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Devildread

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Aug 6, 2009
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Hi everyone,
Here is the second Developer Diary for the Dies Irae: Stars and Stripes DLC.

load_3.png


With Dies Irae: Stars and Stripes, you will be able to play the United States of America and only them, but like you never played it before in an Hearts of Iron game.
In this diary, we will talk about three news features:

+ A new face of war
+ Famous US divisions
+ The nerve of war
+ Awakening of the Giant
+ Lend-Lease
+ A-historicity
+ AI on steroids
+ Battlescenarios

Famous US divisions
As in Götterdämmerung, Dies Irae: Stars&Stripes will put you in charge of some famous US divisions through the war, with special events, techs and units. In the buildable units we have US Marine Corps included with special counter and amphibious armored unit, Rangers battalions to boost your foot divisions or National Guard infantry as some sort of super-Militia (but still not as strong as regular Infantry). You can build those as much as your Industrial Capacity and manpower can handle. The USMC has its own technology tree as you can see in the screenshot below. We decided to make it some sort of reduced elite battalion in the early game and then as the war goes by (and the techs get researched) you can slowly renforce the US Marine Corps up to full division status and shiny amphibious toys to deploy in the Pacific!
We also decided to include unique units such as 101st Airborne or the not-so-useful Paramarine regiment and some more. Those units are meant to be carefully used by the player as they go with some unique stats but also at a great risk: if you lose them, you won't have the opportunity to play with them again until your next campaign (or reload).




The nerve of war

As Ciceron wrote someday: "nevros belli, pecuniam infinitam" which means "endless money forms the nerves of war", in Dies Irae: Stars and Stripes you will need money to transform your post-1929 crisis country into the leader of the free world. In HOI3 money is not that important, because we don't have any crisis mechanisms and start the game as a happy President of the rich United States. In this DLC, you won't.



The first thing we changed in the game was the 1936-1939 course of action. We added several Strategic Effect in order to depict the economic shape of the country by the time. No field is spared: you have less IC, less leadership and less manpower until you solve those internal problems with a good politic, i.e. with money. Lots of. Each Strategic Effect has a decision you can fire as soon as you have the required cash. Each solution may have a different price so you have to decide in which order you want to fire them. Start with the bank reforms and earn more money (ergo fire decisions more quickly)? Rush the manpower decisions in order to build your pool ASAP? Make your decisions and live with your choices, you always can retry a campaign after this one and try another reforms' rate.



Beside the classic HOI3 trade system allowing you to exchange ressources for cash we added two Japan related commercial agreements. They may not have been that important in History but in DI:S&S you will have to decide if you want to receive money from Japan in exchange of oil and fuel for their war machine, or if you want to stop that as soon as possible and prevent their industry to run at full capacity. Basically, they help you build up your army but you make them more and more powerful as time goes by. You decide the balance here.

The whole idea of this Nerve of War feature is to make you feel the slow build up of the country and let you decide the general directions you want to follow. The 36-39 years aren't a chevron 4 fast-forward piece of cake as in HOI3, now you have to think, plan ahead and take action!

But be careful with your choices, because a surprise could come if you solve your way out of the depression too quickly and don't keep enough cash in reserve...

Battlescenarios

For The Motherland added a new feature: Battlescenarios. Dies Irae: Stars and Stripes will allow you to re-enact one famous Operation and try out a fictionnal one.

OPERATION OVERLORD



I won't offense you by explaining what operation this one was. I just want to say that you start at June 1st 1944 and have several timed objectives. In order to win, you have to make it at least equal or better than the historical operations. For instance you have to take Cherbourg before July 1st, or Paris before August 25th otherwise the Axis will earn victory points. Since the date is starting a few days before the actual operations, you have to decide where you want the landing to happen. By no means you are obligated to assault Normandy.


OPERATION DOWNFALL

I'll quote Wikipedia here:

Operation Downfall was the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was canceled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan. The operation had two parts: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in October 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyūshū, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. Later, in spring 1946, Operation Coronet was the planned invasion of the Kantō Plain, near Tokyo, on the Japanese island of Honshū. Airbases on Kyūshū captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet.

The scenario is taking place at March 1st 1946, with Southern Japanese Island Kyūshū under Allies control. You have until 1948.1.1 to take Tokyo and reduce the Japanese army down to 25 brigades (starting 184).




Here ends the second Dev Diary, we hope you enjoyed it.


Dies Irae Team, Danevang and Devildread

--Bonus picture:
You can re-enact Operation Overlord in the 1944 scenario as well. Now the leadership of units has been transfered to USA (you even control UK and French units through Exp.Forces). Check your supply situation and use your transport planes to support your troops and keep them supplied!

 
"the not-so-useful Paramarine regiment"

What regiments will these represent?
 
AI will give you Exp.Forces if you put an ally objective in your capital, it was added as a Semper Fi feature (don't put any ally objective elsewhere, you must have only one in your capital).

Learn more about Paramarines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramarines :)
 
You know..

I dont want to sound like a dick or anything. But gotterdamrung has still not been brought up to speed. Many bugs and missing features still exist. (i.e the Kreigsmarine map FtM).

Forgive me if you are still working on DI:GD, but i was just a little upset when i saw this after reading about all the problems in DI:GD subforum.

One quick question.

The problem with the U.S campaign has always been the Japanese AI. Island hopping has never been as fun when the Japanese arent trying to take Australia or any islands. Its a big vanilla I problem i hear, how are you planning on addressing that?
 
You know..

I dont want to sound like a dick or anything. But gotterdamrung has still not been brought up to speed. Many bugs and missing features still exist. (i.e the Kreigsmarine map FtM).

Forgive me if you are still working on DI:GD, but i was just a little upset when i saw this after reading about all the problems in DI:GD subforum.

Please take a look at the DI:G thread and tell me where are the bugs and missing features (the map is one, and will be added back when the FTM map will be ready, where are the other missing features?). I asked several times in the past ten pages and all I got is "everything is okay" or small bugs I'll fix in the next patch.
 
It should be interesting to see what you do with the National Guard. (The National Guard lobby is watching you) One could make the case that since the US started with ~100,000 man army in 1938-39 plus a some reserve forces with minimual capability /training (mostly National Guard) that the entire US Army wasn't really very good. (i.e. the concept of "elite" units was a myth). Early experiences in Africa Kasserine Pass in particular showed we really weren't very good. However, that changed dramatically in a short time frame. Probably the best explanation of this were that we were quick learners. So to simulate that correctly is to have a rapid improvement in capability with combat experience -- something that doesn't seem to happen very fast in HOI FTM or DIG. While some German units start as 3 or 4 star it seems to take forever (or never) for them to add a star.

As far as US units go, it is really hard to make the case that the National Guard was any worse than "regular" army or learned any slower. By the end of the war after the whole guard had been mobilized the additional units were "regular" divisions that were formed up from scratch as needed. Again, raw units seeing combat for the first time had very spotty combat record but seemed to learn if they survived. Also by 1943 all units were being filled by from the same drafted manpower pool so the regional nature of most divisions was further reduced. Some Army personnel had additional training and possibly more "elan" {Rangers and Paratroopers} but otherwise "high performing" or "elite" units were a lot less predictable or explanable than in other armies. What the US did have was a cadre of outstanding leaders (US Military Academy grads to a large extent), General George Marshall who seemed to know who was good and what they were good at. Beyond that we seemed to learn fast and had significant material advantages in terms of quantitiy and less often quality. Similarly, with the Marines their training and missions were different than the army and once you got past the 1st Marine Division you "used" up all the prewar personnel. Everybody else was essentially a volunteer to avoid being drafted into the Army who went through Marine training. Most if not all these divisions fought very well in horrible conditions though so something worked. For elite Marines though you need to model the "Raider" battallions as what was for a while the "best of the best".
 
Please take a look at the DI:G thread and tell me where are the bugs and missing features (the map is one, and will be added back when the FTM map will be ready, where are the other missing features?). I asked several times in the past ten pages and all I got is "everything is okay" or small bugs I'll fix in the next patch.

Personally I think DI:G is good, I havnt really seen any strange bugs.
 
I'm not really interested in this mod, but I must say that your "nerve of war" system sounds absolutely fabulous. A fun and simple way of balancing the peace-time USA with plenty of flavour. Good job.
 
I really like the player-controlled Operation Overlord in the 1944 scenario. Will it be possible to get a similar event in the '36 scenario (assuming everything else plays out somewhat historically), or is this simply too complicated? (I don't know the first thing about modding :blink: )

Side note: Anyone interested in this mod/US involvement in WWII might enjoy the History Channel series WWII in HD < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWII_in_HD >. It's a really fantastic series that follows the lives of American servicemen in both theatres. I especially appreciated the detail they gave to the Pacific Theatre.
 
Looks good. Will this be usable with a Mac install? Meaning, is this just new content on different files that if I place the right files in the right folders it should work?
 
I really like the player-controlled Operation Overlord in the 1944 scenario. Will it be possible to get a similar event in the '36 scenario (assuming everything else plays out somewhat historically), or is this simply too complicated? (I don't know the first thing about modding :blink: )

We can't really make an historical event in 1944 from the 1936 start, imagine all the parameters we would have to take into consideration. The only thing you can do is to ask for Exp.Forces from your allies. But if they are strong enough, they should follow you in any invasion you make (once you take the land they should debark too). I saw this several times already (I attack in Brest and I see Canada and UK deploy some troops in my port).

Looks good. Will this be usable with a Mac install? Meaning, is this just new content on different files that if I place the right files in the right folders it should work?

I have no clue about how Mac install could work but since they are just the game files with some modifications it should work. There is no .exe or anything, mostly .txt and pictures.
 
The Nerve of War is really a great idea ! At least the start of the '36 scenario will not be boring as Hell, good job !
Will buy it on fisrt day.
 
This looks awesome. :)

I can't wait for this DLC! Just halfway through a UK game atm. Never bothered to complete a USA campaign, but this will be a great incentive to do so.

I really want some sort of post war resolution mechanic. Depending upon what you control upon the surrender of Germany or Japan, the post war settlement and allocation of spheres of influence should directly lead to a WWIII event. Everyone and their mother wants reason to push democracy onto the Russian Steppe!

I'd love to see Yalta, Tehran etc. conferences in this DLC depending how each power is doing in game. If Soviets are getting hammered, less Soviet demands in return for more aid. If Soviets are kicking German ass, then more demands (no West Germany, Soviet France, Soviet Austria, Soviet Northern Italy, Soviet Balkans)? :eek: If China is losing badly to Japan, less Chinese demands for territory, such as Tibet, Mongolia, Taiwan? If China is doing really well, maybe even demands to have Korea as a puppet?

How about a deterrent factor for nukes when it comes to Soviet/Allied relations. :D
 
Great news you are doing a new DLC!
I have a question about the pacific theatre, in the vanilla game the 'island hopping' is way to easy and the defence of the Japanese mainland is a joke, how will you deal with this in the DLC? Will you add additional coastal forts? unmovable Japanese units for defence only? or perhaps scripted events that spawn defensive units when the player attacks a certain position? Or best of all (if possible?) will the AI be improved to better defend in general?
I think whether or not the Japanese defence will be good will be the make or break of this DLC.
I wish you the best of luck and since I loved DIG I will certainly buy this DLC too.
Cheers!
 
This looks awesome. :)

I can't wait for this DLC! Just halfway through a UK game atm. Never bothered to complete a USA campaign, but this will be a great incentive to do so.

I really want some sort of post war resolution mechanic. Depending upon what you control upon the surrender of Germany or Japan, the post war settlement and allocation of spheres of influence should directly lead to a WWIII event. Everyone and their mother wants reason to push democracy onto the Russian Steppe!

I'd love to see Yalta, Tehran etc. conferences in this DLC depending how each power is doing in game. If Soviets are getting hammered, less Soviet demands in return for more aid. If Soviets are kicking German ass, then more demands (no West Germany, Soviet France, Soviet Austria, Soviet Northern Italy, Soviet Balkans)? :eek: If China is losing badly to Japan, less Chinese demands for territory, such as Tibet, Mongolia, Taiwan? If China is doing really well, maybe even demands to have Korea as a puppet?

How about a deterrent factor for nukes when it comes to Soviet/Allied relations. :D

A post-war chain of events is planned for a future patch, the skeletton is done I just have to wait for some feedback on the WWII balance once the DLC will be released. :)
 
A post-war chain of events is planned for a future patch, the skeletton is done I just have to wait for some feedback on the WWII balance once the DLC will be released. :)

I'm getting the feeling that this DLC will be released very soon. From the screenshots and Devildread's comments, it looks/sounds like most everything is in place; further, there are only two more features left to cover in the dev diaries!

EDIT: Looks like I wasn't far off... pre-ordered!
 
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