-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
- Status
Leadership could cost money in general. Money could also be used in unit production, upgrading, supply production and reinforcements, i.e. in everything besides the production of consumer goods, but lack of it shouldn't cause production (...) to halt as lack of IC does - it should slow it down. Same in case of research, as in HOI2.I also think the technology should only cost money. I will make money more useful
Currently money is rarely "consumed", it's just reshuffled and you cannot do much with it.
Criticism post of paradox being allowed and New ideas from Customers post
Don't ban or warn customers for negative post embrace them to help improve the game. Listen to your customers don't be closedminded to threads with negative post. Have actual Criticism forum thread added and allowed. Swallow your pride and read and listen. It should have been just improved on in this game Didays mod is closets to Armageddon’s core tree. DidaysMod improved the map better than the vanilla version. Didays Mod needs some improvement but it is much better than paradox vanilla version. Still need to allow allies to us other allied convoies or tranports to move troops. as Old Armageddon allowed and was doen in real life. But supply source must eb your home country not allies when in allied country. USA rifles used 30.06 ammo not UK 303 for example. Allow as in Didays Mod Waffen SS combat units not the guards at the concentration camps they had over 30 Waffen combat divisons by the end of the war. Italian steathly pig or chariot frogman units actual Pocket BB not as CAs as in vanilla version and give them the range the really had they could sail 1/2 way around the world 12,000 miles also merchant raiders. Many other improvements anyone can think of and post that bring more units or realism to the game. Allow for suprise attack but with no limitations as in Didays Mod it must be between June 22 and Sept 1st 1941. Allow it for any Axis at any time on any country not set dates or time frame.
Don't ban or warn customers for negative post embrace them to help improve the game. Listen to your customers don't be closedminded to threads with negative post. Have actual Criticism forum thread added and allowed. Swallow your pride and read and listen. It should have been just improved on in this game Didays mod is closets to Armageddon’s core tree. DidaysMod improved the map better than the vanilla version. Didays Mod needs some improvement but it is much better than paradox vanilla version. Still need to allow allies to us other allied convoies or tranports to move troops. as Old Armageddon allowed and was doen in real life. But supply source must eb your home country not allies when in allied country. USA rifles used 30.06 ammo not UK 303 for example. Allow as in Didays Mod Waffen SS combat units not the guards at the concentration camps they had over 30 Waffen combat divisons by the end of the war. Italian steathly pig or chariot frogman units actual Pocket BB not as CAs as in vanilla version and give them the range the really had they could sail 1/2 way around the world 12,000 miles also merchant raiders. Many other improvements anyone can think of and post that bring more units or realism to the game. Allow for suprise attack but with no limitations as in Didays Mod it must be between June 22 and Sept 1st 1941. Allow it for any Axis at any time on any country not set dates or time frame.
Quote Originally Posted by js111410 View Post
I also think the technology should only cost money. I will make money more useful
Cybvep /Leadership could cost money in general. Money could also be used in unit production, upgrading, supply production and reinforcements, i.e. in everything besides the production of consumer goods, but lack of it shouldn't cause production (...) to halt as lack of IC does - it should slow it down. Same in case of research, as in HOI2.
Currently money is rarely "consumed", it's just reshuffled and you cannot do much with it.
I agree, money needs more uses and should be more useful.
I also think the technology should only cost money. I will make money more useful
Cybvep /Leadership could cost money in general. Money could also be used in unit production, upgrading, supply production and reinforcements, i.e. in everything besides the production of consumer goods, but lack of it shouldn't cause production (...) to halt as lack of IC does - it should slow it down. Same in case of research, as in HOI2.
Currently money is rarely "consumed", it's just reshuffled and you cannot do much with it.
I agree, money needs more uses and should be more useful.
The option to choose the amount of training for each individual unit in production. For example poorly trained infantry to fill units quickly while giving extra training to other units. It kinda sucks to give your infantry cheap training and have your navy and air force suffer for it.
The ability to sort unit commanders by traits. This would make it easier to create a specialized trait unit without taking forever to sort through all the traits.
The option to choose production percentages when building bigger items. For example the ability to build a rocket base at 50% production while having 75% production for transport planes. Another example would be parallel building ten units at 90% so they all finish at same time because you only had the production to produce nine.
The ability to sort unit commanders by traits. This would make it easier to create a specialized trait unit without taking forever to sort through all the traits.
The option to choose production percentages when building bigger items. For example the ability to build a rocket base at 50% production while having 75% production for transport planes. Another example would be parallel building ten units at 90% so they all finish at same time because you only had the production to produce nine.
About the 'slider' idea
I'm a fan of the slider idea, but I think it would be important to consider the following:
Generally, if you track 'squad' sizes progressing through time, you'll find that as technology and tactics improve, "squad" size shrinks. There are exceptions, like 'overstrength' Marine squads and elite units vs. normal units, but the rule is that the more modern the army, the less manpower it demands.
Extrapolated to HOI: Maybe the slider should track the number of elements (squads) involved in the division. For infantry it might be squad size elements, or platoon sized elements, for Artillery it might be a gun, or a battery of guns, and for Armor it might be an individual tank, or a platoon of tanks. Early in the war, the number or amount of manpower that a squad is sized might be larger than later in the war (say 16 men down to 12 men down to 8 men at the extreme possibly, someone could refer to historical TO&E for guidelines). Early in the war an ART Battery might be 16-32 men and later it might be only 10-15 (5 per gun-ish). Early in the war a tank might require a crew of 6 (Brit/Italian) or 5, down to maybe only 3 (like the late war Pz-III's). Thus the way that the manpower pools get used changes with technology as well as size of the army.
So, technology and upgrading of units might have an effect of 'increasing' the manpower pool through efficiency of use, and unit/division strength would fluctuate based on the chosen slider-counts of the country as well.
I'm a fan of the slider idea, but I think it would be important to consider the following:
Generally, if you track 'squad' sizes progressing through time, you'll find that as technology and tactics improve, "squad" size shrinks. There are exceptions, like 'overstrength' Marine squads and elite units vs. normal units, but the rule is that the more modern the army, the less manpower it demands.
Extrapolated to HOI: Maybe the slider should track the number of elements (squads) involved in the division. For infantry it might be squad size elements, or platoon sized elements, for Artillery it might be a gun, or a battery of guns, and for Armor it might be an individual tank, or a platoon of tanks. Early in the war, the number or amount of manpower that a squad is sized might be larger than later in the war (say 16 men down to 12 men down to 8 men at the extreme possibly, someone could refer to historical TO&E for guidelines). Early in the war an ART Battery might be 16-32 men and later it might be only 10-15 (5 per gun-ish). Early in the war a tank might require a crew of 6 (Brit/Italian) or 5, down to maybe only 3 (like the late war Pz-III's). Thus the way that the manpower pools get used changes with technology as well as size of the army.
So, technology and upgrading of units might have an effect of 'increasing' the manpower pool through efficiency of use, and unit/division strength would fluctuate based on the chosen slider-counts of the country as well.
Regarding the 'slider' idea division style management or micro-management
I like the idea of 'slider' division composition, but there is room within the idea to get 'lost in the detail' of how it works. Here's a possible solution:
The problem: A country might have hundreds of divisions in it's TO&E and it could be a ridiculous level of complexity to allow these divisions to be individually composed. There would need to be some form of standardizing the desired 'slider' settings for each given player.
The idea: A template 'setting' not unlike the current Division build pattern in the build queue. A player accesses the build queue screen and has a limited number of 'composition' combinations. The player selects an unused template and assigns the current-technology slider composition desired (16 platoons of INF + 32 Medium ARM + 8 squads of ENG for instance), and then 'saves' that template. The player can then build (or maybe upgrade to) that template.
I suppose that the above idea might also require a 'quick count' of divisions currently configured to the given template, so that 'old' templates can be spotted and updated as the game progresses, and you wouldn't want to do that without understanding how many line-units that might be effected by the change.
The solution: By using "templates", the game can make the unit composition friendly to the player and programmer, AND provide the player the ability to very dynamically alter the division size/composition/structure to match the need in an easier manner. The supply/reinforcement pool would only be always trying to match the 'template' assignments.
I like the idea of 'slider' division composition, but there is room within the idea to get 'lost in the detail' of how it works. Here's a possible solution:
The problem: A country might have hundreds of divisions in it's TO&E and it could be a ridiculous level of complexity to allow these divisions to be individually composed. There would need to be some form of standardizing the desired 'slider' settings for each given player.
The idea: A template 'setting' not unlike the current Division build pattern in the build queue. A player accesses the build queue screen and has a limited number of 'composition' combinations. The player selects an unused template and assigns the current-technology slider composition desired (16 platoons of INF + 32 Medium ARM + 8 squads of ENG for instance), and then 'saves' that template. The player can then build (or maybe upgrade to) that template.
I suppose that the above idea might also require a 'quick count' of divisions currently configured to the given template, so that 'old' templates can be spotted and updated as the game progresses, and you wouldn't want to do that without understanding how many line-units that might be effected by the change.
The solution: By using "templates", the game can make the unit composition friendly to the player and programmer, AND provide the player the ability to very dynamically alter the division size/composition/structure to match the need in an easier manner. The supply/reinforcement pool would only be always trying to match the 'template' assignments.
What I'd like to see in HOI4
Just a note that I've loved HOI since 1, and I love what you gents do!
There was a game I played a very long time ago, called War In Russia (I'm pretty sure about the name). In that game, they had a method for both building war equipment, assigning it to the active units/divisions, dealing with replacements, AND dealing with outdated/obsolete equipment. I would LOVE to see a similar implementation style in HOI, and I think that it would be VERY accurate and fun to model.
By my memory, WIR (War In Russia) had a list of a dozen or more significant historical manufacturers in either country (Germany and Russia), and the location where they were located (not that those locations were ever part of the game-play) for flavor. The very large vehicle werks in Stuttgart for example.
Each factory produced a certain type of war material: bf-109e, Pz-II, Pz-IIIe, Hetzer, etc.... Each factory also produced that single type of material at an ever increasing pace (efficiency of production over time). The factory's product was tracked at a per-piece level, and kept in a 'national pool' for that equipment type. At times you might have a few hundred or thousand of a particular kind of tank or plane as 'spare' or 'replacment available' pool at any given time.
At the "Front", individual divisions would show their compositions in the form of a number of "infantry" brigades (with manpower listed as a by-man number, or "ones"), and attached support brigades in per-piece numbers.
An example: the 51st Division composed of the 331st infantry Brigade (456 of 550), 267th infantry Brigade (401 of 550), the 1st Alpine Brigade (330 of 500), and the 6th Tank Destroyer (PzJ-1b: 45 of 50)
Now the player had limited control, and generally only on the 'material' component. The infantry brigades were pretty much 'fixed' in the game, but if I had a bunch of Marder-II lying around, I could select the 6th Tank Destroyer (above) and tell it to be Marder-II instead of PzJ-1b, and the 45 PzJ-1b would go into my national pool, and then the unit would show Marder-II as it's equipment type and 0 (zero) equipment. Over the next few days and weeks the number of Marder-II in the brigade would climb as the 'replacements' arrived from the national pool, until it reached it's maximum.
The effect in the game was that the player would periodically reassign factories to produce newer type equipment as it became available, but not usually until the factory was a generation behind (so that you didn't lose the efficiency benefits and large numbers of finished pieces), the 'new' stuff generally took a few months to find its way to the front lines, and the 'old' stuff would either get used as replacements or eventually relegated to the sideline units or to the scrap heap (I remember seeing ooodles of old PzJ-1 in my pool one time because I'd forgotten to upgrade a factory one time).
It was fun, and it was fun to see 2000 new Pz-IVH sitting in the pool waiting for a lull in the fighting so that they could be assigned and filter to the front for a new offensive. The same applied to aircraft by the way, where I was producing Do-17z or Ju-88 or Bf-110's, whatever the latest models were, and whatever I needed most in my TO&E.
Ok, Apply it to HOI:
Assume the current build queue, except that instead of building "1" of whatever I've selected, I am building "1 per day" or "1 per week" of that kind of equipment, at a cost of X.XX IC per day, which increases in efficiency the longer that I have it in queue. Maybe that 'equipment' includes Artillery tubes, "88's", Marder-II models, or Pz-V, or Bf109g, or even a 'squad's worth' of infantry small-arms and grenades even. These all get 'stored' in a national pool until it gets united with a manpower amount and shipped off as replacements to battle-worn units or to a new division somewhere, but always through a 'replacement' or 'supply' chain in how it gets there.
Maybe in 1942 I look at my leftover stock of old Pz-II still sitting in my national pool and decide to sell them to Spain or Italy or something. "No men included" Who knows?
Just a note that I've loved HOI since 1, and I love what you gents do!
There was a game I played a very long time ago, called War In Russia (I'm pretty sure about the name). In that game, they had a method for both building war equipment, assigning it to the active units/divisions, dealing with replacements, AND dealing with outdated/obsolete equipment. I would LOVE to see a similar implementation style in HOI, and I think that it would be VERY accurate and fun to model.
By my memory, WIR (War In Russia) had a list of a dozen or more significant historical manufacturers in either country (Germany and Russia), and the location where they were located (not that those locations were ever part of the game-play) for flavor. The very large vehicle werks in Stuttgart for example.
Each factory produced a certain type of war material: bf-109e, Pz-II, Pz-IIIe, Hetzer, etc.... Each factory also produced that single type of material at an ever increasing pace (efficiency of production over time). The factory's product was tracked at a per-piece level, and kept in a 'national pool' for that equipment type. At times you might have a few hundred or thousand of a particular kind of tank or plane as 'spare' or 'replacment available' pool at any given time.
At the "Front", individual divisions would show their compositions in the form of a number of "infantry" brigades (with manpower listed as a by-man number, or "ones"), and attached support brigades in per-piece numbers.
An example: the 51st Division composed of the 331st infantry Brigade (456 of 550), 267th infantry Brigade (401 of 550), the 1st Alpine Brigade (330 of 500), and the 6th Tank Destroyer (PzJ-1b: 45 of 50)
Now the player had limited control, and generally only on the 'material' component. The infantry brigades were pretty much 'fixed' in the game, but if I had a bunch of Marder-II lying around, I could select the 6th Tank Destroyer (above) and tell it to be Marder-II instead of PzJ-1b, and the 45 PzJ-1b would go into my national pool, and then the unit would show Marder-II as it's equipment type and 0 (zero) equipment. Over the next few days and weeks the number of Marder-II in the brigade would climb as the 'replacements' arrived from the national pool, until it reached it's maximum.
The effect in the game was that the player would periodically reassign factories to produce newer type equipment as it became available, but not usually until the factory was a generation behind (so that you didn't lose the efficiency benefits and large numbers of finished pieces), the 'new' stuff generally took a few months to find its way to the front lines, and the 'old' stuff would either get used as replacements or eventually relegated to the sideline units or to the scrap heap (I remember seeing ooodles of old PzJ-1 in my pool one time because I'd forgotten to upgrade a factory one time).
It was fun, and it was fun to see 2000 new Pz-IVH sitting in the pool waiting for a lull in the fighting so that they could be assigned and filter to the front for a new offensive. The same applied to aircraft by the way, where I was producing Do-17z or Ju-88 or Bf-110's, whatever the latest models were, and whatever I needed most in my TO&E.
Ok, Apply it to HOI:
Assume the current build queue, except that instead of building "1" of whatever I've selected, I am building "1 per day" or "1 per week" of that kind of equipment, at a cost of X.XX IC per day, which increases in efficiency the longer that I have it in queue. Maybe that 'equipment' includes Artillery tubes, "88's", Marder-II models, or Pz-V, or Bf109g, or even a 'squad's worth' of infantry small-arms and grenades even. These all get 'stored' in a national pool until it gets united with a manpower amount and shipped off as replacements to battle-worn units or to a new division somewhere, but always through a 'replacement' or 'supply' chain in how it gets there.
Maybe in 1942 I look at my leftover stock of old Pz-II still sitting in my national pool and decide to sell them to Spain or Italy or something. "No men included" Who knows?
hearts of iron has made already 3 games of ww2,perhaps its time to start a little later..
perhaps the cold war including vietnam,korea,the berlin wall and the political tensions in the period.
even with the possibility of a ww3 so players gotta watch there moves if they want to avoid another world war
and about he hexless terrain how do divisions gotta be shown (i didnt read the whole forum thats too much reading)
you can also directly include the modern time including middle east wars and the revolutions at tunesia,egypt,libya and the other contries and the economical crisis of course causing lots of dissent.
and being able to play the future..
by the way im not good with forums do not excpect too much reaction(this is my second post ever made)
perhaps the cold war including vietnam,korea,the berlin wall and the political tensions in the period.
even with the possibility of a ww3 so players gotta watch there moves if they want to avoid another world war
and about he hexless terrain how do divisions gotta be shown (i didnt read the whole forum thats too much reading
)you can also directly include the modern time including middle east wars and the revolutions at tunesia,egypt,libya and the other contries and the economical crisis of course causing lots of dissent.
and being able to play the future..
by the way im not good with forums do not excpect too much reaction
(this is my second post ever made)Thanks for the +1 on my posts, Rummy. I've been sitting on the War In Russia comment since HOI2, and I'm pleased as punch to see a "what do you want in HOI4" thread to inject it *finally*
I hope that the developers think +1 too, I guess we'll see soon enough. Cheers!
I hope that the developers think +1 too, I guess we'll see soon enough. Cheers!
This is basically what I would like to see aswell. I have two main reasons:
1.) HoI fails to model how hard it is to produce enough reinforcements for losing thousands of tanks/airplanes in a high intensive war scenario. You never need to take a "strategic" pause in HoI to let your Industry catch up and rearm the airwings or tank divisions. Reinforcements are cheap and start arriving right away.
2.) HoI fails to model that you need to choose between fielding new units and reinforcing your old ones when you are limited by equipment. You just switch 10IC to reinforcements and its "fixed" no matter how strained the factories would be to churn out tanks/airplanes in a real scenario.
As a continuation for that same idea training combat units should no longer include a high IC cost, just a list of Material needed in the pool and a selection for how long you want them to train together before ready. Longer training = high cost off leadership, supplies and fuel but more xp/org perhaps. In some cases you might even need to cancel unit training to free up enough replacement equipment for your battered divisions in the field after unexpected heavy combat, filling the pool again would just take too long leaving them vulnerable.
Though choices like this is what HoI production should be about.
If production was also tied to specific areas or provinces specific production lines could then be revealed by spies and targeted by bombers. An air offensive might be complemented by a focused bombing campain against the enemies airplane factories in an effort to not let the airforce recover. Or land offensives could threaten the geared up assembly lines forcing them to be moved far away with lost production as a result.
Last edited:
Very true. Replacing tanks is a whole different thing than reinforcing infantry.
Regarding the obsolete divs, in HOI3 it's quite easy to have a fully modern army, but it's much more realistic in Darkest Hour. It's not uncommon to have hundreds of IC needed for upgrades in this game and usually you have to choose between more troops with more obsolete equipment or fewer troops but with more modern equipment. I'm quite happy with it.
I would welcome the equipment pool feature with open hands as long as it wouldn't be micromanagement nightmare and the AI could handle it properly. Ideally, the system should be more or less automatic, so the player would focus on strategic choices, not micromanagement.
Also the option to choose a percentage for each research. Giving the option to kinda prioritize the research from "need it now" being 100% and "I will get to it eventually" giving it say a 25% effect. I think something to this effect could greatly help countries with reduced research ability. For example being able to put 25% in a theory.
Factories and money to replace IC
In regards to everyone’s dislike of being able to immediately start producing reinforcements of things like tanks/aircraft to replace combat losses for a simple adjustment to IC, I’d like to get rid of IC and propose the following idea for the developers. It’s long but I think it’s definitely worth the read and a great idea (much more realistic and certainly would create a refreshing change from the boring same old IC we’ve had ever since HoI1).
There will not be IC, instead ‘money’ will be the driving factor and be based on the size of your national manpower (only national/core territories will provide 100%, and conquered territories will only add a much smaller percentage of their base manpower to you), and for the normal sliders that we spend IC on in HoI3, money can only be spent on running ‘factories’, ‘supplies’ and ‘resource/unit trading’. The amount of money you get from the size of your manpower could depend on your government type (Eg, Fascist, Communist, Democratic etc), and/or the 'laws' you choose, only having half of the infrastructure level in a province could half the amount of money you get from the manpower in that province, or Colonial territories have lower manpower to money ratio's, (very long) researchable economic money conversion etc (and some countries start with higher ones than others, and its takes too much leadership and time to bother researching). Theres so many possibilities to fairly and realistically alter this.
To simulate a country going to war and requiring less consumer resources, the change of ‘laws’ in your diplomacy tab, can simply multiply the current money being earned by your economy by an appropriate percentage. Problem solved and one less frustrating slider to worry about (Consumer goods).
The ‘Reinforcements’ slider will be deleted and now taken care of with the manpower/recruit pool (explained below, as reinforcements are automatically taken out of your recruits pool). For any researched 'unit upgrades', the costs will automatically be deducted from ‘supplies’ at your capital (regardless of where the units are) so there is another slider gone.
The sliders of production, supplies, resource trading (a new one) can be prioritised in order of importance, and the good thing about this, is that you only spend as much as you want to and there is no waste, as any money not spent is not taken from your money total. Unlike IC, where if you don’t use it all, its wasted.
My concept essentially involves scraping IC and instead using purpose built factories to produce units of a certain type Eg an 'Armour factory' can only build light/medium/heavy tanks, self propelled artillery, light/medium/heavy tank destroyers etc. And that these factories would build a certain number of one particular unit on a daily basis, which are then added to the deployment pool for that type of unit. To reduce the micromanagement nightmare, there would actually be very few factories and once you choose a particular production item, you don’t ever have to go to that factory again unless you want to change the type of unit being produced. Eg Germany might only have 4 provinces with armour factories, 6 with aircraft factories, 5 artillery/at/aa factories, 3 truck/halftrack factories etc. Of these however, the factories could differ in size so a level 9 tank factory in say Berlin could make 6 Panther tanks a day compared to a level 3 tank factory in Essen that would only make 2 Panther tanks a day etc.
Factories are for production and will be built in the current manner of HoI3 where you click on a province and in the details tab to lower left of screen, and instead of IC it has manpower and factories (specific types). The amount of Manpower and infrastructure within, determines how many people can work and generate you money efficiently. If you bomb the infrastructure the money from that province will decrease. In addition choosing to bomb factories instead of infrastructure will decrease production rates to be the same % as damage percentage Eg 40% damage to factories in a province will see them only making 18 Tiger tanks a month instead of 30.
Choosing to build a factory will cost you a certain amount of money and manpower for approximately 4 months to build. For each factory you possess, it will cost you a set amount of money each day, unless you mothball it (then it will not cost anything). Each factory will have a start up time before units from the factory will be added to the appropriate unit pool, which is to represent that once you start production of an item, you can’t start pumping the new unit out the very next day, and represents the build time for each type of item being built (some units like Tigers or fighter planes could be assembled in a matter of days or a week, but people forget that it took weeks to adjust/setup the tools to build the engines/electrical components etc, and then transport it all to the one place before assembly even took place). Eg for an aircraft factory it may take 50 days to start and complete a fighter, and off the continuous production line it can complete 60 per month (2 per every day after that). So for a aircraft factory in continuous production, by day 51 just two fighters will have been built, but by day 61 twenty fighters will have been built, by day 81 sixty fighters and so on.
Tied into my other idea of having sliders to adjust a division’s composition that moves in brigades sized increments. There will also be an ability/slider to only release units of a particular type from the completed production/deployment pool to the front line units to replace combat losses (of that identical type of unit in divisions) if the number of units in the completed production/deployment pool is above ‘x’ amount (which enables you to build up/construct a division and not be frustratingly one or two units short and necessary for a new brigade to be deployed).
Switching Production lines
For factories that have been mothballed, their start up time, will not be reset or start from 0% again as long as they are continuing the exact same production item (it will simply pick up where it left off).
If you want to change the unit being produced from a factory, then two things could happen. If you are building a unit similar to what’s already being made, Eg switching from Panthers to JagdPanthers (tank destroyers), or from a Pz3 to Hetzer (because they share the same chassis), then the start up time to start producing the new unit type will be halved. If however it’s a complete change like stop making Me109’s to produce Stukas or Panzer 4’s to instead make Panthers, then the factory will need to be retooled and the start up will be from 0 again. All theoretically uncompleted items in a factory that changes production will simply be scrapped (but the raw materials consumed in the start up time will be refunded).
The costs of running each factory every day will prevent people from being able to spam them; in addition each type of factory will consume resources Eg steel, energy, rubber etc.
If you click on the factories button for that province, it will bring up a screen where you can build factories for the following
Armour (includes tank destroyers, self propelled artillery), Artillery (includes AT/AA & artillery rockets), aircraft, rockets, trucks/halftracks, Shipyard, sub pen, synthetic fuel, synthetic rubber & academy’s.
Units produced from your factories will be updated daily into your production pools.
Once you click on the factories tab within a specific province, you can select the type of units you would like it to produce. Eg, for an aircraft factory you can only select one of, interceptors, multi-role fighters, jet fighters, close air support aircraft, naval bombers, medium bombers or heavy bombers (it will also show how much of each type of unit that the factory will produce a month). The option to produce each type of unit will only be the latest researched type for that category. Eg for interceptors, if you have researched Fock Wulf 190’s you can’t start a new build order of the old Me109’s. Although if a factory is still making Me109’s when the new Fock Wulfs are researched, you can continue to make the Me109’s indefinitely (but the moment you switch production to something else that factory will only be able to make interceptors that are Fock Wulf 190’s).
There will also be a factories tab from the main screen which will bring up a summary page of your factories, with more tabs for the different types. Eg it will show the costs of your factories, what items are being produced, and how many a month in total, and how many you have completed in the production pool. In addition it will also allow you to change the units being produced at each specific factory if you wish.
In addition there can be graphs showing you how many units of each type have been produced over the last 6 months (maybe also show you how many are lost as a result of strategic bombing or convoy losses carrying replacements/reinforcements), as well as the amounts destroyed in battles, and a prediction of what future production amounts will be.
Aircraft wouldn’t take very long at all to form into air fleets (probably 100 aircraft per squad) which unlike a division doesn’t need cohesive building. So once 100 planes is reached a squad could be deployed immediately, and it will automatically start to train the pilots in their new aircraft, and they will be able to reach say a maximum of 10% experience over a period of say two weeks.
Once you have taken a factory from the enemy, whether by capture, or they surrendered, all of the factories in the province/country will be destroyed. If you force an enemy to surrender then you will gain a portion of their trucks into your army. Eg Germany defeating France, 20% of all the French trucks at the time will be added to Germany’s truck pool. Could do the same for tanks and have a battalions created, Eg have one or two battalions of French Char tanks created and deployed in Paris for the Germans to control (auto deploy at the defeated enemies capital city). For the Germans they could also have a special modifier for the Anchluss of Austria and annexation of Checzslovakia where they get ALL of their trucks, tanks and factories etc.
Upgrades
When a new research tender has been granted, Eg Panthers have been researched, then in the tick box that comes up, you will be given a choice to either immediately discontinue the currently produced medium tanks (presumably Pz4), OR to complete just enough to be able to form a brigade in your deployment pool OR continue production to create enough battalions of Pz4’s to meet your current division build orders and then switch OR simply continue with the Pz 4’s until you adjust each tank factory production item at a later date.
Once you complete research to a module for existing units, it will take a set amount of time to upgrade the modules like it currently does in HoI3 (cannot upgrade a type of unit though! Only individual modules on a type of unit, Eg cannot upgrade Panzer 4’s to Panthers, though you can upgrade say the armour on Panzer 4’s with side skirts or change the gun armament from a 50mm cannon to the 75mm etc). The cost of the upgrades will be determined by calculating the entire amount of units the country currently has in divisions and in the completed production pool (not including units being constructed) and multiplied by a behind the scenes cost for each particular module researched, and the cost will be immediately subtracted from your supplies. The upgrade time will begin immediately and be the same globally for every unit (for a total estimate the amount of time will be approximately two weeks). For any battalions of the unit in question is deployed before the two weeks has finished, then they will still have the un-upgraded unit type and have the same percentage ratio as all the others of the same unit. For units produced as of the next day the research has been completed, they will not incur any additional supply costs (for simplicity sake).
Naval Production
For naval units, submarines will be like aircraft and will be made up of 10 subs per squadron. Destroyers will have 5 per squadron.
For all shipyards, their total value is added together into a total shipbuilding capacity pool, which will be just like IC in HoI3. Each specific squadron/ship will take a certain amount of points and time to build (like in the HoI3 production queue). Money and material resources (metal/rares/rubber) will be consumed by the shipyards depending on the amount of Naval IC points being used. Any unused IC simply goes unused and does not cost anything.
Once built ships can be deployed at any port (connected to the capital), however submarines and destroyers will be allocated into a pool similar to tanks. Where once there’s enough to form a squadron you can also deploy them at any port, although if/when they incur losses, they will need replacements from the pool of completed units. Subpens will be treated in the same manner as shipyards, but obviously only able to contribute points to making subs, not surface ships. In addition though, each sub pen in a province will provide 100% protection for one sub squadron from enemy air/bombing port attacks.
The reason for this is to represent the fact that ships took about the same amount of time to build, however to build a battleship and a light cruiser at separate shipyards for the same amount of in game factory cost, does not accurately portray the appropriate amount of materials each factory would have consumed to make their ship. In addition in multiplayer, people would forever just be raiding each other’s lightly defended ports in the attempt to destroy the factories there and reset the production of capital ships that could have been in the making for over a year. It could be a game breaking nuisance to have to leave sizeable forces in each port.
Militias
One of my previously mentioned ideas would be to make it so that there is a national manpower pool.
The larger your manpower pool, the more money you get as they are working in the economy.
From this you can set laws regarding drafts which will alter the percentage of men taken from the available manpower pool and after a period of 100 days will turn them into raw recruits.
From the production menu, you can then immediately form divisions together with raw recruits and items (artillery/tanks etc) that has been completed and sitting in your production/deployment pool. You can then immediately deploy the division, and will start to improve its organization. For Militia units however, that would take men straight out of the national manpower pool (not the recruits pool), and this unit would take a few weeks to assemble before it can be deployed (Could also make it possible to deploy militia units at a special Theatre HQ, like the British training natives in India etc).
Academies
However for units like Paratroopers, Marines, Mountaineers, these will be built at academy’s in the same manner as shipyards/submarines. Where a academy will grant a specific amount of IC to the production of specialist units and it will take men from the raw recruits pool and over another period of say 1 or 2 months create a specialist brigade. For each specific amount of IC being used for production by your academy’s, it will cost you a small amount of either money or supplies. The costs incurred to train a brigade along with a very lengthy build time to create academy’s will help prevent people from spamming specialist units (countries like Britain, Germany etc will start the game with one or two). Could also make it so that Academy’s also help add to your leadership pool for research (of doctrine techs) and officer training etc. (hopefully pioneers too, like in my ‘incremental slider of a division composition’ post earlier in this thread). Reinforcements of manpower for specialist divisions, will just come straight from the raw recruit pool, though could consume some supplies to compensate, or even have two sliders for the use of IC for Academys where some can go to new unit production and the rest to reinforcements. In addition with the introduction of Academy’s it would also present the perfect opportunity to introduce specialized training of other units, like training a infantry brigade to be elite or gain combat bonuses in urban/desert/jungle/fortress busting warfare etc. This could be done by selecting the unit, and then right clicking on the province with an academy, and a additional division order can come up (just like how strategic deployment option does) to say specialised training etc. Or like in HoI3 where there is the option to upgrade a unit, it takes it off the map and sits in the Academy production screen whilst it does its training, and then is automatically redeployed (just like how compelted brigades when upgraded are).
Despite the lengthy read I still have many more finer details that I could add to the above, but will only do so if there are any questions, as I could go on for a dozen more pages about it.
In regards to everyone’s dislike of being able to immediately start producing reinforcements of things like tanks/aircraft to replace combat losses for a simple adjustment to IC, I’d like to get rid of IC and propose the following idea for the developers. It’s long but I think it’s definitely worth the read and a great idea (much more realistic and certainly would create a refreshing change from the boring same old IC we’ve had ever since HoI1).
There will not be IC, instead ‘money’ will be the driving factor and be based on the size of your national manpower (only national/core territories will provide 100%, and conquered territories will only add a much smaller percentage of their base manpower to you), and for the normal sliders that we spend IC on in HoI3, money can only be spent on running ‘factories’, ‘supplies’ and ‘resource/unit trading’. The amount of money you get from the size of your manpower could depend on your government type (Eg, Fascist, Communist, Democratic etc), and/or the 'laws' you choose, only having half of the infrastructure level in a province could half the amount of money you get from the manpower in that province, or Colonial territories have lower manpower to money ratio's, (very long) researchable economic money conversion etc (and some countries start with higher ones than others, and its takes too much leadership and time to bother researching). Theres so many possibilities to fairly and realistically alter this.
To simulate a country going to war and requiring less consumer resources, the change of ‘laws’ in your diplomacy tab, can simply multiply the current money being earned by your economy by an appropriate percentage. Problem solved and one less frustrating slider to worry about (Consumer goods).
The ‘Reinforcements’ slider will be deleted and now taken care of with the manpower/recruit pool (explained below, as reinforcements are automatically taken out of your recruits pool). For any researched 'unit upgrades', the costs will automatically be deducted from ‘supplies’ at your capital (regardless of where the units are) so there is another slider gone.
The sliders of production, supplies, resource trading (a new one) can be prioritised in order of importance, and the good thing about this, is that you only spend as much as you want to and there is no waste, as any money not spent is not taken from your money total. Unlike IC, where if you don’t use it all, its wasted.
My concept essentially involves scraping IC and instead using purpose built factories to produce units of a certain type Eg an 'Armour factory' can only build light/medium/heavy tanks, self propelled artillery, light/medium/heavy tank destroyers etc. And that these factories would build a certain number of one particular unit on a daily basis, which are then added to the deployment pool for that type of unit. To reduce the micromanagement nightmare, there would actually be very few factories and once you choose a particular production item, you don’t ever have to go to that factory again unless you want to change the type of unit being produced. Eg Germany might only have 4 provinces with armour factories, 6 with aircraft factories, 5 artillery/at/aa factories, 3 truck/halftrack factories etc. Of these however, the factories could differ in size so a level 9 tank factory in say Berlin could make 6 Panther tanks a day compared to a level 3 tank factory in Essen that would only make 2 Panther tanks a day etc.
Factories are for production and will be built in the current manner of HoI3 where you click on a province and in the details tab to lower left of screen, and instead of IC it has manpower and factories (specific types). The amount of Manpower and infrastructure within, determines how many people can work and generate you money efficiently. If you bomb the infrastructure the money from that province will decrease. In addition choosing to bomb factories instead of infrastructure will decrease production rates to be the same % as damage percentage Eg 40% damage to factories in a province will see them only making 18 Tiger tanks a month instead of 30.
Choosing to build a factory will cost you a certain amount of money and manpower for approximately 4 months to build. For each factory you possess, it will cost you a set amount of money each day, unless you mothball it (then it will not cost anything). Each factory will have a start up time before units from the factory will be added to the appropriate unit pool, which is to represent that once you start production of an item, you can’t start pumping the new unit out the very next day, and represents the build time for each type of item being built (some units like Tigers or fighter planes could be assembled in a matter of days or a week, but people forget that it took weeks to adjust/setup the tools to build the engines/electrical components etc, and then transport it all to the one place before assembly even took place). Eg for an aircraft factory it may take 50 days to start and complete a fighter, and off the continuous production line it can complete 60 per month (2 per every day after that). So for a aircraft factory in continuous production, by day 51 just two fighters will have been built, but by day 61 twenty fighters will have been built, by day 81 sixty fighters and so on.
Tied into my other idea of having sliders to adjust a division’s composition that moves in brigades sized increments. There will also be an ability/slider to only release units of a particular type from the completed production/deployment pool to the front line units to replace combat losses (of that identical type of unit in divisions) if the number of units in the completed production/deployment pool is above ‘x’ amount (which enables you to build up/construct a division and not be frustratingly one or two units short and necessary for a new brigade to be deployed).
Switching Production lines
For factories that have been mothballed, their start up time, will not be reset or start from 0% again as long as they are continuing the exact same production item (it will simply pick up where it left off).
If you want to change the unit being produced from a factory, then two things could happen. If you are building a unit similar to what’s already being made, Eg switching from Panthers to JagdPanthers (tank destroyers), or from a Pz3 to Hetzer (because they share the same chassis), then the start up time to start producing the new unit type will be halved. If however it’s a complete change like stop making Me109’s to produce Stukas or Panzer 4’s to instead make Panthers, then the factory will need to be retooled and the start up will be from 0 again. All theoretically uncompleted items in a factory that changes production will simply be scrapped (but the raw materials consumed in the start up time will be refunded).
The costs of running each factory every day will prevent people from being able to spam them; in addition each type of factory will consume resources Eg steel, energy, rubber etc.
If you click on the factories button for that province, it will bring up a screen where you can build factories for the following
Armour (includes tank destroyers, self propelled artillery), Artillery (includes AT/AA & artillery rockets), aircraft, rockets, trucks/halftracks, Shipyard, sub pen, synthetic fuel, synthetic rubber & academy’s.
Units produced from your factories will be updated daily into your production pools.
Once you click on the factories tab within a specific province, you can select the type of units you would like it to produce. Eg, for an aircraft factory you can only select one of, interceptors, multi-role fighters, jet fighters, close air support aircraft, naval bombers, medium bombers or heavy bombers (it will also show how much of each type of unit that the factory will produce a month). The option to produce each type of unit will only be the latest researched type for that category. Eg for interceptors, if you have researched Fock Wulf 190’s you can’t start a new build order of the old Me109’s. Although if a factory is still making Me109’s when the new Fock Wulfs are researched, you can continue to make the Me109’s indefinitely (but the moment you switch production to something else that factory will only be able to make interceptors that are Fock Wulf 190’s).
There will also be a factories tab from the main screen which will bring up a summary page of your factories, with more tabs for the different types. Eg it will show the costs of your factories, what items are being produced, and how many a month in total, and how many you have completed in the production pool. In addition it will also allow you to change the units being produced at each specific factory if you wish.
In addition there can be graphs showing you how many units of each type have been produced over the last 6 months (maybe also show you how many are lost as a result of strategic bombing or convoy losses carrying replacements/reinforcements), as well as the amounts destroyed in battles, and a prediction of what future production amounts will be.
Aircraft wouldn’t take very long at all to form into air fleets (probably 100 aircraft per squad) which unlike a division doesn’t need cohesive building. So once 100 planes is reached a squad could be deployed immediately, and it will automatically start to train the pilots in their new aircraft, and they will be able to reach say a maximum of 10% experience over a period of say two weeks.
Once you have taken a factory from the enemy, whether by capture, or they surrendered, all of the factories in the province/country will be destroyed. If you force an enemy to surrender then you will gain a portion of their trucks into your army. Eg Germany defeating France, 20% of all the French trucks at the time will be added to Germany’s truck pool. Could do the same for tanks and have a battalions created, Eg have one or two battalions of French Char tanks created and deployed in Paris for the Germans to control (auto deploy at the defeated enemies capital city). For the Germans they could also have a special modifier for the Anchluss of Austria and annexation of Checzslovakia where they get ALL of their trucks, tanks and factories etc.
Upgrades
When a new research tender has been granted, Eg Panthers have been researched, then in the tick box that comes up, you will be given a choice to either immediately discontinue the currently produced medium tanks (presumably Pz4), OR to complete just enough to be able to form a brigade in your deployment pool OR continue production to create enough battalions of Pz4’s to meet your current division build orders and then switch OR simply continue with the Pz 4’s until you adjust each tank factory production item at a later date.
Once you complete research to a module for existing units, it will take a set amount of time to upgrade the modules like it currently does in HoI3 (cannot upgrade a type of unit though! Only individual modules on a type of unit, Eg cannot upgrade Panzer 4’s to Panthers, though you can upgrade say the armour on Panzer 4’s with side skirts or change the gun armament from a 50mm cannon to the 75mm etc). The cost of the upgrades will be determined by calculating the entire amount of units the country currently has in divisions and in the completed production pool (not including units being constructed) and multiplied by a behind the scenes cost for each particular module researched, and the cost will be immediately subtracted from your supplies. The upgrade time will begin immediately and be the same globally for every unit (for a total estimate the amount of time will be approximately two weeks). For any battalions of the unit in question is deployed before the two weeks has finished, then they will still have the un-upgraded unit type and have the same percentage ratio as all the others of the same unit. For units produced as of the next day the research has been completed, they will not incur any additional supply costs (for simplicity sake).
Naval Production
For naval units, submarines will be like aircraft and will be made up of 10 subs per squadron. Destroyers will have 5 per squadron.
For all shipyards, their total value is added together into a total shipbuilding capacity pool, which will be just like IC in HoI3. Each specific squadron/ship will take a certain amount of points and time to build (like in the HoI3 production queue). Money and material resources (metal/rares/rubber) will be consumed by the shipyards depending on the amount of Naval IC points being used. Any unused IC simply goes unused and does not cost anything.
Once built ships can be deployed at any port (connected to the capital), however submarines and destroyers will be allocated into a pool similar to tanks. Where once there’s enough to form a squadron you can also deploy them at any port, although if/when they incur losses, they will need replacements from the pool of completed units. Subpens will be treated in the same manner as shipyards, but obviously only able to contribute points to making subs, not surface ships. In addition though, each sub pen in a province will provide 100% protection for one sub squadron from enemy air/bombing port attacks.
The reason for this is to represent the fact that ships took about the same amount of time to build, however to build a battleship and a light cruiser at separate shipyards for the same amount of in game factory cost, does not accurately portray the appropriate amount of materials each factory would have consumed to make their ship. In addition in multiplayer, people would forever just be raiding each other’s lightly defended ports in the attempt to destroy the factories there and reset the production of capital ships that could have been in the making for over a year. It could be a game breaking nuisance to have to leave sizeable forces in each port.
Militias
One of my previously mentioned ideas would be to make it so that there is a national manpower pool.
The larger your manpower pool, the more money you get as they are working in the economy.
From this you can set laws regarding drafts which will alter the percentage of men taken from the available manpower pool and after a period of 100 days will turn them into raw recruits.
From the production menu, you can then immediately form divisions together with raw recruits and items (artillery/tanks etc) that has been completed and sitting in your production/deployment pool. You can then immediately deploy the division, and will start to improve its organization. For Militia units however, that would take men straight out of the national manpower pool (not the recruits pool), and this unit would take a few weeks to assemble before it can be deployed (Could also make it possible to deploy militia units at a special Theatre HQ, like the British training natives in India etc).
Academies
However for units like Paratroopers, Marines, Mountaineers, these will be built at academy’s in the same manner as shipyards/submarines. Where a academy will grant a specific amount of IC to the production of specialist units and it will take men from the raw recruits pool and over another period of say 1 or 2 months create a specialist brigade. For each specific amount of IC being used for production by your academy’s, it will cost you a small amount of either money or supplies. The costs incurred to train a brigade along with a very lengthy build time to create academy’s will help prevent people from spamming specialist units (countries like Britain, Germany etc will start the game with one or two). Could also make it so that Academy’s also help add to your leadership pool for research (of doctrine techs) and officer training etc. (hopefully pioneers too, like in my ‘incremental slider of a division composition’ post earlier in this thread). Reinforcements of manpower for specialist divisions, will just come straight from the raw recruit pool, though could consume some supplies to compensate, or even have two sliders for the use of IC for Academys where some can go to new unit production and the rest to reinforcements. In addition with the introduction of Academy’s it would also present the perfect opportunity to introduce specialized training of other units, like training a infantry brigade to be elite or gain combat bonuses in urban/desert/jungle/fortress busting warfare etc. This could be done by selecting the unit, and then right clicking on the province with an academy, and a additional division order can come up (just like how strategic deployment option does) to say specialised training etc. Or like in HoI3 where there is the option to upgrade a unit, it takes it off the map and sits in the Academy production screen whilst it does its training, and then is automatically redeployed (just like how compelted brigades when upgraded are).
Despite the lengthy read I still have many more finer details that I could add to the above, but will only do so if there are any questions, as I could go on for a dozen more pages about it.
Last edited:
While some of your ideas are interesting you seem to have negleted the fat that population and the size of the economy are two very different matters. Soviet and China have large populations, comapared to their relative weak economies.
I'm also very sceptical to the "military academies" may pople advocate. I think i is the wrong way to go if you want to abstract military proffesionalism.
Good point, but the amount of money you get from the size of your manpower could depend on your government type (Eg, Fascist, Communist, Democratic etc), and/or the 'laws' you choose, only having half of the infrastructure level in a province could half the amount of money you get from the manpower in that province. Theres so many possibilities to fairly and realistically alter this.
This would be more of a gimmick and just a way for people to get a sense of role playing and ability to customise their army. For multiplayers purposes acadamies, could have a reduced affect etc, as they should be there more just to make the game interesting and more fun (not provide a unfair advantage of any kind).
But still, ths Soviet economy is much larger than the Chinese one, despite the fact that China has a much bigger population and both countries are communistic regimes. And imagine the British Empire, it would just be too strong if economy was a matter of polulatin size and government type only.
I like the approach of dividing manpower into several categories better: unskilled labor MP, skilled labor MP, unskilled (conscripts) soldier MP, skilled (professional) soldier MP, sailor MP and airmen MP
Could possibly make it so that 'colonial territories' for Britain, France, Belgium etc are further reduced for manpower to money ratio etc. As for Russia/China if diplomatic laws and infrastructure conversions isn't enough, have a researchable effeciency (takes literally years to research) and certain countries start with higher levels etc. Theres so many possibilities.
I like that idea better too, but wouldnt know how to implement it (not without writing a 5,000 word essay, which nobody would read).
I remember fondly how much time I wasted on this game. It was excellent, but looking back, thr graphics were horrible.
http://www.wargameacademy.org/cWIR/index.html
http://www.matrixgames.com/Games/warinrussia/credits.asp
There was also Second front, Pacific War, Korean War and a few others.
- Status