HOI 4: What do you want to see?

Cybvep said:

Explain.

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Will make a thread about this some time. Basically an idea of mine that combines the best features of the HOi2 and HOI3 technology system.

Cybvep said:

This would be good. The game needs a better MP system, anyway. The current one treats all MP equally, which creates problems.

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Surprised by the fact that the manpower system has not been changed or developed since HOI1. Just look at DH, only that system is so much of an improvement!

Cybvep said:

Already covered by laws. They may or may not be unbalanced, but the system is there.

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Ok. Actually i do not play HOI3 as I felt AOD and HOI2 were superior when HOI3 was released.

Cybvep said:

Yeah, I actually like the DH's mobilisation system. However, if we are talking about HOI4, then I have no doubt that with a better MP system, mobilisation system would be improved, too.

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It's a must

Cybvep said:

I don't understand. What do you mean by that? At a glance it seems that it's sth like National Unity.

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Everything that is cultural is related. The home front. The will to fight. Propaganda. Technological development. Production. Etc.

Cybvep said:

Already possible to add it in HOI3. Try HPP mod.

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Really? How it is represented? I may be thinking of a more sophisticated system than Hoi3 is capable of representing tho. Will also make a thread about this.

Cybvep said:

You are being very vague. If you are talking about the simplicity of the current CA system (which is problematic in case of many div compositions), then I agree.

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Give air, marine and the army the incentive to fight as a combined force. Give all types of army, naval and air units the incentive to be built, maintained and to engage battle as a combined force. We can still rule the world with paratroopers or medium armor merely in HOI.

Cybvep said:

Ymm... What? You really need to be more specific!

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- WW2 could have lasted longer. I want HOI4 to reflect that, and I mean not only with a post-1945 timeline. All aspects of a 1945-1950 Nazi Germany would be an interesting implementation. There is lots of fiction about such scenario.

- A morale-meter for all brigades/divisions as with the supplies- and strength-meter. Also something like or national/collective morale parameter to represent the home front’s/people's/nation's will to fight.

- In some regions oil is discovered while in other provinces oil the history of oil ends - as is historical. No resources have a constant flow and can last for eternity - I want this fact reflected. As a result of this, demand and supply as an economic fact will also be better reflected. A dynamic resource system (economic system) instead of the current absolute and static one.

- Just a realistic economic growth system. Progressive IC growth as the only variable for economic growth is not good enough. IC whoring for 20 years is not realistic and not historic.

- Infrastructure is constantly improved all over the world. It never gets perfect. Building basic infrastructural features take less time than more advanced ones. Building infrastructure in mountain regions take more time than on building it on steppes. Regarding the importance of infrastructure both from a economic and strategic perspective the infrastructure aspect should be improved some.

Cybvep said:

Sounds good.

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A very ignored aspect of WWII when it comes to HOI. As a side note, the Germans lost in North Africa simply because of supply-truck scarcity.

Cybvep said:

Good for Cold War purposes, but if the game doesn't tackle CW, then I doubt that we will see sth like this in a WWII game.

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IMO guerrilla war is always relevant.

Cybvep said:

Agreed. However, the first problem mostly arises from the fact that all resources and supplies are stockpiled in the capital, which is blatantly unrealistic.

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Cybvep said:

Too much Rome: Total War.

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I like being given orders

Cybvep said:

Yeah. I think that even a basic distinction between Heavy IC and Light IC would be good.

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Also a must. And related to some of my other wishes.

I'd like the mouse clicks necessary to form or reform an OOB to be reduced by 72.435% (percent picked abstractly to fit the abstract nature of the game).

Actually, I'd like to see the UI advanced past its current early '90s functionality.

Also:

I'd like supply dumps to be designatable/placeable. I'd like to be able to designate an MSR and the portion of the front it is meant to support.

I'd like for HQs to be kept (I really do enjoy the HQ system) but I'd like to see HQs useful for what HQs were actually for, rather than simply as squatting spots for various generals. I'd like HQs to be the interface that controls reinforcement, tech upgrades, supply priority, etc and so on for all units downline of that HQ instead of having to go div by div as is currently done. PS. This could also count toward the abstractly picked 72.435% reduction in mouseclicknightmareism that currently infests or haunts this fine game.

I'd like the whole air system to be changed. There wouldn't be individual air wings that you give commands to and they wouldn't fly around seeking combat.

Instead all your air forces would be put into one general pool of x fighters, x bombers and so on. You would control your air forces by selecting an airfield on the map and using a slider to set the capacity (0%-100%) that you want to run the airfield at, the max amount actual of aircraft depending on the level of the air field of course. You might be able to run the field at an overcapacity of 125% as well or so with appropriate penalties. You would set the ratio between the various types of aircraft on the airfield by sliders as well.

Production could be handled like it is now except that the finished aircraft would simply go into the general pool... or you could replace the system by having another slider that makes a % of IC assigned to production go into aircraft production and then having a separate sliders for the ratio of aircraft types to be produced.

Assigning missions would be somewhat similar to the current system except that you would be able to define the area of the mission by dragging a box over the map (like theatre defining works). Actual combat would be sort of behind the scenes or represented in some general way. It would basically compare the various statistics and amount of air forces and so on between your airfields that have a specific mission in that area and the enemy's own forces respectively. Purpose would be to simulate an entire air campaign in a realistic way and NOT individual air battles.

Example 1:
You select an airfield, set the capacity at 100%, ratio at 75% fighters, 25% tac bombers. Over X time, appropriate amounts of aircraft will be drawn from the general pool. You select air superiority or intercept mission and paint the area you want covered, theatre define style.

Let's say that the enemy has done the same... imagine a sort of a long version of the current air combat system commencing (which you could see by selecting the airfield). The difference would be that it would consist of one unit that includes all your interceptors and on the other hand one enemy unit with all their interceptors (again, this is just to represent an air campaign in an abstract way) and they would very slowly battle it out until the mission is cancelled or one side has been competely destroyed and can't be reinforced. This could take months. Could work differently, haven't really worked out the details.

Example 2:
You want to bomb the enemy land forces. You select ground strike mission on your airfield and paint the provinces you want bombed and the bombers based on that airfield would be split between the provinces. Combat in each province would be represented as one long long battle with just one unit that includes all your bombers assigned to that province against the enemy ground forces for example.

Escorts could be represented by having an air superiority/intercept mission in the same areas where the bombing takes place. Or you could have a slider to assign some of the fighters to escort roles... not sure. If you don't have enough escorts, and the enemy has air superiority, your bombers would suffer heavy "attrition" depending on the ratio of your fighters vs enemy and also on the typical stuff like AA.

Yeah there would be a lot of details that have to be worked out (CAGs and such) but the general idea is to remove the tedious task of babysitting your air forces using an awkward interface. I think this would make the system more abstract and far easier to manage while at the same time making it a bit more realistic... or maybe not, I'm not an expert. Yeah I'm a little frustrated with the current system but I still love HOI3.

Chondrite said:

I'd like the whole air system to be changed.

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sorry, your proposal is awful. there's plenty of games out there with abstract air combat systems. dull as dishwater. i'd rather PI kept refining the current system. it is an attempt - within a monster strategic game - to really reflect air combat at unit level and while far from perfect, should be pursued even more closely!

The current air combat system is too similar to the land one, though. Air units also seem to be rather inflexible - you cannot order one air wing to spread over a large area, for example, without seeing them flying over one province at a time. It's definitely to easy to transfer them on large distances - even with a (constant) rebasing ORG penalty it's far too easy to keep cycling your units between London and Singapore, for example. Maybe they should get attack delay in such cases, too?

Daztek +10 and if you change the references to naval from air in your reply support even more

Xwarq said:

HOI3 hasn't even been ironed out of bugs, and we're already talking about HOI4?

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This.

much much much much less micromanagement. hoi2 had this right. no idea why hoi3 broke something that was done right. don't say get AI's assistance. AI's incompetency is through the roof. and its normal that it is that way; there are too many things to consider, and a non-hardcoded ai cannot work in such a complex game. making an OOB is fun the first time. the 5th time you are doing the same thing, it just becomes a deterrent from playing the game. I'm so scared of making efficient OOB's and taking care of them along the way, I just don't play the game.

submarine / ASW must be abstracted. i.e. you produce subs/destroyers, you assign seazones to raid, and then you forget about them (unless something important happens, like "you are not producing enough subs to replace your lost ones" etc). same thing goes for aircraft. in hoi1&2&3, you can get away with not using ANY aircraft in combat. this is extremely unrealistic. and this is because the AI isn't good at deciding what to build & how to utilize what it has.

better naval combat. I don't think I need to explain this.

diplomacy & espionage was a great addition in hoi3 (they didn't really exist in hoi2). other cool stuff like that would be great IMO.

hexagons instead of provinces. and smaller amount of provinces. you can make the hexagons small/big, but the current system is just not sustainable. I don't want 10,000,000,000,000,000 provinces in hoi4.

basically, this isn't a tactical game like panzer general. it is a strategy game; I shouldn't have to worry about building divisions. The major design flaw in hoi3 was making the game more "vertical" in tactics, whereas it needed to be more "horizontal" i.e. include more aspects of ruling a nation through the second world war

I think from a new player point of view a more indepth tutorial - instead of pointing and showing it should make you do and it should go into a lot more detail that the basic if you are wanting to.

I have just started and Im completely lost lol...

I'd like the UI to be compatible with multi-touch monitors and Windows 8 Flicks. I can move the map around currently with my touch screen but actually interacting with most of the UI, especially if I have to right click something... just doesn't work currently, which is fine since HOI3 wasn't designed for the possibility of touch screens, but it would be nice if HOI4 is. Especially since it is becoming more and more prevalent in the age of the iPad. There are a lot of apps out there that all ready allow you to connect to a PC remotly, and even laptops and desktops with multi-touch screens.

One thing and one thing only - a separate combat engine for naval combat. I've been around since HOI1 and that's the only true fly left in the ointment, IMHO.

Ability to build infra/aa guns/ports ( everything beside IC ) etc . on puppet provs.

Lossmar said:

Ability to build infra/aa guns/ports ( everything beside IC ) etc . on puppet provs.

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This is already in Arsenal of Democracy.

Chondrite said:

I'd like the whole air system to be changed. There wouldn't be individual air wings that you give commands to and they wouldn't fly around seeking combat.

Instead all your air forces would be put into one general pool of x fighters, x bombers and so on. You would control your air forces by selecting an airfield on the map and using a slider to set the capacity (0%-100%) that you want to run the airfield at, the max amount actual of aircraft depending on the level of the air field of course. You might be able to run the field at an overcapacity of 125% as well or so with appropriate penalties. You would set the ratio between the various types of aircraft on the airfield by sliders as well.

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I like your idea, and certainly think it has merit and should be further looked at.

I also have just in my own spare time and for my own fun written down ideas for almost a complete overhaul of the economy and so many other facets of the game which would both make it more realistic, enjoyable and less micromanagement, though should I even bother neatly compiling and posting it? (it’s like 8 pages in a word document long) Do the Paradox dev’s even look at these threads or seriously take on any ideas from them?

Rummy said:

I like your idea, and certainly think it has merit and should be further looked at.

I also have just in my own spare time and for my own fun written down ideas for almost a complete overhaul of the economy and so many other facets of the game which would both make it more realistic, enjoyable and less micromanagement, though should I even bother neatly compiling it? (it’s like 8 pages in a word document long) Do the Paradox dev’s even look at these threads or seriously take on any ideas from them?

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You should post it. Maybe shorten it down a bit tho or make a good abstract/summary for people who don't bother to read all of it. I've seen longer texts on this forum.

Post one major idea at a time. That way your wall of text isn't as menacing to read.

Straying away from some of the flights of fantasy in this thread, the one key thing I miss from HOI2 > HOI3 is the trading system.

The ability to trade provinces, and to sell off units, especially, for example, my old ships (I quite like being historically accurate in flogging off my old carriers and cruisers to Australia, India, Brazil and the like). Also, one-off trades of supplies, oil, energy etc. Would certainly help those of us who get bogged down in supply-less situations when liberating smaller countries.

Oh, and also, add basically *everything* from Diday's I.C.E.

A USB connection directly to my brain that would take my military genius and immediately turn it into orders so that I would not need to spend so much time going back on forth through all the menus.

Badger67 said:

Point 4. This is something that is getting more annoying the more I play. Artillery brigades & artillery attached to Corps or Army HQ's should not have to advance into the province they attack. They should be able to BOMBARD the living hell out of a niegbouring province and stay out of the way of the assaulting forces.

Point 5. That would be a beautiful thing to see...a fluid frontline and it could and a surround unit could have a "sphere" of influence to determine how much ground it would control.

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On 4: Artillery, due to the range, must be in the same province to shoot. This is operational level stuff not tactical hiding behind a hill. With the exception of monster guns (which were very few), normal artillery was ranged around 30KM which would put in in the same province as the maneuver units. I would agree that the program should do a better job at protecting the artillery when an engagement is fought if there is sufficient front line protection. But keep in mind that artillery is also vulnerable to counter-battery fires from the enemy artillery. In general, the algorithms in HOI3 seem to work pretty well in this regard.

On 5: Once again, this is not a tactical battle. Computer power for the average user is not sufficient to process that level of detail (like you get in first person shooters) for a Global War. So the province as the battle ground is a good estimation.

knippk said:

On 4: Artillery, due to the range, must be in the same province to shoot. This is operational level stuff not tactical hiding behind a hill. With the exception of monster guns (which were very few), normal artillery was ranged around 30KM which would put in in the same province as the maneuver units. I would agree that the program should do a better job at protecting the artillery when an engagement is fought if there is sufficient front line protection. But keep in mind that artillery is also vulnerable to counter-battery fires from the enemy artillery. In general, the algorithms in HOI3 seem to work pretty well in this regard.

On 5: Once again, this is not a tactical battle. Computer power for the average user is not sufficient to process that level of detail (like you get in first person shooters) for a Global War. So the province as the battle ground is a good estimation.

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to be more persise ~15km for average pieces. the guns with range >25km were usually <100 in entire armed forses of any country.(for example SU only had BR2, 26 (afaik)in entire red army, 41year).