Germany is officially broken in FTM

[Kadanz]

I won't use the word 'broken', I think it's rather 'flawed' in some areas. Imo, they really need to dedicate an expansion on huge AI improvements and few but cool features. Although, I think I might be alone in this. For example I have no idea what the theater tab is for, other than occupying space. Naval and air AI need the most attention imo.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I'm convinced Germany has been absolutely castrated in FTM. I have played 20 games straight for the 1936 scenario with not a single German victory in Russia. This can't be bad luck, as 20 games is simply ridiculous, especially considering the hundreds of hours I put in them. A few times in which Germany took Moscow they still lost miserably. They never push for Stalingrad to finish them off and end up having thousands of Americans/British land in Europe killing them by then.

What is so frustrating to me as a customer who loves Hearts of Iron 3 is that there has never been balance. I remember in vanilla Russia would never win. Now its the opposite with Germany never winning without serious Human Player assistance. I think we should hold paradox to a higher standard in terms of game quality and experience. It is getting tiresome defending this game to all my friends who never left HOI2. They laugh at me for how restricted this game is in what is possible in comparison.

Has this been addressed by the development team for the next patch? It is impossible for me to enjoy this game as Allies/Comintern with how weak Germany is, as well as playing an Axis nation only to watch Germany fail in epic proportions. I appreciate any responses, as this is something that needs more attention.

It's very easy. The AI has never in any version of HoI3 been able to conduct offensive manouver warfare and encircle, destroy enemy divisions.

What FTM did was just balance Soviet so that they have a easier time to rebuild their army after they lose large parts of it during the opening moments of Barbarossa... But this "loss" ofcourse only happens in multiplayer or when player Germany is attacking since the AI is to careful to dare going full ahead blitzkrieg/encirclements.


This is not limited to Germany but to all AI for all nation. It's just that the problem becomes more apparent when Germany fails to conduct the largest blitzkrieg operation in history that killed of hundreds of Soviet divisions, so they are forced to face them + the rest of the reinforcements Soviet build on the front for the rest of the war. Which ofcourse has understandable results.



FTM improved things, but due to the complexity of the game other problems (AI failing to encircle) that was not as apparent before (due to Soviet being to weak), now becomes apparent problems.

Versus a human player even a strong human Soviet will have a challanging Barbarossa ahead with many early losses, I suggest you try it if you have time and patience enough for it!

 

[Pj Fallon]

Perhaps a event could be added that only affected AI? and the AI would always fire it.

 

[Darkrenown]

Appreciate this detailed response. But it begs the question. If you know this, and most know this, how do the devs not know? Are they aware that the UK never defends it home isles, or that Germany makes stupid builds as you pointed out? It seems like they expect we the customers to fix their poorly designed games.

Not sure what definition of "broken" you're using, but Germany's invasion of the USSR did fail, and it's entirely intended that it's difficult for Germany to win. Is France also broken? They hardly every hold off the German invasion...As for "stupid" builds, Germany did have an overwhelmingly infantry based army, ran out of Manpower in Russia, and did not build any strategic bombers. Now perhaps ingame it's more optimal to build only CVs, strat bombers and Paratrooper/TD divisions but if we do that people then would say how stupid their ahistoric building was instead.

 

[peterhoi3]

He probably means ...

Not sure what definition of "broken" you're using, but Germany's invasion of the USSR did fail, and it's entirely intended that it's difficult for Germany to win. Is France also broken? They hardly every hold off the German invasion...As for "stupid" builds, Germany did have an overwhelmingly infantry based army, ran out of Manpower in Russia, and did not build any strategic bombers. Now perhaps ingame it's more optimal to build only CVs, strat bombers and Paratrooper/TD divisions but if we do that people then would say how stupid their ahistoric building was instead.

He probably means that he has bought a game not a world war II dvd. When he plays multiplayer his German opponent
will make smart builds, will build strategic bombers, will be aggresive, will try to invade the UK, etc,
his opponent will be a challenge for him. However the German AI is not, because it is
seriously handicapped by a wrong optimization, besides the limitations of any AI.
And the worst of all is that most of this limitation can be eliminated with a better and
easy to implement optimization, as me and others have shown.

Do you really listen to people who complain all the time about ahistorical aspects of games?
They will never be happy. The mere idea of playing historical with Germany or France
is ridicuolus! Who would play to loose? If they want to play historical they can do it
by themselves, but anyone who buys a game wants a challenge, not an easy boredom.

Finally, please consider this as a constructive criticism. You belong to a company that
makes the best games available. I consider Hoi3 a real masterpiece. But even the most
perfect instrument needs to be tuned up to sound well. Hoi3 needs some easy to
do tuning, that's all.

 

[Mike1968]

Part of the issue is that Germany builds very few hard units because it uses up its manpower building mostly inf and gar before it unlocks armor and mechanized techs. Ive tweaked the builds on the LUAs so it builds light armor and at the start (which is pretty much historical) and medium armor later. This enables a fairly quick victory in france so that GER does not chew through a ton of manpower there. It still loses to SOV a fair amount of the time, but all around it puts up a much better fight at least making it to '44 or '46 before it collapses under the pressure of the SOV. Which to me seems fairly balanced.

I think part of the key is not having the slugfest in FRA last so long.

As a side note, anyone know how to fix the Swiss and Sweden constantly joining factions? The swiss LUA from vanilla should preclude it, but it doesnt. Having a nuetral sweden as a buffer would be helpful to GER not spreading out so thinly.

Regards,

Mike

 

[Oof]

I fail to see how the criticism below can be called constructive and there will always be people who are not happy. Not listening? Where have you been? If there is any company that puts its customers at the top of thier priority list and deals with their problems its PI. Just try to realise that its impossible to deal with all problems/solutions, just count the amount of posts every day...

 

[peterhoi3]

I fail to see how the criticism below can be called constructive and there will always be people who are not happy. Not listening? Where have you been? If there is any company that puts its customers at the top of thier priority list and deals with their problems its PI. Just try to realise that its impossible to deal with all problems/solutions, just count the amount of posts every day...

It seems to me that you have not understood the irony when I question
¨Do you really listen to people who complain all the time about ahistorical aspects of games?¨
PI certainly has an excellent communication policy with its customers. What I am
saying there is that requests related to historicism should be taken with care
by a company that sells games, because whereas these games are certainly based
in history, anyone who buys a game wants a challenge. And this challenge can
be killed if you make Germany follow the historical path, as the moderator
has written.

 

[comsubpac]

It seems to me that you have not understood the irony when I question
¨Do you really listen to people who complain all the time about ahistorical aspects of games?¨
PI certainly has an excellent communication policy with its customers. What I am
saying there is that requests related to historicism should be taken with care
by a company that sells games, because whereas these games are certainly based
in history, anyone who buys a game wants a challenge. And this challenge can
be killed if you make Germany follow the historical path, as the moderator
has written.

darkrenown is one of the main developers of hoi3. much more then a moderator.
the real problem is that you can't make anyone happy. when germany always wins people start complaining that the comintern and the allies are to weak. if germany does lose they complain it is no challenge. it doesn't really matter what happened historically or not. such problems can't be solved as long as it is possible to play every country.
that the game tries to follow a historical path up to a certain degree is a design decision. it hasn't much to do with the problem above though.

 

[peterhoi3]

Part of the issue is that Germany builds very few hard units because it uses up its manpower building mostly inf and gar before it unlocks armor and mechanized techs. Ive tweaked the builds on the LUAs so it builds light armor and at the start (which is pretty much historical) and medium armor later. This enables a fairly quick victory in france so that GER does not chew through a ton of manpower there. It still loses to SOV a fair amount of the time, but all around it puts up a much better fight at least making it to '44 or '46 before it collapses under the pressure of the SOV. Which to me seems fairly balanced.

I think part of the key is not having the slugfest in FRA last so long.

As a side note, anyone know how to fix the Swiss and Sweden constantly joining factions? The swiss LUA from vanilla should preclude it, but it doesnt. Having a nuetral sweden as a buffer would be helpful to GER not spreading out so thinly.

Regards,

Mike

You are right in your approach, similar to the one I have suggested in the thread of the beta
lua files. In my case I have chosen to build mostly motorized before medium armor
is available. This way you do not have light armor and you can ignore the related
techs, saving leadership. Nevertheless medium armor is available quite soon, so
there is plenty of time for Germany to build quite a few before the war. And
just like you describe, in my tests Germany puts a much better fight, though sometimes
it collapses due to the Soviet pressure or the combined effect of Soviet pressure
and large allied invasions in the west. When it succeeds against the Soviets, it
always invades the UK.

The question of Sweden and Switzerland belongs to the diplomacy files, which I have not
studied. Patch 3.06 will be out soon so I have decided to wait and see what they
come up with in this subject. There are other diplomacy issues open like Czecoslovakia
refusing annexation and triggering war, Czecoslovakia accepted in the allies in 1938,
again resulting in an early war, the usual abscense of Soviet/German or Japanese/US
war, and other. The diplomacy files need a complete revision, which will hopefully be done
for 3.06.

 

[peterhoi3]

darkrenown is one of the main developers of hoi3. much more then a moderator.
the real problem is that you can't make anyone happy. when germany always wins people start complaining that the comintern and the allies are to weak. if germany does lose they complain it is no challenge. it doesn't really matter what happened historically or not. such problems can't be solved as long as it is possible to play every country.
that the game tries to follow a historical path up to a certain degree is a design decision. it hasn't much to do with the problem above though.

Come on, no one is asking for Germany to always win!! It can be done in a way so that you get varied results.
During the many tests done by me and others I have seen Germany extremely succesful invading the US
and delivering nukes there and I have also seen Germany loosing miserably under the combined
Soviet allied pressure.

As you say, the problems of people asking for historicism can´t be solved, that people will
never be happy. But the problem of people asking for an active AI that poses a challenge
can be solved for sure. And of course the game must follow a historical path!
There must be annexation of Austria and Molotov Ribentrop pact and all that.
But once the war breaks out, the game should not follow the historical pact.
The AI should try to win, always using the most effective way! Otherwise
where is the fun?

I didn't know he is the main dev of Hoi3. I really congratulate him on his work.

 

[CrazedSeal]

Well I'm pretty the opposite of what is happening here. Germany always, I repeat, always defeats the Soviet Union. Germany always makes the SU surrender and then finishes them off in a month or two later.
However, the main problem I face is that they don't do anything to the UK. They sit there after they finish with the Soviet Union.

 

[ltccone]

Not sure what definition of "broken" you're using, but Germany's invasion of the USSR did fail, and it's entirely intended that it's difficult for Germany to win. Is France also broken? They hardly every hold off the German invasion...As for "stupid" builds, Germany did have an overwhelmingly infantry based army, ran out of Manpower in Russia, and did not build any strategic bombers. Now perhaps ingame it's more optimal to build only CVs, strat bombers and Paratrooper/TD divisions but if we do that people then would say how stupid their ahistoric building was instead.

Germany's invasion of the USSR did fail, but not by much. Some decisions made by Germany could have changed the war, such as going after Moscow and forgoing the Kiev pocket, some decisions made during the Stalingrad campaign, etc.

I just think that people want Germany to beat the Soviets some of the time. Unless I've helped them as another Axis country, Germany as an AI has lost every FTM game I've played in the USSR by '43. When that happens every time, it just makes it hard to play any other country but Germany.

 

[ltccone]

Well I'm pretty the opposite of what is happening here. Germany always, I repeat, always defeats the Soviet Union. Germany always makes the SU surrender and then finishes them off in a month or two later.
However, the main problem I face is that they don't do anything to the UK. They sit there after they finish with the Soviet Union.

I've never seen the Germany AI beat the USSR in FTM, unless I've helped them as Italy, for instance.

 

[Cybvep]

It's very easy. The AI has never in any version of HoI3 been able to conduct offensive manouver warfare and encircle, destroy enemy divisions.

THIS is the real problem. Just compare the GER-SOV balance in SP and MP, check some MP AARs or play some MP games yourself... You will be surprised how hard it is to play as the SU when Germany is human-controlled.

The AI only does encirclements by accident, it doesn't understand Blitzkrieg and generally conducts WWI-style warfare. If it was a WWI game, the AI would be a much more challenging enemy.

 

[CrazedSeal]

The allies in all of my games are slack. The only time i've seen Germany defeated was when I was playing France and UK decided to get off their ass and attack germany. Poland pushed back the germans some how and I managed to fight break the west and UK got the north and Poland of course took down the germans at the East.

That was the only time... It was amazing...

 

[Darkrenown]

Germany's invasion of the USSR did fail, but not by much. Some decisions made by Germany could have changed the war, such as going after Moscow and forgoing the Kiev pocket, some decisions made during the Stalingrad campaign, etc.

I just think that people want Germany to beat the Soviets some of the time. Unless I've helped them as another Axis country, Germany as an AI has lost every FTM game I've played in the USSR by '43. When that happens every time, it just makes it hard to play any other country but Germany.

It's debatable, people can makes good cases they were but one nutty Hitler decision from victory or that the plan was doomed from the start. I don't really want to get into that here though. But I'd agree it makes for more interesting gameplay if you they have a higher chance of winning, I was mainly just objecting that Germany is "broken" and "stupid" for doing what they actually did. I've certainly seen GER win in FTM, but maybe they need to do so more often, it's just risky as with only a slightly too large buff they can easily go to winning every time instead.

I didn't know he is the main dev of Hoi3. I really congratulate him on his work.

Just a dev, not the main one. The Paradox avatar and title should hint I am not a moderator though

 

[Chromos]

The strat ai is pretty good with decent units to play with.. I like to quote myself from another thread in the Spoiler below:

Spoiler

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-LUA-files&p=13669127&viewfull=1#post13669127

There are of course some things "buried" in the strat ai.
I remember some statements of the devs about some tricks around the maginot line to have GER not invading FRA instantly etc..
Also I noticed the UK ai instantly invading an added Heligoland, but the GER ai not instantly trying to take it back..
Giving GER on start the Faroe Islands only made th UK invading them after Heligoland was taken even with Heligoland havng no UK core etc..
So we see, definetly something more involved in the strat ai as in the "normal" game mechanic".
Same to Japan not invading the Dutch East Indies but area around Rabaul going for Australia or India etc..

Having acces to more settings will give more possibilities for modding, but will mean of course additional work to make these things available for the devs.
Thats why I suggested the two main things that are already available to the player and have also already a significant impact on the game without touching the strat ai itself.(imho).

In handsoff games with my new dynamic ai I noticed sometimes this:

- JAP ai sitting and doing nothing, just because no objectives where given.

-> So loading up as JAP and just assigning the Theatre ai objectives made the ai instantly gathering forces to conduct multiple(!)landings in the pacific etc..
-> Loading up as GER and setting allied objectives also did the same..​

- JAP ai sitting doing nothing just becasuse they switched to prepare stance..

-> Load up as JAO and changing the stance alone to Defense made them become active again instantly, and doing invasions etc..
Same with allies in some games doing no more invasions. Later I had multiple landings from the allies(UK/USA) in Italy/Africa/South and North France etc.. While USA was also active in the Pacific btw..​

- Russian ai loosing to much units to invading GER just because the used stance is defence and not withdrawal..

-> Load up as russia and set stance to prepare/withdrawal saved much untis from destruction for later counerattacks in winter..​

All countries had most of the time enough units, just because of different production ai. So having enough transports, Naval Bombers, marines convoys/escorts etc..
Also making sure that USA does not have to much Subs to starve the JAP eco too early is a big part..
No units gifts via event etc. just a different way of using the available ressources/ic in production in vanilla HOI3..

I have seen also:

- Hvy fighting in the Pacific with Naval plances and carrier forces between JAP and USA, taking Isles from each other etc..
- Such cool things like the GER ai using hevay tanks as fire brigades..
Jumping in where the SU tried a breakthrough, and after the successful defense taking this hvy-tanks back behind the frontline to recover and use it again for strengthening up defensive fights. Pretty amazing to see this ingame..​

All that just because:
If the AI has an certain amount of units, it goes on a rampage and uses it forces quite well.
Dr.Johnson showed that with his BlackI.C.E, I have that results with my Dynamic-AI, another german Modder has that result with his "make it überhard for the GER player"-mod and now peterhoi3 has the same effect with just also just touching the production part of the game..
The AI will also not pull forces away if it wouldn't need them anywhere else. Or better, the "weakness" of the strat ai is just the "recalculation of the circumstances if it has not enough units". So it tries to fullfill all fronts with the needed units and fails everywhere.. If enough units are available it builds even a nice indeep forntline and local reserves!..

So having just these two more modifieres modable, "allied objectives"/"Stance" it would allow us to have the AI wait with invasions(stance on prepare) after quite some units are produced or going to attack(stance on attack) after some year at all cost etc..
The "allied objective" would then mark the target areas. Wich is already nice in the game if the AI has the units to take that goal. Or it would be used as peterhoi3 stated and will make the ai to give their forces under UK command for the upcoming invasion etc..


And having naval and air units in that system too would be of course also very nice.

So, we would be able to direct the ai much more in given game situations, f.e. GER won in the East and went for UK, or after GER was defeated and SU took also France and needs a navy etc..

Cheers,
Chromos

While some get the same result over and over again, and other the opposite results too, some more decsions like in the current DI:S&S could help to tune the game experience.
Like difficult settings we could choose some modifier wich would make a country stronger in some aspects. Enable strict historic (plausible) or total random gameplay.
It would be "just" a matter of different lua for the ai and modifiers that add/reduce manpower/IC/ buildtimes etc. "similar" to the current difficult settings but more detailed..

Also some more build schemes could be usefull after GER defeated SU and decided to take on the US..
Same for a victourus SU over GER without allied help. Then a Communist "Sea Lion" should be maybe possible..
Japan doing West Coast invasion.. After India and Australia is taken into the "Prosperity Sphere".. And so on..

Cheers,
Chromos

 

[Charles Reeps]

Not sure what definition of "broken" you're using, but Germany's invasion of the USSR did fail, and it's entirely intended that it's difficult for Germany to win. Is France also broken? They hardly every hold off the German invasion...As for "stupid" builds, Germany did have an overwhelmingly infantry based army, ran out of Manpower in Russia, and did not build any strategic bombers. Now perhaps ingame it's more optimal to build only CVs, strat bombers and Paratrooper/TD divisions but if we do that people then would say how stupid their ahistoric building was instead.

I want to start by saying that FTM is a very good improvement upon HOI3 (Semper FI also took many steps forward), and I am very impressed with how PI interacts with its customers. As customers we have access and interaction with the designers and/or developers, and they clearly listen to us. This is very different from many companies in ANY endeavor.

As to the community helping improve the game: how in the world is this a negative? Where else do you, as customers, get this level of interaction? Are you critics of this methodology not be able to see that this allows PI to bring to bear an extemely large knowledge base onto an extremely ambitious game? Do you not realize that PI is saving us (and yes, itself) a large amount of money by working this way? W/O this method HOI3 would probably be out of our "willing" price range! In other words, it is a win-win situation where we ALL profit.

As to the quote: Darkrenown, I take it your objection is more to the terminology "broken." Perhaps this was the wrong word to use (out of balance may have been better), but your response clearly shows why this situation will never be resolved. What is under discusion is HOI3-the GAME, but your response is defending "WWII-A Time/Life Documentary." Well--we bought a GAME, not a MOVIE, and as long as PI's emphasis is on the MOVIE threads like this will never go away.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the "need" to satisfy those crying about the ahistoric aspects of the game. Indeed, a good part of what is under discussion is the result of trying to satisfy this croud. Because of this, the game (SP) is severely off balance. Since Semper FI I have NEVER seen AI Germany win. With FTM, I have NEVER witnessed AI Germany even come close to its historic achievements. Indeed, the only country you can play (SP) is Germany, and this results in an easy romp over the rest of the world. In attempting to appease those crying about ahistoric outcomes the ahistoric has become the norm.

You don't have to be a computer programmer or rocket scientist to know the problem under discussion cannot be fixed with a one-size-fits-all solution: the historic and ahistoric are opposites that can never be reconciled. So isn't it possible to provide a choice? Couldn't the 36-Campaign (SP) be calibrated for both, letting the player decide which he/she wants, or is this economically unrealistic?

 

[bbasgen]

I've been playing several Japan games lately, and Germany's performance has been lackluster through several games. In the best instance, Germany captured Lenningrad & Moscow: they had done excellent work in the North but the Sud front hadn't even captured Odessa at any time from 1941 to 1943. As Japan, I had troops in Siberian and the Caucasus Mountains. I even got as far as taking Stalingrad before my lines simply got too thin. The Soviets were able to turn the tide of the war despite what I thought were pretty extraordinary circumstances.

In the other Japan games I've played (a total of about 4 games with FTM), Germany will never get more than a handful of Soviet provinces. It will be a trench warfare type battle. The last game I finished the German AI set the entire front to a defensive stance, and refused to DOW the Soviets. This occurred despite a perfectly normal lead up to 1941: all historical gains were accomplished, and no allied invasions occurred. Germany had no manpower left in the summer of 1941, and because it refused to start the war, I began the war as Japan, did some pretty successful invasions, etc -- but I can't beat the Soviets as Japan without any assistance.