HOI4 - Development Diary - 19th Of August 2016

[Krafty]

As for Port Strikes.

Im glad its getting a looksee....but down the road it would be nice to see the aircombat mechanics change to accommodate reasonable expectations.

Theres alot of problems with the air combat mechanics. AA not shooting planes, planes only striking in combats, heavy fighters being better interceptors (despite their notoriously horrible high alt performance and climb rate....lulz a 110 shooting down a B17 is ridiculous) air superiority having any effect on ground forces (recon planes might have been better?) AA brigades only attacking CAS...

Its all messed up.

The bandaid fix is nice for the meantime...but I dont want this to be the end of port strike changes...

Theres a serious problem with not being able to send planes to a specific province like you can with ships. I dont mind the new airzone mechanics like the sea zone mechanics, but why isnt there BOTH systems still? Like there is in the navy?

I assume this is all placeholder stuff for the inevitable "air war" DLC like we had with Their Finest Hour.

 

[Meglok]

Why is the new AI designed to include 1 infantry battalion in a battalion of 4 light tanks and 5 motorized? Isn't the infantry gonna slow down the other vehicle battalions?

@podcat. You know, that is s good question. If the mission of the division is fast explotation, why have a chance of slowing it to a crawl with leg infantry?

 

[potski]

SteelVolt said:

'replace_at_match' means that it will not consider the next target template until it has a match of a certain %, where 0.9 means 90%. What the match score looks at is the equipment types and how many of them that the template contains compared to the target template in the script. When it has a match above the set % it will consider the scripted template at replace_with as what it should strive for, for that type of unit.

So in determining whether to upgrade an existing division to medium_armor_default it checks how much the existing template matches the regiments and support companies in the target_template.

So it can upgrade templates which include light_armor and infantry, or light_armor and motorised, but the motorised ones are more likely to match if I understand that correctly. A division with just infantry probably won't meet the 90% match. Otherwise, the AI is going to try to upgrade every Infantry division to use medium tanks.

Remember, the purpose of this is that the divisions such as those using the GER "Panzer-Division" template (with 4x light armour and 2x motorised) will get upgraded to use medium tanks. Not to upgrade divisions using their "Infanterie-Division" template (9x infantry).

The contents of the medium_armor_default template is not specified in that script. It's unlikely to include foot infantry.

 

[Jorlem]

If you can reach parts of a region (for any air mission) you can assign the wing to that region. But the game calculates how much of the region you can reach with your normal operational range, and gives a coverage value. If you are only able to comfortably cover 30% of a region, then you receive a 70% penalty to your mission efficiency. Bad weather, night, and overstacking of bases can reduce it to 0%.

There's still the issue of when you don't care about most of the air zone. If you only want to deal with something well within range, but the air zone is giant (like North Africa), you still get those penalties even when setting CAS missions when the front is right next to your airfield.


Stepping aside from AI and game mechanic questions for a moment, any chance on some GUI improvements? I'm really hoping for the ability to drag-and-drop to reorder build queues, especially the construction queue. (I'd also like to be able to re-order my armies on the interface at the bottom of the screen, and the shields in the theater boxes, but that isn't as important.)

 

[Shock360]

Not sure if I like the port strike change. Did Japan have 100 % air superiority over Hawai before launching a port strike? Did Britain have over Taranto?

Read the thread before complaining. There will be times when you can negate that, and it was stated that Japan will most likely get on woos silt after Pearl Harbor gambit

 

[sprites]

dividing indochina? well why not but this is a bit outside of the time frame

 

[Shock360]

Iv taken a break from HoI4(got my first two paradox dlc! Sword of Islam and art of war!), though I hope you fix one important thing in this patch that looks so amazing. PLEASE add many more requirements. So many events and focuses don't have simply checks that could remove so much headache(such as your land being given to prc or something at a certain time if you own Manchuria, despite you being at war with them or it not making sense)

 

[Dalwin]

Not sure if I like the port strike change. Did Japan have 100 % air superiority over Hawai before launching a port strike? Did Britain have over Taranto?

Yes Japan had close to 100% AS since it was a surprise attack and no significant number of American planes was in the air. (they also didn't say 100% required, they said they were looking at 30%)

Taranto was a fluke, and it did not do the devastating damage we are seeing in game. It is also always mentioned in these type discussions because it was such a rarity that it stands out.

Fleets were not slaughtered wholesale in their berths. They simply were not, but this happens automatically in the current form of the game. The proposed fix is a good one.

 

[Hearburn]

3 WEEKS!! ALL HAIL TO PARADOX!!! we expect more 3 than 2, it woult mean better job ^^

Actually, tripple that to six weeks. Just to feel safer.
Better to under promise and over deliver, ya know.

 

[Donkey Kong]

Yes Japan had close to 100% AS since it was a surprise attack and no significant number of American planes was in the air. (they also didn't say 100% required, they said they were looking at 30%)

Taranto was a fluke, and it did not do the devastating damage we are seeing in game. It is also always mentioned in these type discussions because it was such a rarity that it stands out.

Fleets were not slaughtered wholesale in their berths. They simply were not, but this happens automatically in the current form of the game. The proposed fix is a good one.

Japan had 0% air superiority over Hawai when the port strike started, as there were no Japanese fighters at Hawai when the bombers left the carriers. You won't be able to pull of a similar attack with this mentioned air superiority system, no matter what the % requirement is. You need to control the skies first.

I do agree that 30 % is far better than 100 though (misread that one).

Taranto may have been a rare success, but it still happened. And the effect was felt big time. 3 Italian BBs out of action for months, one of them for good.

 

[bERt0r]

Ok I'm sorry If this sounds rude but the last thing the AI needs is learning how to throw nukes around. I know you are doing good progress improving the AI in certain areas but I implore you to revise the battle plans. It's a catastrophe to play multiplayer with battleplans. The game is just too dumb (or too smart if you ask me) to handle them. The constant redeploying is killing any attempt to outwitt an enemy strategically.

There is also no option to make a proper defensive battle plan. Fallback lines SUCK. They break apart instantly because like in every battleplan, units like to redeploy constantly and once one province of a fallback line is broken, the whole line collapses. Why do divisions get 50% bonus for planning an offense, more than a fully dug in division?

Instead of setting 3 aggressive options for a battleplan the AI executes improperly i would prefer a defensive, neutral, offensive stance. Like:

• Defensive = If there is a combat I am losing in one of my provinces, neighboring troops try to reinforce
• Neutral = Hold the line and dont move at all.
• Offensive = If there is a combat I am fighting in an enemy province, neighboring troops will support the attack

That's all I expect of a basic frontline command. Offensive lines and their battleplan execution are another thing.

 

[Ricard2037]

Actually, tripple that to six weeks. Just to feel safer.
Better to under promise and over deliver, ya know.

I've learnt that in games, and almost everithing, it's better go slowly to be the first...

 

[potski]

Japan had 0% air superiority over Hawai when the port strike started, as there were no Japanese fighters at Hawai when the bombers left the carriers. You won't be able to pull of a similar attack with this mentioned air superiority system, no matter what the % requirement is. You need to control the skies first.

I do agree that 30 % is far better than 100 though (misread that one).

If the USA has active air superiority missions, then the requirement for Japan is to have 70%, not 30%. But if USA doesn't have any air superiority, then the mission is allowed.

0% air superiority could happen either because there are no fighters, or they are on interception missions. Interception doesn't provide any air superiority value.

You also have the mechanics wrong. Assigning planes to the region even before they take off in combat updates the air superiority calculation.

I think it would be correct to say IRL the USA didn't have planes operating air superiority missions. They were nearly all on the ground, as the Japanese first wave took off from the carriers. They weren't even on alert to take off to intercept any incoming attack. Their radar and air control systems failed, when the incoming signals were misinterpreted.

The first wave of the attack included dive bombers and fighters which attacked the US air defenses. Their objective was to ensure that the raid had total air supremacy over the island that morning, and that was successful. Very few US planes got off the ground and engaged the Japanese. There were 402 US aircraft in Hawaii. 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged. Only eight pilots got airborne during the attack and engaged the attackers.

 

[Axe99]

Sorry, big post incoming, that's what I get for sleeping at night, but having an interest in the thread!

I apologize for not being clearer. It is easy to take things for granted when you spend all day staring at it.

Lets say, in your example, that the scripted target template says '4 light armour, 5 motorised and 1 infantry regiment' and is named 'light_armor_default'. The system goes through the existing template designs, finds the latest for light armor and matches it against the target, only the design does not have any infantry, but 4 light armor and 5 motorized. The largst of the design and the target relates to 5 + 4 + 1 = 10 slots, but only 9 of them are matching, because of the missing infantry. This would mean that the end calculation would be 9/10 = 0.9, so a match score of 0.9, or if you will; 90% matching.

Thank you very much . I definitely understand it enough now to be able to play around and fill in any gaps. Sounds great btw, thanks as always, both for your work, and helping me keep up .

still testing things, but there is a bonus you can get that reduces the air superiority needed (to say 0%). I'm looking at giving at least japan one after perl harbor gambit/strike usa so they can do surprise attacks.

I think this helps deal with a Taranto and Pearl Harbour, but adds other issues into the mix, and it all falls apart in terms of allied (mainly Commonwealth) raids against German and Italian ports before the Allies established air superiority over the continent. The Germans built u-boat pens in Kiel in 1941/42, long before the Allies had air superiority over northern Germany, and they built them because the allies were bombing them. It's also a fairly inconsistent fix in terms of intuitiveness, if it's possible to send strategic or tactical bombers in where there isn't air superiority, but port strikes are a no go, because the target happens to be a port instead of a factory or enemy unit.

Maybe, instead of requiring air superiority, tone down the damage (the vast, vast majority of port strikes didn't actually do a whole lot of damage - it's just people generally only talk about the port strikes that did ) of a standard port strike, and have the bonus be a bonus to the effectiveness of a port strike in special circumstances. That's likely to lead to more long-term plausible situations, rather than effectively removing a whole class of allied bombing missions from the game.

Longer term (this is more a suggestion, ignore if in a hurry/over me making suggestions ), in my dream of dreams, I'd prefer strategic and port bombing to be organised in a 'raid' based system (so air superiority remains iterative and over time, but bombing happens in discrete waves, like port strikes, but one element of these bombing raids is a combat resolution step against the level of defending fights, involving planes shot down, disruption and what-have-you). Raids would also have some kind of cooldown (preferably per plane, but maybe per-wing for ease of UI/calculation) representing maintenance, to reflect that fact that it wasn't possible for the bombers to be literally going on a raid every day (I'm afraid I'm all ships in the research at the moment, not sure where to go looking for a complete list of air operations to get an idea for how frequent sustainable raids would be).

That way, you could have air wings set to raid regularly (so it's not micro-ey), but bombing raids are still an event, perhaps with (optional) notifications after raids similar to port strikes, or after particularly successful raids, or something - would give the strategic air war more character, and engage players more with it. Everyone's talking about port strikes because they happen, while strategic bombing, despite involving some of the largest air operations in history, is a footnote.

In history, ports were for most of the war a safe haven. Fleets could sit in port for years and not be sunk by aircraft. Why was this? Defensive air superiority and AA at the port.
How is this then not a fix?

There are plenty of examples of bombing raids on ports taken out without air superiority. Brest, St. Nazaire, Kiel, and Naples, amongst others, were all bombed without air superiority. The issue is less that bombers didn't fly when there wasn't air superiority (they did, all the time, against ports and other targets), but more that bombing ports via level bombing was about as accurate as bombing cities through level bombing, which isn't very much. At the moment, port strikes are trying to represent the accuracy of low-level torpedo bombers, and dive bombers, surprising a port's defenders and achieving spectacular results (Pearl Harbour and Taranto) vs high altitude level bombing (Naples, Kiel, Brest, etc, and they'll never, ever be able to do both with the same mechanic.

One thing to think about in regards to port strikes: the Germans were pretty effective at mitigating the effect of the strikes on their submarine bases by building protective concrete fortifications. I don't believe they ever tried to extend this protection past submarines, since they weren't much interested in a surface fleet, but I would think in theory that it would be possible if you put enough resources into it. You wouldn't save the port from damage, but you would mitigate the effect on the ships. Is this something that we'd consider "covered" by the game's current defensive buildings?

This is a really good idea. The British stopped bombing Brest because they couldn't penetrate the u-boat pens, so the Germans were able to operate submarines from (metaphorically) right below the nose of bomber command.

 

[Krafty]

For naval invasions...I think the AI needs to know how strong the ENTIRE enemy army is on the continent its invading, and wait to launch an invasion AT ALL until it can have a reasonable parity with the entire enemy forces it might face.

For invading Africa that means a parity in strength with all the enemy in Africa, or Europe, or Asia, Japanese Home Islands, Italy, England, etc...to prevent the AI ever sending invasions that will surely fail.

Some of them failing is ok. Some of them succeeding is ok. They shouldnt all fail, or all succeed, so there needs to be some sort of code for telling the AI when to launch an invasion, at what parity, and the AI in the .exe needs to know how to judge the enemy forces not just in the area of the invasion, but the entire forces that might be brought to bear, ignoring ones on other continents.

 

[Krafty]

Also while the naval invasion thing is improved for Japan it seems, will AI USA know it needs to send divisions to Hawaii to do invasions elsewhere, IE island hop? Vs just invading the home islands from California?

 

[Dan1109]

We'll see. That's what makes the Pacific so difficult, so many targets available via sea. Will they fight back and forth at the Marianas/Sapian, or prioritize the defense of Australia? Hopefully it won't be a sludge back and forth in the Marshall Islands. It would be nice if VP boosting could help the AI prioritize targets, but I've seen issues with annexation playing with that (Germany got Sumtra and Java for free during HOL annexation), and then there is the VP Supply bonus - which could allow one to garrison a redonkulous amount of divisions in unrealistic places.

 

[Meglok]

Range of planes doesn't represent the maximum distance they can travel in a straight line, but their normal operational range. They have sufficient fuel to travel to a target area, spend time in combat or forming up and doing their bombing runs, then return to their base. With spare fuel to cover situations where they don't navigate using the most efficient route.

If naval bombers can reach West Poland at close to their normal operational range from UK/France then some of the planes can reach Konigsberg, even if it means they spend less time over the target, and can make it only if they have no detours on the journey. The effectiveness of the port strike mission would be reduced.

BTW UK TAC2 can easily do port strikes from England. The center point of the Western Poland region is 2233km. Their operational range of 2000km gives them 79.8% coverage.

This brings up a good question that has been bothering me. I checked the common/unit/equipment files and TAC2 bombers has a range stat of not 2000 km but 2500 km. According to your explanation the range value is what is known as a combat radius. If your explanation is correct, exactly which nations had 2 engine tactical bombers in 1936 with a combat radius of 2500 km, which would mean a range from point a to point b of over 5000 km? Aren't the range values for early TAC and TAC2 bombers just a wee excessive?

 

[pandom]

Thank you. Looks great. I've been troubled no end regarding Naval with late-game Germany.

 

[tom_jones]

@SteelVolt

the new additions to the template system look nice, but have you guys done any checks/work to improve the AI's ability to do reliably the basics of template building, i.e. following what the template config files tell it to do? Because it didn't seem to do a very good work with that last I checked... but then maybe it's just me not understanding how it's supposed to work..?