Fanaelialae
Legend
For the chain of command to be in effect there has to be a command given. A creature that awakens in existance with the memories of someone else knows exactly what it's going to happen. Being a creature of 17th level with 20 intelligence is exactly the problem. It does not go out of control. It never gets under control of the "original" in the first place. It's allegiance lies in its creator, not on the "original". Therefore it acts to benefit the creator, not the original. It knows that its creator is under compulsion, because it has memories. It knows that the creator has limits because it's a Simulacrum. It knows what the "original" plans are, and usually involve risking the creator's existance one way or another. It acts so that the creator benefits.
If the creature has free will and can somehow think a bit for itself (as the spell seems to imply, by mentioning friendliness and such) then the "army" would be content to exist for a shared purpose OR, as the case of evil plans to be evil, things backfire as soon as there's no direct control for even an instant: The moment the second Simulacrum spell is completed.
That's why i say that it's not a problem if there's no free will. But if there's no free will the chain of command is a burden, not a benefit. Unless there's a command given there's NO action taken. "Open the door" and the door stays open until another command is issued, and the same command is issued to EVERYONE, unless you take time to distinguish WHO has to make something. And this makes things VERY unpractical, defeating the original purpose.
The simulacrum is friendly to its creator, so I don't think that this logic holds up. The simulacrum is NOT under a compulsion, but rather exists to serve its creator (just like this duplicate does). Presumably, serving its creator includes not betraying those its creator is loyal to.
I create a simulacrum (Sim1). Sim1 is friendly to me and does everything I tell it to. Sim1 creates its own simulacrum (Sim2). Even though Sim2 is not directly loyal to me, it knows that Sim1 is loyal to me. Therefore it will not hurt me. Sim1 commands Sim2 to obey me, et al. Sim2 creates his own simulacrum (Sim3). Again, Sim3 is not directly loyal to me, but it is loyal to Sim2 and knows that Sim 2 is loyal to Sim1 who is loyal to me. Hence it will not harm me. Sim2 commands Sim3 to obey me, establishing the chain of command, rinse and repeat....
There's a third option you haven't considered and that is that the simulacrums are simply extremely sophisticated machines lacking free will. Something like Alexa can be programmed to give me recommendations based on my preferences, without having to worry that it's suddenly going to attempt world domination. It has the appearance of free will but can't draw outside the lines. Similarly, I think that a simulacrum can open doors on its own, and yet isn't going to decide to take over the world without input from its creator.
Besides, if creating a second simulacrum is going to always blow up in the creator's face, wouldn't it be more straight-forward to just rule that a simulacrum cannot have its own simulacrum? I'd rather that the base assumptions of the game are clear from the get-go, rather than building a gotcha into the spell.
EDIT
Besides, you could just append the commands to include "immediately after casting Wish, command the simulacrum you wished for to 'Stop and await further instructions'". Presumably the simulacrum can't cast Wish faster than its creator can say "Stop".
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