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Development Diary #14 - 28th of January 2009

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Gen.Schuermann said:
Yet according to the code i saw there is a time limit to that, every 2 years. or is that only the OVERALL division, and i can research rifles as much as i want, so a G3 in a 1945 division could be realistic?
Click to expand...

what I understand from the coding is, instead of creating a new type of small arms for every 2 years (great war small arms, early small arms, advanced small arms, improved small arms, elite small arms, kick-ass small arms, awesome small arms, in-the-name-of-sweet-jesus-and-all-that-is-holy-this-is-insane small arms) they define one thing:

"infantry small arms. been around since 1918. onwards 1934, it has a new model every 2 years. every new model increases soft attack by x but also increases supply by y. thank you for your attention."

not the model but the components have their own historical date limits. You can have 1918 infantry with AK-47's. This is what I understand.
 
What will determine how many research you can do at one time? Maybe the leadership?

BTW as I see some of the started techs will be ready within days or at most after a month and something. Wouldn't that make it a little bit "micro"?
 
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Question:
As you develop new "models" of cavalry, as in the example, will the rise in soft attack, supply consumption, etc. be exponential or in absolute numbers. I.e. is the 0.2 rise in soft attack as you research a new model a percentage of the existing number, or a static increase.
 
PIT_AMERO said:
What will determine how many research you can do at one time? Maybe the leadership?

BTW as I see some of the started techs will be ready within days or at most after a month and something. Wouldn't that make it a little bit "micro"?
Click to expand...

the leadership point allocation slider on the left hand screen shows when germany allocates 4.65 units of it, it can research 4.6 techs at one time. It is rounded to 4 and there are 4 ongoing researches. If the player forfeited everything else (espionage, diplomacy and officers), he could have researched 21 things at once. Or at least I understand so.
 
Cpack said:
Hmm...if you can research some like cavalry smallarms (+0.2 HA) endless, in the most tech I don't see a "historical" date.
Because of all these small bonuses on combat, it is an ungoing process, which has no historically context.....at least for some techs.

The only difference is that someone has level 5 (+1.0 HA) and another country has level 3 (+0.6 HA). And exactly this could be the advantage, that there's no direct link to a historical date
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand your point.

As far as I can "translate" the code of cav small arms tech to english, it means:

- Every tech level rises HA by 0.2,
- Lev. 2 of tech got starting date 1934 - developing it earlier will result in development time penalty proportional to the time left to 1934.
- Lev. 3 tech got starting date 1936, lev. 4 tech got starting date 1938 and so on.
- You can start developing lev. 3 tech right after lev. 2, but historical date of development will result in long time of research,
- Developing lev. 10 small arms for cavalry by 1940 will be extremely hard (because of stacking penalty), plus inefficient overall (as it might be a better idea to develop something else faster, instead of pushing everything into R&D that rises SA by mere 0.2).
 
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cavalry_smallarms = {
cavalry_brigade = {
build_cost_ic = 0.05
build_time = 2
supply_consumption = 0.05
soft_attack = 0.2
}
research_bonus_from = {
mobile_theory = 0.3
mobile_practical = 0.7
}
on_completion = mobile_theory
difficulty = 1

#common for all techs.
start_year = 1918
first_offset = 1934 #2nd model is from 1934
additional_offset = 2 #one new every 2 years
folder = infantry_folder
}

If I add:

infantry_brigade = {
build_cost_ic = 0.05
build_time = 2
supply_consumption = 0.05
soft_attack = 0.2
}

under cavalry brigade - will it work and give bonnuses for both?
Then just make for example:

smallarms = {
infantry_brigade = {
build_cost_ic = 0.05
build_time = 2
supply_consumption = 0.05
soft_attack = 0.2
}
militia_brigade = {
build_cost_ic = 0.02
build_time = 1
supply_consumption = 0.02
soft_attack = 0.1
}
And you have both - militia and infantry under 1 tech. What for is the split?
Infantry could have additional tech that militia do not need and balance is back without independent research.
 
praxiteles said:
the leadership point allocation slider on the left hand screen shows when germany allocates 4.65 units of it, it can research 4.6 techs at one time. It is rounded to 4 and there are 4 ongoing researches. If the player forfeited everything else (espionage, diplomacy and officers), he could have researched 21 things at once. Or at least I understand so.
Click to expand...

Mhm.

And that is exactly what should NEVER happen. I mean, how the hell can you redirect all your "resources" (whatever they mean) to R&D? There should be minimal spendings for each of the sliders (representing them running on "idle" level) and going below them should result in very bad effects for the field that is "abandoned".

Some limits on how often can you change allocation of resources would make sense as well.
 
Alojzy said:
Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand your point.

As far as I can "translate" the code of cav small arms tech to english, it means:

- Every tech level rises SA by 0.2,
- Lev. 2 of tech got starting date 1934 - developing it earlier will result in development time penalty proportional to the time left to 1934.
- Lev. 3 tech got starting date 1936, lev. 4 tech got starting date 1938 and so on.
- You can start developing lev. 3 tech right after lev. 2, but historical date of development will result in long time of research,
- Developing lev. 10 small arms for cavalry by 1940 will be extremely hard (because of stacking penalty), plus inefficient overall (as it might be a better idea to develop something else faster, instead of pushing everything into R&D that rises SA by mere 0.2).
Click to expand...

In case of the time limit you're right.
I just struggle over the word "historical", because we don't have any historical link here, we are linked to time scales (What is historical? Level 2 or 3? In what "historical" context?) :p
 
How is practical experience reflect, I see nothing in the screenshot to indicate practical experience. Is it an abstract figure, ie I use a lot of tanks so I get X amount of experienced added to my research. Will there be a way of seeing i am losing "expertise" in any areas or again is this just an abstract number controlled within the game mechanics?

Are blueprints and other techs still in the game for diplomatic trade?
 
Johan said:
We now have files that define at which tech level the flavour name for a unit changes. However the model technology definitions are all stored in nice plain text files that are easy to mod.
Click to expand...
Absolutely brilliant! I wish more developers would allow the level of modability you offer. I love you Paradox!

11810.jpg
 
Alojzy said:
Mhm.

And that is exactly what should NEVER happen. I mean, how the hell can you redirect all your "resources" (whatever they mean) to R&D? There should be minimal spendings for each of the sliders (representing them running on "idle" level) and going below them should result in very bad effects for the field that is "abandoned".

Some limits on how often can you change allocation of resources would make sense as well.
Click to expand...

Well, when espionage, diplomacy and officers are all set at 0 in order to research 21 techs at once, spies from every country and their mothers will fill into your country doing all kinds of bad stuff for free (a coup after a few months will teach the techy player what he does is stupid), diplomacy ratings will drop and maybe trade agreements are done in favor of other countries ripping you of resources, and there will be officers with all their ratings 0 so that you will give all the nice and shiny tanks and carriers and planes to morons who can run a division little better than a limp donkey. those effects are I think bad enough to convince players to behave rationally.
 
After 2 or 3 'weird' dev diaries, I'm back again into uncontrolled_enthusiasm/wish_desperately_for_a_time_machine mood!!

Well done, Paradox!

(also, can someone send me those pictures? I can't see them at work, and I only leave in 8 hours or so :( , thanks.)
 
Cpack said:
In case of the time limit you're right.
I just struggle over the word "historical", because we don't have any historical link here, we are linked to time scales (What is historical? Level 2 or 3? In what "historical" context?) :p
Click to expand...

Well yea, I'm using HoI2 vocabulary here. :)

I assume following system for "historical dates" - game got set pack of techs (including starting dates and offset values). They have generic names added, like "pre war rifle" or "assault rifle".

Then mixed beta and dev team joins the fray, compares dates (made out of starting date + offset) for each model with historical data, and builds "name files" for each nation, similar to the ones from HoI2. Then we get "Mauser 98" and "Garland M-1" instead of generic names in respective armies.

So historical models here will be (just like they were in HoI2) offshoots of generic tech system, not the other way around. The difference lies in greater detail.

I'm still quite confused how "fused" models will work - models for rifles are trivial, but building matrix of the tank models for all suspension, gun, armor and equipment combinations will be quite a feat. ;)
 
I do not see AA or ARTY as researchable for infantry, would they fall under support weapons?
 
praxiteles said:
Well, when espionage, diplomacy and officers are all set at 0 in order to research 21 techs at once, spies from every country and their mothers will fill into your country doing all kinds of bad stuff for free (a coup after a few months will teach the techy player what he does is stupid), diplomacy ratings will drop and maybe trade agreements are done in favor of other countries ripping you of resources, and there will be officers with all their ratings 0 so that you will give all the nice and shiny tanks and carriers and planes to morons who can run a division little better than a limp donkey. those effects are I think bad enough to convince players to behave rationally.
Click to expand...
All depends - IMO leadership spent on diplomacy should affect trade deals. If not then we can minimalize it during war.
Espionage affects policy IIRC so must be rather high to have total control as dictarorship country.
 
Bobb4 said:
I do not see AA or ARTY as researchable for infantry, would they fall under support weapons?
Click to expand...

Art is there, but AA I think is under "support weapons.

I'm wondering more about the paras, mechs and the other specialized divisions.
Would they use the infantry's weapons, because now they don't have sub components for research?
 
praxiteles said:
Well, when espionage, diplomacy and officers are all set at 0 in order to research 21 techs at once, spies from every country and their mothers will fill into your country doing all kinds of bad stuff for free (a coup after a few months will teach the techy player what he does is stupid), diplomacy ratings will drop and maybe trade agreements are done in favor of other countries ripping you of resources, and there will be officers with all their ratings 0 so that you will give all the nice and shiny tanks and carriers and planes to morons who can run a division little better than a limp donkey. those effects are I think bad enough to convince players to behave rationally.
Click to expand...

You know that how? Because if game follows some baselines from HoI2, you can completly ignore espionage or diplomacy and still be perfectly fine.

Problem with your apporach is that you assume that R&D, Diplomacy and Espionage will have equal importance in game, which most likely not happen. To be exact, it shouldn't happen, as in wargame diplomacy is secondary issue, espionage might or might not work, while R&D will be your bread and butter in winning wars.

That's why game requires balancing systems here to ensure, that out of 4 sliders it will actually make sense to use more then 2 - and that putting 100% of your spending in just one field will result in potentially disastrous effects. Ability to switch your whole nation intellectual resources from developing nuclear bombs to becoming the officers on the whim or sending all of them to spying your enemies is both unrealistic and highly exploitable.
 
PIT_AMERO said:
Art is there, but AA I think is under "support weapons.

I'm wondering more about the paras, mechs and the other specialized divisions.
Would they use the infantry's weapons, because now they don't have sub components for research?
Click to expand...

I was udner the impression that the tech tree wasn't ready yet.
 
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