More variety?

[Fletz]

Hello Everyone!

I already read most of the info we got from paradox, but what i do not know is if it will be possible to create and customize stuff of my country during the game (like research, politics, production, units etc.) in a reasonable way of course. What i am talking about is that i always disliked that my Tank level III had actually exactly the same attributes as all the other tanks level III around the world, the same with infantery, doctrins, planes etc.

Wouldnt it be awesome if i could have influence on the attributes of my units in an indirect way by laying different focus during the research for example so that at the end my new researched tank level 2 is more like a matilda (slow but massive) than a german Tank2 (fast).

The same about the doctrins, why does my grand battle doctrin need to be exactly the same like the doctrins of other nations who decided to research the same path... why dont you connect this for example to the head/chief of army (minister), battle expierences and research for example?

why i suppose that this customizing feature needs to be controlled indirect? to avoid too much micromanagement, but customizing would add flavour, strategic options, more variety etc. and at the end many of my decisions (choosing ministers, setting focus in research, even diplomatics etc.) would have more importance and impact if you connect it to customizing your country or units of your army.

are there any plans that HoI4 will in some way like that? hoi2 didnt have it unfortunately and hoi3 had it at least a little bit when you think about researching only some certain parts of tanks for example.

 

[Mahaanus]

This has never worked long term. In an year at most, maybe two, people would have already figured out the optimal build, so all that customization will turn into busy work. Also, say bye-bye to variety when that happens.

Not to mention the massive disadvantage an A.I. would have.

 

[Fletz]

i understand, maybe thats an issue, but wasnt there always a kind of "optimal build" in every HoI for every nation? if not, why not? i think it only depends on balancing! so in whatever way you customize you will/should have advantages and disadvantages... and for example what the optimal build of your army is depends "mainly" on the opposing army,... for example if the russian mainly uses soft-units it would be an disadvantage if the german leader was focusing over the past years on hard attack of his tanks...

 

[telesien]

I believe this was the reason behind many technologies in HoI3. You know, making you tanks faster and more powerful by focusin on guns and engines or rushing new model by skipping reliability. And we all know how that ended.

 

[mursolini]

The problem is, how to implement the focus right.

For example, "customisation" worked for light tanks, as you could chose to make them either super fast but with next to no firepower, and they would work well for encirclemets, or keep them able of fighting. But that was one of a few units that actually were customisable with purpose in HOI3.

Most of the time, it was much better to stick to generic high-level troops that to make customisation. Most people never used all 3 types of tanks simultanuously, 2 types were used at most.

Same applies to Planes, you would rather go with high level Light planes, if you can`t afford both light and medium.

Hoi3 problem could`ve been solved if they balaced reserch system in a different way, making reserch time much longer, and practicals much more important, thus creating space for various optimisation, but in general, people prefer to go with as "narrow" build as possible, to conserve resources.

 

[Fletz]

The problem is, how to implement the focus right.

For example, "customisation" worked for light tanks, as you could chose to make them either super fast but with next to no firepower, and they would work well for encirclemets, or keep them able of fighting. But that was one of a few units that actually were customisable with purpose in HOI3.

Most of the time, it was much better to stick to generic high-level troops that to make customisation. Most people never used all 3 types of tanks simultanuously, 2 types were used at most.

Same applies to Planes, you would rather go with high level Light planes, if you can`t afford both light and medium.

Hoi3 problem could`ve been solved if they balaced reserch system in a different way, making reserch time much longer, and practicals much more important, thus creating space for various optimisation, but in general, people prefer to go with as "narrow" build as possible, to conserve resources.

i understand this point, but actually its not really a contra argument, it shows even more that the greatness of this feature depends of right balancing! it shouldnt be possible to be in every thing superior and it should be necessary to focus and every strength should also have his weakness etc.

and i would appreciate it if customization is not to easy and it shouldnt be too easy to get exactly everything you want. thats why i was talking about indirect customization, so that it depends on different factors (ministers, research"teams", battleexpierence etc.) which you can directly influence.
for example youre trying to have fastest/mobile army is depending on your "researchteam" (skills, and yes i know there wont be researchteams like in HoI2, but you can also take/create something simliar), ministers and also luck that everything goes the way you wanted so that it can also happen that the new generation of motors were an unlucky fail and you can decide to fix it or try again or it may have an other advantage and you take it as it is.

i always loved it when the units and the character of an army were different to the army of the enemy... i remember there were hoi2-mods which worked this way (you were able to take influence on unit-attributes by events)

 

[mursolini]

i understand this point, but actually its not really a contra argument, it shows even more that the greatness of this feature depends of right balancing! it shouldnt be possible to be in every thing superior and it should be necessary to focus and every strength should also have his weakness etc.

and i would appreciate it if customization is not to easy and it shouldnt be too easy to get exactly everything you want. thats why i was talking about indirect customization, so that it depends on different factors (ministers, research"teams", battleexpierence etc.) which you can directly influence.
for example youre trying to have fastest/mobile army is depending on your "researchteam" (skills, and yes i know there wont be researchteams like in HoI2, but you can also take/create something simliar), ministers and also luck that everything goes the way you wanted so that it can also happen that the new generation of motors were an unlucky fail and you can decide to fix it or try again or it may have an other advantage and you take it as it is.

i always loved it when the units and the character of an army were different to the army of the enemy... i remember there were hoi2-mods which worked this way (you were able to take influence on unit-attributes by events)

The problem is, you`re not forced to use under-developed stuff most of the time, you can build an army that will only consist of high-tech units that cover all the needs you will ever need.

HOI game`s doesn`t have enough complexity to force usage of a lot of niche equipment. Great example would be navy. You can only really care about 1 type of capital ship and one type of escort, in fact, having more is just a waiste of resources.

For armies, you generally need a "hold the line" division, break enemy`s line division, manuver in the rear division and terrain-specific divisions.

For airforces you need an interceptor and bomber. MR can fill both roles, with CAS or CAG fulfiling the role of naval bomber.

Overall, you can do perfectly fine, while using only a small fraction of units existing in game, because game mechanics allows only for so few usage niches, in fact, game encourages you into narrow build by having practicals.

 

[Fletz]

but thats why i supposed not to be able to specialize and focus in certain niches in a such direct and effective way cause its depending on other factors which actually you can influence directly... so at the end you are forced to use under-developed stuff (or partly underdeveloped) and can only TRY to use your ressources as focused as possible but will never get perfect focus and perfect specializing like you were able in former HoI-games.

so for example you can tell the industry, ministers, scientists etc. what you want and what you need (as you mentioned: perfect "hold the line"-divisions, "break enemys line"-divisions, etc.) but how good it will work out depends on different other factors like knowledge of the country and its industry, traditions, expierence and also little luck so that you maybe can also get surprisingly something you didnt wish but should try to make best use of it.

so it would work out in this way, wouldnt it? the only problem i see is that the development of the game is already to advanced to think about such a feature!? but it would fit with the interest of the developers to make it more to an strategic game (you choose the scientists who do research) and less to an tactic game (youre the scientist and develop the tank you want, like in former HoI-games)

 

[teremaster]

I always wanted more variety in the navy, i felt the linear improvements weren't actually historically accurate, older guns and equipment still had their advantages e.g the HMS Vanguard used 1918 16' guns and yet still outperformed the US Iowa class battleships. I never felt that the game rewarded a balanced navy, either. Aircraft Carriers and submarines seemed to be the only ships really worth your time building, disappointing me since i am an avid battleship fan.

Also the differences with tanks was something i was really hoping for as some tanks were just better than others. IE the T-34/76.

 

[Karlburg]

At the divisional level, the specific technical differences between tanks wasn't anywhere near as important as the way they were employed.

 

[Fletz]

At the divisional level, the specific technical differences between tanks wasn't anywhere near as important as the way they were employed.

@karlburg: not sure about this... especially at the beginning of barbarossa it was very important, wasnt it?
and maybe it makes not a big difference in a battle if one tank of faction A has more soft attack and is faster than the tanks of faction B, but on the long run at the whole frontline i would say it makes quite a difference...

@teremaster: totally agree!

 

[telesien]

I never felt that the game rewarded a balanced navy, either. Aircraft Carriers and submarines seemed to be the only ships really worth your time building, disappointing me since i am an avid battleship fan.[

Well that part is realistic

Also the differences with tanks was something i was really hoping for as some tanks were just better than others. IE the T-34/76.

Not really. T-34 tanks were masters of versatility, but in individual aspects they were outperformed by more specialized tanks

 

[Fletz]

@telesien: youre right
in HoI the T34 was always the regular tank for regular tank divisions and more specialized tanks like anti-tank-tanks were in support brigades...
no problem with that

i only dont like it that every regular tank divison of every country had the total same attributes on any level... of course it shouldnt be too easy to customize and "create" own tanks or other units because then if there is a lack of good balancing everyone would customize in the same way, thats why i am saying:
customizing should depend on other factors and is not done by the player himself (like in Vic2 in your tax politics you also were limited by the ruling party for example)
and there should be a kind of shortage of ressources for every country so that they cant research all and everything perfect

so at the and it would depend on strategic decisions (like for example which ministers, generals and scientists do i employ, which has effect on the way how units will get customized/researched/developed)

 

[FOARP]

I always wanted more variety in the navy, i felt the linear improvements weren't actually historically accurate, older guns and equipment still had their advantages e.g the HMS Vanguard used 1918 16' guns and yet still outperformed the US Iowa class battleships. I never felt that the game rewarded a balanced navy, either. Aircraft Carriers and submarines seemed to be the only ships really worth your time building, disappointing me since i am an avid battleship fan.

Yeah, because everyone remembers the historical battles in which aircraft carriers were defeated by battleships. Oh wait.

 

[Secret Master]

I always wanted more variety in the navy, i felt the linear improvements weren't actually historically accurate, older guns and equipment still had their advantages e.g the HMS Vanguard used 1918 16' guns and yet still outperformed the US Iowa class battleships. I never felt that the game rewarded a balanced navy, either. Aircraft Carriers and submarines seemed to be the only ships really worth your time building, disappointing me since i am an avid battleship fan.

I see you have TFH registered. Have you tried a battleship oriented fleet in TFH? You will find it very efficient through 1941 and even later. You should also take a look at changes made to SHBB stats.

There's no reason a competently led battleship force in TFH can't do well, as long as it has some kind of air cover.

You can also do well with CA/CL fleets under air cover, too.

 

[ajac]

I agree though wish we had more customization and even variety. Id like Units I could personally would love to be able to make custom brigades that cost more or less then the standard ones but more to what I would like.

 

[Fletz]

is there actually anything know about certain customization in research? (at least different parts of the units (tankmotor, tankarmor, etc.) like in HoI3?) or is there any possibility that the units in HoI4 will differ from country to country or from game to game?

 

[Big Nev]

I always wanted more variety in the navy, i felt the linear improvements weren't actually historically accurate, older guns and equipment still had their advantages e.g the HMS Vanguard used 1918 16' guns and yet still outperformed the US Iowa class battleships. I never felt that the game rewarded a balanced navy, either. Aircraft Carriers and submarines seemed to be the only ships really worth your time building, disappointing me since i am an avid battleship fan.

Also the differences with tanks was something i was really hoping for as some tanks were just better than others. IE the T-34/76.

Excuse me?

Vanguard out-performed who, when exactly?

She never fired her guns in anger whilst the Iowas certainly did. She was 3 kts slower, with a slightly thicker belt but much poorer horizontal protection.

Whilst I agree that her guns were old, actually old, not just an old design they were 15”, not 16”.

That said, if she’d been finished in time to take-part, she would have probably found it easy to dispatch any of the Axis battleships/battlecruisers in her weight class with the exception of Bismarck & Tirpitz. That would have been a slug-fest with advantage to Vanguard due to better fire-control radars.

 

[Beagá]

is there actually anything know about certain customization in research? (at least different parts of the units (tankmotor, tankarmor, etc.) like in HoI3?) or is there any possibility that the units in HoI4 will differ from country to country or from game to game?

The problem with hOI 3 was that everyone researched everything at the same pace and prodcution was too similar as well. You didn´t have to create a production line for a chassis and have tons of head aches and loss of time from upgrading it. That meant US could have up to date heavy tanks in 1941 already. It´s quite a problem with game design; but on the other hand it shouldn´t be done in a way that Germany HAS to have better tanks.

The tanks you have should be a sum of many factors, and not only research, but also production. Want to spend tons of cash on 1939 heavy tanks? Ok, but it is a crap chassis with no possibility for improvement (Char 1 bis, KV, Matilda...). On that aspect Germany was "smart" in focusing on lighter designs.

 

[GarfunkeL]

IE the T-34/76.

The superiority of the T-34 is a myth

The T-34 is possibly the only weapon system in history to be rated by most commentators as the finest all round weapon in a century of warfare, and yet never consistently achieved anything better than a one to three kill-loss ratio against its enemies.(21) The fact that the USSR produced 54 550 T-34s (easily the most widely produced tank of WWII) and hence produced a ‘war winning’ tank is a separate strategic level discourse and should not be confused with giving the T-34 credit for being effective at the tactical level.

One very significant point about these figures is that if we remove the 11 900 AFVs received by the Soviets via Lend Lease, and allocate all German WWII fully tracked AFV production to the Wehrmacht’s East Front forces (i.e. add those lost fighting the Western Allies), then the Germans would have only needed kill loss ratio of 2.45 to 1 in order to have destroyed all Soviet fully tracked AFVs that existed on 22nd June 1941 (23 300 AFVs) and all 99 150 fully tracked AFVs produced during the war (122 450 AFVs). This figure is well below the 2.94 to 1 kill-loss ratio historically achieved. These figures demolish another more recently fashionable myth relating to the East Front; specifically that the Soviets (largely due to the huge number of T-34s produced) could have won WWII without any input from the US or Commonwealth forces.

It's well worth it to read the whole page.