Should Artillery Types be Simplified?

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28 sounds like a lot until you realize that most people use about 3 or 4 in an average game. It's just AT, AA, and ART in different levels of armor. Half of them are super niche like MotoRocket Trucks and SH SPGs. I've never used either. Adding AT and AA is optional. Sometimes it's necessary to win against certain enemies. AA is especially useful and should be in every division if you're playing against an opponent with air power.
 
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1. Currently in Hoi4 Regular/Rocket Arty is the only arty that's effectively used in every engagement. AA and AT only offers tiny Soft Damage. AT is barely used against tanks because the AI doesn't build enough tank divisions and spreads its units all across the wide front. So AT is mostly used against soft units for little gains when you could have added regular arty instead (there's a cost to using AT and AA too. Resources, factories, brigade slots)

2. Simplifying arty would help with AI division templates, would give units more of a fighting chance in general across the front if for example Anti Tank guns were generally attached to units because right now the AI hardly equips infantry divisions with AT (which makes player tank divisions sorta unstoppable), would cut down on the current micromanagement with having to juggle different arty types and tank arty variants in the Designer, Factories, and Equipment Stockpile
if you think that AA and AT are useless than you don't understand how they work - especially for AA. it reduces 75% of CAS damage, and air attack reduces air inferiority penalties by up to around that as well, as you approach around 112 air attack.

the issue is that the AI isn't good enough at making hard divisions or using its airforce for these to be necessary. however for MP AA and AT are fine as-is.
 
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if you think that AA and AT are useless than you don't understand how they work - especially for AA. it reduces 75% of CAS damage, and air attack reduces air inferiority penalties by up to around that as well, as you approach around 112 air attack.

the issue is that the AI isn't good enough at making hard divisions or using its airforce for these to be necessary. however for MP AA and AT are fine as-is.
I never said they're useless. Just that in direct combat head-to-head with divisions in *most* battles against the AI, those Soft and Hard Damage stats are just tiny buffs to damage whereas Regular and Rocket Arty consistently is used to their full potential by dealing out a lot of Soft damage which hits infantry hard.

That's my issue, there's not enough cases where AA and AT are used to their best potential, hence why i'm in favor of just rolling all Artillery types into one so players and the AI can consistently get the most out of their Arty.
 
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I never said they're useless. Just that in direct combat head-to-head with divisions in *most* battles against the AI, those Soft and Hard Damage stats are just tiny buffs to damage whereas Regular and Rocket Arty consistently is used to their full potential by dealing out a lot of Soft damage which hits infantry hard.

That's my issue, there's not enough cases where AA and AT are used to their best potential, hence why i'm in favor of just rolling all Artillery types into one so players and the AI can consistently get the most out of their Arty.
you're thinking combat is just "who has more soft attack" and still undervaluing AA. frankly, even if you have 60% air superiority AA is still useful, as much so as any type of support arty.

and i still think overall your idea doesn't make much sense. part of the fun of the division designer is being able to specialize. so if you don't fight in bad air you save ICs by not investing in AA, for example. if you don't have to engage enemy tanks you save by not making AT. if you aren't pushing with your infantry and didn't go SF doctrine you save by not adding arty.

grouping them all up into one company is a huge oversimplification in an already oversimplified game.
 
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you're thinking combat is just "who has more soft attack" and still undervaluing AA. frankly, even if you have 60% air superiority AA is still useful, as much so as any type of support arty.

and i still think overall your idea doesn't make much sense. part of the fun of the division designer is being able to specialize. so if you don't fight in bad air you save ICs by not investing in AA, for example. if you don't have to engage enemy tanks you save by not making AT. if you aren't pushing with your infantry and didn't go SF doctrine you save by not adding arty.

grouping them all up into one company is a huge oversimplification in an already oversimplified game.
Anti Air should at least get a buff in Urban terrain. Again, AA historically proved to be highly effective (high gun elevation, pierces concrete, etc.). But yes, AA does have a general use if enemy air superiority is a thing. But you're still omitting Anti Tank which does bare bones Soft Damage when the AI is incapable of amassing tank divisions in an area.

"Oversimplified game"

Uh-huh, I assume you must be a BLACK ICE mod fan. Or a fan of the dozens and dozens of new Naval Research upgrades and Naval Designers which many seem to find overwhelming and so they don't try to understand the new naval system.


I'm all for abstractions and streamlining complex concepts. The problem with HOI4 is that there's so many contradicting mechanics where they want to be big picture like HoI2, but also they want to have the scale and micro-intensive gameplay of HoI3. The Battleplanner being the epitome of this. Awesome, having the ability to cover the frontlines and launch these major offensives. Oh wait, why is the Battleplanner putting my tank divisions in the Swamp/Mountain/etc instead of the plains? Why are there so many provinces? And so on and so forth. The Frontlines and Battleplanning system honestly would be less of a problem if the game streamlined and abstracted the world to have fewer but bigger provinces for the AI to take advantage of.
 
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Anti Air should at least get a buff in Urban terrain. Again, AA historically proved to be highly effective (high gun elevation, pierces concrete, etc.). But yes, AA does have a general use if enemy air superiority is a thing. But you're still omitting Anti Tank which does bare bones Soft Damage when the AI is incapable of amassing tank divisions in an area.

"Oversimplified game"

Uh-huh, I assume you must be a BLACK ICE mod fan. Or a fan of the dozens and dozens of new Naval Research upgrades and Naval Designers which many seem to find overwhelming and so they don't try to understand the new naval system.


I'm all for abstractions and streamlining complex concepts. The problem with HOI4 is that there's so many contradicting mechanics where they want to be big picture like HoI2, but also they want to have the scale and micro-intensive gameplay of HoI3. The Battleplanner being the epitome of this. Awesome, having the ability to cover the frontlines and launch these major offensives. Oh wait, why is the Battleplanner putting my tank divisions in the Swamp/Mountain/etc instead of the plains? Why are there so many provinces? And so on and so forth. The Frontlines and Battleplanning system honestly would be less of a problem if the game streamlined and abstracted the world to have fewer but bigger provinces for the AI to take advantage of.
sure, AA could be buffed to have some soft attack and urban bonus, i have no issue with that. but saying "AT is bad because it doesn't have soft attack" is silly. that's the point - you're making a tradeoff.

i don't really like black ice, though i do like the naval system. it's just that the division designer is already so oversimplified, i don't see the need to remove an entire category of division types. navy really isn't that complex - light attack targets screens, heavy attack targets heavy ships, and torpedoes target capitals and convoys. if people don't want to understand a system that, again, is hugely oversimplified from real life that's on them. go play world conqueror or something.

if the ai isn't using the battleplanner how you like just micro your units. the whole fun of hoi4 is that it balances allowing for fun, micro-intensive combat and large-scale, abstracted warfare. however going back to the hoi2 division designer, where you just research singular "upgrades" and have no real room for unique specialization, sounds horribly unfun to me.
 
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sure, AA could be buffed to have some soft attack and urban bonus, i have no issue with that. but saying "AT is bad because it doesn't have soft attack" is silly. that's the point - you're making a tradeoff.

i don't really like black ice, though i do like the naval system. it's just that the division designer is already so oversimplified, i don't see the need to remove an entire category of division types. navy really isn't that complex - light attack targets screens, heavy attack targets heavy ships, and torpedoes target capitals and convoys. if people don't want to understand a system that, again, is hugely oversimplified from real life that's on them. go play world conqueror or something.

if the ai isn't using the battleplanner how you like just micro your units. the whole fun of hoi4 is that it balances allowing for fun, micro-intensive combat and large-scale, abstracted warfare. however going back to the hoi2 division designer, where you just research singular "upgrades" and have no real room for unique specialization, sounds horribly unfun to me.
Yes, and the trade off for AT is that most of your units aren't going to face tank divisions because the AI doesn't adequately concentrate its tank forces. And the Frontline system for both players and AI is deadset on spreading units as wide as possible to cover the border. It's why im hoping not only will the AI/Battleplanner concentrate armored forces at certain points, but that they will be a way to have Mobile Reserves react to high priority points without the Player having to babysit them. Basically, better automation.

That said, i don't have much faith in the AI. It's been 5 years and the AI still throws away dozens of divisions defending Central Africa for no strategic gain. The game just has too many provinces. If the game had fewer provinces, a lot of my issues be fixed or addressed better, including artillery types being more utilized in fewer but bigger provinces like HoI2.


The problem for me with Naval isn't the combat necessarily. It's that you have countless different templates and modules, which you then can upgrade but Tier 1 ships can't upgrade to Tier 2 ships for example so now you have a lot of outdated ships to juggle with. That and the overwhelming new research tree that's possibly the biggest research screen in the game.

And it's just a hassle to upgrade existing modules because not only do you need to go to the Naval Designer and improve the module, but you then have to tell your ships to get retrofitted which takes time and there's no notification for when they're done.

It all feels like feature creep and something i hope HoI4 simplifies in the future.


My issue with experimentation and variety is that the AI doesn't take advantage of it to provide interesting challenges. I have a feeling most players don't even look at the opposing enemy templates and goes: "Aha, then I will counter this template by adding X and Y." No, what most likely happens are players just putting out default meta 20w and 40w divisions.

Maybe in MP it's a different situation.

For me though, i'm okay with fewer unit types and streamlining. Unity of Command 2 have very few unit types. Infantry, Motorized, Mechanized, and Armored units, with about 10 or so possible support attachments. Maximum of 8 'main brigades' and 3 'support brigades'. I also liked Shogun 2 and Three Kingdoms Total War over the other games because you had a very easy and readable cast of units (i.e. Peasant soldiers -> Imperial/Samurai Soldiers -> Elite Soldiers and a 1-2 faction specific unique units) whereas the other Total War games just went crazy like having a 12 different types of Cataphracts in the same faction.
 
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I disagree with the suggestion to further simplify things.

I’d say land combat is pretty good. AA, air superiority and CAS are fine.

AT is a very difficult topic. If you give it it’s correct capability it might make Blitzkrieg (fast Breakthroughs with Tanks) impossible. But that is imho the most fun part of the game.
So I don’t have an idea for AT, but I don’t see what simplification would solve.

Regarding artillery you might be interested in that suggestion:

Thread 'New mechanic: Artillery superiority'
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/new-mechanic-artillery-superiority.1460775/
 
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The game just has too many provinces.
Ok, now you’re losing me completely. I’ve thought about many things that could be changed in HOI4 but never about reducing the number of provinces.

And I don’t understand it . If you reduce the number of provinces in northern Spain you will have all mountains and the battleplaner will push into. Now you have at least the one hills tile at the coast and you can micro push through there or let the battleplaner do whatever it does.
 
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Ok, now you’re losing me completely. I’ve thought about many things that could be changed in HOI4 but never about reducing the number of provinces.

And I don’t understand it . If you reduce the number of provinces in northern Spain you will have all mountains and the battleplaner will push into. Now you have at least the one hills tile at the coast and you can micro push through there or let the battleplaner do whatever it does.
I’d be happy with more provinces if the enemy AI, Frontline AI didn’t struggle with the amount of provinces.

Not just spreading units too thinly across a wide front. But also placing the wrong type of unit at or against detrimental terrain is aggravating.

Tank divisions attacking into mountains. Mountain units fighting in the plains rather than hills and mountains. Mobile units attacking negative terrain rather than open plains.

It’s just too much to juggle and babysit while avoiding high losses because the AI doesn’t take into account terrain bonuses.

It would be amazing if this game had AI parameters like: “Tank Divisions - Do NOT Attack/Sit On MOUNTAINS” so the frontline AI avoids that.

But I’m on the pessimistic side and maybe it’s too late for HoI4 but I would like HoI5 to focus on the big picture aspect rather than minute details the Officers and Generals on the Ground should *know* like not to attack through a mountain, city, large river crossing, etc with a tank division :V

And that would probably mean more automation by simplifying the amount of provinces, equipment types, and more to give the AI some crutches.
 
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But also placing the wrong type of unit at or against detrimental terrain is aggravating.
Why do you care so much?
If one likes the micro he can place his units perfectly. The game has this option.

If one doesn’t like the micro he is perfectly able to win the war by drawing some lines with the battleplaner and pressing play. (He has to beat the enemy in economy diplomacy production templates...)

The battleplaner is the cruise control. If you want to drive perfectly you have to do it manually.
 
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I still don't see even a single decent point in that argument.

Is the issue you describe a problem in multiplayer?
No.

Is the issue you describe a problem for the large majority of players who just play the game for the fun of it?
No. It's not something that crosses their mind at any point in time.

Would your ideas make things better for the grognards who try to control everything and want as much detail as possible?
Most defintely not. You remove details for no gain at all. You don't gain realism by taking away realism.

The last thing HOI needs is to go back to less provinces again. It would become more of a smash your troops against a wall kind of game, and less a matter of maneuver and skill.
The whole idea of "I don't trust the developers to get the job done, therefore everything should be made much simpler" just makes no sense at all. You don't improve something by putting in something that is even worse. Especially when it would require the same set of developers to develop the whole system from scratch. You haven't given one good reason as for why the developers should be incapable of fixing something that doesn't quite work, yet be capable of creating something entirely new that works from the get go.

You assume that making everything much simpler magically allows the AI to do better. You don't give any reason as for why that would be the case. An AI still needs to be told what to do. Taking something away doesn't somehow make the AI realize what it needs to do. You would actually need to tell the AI how to work with the different situation you have created.

All this talk about "28 different types" just doesn't match reality. The AI doesn't have to deal with that at all. It just has to look at the differences between the main types, everything else is already something that is covered by game-rules. The AI has no issue with what sort of type it is pairing with what sort of unit. You don't see it adding motorized Art to regular infantry or any of that stuff.

If anything, the issues with the AI lie far more in different parts of the game not being connected to each other. The AI isn't good enough at matching production to the units it is building, nor does the action on the map fit to the national focus system or the political actions taken. Those three parts seem to operate somewhat independently from each other.
Combining some gun-types into one doesn't solve any of that. Producing six different types of armament instead of eight doesn't magically work out just fine. If you can get the AI to work with multiple different items in production, then the exact number is meaningless. If it understands six then it will understand seven, eight or nine. And if it doesn't understand the concept, then reducing the number won't change anything about that.
 
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The Frontlines and Battleplanning system honestly would be less of a problem if the game streamlined and abstracted the world to have fewer but bigger provinces for the AI to take advantage of.
No. If you want a game like that play HOI2. The tiles add to the gameplay a ton and allow you to maneuver your armies to your liking and make it less blob on blob.

I think you'd like the free RISK game they have on steam since it doesn't have all those stupid naval techs and artillery types. In fact they only have one type of unit.
 
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Yes, and the trade off for AT is that most of your units aren't going to face tank divisions because the AI doesn't adequately concentrate its tank forces. And the Frontline system for both players and AI is deadset on spreading units as wide as possible to cover the border. It's why im hoping not only will the AI/Battleplanner concentrate armored forces at certain points, but that they will be a way to have Mobile Reserves react to high priority points without the Player having to babysit them. Basically, better automation.

That said, i don't have much faith in the AI. It's been 5 years and the AI still throws away dozens of divisions defending Central Africa for no strategic gain. The game just has too many provinces. If the game had fewer provinces, a lot of my issues be fixed or addressed better, including artillery types being more utilized in fewer but bigger provinces like HoI2.


The problem for me with Naval isn't the combat necessarily. It's that you have countless different templates and modules, which you then can upgrade but Tier 1 ships can't upgrade to Tier 2 ships for example so now you have a lot of outdated ships to juggle with. That and the overwhelming new research tree that's possibly the biggest research screen in the game.

And it's just a hassle to upgrade existing modules because not only do you need to go to the Naval Designer and improve the module, but you then have to tell your ships to get retrofitted which takes time and there's no notification for when they're done.

It all feels like feature creep and something i hope HoI4 simplifies in the future.


My issue with experimentation and variety is that the AI doesn't take advantage of it to provide interesting challenges. I have a feeling most players don't even look at the opposing enemy templates and goes: "Aha, then I will counter this template by adding X and Y." No, what most likely happens are players just putting out default meta 20w and 40w divisions.

Maybe in MP it's a different situation.

For me though, i'm okay with fewer unit types and streamlining. Unity of Command 2 have very few unit types. Infantry, Motorized, Mechanized, and Armored units, with about 10 or so possible support attachments. Maximum of 8 'main brigades' and 3 'support brigades'. I also liked Shogun 2 and Three Kingdoms Total War over the other games because you had a very easy and readable cast of units (i.e. Peasant soldiers -> Imperial/Samurai Soldiers -> Elite Soldiers and a 1-2 faction specific unique units) whereas the other Total War games just went crazy like having a 12 different types of Cataphracts in the same faction.
sounds to me like you should be playing world conqueror or hoi2 or civ, then.
 
Why do you care so much?
If one likes the micro he can place his units perfectly. The game has this option.

If one doesn’t like the micro he is perfectly able to win the war by drawing some lines with the battleplaner and pressing play. (He has to beat the enemy in economy diplomacy production templates...)

The battleplaner is the cruise control. If you want to drive perfectly you have to do it manually.
it sounds like this guy's idea of fun is "build civilian factories, tell my units which front to go, and then mappaint" and that he wants the game to be designed so you don't have to learn about it to be good at it.
 
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We see AA used quite extensively against human opponents in our MP games.
I cant believe people can't actually read...

i've said THREE times in a row that AA doesn't offer any MEANINGFUL HEAD-TO-HEAD stats. Soft Damage, Hard Damage, any Buffs to Terrain i.e. Urban. But people derp out and think "Hmmm, he thinks AA has ABSOLUTELY NO USE :V "

Mhm, that's what i totally said.

And yes, Multiplayer is much better than AI. But it's not easy or convenient to jump into a dozen hour or longer sessions with other human players. I'm aware Streamers, Paradox, and some hardcore groups can regularly get into these PvP games, but the vast majority still play against the AI due to the nature of the game's Grand Strategy multi hour long games.

Why do you care so much?
If one likes the micro he can place his units perfectly. The game has this option.

If one doesn’t like the micro he is perfectly able to win the war by drawing some lines with the battleplaner and pressing play. (He has to beat the enemy in economy diplomacy production templates...)

The battleplaner is the cruise control. If you want to drive perfectly you have to do it manually.
You do know how finicky the Battleplanner is, AND how it incentivizes the system because it gives you Planning Bonus, right? Like, if there was no Planning Bonus, i'd be happy to not use it. But the game punishes you for not using it. And microing the Frontlines system is a nightmare. Drawing countless battle lines, having to baby sit them because they will expand or contract automatically, you will have frontlines encircling EMPTY provinces, and it's just a cluttered ugly mess visually.

I dont understand why your options for players are 1.) Use a janky, frustrating system that people are been highly critical of. Or 2.) Just micro everything because the system they insist is the best way to play the game with the Planning Bonus... doesn't work.

sounds to me like you should be playing world conqueror or hoi2 or civ, then.

The other Paradox Games have done a good job of making combat feel less micro intensive when it comes to warfare. What I like about those games too is that I'm not directly leading the battles but my Generals/Admirals are. Sure I'm directing my armies towards an objective, but i leave the 'How' to the assigned generals. And EU4, Imperator, Stellaris, CK3 do a great job of giving these generals and armies a sense of character, individuality and accomplishment or failure.

I've never felt that when it came to HoI4. The fact that your generals are just there to give stat buffs and it's the player who does 90% of the division movements, attacks, etc. because of how janky and unreliable the AI and Battleplanner is, really makes characters like Patton, Rommel, Zhukov, and so on feel so shallow and impersonal.

I've never felt like saying: "Great job winning that battle" to the AI general in HoI4, than i did with the other Paradox titles. No, i just see it as me, the player, doing all the work and the generals just giving stat buffs.

No. If you want a game like that play HOI2. The tiles add to the gameplay a ton and allow you to maneuver your armies to your liking and make it less blob on blob.

I think you'd like the free RISK game they have on steam since it doesn't have all those stupid naval techs and artillery types. In fact they only have one type of unit.

I do want a game like HoI2. Which is why HoI4 is irksome because it tried to do both HoI2 and HoI3, with the bloated, overly ambitious latter sticking out like a sore thumb. I genuinely believe the Battleplanner would have been perfect if we had province sizes like in HoI2. The AI wouldn't derp out and encircle empty provinces, even.

And yes, i love all these smooth brain thoughts. "Heh, you want to make a game more simple. Go play RISK. Tee hee hee!" Why engage in good faith and constructively when you can employ middle school logic :B
 
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it sounds like this guy's idea of fun is "build civilian factories, tell my units which front to go, and then mappaint" and that he wants the game to be designed so you don't have to learn about it to be good at it.
More smooth brain thinking here.
but why should you have to learn about the game mechanics to wc? that makes no sense :confused:
And here.

That's what i totally said, mhm. Willing to bet $50 for you all to quote me directly when I said I wanted to have 0 thought process like you did with your high IQ responses.

I also love this gatekeepy elitist "Uh, the game has clunky, unintuitive, bloated features, but it's just that you're just bad because you didn't git gud". The vast majority have issues with the Battle Planner. Paradox themselves have admitted they want to significantly improve the system because of the AI problems. I have little confidence they will be able to address the issues unless they do something radical but in any case, I don't know why people here can't read or jump to bad faith arguments.
 
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