Development Diary #6 - 19th of November 2008

[JRHINDO]

Wow HoI3 looks really great!
Love everything that has been shown so far.

[|AXiN|]

Just to clarify, will there still be cabinet minister or will that all be abstracted away to parties now? For example, would there be an election in Australia 1937 contested between Joseph Lyons of the UAP and John Curtin of the ALP, with cabinets as appropriate, or would it just be an election similar to the Vicky style between the UAP and the ALP, with the official party positions on issues rather than minister for them?

Additionally, will the game be able to represent Coalitions and National Governments at all, or will all governments be assumed to be single-party-based and partisan?

Finally, will there be any representation of the varying levels of suffrage across the world? You have the fairly full suffrage of for example the Scandanavian states, the racist semi-suffrage of Australia and the United States, and the lack of voting or meaningless voting in the dictatorships like Germany and the USSR.

Cheers

[Trinitrotoluen]

b) have repeatedly announced that there will be events and decisions on the same level as HoI2 had.

Great news. Since you said "...events and decisions..." I have to ask:

Will there be national and provincial level decisions similar to those used in EU 3: IN included?

[The Great Duck]

Will there be more parties in a country that have a similar ideology?

[barney_gumble]

I have to say HOI3 sounds better with each dev. diary. Domestic politics in Spain '36 should be interesting.

[Razor]

Not bad at all! As a democracy not being able to build armies and fight, I can always attend to politics

[Dark Scipio]

One thing I ask me now:

Do large battles lower or raise (if lost or won) the support for the ruling party?
For example: Will the Victory over France raise the support for Hitler and the NSDAP and will it sink after Stalingrad or when the soviets enter german soil?

I dont mean to raise dissent or let the people revolt. In fact as germany lost the war, most people didn`t trust the NSDAP anymore, but they was also more confident then ever not to change the goverment now.

[Hardstuff]

Yes, make it more like Victoria.

What next, POPs? Steal WWI from that game too?

[Chaplain]

Domestic politics in Spain '36 should be interesting.

Yes, indeed! I hadn't thought of that, but it could be GREAT FUN.

Whenever I play Germany, I have this dream of pushing Argentina to the point where she will allow surface raiders and u-boats to be based in her ports. Could I (try to) do that in HOI3? That would be cool.

[pileofnuts]

[...] Thus instead of America having the Social Liberals in power in 1936 it will have the Democrat Party, although the countries ideology will still be Social Liberal.

"Democrat Party" is a political epithet. The correct name should be the Democratic Party. Although I'm sure it's just a simple error in the dev diary, and not actually in the game.

[BoemsiBoemsie]

Johan, I think the game will be great,
All the best with your great work!

[Alexander Seil]

Just to clarify, will there still be cabinet minister or will that all be abstracted away to parties now? For example, would there be an election in Australia 1937 contested between Joseph Lyons of the UAP and John Curtin of the ALP, with cabinets as appropriate, or would it just be an election similar to the Vicky style between the UAP and the ALP, with the official party positions on issues rather than minister for them?

Additionally, will the game be able to represent Coalitions and National Governments at all, or will all governments be assumed to be single-party-based and partisan?

Finally, will there be any representation of the varying levels of suffrage across the world? You have the fairly full suffrage of for example the Scandanavian states, the racist semi-suffrage of Australia and the United States, and the lack of voting or meaningless voting in the dictatorships like Germany and the USSR.

Cheers

Differences in suffrage were represented in Victoria, where it was possible due to the fact that every household was accounted for by the POP units. Can't really do that unless you model population, which HoI doesn't do.

[harezmi]

good luck guys, work hard, you have a lot of customers waiting for a very good game and very difficult to satisfy week by week i`m wondering the new logistic system more ??? if the new system is getting you very excited, then it can kill a lot of us

[LeeDub]

I have to say I used to think the map was a bit too gray, but the political mode looks wonderful! However, since there are now political parties, do you still have the slider system, or has it been removed? I assume the first, as it seems the system is in place to do away with the two first sliders to make the system smooth and more plausible.

[|AXiN|]

Differences in suffrage were represented in Victoria, where it was possible due to the fact that every household was accounted for by the POP units. Can't really do that unless you model population, which HoI doesn't do.

But difference is suffrage could affect the support levels for government and alternative parties in the new system, and could affect the ease with which other nations can gather support for their system of government.

I've seen the little triangle thing that was the ideology matrix in HoI1 floating around, so I guess that getting support for parties is related to swinging the population around to supporting your ideology. I wonder if it might be possible to get some area of support for extreme ideologies in - so if the USSR influences very strongly a democratic country, support grows not just for the Communist Party, but also for the more mainstream left-aligned party within that nation. An example would be both the British Communist Party and Labour Party gaining support due to the USSR's influence.

[Untermensch]

The politics idea is great, if you can get the computer to use it well. In HOI2 I only used intelligence to kick out enemy spies and to put my 10 in the more important countries. The computer never killed any of them and wasted their efforts (like trying to do something with only 1 spy in the country).

Also, a major problem with HOI2 was the lack of automation in the intelligence system, forcing you to micromanage. I hope there will be some way of setting priorties and letting the computer do the tedious work of carrying out the details.

[Carroarmato-P40]

We're going to implement a strict historical accuracy mode in HoI3, where things will not be able to go unhistorical.

I wonder.. It is possible that in the options menu, we could be provided with a slider that controls the amount of historical/ahistorical activity in a game.. Something along the lines of a possibility/probability matrix.. So we could have the slider right across to 100%, and it would play much the same way as HOI1 & 2, say at 90% across it would mean that there would be a game-long chance of event either not firing at all, or different choices are made by the AI. Maybe the allies would intervene in Czechoslovakia or something, or perhaps the Germans invade only Belgium and leave the Netherlands neutral in 1940. Then if the slider as set at 80%, the chance of an alternate timeline/event triggers is increased to 20%...

I hope this makes sense, but it would allow for more flexible player options than a black choice between historical and ahistorical...

[Hallsten]

I wonder.. It is possible that in the options menu, we could be provided with a slider that controls the amount of historical/ahistorical activity in a game.. Something along the lines of a possibility/probability matrix.. So we could have the slider right across to 100%, and it would play much the same way as HOI1 & 2, say at 90% across it would mean that there would be a game-long chance of event either not firing at all, or different choices are made by the AI. Maybe the allies would intervene in Czechoslovakia or something, or perhaps the Germans invade only Belgium and leave the Netherlands neutral in 1940. Then if the slider as set at 80%, the chance of an alternate timeline/event triggers is increased to 20%...

I hope this makes sense, but it would allow for more flexible player options than a black choice between historical and ahistorical...

That quote was a joke.
The accuracy should be comparable to that of HOI2D:ARMA.

[Jinnai]

We're going to implement a strict historical accuracy mode in HoI3, where things will not be able to go unhistorical.

So that means in republics, the same leaders will always be elected?

The politics looks good. Are republics just going to deal with head-of-state or are they going to deal with representative branches at all?

[Hallsten]

So that means in republics, the same leaders will always be elected?

The politics looks good. Are republics just going to deal with head-of-state or are they going to deal with representative branches at all?

Regarding the quote, see my above post...