Combat- No plan survives contact with the enemy

[fabius]

We are developing a planning system that gives you greater control while not being as taxing as the detailed manual play from the last Hearts of Iron game. We want to give you time to look at the bigger picture. In my opinion, this also adds a lot of immersion, since it feels more like I am guiding a military campaign rather just shuffling units between provinces.
For the micro-managers out there - you can still do very detailed plans and update them in real-time, which will basically work like the old manual control but the system will reward successful longer term plans,

This is giving me the impression there will be bonuses for following a large battle plan Montgomery style. And maybe minus for not. Which is fine in a way, even Blitzkrieg planned- for all the support to be in place, C3, Logistics, recon, air support, casualty evac etc etc.

I'm wondering whether they factor some kind of initiative rating to offset responding to the unforeseen whether defensively or exploitation. Doctrines is one level, but this is another area where formation Leaders can really add something solid and flavoursome. Like losing less "Reward" for Rommel deviating from plan than some of the others.

This could give Germany their early war edge that narrows from around '43 onwards.


So if they have something like this what generals would you assign high initiative to?

For example

Rommel 9
Patton 7
Zhukov 7
Terrible forgot the British example- not Monty

 

[OrangeWarbear]

Sounds good so far. I hope this feature will work as intended. This is one of the proplems with Hoi3. You can define strategic goals but the AI isn't smart enough to handle them, so you're moving all your 300+ units by yourself which can get very exhausting.

 

[Holy.Death]

There will be bonuses, but I think that's the key - with a good plan you'll keep your bonuses and with not-so-good-plan you'll need to change it in order to accomodate for the changes. Or just keep the strategic reserve who's only goal will be reacting to enemy plans. This way you won't lose the bonus for planning and still be able to keep little something for contingencies. I don't really like the idea of "intiative". It sounds like giving an edge for those who plan not so well. On the other hand, we don't know what effect generals will have on plans and troops...

 

[fabius]

There will be bonuses, but I think that's the key - with a good plan you'll keep your bonuses and with not-so-good-plan you'll need to change it in order to accomodate for the changes. Or just keep the strategic reserve who's only goal will be reacting to enemy plans. This way you won't lose the bonus for planning and still be able to keep little something for contingencies. I don't really like the idea of "intiative". It sounds like giving an edge for those who plan not so well. On the other hand, we don't know what effect generals will have on plans and troops...

Strategic Reserve!!! Awesome, I'd forgot that there's often little need for this in HoI3. Yes hopefully a strategic reserve will be more needed now.

 

[Mannstien]

But can the AI deviate from your battle plan if it sees an opportunity to exploit, I mean when the AI goes to carry out the plan it may see routes of less resistance which my plan didn't cover or do to fluidity of battle could not be foreseen so how would individual initiative be represented.

 

[DeveronMagi]

There will be bonuses, but I think that's the key - with a good plan you'll keep your bonuses and with not-so-good-plan you'll need to change it in order to accomodate for the changes.

+1

i so hope for this. this will be fun in defence also. trying to disrupt and attack so that the enemy has to change its plan thus losing it prep. bonus.

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

While I agree with the bonuses to Generals, it should only be at the corp level or army level bonuses... similar to HOI3. The bonuses stack, but the higher up in command they are the less effect it has per division.

However, I don't see why you would lose prep bonuses unless you don't capture all your objectives. Lets take USSR Versus Germany... if Germany sets 7 strategic goals and the AI meets 6 of those 7 and continues onto the next 10 goals, while redistributing reinforcements to the 1st goal that wasn't achieved why should the bonuses be lost? MAYBE only if your assigning the goal to a individual Corp command then that corp losses bonuses... but the rest of the army should still have all the bonuses.

 

[fabius]

But can the AI deviate from your battle plan if it sees an opportunity to exploit, I mean when the AI goes to carry out the plan it may see routes of less resistance which my plan didn't cover or do to fluidity of battle could not be foreseen so how would individual initiative be represented.

Yes, I guess it's best if the AI can do some. But for sure we'll all see stuff that we'll we see better.

The point is this. Anticipating a bonus for sticking with planed ops is fine, but when it comes to reacting outside of plans not all generals were created equal. And this seems like an opportunity to add some meaningful flavour to the Generals.

 

[fabius]

While I agree with the bonuses to Generals, it should only be at the corp level or army level bonuses... similar to HOI3. The bonuses stack, but the higher up in command they are the less effect it has per division.

However, I don't see why you would lose prep bonuses unless you don't capture all your objectives. Lets take USSR Versus Germany... if Germany sets 7 strategic goals and the AI meets 6 of those 7 and continues onto the next 10 goals, while redistributing reinforcements to the 1st goal that wasn't achieved why should the bonuses be lost? MAYBE only if your assigning the goal to a individual Corp command then that corp losses bonuses... but the rest of the army should still have all the bonuses.

The bonuses around missed objectives is an interesting slant.

 

[Mannstien]

Yes, I guess it's best if the AI can do some. But for sure we'll all see stuff that we'll we see better.

The point is this. Anticipating a bonus for sticking with planed ops is fine, but when it comes to reacting outside of plans not all generals were created equal. And this seems like an opportunity to add some meaningful flavour to the Generals.

Indeed, but I meant more as a question to the developers is there some local initiative by the AI while it's in the process of executing my plan or if an opportunity presents itself do I need to intercede and redirect some assets to exploit. Personally I don't mind the latter since that's primarily what I did in Hoi3 but since they are moving away from the micro I'm assuming they are developing a combat AI that can make these determinations and if they are hopefully they add some flavor to what generals that are available and the approach they bring to combat.

 

[doulos05]

But how do you define a good plan that gets bonuses? And don't say the successful ones either, the bonuses skew the result. Is a good plan one that concentrates x times more force than the enemy? Then your delaying actions suffer a penalty. So do your diversions. Is it one that optimally matches units to terrain? Then D-day requires marines in the west.

 

[Klausewitz]

IIRC planning in HoI4 will more along the lines of Eisenhowers famous quote about planning being indispensable and plans useless.
For the low-level flexibility, i think that is a function of doctrine + level of training.
The doctrine decides whether a subordinate is even allowed to show iniative (in most armies they were not, even the western armies) while the level of training matters whether he does something smart instead of something dumb.
That would also follow the German curve quite nicely:
Ever tighter reigns on the individual officer and ever lower levels of training lead to ever lower performance.

 

[Oedipus101]

On the lines of this, perhaps we should have a slider system or event-driven system which will dictate the mix of initiative and "hold-the-line" style thinking. So if you order everyone to hold take a step back, you get a boost to defence but greater casualty rates.