If you wish to participate in a time-limited play-test of this varient, please PM me and also reply in thread. If you have any particular preferences for what power you'd like to play please include that preference in the PM not in the thread post (conflicts will be broken with random.org).
This play-test will last 4 years of game time and at the end of it there will be an option to continue for any who enjoyed the first four years.
Rules are below:
Rules are identical to standard diplomacy with the following exceptions:
Builds:
On any winter phase players may elect to build a missile battery or an air wing in place of an army or fleet. Wings and missiles contribute to total unit count in the same way that armies and fleets do (total wings+missiles+armies+fleets must equal total number of scs after adjustments). The number of builds or disbands available to a player is determined by the number of scs that player controls at the START of the winter phase in question. Given the existence of missiles that sc count may change during the winter phase.
Air Space:
On the map collections of territories are surrounded by thick black borders rather than the usual thin black borders. These borders govern the movement of armies and fleets in the same way that ordinary borders do. The significance of these borders is that all territories encompassed within a single thick border are under a common "airspace."
Wings:
Wings Actions:
Wings have three kinds of actions they can perform, just like fleets do. These orders are: move, support, and "bombing campaign." They may not convoy. They may not be convoyed.
Wings movement:
Wings may move from any space to the airspace above it, they may move from any airspace to any adjacent airspace, and they may move from any airspace to any friendly-colored territory beneath that airspace. A territory is a friendly color if either 1) it is colored with the color of the wing's owner at the start of the game, and is not a friendly color for any other player's wings or 2) if the territory were a supply center it would be under the control of the power controlling the wing (i.e. it was occupied in a fall turn by a unit of the player).
Wing Support: Wings may support actions in any space into which they could move just like all other units. This means that wings may always support actions in the airspace above them, in airspace adjacent to an airspace they occupy, or in friendly territories below an airspace that they occupy. They may not support actions in ground spaces adjacent to their own. They may not support actions in sea spaces unless those spaces have previously been occupied by a fleet belonging to the same power and no other power has since occupied it with a fleet in a fall phase. Planes moving to a sea space represents them landing on a carrier.
Bombing Campaign: When a wing is in an airspace that wing may, in lieu of taking other actions, be ordered to carry out a "bombing campaign." This consists of the wing not trying to land in a space suitable for it, or to fly somewhere else, but rather to patrol the area in which it currently resides looking for enemy targets to bomb. When a wing does this its controller's units win all battles that take place in spaces beneath the airspace of the wing. This can be thought of as giving each of the units of the player beneath that airspace 0.01 additional power (never enough to prevail on its own but always enough to tip the balance of a tie).
Disambiguation:
When a player engages on both sides of a conflict, say by supporting two powers into the same space, the tiebreak provided by the bombing campaign goes to the side on which more units of the wing controlling power were participating (two supports beats one support). Convoys do not count towards this adjudication as they do not contribute directly to the force applied to the battle. This means that if the power controlling the wing conducting a bombing campaign supports a unit of one power into a space under the wing's airspace and convoys another power into that same space, the moves do not bounce even if otherwise equal because one has "more air support."
Nuclear Missiles:
Missile Battery Actions:
Missile batteries have three actions like fleets do. They may move, support or launch. They may not convoy.
Missile Movement:
A missile may move to any adjacent land space, or any space to which it is convoyed by a fleet. Missiles in other words move like armies do.
Missile movement: Missiles may support actions in any space to which they could move without a convoy. Missiles support like armies do (tactical nukes spotted from the launchers). Missiles move and hold with a strength of zero and cannot capture supply centers if they occupy them at the end of a fall phase.
Missile Launch:
A missile may be launched as any territory, land or sea, within range. For the map above every territory is "within range" of every other territory. If different technological assumptions are desired in a given variant then range may be limited to territories under the same airspace, or under adjacent airspaces, or within a certain number of territories, or by any other criterion appropriate to the historical moment in which the variant is set. Missiles may be launched in the winter as well as spring and fall phases, but they may not move during the winter phase. When a missile is launched at a territory then, before any other moves are adjudicated, all supply centers and units in that territory are destroyed and the missile battery itself it consumed and removed from the map. This is the only way a missile can affect supply center count. A missile ending its turn in an uncontrolled supply center does not change its ownership.
Disambiguation:
A missile that strikes an sc in a winter phase destroys the sc before any build in that sc took place. Since a build requires an sc in which to occur the build then fails. If a missile strikes a unit moving or supporting that order is canceled (it required a unit to carry out. Nuclear cinders can't bounce or support.) A missile launched in the winter phase does not count towards units on the board for the purpose of computing builds for the player launching it. So you can launch a missile in place of a disband, or to get a build, but you can't build in a supply center occupied by a missile even if you launch it because the sc has to be clear at the start of the winter phase.
Map notes: Middle east has a northern and a southern coast, Arabia, Quebec, Toronto, the Philippines, Indonesia, Scandinavia and Great Britain all include some connected water space. Fleets can't convoy through these. Territories marked in darker brown (not the color of India) are impassable. Any island or body of water not named cannot be moved into for game purposes. North West Pacific borders North-East Pacific and mid Pacific around the world and South West Pacific borders Mid Pacific and South East Pacific the same way. Lastly 40 sc on map, 21 needed for a solo.
Full Resolution Map Here:
https://imgur.com/WUplEad
