Restricted Command for India

[Don Bowen]

CHS playtesting has revealed a "cheat" that the allied player can use for early victory - emptying India and sending everything to defend Burma. This is an option that was not available historically (for a number of reasons).

The CHS team are discussing a possible solution, and we'd like to hear your opinions.

The intent is to create a restricted HQ for India. Since restricted HQs are defined within the executable our only option is to "take over" one of the existing ones. We've selected New Zealand Command. Here are the specifics:

1. Rename Australia Command as ANZAC command.
2. Re-Assign all units currently assigned to New Zealand command to "ANZAC" command.
3. Convert New Zealand Command to India Command.
4. Assign most Indian units to the new "India" command.

This means that Political Points must now be paid before Indian units can be moved - thus killing the cheat above.

Two additional sub-HQs will be created and named Australia Command and New Zealand Command in order to allow proper grouping of Australian and New Zealand units and bases - but only after political points are paid for the units.

All British Units and those Indian units that were deployed to Malaya will remain SEAC. In addition, those Indian units that served in the Middle East will remain SEAC upon return to the Far East.

We will also make two other adjustments to retard early allied use of many units:
1. The Chinese Units currently assigned to SEAC will go back to China Command (so PP will be required to use them in Burma).
2. All US units in or arriving in the US will go to West Coast - the allied player will be very short of PP for a long time.

Comments??

[Nomad]

Can't figure out how to delete this.

[Erik Rutins]

Sounds like that will work well, IMHO.

[Lemurs!]

Oooh! The official blessing! Thanks Erik!

I have been counting PPs and my feeling is to just change US army units and US Army Air force units arriving between 411209 and 420530 to West Coast. I see this as representing the time when US politicians were afraid of Japanese invasions of L.A.
Plus, this has the effect we want of slowing the US build up of forces away from the West Coast/Hawaii before June '42.

Mike

[Erik Rutins]

Just my personal $.02, honestly. I've been thinking along the same lines. It does make sense for the West Coast restriction to be lifted somewhat as the war goes on though.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


CHS playtesting has revealed a "cheat" that the allied player can use for early victory - emptying India and sending everything to defend Burma. This is an option that was not available historically (for a number of reasons).

The CHS team are discussing a possible solution, and we'd like to hear your opinions.

The intent is to create a restricted HQ for India. Since restricted HQs are defined within the executable our only option is to "take over" one of the existing ones. We've selected New Zealand Command. Here are the specifics:

1. Rename Australia Command as ANZAC command.
2. Re-Assign all units currently assigned to New Zealand command to "ANZAC" command.
3. Convert New Zealand Command to India Command.
4. Assign most Indian units to the new "India" command.

This means that Political Points must now be paid before Indian units can be moved - thus killing the cheat above.

Two additional sub-HQs will be created and named Australia Command and New Zealand Command in order to allow proper grouping of Australian and New Zealand units and bases - but only after political points are paid for the units.

All British Units and those Indian units that were deployed to Malaya will remain SEAC. In addition, those Indian units that served in the Middle East will remain SEAC upon return to the Far East.

We will also make two other adjustments to retard early allied use of many units:
1. The Chinese Units currently assigned to SEAC will go back to China Command (so PP will be required to use them in Burma).
2. All US units in or arriving in the US will go to West Coast - the allied player will be very short of PP for a long time.

Comments??

Brilliant!

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Brilliant!

Idea originated in ANZAC land, appropriately enough.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


CHS playtesting has revealed a "cheat" that the allied player can use for early victory - emptying India and sending everything to defend Burma. This is an option that was not available historically (for a number of reasons).

The CHS team are discussing a possible solution, and we'd like to hear your opinions.

The intent is to create a restricted HQ for India. Since restricted HQs are defined within the executable our only option is to "take over" one of the existing ones. We've selected New Zealand Command. Here are the specifics:

1. Rename Australia Command as ANZAC command.
2. Re-Assign all units currently assigned to New Zealand command to "ANZAC" command.
3. Convert New Zealand Command to India Command.
4. Assign most Indian units to the new "India" command.

This means that Political Points must now be paid before Indian units can be moved - thus killing the cheat above.

Two additional sub-HQs will be created and named Australia Command and New Zealand Command in order to allow proper grouping of Australian and New Zealand units and bases - but only after political points are paid for the units.

All British Units and those Indian units that were deployed to Malaya will remain SEAC. In addition, those Indian units that served in the Middle East will remain SEAC upon return to the Far East.

We will also make two other adjustments to retard early allied use of many units:
1. The Chinese Units currently assigned to SEAC will go back to China Command (so PP will be required to use them in Burma).
2. All US units in or arriving in the US will go to West Coast - the allied player will be very short of PP for a long time.

Comments??

This sounds great!

Could we do anything similiar to restrict Japanese Manchurian units???

[Don Bowen]

Could we do anything similiar to restrict Japanese Manchurian units???

Not sure but open to suggestions. Japan has three restricted HQ:

Home Defense Force
Kwangtung
China Expeditionary


Don't thing we can take over any of these so the only option appears to be re-classifying units into one of these. Might have some effect on garrison requirements. All in all seems rather ify.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

Could we do anything similiar to restrict Japanese Manchurian units???

Not sure but open to suggestions. Japan has three restricted HQ:

Home Defense Force
Kwangtung
China Expeditionary


Don't thing we can take over any of these so the only option appears to be re-classifying units into one of these. Might have some effect on garrison requirements. All in all seems rather ify.

Now that im thinking about this the manchurian units are already restricted under the kwangtung army...

the problem im talking about is you can move the already restricted kwangtung units out of manchuria and all over the continent. a lot of players have a house rule for this saying that you have to pay PPs before you do this.

so...even if you give the indian units a restricted hq want they still be able to move anywhere on the continent (including still into burma) just like the restricted kwangtung units???

doesnt the restricted rule just prevent you from loading on ships and transfering planes???

Nikademus
Matrix Legion of Honor

Posts: 6518
Joined: 5/27/2000
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Restricted HQ's only prevent units attached to them from either transfering (air) to a base not attached to that HQ, or an LCU from boarding a transport.

units from other HQ's are free to travel too/transfer to bases belonging to a restricted HQ (example: 19th BG attached to SW Pacific xfers to ABDA commanded base in Java)

There is no penalty to a unit that bases at a base belonging to an HQ that is different from the parent HQ of the unit.

see this post:

fb.asp?m=653574&key=restricted


also see this post as well: i was hoping they were going to fix this loophole...

fb.asp?m=780206&key=manchuria



also what effect would there be on garrison requirements??? are you referring to the russian activation and the AI not being able to handle this???

also...

is it possible to give garrison requirements to indian cities???

[TIMJOT]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen



All British Units and those Indian units that were deployed to Malaya will remain SEAC. In addition, those Indian units that served in the Middle East will remain SEAC upon return to the Far East.

I like the idea in general, personally always felt that Malaya command should be restricted. If there was ever a case of "Political" price to pay, that would most certainly be an early bug out of Malaya/Singapore. But leaveing the Raj undefended would be as well if not more so.

Just one thing though. I think you might want to reconsider the "all" Indian units in India being restricted part. At least the the 17th Indian Division should be non-restricted, considering historically it was sealifted to Burma, Became part of Burmacorps and fought in Burma exstensively.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
the problem im talking about is you can move the already restricted kwangtung units out of manchuria and all over the continent. a lot of players have a house rule for this saying that you have to pay PPs before you do this.

so...even if you give the indian units a restricted hq want they still be able to move anywhere on the continent (including still into burma) just like the restricted kwangtung units???

doesnt the restricted rule just prevent you from loading on ships and transfering planes???

That is correct, but it is harder for them to march than to be loaded onto ships and sent to the DEI. We can't do any more than this as modders, unfortunately, otherwise we could do something about the Kwantung army wandering all over Asia...

also...
[/quote]

is it possible to give garrison requirements to indian cities???

Again, unfortunately, no.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: TIMJOT
Just one thing though. I think you might want to reconsider the "all" Indian units in India being restricted part. At least the the 17th Indian Division should be non-restricted, considering historically it was sealifted to Burma, Became part of Burmacorps and fought in Burma exstensively.

One could look at this exception another way - maybe it can be considered that in RL the Allies "payed the PP" for this unit to be shipped?

[Andy Mac]

The option as presented looks like it would work.

My only concern is that you aqre taking away an opportunity for the Allies to screw up.

Overcommittment of Indian units to defend Burma/Malaya DEI is a huge mistake that many Allied players will make (I Know I did in my 1st two games).

Japanese players watch allied deployments like a hawk now and if the allies overcommit they will be punished for it.

The Coastline is long and the Japanese IMHO place enough restrictions on allied adventurism with Indian Army forces especially given that the armour starts very inexperienced and at low TOE, 5 Inf Divisons are at low TOE and even though infantry replacements are now adequate 3" Morters and 25 Pounders are still restricted.

Unless the CHS markedly improves allied starting forces in India's readiness, TOE or experience then Indian Adventurism is a huge risk in the first 6 - 9 months of the war.

Andy

[Captain Cruft]

I think this is a great idea. Plus, if you really don't want particular units to move you could add some static "fortiications" to them like the base forces.

[Mr.Frag]

Be aware that this would be PBEM only ... There is tons of hardcoding within the AI.

As long as you are happy with that restriction, go right ahead. You might want to keep a non-changed version for the CHS folks who want to play vs computer.

[Nikademus]

An interesting solution. I've thought for a long time that India needed to be a restricted command for the reasons Don posted at the beginning of the thread.

[Erik Rutins]

Yep, we mentioned this to Mike and it may well give the AI a fit. Other than that, it's a great solution.

[Bradley7735]

I like the idea of making indian units restricted (at least the one's that should defend India proper). However, someone already pointed out that you can just march them to any base that's connected via land. So what have you accomplished? They can all still defend Burma. Yes, you can't load them up and defend Sumatra or Java. But, if I were playing Japan, I'd love it if the allied player loaded up Indian troops and gave them to me as points (makes the battle tougher, but a decent Japanese player would still win the early battles.) (I think this ability also helps negate the fact that the Japanese player knows exactly what forces on each island they will face.)

About the US units all being assigned to West Coast.... You really need to play test this and see how it works. What units historically took part at Guadalcanal up through Dec 42? Could the allied player transfer all those units to SP command and still do the historic battle? (remember to include units assigned to Noumea, Luganville, and all the support units you need). Doesn't it take about 3 months to accumulate enough PP's to transfer 1 division? I really think what you'd end up doing is hamstringing the allied player into not being able to assign leaders because they're saving up all their PP's just to be able to use units. There's a lot of bases in the SP, SWP, NP, CP, etc, that need basic garrison units.

I could understand putting some early war units to the West Coast command. (2nd marines, others?) But, See Bee's, base forces, coast defence units, etc, should all have another command assigned to them. You're talking about tens of thousands of PP's the allied player would need, just to wage 1 offensive. This doesn't leave any PP's left over for leader changes, saving the occasional British ship, or base changes.

It's hard to give an opinion without play testing, though. But my gut tells me this would cause an already tough 1st year to become impossible.

[Nikademus]

Marching overland via Imphal would take time and put major fatigue on them as well. (I'd like to see an even greater supply penalty but what can ya do?)

As long as the Japan player keeps sufficient forces in Burma to guard against an overland march, he can tie up fairly substantial drives originating from that direction. In the early game, a quick Japanese offensive into Burma should beat any overland marching Indian units to even Northern Burma.