Hearts of Iron IV - 20th Development Diary - 14th of August 2015

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Yes, there probably will be a template if there were Guards Divs in 1936 that were different from standard Inf Divs, even if just for a bit of added flavour.

Though I think IRL a Guards Div was not materially different, it was just a name given to units that had performed well.
 
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In real life, guard divisions were created out of distinguished divisions. Hence, I would presume you don't get guard divisions - but you can make a nice template, with lots of firepower, and call it a guards division.

I'm also assuming that you can set up divisions that have tons of combat experience to be higher on the priority list for new equipment and perhaps on a priority list for upgrades to better division templates.

That would be a good simulation of guards, wouldn't it?
 
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I'm also assuming that you can set up divisions that have tons of combat experience to be higher on the priority list for new equipment and perhaps on a priority list for upgrades to better division templates.

That would be a good simulation of guards, wouldn't it?

In my understanding of the system this is doable by basically copying the template the division is using and assigning the new template higher priorities. Then after that when a normal division hits your accepted level of experience assign it to the new template. This seems like a pretty accurate portrayal of what happened historically anyway.
 
I'm also assuming that you can set up divisions that have tons of combat experience to be higher on the priority list for new equipment and perhaps on a priority list for upgrades to better division templates.

That would be a good simulation of guards, wouldn't it?
It would certainly be interesting to bet able to set a bunch of priorities. Not just bad on template, but how much experience is as you mention, as well as whether to focus on many full strength divisions or few low strength divisions, theater, etc. It doesn't seem particularly feasible, as it's a little too predictive (in order to reinforce one unit, you need to know the status of another unit), but interesting.
 
It would certainly be interesting to bet able to set a bunch of priorities. Not just bad on template, but how much experience is as you mention, as well as whether to focus on many full strength divisions or few low strength divisions, theater, etc. It doesn't seem particularly feasible, as it's a little too predictive (in order to reinforce one unit, you need to know the status of another unit), but interesting.

It seems like it'd be a fairly easy system to set up? I mean, just as a faux mockup - assume we have three priority classes of troops, High, Medium, and Low.

Get the number of Reinforcements available for the time increment, we'll go with a week.
Take two thirds of it, and earmark that for High priority troops.
Take two thirds of the remainder, earmark it for Medium.
Mark the rest for low.

For each class, randomly assign reinforcements point-by-point to units in need. If there is a remainder after all needs are satisfied, send it to the highest priority bucket that still has troops in need of reinforcing.

This wouldn't be a perfect system, obviously - for one thing, if you have 300 reinforcement need in High, and 50 need in Medium, and 300 men coming in, you'll get ALL the Medium filled (1/3 of 300 = 100, 2/3 of that = 66 > 50) despite not filling all the High, and that's not what we want. But you can mess with the basic idea until you get a thing you like.

For example, on a "focus on keeping divisions combat effective" priority structure, you could make the gradations instead be different levels of strength in the troop - divisions just too small to be effective getting most of it, divisions that are flagging but still in the fight getting most of the rest, and divisions that are either near paper strength or utterly demolished getting only a trickle of troops. Bottom line is that you really shouldn't need any sort of n-body problem style interunit referencing, just taking a priority value from / cooking one up based on the characteristics of each division in a vacuum.



What would be interesting to me would be the option to have reinforcement restricted to units under specific commands - so I could let my troops on the front fight and gain experience undiluted by new blood, while building new formations in the rear. When a front unit gets too small to be effective, send it rear to form the nucleus of a new unit.
 
In Soviet Russia, each man shares his weapon with his comrades! Radical redistributive policies ensure that 1 rifle is adequate for 10 soldiers!
Soviet collectivist infantry. Each people's rifle is handled by one gunner, who pulls the trigger, a fire direction commander, who aims the gun, a spotter who calls out targets, a People's Collectivist Rifle Section Commander who issues orders to the unit, and three political commissars who ensure everything goes according to party doctrine. The commissars are issued a pistol and decide how best to make use of it is decided by the three by committee and in conjunction with higher officers, but here it gets complicated, so I'll leave it at this.
 
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It seems like it'd be a fairly easy system to set up? I mean, just as a faux mockup - assume we have three priority classes of troops, High, Medium, and Low.

Get the number of Reinforcements available for the time increment, we'll go with a week.
Take two thirds of it, and earmark that for High priority troops.
Take two thirds of the remainder, earmark it for Medium.
Mark the rest for low.

For each class, randomly assign reinforcements point-by-point to units in need. If there is a remainder after all needs are satisfied, send it to the highest priority bucket that still has troops in need of reinforcing.

This wouldn't be a perfect system, obviously - for one thing, if you have 300 reinforcement need in High, and 50 need in Medium, and 300 men coming in, you'll get ALL the Medium filled (1/3 of 300 = 100, 2/3 of that = 66 > 50) despite not filling all the High, and that's not what we want. But you can mess with the basic idea until you get a thing you like.

For example, on a "focus on keeping divisions combat effective" priority structure, you could make the gradations instead be different levels of strength in the troop - divisions just too small to be effective getting most of it, divisions that are flagging but still in the fight getting most of the rest, and divisions that are either near paper strength or utterly demolished getting only a trickle of troops. Bottom line is that you really shouldn't need any sort of n-body problem style interunit referencing, just taking a priority value from / cooking one up based on the characteristics of each division in a vacuum.



What would be interesting to me would be the option to have reinforcement restricted to units under specific commands - so I could let my troops on the front fight and gain experience undiluted by new blood, while building new formations in the rear. When a front unit gets too small to be effective, send it rear to form the nucleus of a new unit.
It begs the question, how do you get those priorities? That's the predictive part of it. In order to know what the priority of one division is, I need to know the priority of every other division.
 
Though I think IRL a Guards Div was not materially different, it was just a name given to units that had performed well.

There actually were differences between the TO&E of a Guards Rifle Division and a regular Rifle Division, but they were pretty minor (an extra submachine gun battalion there, another artillery battery here). Absolutely nothing that matters at the scale HOI4 works at though.
 
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As you can see on the screenshot below, we have truly dumbed down the game, and made all those hidden values we have in the game visible, with tooltips explaining them in details.

LMFAO this is why Johan is a genius! Love it!
 
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"Special" divisions like Guards and SS have really always been in HOI. Just call a division "1st Guards division" or "2nd SS division" or "1st Elite Infantry" or whatever, prioritise that unit for reinforcements and upgrades, and give it some battles to fight so that it racks up a lot of experience. Voila, elite division.
 
It begs the question, how do you get those priorities? That's the predictive part of it. In order to know what the priority of one division is, I need to know the priority of every other division.

Ah, sorry - I meant that you'd store those on the unit the exact same way as things like equipment allocation preference, either based on a setting (like the aforementioned) or a simple, non-peer-reference categorization scheme based on the selected mode.
 
There actually were differences between the TO&E of a Guards Rifle Division and a regular Rifle Division, but they were pretty minor (an extra submachine gun battalion there, another artillery battery here). Absolutely nothing that matters at the scale HOI4 works at though.
Only briefly. By the end of 1942 (so about 15 months) there was no material difference between a Guards Division and a normal Strelkovaya Division.
 
yeah, allies can't puppet.
.
Just to understand: what were Italy, Japan and Germany after the defeat independent free nations?
 
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They were occupied. Not the same thing in the game, nor IRL.
 
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Does it make sense they have?

We give cars to the police for a reason. Mobility is critical in reacting. So...

Anyway minor value that is easy to change.
The reason is probably so you don't end up being able to use tanks to keep the locals under control. Besides it's war time the fuel goes to the army not the police!
 
Obviously I was talking after the occupation.
When West Germany was created, with a democratically elected government in 1949? The intervening period of occupation after the war lasted four years - the four zones, then the Bizone and then Trizone as US, UK and FRA zones were merged, were not puppet states, as they weren't states.

Many people would regard East Germany as a Soviet "satellite state" ie. a puppet, but obviously that was nothing to do with the Allies.
 
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"Install democracy" was a war goal in HOI3, so I imagine it will be in HOI 4 as well. Sure, the Allies are moslty a colonial empire, but I don't see them doing things like making Germany a US puppet, or making Italy a British colony. That's pretty immersion-breaking.
 
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