I'm not. I argued since my OP, that builds with arty should be viable just as builds without arty. That the game shouldn't include no brainer choices for support.
Viable for what though? I'd argue the different support options mean divisions will be better or worse at different things, rather than every division is as viable as each other with whatever range of support companies they have. Arty should be necessary for a division to do a good job attacking, for example.
That two sentences contradict themselves.
Oh you don't HAVE to build the thing I want you to build. But if you don't build it you will lose.
That's not a contradiction (there are pretty clear rules to logic and semantics - the statement I made did not meet the criteria for a contradiction, by some margin), and I said "severe disadvantage", not lose.
A nation without an army is not the same as a nation without arty.
How so in the context of this argument (obviously arty does not equal army, so at the base level what you say is plainly correct, but what you imply in the context of this argument less so).
You argue "There must be choice for what we build and what we don't - there should be no "no brainer" choices, so arty should be optional to an effective combat division".
I say this is the logical equivalent of "there should be no "no brainer" choices, so armies should be optional to an effective winning strategy".
The example is intended to highlight that the issue here isn't whether there should be no brainer choices (there always will be, at some level), but rather the level of detail at which those choices are made - it sounds like you'd prefer the game to run with a simplified and historically implausible combat model where arty was far less important than it was historically. My argument sounds like I'd prefer to run with a simplified and historically implausible strategic model where armies were far less important than they were historically. Logically, looking at no-brainer decisions, it's equivalent.
For example - abstracting out whether armies are important is a ridiculously low level of historically plausible detail when making choices - anyone who's played Axis and Allies can see this.
Abstracting out whether artillery is important, on the other hand, is a lower level of detail, so it's less obvious to people that it's historically implausible - but logically it's the same thing.
It's just a matter of where to draw the line on historical plausibility. Some of us prefer more (arty is important), some less (arty should be optional to an effective combat division).
That's not a choice. A choice is 1: I build arty. 2: I chose a different option.
Not so - say you're about to have lunch, and you're at a lunch bar that only sells sandwiches. You can buy one sandwich or two. That is still a choice. It's a choice at a lower level of detail, but it's still a choice.
Then again, why do you want to force arty on me? What if I'm fine with the abstracted light arty? What if I want to use air as fire support? What if I want to include tanks instead of guns as fire support?
I'm not forcing arty on you - if you choose to operate poorly optimised forces, that's you're choice. If you have limited resources and want to prioritise other types of support because they're tactically more flexible, even if they're a little less effective, that's your choice. There are still very much choices, and lots of them, they're just a bit more complicated than a binary yes/no for artillery.
Of course you can use all those other things - but if the combat model is worth it's salt, then if you have a combat division with arty supported by CAS and tanks, and a combat division without arty supported by CAS and tanks, the division without arty should, all else being equal, not perform as well.
P.S. Remember: all my points are about the GAME and not the history of WW2.
As are mine. In my perfect HoI, there would be a combat model that provides historically plausible combat factors for the various elements involved in combat. If this is to occur, then artillery has to be important to the point that for a combat division expected to assault the enemy, at least some arty is a no brainer (and if it doesn't, I'll mod it so it does). Again, I could use your method to argue for no armies in game - this is a game, remember, not the history of WW2, so why do we have armies in the first place (that's a serious question btw, you'll find if we go down the path of answering it, you'll see why arty should be important)?
Importantly, arty as important doesn't mean less choice in the game, it means the choices are at a higher level of detail - a level of detail well provided for in the game through the division designer.
), but for clarification:
