Old game, new player, a few quick questions:

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Hi All,

Played HOI2 several years back with all the DLC packs, and never really played HOI3 despite buying it on day one of availability. Dusted it off and added all the DLC, and am seriously impressed with the end product of this game. Still learning, and have been using the wikis over the past week (anticipating the wiseguy comments. . . . but if there's a hidden stash of wikis I don't know about feel free to share), but am unclear about the following points:

1. is there a specific way or formula for triggering national surrenders? For example in the last game played I got Belgium and Luxembourg capture event down almost immediately but had to take the Nederlands province by province, unit by unit even AFTER I had isolated the entire bulk of his army from resupply by controlling all ports and ground supply routes.
2. The trigger for Vichy is to capture Paris and the Brittany ports, assuming the VICHY event popup was selected?
3. To enhance the learning curve and make up for silly mistakes that could not have been forseen due to player error, I've leaned on the cheat codes a 'lil bit. When instantresearch/instantproduction/instantconstruction are employed are they used exclusively by the human players, or does the AI get the bonuses as well?
4. Blending Leadership bonues: Let's say I have the following leader chain: OB West, Rundstedt; Corps Commander, Manstein; Division Commanders x3 w/ Rommel, and two generic three-star-ability commanders. How do the leadership traits blend in this circumstance for the three division commanders, and what is the optimal blend pattern based on position in the hierarchy? For example, three offensive or three defensive commanders in the same stack might not be optimal IF the traits are shared. Suggestions?
5. Any helpful hints or things I should focus on? other than NOT sliding the Research Tech bar all the way to the right, ignoring intelligence and diplomacy, and then wondering later in the game why the world situation is modeled so poorly?

As always, my thanks in advance!
Andre

 

[Pro_Consul]

1. is there a specific way or formula for triggering national surrenders? For example in the last game played I got Belgium and Luxembourg capture event down almost immediately but had to take the Nederlands province by province, unit by unit even AFTER I had isolated the entire bulk of his army from resupply by controlling all ports and ground supply routes.

Defeating a country comes down to two things: the target's National Unity (NU) and luck. When they have lost a percentage of their VPs equal to or greater than their NU, they will be defeated. But whether they actually surrender, permitting you to annex rather than just occupy, is a matter of luck. Often they will go Government in Exile (GiE), and will not surrender until the last major in their alliance falls. That said, if there are no majors in their alliance or they are not in an alliance at all, they will always surrender.

2. The trigger for Vichy is to capture Paris and the Brittany ports, assuming the VICHY event popup was selected?

It's like above, with NU being checked. The Vichy wargoal is just you selecting what peace conditions you want to impose when they fall, though there is no chance of France evading it like they might with a Conquer wargoal. France has naturally low unity, though, so it shouldn't take too much. That said if you want to make it take less, you can assign spies to supporting your party and then lowering their NU during the prewar years, so that they are even more ready to throw in the sponge when war actually breaks out.

3. To enhance the learning curve and make up for silly mistakes that could not have been forseen due to player error, I've leaned on the cheat codes a 'lil bit. When instantresearch/instantproduction/instantconstruction are employed are they used exclusively by the human players, or does the AI get the bonuses as well?

All nations, human and AI, get their effects. This is why cheats in this game, even more than in its predecessors, tend to break the game most severely. The noneutrality cheat only affects the human, but it makes the AI nations go nuts trying to readjust their priorities to your sudden shift in neutrality, so it also tends to be a game breaker, though not as badly.

4. Blending Leadership bonues: Let's say I have the following leader chain: OB West, Rundstedt; Corps Commander, Manstein; Division Commanders x3 w/ Rommel, and two generic three-star-ability commanders. How do the leadership traits blend in this circumstance for the three division commanders, and what is the optimal blend pattern based on position in the hierarchy? For example, three offensive or three defensive commanders in the same stack might not be optimal IF the traits are shared. Suggestions?

Stacks matter not, only relative positions within the command hierarchy. Traits are passed down the chain with a 50% cumulative reduction for each level of the chain they must pass through in order to reach the unit in question. So a division commander gives 100% of his trait to his division, while his commanding officer in charge of the corps HQ will give his division 50% of that leader's trait, the army commander will give 25%, army group 12.5%, and the theater commander 6.25%. "So what use is a trait like Logistic Wizard or Winter Specialist in a theater commander when a division below will only get 6.25% of its effect?", you might ask. Well, a single theater commander might conceivably be passing that 6.25% of his trait down to hundreds of division simultaneously. It matters, be assured, if you weren't already.

The catch is this: units only benefit from those links in the command chain above which are currently in radio contact at any given moment. So a division that moves out of radio range of its corps will lose ALL benefits from the chain, gaining only its own leader's trait(s). Or a corps HQ which moves out of range of the army HQ above it will render itself and the divisions below it cut off from all but the divisional and corps commanders' traits. And so on.

5. Any helpful hints or things I should focus on? other than NOT sliding the Research Tech bar all the way to the right, ignoring intelligence and diplomacy, and then wondering later in the game why the world situation is modeled so poorly?

The diplomacy slider can well be ignored in many if not most cases. If you need some diplo points you can run it up enough to bank some points for future dealings, but unless you are actively trying to pull a nation into your faction (which you cannot do unless you are a faction leader), there is no need to have any ongoing allocation of leadership to that slider. Espionage is a matter of maintaining enough spies to keep your current active espionage projects staffed despite other nations' catching your spies from time to time. So that one will tend to remain relatively low unless you are just going crazy with your espionage in numerous countries at the same time.

As for other tips, there are too many to even know where to begin. I guess you already discovered the single most important one I would give, which is to post your problems, puzzlements, and questions here as they come up. G'luck!

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Pro Consul,

Many thanks for the most excellent replies. Well done and well said; my thanks!

Two follow ups if you please:

On leadership, do the traits move laterally at all or just down the tree?
On leadership, how does the quality rating of the officer (if that's the term, but the rating of 1-5, with Manstein and Rommel = 5) affect the lower units, is it just the stacking limitation that is raised?

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

And:

Lets say I have a static infantry division dug into a defensive position. Division commander has defense trait. Does it add any to the defensive value to duplicate that on the corps/army levels? Or do traits cap at 100%?

 

[Pro_Consul]

On leadership, do the traits move laterally at all or just down the tree?

Just down. That is the principle reason one might want to concentrate the leaders with multiple traits in higher postings, i.e. to spread their benefits to as many divisions as is practically possible. Conversely, one might want to concentrate leaders with the most mission-critical traits as near to the units which are executing that specific mission as possible. For example, Manstein and Rommel have several good traits, so that would recommend them well for Army Group or Theater HQ command positions. On the other hand, an armored corps thrusting into the enemy's rear on a penetration raid would want Battle Master leaders in each division and probably the corps HQ as well, to maximize their combined arms bonus and give them maximum effectiveness where the metal meets the meat.

On leadership, how does the quality rating of the officer (if that's the term, but the rating of 1-5, with Manstein and Rommel = 5) affect the lower units, is it just the stacking limitation that is raised?

Not exactly...ish. The skill of a leader has a different effect depending on which post he occupies, and the skill level is multiplied to arrive at the final modifier. A division commander gives a 5% bonus to combat effectiveness. Corps commanders give an extra 1% chance per hour that units below them will be able to move into the battle line. Army commanders give 1% additional org to all units below them. Army group commanders reduce supply consumption by 5%. And Theater commanders reduce the stacking penalty by 1%. And in every one of those cases the bonus is multiplied by the skill of the leader in question. So a skill 5 Army Group commander would give 25% reduction in supply consumption to all units below him in the hierarchy; the same leader moved to command a corps HQ would give a +5% chance per hour of the units below him being able to move into the battle line. That last can be a big one, far bigger than that small 5% would seem to indicate, since it is checked every single hour.

Lets say I have a static infantry division dug into a defensive position. Division commander has defense trait. Does it add any to the defensive value to duplicate that on the corps/army levels? Or do traits cap at 100%?

No, the traits stack regardless. So you could conceivably give a unit 193.75% of the effect of a trait if that trait were present in each and every level of the chain of command from the division commander all the way up to the theater commander. This can be very handy at times, for example Germany stacking up Logistic Wizard leaders to reduce supply consumption for their advancing armies as they strain their supply lines deeper and deeper into Soviet territory.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Excellent. Thanks, Consul!

Always good to find an incisive communicator, regardless of the circumstance. I appreciate the time you take to explain the nuance of the answer and finding myself reading it two or three times while resolving the issue during the game is yeilding excellent results. Very correct terminology for a poor old gamer to wrap his head around. You do that rather well, imho.
Again, many thanks. I'll be back!

 

[Pro_Consul]

In fairness, it helps enormously in crafting a clear answer when one is answering is very clear question. So I guess I owe you some change back on that compliment you paid me. Cheers!

Edit: just thought of another piece of advice I could give: register your game and the expansions, assuming you haven't already and are just hiding your registrations. Being registered makes the other subforums like tech support, modding, etc. visible to you, in case you should come across questions or problems that need that kind of help.