Tech/Spying revamp: Breakthroughs
Coming back to this, the 2nd half of my previous house rule thread outlines what I call the “breakthrough” system; this replaces both the spying and technology phases.
Each nation can make a number of free breakthrough rolls equal to:
the number of free tech rolls they get, under the baseline rules + the maximum number of spies they can have on the board at a time, under the baseline rules
This gives us the following numbers:
USSR: 3
WE: 1
UK: 1
US: 2
Each nation may also purchase a number of additional breakthrough rolls on their turn, up to the number of free breakthroughs roll they can make; the cost of an additional breakthrough roll is equal to the cost of an infantry, for that nation (2 for USSR, or 3 for any of the NATO powers.) Being that E&W is fundamentally still an IPM game, this is intended to make purchasing breakthroughs competitive with purchasing infantry.
Breakthrough results:
on a roll of 1, you may do one of the following:
gain a diplomatic success at a neutral alliance (OAS, Arab League, or China)
gain a full step in one technology tree
on a roll of 2, you may do one of the following:
gain a diplomatic success at any minor/independent neutral
gain a half-step in one technology tree
You may only apply one breakthrough to any tech tree, per turn.
Optional rules:
The USSR may use a 2 to influence China
(revised NATO tech sharing) If a NATO partner uses a 1 to gain a technological advancement, both other NATO partners may each gain a half-step in that same tech tree. This is still not allowed for the nuclear weapons tech tree.
(revised USSR counter-intelligence) The USSR may make one free counter-intelligence roll on their turn; if the result is a 1 or 2, this roll can be used to foil a matching NATO breakthrough on the same round, only. The USSR may also purchase 1 additional counter-intelligence breakthrough on each of their turns.
These optional rules combined, would in theory make it easier for the USSR to keep China in the fold, since it also encourages NATO to use their 1s on technology rather than diplomacy.
Essentially, I’ve come to the conclusion lately that nuclear tech is supremely important for the USSR, and the only viable NATO counter is diplomacy. The problem is that the USSR gets free tech rolls AND free rolls to foil NATO’s spies (i.e. their attempts at diplomacy.) In my opinion, this is where the late-game imbalance lies, and short of just completely removing tech/spying from the game (or imposing nerfs on the USSR) the only other real fix is to move towards something where all sides can make any type of rolls they want (i.e. in the base game, US having a free tech roll when they really need a free diplomacy roll, IMO.) Allowing for more rolls overall, should also decrease the randomness by flattening the bell curve. It’s also just fun (in my experience) to get to see more techs in play by more countries, and more neutrals getting active – and allowing that to play into your strategies more reliably.
