Possible Rules Change

@Krieghund:

An example would be if there were a German force contesting Poland with Russia, then Austria-Hungary on its turn moves into and contests Ukraine.  The current rule prevents Germany from abandoning its fight in Poland to jump into Ukraine and get one step closer to Moscow without having to fight to get there.  Leap-frogging is basically taking advantage of the turn order to capitalize on your allies’ advances, which circumvents the purpose of contesting territories.

What is the consensus on moving troops out of a contested territory into a territory that an ally controls (not contested)?

Do you already have to have a troop in there? The possibility exists for Austria to attack with overwhelming force in somewhere like the Ukraine which could allow Germans to leap-frog into there without the “one troop” stipulation.

But then you have the odd problem is that German and Austria are probably going to be slicing up Russia in odd ways, which means some retreat options that seem plausible would suddenly become disallowed.

For example: in our first game, German troops were advancing on Moscow and were in Livonia, contesting it. An unforseen landing by the UK in Karelia stopped the German’s plans and they decided to retreat, except that Poland was controlled by Austria and Germany did not have one unit there. Belarus was being contested by Austria so Germany obviously couldn’t jump out of their battle and into there.

It seemed silly that Germany couldn’t retreat to Poland via virtually any version of the rules so we let it happen.

Another good example is if Austria controls Switzerland, without a unit there Germany could not retreat there from a contested territory around it (maybe to avoid a big allied counter-attack, or to regroup, etc). Having to leave a token infantry all around you just in case you need to retreat to a friendly territory seems clunky.

To me it seems the easiest application of the rule would be that you can move units out of a contested territory and into an uncontested allied territory as long as the destination territory has been held by that ally for one round (thus stopping you from just smashing a territory with one power and then immediately moving another power’s troops in).

This combined with the provision that you have to have one troop in a contested territory at the start of your turn to move units from another contested territory into it seems to pretty much solve all of the problems with the rules except a couple scenarios.

While it works good for the “can opener” protection, here is an example where it might be a little  :?

Let’s say that Germany invades Moscow and captures it. On UK’s turn the send units to Karelia. Then on Russia’s next turn, for some reason they had some troops that were slow getting back from beating up Turks, Russia reinvades Moscow and liberates it. Now, knowing that the UK is going to try to reinforce it, Germany sends over a token force to contest Karelia with the UK. When the UK’s turn rolls around, under the above rule, they cannot send troops to reinforce Moscow because Russia has not held it for one turn (maybe they need to rebuild a few bridges). Of course that wouldn’t be possible anyway in any of the rules, so maybe it’s not too bad.

@MistuhJay:

We used Krieg’s new and improved movement rules, and had no hitches; in fact, it DID prevent one instance of ‘can-opening’ into Russia.

I certainly do have the impression that the suggested rule change is an improvement over the current rule.

yes to this proposal, which we have played three times without any problematic effects, and feel to be rather more logical than the original rule.

We’ve yet to see any problems with this, and it seems like the support for it is very solid. What’s the word on this becoming official?

@Krieghund:

Let’s go ahead and call it official.

Good Call Krieg

Kim

Thanks for the good news!

So what is the official phrasing of the rule?

@Krieghund:

Page 14 has been updated with the rule change regarding land units beginning the turn in contested territories:

Land units that begin the turn in contested territories can only be moved to territories that at the beginning of the turn were either controlled by your power or contained units belonging to your power.  (They can also remain at sea if moved by transport.)

(From the FAQ thread)

So one of the issues here is that a player can leave a single infantry in a contested territory as a rear guard, holding up the advance of, say, 20 infantry and 10 artillery for an entire turn.  Well, here’s a possibility:

If combat takes place in a contested territory, and the player whose turn it is scores enough hits to kill each defending unit at least 3 times, that player can advance any or all of his victorious units into a new enemy controlled territory, initiating a new combat.