Development Diary #3 - 29nd of October 2008

[Piggy]

From what i understood in the other dev diary that is exactly how it is going to be. You'll still get flavor historical names for units but you'll be able to tweak them and make them unique. A bit more like it was in HOI 1 i guess.

Hope this is the case

From what I've understood, if you're researching carriers, actually building carriers will make you gain experience of carrier design etc. as well, and thus giving a bonus to research.

This way, you can't just research 4-5 levels of carriers one year to catch up, but it might actually be a good thing to build a carrier or two as well, as you've researched them.

As it should be. A country didnt just throw a carrier or tank design off the drawing boards for the first time and have it be an instant success on the battle field. it took experience to build it right and it took experince from battles to develope better doctrines to use it more effectively.

Im actually pretty excited about this new aspect of battle experience effecting doctrine research etc..

[Kouak]

From what I've understood, if you're researching carriers, actually building carriers will make you gain experience of carrier design etc. as well, and thus giving a bonus to research.

This way, you can't just research 4-5 levels of carriers one year to catch up, but it might actually be a good thing to build a carrier or two as well, as you've researched them.

But if you have a carrier, you accumulate technical experience for building better carriers, but you can improve your theories about this kind of materials...

We will see tomorow, if this question has an answer...

[Doomtrader]

But if you have a carrier, you accumulate technical experience for building better carriers, but you can improve your theories about this kind of materials...

I think it should be: if you use a carrier (...)

[Kouak]

I think it should be: if you use a carrier (...)

It's the Germany case with the Graf Zepellin...

Military production won't improve theorical reseach, now it's sure

[Doomtrader]

It's the Germany case with the Graf Zepellin...

Thats a good example

[bshirt]

Mighty Johan....I beg you to consider the option of armored battalions for HOI III.

All through WWII there was zero Tiger armored Divisions or even brigades that I know of. Just think of the awesome flavor you'll be putting in with the possible "heavy battalion" of Tigers (or similar heavy tanks) attached to an armored division. Wow!!

Thank you so very much for your time.....Paradox is.....great!!

[gianlucad]

why is european turkey not separated from asian turkey

[Bullfrog]

Mighty Johan....I beg you to consider the option of armored battalions for HOI III.

All through WWII there was zero Tiger armored Divisions or even brigades that I know of. Just think of the awesome flavor you'll be putting in with the possible "heavy battalion" of Tigers (or similar heavy tanks) attached to an armored division. Wow!!

Thank you so very much for your time.....Paradox is.....great!!

Well considering that this was remedied in HOI2 I bet that it will make the cut into HOI3

[Terminator]

What should also have noticed here that we no longer have models, instead we have technologies that increase the maximum values a unit can have and if unit can upgrade to these values it will. This allows us to do really nice things like divide up what would be a single technology that gave in a model in Hearts of Iron 2 in several separate techs. So if we take tanks here as example, you can separately research a tank gun, tank engine, tank armour and tank reliability (just for the record reliability effects the ability for the tank unit to withstand damage on the attack, unreliable tanks tend to break down). How we set these values can give a countries tanks brigades with different values with out the straight jacket of the nation specific unit. Take the early war British heavy tank brigade, well armoured, slow, under gunned and prone to breakdowns. We can create this effect through out technology system, but also giving the player the freedom to steer his country the way he wishes.

Would be really nice to see a screenshot of the new tech tree. So far we've got only a verbal description of it.

[4th Dimension]

Nice. Only problem is still with the map. No connection between Black Sea and the Mediteranian, and strech of Sava between Drina and Belgrade is missing.

[Sangeli]

One thing about technology that needs to be changed is first encounter research boosts. What I mean by that is that when your nation encounters another nations supererior technology in actual battle, you have an easier time in reaching that level of technology. The examples that comes to mind is the T-34 leading to to the Panther and the M9A1 bazooka leading to the Panzerfaust.

[Trose]

One question I have is for concerning minor countries.
1)First is how hard will it be to transfer techs to your allies? If I am playing the United Kingdom and I want to transfer my new doctrine to my New Zealand allies how long will it take them to learn the new doctrines.And will certain techs become common knowledge or at least easy to research as time goes on. For example if I play Spain and early on concentrate my research on land and production techs and around 1945 decide I need some new ships for my navy , how long would it take to come up with a decent Destroyer design ? One problem HOI2 had in my opinion was that smaller countries with only 2 tech teams could fall far behind and it became useless for them to even try to build certain units.

[4th Dimension]

That might be solved with licensing. You can sell the right to manufacture something by selling them the licsence.

[hebelecan]

My god there is no bosphorus

[Mædhric]

It's an early alpha screenshot. I'm pretty sure the bosporus won't be missing in the final game.

[kilolima]

Even without tech teams, I hope that the devs are going to keep in the corporation or researcher team names for historical flavour? because the game would be really dull without the little touches that make it interesting and immersive.

[Sparrow]

Even without tech teams, I hope that the devs are going to keep in the corporation or researcher team names for historical flavour? because the game would be really dull without the little touches that make it interesting and immersive.

word!

Or at least make sure the game script supports it and we will hold modders hostage.

[FINALmasa]

Hope this is the case




As it should be. A country didnt just throw a carrier or tank design off the drawing boards for the first time and have it be an instant success on the battle field. it took experience to build it right and it took experince from battles to develope better doctrines to use it more effectively.

Im actually pretty excited about this new aspect of battle experience effecting doctrine research etc..

Actually, this sounds like a great idea. Division techs can be based on how many have been built (or aggregate IC invested, to include things that take forever like carriers) over total IC. For doctrines, it can be based on either division exp over total IC (for how much total practical experience your country has with the field), or division exp over total divisions (how experienced those types of divisions are within your own military). That way, players have another reason for building experience levels other than the effectiveness of that unit. This already seems to be considered acceptable by Paradox, considering the free techs from the Spanish Civil War event.

[Negru Voda]

I see.. well my heart nearly stopped when I read there were no more techteams, cause I thought that was a very cool element that added a real imprint of national identity on the gameplay of each country, as well as the fact that the model system got the boot

but reading on, I think I'm liking the changes implemented... it gives more flexibility in a way, and more choice and control to the player over it's techs

cool

[lekim]

A lot of great ideas, thanks:
1. Adaptivity and learning curve - great
2. Dependency on the production level - great, thought could imagine how complicated the system gets at the end
3. Parts and technologies vs model also great and gives us a lot of freedom

So far got only two questions/ideas:
1. How AI is going to handle this system, even with a more simple system AI was loosing a research war very often
2. Will neighbor countries (new units seen by your neighbor or recovered from the battlefield) affect research? During the course of the history neighbors were taking the best of each other, this also applied to the second world war as designs were improving after enemies saw each others designs (in war and peace time) - will be also a good idea not to dispatch a modern unit unless you know you have enough of them to do something useful like Russians did with self propelled artillery?