Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 2 - The Tools of War
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I think everyone should get tiny amounts of practical (or whatever the equivalent is) just from wars happening, moreso if you have good relations with a belligerent country. US tanks and TDs were definitely influenced by the experience of the allies in 1939-1941.
Production effectiveness...
That's an amazing idea, it got me all excited, enough to install HoI3 again at least.
My feedback: create appropriate means for the player to monitor these facts, as we know you can do. But make them tweak-able individually.
Justification & details: I think the game should be self sufficient to help the player understand the why, what and the how questions, and it should give these tools to the players in those places where they are needed most. But allow players to increase the challenge of their experience with the game, by permitting them to configure not to receive full details (so the player has to rely on reading the descriptions, experimentation and so on). I'd go one step further and suggest that for players on the higher difficulty settings, they shouldn't receive exact prognoses of when something will be done, but estimates of when said research will be ready or when said production will be completed - and this is where production efficiency will be most useful.
Examples: improvement to engine research, finish in 3 to 5 months; adapt production line, 4-6 weeks; recall & upgrade 1000 new tanks, fail rate 1-3%, seeded differently over time/over production order (or whatever was the industrial standard during the war), completion takes longer if fail rate hits higher values. External events should impact the seeding logic for how long will something take. Oh, and the commander gets an optimistic estimate at first, doesn't get to know in advance how long will something miss its deadline.
That's an amazing idea, it got me all excited, enough to install HoI3 again at least.
My feedback: create appropriate means for the player to monitor these facts, as we know you can do. But make them tweak-able individually.
Justification & details: I think the game should be self sufficient to help the player understand the why, what and the how questions, and it should give these tools to the players in those places where they are needed most. But allow players to increase the challenge of their experience with the game, by permitting them to configure not to receive full details (so the player has to rely on reading the descriptions, experimentation and so on). I'd go one step further and suggest that for players on the higher difficulty settings, they shouldn't receive exact prognoses of when something will be done, but estimates of when said research will be ready or when said production will be completed - and this is where production efficiency will be most useful.
Examples: improvement to engine research, finish in 3 to 5 months; adapt production line, 4-6 weeks; recall & upgrade 1000 new tanks, fail rate 1-3%, seeded differently over time/over production order (or whatever was the industrial standard during the war), completion takes longer if fail rate hits higher values. External events should impact the seeding logic for how long will something take. Oh, and the commander gets an optimistic estimate at first, doesn't get to know in advance how long will something miss its deadline.
thanks for this dev diary.
have you already defined the "standard" number of battalion you will put in a division ? 9 for instance, we will have as in hoi3 tech to increase this number ?
having pacific war in mind, will it be possible to have a division with only one battalion ?
Completely unrelated question:
Will we be able to design our own ships? It's one of the things I was really exited about for EvW and it'd kick ass to see it revived in HoIV.
Will we be able to design our own ships? It's one of the things I was really exited about for EvW and it'd kick ass to see it revived in HoIV.
I like it!
Question:
If I play as Germany and I occupy Czechoslovakia will I be able to use their production lines to produce Panzer 38(t) and then later Hetzer?
Question:
If I play as Germany and I occupy Czechoslovakia will I be able to use their production lines to produce Panzer 38(t) and then later Hetzer?
+1 I'd like to hear more about the generic "equipment" for divisions.
And sounds like manpower strength of divisions will be more variable.
Cool stuff indeed , and knowing that , more cool stuff will come in a month is unbearable , so I heave a suggestion to the Dev's , could you guys change the date on your pc to 4/7/1014 :huh:???
This looks pretty cool, however, I would like to make one suggestion. For '45 I think that the Germans should have more E series tanks, i.e. E-25 light tank, E-50 Medium, E-75 heavy, and that their principle advantage over prior German models should be speed and cost of manufacturing.
Just my 2 cents.
Just my 2 cents.
I would like to think that the min/max number of battalions would be doctrine based. This would mean some nations would build larger divisions like the US and Japanese did, or smaller ones like the Italians and Soviets did. The standard number of battalions (using only HOI units) in the professional European armies (for infantry) was usually 9 INF, 3-4 ART, 1 AT, 1 ENG, 1 Recon/AC. Sometimes 1 AA. So I'd think a standard division would have 16 battalions. I think the max should be 20, and the minimum should be 10.
The reason I say 10 is to give proper representation to binary divisions. Many armored divisions later in the war often had only 6 main battalions plus support battalions. Also the Italians used them to a large extent. Most German motorized infantry divisions and mountain divisions were binary as well. 10 battalions would give 4 slots for support so usually 3 arty and either AT or ENG.
There should also be a combined arms bonus for proper ratios of main combat battalions vs support battalions, much as we see in HOI 3 TFH. A combined arms capable division should be INF, ART and AT at a minimum. The more you add like ENG, ARM, the better, but there should be a base requirement of 5-6 combat battalions I think.
Well two very imoportant things can be gleamed here.
1) Combat experience will be critical to unlocking various techs and might actually be some type of 'currency' that you earn and then spend.
2) If you current unit has 500 model A tanks and you build 200 model B tanks this means your unit ends up with just the 200 model B as you can't combine different ones. The 500 are sent to the pool or other unts etc.
My question is that since #2 will have critical results how will the AI handle it. A worse case scenario is that it changes on the fly or maybe even while in battle. Hopefully the AI will have the smarts to know how and when to swap models. I would hate to see SU stuck with all BT7's and no T-34's ever show up.
1) Combat experience will be critical to unlocking various techs and might actually be some type of 'currency' that you earn and then spend.
2) If you current unit has 500 model A tanks and you build 200 model B tanks this means your unit ends up with just the 200 model B as you can't combine different ones. The 500 are sent to the pool or other unts etc.
My question is that since #2 will have critical results how will the AI handle it. A worse case scenario is that it changes on the fly or maybe even while in battle. Hopefully the AI will have the smarts to know how and when to swap models. I would hate to see SU stuck with all BT7's and no T-34's ever show up.
In some of the preview interviews (i know they can have it wrong) but it was mentioned that when you start building the new models they draw on them for reinforcements. And since equipment must be tracked to know which models are which i cant see how we cant have a division where 30% of the medium tank are 1 type and the rest are another. Though you might be right
I think I like what I have seen so far, but it is really little info, so I am still withholding my final approval.
I personally would prefer to be able to research things like "guns" seperately. If I see the need for better penetrating AT guns, I should be able to research it, hand it out to the infantry (as anti tank weapons such as a 7,5cm PAK 40) but also use it with my tanks. Consequently I could use the chassis of the Pz IV and put my shiny new 7,5 PAK 40 on it, for example. I would have also prefered to be able to use the same gun (which I have researched) on subsequent tanks. For example, if I unlock the 8,8cm gun for the Tiger, I should be able to use the same one for the Königstiger AND I also should be able to put this gun on a PZ IV chassis, since I might still have a couple hundreds of those chassis in stock.
I would argue for a more seamless approach of the different components of a tank, which would be engine, gun and chassis. They should all be more or less combinable with each other. After all, the Hetzer (Jagdpanzer 38t) was based on a Czech tank chassis (called PzKmpfw 38t by the Germans and ČKD-Praga TNHP by the Czechs) that the Germans got hold of after annexing Czechoslovakia and the German PAK 40.
I don't know whether this was rather unique and therefore irrelevant for the game, but just the idea of "forging" my own tanks with stuff I have researched is pretty intriguing to me. It also comes pretty close to a part of HoI3 research, which I really loved: keep researching engines to have super fast tanks and neglect the research of other parts of the tank a little. I always used 2 different "tanks" in HoI3: light, very fast tanks for flanking and encircling and a medium tank as a breakthrough unit. I always hated the fact that I had to research all parts of the light tank in order to make researching the medium tank possible. It kind of takes my freedom away concerning troop composition.
I personally would prefer to be able to research things like "guns" seperately. If I see the need for better penetrating AT guns, I should be able to research it, hand it out to the infantry (as anti tank weapons such as a 7,5cm PAK 40) but also use it with my tanks. Consequently I could use the chassis of the Pz IV and put my shiny new 7,5 PAK 40 on it, for example. I would have also prefered to be able to use the same gun (which I have researched) on subsequent tanks. For example, if I unlock the 8,8cm gun for the Tiger, I should be able to use the same one for the Königstiger AND I also should be able to put this gun on a PZ IV chassis, since I might still have a couple hundreds of those chassis in stock.
I would argue for a more seamless approach of the different components of a tank, which would be engine, gun and chassis. They should all be more or less combinable with each other. After all, the Hetzer (Jagdpanzer 38t) was based on a Czech tank chassis (called PzKmpfw 38t by the Germans and ČKD-Praga TNHP by the Czechs) that the Germans got hold of after annexing Czechoslovakia and the German PAK 40.
I don't know whether this was rather unique and therefore irrelevant for the game, but just the idea of "forging" my own tanks with stuff I have researched is pretty intriguing to me. It also comes pretty close to a part of HoI3 research, which I really loved: keep researching engines to have super fast tanks and neglect the research of other parts of the tank a little. I always used 2 different "tanks" in HoI3: light, very fast tanks for flanking and encircling and a medium tank as a breakthrough unit. I always hated the fact that I had to research all parts of the light tank in order to make researching the medium tank possible. It kind of takes my freedom away concerning troop composition.
Because the stats and math in the EXE would need to know composition of the unit each hour of combat. And now factor in that 10% of my PZ-III's are H and 30% have the upgunned J model etc.
No I have a hunch that you unit is restricted to just one type of tank. Else, I can have 20% Tiger's, 30% Mk-IV G, 30% Panther and 20% light tank. Would be cool but I highly doubt it. Ai couldn't keep up and it would be reinforcement nightmare time.
As far as i know, in hoi3, expeditionary forces can't upgrade their equipment, so they're stuck with whatever technology they had, could be wrong though.
As for the difference between countries : if 2 countries have the same techs, their tanks are exactly the same, whatever the name of the unit.
Since battalions are to be equipment specific I think this won't happen.