VIKTORY II Expansion Rule - Road Network
All towns/cities have notional roads in every adjacent land hex and their own hex.
Units may move up to three hexes at a cost of only 1 movement point (MP) if their entire movement is on a road.
If a unit is not making a full 3 hex for 1 MP movement along roads, then it still uses 1 full MP to move 1 or 2 hexes along a road. For example, if a unit moves out of a town toward an unexplored area of the map, it uses 1 MP just to move into the adjacent space, because even though it technically only takes 1/3 MP, it can’t move into the NEXT hex that doesn’t have a road using only 2/3 MP. In that example, the unit doesn’t gain any benefit to the road (other than ignoring a possible terrain restriction) because it only moved 1 hex along the road.
If a unit is off the road network it costs 1 full MP to move onto a road. This allows an infantry to move one hex to get on a road, then 3 hexes along the road, which requires the same amount of movement and parallels the situation of the same infantry moving 3 on a road and then 1 off the road. If the hex containing the initial road is a mountain or forest hex, it does not stop the unit’s movement into that hex because of the road’s presence.
It requires a full MP to move into battle, ie infantry can’t move six hexes along a road and get into battle. They can only move three hexes along a road and then move into a fourth hex to battle.
If the road being used is in a hex adjacent to an enemy town/city, it is not controlled by a single player, and so may NOT be used by either player.
The old “guide holding open the passes” rule is still in effect, where if a unit is in a forest or mountain hex at the beginning of a player’s turn, the player may send other units through the hex while ignoring the terrain movement restriction.
Posted: December 22nd, 2006 under Expansion Rules.
Comments: 8
Comments
Comment from Napoleon Blownaparte
Time: December 30, 2006, 1:18 pm
Per request, I’m copying a suggestion I made on the Morrison Games Forum to this part of the blog.
The suggestion was that Road Movement (reduced-cost movement between cities) be allowed to cross ONE Sea hex (current rules require an all-land route).
I made this adjustment after a game in which my starting position had me trapped on an island with no Forest hexes (and therefore no Frigates). With this adjustment, this situation can only arise in the highly unlikely event that one starts on an island that is separated from the mainland by at least two water hexes in all directions.
My supporting rationale was that established commerical transport (ferries, etc) would probably allow easy passage of narrow straits near population centers.
Comment from Peter
Time: December 30, 2006, 1:47 pm
It’s interesting how the path of a thought process can bring you close to a good idea, but somewhere along the way it gets abandoned and the good idea doesn’t get revealed.
In developing rules, I’ve been surprised at how often I’ve worked on a concept, abandoned it when it didn’t work out, and then later see with clarity what I was missing all along to make it work.
I explain my initial road rules reworking here:
http://www.viktorygame.com/blog/2006/12/13/viktory-ii-expansion-rule-pillage-attack/
Instead of having players over the course of the game lay down 50+ road segments, just to allow enemy units the opportunity to destroy perhaps 5 or 10 of them in the course of the game, I could use the notional road concept (where roads are just assumed to exist between friendly towns/cities), and then have enemy players lay down 5 or 10 pillage markers over the course of the game to show where the notional roads don’t exist anymore.
So what I did with the Pillage Attack markers is basically take a “negative” or invert the road segment rule. Instead of units destroying real, tangible road segments and taking them UP or off the map- units would destroy notional, nontangible road segments and lay DOWN a pillage marker.
While trying to get little road segments to work, I was also experimenting with “ferries” or essentially allowing players to lay the little road segments across water hexes. However, when I decided to go with the road network idea explained here, I just abandoned the thought of allowing units to move across water hexes via ferries.
Although I haven’t playtested it yet, I think this is a great suggestion that seems like an obvious addition. It also fits in well to the already explained road network rules. An official way to state it might be:
- All towns/cities have notional roads and ferries in every adjacent hex, both land and water, and their own hex.
- Units may not end their turn on a water hex, unless transported by a frigate.
- If the road or ferry being used is in a hex adjacent to an enemy town/city, it is not controlled by a single player, and so may NOT be used by either player.
Comment from Napoleon Blownaparte
Time: December 30, 2006, 3:03 pm
I’m glad I was able to make a useful suggestion! 
Here are a couple of other house rules we came up with that are related to Road Movement:
– Road Movement cannot pass through hexes that contain or are ADJACENT TO enemy units.
– Reserve placement in a town/city is not blocked by the mere presence of an adjacent enemy unit. Rather, reserve placement in a town/city is blocked if ROAD MOVEMENT into the town/city is blocked by enemy units.
We were a little bothered by the fact that reinforcement could be blocked by a single enemy unit next to a city, even if there were clear paths to friendly cities/units from the blocked city’s other 5 hexsides. The two house rules above, taken together, require a little more effort in order to envelop and cut off a city, but still make it a realistic option if the circumstances are right.
Hope those ideas are interesting too!
Comment from Peter
Time: December 30, 2006, 8:54 pm
An important thing to remember in rules development is that a new rule affects every other rule.
A good example that comes to mind is in Axis & Allies. Heavy Bombers in the 2nd edition rules gave you three dice, which was incredible. However, since you couldn’t specify which tech to research, experienced players usually wouldn’t go for them, as you’d probably end up with some other less desired tech instead.
In the 2004 Axis & Allies revision, the tech was reduced down to just two dice for Heavy Bombers. The tech wasn’t as good, but another rule was also changed - players could now target their research after a specific tech. With guaranteed selection of Heavy Bombers on a successful tech roll, Heavy Bombers were officially in business as a good strategy. Too good in fact, as a followup rule addition weakened their abilities and brought them back down to earth.
With this VIKTORY II expansion, it’s important to bear that in mind. A change in one rule, such as the rule requiring cities to be three spaces apart, has a lot of trickle-down effects. It’s suddenly much harder to launch an attack in a single turn from your city to an enemy city because of the greater distance. The “siege” rule where adjacent enemy units prevent you from reinforcing becomes MUCH more important in a game where you are more likely to stage units outside an enemy city before an attack.
If the “siege” rule was eliminated, opponents could launch suicide attacks from their own besieged city with impunity, knowing those units will come right back.
Of the two other rules you’ve suggested. I’m most intrigued by:
– Road Movement cannot pass through hexes that contain or are ADJACENT TO enemy units.
I definitely think this merits playtesting. At first I kept thinking of different reasons that it might be a bad idea, but one by one I’ve eliminated all of my major objections. I find it helps to look at a map of a game in progress (such as is on the box cover) and try to see what sorts of situations might develop. This rule should only help the attacker, and that’s a good thing!
Comment from Tom
Time: December 31, 2006, 7:16 pm
Funny how Peter only cares about cost-free suicide attacks when they affect the attacker!
As the self-appointed advocate for defenders in VIKTORY, I’d have to say that both rules sound reasonable, obviously better in tandem. It wouldn’t be THAT difficult to conduct a siege- every attacking unit would have a 1-hex road-blocking radius. So even a city or town with notional road connections (to other towns) on of all six sides would only require two units to shut down.
Overall, very good suggestions, including the ferry (one caveat: ferries could not transport into unexplored hexes, since you wouldn’t know if it was water or land ahead of time). The only question is how much computational overhead these rules would add to players’ turns, and if the cost paid for itself in sufficient strategic richness. My guess is that the former is minimal and the latter to low to moderate (as these are mere tweaks to existing rules), which is an acceptable tradeoff, if proved in playtesting.
Comment from Napoleon Blownaparte
Time: January 1, 2007, 7:36 am
“As the self-appointed advocate for defenders in VIKTORY”
Not meaning to hijack this thread with a sub-issue, but I’ve found myself in this category also. It seems like many of the house rules we ended up using were aimed at evening things out in favor of defensive play. Otherwise, it seemed like an early town/city capture would immediately give one player insurmountable momentum in smaller games (usually stoppable only if a coalition could be formed against the aggressor).
I’ll leave it at that, to avoid re-routing this thread away from discussion of Road Network rules. (Maybe another thread should be started to discuss the tension between offense and defense?)
Comment from Peter
Time: January 9, 2007, 10:04 pm
The easiest thing for discussing offense vs. defense would be to bring it up under the Rules Suggestions? post.
Comment from Peter
Time: February 10, 2007, 10:38 am
As a followup to:
“The old “guide holding open the passes” rule is still in effect, where if a unit is in a forest or mountain hex at the beginning of a player’s turn, the player may send other units through the hex while ignoring the terrain movement restriction.”
It should be added that:
“Roads between enemy towns/cities are not contested if a guide is holding open the passes. So if there is a mountain hex between two enemy towns/cities, and Player A begins his turn with a unit on the hex, then Player A’s units may treat that hex as though a road exists for purposes of their movement.”
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