I am aware of the different "windows". Thanks for the hint though. I'm sure some new folk don't know so if they stumble into the thread they can find out.Originally Posted by Henri
I am aware of the different "windows". Thanks for the hint though. I'm sure some new folk don't know so if they stumble into the thread they can find out.
Survival tip #72: If it has eyes in the back of its head, don't try to sneak up on it from behind.
Will my infantry move faster if I defrag my hard drive?
The knack to effective leadership: Do not give orders that can be understood. Do give orders that can not be misunderstood.
Umm, ye Gods no!!!! Having played almost everyboard and computer wargame out there, there are plenty of "simplified" games out there to play. Don't do to HOI what happened to the Civilization or TW franchises, dumb them down for the masses (CIV 5 - /facepalm).
1) would be nice, but how many posts are on this board saying this or that unit should be in the game? Designers don't force you to produce every piece in the game, just ignore the ones you don't want in your tool box.
2) NO NO NO - see 1) above. You have to make choices in life.
3) Aw Heck no! Might as well order your air unit "go attack something" and eat a sandwich while the game plays.
4) Got to organize it somehow, this game does it better than most strategic games. We even have a click and move option in the OOB screen. Many times I would have killed for that in the past. Think this is bad, try organizing 2000+ cardboard counters over a 4' by 3' board on your kitchen table. Hint, don't sneeze!
Yes, it would be nice if the AI was better implemented. No AI will take the place of a human brain, but sheesh, the same ole thing the same old way gets predictable.
Fix the things that are in the game and just don't work - example - production licensing
Fix the exploits.
The reason I love this game is that is comes closest to the complexity of the old board wargames like Third Reich etc, while still being playable. Force me to make decisions and have to give up something to get something. Dumb it down and I am out of here!
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I think a bit more complexity in the sense that I can micro-manage to an even greater level, for example more options IC use (upgrades, reinforcement, supplies ect.) because I quite like that sort of thing. While getting into the real nitty-gritty stuff would be good, I think the game is quite a challenge as it is now so it perhaps not necessary.
i disagree with everything except possibly number four, i do want it to be easier to organize armies but i play HOI for its realism and historical correctness
i wouldnt play the game if it was that simplified, so i am against this idea
(no hard feelings, i respect everyones opinion, this is just mine)
The only thing I really agree with is that it would be nice if the major nations had at least a semi-functional OOB at the outset of the game. From the major nations I have played (Germany, Japan, Italy), Germany is probably the least annoying to organize.
Anyway, I don't want Hearts of Iron to be simplified. They could streamline existing systems so that I don't get carpal tunnel from clicking so much, but that would be about it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the Total War series. My two favorite games at this moment are Fall of the Samurai and Hearts of Iron III. I play Total War when I want to lean back in my chair with a bowl of ice cream and watch my Gatling guns and rifle-equipped infantry destroy some Yari-wielding Samurai. The strategic level of a Total War game is pretty much just a simple intermission between real-time battles. That series is about tactics and it fills that niche extremely well. I just find it relaxing to play, since the demands that it places on an experienced RTS/grand strategy player are quite low. Plus, since I'm a military history major with a weak spot for flavor, I enjoy watching historical units fight each other in real-time. Even if they tend to make things faster-paced and more "cinematic."
That being said, I play Hearts of Iron III when I want to put on my Stahlhelm, get a cup of coffee, sit straight up in my chair and micromanage the hell out of a country during this period in history. I'm still fairly new to Hearts of Iron III, so I have the AI manage trade and the sliders for production. However, I'm planning on eventually turning the AI off completely and controlling everything.
Just let Hearts of Iron be Hearts of Iron and Total War be Total War. They are two completely different things and I really like them both. As an example, I really like chocolate ice cream and I really like beef tortellini, but I sure as hell don't want beef tortellini with chocolate ice cream on top.
I see that you want to simplify things for the sake of the AI. Except that I have yet to even be remotely challenged by Total War AI from Rome all the way through to Fall of the Samurai. They pretty much just act as mindless drones with no strategic direction that only seek to pump out endless streams of armies for me to chew up. Not to say that Hearts of Iron III AI is brilliant, but simplifying the game to try and fix this isn't the solution as any fun that is gained from challenging AI will be offset by the player having less options himself. That is a pretty massive loss when you are talking about a hardcore grand strategy game that has replay-ability and player choice as a core selling point.
INTENSIFY FORWARD FIREPOWER!!!!!!
No, a S2:TW game on legendary requires a crapload of strategy and thinking (or at least when playing an exposed clan), and this is with a (quite solid) battle-AI which doesn't cheat during battles. Obviously if you play on normal difficulty though, you will have little problems winning. Regardless - my point with the TW example was that simplifying things won't make the game easier, or less intellectually demanding. It would actually make the game harder and more demanding, if done right.
As for the micromanagement level - to each his own.
Nope, not choices like I was talking about. Did you even read what I was writing? Gameplay which forces a player to build only one type of bomber, naval escort or capital ship to be efficient is not only unrealistic, it also makes the game less strategic.2) NO NO NO - see 1) above. You have to make choices in life.
You are not forced to do that, the thing is that the less leadership you have the harder it is to specify into different types of warfare which in my opinion is quite realistic. Nothing stops you from building different types of bombers, you will just not be able to use all of them at their maximum effectiveness.
If you don't consider cheating an AI that gets units with bonus on morale, defense and attack values that you cannot get...
No, uber-specialisation is one of the biggest drawbacks of the game IMO. Find me a major RL navy which decided to scrap destroyers or cruisers... or a major country which didn't build tanks (even the Japanese had them)... or didn't use AT and AA guns... or <enter another strange HOI3 strategy here>.
There is a BIG difference between prioritisation and uber-specialisation. Every military in the world prioritised X over Y, but various units simply had different sets advantages and disadvantages and that's why you use all or most of them.
I shouldn't be e.g. researching and building AT for RP reasons, I should have real strategic reasons to do so.
@op: The whole game could be streamlined, but regarding complexity, some parts, i´d like to have more, some are just about right, some could do with less, or at least optionally less.
Parts that could use more complexity, imho:
- Espionage (threat from X allows you to declare war on Y)
- Diplomacy (peace-resolutions, interventions and alternate timelines in general ; actively borrow EXP-forces)
- Naval warfare
- Number of units (to realistic levels, ~2x the current)
- MP-usage
- IC-usage
- new unit types (amphibious landing craft, contruction battalion...)
- under-the-hood battle rules (and other mechanics, e.g. diminishing return for officer ratio >100%) and possibly unit stats
- stats and news (feedback)
- doctrinal sliders - e.g.: slightly faster units or more carry-on supply? (That means 6 LS-bars by now: The 4 traditional ones, +1 for maintaining borrowed EXP-forces, +1 for doctrines - decoupled from regular research - allowing you to move those sliders)
Parts, that seem to be just right to me:
- mapscale (though frontage might need to be increased with troop-count)
Parts that could be uncluttered:
- OOBs (starting ones, as well as an option to make your corps the primary unit to move on the maps, uncluttering the map immensely, if you so choose)
- Research
- No divisional commanders
- supply through HQs
- automated airforces attached to manually controlled HQs
- the interface (start by getting rid of all options that dont work properly)
- LS as function of MP and IC (mostly) - not on map-ressource
- daring: timescale? Hourly ticks really needed? Why not just set hours of daylight for each day?
- laws (needed? why not just a function of the parameters enabling them - as you usually switch them asap anyways)
- money - the ever odd ressource of HoI. Needed? Or just trade supplies/fuel/oil for raws?
I´d like the game to play a tad faster and yet offer more interesting and varying dicisions in an at least equally realistic environment.
Money is needed to pass new Laws.
What I would like to see is Civil wars.
Provinces should contain Political Popularity.
These should affect things like:
eg. Germany conquers territories which favour Facist Governments, Revolts are decreased.
Also.
3 Things could happen for coups.
1. Successful - Government overthrown (Normal)
2. Failure - Normal
3. Civil war - (Has to be high enough).
Lets say Im playing Soviet Union and I coup france. A separate country is born <Communist> France. As an example.
Communist France would battle Non-Commie France for control.
Just an Idea.
A more detailed naval construction system. Actual parts like engines, main guns, secondaries, armor schemes, not just tch levels. Each base hull type (DD, CL, CA, BB, etc) having a certain amount of space which would be taken up by your various systems. Make it a balancing act. Want to overload the armor protection? Why, suddenly you don't have room for that big engine you need to make 28 knots. And add inefficiency penalties so players aren't trying to overmaximize the amount of shit they cram right up to the hull limit. You'd still research the various areas, but it would be to unlock a few new breakthroughs and to make the different parts more efficent (improved shells on the guns, a more efficient engine that gives you the same power output on less space, etc)
For players that don't want to deal with that, just have historical designs usable by default, along with a few planned-but-never built ones (the Montanas, the Maltas, Graf Zeppelin, Sovietsky Soyuz, etc). Having played Galactic Civilizations II, in which there was a far more complicated system and the AI had no problem designing decent ships, I'm sure it's not impossible to make an AI capable of doing this.
And have a tonnage limit or something based on your IC and modified by shipyards/shipbuilding research, to more accurately reflect actual capabilities.
I like the idea of getting rid of divisions on the map: divisions should exist only in Corps, except for special cases like garrisons.
Henri
The AI could design decent ships, but it won't be able to be anywhere near the capabilities of a human. This would give the human player just another advantage, just like most other complexity additions.
We already have a division designer and it is pretty clear that it gives the human player a significant advantage over the AI, which is stuck with just several combinations, cannot reorganise its divisions or create gamey combinations and use them effectively.
(1) I think that theoretical knowledge should go away. Practical knowledge is a great idea, but it is enough. Theoretical knowledge overly complicates the research system.
(2) Fuel and oil as two different commodities is an overly complicated abstraction. This isn't done with metal as steel, or rares or energy, so why complicate the system with Oil? It doesn't add anything substantive.
My opinion is this, having more options, units or whatever is not going to make the AI play a better game. My hope is to have a better AI, which in turn would make the game more complex in its own right. I am not knocking anything that would be added to the game such as different units or better diplomacy or anything like that, but the core to the game right now is the AI determines how much of a challenge the game really is and I know there will always be gamey tactics that the human can do over the AI. And the AI is not all the time very good at its job. I hate when a game has to punish the player and reward the AI to make it challenging.
Ammerica and All the Troubles II AAR a Dies Irae: Stars and Stripes and FtML Comparison AAR
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...1#post13667536
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...ual-OOB-Editor
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...on-3-%28ART%29
The above are the player made tools I was referring to when venting about the OOB management ingame.
Try them out, if you haven't. Then you too can wonder why we have to edit a saved game to really get to the nitty gritty of OOB management, rather than being able to do all those things while ingame with equal ease.
Survival tip #72: If it has eyes in the back of its head, don't try to sneak up on it from behind.
Will my infantry move faster if I defrag my hard drive?
The knack to effective leadership: Do not give orders that can be understood. Do give orders that can not be misunderstood.
The AI needs to become more adaptive and less scripted. I think I might have just spoiled myself by playing too much Gal Civ 2.
The devs of GalCiv2 followed a good rule - if the AI cannot handle a given feature, then no matter how cool it sounds, it won't be added to the game.
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