Egypt as Puppet

[Cybvep]

One thing: if colonies are going to be simulated as anything other than national territory, then there ABSOLUTELY HAS TO BE manual control of their armed forces. No ifs. No buts. And no more of this nonsense about not being able to control puppet troops because it's OP. The HOI2 system of total control always made way more sense in this regard.

At the same time, there should be a real reason to defend your colonies. In MP it's common to see the players abandoning India, for example. Imagine a RL government doing that, i.e. they would move ALL military units out of India and transfer them to GB and France. It's inconceivable.

 

[FOARP]

Ah, I see. Could you elaborate on your opinion re: puppets?

Without getting too political, colonial governments had a minimal degree of legitimacy amongst local populations that a government such as that in Manchuria, or the Nanjing government in China-proper lacked as they were ruled by people that the majority of the population regarded as traitors (since that's what they were, basically). Colonial governments, on the other had, were just foreign imposed and appointed governments in a system that, whilst unstable and not popular, had at least been around for many decades, long enough to have co-opted some of the local elite beyond a simple gang of traitors, and built up relatively loyal armed forces.

Colonial troops fought with distinction in almost every theatre and were in no noticeable fashion inferior to metropolitan troops - and were anyway brigaded with metropolitan troops (e.g., each brigade of the 19th Indian Division had one British battalion). An examination of the history of, say, the battle of Monte Cassino, shows no justification in treating Indian or Moroccan divisions as inferior to British or French divisions (or, say, Central Asian troops as inferior to Russian troops in the Soviet army, or treating different units in the then still-segregated US Army differently).

I think a morale malus might be justified for puppets, but not for colonial troops. Where the real difference should come in is that it should just not be possible to mobilise the economy of a colony to the extent that an independent state can mobilise - they should stay at something like a peace-time standing. Conscription shouldn't be possible either - it would have prompted a massive revolt had they tried to implement it.

i think the EU4 approach to the various colonies would work best in HOI: puppet with their own military and a color palette nearly identical to the parent country. like if France is 0 0 255, Indochina should be 0 0 245.

The problem with the EU4 model is that in a WW2 context you would have zero control over troops who, historically speaking, were totally under the control of the imperial state. EU4 colonies never deploy their troops out-of-area, but very obviously British, French, and Spanish colonial troops served in Europe, North Africa, Asia etc.

At the same time, there should be a real reason to defend your colonies. In MP it's common to see the players abandoning India, for example. Imagine a RL government doing that, i.e. they would move ALL military units out of India and transfer them to GB and France. It's inconceivable.

There should be major penalties for losing control of colonies, and maybe a special "You Lost The Jewel In The Crown!" event for British India. On the flip-side, as a puppet-state India should have great value if conquered by Japan or Germany - giving up on India just shouldn't be an option.

TL;DR -The British Empire, and colonial empires in general, are worthy of an expansion-type DLC.

 

[FrozenWall]

At the same time, there should be a real reason to defend your colonies. In MP it's common to see the players abandoning India, for example. Imagine a RL government doing that, i.e. they would move ALL military units out of India and transfer them to GB and France. It's inconceivable.

If they belong to a parent country (india) but are controlled by a master country (brits) then it should be as simple as linking Indian produced units to the Indian mp pool. If you abandon India all those units are now non-reinforceable, and so would rapidly deplete and become useless in real combat. This would create a situation where the master country wants to siphon off colonial units for the European theatre, but at the same time wants to hold the colonies so you don't get cut off from their mp source.


As for colonial v cosmopolitan units (and I'm generalizing over several nations), the colonials were almost always worse in combat, less loyal, and were further back in line for equipment. The kicker is that the majority never saw combat, and were relegated to guard duties or skirmishing/raiding in the colonies. It was almost only the motivated and elite volunteer colonial units that were shipped off to the European theatre or thrown into real combat against regulars in for example Burma.

In HoI terms a lot of the colonial units would be militia or garrison units, with a bunch of proper infantry units with training and equipment to match the master nations own (plus the occasional one with extra experience, like gurkhas). Perhaps give militia and garrison bonuses when fighting on their own soil? That would further avoid players just shipping everything to Europe, or going on the offensive against japan without support, as your units would be useless there but thanks to bonuses do a decent enough job defending their own colonial nation.

 

[FOARP]

As for colonial v cosmopolitan units (and I'm generalizing over several nations), the colonials were almost always worse in combat, less loyal, and were further back in line for equipment. The kicker is that the majority never saw combat, and were relegated to guard duties or skirmishing/raiding in the colonies. It was almost only the motivated and elite volunteer colonial units that were shipped off to the European theatre or thrown into real combat against regulars in for example Burma.

The problem is that this is true of all the front line units vs. those that weren't deployed to the front in every army, colonial or not. If units actually deployed to combat (the only place where, anyway, we can fully judge their combat-effectiveness) were equally as well armed, and fought just as well as metropolitan units, then saying "yeah, but their 2nd-line troops weren't as good as the front-line metropolitan units" hardly seems a valid argument. Was there something inherent in colonial armed forces that made them inferior in combat to those of the metropolis? Not in any battle I've heard of.

 

[Porkman]

I'm pretty sure we had this entire discussion before...

 

[Axe99]

I'm pretty sure we had this entire discussion before...

And a good discussion it was .

 

[Esben_DRK]

One thing: if colonies are going to be simulated as anything other than national territory, then there ABSOLUTELY HAS TO BE manual control of their armed forces. No ifs. No buts. And no more of this nonsense about not being able to control puppet troops because it's OP. The HOI2 system of total control always made way more sense in this regard.

I agree, this has to be an option, although I'd really prefer it not to be necessary. The British player could take maybe 10 divisions to fight in Africa, and bring along to Europe, and leave the Indian colonial government with the rest to fight competently in Burma.

 

[Axe99]

I agree, this has to be an option, although I'd really prefer it not to be necessary. The British player could take maybe 10 divisions to fight in Africa, and bring along to Europe, and leave the Indian colonial government with the rest to fight competently in Burma.

Burma involved a bunch of metropolitan forces as well - unless you could cede theatre control (or didn't mind the Indians getting steamrolled) then it's still probably preferable to maintain control, or you're stuck with half your forces doing what they want instead of coordinating with your plans.

 

[Esben_DRK]

True, if you go by how it would function in HoI3. I sincerely hope that theatre control and expeditionary forces are more intuitive and better simulate what historically happened in HoI4. I know that it's then not entirely accurate to cede control over the Burma theatre to India, but AFAIK a lot of the planning was done on a "local" level, and London only gave the high level objectives; "reopen the Burma Road", "push the Japanese back" etc. If you could do that for puppets or colonial nations, it would be awesome, and then let them fight the theatre - like if you set it on AI control in HoI4, only competently since the AI gets upgrades.

 

[Axe99]

True, if you go by how it would function in HoI3. I sincerely hope that theatre control and expeditionary forces are more intuitive and better simulate what historically happened in HoI4. I know that it's then not entirely accurate to cede control over the Burma theatre to India, but AFAIK a lot of the planning was done on a "local" level, and London only gave the high level objectives; "reopen the Burma Road", "push the Japanese back" etc. If you could do that for puppets or colonial nations, it would be awesome, and then let them fight the theatre - like if you set it on AI control in HoI4, only competently since the AI gets upgrades.

Aye, although giving theatre control away altogether (to India, for example) would be conceding even that, and it would be impossible to coordinate any offensives (or defensives) in Burma with other Allied operations in the area (for example, if Singapore doesn't fall, then you have to balance the defence of Singapore with Burma). It'd also de-link the naval forces in the region (presumably still under UK command?) with the land forces. Generally speaking, the forces of the US, UK and dominions/colonies acted in a well-coordinated fashion, which is something HoI3 couldn't cope with. Until I'm confident that they've got a way to achieve this in HoI4, I'm personally in favour (ie, it's just my 2 cents, so could be a silly idea ) of leaving as much of the British Empire (including Dominions, when not controlled by a player) under player control. That's where Egypt is a bit more interesting, as it was a nominally independent country that wasn't particularly fond of having the Brits around, and so it's armed forces didn't 'answer' to the British in the same way that those of the colonies did, or have an interest in coordination or the same goals (as per the Dominion forces).

 

[FrozenWall]

The problem is that this is true of all the front line units vs. those that weren't deployed to the front in every army, colonial or not. If units actually deployed to combat (the only place where, anyway, we can fully judge their combat-effectiveness) were equally as well armed, and fought just as well as metropolitan units, then saying "yeah, but their 2nd-line troops weren't as good as the front-line metropolitan units" hardly seems a valid argument. Was there something inherent in colonial armed forces that made them inferior in combat to those of the metropolis? Not in any battle I've heard of.

I take it from a bunch of stuff I read and various documentaries, specifically one where the British and French were debating how many colonials to bring to the trenches in WWI. It was various Indian units being discussed in particular. A large part of it was that they feared several units would simply desert and disperse if they tried to order them to Europe. (on a much larger and disruptive scale than just the usual avoiding of conscription) And in addition they needed the more trustworthy units in India to temper any ideas of insurrection from the more independent minded ones.

So it was less a question of martial ability than it was loyalty to the colonial master or motivation to fight for anything but your own home. It's hard to model this, since it's not that they were directly worse in combat when pressed. But rather that ordering them to Europe would have political and social consequences. (the gamey move of abandoning India altogether would with certainty have triggered revolt and desertion of the Indian units in their entirety.)

Giving bonuses for home defence helps model how these units were used, and tying them to the Indian mp pool gives motivation to defend India. These are of course kind of cop-outs as far as solutions go, but the only other way of modelling it properly would be a complex model of the political and national loyalties governing the master-colony relation down to unit level to get it all historically right. And just applying a few bonuses to militia in their home territory seems an easier solution. (and indeed there is no reason why this bonus should not be shared with all nations.)

 

[Axe99]

I take it from a bunch of stuff I read and various documentaries, specifically one where the British and French were debating how many colonials to bring to the trenches in WWI. It was various Indian units being discussed in particular. A large part of it was that they feared several units would simply desert and disperse if they tried to order them to Europe. (on a much larger and disruptive scale than just the usual avoiding of conscription) And in addition they needed the more trustworthy units in India to temper any ideas of insurrection from the more independent minded ones.

There should definitely be a limit to mobilisation, and as per Porkman's excellent colonial thread (I'm fairly sure), that, coupled with the concept of needing to maintain a garrison to ensure order, would mean you would only be able to safely use a relatively small number of divisions in actual combat, so done well the system wouldn't let you UK drop 2.5 million Indian troops in France in 1939 without India rising in open revolt or something like that. That way you could have the Indian divisions that actually fought in the North African, Italian and South East Asian theatres, but without creating crazy colonial armies.

 

[FOARP]

I take it from a bunch of stuff I read and various documentaries, specifically one where the British and French were debating how many colonials to bring to the trenches in WWI. It was various Indian units being discussed in particular.

By WW2 they had pretty much had a total about-face in this kind of thinking. Douglas Haig began the process of planning for deploying the Indian army to Europe around 1910, but he had to go through a lot to get it done - for example he had maps of Europe printed with Afghan place-names so that people in the War Office wouldn't know - and when they found out they ordered all the plans and maps destroyed (he passed on the orders - but let it be known that they shouldn't follow the orders with too much zeal). Remember that until the early years of the 20th century the Indian army still hadn't even received magazine-loading rifles but were still equipped with single-shot Martini-Henrys, the Indian army was simply not equipped for fighting modern adversaries and weren't trusted to be so, but WW1 changed this.

By the 30's this had totally ended. They had full plans for deploying as many units as possible out of theatre. Yes, there was a requirement for keeping units in India for "maintaining order", but there was no program of denying advanced weapons to the Indian Army, and its main units were just as effective as those of the Metropolis.

Giving bonuses for home defence helps model how these units were used, and tying them to the Indian mp pool gives motivation to defend India. These are of course kind of cop-outs as far as solutions go, but the only other way of modelling it properly would be a complex model of the political and national loyalties governing the master-colony relation down to unit level to get it all historically right. And just applying a few bonuses to militia in their home territory seems an easier solution. (and indeed there is no reason why this bonus should not be shared with all nations.)

I'd agree with all of these measures. My only objection is to making all colonial units worse than metropolitan ones because, lol, empires.

However, I'd prefer a system that does not require dozens of units being maintained on-map in India which you cannot move - this would be annoying. If you can only move a dozen or so divisions out of India, then let's only have those units on-map. Abandoning India should mean losing them though.

 

[Porkman]

However, I'd prefer a system that does not require dozens of units being maintained on-map in India which you cannot move - this would be annoying. If you can only move a dozen or so divisions out of India, then let's only have those units on-map. Abandoning India should mean losing them though.

You'd want them on the map otherwise you'd have to guess what's in theater and then find out when the Japanese invade. Sleep the divisions or put an "ignore" tag on them but they need to be on the map.

 

[Sir Garnet]

I'm not that much of a political history buff but yeah, Egypt was a funny one.

I actually think that, in HoI terms, Egypt would be better represented as Occupied with Collaboration Government.

An appropriate approach.

For supplies, troops outside domestic territory might officially rely on the host country for supplies, but should be able to make up any shortfalls. This might be done by toggling on a supply arrangement that funnels logistics through the host country infrastructure, with some variable "shrinkage" plus absorption by the host country so the throughput is substantially less than 100%.

Regarding colonies and colonial troops, I strongly agree that abandoning colonies (India above all) was just about unthinkable.

Also, some metropolitan troops as well as some colonial units would need to remain to maintain a presence in a colony to preserve order and colonial rule. Colonial troops would not take well to being sent abroad to fight while their homeland was invaded.

 

[FOARP]

You'd want them on the map otherwise you'd have to guess what's in theater and then find out when the Japanese invade. Sleep the divisions or put an "ignore" tag on them but they need to be on the map.

Well, thing is I just went through a list of the Indian army's infantry divisions that existed in WW2 and the overwhelming majority of them saw action in the Middle East/Europe/Burma/Malaya. In fact, every infantry division of the Indian Army saw action except the the 34th, which was posted in Sri Lanka (then-Ceylon). The only division other than the 34th that saw no action whatsover, and which wasn't broken up to form the 44th Airborne (which did eventually see action, if only in a one-battalion operation) was the 14th Infantry division, but this was specifically a training formation.

Where were all these divisions which couldn't be deployed out of India?

It's easy enough to point to the Indian Army's strength of 2.5 million and say that many couldn't serve outside India because they were needed for internal security, but if they weren't concentrated in divisions, why should they even be simulated in-game?

BTW - the Indian Army fielded 32 divisions from 2.5 million men. The US Army fielded 90 divisions from 8.2 million men. Should dozens of never-existed units have to be kept in the US as well?

 

[Porkman]

Well, thing is I just went through a list of the Indian army's infantry divisions that existed in WW2 and the overwhelming majority of them saw action in the Middle East/Europe/Burma/Malaya. In fact, every infantry division of the Indian Army saw action except the the 34th, which was posted in Sri Lanka (then-Ceylon). The only division other than the 34th that saw no action whatsover, and which wasn't broken up to form the 44th Airborne (which did eventually see action, if only in a one-battalion operation) was the 14th Infantry division, but this was specifically a training formation.

Where were all these divisions which couldn't be deployed out of India?

It's easy enough to point to the Indian Army's strength of 2.5 million and say that many couldn't serve outside India because they were needed for internal security, but if they weren't concentrated in divisions, why should they even be simulated in-game?

Can you count?

There are 44 named divisions, (44th division) but only 20 some actual entries on the list.

We don't know about the 1st division, the 13th, the 15th, the 16th, the 18th, the 22nd, the 24th, the 27th, the 28th, the 29th, the 30th, the 33rd the 35th, the 37th, the 38th, the 40th, the 41st, and the 42nd divisions because they aren't on wikipedia.

Maybe the reason they aren't on wikipedia is because they never left India.

Furthermore, of the divisions that did serve outside, it wasn't all of them at once.

 

[FOARP]

Can you count?

There are 44 named divisions, (44th division) but only 20 some actual entries on the list.

We don't know about the 1st division, the 13th, the 15th, the 16th, the 18th, the 22nd, the 24th, the 27th, the 28th, the 29th, the 30th, the 33rd the 35th, the 37th, the 38th, the 40th, the 41st, and the 42nd divisions because they aren't on wikipedia.

Maybe the reason they aren't on wikipedia is because they never left India.

They didn't exist during the time period. Divisions weren't numbered in sequence, just as in many other armies - the fact that a German 999th division existed does not mean that 999 German divisions were fielded. The only Indian divisions actually fielded during the war are the ones on the list, nearly all of which (which is 30 divisions, if you count them) were deployed, none of which were dedicated to internal security or what-have-you.

Again, why should divisions that never existed and can't be moved out of India be on-map? What exactly is historical (let alone good game design) about this?

 

[Cybvep]

Huh, what about all those troops which were used behind the frontline? In HOI3 terms they would probably be a mix of GARs, MILs and MPs. In HOI3 you don't need to worry about insurgencies in India at all, so you don't really need troops for garrison duties, but hopefully it will be different in HOI4. I always felt that the lack of any colonial politics was a big mistake in HOI games.

 

[FOARP]

Huh, what about all those troops which were used behind the frontline? In HOI3 terms they would probably be a mix of GARs, MILs and MPs. In HOI3 you don't need to worry about insurgencies in India at all, so you don't really need troops for garrison duties, but hopefully it will be different in HOI4. I always felt that the lack of any colonial politics was a big mistake in HOI games.

Outside of the North-West Frontier (where tribal militias not under the direct control of the government were used) order was mostly maintained by armed police. Indian congress was not a violent revolutionary movement, instead most of the actual violent unrest during the period came from inter-communal violence, not insurrectionary movements.

For example, during the war Sind was placed under martial law due to the activity of a Muslim sect known as the Hur, and a successful operation against them was carried out by a company-sized unit of paras. There was also a period of martial law in northern Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh during the "Quit India" movement, where battalion-sized units were used to re-establish colonial government. What there wasn't, however, was anything like sustained insurgency in India. I suppose there could have been - this was certainly Chandra Bose's aim - and had the authorities been any more heavy handed than they were there might have been.

I suppose you could model the armed police as MIL or MP brigades, but since they weren't formed in brigade-sized formations, weren't part of the army, and since no body would have thought of using them in combat against serious armed opposition this seems a little bit pointless.

However, I'm all for colonial politics being modelled in-game - just not in a way that has units sitting around doing nothing, or fighting ahistorical division-sized battles against insurgents just because they are sited in a colony. You could, for example, have an independence-sentiment metric similar to that in EUIV, which if it goes beyond a certain point can lead to insurgency.