Shiho Nishizumi

Brave >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Chrome.

You need to link the particular AA.

He missed Rose at it's zenith? Shame.

12 hours until this gets locked. >Citing reasons for Rose being a successful alliance. >Not mentioning that literally everyone was in Rose at one point in time.

*Edit.* Mod gave a general verbal for off topic shortly after I posted this, so keep that in mind when you read this Inst. Japan's tank prowess was sufficient for what they had intended it to be; conflicts with either nations that possessed little to no tanks (such as China), or in terrains where their specifications worked to their advantage (such as the invasion of the European colonies). Due to the scarcity of steel (made worse by the embargoes) alongside the priority given to the IJN for whatever there indeed was, to hold Japan to the Soviet Union standards, who went the polar opposite route and built a metric frick ton of tanks, is simply an unrealistic expectation. Just like it'd be unreasonable to hold the Soviet Union to Japanese standards in regards to navy building, particularly on the surface fleet aspect. It'd also be akin to looking at how many Essex the U.S. built, and going like "well, clearly anyone else is a third world shithole if they don't match our naval output". The lack of anti-tank measures hurt the IJA badly, yes. And honestly, they have no real excuse for lacking them. And it was indeed made worse with the rapid advances on armor during the war, which the Japanese weren't unable to keep up with. However, I think that you are holding the IJA to the standards and metrics of an European army fighting in Europe, which, no. SEA was a far more underdeveloped and both the climate and terrain were plenty harsher, and limited the extent to which armor could be effectively employed. Hell, you can find reports from the Americans during the Korean War (this is mainland Asia ftr) where one of the rationales for preferring the Jackson over the Pershing as an up-gun for the Shermans was the weight, and ease of transportation that comes with it. Same thing with the French and their preference for the Jackson over their captured and refurbished Panthers in Indochina. Though for them, the larger caliber and therefore more effective high explosive fire support was likely also another reason. Also, considering that basically everyone, bar the Germans and Soviets, had the WW1 mentality in 1939, and the Soviets were busy both killing their talented officer core, and refilling them with inexperienced if not incompetent replacements as a result of their simultaneous expansion, well... Let's just say that while I agree that the SU's capabilities are underappreciated in the West, and unfairly so (I very much agree with that), you've been going the direct opposite route this entire thread. *Edit.* Wait... You're seriously saying that the Japanese sucked because the Kwantung army, one that had been weakened throughout the years due to being a reinforcement pool for forces in other theaters of the war and due to the blockade, got crushed (which it did) by the Soviets in 1945, who had spent months bringing their European theater battle hardened troops and equipment which technologically leapfrogged whatever the Japanese had in mainland Asia. ... Yes, that was the only possible outcome of that whole set of operations. Not unlike Tsushima 40 years earlier. Both were spectacular victories, but were never destined to be anything but. >Second rate forces. >Caught the European countries unaware. Mate, the British had been expecting the Japanese for a while by then. What came as a surprise on the outset was that the Japanese simultaneously attacked all of the Allied naval assets within distance, and not just Pearl Harbor. They bombed Hawaii as they made their push south. They were definitely not second rate forces ( if they are, then rip the French armed forces, Italian land army, Soviet Red Navy, etc) and had plenty enough momentum by themselves. Said momentum was simply bound to be lost if victory wasn't secured in a short timespan (which it never would've been), and that was something that not only Yamamoto, but basically anyone who had been to the U.S. and seen its industrial facilities, predicted would've happened.

You got it wrong. 5.9b is gross damage taken for IF, not gross damage dealt.

@CandyShi Inst was referring to the 1939 border conflicts, not the 1945 wholesale invasion of Manchuria. Though Inst is also wrong in that regard, at least partially so. The Japanese were perfectly able to match Soviet combined arms at a tactical level (take a look at the Soviet casualties sustained in both in Khalkhin Gol, and Lake Khasan). What they couldn't match was the operational aspect, and even further, the logistics behind it. Quite frankly, it strikes as odd that Inst wouldn't highlight Zhukov's masterful arrangement of the logistics for Khalkhin gol, which pretty much contrasted the glaring SNAFU situation of Japanese logistics. Also, he does oversimplify it a bit on how Japan proceeded to operate afterwards. Whether to expand north or south was by and large a conflict of interests between the IJA and IJN. Quite obviously, the IJA would be of greater importance for expanding northwards, while the IJN would be vital for seizing southernmost assets. This is important to consider due to both competing for the limited resources Japan had at it's disposal, and contributed greatly to the failings of Japan in WW2. At any rate, the defeat in Manchuria, alongside the developments in the early stages of WW2 (both an opening on seizing the colonies due to the fall of the Netherlands and France, alongside the U.K. being stretched thin, coupled with renewed U.S. oil embargoes) are why Japan ultimately decided with going south.

Also, bringing that fact is a double-edged sword. Yes, those who had no infra worth destroying had no infra worth destroying. On the flip side, people who went in with 900 air as opposed to 1800, did damages that those 900 planes allowed them to do, as opposed to damages 1800 planes would've allowed them to do. We're well aware that we had less worth losing; we simply didn't deem that to be enough of a silver lining to offset our depleted military and spies, and simply rolled with it the way we did because we deemed that to be the best chance we had.

It is due to the (seemingly ever changing) stance Alex has regarding slotfilling. If it was just a constant "allies/co-belligerents don't take each other's defensive slots", then no, it wouldn't be one.

"I'll propose a change that would allow us to do what I criticize others for allegedly wanting to return to." Either way, beige is in a pretty solid position at the moment, with beiging being a conscious choice between dealing more damage and giving your opponent some rebuild time, or forfeiting the damage to keep him down. All or no beige would remove that choice, and would would mostly just benefit Alex and his moderation tasks (which more or less was his motivation when he suggested to remove offensive beiges).

You didn't simply frick with Caesar. Just ask the pirates.

Except Project Hula was a thing, and it was done for the express purpose of incorporating the Soviets into amphibiously invading southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Hokkaido is just south west of the Kurils. At Yalta it had already been agreed that the Soviets would be opening up a new front on the Far East. And again, the remaining ships at Kure getting blown up in part just to prevent the possibility of them sailing north. The South and North Korean situation didn't exist (it was still under Japanese control at the time), nor did the East/West German one per se. While it's true that there were concerns on not giving the Soviets too much ground, at this point in time the West still hadn't decided what to do with what would become West Germany. There were still plans which ranged from completely dissolving Germany and splitting their lands at the worst, and from there it was either have it exist but be an agricultural nation so it wouldn't be much of a military threat, alongside basically undoing 1871 and having them dissolve into smaller Germanic states and principalities. For the first years of the postwar, the Allies were dismantling industrial establishments in their occupied sectors and shipping them eastwards towards the Soviet Union in exchange of goods, mainly food. Transferring industrial capacity is the last thing you'd want to do if the concerns of a stand off with the Soviets were as great as portrayed in that timeline. It's not silly for two reasons (aside from the very obvious threat of the Soviets invading Japan itself, whether it was intended or not. They had no way of knowing because their intelligence was garbage). The first reason is that you don't quite understand how Japan viewed it's possessions in mainland Asia (and elsewhere). They weren't just a source of natural resources and farming land, plus industries if those were there. They also acted as a buffer they deemed to be vital to safeguard the Home Islands themselves. That's the very same rationale for why they risked it so badly by starting the Russo-Japanese war, when their hold of Korea was being threatened by Russian aspirations in the Far East. It's also the reason why they were so eager to take over the German colonial possessions in SEA. It wasn't just a matter of projection, but also a barrier that their Western counterparts would need to take over first if they were to gun for the Home Islands. Such prediction and purpose proved to be correct when the Americans had to island hop from one island to the other so to make headway towards Japan itself. Such perception of their overseas holdings is also part of the reason why, when the U.S. basically told them "Yo, we'll lift the embargoes if you get the frick out of China and Manchuria.", Japan basically responded with "Well frick you." and went onto planning a preemptive strike so to seize the vulnerable European colonial holdings. The other and second reason is, well, honor. Again, this is something that Westerners don't quite account for due to the cultural divide between the Far East and the West, and the differences between then and now, but that was another very important and present factor. I can't quite stress this hard enough. It was simply seen as more honorable to surrender to the Americans and their nukes (on top of all of the conventional military) than to the Soviets, who were by and large the people they had beaten 40 years earlier put so much pride on having done so. Obviously, securing a surrender with the Americans also made it far more likely for the Emperor to remain in place, if nothing else because the chances of him and the whole structure remaining if they had surrendered to the Soviets would've been zero. Again, if you think that that's nonsense, remember that basically the reason why Ten Go even happened in the first place was because of Hirohito going like "Well why's the Navy fiddling with their thumbs in regards to Okinawa?", which played right into the thorn that was the Army vs Navy rivalry (if not hate) and not have the Navy fall relatively out of grace due to not trying anything pertaining the defence of Okinawa. That's not to mention honor being part of the reason for not a single Japanese combat unit (not individuals) ever surrendering before Hirohito's declaration, alongside staunch yet futile resistance presented all the way to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The other two reasons pertain to propaganda and quite frankly, meth abuse, which is not something that many people realize was going on. More of a powerless yet popular figurehead for people to unite under, given the immense importance put upon his position due to State Shinto and decades of propaganda. For him to be a puppet he'd have needed to have any direct power of his own to exert in behalf of the Americans. The Peace Constitution wasn't that by a long shot, given that the Emperor is largely there for symbolic purposes and goodwill diplomatic tours as the ones that Hirohito ended up doing in the latter parts of his life. With that said I wouldn't say "barely", and it was certainly not just the Emperor himself. The family by and large was exonerated from all responsibility, even members that were part of the IJA and IJN. It was quite frankly a fairly extensive program to make an apologia for him in particular, and sort of the population in general, with the military being thrown under the bus as a whole.

If it was just the United States, yes, you're right. The problem is that it wasn't just the United States that would partake on such operation. Preparations had been made to bring the Soviets in and have them assist on the invasion of the Home Islands, with the West supplying amphibious landing vessels and the such, alongside Halsey going out of his way to bomb the ragged remains of the IJN in Kure, half of that reason being to prevent any sort of naval presence that could impede a Soviet invasion of Hokkaido. The entire Japanese take for an eventual invasion of the Home Islands was one of "well if we make them bleed badly enough they will cave in and let us surrender and keep our emprah", which was based off of how usually the American public opinion grew a huge stinker on operations which were particularly bloody. Well, for one they were underestimating how pissed the Americans were that an inferior Asian nation so dared to hit their stuff in the way they did (racism was obviously still a huge thing back then, that's the simple reality of it), and such hatred and disdain had only grown worse when reports of Bataan and other atrocities came in which were made worse by propaganda. Going back to the Soviets, the Japanese plans didn't exactly account for such entry, which not only would've meant substantially more soldiers to fend off, but also a foe that quite frankly didn't give much of a frick about casualties taken, and that threw their entire contingency plan out of the window. That's not to mention that the Russians were still mad about the Russo-Japanese war, which was evidenced by the Soviet ambassador demanding Mikasa be dismantled because it was a stain on muh Russian prestige, and only going back on such demand when he saw that the hull was nothing more than a sorry hunk of scrap that was serving as a pool and some cheap night bar for the occupying GI's, a fate he deemed to be worse than it being scrapped. So yeah, there was absolutely a bit of Japanese pride on that conflict at stake with a Soviet entry. That's also part of the reason why it's difficult to dictate whether it was the nukes or the Soviet entry what caused the Japanese to finally fold. Given they both occurred very close to each other (if memory serves me right, the Soviets invaded Manchuria the same day Nagasaki got nuked). I'd say that from a public standpoint, the Japanese preferred to attribute it to the nukes, both for legitimate reasons of how overwhelmingly powerful of a weapon they were, and because it allowed them to save some face on their surrender by both surrendering to the Americans, and to a weapon of overwhelming power, rather than to the Soviets and conventional means. This would sound like an exaggeration, but the Japanese went out of their way not to include the word "surrender" on the speech they gave to the natives.

I had a much larger response on regards to the technological aspect, which quite frankly it was dumb for him to claim that they were subpar in that regard, when in reality they were more or less even with the other greater powers. But I scrapped it when the bombs aspect came to the table. Regardless of the express intent of dropping them (Japanese unconditional surrender vs spooking Stalin), I think it's fair to say that the Americans simply wanted to see what sort of tangible impact they had on an actual target, as morbid as that may sound with the power of hindsight. However, I wouldn't say that it's surprising if that were the case, given the aftermath of Unit 731.

I already went over that on the past Great Fire (where Frawley failed to address my points when I brought up to him that KERCHTOG hitting N$O during or right after this war was simply unfeasible) ; to sum up those points again, a midwar hit would've made no sense for securing and ending this war, since it would be a massive contingent that would be added, and which would need to be dealt with both in the war itself and on peace talks. A postwar hit would've also been unfeasible because this war was going to invariably last at least two months. That, combined with Surf's Up, for most of KERCHTOG it would've meant nearly 3 months of fighting. Simply put, people would've wanted a break before doing anything, whatever that might have been. We aren't even factoring the economic aspect, which would also dictate against such war. Furthermore, I would definitely expect BK and friends to step in if we did, for whatever odd reason, hit N$O, if nothing else to "get even" with whatever the outcome of this war would've been if no new additions had been made. Assuming that also didn't happen, the natural long term outcome would've been you two teaming up to hit us in your own respective revenge wars. In no situation it would've made sense for us to hit you unprovoked. There's also the matter of you seemingly treating KERCHTOG as some sort of permanent or long term matchup, which, well, no. The Grumpy-CoS animosity is well known, Manthrax likes to take potshots at us basically whenever given the chance, back and forth ill feelings between ex TRF people and KTGH, etc etc. KERCHTOG was simply born out of necessity as a result of the leaks, and it would've been dismantled after this war under such scenario. You do realize that this is something that can be had at any moment, correct? Especially since BK and NPO have set the trend to sell down to 1100 and lower, in this very same war. It goes from being an "unique benefit" from the position we were coming off of Surf's Up, which at the very best was a very lacking silver lining compared to the other problems we had (Chaos not being full strength, depleted spies, partially used economic assets, etc), to being a potential bog standard practice. Refer to my points on my response to 1). Beyond that, my response is basically that of ArcKnox and Manthrax. Especially since no worthwhile logs were provided to support that notion. Now, before it gets misconstrued, I'm not saying you must release them. I'm simply saying that not doing so is going to result in it not being believable (especially in a game that by default goes like "logs or didn't happen" in these cases), particularly when it has you do the same old song and dance, as again, Manthrax pointed out. As for your other 3), it is basically a bit of a reiteration of 1) alongside some of the first 3), so again, back to 1)'s response. I can't help but think that this is some massive projection from your own MO. By default, IQ likes to drag it regardless of the potential outcome; if losing, out of spite and to nuke turret some more, and if winning, to essentially do what you state is your fear of what would've happened if you didn't step in. The only exception to that MO was AC where the only reason it had been cut short were concerns over TKRsphere having a bunch of free revenue and leapfrogging economically. Meanwhile, Knightfall went for 3 months and a half due to a bunch of peace table shenanigans, which did sound about right considering the chicanery that happened in GGF/ToT. If you're referring to Buo, I think he meant it as a general PSA based on tCW's leak. I don't think he was saying you in particular but you as a general. He can correct me if he was talking about you in particular. At any rate, it's interesting that you note that Kayser wanted to hit us (KETOG) in a "no hard feelings" fashion. Given that lack of animosity was a reason given for deeming a BK-NPO conflict to be off the table, what reason would there be to pursue a beef-less war with KETOG in contrast? Aside from "upper tier consolidation" which was cited as a permanent "CB" of the sorts later on in the t$ thread, that is. Isn't it awfully convenient that a lack of leader or AA level grudge didn't matter when suggesting/planning to hit KETOG, the smaller sphere, but it did matter when your former ally (which quite frankly you all but admit to at the very least be your buffer if you read in between the lines) was brought up as a potential opposing match up? You've had t$, Rose, CoS, and many other AA's assist you in Knightfall, in spite of those AA's and/or leaders having had historical relationships with the people they hit. Grumpy and Guardian were happy to fight TKR and others in Surf's Up, in spite of having fought alongside each other in Knightfall. Granted, part of it was CoS, but those are still cases where the personal connections were not enough of an impediment, if an impediment at all. Also, why exactly is it that when TKR and friends got trashed in Knightfall, the reason for the coalition that formed against them was born out of realpolitik (which I don't contest as being the case for that coalition forming), but in this war, BK having an ad hoc coalition form against them as a result of a leak (and therefore also realpolitik, especially since Chaos and KETOGG were fighting each other up until that point) is crazy talk, while the idea of KERCHTOG being this backdoor, all high octane govt and ex govt being buddy buddy, and rubbing elbows with each other while smoking cigars and chugging Brandy somehow makes more sense than a simple cause-effect scenario? Now, I'm not denying that personal connections exist. They obviously do exist. However, they aren't monopolized by one side either. For instance, I have no doubt that you and Leo still have a strong personal connection. And to be frank with you, it'd be weird if that wasn't the case. I have no doubt that similar connections branch out to other high profile govts across the board on your side. Also, I do have to contest this idea of KERCHTOG having the strongest connections, when such connections on your end are without a doubt the primary reason why, at the very least, BK and NPO showed no intent of fighting each other, while those existing in Chaos and KETOG didn't stop Surf's Up from happening. Not to mention KERCHTOG forming only after a bombshell leak, while NPO had to scramble logs pertaining to a political entity that was presumably defunct to somehow justify its flimsy CB so to have an entry. This isn't even considering the fact that the latter's personal connections tie up the majority of the game, but I digress. You mention the people who quit. Bar TFP (whose involvement was already controversial due to paper ties to Rose and Ming), most of the people took a way out because it was a simple WP offer, rather than any leveraged connections. As for Rose (they got mentioned directly), because it is worth mentioning this; we ourselves were unsure whether they would be a part of our coalition until about a day before the blitz. Their involvement came as a result of their entire govt structure's deliberation on whether to join in or not. Their membership announcement (posted by Mhearl a couple of weeks ago, if memory serves me right) more or less covers their FA stance.

There was no such thing as a W/L counter until about year and a half ago.

>Be KT >Get rolled in 69 alongside TGH >TRF wants to impose the harshest terms on you >Get revenge war a couple of months down the line >Impose no terms other than color change, don't even go for an official surrender >Have people pretend that you gun for deletions even though you didn't go that route in the one situation you could've potentially done it Truly KT man bad.

What? It's the opposite. The strategy has only gained momentum, as the city gap of those employing it narrowed down when relative to that of their opposition. Simply take a look at the outcomes of GGF/ToT and AC. I do agree that KF is an apple to oranges comparison due to the extreme lopsided nature of that conflict, hence I'll clarify that now so I don't have to reiterate on it later. At any rate, the different outcomes on the two former conflicts, in part it was due to the match ups of the non-IQ alliances in each war. However, it was also due to the jump on average city counts with NPO in particular, IQ in general. The bravado indicates intentions that contradict that notion. Do I actually need to spell it out letter by letter? Fine. The reason Coalition A didn't do it is simply because (aside from the limitations which I highlighted, but you promptly ignored) it's a raw numbers game when it comes down to aircraft (the nation counts grow quite exponentially in the lower tiers for Coalition B side). Furthermore, there was another mechanical limitation, in the form of offensive wars slots. Yes, TGH, KT and many others were constantly sitting on 5/5 offensives early in the war. No, I'm not asking to have it changed, but merely pointing out that it was a thing. And I think that you're overestimating the effort it takes. Infra gets burned sooner or later, not to mention the wholesales that were done. Resource management is a thing. Simply take a look at 69. Morale I'm more inclined to agree as being an actual concern on that strategy. However, there's a difference between taking a beating or one or two rounds, and then submarining, and that of getting dragged and spending a couple of months down in Vietnam. Some people love it and ask for seconds, but it isn't exactly the majority's cup of tea. Read above. In fact, it'll also need acknowledgement on the limitations on downdeclares given the current situation, but I won't hold my breath in that regard.

Except a C37 can't downdeclare on a C20 easily (and if memory serves me right, Sphinx wasn't max air when he did his rodeo either. Again, there's a lot of context that's being deliberately left out for narrative purposes). If the C20 inflates himself to that point, then quite frankly that's on him for stacking too many tanks and ships, which are seldom if at all ever worth it due to their expense and fairly lacking utility. Meanwhile, the extreme NS compression that has been ongoing makes it difficult if not nigh-impossible for a similarly sized nation to hit said NS compressed nation and for it to be able to avoid or mitigate the chances of retaliation, thanks to absurd updeclare ranges. Ironically enough, it makes it so that only whale-sized nations can downdeclare with relative safety (safety, not ease), both because they have the upfront planes to both more quickly neutralize whoever they're hitting alongside tanking any potential counters better, and because of more substantial double buys which would make it easier for them to buy out of range. However, to insinuate that such downdeclares are easy to pull off is mere delusion. At an NS range of 2350 (about average for C20 people with wartime (800) infra, max air, and an usual amount of projects (5) ), the downdeclare range is 3133 NS. Someone at 28 cities and at 800 infra, with only planes and 5 projects (which is about the standards I'm going with) can't even hit that range. They'd need to either sell infra (I'll touch on infra in a moment), some projects, or planes. And obviously, that's 2350, and not the even lower ranges that are possible with infra selling/buying shenanigans which we've seen in this war so far. And of course, that's merely city 28. The larger they are the higher the lower ceiling is. Quite frankly, with the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if it became meta in the future to simply preemptively sell your infra down to 1500 or lower. Hence, I don't think that it's much of an issue in on itself. With that said, I do think that infra should be relatively more rigid on both acquisition and selling. The hegemonic trends as of late have been from the bottom and the middle, not the top. Alex has simply not caught up to that fact yet. No, that 700 have been able to fight 1400 and whale tier is (relatively) unscathed, is a testament to the ineptitude of said 1400. Especially given context that's being deliberately omitted to drive the narrative. A solid 40% of Coalition A's forces were at half strength at best, yet that contingent managed to bring down one of the heaviest hitters of Coalition B on the outset of the blitz, alongside busying up it's partner. The alliances that came on the days that followed the blitz came in piecemeal, which resulted in them being picked off; that is the real reason why they were ineffectual. It was a strategic mishandling of assets from Coalition B, not the overpowering capabilities of the upper tier in Coalition A. Besides, the slowness has more to do with a desire on Coalition B to play it long term, rather than a true mechanical impairment. I've seen plenty of people bragging about how this will go for months, so... Pick that 2350 NS C20 I mentioned earlier. Shove him down to 2040 because of 300 infra/city and dropped projects. New downdeclare range is 2720. Guy keeps losing daily planes so he drops a bit further. Now he's at 1890 NS. New downdeclare range is now 2520 (and he'll keep dropping further with subsequent attacks). Pick the aforementioned C28. Have him also drop to 300 infra/city and the two projects. 2860 NS. That's about 680 planes he needs to drop to get in range. The sale of planes leaves him without reserves, and not even max air. That opens him up to be picked off. Again, that's with a mere C28. It gets worse with the larger nations. It's also critical to mention that mass infra imports weren't a thing when this scenario was ongoing. Which meant that, thanks to the generous ranges, the C20 was not bothered by the amount of time it took to sell down to 300 infra, while for the C28 it's a several-minutes window where he can be hit in turn, because at 300 infra he obviously can't buy up planes to the max. And obviously, it takes longer for the C28 to build said infra simply because he has more cities. Even longer downtime for larger nations which left a wider window open for retaliation. So no, it's not just a matter of "lol you didn't try hard enough". There's an actual mechanical inhibition behind it. Which doesn't even cover the economic expense. I'm also seeing plenty of cherrypicked examples being used here arguing about savage downdeclares, in particular Ripper's. Which is not an example, but a flat-out lie. For starters, Ripper isn't even at 34 cities, but 32. Furthermore, since Moon didn't bother to mention which war he was talking about, I dug through his wars and the only one that was close to that was one with NPO, where he obviously had to drop substantial amounts of military to get in range (down to mid 3400's), thus disproving the notion that he was max mil at the time, but he also did it hours after reset which meant he didn't double buy out of range. At most he had day and half's worth of tanks and ships. All of his other wars were at 3k ns base for the targets, and the Yakuzas he hit at the onset of the blitz had ground. Again, that runs counter to his claim. Meanwhile, 4200 NS can be declared on by 2400 NS. Do I need to say more?

I'm working on it :p. The city change seems like a fair enough change. I'd say put it out on the test server to see how it plays out. For military NS, it depends on the unit you're talking about. Due to the sheer versatility and efficacy of aircraft, I do think that the NS needs to be increased (basically doubled). As for tanks and ships, I'd rather see them have more utility than the one they do at the moment, which I think would be preferable to an NS reduction. Infra and project sliding seems unnecessary to me. 1500 base infra is not really necessary for military either. It's the minimum barebones econ setup, but not the mil one. Nuke and missile sliding is also not something I see as being necessary, because the substantial upkeep expense from a large stockpile already deters most people from piling up any appreciable amount. Obviously, bullet points 2 through 5 should only be tested after seeing how the city NS changes affect the overall ranges.

To be fair, he said that in a tongue in cheek manner. Though a slight revision would help towards balance.

This is just a manifestation of an underlying set of greater balance issues, rather than an issue in on itself. With that said, quite frankly, I'd say that it'd be best to just allow it as is. The entire rationale behind why it'd be used as described can be easily nullified with minimal effort.