Developer Diary 12 – Military

[Johan]

what? Such a great DD and changes and then ruin it with this.
I hope your are kidding.

org

 

[unmerged(71032)]

like the Somme?

Wrong example.

Basically, if you allow both sides throw superbig armies at each other, you will get too high death rate, ending up in fast loss of the one side, which in turn will allow it to take over the province. And since the losing side will permanently lose wiped up regiments, it will end up in snowball effect, with bloody battles at the start, but faster and faster resolutions later.

Unless of course you keep frontage even in very late game still relatively low, compared to the number of regiments involved. If that's the case, system should work. Otherwise, it will be classic HoI2 pileup strategy.

 

[Filou]

What happens if you lose control of a province home to a brigade? I do hope the brigade stays to fight and recapture their home.

Any hints as the troop types available? Inf, Cav, Arty, planes... tanks? anything else?

All in all, I like the info presented here!

 

[King]

Wrong example.

Basically, if you allow both sides throw superbig armies at each other, you will get too high death rate, ending up in fast loss of the one side, which in turn will allow it to take over the province. And since the losing side will permanently lose wiped up regiments, it will end up in snowball effect, with bloody battles at the start, but faster and faster resolutions later.

Unless of course you keep frontage even in very late game still relatively low, compared to the number of regiments involved. If that's the case, system should work. Otherwise, it will be classic HoI2 pileup strategy.

Verdun?

 

[JoeGiavani]

In fact not, Military was the only way of poor people advancing into middle class, it was not the best paid of the jobs, but was better than be in factory gaining very few money or in the farm fighting to survive by themselves, only thing that made girls in factory in WW1 to receive higher wages was the need by the state and capitalist to have them running at highest level to mantain war industry.

I provided you evidence that proved that soldiers were much worse paid than their civilian counterparts, and you come back with bollocks you've just picked off the top of your head.
Conditions in the army were appalling, it was discipline that kept soldiers in check, not an extra ha'penny a week.

 

[unmerged(71032)]

Verdun?

You mean, Verdun effectively wiped out reserves of one side, allowing the other to win?

Look, historical examples is one thing, but game mechanics is the other.

If the combat system allows the other side to literally wipe up the other side (of similar quantity and quality level) in few battles, because AI was not smart enough to concentrate/redeploy its units as fast as human player, system will be faulty because you will have anti-Verduns all around, with one side picking up the fights and ending them up fast with overwhelming power, etrenching, then doing it again.

Again, if frontage in WWI period reaches to the point when it will allow, like 20-30% of regiments involved participate in the battle (shouldn't be hard with say 100 regiments per province on western front), it should be fine - reserves will be big enough to prolong the fight. If it reaches the levels closer to 100% (no, at Verdun 100% of units in the area were never involved in combat), then game mechanics will start having problems.

 

[unmerged(127071)]

org

Vicky had both and they worked fairly well. Morale made soldiers stay in a fight, org made them dig in faster, allowed them to regain moral at faster rate, and the other little things

I don't see the point of going backwards on this

 

[Txini]

I provided you evidence that proved that soldiers were much worse paid than their civilian counterparts, and you come back with bollocks you've just picked off the top of your head.
Conditions in the army were appalling, it was discipline that kept soldiers in check, not an extra ha'penny a week.

But did people join the army because someone told them to do? Pops are not 100% exact, if people from a Soldier Pop move to another Pop type or emigrates and none subs him, you'll lose soldiers, as this is actually a game and if at 100% a division are 3000, but the pop where those came doesn't have 3000 people anymore, is logical the game will make the division get desertions in the number of loses of that Pop. But sure military take few money, in Spain when not at risky place just take monthly more or less the same as other works of medium-low level, when at risky place the same as medium-high...

 

[unmerged(63310)]

We have two thoughts here, one is simply brigade disbands and the small arms return to the pool for you to use else where. Or the brigade remains, but will not reinforce, meaning you will want to disband it sooner or later anyway. However we haven't 100% decided exactly what we will do. It is a matter of what will work best in the game.

This is interesting question because also the potential for POPs to be in an enemy controlled province during a war... I am assuming that would stop reinforcement of that brigade until their POPs home province is recovered but that would encourage people so not use POPs from border provinces much.

Massive territory changes would be interesting to deal with as well with this system. IE- US Civil War, Italian Unification(austrian/italian soldier POPs), any rebellions like Bulgarian uprising vs Ottomans as if Ottomans have most of the Bulgarian soldier POPs already employed... Bulgaria going to have a tough time fielding any army as new soldier POPs going to have to take the time to grow and then be recruited from.

 

[Darkrenown]

If a POP is over 3,000 a brigade can be recruited, over 6,000 2 brigades etc.

Yeek, better keep those 100,000 strong soldier pops happy then

Is the Reconnaissance value tracked per battle or per unit? That is, say I fight a battle with a nice, high recon value and get a bonus for the first X rounds. If I then commit further forces to the battle do the new units get a Reconnaissance bonus again or is that it for the battle.

Are they more than just inf/cav/airplane brigades? E.g Guards/Dragoons/Light Cav etc?

The province window is awfully big. Was that taken at low res, or is the UI still being worked on? Or do you just like big windows and cannot lie?

 

[Black Lotus]

One question about airplanes, as you've stated before they are like "land" brigades and can be attached for primarily recon purposes. However I hope that for example you can not capture a provence in theory with just aeroplanes since of course ground crews can't really hold anything due to realistic purposes.

Also, will it be possible at least for zepplins (If they'll be included) to "fly" over provences? I only ask due to the German raids on Britain in WWI.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

You mean, Verdun effectively wiped out reserves of one side, allowing the other to win?

Look, historical examples is one thing, but game mechanics is the other.

If the combat system allows the other side to literally wipe up the other side (of similar quantity and quality level) in few battles, because AI was not smart enough to concentrate/redeploy its units as fast as human player, system will be faulty because you will have anti-Verduns all around, with one side picking up the fights and ending them up fast with overwhelming power, etrenching, then doing it again.

Again, if frontage in WWI period reaches to the point when it will allow, like 20-30% of regiments involved participate in the battle (shouldn't be hard with say 100 regiments per province on western front), it should be fine - reserves will be big enough to prolong the fight. If it reaches the levels closer to 100% (no, at Verdun 100% of units in the area were never involved in combat), then game mechanics will start having problems.

Well if attrition is still in that will limit super stacks somewhat due to the issues of reinforcing though I can see the AI totally ignoring that and forcing the player to also ignore unless you want to draw in that super stack and surround it but the frontage factor could be the answer I suppose if like HoI3 past a certain number additional units don't provide much benefit. Just with the opposite way frontage works I am trying to work out how that happens if it even does now.

ORG losses could make units withdraw before suffering 30% casualties I'd imagine unless the power of cannons and late era machine guns is so strong whole armies will die... I see the devs trying to recreate trench warfare with a mechanic that also works thru out the game period but the concern over armies simply concentrating entirely on one point and the victor at that battle decides the course of the war(due to so many soldier POPs decimated snowballing) is a valid concern.

 

[byzantium43]

.
At a base level we have selected the 3,000 man brigade as the base unit. However, unlike Hearts of Iron 3, you can group these together in stacks of any size for manoeuvre purposes. Our aim is to get the right blend of flexibility vs. micromanagement.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

10,000 man base units bothered me a lot more than it should have. :rofl:

 

[foriavik]

I dont know weather this question has been adressed before...
Are we going to have HOI 2-3 style movement=attack system or not?

 

[CaptRobau]

My main questions reasked:

What happens to brigades whose provinces have been occupied or traded away in a peace treaty? Do they disappear, switch sides or become unreinforcible?

Do the soldier POPs grow fast enough at max military spending level to allow brigades to be reinforced or is it a trickle. Because in high casualty situations such as Verdun, brigades can be decimated so quickly that the you'll be stuck with dozens of 100 men brigades slowly reinforcing as there's no national manpower pool to draw from. It becomes even worse because if it's the case you have to constantly build new brigades to hold the line because the soldier POPs belonging to the decimated brigades don't get new men fast enough to simulate a national manpower pool.

 

[Alerias]

My main questions reasked:

What happens to brigades whose provinces have been occupied or traded away in a peace treaty? Do they disappear, switch sides or become unreinforcible?

Do the soldier POPs grow fast enough at max military spending level to allow brigades to be reinforced or is it a trickle. Because in high casualty situations such as Verdun, brigades can be decimated so quickly that the you'll be stuck with dozens of 100 men brigades slowly reinforcing as there's no national manpower pool to draw from. It becomes even worse because if it's the case you have to constantly build new brigades to hold the line because the soldier POPs belonging to the decimated brigades don't get new men fast enough to simulate a national manpower pool.

Indeed. And then you probably cant even "merge" these useless brigades because this would kill the "single province" logic.

The more I think about it, the more I think there should be a reinforcement pool. This "all from the same place" thing will cause alot of gameplay issues...

 

[unmerged(63310)]

Indeed. And then you probably cant even "merge" these useless brigades because this would kill the "single province" logic.

The more I think about it, the more I think there should be a reinforcement pool. This "all from the same place" thing will cause alot of gameplay issues...

Indeed, even with high military spending and possibly more than 1 soldier POP in a province does that expand total pool or it sounds as if the brigade is still tied to 1 single soldier POP.

It depends how flexible the system is with pay drawing new recruits... obviously natural growth won't be able to replace losses but if some large battles happen and soldier POPs lose 50% of their # but the pay is good enough to have drawn that larger number will that soldier POP grow quickly enough by drawing new recruits by enticing poor laborers etc to switch jobs?

 

[jmschaub]

no, seperate unit. An air unit is a 3,000 man brigade which includes all the personel to keep the damn things flying.

Aircraft termonology should be different than land units:

Squadron ~ 500 people (12 aircraft)
Group ~ 5 Squadrons
Wing ~ These are regional but 2 - 3 Groups

These numbers are based on my time in the United States Marine Corps squadron. Other branches have different numbers of personal but the idea remains the same. Hopefully you can make this change as it's just a text change

 

[OHgamer]

Don't forget that in V1 we had a reserve system, so that in times of emergency you could call your reserves to arms.

There hasn't been a DD comment on that yet, but that would I think be a natural answer to the question of what happens in a war - your reserve units would be changed from farmer/artisan/craftsmen whatever to Soldier POP for as long as they are in service, and whatever natural growth you'd get (as well as further recruitment via better pay etc, maybe draft laws even???) based on that much larger population that is now all solider POPs would feed into the unit supply, based on the numbers of POPs in the province fielding the brigade in question.

 

[CaptRobau]

The comment above made me think about something. Is the draft simulated? Because Great Britain basically (bit of an exaggeration but stick with me) drafted/enlisted their entire male population between 18-30 for the army while the women took over in the factories. The same women who before worked as much as men (first half of the 19th century), then got to do less work due to laws prohibiting long work hours for women and children in the late 19th/early 20th century and become the pillars the war industry supported during WWI. Okay, that just added the question if women are represented at all in POPs and how. So is there draft and are women simulated in the workforce and does the latter change (or even child labor as that was still big in the early 19th century).