Division spam

[2brucben]

Some hopefully new (or at least partially new) thoughts on division spam

It seems to me there are two possible "issues" that lead to the ahistorical division spamming in the game as well as the resulting loss in game performance.
1. the net marginal benefit of having more divisions declines too gradually. i.e. it is relatively too beneficial to produce more divisions rather than more fighters, ships, higher quality units, etc.
2. the ai is the problem, and is misallocating resources towards division production.

from my observations the reality seems to be a mixture of both, perhaps leaning towards the second. perhaps a good solution would be to impose a hard but loose cap on the division targets of ai countries based upon combination of economy size, enemy economy size, and/or front length. I'm personally not familiar with the current ai and how it determines which and how many divisions to produce, but this seems like an uncomplicated solution to 2.

As someone who hasn't played multiplayer in a while, I can't comment on the current meta (maybe someone else can?). But if it's the case that too many divisions are being produced by more rational players (i.e. non-ai players who aren't affected by 2) then my suggestion would be to simply raise the cost of land units in terms of production.

 

[squid_hills]

There's a mod out there called "No More AI Division Spam" (or something very like that) which ties a cap on divisions to the number of factories a country has. I don't know the exact math for it, but I've used the mod a lot and I do notice that most major countries never get more than 200 divisions with it running. Paradox could look into how that mod works and implement something similar, though the cap would have to apply to the player as well (the mod does not limit the player in the same way, so player nations can get OP kind of quickly).

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

The division limit system in Kaiserreich is very well designed. Paradox should look at that.

 

[Harin]

One reason for the division spam, from what I have read multiple times on the forums, is that the developers encourage the AI to build many divisions. They supposedly do this, because the AI needs its battle lines fully manned, or the AI does strange things moving divisions around to fill holes, that only opens up more holes, which leads to more moving, and on and on.

This is not proven, but since division spam could be fixed immediately by simply reducing the percentage of manpower one gets from manpower laws, it may be at least true that the developers do not want to reduce division spam, for whatever the reason may be.

 

[Simon Marques]

There's a mod out there called "No More AI Division Spam" (or something very like that) which ties a cap on divisions to the number of factories a country has. I don't know the exact math for it, but I've used the mod a lot and I do notice that most major countries never get more than 200 divisions with it running. Paradox could look into how that mod works and implement something similar, though the cap would have to apply to the player as well (the mod does not limit the player in the same way, so player nations can get OP kind of quickly).

I have already made a suggestion in this sense on another occasion, the idea of limiting the number of divisions by the number of factories is an old concept.

Think that the support and infantry equipment represent rations, water, ammunition and the rest, each soldier has a daily maintenance cost, for example; A soldier consumes daily 1kg of materials (ammunition, rations, etc) while in combat, and while at rest he consumes 50% less of the latter value, the factories would need to maintain a minimum production to keep their divisions in the field supplied, to produce more divisions would be necessary to increase production, for this reason there was a planning on how many divisions would be produced so that no divisions are produced beyond the supply capacity.

 

[GSP Jr]

How can I conquer the world as Equador if there is a realistic division limit?

 

[DrowsyBuzzard17]

I have already made a suggestion in this sense on another occasion, the idea of limiting the number of divisions by the number of factories is an old concept.

Think that the support and infantry equipment represent rations, water, ammunition and the rest, each soldier has a daily maintenance cost, for example; A soldier consumes daily 1kg of materials (ammunition, rations, etc) while in combat, and while at rest he consumes 50% less of the latter value, the factories would need to maintain a minimum production to keep their divisions in the field supplied, to produce more divisions would be necessary to increase production, for this reason there was a planning on how many divisions would be produced so that no divisions are produced beyond the supply capacity.

This could be like a Consumer Goods version of military factories. Probably not the worst idea, though it would be a little annoying. Also probably based off of divisions instead of factory count. (And yes, I know some just suggest higher attrition I was just trying to put out a 'new' idea.)

 

[Simon Marques]

This could be like a Consumer Goods version of military factories. Probably not the worst idea, though it would be a little annoying. Also probably based off of divisions instead of factory count. (And yes, I know some just suggest higher attrition I was just trying to put out a 'new' idea.)

So, in addition I would propose that the infantry and support equipment be put into one that would be called "supplies".

The researches would continue of equipments I, II, III among others, would continue the same, but now the player no longer suffers with outdated equipments, the researches would only be upgrades that increase the bonuses.

 

[Simon Marques]

How can I conquer the world as Equador if there is a realistic division limit?

Some nations should not be playable

 

[blue_yonder]

These mods that limit spam - do they prove paradox right or wrong about the AI's need for far too many?

 

[Crowarior]

The problem is that it's to easy to build and resupply divisions.

For example, in north african campaign one of the reasons axis lost is due to lack of pretty much everything especially tanks during 2nd battle of el alamein. But in the game you simply cant lose 500 tanks in a single battle and even if you could in about 30 days all of it is gonna magically get restocked so your loses dont matter because supply system is so abstracted. Hopefully rumored combat/supply rework will deal with this.

 

[Simon Marques]

The problem is that it's to easy to build and resupply divisions.

For example, in north african campaign one of the reasons axis lost is due to lack of pretty much everything especially tanks during 2nd battle of el alamein. But in the game you simply cant lose 500 tanks in a single battle and even if you could in about 30 days all of it is gonna magically get restocked so your loses dont matter because supply system is so abstracted. Hopefully rumored combat/supply rework will deal with this.

I agree with what you wrote. It takes a long time to replace the casualties of a division, you have to train, you can't just replace using the military reserve and depending on how far they are from the training camps, if they are on the other side of the ocean it would get even more complicated. Soldiers needed to be transported in transport ships in the midst of enemy submarine blockades and in the game, these transports are invisible.

Transport ships should be part of the fleets and troops could only cross the oceans if they requisitioned a navy fleet for this purpose and that had the necessary number of transports.

 

[Crowarior]

I agree with what you wrote. It takes a long time to replace the casualties of a division, you have to train, you can't just replace using the military reserve and depending on how far they are from the training camps, if they are on the other side of the ocean it would get even more complicated. Soldiers needed to be transported in transport ships in the midst of enemy submarine blockades and in the game, these transports are invisible.

Transport ships should be part of the fleets and troops could only cross the oceans if they requisitioned a navy fleet for this purpose and that had the necessary number of transports.

Yea resupplying of divisions needs to take into account distance from capital imo since all supply comes from there anyways currently and there also needs to be some sort of stockpile to somehow alleviate this. For example, if you fighting against soviets as germany you can put "stockpile center" in warsaw and as long as it has necessary supply that a division has requested it pulls supply from warsaw for faster supplying. Once warsaw stockpile is gone or it doesn't have necessary item division starts pulling stuff from berlin.

Also, completely unrelated but tank v tank engagements or attacks on heavily defended provinces need to cause more tank losses and you shouldn't be able to instantly attack and stop. That is fine if its some sort of probing attack but for normal attacks you need to wait after attacking to "pull" in more units in the attack so to speak, or use battle planner which would ideal get sort of fixed.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

These mods that limit spam - do they prove paradox right or wrong about the AI's need for far too many?

Yes they show the AI needs large numbers of divisions..

 

[squid_hills]

These mods that limit spam - do they prove paradox right or wrong about the AI's need for far too many?

I see a difference when attacking a country from two fronts. The AI can't man multiple fronts effectively and shuffles its men around quite a bit, which does open the occasional gap in the lines. If engaging in a single-front war, the AI can still manage pretty well. USSR does fine unless/until Japan invades Siberia or Italy naval invades Archangel. Then holes start opening up and frontlines start resembling spaghetti. It's much less of an issue without the mod (I've done a lot of achievement runs so I can compare AI performance reasonably well) but the AI still does sometimes make mistakes...

 

[Jays298]

These mods that limit spam - do they prove paradox right or wrong about the AI's need for far too many?

Not really. Kaiserreich for instance puts a soft division cap limit based on the economic mobilization level, and gives like a 1% penalty to combat stats over the limit for each extra division. It's a brake for a human player. For an AI? do you think an AI really cares if they get a penalty?

I'm sure the AI just churns them out regardless.

To me its not the AI building divisions thats a problem. It's the AI sending its division to allied territory and doing nothing but preventing an offensive that sucks.

In a 1vs1 like Germany vs Russia everything works out. In my recent game where Romania and Hungary stayed neutral, I had no supply problems.

I've seen multiplayer videos where they swear off a minor for sending troops because all they are doing is damaging supply and contributing nothing to the offense.

They need to teach the AI to build 30% armor, 30%+ fighters. Instead of being a speed bump to the human player.

AI fights mostly with infantry. Very stupid.

 

[karimjebari]

There are several ways of dealing with this problem.

I think that rather than having a cap, there should be constant (1-2%) attrition for all units, and some attrition for moving troops when at war on all terrain types.

 

[Vlad123]

The only thing that the AI understands is "The limit is this I must not exceed it" But this can be done with "fixed" limits (such as Eu4 which is a formula between development provinces, number of provinces and something else I don't remember well ) for example if with the "money" / supplies / food / whatever you want to put I can keep 100 divisions like (for example) germany over 100 divisions I won't go!

 

[Simon Marques]

The question we should be asking here is; What is the utility of us debating solutions to a problem if the developers don't manifest? It seems to me that Paradox do not have a sector responsible for listening to the community and bringing the thought of the public to the table of those responsible for producing corrections and new content. It is useless to have a forum if they ignore our petitions.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

It seems to me that Paradox do not have a sector responsible for listening to the community and bringing the thought of the public to the table of those responsible for producing corrections and new content. It is useless to have a forum if they ignore our petitions.

And why do you think that? Because they don't respond to every suggestion someone makes? Because they don't fix the problems "everyone" agrees exist?

Over the years people have mentioned that some of the mechanics put into the game came from mods. From what I remember, it seems some of the Turkish content is coming from users.

The forum as a whole has no idea what Paradox's overall plans are for HoI4. Everyone states what should or should not be done, in their opinion. Some are informative and some are just nonsense. From Paradox's view, it's a whole lot of noise to wade thru. Just look at the Development Diaries and the responses people put there, when they do have an immediate response from Paradox.

I don't agree with everything they have done and have serious disagreements with some of the directions they have taken. But it doesn't mean they are ignoring us.