My recurrent questions about HOI III.

[roverS3]

Mulburries were not a big success historically.
On 20 of june, one was destroyed by storm. And that after a lot of problems like sinking supplies. It may fit with the level 1 harbour and explains why Allied HQ decided to grab a deep water port.

I think the Level 1 harbour is fine as it forces you to grab a serious port to keep up the campaign, I only object to the total lack of supplies to begin with. I don't believe the allied forces in the area had entirely run out of supplies by the 20th of June, but in the game that's what's modelled. If they had given all the forces there about 5 days of supplies to start with it would have been closer to historical.

I think that the 0 supply at start does not mean no ability for allied troops. I checked that a bit and they are able to resist with honor even at this level of supply.

Yes, units still have some combat ability without supplies, but it's severely hampered (-50%), and casualties tend to be significantly higher. Basically it's as if they're fighting with bayonets, and using their immobilised vehicles as protection against incoming enemy fire.

There are US transport planes in London and some UK airborne troops in England. Possible to drop them with the supply benefit.

Yes, I think those transports and paratroopers were in reserve historically, so it does make some sense.

Not sure to make a complete AAR but peraphs i'll give some historical comparisons. The biggest problem is that the more you are far from the initial date of the scenario and the more you will get away from History of course because ennemies won't replay History (AI...). To make a complete replay of History, HOI III isn't the best after initial date. An old but good boardgame about battle of Normandy in solo mod seems to be the best way to illustrate what happened (no use for AAR there... books are better).

Do what you're comfortable with. I just think your approach is interesting and the results are worth being shared.
I think the annoying enemies not playing along is what would make such an endeavour interesting. To still try to recreate the historical campaign, and inevitably slowly drift away from the history, while still attempting to stay as close to it as possible. Then again, I can be a bit of a masochist when it comes to wrestling with HOI3... The thing is that, once you've sorted out the lack of supply problem, the 1944 scenario is a cakewalk for the Allies, especially if you control the units individually. Therefor some kind of restriction like having to broadly follow the historical road-map and timeline despite enemy action can make it much more interesting.

That's only a pity that it is now not possible to play multi by internet. I would dream to play a US/UK/SU against GER/JAP/IT with a partner on net.

Unlike @Wraith11B I'm not set up to play several nations at the same time, also my ocd with division names and my tendency to take time to ponder every move I make works against my playing multiplayer. That said, I'd love to see an AAR of such a multi-player game.

Unfortunately, HOI IV may be used for that but the level of the game isn't here yet.

Yes, I'm holding out until they announce HOI5 before I buy the complete edition with all of the DLCs... Sure HOI4 has some interesting features, but it's far from 'being there', as you say. Having seen how much better HOI3 TFH is when compared to the v1 vanilla game, I'm holding out and playing that.

As for your campaign, I'd suggest expanding the port in Cherbourg immediately and grabbing more ports, like Le Havre etc. Keep the supplies flowing!

 

[Dr. Intolerance]

I think the Level 1 harbour is fine as it forces you to grab a serious port to keep up the campaign, I only object to the total lack of supplies to begin with. I don't believe the allied forces in the area had entirely run out of supplies by the 20th of June, but in the game that's what's modelled. If they had given all the forces there about 5 days of supplies to start with it would have been closer to historical.


Yes, units still have some combat ability without supplies, but it's severely hampered (-50%), and casualties tend to be significantly higher. Basically it's as if they're fighting with bayonets, and using their immobilised vehicles as protection against incoming enemy fire.


Yes, I think those transports and paratroopers were in reserve historically, so it does make some sense.


Do what you're comfortable with. I just think your approach is interesting and the results are worth being shared.
I think the annoying enemies not playing along is what would make such an endeavour interesting. To still try to recreate the historical campaign, and inevitably slowly drift away from the history, while still attempting to stay as close to it as possible. Then again, I can be a bit of a masochist when it comes to wrestling with HOI3... The thing is that, once you've sorted out the lack of supply problem, the 1944 scenario is a cakewalk for the Allies, especially if you control the units individually. Therefor some kind of restriction like having to broadly follow the historical road-map and timeline despite enemy action can make it much more interesting.


Unlike @Wraith11B I'm not set up to play several nations at the same time, also my ocd with division names and my tendency to take time to ponder every move I make works against my playing multiplayer. That said, I'd love to see an AAR of such a multi-player game.


Yes, I'm holding out until they announce HOI5 before I buy the complete edition with all of the DLCs... Sure HOI4 has some interesting features, but it's far from 'being there', as you say. Having seen how much better HOI3 TFH is when compared to the v1 vanilla game, I'm holding out and playing that.

As for your campaign, I'd suggest expanding the port in Cherbourg immediately and grabbing more ports, like Le Havre etc. Keep the supplies flowing!

I can attest that HoIIV must be avoided. Its developers seem to have no common oversight on where they want the game to end up, probably the same fate as HoIIII. HoIII/AoD/DH were the pinnacle of the genre. HoIIV is too inconsistent, for example in where their ideas of how the game should graphically communicate to the player, Iwo Jima is about half the size of Taiwan represented on the map and the map lacks zoom buttons offering only mouse wheel or page up/down buttons on the keyboard. The most obvious point of things going very wrong is a huge fps drop when viewing troop movements because of the need to render fog of war across the globe. Any rts that cripples its fps because of fog of war should be abandoned like the Titanic.

 

[Pugmak]

Thanks for responding.
In my example, (-0.19/+1.60) has two numbers. And there are 3 factions (allies, axis, comintern), aren't they?

That's also the reason why i don't understand this information.
More help, please?

Probably already answered but here's this just in case:

The two numbers represent left/right and up/down drift. If the numbers indicate a down and right drift, then that country is drifting toward the faction in the bottom right corner of the triangle, for example.

 

[SBHR]

Question 5 : in the Manpower indicator, what mean "Base" and "Base value" in the popup regarding to the value beside icon?

 

[Kovax]

"Base" refers to the sum of all of the individual provinces which supply manpower, plus any off-board manpower. That's modified by techs, minister traits, laws, events, and other factors to give you a final value. The "base" value is not subject to change, unless you gain or lose provinces with manpower; the final value can and will change frequently.

 

[SBHR]

Thanks for responding.

For instance, in Gotterdammerung scenario, at start, UK values :
- Beside icone = 609,
- In popup Base=701.409 Base Value=+4.00 From Improved Technology=+90% School of Mass Combat=+5% Three-Year Draft=+25%

I understand that "beside icon" value of manpower (609) is a modification of "popup" base value (701.409) by improved techno... and others.
But what means Base Value (+4.00)?

 

[Kovax]

Not positive about the +4.00, because I don't recall seeing it in my own games. It probably relates to some country-specific bonus, or else manpower from a puppet. The +90% for Improved Technology seems normal, and the +5% Minister trait and +25% draft law modifier are both commonly available. I've also never gone beyond dabbling briefly with the alternate start scenarios, because most of them were never properly rebalanced for the later expansions: "Play at your own risk".

 

[SBHR]

Question 6 : in original manual, they say there are nine levels of intelligence for provinces and five for military units. I do see level for provinces but where is the unit level?

 

[Wraith11B]

I don't think anyone's been really able to ever answer that question... I've actually never seen that (of course, I didn't start playing until SF because I was in Iraq).

 

[SBHR]

Question 7 : i tried to install and use HOI III on a PC with Windows 10 pro 64. It's utterly bullshit. I click on standard steam launcher icon on desktop and nothing. I read threads about Windows 10 issues on this forum and add podcast.exe. Nothing. I launch directly hoi_tfh in steam folder. It says that d3dx9_42 isn't there. I install it in systeme 64 (and system 32). I click. Another generic error 07cb.
My PC is absolutly new and quite with nothing changed on it.

Did you succeed in playing it with Windows 10 and how?

Edit 1 : apply threads below for DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) but when i launch i see clock with no end. When i try to install Redistributable Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Update 3 RC, it doesn't want.
Edit 2 : of course, HOI IV is not my solution because it is not an historical wargame.
Edit 3 : modifying settings in hoi iii steam folder with fullscreen=no first works. Restart after changing again settings with fullscreen=yes is working after for all times. But even if setting is in fullscreen, you keep on window mod... strange, sometimes with terrible ingame window totally unusable.
Conclusion : some games like CKII may be played with all DLC paying each month. Not HOI III. Looks like Paradox knows game doesn't work properly on Windows 10 (it doesn't indeed).

Edit 4 : after testing a bit, it seems to work in window mod. Don't know if really stable in a long lan multiplayer game but to launch correctly and see what you have to see on screen, here is a summary of what i did today for that to work.
1) I work on Windows 10 pro 64 laptop I7 10th generation, 16Go RAM, RTX 2060 resolution=1920*1080. Absolutly new PC with quite no install of everything.

2) I installed in this order :
a) DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) (go in google and type "DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)" to find on internet)
b) No use to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Update 3 RC. Just check that your system has 2010 but you should have now if you installed a). If not, install 2015 (go on google and type "Redistributable Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Update 3 RC")
c) Find podcast.exe link in this thread even if you don't use Black ice mod (i don't) : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/black-ice-10-42-released.1461474/ and download it. You will find hoi3_tfh in it. Install it in your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Hearts of Iron 3 (save before original hoi3_tfh)
d) Go to your C:\Users\"Your name"\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Hearts of Iron III settings file. Open it and check those lines (save file before) :
size=
{
x=1680
y=1050
}

and

fullScreen=no

For size, adapt regarding to your screen resolution. It must be below if you don't want to have problem to see everything.
Note that you won't play fullscreen but it is not a problem if you hide your windows taskbar and choose the nearest resolution below your desktop resolution (use resolution proposed by game : 1024x768, 1366x768, 1600x900 or 1680x1050 for instance (make some tests to have the best view))

e) Go to your normal steam launcher on the desktop for HOI III and click. You will see that it works good. If you didn't install podcast.exe hoi3_tfh version, it will run indefinitely. If you used fullscreen, some buttons won't appear greatly.

I tested it on a 3 PC lan multiplayer, each using a different OS. And it works. Will see later if crash, unstable or so later.

I hope it will help those who like this game and want to play it even on W10. Because, sorry, HOI IV is no comparison with it.
If problem, ask me. I will try to answer. This because it was a bunch of work to be able to launch this game. If you can go faster, it will be the best for you.

 

[SBHR]

I reinstalled W10. Tried to reinstall HOI III following my own procedure.
That didn't work. It's now impossible to launch game from launcher.
Installed all direct X june 2010, Visual C++ x86 and X64 for 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2015-2019, podcast.exe, fullscreen no but : nothing!

That's a joke.

Any help?

 

[Kovax]

For one Paradox game, I had an installation failure, and couldn't go any further until I used a registry cleaner to remove all of the entries of the previous attempts. After that, it worked. That shouldn't be the problem after a Win 10 reinstall, though.

My only suggestion would be to post the issue in the HOI3 Tech Support sub-forum, rather than General Discussion, so it's more likely that someone at Paradox views it.

 

[Count Blue]

It's now impossible to launch game from launcher.

Have you tried launching the executeable directly?

 

[SBHR]

Have you tried launching the executeable directly?

Many times with different compatibility options.

 

[Had a dad]

Conclusion : some games like CKII may be played with all DLC paying each month. Not HOI III. Looks like Paradox knows game doesn't work properly on Windows 10 (it doesn't indeed).

works fine for me, with no issues, first time every time, but HOI3 was last developed in 2012, what game company goes back to a game released almost a decade ago and updates it?

 

[Had a dad]

My only suggestion would be to post the issue in the HOI3 Tech Support sub-forum, rather than General Discussion, so it's more likely that someone at Paradox views it.

do this, and tag me. we'll see what we can figure out for why it doesn't work for you.

 

[SBHR]

what game company goes back to a game released almost a decade ago and updates it?

Creative Assembly when they release a remastered version of Rome Total War for instance.
And a lot of other examples indeed.

 

[Had a dad]

oh, the so called "remastering"... which is sold for as much as the original sold for....

Dont get me wrong, I'd love a hoi3 remaster, as could get a few things fixed that cannot be fixed by modding or lua modding.

 

[Count Blue]

remaster

What do you think?
Is the problem that the original source code isnt available anymore or is Paradox simply hell bent on selling only "new games"?

 

[Had a dad]

What do you think?
Is the problem that the original source code isnt available anymore or is Paradox simply hell bent on selling only "new games"?

profitability is my guess. DO you wanna sink 1000's hrs into something that will sell a few thousand copies or into something that sells hundreds of thousand copies? I mean I wish they'd do something aking to hoi2's source code with hoi3 and open it up to a few teams that wanna bleed over the code, alas that doesn't seem likely.