Development Diary #6 - 19th of November 2008

[comagoosie]

Blah, I won't influence my neighbors to be like me. I would rather have them under my boot.

[Shadow Knight]

Sweet awesomeness on the dividing up fuel and crude. That should really help out the balance of power. Thanks Johan and crew!

[Tskb18]

If we manage to get it in, it means that when you play, everything will turn out exactly like it did historically.

Of course, that may not be that fun of a game As Germany will surrender in May 1945!

Of course it is probably not possible at the moment... but this would be a grand way to build a game. i.e. have it built to reflect what did happen, and then after the engine shows it can drive events and outcomes at the same pace to the same destination... then tweaking the ahistorical mode so that players (and the AI) get more choose on where to go if they do want to try something else.

A bit abstract anyway, looks like another fine update. Wondering a bit on how crude and refined fuel will work out, but good to see that new development ideas are popping up with each update.

[Alexander Seil]

One could say that the HOI series hide all the criminal aspects of nazi Germany and only show it in it's military glory aspect. In HOI, nazi Germany is represented in a romantic manner and thus is somewhat glorified while in reality it was an infame and horrible criminal state helped in it's objectives by it's army.

That would fall under the glorification of German militarism, which is a different concept, it seems. I'm not sure how modern German law treats that (although immediately after the war, the Allied military governments treated it on the same level as promotion of national-socialism).

[TonRich]

I'll harbour a guess and say that there will be other parties, or "movements" might be a better word, though their chances of actually gaining votes & power for countries like germany would be extremely remote.

If you had lots of dissent though change should be possible... though still remote.

I think this aspect could add alot to gameplay. If germany were to pursue a blitz of political influence around the world you could potentially bring in alot of allies. Similiar to how a whole host of countries made up the "allies" by the end of the war.

Lots of potential here...

You know the way the political system worked in HOI2 these type of moves cost a lot of money. I would assume that the Development team has hashed out a new financial system or at least really looked closely at balancing it. I wonder if you can have a choice of Panzers or political influence when it comes to strategies. This sort of opens up all kinds of historical alternatives.

[Earl Uhtred]

All great stuff. Really great. A good political model is vital to immersion.

I like the map, and it's great to see people's suggestions getting acted upon in Britain. Personally I think Belgium deserves at least 2 coastal provinces and that the Rhine / Scheldt mouths need work and perhaps Cromer in place of 'Langham' but otherwise mega. Also, the province Lincoln is well south of Lincoln city and should be Grantham: make Scunthorpe Lincoln.

[shilo]

Analogously we can construe the first point to be valid also for other Nazi "paraphernalia" that is forbidden in Germany, like the names of Hitler and Göring and NSDAP (and we know Paradox changes the names in the German version).

You are quite right about symbols, but names are not forbidden, but PI made a choice to edit them in the German version, otherwise it might result in a PR backlash. But there was no legal reason to change the names.
And gloryfying anything else is not illegal.

That said, I am definitely looking forward to see more details about this political system. Would be just awesome to play Germany and stop FDR's reelection

[Mierin]

I just hope that scaling down the events doesn't make the game overly random in nature. Id hope that if I were to load up as panama or tibet etc and let the game run throughout the given time period that the world outcome would be more or less historical a good percentage of the time (30-50% perhaps) with most major deviations occurring primarily due to unexpected ahistoric military victories between waring AI's. For example, Id hate to see the Winter War reduced to the "First Finish War of Soviet Aggression" instigated by a soviet national mission combined with Finland being on their "countries we see as a national rival" list leading to a conflict starting at some random period if at all.

In essence I hope that these AI changes from HOI2 will allow the AI to adjust to ahistorical situations without being a major cause of ahistorical situations. IMHO, outside of the randomness of individual battles, it should be the player who is changing history not the AI.

[Wiking]

Yes, if the possibility of influencing another country in a fundamental way is severely limited in a similar way that Intelligence was limited in Doomsday (you could coup another country and kill its ministers, but you needed a superb spy network and a good deal of luck) it will be great.

[Terminator]

To start with we now have political parties. We are added in flavour names for the major political parties in the world. 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. We also have different government types defined, that determine when a country has an election and who is elected. Thus US it is the Head of State who is elected, while in the UK the Head of Government who stands for election. We felt this nice little changes would add a bit of flavour to the countries.

Are you going to keep ministers along with political parties, I hope ? Or just polit. parties and no ministers like what we have in Victoria ?

[tretii_sleva]

I bet the camera has something to do with espionage or something.

[BobaFett696]

i want this game NOW

seriously though i do like the way they have changed the politics and espionage system. i rarely use it in DD as i find it a waste of time. but this new system just looks amazing, with the ability to do so much more.

thank you paradox

[Velko]

Ah, very good. Personally I'm very fond of those little arrows pointing from resources to IC to supplies & oil... cool. Input-output -idea as was mentioned earlier. Maybe it's just because I study economics...

[Battlecry]

I just hope that scaling down the events doesn't make the game overly random in nature. Id hope that if I were to load up as panama or tibet etc and let the game run throughout the given time period that the world outcome would be more or less historical a good percentage of the time (30-50% perhaps) with most major deviations occurring primarily due to unexpected ahistoric military victories between waring AI's. For example, Id hate to see the Winter War reduced to the "First Finish War of Soviet Aggression" instigated by a soviet national mission combined with Finland being on their "countries we see as a national rival" list leading to a conflict starting at some random period if at all.

In essence I hope that these AI changes from HOI2 will allow the AI to adjust to ahistorical situations without being a major cause of ahistorical situations. IMHO, outside of the randomness of individual battles, it should be the player who is changing history not the AI.

Judging from the In Nomine model, I should think the AI will be very heavily weighted toward historical decisions ("ai_will_do = 100" - nearly identical to "ai_chance" in events), with other options mainly there for the player's benefit should he/she be in a position to use them.
That being said, decisions work very much like events, in that they have triggers that much be met for them to a appear - so if things are changed in a massively ahistorical way (Germany never takes Paris, for instance) then many other decisions might never appear. The game will need to be balanced in such a way that if/when (99%) an AI Germany decides to attack an AI France, the AI France is very unlikely to win, which would set off "ahistorical mode" writ large.

The AI's capability of reacting to ahistorical events should be above and beyond that of HOI2 - the EUIII AI was better at this right out of the box (it had to be, given the nature of EUIII), and we're beginning to push that AI to see how well it can truly perform.

[Alexander Seil]

As usual, the "historicity" proponents forget, on purpose, that this game is supposed to model World War 2. Not mimic it. That means precisely that Paradox must evaluate whether any particular event was actually a fluke. Is there an objective reason why Germany HAS to win Fall Gelb 99% of the time? No. Sure, they won historically, so that suggests that it is a likely outcome, but unless we can re-run World War 2 two million times over (like we do in the game), I doubt France would be defeated more than 75% of the time. Especially if your simulation starts four years before Fall Gelb.

[sbr]

The map is looking great. I like the sounds of the other changes as well.

Only 7 more days until next Wednesday.

[Will Lucky]

What? No! The diary states the exact opposite

Ahh even better I completely missed that, it's been a tiring day .

Also I'm hoping the Political Party system is modeled off the VV system as it is quite impressive.

[Consumerist]

One could say that the HOI series hide all the criminal aspects of nazi Germany and only show it in it's military glory aspect. In HOI, nazi Germany is represented in a romantic manner and thus is somewhat glorified while in reality it was an infame and horrible criminal state helped in it's objectives by it's army.

Paradox did the same for the ussr.

[Dakk]

Ahh even better I completely missed that, it's been a tiring day .

Also I'm hoping the Political Party system is modeled off the VV system as it is quite impressive.

No problems. Yeah I'd hope for something remotely similiar too.

[Col. Moss]

I like this bit.

...party organisation. This is a dynamic variable that can be altered via espionage in either your home country or others and via events and decisions.

Finally we get the opportunity to properly slap down those accursed Communist sympathisers in our ranks.


Also a question:

The countries current diplomatic alignment will also influence the support of parties, a country aligned with Comintern will see support rise for parties on the left.

If you are in the Allies and are at war with the Axis, will communist party support and/or diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, who are also at war with the Axis, increase?

Call it the "Uncle Joe" factor