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Sweetness ^^

Johan said:
brigade is the building block of divisions.

Can you have a division made up of just one brigade building block? (thus drastically reducing the amount of manpower required to build it)

King said:
Think of this another way. An armoured brigade uses X ammount of front line space. Blitzkrieg doctrines reduce the ammount of space armoured brigades take up, thus allowing you deploy more troops into the front line giving you greater offensive power.

So technically, its 2 Panzer for the price of 1 frontlinespace when using blitzkrieg.

Cool
 
I'll preface this comment by saying I haven't read every post in this thread, but I would like to share some of my observations to the screenie at the beginning posted by Johan. Certainly I recognize the product is in development and this is an alpha version, but I'm hoping that some of the information available on the counters isn't taken away or lost in the new version of HOI.

Specifically: (in reaction to the counters displayed in the screenie)
1) unit designation seem unnecessarily overscaled and takes away real estate for other possible useful pieces of information
2) flag seems too small...just a bit larger seems better to me.
3) wouldn't it be cool if a brigade attachment was visible on the counter?
4) maybe the brigade type can be indicated graphically
5) please don't lose the ability to show the leadership type commanding a unit
6) love the possibility that the number indicates unit strength...is that what the number is?
7) hoping the graphics and background color contrast issues can be resolved for better legibility.

Here's a little graphic sample of what I mean:

counter.png


The product looks great! I'm just hoping we don't lose some counter information currently available and maybe even sneak in a bit more.
 
Last edited:
I want to know more

I am like a kid in a candy store! I need more info. The updates are great, looks like it is going to be a great game.

A few questions(sorry if they have already been asked)
1.Sprites-are they going to be more country specific.
2.Are any mods going to be included(They are some great modders)
3.How many scenarios will be included
4.Question about flags-Say I am the US and I change from Democ. to National socialist. The flag should change some.
5.What are the game requirements going to be for a computer.
6.Navies-are they going to be more involved
I can hardly wait.
 
I use counters and I have to say "Rob" that that icon is exactly what I would like as well, great work, awesome detail! :)

About the number, Johan already said that it currently stands for nothing.

Johan said:
the value on the counter currently represents nothing :)

So Im assuming by this statement that they havent finished with the counters yet, if thats so I would hope the end product is like yours.

Very nice!
 
Regarding counters. I would also like to see them being scalable. Maybe two or three different scales. Sometimes trying to play just a bit zoomed out makes it impossible to read the counters.
 
Piggy said:
I
So Im assuming by this statement that they havent finished with the counters yet, if thats so I would hope the end product is like yours.

I suspect they have finished them, but are toying with us ;)

All will be revealed on teh counters in Dev Diary no. 712!
 
This is a kind of weird question, but what the heck. :)

Is it possible to have a few more training scenarios included in the game this time around? I would love to see a couple of battle 'play test' ones that make sure a player is familiar with how the basics of combat works, so that they can get a richer enjoyment right from the start.

I love the HoI series, but probably the weakest part of the game (to me anyway) was the lack of a really good, scaling series of scenarios that would teach a lesson or stress game functionality.

A few that I would like to see would be a "fighting retreat", that teaches a player how to fall back without loosing their divisions. This type of training would best be implemented, perhaps, by showing a 1 to 1 combat, followed by an outnumbered group of divisions in a pocket (a portion of a front line that is not yet surrounded, but where the front has been broken on either side while they held firm), and then perhaps an example of how to both relieve a surrounded force, and prevent such.

Another series could be how to make an advance, with a simple 1:1 starter scenario, then a tiny piece of a front being broken, and a third with a mission to break the front, while protecting your supply of your spearhead that has to advance to a designated province within a time limit, without getting cutoff itself.

The possibilities are limitless, and perhaps this could become an area for Modders to show their worth, maybe a competition to make the best little battle scenarios of the week/month.

Any thoughts?
 
TheLand said:
I suspect they have finished them, but are toying with us ;)

All will be revealed on teh counters in Dev Diary no. 712!

I think they have few good laughs about how they string us along, giving us little morsels here to keep us coming back all the while denying us a real meal.

Its like having a carrot being dangled in front of you...

DD#712 :rofl: its almost getting to that point, rome only had what 12... HOI3 is still how many weeks away, 40+?

Oh well, I look forward to Wednesday's now for two reasons ;)
 
robw963 said:
I'll preface this comment by saying I haven't read every post in this thread, but I would like to share some of my observations to the screenie at the beginning posted by Johan. Certainly I recognize the product is in development and this is an alpha version, but I'm hoping that some of the information available on the counters isn't taken away or lost in the new version of HOI.

Specifically: (in reaction to the counters displayed in the screenie)
1) unit designation seem unnecessarily overscaled and takes away real estate for other possible useful pieces of information
2) flag seems too small...just a bit larger seems better to me.
3) wouldn't it be cool if a brigade attachment was visible on the counter?
4) maybe the brigade type can be indicated graphically
5) please don't lose the ability to show the leadership type commanding a unit
6) love the possibility that the number indicates unit strength...is that what the number is?
7) hoping the graphics and background color contrast issues can be resolved for better legibility.

Here's a little graphic sample of what I mean:

counter.png


The product looks great! I'm just hoping we don't lose some counter information currently available and maybe even sneak in a bit more.

Looks fantastic! Hope Paradox use this counter design for HOI3 or something very similar :p
 
Looks good... are there gonna be any types of movement penalties for the super stackers? I mean depending upon the level of infrastucture and terrain in a province it is kind of strange to see 35 divisions move almost as fast as 6...
 
Modestus said:
I understand what your saying but I fail to understand how it works. I am assuming that having a blitzkrieg doctrine narrows the frontage of an armored unit and this then allows more units to fight in the front line but only because you can stay below or equal to the maximum frontage level.

Am I now to assume that if you exceed the maximum province frontage level a certain doctrine may also mean that a certain type of unit will deploy to the front line?

Assuming that your are nowhere near the maximum frontage for a province whats the difference between (5 PZ divisions + blitzkrieg doctrine) V (5 tank divisions + Infantry support doctrine) as regards frontage?

What's so difficult about this?

Perhaps a picture would help?

Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------|
Arm + + Arm + + Arm |

The divisions are similarly constituted in terms of numbers of Bde's. There is no terrain factor. The maximum frontage allows all of the Arm to attack, and all of the Inf to defend. Result: the Arm will probably win, even against well-dug in infantry. Techs and Leadership might just sway it in favour of the Inf. Little difference to HOI2.

The Arm now have blitzkrieg doctrine so that they can concentrate in a narrow frontage:

Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------|
+ + ArmArmArm + + |

All of the Inf CANNOT be brought to bear against them. Maybe all of the central Inf Div and one brigade from each of the other two. When the central Inf collapses, there is a chance that the other two Inf will more fully engage as they try to move inwards onto the narrow front. But as the Arm are faster than the Inf this chance should be small. Result: the Arm are more likely to win the battle than in the first example.

How do you prevent it? Operational reserves in the province, might increase the defenders chances:

Inf + + Inf + + Inf
Inf + + Inf + + Inf

-------------------|
+ + ArmArmArm + +

Or a defence in depth:

Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------|
Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------
+ + ArmArmArm + + |

The tactical reserves in the adjoining province, just behind the frontline, are ready to counter-attack the Armx3 after they have suffered some org loss.

My guess also is that the frontage rules will only apply to frontline combat brigades: infantry, armour. If the Inf Divs include Art brigades, then these can be brought to bear regardless of the frontage rules. I estimate the smaller provinces are about 30km, so there is no doubt that the Art Bde's of the flank Inf Divs in the second picture above could still fire on the narrow attacking front of the Arm. If that's the case then the Arm will by no means have a walk-over.

So here's how you do a proper defence with a two province frontline:

Inf ++ Inf | Arm + + Arm + + Arm | Inf ++
--------------------------------------|
Inf + + Inf + + Inf | Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
--------------------------------------|
+ + ArmArmArm + + | Inf + + Inf + + Inf |

Keep a tactical reserve of Arm Divs ready to counter-attack if a breakthrough comes in either of the provinces. Forget mobility, brigade all of the Inf Divs in the frontline with 2 x Inf, 1 x Art and 1 x AT (if possible), and get them to dig in to the maximum. Forget combined arms for the Arm Divs, brigade them with 1 x Arm and 1 x Mot, for maximum mobility to reach the breakthrough province as quickly as possible. You've then got something like the defensive formation that Zhukov applied in the Battle of Kursk to stop the German Panzers.

Because of the frontage rules the Germans, even with their Blitzkrieg doctrine, can't counter this by just massing more and more Arm Divs together in the Schwerpunkt. Which is as it should be - IRL when Barbarossa was launched in July 1941 the 4th Panzer Army under Gen. Hoepner had under command two Panzer Korps. The forward divisions of these two Korps - three Panzer Divs and two Mot.Inf Divs - formed the Schwerpunkt for Army Group North's offensive towards Leningrad. They launched their attack over a frontage of less than 40km (8 km per Div). Even more concentrated was the attack of the 4th Panzer Army in July 1943 in the Battle of Kursk. By then under Gen. Hoth, it was the strongest German force ever put under a single command during the War. The Schwerpunkt of this Army consisted of 5 Panzer Divs and 4 Mech.Inf in an attack frontage of less than 45km (5km per Div).

In HOI3 terms that should mean limiting the attack of an armoured formation with Blitzkrieg doctrine to no more than 5 or 6 Divs along any axis. A non-Blitzkrieg country with an infantry formation should be limited to say 3 or 4 Divs along any axis. It soon becomes clear that stacking 20 INF in a province is completely wasteful in terms of ability to use these in combat.

I like really really like the inclusion of the frontage concept in HOI3. Fantastic work Paradox. Now all we need is a proper logistics set-up so that those superstacks disappear once and for all.
 
@ Potski

...thats not how I read it at all.

My interpretation:

Each province has X value of 'frontage' available to the units occupying. Depending on doctrines and other(?) factors, defending units fill that 'frontage' with as much as they can.

So lets say that Province 1 has 100 Frontage. Our Inf Brigades fills 7 frontage, Art fills1 Frontage (because they hang back). Our Arm brigades fill 5 frontage (because we're blitzkrieg).

In our stack in Province 1 we have a 10 Inf Division stack.

8 of these divisions are 2 Inf and 1 Art brigades, for a total of 15 frontage filled for each of these divisions (7+7+1).

The other 2 divisions are 1 Inf and 1 Arm brigade (partially mechanized). So these divisions fill 12 frontage (7+5).

When we are attacked, assuming the combat model will try to fill as much firepower into the allowed frontage, we'll see this:

Battle of Province 1
Front Line: 2 Inf-Arm Divs (24 frontage), 5 Inf Divisions (75 frontage) = 99 total frontage filled out of the 100 available.
Reserve: 3 Inf divisions.

As the battle continues in province 1, one of our front line Inf divisions might withdraw (IE, remove itself from the front line and go into reserves). The combat model will then begin checking the reserve divisions to see if 1 of them will step up and fill the gap left by the withdrawing divisions. As Johan said, this is not guaranteed to happen and is influenced by yet to be presented factors. In this way, large stacks might not always be a winner, because only so much of that stack can fight at one time, and it's possibly no reserves could step forward as the battle progresses.

All of this happens in province 1, without any units physically retreating anywhere. No unit/stack will actually retreat until no units are left in the front line to fight, resulting in a 'defeat' which sends the defending stack retreating.


What I'm curious about is how the combat model will deal with spearhead units that might have penatrated in the rear of the front line. Will this increase the 'frontage' of the defenders representing the engagement of one or more reserve units?? Perhaps blitz doctrines will reduce the chance reserve units will be able to fill gaps....who knows.
 
Would be interesting to know if doctrine affects things such as the rate at which your units entrench (or even the maximum achievable level of entrenchment), or their ability to remain 'undetected' in FoW.

As an example, the Germans remarked on the Soviets' ability to 'melt into the surroundings' to the extent that whole divisions went undetected. Camo and concealment was almost an obsession with the Soviets.
 
potski said:
What's so difficult about this?

Perhaps a picture would help?

Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------|
Arm + + Arm + + Arm |

The divisions are similarly constituted in terms of numbers of Bde's. There is no terrain factor. The maximum frontage allows all of the Arm to attack, and all of the Inf to defend. Result: the Arm will probably win, even against well-dug in infantry. Techs and Leadership might just sway it in favour of the Inf. Little difference to HOI2.

The Arm now have blitzkrieg doctrine so that they can concentrate in a narrow frontage:

Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------|
+ + ArmArmArm + + |

All of the Inf CANNOT be brought to bear against them. Maybe all of the central Inf Div and one brigade from each of the other two. When the central Inf collapses, there is a chance that the other two Inf will more fully engage as they try to move inwards onto the narrow front. But as the Arm are faster than the Inf this chance should be small. Result: the Arm are more likely to win the battle than in the first example.

How do you prevent it? Operational reserves in the province, might increase the defenders chances:

Inf + + Inf + + Inf
Inf + + Inf + + Inf

-------------------|
+ + ArmArmArm + +

Or a defence in depth:

Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------|
Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
-------------------
+ + ArmArmArm + + |

The tactical reserves in the adjoining province, just behind the frontline, are ready to counter-attack the Armx3 after they have suffered some org loss.

My guess also is that the frontage rules will only apply to frontline combat brigades: infantry, armour. If the Inf Divs include Art brigades, then these can be brought to bear regardless of the frontage rules. I estimate the smaller provinces are about 30km, so there is no doubt that the Art Bde's of the flank Inf Divs in the second picture above could still fire on the narrow attacking front of the Arm. If that's the case then the Arm will by no means have a walk-over.

So here's how you do a proper defence with a two province frontline:

Inf ++ Inf | Arm + + Arm + + Arm | Inf ++
--------------------------------------|
Inf + + Inf + + Inf | Inf + + Inf + + Inf |
--------------------------------------|
+ + ArmArmArm + + | Inf + + Inf + + Inf |

Keep a tactical reserve of Arm Divs ready to counter-attack if a breakthrough comes in either of the provinces. Forget mobility, brigade all of the Inf Divs in the frontline with 2 x Inf, 1 x Art and 1 x AT (if possible), and get them to dig in to the maximum. Forget combined arms for the Arm Divs, brigade them with 1 x Arm and 1 x Mot, for maximum mobility to reach the breakthrough province as quickly as possible. You've then got something like the defensive formation that Zhukov applied in the Battle of Kursk to stop the German Panzers.

Because of the frontage rules the Germans, even with their Blitzkrieg doctrine, can't counter this by just massing more and more Arm Divs together in the Schwerpunkt. Which is as it should be - IRL when Barbarossa was launched in July 1941 the 4th Panzer Army under Gen. Hoepner had under command two Panzer Korps. The forward divisions of these two Korps - three Panzer Divs and two Mot.Inf Divs - formed the Schwerpunkt for Army Group North's offensive towards Leningrad. They launched their attack over a frontage of less than 40km (8 km per Div). Even more concentrated was the attack of the 4th Panzer Army in July 1943 in the Battle of Kursk. By then under Gen. Hoth, it was the strongest German force ever put under a single command during the War. The Schwerpunkt of this Army consisted of 5 Panzer Divs and 4 Mech.Inf in an attack frontage of less than 45km (5km per Div).

In HOI3 terms that should mean limiting the attack of an armoured formation with Blitzkrieg doctrine to no more than 5 or 6 Divs along any axis. A non-Blitzkrieg country with an infantry formation should be limited to say 3 or 4 Divs along any axis. It soon becomes clear that stacking 20 INF in a province is completely wasteful in terms of ability to use these in combat.

I like really really like the inclusion of the frontage concept in HOI3. Fantastic work Paradox. Now all we need is a proper logistics set-up so that those superstacks disappear once and for all.


I see the way your looking at it but your assuming that there are gaps between the units is this the case ?


This is how I am\was don't know visualizing it :)

Inf Inf Inf Inf
---------------------
Arm Arm Arm
Arm Arm

If you have the Blitzkrieg doctrine which reduces the frontage of a unit more of those units can move forward and take up position on the front line.

Inf Inf Inf Inf
--------------------------
Arm Arm Arm Arm Arm


I keep seeing a EU3\Rome battle layout and there are no gaps between units there is only the number of units and the maximum front they can take up, anything over that limit becoming the reserve.

The problem I see is what happens here

Inf Inf Inf Inf Inf
--------------------------
Arm Arm Arm Arm Arm

Even if I have the Blitzkrieg doctrine and ignoring other benefits it wont affect the frontage.

I presume I am looking at it arse ways but you got to ask questions.
 
Modestus said:
The problem I see is what happens here

Inf Inf Inf Inf Inf
--------------------------
Arm Arm Arm Arm Arm

Even if I have the Blitzkrieg doctrine and ignoring other benefits it wont affect the frontage.

I presume I am looking at it arse ways but you got to ask questions.

Presumably then it's just strait up ARM vs INF, and frontage won't be a factor.
 
Modestus said:
I see the way your looking at it but your assuming that there are gaps between the units is this the case ?


This is how I am\was don't know visualizing it :)

Inf Inf Inf Inf
---------------------
Arm Arm Arm
Arm Arm

If you have the Blitzkrieg doctrine which reduces the frontage of a unit more of those units can move forward and take up position on the front line.

Inf Inf Inf Inf
--------------------------
Arm Arm Arm Arm Arm


I keep seeing a EU3\Rome battle layout and there are no gaps between units there is only the number of units and the maximum front they can take up, anything over that limit becoming the reserve.

The problem I see is what happens here

Inf Inf Inf Inf Inf
--------------------------
Arm Arm Arm Arm Arm

Even if I have the Blitzkrieg doctrine and ignoring other benefits it wont affect the frontage.

I presume I am looking at it arse ways but you got to ask questions.

I'm not suggesting there are gaps, just trying to picture the effect of the Blitzkrieg, and show that in some cases the Divs are more spread out or concentrated.

If I put figures on it, then 30km of front from one axis of attack on a small HOI2 province without any terrain factors, then I'd have three fairly standard Inf Divs could defend it - 10km each. If there are four Divs, then three on the front, one in reserve.

The Armour Bde's might have a different normal attack frontage. But if we say, for the sake of argument, that they have the same as Inf. Bde's, then three Arm Div attack it's a fairly straight three on three, because the frontage of the attack is 30km. But if they have Blitzkrieg, they will concentrate their attack into a frontage of (say) 20km, 6.6km each. They are then facing only two thirds of the Inf. The battle is being fought not along the whole length of the province boundary (the maximum frontage) but only part of it (the frontage of the attacker). The effect of this is to cause less of the Inf to be engaged, and more in reserve. The Arm who are attacking are all engaged.

However, it is also true that the Blitzkreig force can also take advantage of their lower individual frontage by instead attacking with 5 Arm Div. Their combined frontage would be 5 x 6.6 = 33km. Since the maximum frontage is 30km only about 4.5 Arm Div will be engaged and 0.5 in reserve. It might be whole Div only, in which case 4 engaged and 1 in reserve. Since the battle is now along the whole of the province boundary, all 3 Inf Div defending will be engaged.

Either way, it makes little difference. The force ratio remains roughly the same.

Now, if instead of attacking from only one province, there are simultaneous attacks of 5 Arm Divs from two directions (two axis of attack). Instead of trying to defend only one province boundary of 30km, the Inf have to defend 60km. Instead of three engaged and one in reserve, all four will be engaged. But they will be at a massive disadvantage as they try to spread their forces along the front. Now the force ratio has significantly increased in favour of the attackers.

As far as I see it, the system makes little difference to the outcome of combat, as long as only fairly small numbers of forces are involved, in line with the concentrations that were possible IRL. The system only kicks in to limit the attacker or defender's forces if they try to overstack. Or it helps an attacker who engages from multiple axis of attack in a more realistic way than was the case in HOI2, which gave an arbitrary bonus for attacking from three directions, and a further bonus for each additional direction, regardless of whether commonsense would tell that it would make no difference.

If our defenders have 9 Inf Divs, then this seems like overkill, in the initial attack from one axis - only 3 will be engaged, 6 will be in reserve. However, if faced with attack from two axes, then 6 will be engaged and only 3 in reserve. If faced with attack from three axes, then the 9 Inf Divs looks perfectly sensible, as all 9 will be fully engaged. The attackers get little benefit from attacking from three directions, as the defenders have sufficient forces to adequately defend all three province boundaries.
 
Wobbler said:
But in reality, divisison A could have a standing order to carry out a flank attack when division B is attacked from a specified direction and the local recon units would alert division A (and B) when enemies are moving up for the specified type of attack.

But they couldn't doing that while being fully dug in and positioned to cover their own area of the frontline though. If, say, divisions with the Reserve or Support Defence missions were unable to dig in and suffered a penalty when directly attacked in exchane for being ready to move out in support of the next province that'd be fine.
 
robw963 said:
I'll preface this comment by saying I haven't read every post in this thread, but I would like to share some of my observations to the screenie at the beginning posted by Johan. Certainly I recognize the product is in development and this is an alpha version, but I'm hoping that some of the information available on the counters isn't taken away or lost in the new version of HOI.

Specifically: (in reaction to the counters displayed in the screenie)
1) unit designation seem unnecessarily overscaled and takes away real estate for other possible useful pieces of information
2) flag seems too small...just a bit larger seems better to me.
3) wouldn't it be cool if a brigade attachment was visible on the counter?
4) maybe the brigade type can be indicated graphically
5) please don't lose the ability to show the leadership type commanding a unit
6) love the possibility that the number indicates unit strength...is that what the number is?
7) hoping the graphics and background color contrast issues can be resolved for better legibility.

Here's a little graphic sample of what I mean:

counter.png


The product looks great! I'm just hoping we don't lose some counter information currently available and maybe even sneak in a bit more.

I really like this for individual divisions, but it would be really cool if you could make a different style for Divisions, Corps, and Armies... For example, something like...
iconidea.jpg


(forgive me for editing yours, robw963)