Deepening your immersion

[Lifthrasil]

What do you do/what can we do to deepen the immersion in the game? That is, to create emotional stakes in how we succeed there?

What I usually do is:
- naming some units after certain things and follow their fate. For example "this is the division my grandfather historically fought in"; "this division was raised and named after my hometown", "this division is called Panzer Lehr Division and it shall have elite status" ect.
- Composing a structured and historical-ish OOB (only partly possible anymore)
- Having certain commanders that I declare special for arbitrary reasons (maybe Rommel because he was historically important, or Franz Hübeldübel because I said so)

A) What do you do to deepen your immersion in your games?

PDX is supporting immersion a fair bit by making it possible to name your units, to gain fighter Aces, to create elite-divisions and by leveling up of units and commanders.

B) What could PDX do to improve immersionability even better?

 

[JoyAndMisery]

B) What could PDX do to improve immersionability even better?

• Reenable the OOB function. They said most people were overburdened with it and found it too hard to organize. Fair enough. Remove the bonuses gotten from the OOB but leave the function as a mean of organizing (and naming) your forces. Result: You can use the OOBs but you have not to.
• Correct naming and pictures of leaders, politicans etc.
• Correct Unitmodels
• Vanity Events to describe and catch the sentiment of the population.

Thats what comes to mind first.

 

[77Hawk77]

For Hoi3, i made an inhouse custom start immersion mod, so that if all techs were up to date you would use the correct equipment and tanks

Its hard to say what can be done in Hoi4 before we really get to play with imo, I think being able to buy and sell equipment is the only feature i can think of that would really be important to me, everything else seems very immersive as it is.

 

[Fulmen]

Mod some things to be more historical.

 

[helgur]

What do you do/what can we do to deepen the immersion in the game? That is, to create emotional stakes in how we succeed there?

Oh my sweet summer child.

It's better to get this straight and out in the open right away. This game isn't about immersion. This game is about gasping in awe of what kind of crazy ideas the AI conjures up during sandbox (and to some extent historical) playthroughs. Like fascist Britain dropping paratroops in Nova Scotia. Or Stalin staging a communist coup in Papa New Guinea. Or the great German anschluss of Iceland for more lebensraum in 1938.

If the sky is the limit, who needs "immersion"

 

[Imminentstorm]

What I would love is some kind of unit history tracker. It would be cool to click on a division and get a history of the battles it fought in, how many losses its taken, etc...

I thought it was cool in HOI3 being able to see the list of sunk ships for each ship in the navy, so I hope that is kept in some form.

This game is about gasping in awe of what kind of crazy ideas the AI conjures up during sandbox (and to some extent historical) playthroughs.

Yeah, the emergent stories are cool as well. Like in my Turkey (joined Axis) HOI3 BICE campaign where I influenced the Spanish State to join the Axis hoping they would take Gibraltar. However, before the Spanish could take it, the Brazilians landed an army there and transferred the units to the British. As the Spanish were falling back, the Finns sent an army in to help. However, most of the Finnish army was comprised of German expeditionary forces. So you had Brazillians under British command fighting Germans under Finnish command ... in Spain.

 

[Intercept]

I thought it was cool in HOI3 being able to see the list of sunk ships for each ship in the navy, so I hope that is kept in some form.

I really really hope they do, i loved that feature.

 

[JoyAndMisery]

I really really really hope they do, i loved that feature.

And the chart for sunken IC (now tonnage?) by convoy rading. that was awesome as germany

 

[helgur]

Yeah, the emergent stories are cool as well. Like in my Turkey (joined Axis) HOI3 BICE campaign where I influenced the Spanish State to join the Axis hoping they would take Gibraltar. However, before the Spanish could take it, the Brazilians landed an army there and transferred the units to the British. As the Spanish were falling back, the Finns sent an army in to help. However, most of the Finnish army was comprised of German expeditionary forces. So you had Brazillians under British command fighting Germans under Finnish command ... in Spain.

Nobody expects the Finnish led, German driven, Spanish inquisition, contained by the Brazilians under the guise of their British overlords.

To be fair, and I am going to use an analogy here: Say you have managed to bring back the ancient dinosaurs back to life. The safest and most comfortable thing would be to drive your T-Rex on railroad through town for everyone to look at. But the most interesting thing, by far is to just let the T-Rex loose and see what really happens. (The T-Rex here being HoI AI ofc).

 

[jalapen0]

Nobody expects the Finnish led, German driven, Spanish inquisition, contained by the Brazilians under the guise of their British overlords.

To be fair, and I am going to use an analogy here: Say you have managed to bring back the ancient dinosaurs back to life. The safest and most comfortable thing would be to drive your T-Rex on railroad through town for everyone to look at. But the most interesting thing, by far is to just let the T-Rex loose and see what really happens. (The T-Rex here being HoI AI ofc).

+1 for saying T-Rex and HOI in the same paragraph.

 

[GermanPower]

Honestly HOI4 looks 1,000 times more immersive. The idea of mods and suggestion are certainly going to pump it up. Mostly with filling out minors. That's my suggesting. Having every nation have its own units and etc. First. I mean after that lots of add ins of feature would be kick butt.

Secondly I'm like 95% sure this is what you mean.

Very immersive.

 

[RGN-JohnSnow]

I thought it was cool in HOI3 being able to see the list of sunk ships for each ship in the navy, so I hope that is kept in some form.

I love that. I always found like one heavy cruiser i had had since like 36 that had racked up a ton of kills and survived the war

 

[GermanPower]

The losses of air, tanks, and troops in Darkest Hour was one of my favorites. I really hope they have that. Really detailed information.

 

[Constans]

Yeah, in a custom game start as Republican Spain, I joined the allies and with my Fleet absolutely smashed the Axis navy.

I had one battleship that managed to sink the Italian "pride of the navy" twice and the German pride once.

 

[KalZakath]

To deepen my immersion, am building a replica of a Tiger tank in the back yard, fully wired with the gaming computer for an engine. I'll climb into the tank and drive it around a bit before each session. Unfortunately for my neighbors, I plan to fire the main gun every time my troops need support to break through the enemy line. Did I mention that I play late at night?

 

[MarcoRossolini]

Oh, immersion is no problem, I'll just hang a view of St Basil's in Moscow in my window and I'm there!

 

[Aries666]

What gets my immersed and wasting far too much of my free time are solid games mechanics that present you with genuine choices and ways to play. Cosmetic stuff is all pretty meh for me and this could certainly be a minority opinion.