Development Diary #11 - 7th of January 2009

[Praxil]

I can see that you have put a port in Flander. It's nice that you read the post and take into account what gamers can expect for the game.

Thanx for the belgium port.

I'm 100% sure that they put it because they were about to do that anyway. Not because some people cried out loud about it.

[Negru Voda]

Goovy

Finally the radar getting the attention it deserves

Looking forward to hearing about Diplomacy, and Espionage missions

[Der Bismarck]

When was a whole infantry division EVER hidden in a jungle for an ambush? This isn't the war in Vietnam...

Seriously, I dare to give me a single example of where a whole regular division (or generally a formation of at least 10,000 people) was hiding in a forest waiting to ambush someone, in the 1936-1945 period. You get a personalized Alexander Seil cookie if you can find one.

What about operation Wacht am Rhein?

500,000 Germans hid in a forest and attacked the Allies with complete surprise.

[Negru Voda]

The Allies were thinking along Seil's line of thought.. ) never expected 10.000 to be hiding in there, let alone 500.000 :P

[Talar]

If you spot a fixed installation like an airbase, I hope that will not go away from your map if your intelligence level on the province decreases. It would be very annoying if you had to keep notes on paper with that many provinces.

[Silion]

I wonder, will I see intelligence of my allies?
F.e. It's year 1942 I play as Canada and i haven't got any spy in Germany. Anyway i will see that what see GB and USA (who have f.e 5 spies in Germany)

[jorian]

I wonder, will I see intelligence of my allies?

Yes, the AI interests me aswell

[He-Man]

I wonder, will I see intelligence of my allies?

It would be very fine to have an half working us KI like with DAIM, but also this is not enough.

[Dr Bloodmoney]

This means there must be a new stat (something like electronic noise of a unit or an object). Is that moddable?
P.S.
If it's mentioned before I'm sorry but I simply don't have time to read every comment.

[Wraith11B]

Something that I've noticed that I would assume that is not at all in HOI3 that I've picked up from my reread of "Panzer Battles" by MG F.W. von Mellenthin:

During many of the battles on the Soviet front, the Germans used complete radio silence: orders up and down the chain were given in person, and it caught the Soviets by complete tactical and strategic surprise everytime. The Germans were pros at the radio silence, and there are plenty of examples of radio silence allowing for both surprise or disaster.

Would that be in the game?

[zeekater]

Could be a battle event?

[WWIINERD]

Could be a battle event?

Yeah I like it, what leadership traits would apply - Panzer Leader...others?
What technologies/doctrines would apply?

[Wraith11B]

I would think that it would be something that you could select when initiating combat, which would also work in MP, but the sword cuts both ways: when an army goes silent, something's up; which causes people to go !!!, ya know?

[Alex_brunius]

During many of the battles on the Soviet front, the Germans used complete radio silence: orders up and down the chain were given in person, and it caught the Soviets by complete tactical and strategic surprise everytime. The Germans were pros at the radio silence, and there are plenty of examples of radio silence allowing for both surprise or disaster.

Would that be in the game?

That would be totally awesome, perhaps as an option button click to "Use radio silence"

# Invisible to SIGINT.
# New orders take 24hours to have effect. (Retreat orders too!!!)
# Increase the magnitude of both friendly and enemy combat events by X% or casualties of both sides by Y%.

Perhaps even link some doctrine techs to it.

Imagine the disasters possible of two divisions stumbling onto eachother under radio silence ^^

[GLENN]

I think radar stations and Signet should be two different things.
No icon representation of intelligence. The Intel view should be abstract and not represented on the board as a radar station. The view should be based upon your research skill level and spy network along with the HQ units and Divisional commanders.

The map is great but the view shouldn't be based upon an immovable icon on the map.

I don't think AA radar stations should be detectable by the other player until they reach a certain level of intelligence. We don't want a player bombing the hell out of infrastructure causing the opponent to go blind.

The radar should be destroyed when taking over a province.


The suggestion of a separate signet unit is very intriguing. I could go for that, but...it has been mentioned that only the Germans used it, while the allies relied upon the cracking the egnima code.

[Dr Bloodmoney]

That would be totally awesome, perhaps as an option button click to "Use radio silence"

# Invisible to SIGINT.
# New orders take 24hours to have effect. (Retreat orders too!!!)
# Increase the magnitude of both friendly and enemy combat events by X% or casualties of both sides by Y%.

Perhaps even link some doctrine techs to it.

Imagine the disasters possible of two divisions stumbling onto eachother under radio silence ^^

Nah, you should get surprise effect which IMHO exists in HoI2 and a drop in unit organization

[pnt]

This looks very nice!

However, I hope you will have a good way for the AI to factor in the unknown. Since the information it receives with this system is always about a subset of the actual strength, taken at face value it can lead to an overly optimistic AI.

Maybe there could also be a mechanism for estimating the total strength of an adversary, and then, indirectly, how much is being overlooked? If you know that in addition to an HQ in Dover there are 100 divisions with unknown locations, it is a bigger headache than if you only lost track of 10...

[T919]

It would be very usefull to be able to Strat Redeploy those radars.