Let's enjoy the game for what it is...EU3

[unmerged(11849)]

I have responded to a number of threads regarding the inadequecies of the AI, and based on the topic, mentioned what I'm writing below in piecemeal. I want to bring all my thoughts together with this thread...it's a combination of expressing my outright disappointment to gradual acceptance and finally enjoyment of the game...I am doing this because I was once again getting ready to respond to another AI post but thought, "enough is enough". I'll fire my final salvo about my opinion of the game , then back off and simply play it...

Everyone seems to be forgetting something that has been mentioned in other threads (by me and others)....this is not the WWII sim we were all expecting....this game is an extention of EU2...therefore you will have minors conquering large chunks of territory just like the minors in EU could.....as long as the game uses the EU engine, it will never be anything more than that... when we play EU2, we all have always seen 'ahistorical' events occur and it never was a problem. Perhaps the hugh time frame, and the fact that none of us connect with those era's in history, allow us to accept the alternate paths that EU2 travels. In fact, it's fun to make a minor nation stronger in EU2.

Some of us however, don't think it's fun in HOI to see Romania, Finland, or Brazil become powerful. Why is that?

It's because we can all connect with WWII since it is part of our recent history and we were expecting HOI to be a World War II sim. Also, while a minor nation in EU2 might become strong after playing 50-100 years, we are seeing minor nations achieve the same type of successes in only 3-6 years in HOI! Though HOI did not need to carbon copy the events of the war, we expected certain parameters to be set. I will once again quote from the box...HOI has "Histrorically accurate epic gameplay"....has your gameplay been "histrorically accurate"? My games, with few exceptions, haven't.

I see the core problem as twofold: Realtime play and the AI having the need to micromanage every single nation, which skews historical accuracy and perhaps the AI's performance with the major nations.

Realtime in EU made perfect sense due to the era's covered, but was it truly needed in a game that lasts from 1936 to 1948? Also, while I know there are those of you out there that like playing minor countries in the game, I would be willing to forego that feature if it meant that the AI would operate more cohesively if only the major nations needed to be micromanaged. The AI would only involve itself with minors when they are invaded.

These points I made may be unfair because HOI was designed to fit into the EU engine. If HOI plays like EU, I should simply accept it, which is what I now do. I know that the two points I made will not be changed because I'm basically calling for a complete redesign, which will not happen.

Perhaps it's my error that I expected this game to be a WWII sim so have no right to say anything negative about it. I will therefore end on a positive note. Once I reconciled the fact of what this game actually is, I find it fun to play and will continue to do so.

P.S. I noticed I mentioned "we" a few times. These are only my opinions and don't want to imply I'm speaking for anyone else.

 

[unmerged(11923)]

Originally posted by J P Falcon


I will once again quote from the box...HOI has "Histrorically accurate epic gameplay"....has your gameplay been "histrorically accurate"? My games, with few exceptions, haven't.

I see the core problem as twofold: Realtime play and the AI having the need to micromanage every single nation, which skews historical accuracy and perhaps the AI's performance with the major nations.

Exactly my points also. But I would like to add that the micromanagement the player is supposed to handle is simply wrong. But the demand for HoI shows something important though - there is a great public urge to get a global ww2 strategy game once and for all.

 

[BiB]

EU3? About 20-25% from the EU engine got in, all the rest is pretty new.

Also, a lot of posts complaining are because of players not seeing features they wanted to have seen, the most notable one is turnbased action.

 

[Jon Shafer]

The reason that minors do so well is because A) when controlled by a human player, the game isn't designed to handle neutral alliances, large amounts of warfare between neutrals, etc: it's designed to be just what you claim it isn't... a WWII simulation. B) The AI fails to build enough units right now, so you end up having minors (like Romania) having nearly as many units as the USSR (without including the human factor). My last game as Germany against the AI the USSR had a total of about 20 divisions on its western border in 1940. Romania had about 12. What do you think happens when Germany + Romania goes to war against the USSR? Germany smashes the USSR's army, and Romania proceeds to clean up as well, with little resistance and a lot of territory to cover.

Basically, the reason occurances of minors going wild are due to the system not being designed to handle those circumstances, and because the AI is often unable to counter invasions due to a lack of divisions.

 

[unmerged(10435)]

Originally posted by Trip
The reason that minors do so well is because A) when controlled by a human player, the game isn't designed to handle neutral alliances, large amounts of warfare between neutrals, etc: it's designed to be just what you claim it isn't... a WWII simulation. B) The AI fails to build enough units right now, so you end up having minors (like Romania) having nearly as many units as the USSR (without including the human factor). My last game as Germany against the AI the USSR had a total of about 20 divisions on its western border in 1940. Romania had about 12. What do you think happens when Germany + Romania goes to war against the USSR? Germany smashes the USSR's army, and Romania proceeds to clean up as well, with little resistance and a lot of territory to cover.

Basically, the reason occurances of minors going wild are due to the system not being designed to handle those circumstances, and because the AI is often unable to counter invasions due to a lack of divisions.

Which will be fixed in the following patches. I hope. And expect.

So, IMHO it isn't at all impossible that HOI won't end up being a great WW2-simulation. Of course it has much to do how you play the game. I refer to the "Does it FEEL like ww2"-thread. Don't have a link. Sorry.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Wertigo
Which will be fixed in the following patches. I hope. And expect.

So, IMHO it isn't at all impossible that HOI won't end up being a great WW2-simulation. Of course it has much to do how you play the game. I refer to the "Does it FEEL like ww2"-thread. Don't have a link. Sorry.

Well, I'm certain the latter point will be addressed. However, I'm not sure if Johan really feels 'fixing' neutral nations is something important enough to take up time instead of working on something else, like making the AI use larger amphibious invasions, etc.

 

[dsteve3]

a "neutral" can't be an alliance

Interesting about BiB's comment, only ~25% of the EU engine is in. I love the way EU2 makes those weird, querky ahistorical turns.

I always emphasize the ahistorical when I'm playing EU2. So far, same goes with HoI.

So, what do you do with alliances made up of "neutrals". Think about it! Why are they called neutral? Because they're not in alliance with anyone!

So, in an ahistorical game, how do we create new alliances? They should be called Independant Allies, as they are no longer 'neutral'. They maybe should have a unified spot in the triangle, and I don't think the AI should be spontaneously creating them, but it would make sence if a player wants to do a WC playing Argentina. And the world should react, too! I don't feel its right that an aggressive Argentina inspires the U.S. to declare war on Germany in '39.

Maybe HoI isn't EU enough? Maybe we need to have more flexibility, so that the AI acts in a rational way. We gotta think outside of the box. The history stuff applies to the beginning of the game, before we take the computer on our ahistorical joy ride!

 

[unmerged(12008)]

What I think could be useful is if the minor nations aren't as agressive as majors. This would go a long way toward "fixing" things. What would be reasonable is if Romania took over a couple of territories and then restrained themselves. Seeing Romainia conquering most of the Soviet Union (as is happening in my game where I'm playing Japan) is a bit "wrong".

 

[Lord Hammer]

I think historically accurate refers to the setup of the game eg: Majors,time frame, political stance etc... Eu3 WW2 Era you could say. I didn't expect any different from paradox because the idea of these games is to take control of a country and "change history". Too many people are expecting another run of the mill WW2 game. "oh look, they put out something different...a Wargame about WW2".How many times could we play it through as the 3 sides and not get bored?(as many of us grognards already have). HOI enables complete freedom to "change history" not just what Adolf,Josef and Franklin/Harry did. As Trip so eloquently pointed out we need to focus on the Ai issues of invasions, building up an army etc...etc...So if you wanna look at another way ...E2 with modern weapons plus. So if conquering the world(or trying) as Cuba is your bag, then go for it

 

[saffgee]

Surely the logical conclusion to draw from this thread is that neutrals should have a 'division cap'. Base it on IC maybe (which could kind of make sense) or perhaps on territory size. Either way, that would probably take care of those pesky Romanians - and shouldn't really be all too much of a programming challenge to the devs. I suppose an algorithm to assess repercussions might also not go amiss (I mean how much defence will the romanian homeland have if all their divisions go chasing off after russians - and while we're at it, how good was the romanian supply infrastructure). A diplomatic function like 'stay put' would also probably add a little more realism (I'm sure hitler would have been highly amused by romanian opportunism in the Caucasus).

 

[unmerged(11849)]

Lord Hammer, you are probably correct in your assessment of the quote on the back of the box....I recind that portion of my observations.....

 

[przy]

Excellent point Lord Hammer

 

[unmerged(2238)]

Originally posted by Souvlaki
What I think could be useful is if the minor nations aren't as agressive as majors. This would go a long way toward "fixing" things. What would be reasonable is if Romania took over a couple of territories and then restrained themselves. Seeing Romainia conquering most of the Soviet Union (as is happening in my game where I'm playing Japan) is a bit "wrong".

Well, they aren't aggressive when played by the AI--they never start wars with each other. It's when the human gets in there that things get crazy as Romania starts conquering neutral neighbors, which, for better or worse, Paradox has not prepared too much for. And then when called to fight in an alliance, minors do fight, which is sensible.

 

[Galleblære]

Originally posted by BiB
EU3? About 20-25% from the EU engine got in, all the rest is pretty new.

Also, a lot of posts complaining are because of players not seeing features they wanted to have seen, the most notable one is turnbased action.

Read the post, and you may discover why he called it EU3!

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by Galleblære
Read the post, and you may discover why he called it EU3!

I did and I think he is wrong.

 

[unmerged(12267)]

it's not just the AI

I just started another thread, "constructive criticism," wondering how it could be that the game could play out so dramatically ahistorically when the AI is running everything. Then I found this thread, which seems to be addressing the very concerns I had.

I, too, was expecting a WWII sim, and was very surprised how much HOI is not that. I'm hoping it works its way in that direction over a couple of generations of patches--or maybe an HOI2.

They did such a brilliant job modeling certain things in detail. The tech tree is a delight (even though, when you read between the lines, half the technologies are just a +1 to this or that stat). And the economic system is very cool--the dependence on trade for rubber and oil does a very nice job of recreating some of the political pressures that animated the foreign policies of the major powers.

But the whole thing is largely spoiled by the silliness of how things work out in practice. Like Japan overrunning China game-in and game-out. Japan was stretched to the limits of her manpower occupying the roughly one-quarter of China she managed to capture. Wimpy as the Chinese forces were, the Chinese front was a perpetual black-hole for Japanese divisions, right up until the Japanese empire collapsed under the U.S. onslaught.

Others have pointed out the wimpiness of the Soviet army...this is essentially analogous to the Japan-in-China issue. Russia was a quagmire of incomprehensible dimension. Germany rolled forward unopposed for weeks at a time in '41, but still they couldn't capture their three-part objectives: Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. In HOI, once I broke through the line, my Panzer divisions made it from Estonia to Moscow in days! My advance Panzer divisions made it to the Ural mountains in a couple of weeks. As long as I kept the long string of provinces under friendly control, apparently the supply trucks had no problem resupplying the Panzers at the end of a 2,000 mile long bulge.

In other words, Russia is a pushover for at least two reasons. One is their wimpy army. But the other, equally important reason, is that the hundreds of miles of open steppes and crumby dirt roads just don't slow up the Panzers the way they did in the historical event. Without that "friction," blitzkrieg is simply too devastating, especially against the AI.

 

[unmerged(3168)]

It strikes me that there are two points to why HoI struggles to give some people a WWII feel.

Firstly if what trip says is correct and the AI isn't building enough units for the Majors then that would be the biggest problem as Majors are going to be a lot easier to take out when you playing against them.

Secondly is that if you're playing a minor taking out other minors and gaining their IC's is an easy way to boost your production. I can only see two ways to stop this happing.
1) only allow minors to DoW other nations when they have outstanding land claims against that nation.
Or
2) when they are part of one of the 3 alliances.

 

[unmerged(12272)]

Would PAradox ever consider letting players Mod the game?

Im thinking weekly turns and a hex map at least..

 

[sheep]

In response to Kith:

I'd boycott Paradox games if there were restrictions on my Czech/Romania/Yugoslavia/Hungary/etc WC. The only reason I really bought the game was so I could, in fact, play EU3 with mechanized infantry, tanks, subs, nukes and the like. If I want to be restricted to playing some major power and forget about doing anything constructive with minors, I might as well go play Axis and Allies or something as equally boring.

I, for one, dislike having to deal with too much stuff, like America's navy (spam-refit, anyone?), the UK's insane amount of colonial possessions, the USSR's territory, etc. About the only "major" I can really stand to play is Italy, and it usually takes me about 10-15 minutes to organize that country's military into anything even remotely organized.

I'll agree that some minors may be overpowered, but if you've played Romania and bothered trying to actually fight the SU, you know that it's pointless, and you will die. Every. Single. Time. The only reason you see Romania in the Urals is because Germany is tying up their entire army to the Northwest, and often Czechoslovakia is in the way of any organized Russian offensive into Romania's core provinces. And yes, the SU is extremely underpowered when it comes to time for the German/Russian war. Simply because you see Romania out there means nothing. I ran one Early Tank (MG) division more or less all the way to Mongolia before I ran into any sort of resistance, and in all my other games I've seen Romania either:

a) Not make it across the river separating it from the SU.
b) Haul ass to the Pacific.

The reasons for these would be, respectively:

a) SU overruns Romania. Fast.
b) Nothing in the way of Romania except the one air wing in Stalingrad.

Romania isn't the problem here; it's the SU.

I'm not really at liberty to comment on the other majors because I haven't bothered playing too many countries outside of Eastern Europe, Finland, and Australia, but from what I can gather it's either a case of the majors all being underpowered (except for Germany, in some situations), or _all_ of the minors being overpowered. The AI most definetly needs work, as it's pretty clear that majors just aren't getting around to building units in any decent amount until late in the game (I don't see the SU actually building things until late 41, if it still controls any western provinces).

However, if you play the game on Very Hard/Aggressive, you'll notice that even with this handicap, it still puts up quite a fight. Last night it took me something like an hour to actually annex Romania with Czechoslovakia, which translated to something on the order of 100+ days game time. Then, when Germany DOW'd the SU, I more or less gave Yugoslavia/Romania/Hungary to the SU as I proceeded to run back to the safety of my core provinces. There are times when the AI really shines, and actually manages to catch you off balance (45+ Soviet divs vs 20 Czech divisions, all in Romania) and sends you reeling, and there are other times where it's basically a walk in the park. And there also IS a handicap on minors. It's called manpower. The majority of the minors I've played run out of manpower after about a year, possibly a year and a half of steamrolling. After that it's pretty much downhill.

In the end, it all relates to how you, the player, act. The AI more or less only responds.

 

[LongTom]

As soon as you go turn-based, you are into phases...and more complexity (and micro-managing) due to that. Try downloading the World In Flames computer beta and see if that's really the way you want to play...