Disbanding militia

[toddtreadway]

What would people think about allowing militia (and maybe other units) to be voluntarily disbanded, giving their population back to the pool?

[aletoledo]

I wish this was the case. I've adopted a new strategy of throwing my german infantry into hopeless odds to thin them down from the strating levels.

[redhotheydrich]

whats your new strategy with german infantry??

[aletoledo]

just suicide attack with them and when they're damaged, it adds one to the pool (destroyed doesn't though).

[mcaryf]

I would think it safer to try a disband/damage strategy with the German heavy fleet units as they are less likely to be totally destroyed and you get resource points back as well. The German infantry is likely to be more useful in the medium term than the heavy fleet - it is also what the German eventually did irl with naval and airforce personnel drafted into infantry units.

Mike

[aletoledo]

well the second half of the strategy I didn't mention. it was a little advanced for him, so I didn't want to confuse the issue.

basically by reducing your infantry you can tech them up faster. I've found the biggest reason germany loses to the WA is because of tech'd up units (especially infantry) and this is my current counter to that threat. if you bring down your infantry enough you can tech them up fast (I'm planning on 9/9 german infantry in w43 in a current game).

I hate fo fully reveal my strats like this, but I suppose the forum is a give a little, get a little sorta place after all.

[mcaryf]

I guess that makes sense. I was a little surprised in my current game (still learning versus the AI) when I saw a report that the SU had advanced the tech level on its armour units the turn after I took their final region. I guess that having its last unit of that type destroyed must have lowered the tech requirement by one R&D point which it must have previously had.

Cut to scene in the basements of the Kremlin - enter long haired Russian in thick pebble lenses shouting "Boris, Boris I have finally cracked it, I now know the secret of face hardened armour!" Large German officer stands up from desk where he is examining files- "Ach so - zat vill be verry useful!" My apologies for the accents!

Mike

[aletoledo]

lol, nice! [:D]

[silodhlehan]

After the battle of france but before the battle of britain some German unit(s) were demobilized.

So there is some historical precident.


Was it to tek up their infantry that used horses as transport in normandy 44?

Sorry had to put that in. [:D]

[Daykeras]

Well I just mentioned this in the other thread with a name that I can't currently remember (even though I posted there not 10 minutes ago).

I would love to see the ability to disband/destroy for resources and pop (maybe half resources) factories and all units. The rule would be it had to be done in land you own, like a port. This would, of course, only apply to the Navy.

We should petition the mods to impliment this as an option.
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|X| Enable Scrapping

[Forwarn45]

Although this idea has some appeal in concept, there would be a lot of consequences - not all good. For instance, I think it would make an invasion of Britain absolutely impossible under any circumstances. Right now, the British are crippled in the early game by their small population, although their overall production (with US help for research) is about the same as Germany's. If they could scrap some of their initially plentiful transports and militia, they could easily build a very tough army and airforce within just two turns! Also - the militia that Germany and Britain have represents to a great extent help from minors (like Bulgaria in German's case and the colonies in Britain's case) and could not so easily be converted into panzers and hurricanes.

But it might make sense and not alter gameplay too much to allow countries to scrap other classes of units. I wouldn't mind if countries could scrap air and land units other than militia, and most naval units other than transports. [8D]

[Daykeras]

How about any unit and factories, just not Militia?

[WanderingHead]

It would be nice to be able to scrap any of your units to recover 1/2 pop and 1/2 resources (round down). Why shouldn't you be able to, effectively, voluntarily "damage" a unit, with the only additional beni being that the recovered resources go to the pool instead of towards moving the under repair unit half way to completion (i.e. more flexible with fungible resources)?

Since you'd only get back 1/2, it would only be wise to do for units you are sure you won't need anymore.

Militia shouldn't be able to be scrapped, 1/2 of pop and 1/2 of resources, rounded down, would be zero.

Or maybe recovered pop should round up, recovered resources should round down. It'd really only help militia.

[SeaMonkey]

I have to agree with Forwarn, this scrapping of deployed units would contribute to gamey moves and present the possibility of unrealistic actions.

Using SC as an example, it was the practice of many Allied players to completely scrap the French navy and build ground units. Got so bad that the recovery of production points had to be reduced for scrapping in a follow on patch.

Since we are all in the quest for a balanced WaW, it may be that we would be opening up another dimension that could skew that very thing.

I think the game handles this parameter very well, allowing only units in the build queu to be scrapped. Isn't that how it usually happened?

[Daykeras]

Well that wouldn't happen because the WAllies will never get a turn with the french if the Germans play it right. And if you're russian you don't want to scrap stuff because if the Germans notice it, you may well be attacked VERY early. And as a German you barely have enough as it is for Barbarossa, why make it take longer? Getting pop points don't help when you have a full pop, so all you get are the resources (which is useful)

And if we keep it so that Militia are the only ones unable to get the scrap, then we reduce abuse. We may want to a way to upgrade Militia to infantry over 1 turn for the extra resource cost of a full infantry unit. So you pay resource, then resource again to upgrade them.

But scrapping is very useful if you've got a navy and you can't use it, or a bunch of Tac Air and all you're researching is Heavy Bombers.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey
I think the game handles this parameter very well, allowing only units in the build queu to be scrapped. Isn't that how it usually happened?

I would imagine that poorly trained and equiped "militia" were sometimes given more training and equipment and became things like "infantry", right?

Maybe the resources shouldn't be directly recyclable. Maybe they should go into the production queue as an almost built, one cycle away, "whatever was scrapped". Then you can scrap it from there to regain the resources. Which would mean you can't recover as much in the fungible sense, e.g. you'd recover no resources from scrapped infantry (if you try to turn those resources into something other than infantry by scrapping it in the queue).

Setting the scrapped unit one step back into production would represent that the equipment still exists, but to bring it back into commission would require some work, time, repairs, etc.

But certainly, it seems you should be able to recycle population. Imagine Britain saying, "heck, I could really use some infantry, but those guys are on their transports and they have their orders. Orders are orders, and they can't be changed."

It just doesn't make sense.

And speaking of gamey tactics, it makes a lot more sense to allow scrapping than to effectively encourage one to throw units into losing battles in order to get them damaged and recover the population that way, which is what sometimes happens.

[Daykeras]

I can see how infantry equipment could be scrapped in production for other stuff. Infantry don't always get equipped until their last days of training. So they are just kind of training with the generic training stuff and then on the last day they get issued their real equipment.

[lkendter]

I think being able to scrap units would bring so very weird play into the game. As Russia I would scrap the whole Baltic navy, as it it rarely comes into play. Give me a choice of a fleet or a few more ground units you know what just about every Russian player would take.

[Daykeras]

I agree, and I also think it's a good reason to give you the ability to scrap. The Russians usually get double teamed by Japan and Germany. They need all the help they can get.

[mcaryf]

One of the reasons the Germans managed to reconstruct a front line in Benelux in Autumn 1944 after losing in Normandy was because Goering started to release lots of manpower from the Luftwaffe.

It was also the case that guns were taken from warships to make shore defences so there were examples of both Naval and Air units being cannibalised.

Mike