Commandos and partisans

[Tomski26]

Seeing that both Commandos and partisans had a significant impact on the war, particularly in Europe, I was wondering how they were going to be implemented in HOIIV? Perhaps a simple strategic model representing covert or guerrilla operations would be cool, something that affected the enemy's infrastructure, IC, manpower etc.They could also be used for intelligence gathering or for more ambitious targets such as heavy water facilities or naval bases (commandos here). I hope that paradox has something in mind for resistance and special forces in HOIV, it really wouldn't be WWII without them

 

[Adonnus]

I really hope this aspect is improved. In HOI3 all we got were "underground resistances" and partisans really did a lot more than pop up and get blown to bits which is what happens to the underground resistance militias.

 

[Axe99]

Aye, agreed . I just had a random thought, may not be much chop, but here it is in case useful

- With Commandos/raiders/that kind of thing, you could commit manpower and IC to a some kind of raider unit (or potentially multiple), that had a base that could be moved around like a unit, with a range. Using a Battleplan-like system, you could then plan a raid on a suspected piece of enemy infrastructure (a harbour, factory, nuclear reactor, infrastructure, etc, where the amount of time required to plan the raid takes a fair amount of time (the raids didn't happen very often, and tended to be fairly expensive in terms of cost/number of troops involved), and you can't start planning until the unit is back up to strength. You'd need some kind of way of the game determining chance of success or failure (and then a way of communicating this in a broad but not exact sense to the player, with more/less precision based on their national dogs' SIGINT skills), and then have at it. If there's some kind of battleplan discovery mechanism in the game (hinted at in a GC interview by Podcat), you could also have the potential for the country being raided to know it was coming, and turn the whole thing into a disaster for the raiders.

No thoughts on partisans beyond improving it would be a good thing .

 

[SpanglishEmpire]

To do partisans with the map style we work with, The partisan would need to be able to made invisible, So they cannot just be crushed by the ai/player instantly.

If you develop a partisan force it stays off map until you decide to employ it to attack or sabotage something then it can have the option to disperse again, The player would then know that partisans are operating in that region so would need to move police units there to suppress them.

Maybe over time suppression could reveal the location of the enemy forces so you can plan an attack to destroy them, With Tito in Yugoslavia the Germans knew they were operating from a certain area in and around a village so attacked the village to take out the radio station then moved on the main base. This took them a while to find out through capturing other partisans who gave up the locations so in the end they knew exactly where to drop the paras and gliders so they could storm the radio building quickly.

Though to make partisan worthwhile they really need something to attack, Just destroying province inf is not going to be rewarding or worthwhile same goes with taking out a resource. Maybe a synthetic refinery being destroyed would be a suitable target and actually affect the war effort.

 

[Secret Master]

I really hope this aspect is improved. In HOI3 all we got were "underground resistances" and partisans really did a lot more than pop up and get blown to bits which is what happens to the underground resistance militias.

Since they did a lot more than that in HOI3, I'm not sure what the problem is.

1) Partisans had a significant impact on supply. So much, in fact, that human players running the Axis powers often used collaboration government to the exclusion of all other occupation policies. Sure, some players ran with military government, but I can't think of a single good player that consistently uses total exploitation when still in the middle of a major campaign like Barbarossa. The impact on logistics from enraged partisans made pissing off the population of occupied countries a losing strategy.

2) TFH had covert ops points, and many players made good use of them to speed up or slow down advances. You can get some insane speed in advances by coupling covert ops with the right kinds of divisions (I don't abuse it like this for obvious reasons, but it works like a charm).

3) URs didn't just "pop up and die" in HOI3. URs provide accurate intel on the province in which they exist. Carpeting occupied France with URs before Overlord, even if the French Resistance never fires a shot, provides a very accurate picture of German movements and troop dispositions in the area. No need to abuse bombers to get ahistorical "bombing intel" when you have infested occupied countries with URs.

4) URs, when properly used in mass uprisings that are timed properly with major offensives, work wonders. Sure, individual UR units that spawn get defeated as the enemy reacts to them, but you can't SR through occupied territory. Furthermore, panzers stopping to fight spawned URs aren't able to react quickly to your invasion. Not only that, but they take supplies from the enemy in the province they occupy, making a mess of the enemy's supply network. There's nothing quite like arming the French and Polish countryside and spawning a mass uprising while you launch Operation Overlord or Bagration, and watching the German response get mired in URs while you break through.

Now, you can abuse UR mass uprisings to spoof the AI, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about having my forces within 5-10 provinces of the mass uprising and advancing steadily. The units on the front aren't even allowed to disengage and retreat to chase URs (remember, I'm trying to encircle and destroy them), but the units behind the line are stuck in combat with the URs and could not even plug holes in the front if the AI were so inclined.

While I'm all for making things better, I cannot understand it when people claim the previous mechanics did nothing.

EDIT: Oh, and the partisan impact on supply and URs could be dealt with by suppression units, so it's not like they were overpowered, either. You want to suppress partisan activity? There's a division for that.

 

[Adonnus]

Well, I never understood the HOI3 supply system so... it didn't make any sense so I just kept switching it to arcade mode Besides, the main reason I used the collaboration govt was for manpower, which adds up if you conquer France, Ukraine Poland etc. Maybe if I had a useful list of supply values and modifiers like in HOI2 and that game's "transport capacity" I'd be able to make more sense of it but I've never found such a thing.

I think if there was some way of simulating troop losses as well, for example when you send security divisions to the rear in anti-partisan roles, if say the partisan presence in that province is higher they will take gradually greater losses without necessarily making it into a regular battle. The reason I think the partisan system needs to be improved is that partisans in WW2 can't be properly represented by conventional warfare ie. this unit attacks this unit on the map.

They might be useful for some things, but when you spawn an UR they do indeed "pop up and die" unless they are exceptionally close to your forces, in which case you mightn't have bothered making them at all. Essentially they're a suicide unit unless you have so many of them that they can fight and win, when you may as well just be making more infantry divisions etc. They may be useful, but partisans weren't sent by the Allied generals to their deaths for minor intelligence and logistics gains...(Well, Stalin probably did.)

Basically I think if HOI4 used a % type system per province or region, maybe a little like revolt risk and its effects in EUIV for example it would be more realistic rather than trying to simulate partisan warfare with conventional military formations on the map. The only partisan units that turned into a real conventional army that I can think of was Tito's partisans near the end of the war, and the Warsaw Uprising etc and these can probably be simulated via events. (Perhaps converting the % of partisans into a number of militia divisions?)

 

[wingo]

There was also Slovak national uprising, which secured half of Slovakia, was 78 000 men strong at its height and included part of the Slovak military including 2 well armed divisions, entire easern Slovak air force and the former chief of staff of the Slovak Ground Forces. Plan was good and would have secured most of Slovakia (the part with best defensive terrain) and link it with the Red Army, unfortunately critical parts went badly and the uprising ultimately failed. Good read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_National_Uprising

Too bad HOI has no event for this and unrealistically you cant support partisans there because it is a puppet loyal to the end, although Germans had to effectively occupy Slovakia to keep puppet government in charge (this was probably true for all German puppets and allies except Japan after they began loosing, but is not simulated in HOI, probably because it would make the German collapse too fast and easy if nothing else was changed...).

 

[telesien]

There was also Slovak national uprising, which secured half of Slovakia, was 78 000 men strong at its height and included part of the Slovak military including 2 well armed divisions, entire easern Slovak air force and the former chief of staff of the Slovak Ground Forces. Plan was good and would have secured most of Slovakia (the part with best defensive terrain) and link it with the Red Army, unfortunately critical parts went badly and the uprising ultimately failed. Good read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_National_Uprising

Too bad HOI has no event for this and unrealistically you cant support partisans there because it is a puppet loyal to the end, although Germans had to effectively occupy Slovakia to keep puppet government in charge (this was probably true for all German puppets and allies except Japan after they began loosing, but is not simulated in HOI, probably because it would make the German collapse too fast and easy if nothing else was changed...).

There is really no need to simulate everything. We also freed ourselves before Soviets arrived, but it is game, so even when it was obvious that Germany will be defeated after the battle of Kursk (and maybe even sooner), you can't allow the players to have it that easy

 

[Secret Master]

I wouldn't mind if puppets were more restive.

As for Czech areas, I wouldn't mind if cores were reconsidered. Sometimes in HOI3, countries get cores to simplify gameplay, even when it wouldn't make historical sense. This can cause odd things to happen.

 

[Adonnus]

I wouldn't mind if puppets were more restive.

As for Czech areas, I wouldn't mind if cores were reconsidered. Sometimes in HOI3, countries get cores to simplify gameplay, even when it wouldn't make historical sense. This can cause odd things to happen.

IIRC a large amount of Tito's partisans were actually from the areas owned by "Croatia" so I think this would be a good thing.

 

[SpanglishEmpire]

IIRC a large amount of Tito's partisans were actually from the areas owned by "Croatia" so I think this would be a good thing.

Never read a break down of where they were from but they were rumored to number 250k partisans.