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New Multiplayer Mod Released

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Dec 11, 2002
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I am pleased to announce the release of The Multiplayer Front (TMF), a new 1936-1947 mod exclusively for HoI (v1.06) multiplayer games. The goal of TMF is to provide a multiplayer game that is a more historically accurate grand strategy economic, political and military simulation of World War 2. It is an attempt to simulate the major political, economic and military constraints of the major powers. It is also a multiplayer mod. It is not designed for single player games. Because TMF focuses exclusively on the major powers of the period and on the multiplayer aspect of the game, we have been able to implement entirely new design concepts that are not contained in any other mod currently available:

1. A unique economic model that does not rely on the conversion of coal-to-oil or oil-to-rubber.

2. A completely new method of representing synthetic oil and rubber production.

3. A totally revamped industrial tech tree containing shipyards, port facilities, light, medium and heavy industry, electricity production, aluminum production, among others.

4. Numerous manpower related technologies and events, such as partial and full mobilization, women entering the factories, calling-up skilled factory workers, expanding the draft age, eliminating draft exemptions, and calling up young boys and old men.

5. Hundreds of scripted events simulating trade relations of the period, including US-Japanese steel and oil trade, Japan-Dutch East Indies oil and rubber trade, Sweden-Germany steel trade, Britain-US trade, German-Soviet trade, German-Italy trade, etc.

6. A novel approach to garrisoning requirements and partisan warfare.

7. Dozens of new or improved historical military and political events.

8. Several new military technologies, including photo reconnaissance, denial and deception, searchlights, barrage balloons, and air defense observer posts, among others.

The one thing that makes TMF especially unique is our 23 page Player’s Guide that explains, in plain English, the ins-and-outs of the changes we have made. No more scrolling through pages and pages of scripting language to find out how events or technologies work. You can download the Player’s Guide, installation instructions, and the necessary files at:

www.gridcogames.com\HOI\TMF_1.5_public.zip

We hope you enjoy the mod!
 
It would be nice with a direct link to those 23 pages.

So I can read it before I spend bandwidth on downloading the whole thing.
 
The documentation is certainly well-written - the best I've seen for HoI. The first section is below.

I'm interested in trying a MP game of the mod but 8 players are required to do it justice. I'll post a link to this thread over in the MP forum and try to drum up some takers for a Euro time zone game.

Andrew


I. BACKGROUND

The Multiplayer Front (TMF) was created by a group of Hearts of Iron (HoI) enthusiasts who have been playing multiplayer games twice per week for over one year. TMF is an attempt to create a mod that is both historically accurate but also fun and well balanced. TMF tries to recreate the major historical strengths and weaknesses each alliance possessed historically. Towards this end, major changes have been implemented in such areas as the economics of the game, Soviet purges of the 1930s, manpower and mobilization limitations, Axis and Soviet diplomatic isolation in the 1930s, and US neutrality.

TMF differs from other HoI mods in several respects. First, TMF is designed to be played only in multiplayer by 8 human players controlling the following countries: UK, USA, USSR, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Hungary. TMF is not intended to be a single player game. To foster more cooperative game play, the UK, USA, USSR and Canada have all been given military control over each other’s military forces. These countries have also been given military control over French military forces. The Axis countries of Germany, Italy, Japan and Hungary have been given military control over each other’s military forces in a similar fashion. This means that both alliances will have to work closely together to achieve victory.

In addition, TMF benefits from using certain concepts, such as the manpower and rationing events, that can only be implemented in a multiplayer setting—where intelligent humans are in control rather than the AI. In fact, TMF makes no effort to make AI controlled minor countries of significance. It is our view that AI minor countries should assume their historical role of being, well, minor! If you are looking to conquer the world as Siam, this is not the mod for you.

Because TMF gives little or no consideration to minor countries well being, we are free to recreate a more historic economic simulation. One of the major differences in TMF is that resource relationships between countries are more historical. The geographic location of resources has been made more historical, and some resources, such as oil and rubber, are truly valuable commodities. To accomplish this task, TMF does not use the conversion of coal-to-oil, and oil-to-rubber, that is familiar from the vanilla game. Instead, TMF uses unique concepts to handle synthetic oil and rubber production that are explained in more detail below.

TMF also differs from existing mods by limiting the number of new events to only those that had a military or economic impact of some significance. Our experience has been that multiplayer sessions can tax a player’s time management skills to the limit. Excessive events or events that are trivial in nature impede a multiplayer session by draining a player’s attention away from the game action.

Finally, TMF differs from existing mods because of this document. Not everyone is interested in paging through screen after screen of scripting language to learn how the new events and technologies work. We have therefore created this document to explain, in plain English, the ins-and-outs of the changes we have made.

The primary sources of historical information and statistical data used to create this mod were: Mark Harrison, The Economics of World War II (Cambridge Univ. Press 1998); I.C.B. Dear & M.R.D. Foot, The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford Univ. Press 1995); Len Deighton, Blood, Tears, and Folly, An Objective Look at World War II (Pluriform Pub. Co. 1993); John Ellis, World War II: A Statistical Survey; Erich W. Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (Harper & Bros. Pub. 1933); Lester Klimm & Otis Starkey, Introductory Economic Geography (Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc. 1940).

A big thanks goes to all our players who have helped discuss, test and code TMF. They include Bluestraw, Dutkahn, Fangnasher, Jodut, Lunar, Policia Sanctus, Sneaky, Tank Buster, and Ulster. We also need to thank the HoI modding community at large, whose discussions on the Paradox forums have been most helpful in answering scripting questions or inspiring ideas that TMF has implemented. Lastly, a special thanks goes to Mithel, who’s editing tools were used to create TMF. Thanks to all.

DogRed
May 2004
Click to expand...
 
Colonel Warden said:
The documentation is certainly well-written - the best I've seen for HoI. The first section is below.

I'm interested in trying a MP game of the mod but 8 players are required to do it justice. I'll post a link to this thread over in the MP forum and try to drum up some takers for a Euro time zone game.

Andrew
Click to expand...

Colonel, I think Fangnasher intends to start a TMF multiplayer game over at the Player's Association in the near future. Fangnasher is a member of my mp group and helped script and design elements of TMF. Unfortunately, he's not in the Euro time-zone.
 
Hm, strange.
Still not working for me so I had to go to the serverdir http://www.gridcogames.com/HOI/ and klick the file there...
Anyways got it now, just posting in case someone else has a problem :)
 
WoW, now thats really a nice manual :)
Great work guys!

Hope a lot of people take at least a look - maybe even post the full manual here so people get a grasp how deep the changes are?

Gonna try it out now ;)
 
Wow!

Gentlemen,

Having read your design document, I am VERY impressed. You seem to have combined good research with a keen affinity for historical concerns - a recipe for excellent reality-based mods.

One question - can this mod be played by just two players (one Axis, one Allied) or is the 8-player format required?
 
Chaplain said:
Gentlemen,

Having read your design document, I am VERY impressed. You seem to have combined good research with a keen affinity for historical concerns - a recipe for excellent reality-based mods.

One question - can this mod be played by just two players (one Axis, one Allied) or is the 8-player format required?
Click to expand...

Thanks Chaplain! Regarding your question, I would recommend at least 6 players to represent the major powers--with a 7th and 8th, if available, taking Canada and Hungary. If you play with just two players you will have military control over all the countries on your team, and therefore can move all the relevant military units around. But you will not have control over research functions...which is a problem given that TMF introduces new technologies that require the intelligence of human players in order to function properly...the AI simply cannot handle the manpower, rationing or industrial technologies that TMF uses.
 
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