Paul K. - 08:31pm Nov 27, 2003 PST (#1470 of 1476) 
"If war comes, I will run wild for six months, but after that 
I can guarantee nothing." -Yamamoto

Pacific Victory options

Looking at Pacific Victory again- I've come up with a few "chrome"
tweaks to the rules to address some historical flavor absent from the
game (of course I realize that the game works fine for many people, and
that it is abstract). These optional variants address Japanese
cruiser/night fighting advantages, opportunistic victories such as
Midway, limits on battleship surface combat and the survivability of US
battleships. 

[5.23] Japanese cruiser superiority. From Dec 41 through Sep 42,
Japanese cruisers fire before Allied cruisers, whether attacking or
defending. Japanese cruiser/destroyer torpedoes and night-fighting
capability were a substantial factor in Japanese surface action
victories early in the war, until the Allies effectively used naval
radar. 

[Air Search combat surprise first strike] If using air search combat,
the player with the highest total rolls 1d6 to determine surprise. On a
roll of "1", the first strike player gains surprise and may target
individual enemy units (not just target group) for the first round of
combat only. This allows for occasional lopsided victories where the
highest value targets can be hit first, rather than spreading losses
among all target units. 

[5.48] Battleship line: During the first round of combat, battleships
may not target, or be targetted by, other Naval surface units.
Battleships may be involved in Air or shore bombardment, as permitted by
the rules, and may participate in Naval target group actions in the
second and subsequent rounds. This rule reflects the fact that
battleships would not be risked in the early stages of surface actions,
and in fact the war saw extremely few actions involving battleship
surface actions. 

[5.49] US battleship durability. In the unlikely event of players'
desire for play balance favoring the US, US battleships starting in Sep
42 are D2- doubled on defense- for their last one combat value. This
rule reflects the extremely efficient US damage control from mid 1942
on; in fact, the only US battleships permanently lost in the war were
those lost at Pearl Harbor.