Development Diary #7 - 26th of November 2008

battlecry said:

Given that there's nothing else high enough to be base ORG, and that the icon looks like an OOB, either #2 is it, or ORG no longer exists...hopefully we'll find out soon.

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Well, that the icon looks like an OOB is what made me think it has something to do with the new command system
It's just a guess though.

EDIT: indeed, ORG is a much better guess, the numbers (30 for everything, a bit more for mountain and paratroop and marine) fit

Here is a thought that is not apparent from the screenshot. The brigade system should also allow for specialist units such as ranger battalions and air mobile brigades ...

(Might even allow for close air support units - but that is a modern concept. I am fairly sure armies in the 30s and 40s still prefered to organise their air support as independant units rather than integrated into the land formation.)

Mork said:

Only problem I see is exploits.
This system will likely be exploitable, to what degree depends on what rules there otherwise are.
An example, using the rules as I see them:
3 types of division.
One, for attacking. One infantry + 3 art. This maximises the power/width, and assuming that the AI is predictable, they wont do a all-armour division, so hardattack will be less important (depending on the opponent). Guaranteed breakthrough (yeah, right, big claim from someone that hasn't played it... ).
One for the follow-up, this would be (with the numbers as they stand now, likely to change a lot) mechanized times 4, as speed is important for encirclement.
And one for defence, with four of the cheapest brigades, like a mix of militia and infantry.

I doubt that the AI will be able to use this in a meaningful way, but then again, it wont be that different from, say, an all-infantry USSR in Hoi2 as it is now.

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To me, this all sounds kinda realistic, isn't this how the Russians did it? Divisions with lots of artillery, helping breakthrough, then let the armour and mechanized infantry pour through, hold the line with slower infantry units.

Those damn Russians were using exploits!!!

No wonder the Germans lost...

Piggy said:

I think you misunderstood me...

Yes panzer divisions had supporting infantry. What I meant was did panzer brigades (made up of two panzer regiments) have any supporting infantry? From what Ive seen no, at least not in the early years. Though this doesnt mean other countries didnt do it differently.

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No, I read it right. Thats why at the end I posted:

daemonofdecay said:

But I expect someone who knows much more about this to step in and correct all my mistakes, so take this as just my attempts, but it seems that yes, the regiments/brigades as Paradox defines them were mostly of one type. An Armoured brigade/regiment was mounted in tanks (no infantry), but the division itself always had an infantry element to it in their own brigades/regiments.

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I was actually trying to find a good OOB that would dive down another level and tell me what, exactly, was in each of the regiments/brigades, but I couldn't (I didn't look that hard, either. ). But my post was also a bit of an exploration of the make up of certain nations armoured divisions and their ratio of infantry to armoured, so sorry if my post came off as a little distracted.

Veldmaarschalk said:

In one of the previous dev.diaries it was already said that there will no longer be 'models'

The weapons a brigade will/may be updated once you have researched a new weapon

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Yes you are quite right about the mention of no 'models' but I would be dissappointed to have the brigades feature only to have a single uniform brigade types that is upgraded automatically as the relevant techs become available.

I would still expect to see a process of research, production and roll out for all equipment (including doctrinal effects) and the choice to not upgrade and/or use obselete units. Otherwise I would ask have we lost more than we have gained in what HOIII would offer?

It really does beg the question for me: are brigades unique and identifiable units in their own right that have their own independant characteristics?

Are we therefore fundamentally saying that where HOI II offered a divisional granularity, HOI III offers a sub-divisional granularity? Hence among other things the need to increase the number of provinces?

Because that would be just - wow!

mbb said:

Here is a thought that is not apparent from the screenshot. The brigade system should also allow for specialist units such as ranger battalions and air mobile brigades ...

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Indeed!

It also allows for the construction of anti-air divisions, instead of building anti-air in provinces (moveable! )

zeekater said:

To me, this all sounds kinda realistic, isn't this how the Russians did it? Divisions with lots of artillery, helping breakthrough, then let the armour and mechanized infantry pour through, hold the line with slower infantry units.

Those damn Russians were using exploits!!!

No wonder the Germans lost...

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Cheaters, the lot of them.

zeekater said:

Indeed!

It also allows for the construction of anti-air divisions, instead of building anti-air in provinces (moveable! )

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Well if we are thinking in HOI II terms for a moment that actual movement allowance of an AA brigade might be 0, thus only allowing movement via a transporting division (if combined with mobile brigades) or via SR it not.

Hmm... I could see the screen becoming cluttered with lots of understrength divisions being deployed to AA or policing duties, that might not be necessary to display if not required to do so.

For the camera, maybe thats spy activity, while the mail might be a mailbox which replaces the offers etc from other nations, that came up at the side of the screen in HOI2.


As for the exploit...well sure, some armies used a lot of artillery but imagine this:

You have your frontline fully stacked with normal divisions.
Then you bring on your stack of doom (10divisions a 4 brigade) ARTILLERY ARMIES and blow every AI stack away. If something survives that rain of death, send the neighbouring stacks of doom for support fire.
To be safe, leave some Anti Air stacks of doom in the area, just in case.

But iam sure Paradox will find a way to restrict that

Christian I. said:

For the camera, maybe thats spy activity, while the mail might be a mailbox which replaces the offers etc from other nations, that came up at the side of the screen in HOI2.

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Good guesses! I think you totally nailed it there

Christian I. said:

As for the exploit...well sure, some armies used a lot of artillery but imagine this:

You have your frontline fully stacked with normal divisions.
Then you bring on your stack of doom (10divisions a 4 brigade) ARTILLERY ARMIES and blow every AI stack away. If something survives that rain of death, send the neighbouring stacks of doom for support fire.
To be safe, leave some Anti Air stacks of doom in the area, just in case.

But iam sure Paradox will find a way to restrict that

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Still sounds historical to me
The only restriction should be in how many of those artillery armies you can field, it shouldn't be possible to have ALL your divisions like that, but that's related to cost, buildtime and supply consumption.

mbb said:

Well if we are thinking in HOI II terms for a moment that actual movement allowance of an AA brigade might be 0, thus only allowing movement via a transporting division (if combined with mobile brigades) or via SR it not.

Hmm... I could see the screen becoming cluttered with lots of understrength divisions being deployed to AA or policing duties, that might not be necessary to display if not required to do so.

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Why should an AA brigade have a movement of 0? AA brigades for divisions had inherent trucks/horses for movement. Of course, static AA didn't have those trucks or horses, they didn't need to move around like divisional AA would
I guess PI's solution isn't that bad after all

Too bad, since they both use the same equipment. Germany wouldn't have kept all those Flak batteries sitting in Germany if there weren't any Allied bombers to shoot at...

G'Kar said:

I also hope this will be possible.

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I do as well. In case I would need to move my arty to another field w/o stripping away an entire infantry division.



Would be great!

I'm hoping there's going to be some type of a demo in the future, late '09 is too long of a wait for me

I have been following the Build Your Own Division thread in the HOI3 suggestions forum and I'm extremely happy to see Hellfish's ideas implemented into HOI3. It's nice to see that Paradox take note of the suggestions forwarded by forum members. Now, if they will only introduce limits on the amount of aircraft that can be based at airfields and ships in ports depending on their size, I will be an even happier man!

Having templates reduces the micromanagement for players who don't wish to go into such detail with division composition, but allows other players to customize their units to suit their tastes and requirements - brilliant!

Johan said:

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Hmmm...

I'm assuming the fist and chain-of-command symbols represent strength and organization, as they did in the original HoI, back before HoI2 introduced graphics to keep track of them. That means the division displayed has a 'strength' value of 8000- 3k per infantry brigade, and 1k per armored car brigade. From here on, I'm going to refer to these 1k brigades as battalions, since that's clearly what they're analogous to.

That should calm down whoever was complaining about the advantage artillery would have as a unit that doesn't increase frontage. An artillery battalion only adds 1000 strength to a unit, so it will suffer proportionally higher casualties for each hit taken than a division with more infantry brigades. Infantry brigades will take frontage though, so I expect artillery to be deployed to provinces where frontage is a highly valuable commodity- Soviet artillery divisions are going to be better used in the crowded the Byelorussian or Ukrainian fronts than in the lightly contested forests of Finland.

If I'm right, that should address one of the major issues with 'brigades' (battalion sized attachments) from HoI2- that is, the fact that attachments didn't increase the strength of a division at all. With each separate brigade or battalion contributing to strength, organization, and attack/defense stats, it's already clear that battalions will be much more useful than their HoI2 counterparts.

What I still can't figure out are those manpower values. I'm afraid I'll never understand how 2(2.33)+2(5.33)=10...

EDIT: Never mind. They've got the manpower and IC symbols switched around. The given IC values add up to 10 (the manpower cost) while the given MP values add up to the IC cost. What a silly mistake. Johan, you should be ashamed of yourself.

battalions and brigade limitations

I hope PI doesn't hardcode the max number of brigades a division can have.
it would be nice to be able to mod and create battalions in hoi3.

ggm

dublish said:

That should calm down whoever was complaining about the advantage artillery would have as a unit that doesn't increase frontage. An artillery battalion only adds 1000 strength to a unit, so it will suffer proportionally higher casualties for each hit taken than a division with more infantry brigades. Infantry brigades will take frontage though, so I expect artillery to be deployed to provinces where frontage is a highly valuable commodity- Soviet artillery divisions are going to be better used in the crowded the Byelorussian or Ukrainian fronts than in the lightly contested forests of Finland.

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Nope, as they don't increase the width, you'd still end up with more strength/assaultdirection, just dispersed between more divisions.

4 Strength 6000 divisions with a width of 1 beats 1 strength 12000 division with a width of 4. That's double the strength, and probably many times the attack rating, with the same width.

Of course, if the cost is balanced, the problem will only emerge in places where two IC heavy forces meet with a small front. the French border of in northern Africa comes to mind. That does depend on the actual map, of course.
And it's only for attack.

ggm said:

I hope PI doesn't hardcode the max number of brigades a division can have.
it would be nice to be able to mod and create battalions in hoi3.

ggm

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Define battalion. If it's a 1000-man unit incapable of independent operations, you've already got 10 to choose from. I have no doubt you'll be able to make new ones though.

Two things.

One, I LOVE you guys for doing this. Truly, truly love you guys.

Two, I see the land divisions are finally gonna get more suitable speeds. Will this apply to naval and air units (especially air units) as well?

Mork said:

Nope, as they don't increase the width, you'd still end up with more strength/assaultdirection, just dispersed between more divisions.

4 Strength 6000 divisions with a width of 1 beats 1 strength 12000 division with a width of 4. That's double the strength, and probably many times the attack rating, with the same width.

Of course, if the cost is balanced, the problem will only emerge in places where two IC heavy forces meet with a small front. the French border of in northern Africa comes to mind. That does depend on the actual map, of course.
And it's only for attack.

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Couldn't the cost be balanced out with artillery consuming more supplies than a standard infantry? Thus making it a material battle. And if I think I know what I am talking about, most people cannot trade good A to another country for good B. You would have to purchase good B from the country with cash.

Meaning a nation with oil problems would have to manage their resources much closer and limit the amount of extraneous supply consuming 'brigades' they are using.

Or some other analogy to make arty more balanced. Since you need shells to fire the damn things!

Edit: And I am assuming because you can no longer trade surplus supplies and energy for insane amounts of oil and rare materials you would need to balance your economy more towards consumer goods to ensure that you were making enough money to buy needed items as well.

Maybe I missed a more well thought out or even dev concept on the resources by pdox though.

Oh well. Off to work.