Reason for removing division leaders in HOI 4?

[EmperorTojo]

What are leaders removed? Leaders were some of the advantages the Germans had with top notch leaders like Rommel, Guderian and von Manstein to be removed is a disaster in my opinion. Leaders have been in HoI series from the very beginning.

Generals exist, just not on a division level.

 

[-Toni82-]

As this message came out, some threads followed about this topic.

I said it once, and here again: do not touch divisional commanders

 

[Holy.Death]

What are leaders removed?

No leaders. Divisional commanders it seems. Officers being in game are officially confirmed.

 

[EmperorTojo]

As this message came out, some threads followed about this topic.

I said it once, and here again: do not touch divisional commanders

[video=youtube;moSFlvxnbgk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk[/video]

Let it go, guys, let it go..

No tears now, only dreams.

 

[keynes2.0]

I for one am glad to see division leaders go but hope it will be possible to have redundant leaders assigned to armies so you can avoid leader transition penalties and make it so they are racking up experience instead of gathering dust at HQ.

 

[podcat]

Really, as I'v said before, just wait for a diary that explains things.

 

[SFSLovenought]

[video=youtube;moSFlvxnbgk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk[/video]

Let it go, guys, let it go..

No tears now, only dreams.

I need to watch that movie so much.
I've been meaning to, but I never get around to actually finding and watching it.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

I'd describe myself as a pretty big fan of the HoI series (and bear in mind I did not work here until a while after Semper Fi was released, so it's not a "because I worked on them" thing), but re-arranging the leaders of the German army every game quickly went from a cool detail to a chore to something that made me want to kill myself half way through it. Use auto-assign? It wouldn't make the same choices I would make, it would not be optimal, I have to do it manually! I don't think I am alone in that. While we could spend time making much better auto-assign AI with the end-goal of letting players ignore a feature (except even a super good AI would not know your thoughts and you would likely have to tweak it anyway), that seems like a waste of resources. Features that are not fun should be made fun or removed, not shuffled off to be automated. Now I'm sure for some, assigning leaders was a task that was enjoyed every time, and I am sorry those people are losing a feature they liked, but we need to make what we think is a fun game.

Amen, brother!
One likely reason that people liked assigning div leaders was the possibility of watching them gradually rise through the ranks to become major theater commanders. Of course, this path was helped by the completely unrealistic impossibility of their ever getting wounded or killed!

The numbers say that the marginal effect of being able to pick leaders of your choosing was scarcely worth the effort spent on identifying them. And so begone with the entire business!

 

[EmperorTojo]

I need to watch that movie so much.
I've been meaning to, but I never get around to actually finding and watching it.

It's sort of good. I think I liked Tangled more though.

 

[Corelli]

Really, as I'v said before, just wait for a diary that explains things.

No! We want to complain NOW!



(I would prefer divisional leaders as I enjoyed that part of the micromanagement but can easily see why some people, maybe even most people, didn't like it)

 

[Jorlaan]

This change really does not bother me. Shuffling of all the bloody division commanders is actually one of the things that keeps the gaps in between how often I play HoI 3. It gets so mind numbingly tedious to change around all those leaders along with all the other stuff I gotta do at the beginning/during every game.
Yes in some ways I will miss it, I do like having good leaders for every division but it is not something I will worry about I'm sure. I have a feeling that they will have some sort of a new system for this.

 

[FOARP]

I would like to know what was the reason the developers decided to do this

To feast on the rich, salty tears of HOI3 fanbois - why else?

 

[Augustus93]

To feast on the rich, salty tears of HOI3 fanbois - why else?

For you to troll, why else?

 

[Porkman]

I'd wait to see what was actually meant by this before condemning this - HOI2 didn't have divisional leaders, at least in as much as there was no leader slot for every division but instead only for every stack.

This isn't strictly true. Back when the AI randomly choosing who to autopromote was the only way to raise a rank without losing skill, making optimal stacks wasn't possible.

So for China, who started out with 36 divisions, making stacks of 3 or 9 would mean that at most a dozen generals would be leveling and they'd have to do it slowly since they'd all have to be ranked high enough to lead a stack of 3, 6 or 12.

But the stacking limit applies to units in combat not units in a single stack.

So for China, which has crap field marshals and generals, it's much better to have every division be a single division and stack none of them.

This way, instead of having Chiang Kai shek leading a stack of 12 and gaining experience slowly, you can have Chiang Kai shek leading 1 division, gaining experience slowly, while 11 other divisions are led by 11 major generals, all of whom level up very quickly. As long as Chiang Kai Shek is in combat his stacking limit of 12 applies to everyone and now you have 12 generals gaining experience where a traditional stack would only have 1-3 generals.

 

[CplKatie]

I need to watch that movie so much.
I've been meaning to, but I never get around to actually finding and watching it.

My 4 year old watches the movie 24/7, has ONLY the soundtrack on her ipod, and listens to it all night long while she sleeps. Trust me, if you can avoid it....AVOID IT. It is a good movie and set of songs...but my god I hear it everywhere even when its not playing!

 

[DoomBunny]

Can it be clarified if we're talking about a loss of divisional level assignments or about leaders of a divisional level? I.e, is Gavin in game but can only command a corps/army/etc..., or does he not appear at all?

 

[mazman34340]

One thing that stopped me from enjoying playing the USA was rearranging the whole US Navy at the start of the game. Moving the battleships, splitting the destroyers and cruisers, it was fun the first time.

 

[laune573]

yes, every time a game company removes a feature from a game which wasn't fun for the majority of the players, they're dumbing it down. You've hit the nail on the head, detective. Pat yourself on the back.

lol, +1

 

[vonhavoc]

In-fact good they removed divisional leaders, all players exploited it by sending their good leaders to some stupid division, have it fight against the poles throughout 15 days and gain tons of experience for leader, then put him in charge of army-group to reduce supplies, totally gamey.
Do you think for instance, Von Manstein (Historically, incharge of some stupid division in Polish Campaign) is one day heading some stupid division in East Prussia and 3 months later is Army-Group-West's Commander of 1 Million Troops.??

I think von Manstein was working in an army group staff during the polish campaign. And for the french campaign he got his own corps.

 

[alekseevic]

[...]re-arranging the leaders of the German army every game quickly went from a cool detail to a chore to something that made me want to kill myself half way through it. Use auto-assign? It wouldn't make the same choices I would make, it would not be optimal, I have to do it manually! I don't think I am alone in that. [...]

You aren't alone. I definitely agree.

EDIT: The more things you devs write, the more I think I'll love HOI4. Just don't f*ck things up... :laugh: