Transports & geopolitics

[unmerged(14689)]

I haven't seen a discussion about the use of tranports in this forum yet (I might be wrong), so I'd hereby like to open one.

I believe it should be something like in HoI where you can send them automatically. This to make the British player generally concerned with Russian expansion into Persia or the taking of Constantinople. This would mean the Russians get a port along the lifeline of the Empire.

The system should be something like HoI then (so no accumilating of resources in London even though they come from Australia), but Britain shouldn't get a nearly impossible number of transports to destroy like in HoI. Russian advances in the Middle East or a French build up in the Med should make the British quite vulnerable, so they would have a real incentive to keep the way to India open.

 

[IEX Totalview]

Whatever is done, keep military transports separate from merchantmen. The big problem in HOI is the AI would dump all military transports into convoys, thus it was given obscene amounts of convoys to prevent this, which ruined sub warfare.

 

[Killerjes]

I agree that naval transports and merchant men should be seperated.
And overland trade routes should also be depicted, as I think they at 1835 still had some importance?

Railroads are also an issue, so some kind of more complex infrastructure or actual individual railroads would be a nice addition.

IIRC the rails across the US were a pretty big deal - not least for the sheer prestige of the project (event maybe? something with US / Confederate prestige going up upon completion of a railroad across the continent? )

 

[peo]

I'm not sure the HoI model is very good for this game.
Or for that matter for HoI.

It would be rather difficult to model return freight for example.

The way the Swedish steel industry worked and still work is that we export ore and on the return voyage the ships is laden with coal/coke. The amount of coal is still small in weight compared to the ore but it is enough to have a significant stel industry.

The HoI model makes this kind of exchange impossible.

 

[unmerged(14689)]

I just think something should be worked out to make Britain very interested in keeping France from building a strong fleet in the Med and Russia from gaining a port along the life line to India. This was the main point of British strategy: keep other Great Powers from becoming a threat to British communications.

If this is not properly worked out in the game you get an uber-Britain that is untouchable. That's no fun, starting as France, Prussia or Russia in 1835 knowing the Brits can't be touched.