Revised Air Combat

[Alex_brunius]

2) air power is completely underestimated, 200 CAS (equivalent to 2 wings) planes should have no problems in annihilating 2-3 or even more divisions in a couple of days... specially is they are armored ones... a tank is a fairly visible target, not so fast and pretty weak to air strikes, and 500 tanks should not be problem to 200 Il-2s or Typhoons and should not take more that a couple of hours to left no one operative (if the weather and the terrain helps)

How will your 200 CAS have any affect at the 500-1000 ten man squads making up the bulk of the division? They will hide in trenches, forests, hills, buildings, ditches and whereever they can. How can you reliably find and kill each and every one of 15'000 soldiers spread over 30x30km? The first ones will be easy and here we agree. But try finding the last 1500men when they know very well what the threat is. They will move only at night, and seek cover during the day. This is not pokemon, you cannot catch them all!

 

[Radu]

no no and no... I'm COMPLETELY against any abstraction in air combat... I think that the actual model need to be improved only for a better adaptation to how it was the air combat... there are some big points to take in count:

1) it need to take the speed of the units in count for the air combat (as I say before)
2) air power is completely underestimated, 200 CAS (equivalent to 2 wings) planes should have no problems in annihilating 2-3 or even more divisions in a couple of days... specially is they are armored ones... a tank is a fairly visible target, not so fast and pretty weak to air strikes, and 500 tanks should not be problem to 200 Il-2s or Typhoons and should not take more that a couple of hours to left no one operative (if the weather and the terrain helps)
3) radar and AA should have far more importance in the model... and not only be bonuses... the AA should be able to fire at any enemy airplane over the province, inflicting some damage, irrelevant if there is or not a air combat... and radar should be inclusive more important... taking the example of Hebos.vU, you have your 20 wings in air superiority mission... then the radar detect (and shows also in the map) the germans forces approaching (the radar should show every air unit at two province distance, or something like that)... then automatically ALL your units in mission in the area should gather in the province and give them a hell of a fight

specially points 2 and 3 should eliminate the problems that show Hebos.vU's example... because giving to air unit a more reallistic power that should keep you avoiding to concentrate all your fighter force to slowly destroy enemy's air force (that would mean leaving the enemy CAS free to strike hardly your groun forces)... and should also give the importance that radar have, more than a bonus for combat, than a measure to wisely use your forces

It might come as a surprise to you,but this is a grand strategy game,not an operational simulation (and you might want to wiki those terms up). The things that you've described are of tactical importance, far below any kind of "visualization". You seem to think Hearts of Iron is a Rise of Nations/Empire Earth clone. Sorry to disappoint.

Again,the full list of factors should be in.By all means, the Air Combat model should be quite a melting pot of countless relevant factors, but that doesn't mean the player should see those details, or worse, have to respond in real-time them! This isn't a flight sim,by God, the player shouldn't have to order squadrons to pull back or order them to stop CAS-ing empty provinces.That's stupid micromanagement.

The player doesn't need to know where squadron X at hour H, doesn't need to know the range of AA guns, maximum ceiling of planes and so forth. The player only needs to set the mission parameters (when,where,how), the squadrons will take care of themselves.

If you want more,you're looking for a different game.

 

[unmerged(42723)]

That is not what we are saying. Once again - abstraction does not automatically make the game simpler, or for that matter, shift game focus to land combat.

For example, if you were able to visually see the working force in a country and had to move them around to different factories as you changed your production focus does not make it a better game. Instead it increase micromangement. Hence, the production model is not based on the land combat model and instead an abstracted production model is implemented that better simulates production.

Then it is not very clear what you mean. Currently you are "babysitting" (as it says in the op) your entire land army without complaining about it, but you seem to complain when you do have to do the same with air and/or naval units. Actually that is IMO part of the challenge - you lead your navy and air force as much as your land army. The abstraction argument can be made for anything if you put enough emphasis on it. You could as well say that ordering land divisions around is too much micromanagement in a grand strategy game. IMO it should aim to represent WWII times as good as possible, and that means multiple challenges to me.

 

[Radu]

Then it is not very clear what you mean. Currently you are "babysitting" (as it says in the op) your entire land army without complaining about it, but you seem to complain when you do have to do the same with air and/or naval units. Actually that is IMO part of the challenge - you lead your navy and air force as much as your land army. The abstraction argument can be made for anything if you put enough emphasis on it. You could as well say that ordering land divisions around is too much micromanagement in a grand strategy game. IMO it should aim to represent WWII times as good as possible, and that means multiple challenges to me.

It's quite simple, a naval battle,if not properly micromanaged in HOI2, can end in disaster within hours.

An air battle takes even less. You blink once and your airforce is gone.

Even in vanilla HOI2's hyper-speed bloodless land battles things unfold in the order of at least a day and in the case more realistic mods much more.

Basically, you could be managing you armies when you fleet or air wing gets jumped and destroyed. I'm sorry,but this isn't an RTS where getting jumped by an enemy is fair game.This is a cerebral experience,not a clickfest.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Then it is not very clear what you mean. Currently you are "babysitting" (as you put it in the op) your entire land army without complaining about it, but you seem to complain when you do have to do the same with air and/or naval units. Actually that is IMO part of the challenge

They key difference here is terrain and versatility. Managing the land army doesn't get repeative or boring as easy because of terrain, borders, rivers always shift and you have alot more different combinations of units. You also form flowing fronts that cannot happen in naval or air warfare. Land units scout automatically within their short view range, but airunits does not, and naval units doesn't send out scout planes. With 10'000provinces managing the land army will take some more work. If we will have 3times the micromanagement time required in the Air and Naval parts aswell the game could take 10times as long to play through and I doubt that is something anyone would look forward to.

Compared to the airforce you can group alot more divisions together then you can group airwings too. 12 vs 4.

 

[Bullfrog]

It's quite simple, a naval battle,if not properly micromanaged in HOI2, can end in disaster within hours.

An air battle takes even less. You blink once and your airforce is gone.

Even in vanilla HOI2's hyper-speed bloodless land battles things unfold in the order of at least a day and in the case more realistic mods much more.

Basically, you could be managing you armies when you fleet or air wing gets jumped and destroyed. I'm sorry,but this isn't an RTS where getting jumped by an enemy is fair game.This is a cerebral experience,not a clickfest.

umm...slow down the gamespeed?

 

[Hebos.vU]

Then it is not very clear what you mean. Currently you are "babysitting" (as it says in the op) your entire land army without complaining about it, but you seem to complain when you do have to do the same with air and/or naval units. Actually that is IMO part of the challenge - you lead your navy and air force as much as your land army. The abstraction argument can be made for anything if you put enough emphasis on it. You could as well say that ordering land divisions around is too much micromanagement in a grand strategy game. IMO it should aim to represent WWII times as good as possible, and that means multiple challenges to me.

I can't seem to get the message thorugh can I

Yes, HOI should aim at represent WWII as good as possible, but does that mean that Air/Naval combat should be modelled with a land combat system - huh? :wacko:

No, it should be modelled with something that better reflect Air/Naval combat. To me that is simple to understand. I don't complain about the land combat model because I think that is fairly well modelled in HOI2 (compared to air/naval).

You can still lead your air/naval forces if the model is abstracted.

 

[unmerged(42723)]

It's quite simple, a naval battle,if not properly micromanaged in HOI2, can end in disaster within hours.

An air battle takes even less. You blink once and your airforce is gone.

Even in vanilla HOI2's hyper-speed bloodless land battles things unfold in the order of at least a day and in the case more realistic mods much more.

So your argument is that you can take losses when you don't care about your forces? That seems a strange one for a wargame. And if you leave your land forces alone they can suffer as well if you miss an enemy buildup with subsequent attack and/or possible encirclement.

Basically, you could be managing you armies when you fleet or air wing gets jumped and destroyed. I'm sorry,but this isn't an RTS where getting jumped by an enemy is fair game.This is a cerebral experience,not a clickfest.

And that is why P'dox gave us message as well as mission settings and a pause option.

 

[Zwiback]

umm...slow down the gamespeed?

So slowing down the gamespeed affects the one hour increment or turning the game into a clickfest?

How about we go turn based?

 

[Radu]

If rejecting micromanagement means lack of care for one's forces then the Command and Conquer series is the one for you.Come back when you can appreciate finer entertainment.

 

[unmerged(42723)]

If rejecting micromanagement means lack of care for one's forces then the Command and Conquer series is the one for you.Come back when you can appreciate finer entertainment.

I see, we're now moving to the "If you disagree with my approach you are not a worthy player of this game" phase of the "debate"

Come back when you can make an actual argument.

 

[unmerged(39616)]

I agree 100%. This is one of the most important aspects of close air support, It exists as a support tool only and cannot get the job done by themselfs. Big concentrations of CAS should be able to reduce a division into a 10% strenght 0% org shadow of its former self, but not total annihilation.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Think of retreating units in France'40 for example. There were quite some retreating units reduced by air bombardement so much that they break up and didn't exist as coherent military units anymore.

Another point, which I would like to see in HoI3 is a reduction of micromanagement concerning intercept missions. I would find it more realistic that all interceptors remain grounded (and thereby save valuable fuel) until an incoming enemy air force is spotted. When an enemy air force is spotted they should directly and automatically go for it. Every province should have a base chance of spotting enemy aircraft. This base chance can be improved by radar, air bases or troops stationed in that province. This would also eliminate the horror of seeing all your interceptor fleets tingeling around randomly while the big bad bomber fleet just eludes your mighty air force by choosing a lucky path.

 

[Bullfrog]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Think of retreating units in France'40 for example. There were quite some retreating units reduced by air bombardement so much that they break up and didn't exist as coherent military units anymore.

Disrupted, not physically destroyed. This would be simulated with 0 organization (and a little strength loss). Aerial bombing cannot annihilate 12000 men, but it can certainly scatter them.

 

[unmerged(39509)]

I agree with more automatisation of air-combat. It was one of the most annoying things to deal with playing as one of the great powers and also since the AI wasnt good at using air power effectively it handicapped the AI alot.

Every region with fighters patrolling could have an air supperiority % rating. If the enemy also have fighters on patrol there combat occurs and both take losses but its not visible for the player. Each day the % upgrades depending on number of planes and how the combat has gone.

Bombers with support or bombing missions in the region take losses from the fighters unless they have a 100% air supperiority. Also a smal bonus in the land combats could be given to the side with better air superiority since they can use scout planes more effectively.

 

[Zwiback]

If rejecting micromanagement means lack of care for one's forces then the Command and Conquer series is the one for you.Come back when you can appreciate finer entertainment.

Oh my...

Let's review the current state of the ACM in HOI2:

- Build lots of units
- form killer stacks
- keep giving orders all the time

I mean the air combat model isn't even detailed. As some people pointed out it misses some important stats, attrition and has many many many other shortcomings.

On top of that the interface is cumbersome, the time increments are too large for that kind of combat, let alone the scope of the game.

So actually C&C is what YOU want. If you would have read the posts instead making an unqualified statement which introduced you as a bozo in this thread you would have realized, that most of the people who want to see this kind of air combat gone actually want a more COMPLEX and DETAILED ACM. It's only that this is not possible because of the way it works now.

Jesus.

 

[unmerged(31881)]

About micromanagement: in HoI1, air units had a lot more of it. And they would regularly fly themselves into oblivion through attrition. (iirc) Even worse, i vaguely recall they'd "bounce" so they could get wiped out wandering home over a couple provinces. HoI2 i think made some big strides in the air arena.

And while i agree that altitude and speed should be important factors... i'd also add manoeuvrability is important too. Say, for an escort mission.

Personally, the latest development updates have me hopeful there'll be some innovative tweaks. One i'd mention would be the ability to target an air unit on a specific province, as well as the micromanagement reducing area orders.

Reduced patrols for units on intercept would also be good. As i think there would still be some patrols, but not the full scramble as if there were actual contact made with bandits.

 

[unmerged(122939)]

How will your 200 CAS have any affect at the 500-1000 ten man squads making up the bulk of the division? They will hide in trenches, forests, hills, buildings, ditches and whereever they can. How can you reliably find and kill each and every one of 15'000 soldiers spread over 30x30km? The first ones will be easy and here we agree. But try finding the last 1500men when they know very well what the threat is. They will move only at night, and seek cover during the day. This is not pokemon, you cannot catch them all!

sure... obviously you can't kill every single man... but it's pretty far different with the heavy equipment and vehicules... those are far larger and harder to hide... so IF THE WEATHER AND TERRAIN favours you, you cound have a good chance of at least inflict some severe damage... you can't say it's the same fighting 3 fully equipped and well organized armored divisions with it's 45.000 men and 700-750 tanks than 30.000 and 50-100 tanks with a broken organization (this is been a optimistic, 200 CAS fliying 3 missions in a day means 600 payloads that could destroy some tanks or kill several men, and with this numbers we are asuming that in each flight any airplane killed 25 men and destroy only 1 tank, I think that could be a much worse)

It might come as a surprise to you,but this is a grand strategy game,not an operational simulation (and you might want to wiki those terms up). The things that you've described are of tactical importance, far below any kind of "visualization". You seem to think Hearts of Iron is a Rise of Nations/Empire Earth clone. Sorry to disappoint.

gain,the full list of factors should be in.By all means, the Air Combat model should be quite a melting pot of countless relevant factors, but that doesn't mean the player should see those details, or worse, have to respond in real-time them! This isn't a flight sim,by God, the player shouldn't have to order squadrons to pull back or order them to stop CAS-ing empty provinces.That's stupid micromanagement.

In know that its a grand strategy game, but what I mean it's that improving some critical points it wouldn't be neccesary any abstraction to get the model working... if you wish and can explain to you all my ideas the get a proper air combat model without too micromanagement and no need to abstract anything

The player doesn't need to know where squadron X at hour H, doesn't need to know the range of AA guns, maximum ceiling of planes and so forth. The player only needs to set the mission parameters (when,where,how), the squadrons will take care of themselves.

If you want more,you're looking for a different game.

I never said that... what I say is that the combat model should take in count more thinks, but not that you actually need to take care of it... but the info should be there, the same way you know that a armored division outrun a infantry division, making possible to break enemy lines, you should know than a slower fighter is in disadvantage against a faster one... no more than that

 

[Bullfrog]

Proposal: "Frontage" for air combat.

Consider that in the skies over a province, the units that are flying through are spread over some distance. If I have a 4 wing interceptor group in London, for example, it will be spread around in general defence of the city.

If a 4 wing tac bomber group attacks London, and I intercept with my 4 wing group, that is a battle of ~800 planes. It is apparent that they will all not be able to fight each other, being perhaps many km apart within that province.

If there was frontage as there will be for land combat, then certain units would be involved directly while others would not. This would cause my airbattles to be much less frantic and it would prevent stacking and/or dogpiling against one unit (most likely destroying it) within a 2 hour long battle.
This would also seem to be more realistic, as the strategic air war would be more fluid. Also, groups of 1 or 2 wings would be viable, as they could not be tag teamed. This would spread the air war out, making it more entertaining and consistent.

 

[unmerged(122939)]

but there is a difference... an air battle should have an ENORMOUS frontage... let's take the example of london... I don't no very well but I'm going to assume that the city enters in a box of 5x5 km... a let's put a max. altitude of 6km... and now we give to every airplane a box of 100x100x100 m (which is quite big, in formation 4 bombers enter in no more than 100x50x10 box aprox)... and this mean that you could put 150.000 airplanes and still have a lot of room to fight... for me doesn't seems correct to limit the units that you could put in the air over a province... instead you should avoid super-stacks with other measures... maybe I post some of my ideas later (have to continue studing aplications of integrals to volume and area calculation )

 

[Alex_brunius]

so IF THE WEATHER AND TERRAIN favours you, you cound have a good chance of at least inflict some severe damage...

What your saing is basically that you think 90% lost men, material and 100% lost fighting capability is NOT inflicting some severe damage...