Cities and places like Gibraltar and Leningrad should be able to hold out for longer

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Vapiritapiri

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Aug 4, 2021
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As of now they fall despite being pretty well fortified, unlike in real life where they held out for longer than a few weeks, or would have in the case of gibraltar, or singapore if the brits had been better equipped.
 
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forts are very unbalanced in this game, which is part of it. the supply side of things may be moderately fixed with NSB, though it will still originate in the capital so who knows.

but it's also a lot the fault of the AI. gibraltar is almost impossible to take in vanilla MP, barring total axis air AND naval superiority. signapore is very difficult to take too, and requires air superiority which somewhat requires luck, like IRL.
 
Gibraltar in some mods is split into 2 provinces, one Atlantic facing, one Mediterranean, which makes it somewhat harder to take, as it allows divisions to shuffle and making it harder to take.

For Singapore its really a case of AI being AI and usually having hard time understanding that Asian front exists, and British usually leave India and Singapore completely defenceless, same with uS and its Pacific islands, Philippines and Hawaii.

As for Leningrad its less a case of AI being Ai (though the fact that Leningrad falls to Finnish in Winter war is funny) and more just a case of Soviet AI is made out of special kind of stupidity whereby it usually just Zerg rushes and then looses without any way to recover in time.
 
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Gibraltar was never under attack, so how exatly would you prove that it needed to be better at holding out?
It survived because a land-attack through Spain wasn't allowed, and it was way too far away to support a naval or air landing.

Leningrad was never really under direct attack either. It was cut off, and under artillery fire and air bombardement. There was no attempt to actually take the city, and the one time the Germans planned for it, the Soviets pre-empted them with their own attack, causing the German troops that were planned for the attack to be used for fending off the Soviet offensive. Afterwards, they lacked the strength to go on an offensive. You could say that the Soviet AI should be better at recognizing its importance, but any issues come from a general problem with defending important areas, not because of anything being wrong with Leningrad.

The issue at Singapore wasn't a lack of equipment. The British had superiority in numbers and more than enough equipment. They just had incompetent leadership, a lack of communication between the branches of the military, and faced a breakdown in moral after suffering loss after loss in the battles of Malaya.
If anything, Singapore should be less of a fortress, as its defense was set up mostly towards the sea. While the guns could be turned around to face the land-side, they weren't all that useful for it. It had basically no defenses against an attack across the channel, and the main reason to defend Singapore in the first place - its important naval base - was unusable if the enemy controlled the other side of the channel, as it wasn't placed towards the sea. Singapore's defenses against a land-attack lay in holding forward-positions in Malaya, not in holding the island itself. Once the British were pushed back onto the island itself, they were done for, and it was only about when Singapore would fall, not if.
 
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First off, Gibraltar should only be attackable from one province only. Part of it’s defensiveness is that it’s on a really narrow peninsula that’s a death trap to attack. It shouldn’t be able to be surrounded and attacked from all sides like it can be now. The two provinces thing actually is a decent idea, at least from a gameplay perspective. To be defensible, defenders need a tile they can retreat to to re-org. It also allows it to be naval invaded and supplied from both sides (which isn’t the case currently). Also, could borrow a page from March of Eagles and make it in-assaultabe if the enemy has naval superiority around it.

The issue with Leningrad is that the defenders have nowhere to retreat to in order to re-org. Supply can be an issue too. It’s a bit harder to solve. The new supply system might help with the latter, but otherwise the only option would be to do something like split the city into multiple tiles or something similar.
 
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First off, Gibraltar should only be attackable from one province only. Part of it’s defensiveness is that it’s on a really narrow peninsula that’s a death trap to attack. It shouldn’t be able to be surrounded and attacked from all sides like it can be now. The two provinces thing actually is a decent idea, at least from a gameplay perspective. To be defensible, defenders need a tile they can retreat to to re-org. It also allows it to be naval invaded and supplied from both sides (which isn’t the case currently). Also, could borrow a page from March of Eagles and make it in-assaultabe if the enemy has naval superiority around it.

The issue with Leningrad is that the defenders have nowhere to retreat to in order to re-org. Supply can be an issue too. It’s a bit harder to solve. The new supply system might help with the latter, but otherwise the only option would be to do something like split the city into multiple tiles or something similar.
Gibraltar really isn't defensible from the spanish side though. You could park an artillery battery on the opposite bank and pound anything that sticks its head out into rubble, and it would be difficult to bring ships in defense if land based air from spanish airfields were brought to bear. Really given modern technology, it only is difficult to take from the sea.
 
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Gibraltar really isn't defensible from the spanish side though. You could park an artillery battery on the opposite bank and pound anything that sticks its head out into rubble, and it would be difficult to bring ships in defense if land based air from spanish airfields were brought to bear. Really given modern technology, it only is difficult to take from the sea.

If Britain puts its navy up to block access to Gibraltar, then it’s vulnerable to land-based air, so that’s already modeled.

As for artillery, I mean, there would be defensive artillery too, and firing from a pretty commanding position at that. Plus the Rock is pretty fortified and basically built into a mountain, so it isn’t going to crumble anywhere close to as much as a city would under a similar barrage.
 
If Britain puts its navy up to block access to Gibraltar, then it’s vulnerable to land-based air, so that’s already modeled.

As for artillery, I mean, there would be defensive artillery too, and firing from a pretty commanding position at that. Plus the Rock is pretty fortified and basically built into a mountain, so it isn’t going to crumble anywhere close to as much as a city would under a similar barrage.
Yeah, so there's no reason to add a second province to it, since it's about as defensible in game as it would be irl.
 
Yeah, so there's no reason to add a second province to it, since it's about as defensible in game as it would be irl.

Quite the opposite. In real life it’s very defencible and would have been difficult to take, likely costing time and significant casualties. In-game it can just be attacked from multiple sides continuously until the defenders de-org. The main way to defend it in game is to advance out of Gibraltar (assuming the Spanish/their allies weren’t ready for war) to have enough land to have the strategic depth to re-org and such.

The two provinces thing is more a gameplay thing since provinces sizes are somewhat arbitrary anyways, it would make it more defensible, and would allow it to be supplied and invaded from both sides of the Med (gameplay mechanics limitation).
 
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Discussing Gibraltar is probably pretty much irrelevant as the game simple doesn't have the capability to realistically model very small patches of land. Gibraltar on its own should be almost indefensible against land attack for anything but a relatively short period of time. The traditional fortress defences would be perfectly adequate in the days when the navy could still resupply but modern combat scale means that shore based artillery and air superiority would instantly isolate the fortress meaning its days would be numbered. The most sensible defensive action would have been to evacuate so as to minimise the losses.
 
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Gibraltar being two provinces is beyond ridiculous. Especially if it touches the Atlantic.

I don't think most people realise how tiny Gibraltar is, and where exactly it is (100% inside the mediterranean).
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Gibraltar being two provinces is beyond ridiculous. Especially if it touches the Atlantic.

I don't think most people realise how tiny Gibraltar is, and where exactly it is (100% inside the mediterranean).

well its more for the sake of gameplay, rather than for the sake of 100% accuracy.

Discussing Gibraltar is probably pretty much irrelevant as the game simple doesn't have the capability to realistically model very small patches of land.


Weren't both Malta, Gibraltar and few other Small, but extremely important locations marked on the map as "zoom ins" on the map in Hoi2? with the map having specific graphics to show that they're a zoom of the location in question where they are located? or was in hoi3?
 
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well its more for the sake of gameplay, rather than for the sake of 100% accuracy.




Weren't both Malta, Gibraltar and few other Small, but extremely important locations marked on the map as "zoom ins" on the map in Hoi2? with the map having specific graphics to show that they're a zoom of the location in question where they are located? or was in hoi3?
There's no gameplay issue with Gibraltar falling at the speed it does in game though. The argument being made by people for two provinces is that it would be more realistic if it could hold out longer, but people disagree with that claim.
 
Malta, Gibraltar, etc, just make them fortifications.
 
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gibraltar is almost impossible to take in vanilla MP, barring total axis air AND naval superiority.

We struggled to make Gibraltar balanced for both sides. I'm not sure it's possible with the mechanics at a fundamental level (division and tiles).

Either we allow Spain to be violated/join the Axis, making taking it trivial, or the port gets bombed to death by Axis air, making supplying defenders impossible, or the RN makes a naval landing impossible, or the forts are impossible to blow up, or a two province Gibraltar makes it possible to rest divisions, and so on.
 
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We struggled to make Gibraltar balanced for both sides. I'm not sure it's possible with the mechanics at a fundamental level (division and tiles).

Either we allow Spain to be violated/join the Axis, making taking it trivial, or the port gets bombed to death by Axis air, making supplying defenders impossible, or the RN makes a naval landing impossible, or the forts are impossible to blow up, or a two province Gibraltar makes it possible to rest divisions, and so on.
i'm happy with it being 90% impossible to take. it feels historical enough and doesn't really unbalance the game too much either way. having to have completely bomb out the ports is expensive and time-consuming, and gives the UK plenty of time to start guarding their coasts and prepare for SeaLion.

and of course, sometimes even with just one undersupplied garrison, you can hold long enough for the royal navy to sink all of the marines. only if the Axis have taken enough French airfields to bomb the royal navy there can you really guarantee a landing. and that requires even more sacrifice, which means even fewer troops for the USSR and Atlantikwall.
 
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i'm happy with it being 90% impossible to take. it feels historical enough and doesn't really unbalance the game too much either way. having to have completely bomb out the ports is expensive and time-consuming, and gives the UK plenty of time to start guarding their coasts and prepare for SeaLion.
Its not hard at all to take in vanilla. As someone was trying to explain above because it's one provence your divisions cant retreat to regain org so they just get deleted when they have no org. You can literally take Gibraltar with 10 width cavalry naval invasions with zero airsupport if you want.

You simply constantly have a naval invasion going and it prevents the defenders from ever regaining org. I have seen mods divide Gibraltar into THREE tiles two coastal and one inland just so there was someplace the divisions could reorg. Hoi 4 mechanics make any 1 Provence island a death trap.....
 
Gibraltar was never under attack, so how exatly would you prove that it needed to be better at holding out?
It survived because a land-attack through Spain wasn't allowed, and it was way too far away to support a naval or air landing.

Leningrad was never really under direct attack either. It was cut off, and under artillery fire and air bombardement. There was no attempt to actually take the city, and the one time the Germans planned for it, the Soviets pre-empted them with their own attack, causing the German troops that were planned for the attack to be used for fending off the Soviet offensive. Afterwards, they lacked the strength to go on an offensive. You could say that the Soviet AI should be better at recognizing its importance, but any issues come from a general problem with defending important areas, not because of anything being wrong with Leningrad.

The issue at Singapore wasn't a lack of equipment. The British had superiority in numbers and more than enough equipment. They just had incompetent leadership, a lack of communication between the branches of the military, and faced a breakdown in moral after suffering loss after loss in the battles of Malaya.
If anything, Singapore should be less of a fortress, as its defense was set up mostly towards the sea. While the guns could be turned around to face the land-side, they weren't all that useful for it. It had basically no defenses against an attack across the channel, and the main reason to defend Singapore in the first place - its important naval base - was unusable if the enemy controlled the other side of the channel, as it wasn't placed towards the sea. Singapore's defenses against a land-attack lay in holding forward-positions in Malaya, not in holding the island itself. Once the British were pushed back onto the island itself, they were done for, and it was only about when Singapore would fall, not if.
Ever heard of the Battle of Stalingrad? Because you seem to be implying there were no significant sieges in the war, which is not true.
In HoI4 it's easy because the cities are one tile. As has already been mentioned, lone tiles are impossible to hold, and it's worse if they're not islands because they can be attacked by more units.
However, I believe this is a deliberate choice by Paradox.
There are mods that create urban fortresses. Multiple urban tiles with forts. That is basically impossible to take by land forces alone. You need to strat bomb the forts and attack with CAS, and it can still be a difficult process. I suspect Paradox decided the average vanilla player who may not even know how to do fort strat bombing wouldn't enjoy this and so made cities easy to take.
 
On the subject of cities, I agree city combat could be overhauled. Maybe something like a strong garrison unit (possibly dependent on technology, infrastructure level, etc.) that is immobile on the city that has to be sieged down (either an actual siege system similar to CK3, EU4, etc. or it's just normal combat, except the garrison has no org, only strength, so you want stuff like lots of artillery, SPA, etc.) before you can capture the city. The "garrison" is automatic and is on all cities, although actual divisions on the city province would give a buff to the abstracted "City garrison", so putting divisions on your VP's would still be encouraged.

It's a bit silly how taking a city in HOI4 is so trivial yet IRL in WW2 there were city battles that lasted many months because the defenders were dug in.
 
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