HQ Things

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

p.p.s Obviosly this a martter for discussion between players as long as you both agree it makes a more interesting game in some ways to allow the 25% to operate

Hi Andy,

Tho i understand what u mean by teh quote and its possibly a question between players.
As we have pinned u down in this sorta Q&A situasion, could u please answer a few more questions about the designer intend.
I think by reading above understand (and agree in the design) decisions. There are so in game situasions tho i wonder about. Taken into regards the the given PPs as per current design. Its not meant as a way to circumvent the original design intend as u been clear about those. More as game are now what is ur intend.

In specific 2 examples i wouldnt mind an answer on.
8th Aussie Div in Malaya. In case of evacuation, what kinda PPs would u say u hafta spend to live up too the intended design. It might looks strait forward, aka pay 100%, but the in game HQ situasion might at leased blur it a bit to me. Since the rest of the Div is attached to ABDA, i wouldnt say its unreasoble to want it to attach it too that HQ. I mean u have several units in North Australia that is even under this HQ and for eventually recombine the div.
Problem is u by game pay 25% as of now not the 100% for such a move. Is it ur opinion that u should pay 100% for those units?
Also bearing in mind that if u pay 25% and recombine div. U would prolly as u wont get any HQ bonuses as ADBA vanishes from the game, to at some point most likely have to reattach it to some where usefull. Read be able to get AV bonus's from HQ chain of command. Unless cheasily done having to pay the 100% in that move. Guess u could move it to III indian for 25% if u wish to use the unit in indian as game are per as of now.


2ndly The australian command issue. U get the Aussie corps HQ where u as of now, seemly against the intend u put forward in above posts. Have a situasion where u can attach restricted austrialian units to those HQs at 25%.
Is ur intend then that those in fact should pay 100% for that move?
Again under the given game circumstances of 50 PP per turn. I could be wrong but i think that would be an eye opener for many.

Reading my own text i guess it read as im trying to goat u into certain answers, but i do honestly want ur opinion purely from a designers point of view as to ur intend in these specific situasions.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[erstad]

<post deleted, I re-read Andy's post and cleared up my confusion>

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

I always (and the game was designed for) pay 100% PP's to tranfer units out of a restricted command.

Andy

OK, I am trying to understand the implication of this, and thereby repeating some of Walloc's questions in my own words.

Is it cricket to move Indian III Corps HQ, with attached assets, to some other unrestricted HQ, or should I move the component units individually to an unrestricted HQ in the theater I want them to go to? Same question would go for units attached to the Asiatic fleet.

If I want to move the Tarakan Coastal Gun battalion to Palembang I should transfer them to any unrestricted command except for Far East (ABDA) so as to pay full price? I gather that if I want to move them to India or Australia I would transfer them to something unrestricted in Southeast Asia or SWPAC -- at least, that is how I interpret your statement.

22 and 27 Australian Brigades should be moved directly to Aus I Corps (or where ever) rather than moving I Corps HQ into Far East (ABDA) and then transferring I Corps HQ to SWPAC or where ever? Or, if I want them to go to India, we are back to the India III Corps question. Speaking for myself, I would not transfer them to India III Corps and subsequently move them to SWPAC or SOPAC, etc.

Per Walloc's comment:

I could be wrong but i think that would be an eye opener for many.

I am curious how other devs interpret the situation. I think we know JWE's opinion. [;)]

Thank you for your input.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
The 75% reduction came out of th edevelopment process John and we never looked at it after that when we were forced to de priorities the HQ changes
<snip>
I have a spreadsheet where we did the calcs somewhere in one of my archives.

Hi Andy. Yes, I remember that flurry, and have a copy of your spreadsheet somewhere, or at least notes on it, from oh so long ago. We are trying to keep within the constraints when redoing DBB HQ dependencies.

@ everybody
HQs are so abstract and obstruse, there's no real answer as to what's cheesy and what's not. There's a lot of flexibility and openess in the system, so the opportunity for cheese and crackers are endless. For every possible solution, there's several ways to beat it. One can always transfer at 25%, given a bit of thought.

What's "right"? Well, one man's cheese is another's chateaubriand. There is no answer; except perhaps to transfer from top-level to top-level and/or transfer within services and service branches. But even then, it is "always" possible to transfer "anything" at 25%, given a bit of thought.

This is one area where getting fancy has bitten us in the butt. Wish we never did any of this stuff and kept it all at 100%. The middle ground of WiTP is gone, so the only option in scenario design is to go with restrictions on the units themselves. And this is bad.

If the units themselves are restricted, they can't be used for anything, no matter what twists and turns the game takes. BAD. If they are not restricted, then it is quite feasible for every Kwantung, China, Home Defense, and West Coast unit to power-up and play in early '42, for cheap. BAD.

What to do? Dunno. Beginning to think just to hell with it and play it out how you want it. Given all the myriad ways one can swap HQs in-and-out and swap units in-and-out of HQs on the cheap, have abandoned any work on this in DBB.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

Is it cricket to move Indian III Corps HQ, with attached assets, to some other unrestricted HQ, or should I move the component units individually to an unrestricted HQ in the theater I want them to go to? Same question would go for units attached to the Asiatic fleet.

III corps is really blurry IMO. Troops arent restricted, HQ are. So what does that mean. Atm u can evacuate with out paying PPs. As Andy's post per above. Even if changing HQs what gives then. They're unrestricted so should u only pay 25% or does the fact that the HQ it self are restricted means we should consider the troops restricted, which they clearly arent.
If u wana make it harder to evacuate Malaya hard the answer is obvious, but the comment about having to change the system u also had to change the PPs. Makes me wonder if with "only" 50pp the answer might be different or not as the case may be.

I see Andy getting grey hairs on his vacation [:D] hopefully 2 days at Ponona beach will help him relax

Rasmus

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: Walloc

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

Is it cricket to move Indian III Corps HQ, with attached assets, to some other unrestricted HQ, or should I move the component units individually to an unrestricted HQ in the theater I want them to go to? Same question would go for units attached to the Asiatic fleet.

III corps is really blurry IMO. Troops arent restricted, HQ are. So what does that mean. Atm u can evacuate with out paying PPs. As Andy's post per above. Even if changing HQs what gives then. They're unrestricted so should u only pay 25% or does the fact that the HQ it self are restricted means we should consider the troops restricted, which they clearly arent.
If u wana make it harder to evacuate Malaya hard the answer is obvious, but the comment about having to change the system u also had to change the PPs. Makes me wonder if with "only" 50pp the answer might be different or not as the case may be.

I see Andy getting grey hairs on his vacation [:D] hopefully 2 days at Ponona beach will help him relax

Rasmus

Oops, forgot that the individual III Corps units weren't restricted. Maybe Asiatic Fleet and dependents are the better question?

Original: JWE

What to do? Dunno. Beginning to think just to hell with it and play it out how you want it. Given all the myriad ways one can swap HQs in-and-out and swap units in-and-out of HQs on the cheap, have abandoned any work on this in DBB.

hi JWE, just doing some rethinking in light of the news that this "feature" is actually an artifact of a design choice ultimately deemed out of scope. So a few simple rules on how to cope with intent and subsequent reality seems worth discussing. And some of us always enjoy any peaks we can get behind the dev curtain.

Some things should probably be learned the hard way as in real life -- thinking about the attack bomber thread and optimum altitudes elsewhere on this board where the squeaky wheels got greased. Sure, it's nice to know that naval patrol bombing works best for the LB's at 7K and I have changed pilots to training squadrons accordingly; but in a better world with less moaning that could have been left to user trial and error IMO.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: JWE

What to do? Dunno. Beginning to think just to hell with it and play it out how you want it. Given all the myriad ways one can swap HQs in-and-out and swap units in-and-out of HQs on the cheap, have abandoned any work on this in DBB.

In a PBM in Sept. '43 scenario 1. My general feeling: Some things are too tight. For example, a bunch of the USMC air units arrive restricted even after the first 6 to 12 months of the scenario. Seems wrong. Politics would make you choose between deploying enough air without troops or enough troops without air? Hmmm.

Aside from that point, PP's are definitely tight and I am planning several months out for the release of major units. Swapping TF commanders is a luxury I can not afford. Air commanders must be swapped when needed.

21 months into the scenario, and things are tight looking forward to release Australian and Indian major units for '44 offensives. (I should have mentioned that we do require PP for restricted units to leave their borders - e.g. India, China, Manchukuo, etc.) If this is how tight you plan for DBB, then use scenario 1 as a guide. Getting more restrictive than scenario 1 would (IMO) definitely be bad and cause big problems for DBB. Getting a little looser would still have the flavor and probably be better (IMO). But if you like the way scenario 1 plays, getting a lot looser than scenario 1 would mess up your vision of DBB.

Hope you find this perspective helpful.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: witpqs
Hope you find this perspective helpful.

Very helpful, thank you. Couple comments.

Wanted to tighten it up a bit, but not in the sense you mean. Wanted to see if there was some way to get around buying out the whole Kantung Army for only $99.95 on day-1. However, there's 50 holes in the dyke, and only 40 fingers and toes, so ... heigh ho. DBB hews very closely to stock HQ assignments, particularly Japan for AI purposes, but also the Allies, for balance. AndyMac, Kereguelen, Blackhorse, and the rest of the land team, put some really good numbers together and it just made no sense to do something different without a compelling reason (not to mention the weeks of testing and confirmation that would be required). So no. Not more restrictive than Scen 001.

All USMC air in DBB arrives assigned to one of 5 HQs. ComAirSoPac, ComAirCenPac, ForwdAirCenPac, ComAirFMFPac, and ComFleetAirWest. All these HQs are, themselves, unrestricted. ComFleetAirWest is unrestricted, but 'initially' assigned to West Coast; don't see anything wrong with that, and it follows the scen 001 paradigm. Our air stuff is provided by the Air team who also looked very closely at things.

Gratuitous third comment - political points is an unfortunate naming convention. Perhaps thinking of PPs as administrative costs would be better. You may do as you wish, but certain doings will cost more than others (at least that was the original idea). [;)]

[witpqs]

I've seen the suggestions for renaming PP's. My suggestion is "PooPoos". [:D]

[vettim89]

JWE,

I was going to PM about this very issue. Let me take this in two parts.

Part one: the Allies need some help as far as this goes. Moving the Corps that is on WC (I Corps I believe) over to non-restricted after everybody is attached would certainly help a lot. One of the draw backs of both WiTP and AE is that the Japanese have the freedom to take the war in any direction they choose while the Allies are bound to history at least until the middle of 1942. So using this little "trick" to help is a great idea. Quite frankly I think more of the units in the PI and DEI should be permanently restricted. The Dutch units especially with maybe the exception of a few BF should have to die in place. To quote Cadet Mayo from An Officer and a Gentleman, "I got no where else to go!" On that same note, more of the US units that arrive on the WC should come in attached to unrestricted commands. We discussed Americal and it looks like at least in DBB that will change. The last RGT from one of the Oahu ID's arrives at SF attached to Hawaii Dept. which means it has to be bought out to merely go where it was intended to go.

Part Two: PP never really have done what there are supposed to which is model that the decisions players are making have political ramifications. Buying out 1/3 of the Kwangtung Army early in the game should cost a lot. The histrical perspective is the Japanese High Command was very concerned about the implications of the USSR joining the war. It was only late in the war when the situation was beginning to look dire that they released some units for use in the Pacific. The game needs to reflect this and especially with the little "attach everybody to an Air HQ" trick, it is too easy for the Japanese player to accomplish this. IMHO, the Japanese player should have to rob Peter to pay Paul, but as it is now you can rob Peter and not even worry about paying Paul because the Sovs won't activate on their own until August 1945.

Conversely, the US had problems with SWPAC vs CENTPAC which involved King vs Marshall as well as Nimitz vs MacArthur. Because the command structure does not work in true tree from it doesn't even matter if a LCU is attached to SWPAC vs SOPAC. A similar problem occured with the Japanese Army and Navy competing for resources.

So all in all the whole thing just doesn't work. Don't know if there is an answer beyond code rewriting and that likely will never happen

[JWE]

Hi vettim89. Yeah, I know it don't work as we would like. And, yeah, rewriting the code is just not an option.

However, we're finding some fun things and interesting work-arounds. Haven't looked at Dutchness before - it's always been so loosey goosey that it seemed like getting a handle on it was like Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. But then ... woof! .. out of nowhere comes a Monograph off Senshi Sosho - Japanese Monograph N-17807.68, "Report on Installations and Captured Weapons, Java and Singapore - 1942", that goes into exquisite detail on the Java defenses. Not only guns (type, mounts, location, protection, and training gear) but also an analysis of each weapon's capability. Ooooh, sweeeet!!

Yeah, only Java, but it begins to put things in context. Will effect DBB, a bit, in that most of the Dutch BFs will not be able to go walkabout. There will be very few Sqdn BFs that are split-up and scattered. Basically, Dutch infrastructure stays in the DEI, and most of it stays right where it starts. If you are good, you can scarf about 4 Sqdn size BFs, but that's it.

Won't hurt existing games. Something to look forward to, tomorrow. Ciao

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Hi vettim89. Yeah, I know it don't work as we would like. And, yeah, rewriting the code is just not an option.

However, we're finding some fun things and interesting work-arounds. Haven't looked at Dutchness before - it's always been so loosey goosey that it seemed like getting a handle on it was like Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. But then ... woof! .. out of nowhere comes a Monograph off Senshi Sosho - Japanese Monograph N-17807.68, "Report on Installations and Captured Weapons, Java and Singapore - 1942", that goes into exquisite detail on the Java defenses. Not only guns (type, mounts, location, protection, and training gear) but also an analysis of each weapon's capability. Ooooh, sweeeet!!

Yeah, only Java, but it begins to put things in context. Will effect DBB, a bit, in that most of the Dutch BFs will not be able to go walkabout. There will be very few Sqdn BFs that are split-up and scattered. Basically, Dutch infrastructure stays in the DEI, and most of it stays right where it starts. If you are good, you can scarf about 4 Sqdn size BFs, but that's it.

Won't hurt existing games. Something to look forward to, tomorrow. Ciao

Makes sense. The Dutch in the NEI were settled there with families and had nowhere and no motivation to go. We're talking about the same groups that founded the Afrikaans communities.

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Hi vettim89. Yeah, I know it don't work as we would like. And, yeah, rewriting the code is just not an option.

However, we're finding some fun things and interesting work-arounds. Haven't looked at Dutchness before - it's always been so loosey goosey that it seemed like getting a handle on it was like Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. But then ... woof! .. out of nowhere comes a Monograph off Senshi Sosho - Japanese Monograph N-17807.68, "Report on Installations and Captured Weapons, Java and Singapore - 1942", that goes into exquisite detail on the Java defenses. Not only guns (type, mounts, location, protection, and training gear) but also an analysis of each weapon's capability. Ooooh, sweeeet!!

Yeah, only Java, but it begins to put things in context. Will effect DBB, a bit, in that most of the Dutch BFs will not be able to go walkabout. There will be very few Sqdn BFs that are split-up and scattered. Basically, Dutch infrastructure stays in the DEI, and most of it stays right where it starts. If you are good, you can scarf about 4 Sqdn size BFs, but that's it.

Won't hurt existing games. Something to look forward to, tomorrow. Ciao

Great Find. Also available on the internet at scribd.com. I am browsing it now.

And with all of the PP's I'll save from DEI shenanigans, I can micro-manage my sub commanders. [;)]

[medicff]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Hi vettim89. Yeah, I know it don't work as we would like. And, yeah, rewriting the code is just not an option.

However, we're finding some fun things and interesting work-arounds. Haven't looked at Dutchness before - it's always been so loosey goosey that it seemed like getting a handle on it was like Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. But then ... woof! .. out of nowhere comes a Monograph off Senshi Sosho - Japanese Monograph N-17807.68, "Report on Installations and Captured Weapons, Java and Singapore - 1942", that goes into exquisite detail on the Java defenses. Not only guns (type, mounts, location, protection, and training gear) but also an analysis of each weapon's capability. Ooooh, sweeeet!!

Yeah, only Java, but it begins to put things in context. Will effect DBB, a bit, in that most of the Dutch BFs will not be able to go walkabout. There will be very few Sqdn BFs that are split-up and scattered. Basically, Dutch infrastructure stays in the DEI, and most of it stays right where it starts. If you are good, you can scarf about 4 Sqdn size BFs, but that's it.

Won't hurt existing games. Something to look forward to, tomorrow. Ciao

I have never though about grabbing dutch forces as they fight to the end, only to manuver inside the DEI for better defense. There lack of replacements would create problems rebuilding, although if only looking for av and engineers then that is not a problem. The only thing I take is the transport group.

I agree the 100% pay would be the best possiblity but not an option. My only thought it is whatever you do to restrict one side restrict the other as well to keep it even. Also don't forget about the Kwantan Air HQ which releases the entire air force with the price of a HQ of support squads.

Thanks for all this thought and intense scrutiny of the DBB. I love DaBabes. [&o]

Pat