Yeah, the AI's unrestricted stacks do have the tendency of making airwars impossible to win. Even if you have material and technological superiority.
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Disgustoid said:
This has more to do with the damage calculation rules .. 1 point of attack has ~20% possibility to damage the enemy, if the enemy has an available point of defence to 'block' it. When defence points run out, the possibility of doing damage for each attack point is 100%. With air forces, where the air attack and air defence values are very close to each other, a 2 against 1 encounter tends to end up with a total slaughter.
Two better ways to counter this effect:
1) Add to the defece values of all units (not optimal but a good way)
2) Decrease the possibility of damaging when there are no defence points left to something like 30% instead of the 100%.
smn said:
The real problem is that the assumptions built into the air combat system (as well as the land system for that matter) are fundamentally flawed. Hence they can never be tweeked to give a realistic simulation of air combat.
Consider the IRL example of say 100 german fighters attacking an unescorted Allied strategic bomber stream of 400 planes. The German fighters are not going to attack every bomber in the stream, they are going to concentrate on say 50 to 100, depending on their ammunition stocks (16 seconds of continous fire for an RAF Battle of Britain fighter) and how hard it is to take out a strategic bomber (how many fighter passses are needed to take the bomber down).
Thus the combat is 100 fighters vs 50-200 bombers depending on the flying formations (eg RAF solo night flying or USAF combat box). Thus the defensive firepower firepower of the remaining bombers is unused and they emerge unscathed by the air combat as they weren't atacked.
If one used these sorts of calculations to try to simulate combat, it might end up being a little more realistic. Hence a two fighter stack would cause far more damage to a 8 bomber stack than it took from the bombers in making the attack.
This would remove the ridiculous circumstance where a 12 stack of tactical and medium bombers kicks the living crap out of a 6 stack of air superiority fighters.
A similar problem occurs in land combat where technically superior forces have no chance of defeating larger numbers of inferior troops eg try laying into 20 crappy Soviet infantry divisions with 8 German panzer divisions. Not a very realistic outcome for exactly the same reasons. Anyway that is a whole new issue.
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The naval system was tweaked so that fire was more concentrated on damaged units. Along with the revised naval stacking rule, it seems to give reasonable results for surface combat. Some similar tweaks might improve the air combat system.Cunneda said:
Andrew
Ugh! well cue Laurel and Hardy theme music ‘Paradox’ presents the usual 2stepsforward 3stepsback patch productions. Lets cut the crap and arguments the aircraft stacking penalty simply must go. I’ve been giving this a shot and now I’m utterly stick of seeing my limited fighter stacks being knocked to pieces by hordes of bloody stukas.
This is complete bollocks and I don’t apologise for the language. Does any one know how to code this out of the rules cos paradox clearly don’t give enough of a f*ck to think about the consequences of their poor muddled thinking. Oh theres still a problem with vichy and the AI planes being able to fly and rebase to anywhere. What the hell was this patch for?
Guess it’s back to v1.6 till paradox sort this crock o crap out.
Oh and to the mp guys who moaned and bitched till this was introduced, try changing the way you play and stop ruining the game for the rest of us you bunch of crybaby wussies. I don’t have time or the opportunity to play mp games and AI massive aircraft stacks was never a problem cos I could reply with mass stacks of my own. But no not any more!
blah blah rant rant blah!
This is complete bollocks and I don’t apologise for the language. Does any one know how to code this out of the rules cos paradox clearly don’t give enough of a f*ck to think about the consequences of their poor muddled thinking. Oh theres still a problem with vichy and the AI planes being able to fly and rebase to anywhere. What the hell was this patch for?
Guess it’s back to v1.6 till paradox sort this crock o crap out.
Oh and to the mp guys who moaned and bitched till this was introduced, try changing the way you play and stop ruining the game for the rest of us you bunch of crybaby wussies. I don’t have time or the opportunity to play mp games and AI massive aircraft stacks was never a problem cos I could reply with mass stacks of my own. But no not any more!
blah blah rant rant blah!
I don't really like this thread, there's too much opposite passions in it, but until now, it has been more or less calm, people have behaved and discussed like civilized people, which is very good.
So i suggest you all continue in that vein and don't rant about "patch crap" or anything else (*hint hint @ zenith23)...
So i suggest you all continue in that vein and don't rant about "patch crap" or anything else (*hint hint @ zenith23)...
Are you using 1.06c - that fixed the rebasing exploit so far as I can tell. There was a tweak to Vichy in that version too though it's still not as strong as it was in previous versions.zenith23 said:
You're right that this patch is not of the perfect quality that we'd all like to see. Most of the beta-testers migrated to Victoria then Crusader Kings and now HoI 2. Johan works like trojan but can only do so much. He's been suffering from problems with his wisdom teeth lately but was still back at work the same morning as having an extraction.
Whether any further change will be made to HoI 1 remains to be seen - no further patches are planned. But any issues and problems which arise will be useful input to HoI 2 so do please keep providing feedback. Thanks.
Andrew
Colonel Warden said:
:wacko: - jeez the guy should take it easy - getting you tooth pulled out and not getting rest after that is risky - I just had an uncle of my girlfriend get a stroke and die !!! after such an extraction........then again he was 54...
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gzav said:
Absolutely and I apologise, but I was completely frustrated as I enjoy this game and feel it’s been needlessly spoilt and needed to vent some spleen. I shall try to be more constructive in my criticisms in future.
The point is how am I meant to defend my airforce and units against 10,15+ stacks of AI fighters and bombers. I read some people don’t have this as a problem but I certainly have and I continue to see this in my games. I’m in a position now where the air war seems to be utterly baised toward the AI and now unwinnable with out resorting to some form of cheating! the stacking penalty is simply crippling the effectiveness of my fighters.
You're right that this patch is not of the perfect quality that we'd all like to see. Most of the beta-testers migrated to Victoria then Crusader Kings and now HoI 2. Johan works like trojan but can only do so much. He's been suffering from problems with his wisdom teeth lately but was still back at work the same morning as having an extraction.
Whether any further change will be made to HoI 1 remains to be seen - no further patches are planned. But any issues and problems which arise will be useful input to HoI 2 so do please keep providing feedback. Thanks.
I used to play ‘World In Flames’ with my mates years ago and was overjoyed when I saw HOI had come out, at last I could get my claws into something similar in the comfort of my own home and valuable spare time, but the endless tinkering and patches are driving me nuts, so no more planned patches shame, HOI came out in a unfinished form and seems destained to end in one as well.
I’ve been burnt with HOI and EU2 so I’m not going to be purchasing the next version of this game or Victoria for that matter until I’m completely certain from reading the forums people are happy with it, so I’ll give it well over a year or so before going for it.
Sorry to hear about the wisdom teeth, very nasty.
World in Flames suffered from continual revision too. They produced a "final" edition but I think they've still been producing expansions like Cruisers in Flames. Life's too short to keep up with such churning, I agree. Hearts of Iron has problems too but I find it more managable. For one thing, applying a patch is a lot easier than that cutting out and storing all those counters. I get a lot of pleasure from playing HoI and, despite the problems, think that each patch is better than the previous one. HoI 2 is the next big step in this evolution but because it is changing so much, you can expect a crop of new issues and problems. The testing process will eliminate the bulk of these but there will always be a residue in software of this complexity. So it goes. Perfect is the enemy of good ...zenith23 said:
Andrew
I tried the 1.06C patch, and am definately sticking with 1.06.
I had 20 squadrons of ME 109's, five groups of four. I waited until Italy joined the war, and the British rebased a group of 13 fighters to the Med. I had placed one group in their expected path, two in front, and two more behind. When the English hit my first group, they wiped it out. I then hit it with a second, which wasn't quite wiped out. I hit it with a third, and won. As they headed home I hit them again. I then constantly hit them when they rebased and they were unable to add any new planes or recover their org. I eventually wiped them out.
Micromanagement hell. It was not fun, and the only reason it worked was I knew what the English were going to do. (reverse ultra I guess) At any rate, I still fail to see how this is an improvement.
Please give us a way to remove this...it really hurts the SP game.
I had 20 squadrons of ME 109's, five groups of four. I waited until Italy joined the war, and the British rebased a group of 13 fighters to the Med. I had placed one group in their expected path, two in front, and two more behind. When the English hit my first group, they wiped it out. I then hit it with a second, which wasn't quite wiped out. I hit it with a third, and won. As they headed home I hit them again. I then constantly hit them when they rebased and they were unable to add any new planes or recover their org. I eventually wiped them out.
Micromanagement hell. It was not fun, and the only reason it worked was I knew what the English were going to do. (reverse ultra I guess) At any rate, I still fail to see how this is an improvement.
Please give us a way to remove this...it really hurts the SP game.
So, you lost less than 8 fighters while the British lost 13, right? Seems like you're only happy when you wipe the AI forces out without taking any losses. That's not a convincing argument for change, IMO. But kudos for your tactical acumen and determination.rogers said:
Andrew
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Colonel Warden said:
Yeah I know about the add ons to the WIF series, now at Convoy in Flames!!, we gave up at Africa in Flames it was getting to the point where you needed to book the local village hall to play it, but these are surely more mods like CORE or Stony Road, you chose to get them, they augment and expand the game experience. In the patches we have rule decisions placed upon us.
Incidently would CORE have this rule imposed upon it as well? I’ve not played it yet.
Can somebody clarify something, does the stack penalty occur to the total amount of units in the province or the no. held in an air wing commanded by a leader. Could you intercept with two or three 4 stack air wings each under separate leaders for a total of 12 fighter units in the province and not suffer the penalty?
The stacking penalties are hard-coded in the program and so can't be changed by a mod. A mod might change the cost and AI behaviour so that big stacks are less common though.zenith23 said:
The penalty applies to all air units in a province - the formations are not assessed separately. I'm not sure about allies though. The similar naval stacking rule was supposed to treat those separately but I don't recall trying this with air units yet, e.g. getting the Luftwaffe and Italians to work together.
Andrew
Colonel Warden said:
So those that hate this new feature are just out of luck. No mod will help.
Thats great.
Mort
Colonel Warden said:
Had I not *known* what the AI was going to do, so I was able to set a trap, I would have inflicted zero loss on the English. Micromanagement, and gamey tactics are not something I want to do.
Would it be possible to mod some Air doctrines tech to reduce the penalty by say 1% per doctrine? Heck, add to the cost of the tech as well. I agree the player needs to be limited somewhat but it would be nice to research out of some of the penalty. Trying to be helpful.
Mort
Mort
LonelyMortician this is a first ever:I mean triple post. Where is gzav?
Ok to your question now.In parts you are right.The capacity to command big air armies isnt easy and certainly wasnt in WW2.It heavily depends on what we call now C3I(C4I if you add computers).
Therefore better techs in radar technology as well as improved doctrines should have made available to reduce a penalty of the sort.THIS whould be possible ONLY if the penalty was intergrated from the BEGGINING to the game.Unfortunately it wasnt and this provides some very ridiculous results in air combat.
It is really strange why dev. team introduced something so badly created as a concept and so little tested as a feature now that HoI2 is developing and thus HoI1 finish its life.
I personally find the whole story very disappointing.You can check my signature to see that.So i stick with 1.06 and i guess that all of those who dont like it will do the same.
I also have to warn them that since there have been to(1.06 b/c)patches and it continues to be probably wont go out.Very unfortunate since lots of players dislike the ill-concived feature that from what it seems was made to fit for MP but NOBODY tried it seriously on SP which i beliave is more important.
Where is gzav? Ok to your question now.In parts you are right.The capacity to command big air armies isnt easy and certainly wasnt in WW2.It heavily depends on what we call now C3I(C4I if you add computers).
Therefore better techs in radar technology as well as improved doctrines should have made available to reduce a penalty of the sort.THIS whould be possible ONLY if the penalty was intergrated from the BEGGINING to the game.Unfortunately it wasnt and this provides some very ridiculous results in air combat.
It is really strange why dev. team introduced something so badly created as a concept and so little tested as a feature now that HoI2 is developing and thus HoI1 finish its life.
I personally find the whole story very disappointing.You can check my signature to see that.So i stick with 1.06 and i guess that all of those who dont like it will do the same.
I also have to warn them that since there have been to(1.06 b/c)patches and it continues to be probably wont go out.Very unfortunate since lots of players dislike the ill-concived feature that from what it seems was made to fit for MP but NOBODY tried it seriously on SP which i beliave is more important.