Doctrines should cost 0 to research.

[unmerged(19545)]

Okay, here's something wacky I've been doing for a while. I got really PO'd a while back when I tried to play a minor. I was dissatisfied with my land forces and their crappy Org level, so I went to research land doctrine. And I found that the whole entire F***ing output of the country's economy was not enough to do The Theoretical Preparation necessary to begin to study the advantages of motorized headquarters. Not, I point out, to build Motorized Divisions, but simply to answer the question, are Motorized Headquarters a good thing?
In fact I could very easily build a few motorized divisions. I could build 12 of them cheaper than I could answer that simple question. You know, take 200,000 men out of the economy, train, house, feed and clothe them. Build their weapons from the rifle all the way to the artillery. Build the vast fleets of trucks they'd need, and find the thousands of mechanics to maintain those trucks. Build a city's worth of barracks, and training facilities. All this was easily within my grasp. But I could not afford, with my entire nation's wealth, to run a few wargames with a few dozen young officers, and a few older officers for a reality check. And maybe a regiment or two to play the blue team vs. the red team a while to try out some ideas. Nope, couldn't do it. And I couldn't go down to the library and take out Basil Liddell Hart's book for free either.
Y'know, I'm getting worked up again. Getting sarcastic. At the time I was swearing luridly enough to impress myself. I saved the game and changed all the tech files for all the doctrines. Now all doctrines cost 1 IC a day. Which is, incidentally, several hundred times too much still, but a cost less than one becomes 0. Hmm. Okay, I'm back. Now they all cost zero. I played about 15 complete games after making this change, and it didn't break the game. It had the very satisfying result that there was no longer the exact equation between the size of a country’s economy and the skill of it's troops. As it is, in Vanilla HoI by mid war, Soviet troops are much more skillful that Finnish troops, and potentially anyone else’s. Which is BS. Soviets never got brilliantly flexible and tactically amazing. Just evilly equipped in large numbers. And reasonably competent, which was enough.
So free yourselves, or rather your minors, and make a few minor changes in techfiles.

And if you want to make a larger change, still more realistic, reduce doctrine costs to 0, and change the doctrine effects such that each improvement to org for a unit type causes an identical increase in build time, on the premise that more skilled troops take longer to train.

Or don't. Just play a small country like Finnland, with a small economy and excellent troops, and see if you can maintain your skill advantage against the SU for a few years. That oughta convince you.

I recall CORE had something like this going, techs for big countries vs techs for small countries. Thing is, if the research for even one doctrine costs as much as a division, it costs several hundred times too much. The cost is not in researching the doctrine, it is in imprementing it. And a small army finds that easier to do than a large one.

At least, that's how it seems to me.

 

[unmerged(19411)]

I agree completely.

It's theoretical, you probablly have to pay something for the facilities and to keep the research going.

But being more expensive than building an 80mm Panther division with AT guns.

Don't think so......

 

[unmerged(6105)]

But it is a problem of gamemechanics... either it should be so it is cheaper for smaller nations, maybe that it takes a percentage of the industry instead of a set cost. Or it should be cheaper over time, actually some of the workings of the EU2 tech research could do well. Like neighboor bonus and cheaper over time.

 

[Rommel22]

I think the way CORE has it is ok. It still cost IC, but less. Usually 9-11 IC for doctrines. Some take more time to complete, but IC wise, they aree cheaper.

I agree as well though. I think they should be even cheaper. Especially the early doctrines. And maybe get expensive as they get more eloborate. Like Combined Arms doctrine. That would cost a lot in time and money to practice in warmgames, imo. So maybe pre-war start with 5 IC per doctrine, and by the time mid-war doctrines roll around they are up to 9 IC.

Just an idea.

 

[bizkit]

as we know doctrines in HoI are tactical ideas..and to make these ideas into real life there needs trainings..and for trainings there needs equipment like rifles guns shells and everything you know on battlefield...so even for these trainings we still need military factory production...so i think it would be more ridicilous to make it 0 ic. where are we getting the equipment then?

 

[Mithel]

A reasonable compromise might be best to deal with the fact the game mechanics can't completely handle this. Overall the basic issue is that techs should not cost minors as much as they cost major nations (but you also need to not have them share them like wild).

I doubt setting costs to zero is the best solution.

 

[jdrou]

Techs in general should perhaps not cost as much for minors as they do for majors (note that EU2 makes tech more expensive the more provinces you own which is probably too far in the other direction) but also doctrines should not cost as much in industrial output as developing and retooling to produce actual hardware. More time probably but much less total ICs.

 

[unmerged(19545)]

Why is that?

Why do you doubt it Mithel? What is your reasoning?

Even with the cost set to 1, 1 times the number of days it takes gives a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Not even the Liberals could squander that kind of money, for something that is actually accomplished by wargaming. Or by some old guy like Hart or Guderian drinking some brandy and writing a book in his study.

The problem is not the research cost, because no amount of talk can justify millions of tons of coal, steel and rubber consumed to come up with a paper outlining how a country's (perhaps literally non-existent) divisions might be more flexible if their headquarters were in trucks. You can't do it, so don't bother trying.

The cost is in implementation, which is free in HoI. The tail wags the dog. Countries that don't have hundreds of billions of dollars to spend doing things that were actually close to free, simply can not have skilled troops. Period. That’s it and that’s all, and that's everything. Countries that do, can completely reorganize and re-equip hundreds and hundreds of divisions, absolutely for free. And they do.

The system is laughably broken, and farting around with starting SA vs SA gained through tech is quite beside the point. Research costs more than any but a major can pay, but the Soviet Union can circulate a paper at the War Academy explaining why motorized HQ's would be preferable to horse drawn ones, and half a million trucks magically appear, complete with radios, map tables, and drivers.

Barring a completely new approach in HoI2, the only fix that addresses the problem, rather than saying "look over there" and running away, is to make the research cost what it did, which is almost nothing in HoI terms, and make the implementation also cost what it did, which is lots. By increasing build time, due to increased training time for more skilled troops, and increasing supply cost for more men and materials consumed. It would be nice to change MP requirements during the game, but they can't be in the current mechanism. But build times, hence build cost and reinforcement cost, are under complete control of the modder, and can be changed with the implementation of every new tech, if desired. As can supply costs.

Just my non-partisan, objective, disinterested opinion.

By the way, thanks for responding to my little hissy fit. I can tell whether I have anything to say by who answers.

 

[unmerged(19545)]

Well, maybe that was a little more fervent than necessary. Sorry to sound so dogmatic, I just got a little worked up. I sometimes lose my sense of proportion, because I really like this game.

Actually, I hope for intelligent arguments to the contrary, and I'm sure that some are possible, despite how closed-minded that last reads.

 

[HistoryMan]

CORE (that I know of) certainly gives most Minor nations a "boost" to their research ability, by reducing the cost of the research. You can modify both the time and the cost of the 2 sorts of research - theoretical and applied. I know that Hungary (for example) gets a 25% discount on research costs - even so, do not expect minor nations to do much cutting edge research. There is a reason why minor nations usually get rolled over in a few days, and it isnt just the size of their army.

Partly, there is a problem in that there are no rules for what you might call "osmotic" tech sharing (stuff just generally coming into use) or commercial programmes that would introduce new technology. A few specific examples may get coded as events, but that is about it.

Unfortunately, HoI is a bit too simplistic at certain levels to cope with some of the things that might affect some of the things you discuss - eg the numbers of trucks and drivers and mechanics needed for a motorised division.

Just have to see how HoI 2 copes !

Tim

 

[Gwalcmai]

How about making the cost of the doctrine 0 and have as much of the benefits as possible only become active on upgrade? How much does it cost to upgrade a division in the game?

 

[unmerged(19545)]

Hi Gwalcmai, long time no communicate

I like the notion, though I don't know if it's technically possible. There are numerous techs that have the command "on upgrade" but no components that do anything, like change HA, or build time, or supply requirements.
All the ones that do specific things are implemented immediately.

I don't know that it's actually necessary. Changing the build cost after something is built seems like a free ride, but actually it isn't. I ran one specific game from 36 to 42 as an active combatant, then accounted for every single MP, from the starting total, to the total montly accumulation, and the amount contributed by the Women in the Workforce event, then compared that to what the country actually had after 2.5 years of tough fighting, and I found that the country had only about 1/3 of what it should have. Which is to say, each division had been destroyed and reinforced 3 or 4 times over. And the war was only half over. At that point, I realized that reinforcement cost is actually much more significant than initial build cost. Therefore things built before I teched up and doubled the ultimate build cost did not get a free ride, because they were paying the higher reinforcement cost. (Tested this conclusively. Detail in 'DC's Whacky House of Variable Testing' thread)

But what, you ask, if the unit doesn't fight, and so it doesn't take any casualties. Then it really did get all that extra stuff for free, right? Well, no actually. In that case, you didn't get something for nothing, what you got was a division that was paid for with real IC's but never used, thus worth nothing. The opposite of something for nothing.

Oh, missed one detail. I was running the Math Guy supply mod, so reinforcement costs were significant. And how! Man that stings the first time you use it. Like aftershave, but without getting you the chicks. (Not that I do anyway, but somebody may actually experience the results the aftershave adds portray. I don't want to make any assumptions about you guys, just because I'm, um, charisma challenged)

History Man, I don't expect minor nations to do much cutting edge research. I expect them to have a small army of skilled troops, if they have the sort of culture that allows long periods of training, and a high enough retention rate that the level of skill doesn't dissipate. Skill and degree to which a unit are armed are utterly unrelated factors and the game should reflect this. For example, most would agree that the Airborne, or the Paras or Fallschirmjaeger (sp) were highly skilled troops, right? But their level of equipment was, well, puny. And when they were forced to go toe to toe with regular, not so skilled but much heavier armed forces, they were hurt bad. They took very high casualties, but they also stayed in the fight much longer than a regular unit would have at similar casualty rates. That is reflected in low combat values, and very high Org.

Well, this is long enough. I hope somebody reads it.

 

[Mithel]

Essentially it would take a complete revamp of the tech tree (and perhaps unit costs). Yes, I agree, the cost for most R&D should be in the implementation (the only reasonable way to do this is to increase the cost of units - so it hurts even more when they are rebuilt).

This is a big weakness in HoI's design. Since "on upgrade" is very clumsy from a usability point of view for major nations most techs are "immediate" (free). Unfortunately this means the cost for a tech is totally wrong when comparing small armies to large armies.

I think we are also talking about a number of different types of techs. Some are theory you just need to understand, but most require training to "implement" the theory into the military formations.

Think of it like building a better battleship.. you can say the blueprints cost nothing to copy on paper, but there ARE costs involved in designing those blueprints and getting the equipment and skills to implement them (not counting the actual construction costs).

I oppose any research costs of Zero because this makes it not a decision, you just research it. I think even minors should have to decide whether to spend their meager R&D allocation on Air or Land or Sea, etc. Is "1 IC" unrealistically too much? Sure... for some cases yes.

Should it be improved? Yes. Can it be improved? Not as much as we'd like. (game design limitations)

 

[Lothos]

Just play the Super AI Bundle this problem has been resolved.

 

[unmerged(19545)]

You are entirely correct. A complete rework of the tech tree is called for; it is the only way to address this basic conceptual flaw.

Your distinction between techs that represent attitudinal changes, or new ideas that seem obvious in hindsight (those would be doctrines) and actual patent able commercially valuable knowledge, which can only be won through research, and often not even then.

The example of battleship tech exemplifies the latter. In fact, it is possibly too cheap in the game. It wasn’t possible to make progress in that field without actually building battleships, and then shooting them full of holes with other battleship guns. Something the allies did after WW1 to the German ships, and benefited thereby. The Germans, OTOH, didn’t really make much progress between the wars, and the Bismark, for all the hysterical press it got, was really only an improved Baden Class BB, which Germany was making at the end of WW1. That was expensive research, and ideally, it would be impossible to advance your level of BB tech without building one of each type.

This compares with the doctrine I keep bleating on about. Doctrines came about slowly and painfully, but not because they were hard to come up with. Rather, the enormous inertia in the system prevented anyone from listening to folks. Basel Liddell Hart spelled it all out between the wars, but no one (in England anyway) was listening. And Douhet wrote one book, and send much of the 8th Air Force to their deaths, because everyone believed “The Bomber Will Always Get Through”. Inertia aside, doctrines don’t cost anything (in HoI terms to come up with) just to implement. The wonderful thing about making your troops more skilful, is that you can change build time, and thus build cost, in one day increments, which is roughly 1% increments. You certainly can’t change IC/day costs by increments finer that 5% for the most expensive items. The simplest thing to do, is add a day to the build time for each % improvement in Org. That should be easily done with a text editor.

Then there are the techs and doctrines that change combat values, but not Org. Where these reflect different approaches to combat, like the Defensive Doctrine, but not necessarily increase material use, a small increase in build time seems in order as well. But where the tech or doctrine calls for a substantial increase in ammo, like the Forward Area Logistics string, or Coordinated Artillery type doctrines, then an increase in Supply consumption better reflects what is happening.

Re-equipping might occasionally call for a change to Build Cost (IC) but not that often. The rocket artillery, for example, is much much cheaper than the tube artillery it supplements or replaces, and should be added to the division basically for free. But it used very large quantities of rockets, and that would be a significant increase in Supply requirements.
Submachine guns and Assault Rifles are the same. They aren’t any more expensive than the standard infantry rifle, in fact SMG’s are much cheaper. But they cause a small increase in ammunition consumption.

If I might add at this point, Supply Requirements really mean something, since the implementation of the basic Math Guy mod, and the game tracks them to the third decimal place, so we have the capacity for extremely fine nuances.

And I must politely disagree with one of your points. Techs that are free to research still are a decision. If it doesn’t cost anything to research Doctrine X, but doing so will increase the supply cost of your entire army by 15%, then maybe you don’t want Doctrine X. That is a real decision, in that you might very well decide no. As it stands, there are no decisions to be made any of the doctrine trees. By that I mean, for every single doctrine, the answer to the question, ‘Would you like to have this?’ the answer is ‘YES’, and you research it if you can afford it. Everyone’s armies evolve toward the identical final product, to the extent that a country can afford it. The dramatic differences between Warsaw Pact Doctrine, American Doctrine, West German Doctrine, etc, aren’t even possible as currently written. There is only one correct final outcome: the implementation of all doctrines. By 1947 all major armies are identical, in doctrine, equipment, philosophy, training time, supply consumption. You see where I’m going with that.

And the countries run by AI research stuff they can’t afford now, so the cost or lack thereof is not a factor in whether or not the AI researches it. Setting the research preferences a little better in the AI scripts is already a good thing, but the rationale would change a little.

Anyway, this is (as usual for me) getting too long for anyone to bother to read.
Oops, just read Lothos' comment. Hi Lotho, elaborate please. How solved? To what extent? Not to say that I wasn't going to play it anyway. Math Guy has suggested the same to me recently anyway.

 

[Lothos]

We are still tweaking the timing of the techs but all research costs are 2 IC or less depending on what it is for. To avoid tech rushes the gold techs are seperated in most cases by 360 days. There are what I refer to as stop gaps that happen early on that cost 1 IC per day and take about 3 years to research but this is to prevent people from having Tiger tanks in 1939 etc..... those kind of things. Because of the change research tends to be flat and the major powers research all areas instead of a tech rush in one area. In addition techs are cheap that minors as well can do their own research but not in the same capacity as the major powers which is good because it forces them to want to join an alliance so they can get access to tech tradding with their allies. The bundle has tons of changes from Math Guys stuff and our own. Version 2.0 should be out in 2 or 3 months but 1.2 is available for download and there are a few hot fixes posted on the sub-forum.

 

[jdrou]

SuperAI Bundle doesn't address DC's main point though: doctrines should have much lower IC cost than other tech applications. For example, in v1.2 you still have Static Defense Doctrine costing 4 IC for 140 days and most others cost even more IC while most of your infantry tech apps cost around 2 IC for 90-120 days. These are both much less than vanilla HoI (as they must be since you are using the supply mod) or even Starfire (which is also cheaper for the same reason) but his argument is that the doctrine should be cheaper than the other techapps (if not 0 IC) but probably longer time.

 

[Lothos]

4IC is much cheaper than 25IC and at 4IC it puts its cost less than land units. His point was he can build several panzer divisions and equip them but he cant do research on weather giving them HQs is a good idea with the same resources. Yes he stated why not 0IC costs but the reality is some cost is needed and at 4IC pretty much any country can research it (even Cuba if done right) hehe.

 

[unmerged(13914)]

Aah, so nice to come back and find the HOI forums still as active as ever.

I think there are several "entangled" problems here and setting the doctrine cost really low kinda solves all of them . . . but not in a way that will make everyone happy.

1) There were indeed improvements that countries could make to their forces that took very little upfront cost, but required a lot of time. Send some officers on a liaison/exchange mission, they come back and teach others, and pretty soon you know how to organize kampfgruppen. In the game even the cheapest research costs more than an actual division does, hence DC's articulation of angst.

2) The total cost of research in the game is geared to the majors, in fact it's too much even for the majors to reproduce their historical tech tree without some very clever sharing and ignoring the less useful items.

3) The "on upgrade" option is really cumbersome in game terms.

If you cut research costs and make certain improvements impose an increase in unit cost "now" rather than "on upgrade," the total cost of improving your units is spread around more realistically and it doesn't become an added headache to keep track of units needing upgrade. It's not a perfect solution, but it's as good as HOI 1 really allows.

 

[unmerged(19545)]

Hi again Lothos. While 4 is indeed less than 25 ic, the problem doesn’t go away. There are about 30 land doctrines, and more still in air and sea. While naval doctrines would be at least a little more expensive, the air ones really should be damn near free, because they represent people opening their eyes long enough to notice that their foolish notions aren’t really working. Of course it took the 8th airforce a long time to notice that the bombers couldn’t survive without escorts, but that was their own contemptible foolishness, as Germany had already adequately demonstrated all this during the battle of Britain.
But I digress. 4 isn’t much, I guess, but there are about 25 doctrines that my hypothetical small but militant country would like to gain, and 4 times 25 IS a lot. Enough to dramatically reduce the number of divisions in the field, and that’s not realistic.

Hi Math Guy, thanks for dropping in. I appreciate the ringing endorsement.
Don’t forget the increased supply costs for the army wasteful divisions, based on doctrinal change. That alone would be enough to make the Soviet player regret researching that one.
I suppose it would be too much to ask (ha, ha, ha. I know how busy you are) for a detailed breakdown of which doctrines could be achieved by guys like Liddell or Guderian in their studies; which would require extensive wargaming on a sand table at the war academy, and which would need live troops (the red team vs the blue team). And any that would actually need hundreds of millions of dollars invested (and thousands of tons of coal, steel, rubber consumed)


What the game really needs are the doctrines representing a reversion to smaller, less expensive divisions. But we can’t reduce MP requirements for divisions by tech, only directly editing the DB files. Damn, we’ve had this angst before.

Hey, I just had a brainwave. Something to report in the Whacky House of Variables. What if you set the manpower requirement of a brigade to a negative value? Would it reduce the MP requirements of a division? Could we thus model the later war Triangular Divisions vs the early war Square Divisions? Reduce other values as well? Supply, and the attack and defence values?

I sincerely hope HoI2 allows many more brigade types, they are an invaluable tool to the artful modder.

A number of undefined unit types would be brilliant as well. We could decide what they are, and what they are worth, pick some sprites for them from the vast field of sprites, etc. I can see large divisions for some countries, small divisions for others, different philosophies of militia, and any number of other uses. Hell, even camel riding bedouin irregulars which can move and survive in the deep desert, if anyone needs them.

Later.