Air warfare

[Gratch11]

One of my biggest concerns with HOI3 was that the airwarfare needed micromanagement to work since if you give it to the AI the squadrons get destroyed after a while

Anyone know how the airwarfare will be improved?

 

[Mannstien]

We have received little other than it's getting a major rework, I doubt they will give away much more until it's polished and ready to go into a DD less the player base may part the Baltic to rain grasshoppers and blood upon PD headquarters and turn podcat into a pink dwarf.

 

[PlacidDragon]

If i recall, it was said that air units were taken off the map for HoI 4. I'll look for a quote on that

Edit : I cant find any info on it, maybe i remember wrong (for some reason i seem to recall Podcat confirmed this... maybe my brain is just playing tricks on me).

 

[Sir Pellew]

Graphics
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Tracer fire can be seen during air raids [4]
...

Air & navy[edit]
"Naval and air combat will change greatly" [7]
Air & submarine missions can be ordered at larger-than-province areas; less micromanagement.[44]
Can be targeted at supply lines and production centres. [41]
Day and night bomber attacks. [41]
Daytime attacks are more effective, but unescorted bombers are easier to kill by enemy fighters.
Night raids are less precise, but the bombers are harder to hit.

...

Battleplan actions include: [21]
...
* Air support

This is from the hoi4wiki ... haven't read anything from taking off the map, but from having less micromanagement which sounds great

 

[unmerged(147818)]

I hope the micromanagement will be reduced, without removing air battles and interceptions. Also hope that things like speed and service ceiling is taken into account. Maybe attaching squadrons to HQs and then set the HQs resposibility area and mission. I want to attach my CAS and multi roles to frontline HQs, where they can automatically support battles going on, and I want dedicated air HQs for my interceptors and strategic air forces. Air battles should in most cases be much less decisive, with more attrition type losses. Then you can get daily or weekly reports from each HQ stating their losses and damage inflicted on the enemy.

Just speculating really, i never used air power in HOI3 and only in special cases in HOI2, mostly due to the micromanagement and how a single mistake would ground your airforce for months.

 

[EnderV]

Just speculating really, i never used air power in HOI3 and only in special cases in HOI2, mostly due to the micromanagement and how a single mistake would ground your airforce for months.

This. While I liked HoIs, the main problem I had with each game was that you could happily ignore airforce and navy and win. That's IMO extremely unrealistic. The problem as I see it is that HoI (by Paradox's own admission) is a war game. But war has at least three elements - the actual fighting, logistics and economy to support both. While the actual fighting is the most interesting bit of it, the other two are the most important parts of it. A great example of that is actually ACW - South had better generals, arguably better morale troops, but North had the logistics and economy to support the army. There are ways how to deal with it - either win quickly, or make the war unpalatable to the other side, both of which South tried and failed with.

Unfortunately, I doubt Paradox will spend much time on that, as both the logistic and economy would make the game much more boring to the vast audience. So we'll have an effectively fantasy world, so that we can get the outcomes that Germany was lucky to get most of the time - but it's likely to make for a game that's playable a bit more, unless one wants to play real what-if scenarios of USSR vs. USA (and West Europe)

 

[Katarian]

The most annoying thing about air warfare in HoI3 was when air wings on intercept duties went walkabout. It made playing as Britain really annoying to find your air wings getting destroyed over Cherbourg, Brest, Paris or Amsterdam when they were supposed to be intercepting over the South coast.

 

[FOARP]

One of my biggest concerns with HOI3 was that the airwarfare needed micromanagement to work since if you give it to the AI the squadrons get destroyed after a while

Anyone know how the airwarfare will be improved?

AoD did the control options for air units so much better - the fact that you couldn't just set a slider for the strength/org. below which a unit would not fly in HOI3 was retarded. Instead you just had those hard-coded settings which didn't seem to stop the aircraft getting wiped out.

 

[PlacidDragon]

A great example of that is actually ACW - South had better generals, arguably better morale troops, but North had the logistics and economy to support the army.

The ACW was as lopsized as can be really. Yes, the South had superior generals, and better motivated men. But the North had 5 times the manpower, a vastly superior navy that blocaded the south very quickly, 95 percent of the heavy industry was located in the North, etc etc. But that is a discussion for another forum i guess, so i'll stop there

 

[EnderV]

The ACW was as lopsized as can be really. Yes, the South had superior generals, and better motivated men. But the North had 5 times the manpower, a vastly superior navy that blocaded the south very quickly, 95 percent of the heavy industry was located in the North, etc etc. But that is a discussion for another forum i guess, so i'll stop there

Indeed -which was my point. If you build an ACW game that is realistic in logistics and economy, the only interesting side to play is the South, and even then only against an AI. Against competent human who will not be nerfed you're doomed (on average. you can get lucky now and then). All of which makes the game uninteresting to the audience and doesn't sell.

And the same goes fo WW2.

 

[ingwe]

If i recall, it was said that air units were taken off the map for HoI 4. I'll look for a quote on that

Edit : I cant find any info on it, maybe i remember wrong (for some reason i seem to recall Podcat confirmed this... maybe my brain is just playing tricks on me).

I can't find it either, but I know that Podcat seemed to imply that air units will be removed from the map.

 

[laune573]

We have received little other than it's getting a major rework, I doubt they will give away much more until it's polished and ready to go into a DD less the player base may part the Baltic to rain grasshoppers and blood upon PD headquarters and turn podcat into a pink dwarf.

This made me laughed so hard I pooped a little

 

[PlacidDragon]

Indeed -which was my point. If you build an ACW game that is realistic in logistics and economy, the only interesting side to play is the South, and even then only against an AI. Against competent human who will not be nerfed you're doomed (on average. you can get lucky now and then). All of which makes the game uninteresting to the audience and doesn't sell.

And the same goes fo WW2.

Pretty much, yes

Unless you can deliver a massive knockout blow very early, you are scre..erm...i mean toast. Any battle of attrition is one you are bound to eventually lose.

Germany in WW2 is not quite as bad off as the South in ACW, but yes, the end effect is really the same, unless you win relatively quickly, its really only a matter of when you are beaten, not if.

 

[Mannstien]

This made me laughed so hard I pooped a little

+1 for desired effect :rofl:

 

[Gratch11]

Played a lot of HOI 3 lately, and now I just give up, the micromanagement of the AF is just killing me.

 

[TejaAmelung]

I didn't really like the aircombat in HoI3 either. Naval and air combat seem broken actually

 

[Beagá]

Not broken (except for some AI aspects, above all bomber use). More like boring.

Again (don´t like to beat a dead horse but still) having small provices means many combats happening at the same time and thus you didn´t bother to look at the damage they dealt - which wasn´t small, BTW (some players felt air units were weak exactly because the result of bombings was spread over time and área, and it felt as if no damage was being done).

Removing wings from the map, while improving the micro part, won´t make the air war much more interesting. At least, I can´t see how.

 

[Sotahullu]

I suspect that by "off-map" they mean that aircraft aren't put to the airfields like you normally would but instead aircraft are put into "aircraft pool" or similar.

 

[Daelyn75]

I think looking at War in Russia and the Pacific War for how they dealt with air warfare is a good place to mine ideas from. I think I have a link to that in my signature. I go over my experiences with aerial warfare in those two games from memory.

 

[unmerged(147818)]

I think looking at War in Russia and the Pacific War for how they dealt with air warfare is a good place to mine ideas from. I think I have a link to that in my signature. I go over my experiences with aerial warfare in those two games from memory.

Experience and training should matter in the air war. Hopefully with the new system that separates production from training we will get just that. In the previous installments the only way to get meaningful amounts of experience on fighters was to "bomb" harmless targets for a year or so... I always wished for air to air combat would give massive experience gain to match the massive losses.