Wartime Experience = Better Military Research

grendel2 · 09-07-2007, 01:58

As with my other suggestion, my priority here is simplicity and no additional AI requirements.

We know that historically, military doctrines and technology were spurred by actual combat experience. This isn't well simulated in the game. Germany learned a lot about operational warfare from its experience in Poland. The US gained enormous experience battling the Germans in North Africa.

As it stands, both countries can develop crucial technologies way before they did so in history. The US, especially, can produce fantastic, high tech armies by 1940-41.

Fortunately, the game already has a way of documenting battle experience: the cumulated experience of land, air and naval leaders. It just does not track or relate this to research.

My proposal:

Create three more variables which total land, air and naval experience (from their leaders) for each country.
Make all military techs/doctrines 50% harder to research. Basically everything but industrial tech.
As leader experience is accumulated in each category--say 1% per 50 experience--the penalty goes down. This could even give a small (10%) bonus). So after 3000 accumulated experience, you would have a 10% research bonus in a specific category.
A few dummy industrial techs may need to be added to keep countries from possessing every industrial tech to early. Things like "Wartime Industrial Organization" or some such.

Simple math and trial runs could determine the proper rate of experience accumulation and the proper experience-to-research-bonus ratio.

The benefits of this change should be quite large. It would keep countries from a-historically developing super armies. It would focus countries like the US on developing industrial (nuclear) technology. Other countries would be properly rewarded for engaging in research in historically relevant fields.

Added benefits would be that countries such as the US would be rewarded for engaging in side campaigns (like North Africa) before they went straight for a 100 division landing in Europe.

Potential Problems

There are a few oddities that I can imagine. 1) Germany would have a harder time researching before the invasion of Poland. 2) Japan would gain a lot of army experience in China without corresponding naval experience. 3) Germany would gain naval experience from sub warfare--that it could then use to research CVs. 4) Leader level and army size would have to be normalized, see Edit below.

The answer to 1 and 2 is the same: give Germany and Japan blueprints for key army and naval techs respectively. This would simulate things like the German general staff, which no other country replicated.

The answer to 3 is less satisfactory: oh well! Its a minor fault that we will just have to ignore.

Edit: 4) Didn't take into account that this would give a large bonus to many small units gaining experience rapidly. Experience gain would have to be normalized for unit size and leader level. A field marshal leading 12 divisions would give experience at 12-48x the rate of a major leading one division.

Since tech development and wars are scripted for the AI, the AI will not suffer from this change. In fact the only individual penalized is the player who wants to develop a-historical armies. Its a win-win situation!

Kasakka · 09-07-2007, 14:39

Very good suggestion. It would take a bit of research and consideration when determining how much or what exact blueprints would different nations have in the very beginning, for several countries have had military experience right before 1936.
But anyways, the idea is very good.

Alex_brunius · 09-07-2007, 20:50

Thats a great suggestion!

But I would rather see it made somewhat differently. I think the best solution would be something similar to the "historical year" on techs, If you dont have the right amount of relevant experience, then It will go slower but the % penalty will gradually go away as you acumulate more and more experience.

Perhaps the max penalty shouldnt be 90% like with "historical year" But somewhere between 75%-50% sounds about right. Mind you that that is the maximum penalty for researching a advanced tech with zero experience, the first starting techs would hardly require any experience.

I would also suggest dividing it even further, Instead of just having "naval experience" how about having one exp for each kind of naval unit, sub exp, carrier exp, capital ship exp and so fourth.

All of those would ofcourse be determined by the amount of exp and numbers of your unit of relevant type. Say you have 10subs all with 10exp thats 100 "sub experiance" right there. And It will help you research new subs, and new sub doctrines faster. The 1943' type subs might require 200sub exp and with 100 you would thus remove half the penalty.

For more general naval doctrines the "naval expierience" value could be derived from the exp of you commanders just like you suggested.

But when developing new units its not the experience of the commanders that matters its the experience of the units themselves. Karl Dönitz would not be able to tell engineers how to build a better u-boat, But im pretty sure the elite of the sub captains/crews would know what worked and where improvment is needed.

Adding together the experience of every unit in the right unit type also makes sure you get the right amount of contribution no matter how you organize your leaders or armies.

Another advantage is that giving the later techs a "higher needed exp" will much better symbolize the arms race to develop better units. With rudimentary tank experience you can easily research the first light tanks, but you will gradually run into more and more trouble as you advance down the tank-techtree, much like with the "historical year" penalty.

There is a reason the USA never really built any heavy tanks but stuck with crunching out insane amounts of light/medium shermans while the germans vs soviets both were constantly improving and building heavier and heavier tanks to match eachother. And just like you said, that reason is combat experience.

Balesir · 09-07-2007, 22:38

Nice idea! Part of the answer to your 'Problem 1' might be to give participants/supporters in the Spanish Civil War bonuses in this regard. That is where Germany got a good deal of support/refinement of its ideas, after all. Another point is that I think progressively 'releasing' techs that you have the prerequisites for, rather than a blanket % penalty, might be better. I.e. all 'war' techs have a 50% malus, but battle experience takes the malus away from one tech (decided randomly from among those you have the prerequisites for) per x experience gained.

grendel2 · 10-07-2007, 00:52

Thanks for the suggestions/support.

The Spanish Civil War gives Germany blueprints when the conflict ends (two air doctrines if I remember correctly). If experience was tracked, the "Condor Legion Victorious" event could also hand over a dollop of air experience. Oh the possibilities!

When I wrote this proposal I attempted to think about how we could get the greatest benefit from the fewest changes. This meant trying to use existing game mechanisms and relying on abstraction.

I'm not opposed to individual experience requirements for specific techs, but this would require more work to implement and I'm not sure the benefit outweighs the costs. The various doctrine paths already lock a country into using certain types of units over others, which makes German CVs less of an issue.

Also, there are plenty of examples of one unit type giving experience with another unit type. German infantry fighting Soviet armor helped spur tank design as well as infantry doctrines.

To a certain extent, the greater difficulty associated with more advanced tech is reflected in higher component costs. If we want to make advanced techs even more difficult, just raise the component costs.

Alex, I like your suggestion to use unit experience instead of leader experience. I would support whatever method is easier for Johan to program!

vonSteyr · 12-07-2007, 23:15

I don't like it, because I am a big fan of creating completely ahistorical armies whenever I can, and railroading a player into building what he did historically isn't my idea of a good time.

Also, a lot of minors, who already have awful techteams, would be horribly disadvantaged. If a human France extends the Maginot line to the channel, then the German AI usually won't attack his armies there- which means no experience will be gained, and France's horrendously bad techteams will get even worse. Static defense, while antiquated and of limited use, is still a viable defensive option in some places, but would be made even worse then it already is. Not to mention, in my latest game as Germany, very few of my commanders (mostly Lt. Gens) are lower than skill 4- the vast majority being skill 6. That would mean that it would end up having no real effect on me, but hurting everyone else. The SU (and worthless Italy) would also become a land technological powerhouse, with the US and the UK AI (who I rarely see launching large scale land operations, except sometimes in Africa). having a second-rate army, which simply wasn't the case in WW2 (except when it came to the Russian's and their mass production).

The techteams and the AI in the game are set up to give an overall realistic representation of technological level of nations during any given year, which is why France's teams suck and the German's teams are awesome. Sure, you get some errors, like the US army being top-notch (except for doctrines) early in the game, but that is balanced by the fact that the US was leagues and leagues ahead technologically at the end of the war- by the 1950s the US was making the rest of the world look like they had a learning disability.

It would also ruin your game if you were trying to run a peaceful or limited-conflict nation.

grendel2 · 13-07-2007, 02:13

Hi vonSteyr.

I appreciate your concerns about keeping the game open ended as opposed to historically determined.

The change I suggest would require Paradox to add three tech variables for each country: army tech, naval tech and air tech. For the sake of backwards computability, each of these vars could be set to 1.0 (with anything higher that 1.0 or 1.1 being ignored). For all intents and purposes there would be no change in the game.

Those of us who want to make the game more "historical" could mod the vars down to 0.5. Unit/leader experience would gradually drive the vars from their base value up to the max 1.0 or 1.1.

Quote:

If a human France extends the Maginot line to the channel, then the German AI usually won't attack his armies there- which means no experience will be gained, and France's horrendously bad techteams will get even worse. Static defense, while antiquated and of limited use, is still a viable defensive option in some places, but would be made even worse then it already is.

I think you make two valid points here: 1) tech advancement is already represented in the game by starting tech levels and by quality of tech teams; 2) countries that should be able to research key techs will have a more difficult time because of a lack of combat experience.

Let me address each in turn.

1: I think you are absolutely correct. If tech/experience variables are added, we would have to do some re-balancing of tech teams to make sure technological progression isn't throw out of whack. You make a good case that Paradox should start the variables at 1.0 and let modders implement the more in-depth changes.

2: Concern about the advancement of specific countries would need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Giving France blueprints for key techs (static defense, etc.) would allow them to advance regularly in areas France was inclined towards, while making ti more difficult to develop advanced doctrines or deploy advanced mobile, autonomous tank divisions.

France has an option to study war through its intervention in the Spanish Civil War (SCW). On a similar note, the Soviets will gain experience from the SCW, the "war" event it has with Japan and from invading Finland.

In 1941, the US really did have a second rate army--at least compared to Germany. It took a lot of abortive operations before US troops had the operational know how to compete with their German antagonists. Even then, as noted by TN Dupuy, the German soldier, ceteris paribus, was about 20% the Americans' superior.

The penalty I envision for developing tech pre-combat is not enormous. It won't keep countries from researching key military techs, it will just make them slower. Then, once they saw a year or two of combat, that malus would disappear.

This would still allow the US to become the most technologically advanced nation in the world--if for no other reason than that the US will have waged war on land, air and sea.

Smut Peddler · 13-07-2007, 20:32

I think this is a great idea overall, but like most suggestions around here, i think it is best given as an option to the player. Ahistorical players i think will really like the potential to completely change the focus of their armed forces, while i think historical players will like to keep things the way they are. Incorporating this feature as an option at setup would hopefully please everyone.

Alex_brunius · 14-07-2007, 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by grendel2

When I wrote this proposal I attempted to think about how we could get the greatest benefit from the fewest changes. This meant trying to use existing game mechanisms and relying on abstraction.

Alex, I like your suggestion to use unit experience instead of leader experience. I would support whatever method is easier for Johan to program!

Ofcourse I couldn't agree with you more, If implemented to the current game your version would probably be better, But I like to suggest things that could be made possibe with either another major expansion or HoI3 since this is a forum for those devs to look at aswell.

This wouldn't stop people that want to from create ahistorical armys, It would just stop them from using them in a ahistorical way. Like force them to engage in more sidecampains / smallwars before getting their army fully modern and up to date. If the US decidecs their first landing in the war should be right outside berlin then Id rather have the player face the real concequences than acctually win the war in a very unrealistic way.

09-07-2007, 01:58	#1
grendel2 Second Lieutenant Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 113	Wartime Experience = Better Military Research As with my other suggestion, my priority here is simplicity and no additional AI requirements. We know that historically, military doctrines and technology were spurred by actual combat experience. This isn't well simulated in the game. Germany learned a lot about operational warfare from its experience in Poland. The US gained enormous experience battling the Germans in North Africa. As it stands, both countries can develop crucial technologies way before they did so in history. The US, especially, can produce fantastic, high tech armies by 1940-41. Fortunately, the game already has a way of documenting battle experience: the cumulated experience of land, air and naval leaders. It just does not track or relate this to research. My proposal: Create three more variables which total land, air and naval experience (from their leaders) for each country. Make all military techs/doctrines 50% harder to research. Basically everything but industrial tech. As leader experience is accumulated in each category--say 1% per 50 experience--the penalty goes down. This could even give a small (10%) bonus). So after 3000 accumulated experience, you would have a 10% research bonus in a specific category. A few dummy industrial techs may need to be added to keep countries from possessing every industrial tech to early. Things like "Wartime Industrial Organization" or some such. Simple math and trial runs could determine the proper rate of experience accumulation and the proper experience-to-research-bonus ratio. The benefits of this change should be quite large. It would keep countries from a-historically developing super armies. It would focus countries like the US on developing industrial (nuclear) technology. Other countries would be properly rewarded for engaging in research in historically relevant fields. Added benefits would be that countries such as the US would be rewarded for engaging in side campaigns (like North Africa) before they went straight for a 100 division landing in Europe. Potential Problems There are a few oddities that I can imagine. 1) Germany would have a harder time researching before the invasion of Poland. 2) Japan would gain a lot of army experience in China without corresponding naval experience. 3) Germany would gain naval experience from sub warfare--that it could then use to research CVs. 4) Leader level and army size would have to be normalized, see Edit below. The answer to 1 and 2 is the same: give Germany and Japan blueprints for key army and naval techs respectively. This would simulate things like the German general staff, which no other country replicated. The answer to 3 is less satisfactory: oh well! Its a minor fault that we will just have to ignore. Edit: 4) Didn't take into account that this would give a large bonus to many small units gaining experience rapidly. Experience gain would have to be normalized for unit size and leader level. A field marshal leading 12 divisions would give experience at 12-48x the rate of a major leading one division. Since tech development and wars are scripted for the AI, the AI will not suffer from this change. In fact the only individual penalized is the player who wants to develop a-historical armies. Its a win-win situation! Last edited by grendel2; 09-07-2007 at 02:47.

09-07-2007, 14:39	#2
Kasakka Major Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: At the river Don, Cossack Federation Posts: 594	Very good suggestion. It would take a bit of research and consideration when determining how much or what exact blueprints would different nations have in the very beginning, for several countries have had military experience right before 1936. But anyways, the idea is very good. __________________ Support Tibetan, support Basque, support Catalan, support Chechnyan, Québécois, Tamili, Acehian, Kurdish and Kosovian independence! Free country for all who want one, dammit. "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

09-07-2007, 20:50	#3
Alex_brunius Field Marshal Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Sweden Posts: 4,016	Thats a great suggestion! But I would rather see it made somewhat differently. I think the best solution would be something similar to the "historical year" on techs, If you dont have the right amount of relevant experience, then It will go slower but the % penalty will gradually go away as you acumulate more and more experience. Perhaps the max penalty shouldnt be 90% like with "historical year" But somewhere between 75%-50% sounds about right. Mind you that that is the maximum penalty for researching a advanced tech with zero experience, the first starting techs would hardly require any experience. I would also suggest dividing it even further, Instead of just having "naval experience" how about having one exp for each kind of naval unit, sub exp, carrier exp, capital ship exp and so fourth. All of those would ofcourse be determined by the amount of exp and numbers of your unit of relevant type. Say you have 10subs all with 10exp thats 100 "sub experiance" right there. And It will help you research new subs, and new sub doctrines faster. The 1943' type subs might require 200sub exp and with 100 you would thus remove half the penalty. For more general naval doctrines the "naval expierience" value could be derived from the exp of you commanders just like you suggested. But when developing new units its not the experience of the commanders that matters its the experience of the units themselves. Karl Dönitz would not be able to tell engineers how to build a better u-boat, But im pretty sure the elite of the sub captains/crews would know what worked and where improvment is needed. Adding together the experience of every unit in the right unit type also makes sure you get the right amount of contribution no matter how you organize your leaders or armies. Another advantage is that giving the later techs a "higher needed exp" will much better symbolize the arms race to develop better units. With rudimentary tank experience you can easily research the first light tanks, but you will gradually run into more and more trouble as you advance down the tank-techtree, much like with the "historical year" penalty. There is a reason the USA never really built any heavy tanks but stuck with crunching out insane amounts of light/medium shermans while the germans vs soviets both were constantly improving and building heavier and heavier tanks to match eachother. And just like you said, that reason is combat experience.

09-07-2007, 22:38	#4
Balesir Major Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: The wooly wilds of England Posts: 612	Nice idea! Part of the answer to your 'Problem 1' might be to give participants/supporters in the Spanish Civil War bonuses in this regard. That is where Germany got a good deal of support/refinement of its ideas, after all. Another point is that I think progressively 'releasing' techs that you have the prerequisites for, rather than a blanket % penalty, might be better. I.e. all 'war' techs have a 50% malus, but battle experience takes the malus away from one tech (decided randomly from among those you have the prerequisites for) per x experience gained.

10-07-2007, 00:52	#5
grendel2 Second Lieutenant Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 113	Thanks for the suggestions/support. The Spanish Civil War gives Germany blueprints when the conflict ends (two air doctrines if I remember correctly). If experience was tracked, the "Condor Legion Victorious" event could also hand over a dollop of air experience. Oh the possibilities! When I wrote this proposal I attempted to think about how we could get the greatest benefit from the fewest changes. This meant trying to use existing game mechanisms and relying on abstraction. I'm not opposed to individual experience requirements for specific techs, but this would require more work to implement and I'm not sure the benefit outweighs the costs. The various doctrine paths already lock a country into using certain types of units over others, which makes German CVs less of an issue. Also, there are plenty of examples of one unit type giving experience with another unit type. German infantry fighting Soviet armor helped spur tank design as well as infantry doctrines. To a certain extent, the greater difficulty associated with more advanced tech is reflected in higher component costs. If we want to make advanced techs even more difficult, just raise the component costs. Alex, I like your suggestion to use unit experience instead of leader experience. I would support whatever method is easier for Johan to program!

12-07-2007, 23:15	#6
vonSteyr Captain Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 301	I don't like it, because I am a big fan of creating completely ahistorical armies whenever I can, and railroading a player into building what he did historically isn't my idea of a good time. Also, a lot of minors, who already have awful techteams, would be horribly disadvantaged. If a human France extends the Maginot line to the channel, then the German AI usually won't attack his armies there- which means no experience will be gained, and France's horrendously bad techteams will get even worse. Static defense, while antiquated and of limited use, is still a viable defensive option in some places, but would be made even worse then it already is. Not to mention, in my latest game as Germany, very few of my commanders (mostly Lt. Gens) are lower than skill 4- the vast majority being skill 6. That would mean that it would end up having no real effect on me, but hurting everyone else. The SU (and worthless Italy) would also become a land technological powerhouse, with the US and the UK AI (who I rarely see launching large scale land operations, except sometimes in Africa). having a second-rate army, which simply wasn't the case in WW2 (except when it came to the Russian's and their mass production). The techteams and the AI in the game are set up to give an overall realistic representation of technological level of nations during any given year, which is why France's teams suck and the German's teams are awesome. Sure, you get some errors, like the US army being top-notch (except for doctrines) early in the game, but that is balanced by the fact that the US was leagues and leagues ahead technologically at the end of the war- by the 1950s the US was making the rest of the world look like they had a learning disability. It would also ruin your game if you were trying to run a peaceful or limited-conflict nation.

13-07-2007, 20:32	#8
Smut Peddler First Lieutenant Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Province ID # 7430 Posts: 260	I think this is a great idea overall, but like most suggestions around here, i think it is best given as an option to the player. Ahistorical players i think will really like the potential to completely change the focus of their armed forces, while i think historical players will like to keep things the way they are. Incorporating this feature as an option at setup would hopefully please everyone.