Hearts of Iron IV - Dev Diary 6 - Division Design

[fabius]

That's planned

And

No, the intent is Germany would be getting less XP per division per hour than Slovakia, they'd still gain more in total because they have so many units in combat.

...

...Is reassuring, and thanks for great DD and time clarifying.

One little nit-pic. Although you said the number of support slots is under review. I think that I'd like to see more support battalion slots than 5 so mid-to late war we can go flavour on some div templates. Maybe just one more.

 

[Rudawitz]

I would like to remind some of the posters this is still Pre-Alpha at this point, don't get too worked up about the little things just yet. By all means give feedback on stuff that concerns you but it's WAY to early to start saying the systems are borked and should be scrapped. Also don't get tunnel vision on a single diary, think about how the systems will be related to each other and understand there is much more detail to come.

Quite right. People tend to dismiss ideas on the basis that they wouldn't work well in HoI 3.

 

[Beagá]

I´m more interested in the new tactical system, if anything will change, at all. Considering unit stats still exist and didn´t really change...

Will armor effect finally be quantitative or still qualitative? Nothing against it being qualitative, as long as it´s clear who (read: which division) is getting the hard attacks and why.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

This change looks really cool; IRL no one used the best troops for the job because they knew that was unfair; the enemy was not taught to do the same, their foe couldn’t tell the difference between mountains and plains so they created templates and battle plans to save the environment and the enemy too. I am happy that HOI IV will portray this.

 

[illathid]

I'm sure I read earlier, that you cannot have infantry and tanks in the same unit.. well if that is the case, only the germans had tank units, everyone else added tanks to infantry ...

What was said is you can't have infantry and tank battalions in the same brigade/regiment. My understanding is that a division is the smallest playable unit, so you will be able to have ARM and INF in the same unit. In fact, the unit shown in the Dev diary itself has both infantry and tanks in it. So your worries there are unfounded, unless I've misunderstood what you've said.

 

[unmerged(81770)]

I'll just get out there and say it;

I don't like this new method of division design, I get the uncomfortable feeling that you are going to "dumb down" this game too much. Be careful.

 

[RickInVA]

I'll just get out there and say it;

I don't like this new method of division design, I get the uncomfortable feeling that you are going to "dumb down" this game too much. Be careful.

Are you looking at the same Dev Diary that I am? This method is easily 3x or more as detailed and complicated as HOI3's method. What could you possibly consider "dumbed down" about this method compared to HOI3?

 

[Dalwin]

it's like he's reacting to the art from the screenshot more than anything. This system is significantly more sophisticated than we have had in the past.

 

[Axe99]

Only read the first five pages, read any more and I'll forget it all anyways, but thoughts are I like the general direction a lot. Big step up from HoI3.
:

• Using Exp to unlock extra elements of a division is anything but gamey - it's a sensible (and realistic - far more so than the system in HoI3) abstraction. However:
  • You need to have a lot of templates available, because of the various situations available to large armies. Maybe link templates to doctrines, so that larger nations that will have researched more doctrines will automatically have more templates? So a lot of templates, so that at the start of the war you don't have nations having ahistorically limited division diversity.
  • Alongside this, I'd have templates organised into 'families' - so 'armoured division', 'infantry divisions', 'marine divisions', 'paratroop divisions' and so on. Once you've unlocked an extra battalion/slot in a template in one of the families, it would be available in the rest. Would reflect how the experience for one particular division type will in many cases be applicable to other division types in the same family, and prevent the issue of two players with the same number of divisions having a different number of battalion slots unlocked because they split templates off at different time periods.
  • An alternative could be a simple inverse relationship between the points required to unlock battalion slots, and the number of division templates for the army, but I think a 'families' approach would be a bit more realistic, intuitive and easier to manage.
• Balancing experience gain will be tricky. I wouldn't have it as a simple inverse relationship - someone earlier mentioned a logarithmic pattern. Whether it's logarithmic, quadratic or otherwise, whatever equation you use here will need to be nuanced and relatively complex to do the job well.
• As many others have said, it'll work much better if there's a way to prioritise/order the re-organisation of units when they change - maybe a toggle a la HoI3's equipment update button that allows you to prioritise the upgrade, or not upgrade at all (for units on the frontline, where the upgrade would reduce their organisational capacity). Not sure what historical pattern was here (whether units changed structure while on the front or not), would prefer something that followed historical pattern, as long as not game breaking.

Overall I'm a fan of this, and the general direction HoI IV is taking. Keep up the good work dev team .

I'll just get out there and say it;

I don't like this new method of division design, I get the uncomfortable feeling that you are going to "dumb down" this game too much. Be careful.

I'm not sure I get you here - this method of designing divisions is far, far _less_ dumbed-down than in HoI3, which was pretty much anything goes (once you'd unlocked the slots - hardly the epitome of 'smart' gameplay).

 

[Ibrins]

Hmm, I'm a bit on the fence on this. On one hand, getting down to battalion level is indeed a very welcome addition, as it did indeed feel a tad silly completely ignoring most available support brigade types for just a few compositions that worked best. On the other hand, I fear that the experience restrictions on actual division compositions, while intended to abstract the already mentioned difficulties in military bureaucracy, logistics, etc., might add up to be detrimental to the enjoyment of the game.
Gamers, especially in these types of games, tend to be control maniacs, who like to min/max (I am guilty of this too sometimes). If the restrictions are too harsh, I fear it might just end up being a tad too frustrating and taking away a bit too much of the players' influence. The devs have mentioned numerous times, that they constantly need to make decisions whether to improve the realism, or sacrifice some of it for the sake of fun gameplay. This is precisely the case here. If you folks at Paradox manage to nail the right balance and make it fun at the same time, then I'm all for this new system, but for the time being, I'll reserve my final judgement on this matter for a later date.

In any case, thanks for the diary! Hope to see them roll out in shorter intervals from now on

 

[Beagá]

Limiting stuff is fun, if it´s plausible. If everything moved like the queen in chess it would be a pretty shitty game wouldn´t it?

 

[plasticpanzers]

I like it with 1 proviso. Divisions seldom had a single artillery battalion unless that is the heavy battalion and you add regular
medium artillery battalions in the 4/5th slot of each of the 3 brigades. I am at ease as I understand the numbers will change
and are only temporary while PI works out actual values. Hopefully the unit pictures will be detailed ones as well.

Changing in the field (or even in your own home country) of divisions is complicated and doing it incrementally is correct in the
way that units had to shake out officers and men into new units or fold them into other ones as well as updating new vehicles
and equipment in the field. Then there is a period of working the paper change into an actual one in operations afterwards. I
see this as a good thing. Good example would be the US 1st Armored Division which went from a heavy armored divisions of
2 combat commands to a light one with 3 as for all other US divisions except the 2 and 3 US armored divisions which kept their
heavy organization.

 

[Imaginary Star]

Looks marvelous, sounds marvelous.

I feel like I will suffer a bit from this system, as I always liked to field a wide range of specialist formations: several varieties of siege divisions, heavy frontline divisions, light frontline divisions, light armour exploitation divisions, ect. (in BICE mod though)
But it's a good kind of suffering - like the changes.

 

[Peacenik]

I'd like to add my voice to those that feel locking off divisional structures behind an "XP wall" feels needlessly contrived and this "gratuitous gameyness" stands in stark! contrast to the refreshing realism of the overall template system.

Really, the system itself, XP aside, looks great! Using Battalions as the smallest "unit of customization" of the "Divisional Core" allows Paradox sufficient granularity to reflect and properly balance the units of different nations. Additionally, there seem to be at least 5 support slots allowing for the historical "maximum bling" of Divisional Recon,Engineer, Artillery, Anti-Tank and Anti-Air assets.

It looks robust, authentic and heck of a lot of fun to tinker with. I am being completely honest when I say that this screenshot makes go for into "throw money at the screen" mode.

... except for the XP system. Scrap it. Seriously.

I mean, I can understand the desire to, in the name of authenticity, "cordon off" some choices.

A well-known example being pre-war France having its tanks dispersed rather than concentrated. Translated to HOI 4's language this would mean most of France's tanks would be attached as "Divisional Support" alongside Artillery or Recon in the section to the left.

But the thing is, the reasoning behind that decision was doctrinal. It was a doctrinal choice that had nothing to do with battle experience or lack of thereof.

On the other hand, if we're talking about simply the size of divisions, that's really a function of available resources. Historically, the decisions behind divisions changing their sizes, either growing in size or the opposite, were due to equipment/manpower considerations more closely aligned with the countries' level of mobilization/exhaustion of the means of war than anything else.

I strenuously advise Paradox against including the presented XP system. Instead, the freedom (within plausible limits) to experiment with different divisional organizations should be a highlight feature of the game, not the restriction of thereof.

I agree for the most part. We need to cordon off decisions so as to prevent player hindsight vs. AI historical behavior unbalancing the game. The slow, constant peacetime XP gain ostensibly accounts for the capacity for interwar developments, evident in historical division compositions at game start, but very poorly. Combat XP ostensibly accounts for things generally evolving faster during wartime, but again poorly. I await the explanation of USA division compositions in a later DD, but I suspect workarounds to a flawed model.

Taking a step back, the hurdles to reorganization are feasibility and willingness. To be clear, knowledge/research is not an active constraint: for the most part there exists a backlog of smart ideas, but human minds refuse to think critically (France knew of the existence of Guderian well before 1940). We are not even addressing feasibility here (I suspect technology will gate designs somehow), so the only thing in play is willingness.

The will to change comes in fits and starts in response to crises. Yes combat experience (more so loss) is pivotal. More generally, interwar hyperinflation and general economic/social craziness, a great officer purge, political upheaval, foreign threat (prior to declaration of war), a ‘surprise’ attack on a pacific island, critical lack of supplies/manpower, loss of national territory, etc. all should create will for military change, a mechanic not so different from social change.

So, bottom line: call it command mojo or experimentalism or whatever, and link it more intrinsically to the nation, not just the frontline.

 

[Joppos]

I like it with 1 proviso. Divisions seldom had a single artillery battalion unless that is the heavy battalion and you add regular
medium artillery battalions in the 4/5th slot of each of the 3 brigades. I am at ease as I understand the numbers will change
and are only temporary while PI works out actual values. Hopefully the unit pictures will be detailed ones as well.

Changing in the field (or even in your own home country) of divisions is complicated and doing it incrementally is correct in the
way that units had to shake out officers and men into new units or fold them into other ones as well as updating new vehicles
and equipment in the field. Then there is a period of working the paper change into an actual one in operations afterwards. I
see this as a good thing. Good example would be the US 1st Armored Division which went from a heavy armored divisions of
2 combat commands to a light one with 3 as for all other US divisions except the 2 and 3 US armored divisions which kept their
heavy organization.

The four support units portrayed aren't afaik part of a regiment, but rather just support units of varying size. So the art would be a regiment, engineer a battalion and so on.

 

[Mamluke]

very good, very good Indid! battalion levels seam very interesting.
the Experience costs might be as some say, artificial limitation. but one that is nessecery. one I think people will get use too, and might came to understand better

 

[208]

I'm sure I read earlier, that you cannot have infantry and tanks in the same unit.. well if that is the case, only the germans had tank units, everyone else added tanks to infantry ...

You misread. You can't have Tanks and Infantry in the same brigade (column), but you can certainly have mixed brigades in a division.

An example of what i meant is if i have this mix of medium tank types across all battalions, and as i just started pumping out a superior medium tank type these gets distributed evenly across all medium tank battalions. But in planning for an offensive, lets say i want to concentrate my new tanks as much as possible in fewer divisions, for a larger chance of breaking through enemy lines. To do this I'd like to break of a few tank divs and give them a sub template which is then prioritized for these new tanks, maybe even drawing from other divs..

I assume there will still be a "prioritize division for reinforcement" button in the unit interface, so you can just click that for the divisions you're planning to use for your offensive and they should receive the newest equipment in priority.

Well if you play with sprites, it's logical to have icons in the div builders, if you play with counter it's logical to have counters in the div builder, i don't see the issue.

Perhaps those who are familiar with the division-level counters may not be familiar with the battalion-level counters and prefer to use the icons instead (although I can't imagine it would take very long to learn a few more counters).

 

[Ornlu Wolfjarl]

The experience mechanic sounds a bit too tedious. Not the idea of having an experience system, but the idea that experience points are used to customize your divisions. I'd rather start out with smaller divisions and move on to larger-sized ones, as well as paying to unlock new types of divisions, than to have to pay every time I am about to do a change. The question is, how much experience do you have to spend per change and how much experience can you store over time?

I'm considering that this system may not only hinder experimentality on the player's side, it would hinder the AI as well. The AI would now evolve much slower to your tactics, and it'll be easier to steamroll it.

Also, consider that you are asking from the player to have to spend time and resources in doing something that they expect it to be trivial. Not only that, if I'd have to wait several turns before finally making my divisions the way I want them, I might forget what I had thought of initially and start doing something else. Thus, keeping me from ever being as efficient as I'd realistically like to be in the battlefield.

However, I don't really know how it works so I can't really judge it, but at any rate, these were my concerns.

 

[jamesd]

"The rate of gain depends on the proportion of your units in combat, the more of your units that are fighting, the faster you gain Experience. This also means that smaller nations do not necessarily earn less than larger nations, as it's not the total number of units that matters, and large nations will likely not get much Experience when rolling over small ones."

I have some issues with experience being gained based on the proportion of units in combat, in that large countries tend to have more types of divisions than smaller countries, and so should have more templates at any one point in time. This proportional experience will mean that small countries with fewer types of divisions will be able to have more advanced division structures than larger countries.

Lets look at Germany in 1941. It had:
at least 3 similar but different types of panzer divisions (varying numbers of Lt & Med Arm battalions and 1 division with 2 Mech Inf bns while the others had at most 1 company)
3 front line infantry divisions - the main type with Cav/Bicycle Recon and AT bns while the others were lacking either the Recon or AT bn
2 coastal garrison divisions - one with 9 inf bns the other with 6 and both lacking artillery and other support units
1 Mot Inf division
2 types of Mtn division - one with medium artillery the other without
1 type of Para division (although the 13 battalions in 4 regiments dropped in 3 separate provinces on Crete)
1 type of Air Landing division
4 types of SS division - Reich, Tot & Wiking as one type, LSSAH as another, Nord (3 rgts without supporting eqp) as the third and the 1st & 2nd Brigades (2 rgts ea) as the fourth
1 Cavalry Division
1 Lt Africa Division (could possibly be represented by a 6 bn coastal division that later converts to motorised)
1 GD Division (at this stage a reinforced rgt)
1 Lehr Division (at this stage rgt size)
1 Ersatz (replacement & training) Division - they ended up on anti partisan duties
1 Landschutzen (home guard) Division

That's 23 templates. For comparison Australia at the same time had 3 - AIF Infantry, AMF Infantry, Cavalry

And so far we've only looked at Combat Divisions. There's also the issue of corps & army troops. If we want to represent them as units that can be concentrated at the key battle sites they'll need their own templates. Otherwise they will effectively be spread out supporting each division equally, robbing the player of the ability to concentrate specialised assets where they're needed.

Then there's also garrison troops. In HOI3 as Germany, I plaster Gar, Mil & Pol bdes all over the occupied territories so as to suppress partisans, at the rate of 1 Gar per port, 1 Mil per airfield & 1 Pol per province with IC. It's more historical than having a few Cav or Mot units patrolling huge areas or Par Divs on standby to attack insurgents.

I'd suggest one of two options:
1. Nations gain experience based on number of brigades in combat, thus allowing larger armies to update multiple templates. This could be balanced with a time lapse between upgrading templates (say 1 year) so that they can't form the most optimal structures immediately. Templates should be downgradeable at any time (so Germany could reduce its infantry divisions from 9 to 6 infantry battalions whenever losses start getting too high)
2. Nations gain experience proportionally, but that experience allows all templates to be upgraded. This maximises the players ability to customise which is one of the drawcards of the game.

 

[IndoEsia45]

I think this is a improvement over the previous brigade stacking model, however I really hope that most of this mechanism are made to be moddable i.e modder can change they layout of the template, how many experience needed for unlocks, unit icons.. etc.