutes, the ATTACKER may announce he is RETREATING from the battle. The battle is immediately cease-fired and casualties assessed. The defender retains control of the territory and gain a Victory Bonus point.

4. MEETING ENGAGEMENT RETREAT -- In a ME battle in a CONTESTED territory, BOTH sides will have WITHDRAWAL ZONES and after 15 turns/minutes, either side may announce he is RETREATING from the battle, the battle is immediately cease-fired and casualties assessed. Any units in the retreating player's WITHDRAWAL ZONE will be deemed safely withdrawn -- any units still on the rest of the map are lost and added to the casualty count.

WITHDRAWAL ZONES
This is a zone at the friendly edge of the map which slopes away and is out of LOS from the rest of the map which the player may use to move his units into to facilitate a RETREAT or WITHDRAWAL.

If the enemy player advances fast and far enough, he may freely move into or fire into this zone up until his opponent announces his retreat (which can only happen after 15 minutes) -- at this point, any surviving units in the withdrawal zone are deemed to have retreated successfully.

COMBAT MISSION ZONES
For added flavour, the Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East battles will be fought using CMFI/GL ... there'll be dry area, desert/rocky terrain featured QB maps (we have some Tunisia maps on hand as well) ... the slightly reduced OOB options will reflect a slightly well-resourced environment.
If CMFI expands into later 1944 and/or the CMFB introduces Commonwealth units, we can introduce a full range of seasons as well)
(see map below -- green areas is CMBN)

Europa-Risk-VERS2-CMFI.jpg




... this is what I have so far. More tomorrow or Monday evening.









 
If I did not miscount then Ukraine has 9 neighbours & N.Germany has 8. The maximum for the rest is 6. So splitting Ukraine seems to be a good idea. Maybe you can remodel the map a bit to lessen the number of neighbours for NG? Including Austria into S.Germany - well, it has been done before but still looks strange. ;)

Rico said:
The OOB set up files must be saved and then be sent to the Tourneymeister (me)
Click to expand...
How does that work exactly?
 
poesel71 said:
If I did not miscount then Ukraine has 9 neighbours & N.Germany has 8. The maximum for the rest is 6. So splitting Ukraine seems to be a good idea. Maybe you can remodel the map a bit to lessen the number of neighbours for NG? Including Austria into S.Germany - well, it has been done before but still looks strange. ;)


How does that work exactly?
Click to expand...

Ukraine has got 8 neighbours -- North and South Germany have each got 6 -- Poland has 7.

Splitting Ukraine is probably a good idea -- inserting Austria also worth thinking about.

How does that work exactly? -- what I meant is that players send me their file of the turn after both players have set up their units and I will go have a look -- standardised passwords will be essential here :D
 
N Germany: Netherlands, North Sea, Denmark, Baltic Sea, Prussia, Bohemia, S Germany, Alsace = 8
Don't forget the oceans :)

Poland: Prussia, Bohemia, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus = 5 ?

Ah, so you get the setup turn? Wouldn't it be easier for you if we sent you screenshots from the purchase screen (+ setup file)? One screenie for each company?

Have you considered giving a PP for an ocean space(reason: trade)? That would make small fleets more affordable.
 
poesel71 said:
N Germany: Netherlands, North Sea, Denmark, Baltic Sea, Prussia, Bohemia, S Germany, Alsace = 8
Don't forget the oceans :)

Poland: Prussia, Bohemia, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus = 5 ?

Ah, so you get the setup turn? Wouldn't it be easier for you if we sent you screenshots from the purchase screen (+ setup file)? One screenie for each company?

Have you considered giving a PP for an ocean space(reason: trade)? That would make small fleets more affordable.
Click to expand...

Ah, ok ... you are counting the seas.

Yes -- Poland has 5 ... gotta stop doing this stuff after a late night and before the coffee has kicked in. :confused:

Ok. ... here revised map.
Additional territories:
1. Western Ukraine
2. Austria
3. Ankara
4. Cyrenaica
5. Sardinia & Corsica
6. Crete

Risk-2-master-sample.jpg
 
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