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HOI 4: What do you want to see?

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Alex_brunius said:
Three things I wish for that are to complex for any expansions:

- No provinces
Who wants to keep tabs on 15k+ of them anyways? Well I guess a few can be kept for administrative purposes, but HoI4 would be truly unique as the only realtime wargame of this scale if they allowed division movements to anywhere on an open map.

- Separation of strength into men & materials AT guns or Stukas won't kill large amounts of soldiers just like machine-guns won't kill many tanks. A tank division or airwing can be all out of working vehicles even if most men are still alive. Land divisions dependent on vehicles for say movements would perform like normal infantry without enough available.

- Tank/Plane count By producing individual tanks/planes instead there is no distinctions between reinforcements and new units. You suddenly can't go from no production to hundreds per day/week for reinforcements becoming ready instantly. 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.
I'm not asking for hundreds of different units and micromanagement to be added, but some basic abstractions like tanks/trucks/guns/fighters/light bombers/heavy bombers unit counts might be enough for example.
Click to expand...
But you do realize the entire "open map" is just a set of places were division can pe anyway, so still provinces :p
No offence but 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.
 
My last words on this:

20 years ago it was already possible to have a "provinceles" map, but nowaday it is not?

Also HOI3 has no "real" time. Nor is real "real time" needed to simulate a game experience as we have now..(One hour per tick...)

The game design behind, the engine, has to be just a "bit" another as now.

Again, the grid(behind!) would be finer but have not to be 1*1km or similar scale.
We still are writing about "operational/Divisional-size".. So 1*1 Km would be nice, but 5*5 would be enough. :D So only ~36 times more "provinces" if we assume now ~30*30km per Province.. We could even think of the Prov scale now, but do not show them, and use a nice algorithm for the borders between units.. Like 20 years ago.. Or a brand new idea with the "brainpower" of 20 years more computing experience..

If the Devs keep on digging in threaded coding like they already did(great job btw!) we have all the power we need for that already.
Our CPU's are idling most ofthe time now! And that with outdated equipment(!)..
Only when combat occurs the count raises and I don't wrote something about raising the Divisions by ~36 times..
Just the grid below.. Thats more of a memory question than CPU-power imho..
Pathing could be threaded also and limited to areas so nobody has to think of something like a Div has to be "thinking" of the whole world map all the time..
That would be part of the Strat AI. The Units would have only take their surrounding into account.. Threaded..
Again, the same amount of units..

Also there would maybe the need of a bit different game design approach as we have now for production, ressources etc..

The possibilities are already there. If they will be used in that way is another question.

And imho that is more a general game design one as a technical one..

Really, If some can't think of possibilities to achive that goal, I can.
And I know others can too. ;)

And this is for HOI4, so we have even more CPU-power threaded coding etc. when the new engine will be "on the workbench".. I wouldn't wonder if 8 cores will not be ususal then.. 16GB RAM.. ~3 years to go from now..(Next EU4 game based on new engine..)
And we don't know if compilers would even be able to use some of the GPU..

In the end, we are talking about "possibilities" here for an upcomming game..

You could also go down that lvl of individual tanks in a division etc.
The combat system could(!) then be different as it is now. But don't has to.

I see the "restrictions" more in the way the "engine developed" so far.
But maybe the great success of the acutual time allows even more budget for the next engine.
As not all that is theroretical possible is also possible in a "commercial way"..

But I would like to see some of the time spend on the next engine on a provinceless system, as I like it very much.
Also a different production system(produce and training seperated) and some deeper trading and diplomacy system.

:)

Best regards,
Chromos
 
Chromos said:
My last words on this:

20 years ago it was already possible to have a "provinceles" map, but nowaday it is not?
Click to expand...

Hmm ... which was it?
 
silenced said:
Hmm ... which was it?
Click to expand...
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
 
Chromos said:
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
Click to expand...
Could you please recap the difference between hexes and provinces? a part from that there is exactly 6 sides(enters/exits) in the hex.
Also the number of them in than game VS Hoi3.
Also can we have a pic of the pacific theatre there?
Chromos said:
My last words on this:

20 years ago it was already possible to have a "provinceles" map, but nowaday it is not?

Also HOI3 has no "real" time. Nor is real "real time" needed to simulate a game experience as we have now..(One hour per tick...)

The game design behind, the engine, has to be just a "bit" another as now.

Again, the grid(behind!) would be finer but have not to be 1*1km or similar scale.
We still are writing about "operational/Divisional-size".. So 1*1 Km would be nice, but 5*5 would be enough. :D So only ~36 times more "provinces" if we assume now ~30*30km per Province.. We could even think of the Prov scale now, but do not show them, and use a nice algorithm for the borders between units.. Like 20 years ago.. Or a brand new idea with the "brainpower" of 20 years more computing experience..

If the Devs keep on digging in threaded coding like they already did(great job btw!) we have all the power we need for that already.
Our CPU's are idling most ofthe time now! And that with outdated equipment(!)..
Only when combat occurs the count raises and I don't wrote something about raising the Divisions by ~36 times..
Just the grid below.. Thats more of a memory question than CPU-power imho..
Pathing could be threaded also and limited to areas so nobody has to think of something like a Div has to be "thinking" of the whole world map all the time..
That would be part of the Strat AI. The Units would have only take their surrounding into account.. Threaded..
Again, the same amount of units..

Also there would maybe the need of a bit different game design approach as we have now for production, ressources etc..

The possibilities are already there. If they will be used in that way is another question.

And imho that is more a general game design one as a technical one..

Really, If some can't think of possibilities to achive that goal, I can.
And I know others can too. ;)

And this is for HOI4, so we have even more CPU-power threaded coding etc. when the new engine will be "on the workbench".. I wouldn't wonder if 8 cores will not be ususal then.. 16GB RAM.. ~3 years to go from now..(Next EU4 game based on new engine..)
And we don't know if compilers would even be able to use some of the GPU..

In the end, we are talking about "possibilities" here for an upcomming game..

You could also go down that lvl of individual tanks in a division etc.
The combat system could(!) then be different as it is now. But don't has to.

I see the "restrictions" more in the way the "engine developed" so far.
But maybe the great success of the acutual time allows even more budget for the next engine.
As not all that is theroretical possible is also possible in a "commercial way"..

But I would like to see some of the time spend on the next engine on a provinceless system, as I like it very much.
Also a different production system(produce and training seperated) and some deeper trading and diplomacy system.

:)

Best regards,
Chromos
Click to expand...
the scale is different. Very different.

Also your know, everything the computer does is discrete, so the difference in
"real time" and "turn based" is the lenght of turn.

Also continuous map is impossible as such, only discrete mimic of such.

A bit is probably >90%

So we still need provinces(or any other kind of grid) :rofl:
The "border algorithm" is another question:p
Also since the "20 years ago" game had roughly 1/20 the scale of globe, and we need to square the amount of AI calculations and 6-8 times more major AI`s
the AI(and supply) will require ~20*20*8=3200 times the time just for AI.
now the murphey law sugests 656 times the performance. eat it up :D


Also you can be surprised but computers will doubtfully get a huge performance improvement over next years because, well most games are designed for console+PS
and consoles won`t see improvements in performance until the next generation.
 
No offence but 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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
comsubpac said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
comsubpac said:
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.
Click to expand...
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*
 
Last edited:
Cybvep said:
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.
Click to expand...
->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.
 
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 ;)
 
Chromos said:
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
Click to expand...

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.
 
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..

Chromos said:
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..
Click to expand...

Chromos said:
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.
Click to expand...

Chromos said:
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..
Click to expand...

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



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. :confused:
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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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!) :p
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
 
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. :)
 
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.
 
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
 
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 ;)
 
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