Soviet HQ: a structural WITP problem

[el cid again]

In game terms, as in HQ which units can be transferred to or which control and coordinate operations,
the USSR did NOT use a Theater Command approach.

Not, that is, before 30 July, 1945 (which probably should be the hard code date of Soviet activation in a
Soviet passive scenario). Until then, there was NO theater command, anywhere, ever. When it DID form,
the Soviet Far East Command formed at Chita. Stock has this completely wrong - locating the Far East command
at Vladivostok in 1941 - a place it never was - and at the wrong end of the game (except it may be required).
On the other hand, does a unit EVER need to CHANGE HQ to the Soviet command?

EDIT: Supplimental: by 1945 the Soviets had split the Far Eastern Front into two parts: First Far Eastern Front
directed operations from Vladivostok and 2nd Far Eastern Front from Khavarovsk. Sometime after its formation
at Chita the Far Eastern Command - the first theater HQ in Soviet Red Army history - moved to Khabarovsk.

What the Soviets DID have was "Front" commands - and something special as well for a place too far from
one of those. There were two different Fronts in the Far East: Trans Baikal (location uncertain in 1941, but
likely near Lake Baikal) and Far Eastern (Location Khabarovsk). In addition, there was the Coastal Group of
Forces for the Kamchatka Penninsula - because it was "too far from the Front HQ or the Soviet Far East Fleet"
- and this was a NAVAL command that included all forces, regardless of service.

It is not easy to know what to do about this because of game code issues: the code is not likely to be changed
even for AE - and the Soviets really should NOT be treated as if there is a unified command for the entire
on map area. Nor indeed can any single HQ have the command radius required to cover the vast front
and do justice to the problem the Soviet defense (or offense) poses: protect Amur Province and protect
the vital Land LOC back to Central Asia. The real Soviet solution - with two HQ - one east and west - and a
HQ for support purposes (for land ops) at Khabarovsk makes more sense. Lacking naval units as designed,
there was no need for naval HQ. Now this has changed, we should indeed have two Naval HQ - a main one
(Soviet Far East Fleet) and a secondary one (the Coastal Group of Forces). We can do that - but does code
use Soviet naval HQ? If not - should they be air HQ in game terms (so at least they control some operations)?
Or even land HQ (since a local HQ to protect Vladivostok and Kamchatka makes sense in game terms)?

We could make the Soviet Command be located "off the map" (at Krasnyarsk) - since all units assigned to it arrive
assigned to it - and no other unit should ever be assigned to it. Then we could make two Front commands
(and two naval commands which might be naval, air or land, depending on wether or not code will use a Soviet
naval HQ) - NONE of which have the reach of a strategic HQ - but say one hex less (8???).

This problem is complex, technical, and structural to WITP - and reality must compromise with what will work
with code. Suggestions for WITP as it is are solicited. And we should notify AE developers in case they want to
do something to mitigate it.

[el cid again]

First inerim solution: rename the game strategic HQ as Far East Front, locate it at Khavarovsk, and give it a command radius of 8.
This works very well in game technical terms - includes all areas of interest - and also the name change works - it is not hard coded
(as some reporting names are).

Second - the Pacific Ocean Fleet HQ in RHS is already a land HQ - because there were no naval HQ for the Soviets as designed -
so we can keep it that way - but also should change the command radius to 8 - so it isn't better than a Front HQ is - or even less - as
Soviet naval operations did not cover vast distances. Now that Soviet naval units ARE in WITP we might be better off redefining this as
a fleet HQ - with a command radius of 5 - as other fleet HQ have. That permits control of most of the Amur Sungari river system and the
vital area of the Sea of Japan related to the approaches to Vladivostok.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

First inerim solution: rename the game strategic HQ as Far East Front, locate it at Khavarovsk, and give it a command radius of 8.
This works very well in game technical terms - includes all areas of interest - and also the name change works - it is not hard coded
(as some reporting names are).

Second - the Pacific Ocean Fleet HQ in RHS is already a land HQ - because there were no naval HQ for the Soviets as designed -
so we can keep it that way - but also should change the command radius to 8 - so it isn't better than a Front HQ is - or even less - as
Soviet naval operations did not cover vast distances. Now that Soviet naval units ARE in WITP we might be better off redefining this as
a fleet HQ - with a command radius of 5 - as other fleet HQ have. That permits control of most of the Amur Sungari river system and the
vital area of the Sea of Japan related to the approaches to Vladivostok.

Deja vu all over again. Sounds like an experimental routine in the making that could quite likely further disrupt the scenarios not involving the Soviets (passive nature). It is this type of tangent endeavors that was the basis of recent complaints against RHS. I hope there is no argument that normally Russia's part in the game should be that as a deterrent and not a major consideration other than to act as , if you will, a supply sink to eat up Japanese resources, supplies and units. Considering that most games are not going to get to the point of the Soviets entering the war, this doesn't seem worth the effort.

[el cid again]

This is a case where the proposition about the Soviet role is controversial - and if there is a consensus in the RHS community it is on the opposite side from your proposition. The Soviet role is vital wether or not there are actual hostilities, and regardless of when they start: but in RHS games I hear about from real players, hostilities start far sooner than was historically the case. Nor is this entirely ahistorical: the almost unknown war front in Alaska and the Aleutians BEGAN on the assumption that it was PROBABLE war WOULD involve the Russians - and a lot of why it did not was up to the enemy - not to us or the Soviets. The ALCAN highway was just a pioneer road (never completed to this day) to facilitate building a railroad - all the way to Nome (the Nome-Fairbanks sector of the road has never been built, nor any part of the railway).
Even if you believe a human game should normally not involve Soviet hostilities (and I believe that) until 1944 or 1945 - the Japanese need to worry about not having enough forces facing North. The WITP mechanism is too simple- there is no reqirement for air units at all - and the penalty for land units is to mild to deter transfer. The possibility of hostilities - on an increasing scale as forces decline - is the mechanism RHS uses to encourage a proper garrison (which, if cautiously done, can have too many units in it). Worse, JAPAN can start the war any time, and when it does, the Russians are in a bad state: they have not been able to deploy in any sense - and may actually be frozen if the wrong hexes are invaded first. The limited Russian OB compounds this: the Russians need to be able to be competently deployed and handled. I think the Russian passive approach is a fundamental flaw in WITP design - although a well intentioned one - and I myself will never play the Allies with passive Russians.

As for messing up the game - this is an unfounded charge based on technical misunderstanding. We will not remove the Far East Command slot, so it will work - no matter what it is called. Locating it in the wrong place (Vladivostok) is plain wrong - and putting it at Khabarovsk will work better in a technical sense - because it covers much more of the vital front. Adding other HQ - or renaming some of them - will only help - and can not in any case hurt. This is close to a paranoid concern - and its foundation is only partially valid. RHS is officially described as experimental, and some experiments will not work as hoped. Our record is we succeed most of the time - so focus on the minority case is not really reasonable. There are aspects of the WITP system that do not work (some of which we were able to work around - but not all) - and it never prevented the game as a whole from being played. RHS may have added some things that don't work - but they hardly prevent things that do work from working (with the possible exception of building Japanese merchant ships). In any case - the solution implied by the view expressed here is we "should not do anything" - and that is the reason I departed from CHS: change was going to occur very slowly, at the margins, and no matter how severe an issue, if it was not in the present plan, it could not even be thought about until another version was planned - which would be 6-12 months in the future. RHS is about - if a problem is identified - we address it - if we can. The object is a better system - not a worse one - and you cannot have a better one if you won't fix what isn't right.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

This is a case where the proposition about the Soviet role is controversial - and if there is a consensus in the RHS community it is on the opposite side from your proposition. The Soviet role is vital wether or not there are actual hostilities, and regardless of when they start: but in RHS games I hear about from real players, hostilities start far sooner than was historically the case. Nor is this entirely ahistorical: the almost unknown war front in Alaska and the Aleutians BEGAN on the assumption that it was PROBABLE war WOULD involve the Russians - and a lot of why it did not was up to the enemy - not to us or the Soviets. The ALCAN highway was just a pioneer road (never completed to this day) to facilitate building a railroad - all the way to Nome (the Nome-Fairbanks sector of the road has never been built, nor any part of the railway).
Even if you believe a human game should normally not involve Soviet hostilities (and I believe that) until 1944 or 1945 - the Japanese need to worry about not having enough forces facing North. The WITP mechanism is too simple- there is no reqirement for air units at all - and the penalty for land units is to mild to deter transfer. The possibility of hostilities - on an increasing scale as forces decline - is the mechanism RHS uses to encourage a proper garrison (which, if cautiously done, can have too many units in it). Worse, JAPAN can start the war any time, and when it does, the Russians are in a bad state: they have not been able to deploy in any sense - and may actually be frozen if the wrong hexes are invaded first. The limited Russian OB compounds this: the Russians need to be able to be competently deployed and handled. I think the Russian passive approach is a fundamental flaw in WITP design - although a well intentioned one - and I myself will never play the Allies with passive Russians.

As for messing up the game - this is an unfounded charge based on technical misunderstanding. We will not remove the Far East Command slot, so it will work - no matter what it is called. Locating it in the wrong place (Vladivostok) is plain wrong - and putting it at Khabarovsk will work better in a technical sense - because it covers much more of the vital front. Adding other HQ - or renaming some of them - will only help - and can not in any case hurt. This is close to a paranoid concern - and its foundation is only partially valid. RHS is officially described as experimental, and some experiments will not work as hoped. Our record is we succeed most of the time - so focus on the minority case is not really reasonable. There are aspects of the WITP system that do not work (some of which we were able to work around - but not all) - and it never prevented the game as a whole from being played. RHS may have added some things that don't work - but they hardly prevent things that do work from working (with the possible exception of building Japanese merchant ships). In any case - the solution implied by the view expressed here is we "should not do anything" - and that is the reason I departed from CHS: change was going to occur very slowly, at the margins, and no matter how severe an issue, if it was not in the present plan, it could not even be thought about until another version was planned - which would be 6-12 months in the future. RHS is about - if a problem is identified - we address it - if we can. The object is a better system - not a worse one - and you cannot have a better one if you won't fix what isn't right.

You just don't like anyones opinion but your own Sid, do you? Seems like we can get on your testy side easier and easier everyday. Obviously, you have rethought your "freeze" stable game time to play position. Shame on me for my misunderstanding. It was my impression I was not alone waiting for you to at least slow down your tinkering. It's your sandbox you will do what you and your (hmmm) team wants anyway.

[el cid again]

There is a difference between a team led by a coordinator and a lone modder. It is vital to listen to others. RHS is not a team in the normal sense - you decide if you are on the RHS team or not - unlike a normal team which is whoever decided to work together. Because of this, RHS has taken much longer - because I do listen to ideas submitted. Further - you have never seen me lose my temper - and you won't - because I don't (thank military police training). I personally value criticism of all forms - and the only person I ever really had a problem with was not you (and he has ceased to be a problem). You have contributed many times - and I do not doubt were trying to do so again.

When I say you misunderstand the technical nature of what is happening here- I meant exactly that - neither more nor less. I cannot change hard code - so I cannot stop there being a Soviet theater command HQ - unless I leave the slot empty. Putting it at a more central location only helps - it cannot hurt. Adding others - or adding naval HQ (which originally did not exist, and STILL do not exist even in RHS) - either does nothing or helps. Since they added official Russian ships, it probably helps.

This is not a major update - and all I am doing is looking for things we might regret not doing when we are well into a game. Most things are very minor - barely wroth doing at all. The charge of not listening might be applied to you in this instance.

If you have ANY concern about this update - play the last one. It is perfectly playable.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

There is a difference between a team led by a coordinator and a lone modder. It is vital to listen to others. RHS is not a team in the normal sense - you decide if you are on the RHS team or not - unlike a normal team which is whoever decided to work together. Because of this, RHS has taken much longer - because I do listen to ideas submitted. Further - you have never seen me lose my temper - and you won't - because I don't (thank military police training). I personally value criticism of all forms - and the only person I ever really had a problem with was not you (and he has ceased to be a problem). You have contributed many times - and I do not doubt were trying to do so again.

When I say you misunderstand the technical nature of what is happening here- I meant exactly that - neither more nor less. I cannot change hard code - so I cannot stop there being a Soviet theater command HQ - unless I leave the slot empty. Putting it at a more central location only helps - it cannot hurt. Adding others - or adding naval HQ (which originally did not exist, and STILL do not exist even in RHS) - either does nothing or helps. Since they added official Russian ships, it probably helps.

This is not a major update - and all I am doing is looking for things we might regret not doing when we are well into a game. Most things are very minor - barely wroth doing at all. The charge of not listening might be applied to you in this instance.

If you have ANY concern about this update - play the last one. It is perfectly playable.

But this with other minor issues that have been surfaced seem becomes paramount with you as opposed to the big picture. Do you remember "Welcome back Carter" and Horshack, who in the back of the class would start yelling " Ou, ou, ou" when he would perceive a revelation to "whatever". I am sorry but this is how I see the current situation. We are almost 2 years and maybe more in to the mod. And we are still discovering revelations. One must ask themselves Why, if they are that important.

Look, just try to finish the current issues prior to going off in this path. We the faithful will adapt.

[el cid again]

That must be a movie reference - or TV - people like me don't know about stuff like that.

We are not quite 1.5 years into RHS - development began in late fall - and naming probably came about December.

Why is because I listen - and did things not part of my agenda - often more than once. I didn't have to listen- but
I did. And also because there were more issues than I at least suspected - fundamental WITP issues that needed addressing. Many times - more often than not - a "problem with RHS" was inherited - not created by us. But we still addressed them. Just found another- the wrong Soviet command structure and location.

Its all over the dam now: I may do a courtesy update at some point - for new games - but I don't plan to do a comprehensive until
after we do a long term test series human vs human. I seek volunteers. And the Tag Team is called to the colors. Mifune and I will submit our turn in days

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

We are not quite 1.5 years into RHS - development began in late fall - and naming probably came about December.

Are you sure it isn't 2.5 years? [X(]