Is HoI4 moving towards an attrition based game?

[ingwe]

As someone said before, WWII was a war of attrition. Sure, the early Axis victories meant that there was a possibility of the weaker side triumphing due to tactical victories, but it really came down to production on a lot of levels. This was particularly true of the air war. That said, HOI4 will at least allow for you to try out different things like variants and such that may allow for less of a war of attrition, but at it's heart, that is what this conflict was about.

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

Take a Battle of Britain, by switching focus from bombing airfields and factories to cities Germany lost the airwar there but it was not the attrition that they were suffering that made them stop bombing airfields and factories but wrong leadership.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Building 1.6 BB every year? it must be some sort of gigantic RC toy or something.

1.6 BB/year doesn't imply that BB's are smaller or weaker or unrealistically easy to produce. It only implies that many shipyards are unrealistically able to focus all of their resources on constructing a single ship. In HoI4, nine women CAN make a baby in a single month.

 

[fellaz007]

Take a Battle of Britain, by switching focus from bombing airfields and factories to cities Germany lost the airwar there but it was not the attrition that they were suffering that made them stop bombing airfields and factories but wrong leadership.

I do not understand the point here? Yes, it was a leadership error, to switch from the airfields to the cities, but isn't it possible to replicate this with HOI4 as well? Change the target type for your bombers.

And the Battle of Britain was surly also a battle of attrition as well. In the end (and after the change of the Luftwaffe's target focus) the British fighter production kept up with the attrition.

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

But that included three pronged attack on GB, from France, Germany and Norway. Not just amassing fleet of aircraft to send them over the islands for a moment. Micro is needed to make a difference. At this point I feel like they are dumbing the game down, not for players but he AI so it can keep up with the player through sheer production capacity of everything....

 

[keynes2.0]

Take a Battle of Britain, by switching focus from bombing airfields and factories to cities Germany lost the airwar there but it was not the attrition that they were suffering that made them stop bombing airfields and factories but wrong leadership.

God, this canard has probably been with us all the way back to 1946.

Germany was not winning the BoB before they switched targets. This false impression comes because the British were overestimating German numbers and production and the Germans were underestimating British numbers and production. So at the time the British thought they were losing and the Germans thought they were winning. However historians after the war could look at the numbers both sides actually had. Unfortunately by the time they did this, the dramatic stories had already been told.

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

God, this canard has probably been with us all the way back to 1946.

Germany was not winning the BoB before they switched targets. This false impression comes because the British were overestimating German numbers and production and the Germans were underestimating British numbers and production. So at the time the British thought they were losing and the Germans thought they were winning. However historians after the war could look at the numbers both sides actually had. Unfortunately by the time they did this, the dramatic stories had already been told.

Well according to every historians I know and read, be it american, englishman, german or russian source, all come to same conclusion so since I have not been there myself I tend to agree with them and goverment archives. If you have any sources that say otherwise please provide I would like to examine them.

 

[seattle]

agree on air and land but for naval:

When it is possible to lose your entiore navy in 1939 and have it rebuild in 1942, the battles can not be THAT decisive. Seems to me more like EU4 where you occasionally sacrifice your entire fleet to cross that one street and then just build it again. But as stated, I guess this is also to be balanced?

Hmm, I wasn't aware that ship building times had been decreased. Do you have any examples? Are the numbers final?
When the US sank the Japanese carriers at Midway, it was clear that the RJN would never be able to recover because it took them 3 years to build a carrier. I think the US managed to do it in 1 year!
I would obviously love to see that reflected in HoI4. Ship building times need to be realistic to distinguish that warfare from land and air. It's what makes naval battles so intriguing and the long-term nature of planning so interesting.

Not sure though what you mean by "losing navy in 1939 and rebuild by 1942". It should be possible to rebuild your navy in 3 years, since that's the construction time of a carrier. Unlike previous HoIs you can't even go all-out naval production (due to the distinction between naval and land IC). Theoretically HoI4 should guarantee decisive naval battles because of it. Germany will have very limited naval IC compared to Japan for instance. Out of Germany's total IC I guess only ~20% will be available for naval production.
What about that argument?

 

[seattle]

God, this canard has probably been with us all the way back to 1946.

Germany was not winning the BoB before they switched targets. This false impression comes because the British were overestimating German numbers and production and the Germans were underestimating British numbers and production. So at the time the British thought they were losing and the Germans thought they were winning. However historians after the war could look at the numbers both sides actually had. Unfortunately by the time they did this, the dramatic stories had already been told.

Well, he took that argument straight from the BBC series "World at War". I'm not sure if that account is correct (after all it was made in the 60s). No expert on that.

 

[keynes2.0]

I'm not an expert, I just know that Britain was building more aircraft then Germany every month of the Battle of Britain and Germany was losing more aircraft then Britain every month. Silly, non-expert me, this leads me to conclude that Britain was winning before and after the shift in targets.

But I'm sure that an unnamed historian wrote a really great book explaining why I'm so naive for concluding this. A book that really tackles the numbers and doesn't just use a grand sweeping narrative and anecdotes.

 

[FOARP]

There really isn't any point basing your view of the game on the construction speeds in the WWW videos - those are only Beta stats and subject to change.

And yes, HOI3 was basically attritive in warfare-style. The AI only ever pushed along the entire line which made every fight an attrition battle. Strategic air warfare is also always attritive - you deploy your fighters, you launch your bombers, and one side loses more than the other side and thus 'wins'. Convoy warfare is also your classic war of attrition - but at least in HOI4 you'll be able to see the battles happening and not just endless "3 convoys sunk in X" message-spam.

No, can't see that this game's going to be more attritive than HOI3.

 

[Leo2]

For me persomally HOI IV looks more like a mouseclick simulator, at least what i have seen in the www streams. It's too "casualized" for me. And the worst thing is the OOB, because it's totally missing in this game. So i will wait until the first DLC comes out and then maybe i will buy it in a steam sale.

Happily Stellaris comes out. This is my new hope and one game is enough for me with my generous free time.

 

[Beagá]

Take a Battle of Britain, by switching focus from bombing airfields and factories to cities Germany lost the airwar there but it was not the attrition that they were suffering that made them stop bombing airfields and factories but wrong leadership.

It was a waste of aircraft and pilots and the very example of war of attrition where one side lost.

Going for the mediterranean was the smart choice for the "historical" german build up, that probably includes the AI. I don´t think anyone wants to see HOI 2 AI sending bombers at infantry divisions in England being mauled again and again. Or british bombers going to Rhineland in 1940 and being mauled.

 

[Slyvena]

For me persomally HOI IV looks more like a mouseclick simulator, at least what i have seen in the www streams. It's too "casualized" for me. And the worst thing is the OOB, because it's totally missing in this game.

How can you possibly criticize something for being a mouseclick simulator AND removing the OOB when that dam OOB accounted for 50% of the clicks in HOI3? Like, I don't even think I'm joking, it was probably about half the clicking when you were playing a major. (USSR... never again)

The first thing I did in HOI3 was mod the OOB bonuses you would gain from having average to good leaders directly into player only modifiers and just play without assigning any, so much faster, so fewer clicks.

EDIT: Oh, and modding HQ ranges to longer than the width of the earth so they could all just sit nicely in the capital out of the way... I think the AI found it easier to deal with things because of that too

 

[Invader_Canuck]

What I am getting at is that if they take away for example interception of aircraft on the way to its destination from the game then you do not need long range fighters for early interception. Gradual interception was what was used all the time.

Also I get that WW2 was most about mass production capacity but I would not like the HoI4 to become C&C Generals of grand strategy games.... just order stuff then select it and send it vaguelly in the direction of the enemy with attack move order....

I believe you can set air superiority missions anywhere.

If you're germany this means you can start your air defense strategy in any province your fighters can reach. Start it in southern england if you want or can.

 

[Invader_Canuck]

How can you possibly criticize something for being a mouseclick simulator AND removing the OOB when that dam OOB accounted for 50% of the clicks in HOI3? Like, I don't even think I'm joking, it was probably about half the clicking when you were playing a major. (USSR... never again)

The first thing I did in HOI3 was mod the OOB bonuses you would gain from having average to good leaders directly into player only modifiers and just play without assigning any, so much faster, so fewer clicks.

EDIT: Oh, and modding HQ ranges to longer than the width of the earth so they could all just sit nicely in the capital out of the way... I think the AI found it easier to deal with things because of that too

Young padawan, the secret to playing as the USSR was to create your entire OOB on day 1, save, and never start a USSR game ever again. If you wanted to play the USSR, you loaded the OOB save ;p

 

[DawnofAzazel]

I'm not an expert, I just know that Britain was building more aircraft then Germany every month of the Battle of Britain and Germany was losing more aircraft then Britain every month. Silly, non-expert me, this leads me to conclude that Britain was winning before and after the shift in targets.

But I'm sure that an unnamed historian wrote a really great book explaining why I'm so naive for concluding this. A book that really tackles the numbers and doesn't just use a grand sweeping narrative and anecdotes.

As I understand it the worst of the losses for Germany was in trained Airmen not actual planes because the Allies managed to recover a great many downed pilots and where the Allies were using fighters the Germans were using fighters and bombers with each loss of a bomber costing several more trained airmen.

 

[kalauer]

Hmm, I wasn't aware that ship building times had been decreased. Do you have any examples? Are the numbers final?
When the US sank the Japanese carriers at Midway, it was clear that the RJN would never be able to recover because it took them 3 years to build a carrier. I think the US managed to do it in 1 year!
I would obviously love to see that reflected in HoI4. Ship building times need to be realistic to distinguish that warfare from land and air. It's what makes naval battles so intriguing and the long-term nature of planning so interesting.

Not sure though what you mean by "losing navy in 1939 and rebuild by 1942". It should be possible to rebuild your navy in 3 years, since that's the construction time of a carrier. Unlike previous HoIs you can't even go all-out naval production (due to the distinction between naval and land IC). Theoretically HoI4 should guarantee decisive naval battles because of it. Germany will have very limited naval IC compared to Japan for instance. Out of Germany's total IC I guess only ~20% will be available for naval production.
What about that argument?

We saw 1.6 BB per year in WWW on low efficiency, so of course it depends on your amount of shipyards but it seems to be very fast, doesn't it? I think that what you mentioned "clear that the RJN would never be able to recover" does not happen to this extent with these production numbers. This may be a design decision or still open for balancing but I agreee with OP that it is worrisome.

 

[kalauer]

1.6 BB/year doesn't imply that BB's are smaller or weaker or unrealistically easy to produce. It only implies that many shipyards are unrealistically able to focus all of their resources on constructing a single ship. In HoI4, nine women CAN make a baby in a single month.

For simulation reasons, the latter may be acceptable since there are ten-thousands of groups of nine women. When it comes to shipyards, which you mave have four or five of, the time needed to build a ship seems odd. Yet.

 

[seattle]

We saw 1.6 BB per year in WWW on low efficiency, so of course it depends on your amount of shipyards but it seems to be very fast, doesn't it? I think that what you mentioned "clear that the RJN would never be able to recover" does not happen to this extent with these production numbers. This may be a design decision or still open for balancing but I agreee with OP that it is worrisome.

I get it now. It might be a matter of interpretation though. A starts three production lines of BBs. Each BB takes 2 years to complete. After 1 year A would have 0 BBs, after 2 years 3 BBs, after 3 years 3 BBs, after 4 years 6 BBs and so forth...
The production rate of all three lines combined would be 1.5 BB per year. Maybe that's what the screenshots actually tell us. I might be just a stat of your average production per year.

It would be pretty bad if the US goes full assembly line, expands her naval facilities even further and pumps out 10 carriers/year meaning that it can replace a lost carrier in 5 weeks. I hope that's not the way it works.