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Hearts of Iron IV - 41st Development Diary - 22nd of January 2016

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Hearts of Iron IV 45516 Bug Reports 15212 After Action Reports (AAR)
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PGrob said:
I can't help but feel that this is a step backwards. I agree with the idea to get rid of division commanders and simplify the process, but I think its a mistake to eliminate the Chain of Command. The main problem with the CoC in Hoi3 was effectively getting the AI to follow your intent. It seems like the new battle planning dynamic would largely solve the problem. It was nice to be able to organize corps, armies, and army groups, with the HQs providing bonuses and being venerable to attack. Now it looks like the game is going back to a Hoi2 "blob-o-divisions" format. Would it have been that much more difficult to refine the chain of command system? (Have the ai/battle planner cascade objectives...as in you assign an axis of advance and line of arrival to an army, the army then assigns sub-objectives to each of its corps.) This amorphous command system seems like a step away from realism and towards arcade style play.
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I wholeheartly agree on that. I really liked the OOB system. It was a bit of work you did once at the start of the game (where not much was to be done anyways since I try to play somewhat historical) - especially with BlackICE mod on. But gave a incredible immersion to me as I liked to pretend I was giving the order directly to the leader. You know it was just something where I was identifiying the very division as something very unique. Kinda stupid but I really like to immerse myself into games and HoI is no exception.. I like the depth and work you had to put into the game to actually succeed and now it really feels dumbed down. Thats my only concern which prevents me from pre ordering by now...
 
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Armies, battle front, grouped and on their own movement.... That's all to me casualisation of the game Can I simply in HoI 4 drop that all in the garbage bin, make my own division like in HoI3 with one panzer battalion, one motorised/mechanised infantry battalion, One mecha engineer, One self propeled arty, one self propelled AA and one command unit. Then micro manage all my divisions one by one assigning them provinces to take and not just click on the other side of the map and watch them move stupidely and inefficiently???
 
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Harada.Taro said:
Armies, battle front, grouped and on their own movement.... That's all to me casualisation of the game Can I simply in HoI 4 drop that all in the garbage bin, make my own division like in HoI3 with one panzer battalion, one motorised/mechanised infantry battalion, One mecha engineer, One self propeled arty, one self propelled AA and one command unit. Then micro manage all my divisions one by one assigning them provinces to take and not just click on the other side of the map and watch them move stupidely and inefficiently???
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yes you can
 
Jochen_Mongolia said:
will there be divisional level commanders or not? or only armies will have generals?
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No divisional level leaders. Only Generals and FMs to command armies.
 
Jochen_Mongolia said:
will there be divisional level commanders or not? or only armies will have generals?
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Sadly, there is no more a complete order of battle.

Now you have generals that can command a limited number of divisions (was 12 initially, IIRC now is 24). They have troops related (panzer, commandos) or terrain related (mountain, desert) traits bonuses. Or naval invader or winter specialist traits.

Or you have Field Marshals that have no command limit. They have traits related to offensive/defensive, planning, morale, reinforcement chance.
 
Nicolas I said:
Sadly, there is no more a complete order of battle.

Now you have generals that can command a limited number of divisions (was 12 initially, IIRC now is 24). They have troops related (panzer, commandos) or terrain related (mountain, desert) traits bonuses. Or naval invader or winter specialist traits.

Or you have Field Marshals that have no command limit. They have traits related to offensive/defensive, planning, morale, reinforcement chance.
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It must be resolved.. we want more commanders. if there is no divisional commanders what is the reason to have a division?
 
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Jochen_Mongolia said:
Division had commanders, thats the real history, you play the game to feel the same real historical situation. I`m totally upset this division commanderless war game. Paradox should consider gamers opinion.
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Regiments had commanders.
Battalions also had commanders.
So did companies.
Also platoons, though not always an Officer as such.
Even squads / sections / vehicles were led by someone.

There's always going to be a line at which you have to call "not actually relevant to our scale". Paradox draws the line above the Division, and that's a perfectly legitimate place to do so. Not all of us share your opinion.
 
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Sernista said:
Regiments had commanders.
Battalions also had commanders.
So did companies.
Also platoons, though not always an Officer as such.
Even squads / sections / vehicles were led by someone.

There's always going to be a line at which you have to call "not actually relevant to our scale". Paradox draws the line above the Division, and that's a perfectly legitimate place to do so. Not all of us share your opinion.
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That still leaves corps, armies, army groups and theatres, 4 levels while we have only 2, general or field marshal.
 
Them being impossible to control is itself a deliberate scale decision! A game of this style could just as easily have control down to companies (well, not as easily, it'd be a hellstorm of micro, but) or only at the level of Corps as the atomic unit. That's an arbitrary line, just like having only more-or-less army groups in the planning system.
 
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Even with the current structure you could have an OOB with Generals reporting to field marshals off-map. The FMs would supply logistical bonuses while the generals do the fighting. Currently what is the point of the distinction? FMs are simply uber-generals with different bonuses.
 
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Nicolas I said:
That still leaves corps, armies, army groups and theatres, 4 levels while we have only 2, general or field marshal.
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It depends on the country. For instance, the three leaders of the AGs for Operation Barbarossa were all Field Marshals, while Franz Halder, the effective commander of the theater, was just a General.
 
ringhloth said:
It depends on the country. For instance, the three leaders of the AGs for Operation Barbarossa were all Field Marshals, while Franz Halder, the effective commander of the theater, was just a General.
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And I think that the current system can do a really playable representation here - a battle-plan each for the North, Center and South, and then pool reserve armor under your favorite Panzer Leader as extra weight to throw into areas being stubborn. Enough plan options to coordinate multiple forces, and the ability to choose abilities for wide swaths of front, without having effectiveness be strongly impacted by micro details that a player will always be able to coordinate better than the AI, but only at a high micro cost. Because that's really the thing about stuff like Div commanders - either they have minimal impact, in which case there's literally no point to having them as a player touched thing, or they do have an impact, in which case there'll be serious outcome differences in the same plan depending on whether you bothered to spend 30 (or more!) minutes manually assigning all your officers to 100+ divisions. If I'm being asked to be Halder, I have staff for that. If I'm being asked to be Hitler... well, sign me out of that personally, but then I would really have people for that.
 
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