Commanding Officers Flavor - Not utilized?

[Be-Like-Water]

Greetings,

I apologize if this has been discussed before or should fall under an existing thread. Although it has to do with OOB, my concerns are less with how it is organized and more about what is evidenced through the WWW's. I also understand that the game is in development and that balancing is in major review and thus could make irrelevant my opinions.

My concern lies mainly with the commanding structure evidenced in the WWW's. I will not argue whether more vertical structure is necessary (as so many arguments have been made pro/con to the simplification of HoI3's OOB), but I am concerned by the lack of horizontal utilization.

It is my understanding that as of now there are two choices of command for divisions in the field, Field Marshall, and Generals. As Daniel (the most "experienced" HoI4 developer as of yet) has taken control of Germany in the last two WWW's, I distinctly remember him mentioning that he prefers to use one Field Marshall and one General dividing his troops among only these two commands.

What troubles me is that after having played 1500+ hours of HoI4, Daniel has determined that the best management of his troops is through only TWO commanders. Paradox has included SO much flavor in possibilities for choosing commanders through the traits and experience system, yet it seems that out of all the possibilities only TWO are necessary to orchestrate large scale warfare.

Again, leaving out arguments relating to vertical hierarchy, is no one else concerned by the lack of horizontal diversity in choosing commanders? Perhaps the developers have chosen to limit some of the micromanagement of several commands for the sake of WWW times, but as Daniel (the most "experienced" HoI4 player) has stated, he has found that TWO commanders suffices.

Cheers

 

[Cpack]

Agree....in the www's it seems that the best choice is not using all the possibilities.

- Choose only 2 commanders
- Choose only Infantry with (nearly) noting else
- Don't care about airforce
- Don't care about weather
- Don't care about supplies
- Just draw a battleplanner line at Ural and close a few pockets manually
......done

Even if he's a very experienced player, a bit more challenge in taking care about all that stuff would be appreciated....

But I'm sure this will be balanced in future. If not, a lot of features are really unnecessary. That would be a shame.
I'm positive about that

 

[Aleks S. I]

I suspect that the game is still in serious need of balancing and AI work. Given how all the countries Daniel invaded just crumbled while offering almost no resistance, it seems the AI is unable to properly manage a front line at the moment. If this is the case it explains why mass micromanagement is currently the best way to play the game. I also expect that it will come down to personal play style. Experienced RTS players or HoI veterans will have no problems managing each unit individually. Personally though, I expect to be using a lot of smaller armies, as I am absolutely hopeless when it comes to dealing with more than a dozen units at any given time and having a tool designed to make queuing up orders simple makes a USSR game something I'm actually willing to attempt in this. (In Darkest Hour it was an absolute nightmare for someone who has no skill at micromanagement, and given the larger map in HoI3 I don't even want to imagine a USSR game there)

The biggest problem I've seen so far is the lack of at-a-glance air battle information. Johan says he's been bombing western Germany to dust, but the game doesn't seem to convey that to Germany without specifically checking each region's air window. I'm also surprised that Germany seems unable to maintain naval control over even the Baltic Sea, with British units moving around there totally unopposed. I'm not sure if that's just the German players totally neglecting their navy and air superiority over the region, but it seems some sort of naval control indication would also be useful. I may be totally wrong about both of these since it's often much harder to keep track of things as an observer than it is as a player, but overall I'm usually kind of clueless as to what's actually going on in these videos, with exception of land control.

 

[Anichent]

Exactly. Imagine if Germany has two commanders and the Soviets have too commanders. Its just silly and it makes it so the line either progresses, or doesn't. This is why divisions should have commanders. Changes nothing about hierarchy but adds more variables into the division vs division interplay at the province to province level. The devs replaced this interplay with unit experience, but the division leaders are a missed opportunity.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

There is a sense of inevitability about a proper OOB system being implemented in an expansion somewhere down the line. I don't quite understand the current charade of trying to convince people the current system is any better, although I can certainly understand that it may be easier for the player to manage and for the AI to process.

 

[jamesd]

From the original HOI, players have had long lists of generals to choose from, but now for HOI4 it looks like there's only going to be a comparative handful of generals used. Its also silly to allow Field Marshals to command an unlimited number of divisions. The higher up the chain of command you get, the less influence you can have on individual divisions, and the more units you try to command directly, the less time you can spend on each one. I'm fine with getting rid of division commanders and simplifying the chain of command so the AI can make better use of it, but having 1 high skill Field Marshal providing his full command bonus to 100+ divisions is a bad joke.

We should keep Lt Generals, Generals & Field Marshals and allow them to command varying numbers of divisions. I'd even go so far as to do something like a Lt Gen with up to 3 divisions gives them his full bonus, 4-6 divisions a moderate bonus and 7-9 divisions a small bonus. Generals and FM's can exercise direct command over an increasing number of divisions. Then Theatres can have a commander assigned of any rank, but subordinate generals can't outrank him. He passes on a bonus to units in theatre that decreases depending on the number of subordinates assigned. Only units of a single theatre can be assigned to a battle plan to prevent major powers from concentrating their spearhead units under a single theatre commander even though they're on different continents.

With something like this we'd have direct command groups representing corps to army groups with theatre or army group commanders sitting above them. We already have theatres so it shouldn't be too hard to add in a commander. Its still very streamlined compared to HOI3 and it would give a player interesting choices to make - do I assign this fantastic Lt Gen to command 9 divisions, and only give a portion of his skill bonus to each one, or do I employ this crappy guy to take some of them so the better commander can more effectively command the remainder, or do I promote him and lose 1 skill point but increase his command limit?

 

[LordOfWar16]

@jamesd It would probably an good idea to limit the amount of divisions an field marshal can command to 100. That is still alot, but doesnt get too insane. Having 1 guy commanding the entire wehrmacht on his own seems a bit odd, especially if he is an real expert with 5 very strong skills. I get where they are comming from, since the previous system was a bit chaotic with all the different sizes of armies that different generals can command, but having it at 12 and 100 seems to be fine.

Atleast give me an reason to create the command group north and command group south at the eastern front.

 

[Snow Wolf]

Daniel is a weirdo who only draws 1 line as a battleplan. Does that declare battleplans as useless waste of time?

 

[Midden]

Have some convoys, no worries you can launch a huge D-Day like Amphibious invasion in 1941.

The same thing seems to transport trade goods and land tanks and troops on the beaches?

 

[theJ]

hrm...
I may not know the historical details of military organisation as well as you lot do, but I at least seem to "get" the game systems a heck of a lot better...
To wit;
*Assigning a hundred divisions to a field marshall does not mean he is the only commanding officer amongst those hundred divisions, nor that he is personally leading every last battalion into battle simultaneously - that would be both stupid and silly. It just means he is "in overall command", and the one to make the big fancy decisions on his front - including who serves under him. The full OOB is still there(kinda), it is just chosen and managed by the field marshall, rather than you - it is his command, his front, and his choice how the forces under him is to be organised. How good of a job he does setting up his OOB is shown via his skill and traits.

*The Germ-germ player did not set up just a single commander for his entire eastern front because it was the most effective way to organise said front, he did it because he prefered to play the game HoI1-3 style, personally ordering attacks rather than rely on the AI to choose the exact engagements. Considering A LOT of people have been asking if this is still possible, he might even have specifically played that way to alleviate fears(mission failed on that one, it seems). By contrast, take a look at the invasion of Poland in the earlier episodes(ep.3? 4?), and you will see that having larger command-rosters work just as well - arguably even better, since he would have more "optimised" bonuses for his various offensives.

*Leaving the artillery at home wasn't done "just" to increase organisation, but also(perhaps most importantly) to help with the supply issues caused by fighting russia in the winter. Once Germany no longer needed to worry about supplying tanks or artillery, they could turn their entire industrial capacity of 100+ factories(140?) pretty much exclusively towards the production of infantry and support equipment, thus keeping their soldiers fully supplied, despite the whole "fighting russia during the winter" thing.

With that out of the way, let's move on to the ACTUAL issues;
- The United Soviet Socialist Republics of Russia got their collective arses handed to them by masses of unsupported infantry. Even with the loss of competence following the Purge(did it even happen in this playthrough?), this should not be a thing.

- It was hardly noticable that Germany was getting bombed out by the RAF, in terms of both interface and actual impact on the fighting - I thought half the point of the schmancy new graphics were to give more direct feedback to the player. I.E. Why was western Europe not literally and VISUALLY shrouded in fire and smoke..?

- Once again, the minors seem... just a wee bit TOO minor. You would think crossing the mountains to the east of Turkey which I keep forgetting the name of would prove to be a hassle, and you would think the famed sisu of the Finns would work just as well against the Germs as it did versus the Fuzzy Hats, especially in a game where unsupported infantry is apparently kickass, and yet... only Sweden seemed to be putting up any meaningful resistance... huh...

- Combined arms seem weak. Kind of repetitive, I know, but at the end of the day, the Germans managed a number of HIGHLY successful campaigns despite aerial supremacy consistently going to their enemies(I think?), having few support battalions, very few armoured divisions, no real considerations for weather or season, and fighting on enemy soil. It's a matter of balance buring an alpha/beta, so I'll cut them some slack, but it's still noteworthy.


Lastly, I will say that I think the game could benefit from a yearly(bi-yearly?) newspaper feature in the vein of the Vicky2 one. Of course, in V2, this feature was kinda weak, mostly just giving you out-of-date information on things you already knew, but in HoI4, it could give you a glimpse of what the other nations are planning - articles pertaining to the chosen national focii, arms races and diplomatic deals, along with shady rumours hinting at secret projects(nukes, jets, computers, etc), troop movements(Red Army seen "practicing" on the borders of Estonia) and factory production(German government splurges on tractor development?)

 

[FOARP]

Exactly. Imagine if Germany has two commanders and the Soviets have too commanders. Its just silly and it makes it so the line either progresses, or doesn't. This is why divisions should have commanders. Changes nothing about hierarchy but adds more variables into the division vs division interplay at the province to province level. The devs replaced this interplay with unit experience, but the division leaders are a missed opportunity.

You seem, once again, to be assuming that a commander is required to order an individual division to do something: it isn't, you can order one or more units to do anything you like. You don't need divisional commanders to issue divisional commands.

@jamesd It would probably an good idea to limit the amount of divisions an field marshal can command to 100.

Why? Historically Field Marshals, acting as supreme commanders of a front, have commanded more than this.

There is a sense of inevitability about a proper OOB system being implemented in an expansion somewhere down the line.

In the sense of placing one general under another? Perhaps. In the sense that HOI3 had an OOB, no, I really doubt this.

There is no "charade", the system they've shown us appears far better than the one in HOI3 simply because it does not require continuous and deeply tiresome micro-management.

 

[Praetori]

- Combined arms seem weak. Kind of repetitive, I know, but at the end of the day, the Germans managed a number of HIGHLY successful campaigns despite aerial supremacy consistently going to their enemies(I think?), having few support battalions, very few armoured divisions, no real considerations for weather or season, and fighting on enemy soil. It's a matter of balance buring an alpha/beta, so I'll cut them some slack, but it's still noteworthy.

The truth is that early war the combined arms thing was less of importance compared to the mission-type-tactics and fast decentralized decision making. Only when the various nations got heavy integrated support-structures, coordinated artillery support and forward controllers for both artillery and aircraft being able to summon multiple battalions worth of firesupport did the combined arms truly become a tool no commander could do without.
Norway or the Fall of France were prime examples of how German Infantry, early war, through sheer training and decentralized command with clear objectives managed to outperform the opposition despite very little heavy support being able to be brought to effect.
It was not about the armored formations (even though these were pivotal in terms of maneuver-warfare) or the integrated artillery or active close-air-support (neither being more than occasionally used in Norway by the Germans) but operational and tactical freedom of maneuvering down to battalion-level that proved so efficient. What I think is the main problem with the build used for WWW might be is some bad AI stuff and too high strategic movement for infantry. 30-40km/day should be possible but not with any form of opposition or through unoccupied territory (you never know where the enemy might be at if you're at the very tip of the spear).

 

[jamesd]

hrm...
I may not know the historical details of military organisation as well as you lot do, but I at least seem to "get" the game systems a heck of a lot better...
To wit;
*Assigning a hundred divisions to a field marshall does not mean he is the only commanding officer amongst those hundred divisions, nor that he is personally leading every last battalion into battle simultaneously - that would be both stupid and silly. It just means he is "in overall command", and the one to make the big fancy decisions on his front - including who serves under him. The full OOB is still there(kinda), it is just chosen and managed by the field marshall, rather than you - it is his command, his front, and his choice how the forces under him is to be organised. How good of a job he does setting up his OOB is shown via his skill and traits.

*The Germ-germ player did not set up just a single commander for his entire eastern front because it was the most effective way to organise said front, he did it because he prefered to play the game HoI1-3 style, personally ordering attacks rather than rely on the AI to choose the exact engagements. Considering A LOT of people have been asking if this is still possible, he might even have specifically played that way to alleviate fears(mission failed on that one, it seems). By contrast, take a look at the invasion of Poland in the earlier episodes(ep.3? 4?), and you will see that having larger command-rosters work just as well - arguably even better, since he would have more "optimised" bonuses for his various offensives.

*Leaving the artillery at home wasn't done "just" to increase organisation, but also(perhaps most importantly) to help with the supply issues caused by fighting russia in the winter. Once Germany no longer needed to worry about supplying tanks or artillery, they could turn their entire industrial capacity of 100+ factories(140?) pretty much exclusively towards the production of infantry and support equipment, thus keeping their soldiers fully supplied, despite the whole "fighting russia during the winter" thing.

With that out of the way, let's move on to the ACTUAL issues;
- The United Soviet Socialist Republics of Russia got their collective arses handed to them by masses of unsupported infantry. Even with the loss of competence following the Purge(did it even happen in this playthrough?), this should not be a thing.

- It was hardly noticable that Germany was getting bombed out by the RAF, in terms of both interface and actual impact on the fighting - I thought half the point of the schmancy new graphics were to give more direct feedback to the player. I.E. Why was western Europe not literally and VISUALLY shrouded in fire and smoke..?

- Once again, the minors seem... just a wee bit TOO minor. You would think crossing the mountains to the east of Turkey which I keep forgetting the name of would prove to be a hassle, and you would think the famed sisu of the Finns would work just as well against the Germs as it did versus the Fuzzy Hats, especially in a game where unsupported infantry is apparently kickass, and yet... only Sweden seemed to be putting up any meaningful resistance... huh...

- Combined arms seem weak. Kind of repetitive, I know, but at the end of the day, the Germans managed a number of HIGHLY successful campaigns despite aerial supremacy consistently going to their enemies(I think?), having few support battalions, very few armoured divisions, no real considerations for weather or season, and fighting on enemy soil. It's a matter of balance buring an alpha/beta, so I'll cut them some slack, but it's still noteworthy.


Lastly, I will say that I think the game could benefit from a yearly(bi-yearly?) newspaper feature in the vein of the Vicky2 one. Of course, in V2, this feature was kinda weak, mostly just giving you out-of-date information on things you already knew, but in HoI4, it could give you a glimpse of what the other nations are planning - articles pertaining to the chosen national focii, arms races and diplomatic deals, along with shady rumours hinting at secret projects(nukes, jets, computers, etc), troop movements(Red Army seen "practicing" on the borders of Estonia) and factory production(German government splurges on tractor development?)

But the cream rises to the top, meaning your Field Marshals are generally going to be your highest skilled commanders, and as you drop down each level of command you're generally going to get less skilled lower level commanders. Having a skill 9 Field Marshal in command of hundreds of divisions, and granting all of them his massive full skill bonus, should be a huge exploit, but in HOI4 it will just be optimising play.

 

[Vukodav]

To me, HoI3 OOB was great. Complicated a bit, does not tell you what traits does an Army commander gives and what Corps commander gives (had to read that online or open the files). But it was realistic top-down command structure with all benefits and penalties of it. A good command structure could do miracles.

As OP said, if you can defeat Soviet union, with mostly infantry, one commander and a general order "Go East", no matter how experienced you are in the game, that is just dumb. Experience does not mean you can do the most stupid thing possible and win, but to know what must be done in order to win.

Experienced player would know where and how to use different types of units, commanders, where to push, where to hold, how to encircle, how to prioritize air power, sea power, to have in mind supply limitations. A green player would not.

If you could win over Soviets using mostly infantry (did he even have 10 armored divisions?! Let alone motorized?), and for your supply to work just fine in the URALS the game does not need a tweak here and there, it needs a total balance overhaul! Plus, while he waltzes through Soviet Union in less than a year with his infantry, his industry is turned to rubble... that he gets to repair to an extend it does not influence the war?! What is the point of bombing? 0o To walk over 3000km over Soviet Union (Berlin-Urals, in a straight line) with infantry and one commander... no, just no. No matter how experienced are you, no.

 

[Anichent]

You seem, once again, to be assuming that a commander is required to order an individual division to do something: it isn't, you can order one or more units to do anything you like. You don't need divisional commanders to issue divisional commands.

No I don't assume that at all. not sure why you think so.
I know you can issue divisional commands, I don't live under a rock.

I just think divisions fighting each other is much more fun and interesting with individual leaders with their own traits and skills, rather than being unified with tonnes of divisions all having the same commanders, regardless of their individual orders or management. It has nothing to do with the ability to micromanage or not. Its just a matter of more flavour and giving individual divisions more variety and giving them more of a role, like they had in HOI3.

You just totally misread what I said.

 

[Praetori]

If you could win over Soviets using mostly infantry (did he even have 10 armored divisions?! Let alone motorized?), and for your supply to work just fine in the URALS the game does not need a tweak here and there, it needs a total balance overhaul! Plus, while he waltzes through Soviet Union in less than a year with his infantry, his industry is turned to rubble... that he gets to repair to an extend it does not influence the war?! What is the point of bombing? 0o To walk over 3000km over Soviet Union (Berlin-Urals, in a straight line) with infantry and one commander... no, just no. No matter how experienced are you, no.

Well we don't know what commanders the USSR had or even the composition of their forces. It could actually be two minor tweaks being all that's required to have a totally different outcome.
Lowering a supply throughput by X and fixing something very minor with the AI could yield completely different results (as evident both by previous titles and by the dev-answers to the WWW discussion).