Minor Nations and their Golden Horde

[War Emblem]

One thing that should be looked at is the massive amount of troops that minor nations can bring under arms. At times I wonder if their leaders have access to clone technology in which they are able to turn out a Golden Horde of endless armies. Now, I understand the need to make adjustments for game balance purposes. Are minor nations buffed up to such a degree for this reason? I am unclear on what the design philosophy is which allows minor nations to form such vast armies. Here is an example from a current game in December of 44.

Poland 20-28 - considering they were conquered once, liberated and have been around for maybe 1 1/2 years this is a pretty good accomplishment

South Africa 48 - a staggering amount of men under arms for the small African nation

Australia 97-133 - alright this one defies all logic. That's more divisions than GB had historically.

UK 126-205 - I 'm giving you the UK divisions as a comparison. France (who was conquered and liberated has 117-131). So France, who is a major power at the start of the game, is matched by Australia? At the peak of their involvement in WW2 in 1942, Australia had 11 infantry divisions and 3 armored divisions. This game has them having 10 times that! Australia had to cut back their number of men under arms to support their industry which is another thing that these massive men under arms totals is not taking into effect - who exactly is building things in these minor nations with so many men fighting?

Canada 50-88 - another huge total but somewhat realistic - Canada did end up having over a million men in their army. I use this as another comparison as to why SA and Australia are on the same level as Canada.

New Zealand 35 - come on. There aren't even 35 divisions of orcs available.

Luxembourg 11 - absurd! How can they even build 11?

Netherlands 54 - eye rolling

Belgium 44-69 - more eye rolling

Denmark 22-24 - who is feeding all these men!

Norway 43-69 - OK we are well past the point of ridiculous but this one just about takes the ice cream. Norway and Denmark are fielding just under a combined 100 divisions!

Yugoslavia 43-69 - this is after they have surrendered and have only the 3 provinces around Trieste liberated!

Now I have listed only democracies which further complicates the issue. Most of these nations have been at war for 5 years. Most of them have suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths. Where is war exhaustion? Who is keeping the lights on in Norway? Where is all the canned Spam coming from to feed everyone? Who is making all these uniforms? I am very curious on what the design philosophy is behind this huge inflation of combat ability given to these nations who frankly should have their brief day in the war then should recede and allow the major countries to decide things.

 

[Bundeswag]

I am very curious on what the design philosophy is behind this huge inflation of combat ability given to these nations who frankly should have their brief day in the war then should recede and allow the major countries to decide things.

It makes the game fun to play for these minor countries, of course those numbers are too much and the ai can in no way equip those units. Still a lot of minor countries like Canada, Australia, Finland and Romania fought from the beginning to the end. I don't see why these countries should only have a brief moment in the war.

Have you checked if the ai can actually equip those units?

 

[Tirenedon]

I think the real reason behind this is that there's nothing to stop you mobilising literally every man both young and old and little consequence to doing so. There's nothing representing the need to feed and pay them and factories and resource mining doesn't have a penalty depending on how many you have serving in the army.

 

[Insp Herring]

There are probably others reasons but the 2 that I can remember seeing as explanations.

1 - Maintaining the sandbox fantasy. All the minors are boosted above anything reasonable so that people can do occasional "Luxembourg/Ethiopia conquers the world" videos.

2 - Many divisions, small templates.The AI needs a lot of units (of any size) to try and manage it's fronts properly. If it builds a few large divisions, they will endlessly shuffle around the AI fronts trying to close gaps. If it builds a lot of small divisions, the whole army might have the same combat power but the numbers will look better and the AI unit shuffling manager will not freak out

2a - Many divisions, no equipment. The AI has a million divisions big and small, with enough equipment for about 10% of them. If it has the men, it trains the divisions (AI new division training is based on Enemy at the Gates 'one man takes the rifle, the next twenty five men follow the one with the rifle')

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

[...] factories and resource mining doesn't have a penalty depending on how many you have serving in the army.

Indeed, that modifier is already included in the respective conscription laws - at least for factories.

 

[HaikuEU]

It makes the game fun to play for these minor countries

I've read this argument countless time but it does seems rationale to me:

• this render the game ahistorical in it's outcome too easily.
• It create problem to the AI (production, front line, supply, ...) that hinder the user experience.
• this break the immersion.
• most of the games are played using a major country anyway.
• I, for one, find more fun to overcome a huge and realistic difficulty when playing a minor. What's the point to reproduce the same "build" every game ?
• There is plenty of mods for most of the minor to make them OP for those who want a "fun" game.

All of that for the 3 guys that occasionally like to conquer the world with Ethiopia ? I hope not.

 

[Saint Gwynllyw]

One thing that should be looked at is the massive amount of troops that minor nations can bring under arms. At times I wonder if their leaders have access to clone technology in which they are able to turn out a Golden Horde of endless armies. Now, I understand the need to make adjustments for game balance purposes. Are minor nations buffed up to such a degree for this reason? I am unclear on what the design philosophy is which allows minor nations to form such vast armies. Here is an example from a current game in December of 44.

Poland 20-28 - considering they were conquered once, liberated and have been around for maybe 1 1/2 years this is a pretty good accomplishment

South Africa 48 - a staggering amount of men under arms for the small African nation

Australia 97-133 - alright this one defies all logic. That's more divisions than GB had historically.

UK 126-205 - I 'm giving you the UK divisions as a comparison. France (who was conquered and liberated has 117-131). So France, who is a major power at the start of the game, is matched by Australia? At the peak of their involvement in WW2 in 1942, Australia had 11 infantry divisions and 3 armored divisions. This game has them having 10 times that! Australia had to cut back their number of men under arms to support their industry which is another thing that these massive men under arms totals is not taking into effect - who exactly is building things in these minor nations with so many men fighting?

Canada 50-88 - another huge total but somewhat realistic - Canada did end up having over a million men in their army. I use this as another comparison as to why SA and Australia are on the same level as Canada.

New Zealand 35 - come on. There aren't even 35 divisions of orcs available.

Luxembourg 11 - absurd! How can they even build 11?

Netherlands 54 - eye rolling

Belgium 44-69 - more eye rolling

Denmark 22-24 - who is feeding all these men!

Norway 43-69 - OK we are well past the point of ridiculous but this one just about takes the ice cream. Norway and Denmark are fielding just under a combined 100 divisions!

Yugoslavia 43-69 - this is after they have surrendered and have only the 3 provinces around Trieste liberated!

Now I have listed only democracies which further complicates the issue. Most of these nations have been at war for 5 years. Most of them have suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths. Where is war exhaustion? Who is keeping the lights on in Norway? Where is all the canned Spam coming from to feed everyone? Who is making all these uniforms? I am very curious on what the design philosophy is behind this huge inflation of combat ability given to these nations who frankly should have their brief day in the war then should recede and allow the major countries to decide things.

whats the combat width of those divisions? I remember playing Hungary and they start off with lots of divisions in theory, but the template is either 8 or 12 width (dont have it to hand).

 

[Captured Joe]

I've read this argument countless time but it does seems rationale to me:

• this render the game ahistorical in it's outcome too easily.
• It create problem to the AI (production, front line, supply, ...) that hinder the user experience.
• this break the immersion.
• most of the games are played using a major country anyway.
• I, for one, find more fun to overcome a huge and realistic difficulty when playing a minor. What's the point to reproduce the same "build" every game ?
• There is plenty of mods for most of the minor to make them OP for those who want a "fun" game.

All of that for the 3 guys that occasionally like to conquer the world with Ethiopia ? I hope not.

I agree, it feels very off playing as minor in HoI4. I find playing one in HoI3 more fun, generally.

 

[Bundeswag]

I've read this argument countless time but it does seems rationale to me:

• this render the game ahistorical in it's outcome too easily.
• It create problem to the AI (production, front line, supply, ...) that hinder the user experience.
• this break the immersion.
• most of the games are played using a major country anyway.
• I, for one, find more fun to overcome a huge and realistic difficulty when playing a minor. What's the point to reproduce the same "build" every game ?
• There is plenty of mods for most of the minor to make them OP for those who want a "fun" game.

All of that for the 3 guys that occasionally like to conquer the world with Ethiopia ? I hope not.

Good points. A part the minor nation experience should be to overcome the problems of being a small nation. I was just pointing out the possible design philosophy behind these decisions.

 

[Aries666]

Considering in HOI4 a division can be comprised of a single brigade it would be much more insightful to state what the AI is using to make its divisions.

 

[CrazyZombie]

There is desperate need for more complicated economics in KR. Simply to show that every division is an economic ballast, consuming a lot of resources and at the same time producing none.
For example, SU on the mobilization peak had 5% of armed population in the army. And it was really hard for it's economics to maintain such number.

 

[RisingSun]

That is crazy, I think if you lower their population in those areas will reduce that. They have high numbers everywhere.

 

[Kozer]

There should be a system where the higher your manpower laws and the greater % of manypower used in divisions slows down production. Not just *new manpower law = less production*
Could also be an AI tweak that goes along the lines of *If the AI cannot equip x% of divisions with 75% total equipment than it stops producing them*

 

[Shock360]

Just make it so that you have to dedicate civilian factories to upkeep forces. Kind of like a soft limit version of force limit.

 

[megaspider01]

I think an easy - but in no means a complete - fix would be to increase the penalities for using higher conscription laws, right now they barely make a dent in your industry if you have some technology to compensate with, even when you mobilize half the men in your nation.

Scraping the Barrel: 25.0% of the population. Only −40% to factory output and construction. How is it scraping the barrel if you don't even lose half you industrial strength when you lack any technology?

 

[Dalwin]

One thing that should be looked at is the massive amount of troops that minor nations can bring under arms. At times I wonder if their leaders have access to clone technology in which they are able to turn out a Golden Horde of endless armies. Now, I understand the need to make adjustments for game balance purposes. Are minor nations buffed up to such a degree for this reason? I am unclear on what the design philosophy is which allows minor nations to form such vast armies. Here is an example from a current game in December of 44.

Poland 20-28 - considering they were conquered once, liberated and have been around for maybe 1 1/2 years this is a pretty good accomplishment

South Africa 48 - a staggering amount of men under arms for the small African nation

Australia 97-133 - alright this one defies all logic. That's more divisions than GB had historically.

UK 126-205 - I 'm giving you the UK divisions as a comparison. France (who was conquered and liberated has 117-131). So France, who is a major power at the start of the game, is matched by Australia? At the peak of their involvement in WW2 in 1942, Australia had 11 infantry divisions and 3 armored divisions. This game has them having 10 times that! Australia had to cut back their number of men under arms to support their industry which is another thing that these massive men under arms totals is not taking into effect - who exactly is building things in these minor nations with so many men fighting?

Canada 50-88 - another huge total but somewhat realistic - Canada did end up having over a million men in their army. I use this as another comparison as to why SA and Australia are on the same level as Canada.

New Zealand 35 - come on. There aren't even 35 divisions of orcs available.

Luxembourg 11 - absurd! How can they even build 11?

Netherlands 54 - eye rolling

Belgium 44-69 - more eye rolling

Denmark 22-24 - who is feeding all these men!

Norway 43-69 - OK we are well past the point of ridiculous but this one just about takes the ice cream. Norway and Denmark are fielding just under a combined 100 divisions!

Yugoslavia 43-69 - this is after they have surrendered and have only the 3 provinces around Trieste liberated!

Now I have listed only democracies which further complicates the issue. Most of these nations have been at war for 5 years. Most of them have suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths. Where is war exhaustion? Who is keeping the lights on in Norway? Where is all the canned Spam coming from to feed everyone? Who is making all these uniforms? I am very curious on what the design philosophy is behind this huge inflation of combat ability given to these nations who frankly should have their brief day in the war then should recede and allow the major countries to decide things.

Interesting that you left out the fascists to sidestep the obvious problems with free manpower from the generic NF tree.

I'd say that your post agrees with my often made assertion that the conscription laws in game are far too easy to increase. Going to higher levels of conscription should be harder to accomplish, involving more restrictions. It should also involve more of a tradeoff including harsher penalties.

It makes the game fun to play for these minor countries, of course those numbers are too much and the ai can in no way equip those units. Still a lot of minor countries like Canada, Australia, Finland and Romania fought from the beginning to the end. I don't see why these countries should only have a brief moment in the war.

Have you checked if the ai can actually equip those units?

If the goal is to have those countries be more fun to play, they could have tied whatever is allowing these absurd deployment levels to the historical play toggle such that world balance is only so severely distorted in ahistorical mode.

It is hardly asking too much of the player who wishes to build a Danish empire to require him to choose for historical mode to be off.

 

[War Emblem]

I note that I address only democracies because they could not nor should not be able to sustain unlimited war with full public participation. Since you bring up the MP bonus from the NF tree now I think it is much needed! How can Fascist nations even compete without this bonus? Look at the numbers that the Democracies are putting into the field. There are many more democratic nations in the game than fascist nations and if Australia can put 120 divisions in the field you better believe Romania needs that extra couple % points.

 

[Dalwin]

Letting the fascists have somewhat more would be fine if that extra amount was not being piled on top of a number that is already far too large. I don't object to the fascist bonus per se, but rather to Hungary having 120-150 divisions before Barbarossa even starts. It is downright silly. I think the game would be much more like WWII if in historical mode most minors were only able to field about one quarter of the units they currently can.

Obviously there are exceptions. The number of units fielded by China, for example, is not excessive.

 

[daemonofdecay]

I think an easy - but in no means a complete - fix would be to increase the penalities for using higher conscription laws, right now they barely make a dent in your industry if you have some technology to compensate with, even when you mobilize half the men in your nation.

Scraping the Barrel: 25.0% of the population. Only −40% to factory output and construction. How is it scraping the barrel if you don't even lose half you industrial strength when you lack any technology?

It would also make historic choices make more sense. Germany's late total mobilization of their economy is a big favorite example. It would also allow for the historic role lend lease helped play: allowing nations to free up more men for service. The large numbers of American trucks being sent to the USSR were essential to their later offfensives. At this point, most of the economic decisions seem to be no brainers, and no brainers just don't add depth - or represent the real challenges a nation should face.