[JCrowe]

IL Manifesto II – Viva la Deuce!

It’s baack! Another impressively unshortened vision of things that may or never be. This edition covers the workings of World Supremacy version 1.08, and is not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination, but it does comprehense plenty for the time being.

Be forewarned, some of these suggestions are fairly radical, and are based on what I think might work. Hard to say, because the ‘AI’ has not proven strong enough yet to test some of the issues that birthed the fears to which I’m responding, so I’m making projections on what MIGHT be and how best to ‘fix’.

Summary to start, then detailed explanations to follow (where necessary).


SUGGESTED UPGRADES IN BRIEF:

DESTROYERS
- Nerf the enhanced AA capability
- Able to kill subs in a single shot

SUBS
- Attack Subs able to bombard (range = 1)
- Cannot be ‘seen’ or attacked except by ASW
- ASW = Destroyers, ASW Choppers, other Subs
- Sub launching an attack is visible (though number and type is not)
- Able to kill a destroyer or transport with a single shot
- When in the presence of ASW, sub initiative is lowered
- When not in the presence of ASW, sub initiative is high (normal)
- No ASW around? Enemy sub can occupy the same sea territory as enemy forces
(battle not compelled; by option of sub owner only)

BOMBARD!!
- Attack Subs & Cruisers can surgical-strike; click on target, blow it up (not random)
- Player’s cursor ought to change to a pulsing red gunsight (or something) when ‘bombardment’ option is selected. (Helps prevent confusion w/movement.



ROCKET ARTILLERY – OPEN QUESTION
- Increase range to 8 squares in tactical if (as I think) tank initiative is so high that they can move three times for every one move by Rocket Artillery

TACTICAL MAP
- If a unit passes on a turn, it remains ‘at ready’ and will auto-shoot any enemy force entering range while it ‘rests’
- Units stack by type, regardless of tech; when the group is attacked, the lowest tech units in the stack absorb the damage first and so on

FORTIFICATIONS
- Mitigates the damage done by bombardments
- More forts or higher tech forts = more protection from bombardment
- (bombardment includes nuke strikes)
- Protection against bombardment has a fixed ceiling
- Higher tech installations increase the ceiling, but a limit remains
(No invincibility allowed)
- In tactical combat, forts mitigate damage to GROUND UNITS located in the first three columns of squares on the defender’s side of the map
- Ditch the enhancement forts presently give to defender’s initiative

TRANSPORTS (JET OR SHIP)
- Loss of movement points during load is proportional to the load (ie. load up 50% of your capacity in Turn 1, you only lose 50% of the unit’s movement points in Turn 1)

CARRIERS (all)
- No penalty to ship or aircraft for flight operations; carrier acts the same as ‘land’ to all air units

TECH
- Why stop at Level 3; why not add a fourth to most tech trees?
- More Advanced stuff should cost more; Level 2 should cost more than Level 1
- Stealth aircraft should be more expensive than conventional jets, even when tech level is the same

ie. Bomber 1 = $36M; Stealth Bomber 1 = $40M ….

FIGHTERS AND BOMBERS
- Limit to ONE ATTACK per turn

SPECIALIZATION – Option for GAME SETUP
- If chosen, each player can pick one unit for ‘specialization’. For example, pick “attack helicopter” and you have Level 2 attack helicopters, even though your beginning tech level is “one”. Upgrade to Level 2, and your attack helicopters go to Level 3, while other ‘chopper types only move up to Level 2.

NEW UNITS – AUGMENTED INFANTRY
- Infantry to come in three flavors:
- Standard
- Mechanized
- Air Cav

- Standard infantry unchanged from current
- Mechanized infantry
- costs more
- represented by an APC icon
- moves 2 on strategic map
- moves 3 on tactical map
- attack strength is higher than standard infantry
- attack range is still 2 squares
- has higher initiative than standard infantry
- “Air Cav” infantry
- costs more than mechanized
- represented by a Bell Huey or Mi-17 icon?
- moves 3 on strategic map & can cross water
- moves 3 on tactical map
- attack strength is higher than mechanized infantry
- attack range is 3 squares
- has higher initiative than mechanized infantry

ICONIC OPTIONS
Just a thought, but it would be cool if, at Game Setup, you can choose from different ‘families’ of unit icons. Currently, everyone shows up using good ol’ USA / NATO / Western pact iconography – M1 tanks, Apache helicopters, 688 attack subs … only exception seems to be the boomers; old Soviet Typhoon-class, not the Washingtons. Go fig. (Well, they do look way more cool.) But why not let users chose a different family of icons / pics? Eastern bloc / Soviet Empire, for example. Bored with those Apaches? Why not try a Mi-24 Hind instead? Or a Havoc? And the F-117 was so yesterday. F-22s perhaps?