Then how would you simulate trench warfare with the combat system of HOI?
Several years with 20-100 meters of advances, retreats.
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Then how would you simulate trench warfare with the combat system of HOI?
Several years with 20-100 meters of advances, retreats.
People attack, they fail, they attack again. You know: just like they do in HOI if, for example, you try to defend France against a 1940 German invasion playing as the UK - stalemate warfare also occurs and its rather fun.
It's also necessary to point out that positional warfare both wasn't limited to WW1 (think of El Alamein, the ABC line, Monte Cassino, Kursk etc.) and wasn't the case on every front or every battle of WW1. By my count there were at least 10-12 campaigns in which large areas were over-run in fighting lasting weeks-months during WW1 (the Schlieffen plan, East Africa, Galicia, Poland 1915, Serbia 1916, Romania 1916, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Caporetto, Vittorio Venetto, the Baltic campaign, the Kaiserschlacht, the 100 days offensive etc.). Sure, the pace of combat in WW1 was slower than in WW2, but to call it static is to completely ignore every single example of it not being so.
HOI has to be able to simulate positional warfare well to simulate WW2 properly, so I really don't see the objection here.
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In HOI if you encounter an entrenched position you manouver and attack somewhere else. In WW1 you can't do that because a few machine guns can hold off an entire regiment. At least until you have tanks, but that's only for the end of the war.
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I know what you mean, and I assume the gist of your point, is about the conduct of the war, and the fact that the battles(in great wars) are essentially the same as the battles that happen in 1836 except with bigger stacks and fancier units.
So I understand your frustration when people shoot down hoi WWI ideas because "Vicky does it".
The only reason I wouldn't want a WWI expansion/dlc for hoi IV is that most of that content would be separate from the main game, and I would rather development resources all be funneled into making the core game as badass as possible .
And about the folks who say the hoi engine cannot represent WWI, I disagree very much with that. There are tons of modifiers and variables in the game that can be tweaked to make a slower WWI style combat viable. Previous WWI mods for hearts of iron may not have been perfect, but they were still damn good!
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It can be tweaked but what's the point for pds doing it? Modders can already make pretty good ww1 mods for HOI. However if Paradox wants to create a better WW1 experience we would need a new combat system. A DLC for HOI4 would be just a paid mod, and I rather have them focus on improving the WW2 experience.
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Not really. Not unless you believe that every battle of WW1 was the first day of the Somme.
Let's look at the examples cited above: in the fighting in Palestine Allenby struck the desert flank of the Ottoman forces and routed them. The Schlieffen plan was famously a flank-attack, one which Moltke tried to turn into a double-envelopment. Poland in 1915 was essentially a pincers attack. In Serbia the Central Powers first destroyed the defences in front of them and then totally outflanked the Serbs with an attack from Bulgaria. In Romania the Central Powers beat the Romanians to the mountain passes and then totally eviscerated their main defence line. In the Baltics the Germans outflanked the Russians with an amphibious attack. In the battle of Caporetto the Central Powers basically broke through the Italian front line and then successfully exploited their sucess and routed the Italians.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
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You must have read my reply to fast, because I stated reasons why I wouldn't want official pdx real ease, and how mods are a viable solution as per previous hearts of iron titles.
So what's your point? All those are like 20-30, or maybe a hundred km advances or versus a vastly inferior foe. Even the polish campaign was static compared to HOI warfare.
The schliffen plan only succeded at first because the French were trying to use 1800s tactic on the battlefield. As soon as they realised what's happening they dug in. Since the player already knows that trenches are king it won't happen in the game.
I think Johan made a Freudian slip back when they announced the release date on that stage at one point he started to say Victori.,...if you listen close.
So the Baltic campaign, the Brusilov offensive, Caporetto - those advances of ~100kms or more against comparable opposition? I guess those didn't happen, right?
And if you want to play this game with WW2, you could as well (every blitz of 1939-41 was arguably against a "vastly inferior foe" if a victory like Galicia is so-described).
Mmmmm I would like that very much, hearts of iron and Victoria are by far and away my favorite paradox titles, probably(defiantly) my favorite games counting all developers.
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Brusilov campaign: 100km advance in what, 4 months?
Besides, these were the expection, not the norm.
No, you didn't need a tank in WWII. Those soldiers had grenades, LMG and possibly a light mortar. These were things developped during WWI. And came into full swing in the final year of the war, the Kaiserschlacht and 100 days.
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Forgive me for asking, but isn't 1918 the last year of the war? I mean Kaisersclacht was the last nail on the coffin for the German Empire, so I don't think it's a great example for a succesful offensive.
This assumes that a mod will happen in a reasonable timescale. With the best will in the world, we can look at how long it took for the HOI WW1 mods to appear for previous editions:
HOI1 - Never finished.
HOI2 - Effectively never finished
HOI3 - Completed to a reasonable standard ~4 years post-release.
And then you have to consider that even the makers of the HOI3 mod are quite happy to admit that their mod only really works in MP (the AI in HOI3 is just incapable of properly balancing fronts) and that they would prefer a DLC.
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The exception that occurred ~12 times during a four-year war? That's at least once every three months. This is an odd exception that may have happened more times than the "rule" (Verdun, Somme, Passchendale, Nivelle and ?).
Similar tactics were used in the Baltic campaign and Caporetto. The Kaiserschlacht was their advent on the Western Front.
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The point was, that HOI combat system can't simulate ww1 trench warfare and that was a huge part of the war. This doesn't change because the eastern front was a little more mobile. Even so, the eastern front it was pretty static compared to HOI. How can you simulate a siege of Premzsyl, a 6 month long siege for example?
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OMG, no Russia an France, EA do not want to play with the main Allied forces and that were figthing from the Day one
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What I tried to explain was that the combat system does fufill the needs for both World Wars. Tanks are nice and dandy, but not nescissary. If you lack any of this equipment, its clear that a full carge into machinegun fire isn't going to help
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