1. I think i will start to make these regularly, just because. The points are certain problem-categories, which i think are not discussed enough, or i would try to look at them from a different point of view, often with the aim to create answers which are easy and cost-efficient to implement.
Soooo i guess everything will be alright regarding supplies in barbarossa. Right?
Is the problem of supplies just related to the supply system? Definitely not. I would say that half of the reason the supply system is annoying is your goddamn allies. Whether it's D-Day , with you putting allies ashore in france, or Greece, as try to clear out a large allied landing as germany.. the same thing destroys your situation, your allies. That's it. It is especially horrible in late game, where the allied zergrush puts 3 times the divisions on a supplyzone you try to push through, removing any possibility of success.
So in bulletpoints, what is the issue?
In the past years, Mexico and Turkey were added to the allied side of the game. The problem isn't their involvement, the problem is that they each contribute 10+ divisions, while historically only mexico sent pilots. (aaand economic support, but that is another deal). So i hope that brazil will get it's own focus tree, but at this point. we are having the axis facing just another major power, from the divisions they didn t have to face historically. Actually Bulgaria is in here too: it only really saw serious combat against axis forces, despite spending most of the war in the axis.
Interestingly countries were a lot more protective in their deployment of troops in the war, than they seem in hoi4. Early in africa, the australians and kiwis deploy together an actually significant force to help the allied war efforts. In 1941 however, the japanese invasion sees most of these troops returning. (the 9th australian remains until el-amein, the 2nd kiwi until the end of the war). So in reality, in the last years of the war, australia and new zealand were represented by a... single division in the european theater. Why? most of their forces were used in the pacific, and australia really used all their diplomatic channels, to tell their allied boss that they do not agree to deploy troops in africa, while japan was about to tango at darwin. In-game? They spam Europe, obviously, although australia does seem to realize to a degree the closeness of japan.
Aaand the axis minors.... oh boi. Here we go.
Well shortly, that whole cooperation thingy was... iffy. So germoney has two somewhat willing ally to commit troops, i ve overestimated it. First Italy is actually trying it's own thing... yeah we know how that went. Overcommited in ethiopia, lybia and greece, they failed. Nonetheless when germany 'asked' them, they still sent troops to the eastern front. The other more willing ally was romania, who committed actually a decent sized army at the start (FOR AXIS MINORS, DUH) of the eastern front. But their attempts to show loyalty weren t really out of the blue, they really wanted bessarabia back. Also Finland commited actualy quite a few troops, buut really only to reoccupy their old territory, they really didn t want to commit to this 'destroying ussr" thingy. Bulgaria as mentioned previously basically forgets the eastern front exists, and declares war on the allies only in 1941 dec. Hungary, the exemplary axis minor is surprised by the shocking attack on ussr (yes), and declares war on the ussr days later than the rest. It quickly mobilizes the fast corps and sends it east, but it starts operating well after the barbarossa starts since.... hungary really wasn t told about this (or probably few leaders were, but the army definitely didn t know about it). These fast corps are actually only a corps, 2-2.5 divisions worth cavalry, light tanks, armoured cars and motorized. They do relatively well, but after some losses into the summer, they are pulled back, and after decent german pressure they are replaced with some occupation troops for the countryside. The battle of moscow however results in a lot of german pressure, for the minors (yes italy, you are the biggest minor), and the diplomacy actually breaks down to the marketplace haggling, with the axis minors wanting to send less troops, and the germans wanting more. The deal is reached mostly favourably for the germans, but they are asked to supply these minor armies with at guns and artillery, however, what they give them are few and 2nd line weapons. Obviously as russians close in in 44, these axis minors deploy more troops to defend themselves. But they mostly just try to change side. Like, all of them.
Part of the reason for keeping troops home are actually... the other 'allies'. Slovakia, hungary, romania and bulgaria all have border disputes with each other with slovakia and bulgaria not having only because they are too far from each other. In fact, there is this funny story, that the hungarian river transport ships went down the donau/duna, through the edge of the black sea, and up the rivers to supply the axis forces there. However they had to cross through romanian occupational troops, of which one of them actually started to take potshots at these transports with rifle-fire. As russian air attacks increased, these transports were equipped with 20mm flaks with german crews. The hungarians purposefully "forgetting" to tell them, the flak-gunners responded with a hail of fire on the romanian origin of said shots, actually creating a small scale local battle between axis forces, lmao (without injuries). after the incident, the germans asked in strongly worded letters the romanians, not to do this ever again. Axis minors, HELL YEAH!
So obviously the eagerness of ai to use their troops to destroy communism is a bit... iffy.
What could be an actually fun and not too hard to introduce?
Theatres of war
The aim is to restrict access based on a factional level. Maybe to even include possibility of doing so between different factions fighting in the same war (china, comintern, allies) but that is already solved mostly with military access.
Theatres?
They are supposed to be larger areas, including all the states and airports (not airspace) in them. Ex: France should be it s own theatre, or the uk, or iberia. While the scope of said theatres could change (maybe more countries?) too large would become to restrictive, too small too tedious to use.
Who decides?
Faction lead for the entire faction. It would make the position more fun and meaningful. Faction leader appoints theater commander to a theatre, theatre commander being a country in the faction, ai or human. Would be interesting not to allow integrated puppets to be able to be theatre commanders, after all dominions are dominions.
What is in the deal?
Obviously, who can enter, and how. But also construction rights, makes no sense to wait for france to repair cherbourg, while the might of us industry would do it in weeks. Sure, this is no problem in multi, but in singleplayer? oh boi. Also, possibly, occupation rights. What do you mean Romania can say no to Germany asking for Ucraine?
Troop deployment
-Countries should obviously have the access to their own theatres. Whether access within their theatres to other countries should be allowed, or how restricted is up for debate, have no clue.
Types of said deployment:
Well as i explained on the historical side, there was a lot of haggling about who goes where. So either when rule 2 or 3 applies, you would get a haggling window, with a: if someone would like to assist with a force there, the divisions they offer, or b: if someone (germany, cough) asks for a force, the force they would require. Of course, given the theatre's commander's position, all offer's can be completely refused, but not all requirements (again, germany, cough). However in these cases, you can offer other troops or ask for other ones: "i'm happy france that you offer your underequipped infantry, but i would rather require your armoured one, it looks more promising" or " oh, germany, i'm such a loyal ally, sure i'm going to send you the troops you asked for, but i would rather keep my best armoured units home, would that bother you?". Also, into this haggling you can introduce one side asking for equipment, like the deals made by axis minors.
This obviously would be the hardest stuff, for ai coding purposes, and although it would still work fine without, i really feel like a flavour for inter-faction diplomacy to be fun.
Construction rights:
Obviously, the goal is simply to remove the annoying side of fighting on destroyed allied infrastructure, but enlargening the allied infrastructure really can t be done without mods.
Occupation rights:
-Industry, obviously
-Number of divisions
-Geographic positions
-existing warscore
-diplomatic opinion
So if you implement this, it should work like this: even if us is so strong, uk wouldn t give many pacific theatres outside of us territory to us, because us has few divisions. Also because they are so close, australia and or nz can get stuff in the area of new-guinea/solomon islands, becasue they are just strong enough for that. Also, us early on only gets maybe western african theater, and that s it. However, as it keeps spamming divisions, it should get more in the pacific, africa and europe, until the point he is strong enough to be faction leader, and tell the rest where to deploy.
So what would be the major benefits?
-Workable AI-human relations, obviously. They are pretty bad, right now.
-more interesting diplomacy for within the faction.
-More expectable and player-friendly allied armies. can finally put the guys without the at guns on the eastern front again, yaaay!
ai being restricted to think between a few zones, should solve the major problem of allies transporting all their units constantly between alexandria and liverpool. All hail the stability! This would effectively buff factions, making them better at using their armies, but being also less keen on deploying them more far away from home would balance it somewhat
there should be special game rules, such as: *always giving players full access, or *only apply divisional restrictions, player should stay in charge*. these should be there, so the negative impact of said system could be avoided if needed, the side which would make minors far less fun to play (as they were, historically)
yes, i know mods exist out there. but they are tedious to use often, sometimes just don t work, and this could easily be made one of the cornerstone of the diplomacy of the time.
feel free to add into the logical holes, or discuss
cheers!
Soooo i guess everything will be alright regarding supplies in barbarossa. Right?
Is the problem of supplies just related to the supply system? Definitely not. I would say that half of the reason the supply system is annoying is your goddamn allies. Whether it's D-Day , with you putting allies ashore in france, or Greece, as try to clear out a large allied landing as germany.. the same thing destroys your situation, your allies. That's it. It is especially horrible in late game, where the allied zergrush puts 3 times the divisions on a supplyzone you try to push through, removing any possibility of success.
So in bulletpoints, what is the issue?
- You have little to no say in where and how your allies deploy your divisions, like the faction's high commands don't exist, or something.
- Minor nations keep sending everywhere their troops, even though they literally didn t want to, historically.
- Factions and diplomacy overall feel meaningless.
- Allies are realllyyyy op in the game, but this strength shatters on the meaningless deployment of said strength, if they wouldn t actually starve each out from supplies, the game should be over sooner. This is somewhat counteracted by the problems at axis. (ai issue, overall)
In the past years, Mexico and Turkey were added to the allied side of the game. The problem isn't their involvement, the problem is that they each contribute 10+ divisions, while historically only mexico sent pilots. (aaand economic support, but that is another deal). So i hope that brazil will get it's own focus tree, but at this point. we are having the axis facing just another major power, from the divisions they didn t have to face historically. Actually Bulgaria is in here too: it only really saw serious combat against axis forces, despite spending most of the war in the axis.
Interestingly countries were a lot more protective in their deployment of troops in the war, than they seem in hoi4. Early in africa, the australians and kiwis deploy together an actually significant force to help the allied war efforts. In 1941 however, the japanese invasion sees most of these troops returning. (the 9th australian remains until el-amein, the 2nd kiwi until the end of the war). So in reality, in the last years of the war, australia and new zealand were represented by a... single division in the european theater. Why? most of their forces were used in the pacific, and australia really used all their diplomatic channels, to tell their allied boss that they do not agree to deploy troops in africa, while japan was about to tango at darwin. In-game? They spam Europe, obviously, although australia does seem to realize to a degree the closeness of japan.
Aaand the axis minors.... oh boi. Here we go.
Well shortly, that whole cooperation thingy was... iffy. So germoney has two somewhat willing ally to commit troops, i ve overestimated it. First Italy is actually trying it's own thing... yeah we know how that went. Overcommited in ethiopia, lybia and greece, they failed. Nonetheless when germany 'asked' them, they still sent troops to the eastern front. The other more willing ally was romania, who committed actually a decent sized army at the start (FOR AXIS MINORS, DUH) of the eastern front. But their attempts to show loyalty weren t really out of the blue, they really wanted bessarabia back. Also Finland commited actualy quite a few troops, buut really only to reoccupy their old territory, they really didn t want to commit to this 'destroying ussr" thingy. Bulgaria as mentioned previously basically forgets the eastern front exists, and declares war on the allies only in 1941 dec. Hungary, the exemplary axis minor is surprised by the shocking attack on ussr (yes), and declares war on the ussr days later than the rest. It quickly mobilizes the fast corps and sends it east, but it starts operating well after the barbarossa starts since.... hungary really wasn t told about this (or probably few leaders were, but the army definitely didn t know about it). These fast corps are actually only a corps, 2-2.5 divisions worth cavalry, light tanks, armoured cars and motorized. They do relatively well, but after some losses into the summer, they are pulled back, and after decent german pressure they are replaced with some occupation troops for the countryside. The battle of moscow however results in a lot of german pressure, for the minors (yes italy, you are the biggest minor), and the diplomacy actually breaks down to the marketplace haggling, with the axis minors wanting to send less troops, and the germans wanting more. The deal is reached mostly favourably for the germans, but they are asked to supply these minor armies with at guns and artillery, however, what they give them are few and 2nd line weapons. Obviously as russians close in in 44, these axis minors deploy more troops to defend themselves. But they mostly just try to change side. Like, all of them.
Part of the reason for keeping troops home are actually... the other 'allies'. Slovakia, hungary, romania and bulgaria all have border disputes with each other with slovakia and bulgaria not having only because they are too far from each other. In fact, there is this funny story, that the hungarian river transport ships went down the donau/duna, through the edge of the black sea, and up the rivers to supply the axis forces there. However they had to cross through romanian occupational troops, of which one of them actually started to take potshots at these transports with rifle-fire. As russian air attacks increased, these transports were equipped with 20mm flaks with german crews. The hungarians purposefully "forgetting" to tell them, the flak-gunners responded with a hail of fire on the romanian origin of said shots, actually creating a small scale local battle between axis forces, lmao (without injuries). after the incident, the germans asked in strongly worded letters the romanians, not to do this ever again. Axis minors, HELL YEAH!
So obviously the eagerness of ai to use their troops to destroy communism is a bit... iffy.
What could be an actually fun and not too hard to introduce?
Theatres of war
The aim is to restrict access based on a factional level. Maybe to even include possibility of doing so between different factions fighting in the same war (china, comintern, allies) but that is already solved mostly with military access.
Theatres?
They are supposed to be larger areas, including all the states and airports (not airspace) in them. Ex: France should be it s own theatre, or the uk, or iberia. While the scope of said theatres could change (maybe more countries?) too large would become to restrictive, too small too tedious to use.
Who decides?
Faction lead for the entire faction. It would make the position more fun and meaningful. Faction leader appoints theater commander to a theatre, theatre commander being a country in the faction, ai or human. Would be interesting not to allow integrated puppets to be able to be theatre commanders, after all dominions are dominions.
What is in the deal?
Obviously, who can enter, and how. But also construction rights, makes no sense to wait for france to repair cherbourg, while the might of us industry would do it in weeks. Sure, this is no problem in multi, but in singleplayer? oh boi. Also, possibly, occupation rights. What do you mean Romania can say no to Germany asking for Ucraine?
Troop deployment
-Countries should obviously have the access to their own theatres. Whether access within their theatres to other countries should be allowed, or how restricted is up for debate, have no clue.
Types of said deployment:
- Full access. You can do whatever you want, like good old times.
- Independent army. You dont control your army, however it comes together as a package: the army with it's general. It would allow to recreate army groups B and A, with their multi-national armies under the german high command.
- Only divisions. Like expeditionary forces. buut... with haggling... : (you can create your own armies from these)
Well as i explained on the historical side, there was a lot of haggling about who goes where. So either when rule 2 or 3 applies, you would get a haggling window, with a: if someone would like to assist with a force there, the divisions they offer, or b: if someone (germany, cough) asks for a force, the force they would require. Of course, given the theatre's commander's position, all offer's can be completely refused, but not all requirements (again, germany, cough). However in these cases, you can offer other troops or ask for other ones: "i'm happy france that you offer your underequipped infantry, but i would rather require your armoured one, it looks more promising" or " oh, germany, i'm such a loyal ally, sure i'm going to send you the troops you asked for, but i would rather keep my best armoured units home, would that bother you?". Also, into this haggling you can introduce one side asking for equipment, like the deals made by axis minors.
This obviously would be the hardest stuff, for ai coding purposes, and although it would still work fine without, i really feel like a flavour for inter-faction diplomacy to be fun.
Construction rights:
- Obvious, full control over buildings and repairs
- Limited control, can t build stuff that used building slots
- only repairs. (does this even make sense)?
Obviously, the goal is simply to remove the annoying side of fighting on destroyed allied infrastructure, but enlargening the allied infrastructure really can t be done without mods.
Occupation rights:
- Who occupies stuff, obviously.
- Garrison manpower possibly? (like maybe the ask for garrison manpower could be put here to be more detailed, but there is not much need)
-Industry, obviously
-Number of divisions
-Geographic positions
-existing warscore
-diplomatic opinion
So if you implement this, it should work like this: even if us is so strong, uk wouldn t give many pacific theatres outside of us territory to us, because us has few divisions. Also because they are so close, australia and or nz can get stuff in the area of new-guinea/solomon islands, becasue they are just strong enough for that. Also, us early on only gets maybe western african theater, and that s it. However, as it keeps spamming divisions, it should get more in the pacific, africa and europe, until the point he is strong enough to be faction leader, and tell the rest where to deploy.
So what would be the major benefits?
-Workable AI-human relations, obviously. They are pretty bad, right now.
-more interesting diplomacy for within the faction.
-More expectable and player-friendly allied armies. can finally put the guys without the at guns on the eastern front again, yaaay!
ai being restricted to think between a few zones, should solve the major problem of allies transporting all their units constantly between alexandria and liverpool. All hail the stability! This would effectively buff factions, making them better at using their armies, but being also less keen on deploying them more far away from home would balance it somewhat
there should be special game rules, such as: *always giving players full access, or *only apply divisional restrictions, player should stay in charge*. these should be there, so the negative impact of said system could be avoided if needed, the side which would make minors far less fun to play (as they were, historically)
yes, i know mods exist out there. but they are tedious to use often, sometimes just don t work, and this could easily be made one of the cornerstone of the diplomacy of the time.
feel free to add into the logical holes, or discuss
cheers!
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