For The Motherland: First Impressions

[Praetori]

Chuckle. Okay, I'm sorry I caught you with that swipe. My apologies.

Still, Building a larger reserve force is *supposed* to be cheaper than maintaining a similar sized regular army - just not as effective in combat. Johan's intervention makes it appear that it *stays* more expensive, even once mobilised - extremely counter-intiutive. Still waiting to see what's really been implemented (there have been conflicting reports) and how it all balances out.

The *effectiveness* of a reserve unit has nothing to do with it being a reserve formation. Experience is all that matters in the end (and in HOI3 the experience and training factors are merged).
Personally I'd like to see reserve formations having 0 experience until mobilization (at which point they start working as normal units but on a reserve status). Giving standing units experience in accordance with the training laws would work well to set the reserve and professional units apart.

 

[unmerged(126043)]

In scenario "attack in the west" playing France, after press theaterbutton game crasches. This only happens by playing France in this scenario not happens by the other fractions.

 

[Corelli]

I'm waiting for Di:G to be made compatible with FTM before I play Germany again, so I decided to try a game as Japan, which I don't think I have done since before SF came out. The game runs a lot faster and I actually wish I had an even slower setting for when fighting.
I do think I must be missing a lot of events going on around the world, my event box defaulted to show NOTHING at start up, which is odd. I need to go check the settings for all the messages.

I really like the events for creating/expanding the Japanese puppet after you take part of Shanxi.
The Japanese OOB is a mess and I spent a lot of time trying to clean that up. I swear they seem to have less decent leaders than before (HoI 2).
In order to save supplies I always bring home all the island garrisons. After manually turning off most of the supply convoys to the islands, I let the AI take control of the supply convoys again after a day and it immediately started those convoys again, even though those troops were long gone. It's been a strain on my supply system for the invasion of China. Very annoying and not sure why they would continue to supply empty islands.
The Germans invited me into the Axis in '37.
I've done a lot of trading in this game and early on it was hard to keep my numbers in the green. I sell a lot of supplies to other countries and my main trading partner is the US.

My TAC units never really go below 99/98 even though I use them all the time. In Europe you always need to reinforce them after the damage they take there from ground units/AA.

As someone mentioned before, they are seeing the supply of their units more at 75% most of the time rather than 100%. I see more of that in China but it varies. Nice to see that though. Before it seemed to be all or nothing for supplies.

The invasion of China started in July of '37 and it's the middle of September now with Shanxi & Communist China gone and about 2/7ths of Nat China under Japanese control. In the south near the coastline my 4 division Cavalry army basically walked through all the way to border (along the coast) and to Nanchang. Never had any resistance until I got to there. Resistance is starting to stiffen in a north/south line but with the communists gone my troops in the north are facing disorganized militia.

I'm curious to see what game events occur for the other Chinese states.

 

[Xerjin]

Can any one clarify weather AA guns have been made anymore effective? I played on SF and had heavy AA guns all over north west Germany with air support. But I am just not shooting down any aircraft. Then I went back and cheeted on th heavy AA tech, and unit AA techs. Well at the end when all techs in these areas were broken at 2001 years development and every province with 10 AA guns and major citys with AA div, yet still getting bomming on a large and destrictive scale in 1940.

Only int seem to hold any weight in air defence!

Not quite understanding this mechanics. I get that AA were actually not that effective, but really to this exsent?

 

[Darkrenown]

And they are bombing the province with the AA in it? AA doesn't shoot at planes flying by. We upped the damage from AA a fair bit, so I would have thought it would be more effective now.

 

[Darkrenown]

In scenario "attack in the west" playing France, after press theaterbutton game crasches. This only happens by playing France in this scenario not happens by the other fractions.

Yeah :/ We should have a patch out to fix that tomorrow.

 

[Darkrenown]

Still, Building a larger reserve force is *supposed* to be cheaper than maintaining a similar sized regular army - just not as effective in combat. Johan's intervention makes it appear that it *stays* more expensive, even once mobilised - extremely counter-intiutive. Still waiting to see what's really been implemented (there have been conflicting reports) and how it all balances out.

There's no combat penalty to reserves though. Also, while reserves are cheaper to build and maintain while at peace, once mobilised and fully equipped they should be able the same price as a regular unit. The price of equipping them is paid later but it must still be paid.

 

[Xerjin]

I will revist this weekend and report back.

 

[Pugmak]

There's no combat penalty to reserves though. Also, while reserves are cheaper to build and maintain while at peace, once mobilised and fully equipped they should be able the same price as a regular unit. The price of equipping them is paid later but it must still be paid.

question, because Im rather dense.

So, once mobilized, the x* increase to repair and replacements only takes reserve units up to the same costs for same function as active units?

Oh, forgot to add:

First impressions.
I haven't gotten nearly enough sleep since FtM was released, so I assume I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

 

[Jazumir]

There's no combat penalty to reserves though. Also, while reserves are cheaper to build and maintain while at peace, once mobilised and fully equipped they should be able the same price as a regular unit. The price of equipping them is paid later but it must still be paid.

While you are here - could you please tell us what you know about the current mechanic? I mean the details as in: Is a reserve unit really 5x more expensive to rebuild during the whole war, compared to a regular unit? What about MP? Even more interesting than the current mechanic´s detail might be the direction the tweaking is going to go...

And on the general design - why is the equipment for a reserve unit paid later? Does this really make sense at all, from a realistic or gameplay POV? Or should just the maintainance/MP cost be discounted until mobilization - which, you know, would fix the whole problem with one go: Have reserves cost the same as regulars at building and cut their maintainence according to training law, but allow them to catch up for free (or at a nominal IC-cost) when mobilising or changing training laws.

 

[iuniusbrutus]

For those who haven't noticed, there seem to have been large changes to naval stats.

1a. Hull size now seems an important determinant of the toughness of a naval unit, and upgrading armor in the tech tree now affects this instead of sea defence. Implication: fleets will need to be smaller towards end of game to minimize stacking penalties.
1b. Sea defence values are higher for small ships, compensating for their lack of hull size. Implication: effed if I know.
2. Carrier hull size, IC and build time are increased. Implication: Balance of power between battleship/cruiser has been tipped away from carrier
3. Light and Heavy Cruiser air attack buffed, implication: may be useful to build now as unlike in SF.

Peeps need to run the maths on this, and I'm just looking at individual country build menu stats, but interesting implications...

Also I don't know a lot about land or air unit stats but a quick glance looks like they are the same.

Does anyone know if there is something explaining all these changes, or will there be soon?

 

[Raptor83]

And on the general design - why is the equipment for a reserve unit paid later? Does this really make sense at all, from a realistic or gameplay POV? Or should just the maintainance/MP cost be discounted until mobilization - which, you know, would fix the whole problem with one go: Have reserves cost the same as regulars at building and cut their maintainence according to training law, but allow them to catch up for free (or at a nominal IC-cost) when mobilising or changing training laws.

Looks like good idea.

 

[Darkrenown]

And on the general design - why is the equipment for a reserve unit paid later? Does this really make sense at all, from a realistic or gameplay POV? Or should just the maintainance/MP cost be discounted until mobilization - which, you know, would fix the whole problem with one go: Have reserves cost the same as regulars at building and cut their maintainence according to training law, but allow them to catch up for free (or at a nominal IC-cost) when mobilising or changing training laws.

That would be another way to do it, yes. We thought it was less of a change to increase the reinforce costs though, so reserves are still cheap upfront. I feel it makes sense though, afterall not every regular force is equipped with fresh gear right off the factory lines either, mostly it would come from armouries etc. The idea that all equipment is build as it's required is just a gameplay abstraction.

As for how reserves actually work at the moment, that's something I will need to look at today. I'll get back to you when I find out more.

 

[Raptor83]

For those who haven't noticed, there seem to have been large changes to naval stats.

1a. Hull size now seems an important determinant of the toughness of a naval unit, and upgrading armor in the tech tree now affects this instead of sea defence. Implication: fleets will need to be smaller towards end of game to minimize stacking penalties.
1b. Sea defence values are higher for small ships, compensating for their lack of hull size. Implication: effed if I know.
2. Carrier hull size, IC and build time are increased. Implication: Balance of power between battleship/cruiser has been tipped away from carrier
3. Light and Heavy Cruiser air attack buffed, implication: may be useful to build now as unlike in SF.

Peeps need to run the maths on this, and I'm just looking at individual country build menu stats, but interesting implications...

Also I don't know a lot about land or air unit stats but a quick glance looks like they are the same.

Does anyone know if there is something explaining all these changes, or will there be soon?

1a. excess hull affect any position at the start of the battle and hull increase will be compensated by doctrines which give you position bonus.

1b. Dea defense now simulate chance to avoid being hit - so smaller faster ships will have higher defense, which is IMO rasonably realistic - its much harder to hit DD moving at 35+knots than BB moving at 25 knots - good IRL example of this can be seen in Battle of Samar.

2. Good. IRL big CVs were expensive to build.

3. I love CLs (and even more when playing I.C.E.)

 

[iuniusbrutus]

on 3 I personally thought there were two purposes to escorts in SF: ASW and avoiding poor screen penalty. They seemed so fragile and their sea attack so weak they were useless in doing damage to enemy ships. I built destroyers because they were better at ASW and faster to build (with lower IC days). What was your reasoning?

 

[iuniusbrutus]

Another observation with significant strategic implications: Strategic Resources are provided to all faction members, but they are also provided to a faction leader if a country is "close enough". This makes the UK a powerhouse because it starts with so many countries closely aligned they basically have all strategic resources from the start. This may be behind the UK's increased strength observed by a few people.

 

[steveh11]

There's no combat penalty to reserves though.

Yes, there is - there's an experience penalty. There always has been. Arguably it's not enough, but then, that's in your (the devs') hands, too, isn't it?

Also, while reserves are cheaper to build and maintain while at peace, once mobilised and fully equipped they should be able the same price as a regular unit. The price of equipping them is paid later but it must still be paid.

But Johan's comment makes it seem that they now cost five times as much as regular units to maintain. Who is right?

A clear, definitive answer would be nice.

My own suggestion would be that reserve units cost the same IC as regulars to raise, but less MP; the extra costs involved in mobilising them are easily 'handwaved' as the overall adjustment cost to the economy of having workers pulled from their jobs. An additional nuance could be to have the dissidence cost of unmobilised reserves at 25%, 33% etc. of normal, instead of uncounted as it is at present. This would however need balancing I suspect.

Steve.

 

[Raptor83]

on 3 I personally thought there were two purposes to escorts in SF: ASW and avoiding poor screen penalty. They seemed so fragile and their sea attack so weak they were useless in doing damage to enemy ships. I built destroyers because they were better at ASW and faster to build (with lower IC days). What was your reasoning?

I almost never play vanilla HoI3 (I pla yvanilla only when I am testing something) and in I.C.E. CLs have pretty reasonable chance to survive in most naval battles (at least if you start researching their tech from the start so that when war start they are much more modern than most enemy ships they are fighting).

 

[Darkrenown]

Yes, there is - there's an experience penalty. There always has been. Arguably it's not enough, but then, that's in your (the devs') hands, too, isn't it?

Well yes, but that's not a combat penalty based on them being reserves, if they collect a bit more XP they will fight exactly the same as regulars. It's only 5% difference if you have 3 year draft too, so it's not that noticeable. The main benefit of reserves was that they were cheaper to build and mantain, took less initial MP, and caused no threat when deployed. The downside was they had to mobilise to get to full str. But they cost so much less and mobilising was so fast and cheap, it was really a no-brainer to build only reserves.

But Johan's comment makes it seem that they now cost five times as much as regular units to maintain. Who is right?

As for how reserves actually work at the moment, that's something I will need to look at today. I'll get back to you when I find out more.

 

[steveh11]

A further note: So far my overall 'first impression' is positive; I can wait until the hotfix for the theatre tab and I'm sure the reserves problem can be resolved - or at least fixed by modification somewhere. (Surely there's a value that can be 'tweaked' isn't there? )