Sugestion: Anti-personnel landmines in HOI4

[Exsleonar]

I'd thought about it many times when playing Hearts of Iron IV, and I tought that adding landmines in this game would be awesome. You could add more uses to the reconnaissance units, make the game a little hard and even so. My idea, is adding landmines as something you could produce from military factories, then you could place them into provinces. It would have a high production cost, with something about 20 per year in 50% efficiency gap and 5 military factories. Basically, it works as the same as nuclear bombs, but instead of enemy territory, you could just place in your own and in your allies territorry, by clicking the province you want to protect. The effects of such mines wouldn't be that great, just making the units lose some manpower and something about 25% of the current organization (if you have 100% of org, you lose 25%, if you have 50%, you lose just 12,5%). The costs of that mines would be pretty high, making it useless to spam them, also having low, but not zero, damage, making it a interesting deal. You can avoid the loss of the landmines by using reconnaissance units, and the more the research level at that, the easier to avoid such mines it is. Or instead of using reconnaissance units, probably adding a completly new support company with specific job to disable such mines would work aswell. Ultimately, that topic should receive more development and I would feel great if you people give sugestions and let's make this reach the developers!

 

[TechGlitchReporter]

Aren't these already represented by entrenchment?

 

[Umbosch]

I think there are 4 ways to implement it:

1. your suggestion. But i think its only good for power nation. but minor...
2. Comandpower but we have already a defense power
3. Support company they give enemy slow down speed, reducing throughbreak or decrease moral. But then we need a second anti support comapy too.
4. A defense tactic they counter close combat. Need level 4 and pioniertrait. Can be counter with banzai charge, mass charge or infiltration assault. Germany and Rommel get a bonus. They have play with the britian minesweeper in Africa. And Germany has the S Mine. Russia get debuff bonus. I remember the quote from loading screen.

Ranking in my opionion: 4, 3, 2 and 1 Alternate at point 3 or 4 reducing flanking bonus or reinforcement

 

[pdBravo]

I don't think there needs to be landmines in a grand strategy game. There is already too much micro in the game.
Landmines etc are already factored into terrain bonuses and penalties.

 

[homerCCCP]

I'd say already covered by
*entrenchment
*fortifications

Might be also
*terrain modifiers

It's true recon should have a positive effect against it. I don't know what is currently implemented, but max planning bonus and/or bonus against fortifications might make sense here (if not already the case)

 

[Exsleonar]

Aren't these already represented by entrenchment?

You could just leave mines in your terrain, without divisions there

 

[Exsleonar]

I think there are 4 ways to implement it:

1. your suggestion. But i think its only good for power nation. but minor...
2. Comandpower but we have already a defense power
3. Support company they give enemy slow down speed, reducing throughbreak or decrease moral. But then we need a second anti support comapy too.
4. A defense tactic they counter close combat. Need level 4 and pioniertrait. Can be counter with banzai charge, mass charge or infiltration assault. Germany and Rommel get a bonus. They have play with the britian minesweeper in Africa. And Germany has the S Mine. Russia get debuff bonus. I remember the quote from loading screen.

Ranking in my opionion: 4, 3, 2 and 1 Alternate at point 3 or 4 reducing flanking bonus or reinforcement

Just leaving the province with landmines would make the enemy life harder, and there's no need for divisions there, helping increasing the encirclement tactics into your own territorry. It's more like a bonus than anything

 

[Exsleonar]

I don't think there needs to be landmines in a grand strategy game. There is already too much micro in the game.
Landmines etc are already factored into terrain bonuses and penalties.

The fortress and terrain if leave without divisions, it's easily breakable, without major loss, but landmines could decrease the enemy force and moral in a better way

 

[Exsleonar]

I'd say already covered by
*entrenchment
*fortifications

Might be also
*terrain modifiers

It's true recon should have a positive effect against it. I don't know what is currently implemented, but max planning bonus and/or bonus against fortifications might make sense here (if not already the case)

The biggest advantage of landmines is that you don't need to put divisions there, helping decreasing the enemy advance rate and doing encirclement tactics in your own territorry, helping countries like Soviet Union. I understand the max planning is extremely useful, but just with divisions, this is more like a static way to pause enemies for a while, decreasing their force

 

[Fargel Linellar]

You could just leave mines in your terrain, without divisions there

This is not how landmines were (and still are) used in military doctrine.
If there's no unit nearby, a landmine has no effect (on the scale of the game).

An important point to know is that landmine are not used to blow-up enemy soldier, but to:
Make them slow down while they demine the area (which is also dangerous only under enemy fire)
Walk around the mined area

When you put mines, you add a big flags in all the area that says =Danger landmine.
The enemy will most likely see the flags and have 2 option:
Go around the area (generally in your killzone)
Take some eng mean to try to destroy a corridor free of mine.
When they try to do that, you shoot at them

How would both of those be represented in a tile with no unit defending near the mines?

Keep in mind that a single tile in HOI is generally dozens to hundreds of kilometer wide. No nation has the capability or the uses to put down hundreds thousands of mines to slow down the enemy for a few hours.
A division moving unopposed moving mostly on road or path would not even encounter any mines or have to remove them.

This is because area with mines should clearly be marked to both side (and civilian), not doing so was done sparsely, but is a warcrime.
I don't think the idea to add a button for player to do warcrime is a good idea.

Even the smallest unit type that exist in HOI (a bataillon) has landmines capacity, both offensively (to deploy them) or defensively (to deploy countermine operation).

So this is already here with entrenchment, which all units have a baseline and can be increased by assigning dedicated eng units.

Also, I didn't want to quote any current military manual, but thankfully Wikipedia has a nice summary:
"In military science, minefields are considered a defensive or harassing weapon, used to slow the enemy down, to help deny certain terrain to the enemy, to focus enemy movement into kill zones, or to reduce morale by randomly attacking material and personnel. In some engagements during World War II, anti-tank mines accounted for half of all vehicles disabled.

Since combat engineers with mine-clearing equipment can clear a path through a minefield relatively quickly, mines are usually considered effective only if covered by fire."

Land mine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[FlinzP]

I'd say already covered by
*entrenchment
*fortifications

Might be also
*terrain modifiers

It's true recon should have a positive effect against it. I don't know what is currently implemented, but max planning bonus and/or bonus against fortifications might make sense here (if not already the case)

I also think those three things already cover this.

Currently we don't need more boring passive defense tools. It is already relativly easy to make enemy grind meat against your lines. Mines would be just another ai killer while players likely just think them one nuisance to counter or tolerate. Forts you atleast can bomb or gun down. Once you put mines on ground it is not just enemy that get affected. If you ever need to attack/retreat through own massive minefiled, it would be slow to go through narrow safe roads during combats and you get fire focused. If we are talking just about basic mining in battlefield then we come back to that it kinda is already in the game. Atleast I have not heard about any massive frong wide mining operations during ww2.

We can look naval mines. Those makes more sense for game but still you can do silly things like just naval mine entire planet with relativly small resources. Yet effect is mostly one sided. It should be limited at least to your current own/faction regions or otherwise naval mines should slowly degrade away. Offensive naval mining tactics were used but mostly with blockade idea. Often when you manage to effectivly mine enemy waters you are already winning more than you need to. Mostly mines were meant to create thought of that threat and it slowed how fast navies and other ships moved through area. Anyway, there was a lot different mining with different outcomes so I stick with what I generally think to be acceptable generelarization for game mechanics.

On that base I think land mines would not add much to current game other than more defensive stacking. It sounds good but just complicates game on areas where it is not needed.

 

[pheonicia]

As was already said above, but it's worth repeating, at the scale of hoi4 it's covered by entrenchment and building land forts.

 

[Eruth]

In addition to entrenchment and forts, I’d say mines are also represented by engineers. Part of their ic cost is surely extra mine laying & clearing capabilities.
Also, one of the (I believe generic at least) infantrt equipment icons shows a mine as the secondary weapon, so this is definitely covered by entrenchment.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

While we are discussing the subject of needless micro, why not add different classifications of munitions and force players to spend MILs on it???
PS: I am being facetious…

 

[GrandVezir]

While we are discussing the subject of needless micro, why not add different classifications of munitions and force players to spend MILs on it???
PS: I am being facetious…

Barbed wire and tank obstacle designers.

Or the game is literally unplayable.

 

[LordWahu]

I think this conversation does provide a different idea

I fully agree land mines are covered by entrenchment. And as an interesting thought, recon would be good at noticing those kind of things (not just minefields, but barbed wire, trench lines, emplacements, etc.), and finding ways to counter them

IIRC (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going off of memory and limited personal experience) Recon right now isn't the most...useful stat, while entrenchment is (ignoring multiplayer meta) overrepresented. If you were to make it so that recon counters entrenchment, then it would give recon and engineers a fun counterbalance

 

[WSnova]

The biggest advantage of landmines is that you don't need to put divisions there, helping decreasing the enemy advance rate and doing encirclement tactics in your own territorry, helping countries like Soviet Union. I understand the max planning is extremely useful, but just with divisions, this is more like a static way to pause enemies for a while, decreasing their force

You do realize how big each tile in HOI4 is, right? At most, assuming you can saturate a province with mines, it would just be better represented by a speed debuff + an attrition modifier.

This could be fun for a tactical game, but it just can´t work well with the scope that HOI4 tries to portray

 

[WSnova]

Barbed wire and tank obstacle designers.

Or the game is literally unplayable.

Don´t joke about it of we will be getting train, truck, gun and factory designer. Which makes me think, it would be pretty cool to have a game centered around managing a factory during WWII. Panzer plant designer. You get to balance between making lives for your factories easier vs meeting production quotas, negotiating with suppliers. You experienced workers being drafted.

Military industrial complex sim when?

 

[Telenil]

An important point to know is that landmine are not used to blow-up enemy soldier, but to:
Make them slow down while they demine the area (which is also dangerous only under enemy fire)
Walk around the mined area

When you put mines, you add a big flags in all the area that says =Danger landmine.
The enemy will most likely see the flags and have 2 option:
Go around the area (generally in your killzone)
Take some eng mean to try to destroy a corridor free of mine.
When they try to do that, you shoot at them

That, and perhaps more importantly, you can concentrate your artillery on a few (ideally one) spot where you know the enemy soldiers will have to cross.
Minefields are a bit like an artificial river. You have to cross them under fire and then defend a "bridgehead".

 

[Secret Master]

While we are discussing the subject of needless micro, why not add different classifications of munitions and force players to spend MILs on it???
PS: I am being facetious…

With all due apologies to John Lennon, but I have to do it for the lulz.