Italy before war entry

[Furchtlosundtrew]

Hi there,

one point I noticed in a pbem (thanks xwormwood): In 1914 Italy is not yet in the war but can play a decisive role in naval warfare in the adriatic sea. Italian ports discover austrian units and the entente player knows what italy knows.

I don't know, if it makes sense. Italy was formal an ally of the central powers (even if I know, that this pact had no real worth and italy declared itself neutral in the beginning of the war). Maybe it would be more realistic, if in the beginning of the war such informations cannot be gained from italy and just when it begins to lean more to the entente (end 1914 starting 1915) the entente player sees, what italy sees.

The same is for the ottoman empire and the USA, but the effect of italy is more important because at the ottoman coast there are normally no naval combats in August/September 1914 before the ottoman war entry and the same for the us-coast.

what do you mean?

[xwormwood]

Good point!

At least SUBS should stay invisible. Maybe even as a general rule, at least in the "silent" mode.

But that is only my opinion. Would anybody else like to add something to this topic?

[Strategiclayabout]

I second that.

- Not that bog a problem but I'm quite curious why Italy is "half-active" at the start of the game (same with OE) ? It allows to move some units and grab some MPPs but besides being Major countries is there any reason not to activate them like minors are when their mobilization reach 100% ?

- And actually the spotting thing isn't limited to ports as land units can see enemies two tiles away (no cavalry for Italy or OE early). So no surprise assault possible for CP from the austrian border. Any troop concentration will be spotted quickly. In one way I suppose you can see that as some kind of intel provided by a soon-to-be ally.

[Bill101]

Hi

Interesting thoughts and I can understand this to a degree.

However, countries will, especially when their neighbours are at war, keep an eye on things going on nearby. This would involve reports from merchant ships and travellers, spying, patrols, and more underhand methods such as intercepting messages.

Naval units would frequently be spotted by passing passenger ships and merchantmen, and would be lucky not to have someone report their passage - especially if they belong to a potentially hostile nation and are sailing somewhere they shouldn't be if they have peaceful intentions.

A lot of this goes on all the time, and would be more pronounced during wartime, so the ability of neutral majors to be able to see movements on their borders and around their coasts doesn't strike me as unrealistic.

With the Ottomans, because their subsidiary states in the Middle East start as neutral, the situation for them is actually harder than for the Italians and US.

But for Italy, in 1915 they weren't the ones who were surprised by Austro-Hungarian movements. Instead, it was the active country, Austria-Hungary, that was wrong footed and had hardly any troops in the Trento-Trieste region when Italy entered the war. In fact, Austria-Hungary was so short of troops in the area that some had to keep entering and leaving the region in an attempt to con the Italians into thinking that the area was far more strongly defended than it was.

If we turn to the USA, then the situation also argues in favour of an awareness of enemy movements near their coasts prior to entering the war. Like with Italy, their rise from neutrality to belligerence was a gradual process which began before they entered the war. If we turn to WWII then this is even more pronounced, as before the USA entered the war in December 1941 they had been taking on a more and more active role in the Battle of the Atlantic, using both land and naval forces to occupy important strategic locations (Greenland and Iceland) and even opening fire on the German navy.

The ability to see enemy units on or near the borders also makes surprise invasions harder, as they should be because countries will generally mobilize in response to threats.

One exception is of course the USSR in 1941, but to help represent that we have a good proportion of the Soviet army deploy in the western USSR only when they enter the war, thus reflecting Stalin's inability to face up to the impending invasion and change his deployments accordingly.

I hope that helps explain things better.

Bill

[xwormwood]

Maybe subs should get a "true silent" mode, where they don't attack or surprise, while gaining the ability to stay hidden next to enemy towns, cities, ressources. Until a destroy unit or a naval unit with anti-sub tech appears next to it?

[Furchtlosundtrew]

Thank you for your comments

-I admit, Bill, that of course neutral states should have some insights about the military actions around them. Of Course - at least the major nations - had all a system of military reconnaissance and knew about troop movements at their border or in the adjacent sea.

-But I don't agree (spoken for italy) that from the beginning the entente has full knowledge of these insights. It was not predeterminated, that italy would go in the war on side of the entente. At least it was not in Summer 1914. At this time italy was neutral. So no side should have the knowledge of italian sightings or both (you can say the system of military attaches at the embassys of the CPs was full in work too at this time and informations from merchant ships or trawlers could even go to Spys of the CPs).

So in my opinion, up to a certain level of preparedness (maybe 30 % or 50 %) there should be informations for both or no side. From this point only to the side, the nation leans to.

-The same for the point Strategiclayabout pointed out: Movement and preparations of majors befor war entry. Of course they could move their units before war entry. But why should they move and prepare attacking (or defending) positions before the decision of a war entry is made or at least will be probably wade. The problem here is, that the player knows that a nation will go to war and knows aproximately when it will happen. The leaders of the nations did not (that early). So in reality there where no sense for example for italy to move its units in place for an attack on austria in August - November 1914.

The sollution could be the same like above: You can move units of a major, that will go to war on your side but you should not be able to do that until a certain degree of preparedness.

-I think, that at least xwormwood is right, when he says there should be some exceptions of visibility of submarines for neutral nations.

-Another question is wether it makes sense, that these nations can accumulate MPPs before they enter the war. I think the accumulation represents the concentration of an economy on war efforts. Most majors have no MPP, when (lets say the call to arms) campaign starts (except for great britain). They could see the war coming latest on 23. Juli 1914 with the ultimatum of austria to serbia. Why dont't they have accumulatetd mpps but majors who enter the war later do? They have to make an mobilisation of their troops which cost mpp too, but it is not representated by MPP costs isn`t it?

- a last question: wouldn't it make sense, to allow the movement of troops and the use of insights for minor nations as well before the war entry? You can say: The minors are much more under the influence of the major they belong to in comparison with other majors...?

What do you think?

[Hubert Cater]

For subs it is a bit of a tricky issue as the current game engine rule is for any unit/resource that is adjacent to a hidden sub will see it as well if you attempt to move next to or on top of a hidden sub.

This can of course be changed, and adjusted for Neutral situations as described above, but the way the code is currently setup it will be a bit of work to change it... not an excuse really just the reality on my end and likely not something I would touch until future games because of it.

Either way there would be some possible considerations such as if we allow subs to be fully hidden in Silent mode, e.g. does this include the situation where an enemy unit (other than a Destroyer) ends its move on top of a hidden sub?

Perhaps, perhaps not and if we do allow it, then things become a bit more complicated as on the following turn for the sub, it will start its turn with an enemy unit on top of it and then I'd have to add more considerations for that code wise as all units currently occuply a single plane/layer in the campaign data and now we have the potential for subs moving and continuing to remain underneath enemy units and so on and now multiple layers of data where a sub can go from one layer to the next depending on its mode, position, FoW status and so on.

Again, not trying to make excuses, but just an attempt to paint a bit of a picture that we'd have to be careful of the changes as well as the potential implications both game play wise as well as implementation wise so as to make sure that things play out smoothly without over complications.

Hubert

[Bill101]

-But I don't agree (spoken for italy) that from the beginning the entente has full knowledge of these insights. It was not predeterminated, that italy would go in the war on side of the entente. At least it was not in Summer 1914. At this time italy was neutral. So no side should have the knowledge of italian sightings or both (you can say the system of military attaches at the embassys of the CPs was full in work too at this time and informations from merchant ships or trawlers could even go to Spys of the CPs).

Hi Furchtlosundtrew

I see what you're saying, and there is a system constraint in place which means that Italy will be pro-Entente right from the start, with the consequent spotting abilities that provides.

However, Italy cannot actually see anything the Austro-Hungarians do unless Austro-Hungarian units go immediately adjacent to Italian resources or units. By keeping just two tiles away from any Italian resources or units, then the Austro-Hungarian navy cannot be seen by any Italians.

It's true that on land the Austro-Hungarians will need to keep three tiles away to avoid being spotted, but that would only be the case near north-eastern Italy and that is exactly the place where Italian spies would have reported Austro-Hungarian movements, so I don't consider that to be unrealistic.

Plus the Austro-Hungarians receive some Detachments prior to Italian war entry that they can use to watch Italian movements over the border, so it works both ways.

One thing with the ability Italy has to move its units before entering the war is that it helps prevent surprise attacks by the opposing side on that country before it reaches a certain mobilization threshold.

They start at low strength not just to represent Italy's lack of preparedness for war, but also so that the Italians face a dilemma as to how to spend their MPPs: on reinforcing their units or on research.

The difference with the summer of 1914 is that then countries were so busy mobilizing that no thoughts were given to research, and it would result in countries like Britain, Germany, France etc being able to obtain research results even sooner than they should if we gave them more MPPs.

Bill

[Furchtlosundtrew]

Hi Bill,

OK, I see your points. My favourtite sollution would be, to leave the neutral majors asleep (like the minors are). Maybe until a certain point of preparedness. If this is not possible or not desirable, than are the problems with visibility inevitable. I think I can live with it (although I have still the opinion, both sides should be able to see what italy sees like written above... ceterum censeo

I think the problem You poinetd out about avoiding an surprise attack on Italy by austria ist more academically. I think no austrian player has the units to launch such an attack before defeating serbia (and this is not possible before the italian war entry like i wrote here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=112535 )

And if there was a realistic danger of such an attack you could prevent it by a heavy loss of morale for Austria (and maybe germany) for declaring war on italy which would be quite realistic.

I see your point about MPP in the case of mobilisation too. And I like the mobilisation penalties. But Nice would be a small stock of MPPs in the beginning of the war (at the beginn of turn 1) for every nation (maybe 50 - 70 MPP). Not for researching (therefore it should be not enough) but for operating one or two units which should be possible to change some positions ore set a surprising ahistorical focus...

And to Hubert: OK, I see the main problem. A good solution would be the following:

- In the secret modus you can move your subs unnoticed from every enemy unit. You are even not noticed, when the move stops adjacent to an enemy unit.

- Not possible is, to end the move on the same tile as an enemy (or friendly) unit.

- It is not possible too, that the enemy ends his move on the same tile like the sub is. In this case it results in a surprise contact like it is now.

- If an enemy unit just drives over the tile (and doesn't stop there) there would be no surprise contact.

-Special rules maybe for destroyers.

You should have in mind, that in world war 1 it was much more difficult to find a sub (especially dived) then in world war two 2 1942/43 on. There was no radar, no sonar and the sound location was in the beginning too. Even when found it was not easy to kill a sub (from the same reasons). On the other hand the subs where slow, couldn't dive that deep, had not many torpedos and especially their range was limited too...

Furchtlosundtrew

[Sapare]

Just to add my opinion(though I don't have anything to add as it is a straightforward one) I agree with Bill101 original post in the logical reasoning and I feel that it makes enough sense that it never felt like 'this is gamey'(what is gamey is using ships after a withdraw from war and all that, but we already had that topic and I 'think' that was fixed).

And really, WW1(this game) is at such near perfect balance that I don't think a major overhaul in game mechanics and the way things work should be done for a historical change that I could actually make the counter argument for.

If major neutrals(but alligned) nations did not spot units then I would question why they were such a useless sag of potatos and completely oblivious to the world around them just before joining a war.

A follow up post did state the 'at 30% mobilization' and that sounds reasonable, but really, was Italy ever considering joining the Germans/AUstria/hungeria in the war? Even at the time when they did not want to join, their interest would generally be toward Austria/Hungeria losing, so I don't see why they would not let such simple information as fleet locations be passed on.

(unrelated note, I need to play this game again.. been about a year since I last played a match of it..)

[Bill101]

Hi Furchtlosundtrew

I agree that a surprise attack on Italy by Austria-Hungary would be extremely unlikely. Not so in our WWII games though where attacking a neutral Italy with Allied forces in late 1939 is attempted quite frequently... and this was also in my mind when I was thinking about this (different war, but similar concepts, to a degree anyway).

Just to explain my thinking behind the reason for the low starting levels in MPPs is as follows.

Mobilization was worked out in advance, to pre-prepared timetables, so changes to the mobilization plans caused chaos and disruption, as happened to the Austro-Hungarians when they changed their mind as to where their Second Army would deploy. Changes to the mobilization plans in Britain, France, Germany or Russia would definitely have had the same effect, so if we were to give any of them some MPPs for use at the start of the game, this would prevent that disruption being realized.

Admittedly the German Deployment Phase does avoid them having to suffer any disruption, but this is in place to allow for more flexibility in the opening phases of the war, to signify Germany having potentially adopted a different plan for war before 1914.

I realize that this does help the Germans more than the other countries, but then France and Russia only face an enemy on one front to start with so there are less options available for them anyway (especially France) and Britain does have the decision on whether to deploy the BEF in the UK or France.

I appreciate that an argument could be made for giving the Entente something to offset the German Deployment Phase, but I believe that the game is currently very finely balanced so I'd hesitate to make such a change.

Bill

[Sapare]

Hi Furchtlosundtrew

I agree that a surprise attack on Italy by Austria-Hungary would be extremely unlikely. Not so in our WWII games though where attacking a neutral Italy with Allied forces in late 1939 is attempted quite frequently... and this was also in my mind when I was thinking about this (different war, but similar concepts, to a degree anyway).

I want to add to this that you do need to keep the Italian ability to move the units as, while not viable from AH to surprise invade Italy, the German's can do it very efficiently if Italy does not move its units into position.

At least that is from my experience in the tournament,(which is now two years old I think? Will there ever be another?) where in both the semi finals and the finals this was used by a player(forgot his name), by not having moved the Italian units into position I lost Venice and northern Italy quickly and with it the whole war.

If you remove the ability to move Italy units pre war/till a certain mobilization, you would have to force the units to spawn at the AH border when the war starts, which in turn would remove a lot of player options, as now Italy will always start with its troops at the border(removing surprise attack completely) and Italy can't do some fancy over sea invasion as their troops are bound to the border. Generally, I think in this case more freedom is good.

[xwormwood]

You could place a decision event before the deployment phase (do you want to ...).

Mabye you could even ask the player how many of the possible units he would like to move in the pre-turn 1 deployment phase.

And depending of the answer you could give the Entente some minor help, like one or two detachments, some more money, improved morale, changed diplomatic values, or maybe even a free diplo chit.

Just hang a little (!) price tag at the CP deployment phase. He who wants to change history should have to pay for that, as this would have meant a quite a bit of work to do it during the very last days of peace.