1 MP in a militia unit is obviously not the same as 1 MP in an airborne unit, even if both units contain the same number of men. 1 MP is not just soldiers, it's soldiers with qualities.
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Wobbler said:
And how does that relate to having an accurate representation of human casualties in the game? I haven't seen any history book that said "Germany lost ### elite soldiers, ### ordinary soldiers and ### Volksturm...men are treated quite equally when they're no longer alive, at least by statistics.
The issue is with numbers represented, not the qualities of those individual numbers (unless you want to refer to the "quality of being human").
Lazy_Boy said:
Personally, I really like the fact that CK and EU3 list casualties of the battles in terms of actual numbers of men lost. (CK even much more detailed in which type of man was lost)
I know HoI3 will be dealing with larger numbers of men that have to be abstracted, but it was a nice touch in those two games.
battlecry said:
Perhaps, but I've seen loads of historic books talking about the German army of 1945 and the battle of berlin speaking of "old men and young boys" and the decrease in quality of the german army. IMO thats why marines and airborne units "cost" more MP than militia of a similiar size.
This whole conversation reminds me of the "does GDP equal IC" discussion there was back in the france thread. When I bomb a province I never see casualties, or how much $$$ in property was lost, or how much the GDP shrank. Instead I just see "bombed for .5 IC" Thats the figure I need.
Did people really have difficulty figuring out if they were winning wars of attrition in hoi2? If they were, if you had a espionage mission that could tell you "germany has 1000 mp in there pool and .6 a day, Soviet has 2000 mp and 1.8 a day, 3 months ago Germany had 1500 mp..." would you still be unable to figure it out? That info seems loads more useful than ".5 million german soldiers have died in the easter front and 2 million soviet soldiers."
Breaking up the casualty count into separate categories based on unit/arms or 'quality' is going too far with it in my opinion.
Mr. Domino said:
but helps not at all if i want to play historicly as germany, and try to kill of the UK by uboats and strategic bombing, in that case i need the losses since i'm not inflicting direct manpower losses on the UK.
in that case the only thing i'm concerned with is how much MP i'm losing in order to wreck the UK's industries and resource stockpile.
that idea is definately a good one though, but still needs imo to have casualties to supplement the data
Wouldn't that be pretty well represented by a longer production time?Mr. Domino said:
HavoCast said:
Agreed, mp should be the cost of men, not training, that should be IC cost.
Ostheim said:
I guess? I admit Hoi2 was flawed too (reinforcements were treated interchangable.) Still, a middle aged man couldn't make it in the paratroopers in ww2 IIRC. Most 20 year olds couldnt. My point was just that the age cohort wasn't all the same.
Obviously hoi2 system was a bit messed up, if you made 50 para divisions you could "run out" of mp and be unable to even make militia. That wasnt what happened, but you would have trouble finding qualified canidates for that 51st para division. I admit its inartful, but then, its not as though paras "cost" more IC-their equipment wasn't 3x as expensive as inf divisions. Drafting 30 elite inf divisions, like marines, wouldnt take the lions share of a war economy. I don't think their training regimes were significantly longer either.
Mr. Domino said:
Well just because German Volkssturm divisions had old men and young boys at the end of the war doesn't mean this has to be simulated throughout the entire unit/combat system. There are enough other factors in play to make this pretty much irrelevant in terms of gameplay. As long as militia is weak as it should be, it should be good.
Mr. Domino said:
i've got an idea which i want to toss out for consideration on this topic
but
i'm replying in a new [thread=383518]thread[/thread] so we don't go too far Off topic here
I think it's utterly hypocritical for anyone playing a war game to abhor casualty statistics. I don't care if WWII is still somehow fresh on people's mind. Casualties are the real cost of war, PI is already being extremely gentle by not showing any civilian casualty. Anyone offended by casualty figures shouldn't be playing a war simulation.
Neither should anyone find casualty ratio comparison offensive. Every responsible military commander, as well as government leaders, are duty-bound to try to maximize enemy casualty and minimize friendly casualty. It may sound gruesome but war is gruesome, let's not pretend that it isn't.
That said, I agree that casualty is hard to show in HoI. But I think most people would be satisfied if there's a MP loss statistics.
Neither should anyone find casualty ratio comparison offensive. Every responsible military commander, as well as government leaders, are duty-bound to try to maximize enemy casualty and minimize friendly casualty. It may sound gruesome but war is gruesome, let's not pretend that it isn't.
That said, I agree that casualty is hard to show in HoI. But I think most people would be satisfied if there's a MP loss statistics.
uly said:
Agreed...you can send virtual 'men' to their deaths but you can't bear to see how many?
Ostheim said:
IMO, not seeing how many died is worse. I mean by doing that you're ignoring your virtual 'men's' virtual 'families.' I mean you just sent their virtual 'son/brother etc.' off to war and don't even care if they virtually 'made it back alive'. That makes you a sick bastard and should be condemned.
In all seriousness numbers in a wargame where you play as a colored blob trying to absorb other colored blobs only add depth and are good. Also :rofl: at the people who take numbers in a videogame seriously. At least it isn't Company of Heroes where you blow Germans/Americans/British into tiny, bloody peaces while they're screaming about how they want to see their families again.
Casualties are very likely to be in the game as of the latest dev diary. We can clearly see the "strenght" symbol from Vicky (a fist) on all units that symbolizes how much men they got. Combined with a big UI tab for just statistics and what these tabs showed in EU3 and Vicky Im pretty certain we are going to se casualty numbers in one form or the other at release.
A number of you guys have failed to understand the nature of this discussion. Presumably you have not bothered to go back and read the original post, or my reply to it.
Let me make it clear again that I do not believe that discussing in-game casualty figures is offensive. I have no problem with more in depth statistics. And I would not be personally offended if Paradox included fairly detailed "casualty" figures. Indeed, playing the game on a strategic level makes it difficult when there is little in the way of summaries of the effect of your campaigns.
Nevertheless, I question the relevance of some of the suggestions. If you are conducting a submarine campaign against convoys, is it relevant how many men drowned as a result of your campaign? No, what matters is the tonnage of ships sunk, representing a proportion of the overall tonnage of the ships available to your enemy to convoy his supplies and oil, and what effect this has on the enemy's ability to conduct warfare. Since HOI abstracts all convoy ships as if they are the same tonnage, then the total number of convoy ships sunk compared to the total that have been built is important information. But it still does not prove anything. If an enemy starts with 1000 convoy ships, but only needs 600 of them to keep his armies supplied, then I have achieved nothing if I have sunk 200 after a year. Unless I'm prepared to continue the campaign for a further three years, I cannot affect the enemy's ability to wage war. In making that strategic decision I need to know how many subs I started with in my fleet, and how many I have lost over the year. I need to know how much of my IC is going on replacing/repairing subs.
For a land campaign, it is possible to win without inflicting any "casualties", if by casualties you mean a reduction in the strength of a unit. Str. is only reduced in combat once Org. has reached 0%, and at that point a unit will retreat. Technically, therefore it is possible to keep the whole of your enemy's frontline units retreating for some distance without them losing any significant amount of strength. As long as they are not encircled they may not be destroyed. Yet the enemy has clearly lost a significant amount - not "casualties", but instead they have lost territory, and this means they have lost IC/TC and resources. Their ability to wage war in terms of producing new units and repairing/replacing existing units is significantly diminished. They may also have lost VP's. If they have lost their capital they would have lost all of their stockpiles of supplies and oil, and we will have gained them. If they have lost ports and naval bases, and air bases, their ability to wage war at sea and in the air is significantly diminished, and ours is enhanced. If you get them to retreat far enough, so you have taken nearly all of their territory, then the enemy government will surrender. Even if their original units are still mainly intact.
Yet, before anyone else rather stupidly suggests otherwise, I don't fight a campaign just to get the enemy to retreat. Of course, I look for every opportunity to destroy whole enemy units, by pocketing them, or by pursuing them relentlessly with quicker units that can overtake them, and by constant CAS attack so that if they are retreating at 0% Org, then the CAS will be reducing their Str. Nevertheless, the measure of my success is not how many "casualties" the enemy has suffered in absolute terms, nor relative to me. It is just kids stuff to think in those terms. I fight a war for political objectives, and my success is measured against this. If I invade a country I do so FE with the aim of reclaiming my core provinces, and annexing other provinces to increase my IC/TC and resources. I don't invade for the purposes of inflicting casualties, and that's not me being nice to the "virtual soldiers" or any such BS. I use tactics intended to inflict maximum "casualties" on the enemy to reduce the length of the campaign, and to reduce "casualties" among my own units. But that is about achieving my political ojectives as efficiently as possible, by reducing my expenditure in terms of IC/oil/MP etc. so that it instead can be used in my next campaign.
IIRC AGEod's series (American Civil War, Napoleon's Campaigns, etc.) include direct casualty statistics at the end of each battle. The units in their games show how many men they consist of, not abstract manpower figures. I am sure many other games do, but I mention these games because PI used to distribute ACW (I'm not sure if they still do, it is no longer mentioned in these forums). I have not played ACW, but I played Napoleon's Campaigns and enjoyed it. It is not as good as the HOI series, since it lacks the Grand Strategy element. Nevertheless, it does an interesting job of simulating the tactical/operational aspects of the wars of the period.
Nevertheless, there are signficant differences between Napoleon's Campaigns and HOI. People have also made reference to Vicky, and that there are detailed figures in that game. I'm not familiar with it, but again it seems obvious to me that there are significant differences.
The first is: I don't know anyone who served in Wellington's army, or any civilians who were affected by the wars of this period. I do know people who served in WW2 and the area where I live was bombed. In other parts of Europe many living people were affected by it much more, losing family members and their homes. That is not to say that I personally am particularly sensitive to their losses, but to recognise there are people in that situation. For some people simulating the bombing of Dresden is as offensive as FE simulating flying planes into the Twin Towers. Surely even the kids who have put in their views in this discussion can see how the relatives of the people who died on 9/11, would find such a game sickening?
The second is: I never heard of anyone who regarded themselves as "Napoleonist" and wanted to re-introduce an Emperor in France. Unfortunately, there are those who regard themselves as fascists, act as apologists for the Nazi's, deny the holocaust etc. and would want to bring back the type of Greater Germany that Hitler tried to achieve. There are also those in Russia who want to bring back the Soviet Union controlling all of eastern Europe under a Stalin-type figure, etc.
The third is: comparison with many other games is facile, especially the shoot-em ups. Few games have the moddability that the HOI series and some of Paradox's other games have.
Paradox are based in Europe, and have a large market in Germany and other countries where things that happened from 1936 to 1945 still invoke very strong feelings. I understand why Paradox might want to avoid a number of RL details of the War appearing even in the vanilla version. But in particular they must be very wary that a group of modders will put out a version of the game that many people really would find offensive. If the game that fires up has Paradox's name on it, regardless of whether it has been modded or not, it won't be whoever modded it who comes in for criticism, it will be Paradox.
To pretend that idiots don't exist and won't attempt to hijack this game for their own sick fantasies would be stupid. Hopefully, they are a small minority, but they definitely exist. We have had long, sometimes interesting, discussions about the Division building system. I am sure they will rage for a long time to come. At least one of the posters that has been so adamantly in favour of certain game changes, both in the composition of units and in the ability to upgrade brigades from one type to another, made it clear that his sole interest was to be able to model in HOI3 the RL history of only ONE particular unit. Stuff that it's history of "upgrades" was not typical of even other units of that country, never mind of the 1,000's of RL units across the whole world. He wants Paradox to design a game so that he can simulate the unique war history of the "brave heros" (as he described them) of 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolph Hitler. The very same "brave heros" who carried out the executions of the Night of the Long Knives, which initiated the Nazi terror directed against internal political opponents, with the final consequences that we know so well. A history of this unit, and the war crimes they are known to have committed, can be seen here.
I certainly never suggested that I found in-game casualties offensive, nor reasonable discussions about the extent of casualty figures that should exist in HOI3. But I did find offensive a post from someone referring to HISTORICAL casualty figures of 6 million that had been inflicted by Germany on the Soviet Union as a result of the 1941 invasion, and saying that he would love to do the same, and thinking this was funny. His signature shows he is a German. So I can't help wondering whether he is a fascist, who fantasises about donning his jackboots and NSDAP armband and marching across Europe again. Maybe he isn't - he is not the person who wants to model LSSAH in the game. Perhaps it was just a juvenile remark that he had not intended to cause offense? But he has remained silent in this thread since, neither explaining nor apologising for his remarks. Regardless of his politics, the post was stupid and IMHO simply made it more likely that Paradox would want to avoid anything in the game that looked like a body count.
________
Let me make it clear again that I do not believe that discussing in-game casualty figures is offensive. I have no problem with more in depth statistics. And I would not be personally offended if Paradox included fairly detailed "casualty" figures. Indeed, playing the game on a strategic level makes it difficult when there is little in the way of summaries of the effect of your campaigns.
Nevertheless, I question the relevance of some of the suggestions. If you are conducting a submarine campaign against convoys, is it relevant how many men drowned as a result of your campaign? No, what matters is the tonnage of ships sunk, representing a proportion of the overall tonnage of the ships available to your enemy to convoy his supplies and oil, and what effect this has on the enemy's ability to conduct warfare. Since HOI abstracts all convoy ships as if they are the same tonnage, then the total number of convoy ships sunk compared to the total that have been built is important information. But it still does not prove anything. If an enemy starts with 1000 convoy ships, but only needs 600 of them to keep his armies supplied, then I have achieved nothing if I have sunk 200 after a year. Unless I'm prepared to continue the campaign for a further three years, I cannot affect the enemy's ability to wage war. In making that strategic decision I need to know how many subs I started with in my fleet, and how many I have lost over the year. I need to know how much of my IC is going on replacing/repairing subs.
For a land campaign, it is possible to win without inflicting any "casualties", if by casualties you mean a reduction in the strength of a unit. Str. is only reduced in combat once Org. has reached 0%, and at that point a unit will retreat. Technically, therefore it is possible to keep the whole of your enemy's frontline units retreating for some distance without them losing any significant amount of strength. As long as they are not encircled they may not be destroyed. Yet the enemy has clearly lost a significant amount - not "casualties", but instead they have lost territory, and this means they have lost IC/TC and resources. Their ability to wage war in terms of producing new units and repairing/replacing existing units is significantly diminished. They may also have lost VP's. If they have lost their capital they would have lost all of their stockpiles of supplies and oil, and we will have gained them. If they have lost ports and naval bases, and air bases, their ability to wage war at sea and in the air is significantly diminished, and ours is enhanced. If you get them to retreat far enough, so you have taken nearly all of their territory, then the enemy government will surrender. Even if their original units are still mainly intact.
Yet, before anyone else rather stupidly suggests otherwise, I don't fight a campaign just to get the enemy to retreat. Of course, I look for every opportunity to destroy whole enemy units, by pocketing them, or by pursuing them relentlessly with quicker units that can overtake them, and by constant CAS attack so that if they are retreating at 0% Org, then the CAS will be reducing their Str. Nevertheless, the measure of my success is not how many "casualties" the enemy has suffered in absolute terms, nor relative to me. It is just kids stuff to think in those terms. I fight a war for political objectives, and my success is measured against this. If I invade a country I do so FE with the aim of reclaiming my core provinces, and annexing other provinces to increase my IC/TC and resources. I don't invade for the purposes of inflicting casualties, and that's not me being nice to the "virtual soldiers" or any such BS. I use tactics intended to inflict maximum "casualties" on the enemy to reduce the length of the campaign, and to reduce "casualties" among my own units. But that is about achieving my political ojectives as efficiently as possible, by reducing my expenditure in terms of IC/oil/MP etc. so that it instead can be used in my next campaign.
IIRC AGEod's series (American Civil War, Napoleon's Campaigns, etc.) include direct casualty statistics at the end of each battle. The units in their games show how many men they consist of, not abstract manpower figures. I am sure many other games do, but I mention these games because PI used to distribute ACW (I'm not sure if they still do, it is no longer mentioned in these forums). I have not played ACW, but I played Napoleon's Campaigns and enjoyed it. It is not as good as the HOI series, since it lacks the Grand Strategy element. Nevertheless, it does an interesting job of simulating the tactical/operational aspects of the wars of the period.
Nevertheless, there are signficant differences between Napoleon's Campaigns and HOI. People have also made reference to Vicky, and that there are detailed figures in that game. I'm not familiar with it, but again it seems obvious to me that there are significant differences.
The first is: I don't know anyone who served in Wellington's army, or any civilians who were affected by the wars of this period. I do know people who served in WW2 and the area where I live was bombed. In other parts of Europe many living people were affected by it much more, losing family members and their homes. That is not to say that I personally am particularly sensitive to their losses, but to recognise there are people in that situation. For some people simulating the bombing of Dresden is as offensive as FE simulating flying planes into the Twin Towers. Surely even the kids who have put in their views in this discussion can see how the relatives of the people who died on 9/11, would find such a game sickening?
The second is: I never heard of anyone who regarded themselves as "Napoleonist" and wanted to re-introduce an Emperor in France. Unfortunately, there are those who regard themselves as fascists, act as apologists for the Nazi's, deny the holocaust etc. and would want to bring back the type of Greater Germany that Hitler tried to achieve. There are also those in Russia who want to bring back the Soviet Union controlling all of eastern Europe under a Stalin-type figure, etc.
The third is: comparison with many other games is facile, especially the shoot-em ups. Few games have the moddability that the HOI series and some of Paradox's other games have.
Paradox are based in Europe, and have a large market in Germany and other countries where things that happened from 1936 to 1945 still invoke very strong feelings. I understand why Paradox might want to avoid a number of RL details of the War appearing even in the vanilla version. But in particular they must be very wary that a group of modders will put out a version of the game that many people really would find offensive. If the game that fires up has Paradox's name on it, regardless of whether it has been modded or not, it won't be whoever modded it who comes in for criticism, it will be Paradox.
To pretend that idiots don't exist and won't attempt to hijack this game for their own sick fantasies would be stupid. Hopefully, they are a small minority, but they definitely exist. We have had long, sometimes interesting, discussions about the Division building system. I am sure they will rage for a long time to come. At least one of the posters that has been so adamantly in favour of certain game changes, both in the composition of units and in the ability to upgrade brigades from one type to another, made it clear that his sole interest was to be able to model in HOI3 the RL history of only ONE particular unit. Stuff that it's history of "upgrades" was not typical of even other units of that country, never mind of the 1,000's of RL units across the whole world. He wants Paradox to design a game so that he can simulate the unique war history of the "brave heros" (as he described them) of 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolph Hitler. The very same "brave heros" who carried out the executions of the Night of the Long Knives, which initiated the Nazi terror directed against internal political opponents, with the final consequences that we know so well. A history of this unit, and the war crimes they are known to have committed, can be seen here.
I certainly never suggested that I found in-game casualties offensive, nor reasonable discussions about the extent of casualty figures that should exist in HOI3. But I did find offensive a post from someone referring to HISTORICAL casualty figures of 6 million that had been inflicted by Germany on the Soviet Union as a result of the 1941 invasion, and saying that he would love to do the same, and thinking this was funny. His signature shows he is a German. So I can't help wondering whether he is a fascist, who fantasises about donning his jackboots and NSDAP armband and marching across Europe again. Maybe he isn't - he is not the person who wants to model LSSAH in the game. Perhaps it was just a juvenile remark that he had not intended to cause offense? But he has remained silent in this thread since, neither explaining nor apologising for his remarks. Regardless of his politics, the post was stupid and IMHO simply made it more likely that Paradox would want to avoid anything in the game that looked like a body count.
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Leave gamers alone, we don't want to conquer the world...we just want to pretend we are.
Ostheim said:
Hear hear. I like to imagine the Stukas screaming down on allied troops, T-34's crushing german lines, Navalbombers closing on the Bismarck, Marines storming Iwo Jima... and so on and so on.
Its the feeling of reliving and altering history that makes hoi fun. But the greatest thing about this game is its a GAME. Lets not get too touchy about a friggin game. Paradox has 4 general rules which are all important. The idea of implementing casualties does not even remotely cross any lines set by these sticky rules.
Anyway - I am very much in favour of "casualties idea" being implemented - how its done I'll leave to the devs and modders who know what they are doing
Did it never occur to you that he might want to compare his success rate to that of the real war, to determine if he is on the path to victory? If wanting to achieve victory while losing fewer soldiers than the real-world counterpart of the nation one is playing means one automatically must be assumed to endorse the ideology of the real-world leaders, what ideology do we who have played more than one nation endorse?potski said:
Quite frankly, the last sentence I quoted is the only really offensive statement I've seen so far in this thread and you should count yourself lucky I'm not a moderator.
you know, this thread has lasted quite a while longer than I thought.
closed for personal remarks-borderline insults to protect posters from themselves.
closed for personal remarks-borderline insults to protect posters from themselves.
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