Top discussion in this thread, from both sides - I think it's a good sign that we shouldn't be overly worried about the community as a whole, even if some folk do get a bit emotional at times
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Nonono, I meant that HOI4's AI should be superior to HOI3's AI as it stands now, as they have a finished game in HOI3, and they could just use things they learnt there. Now, I know the developers rebuilt the game pretty much from scratch instead of making HOI3+, but that doesn't change that the average consumer who has played HOI3 would probably expect that HOI4 be strictly better. I'm not going to try to justify this expectation, but merely that it exists and is relatively common, hence why people are disappointed at the game.
There's no rule as to what someone's expectation should be, but I think I posted pre-launch that I was happy pre-ordering because I was interested in seeing the game 'grow' from the start, warts and all. I've been playing computer strategy games for a long time (I started in the 1980s, and I'd rather not be reminded how long ago that is now
), and the only strategy games where the AI 'at the start' was better than the previous iteration of the game 'at the finish' were those with very gradual iterative improvements between one release and the next (which was far more common in the pre-downloadable expansion days). Since DLC, most 'new' iterations of a 'grand' strategy game tend to involve significant reworks of at least some of the systems involved, such that the AI 'at launch' of the new game isn't as good (as in, is noticeably worse) than it's predecessor. Examples that I can think of, off the top of my head, include Civ V and Gal Civ III, where the launch AI was a significant step backward of their predecessors. I can't think of a single strategy game franchise where a new entry that involved significant mechanics reworks was superior to its predecessor.
In other words, if one looked at strategy games more broadly*, expecting the new game's AI at launch to be better than the old ones after it's development cycle had finished was pretty optimistic to say the least. Of course, we've all got a right to hold whatever expectations we want, but some will lead to more heartache than others
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* And not just strategy games, I'd argue Killzone 3's AI was a step backwards from Killzone 2's.
What? The AI is well above average? Sadly I didn´t made a screenshot of my last game, the SOV AI had no Divisions on the german/polish border, even after i started a normal war justification, no Divs in sight. I conquered the SOV in two months.
I prepared in 1944 for a epic sealion, crushed the RN and a US CV Task Force in the channel with thousands of NAVs and the Kriegsmarine and landed in Dover with 10 tank Divisions and 10 Paratrooper Divs. Guess what happened? The british had 10 Divs in UK proper, the Allied US (450 DIvisions) was sightseeing in NA and India.
I'm not saying HoI4's AI doesn't have issues - anything but - I'm saying
for a WW2 GSG it's above average. What you described to me above could happen in HoI3. I can't recall details of HoI2 beyond Germany throwing itself on the Maginot and naval invasion issues, but I do recall finding it hard to go back to HoI2 because HoI3's AI (in all it's messiness) was significantly better. The other WW2 GSGs out there (Making History, Supreme Ruler 1936, etc) also have pretty atrocious AI.
I am not saying AI should pull Rommel on me, although if it could from time to time amass 20 odd divisions in one point of a frontline and try to push I think it would blown people away. It certainly is much better now.
Dunno about that above average AI, HoI3's seemed a lot more cutthroat than HoI4 one. I got into it fairly late (and clock only dozens of hours) but I cannot recall problems with unit shuffling, accidental troop transport across the body of water or troubles with taking empty provinces (now eliminated thankfully),
Back with HoI3, I could invade a Europe controlled by a Germany that had been conquered by the USSR as Australia, and push them back and win (and taking Japan was a walk in the park). It's far, far harder to accomplish this in HoI4*. There are areas where HoI4 is easier (there are currently issues with the Eastern Front balance, the HoI series toughest but most important nut to crack) but on balance, I think HoI4 does more things better than HoI3 does. That said, I'm not trying to turn this into an AI thread - more that the HoI4 AI was above average for a WW2 GSG. It could still be worse than HoI3 and get a tick in this box.
* Noting that I don't cheese - I'm well aware that with enough cheese it's possible to do all sorts of things in both .
Well, your reason may differ to other's reasons. I believe that some portion of the playerbase is at least somehow bitter at Paradox for not fixing their problems, and hence use this forum to voice their displeasure at the state of the game (venting or otherwise). Who are we to stop them? Sure, it doesn't help things, and it's not nice, but why justification do you have for banning their expressing their negative opinion? Besides, I believe that if a significant portion of the playerbase voiced their anger (politely or otherwise), Paradox will be forced to address their concerns.
I wouldn't say it's our responsibility to stop them (and no-one's saying negative opinions should be banned, just expressed respectfully), but too much of that kind of venting is actively harmful for the emotional development of those people, so not discouraging them is letting them come to harm. Humans, sadly (or perhaps not sadly - I wonder what a rational human society would look like?) are not rational, and our brains develop through what we do. If we spend all our time spouting off and not thinking things through, then generally that's what we keep doing - and as a life skill, it's not a particularly helpful one (even on the internet it's not very productive, and IRL it's positively harmful). That said, this is waaaayyyyy off topic
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Oh and can't believe Axe99 frequented the CoD forums
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Haha, strategy has always been my favourite genre (and Paradox amongst my favourite devs once I'd discovered them), but I used to play a lot of different types of games once upon a time
. I actually thought CoD (back when I played it) was a very good game, although the quality of the game contrasted somewhat with the average quality of the person that played it!
