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griswolds686

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May 5, 2007
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So I made a suggestion in the "What you want to see in HOI 4" thread about the topic post.

The Question:

Should reinforcement rate be linked to production rate (with practical considered)?

The example: For simplicity lets say you build a an infantry division 3inf brigades. Lets say you spend 10IC for 100 days (1000IC units) to build the 3 brigades. Now lets assume that the division gets chopped down to 80% str in a nasty battle. Should it take 200IC units ( 10IC x 20 days) to bring the unit back up to strength assuming your practical remained the same.

As it is now the game says no. The amount of IC units necessary to bring this division up to strength is a fraction of the cost of the original build. The problem gets worse the more valuable the unit. Tanks are ridiculously easy to bring back to strength when compared to building them from scratch. This of course leads to the "reserve" exploit which I will handle below*.

So what if the two were linked at a 1:1 rate? So if it took 15IC for 150 days to build a tank brigade it should take 15IC for 120 days to bring back a brigade from 20% strength. If your practical improved from the time of construction than obviously it would be faster to repair divisions and the rate would be faster. Thats a given.

Cons- a.) Im not a programmer but it seems that it would take a lot more processor speed to handle. Instead of a blanket rate all different brigades would have to be factored and a lot more computing would have to be done. b.).........I'm open to suggestions.

Pros- It would bring the game to a more realistic level. Take Barbarossa for example. When the Germans send 150 divisions plummeting into the Russian abyss they are going to watch there divisional strength dropping at a much more realistic level. If your fighting in pitched battles up and down the line then your IC bill will simply become unmanageable. You will either have to let some units pause on the line and keep rather strict attention to the prioritize button. By the end of August 1941 no German divisions were near there 100% level of men and material. Some divisions had already been fought out and were at half strength. This is especially true near Smolensk where the fighting checked German advancement for a month.

As it stands now its too easy to keep all your units at 100% (as manpower lasts). To me the suggestion would simply bring a bit more balance to the game and another level to strategic planning. Is it too much for this game? thoughts?

*Reserves- To fix reserves (although this should probably be another thread). Have reserve divisions built 100% on the front end. After they are completed they remain at (X) strength at peace time. During peace they consume less supply and CG. Once activated they go to 100% str and suffer org and morale penalties. This is a minor suggestion as the thread is more about reinforcement than reserves. The reserve issue would have to be solved however. Thoughts?
 
Not a good idea.

Since reinforcements are around 12.5 times cheaper then full price currently the result would be that Germany needs an average of 500 IC for reinforcements during barbarossa instead of the current 40 IC.



I do think that ships and tanks at least could be considerably more expensive and slow to reinforce then currently. But more on the scale of 2-5 times more expensive instead of 12.5 times.
 
Maybe devs (like other values in previous patches/addons) can export value that affect repair rate to defines.lua,or someone can reduce repair_rate from techs(or other things).
very_hard_player = {
global_ic = -0.25
repair_rate = -0.5
global_resources = -0.25
supply_throughput = -0.5
naval_base_efficiency = -0.5
}


I have the same opinion,the better option to gameplay is to increase cost IC more,than days to reinforce...
 
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Not a good idea.

Since reinforcements are around 12.5 times cheaper then full price currently the result would be that Germany needs an average of 500 IC for reinforcements during barbarossa instead of the current 40 IC.



I do think that ships and tanks at least could be considerably more expensive and slow to reinforce then currently. But more on the scale of 2-5 times more expensive instead of 12.5 times.

Ok, but your arguing that Germany should be able to stay at 100% troop strength. This is a playability vs historical argument. I don't think anyone could make the case that Germany stayed anywhere near 100% strength the hour Barbarossa started. My only concern with this is that imo Germany is far too easy vs USSR (maybe not so much mp but sp) but also balance in general.
 
Ok, but your arguing that Germany should be able to stay at 100% troop strength.

No but I am arguing that they might have, if they had spent the entire European industry captured and owned on the task.

This means stopping all new constructions, including the huge efforts to build submarines and airplanes + AA for the western front, as well as building forts for the Atlantic wall and stopped all upgrades of all units.


You also need to consider that in HoI3 if Germany can't spend the required amount (500 IC) then the result will be that all their front goes towards 0% strength in a few months of heavy combats, is this something that is either historical, fun or desired?

100-200 IC to reinforce the tanks and airforce on the eastfront? Sure any day of the week, but setting it to 1:1 will break things.



My main point is that building tanks/airplanes for reinforcements must be more fun and detailed, if is to be the main task your industry is doing once war breaks out.
 
Ok..I see your point.

But I do think we agree that the rate needs to be tweaked a bit. You could account for convalescent returns and repaired equipment to offset 1:1 but you said it was around 12:1..I didn't even know it as that lenient. That's too far off imo.

Just a question though. If everyone underwent the same changes...do you really think it would break the game? If Germany is needing 500IC wouldn't USSR too? They have even less IC than Germany. Might be balanced????
 
Just a question though. If everyone underwent the same changes...do you really think it would break the game? If Germany is needing 500IC wouldn't USSR too? They have even less IC than Germany. Might be balanced????
If anything it would make the Soviet miraculous replacing and reinforcing their army with the 2 million men and 20'000 tanks lost in a few months of 1941 even more impossible ;)


About all units being low strength:
Historical? Well perhaps... but fun?

It could work if it was a modifier like Thanik suggests. That way modders could scale it higher for those seeking a challenge.
 
Imo your idea is great (though a rate of 0.75:1 would be more realistic? and somehow make reserve divisions reinforce to strength faster/instantly after mobilization?), and no, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take extra computational power... Some units already require different amounts of IC*days per percent strength, though unfortunately it's impossible to mod these values individually.

Alex,

1)Historically, the Germans DID struggle massively with keeping the divisions up to strength. Just as the Soviets, Italians, Americans and Brits.

2)The Soviets didn't train & equip the bulk of the men from scratch. The vast majority were mobilized reserves taking their equipment from depots.
 
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And alex, the Soviets didn't train the bulk of the men from scratch. The vast majority were mobilized reserves taking their equipment from depots.

Which is impossible in Hoi3 right now, due to the simple fact that men = equipment, IC cost and unit strength. ;)

In HoI3 they all would even have specialist training with 25% experience...
 
Uhm, how so? I'm sure PI are able to make reserve divisions reinforce up to strength pretty fast after mobilization.

Besides, it's possible to spam basic-training militia divisions pretty well...
 
Another reason why reinforcement times shouldn't be = build time is replacement units.

Historically these could be built in advance and kept near the front to replace losses the same day as they occur. It's not like Armor divisions in Normandy had to order 10 new tanks from Washington when they were lost and wait for production to start. Spare tanks were already ashore on the beaches or it would be impossible for them to reach statistics like 500% tank strength lost in a single year of combat. That means that the historical time to reinforce 100% was about 70 days.


For reinforcements/upgrades to really work in any way close to realistic the entire system needs to be redone from scratch.
 
I think my idea of reserves would work best. You build them on the front end 100% but after completion they go to reserve mode and stay at (say30%) strength. That way you lower your CG demand and supply demand. Once mobilized they should go to 100 str/0 Org. It would take a couple weeks to get them up to shape which would resemble the marshaling period. The IC cost would be 0, but perhaps there could be logistics penalties or such. Just a thought.

How to fix the Soviets w/o making them OP is another issue altogether.
 
Not 1:1 but more in the range of 1:0.75, imo. Regardless, my point was that PI could make reserve divisions reinforcing after mobilization an exception to the rule.

Manpower is hardly representing trained soldiers waiting to be assigned to a unit. Oh, please. Arming them, especially panzer troops, would imply an expense far beyond abstraction (I mean, manpower growth & upkeep is free at the moment).

I think my idea of reserves would work best. You build them on the front end 100% but after completion they go to reserve mode and stay at (say30%) strength. That way you lower your CG demand and supply demand. Once mobilized they should go to 100 str/0 Org. It would take a couple weeks to get them up to shape which would resemble the marshaling period. The IC cost would be 0, but perhaps there could be logistics penalties or such. Just a thought.

How to fix the Soviets w/o making them OP is another issue altogether.
Indeed. The community has been asking PI to rebalance (or at least make it possible for the community to mod this) the reinforcements system to what you suggest for well over a year, now. Hopefully PI will listen this time.
 
If HOI-4 were re-worked so that you actually built TANKS, not Armored Divisions, this would be easier to balance.

Constructing a new Armored Division would then require building all of the needed combat and logistics vehicles, accumulating the small-arms and ammo, and training the officers and men. Refitting a badly damaged Armored Division would still be substantially cheaper... nearly all the training is already done, for instance... but the player would face the realistic choice of whether to use this month's AFV production to refit damaged units or to form a new Division.
 
If HOI-4 were re-worked so that you actually built TANKS, not Armored Divisions, this would be easier to balance.

Constructing a new Armored Division would then require building all of the needed combat and logistics vehicles, accumulating the small-arms and ammo, and training the officers and men. Refitting a badly damaged Armored Division would still be substantially cheaper... nearly all the training is already done, for instance... but the player would face the realistic choice of whether to use this month's AFV production to refit damaged units or to form a new Division.

Agreed.
 
TBH I don't think over-complication is good if the AI isn't able 2 handle it. I mean, PI could ether use resources on making the AI handle the new production system properly, or PI could use resources to make the AI better in combat or other things.
 
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In this new system the AI will have to use IC to produce equipment, and from that produce divisions or reinforcements. This is in contrast to just using IC to produce divisions. It would take a while to program the AI to handle this new system. In addition to this, I can see problems of lag and such due to calculations needed to decide how much loss in each equipment category each division takes after combat. Unless losses of each equipment type is proportional to each other.