Army Experience needs a revamp

[Mikaa]

Army experience is an interesting feature but it is, in my opinion, not really well designed in the current state of the game.

What is good in the current version:

• Air and naval experience are used the right way to improve existing equipment.
• The way experience is earned through ministers and battle is also right to me.

What is wrong:

• It does not make any sense to pay army experience to change the division design. Before the war starts, it is virtually impossible to create any new design based on what you already researched and you are locked to poor initial designs for example if you play France.

What could be done:

• To avoid free division re-design spam, a cooldown can be added (e.g. 2/3 months).
• Army experience could be instead used to buy artillery/tank variant updates which are, as of now, to be researched. It is more logical not to research them (since you already did it for the base version) and instead use your experience.
• Army experience could also be used to upgrade special forces and support divisions instead of having to research them.
• Doctrines should definitely also be obtained through experience.

Let me know your feelings about it !

 

[Alex_brunius]

What is wrong:

• It does not make any sense to pay army experience to change the division design. Before the war starts, it is virtually impossible to create any new design based on what you already researched and you are locked to poor initial designs for example if you play France.

With exercise of your divisions and assigning a minister early which provides army xp you can easily get 150 army xp before war breaks out and design any template you want. You ofcourse can't go wild and design dozens of templates, but it's enough to cover the basic needs ( which is what it's supposed to do ).

In HoI3 you would just instantly build the perfect templates in 1936 (or the moment you unlocked tech for what goes in it), and then ignore this feature for the rest of the game which IMHO was super boring, and not historical at all either. HoI4 is much more historical in that template improvement, and redesigning templates to take advantage of equipment you have in surplus is an active process throughout the game ( much thanks to it's army xp cost ).

I don't see any issues with the XP cost of template design to be honest.



I think the main issue with army xp is that you can't redistribute priorities or go negative when designing variants. It would be very helpful if you could for example design a -2 armor +2 gun tank variant for just a administration fee of say 5xp, which would be very helpful to play around a bit more with variants before the war.

 

[Bigleady]

I'd kill for an undo button in the template designer

 

[Gyrvendal]

I also don't agree with the OP that divisions templates should be free. There are mods that do that if you want to play like that but I find it not very exciting. Trying to get a bit of xp prewar is a big part of the preparation to war and gives you something to do before 1939 so I think it is fine.

My main problem with the current implementation of xp is that there is no incentive to ever make variants of older equipment as happened historically. You basically research panthers 3 years ahead of time, dump your entire army xp into them and start producing them immediately. It would be cool if you were encouraged to improve the panzer 2/3/4 and keep producing them alongside panthers as happened historically?

 

[Nobody987]

What I miss the most is that there is no training option for navy and aircraft. Before the war, there is no real reliable way to increase those two, with navy being in worse position where you cannot lease it, but my general feel is that aircraft lease is waste of it, because you need to lease a lot to gain a few points. And you are relying on AI to use it correctly so that you gain most of it. So I would maybe go into direction that you have opened all three minister slots for land, air and navy.
Maybe small increase like this would be good start for revamp.

 

[bERt0r]

I agree with you that XP is broken. The bandaid solution is the way how training works. Delete all your units except one and let it train. Boom you get tons of XP in a short time (up to 0.25 per day depending on the size of your division). You can field 40 width infantry and 40 width mountaineers and a tank template as france before 39 that way.

It would be way more sensible to improve your generals with army XP. Like more traits that can be customized and bought with XP. Instead of upgrading my artillery with +1 firepower (how does that even work) I could spend 100 xp to turn my general into an artillery expert.

 

[Oddb@ll]

Buying doctrines with experience is a really good idea. Feels natural and intuitive instead of some kind of abstract research. In contrast with templates, which doesn't make as much sense. Why do I need experience to add a tank battalion to my medium tank template?

 

[Mikaa]

Why do I need experience to add a tank battalion to my medium tank template?

My Point exactly !

 

[Alex_brunius]

Why do I need experience to add a tank battalion to my medium tank template?

We should ask all the French generals who prevented such a change historically before they learned the hard way how effective a division of concentrated armor could be from the Germans that paid a visit to demonstrate.

It is meant to model resistance within the officers and army to big changes until you have learned through experience.


I would like to counter with another question:
Why should all nations in the world instantly in 1936 know exactly how the most effective and devastating division is put together for the following 10 years of warfare ( benefit of hindsight when controlled by a player )?

It would be way more sensible to improve your generals with army XP. Like more traits that can be customized and bought with XP. Instead of upgrading my artillery with +1 firepower (how does that even work)

Maybe after feedback from the field your artillerymen tell you how to improve the targeting and firecontrol system of the guns to make them much more accurate?

 

[Mikaa]

Why should all nations in the world instantly in 1936 know exactly how the most effective and devastating division is put together for the following 10 years of warfare ( benefit of hindsight when controlled by a player )?

I think this is not really a valid point. Forcing the player to play "dumb" by preventing him to go for efficiency is a bad form of game-design. The problem is that such "bulletproof" division designs exists and that basically any other combination is useless. The division design should be more complex as well as division interactions with terrain to avoid the existence of such super-efficient generic strategies.

 

[fabius]

Agree with OP. Early game changing templates is just a bore chore; and leads to gamey combat grinding just to get going.

Points on doctrine is a good idea. Maybe a combo requirement eg can research if spend X combat experience.
That would also fix the doctrine tree rush thing

 

[Alex_brunius]

Forcing the player to play "dumb" by preventing him to go for efficiency is a bad form of game-design.

No one is forcing you to "play dumb", just forcing you to wait with making radical changes before your army is ready for them...

It's not any different then having historical years for technology "forcing players to play dumb" and not research the 1945 modern tanks until your closer to the historical year, even if you as a player know how a modern tank looks, works and performs, and that it's way better then a 1939 Panzer III.

Not being able to go for the "endgame" designs and equipment right at the start of a game is a very sensible thing and healthy game balance...

It's used in all games actually that have any sort of progression and is common sense in game design.

The division design should be more complex

After almost a year Paradox developers haven't managed to get their AI to understand the current (very high) complexity of the division design enough to make even decent armor divisions... and you think the solution is to make it MORE complex???

 

[Mikaa]

It's not any different then having historical years for technology "forcing players to play dumb" and not research the 1945 modern tanks until your closer to the historical year, even if you as a player know how a modern tank looks, works and performs, and that it's way better then a 1939 Panzer III.

Not being able to go for the "endgame" designs and equipment right at the start of a game is a very sensible thing and healthy game balance...

It's used in all games actually that have any sort of progression and is common sense in game design.

This is the bad thing: you already pay the time cost for technology and then you need to pay another arbitrary cost on top of that to use it.
Similarly, "endgame design" is a division with 1945 panzers, not a division with 5 tanks instead of 4.

After almost a year Paradox developers haven't managed to get their AI to understand the current (very high) complexity of the division design enough to make even decent armor divisions... and you think the solution is to make it MORE complex???

This is also not a valid point. The fact that AI can not handle the division design (although it is better than what it used to be) does not mean it has any very high complexity, it just means that the IA is bad at it. If you make the AI more likely to chose combat widths of 20 or 40, there is actually very few possible combinations for each template.

 

[Alex_brunius]

you already pay the time cost for technology and then you need to pay another arbitrary cost on top of that to use it.

What makes the cost of "Army XP" any more arbitrary then the cost of "Research slot days"?

Both are needed to unlock a good endgame design, and both are simplifications of limitations to what kind of units and equipment an army could realistically field before the war.

Similarly, "endgame design" is a division with 1945 panzers, not a division with 5 tanks instead of 4.

Now your confusing how you want it to work with how it actually works.

In HoI4 having a good division template is part of making a good endgame design, that is a fact since there is both time and costs involved to develop your templates (something which I quite like).

This is also not a valid point. The fact that AI can not handle the division design (although it is better than what it used to be) does not mean it has any very high complexity,

Start up Hearts of Iron 2 and check out how complex division design is in that game... then you are free to come back here and change your opinion.

With 30 different slots and at least 10 choices to put in each slot the current division design means there are many millions of different possible ways to design a division in HoI4. Each of the different units you put in the slot also can contribute different amounts to the 23 different stats the division have, and use different formulas to arrive at the divisions final value in that specific stat.

Not complex at all, right?

 

[Mikaa]

What makes the cost of "Army XP" any more arbitrary then the cost of "Research slot days"?

I am saying that both are arbitrary. The research cost is historically driven, the army XP is to mimic the ability to improve designs, i.e. you give the same rifle to a veteran and a rookie, one is good with it, one shoots is feet. It works fine for the naval and air development since this is basically what it does. Now for division design I maintain that there is no root for that. I don't mind preventing the player from creating a 30 tanks division in 1936, but not preventing him from adding an infantry unit or a radio. Especially that after 6 months of war it is suddenly completely OK to create this huge templates...

With 30 different slots and at least 10 choices to put in each slot the current division design means there are many millions of different possible ways to design a division in HoI4. Each of the different units you put in the slot also can contribute different amounts to the 23 different stats the division have, and use different formulas to arrive at the divisions final value in that specific stat.

Not complex at all, right?

If you insert some smart limitation like combat width, minimum organization/ hp required, the number of possible combinations drop significantly. Likewise, fragmenting design per use also reduces poor choices, e.g. you are not gonna put 20 marines together with 5 heavy tanks.
The number of possible outputs is by no mean a measure of complexity and the reciprocal is true. Complexity arises from the difficulty to find proper control values that tells you the validity of your design. Like I stated, I think that if you take combat width and boundary values for HP/organization, you already sort out most of the issues and your template may be viable.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The research cost is historically driven, the army XP is to mimic the ability to improve designs, i.e. you give the same rifle to a veteran and a rookie, one is good with it, one shoots is feet.

Uh no... Veternas vs rookies having different skill is division experience, which is something different then army experience is.

Army experience in HoI4 is lessons learned by the army officers, technicans and leaders, allowing them to design both better formations (divisions) and better equipment.

If you insert some smart limitation like combat width, minimum organization/ hp required, the number of possible combinations drop significantly

I've seen all combat widths between 5 to 40 ( including odd ones like 27 which I prefer myself ) used quite successfully against skilled human players. They are all good for different divisions with different roles.

Minimum organization isn't much of a limiter either (except limit extreme cases like 100% artillery divisions), as long as you add more firepower / combat power then you lose organization ( which generally happens below ~20 org) your fine and can keep adding support/tanks

e.g. you are not gonna put 20 marines together with 5 heavy tanks.

Why not? Except a bit big width, this is a great division for crossing rivers with!

The number of possible outputs is by no mean a measure of complexity

It does according to the Wikipedia definition of what complexity is:

"Complexity is generally used to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways, culminating in a higher order of emergence greater than the sum of its parts."


The number of different ways you can combine a division and have it's parts interact with eachother in is a great measure of the complexity of the system.

Not tracked in the stats is the cost of different equipment/battalions, and the resources and time needed to produce them, which further adds complexity to the system due to the complex ways division design links together the core combat performance with all other production parts of the game.

 

[Mikaa]

I guess we won't agree

It does according to the Wikipedia definition of what complexity is:
"Complexity is generally used to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways, culminating in a higher order of emergence greater than the sum of its parts."

This by the way does not contradict my statement at all. You need many interacting parts, not just many parts and I talk about ouptuts not constitutive elements.

 

[Alex_brunius]

This by the way does not contradict my statement at all. You need many interacting parts, not just many parts.

Which is why I didn't measure how many parts the division designer has (30 slots), but in how many different ways they can interact (be combined) with eachother (which is millions of ways ) to produce different end results.

 

[Mikaa]

can interact (be combined)

That is where the misconception is, combination is not interaction. Divisions just average (or sum up) the individual stats of each components. They are still not interacting in the sense that 1 marine + 1 tank does not make and hybrid which is neither a tank nor a marine. It just makes a tank + marine, that is, one does not affect the other.

 

[bERt0r]

Maybe after feedback from the field your artillerymen tell you how to improve the targeting and firecontrol system of the guns to make them much more accurate?

Why do i have to replace each and every type of artillery to do that? And why do i have to lose all that experience once i research a new SPG model? Why cant I use that fire control system on the new gun?