Redesigning HoI3 map

[unmerged(94026)]

This mod is valuable serving as bases for completely different background battles. But I do think 14 for Tuva is really too many...

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Meh, if your system can handle all the day-to-day number crunching in Victoria VIP:R, I'll wager that is still more data crunching on a day-to-day basis for a CPU than what HoI3 would have hour-by-hour to calculate for each unit in existence.

Isn't the 3D map handled mostly by the graphic card processor/memory? I believe Johan once made a comment to that effect in the EU3 forum, but I could be mistaken.

 

[Darth Tracid]

stop taking drugs

stop spamming.

 

[bz249]

Did you even read my opening sentence?

"As stated in other threads, my first modding for HoI3 will be making a map where all the 10000 provinces are spread out evenly over ther globe, Antarctica excluded."

Why excluding Antartica?? That there was no historical campaign? That there is no industrial production? Noone is living there? Are those reasons enough for you?

The Sahara Desert, Greenland and Antartica deserves as much province density as Tannu Tuva!

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Give the man a break, guys. He wants to faithfully represent the globe based on the actual planet. Whose to say that this wont diminish the playing value of the game? Imagine the intense fighting over the Congo, or over the Amazon. And also, I am sure once the map is made personal modders can use his template to create their own campaigns.

Plus, this could also be a proof of concept type of project. See how the game would be played if all provinces were fair. You are you to judge?

This.

 

[unmerged(101730)]

Why excluding Antartica?? That there was no historical campaign? That there is no industrial production? Noone is living there? Are those reasons enough for you?

Because Paradox' map engine still isn't 3D. If it were (and we played on a globe instead of a cylinder), I'd include stuff beyond 80° north and 60° south too.

As for the "hex map" comment: I like when my maps can capture the geographical features and real national boundaries as closely as possible while still being playable. This is hard to do with hexes. That said, even with provinces I still need to make compromises: stuff like the border structure at Baarle-Hertog give me the shivers. I doubt we'll ever see a Paradox game which is able to depict it accurately.

 

[bz249]

Ok some calculations 2007 GDP of Belgium is 376B USD, the 2004 GDP of the former Belgian Congo is 42B USD, let it increase to 50B USD to 2007 (note that the 1936 value should be more in favor of Belgium) that means an IC difference of 7:1 to Belgium

If we keep your 170 vs 3 province distribution it will result in a 350:1 IC density for homeland Belgium. So the ownership of any of those 3 provinces would be 350x more important (because you use that IC to build and maintain your armies) than the ownership of a randomly selected province in Congo.

So a rational player would concentrate on the rich European provinces and totally neglect the African campaign (too resource intensive to conduct for too few benefits). Or perhaps you can tweak the IC values... but then it would not be a game about WWII, thus no HOI.

 

[unmerged(101730)]

(...)

So a rational player would concentrate on the rich European provinces and totally neglect the African campaign (too resource intensive to conduct for too few benefits). Or perhaps you can tweak the IC values... but then it would not be a game about WWII, thus no HOI.

You don't go to Africa for the IC. You go for the resources.

 

[lordgoof]

even then its hardly worth it........i go there to make the map a pretty green.

 

[bz249]

You don't go to Africa for the IC. You go for the resources.

last time i checked it was also scattered... resources and IC is more or less in the same regions (again it is possible to give oil to Nigeria, which they have in real life... but produced very little if any in the WWII timeframe)

so again provinces of uniform sizes incerease the importance of European provinces and further decreases the importance of African/Central Asian... etc provinces

the best you can hope for is a paratrooper campaign in those places (conquer the VP-s and that's all)

 

[unmerged(101730)]

last time i checked it was also scattered... resources and IC is more or less in the same regions (again it is possible to give oil to Nigeria, which they have in real life... but produced very little if any in the WWII timeframe)

so again provinces of uniform sizes incerease the importance of European provinces and further decreases the importance of African/Central Asian... etc provinces

the best you can hope for is a paratrooper campaign in those places (conquer the VP-s and that's all)

... or maybe you'd like to play through something like the Mau Mau uprising, too. Or the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War of 1941/42. In either case, you'd need enough room to manoeuvre there, so having space to do so is important too.

And yes, fighting through the Congo jungle (because you lack good air bases near enough to do a paratrooper landing, or can't hold the important points) should be a pain. And conquering British India along with all the Indian states shouldn't be a cakewalk like it is in HoI2 either. And in vast places like Siberia, China or the Amazonas, pockets of resistance should be able to hold out for years in remote, unimportant areas - simply because going after them is a costly and time-consuming affair, while you have more important things to do and the real valuable provinces to conquer.

 

[bz249]

... or maybe you'd like to play through something like the Mau Mau uprising, too. Or the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War of 1941/42. In either case, you'd need enough room to manoeuvre there, so having space to do so is important too.

As far as i know those are scenario level things... just like the Ardennes offensive or whatever. So yes I would like to play the war between Paraguay and Bolivia (to use a different South American example ) then play it as a scenario since:

- it has no significant effect for the broader world
- the broader world has not influenced any side by any means (save for some retired officers and outdated weapons sold)

And yes, fighting through the Congo jungle (because you lack good air bases near enough to do a paratrooper landing, or can't hold the important points) should be a pain. And conquering British India along with all the Indian states shouldn't be a cakewalk like it is in HoI2 either. And in vast places like Siberia, China or the Amazonas, pockets of resistance should be able to hold out for years in remote, unimportant areas - simply because going after them is a costly and time-consuming affair, while you have more important things to do and the real valuable provinces to conquer.

So in the end a clever player simply not bother doing such things... if that was your goal then it is fine. This is very realistic indeed... but conquering Africa, Siberia and South America is boring enough in the HOI2 already.

 

[Markusw7]

So it seems you want, provinces based on land area in real life so areas that historically sideshows (africa, siberia, central asia) to give you more room to manoeuvre while at the same time it takes room to manoeuvre away from places where there historically was alot of major fighting (belguim, netherlands, france, Poland, western Russia).

 

[unmerged(101730)]

So it seems you want, provinces based on land area in real life so areas that historically sideshows to give you more room to manoeuvre while at the same time it takes room to manoeuvre away from places where there historically was alot of major fighting .

No, more room to manoeuvre is just one part of the motivation.

Others are:

1. Ensuring the movement, combat and improvement building systems work everywhere around the globe in a consistent manner.

2. Making "minor" states like Argentina or Hyderabad fun to play on speed modes below "very fast".

3. Clearing up the map so it can be used for conflicts outside the HoI time frame without any major changes (conflicts like the Korea and Vietnam wars, the Mexican Revolution, or the Congo Crisis, to pick a few bigger ones). Preferably without changes at all.

4. Having my fun modding the map.

And finally ...

5. Creating a library of detailed overview maps of the various areas for other modders to use as inspiration for their modding.

 

[gjflanker]

I shun playing Doomsday east of Volga, west of the Atlantic coastline or south of the Mediterranean because the provinces there are incompatible with the movement- and combat system and have no idea how anyone can stand playing a country like Japan; the one time I actually forced myself to play it into 1942, I found myself not going on the offensive because my enemies had nothing I wanted to conquer nor did I have anything I wanted to defend.

Umm, you didn't want to conquer the world?

 

[gjflanker]

I can respect your goal of uniform province sizes and some of the reasons. However, I feel that the number of provinces should be defined by the number of possible advance routes or defensible positions. Belgium has more roads than Tannu Tuva.

Now taking roads/railroads and their directions into account is another level of complexity. Maybe apart from infrastructure level we should have pre defined connection levels between provinces that affect movement. A well developed high infrastructure province can have very bad connections to a neighboring province.

LordG

How would you change the map as infrastructure was built/destroyed?

 

[gjflanker]

last time i checked it was also scattered... resources and IC is more or less in the same regions (again it is possible to give oil to Nigeria, which they have in real life... but produced very little if any in the WWII timeframe)

so again provinces of uniform sizes incerease the importance of European provinces and further decreases the importance of African/Central Asian... etc provinces

the best you can hope for is a paratrooper campaign in those places (conquer the VP-s and that's all)

If the game can go to 1964 (or beyond?), resource development should be a possibility. I could envision at least two possibilities, one based on historical discoveries and one randomized. In other words, in a historical case, allow for the discovery of resources where they were in fact discovered. In a randomized one, allow for the discovery of resources based on terrain type using a percentage type of algorithm. I would imagine the discovery and development of the resource would require an expenditure of IC. You could also treat the size of the resource available in either an historical or randomized fashion.

 

[gjflanker]

And yes, fighting through the Congo jungle (because you lack good air bases near enough to do a paratrooper landing, or can't hold the important points) should be a pain.

The ability to field an expeditionary airfield should be a research-able tech. One of my gripes with HOI2 is the length of time and IC it takes to build an airbase, when I know the U.S. (at least) was building serviceable airstrips in the Pacific in a matter of days after taking an island.

 

[unmerged(101730)]

The ability to field an expeditionary airfield should be a research-able tech. One of my gripes with HOI2 is the length of time and IC it takes to build an airbase, when I know the U.S. (at least) was building serviceable airstrips in the Pacific in a matter of days after taking an island.

Of course. Given proper equipment, supplies and a suitable patch of land, an engineer brigade should be able to make a provisional level-1 airport within a week, at most. Let's hope HoI3 features such a possibility.

 

[unmerged(101730)]

Here we go, Oman and the UAE semi-finished. Both are within their predicted province count (23 for Oman, 6 for the UAE).

Dark grey are mountainous areas brown hilly (mostly arid or rocky desert in the north, though the Salalah and Sadah provinces get enough monsoon rain to be quite wet and fertile at least some time of the year). Yellow is desert (the Rub al-Khali, for the most part), while beige is salty desert (or salty lakes if there was some rain recently).

Limitations: The emirates of the UAE can't be depicted accurately at this scale, with the exception of the biggest one, Abu Dhabi. At most, one could add this and the Dubai and Fujairah emirates as small one-province potential revolters. Also, the multitude of small islands off the coast aren't depicted. With the exception of the Musandam peninsula (Khasab province), I didn't try to depict the exclaves of Oman or the various emirates' exclaves either.

Al Mushash province is a candidate for PTI.