notenome2 said:
No oh god no.
...
Now when it comes to HOI2, doing away with events and adopting the EU3 game design paradigm would be especially disastrous. For one thing it defies expectations. If Im playing as the USSR, I expect to be invaded by Germany in 41, and that requires a whole host of events to occur (Molotov Ribbentrop pact, anexation of Poland, the German victory on the western front). If I'm playing the US, I expect to start out with a messed up economy (or else the US would dominate from the very beginning) and I expect Pearl Harbor to occur. This applies to all major countries. Some of these things could be done without events, but there are limits to what a dynamic system can do and it only takes one link to be broken that the whole thing goes bonkers and player expectations get frustrated.
Furthermore, events make things interesting for those who are playing minor countries. Instead of just playing a bit role, events create contextual challenges and flavor that reward someone playing as Brazil etc without requiring them to go on a ahistorical binge. They can be very informative and entertaining. I remember picking different countries I knew little about just so I could learn what it was like to play as them.
Im gonna cut this short since this is already a mighty big wall of text. If Paradox does decide to go the EU3 route, inevitably what will happen is that a large portion of the fanbase will pick it up, quickly put it down, and then wait for CORE3 to be released. A shame.
Mierin said:
I think this would satisfy most of us looking for a close mirroring of history. What would worry me more is if HOI3 has the more random generic missions/decisions you see in EU3 that are actually meaningful. Like England randomly getting the invade Scotland vs Normandy vs Ireland missions. If the missions/decisions can preserve the same flow of history we saw from events in HOI2 while giving more sensible reactions from the AI when the player takes things ahistorical (or unexpected swings in battle like along the eastern front occur) then awesome. If it ends up more like EU3 with the vast majority of games not even remotely looking like history and due to no major input of the player, then its more worrisome.
The problem is if the game doesn't have something which "defies expectations" then there isn't really a game at all. You may as well just read a history book if the game exactly follows history. There has to be some way of changing history, for good or bad.
What I see is people who want to keep the "good" Events, the Events that benefit them, but nothing else.
notenome2 you play as the Soviet Union and you expect to fight Germany. Do you expect to lose half of your army when they invade in 1941? Surely there should be an Event which fires in June 1941 that destroys all of your airforce? It's what happened IRL, so surely there should be an Event that makes sure it takes place, just in case you've spent 1936 to 1941 creating a strong airforce that can take on the Luftwaffe on an equal footing, because that would be ahistoric.
People who play as Germany want the Events to annex Austria and the Sudetenland, etc. But who would want the following Events
January 1943, "Stalingrad Disaster: The 6th Army has surrendered..."
September 1943, "Italy signs an Armistice with the Allies..."
August 1944, "Rumania joins the Allies..."
How can the game be a "mirroring of history" but allow players to choose to play as Austria, Poland, Norway, Belgium... What would be the point?
The first significant event that occurred in 1936 was the Spanish Civil War. I can't think how this might be dealt with except by an HOI2-type Event that triggers on a certain date. There has to be something which causes the Nationalists to come into being as an alternative government, controlling provinces, controlling it's own armed forces and being able to carry out diplomatic actions. I can't see anything other than Event can split the country between Nationalists and Republicans and put them at war.
But once that happens, why should there be a German Condor Legion Event? If the German player can support the Nationalists within the normal diplomatic and military arrangements in the game, then why not? Germany can send air units against the Republicans, and Italy can send troops. It is not ahistoric. Except that in HOI2 this can only be done with a formal DoW of the Republicans and an alliance with Nat.Spain.
And from there comes the "butterfly effect":
A butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not cause the tornado, the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado.
A tiny change from June 1936, because of a weakness in the HOI2 diplomatic model and this brings Nat.Spain into the Axis, which is ahistoric. The results of this are that the Axis can sit back and let the historic Events fire and prepare for war in 1939, taking no consequences for an open violation of the Non-Intervention Agreement in the Spanish Civil War, for threatening UK interests in the Mediterranean, and for creating a potential enemy on France's southern border. The AI-controlled UK and France continue to act passively until Poland is invaded, because there is no Event to tell them otherwise.
Then as soon as War begins, the Axis can sieze Gibraltar, and from there things spiral rapidly. Combined Spanish and Italian Naval forces can take on the UK Navy in the Mediterranean, which now can't easily be reinforced from the UK. This can lead to a situation where Malta falls and there is little or no interruption to supply convoys to Libya. This (combined with weaknesses in the HOI2 logistics model) and a combined Italian/German force in Libya can successfully invade Egypt and capture Alexandria and the Suez Canal. From there, the remaining UK naval forces remaining in the Eastern Mediterranean can easily be defeated.
Now we have no Operation Torch with the Allies landing in Vichy France controlled North Africa, no invasion of Sicily or Italy, etc. And Rommel's dreams of threatening the Middle East oilfields become a reality...
In EUIII the game covers hundreds of years. Clearly it would be almost impossible to write scripted actions covering a period this long. But even if Paradox did, choices made by the player (who can play any country and start at any date) can quickly make any scripts seem stupid. How can you have a script which fires for the Act of Union between England and Scotland, if Scotland doesn't happen to have the same King as England in 1707? Or a script that the End of the Reconquista in Spain comes in 1492 with the surrender of Grenada, or a script to Discover the New World in the same year, if the King of Aragorn (Ferdinand) had not married the Queen of Castile (Isabel)? What happens if instead a human-player Grenada has made an alliance with other countries and has already annexed the provinces of Aragorn and Castile? And, if that happens, then Henry VIII of England doesn't subsequently marry Catherine of Aragorn, and England doesn't go Protestant after an argument with the Pope in 1533 after Henry divorced her.
So, of course, the Missions in EUIII can seem quite generic, and some oddly ahistoric things can occur. Anyone who expects otherwise are inevitably disappointed. But that doesn't mean the system is fundamentally flawed, and that it can't be made to work over a much shorter historical period, and with a Political System which doesn't exist in EUIII.
kstanb said:
HOI was great precisely because of those events that "allowed" the AI to start WW2 and also gave flavor to the game.
Please don't mess with a system that works well. HOI timeframe is only 12 years, so, having the kind of outcomes you see in EU3 like unrealistic alliances, unrealistic wars, long periods of peace, crazy expansions, will ruin the game.
The dynamic EU3 style works when you have 300 years to play, not with only 12
Obviously, the opposite is the case. It is far easier to write a set of scripts that drive the major protaganists existing in 1936 into War sooner or later, exactly because the period is so much shorter.
contecorti said:
I personally think that events are really needed and add a lot of flavour to this game, and i'm also for dynamic events not scripted one. I personally don't want though to play a game with UK and Germany allied vs USA and Italy, because i want to play a game about WWII not a fictional one so i really hope that a lot of historical events are included and above everything else every country has a specific AI so they behave like they did in WWII.
By what means can a democratic UK ally with a fascist Germany? Of course, I've read the AAR's, and accept that there is a remote chance if certain historical events had happened differently. But they did not, and in 1936 Germany was set on a collision course with the UK, even if Hitler somehow hoped differently. By what means can a democratic USA ally with a fascist Italy? In 1936-41 USA public opinion was against involvement in Europe, and especially against getting involved in any war. Yet Italy was set on a course of war with it's neighbours.
Paradox don't have to write scripts to cover "what if's" for a fascist USA, or a communist UK etc., because it is reasonable to assume that in the period covered by HOI3 that is not going to happen. But if the game was to start in 1900 instead, then clearly a much wider range of possibilities could have occurred, and it would be much more difficult for anything like the IRL WWII to occur. Modders can write scripts for ahistoric scenarios, but Paradox don't have to.
In my view, the whole issue is the carrot or stick question. Should there be HOI-type Events that FORCE certain things to happen, or EUIII-type Missions/Decisions that ENCOURAGE the parties to carry out certain actions, so that a more dynamic AI occurs. The answer is surely: both!
As I've already explained, some things just can't be reproduced by the normal systems in the game, such as the Spanish Civil War, so there will always be a need for HOI2-type Events. But once that Event fires, then you don't need a Condor Legion Event, you can have Missions that encourage the fascist nations to support Nat.Spain. You can be nearly certain that an AI controlled Germany and/or Italy will choose to try to fullfil those Missions. But if they go too far, and their relations with the UK/France deteriorate, then I don't see why this can't trigger changes in UK/France internal politics that makes war more certain. And while I don't think it should be a high chance, there has to be the possibility that Germany and/or Italy might end-up in a War before 1939.
But there can be no doubt that War will occur. Sooner or later, Germany will want to reclaim its core provinces in Poland and the UK/France will want to protect Poland. But rather than a Danzig Event, Germany would get a Mission to take control of Danzig. An AI-controlled fascist Germany with a high belligerence should accept that Mission. But of course, it's possible that Germany might not do so. If you are playing the Soviet Union what's the problem with that - you don't need to worry about a two-front war with Germany and Japan, and you can invade Manchuria, ally with Comm.China, etc. But then, once you've committed 100 divisions in the Far East, probably Germany might reconsider that Danzig mission. Even though there has been no M-R Pact, they might decide they can invade Poland without it leading to an immediate war with the Soviets. So, while it might be 1940/41 there will still be an invasion of Poland and war between Germany and the Allies.
Ah, Soviet two-front war with Germany and Japan...
Wasn't the most asked question in the HOI2 forums "how do I defeat the Soviets as Germany", and the answer is to cheat (by firing the Bitter Peace Event from the console) or to "legitimately" get the Event to fire in an ahistoric invasion of Siberia by Japan, and capture of Vladivostok. Don't pretend there is "close mirroring of history" in nearly every game of HOI2, because IRL the Soviet Union had a Non-Agression Pact with Japan, and this was honoured by Japan even after it joined the Axis and Germany was at War with the Soviets. But in HOI2 the diplomatic model can't conceive of this occurring, because HOI2 thinks you can't be at war with one member of an alliance and not with every other member, so HOI2 always leads to an ahistoric game. And just to make sure, if an AI-controlled Japan is a bit lazy about attacking Vladivostok, then a human-player can take Military Control of Japan. Hahaha, that's "close mirroring of history" - Japanese Generals taking orders from Berlin, instead of their own Emperor. Yeah, right!
The truth is everyone who plays the game wants an ahistoric outcome. But some want "their" ahistoric outcome, not a slightly random ahistoric outcome.
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