ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
If "PP's" had been charged to "unload" in a different "zone", they would have had something.
While this sounds good in theory, I can visualize fleets of embarked troops still aboard ship waiting at some out of the way rear area port for PP to accumulate enough for them to unload. Between the two choices, I think forcing you to pay to embark troops first actually has less inclination to be gamed.
Sucks for the early commands, but they’re doomed anyway. Better to prevent gamey tactics than to allow a few tiny land units to move to Java.
I think a better solution would be to give the tiny nations an intrinsic lift allotment. Players then could load units onto this intrinsic fleet and give units a destination. The unit would vanish from map and appear at the new base in x number of days (kind of like west coast units moving to Karachi in stock).
The weakness of this system is Japan wouldn’t be able to interdict the moves. But if we kept the available lift low (about a battalion at a time can be afloat max), it would at least give each fixed command some flexibility.
Or perhaps design some small coastal vessels that would be allowed to lift fixed command units. With tiny endurances and an inability to move when out of fuel. They would also need to be unable to refuel at sea, this way they couldn’t make a run for Australia or India with units aboard. Though this would probably be too hard to code.
Another option would to be to make all commands free commands, but then slam units at bases not attached to their parent units. Say the first turn 50% of their equipment gets disabled, and then 10% a turn until all equipment was disabled. Then start destroying equipment in 5% chunks until the unit evaporates.
I think the last option would be best, since it would force players to keep units within their parent commands and not allow exploits like sending Manchukuo units to China or Chinese units to Southeast Asia areas, etc.
Jim
