First World War Campaigns - Optional Rules

[BigDuke66]

@Mr Grumpy
Here it really depends on what was intended, a "balance"(that was historically not there) or a historical correct gameplay & outcome, the later was never achieved in the CW nor Napi series with default rules.


@Ashantai
I see it the opposite way, turns are a necessary evil for team games as phases would lead to mails being send forth and back within the team to give everyone his chunk of the various phases, that is unbelievable time consuming.
Phases are not more work than turns(when using Automated Defensive Fire) and can achieve better results as you get rid of that unreliable defensive fire that is usually trigger when not need and not triggered when needed.


@jonnymacbrown

There is no counter-battery fire because most of the arty are direct fire guns and those that aren't were not engaged in counter-battery fire.

Indeed that would make sense.

Manual defensive fire means that the game takes twice as long so who wants that? And in this series the defense is paramount so auto defensive fire gives the offense a better chance.

Twice as long? Well without Automated Defensive Fire you seem to need 6 mails exchanges to get a turn done instead of 2 but with Automated Defensive Fire it is not more time consuming than turns and may achieve better results as gamey tactics won't work.

If you blow a unit on an assault, it is usually hors d combat for three days so be careful. Higher fatigue recovery leads to an unrealistic overuse of assault IMO.

Well 3 days sound a bit long, at least it was so for the CW & Napi series as most battles didn't last that long so you basically just had one assault and after it the unit had to stay behind for the rest of the game, that simply doesn't fit to accounts of units being able to assault more than once a battle or even a day.
Maybe the fatigue calculation works better(inside of what the manual states) in this series and there really is no need for the higher recovery rates.

Nobody that I know of what's to play with locking ZOCs. Without them we get more mobile actions.

That seems at least in the early phase to be good.

The game has widely variable assault and fire resolutions; why mess with that?

As said you get more predictable results when the calculation is made twice and the averange value is used. Again relating to the CW the time a turn takes makes it unlikely that for example fire results should tend to be near the extreme values as that would mean the unit either shot all the time in the clouds or all the time like sharpshooters, both cases seem unlikely.

The series is pretty complicated, so who wants to deal with supply wagons. I know I don't.

Well if the designer has them in I guess he intends that the player uses them, if the are not in the standard rules are used so no problem.
BTW please check you PM.


@Volcano Man
Not that I doubt your words but as mentioned the default rules never worked out in CW and Napi and if not adjusted you got anything except historical correct gameplay and outcome.
This is just discussed in another club that focuses on the CW titles and there it's clear that alone the switch from turn the phase gameplay resembles much more the way assault where conducted in the Civil War.
Maybe I take my experience with these 2 series that are more of a tactical nature as too general and should not use the lessons learned there in this series that seems of a more operational nature but I'm just too worried because wrong settings can make a very frustrating start into a series and I learned that twice already.