Should hospitals be abstracted into passive tech?

[Northernwwater]

Because i can add rocket or lig or anything else and it will add flat bonus. So instead of losing not that badly I will be winning more easily

That does not make it negligible. That is a choice you already have.

This thread boils down to people wanting the benefits of the hospital but not wanting to have to make the choice of not having weapons instead. It does not seem to have anything to do with the benefit or lack of benefit of hospital. Real divisions had support companies which consumed resources like weapons companies but did not produce kinetic benefit. That is the trade-off which makes the game more interesting.

Maybe we should have a mess company too or an HQ company.

 

[Northernwwater]

I couldnt for the love of almighty god figure out proper use for hospitals. Due to rather high cost, low manpower nations that could benefit from it dont have industry to support them, high manpower countries dont need them and even if you do decide to use them, they smother attack potential of units-you could have added support arty/rocket arty, signal company, logistics or maintenance that do have tangible effect on the battlefield (XP saving doesnt seem to have any effect since XP levels are way too far from each other-if they were sliding scale, hospitals would be far better)

EIther there should be passive tech that would add manpower saving effect and XP saving effect on all divisions equally or hospitals need further buffs-like increasing ORG due to ability to save officers or soldiers fighting better knowing they have doctors behind them or whatever.

thoughts?

Does anyone have any actual numbers on affect on unit experience at each different hospital level. Are you saying you are sure that, for example, at hospital tech 4, the experience loss is not noticeable?

 

[safe-keeper]

I agree with the OP to an extent. It seems weird that a division should not have some kind of field hospital available in some way, and other 'mandatory' features of a division, like the horses and/or motor vehicles used to transport supplies, are just abstracted. So I guess I would be fine with hospitals just being techs you research, with an abstracted bonus applied to your armies.

If or when the ability to attach battalians and companies to armies is added, you'd have the option to give the army itself field hospitals, which would make them less situational, I suppose. Not sure how these things are (were) organized in reality.

 

[BurningEGO]

Hospitals as support company is not that bad but like all the other companies depends on what you are doing and your current industry-base (even resources to a point). You are only seeing this from the side of a super country with plenty of manpower, industry and in a straight up fight.

They are not that great if you merely compare them with others, but as I said, warfare is a whole and you gotta compare military doctrine, your force composition, your industry and even your manpower base to consider using them, and hospitals definetely have some use everything considered.

Signals companies (due to reinforcement) even had an use pre-NSB, but most people never used them, but they did have their limited uses depending on your style. Warfare is not merely soft and hard values.

 

[FindFloppies]

Warfare is not merely soft and hard values.

There are people here that do not believe that sentence. To them, the spreadsheet always has the one way, the best way, the only way to play, and if you're not doing it the way they are, you're doing it wrong.

Same people are fine with the 'roach DD navy' strategy that I won't use because it's too 'gamey' for me. Different people like different things.

When you're going for a long war, has anyone studied trickleback/xp effects for a smaller major or a big minor in such a long war, vs not having it?

Also, as I've mentioned here or somewhere else, the combat width is not nearly as rigid as it was, so you can put in the field hospital, and put a battalion of rocket arty in line if you want. Of course, the min/max spreadsheet people won't do that, because it's 0.X% off of 'optimal', but that's their cross to bear, not mine.

Especially in SP, play it your way, and you can still beat the AI and enjoy yourself, without exploiting, and without having to follow a spreadsheet to the last decimal point.

 

[scarface2cz]

There are people here that do not believe that sentence. To them, the spreadsheet always has the one way, the best way, the only way to play, and if you're not doing it the way they are, you're doing it wrong.

Same people are fine with the 'roach DD navy' strategy that I won't use because it's too 'gamey' for me. Different people like different things.

When you're going for a long war, has anyone studied trickleback/xp effects for a smaller major or a big minor in such a long war, vs not having it?

Also, as I've mentioned here or somewhere else, the combat width is not nearly as rigid as it was, so you can put in the field hospital, and put a battalion of rocket arty in line if you want. Of course, the min/max spreadsheet people won't do that, because it's 0.X% off of 'optimal', but that's their cross to bear, not mine.

Especially in SP, play it your way, and you can still beat the AI and enjoy yourself, without exploiting, and without having to follow a spreadsheet to the last decimal point.

I played as china recently, had 40w 25 inf divisions with hospitals. effect was negligible compared to adding signal/rocket arty that usually replaces hospitals. sadly, ingame, theres no reason to use hospital

im not for completely removing them, just giving them reason to exist-SHBB does have place in meta-in niche anti HA CA builds, so do have super heavy tanks (well, not anymore lol) so did most units have place in meta with certain nations/situations. hospitals fit nowhere outside of RP, and for "arcade" game, thats just not enough in my opinion.

though i still add them to my divisions anyway lol... in SP..

 

[Corpse Fool]

Hospitals solve 2 problems that often aren't really problems, or can be solved without the use of hospitals just by doing particular things a bit differently.

Manpower is very often less restricting than production in terms of allowing you to field a particular size of force. Sacrificing production to get more manpower means you get less force to field. Manpower problems are also generally solved by bumping up conscription law, or exploiting puppets, or can be assisted with particular doctrine or focus choices. World conquests shouldnt really be possible to begin with imo, even more so with minors that are the types of nations that tend to have manpower problems.

As for the XP, the solution there is to just not grind away your manpower in losing battles all the time.

 

[Metz]

Hospitals should be buildable like supply hubs, except that they should be more efficient if built in urban provinces. Trickle back rate should be linked to logistics in this sense.

 

[vermicious knid]

Hospital companies are like HQ companies...every division had them. Possible exception of small formations that HO4 models as a "division" but aren't really.

Abstracting the result of research in field medicine isn't very different than infantry support techs abstracting mortars, heavy machine guns, anti-tank rifles, etc...

If anything I'd prefer that support companies model things that weren't universal, or varied greatly in the amount of equipment per division. Having a heavy machine gun company that increased the boost you get from support companies, for example, could represent a greater number of HMG throughout the division. Having a hospital company could represent actually devoting vehicles to serve as ambulances and investing more in trained surgeons.

I think after reading more responses that would be a better approach...all units benefit some from advancing hospital/support/recon/whatever tech, but you decide which things you are going to really emphasize by adding support companies and thus allocating more equipment and manpower.

 

[Jays298]

I would rather they be an army wide statistic or similar to rail guns (area of effect).

And very steep penalties perhaps for units that fall into pockets or out of the range.

A medical support company doesn't make any more gameplay sense than a cooking support company or anything else that would be 100% necessary.

 

[Northernwwater]

Hospitals solve 2 problems that often aren't really problems, or can be solved without the use of hospitals just by doing particular things a bit differently.

... and divisions have many ways and combinations to increase battle values.

The whole point of an interesting game is to have many ways to solve problems with tradeoffs.

 

[vermicious knid]

After some failed attempts I think the idea of hospital techs offering some global benefits is a non-starter. You can't add trickleback or experience loss reduction to the armed forces as a whole or even per division, the bonus has to be assigned to a battalion.

You can make it effect EVERY battalion in your army, but then you get the absurd effect that huge templates have an almost magical immunity to casualties or they actually produce a manpower gain greater than the initial manpower investment when they die. Which is sort of hilarious for a meme, but probably not how anyone wants the game to work.

You could maybe get around that by adding a HQ support company that you can attach various division bonuses to...but you'd probably also want to figure out getting the AI to use them. Which I might end up trying anyway but that is sort of beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[Treviranus]

I like the idea of it being a passive tech very much. This is an image of a part of the tech tree from an earlier Hearts of Iron game. Given how much of an issue manpower is for smaller countries I think revisiting this is a good idea. Improving agriculture increased manpower too, if I recall correctly.

 

[Gort11]

You can't add trickleback or experience loss reduction to the armed forces as a whole or even per division, the bonus has to be assigned to a battalion.

Not sure why you're saying that, there are plenty of technologies that affect the armed forces as a whole. Check out land doctrines.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Not sure why you're saying that, there are plenty of technologies that affect the armed forces as a whole. Check out land doctrines.

Those particular stats aren't army-level stats though. "Experienced soldier losses" is, but who knows what that actually does (if anything) and how you might hook into it to actually change it up and down. Trickleback and exp loss have been attached to formations through company/battalion stats.

 

[bERt0r]

I do hospitals for New Zealand but I agree that they are a bit underwhelming. But the same can be said about Recon, MP and Maintenance. Signals only became viable due to NSB introducing coordination.

The biggest problem of Hospitals I see is that they cost 500 manpower which is kind of silly. If the game doesn't count pilots as manpower it may as well not count doctors and nurses. And 500 is a lot for a support company. Because more manpower in a division without higher stats AFAIK should increase the amount of casualties you take.

 

[winkelmander]

I would think it would be good if there were an HQ/Staff company that combined the values for field hospital, maintenance, signal and logistics.

And passively you can then research and improve in the following areas:
StaffSkills - Initaive and Org+ and Faster Planning Bonus
Field Hospital - normal stats improvement
maintenance - normal stats improvement
logistics - supply consumption and higher range to hubs!

 

[bERt0r]

I would think it would be good if there were an HQ/Staff company that combined the values for field hospital, maintenance, signal and logistics.

And passively you can then research and improve in the following areas:
StaffSkills - Initaive and Org+ and Faster Planning Bonus
Field Hospital - normal stats improvement
maintenance - normal stats improvement
logistics - supply consumption and higher range to hubs!

That's a great idea. AFAIK you can even make tech so that it increases the necessary equipment for the unit. So you could do things like each level of logistics tech researched adds 10 more supply equipment and/or trucks needed for the HQ company.

 

[Louella]

Hospitals were almost never divisional units, but rather corps-level assets, supporting several divisions in an area.

So, the question is whether corps-level army assets will ever be a thing in HOI4. We have the railway guns now, that can support multiple units in range, and field hospitals should probably use a similar mechanism, as they were behind-the-lines corps assets.

So, if corps-level things are planned for HOI4 in the future, then field hospitals should be one of them. Along with railway guns, and specialised units that would be attached to one division for one operation, then another division for a different operation.

 

[blahmaster6k]

From my perspective, the issue with hospitals is just the consequences of hoi4 being a game. Medical equipment and personnel is expensive in real life and in game. The problem is that in real life, any cost is acceptable if it is to save lives. But in a game, lives are just numbers on a screen and there's no moral imperative to spend all the extra cost to use hospitals.