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Hearts of Iron IV - Dev Diary 6 - Division Design

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I really like how 4 seems to be heading.

Combat experience was the key ingredient in finding what worked and didn't. Hence we see significant changes in the majors during the war.

That said the experience gain being based X forces in combat as proportion of whole force- well I am unsure about that. And "not much experience from rolling smaller nations". This sounds possibly artificial and will need good balancing.

Other likes are:
that we update templates as a whole. goodbye clicking.
Battalion level build. So much better for the attached specials like engineers.
Soft caps on specialisation on templates.

And like the look of easier access to info such as terrain penalties.
 
This system all sounds a bit 'gamey' to me. I like the idea of going down to battallion level, but tI'm not sure if this buying of units with gold stars fits my ieea of HoI.

Feels a bit like world of tanks really :)
 
Manpower is listed under equipment cost. Shouldn't it rather have a column of its own, illustrating how much mp is required to field x number of light tanks for example?
 
Meneth said:
Yeah, I don't see how that makes any real logical or historical sense.
I have to assume it'd be per archetype, so if you modify a panzer template then duplicate it, the duplicate can get any modifications you make to the original for free.
Click to expand...

Forking or duplicating of course brings along the unlocks, its only when starting fresh based on, say, your first mountaineer divisions.

eleetsdier said:
Important question - can we ever change what template a division draws from? Most commonly I guess this would involve motorizing an infantry division or possibly mechanizing a cavalry one. I'm also curious if there will be anything like this for either air or naval organization.
Click to expand...

yes, you can switch, but of course that reorganization will take some time. Generally switching or upgrading a template is something you will want to do in larger chunks, or during quiet periods because you wont really be able to fight as efficiently during such organizations

Darkath said:
The leaderships points in HOI3 were just another form of the monarch point system, fyi. At least "combat experience" is something you can relate to and make sense of. Moreso than the nebulous "leadership points" anyway.

Like other, the main issue i have with the screenshot is i can't make head or tails of it. Maybe in game with the tool tip it would work better, but right now it's confusing.
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What do you think is confusing? Obviously tooltips help, but I'm interested in improving the interface if there is any feedback.

eleetsdier said:
I'm guessing that you don't really spend the XP until you save the changes. So you look at how a change would handle different terrain without having paid the cost, for example. Presumably the screen shows 25 XP worth of changes from the existing Panzer Division template.
Click to expand...

yeah thats how it works

Rudawitz said:
Manpower is listed under equipment cost. Shouldn't it rather have a column of its own, illustrating how much mp is required to field x number of light tanks for example?
Click to expand...

its total manpower needed for division at full strength
 
aphrochine said:
How will you determine what specific equipment a Battalion will use??

Will that Armor Battalion use a PzIII or a PzIV assuming I have stockpiles of both??
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Good Q.

Maby by clicking the tank icon, and selecting the wanted tank type as a battalion type?
I guess when inventing a new tank it opens a new type battalion. This would make easy to determine what battalion gets new panzers, but would need new division or atleast change to the template.
 
aphrochine said:
How will you determine what specific equipment a Battalion will use??

Will that Armor Battalion use a PzIII or a PzIV assuming I have stockpiles of both??
Click to expand...

yes. The template only works with what we call equipment archetypes, so the template says "1 battalion of medium tanks" and that can be a mix of any medium tanks you have (of course trying to use the newest/best if possible). This stuff will be covered in a future diary, but basically you can have a mix of equipment. We felt this was important to reflect history where nobody really ever managed to switch out everything to the latest and best and stuff was always in flux.
 
This DD has just vastly improved my opinion of the game (not that it was low to begin with, just unsure).
IMO the BIGGEST problem with land-armies in HoI 3 was the super limited amount of things that could go in to a division and how they were essentially limited to no more than 1 type of support equipment generally.

This lends great hope that I will no longer have to choose between what I want to take with me and what I want to leave behind, since I never really wanted to leave ANY of it behind. No army willingly leaves a great deal of its support equipment at home because they already have one type.

"Ok lads today we're bringing the artillery, leave the rest here!"

"But sir they are going to be sending planes against us, should we not take some AA as well?"

"No you fool we are only taking the artillery today! Just ignore their planes!"
 
Jorlaan said:
This DD has just vastly improved my opinion of the game (not that it was low to begin with, just unsure).
IMO the BIGGEST problem with land-armies in HoI 3 was the super limited amount of things that could go in to a division and how they were essentially limited to no more than 1 type of support equipment generally.

This lends great hope that I will no longer have to choose between what I want to take with me and what I want to leave behind, since I never really wanted to leave ANY of it behind. No army willingly leaves a great deal of its support equipment at home because they already have one type.

"Ok lads today we're bringing the artillery, leave the rest here!"

"But sir they are going to be sending planes against us, should we not take some AA as well?"

"No you fool we are only taking the artillery today! Just ignore their planes!"
Click to expand...

Another vision:

"Mein Führer! We have completed the production run of our latest mostest awesomest super-tank!"

"Excellent, our offensive power will be unstoppable now!"

"But mein Führer, we don't have enough experience points to modify the division template to field our new panzers!"
 
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What do you think is confusing? Obviously tooltips help, but I'm interested in improving the interface if there is any feedback.
Click to expand...

May be it's because the screenshot is outside its context, but i can't really tell how the "grid" works, what the icons are etc. at a glance. Of course if i can just hover the mouse over the spade/shovel thing and see whatever it is, and any other elements of the UI that will help ^^.

For the grid may be add a number above each column like Support I II III IV V etc. so that's it's a bit more self explanatory.

As for the icons, I can understand if you're not using the NATO symbols anymore, those were confusing for people new to the genre. However when you're using icons, it can sometimes be hard for us to remember which icons depict what. I had the same issue with ships in HOI3. I could never remember what icon was representing the Battlecruiser and what icon was the Battleship. What some mods did is add the abbreviation inside the icon picture, for instance BC, BB, DD etc.
Likewise for your icons you could add a small ART, AT, LARM, ARM, MOT, INF, ENG (etc.) sign inside each of those. so that you can "read" the icons instead of guessing them ..

I don't know if it makes sense for you though, it might become a bit too busy :)
 
aphrochine said:
I think this looks great. Will there be any features to allow some cobbling together of equipments/men on the fly, ala Kampfgruppe??
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Yes, I have the same question. Similarly, once you have a division deployed, will you be able to detach brigades or battalions for things like small garrisons and the like? For example, could you replicate how British tank brigades were shuffled around and ttached to various divisions in North Africa, or how the British and French put together special detachments from existing divisions in the (brief) defence of Norway?


Faulty said:
Will we still get names generated for divisions? Will they tend to reflect the composition of the units in it?
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And will the brigades still have names, too?


Alex_brunius said:
It would be cool if there are ways to get more combat experience pre-war like doing wargames, manoeuvres and expending fuel/supplies on training. Or some proxy wars like historically in Spain.
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Agreed. I was thinking that you could spend IC to generate more experience by clicking an icon to put certain divisions in "training" mode. For example, a USA player can have a series of exercies with divisions in the south to build up the experience needed to customize its new armor divisions in 1939-41. The more divisions involved, the more IC required, but also the more XP gained.


I was also wondering the following:
* Will the division designer make it easier to reorganize divisions in existence fairly easily? If I read this right, the history-loving USA players like myself should now have a much less painful time of changing all the 1936 square USA divisions into their 1941 triangular format using the new designer (and some XP).

* How will the divisions themselves look like on the map once their built? Similar to HOI3 with brigades or battalions listed underneath once you click on them, or something completely different?
 
vonhavoc said:
Another vision:

"Mein Führer! We have completed the production run of our latest mostest awesomest super-tank!"

"Excellent, our offensive power will be unstoppable now!"

"But mein Führer, we don't have enough experience points to modify the division template to field our new panzers!"
Click to expand...

"But mein Führer, the logistics groups of the panzer divisions aren't large enough for the new tanks, we will need to create more panzer divisions rather than expand the existing ones."

"Oh that sounds reasonable. Commend my field commanders for their foresight and experience."
 
podcat said:
What do you think is confusing? Obviously tooltips help, but I'm interested in improving the interface if there is any feedback.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it is the unfamiliarity with the new system, but something doesn't sit right with me as well. I'm guessing the tool tips will add more clarity. Ideally I would prefer the option of having NATO counters as opposed to the images of the things they are representing, but that is more aesthetic than anything else.

Like many people, I'm also wondering if you can manage what divisions get what type of tank, artillery piece, etc? Ideally I will want the front line stuff having access to the best stuff available while my rear-echelon forces just make do with the leftovers. I hoping there is a way of doing that.
 
Faulty said:
"But mein Führer, the logistics groups of the panzer divisions aren't large enough for the new tanks, we will need to create more panzer divisions rather than expand the existing ones."

"Oh that sounds reasonable. Commend my field commanders for their foresight and experience."
Click to expand...

"But mein Führer, changing the new template to accommodate the new panzers also costs experience!"
 
Some people said early in the thread, that buying the changes with xp is the one thing worrying them, and i tend to agree. Maybe it would be better to have divisions that just have adopted a new template accumulate xp a tad slower (and the basic templates get auto-unlocked on threshold)? The effect on gameplay would technically be negliable, but you wouldnt save&buy, while still being soft-capped on the frequence of template changes...
 
So, my biggest question is: are the support icons supposed to represent "brigades", or a composite of the support elements of all the actual fighting brigades within the division? If the former, then those are some hefty divisions. If the latter, then we should be able to change the relative proportions of each from one Template to the next.
 
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