Heisenberg Diplomacy (rn14)

by Jeremy Maiden

0.  Regular rules apply save where they don’t.

1.  Because one cannot be certain where a unit is, careful note of not only its position but its potential position must be kept.  Initially a unit and its potential position are the same, but from Spring 1901 onward they may diverge and act independently.  Additionally in the Spring of the evenly numbered years an actual position branches off another potential so that older units become more powerful.

2.  Actual units behave exactly as normal and have a combat value of 1.  A supported unit has a value of 2, and so on.  Potential units also have as normal ones but with a combat strength of 0 – which means potentials can stand each other off but not give meaningful support.  Potentials can be supported by actual units and thus have a strength of 1.  Potential fleets may convoy potential armies but not actual ones.  Actual fleets may convoy potential armies.

3.  If an actual unit and its potential both stand for a move and are not dislodged (they may be attacked) they may reverse designations, i.e. the actual becomes the other’s potential.  If an actual unit is destroyed the potential automatically becomes actual on the first following move on which it stands successfully; when a unit has more than one potential any may be ordered to become actual of course.  NMR means all potentials remains potentials.

4.  Potential units in uncontrolled supply centres do not capture them.  Naturally when a unit is disbanded through lack of scs its potential disappear too.

Now there’s a novelty.  A better one and a closer one to Heisenberg’s Principle would be hidden movement multiplicity Myopia in which one could ask for either the mass (size of multiple unit) or the position of the target unit.  Of course this would be as close to unplayable as makes no difference to us.  This is one of the few variants that gives long-established units advantages over newly mustered recruits and it’s still not much.  It should make for a parallel campaigns of actual combat and shadow-boxing with potential defence/stab options on one border with proper war on another.