Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 4 - Land Doctrines

[LeeDub]

Yes. Future diary (when out artist gets back from the monkey infested jungles and gets on to making our interfaces non-code-art ;D)

Hell yeah! I hope you guys will make it so that small planes fly around the map constantly where they are active, kinda like merchant ships on traderoutes on the EUIV map, but more dynamic. It would be so wonderful to see air action all over the map.

This is potentially such a great change, I'm really looking forward to that DD. It makes me wonder if naval warfare will also see much change.

 

[Darkrenown]

Really paradox? I understand modern bliztkrieg doctrine but desperate defence? Elastic/mobile defence would be much better name and would not have shadowing meaning of ultimate defeat.

Yeah, the current name suxx.

You misunderstand the branch, it's not an elastic or mobile defense, the desperate defense path is Germany adopting Volkstrum and then further scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel to arm basically anyone who can hold a gun.

 

[DoomBunny]

I don't really understand Infiltration.
What does that even mean, and how do you segue from huge, pre-planned set piece WW1 battles to sneaky sneaky unorthodox infiltration? (If that's what the doctrine is about.)

Wait till night, scream Banzai, watch all your men die pointlessly, commit sepuku, return home in coffin, coffin gets nuked, rise as zombie, etc...

 

[FOARP]

All our techs are one offs, we don't have repeating techs.

Good to hear.

Hitler's orders aren't a doctrine. If you are heavily invested in mobile warfare and yet find yourself on the defensive you should probably do what various German generals wanted to do, shorten your lines enough to free up mobile reserves able to launch counter-attacks or to cut off enemy spearheads that break through your lines, to play to your strengths. If you feel that you absolutely cannot give up any provinces you can try to hold a static line if you want, but like Hitler, you won't be playing to you army's strengths.

Yeah, this is something that occurred to me - why would research defensive doctrines if you, playing as Germany, found yourself facing the situation that Germany faced in the last two years of the war? Attacking is what you're good at, you cannot turn the situation round just by defending, but you can cut off and annihilate enemy spear-heads by attacking. In that circumstance, researching offensive doctrines actually makes more sense.

So where would you ever need the "desperate defense" branch? The only thing that occurs to me is that maybe it is connected to manpower in some way, or to the performance of militia units spawned through some kind of Volkssturm/Home Guard mechanism.

 

[Darkrenown]

Yeah, this is something that occurred to me - why would research defensive doctrines if you, playing as Germany, found yourself facing the situation that Germany faced in the last two years of the war? Attacking is what you're good at, you cannot turn the situation round just by defending, but you can cut off and annihilate enemy spear-heads by doing so. In that circumstance, researching offensive doctrines actually makes more sense.

So where would you ever need the "desperate defense" branch? The only thing that occurs to me is that maybe it is connected to manpower in some way, or to the performance of militia units spawned through some kind of Volkssturm/Home Guard mechanism.

If you are losing badly enough you will come to the end of your MP reserves, you can only cut off spearheads if they are actually spearheads, if your whole line is collapsing and the enemy is advancing all along the front you have nothing to cut off. I don't really expect Desperate Defense to be a popular choice, if the war is going badly enough to need it players will probably quit, but it's there if you want to take the historical choice and ride the country down in flames.

 

[SonGoku]

I loved the doctrines of HoI II especially those in DH and I'm glad to see that they reappear!

 

[vonhavoc]

Hitler's orders aren't a doctrine. If you are heavily invested in mobile warfare and yet find yourself on the defensive you should probably do what various German generals wanted to do, shorten your lines enough to free up mobile reserves able to launch counter-attacks or to cut off enemy spearheads that break through your lines, to play to your strengths. If you feel that you absolutely cannot give up any provinces you can try to hold a static line if you want, but like Hitler, you won't be playing to you army's strengths.

To better address the actual effect of said doctrine choices, we probably should see the benefits of unlocking these fancy icons on the trees. But as such I still disagree (to a point) based on historical grounds that concentrated superiority/firepower is mutually exclusive with blitzkrieg, in fact, it's a part of it, if we want to have a blanket name for what the germans did.

Also, if Hitler's orders override any doctrine, as a sort of an anti-doctrine they do act like a doctrine themselves.

And even if there would be this desperate defence as a last ditch attempt, it still leaves mobile/elastic defence out of equation. Any competent leader knows you might need to defend at some point, and would prepare for such eventualities. Players are not Hitler. Hopefully.

Thank you for the reply, btw. I do appreciate devs being up and about explaining stuff and design decisions!

 

[FOARP]

If you are losing badly enough you will come to the end of your MP reserves, you can only cut off spearheads if they are actually spearheads, if your whole line is collapsing and the enemy is advancing all along the front you have nothing to cut off. I don't really expect Desperate Defense to be a popular choice, if the war is going badly enough to need it players will probably quit, but it's there if you want to take the historical choice and ride the country down in flames.

The thing I respect most about the guys who did the awesome Blitz Carnage AAR was that they stuck it out right to the end. Personally I find it hard to accept that I'm beaten and love to hold on to the last.

However, I really hope that it's not as simple as Germany starting to lose as soon as she runs out of manpower as in HOI3. Germany in HOI3 was basically a balloon that suddenly deflated as soon as the MP counter hit zero, but historically manpower wasn't a problem - at least in terms of sheer numbers - for Germany until the last months of the war, long after she had started losing ground.

I don't really understand Infiltration.
What does that even mean, and how do you segue from huge, pre-planned set piece WW1 battles to sneaky sneaky unorthodox infiltration? (If that's what the doctrine is about.)

It's basically the strategy applied by the Germans in WW1 - rather than the long, heavy bombardment followed up by set-piece assault favoured by the allies in that war, they would launch a short, ferocious bombardment and then send a thin line of men to first "feel out" the state of the enemy defenses and drive through gaps, bypassing defensive positions.

 

[podcat]

The thing I respect most about the guys who did the awesome Blitz Carnage AAR was that they stuck it out right to the end. Personally I find it hard to accept that I'm beaten and love to hold on to the last.

I think it might be a pretty useful research track in multiplayer where your buddies might come save your ass and there is less reason to quit if things arent going well. Also for the AI, you want it putting up a fight until the end

 

[FOARP]

I think it might be a pretty useful research track in multiplayer where your buddies might come save your ass and there is less reason to quit if things arent going well. Also for the AI, you want it putting up a fight until the end

Here's the Blitz Carnage AAR index page if anyone hasn't read it yet and has a few hours free to bask in its awesomeness.

And yeah, I like the idea of the AI putting up a tough fight in defence of its home country. In HOI3 and HOI2 (HOI1 I can't remember but probably the same) the Germans/Japanese armed forces would simply collapse once their manpower ran out, with no decline prior to that. Normally you would defeat AI Germany in France/Eastern Europe and then enter Germany with only relatively light resistance.

 

[Sgt.Exodus]

This just looks childish.....

 

[TKFS]

Very nice! Not too much info but I'm glad the HoI3 mish-mash of doctrines is gone!

 

[TKFS]

This just looks childish.....

Please explain to me how this looks fundamentally any different from the HoI3 doctrines menu?

 

[vonhavoc]

Please explain to me how this looks fundamentally any different from the HoI3 doctrines menu?

Even I could do this: it's more simplified, restrictive and limiting. Which is both good and bad.

 

[TKFS]

Even I could do this: it's more simplified, restrictive and limiting. Which is both good and bad.

As far as I can see, there are more options in the new doctrine tree

 

[fudd_bopo]

I liked the "pick whatever combination you want if you want to spend the leadership" in hoi3 even if a lot of choices were sub-optimal, looking forward to seeing more of the new things as it mentions very little (pre-alpha, I know) about what the actual effects are. It looks kind of simple, but no idea if that is good or bad yet.

 

[tommylotto]

Mein Fuhrer!
I've lost my Panzerfaust, but I still have my Luger!

 

[civlibprof]

Very interesting DD. In theory it looks nice but I am waiting to see the connection between the doctrines and other aspects of the game, namely combat. I hope each tech in the doctrine will provide a significant bonus in combat or in some other aspect of the game. One of the problems with HOI 3 was most the doctrines didnt really do anything so you had to research several to get to the one that did do something. the land doctrines can easily be used to create increases in the likelihood (20-30% not the single digits of HOI3) of a combat event like ambush.
Another issue I had was mutually exclusive paths, I am not a fan of this. Seems too deterministic too me, why cant I at the mobile warfare juncture choose armor, but realize that my armor is not really effective with out armored infantry threrefore I work on both. I just really dont like the mutually exclusive aspect of the game as it limits my choices. Maybe a compromise would be you have to complete one before doing the other but please reconsider this choice. Especially given that you can completely shift doctrines, why couldnt you shift paths inside a tree?
Overall I like the direction this is going in, I think the developers have a clear plan and have made the doctrines large enough that once you choose a path you will want to stay on it as that will guide your military. Also it looks like there will be overlap which is good that way the important bonuses will be available for those in every doctrine just may be placed in different locations within the doctrine.

 

[JimmyBackman]

Love the look of these.
The Ruskies can go deep battle all they want, wont save em from me.
Will be no defeat at stalingrad or kursk, just sweet sweet victory! *cackles*

 

[Samilou]

Going to need some adjustment or an extra line of doctrines to work for some minor powers. I would have no idea where Finland would fit in among those doctrines for example (it doesn't fit into any category at all as far as I can see from the names and pictures at least). At the moment the doctrine tree just appears to be another step backwards from HOI2 and DH.