General Criticism Thread

[Lifthrasil]

Seeing WW wednesday, hungary took out germany in 1940 with garrison units. What is gonna be the fun in playing soviet,britain or US, if a small weak nation can steamroll The third reich. Why do we need airforce when they a not needed at all. Why have tec if it doesn't matter and you can stomp the a.i in a matter of month with a basic small army. Please stop making Hoi into a sandbox where everybody can win, its WWII and should reflect that in the power of the counties. You have Eu4 for taking a small nation and making it a big empire. Hoi should concentrate on operational scale warfare, with high attention to detail ieg, supply, but at the moment it's just a mess.

Hungary attacked Germany from it's unguarded border. That is not "taking Germany out". If there is no resistance at all, a mob with pitchforks can have the same success like a division of heavy infantry. When Germany sent troops to fight Hungary, things got a lot harder. Daniel hold Berlin for about 1 hour (!) before the Germans took it back. And after that his fronts had to go backwards. I think it was a mistake that they ended the Hungary Game now. I would have liked to see how/if Daniel got slaughtered by the AI and what happens when you loose.
We never saw a defensive war against superior opponents in the WWW, which I find disappointing.

 

[Grallak]

To my knowledge, the practice to make provisions for use/maintenance for the lifetime of military equipment is rather contemporary, but I may be wrong. And since there are no stockpile in HOI4 how can you write-off oil from your nonexistent oil reserves ?

Besides, that assume that you can accurately evaluate the lifetime of equipment, which is much more easy in peace time that during a World War. With the proposed mechanic, when you lose a capital ship, that means you also lose years of its future oil consumption (accounted for when building it), which is utterly illogic. Does the game mechanic require you to destroy huge oil tanks by setting them on fire or to leak them in the drain each time you lose a capital ship, just to comply with the system ?

Since when you need huge amount of oil to build ships ? I thought it took metal and steel.

Why a shortage of oil should make shipbuilding taking 3-4 times more ? Because the workers have to walk to the shipyard instead of using their cars ?

^This^

As Japan, how am I supposed to build a navy during peacetime if I don't have the oil I need to effectively produce ships? Do I have to import oil and waste a lot of IC just for that? Why can't oil be tied to how many ships I have and which ships I decide to have in active service? Why do I need to start war for oil, so that I can build ships that cost oil so that I can get more oil? How am I supposed to build a navy without having too waste huge amounts of IC and time by either importing or by inefficient building? Why can't just my ships tie up some oil once they are produced unless I decide to mothball them in harbor and not use them? I just feel like this could be solved so easily, yet the developers don't seem to think so. The only way for me to make ships without IC losses for importing oil would be during the war, but what if I want to build ships BEFORE the war? It just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Atleast remove oil completely from the production system. It's just weird and doesn't make any sense neither in game or as a concept. Let there be some way to mothball tanks and ships and aircrafts to prevent them from consuming oil and only use them once you've acquired the oil you need to supply them.

Actually, there should be some kind of function which allows me to build a capital ship without oil BUT I wouldn't be able to use it until I've acquired that amount of oil. This would also give the Netherlands and the UK a chance because Japan wouldn't be able to throw their entire weight at them until they've secured the oil fields in indonesia. This is both fun and makes sense.

So it would work kind of like the power cells for power armor in fallout 4. If you take a ship to a port then you can unfuel it and then use the fuel somewhere else. You would still have the ship, but you wouldn't be able to operate it. Then rather than fighting at a certain "efficiency" that doesn't make any sense since unless the ship has enough oil it's effective range will also be reduced. It's batter to have a few ships with full efficiency and range than some half assed ships that can't sail as far and are harder to relocate to other ports. Since the Japanese might be cut of somewhere, they would still be able to go to other ports that they wouldn't be able to reach if they were only "half-fuelled"

 

[Lifthrasil]

Well we are discussing game mechanics here, with the assumption the game will be in working order and relatively bug free on release. I'm not sure where you are taking this point, HoI3 was buggy on release therefore we shouldnt hold the studio to any high standard for HoI4? HoI3 is unplayable without DLCs and so if HoI4 is at least playable on release it doesnt matter that we consider some of their core game mechanics fundamentally flawed?
I can live with bugs, there is almost always a workaround, poor game mechanics are an entirely different story. I don't expect paradox to change much between now and release, so I don't expect any changes to the topics being discussed in the thread, but I do expect it to be possible for modders to make the changes being discussed in this thread. If it is not, it will be a failure on Paradox's part for effectively alienating some of their most loyal fans.

In my opinion, the problem here is those making HoI4 have a different vision for the game than some, or many, of those long time fans waiting to buy it. And that is fine, Paradox have not kept their changes, or the fact that they are trying to reduce the learning curve and appeal to a more casual audience, a secret, But we can still voice our criticism.

I disagree with you on the topic that a more casual approach is bad, but I agree that people should be able to voice their concerns, and that the game should be moddable so hardcore strategists can tweak it to their liking.

 

[Marfach]

I disagree with you on the topic that a more casual approach is bad, but I agree that people should be able to voice their concerns, and that the game should be moddable so hardcore strategists can tweak it to their liking.

I agree, they were honest about making the game more accessible to new players, all we want is the ability to mod it into the complex game we wanted.

^This^

As Japan, how am I supposed to build a navy during peacetime if I don't have the oil I need to effectively produce ships? Do I have to import oil and waste a lot of IC just for that? Why can't oil be tied to how many ships I have and which ships I decide to have in active service? Why do I need to start war for oil, so that I can build ships that cost oil so that I can get more oil? How am I supposed to build a navy without having too waste huge amounts of IC and time by either importing or by inefficient building? Why can't just my ships tie up some oil once they are produced unless I decide to mothball them in harbor and not use them? I just feel like this could be solved so easily, yet the developers don't seem to think so. The only way for me to make ships without IC losses for importing oil would be during the war, but what if I want to build ships BEFORE the war? It just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

I would like to add to this train of thought, to 'write off' the cost of the oil means to add the price of POL (petroleum, oils, lubricants) to the liability balance sheet and give it a numerical value. This is done for accounting reasons, not for logistical or combat reasons. The oil itself is not bought, merely a sum of money is allocated to the purchase of oil. This obviously is not compatible with WW2 where the issue wasnt a lack of money to buy oil, but a lack of oil supply due to complete Embargo by the USA and UK which cut Japan off from POL, Refined Metals, Rubber and anything else they werent producing domestically.
Oil here is almost metaphorical, it is representing the many many resources Japan were cut off from because it is much easier to implement the key resources (fuel and rubber) than to try and implement and balance a multitude of other resources.

 

[Grallak]

I agree, they were honest about making the game more accessible to new players, all we want is the ability to mod it into the complex game we wanted.


I would like to add to this train of thought, to 'write off' the cost of the oil means to add the price of POL (petroleum, oils, lubricants) to the liability balance sheet and give it a numerical value. This is done for accounting reasons, not for logistical or combat reasons. The oil itself is not bought, merely a sum of money is allocated to the purchase of oil. This obviously is not compatible with WW2 where the issue wasnt a lack of money to buy oil, but a lack of oil supply due to complete Embargo by the USA and UK which cut Japan off from POL, Refined Metals, Rubber and anything else they werent producing domestically.
Oil here is almost metaphorical, it is representing the many many resources Japan were cut off from because it is much easier to implement the key resources (fuel and rubber) than to try and implement and balance a multitude of other resources.

What are you talking about? I need metals to build a ship, not oil. And I just explained that it could be easily solved by simply implementing mothballing and being able to build ships but not being able to operate them until you give them the oil, which I would get from conquest. If the metals are missing then it can't be helped, but why do I need freaking oil to BUILD the ship? It makes no sense and only adds to the frustration that the developers are oversimplifying the game for the masses. But this is just pure madness. I don't recall a ship ever needing a huge amount of oil to be built.

 

[Marfach]

What are you talking about? I need metals to build a ship, not oil. And I just explained that it could be easily solved by simply implementing mothballing and being able to build ships but not being able to operate them until you give them the oil once you have acquired it. If the metals are missing then it can't be helped, but why do I need freaking oil to BUILD the ship?

Look further up the reply chain to the poster claiming the oil costs are written off during production. Sorry if I was unclear I was more replying to him than you but the point is the POL costs are 'written off' purely in an accounting sense, therefore it makes no sense to include their cost in production and justify it by saying the oil cost is written off. I'm agreeing with you, to build ships you should need metals and to move those ships around you should then need oil.

 

[Grallak]

Look further up the reply chain to the poster claiming the oil costs are written off during production. Sorry if I was unclear I was more replying to him than you but the point is the POL costs are 'written off' purely in an accounting sense, therefore it makes no sense to include their cost in production and justify it by saying the oil cost is written off. I'm agreeing with you, to build ships you should need metals and to move those ships around you should then need oil.

So do I or do I need oil to "EFFECTIVELY" produce ships?
From what I have read. Battleships, battle cruisers, Carriers and modern tanks don't need the equipment ships to be produced, but smaller ships that don't take as long to produce does, meaning I can build the bulk of the navy before the war and then implement it with some smaller ships after the war starts or atleast import some oil and build those ships a few months before. Since their lifespans are pretty short, it will not be as difficult to replace them.

 

[Marfach]

So do I or do I need oil to "EFFECTIVELY" produce ships?
From what I have read. Battleships, battle cruisers, Carriers and modern tanks don't need the equipment ships to be produced, but smaller ships that don't take as long to produce does, meaning I can build the bulk of the navy before the war and then implement it with some smaller ships after the war starts or atleast import some oil and build those ships a few months before. Since their lifespans are pretty short, it will not be as difficult to replace them.

I'm not sure I understand your english but as it stands in game you DO need Oil to build ships effectively. You do NOT need oil to use ships that have already been built. Most of the shipd you will use as Japan or the UK will be built prior to the games starting date so you won't need to build huge numbers of ships yourself unless you play as Germany or the USA.
Most people, from what I can tell, want a system where you may or may not need oil to build ships effectively, but DO need oil to use the ships once they have been built.

 

[GundamMerc]

A very vocal minority :3