War in the Americas 2: Rules

[Pedros]

This is the definitive map and the rules wwe will be playing under in Americas 2. It contains (I hope) all of the results of discussions posted earlier in this thread, but I am posting it at the top of the topic for ease of reference. It includes the map, the game rules, and my GM's House Rules, which are hopefully not too onerous! If anybody spots an error (ie it isn't what we've already discussed and I've ruled on) then please let me know and it will be changed.

(Start map is at viewtopic.php?f=345&t=13703)

Game rules (words in blue are the alterations we've made here; those in black are from Maracario Reyes' rules as quoted at the Variant Bank.)

1. Canals and waterways in Americas (apart from the Panama Canalthey all act like Kiel in Standard):

* New York City/New York State- the Erie Canal, allows passage from New York Bay to Eastern Great Lakes
* Panama - the Panama Canal, although it was not open until 1912 it is used in the game to cross between the Atlantic and Pacific areas. Fleets may move directly from MOS to GoP and vice versa with the explicit permission of the country occupying (or alternatively controlling) Panama
* Magallanes - Magallanes Strait, allows an extra passage between oceans at the bottom tip of South America.
* Montreal - St-Lawrence waterway, allows passage from Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Eastern Great Lakes
* Trinidad - These groups of islands are treated as a sea/land territories and movement of fleets is allowed from one side to the other, while armies can move through land from West Indies to Trinidad and from Trinidad to Delta.

2. Continuous coasts. Movement by fleets is allowed along the coasts of Toronto, Michigan and Delta as if they were canals, like Denmark in the standard variant. [i](This covers passage from EGL - WGL[/i]

3. Navigable Rivers. There are two:

* The Mississippi-Missouri. Which allows the passage of fleets from the Gulf of Mexico to the Western Great Lakes, passing through the provinces of New Orleans, Mississippi, Kentucky, Missouri, Chicago and Minnesota. Using this waterway, a fleet can move from the Great Lakes to the Ocean or viceversa in 4 turns ordering WGL-Min (or WGL-Chi), Min-Mso (or Chi-Mso), Mso-NOr and NOr-GOM.
* The Amazonas. Which allows the passage of fleets through he provinces of Para, Amazonia and Loreto.

4. Provinces that have two coasts: Cali, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Chiapas, Ontario and Washington. Chicago has three coasts

5. Misiones province in Argentina has access to the Rio de la Plata, therefore Buenos Aires and Uruguay are not adjacent by land.

6. Supply Centers. There are 61 supply centers, therefore victory is obtained by gaining control of 31 centers. Some of these are within the countries, but are considered unsettled or unstable areas that are yet to be conquered.

7. The game will begin with a Winter 00 build phase

8. The game will be Build Anywhere (ie in any owned and vacant SC)

House Rules
As promised, here are my house rules. The NMR rules are obviously important, but please also note my request about titles for your PMs to me and please don't mix orders and other comments/queries to me - otherwise your questions won't get answered in time.

OK, here goes!

Orders Please title your orders '19M - Japan - Spring 19000001 orders/retreats etc' (or something similar that I can recognise!) And send them to me by PM.

It's up to you to make sure they're accurate. Some GMs check orders as they come in and alert players if they think there's an error; I won't be doing that - I don't read orders until the deadline (this is so that if somebody else asks a question there's no chance of me betraying your secrets! - also because it's the way original Dip rules worked) If it's clear what they mean (eg minor mistake in a territory name which leaves no doubt) then no problem; but if they're at all ambiguous they're invalid.

Other messages Please title them something different, so I know which is which - otherwise I'll probably assume they're orders and not read them before the deadline!

Deadlines 72-24-24 from the time the new map goes up. I'll send a PM at the same time so there's no excuse for not noticing! but I recommend you subscribe to the new sub-Forum as soon as it's in place so there's no chance of you missing a new topic. And post provisional orders early, just in case!

For movement phases I'll also send a reminder about 24 hours before the deadline (give or take a few hours). This is because I'll then be strict about NMRs - see below

Speed deadlines Once I have orders from all players I will process them as soon as possible, unless they are marked 'Provisional' or similar. (I encourage provisional orders where appropriate to reduce the risk of NMRs.) But if you do send in provisionals, please let me know once you're happy to finalize them, just to move the game along. I may write to check if yours are the only orders waiting to be finalized, but if I do this is a reminder not a hassle! Don't feel pressurized into finalizing before you're ready!

Requests for delays Where there's a good reason I'm happy to accept a delay of deadline, but I don't want this to happen too often - one of the biggest reasons for games failing is that they don't move along quickly enough and players lose interest. But please give as much notice as possible for everybody's sake! In particular, extensions will not be granted at the last minute on 72-hour deadlines simply because access is difficult.

NMRs I will usually aim to process the orders fairly soon after the deadline, though there may be exceptions. I take the same view as the main site software - if you get orders in a few minutes late but before I begin, you'll get away with it. Once I start opening up orders, it's too late. No exceptions.

Then, three NMRs on movement phases and you're out. Two in succession you're out. For retreat and build phases I take the view if you don't submit it's your problem then you've missed the chance but that's all. (And an NMR on the first turn is immediate replacement!) If somebody's NMR leads to expulsion then there will be a pause while I try to replace them, and the new player gets a day to talk and post orders.

And an NMR on the opening Build or Spring phases will bring instant ejection - and the game will be on hold for a replacement. I want the game at least to start properly!

Errors in adjudication I'm only human, so check the map after orders to make sure I have it right! If there's a substantial error it will delay the deadline, so I'll try to be perfect!

Any questions, just ask. And finally, enjoy what should be a good game!

[Pedros]

I essentially see britain as almost three different countries with one player. There's the centers up in Canada, which can expand north and west, but can't go south unless you want to fight with America. There's the Caribbean, where it's duking it out with Spain and everyone lining the Caribbean for control. And then there's Falklands, which as far as I can tell is most useful as some sort of mercenary unit, unless you want to commit from another theater. So giving it Guyana would give it a better chance to thrive in the Caribbean theater, which would eventually help it in other areas.

The downside to Britian is that since it's so spread out, it's vulnerable to attack. If Canada gets attacked, there's not a lot that the units already in south america can do, for instance. So it can grow a lot, but it's much more vulnerable to attack. How that evens out, I have no idea. Just my thoughts. I'd be curious how Britain has done in other games.

Putting 3 bases in the Caribbean, which is equal to Spain, plus 3 other bases, although spread out makes Britain way to powerful. They already start off with the most units, its up to them to use DIPLOMACY (weird, i Know) to not get attacked on all fronts, but they have plenty to defend their home bases.

These were exactly the arguments running through my head, on both sides, when I posted my earlier question. Britain will, I think, be very quickly destroyed unless he can persuade one of his neighbours to side with him (and there is no obvious reason why one of them should do so). And even if he does, the chances are that he will lose his centres elsewhere, making him at best of a similar strength to the other nations.

But on the other hand, as Stalin says, if he can pull it off he could become very strong - indeed, he could well be unstoppable.

The only other game I know of is Game 1 here. For some reason QoH gave Britain a unit in Toronto instead of Trinidad, which strengthened his starting position; but even then he was all but wiped out very quickly. I'm going to try to track down any other recorded games, partly out of general interest but also because the rules in the bank are so confusing (wait till I get to the Great Lakes!!) that I wonder if it was ever played prfeviously.

questions about Panama:

1) if I have a fleet in Mos and I order it to ChG, and the current owner does not have a unit in Panama, will the order work whether or not he gives consent to pass through?

2) can I order Mos-Pan on a fall turn, then Pan-ChG on the next spring turn, conquering Pan?

1) No. The player who controls the country gets the say-so. But if another player is in there after a Spring turn then control of the canal passes to him for the Fall (I admit it - that's a variation II've introduced - but it seems obvious)

2) Yes. You're in Panama after the Fall, so it's yours.

[Pedros]

The variant bank (awesome website btw) notes that this would normally be build anywhere. I know you have said home centers only. While you're the GM and you make the rules, I was just curious as to the reasoning.

True. But we played Home Builds only in Game 1, and it worked well.


Build Anywhere gives an additional advantage to the player going forward (he can get his units straight into action). But since the game worked well without that advantage I don't see why we should give it, undermining the chances of defence.

[shavemybaby]

what game is this referring to?

[Pedros]

I have a few questions mostly relating to the Great Lakes/NE area, so I can make sure I understand what is what:

If my fleet is in the WGL, it can enter into Chi, Min, Mic, Tor, and EGL, correct?
Similarly, if my fleet is in the EGL, it can enter into Tor, Mic, Chi, Was, NYS, and Mon, correct?

The blue line between NYS and NYC is a canal which connects NEC to EGL, correct? so I could move from EGL to NYS to NYC to NEC?

Can a fleet in Mon move directly to NEn, Hal, or NYS? Can an army?

Can a fleet in App move directly to Msp?

Very good questions RedelMonde! This sparked a lengthy debate in Game 1 between Ceebs and me (Ceebs is very keen on the Great Lakes, and afterwards developed a Great Lakes variant). See viewtopic.php?f=117&t=14274&p=190157&hilit=great+lakes#p191118 and the posts around it. I'm basically going with the results of that discussion, because there's no information anywhere else.

I had realised after I posted yesterday that there were map issues here which I had to deal with before the game starts. Put simply, there is a continuous waterway from APP in the south to GoS in the north, via the Lakes. And as you rightly observe, there is a branch canal through New York City and State, and movement is as you say - EGL-NYS-NYC-NEC. Note that it doesn't touch Washington. (However, note also that although the map used in Game 1 denied Washington access to EGL, the Bank's rules are clear - Washington has two coasts.)

That's the easy bit.

Now, the Lakes. Firstly, the connection between the two Lakes areas is canal-type - a fleet can't move EGL-WGL but has to crawl along a coastline.

Secondly, what's clear from any map you care to look at is that Chicago and Toronto each has two coasts, one to EGL and one to West (it's arguable that Chicago has two different ones for WGL, but I'm going to take them as one coast. I'll insert the coastline tags in the next map.

Thirdly, your list of where you can reach from the two areas is absolutely right - but don't forget the coastlines for Chi and Tor.

Basically, I suspect that the reason this never became clear is that it's very difficult to see how anybody will have a need for fleets in the Great Lakes - so anybody who manages to put one there (or even order a failed move there!) will get a Highly Commended

Finally, yes - both armies and fleets can make all of those moves. Fleets can cross rivers to the other side so long as there is a common length of river between them, and armies can pass just as if the river wasn't there (the same applies along the Mississipi and the Amazon)

[Pedros]

what game is this referring to?

Apologies! The original topic header was changed by accident. It's War in the Americas 2, where there's a sign-up thread already running

[AardvarkArmy]

Two Questions re the Mississippi River:

1) The example for movement ikn the variant bank doesn't seem quite right:

The Mississippi-Missouri. Which allows the passage of fleets from the Gulf of Mexico to the Western Great Lakes, passing through the provinces of New Orleans, Mississippi, Kentucky, Missouri, Chicago and Minnesota. Using this waterway, a fleet can move from the Great Lakes to the Ocean or viceversa in 4 turns ordering WGL-Min (or WGL-Chi), Min-Mso (or Chi-Mso), Mso-NOr and NOr-GOM.

It appears to me the paths woulod be either: WGL-Min-Kan-Nor-GOM or WGL-Chi-MSP-Nor-App

2) That last step raises my second question: Nor seems to have a tiny piece on the eastern shore of the Mississippi, touching Msp, Flo and APP. So.... Army enters Nor from Tex, can army move on next turn to Msp or Flo? (I guess same question applies to Para, Amazonia and Loreto on the Amazonia...)


One other waterway question:

Where does the Montreal-St Lawrence waterway end and EGL begin? (e.g., does EGL touch NEn?) They seem indistiguishable on thje map...

[AardvarkArmy]

For that matter, where does WGL end and Mississippi begin?

[RedelMondo]

Finally, yes - both armies and fleets can make all of those moves. Fleets can cross rivers to the other side so long as there is a common length of river between them, and armies can pass just as if the river wasn't there (the same applies along the Mississipi and the Amazon)

So to sum it up - the rivers are all basically there to allow fleets to move along the coasts, but aren't there as a body of water to a) prevent army movement and b) to be captured and held.

Thanks for your help in clearing things up. You're right though, it doesn't seem likely much of this will be used!

[theangrycastle]

Finally, yes - both armies and fleets can make all of those moves. Fleets can cross rivers to the other side so long as there is a common length of river between them, and armies can pass just as if the river wasn't there (the same applies along the Mississipi and the Amazon)

So to sum it up - the rivers are all basically there to allow fleets to move along the coasts, but aren't there as a body of water to a) prevent army movement and b) to be captured and held.

Thanks for your help in clearing things up. You're right though, it doesn't seem likely much of this will be used!

So the rivers are effectively canals like Constantinople, that don't go anywhere?