Maybe that is because it is difficult to reach Malta by sea without going through the Mediterranean? It is not too difficult to guess the post You respond to was referring to shipping to Egypt, India or Southeast Asia.
Idea for a better a.i. by abstracting air and naval warfare
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Maybe that is because it is difficult to reach Malta by sea without going through the Mediterranean? It is not too difficult to guess the post You respond to was referring to shipping to Egypt, India or Southeast Asia.
Ideally you can pick the level of involvement. HoI IV seems to just do that by enticing you to use the battle plans, but at the same time allowing you to micro every single unit. That's how land warfare works at least.
In HoI 2 and DH I always built up a sizeable, versatile airforce only to neglect it entirely during Barbarossa. There was just too much to handle at the same time. Keeping track of the convoy war, fending off allied bombing raids while making sure your interceptors aren't wiped out, keeping air superiority over Russia before you could order your tactical bombers, keeping an eye on your allies lest their homeland gets overrun by allied invasions...
Oh yeah, all while micro-ing you vast Barbarossa invasion force facing an even larger Soviet army. Did I mention the weather, territory and daytime you had to consider as well?
HoI 3 is probably the most ironic game ever. The micro-level was sooo micro that nearly nobody played on full manual control. At the same time the new a.i. automations were so bad that even though you gave orders to attack here and there, the a.i. did what it wanted anyways. So you'd end up watching a movie instead of playing a game. Yet people are clamouring for more and more micro and level of detail.
Now I get that some people like that. I'd dare to say that the majority of paying customers and potentially paying customers is in favour of a little bit less micro. Doing some sensible abstractions here and there should do the trick. Focusing on improving the interface instead of dumbing it down. Like having a theatre screen for your airforce where you can assign planes and and give general orders. That's basically like selecting every single air wing and give orders to every one of them. It just saves you time! That's not dumbing down, but making intelligent improvements.
The problem with the old system was not only that the AI did not handle it well. The system itself, even in human hands, did a very poor job of representing the concept of air superiority. This was one of the key concepts to military success during the war, some might even rank it as #1.
Any system that allows for establishing or contesting air superiority over parts of the map will give us a game that even with simplified mechanics will be a much better representation of WWII than we have had in the past. That is assuming that AS is significant and meaningful rather than only being some small modifier to ground combat efficiency.
Edit: I expect that the new system will also do away with the unlimited range nonsense previously exercised by the AI as well.
Any system that allows for establishing or contesting air superiority over parts of the map will give us a game that even with simplified mechanics will be a much better representation of WWII than we have had in the past. That is assuming that AS is significant and meaningful rather than only being some small modifier to ground combat efficiency.
Edit: I expect that the new system will also do away with the unlimited range nonsense previously exercised by the AI as well.
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HOI3 is simply too much work. I'm playing as Germany right now, microing divisions, aircraft, and every management field (trade, research, production, etc.), and at times it's simply a chore, not a game. The only thing I'm neglecting quite a bit is organizing divisions into HQ because it's simply too much work keeping it all organized.
And the things you hand over to the AI, or can't control in the first place (convoy routes, supply lanes) simply do not work well enough, as said. Give Strategic bombers several targets and they seem to continouosly (spelling?) bomb the same site, even after there's nothing left to bomb but debris.
A game that let me do simple things like ordering units to line up at fronts and whatnot, for then to let me micro big battles and whatnot myself, would be a good compromise. High hopes for HOI4
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And the things you hand over to the AI, or can't control in the first place (convoy routes, supply lanes) simply do not work well enough, as said. Give Strategic bombers several targets and they seem to continouosly (spelling?) bomb the same site, even after there's nothing left to bomb but debris.
A game that let me do simple things like ordering units to line up at fronts and whatnot, for then to let me micro big battles and whatnot myself, would be a good compromise. High hopes for HOI4
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I actually like the HOI3 system for setting air missions. The main cause of micro management is the need to constantly go back and check to see none of the wings are about to be wiped out. If the wing was set to rest in its base whenever the org or strength of an individual unit within the group dropped below a certain level. that would be solved. At the moment it will rest up when the average org or strength of the whole group drops.
I think this could maybe only work for subs to an extent, since it makes more sense than having fixed convoy routes (so convoys don't re-route based on threat) and subs that constantly need to be told to move elsewhere when surface fleets appear in the area and it's just not that important to have submarines represented with real units because of their limited usage for convoys, plus the always big problem of deciding whether to use them individually or in flotillas, while in reality each sub should have its own leader, but, for Germany, for example, have the different subs co-operate in wolfpacks when the situation requires them to do so, otherwise hunting on their own discretion.
But air force? As mentioned, it ruins any creativity - you just boringly set some planes to an area, you don't make decoy attacks, don't focus on specific industry of the enemy, don't have individuality in your units (so having an air wing survive from 1936 till 1945 and become legendary for its war tales would be impossible, ruining a very nice aspect of the game that just turns it into a chess game with no background or story), can't take risks (ex. the enemy has an important transport airfleet in an air base and you urgently need to get rid of it before the enemy's paratroopers are fully organised, it would all go under an abstract "Bombing" mission), can't focus your air forces on specific areas of a theater (just have them all over, even if you'd need them more towards some specific contested provinces not in the middle of France bombing rebels, also how would it work if a country only holds a few provinces in a theater (and has no bombing interests in hostile territory) - you can't just add it to one of your bigger ones, but have to seperately set air forces to it, so if you add too few - the enemy will be destroying you, but too much means you're wasting those forces, while adding them to an existing theater would still let you have large force protecting it, but also protecting a larger area etc. flaws).
Damn this wall of text. Apologies, still a bit sleepy so my text is just a big sticky chunk of opinion with no organisation, but IMO my points are still valid on the most noticeable flaws of this abstraction idea.
But what concerns me the most, again, is the loss of individuality. I always loved having some favorite divisions in HoI 3 that I would take to the most important parts of the action, they would gain more experience than others, I would always remember their name and it would be something powerful. So you could actually have divisions that were more known during the war like in real history because of their extended use and whatever else, losing this aspect for the air & naval systems would be really bad. And as I said, IMO, it just turns this really fun RTS into a chess game, which has no story, no background, no context, just a bunch of figures fighting each other by some set rules, each battle being the exact same, just with different decisions. Don't get me wrong, I like chess, but I'd rather have this video game different from chess.
But air force? As mentioned, it ruins any creativity - you just boringly set some planes to an area, you don't make decoy attacks, don't focus on specific industry of the enemy, don't have individuality in your units (so having an air wing survive from 1936 till 1945 and become legendary for its war tales would be impossible, ruining a very nice aspect of the game that just turns it into a chess game with no background or story), can't take risks (ex. the enemy has an important transport airfleet in an air base and you urgently need to get rid of it before the enemy's paratroopers are fully organised, it would all go under an abstract "Bombing" mission), can't focus your air forces on specific areas of a theater (just have them all over, even if you'd need them more towards some specific contested provinces not in the middle of France bombing rebels, also how would it work if a country only holds a few provinces in a theater (and has no bombing interests in hostile territory) - you can't just add it to one of your bigger ones, but have to seperately set air forces to it, so if you add too few - the enemy will be destroying you, but too much means you're wasting those forces, while adding them to an existing theater would still let you have large force protecting it, but also protecting a larger area etc. flaws).
Damn this wall of text. Apologies, still a bit sleepy so my text is just a big sticky chunk of opinion with no organisation, but IMO my points are still valid on the most noticeable flaws of this abstraction idea.
But what concerns me the most, again, is the loss of individuality. I always loved having some favorite divisions in HoI 3 that I would take to the most important parts of the action, they would gain more experience than others, I would always remember their name and it would be something powerful. So you could actually have divisions that were more known during the war like in real history because of their extended use and whatever else, losing this aspect for the air & naval systems would be really bad. And as I said, IMO, it just turns this really fun RTS into a chess game, which has no story, no background, no context, just a bunch of figures fighting each other by some set rules, each battle being the exact same, just with different decisions. Don't get me wrong, I like chess, but I'd rather have this video game different from chess.
#targeting specific industries
I'm sure we can agree that it doesn't matter which factory you target, but rather which resource or which production line. An abstracted system can give you checkboxes for those options as well as the current system. The Allies historically targeted Schweinfurt not because they hated the name, but because production there was a bottleneck in Germany's industry. So what's the use in being able to target a specific location?
#ruining creativity
How much of that "creativity" was gamey, how much was realistic? I remember being able to destroy thousands of convoys by leaving a US-stronghold province in Africa untouched and simply targeting the adjacent naval province. The a.i. never had a chance to avoid this slaughter. Obviously it still had to supply the trapped armies as long as it still had convoys.
I fancied myself very smart and "creative"...
Let's look at the biggest air battle in history, the Battle of Britain. You can summarize the historical strategy like this:
Britain fought purely an attritional war (slight production advantage, operational advantage and conserving pilots by fighting over home turf). Germany first tried to gain air superiority and destroying all southern air fields, before Goering switched to strategic bombing (what a tool!).
That's it! Attritition, logistical bombardment, strategic bombardment. I fail to see the benefit of manually controlling each wing. It only does two things: 1. granting the human player an advantage over the a.i., 2. increasing micromanagement.
This it different from WW2 land warfare which utilized brilliant maneuvres, large encirclements etc., while on an operational level of war game (like HoI) you can't perform similar feats in air warfare. Let's take Midway as an example. The battle was decided by the carriers. The planes pretty much did the job. In HoI you have no influence about their tactical maneuvres. You can merely send fleet A into province X to engage with hostile fleet B.
I think you underestimate the possible flexibility of an abstracted air system. I see no reason to not be able to give orders for the bombers to focus on certain industries or even on certain cities. To be honest, the previouis system did a very poor job of representing WWII air combat.
If we are drawing analogies to classic games and calling the new system (which we still know too little about) chess, then the old one would have been Hungry Hippos.
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I am in favor of a simplified air warfare system as described by Seattle. It would make things easier for both the player and the AI. Furthermore do we really need as many missons? Installation strike seems one of the most useless missions around. So does runway cratering, though I can imagine that one to be useful in some cases. Logistical strike I would not do because the AI would not.
If we take aforementioned Battle of Britain, in phase one the Luftwaffe basically did the missions "air superiority", "installation strike" and "runway cratering" and "port strike".
I fail to see a scenario though where an airforce tries to gain "air superiority" WITHOUT also eliminating the air defences and air fields in reach. So why not simply merge all those missions into "logistics strike"?
That's however not really important in an abstracted system like I proposed. If you get a checkbox where you can select multiple missions, then more detailed options are not necessarily a disadvantage.
The main problem with the old system is that each wing would only perform one mission and only with sufficient organization and strength. You would need multiple wings, each on a different mission and constantly keep checking their org/strength.
Hence the proposal: click theatre, check multiple missions, assign planes, set reinforce-options (like keep fighters between 300-400). Progress bar for air superiority etc. which triggers different stages of bonusses (like the already known US-doctrince that grants unit bonus linked to air superiority).
Air warfare might be a game of numbers, but in WWII nobody knew what the numbers were. In the Battle of Britain both sides vastly overestimated the number of enemy planes they'd shot down. The Luftwaffe actually thought the RAF was all but wiped out in August. Having an air superiority progress bar grants both sides a level of intelligence they couldn't possibly have had.
On the other hand all nations had very exact and accurate numbers on how many own planes you have operational and how many you lost, even lost by cause since pretty much never was an entire formation eliminated in the same mission.
So it should be possible to get a decent estimate on the current situation in the skies. You know for a certain how many missions you fly, how often you encounter the enemy and how many airplanes lost.
If you have radar cover in the area you can even compare enemy airplane numbers in the skies and their frequency to your own 1:1 and see how they match up and who is "in control". If 600 German airplanes appear over UK in the span of an hour you can be pretty sure that they have at least that many operational machines.
My point is you don't need to know enemy losses to have a very good idea on the air superiority situation, especially where you have Radar.
Having attended a middle school history class that includes an overview of WWII gives a level of intel that leaders at the time could not have had as well. Some things are unavoidable.
The question here is not the intel level of players vs historical leaders, but rather that of the players vs each other. Even if only looking at some overview and getting figures for number of planes on patrol in a region, there are still unknowns in the enemy disposition. You will likely not have good figures for aircraft he has in reserve or for his current production amounts.
I understand your point. My point however is about the usefulness of the forementioned missions in the game, as in HoI3. I personally did not find them useful so question whether these should still be added again or left out. Indeed like you state the problem with the missions is that each wing/group can only do one mission. This makes controling airwarfare a micromanage fest.
I think in the past these missions could be of marginal utility mainly becasue of the level of micromanagement involved.
One squadron could handle three of these missions instead of only one in HOI3, if you wanted to spend the time issuing new orders every day or two. What fun is that?
A simplified system that includes these mission types might be functional without any degree of micromanagement. I don't picture it as assigning missions to individual squadrons but rather to an area of operations. You assign squadrons to the area, assign missions to the area and let the system worry about which planes are doing what on any given day.
In fact, I don't see the requirement for mission types to be a simple on/off checkbox. Why not have a priority system where missions of different types can be set to high/med/low/off instead?
One squadron could handle three of these missions instead of only one in HOI3, if you wanted to spend the time issuing new orders every day or two. What fun is that?
A simplified system that includes these mission types might be functional without any degree of micromanagement. I don't picture it as assigning missions to individual squadrons but rather to an area of operations. You assign squadrons to the area, assign missions to the area and let the system worry about which planes are doing what on any given day.
In fact, I don't see the requirement for mission types to be a simple on/off checkbox. Why not have a priority system where missions of different types can be set to high/med/low/off instead?
Because those priorities change frequently because they are interdependent. There is no logical reason why eliminating anti-air guns should have different priority in different situations for instance. However, once air defences are down, for the time being there's no further need to bombard the AA.
Now when it comes to setting priorities for air superiority vs. strategic vs. tactical bombardment, it is again utterly useless to do so. Simply because the number of fighters, strat and tactical bombers will automatically decide the degree in which each mission is to be performed.
I don't agree. Let's take the island of Truk for example. I might want to be attacking both the airfields and the port there, but one of those might be more important to me than the other depending on the strategic situation. To simply say that you always attack in the order of AA/airfield/port or perhaps its airfiled/aa/port is overly simple. I don't see it as advantageous to having the system always following some preset priority or having it make the decision on whether the defending squadrons are damaged to the point where the airfield is a lower priority target.
Why just do not have a zone to assign air wings to and then allocate a certain number of planes to each of the missions that is available. If you want more priority in attacking the naval base, just assign more aircraft to those missions. Also setting the time and day or night for each of the used mission type would keep those useful options.
I kind of like the idea. Maybe even better would be to assign prorities to different mission types (ground attack, logistic strike, etc.) similar to the new espionage system in HoI3. Do that for two plane groups, fighters and bombers.
It's been confirmed that there will be day and night bombing, more distinguished than previously. As night time bombing only makes sense for strategic due to low precision, you could simply split that mission into day and night. Then you set a percentage slider to your desired setting (like 28% day, 72% night).
The debate about the new air system basically comes down to two different ideas:
1. select wing, set target, pick mission and time frame (current system)
2. select region, pick missions, assign number of planes
In my opinion option 2 roughly gives you the same level of strategic depth, but vastly increases gameplay by eliminating unnecessary micro clickfests and constant babysitting (wing out of org, target out of reach, low strength...).
The current system leads to your wings seemingly randomly attacking targets within the range of the mission (anything higher than province-level). Always hated that my wings would attack a province that needed no bombing instead of the ones that needed bombing.
The new proposed system would simply increase the enemy's attrition (strength or org, depending on attacking bomber type) within the selected region (more for moving units, less for digged in ones).
I would go for some degree of streamlining by eliminating the distinction between "ground attack" and "ground support" (simply every assigned CAS does strength damage, every TAC bomber does org damage). Further more: you can merge "logistic strike", "installation strike", "runway cratering", "port strike" into one single "logistic bombing", maybe even merge that with strategic bombing.
I hope that we can all agree on one thing: The HoI2 and HoI3 air warfare is badly in need of a general overhaul.