Question:
May a unit enter an otherwise prohibitive terrain hex via naval transport either by port or beach?
Answer:
in Europa, the answer would be the same for ports but different for beaches. In Europa (and TGW, for that matter), the definition of a beach is, “A coastal hex of any terrain type except mountain or prohibited” (sort of–see detailed discussion below) but WoR doesn’t include the “or prohibited”.
The use of a port in otherwise prohibited terrain I don’t see as all that different from using a rail line or road there, but using a beach in otherwise prohibited terrain seems a bit problematic.
I said above that the definition of a beach hex is, “A coastal hex of any terrain type except mountain or prohibited”, but that’s not exactly the full story. That wording only appears in SOS and WW; older rulebooks left out the “or prohibited” just as does the WoR rulebook, and WitD used “A coastal hex of any terrain type except mountain or salt marsh” instead. The thing is, in Europa, there’s not many prohibited terrain hexes that are coastal except for some salt marshes in WitD and some glaciers in SOS. In fact, I can’t think of any offhand (which doesn’t mean that there aren’t some; I’d have to go over all the maps in detail to be sure). In WoR, though, there are a number of intensive irrigation hexes that are coastal and therefore beaches, but they are also prohibited terrain for c/m and artillery units during the growing season. I don’t see a problem with allowing non-c/m non-art units to land there, but c/m units and artillery probably shouldn’t be allowed to do so.
The obvious solution would be to add the “or prohibited” to the definition of beaches in all the rulebooks. Since the intensive irrigation hexes are only prohibited terrain for certain units, that wouldn’t keep players from landing units there for which the hexes aren’t prohibited terrain.
Source:
Posted by David Stokes on the Yahoo Europa Mailing list on 17.03.2013 02:14.
