Can allies grant you military control?

I hope the devs are going the right route. The problem is you shouldn't be able to direct control, direct controlling takes a bit out of the experience. I hope they are going the route where they have intelligent Ai, mixed with proper communication between your allies and you. That'd be idle and having them send their own battle plans and even rejecting yours. It'd be kick ass if they did it like that, where there was more to diplomacy then just trade, war, embargo and etc. The ability to discuss production with the ai and request certain things, ask to place units here. Asking for protection or vise versa, that'd add a entirely new thing to diplomacy, making it to where you'd have to manage your relationships with the AI like you'd have to if you really were a world leader. If you are playing the US, having the soviet union keep requesting a second front, lmao. Stuff like that would be freaking awesome!

Would love to incorporate my Allies or puppets into my battleplans. Would be so epic.

The allies almost always fought with a unified theatre level control. The British expeditionary force answered to a French General but Gort had the right to appeal to his government and Go against French orders if He believed it was in Britain's best interests. There was a similar arrangement for the commonwealth Countries Fighting under British Command. Australia withdrew its troops from Africa against the wishes of Britain when the Japanese began to threaten Australia. In Italy the Americans and British fought under a common Command. In Europe The Allies had a common Command with Eisenhower in charge.
Perhaps there could be something similar for HOI4. All allied Forces in a theatre of war could be under Common control. A human player would have the option of Taking control of the theatre or leaving it to the AI. You might want to control Europe but leave the Pacific for the AI to handle. A human player could request but not force an AI country to deploy more forces to particular theatres.

Well I sure hope it doesn't have that annoying thing when your allies "assume military control" of YOU.

Mabzie555 said:

Well I sure hope it doesn't have that annoying thing when your allies "assume military control" of YOU.

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I feel like a clout type thing would be interesting to see, where the nation with the most diplomatic leverage gets to dictate what gets done. It'd make for far more interesting gameplay as the allies for me at least. I dislike the idea of having total control of your units, sometimes you have to engage and agree to to things regardless if you want to or not. Shit happens. Not saying total military control makes sense, but a degree of the AI having some power of where your units are deployed makes sense in my mind.

scroggin said:

Perhaps there could be something similar for HOI4. All allied Forces in a theatre of war could be under Common control. A human player would have the option of Taking control of the theatre or leaving it to the AI. You might want to control Europe but leave the Pacific for the AI to handle. A human player could request but not force an AI country to deploy more forces to particular theatres.

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+1

It woul be great to suggest battle plans (and invasion plans) to other countries and then it the "execute" button, and so America, Britain invade Normandy under command of the superior Generals of Mexico!

Edit: Direct control on puppets would be nice.

Totally agree with Scroggin's post above.

scroggin said:

Perhaps there could be something similar for HOI4. All allied Forces in a theatre of war could be under Common control. A human player would have the option of Taking control of the theatre or leaving it to the AI. You might want to control Europe but leave the Pacific for the AI to handle. A human player could request but not force an AI country to deploy more forces to particular theatres.

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This'd deffo be my preferred option, well put .

in ideal world we would have AI that can "read" battle plans you draw ..you would give them the date of the launch of the operation,
and the number of their troops and supplies expected from them(also would be able to see if they can actually deliver and give them
resources to do so if they can't).

scroggin said:

The allies almost always fought with a unified theatre level control. The British expeditionary force answered to a French General but Gort had the right to appeal to his government and Go against French orders if He believed it was in Britain's best interests. There was a similar arrangement for the commonwealth Countries Fighting under British Command. Australia withdrew its troops from Africa against the wishes of Britain when the Japanese began to threaten Australia. In Italy the Americans and British fought under a common Command. In Europe The Allies had a common Command with Eisenhower in charge.
Perhaps there could be something similar for HOI4. All allied Forces in a theatre of war could be under Common control. A human player would have the option of Taking control of the theatre or leaving it to the AI. You might want to control Europe but leave the Pacific for the AI to handle. A human player could request but not force an AI country to deploy more forces to particular theatres.

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I agree this would be a decent solution. HOI3 was not really playable from a western allied point of view where you could be either US or Britain because every nation behaved independently. In addition, Britain doesn't control Commonwealth forces (Canadians, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand) who pop up everywhere usually to no good end. Even the African campaign can't be pursued by Germany because of lack of control of the Italians and in the East the Axis (Germany) ends up with Hungarians and Rumanian armies wandering about aimlessly most of the time. While total control in HOI2 was much better it was too total in that you didn't have to worry about "allies" defecting as Germany (Hungary, Rumania and Italy) and the military and political complications of that. Some of the HOI3 mods are trying to address this problems with events or decision to give the "player" "expeditionary" forces to simulate the things like Torch or SHAEF (Normandy campaign) so will see how that works.

Anecdote time, with a point and suggestion at the end.

So I'm playing Italy. I'm running Black ICE, and I just unlocked the ability to deliver an ultimatum to Greece. However, I want to have my invasion force in place before I do so in case they refuse my demands, so I start pulling in corps and placing them on surrounding islands so that they can begin their assault on short notice.
When I'm almost done, and mere days from delivering my ultimatum... Germany declares war on Greece.


Now, I actually don't want direct control of my ally's military like some all-powerful puppet master, but I feel the example above illustrates why I would hugely appreciate being able to communicate with my allies better than in HOI3, with messages like, "hey, Hitler, hold off on invading Greece for just a short while, 'kay? I'm working on a diplomatic solution here". Being able to give simple instructions and requests would make the game far deeper and also spare us of lots of frustration.

I really hope they bring back the option to military control units. As others have said, relying on the AI can be frustrating to the extreme at times. To those who says 'its OP' or 'ahistorical'; it's optional. If you don't want to MC a country, you don't have to.

But it is historical, and it is unbalancing, and making it an option creates a host of other problems. All of a sudden the game must be tested and balanced both for those who want a realistic game where you need teamwork and planning across national borders, and those who want to micromanage the countless divisions, ships and aircraft of their allies as well as of their own nation. I would rather have the devs spend time improving the strategic AI.

Surely allowing MC reduces the work required as it'll reduce/remove the possibility of players being annoyed by an Allied AI that doesn't co-ordinate properly. I don't see how it's unbalancing unless you're suggesting MCing units somehow gives out free units; or perhaps you think the AI will be dumped down in certain areas to encourage more historical outcomes.

I think the best system of military control in HOI4 would be a kind of theater system, where the major nations could control all forces in a particular theater of operations.

This would resemble actual WWII history, with say the British commanding forces in the Mediterranean under Alexander, and the US controlling allied forces in France, under Eisenhower. other examples would include US and Australian forces in SW pacific under MacArthur, or allied forces in Burma under Slim (UK). For the Axis, Germany in command of all forces on the Eastern and Western fronts, and Japan in the far east, Finland controlling forces along the Finnish front, and Italy in the Med. I know it may be too simplistic an explanation, and that there were often cooperation between nations rather than direct control by a single command structure, but I think it would be a good representation. This would allow the player to focus on particular areas more effectively, rather than having a random mess of individual nation's troops doing their own thing. I'm sick of the commonwealth doing nothing, building only tactical bombers and not being able to defend themselves, let alone send assistance, or the US sending troops to random, suicidal locations. I hope that we will be able to have a game where the western allies do something and attempt a Normandy-like invasion of Western Europe. For some reason in TFH, all they do is attack Greece and leave Italy and France alone. Maybe having a simpler theater system of control will help to rectify this, or at the very least, make it more accessible and fun for the player. Each theater commander could say, request troops, war material, naval and air support from an allied pool of resources. depending on the availability, certain forces will be released to these theaters, with the strategic needs of the high priority theaters being met first with more troops, support and newer equipment. For example, the European theater would take priority, with massive preparations for an amphibious invasion, the Mediterranean theater would come second and Burma would come in dead last. By assigning a single nation to take command of each theater, under a certain commander, this would help to streamline the game, making it more realistic and hopefully more fun. Ironically by giving each nation less control, they'll have more presence in game. Hopefully we'll see NZ troops in Egypt!!!

Implementation of the Commonwealth in HoI to date has been horrendous, which is strange considering what large factor it was in WWII.

The only way of remotely representing it in HoI3 was to tag switch from the UK to other nations and get them to accept requests for expeditionary forces. Otherwise the AIs of Canada, Australia, NZ, South Africa etc were utterly incompetent and would sit out the vast majority of the war, only stopping to suicide 3 unaccompanied divisions into occupied France some time around 1944. Cooperation between the UK and Commonwealth forces was non-existent, even if playing as the UK.

I haven't heard anything to suggest it'll be different this time around - I just don't think that Commonwealth nations are a developer priority.

HOI3 sort of had it with allied objectives. The catch is that they're a bit finicky.

As France, I'll set UK objective to Cherbourg. By the time Feb '40 rolls around, there are many UK divisions there ready for me to deploy them.

It's not instant and may take some time, but eventually I'll have a commonwealth army on my hands. Sometimes the AI will even drop their HQs off .

jdavis86 said:

HOI3 sort of had it with allied objectives. The catch is that they're a bit finicky.

As France, I'll set UK objective to Cherbourg. By the time Feb '40 rolls around, there are many UK divisions there ready for me to deploy them.

It's not instant and may take some time, but eventually I'll have a commonwealth army on my hands. Sometimes the AI will even drop their HQs off .

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And this is why the system was fundamentally flawed.
Make the player to invest diplomatic influence to achieve better inter-Allied cooperation and "buy" units as expeditional forces. Make it take plenty of time as well.
Want to conduct a multinational operation like invasion of Italy or D-Day?

Well, you'd better start planning and discussing the issues of chain of command well in advance. As your nations gain more experience in cooperating with one another (in a manner similar to practicals), the process takes less time and LS to pull off.

It would also be nice if you could control your volunteer forces. Such as the German Condor Legion in Spain.