The RUS 1.05 version is giving penalties for military units outside their home area. 2 systems are yet used: the old, based on events giving penalties; the new, consisting in the definition of home area in mdl files and a set of penalties in the gamelogic settings file ( a bit of cleaning could be useful as the newer system will just add some of the same effects than the older on the same units…)
As some have pointed out, the AI doesn’t seem to know this rule and uses area-bound units without any geographical restriction. Of course, it’s shooting itself as these units will slow whole stacks and suffer from very hard penalties.
Some may think after all PBEM is immune.however, Fatal Years has currently about seven active factions, whose several are only AI driven: Ukrainian, Poles, Freikorps, Anarchists, Galicians, Greens. These independent AI clear a large part of the problem, as Freikorps units will not move outside their primary area, but it remains some key subfactions like Finns, Balts or Cossacks under player control during the whole game or after the play of options. The Southern Whites are sufficiently weak at start to not add to its trouble.
There’s a second reason to discard the official system. As any stopgap measure, it doesn’t allow the necessary variety in depiction of historical nuances. Let’s take the example of the Don Cossacks: in 1918, they were eventually an independent force with a loose alliance with the Southern Whites, planning their own operations, discarding the Denikin’s attack on the Kuban and generally very reticent to leave the Don. When Krasnov resigned in February 19, Cossacks, under direct Denikin leadership, were engulfed in the race to Moscow,entering Ukraine as part of the White Army.
Of course, they weren’t as efficient than in the Don area. yet, they moved, fighted, and pillaged. They did have their share of military action.
Clearly, 2 periods needs to be taken into account.
So, what’s the FY system?
First, there’s a new events chain for Krasnov removal. Southern Whites will get this removal by playing an option, whose success is conditioned mainly to 2 factors: the end f WW1, ending German support to Cossacks, suddenly lacking supplies , and the capture of Tzaritsyn ( this one is destined to incite Southern Whites player to search after the capture of the city; If the option may be played since June 18, it will work almost certainly after a few weeks following the end of WW1.
Before this event, and ONLY for human players, Don Cossacks units outside Don region and Tzaritsyn will randomly suffer one turn immobilization, a quick and deterrent way to force to think twice before sending them outside their home area. After, they will suffer from very important cohesion losses, impacting combat, especially on attack, and movement.
The same immobilization rule will be applied to other minorities, like Finns, Balts.
The AI will not suffer from these immobilization. I hope one day the hard AI to be updated to get some knowledge about home area, but the current system is too much damaging for the Programmed Opponent, which is in dire need of help on this point. If it may be resented as AI cheating, consider the current engine to be cheating against AI. This help shouldn’t create anyway big historical distortion, as AI has shown until now in FY a large compliance to historical movements.
