3/18/2010

Add Supply Lines

Add Supply Lines

An easy way to do supply lines might be to think of a friendly city as having a movement range and rate (20 wheeled) like a unit's highlighted hexes (including terrain/weather/ZOC) where any units not within the city's range get half-supply (after adjacent enemies or other current rules). That one sentence would add importance for partisans, LRDG, or bomber interdiction but not completely break any unit and be automatic for the player. You could add details like a "supply depot" unit (mobile city for supply and maybe build purposes, enabling a "Mulberry" harbor or Stavelot depot) that can be transported by truck, ship, or aircraft but also destroyed/captured by the enemy. You could add exceptions for mountain or airborne units, depending on how much detail you want.

If you do not daisy-chain cities, a surrounded Bastogne would provide full supply.

You could use aircraft-style red in ground units' movement highlights to indicate areas out of full supply.

People can think of specific situations in desert or muddy steppes to see if 20 wheeled and half-supply or some other specifications are best (especially if there will be no supply unit).

You could add a few more gradations, such as 100% supply within 20 wheeled, 67% supply within 30 wheeled, etc. You could have hex-by-hex gradations and use red highlights to warn units when moving past less than 50% supply.

You could have cities like Bastogne that break the daisy-chain lose supply and build abilities (equivalent of bomber neutralization) after 2 turns (run the daisy-chain check after the infantry-recapture check).

You could include airfields in the daisy-chain by air ZOC but maybe not in rain/snow.

Supply convoys improvised routes. In terms of recon realism and your supply status giving you information about enemy locations, it is realistic to know that the supply route was clear of enemy when the trucks arrive and the drivers tell you how they got there.

Overlap of Axis an Allied supply zones is OK. US units reinforced Bastogne in between German units that already had bypassed Bastogne.

British 1st Airborne in Operation Market Garden should get supply from a "drop zone" (a designer could use a standard airfield hex but a new type of drop-zone hex or a grass-field airfield for only planes like Lysanders would be better) that it must defend against German capture.

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