E3 2012: New Expansion for Hearts of Iron III Announced!

[GCZ]

Finally it's here!

And it's also pleasing to see the new expansion has almost same name as my mod for HOI3. Now I have to prepare Finest Hour mod to be compatible with HOI3: Their Finest Hour...

[Saint-Exupéry]

I know it!, I "dreamed" it will be Queen of The Seas, but it ended actualy quite close with also Britain sintagm-Finest Hour ,and is a OK!
That could mean they will deal with airforce and navy?

What is the status of multiple times asked some kind of airforce and navy command for strategic warfare.Will there be any improvement, naval and airforce Commanders for strategic warfare ?

[Calders]

the secnarios and units are secondary, the abilirty to limit units to a % if the army = awesome

No that is easy to do in Lua (there is absolutely no reason you need to stick to the ratio's that come 'out of the box'). I think improved intel and invasions could be good. But to some extent I agree that I am also little underwhelmed by the feature list (but I don't play multi-player or scenario's and I can see there are some cool improvements to these areas). Anyway I am hoping there will be some good stuff that they haven't annouced that will be in the final release (there are actually some relatively small changes that could make a big difference, especially for moding)

[GCZ]

Is the Expansion in any kind connected with the mod "Finest Hour"?

no, sorry if the creator feels he need to change the mod name now saw it and couldn't say anything earlier to warn him before the announcement

Ah, it's okay. I understand why no warning could be given to me. I will leave the mod name as it is, should be alright. All that matters is that we will have another expansion this year and so that we can look forward to it.

PS: I'm almost starting to get used to the fact that Paradox-published games are being named after my mods. For example, I have a mod for Blitzkrieg named "Achtung Panzer" and few years after that, Pdx published a strategy game with the same name. And then it continued with Motherland Calls --> HOI3: For the Motherland; The Other Side --> Magicka: The Other Side of the Coin; or Finest Hour --> HOI3: Their Finest Hour.

It's nice, actually. But is this just a coincidence?

[CplKatie]

Will traits system be similar to that from Crusader Kings franchise? It would be awesome, really If you had an army with a leader traited as "coward", to see how it affects units morale etc etc.

Looking forward for this.

I hope the leader trait system is optional. Example how this sucks:

In Medievel 2 Total war the traits were plentiful and at times hilariously inconveniencing, but you could always just kill the general/family member off and get a new one in its place very fast. In shogun 2 however, the time frame of the game and the severe lack of family members coming to age really hurts a historical players view of the traits when they get really bad traits on their favorite daimyo/heir. How will this relate to HOI3? How many are going to be annoyed when their Patton or Rommel get a negative trait they can't disable? Hopefully they think before they add in negative traits...

[podcat]

Ah, it's okay. I understand why no warning could be given to me. I will leave the mod name as it is, should be alright. All that matters is that we will have another expansion this year and so that we can look forward to it.

PS: I'm almost starting to get used to the fact that Paradox-published games are being named after my mods. For example, I have a mod for Blitzkrieg named "Achtung Panzer" and few years after that, Pdx published a strategy game with the same name. And then it continued with Motherland Calls --> HOI3: For the Motherland; The Other Side --> Magicka: The Other Side of the Coin; or Finest Hour --> HOI3: Their Finest Hour.

It's nice, actually. But is this just a coincidence?

haha you are on to us, in fact when a new project is about to be announced I tell someone to "go check GCZ posting history and pick a name from it" ;P

[Stauffenberg13]

I hope the leader trait system is optional. Example how this sucks:

In Medievel 2 Total war the traits were plentiful and at times hilariously inconveniencing, but you could always just kill the general/family member off and get a new one in its place very fast. In shogun 2 however, the time frame of the game and the severe lack of family members coming to age really hurts a historical players view of the traits when they get really bad traits on their favorite daimyo/heir. How will this relate to HOI3? How many are going to be annoyed when their Patton or Rommel get a negative trait they can't disable? Hopefully they think before they add in negative traits...

I'm sure it's not TW type of character traits. It will likely be like in HOI2. If you use a general to fight in the desert for a maybe a year or so, he'll probably get good at it, right? So, he'll develop a trait that gives him a bonus when he's fighting in desert terrain.

[Cybvep]

I'm sure it's not TW type of character traits. It will likely be like in HOI2. If you use a general to fight in the desert for a maybe a year or so, he'll probably get good at it, right? So, he'll develop a trait that gives him a bonus when he's fighting in desert terrain.

I think that this will be the case, although I wouldn't be surprised if the new traits weren't restricted to terrain-specific ones. It would be quite cool if your traitless general could become a skilled panzer commander.

[Saint-Exupéry]

I am realy worried that even after 3 expansions HOI III airforce and navy in strategic operations will be commanded by ground army generals.
I am beging Paradox to at least try to solve this issue to give us a chain of command with airforce and navy HQ-s for strategic utilisation of airforce and navy,like strategic bombardment, fight for air-superiority(example BATTLE FOR BRITAIN),submarine warfare,naval fleets operations..

[de la Fere]

I am realy worried that even after 3 expansions HOI III airforce and navy in strategic operations will be commanded by ground army generals.
I am beging Paradox to at least try to solve this issue to give us a chain of command with airforce and navy HQ-s for strategic utilisation of airforce and navy,like strategic bombardment, fight for air-superiority(example BATTLE FOR BRITAIN),submarine warfare,naval fleets operations..

+1

[Calders]

I am realy worried that even after 3 expansions HOI III airforce and navy in strategic operations will be commanded by ground army generals.
I am beging Paradox to at least try to solve this issue to give us a chain of command with airforce and navy HQ-s for strategic utilisation of airforce and navy,like strategic bombardment, fight for air-superiority(example BATTLE FOR BRITAIN),submarine warfare,naval fleets operations..

Yes I agree with this, except it's Battle OF Britain ... the easiest solution would be to abstract the chain of command in the a new screen. You could then assign sensible objectives (basically the same as the as the current air and naval objectives) to different levels in the chain of command.

[GCZ]

haha you are on to us, in fact when a new project is about to be announced I tell someone to "go check GCZ posting history and pick a name from it" ;P

LOL, this made my day!

[Gre]

Well you can certainly draw up some plans in SP if you like (cool arrows are cool), but no, you cannot coordinate with the AI with them.

I guess you probably won't change this, but if you could get the AI to:
1. Show you its battle plans and where it would like you to play a role
2. Accept and try to carry out the role you make for it in your battle plans
This would probably be the greatest feature ever in any strategy game.

But right now the battle plans feature is just cosmetic, right? It just allows you to draw on the map without interacting in any way with the AI systems?

[podcat]

I guess you probably won't change this, but if you could get the AI to:
1. Show you its battle plans and where it would like you to play a role
2. Accept and try to carry out the role you make for it in your battle plans
This would probably be the greatest feature ever in any strategy game.

But right now the battle plans feature is just cosmetic, right? It just allows you to draw on the map without interacting in any way with the AI systems?

right now yes

[Cybvep]

right now yes

I like the fact that you wrote "right now" in italics .

[sixtpomp]

Awesome!

[Calders]

right now yes

What would be good (and make it useful for single player) would be to enable allied objectives to be set in the screen and maybe even army objectives (although the second bit sounds a lot harder).

[lolladin]

PLEEEEAASE, make the operational-planning-screen-arrow-thingy so that it actually affects your own army AI and your allies. It would be so awesome!

[Chromos]

right now yes

From the "wish thread for HOI3 TFH".
The bold underlined text of course..

I'll start, here it goes:
1.)

Optimize the interface for widescreen monitors. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

Woot. Good call.

I could/would help with that one..

1.a)
My idea:
Also a redesign of some areas for gameplay reasons could be done.
F.e. delete the obsolete theatre tab from the productions menue.
Delete the Theatre forces button productions menue. This was, afaik, also only used in early HOI3 version without LUA-ai-production.
Let us build prov buildings only on the map(Advantage over ai now if we build rows of IC/AA etc. and place the at once on one prov..)


2.)

I always dreamed of having a operational planning mode like this for giving your AI commands orders, really disappointed that this only serves a function in MP.

2.a)My idea:
Maybe a good idea is to being able to set theatre and allied objecives in that map mode?
So it could be used as a operational planning tool already!
That would be relative easy to implement and also a sufficient/efficient sollution.

2.b)
Additional idea:
Adding a priority lvl to the goals woulbe be even better as the ai would know where to spend more effort on.
(That might need additional ai coding for the strat ai, but if that sort of priority is already implemented then it would be easier to add maybe.)

2.c)
If such a priority lvl is implemented, then an "offensive supply modus" could be added too. F.e. just have an different SUPPLYPOOL_DAYS value for units with priority lvl one(out of three f.e.). So these uits would just start to drag more supply with the current supply mechanism, and thus no change to the current supply code is needed.


3.)
Be able to set the stances of the Theatre and Fronts in the Theatre view tab.
And have the ability to change the stance via event/decsion/lua.
Also set allied objectives via event/decsion/lua..

And please take a look into this one too if you might have not seen it.
I like to add my idea for the "Lend-Lease strategical ressource sharing feature":

Thank you for the quick answer and additional info!
I'll translate it asap in the german forum.

Let me add, that I and maybe others aswell, would like to see the produced stuff to be transported by sea, so we could intercept that convoys and have a real Battle of the Atlantik and the undeclared war feature could really shine.
I have already thought about how to achieve that with modding in the past. And have a rough workaround in my head already, But with access to the code you could do it much better.

The time needed to code a IC share function could also be used to add the existing code a bit and put the existing features together for that lend-lease system.

Short description:

We would need: What is needed from the other country -> lua cross check of their(target) build ratio or seven simpler in just setting check flags. Production: -> have this need "marked" with the target country.(similar to like now if I start a build request from the theatre tab). -> add in own production queue the need of the other country. -> have this produced units "marked" with the target country(similar to exp. units). -> put this new produced units on the map In the production lua could be a differnt(new) production command for producing these units. So they would be "marked" right at the unit setup in the lua code.. Using country tags would make it easier too. So we could check the flag, if true then check the need and use the current prod-ai just with then new command. Transfer: -> the marked units now will be shipped by own transports(new ai logic here, like "Ups, marked units are rdy, I've to transport the asap to the target country"..) to a nearest save port of our target country. -> After reaching that port(Successful rebase into a port with a land connection to the target countries capital) The units change ownership to the target country. -> or we make sure that the target country gets enough own transports to do that work on their own. Reaching their own soil lets the units switch to the target country. Manpower: These "marked" units have no manpower need until they reach their target country. All lua checks can be done already, and "storing" checks with country/global flags too. I did that already with my Dynamic-AI, it works.. So the lend-lease giving country would just have another build-lua priotity changed by this flag checks. So the speed of lua is no problem. We have also not to check every day for events etc.. Also not many new code needed as you can use the current one to an extend.

The gain would be a much more important sea warfare. That important as it was in reality.
I can only guess how big the kudos to you and the team will be if that make it into the add-on in such a way.

The "easier/more abstracted" version would have no way of interrupt such lend-lease shipment at all..

Hope that this idea will look appealing to you.

Cheers,
Chromos

Cheers,
Chromos

[RELee]

<Practically everything said so far>

Pilgrim, you just went up a notch in my book! Yes sir, you're all right by me!