I don't know what the "cornflakes" DLC is all about, but Paradox, in the name of all that is holy,
fix the Pacific War!
fix the Pacific War!
the Pacific
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Have no fear, the devs have said quite a few times that the focus of the Cornflakes patch / the accompanying DLC will be on Asia.
This being the 4th iteration of HOI, I am starting to think that the best fix for the Pacific theater would be to split the franchise into two separate games, one each for ETO and PTO. The situations between the two are so drastically different that in some cases they should be using fundamentally different game mechanics. Just as it is hard to get good game balance with a one-size-fits-all approach to major and minor countries, it is also hard to get one system that does proper justice to both ETO and PTO.
To be honest, other than a few obvious things like Chinese focus trees, the biggest problem with the PTO is that the AI cannot handle the strategies needed for that kind of campaign. In MP games with just a few house rules to prevent US prewar buildup in the region, it plays out pretty well.
To be honest, other than a few obvious things like Chinese focus trees, the biggest problem with the PTO is that the AI cannot handle the strategies needed for that kind of campaign. In MP games with just a few house rules to prevent US prewar buildup in the region, it plays out pretty well.
What's the difference between AI of PTO and ETO? Naval Positioning and Islands. Combat is fine, as pointed out above, everything being fairly balanced in MP.
Naval Positioning AI is horrendous, and the worst part of an AI executed PTO. Yes it uses the concept of a "doomstack" with the Strike Fleet, but doesn't adapt it at all. It has an Invasion Fleet that it uses SO piss poorly and uselessly, its a waste of a fleet. Naval Sea Region scoring is all hardcoded based on territory/bases, not naval threat. And besides using some cheesy withdraw exploits, Naval positioning is the key to combat. Combat is fairly out of human and AI hands, once the fleets engage, which puts AI an human on equal footing in those regards.
A close second is how to deal with Islands. Naval Invasions may not work the first time, but it doesn't use intel and history to repeat the naval invasion again, to be successful the next time (it only should not be successful on next invasion if things have changed which is wouldn't know, like enemy getting better supply tech or upgrading INF, and adding more defensive divisions next time, etc). Then of course its the AI battleplans and their effectiveness on Islands. Divisions just sit there, because there is no opponent, and it won't reinforce the island once a port is taken to quickly take it. A JAP human can take Indonesia in a month or so with historic defenses present. The AI never takes it. Expert AI does the best job I've seen, but it still takes years to take the entire Island Chain. Then there is the silly broken mechanics of port always being supplied, even if there is no naval route available, so blockading an Island is not possible, and the AI certainly doesn't have the intelligence to leave Islands isolated and skip them, as was done by the USA in the Marshal Islands (a human player would also ignore them if they presented no threat).
Trade route interdiction and protection are completely different in ETO vs PTO. Due to the Med and English Channel, its easy for AI, because AI can't break out, hence no Convoy War. ETO navy simply needs to use smarter naval pathing, which we may not ever see because of the silly hardcoded naval pathing the AI uses. If addressed, this could open up the ETO naval aspect in regards to the convoy war. But in the PTO, you do not have these natural choke points (Singapore coast is about the only one I can think of). However, there are a vast amount of sea regions that need cover with a huge amount of naval bases, with a large difference in naval base size. This makes PTO extremely different than ETO, in terms of AI.
In short, Naval AI has been improved DEAD LAST (which means hardly at all), compared to any other facet of the game, because it affects the fewest customers. PDS stats show who plays what country, and for PDS, their biggest bang for the buck is to improve Land, Air, THEN sea.
The PTO could be fixed, if PDS focused on it. I don't believe you need to create 2 different games because one facet of the game requires very different AI behavior. Its because the situations in one theater have had little to no priority...let's cross fingers for 1.5 bringing greatly needed improvements, but my personal expectations are dropping weekly, as everything so far in 1.5 appears to "help and take care of the troops", which Podcat stated as a 1.5 objective. And if you split hairs, sailors are not troops. I could be wrong though, as as stated, the main problem with the PTO is AI, not mechanics or QoL lacking features. And throughout DD history, AI improvements are shown last.
Naval Positioning AI is horrendous, and the worst part of an AI executed PTO. Yes it uses the concept of a "doomstack" with the Strike Fleet, but doesn't adapt it at all. It has an Invasion Fleet that it uses SO piss poorly and uselessly, its a waste of a fleet. Naval Sea Region scoring is all hardcoded based on territory/bases, not naval threat. And besides using some cheesy withdraw exploits, Naval positioning is the key to combat. Combat is fairly out of human and AI hands, once the fleets engage, which puts AI an human on equal footing in those regards.
A close second is how to deal with Islands. Naval Invasions may not work the first time, but it doesn't use intel and history to repeat the naval invasion again, to be successful the next time (it only should not be successful on next invasion if things have changed which is wouldn't know, like enemy getting better supply tech or upgrading INF, and adding more defensive divisions next time, etc). Then of course its the AI battleplans and their effectiveness on Islands. Divisions just sit there, because there is no opponent, and it won't reinforce the island once a port is taken to quickly take it. A JAP human can take Indonesia in a month or so with historic defenses present. The AI never takes it. Expert AI does the best job I've seen, but it still takes years to take the entire Island Chain. Then there is the silly broken mechanics of port always being supplied, even if there is no naval route available, so blockading an Island is not possible, and the AI certainly doesn't have the intelligence to leave Islands isolated and skip them, as was done by the USA in the Marshal Islands (a human player would also ignore them if they presented no threat).
Trade route interdiction and protection are completely different in ETO vs PTO. Due to the Med and English Channel, its easy for AI, because AI can't break out, hence no Convoy War. ETO navy simply needs to use smarter naval pathing, which we may not ever see because of the silly hardcoded naval pathing the AI uses. If addressed, this could open up the ETO naval aspect in regards to the convoy war. But in the PTO, you do not have these natural choke points (Singapore coast is about the only one I can think of). However, there are a vast amount of sea regions that need cover with a huge amount of naval bases, with a large difference in naval base size. This makes PTO extremely different than ETO, in terms of AI.
In short, Naval AI has been improved DEAD LAST (which means hardly at all), compared to any other facet of the game, because it affects the fewest customers. PDS stats show who plays what country, and for PDS, their biggest bang for the buck is to improve Land, Air, THEN sea.
The PTO could be fixed, if PDS focused on it. I don't believe you need to create 2 different games because one facet of the game requires very different AI behavior. Its because the situations in one theater have had little to no priority...let's cross fingers for 1.5 bringing greatly needed improvements, but my personal expectations are dropping weekly, as everything so far in 1.5 appears to "help and take care of the troops", which Podcat stated as a 1.5 objective. And if you split hairs, sailors are not troops. I could be wrong though, as as stated, the main problem with the PTO is AI, not mechanics or QoL lacking features. And throughout DD history, AI improvements are shown last.
I get what you are saying and I respect your input, but you kind of contradict yourself in this post. If MP plays out pretty well in both theaters in the current game, the mechanics must be satisfactory. It's just a matter of bringing the AI up to a state that can cope with the mechanics.
MP plays out pretty well, but of course could be better. The things that made island hopping could be reinforced if separate mechanics existed. The lack of ability to route convoys manually is awkward in the ETO, but is far more limiting in the PTO. The overall game mechanics do not lend themselves well to establishing a stalemate in China but separate mechanics could be developed that did so.
The scale of ground battles tended to be different, usually smaller in the PTO. This makes divisional size units less than ideal for it and having most islands be a single province distorts that combat greatly. In a game dedicated to the PTO, they could zoom in, as it were, and provide more detail in a meaningful way.
Those are just a few examples off the top of my head. I do not see it as a contradiction at all, but rather having it come down to how one defines "pretty well".
It's just my 2 cents, but I'd argue if there are whole-of-ww2 boardgames that do a decent job (which there are), then a videogame should be capable - which I think feeds into your last point - the key issue is the AI, and given it'd be possible (I'd think preferable) to have different AI approaches to different strategic situations, then this should be achievable in one game. It's difficult, but it's worth keeping in mind the Pacific war in HoI4 is (iirc) better than HoI3, and streets ahead of HoI1/2. I've seen the AI invade Australia, the Netherlands East Indies, many of the Islands and the Philippines - it does this far better and more consistently than HoIs past.
I think the biggest issue is that the European theatre is always the core around which the game is built, and past iterations haven't had enough time to do the Pacific justice - whereas with HoI4 being the first HoI under the new 'develop for years' approach, I think this is our best chance for it.
On the second point, I agree that perhaps smaller scale island battles could help (although most were at least brigade-level, so achievable within HoI4 - just a case of making it something that works within the UI and with the AI), but the convoy issue is a nightmare in the ETO - British convoys through tthe Bay of Biscay, the Channel and the Med are both historically implausible (in a historic-style game) and could potentially cause all sorts of trouble for balance for ENG if/when commerce warfare mechanics get squared away (and commerce warfare is important for both theatres, and arguably more for the European).
On the stalemate mechanics for China, I'd also argue those kind of mechanics would go a long way to making the German/Soviet clash play out better as well (in both cases, there were issues with logistics, controlling the countryside and the like, as well as 'puppet' local organisations).
Overall, though, I think one of the key points of HoI is that it's a game that covers all of WW2. There are already (good) PTO and ETO-specific games, but there are very few (indeed) good 'whole-of-WW2' games. Just my preferences, which are no more important than yours or anyone else's, but I'd much rather HoI stayed HoI, and then if there was demand separate, more detailed ETO and PTO games were made (perhaps at the brigade/regiment level?), rather than lose what makes HoI special (which for me is its worldwide scope - if I wanted a good Eastern Front-only game, I'd play WiTE, for the Pacific WiTP, and so on - although I would be open to a 'Paradox-style' approach on these conflicts as well).
Here is another way to look at it. They may well manage to get it so that both theaters get a C+ or even a B rating in a combined game, but would it not be that much easier to get one theater or the other an A rating if it only had to handle one and not make compromises to accommodate the other?
I too have WiTE. There are some things that it does much better than HOI in representing the Russian front, including pretty much all of the combat. There are still a few things HOI does better. To see that sort of detailed GSG approach done for the PTO is something we have not seen from any game and perhaps never will.
I too have WiTE. There are some things that it does much better than HOI in representing the Russian front, including pretty much all of the combat. There are still a few things HOI does better. To see that sort of detailed GSG approach done for the PTO is something we have not seen from any game and perhaps never will.
I'm not sure how many comprises there should be though. It's not as if the equipment used or the nature of warfare was radically different in the Pacific at the strategic level. Sure, Japan made some decisions differently to Germany, but if we want a strategic game, the game needs to be flexible enough for them to be a bit more sensible in terms of convoy defence and resource allocation, for example. The European theatre still needs to be able to handle isolated island garrisons (Malta) and the potential for the naval invasions of smaller islands (Malta, Crete) or invasions that were smaller than the division level (Norway) if it's shooting for the same level of plausibility. I still can't think of a key feature in one theatre that wouldn't be valuable in the other - in which case, why split them?
More importantly, splitting the games removes the interplay between the two theatres. The US having to decide how much of its navy to send to the Pacific and the British having to work out how to prioritise between Burma, Africa and Malaya, for example. Once they're cut out of things, there's a need to have some big-picture abstractions that necessarily limit the scope of the game (what to do with the Western hemisphere?), and more railroading. Also, while it would be possible to get two games, one for each theatre, two games is a bigger job to build than one - so we may find it's quicker to let the devs plug away at HoI4, rather than release separate ETO/PTO games (which I think would be great, but would be more operational than "grand strategy").
Just my 2 cents of course, not suggesting either of us is right or wrong, just talking it out
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I am not even saying that I want two games or that they should do two games. What I am saying is that I have lost faith in PDS ability to properly portray the PTO unless they did it as a separate game. They have failed miserably in all previoius versions of HOI. This one comes the closest so far, but IMO is still well short of the mark.I'm not sure how many comprises there should be though. It's not as if the equipment used or the nature of warfare was radically different in the Pacific at the strategic level. Sure, Japan made some decisions differently to Germany, but if we want a strategic game, the game needs to be flexible enough for them to be a bit more sensible in terms of convoy defence and resource allocation, for example. The European theatre still needs to be able to handle isolated island garrisons (Malta) and the potential for the naval invasions of smaller islands (Malta, Crete) or invasions that were smaller than the division level (Norway) if it's shooting for the same level of plausibility. I still can't think of a key feature in one theatre that wouldn't be valuable in the other - in which case, why split them?
More importantly, splitting the games removes the interplay between the two theatres. The US having to decide how much of its navy to send to the Pacific and the British having to work out how to prioritise between Burma, Africa and Malaya, for example. Once they're cut out of things, there's a need to have some big-picture abstractions that necessarily limit the scope of the game (what to do with the Western hemisphere?), and more railroading. Also, while it would be possible to get two games, one for each theatre, two games is a bigger job to build than one - so we may find it's quicker to let the devs plug away at HoI4, rather than release separate ETO/PTO games (which I think would be great, but would be more operational than "grand strategy").
Just my 2 cents of course, not suggesting either of us is right or wrong, just talking it out
I'm just spitballing here, but I was wondering if the stalemate in China could be represented by an entirely new occupation system. Maybe the mechanics gamers have been using for years to represent province control (since the old Avalon Hill games of yore) are out of date.
What if province control (in the Second Sino-Japanese War only) flipped back to Chinese control from Japanese control if there were no Japanese units present (with perhaps some other conditions checked)? What if the chance of flipping control (or time it takes to flip control) was tied to population values in the state?
I know we have partisan mechanics already, but the IJA doesn't seem to give a damn if partisans blow up rail lines and infrastructure. Japan can blitz through China, force capitulation and a peace conference without worrying too much about supply issues. This is most certainly not what happened historically, and the IJA had serious problems trying to pacify the countryside (beyond major rail lines).
What if province control (in the Second Sino-Japanese War only) flipped back to Chinese control from Japanese control if there were no Japanese units present (with perhaps some other conditions checked)? What if the chance of flipping control (or time it takes to flip control) was tied to population values in the state?
I know we have partisan mechanics already, but the IJA doesn't seem to give a damn if partisans blow up rail lines and infrastructure. Japan can blitz through China, force capitulation and a peace conference without worrying too much about supply issues. This is most certainly not what happened historically, and the IJA had serious problems trying to pacify the countryside (beyond major rail lines).
Aye, that's definitely fair
. One thing to keep in mind is that so far the Pacific hasn't really had 'it's time' yet - it looks (as far as I can tell) like the focus has been on getting the land war in Europe right first, and that the Pacific has been done 'well enough' but like naval mechanics hasn't had the same attention post-release as air and land (and any improvements to naval mechanics are almost guaranteed to improve the situation in the Pacific).It's a good spitball
. I still reckon logistics is key (I recently had a gander at Philip Jowet's Images of War title, China and Japan at War, 1937-45) and there are some interesting pics of Japanese artillery teams manhandling medium-calibre artillery over all sorts of terrain - the Japanese (as far as I can tell - one Images of War title is at best a brief introduction with pictures) had logistical troubles that got worse the further they went into the country, which were exacerbated by guerrilla units. As far as I can recall right now, the best people to get thoughts about the Sino-Japanese War and gameplay about these parts would be @Porkman and @Admiral Piett (and one other person who's name I can't recall - reddish avatar? Sorry if you swing by these parts, I only half forgot you )
Thanks @Axe99 for tipoff.
Read the last two posts linked to in my sig.
The first problem is infrastructure.
A) Roads and rails aren't separated which makes it impossible to have the historical case of Japan controlling the rails and having a terrible time moving away from them because there aren't roads. (It's a symptom of the European focused myopia where modern road and rail development happened concurently. In the colonial world, the colonial power built railroads to facilitate the movement of resources from the interior to the sea. There wasn't concurrent investment in roads for the movement of people.)
B) Infrastructure is at the state level. This was one of the dumber moves the Devs did. Again it stems from a European viewpoint where development was done by the state for the benefit of all citizens in all areas. None of that is true in Asia. Infrastructure was built in corridors to serve the needs of empire. "Civilian" as in a little road going from point A to point B so the farmers could make it to town was limited to dirt tracks. If some important resource was there, the colonizer built a railroad... but otherwise they didn't care.
I posted about what this means for China
At the time, I was talking about HOI2 provinces.... Now, two games later, we have provinces small enough to simulate the issues I raise... but they messed it up by having infra be a state level thing.
The second problem is the lack of occupation necessity and the problem of simulating the difficulty of partisan suppression in low infra areas.
I go into more detail on this in article #2 in my sig, but basically, suppression should be easier and travel farther in areas of high infrastructure. If the locals rose up 40 km from occupied Paris, the Germans could be there in 3 hours because there were good roads and flat land. A similar journey in China would take 2 days. There should also be greater penalties for not suppressing so that the tip of the spear gets blunted, not just by enemy action but also by having to leave people behind.
Even during the "Stalemate" part of the war in China from 1940 to 1944 the Japanese never had less than 600,000 Japanese troops in theater. The game doesn't simulate the manpower cost of occupation at all.
Units should have a special mission called "garrison" that would make them a bit less combat effective and anchor them in place in return for much higher suppression. That way the garrison in occupied Yugoslavia can still be activated if the Brits invade but they would fight at a penalty and rob the Germans of some fighting power as they have to put a lot of troops on garrison duties. It would also simulate the rotating out of divisions to the back that actually happened.
Those are my two cents.
For now, China is screwed probably until HOI5 because the devs decided that infra exists at the State level. It means no simulated rails, too easy occupation, no guerillas behind.
I am less than hopeful.
I wonder what the state limit is, if it is only a question of additional memory. Can't think of much more processing required. States could be modded to be very much smaller than what they are now.
That's actually genius. Tie the number of garrison units required to some theoretical pop value of the province or state. Use it for all theaters.
edit: Imagine the micromanaging possibilities here! You have to determine how much of your manpower to dedicate to oppressing, I mean, protect the civilians in the newly liberated provinces, hopefully without any idea on just how many it will take except by trial and error. I'm salivating!
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Wouldn't such a mechanic revert to "whack a mole" partisans problem just without having to actually kill partisans in the process, but with the full annoyance of having to take back provinces multiple times?
Or it would be easy but frustrating to game by making 1 battalion divisions and having to micro to put them everywhere.
I think I would prefer something that cripples you indirectly like having to garrison the rear heavily or have no supply / org / TC at the front instead, and something that ties into current partisan mechanics better.
Micro? The garrison command works pretty darn well at suppression.
All you would need is a stream of small garrison/mp divisions and place them properly and forget about them.
Sure the garrison command works at suppressing current partisan mechanics, but what SM suggested was that all provinces would need to be guarded and those that are not guarded need to be taken back. I'm not so sure the garrison command either guards empty non-vp provinces or takes them back if they "flip".
What if the garrison command was retooled to take this into account?
You could also set it at the state level similar to how Chinese provinces flip communist when communist support is too high in Nat. China. Instead of Communist support flipping states, a certain amount of partisan activity flips the state out of Japanese control. Then you re-scale partisan activity so that the heavily populated stated require substantial garrisons (more than now). You could even give China a national spirit to boost partisan strength.
And then you remove the "CAV has double suppression" mechanic so that Japan really has to invest in putting troops in states to prevent flipping. Then I'd also fix the partisan suppression mechanics so that understrength divisions with low XP and 20% of their equipment quota do not receive full benefit of their suppression values.
The goal is not to make the player micro, but force them to invest substantial manpower and equipment in beating back waves of partisans.
Do you think a single 1 battalion division per province feels like a substantial manpower and equipment investment though?
And manpower never was an issue for Japan, so it's equipment that's the issue here.
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