HOI4 lack too much HOI3 content

[Pro_Consul]

Once the AI is upgraded enough, say, up to HOI3 TFH level, it'll be a whole other story.

Well, we also need a few features revamped and some interface improvements, but generally, yes. I think we have a much better starting place than HOI3 had, and are in a better position by comparison than HOI3 was at this early point in it's lifespan.

 

[safe-keeper]

Lots of small changes that could be done as well. For example greatly reducing the rate at which factories gain production efficiency, to encourage players to stick with and upgrade designs a little longer. Currently it's just "beeline a good tank and then upgrade it to 5 in every slot", which is a tad bit ahistorical .

 

[Pro_Consul]

Lots of small changes that could be done as well. For example greatly reducing the rate at which factories gain production efficiency, to encourage players to stick with and upgrade designs a little longer. Currently it's just "beeline a good tank and then upgrade it to 5 in every slot", which is a tad bit ahistorical .

OMG that one gets a thumbs-up from me, marginal as some might think it is compared to the current AI issues. It is a both subtle and profound over the long term, greatly encouraging the use of the variant route, which coincidentally is highly coincidental itself with historical practice, and discouraging the "beeline" approach you refer to, or as I like to put it the "tech rush and spam" approach. Good call there.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Now lets compare to HOI3


The Soviets have a decent manpower pool. They're building some infantry and one tank division. They have large depots of raw material and a leadership of 40. I have more IC and they currently suffer from some dissent.

If you want a fair compairson you should instead use the HoI3 intelligence tab on release, not the one after 3 Expansions + patches!

It looked like this! Instead of production and ministers you could "see" random wings, divisions and ships and what provinces they were in. But they were never displayed on the map so it was pretty much useless:

 

[Augustus93]

Sure, there were more ministers and laws and more parties.

How often did the number of parties impact the game? It was basically cosmetic.

How much decision-making went into ministers in HOI3 compared to HOI4? Sure, there were more, but you just set the ministers and go in HOI3 (except for purged ministers in the Soviet Union).

Sure, there were more laws, but they were no-brainers. And, some laws, like training, were changed into other mechanics in HOI4. At least in HOI4, I have to consider whether it is worth gearing to total mobilization or whether it is worth it to run conscription to service by requirement.

And all unit sprites are also cosmetic stuff. That does not mean all that much, it is still arguable better to have more cosmetic stuff than less cosmetic stuff. The cabinet is an even more no brainer in HoI4, the only good thing that came with HoI4 as an improvement is that the ministers can be geniuses or experts and have a cost of political power so you can't just replace them as easily as in HoI3. War ecomomy is by far the best option in HoI4 and there is not a single game that I have not changed to war economy yet. In fact that is usually the first things that most people change to and for a good reason as well.

 

[Anthedon]

If you want a fair compairson you should instead use the HoI3 intelligence tab on release, not the one after 3 Expansions + patches!
It looked like this! Instead of production and ministers you could "see" random wings, divisions and ships and what provinces they were in. But they were never displayed on the map so it was pretty much useless:

Yeah, comparing HoIII with all patches and addons to HoIIV right now is going to make the latter look bad no matter what. HoIII on release was a mess too. I shudder to think what will happen when a new CK or EU game comes out and people will start comparisons between the new iteration and old games with years worth of DLC and updates.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

I don't agree.

One of the most important differences between HOI4 and EU4 is that your goal in HOI4 is (usually) smaller. The goal is to win the war. If that means defeating Germany in 1940 as France, then you won the game in four years. If winning the war means running Unthinkable in 1946 and beating the Soviets, then you won the war in 10 years.

I am sorry SM but there is nothing to agree with since it is a fact; a HOI IV day (in-game time) corresponds to 24 game "ticks" while a day goes by in EU IV after only one "tick". So this means that every day in HOI IV corresponds to 24 days in EU IV. Typically I have more time (game "ticks") available to conquer the world in HOI IV than in EU IV despite the later apparently lasting longer since it goes on for "centuries". Ofc other considerations come into play like movement speed per tick where HOI IV with its motorized, mechanized and armor has the "advantage". My point is that time in these games is misleading and what really matters is the in-game ticks.

Because the goal is to win the war, the strategies in question are meant to serve that purpose. The choices you make with your PP in 1936 have a lasting impact; the fact that you have excess PP later only serves to underscore how important it is to spend it wisely earlier. I'll also note that the nerf to Hitler means Germany can't spendthrift like she used to; I went negative with my PP in a test run as Germany last time. I was trying to turn three countries fascist while also running the harshest occupations possible on seven different countries. Sure, I could have just invaded a dozen other countries, but the fact that I could run Germany out of PP before defeating the Soviets tells me that, short of optimizing other parts of the game to the point that you are conquering the world, there are plenty of things to spend PP on. And if you are going to optimize your game to the point where you conquer the world, then you are doing what grand strategy games ask you to do. You are using one aspect of the game to dominate play so that you do not have to bother with another aspect. You might as well be refusing to land male members of your dynasty and imprisoning them when they become decadent (eating the -10 hit to vassals) so you can save piety to fire invasion CBs and conquer the entire map. Or you are spending all your infamy on conquering large population states in China (Vic2) so that, when Great Wars break out, you not only have a solid economy, but enough colonial soldier POPs to put 500 brigades into the field, rendering the mobilization mechanic obsolete.

I did not say that HOI IV did not need any strategic decisions; I only said that they are a no-brainer (for me) and by comparison HOI III and even EU IV had more and more long-term repercussions. For example if I forget to research AT in HOI IV and now I am fighting an enemy with plenty of armor it won´t cost me the war; I can still fix that blunder by researching and deploying AT in only a few months. The HOI IV armor mechanics (…) and tech simplicity will help me out unless ofc I am fighting a "Marco Antonio" division as some ppl call them but I digress (...) The exact same blunder in HOI III TFH would cost me the war because I would need years to research the AT piercing to the needed level for it to be effective against medium armor let alone heavy armor. For example in EU IV the opportunity costs for idea group selection, the way we spend the monarch points or how/when/where/if we should acquire a vassal are way more important and have way longer term repercussions than anything I can think off in HOI (besides nukes ofc). Like I said before in my mind it used to be the opposite before HOI IV arrived.

 

[Secret Master]

War ecomomy is by far the best option in HoI4

Not in all situations. I'll give you an example.

In an MP game, I was playing the UK and my opponent was Germany. Our house rules prevented the war from breaking out in 36 or 37, so we basically ran through a historical build up until 1939. As the UK, my strategy was going to rely on air power and strategic bombing to neutralize Germany's IC advantage until I was ready for Overlord; my target date for Overlord was 1943. My assumption was that the AI US was going to screw up and waste its men and material, so it would be up to me to invade Europe by myself. (I was proved mostly right after the second time US forces broke out of the Italian beachheads and got themselves surrounded and wiped. :sigh: )

With my target date of 1943 for Overlord, my plan (from the first day of the game) was to build a 48 division invasion force (40 width divisions) composed of 24 armored divisions and 24 infantry divisions. While such a force would not normally be able to defeat Germany by itself, my gamble on air power would even the playing field. Furthermore, while Germany should be able to easily out produce me, by bombing her industry I intended to "level" the differences between our IC. (queue laugh track for obvious pun).

In order to do this, I stayed in total mobilization for years until 1943, as I didn't need tons of manpower. I kept up some fighting in Italy to draw off German forces, but Italy is a narrow front that requires few divisions. Since I was in total mobilization for roughly four years, my military factory construction speed was higher. This let me build up more MIC than I could otherwise. Roughly 180 days out from my intended launch date for Overlord, I swapped to war economy to grab the 3% of manpower. But by then, it didn't matter. I was almost completely done filling slots with MIC. I could have kept total mobilization for the reduction in consumer goods, but looking at the factory situation, keeping total mobilization while upping conscription even more was a net loss in IC. So, swapping to war economy and delaying the implementation of harsher conscription was the right answer.

But wait, there's more!

Despite the loss of the Suez, and despite the failure of some Anzio-style landings north of Rome, I held about 30% of Italy's IC under harshest occupation. That meant that I was also pushing Italy's factories harder with total mobilization until I swapped back to war economy.

But then I realize that I have enough MIC now to continue building tons of 1944 bombers (we've been building them for two years now) and light fighters while I could up tank production. And so, in February of 1943, I scrap my initial Overlord for a new Overlord that will utilize 48 armored divisions to invade Brittany (instead of Normandy) instead of 24 armored and 24 infantry. I can afford the tanks now, thanks to slots being filled and occupying Italian IC. This delays Overlord to 1944 (ha, so much for being ahistorical), but when it lands, there's nothing my opponent could do to really stop it. (His exact words were, "...a stupid number of armored divisions..."

The manpower for these divisions comes from swapping to war economy; the MIC that builds the tanks and planes comes from all that MIC I built while under total mobilization.

Bonus round: the UK exports a ton of rubber that the US will inevitably buy. The CIC I get in trade uses my efficiency and my laws to build stuff. So, even the US is run by Walt fricking Disney and its factories only produce elephants in pink tutus, when she pays with CIC, I'm using total mobilization to maximize the impact these factories have.

Extra special bonus round: I didn't know it at the time, but my strategic bombing campaign had eliminated roughly 1/3 of Germany's total IC. This explained why there weren't that many Panthers facing me when I invaded. But it also meant that the strategy was a success. Between my fast filling of factory slots, and my killing of German factories, Germany was basically doomed in the extreme long run. But while Germany would normally be able to out-produce the UK even with damage from bombing, she can't out-produce the UK while the UK is building MIC faster than her (Germany was sitting at war economy the whole war as far as I know). Either she is forced to spend CIC to repair damaged factories (preventing the creation of new ones), or she has to build new factories with less CIC because her CIC has been bombed.

The HOI IV armor mechanics (…) and tech simplicity will help me out unless ofc I am fighting a "Marco Antonio" division as some ppl call them but I digress (...) The exact same blunder in HOI III TFH would cost me the war because I would need years to research the AT piercing to the needed level for it to be effective against medium armor let alone heavy armor.

It will cost you the war against a human player.

My opponent in this game had no way to stop any of my armored divisions. The war wasn't going to last long enough to research (and then build) enough AT at the right tech to stop the wave of armor.

Again, the AI being easy to beat is not the same as "there are no long term repercussions to my decisions."

 

[just_a_beaver]

Holy shit, are we returning to pre-June 6th when every thread was a drunken brawl between the Hoi3 conservatives and the Hoi4 hypers? What are we, football fans? (/s to prevent the butthurt)

 

[GUNNM]

If you want a fair compairson you should instead use the HoI3 intelligence tab on release, not the one after 3 Expansions + patches!

It looked like this! Instead of production and ministers you could "see" random wings, divisions and ships and what provinces they were in. But they were never displayed on the map so it was pretty much useless:

So that means that given the "unfair" comparison of release-HOI4 vs all-expansions-HOI3 the HOI4 intelligence tab still have more useful information... Can we atleast conclude that the "horrible" HOI4 intelligence tab is still superior to HOI3?

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

It will cost you the war against a human player.

My opponent in this game had no way to stop any of my armored divisions. The war wasn't going to last long enough to research (and then build) enough AT at the right tech to stop the wave of armor.

Again, the AI being easy to beat is not the same as "there are no long term repercussions to my decisions."

It would more than likely cost me the war in HOI III TFH (even against the AI) but that outcome is not granted in HOI IV: just like in HOI III it will depend of the hardness of his/her divisions, armor rating and a lot of other stuff really. The biggest difference is that unlike HOI III it is very easy to mass deploy AT only a few weeks after researching it by simply tweaking a template and assigning a shitton of factories to AT; due to how the armor rating mechanics work in HOI IV that might even be enough to pierce the opponents armor without further AT research (at least in the near future) lol (...)

 

[Secret Master]

It would more than likely cost me the war in HOI III TFH (even against the AI) but that outcome is not granted in HOI IV: just like in HOI III it will depend of the hardness of his/her divisions, armor rating and a lot of other stuff really. The biggest difference is that unlike HOI III it is very easy to mass deploy AT only a few weeks after researching it by simply tweaking a template and assigning a shitton of factories to AT; due to how the armor rating mechanics work in HOI IV that might even be enough to pierce the opponents armor without further AT research (at least in the near future) lol (...)

Let's test it, shall we?

If I want to pierce 1941 Panzer divisions, I need to be able to beat this template at the very least:

This division has these tanks in it:

What will it take to beat a division with 1941 Panzer IV's? It's October 1941. Germany currently has zero AT tech (thanks to focusing on other things).

The tooltips tell me that I need 114 days to get AT Gun I.

If I want AT Gun II, I need another 152 days (the intervening tech plus AT Gun II itself).

If I want to get to 1941 AT Gun upgrades, I need yet another 76 days.

So, just to get to AT Gun I, I need 114 days before I build the first unit. Will AT Gun I suffice?

My template without AT looks like this:

Its piercing sucks, to say the least.

With AT Gun I and a single AT support, it looks like this:

That ain't going to cut it.

What about one support plus 3 line AT?

That's not even close enough to pierce a panzer division with 1941 Panzer IV's.

What about AT Gun II?

With a single AT support, that's not going to work either.

What about 3 line AT?

Nope. You still aren't piercing the panzers.

Let's try AT Guns II with the 1941 upgrade.

With a single support AT:

With 3 line AT:

Nope. You still can't pierce the panzers.

What about 5 line AT?

Woot! I can now pierce the panzers!

Okay, so if I swap to this template, how many AT Guns (and remember, AT Guns built under AT Gun I do not count) do I need to equip the entire German army?

I need 24,000 AT guns to fully outfit my divisions. How long will that take? (Note that I am still taking losses from enemy fire while I try to reach my quota, so simple math might not work here.)

I'll run the game and find out:

That's January of 1942. With 45 MIC on AT guns, I haven't even scratched the surface.

That's March of 1942. I still haven't even come close with 45 MIC on AT Guns.

What's been happening since I started getting AT Guns out into the field?

My enemy might have upgraded his or her tanks to armor 5. And what does this do to the divisions?

Now those AT Guns are not sufficient to pierce. I need to spend another 74 days grabbing the AT Gun upgrade for 1942. That will give me this much piercing:

Whew. Good thing I planned ahead and took care of AT Guns before the war broke out... Oh, wait, I didn't. I'm still trying to catch up.

Meanwhile, this is happening (if my opponent has any brains):

1943 medium tanks are in the offing. This means I need to spend another 100+ days on AT Gun III. The moment it's finished, I have to start producing them. But I still don't even have enough old AT guns to kill existing Panzer IV's.

After a year, I am still over 7,000 AT Guns short:

By November, Panthers are starting to show up. If someone has saved army XP (or just has a ton), they are going to put Armor 5 on it right away.

They'll eat the reliability (besides, it's Panthers. They aren't supposed to be reliable in the first generation.) because this is what happens in the division template:

All those AT Gun II's (which I still don't have built) are now obsolete. It's a race between AT Gun III and Panthers now. When AT Gun III is finished, this is where we stand:

But even after this adventure, I'm still not caught up on AT Gun II.

45 MIC on AT Gun IIs for 14 months did not solve my piercing problem.

If I had put 90 MIC on AT Gun production, it would still have taken more than seven months to get enough AT Guns in the field on top of the 266 days (all techs prior plus AT Gun II itself) needed to research the tech that allows me to produce AT Gun II. (I can grab the 1942 upgrade while the guns build without causing a delay in production.)

If I put 180 MIC on AT Gun production, it would take me at least four months plus the 266 day research time to get the AT Gun problem solved. But at this point, we're talking about making a huge shift in production that will impact everything else. Whatever things I was producing before with that MIC are now out of production and if I want to swap back, I have to build up production efficiency again.

Then there's the whole tungsten issue. Each MIC on AT Gun II will cost 2 tungsten. Putting 180 MIC on AT Gun II will cost you the same amount of tungsten as 180 MIC on medium tanks: 360. That's more than ART costs. If you don't have that much tungsten, that's going to cost you 45 CIC to fuel. Trying to run ART and medium tanks and AT Guns will result in a deficit of tungsten that most nations cannot fully rectify in time to make a difference. Either you are already winning the war (in which case, you don't care about the AT guns), or you're screwed, because now you need to conquer Portugal or spend huge sums of CIC to fuel your sudden need of tungsten. And without that tungsten, your production will be slower AND the production efficiency increase will suck.

The bottom line is this: if you didn't bother to research any of the AT techs, and you find yourself being bulldozed by panzer divisions, you are going to spend 266 days plus a couple of months producing the AT Guns themselves while cutting production to something else. And when it is all said and done, you are doing it again right away because Panthers are on the way.

266 days plus four or more months is forever in a game like HOI4. The failure to plan ahead regarding AT costs precious time that could be better spent not swapping 180 MIC to an entirely new piece of equipment and trashing their efficiency.

Now, if you say, "But I don't need to do that versus the AI," then we're back to my statement that the difficulty of the game and AI is not the same thing as saying that there are few or no long-term consequences from decisions.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Let's test it, shall we?

If I want to pierce 1941 Panzer divisions, I need to be able to beat this template at the very least:

View attachment 207858

This division has these tanks in it:
View attachment 207898

What will it take to beat a division with 1941 Panzer IV's? It's October 1941. Germany currently has zero AT tech (thanks to focusing on other things).

View attachment 207850

The tooltips tell me that I need 114 days to get AT Gun I.

If I want AT Gun II, I need another 152 days (the intervening tech plus AT Gun II itself).

If I want to get to 1941 AT Gun upgrades, I need yet another 76 days.

So, just to get to AT Gun I, I need 114 days before I build the first unit. Will AT Gun I suffice?

My template without AT looks like this:

View attachment 207853

Its piercing sucks, to say the least.

With AT Gun I and a single AT support, it looks like this:

View attachment 207854
That ain't going to cut it.

What about one support plus 3 line AT?

View attachment 207856

That's not even close enough to pierce a panzer division with 1941 Panzer IV's.

What about AT Gun II?

View attachment 207862


With a single AT support, that's not going to work either.

What about 3 line AT?

View attachment 207865

Nope. You still aren't piercing the panzers.

Let's try AT Guns II with the 1941 upgrade.

With a single support AT:

View attachment 207867

With 3 line AT:

View attachment 207868

Nope. You still can't pierce the panzers.

What about 5 line AT?

View attachment 207870

Woot! I can now pierce the panzers!

Okay, so if I swap to this template, how many AT Guns (and remember, AT Guns built under AT Gun I do not count) do I need to equip the entire German army?


View attachment 207872

I need 24,000 AT guns to fully outfit my divisions. How long will that take? (Note that I am still taking losses from enemy fire while I try to reach my quota, so simple math might not work here.)

I'll run the game and find out:

View attachment 207896

That's January of 1942. With 45 MIC on AT guns, I haven't even scratched the surface.

View attachment 207897

That's March of 1942. I still haven't even come close with 45 MIC on AT Guns.

What's been happening since I started getting AT Guns out into the field?

View attachment 207899
My enemy might have upgraded his or her tanks to armor 5. And what does this do to the divisions?

View attachment 207900
Now those AT Guns are not sufficient to pierce. I need to spend another 74 days grabbing the AT Gun upgrade for 1942. That will give me this much piercing:

View attachment 207901

Whew. Good thing I planned ahead and took care of AT Guns before the war broke out... Oh, wait, I didn't. I'm still trying to catch up.

Meanwhile, this is happening (if my opponent has any brains):

View attachment 207902

1943 medium tanks are in the offing. This means I need to spend another 100+ days on AT Gun III. The moment it's finished, I have to start producing them. But I still don't even have enough old AT guns to kill existing Panzer IV's.

After a year, I am still over 7,000 AT Guns short:

View attachment 207903

By November, Panthers are starting to show up. If someone has saved army XP (or just has a ton), they are going to put Armor 5 on it right away.

View attachment 207905

They'll eat the reliability (besides, it's Panthers. They aren't supposed to be reliable in the first generation.) because this is what happens in the division template:

View attachment 207906

All those AT Gun II's (which I still don't have built) are now obsolete. It's a race between AT Gun III and Panthers now. When AT Gun III is finished, this is where we stand:

View attachment 207907

But even after this adventure, I'm still not caught up on AT Gun II.

View attachment 207908

45 MIC on AT Gun IIs for 14 months did not solve my piercing problem.

If I had put 90 MIC on AT Gun production, it would still have taken more than seven months to get enough AT Guns in the field on top of the 266 days (all techs prior plus AT Gun II itself) needed to research the tech that allows me to produce AT Gun II. (I can grab the 1942 upgrade while the guns build without causing a delay in production.)

If I put 180 MIC on AT Gun production, it would take me at least four months plus the 266 day research time to get the AT Gun problem solved. But at this point, we're talking about making a huge shift in production that will impact everything else. Whatever things I was producing before with that MIC are now out of production and if I want to swap back, I have to build up production efficiency again.

Then there's the whole tungsten issue. Each MIC on AT Gun II will cost 2 tungsten. Putting 180 MIC on AT Gun II will cost you the same amount of tungsten as 180 MIC on medium tanks: 360. That's more than ART costs. If you don't have that much tungsten, that's going to cost you 45 CIC to fuel. Trying to run ART and medium tanks and AT Guns will result in a deficit of tungsten that most nations cannot fully rectify in time to make a difference. Either you are already winning the war (in which case, you don't care about the AT guns), or you're screwed, because now you need to conquer Portugal or spend huge sums of CIC to fuel your sudden need of tungsten. And without that tungsten, your production will be slower AND the production efficiency increase will suck.

The bottom line is this: if you didn't bother to research any of the AT techs, and you find yourself being bulldozed by panzer divisions, you are going to spend 266 days plus a couple of months producing the AT Guns themselves while cutting production to something else. And when it is all said and done, you are doing it again right away because Panthers are on the way.

266 days plus four or more months is forever in a game like HOI4. The failure to plan ahead regarding AT costs precious time that could be better spent not swapping 180 MIC to an entirely new piece of equipment and trashing their efficiency.

Now, if you say, "But I don't need to do that versus the AI," then we're back to my statement that the difficulty of the game and AI is not the same thing as saying that there are few or no long-term consequences from decisions.

Secret Master I can also devise "an armored template or two" that would validate my statement; the division you´ve shown is ~60% soft so it can be killed/slowed with lots of ART (along with "superior firepower"), on top of that you won´t be able to build enough of them to make a huge difference (especially not against an entrenched enemy behind a river and/or in rough terrain). IMO the biggest threat of not being able to pierce are not the division’s you´ve shown but instead when every single enemy division has armor rating that prevents piercing without AT or heavier. Under those circumstances my entire infantry would be fighting at -50% efficiency which ofc would not be good but a very fast research/production of AT could still prevent capitulation (especially if I also have some armor to counter attack). WRT to the AT research you are ignoring the bonuses provided by National focuses that can cut the research times in half. With that said I concede that against a very good player like you these sorts of mistakes can still be heavily punished but like I said before it would be much, much worse in HOI III TFH.

This discussion reminds me of this thread but unlike before these days I seldom do videos or lengthy forum posts to prove a point. Anyway and as always thank you for your reply.

Edit: Also very, very strong armor divisions with > 90% hardness could make a huge damage since they would be almost invulnerable to soft attack (my kind of divisions); even in low numbers they can be very problematic to deal with.

 

[Pro_Consul]

With that said I concede that against a very good player like you these sorts of mistakes can still be heavily punished but like I said before it would be much, much worse in HOI III TFH.

Umm....no. With the massive difference in research ability, no major in HOI3 would have to research ANY major tech from scratch in 1941, unless they had been gambling on a ridiculously unbalanced research scheme or some such. Even the wimpiest major, leadership-wise, can afford to keep up with the main essentials, e.g. one good model of tank, AT, ART, INT, and all the techs needed for good all-around INF divisions, etc. At most you might have to research one more level, just get a leg up. And then you just shift a bunch of IC to the upgrade slider and watch as your units all over the world get sorted, with no worries like, "Do I have enough tungsten available to build that many AT guns at once?"

HOI3 does not force majors to make such long-term decisions about tech research. Nor does its stockpile mechanic for resources coupled with its one-cost-fits-all for IC impose any penalty for wildly unbalanced production setups, like the 360 tungsten AT production blitz. So even if you have to build AT brigades from scratch, you still have no resource worries about doing so. Regardless of what you are building, you either have the resources to keep your IC running full speed or you don't. And if you don't, then you must have planned poorly from very beginning and were already in trouble to begin with regardless of the rest of it.

And then there are the practicals working to your advantage there as well. In the scenario above, the player depended on heavy investment in ART and found himself needing to scramble to deploy AT to meet an unexpected, unbalanced onslaught of armor. Fine. Well, in HOI3 that ART-invested player would already have a high level are artillery practical built up, all of which would massively increase his production rate for AT brigades. In essence he gets his production efficiency on all AT production at 100% of whatever undoubtedly high level he had already built up from his arty production, instead of having to start with a total loss of production efficiency and rebuild it from scratch.

 

[Ritmas]

If you want a fair compairson you should instead use the HoI3 intelligence tab on release, not the one after 3 Expansions + patches!

It looked like this! Instead of production and ministers you could "see" random wings, divisions and ships and what provinces they were in. But they were never displayed on the map so it was pretty much useless:

What is this retarded argument? "it had 3expansions"
HoI4 had 3games full games+expansions to build on and improve, what we actually got is a cut feature that will 100% show up in upcoming dlcs.

 

[Pro_Consul]

HoI4 had 3games full games+expansions to build on and improve

Ummm....no. If PDS had merely stayed with incremental updates, building and refining each previous release, we would we playing something like version 54.095 of HOI-1, and there would never have been any HOI2, HOI3, or HOI4....in fact there probably wouldn't be an HOI at all, since the franchise would have died due to lack of revenue generation. People are not going to shell out money over and over indefinitely for mere incremental updates to a game they already paid for. Even MMO or Sims fanatics won't do it for that long.

If you make a new version of a game you already released, it needs to be different. Otherwise everyone who bought the previous title will feel cheated and resent being expected to pay for the same game again to get only incremental improvements. For most types of games that means a new story, new characters, whatever. For an historical wargame about a single war, WWII in this case, that means a whole new approach, or at least a major change of approach, every time you release a new title. That is how the market works, and it's a reality we all created. However much we might occasionally like to rail against it, we wouldn't accept the alternative, not with our wallets.

 

[Secret Master]

on top of that you won´t be able to build enough of them to make a huge difference (especially not against an entrenched enemy behind a river and/or in rough terrain).

48 of those divisions by June of 1941 isn't enough? I can't support any more on the eastern front against the Soviets even with logistics companies. (Believe me, I tried in another game.)

Also, the template in question has a hardness of 55%. It's harder than it is soft. On top of that, it did just fine against Soviet formations covering the rivers. Rommel and Manstein have encircled and overrun 2.5 million Soviet troops by October in that initial screenshot. (If @Dalwin wants to discuss what he did on defense as I sent those armored divisions against him, he's more than welcome.)

Important tip: that template is not the "final" template for that game anyway. Had the war not ended in October, I was about to swap out a MOT for another ARM. I just didn't have enough tanks in stockpile to swap in one extra ARM battalion in 48 divisions. So, I was waiting a bit to see if I was going to take losses or be able to build up enough extra tanks to justify more tanks in each division. That would make them harder.

. IMO the biggest threat of not being able to pierce are not the division’s you´ve shown but instead when every single enemy division has armor rating that prevents piercing without AT or heavier. Under those circumstances my entire infantry would be fighting at -50% efficiency which ofc would not be good but a very fast research/production of AT could still prevent capitulation (especially if I also have some armor to counter attack).

Eh, after having run enough games as the Germans, US, and Soviets, I've come to the conclusion that in HOI4, Guderian is right. Yes, you can put some heavy TDs in all infantry divisions, but that is costly and means you can't field as many proper armored divisions. Your infantry divisions will perform well; but in line with Guderian's thoughts (and others, I might add), it's better to concentrate your armor. You want at least 1/3 of your army to be almost unstoppable panzer divisions so they can penetrate enemy lines, encircle enemies, and destroy resistance. When the armored divisions have so much breakthrough that even infantry defending rivers have not enough soft attack to overcome the breakthrough rating, then the lack of piercing (and hard attack) will mean that even if they are defending rivers, they aren't going to do enough damage to stop the tanks.

Edit: Also very, very strong armor divisions with > 90% hardness could make a huge damage since they would be almost invulnerable to soft attack (my kind of divisions); even in low numbers they can be very problematic to deal with.

Oh yes. I agree.

Don't get me wrong; there are multiple ways of optimizing divisions. Hardness is one such way, as well as armor/piercing. Most players end up with fairly soft divisions, so SA is the way to go. The AI certainly does not understand hardness or armor well enough to justify adding tons of AT.

WRT to the AT research you are ignoring the bonuses provided by National focuses that can cut the research times in half.

You are right; I hadn't considered the NFs. Although, as I am thinking about them, several NFs that would boost AT are generic "everything on the artillery page" boosts, which might be used up by the player before they get to the point where they need them.

This discussion reminds me of this thread but unlike before these days I seldom do videos or lengthy forum posts to prove a point. Anyway and as always thank you for your reply.

Has it really been three years since we were debating the value of HARM in HOI3? Good times...

 

[confinement]

It's interesting to see some folks defend HOI IV.

Troubles with resources, builds, etc only scratch the surface. The new interfaces for air, land, etc are way too complicated, the battle planner couldn't be worse, and individual strategy is gone. Air and naval battles are one big conglomerated mess, and the factory system is useless. Don't believe me? Try this, as mentioned above; Play UK, build a ton of STRAT, and bomb the bejeezus out of Germany's factories. Since it will take until 1958 for Germany to rebuild them, they won't be able to build anything at all, and the Allies can walk right in. Or try this: walk a few INF divisions through northern India. It takes nearly 100% attrition every day. That means all of your equipment builds go to a few divisions in the field, and you're left wondering why you aren't building new divisions. And have we really devolved into trusting the AI to do anything? Set the battle planner in motion and watch as your units run everywhere but where you want them to go. The list goes on.

HOI III had some flaws, but it was a fun game to play. You could send a taskforce to ambush the enemy, you could reinforce you air over certain provinces for attack or defense, you could pick more than a handful of leaders for their particular traits. HOI IV is Axis and Allies on steroids. Line up the armies, and press go.

 

[billcorr]

The failure to plan ahead regarding AT costs precious time that could be better spent not swapping 180 MIC to an entirely new piece of equipment and trashing their efficiency.

Thanks for the in-depth analysis of the AT vs Armor arms race. I shared it with my Axis multiplayer team. (but...we have a house rule of "no research more than two years ahead of time...I don't quite know how that house rule will affect the piercing vs armor arms race).

 

[Secret Master]

Thanks for the in-depth analysis of the AT vs Armor arms race. I shared it with my Axis multiplayer team. (but...we have a house rule of "no research more than two years ahead of time...I don't quite know how that house rule will affect the piercing vs armor arms race).

It means that Germany can't abuse her NFs to get Panzer IV's into production in 1939, letting them get 13,000 in place by June of 1941 (like I've done before). But that should favor AT a bit.

Try this, as mentioned above; Play UK, build a ton of STRAT, and bomb the bejeezus out of Germany's factories. Since it will take until 1958 for Germany to rebuild them, they won't be able to build anything at all, and the Allies can walk right in.

Even when I focused 70% of my MIC as the UK in MP on bombers and fighters, I didn't get that much performance out them. I can probably do better than killing 1/3 of Germany's IC, but if Germany has not bothered to defend her skies, then shouldn't she pay the price?