Well, slots provide far more choices and more rich gameplay, but I see players thinking like you do. Since it's not a wargame I can simplify it I suppose

I don't see how abstract, unplausible limitations provide more choices, what they certainly provide is another arbitrary rule to learn for a player(complication) and another balancing headache for the developer, it's my personal opinion though, I might be wrong ofc.

I tried to argue how plausible logistics based rules could create tactically/strategically meaningful choices without resorting to band-aids in form of outright abstract limitations, and so far I haven't seen arguments that would convince me as a potential player that mechanic you're proposing(made up limits) is fun.

How about this:

- there are two stacks (police and army) per province, there is an icon displayed with a number below (how many units) and tiny +/- buttons to deploy/recall units from the province

- there are of course identical units in each stack (all police is identical and all army is identical)

- you have 25 units total (police) and around 12 (army) on average (more on bigger maps)

- that's fine I guess, try to find a screenshot of another game or what have you to illustrate it more clearly, if you mean deploy as recruitment, than yes, it seems fine.

- ok

- Limits on amount of troops could be done plausibly as a natural limiting factor of supply mechanic, as it's done in myriad of games, I think it will be a lot more realistic if this limitation would emerge naturally as an effect of supply+logistics mechanic. This way imho you can kill 2 targets with one shot - familliar/intuitive on one hand and realistic and simple on the other, as well as avoiding abstract limits and at least adding to realism and freedom of choises imho. I'm for plausible mechanics that balance the game rather than abstract rules.

- units are kept in the pool, you can deply them when you want

- there are logistic points, deplying in a province costs 2 logistic points (1 in provinces with a city), you get +8 logistic points per turn and can store like 12 total? Recalling a units is free.

- to deploy a unit in a province it either needs to be 50% controled by you or have a neighbour with 80% control

Tbh I think it won't do, too complicated, too abstract. If you have pop in a game and I think you need to, you can tie recruitment to amount of pop in a given province, depending on the amount of control you have maybe? Deploying as in moving could be tied to province infrastructure, depending on things like airports, roads. This obvioulsy leads to having control of a province reflect the infrastructure objects being taken, in other words - 10% could mean peacefull protests without rebels/protesters taking hold of important infrastructure objects(occupy wallstreet), and at say 30% rebels can say occupy some goverment building or logistics/media infrastructure and at a 100% you get Kiev, Maidan. As well as each object lost leads to a certain consequence, like losing airport prevents you to deploy forces quickly this way, losing admin buildings may lead to inability to recruit or supply troops adequately and so on. This as well obviously leads to being able to deploy units not just all in a province, but to deploy them on certain objects, as lets say sending army to a city may have negative effects and you might be better off sending them to objects outside of city centre, say airports, ports and so on and reserve police for that if situation doesnt require army.

(just for the sake of information - since I won't be going back to slots - one example of advantage of slots in terms och choices and richness is the ability to introiduce different unit types (a unique unit in any slot, not one unified stack), anyway, I agree it might be confusing to people who don't play "eurogames")

Don't know what it has to do with eurogames, I played shit tons of Paradox games, if they can be considered "eurogame", either way, we're obviuosly fundamentally differ in our understanding of "choices and richness", for me slots and such is an atavism of board games, and I just don't see how it helps anything except as a balancing band-aid, unplausible and unrealistic and unintuitive, simply lame-ass mechanic/feature, imho - the definition of "gimmick".

How exactly slots provide choises and freedom? I just can't understand that.

Well, that's no choice at all... You will be soo restricted in deplyment it makes it very shallow tactically

(note the deployment per province, no objects)

This made zero sence to me, so limited fixed amount of slots - isn't a restricted limitation? But "plausible logistics based rules could create tactically/strategically meaningful choices" - is a "shallow limitation"??? HOW EXACTLY???

Not possible, the deployment is per province, not per object.

I also inluded a screen, it's for deployment of secret police agents, but the premise is the same (or very similar).

Not possible in ur head? Or not possible as a game feature?

Anyway, first another question, if there is no pool where the units start? You mean you click "emergency, deploy police" and then huge stacks of police pop up in provinces with cities and then you struggle to move them around other provinces (it also makes you city provinces basicly immune at the start of the rebelion)?

I didn't say that - "emergency, deploy police" and I wasn't implying it either. I said - "...tie recruitment to amount of pop in a given province...", elaborating further, other features could be interconnected here, like again the amount of control, supply+logistics could be connected with pop state, things like loyalty, happiness, that you would need to have anyway, they can be balancing the "deployment/movement/stationing" mechanic" by intuitive/plausible limits that emerge from interconnecting elements/features mentioned as an example from top of my head.

Also how you say what portion of your forces you want to mobilize? And to where you demobilize forces (like you see it's a bit dangerous but you can recall the most of your forces so they don't scare the population and not make you bankrupt of upkeep).

Simple really, like it works in a real life, "mobilization/demobilization" mechanic, for example if recruitment/deployment takes x amount of time, then lets say that recruitment incorporates things like training your men(police academy, military training), then they become reserve force that you can "mobilize", the number will be in this case naturally limited by resources you have(pop,infra.,time,etc), once demobilized - they return to "reserve force" either back in the "native province" or into the "local pool" and cost a lot less to sustain than mobilizied forces, maybe an option as well to demobilize completely and remove them from a "pool of reserve forces", this is the simplest I could think of, while trying to stay plausible/intuitive and avoid overuse of arbitrary abstract rules.

Short: pop+resource ->recruitment+training=reserve force/demobilized -> active duty/mobilized

Mobilization/demobilization is actually a good idea imho, especially if time becomes a factor, in this case planning ahead and having a strategy will be important, since you'd have to think ahead to be able "to be in the right place at the right time", which I think is one of the main game mechanic in this case, so everything that adds to it imho is good, like infrastructure and logistics and other things of that nature.