When developing the enhanced NOs please try to consider the TripleA game engine. :-D
We can test a lot of ideas using the edit mode, and if we had more coordination and eyes on it, we could probably get a little more coding help from the devs. Things like X ipcs for Territory A, or no units of type Y in Territory B for a bonus of Z ipcs. As long as we keep it within some sort of general framework, it should be pretty easy to customize or expand the rules. I think simplicity and ease of memorization is the ticket.
I like the Russo-Jap NAP for example, and the Submarine stuff too (Germany/Italy need an incentive to buy ships or it’s never going to happen.) If it comes down to it, we may also want to seriously consider a 21 VC system instead of 18 as another relatively simple adjustment that might help. For the house rules though, the easier they are to explain the better the odds that players will adopt them. Something to keep in mind while brainstorming. :-)
We should try to come up with 5-10 really innovative but ‘easy to remember’ NOs, and then try to establish them as a kind of standard House Rules option. Then we could include them at the bottom of the game notes *optional expansion to give the rules some additional sense of formality. The edit mode should already make most of these ideas possible, the only issue right now is that the players have to track the stats themselves (which is sort of a pain). That’s not much different from what you have to do in a face to face game though, so its not unreasonable. Hopefully Kev will look into coding some of this stuff, or at least providing some more UI flexibility to deal with things like expanded NOs. Even just getting some good house rules in the gamenotes would be cool though.
I’ve felt for a long time now that the game could use an influx of additional money, so I think additional House NOs would be fun (more money means more build options, means less dependence on the starting set up and more dynamic strategies.) If we wanted to limit the impact of these additional NOs, we could always drop the standard bonuses from 5 ipcs to 3 ipcs, or something of that sort, to make room for the new ones. But I think you could bring everyone up 5 or 10, and as long as it was even, most players would accept it.
As a house rule along these lines, I also think it would be fun to award 1 additional IPC for each Victory City controlled. We can do a lot right now though, using the edit mode. Its a little unwieldy, but still allows for a lot more flexibility than we had before.
