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Development Diary #20 - 11th of March 2009

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yigitpamuk said:
Hi

First of all that is my firs post at that forum, i usually only reader but this time i feel that i have to intervene the developement of HOI3.

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First of all i read all developement diaries and i have some critics (that is how thinz develop)

- I dont like the display of divisions without counters cause it gives you the feeling you have only one solider in province but i like to play that game with armies and i want to feel that thing. You should address to feelings rather than eyes cause that is why people chose to play map based strategies.

- Also i know that HOI series is not an economy based game but you should include some economy(not as detailed in Vicky) because when i am playing the HOI2 after 5 years i have to declare war to my neigbourhoods because there is nothing to do for making your country powerful. You should include some internal boosters like commerce, Because if you play it 3 times with same country even having a world domination became boring.

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Welcome to the forum.

You can choose to play with counters or sprites. There are screenshots of both. The counters will show the NATO unit designation for Div/Corps/Army/Army Group. The sprites show above their heads a floating flag one for each Div in the stack, so it gives an indication of the number of units in the stack. See this thread for all of the screenshots and you can see what I mean:

Screenshot Megathread

For example, if you look at the one from February 4th 2009 for Yugoslavia, you can see the sprite for Beograd (Belgrade) has about seven Divisions, while the one in Sarajavo has only three. The Outliner on the right of that screen with the list of Corps is also very helpful. You will be able to click on each Corps and see a list of the Divisions in it.

It looks like there is going to be a more more comprehensive Trade system, which will use money instead of bartering, though we've not seen the details yet. But this is a war game, not an economics/trade game, so don't expect anything like Vicky.
 
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Diomedene said:
I'm not entirely sure that this would be the case. Consider the "America First" group, the largest peace organization in America's history with over 800,00 members. Charles Lindbergh, who was one of the driving forces of the group which is largely creditted with keeping the US out of the war, was openly friendly with Germany having been the first non-german allowed to fly both the JU-88 and the BF-109 as well as having received the Order of the German Eagle from Goring in 1938 (an award that was also given to Henry Ford in the same year). These are among the reason that the Army Air Force declined to accept Lindbergh's offer to rejoin as a colonel after Pearl Harbor.

Now, there would certainly be a difference if there had been revalations of funding from Germany, however considering that it was no secret that many of the organizations leaders were very friendly with the government of Germany (as leaders of the smaller pro war movement were generally very friendly with the UK) a discovery of such involvment would hardly have been shocking.
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I agree. And to strengthen this FDR was very worried about congress because there was a huge isolationist movement that was championed by one of the leading News papers of the time, the Chicago Tribune. Which had over a million in circulation at the time. As we look back from hindsight we tend to forget just how powerful the American Isolationist movement was. And given the horrors found by the advancing armies of the Allies and Soviet union its little wonder those against the war felt embaressed for their positions 5 years earlier.

People have this idea of support being some back ally dealing where shady characters exchange a breifcase of cash to Keep america out of the war. But its more like the money flowed from relationships between individual germans and individual americans who are acknowledge friends. As an example German businessman has an American business contact who is a starch isolationist such opinions are not a secret like being a member of the communist party. So the German says I'm worried the war hurting US trade, I have intrests here. Could I pay for a full page ad for your "isolationist group" in the Chicago Tribune?" Its things like this that get done not spies infiltrating the isolationist movement to strengthen it. But simply helping the isolationist aquire the money they need to do the things they already WANT to do. And its not a scandal, "Foriegn Businessman worried about trade disrupted by war donates cash to peace movement." Everyone expects the businessman will act to serve his own intrests. The fact that he was paid by the german goverment to donate the money may be perhaps speculated but hard to prove as goverment subsities and/or tax credits as common place.

So sure it sounds bad when taken without context Germany sends spies, who fund groups to keep America out of the war. But its not done quite like that. Its only represented like that in teh game.
 
Cardus said:
Hi hendriks, when you talk about dissent are you referring to the game or to the history? for example when you say "dissent was very high in the USSR" do you mean in the game or not?
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The USSR part historically, but typically very surpressed by terror, remember, in the 1930's, millions died in a famine in the Ukraine.
 
hendriks said:
The USSR part historically, but typically very surpressed by terror, remember, in the 1930's, millions died in a famine in the Ukraine.
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SOV had the desperate need to develop its industry and in doing it to compress the private consumption as much as it could. Stalin said "either we do it, or we shall be crushed". So by 1941 he had a country ready for the war. That being said the opposition within authoritarian countries usually is very low not only because of the repression but mainly because they control the information. It's like in your country who control it is who has the control of the media. If you think about it is the same to get the control of a company: you don't need 100% or 50% of shares. 30% or 20% it's fair enough.

So Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini had a large consensus within the population...
 
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liebgot said:
Since game will have quite profound polithical system,will army allways be pefect one that newer argues about decision of its wise polithcians,or will there be ocasions of army disobeying order or even ocasions of mutiny?
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no
 
Keynes said:
The basic approach of setting priorities seems sound and an improvement on HOI2. However, it is not clear to me what purpose is served under such a system of having individal "spies".
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Even in DD, I don't think of them as "spies", per se. It is just an indication of the depth of your intelligence penetration and coverage in a specific country. Think of it as the "level" of your intel network in that country's bureaucracy, government, military and industry. Without it, "Espionage Capability" is just a blanket value for the whole world - your intel quality on Tannu Tuva is the same as your intel quality on Germany...

Myth said:
New question! What is the relationship between the SIGINT mentioned in a previous DD and this DD's HUMINT? If SIGINT picks up the Army Group B headquarters at Bonn, does this means it will show in the intelligence tab, or might HUMINT not have picked up on it? IE, might there be conflicts between SIGINT and HUMINT, or not? Personally, I think it would be pretty cool if there were. After all, Clausewitz said that half of all intelligence in war is uncertain, even more is false and yet more is unknowable. Or something along those lines.
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I am hoping that the intel from the different sources is coordinated. I know full well that the raw intel data is usually by no means consistent, but by the time it reaches the higher levels of command I'm assuming some analysis has been done. In a game life is just too short to try to figure out a mass of conflicting intel data.

It was something I hated with the DD intel - you could have an intel screen telling you "We are almost sure they have no Armoured Divisions" then hop to a battle screen where your troops are fighting one! "What the fleck are these guys, then, bub? Scotch mist??"

To the folk who rail against the list of units on the intel screen I would say that this is the reason I don't mind that view. If that is what it takes to give me a coordinated intel picture, fine! Would it be nice to have a summary above it of a count of total units? Yes! (Although if some units are of uncertain type, what do you count them as?) But if it all fits together, and I don't have to spend my time sorting out where the conflicting data is, I'll be happy.

The only bugbear carried over from DD, now, for me, is that it doesn't seem I have any record available of what the target country has already researched (as I believe it to be). I can see what I think they are researching now, but if I want to keep track I have to do it on a bit of scrap paper - surely that could be improved? Just, each time a tech is spotted as being "under way", add it and it's prerequisites to a retained list (even better if it can be shown as a graphic) of what my intel folks believe they have. Could that not be set up?
 
Cardus said:
SOV had the desperate need to develop its industry and in doing it to compress the private consumption as much as it could. Stalin said "either we do it, or we shall be crushed". So by 1941 he had a country ready for the war. That being said the opposition within authoritarian countries usually is very low not only because of the repression but mainly because they control the information. It's like in your country who control it is who has the control of the media. If you think about it is the same to get the control of a company: you don't need 100% or 50% of shares. 30% or 20% it's fair enough.

So Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini had a large consensus within the population...
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Indeed, hence my point about dissent and it being given out in events, which I do understand the reason for, but the totalitarian countries would NOT react to that by raising the consumer good needs, they would just round everybody up that posed a problem and execute them. Hence, I think, if there is going to be such a thing as dissent, it should be handled differently in democratic or totalitarian countries. Not meaning dissent is useless in totalitarian states, just saying you would need a HUGE net of security forces in place, which I think could be simulated by leadership points going to spies going to support the ruling party.
 
Liebgot said:
Since game will have quite profound polithical system,will army allways be pefect one that newer argues about decision of its wise polithcians,or will there be ocasions of army disobeying order or even ocasions of mutiny?
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King said:
no
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In certain rare circumstances it might not be a bad idea. There were 2 attempts on Hitlers life? What if one had succeeded, and at least one very nearly did. If the bomb hadn't been moved...

A random event tied to circumstances, especially in the very naughty countries isn't a bad idea. Of course this might or might not reach outside the thread of espionage. Counter espionage should help evade such an event.
 
Thanx and another critic

Thank you for your reply Potski.

You know what: maybe a combination of Vicky and Hoi that starts from 1700s and ends in 2000s will be the perfect game ever made...

I wish i can see that mentality on Vicky 2 or HOI 4.

My another critic about HOI 3 is did you guyz find no commander divisions realistic?

Even there are no real commanders for those countries maybe we should have some made-up commenders with a random or common picture and random attributes,

Because in game; db includes a lot of commanders for countries who had big armies at that time period but some times to do thingz difficult and challange ourselves we are also trying to expand and impove weaker countries. But in those countries there are max 20 commanders. Definetely not enough for some strategies...
 
yigitpamuk said:
Thank you for your reply Potski.

You know what: maybe a combination of Vicky and Hoi that starts from 1700s and ends in 2000s will be the perfect game ever made...

I wish i can see that mentality on Vicky 2 or HOI 4.

My another critic about HOI 3 is did you guyz find no commander divisions realistic?

Even there are no real commanders for those countries maybe we should have some made-up commenders with a random or common picture and random attributes,

Because in game; db includes a lot of commanders for countries who had big armies at that time period but some times to do thingz difficult and challange ourselves we are also trying to expand and impove weaker countries. But in those countries there are max 20 commanders. Definetely not enough for some strategies...
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Vicky with all of the provinces of HOI3 would be pretty micro, and lots of things like the techs would not work over such a long period.

There was at least one recent thread about the lack of commanders:

Automatic leader generation?
 
Thank you, thank you, thank you for removing the manual spy placement. Now please remember to do the same with tech sharing and two of the most bothersome UI flaws of HOI2 will have been removed.
 
great job with espionage, i like all the new concepts its does make the it easier to mange and on the same time make espionage a more integral part of the game.

one question thou, will i be able to 'support rebels' in certain provinces like in HOI2 ??
 
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