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Sounds good to me Allenby.

Why don't we just consider coastal 'battleships' and the like just to be coastal defenses that are built in the the provinces? (We can give strategic locations where those vessels were stationed an increase of one to simulate them.)

[Edit]

On a side note: Since we cannot mine sea zones we could have an event that increases the coastal defenses of appropriate provinces to simulate the difficulty landings would have gone through to get through the minefields.
 
V'ger said:
I thought I'd toss this in from the balcony. What about having a tech line lead from ironclads to coast defense ships? There were a lot of these built by various powers for divers reasons. CDS could be followed by monitors.
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I've always seen coast defence ships as being part of the "coastal fortifications" you can build in a province. The larger ones which actually had more range can be represented as pre-dreadnoughts or heavy cruisers (depending on size) easily enough.

Unlike Allenby, I wouldn't mind seeing monitors appear in the game, if only because they're so cool:
ill_div_24_1.bmp

Presumably they'd have a short range, high shore bombardment, all other combat factors minimal, and cost about the same as an artillery brigade.

They'd have to be treated as a model of heavy cruiser, I would think, and that's assuming we can make the normal tech tree "skip a model" - since these would be something to research separately, not a stepping stone to anything else.

Also, it seems odd to have torpedo boats lead to torpedo boat destroyers (eventually just destroyers) as the TBDs were developed to deal with the TBs and existed contemperaneously.
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Seems perfectly OK to me; once you've invented the TB you would start work on the TBD, since it was just the "next step": similar technology, just larger and more guns. They can even exist at the same time: just make sure that the TB tech doesn't become obselete until DD/2 or DD/3 is researched, and the player will still have the option of building either DD/0 or DD/1 models.

I don't know what Lord Fisher was smoking, but I'm glad saner heads prevailed and turned them into CVs eventually.
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You know, we've got to include Jackie Fisher as a tech team in the game. :) Not sure exactly how to represent him: either a very high skill but almost no speciality ratings, or the full range of matching specialities but a very low skill rating?
:D
Winston Churchill should have a similar treatment, I think (armoured warfare and amphibious landing techs).
 
Allenby said:
How about these for models of HQ unit?

1870 HQ – General on a horse/in a tent with numerous officers and officials

1914 HQ – General in a house attached to a telephone; communication carried out by runners, pigeons, flares

1918 HQ – General in a house attached to a telephone, wireless and other means of communication; direct contact with air service; surrounded by numerous staff officers to account for the expansion of the army's 'tail' and creation of new branches of the army (tank corps, for example)
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Would it be feasible to not have an HQ unit at all in the early stages of the war? That would simulate the inability of generals in this era to control the mass armies they were attempting to lead. (represented in-game by the lack of the HQ's command-rating doubling effect).

Your "1914" HQ would become a 1915 or 1916 tech. Probably Germany should already have it in 1914, as a special case. Britain shouldn't get it until at least 1916, maybe 1917, although they'd then quickly progress to the 1918 model.

HQs should, of course, have a movement rating of only 1 or 2; a château doesn't advance very rapidly. :) This would also help slow down the war. Perhaps a final model of HQ dated 1922 or so should have full mobility.
 
StephenT said:
Would it be feasible to not have an HQ unit at all in the early stages of the war? That would simulate the inability of generals in this era to control the mass armies they were attempting to lead. (represented in-game by the lack of the HQ's command-rating doubling effect).
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I doubt whether removing the HQs would have the desired effect of making 'control' more difficult - inevitably, the player/AI is responsible for moving units around the map and will be able to do so irrespective of the presence of HQ units.

Instead of simply making HQs unbuildable in 1914, I think it would be best to simply restrict the number of HQs on the starting map. The main powers can be given one each as a maximum: GQG for France, OHL for Germany, Stavka or C-in-C Russian Army for Russia and so on. Britain, I suppose wouldn't have an HQ at all....
 
Allenby said:
I doubt whether removing the HQs would have the desired effect of making 'control' more difficult - inevitably, the player/AI is responsible for moving units around the map and will be able to do so irrespective of the presence of HQ units.
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I was thinking more that they could still put 30 units in a province, but if they tried attacking with them they'd get overstacking penalties, so most of the divisions will only be at partial effectiveness. Presumably that means they'd inflict less damage per "combat round", so battles would be long-drawn out. Which is a good thing in a WW1 sim.

Instead of simply making HQs unbuildable in 1914, I think it would be best to simply restrict the number of HQs on the starting map. The main powers can be given one each as a maximum: GQG for France, OHL for Germany, Stavka or C-in-C Russian Army for Russia and so on. Britain, I suppose wouldn't have an HQ at all....
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I could live with that idea too - perhaps early HQs should be more expensive, and the cost reduces once a new model is introduced?
 
StephenT said:
I could live with that idea too - perhaps early HQs should be more expensive, and the cost reduces once a new model is introduced?
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Certainly. :)

The basic HQ in HOI II (for 1918) is as follows:

(not that we should strictly use its attributes)

Code: 
# 0 - Basic HQ Division (1918)
model = {
	cost 					= 16
	buildtime	 			= 270
	manpower 				= 5
	maxspeed 				= 2
	defaultorganisation 			= 30
	morale					= 30
	defensiveness 				= 25
	toughness				= 25
	softness				= 100
	suppression				= 2
	airdefence				= 3
	softattack				= 1
	hardattack				= 1
	airattack				= 1
	transportweight				= 10
	supplyconsumption 			= 0.5
	fuelconsumption				= 0
	speed_cap_art				= 2
	speed_cap_at				= 2
	speed_cap_aa				= 2
	upgrade_time_factor 			= 1.0
	upgrade_cost_factor 			= 1.0
}

If we are to represent the difficulties of command and control, it might be worth giving the attack and organisation attributes some negative effects. To make them worth building, however, they ought to have some positive attributes of the kind that a division would genuinely accrue from an HQ - increased morale and better supply.

As techs are researched, negative effects can be reversed, therefore making them much more attractive prospects.
 
Stepehn said:
I was thinking more that they could still put 30 units in a province, but if they tried attacking with them they'd get overstacking penalties, so most of the divisions will only be at partial effectiveness. Presumably that means they'd inflict less damage per "combat round", so battles would be long-drawn out. Which is a good thing in a WW1 sim.
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With the overstacking penalty, wouldn't that increase the dug in (defence) bonus through the roof? So effectly, it would require 3:1 odds for a successful attack (calculated by FM Haig), as well as the artllery bombardments that occured. Also, well the later model units would have higer rate of artllery (or procure better upgrades from technology).

On the monitor issue, the British had a number of monitors in serivce along the coastal part of the lines in order to support the army.
Source: http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/monitors.htm
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As you can see, the British developed a number, and there were a number of classes involved and used.
 
So... Unit models.

HQ
1870 HQ
1914 HQ
1918 HQ

Guards Infantry
?

Assault Infantry
1918 Assault Infantry

Infantry
1890 Infantry
1895 Infantry
1912 Infantry
1915 Infantry
1917 Infantry
1919 Infantry

Reserve Infantry
?

Garrison Infantry
?

Cavalry
1890 Cavalry
1902 Cavalry
1916 Dismounted Cavalry

Armour
1919 Armour
1924 Armour

Light Infantry
?

Marine Infantry
?

Mountain Infantry
?

Militia
1860 Warriors
1900 Militia
1917 Militia

/Johan
 
I don't see the purpose of 1916 Dismounted Cavalry, especially when it is listed as an 'advanced' form of cavalry. The French and Germans transformed their cavalry divisions into infantry after deciding that little use could be derived from them, but that isn't a technology advance. Moves such as that are up to the player, in disbanding the divisions in question and using the manpower for something else.
 
Allenby said:
I don't see the purpose of 1916 Dismounted Cavalry, especially when it is listed as an 'advanced' form of cavalry. The French and Germans transformed their cavalry divisions into infantry after deciding that little use could be derived from them, but that isn't a technology advance. Moves such as that are up to the player, in disbanding the divisions in question and using the manpower for something else.
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I understand your point that the decicion to remove all horses from a division should be possible at any time without having to research a tech for it, but I don't think many players would disband a cavalry division to build a new infantry division. That's why I think there should be an option to "upgrade" your old cavalry divisions to infantry divisions.

/Johan
 
Whichever option that means less clicking for the player should be opted for - if a low cost tech automatically converts cavalry to infantry, it might be better than having to select each cavalry division, click disband, and build another infantry division, repeat 30 times...........
 
Johan Elisson said:
I understand your point that the decicion to remove all horses from a division should be possible at any time without having to research a tech for it, but I don't think many players would disband a cavalry division to build a new infantry division. That's why I think there should be an option to "upgrade" your old cavalry divisions to infantry divisions.
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In that case, why stop there? Why not include another 'cavalry' unit which is effectively an armoured or mechanised unit? After all, in some armies in the 1920s, traditional cavalry units retained their names whilst opting to exchange the horse for armour.

The main thrust of my argument here is that cavalry is for horse orientated units only. We don't have eight flavours of infantry so that we can have yet more infantry in the cavalry field.
 
Why is there only 1919 and 1924 armour?

Surely there should be a 1916 model aswell?
 
Allenby said:
In that case, why stop there? Why not include another 'cavalry' unit which is effectively an armoured or mechanised unit? After all, in some armies in the 1920s, traditional cavalry units retained their names whilst opting to exchange the horse for armour.
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But that is a different story, as converting cavalry units to mechanised or armoured units would take a very long time. You didn't just give the trooper an armoured car or a tank and he was set to go to the battlefield. But you could just take his horse and he was an infantryman. In your case, you'd really have to practically disband the unit and build the armoured unit up from scratch. And surely, cavalry to armoured wasn't done very much on the divisional scale. But cavalry to infantry was.

The main thrust of my argument here is that cavalry is for horse orientated units only. We don't have eight flavours of infantry so that we can have yet more infantry in the cavalry field.
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And this makes the game less historical and causes gameplay to fail in what way?

Zuckergußgebäck said:
Why is there only 1919 and 1924 armour?

Surely there should be a 1916 model aswell?
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No, these are armoured divisions. There will be tank brigades also, that will be available earlier.

/Johan
 
Johan Elisson said:
And this makes the game less historical and causes gameplay to fail in what way?
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It fails on the basis that a unit type entitled 'cavalry', necesserily implying mobility, and in the era of the horse, can be a simple infantry division. That the wholesale alteration of an entire unit type should be done by tech advance is absurd - the natural evolution of the mounted arm of the army was not towards dismounted infantry, but it was towards motorised units and armour.

The technology tree exists to represent doctrinal change, not the conscious decision in a time of war to dismount cavalry for the sake of expediency. By making the third form of cavalry dismounted infantry, you are effectively implying that all cavalry in all armies was naturally going to evolve in times of both war and peace into dismounted infantry.
 
Surerly if you have the 'dismounted cavalry' in the tech tree, that implies they are still cavalry, rather than infantry. Normal cavalry didn't dismount, even when Trench warfare had been established, such as a number of cavalry units preparing for the breakthrough from the Somme offensive in 1916. With the 'dismouted cavalry' should not exist, on the basis that cavalry is for horses, riding into battle, screening operations, the eventual break through. From my view, the tech tree is for doctrines, not decisions of the battle field.
 
Allenby said:
It fails on the basis that a unit type entitled 'cavalry', necesserily implying mobility, and in the era of the horse, can be a simple infantry division. That the wholesale alteration of an entire unit type should be done by tech advance is absurd - the natural evolution of the mounted arm of the army was not towards dismounted infantry, but it was towards motorised units and armour.
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But during the period we are trying to model, cavalry divisions were reformed into infantry divisions, more than into armoured units. What then happened after the war and or timeframe, is another question.

Allenby said:
The technology tree exists to represent doctrinal change, not the conscious decision in a time of war to dismount cavalry for the sake of expediency. By making the third form of cavalry dismounted infantry, you are effectively implying that all cavalry in all armies was naturally going to evolve in times of both war and peace into dismounted infantry.
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I thought the tech tree existed to represent any change in the organisation of the military forces, and that the doctrinal changes only was a part of that. Am I implying anything? Cavalry techs in the HoI 2 tech tree then implies that all armies would reform their cavalry units into motorised units. Which is not true.

Sir Humphrey said:
Normal cavalry didn't dismount, even when Trench warfare had been established, such as a number of cavalry units preparing for the breakthrough from the Somme offensive in 1916.
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Many of the normal German cavalry divisions were dismounted in 1916.

/Johan
 
That'd be a way of solving the problem, having some kind of doctrinal choice between a "quick reaction force" doctrine and a "dismount our cavalry" doctrine, even if I think that's overkill.

/Johan
 
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