Imagine yourself for a moment in ancient Greece attending the theater. The protagonist of the drama finds himself between a rock and a hard place due as much to his own actions as to circumstance. There is no imaginable escape from the crisis. At this moment the stagehands engage the machinery and lower a solution onto the stage: a benevolent god appears from out of the blue to rescue the protagonist from his impasse, and the protagonist exchanges his mask of woe for one of joy. The Latins called this theatrical trick deus ex machina, "god from a machine." Today the term applies to any bad plot device used by an author to extricate a character from a cul-de- sac. For example, a previously unmentioned great great aunt dies and leaves one million dollars (after taxes) to the distant nephew who just happens to need $999,999 before the cows come home tonight.

We often times find poor plot devices in game rules, too. If the trick is of major proportions, it makes for a bad game.

There is one rule in Europa that falls in the category of daus ex machina. Fortunately, it is a rule of extremely little impact. Nevertheless, in these days where the trend is to add more rules to Europa (and I stand guilty of this myself), it would be refreshing to delete one for a change.

Gentlemen, I refer to rule 20.B, Scramble. Here sits an enemy fighter, based willfully and knowingly by your opponent in harm's way. Launch an air strike against it, however, and your antagonist cranks down Athena, goddess of defensive war, in the guise of Scramble, and the fighter flits merrily from the jaws of disaster.

Rule 20.B was first introduced in Their Finest Hour, I believe, probably for the benefit of the British player. I am not well studied on the Battle of Britain, but from what I've read the scramble rule in practice does not seem to reflect history.

When using the rule, it is unlikely that a bombing mission will ever be flown against an enemy fighter simply because the fighter will either scramble or intercept. Even on those occasions when the enemy fighter has no safe base to scramble to (for instance, a British fighter on Malta), bombers won't be sent against it since if the enemy fighter intercepts, then the bombers are without a target (and apparently cannot switch missions). Instead, strafing fighters will be sent on such missions. Then if the enemy fighter chooses to intercept, the strafing fighters jettison their bombs and dogfight. This situation would exist all the time if 20.B was struck from the rules.

In the Battle of Britain, the Germans sometimes used the tactic of fighter sweeps or hunter packs to engage the British fighters. Later in the war, the Allied fighters also used sweeps to hunt out German interceptors. This seems similar to the above-mentioned tactic of sending fighters to bomb/strafe fighters on the ground or provoke them into interception. Furthermore, Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain historically suffered its highest casualties when the Luftwaffe concentrated against it rather than against other targets. Indeed, Fighter Command eventually pulled back so as to be at the limit of the Me109's escort range. In short, while rule 20.B may theoretically model the difficulty of finding fighters on the ground, in practice it gives defending fighters an immunity that is altogether ahistorical.

Face it, the scramble mission is for sissies. It allows players to avoid responsibility and punishment for improper placement of their fighters. In poker you don't get any money back when you fold. Similarly, you shouldn't be able to place fighters near the front with impunity. You should place them there only when you desire to fight for that airspace. Then if the enemy comes bombing for your fighters, either intercept or else shoot back with flak and let your fighters take whatever lumps might befall them on the field. If you don't want to risk your fighters, however, then base them farther back in the rear. These are the sort of real-man decisions players should and would make if it wasn't for the intervention of rule 20.B

In conclusion, ignore the scramble mission and Europa will:

(a) have one less rule;

(b) be more historically accurate; and

(c) make a stronger man out of you.

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