While play some of the Saipan scenarios, one item with terrain struck me, how jungle roads and help units move off road and thought this was an interest point to discuss. Given a jungle road hex like this
The cost for a mechanized unit moving through the red arrows would be 1/2 for road and 2 for lt. jungle, but the cost for the blue arrows would be 4 (with a possible step loss) and 1/2 for the road. Motorized would be prohibited to with the blue arrows, but would not be for the red arrows.
To me this seemed a bit gamey for the terrain and wondered why I had not see it before. The main reason is that most of the games do not have this restrictive of terrain as the others in Europe. Most roads in the Europe terrain help bypass terrain that is the restricted by the same MP cost or less than than hex they are moving into, so this does not occur. But as we get more into terrain that is more restrictive I am wondering if there needs to be an update to the movement rules for moving from a road to a non-road hex.
As of the 3rd edition rules, MPs are only paid for a hex that a unit enters, with the exception for hedges, that add a MP to cross. But a unit pays the MOST expensive terrain feature it is moving into. I am wondering about an extension of this for roads something like this;
when unit moving along a road moves into a non-road hex, they must use the most restrictive terrain cost of either the hex leaving or entering.
This would balance out the example above as the unit with the red arrow would have to pay the jungle cost to move, while the blue arrow would remain the most restrictive. If the blue arrow moved to 0405 instead of the road, they would continue use the beach terrain cost as they have moved onto the road but have not moved along the road.
So I put this forward as "red meat" to you all for thoughts and ideas. Here are some things I am looking for. First, do you feel this is a gamey feature of the restrictive jungle road terrain? Second, has anyone seen this in the European maps? Third, does the modification makes sense to you or not. Fourth, if not, why and what is missing?
