[Suggestion] Capture system with a logic similar to the oriental game of Go.

[Supremeleaderpies]

Why wouldn’t you want the benefit of the planning bonus?

i think what he means is, no one activates the plan.
they set up the offensive plan, and let them get the bonus.
they just micro the frontline. this is what i do, and have done for the longest time.
which to be quite honest is the most efficient way to win a front, but it requires alot of micro.

 

[Simon Marques]

I understand perfectly. Your suggestion would open up even more abuse of the AI, and it would not understand to use it against you. What is ‘empty’? Devoid of troops? How about victory points, can they also be auto-captured? Resources? Airbases? Are there any limitations to the amount of contiguous tiles that can be captured automatically?

You touched an interesting point, I really don't know what it would be like, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to insert in the automatic capture rule the victory points and the air bases. When I play, my focus is always on the crucial points, so I always create runners in the direction of these points and the rest is ignored, my priority of capture are in the following order:

1st Victory Points.
2° Airbases and Ports.
3° Strategic Resources.

So, they could insert in the rule that if there are any of these these three elements in the empty territories the automatic capture is denied.

If I use battle plans, the troops will waste time having to capture each territory.

 

[CrasherZZ]

i think what he means is, no one activates the plan.
they set up the offensive plan, and let them get the bonus.
they just micro the frontline. this is what i do, and have done for the longest time.
which to be quite honest is the most efficient way to win a front, but it requires alot of micro.

I do have to micro-manage battle-plans because of the strange ways they keep morphing after the objective line has been reached. I don't mind it simply because that means the battle plans were a success. If you have chosen the Grand Battle Plan doctrine the resulting battle plans are surprisingly successful when activated. I've grown to appreciate the Grand Strategy aspect of giving good generals and field marshals front lines and objectives and letting it play out. It makes you focus and creating battle plans that make sense.

Micro-ing is unavoidable If you want to win.

 

[Simon Marques]

I see why this could be helpful for those random empty pockets behind your lines and you do not want to have to go through the trouble of making one battalion divisions to clean them up. On the other hand freshly made pockets, created by your new offensive should not clear immediately. Allowing resupply so quickly would not be realistic. No commander would risk sending urgently needed supplies and trucks through uncleared territory. Instead they would follow along the routes that have been cleared. Also, large pockets that magically clear inform the player, at no cost, that there are no enemy units inside the pocket. That removes some of the little bit of suspense the game provides.

Adding a time element to this suggestion might make it more acceptable.

You understood the proposal perfectly! I also agree with what you said about adding time to make the proposal more acceptable.

 

[Simon_9732495]

I see why this could be helpful for those random empty pockets behind your lines and you do not want to have to go through the trouble of making one battalion divisions to clean them up. On the other hand freshly made pockets, created by your new offensive should not clear immediately. Allowing resupply so quickly would not be realistic. No commander would risk sending urgently needed supplies and trucks through uncleared territory. Instead they would follow along the routes that have been cleared. Also, large pockets that magically clear inform the player, at no cost, that there are no enemy units inside the pocket. That removes some of the little bit of suspense the game provides.

Adding a time element to this suggestion might make it more acceptable.

At first I thought this would be a nice feature for HOI5 in 2024.

But I think @Harin got it right, that there are some problems with it. I'd phrase it like this:

• If you introduce a game mechanic there should be a real world representation.
• With that mechanic encircling a large area, say as an example you encircle the whole ukraine, would immediately give you an information: "Are there any units in this territory?" That means the mechanic would give you recon in game. But there is no real world representation of it. If you encircle a large area why would you know, if there are enemy units in it or not?
• Besides reckon there is the other point of supply lines. You encirlce a large area. "Magic" recon tells you nobody is in it and in the next moment you own it and your supply line can use this territory.
• And of course: Why would the factory, the port, the airport, the refinery, the fort, .... be yours if you dont walk there with a division?

I think that's a bit too much problems for a feature that would just save some clicks.

 

[Simon Marques]

@Simon_9732495 Then, the crucial points of the game are ranked in the following order:

1st Victory Points.
2nd Airbases and Ports.
3rd Strategic Resources.

So, they could insert in the rule that if there are any of these this three elements in the empty territories the automatic capture is denied. It would be interesting to add a time resource as suggested by our friend @Harin to represent the period before the arrival of logistics personnel to these locations. So, not to say that these territories were magically conquered, let's imagine that they were occupied by the garrisons.

 

[Vlad123]

Why wouldn’t you want the benefit of the planning bonus?

Mmmm maybe because the battle planner doesn't often attack in empty areas where you could sack !? BP is a nice thing, but badly designed troops often stand still and don't attack, so I prefer to do it manually without the planning bonus. If you talk to many users, you will see that they will do so, I'm not the only one. Although the bonus is very nice, it is not worth it because as soon as you move a troop to "fix" the attack they lose the bonus. So if I have to decide between "attack with bonus but almost failing" and "attack without bonus but I can kill enemies" I prefer the latter. The battle planner is used only by novices as a rule.

 

[Vlad123]

Yes, this is exactly the why I really hate this "Go" idea. I have created multiple battleplans that successfully created deep penetrations and encirclements by using fast moving divisions - motorized, mechanized, armored, and cavalry. This is a "high risk, high reward" tactic because you risk getting your spearhead cut off and surrounded if you don't have enough infantry securing your supply corridor. It would become too easy to capture territory if you didn't have to worry about securing the areas you have bypassed and encircled. Using Go capture rules would make the game even more abstract and arcade. It's actually a very trivial amount of effort to send a single division into a surrounded, vacant area. The "convenience" of automatic capture is not worth the loss in challenge and realism. I am familiar with the game of Go. Although it's a good and interesting game, one of the reasons I play games like HOI4 is because it's the exact opposite of games like Go. The more different the better, IMO. In my last game I was able to cut off massive junks of Soviet territory by doing very deep penetrations with mechanized armies. The game would have been way too easy if I had automatically captured all of the territory that I encircled according to Go rules. A WW2 game should not work like an abstract board game.​

the idea are only empity territory, not territory with division.

 

[GrandVezir]

It could work, if it were limited to unoccupied tiles for which you have 100% recon: i.e. you border every tile in the pocket and know with in-game certainty that there are no troops. Should probably also exclude strategic buildings: cities, ports, airfields, radar and rocket sites, and so on.

Even it could be made to work to everyone's satisfaction (unlikely, since a sample of this forum shows many players want wildly different things from the game), it seems like a major fix to a single aspect of the problem of how battle lines get redrawn.

 

[Simon Marques]

It could work, if it were limited to unoccupied tiles for which you have 100% recon: i.e. you border every tile in the pocket and know with in-game certainty that there are no troops. Should probably also exclude strategic buildings: cities, ports, airfields, radar and rocket sites, and so on.

Even it could be made to work to everyone's satisfaction (unlikely, since a sample of this forum shows many players want wildly different things from the game), it seems like a major fix to a single aspect of the problem of how battle lines get redrawn.

Exactly! I edited the post and added these details you mentioned. The @Harin suggested to add a time resource for the occupation of the territory, so if the territory is empty and there are no strategic points in it like the ones you mentioned, the automatic capture would be activated, then after a time, which in an abstract way represents the arrival of the garrison and logistics personnel, these territories are automatically annexed.