Locking Reinforcement rate to production rate. Good or Bad Idea?

[Secret Master]

If HOI-4 were re-worked so that you actually built TANKS, not Armored Divisions, this would be easier to balance.

Constructing a new Armored Division would then require building all of the needed combat and logistics vehicles, accumulating the small-arms and ammo, and training the officers and men. Refitting a badly damaged Armored Division would still be substantially cheaper... nearly all the training is already done, for instance... but the player would face the realistic choice of whether to use this month's AFV production to refit damaged units or to form a new Division.

I understand the sentiment, but how do you implement such a system without it turning into a micromanagement nightmare? Right now, at least practicals and abstract IC ensures that you have different abilities to produce different kinds of stuff.

EDIT: And what I mean is, how much more micromanagement do you end up with by doing something like dividing production up into specific goods ala Vic2?

 

[Charles Reeps]

I understand the sentiment, but how do you implement such a system without it turning into a micromanagement nightmare? Right now, at least practicals and abstract IC ensures that you have different abilities to produce different kinds of stuff.

EDIT: And what I mean is, how much more micromanagement do you end up with by doing something like dividing production up into specific goods ala Vic2?

My brain is not working well right now, but in a simplified example say we use land force IC as the generic for all those things blue emu listed. There could be a set of sliders to set the percentage of this IC to each sub-category. Unless the percentages are wrong (or change), you're done.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I understand the sentiment, but how do you implement such a system without it turning into a micromanagement nightmare? Right now, at least practicals and abstract IC ensures that you have different abilities to produce different kinds of stuff.

EDIT: And what I mean is, how much more micromanagement do you end up with by doing something like dividing production up into specific goods ala Vic2?

Depends how its done I would say.

You could keep it almost as simple as it is currently by just having a few general large categories being produced, like tanks, trucks, guns, and "kits" for infantry/airplane that represents the industrial cost to build roughly 1 standard unit or 100 soldier kits.

A heavy tank brigade might require 2 "tank units" per actual tank in the brigade and a light tank 0.5 ones.
You could have bombers require 2-4 "air kits" (depending on engines) and fighters require around 1.


Not sure how the actual production would work but I imagine you would setting up production-lines that keep building x / day until you cancel them while using Y IC. So once those are set up like you want them they don't need any management at all. In fact the management for reinforcements would be less then currently since as long as enough spare units are in the pool it would be automatical (you already paid for the IC).

The biggest problems I can see with such systems is how they would handle upgrading / different models. Because keeping track of 30 different tank models in the pool is not feasible at all. In a HoI2 environment where there only is one new model every 2 years it would work better.

The most logical handling of obsolete units would be you decide when to replace the "main" model, that would reset all gearing and production lines + reset your pool and send any surplus to diplomacy/trade where they can be sold to minors and allies. Upgrades could be gradual as you replace losses or manual through a button that cans all the tanks in a division (send for obsolete) and fill it with new produced from the pool.

But all thats for HoI4 ofc.

 

[Charles Reeps]

The biggest problems I can see with such systems is how they would handle upgrading / different models. Because keeping track of 30 different tank models in the pool is not feasible at all. In a HoI2 environment where there only is one new model every 2 years it would work better.

The most logical handling of obsolete units would be you decide when to replace the "main" model, that would reset all gearing and production lines + reset your pool and send any surplus to diplomacy/trade where they can be sold to minors and allies. Upgrades could be gradual as you replace losses or manual through a button that cans all the tanks in a division (send for obsolete) and fill it with new produced from the pool.

I'm not sure this is a problem: a unit in the pool is the same as a unit in a division. All units upgrade at the same time so you will never have 30-models in the pool.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I'm not sure this is a problem: a unit in the pool is the same as a unit in a division. All units upgrade at the same time so you will never have 30-models in the pool.

But real tanks don't upgrade

If you have 5000 tank units (built on tech panzer III) in your pool and research techs for panzer IV, what would happen to the tanks in the pool?

It would be an exploit if you can build all your tanks to get through the war before 1938 and then just stop constructions not having to worry at all because they will upgrade to panthers once the techs are researched in 1944.

 

[Cybvep]

It would be an exploit if you can build all your tanks to get through the war before 1938 and then just stop constructions not having to worry at all because they will upgrade to panthers once the techs are researched in 1944.

Guess what? This is exactly the case ATM.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Guess what? This is exactly the case ATM.

So lets not try to improve it at all when we redo the system from scratch, good Idea!

 

[blue emu]

If you have 5000 tank units (built on tech panzer III) in your pool and research techs for panzer IV, what would happen to the tanks in the pool?

In real life, the obsolete Tank chassis were used as platforms for SP-Art and TDs.

 

[Cybvep]

The point is that if this is considered an exploit, then it has been present since HOI2 at least (I don't know what the situation was in HOI1). The same can be said about aircraft, small arms, artillery etc. IRL obsolete equipment didn't just disappear. However, HOI games treat upgrades in a very abstract way.

As soon as we introduce equipment pools or things like that, the game will become a lot more complex and the more detailed the envisioned system is, the more micromanagement intensive the game will be.

Therefore, we need to start with simpler solutions. For example, how about removing upgrading altogether, at least for non-infantry units? Panzer divs would be reinforced with more modern tanks when the old ones are lost, which is what happened IRL. If the player/AI wanted to modernise their panzer divs sooner, they would have to do it by SF-like upgrade feature (let's call it "reform"), so the unit would reappear in the production queue.

 

[Charles Reeps]

But real tanks don't upgrade

If you have 5000 tank units (built on tech panzer III) in your pool and research techs for panzer IV, what would happen to the tanks in the pool?

It would be an exploit if you can build all your tanks to get through the war before 1938 and then just stop constructions not having to worry at all because they will upgrade to panthers once the techs are researched in 1944.

I think wording is a big problem here. Another problem is that HOI3 represents armour as manpower. I don't want to make too big a leap, but what if this were represented as armoured manpower? If it costs 8IC X 180-days to make an armoured brigade (3000-strength), then 3000-strength points of armoured manpower in the pool would cost the same. Further, make it impossible to disable upgrades for what's in the replacement pools. In fact, we should get rid of this feature altogether.

 

[Broaz]

Let say you divide supply into categories (food and ammunitions for all regarding the MP cost, hand weapons for soldier, guns for artillery and armor, chassis for truck and armor, guns and navy pieces for navy, planes for airforce, etc). Then what about rising the cost of repair/upgrade with the level ? 1 unit of armor WWI costs 0.7 chassis and 0.3 gun. 1945 armor coasts 2.8 units of chassis and and 1.2 unit of gun ? And everybody consume food/uniforms/medical care/etc regarding the MP cost, and fuel regarding the unit type.

You can still "game" the game by producing ahead of time, but doing this you have less troops to field when war starts, so it is somewhat balanced. And you face THE strategical question : am I preparing for a short war (hence I have to build as many units as possible) or a long one (hence I have to store as many supply of different sorts as possible) ? And also : do I have the manpower to field all my IC-worth weaponry ? If you have low manpower compared to your IC (France IRL due to the loses of WWI), you can be tempted to build a lot of supply hoping for a long war of attrition. And then lose the war to your opponenent's blitzkrieg strategy.

And another question : do I perpare for a naval war or a land war ? etc.

If you don't want to micro-manage your supply, maybe the AI could do it (optionally) regarding the actual needs and the IC value of your actual army/navy/airforce.