New research system has gotten better and worse at the same time..

[Palmetto]

I loved the research system in HOI1. Problem is, I got so involved in it that I was too busy researching stuff to want to fight a war. That combined with air unit micromanagement was why I kept ending my games a couple of weeks into Barbarossa.

I suspect I would prefer a little more micromanagement in research than what HOI2 has, partly because HOI1 set the bar so high. Though hopefully with HOI2 I'll actually be playing until the war is actually decided for a change. I plan to reserve judgement until I've played the game a lot more...which I intend to do.

 

[unmerged(11633)]

How?

Example, I'm the United States. It's 1941. I've just finished researching Advanced Medium Tanks, but I want to go the historical route and instead build masses of cheap shermans.

How do I do this in the game?

Sherman's aren't obsolete yet (although they will be soon so that'll prevent me building them at all), so I can still choose to build them (altough if I'd researched semi-modern armor, I couldn't build shermans *at all*).

They're not significantly cheaper than building advanced mediums though, so I don't get a quantity advantage. I just end up (stupidly) paying the same amount for inferior equipment.

They'll auto upgrade to advanced mediums as soon as they hit the field anyway, so even if they were cheaper to build, they wouldn't stay that way once they hit the field.

Set up several massive 99 division serial run of your tank divisions, and don't cancel it when better technology becomes available, place few resources towards upgrades and prioritise infantry and air power for upgrades.

With the accumulated gearing bonus (35% +/- 10% depending upon the standing/drafted army slider) your serially produced Shermans will be 45% cheaper than producing new tanks.

Seriously, I think that HOI 2 places many of the quality/quantity decisions in sliders rather than techs. I'm surprised that many people bemoaning the tech tree of HOI 2 (never played HOI 1, so I can't comment), haven't suggested changing slider affects to represent hard to change national decisions upon force deployment. In my opinion it may be better to mod sliders to have greater effects of force composition, to better mod national differences.

 

[unmerged(37680)]

IMO the new tech system was the best game design decision made for HoI2, with the possible exception of the trade system revamp. The system is more elegant, more playable, and more realistic than the original.

You've got to be kidding! Tech system in HoI is infinitely more realistic than in HoI2. In HoI you essentially have a military budget - whatever IC is left after CG allocation, and you have to make hard choices about dividing that budget between supplies, production and research, and there's a trade-off between quantity and quality. The US in HoI is absolutely unable to keep up with UK and Germany in research in 1936 (after being already far behind them to begin with) because of very high CG demand at low values of War Entry and can later catch up only at the cost of producing few troops. In HoI2 the US can easily keep up with everybody since nobody has more than 5 teams and at the same time produce units to its heart's content - even in quite unrealistic (for 1936) numbers. Furthermore, in HoI the US is burdened with big supply requirements of the navy which in 1936 take a big chunk out of the research budget (and you can totally forget about new production with that pathetic military budget). In HoI2 neither supply nor research is a challenge (and you can spend all non-CG IC purely on production) because the US can easily get all money for research and all the necessary supplies by selling resources - there are absolutely no tradeoffs (other than having slightly smaller pile of oil when the war starts - sufficient to support "only" 400 armor divisions rather than 500). Now, let me ask you this - just where exactly does the US government get all those resources for trade when they are all produced by private companies?! In effect you have either a massive backdoor increase of military budget or massive nationalization, neither of which is realistic or even in any way plausible. If you point out that there is resource trade in HoI, here's a huge difference - it's all barter, you don't get any money or supplies for the government from it, but rather private companies trade some resources abroad for other resources, making those other resources available domestically for factories constituting the national IC. However the government can claim only a small portion of that IC via its military budget. That is much more realistic that the government somehow supplementing its military budget (in the form of non-CG IC) with massive exports of private property :wacko:

P.S. I'm not a fan of any particular tank model and actually used armor in any quantities in only one of my games - I prefer mech and special forces.

 

[unmerged(3902)]

Set up several massive 99 division serial run of your tank divisions, and don't cancel it when better technology becomes available, place few resources towards upgrades and prioritise infantry and air power for upgrades.

With the accumulated gearing bonus (35% +/- 10% depending upon the standing/drafted army slider) your serially produced Shermans will be 45% cheaper than producing new tanks.

Seriously, I think that HOI 2 places many of the quality/quantity decisions in sliders rather than techs. I'm surprised that many people bemoaning the tech tree of HOI 2 (never played HOI 1, so I can't comment), haven't suggested changing slider affects to represent hard to change national decisions upon force deployment. In my opinion it may be better to mod sliders to have greater effects of force composition, to better mod national differences.

And all those tanks will immediately get upgraded to modern tanks the moment they get deployed.

Net result? Depending on the gearing bonus and upgrade cost modifiers, I either saved a bit of money on modern tanks, or went through an inefficient, roundabout route to get the same tanks I could have gotten cheaper and faster by just building modern tanks directly.

The gearing bonus may or may not save you a bit of money on your equipment, but it in no way allows you to opt for a quantity army. As it stands now in game, short of delibrately gimping yourself by not putting money into upgrades, you're always going to have the best available equipment in the field.

 

[Tormodius]

I guess this is a very important discussion... I have not yet had the opportunity to play USA, but I get the idea of what Stoopid Noob points out here, but I'm not too worried, because of the peacetime IC penalty.

Does not the USA get more peacetime IC penalty than Britain? I got several "gearing up for war" events for Britain reducing that penalty. If USA really is overpowered in the 1936 campaign, as Stoopid Noob says, then it should be possible to mod that peacetime IC penalty so drastically that they cannot produce any big number of units. And perhaps it even makes them start with fewer tech teams? So after the FDR starts his industry regime, they might start getting events like Britain... I thought the number of tech teams were dependant on the amount of IC, but perhaps it is the base IC and not the modified IC that decide how many teams you can have working simultanously? hmmm...

 

[unmerged(3902)]

The centeral issue in my mind isn't that the US can build lots of units prior to 1936. That, as you mentioned, can be modded to a degree by simply gimping the US's IC production.

The issue as it stands though is that, as a player, I have neither the need, nor the opportunity, to make trade offs.

I don't have to make a tradeoff between research and production because each is in a seperate and distinct pool.

I don't have to make a tradeoff between quantity and quality. In point of fact, I *can't* make such a tradeoff as the game won't let me. Unless I do something delibrately stupid like refusing to research or upgrade my units.

These sorts of tradeoffs are what makes a game interesting and provides replayability to me. Others may disagree, but for me that's what makes or breaks a game.

 

[unmerged(37680)]

The centeral issue in my mind isn't that the US can build lots of units prior to 1936. That, as you mentioned, can be modded to a degree by simply gimping the US's IC production.

The issue as it stands though is that, as a player, I have neither the need, nor the opportunity, to make trade offs.

I don't have to make a tradeoff between research and production because each is in a seperate and distinct pool.

I don't have to make a tradeoff between quantity and quality. In point of fact, I *can't* make such a tradeoff as the game won't let me. Unless I do something delibrately stupid like refusing to research or upgrade my units.

These sorts of tradeoffs are what makes a game interesting and provides replayability to me. Others may disagree, but for me that's what makes or breaks a game.

I completely agree. What's even worse, for the US there are no tradeoffs at all since not only research, but even supplies are totally disconnected from production. The US does not need to produce any supplies until much later in the game since they can be easily bought. In fact the US starts the game already getting some supplies from Japan in exchange for oil. Reducing US ability to do research may or may not improve the game balance (probably not unless in wartime US can do more research than anybody else), that's not the point. The point is that in HoI right from the start you have to make a strategic decision about the balance between quality and quantity. As Germany, you choose between researching improved med tanks just several months before WWII and then barely managing to build just a few divisions without brigades in time for an attack on Poland or mass producing basic med tanks. In HoI2 you just don't have this choice. It looks like it's geared toward people who consider research a nuissance (just look at messages from people proudly declaring they could not figure out HoI tech system!), don't want to fret over strategic tradeoffs and just want to rush to combat. Land combat to be exact - air combat has been dumbed down as well so as not to distract people from land battles. A lot of people will love this game and that's fine with me, but I wish Paradox had not misrepresented the new game as HoI Plus.

 

[unmerged(9685)]

It looks like it's geared toward people who consider research a nuissance (just look at messages from people proudly declaring they could not figure out HoI tech system!),

HOI 1 was a micro M hell. HOI 2 will apeal to a lot more people.

don't want to fret over strategic tradeoffs and just want to rush to combat.

This statement has no foundation at all. Typical " You dont like this, so you *must* adore the opposite extreme." Just because people this HOI 1 was micro hell, does not mean they dont want *any* choices etc. Stop polarising people.

Land combat to be exact - air combat has been dumbed down as well so as not to distract people from land battles.

Oh, has not the naval combat gotten a serious revamp?

A lot of people will love this game and that's fine with me, but I wish Paradox had not misrepresented the new game as HoI Plus.

Its clear that you are very dissapointed about HOI2, but I think you will find that HOI2 appeals to a much larger crowd, and that on a general level, the changes that have been done is well recived and thus, *is* HOI Plus.

Now, I suggest you go back to playing HOI 1 or wait for a mod as obviously you want a change of the game system as the developers have said *wont* happen.

 

[Keynes]

How?\.

Either dont research advanced armor (historical route) or - if you want to go for a general quality strategy - dont allocate IC to upgrades.

 

[unmerged(3902)]

Either dont research advanced armor (historical route) or - if you want to go for a general quality strategy - dont allocate IC to upgrades.

So my only choice is to delibrately do something dumb ?

Sure I *can* never research advanced tanks, but there's no advantage to doing so, I jsut get to use lousy tanks. I don't save ICs by not doing the research, I don't really get any benefit at all.

The whole point of a quality/quantity dichotomy is that there are compelling arguments on both sides and a valid question : is one really good armored division better than two average ones?

In HOI 2 there's no upside to going quantity. I don't save ICs on resarch because reseach and production are different buckets. I don't end up with appreciably more units because the units all cost about the same. All I do is gimp myself.

 

[Keynes]

You've got to be kidding! Tech system in HoI is infinitely more realistic than in HoI2. In HoI you essentially have a military budget - whatever IC is left after CG allocation, and you have to make hard choices about dividing that budget between supplies, production and research, and there's a trade-off between quantity and quality.

By realism, I mean having any relation to how these things worked in real life. The system you just described does not.

In HoI2 neither supply nor research is a challenge (and you can spend all non-CG IC purely on production) because the US can easily get all money for research and all the necessary supplies by selling resources - there are absolutely no tradeoffs (other than having slightly smaller pile of oil when the war starts - sufficient to support "only" 400 armor divisions rather than 500).

Just as in real life, when the US tech effort did not prevent it from peforming prodigious logistical feats. If you want tough tech tradeoffs, play a country like Italy, which in HoI2 as in real life had to make very tough choices about which areas to modernize. Tough choices not always available in HoI 1 where Italy could engage in early easy conquests with basic forces and focus its IC on ahistoric tech rushing.

Now, let me ask you this - just where exactly does the US government get all those resources for trade when they are all produced by private companies?.

Exactly the same way as in HoI1. Its an abstracted econ system where the total IC production representes the total industrial resources of the country and where the "consumer" sector in free enterprise economies represents private sector activity. Perhaps you would prefer a more formal system, with a fully modelled tax and monetart system? I would but I doubt must others would, But this gets beyond the discussion at hand.

 

[Keynes]

The whole point of a quality/quantity dichotomy is that there are compelling arguments on both sides and a valid question : is one really good armored division better than two average ones?

In HOI 2 there's no upside to going quantity. I don't save ICs on resarch because reseach and production are different buckets.

The answer in simple: spend zero on upgrades, use the very substantial IC savings on more production. That savings can be very big upside in terms of more units.

The tradeoff is there, you just dont want to make it. Which is a different problem.

 

[unmerged(3902)]

The answer in simple: spend zero on upgrades, use the very substantial IC savings on more production. That savings can be very big upside in terms of more units.

The tradeoff is there, you just dont want to make it. Which is a different problem.

The way the tradeoff is set up, I'd have to be a madman not to fund upgrades. I can upgrade a division for 12.5% of the cost of a new one, so our whole "quantity/quality" issue comes down to are 8 1941 divisions better than 7 1943 divisions, which is no choice at all.

The incremental upgrade cost is negligable compared to the cost to purcahse a new unit.

Likewise, the earlier units are truly little or no cheaper than the newer units, meaning its pointless to keep building the older ones unless you have a garing bonus > 87.5%.

A choice means two equally valid, but differnt options.

The choice not to upgrade my units is similar to the monty python skit where they ask you: Cake or Death?

 

[unmerged(37680)]

By realism, I mean having any relation to how these things worked in real life. The system you just described does not.

Actually that's exactly how it works in real life even now. Look at what's been going on in the Pentagon for the last 4 year or so. There's been a lot of talk about "transformation" and ideas like skipping a generation of weapons and instead researching very advanced technologies, which sounds exactly like "tech rushing". Rummy even canceled the Crusader - he did not say "OK let's produce all the weapons we can and also send a lot of metals abroad to fund a lot of research programs". The Pentagon just has a budget which it has to divide between producing supplies, producing new units, upgrading existing units and funding research and that's a zero sum game, which is exactly why you see so much opposition to Rummy among some services (OK, it's not merely for SecDef to decide the allocation - Congress does a lot of micromanagement, but that's not relevant now). HoI1 simulates fixed budget rather well.

If you want tough tech tradeoffs, play a country like Italy, which in HoI2 as in real life had to make very tough choices about which areas to modernize.

What I want is not tradeoffs within tech program or production program but between them. If you play France in HoI you have to make life and death decision about splitting funds between production and research. You can actually lose the game solely because you go too far in either direction. And quite frequently you have a situation where some tech looks very appealing but you know that researching it will mean two fewer divisions on the Maginot Line. One of the best features of HoI is great replayability, and in this example it means that in different games you can try very different strategies like playing with a small number of elite troops or with a lot almost worthless cannon fodder. In HoI2 you don't have such choices. Yes, you can deliberately play dumb and simply weaken yourself in some area, but you don't have the option of producing a lot more troops if you forego research or doing a lot more research if you forego production. This seriously limits game options which is never a good thing in a game which by definition is meant for entertainment. And this severely limits your ability to play "ahistorical" 'what if' cases like "What if France spent her resources on quality rather than quantity?" or "What if France did not spend gazillions on fancy-shmancy technology and just drowned the Germans in superior numbers?".

Exactly the same way as in HoI1. Its an abstracted econ system where the total IC production representes the total industrial resources of the country and where the "consumer" sector in free enterprise economies represents private sector activity.

I rather think of it as larger economy than merely industry in narrow "manufacturing" sense. After all, 'supplies' include food, and that's one of the reasons out-of-supply units suffer losses. And I think of what's left after CG spending as military budget. It is much more realistic to think of a single military budget being divided between several competing objectives rather than a government reserving a specific percentage of manufacturing capacity for military use and getting a flexible monetary budget on top of it for research. I see the point of having research teams of different skills and specialties and of funding them with cash, and in fact I like this idea per se, but what I don't like is total disconnect from production and total lack of flexibility. What I'd like is just some tweaking. Some way of making research detract from IC available for production. After all, do all those prototype flight tests researched by Boeing use paper planes or did they have to divert some of their manufacturing capacity to building prototypes?! So ideally I'd like to see a situation where as a minimum, if you use all five research teams you have substantially less IC than if you use none, and preferably where you can further sacrifice IC to get a sixth team (maybe even something like you can activate a sixth team but as long as it is active, you have no IC). Well, I'm just throwing ideas around. I really like that they finally got rid of some very irritating "features" like rounding down commanders' experience in save files (meaning that if you play in short sessions, nobody ever gains experience) and and of some irritating interface deficiencies (now you can easily send an item to the bottom of production queue - in HoI I just saved and edited). And I really love new domestic policies features and dimplomacy. But I'm quite unhappy about techs.

 

[unmerged(37680)]

Perhaps you would prefer a more formal system, with a fully modelled tax and monetart system?

I would, but it would guarantee endless discussions here between Keynesians (no pun intended ) and supply-siders. So I doubt Paradox would want to open this can of worms. Besides, it immediately opens a lot of issues like just how high can you go on Victory Bonds? By the end of HoI timeframe US national debt was 120% of GDP (i.e. much higher than now). How far above that would a player be allowed to go?

 

[unmerged(35349)]

I'd like to make a suggestion....

What if once you're done researching "Improved Medium Tanks", you get a pop-up window that then asks you which version you'd like?

Each option has its advantages and disadvantages:
Panther with 60mm with basic armour 9IC's for 12 weeks
Panther with 60mm with heavy skirting 10IC's for 12 weeks
Panther with 75mm wth basic armour 10IC's for 13 weeks
Panther with 75mm with heavy skirting 10IC's for 14 weeks
Panther with 75mm High Velocity with basic armour 11IC's for 15 weeks
Panther with 75mm High Velocity with heavy skirting 11IC's for 16 weeks

In essence:
Smaller gun + lighter armour = less cost + fast production
Heavy gun + heavier armour = higher cost + slower production

This would allow the player to make some of those key historically decisions discussed in this thread such as: "Do I want a mass-produced solution which fits better with my limitless manpower, or do I want to invest in greater technology as my manpower is so limited? Or do I want to go somewhere in the middle?"

Bottom Line:
The reason I liked HOI1 and the more complicated tech tree was because I could associate with the weapons systems I was building. It was my armed forces and I could prioritize the techs I wanted. Quite frankly I don't want to play a game that simulates exactly what happened in WWII. I want a game that simulates what would have happened if instead of doing what the leaders of WWII chose to do, I did __________ and __________ and __________?

In any case, good luck to all and I hope someone comes up with a solution that makes all parties happy.

Cheers,



CB.

 

[bshirt]

"When we couldn't though, our armored divisions never competed on equal terms with the German formations. Look at operations like Goodwind where, despite a massive preporatory bombardment, three British armored divisions were largely defeated by a single battalion of Tiger tanks firing from cover at long range. Likewise in the desert war, the Africa corps (2 armored, one motorized infantry division), tore up the British armored formations again and again. The british lost virtually every tank they had in virtually every battle up until el-alemein and even there they lost huge quantities of armor.

The historical divisions *were not equal*."

That's an understatement.

At Normandy, time after time, when the Allies didn't have truly massive air support, even with HUGE numerical advantages, they were ripped to shreds by the 1st SS Panzer Corps (1st & 12th SS Panzer divs).

To have hoi2 dumbed down enough to have USA & German 1944 armor divisions equivalent is simply laughable. Prior to 1944 is even worse.

 

[unmerged(37701)]

"When we couldn't though, our armored divisions never competed on equal terms with the German formations. Look at operations like Goodwind where, despite a massive preporatory bombardment, three British armored divisions were largely defeated by a single battalion of Tiger tanks firing from cover at long range. Likewise in the desert war, the Africa corps (2 armored, one motorized infantry division), tore up the British armored formations again and again. The british lost virtually every tank they had in virtually every battle up until el-alemein and even there they lost huge quantities of armor.

The historical divisions *were not equal*."

That's an understatement.

At Normandy, time after time, when the Allies didn't have truly massive air support, even with HUGE numerical advantages, they were ripped to shreds by the 1st SS Panzer Corps (1st & 12th SS Panzer divs).

To have hoi2 dumbed down enough to have USA & German 1944 armor divisions equivalent is simply laughable. Prior to 1944 is even worse.

I think that the perceived inequalities in armoured divisions come about
more because of doctrine and tactical employment, rather than because German armoured divisions were vastly superior to Allied ones in terms of raw equipment.

 

[Spruce]

well I guess I can understand Johan why he wants to avoid to change the current tech system.

I'm happely to accept the new tech system, but I would like to give my opinion on a small event that brings gameplay fun.

The blueprint delivered to you by your research teams "breaktroughs" and stuff are perhaps worthwhile to compensate the ahead of historical date.

In my current game I only had one such an event in 7 years of game time.

So my proposal = make it more likely to get such an event and link that event to a random tech team.

So f.e. Krupp get's a blueprint discovery - giving a blueprint on armour. So making it more attractive to research ahead of time. Perhaps such an event could come each 2 or 3 years... so rather rare.

This would lead to "edges" you get over your opponents and give you the feeling (and most often it will be more then a feeling) that you are the pioneer of some techs.

 

[Tormodius]

I don't have to make a tradeoff between research and production because each is in a seperate and distinct pool.

I'm not sure if that is absolutely correct. Someone should answer that question I had in my previous post. I thought the number of reseach teams were dependant on the total IC. (or base IC?) If that is the case, then USA (and Britain) could start by having a really low IC, somewhere around a swedish level, and then get more IC through events giving them all the five by 1940 or so.

And for the discussion about differencies in tank models, I think the historical British armoured failures, and the German armoured victories can be better represented throgh their doctrines. Such as having a penalty in the Infiltration branch, and armoured bonus in the Blitzkrieg branch, or higher ambush and encirclement chances. At least something... Now I think the Infiltration branch is very powerful, gives you far better night attacks and no real trade-offs for it. A tank-penalty or something there would be fine.