G'day,
In a WW1 scenario I'm working on, I thought I'd use the 'Guerilla' icon as the basis for sub units. I altered the graphic to something vaguely submarineish, and changed one of the equipments in the equipment editor. I gave this the anti-shipping abililty (of course), but fairly weak defence. The idea is that subs can hide, unless directly bumped, and are quite lethal on the attack. But once found, they should be relatively easy to damage.
The problem with using the 'G' icon is that subs can now draw supply from the middle of the Atlantic indefinitely, and they have an ahistorical range and endurance for WW1 boats. Shouldnt' be such an issue for WW2 or later though.
For the merchant marine, I've used two methods. One is a series of static units, made up of low defence merchant vessels, sitting at known points (marked on the map with an '*') Sink these, and the Allies lose supply. In addition, a number of Allied reinforcements arrive as disbands, but on an out-of-supply island two turns move away from a friendly port. These have to spend at least one turn at sea, allowing the German subs a chance to attack them. It might turn out to involve too much tedious searching for players, but it's worth testing I think. Sink or damage the disband, and the Allies lose (industrial) production.
I don't know how well this will work, as I haven't yet had the chance to playtest it, and I'm too lazy/busy to run specific test scenarios for this. But it might be worth a try.
Cheers,
Felix
