How will invasions be handled?

[juv95hrn]

I don't know if this has been discussed or mentioned by the designers before. If so I apologize.

The invasions features needs to be overhauled for HOI3. The beach assault proceedure is, after a lot of tweaking and patching, rather realistic. A few specialized units are better at creating a beach head than a huge stack of general units.

The problem is, I suppose, the supply system. Once you manage to get ashore you can reinforce your beach head with unlimited troops waiting offshore. These guys will be ready to roll wintin 24 hours with 100% supply. This favours the attacker a lot and makes amphibious a lot easier than what is realistic and good for game balance. Just increasing this rest period after an invasion would be a good start.

There needs to be some sort of limit on supply status and number of troops you have in and efficiently can fight with in a beach head. As it is now creating a "Fortress Europa" is rather pointless since invading is like popping a balloon. Once you got a single port you can supply all the troops in the world and go racing all over within hours. This is hardly how amphibious warfare was concluded in the real conflict.

Will there be special coastal defense units of some kind? I think the garrison concept of HOI2 would serve well in this perspective. Low MP, low supply cost units that can't move and are destroyed when the province is conquered. How are you otherwise to defend the Atlantic coastline with so many new provinces? Maybe someone has researched properly where there are assaultable beaches so there arent as many beach symbols as in HOI2 but I doubt that.

I hope that there will be features to make invasions as difficult and challenging as they should be.

 

[Enzo]

one point that would help to sort this out will be to prevent troops to stay on a ship while the ship is at sea without order (rebase, sea transport, amphibious assault).

 

[Shadow Master]

one point that would help to sort this out will be to prevent troops to stay on a ship while the ship is at sea without order (rebase, sea transport, amphibious assault).

Don't even think that!

That is, unless a player can assign units in a port territory to auto board - cross - land, as soon as the beach head is clear. The contemptible way the naval orders worked in HoI2 don't need to be made even more restrictive than they were unless some decent work is done to reduce player frustration with the interface.

How about the coastal fortress comes with a small defense group integral to the cost of construction? This makes the coastal fort have teeth as soon as it is built, doesn't clog things up with stacks and stacks of immobile Gar divisions, and can still accommodate additional defenders as needed.

Another thing could be have an attrition rate in all coastal/beach areas from artillery fire from units in the province with an invadable beach. Do you fellows think that a big enough bonus to the hard/soft attack values of arty could play a role here? Something like, "such and such" a (big) bonus vs amphibian invaders? Keep in mind that invaders are going to be storming up a comparatively narrow front, the defenders will have already 'zeroed in' on exactly where the attackers are able to land, and have FO's in well built, sturdy positions to direct their fire. Divisions with Arty in the province should be allowed to engage the attacking troops on the beach head without being subject to any return fire from the invading troops (the only part of the defending division the guys on the beach can see is their incoming fire), and would thus only take losses from air and naval attack.

Last idea, what about a separate division of SP artillery (I only ever saw the M-109's in the US army, and don't know jack about their use). Could such a division be allowed to function if the terrain was right? I mean, arty on shore overlooking a beach, or arty on the one side of a (major) river overlooking the guys attempting to cross/land should be able to bring down a world of hurt, and the guys on the boats cannot do diddly about it (their supporting air units can attack the defending arty units, but that is another thing).

Any thoughts?

 

[unmerged(72564)]

Don't even think that!

.....

How about the coastal fortress comes with a small defense group integral to the cost of construction? This makes the coastal fort have teeth as soon as it is built, doesn't clog things up with stacks and stacks of immobile Gar divisions, and can still accommodate additional defenders as needed.

Another thing could be have an attrition rate in all coastal/beach areas from artillery fire from units in the province with an invadable beach. Do you fellows think that a big enough bonus to the hard/soft attack values of arty could play a role here? Something like, "such and such" a (big) bonus vs amphibian invaders? Keep in mind that invaders are going to be storming up a comparatively narrow front, the defenders will have already 'zeroed in' on exactly where the attackers are able to land, and have FO's in well built, sturdy positions to direct their fire.

....

Any thoughts?

Perhaps developing and building very large 'siege' guns which could be assigned to garrison units. granting them a large hard and soft attack and improvements to defense.

The guns could bring a very large mobility penalty and be expensive. They would help shore up coastal defenses. This might also address some peoples desire for Dora type guns.