Certainty and uncertainty in GSG gameplay (in a HoI4 context :) )

[Gamer_1745]

The likes of CK2 and Stellaris being quite varied (Stellaris has quite uncertain early and late-games, CK2 starts certain but then spirals into higher degrees of uncertainty relatively quickly as uncertain mortality adjusts things), EU4 probably being somewhere in the middle (lots of 'little' uncertainties, but not too many 'large' uncertainties) and HoI4 on the more certain side of the scale (particularly in historical NF mode, but probably also in ahistorical relative to the other three).

I think it has a lot to do with players knowledge of history of the time period of the game. How much of the detailed history of the Dark & Middle Ages that is part of CK 2? Stellaris is complete fantasy. With the Renaissance & 18th Century you start to get player's historical knowledge to a level that random events would upset players. With HOI IV you either have strong historical certainty with NFs or complete Alt-History that is certain for player to play 'What If' campaigns.

I like the idea of Alt-History for Kaiserreich because it is a well developed world. What I don't like is options for something like Germany after 1936 going Communist. Germany might have gone Communist before 1933, but if it is National Socialist in 1936 it would not later go Communist (unless conquered by the Soviets). Also if you are doing some Alt-political leadership change the uniforms & political leaders. Don't have Imperial Russian or just some anti-Soviet Russia Army wearing Soviet uniforms.

 

[Dalwin]

Even that example could be devastating to an Italy or Spain, if it is your only decent Field Marshall you have nursed up thru 1940 to level 6 or 7, only to lose him to a random event. You just lost 25% combat bonus, plus probably his offensive, defensive, and log bonuses. For smaller countries that would be a heavy penalty to pay for random flavor. This is probabl;y why PDS stuck with news events with no ramification at launch.

One thing that shouldn't be random, and that is Add Aluminum in Asia.

There is another way to look at this concept. Is it not always only a bad thing. Nothing "good" comes from random general deaths. Back in HOI2 when this concept existed, it was almost as unpopular as the HOI3 supply system. It was removed not because of being unfair or that it was a thing from which it was difficult to recover. It was considered unfun by too many and a fair percentage of those would just save scum their way around it but that means no ironman and no achievements (not that it matters to me.)

I do not think the devs will be in a hurry to bring back such an unpopular concept as random general deaths, though it is a fine example of uncertainty.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I think the areas of gameplay that lends themself the most to uncertainty in HoI4 ( from a historical perspective at least ) are naval warfare and intelligence.

In naval war a faulty dud torpedo, a split second decision or a magazine detonation can abruptly doom/save a key flagship and change the outcome of an entire battle.

In intelligence as small things such as timely spark of genius breaking a key message, a field operative overhearing something or a clumsy public announcement that shouldn't have been made can also save or doom thousands of men in an instant.


When both combine together we get spectacular outcomes like the Battle of Midway.


I think there is alot of room for improving here in HoI4, the easiest would be to script naval combat critical hits to be less common and more devastating.

 

[Axe99]

I think there is alot of room for improving here in HoI4, the easiest would be to script naval combat critical hits to be less common and more devastating.

I'm pretty sure we've got defines for both - I'd already upped the randomness of naval damage, but that's a good thought .

 

[Alex_brunius]

I'm pretty sure we've got defines for both - I'd already upped the randomness of naval damage, but that's a good thought .

The advantage of using critical hits mechanics is that they interact with reliability values as well, so if you want for example Japanese Carriers or old WW1 Battleships to be big balls of flame / magazine detonations waiting to happen you could give them really low reliability and let nature have it's course...

 

[Axe99]

The advantage of using critical hits mechanics is that they interact with reliability values as well, so if you want for example Japanese Carriers or old WW1 Battleships to be big balls of flame / magazine detonations waiting to happen you could give them really low reliability and let nature have it's course...

I just ducked into the defines and turned crits into less-probable bigger booms, will see how it pans out (will need tweaking, I'm sure). I've got older BBs with lower reliability as well. A lot more work to get the carrier reliability thing sorted, so will pass on that for the moment, but it's a good idea .

 

[Alex_brunius]

A lot more work to get the carrier reliability thing sorted, so will pass on that for the moment, but it's a good idea .

Yeah I'm thinking maybe something interesting with Carrier design could be done to contrast the Japanese design doctrine of having multiple closed off deck hangars (more planes capacity), vs the US one of having a single hangar deck with openings so planes could be ditched as a damage control measure ( higher reliability ).

 

[agentgb]

Stellaris: has alot of uncertainty, obviously the tech card draws are totally random, and somthing like this couldn't be used in hoi4 unless has mentioned there was setbacks when researching a certain technology but could be a kick in the teeth unless there was some feature to overcome such fallbacks at a added cost. Uncertainty features that i would advocate for perhaps being apart of HOI4 is the random world/universe generator. With a nation editor also, this could make for some fun MP/SP experiences if national focus tree could be setup to compliment a generated world. e.g ai behaviour instead of alternative storyline focusus.

EU4: Extremely fun and at times frustrating to play, the level of uncertainty in this game makes it both fun and criminal to play. But an uncertainty that could be brought over from EU4 to HOI4 is perhaps the certain advantages/disavantages events that pop up depending on what your goverment type is, your chosen nation ideas and your advisors that could perhaps be related/linked in a similar hoi4 fashion to a countries national unity, recruitment laws, economy, trade, advisors and perhaps even arms companies that perhaps ensure research doesn't fall back on certain strengths of that research company. National unity could be rebuilt within a country with a continious focus acting like a stability system to counter any events or reduce the amount of bad events popping.

CK2: Ruler/family deaths are probably the worst of all uncertainty that CK2 has to offer. Then after that vassals or council members wishing to overthrow you. I guess if they ever fleshed out the coup system a bit more, certain advisor put in position within a country to keep a certain part of the voters happy could also potentially be a trojan horse if external influence starts be projected on the country. E.g a communist leaning advisor put in position to represent the views or keep content 20% of the communist population could result in having a cooperative communist population that keep production/recruitable populace optimal but with the risk of leaking research/intel on your nation to other state actors within there area of expertise, failure to appoint enough advisors to keep a certain percentage of the voters content (e.g communist) could result in coups being more viable/lethal, or reduced productivity / recruitable populace. To give historical context, stalins great purge was to ensure all advisors were idealogs and loyal to him, & Churchill war ministry was made up of both labour & conservative MPs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_war_ministry

To work out the balance would mean differentiating between a Democracy & Authoritarian regime. Each with there advantages & disadvantages. Both being viable to play while requiring the same amount of attention equally.

Victoria 2: Alot of victoria 2 and even to some extent CK2/EU4 felt very organic with a level of uncertainty given that alliances could change on a dime, wars to claim debt, wars over sphere of interest, ai generally frabricating claims that gave the impression of freewill, and in terms of CK2 pushing claims. Victoria & EU4 would give events for claims/war goals, but may be to much given the timeline of HOI4, but could work well in a randomly generated map. I guess somthing like Victoria 2 Crisis events which has a world power you would choose a side to force a status quo or go to war, although somewhat represented through the national focus branch could add to a more dymanic play but would probably make some of the national focus tree obsolete or create totally ahistorical showdowns that may not be favoured by alot of hoi fans. I guess that wouldn't work either since there wasn't any formal declaration of war giving for the most part, asides from the winter war & Sudetenland, but having crisis events in a randomly generated world might work.

Overall most of the uncertainty points i've listed favour statecraft & totally ahistorical setups that would be better suited perhaps for a randomly generated world with many smaller nations, to gain uncertainty in historical mode would probably be with the CK2 example i listed that can directly/indirectly affect your efforts on the battlefield, but may not be desired by some, or frowned upon in a MP game, but then, you can only fight world war 2 so many times has so many nations that kinda playtrhough the same, i kinda think a stellaris type random world generator where everyone starts of on a equal footing plus a few of the other examples i listed or not could always give a compelety different set of events and story. Not sure how difficult this is, but seemed like it was possible with EU4 New World Random Generator, although given the amount of detail that goes into the hoi4 map atm, seems unlikely.