Buying material from more advanced country's.

[TheFlemishDuck]

Prior to WW2 and during it ,many country's had armor and other millitary equipment that they had bought from more advanced country's.In Hoi you would only be able to have a basic light tank devission when you have the tech's and the production capacity for it ,thus small to medium backward country's usually will never have good armor or planes ,although in a lot of historical cases they had such material at a limited amount as it was bought from a more advanced nation.

Especially France and England sold a lot of millitary material IIRC.
It would be nice to buy relativly advanced material ,be it for high price and with good relations ,from such a country.The lack of certain doctrine's would still make the use of such material less effective as it was historicly.

As example's ,Persia had in 1939 bought about 200 planes of the UK of wich most hawker hurricane's.
Turkey bought 2 submarine's from Germany and 2 submarine's + 4 destroyers from the UK just before the war ,in addition to infantry material and a quite large number of airplane's bought from the UK and Germany.They had about almost 400 plane's before the war and expanded their airforce with some more airdevissions during the war.
Brazil bought about 1100 plane's from the USA during the war.
Tjechoslovakia ,being an producer of some very succesfull tank models sold a large number of them to multiple nations especially in the Balkans.

I would propose that the buying of material would come in the form of buying a devission (excluded infantry) with it's cost in cash and some manpower. (you have to man the material yourself obviously)
The purchase shouldn't affect youre technoligy but just give you a devission of whatever you bought with better stats than youre usual devission. (unless you buy inferior material)
The devission you buy should only have the raw statss of the model withought addons from better ammunition types for ex. ,so you should research those yourself.

 

[Hoddi Flex]

I would love this feature though I seriosly doubt it will be implemented...

 

[unmerged(20619)]

I would like it if they would implement a trade or lend-lease option in the game. It should be for only material goods not infantry units but tanks, ships, and airplanes. They would have to assign a cash value to these items and be forced to ship them just like any other traded goods with it being possible to intercepted or destroyed in transit. The nation that trades away the items would of course have to use the tradition method of producing the items to reflect the cost and be willing to part with those units (US shipping tanks/destroyers to Engand). We already have the ability to put units under other countries command but this would be a great feature for countries like the US who haven't entered the war yet.

 

[Zorgoth]

I would like it if they would implement a trade or lend-lease option in the game. It should be for only material goods not infantry units but tanks, ships, and airplanes. They would have to assign a cash value to these items and be forced to ship them just like any other traded goods with it being possible to intercepted or destroyed in transit. The nation that trades away the items would of course have to use the tradition method of producing the items to reflect the cost and be willing to part with those units (US shipping tanks/destroyers to Engand). We already have the ability to put units under other countries command but this would be a great feature for countries like the US who haven't entered the war yet.

Well in the game it is reasonably easy as the US to let the UK have some armor or whatever, just send an expeditionary force. It's also reasonably realistic. I would like to see minor states being able to buy, during peace time, weapons. But maybe this would better be modeled through the purchase of the required techs to create the units. Otherwise I really don't see how an HOI1 style system would support it. That being said, it would be really cool!

 

[Grosshaus]

Wouldn't that be just about the same as expeditionary forces?

 

[HJ Tulp]

Wouldn't that be just about the same as expeditionary forces?

Aren't exp. forces meant as units which are loaned for the duration of a conflict or operation? I think this idea is that a advanced nation sells equipement to a lesser advanced nation.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Aren't exp. forces meant as units which are loaned for the duration of a conflict or operation? I think this idea is that a advanced nation sells equipement to a lesser advanced nation

Indeed there lies the differance ,exp. forces are basicly foreign troops and material not sold or given but just loaned and this only to country's in war.
This is about actually selling just material (not men) (not loaning) to country's usually in peace.

Just like in these modern days ,there were actually few country's in ww2 time period that actually constructed their material ,except the big powers.
There is a good reasoning behind this ,usually the smaller country's have only limited production power/resources or technological output to make development of own weapons interresting ,afterall they would have to spend the majority of their resources in it and the result would probably still be an inferior product.In the world today maybe only 10 country's produce their own material ,the rest of the world is usually equiped solely with material bought from the Russians ,the USA or France.There are dozens of country's that have masses of t72's/t55's or various sorts of Mig's in their army wich they plainly bought ,and hadn't had to spend productional or research output in only a good amount of cash.Even a lot of European country's buy their material from the big powers.
That allows such country's to have a solid amount of semi-advanced material that they wouldn't be able to develop on their own.

As such ,many minor country's on the HOI map could never reach the material they had historicly at certain times because in HOI they had to develop that material on their own while historicly most nations simply bought that material ,and indeed due to their limited resources/production developing such weapons usually isnt effeciant in HOI,why develop a basic plane for ex. as a minor at a hughe cost if you need them but only need like 2 devissions of them ,buying them is so much easier ,only a one time cost in cash and the productional output can be used for more important things.

Yes you could model this event wise ,ega sales of material events that would triger for smaller nations where they would get the material they bought historicly at a cash reduction.
However Paradox games usually provide flexible elements to history ,and the sales of material was much dependent on the strategical situation those country's were ,so ahistorical situations would easily lead to ahistorical sales.
I don't think it would be that hard to model neither.Just let it be a diplomatic action like expeditionary forces but then reverse: The country that wants to buy clicks the country he wants to buy from ,then click's the "buy war material" (or other name) diplomatic action.This action bring's the nation to an inventory of the standing devission that this country has (except infantry) ,wich you then can click and offer to buy.When agreed upon ,the selling nation gets some manpower back and an cash increase ,and the buying country some manpower reduction (depending on wich material) and a cash reduction.The bought equipment could then for ex. be put under the buying's country's production queue yet with a small need for IC for a small period ,like 2IC for 60 days to model the need for the buying nation to train his soldiers to use the bought material.
All in all i don't think this would be very hard to model ,even at this point of development ,it would be a pretty realistic way of handling such sales and it would greatly add to the historical correctness of the game.

And this wouldn't be nessecary easy to exploit neither.The devissions would still have their upkeep cost and for the small nations that buy that equipment the costs of supporting them would limit them in the number of material they can actually buy.Another thing is that having the material doesn't mean that you have the doctrine's to make use of it as good as the major powers who actually have the doctrine's to make that material more effeciant.In addition it should be quite hard for the buying country to buy the most advanced material ,but previous generations material should be easier to buy as usually the big powers hadn't much use anymore for that material being it obsolete on the theaters they fought on.

 

[Zorgoth]

Indeed there lies the differance ,exp. forces are basicly foreign troops and material not sold or given but just loaned and this only to country's in war.
This is about actually selling just material (not men) (not loaning) to country's usually in peace.

Just like in these modern days ,there were actually few country's in ww2 time period that actually constructed their material ,except the big powers.
There is a good reasoning behind this ,usually the smaller country's have only limited production power/resources or technological output to make development of own weapons interresting ,afterall they would have to spend the majority of their resources in it and the result would probably still be an inferior product.In the world today maybe only 10 country's produce their own material ,the rest of the world is usually equiped solely with material bought from the Russians ,the USA or France.There are dozens of country's that have masses of t72's/t55's or various sorts of Mig's in their army wich they plainly bought ,and hadn't had to spend productional or research output in only a good amount of cash.Even a lot of European country's buy their material from the big powers.
That allows such country's to have a solid amount of semi-advanced material that they wouldn't be able to develop on their own.

As such ,many minor country's on the HOI map could never reach the material they had historicly at certain times because in HOI they had to develop that material on their own while historicly most nations simply bought that material ,and indeed due to their limited resources/production developing such weapons usually isnt effeciant in HOI,why develop a basic plane for ex. as a minor at a hughe cost if you need them but only need like 2 devissions of them ,buying them is so much easier ,only a one time cost in cash and the productional output can be used for more important things.

Yes you could model this event wise ,ega sales of material events that would triger for smaller nations where they would get the material they bought historicly at a cash reduction.
However Paradox games usually provide flexible elements to history ,and the sales of material was much dependent on the strategical situation those country's were ,so ahistorical situations would easily lead to ahistorical sales.
I don't think it would be that hard to model neither.Just let it be a diplomatic action like expeditionary forces but then reverse: The country that wants to buy clicks the country he wants to buy from ,then click's the "buy war material" (or other name) diplomatic action.This action bring's the nation to an inventory of the standing devission that this country has (except infantry) ,wich you then can click and offer to buy.When agreed upon ,the selling nation gets some manpower back and an cash increase ,and the buying country some manpower reduction (depending on wich material) and a cash reduction.The bought equipment could then for ex. be put under the buying's country's production queue yet with a small need for IC for a small period ,like 2IC for 60 days to model the need for the buying nation to train his soldiers to use the bought material.
All in all i don't think this would be very hard to model ,even at this point of development ,it would be a pretty realistic way of handling such sales and it would greatly add to the historical correctness of the game.

And this wouldn't be nessecary easy to exploit neither.The devissions would still have their upkeep cost and for the small nations that buy that equipment the costs of supporting them would limit them in the number of material they can actually buy.Another thing is that having the material doesn't mean that you have the doctrine's to make use of it as good as the major powers who actually have the doctrine's to make that material more effeciant.In addition it should be quite hard for the buying country to buy the most advanced material ,but previous generations material should be easier to buy as usually the big powers hadn't much use anymore for that material being it obsolete on the theaters they fought on.

While this would work well for players, I am wondering what happens when an ai US starts selling masses and masses of weapons to central america and get caught when the war starts and overrun.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

While this would work well for players, I am wondering what happens when an ai US starts selling masses and masses of weapons to central america and get caught when the war starts and overrun.

Well afcourse balancing is important as usual ,this is an obvious remark you give though could probably easily be overcome with some harcoded game elements that doesn't let the nation sell an amount of material over the number that it feasibly should keep ,in addition the limitations of the buying nations should be there to not let them buy an to extreme number of devissions ,being it unit costs in cash and support potential.Most probably a carier or battleship would be quite impossible to buy to their extreme costs ,even cruisers would be almost unaffordable unless for some semi big powers.
And logicly the sale of one unit should be followed up by that country by the production of a new more advanced unit ,wich is fairly logical in the world of weapons sales ,you sell the obsolete stuff to make room to build new and more advanced material.

In fact that should be the strongest factor for a succesfull sale ,the bought material should be of a previous generation for the selling country ,so that it keeps it's advanced stuff and sells of the obsolete stuff that won't matter much anymore in most theatre's it fights anyway.Buying the advanced stuff should be nearly if not tottaly impossible.Though that works against the structure of HOI where you could upgrade planes and tanks to whole new model's ,something that actually shouldn't be possible ,yes upgrade's of tank calibers and armor skirts etc were coman in WWII ,but it wasn't like they could upgrade for ex. 100 PzIII's into 100 PzV Panthers ,such unit's had to be build from scratch.

 

[unmerged(33694)]

Money

Since money is the new asset in HoI2, than purchase is a logical consequence of money. It would definitely flavour the game to have a possibility to purchase miltary equipment (tanks, planes, etc), but such system of purchase makes possible other kind of purchases (technologies, di).
It's difficult to imagine how it will affect the game since there is no information on how money will be made
This is good idea and could bring the game closer to realistic circumstanes of the WW2.
If not in HoI2, I hope I'll see it in HoI3

 

[Semi-Lobster]

In fact that should be the strongest factor for a succesfull sale ,the bought material should be of a previous generation for the selling country ,so that it keeps it's advanced stuff and sells of the obsolete stuff that won't matter much anymore in most theatre's it fights anyway.Buying the advanced stuff should be nearly if not tottaly impossible.Though that works against the structure of HOI where you could upgrade planes and tanks to whole new model's ,something that actually shouldn't be possible ,yes upgrade's of tank calibers and armor skirts etc were coman in WWII ,but it wasn't like they could upgrade for ex. 100 PzIII's into 100 PzV Panthers ,such unit's had to be build from scratch.

Of course the limiting factor should be the buying power of the individual country, but I do not agree with not being able to sell advanced equipment, I'll use the example of Siam, who during the mid to late 30's was buying a lot of military equipment from Japan, Italy and the US along with making it's own. Siam bough Nakajima Ki-43's and ships from Japan (Japan's most advanced army fighter at the time), two modern cruisers from Italy (that where ordered 1939 and where requisitioned by the Regia Marina when the war broke out) and from the US, for fighters. Also every single battleship in South America was bought from the UK and the US and at the time of purchase, where state of the art. Another example is Persia who had placed an order from Czechoslovakia for hundreds of tanks before the country was annexed (and therefore the order did not go through), also there was China who was willing to buy anything they could get in the air from anybody. Even Ethiopia was supplied with German, Belgian and Turkish weaponry for their war with the Italians

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Ok then i agree purchasing power should be the determinal factor in adition to maybe a hard coded cap that lets the major powers not sell to much material ,i wasn't aware that such advanced material was sold under such circumstances asin these example's.

All i wanted to point out was that due to the nature of HOI ,a historical game with some flexibilety to historical outcome ,such a system of buying material would be feasable for historical reasons though also flexible and also making the playing of smaller country's more interresting (wich greatly extends the playabilety of the game) ,that in addition such a system shouldn't be that hard to model and that obviously ,as with all feature's in the game this feature should be balanced so that it wouldn't be exploited or lead to highly unhistorical and unprobable situations.

Though afcourse i'm open to discuss the system in wich such sales should happen as other people may have idea's for a more simplified way as to get this done with the same results or systems that prevent the feature to be exploited.
The better we can present this and propose a system to the feature that is easy to incoorperate in the rest of the game the more possibilety that this feature could be included into the game.

 

[Zorgoth]

Well afcourse balancing is important as usual ,this is an obvious remark you give though could probably easily be overcome with some harcoded game elements that doesn't let the nation sell an amount of material over the number that it feasibly should keep ,in addition the limitations of the buying nations should be there to not let them buy an to extreme number of devissions ,being it unit costs in cash and support potential.Most probably a carier or battleship would be quite impossible to buy to their extreme costs ,even cruisers would be almost unaffordable unless for some semi big powers.
And logicly the sale of one unit should be followed up by that country by the production of a new more advanced unit ,wich is fairly logical in the world of weapons sales ,you sell the obsolete stuff to make room to build new and more advanced material.

Well, it is really is a little more complicated than that. If minors are unable to produce large amounts of heavy equipment on thier own (which is realistic) then they must purchase it from somewhere. That means someone obviously must sell it (U.K.,US,USSR,etc). Unless you want an overly simplistic model, where 2nd rate arms are always available, you need some sort of world market ala Victoria. Furthermore, the US would sell the UK just about the most advanced weapons, but would probably not do so to Bolivia. So do we add prestige?

I totally agree that to include such a system would be a big step towards realism, but the complexity and balancing issues it would add to the game probably, IMHO, do not warrent its inclusion.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

sorry ,double post due to busy server at point of posting and constantly retrying. o

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Well, it is really is a little more complicated than that. If minors are unable to produce large amounts of heavy equipment on thier own (which is realistic) then they must purchase it from somewhere. That means someone obviously must sell it (U.K.,US,USSR,etc). Unless you want an overly simplistic model, where 2nd rate arms are always available, you need some sort of world market ala Victoria.

A system alla world market in Victoria is deffinatly not what you want for several reasons.Hoi has only a few resources while victoria has over 40 different tradeable good ,and in that world market origin of producer or type of material is discarded.In that respect i think my previous suggestion on how to do this was much better:

just let it be a diplomatic action like expeditionary forces but then reverse: The country that wants to buy clicks the country he wants to buy from ,then click's the "buy war material" (or other name) diplomatic action.This action bring's the nation to an inventory of the standing devission that this country has (except infantry) ,wich you then can click and offer to buy.When agreed upon ,the selling nation gets some manpower back and an cash increase ,and the buying country some manpower reduction (depending on wich material) and a cash reduction.The bought equipment could then for ex. be put under the buying's country's production queue yet with a small need for IC for a small period ,like 2IC for 60 days to model the need for the buying nation to train his soldiers to use the bought material.

Furthermore, the US would sell the UK just about the most advanced weapons, but would probably not do so to Bolivia. So do we add prestige?

i don't think prestige is nessecary ,IMO size should matter ,deffinatly political structure should matter (democracy's more eager to sell to democracy's) ,and connections or alliance's should matter deffinatly in wartime.
Another thing is that Boolivia ,although maybe having diplomaticly been able to buy advanced material ,wasn't just able to buy it due to pure financial reasons. (the advanced material being to expensive)
I also think that usually the most advanced material should be expantionaly more expensive than the intermediate stuff.

 

[Semi-Lobster]

Well I don't think you should be able to buy infantry but buying small arms could put an infantry division in the force pool with less time then making them yourself (since you don't have to build the guns and artillery yourself). Also when buying armour, air and naval units we have to remember you're just buying the the equipment itself you still need to train men how to use and maintain it so I think any unit purchased should go into build queue with about two months left until completetion

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Well I don't think you should be able to buy infantry but buying small arms could put an infantry division in the force pool with less time then making them yourself (since you don't have to build the guns and artillery yourself). Also when buying armour, air and naval units we have to remember you're just buying the the equipment itself you still need to train men how to use and maintain it so I think any unit purchased should go into build queue with about two months left until completetion

Tottaly agree on the fact that of training for bought equipment ,and i mentioned this already:
When agreed upon ,the selling nation gets some manpower back and an cash increase ,and the buying country some manpower reduction (depending on wich material) and a cash reduction.The bought equipment could then for ex. be put under the buying's country's production queue yet with a small need for IC for a small period ,like 2IC for 60 days to model the need for the buying nation to train his soldiers to use the bought material.

About the infantry weapons ,that's something else wich could be harder to model ,as there are lots of types of infantry material and that might make it hard to determine what stats the infantry should have.the production for infantry reflects mainly training i think ,anyway i wouldn't know a good way to model the purchase of infantry material given all it's type's and models so any propositions on it are good here ,i guess that you should have an option to buy infantry equipment from a country for each devission at the time and then youre raw infantry stats of that devission should be equal to the stats infantry has from the selling country given their tech ,afcourse keeping in mind that withough much doctrine's the buying country's infantry will be still less effeciant.The problem is however that when you buy infantry weapons usually those country's wouldn't buy the most advanced infantry weapons and/or artillery/AT/AA pieces as the selling country probably wouldn't sell it's most advanced infantry weapons anyway ,though maybe that could be overcome by for ex. decreasing the stats for bought infantry weapons to infantry a bit ,like -1 across the board. (-1 attack/def etc)
So lest to say ,i'n not sure yet how to best model the purchase of infantry weapons ,though youre proposition of a decrease of infantry build time makes sense to a certain point.

 

[Semi-Lobster]

Crap, 8 server screw ups!

Well anyway I'd like to remind you that it wasn't countries buying weapons from other countries but usually countries bought weapons from companies, an example of this is Bofors who where willing to sell their best weapons to anybody

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Arh damn overloaded server ,i reckon that frustration ,takes ages to get a reply trough.

Anyway ,your point of independant contracters is probably true and something i didn't take into consideration.Like i said i agree on the note that buying infantry weapons should decrease the construction time of infantry devissions ,i was uncertain to determine the stats of such devissions equiped with foreign infantry equipment so any hint's are welcome here ,i guess though using the statistics of the selling country's infantry would be a good guideline then?

 

[HJ Tulp]

Crap, 8 server screw ups!

Well anyway I'd like to remind you that it wasn't countries buying weapons from other countries but usually countries bought weapons from companies, an example of this is Bofors who where willing to sell their best weapons to anybody

Well usually it were also private companies that enlarged the industries.