Gallipoli and Sedd El Bahr . . .

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl
I think some gallipoli event would be cooler than some abstract restriction on Ottoman troop placements. If the Ottomans want to leave the road to Constantinople open, let them risk it. Because after all, Churchill and his allies believed there were few Ottoman units in the area and it was possible to defeat the Ottomans quickly. That's the main reason they landed! Forcing players to keep Ottoman corps in the area makes the game predictable and why would the Entente choose to land in an area where they know two Ottoman corps most likely remain?

One idea that I posted before somewhere about a Gallipoli event is that it might be triggered at some point in 1915 if an Entente capital ship entered a specific area of sea hexes around the Dardanelles. In that way there would be an unpredictability about when the landing might occur. And then if the Gallipoli DE allowed the Entente to deploy an extra Marine unit, say, then the Ottomans would not know exactly what size of enemy force was coming.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

The unit the Ottomans need most to keep things historical is an Enver Pasha HQ (he's one of the worst commanders in the game but way better than nothing) mobilizing near Erzurum. That way Von Sanders would stay in Thrace for once instead of always ahistorically rushing off to the mountains.

If Enver were set to deploy at very low strength, say strength 2, so that the Ottomans still need to spend MPPs to reinforce him (though with the bonus that von Sanders is now available for use wherever desired) would this swing the overall balance away from where it is now?

My question is based on the assumption that nothing else changes, as I am wondering how great the impact of this alone would be.

[Chernobyl]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre
how great the impact

Well I think there would be very little short term impact in terms of Ottoman offense. The Ottomans really can't advance through entrenched Russian mountain corps, even with a strength 10 better HQ like Sanders. This is true even if the Russians elect to send minimal forces to the Caucasus. The road network is poor especially for the Ottomans who are farther away from rails and have fewer roads to work with.

In terms of Ottoman defense, it would help once it gets to full strength, but the Ottomans would have to prioritize repairing that HQ, very likely starting at strength = 1 due to attack from covid (er I mean typhus). This would take a while, and I'm not sure low-supply and poorly led Ottoman troops would be strong enough to resist mountain corps attacks in the first few turns (would have to test this). I'm so used to them getting better (barely adequate) supply and leadership from the Sanders HQ.

Honestly not sure why to start Ottoman HQ at low strength. Even a full strength Ottoman HQ doesn't make an advance towards Kars possible. The important thing it does is allow you to entrench some extra mountain hexes for leverage (you can get 5+ supply on a couple of of those hexes without roads and thus put up a reasonable entrenched defense). Without decent supply, the Ottomans can't leverage these mountain hexes for defense and the Russian advance towards Erzurum wins up being even easier. I'm not 100% sure a strength 2 HQ would be an acceptable replacement for Sanders and it might be so weak in the first few turns that I would wind up sending Sanders anyhow.

In the long run, Enver would get sacked (historical as he never again commanded an army after his disaster attempting to retake Kars) but probably replaced by the best general (Ataturk) which would be ahistorical. (Or the Ottomans could put Ataturk on top of Sanders or Demjal, depending on which front is "hot"). Pretty much all the manual HQ leader changes in this game are ahistorical so that's a separate issue. Long run the Turks would have an additional HQ (again very expensive for them if you start it at strength = 2).

So what does an extra Ottoman HQ entail? Well, if Gallipoli becomes a legitimate threat, then Sanders may very well stay put in Thrace. OR a daring Ottoman player may elect to rail Sanders down to Egypt and send Demjal Pasha on his long walk towards Baghdad/Basra. In my experience in MP, I started marching Demjal HQ immediately as soon as he spawned upon mobiliztion. (This was in a game where I conquered Serbia VERY quickly so the Bulgarian army was available for defense of the Sinai). Demjal arrived in the Basra area in time to meet a British army which also has a HQ which recently arrived. I believe the British were getting frisky and were beginning to counterattack my low readiness low morale units. The Ottoman HQ boosted the Turk trenches and stalemate around Basra began.

[Chernobyl]

I will also mention I don't tend to keep a warship in that port and the AI never seems to do any sort of Gallipoli landing. I don't think it matters whether you have a ship there or not for the ai's logic.