2) Diplomacy. Pretty much all of it is taken up with gimmicky features that you don't need and which anyway are useless since the game's direction was swerved away from sand-box.
Really? Useless? The threat mechanic, coupled with AI scripts, is a vital part of gameplay. I can do amazing things by managing my threat in certain ways. I can also goad the AI into making ahistorical decisions by managing threat in other ways.
Covert ops are abused by tons of players to slow down enemy units.
As for plain ol' espionage, I'll just say this: I consider trying to coup Italy to be a standard part of playing France.
Now, you wanna see maximum fun? Maximum fun is playing Nat. China and stealing techs from the majors, like electronic and mechanic computers from the British or SHBB and CV from Japan. Any country that is far enough behind in techs should take my advice and just invest in espionage, because it ends up being faster and cheaper than trying to catch up (until the Allies enact harsher laws).
6) Weather. I almost never notice this.
Just because you never notice this doesn't mean it isn't having an impact. If you read the strategy guide, or just browse around the forum, there are plenty of screenshots showing horrendous penalties from weather.
8) Piercing/penetrating/wild-card/combat-events and everything else that goes on continually but averages out so you don't notice it.
Umm, if you aren't optimizing penetration or noticing it's effects, you aren't really playing the game well. It's not the only important thing in combat, but the effects are noticeable and tangible.
9) Brigades. In theory this is a great way of allowing the player to decide the size/shape of their formations, but in reality it doesn't add much since you're always aiming for the same few lay-outs. The one thing is this allows independent brigades, but this could be done another way (e.g., small divisions).
TFH solved this problem to my satisfaction. There are so many interesting possibilities for divisions (which mesh well with other parts of the game), that one of the largest sections of the strategy guide is the division composition part. Hell, I had to shorten it a bit because it was overwhelming the rest of the guide while I was writing it! Even on the forum, you want to see bitter disagreement, just start a thread on division composition.
4) Amphibious landings should be planned by the AI to include enough troops to overcome the defenders known to be in the area of the landing-zone. Why the AI is not programmed this way I have no idea.
Have you been playing TFH in the Pacific? The last 10 times Japan attacked my islands, they sent 6 MAR divisons to take islands garrisoned with 1 lousy GAR brigade. If that's not enough concentration of force, then I don't know what is.
While I can defend my possessions anywhere in the world from amphibious attack, the AI doesn't fool around anymore. Multi-division landings, with some divisions on adjacent beach provinces, is the norm.
So in other words they are 100% historical in their representation.
I'm actually not sure how much more potent they could even be. If I nuke your capital, not only do you take a huge NU loss, but I annihilate your stockpiles and all facilities in the province.
I suppose you could make them automatic "I win" bombs, but they sure as hell weren't that historically. Even Japan, in HOI3 terms, had been nuked twice AND suffered huge NU losses from 4 years of convoy raiding they failed to deal with AND lost their pride of the fleet AND had VP provinces occupied by the Allies AND had been subjected to brutal strategic bombing for years (to the point where some cities had been practically level to the ground without nukes anyway) and they only just barely surrendered at that point.
And even with all of that, there was still an attempt to overthrow the government of Japan to continue the damn war (the Kyujuo Incident).
Does that sound like "We dropped a nuke, and Japan wet their pants and surrendered"? No. We could debate the use of the atomic bombs against Japan all day, but anyone who knows their history knows that they were the capstone to an extended period of warfare.
Supply works great for those that know its limitation. if you don't want supply they have the arcade mode for you already in the game.
Yep. The supply system has its quirks, but it does its job of preventing 100 ARM divisions from rolling into Manchuria. Or even 50 for that matter.
