Before going on with the update, I want to briefly thank everybody who has already commented! I’ll do feedback soon, but not before the update. Welcome to you all!
I’ll also note that this update will be a sort of preview of the HPP mod, because many of the major differences from vanilla Semper Fi are impossible to miss, and require explanation before I go on.
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Some of the obvious differences with HPP are superficial. The German battle flag is used, instead of the old Imperial black-white-red. Germany is known as the German Reich. Japan also uses the Rising Sun flag instead.
I set the victory conditions. I don’t know why – I generally ignore them anyway. But just in case it matters for some reason, I excluded all of the victory conditions that involved conquest. Basically, this left me with just “Ownership of Berlin” as my sole victory condition. I’m playing on Hard (I usually play on Normal, but this scenario should be easy enough as it is). Ignore that silly picture of Hitler as Head of State – I have some Junker aristocrat as my Head of State – someone known for bringing various factions together to cooperate in the rise of a strong but peaceful German Reich.
One of the key divergences of HPP from vanilla Semper Fi / HOI 3 is they have separated out some of the factors which in vanilla are agglomerated and abstracted into an “economic mobilization” status. One thing they’ve separated out is Taxation – how much money your government has available is related primarily to your taxation level, not to your mobilization level. I like this. Default is “Acceptable Taxes.” I’ll leave it there.
Laws in HPP are also more expensive to change, and the larger the change from the status quo, the larger the expense (as opposed to them all being the same cost in SF). HPP also has generally higher costs for changing any laws.
Industrial Policy Laws have changed somewhat, too. In the Strategy Guide for standard HOI 3 (page 13), I indicated Consumer Product Orientation was only useful during peacetime, and even then Mixed Industry was probably preferable. During war, I said Mixed Industry would do fine, but Heavy Industry was preferable. The choices were essentially “no-brainers” (if collective wisdom on this has changed for vanilla HOI 3 I’d be curious to hear why). In HPP, the consequences of each have changed, and there are no longer obvious choices.
In HPP they’ve added a consequence (greater Supply Consumption) for Heavy Industry emphasis. But the benefits during wartime are also greater (better Supply Throughput and better IC Efficiency – the two reasons you’d still want to choose this during war). The Mixed Industry has smaller degrees of the same tradeoffs, but without the IC Efficiency benefit, which makes it less useful (someone might still decide to stick with MI during wartime, though). HPP’s Consumer Product Orientation is still not a great choice for wartime economies (not a no-brainer, though – someone might choose to keep the Dissent Change benefits), but has become a likely choice for peacetime economies.
The Education and Training Laws (both sets) are significantly different in HPP, but I have no need to change anything here, and so won’t go into detail. The defaults for both are different from unmodded HOI 3. Germany has a “standing army” rather than a 2-year draft. And Germany has a far lower default for Education than in the unmodded game, which I think is probably realistic (again, balance probably decided the default in HOI 3). HPP makes the impact of more intensive Education Laws less (I think only 20% of the unmodded impact on Leadership) than in the unmodded game. I think this is also realistic – I’ve studied education policy a lot, over the years, and as far as I’m concerned, throwing money at education has a relatively minimal impact on results. In HPP the impact is directed more toward relative qualification of the officer corps, and less toward more effective research.
The Economic Laws – what is sometimes referred to as Industrial Mobilization – are also quite different. Because of the conceptual changes in HPP, the higher range options do increase available IC, but the lower ranges do not, unlike in unmodded HOI3/SF. Also, these don’t have as much impact on the availability of money (this effect having been mostly shifted into Taxation Laws).
I notice that in HPP I seem to need more relative IC devoted to Reinforcement, I believe because the “Manpower Rotation” during peacetime is higher (soldiers retiring, terms of service expiring, etc.). I think this is more realistic too.
Whereas when I played this scenario in HOI3/SF I reduced my mobilization to Full Civilian Economy, to save on Resource Cost/Use, the Resource Cost/Use is less in HPP for Basic Mobilization (the default for Germany), so I leave it where it is. This avoids what would have been higher Consumer Goods costs, and I get to keep my Reserve units at 60% instead of 75% (just in case). The difference between -10% and -20% Resource Use isn’t going to make an enormous difference in my stockpile sizes. The main thing that depletes Stockpiles is the IC use, which isn’t affected by these lower levels in HPP.
Before I move on, I’ll note that in HOI3/SF Germany starts out at War Economy, with +25% IC benefits. In HPP you start out at Basic Mobilization (in unmodded HOI3 that would have meant -25% IC, but not in HPP). This is more realistic and historical (the unmodded game may have set a higher level for balance purposes). The oft-quoted statistic is that Nazi Germany didn’t fully engage itself in a wartime economic footing until 1942 or 1943, historically. Basic Mobilization is about where Germany would have been, historically in 1936.
Free Press? Really? Read about it in the papers, even!
This is done less for purposes of game strategy than for purposes of emphasizing in a role-playing sense how different this Germany is from Hitler’s. It also causes the Nazi Party to be less stable and entrenched, and I wonder if that might have some impact down the road. I’d prefer to just get rid of the Nazi hold on the government, but if this is the best I can do, at least I can do this.
The elements in the Tech Tree for HPP aren’t entirely different from unmodded HOI 3. There are some differences in what you can research, yes, including old Techs missing and new ones added. As far as I can tell, there is no Garrison/Militia set of Techs, which is fine with me (conceptually, there has never been a difference between technologies or techniques which benefit the regular army versus militias, etc. – militias just use older equipment).
The main change in HPP is that everything is organized differently. Techs are more definitely queued, one after the other (at least this is what I presume from my brief experience – correct me Slan or TheBromgrev if I’m wrong). And many techs cannot be researched automatically – they are keyed to General Staff policies, which may be very different from one army/navy to the next.
Basically, if I’ve not unlocked (chosen) a certain doctrine – differentiated by overall strategy/tactics concept and/or year of advancement – then I cannot research the techs keyed by that doctrine. Because of this, once I make a choice to follow one doctrine over another, there may be techs permanently locked off to me. This is not really a disadvantage because I’ve chosen not to need those techs – I’m heading in a different conceptual direction anyway.
Now, I’ll admit that in unmodded HOI 3 I would sometimes cherry-pick techs here and there, based on what benefit they provided. I believe this was sometimes necessary in unmodded HOI 3. I believe it is NOT necessary in HPP because the combat values affected by each tech have been switched around to be (in my opinion) more logical. I no longer have to research Militia Support Weapons (or whatever) to get my Militia units up to speed – they use the same techs as Infantry. I no longer have to have some obscure tech (one of a set of 5) to increase Artillery Morale – that’s affected by the same tech, hypothetically (i.e. I’m not looking this up), as would provide Organization for Artillery brigades. Again, this makes more sense to me – good job, HPP team!
The upshot of this conceptual change in the Tech Tree is that you must make sensible decisions about command/deployment/operation philosophy when those choices come up. It also means it’s wise to keep an eye on which doctrines your probable opponents are choosing, so you know what kind of techs they’ll be researching.
When the choice comes up for Infantry Doctrine (notice Germany is 4 years ahead of your “average” country in Infantry Doctrines), I choose what Prussian/German armies have always chosen since von Moltke – Infiltration Doctrine. Basically, I want to be mobile and send out scouting skirmishers to make contact with the enemy, allowing the rest of my unit to flank the enemy and surprise them. The Infantry Techs I can research will be affected by this, though I’m not entirely sure how, just yet.
I notice the USSR is also 4 years ahead of “average” in Tank Doctrines, and that they are choosing to follow a Combined Arms approach (as I think they did historically). The UK is 3 years behind Germany/USSR in Tank Doctrines, and follow the Infantry Support concept. It’s interesting to note, having studied armored history a lot in the past year or so, that the UK was probably the leader in developing new tanks and tank technologies in the 1920s and early 1930s. But it’s probably also true that Germany (and perhaps the USSR) were ahead of Britain in understanding HOW to use their tanks.
The last major difference I want to point out is that HPP adds a fourth tab to the Doctrine techs (I think this is merely an organizational change, but I may be wrong). You must choose your “Operational Doctrine” in addition to your Infantry, Tank, Air, Naval, etc. This affects (more rigidly, I think, than HOI 3) how you employ your whole military. The UK chooses Grand Battle Plan (which, again, is historical).
Forgive me if I’ve left off your favorite techs, but the above screenshot shows how I’ve lined up my first set of techs to research. I’m intending to remain at peace, and so my naval techs are mostly missing from this list, and I’m preferring high-level academic interests (Nuclear Research, Industrial, Computing, Education, Radar, etc.) instead of other things with more obvious military application. Mind you, these things DO have plenty of military applications, and I would normally recommend most of these to be on anyone’s list if you’re going to war or not. But some of these might be jockeying for position against other more militaristic techs if I were intending to go to war soon.
I’ve chosen to prefer Spearhead concepts (Blitzkrieg Doctrine, basically). I’m preferring defensive techs to offensive. And I’ll mention that I’ve left the Infantry, Tank Crew and Officer Training techs at the bottom not because they’re less important, but because they’re way ahead of their available year, and so I don’t mind if they sit there unresearched for a while (it’s to remind me not to forget them, mostly). I think these techs are unique to HPP – more conceptual differences.
There’s not really a way to switch my form of government or my ruling party right now. I could mod it, but I won’t. For the most part it doesn’t matter. I do make some effort to avoid National Socialist ministers in favor of Paternal Autocrats, but there are times – as with the ever-useful Goebbels – when this just isn’t productive for me. Goebbels is necessary because he increases my Leadership (and thereby my research). I’m preferring ministers who increase Resource Production over IC Availability for the reason noted above – I am less concerned about maxing out IC than I am about building resource stockpiles. If I have more IC, using more Resources, then I’ll never get them built up.
My navy will be a brownwater, coastal defense force on the one hand, and a convoy-raiding, free-ranging navy on the other (think “Infiltration Doctrine” at sea!), and so I’ll prefer destroyer techs (and light cruisers) over heavy cruisers and battleships. I’m favoring small, light aircraft to bombers (more defensive in nature). The Army Chief will keep me from using up my Supply Stockpile. I wish I could change my “Heads” but I cannot (no alternatives).
On the left, in the above screenshot, you’ll notice a different set of Decisions than unmodded HOI 3. Two options for Anschluss, which is good (either might have been used, historically). The HPP Re-occupation of the Rhineland event requires fewer troops on the border than the unmodded event, and I believe the HPP event is more historical.
Slan or TheBromgrev, I’ll let you explain the Mobilize for War and Swedish Metal decisions because I’m not entirely clear on them (I think I mis-used the Swedish Metal one, and broke it --
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Finally, I’ll reveal my Diplomatic Influence targets. These may seem odd to players who are used to rushing toward war. I’m devoting 8 Leadership Points (a lot!) toward influencing, and will influence Poland, Romania, Hungary and Lithuania. Hungary and Romania are pretty obvious, typical choices.
Why a small country like Lithuania? Because they’re the closest among the Baltic States to being able to be drawn into the Axis, and because I’m wanting to build an anti-Soviet coalition of Central European countries. They will fit right in.
Why Poland? For a lot of reasons. Poland and Germany actually had a lot of common interests, so long as the fate of Danzig could be put aside. The Polish government was pretty much an authoritarian dictatorship (in my opinion). Even Hitler considered the possibility of bringing Poland into an anti-Soviet alliance before deciding that Danzig was non-negotiable (there’s some historical debate as to whether it even was non-negotiable to Hitler). Lastly, I need Poland if I consider the USSR to be my main potential rival. An independent, isolated Poland is the last thing Germany needs (that’s why Hitler eventually invaded them).
So there you go! This gets us started off. More to come in the next update, as I start to flesh out more of my overall strategy. Thanks for reading!