Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

Just had the worst single player experience of all time

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Show only dev responses
unmerged(361238)

unmerged(361238)

Second Lieutenant
4 Badges
Aug 9, 2011
188
0
  • For the Motherland
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour
  • Semper Fi
To be honest, I'm about ready to give up on this terrible game. I'd like to share with you one of the worst single player experiences I've ever had.

I decided to have a go at Ethiopia with the hopes of gaining access to the sea and assisting Italy in Africa. I acquired peace immediately with Italy so as not to be a puppet. The experience that followed was horrific to say the least. Japan joined the axis and began the war in Shanxi with an AI that had no rhyme or reason. They moved back and forth between the Shanxi border and the Russian border as if they couldn't make up their mind. This resulted in Shanxi annexing Manchuria as early as April 10, 1938. They continued on to conquer Korea and pretty much end Japan in the span of a year. I thought ok, maybe I should keep playing as there is always a chance Germany and Italy have success. Things couldn't get any worse right? Wrong.

Germany invaded the lowlands around April as they usually do only to send hundreds of thousands of men into Norway. This resulted in Belgium holding and the French pushing Germany back towards Berlin. To make matters worse, the hundreds of thousands of men in Norway literally got stuck because of supply issues never making it to Narvik. Italy of course was pushed out of Africa a few months after triggering the "It's Our Time" event.

The game was essentially a waste of my time. I had managed to upgrade the entire starting 16 militia brigades of Ethiopia into Infantry with up to date weapons in all areas ready to carve a slice of Africa but by then it was already over. What disturbs me more than Paradox's lack of interest in fixing well known AI issues such as the German Norway Invasion is the fact that no one else complains about it. I see not one single person on the forums besides myself trying to hold Paradox to the standard they set for themselves. If Hearts of Iron 3 fails, the blame will be on not only the developers, but also the community who stayed silent and content with a flawed product. Hearts of Iron 2 fans, many of whom I know well, will be vindicated in their hatred and predictions of failure for HOI3 if this nonsense continues.
 
Well that indeed sounds like a frustrating game. I usually play as one of the majors but I have never seen the AI Germany lose that bad that soon. I must admit though the Japan AI seems to focus to much on conquering china and building forts and not a navy; and they never declare war on the US.
 
Not sure what you expected really. Sometimes GER can lose, and if you play a minor nation you are depending on others to drive the war. Having said that, I've run 100s of HoI3 games and don't recall GER losing that badly in France (although it has probably happened), are you saying you played one game and GER happened to lose, or that you see this happen a lot?
 
Redstars89 said:
To be honest, I'm about ready to give up on this terrible game. I'd like to share with you one of the worst single player experiences I've ever had.
Click to expand...

What do you expect? You're playing Ethiopia... Regarding your game, it just seems to me that the German and Japanese AI went nuts as they sometime do. Usually the game is pretty straightforward (at least until Barbarossa) but from time to time Germany and Japan just go completely crazy and there is nothing to do about it. I bet your next game will be completely normal.
 
Darkrenown said:
Not sure what you expected really. Sometimes GER can lose, and if you play a minor nation you are depending on others to drive the war. Having said that, I've run 100s of HoI3 games and don't recall GER losing that badly in France (although it has probably happened), are you saying you played one game and GER happened to lose, or that you see this happen a lot?
Click to expand...

I don't mean to be rude, but how can you be completely ignorant about the German Norway Invasion problems? Every single game Norway is attacked the Germans send hundreds and thousand of troops (which is ridiculous) into Norway only to get stuck game after game. This isn't one fluke game where bad stuff happened. This is just one of my many horrific single player experiences. I have over 500 hours played and have never seen German AI and Japan not perform poorly.
 
He is not being ignorant about this problem, sometime Germany do get stuck in Norway with way to much troops. But most of the time the invasion goes well.
 
Redstars89 said:
I don't mean to be rude, but how can you be completely ignorant about the German Norway Invasion problems? Every single game Norway is attacked the Germans send hundreds and thousand of troops (which is ridiculous) into Norway only to get stuck game after game. This isn't one fluke game where bad stuff happened. This is just one of my many horrific single player experiences. I have over 500 hours played and have never seen German AI and Japan not perform poorly.
Click to expand...

It gets stuck because very often the German AI looses its very few transports to the RN due to not having even
a small navy to escort them. When the game is optimized properly the German AI is smart enough to invade
Norway with a lot of divisions as always (the AI likes overwhelming attacks) and then take back the
units to Germany for other campaigns, leaving some divisions and garrisons in Norway.

Concerning the initial post, it is the same problem as refered by many players in hundreds of threads, the
AI production scheme is really bad and produces those results way too often. After some comments
from the devs I believe it is in part intended to produce game results quite often similar to
the historical ones.
 
Redstars89 said:
I don't mean to be rude, but how can you be completely ignorant about the German Norway Invasion problems? Every single game Norway is attacked the Germans send hundreds and thousand of troops (which is ridiculous) into Norway only to get stuck game after game. This isn't one fluke game where bad stuff happened. This is just one of my many horrific single player experiences. I have over 500 hours played and have never seen German AI and Japan not perform poorly.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? I asked about FRA beating Germany as you said in your OP, I didn't mention Norway. Or, if you're claiming GER never beats FRA because they get stuck in Norway I'm going to go ahead and assume you're playing a different game from me and leave you to it.
 
Every singleplayer campaign develops different, but mostly the direction is more or less historic correct.
And this is good in HOI3, I dont want a game where all situations are going like you expect it.

Few examples from different games:
- I played UK, and GER DoW'ed me at 1938
- GER AI invaded UK and NOR
- GER AI invaded UK
- GER AI couldnt defeat FRA
- JAP went to allies
- after GER took half Europa, UK invaded in DEN
- sometimes GER beats SOV, sometimes not
- JAP invaded Phillipines and netherland Asia
- USA invaded Taiwan and japanese core island
- JAP sometimes beat the chinese, sometimes not
- ITA kick the british out of Egypt, sometimes not
- ITA defends Ethiopa, mostly not
- Persia is going to axis, sometimes not
....

Off course, there are some parameters which prefers few things, but to have the possibility to make a little ahistoric things is good.
I guess, you had just very bad luck in 1 single game?

Greetings
 
Ot seems he does have For the Motherland, so that must be taken into account. Only really bogus thing I´ve seen so far was Germany being bogged in Belgium until 1941.

If I have an issue with the current AI is that Japan usually chews China, sometimes even in 1938.
 
There seems to ALWAYS be a few fleets of Alliance ships stuck when Denmark gets captured. Not sure how this can be fixed but it should be. They never run out of fuel or ammo. I can deal with them but the AI sends solo transports out again and again with them patrolling and get creamed. Fix the trapped ship problem and you probably solve the Norway problem.
 
Do you want us to talk you into playing this game again?
I guess it's just bad luck. I never had Germany stuck in Norway.
 
In my FTM games, Germany does indeed perform poorly, but not on the level described here. I have seen Germany stall out in Norway, but I haven't seen it fail to take France. My biggest problem with Germany in FTM is that, more often than not in my experience as Japan, it will not attack the USSR and if dragged into a war will play purely on the defensive.
 
In my UK game they were 3 provinces away from Moscow in october 1941 and had taken Leningrad, I scrambled to invade France at least to divert some troops. Already invaded Italy, which dragged a few troops too, else dunno what could have happened hehe.

Norway is a big problem, they send more troops than it´s needed, but the biggest reason for the fail is that they don´t do an amphibious invasion of Narvik (for obvious reasons, because if it was a human UK they would lose ship after ship), therefore wasting months to reach it by foot.

I´d suggest, if both allies and Germany are AI, to give an amphibious invasion script or just give Narvik to Germany by event.
 
peterhoi3 said:
It gets stuck because very often the German AI looses its very few transports to the RN due to not having even
a small navy to escort them. When the game is optimized properly the German AI is smart enough to invade
Norway with a lot of divisions as always (the AI likes overwhelming attacks) and then take back the
units to Germany for other campaigns, leaving some divisions and garrisons in Norway.
Click to expand...

we evaluated your suggested AI files and basically they dont work unless the AI is getting helped by running it on hard difficulty, and they produce very unhistorical builds and results (strong sealion, much strategic bombing etc) which, while cool, dont really fit in with the vanilla version which is supposed to give a fairly historical feel.
 
So you think it's OK AI quality is nerfed as long as the AI acts more historic...? -.-' If what it produces is OP, then balance the units... And why is Sealion (the Germans could've well pulled it off IRL had they won the BoB) and allot of strategic bombing unrealistic?
 
Wminus said:
And why is Sealion (the Germans could've well pulled it off IRL had they won the BoB) and allot of strategic bombing unrealistic?
Click to expand...

It is important to recognize what could have happened and what did happen are two very different things. Bismark and Tripitz could have been successful, but they weren't. The u-boat campaign could have caused England to surrender, but it didn't. And so on.

While the game should and does allow for the possibility of ahistorical results, it should not by rote produce ahistorical configurations. That is what mods are for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back