Too easy to go a-historical?

[rjohansen]

Just watching the latest streams, it might have been mentioned on stream (chat) and I might have missed it. But since they chose historical focus, it seems a bit too easy to crazy in my opinion. I wish that going a-historical would cost a lot more or take a longer time to do.

It's perfectly ok that it is so easy if you don't choose historical setting, but historical settings should limit the crazyness a bit in my opinion and one way would make the a-historical choices cost more points/time.

It just reminds me more of a fantasy game than a WW2 game when all the strange stuff happens.

Also. The civil war in spain a bit too short... Sometimes it was short in HOI3 also, I wish you had fixed such things (balancing) with a brand new game. It should definitly last at least until 1938 in my opinion.

 

[seattle]

HoI vanilla games are usually very sandboxy. If they try to fix that you usually end up with a railroaded version.
It has always been for the best when a HoI vanilla game was sandbox because almost every major mod goes for the railroad approach.

 

[rjohansen]

Also. Why can't air wings have names? Can't they be named in a similar fashion as divisions? It just removes all flavor/immersion for air forces in my opinion. I like the other details, deciding how mane planes etc. But no names? Hopefully they where wrong on stream though.

 

[rjohansen]

HoI vanilla games are usually very sandboxy. If they try to fix that you usually end up with a railroaded version.
It has always been for the best when a HoI vanilla game was sandbox because almost every major mod goes for the railroad approach.

Yeah, but the real sandboxy version should be the non-historical setting in my opinion.

 

[jockedahl]

Also. Why can't air wings have names? Can't they be named in a similar fashion as divisions? It just removes all flavor/immersion for air forces in my opinion. I like the other details, deciding how mane planes etc. But no names? Hopefully they where wrong on stream though.

They said you could rename the planes if you modify them.

 

[barny]

Yeah, having free choice and doing what you want to do is really a shitty way to play a game.

No seriously: How is this a bad thing? If you want to be historic...well...THEN PLAY HISTORIC!

I'm not even sure, what you mean. The historical setting at the start of the game? That is for the AI, not the players.

And if you want to go the historic route with YOUR nation, then why would it matter if the a-historic way would be easy to do? You don't want to take that route in the first place.

They said you could rename the planes if you modify them.

Plane type =/= Air Force units

 

[Ruck]

I really like it, that it isnt so much railroaded anymore like HOI-II

There is no reason to play German Reich twice, if anyways everything will be the same in every game.
Im really happy that Paradox changed that.

 

[Miinda]

I agree with the point on the Spanish civil war. It REALLY liked to end way too quickly in the older Hearts of Iron games and I hope they can fix it in this one.

 

[Lifthrasil]

Also. Why can't air wings have names? Can't they be named in a similar fashion as divisions? It just removes all flavor/immersion for air forces in my opinion. I like the other details, deciding how mane planes etc. But no names? Hopefully they where wrong on stream though.

Strongly agree! I was looking forward to creating air wings and giving them historical names and following their fate.

 

[rjohansen]

Also, I mentioned this earlier. But that isn't the flag of the communist party of France as far as I know. I guess it is the PCF that took command. But really, most communists should have a RED flag.

 

[rjohansen]

They said you could rename the planes if you modify them.

Wings? I am not talking about the fighters in it self. I want 1st Air Wing, 2nd Air Wing etc.

 

[Mannstien]

Also. Why can't air wings have names? Can't they be named in a similar fashion as divisions? It just removes all flavor/immersion for air forces in my opinion. I like the other details, deciding how mane planes etc. But no names? Hopefully they where wrong on stream though.

I agree but feel both the Air and Naval arena's need more detail or fleshing out in general either as a part of a major patch or expansion, I'd like Air dropped supplies, interception prior to bombers reaching target areas, assignment of fleets to invasion or troop transports, actual amphibious landing craft tech, refits for older ships of AA/Radar etc.

 

[Axe99]

As far as I've seen, historical focus just means the AI chooses a particular set of national focus choices.

In terms of the broader concern, I'd personally like it to be a challenging to make substantial ahistorical choices (with the toughness being relative to how tough it may have been to make those changes historically*) but:
- I don't want to judge until I've actually played the game.
- We can always discipline ourselves in-game if it is a bit easy (initially), and then:
- From the modding stream, it looks like it will be really easy to introduce new conditions or alter existing conditions for the various national focus choices, so it'll be easy as pie to make (a bit more work to balance and test, of course) a mod that makes those ahistorical choices more difficult, and by the look of it, it'll be possible to have the game give 'tough ahistorical' NF trees if it's a human player and 'normal' if it's not (as we now know we can have conditional NF trees, and we already knew there was a check for whether the nation was human or AI controlled).

* Noting that this will always be a 'best guess', counterfactuals and all that.

 

[Chum of Chance]

As far as I've seen, historical focus just means the AI chooses a particular set of national focus choices.

This is true. I'm not sure why people think it's anything other than this, since they've said in streams and on the forum many times that the historical mode only affects focus choices.

Another thing I'm confused by: why do some people want a perfectly historical game (i.e. would you intentionally lose battles, bungle invasions, make poor logistical choices in the name of historical perfection)? The beauty of Paradox games is that no two games are alike. Would you want to sit down as Germany, for example, with your stack of biographies, military history textbooks, &c. and play out the same exact thing hundreds of times? Why not just record yourself playing it once and then watch that? No one complains about EU4 when countries do something ahistorical (in fact that's part of the draw of the game), so why would they here?

Personally, I'm super excited to see what kinds of things I can do in this game.

 

[Noel84]

Just watching the latest streams, it might have been mentioned on stream (chat) and I might have missed it. But since they chose historical focus, it seems a bit too easy to crazy in my opinion. I wish that going a-historical would cost a lot more or take a longer time to do.

It's perfectly ok that it is so easy if you don't choose historical setting, but historical settings should limit the crazyness a bit in my opinion and one way would make the a-historical choices cost more points/time.

It just reminds me more of a fantasy game than a WW2 game when all the strange stuff happens.

Also. The civil war in spain a bit too short... Sometimes it was short in HOI3 also, I wish you had fixed such things (balancing) with a brand new game. It should definitly last at least until 1938 in my opinion.

I don't understand what the problem is here at all. You choose which focus you take, and in historical the ai always chooses the historical path, so if you don't want it to be ahistorical you can make it not be ahistorical, so why make the game worse for people who want a historical AI but ahistorical choices?

 

[Axe99]

Another thing I'm confused by: why do some people want a perfectly historical game (i.e. would you intentionally lose battles, bungle invasions, make poor logistical choices in the name of historical perfection)? The beauty of Paradox games is that no two games are alike. Would you want to sit down as Germany, for example, with your stack of biographies, military history textbooks, &c. and play out the same exact thing hundreds of times? Why not just record yourself playing it once and then watch that? No one complains about EU4 when countries do something ahistorical (in fact that's part of the draw of the game), so why would they here?

Personally, I'm super excited to see what kinds of things I can do in this game.

I don't think the OP wants it to be 'perfectly historical' (although by all means correct me if I'm wrong @rjohansen ), but more that he wants some challenge to be able to move his country around (which I have some sympathy with). Part of the draw of Paradox games (Stellaris aside ) is the historical immersion, and if I can take the US and turn it fascist with no trouble, then it loses some of that. Plus, more challenge tends to mean more involving gameplay, up to a point.

 

[Pandoricus]

Just watching the latest streams, it might have been mentioned on stream (chat) and I might have missed it. But since they chose historical focus, it seems a bit too easy to crazy in my opinion. I wish that going a-historical would cost a lot more or take a longer time to do.

It's perfectly ok that it is so easy if you don't choose historical setting, but historical settings should limit the crazyness a bit in my opinion and one way would make the a-historical choices cost more points/time.

It just reminds me more of a fantasy game than a WW2 game when all the strange stuff happens.

Also. The civil war in spain a bit too short... Sometimes it was short in HOI3 also, I wish you had fixed such things (balancing) with a brand new game. It should definitly last at least until 1938 in my opinion.

World War 2 was a crazy time with things that were only dreams/ nightmares to even people who lived during the Great War. I think for example the Japanese trying to use bombs with millions of balloons against the US, or Planes inside submarines to attack Panama Canal. Those are just very few of the tamer things that have happened. Long range rockets, death camps, nuclear bombs, suicide planes/torpedoes, etc. Crazy times with crazy plans. Italy could have joined the Allies, the USSR could have been the aggressor instead of Germany, the assassination attempts against Hitler could have succeeded.

Edit: History is made by chance just as often as by choice

 

[BBBD316]

Well I think the NF's being more historical is all you really need, very few players are going to try to rebuild the Reich war machine exactly and then launch all operations on the exact day.

Cause again once you start to change what is produce or the steps you take a new path anyway. So the AI should be able to take some steps to try to counter your new production.

I think Air & Naval will either be a DLC or a patch like Stellaris is getting at the moment.

 

[Mannstien]

Hmm, the other thing to consider is if you start going ahistorical with your choices and the AI has decryption high enough to see that will it switch focuses and or decisions. For instance when Jakob had the Danzig or War pop-up and Poland hadn't been guaranteed by Johan yet the AI said "Ok, you can have it". I kind of like the idea of that happening in the sense that you've altered history in a sense so does the AI react to it or just say "oh well, we go it alone", I guess that wouldn't be as big a deal in SP but it would pose a bit more of a challenge if you jump into the sandbox the AI should be reacting to it instead of a linear railroad. Just a thought.

 

[columbusbobby23]

The way I thought that it worked is if you put it on historical setting then the AI will follow the historical path in the NF tree whenever possible. But the more the player shakes things up(Soviets attacking Poland in '36 for example) the more likely the AI will switch to the more dynamic NF choices.