My beef with Doomsday

[e-stab]

I'm disappointed with Doomsday in general. What features in it are really worth it?

• the light/escort carrier is implemented badly: No CAG, no range, no pictures, questionable unit attributes
• reconnaissance is tedious and its results aren't integrated in the ledger
• the expanded tech tree is lifeless (what has "elite" got to do with a '50ies tech?)
• the espionage activities are unappealing
• IC slider auto-control doesn't do what I need when I need it most: at war
• the Doomsday scenario never interested me in the first place

All that remains are features like "do not upgrade" buttons and other small tweaks. They're nice, but hardly justify an expansion on their own. Convince me otherwise if you can, but that's what I think at the moment.

I actually am a Paradox fan, but Doomsday is hurting that just like Diplomacy was. And I hope that they'll respect my opinion and maybe even make something good out of it.

 

[unmerged(56295)]

What's wrong with IC autoslide?

 

[e-stab]

IC auto-sliders are focussed on generating money with consumer goods. This can be a problem especially in wars when you have low consumer good demand, but the auto-sliders set it to a higher value anyway.
It can be circumvented, but it made me use them occasionally only.

 

[Badpaladin121]

I am not going to convince you DD is worth it yet. It needs a Major patch. Several key issues are 1.Aircraft have a mess up value and basicly the AI flys them to death. 2. If your troops are on a allies soil the computer will move them and also send them support defense missions and attacks even if you are guarding something important. 3. The ai for differnt nations seems to fall bewteen 2 extremes. Ether all out war and bloody mayhem or it just sit there. out 3 games that made it to 1944 1 was bloody mayhem while the other 2 none of the major powers went to war. 4.They say it not a bug but I am personally treating it as one only 1 leader at a time can gain exp from a battle.

 

[unmerged(14249)]

IC auto-sliders are focussed on generating money with consumer goods. This can be a problem especially in wars when you have low consumer good demand, but the auto-sliders set it to a higher value anyway.
It can be circumvented, but it made me use them occasionally only.

The auto-slider tries to maintain a level of stockpile for money and supplies. Once you have that level, it should no longer prioritise those areas. The only issue I have is that the auto-trade won't trade for money. Or maybe I've just not used it enough yet? These things are complex and take time to understand fully...

Andrew

 

[Olaus Petrus]

I was generally happy about DD, although like every Paradox products it needs few patches before perfection. I like the new intelligence system and longer time period. And it wasn't very expensive, only 20€.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

I must add to my previous message, that only thing which was bit of disappointment was, that there was no Korean war and Israeli-Arab wars as separate scenarios.

 

[goobermaster]

I for one, must say that I enjoy Doomsday, though I can understand your points G'Kar.

There are bad features, like the xp and air force systems and string errors with the intel activities, but there are a lot of good things too:

The light carriers - while they are really CVE's, I find them excellent for protecting a BB stack - they dont force the BB's to stay at carrier range, but in tandem with destroyers, provide a really effective anti-air screen.

I also find the intel system cool - while it may be tedious at times, the possibilities for throwing your opponents for a loop is quite interesting - plus it models the expensive and risky maneuver of interfering with your neighbouring countries (expensive as its $15 for the spy, but $150+ for improving relations after a failure!). And the opportunites it provides for roleplaying are excellent.

While there may be bugs and errors, (in DD scenario theres a crapload of IC in Etorofu! :wacko: )and possibly more than a fair share of them, I still believe that Doomsday is a good game.

IMO, the $30CDN I paid for it was well worth it to expand on my favourite game. Just my two cents.

P.S. I was disappointed with Diplomacy too

 

[petester]

I agree, but feel that just the "minor" enhancements alone are worth the price. There have been a lot of extra tweeks that I have noticed that have made an excellent game even better.

That being said.... there are major annoyances, of which 70% could easily be fixed with a quick patch. I am frustrated in that this seems to be moving at a snails pace. It is better, in my opinion to release a 1.1a and a 1.1b patch as necessary, than to wait a month and release a comprehensive 1.2 patch. In that intervening month, playing the game is annoying and paradox could be losing potential fans.

As for the auto-slider. I find them very useful at times, and useless at others. ie, if as germany, I research inf 41 and have +150 inf 39, this means that there is a huge bill for the upgrade pool..

Yet, at the same time, I like to do multiple serial runs in production. If I left the autoslider on, with a "upgrade" as a priority, then production could drop in 1/2 and this interfeers with my gearing bonus...(although it doesn't seem to as much in doomsday... hmm, will have to keep an eye on it.). The autoslider would work perfectly if it would allow you to set "Minimum" amounts as well. ie, let you designate, say a minimum of 10 in Upgrade, a minimum of 180 in production, a minimum of 10 in reinforcements, etc, and then let the computer play with the rest depending on the priority set. Obviously, with the caviat, that if nothing needs to get reinforced, than set it to zero.

anyway, my 2 cents.

 

[cuchulain]

[*] the Doomsday scenario never interested me in the first place
[/list]

yeah i really am not interested in the prospect of jumping into war with the us or ussr. it is fun with com chi tho. plus for an expansion pack, it needs a few more scenarios, like arab or korean wars. though i do like being able to "buy" divisions - like aircraft. i dont see why they didnt just do more work, i dont mind spending 5 quid more

 

[e-stab]

Thanks to you all for your answers.

It's not that I want to decry Doomsday, but it simply doesn't appeal me at the moment. Too many small things that should be corrected or changed.

 

[Spruce]

Thanks to you all for your answers.

It's not that I want to decry Doomsday, but it simply doesn't appeal me at the moment. Too many small things that should be corrected or changed.

about the CVL - the CVL doesn't really need a CAG cause it's a total different unit compared to the CV.

the CVL is more like a scout - or enhanced eyes that will help to improve the distance of the fleets - also ideal sub hunter. Basicly the CVL has one function during offensive naval operations - get your BB's within 25 km range during nightfall - the CV's will be useless during nightfall and the BB's will cause havoc during night ...

I'll start a german game now and I plan on building BB's and CVL's early war - not CV's. I'm eager to see if this will help the Bismark and Tirpitz in wiping out the RN ... - in my last Japan game IIRC about 33% of US carriers got sunk due to BB fire ...

 

[Ex Mudder]

Doomsday is a substantial improvement over HOI 2 - to the point that I had uninstalled HOI 2 quite some time ago. I had even given up on the boards. If you still play HOI 2, I can see why you might want to hold out until the third or so patch before buying Doomsday.

For someone who gave up on HOI 2, I was amazed to see things I had heard would never get fixed (auto-sliders) were added. While I think several changes were for the worse, I'm not too worried - Paradox has a tendency to fix those things we bitch about the most. They just tend to not tell us what they are up too.

My main sense of amazement was when I started tweaking ai files to customize them better... and discovered on playing that the generic ones were actually better than my mods! So I had to go back and replace them with the originals. First time that that's ever happened in any Paradox game.

I still think - like any good modder - that "I can do better." I also know that Johan is the jealous (irritable? supremely self confident?) type when sober, so I have to politely explian why I think my way is better and should be an considered as one of many competing coding, tweaking, testing, and balancing time sinks (or buy him a lot of beer). I was also gratified to see that some of my complaints (minors researching Agriculture, for example) were eventually incorporated into the game.

I have to wonder, however, as a frustrated ai modder myself, how much of your irritation comes from the fact Doomsday doesn't seem to need your DAIM, mainly due to (poorly documented) changes in the executable, and how much comes from genuine irritation for what seems to be an undertested and unfinished product.

For example - brigades now have their own org. I think that that is new. But it doesn't do anything. Why? What happened? What was supposed to happen? Will it happen? Why do my CVs orgs got to zero after a port strike, but not my CAGs?

I've uninstalled Civ IV already - even the new patch didin't exite me, I'm waitiing for Warlords. I'm taking a break from GalCiv II. My computer won't run Oblivion. But I'm having fun poking and prodding at DD and seeing what it can do - which is quite a lot, despite its blemishes. Like it or not, the game is pretty solid. Most of the weaknesses we've found have been deliberate design decisions (which usually result in Johan splitting the difference), miscommunications about the .exe (GDE and airpower bugs), or legacy issues (wierd leader allocations).

In the case of new problems, like automated spying, I hope (and trust) that the team will eventually come up with something good - think about what a good auto-spy implementation will mean for EU III and it's send a settler / send a merchant / send a missionary / send a spy / send an explorer (or whatever those 5 heads represent).

Just my 2 Yen. Eurocents? Pence? Whichever.

 

[e-stab]

I have to wonder, however, as a frustrated ai modder myself, how much of your irritation comes from the fact Doomsday doesn't seem to need your DAIM, mainly due to (poorly documented) changes in the executable, and how much comes from genuine irritation for what seems to be an undertested and unfinished product.

Believe me, it's not about DAIM. I'd actually be happy the day I think "Oh, there's nothing I'd like to change in the AI files.". But this day will probably never come for both me, Lothos and any other people meddling with the files. It lies in the nature of the thing.
I certainly share the "genuine irritation" you described, I thought things would be better in an expansion to a game that already has a more or less mature status.

 

[unmerged(44893)]

I'm fairly satisfied with doomsday as a whole minus the bugs.

The autosliders are a godsend.