Development Diary #34 - 24th of June 2009

[Zelino]

Awesome..... just.... awesome.

[Nikolai]

If you control them manually then they don't have any goals. In that case a theatre HQ will give a logistics bonus. No theatre area is bigger than that the radius of a theatre HQ, so whenever you need to a bigger region the AI will spawn off a new theatre for you.

How will the AI theatre solve the transport of soldiers to a new theatre? Say as Germany you invade SU and let the AI do the job. After a while, some time after taking Soviet Poland, the front will be so big that you need more than one theatre. The AI makes new theatres. But all troops you've assigned the old Polish theatre is still under the old HQ's control, right? Will the blitzkrieg halt or will the AI say "let's divide what we have in two, leaving only a few troops behind, and tell the player we need X new troops in each theatre to do this properly"?

[Silencer]

What I like to know is how do your logistics work for East African Theatre.
In my HoI II games I personally leave Ethopia unoccupied because as soon I turn against the Allies they close Gibraltar and Suez Straits for me eventually starving my approx. 12 Divisions before I get the Suez Canal back open for my Supplies.

Is this going to happen in HoI III too or is there some way I can supply them so they can hold out fighting instead of retreating?

[stljeffbb]

Posted by mikey1871
if one is playing a major power and they are in an alliance, can they do a limited war on anyone they want to? If they could that would be awesome. I always had to have all my growing wars before i would join an alliance just so I could take the resources i wanted first.

No this is an special power you get from being a member of the Axis. Axis power are out to expand thier countries therefor see not sharing the loot as something one shoudl consider.

OK, so I assume that one can mod **ANY** faction to allow for "limited war", no? I tend to assume that this might be fairly easy, like one on/off switch in the code?

Can the AI handle a modded Allies faction to allow for limited war, or is this needed to be tweaked by the modder to make it "correct"? I actually assume that the AI **COULD** handle it because being attacked has different parameters than diplomacy...can't wait to get this game!

Regards,

Jeff

[zeekater]

The new style DD is a lot of fun to read, good job!

It seems there is a lot of shattering of divisions going on, is it always like that? Or is that simply a side-effect of the suprise attack, so the Yougo divisions were at such a low reserve strength that they would shatter relatively fast?

[Mikematotski]

A little note on the Italian AAR.... shouldn't a contry react on your upbuild at the border to that contry. Yugoslavia should already mobilized when they see the italian troops at its border which should make it hard to attack.

Great AAR btw...

Captain Jack

[The Starfox]

Are there any plans to spruce up the counters a little? The simple black lines with the white background makes it a little difficult to tell the units apart. If one looks at the screen shots of the map, especially on the final screen shot, its hard to tell the difference between the infantry, mountain, and motorized divisions. Perhaps some rework to make them look more different from each other, or perhaps a little more color variation than just black and white? Seems a little out of place with all the other graphics enhancement, to still be using aliased, black and white symbols.

[TheLoneGunman]

A little note on the Italian AAR.... shouldn't a contry react on your upbuild at the border to that contry. Yugoslavia should already mobilized when they see the italian troops at its border which should make it hard to attack.

Great AAR btw...

Captain Jack

According to what King said later, Yugoslavia notived that Italy and Germany were threats and matched the forces he placed on the border as best as it could while also maintaining a defense on the border with Germany.

The Yugoslavian Army did not increase mobility because it was unable to, if King had increased his mobility instead of changing his draft policy, then Yugoslavia would have been able to respond with its own increase in mobility.

It's a game of international chess.

Besides, after his attack the Swiss mobilized.

[jelay14]

I like.

Theater assignments for the AI? Damn, that will make my wars a lot more manageable, and maybe even a little more realistic as I can hand more control to the commanders on the ground and not micromanage them, unless I need to pull a Fuehrer.

[ecnan02]

I like.

Theater assignments for the AI? Damn, that will make my wars a lot more manageable, and maybe even a little more realistic as I can hand more control to the commanders on the ground and not micromanage them, unless I need to pull a Fuehrer.

especially useful in the cleanup or build up stages of a campaign. This new way you can let the AI run the economy of force operations while you concentrate on the important stuff.

Just one game, I might just play like King did, and only give the theaters direction and stand back. I don't think that will be my normal style as I like directing things down a little lower, but it should be fun just to see what the AI can do.

[ok2useLane]

If you control them manually then they don't have any goals. In that case a theatre HQ will give a logistics bonus. No theatre area is bigger than that the radius of a theatre HQ, so whenever you need to a bigger region the AI will spawn off a new theatre for you.

Thanks King!
I had asked about this a few weeks ago... So, if I understand this right, the AI creates the new theatre HQ, not the player...

[MiLaNcHoS]

TO KING

Mate those provinces in Yugoslavia you need to do some fixing beograd is 2 on the east near romanian border
and those rivers need to change to
where is Sava river going into belgrade and joining with Dunav????

i think its better fro the game but as i understand we will have map editor so hell i will change that

and change the name of province Zrenjanin if you have it on the map cauz its not correct :P
Petrovgrad is more correct

[dertechie]

Are there any plans to spruce up the counters a little? The simple black lines with the white background makes it a little difficult to tell the units apart. If one looks at the screen shots of the map, especially on the final screen shot, its hard to tell the difference between the infantry, mountain, and motorized divisions. Perhaps some rework to make them look more different from each other, or perhaps a little more color variation than just black and white? Seems a little out of place with all the other graphics enhancement, to still be using aliased, black and white symbols.

Those are standard NATO counters. They're not going anywhere (the grognards would be rioting in the streets). I see they even have a light border around them to make INF and MOT more noticeably different. You can use sprites if you want, the counters are used here as they show information better when you can't mouse over the UI yourself.

[King]

Are the AI theatre creation variables moddable?

No

[King]

I thought that the theatres were hard programmed into the game (e.g. provinces A through Z are all part of an 'eastern front'). Are you saying that they're actually dynamically generated? Depending on the situation of the country (who it is at war with and the number of HQs?).

Any light you can shed would be awesomesauce.

I didn't code them so I can only go by my own observations from playing. The theatre is the basic AI combined arms formations. It has a fixed geographical area it will operate in (covering only land provinces you control) in then looks to operate into seas and land provinces controlled by your enemies. The theatres split and merge according to the situation. Let me give you an example here I am an Axis Italy and have done my conquest of Yugoslavia. I have managed to fighten Romania into the Allies. The Italian theatre splits off into two, one covering Italy proper versus France and one covering my Balkan Empire covering Romania. It knows these are potential enemies even though World War II is yet to break out because I am Axis and they are Allies. I concentrateb th majority of my armoured and motorised troops in the threatre against Romania and took them out first, once that happened the theatres merged again to focus thier attention onto France.

[King]

Great, thanks.

So to check my understanding: if everything goes to my favor (as in the screenshot) I should see in the outliner every green number with a positive sign and every red number with a negative sign.

If everything runs against me, the green numbers in the outliner all have a negative sign and the red numbers all a positive sign.

So I guess what confused me here was the different use of colour on the map compared to the outliner. But it makes sense, because on the map you can visualize the direction of attack by the arrow, whereas on the outliner
you can't.

An alternative proposal would be to make consistent use of colour, so it always visualizes, if something goes to my favor and to have separate lists for attack and defense in the outliner.

No both the outliner and map display the percentage victory for the attacker. So if the outliner is in red and display 8% then those guys are attacking me and getting creamed.

[King]

How will the AI theatre solve the transport of soldiers to a new theatre? Say as Germany you invade SU and let the AI do the job. After a while, some time after taking Soviet Poland, the front will be so big that you need more than one theatre. The AI makes new theatres. But all troops you've assigned the old Polish theatre is still under the old HQ's control, right? Will the blitzkrieg halt or will the AI say "let's divide what we have in two, leaving only a few troops behind, and tell the player we need X new troops in each theatre to do this properly"?

No if theatres split the AI will dynamically assign the troops between the new theatres. You may then want to further tweak it, but you have a base from which to start.

[King]

What I like to know is how do your logistics work for East African Theatre.
In my HoI II games I personally leave Ethopia unoccupied because as soon I turn against the Allies they close Gibraltar and Suez Straits for me eventually starving my approx. 12 Divisions before I get the Suez Canal back open for my Supplies.

Is this going to happen in HoI III too or is there some way I can supply them so they can hold out fighting instead of retreating?

Units carry organic supply (about 30 days worth) and also have supplies sitting in their supply net. So once they are cut off from supply they can still keep fightign for a while. Plus units nolong simply die if out of supply. I still haven't played enough into the war to decide what to do with the A.O.I. myself.

[King]

The new style DD is a lot of fun to read, good job!

It seems there is a lot of shattering of divisions going on, is it always like that? Or is that simply a side-effect of the suprise attack, so the Yougo divisions were at such a low reserve strength that they would shatter relatively fast?

yes that is exactly why they shattered.

[King]

I like.

Theater assignments for the AI? Damn, that will make my wars a lot more manageable, and maybe even a little more realistic as I can hand more control to the commanders on the ground and not micromanage them, unless I need to pull a Fuehrer.

You have a whole number of options here. We figured that espeically in say MP you the player would perhaps want to shunt an inactive front (say the German defence of France in 1942) over to AI control. Give them fighters and units, plus some subs and let them make a nuicance of themselves well defending France for you, allowing you to focus on the real war in the East. However you can do what I did, or you can simply not use the AI at all. These are choices that are up to you to make.