Historical play

[Hoi Neuling]

I play historical with every country I have testet so far. Germany, Italy and Japan from the Main-Countrys are relatively easy to Manage if you look at your Fuel and Rubber. Spain, Mexico and Portugal too.

All other Countrys are in medium difficulty, if you play historical and know a little about the History as well as in America / UK how the political System works.

What the Army, Navy and Airforce belongs, so I try to get as historical as possible in Manpower and Equipment. My Armys have mostly a 40-Wide, later a little bit more.
Ships get Upgrades to the new technological Standards, Engines and Weapons as good as possible. Hope that will come asap for Army and Airforce too.

Communist and Allied AI get as many Improvements she can get to make the Game much more intersting, but not to hard. Esp. if I play an Fashist Country (Spain, Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria or so). An played Communist or Allied Country will set lower in Improvements if I play it personanly.

 

[Meglok]

I just crank up the difficulty to get a better game.

Playing historical in some aspects, like not always picking the optimum focus path to follow. Sure I can have the US roaring by the end of 1939, but we all know there is no way the isolationists would have allowed it. FDR would have been kicked out of office 1940. The game poorly models isolationism and has focuses that you can manipulate. So I try and follow history in this case to make it a more challenging game.

One thing I won't do is play completely historical because I refuse to repeat stupid mistakes made by both sides.

 

[Grave461]

Does anyone play historical and keep to the path your country took during the process of playing your game?

I don't do it very often, if at all.

I like to play with historical focus only when I'm playing as a minor nation, and then I try and forge my own path and see how that affects the direction of the war.

If I play as a major nation, then I set the other major AIs to ahistorical and see how off-the-wall I can make things turn out.

Part of what appeals so much to me about this particular game are all the "what if" scenarios, no matter how ourageous some of them are. For me, it's fun to see how certain hypothetical situations play out (Central Powers, 2nd American Civil War, etc).

If I want to see a purely historical outcome, I watch a documentary.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

The cool thing is, that the complete Hoi Series works perfectly with the historical Gameplay. The a-historical Gameplay is a Prototype for the Hoi-Series, which bring new Elements to the Game.

Players which wanna play a-historical with what if Endings can do it. I let them, because it´s a NICE TO HAVE. But Main-Important is that the Series belongs on Historical Facts which don´t get chanced. The Resault will be the same: You will get in WW2, it dosen´t matter what the Player is doing.

The NICE TO HAVE PARTS upgrade the Game with what if Integrations, which are good implementations. Maybe we get an Sci-Fi Game in that Timeline or newer Timline only with the Alternative Things for that Gamers which are playing a-historically after the complete End from Hoi 4-Development in the next 15 Years.

 

[Bki]

Can you give a source for 2 regiments of 3 battalions in the 1939 Panzer division? My source is Lexikon der Wehrmacht, and Osprey "the German Army in WW2".

It's probably a wrong source, as upon looking more I've found other ones corroborating your 4-battalion claim. Though the count of 300+ tanks apparently count unrepresented things like command tank, signal tank, MG tanks, etc... so that overall the "60 tank per battalion" is perhaps not exactly right, but is not that far off either.

I do not understand your final point. There is nothing that would have hindered devs to make an artillery battalion with other values. In fact, the only Thing keeping ART from being just another battalion is the equipment count.

The point was that since battalion is the only unit of the division designer, it has to represent things which aren't battalion.

Since, as you said, the devs could easily have made a width-1 artillery battalion with different values, why didn't they? Possibly, given that nobody start with artillery in their division (except in some case as a support company), while it was a crucial part of IRL infantry division, they made it easier to change your templates to get a historical amount of artillery.

I believe this is in line with the "equipment is ammo" design that ties into attrition as well.

Attrition would have to be much higher than it is now if that's truly the case.

 

[Zauberelefant]

It's probably a wrong source, as upon looking more I've found other ones corroborating your 4-battalion claim. Though the count of 300+ tanks apparently count unrepresented things like command tank, signal tank, MG tanks, etc... so that overall the "60 tank per battalion" is perhaps not exactly right, but is not that far off either.



The point was that since battalion is the only unit of the division designer, it has to represent things which aren't battalion.

Since, as you said, the devs could easily have made a width-1 artillery battalion with different values, why didn't they? Possibly, given that nobody start with artillery in their division (except in some case as a support company), while it was a crucial part of IRL infantry division, they made it easier to change your templates to get a historical amount of artillery.
Edit: the manpower count for ART is spot on for battalion sized units, but a far cry from ART regiments of 2500 men. Leaving non combat services aside, we are dealing with battalions in hoi4.



Attrition would have to be much higher than it is now if that's truly the case.

At least for light tanks, the difference between a command Tank and standard Tank ist neglegible. Afaik, commanders up to company level had just stronger radios. Battalion and regimental command then had true command tanks without main gun. So I contest your assessment.

Your second point is highly dubious. Having 12 gun battalions would actually make access to ART easier compared to now. Since no one starts with this crucial part of a division, that would make sense to make it incremental.
Having some 50 divisions and giving each 36 guns is not trivial. But the XP difference of 10 land XP is.

Finally, attrition: that's the point. 3x36 guns * x% attrition is more than 3x12 guns * x% attrition. And I think you need to set a lot of industry to production just to keep your units equipped when Fighting. Attrition could be higher, but I doubt AI could handle it.