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Hello, and welcome to the eight chapter of the HoI3 developer diary. This last week has been as busy as usual, with plenty of progress on naval combat, map design, orders & espionage.

Well last week we talked a bit about the division design system and promised you a bit more about land units. First off I suppose we start with the basic philosophy. We felt that the Heart of Iron 2 Division as a concept worked and worked well. So the division as an operation unit has not gone under any radical changes. Instead we have sought to improve the environment in which the division operates-

In previous developer diaries we talked about the additional provinces we added to make the combat more fluid, the frontage system to make combat more than the biggest stack and the division design system to make divisions more unique. So what else could we add to divisions?

However to add some much needed suspense and drama to this developer diary first we must diverge. As promised we will first give you a quick run through of what the symbols were in the previous developer diary. Although before we do that a quick health warning, these are alpha screen shots the numbers you see are purely place holders. So don’t try to read too much into them.

So running from left to right you see of course Strength and Organisation. The next one is a new concept of combat width. Then we have the three attack values; soft, hard and air attack. Then the three defensive values; when you are on the defence, on the attack and air defence. The next one is unsurprisingly the speed of the unit. Then we have suppression value. The next two are supply and fuel consumption. Then we have IC cost, manpower cost and time.

Most of these concepts are very familiar to those of you who played the previous incarnations of Hearts of Iron so you are probably wondering what we did add? 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.

Another important aspect of this is the fact that every division is its own unit on the map, and so is every HQ above it. Now you may think that this will increase micromanagement? Well, we have some pretty interesting plans on how to handle unit orders.

Well, having almost finished with land units, one thing left is what are we doing about supply. Maybe that should be next week’s dev diary?

To end this weeks development diary, we’re going with a few screenshot of South America, where so many of the major battles of WW2 was.

alpha_dec3a.jpg

alpha_dec3b.jpg
 
The sprites are looking very good.
Are there any plans that Icons are used a similar way than HOI2 which can be modded to different countries?
 
What an excellent entry! :cool: The prospect of a proper chain of command is nothing short of mouth-watering.

Me and I'm sure everybody else can barely wait for the next installments especially the ones detailing logistics, air combat and naval combat.

Keep up the good work! :)
 
Ack, I don't like the size of those provinces, they seem HUGE :(
 
Really good to hear about the command levels, but still no confirmation on whether brigades can be transfered from one division to another.
 
Wow thats one serious zoom in. I absolutely love the fact we are going to have divisional leaders and tier'd up leaders all the way to army group leaders. That is so awesome, and something I asked if it was gonna happen. I cant wait to see the order system.
 
Ack, I don't like the size of those provinces, they seem HUGE :(

I think the zoom level is much deeper than we know from HOI2
 
Ack, I don't like the size of those provinces, they seem HUGE :(

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

Areas that were not involved in the fighting will likely be composed of larger provinces in the base game than regions where the majority of the conflict was fought out.

User-made map mods, however, will more than likely rectify this situation after game release. See the map mods created for EU3 and Rome for examples.
 
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.
Excellent. :cool:
So individual divisional commanders give their bonii to their own division regardless of how big the battle is and how skilled their commanders might be. Corps commanders' bonii go to reserves joining combat--does this depend on the scale of the battle (IE, does this only count if it is a divisional/corps-sized battle; if it's an army size battle the army commander takes over that role, etc) or what?

I wonder how you've reworked traits...:p