HQs, Command Structure and OOBs

[illathid]

<says a lot of great stuff>

Agreed. I want a CoC/OoB To make gameplay easier for me as a player, I don't care if the AI uses it or not. The AI doesn't need to keep things organized in order to play the game well.

 

[Murkk]

A hierarchy is irrelevant for the AI. It is however very relevant as a tool available to the player. An AI can at an instant assign the most fitting units to the most fitting vectors, and the player should have access to as much of that ability as possible. A player should not be forced to handle a lot of completely separate small groups, or having to manually divide up a large group of divisions constantly. This seems very important in respect to making the battle plan feature work well. That means being able to create small easily accessible groups, which can also be controlled as larger, also easily accessible groups. Simply removing any game-play related bonuses to having a hierarchy, and making it a purely organizational feature for the player would work perfectly, without the AI having to use and be compatible with the feature.

So you say that it is irrelevant for the AI, and yet you want to be able to click on target in the map and have all the units figure out the best vectors and move by themselves. This is AI. And the AI is about as capable of moving units and figuring out strategies as an average 9 year old. Now if you have the AI smart enough to do a good job with your long CoC chain, then really the game should just use the CoC chain as a standard of AI. That adds a ton of complexity for the AI that doesn't add to gameplay. Hex based wargames are about unit pushing, not about HQ pushing.

Once you take out the ability to move your units across the map by right clicking and having them take objectives for you, CoC doesn't do anything. It doesn't make things easier and it's not realistic. Chain of command and logistics in the real world exist so that the "General" can get the grunts on the field to do stuff in a cooperative way. And each level of command will often have to operate without direct supervision. In HOI you are the grand general and you just bypass everyone and your grunts do what you want them to. You push the counter, and it magically moves.

I have no problems adding in some fields so users can sort their database in different ways. More stats manipulation the better. But every suggestion I see isn't a database opinion, it's an involved gameplay issue where HQ units are scattered across the field and the interface is cluttered with garbage groups, and you can move across the map by simply selecting a bunch of units and right clicking which defeats the purpose of a hex-based wargame.

 

[1alexey]

So you say that it is irrelevant for the AI, and yet you want to be able to click on target in the map and have all the units figure out the best vectors and move by themselves. This is AI. And the AI is about as capable of moving units and figuring out strategies as an average 9 year old. Now if you have the AI smart enough to do a good job with your long CoC chain, then really the game should just use the CoC chain as a standard of AI. That adds a ton of complexity for the AI that doesn't add to gameplay. Hex based wargames are about unit pushing, not about HQ pushing.

Once you take out the ability to move your units across the map by right clicking and having them take objectives for you, CoC doesn't do anything. It doesn't make things easier and it's not realistic. Chain of command and logistics in the real world exist so that the "General" can get the grunts on the field to do stuff in a cooperative way. And each level of command will often have to operate without direct supervision. In HOI you are the grand general and you just bypass everyone and your grunts do what you want them to. You push the counter, and it magically moves.

I have no problems adding in some fields so users can sort their database in different ways. More stats manipulation the better. But every suggestion I see isn't a database opinion, it's an involved gameplay issue where HQ units are scattered across the field and the interface is cluttered with garbage groups, and you can move across the map by simply selecting a bunch of units and right clicking which defeats the purpose of a hex-based wargame.

HOI is not a hex based wargame, nor is it trying to be one.

You can search Podcat`s post about games like Gary Grisby`s and how HOI`s design goal is pretty much the opposite.

 

[plasticpanzers]

folks talk about micro with CoC and seem to forget when you talking about making 'groups' of 2-5 divisions and then putting them
in a battle plan you may be working with 200 divisions or up to 50 of those groups. Thats ALOT of micromanagement that a CoC
is designed to handle and Corps are not run like puppets by a grand master puppeteer. Again having a choice is the best choice.
historical accuracy or ease of play with an AI that can handle either. If you don't have an AI that can do that you don't have one
that will work anyhow.

 

[Joppos]

So you say that it is irrelevant for the AI, and yet you want to be able to click on target in the map and have all the units figure out the best vectors and move by themselves. This is AI. And the AI is about as capable of moving units and figuring out strategies as an average 9 year old. Now if you have the AI smart enough to do a good job with your long CoC chain, then really the game should just use the CoC chain as a standard of AI. That adds a ton of complexity for the AI that doesn't add to gameplay. Hex based wargames are about unit pushing, not about HQ pushing.

Once you take out the ability to move your units across the map by right clicking and having them take objectives for you, CoC doesn't do anything. It doesn't make things easier and it's not realistic. Chain of command and logistics in the real world exist so that the "General" can get the grunts on the field to do stuff in a cooperative way. And each level of command will often have to operate without direct supervision. In HOI you are the grand general and you just bypass everyone and your grunts do what you want them to. You push the counter, and it magically moves.

I have no problems adding in some fields so users can sort their database in different ways. More stats manipulation the better. But every suggestion I see isn't a database opinion, it's an involved gameplay issue where HQ units are scattered across the field and the interface is cluttered with garbage groups, and you can move across the map by simply selecting a bunch of units and right clicking which defeats the purpose of a hex-based wargame.

It is irrelevant to the AI in the sense that only the player would use it, and the AI would not have to deal with it at all. It would only be there as an easy selection tool for the player. And no-one is talking about having HQs on-map. it has in fact been explicitly said repeatedly in several posts.

Are you by the way sure you understand how giving units orders will work in hoi4? The player will not click on a target and have the selected group move there via a vector the AI creates. The player will create a series of vectors manually not unlike real battle plans, via the battle planner system and for each leader group. These vectors will need to be populated by a selection of divisions from the group. And keep in mind that a large operation can involve maybe 500 individual divisions. If you have large groups, you will have to sort through the individual divisions and allocate them to your vectors. You then execute this plan for the group, and the units advance along their assigned vectors. If you have many small independent groups, you will have to allocate them all separately and execute their assigned orders separately. If you placed some of your large group units in the wrong non-empty vector, you will have to sort them out and redo it again. The battle plan system will with certainty also have to be modified while the operation goes on, and will consist of several phases. So you will need to sort your individual divisions each time, or handle your small groups separately each time you want to change something.

This will take a lot of unnecessary time.

Or you can have a hierarchy.

The hierarchy would only be there for the player, so that they still have access to a large group of say 30 or even 100 divisions to which they can directly assign to a vector and give plan execution orders or upgrade/reinforcement parameters for all divisions below. But instead of having to sort thought these 30 or 100 divisions to find the right groups of let's say five or ten divisions which they want to assign to further vectors or other orders, those groups of 30 - 100 divisions are themselves made up of smaller groups. These are directly selectable and ready to get assigned without sorting or searching and deselecting from division lists, each time an order needs to be given.

Again, AI has nothing to do with such a feature. Not on the player end, and not on the AI players end. And HQ units has nothing to do with it neither. It is just a perfect way for the human player to organize their 300 divisions into interchangeably both large and small, manageable and directly accessible chunks.

 

[illathid]

It is irrelevant to the AI in the sense that only the player would use it, and the AI would not have to deal with it at all. It would only be there as an easy selection tool for the player. And no-one is talking about having HQs on-map. it has in fact been explicitly said repeatedly in several posts.

Are you by the way sure you understand how giving units orders will work in hoi4? The player will not click on a target and have the selected group move there via a vector the AI creates. The player will create a series of vectors manually not unlike real battle plans, via the battle planner system and for each leader group. These vectors will need to be populated by a selection of divisions from the group. And keep in mind that a large operation can involve maybe 500 individual divisions. If you have large groups, you will have to sort through the individual divisions and allocate them to your vectors. You then execute this plan for the group, and the units advance along their assigned vectors. If you have many small independent groups, you will have to allocate them all separately and execute their assigned orders separately. If you placed some of your large group units in the wrong non-empty vector, you will have to sort them out and redo it again. The battle plan system will with certainty also have to be modified while the operation goes on, and will consist of several phases. So you will need to sort your individual divisions each time, or handle your small groups separately each time you want to change something.

This will take a lot of unnecessary time.

Or you can have a hierarchy.

The hierarchy would only be there for the player, so that they still have access to a large group of say 30 or even 100 divisions to which they can directly assign to a vector and give plan execution orders or upgrade/reinforcement parameters for all divisions below. But instead of having to sort thought these 30 or 100 divisions to find the right groups of let's say five or ten divisions which they want to assign to further vectors or other orders, those groups of 30 - 100 divisions are themselves made up of smaller groups. These are directly selectable and ready to get assigned without sorting or searching and deselecting from division lists, each time an order needs to be given.

Again, AI has nothing to do with such a feature. Not on the player end, and not on the AI players end. And HQ units has nothing to do with it neither. It is just a perfect way for the human player to organize their 300 divisions into interchangeably both large and small, manageable and directly accessible chunks.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Bravo!

 

[General Sandman]

I have no problems adding in some fields so users can sort their database in different ways. More stats manipulation the better. But every suggestion I see isn't a database opinion, it's an involved gameplay issue where HQ units are scattered across the field and the interface is cluttered with garbage groups, and you can move across the map by simply selecting a bunch of units and right clicking which defeats the purpose of a hex-based wargame.

Talking and talking, but never listening!

 

[tommylotto]

It is irrelevant to the AI in the sense that only the player would use it, and the AI would not have to deal with it at all. It would only be there as an easy selection tool for the player. And no-one is talking about having HQs on-map. it has in fact been explicitly said repeatedly in several posts.

Are you by the way sure you understand how giving units orders will work in hoi4? The player will not click on a target and have the selected group move there via a vector the AI creates. The player will create a series of vectors manually not unlike real battle plans, via the battle planner system and for each leader group. These vectors will need to be populated by a selection of divisions from the group. And keep in mind that a large operation can involve maybe 500 individual divisions. If you have large groups, you will have to sort through the individual divisions and allocate them to your vectors. You then execute this plan for the group, and the units advance along their assigned vectors. If you have many small independent groups, you will have to allocate them all separately and execute their assigned orders separately. If you placed some of your large group units in the wrong non-empty vector, you will have to sort them out and redo it again. The battle plan system will with certainty also have to be modified while the operation goes on, and will consist of several phases. So you will need to sort your individual divisions each time, or handle your small groups separately each time you want to change something.

This will take a lot of unnecessary time.

Or you can have a hierarchy.

The hierarchy would only be there for the player, so that they still have access to a large group of say 30 or even 100 divisions to which they can directly assign to a vector and give plan execution orders or upgrade/reinforcement parameters for all divisions below. But instead of having to sort thought these 30 or 100 divisions to find the right groups of let's say five or ten divisions which they want to assign to further vectors or other orders, those groups of 30 - 100 divisions are themselves made up of smaller groups. These are directly selectable and ready to get assigned without sorting or searching and deselecting from division lists, each time an order needs to be given.

Again, AI has nothing to do with such a feature. Not on the player end, and not on the AI players end. And HQ units has nothing to do with it neither. It is just a perfect way for the human player to organize their 300 divisions into interchangeably both large and small, manageable and directly accessible chunks.

First, I would not bother engaging with Murkk. He does not seem to understand the conversation in which he is participating, and he has nothing constructive to add. Frankly, I think he is just trying to be a provocateur.

Second, we cannot just be content with overlapping persistent grouping. That is just gaming technology from 1998. Assigning groups of divisions to hotkeys or on screen buttons to aid the player in unit selection to give those units orders more efficiently is nothing special and the bare minimum that we should expect. Paradox is trashing a detailed, historical, immersive, hierarchical chain of command. If all we get in exchange are hotkeys, I will be severely disappointed. These groupings have to be something more than just hotkeys. They need to become something the player can identify with and become invested in. The player should be able to follow the exploits of the "8th Army Desert Rats" in North Africa, not just the glob of divisions assigned to F4. At a minimum, the persistent groupings should be something to which the player can assign a name. There should be an historic auto-naming convention based upon the country being played and the number of divisions in the grouping. For example, a group consisting of 4 Italian divisions should be called something like "VII Corpo d'Armata" whereas 4 US division might be called "VII Corps". There should be a screen or window were the groupings can be organized and shuffled about -- where the 5th Corps can be reassigned from the 3rd to the 1st Army. These groupings would still be AI neutral and optional to the player, but provide at least some of the immersion lost by the removal of on map HQ's. I would still prefer a much more involved system, with leader assignments, etc., but this is the least Paradox should provide at game launch.

 

[Joppos]

First, I would not bother engaging with Murkk. He does not seem to understand the conversation in which he is participating, and he has nothing constructive to add. Frankly, I think he is just trying to be a provocateur.

Second, we cannot just be content with overlapping persistent grouping. That is just gaming technology from 1998. Assigning groups of divisions to hotkeys or on screen buttons to aid the player in unit selection to give those units orders more efficiently is nothing special and the bare minimum that we should expect. Paradox is trashing a detailed, historical, immersive, hierarchical chain of command. If all we get in exchange are hotkeys, I will be severely disappointed. These groupings have to be something more than just hotkeys. They need to become something the player can identify with and become invested in. The player should be able to follow the exploits of the "8th Army Desert Rats" in North Africa, not just the glob of divisions assigned to F4. At a minimum, the persistent groupings should be something to which the player can assign a name. There should be an historic auto-naming convention based upon the country being played and the number of divisions in the grouping. For example, a group consisting of 4 Italian divisions should be called something like "VII Corpo d'Armata" whereas 4 US division might be called "VII Corps". There should be a screen or window were the groupings can be organized and shuffled about -- where the 5th Corps can be reassigned from the 3rd to the 1st Army. These groupings would still be AI neutral and optional to the player, but provide at least some of the immersion lost by the removal of on map HQ's. I would still prefer a much more involved system, with leader assignments, etc., but this is the least Paradox should provide at game launch.

I do agree with you, but i am trying to argue from the perspective of the most fundamental game-play benefits which a hierarchy would bring; not least in streamlining the handling of your large intricate operations with hundreds of divisions. Being able to name groups would make it even easier to handle, and would bring a lot of good flavor as you mention. Having a real easy and intuitive way of arranging the hierarchy would make it even easier still. But the most basic function - allowing a hierarchy at all - is what really matters when it comes down to letting the player have an as easy time as possible both when planning with few units as with many, with entry-level strategies as with advanced strategies.

 

[SergeantPunch]

I'm surprised there is no thread about this yet but let's talk about the elephant in the room :

From what we've seen in the Gamescom demo, there are no more HQs on the Map.

Instead you seem to assign a general to a selected group of divisions to create an army.

There doesn't seem to be any hierarchy between armies either. Each army has one leader and is "independant" from the others.

There seem however to be a limit of divisions a single general can handle, according to rank. So a Von Rommel would not be able to command as much units as a Von Rundstedt

If what i say is wrong or incomplete please correct me.

I can see the advantages of such a system :
- First, it's much simpler to handle both for the player and the AI
- Second, it's very fluid and tie in nicely with the new battleplans
- Third, each leader become much more important
- No time lost on setting up an orderly OOB.

However there are a few disadvantages as well as first glance :
- Realism takes a hard hit in the jaw. We might have at last proper TO&E within division at the micro scale, but no more OOB at a the macro scale.
- Most generals won't see the war, seeing how the invasion of poland took 2 generals, a player might use more than a handful of them for the entire war but that's about it
- Not being able to organize the hierarchy means you can not use the different bonuses of the various generals at different levels.

Now let's be honest. Setting up the OOB each time and keeping it up to date during the war was a micro-management hell but here i fear we are losing a big part of the larger, macro game.

To me removing divisional leaders was enough, there is no need to remove the corps/field armies/army groups.

The hearts of iron 3 system had a few problems and didn't make much sense as you had to play the role of each army, corps an division commander all in one. Also I think that an infinite number of divisions could be assigned to the theatre hq (not sure on that) so maybe this would be a way already to eliminate the headache of this micro management. Also in terms of leader attributes you can have your best general at hq giving his abilities to all the divisions. Not sure how this works though it's more of a question to other more advanced players than me.

So it would be more realistic to issue orders to have a theatre hq to organise the army structure based on the divisions and task assigned to them. However as we all know trusting the AI to carry out orders other than move from one square to another is trouble lol. But if they can get the ai to work well and carry out orders as you intend and it gives you enough flexibility so you can get your hq or army to carry out your orders the way you like then it would be great. It would save a lot of micro management time.

 

[No idea]

folks talk about micro with CoC and seem to forget when you talking about making 'groups' of 2-5 divisions and then putting them
in a battle plan you may be working with 200 divisions or up to 50 of those groups. Thats ALOT of micromanagement that a CoC
is designed to handle and Corps are not run like puppets by a grand master puppeteer. Again having a choice is the best choice.
historical accuracy or ease of play with an AI that can handle either. If you don't have an AI that can do that you don't have one
that will work anyhow.

I agree. I wouldnt understand if we didnt get some sort of CoC, because it is the most realistic an easy way to manage an army. It gives flavor and does the job much better than " lasso units then ctrl+1 and assign them a general". That will very quickly become a micro nightmare in big ops like Barbarossa, as you will have to look for particular divisions (for example, the panzer divisions assigned to make breakthroughs, then the exploit divisions, the line ones...) among something like 200 different divisions. A micro nightmare. Of course, if they do it that way, which is what is begining to seem to me. Perhaps they are committing the same mistake than with hoi 3, when we didnt get a proper army organizer unitl the second expansion,iirc.

 

[jju_57]

What people seem to be missing is the battle planner is the CoC for the battle. Now a battle can be small like taking one province, or huge like the planning out the first month of Barbarossa. It seems to me from the information available that you assign divisions to groups. These can be small like corps or large like whole armies of 20-25 divisions. You assign objectives and then let it sort of play out.

And as far as I can tell from these screen shots your assignments (divisions to some leader) lasts till you change it. So there is a CoC not just the crappy one from HOI3.

Besides wasn't there lot's of complaints about it since it wasn't HOI2 like and before the tool where you could drag drop divisions it was a real pain and micromanagement hell.

Let me clarify why I think CoC from HOI3 was dumb.

The main reason is because the AI couldn't use it or understand it. It ended up being another human only exploit. We knew what command level gave what bonus and which ones were more important. So we promoted and demoted generals to fit these exploits.

The next reason was the HQ's on the map. These were nothing more than a speed bump to force a battle delay. For many players we just kept them behind the lines and were more micro things to do to keep the divisions in radio range. For the AI it had no clue what to do with them.

Another reason I thought they were dumb was it didn't really offer anything to gameplay outside of immersion. Remember how it was before PDS added the CoC enhancement where you had two CoC appear side by side to help reassign divisions? It was terrible.

Finally the whole purpose of the CoC was actually to allow the player to assign some combat to the AI. Burt we soon learned that lower level commands under the AI could not work together and usually were terrible. You were sort of limited to AG or theater level for the most part if you wanted to use the AI. All of this is being replaced by the battle planner.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

before the tool where you could drag drop divisions it was a real pain and micromanagement hell.

The beauty of HOI III is that the game seldom forces you to do something (i.e. in the only way possible); you are not forced to micro it if you don´t want it for whatever reason. For example sometimes I just attach every single division to the TH HQ with the stroke of a button while some other times the CoC is so invaluable that I micro it with pleasure (and it is not that hard if one is organized).

 

[jju_57]

When I played Germany I redid the CoC to exploit logistics and lower supply. This saved about 5 IC per day. The in 1939 I redid the CoC once again (taking about an hour or so) to form my panzer corps, infantry armies and reassign all generals. I was exploint it and doing things that the AI could never do. And then after that the only thing the CoC did was to force me to keep HQ's within radio range. So basically there wasn't any real benefit to having one for me.

 

[illathid]

When I played Germany I redid the CoC to exploit logistics and lower supply. This saved about 5 IC per day. The in 1939 I redid the CoC once again (taking about an hour or so) to form my panzer corps, infantry armies and reassign all generals. I was exploint it and doing things that the AI could never do. And then after that the only thing the CoC did was to force me to keep HQ's within radio range. So basically there wasn't any real benefit to having one for me.

Well most of the people in this thread seem more than okay with getting rid of the cascading CoC bonuses that the AI can't use. And while I get that the battle planner will have some aspects of CoC to it, As far as I can tell it lacks persistent sub-divisions which I know I will want when planning large operations like Barbarossa.

 

[Vanguard44]

I am looking forward to playing HOI without the COC. When I compare HOI III and DH I don't miss the COC at all. To me it adds a layer to the game that is unnecessary; that is to say it's basically just fine-tuning something to make it work better, which IMO detracts from the real gameplay. Also the AI can't use it at all.

As far as I can tell it lacks persistent sub-divisions which I know I will want when planning large operations like Barbarossa.

Did you play HOI II? It's nowhere near as necessary as you think it is.

 

[George Parr]

I don't see how any of that made HoI3s CoC dumb.

The AI couldn't use it?
Hardly a problem, improve the AI or remove any bonuses. That leaves you with a CoC you can use, which is far easier to handle than a few losely bunched groups of divisions. It is more intuitive and more immersive.
HQs did exist in real life, and they were attacked as well, causing lots of trouble for troops under its command. That was the whole purpose of the breakthrough, get past the line and create trouble in the supply network and chain of command. Can't be that hard to make HQs more accesible or easier to move. If you really wanted to you could even move them off the map. Once again, small problems that you can easily resolve are not something you throw away a whole feature for.

Of course it added something to gameplay, easier accessibility to your troops. You could redeploy a whole range of units, from a single division, to a corps or entire army with just two or three clicks. Want to help out an army in trouble, remove a corps from a different army, send it over and assign it to the army in trouble, done in seconds. Something you cannot do when you have no chain of command or just a set group that is linked to a certain mission like in the battle planner. In fact, having the whole chain of command available would make the battle planner far better to handle than having a group of divisions handed to one general. Something like the battle planner is made for having a chain of command, from which you could assign different sub-units that already exist to certain parts of the plan. That is infinitely better than choosing some random divisions from the big group you assigned to one general.

An army is supposed to move towards a city. You could either go on, take the whole group assigned to the general and choose random divisions from it to cover the flanks, spearhead the attack, etc, or you could have a proper chain of command and simply assign already existing sub-groups (i.e. Corps) to do just that. The latter is not only easier to do, it is also much better.

I absolutely couldn't stand how it was done in HOI2. You want something that was far from intuitive, look at that game. You always had to look and see whether one of the units had a general that could control enough units to control the whole stack. That works fine when dealing with a small number of divisions, but once multiple provinces got involved or rapid advances were made it turned into a convoluted mess and unneccesary micro-management compared to having to set up a three or four layer deep chain of command for exactly one time.

 

[jju_57]

Well most of the people in this thread seem more than okay with getting rid of the cascading CoC bonuses that the AI can't use. And while I get that the battle planner will have some aspects of CoC to it, As far as I can tell it lacks persistent sub-divisions which I know I will want when planning large operations like Barbarossa.

As far as I can tell they are persistent till you reassign the divisions. Think about it for a minute. A battle plan can be defensive and in place before a war starts. So in 1937 I assign these 5 divisions to a corps commander. I set up a battle plan to go defend some small border. Now they move there and go defensive. This stays till I make a change. So even in 1939 those divisions are still assigned to that leader.

Logic says this is how it will work and nothing I've seen so far says that as soon as a battle plan is done all units are unassigned. In fact there are hints that says otherwise. Namely the point where they said that you can modify or give new orders to the leader and his divisions.

 

[jju_57]

I don't see how any of that made HoI3s CoC dumb.

The AI couldn't use it?
Hardly a problem, improve the AI or remove any bonuses. That leaves you with a CoC you can use, which is far easier to handle than a few losely bunched groups of divisions. It is more intuitive and more immersive.

Maybe immersive for some but no way more intuitive. Look at how many people had trouble with letting the AI handle these CoC's to do anything.

HQs did exist in real life, and they were attacked as well, causing lots of trouble for troops under its command.

Grave digger units, logistical units and medical units existed in real life but aren't in the game. HOI3 HQ's sucked. What gameplay combat wise did they offer? None. It only hurt the AI because it never kept them in radio range and therefore lots the bonus.

Of course it added something to gameplay, easier accessibility to your troops. You could redeploy a whole range of units, from a single division, to a corps or entire army with just two or three clicks. Want to help out an army in trouble, remove a corps from a different army, send it over and assign it to the army in trouble, done in seconds. Something you cannot do when you have no chain of command or just a set group that is linked to a certain mission like in the battle planner. In fact, having the whole chain of command available would make the battle planner far better to handle than having a group of divisions handed to one general. Something like the battle planner is made for having a chain of command, from which you could assign different sub-units that already exist to certain parts of the plan. That is infinitely better than choosing some random divisions from the big group you assigned to one general.

Seems to me you can do all of that with the battle planner from what I've seen. You can redeploy a leader and all it's units with a few clicks and sent them into the a new battle plan. In HOI3 reassigning a corps to a new Army or AG and letting the AI do it was disaster in the making.

It seems to me from what was shown is that there are a whole range of generals that can control 5, 10, up to 20-25 units. Now you assign divisions to this general and then assign those divisions to different tasks int he battle planner. At least that's how it looked to me. You can then make changes on the fly by selecting a leader and giving it a new objective.

Honestly, many HOI2 players hated HOI3's CoC (I'm not one of them), but to me it wasn't implemented in that great of a way. By TFH it was much easier to handle but early versions were a pain. Therefore, to me it's no big loss and I'm open to anything that makes the AI better. If battle plans are the answer then I gladly say good-bye to the CoC to get a smarter AI.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Oh, the AI can't use the CoC. :sad::sad::sad:

They should just give some reasonable national bonuses to each AI nation to make up for it. If Germany is AI Rommel's Corps wont be better than Paulus' Corps, but they all could get a standard German set of bonuses. Each major could have its' own custom set of bonuses.