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

[potski]

Loved the stream - had sympathy for Podcat who looked like he was clearly trying to be careful about what he said to avoid flame wars .

Rough thoughts:

- Battleplan system looks very good - manual control is still there, and manual control plus battleplan could make for a great balance between controlling everything, and just focussing on the key battles in a sector (but if I want to control everything, which I may, I can do that).

- Higher manpower laws reduce factory production (in the tooltips) - not sure if this is final or not, but that it's being thought about at all is great.

- Training mechanic looked tops as well. That said, it might be an idea to have an 'animations off' tick box for those players who don't want to see their army doing jumping jacks for a couple of years (say as the US player).

- Supply discussion, while vague, sounded like the devs are really on the right track, with a focus on showing where the bottlenecks are.

- Interface in general looked like a huge step up from HoI3.

- Army planner interface looked pretty sharp as well.

- Releasing it when it's done - if it has to slip to Q3, that's better than launching not ready in Q2.

Overall impression was very positive, keen as mustard .

From the stuff shown in the stream, the only two things that were potential 'concerns' (ie, not sure how well it'll work out):

- the convoys being shown on the map - I could imagine it could get a bit cluttered for nations that traditionally have quite a few convoys (US/UK/Japan) - but am sure that it'll work out, as it's something that'll be visually very obvious if it looks off.

- the potential for not having enough generals for a detailed battleplan. Say I'm a small country that ends up with a large-ish army, then it looks like I could only have as many 'army groups' as I had generals, which may or may not be enough. A dynamic general creation system would get around this, so not necessarily an issue.

I agree with all your points except the last. Paradox had enough historical commanders researched from HOI3 to give even minors a good number of commanders with the artwork. Cutting out the multiple layers of command should massively reduce the number you require to a fraction of what was in HOI3.

Take the German-Italian Army in North Africa, and instead of say 10 Div commanders, 2 Corps, Rommel, and Army Group and Theatre commanders (15 people), HOI4 will probably just have Rommel.

Perhaps Kesselring and Graziani might be available to select in the General Staff in the GER and ITA governments.

Even minors should have more than enough in normal play, but I think podcat said there would be some random generals, and you would have to use political points to get new leaders. I can't imagine how a country like Bulgaria, for example, would ever need more than a few commanders in the battle plans, they are not going to be fighting large campaigns on more than one front. And presumably they had alot more than 10 in HOI3 which could be ported over.

I think it is a sensible way of restricting minors like Bulgaria from very ahistoric outcomes. The government might gain political points from joining the Axis, then invading Yugoslavia, then Greece. But that might not even buy you full mobilisation of your population, never mind appointing lots of new generals. And most players would have to forfeit joining the Axis if they were going to try a WC game, because you wouldn't want to share the spoils of war with other countries. And with limited companies and numbers of factories, producing the equipment for a large modern army should be near impossible.

 

[Axe99]

I agree with all your points except the last. Paradox had enough historical commanders researched from HOI3 to give even minors a good number of commanders with the artwork. Cutting out the multiple layers of command should massively reduce the number you require to a fraction of what was in HOI3.

Aye, I was more thinking in extreme cases like Barbarossa - from the look of the stream, one 'axis of advance' = one general. Podcat's already noted it won't be an issue, so I'm not suggesting it is here, but where I was coming from (ie, prior to Podcat's response) was:

For most situations, I think what they've got set up looks fine (very good, even ), but say you wanted a fairly complex battleplan with a few different axes of advance, was there a risk you'd run out of generals for all the 'arrows' you wanted, at a point before it became silly (I'm not suggesting we should have a general in the game for every single-province stack!) Barbarossa is far and away the best example, as there was a lot happening all at once. Playing as Germany, you'd want:

- A general in North Africa (possibly two if an offensive was planned and the player wanted to do something off-the-wall);
- A defensive general in France or Germany to man the coastal fortifications.
- Perhaps a defensive general in Norway (I was positing a 'worst case scenario here').
- Three generals for Army Group North (for a complex plan that involves three axes of advance - again, I'm going the 'more complex' extreme).
- Four generals for Army Group Centre.
- Four generals for Army Group South.

And, for a plausible, historical alt, let's say you've opened up a second front in Spain or Turkey, and there's a couple of generals there as well.

That gives you a need for around 16 generals. The US may have similarly large needs if, for example, the UK has a shocker in-game and it's up to the US to attempt to liberate India and South-East Asia as well as Europe, Italy, North Africa and the like. The UK might need quite a few just because it can have a large number of small fronts all over the world, and a successful Japan (say, one that invades the Continental US) might have similar problems.

From the screens we'd seen so far, it looked like there were only a handful of generals (less than ten in some cases, noting that I knew the game was in alpha, so only raised it as a 'concern', rather than a 'there's no way this'd work'), and I wasn't sure whether there'd be enough to meet the needs of a player that liked their battle-plans to be on the more complex side (moar arrows!). Podcat says it's all good though, and I believe him. How could one not believe someone that can pull off wearing so much tweed at once?

I agree with your thoughts on the matter as well (well put as always ) - I suspect we just had different guesses on how many generals it looked like we were getting.

 

[potski]

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?

On the HOI3 map you couldn't get a nice run-down of your units. Select a Group and you would only see the Armies attached to it. Select the right one, then you see the Corps. Select the right Corps and you got to see the Divs attached to it. If you were only fighting in North Africa at the time you might remember the Army and Corps numbers. If you didn't then you would have to go up and down the OOB until you found the unit(s) you wanted.

The OOB organiser window was easier, you could expand all of the lower levels to see what was where.

But in HOI4 you just select Rommel and on the left side of the screen you see a list of all of units under him, much like the HOI3 organiser but without all the HQs.

Plus in the map - in North Africa zoomed out a little you might see all Rommel's forces "together" but they are not in one stack even if they are all in the same province. The HOI4 counters are separated by type. So it would be easy to select say all of the Armoured Divs with a single click. Not only could a HOI3 Pz Corp not be visible easily on the map (because it could be "under" other counters) it probably wasn't in the same province as the Divs.

Have you never played hunt the units in HOI3?

 

[potski]

Aye, I was more thinking in extreme cases like Barbarossa - from the look of the stream, one 'axis of advance' = one general. Podcat's already noted it won't be an issue, so I'm not suggesting it is here, but where I was coming from (ie, prior to Podcat's response) was:

For most situations, I think what they've got set up looks fine (very good, even ), but say you wanted a fairly complex battleplan with a few different axes of advance, was there a risk you'd run out of generals for all the 'arrows' you wanted, at a point before it became silly (I'm not suggesting we should have a general in the game for every single-province stack!) Barbarossa is far and away the best example, as there was a lot happening all at once. Playing as Germany, you'd want:

- A general in North Africa (possibly two if an offensive was planned and the player wanted to do something off-the-wall);
- A defensive general in France or Germany to man the coastal fortifications.
- Perhaps a defensive general in Norway (I was positing a 'worst case scenario here').
- Three generals for Army Group North (for a complex plan that involves three axes of advance - again, I'm going the 'more complex' extreme).
- Four generals for Army Group Centre.
- Four generals for Army Group South.

And, for a plausible, historical alt, let's say you've opened up a second front in Spain or Turkey, and there's a couple of generals there as well.

That gives you a need for around 16 generals. The US may have similarly large needs if, for example, the UK has a shocker in-game and it's up to the US to attempt to liberate India and South-East Asia as well as Europe, Italy, North Africa and the like. The UK might need quite a few just because it can have a large number of small fronts all over the world, and a successful Japan (say, one that invades the Continental US) might have similar problems.

From the screens we'd seen so far, it looked like there were only a handful of generals (less than ten in some cases, noting that I knew the game was in alpha, so only raised it as a 'concern', rather than a 'there's no way this'd work'), and I wasn't sure whether there'd be enough to meet the needs of a player that liked their battle-plans to be on the more complex side (moar arrows!). Podcat says it's all good though, and I believe him. How could one not believe someone that can pull off wearing so much tweed at once?

I agree with your thoughts on the matter as well (well put as always ) - I suspect we just had different guesses on how many generals it looked like we were getting.

I think you are right, this is probably the worst case scenario. I had forgot you would want to assign commanders to the occupied countries on a defensive stance. 16 compared to 150-200? historical GER commanders in the game files in HOI3.

The latest video didn't show it, but the previous ones clearly showed one General, I think von Rundstedt, commanding all Ger forces along the border with mainland Germany, and it had three axis of attack. They may have cut this, but assuming it is still there, then you can even choose to have one Army Group North commander with multiple objectives. You only need to split forces if you:

- will hit the command limit of the main force General
- have very separate objectives
- have specialised troops that you want to use separately from the rest and/or to gain specialised bonuses by having Armour say under a Panzer Leader

I'm not sure if we have seen enough detail for anyone to spot the numbers for the command limits? But the lower level commanders (probably Lt. Gen) have a limit of 10 - you could see this in the video the two commanders (from memory) had 7/10 and 3/10 under their names, and it looked to me like he only selected 3 of the 4 units located in East Prussia.

So if you have a very large mobile force, or you have mobile forces with followup Inf, then you might want to split these into two formations/commanders.

 

[Axe99]

Aye, it's a huge reduction in generals that need to be managed, and a huge reduction in the number of generals needed. The impression I got from the stream was that we might (ie, there's still no definites yet, and by the sound of the stream they're still finalising the system) need a separate general for each 'arrow', and that the system had changed since the earlier 'three arrow to one general' we saw earlier (at Gamescom I think?), but it's still too early to know one way or another for sure. I think you're spot on with the command limits, that was what my assumption was as well. Either way, it sounds like it's not an issue . While I kind of miss divisional commanders a little (just for flavour, as much as anything), I do like the way the new system seems to be shaping up.

 

[Simoleum]

Where's the DD?

 

[potski]

Where's the DD?

There is none, since the Politics one. We are discussing the video from the end of last week, available on Twitch (links earlier in this thread) where podcat did a live streaming Q&A session.

 

[Simoleum]

There is none, since the Politics one. We are discussing the video from the end of last week, available on Twitch (links earlier in this thread) where podcat did a live streaming Q&A session.

But I thought he said he'd post a DD after the streaming

 

[Centurion1973]

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.

I disagree - veteran units were not only better able to deal with enemy (which translated to faster advance), but also very often able to keep advance or defence despite losses that would stop less experienced units (ultimately, that is already represented by ORG).

 

[Centurion1973]

But I thought he said he'd post a DD after the streaming

Its weekend..... just wait a few days

 

[Axe99]

But I thought he said he'd post a DD after the streaming

Aye, the word was we'd get a DD, but it would be delayed. It's still the very early morning in Sweden (3:20am according to Google) on Monday morning, probably a little early to expect anything to be up yet . If we're lucky it might be today, but they'll have other things they need to do as well and they take a couple of hours or so to put together (I think we were told, and that sounds reasonable), we'll see it when we see it.

 

[Joppos]

On the HOI3 map you couldn't get a nice run-down of your units. Select a Group and you would only see the Armies attached to it. Select the right one, then you see the Corps. Select the right Corps and you got to see the Divs attached to it. If you were only fighting in North Africa at the time you might remember the Army and Corps numbers. If you didn't then you would have to go up and down the OOB until you found the unit(s) you wanted.

The OOB organiser window was easier, you could expand all of the lower levels to see what was where.

But in HOI4 you just select Rommel and on the left side of the screen you see a list of all of units under him, much like the HOI3 organiser but without all the HQs.

Plus in the map - in North Africa zoomed out a little you might see all Rommel's forces "together" but they are not in one stack even if they are all in the same province. The HOI4 counters are separated by type. So it would be easy to select say all of the Armoured Divs with a single click. Not only could a HOI3 Pz Corp not be visible easily on the map (because it could be "under" other counters) it probably wasn't in the same province as the Divs.

Have you never played hunt the units in HOI3?

Hoi3 was cluttered and terrible, but the concept of a hierarchy for hoi4 do stand on it's own merits. More often than not you'd want to quickly select a mixture of divisions, say for example a spearhead where you might want both mechanized, heavy armor and medium armor and so on. Being able to select all units of one arch-type does little to alleviate that since you still have to continuously sort lists to get that mix, and so you are left with creating those as the current "general" groups. And you will undoubtedly need to modify your groups' orders throughout an operation. If you have two or more "general" groups mixed up on the map, being able to select arch-types is even less useful, and prone to just causing an organizational quagmire. Now to be a bit more specific here are two instances where i see a super/sub-grouping feature real handy for hoi4:
1) When you have large "general" groups of say 30 divs, you might want to be able to define groups within that, so that you can select mixed elements of that group without having to sort through lists more than once. Especially if you can assign a "general" group multiple attack arrows, which i don't know if that's the intention but also if you need to divert a complimenting group of units without sorting through lists. Simply click on subgroup 1 and select those 5x inf, 3x inf-Hart, 2x inf-eng directly and give them separate orders.
2) When you have more than maybe ten "general" groups, you might want to put some of them together in some form of supergroup so that you with one click get a quick overview of for example all "general" groups related to the northern part of your barbarossa offensive, even if one "general" group had a brief detour somewhere else. It's rather important that those groups are something you can define solid yourself, completely separate from some logic the game could assume for you, such as geographical areas and so on. If you play an aggressive game as any major you will end up with a lot of units all over the world, highly concentrated at places. Since solid stacks like hoi2, eu, vicky and so forth doesn't exist (effectively turning a group of the smallest units into a unit itself) and on-map overview is handled by a proximity list it will definitely get uncomfortably chaotic if hierarchical choices aren't available.
Again, this has nothing to do with hoi3 and any such mechanics would not be limited to any of hoi3's glaring flaws. Though actually, one of the things i really dislike doing in most pds games (especially hated it in hoi3) is continuously having to select/deselect from unit lists to get the right units. If handy organizational tools are missing and a player is incentivised to just make pure arch-type division selections, or large randomized selections, ww2 is gonna get real funky real fast.

 

[Cpack]

I also hope that there're not to few generals who command nearly all at once. Sure, having a general for every division was too many and too much micro, but on a corps level, I like it.
Since it looks like the HQ's are gone, I hopefully can assign at least one general per, let say 4-10 divisions and give them "corps or army names". So for Germany I really want to assign maybe 20-40 generals later on.

So for Africa assign Rommel with 4-8 Divisons and call them surprisingly "Afrikacorps" or in south Russia assign 10 Division to Paulus and call them "6. Armee".......

That's how it should work without HQ's and hopefully is exactly this way....

 

[Cpack]

Another question on the video:

After creating a division, f.e. tank division, Podcat stated that this division will be filled up and trained automatically.

My concern:
Lets say I have a pool of 150 Pz I, 80 Pz II and maybe 50 Pz III. Can I manually set the panzers to the division, for example I want to create an "older" Pz-Division for minor important places and only want Pz I's in that, or does it go completely automated?

The same question for variants, if I have some Pz IIIc, Pz IIIe and Pz IIIj?

 

[Vonboe]

With such few generals I would love to see a tiny bit of RPG element to them, for example a commander could demand a certain amount of tanks got build, or more divisions got attach under his command , etc. and depending on you decide to grant the wish or not the general could get a tiny skill buff/debuff for a few months.

 

[PlacidDragon]

Another question on the video:

After creating a division, f.e. tank division, Podcat stated that this division will be filled up and trained automatically.

My concern:
Lets say I have a pool of 150 Pz I, 80 Pz II and maybe 50 Pz III. Can I manually set the panzers to the division, for example I want to create an "older" Pz-Division for minor important places and only want Pz I's in that, or does it go completely automated?

The same question for variants, if I have some Pz IIIc, Pz IIIe and Pz IIIj?

If i recall, they have said that you will have control over that (possibly through a sort of reinforcement priority system or something).

So it should be possible to for example as the Soviets, feed your Guards Tank Divisions on the Western front with the newest and best, while giving "outdated crap" to divisions in Manchuria, as they are very unlikely to see combat.

 

[Nelfe]

I really like the training animation of the units
(could be better if you add some Sgt Hartmann best quote while selecting a unit who is under training ^^)

 

[fabius]

I disagree - veteran units were not only better able to deal with enemy (which translated to faster advance), but also very often able to keep advance or defence despite losses that would stop less experienced units (ultimately, that is already represented by ORG).

Yes up to a point; but beyond a point more combat experience reduces effectiveness from a commanders perspective.

Think it through or check the empirical evidence. Just one example: In broad terms the allied veteran divisions were "sticky" in Normandy compared to their greener peers and under-performed in terms of advance speed in he eyes of commanders.

 

[Sakkura]

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?

HOI1 and HOI2 had no OOB, but the combat worked just fine; those were the games that popularised the series, where HOI3 was the game that nearly ruined it.

 

[Denkt]

My concern:
Lets say I have a pool of 150 Pz I, 80 Pz II and maybe 50 Pz III. Can I manually set the panzers to the division, for example I want to create an "older" Pz-Division for minor important places and only want Pz I's in that, or does it go completely automated?

In the stream we could see priority buttons for reforcement and division training, maybe something like that exist for created division to that high priority divisions get the best equipment.