Design Questions

Many of the questions which land in my post office box fall into the gray category of "Design Questions." This really isn't very surprising. Europa fans possess no small quotient of intellectual curiosity, and no set of designer's notes, even when as thorough as those provided for Balkan Front by John Astell in TEM #16, can possibly cover all the intricate considerations which go into the creation of an Europa title.

Unfortunately, as stated in our Rules Court blurb on page two of this issue it just isn't possible to respond to all of these inquiries. Here's the problem with these questions: Giving a short answer usually comes off sounding glib, which is likely to leave the interrogator unconvinced or dissatisfied. And so he is likely to fire back a second missive challenging the answer by raising many of the details that we didn't have time to go into in the first place.

On the other hand, neither can we afford to take the time to write the detailed dissertation necessary to cover all the points raised by a design- type question. Even if we did go to such lengths, you probably would not agree 100% with our judgment. It seems that everyone, including myself, has his own ideas about how this system should be changed, or could be improved. Just read this issue's "From the Editor" for a vivid example.

Yes, we've all got our pet peeves. This is okay, but GRD can't debate these design points endlessly upon demand. If we did, we wouldn't get anything else done. And folks are already chaffing at how long projects take to come to fruition as it is.

With the above in mind, I try to answer your questions as best I can. But I must continue to beg off on most design questions; at the very least they tend to slow down my response to you.

This being said, I will now devote this session of Rules Court to elaborating on a couple of the answers given in a past issue. Although this will require me to tread ever so close to the edge of the Design precipice, the intent is to expand players' knowledge of how the rules are intended to work, and I hope it is of value.

SE player Daniel Mota asks:

"A Soviet warship transports supplies to a besieged port during its player turn, and ends its move in the port. The ship cannot support any Soviet combat land units nearby in an attack during that player turn per rule 28B2, last sentence. However, may that ship support any nearby Soviet land units in their defense during the following German player turn?"

"No," answered Ben Knight in TEN #5 without elaboration. Here is what is going on:

Since delivered supplies are present in the hex until the end of the next friendly initial phase (per 12E2), that is the period during which the Soviet combat ship transporting the supplies may not use its gunnery strengths (per 28132, last sentence).

Though the rule's mechanics make it appear that delivery of supply points is a one-stop trip, in fact what is being modeled is a continuous flow of supplies for a two-week period of time. The warship (and, more importantly, the intrinsic convoy of smaller ships it represents) would be making several runs during the twoweek period. Thus under FitE rule 28D a Soviet ship delivering supplies to a port was "... automatically considered to be at sea ...... This verbiage was dropped in SE so that now "...transport of supply is the same as other naval transport." For the Soviets, this means that in SE they have the choice of declaring the ship "at sea" or "in port" - but the concept is the same as before.

The next query was sent in by 2nd Lt USAF Brian M. O'Connell:

(SE Rules 6B and 40B1) Usually a unit may not move adjacent to an enemy unit when using admin. movement. However, rule 40B1 specifically states that enemy partisan units do not affect admin. movement. This allows German security units to admin. move adjacent to Soviet partisans. Since rule 6B does not contain a prohibition against attacking, it would seem the Germans are able to quickly move to partisan-infested areas to suppress any of their attempts to create mayhem. Is this correct?"

Ben Knight answered as follows in TEN #5: "No, if they admin. move, they can not attack. Note that their APZOCs are unaffected and thus they may cut off the partisans' retreat routes."

Here is an example of a sick trick aided by apparent oversight. When the FitE admin. rule was written, there were no partisan rules. Since friendly units could not admin. move adjacent to enemy units, there was no need to write a prohibition against attacking into rule 6B. Then along comes Scorched Earth. Rule 6B reappears with some minor tweaking, while a brand new rule 40 covering partisans is added. Rule 40 contains a statement that reads, "The presence of an enemy partisan unit in a hex does not affect the admin. or strategic rail movement of units."

The partisan "module" was one of the last items addressed in the SE playtest and from the quantity of Q&A generated by you gamers out there it's apparent that Rule 40 could have benefitted from some additional development. In any case, I agree that moving ground units in admin. mode and then attacking partisans is clearly out-of-bounds and should be outlawed, even though this isn't clearly supported by the rules as written. A little rules decorum is in order here until rule 40 can be officially revised.

Note that units moving by strategic rail do not present a problem in this regard. Although Rule 7A2 also states that any unit moving by strategic rail movement may not move adjacent to an enemy unit at any time during its movement, it additionally states "the unit may not attack during the combat phase." Why was this phrase included?

Doesn't the prohibition against moving adjacent to enemy units automatically preclude units which use strategic rail from attacking, as with admin. movement? No, it doesn't. Don't forget the railroad artillery boys, who can fire from a two- hex distance (but may not use admin. movement!). Thus there is a nice rule prohibiting units which move by strategic rail from attacking, and this includes socking it to partisans who happen to be on or adjacent to rail hexes.

Ben's comment about using APZOCs of units moving admin. is applicable to regular ZOCs as well. For example, there are many occasions during the first few turns of SE where Axis units can admin. move into positions from whence their ZOCs will block the retreat paths of pocketed Soviet forces.

Here we are approaching the end of the column and we have discussed only two questions. This points up vividly the thrust of my opening remarks. Asking questions which can be answered with a simple yes or no, or a short sentence, will allow us to inform you how the rule works (as Ben Knight did in TEN #5). This is infinitely less time-consuming than explaining why the rules work as they do, or all the thought processes behind their creation.

Bearing this in mind as you frame your questions will aid their prompt return and make my life a little easier, too.

If you insist on going the Design Question route, all I can say is, "Lots of luck." You may get a response, and you may never get any reply at all.