Please, don't waste HOI4 potential !
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Bit of a difference since you don't have to interact with estates or development as player despite them being there, or rather it's not game-defining and it's really a tie-in to already established mechanics in the form of Influence or monarch power (DLC or not). Some government forms doesn't even have them. Development is simply a pay-to-win feature that enables you to invest ruler-mana to improve development.
Having different supply-systems or OOBs depending on DLC would mean checksum issues so I don't think that's something that's going to happen as it's the same as supporting different versions of the game (something they've explicitly said they don't intend for future releases).
I could see some extra OOB bells-and-whistles as DLC though but that'd be pretty fair as it only caters to part of the customer crowd.
Or a new system to intercept naval invasions? Ex : assign a naval unit to Coastal Defence. Or link a naval unit to a land command assigned to coastal garrison. This way, the naval unit coordinates to intercept invasion forces.
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My programming knowedge starts and ends at very basic modding, so i can say for sure how it would work. You might be right that DLC-ifying it all would be very problematic. However, I suspect that if Paradox wanted to do an OOB or Supply DLC, they'd come up with a way to make it work. Like you said, they could put the bare bones of the system in the free patch, but lock everything beyond the most basic interaction behind a paywall.
And those players who abhor OOBs and hated HOI3 because of it will like it while those of us who feels some form OOBs are missing will be grumpy if it's DLCd. I don't think it will come to that however. PDS are quite sensible and I'm confident that some median way will be implemented. Not OOB madness like in HOI3 but possibly something more developed than what we have now.
Supply on the other hand needs to be part of an expansion or patch because it's not possible to mix different systems without breaking the game (even SP vs AI).
I seriously wonder what the timetable is for the features they announced on PDX Con.
Right now every single current Paradox title has pretty severe problems and they just don't seem to invest a lot of rsources. After an initial bugfix for Stellaris, PDX has gone radio-silent even though some pretty central features are still broken (food).
Right now every single current Paradox title has pretty severe problems and they just don't seem to invest a lot of rsources. After an initial bugfix for Stellaris, PDX has gone radio-silent even though some pretty central features are still broken (food).
Let me state clearly I don't know. I do know/think that they will be releasing a DLC/Expansion in December (remember Paradox takes July off so no work that month). So how much can they get done before then? They have stated that the Air UI improvements are needed for later game mechanic improvements. That tells me things are taking time, couldn't just fix/improve the Air and be done with it. So if they are not saying it is for DoD then likely late this year or the next year. My guess to see all of what they talked about would be for development until the next ParadoxCon?
And yet the vast majority of war games, both on PC and older more traditional formats, have ignored command hierarchy almost completely.
Grigsby's WW2 games are the exception and not the rule. Even they mostly do it only on the army level, though with a bit more detail to those armies than in HOI.
Some ACW games have represented some form of command hierarchy, but there it is mostly to simulate the ineffectiveness of the North in spite of their numerical advantage.
Your characterization of our player base as being too lazy to think and only having the attention span for a 30 minute game is so far off the mark that I am surprised people have not jumped all over it. The idea is both childish and insulting. Yet insulting the rest of us to construct some empty argument in favor of your pet OOB is probably the best you could muster since there is nothing at all in your post to support the idea other than the fact that you want to have it.
I agree with your suggestions, except the first one. I think that they should introduce a new oob chain: army groups (I would like corps, but I dont think that is going to happen), and get rid of the two ddiferent sets of abilities for field marchals and generals. Both should get access to both kind of abilities, without losing anything after being promoted.
That would be ideal, along with FBD rail repair units, but that's asking a lot. Id love that, but I'm willing to settle for far less lol
Off the top of my head: Gary Grisbys games, The Operational Art of War games and Combat Ops games all have detailed oobs. Many Matrix WW 2 games have one. I acknowledge these games are above what a casual player is ready to invest (time wise), but they are detailed and, at least in the case of Combat Ops, realistic, which, for some people, makes them fun to play.
I don't read every thread by any measure, but I'm about these parts a bit and I really don't see a lot of complaints that fit your description of "most of the people playing seem to complain about". From what I've seen, most of the people complaining want more depth. Given that the recent PDXCon presentation made it pretty clear the dev team were looking to bring that to the game, I'm not sure where your argument that "it appears that Paradox is trying to tap into the "I want to play, not think" demographic". There are, of course, a few posts here and there by people that struggle with the AI, or are confused by a gameplay system, but the vast majority seem to come from the "we want OOBs/better supply/better naval warfare/accurate Japanese aircraft names" side of things (and the people making these complaints/suggestions are anything but from the "it takes too long to play" crowd!)
Yeah, I'll admit I didn't play the earlier HOI games, but I completely agree with this. I think one of the problems with this game is that it can often be very very nonsensical. I understand the desire to slim down systems and make the game simple and fun to play.... and I also want the game to allow you to be open-ended in strategies, but you can't just take things out that are very important to strategic decisions/possibilities. As it stands, the game simply doesn't differentiate between the Raj invading Germany and Germany invading Poland.... and it's pretty obvious that invading Germany as the Raj should be a great deal more difficult. The lack of a fuel system and the lack of a supply system are huge misses imho. If WW2 taught anything it's that industry and logistics are of huge importance in modern warfare.
Yeah when you consider that a Division past a certain distance from a supply source, actually costs more "industrial power" to simply keep it fighting, than it takes to create an entire new division, by several factors as you get further away, we're really, really far from reality in that regard.
A German brigade south of Moscow, according to German research, utilized no less than 6 train engines, plus cars, 1600 horses, and almost 200 trucks. All day. Every day. For a BRIGADE. They never came CLOSE to these numbers, and as a result, most of the German army in Russia was under supplied the entire war, other than when it was specifically supplied for an offensive.
The number of Japanese convoys that would be required to put a single brigade in the US and keep it fed and with ammo, would take up a large portion of their shipping, which they didn't even bother, by doctrine, to defend until way late in the war. It just wasn't a priority.
This is one of those things though that I'm positive Podcat and team want to fix/enhance, but its simply a time and resources problem. The game works more or less "ok" without it, but you cant not have planes, or naval battles, invasion, or a working AI, all those pieces have to fall in place before we get a good supply system.
Theyre aware. Were aware. Its just a matter of time.
A German brigade south of Moscow, according to German research, utilized no less than 6 train engines, plus cars, 1600 horses, and almost 200 trucks. All day. Every day. For a BRIGADE. They never came CLOSE to these numbers, and as a result, most of the German army in Russia was under supplied the entire war, other than when it was specifically supplied for an offensive.
The number of Japanese convoys that would be required to put a single brigade in the US and keep it fed and with ammo, would take up a large portion of their shipping, which they didn't even bother, by doctrine, to defend until way late in the war. It just wasn't a priority.
This is one of those things though that I'm positive Podcat and team want to fix/enhance, but its simply a time and resources problem. The game works more or less "ok" without it, but you cant not have planes, or naval battles, invasion, or a working AI, all those pieces have to fall in place before we get a good supply system.
Theyre aware. Were aware. Its just a matter of time.
There are some defines that actually sets the table in regard to distance from capital and how long it takes to reinforce. It doesn't tie inte IC but modding them makes a huge impact when it comes to equipment recovery in the field which kinda slows the global warfare tendencies down to a crawl if modified properly. It doesn't affect AI behavior though so you'll still see Brazilian units landing in Danzig etc.
Yeah in the WW Sim mod, it increased equipment and manpower losses from battles, and drastically increased reinforcement from stockpile time if yer not near a source. Which actually has a very positive effect on gameplay imho.
Sure you can send a Brazilian 40 width marine to DDay, but if it takes heavy losses, you could be waiting 3 months for it to come back to full strength. It becomes a glass cannon instead of being an integral part of the invasion and march to Berlin.
Course the AI will still smash a 9% strength unit into heavy tanks if it can. But that's AI, not mechanics.
Sure you can send a Brazilian 40 width marine to DDay, but if it takes heavy losses, you could be waiting 3 months for it to come back to full strength. It becomes a glass cannon instead of being an integral part of the invasion and march to Berlin.
Course the AI will still smash a 9% strength unit into heavy tanks if it can. But that's AI, not mechanics.
Any fix would have to address the ai propensity to launch suicidal invasions though. How the ai evaluates whether it is a tactical and strategic advantage to invade, and whether it is safe to travel through sea regions to reach it's destination needs vast improvement.
Comes down to 1.4. Either there are substantial positive steps in fixing the land combat ai and the problems in the air system or a lot of people are going to be very disappointed.
Yeah, having recently done a nostalgia-playthrough of Hoi 3, I do not miss having to keep track of dozens of HQ units and make sure they're all positioned properly to give their bonuses.
My first point (like the other, actually) represents what I consider to be the minimal requirement and the more realistic concerning Devs coding time. Dermeister has made a post in the "suggestions" dealing with our "ideal" OOB system for the game : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/improving-command-oob-unit-names.1024043/