Flames and Steel (official thread)

KurtGodel7

@Cernel said:

@KurtGodel7 said:

Anyone can attack Vichy French territory at any time, with no diplomatic repercussions whatever.

Pointing out that whatever rule for Vichy France is going to be not very realistic or very complex or both (so please nobody comes at me for not being "fully realistic"), I think it would be somewhat more realistic that there are no diplomatic repercussions for the Allies and the Japanese, whereas the Germans and the Italians attacking any part of Vichy France would cause all Vichy France to activate as a full fledged Allied power.

I also think that income giving can be simplified to Vichy France giving all its European production to Germany and nothing of the rest. There were some important shipments from North Africa, but, as a matter of agreements, losing any part of the empire would not have lowered the agreed payments due to Germany.

This game starts in June 1941, on the eve of Barbarossa. You could point out that as of that date, southern France was part of Vichy France. Germany annexed southern France in November 1942, as a response to Operation Torch. I decided to be a bit anachronistic here, and just treated all of France as already annexed as of the start of the game. For this map, "Vichy France" refers only to colonies controlled by the Vichy French as of June 1941.

In real life, the Vichy French colonies had provided Germany with resources and food. Vichy French Indochina had likewise supplied Japan with needed goods. That is why Vichy French colonies provide partial income to either Germany or Japan. Well, at least until those colonies get neutral farmed.

Cernel

@KurtGodel7 I think having all Colonial Vichy France turning Allied if Germany or Italy attacks any part of it would make more sense too (as opposed to letting itself getting farmed remaining neutral).

Of course, historically French North Africa joined the Allies after some time of being invaded by them - and fighting back (but also Germany had invaded Tunisia meanwhile).

Vendetta

@KurtGodel7 I'm reviewing your unit chart , I'd already noticed the Light Tank is a complete trash unit, and on closer examination, I think the standard Medium Tank is as well.

Light Tank attacks or defends against a standard Infantry at the exact same stats while costing five times more. If I played Italy or Japan, I would never, ever buy these. It is the most useless unit in your entire set. Light tanks should not be a very efficient unit, but they should not be a complete waste of money.

The Medium Tank is not much better. Priced at 8 PU, you could buy 8 x Mobile Infantry for the same price as 3 tanks. 3 tanks trying to attack 8 mobile infantry get slaughtered - they lose that fight 95% of the time. And when they're attacking, even completely unsupported at a value of 1 each, 8 mobile infantry will still beat 3 tanks around half the time.

The Light Tank is badly understatted, and both tanks are badly overpriced.

But even those mobile infantry are a terrible buy compared to your standard infantry, at 3 times the PU cost. In A&A, you can buy 3 Mechanized for the price of 4 Infantry. You lose 25% of your efficiency in buying combat power in exchange for double speed. Here you buy 1 Mobile for for the price of 3 Infantry - you lose 67% of your combat power instead for that extra movement point. With mechanized, it's a 1:5 ratio, which is awful even with their boosted speed and attack stats. Sturmtruppen? Lousy as well, triple the price for 1 extra attack point.

I don't think I'd buy anything but infantry, artillery, and planes, unless there's something I'm missing here that's balancing all of this (are tanks also firing multiple shots per round?). Infantry costing only 1 PU just destroys the efficiency of all these other land units.

KurtGodel7

@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 I'm reviewing your unit chart , I'd already noticed the Light Tank is a complete trash unit, and on closer examination, I think the standard Medium Tank is as well.

Light Tank attacks or defends against a standard Infantry at the exact same stats while costing five times more. If I played Italy or Japan, I would never, ever buy these. It is the most useless unit in your entire set. Light tanks should not be a very efficient unit, but they should not be a complete waste of money.

The Medium Tank is not much better. Priced at 8 PU, you could buy 8 x Mobile Infantry for the same price as 3 tanks. 3 tanks trying to attack 8 mobile infantry get slaughtered - they lose that fight 95% of the time. And when they're attacking, even completely unsupported at a value of 1 each, 8 mobile infantry will still beat 3 tanks around half the time.

The Light Tank is badly understatted, and both tanks are badly overpriced.

But even those mobile infantry are a terrible buy compared to your standard infantry, at 3 times the PU cost. In A&A, you can buy 3 Mechanized for the price of 4 Infantry. You lose 25% of your efficiency in buying combat power in exchange for double speed. Here you buy 1 Mobile for for the price of 3 Infantry - you lose 67% of your combat power instead for that extra movement point. With mechanized, it's a 1:5 ratio, which is awful even with their boosted speed and attack stats. Sturmtruppen? Lousy as well, triple the price for 1 extra attack point.

I don't think I'd buy anything but infantry, artillery, and planes, unless there's something I'm missing here that's balancing all of this (are tanks also firing multiple shots per round?). Infantry costing only 1 PU just destroys the efficiency of all these other land units.

It is not correct to say that an infantry costs 1 PU. The true cost of an infantry is 1 PU and one MP. An MP is a manpower point, and it represents the limited supply of men who could be conscripted into an army.

A conscript costs 0 PUs and 1 MP. It attacks on a 0, defends on a 1, and can receive support. Only China, the U.S.S.R., and Italy can buy conscripts. If China has, say, 8 MPs, then it's buying 8 conscripts. It will also have some PUs, and it will use these on things like trenches, field guns, or heavy guns.

A nation like Germany needs a lot more cannon fodder than infantry purchases alone can provide. That's why there's the anti-tank gun. Cost 3 PUs, move 1, attack and defend on a 1, receives support on defense only. (Infantry can receive support on both offense and defense, making them a slightly better unit than an anti-tank gun.) All nations except China need anti-tank guns, because all of them have cannon fodder needs that exceed their ability to build infantry. Maybe America Pacific could get by with just infantry (no anti-tank guns) if it's pouring almost all its cash into navy. But that's a deliberate choice of small army, big navy.

So now compare a tank to an anti-tank gun. The 8 PU tank costs you 2.67 times as much as the 3 PU anti-tank gun. The tank gives you 2x as many hitpoints as the anti-tank gun, 3x the firepower, and 2x the mobility.

As for Sturmtruppen: the assault rifle tech adds +1 to the attack and defense of Sturmtruppen. Panzerfaust 60 allows a Sturmtruppen to provide +1 support to an anti-tank gun, on offense or defense. Panzerfaust 150 increases this to +2 support. The "unrelenting attack" tech allows anti-tank guns to receive support on offense. The offense part of the Panzerfaust doesn't actually help you until you've also researched unrelenting attack. The assault rifle and Panzerfaust techs are unique to Germany, but all nations except China can research unrelenting attack.

Some techs are standard techs (available to all but China) and some are nation-specific. I tried to include as many of both types of techs as possible. Late game, America Pacific and Japan will have the game's best torpedo bombers, America Atlantic's torpedo bombers will be the best at attacking subs, Britain and Japan will have the game's best medium bombers, and the Soviet Union will have by far the best recruitment tech. Late game, Britain will have the best tanks purchased with PUs (Comet tanks), while Germany's King Tiger tanks will be the best advanced unit tanks in the game. Britain and both Americas will have the best strategic bombers. America Pacific will have the Superfortress: an advanced unit strategic bomber that is very tough to kill and can do devastating economic damage.

Anyway, and getting back to your point: if one infantry is worth about one anti-tank gun, then that would mean that 1 MP is worth about 2 PUs. With this way of thinking, the true cost of an infantry is 3 PUs. Of course, a PU gives you flexibility to buy whatever you want, whereas an MP can be used only on infantry-type units.

Vendetta

@KurtGodel7 Yes, I recalled the MP division and that does put a cap on infantry production. I thought there was a chart somewhere in the thread that listed the starting MP/PU income rates for the different powers but I'm having trouble finding it again. That will be helpful to see again to figure out roughly what each power can buy per turn.

If I take your word that 1 MP should be treated as worth 2 PU, then we can compute 1 Infantry + 1 Field Gun as being equivalent in purchase value to 1 Tank.

In a 1 vs 1 + 1 matchup, the battle odds are pretty even - the tank has a good chance of winning if it manages to score a hit on its first roll. If it misses the first shot, it usually gets killed.

However, because of your sticky hits rule, the more you scale this up, the more likely the tanks are to lose because they don't get to spread hits out among themselves to preserve their firepower. In a battle of 5 Tanks against 5 Infantry + 5 Field Guns, the infantry and artillery win 70% of the time when they're attacking, and 84% of the time when they're defending.

The Medium Tank would probably become more viable at a price of 7 PU, or if it had its attack stat raised to 4 while defense was left at 3.

The Light Tank is in desperate need of way to justify its existence, and I think I've come up with a solution for that.

Keep the price at 5 PU, and and raise its default stats to 3 Attack / 2 Defense. However, give the Medium Tank (and the Heavy, Panther, King Tiger, etc) all a trait that causes enemy light tanks to drop by 1 attack or defense if they fight each other (to the 2/1 value they currently have).

Now the Light Tank can actually be dangerous against infantry that doesn't have heavy armor support, but when it does run into real tanks, it turns into fodder.

This gives Italy and Japan a reason to actually buy them, while still giving them a reason to want to unlock the Medium Tank as a replacement.

Cernel

@KurtGodel7 said:

Only China, the U.S.S.R., and Italy can buy conscripts.

I get that the conscript is just a label to identify particularly poorly trained, paid and/or equipped troops in general, but the word "conscript" itself just identifies everyone who has been forced to serve in the armed forces, meaning someone who is in the armed forces but has not voluntarily joined the armed forces (as a volunteer, professional, mercenary, contract...).

Asking the Google AI "During World War 2, what percentage of men from the United Kingdom itself who were serving in the British Army were conscripts?" (I'm trying to exclude the Indians and such, but I don't know if that did it.), the answer is

During World War II, conscripts made up approximately 80% of the men serving in the British Army.

For "During World War 2, what percentage of men who were serving in the United States Army were conscripts?", the answer is

During World War II, approximately 61% to 66% of all men who served in the United States Army were conscripts (draftees).

For "During World War 2, what percentage of men who were serving in the Japanese Army were conscripts?", the answer is

During World War II, approximately 90% of the men serving in the Imperial Japanese Army were conscripts.

Now, as I'm not sure exactly what a conscript is meant to be in your game, I'm not sure what would be a better word for it. I'm just saying "conscript" is not quite that word.

(I know this might sound like quibbling: if you want to call them conscripts, it's fine. As I said, I don't actually have a better word to suggest you.)

Also, I'm not sure if the German bodenständige Divisionen would fit into your idea of "conscripts" (guess not but just checking).

KurtGodel7

@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 Yes, I recalled the MP division and that does put a cap on infantry production. I thought there was a chart somewhere in the thread that listed the starting MP/PU income rates for the different powers but I'm having trouble finding it again. That will be helpful to see again to figure out roughly what each power can buy per turn.

If I take your word that 1 MP should be treated as worth 2 PU, then we can compute 1 Infantry + 1 Field Gun as being equivalent in purchase value to 1 Tank.

In a 1 vs 1 + 1 matchup, the battle odds are pretty even - the tank has a good chance of winning if it manages to score a hit on its first roll. If it misses the first shot, it usually gets killed.

However, because of your sticky hits rule, the more you scale this up, the more likely the tanks are to lose because they don't get to spread hits out among themselves to preserve their firepower. In a battle of 5 Tanks against 5 Infantry + 5 Field Guns, the infantry and artillery win 70% of the time when they're attacking, and 84% of the time when they're defending.

The Medium Tank would probably become more viable at a price of 7 PU, or if it had its attack stat raised to 4 while defense was left at 3.

The Light Tank is in desperate need of way to justify its existence, and I think I've come up with a solution for that.

Keep the price at 5 PU, and and raise its default stats to 3 Attack / 2 Defense. However, give the Medium Tank (and the Heavy, Panther, King Tiger, etc) all a trait that causes enemy light tanks to drop by 1 attack or defense if they fight each other (to the 2/1 value they currently have).

Now the Light Tank can actually be dangerous against infantry that doesn't have heavy armor support, but when it does run into real tanks, it turns into fodder.

This gives Italy and Japan a reason to actually buy them, while still giving them a reason to want to unlock the Medium Tank as a replacement.

I will mull your idea over.

Generally speaking, I believe that mobility should come at a price. Not an exorbitant price, but a price nonetheless. If more mobile units had the same raw combat power as slow, plodding units, players would be foolish to choose the slow, plodding units.

Take Japan for example. It has a very good unit mix for what it needs to do in China. It builds infantry and anti-tank guns for its cannon fodder. Field guns to provide some spice on attack. Heavy guns if it needs to defend something. Light tanks if it wants to mix offensive firepower with mobility. A light tank costs the same as a field gun, and they both have the same attack value. The light tank doesn't provide support, the field gun does. Offsetting that is the fact that the light tank gives you more mobility. I believe the field gun and the light tank are somewhat reasonably priced relative to each other.

There's tech which improves the field gun. Working women reduces its cost to 4. Creeping barrage increases its attack to 3. You could make the argument that if the field gun has these technological improvements in store for it, why not have something good under the Christmas tree for the light tank? During the actual war light tank designs certainly improved, so that could be added to the game as a technology to research.

At a cost of 5 and an attack of 2, a light tank gives you 0.4 attack per PU spent. Whereas a medium tank costs 8 and has an attack of 3, giving you 0.375 attack per PU spent. The medium tank gives you more hitpoints for the money than a light tank, as well as more defensive firepower for the money. But the light tank has an edge--however slight--for offense for the money.

Also the light tank is the only unit in the game which can blitz. I'm not necessarily wedded to this idea. The thinking behind it is this: during the air phase, it's very easy for Germany to can opener against the Soviet Union. After the can opener, I didn't want some random Soviet stack to be hit hard by German tanks. If Germany wants to hit the Soviet stack with light tanks only, okay fine, whatever. I can live with that. But, it's possible my concerns in this area could be overblown.

The Soviet Union has a tech called "simplify the T-34" which reduces the cost of Soviet tanks by 1 PU. Other than that, I haven't handed out any cost reductions for tanks. One thing to be careful of is this: I don't want tanks to become cost competitive with anti-tank guns for hitpoints for the money. A player should get more cannon fodder for the money with a slow, plodding unit than with a more mobile unit like the tank. Britain's Comet tech allows British tanks to attack and defend on a 4. I sort of want to keep that unique to Britain, in recognition of the fact that its late war medium tanks were harder-hitting than other nations' medium tanks.

Whatever chart I gave earlier is probably obsolete by now. Here is a new one, describing incomes.

Germany: 148 PUs, 16 MPs
USSR: 210 PUs, 28 MPs
Japan: 89 PUs, 8 MPs
U.K. 95 PUs, 4 MPs
Italy 35 PUs 6 MPs
China 25 PUs 11 MPs
America Pacific 101 PUs, 4 MPs
America Atlantic 136 PUs, 10 MPs

Bear in mind that the Allies except for China receive an early game nerf to income. The nerf goes away rather quickly for the U.S.S.R. and Britain, and the nerf lasts the longest for America Atlantic. The above table lists nations at their full income values, while ignoring any early game income nerfs.

Also, those numbers understate the infantry/conscript production for Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain can research techs to give it free infantry each turn for Canada and Australia. Free colonial militia each turn for India. This maxes out at 8 free infantry or colonial militia per turn, 6 of which are for India.

The Soviet Union's conscription tech maxes out at Conscription 4. Conscription 4 generates 20 free conscripts per turn for the Soviet Union, over and above the 28 it can buy with its MPs. In order to get the full 20 bonus conscripts each turn, the Soviet Union would need to hold all five of Moscow, Stalingrad, Gorky, Sverdiovsk, and Chelyabinsk. Each one lost removes 20% of the bonus. Operation Barbarossa is expected to reduce the Soviet MP income by about 7, from 28 down to 21.

The Soviet plan is basically to have huge numbers of conscripts, and then to combine them with tanks, field guns, and heavy guns to enhance their firepower. The Red Army is very fierce on this map.

Germany has some advantages also. At least initially it has air superiority over its eastern front. It can thin Soviet ranks a little by using dive bombers. The Soviets need to research some piston tech to realistically challenge Germany over the sky. Late game, Germany will have Speer's Industrialization. This causes German SPCs to produce a free Panther every other turn, in addition to their normal production. Germany's King Tiger tank is the best tank in the game--significantly better than the Soviet Union's IS-2. The assault rifle and Panzerfaust techs improve the quality of German Strumtruppen.

Vendetta

@KurtGodel7 I agree on not allowing Heavy Tanks a blitz move, I didn’t give it to them in my mod either. But the Medium not having it strikes me as a mistake.

If the only unit in your game that can blitz is a 1 defense light tank, then blitzing is hardly even a useful ability to have at all - they just get left exposed and easily destroyed by a counterattack on your opponent’s turns. Even one lone infantryman has a 50/50 shot at killing the light tank.

Infantry + Field Gun attacks at a 2 + 2 and defends at 3 +2 , while Infantry + Light Tank attacks at 2 + 1 and defends at 2 + 1. So the Light Tank is a loser both on offense and defense vs the Field Gun, and the extra speed isn’t making up for it if the unit is too weak to do anything once it has to fight. The only units a Light Tank can attack with an advantage at all are an unsupported AT Gun or another Light Tank.

If you think the Light Tank ends up too strong from my proposal, you could nerf it by giving the AT Gun that debuff bonus against it as well (but you could balance it making tanks and AT guns debuff enemy light tanks on a 1:1 basis, since the AT gun will be a common filler unit).

KurtGodel7

@Cernel said:

I get that the conscript is just a label to identify particularly poorly trained, paid and/or equipped troops in general, but the word "conscript" itself just identifies everyone who has been forced to serve in the armed forces, meaning someone who is in the armed forces but has not voluntarily joined the armed forces (as a volunteer, professional, mercenary, contract...). . . .

Now, as I'm not sure exactly what a conscript is meant to be in your game, I'm not sure what would be a better word for it. I'm just saying "conscript" is not quite that word.

(I know this might sound like quibbling: if you want to call them conscripts, it's fine. As I said, I don't actually have a better word to suggest you.)

In Domination 1914 No Man's Land, there is a unit called a conscript. It can be built only by the Russian czarists and by the Bolsheviks at war against the czarists. It costs 2 PUs, attacks on a 0, defends on a 1. It can receive artillery support for attack. I took this exact unit verbatim and added it to Flames and Steel, except now its cost is 0 PUs and 1 MP. Only the Soviet Union, Italy, and China can build this unit.

This is not the only inspiration I've drawn from NML. Techs like industry, working women, and propaganda were inspired from that map.

In any case, and to return to your point: I will grant that the majority of men who served in WWII infantry forces were conscripted. According to Merriam Webster, anyone conscripted into a military fits the definition of a conscript. Therefore, I will grant that "conscript" is not the best word for this unit, because it could also be accurately applied to normal infantry. If anyone has a better idea for a label, I'm open to suggestions.

Also, I'm not sure if the German bodenständige Divisionen would fit into your idea of "conscripts" (guess not but just checking)

Historically this would be justified. These "static divisions" were less well-armed and less combat-effective than normal German infantry. Also, they often consisted of old men, or of conscripts from occupied territories. Germany has a tech called "crush communism," which allows it to collect MPs from occupied Soviet territories. (I think there's a ceiling of 5 MPs per turn.)

You could argue that instead of the MPs, Germany could get free conscripts. This would be more accurate and would give the game a better flavor. The main obstacle I see is that this game has a lot of unit types already, with Germany being Exhibit A of that. As it is, Germany can buy two types of infantry, two additional types of mobile infantry, three types of artillery, four types of tanks, three types of fighters, and five types of bombers. Also trenches, aa guns, factories, and SPCs.

KurtGodel7

@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 I agree on not allowing Heavy Tanks a blitz move, I didn’t give it to them in my mod either. But the Medium not having it strikes me as a mistake.

If the only unit in your game that can blitz is a 1 defense light tank, then blitzing is hardly even a useful ability to have at all - they just get left exposed and easily destroyed by a counterattack on your opponent’s turns. Even one lone infantryman has a 50/50 shot at killing the light tank.

Infantry + Field Gun attacks at a 2 + 2 and defends at 3 +2 , while Infantry + Light Tank attacks at 2 + 1 and defends at 2 + 1. So the Light Tank is a loser both on offense and defense vs the Field Gun, and the extra speed isn’t making up for it if the unit is too weak to do anything once it has to fight. The only units a Light Tank can attack with an advantage at all are an unsupported AT Gun or another Light Tank.

If you think the Light Tank ends up too strong from my proposal, you could nerf it by giving the AT Gun that debuff bonus against it as well (but you could balance it making tanks and AT guns debuff enemy light tanks on a 1:1 basis, since the AT gun will be a common filler unit).

A few thoughts on this.

The field gun is artillery for offense, the heavy gun is artillery for defense. Field gun: cost 5, attack/defend on a 2, provides support on offense only. Heavy gun: cost 7, attack 2, defend 4, provides support on defense only. Therefore, the infantry + field gun would defend on a 2 + 2.
You might be right about medium tanks blitzing. Some of this stuff will probably become clear in play testing.
AT guns are among the most common units in the game. It's rare for China to build AT guns, but other than that it is a very common unit. Even the Soviet Union builds a lot of AT guns, despite its massive number of conscripts. Therefore, if you're saying, "light tanks get a buff, but this buff gets nerfed for one light tank per enemy AT gun," then a rule like that mostly affects the dynamic between China and Japan. My guess is that players would respond by shifting Chinese spending slightly to include the occasional AT gun for China. If Japan has, say, six light tanks to four AT guns for China, then you could say that at least Japan got the buff for two of its light tanks. But I don't know that I want to introduce an extra rules mechanic for this local of a game effect.
I've been having some thoughts about improving the combat strength of heavy tanks. America's Pershing heavy tank has four hitpoints, and it attacks and defends on a 4. These are all normal stats for a heavy tank. Now compare that to a medium tank: 2 hitpoints, attack and defend on a 3. The heavy tank's advantage over the medium tank is that it's better at soaking up hits. It doesn't give you much in the way of added firepower. But what if I were to have heavy tanks attack and defend on a 4 + 4? Improved heavy tanks--such as the Centurion or the IS-2--could attack and defend on a 5 + 5. If I do that, then maybe that gives me an excuse to improve the combat performance of medium tanks, without feeling like they are getting too close to heavy tanks in terms of their firepower. If I improve the combat power of medium tanks, then that makes it easier to justify a late game improvement for the firepower of light tanks, without feeling as though light tanks are getting too close in combat power to medium tanks. I'm not making any promises here, but you've definitely given me something to think about.

Cernel

@KurtGodel7 I think there are two options here, not necessarily mutually exclusive. I assume that your conscript is 0/1 while the infantry is 1/2. The question is if something like the "standing infantry" should be unable to Combat Move too (thus being -/1 unless your game has stalemate or other conditions allowing to attack without combat moving). Then, one could also expand the matter further if there should even be something like the Volkssturm, which may be worse than the "standing infantry".

So the main question would be, are your conscripts going to be

just 0/1, rest same as infantry.
0/1 and unable to receive artillery support.
0/1 and unable to attack. (Is it possible to attack without combat moving in this game?)

Then, there are the Chinese. I think we all know the famous scene of "one man gets a rifle, the second man follows" of "Enemy at the Gates". Now, that may (or may not) have happened sometime in the Soviet army in some small-scale localized situations, but it was either something which happened very rarely or just a mith. However, if you ask Google AI "What percentage of the Chinese infantry in 1941 was not equipped with fire-arms?", the answer is

Historical estimates indicate that as many as one-third (approximately 33%) of the soldiers in a typical Chinese Nationalist division in 1941 were not equipped with any firearm.
The primary factors driving this staggering shortage include:
• Logistical Roles: Due to an acute lack of motor transport and draft animals, a substantial portion of un-armed infantrymen were used strictly as human pack animals to carry ammunition, food, and supplies for the rest of the unit.
• Severe Supply Shortages: While the Nationalist Army had roughly 3.8 million men on paper across hundreds of divisions in 1941, only about 40 divisions were fully equipped with modern European or foreign-manufactured weapons.
• Industrial Deficiencies: Domestic Chinese factories lacked the industrial base to produce small arms at a rate that could keep pace with massive wartime conscription.

Cernel

About what I copy-pasted, personally, I've some difficulties at believing the Google's "human pack animals" explanation as accounting for much of the un-armed Chinese infantrymen. According to my data, in 1935 China had 4,666,000 mules (first place in the World) and 10,547,000 donkeys (also first place in the World, by far). Moreover, I'm not a muleteer, but I would say that a human is obviously just not as cost-efficient as a mule or a donkey (or a sumpter) as a pack animal, not even if it is a slave or anyway paid at minimum subsistence wage. However, I'm surely not a Chinese army expert. (Maybe ask Claude about this: I don't know.)

Personally, I would rather imagine that all those Chinese infantrymen without fire-arms were more like muleteers, cooks and such as well as "followers" ready to pick up the fire-arms of dead comrades ("Enemy at the Gates" style) rather than human pack animals, but I do not actually know.

KurtGodel7

@Cernel said:

@KurtGodel7 I think there are two options here, not necessarily mutually exclusive. I assume that your conscript is 0/1 while the infantry is 1/2. The question is if something like the "standing infantry" should be unable to Combat Move too (thus being -/1 unless your game has stalemate or other conditions allowing to attack without combat moving). Then, one could also expand the matter further if there should even be something like the Volkssturm, which may be worse than the "standing infantry".

So the main question would be, are your conscripts going to be

just 0/1, rest same as infantry.

0/1 and unable to receive artillery support.

0/1 and unable to attack. (Is it possible to attack without combat moving in this game?)

Then, there are the Chinese. I think we all know the famous scene of "one man gets a rifle, the second man follows" of "Enemy at the Gates". Now, that may (or may not) have happened sometime in the Soviet army in some small-scale localized situations, but it was either something which happened very rarely or just a mith. However, if you ask Google AI "What percentage of the Chinese infantry in 1941 was not equipped with fire-arms?", the answer is

Historical estimates indicate that as many as one-third (approximately 33%) of the soldiers in a typical Chinese Nationalist division in 1941 were not equipped with any firearm.
The primary factors driving this staggering shortage include:
• Logistical Roles: Due to an acute lack of motor transport and draft animals, a substantial portion of un-armed infantrymen were used strictly as human pack animals to carry ammunition, food, and supplies for the rest of the unit.
• Severe Supply Shortages: While the Nationalist Army had roughly 3.8 million men on paper across hundreds of divisions in 1941, only about 40 divisions were fully equipped with modern European or foreign-manufactured weapons.
• Industrial Deficiencies: Domestic Chinese factories lacked the industrial base to produce small arms at a rate that could keep pace with massive wartime conscription.

The conscript is just like an infantry, except with less firepower. Conscripts are allowed to attack. If attacking on a 0, at least they serve as cannon fodder to protect other attacking units. If supported they attack on a 1.

Your research found 40 Chinese divisions apparently equipped with modern European or foreign-manufactured weapons.

Currently China is able to buy conscripts, but not infantry. Those 40 divisions make me wonder if China should be allowed to purchase either conscripts or infantry. I will have to do more research on this. Being handed a modern rifle does not automatically make a soldier as combat-effective as a normal infantryman would be. If I think of a normal WWII infantry division, I'm expecting them to have machine guns, hand grenades, maybe some handheld anti-tank weapons. Also combat training. If China's better divisions lacked these other weapons, if they were poorly trained, I would consider them having more in common with conscripts than infantry.

Cernel

@KurtGodel7 Asking Google AI "How many men of the Soviet-equipped divisions did China field in 1941?", the answer is

Between 1937 and 1941, Soviet military aid provided under the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and transported via the Gansu-Xinjiang Highway enabled China to form 15 Soviet-equipped divisions. Based on the typical paper strength of the Chinese Nationalist Central Army infantry divisions at the time (ranging from 8,000 to 11,000 men per division), this represented a force of approximately 120,000 to 165,000 men.

Key Facts About China's Soviet-Equipped Force

• Strategic Role: Rather than being sent straight to the front lines, these 15 divisions were largely held in reserve by the Nationalist government for future strategic counteroffensives.
• Equipment Scope: The Soviet Union supplied roughly 110,000 rifles, 14,000 machine guns, 1,600 artillery pieces, 82 T-26 tanks, and thousands of ZIS-5 military transport trucks to outfit these formations.
• The Mechanized Elite: This aid famously established China's first fully mechanized unit, the 200th Division, which incorporated Soviet armor and saw action in major engagements like the Battle of Kunlun Pass.
• The 1941 Cutoff: This military pipeline officially halted in April 1941 following the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, after which China increasingly relied on American Lend-Lease aid.

I guess this could be somewhat represented by China starting with a few infantry units but unable to build any more of them.

More complex would be accounting for lend-lease or whatever other kind of supply or even fully internally created infantry (as opposed to conscripts, which would be infantry units armed with very little more than just their rifles), possibly to represent their existant albeit very scarce (a few tens of thousands) heavy and light machine-guns production, but a proper infantry unit is supposed also to have a good quantity of infantry mortars (unless there are infantry mortars in the game as units), and I've no idea about domestic Chinese mortars production.

Schulz

Properly representing China isn't possible without either additional rules or China-specific units.

I don't even think adding China is worth it. It's just not interesting to play with or against. Its front is nothing more than a much more boring version of the Eastern Front in terms of gameplay.

Cernel

@KurtGodel7 said:

In Domination 1914 No Man's Land, there is a unit called a conscript. It can be built only by the Russian czarists and by the Bolsheviks at war against the czarists. It costs 2 PUs, attacks on a 0, defends on a 1. It can receive artillery support for attack. I took this exact unit verbatim and added it to Flames and Steel, except now its cost is 0 PUs and 1 MP. Only the Soviet Union, Italy, and China can build this unit.

This is not the only inspiration I've drawn from NML. Techs like industry, working women, and propaganda were inspired from that map.

In any case, and to return to your point: I will grant that the majority of men who served in WWII infantry forces were conscripted. According to Merriam Webster, anyone conscripted into a military fits the definition of a conscript. Therefore, I will grant that "conscript" is not the best word for this unit, because it could also be accurately applied to normal infantry. If anyone has a better idea for a label, I'm open to suggestions.

Also, I'm not sure if the German bodenständige Divisionen would fit into your idea of "conscripts" (guess not but just checking)

Historically this would be justified. These "static divisions" were less well-armed and less combat-effective than normal German infantry. Also, they often consisted of old men, or of conscripts from occupied territories. Germany has a tech called "crush communism," which allows it to collect MPs from occupied Soviet territories. (I think there's a ceiling of 5 MPs per turn.)

You could argue that instead of the MPs, Germany could get free conscripts. This would be more accurate and would give the game a better flavor. The main obstacle I see is that this game has a lot of unit types already, with Germany being Exhibit A of that. As it is, Germany can buy two types of infantry, two additional types of mobile infantry, three types of artillery, four types of tanks, three types of fighters, and five types of bombers. Also trenches, aa guns, factories, and SPCs.

Allright. This makes me understand a bit more what a conscript is, so how it can be called.

Since this is an "English" game, the natural way to call such unit would be "home_guard".

Granted, the home guard never actually fought against other land units (beside Irish insurgents) because it was never shipped to fight Germany or Italy, nor Germany or Italy ever invaded the United Kingdom with land units. Granted, if the Germans did, the home guard would have fought.

However, calling this unit "home_guard" would be very strange if the primary case of that name would not actually exist: Britain being actually unable to buy conscripts. This could be fixed by making Britain able to buy conscripts but having the conscripts unable to be shipped: this should be somewhat realistic in representing the home_guard.

(Conscript as a name would be a particularly poor term to define something like the Home Guard as they were almost all volunteers!)

However, the Home Guard may actually be too low of a thing even to be the "conscript" unit: it was an unpaid (not sure) armed citizen militia, whereas I guess the conscripts are actual full time soldiers albeit poorly trained/equipped. The Home Guard is more like on par with the German Volkssturm, which I assume is something even below what the conscript unit is supposed to be and is not going to be represented as a unit.

Assuming that the conscripts are something better than the British Home Guard, and that you are not going to give Britain the conscript unit anyway, I guess the most relevant players of those you have mentioned is the Soviet Union.

However, I'm not sure what a conscript is meant to be in the Soviet Union. Is it meant to be the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnoe_Opolcheniye
?

If so, it can be called just "militia". However, in this case, only a very small part of the Soviet army should consist of "conscripts".

Asking Google AI "In 1941, what percentage of the Soviet infantry was given by the Narodnoe Opolcheniye?", the answer is

The Proportions by Divisional Breakdown

In the desperate months following the German invasion on June 22, 1941, the Soviet military underwent massive expansion to replace staggering casualties:
• By the end of 1941, the Red Army had deployed or was forming over 400–450 total rifle (infantry) divisions.
• Between July and October 1941, approximately 60 to 70 divisions of the Narodnoe Opolcheniye (or units built directly from volunteer militia frameworks) were formed across the USSR.
• Mathematically, this means the volunteer Opolcheniye frameworks provided roughly 13% to 15% of the total infantry divisions generated by the Soviet Union during the critical defense phases of 1941.

Regional Breakdown (Where they mattered most)

The Opolcheniye was not evenly distributed; it was concentrated heavily in major industrial hubs where the regular military lines were breaking down:

Region / Battle Contribution & Impact
Moscow 12 to 16 divisions were quickly raised in July and autumn of 1941. During the darkest days of the Battle of Moscow, these militia units made up a massive chunk of the immediate front-line infantry defense, plugging gaps until Siberian regular reserves arrived.
Leningrad 10 to 18 divisions (alongside several independent machine-gun battalions) were mobilized. At the onset of the Siege of Leningrad, the Opolcheniye accounted for nearly one-third (approx. 30%) of the infantry forces actively holding the city's immediate defensive lines.
Other Hubs Major volunteer contingents were also raised to fight as localized infantry in Stalingrad, Kiev, Rostov, and Odessa.

Transition to Regular Infantry

The reason an exact "militia percentage" remains fluid is that the Narodnoe Opolcheniye was quickly absorbed into standard metrics. Because they suffered horrific casualties—frequently losing upwards of 80–90% of their strength within weeks due to lack of heavy weapons and formal training—the surviving divisions were formally re-numbered and converted into regular Red Army Rifle Divisions by the late autumn of 1941.

The Soviet union did not generally have scarcity of infantry equipment, but rather a tendency not to train their men for very long before sending them to the frontline (Any resemblance to actual Russian soldiers in Ukraine, living or dead, is purely coincidental. ). Especially with you mentioning a WW1 game, I wonder if here we are making some confusion with the WW1 Russian army (which was much poorer than the 1941 Soviet army and for which something like a sub-infantry unit would fit a lot more).

Practically, if the Opolcheniye units are the conscripts, then the Soviet Union should have no conscripts at all from the spring of 1942 onwards if things go historically (as they would all be lost or absorbed into the regular infantry by then).

Alternatively, as said, conscripts could represent the Soviet tendency to train their men a lot less than others (say, the Americans) before sending them to fight. In this case, the unit could be called "replacement_infantry" or "untrained_infantry". (Of course, it is not totally untrained.)