A Nice Gift

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Victarus
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Post by Victarus »

Balthagor wrote:I think I understand, but I still fail to see how that is much different than what I suggested of having the sale take place immediatly but you then have to use the transports as in your example to get the new units home.
Because in the first example (France to Poland), Poland didn't have a navy but was at war with Germany - the transport would never have had a chance. (That and the whole "shared transport" idea sounds iffy - I don't like the idea of someone else moving my units, especially if they decide to move it over an AA gun somewhere.)
Also, it would still end up with "packed as freight" units in your territory that you gave to the AI trying to get home because the AI doesn't bring over a cargo ship and try and sea transport them. Even worse, these "packed as freight" units will drive into enemy territory and be unable to fire. This solution, will interesting, doesn't address the problem.
Thus having it as an option that would most likely be used in multiplayer (although I suppose you could always just move the units there yourself before selling them). I don't think that the AI will get a huge overhaul anytime soon (although I certainly have no objections should such a thing take place :D ), but I don't want either the single- or multi-player games to suffer because of this issue. Unfortunately the AI acts very different than a human and the way to fix it wouldn't work in multiplayer (naval blockade example again), so I think you just need to have an "AI" and "Player" option or they'll both suffer.
Even using "non-combat" units as transports for some of these units, we would need to address the question of what if you and I have the treaty and you try and use my C-130 to transport a tank into your territory flying over my enemies territory. C-130s have not attack values so by your rule would be "non-combat" but it would get shot down and we would each loose a unit...
That's why I don't like the shared transport idea: If anyone's going to get my planes shot down it's going to be me, dammit! :D
If the plane was going over the nation's territory it would either have a treaty to do so (and wouldn't be shot down, at least until the nation got upset and revoked the treaty) or would be at war (in which case it's fair game). If both the giver and givee of the unit were at war with the nation but didn't like the idea of combat units on their soil, you would just escort the unit to the enemy-friendly border (across Germany to the Polish border, to use the above example) and have your fighters turn back at that point until the unit was dropped off, re-escorting the fighter back later.
It's entirely possible that air units could be included in transport treaties though since they can't capture territory anyways. The only reason I thought naval units would be bad was because they could always take a port or offshore resource. I suppose the air units could always bombard the nation, but they wouldn't last very long without an airfield to land in, would they? ;)
Il Duce
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Post by Il Duce »

As far as implementing these transfers in a way that addresses logistics and delays in a meaningful way - without implementing all of the supply infrastructure overhead,and considering interdictions, yatta, yatta...

Perhaps a 'fair' solution would be that a 'given' unit is not taken from existing stock, but is queued for manufacture. Specifically, once queued it can not be cancelled! When the unit is complete, it appears in the recipient's reserve, as if the recipient had built it. Pretty simple, and it would address a few of the questions raised in these threads:

1. It introduces some amount of delay, roughly equivalent to the latency of transport.
2. It addresses the issue of personning the unit - I assume that a given unit is Materiel, and NOT Personnel. If the recipient doesn't have the reserve potential to person the unit, then they'll just have to deal with it by dismantling something else.
3. It could bypass the issue of WM bias approval in the transport process -which given the way things are going, would be my preference.
4. It puts a reasonable limit on what can be given - the only question is how much buildcap the giver has. Thus you avoid the issues of giving say 10 divisions to an ally all at once. If you want to do this in the context of your current transit treaties and transport capacities, fine, then they are allied troops in a host country in the conventional sense - not gifts.

In diplo terms a few units is meaningful enough, and this approach would allow it.

One other point would be how to allocate buildcap queue slots to given units. I'd suggest that a maximum percentage of total buildcap be usable for gifting, and that slots would be selected from largest bases first. Given units would go to the tops of queues, and would force-pause any units in progress.

?
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Victarus
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Post by Victarus »

The problem with that comes with the blockade scenario, especially in multiplayer: America shouldn't be able to send units to Eastern Europe if Western Europe's navy controls the seas. I think this is pretty much the only reason the 'immediate transfer' (with or without a wait afterwards) isn't very well liked.
Also, assuming you meant that the unit is built at a faster pace than normal, it still makes it difficult to give units to nations with smaller buildcaps. Although personel might end up being an issue anyways, it might just be that they don't have as many bases, thus them needing more units in the first place.
Il Duce
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Post by Il Duce »

Actually, I meant that the units to be given are built on the giver's bases.
I also think that providing an inherent limit to the nmber of units that may be given deals to some extent with the blockade issue - to the extent that the blockade issue has no effect on other gifts, such as commodities.

The idea here is to avoid building the transport and transaction infrastructure, and simply 'account' for it by limiting quantities,and delaying them somewhat. As I said in one of the original posts in this thread, we don't have oil pipelines and highways full of trucks in this game, and I don't think anyone really wants them either. But commodities like oil - huge volumes of it - are transferred without issue.... So if I can;t interdict your oil shipments - thereby crippling your economy or disrupting your trade and diplo arrangements, why all the concern about interdiction of materiel transfers?
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

Il Duce wrote:... why all the concern about interdiction of materiel transfers?
I suppose it just comes down to preference. Your idea of having them built on the giver's base still means I could give a unit to a region that is entirly surrounded by a mutual enemy and there is nothing my enemy can do to stop me from giving that surrounded unit a few very powerful tank battalions.

I still prefer the current method. I know, I'm just stubborn ;)
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Il Duce
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Post by Il Duce »

...Well, hey, the U.S. shipped stingers to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, which essentially terminated the Soviet's occupation.

What I'm looking for is an equitable solution to eliminate the anomalies without rewriting the darn thing. I personally like the launch missiles on diplo offer accepted idea - that'll teach those newbies a lesson, won't it?
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Post by bergsjaeger »

:lol: I seen something rather funny about giving units to another region. gave 5 M2A4's to an AI which was at war with another region that border me. All 5 units never got to their region. They were all destroyed in my region. And now i have to clean up the mess left where the units were destroyed.
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Il Duce
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Post by Il Duce »

By way of putting a sort of end to the tale -
The origin of this query came as a result of giving some surveillance aircraft to a non-adjacent region. I wasn't particularly trying to arm them against any active enemy. I simply wanted to expand their visibility across their border (and thus my own). Actually it was just one aircraft.

I do understand that you, Balthagor, wish to limit the 'surprise defense' if you will, of an attacked smaller region suddenly responding with the full force of their major ally. Makes sense. In that case I would argue that missiles should also not be givable. See where I'm coming from?

Perhaps this thread should be renamed "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." I suppose my simplistic mind is looking merely for consistency in the gameplay.
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zhshs7
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Post by zhshs7 »

Can i ask if u have mentioned these:

Tkobo's suggestion with the difference that the uni faction will choose any free path to the destination country. If there is none (the region encircled with enemies)then the units won't be transfered until u open the way and there's gotta be a warning that the units won't be delivered before u hand them over

As for the 'surprised defense' then the reason i (as a small region) would ally with a stronger one is just that of stronger defenses. So what the reason not to be able to give units to my ally since there r no real peaceful benefits in a formal alliance except the line-of-sight?

Balthagor even if u think as il duce said that strong allies shouldn't give units to smaller reagions then at least make it possible for my units to transfer succesfully during peace.

I wanted to have some sleep so if someone had metioned these sry :-( :-( they must have slipped my sight(is the expression right?)
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

zhshs7 wrote:...Tkobo's suggestion with the difference that the uni faction will choose any free path to the destination country. If there is none (the region encircled with enemies)then the units won't be transfered until u open the way and there's gotta be a warning that the units won't be delivered before u hand them over
Still not in support of this, you could have this non-affiliate transports lying round your waters/airfields for a long time.
zhshs7 wrote:...As for the 'surprised defense' then the reason i (as a small region) would ally with a stronger one is just that of stronger defenses. So what the reason not to be able to give units to my ally since there r no real peaceful benefits in a formal alliance except the line-of-sight?
If you ally is your neighbour, you can. But if your ally is Switzerland, you're Australia and Switzerland is at war with the rest of Europe (boxing it in), why should you be able to give them tanks/planes?
zhshs7 wrote:...Balthagor even if u think as il duce said that strong allies shouldn't give units to smaller reagions then at least make it possible for my units to transfer succesfully during peace.
I still don't support the "magical transfer". If you'd like to know why you'll have to hunt down my old posts.
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tkobo
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Post by tkobo »

This whole issue could be solved IF embassies showed on the map in foreign regions AND acted as bases ( special version) .

Than make it so you could only trade/sell units to regions you had a strong enough diplo tie to ,that they allowed you an embassy(and hence had one there).

AND make it so in order to get an embassy, you had to have the full transit treaty.

Than put a soft cap on the units allowed transit at a given time tied to the diplo (and or civ rating) standings.

This way IF there was a clear land path to the region,you could transfer units that way(Ie units sold would just travel there and units you wanted to sell in the future you could move there and place in reserve in the embassy).

And if there wasnt,you could build and sell units from the base(and any you had there in reserve).Id suggest a very small build que for the embassy (2 maybe),and only allow non heavy equipment oriented units to be "built " there.

So that it was more of a training center for foreign units, than a large industrial contruction complex/base.
With each unit built there automatically locked in reserve ,til it was sold to the region the embassy was in.

Any units in storage should be lost if war developes between the region who owns the embassy and the region the embassy was in.As shoudl the embassy.Possibly even make the reserve units spawn out and "defect" to the region,as a way of showing their capture.

This way a trade in units would be very possible, but would make sense and require some minor thought and planning to do.

You could even require that all units in a foriegn land,head immediately to their embassy located there ,if war developes between that region and their own.
This would go along way in hampering that old "alliance exploit " also.
This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
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