Balance and Imbalances - An Alpha Dev Teaser

[Krafty]

If it creates choices great.

I just dont want to see "race to the nuke". Because thats the complete opposite of creative choices and good gameplay. Thats repetitive and boring. If theres nothing to do other than build them, then drop them, thats not very interactive or creative.

I mean you have this super interactive and creative model and variant system, you have this super interactive and creative division creating tool, you have this super interactive and creative resource and production system for creating these models and variants you designed, in the divisions you design..

So they can get wiped out by a thing with no resource requirements, no models, no variants, not in a division, that required no creativity or input on the part of the player other than "Hu hu hu hu mushroom clouds".

Maybe just no one else has looked at it that way yet.

But I dont want my handcrafted First Panzer Division that ive had all game and doted on with love and affection, constant upgrades and micromanaging, that has all this interactive gameplay and emergent strategies, vaporized by a nuke that took nothing more than tech rushing and a couple clicks.

THATS the definition of not fun.

Everyone thinks about the dropper, not the dropee. The effect it has on you as a player, getting nuked by another player. If it sucks....you just stop playing with nukes from then on, or mod them, or whatever. In which case...why waste time on them in the first place.

Even for the dropper, its a hollow experience. Everyone who has played Civilization, has nuked people, once, gotten bored of it, then never did it again.

Fantasy nukes are boring.

Real nukes have 70 years of intrigue, politics, fiction, futurism, doctrine, fear, technological improvements, and cultural movements against them.

Which one should we have again?

/puts comedy hat on

By quick show of hands, who here came here, because of the ships and planes and tanks?

Ok, by show of hands, who came here to have all those ships and planes and tanks rendered obsolete and pointless?

Your honor...I rest my case.

 

[Charles Reeps]

I'm too confused by that one

 

[Denkt]

The devlopers have said that Super Heavy Armor will be useful in HOI4.

 

[Krafty]

In plains, on the defense, against non combined arms armored units lol.

Joking...probably...

 

[Mendeth]

If it creates choices great.

[snip]

With all due respect you seem to have been on a solo rant on this topic (with a number of tenuous points I might add - Soviet tactical nuclear weapon development lasted long after Stalin's demise, for a start) since Johan started the thread, however I'll ask this in case I've missed it: where has it been stated that in HOI4 (regardless of how it worked in previous games), units in a province hit by an atomic weapon will be destroyed?

Moreover:

If Tolstoy played video games[...snip]

That's some pretty basic pseudo-games psychology there, with very little evidence to back it up. More importantly though it's completely off-topic (though I suppose the topic of Johan's screenshot disappeared into the ether of the internet many pages ago)

 

[Mannstien]

While my game last night shows that even if I fully optimise buildup for Sweden, I am locked to about 50 divisions, even with total war recruitment laws.

However... Rockets and Nukes are not anywhere near balanced yet.. But its damn fun to start an invasion against an unholy alliance of Nazis and Commies with reigning down 20 nukes on all major troop concentrations. and then another wave a few weeks later when my armies have advanced..

But no, being able to build 250 nukes by 1947 as Sweden should not be possible after next week. (At least not after Wednesday mornings MP test....)

Still an epic Screenshot Johan, if you should need any Nuke testers I've been known to use peaceful testing means....

 

[Krafty]

That's some pretty basic pseudo-games psychology there, with very little evidence to back it up. More importantly though it's completely off-topic (though I suppose the topic of Johan's screenshot disappeared into the ether of the internet many pages ago)

Its just supposed to be funny

 

[D Inqu]

however I'll ask this in case I've missed it: where has it been stated that in HOI4 (regardless of how it worked in previous games), units in a province hit by an atomic weapon will be destroyed?

I think we're all going of the OP about "dropping nukes on major troop concentrations". Which indicates that nukes are good against troop concentrations.

 

[bucknastyc]

I'm *not* very experienced with HOI, but I think nukes should be like a decision made at the end of a war.

With the national unity system, do conquered territories count against it? If Japan takes Taiwan, then the US takes it back two years later, does that count?

My suggestion is that if you have a country that has clearly lost the war but has a high national unity left, you can use nukes as a last resort for an instant peace. I'm not sure how you would conclude when it's possible in-game.

 

[xtfoster]

Thought I'd do a little googling to read up on the Davy Crockett, and tripped across the fact that the US also deployed nuclear land mines! Looks like they were deployed with timers rather than pressure sensors, but being on top of one of them when it went off would really ruin your day....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition

If nuclear land mines scare you...what about the AIM-26 nuclear air to air missile...

 

[Secret Master]

I'm *not* very experienced with HOI, but I think nukes should be like a decision made at the end of a war.

With the national unity system, do conquered territories count against it? If Japan takes Taiwan, then the US takes it back two years later, does that count?

My suggestion is that if you have a country that has clearly lost the war but has a high national unity left, you can use nukes as a last resort for an instant peace. I'm not sure how you would conclude when it's possible in-game.

You should really take a look at how it worked in HOI3.

In short, dropping nukes on VPs would reduce NU and act like a 100% successful strategic bombing attack (wipes out all province upgrades, including IC, and they have to repair from zero however long it takes). With enough nukes, you could reduce NU to zero.

As long as you hold one VP that is a core (non-core VPs don't count towards surrender progress), you could force a surrender if NU was at zero. It just so happened that Okinawa was a VP, so mimicking the historical outcome of the war in the Pacific was possible if you put the effort into it.

 

[mdw1985]

Johan making "nöttkött" from the rest of the world . This reminds me, that i have to go to ikea this weekend...i need plants...but not the nuclear ones. And i want some hotdogs.

 

[podcat]

The devlopers have said that Super Heavy Armor will be useful in HOI4.

Depends on how you define useful. They are good on defense and get bonuses for cracking forts (we are going with Tortoise or t28 rike design target rather than maus)
They are likely not going to be cost effective unless the opponent is building maginot lines

 

[agus92]

After seeing how this trhead developed, I would like to do a litthe recap.

First and foremost, thanks Johan for the teaser. It's nice to know what's going on.

Secondly, I think that nuclear weapons are a hot issue. Of they work like hoi3 they will be bearable, but I think that some will agree that nuclear doesn't add much to the game, since to get to them you need to give gameplay away.
What would be nice, instead of just giving up tech slots, is to have some mechanics around nuclear. Featuring specific nuclear resources and nuclear science, along with imternational diplomatic consecuenses, would drasticly help balancing nuclear weapons.

To conclude, the most important message I want to air, is that teasers are really appeciated, and I hope that we don't see more just because this one hit a issue subject to interpretation.

 

[Denkt]

Depends on how you define useful. They are good on defense and get bonuses for cracking forts (we are going with Tortoise or t28 rike design target rather than maus)
They are likely not going to be cost effective unless the opponent is building maginot lines

Manpower effective. Which is more important for nations that have good industry but low manpower which is useally a position Sweden are in and unlike fortifications you can use Super Heavy Armor offensively.

Then we can ask if any armor type will be cost effective (production wise) as anti tank guns are probably much cheaper and even infantry can do well against armor, yes fast armor can be used for encirclement but so can motorized and mechanized. The thing with armor is they use less manpower and do have nice concentration of force. Compared to infantry armor is more manpower efficienct but less production efficienct, super heavy armor should probably be compared to normal slow foot infantry. Super heavy armor may be 5 times as manpower efficient but maybe several times less production efficient, they are probably also much better concentration of force then foot infantry which is very useful is certain situations.

Forts are a hard situation so having a unit espacially good at that can be extremely useful because sometimes you have to fight against forts and it will likely be very costly, maybe you should make Super Heavy Armor available in 1941 instead of 1943 to reduce effectiveness of fort camping (if that becomes a problem).

 

[Denkt]

A thing I wonder, do such a manpower poor nation such as Sweden any reason at all to create standard infantry divisions at all? Because manpower is the true bottleneck for Sweden and infantry are so manpower heavy, even with terrain bonus I don't think they will ever be manpower efficient. What Sweden should produce are heavy stuff, tanks, artillery, aircrafts, things that cost much but need little manpower for their production cost, conserving manpower by using a superior firepower doctrine is what Sweden may be forced to.

Sweden may be like US only like between 25-50 times as weak but superior production and costly divisions are the key for both countries.

 

[fabius]

Depends on how you define useful. They are good on defense and get bonuses for cracking forts (we are going with Tortoise or t28 rike design target rather than maus)
They are likely not going to be cost effective unless the opponent is building maginot lines

Counter intuitive to most doctrines, but they could/should have a boost to urban combat. By the time armies knew what they were doing with urban warfare they blasted strong points with direct HE chuckers, including SP Guns in direct fire role.

 

[Beagá]

Depends on how you define useful. They are good on defense and get bonuses for cracking forts (we are going with Tortoise or t28 rike design target rather than maus)
They are likely not going to be cost effective unless the opponent is building maginot lines

Considering Maginot line had artillery guns wouldn´t that make super-heavies still pretty silly?

Hit a track, immobilize it...

Seriously, I think people should think twice before adding "cool" features, if world conquest wasn´t made an achievement in EU4 no one would care so much about making blobbing easier.

Similarly the moment you put super heavies as units people will think they should be useful, and they shouldn´t be.

 

[Mendeth]

Considering Maginot line had artillery guns wouldn´t that make super-heavies still pretty silly?

Hit a track, immobilize it...

Seriously, I think people should think twice before adding "cool" features, if world conquest wasn´t made an achievement in EU4 no one would care so much about making blobbing easier.

Similarly the moment you put super heavies as units people will think they should be useful, and they shouldn´t be.

Tanks were designed/adapted for the purpose of attacking fortified structures and defences during the Second World War, so including a type of tank meant for that purpose is not completely ludicrous. Although I agree with you on the EU4 point, I think that the inclusion of opportunities of choice should be applauded rather than criticised.

On a side point, although the Maginot Line forts had artillery guns, from visiting one ouvrage I'd argue that there may well have been room for appropriately-equipped tanks to have had some meaningful impact in an assault

 

[Denkt]

Super Heavy Armor are like Mountaineers, excel in smal number of situations. Some other units such as infantry and medium armor are generalist, they don't solve hard situations like Super Heavy Armor or Mounatineers but they are more flexible.

Not every nation are going to find much use of Super Heavy Armor however nations that use a defensive strategy and nations that have to fight against forts are going to wan't Super Heavy Armor.
Just like not every nation are going to find much use of Mountaineers.

A question: What do the arrow thing above the green general mean?