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Daunus

Daunus

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Sep 24, 2005
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A third or second rate power producing a 1918 model infantry had similar IC cost to a first rate power producing latest say, 1941 infantry.

This goes for other units too obviously.

The reality tho is that equipping a unit with 1918 weapons would have been extremely cheap, many of the weapons would have been acquired sometimes even for free from other powers. Producing them does not require great technical skills or latest machinery.


There should be a drastic cost reduction to producing units that are obsolete.

eg. 70% for three years behind,
50% for 5 behind,
10% for 10+ behind.


This will allow second and third rate powers to still have sizeable armies with a different types of units. These units will be out of date .

More fun and more realistic.


btw Yes I know there is the production line system, but that is different situation. It does not give a inherent cost reduction to producing obsolete units. A separate mechanic like this is also needed.
 
Daunus said:
A third or second rate power producing a 1918 model infantry had similar IC cost to a first rate power producing latest say, 1941 infantry.

This goes for other units too obviously.

The reality tho is that equipping a unit with 1918 weapons would have been extremely cheap, many of the weapons would have been acquired sometimes even for free from other powers. Producing them does not require great technical skills or latest machinery.


There should be a drastic cost reduction to producing units that are obsolete.

eg. 70% for three years behind,
50% for 5 behind,
10% for 10+ behind.


This will allow second and third rate powers to still have sizeable armies with a different types of units. These units will be out of date .

More fun and more realistic.


btw Yes I know there is the production line system, but that is different situation. It does not give a inherent cost reduction to producing obsolete units. A separate mechanic like this is also needed.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with this, there should be a slight reduction, but not drastic.

Producing a gun still takes machinery and expertise whether it is 1916 or 1933 versions, your country needs to have that expertise, and if it doesn't then it can't produce it. You can look at China right now in 2014, they don't have the ability to produce submarines, carriers, tanks, etc. They have bought their entire army, and Navy, and they have been taking those weapons, learning from them, learning to produce the parts, and then learn to produce and research their own.

To simply say oh this is 2014 you should be able to produce a WWII tank at 1% cost, then China should be able to arm it's entire population several times over with Tanks... but you can't because it's about resources and time to produce.

However, Research of 1918 weapons should be relatively quick because it is old technology and an be replicated easily even with slight modifications, but this is already in the game.
 
A third or second rate power producing a 1918 model infantry had similar IC cost to a first rate power producing latest say, 1941 infantry.
Click to expand...

I think they were more expensive. Maybe because big powers built more of them (and got better practicals) you didn't notice. But even if it isn't the ability to create new weaponry (even if it is obselete compared to other country's) would be quite a challenge and it would take time for that country to adjust. And remember even if equipment is harder to build it doesn't mean it's better. A weapon that has lots of fiddly pieces and take weeks to assemble can be utter crap. Likewise a weapon with a few easy to produce and simple to assemble parts can dominate the battlefield.

The reality tho is that equipping a unit with 1918 weapons would have been extremely cheap, many of the weapons would have been acquired sometimes even for free from other powers. Producing them does not require great technical skills or latest machinery.
Click to expand...

Hopefully having pools of equipment will mean that selling or giving away equipment will be possible, like America supplying everyone with shermans. Likewise it will hopefully be possible for an underdeveloped country to buy old equipment from another country at a cheaper price than to produce their own.
 
I don`t agree, AK-47 which is never model than STG-44 is faster to make. Etc etc
What there should be is ability to produce lower quality infantry, second line soldiers that would get old stock or lower quality equipment.
 
TheRomanRuler said:
I don`t agree, AK-47 which is newer model than STG-44 is faster to make. Etc etc
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I assume thats newer, right?
Reason the AK-47 is faster to make is because it was planned that way.
Which is a completly different topic, since it goes more towards the matter of relative industrialization, quality of weaponry, effeciency of ressoure allocation ,etc.
Overall a Single-shot, breech loading rifle is SIGNIFICANTLY easier to manufacture than even the most primitive blowback machine gun.
You basically take a length of metal tube, cut some more away at the end, cobble together some device to close the 'breech' and a firing pin.
Tada! a single shot rifle the likes of which the European armies saw as state of the art in 1866.
A rifle with a magazine that is still bolt action is not much more complicated.
The magazine takes some finesse but little more in ways of manufacturing, etc.
Any weapon capable of semi-automatic fire is already markedly more complex (one of the reason why it was first introduced with pistols where the weaker ammunition allowed all parts to be less sturdy and smaller) and a full-automatic weapon is magnitudes more complex. Thats where you get to the point where you cannot assemble the weapons unless you have significant know-how, machine tools, etc.
 
Older stuff is cheaper because:

You know how to make it, have been making it for a long time, and can therefore make it quickly and easily (Represented by gearing)
It's simpler than newer stuff (Represented by a lower base IC cost)
It's brought at a cheap price from another power (Represented by it costing less to buy than new stuff, rather than costing less to produce in the first place)

Seems like it's already covered to me.
 
AFAIK old equipment won't disappear into the ether when units are upgraded, it will be returned to an equipment pool. So if Romania wants to equip a million men on the cheap they could buy surplus equipment from Germany and do so.
 
You guys are are focusing on production which is just a part of my argument.


The main part is that these old obsolete weapons could be purchased on the world market for a very low cost. The countries that produced it did not want it.

I have not looked into this, but when the Chinese army fought the Japanese, where did it get most of its equipment? i.e. rifles, artillery, planes etc.

I suspect a lot of it was old equipment from other nations, and little was actually manufactured in China.


Having a market for arms and selling old equipment is too complicated. It can simply be abstracted by making obsolete units very cheap.
 
Daunus said:
You guys are are focusing on production which is just a part of my argument.


The main part is that these old obsolete weapons could be purchased on the world market for a very low cost. The countries that produced it did not want it.

I have not looked into this, but when the Chinese army fought the Japanese, where did it get most of its equipment? i.e. rifles, artillery, planes etc.

I suspect a lot of it was old equipment from other nations, and little was actually manufactured in China.


Having a market for arms and selling old equipment is too complicated. It can simply be abstracted by making obsolete units very cheap.
Click to expand...

To me thats oversimplifying things. Plus the difference between swapping some money to get some equipment nearly instantly, as opposed to wasting vital production, time, and resources on producing weapons that are worse, is a big difference.
 
Only a lot of gear also got scraped and recycled into newer weapons.
Also Great Powers would not sell weapons to just about anybody.
As for China as far as i remember a good part came from factories that had been set up with help from the German Militärmission.
 
Daunus said:
You guys are are focusing on production which is just a part of my argument.


The main part is that these old obsolete weapons could be purchased on the world market for a very low cost. The countries that produced it did not want it.

I have not looked into this, but when the Chinese army fought the Japanese, where did it get most of its equipment? i.e. rifles, artillery, planes etc.

I suspect a lot of it was old equipment from other nations, and little was actually manufactured in China.


Having a market for arms and selling old equipment is too complicated. It can simply be abstracted by making obsolete units very cheap.
Click to expand...

As I said, buying old weapons is cheaper. Simple.
 
Klausewitz said:
Only a lot of gear also got scraped and recycled into newer weapons.
Also Great Powers would not sell weapons to just about anybody.
As for China as far as i remember a good part came from factories that had been set up with help from the German Militärmission.
Click to expand...

Looking at wikipedia (and it does not have specific numbers) it suggests the tanks, artillery and items like helmets were from foreign countries. Rifles were locally produced based on copies of european models.


Actually I think there are two issues with previous games,

-Having a balanced army as a minor is hard as you have to pretty much research and produce everything yourself.

-Creating old obsolete units is too expensive.
 
I'll copy what I wrote in the production dev diary concerning infantry divisions:

I'm thinking about infantry divisions. Developing a new rifle did not have that much of an impact on the divisional level. Much of the development of infantry weapons came from manufacturing improvements, making the weapons cheaper. At the same time most of the increased firepower came from increasing the amount of support weapons. More machine guns, more mortars etc. So, my thought is this. What if increases in soft attack and other such values in infantry formations came mainly from doctrine research leading to the divisions costing more equipment? And researching infantry weapons tech decreases the requirements for equipment (alternatively boosting production)? Some stuff like assault rifles and shaped charge weapons like panzerfausts were straight up technology improvement and should maybe be techs of their own, but those could be one off things, maybe even experience unlocks only.


My point, advanced infantry divisions should be more expensive mostly because they contain more stuff.

As to buying and selling, I'll just quote podcat from the production dev diary.

Upgrading your equipment now means replacing your old models at the front with new tank designs, for example. The old ones can be put in reserve, sent to less important places, or perhaps given as aid to an ally.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to think that you could sell equipment as well.
 
Daunus said:
Is this going to be implemented in the game tho? Buying old equipment was not really a mechanic implemented in previous games, and I doubt it will be in this game.
Click to expand...

It's already been stated in Dev Diary #2 that you can give your old units to other countries... it does not say that they can offer to buy them, so it might be implemented one way. If that's all your wanting... then yes it's going to be in HOI4.

The second major problem with your statement is that there is a limit to the amount of old weapons available... Yes Germany produced thousands of Panzer II's and Panzer III's... but what if you wanted more? There is no longer a foreign source of these... and they have no reason to sell it to you at a discounted rate either because now they would need to make money to keep producing. So yes I agree with Moonshine that your are trying to oversimplify things, and most of what your wanting is in the game already.
 
Daunus said:
A third or second rate power producing a 1918 model infantry had similar IC cost to a first rate power producing latest say, 1941 infantry.

This goes for other units too obviously.

The reality tho is that equipping a unit with 1918 weapons would have been extremely cheap, many of the weapons would have been acquired sometimes even for free from other powers. Producing them does not require great technical skills or latest machinery.


There should be a drastic cost reduction to producing units that are obsolete.

eg. 70% for three years behind,
50% for 5 behind,
10% for 10+ behind.


This will allow second and third rate powers to still have sizeable armies with a different types of units. These units will be out of date .

More fun and more realistic.


btw Yes I know there is the production line system, but that is different situation. It does not give a inherent cost reduction to producing obsolete units. A separate mechanic like this is also needed.
Click to expand...

Man I wish this was true, then my 1911 would have only cost like 50$
 
Daunus said:
Is this going to be implemented in the game tho? Buying old equipment was not really a mechanic implemented in previous games, and I doubt it will be in this game.
Click to expand...

Producing equipment wasn't in game either. From what I've read, you don't build divisions, you build equipment. Then once you have enough equipment, you can form a division.

So yes, I'd imagine one can buy equipment in the same way one could buy divisions.
 
Since they have already said that equipment pools are in, and I think they have said that you can give equipment to allies/minors, and since I think you can replace old equipment with new equipment, then there is no need for a cost reduction in production at all.

If you have excess Panzer I's you aren't using, give them to Italy gratis. It doesn't get cheaper than that, right?
 
The new mechanic would not account for all the pre-game start equipment, ww1 era equipment, which was floating around and often still being produced on the cheap. This is what many minors used.

There were firms and industries that sold equipment. When you used IC to produce $ instead of all on production, presumably some of the equipment production is for export for $.

Even if its trucks for motorised brigades or older equipment.



The reality was that minors had most of their military equipment imported, some of it was relatively modern but usually it was not latest and some of it was obsolete.

In the games this is not reflected at all. Minors no matter how small have to be almost totally self sufficient in military. This is impossible for them.

I am almost sure that that will also be the case in HOI4. The new mechanic of being able to give some stuff to allies is a good improvement but I dont think it will reflect everything.




You can debate the percentage discount, I said it as a example, but equipping a infantry division with old ww1 era equipment would be drastically lower the producing/buying the latest state of the art equipment.
 
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