Not sure about the battle screen. Reminds of Superpower 2 (and subsequent nightmares) 
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Hearts of Iron IV - 38th Development Diary - 18th of December 2015
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I know you're just ranting to get it off your chest but you hit one of the points that makes me want to rant
There is a difference between decisions and busy work. They specifically put the tech levels 4 years apart to make it a choice not an automatic decision. Is it worth the extra cost of researching ahead of time or should I use my stored experience to design a new variant or should I just assign more ships to that area? Those are decisions and each of them has valid trade offs.
Everything is rarer in HOI4 - you only have 4 or 5 tech slots. Tying up one of those for the best part of a year to get a better BB ahead of time must be compared against improving your fighters and your artillery (or whatever multiple techs you want which aren't ahead of time). In HOI3 (when playing as the majors) you always had enough leadership to spend the 4 needed for researching better ships but you might have had to skimp on the 5 or 6 other techs for doctrines (fleet spotting, commander bonus, ship radar, BB doctrine, BB morale, etc.) It was never a real decision it was just busy work to set your priorities on the 1st of January every year.
I couldn't disagree more. One of the absolutely great things they have managed to do in HOI4 is move most of the decisions into the production system. It doesn't matter if you research a great new ship until you actually build it. It doesn't matter if you make a wonderful variant until you actually build it. It doesn't matter if you add extra artillery / tanks to your forces until you actually build them.
Limited factories and limited resources will mean constant trade offs. Do I build the new superior unit at lower efficiency than my current production line. My soldiers need more guns for resupply do I pause my factories working on planes or do I hope that my stockpiles are big enough. Do I swap focus because I'm low on resources or do I brute force my way through at the cost of more factories.
All a decision tree can be is "do you want better guns yes/no" you never have to go back and rethink / rebalance your choice.
There I feel better now. Hope you don't mind.
/rant
Heh I certainly appreciate your thoughts! It is quite possible that I don't fully understand how HOI4 is supposed to work.
As with a lot of Paradox games, HOI3 became much more complex in multiplayer, and in that context your tech decisions were actually pretty complicated.
When I say decision tree, I don't mean to imply that players should be left with a yes/no choice that has a simple or shallow impact.
In HOI3 up gunning your ships or researching armor on ships would slow you down. On the other hand, you could tech rush your engines in hopes of catching enemy CVs, for example. There were certainly choices there and they were dependent on your goals.
I also think that capital ship production should work much differently than other mass/line produced arms like tanks and guns. Cap ships were costly to produce in terms of time and material. However, I don't think any nation would willingly choose to reproduce an older variant just because it wouldn't take as long to build. Unless they could throw armaments on them that would be competitive.
Refitting ships of course is another matter, but nations had to be researching and producing new variants to remain competitive. Great Britain refitted older ships, but they were almost always building new variants of battleships and battlecruisers.
Producing old ships isn't really a viable option for any major.
Anyway, I do agree with much of what you said and hope that HOI4 ends up as complex as you describe.
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Not sure about the battle screen. Reminds of Superpower 2 (and subsequent nightmares)
Argh, battles in Superpower 2 were...umm....
*sigh
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Great post
just to pitch in my ten cents, the Imperial Japanese Navy developed a MAD (magnetic anomaly detector) called the "Type 3 Mark 1" (American name) / "KMX" (Japanese code name). which was mounted on Kates, Nells, Jakes, and Lornas. However, considering the quality of Japanese radar equipment and the timing that they were introduced into the war, I personally doubt they had much of a impact on the general outcome of the war.
For the official US Naval Technical Mission to Japan report on the KMX, search "Type 3 Mark 1 MAD" on google. The first result will give you the PDF version of it.
In fact, as most of the official documents from the Japanese side were destroyed near the end of the war, I'd recommend researching the US NAVTECJAP reports for stats of Japanese naval weaponry during WW2. Although, if you happen to come across any Japanese documents, I'd be glad to help in translating them.
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Not sure about the battle screen. Reminds of Superpower 2 (and subsequent nightmares)
Hahaha, yes that's it ! That's my aversion to it, like waking up after a boozy one night stand to find..... or ...
Any way, I AM SURE this will be no SP 2.
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Makes me wonder playing as Germany: should I place submarines in the Mediterranean before the war starts, to assist my infamous Italian allies hit British convoys going through there. On that, I wonder how will supply work, will my subs be able to dock at Italian ports or Spanish friendly ones (Like Das Boot)?
Brings up another point with my surface ships. Can I release the Graf Spee before the war starts to raid the south Atlantic close to South Africa and Southern half of South America like it historically did?
Guess my main question is how does supply work with raiders that go far distance, subs and surface.
Brings up another point with my surface ships. Can I release the Graf Spee before the war starts to raid the south Atlantic close to South Africa and Southern half of South America like it historically did?
Guess my main question is how does supply work with raiders that go far distance, subs and surface.
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I will try an all-out submarine approach as Germany and call it Doenitz^2. I will be disappointed if it doesn't starve Britain and mod it until it works. U-Boats are way too cool to not win the war by themselves.
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They worked and they were almost as good as the US version, but they didn't have near enough. They also couldn't stay with a submarine long enough to call in escorts. (The US by contrast, always had escorts on hand.)
The US actually put rear firing rockets on their MAD planes so they could directly threaten subs.
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I hope, it's a silly question, but there is a lot of artwork missing right now, right? You will make different artwork for all ship models, right?
Eh it'll be interesting to see how such mechanics work, but the British would never allow German warships into the med. Hopefully we can't magically rebase navies like we could in HOI3.
This raises an interesting question:
Would the UK allow a buildup of german warships or subs in the med before the war?
Historically I believe they wouldn't.
Well, isn't the Med international waters? I'm not sure they can legally stop them. Shooting at them to make them change course might be viewed in a dim light.
But then again, nothing stops the RN from shadowing them, either.
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Yes I suppose you're right. I just skimmed the AGNA, and some parts of Versailles, as I wondered if there was a clause or stipulation on operating certain non commercial ships outside the Baltic. But I didn't see anything.
One wonders if Mussolini would have granted German ships basing rights before he entered the war, anyway.
Even if they were allowed in pre-war, they certainly wouldn't be leaving, and would remove their operational ability elsewhere. A sacrifice Germany probably couldn't afford.
They could probably put some diplomatic pressure on Germany, demanding the removal of all naval vessels from the Med. Especially U-boats. They could possibly threaten with serious sanctions or possibly either threaten to fire upon them or declaring the naval buildup an act of war and hence declare war on Germany. Germany would not have risked war with the UK by provoking them that way.
Did Italy even have the port facilities to handle German subs pretty sure that just had a few subs themselves but nothing like the subs pens Germany built.
They had around 100 subs at the beginning of the war, but only "fielded" around 30 at a time. So i'm thinking that they didn't have capacity to support Germany as well. I could be wrong though.
Well I don't like it when they put that sub up there, should be underwater and surface ships on surface. If they are sunk, then place them underwater then.
You had like 5 talents that could be assigned were you like, the others are part of a cookie cutter build that couldn`t be ignored since you would be gimping yourself.
All in all, the new talents are far more ok since you can actually pick what you want and no one checks your build.
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