PDXCON 2015: The Grand livestreaming schedule for PDS (Including HOI4)

[1alexey]

right now yes

Is there any chance we can get 0%-200% exp ratio, if not for the game, at least for modding purposes? at least allow experience to be negative.

The numbers argument is irrelevant in that 20% vs 200% is exactly the same as 100% vs 1000%

The only thing that matters is the ratio. In hoi3 this was 1:1.25:2 in terms of totally untrained:well trained:veteran

Question is, is there any evidence of how high this ratio should be? I always felt like 1:2 wasn't actually all that bad a ratio for worst to best- this means equal equipment and all other things being equal each veteran can take on two recruits.

I think maybe what didn't quite ring true was 1:1.25- seems a little low maybe for worst trained to best trained with no combat experience?

Not sure if there is any decent evidence since poor training was often combined with poor equipment/tactics/leadership etc. anyone got any thoughts on how this could be quantified?

My problem rather is that we can have divisions that are formed today and sent to front tomorrow, and they will only be like 30% worse than divisions that you spend 3-6 month training. I don`t mind that troops well trained without combat experience would be 130% of basic stats, while super-veterans would be 200% base stats. What I do mind is that absolute zero training rookies are at 100%.

 

[Beagá]

right now yes

100-200 seems too limiting indeed, at least allow it to be moddable.

 

[dizzle3]

It's easy to overestimate how high this number should be. Trying to impose some logic, and noting that this is a purely illustrative exercise-Let's run with the 100% to 500% for one second.

Suppose that for your units to get to 500%, your country needs to be at war for 5 years. This means that by mid-1942 German units have 350% experience, the soviets maybe 150% given that they threw men into action?

Now looking at Fall Blau, which I am going to call a draw for the sake of argument. Let's say that the German advantage in leadership, officers, equipment etc. adds, oh, I don't know - 25% to GER fighting ability?

So given that soviets outnumbered the Germans 2:1 and that approximate fighting strength was equal:

German strength = men x experience x equipment etc.= 1 x 3.5 x 1.25 = 4.375
Soviet strength = 2 x 1.5 x 1 = 3

This is kind of telling me that 5:1 is too high a ratio.

I'm really not saying any of my numbers are correct, just trying to illustrate the thought process

 

[Victor Cortez]

The possibility to deploy a division when it's not fully trained and to keep on training "on map" should model very well the difference between the US and the USSR.

 

[Sakkura]

Is there any chance we can get 0%-200% exp ratio, if not for the game, at least for modding purposes? at least allow experience to be negative.

Negative experience? Maybe a negative modifier in combat, but experience itself should surely never go below 0. And I still think it's more elegant to keep the modifiers positive by just scaling them accordingly.

Personally I don't think any unit should ever have their combat abilities completely nullified by lack of experience. Like fighting at 0% efficiency, literally not being able to kill anyone ever. Even if you grab young boys and old men straight off the street and ship them directly to the front, they would be able to kill someone, somewhere, somehow.

But certainly you can widen the gap beyond a 2:1 disadvantage vs. crack troops.

 

[1alexey]

Negative experience? Maybe a negative modifier in combat, but experience itself should surely never go below 0. And I still think it's more elegant to keep the modifiers positive by just scaling them accordingly.

It would be great to have a 0% to 200% multiplier, but in case it is impossible, negative experience achieves same purpose, by allowing 100% + or - 100%, effectively 0-200% scale.

Personally I don't think any unit should ever have their combat abilities completely nullified by lack of experience. Like fighting at 0% efficiency, literally not being able to kill anyone ever. Even if you grab young boys and old men straight off the street and ship them directly to the front, they would be able to kill someone, somewhere, somehow.

Sure, but 0% is just a convenient number, to not have debate on how much the inefficiency should not trained people be compared to trained.

 

[dizzle3]

It would be great to have a 0% to 200% multiplier, but in case it is impossible, negative experience achieves same purpose, by allowing 100% + or - 100%, effectively 0-200% scale.

Sure, but 0% is just a convenient number, to not have debate on how much the inefficiency should not trained people be compared to trained.

0% is not at all convenient. 0% means the soldiers didn't know which end of the rifle the bullets came out of, put the fuel down the barrel of the tank rather than into the engine, didn't know how to put their uniform on, spent all day tying their shoelaces etc.

I have never fired a gun before. I feel like I could do marginally better than 0%

 

[1alexey]

0% is not at all convenient. 0% means the soldiers didn't know which end of the rifle the bullets came out of, put the fuel down the barrel of the tank rather than into the engine, didn't know how to put their uniform on, spent all day tying their shoelaces etc.

I have never fired a gun before. I feel like I could do marginally better than 0%

Convenient from game mechanic standpoint. Obviously the game shouldn`t set it to straight zero, but the amount is debatable, thus zero as the minimum mechanically possible by game engine makes for good cut off point. For game mechanics.

 

[dizzle3]

Convenient from game mechanic standpoint. Obviously the game shouldn`t set it to straight zero, but the amount is debatable, thus zero as the minimum mechanically possible by game engine makes for good cut off point. For game mechanics.

In terms of moddability, I agree it should be flexible (but probably can be handled by only having the upper limit moddable). In terms of gameplay, anything higher than 4:1 seems dubious in terms of best to worst. You would need to find examples of veterans fighting green troops with similar equipment at significant numerical disadvantage and winning. Kasserine Pass comes to mind, but that was 1.5:1 or something, albeit the US troops did get training before being thrown into battle.

 

[ashbery76]

Why are motorised german divs called SS?

 

[1alexey]

In terms of moddability, I agree it should be flexible (but probably can be handled by only having the upper limit moddable). In terms of gameplay, anything higher than 4:1 seems dubious in terms of best to worst. You would need to find examples of veterans fighting green troops with similar equipment at significant numerical disadvantage and winning. Kasserine Pass comes to mind, but that was 1.5:1 or something, albeit the US troops did get training before being thrown into battle.

Problem is, I don`t know of cases of people being sent into fight with 1 day of training, on huge scale, as even in SU, in worst cases people did get at least a few weeks of training. And I hope the game reflects that with forcing you to train your troops at least barely to get something from them.

Japan attacked USA? No problem, tomorrow we will get 5 millions of marines and send them to assault Tokyo, supported by 10k of planes whose pilots saw their plane for the first time yesterday. It will "obviously" turn out great as my marines will be only slightly less efficient than trained Japanese troops defending the islands.

Why are motorised german divs called SS?

If the explicit SS units are not present, that is the way HOI3 used to represent their existance, by calling some divisions SS while other, not.

 

[Holy.Death]

Problem is, I don`t know of cases of people being sent into fight with 1 day of training, on huge scale, as even in SU, in worst cases people did get at least a few weeks of training. And I hope the game reflects that with forcing you to train your troops at least barely to get something from them.

Japan attacked USA? No problem, tomorrow we will get 5 millions of marines and send them to assault Tokyo, supported by 10k of planes whose pilots saw their plane for the first time yesterday. It will "obviously" turn out great as my marines will be only slightly less efficient than trained Japanese troops defending the islands.

Could be solved by forcing some minimal training on regular infantry units. People with no training whatsoever could be classified as militia.

 

[Concept2D]

HOI4 looks great, the new version of the BattlePlanner is a big improvement.

On the training discussion
I think this is something that needs to be restricted for gameplay reasons, like the crippling ahead of time research penalties.
Even though huge differences in experience occurred in real life, in game it could lead to Germany's only Panzer corps single handedly getting a world domination, if the difference is too large.

If both sides fire against the weakest unit
A 10% advantage leaves the strongest party with 38% left, the weaker party is wiped out
20% -- 52%
50% -- 71%
100% - 84% --- current HOI4 lvl for green vs max veterans
200% - 92%
400% - 97% --- this is a 5:1 experience ratio

If a lot of countries have close to green experience troops, and max veterans are achievable without some crazy gamey cheat, I think the spread is fine.

If the actual spread is only 20% in normal gameplay for example in Barborossa, I think something needs to be tweaked.

 

[dizzle3]

Japan attacked USA? No problem, tomorrow we will get 5 millions of marines and send them to assault Tokyo, supported by 10k of planes whose pilots saw their plane for the first time yesterday. It will "obviously" turn out great as my marines will be only slightly less efficient than trained Japanese troops defending the islands

There is the additional frontage thing. So 100 divisions of marines aren't all that useful for taking Iwo Jima. The quality differential is much bigger than the pure % would imply, given that if effect you get to fight the Americans 4 divisions at a time. I wouldn't be totally shocked if 4 divisions of Japanese veteran marines were able to beat 100 divisions of green troops assaulting an island if the differential was 5:1 ingame. Of course this is ludicrous compared to what would happen in real life.

I don't disagree with sending troops untrained into battle should be a bad thing, but i also don't think veterans should be terminators.

 

[1alexey]

There is the additional frontage thing. So 100 divisions of marines aren't all that useful for taking Iwo Jima. The quality differential is much bigger than the pure % would imply, given that if effect you get to fight the Americans 4 divisions at a time. I wouldn't be totally shocked if 4 divisions of Japanese veteran marines were able to beat 100 divisions of green troops assaulting an island if the differential was 5:1 ingame. Of course this is ludicrous compared to what would happen in real life.

I don't disagree with sending troops untrained into battle should be a bad thing, but i also don't think veterans should be terminators.

Well, I don`t see any disagreements. I said let`s have "properly trained" troops at 100%, "best trained but without actual combat expirience" troops be around 130% or even 140%, and super-veterans at 200%. Seems pretty fair, right?

Now putting the first-day-in the military troops at just 20% ish would make total sense. If you train them at least for a month, they wouldn`t be so bad, probably around 70%ish, and with 2-3 month of training, they are at 100%.

Then, you would probably prefer to not rush troops into combat but give them some sort of training. I don`t really care where the veteran vs well-trained but without combat experience ends up ratio wise.
I want to have clear incentive to not send your troops into battle without any kind of training, so where exactly in terms of efficiency will the absolutely untrained vs properly trained without any experience is, is far more important for me. The HOI3 100% vs 130% just seemed too insignificant to bother if you can push your troops out like 4 month earlier.

 

[varsovie]

People judjing the Delta of training of the 100-200% range can not judge it at all because:

The rate at which training/experience occurs is currently unknown.
The difference between two values is currently unknown (although probably linear).


At least the 100-200 range as the advantage of having no negative modifier, making assessments a little bit easier for our poor brains and the comparisons always linear. If wider exp gaps are needed I'd suggest increasing the upper portion.

Don't forget that at equal everything else, 1 200%exp division != 2 100%exp divisions, because of supply, frontage/overstacking mechanique, but mostly because or the squared rule.

One problem with HOI is that experience is wholly modeled with preparation (planning and experience for one type of operation). A German division that fought in Russia at 200%exp will (at equal doctrines) be better during a landing than a US division that came back from your pacific island hoping campaign but toped at 150%exp.
You have to assume when you "click" your divisions, that all preparations and specific training has been done before and upstream of your orders.
It would make HOI way more strategic if you had to prep, take time and commit for operations, not sure if it would be fun to play in a real time context though.

 

[Dark Jakkaru]

Question for the Devs:

Let's say you want to have dedicated "Training" divisions @ home that constantly does nothing but train a cadre of troops as a better source of replacements rather than sending green men to a Front Line Division. Is this possible to do with the current set up of HOI IV?

If such a feature as described above is too late to add to the game's release, is it possible to mod such a mechanism into the game?

 

[dizzle3]

Well, I don`t see any disagreements. I said let`s have "properly trained" troops at 100%, "best trained but without actual combat expirience" troops be around 130% or even 140%, and super-veterans at 200%. Seems pretty fair, right?

Now putting the first-day-in the military troops at just 20% ish would make total sense. If you train them at least for a month, they wouldn`t be so bad, probably around 70%ish, and with 2-3 month of training, they are at 100%.

Then, you would probably prefer to not rush troops into combat but give them some sort of training. I don`t really care where the veteran vs well-trained but without combat experience ends up ratio wise.
I want to have clear incentive to not send your troops into battle without any kind of training, so where exactly in terms of efficiency will the absolutely untrained vs properly trained without any experience is, is far more important for me. The HOI3 100% vs 130% just seemed too insignificant to bother if you can push your troops out like 4 month earlier.

But 100% vs 130% isn't the difference between training for 6 months against training for no time at all.

Things were broken with that system (when laws were changed down for example units tend to pop out instantly instead of speeding up), but instant unit building wasn't the main problem

 

[fabius]

Something else in the Experience mix

I'd really like to see it modelled more realistically and have a trail off of effectiveness at very high experience levels. This is empirically based and not much searching and reading will show that there's an optimum level of combat experience, after which performance drops. The Divisions, it seems became slower on the advance.

For HoI terms this could translate:
up to 70% improvements
70-100% divisions still take increasingly less strength and org damage (they have learned to stay alive)

But !! They are increasingly slower in the advance (combat speed in HoI 3??) and quicker to trade ground for saving lives (retreat).

Separately (please without comments that get the thread locked!!) some Divs should have a "Fanaticism" trait- which means yeah they will deal heavy casualties and take ground quicker but also take a LOTs of casualties.

Err... I'm thinking Germany, Soviets, are obvious choices; but also some Divisions engaged in any Civil War; and a trigger for some divisions when a country is defending home country.

 

[gregor_mendel]

What does an OOB have to do with stacks?

I could stack 40 units together with an OOB, the only mechanics that refrained me from doing so were the stacking penalty and attack delay. However, when attacking France (over Luxembourg) for example, I always had roughly 40 divisions (plus HQs) stacked in one province, let 2 of those divisions carry out the breakthrough attack just to flood the hole in the defense with the remaining units afterwards.

In HoI4, it seems to me, stacking kind of depends on the "width" of the frontline you draw. If you assign 40 divisions to a frontline of the "width" of 2 provinces, they will obviously stack (maybe 20 for each province). If you assign 40 divisions to a frontline of 20 provinces (like the German-Polish border) there might be about 2 divisions per province. This has absolutely nothing to do with an OOB, so I do not understand this concern and don't get several people bringing it up.

Plus, as you could see in the stream, even if you order all the troops from the German-Polish-border-frontline to attack Warsaw, they will advance on all fronts. The green blinking provinces pretty much indicate where the troops are going to move, which is awesome. Encirclements are really easy to manage now as well. Lets say you draw a circular frontline from Dresden to Ostpreußen, the divisions at Danzig probably won't advance at all, whereas the divisions in the south would make their way up north-east. It is a beautiful design in my opinion, especially considering you can always split the front, have certain units perform independent moves etc. Units will only stack if the player him-/herself orders the units to do so.

Yes but it is still just a generic "stack" of units. Instead of having II. Korps (2. Armee, HG Nord, Ostfront) attack a position I instead have the stack led by Hausser attacking the enemy stack led by "<insert-famous-general-name-here>".

The OOB was a realistic tool that allowed for us to keep track of our combined forces. For instance, if I was playing as Germany and wanted to know what forces I had available to me in Africa I could just click on "HG Afrika" and get a nice run-down of all my units.
Sure, it takes the player a bit of time in the beginning to set up the OOB but it is very much worth it in the end. And it is realistic!

This HoI4 combat system appears to be more suited to CK2 or Victoria2 than it does the Hearts of Iron series. I thought the focus was supposed to be on combat? Why no OOB?