Development Diary #26 - 29nd of April 2009

[wolf1455]

Hard to answer all questions

I will found out when I buy the game anyway.
Now I just waiting for next DEV

 

[ok2useLane]

Great DD!!!

I just was wondering...

I noticed the abscence of terrain modifiers for leaders (such as mountain, desert, jungle). Are they somewhere else or being added later or will we, as modders, just have to add them in



EDIT: Just noticed "digin_bonus" this will be great for an engineer-type trait!

 

[Enzo]

Very, very nice DD
We 're going to have a serious chain of command. All I can dream

two questions : will we be more interesting this time to promote let say Rommel or Von Rundstedt as fieldmarshal ?
and if yes, will we have some hints on their potential at the higher level ?

I'm asking because if I've well understood as a army group commander (FM) 12,5% of the trait bonus goes to unit, and as the theater level (FM also) only 6,25%. So I guess, we should prevent commander with very good trait to go the theater level, and keep them at army group level. am I right ?

 

[Myth]

Very, very nice DD
We 're going to have a serious chain of command. All I can dream

two questions : will we be more interesting this time to promote let say Rommel or Von Rundstedt as fieldmarshal ?
and if yes, will we have some hints on their potential at the higher level ?

I'm asking because if I've well understood as a army group commander (FM) 12,5% of the trait bonus goes to unit, and as the theater level (FM also) only 6,25%. So I guess, we should prevent commander with very good trait to go the theater level, and keep them at army group level. am I right ?

Not necessarily. Remember, a Rommel at division level may give 100% of his skill bonus to his division, but that's just one division. Make him a theater commander and suddenly he's affecting potentially hundreds of divisions. The individual impact is lower but the overall impact is greater. But of course, you'd need a good balance.

 

[Alexander Seil]

Theoretically, if all you're managing is a static, defensive front over uniform terrain, you should always promote a general if the level you're promoting him to gives him at least twice as many divisions as he currently has. A very primitive rule of thumb.

EDIT: This only goes for traits, though, since skill level does different things at different levels.

 

[DiLune]

Not necessarily. Remember, a Rommel at division level may give 100% of his skill bonus to his division, but that's just one division. Make him a theater commander and suddenly he's affecting potentially hundreds of divisions. The individual impact is lower but the overall impact is greater. But of course, you'd need a good balance.

That's where the math questions are coming in. Lets say he's giving 12.5% of his 5 skill or you could have a 3 skill commander instead of him.

He's giving .625 to all divisions under his command. The 3 skill commander would give .375 to all divisions. Yes, this is a large percentage gap, but in terms of real numbers, does it matter? Am I going to notice the .3 difference?Are you better off keeping higher skilled commanders at the division and corps level where their numbers have a greater effect?

The same 5 skill vs 3 skill gap at the corps level is more significant to individual combat modifiers. (2.5 vs 1.5.) I'm guessing you'll notice the difference at the corps level more than you will at the group level.

You don't need brilliant Army Group or Theater commanders, you need brilliant Corps and Divisional commanders (and maybe that's more accurate.)

 

[unmerged(38794)]

Do I understand it right that traits only get applied in %, but bonus to combat modífiers from skill does not?

So at the higher end of the command chain you need somebody with a high skill, while at the lower end (corps and army) you want the logistic wizzards and such?

 

[Alexander Seil]

Do I understand it right that traits only get applied in %, but bonus to combat modífiers from skill does not?

So at the higher end of the command chain you need somebody with a high skill, while at the lower end (corps and army) you want the logistic wizzards and such?

From what I understand, the commander's skill only matters in combat if he's commanding a division.

Division - combat
Corps - reserves
Army - organization
Army Group - logistics
Theater - cooperation

I think that the skill affects only the corresponding area, and nothing else, depending on the level.

 

[Kriszo]

If I understand right, the skill applies for combat if a division commander, reinforcements (or something similar) if corps commander, org if army commander, logistics if army group commander, and unit cooperation if theatre commander. Only the effects of TRAITS (NOT SKILLS) is halved for each level.

Correct me if I'm wrong

 

[dublish]

Not necessarily. Remember, a Rommel at division level may give 100% of his skill bonus to his division, but that's just one division. Make him a theater commander and suddenly he's affecting potentially hundreds of divisions. The individual impact is lower but the overall impact is greater. But of course, you'd need a good balance.

Balance doesn't seem all that important. As long as each successive level of command has at least twice as many divisions as the last, better generals should always be promoted. 100% of a trait applied to a single division is less of a cumulative bonus than 50% of a trait applied to 3 divisions, which is less than 25% applied to 9 (or even 7), which is less than 12.5% applied to 27, and so on and so on.

I suppose you could argue that a combat bonus (offensive doctrine, for example) is only really applied to units in combat at any given time, and isn't as valuable at higher levels of command, but Rommel's logistic wizard trait should result in ridiculously low supply consumption (especially if applied at skill 5 to the army group level).

 

[unmerged(51416)]

I have some command structure questions:

1) Is reassigning the units in a command structure gonna cause some side effects? Like temporary penalty / org hit? Seeing how things worked during Battle of the Bulge and in North Africa, I'd vote against. After all, command structure was a really flexible thing - we can see some divisions changing corps frequently, e.g. 90 'Tough Ombres' Inf. Div. managed to change corps 6 (sic!) times during the war (it belonged to VII, VIII, V, XV, XX, III and XII corps). Reassigning a unit to a diffrent command (to increase benefits) should be a viable tactics.

Or, at least, please make any penalty/hit moddable (0/1 in misc.txt)

2) Same thing for changing unit commander - commanders have been changed quite often during prolonged periods of time, especially if they failed. On the other hand, in HoI2 changing commanders is a really dumb idea, as it includes hit org - which is very bad for frontline, as it allows enemy counterattack/slows down your offensive. Again, I'd be more then happy to get rid of the mentioned penalty, to allow for flexible command structure

Or, again, just make 'org hit for changing commander' moddable (again 0/1, misc.txt)

3) Command structure and allies. Will you be able not only to send exp. forces, but to demand them as well? This would work way better then ususal 'assume military control of all the forces'

4) Encircled commanders. What if unit gets destroyed in the encirclement? Does the leader magically return to your leader pool? It would be cool to have a (moddable ) chance for him not to. Leaders aren't invincible (like in HoI2), yet indeed they should have some chance for evacuation, as often happened in history.

4) Scenario accuracy. Since you already develop OOB for each unit, is it gonna be possible to include historical commanders as well? It's way better to have them in their 'proper' place, like Bittrich commanding II SS Corps etc.

5) Auto-assigning leaders - is it gonna be traits-sensitive? In HoI2 vanilla it was pretty useless, as it kept assigning wrong commanders to your units :/ Having Vandergrift (commando trait) commanding your armoured corps wasn't good

Not that I'll ever use this option, but it might be beneficial for others to know

 

[Alexander Seil]

Balance doesn't seem all that important. As long as each successive level of command has at least twice as many divisions as the last, better generals should always be promoted. 100% of a trait applied to a single division is less of a cumulative bonus than 50% of a trait applied to 3 divisions, which is less than 25% applied to 9 (or even 7), which is less than 12.5% applied to 27, and so on and so on.

That only works if all the forces at the higher level are facing the same obstacles as those on the current one. If you have a theater where only one out of three Army Groups is doing the fighting, you'd be better off keeping that talented commander at the Army Group level, rather than halving his bonus to the active Army Group and giving it to the two twiddling their thumbs in the trenches.

 

[unmerged(122939)]

Again a very nice DD and give us a better idea about land combat and brigades, but doesn't bring any light to the aspect in which I have my deepest fears about HoI3, how air warfare will be (hopefully not like HoI2 at all).

 

[Alexander Seil]

Again a very nice DD and give us a better idea about land combat and brigades, but doesn't bring any light to the aspect in which I have my deepest fears about HoI3, how air warfare will be (hopefully not like HoI2 at all).

It would be a bit odd if it wasn't like HoI2 at all. This was already discussed in a different DD, though.

 

[dublish]

That only works if all the forces at the higher level are facing the same obstacles as those on the current one. If you have a theater where only one out of three Army Groups is doing the fighting, you'd be better off keeping that talented commander at the Army Group level, rather than halving his bonus to the active Army Group and giving it to the two twiddling their thumbs in the trenches.

I knew somebody was going to say that.

 

[dsteve3]

I'm doing this here instead of notepad; ignore if you will.

3 Div = Corp 1 HQ
9 Div = Army = 3 + 1 = 4 HQ
27 Div = Army Group = 9 + 3 + 1 = 13 HQ
81 Div = Theatre (~) = 27 + 9 + 3 + 1 = 40 HQ

Each HQ lvl is unique, so for this formula of "Theatre" I'll need 27 Corp HQ, 9 Army HQ, 3 Army Group HQ and 1 Theatre HQ.

If I want to change a ratio in the function (4 Divs/Corp, 4 Corps/Army, etc) I have to multiply that HQ level only as each level is unique.

e.g.: 4 Divs/Corp = no change in HQ symetry; 4 Corp/Army = 4/12/36 Corp HQ for Army/ArmyGroup/Theatre respectively.


Don't know penalties for Lt Gen Commanding 4/5/6 Divs, or General commanding 10/12/16 Divs, or even if there is a penalty. Maybe command chain doesn't have that kind of penalty anymore.

Don't know how many Divs will be needed to fill frontage. Don't know if frontage will be contiguous.

e.g.: 5 province with (x) frontage each filled by 5 (formtions). Say (formation frontage) = 1.2(x). Does that mean that my 5 formations will have sufficient frontage to cover 6 provinces, if the units can be dispersed to fill those provinces? Or does excess unit frontage not overflow into neighbouring provinces?

 

[Alexander Seil]

Frontage is province-specific. The solution you're looking for is detaching parts of divisions to fill out the less active sections of the front.

 

[dublish]

Divisions can be attached to the army, army group, and theatre level independent of any corps organization- today's screenshots show the 5th Panzerarmee with no subordinate corps, and only 2 divisions. I'm willing to bet the same thing can be done with corps at the army group or theatre level, and armies at the theatre level.

Plus, I don't think anybody's said that corps have a maximum limit of 3 divisions, or that armies can only have 3 corps.

 

[unmerged(122939)]

It would be a bit odd if it wasn't like HoI2 at all. This was already discussed in a different DD, though.

Yes, but I mean in a more detalied way . They are too many things that I don't like of the HoI2 air warfare representation, maybe the only that I like is the represented unit (german wing), the type of missions and how the units moves around the map . And in that DD it was too little info about, I could be wrong but I only remember that says something about missions and nothing else.

 

[dublish]

Don't know penalties for Lt Gen Commanding 4/5/6 Divs, or General commanding 10/12/16 Divs, or even if there is a penalty. Maybe command chain doesn't have that kind of penalty anymore.

I can't imagine it will work the same as in HoI2. A theater commander with a command limit of 12 divisions is worthless. I'm not sure if the devs have said anything about command limits, other than the abstract 'MGs command divisions, LGs command corps, GENs command armies, FMs command army groups/theaters'.