World war 1 game Im bored to world war 2 and back to 2D i hate hate 3D
3D models are horrible
3D models are horrible
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Local time/ sunset/ sunrise
I am currently playing Japan and one thing I wish HOI had is a way to look up local time, especially sunrise and sunset. I like to sneak my fleets up to the coast under cover of darkness and begin invading at dawn (to avoid negative combat modifiers). Maybe they could add 'local time' and 'sunset/sunrise' to the province box or the weather map mode for a future version. What do you think?
I am currently playing Japan and one thing I wish HOI had is a way to look up local time, especially sunrise and sunset. I like to sneak my fleets up to the coast under cover of darkness and begin invading at dawn (to avoid negative combat modifiers). Maybe they could add 'local time' and 'sunset/sunrise' to the province box or the weather map mode for a future version. What do you think?
HOI4 will obviously have the Aliens attack around 2012. After they get their green butts handed to them, combat will be in space until we "pay a visit" to their home world and say hello. Then humans will be intergalactic tyrants and we battle on numerous woulds to keep the universe save from.. someone 
Since this thread lives on and probably pre-thought on HOI4 hasn't even begun yet...I'll just let my vocal support to the current map system be known. A fully 3d...or globe type map would be irritating to me as I've become used to the build on a province concept. Going to a global 3d (or 4d?) map would resemble all the other plop and fight games on the market. Aside from that...I'm personally satisfied with a walkman and moon landings so Paradox games are my sliced bread in life.
I wonder, too, what a globe-map would accomplish, exactly. Sure, the projection mix of HoI3 doesnt seem to be ideal, but the EU3 map looks decent (if someone now points out, that they actually use the same map, i´ll blush). That suggestion strikes me as being as pointless as the requests on some Silent Hunter boards were, when people asked for a fully walkable sub to command - it just doesnt add anything gameplay wise and wastes a huge amount of system ressources on neglectable eye-candy. Typical mainstream non-sense IMHO. Since 3D glasses are getting into the hype again, why dont you ask for support for those, while you are at it?
(Dont mean to offend anyone ; it´s just so frustrating to see one franchise after the other going down the drain, because high-frequent popular demands for eye-candy instead of game-content are actually listened to.)
(Dont mean to offend anyone ; it´s just so frustrating to see one franchise after the other going down the drain, because high-frequent popular demands for eye-candy instead of game-content are actually listened to.)
Oh god, I think I might have pee'd myself reading this :rofl:
Seriously, a joke?
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Wishlist for 4: non module stuff
Features that seem at present from my reading to be beyond modules include:
1. Maps - instead of several distinct maps, have just ONE map that is just a grey silhouetted outline of land against a simple pastel blue ocean. Nothing more please, and I mean nothing. No borders, no units, no nothing...
Then provide a battery of add on option check boxes for which a particular sort of thing you want to see, such as terrain, land forces, supply, political status, borders, names of provinces, naval, weather, air, intelligence, etc. These can then be overlaid on top of each other as desired and needed.
No 3D and no flashy gimmicks and no round earth, all quite unnecessary. Province resolution is lovely now, it fits an operational level game.
2. Game Turn Sequence: as a continuous real time turn game, there are some aspects that do not play so well. Most significantly are the grand strategic decisions, such as production choices, technology, diplomacy, politics, etc. A simple way to clarify and simplify the game is to make some decisions limited to monthly turn pauses. Because there SHOULD be a lag between those decisions and their effects, have the turn stop on the 1st of each month and have the changes to production and policy and on only come into effect two weeks later. And with date sensitive acts (like diplomatic actions, declarations of war, etc.) set the action with a date for when it should actually be realized, a date that cannot be less than two weeks in the future.
It seems to add little to the game (and takes much away) to change the industry and leadership investment on an hour by hour basis. Or to decide to declare war and one hour later to have one's tanks crossing the border... Big political changes, like cabinet positions, require at least days if not weeks to realize, and conceiving technological projects requires months (if not years!). Building a factory to start building airplanes also does not start and stop on the hour. Even public opinion does not change that fast! In fact, the only thing that happens on the time scale of less than one month is tactical level military decisions and operational level military implementation (not decisions). Even (or especially!) a declaration of war requires a great deal of preparation, and so it should be initiated at least weeks in advance and set to go off on a certain day. It may have taken only a few weeks for Germany to overrun Poland, and a few hours to attack Pearl Harbor, but it took months of preparation in both cases (during which time, for example, good intelligence could and arguably was used in the case of Pearl Harbor to have the carrier fleet go on manoeuvres). A declaration of war is itself a very big complex political event that involves coordinating media with military with intelligence with so much else, to say nothing of parliamentary vote.
These monthly pauses are not just an opportunity to issue outgoing orders but also to read incoming intelligence, review new generals, baptize new ships, attend a parade of your newest divisions, etc. And from the game point of view, it offers a great spot to stop and watch a little video footage or see a comparison between your game and actual historical events.
3. Change the identity of the team player. Instead of playing a nation, you play a faction within the nation (roughly what is currently called a party). This would greatly enhance how the political aspects of the game could play and make getting into power and keeping power in your nation something you have to fight for and pay attention to. It would also allow for a very interesting alternative history development. And it would limit your available ministers accordingly. Unless you ally or join with another faction in your nation, with all its advantages and disadvantages.
Such a distinction helps to model the real nature of nations, the difference between Nazis and Germans, the sense and nonsenses of the way China was and was not a nation, etc.. For example, the Nazi faction could even have its own "Nazi units" along side the German Wehrmacht. And it would be important perhaps even to use them to shut down the other parties in the post Weimar Republic, and many other possibilities.
4. Seriously overhaul the way the political system (does not) works. Following the above lines, factions should need to contest government control and various sectors of the society. I don't think going to the extreme of Vici is appropriate (and anyway with censorship rules on certain prevalent aspects of the era in effect - I mean now, not then... - I don't think you can identify specific minorities and populations like Vici does). But it should be possible to declare martial law, rig or suspend democratic elections (with appropriate fallout), even if you are America or the UK. It should also be possible to undertake diplomatic relations as a faction (vs. as a nation) with other nations or their factions (as did indeed happen rather a often, and I guess still does...)
So I would suggest something like having factions which fall into the three ideology classification and several contenders in each nation. As a faction, you have a set of policies for ruling that more or less define you (and should be slow and difficult or expensive to change) which you would then seek to realize as the policies of the nation once you are in power. As a faction you have some number of "action points" (probably based significantly on your faction's organization and sponsorship of powerful sectors of the society, such as industry or trade unions, and even foreign nations) with which to act in a variety of ways, including campaigning to increase your popularity, hard tactics to take over various sectors of the society, attack other factions directly, call strikes, counter strikes, or even make a run on the parliament and undertake a coup or initiate a civil war. Besides popularity and organization and a number of action points (which should measure faction funds and active available manpower), factions might have specific control of certain sectors of the society (eg trade unions or the army or the navy or the intelligentsia or industry or the church, etc.) and they might have prevalence in certain regions where they could even raise militias or partisans. And these different sectors could provide diverse advantages of different kinds (like control of the army might see a large part of the army go to your side in the event of a civil war, such as happened in Spain). Seeing conquered nations this way would also provide a much better way of modelling partisan activity (which is absolutely atrocious in the present version of HOI).
Most of what happened leading up to the actual war and even much of the actual war cannot be understood without looking at the inner political life of the many nations, whether in the case of the German experience with Nazi-ism or Japans repeated militant coups or the UK's continued efforts to placate an obvious enemy or the USA's very odd neutrality or Russia's very counter intuitive purges (which then from the point of view of a Stalinist faction make very good sense).
5. Serious overhaul of how and what it means for a nation to surrender or what it means for a nation to be or have borders. Loss of the capital should not at all imply surrender in itself, it is just one of many significant events that reduce a nations unity, and it is silly to say that nations don't surrender because they belong to an ideological faction... If they don't surrender it is because they have dedicated population willing to carry on the fight, and this is better measured by the nations unity and dissent.
Surrender should be understood on several levels. Political surrender of a nation may or many not translate into surrender of any specific region (meaning its local political infrastructure) or military unit. It makes sense to require a kind of moral check for each military unit and each province following a political surrender, but if there is dissent and unity, many units and provinces might very well continue the fight. On the other hand, military units that are not in supply should surrender much more quickly (supply needs to be fixed as a note, because I am reminded of the Belgian units that continue to fight from behind the lines of a neutral Netherlands because they get supply from Amsterdam... quite absurd!)
Arguably, neither Poland nor Yugoslavia actually surrendered, they fought on in the ways they could (again, much better modelled with a faction based system - so after Germany takes over Poland, a new faction is created in Poland called the "German control faction" which is put in power by fiat of the Reich unless they nominate another faction to rule as a puppet, but that does not stop the other factions from raising partisans and holding strikes). It is absolutely silly to redraw maps of ownership like they mean anything in themselves.
What it means to have control of a province even is called into question. Just because you drive a few tanks across some fields hardly gives your nation or faction control of the province--at best, all you have done is cleared the province of enemy military. So there should be a required investment in a province with various degrees of development that would see it become controlled, see its resources made available, and ultimately incorporated into the conquering nation's core provinces if so desired. Something like "infrastructure" but let us call it "political infrastructure". This would then allow for another nation truly to be incorporated bit by bit after considerable investment only. Again, the whole nature of control needs to be revisited, because it is absurd that one cannot build or improve railway through a puppet nation... And it should be possible to negotiate reparations as part of a peace process following some general kind of surrender. All these things are hopeless at present in HOI.
So, for example, at present, all roads lead to Vichy (which is really a downer with the current HOI). Instead, after France proper is overtaken (whether or not its political head surrenders, which is just a little less than immaterial), the German player should be able to negotiate a peace with collaborative elements in France and its axis allies, and to hand over none, some or all provinces to the new France, and to decide which provinces as part of a diplomatic negotiation should go to which nation. And then Germany and each nation should be required to pay a cost to install the needed political infrastructure to control each province to the degree that it wants to do so (as territory, resource colony, core province, etc.)
Or for another example, the extremely complicated situation in China and Manchuria. Even the starting 1936 nations make little sense, because India is hardly a part of the United Kingdom. Probably the political map should colour the regions of a nation in shades of the national colour based on how developed its political infrastructure actually is, for a viceroy and few companies of soldiers do not an English shire make.
6. Serious overhaul of the diplomatic system, so that it becomes possible to trade authority over provinces with allies at a minimum. And where surrender does happen, that it does not cause all the land automatically to go to one nation just because of supply or prestige or whatever. There should be a negotiation which could be modelled with the AI by having each nation pick a region in turn going around picking contiguous regions till all are taken.
I will wait on SF for more comments here, but the AI for diplomacy needs serious development.
7. Serious overhaul of the economic system to incorporate a more fine grained set of resources that ,at a minimum, include agricultural produce and labor. Infrastructure needs to become cheaper and clearer, and AUTOBAHNS, RAILWAYS, and BRIDGES need to become explicit. Also, production should incorporate a cost of money and industry, as the current money system makes no sense at all. Even if government owns the means of production, it costs money (but less), and the costs associated with military industrial complex are quite staggering. And it should be possible to raise money through war bonds and loans and even printing more money. And probably precious metals should be reintroduced to the resources as well as direct cash cows (remembering that floating currencies were not yet the norm everywhere). And one's currency standard, for example, would be an excellent example of a policy choice, moving from gold to silver to floating.
I would suggest the following primary resource list:
1. Basic Metals & Materials for secondary industry and production
2. Energy Materials for all industry and production
3. Crude Oil for all industry, energy and fuel
4. Rare Metals for electronics and tertiary industry
5. Rare Materials for tertiary industry
6. Precious Metals direct source of currency
7. Heavy Metals for nuclear industry/weapons
8. Agriculture for agricultural and secondary industry production
9. Population for skilled labour, military units
And I would like to see production lines be designated to specific locations with some minimum amount of industry present (so no building a carrier and then deciding whether to place it in the Mediterranean or the Baltic sea! But ditto for airplanes and tanks). And when units do get produced, they appear exactly at their construction points, not miraculously on the front lines halfway around the world... Airplanes are designated to airbases, ships to ports and land units to land based bases that perhaps function as the Theatre HQs or Army Group HQs.
And I would like to see supplies and units cost in IP but also in resources half and half. So that supplies should be 1/2 agricultural and 1/2 IP while airplanes require 1/2 IP and 1/2 mix of metal and Rare metals and rare materials and so on. And I would like to see IPs themselves cost Energy (whether that is coal, oil or hydroelectric) and some amount of metals for basic maintenance and some amount of labor and leadership. And I would like to see provinces have a maintenance for their political infrastructure, resource extraction and normal infrastructure, and I would like to see it include a little energy, money, supplies, labor and agriculture. And population should be made more explicit and it should cost a lot of agriculture points to maintain. All of these things should cost and it should quit being free to "own" half of Russia...
8. Serious overhaul of the Supply System. It should be possible manually to decide where and how and how much of any good is moved and where it is stored. There should be military bases, semi-mobile supply depots, resource depots and finally local HQ based depots that can carry some amount of supplies and fuel. There should be a transport pool like the convoy pool of trucks with which to explicitly layout the supply lines and also OVERSUPPLY, meaning that local depots can be set to contain minimum and maximum amounts of supplies or resources. It should be possible to chain depots together so that supply is moved from one depot to another, and each depot should have a minimum and maximum setting that can be changed. And there should be a natural attrition of supplies kept in storage but not used. And the supply should follow the HQ units from the Army level down to the Corps level to the divisions. All of these things should be doable by hand -- the system at present is terrible and the AI is even worse.
Also using the above truck/train based system (with increases in trucks and trains costing IP like convoys), there should be clearly designated railways which are more efficient to use for supplies and which also can be used for a better sort of strategic movement that is clearer in its conception.
One should have to build (cheaply) depots for all of one's stored resources and supplies and even money (where did the Nazis put all that gold?). And Cities in and of themselves should not suffice for this and for sure capitals should not be the depots of all resources whatsoever... (99999Ktons of coal in Berlin? Where???? Why not put some in Hamburg and Munich?)
Finally, supplies and fuel should be augmented with another regular resource: money. Pay your soldiers or face serious trouble...
9. Serious overhaul of the Intelligence System and map. It should be possible to see a best guess map of where other nations are keeping their forces. It should also be possible to send spies directly to regions to keep a look out for what is going on there or contact local rebels or even engage in sabotage. It should be possible to have multiple missions in each nation, perhaps as many as one has spies... It should be possible to know what the port sizes are much better, and one's maps should have a memory of any information learned at an earlier date for static things (like ports, infrastructure, industry, radar, etc.). And that memory might be wrong... The whole point is to have a best guess map. And it should be possible to use shading on the intelligence map to measure the degree of ignorance of one's information (hence the reliability of the best guess map). It should NOT be possible to see how much research one is losing on account of enemy spies!! It should be possible to get picture views occasionally of what the various screens might look like of another player through one's spies. For example, it might be possible then to learn how many spies they have elsewhere... It should also be possible to send one's national home spies to particular areas to work against partisans and enemy spies, for example, it might make sense to send a spy to one's rockets or radar installations. It would be nice if one could also set up propaganda machinery like radio towers near the borders of ones neighbours that would effect their unity or dissent. Also one's spy system should cost money as should each spy. Also there should be best guest army/navy/air/economy/etc. statistics comparisons charts also with memory. And spies should be able to be sent on assassination and related missions of key ministers and generals.
10. Technology overhaul that sees the building of research facilities like industry to increase research of specific kinds (military academies, engineering schools, etc.), which then still require leadership to fully function. And a change away from this year based research system that is arbitrary in some cases and very gamey. The Italians almost had jets in the 1930s but decided not to pursue the technology--there is nothing magical about 1943 for this. A well planned technology tree does not need year limits. However, they could have a random variability associated so that one cannot and should not be able to plan out one's technological growth too precisely.
11. Overhaul of Military: allow units to be explicitly upgraded to different kinds at cost. Also provide more mission options for units and corps, such as "be on alert" and which have different supply consumption rates. Also allow renaming of military units from the statistics screen. Also allow generals to be allocated from the statistics screen, but require a delay or only allow generals to be allocated on a month by month basis (see my point at the beginning about monthly static strategic turn phases) Also allow brigade name and division names to be made in the production queue using wildcards for number sequences. Also it should be possible to move corps by selecting just the corp HQ (ditto on Armies) without putting them on AI mode.
12. Serious overhaul of the directions for the game, which should be included in-game as an encyclopaedia. And detailed explanations of how various aspects work should be made very explicit with formulae and so on.
Thank you for asking and thank you for one of the best historical strategy simulations games I have played!
Features that seem at present from my reading to be beyond modules include:
1. Maps - instead of several distinct maps, have just ONE map that is just a grey silhouetted outline of land against a simple pastel blue ocean. Nothing more please, and I mean nothing. No borders, no units, no nothing...
Then provide a battery of add on option check boxes for which a particular sort of thing you want to see, such as terrain, land forces, supply, political status, borders, names of provinces, naval, weather, air, intelligence, etc. These can then be overlaid on top of each other as desired and needed.
No 3D and no flashy gimmicks and no round earth, all quite unnecessary. Province resolution is lovely now, it fits an operational level game.
2. Game Turn Sequence: as a continuous real time turn game, there are some aspects that do not play so well. Most significantly are the grand strategic decisions, such as production choices, technology, diplomacy, politics, etc. A simple way to clarify and simplify the game is to make some decisions limited to monthly turn pauses. Because there SHOULD be a lag between those decisions and their effects, have the turn stop on the 1st of each month and have the changes to production and policy and on only come into effect two weeks later. And with date sensitive acts (like diplomatic actions, declarations of war, etc.) set the action with a date for when it should actually be realized, a date that cannot be less than two weeks in the future.
It seems to add little to the game (and takes much away) to change the industry and leadership investment on an hour by hour basis. Or to decide to declare war and one hour later to have one's tanks crossing the border... Big political changes, like cabinet positions, require at least days if not weeks to realize, and conceiving technological projects requires months (if not years!). Building a factory to start building airplanes also does not start and stop on the hour. Even public opinion does not change that fast! In fact, the only thing that happens on the time scale of less than one month is tactical level military decisions and operational level military implementation (not decisions). Even (or especially!) a declaration of war requires a great deal of preparation, and so it should be initiated at least weeks in advance and set to go off on a certain day. It may have taken only a few weeks for Germany to overrun Poland, and a few hours to attack Pearl Harbor, but it took months of preparation in both cases (during which time, for example, good intelligence could and arguably was used in the case of Pearl Harbor to have the carrier fleet go on manoeuvres). A declaration of war is itself a very big complex political event that involves coordinating media with military with intelligence with so much else, to say nothing of parliamentary vote.
These monthly pauses are not just an opportunity to issue outgoing orders but also to read incoming intelligence, review new generals, baptize new ships, attend a parade of your newest divisions, etc. And from the game point of view, it offers a great spot to stop and watch a little video footage or see a comparison between your game and actual historical events.
3. Change the identity of the team player. Instead of playing a nation, you play a faction within the nation (roughly what is currently called a party). This would greatly enhance how the political aspects of the game could play and make getting into power and keeping power in your nation something you have to fight for and pay attention to. It would also allow for a very interesting alternative history development. And it would limit your available ministers accordingly. Unless you ally or join with another faction in your nation, with all its advantages and disadvantages.
Such a distinction helps to model the real nature of nations, the difference between Nazis and Germans, the sense and nonsenses of the way China was and was not a nation, etc.. For example, the Nazi faction could even have its own "Nazi units" along side the German Wehrmacht. And it would be important perhaps even to use them to shut down the other parties in the post Weimar Republic, and many other possibilities.
4. Seriously overhaul the way the political system (does not) works. Following the above lines, factions should need to contest government control and various sectors of the society. I don't think going to the extreme of Vici is appropriate (and anyway with censorship rules on certain prevalent aspects of the era in effect - I mean now, not then... - I don't think you can identify specific minorities and populations like Vici does). But it should be possible to declare martial law, rig or suspend democratic elections (with appropriate fallout), even if you are America or the UK. It should also be possible to undertake diplomatic relations as a faction (vs. as a nation) with other nations or their factions (as did indeed happen rather a often, and I guess still does...)
So I would suggest something like having factions which fall into the three ideology classification and several contenders in each nation. As a faction, you have a set of policies for ruling that more or less define you (and should be slow and difficult or expensive to change) which you would then seek to realize as the policies of the nation once you are in power. As a faction you have some number of "action points" (probably based significantly on your faction's organization and sponsorship of powerful sectors of the society, such as industry or trade unions, and even foreign nations) with which to act in a variety of ways, including campaigning to increase your popularity, hard tactics to take over various sectors of the society, attack other factions directly, call strikes, counter strikes, or even make a run on the parliament and undertake a coup or initiate a civil war. Besides popularity and organization and a number of action points (which should measure faction funds and active available manpower), factions might have specific control of certain sectors of the society (eg trade unions or the army or the navy or the intelligentsia or industry or the church, etc.) and they might have prevalence in certain regions where they could even raise militias or partisans. And these different sectors could provide diverse advantages of different kinds (like control of the army might see a large part of the army go to your side in the event of a civil war, such as happened in Spain). Seeing conquered nations this way would also provide a much better way of modelling partisan activity (which is absolutely atrocious in the present version of HOI).
Most of what happened leading up to the actual war and even much of the actual war cannot be understood without looking at the inner political life of the many nations, whether in the case of the German experience with Nazi-ism or Japans repeated militant coups or the UK's continued efforts to placate an obvious enemy or the USA's very odd neutrality or Russia's very counter intuitive purges (which then from the point of view of a Stalinist faction make very good sense).
5. Serious overhaul of how and what it means for a nation to surrender or what it means for a nation to be or have borders. Loss of the capital should not at all imply surrender in itself, it is just one of many significant events that reduce a nations unity, and it is silly to say that nations don't surrender because they belong to an ideological faction... If they don't surrender it is because they have dedicated population willing to carry on the fight, and this is better measured by the nations unity and dissent.
Surrender should be understood on several levels. Political surrender of a nation may or many not translate into surrender of any specific region (meaning its local political infrastructure) or military unit. It makes sense to require a kind of moral check for each military unit and each province following a political surrender, but if there is dissent and unity, many units and provinces might very well continue the fight. On the other hand, military units that are not in supply should surrender much more quickly (supply needs to be fixed as a note, because I am reminded of the Belgian units that continue to fight from behind the lines of a neutral Netherlands because they get supply from Amsterdam... quite absurd!)
Arguably, neither Poland nor Yugoslavia actually surrendered, they fought on in the ways they could (again, much better modelled with a faction based system - so after Germany takes over Poland, a new faction is created in Poland called the "German control faction" which is put in power by fiat of the Reich unless they nominate another faction to rule as a puppet, but that does not stop the other factions from raising partisans and holding strikes). It is absolutely silly to redraw maps of ownership like they mean anything in themselves.
What it means to have control of a province even is called into question. Just because you drive a few tanks across some fields hardly gives your nation or faction control of the province--at best, all you have done is cleared the province of enemy military. So there should be a required investment in a province with various degrees of development that would see it become controlled, see its resources made available, and ultimately incorporated into the conquering nation's core provinces if so desired. Something like "infrastructure" but let us call it "political infrastructure". This would then allow for another nation truly to be incorporated bit by bit after considerable investment only. Again, the whole nature of control needs to be revisited, because it is absurd that one cannot build or improve railway through a puppet nation... And it should be possible to negotiate reparations as part of a peace process following some general kind of surrender. All these things are hopeless at present in HOI.
So, for example, at present, all roads lead to Vichy (which is really a downer with the current HOI). Instead, after France proper is overtaken (whether or not its political head surrenders, which is just a little less than immaterial), the German player should be able to negotiate a peace with collaborative elements in France and its axis allies, and to hand over none, some or all provinces to the new France, and to decide which provinces as part of a diplomatic negotiation should go to which nation. And then Germany and each nation should be required to pay a cost to install the needed political infrastructure to control each province to the degree that it wants to do so (as territory, resource colony, core province, etc.)
Or for another example, the extremely complicated situation in China and Manchuria. Even the starting 1936 nations make little sense, because India is hardly a part of the United Kingdom. Probably the political map should colour the regions of a nation in shades of the national colour based on how developed its political infrastructure actually is, for a viceroy and few companies of soldiers do not an English shire make.
6. Serious overhaul of the diplomatic system, so that it becomes possible to trade authority over provinces with allies at a minimum. And where surrender does happen, that it does not cause all the land automatically to go to one nation just because of supply or prestige or whatever. There should be a negotiation which could be modelled with the AI by having each nation pick a region in turn going around picking contiguous regions till all are taken.
I will wait on SF for more comments here, but the AI for diplomacy needs serious development.
7. Serious overhaul of the economic system to incorporate a more fine grained set of resources that ,at a minimum, include agricultural produce and labor. Infrastructure needs to become cheaper and clearer, and AUTOBAHNS, RAILWAYS, and BRIDGES need to become explicit. Also, production should incorporate a cost of money and industry, as the current money system makes no sense at all. Even if government owns the means of production, it costs money (but less), and the costs associated with military industrial complex are quite staggering. And it should be possible to raise money through war bonds and loans and even printing more money. And probably precious metals should be reintroduced to the resources as well as direct cash cows (remembering that floating currencies were not yet the norm everywhere). And one's currency standard, for example, would be an excellent example of a policy choice, moving from gold to silver to floating.
I would suggest the following primary resource list:
1. Basic Metals & Materials for secondary industry and production
2. Energy Materials for all industry and production
3. Crude Oil for all industry, energy and fuel
4. Rare Metals for electronics and tertiary industry
5. Rare Materials for tertiary industry
6. Precious Metals direct source of currency
7. Heavy Metals for nuclear industry/weapons
8. Agriculture for agricultural and secondary industry production
9. Population for skilled labour, military units
And I would like to see production lines be designated to specific locations with some minimum amount of industry present (so no building a carrier and then deciding whether to place it in the Mediterranean or the Baltic sea! But ditto for airplanes and tanks). And when units do get produced, they appear exactly at their construction points, not miraculously on the front lines halfway around the world... Airplanes are designated to airbases, ships to ports and land units to land based bases that perhaps function as the Theatre HQs or Army Group HQs.
And I would like to see supplies and units cost in IP but also in resources half and half. So that supplies should be 1/2 agricultural and 1/2 IP while airplanes require 1/2 IP and 1/2 mix of metal and Rare metals and rare materials and so on. And I would like to see IPs themselves cost Energy (whether that is coal, oil or hydroelectric) and some amount of metals for basic maintenance and some amount of labor and leadership. And I would like to see provinces have a maintenance for their political infrastructure, resource extraction and normal infrastructure, and I would like to see it include a little energy, money, supplies, labor and agriculture. And population should be made more explicit and it should cost a lot of agriculture points to maintain. All of these things should cost and it should quit being free to "own" half of Russia...
8. Serious overhaul of the Supply System. It should be possible manually to decide where and how and how much of any good is moved and where it is stored. There should be military bases, semi-mobile supply depots, resource depots and finally local HQ based depots that can carry some amount of supplies and fuel. There should be a transport pool like the convoy pool of trucks with which to explicitly layout the supply lines and also OVERSUPPLY, meaning that local depots can be set to contain minimum and maximum amounts of supplies or resources. It should be possible to chain depots together so that supply is moved from one depot to another, and each depot should have a minimum and maximum setting that can be changed. And there should be a natural attrition of supplies kept in storage but not used. And the supply should follow the HQ units from the Army level down to the Corps level to the divisions. All of these things should be doable by hand -- the system at present is terrible and the AI is even worse.
Also using the above truck/train based system (with increases in trucks and trains costing IP like convoys), there should be clearly designated railways which are more efficient to use for supplies and which also can be used for a better sort of strategic movement that is clearer in its conception.
One should have to build (cheaply) depots for all of one's stored resources and supplies and even money (where did the Nazis put all that gold?). And Cities in and of themselves should not suffice for this and for sure capitals should not be the depots of all resources whatsoever... (99999Ktons of coal in Berlin? Where???? Why not put some in Hamburg and Munich?)
Finally, supplies and fuel should be augmented with another regular resource: money. Pay your soldiers or face serious trouble...
9. Serious overhaul of the Intelligence System and map. It should be possible to see a best guess map of where other nations are keeping their forces. It should also be possible to send spies directly to regions to keep a look out for what is going on there or contact local rebels or even engage in sabotage. It should be possible to have multiple missions in each nation, perhaps as many as one has spies... It should be possible to know what the port sizes are much better, and one's maps should have a memory of any information learned at an earlier date for static things (like ports, infrastructure, industry, radar, etc.). And that memory might be wrong... The whole point is to have a best guess map. And it should be possible to use shading on the intelligence map to measure the degree of ignorance of one's information (hence the reliability of the best guess map). It should NOT be possible to see how much research one is losing on account of enemy spies!! It should be possible to get picture views occasionally of what the various screens might look like of another player through one's spies. For example, it might be possible then to learn how many spies they have elsewhere... It should also be possible to send one's national home spies to particular areas to work against partisans and enemy spies, for example, it might make sense to send a spy to one's rockets or radar installations. It would be nice if one could also set up propaganda machinery like radio towers near the borders of ones neighbours that would effect their unity or dissent. Also one's spy system should cost money as should each spy. Also there should be best guest army/navy/air/economy/etc. statistics comparisons charts also with memory. And spies should be able to be sent on assassination and related missions of key ministers and generals.
10. Technology overhaul that sees the building of research facilities like industry to increase research of specific kinds (military academies, engineering schools, etc.), which then still require leadership to fully function. And a change away from this year based research system that is arbitrary in some cases and very gamey. The Italians almost had jets in the 1930s but decided not to pursue the technology--there is nothing magical about 1943 for this. A well planned technology tree does not need year limits. However, they could have a random variability associated so that one cannot and should not be able to plan out one's technological growth too precisely.
11. Overhaul of Military: allow units to be explicitly upgraded to different kinds at cost. Also provide more mission options for units and corps, such as "be on alert" and which have different supply consumption rates. Also allow renaming of military units from the statistics screen. Also allow generals to be allocated from the statistics screen, but require a delay or only allow generals to be allocated on a month by month basis (see my point at the beginning about monthly static strategic turn phases) Also allow brigade name and division names to be made in the production queue using wildcards for number sequences. Also it should be possible to move corps by selecting just the corp HQ (ditto on Armies) without putting them on AI mode.
12. Serious overhaul of the directions for the game, which should be included in-game as an encyclopaedia. And detailed explanations of how various aspects work should be made very explicit with formulae and so on.
Thank you for asking and thank you for one of the best historical strategy simulations games I have played!
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Just to resurrect this thread a bit...
I would like to see an enhanced diplomatic tab. Something like allied conferences to discuss the common objectives. These could be called for by the major allies (USA, GB, FRA, USSR) and axis (JAPAN,GER,ITA) or maybe based on IC (so as to modelise a US entry in the axis lets say)?
ON Single player level this would set the allied ai objectives and finetune the amount of troops they would commit to a theater/ lend-lease programs could be established and maintained etc..
On theMP level this could be the equivalent of the chats allies have to establish a common strategy. as well as the above mentioned treaties and such.
I would like to see an enhanced diplomatic tab. Something like allied conferences to discuss the common objectives. These could be called for by the major allies (USA, GB, FRA, USSR) and axis (JAPAN,GER,ITA) or maybe based on IC (so as to modelise a US entry in the axis lets say)?
ON Single player level this would set the allied ai objectives and finetune the amount of troops they would commit to a theater/ lend-lease programs could be established and maintained etc..
On theMP level this could be the equivalent of the chats allies have to establish a common strategy. as well as the above mentioned treaties and such.
Expanding on Pilot's already voluminus post, I'd like to add two other things:
First, Infrastructure in the game costs the same to increase fom 3 to 4 as it does from 9 to 10. Not only should the IC costs for more advanced Infra have exponentially higher price tags, but the Advanced Construction tech should have multiple levels. If you research it to 6, you can build up to 6, etc. That would allow the 3rd world countries to make small but significant advances, while making it prohibitively expensive to create superhighways across the Russian steppe.
Second, while POTENTIAL resources are fine, no country mines them at maximum capacity, far beyond what their industry can use, or far beyond what they can sell. That potential resource production should need to be developed, alongside of the industry that uses it. That would prevent the US and SU from maxing out their resources by the end of year 1.
First, Infrastructure in the game costs the same to increase fom 3 to 4 as it does from 9 to 10. Not only should the IC costs for more advanced Infra have exponentially higher price tags, but the Advanced Construction tech should have multiple levels. If you research it to 6, you can build up to 6, etc. That would allow the 3rd world countries to make small but significant advances, while making it prohibitively expensive to create superhighways across the Russian steppe.
Second, while POTENTIAL resources are fine, no country mines them at maximum capacity, far beyond what their industry can use, or far beyond what they can sell. That potential resource production should need to be developed, alongside of the industry that uses it. That would prevent the US and SU from maxing out their resources by the end of year 1.
Better GUIs and Tech...
There are a lot of good improvements posted here. Here are some improvements I'd like to see (some repeats of other posts for emphasis):
1. Expanded timeline. 1920 into the future. For those who don't like it, stop playing at 1948.
2. Scalable products. Just because you have the tech, doesn't mean you want it on your product. i.e. putting on level 5 tank armor, even tho you have level 10 researched to produce a faster, and more fuel efficient tank.
3. GUI interface for production. Using the tank example; have a 3d model of the tank and the ability to change the different aspects of that model. Much like the Mech Warrior utility for outfitting your mech. You can have this for every type and provide 'slots' for adding for example, a coaxial machine gun, flame thrower, etc. Of course additions would all cost more. If you had the option to produce something like the reich plans for a Land Kruzer 1000 (lots of reasearch and resources, I'm sure), you could have an enormous amount customization options. You could just combine the research and production by selecting the element you want to improve in production and if you don't have the tech yet, provide the option to research it there. Again, for those who want the historical version, don't customize your units. Have the traditional pre-configure panzer III....
4. Better utilization of helicopters. Being an Air Assault pilot myself, I was a little disappointed with the rewards of researching the helicopters in the tech tree. I get it, it's a WWII game. I've read a lot of the other responses and there are many who share my sentiment of wanting more tech and an expanded timeline. So that being said, make an air assault unit (hueys, blackhawks), an attack helicopter unit (cobras, apaches), and a cargo helicopter unit (chinooks, ospreys). You could just combine them into an Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB). CAB are extremely effective, but they are extremely expensive to maintain. This is why only superpowers can effectively wield large numbers of them. Their ability to manuever is second to no ground unit, but are shark bait for fighters. They would definately get bonuses in terrain, given that staying low is pretty much a helicopters only protection against AAA. I'm getting into details now. If you want more input, you can ask.
5. Better Air coverage interface. I know an entire squadron isn't flying around together on an air superiorty mission. Instead of depicting it that way, have an overlay that shows all the air coverage/movement. So if you selected this overlay, you might see green circles for air intercept coverage, red circles for air superiority coverage, and supply chains being conducted through the air.
6. Improved tech. Here are some other additions you may have to have if you expanded the timeline: stealth, mobile SAMs, manpads for infantry, UAVs, COIN strategy, the MRAP.
7. Provide a customizable template for fortifications. (again a 3d model or maybe a top view) You could gear the fortifications toward your most likely threat. This could even simplify the province options or allow for the elimination of provinces, like some have suggested. One option the Germans were considering was to build fortifications instead of invading the SU. How entertaining would it be to design that? Or for those who wouldn't enjoy that, have a button that would just build an existing template.
8. Battle scenes. Right now the battle screen that comes up when you obseve a battle is practical, but it could be more entertaining. If you could watch the battle as it was happening and watch your units in action, I really think you could tap into a bigger audience. Everyone that I show HOI 3 to is immediately turned off by the blocky military symboligy. Some have even asked, "What do the battles look like?"... You see the events happening at the top center of the screen, but if you could SEE your units 'encircle', 'breakthrough', or actually SEE how wx effects things, or just the grandness of some of these battles, it would be quite spectacular. There are times when there are dozens of divisions engaged in a single battle. That would be incredible to witness! Sometimes you're talking about hundreds of thousands of troops! You could do this for every type of combat too (sea and air). If you want to really tap into these new gaming machines, make a 3d mode. For the legacy machines, make a 2d mode.
Thanks for listening. BTW, I had HOI 3 already, but I lost the instruction book so no CD key. I bought Semper Fi just so I could participate in this forum. Haven't even installed it yet.
There are a lot of good improvements posted here. Here are some improvements I'd like to see (some repeats of other posts for emphasis):
1. Expanded timeline. 1920 into the future. For those who don't like it, stop playing at 1948.
2. Scalable products. Just because you have the tech, doesn't mean you want it on your product. i.e. putting on level 5 tank armor, even tho you have level 10 researched to produce a faster, and more fuel efficient tank.
3. GUI interface for production. Using the tank example; have a 3d model of the tank and the ability to change the different aspects of that model. Much like the Mech Warrior utility for outfitting your mech. You can have this for every type and provide 'slots' for adding for example, a coaxial machine gun, flame thrower, etc. Of course additions would all cost more. If you had the option to produce something like the reich plans for a Land Kruzer 1000 (lots of reasearch and resources, I'm sure), you could have an enormous amount customization options. You could just combine the research and production by selecting the element you want to improve in production and if you don't have the tech yet, provide the option to research it there. Again, for those who want the historical version, don't customize your units. Have the traditional pre-configure panzer III....
4. Better utilization of helicopters. Being an Air Assault pilot myself, I was a little disappointed with the rewards of researching the helicopters in the tech tree. I get it, it's a WWII game. I've read a lot of the other responses and there are many who share my sentiment of wanting more tech and an expanded timeline. So that being said, make an air assault unit (hueys, blackhawks), an attack helicopter unit (cobras, apaches), and a cargo helicopter unit (chinooks, ospreys). You could just combine them into an Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB). CAB are extremely effective, but they are extremely expensive to maintain. This is why only superpowers can effectively wield large numbers of them. Their ability to manuever is second to no ground unit, but are shark bait for fighters. They would definately get bonuses in terrain, given that staying low is pretty much a helicopters only protection against AAA. I'm getting into details now. If you want more input, you can ask.
5. Better Air coverage interface. I know an entire squadron isn't flying around together on an air superiorty mission. Instead of depicting it that way, have an overlay that shows all the air coverage/movement. So if you selected this overlay, you might see green circles for air intercept coverage, red circles for air superiority coverage, and supply chains being conducted through the air.
6. Improved tech. Here are some other additions you may have to have if you expanded the timeline: stealth, mobile SAMs, manpads for infantry, UAVs, COIN strategy, the MRAP.
7. Provide a customizable template for fortifications. (again a 3d model or maybe a top view) You could gear the fortifications toward your most likely threat. This could even simplify the province options or allow for the elimination of provinces, like some have suggested. One option the Germans were considering was to build fortifications instead of invading the SU. How entertaining would it be to design that? Or for those who wouldn't enjoy that, have a button that would just build an existing template.
8. Battle scenes. Right now the battle screen that comes up when you obseve a battle is practical, but it could be more entertaining. If you could watch the battle as it was happening and watch your units in action, I really think you could tap into a bigger audience. Everyone that I show HOI 3 to is immediately turned off by the blocky military symboligy. Some have even asked, "What do the battles look like?"... You see the events happening at the top center of the screen, but if you could SEE your units 'encircle', 'breakthrough', or actually SEE how wx effects things, or just the grandness of some of these battles, it would be quite spectacular. There are times when there are dozens of divisions engaged in a single battle. That would be incredible to witness! Sometimes you're talking about hundreds of thousands of troops! You could do this for every type of combat too (sea and air). If you want to really tap into these new gaming machines, make a 3d mode. For the legacy machines, make a 2d mode.
Thanks for listening. BTW, I had HOI 3 already, but I lost the instruction book so no CD key. I bought Semper Fi just so I could participate in this forum. Haven't even installed it yet.
Big cities in the size of 2 and more provinces. And only central from these provinces there would be a city center. Serious fights for big cities would turn out.
I think the main big feature they should introduce is a different and especialized combat system for air and naval battles, especially naval battles.
There are several other features or changes that should be made, but I think the mentioned above is the on biggest and most crucial.
There are several other features or changes that should be made, but I think the mentioned above is the on biggest and most crucial.
They can't improve many things, like the supply system or multi-core support, without rewriting the engine. Meaning, HoI3 won't be perfect no matter how many layers of polish it gets.
I shouldn't have said perfect, I mean 100% bug free
BTW multi-core support will be in the next expansion.
Which is what I mean: It's a slap-on solution. It's not the same as designing the engine to run parallel from ground up.
Loving the necromancy acts here...
The INFRA question comes up again and again. If the INFRA reflects the overall infrastructure throughout a province I am fine with the amount of time and effort involved in building it. However, I would prefer to see strategic railways implemented in some way that made a drastic improvement on military mobility.
The provincial infrastucture could and should have a major impact on local mobility and the performance of industries and economics, but you don;t have to turn all of the Soviet Union into european levels of roads and local rail services to get supplies and reinforcements to the gates of Moscow...
The INFRA question comes up again and again. If the INFRA reflects the overall infrastructure throughout a province I am fine with the amount of time and effort involved in building it. However, I would prefer to see strategic railways implemented in some way that made a drastic improvement on military mobility.
The provincial infrastucture could and should have a major impact on local mobility and the performance of industries and economics, but you don;t have to turn all of the Soviet Union into european levels of roads and local rail services to get supplies and reinforcements to the gates of Moscow...
Better supply system (currenly playing Germany - in 1941 my supplies go from 99K to 20K and back in 2 week, while half of eastern from is out of supplies).
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