This post contains most of the info from the recent prewiev and interwiev at SGO.
Where the information in the prewiev contradicts the one in the interwiev, I have trusted the interwiev to have the most accurate and up to date information. I have omitted some subjects that has already been covered in the FAQ thread. That thread might have been a better place to post this, but it has been closed. This post is not in the Q&A form.
As we all know HoI is a work in progress, and many changes will occur before the release. I may have let some of my assumptions be presented as facts, and I may have misunderstod something. I have tried to keep my speculation confined to ( ).
Units:
The units you move on the map are task forces. There are three basic types of task forces, air, land and naval.
Land task forces are made up of divisions, each representing about 10000 men.
Division types: Infantry, Cavalry, Motorized Infantry, Mechanized Infantry, Armored, Paratroop, Marines, and Mountain
Infantry and Armored divisions can be further customized by a higher initial investment, which adds a brigade of specialized support units such as AA, AT, Engineers, or Artillery.
Specialized units have higher values in some stats.
(Note: there will also be HQ units)
Elite divisions: currently being planned, so a lot is uncertain. Elite status is chosen on creation of the unit, optional rules will allow for units to achive elite status through experience. Effects of being elite; recovers organization percentage faster, fight to the last man, and might even receive all new equipment upgrades automatically.
Milita divisions: cheaper and faster to build. Suffer a 1% operational loss every day
Other land units: Garrisons and Partisans
(Note: not much known, but partisans will be related to the dissent level in the occupied territory)
Ground unit stats: ground defense, air defense, hard attack, and soft attack.
All units of the same type has the same value in these stats, regardless of nationality.
(Note: I have no idea if this list is exhaustive, but I doubt it is. I think that units will also have various other characteristics, like; weight, used for naval and air transport, and possibly strategic movement. They will also have a movement value. Unit types will be soft or hard, used to determince which combat factor is used.)
Some values for these stats: panzer division soft-attack 5, infantry division ground defense 3.
Units have organizational (morale) percentage and an operational percentage.
Air task forces are made up of air divisions.
(no info on types)
Naval task forces will be made up of capital ships and groups of smaller vessels.
(no info on types)
Movement:
When a unit is ordered to move or attack it will give you an estimated time of arrival (ETA), you can then set the ETA at that or a later time.
Units will probably have different speeds, and a task force moves as fast as its slowest member. On land each mech/armor unit can also "carry" ¼ of an unmech-/unmotorized infantry division for free.
Combat:
Combat will have complex mechanics, and will be logical and realistic. Land units can attack, probe, blitz, defend, or (currently planned) camouflage. Camouflage is trading org. % for increased air defence.
Combat modifiers will be implemented based on organization level, operational strength, fortifications, river crossing/landing/paradrop situation (only first round effect), terrain, surprise, envelopment factor, weather, leadership modifiers, and time of day.
The envelopment factor is based on the number of enemies attacking from different directions.
During combat, each attacking unit chooses a defending target unit based on a priority set by the player. For each appropriate attack strength point (hard or soft, depending on target) of the attacking task force, the attacker has a chance of causing a certain organizational and operational loss to the defender. Combat is conducted in rounds, but the player will hardly notice this. One combat round is 1 hour in the game, about 1 minute in real time, this will of course vary with speed setting...
Example of combat (from the SGO prewiev):
A panzer division has a typical soft-attack strength of 5, and an unimproved infantry division has a ground defense of 3. In an armored assault vs. soft target, the attacker would check five times against: 01-95: Defender takes -2% to -6% loss in organization and 1-2% in operational strength. 96-00: (critical)Defender takes -12% organization and -5% operational strength. plus first round automatic -5-15% hit to org due to armor shock.
Once each of the attackers strength points has determined its effect, each defender strength point has a 67% chance of neutralizing a single random attackers strength point effect. Of course, the pain of war doesnt fall only on the defender. After the first round, the defender gets to reciprocate as above. Further, each attack costs the attacker -3-10% supply and 3-10% fuel expenditure, the defender loses -2-7% supply.
(Note: I assume the various % of a certain result is taken from a CRT and is based on attack vs. defence)
A unit below 30% organization breaks and retreats, a unit below 15% org. surrenders. This will be different for elite units.
POWs play no part in the game after the unit has surrendered.
Not much is know about naval and air combat, but watch out for interceptions, blockades, and surprise attacks.
How naval and air integrates with ground combat is not known, but there will be tactical bombing.
Economy:
Units are bought by the expenditure of Industrial Capacity (IC) and manpower. Manpower will replenish slowly over time, but will be a much more limiting factor than it was in EU2.
A certain amount of a nations production is used for consumer goods, this helps keep the popultaion happy.
Countries need natural resources such as oil, steel, coal and rubber. If you control a land route to the resources you can use them, otherwise you have to set up convoys to transport them.
There will probably be naval shipyards, but their effects are unknown.
Intelligence:
Intelligence operations are currently anticipated to have effects on enemy dissent levels, production, military efforts, steal technologies, etc. Commando raids can also destroy installations, and pave the way for main force attacks. Intelligence can also give you information on enemy forces and maneuvers. Intelligence is affected by techonolgy, leaders and ministers, and probably other factors as well.
Infrastructure:
There are seven levels of transport network for an area, and various other improvements, one of which is AA.
Supply:
Units need supply and fuel to operate effectivly. A unit can get supply from friendly cities, ports and HQ units. Supply can be traced up to 3, 2, and 1 region respectively. Supply or fuel shortage means that a unit will take additional organization losses.
(Note: I suspect that fuel and supply has to be manufactured and then transported to the unit, but that the transportation itself will be abstracted)
Research:
Technology is not linear like it was in EU2. Research is divided into theoretical and applied. Theoretical research is useless by itself, but once you have completed the thoretical research in a field you can start with applied research in that field. Eg: Once you have completed theoretical research in the field of radar, you can start researching various applied radars, these again will (presumably) offer benefits to your units. Each theoretical field research completed will open up four or more fields of applied research that can then be researched.
There will also be various doctrines to develop, like land doctrines that allow your land units to have a higher organizational %.
(Note: there might be other benefits as well, and I wouldnt be surprised if there were naval and air doctrines as well)
Dissent:
Increases with losses and as the war wears on, decreases with victories. Domestic policy will also affect dissent, most notably the amount of production spent on consumer goods.
Dissent will affect your leaders loyalty.
For democratic nations elections will decrease dissent (and production for 3 months). Democratic nations must have elections every 4 years.
(Note: The way I understand it high dissent levels can cause a change of government for democratic nations, which means your ministers get substituted)
For facist and communist governments high dissent levels can lead to civil war. In a civil war the country gets divided in two, the other half under control by an AI (assuming its a player controled country). The other side will ally with all your enemies.
(Note: Wonder what happens to a country where the rebels win the civil war, especially a human controlled country?)
Government ministers:
There will be various government ministers that has responsibility over and helps you manage various tasks. Ministers are selected from a pool of available candidates, each with its own set of stats, like loyalty and independence. Ministers also have an ideology (communist, facist or democratic), thats affects his loyalty to the government. Replacing ministers will increase dissent.
What the ministers will do is not know exactly, but it seems that they can be used to reduce the amount of micro-management you have to do, or to automate entire aspects of the game. (Leave your foreign policy in the capable hands of Mr. Ribbentrop and let Speer take care of the industry. Research is another area I suspect will be possible to delegate to ministers.
The exact ministerial posts are not know, but foreign, industry and defence are some educated guesses, the later might even be divided too army, navy and air. I hope there will be many more, like intelligence, propaganda, research, etc.)
Diplomacy:
The ideological spectrum is as triangle with communism, fascism and democracy at the three corners. Neutral countries will move around this triangle as they are influenced by other countries. Each ideology has a primary power (that presumably doesnt move), democracy->Britain, fascism->Germany, and communism->USSR. You can spend diplomatic influence points to make neutrals move on the triangle, hopefully bringing them under your sphere of influence.
There will be 3 main alliances, axis, allies and comintern. The US can can not join any but the allies. The USSR can join any of them, but while a member of the axis or allies, the comintern will be dormant.
Military leaders:
Units are lead by military leaders. Dissent affects a leaders loyalty. Leaders may gain additional abilities, but this will be rare.
Allied cooperation:
Countries in the same alliance will be able to lend units to each other, putting the units in question under the allys control. They can build units for each other, and transport each others units in ships and planes.
Air interception:
Air units have an interception radii, measured in miles. A unit can only reach a province if the center of the province is within the radii. It is the players choice when/if to launch interception.
Various:
Captured equipment might be represented by an automatic replenishing of operational %.
Units and leaders might defect when their country is occupied.
There will be no separate pilot pool (My guess is you still need manpower...).
CAP from carriers will be abstracted into higher air defence and attack values for the carriers.
The US can not enter the war until certain conditions are met.
There will be fog of war, there will also be intelligence that might reveal enemy units.
Where the information in the prewiev contradicts the one in the interwiev, I have trusted the interwiev to have the most accurate and up to date information. I have omitted some subjects that has already been covered in the FAQ thread. That thread might have been a better place to post this, but it has been closed. This post is not in the Q&A form.
As we all know HoI is a work in progress, and many changes will occur before the release. I may have let some of my assumptions be presented as facts, and I may have misunderstod something. I have tried to keep my speculation confined to ( ).
Units:
The units you move on the map are task forces. There are three basic types of task forces, air, land and naval.
Land task forces are made up of divisions, each representing about 10000 men.
Division types: Infantry, Cavalry, Motorized Infantry, Mechanized Infantry, Armored, Paratroop, Marines, and Mountain
Infantry and Armored divisions can be further customized by a higher initial investment, which adds a brigade of specialized support units such as AA, AT, Engineers, or Artillery.
Specialized units have higher values in some stats.
(Note: there will also be HQ units)
Elite divisions: currently being planned, so a lot is uncertain. Elite status is chosen on creation of the unit, optional rules will allow for units to achive elite status through experience. Effects of being elite; recovers organization percentage faster, fight to the last man, and might even receive all new equipment upgrades automatically.
Milita divisions: cheaper and faster to build. Suffer a 1% operational loss every day
Other land units: Garrisons and Partisans
(Note: not much known, but partisans will be related to the dissent level in the occupied territory)
Ground unit stats: ground defense, air defense, hard attack, and soft attack.
All units of the same type has the same value in these stats, regardless of nationality.
(Note: I have no idea if this list is exhaustive, but I doubt it is. I think that units will also have various other characteristics, like; weight, used for naval and air transport, and possibly strategic movement. They will also have a movement value. Unit types will be soft or hard, used to determince which combat factor is used.)
Some values for these stats: panzer division soft-attack 5, infantry division ground defense 3.
Units have organizational (morale) percentage and an operational percentage.
Air task forces are made up of air divisions.
(no info on types)
Naval task forces will be made up of capital ships and groups of smaller vessels.
(no info on types)
Movement:
When a unit is ordered to move or attack it will give you an estimated time of arrival (ETA), you can then set the ETA at that or a later time.
Units will probably have different speeds, and a task force moves as fast as its slowest member. On land each mech/armor unit can also "carry" ¼ of an unmech-/unmotorized infantry division for free.
Combat:
Combat will have complex mechanics, and will be logical and realistic. Land units can attack, probe, blitz, defend, or (currently planned) camouflage. Camouflage is trading org. % for increased air defence.
Combat modifiers will be implemented based on organization level, operational strength, fortifications, river crossing/landing/paradrop situation (only first round effect), terrain, surprise, envelopment factor, weather, leadership modifiers, and time of day.
The envelopment factor is based on the number of enemies attacking from different directions.
During combat, each attacking unit chooses a defending target unit based on a priority set by the player. For each appropriate attack strength point (hard or soft, depending on target) of the attacking task force, the attacker has a chance of causing a certain organizational and operational loss to the defender. Combat is conducted in rounds, but the player will hardly notice this. One combat round is 1 hour in the game, about 1 minute in real time, this will of course vary with speed setting...
Example of combat (from the SGO prewiev):
A panzer division has a typical soft-attack strength of 5, and an unimproved infantry division has a ground defense of 3. In an armored assault vs. soft target, the attacker would check five times against: 01-95: Defender takes -2% to -6% loss in organization and 1-2% in operational strength. 96-00: (critical)Defender takes -12% organization and -5% operational strength. plus first round automatic -5-15% hit to org due to armor shock.
Once each of the attackers strength points has determined its effect, each defender strength point has a 67% chance of neutralizing a single random attackers strength point effect. Of course, the pain of war doesnt fall only on the defender. After the first round, the defender gets to reciprocate as above. Further, each attack costs the attacker -3-10% supply and 3-10% fuel expenditure, the defender loses -2-7% supply.
(Note: I assume the various % of a certain result is taken from a CRT and is based on attack vs. defence)
A unit below 30% organization breaks and retreats, a unit below 15% org. surrenders. This will be different for elite units.
POWs play no part in the game after the unit has surrendered.
Not much is know about naval and air combat, but watch out for interceptions, blockades, and surprise attacks.
How naval and air integrates with ground combat is not known, but there will be tactical bombing.
Economy:
Units are bought by the expenditure of Industrial Capacity (IC) and manpower. Manpower will replenish slowly over time, but will be a much more limiting factor than it was in EU2.
A certain amount of a nations production is used for consumer goods, this helps keep the popultaion happy.
Countries need natural resources such as oil, steel, coal and rubber. If you control a land route to the resources you can use them, otherwise you have to set up convoys to transport them.
There will probably be naval shipyards, but their effects are unknown.
Intelligence:
Intelligence operations are currently anticipated to have effects on enemy dissent levels, production, military efforts, steal technologies, etc. Commando raids can also destroy installations, and pave the way for main force attacks. Intelligence can also give you information on enemy forces and maneuvers. Intelligence is affected by techonolgy, leaders and ministers, and probably other factors as well.
Infrastructure:
There are seven levels of transport network for an area, and various other improvements, one of which is AA.
Supply:
Units need supply and fuel to operate effectivly. A unit can get supply from friendly cities, ports and HQ units. Supply can be traced up to 3, 2, and 1 region respectively. Supply or fuel shortage means that a unit will take additional organization losses.
(Note: I suspect that fuel and supply has to be manufactured and then transported to the unit, but that the transportation itself will be abstracted)
Research:
Technology is not linear like it was in EU2. Research is divided into theoretical and applied. Theoretical research is useless by itself, but once you have completed the thoretical research in a field you can start with applied research in that field. Eg: Once you have completed theoretical research in the field of radar, you can start researching various applied radars, these again will (presumably) offer benefits to your units. Each theoretical field research completed will open up four or more fields of applied research that can then be researched.
There will also be various doctrines to develop, like land doctrines that allow your land units to have a higher organizational %.
(Note: there might be other benefits as well, and I wouldnt be surprised if there were naval and air doctrines as well)
Dissent:
Increases with losses and as the war wears on, decreases with victories. Domestic policy will also affect dissent, most notably the amount of production spent on consumer goods.
Dissent will affect your leaders loyalty.
For democratic nations elections will decrease dissent (and production for 3 months). Democratic nations must have elections every 4 years.
(Note: The way I understand it high dissent levels can cause a change of government for democratic nations, which means your ministers get substituted)
For facist and communist governments high dissent levels can lead to civil war. In a civil war the country gets divided in two, the other half under control by an AI (assuming its a player controled country). The other side will ally with all your enemies.
(Note: Wonder what happens to a country where the rebels win the civil war, especially a human controlled country?)
Government ministers:
There will be various government ministers that has responsibility over and helps you manage various tasks. Ministers are selected from a pool of available candidates, each with its own set of stats, like loyalty and independence. Ministers also have an ideology (communist, facist or democratic), thats affects his loyalty to the government. Replacing ministers will increase dissent.
What the ministers will do is not know exactly, but it seems that they can be used to reduce the amount of micro-management you have to do, or to automate entire aspects of the game. (Leave your foreign policy in the capable hands of Mr. Ribbentrop and let Speer take care of the industry. Research is another area I suspect will be possible to delegate to ministers.
The exact ministerial posts are not know, but foreign, industry and defence are some educated guesses, the later might even be divided too army, navy and air. I hope there will be many more, like intelligence, propaganda, research, etc.)
Diplomacy:
The ideological spectrum is as triangle with communism, fascism and democracy at the three corners. Neutral countries will move around this triangle as they are influenced by other countries. Each ideology has a primary power (that presumably doesnt move), democracy->Britain, fascism->Germany, and communism->USSR. You can spend diplomatic influence points to make neutrals move on the triangle, hopefully bringing them under your sphere of influence.
There will be 3 main alliances, axis, allies and comintern. The US can can not join any but the allies. The USSR can join any of them, but while a member of the axis or allies, the comintern will be dormant.
Military leaders:
Units are lead by military leaders. Dissent affects a leaders loyalty. Leaders may gain additional abilities, but this will be rare.
Allied cooperation:
Countries in the same alliance will be able to lend units to each other, putting the units in question under the allys control. They can build units for each other, and transport each others units in ships and planes.
Air interception:
Air units have an interception radii, measured in miles. A unit can only reach a province if the center of the province is within the radii. It is the players choice when/if to launch interception.
Various:
Captured equipment might be represented by an automatic replenishing of operational %.
Units and leaders might defect when their country is occupied.
There will be no separate pilot pool (My guess is you still need manpower...).
CAP from carriers will be abstracted into higher air defence and attack values for the carriers.
The US can not enter the war until certain conditions are met.
There will be fog of war, there will also be intelligence that might reveal enemy units.
