HoI4 Dev Diary - Combat Changes & Soviet Exiles

[kettyo]

I do think that the fascist keeps Moscow as their capital, and only the monarchist path has St. Petersburg as the Capital

That is indeed possible. I didn't think about it. In this case it's fine as it is.

 

[Xeem_Pad]

Why do they force you to eat surrströmming?

 

[Redride' s OG]

I do still wonder why there is Bukhara and Kharezm on those years?

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD, ably introduced by Secretary-General Arheo, with mechanics covered by Commissar Podcat and everyone's favourite captive Comrade's Bratyn and Wrongwraith Lots of great stuff here - the combat width mechanics changes sound like they'll go very nicely, and the reinforcement changes are most welcome. The changes to the Soviet civil war and the tree more broadly also sound super-cool - I can't wait to give it a crack

Had to be a bit sneaky to get a naval-themed pic in this week - but the NF trees have me covered, with this (naval NFs are the best NFs ):

The USSR prior to WW2 had big plans for their fleet in the East, involving no small number of their Project 23 (Sovetskii Soiuz Class) battleships. Five were planned and four laid down, although the fall of France meant a shift in priorities to counter Germany's successes, and things slowed down heavily after that. Here's a pic of a model of the class that was (iirc) built during the development process - note the separate high-angle and low-angle secondary armament amonts other bits and pieces

PS - Bratyn, for the fiendish device they have locking you in, have you tried a peg over the nose, or is a full gas mask required?

 

[yodaman112]

I’m excited for the changes to the division width mechanics.

 

[safe-keeper]

I’m excited for the changes to the division width mechanics.

I have a feeling most people are, except the ones who want to min-max everything to do with the game. I never care about the width of my divisions, and I have a hunch the majority of HoI4 players don't, either. I'm just happy the game is getting more realistic and immersive.

 

[Duke_Dave]

Will we get a Cossack sprite?

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

To expand on this we have changed how targeting and damage spreading works. One way 40 width (and also larger) divisions were stronger than smaller ones was how they could concentrate all of their damage into one target overpowering defense more easily. Targeting is now changed so that divisions will select targets up to its own width (so a 40w can fire on two 20w), but doing so spreads the damage over them relative to their width (and just to be clear, it’s not just for 40w. This applies to any widths that match up like 30+10 say).

An attacker concentrating on one target is the way it should work. A distributed attack along multiple defenders isn't a proper representation of combat. Is there perhaps some unmentioned combat mechanic to address this?

Alternatively, a distributed defense along multiple attackers would be more appropriate.

 

[cdub8d]

I have a feeling most people are, except the ones who want to min-max everything to do with the game. I never care about the width of my divisions, and I have a hunch the majority of HoI4 players don't, either. I'm just happy the game is getting more realistic and immersive.

I would love more immersion in Hoi4 too. Sadly Hoi4 fails to do that in many many ways. Except with the new changes the game is going to become even more grindy. We already have WW1 combat, but instead of WW1 in the eastern front we are going to get the full WW1 western front experience. Mainly because without large divisions and targeting single divisions, attacking will become hell.

If you want more immersive and realistic Hoi4, I suggest start bringing up the complete lack of mechanics around combat. Air combat is quite poor, the operational level is not represented at all, fighting is wall of divisions vs wall of divisions instead of any sort of planned concentrated attacks vs enemy weak points in the line. The doctrines that the Soviets and Germans both generally did after learning from WW1. Sadly the game is closer to WW1 combat with WW2 technology. There is 0 depth to manpower, in terms of pilots, officers, or even just trained reserves.

 

[safe-keeper]

fighting is wall of divisions vs wall of divisions instead of any sort of planned concentrated attacks vs enemy weak points in the line.

This is the #1 thing I hope they'll improve upon, and which will hopefully get at least better with the next update. We already have the gameplay mechanics for drawing up an offensive, waiting for your troops and officers to plan and prepare (preparation time), and then executing the offensive and fighting until you have to end the offensive and take up defensive positions again. We just need a gameplay incentive to actually use it, because atm you can win the war just fine with the HoI3-style neverending grind along the entire front.

The devs experimented with more offensive-driven warfare in La Résistance, where combat mostly grinds to a halt and you have to decide where to actually mount your offensives (in LR it's a kinda clunky system with decisions, possibly for the AI's sake). I hope they expand it to the whole game in time.

With supplies and logistics playing a bigger role in NSB, possibly it'll be one step closer (heh) to a more operational system, given you'll probably have to pause your offensives as you wait for your supply lines catch up with you.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

I have a feeling most people are, except the ones who want to min-max everything to do with the game. I never care about the width of my divisions, and I have a hunch the majority of HoI4 players don't, either. I'm just happy the game is getting more realistic and immersive.

in what sense will combat be any more realistic now than previously?

 

[Asae]

The Romanov/Fascist branch does look very fun, and it's clearly designed to be fun, I just think it shouldn't exist. They should have (and really this expansion does look to be doing that mostly) spending more time making WW2 fun and less time making things that aren't WW2 fun. They love to make things that aren't WW2 fun because those things are popular, but they're popular in part because the alt-history paths are often just straight up better than the historical paths. People always say "oh you should play with mods then" or some nonsense when the Romanov restoration for the USSR is like, textbook example of what should be a mod. Of course, I know that Hoi4 has not been hiding that a certain amount of wacky alt-history is now par for the course (this expansion seems to be a welcome refocusing on core gameplay, which is good) so I'm not complaining too hard. Looks like a good DLC, I hope naval will get (another) rework in the future.

Why shouldn't exist? why should your history boner be the only thing that's handled? Why should YOUR preference outshine all the others that exist including those who don't just wanna play stalin for the 65th time? I SINCERELY do not understand people like you who think it's all about you you you and no one else matters.

 

[Axe99]

I would love more immersion in Hoi4 too. Sadly Hoi4 fails to do that in many many ways. Except with the new changes the game is going to become even more grindy. We already have WW1 combat, but instead of WW1 in the eastern front we are going to get the full WW1 western front experience. Mainly because without large divisions and targeting single divisions, attacking will become hell.

As I understand it (and all of the below might be rubbish - apologies if so, I'm much more a naval person), 'breakthrough divisons' still make sense (and it should be 'breakthrough divisions' (ie, divisions designed to smash through a line, supported by air and arty and local concentration of force, rather than some kind of very-gamey and wildly implausible large div vs multiple small div bonus that enable breakthroughs in any event).

Divisions, after all, are just administrative units, like battalions, brigades/regiments, companies and so on. As best I recall (and bear in mind I'm much sketchier on this than naval stuff), there were plenty of situations when multiple battalions from different divisions (although often still within the same corps or army) fought side by side against multiple battalions from the same division, and as far as I'm aware as long as command-and-control arrangements were appropriate, there was no advantage to the battalions from 'all from one division' formation. As best I can tell, it makes perfect sense if both sides have divs of the same overall width, that the larger div has to split its forces between the other two divs (particularly given the meaning of width in-game).

So there should be force concentration - absolutely - but achieving it through silly sleight-of-hand through wonky game mechanics is neither enjoyable nor historically plausible.

As best I can tell, the main possible issue with the new rules is that there'll be a swing towards smaller divs (brigades, effectively), because there's (apparently) no benefit for having larger divs. Given brigades were often effective functional units in WW2 this isn't implausible at all - the main downside is that it's a lot of extra micro, reduced performance and the AI would need to have its preferred templates broken down to brigades as well to be competitive, so do we want a game that encourages this? If we don't, do we need stronger mechanics (beyond needing more generals/etc for more divs) to discourage too many 'discrete units' in any combat situation (having it based on 'discrete units' would still enable the use of small divs where it made sense because supply can't support large divs)?

More broadly, this seems to only be an issue for competitive MP (which is not a reason not to fix it by any stretch - mechanics that 'work' in MP would hopefully mean deeper and more historically plausible mechanics in SP as well). SP and Coop can self-regulate. Or have I missed something here?

 

[cdub8d]

As I understand it (and all of the below might be rubbish - apologies if so, I'm much more a naval person), 'breakthrough divisons' still make sense (and it should be 'breakthrough divisions' (ie, divisions designed to smash through a line, supported by air and arty and local concentration of force, rather than some kind of very-gamey and wildly implausible large div vs multiple small div bonus that enable breakthroughs in any event).

Divisions, after all, are just administrative units, like battalions, brigades/regiments, companies and so on. As best I recall (and bear in mind I'm much sketchier on this than naval stuff), there were plenty of situations when multiple battalions from different divisions (although often still within the same corps or army) fought side by side against multiple battalions from the same division, and as far as I'm aware as long as command-and-control arrangements were appropriate, there was no advantage to the battalions from 'all from one division' formation. As best I can tell, it makes perfect sense if both sides have divs of the same overall width, that the larger div has to split its forces between the other two divs (particularly given the meaning of width in-game).

So there should be force concentration - absolutely - but achieving it through silly sleight-of-hand through wonky game mechanics is neither enjoyable nor historically plausible.

As best I can tell, the main possible issue with the new rules is that there'll be a swing towards smaller divs (brigades, effectively), because there's (apparently) no benefit for having larger divs. Given brigades were often effective functional units in WW2 this isn't implausible at all - the main downside is that it's a lot of extra micro, reduced performance and the AI would need to have its preferred templates broken down to brigades as well to be competitive, so do we want a game that encourages this? If we don't, do we need stronger mechanics (beyond needing more generals/etc for more divs) to discourage too many 'discrete units' in any combat situation (having it based on 'discrete units' would still enable the use of small divs where it made sense because supply can't support large divs)?

More broadly, this seems to only be an issue for competitive MP (which is not a reason not to fix it by any stretch - mechanics that 'work' in MP would hopefully mean deeper and more historically plausible mechanics in SP as well). SP and Coop can self-regulate. Or have I missed something here?

The ai is incapable of grouping "attacking" divisions together to break a hole in the line and instead push across the entire front.

If we want to adjust how the size of divisions are then maybe we need to add mechanics that do that.

I have kinda gone on and on about this across many threads now so I will try to sum up my thoughts better.....

The game is about WW2 grand strategy with combat being the main focus, except combat is quite shallow in many aspects, like lacking an entire operational level. If we want to suggest more historical sized divisions, let's add mechanics that do that. Arbitrarily adjusting width doesn't do that. These changes will lead to grindy fighting since concentration of divisions in a fight is pretty meh now with lack of targeting.

 

[Axe99]

The ai is incapable of grouping "attacking" divisions together to break a hole in the line and instead push across the entire front.

If it's an AI thing, though, the AI (generally, I know there are a handful of larger AI templates, but they're very rare in practice) doesn't make 40-width divisions either, so how does changing this approach disadvantage the AI any more than they already are? If anything, the AI uses more 10-12-width divisions than they do 40-width, so in this context wouldn't the changes be more likely to be AI-friendly, all else being equal? It does make it a tiny bit harder against the AI, but most human players should be well capable of concentrating armour, CAS, air superiority etc;, making the extra advantage from 40-width divisions unnecessary (I know I've never had any issues breaking the AI's line, and I'm very much a historically plausible division structure kind of player, with all the apparently inefficient use of support companies and artillery that entails).

I do strongly support the push for the AI using its breakthrough divisions more appropriately, and for further developing the capacity to launch offensives, concentrating force, etc; But as best I can see it, that's an issue above and beyond the width issue in practice (if the AI was using 40-width divisions to enable it to breakthrough, that'd be another thing). The width issue doesn't make this worse (as best I can tell - I'm very open to being clued up) - it's just 'another thing' alongside it. The big downside seems to be more micro with small division in the MP meta (which should only be an issue playing against other people who can't be trusted not to be silly).

On the operational level, it's worth keeping in mind the greater focus on tactics in battle improves that aspect a bit - but you'll get no argument from me that the game would be far better if the AI was capable of using its armour, motorised, mech, special forces and so on division better.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

i don't think you fully understand. it's not that it will be some sort of general "swing" towards smaller units - rather, using anything larger than the bare minimum width/size will mean you will fare worse in combat due to having worse overall org and practically no benefits (there is a slight advantage to more HP and that's about it - the support company thing is a tradeoff between attacks/width and overall cost which is balanced enough). currently we have a relatively dynamic meta where multiple division sizes are viable - 3 are extremely viable, to be specific - and all 3 are close enough to historical sizes from what i've heard. this will change it to a single-width meta with division sizes around 5k men, which is indeed regiment sized - but they're called divisions, not regiments. not only is it less historical than the current meta but it's equally arbitrary and even more ridiculous, and worst of all way less dynamic. by no means is it an "mp-only" issue.

 

[Axe99]

i don't think you fully understand. it's not that it will be some sort of general "swing" towards smaller units - rather, using anything larger than the bare minimum width/size will mean you will fare worse in combat due to having worse overall org and practically no benefits (there is a slight advantage to more HP and that's about it - the support company thing is a tradeoff between attacks/width and overall cost which is balanced enough). currently we have a relatively dynamic meta where multiple division sizes are viable - 3 are extremely viable, to be specific - and all 3 are close enough to historical sizes from what i've heard. this will change it to a single-width meta with division sizes around 5k men, which is indeed regiment sized - but they're called divisions, not regiments. not only is it less historical than the current meta but it's equally arbitrary and even more ridiculous, and worst of all way less dynamic. by no means is it an "mp-only" issue.

I definitely don't fully understand - that's why I'm putting forward thoughts so you and others can knock me into line

On the MP thing, I'm still not convinced it's an issue outside of competitive MP. I role-play my land combat, and don't optimise in any way, shape or form - according to threads on 'the best division structure' in these parts, from a gameplay mechanics perspective my division structures are apparently terrible. Are the changes to the way mechanics work really going to give the AI such an advantage that players will be forced not to role-play any more? And if they aren't, how is it a serious issue for SP?

More constructively, in terms of what sounds like a bit of a quirk with divisions org taking damage independently of the size of the division - why not advocate for org damage to be adjusted by division width as well? The idea that org is independent of division size (in the context of damage taken) seems pretty implausible, so adjusting org damage taken by the width of the division would help get away from the situation where mechanics favour a particular division size. How does that sound as an idea?

I mean, ideally, and not taking into account different terrains have different optimum widths, unless we were getting deep into theories of organisational effectiveness, and modelling far, far more than just the division and 'Army' and 'Army Group' in HoI4, the decisions as to division size shouldn't really be that important, beyond it being a good size for the province density/supply issue balance. Wouldn't a good end goal be (arbitrary terrain maximum widths aside) that each division is as good as the other, and what really matters is the type of battalions engaged in fighting? I could be wrong with all of this - I'm just a bit perplexed as to what the 'landies' goal is. Personally, I think a game where there are any 'division width metas' is missing something when it comes to its gameplay mechanics for land combat.

 

[Hypercynder]

Good update

Especially for central asia

 

[Dzewana]

Better than the first idea.

But there is a lack of adaptation of economic decisions for a non-communist regime...

 

[WindingArc]

i don't think you fully understand. it's not that it will be some sort of general "swing" towards smaller units - rather, using anything larger than the bare minimum width/size will mean you will fare worse in combat due to having worse overall org and practically no benefits (there is a slight advantage to more HP and that's about it - the support company thing is a tradeoff between attacks/width and overall cost which is balanced enough). currently we have a relatively dynamic meta where multiple division sizes are viable - 3 are extremely viable, to be specific - and all 3 are close enough to historical sizes from what i've heard. this will change it to a single-width meta with division sizes around 5k men, which is indeed regiment sized - but they're called divisions, not regiments. not only is it less historical than the current meta but it's equally arbitrary and even more ridiculous, and worst of all way less dynamic. by no means is it an "mp-only" issue.

I'm not saying these factors are strong enough in the current balance, but there are two reasons why the bare minimum combat width might not be the optimal combat width: generals and support companies.

If you have an army almost entirely comprised of 2-width infantry divisions, you'll quickly run out of good generals and field marshals. I don't know how well players will be able to micromanage around this or how much of a difference a few skill levels will make in combat compared to larger enemy organization, but at least on paper it could counterbalance tiny division spam.

Low-width divisions also make support companies less practical for two reasons. First, and perhaps less importantly, they increase the amount of support equipment per deployed manpower, which will be expensive to sustain for nations with smaller industrial bases. Second, they'll tank your divisions' organization, forcing you to choose between organization and important combat benefits.

A single-battalion infantry division loses 20 organization (1/3 of its starting total) with the addition of a single support company, and that further drops to 33.3 with a second support company. Armor has it "better," since its organization without doctrines is 10, lower than the 20 org many support companies provide, but organization trending upwards rather than downwards to 20 with the addition of support companies isn't a great place to be.

And those calculations don't include artillery support companies or regiments of artillery and self-propelled artillery, all of which have 0 organization. In short, it's not obvious to me that the downsides of using worse generals, few tanks and support companies, and little to no artillery are worth the benefits of higher organization. I think it's possible that the new "meta" division might be a battalion-sized divisions with enough combat width to avoid filling up entire army groups and enough organization to have 2-3 support companies attached.


Even pointing to the Integrated Support branch of the Superior Firepower doctrine doesn't strike me as much of a counterargument because it would concede that division organization isn't everything under the new meta. Infantry regiments would still have more organization than support companies, especially given the extra 10 organization and the extra 5-10 organization Superior Firepower gives to infantry regiments before and after Integrated Support, respectively. Thus, support companies would still decrease divisions' organization and would still be uncompetitive if organization really did become the only important aspect of division design.

More constructively, in terms of what sounds like a bit of a quirk with divisions org taking damage independently of the size of the division - why not advocate for org damage to be adjusted by division width as well? The idea that org is independent of division size (in the context of damage taken) seems pretty implausible, so adjusting org damage taken by the width of the division would help get away from the situation where mechanics favour a particular division size. How does that sound as an idea?

I mean, ideally, and not taking into account different terrains have different optimum widths, unless we were getting deep into theories of organisational effectiveness, and modelling far, far more than just the division and 'Army' and 'Army Group' in HoI4, the decisions as to division size shouldn't really be that important, beyond it being a good size for the province density/supply issue balance. Wouldn't a good end goal be (arbitrary terrain maximum widths aside) that each division is as good as the other, and what really matters is the type of battalions engaged in fighting? I could be wrong with all of this - I'm just a bit perplexed as to what the 'landies' goal is. Personally, I think a game where there are any 'division width metas' is missing something when it comes to its gameplay mechanics for land combat.

The main issue I see with org damage increasing as combat width decreases is that it would further disadvantage the Mass Assault doctrine, which is (I think) the only land doctrine to offer combat width reductions. It's often panned for not offering enough combat bonuses, causing its users to lose too many battles and effectively farm general experience for their opponents in the process. Tying org damage to combat width would take that unique advantage and make it into another disadvantage for the doctrine.

I think there's enough potential counterbalancing mechanisms in general command limits and the viability of support companies to keep the typical division width between 10 and 30. Building on what I said above, I'd suggest a reduction in command limits to 12 divisions per general and 4 armies per field marshal. I'd keep the Expert Delegator bonus the same and either keep the Skilled Staffer bonus the same or reduce it to +4 divisions per army.

That would make tiny divisions even more problematic, force players to use more generals in the field even with 10-30 width divisions, and line up better with historical orders of battle. For example, every frontline Soviet and German front/army group in 1941 except German Army Group South contained 3-4 armies, and Army Group South started out split into two larger formations anyway. Three armies invaded from Poland and three armies invaded from Romania with the Carpathian Mountains initially separating them.