ORIGINAL: m10bob
Concerning the ages of the early engineer units, I very recently read that even the earliest SeaBee units were made up of men up to mid-fifties because it was their experience that was need,(not unlike the Aussie units proposed here.)
With the harsh weather and hard work, these older folks did suffer attrition, and as the war progressed and the average age dropped, so did the experience level, and quality of work suffer.
FWIW, while the Australian units were retained as civilians, they laboured on, together, not unlike their military counterparts.
I think it proper they be remembered.
It is traditional in English speaking countries that military service is permitted until age 55. Japan adopted that same standard in the 19th century - and when it committed its last and oldest class of reserves - 55 year olds - it also implemented its war termination plan in the Russo Japanese War. That "short victorious war" was notably very different from WWII in that Japan HAD a plan to end it! Curiously, that plan won Teddy Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (Maine). It does not seem unreasonable to have such age groups in service - and in some countries (notably Israel) they are preferred for combat engineering tasks (because of a notable increase in maturity with age they are instructed to refuse to do overly dangerous tasks).
In RHS, since you have civil engineers at every major point you may need them already, the few mobile military engineer units should be more free to move to undeveloped points. I see no way to create a mobile civil engineer unit which would not always be misused by AI - and while I don't recommend playing with Allies under AI control - I hate to mess it up worse than it inherently is. I also think few players would know (and therefore be able to honor) a house rule - and so even in human games they would be moved overseas in many - perhaps even most cases.
Andrew said he was unsure "how much of a restriction a restricted command is on AI." Not much. AI has a very different command system than humans use - and it routinely assigns units to the local ARMY or Corps HQ - and does not pay any attention to our regional restricted HQ. Nevertheless, such a command assignment will slow humans down, and force them to spend valuable PP, which are much more difficult to come by in non RHS scenarios - so it will matter more.
This idea (adding civil engineers) has merit - and I probably have added more civil units (including transports, aviation support, engineers, laborers and support) than everyone else combined. My concern from a game design point of view is that players and AI will tend to concentrate everything available for an offensive attack - including civilians - if they are easy to move. Fact of game design life. That is why I make civilian units immobile - to distinguish them from units which under orders will move to engage the enemy. The civilians will fight - sort of (some of my civilian squads have firepower values of 0 and 1) - if the enemy comes to them.
Note that one might say that USN Seabees are civilians. They were made of civilian contractors. But they were technically militarized, wore uniforms, given combat training. I don't think this is exactly similar to the Aussie organization. If constituted - it is delightful chrome.
