Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Naturally, since the physical unit carrying the supplies sunk.

 

[Raghar]

Actually I wondered if current HoI3 actually removes supplies when these transports are sunk. Is sea supplying instantenous, or is there build up like was in HoI2? And are they losing supplies when they are losing transports? Aka does transport loss rate force increased number of transports for full supply efficiency? I think I'd wait until HoI4 to have fun. Because HoI2 allowed funny China gameplay, which would require heavy moding of HoI3 to have. Also HoI2 doesn't have leadership problems.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There is build-up per day which is determined by by convoy strength and capped by Naval Base size, which once convoy starts running will act like a new supply node where the current stockpile and daily arrivals will be funneled to the front. Don't know if you actually lose anything besides convoys when they are sunk, but I don't think you do. On the other hand, you can physically destroy supplies with bombers which can cause lack of supplies.


Also the HoI3 China problem is not supplies but the fact that besides Nationalist China the rest of the Chinks can largely just sit on their ass and twiddle their thumbs if you don't know how to beat the system as Commie China. Leadership is also a superior system to Tech Teams, but the base values in vanilla are fubar low for everyone but the usual suspects.

 

[Average Manatee]

Leadership is probably about right historically speaking. The problem is that the tech curve in general is too high (1940 infantry literally 2x as strong as 1936 infantry, completely absurd), while upgrading is way too cheap (Most nations kept the same weapons as the bulk of their forces for most of the war, whereas in HoI3 all M1 Garands are replaced by M1 Carbines and then M1 Thompsons and then M3 Grease Guns with only 2 months to completely equip everyone). Also the Licensed Units mechanic is just a PITA to deal with, though it should probably be restricted to the big ticket items anyway.

All they really need to do is bring back Blueprints from HoI2 IMO. The share theoretical technology thing in HoI2 is an absolute joke.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea Share Tech was a useless thing, but I don't think Blueprints were a good mechanic either since it ultimately just encouraged leeching. Licensed Unit mechanic in HoI3 was indeed a stillborn mechanic due to its execution. Tech curve eventually smooths out as well and increases in smaller steps in HoI3, which I prefer to the increasingly bigger jumps in HoI2. To me the equipment labels never meant that much due to the abstract nature of the tech system. HoI4 found the ideal solution to the unit+tech question with selling and L-Ling equipment to your allies I'd ay.

In case of Leadership, the main problem was that it was ultimately not properly distributed historically. The separation of IC and research already took care of a lot of things in that regard, and without huge leadership value you wouldn't want to spread out your research anyway. The problem comes in that in vanilla leadership is laughably low and results in ahistorical situations, again as an example Finland without high quality infantry weaponry and a small but very succesful armoured force. I think this is something where the addition of National Ideas in HoI4 is going to help a lot more as well, even if you could say it's a brute force solution to just pile bonuses where needed.

 

[Average Manatee]

But most of the minor powers essentially were leeches off the majors in terms of technology and equipment. Stuff was either imported from a major or built to closely resemble their designs.

the problem comes in that in vanilla leadership is laughably low and results in ahistorical situations, again as an example Finland without high quality infantry weaponry and a small but very succesful armoured force

It's easy to get high quality infantry weapons even with Finnish leadership in HoI3 (historically they used a large number of foreign-produced firearms anyway). Furthermore by the time the winter war comes you can be WAY better off than historical in HoI3 in terms of anti tank weapon deployment.

The Finnish armor was a joke. And it was imported British/French tanks anyway. And their numbers were so small that they wouldn't even qualify as a brigade.

On an unrelated note, argaubly the biggest problem balance-wise with the Winter War in HoI3 is that Officer Ratio (meant to simulate the soviet purge) really... doesn't do much.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually you have it wrong, Finland only had a real armoured force during Winter War from loot (a handful of obsolete Vickers training tanks with machine guns weren't doing much), but the real armoured force was based around StuGIII's provided by Germany, which had the absurdly high 1:11 kill ratio during the Continuation War.

Infantry equipment itself isn't the complete problem either in HoI3, but the fact due to the large number of doctrine technologies needed for an effective army in total. Besides this Leadership values in vanilla were done badly from a gameplay perspective as well.

And lets not drag the Italians into this.

 

[Raghar]

Well low Leadership was supposed to simulate situation where some leaders were not able to find their way out of paper bag. British leadership should have theirs hit too.

 

[Average Manatee]

Actually you have it wrong, Finland only had a real armoured force during Winter War from loot (a handful of obsolete Vickers training tanks with machine guns weren't doing much), but the real armoured force was based around StuGIII's provided by Germany, which had the absurdly high 1:11 kill ratio during the Continuation War.

Neither of which count for Finnish production, of course.

Infantry equipment itself isn't the complete problem either in HoI3, but the fact due to the large number of doctrine technologies needed for an effective army in total.

Doctrines aren't really all that important though. And since your combat experience skyrockets during war you'll be able to quickly catch up anyway.

Besides this Leadership values in vanilla were done badly from a gameplay perspective as well.

Except that they really work just fine. You have more than enough to hit historical levels of strength.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Agreed, doctrine should have been separated from other forms of research due how fickle things turned out to be in that regard (with Finland as usual representing the nightmare for mechanical design of the system). I think implementing National Ideas is going to be a step in the right direction in this regard.

 

[Space Satan]

From stream - they said there's a high probability of implementation of vehicle capture.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That's a pretty interesting thing to include. And of particular importance for Winter War and Continuation War, since Finland captured Soviet tanks in large numbers and put them to use (prior to the StuGIII's from Germany, captured tanks were the first real armoured force), among with capturing any other supplies possible.

 

[Malakal]

From stream - they said there's a high probability of implementation of vehicle capture.

Including ships? Because capturing ships in ports could be important at least on the western front as far as French fleet is concerned.

 

[Space Satan]

Including ships? Because capturing ships in ports could be important at least on the western front as far as French fleet is concerned.

They mentioned Czechoslovakia and vehicles, abandoned during english and french retreat. No ships were mentioned.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I think there was ship capture in HoI 2, but it was hard to do as it involved amphibious assaulting ports. Maybe I'm mixing up games.

 

[Spectacle]

Customization down to battalion level, huh? At this rate I wonder if HoI7 will have customizable platoons

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I think the important thing is that it seems to retain a high level (perhaps even increased) customization, but that it's also a fuckload more intuitive and easy to use.

 

[Average Manatee]

Combat experience is a really stupid way to do this. No one wants to intentionally drag out fights to get bonuses. inb4 unbeatable Italian ubermensch world conquest after staying at war with Ethiopia for 3 years. Black Ice (posterchild for bad ideas) had that shit that required you to fight 1000 battles to unlock techs and it was so fucking horrible when you had to start a battle and immediately withdraw over and over to get the tech you needed for Barbarossa.

Love the higher level control of army composition though. With that and the removal of division leaders that's like 95% of the annoying micro from HoI3 gone.

On an unrelated note, EvW was leaked. It looks really, really good and pretty well finished for something that was supposedly unsalvagable. I'd almost suspect that Paradox killed it off so as to not compete with HoI4. Can't provide any links of course.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I will have to point out that the 1000 battles unlock is a pretty late addition to Black ICE, in the version I use (which by the sound of it is the last good version) only has a triggered modifier that adds a bonus at regular intervals for the number of battles fought. But yea, combat experience is going to have a huge deal of problems if there is no scaling for countries of different size and other modifiers to it, since otherwise we're straight back to HoI being "Germany Conquers The World: The Game" set-up.

As for EvW leak, the truth of its state will be out soon. If it's perfectly playable, awesome.

 

[Average Manatee]

Its far from perfectly playable, but the engine runs well, most of the interactions work and the economic/political/production stuff functions. There's a huge lack of proper OOBs in certain bookmarks/nations, the economy is horribly unbalanced, there's interface bugs, AI will consistently refuse to let you annex it even at 100% occupation, and there's probably tons of missing events. But its decent beta quality. With 6 months to a year of more work it would at least meet the average Paradox release quality benchmark, if not being actually good.

Also has some pretty nice music.

Played Korean War bookmark as Korea. Netherlands of all nations was in the war with the USA and dropped 3 divisions to help. Was winning and USA signed peace with DPRK to give me only a few regions, leaving Korea 3/4ths united

 

[exe]

Paradox AI allies are your worst enemy.

 

[Spectacle]

I will have to point out that the 1000 battles unlock is a pretty late addition to Black ICE, in the version I use (which by the sound of it is the last good version) only has a triggered modifier that adds a bonus at regular intervals for the number of battles fought. But yea, combat experience is going to have a huge deal of problems if there is no scaling for countries of different size and other modifiers to it, since otherwise we're straight back to HoI being "Germany Conquers The World: The Game" set-up.

As for EvW leak, the truth of its state will be out soon. If it's perfectly playable, awesome.

they explicitly said that combat experience gain is based on the percentage of your total forces in combat at a given time, so having a few divisions roaming Ethiopia for 3 years will get you very little xp. Finland should get bucketloads of combat xp from the winter war ;-)

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

[Malakal]

I will have to point out that the 1000 battles unlock is a pretty late addition to Black ICE, in the version I use (which by the sound of it is the last good version) only has a triggered modifier that adds a bonus at regular intervals for the number of battles fought. But yea, combat experience is going to have a huge deal of problems if there is no scaling for countries of different size and other modifiers to it, since otherwise we're straight back to HoI being "Germany Conquers The World: The Game" set-up.

As for EvW leak, the truth of its state will be out soon. If it's perfectly playable, awesome.

they explicitly said that combat experience gain is based on the percentage of your total forces in combat at a given time, so having a few divisions roaming Ethiopia for 3 years will get you very little xp. Finland should get bucketloads of combat xp from the winter war ;-)

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

Players will find a way to game the system, probably by disbanding the entire army but one division or something.

 

[Average Manatee]

I will have to point out that the 1000 battles unlock is a pretty late addition to Black ICE, in the version I use (which by the sound of it is the last good version) only has a triggered modifier that adds a bonus at regular intervals for the number of battles fought. But yea, combat experience is going to have a huge deal of problems if there is no scaling for countries of different size and other modifiers to it, since otherwise we're straight back to HoI being "Germany Conquers The World: The Game" set-up.

As for EvW leak, the truth of its state will be out soon. If it's perfectly playable, awesome.

they explicitly said that combat experience gain is based on the percentage of your total forces in combat at a given time, so having a few divisions roaming Ethiopia for 3 years will get you very little xp. Finland should get bucketloads of combat xp from the winter war ;-)

Assuming they use the same combat system as HoI3, all you need do is stack 100 divisions attacking across a river into mountains. Then you have -99.9% combat efficiency modifier and all 100 divisions are considered in combat and gaining XP, while the ethiopians are losing about 1 man a day and can keep it up forever.

Or what Malakal said. Didn't Paradox say something about disbanded forces returning their equipment to the pool? If that's the case re-creating troops would probably cost a fraction of the time.

 

[Malakal]

Yes I thought about massive stacks in mountains too but if they fix supply it may actually incur huge losses.

Of course its always like this with new features - they suck at first and need a lot of balancing.