The next expansion and maybe hopefully dealing with unit spam

[Djthegamer2002]

I think we can all agree that the soviets and the Italians need a rework of their focus tree and nations in general. I dont think its controversial to also say most of us want a complete rework of logistics. Something that should come as well in my opinion is a rework of unit economy and manpower. The game currently has no way to authentically simulate real troop numbers and the role reserve units played.
My stupid ass idea would be to allow a rule to change the unit fielding ability of nations. In essence, you would train reserve units, that train faster and use less equipment to produce. For each tier of mobilization you need a certain ratio of reserve to active, so for volunteer you only have to have parity, to move up you need to mobilize 25 percent of your reserve units first, which increases the amount of equipment they need. The reserve units are also then assigned to a province and when mobilized will appear there, similar to the occupation system and garrison order. Then there is the cap, that forces you to have a certain number of units or they lose org and recovery rate plummets and that cap is determined by the supply troops you have. My dumb idea for that is a system where we set up supply hq, and the manpower requirement for these hq is a factor of .8 percent of the active units that are currently receiving their supply routes from that hq. The supply routes would then auto-generate to nearby units and when you have too many units assigned to one hq you suffer the aforementioned maluses. I think this could make the amount units in game more reasonable and make units count even more, so when I inevitably fuck up and lose 16 in an encirclement in the pacific I will rage quit even faster. Thoughts?

 

[Hemothep]

There are only two ways to effectively limit the number of divisions. The first would be a upkeep approach. You seem to go into this direction. HOI3 had an slider for that. As time went on you had to spend more and more of your industry to pay for your growing army. Obviously HOI4 works a bit differently. The easiest way to go this path (both on a programming and performance perspective) would to give a monthly base attrition to every unit on the map. if every division would loose 0,5% of its equipment every month (or better yet 0,1% every week to make it easier for equipment with low counts per division) then a large standing army would have an upkeep.
The second approach would be by limiting manpower. The recruitment laws currently give way to much manpower. There is just no way a nation can turn a quarter of its population into soldiers (front line soldiers no less!), but in HOI4 it's only a matter of pp, time and the right enemy.

 

[SophieX]

There are only two ways to effectively limit the number of divisions.

Third way:
- Decide, how many divisions a country could have as a maximum.
- After the country reaches its maximum of divisions, increase the "training_time_factor" to 100 via event or decision. ( -> means: when you normally need 1 month to put a division on the map, you now need 100 month ~ 8 years )

But I would prefer a solution which combines reduction of manpower and higher upkeep.

 

[Metz]

You could have conscription laws affect how much manpower you have available. You can then directly train divisions as one normally does and also be able to train a reserve pool. Units recovering would tap into the reserve pool. If the reserve pool for some reason is empty then divisions would receive a penalty for conscripting untrained soldiers.

 

[Takethe3]

Yes the infantry spam is mad and makes the game largely unplayable later on, not to mention it is wildly ahistorical.
The western allies found equipping and deploying adequate divisions a total nightmare. IIRC the US had envisaged over 200, but struggled at much over 100, the British Army was never over around 60 and Canada could deploy 1 rather than the HOI4 usual of 10-15ish in 1939. In game the US number is essentially unlimited and as the UK it really isn't a struggle to put out 120-150. And then you're going up against 600-700 German divisions and the game goes at less than a mile ph.

The big issue is how easy it is to recruit and deploy units. Sure, the Soviets were very effective at this but even they had manpower shortages late on and sent a lot of units out that were very ineffective.

To reduce spam I would:
- reduce recruitable manpower for all nations. As others say, a quarter of your population can't be frontline soldiers.
- Force players and the AI to use divisions to protect supply lines. Let's face it, if you command the seas locally you can move your whole 24 division army up to the front and not worry about what's behind them. Not exactly realistic and should be punished.
- buff the strength of an individual division. A successful fully equipped division would have essentially all of the support arms that are available through research rather than being limited to five - and if they didn't they'd be incredibly ineffective in a peer-to-peer contest. Read the stories of German soldiers in the Falaise pocket - their lack of anti-air was utterly crushing in a way it never is in game. Fewer, but better divisions was generally the way forward in real life, it isn't in the game as you have to paint the map.
- re-work logistics as pointed out better by others. If you can't deploy 5 divisions to a province hundreds of miles inland in the desert (as you definitely couldn't) then there's no need for a 200 division + army as you'd just be killing your own men.
- attrition should mean more. If you do fancy keeping 12 divisions on a tile in the middle of nowhere then you should see them become combat ineffective much faster, and be taking losses even when not in action.
- Points of supply, naval and air bases, anti-air etc should require standing garrisons. In my current game I have got every British home air base to 10 and it doesn't cost me any manpower. Silly, or if realistic then these air bases should be incredibly inefficient.
- keeping divisions at full strength should cost more in manpower and equipment
- refocus the game on the principle that the side with better logistics, better equipment and control of the skies will win much faster. Nudge players to focus on production.

 

[Vlad123]

The ideal would be a new resource (money? Supplies?) That the troops consume every hour (not like the fuel only when you move and even there if you are running on 0 fuel the tanks MUST NOT MOVE, YOU ARE AT 0 FUEL!) a minor army proportionally recruitable. Currently on hoi4 the generic fascist focus gives you 7% of the recruitable population more than already with the volunteer (1.5% or 2.5% if I remember correctly) reaches 8.5 / 9.5% of the recruitable population. A little excessive, don't you think? (If he also chooses human wave, another 5% ...). Returning to the resource that is consumed: if beyond that number I cannot produce (or rather I must allocate more and more military factories to increase the number of supplies or I have to increase taxes too much) there will be no more lag (at least I hope) and you can play even up to the 60s.

 

[lingo74]

I think a general supply which is automatically produced from number of civs is needed to put a soft limit, but also there needs to be some sort of manpower strain from factories as well so the US isn’t completely op in that situation.

A couple of other ideas I think would be interesting:
-For ever division, air wing, or ship which is deployed; a sort of logistical manpower would be required which goes in a pool.
-Reintroduce officers back into the game making divisions less effective if they cannot meet the officer requirements.
-Do something fun with land doctrines, for instance superior firepower could increase the amount of equipment a normal division needs to have making them a lot more deadly but a lot more costly.

 

[kimidf]

I think a general supply which is automatically produced from number of civs is needed to put a soft limit, but also there needs to be some sort of manpower strain from factories as well so the US isn’t completely op in that situation.

A couple of other ideas I think would be interesting:
-For ever division, air wing, or ship which is deployed; a sort of logistical manpower would be required which goes in a pool.
-Reintroduce officers back into the game making divisions less effective if they cannot meet the officer requirements.
-Do something fun with land doctrines, for instance superior firepower could increase the amount of equipment a normal division needs to have making them a lot more deadly but a lot more costly.

Another solution that I have also seen in mod 1930 is that each recruiting law increases and increases the rate of the consumer factory.

 

[Dlin369]

I'd like civilian Economy and volunteer only to have some bonuses - even if they are objectively worse than full mobilization in terms of gearing up for the war effort. I'd like it if

Civilian Economy - no debuffs to manpower, access to free trade, and bonuses to civilian factory construction
limited mobilization - small debuff to manpower (maybe 0.5% manpower), access to free trade, small bonuses to military factory construction and civilian factory construction.
partial mobilization - larger debuffs to manpower (maybe 1% manpower), access to export only, larger bonuses to military factory construction
full mobilization - debuffs to manpower (1.5% manpower), access to export only, large bonus to military factory construction, more difficulty constructing civilian factories
total mobilization - same as current.

Volunteer only should also have a small bonus to morale.

Limiting the amount of exponential civilian factory buildup and also slowing down mobilization should reduce the amount of equipment, and in turn division spam

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

Volunteer only should also have a small bonus to morale.

I feel like Volunteer should work best with Democratic governments and non-democratic gov. that have complete control. While drafts should be only used for democratic as the war intensifies.

 

[Reman]

Can somebody explain why "unit spam" is considered an issue when supply limits already exist in the game? It's not like anyone can put an infinite number of divisions on the frontline, since they'd lose all their equipment to attrition. I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't even ever use supply companies or the -20% supply FM promotion, so it's very easy to get a huge leg up on the late-game AI even if they have twice as many troops as you. This is to say nothing of how easily modern tanks + 1944 CAS can melt through practically any defensive position later on, even if they have to chew through 30+ infantry divisions per tile.

 

[Kazakk]

A mod that launched yesterday approaches this problem in a very interesting way. They added money to the game, and divisions cost upkeep. You can go in debt, but being unable to pay interest causes harsh problems.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Can somebody explain why "unit spam" is considered an issue when supply limits already exist in the game? It's not like anyone can put an infinite number of divisions on the frontline, since they'd lose all their equipment to attrition. I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't even ever use supply companies or the -20% supply FM promotion, so it's very easy to get a huge leg up on the late-game AI even if they have twice as many troops as you. This is to say nothing of how easily modern tanks + 1944 CAS can melt through practically any defensive position later on, even if they have to chew through 30+ infantry divisions per tile.

Supplies are free and the AI doesn't care about supply limit much

 

[MobiusTwo]

I feel like the amount of divisions you can field should be proportional in some way to your industry and infrastructure. I don't have any hard numbers in mind as to how many factories you would need to field 100+ divisions or anything like that, but in my opinion the problem with unit spam comes in when irrelevant countries in South America do nothing but build tons of weak troops that serve no purpose other than to make the game lag. By limiting the number of units these low-industry, low-infrastructure countries can pump out, the game's performance should improve. Alternatively, the devs could just stick something like the crippling "Agrarian Society" national spirit India has on all the Latin American countries in the game.

 

[Reman]

Supplies are free and the AI doesn't care about supply limit much

If the AI exceeds its supply then all its units will suffer combat penalties and breaking through their lines is even easier. I still don't see what the problem is.

 

[Bki]

If the AI exceeds its supply then all its units will suffer combat penalties and breaking through their lines is even easier. I still don't see what the problem is.

It's a problem when they're your allies and they're eating your supplies.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

And supply limit can easily rise so much that there are a lot more troops than frontage available, meaning that every province is a long grind with the defender rotating its units probably several rounds before being defeated

 

[kimidf]

I believe sooner or later to insert some kind of money or financial system to be able to reflect the cost of maintaining the troops in an understandable way for the players.

 

[DocDesastro]

I could imagine having logistic brigades setting up depots behind the front lines. Without those, you are in trouble conquering. Hospital units would go there as well (were they ever frontline units?) The defender could dedicate military depots and forts as hard distribution points of supplies so having those in your country gives you some edge over a would-be conqueror in strategic regions. I strongly believe, we need logistic units on map to make a workable and playable network using rails, roads and distribute to front lines. The bigger your army is, the bigger the force behind must be. And yes, I strongly advocate the production of supplies via CIC or MIC - even with dedicated farm lands instead of plastering everything with factories. Same with having money in the game. I remember how Germany suffered under ridiculous inflation causing unrest. Having a (big) military is not for free as soldiers will not fight for glory only.

Imagine divisional templates based upon the unit "logistic brigades". The more you have, the more units around will be kept in supply. Efficiency depends on tech and local infrastructure. MP units attached there could help speed up (strategic) movement in a certain area instead of suppression. Hospital units attached will provide trickleback for near units. HQ staff could offer bonuses in terms of tactics choice or help with org recovery. AA units provide cover for your supply units while signals could boost signals efficiency at the front. Maybe you could also have divisional heavy artillery units here lending fire support to front-line units instead of embedding them into combat units.
In turn, make some of the support units incompatible for use in combat/logistic division.

 

[Dlin369]

I feel like Volunteer should work best with Democratic governments and non-democratic gov. that have complete control. While drafts should be only used for democratic as the war intensifies.

it’d be cool if the maximum number of men you can recruit with volunteer only went up or down with war support