Compare/Contrast hoi3 and 4

[rust95]

It's one thing to make a suggestion for what you would want to see in the future and another totally thing to start making demands of what should have been in the game at release.

No demands being made here mate. Just stating I what I would have liked to see in the game. I cannot see how you or me knows what resources could have been spared or not spared. I do not have access to that information, i'm not sure you do either, so perhaps critique the substance of the argument (inclusion/exclusion of OOBs) rather than defending the resource allocation of resources that you have no knowledge of how they were allocated.

 

[Alex_brunius]

For me it seems quite obvious that the OOB is something they wanted in the game but didn't have resource to include at release since podcat has written he would love to see an OOB in HoI4 somewhere along the line multiple times on these forums.

I've been here since HoI2 and read every Dev Diary and probably most comments from the devs so far (which is alot of comments), so I feel I have a pretty good insight of how they reason by now.

I guess that does make me a bit biased and defensive of them, so I'm sorry I read demands into what you wrote when none where intended. Alot of people around these forums have been making alot of these demands lately, so I guess my reply was meant more generally.

 

[grandad1982]

Also, I don't agree with the assertion that people didn't enjoy swapping in and out leaders to their OOBs.

Well I assert that i hated it.

 

[Archie]

Unfortunately I love HOI3 OOB very much. In additional, if adding staff chief to Corps/Army etc is great. And I like the combat log for individual General in HOI2 a lot.

I, too, loved it; but... the micromanagement of having to work through stacks to join particular units (like adding arty to inf) was very time consuming.

 

[rust95]

Well I assert that i hated it.

Good for you bud!

 

[lihp]

Here you go, fixed that for you.
I have a feeling this is going to turn into a ten page arguement between which one was better. Like we needed more flame fuel.

Flames usually start with misinformation. "or even a reason to bother in first place" is such an example. Since OOB lead to bonusses all over the place, enablign to focus corps, armies, army groups,... on specific tasks the quote by @--Yigito123-- is plain wrong.

 

[lihp]

it was my opinion that Hoi3 was one of the worst programs ever put to code. I played it the week it came out, shelved it, and never played it again. that's how bad it was.

I know the ongoing love affair many in this community have for it, but these are mostly newcomers who are remembering the expansions, not the state it was released in.

Hoi4 is VASTLY superior, in my opinion, even in its current state, which is admittedly not perfect by any means.

"newcomers",... since I am a release date HOI3 user as well as HOI2 (and some HOI1 even), I disagree.

You did not like HOI3 - fine with me.

Apart from that, I still play HOI3 and imho HOI3 is VASTLY superior to HOI4.

PS:
1. HOI3 OOB out of range: Also the issues of OOB handling and out of range is not bad if you handle theatres on army level in HOI3. Actually you have no out of range issues then.
2. OOB commander setup is the huge advantage of players vs. AI in HOI3 - aye.
3. HOI3 with the two (real) DLCs TfH and FtM allows for a really great authentic modded experience via HPP or BICE.

 

[tommylotto]

I should sit this thread out because it opens old wounds. They are both great games made for different audiences that happen to have a lot of overlap. Hoi3 was an amazingly rich, deep, complex (but flawed) WWII simulator. HoiIV is a less complex, but no less deep, sandbox game with a WWII setting.

I don't run a game company. So, I don't have to worry about resource management, product roll out, budgets, market interest, or changing gamer demographics. I can only speak for myself and what I would have liked to see (which I understand is completely selfish and unrealistic). Hoi3 was never finished. I would have like to see the continued development of that game. Each expansion that was release was an entirely new game that built upon the original game, we could have used a few more. I love equipment manufacture and division recruitment in HoiIV and many other features are greatly improved. However, there are a bunch of features that didn't make it to HoiIV that I miss. I know podcat has stated that systems in Hoi3 were buggy, couldn't be fixed, and needed to be reworked from the ground up. Luckily, in my fantasy, I do not have to worry about that.

One of the best features about Hoi3 was that it was overwhelmingly complex, but you could automate the parts of the game that disinterested you. Not interested in espionage, automate it and the game will handle it for you. Not interested in trade, automate it and the game will handle trade for you. Not interested in assigning leaders to each division, automate it and the game will handle it (badly) for you. Instead of trashing divisional leaders altogether, they could have worked on the routine of assigning leaders by the AI so that it made more intelligent assignments. It knew enough to assign panzer leaders to armored divisions and mountaineers to mountain divisions. So, it could be done, then add periodic reassignment of leaders by the AI. I know that is a great amount of work and a complex system for something most players would just hand over to the AI and forget, but it goes along with my theory of the player being able to decide where he wants to micro and where he wants to automate. For the Soviet Union, microing divisional leaders would be overwhelming even for those with OCD, but for Argentina it could be cool to follow the carreer of Lt. General Juan Peron.

I liked the useless complexity of Hoi3, because it added flavor which I think is lacking in HoiIV at the moment.

 

[--Yigito123--]

Flames usually start with misinformation. "or even a reason to bother in first place" is such an example. Since OOB lead to bonusses all over the place, enablign to focus corps, armies, army groups,... on specific tasks the quote by @--Yigito123-- is plain wrong.

One, most of the times the bonuses were irrelevant against the AI since it absolutely sucked at using it and mostly assigned leaders at random. Two, none of the bonuses were even close to good enough for me to ever justify to myself that spending an hour untangling the default OOB (If the country has any; mostly only majors had one) to something sensible in game terms was ever worth it.

And the AI for the automatic control was so bad, I was driven to micromanaging my entire army (And keep in mind that I use the battle planner AI a lot in HoI4). Not that it mattered because the enemy AI was also completely braindead and you could roll over it with a one division thick 3-Inf 1-Art advancing wall without any more complex manuevers, no matter what country you were or who tue enemy was.

 

[The Balbinater]

You did not like HOI3 - fine with me.

oh believe me I'm not the only one who didn't like it. NONE of my friends or family bothered with HoI3. Not. One. even though many played and loved HoI2.

I remember having a coworker come over to playtest HoI3. after spending 15 minutes with it, and me telling him he couldn't declare war to see how the wars worked, he quit and never bought it. remember the whole espionage mechanic where you couldn't just declare war, you had to "spy" your way into conflict? Yeah, this. It cost this company money, literally.

 

[Aodhan_]

I loved Hearts of iron 3 but I love Hearts of Iron IV more . As for the OOB I had a love hate relationship with it, as in I loved it till I ran out of leaders then it just felt stupid .

 

[marcotam]

Aodhan_ , the mod "Free Commander" can help. It recruits a new level 1 general with 0 political point. It good to represent the new promoted general and avoid no assigned general to Army / Fleet.

 

[scroggin]

it was my opinion that Hoi3 was one of the worst programs ever put to code. I played it the week it came out, shelved it, and never played it again. that's how bad it was.

I know the ongoing love affair many in this community have for it, but these are mostly newcomers who are remembering the expansions, not the state it was released in.

Hoi4 is VASTLY superior, in my opinion, even in its current state, which is admittedly not perfect by any means.

From what I remember of HOI3 on release it was very unusual to get to 1939 without the game crashing HOI4 Ran far better on release with hardly any bugs compared to 3.

 

[Constans]

Adding on to the very well written descriptions of mechanics already presented: my personal opinion/2 cents is more on the line of HoI4 is 3 steps forward 1 step back.

The only mechanics from HOI3 that I well and truly believe would have made a great addition to HOI4 are the air/naval mechanics and resources. Having resources as a non-accruing item limits the economic/trade/diplomacy/espionage potential depth in the game.

Additionally, the air system is pretty disappointing with the "air zone" setup. This affects naval stuff a lot less... but for air it is just wacky to be able to have planes "teleport" over territory without risk of interception to reach deep into enemy territory. I know they're doing a big air overhaul, so hopefully they come up with a good solution.

I do also miss the immersion provided by the practical/theoretical research system and the OOB, but less and less as time goes on.

 

[lihp]

One, most of the times the bonuses were irrelevant against the AI since it absolutely sucked at using it and mostly assigned leaders at random. Two, none of the bonuses were even close to good enough for me to ever justify to myself that spending an hour untangling the default OOB (If the country has any; mostly only majors had one) to something sensible in game terms was ever worth it.

And the AI for the automatic control was so bad, I was driven to micromanaging my entire army (And keep in mind that I use the battle planner AI a lot in HoI4). Not that it mattered because the enemy AI was also completely braindead and you could roll over it with a one division thick 3-Inf 1-Art advancing wall without any more complex manuevers, no matter what country you were or who tue enemy was.

1. AI sucked at using commander bonusses and assigned leaders randomly - aye.
2. 60% supply reduction, 50%+ bonus against fortresses, 50%+ combined arms bonus,... good enough for me. I thought overpowered would fit more. But, hey if it is not good enough for you. Also reassigning theatre in eg. Germany HOI3 takes maybe 5 minutes. No clue what you did there. Your decision of course.
3. Micromanging - I mean hey, I know people who do, but actually it is imho easier to assign AI to armies and see the AI perform pretty well. Why again did you prefer HOI3 by micromanging in hardcore mode ?
4. Those times with simple roll-over in HOI3 are long gone.. But hey, whatever.

Everyone his flavor.

 

[AlanC9]

oh believe me I'm not the only one who didn't like it. NONE of my friends or family bothered with HoI3. Not. One. even though many played and loved HoI2.

I remember having a coworker come over to playtest HoI3. after spending 15 minutes with it, and me telling him he couldn't declare war to see how the wars worked, he quit and never bought it. remember the whole espionage mechanic where you couldn't just declare war, you had to "spy" your way into conflict? Yeah, this. It cost this company money, literally.

You mean neither of you thought of loading a scenario where he could declare a war?

 

[The Balbinater]

You mean neither of you thought of loading a scenario where he could declare a war?

/facepalm

you mean that's all I had to do to make a game I had to pay serious cash for to actually run and be playable! oh man I should have thought of that!

why didn't one of you guys say something about this in 2009?

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

/facepalm

you mean that's all I had to do to make a game I had to pay serious cash for to actually run and be playable! oh man I should have thought of that!

why didn't one of you guys say something about this in 2009?

It's never too late

I had my first game of HoI III about two years ago and it was a great experience. Well, after the obligatory 6 hours of figuring out what the heck I am supposed to do
But that's part of the fun, imho.
HoI IV is the first one which let's you jump into action more or less immediately.

So as an addition to this topic: HoI IV is far more beginner friendly. The UI still has its flaws, some of them are really bad, but over all you gain control of what's going on way faster even without a wiki. The tutorial is indeed very basic, but has a scenario and is sufficient to give you a round up so you can figure out the rest by yourself (or wiki/youtube/forum).

Was there actually a tutorial in HoI III besides of "This button is for x, that button is for y"?

 

[rjohansen]

The OOB of HOI3 easy fix for the AI could be:

• Unlimited range - that is, if Paradox weren't able to make an AI that could handle it well enough. A simple solution in my opinion, that would work. A better AI would of course be better, but it is most important to not punish the AI.

But this is one of the main things I miss from HOI3 and one (of a couple more) reasons I prefer HOI3 over HOI4. I would have hoped they would improve upon the game and the OOB, not remove features altogether when they made HOI4. HOI went from feeling like a WW2 game to feel like a random RTS game where you push out tiny soldiers on a map.

Some suggestions:

• Bring back the full OOB, but improve upon it
  • Unlimited units in a corps/army/army group - but with a negative effect if going over X number or something similar. Just to be able to recreate historical numbers.
  • Easier to swap units from one corps to another, from one divisions to another etc.
    • For instance if minor units: unit disappears from the original division and turn up in the new division later (traveltime) - with lost org. If an entire Divisions, just move normally along roads/railroads.
  • Attach units directly at different level. For instance artillery attached at a Corps level would help out all the divisions in that corps, same goes with Army, Army Group etc.
• OOB for Navy/Air as well. Especially air is missing in HOI4 as there are just a numbers game now. No wings, no divisions or corps or anything. Just bland numbers.

I just miss the feeling that they are "real" units, not just a tiny soldier running around doing push-ups. And you just change the template and suddenly all of your divisions change. Where are the regiments? The battalions? Names, feeling and flavor.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Other fun things with HoI3.

It seems that maybe air units in HoI3 never actually consumed any fuel at all ( which would help explain the abundance of fuel )

It was also not until the second expansion that it was discovered and corrected that toughness ( same as HoI4 breakthrough ) and defense never worked at all, making half the techs impacting all land units basically do nothing.


More complex isn't always only better