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

[xtfoster]

It's not about getting bonuses, it's about the way ALL armies from this historical period organized themselves. It's about using it as an organizational tool. W/o an OOB & an apparently quite limited number of generals, it will be Risk as someone else said. It is ridiculous. I don't care if they make 'arcade' (i.e. no OOB) the default, give us the chance to use the ORBAT as an organizational tool *as an option* at the bloody least.

Rather than having it taken away, here I was hoping to see levels of command for Navies and Army/Airforces also. Instead....?

Yeah, as much as this looks grand, I'll probably stick with my first instinct: stick with HOI3. Then it was about Steam, and while I could get over that, I can't get over *this.*

And that is ALL it was, an organizational tool. IRL those organizations changed as often as they needed to. A unit wasn't locked in as part of III. Corps just because it was once there. If III. Corps moved away and the 33rd Division needed to stay, then it just left III. Corps and was either attached to whatever Corps was moving in, or directly to the Army or higher command.

Feel free to create whatever OOB you want in you head...it will have just as much impact there as it did in real life, so no need to include it in the game.

 

[Number 7]

You simply do not have an OOB. You simply do not have corpses, army groups, etc. That's an organisation thing that you do not have anymore. Your divsions, your units, will still be placed and moved in the exact same way they were moved, used and placed in HoI3. They just don't have a huge command chain attached to them anymore. That's all.

oh i dunno about that, WW2 is bound to generate quite a few corpses whether or not there's an OOB.

 

[safe-keeper]

It's not about getting bonuses, it's about the way ALL armies from this historical period organized themselves. It's about using it as an organizational tool. W/o an OOB & an apparently quite limited number of generals, it will be Risk as someone else said. It is ridiculous. I don't care if they make 'arcade' (i.e. no OOB) the default, give us the chance to use the ORBAT as an organizational tool *as an option* at the bloody least.

Rather than having it taken away, here I was hoping to see levels of command for Navies and Army/Airforces also. Instead....?

Yeah, as much as this looks grand, I'll probably stick with my first instinct: stick with HOI3. Then it was about Steam, and while I could get over that, I can't get over *this.*

Seems to me that all the new tools they're adding (merging counters, filters, sorting functions, etc.) will help make the OOB obsolete. What I would like to see is the ability to have "HQ units" that give nearby divisions bonuses. That's something I wish they would have kept from HOI3 (and even expanded with armour HQs and whatnot).

 

[Number 7]

Seems to me that all the new tools they're adding (merging counters, filters, sorting functions, etc.) will help make the OOB obsolete. What I would like to see is the ability to have "HQ units" that give nearby divisions bonuses. That's something I wish they would have kept from HOI3 (and even expanded with armour HQs and whatnot).

they will still have leader bonuses from the commander. Most likely with amplified effects to compensate for the loss of the divisional --> corps --> army --> army group --> theatre bonuses. Which means more likely than not you will have dedicated breakthrough and exploitation leaders you put in control of only armour and give them more specific orders rather than just a general advance. This would be leaders like Rommel.

Personally i wish they had the best of both worlds and still had the OOB able to be used optionally because it helped me manage my armies quite a lot, but otherwise have it optional. but we'll see, maybe i just have to adjust

 

[safe-keeper]

I wouldn't mind an OOB DLC myself, but I think the chances are pretty slim.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

It's not about getting bonuses, it's about the way ALL armies from this historical period organized themselves. It's about using it as an organizational tool. W/o an OOB & an apparently quite limited number of generals, it will be Risk as someone else said. It is ridiculous. I don't care if they make 'arcade' (i.e. no OOB) the default, give us the chance to use the ORBAT as an organizational tool *as an option* at the bloody least.

Rather than having it taken away, here I was hoping to see levels of command for Navies and Army/Airforces also. Instead....?

Yeah, as much as this looks grand, I'll probably stick with my first instinct: stick with HOI3. Then it was about Steam, and while I could get over that, I can't get over *this.*

Reactionaries have risen up in HOI4 Forum!

Rabble rabble rabble!

 

[Gamer_1745]

I wouldn't mind an OOB DLC myself, but I think the chances are pretty slim.

I know Johan is against the idea of having an OOB for HOI IV. Paradox is in the business to make money and if they understand that there is a big demand for an OOB DLC I don't see why they wouldn't make one to satisfy the market demand? I know it might not be out right after release and it seems to be taking some time for them to understand how big the demand is for a OOB DLC.

 

[Joppos]

It's not about getting bonuses, it's about the way ALL armies from this historical period organized themselves. It's about using it as an organizational tool. W/o an OOB & an apparently quite limited number of generals, it will be Risk as someone else said. It is ridiculous. I don't care if they make 'arcade' (i.e. no OOB) the default, give us the chance to use the ORBAT as an organizational tool *as an option* at the bloody least.

Rather than having it taken away, here I was hoping to see levels of command for Navies and Army/Airforces also. Instead....?

Yeah, as much as this looks grand, I'll probably stick with my first instinct: stick with HOI3. Then it was about Steam, and while I could get over that, I can't get over *this.*

The game looks interesting and for sure has a lot more potential than hoi3, but people are of course completely free to stick with hoi3 if they find that game more attractive. I just don't see how that is a good argument for them to change their game design.

And historical organization makes little sense as a reason too. Sure it would add flavor for some people, although from a larger perspective if that was all it was then it would be completely expendable as a feature.
As i see it, an important reason to include some kind of OOB is to make the battle plan feature a substantial, organized and and non-micro feature of the game, and that would be a big reason. Right now it's continous name filtering, stack de-selecting, re-selecting to get the right type of units added to an advance arrow. This from a flurry of on-map stacks. For small advances it's fine and probably even preferred as is, but the scalability of the current system looks bad and prone to micromanagement if you want to make even just fairly detailed larger plans.

It would have been a fairly simple tool to use to allow the player a lot of added depth in planning and changing plans without having to handle single divisions continously. Select a general with 50 divs under him, select create hierarchy of two groups with five subgroups in each or simply five groups or whatever partition you'd want. Plan with these groups and subgroups as they would have been hoi2 style stackunits without having to sort them internally for each plan or plan modification. Want 25 divs on one advance? Done, knowing exactly the div types involved. Need 5 of those divs to veer off in one arrow and 10 in another, knowing exactly the composition of those groups? Done in an instant, without any ad hoc filtering or deselecting. And you still know under what general they are, instead of being independent small general groups themselves. Not least it would be likely to smooth multiplayer gameplay.

 

[panzerzombie]

As a compromise I would accept a virtual OOB......lets say this commander of a theatre we assign divisions to ( the guys we see displayed on the bottom of the map ) is the supreme commander of these forces and in the same way you assign troops to him you could assign additional generals.

Ofc instead of a rigid system a simple formula would then assign them to (not displayed or only displayed in numbers next to general) army groups / armies / corps / divisions. It would update and reorganize the theatre each time the number of divisions change.

Example: lets say Manstein leads 30 Divisions and you assign 13 additional generals to him.........the formula would then divide his forces into ONE ARMYGROUP ( : 30 divisions ), then the original 30 again into 3 ARMIES ( : 10 divisions ) , then the original 30 divisions into 10 CORPS ( and finally all leftover generals are assigned to individual DIVISIONS. Thus Manstein would - automatically - lead an army group and have 3 army commander and 10 corps commanders assigned ( if he would have 44 generals - including himself - then each available position would be filled ). For simplicity lets say one division above minimum requirements generate one higher command ( 31 in this example would have generated a theatre command) .

The numbers I used are arbitrary but loosely based on wiki articles on army organization ( a.m example should probably need less generals):
corps: 2 or more divisons 20k - 40k troops ( ~ 3 divisions )
field army: 100k - 150k troops ( ~ 10 divisions )
armygroup: 400k - 1 Mio troops( ~ 30 divisions )
theatre: 31 divisions+

Its a shame that there is a vast list of generals from previous HOI Titles and not using them.

edit: joppos beat me for 39 minutes :-(

 

[potski]

And those 44 commanders add what exactly to the game? Absolutely nothing. Or those three Armies and ten Corps? Absolutely nothing if Manstein is in control of the command group with the battle plan set-up at his level.

Why do some people persist in this suggestion that the devs aren't using the "vast list of generals from previous HOI Titles"? In HOI4 it's clear that less generals are required, when there are no Div commanders. But HOI3 would run out of generals for most countries. The devs can change that by giving us all/most of the historical generals they already researched in their database. Why would they not? By the time the game is released they will have had an extra year to do the artwork.

 

[Emmanuel_M]

will there be a reason not to take

Logistics
Artillery
Rocket or signal depending on tech
Maintenance
Recon

?

My impression is AA/AT may suck, but I am all ears

 

[mazman34340]

Maginot Line :

4 Infantry +

1 Arty
1 Field Hospital
1 AA
1 Engineer
1 AT

The number of combos will make this game more interesting. Also, I hope I don't have to go through the pain of reorganizing support companies.

 

[potski]

will there be a reason not to take

Logistics
Artillery
Rocket or signal depending on tech
Maintenance
Recon

Cost?

It's not a free choice. You have to produce the equipment required for all of those companies. The more factories you dedicate to their production lines, the less combat brigades you can produce.

It's quite possible that (other than US, and a handful of elite Divs) we can usually only afford one company for each type of Div. Such as Maintenance for Armoured Division, Recon for Motorised, etc.

 

[Number 7]

will there be a reason not to take

Logistics
Artillery
Rocket or signal depending on tech
Maintenance
Recon

?

My impression is AA/AT may suck, but I am all ears

cost. as the war intensifies you may find yourself (due to strategic bombing or large battles) unable to replace all the equipment for your divisions. Especially as nations with lower industrial capacity.

I imagine AT and AA will have a viable place in this game though. AT already was useful in HOI3 on the eastern front or against Germany because there was quite a number of tanks. Based on the way the new air system works, it might be beneficial to bring AA with some of your divisions because the bombing now takes place in the actual combat and has morale effects

 

[Joppos]

And those 44 commanders add what exactly to the game? Absolutely nothing. Or those three Armies and ten Corps? Absolutely nothing if Manstein is in control of the command group with the battle plan set-up at his level.

Why do some people persist in this suggestion that the devs aren't using the "vast list of generals from previous HOI Titles"? In HOI4 it's clear that less generals are required, when there are no Div commanders. But HOI3 would run out of generals for most countries. The devs can change that by giving us all/most of the historical generals they already researched in their database. Why would they not? By the time the game is released they will have had an extra year to do the artwork.

Indeed, the current scope of using generals seems perfectly fine. I can understand some people wanting the added flavor of multitudes of generals all the way down to divisional level, but it is inevitably a lot of work for the player for little gain, and so a very expendable feature. It would however as i've discussed be useful for the battle plan feature to be able to have the equivalent of armies and corps groupings, of arbitrary size and themselves leaderless, inside of mansteins group.

 

[jamesd]

I've just been having a look at the British field forces in Britain for D-Day and working out how to fit them into the divisional templates. I've included the Canadian, Polish, Czech etc forces as well as they were all organised and equipped along British lines. In total there were 6 Armoured and 12 Infantry Divisions plus lots of non-divisional troops.

I think the best representation of the support companies would be for each division to have Recon, Engineer, Maintenance, Medical and Signals companies. The western allied units consumed lots of supply so I can handle leaving out the logistics company (while not entirely happy about it) and the MP contingents were small and not used in the same way as say German police battalions so they can be ignored. The recon company for each division is supplied by the army level AC battalions and the engineers are accounted for by allocating a pioneer company to each division.

The Armoured Divisions include 5 Arm, 1 Mech, 4 Mot (3 inf + 1 eng), 2 SPA, 2 Art, 1 TD, 1 AT & 1 AA battalions of divisional troops and need to add at least 1 Mot, 2 SPA, 1 Art, 1 AT & 1 AA battalions to account for their share of non-divisional troops, for a total of 23 battalions.

The Infantry Divisions include 9 Inf, 1 Mech, 2 Mot (MG & Eng), 6 Art, 3 AT & 1 AA battalions of divisional troops and 1 HArm, 2 Arm, 1 Mot (Eng), 1 Inf (Pnr), 4 Art & 1 AA battalions of non-divisional troops, for a total of 32 battalions. With only 25 battalion slots, there's obviously a problem here. In order to build an accurate British force structure that accounts for all their troops, we're going to need divisional templates for non-divisional troops.

 

[Joppos]

I've just been having a look at the British field forces in Britain for D-Day and working out how to fit them into the divisional templates. I've included the Canadian, Polish, Czech etc forces as well as they were all organised and equipped along British lines. In total there were 6 Armoured and 12 Infantry Divisions plus lots of non-divisional troops.

I think the best representation of the support companies would be for each division to have Recon, Engineer, Maintenance, Medical and Signals companies. The western allied units consumed lots of supply so I can handle leaving out the logistics company (while not entirely happy about it) and the MP contingents were small and not used in the same way as say German police battalions so they can be ignored. The recon company for each division is supplied by the army level AC battalions and the engineers are accounted for by allocating a pioneer company to each division.

The Armoured Divisions include 5 Arm, 1 Mech, 4 Mot (3 inf + 1 eng), 2 SPA, 2 Art, 1 TD, 1 AT & 1 AA battalions of divisional troops and need to add at least 1 Mot, 2 SPA, 1 Art, 1 AT & 1 AA battalions to account for their share of non-divisional troops, for a total of 23 battalions.

The Infantry Divisions include 9 Inf, 1 Mech, 2 Mot (MG & Eng), 6 Art, 3 AT & 1 AA battalions of divisional troops and 1 HArm, 2 Arm, 1 Mot (Eng), 1 Inf (Pnr), 4 Art & 1 AA battalions of non-divisional troops, for a total of 32 battalions. With only 25 battalion slots, there's obviously a problem here. In order to build an accurate British force structure that accounts for all their troops, we're going to need divisional templates for non-divisional troops.

The slots in the div designer are not strictly battalion slots, at least not for support units, so one such unit could represent a group of battalions. That said even if the vanilla game wouldn't be able to represent what you ask of it, it would presumably be a trivial task to mod in. Or am i misinterpreting what you've written?

 

[podcat]

I dont think a 100% modeling is ever possible because battalion sizes vary quite a lot depending on nation for example so we have usually settled for a number that looked good or was an average

 

[jamesd]

The slots in the div designer are not strictly battalion slots, at least not for support units, so one such unit could represent a group of battalions. That said even if the vanilla game wouldn't be able to represent what you ask of it, it would presumably be a trivial task to mod in. Or am i misinterpreting what you've written?

What I said was that in order to build the historical British army of 1944, we won't be able to do it with just Infantry and Armoured Division (plus Airborne and Commando) templates. We'll need additional templates for corps troops and/or armoured and infantry tank brigades.

My hope is that the experience points earned are sufficient to allow the creation and upgrading of these additional templates without the need for modding.

 

[podcat]

What I said was that in order to build the historical British army of 1944, we won't be able to do it with just Infantry and Armoured Division (plus Airborne and Commando) templates. We'll need additional templates for corps troops and/or armoured and infantry tank brigades.

My hope is that the experience points earned are sufficient to allow the creation and upgrading of these additional templates without the need for modding.

you get a ton of XP once at war so it wont be a problem. Its mainly a limiting resource before the war or early on (of course reorganizing later on may be dangerous if you want to do it for stuff even on frontlines)