Hearts of Iron IV - 45th Development Diary - 19th of February 2016

[Heatth]

I dont think you expect tha you draw lines then exexute plan Barbarosa and you sit and enjoy it.

You are not supposed to:

The battle plan system in HOI4 lets you draw plans on the map which are followed by assigned divisions, but at any point you can go in and reassign things or issue manual overrides. The player's role is then basically to draw up high level plans and to watch for opportunities and situations to take advantage of (such as small encirclements, or prioritizing fighting a certain enemy, or cutting off someone's retreat). Generally the strategic situation will change over time, so while you may have prepared a longer plan expect that you will need to improvise and adapt parts as you go or break off a group to manage some emergency, or particularly stubborn enemy section.

The point of the Battle Plans isn't to create a fully automated system that will win the war for you (that is the AI control in HoI3). But to provide a framework your troops will follow so you can concentrate in what really matters.

 

[danielx354]

Will HoI4 support 64-bit?

Yes.

 

[Jakalak]

you are thinkign too low level and tactical now. That level is really below what the intent is for battleplans which are a bit more strategic. If you care about each individual province and not assume the divisions will attack one or the other in front of them (it depends a bit who gets assigned to go and who support attacks) you are probably the kind of player who will enjoy playing mostly manual. When I play I only really care about important provinces so I dont mind the plan pickign this for me in the majority of cases.

I am very slowly coming around to the idea of battleplans, especially if manual control is still a viable choice.

How much advantage does the planning bonus really give? I guess what I'm asking is, how much better of a player do you have to be, base, in order to overcome the "handicap" that comes from not getting a planning bonus?

I know this is a really vague way of phrasing it, but I'm trying to figure out whether or not the choice to go full manual is ever going to be more than punching yourself in the face.

 

[ok2useLane]

Thanks for the DD... But, this confused me, am I assuming correctly that you can both train and prepare your divisions - at the same time?

 

[agentgb]

Thanks for the DD... But, this confused me, am I assuming correctly that you can both train and prepare your divisions - at the same time?

putin does so why not.

 

[rjohansen]

I love this battleplanner, and the features from the look of it, but holy crap, I just find the "map" to be uglier and uglier when I see it zoomed in, with the soldiers on map and stuff. It just look like the little plastic toys most people play with as children. But the battleplanner looks really promising, I am unsure on how the AI would use specialized divisions? If 2 divisions are marines out of a "group" of 5, 12, 53 or 555 - if doing an amphibious landing, would the AI still use the marines for that task?

Also, I noticed the are "Army 2" in one of the images, is this an actual army? Or is it just a random number of divisions grouped together and just called an army, no matter if its 5 divisions, 12 or 53?

 

[Nelfe]

Also, I noticed the are "Army 2" in one of the images, is this an actual army? Or is it just a random number of divisions grouped together and just called an army, no matter if its 5 divisions, 12 or 53?

It's the name given to divisions grouped together, no matter if it's 2, 18 or 44 divisions.

@podcat : did you plan to add (later, in a DLC or other) a possibility to "store" battleplan ? For example, you draw a battleplan without selecting an army, name and save it. Later in the game you select an army, choose the battleplan from a pull-down menu and your troops will start to reach their positions and reap the Planification Bonus.

 

[safe-keeper]

Will there be a DD on Yugoslavia??? and other smaller countries?? And a question will the smaller states have their own focus tree and units ?

I hopew so. Not neccessarily on inidividual small countries, but whole regions, like the Nordic countries or south-east Europe (Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria)? Definitely.

I guess Yugoslavia is one of the countries that's big enough to warrant its own DD, though, especially if it gets its own focus tree or whatnot down the road.

 

[safe-keeper]

A planning bonus, which is reduced to a waiting bonus, sounds pretty lame to me.

Huge armies can't just leap into action without warning. They need time to plan and prepare, simple as that. Also, it makes the game feel more real by giving you a reason to build in pauses between offensives, and perhaps also focus your offensives in one place.

Hearts of Iron 3 had the "reorganisation phase" where divisions couldn't attack for a while after assaulting a province or being strategically redeployed. This is kinda the same system, just implemented in a better way.

 

[scroggin]

Can you set battle plans for your troops to stay right where they are and defend. Or are battle plans and the bonuses they give only avaliable for an offensive?

 

[HeilLoki]

I still don't understand, what "50 % preparation bonus" means? Is it a flat 50 % bonus to hard attack and soft attack? Is it a bonus to organisation? What does it influence and how?

 

[BeauNiddle]

Can you set battle plans for your troops to stay right where they are and defend. Or are battle plans and the bonuses they give only avaliable for an offensive?

That's the fall back line they mention in the DD. If you want to guard the border draw a fallback line on the border. Presumably you leave your units planning so they build up max planning bonus then when the enemy attack you activate the plan so your units hold that area with max bonus until time ticks it down.

Fallback Line: This lets you paint a line useful both for say setting up a defensive position behind a river or other position (for example a coastline). They are very useful for falling back in a controlled manner as well by reassigning your attackers to it they will instantly rush back and hold that point instead (I do recommend leaving some defenders to slow the enemy during your retreat).

 

[Raptor83]

Yes.

not true - devs already said that 64bit version isnt planned.

 

[BrotherArdis]

How much advantage does the planning bonus really give? I guess what I'm asking is, how much better of a player do you have to be, base, in order to overcome the "handicap" that comes from not getting a planning bonus?

If the maximum combat strength bonus is +100%, as podcat said earlier, then I guess you can imagine it yourself. Your units are fighting at, say, 150% strength (more or less what a 3xINF+ART division with a decent leader and some combined arms bonus has in TFH), while the enemy gets 250%. With this kind of disparity in raw power, you're very much screwed regardless of your skill as a player. Unless you're Mother Russia and can fall back thousands of kilometres, waiting for the enemy's planning bonus to decay to 0.

So I'm guessing you'll always have to have SOME sort of a plan, even if it's just a single arrow for your entire army, and then you micro every division yourself, like in HoI3.

 

[Katarian]

If the maximum combat strength bonus is +100%, as podcat said earlier, then I guess you can imagine it yourself. Your units are fighting at, say, 150% strength (more or less what a 3xINF+ART division with a decent leader and some combined arms bonus has in TFH), while the enemy gets 250%. With this kind of disparity in raw power, you're very much screwed regardless of your skill as a player. Unless you're Mother Russia and can fall back thousands of kilometres, waiting for the enemy's planning bonus to decay to 0.

So I'm guessing you'll always have to have SOME sort of a plan, even if it's just a single arrow for your entire army, and then you micro every division yourself, like in HoI3.

Where does Podcat say what the bonus actually is? I can only see he says Grand Battle Plan gets the 100% bonus whilst Mobile Warfare gets half that bonus. Nowhere does he say what the actual bonus is, it could be Mobile Warfare gets +1 soft attack and Grand Battle Plan gets +2 soft attack or that Mobile Warfare gets +50% soft attack and Grand Battle plan gets +100% soft attack. The former is probably too weak to make planning worthwhile and the latter too strong making them indispensable. Most likely a lot of balancing is yet to go into what the actual final bonus is and Podcat can't actually say what it is going to be at this point.

 

[BrotherArdis]

Where does Podcat say what the bonus actually is? I can only see he says Grand Battle Plan gets the 100% bonus whilst Mobile Warfare gets half that bonus. Nowhere does he say what the actual bonus is, it could be Mobile Warfare gets +1 soft attack and Grand Battle Plan gets +2 soft attack or that Mobile Warfare gets +50% soft attack and Grand Battle plan gets +100% soft attack. The former is probably too weak to make planning worthwhile and the latter too strong making them indispensable. Most likely a lot of balancing is yet to go into what the actual final bonus is and Podcat can't actually say what it is going to be at this point.

Ok, I assumed that's what it is since nowhere does it say that it's something else. All this talk about percentages sounds to me like a combat strength modifier. I could be wrong, true. But if planning bonuses were different for different doctrines, I think podcat would say at least something like that. And it'd be pretty strange if at this point of development, they had no idea of what those bonuses are...

Also, +1 or +2 to a given type of attack may not be +100%, but it's still a pretty powerful boost.

 

[podcat]

I still don't understand, what "50 % preparation bonus" means? Is it a flat 50 % bonus to hard attack and soft attack? Is it a bonus to organisation? What does it influence and how?

yes, so its like all other combat bonuses.

Is it possible to make a fake frontline in your own territory?
For example I don't want to position my troops at the border and give away Intel on my panzers, but instead make a fake frontline one province line back and advance from there?
Granted the time moving one privince Will take its toll on the bonus, but coming as a surprise could prove beneficial.

a front line needs to be drawn only on the border of an enemy, so if you hold back troops as to hide them you cant get them the bonus. they need to be in position for it to start ticking up (and a good thing it is so you can get some heads up that a front is heating up)

Does the fall back line plan grant a bonus also?

fallback line doesnt give bonus, it needs to be an offensive plan. but there is also entrenchment giving you bonuses on defense to make up for it.

 

[Mamluke]

My reaction to this DD.

yes...YES.. YES!

HOI IV battle planer has everything it needs! being able to select just some Div. for a small section of the front? this was the most worrying for me. but now Im at peace!

there is just 1 question left:

1 : does the AI take in to account the Div, it should use for each type of terrain? for exe:
when preparing for a case blue in 1942 ( German offensive towards Stalingrad and the Caucasus. say you group an Army called "army group A" : with 7 Mountain Divisions, 3 panzer Div., 5 Mot Division, and 5 Infantry Divisions. and set the objective to capture all the Mountain rage, Armenia and Baku.

will the AI know that using the Mountain and Inf. Div to capture the Mountain rage WHILE using the panzer and Mot for the plains leading to baku would be FAR more effective?

...Or do we need to create separate armies with separate plans for this kind of thing?
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[BrotherArdis]

fallback line doesnt give bonus, it needs to be an offensive plan. but there is also entrenchment giving you bonuses on defense to make up for it.

Do I remember correctly that we can get greater entrenchment bonuses in HoI4 than in 3? Cause in 3, it was +20% max, which is rather little to make up for +50-100% offered by offensive plans.

Also, it's a shame we don't get bonuses for defensive plans. Manstein and his backhand blow are disappointed.

 

[danielx354]

not true - devs already said that 64bit version isnt planned.

>inb4 no 64bit version for hoi4