This might be insane but...

[shadow737]

During the Grand Campaign games most players are left to basically roam the map watching other people's wars if they do not start one themselves. This can be quite boring at times as we all know.

One of the problems with the Grand Campaign versus other scenarios is the quality of the divisions and their experience levels. What do people think about a training type mission or a war games mission. Let the nations at peace for a price train their troops. Have Oil and supply expeditures like they were in combat with a gain of 1/4 to 1/2 of the standard battlefield experience? Over time several divisions could reach veteran status for each of the major powers, which would be in holding with the actual troop skill levels among special units.

Every nation has its Army Ranger Division or its Coldstream Guards or its Guard regiments. These units often perform better earlier in the wars simply because they have received extensive training even if they would not traditionally fall into the catagory of the special forces divisions such as marines, paratroopers, or mountaineers.

Any thoughts?

 

[Myth]

I recal suggesting something like this in one of the holistic HoI3 suggestion threads. the idea was quite basic:

Training mission for units. They become rather vulnerable to attack (having a malus) but they slowly gain experience and their general has a chance at gaining a terrain-based trait.

however, this could be used in conjunction with divisional traits. divisions in training could also receive up to 1 (one) divisional trait. however, it would have to be balanced--I'd say, at the very most, a maximum of 20 experience per division, which would take a year of straight training every day to attain, in peace time (in war, it'd be accelerated somewhat, perhaps by a factor of 2). however, perhaps this maximum could be tied to the standing/drafted army sliders--20 at max standing army and 10 at max drafted, and for each notch from drafted to standing an additional +1. or perhaps the other way around, so that standing army gets only 10 and drafted 20--the slider really needs to be balanced somehow (I propose cheaper divisions and higher morale for drafted).

any mission other than training (such as marching it somewhere) would naturally halt the training. if training is halted, perhaps a three-month or so wait could be required before any one unit can recommence.

</random ideas>

 

[Acheron]

What about this: slider moves to standing army do not give your brand new units experience, instead they start out with zero, but all units already deplyoed will gain automatically experience, the rate and final treshhold for auto-xp being determined by the standing army slider setting.

 

[Tegetthoff]

What about this: slider moves to standing army do not give your brand new units experience, instead they start out with zero, but all units already deplyoed will gain automatically experience, the rate and final treshhold for auto-xp being determined by the standing army slider setting.

Great idea - can be done in an event:

"Perform summer maneuvers"

a) Agree - spend a lot of money, oil and supplies - gain one slider move
b) Disagree - Nothing

Fires once a year

 

[Myth]

What about this: slider moves to standing army do not give your brand new units experience, instead they start out with zero, but all units already deplyoed will gain automatically experience, the rate and final treshhold for auto-xp being determined by the standing army slider setting.

I don't really like this. part of the production time of units is for training, after all. it'd just cause added confusion along the lines of "xomg my units are gaining teh free experiences!!" and "oh noes I dont get tehz free experience! buggy!"

Great idea - can be done in an event:

"Perform summer maneuvers"

a) Agree - spend a lot of money, oil and supplies - gain one slider move
b) Disagree - Nothing

Fires once a year

wouldn't really fit with Paradox's events, imho. that'd be more on CORE's level, event-wise. also, even countries like China or the Soviet Union could get fully standing armies by war time or soon afterward, if they always choose A and move the standing/drafted army slider each year.

 

[shadow737]

I agree with Myth on both other ideas. The problem is that if experience is tagged to a slider or event rather than a mission is that one democracies will mostly never be able to "create" elite units before a war. The USA did have in the 1st Marine Division as well as certain Ranger battalions crack troops trained and prepared for combat almost from the moment bombs dropped on Poland. Also the "Big Red One" Infantry Division was considered from the start to be a trained and disciplined force equal to the major combat operations of the war which is why they were sent into combat in North Africa among the first wave of US troops.

With tying the experience to an event this might work, but is more along the lines of CORE, and does not allow the player to select the units to train. Multiple firing events are usually tied to a slider. For instance you are more likely to get a industries nationalized if you have the slider moved towards Central Planning versus Free Market. Likewise a drafted army slider is less likely than a standing army slider position to allow this sort of summer training. Also this event would alter severely the type of military created by many of the nations of the world. At the time the USSR, USA, France, and other nations used a conscription based system for their military. This change would also not deal with the traditional idea of the elite regiment or brigade. This was a critical advantage of the British Army in the early months of the war. Even the German Wehrmacht was concerned about the skill and ability of the British Army in its invasion of France and the low countries. This was because of their experience and training since most of the German and British weapons were roughly speaking equal.

A training mission would allow for the creation of "elite" regular forces similiar to what occurred in WWII. Certain French divisions did hold out quite well against the Germans, but only lost due to the collapse of green conscript troops not holding their positions. Allowing this sort of training mission might also make playing small nations with little armies better. Hungary is not a dominant power in the game and never seems to keep up with Germany, the Soviets, or the Allies on weapons tech which makes sense, but if they could train their troops relentlessly these weaknesses could be overcome. In the same way Norway, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, Holland, etc. might stop being speed bumps over which the Great Powers just roll over quickly.

These are my thoughts on the matter. Still welcoming opinions and concerns and hoping that Paradox considers this idea for the future.

 

[Acheron]

Please note, with my suggestion, I meant for standing army to provide experience IN ADDITION to experience gain for battle.
Though maybe this slider setting could affect at what rate divisions gain exp in combat.
Sure the US military trained a lot, but frankly, didn't they perform less than stellar in their first encounters? On the other hand, even Germany's enemies had to admit than overall her soldiers were better trained and experienced than themselves.

 

[Myth]

Please note, with my suggestion, I meant for standing army to provide experience IN ADDITION to experience gain for battle.

...what? I never assumed that experience gain in battle would be removed. I just personally thought it was a bad idea with no point whatsoever and the potential cause of a lot of confusion.

Though maybe this slider setting could affect at what rate divisions gain exp in combat.

why?

Sure the US military trained a lot, but frankly, didn't they perform less than stellar in their first encounters?

I'm not sure how much they trained, but I do know they were incredibly poorly led. incredibly poorly in said first encounters. Fredenhall was an abysmal leader--in the same category of military commander foolery as Hitler and Voroshilov. even then, Rommel praised them as being organizationally and logistically superior to his own Afrika Korps, as well as for their skillful tactical withdrawal and, on Rommel's withdrawal, pursual.

On the other hand, even Germany's enemies had to admit than overall her soldiers were better trained and experienced than themselves.

early in the war, Germany's armed forces hadn't been attrited and thus were quite well trained. late in the war, Germany was on the defensive--which Clausewitz considered the stronger of the two forms of warfare. the quality of the German soldier and the German NCO deteriorated as the reinforcements situation got more dire (something unfortunately not modelled well...or, really, at all...in HoI2). sure, the panzer divisions were still good but they had always been the elite of the Wehrmacht. by the end of the war, the average American soldier was the equal of not the superior of his average German counterpart--the Vosges campaign is a good example of this.

 

[unmerged(65320)]

Hmmm....I'm not sure I like the idea of nations at peace having the luxury of time to train their troops to higher levels while nations at war do not. A battle-hardened unit is of substantially greater experience and battle know-how than a well-trained unit from a peaceful nation.

If anything, the training level of units in countries at peace should decline the longer the nation is at peace.

 

[Myth]

Hmmm....I'm not sure I like the idea of nations at peace having the luxury of time to train their troops to higher levels while nations at war do not. A battle-hardened unit is of substantially greater experience and battle know-how than a well-trained unit from a peaceful nation.

exactly why there would be a cap to the amount of experience a unit could receive through training. the 10s and 20s I threw out were merely random round numbers, 5 and 10 could just just as possible. also, as I mentioned, training in war time would be considered more important, thus the experienced received would be gained some factor (perhaps twice) faster than at peace--and thus, training would still be a viable option not only at war, but for those units which are behind the lines and expected to be behind the lines for some time. of course, this is why training divisions have a malus if in combat--training rounds, they're not actually prepared to fight, etc.

If anything, the training level of units in countries at peace should decline the longer the nation is at peace.

this could indeed be a different incentive to train, to prevent the quality of the divisions from deteriorating (but what about those fully drafted army nations, whose divisions have 0 experience to begin with?)

 

[shadow737]

Once again I agree with Myth. I never suggested that training missions would disappear in wartime. Though would you really want to keep troops out of the fighting if they were needed? One of the problems is that as the game stands only troops in combat gain experience. In real life the US Army and Marine Corps had been kicking the crap out of Central American dictators off and on for years when they crossed a line. The Kaigun starts the war with the USA and the Allies with only maybe 1 star or 20 experience points. The truth of the war was that in the early stages of the conflict the Kaigun was considered to be maybe the best disciplined and trained navy in the world which is why they were considered such a danger by US military planners who about went mad as FDR stripped the Pacific Fleet of assets to fight the undeclared war with Germany in the Atlantic Ocean and support the British Lend-Lease Act.

The purpose of training would be to create a disciplined force over time. My idea to flesh it out better would be for training to take three or six months and the division would gain 5 or 10 experience points for that total period with the amount depending on how long the training mission was designed to last. 5 points for three months or 10 for six months. If it is interrupted then they gain nothing. It would take a solid year of training to gain one star and the one other change that would be necessary is to modifiy the game to have a maximum of 2 or 3 stars for a nation at peace. (40 to 60 experience) The cost of training would be rather high in some cases as oil, supplies, and money would need to be expended even the USA would need to look at a cost benefit for training everybody.

 

[Myth]

Though would you really want to keep troops out of the fighting if they were needed?

if they're training, yes. very much so. its hard to train with bullets flying around and shells landing. hell, one of the reasons the Americans did so poorly very early on on North Africa was because their armor was using training and not real ammunition.