Hearts of Iron IV - 22nd Development Diary - 28th of August 2015

[Oberst Steiner]

@21oliver

I agree we 'Wargamers' are a minority of those who Paradox wants to be players of HOI IV. My question is how big of a minority and how big the group needs to be for them to make a DLC (which the AI will assign things like Divisional Generals) for an 'Advance HOI IV'? If something like 1/3 of HOI IV players would buy the DLC would that be a big enough group?

I wouldn't hold my breath. I'll wait for first reviews when the game is out but I doubt I'll buy this game (first HOI game or DLC I won't buy).
How can I do proper Barbarossa without well organized OOB? Both German and Soviet players will be lost after couple of days of battles. What they offer us looks to me more like something from RTS games and I don't consider them strategies (except Total war). That's just my opinion and as they say "Opinions are like a**holes, everybody's got one"!
P.S. Somebody will say we didn't have those in HOI1 or HOI2 but I couldn't come back to those games after HOI3. Guess I am stuck at HOI3 for now.

 

[alanschu]

How can I do proper Barbarossa without well organized OOB? Both German and Soviet players will be lost after couple of days of battles.

I'd say that drawing the battle lines of where the groups go is pretty straight forward?

It reminds me a lot of using the HOI3 OOB without as much of the micro. There are times I wanted most (but not all) of an Army or Army Group to have a goal, but some Corps/Divisions with smaller tasks I wanted to assign. I couldn't do that without a ton of micro.

In this case I can still have the General/Field Marshall group with the large front, while creating the smaller groups with Major/Lt Generals with more specialized goals.

 

[rjohansen]

There are times I wanted most (but not all) of an Army or Army Group to have a goal, but some Corps/Divisions with smaller tasks I wanted to assign. I couldn't do that without a ton of micro.

The only negative thing I have to say about the HOI3 OOB is this. But I wish they would improve on this tool, instead of removing it. What I would have like is to for instance if I put AI in control of a Theatre - I could still give another order (still AI for instance) for an Army Group and so forth. I then could give different orders down the line, but still keep them all under AI. And further on, I could if I wish, choose to keep an antire army, but perhaps one corps (or even one of the divisions) not under AI - but under my own control. That would be my dream scenario.

Also better "stances" to choose from, and for instance the same "theatre area tool" further down - like for a army group/army/corps/division so that id doesn't send units half across the globe on itself. A Corps priority would always its "your own" territory first, then territory within army, then army group, then theatre (if chosen that way)

 

[xtfoster]

The only negative thing I have to say about the HOI3 OOB is this. But I wish they would improve on this tool, instead of removing it. What I would have like is to for instance if I put AI in control of a Theatre - I could still give another order (still AI for instance) for an Army Group and so forth. I then could give different orders down the line, but still keep them all under AI. And further on, I could if I wish, choose to keep an antire army, but perhaps one corps (or even one of the divisions) not under AI - but under my own control. That would be my dream scenario.

Also better "stances" to choose from, and for instance the same "theatre area tool" further down - like for a army group/army/corps/division so that id doesn't send units half across the globe on itself. A Corps priority would always its "your own" territory first, then territory within army, then army group, then theatre (if chosen that way)

Once again I think I must remind you...they aren't 'removing it'. That would imply they put it in and then took it out. You have to remember that HOI IV is NOT HOI 3 with upgrades, but instead a whole new version of the game from the ground up, using a new version of the game engine. Or to put it another way, if it wasn't in EU IV then they aren't taking it out, they are just learning from what they didn't like about HOI 3 and not putting it in in the first place.

 

[Joppos]

I'd say that drawing the battle lines of where the groups go is pretty straight forward?

Indeed, drawing a battle plan for your 50 division manstein group would be a breeze; assigning those 50 divisions of different types to the various advances in that groups' battle plan not so much.

It reminds me a lot of using the HOI3 OOB without as much of the micro. There are times I wanted most (but not all) of an Army or Army Group to have a goal, but some Corps/Divisions with smaller tasks I wanted to assign. I couldn't do that without a ton of micro.

In this case I can still have the General/Field Marshall group with the large front, while creating the smaller groups with Major/Lt Generals with more specialized goals.

Yes, since hoi3 still showed all divisions separately on-map no matter, the hierarchy was of very little use. Overall the only use that hierarchy was for was flavor and keeping track of what divisions were where, and i often found myself simply detaching and ignoring the hierarchy.

The beautiful point with a hierarchy in concert with the hoi4 battle plan system is that you could set up a 50-100 division leader groups' battle plan, with some larger more general advances as well as smaller more detailed advances, and then simply allocate from this hierarchy without having to touch individual divisions. Set one of the 30 division army group on the general advance; fork off to encircle with three of the 6 division corps inside and so on. Cancel one of the corps advance and reinforce in another place. The point is making de facto larger-than-division on-map units, greatly streamlining battle plan allocation.

It would be incredibly neat, and the only alternative to achieving the same thing which does not involve having to go through lists filtering and selecting individual divisions back and forth, is creating a multitude of independent leader groups; and in doing so also battle plans. The strategy of a player battle planning a barbarossa involving several hundreds of divisions will be bottle-necked by the amount of independent leader groups s/he can keep track of, or how much he is willing to micromanage individual divisions. And that isn't particularly good.

Seeing the leader groups as one on-map unit would be a start, instead of just color-coded relations to the heads on the bottom of the screen. Even better would be sorting on-map division stacks after a leader groups' subgroups when zooming in, and their respective subsubgroups zooming in further. This way people would be able to plan directly with stacks of mixed appropriate divs more akin to EU4 or vicky2 than hoi3.

 

[alanschu]

Indeed, drawing a battle plan for your 50 division manstein group would be a breeze; assigning those 50 divisions of different types to the various advances in that groups' battle plan not so much.

This is true, though if you want various advances it seems like creating additional groups is in order? I haven't played the game obviously, but it seems like this is a very, very quick thing to do based on videos I saw of the footage various people were able to post online.

As such on the surface it seems very similar to what I needed to do with HOI3 except that I could keep the larger battle group automated without sacrificing specific orders to the smaller sub groups.

Am I correct in understanding that your concern is if you wanted to take a smaller group and all of its subunits and reassign those specific units, it'd be a hefty amount of work?

 

[misterbean]

What I would do when new armour and motorised divisions have finished, is to assign them a group seperate from the infantry anyway, if only to keep things nice and tidy. Whether that is in HOI 3's OOB, or this new system, makes little difference. I don't see the problem of telling, say, Guderian's panzer group to stand in West Prussia in august '39 so that they are in position to encircle the troops in the Poznan area.

 

[alanschu]

What I would do when new armour and motorised divisions have finished, is to assign them a group seperate from the infantry anyway, if only to keep things nice and tidy. Whether that is in HOI 3's OOB, or this new system, makes little difference. I don't see the problem of telling, say, Guderian's panzer group to stand in West Prussia in august '39 so that they are in position to encircle the troops in the Poznan area.

That might even be the preferred way to do things if we still have things like "Panzer Leader" bonuses or other things like that.

 

[potski]

How can I do proper Barbarossa without well organized OOB? Both German and Soviet players will be lost after couple of days of battles.

Surely you do it exactly the same way as the Germans did - three big Infantry forces, and four Armoured groups:

- Army Group North under von Leeb 21 Divs
- 4th Panzer Army under Hoepner 8 Divs
- Army Group Centre under von Bock 32 Divs
- 3rd Panzer Army under Hoth 7 Divs
- 2nd Panzer Army under Guderian 10 Divs
- Army Group South under von Rundstedt 36 GER Divs, plus 33 HUN/ITA/RUM Divs, if you can include them in the same command group
- 1st Panzer Army under von Kleist 13 Divs

Anyone who pretends to themselves that Corps and Armies, and Theatres are required, just needs to read Guderian. He didn't give a stuff about the commanders above him, and the Corps and Division commanders below him barely get a mention. Corps formations were flexible and Divs were swapped in and out of Corps regularly. Indeed, were even swapped between the Panzer Armies and other Armies as required.

It doesn't make any sense that rigid formations along arbitrary rules of 5 Divs per Corps, 5 Corps per Army are required to keep control over any of these formations in the game, and no-one will convince me that IRL they played any significant role in Barbarossa, or any other major offensive of the war.

 

[tommylotto]

Well the 2nd Panzer Army is not really the 2nd Panzer Army. It is really just the divisions that happen to be assigned to Guderian at that moment with a blank box in which we can assign any name we want.

But what if I have the 4th Panzer Army in the north and the 2nd Panzer Army in the south and I want to reassign Guderian from the 2nd to the 4th for some special push? I assume I can click on Hoepners' portrait and that will select his divisions. Then I can and assign Guderian to those divisions. But what happens to Guderian's 10 divisions? They now have no leader. I assume that grouping just disappears. Now, I have to mass select and delete divisions until I have just those 10 divisions selected again. Then I can recreate that group and assign a new general. That is unnecessary work and is the problem with a general-centric organizational system. You should be able to organize your divisions into persistent groupings that survive a particular general's assignment. You should be able to organize your army however you want, then assign generals to particular parts of your existing organizational structure. The generals should not be the structure.

 

[Joppos]

It doesn't make any sense that rigid formations along arbitrary rules of 5 Divs per Corps, 5 Corps per Army are required to keep control over any of these formations in the game, and no-one will convince me that IRL they played any significant role in Barbarossa, or any other major offensive of the war.

Indeed. Arbitrary subformation limits would be completely unnecessary, but have this even been advocated for let alone mentioned in this discussion? If one large group is preferred it should be possible; If three large groups under one general is preferred it should be possible; if three large groups with smaller groups inside is preferrable it should be possible.

Surely you do it exactly the same way as the Germans did - three big Infantry forces, and four Armoured groups:

- Army Group North under von Leeb 21 Divs
- 4th Panzer Army under Hoepner 8 Divs
- Army Group Centre under von Bock 32 Divs
- 3rd Panzer Army under Hoth 7 Divs
- 2nd Panzer Army under Guderian 10 Divs
- Army Group South under von Rundstedt 36 GER Divs, plus 33 HUN/ITA/RUM Divs, if you can include them in the same command group
- 1st Panzer Army under von Kleist 13 Divs

And here we come to large part of the issues i've been talking about. Each time you want to do anything more detailed than selecting the whole leader groups of 8 to 40 divs you'd have to go down to individual divisions and fiddle. All the time. As nearly all leader groups will contain a a bunch of different div types you will have to fiddle on the divisional level constantly. That system scales terribly, and will arbitrarily prohibit the player in several ways. It would be infinitely better to be able to create groups of divisions inside a leader group which you can treat as single units directly.

Just imagine being the USSR and having maybe thirty of these leader groups. Should a player be locked on to just having fewer and larger such groups just because s/he is playing USSR? What if you have a couple of different inf types? Arm types? It will become a game of sorting divisions more than anything else, for completely arbitrary reasons, if you want to have some level of control of who goes where.
As another example you have your neat little 1st panzer army led by kleist, and notice that you need to detach 4 divisions onto another advance. You don't think selecting four divs of the same type is enough so you'd need to select two pzdivs and assign, then one mot-inf and assign, then one mot-inf-AT and assign. Alternatively you select all 13 divs, deselect 9 and assign. It's just a whole lot of unnecessary clicks for a very simple goal.

Anyone who pretends to themselves that Corps and Armies, and Theatres are required, just needs to read Guderian. He didn't give a stuff about the commanders above him, and the Corps and Division commanders below him barely get a mention. Corps formations were flexible and Divs were swapped in and out of Corps regularly. Indeed, were even swapped between the Panzer Armies and other Armies as required.

It's not required. Heck we could have a completely text-based control interface, it would simply mean more work from the player. And it's not about recreating historical organization either. Even if reality was without any organization whatsoever this would be warranted to have in game. It's about streamlining unit selection and assignment.

 

[Praetori]

What I would do when new armour and motorised divisions have finished, is to assign them a group seperate from the infantry anyway, if only to keep things nice and tidy. Whether that is in HOI 3's OOB, or this new system, makes little difference. I don't see the problem of telling, say, Guderian's panzer group to stand in West Prussia in august '39 so that they are in position to encircle the troops in the Poznan area.

You basically have three options. One is to mass it all along the front under one high-tier leader (if you have one) and hope that the AI can keep a coherent frontline for you (at least the AI general will be able to coordinate within his whole group). You might lose armored cohesion as the AI will throw around those armored divisions wherever it deems necessary but then again it's a choice you make.
Option two is to create multiple commands of say army or corps-size and manually keep track of said forces to keep the cohesion of the front-line and adjust the battleplans to ensure that the different generals are playing along and "cooperating" not exposing the flanks of his neighbor.
Option three is to create overlapping commands where the infantry in one area is led by X and the armor is led by Y and their battleplans are independant of one another.
Or you could forego any bonuses from planning and just micromanage the hell out of every single division (although you don't even have the corps/army structure of HOI3 to do so) which will probably be a complete bore.

Personally I don't really care and I won't judge until the fat lady sings (upon release) but I'm not entirely convinced that the AI will be able to handle it all in a proficient way (neither your own generals or the enemy). Not that a HOI3 OOB clone would help (that system was terrible in its implementation) the AI in any way but some system with tiered forces (corps/army/AG) could at least help with cohesion.

 

[wosung]

"Logistics Company
This company reduces the supply consumption of the entire division. Requires Trucks & Support Equipment"

Why reducing supply consumption?
Trucks help to bring supplies faster to the combat units. Theoretically they could move more supplies - if available.
Truck companies themselves need lots of supplies.

 

[safe-keeper]

"Logistics Company
This company reduces the supply consumption of the entire division. Requires Trucks & Support Equipment"

Why reducing supply consumption?
Trucks help to bring supplies faster to the combat units. Theoretically they could move more supplies - if available.
Truck companies themselves need lots of supplies.

The best explanation I've seen is that they make resupply more effective. Ie. they make more supplies actually reach the front, so that you don't need to send much more than the division needs.

Or it could be that you need to spend less supplies because the division has its own logistics network, freeing up manpower for other divisions. Or something.

 

[Praetori]

"Logistics Company
This company reduces the supply consumption of the entire division. Requires Trucks & Support Equipment"

Why reducing supply consumption?
Trucks help to bring supplies faster to the combat units. Theoretically they could move more supplies - if available.
Truck companies themselves need lots of supplies.

Because the normal supply-chain of a military force is not optimal nor totally efficient and affected by a very flexible environment affected by terrain, distances, enemy action etc. In logistics it's not uncommon for MORE to become LESS both because of increased efficiency but also because of less waste.
For example if you need to go from point A (corps supply depot) to B, C and D along the frontline to pick up and deliver supplies it's more efficient (fuel-wise) to do it with dedicated trucks instead of having a single one go through all those points (depending on the relative distances of course). It can be dedicated personnel hauling tanks to and from the frontline by truck or train instead of having them drive by road thereby saving both fuel and spare parts of the tanks. It can be horsedrawn carts or lorries delivering food and ammunition to the companies instead of them driving their halftracks back from the front-line to do the same etc. Just having additional tankers that can be closer to each armored battalion saves a lot of fuel as the tanks doesn't have to go as far back to refuel and rearm.

The concept seems to be confusing to a lot of people so a better GUI/in-game presentation might be good though.

 

[Big Nev]

So...

Where the first column contains the support "companies", we could be looking at this sort of thing?


For amphib' assault

Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Rec
Sig


General line infantry

Log Inf Inf Inf Art AT
Sig Inf Inf Inf Art AT
Rec Inf Inf Inf Art AT
MASH


Garrison

MP Inf Inf AA Art AT
MP
MP
MP

 

[pommiebastard]

So...

Where the first column contains the support "companies", we could be looking at this sort of thing?


For amphib' assault

Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Rec
Sig


General line infantry

Log Inf Inf Inf Art AT
Sig Inf Inf Inf Art AT
Rec Inf Inf Inf Art AT
MASH


Garrison

MP Inf Inf AA Art AT
MP
MP
MP

No, you won't see that as it was confirmed (by one of the QAs) earlier in the thread that you can't do duplicate items in the support "companies" column - so you won't have triple doses of Engineers of quadruple MP companies - it was apparently far too easy to exploit and abuse, so they removed that capability and you pick individual areas to "boost".

Again, the concept of this (as I understand it) is that most divisions will have some kind of basic elements of all the possible "support company" items in the background, but that adding elements via the Division Designer represents additional or improved capability in that area, beyond what would be considered normal. And those additional elements will not necessarily be company-sized, they could be of any size - so multiple elements to match up with historical OOBs will not be necessary.

 

[Big Nev]

So to get the bonus concentration, smaller divisions would be better for the "assault" types?

as in

Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Rec Mar Mar Mar Arm
Sig

Unless the support companies provide a bonus which is applied across divisions of unlimited size.

In which case, BIG is beautiful.

Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Rec Mar Mar Mar Arm
Sig Mar Mar Mar Arm
. . . Mar Mar Mar Arm

Every DD raises a LOT of questions.

Like, once you've got the Arm VS Penetration bonus, do TDs become more cost effective or less?

Eng Mar Mar Mar Arm
Rec Mar Mar Mar TD
Sig Mar Mar Mar TD
. . . Mar Mar Mar TD


I see a lot of experimentation ahead.

 

[Nelfe]

No, you won't see that as it was confirmed (by one of the QAs) earlier in the thread that you can't do duplicate items in the support "companies" column - so you won't have triple doses of Engineers of quadruple MP companies - it was apparently far too easy to exploit and abuse, so they removed that capability and you pick individual areas to "boost".

However it will be moddable.

 

[tommylotto]

I don't think you will be permitted to put MAR and ARM in the same column / regiment. ARM has to be in a separate regiment, but can be grouped with TD, just not INF types. I think they allow INF types and ART types to be combined though. However, I think that is a poor design choice. I think if you want to add the BOOM of more ART, you should have to open an extra regiment column.