The Ottoman Empire is not shocked by no Arab revolt

[Ancient Demon]

Not a bug this time, but rather a play balance suggestion:

I think it is currently too easy for the Ottomans to prevent the Arab revolt from happening by railing only three detachments to the Medina area to block all partisan spawn points. The big value in this move is not so much in stopping the partisans themselves (who can't really do any damage anyway), but in preventing the -2000 NM loss from the event from ever being able to occur (and that's certainly worth the loss of these detachments from being used elsewhere). I'm assuming the Ottoman NM is balanced around the assumption that this event will almost certainly occur at some point (similar to the Basra loss), so I think it would be worthwhile to make it at least a little more difficult to stop.

Some possible solutions:

1) Make the -2000 NM Arab revolt event happen at a certain time regardless of the existence of partisans near Medina (justifiable since much of the revolt was in off-map areas anyway).

2) Move the partisan space in the oasis South of Hail one space to the right so that itself and the one in Hail can't both be blocked by one unit.

3) Add one or more other partisan spaces in the area, perhaps one at the oasis North of Hail.

[Bill101]

Interesting point Ancient Demon!

One thing that could be done, would be to make the actual Partisan trigger locations vary from game to game, so that they cannot be predicted before the revolt occurs. The Ottomans may therefore get lucky with their dispositions, or they may be surprised by the Partisan locations when they appear.

The only thing about this is that it's a move away from the approach we've adopted with Partisans for some years - that the occupier can see where they will trigger.

This was because in SC1, and the early years of SC2, players had no way of telling where partisans would deploy, apart from learning from experience and remembering/taking notes for future games.

I have in recent months wondered whether we've swung that a little far, and that somewhere like Arabia could be a good location for trying out more variable Partisan trigger locations. They would only vary from game to game, rather than during the game, and wouldn't be shown to the Ottoman player until the revolt is about to launch.

What I'm therefore proposing to do, is to have it so that outside of Medina and Hail, and also not including when the revolt spreads to Syria, the locations of the Arab revolt can vary.

[Strategiclayabout]

Hi ,

- I agree with Ancient Demon and understand what Bill says about how it went that way. Can be tedious to deal with many unknown partisan tiles.

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- I also think it more or less like neutral countries deployment. When you always had the same units in the same spot there was no suprise at all fir the invader !

- That said I suppose people can also refrain from using "P" key (gentlemen's agreement). Otherwise maybe put in the campaign option screen menu to disable "P" key.

- If possible something like tick or untick a box with "showing partisans" (as there is for FOW or air ranges though you can reenable air ranges).

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- For OE Ancient Demon is rigth about having 3 units covering the area, it's well worth it. But it also leaves Turks stretched a bit for coastal defense so I find it quite balanced. - It's a fact that UK can capture Aqaba early and unopposed just by keeping a detachment ready for amphibious move in the Red Sea.