(yet another) Altitude House Rule

[Gallo Rojo]

This may be pointless since it seems the new WW1 Wings of Glory Rules and Accessories Pack will include a revision of altitude rules, but my friends and I have been trying this for a couple of games with, lets say, interesting results. So here it goes:

Firstly: get rid of altitude markers.

Any maneuver that makes an airplane go up -- climbs and imelmanns-- makes the plane gain one altitude peg.
Any maneuver that makes an airplane go down (no jokes) -- dives and split-S -- makes the plane loose one altitude peg.

So how do we handle airplanes with better clim/dive speed?
Answer:

How to Climb:

Regarding Climbing, we divide planes in three groups:

fast climbing speed;
normal climbing speed;
slow climbing speed.

Airplanes with fast climbing speed are those that in the normal rules climb 1 altitude peg after 2 altitude markers -- i.e: Fokker Dr.I; Fokker D.VII; SE5a; SPAD XIII (with the new Ares Rules- etc.); Sopwith Camel (with the old rules)

Airplanes with normal climbing speed are those that in the normal rules climb 1 altitude peg after 3 altitude markers -- i.e: Pfalz DIII; Albatros DVa (with the old rules); SPAD XIII (with the old rules); Sopwith Camel (with the new Ares Rules Book);

Airplanes with slow climbing speed are those that in the normal rules climb 1 altitude peg after 4 or more altitude markers -- i.e. most two seaters and bombers *

-------
* Players may want to change some altitude speeds as they like. In our games we treat Albatros DV.a as a 'normal climbing speed' airplane (as if it needs 3 markers to clime a peg, as it was in the old rules); we consider most two-seaters and bombers as 'low climbing speed' airplanes just to simplify. We don't play 'Giants' with these rules
---------

The basic climbing rules are the following:

in order to climb a plane has to play a Climb Maneuver Card, but after that it may keep climbing by playing Stall Maneuver Cards (after the initial Climb Card). So Stall Cards played after the Climb Card act as Climb Cards, and the effect is that the plane keeps climbing ... and climbing ... and climbing ... BUT wait! here is the trick: not all planes can keep pulling Stall Cards one after another!

Airplanes with fast climbing speed can play up to three (3) 'climbs' in a row -- 1 Climb Card and 2 x Stall Cards.

Airplanes with normal climbing speed can play up to two (2) 'climbs' in a row -- 1 Climb Card and 1 x Stall Cards.

Airplanes with slow climbing speed can play only one (1) 'climbs' card -- just 1 Climb Card, no Stall Cards.

Example:
A Fokker Dr.1 (fast climbing speed) pilot can pull the stick to its belly and plan the following 3 cards maneuver: Climb-Stall-Stall, gaining one peg on each card... while an Albatros D.V pilot can play a Climb-Stall-Straight (or right turn, left wave, whatever) gaining two altitude pegs per the first two cards but then having to play some other non-climbing card.

>Note that an Imelmann also makes you win an Altitude Peg

>You may play a dive after an Imelmann (loosing an Altitude Peg)


>note that Climb Card and Stall Cards are both Steep Maneuvers, so they can't be played in a row if using the regular rules. However with this house rules you can do it -- we come up with that in order to make sure that the 'keep climbing' maneuvers are not confused with other maneuvers; since they are 'illegal'


How to Dive

We divide planes between two groups (and a half):

Low-Speed Divers
Fast-Speed Divers (plus Excellent Divers)

Low-Speed Divers dive just like in the regular rules: you play one Dive Card, the plane moves through the card and looses one Altitude Peg. Over-Dives are also played as in the normal rule: you play an Stall-Dive-Straight ... and the Straight is another dive played as a 3rd Maneuver.

Fast-Speed Divers: Dive just like regular rules too: you play one Dive Card, etc.
The difference however is in the Over-Dive rule: When a Fast-Speed Diver Plane over dives, the over dive happens in the second maneuver: So you play a Stall-Dive-any other maneuver you like: and the plane goes: 1st Stall, 2nd Maneuver Dive + Straight (advances double speed and looses 2 Altitude Pegs all in the second maneuver ... and then plays its 3rd Maneuver (that can be any non-steep maneuver card).

Fast Divers are: SE5a and Fokker D.VII, plus SPAD XIII and Pfalz DXII (if you're not using the Excellent-Diver rule)

There are two alternatives to this Diving Rule that we have considered but not tested yet (I'm explaining below so you can use them if you like):

> An alternative is making Fast-Speed Diver Plane loose 2 altitude Pegs while over-diving but not allowing it double its speed (i.e. not adding an straight)
> A second alternative is adding not a Straight Card but an Stall Card as movement extension when over-diving


Excellent Divers:

We developed this rule for SPAD XIII and Pfalz DXII, but it can be used as a third alternative rule for diving:

Planes that are Excellent Divers do not need to play a Stall before Over-Diving

So how do you 'over-dive'? You play a Dive Card and a Stall Card hidden underneath the Dive Card.
When playing that 'over-dive' maneuver the plane looses two Altitude Pegs automatically... for how far the Plane has to move 'horizontally' all depends on what rules you like to use: you can make them advance just the length of the Dive Card; the Dive + Stall; or double the Dive (play a Dive + Straight instead then). Everything depends on what you like better or consider more accurate...


In our test (2 games so far) we got some interesting results:

• 3D aspects of the game were very enhanced... for better and worsts...

• for Better: fast climbers and fast divers used their different abilities to escape from dangerous situations ... SPADS XIII can dive away from almost anything while Fokker Dr.I can climb away too...

• Good Divers (and specially Excellent Divers) saw their Boom&Zoom abilities enhanced: it was easy for a SPAD XIII to fly at high altitude and then dive into an attack using its double-horizontal speed and then run away...

• The cons was that since we're still using the rule about that you can't shoot planes at 2 Altitude Pegs up or down, and our planes were ending up in very different altitudes, shooting was more difficult or rare ... since it was easier for planes to end up out of reach from each others machine-guns.

you can avoid this a little bit by allowing long range shoot at one altitude difference, and short range (half rule) shoots at 2 altitude difference.

• we found ourselves a little short of altitude pegs when having lots of planes flying at the same time

well, I really would like to have some feedback from the community

[celticgriffon]

Airplanes with slow climbing speed are those that in the normal rules climb 1 altitude peg after two altitude markers (i.e: SPAD XIII, Albatros DV; etc.)

Airplanes with slow climbing speed are those that in the normal rules climb 1 altitude peg after 3 or more altitude markers (most two seaters)

Hey man - neat post. I find that the more variance in altitude just makes for longer games cause you are right - shooting becomes much more difficult.

I think you may have a typo of sorts on the above.

Cheers,
Michael

[Doug]

A very good set of house rules that do simplify the altitude rules, however in general I do not use house rules prefering to stick to what the book says, results no technical arguments

[Blauer Baron]

I too have been experimenting with taking a peg instead of an altitude marker. This was with the wwII planes which all had the same rate of climb anyway, with a varation for the odd slower climber (marker then the rest of the pegs pegs). Planes within three pegs of another could fire at it (in "same band of space"), any others were "too high or low". This gave a better visual appeal I found and was easy to carry out (solo games). This helped for me to get used to using the altitude rules, that is get a feel of the third dimension more easily. I find the idea proposed above by Ezikiel excting and very attractive for WWI. Cannot wait to try this out. Combing pegs and additional markers as loose change (i.e two moves to gain a band of height or three movers to do the same cannot be expressed in pegs) to compensate for those planes which were slower, was potentially confusing when running an eight plane solo game. Now..how can we use his ideas as a basis for helping a solo 3rd dimension aspect..if kept simple...I am unfortunately too tired to think further..here it is bedtime... I wonder what I will wake up to find tomorrow?

[Gallo Rojo]

I think you may have a typo of sorts on the above.

thanks Michael! typo fixed

[MoonSylver]

I haven't played w/ altitude yet, still being fairly new to the game. I've been reading the WoG rules over the weekend, & am a little standoffish on adding the altitude rules as written. I feel like altitude should be an essential part of an air game, but by-the-book it seems like it adds a little more complication than I'd like. Right before I went to sleep last night & thought about dispensing w/ the counters & simply going w/ gain/loose pegs. I couldn't wait to get up this am to check this thread & see if that was the gist of it. You've thought it out much better than I w/ the climb rates of various planes.

Great job! Consider it swiped.

[Kiwi_Ace]

im looking at tweeking altitude rules as well. for me the issue lies in a planes ability to climb or dive to altitudes where there are no other planes and essentially giving them an option of staying out of trouble altogether. when u think about it is altitude is used at all it should be linked to limited fuel because no plane evr invented can just dive and climb all day wout expending valuable fuel in the process and i plane without fuel is as good as shot down
the point i am making is any rule game which uses altitude should have limitations on how often in a battle the plane can keep climbing/diving.

I personally am thinking about allowing climb and dive manouvres which impact upon firing immediately the turn or round in which they r played. This will give pilots more options and tactics to use instead of just turns. So different situations will be presented in mid-air combat such as:
a climbing plane which is below an enemy which climbed earlier in the same turn (say planned card 1 or 2)
a diving plane which is above n enemy which dives earlier in the turn (planned card 2 or 3)
with this sort of system climb counters would still be needed, but they would be more to indicate which plane had the tactical advantage at the time of firing not just saying my guy is 3 pegs higher than u so cant be hit. Just some some thoughts on how I am thinking of using altitude.
Planes that have a tactical advantage due to altitude would either draw an extra damage card (perhaps choosing one of the results or just get +1 damage).

[kombofink]

I play with a much revised set of rules to cover altitude (which may be unrealistic, I really don't know, they include altitude and fun):
A plane that climbs, plays the climb card and gets a number of climcounters according to their perceived climb rate (high is good. Low is bad). Each maneuver after the climb, the plane climbs one whole altitude and discards a climb counter. If the plane has no climb counter to discard, it takes one "A" damage (and might stall, but thats another rule). Climbing is stopped by playing the dive card. Vice versa for diving.
To account for firing: a climbing plane does damage according to range and difference in altitude. Other plane is: same or one altitude above: normal firing (cannot shoot at planes below). long range is a single "A" (on an "A" firing plane).

These rulses are intutitive enough that my students use them on first try, and give a lot of nice situations ( as well as planes swarming up and down all over the place).
I have a complete rule set with these rules, if you like them I could post them here.

[wargamer]

The problem I see, is in your phrase "perceived climb rate (high is good. Low is bad)". In that the climb rate as given in the game is basically the time to climb to altitude, and if you use that number as given - you are saying an aircraft that takes 8 seconds to climb 1 level is better than an aircraft that takes 2 seconds to climb the same level.

[kombofink]

No. the climb rate in my rules indicates for how long you can climb. So a plane with 4 in climb rate could climb for four turns, yielding +4 altitude, and a plane with 2 could climb for 2 turns.... My rules do not describe how fast a plane climbs (I know that climbrate is a way of describing the speed of climb in reality, but I find that it is cumbrsome and not elegant, in an otherwise elegant and simple game).

[HTRAINo]

Altitude really put me off, until I read the new rules. It's a really interesting subject, as it takes the game into a different dimension...
and one that has been 'too much hassle' for me in the past.

I like things that make my life easier, but I feel this would add further confusion without a file to back it up.
You know what I mean, example; a Quick Reference Table to print off and stick to some card to put next to the mat.

That would make it easier for others to try it out. Great job Ezekiel.

[boomerpete53]

I haven't used the altitude rules yet, but i had a crazy idea that i would use poker chips in alternate colors to show this, add or subtract as needed. never mind pegs. that way the game would be quicker. but i do like the climb/dive idea. this may end up in the OFFICAL HOUSE RULES for this squadron.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

when u think about it is altitude is used at all it should be linked to limited fuel because no plane evr invented can just dive and climb all day wout expending valuable fuel in the process and i plane without fuel is as good as shot down
the point i am making is any rule game which uses altitude should have limitations on how often in a battle the plane can keep climbing/diving.

I have never considered fuel a problem, unless playing a game deep into enemy territory Jody.
The usual Dog fight whilst taking us maybe 20 minutes to an hour to resolve, actually only covers a few minutes of real time, so fuel is not an issue. I can, however, see your point and for those who want to add this into the equasion, I like your idea.
Personally speaking, it would just complicate an enjoyable game too much, but each to his or her own as the case may be.
I will follow the rest of this debate with interest.
Thanks for posting.
Rob.

[Rabbit 3]

Based on some recent experience last week running some intro games at a games con I found this method a fairly painless way to introduce new players to the `3D` aspect of the game.

1)At the beginning of play give each player a number of climb tokens equal to the relevant planes climb rate minus one.

2)When explaining clmbing just tell them to place a clmb token on their plane`s base every time they play the climb card until they run out then go up by one peg, then remove the tokens.
Essentially, going up count in tokens, going down count in pegs!

Its amazing just how fast people managed to pick up how the standard altitude rules work even when they`d never played before!
No `slowing down` of the game at all, in fact if anything things went faster!

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Neat solution Robert.
Rob.

[somaliavet]

Based on some recent experience last week running some intro games at a games con I found this method a fairly painless way to introduce new players to the `3D` aspect of the game.

1)At the beginning of play give each player a number of climb tokens equal to the relevant planes climb rate minus one.

2)When explaining clmbing just tell them to place a clmb token on their plane`s base every time they play the climb card until they run out then go up by one peg, then remove the tokens.
Essentially, going up count in tokens, going down count in pegs!

Its amazing just how fast people managed to pick up how the standard altitude rules work even when they`d never played before!
No `slowing down` of the game at all, in fact if anything things went faster!

I haven't put much thought into it before, but that's how I set up my console! Thanks for sharing this, it really does work well.

[Albert Ross]

I haven't used the altitude rules yet, but i had a crazy idea that i would use poker chips in alternate colors to show this, add or subtract as needed. never mind pegs. that way the game would be quicker. but i do like the climb/dive idea. this may end up in the OFFICAL HOUSE RULES for this squadron.

Maybe not such a crazy idea after all as we've been doing this for years! Because pegs were always in short supply and spares unavailable until now, it made more sense to use chips or counters - especially as the pegs don't always fit properly anyway. We always felt that climb counters were an unnecessary complication that slowed the game down, so just used a climb card to go up and a dive card to go down one level. Play either one before the Immelmann card: a climb being the the true Immelmann (gaining height) and a dive being the Split S maneuver which takes you down one level.

Great war airplanes had a nasty habit of falling apart if you pushed them to the limits of their flight envelope anyway, and in a normal table top game, folks want to stay in the fight as long as they can, not run away from it.

[MoonSylver]

Maybe not such a crazy idea after all as we've been doing this for years! Because pegs were always in short supply and spares unavailable until now, it made more sense to use chips or counters - especially as the pegs don't always fit properly anyway. We always felt that climb counters were an unnecessary complication that slowed the game down, so just used a climb card to go up and a dive card to go down one level. Play either one before the Immelmann card: a climb being the the true Immelmann (gaining height) and a dive being the Split S maneuver which takes you down one level.

Great war airplanes had a nasty habit of falling apart if you pushed them to the limits of their flight envelope anyway, and in a normal table top game, folks want to stay in the fight as long as they can, not run away from it.

Get some of the poker chips that are made out of some kind of clay/ceramic instead of the plastic ones (I bought a set in 4 colors @ Walmart for just a few bucks) & you can write on them with pencil & erase. I've done this alot in Western shoot 'em up games to track health, variable turn order draws, etc. Never thought of using them in WoG. They would be great for writing down info like Altitude. One could even jot the climb, max alt, etc on one side & track alt on the other.

[wargamer]

Well when you get your pegs up to max and the thing wobbles off and tumbles, and murphy will be around to make sure it continues that tumble off the table and to the floor.... Maybe a newer idea might be needed.

[tusekine]

Based on some recent experience last week running some intro games at a games con I found this method a fairly painless way to introduce new players to the `3D` aspect of the game.

1)At the beginning of play give each player a number of climb tokens equal to the relevant planes climb rate minus one.

Rabbit, I am confused by point (1)--why do you give them climb tokes for climb rate minus one? If you have a climb rate of 3, that means that you have to climb three times to gain one level, but if you only have three climb counters, don't you go up one peg after three dives? I am probably missing something....

[diceslinger]

Based on some recent experience last week running some intro games at a games con I found this method a fairly painless way to introduce new players to the `3D` aspect of the game.

1)At the beginning of play give each player a number of climb tokens equal to the relevant planes climb rate minus one.

2)When explaining clmbing just tell them to place a clmb token on their plane`s base every time they play the climb card until they run out then go up by one peg, then remove the tokens.
Essentially, going up count in tokens, going down count in pegs!

Its amazing just how fast people managed to pick up how the standard altitude rules work even when they`d never played before!
No `slowing down` of the game at all, in fact if anything things went faster!

Wow....that was simple and well explained! I might start using altitude rules in my solo games, you make it sound so easy!

[Rabbit 3]

Rabbit, I am confused by point (1)--why do you give them climb tokes for climb rate minus one? If you have a climb rate of 3, that means that you have to climb three times to gain one level, but if you only have three climb counters, don't you go up one peg after three dives? I am probably missing something....

The way the rules work according to the example given in the rulebook is as follows:

A Sopwith Camel (climb rate of 3) is at altitude level 1.It has one climb counter from previous turns.
When the airplane executes a new climb, it gets a second climb counter. Later in the game when it executes another climb, it gets a third climb counter (All on the control panel).Since its climb rate is three, the plane immediately goes to altitude level 2, getting a new stand, and removing all climb counters.

So I just eliminated the unneccessary last counter when shifting things to putting climb counters on the stand!

Diving is by comparison very straightforward!
You play the dive card, you drop by one peg (loosing any climb counters you might have!), and if you play cards in the sequence Stall/Dive/Straight you can Overdive and drop by a second peg on the playing of the final straight. But only if your plane can Immellmann!

One other special case, if you happen to be flying at Level 1 you always have one climb counter (This is the only way a plane can aquire climb counters in a dive!) unless you want to be flying at a hight equivelant in scale to a peg`s actual size relative to the model and want to run the risk of hitting things on the ground!
(It actually wasn`t unknown for WWI pilots to fly that low sometimes in ground attacks or just to annoy the top brass by buzzing staff cars!)

Using counters is also a way of reducing the "wobble" problem when you have a lot of pegs since you can use one of the numbered counters to "reset" the bottom peg to the number on the counter.

Dials like the ones on "Herr Oberst`s" stands are a good idea as well!

[Lt. S.Kafloc]

Wished I'd read this before Border Reiver. What a simple solution to the dreaded problem of altitude.

Based on some recent experience last week running some intro games at a games con I found this method a fairly painless way to introduce new players to the `3D` aspect of the game.

1)At the beginning of play give each player a number of climb tokens equal to the relevant planes climb rate minus one.

2)When explaining clmbing just tell them to place a clmb token on their plane`s base every time they play the climb card until they run out then go up by one peg, then remove the tokens.
Essentially, going up count in tokens, going down count in pegs!

Its amazing just how fast people managed to pick up how the standard altitude rules work even when they`d never played before!
No `slowing down` of the game at all, in fact if anything things went faster!

[grumpybear]

I like what you have done but won't change from rule book. My group likes to keep the game as written saves a lot of debate