Hearts of Iron IV - 33rd Development Diary - Supply

[KiwiNoob]

Im going to go out on a limb here and assume that most players would consider HOI3 harder and deeper than say Angry Birds or Candy Crush

HOI3 is harder and deeper than most games but is far too complex. Depth (which is good) can be achieved without complexity (which is bad) but as the gaming industry has proved over the last 20 years it's not an easy task.

If PDS are able to do that they get a game which is 'Easy to learn. Hard to master' and we'll all still be playing it 15 years from now. Oil aside - this is looking like a distinct possibility. All the other mechanics are looking awesome. Lots of choices/options, well presented information, easy to use UI.

What they've done with oil was to remove the complexity by removing the depth. I guess this is actually the 2nd best option. The best would be to have a working oil supply system. The worst would have been to keep oil (as a consumable resource) along with all the issues of the old systems.

As it is - reading through all the responses from PDS on this discussion it's pretty clear it's not going to change before launch. Up until this morning that bothered me but I just realised that I don't want to have to wait longer for the game ONLY because of the oil mechanics. I'd be happy to be playing the game while they revise it for a future patch.

My plan is to get the game, play it for a few hours and then start posting about oil again even if I like the new mechanic (better option than admitting I was wrong )

 

[mursolini]

HOI3 is harder and deeper than most games but is far too complex. Depth (which is good) can be achieved without complexity (which is bad) but as the gaming industry has proved over the last 20 years it's not an easy task.

Games require a degree of complexity, for depth to emerge. Take chess, it has 6 types of pieces, while checkers only has 2. Chess are more deep, because they are more complex.

Complexity is not "bad", complexity is required for a deep game. The value has to be measurable, though.

If PDS are able to do that they get a game which is 'Easy to learn. Hard to master' and we'll all still be playing it 15 years from now. Oil aside - this is looking like a distinct possibility. All the other mechanics are looking awesome. Lots of choices/options, well presented information, easy to use UI.

Easy to start playing would be far more accurate.

What they've done with oil was to remove the complexity by removing the depth. I guess this is actually the 2nd best option. The best would be to have a working oil supply system. The worst would have been to keep oil (as a consumable resource) along with all the issues of the old systems.

As it is - reading through all the responses from PDS on this discussion it's pretty clear it's not going to change before launch. Up until this morning that bothered me but I just realised that I don't want to have to wait longer for the game ONLY because of the oil mechanics. I'd be happy to be playing the game while they revise it for a future patch.

There really weren`t any horribly groundbreaking issues with old system. Axis countries still were at huge IC disadvantage, which made their troops composition quite close to reality.
The old hoi2-hoi3 system is far more preferable to the new one. If they don`t have the resources to build a well-working system, why do they bother making ugly shortcuts, and then spent all the time and effort fixing and balancing up the new system.

My plan is to get the game, play it for a few hours and then start posting about oil again even if I like the new mechanic (better option than admitting I was wrong )

Get a Beta version would probably be a better plan, really.

 

[KiwiNoob]

It's true that some complexity is required in order to have depth but 'more complex != more depth' and the less complex the better as it's depth that makes games fun, not complexity.

Easy to start playing would be far more accurate

Not really.

The old hoi2-hoi3 system is far more preferable to the new one. If they don`t have the resources to build a well-working system, why do they bother making ugly shortcuts, and then spent all the time and effort fixing and balancing up the new system

Completely disagree. Myself (and I believe most people in the forums) think the new supply & production mechanics will be a massive improvement on previous HOI's. Since we're talking about complexity and depth I'd say that these two systems are a great example of where PDS have removed a lot of complexity but maintained or even improved the depth.

The way Oil is handled is the only major point of contention.

 

[Die rote Kanone]

Exactly, the problems that people usually point out to justify this new system is the lack of balance of HoI3, NOT the lack of game mechanics or that they were broken, and it was proven beyond any doubt that when modders balanced properly HoI3, you couldn't just abuse the mechanics and get away with it.

Well I wouldn't say that, the mod I played the most was Black Ice and even with that one I had no problems to stockpile all resources up to 99999 until September 1939. What do I care about Fuel/Oil if I have enough until 1945 without doing anything?

Also it was very unrealistic to have one big storing place at the capital from where the whole supplies were distributed. And common if I remember right you needed fo 1IC oil, coal, metal and rare materials - to produce everything you wanted.
You could also complain here that it is very unrealistic to produce supplies with this resources.
It is an abstract system to make it possible to run the game. Otherwise you could produce a complete simulation which shouldn't be possible for paradox. You will find problems in every system but like I said before, I would give the new one a try and complain about it after trying and not before.

Well, this is a list compiled by No Idea and myself from the Megathread. Some of them are a bit over overlapping but yeah.

1. Ships especially are unbalanced by this as they don't suffer 'attrition'. Japan could build a hundred battleships pre-war using oil imports from the SU or US then when war breaks out and they are cut off - no biggie, BB's don't use oil.
2. It's unbalanced post-battle. The country that performs well and has lots of planes/tanks/ships left no requires no oil even though they still have lots of planes/tanks/ships. The country that performs poorly now requires lots of oil (for replacements) even though they no longer have any planes/tanks/ships.
3. Capturing a countries oil supply wont have a dramatic effect for potentially years as anything already produced is free to run for life. Players will abuse this and use equipment to effectively stockpile oil. Japan loses virtually all of it's oil production? Oh well - business as usual for their navy, airforce and armour divisions
4. It kills the idea of a naval reserve. Why bother keeping a reserve in port when one of the main advantages of it was that it conserved fuel? With that gone there is no reason not to have the whole fleet as big as you can possibly make it sailing around.
5. The amount of oil needed should reflect the standing size of the force not how quickly it's destroyed. If a country has 1000 active tanks they should use 1000 tanks worth of oil. At the moment if they have 1000 tanks dying slowly they only need 500 oil, if they have 1000 tanks dying quickly they need 2000 oil. Even though the whole time the number of active tanks remains the same.
6. Because planes/tanks/ships (especially ships - running theme ) don't require oil to run large countries could produce units and then give them to small countries even though those countries couldn't realistically use them. I like the idea that New Zealand can field a fleet of Battleships imported from the US even though we have nothing but sheep to fuel them with but it's not very realistic. (NZ is a good example because we had ok 'supply' but it was only for infantry/cavalry units. We had practically no oil in the grand scheme of things)
7. You cant plan ahead. You cant build 10,000 tanks as Greece and then invade Romania to get the oil to run them. It means pre-war oil production is vastly more important than capturing or maintaining oil production during the war."
8. Technologically savvy countries such as Germany and the UK will get an unfair advantage as they will suffer fewer losses and thus need less oil. Not so technologically savvy countries such as Soviet, Hungary, Italy and China will be on the disadvantaged end.
9. Countries that are likely to suffer oil shortages will have the most important of their oil consuming units categorically techrushed by the player. Losing units means losing oil and this cannot be afforded if oil is to be scarce.
10. The player will feel the need to micromanage his most oil consuming forces if he is short on oil to avoid losses that cannot be replaced due to lack of oil.
11. As your armed forces run on fairy dust, the strategic importance of oil will greatly diminish. All oil consuming units are oil per se, meaning everyone can do with relatively little oil as long as they don't take too many losses. Some wars, such as the Abyssinian war for Italy and the Norwegian campaign for Germany can be fought without consuming any oil at all.
12. As armies run on fairy dust, also the tactical importance of oil will greatly diminish. There will no longer be an incentive to cut of oil supplies to the enemy so that his air force in given province is grounded or his tanks stopped dead in their tracks..
13. The German, Italian and Japanese AI is screwed. As always, they take huge losses against the human player, only that this time they cannot replace them due to oil shortages. This is especially true if you are playing as the US or Soviet and can deny the axis oil (equipment) though trade.
14. Instead of stockpiling oil, players will now stockpile equipment, arguably leading to even weirder and more unhistorical games than in HOI3.

1. Yes that could become a problem but don't forget that if you are Japan for example, need enough shipyards to built so many BB's and enough harbours to deploy your ships otherwise you couldn't supply all of them and then you can't send all of them in. Also they can be cut off if they are not stationend in your homeland.
3. Depends to the situation. Cutting Japan from its Oil supplies by destroying its convoys in HoI III meant that the Industry was going down. Destroying the convoys in HoI IV means for Japans Divisions in overseas that not enough tanks and equipment are coming in. The problem with the navy is still there like you said.
6. If the game is good balanced it shouldn't be possible for the majors to produce so many stuff to give a big percentage of it away.
13. I mean I don't think that the AI will be the best but we don't know how it will act at all don't we? If I remember right you can't decide to which nation you will give your resources by trade, so you can't say you won't give oil to Germany until you have an embargo - and that was just possible with world tension high enough.
14. Well why?

Overall I agree with your other sentences that I didn't quote.

 

[takedown47]

The way Oil is handled is the only major point of contention.

Agree. The way oil is handled currently in HoI4 is a complete joke

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Wheres ma oil ?

 

[safe-keeper]

"HoI3 with less bugs and improved on key points! Its going to be amazing!"
This was pretty much what the fan base of the Hearts of Iron series had in their mind when Hearts of Iron 4 was announced.

Now after all this dev diares all I see is a generalized discontent and the occasional person using irrelevant/ridiculous arguments to justify the dumbification of the series.

*Safe-Keeper looks at this DD, sees 189 likes and helpfuls and only 20-something dislikes.

I hope this isn't a sign that Paradox is starting the full dumbification of all their game series, it would be a disaster for the grand strategy genre,

It isn't. Want me to make a list of features that are deeper/more complex than in the previous game?

...but maybe that would be the catalyst for another company to grab a share in this market with the proper "Hearts of Iron" game we all wanted.

Please stop pretending to speak for everyone. It's arrogant and irritating.

 

[Axe99]

*Safe-Keeper looks at this DD, sees 189 likes and helpfuls and only 20-something dislikes.

I agree, but this doesn't mean people are all happy with the system (but also, not being happy with the system doesn't mean it won't work, particularly as a game). I gave it a helpful, for example, and like a lot of what they're proposing, while finding it sad that they've taken a no fuel or supplies approach (and yes, I know equipment is proxying this, but mathematically it's a bad proxy). Because there's a lot of good in the DD for the logistically-minded folk, they won't necessarily disagree with it, which makes taking those figures as a poll difficult. That said, there are a lot of posts that are very positive about the change, and judging broad crowd response by a few unhappy forumites is about as equally likely (ie, not at all) to give us an idea of what the broader playerbase think .

 

[No idea]

Then again, I'm very hardcore about historical accuracy and military equipment so I will freely admit to being biased toward the apparent production focus of HoI4.

And you dont mind about ships and tanks moving on fairy dust nor inexistence of OOBs?

 

[JamesJameson]

I'm not being rude, I'm just saying that your opinion on what is pointless in a war strategy game is so ridiculous it made me facepalm twice. Go read something about pos-industrial warfare and you will understand why.

I don't understand what your trying to get at with the pos-industrial?
Just because I don't see a need for fuel in the game given the current mechanics, I'm ridiculous.

You are telling other players how they should play their singleplayer games at their homes? You are telling us how we should enjoy the game?
Not only that, you assume that just because we know how in real life world war 2 unfolded, we are incapable of roleplaying it and not exploit our knowledge of events?
And even worse, do you honestly believe, do the devs honestly believe that removing all that stuff will stop players from getting hindsight advantage?

I'm curious where you getting this from? When did I say any of this?
I'm just telling you the way the game is, and that I like it. I enjoy the changes they made, I'm sorry if that displeases you.

Well if you only played the poorly balanced vanilla HoI3 I can understand your opinion, but I modded the game heavily and played other people's mods. Mods which actually made things matter, the same things that Paradox is just removing left and right instead of just fixing what was malfunctioning and balancing the game properly.

What is worst is that by removing all this features it probably means the game engine, the hardcoded stuff, won't be able to handle things that modders could mod in, like stockpiling, fuel, and so on. This means the Hearts of Iron series is a goner for a lot people.

Are you going to buy the game when it comes out?

 

[Cardus]

To make everyone happy it would be sufficient to get the source code of HOI3

 

[JamesJameson]

I think the most important resource that is abstracted into supplies is food and water. So, what is it that makes fuel better than food and water?
In the Soviet Union DD we say tanks used 1.5 and infantry and some arty was .9. So it would seem fuel is included in supplies, and equipment.

 

[mighij]

I think the most important resource that is abstracted into supplies is food and water. So, what is it that makes fuel better than food and water?

Everything needs food and water so those can be part of the general supplies but only some things need a massive ammount of fuel.

Edit: i'm not against or pro the current system. I want to play the game before i decide how i feel about it.

 

[AstroMan]

What paradox giveth in equipment, they taketh away in fuel.

 

[FUregistration]

Want me. to make a list of features that are deeper/more complex than in the previous game?

Sure.

Please stop pretending to speak for everyone. It's arrogant and irritating.

The thing is, 'we' can refer to 2 people, 20 people or the whole world. In this case its the people who had the expectation that HoI4 was going to be something different than what is shaping to be...

I don't understand what your trying to get at with the pos-industrial?
Just because I don't see a need for fuel in the game given the current mechanics, I'm ridiculous.

No. Your opinion is ridiculous, not you.

There's key differences in army supply and management in pos-industrial warfare.
Back in the middle ages and before, armies had their own repair component, they hauled a lot of supplies with them directly, mostly food and when deprived of supplies they could always pillage and forage, not only that, weapons were more or less universal, they had no caliber or complexity, a mace is a mace, one might be better than another, but if your good mace breaks, you can pick up one of the enemy maces and fight on.
Then it came the age of gunpowder and armies became about thinner lines, they would require supply lines and supply was more than food, this is a transition period.
Then we have pos-industrial warfare, or modern warfare that stretches along fronts and huge areas of combat lines, troops use very complex machinery that can't be easily repaired on the go, and ammo must match the required caliber, this means that supply lines became a huge important factor in warfare.
If you want to divide it even more, world war 2 is another turn in warfare complexity, aviation, paratroopers, mobile warfare and so on became prolific and with it the combat lines became a lot more mobile and the supply lines and production much easier to strike.

Are you going to buy the game when it comes out?

Will wait to see the modding capabilities of it, if I see that I can mod in, or that modders are able to mod in certain strategic aspects into the game, yeah I'll buy, if not I rather spend my money on other stuff.

I think the most important resource that is abstracted into supplies is food and water. So, what is it that makes fuel better than food and water?

Well you have a point there, this are the most basic resources to maintain an army, but they are basic to all units, to all manpower, and since there's no robots fighting in this game, they can be abstracted into the general supplies (like said before). Not only that, this are resources produced everywhere where there's people, because they are intrinsic to human life. Sure you can argue that maintaining a giant army in the deserts of Africa would consume all their food and water and even more, but that is already simulated by desert attrition and in the case of isolation, lack of general supplies.

I would be in favor of having food as a resource anyway, of course with a proper strategic importance on countries management.

 

[pharaomatic]

Any reply from the devs on this discussion?

 

[Had a mom]

1. Yes that could become a problem but don't forget that if you are Japan for example, need enough shipyards to built so many BB's and enough harbours to deploy your ships otherwise you couldn't supply all of them and then you can't send all of them in. Also they can be cut off if they are not stationend in your homeland.
3. Depends to the situation. Cutting Japan from its Oil supplies by destroying its convoys in HoI III meant that the Industry was going down. Destroying the convoys in HoI IV means for Japans Divisions in overseas that not enough tanks and equipment are coming in. The problem with the navy is still there like you said.
6. If the game is good balanced it shouldn't be possible for the majors to produce so many stuff to give a big percentage of it away.
13. I mean I don't think that the AI will be the best but we don't know how it will act at all don't we? If I remember right you can't decide to which nation you will give your resources by trade, so you can't say you won't give oil to Germany until you have an embargo - and that was just possible with world tension high enough.
14. Well why?

Overall I agree with your other sentences that I didn't quote.

Thank you for having a look.

1. Yes, as always, IC will be a limiting factor. But you will be strongly incentivized to build everything that uses a lot of oil during peace time.

6. If it is even possible to balance this. I imagine that one can give away most stuff through lend and lease to everyone.

13. Maybe this was the case in HOI3, which I did not play much. Now, in Hoi2 you could trade with whomever you wanted.

14. Because if you think you're going to be short on oil in 2 years, meaning unable to produce more aircraft and tanks, having an equipment stockpile is what will save your day.

*Safe-Keeper looks at this DD, sees 189 likes and helpfuls and only 20-something dislikes.

It isn't. Want me to make a list of features that are deeper/more complex than in the previous game?

Please stop pretending to speak for everyone. It's arrogant and irritating.

You do realize that Podcat could post a picture of his own toilet and receive 115 "agrees" right?

I think the most important resource that is abstracted into supplies is food and water. So, what is it that makes fuel better than food and water?
In the Soviet Union DD we say tanks used 1.5 and infantry and some arty was .9. So it would seem fuel is included in supplies, and equipment.

If you by better mean more significant in WWII, the answer would be that food grows outside of Baku, Sumatra and Texas.

 

[Praetori]

I think the most important resource that is abstracted into supplies is food and water. So, what is it that makes fuel better than food and water?
In the Soviet Union DD we say tanks used 1.5 and infantry and some arty was .9. So it would seem fuel is included in supplies, and equipment.

It's hard to strat-bomb or convoy-raid water, or food. Not impossible but it's a helluva lot easier (and more reasonable) to go for refineries and tankers. Civilians can always be cut off for fuel but a battleship, aircraft or tank won't go far without it.

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I'm not overly concerned about the on-map supply-system as such. Bad techs, poor planning and other techs will make your units run out of supply so the system itself looks ok on the operational-scale and it's seems a lot better than HOI3 (which was really a decent idea but poorly implemented and hard to pre-plan). I do however have a few minor concerns and one big itch.

The concerns on the operational scale are that despite the "bottleneck" stuff there's really nothing a player can do to cope with the supply-situation. It seems you can't prioritize an area at the behalf of something else. So when two opposing forces have reached their respective supply-limit in numbers it turns into a slugfest. I would guess it's meant to be mitigated or simulated by the battleplanner where a well-prepared offensive will emulate stockpiled supplies/ammo by virtue of better bonuses but it's not really the same thing IMO (a minor thing though).
A bigger fear is that since the supply is tracked per region there will be meta-gaming considerations where you for example fall back to converging supply-areas (despite a fully stocked and battleworthy force holding the line without troubles) and then use well prepared attacks from several areas playing the 30-day limit and neighboring bonus to get an advantage in numbers not possible elsewhere. The latter is only a problem if the supply-areas are not historically or geographically reasonable, it could even be used as a fair advantage if it's historically modeled (so also a minor issue).

Now for the only only really gnawing concern and that is on the strategic level. Highly theoretical but the way it's currently implemented it looks like building 10.000 tanks and 20.000 aircraft as Germany before the strategic bomber campaign starts would mean that your 10k tanks and 20k aircraft will be fully supplied until the end of times even if the allied airpower grinds the Axis industries and refineries to dust while completely blocking Germany from oil (assuming they don't touch the infrastructure) which is exactly the same problem we had with 999999 stockpiles in HOI3 (although those could actually be bombed).

It also means that there's no effect on Germany's overall supply-situation as they move further into the USSR. There seems to be zero extra strain on refineries, industry or logistics having 10k tanks deep into Asia (compared to having them in Germany proper) as all those supplies were "prepaid" for eternity when said units were built.

Said units could be poorly supplied in the USSR by the on-map operational supply-system but the strategic effect on operations or industry back home as a whole are the same as if those units were next-door (with one exception which I will get to later**).
Sending the US army overseas to fight in Europe doesn't require more effort (supply-wise) than keeping them at home (the UK, France and other allied nations have to worry about building large enough ports to receive supply but the effect on US industry is zero? disregarding lend-lease or IC-lease).
**Regarding attrition it's reasonable to conclude that it will be less at home than abroad so a slight increase in equipment lost at remote areas could affect the calculation.

Where it really starts to itch is the mindbending it requires to compare production and supplies.
If you produce a cheap simple tank in 1936 it's also assumed that the fuel required for its entire lifetime is included? If that tank lasts until 1946 we're talking 10 years of combat-use fuel and supplies. If I build a better more expensive tank in 1944 (costs more IC, fuel, rares etc) that also lasts until 1946 we're only looking at 2 years worth of combat-use fuel and supplies, yet the latter tank is more expensive?! The worst case scenario is that the latter tank cannot even be built due to a lack of oil/fuel (when we clearly have several years worth saved up in the invisible fuel-tanks for the 1936 tank but no way to get to it).

There might be something I missed that makes this latter part make sense. The overall supply system looks intriguing but the itch regarding the last bit refuses to go away (especially since HOI4 is meant to be easier to understand and have better mechanics).

 

[mursolini]

It's true that some complexity is required in order to have depth but 'more complex != more depth' and the less complex the better as it's depth that makes games fun, not complexity.

It is a curious abstract spell, but the reality is much simpler:
there is complexity that comes from the way different game mechanis iteract, and that, is depth.
there is complexity that is created by poor UI and information presented. That, is what should be cut as much, as possible.

Not really.

Yes, really. That, is what "easy to learn" part is supposed to imply.
For example, it is easy to learn how the pieces move, thus start playing. Yet it would take years, before player actually starts playing well, and understanding what s/he is trying to achieve from move one. "Learn" substitutes for "know game mechanics enough to play".

Completely disagree. Myself (and I believe most people in the forums) think the new supply & production mechanics will be a massive improvement on previous HOI's. Since we're talking about complexity and depth I'd say that these two systems are a great example of where PDS have removed a lot of complexity but maintained or even improved the depth.

The way Oil is handled is the only major point of contention.

Wait, what? We used to have 1 type of IC, 4 types of resources and that was about it. Also, the speed was determined by practicals. We now have 3 types of IC, 6 types of resources, a million of variants of equipment, a system of factory gearing replacing practicals, 3 types of combat expirience to upgrade your equipment, a division constructor, far more complex than in HOI3.

Oh, and supply system is still more complex, as we now have more moving pieces, like controll of region mechanics, supplies "spill" from one region to another, victory points and cities providing supplies, and troops having an overall supply level.

PI removed complexity? Nope, PI just removed bad UI and added more complexity.

Yes, oil is a major point of contention, but don`t tell me not having supply flow like in HOI3 is not a downgrade.

 

[Modestus]

It's hard to strat-bomb or convoy-raid water, or food. Not impossible but it's a helluva lot easier (and more reasonable) to go for refineries and tankers. Civilians can always be cut off for fuel but a battleship, aircraft or tank won't go far without it.

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Now for the only only really gnawing concern and that is on the strategic level. Highly theoretical but the way it's currently implemented it looks like building 10.000 tanks and 20.000 aircraft as Germany before the strategic bomber campaign starts would mean that your 10k tanks and 20k aircraft will be fully supplied until the end of times even if the allied airpower grinds the Axis industries and refineries to dust while completely blocking Germany from oil (assuming they don't touch the infrastructure) which is exactly the same problem we had with 999999 stockpiles in HOI3 (although those could actually be bombed).

It also means that there's no effect on Germany's overall supply-situation as they move further into the USSR. There seems to be zero extra strain on refineries, industry or logistics having 10k tanks deep into Asia (compared to having them in Germany proper) as all those supplies were "prepaid" for eternity when said units were built.

One thing that negates the problem is obsolescence, you could attempt to build 10,000 PZ II tanks before 1939 but if you wish to upgrade to PZ III tanks you either replace the PZ II tanks and send them back to a stockpile or you replace them as they are used up by movement and combat.


Sending them back to the stockpile means you will effectively end up producing 20,000 tanks to have 10,000 tanks on the battlefield and gradually replacing them as they are lost in combat is almost the same thing because they will be so obsolete you will lose vast numbers of them.


You would in fact create a massive strain on German Industry.



As I said earlier it would appear to me that you will not want to have huge stockpiles of anything and you would nearly always want to have the latest equipment on the battlefield.