Improvements for Democratic Republic of Vietnam (U_72).

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Dear Darkest Hour game developers,

I am having several ideas considering Democratic Republic of Vietnam's (Communist Vietnam, U_72) appear in Darkest Hour. Currently, the nation is not very well concerned and there is some missing features in DH installation that prevent players to play Communist Vietnam now. So I am having some suggestions and hope this will receive considerations of DH developers.

As of now, Communist Vietnam has a good system of ministers (at least in number, though living in Vietnam for quite a long time, I do not have much information about the politicians of Vietnam to provide the statistics of each, so I'm satisfied with the current one), good reflection of tech teams (though overpowered somehow) after a hugh rework several months before, a huge number of low-rank and low skill officers, a quite good set of IC for each provinces as historical. But the country (ingame) itself has several problems which I hope there may be some considerations of game developers to be fixed in 1.04, hopefully in 1.03 official.

1-leaders.txt problem: I can play CVietnam, when I choose Soviet, cheat to demand Indochina, then release puppet U_72. But this country has no available military leaders though having a correct leaders file. The problem is the file: leaders.txt in Darkest hour/Mod/Darkest hour full/db . It include all countries in DH, but not U_72. I could modify this file, load a new campaign and the leaders are now available. But I think it will be at best if the game developers fix the file so that CVietnam players would not need to modify the file themselves.

2-Events for this country: I think 1.03 will not focus much in the cold war, when CVietnam has a lot of events effecting the developement of the country, so this may be delayed until 1.04, when I may be happy to contribute to the event chain of Vietnam (I am not very sure about the time I may devote, but I have a serious spirit to finish anything planned, for which I do not have much time playing games now). But right in 1.03 there has been 1945 campaign, so, regardless of the country occupying Vietnam, would there be an event, where Ho Chi Minh lead his August Revolution to create CVietnam, of course a country without money and huge dissent level, but still a historical one? As now CVietnam lacks event, so I think at least provide him an event in 1945 campaign that he may appear and take part in the upcoming cold war

 

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And two other suggestions, I think it will be tough to be accepted by the game developers, but it is as good as I may express to help contribute to a Darkest Hour with highly historical reflection.

3-Single player screen: I mean, the screen appear when I select the country from the list of available countries. Now the description of Vietnam is a plain "U72_desc", and a picture with Chinese letter, seems a propaganda picture from his ally Communist China then. Should there be any improvment for this? I may provide the game developers with huge amount of propaganda picture of CVietnam at that time, as Vietnam has not use Chinese letters pretty much since French's occupation. That time Vietnamese was highly Latin-oriented, at least in the leaders group. A short time later Quoc Ngu (national language literally) was widely taugh to everyone, which Vietnamese people are using today. I may also provide a brief description for CVietnam that the game developers may add to the file. A well-known country in Cold War like CVietnam should have this, I think :blush:. I do not have pretty much freetime, and I am not sure yet about my timetable and plans in next months, but if accepted by the developers, I may type the description and put a link to the picture here for the developers to use, maybe as late as December, but no later than that, I promise.

4-Land doctrine: this may be a little controversial, but I hope I would be able to convince the game developers to change the main doctrine for CVietnam's army.
Now CVietnam by default has the Manpower focus doctrine. I think this is because of Vietnam is a communist country, and China and Soviet are already famous for using number to destroy other countries. But researching about Vietnamese army, I think many serious researchers will consider this as a better tech tree for in-game CVietnam: Light Infantry.

-At first, in Franco-Vietnam war, Vietnamese leaders tried several attemps to use number to overwhelm the enemy. But most of the time they suffered defeat. For example: battle of Hoa Binh and opening phase of Dien Bien Phu. Specially in Dien Bien Phu, there was direct order from Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap to stop "direct atack style" after some companies were wiped out under French superior firepower. Later, they focus on conducting attacks and raids AT NIGHT combining with digging advancing trenches, which results in success. Very later in battle, where there is only a small pocket of French troops left and sure of victory and absent of enemy artillery fire, they used number to scare wounded French paratroopers to surrender .

-Later, at least until 1963 the endtime of the game, CVietnam continued with the use of light infantry and specs (Dac Cong litterally) to conduct warfare. They used numbers, yes, because that is everything they have. But they used that in "contact point" style if I may say. One thousand men attack a post of ten men. Yes, ten men lost the battle because enemy superior number. They saw overwhelming enemy force, but in the war front, their enemy has less than half the number than they have. That was the enemy (CVietnam and his puppet) used LOCALLY SUPERIOR NUMBER to win. A little battle, but it is a won one. And a doctrine to conduct warfare.

-Specially, in the terrain relatively like the pacific theater battles where the Allies had difficulty wiping out defense-in-depth and defense against Japanese infiltration assaults, the Vietnamese used similar tactics to defense against the superior American. Examples like Battle of Hamburger Hill, defense in Operation Lam Son 719, or earlier Ap Bac (less convincing). So, the Vietnamese used DEFENSE IN DEPTH widely and quite effectively as their main defense tactic.

-To attack, Vietnamese leaders understand the superior firepower of the enemy, with experience with French, they did not attemp to use number against the enemy until 1968 (and abandoned again later after taking huge loss, most of the force available that time, this is a bit controversial, but it is much later than 1963 game-endtime, so we may talk about this later). Also, as infrared was not available that time, NIGHT ATTACK was widely used by CVietnam against the American and allies. The attacks was rapid, quickly killed several shocking enemies and retreat to avoid enemy's firesupport and superior number. Also, Vietnamese' doctrine respect AMBUSH attacks, where they famously used in some battles like Ong Thanh battle, and Lang Vei battle where they AMBUSHED THE ENEMY AT NIGHT then retreated.

-Still, CVietnam has a lot of battle where they use number against the enemy, most of which results in failure. I think CVietnam is better famous for night and ambush attacks with light infantry and specs then pull back to avoid a direct gunfight. Also, Vietnam has a doctrine that they must somehow save their manpower, as his enemies in history usually had much more manpower than his. Not able to use superior firepower like USA due to lack of technology and industrial capacity, while not able to throw millions of men to become cannon fodders, Vietnames leaders chose the light infantry with frequent night attacks, night moves and ambushing doctrine with small group of men and pull back, similar to Japan in WWII. In my oppinion, it would be better to give Vietnam Light Infantry doctrine by default.

I know that my idea is just an idea of a person, and my argument may be weak at some points, but I'm confident in my research in Vietnamese military history, and ready to supply the game developers with proof for my words, coming from Vietnamese leaders and some military researchers over the world, not draft estimates and pale comments without serious attention to history. There may also be difficulties to integrate Vietnam to this tech tree, as Vietnam will surely sooner or later be effected by the mechanized wave attacks in Soviet style, so it is ridiculous to end it in a Unified NATO doctrine. But I hope my idea will receive consideration from the game developers to make my DH as historical as possible.

Several notes:

-1945-1954: Vietnam is between Japanese and Chinese style. But decisive successful battles result from Japanese style attacks.
-1954-1968: Vietnam surely use Japanese style.
-1968: suicidal attacks with number, though a political victory, but surely crushing military defeat.
-1969-1975: Soviet mechanized style attack combined with Japanese light infantry style somewhere, both have successful and failure battles.
-1975-1989: Fully mechanized wave attacks. Still exists light infantry and specs raids somewhere, specially in defensing the North Border against the Chinese in 1979. But most notified battles are conducted with overwhelming tanks, artillery, mechanized infantry, helicopters and CAS.

Again, thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Edit: a little break between paragraphs for easier reading

 

[uwmad]

Yeah, the breaks in the paragraphs made things a lot easier to read. I dont see anything obviously wrong with what youve said here

 

[MartinBG]

1-leaders.txt problem

Fixed

2-Events for this country

Why don't you make a mini-mod of this? It can be integrated into the main game later.

3-Single player screen

Feel free to suggest a better poster and country description (just don't make it too long as it has to be translated to all languages).

4-Land doctrine

The main problem with minor countries is the long research time for doctrines and having an ally that can give you BP's is somewhat vital. U72 tag is supposed to be allied to SOV and for game-play reasons I would keep it's AI doctrines research priorities same as for SOV.

 

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Thank you very much for reading my post.

I attached the proposed picture and description below. The description is something like:

Vietnam, located in the center of South East Asia, has been the Pearl of the Far East of French Empire for almost a century. But in 1940, after the crushing defeat in German's Fall Gelb, France no further had ability keep her Asian colonies from the Japanese' tidal wave. Late 1940 Japan took important cities and ports in Indochina, and attempted a successful coup in March 1945 to finally expel France's influence over her Pearl. The Japanese surrender in August opened the way for Ho Chi Minh to declare independence for his beloved motherland, while the Allies, including France, had not yet come back to take power in Indochina. Democratic Republic of Vietnam became independent on September 2nd, 1945, but found himself politically isolated, while facing serious problems: very young and inexperienced government, no budget, little to no armed force, and Nationalist China and France sending thousands of troops to Vietnam to disarm the Japanese. Struggling for the new-found independence, Ho Chi Minh has his ministers deal with social and economic problems when he travels to France to find supports from Western powers including anti-war groups in French government and the WWII tactical ally United States. Will he successfully secure his motherland's independence? How will Stalin and Truman respond to his request for support? Will Philippe Leclerc be able to convince his government to negotiate with Vietnam? Will the young government he left in Vietnam be able to stablize the country from inside and outside problems when he seek recognition from the world?

It took me a while to write this...hope the devs will accept this one as description for U72 (DRV).

Why don't you make a mini-mod of this? It can be integrated into the main game later.
Where may I read and learn how to make a mini-mod? I do not know what it is, honestly . I know how to mod files, I know how to write and code events for a country, which I would be glad to do if I may organize my time. But I do not know how to create a mod. Must my mini-mod be something like a scenario? It's too huge I think. May you explain or give me a link for me to read step-by-step how to make a minimod?

The main problem with minor countries is the long research time for doctrines and having an ally that can give you BP's is somewhat vital. U72 tag is supposed to be allied to SOV and for game-play reasons I would keep it's AI doctrines research priorities same as for SOV.

I hope I will be able to convince the devs about this though it may take a long time. If doctrine researching is a problem, I think it involves in something I have thought about, including Vietnam's research slot and production.

-Option 1: one research slot:

As of now, Vietnam has only one research slot with his tiny base IC. But it is a little more than enough to fully research inf and doctrines. Vietnam has good tech teams: Ho Chi Minh level 7 and Vo Nguyen Giap level 9. Apply the right skills, they will finish researching a doctrine in less than a year. Vietnam also has obsolete techs at start, so the time taken will be even less ( I saw and believe unlike HOI, in DH outdated techs cost less than up-to-date ones). The rest of time will be poured to inf researching. So, I think, GIVEN THE RIGHT SKILLS, Communist Vietnam tech teams will be able to at least keep his INF and doctrines up to date without blueprints.

Also, considering the nature of Cold War, CVietnam's Soviet ally never officially took part in the war against Republic Vietnam, which may not be able to reflect in DH. The same would apply for Republic Vietnam and his ally United States. I have not been able to suggest a solution for this yet, but I think it should be best to keep the country neutral, high relation with Soviet, able to join any Soviet WWIII war, but not an ally. Hence, at least for the full DH, Vietnam may not neccessarily be part of Soviet Union's allies as historical. So, having SU giving blueprints matters even less.

-Option 2: two research slots.

If this happens, CVietnam would be able to conduct researches also in industry and MTNs. Industrial techs give Vietnam a push, while MTNs reflects his commandos.
This would require a large increase in CVietnam's base IC, which may lead to unbalance. So, if the dev consider this option (I would admit the Option 1 is more acceptable, but this one opens very huge amount of ways to develope events and scenarios around Vietnam - I will explain later if I see the developers are interested), I suggest Vietnam has about 16 or 17 IC base IC, just enough to maintain two tech slots. But he has very low production effeciency, around 40%. This forces him to go central planning to increase effective IC and maintain a low level of dissent, or the economy will drop to minimum 3 IC. CVietnam would have a lot of events giving him dissent as historical, so this would keep Vietnam and the game amazingly balanced and historical, if my calculations have no mistakes.

To sum up, I think there are enough reasons from the history to change the tech and doctrine tech teams' skill for CVietnam to follow Light Infantry line. The gameplay reason stated above may be neglected with other solutions as I explained above. Also the game engine itself has problems, which encourages giving a superpower's ally technically neutral status, so the BP does not matter anymore.

Ah...I see a long way to convince the developers and have myself take part in developing CVietnam for Darkest Hour. But I will try my best. Wish everyone good luck.

 

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-Option 2: two research slots.

I'm sorry. I have checked, in 1.03 CVietnam's 7 IC support two tech teams already. So less need to add IC for him. This is already good enough to support research in CVietnam, if the cash problem is not mentioned (actually for now cash flowing only supports one level five to six team). If this is the case, I do not see any essential need to add IC right now, it may be considered later.

Tech team Ho Chi Minh level 7 and Vo Nguyen Giap level 9 are amazingly good to research WW2 Light Infantry doctrines, with four skills matching each doctrine. CVietnam's tech team is better at Light Infantry Tree than the Manpower Tree, definitely. So I believe it is more than enough to have CVietnam research his own technology, and they will finish them in short amount of time without blueprints.

So, with this gameplay reason got much less, I hope the devs will change their mind .