The role of ministers: give them more personality instead of merely being modifiers

[vonhavoc]

What is always missing from games is the other reason that historical events happen. In a game the player will always choose the "best" option, unless they have restricted themselves or are engaged in role-playing the game. Lets take Herman Goring. Were there better administrators/leaders for the Luftwaffe? Were there better people to run the 4 Year Plan? Certainly. So why did he end up one of the highest ranking and most important figures in Nazi Germany? Some reasons might matter to gamers; highly decorated WWI Ace, leader of the famed Flying Circus at the end of WWI. Some other reasons that probably wouldn't matter to gamers; early member of Nazi Party, successfully organized the SA, shot during the Putsch, loyal to Hitler. IMHO until game designers can find a way to make gamers care as much about the second set of factors as the "what helps me do better in this game" set of factors, attempts to make this part of the game better will be very difficult.

To that end I can conceive that there could be some bonus for countries to have historical or near-historical cabinets, or for having "loyal" ministers, etc. Perhaps Hitler's modifiers would become worse and worse the fewer "loyal" ministers are in the cabinet. Who knows? Hopefully something can be devised that will make this a more robust process.

Some interesting ideas here. To have the loyalty affect modifiers of the head of state and maybe even other cabinet members. Those less loyal with negative effect and positive for loyal ones.

Hitler example is a bit bad, as his IRL modifiers got worse and worse even with his cronies around catering to his whims. However, if you add some trait which causes a decrease in ability (sickness in Hitler's case) maybe the effect would be lessened with loyal people around? Less stress and so on.

This. The description is pure white-washing and the modifiers look like an obvious paraphrase of Himmler crimes against humanity. If one describes leading Nazis in any detail, then one has to include their crimes.

Why describe at all? The text under the picture has no real meaning in the game, since the posts listed are not even in the game, and all you need to know are modifiers. Besides, some description items would be a no-no and thus totally irrelevant in the game, so off with all of them.

That's impossible, as he was a lunatic. He did have good ideas early in the war (France and Poland; the entirety of the staff didn't trust him and thought that they are doomed), but the more war he did the "weirder" he got. I've seen a documentary about Kursk/Crimea where he even intervened on Corps-level just so that they could hold the line/reach for Rostov.

I'd like to dispute these good ideas a bit. Polish campaign strategy was not penned by Hitler. It was designed by General Staff. Also, Hitler didn't want the western allies to go to war with Germany, so as such the polish campaign didn't go according to Hitler's plans.

In the west, the plan for attacking France was not Hitler's. Obviously he decided that the attack would happen, but he did not come up with the strategy. Ultimately the used strategy was chosen by Hitler, but von Manstein was the architect of this plan.

In execution of the plan Hitler's blunders continued. He intervened on several occasions to halt the push of the panzer divisions. Also he failed to allow the wehrmacht to capitalize on the success in France. No invasion of Britain had been planned. The southern France was not occupied, the Mediterranean theatre was ignored.

I'd say with Poland Hitler painted himself in a corner and the rest of the decisions he took on grand level were pretty much necessary ones. In implementation he hesitated and was worried and timid, which was costly.

After the winter of 1941 everything went wrong for Germany. The deciding factor here is how at that point Hitler assumed absolute control of the armed forces. Up until then people had been able to at least somewhat work with the restrictions imposed on them.

 

[John_D]

I am reading "Wages of Destruction" and there it is explained that the rearm of Germany didnt matter anymore to stay afront of UK and France, because they were rapidly advancing their own, and Hitler sure knew the might of the USA comming into play in a few years.
So he had to act fast, otherwise he lost momentum. It was in fact going for broke, with no way out.
Also read Ian Kershaw's book "Hitler" what is also very recommended.

 

[Darkath]

Really? A super white-washed history of Himmler and a huge mishmash of modifiers is the best implementation of ministers for you? I have to say, that does not appeal to me.

This. Even without reading the bad description (un-necessary imo, just include a wikipedia link like in CK2 if you insist on having a description) the "huge mish mash of numbers" is enough to see how bad that is. No one want to spend the time to compare 8 different modifiers between ministers in game, and i'm sure the devs don't want to balance that amount of numbers either.

However, i think you guys at PDS can agree that the minister system in vanilla HOI3 was kinda lackluster

 

[mursolini]

Where exactly did people get the idea that Hitler was the least compenet leader of WW2?

Why souldn`t Churchill, Chamberlain, Musolini, Whatever French and Polish presidents are there have similar if not worse impact?

When the leftovers of German general staff write apologist stuff, to blame someone else for loss, wierdly, nobody was interested in fact-checking them.

Neirther were anyone interested in reserching about corruption in France, GB, and USA. Everything was perfectly well there, despite the fact that "only" 30ish(maybe 40ish) years before HOI start US senators were jokingly refered to by the name of company that payed for election, not the state they represent, and the system is largely there still.

Hitler`s state was corruped. Duh, most states are hillariously corrupt and inefficent, even today. 70 years ago, it was even worse.

 

[Der Phonix]

Really? A super white-washed history of Himmler and a huge mishmash of modifiers is the best implementation of ministers for you? I have to say, that does not appeal to me.

Whitewashed? What does that mean? That leaders and the war crimes they were part of will be reflected?

 

[Beagá]

I am reading "Wages of Destruction" and there it is explained that the rearm of Germany didnt matter anymore to stay afront of UK and France, because they were rapidly advancing their own, and Hitler sure knew the might of the USA comming into play in a few years.
So he had to act fast, otherwise he lost momentum. It was in fact going for broke, with no way out.
Also read Ian Kershaw's book "Hitler" what is also very recommended.

If you take that book as basis there isn´t even a point in making a Hearts of iron game. The imbalance of forces is indeed massive, the game has to be "nice" to the Axis.

 

[SDSkinner]

Where exactly did people get the idea that Hitler was the least compenet leader of WW2?

Why souldn`t Churchill, Chamberlain, Musolini, Whatever French and Polish presidents are there have similar if not worse impact?

When the leftovers of German general staff write apologist stuff, to blame someone else for loss, wierdly, nobody was interested in fact-checking them.

Neirther were anyone interested in reserching about corruption in France, GB, and USA. Everything was perfectly well there, despite the fact that "only" 30ish(maybe 40ish) years before HOI start US senators were jokingly refered to by the name of company that payed for election, not the state they represent, and the system is largely there still.

Hitler`s state was corruped. Duh, most states are hillariously corrupt and inefficent, even today. 70 years ago, it was even worse.

Because Hitler meddled inside operational details to a degree that none of the other leaders did. This wasn't a problem at the start of the war, but as time went on he extended his control more and more, to ruinous effects on several occasion. In addition he left domestic affairs to others, but at the same time insisted on ill defined roles to play individuals off against each other which exacerbated infighting and administrative chaos.

 

[Secret Master]

Keep in mind that the Most Incompetent Leader award for WWII doesn't mean that the other leaders were awesome. It doesn't matter who you decide earns the award; the other leaders could also be incompetent. Just not as incompetent as the Most Incompetent.

For example, let's say we do a straw poll for "Most Incompetent Leader" and I vote for Mussolini. Now, just because I vote for Mussolini in the poll, it doesn't mean that I think Phillippe Petain is a genius. I just think he's MORE incompetent than Petain. It also doesn't mean I sit around studying Hitler's unit reorganizations as masterpieces of military science. I just happen to think that Mussolini showed even more incompetence than Hitler did.

There's plenty of mistakes to go around, no matter who takes the cake as most incompetent. It's kind of like the NFL. Just because a team makes it to the playoffs, it doesn't mean they are any good. They may just be the least incompetent team in their division, and their division is full of really bad teams.

 

[Wilbry]

Perhaps ministers could be AI modules...

I put Albert Speer in charge of production and he favours building factories...but I put Guderian in charge and ramps up production lines of panzers!

The Player would then guide things using parameters in the form of edicts.
Edicts would act like an overlay to a particular AI module....
Edict 1: strengthen our ecomony
Edict 2: rebuild our airforce
Albert Speer might build more factories and and improve port/rail/air networks while also building a balanced airforce.
Guderien might buld more factories and airfields/highways while also build a ground strike focused airforce.

Obvoiusly you can get more fine and intricuate with this but you get the idea.

Edicts allow the player to have a sense of influence and still have the opportunity to get annoyed with his ministers and fire them when they do things he doesnt like, then take direct control over everything if he wants and be the true mad dictator.

 

[Mannstien]

Keep in mind that the Most Incompetent Leader award for WWII doesn't mean that the other leaders were awesome. It doesn't matter who you decide earns the award; the other leaders could also be incompetent. Just not as incompetent as the Most Incompetent.

For example, let's say we do a straw poll for "Most Incompetent Leader" and I vote for Mussolini. Now, just because I vote for Mussolini in the poll, it doesn't mean that I think Phillippe Petain is a genius. I just think he's MORE incompetent than Petain. It also doesn't mean I sit around studying Hitler's unit reorganizations as masterpieces of military science. I just happen to think that Mussolini showed even more incompetence than Hitler did.

There's plenty of mistakes to go around, no matter who takes the cake as most incompetent. It's kind of like the NFL. Just because a team makes it to the playoffs, it doesn't mean they are any good. They may just be the least incompetent team in their division, and their division is full of really bad teams.

Lol, I should use this at work, "Joe were giving you this award not because of how hard you work, but instead your just the least incompetent". Sounds like a Dilbert cartoon

 

[Wilbry]

Lol, I should use this at work, "Joe were giving you this award not because of how hard you work, but instead your just the least incompetent". Sounds like a Dilbert cartoon

There is actually a business philosophy which states, roughly, "you get promoted to the job you are incompetent at", the theory being that you keep earning promotions because of your competence at each level, so when you stop getting promotions it means you have reached a level where you are no longer competent.

Dilbert Theory is actually the opposite - it states businesses promote people who are least competent in their current role to reduce the amount of damage they do to the business at that level.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

Really? A super white-washed history of Himmler and a huge mishmash of modifiers is the best implementation of ministers for you? I have to say, that does not appeal to me.

Darkest Hour ministers are a mile ahead of the horrible white-washed portraits that HoI3 had. At least Himmler in DH is distinct from the sea of other ministers.

 

[seattle]

Darkest Hour ministers are a mile ahead of the horrible white-washed portraits that HoI3 had. At least Himmler in DH is distinct from the sea of other ministers.

I don't get this "white-washed" stuff anyways. What do people expect? A description like: Minister x was a war criminal who commited crime x,y,z? Doesn't that contradict the sandbox-philosophy? Let's take Himmler in 1936. Why would a description that involves crimes historically commited half a dozen years later make sense?
HoI gamers are a different bunch than the Call of Duty crowd. You don't have to tell a HoI gamer who Tojo was and what he did. You will have to tell the average CoD player though who anyone beside Hitler was.

Back to the topic:
I just thought of how cool the generals' traits in Rome Total War 1 were. They could become decadent when things went too smoothly, lose loyalty if they were too successful etc.
Dynamic traits based on their historic personality and the events in your game would be awesome.