HOI 4: What do you want to see?

[Bsharp]

then explain me where the neccessary cpu power should come from? apparently you have no idea what it would take to calculate your request. the gain in cpu power is more and more slowing down since the limits of physic are reached. more is not possible without completely new architecture. using muliticore cpus is just a way to disguise that but you can't do that indefinitely.
believe me it wont happen within the next 30 or 50 years if at all.

No offense intended, but I don't think you have much expertise in the realm of computer science. The capabilities Owsik is proposing are easily within the capabilities of today's technology with your current computer. As with all other ideas for how the game could be better, players should focus on debating whether or not changes would make the game better and leave discussions about 'how' to the professionals.

[Buggsy]

without the arrival of home quatum computers a game with such a fine grid covering the whole world is nonsense.

Quantum computers huh. Or Star Trek computers, theyz really fast. I be the Borg could do it better. My daddy who's a computer maker said that....

[Swertinge]

nope, wont work. GPUs are to different and would cause errors (rounding errors if i remember correctly). somewhere is a post from a dev explaining it further.

Others have been able to use the GPU...

But, as I said before, perhaps we should deemand a working HOI3 before we ask for HOI4?
The AI is stil using ARM to hold the rear, rear, rear and sends MPs forward to fight... *sigh*

[1alexey]

Pretty much all nations had many more problems with "reinforcing" armoured formations than infantry divs. The maintenance and general logistical costs of tanks were a pain in the ass because of high probability of mechanical breakdowns and high requirements for spare parts and ammunition. I won't even mention the fact that tanks were usually used alongside infantry, so unlike in case of infantry divs, you needed BOTH guns and tanks and BOTH trained infantrymen and tank crewmen. Naturally, it was easier to reinforce an existing division than to create a new one, but nevertheless, armoured divs shouldn't be cheap to maintain.

->If your tank/airplane reserves are out and you didn't keep assembly lines running, bad luck for you since a these things can take months to build.
->creating a tank takes 2-5 days. so very close to reality. Even stuff like Tiger took less than week to finish. Planes even faster.
->THAY ARE EXPENSIVE TO MAINTAIN AND THAY PROBABLY BREAK!

So your point is exactly what?
it is very fast to replase tanks in general. Problems come when you loose more than you can produce for same time period.
Humans are other story, but it is easy to replace loader, harder to replace a radioman, while Gunner and driver can take long. Comander?-just bump the "expiriensed" tanker.

[Cybvep]

I responded to your quote. My point is that armoured divs should be much harder to reinforce than infantry divs and should be a big logistical strain. They should also suffer higher attrition losses than infantry, because of prevalence of mechanical breakdowns. Naturally, it's the equipment that is broken, so they shouldn't suffer so much MP losses. Thus the age-old postulate of separating men and material

[Danmark Rising]

Hi silenced,
as I wrote in earlier post in this thread it was:
"War in Russia" from Gary Grigsby.
There is a free Matrix Games version for DL and also screenshots of that old graphics..
One can clearly guess the hexes behind the map if you look on the screenshots. But it is not shown to the player and teritory is claimed even in neighbouring area (not seen hexes) based on the unit strength. So you have a frontline even without units placed next to each other. The handbook describes also something about that topic IIRC..

Best regards,
Chromos

War in Russia is not a "provenceless" game. It is not an open map game. The hexes limit movement just as provinces do in HOI. One of the primary reasons for the existence of the provinces in HOI is to provide some sort of reference system for the measurement of movement. There has never been a computer war game without it as the computer has to have some sort of frame of reference. Some games are far better at hiding it that others but it always still exists. Even in Owsik's example of the placement of woods in Prussia uses a set of points that would have to be plotted on the map thus creating a grid or hex system, which means that it's not an open map. You can argue about how fine the grid should be to better simulate an "open map" but there is no possible way to create a truly open map with today's computers. Even advanced mapping programs like that used by Google Earth and Bing use grid systems as it is the only way to plot objects within a computer model.

[Chromos]

OK.
As some people seem not to read what is written and in this regard it is adressed to me serveral times..

I will use this post for a hopefully really last answer on that topic.
I just don't like it if others imply things on me. Makes me really sad somehow..
I did the work for some of you and repost myself..

Well it is all "only" about how it will look in the game after all.
Provinceless would not be "without provinces", or better underlying grid, but just not shown to the player.
The AI would still have to know wich places are wood/rivers mountains etc..

I just wanted to point out that the AI need direction if the grid is shown to the player or not. Nothing more. So a provinceless would more mean: "A not shown to the player grid"..
But the calculations underneath/behind are maybe the same/similar as before.
Some games already allow to switch grid on of..
Mostly used by roundbased Hexgrid games.

There is no (big) difference.. Only if we make the grid so small, that the AI had problems to take so much into consideration. But that would need to be already very small IMHO..

Again, the grid(behind!) would be finer but have not to be 1*1km or similar scale.

So you could see that I wrote before several times(!) that you STILL NEED SOMEKIND OF AN UNDERLYING GRID!!
Sometimes I ask myself If some have read my former post at all?

You could also say it is an underlaying PROVINCES-GRID!! Call it whatever you like..

It doesn't matter for that case. THE AI NEEDS THAT ANYWAY!! Even if you have no bigger/smaller"Provinces/Grids" at all you would need Coordinates that would make somekind of Grid.. There is no "true open-map", and nobody was asking for such a thing.

- What is wanted(At least what I would like to have..) is a map without provinces drawn on it.
- Where units have an "area of control" and a movement rate for their type that does not stop at a "prov border" but ends at the game turn(hours for HOI).
- The borders would be shown along that areas of control etc..
- The units would be faster on roads/railways that would be visable on the map(However that would be shown/implemented..) And for that WiR IS a good example as you have Railway lines on wich traveling is much faster possible etc.. Of course it is very "abstracted" and old looking, just because it is already nearly 20 years old..


But even that old WiR did make some things different so that it looks for the player that it has no "Provinces"!
So f.e. your area of control could be ahead of one of your units even further towards an enemy unit. Like say 100 Km ahead of yours but the other unit has the border only 50km ahead of it. Just because the game calculated the strength of the units for that situation, simulates fights along that. And the counter only shows the "center of gravity"/HQ of the units..


It is all that hard to understand? It seems so.
Look at Toral War then, it has for sure somekind of underlying Grid in the bigger Provinces for the movement of the Armies.. Maybe that helps to imagine the whole think better?
The Armies move around in bigger areas and in that areas are coordinates that have f.e. a city. After the unit reaches that city or came in reach, it could besiege the city.. No smaller Provinces shown as the big ones.. And that bigger ones are "only" for a different purpose in the game..


Over and out..

Chromos

[geezafrombrum]

STILL NEED SOMEKIND OF AN UNDERLYING GRID!!

Chromos you seem to know what your talking about so this question is directed at you. Is it feasible to apply this small hidden grid / hexes method to HOI to make it appear free/open map? Although it still has a grid, it is small enough to give you more tactical options.

[Chromos]

Chromos you seem to know what your talking about so this question is directed at you. Is it feasible to apply this small hidden grid / hexes method to HOI to make it appear free/open map? Although it still has a grid, it is small enough to give you more tactical options.

Hi geezafrombrum,

I think it is possible of course.
But maybe more important:
I also think that the effort needed to do it would be to huge for the current engine if you think of the commercial parts that come to play and the gains from doing so.

But for a new engine it could be thought of as a design decison from the start.

For more tactical options you could also use the old provs and just change the combat modell used.
Let's say if a combat occurs the map has an additional layer for combat and the prov is divided into some more smaller ones that allow for some "tactical" decisions.
But for movement from over the map the provs would be used as now.
(IIRC a Division could be up to ~30km in length in marching column..)

In Vicky2 we have already a littel "subprovinces" shown in the combat screen. you can see now the first line and the second one.
Thats pretty "simple" but also already more visual as just watching numbers.

If you could already see some more rows in deep we could have maybe see tank battalions already at the frontline, while Inf is still marching to it. Art in the back is giving fire support and could be outflanked by fast units if not protected.
You would be able to see a breaktrough. and if the prov is fully taken by the enemy.
Also cities could be drawn in an give different modifiers as prov do now.
So in a nowaday HOI3 prov the combat could be still ongoing while a city somewhere in the prov is still hold by the enemy.

That is "only" a mix of Provinces as now and different combat system..
But different design needed. -> new engine..


I also want to point to this old suggestion thread from wyK1NG:
The-second-Doomsday-Booster-Pack-could-look-like-this-

It has also nice ideas.
F.e. that you could design your Divisions with Battalion lvl.
(Please read that below before you answer to this!)
I think of that, as we have now components for the Brigades.
Lets assume that we would have only Divsions(Or better units in general) in the game that are defined trough their components.
So if such a unit has a component that it has Division sized Battalions it would be shown as a Div on the Map. If it has only the components that qualifies for a Brigade, then it would be shown as a Brigade.
If it is build up as a tank Div, the it would be shown as Tank unit..
But the underlying composition of that unit could be different. We would have standard Templates for those who don't play around with that and could make the "grognards" happy that want to play around with their OOB's..
Even the amount on units ingame would be lower as we would only have one entity for each unit shown and not up to 5 for Land Divisions..


Best regards,
Chromos

[Menagin]

Broader choice of ministers. More politics.

[Retkiapina]

I suddenly realized what I'd want to see in the HoI4 the most.

When I start a new game I always have some kind of a rough, usually highly ahistorical, what-if plan like "let's start as USA and try to play along the allied countries as little as possible", "survive the winter war with an all out counter offensive as Finland" or something just as silly. It's often amusing, no matter how bad it might turn out eventually - losing is fun in HoI just as in Dwarf Fortress.

Setting up scenarios like these always requires me to start from 1936 and plan every move ahead carefully. The problem is: it may easily take a week in real time (sadly, I got to work to pay my hobbies) to get everything set up before the real action begins.

What I really wanted is, instead of starting from a certain point of time with a historical setup, let us have an option to start a game from for example 1940 (or any other suitable year before the country gets into the war) with a roughly suitable historical amount of points (IC, MP, LP at least and whatever the rest of them might be... probably some resources etc). Then let us allocate those quickly into something the country in question plausibly might have used them.

No need to micro manage everything, but with a system like this one could for example decide whether his army should consist of infantry + light tanks, marines + medium tanks, no artillery whatsoever or something like that, just pick up preferred technologies and thats about it. Then every unit is placed in the deployment pool and you are set. It's year 1939 and you got a small militia army as Sweden or whatever you happened to desire. You are set to play with no need to waste a few days just to set up the scenario you really wanted.

I know, it's not easy at all to develop a system like this, but it could be implemented in however fine or rough level possible and reasonable. Whatever saves me from grinding a few nights just to set up the scenario I'm really heading for helps a lot!

I'm also aware that players fond of historical accuracy will hate this idea, but I'm a sandbox player and I'm sure there are others as well. ...And I love HoI games because they allow ahistorical sandbox play.

[Cybvep]

I think that you are asking for sth resembling an "Advanced Start" option from Civilization IV. Don't know whether it would work well in HOI, though. CIV games are pure sandbox games, after all. It could be hard to balance it properly. Personally, I think that it's the interface that should be improved, so that everything would be easier to manage and one could play on higher speeds more easily.

[Retkiapina]

Got to agree Cybvep there. Most of my time goes into tweaking around with the trade slide bars once a week just to set up small deals to keep certain countries friendly, making sure that the production don't go wasting IC (why can't the unused IC go automatically into building supplies for example?) and nursing the production and tech queue. If only I'd get through all of that a little bit quicker, I'd do just fine... >:I

[Cybvep]

The devil is in the details. Some small interface features could make the player's life much easier, e.g. the sorting options in the leader assignment screen, a more advanced trade automation system (maybe sth like in DH, but with the ability to prioritise certain countries?) and better slider automation (think AOD). Pop-ups should also be less intrusive (they shouldn't appear in the centre of the screen) and contain less text, but more hard facts (preferably colour-coded and with nice, informative icons, i.e. instead of telling me about the completion of Industrial Capacity in Tokyo, I would like to see an IC icon with green "+1" and the name of the province). You know, the little things

[marcasino]

For all the arguments I would love to see a province-less system. I know it causes issues but they are possible to overcome if time and effort and a little original thinking is used. I know it's a 1 in a 1000 chance of paradox doing it but I know they read this forum so if they read this please at least consider it.

Anyways enough of my little plea. Intelligence needs to be worked on. It doesn't need massive changes just more details. As has been said before, the information should be accessible on the map. The player should also be able to see a suspected OOB and what units they have. This is especially true for ships. If you've had a fight with the Bismark and it got away, your not going to forget it's existence. I think it just boils down to increasing the UI a lot.

[jbarradale]

Things I would like to see.

1. Less History. Events such as Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland NOT automatic. No historical input other than the start of the game and who is what in regards to government types. Allow for leaders and political staff to be unknown in their skills. For a certainty, Hitler would never had given Goring all that power if he knew he was an idiot. And putting Rommel and Guderian into your best units because you "know" they are good, not in real life. Make it unknown/random. Make random events that happen to influence a country towards axis or allies or communist. Patton was not fully realized how good he was until he proved it. Doolittle was ignored before the start of the war and even left the army, but his ideas were right on. The US nuclear research received a very large amount of gain due to many nuclear scientists and chemists being Jewish and fled Europe to get away from the Nazis, one was in Denmark for example. It is not just the skill of your own leaders, also the lack of skill of the enemy, the mistakes they make and just plain events that happen out of anyone's control. Weaver's death in a plane crash ended or crippled the four engine bomber program in Germany as he was the only one pushing it.

2. More random, equipment upgrades. As factories develop new weapons, no one knows if they will work at all until they are tried out. Sometimes the wrong one is picked. The BF109 was good, but the Heinkel version might have been better, it had a better turning ability. Politics can sometimes ruin a good thing.

3. How about recon aircraft to give you info on the military units on your borders?

4. How about airborne and commando missions to destroy road and rail lines? You know, much like D-Day, Fort Eben Emael, Crete.... for example. Or, what the Germans did in the Battle of the Bulge, sent airborne disguised as US MPs to direct traffic in the wrong direction.

5. How about spy missions to destroy factories.

6. How about gaining a tech research by means of espionage?

7. I agree on production, how could you put more ability into producing something when it is at the maximum. If you pay $10.00 for something that takes two days to make, paying the person $20 to get it in the same time frame isn't very smart. A machine running at maximum cannot be given higher current in electricity to force it to go faster and not have go faster, it would just not draw that added electricity and would not use more. You can pour more gas into a gas tank, but that is not going to help if it is already full. I am not sure where some form of asset, could be wasted, or who would do that without orders from some authority. To have the system automatically increase something beyond the maximum knowing it is wasted does not seem to make sense to me.

8. How about recruiting outside resources, such as scientists and engineers?

9. What about the use of neutral ports, is this possible in this game, I have not tried it yet? IE: Graf Spee in the South Atlantic.

10. How about loss of communications with a unit, tell it to go North and it does not get the order because it is out of supply, the courier was shot, or the radio was jammed.....

[T.j. Arnold]

Quite simple: A more aggressive/responsive AI. Even on the highest difficulty, a player as Germany can annex around 3-4 nations without the U.K. declaring war (this is quite ahistoric, I'm referring to skipping Poland altogether).

[plasticpanzers]

I think that provinces broken into hexes would be good for the smaller tactical battles
folks talk about. easier to do encirclements as well. it will distort the map a bit so it
won't have the smooth outlines as now but that is eyecandy and really has little to do
with the movement and combat. Easier to detirimine movement, supply. All map
systems use a point to point calculation using either long/lat, hexes, or points with
a set distance between them with a modifier for terrain/weather.

Improved naval system. Alot of great detail is in it now but is lost in the abstract
manner it is used. No torpedo usage for surface ships (inc in guns?) cags do not
fight cags tho it does say they do on their descriptions when you look at them (at
least they are supposed to fight land based but they don't ever fight other cags).

Needs vastly improved invasion system. small nations and even large ones cannot
do "Normandy" style invasions in 1941 let alone 1939! A serious practical research
must be unlocked and then continued research to allow greater and greater abillty
to conduct landings. Ocean liners do not an invasion make....

Heavy AA should be removed from the map and only be from units created. They
require not only guns but troops to man them, supply them, and protect them. Albert
Speer did mention that the amount of troops and equipement tied up to defend
Germany from Allied air attacks consituted the "Second Front" well before a single
Allied soldier landed in France. Factories should only be ordered to be built a locations
at the start. Not built then dropped where you want. That just darn silly.

Certain ports of an adequate size should be where ships are built. Not build and dropped
where you want them. This makes them vulnerable to bombing or ground attack. They
are not created in thin air and then transported to a port.

Garrison troops should inflict more casualites on attackers when they occupy forts at a
level of 5 or greater. These forts would include their own artillery (Maginot line and large
coastal forts) and also have the possibility to inflict damage on invading ships. Ships in
the invasion causing bombardment should be able also to damage the forts.

Naval units should not be able to repair battleships at dinky level 1 ports like Wake Island
(Imagine them hauling the USS Missouri up on the sand to patch torpedo holes). the level
of the port should detirimine what size ship at max can be repaired. this would force those
ships heavily damaged to return to major ports. ships get repaired to quickly as well. many
damaged were out for months or years but gamewise sometimes only weeks.

Theatres should have multiple commanders. 1 land, 1 air, 1 naval. This would allow 3 different
types of commands so that when you order offensive bombing (strategic) of a certain point chosen
the AI won't assume you want to invade and take the point instead! Orders would be enlarged for
each of the officers to allow for more varied theatre orders for land/sea/air.

Specialized naval engineers for the Allies (there are factual) to open and increase the tonnage you
can bring into a port. I know you can do this in basing but these units should cut the time needed
to increase port size and while based there increase the amount of supply you bring in. Salerno,
Brest, Cherbourg are examples...

Break the formation of divisions into two parts: 3000 man and 1000 man units. The first 3 boxes
are 3000 man only. the last two (the final thru research of superior firepower) can be either 1
3000 man unit or 2 1000 man unit.

[jbarradale]

<<Improved naval system. Alot of great detail is in it now but is lost in the abstract
manner it is used. No torpedo usage for surface ships (inc in guns?) cags do not
fight cags tho it does say they do on their descriptions when you look at them (at
least they are supposed to fight land based but they don't ever fight other cags).>> plasticpanzers

Yes, the advantage of the Japanese "Long Lance" torpedo with much greater range was never countered by other countries. Their night fighting ability with their ships was also not overcome. At Guadalcanal, the sea there was named iron bottom sound for all the US Navy ships sunk there in night battles. They basically owned the slot at night, the US at day. They only way it was overcome, wait until light and bomb the heck out of them with carrier and land based aircraft, such as with the Yamato.

<<Needs vastly improved invasion system. small nations and even large ones cannot
do "Normandy" style invasions in 1941 let alone 1939! A serious practical research
must be unlocked and then continued research to allow greater and greater abillty
to conduct landings. Ocean liners do not an invasion make....>> plasticpanzers

Yes, a transport is insufficient. It is a logistical nightmare. It is not just some simple thing, carry troops to coast, send them ashore.

Yes, lets just invade Greece, get the port and drop a Battleship in the Med. Shipyards have to be built. You can build torpedo boats and landing craft in river areas, but not a Battleship. You have to have the drydock/shipyard that is wide enough for the size of the ship.

<<Naval units should not be able to repair battleships at dinky level 1 ports like Wake Island
(Imagine them hauling the USS Missouri up on the sand to patch torpedo holes). the level
of the port should detirimine what size ship at max can be repaired. this would force those
ships heavily damaged to return to major ports. ships get repaired to quickly as well. many
damaged were out for months or years but gamewise sometimes only weeks.>> plasticpanzers

The crew CAN do minor repairs, like the Graf Spee repaired some of the damage, was not able to get the seaplane fixed though, did not have the parts. But they got jammed turrets back up and running, welded over holes and such. A repair ship like the Altmark could have helped a lot, but again only so far.

[plasticpanzers]

Oh i agree that crews did amazing things. After one battle near Guadalcanal the crew of
a US crusier that had its entire nose blown off by enemy DD torpedos (!!) inc the forward
8in turret built a false bow from palm logs! The thing is tho when damaged in the game
the damage does not get worse after the battle (like in real life when later on ships would
sink due to increasing problems) so that would be "damage control" gamewise. Its that
no port nor repair ship coud put a new bow on that crusier. It would have to go back to
port for a major refit. Same with the BB N.Carolina zapped by a torpedo and got a 20foot
hole, back to a major port after crew did what they could. Just that the smaller the port
the less likely they could repair a larger ship. Just no facilities and there are no repair
ships in the game. you have to increase the port size to get this effect which balances
out to the same. It would take a large base to repair a BB or CV from really bad damage
such as the USS Franklin (CV)