Development Diary #4 - 5th of November 2008

[Swamp Rat]

A suggestion: it would be nice if the region borders are a little bit darker

I agree. On the zoomed out map they can only barely be made out.

[bbasgen]

Not really a good example IMHO, since the Germans did beat-up the USSR in 1941 pretty hard, but the didn't lead to lower morale, worse fighting performance or more surrenders while being encircled by the Soviet army. The harder the Russians were hit, the harder they fought back.

Exactly. This has been discussed before. Dissent is not necessarily caused when a defending nation losses. Dissent is certainly caused when an aggressor nation losses!

In game, this can be modeled simply. When a defending nation looses its capital, it takes a big dissent hit. When an aggressor looses any captured VP location, it takes a small dissent hit.

[Adm. Spruance]

The game is shaping up nicely. It is making me very excited. I do hope that this game is released on CD in a box because I prefer that to digital download. I like all the trinkets I can hold in my hand.

I do hope that it will support multiplayer gameplay with ability for players to join/leave the game via gamespy/xfire, etc on the fly similar to Superpower 2 (with AI immediately taking over when a player leaves like that game).

Though I only play single player and would appreciate resources being focused on that first.

I volunteer to be a tester for alpha and beta but doubt my chances are very good with all the competition.

[Cidal]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I don't see any indication of supply effciency anywhere. I know it's still alpha but has this feature been taken out?

[Piggy]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I don't see any indication of supply effciency anywhere. I know it's still alpha but has this feature been taken out?

Sharp eyes, I didnt notice this either....

Looks like all the top icons/indicators have been placed in this lastest screen shot.

Hmmm?

[potski]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I don't see any indication of supply effciency anywhere. I know it's still alpha but has this feature been taken out?

That's because we're going to get a new logistics system. See Dev Diary 2

When we increase complexity in HoI3, it will primarily be at the warfare and logistics part of the game.

[potski]

I think Leadership is the best word that can be applied. Because what this number seems to represent is tactical capability and direction that comes from leadership in military units, business, factories and science. The leadership in question is not the policy level of leadership we'd expect from dictators, presidents, 4 start generals, field marshals, etc...but the tactical and implementary level of leadership. We're not talking about the Head Coach, assistant coach or QB, but the co-captain of Special Teams. As Officers, middle management, grunt level scientists, etc that make things happen. It's the layer of capable leaders a nation has that is below the scope of named historical figures.

I approval "Leadership". Debate over.

Leadership: "The ability to affect human behavior so as to accomplish a mission"

"Grunt level scientists, etc." don't affect human behaviour to accomplish their research.

I remind you what Johan actually said in describing the people involved:

"...your educated people. These aren’t just the top the university graduates, in fact it is the exact opposite. If we look at the Manhattan project there were over 130,000 people working on it and not all of these went onto to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. All research projects in our time frame relied on these support people to make them happen ... The top graduates are represented by your nations accumulated theory value and can only give you benefits for projects where their skills apply, while the clerks, secretaries, draftsmen, chemists, physics etc. who are the unsung heroes of wartime research, they can work anywhere."

Interestingly, re-reading this section, maybe Johan has hit on it himself: "Support People".

[sbr]

Is this name even subject to change or is this a bunch of meaningless arguing?

[PlacidDragon]

Is this name even subject to change or is this a bunch of meaningless arguing?

Probably meaningless arguing

[Naga Niome]

Probably meaningless arguing

Well without y'all, who would be Johan's "Support People" for their Dev Diaries ;P

[jdrou]

Is this name even subject to change or is this a bunch of meaningless arguing?

If someone happened to come up with a term Paradox thought fit better I'm pretty sure they'd use it. It's still only alpha and it would probably be only a change to the localisation text file.

[Steeltrap]

A comment on Commanders (historical), research and doctrines:

If I have understood correctly, your production of units etc will affect your ability to conduct research along those lines (i.e. theoretical research is one thing, building prototypes and experimenting with them is another).

A related concept is doctrines, whereby you 'learn' to use the materials you have researched in an effective way.

As an example, the Germans spent a lot of time and effort on tank development and theory, thus started with highly effective doctrines by which to employ them.

How does this relate to commanders? Well, I'd suggest it would be interesting to consider the following:

* if you want commanders to have certain traits you need to 'unlock' them e.g. if you don't research and build tanks you won't have any commanders with the 'Panzer Leader' trait.

* combat itself can shape doctrine and traits. Have commanders spending a lot of time attacking? They might attain the 'offensive doctrine' trait.

If you consider the Soviet Union as an interesting study, they were developing 'blitzkrieg' doctrines of their own along the lines of the Germans (consider the fact that the Germans and Soviets had joint military ties for years prior to the war - many of Germany's finest WWII commanders spent time in the SU in joint training facilities...Whoops!!). The purges destroyed that, which is why they went from having the equivalent of the Panzer div to devolving that to having tanks serving with inf divs as support elements. They also went from the concept of defence in depth and manouevre to a forward def posture (one contributing factor to the massive losses of the initial 6 months of Barbarossa was that their deployment was suicidal with command/control and ability to reinforce totally snafu'd - they abandoned the 'Stalin line' of def positions as Stalin wanted a deployment within the new territories ceded to them as a part of the Mol/Rib pact). What happened through the course of the war, however, was they gained the materials (tanks etc) and experience to return to the operational concepts they had been developing in the 1930's. You can see that in the conduct of 'Bagration' in 1944.

So, while 'historical' commanders are fun, I think it makes greater sense in the scheme of these changes announced so far that leadership traits be tied in some way both to research AND experience.

As another thing, consider the 'combined arms' benefit in combat. While it is true that combined arms should, and did, POTENTIALLY give you greater combat effectiveness than the sum of the parts, that was only achieved IF the commanders were able to utilise combined arms effectively. Again, I'd link it to research/doctrine/experience. To be blunt, the Brits were never as good at combined arms as the Germans, yet both got exactly the same benefit under the rules of HoI2. It would be good to see that altered as well.

Just a few thoughts. I like what I'm seeing so far - thanks a heap for the dev diaries!

Cheers all.

[jdrou]

* combat itself can shape doctrine and traits. Have commanders spending a lot of time attacking? They might attain the 'offensive doctrine' trait.

This would probably be a very simple addition since Doomsday and Armageddon already have some traits that can appear as a result of combat in certain situations (Jungle Rat, etc.); just need to extend it to some/all of the original HoI/HoI2 traits.

[Bullfrog]

Let me say that it would be great to have air units cost a fair amount of leadership. Pilot training was a huge bottleneck for nations trying to get or maintain air superiority at various times and theatres of the war.

If air unit cost is largely from the leadership pool rather than the manpower pool, the general husbanding of pilots would be a priority. Not forgetting those ground crews, many of whom were highly skilled/trained. The mix of leadership and manpower is up for interpretation, but I would say around 60/40 in favor of leadership, at least.

This would also be cool if affected by national doctrine. On one scale, there could be very high leadership cost, giving bonuses, and on the other, lower leadership cost, giving penalties. Thus the highly trained but low number of japanese navy pilots could be simulated, etc.

[Enzo]

Good point Bullfrog.
manpower for air unit should be restricted far more than for land unit.

[Clamence]

ok the more i watch screenshots and province looks, the further i realize ill probably have to zoom out to outerspace. with such an ugly-barren-dead-dry-rock-scorched-no-trees-nor-colors-or-even-a-mole-hole-or-a-shrubbery-barn-perhaps?-i-mean-in-certain-areas-there-were-barns-at-the-time-or-a-duck!-a-proud-and-majestic-moose-moose'ing-through-vast-woods-of-schwartzwald-and-castle-in-bavaria-you-know-with-white-walls-and-lots-of-shrubberies-a-rainbow-and-painters-well-i-mean-real-painters-not-like-that-austrian-or-even-better-a-waterfall!-world to live in, no wonder people mostly spent their time killing each oher

[Clamence]

we toyed with replacing LD with "white collars" and MP with "blue collars".. but.. leadership is the one that felt best.. Intelligence felt wrong as well, as it conflicts with espionage etc.

how about MP = 'cannon fodder' and LD = 'too precious or having influential parents to be fed to the cannons' ?

[lpremus]

leadership is a resource gained like manpower, and spent through sliders daily.

That means you want to get key provinces in the game of conquest, IC was the vital part to make the war machine bigger in HOI2.

[Negru Voda]

Fells like this leadership system is sorta similar to the Victoria research system.

I like it, it's all good

[Forsling]

"Specialists" is spot on - clear and perfectly fitting."

Except that I don't think the actual persons of the 'specialists' is what they are trying to represent here, exactly. I think what Johan is getting at is that this is an abstract representation of the skills, motivation, cleverness and determination present, to a greater or lesser degree, in all the folks represented by the "manpower" of the nation.

It's not that this is a separate "class" of individuals, distinct from all the "manpower", but that it is an attribute spread unevenly throughout the population passing through time. This is why I prefer a term like "expertise" - it's the quality that is being represented, not the people. It's an ingenious concept and has huge utility, I think.

Balesir's idea seems to me the best one. But whatever it is called i really do like the concept.