Questions Regarding the Overall Game System

[piratefish]

Here are a few observations I have made playing IC recently.

I have only ever played as Germany or Italy up until now (AoD 1.05 - IC 1.1b3 1933 scenario on medium-medium no AI cheating). Today I played my first game as the UK (first in well over a year on any iteration of the HoI series).

This is what I have noticed so far (as of March 1934):

1. The Brittish are pathetic and grossly underpowered in the game. I will no longer ever give them any respect when I play again as Germany or Italy.
   
2. Supplies calculations from nation to nation are all SNAFU. As Germany, I run deficits even when my sliders are set comfortably above what my troops need daily and the net trading difference on supplies. With the UK, I run an even bigger surplus when my supplies slider is set well below where it indicates I need to be at just to break even. (e.g. my slider is currently set at 7.3 IC of a total needed of 20.33. The detail I get when I hover my mouse pointer over the slider reads "We will produce 13.48 supplies daily. Our troops need at least 37.53 each day. We are getting 0.00 from trade each day. We are trading away 0.00 each day." yet somehow I am running up a surplus of 8.81 each day).

To be fair, a lot of this is coming from off map production (whatever the heck that is). But from the beginning (before any off map bonuses) I was still running a huge daily surplus even when my supplies slider was set at about 20% of what was indicated to be my need. And this does nothing to address why Germany has the opposite issue.

Why are the supplies calcs messed up to begin with, and why is the calculation error not consistent from nation to nation?

Also, why is the UK totally worthless (with no change in sight) for the first 13 months of the 1933 scenario? And are all non-Axis countries this pathetically weak and worthless in the pre war years?

Now I am beginning to understand why so many are complaining about Germany being too powerful. To be honest, I haven't noticed any increase in Germany's power from AoD (other than events like Creation of the Luftwaffe, the Rearmament of Germay, and Plan Z). But I have noticed a very significant decrease in the overall "power" of the UK (which, naturally, makes Germany seem stronger by comparison). I cannot speak for any of the other playable nations of the game, but if they're anything like the UK, the problem is not so much with Germany being too strong as it is with the other nations being too weak (relative to HoI 2 and AoD).

It is ridiculous that the UK can do next nothing during 1933 and the first quarter of 1934. (And it does not appear as though this will be changing anytime soon).

What's up with this?

 

[Eugenioso]

whats up with what? the fact that the UK can do very little save fight germany´s main ally, the italians? the UK is underpowered and for a reason. landing as the UK on france ended the game pretty darn quickly back in AoD, but now the thought of attempting that save for the americans landing there first is ludicrous. what the hell do you expect the poor undermanned british army to do against the massive attacks of the wehrmacht? also, you need to understand that the UK, unlike germany, did not have a war economy on mind. it had a peacetime economy, which meant that if war came they would build up once war begun, not before. the opposite was true for the germans, who begun to build up for war pretty much as soon as hitler assumed command on 1933.

and ALso, what the ef do you expect the brits to do during the first 13 months? nothing, thats what! research some techs, watch TV, have a pizza: thats what i do every time i start a game on 33.

 

[piratefish]

Wow, dude. That's a pretty hostile response. Please calm down just a little bit, no one is trying to attack you.

I understand Brittain's war role pretty well. Like most of us who play the game and post in these forums, I'm pretty familiar with many of the aspects and nuances of World War 2 and the events leading up to it.

While I'll agree that Brittain was not gearing up for war in the early 1930s, I very much disagree that they sat around and did nothing (just because they weren't actively building an army). I was not attempting to build an army myself, nor a navy or airforce (as a matter of fact, when I play as the UK, before I even set the game in motion I do some pretty major housecleaning in the navy to get rid of obsolete destroyers and trnsports - this puts a few extra "men" back in the manpower pool, saves a little on supplies, and adds a significant amount of transports and escorts to my merchant fleet). I definitely was not even thinking about building a military capable of stopping the Germans from taking France in 1940. To suggest that I am naive and simple enough to actaully suffer from this delusion is, well, quite frankly, insulting.

But what I do expect to be able to do is make infrastructure improvements and invest in the economy in the form of building more IC. Nothing earth shattering or spectacular, but certainly better than the IC upgrades in 2 provinces and infrastructure improvements in 8 or 9 provinces that the current game settings allow.

And also, to be able to use all six tech slots the UK begins with, one cannot avail himself the resources to build even as much as I have described above. This is not to mention the plague of deleterious events that are constantly driving up dissent multiple times during 1933 alone. (I am no longer wondering why, that in one game I played as Germany, 2/3 of Brittish provinces were in revolt - right on their own island). Good luck getting ANYTHING done in the first three years or so as the UK. I ended up playing into 1936 just to get a feel for the events that trigger for the UK, and I never got beyond building four additional IC (2 in London and 2 in Manchester), improving the infrastructure by 20% or so in about 10 provinces, and building three whole destroyer divisions because of an event that fired (not my own idea). My tech research was laughable, mostly a scattering of various unrelated technologies because I could not afford to invest in industrial techs (for some reason I had about 1 "University Disaster" per year and my research score never broke 100, and I had arsenals blow up twice in one year - as if Brittain weren't crippled enough already).

And fight the Italians? Don't make me laugh. There is no way in hell I was going to be ready for them in 1940, not knowing what I do about the Italians in IC from having played as them a couple of times. Both times I completely steamrolled the Brits COMPLETELY out of Africa and the Middle East in just under a year, sealed off the Mediteranean in about a month and a half, and completely owned Mare Nostrum by the end of the summer of 1940. By 1941 I was launching invasions against the Brittish Isles and held Ireland as my own. Sure, that's realistic.

And this still does not address my second point of why the supplies calcs are all nerfed up...but in opposite directions for the UK and Germany.

So, as I asked before, what's up with that? The Brittish were not totally impotent during the mid 1930s, at least not as much as you and the devs seem to think that they were.

 

[unmerged(55787)]

whats up with what? the fact that the UK can do very little save fight germany´s main ally, the italians? the UK is underpowered and for a reason. landing as the UK on france ended the game pretty darn quickly back in AoD, but now the thought of attempting that save for the americans landing there first is ludicrous.

That to me points to a buggy German AI in AoD, then. It's a reason to fix the AI, not a reason to weaken the UK.

what the hell do you expect the poor undermanned british army to do against the massive attacks of the wehrmacht?

The army, no. However the British cannot build their air force, radar and navy which they had historically. I've started around a dozen games as British so far and only on the most recent one have I been able to achieve anything close to British pre-war naval and air production.

also, you need to understand that the UK, unlike germany, did not have a war economy on mind. it had a peacetime economy, which meant that if war came they would build up once war begun, not before. the opposite was true for the germans, who begun to build up for war pretty much as soon as hitler assumed command on 1933.

The UK went, in 1939, straight in to 'total mobilisation'. The Germans didn't do so until 1943.

and ALso, what the ef do you expect the brits to do during the first 13 months? nothing, thats what! research some techs, watch TV, have a pizza: thats what i do every time i start a game on 33.

The problem that I have is that Britain is unable to expand its economy during the pre-war years while Germany, Italy and Japan are able to. As a consequence, when war starts, Britain is forced to either keep its economy around the same size as it was in 1933 (and build ships and aircraft) or it can build IC and hope it doesn't get invaded.

Piratefish, I'm glad you've now tried the game as British and that you've reached the same conclusions that I have.

 

[azedalis]

Well I am playing a USA game and it went so A-historical...first off JAP seens always to get kicked around by China...so by 1938 Japan consists of their home Islands and Manchuria is back in China's hands...CHE decide no joy in letting Gemany have any of their lands...So GER declares war...SOV declare war on Germany...POL declares war on GER. ROM joins the Axis...Germany takes CHE and slowly takes POL...POR and SPA join the Axis...GER takes alot of the Urals...then JAP joins the AXIS and tries to take on the SOV...was able to take the port of VLaskov or whatever its name then gets torn up by the China again...since its getting no where JAP decides to declare war on the Philpeans and that brought me as the USA into the war...GER with so much on its plate declares war on the Netherlands and while still pushing deep into the SOV area toward Moscow somehow tahes on FRA through the Margino-Line (I know I am mispelling everything) and the Netherlands...I don't see how GER can be fighting a two front war so well... I was doing nothing more the teching out the USA and when I joined I quicky produced 4 elite Combined Armed Units consisting of 2x 75mm Tanks with SPArt and 2X Mobile Infantry with AC and proceeded to land near the port of Brest...I figured I could hold that pensula for awhile atleast with that much units. (total of 8x 75 mm tanks and 8x Mob Inf.) 4 of each in 2 side by side hexes...I don't know what GER had in their INF units but they just came and tore me a new one with about 10 INF units. GER being over powered...let me see...just maybe...fighting a 2 front war...going right through "THE WALL" of france with ease....tearing through my forces like their were butter...maybe GER a little over powered...

 

[piratefish]

I'm beginning to think so, too.

 

[unmerged(55787)]

Here are a few of my suggestions for making Germany more realistic:

1) By December 1940 Germany has completed the Land tech tree in its entirety. This is clearly a ridiculous state of affairs. There are too many high-powered German generals. We ought to remember that the Guderian's "Blitzkrieg" doctrine was not standard operational procedure in the Wehrmacht. Basil Liddell Hart writes in his History of World War II that in April 1940 copies of the planned German invasion of France - a conventional attack, not the Schwerpunkt - were captured by the Dutch. The plan was hastily changed when the architects of the Blitzkrieg went over the heads of their superiors to Hitler and convinced him to try their bold gamble.

So Germany should have fewer officers able to create the Land doctrine and more importantly should have other doctrines than the Blitzkrieg one open to it. There should be OKW, and one or two of the 'up and comers', represented perhaps by Manstein.

2) Other German techs are also an issue. Why, for example, does Hugo Schmeisser have the 'training' skill? His company made small arms, and good small arms they were too. But he wasn't a trainer and he certainly wasn't a Level 9 one. This is one example of the 'Uber' rating of German technology.

3) "Plan Z" and "Creation of the Luftwaffe" events are broken. Both should be scrapped. "Plan Z" provides high level warships without the need to research the technologies. "Creation of the Luftwaffe" provides free aircraft.

4) Dissent is an issue in democracies but not in totalitarian states. This is as it should be. Totalitarian states can repress their people to get rid of dissent. However, totalitarian states shouldn't benefit from the twice-yearly "public holiday" 2% dissent reduction. You can't have your cake and eat it.

5) Manpower in Germany - there's too much of it. I think that a solution might be an event allowing Germany to gain manpower at the cost of industrial efficiency (say 100 manpower per 1%, event cropping up every 3 months) which might offer a useful way to represent Germany's use of slave labour and the consequent effects of production.

6) Britain should be in a position to build IC improvements and the aircraft and ships it historically built from 1933-1939. At present there is just one way to achieve this. You need to build a military wartime economy, which allows you sufficient IC to build a few factories.

 

[piratefish]

Here are a few of my suggestions for making Germany more realistic:

1) By December 1940 Germany has completed the Land tech tree in its entirety. This is clearly a ridiculous state of affairs. There are too many high-powered German generals. We ought to remember that the Guderian's "Blitzkrieg" doctrine was not standard operational procedure in the Wehrmacht. Basil Liddell Hart writes in his History of World War II that in April 1940 copies of the planned German invasion of France - a conventional attack, not the Schwerpunkt - were captured by the Dutch. The plan was hastily changed when the architects of the Blitzkrieg went over the heads of their superiors to Hitler and convinced him to try their bold gamble.

So Germany should have fewer officers able to create the Land doctrine and more importantly should have other doctrines than the Blitzkrieg one open to it. There should be OKW, and one or two of the 'up and comers', represented perhaps by Manstein.

Indeed. It was Manstein's suggestion that resulted in the historical way in which France was invaded. He suggested sending the armor through the heavily forrested Ardennes region to split the French defenses in two and cut off Paris from reinforcements from the Maginot line. No one in the Allied chain of command ever even considered the chance that German armor would be able to negotiate through the Ardennes and come racing through to the coast, flank the Maginot, and isolate Paris with the speed they did.

2) Other German techs are also an issue. Why, for example, does Hugo Schmeisser have the 'training' skill? His company made small arms, and good small arms they were too. But he wasn't a trainer and he certainly wasn't a Level 9 one. This is one example of the 'Uber' rating of German technology.

I also am all for tweaking this. Especially if it means during revision that a tech teams separate competencies are also rated independently of each other (e.g. that not all competencies are given a "blanket" score, but rather each individual discipline is assigned a unique score based on historical reasonableness.

3) "Plan Z" and "Creation of the Luftwaffe" events are broken. Both should be scrapped. "Plan Z" provides high level warships without the need to research the technologies. "Creation of the Luftwaffe" provides free aircraft.

Again, I agree. I have always thought it a bit odd that units with advanced technology can suddenly become available. And I also think that the Luftwaffe should not materialize overnight, even if there is a corresponding decrease in IC, manpower, resources, and money. I mean, so what if there are hits to these areas if you get the benefit of gaining an airforce instantaneously? I wish we could produce things that quickly in the real world - just throw a bunch of money, manpower and resources at a project one day and have the results materialize later that afternoon (especially when those results are hundreds, if not thousands of aircraft with a complement of trained pilots that did not exist hours before and that had no previous preparation or planning behind them as evidenced by anything that is measureable or noticeable.

4) Dissent is an issue in democracies but not in totalitarian states. This is as it should be. Totalitarian states can repress their people to get rid of dissent. However, totalitarian states shouldn't benefit from the twice-yearly "public holiday" 2% dissent reduction. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Apparently, in IC, you can. As a side note, I thought it would also be neat to have an annual "boost" to income to simulate income tax revenues in the various countries that have annual filings. Even though the US and most other nations have a "pay as you go" taxation scheme through payroll deductions, they still often realize a surge in revenue from all those wealthier individuals and corporations that end up owing additional taxes - usually more than enough to offset any refunds payable.

5) Manpower in Germany - there's too much of it. I think that a solution might be an event allowing Germany to gain manpower at the cost of industrial efficiency (say 100 manpower per 1%, event cropping up every 3 months) which might offer a useful way to represent Germany's use of slave labour and the consequent effects of production.

Good idea. I have noticed that relative to most other nations, Germany has its manpower set too high. They had a respectable sized population in the 1930s, but were by no means one of the more populous nations of that era. And before anyone points out that the manpower pool is meant to reflect the available recruitable population, you first have to have a large enough overall population from which to draw this pool - recruitment laws considered.

6) Britain should be in a position to build IC improvements and the aircraft and ships it historically built from 1933-1939. At present there is just one way to achieve this. You need to build a military wartime economy, which allows you sufficient IC to build a few factories.

I hold this truth to be self-evident for anyone who has attempted to play as the UK.

 

[am300307]

I think the game the game as of 1.01 is much more balanced.

 

[piratefish]

And I think that after the American Civil War there were much better medical practices and medicine. Maybe we should have just stopped there. And come to think of it, cassette tapes weren't that bad either...definitely a step up from 8 tracks.

 

[Hollandia]

The things with playing the UK i nonsense. Im playing UKat normal/normal and before the war breaks out i build a few fighers and interceptors and smoe light cruizers, destroyers and 2 heavy's. Now i have 200 IC, liberated Africa and am fighting despertly to save the Spanish peninsula. Every allied nation has little IC in 33. Go play France or Holland i you don''t think so.

 

[unmerged(207446)]

The base population ratios of Germany:USSR:USA are extremely reasonable, on the basis of the 1936 scenario.

The ratios of 68:181:135 come close to their historical population ratios on the basis of census data. The USA is given a tad extra, but probably accommodates wartime growth.

The problem is that no country in the game can come close to mobilizing their historical mobilized manpower. Mobilizing 12 million men as the USSR for instance, is simply impossible, even given no wartime casualties.

 

[unmerged(207446)]

As a human you can beat Italy as the UK, but I've never seen the AI do so. I am all for removing the nonsensical peacetime IC penalties which democratic nations are supposedly encumbered with, and trying a new game-balancing system.

 

[unmerged(55787)]

The things with playing the UK i nonsense. Im playing UKat normal/normal and before the war breaks out i build a few fighers and interceptors and smoe light cruizers, destroyers and 2 heavy's. Now i have 200 IC, liberated Africa and am fighting despertly to save the Spanish peninsula. Every allied nation has little IC in 33. Go play France or Holland i you don''t think so.

The point that was being made above was that allied nations should not have 'little IC' in 33 when compared to Germany. The British economy was not at a total standstill until 1939.

This begs the question, of course, what is IC supposed to represent. Is it military production? If so, we don't need 'consumer goods', do we, because it's only military production that counts. However if it's meant to represent the entire economy then stripping the Allies' chance to build anything for the first 5 years of the 1933 game is ahistorical.

 

[piratefish]

This begs the question, of course, what is IC supposed to represent. Is it military production? If so, we don't need 'consumer goods', do we, because it's only military production that counts. However if it's meant to represent the entire economy then stripping the Allies' chance to build anything for the first 5 years of the 1933 game is ahistorical.

I think, probably, that the closest approximation to IC would be GDP, or more completely, GNP. It seems to be a measure of total production output and even has modifiers that appear to simulate policy impact on GNP.

Probably not a perfect match, but I reason it's pretty darn close.

 

[Conanteacher]

No way!!!

GDP / GNP is not accurate enough:

It counts everything which has a commercial value so e.g. Singapore and Luxembourg should have tremendous IC.

It does not take into account things like labor cost / wages, true Industrial Capacity (Qatar has a lot of oil so trades it for money so buys planes from the US) and many other factors.

Example 1:

A country on advanced capitalism produces zillion of things like worthless gadgets, crappy consumer goods, confetti and fireworks, etc

All these things have commercial value, which rises the country's GDP.

But are the means to produce them (a printer, a lathe, an axe) significant enough to be counted as IC for the game?

Example 2:

(Hypothetical scenario during Vietnam war)

US decide to produce a very expensive state of the art fighter like the F-4 Phantom.
McDonnel - Douglas sells it for more than 4 mil. US$ per unit and various contracts are signed with other companies as well for all the equipment, for spare parts, for maintenance etc etc
Total cost = A
N. Vietnam gets some nice MiG-21 interceptors in exchange for some tons of rice and metal, as well as a few hundred thousand Rubles.
Operated and maintained by some drafted soldiers - mechanics, spare parts produced even by students... no contracts, no companies, just glue the stuff together.
Total cost = A:3

Example 3:

A bridge has been destroyed due to earthquake in the US
A contract is signed, heavy machinery is used, skilled engineers, high - tech solution
and voila, we have a nice new bridge for 1.000.000 $

A bridge has been destroyed due to earthquake in Greece
a contract is signed, politicians got bribed, company delays work and cost rises, material is worse than expected but no-one checks it out, corruption allows overvaluation of costs etc etc
and voila, we have a... well, it's a bridge anyway, for 4.000.000 $ to a (foreign company)

A bridge has been destroyed due to earthquake in China
Government orders the army to solve the problem
Within 3 weeks 15.000 soldiers dig with their shovels
and voila, we do not even need a bridge now, for 21*15000= 315.000 daily portions of rice and 63 broken shovels.

How do you count that?

 

[piratefish]

Easy. GNP is an ECONOMIC measurement, not a measurement of money spent.

GNP measures the MARKET VALUE of goods and services produced by the citizens of a given nation, regardless of how much is spent (which in some cases contributes to lower GNP - like in your bribery/waste example). It measures how finite resources are used. Another definition of GNP is the combined incomes of all of a nation's citizens, regardless of location - which, for game purposes, I don't think is as good.

Therefor, in your examples above, the bridges would all be valued (more or less) equally (assuming they are all very physically similar to each other in size, type, materials, etc) based on their MARKET VALUE. Of course, a lot is dependent on local economic conditions to arrive at market value (relative currency valuation, opportunity costs, standards of living, inflation, waste and inefficiency, etc., etc.) All of which may impact the measurement of a particular nation's GNP.

That's why I said GNP is close but not perfect. Perhaps there are standardized indecies that measure national production/output for comparison between countries. The closest I have seen are measures that convert GNP to a standard currency, like the U.S. dollar. But only having a minor in economics, my knowledge is limited.

Still, I think Gross National Product is a fair measure of a country's overall production capacity for game purposes. This is why you may actually have idle IC in the game, representing unused capacity. And the little "trinkets" of consumer goods do count. That's why there is a slider to allocate production to consumer goods. Part of a nation's GNP (or more acurately, potential GNP) must be used for such items as "worthless gadgets" and "crappy consumer goods". It's what keeps the people happy (which is why it is linked to keeping dissent down in the game). Think of these "crappy" goods as an opportunity cost, or even wasted IC if you will.

Perfect? No. I doubt there is any perfect "real world" measurement. But good enough for game purposes? Absolutely. I cannot think of a better one.

 

[Hollandia]

So actually the siystem is good as it is?

 

[unmerged(55787)]

So actually the siystem is good as it is?

It would be good as it is if it accurately represented the ability of non-totalitarian nations to produce IC. The original HOI2 did a far better job than IC does.

 

[Conanteacher]

Quiet god analysis....

But then perhaps we should implement different measures for every country.

Like a level X fighter of the US costs 56.7 IC (and the US have 3000 IC)
while level IX fighter for Vietnam costs 8.3 IC ( and Vietnam has 74 IC)??

I too think that the original system is quiet well balanced.