A Swiss artillery defends the same as a Swiss infantry, you are right it should have been worth more than 1 IPC, but changing the game board isn’t practical for every player out there.
A ban on new artillery coming into Switzerland removes the incentive to use it as a launching pad for German forces to threaten France and Italy at the same time, which is what I do as the CP every game, and it feels cheesy.
Germany launching USW alone is not a trigger for US entry, it has to actually hurt US IPCs on their turn.
The problem is German subs usually don’t exist on the board much after turn 3 so your choice is to do it early and suffer the consequences or do it never, because you have no subs.
We need a better way to represent the real threat of submarines.
What happened during the war, was that UK commanders were afraid to lose their very expensive battleships to very cheap submarines.
I actually think we might need to bring back the first strike rule for subs, perhaps ONLY outside of port territories (assume sea zones with ports have sub nets and watch towers preventing first strike) Because that is what was REALLY going on. The great powers were too afraid to move their fleets because of the sub threat in open water. So we need to accomplish these things:
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Make subs a viable economic weapon, able to exist long enough to USW, blow up US supply tokens, etc. (increased survivability among other things)
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Make fleets afraid to leave the safety of their home waters because the subs operate with impunity (more potent attacks)
So ok, maybe this means:
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Subs attack with first strike in sea zones without a port
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Subs ignore mines
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Subs move +1 from ports (as normal for Tournament rules)
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A sub can submerge if it is being attacked by only one enemy ship (1:1 ratio)
Flashman, as for Italy, we can’t ignore it’s motives. You may be right that it shouldn’t get to do any production while neutral. But it can’t be neutral forever, it has to be able to try and become un-neutral. Also, it isn’t going to become a central power, we know that. My original idea was:
At the start of a full round of play, roll a die, if the number is equal to or less than the current turn number, Italy will join the war. Any other number and it will remain neutral (no actions).
The allies may deduct a collective 10 IPCs (from powers at war) from their cash on hand(s) to re-roll the die.