6 Years Later and the Battleplanner Still Outright Sucks :/

[Hippob4]

I really want to like the Battleplanner. Like, I really wanted to like it since it was floated around in 2015 as a key feature to make HOI4 accessible and streamlined. And I love games when they take something complicated and micro-heavy and show off how impressive the AI is in juggling all these actions. I wanted to see the game's AI be able to handle itself with maybe requiring some micro for critical moments.

... And ironically, the Battleplanner does the exact opposite.

It forces you to babysit the frontlines that constantly shrinks and grows which threatens your flanks and you have to babysit the braindead AI units that always and always is shortsighted and constantly shoots itself in its foot. I still see Tank divisions attack mountains when there is a completely preferable target sitting on plains-province. I see units bash their heads against a wall and attack clearly more advantaged enemy forces, even when I have the "Cautious Stance" enabled. I see armies abandoned and empty out of frontlines because of an enemy pocket or uncaptured terrain forming which shouldn't require more than 5 divisions to clear up. Units still shuffle around which instantly reduces their entrenchment bonus, which further weakens the lines. There's moments like if your army is cut in two and therefore units try to sail across the sea to reinforce the encircled pocket, often doing more harm than good because maybe your units are sunk off the coast and/or are now trapped in the pocket

I'd bring up my recent campaigns as examples but it'd just be a rambling soapbox, so I want to get to the point.

The only time when the Battleplanner isn't outright trash and works is... when you just have overwhelming numbers and firepower on your side, plus a lot of terrain to work with. Like, I genuinely believe the battle planner was designed not for the Western Front, African Front, Pacific, or etc. which offer little maneuverability or breathing room. But instead, the system seems designed for Poland.

I mean, for one, I remember Paradox showing off HOI4 using the Polish Campaign as a demo to show how the Battleplanner works. And yknow, Poland has a lot of provinces, the German faction (played by Paradox) has a numerical and technological superiority, they can come crashing on all sides and do encirclements. And Germany has the initiative when the war starts. So the Battleplanner's basic functions utterly work given everything working in favor for that system.

I think the Battleplanner kinda works for China since the landmass and low infrastructure minimizes the potential for the AI to screw up, though it is still very much frustrating to see the AI recklessly attack when they shouldn't. I think the Russian theater also kinda works with the system because you have all that land mass, manpower, and production to minimize the AI's blunders. Lose half a million Russians to an encirclement? No worries, just pump out more conscripts with Tier 0 weapons.

That's not really possible with countries that have less Manpower, industrial output or landmass. The Battleplanner's failures punishes those nations more. The only time I ever saw the battleplanner work decently and successfully on any front besides Poland, Russia, and China was when I had such an overwhelming force (thanks to cheats) as France, UK, or the US and the German AI was understrength that I was in glee to see a Western army pummel and sweep through the German lines. But, again, that's because I used cheats (the 'Add Equipment' command).

At this point, 6 years later, I really don't know if the Battleplanner is salvageable for any front besides Eastern Europe and China. It fundamentally doesn't seem designed for anywhere else and I don't know if any amount of AI tweaking or new mechanics will give the AI armies some big picture look or basic competence. Like, again, 6 years later and tank divisions still attack mountainous provinces when there's plenty of other preferable targets on the frontline.

I just hope HoI5 learns from the... seemingly negative feedback most people have about the Battleplanner and develop a system that isn't built around Eastern Europe.

EDIT: Also, the Battleplanner and Frontlines are just too cluttered and messy. It's less of an issue in East Europe and China where there's a lot of space so the brightly colored lines don't clutter things up but in any other front, it's just painful to look at.

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

I dont think its quite as bad as you, but I absolutely hate when they will completely abandon a front for no discernible reason or cut the line short sometimes when reshuffling. Its absolutely bonkers and can cost you the game in some cases.

 

[qer]

It is absolute garbage, but I don't think it is even suited for the russian front. If you don't like it I would however recommend using it as little as posible: it may seem more micro intensive but on the long run it will save you a lot of headaches due to stupid decisions.

 

[Gray_Lensman]

It's actually worse than the OP states. When you try to micro to correct all the ridiculous shuffling as soon as you let it resume, it reshuffles everything again.

For a game supposedly being reworked, redesigned with all these so called advanced features, to keep this broken feature in the game is down right ridiculous.

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

My favourite part about the battleplaner is how it makes units attack backwards at curvy fronts. I can't help giggling imaging how that would have been explained by RL generals to their superiors.

 

[ETAIPOS]

It is indeed awful. And now it is even less viable, as deep snow and mud (esp. mud) have so nightmarish attrition modifiers that you should avoid even attacks on starving pockets as the losses would be unacceptable. In fact, you should stop movement through mud provinces as you will take significant losses just traversing those provinces...

Unfortunately I am pretty sure Pdox loves the battleplaner. After all, they now have a game in development that is battleplaner only - Victoria 3 has no selectable units just battleplaner frontlines.

BDW, Polish-German border has a few weakspot provinces, with 4-5 attack directions, and when such province fall, it open neighboring provinces to 4 sided attack, so it is actually almost impossible to hold the border even with relatively good forces while using battleplaner (like AI would against player Germany).

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

It is indeed awful. And now it is even less viable, as deep snow and mud (esp. mud) have so nightmarish attrition modifiers that you should avoid attacks on starving pockets as the losses would be unacceptable. In fact, you should stop movement through mud provinces as you will take significant losses just traversing those provinces...

Unfortunately I am pretty sure Pdox loves the battleplaner. After all, they now have a game in development that is battleplaner only - Victoria 3 has no selectable units just battleplaner frontlines.

Thats the part about battleplanner thats the oddest. For who knows what reason the battleplanner will stack more units than ever on the lowest possible supply areas to the point theyre useless, and if you try to manually rearrange them they automatically send more troops to that area from somewhere else.

Consequently, somewhere like the French alp border with Italy is almost impossible to use the battleplanner, because it decides to shove multiple divisions into the topmost, lowest supply tile. There are ways around this issue but it gets very funky and can sabotage you really bad if you try making multiple lines.

 

[CraniumMuppet]

Unfortunately I am pretty sure Pdox loves the battleplaner. After all, they now have a game in development that is battleplaner only - Victoria 3 has no selectable units just battleplaner frontlines.

That is pretty much done on a game by game basis and what the team think is right for the game itself.

It's not like every game is made from a blorg of the same team calling themselves "Pdox". Different team, different games, different needs, different philosophy.

 

[Hippob4]

It is indeed awful. And now it is even less viable, as deep snow and mud (esp. mud) have so nightmarish attrition modifiers that you should avoid even attacks on starving pockets as the losses would be unacceptable. In fact, you should stop movement through mud provinces as you will take significant losses just traversing those provinces...

Unfortunately I am pretty sure Pdox loves the battleplaner. After all, they now have a game in development that is battleplaner only - Victoria 3 has no selectable units just battleplaner frontlines.

BDW, Polish-German border has a few weakspot provinces, with 4-5 attack directions, and when such province fall, it open neighboring provinces to 4 sided attack, so it is actually almost impossible to hold the border even with relatively good forces while using battleplaner (like AI would against player Germany).

To be honest, i'm cautiously optimistic about the combat in Vic 3. I love the idea of not God-microing every single division and instead just being in charge of the war effort and assigning/managing generals. Of course, the question is: Is the combat too complex for the AI to handle? I just hope the AI is capable and that it's not too demanding.

Edit: it does seem like there wont be 'units on the map'. That should do a lot to reduce the complexity for the AI

 

[bitmode]

And I love games when they take something complicated and micro-heavy and show off how impressive the AI is in juggling all these actions.

Which games are you thinking of here?

After all, they now have a game in development that is battleplaner only - Victoria 3 has no selectable units just battleplaner frontlines.

Victoria just has a whole different level of abstraction. I.e. what OP was talking about does not apply there at all.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Worse than advertised by OP. A few major flaws that make it borderline unusable w/o deselect tricks or moving in peace time:

• Units set to plans on "aggressive" orders will reliably attack provinces that are not part of the order, with no front line. You can reproduce this easily. I get that "aggressive" wants to do things like close pockets ASAP or whatever, but they should still be executing their actual orders aggressively, not deliberately attempting to attack provinces that are not on any front line or part of any order.
• The shuffling algorithm hates strategic redeployment even when it will take ages to reach the front without it...long enough for that unit to get there and regain org faster than it could possibly arrive otherwise.
• The shuffling algorithm seems to have no sense for minimizing unit movement. Rather than shuttling units along the line in a way that minimizes time away from frontage, it will attempt to redirect units from 5-10+ provinces away.
• When actually executing an order, upwards of 50% of your army can be walking behind the line in friendly territory, rather than attacking. The inefficiency is comically bad.
• Spearhead orders participate in pinning/support attacks, which is bugged so long as we can somewhat reasonably constrain a definition for what the word "spearhead" means in English.
• Provinces highlighted by the order are not consistently where units go.
• The game will reassign to far more distant front lines (>30 provinces of travel) than one within 2-3 provinces, for the same field marshal. This results in junk like some units auto-closing a pocket, then redeploying from Morocco to France...rather than going back to their line in Morocco. WTF. There are ways to do orders that prevent this, but it still shows just how broken the game's consideration of distance/reassignment is. Given the choice between a valid front line the unit was just on that is still a just a day's march away...and one a huge distance away...let's often go to the latter? Why?
• Front lines do not factor in the new supply system effectively.
• Neither does closing pockets, where target units put up more of a fight than previously.

It's actually worse than the OP states. When you try to micro to correct all the ridiculous shuffling as soon as you let it resume, it reshuffles everything again.

This should be viewed as a major issue with the mechanic, since it goes directly against the design vision stated for the battle planner. It was supposed to be a simple thing where the players could micro crucial moments. Instead, it can't even keep units assigned to a front line actually on that line, the smallest changes to it cause re-routes from large distances that can take > week to get into position. We can't micro the critical moments unless we also micro the minutiae, because neglecting the latter means there physically won't be units there to micro at crucial times. If you don't babysit it, your stuff gets pocketed. Not because the enemy defeated your soldiers, but rather because they simply moved away and left a gap uncontested for no reason.

 

[kaguravitro]

Worse than advertised by OP. A few major flaws that make it borderline unusable w/o deselect tricks or moving in peace time:

• Units set to plans on "aggressive" orders will reliably attack provinces that are not part of the order, with no front line. You can reproduce this easily. I get that "aggressive" wants to do things like close pockets ASAP or whatever, but they should still be executing their actual orders aggressively, not deliberately attempting to attack provinces that are not on any front line or part of any order.
• The shuffling algorithm hates strategic redeployment even when it will take ages to reach the front without it...long enough for that unit to get there and regain org faster than it could possibly arrive otherwise.
• The shuffling algorithm seems to have no sense for minimizing unit movement. Rather than shuttling units along the line in a way that minimizes time away from frontage, it will attempt to redirect units from 5-10+ provinces away.
• When actually executing an order, upwards of 50% of your army can be walking behind the line in friendly territory, rather than attacking. The inefficiency is comically bad.
• Spearhead orders participate in pinning/support attacks, which is bugged so long as we can somewhat reasonably constrain a definition for what the word "spearhead" means in English.
• Provinces highlighted by the order are not consistently where units go.
• The game will reassign to far more distant front lines (>30 provinces of travel) than one within 2-3 provinces, for the same field marshal. This results in junk like some units auto-closing a pocket, then redeploying from Morocco to France...rather than going back to their line in Morocco. WTF. There are ways to do orders that prevent this, but it still shows just how broken the game's consideration of distance/reassignment is. Given the choice between a valid front line the unit was just on that is still a just a day's march away...and one a huge distance away...let's often go to the latter? Why?
• Front lines do not factor in the new supply system effectively.
• Neither does closing pockets, where target units put up more of a fight than previously.

This should be viewed as a major issue with the mechanic, since it goes directly against the design vision stated for the battle planner. It was supposed to be a simple thing where the players could micro crucial moments. Instead, it can't even keep units assigned to a front line actually on that line, the smallest changes to it cause re-routes from large distances that can take > week to get into position. We can't micro the critical moments unless we also micro the minutiae, because neglecting the latter means there physically won't be units there to micro at crucial times. If you don't babysit it, your stuff gets pocketed. Not because the enemy defeated your soldiers, but rather because they simply moved away and left a gap uncontested for no reason.

With defines changes (I don't see why they didn't implanted, expert ai values were close to mine in every version I check) and a limit of 14 units per general get a quiet better battle front system.
It's annoying weather it's not part of predicted strength for the attack decision. Also another issue is that there's no way ai combat good combat in a bad situation.
I love battle plan. But it has problems, no so bad a you mention but bad. I have good results, but you need mix templates,etc.
A deep double line of command to attack and good is quiet effective like a deep defense system. There's things that works.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With defines changes (I don't see why they didn't implanted, expert ai values were close to mine in every version I check) and a limit of 14 units per general get a quiet better battle front system.
It's annoying weather it's not part of predicted strength for the attack decision. Also another issue is that there's no way ai combat good combat in a bad situation.
I love battle plan. But it has problems, no so bad a you mention but bad. I have good results, but you need mix templates,etc.
A deep double line of command to attack and good is quiet effective like a deep defense system. There's things that works.

You can force the battle planner to move the way you want.

The problem is that to get this to happen RELIABLY, it starts to take more inputs than manually controlling groups of units, and a tremendous amount of experience to limit uncertainty that the AI won't just re-assign your units somewhere else when something unexpected happens and screw you.

 

[Jays298]

It gets messy some times but you can't expect the computer to know what you want done.

Denmark and Crimea area are ridiculous, they could fix those areas.

Using field marshals to draw lines helps a lot.

but sometimes I start a new game...see dozens of unassigned divisions...and nope out of the game.

 

[tankbuster]

One of my main annoyances is not being able to define which provinces I want my units to go through.

Even with a narrow front, a spearhead order, and dragging the arrow exactly where I want it, the shaded area STILL sometimes crosses a river, or a mountain province, that I don't want it to.

I understand that "fronts" are something that the game prioritises on quite a low level, which is fair enough, but I don't see why we can't have more control over where our troops are actually attacking.

A real-life general can quite easily say "stay on this side of the river", but we cannot.

 

[ltccone]

I solve battleplanner issues by not using it. It takes longer to micro the battleplanner than it does just to micro everything from the start.

 

[vermicious knid]

I think a working battleplanner would be great for my quality of life...if you are playing a major you are eventually going to end up with multiple fronts, and microing all of them is a nightmare.

The current version often works fine for me...but it has some extremely annoying quirks. Frontlines being randomly deleted, frontlines you've carefully set to a subsection of a border being haphazardly spread to the entire border, etc... It results in me never being able to trust that I can leave one front to manage itself while I micro something else...and that defeats the whole point of having a battleplanner.

I imagine it is a difficult thing to get right, and it is certainly better than it used to be. Hopefully they'll keep making improvements.

 

[marxwasright]

The other problem with minors is you will have maybe 2-3 decent generals total, and juggling multiple fronts under a single command is even worse. I will hit the execute button, and forget I need to shift+click the arrow. Seems to be easier to hire new ones at least now, and they can be made to not suck as bad out the gate.

 

[qer]

The issue at the core of it is that the battleplanner it's the inteneded way to play, which sucks. It would have been far better to have it as an optional feature rather than the other way around. I also find it a bit ironic that it basically nullifies the main gameplay loop of the Hoi series as it is combat. Sure it may be more accesible (like a lot of other features) compared to previous titles, but it really seem to be the case where a different approach could have make a much better game.

 

[Bullfrog]

Unfortunately the limitations and frustrations of the battle planner highly outweigh the advantages. This was understood and ignored long ago. You have my apologies.