Development Diary #8 - 3rd of December 2008

[GrimReaper]

The zoom level and graphics detail looks very nice. Love the new command structure details.

[Wobbler]

My guess is that province size is related inversely to involvement in combat during the historical war.

... and province size defines its suitability for involvement in combat in the game
Provinces outside Europe not being compatible with the combat/movement system made rotw-campaigning extremely dull in DD.

[Veldmaarschalk]

From Theatre, Army Group, Army, Corps through to Division. Each level has its own commander that gives its own bonus according to his skill level. At division level you get a bonus to combat while a corps commander increases the chances of reserves joining combat

Yes. excellent !

[Bobb4]

Wow amazing stuff. I agree with mbb will brigades be splitable.
Second question will an army theatre have one hq and then leaders responsple to it via the chain of command system or will it be a theatre hq followed by army and corps hq's

Theatre HQ - Rommel
Army group North hq -Model Army group centre hq -Himmler Army group South hq - Jackson

1st Corps hq


And so it goes on with the need to build hq divisions or elements for each or one hq for the theatre and the rest symbolic?

Hope this make sense

[bbasgen]

Divisions now fit into a multilevel command structure. From Theatre, Army Group, Army, Corps through to Division.

Can you give examples of each level? It sounds like the old HQ unit will now be analogous to the "Corps" level, and of course division remains the same. So, what are examples of Army, Army Group, and Theatre commands?

[Battlecry]

All we need now is a better understanding of frontage and supply and we can start planning campaigns!!! That's what I'm waiting for at least.

(At least land campaigns)

[Shredder]

"Another important aspect of this is the fact that every division is its own unit on the map"

I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly. Are you saying that each division is represented on the map by it's own counter, so that if you have 6 divisions in a corp, all six divisions will have individual counters instead of a single corps counter as in HOI 2? If that is the case, won't that make for an incredible amount of counters on the map?

[Leprechaun]

As we mentioned in the presentation in Leipzig, we have added a command structure. Divisions now fit into a multilevel command structure. From Theatre, Army Group, Army, Corps through to Division. Each level has its own commander that gives its own bonus according to his skill level. At division level you get a bonus to combat while a corps commander increases the chances of reserves joining combat. Our goal is to leave you wanting good commanders at each level thus leaving you to think about should you promote that Major General to a Lieutenant General and give him command of a corps? At every position in the command structure, you can insert a leader of the designated rank.

OK... no more Development Diaries necessary.... I'll buy that game.

[Chaplain]

Solid. Good stuff.

[Alexander Seil]

Ack, I don't like the size of those provinces, they seem HUGE

Before freaking out, you might want to check the map of Chile, and then check the HoI2 map. The area of Chile depicted on the screenshot is less than the area occupied by the province of Santiago in HoI2. Which means that Chile as a whole probably has like 20 provinces. Given that we're still working on a divisional scale, that's obviously a HUGE improvement.

/start rant
What concerns me more is the artistic direction of the map. Not to ruin this festival of the Paradoxian Gods, but seriously, what's the hell is up with the map looking like dirt? Is it supposed to be some kind of a statement against environmental pollution? Why does the Bolivian Amazon look like it has been generously sprinkled with Agent Orange? I'm afraid that Paradox will lose a lot of sales simply because people will take a look at the game and be like - "Hey, those guys couldn't even draw a believable MAP in a WARGAME. The rest of the game must be crap." And they wouldn't even be shallow. It's a wargame. The MAP is an important component of that. If you want to see how a proper map is done, take a look at the Airborne Assault series. Or, better yet, just do it like you did in Rome. Right now the map looks like EU3 map's ugly Goth cousin. And given what the EU3 map looks like, the adjective "ugly" is to be taken seriously here. /end rant

/clarification
The political mode looks better though. I suppose this is going to be like Vicky, which no one ever plays in the "regular" map mode. /end clarification

[Alfred Packer]

I am really getting excited about this...every dd makes this game seem more and more awesome


in about 10 months, my wife is going to be really pissed at me

[kstanb]

Can you give examples of each level? It sounds like the old HQ unit will now be analogous to the "Corps" level, and of course division remains the same. So, what are examples of Army, Army Group, and Theatre commands?

Yes, please more details about command structure

is it going to be possible to have a multinational structure? to what granularity?
Is it going to be possible to have something like an Allied Expeditionary Force "Theatre" composed of British and American Army Groups, while the British army group is composed of Canadian, British, Australian Armies? or even to have a Corp composed of British and Canadian divisions?

Also, another request.
It will be great, and add flavor to the game, if for some countries, especially dictatorships, the Theatre commander is or can be the head of government...
as an example; Hitler was Oberkommando des Heeres (Theatre commander of the East front) from December 1941 to 1945

[Veldmaarschalk]

Well if there are leaderfiles like in HoI2 you can add Hitler to the German leader-file and then appoint him as a theatre commander

[2Coats]

Yes, please more details about command structure

is it going to be possible to have a multinational structure? to what granularity?
Is it going to be possible to have something like an Allied Expeditionary Force "Theatre" composed of British and American Army Groups, while the British army group is composed of Canadian, British, Australian Armies? or even to have a Corp composed of British and Canadian divisions?

Also, another request.
It will be great, and add flavor to the game, if for some countries, especially dictatorships, the Theatre commander is or can be the head of government...
as an example; Hitler was Oberkommando des Heeres (Theatre commander of the East front) from December 1941 to 1945

I sure hope the exp. force options are expanded to encompass this!

[Tambourmajor]

Also, another request.
It will be great, and add flavor to the game, if for some countries, especially dictatorships, the Theatre commander is or can be the head of government...
as an example; Hitler was Oberkommando des Heeres (Theatre commander of the East front) from December 1941 to 1945

OKH is Chief of the Army, not theatre commander.

[Inner Circle]

wonderful sprites! I love them!

[OHgamer]

... and province size defines its suitability for involvement in combat in the game
Provinces outside Europe not being compatible with the combat/movement system made rotw-campaigning extremely dull in DD.

Well, as this is a game set during World War II, the primary focus is going to be on those areas that historically were the main battle zones, and making combat in those zones as fluid as they hope for in the game design. Given the limited resources of Paradox, I think their development time would be better spent focusing on improving gameplay elements for play in those regions where the war was historically fought and allow the modding community to take up the challenge of improving areas for more ahistorical focuses, like playing a game of king of the mountain in South America or having the Germans launch a blitzkrieg into the heart of the Belgian Congo.

And the good thing about the EU3 engine is that its modding flexibility is such that such things can be done, like refining the map in the historically less strategic regions of the planet for the area, by most modders without any real special programs needed (compared to what is needed to mod the map in the EU2-engine based games in particular, map modding today is a walk in the park).

In the end I think most players would much rather prefer Paradox spend development time improving the nature of combat itself than focusing on having an intricate map of South America or sub-Saharan Africa in the game. Considering their marginality to the history of the period and in the gaming strategies of the majority of players of the game, further improvements in the map setup for those regions would best be handled by user-made mods among modders who have an interest in further refinements in that less crucial aspect of the game.

ETA : and as Alexander Seil points out, the portion of Chile shown already contains more provinces than for the similar region of Chile in HoI2. So there has already been some refinement in less strategic regions compared to before. However, that doesn't mean more work could be done by the modding community to improve the depiction further. (Santiago as a coastal province??? )

[Bullfrog]

Awesome update if only because of the CoC feature explanation...which is dead on what I was hoping for. I wonder how the interface will deal with the seemingly complicated task of assigning so many generals.

As I see it, if I have a 200 division army, I'll need to have 200 mj. generals, 67 lt. generals, 22 generals, and ~7 FMs, for a total of nearly 300 generals. That's quite a lot of work if I am not autoassigning them. Maybe you need to add a whole new tab for that task.

[Alexander Seil]

Yes, please more details about command structure

is it going to be possible to have a multinational structure? to what granularity?
Is it going to be possible to have something like an Allied Expeditionary Force "Theatre" composed of British and American Army Groups, while the British army group is composed of Canadian, British, Australian Armies? or even to have a Corp composed of British and Canadian divisions?

Also, another request.
It will be great, and add flavor to the game, if for some countries, especially dictatorships, the Theatre commander is or can be the head of government...
as an example; Hitler was Oberkommando des Heeres (Theatre commander of the East front) from December 1941 to 1945

Reasonably speaking, any role above Theater level is effectively a ministerial position in HoI terms. After all, you did have the Chief of Staff and Chief of Army Staff (and Air, and Naval) in HoI2. In such a structure, it would be appropriate for Hitler to be Chief of Staff, for example, and possibly a Theater-level commander in a single Theater (as was theoretically possible in HoI2, although I don't think Hitler was an option for a Chief of Staff).

I am pretty excited about different command levels though. Maybe they have implemented some of CK's and Rome's character system

EDIT: I honestly hope that Paradox realizes that random leaders of non-zero skill are pretty much mandatory if every Division needs a leader.

[kstanb]

OKH is Chief of the Army, not theatre commander.

In theory, but in practice:
From wikipedia:
"The Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) was Germany's Army High Command from 1936 to 1945. In theory the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) commanded the OKH. However, the de facto situation after 1941 was that the OKW directly commanded operations on the Western front while the OKH commanded the Eastern front."

Also, when I play China or a minor, I will like to see my banana republic's armies commanded by my inept "Generalissimo"