WiF Optional Rules

With ambitions for a summer WW2 campaign using the World in Flames Deluxe set, I've been pondering the use of a few optional rules beyond the ones included in the RAW. In particular, I'd like to make production less random; currently it just involves drawing counters blindly from the available force pool, which can result in oddities like the British accidentally building an Australian infantry just as the Germans are massing an invasion fleet! It's also difficult to draw units randomly when using magnetized counters, which make it impossible to use the old "shake 'em all up in your hands and draw" method.

The first rule is from our old days at the Calvin Historical Simulations Club:

What's in this stack?!?

• Fog of War: The units in each stack of the board are normally concealed, except during combat by any units that cover them. Any other player may request to see only the top land unit, the top naval unit, the top air unit, and any stationary assets like fortifications or factories.

The advantage of this rule is that is prevents excessively time-consuming calculation of pre-combat odds, and represents a realistic level of operational intelligence.

The second rule, which I'm proposing for the first time, is intended to reduce production randomness:

• Production Specialization: Sort units into force pools (and sub-pools) as usual. Any pool that contains only units that have no year-dates on the reverse side must build randomly, as usual. For any other pool, do the following.
• If the pool contains units from only one year, the unit(s) to be built may be selected non-randomly by the builder.
• If the pool contains units from more than one year, and a single unit from the pool is built, it may be selected non-randomly by the builder, but may not be from the most recent year.
• If the pool contains units from more than one year, and multiple units from the pool are being built, then the first unit must be selected non-randomly from the earliest year available, but all subsequent units may be selected non-randomly from any year.

That's a little more complicated to explain than the current rule, but it should be faster to apply it in practice. It avoids the horrendous ordeal of constantly having to sort out force pools at the end of each turn, or else buying a stack of extra game trays to keep them sorted. The logic behind this is that, if you are building just one bomber wing a turn, your Ministry of War Production isn't going to be nearly as proficient at designing good planes as it would be if it were cranking out a dozen bomber wings.

There are a few weird side effects from this rule, like the fact that small powers like the Chinese will have to wait an extra year to build most of their top-end units. On the other hand, they'll get to avoid the indignity of having to build some completely obsolete junk, which helps to balance it out.