Historical flavour vs. freedom of action - an easy approach

[unmerged(81995)]

Hello,

after reading pages on pages of HOI 3 discussions (and including HOI 2 ones) one of the main (if not the main) contradiction in game wishes is to have any freedom a player chooses AND AT THE SAME TIME to have a game that feels historical accurate.

Both together is impossible, period.

To solve this issue - why not let the player choose at start of game, if he wants a more historical or a free gameplay? Choosing free, event chains are deactivated (bar general ones) and the player of any country may do whatever he wants. Choosing historical the player is subject to event chains at least until outbreak of war BUT at the same time limited in options (for force composition, DOWs at will, political changes etc.).

If the devs follow that kind of approach, they acheive the best of both worlds. Players going on a WC as Romania - fine, choose free and do whatever you fancy inside game limitations. Players going for history (and branching off after crucial milestones like Vichy) may do so, but have to respect the historical limitations of the country they choose (e.g. very few naval bombers for Germany as Goering did not want a maritime air fleet, no carrier focus of the German navy as they simply lacked a strong fraction of its military supporting this idea, limited IC even in wartime as womens work in factories was way outside of acceptable Nazi ideology borders etc.).

I make this proposal because the combination of free game with the original event chain still implemented if very few boundary conditions are met is one of the sources - if not the one source - for the absurd exploits HOI II allowed for.

Let me close with my major wish for HOI III. It´s not historical accuracy, not division construction kit and not diplomacy on ambassadors clerks level. I´t is quite simple an AI that´s able to pose a challenge for the player.

Regards,

Thorsten

 

[Peekee]

Obvious response is to say go middle ground and let the mods deal with the other cases.

IMO the best solution is to try and keep the AI about 95% historical and leave the deviations from history to the player. However, with no deviations then there would be little to keep you on your toes.

It sounds like from the redone events mechanism that things will increasingly be more dependent on criteria being met rather than just dates. So it may be more difficult to keep the AI historical. OTOH the new game mechanisms and AI may help this.

I dont see both as impossible. It is more of a slider from one to the other. Or the ability to branch off at a certain point.

 

[unmerged(135152)]

Since the HOI3 engine seems to be making the most of decisions and missions and whatnot from EU3 you already have all this without the need for an option at the start of the game. If you want to DOW the Soviet union on the 22nd of June in 1941 go ahead. If you want to do anschluss at the appropriate date, go ahead. If you want to lose the war go ahead.

Having any historic events in the game inevitably makes the engine worse, period. If like in HOI2 the engine doesn't have any other way of telling when you've been able to surprise your enemy except if you are playing Japan and it happens to be 1941-42 and you've just declared a war on the US, it is not much of an engine now is it?

HOI is a game, it is not a history colouring book. It is ridiculous at best to do "what-if scenarios" in a game engine that portrays reality in the same manner that a brick wall portrays a can of soup. If you change ministers and unit compositions and strategies and everything else before you do operation Barbarossa, it isn't realistic not even in the "what-if" way. HOI is a game where you can conquer the world as Estonia or construct an armoured division as Luxemburg. For someone to believe that in any way there is even a slight resemblance to history and reality, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, pal.

 

[Peekee]

For someone to believe that in any way there is even a slight resemblance to history and reality,

**** its not like they are going to go crazy and put aliens in it or anything

 

[unmerged(123225)]

Ofcourse the option to choose historical setting would be the ideal solution.

I've said things about this topic far too many times. But I just want to say that people seem to forget how illogical dynamic AIs can be.

 

[unmerged(135152)]

**** its not like they are going to go crazy and put aliens in it or anything

Well, true, but they will make a game out of it in any case. Let's do a reality check:

How many countries in the world could realistically build armoured divisions of their own design? Or Carriers? Or nukes? Or aeroplanes? Or any sort of a navy?

If you played a "realistic" Brazil you wouldn't do anything for the first six years, after that you would ally with the Americans and send them two divisions of infantry as expeditionary forces. And that's friggin' Brazil we are talking about, the greatest non-alligned country. That's a reality check for you. They couldn't build carriers or nukes or invade neighbouring countries or quadruple their industrial output by concentrating on factory building. It just couldn't have happened. Now is there anyone out there who wants to play a game of sit, wait and watch for six years only to send two infantry divisions as expeditionaries? I doubt it. People want to do all sorts of crazy stuff. Crazy, ahistorical, illogical and impossible things, I might add.

And I'm cool with that, since I know what happened in history and I know that any game system portraying reality would be so deterministic that the player would have very little if any control over anything (And that's considering you play as the President/dictator).

 

[Peekee]

On the other hand if you go too far the other way and have nothing left of history. Just a well balanced strategy games with the names of some WWII stuff in it.

There MUST be a strong link to history. However, it also MUST be non-historical. Why are they called Paradox?

 

[unmerged(123225)]

Well, true, but they will make a game out of it in any case. Let's do a reality check:

How many countries in the world could realistically build armoured divisions of their own design? Or Carriers? Or nukes? Or aeroplanes? Or any sort of a navy?

If you played a "realistic" Brazil you wouldn't do anything for the first six years, after that you would ally with the Americans and send them two divisions of infantry as expeditionary forces. And that's friggin' Brazil we are talking about, the greatest non-alligned country. That's a reality check for you. They couldn't build carriers or nukes or invade neighbouring countries or quadruple their industrial output by concentrating on factory building. It just couldn't have happened. Now is there anyone out there who wants to play a game of sit, wait and watch for six years only to send two infantry divisions as expeditionaries? I doubt it. People want to do all sorts of crazy stuff. Crazy, ahistorical, illogical and impossible things, I might add.

And I'm cool with that, since I know what happened in history and I know that any game system portraying reality would be so deterministic that the player would have very little if any control over anything (And that's considering you play as the President/dictator).

Well how crazy do you want it? I for one sure will be pissed if something ridiculous happened like Ireland with Carriers or Switzerland with nukes.

Just because a game is historically based doesn't mean you have to play it that way. If you want to join the Allies earlier in the war as Brazil and send more than 2 divisions or change the government to Communist so that you can join the Comintern it's up to you. But don't expect them to quadriple their industry in 8 years or build nukes because that's not possible with the historical setting. If you want to defy historical plausibility in the game there are lot of fantasy games out there for you.

 

[unmerged(135152)]

On the other hand if you go too far the other way and have nothing left of history. Just a well balanced strategy games with the names of some WWII stuff in it.

There MUST be a strong link to history. However, it also MUST be non-historical. Why are they called Paradox?

In a way, I agree with you. And don't get me wrong I love Paradox games much more than all the Matrix games and whatnot out there. And of course you can achieve some level of realism by self-imposed house rules and whatnot. But I'm also inclined to believe that for historic accuracy to be in place one should concentrate on individual campaign and battles, either in the form of battle scenarios or by house rules. The 1939 campaign or the 1941 one should give you some sense of historic feel, ie. "What if I concentrated all of my forces to the Caucasus instead of fannying about with Stalingrad".

The thing that is completely absent from Paradox games because of the aforementioned freedoms to the player is the consequence of one's actions. For example if you, as Germany, buy all the Venezuelan oil out there (Don't ask me how you ship it) it should lead to the US (In form of the secret service) taking a trip down South. Likewise if you flip around 30 years of tradition and start building a blitzkrieg army as France in the game, no-one's going to ask you why you are all of a sudden making an offensive-only army, not your allies, not Germany, not your citizens.

As such since you are never going to get a real sense of causality, you are never going to get a real sense of reality. The only way to achieve this is to stop using gamey tactics and play the game "like it was played in history" (Which is a horrible thing to say, considering it was WWII and all, but you get the idea). In a way one could say that "If I play it historically I should get all the events and as such the original poster had a point", but I am unsure whether or not getting a pop-up in 22nd of June in 1941 telling you that "By the way we are now at war with the USSR" is the way to achieve that.

If you start the game with the Operation Barbarossa and do things fairly historically, you are going to be playing a fairly historic game and you will learn a lot from it (What do you mean I'm running out of oil, now where's that Baku?). But if you start the game in 1936 there is very little if anything you can do to end up in an even remotely historical situation by June of 1941. And this is why I suggest that everyone wishing to learn history from the game should concentrate on individual scenarios (Battle scenarios or playing some two years into a campaign). You are going to learn a lot more from the Battle of Bulge scenario with it's events and hints and backround infos than you are if the great super-heavy tank fight of 1/11/1946 ends up with an event telling you that your non-existant paratroopers have won a great victory in the Ardennes.

And that's not even mentioning that in a grand-strategy game, where you end up telling countries and people what to do, the history you learn is awfully one-sided, black-and-white, immoral and inhumane (Cool I get these things called purges that rid me of some stupid old-guard generals and lower my dissent). As such, from a moral point of view (mine, to be exact), the things you should learn from the HOI series are how and why military actions were carried out in the era of world war two. And that, again in my opinion, can be best achieved by playing individual scenarios, reading the backround infos and contemplating on the situation in the beginning, and not by starting the 1936 scenario and wondering why Hitler didn't build rocket ships and fully mechanized paratrooper divisions because they make Barbarossa so much easier.

 

[unmerged(41649)]

My sentiments exactly.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/....php?p=9268680

 

[unmerged(135152)]

Well how crazy do you want it? I for one sure will be pissed if something ridiculous happened like Ireland with Carriers or Switzerland with nukes.

Just because a game is historically based doesn't mean you have to play it that way. If you want to join the Allies earlier in the war as Brazil and send more than 2 divisions or change the government to Communist so that you can join the Comintern it's up to you. But don't expect them to quadriple their industry in 8 years or build nukes because that's not possible with the historical setting. If you want to defy historical plausibility in the game there are lot of fantasy games out there for you.

Do you consider it plausable for the player to change the form of his government by simply pushing a few sliders? That no-one in Brazil would have anything to say when Vargas climbs on Uncle Joe's lap? That the American trade ties wouldn't see any form of change because of the ordeal? Likewise do you consider it plausible for Brazil to enter a war when the United States are out of it? That the Brazilian people would have all the incentitive to fight an European war and to volunteer for something that isn't affecting them in any way whatsoever? All this while harming relations with Argentina and having absolutely nothing to gain?

I don't want things to go crazy, but I also know that if the game was historical and realistic Brazil couldn't possibly do anything more than what it did in our history. The Brazilians originally contemplated on sending much more men and much earlier, but they couldn't. This doesn't mean that they were "poor with slider choices" or anything else. It means that it wasn't plausible at the time. Sure it may have happened that they could have gotten their originally planned 100.000 soldiers in place. So instead of sending two divisions as expeditionaries, you could send 5 or 6. Not much of a comfort, is it?

HOI2 is a game where you can conquer the world as Estonia or finish operation Barbarossa with nothing but HQ units. I don't expect HOI3 to be much different. It isn't historical or realistic, not by a long shot. I would like it to be more so, but I fear it won't happen. And instead of pretending that this isn't true and adding events that "further add a realistic feel to things when your plasma-rifled paratroopers take over Leningrad", I would like the good people at Paradox to rather concentrate on making the game engine balanced, challenging and somewhat more realistic.

 

[unmerged(123225)]

Do you consider it plausable for the player to change the form of his government by simply pushing a few sliders? That no-one in Brazil would have anything to say when Vargas climbs on Uncle Joe's lap? That the American trade ties wouldn't see any form of change because of the ordeal? Likewise do you consider it plausible for Brazil to enter a war when the United States are out of it? That the Brazilian people would have all the incentitive to fight an European war and to volunteer for something that isn't affecting them in any way whatsoever? All this while harming relations with Argentina and having absolutely nothing to gain?

Exactly. Government change for one we don't know how it's done because they removed the sliders. Ofcourse if Brazil decides to enter European war that has nothing to do with them it should cause quite a stir in terms of dissent and national unity. What's your point?

I don't want things to go crazy, but I also know that if the game was historical and realistic Brazil couldn't possibly do anything more than what it did in our history. The Brazilians originally contemplated on sending much more men and much earlier, but they couldn't. This doesn't mean that they were "poor with slider choices" or anything else. It means that it wasn't plausible at the time. Sure it may have happened that they could have gotten their originally planned 100.000 soldiers in place. So instead of sending two divisions as expeditionaries, you could send 5 or 6. Not much of a comfort, is it?

HOI2 is a game where you can conquer the world as Estonia or finish operation Barbarossa with nothing but HQ units. I don't expect HOI3 to be much different. It isn't historical or realistic, not by a long shot. I would like it to be more so, but I fear it won't happen. And instead of pretending that this isn't true and adding events that "further add a realistic feel to things when your plasma-rifled paratroopers take over Leningrad", I would like the good people at Paradox to rather concentrate on making the game engine balanced, challenging and somewhat more realistic.

Brazil's role in WWII was minimal to start with, so there really no point in complaining about how boring it would be to play as them is there? No one is going to complain if they can't have a fun game as Haiti. If you want to go crazy as Brazil, you can but you'll face the consequences.

HoI2 is not a game where you can conquer the world as Estonia and finish Barbarossa with nothing but HQs. It's simply ridiculous to even think about it. And if that is going to be true in HoI3 then there is something seriously wrong with the game. Conquering the world even as USA or USSR should be near impossible or outright impossible.

 

[unmerged(135152)]

Exactly. Government change for one we don't know how it's done because they removed the sliders. Ofcourse if Brazil decides to enter European war that has nothing to do with them it should cause quite a stir in terms of dissent and national unity. What's your point?

Brazil's role in WWII was minimal to start with, so there really no point in complaining about how boring it would be to play as them is there? No one is going to complain if they can't have a fun game as Haiti. If you want to go crazy as Brazil, you can but you'll face the consequences.

HoI2 is not a game where you can conquer the world as Estonia and finish Barbarossa with nothing but HQs. It's simply ridiculous to even think about it. And if that is going to be true in HoI3 then there is something seriously wrong with the game. Conquering the world even as USA or USSR should be near impossible or outright impossible.

Have you actually played HOI2 or read the AARs?

I'm not making this stuff up, you see. You CAN finish the Barbarossa with nothing but HQ units (The thread popped around this week IIRC) and people have done all sorts of mad things (Nukes for Nepal, battleships for Brunei, Conquering the world with minor X and so on). And more to the point you CAN quadruple (Or at least double and still fight a war) your IC as Argentina, Brazil, Germany or anyone else. And you CAN field tank divisions as Luxemburg. And you CAN construct battleships as a fascist Argentina while fighting the UK and USA.

I don't know what you've been playing and how if you find HOI2 to be even remotely challenging and realistic.

 

[unmerged(123225)]

I haven't played HoI2 for years, so I am unaware of those AARs. My point is not whether such things are possible in HoI2 or not. I'm saying that HoI2 + HoI3 shouldn't be a game where such ridiculous things are possible.

 

[unmerged(135152)]

I haven't played HoI2 for years, so I am unaware of those AARs. My point is not whether such things are possible in HoI2 or not. I'm saying that HoI2 + HoI3 shouldn't be a game where such ridiculous things are possible.

Of course it shouldn't. But, geez... Okay one last example (quite a famous one): A fascist Argentina.

In HOI2 (Most likely in HOI3 once people what to do) you can join the axis around 1936-37. After that you build your IC, leave/join your alliance and conquer some of the neighoburing states (You have the threat of the GOI from the US but you get away with some wars). By the time the European war begins you snatch Brazil and the French, English and Dutch colonies, start building an army capable of keeping the American invasion at bay and focus on conquering the remaining countries (most notably Venezuela for the oil). By the end of the game you should be industrially at par with most majors.

Now what would happen in reality? The Argentine economy was heavily focused on agriculture, it didn't have a notable army and in general it was extremely tied to the Western allies (It became one of the most important suppliers of foodstuffs to the allies). The Argentinian fleet consisted of vessels constructed by the English. Had the Argentinians shown any sign of joining the axis allegiance, not only would the British and Americans have intervened (Good old chums at the secret service), they would have embargoed the country leaving it in a destabilized mess and the diminishing Argentinian army would have been turned against it's own rebelling citizens.

There simply was no window of opportunity for the Argentinians to join the axis alliance. It was so because of the economy, the geopolitical location and a number of other things. None of these could be realistically affected by the player(s) in such a short duration of time.


My point, quite simply is this:

1.If you want reality no-one will be able to do anything (Germany can go wild and declare war on Switzerland in 1940, but that's about it).
2.Paradox Interactive has a history of making games where pretty much anything is possible.
3.HOI3 is marketed as a game, not as a history colouring book.
4.The game will follow some historical and logical realism but only as secondary to gamer's enjoyment.

If the game was realistic the axis couldn't win, ever, and that's just as simple as that. If the game was realistic you couldn't take over Leningrad, a city with the population of 3 million, just by sending in a half-dead panzer division. I mean, really, I just find it so hard to believe that someone can argue that HOI2 would resemble history or realism in any way.

I'll go easy on you, tell me how on Earth could a country like Luxemburg field a tank division between 1936-39 and I agree that on some level HOI2 is realistic.

 

[Cardus]

Have you actually played HOI2 or read the AARs?

I'm not making this stuff up, you see. You CAN finish the Barbarossa with nothing but HQ units (The thread popped around this week IIRC) and people have done all sorts of mad things (Nukes for Nepal, battleships for Brunei, Conquering the world with minor X and so on). And more to the point you CAN quadruple (Or at least double and still fight a war) your IC as Argentina, Brazil, Germany or anyone else. And you CAN field tank divisions as Luxemburg. And you CAN construct battleships as a fascist Argentina while fighting the UK and USA.

I don't know what you've been playing and how if you find HOI2 to be even remotely challenging and realistic.

Then join the association below: Uncle Sam wants you!

PS
I'm a recruiting agent!!!

 

[unmerged(112153)]

I haven't played HoI2 for years, so I am unaware of those AARs. My point is not whether such things are possible in HoI2 or not. I'm saying that HoI2 + HoI3 shouldn't be a game where such ridiculous things are possible.

Mabey you should try out the TRP mod for HoI2...

If you like Historical stuff allot in the game then that one will fit ya pretty well.

But even though that mod is called Total "Realisme" Project you still have like the orignal game itself both historical stuff and a-historical at the same time, from the very first hour that past things will go ahistorical in a way and theres no way to "fully" avoid that.

For HoI3 i mostly hope for a more expanded way of events of some sort, like TRP gave you a choice when playing Germany to pay Franco a big ammount to join you shortly afther the vichy event fired (Hitler had no intrest at all in Franco's high demands back then, but mabey you are?).
I mean i like that way more then just spam influence on Spain untill your high enough to let them join your alliance.

Hitlers meeting with Franco is just one example for this idea of events.

 

[Will Lucky]

As far as I'm concerned it seems to be more a matter of Choice, we can launch the invasion of Russia or the US but only if we want too. Unless the AI of course decides to take actions into it's own hands we are the deciders of what we want our games to be and we are not to be held back by Historical Events that were contained within HOI2 and if we chose the Ahistorical event it normally resulted in a negative effect of some sort. It was seriously as if the game asked you do you want War with Europe or do you want to forget about Danzig and face the social consequences of that choice.

The way I see it HOI3 is now much about making our own choices within an Historical atmosphere, we don't have to be held back by an event system as now with the decision system we can choose whether we want the best Historical patch of gameplay or whether we want to play the game our way.

Of course as stated before the AI stands there which also make it's own choices whether or not you want them to.

 

[unmerged(112153)]

As far as I'm concerned it seems to be more a matter of Choice, we can launch the invasion of Russia or the US but only if we want too. Unless the AI of course decides to take actions into it's own hands we are the deciders of what we want our games to be and we are not to be held back by Historical Events that were contained within HOI2 and if we chose the Ahistorical event it normally resulted in a negative effect of some sort. It was seriously as if the game asked you do you want War with Europe or do you want to forget about Danzig and face the social consequences of that choice.

The way I see it HOI3 is now much about making our own choices within an Historical atmosphere, we don't have to be held back by an event system as now with the decision system we can choose whether we want the best Historical patch of gameplay or whether we want to play the game our way.

Of course as stated before the AI stands there which also make it's own choices whether or not you want them to.

Your point is a good example for the event in TRP to join with Franco when playing Germany.

Unlike most of the "original" events in HoI2 that gave you a big disadvantage when you went ahistorical, the Franco event from TRP gave you none of that and it was still an historical meeting.
From what i remember the demands to join Franco and go ahistorical were pretty high with supplies, money, oil... everything (like in reality) but there was no downside to it either if you accepted it or didnt, so no big dissent nor endless partisans or any of those nasty effects.

You had full choice yourself for going either historical or ahistorical (wich you seem to like), but without any major downsides on both choices.

 

[Mierin]

But I'm also inclined to believe that for historic accuracy to be in place one should concentrate on individual campaign and battles, either in the form of battle scenarios or by house rules. The 1939 campaign or the 1941 one should give you some sense of historic feel, ie. "What if I concentrated all of my forces to the Caucasus instead of fannying about with Stalingrad".

To be fair though, some of the better mods have taken care of many of these problems such as Brazil building a carrier fleet or LUX building armor divisions and yet have retained the event based system. For example if you load up Bulgaria with CORE2 you get a country with like 3 usable IC and such poor tech that your likely going to have to temper your ambitions to somewhat plausable pursuits. In vanilla, these type of issues are far more related to Paradox giving unrealistic starting assets to nations as well as shortened build times more then any specific AI philosophy.

Issues such as the political effect of Venezuela trading oil to Germany without US intervention are simply a limitation of the engine otherwise I am sure those kind of oddities would have been accounted for. I do believe the AI has preferred trading partners and such which many mods have altered to make these situations at least very costly.

I suppose part of the issue relates to how one perceives their role as a player. I've always thought of the player as more of a muse, soul, or anthropomorphized will of the nation rather then a chief executive. Thus the physical historical limitations of, for example, German Carrier doctrine should be imposed, but its OK that Goring provides the planes needed to commission the Graf Zepplin because you are the muse whispering in his ear.