UI Improvement suggestion to Diplomacy Screen for trades

[jmknpk]

Three enhancements regarding trade on the Diplomacy screen would greatly improve the overall HOI game experience.

I use the Diplomacy screen mostly to conduct trade. When I do this, I wish to make a trade offer having a possibility of being agreed upon. In order to conduct trade, I first need to find a country with likelihood better than "impossible" of agreeing to the desired trade. With the current interface, most of the time I spend clicking buttons, moving sliders, and viewing the screen yields a negative result to my search. It is relatively rare (among my search efforts) that I finally discover a country with a likelihood better than "impossible" of agreeing to a trade offer. The positive result I seek (some likelihood of an agreed upon trade) seems almost like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The interface could greatly reduce the amount of time I spend pursuing a specific type of resource trade. The majority of the time I spend, yielding negative results, truly seems like a waste of my time.

1) A filter of the country list to include only those with likelihood of agreeing to trade of a certain resource would be extremely helpful. A set of filter check boxes (or toggle buttons) at the top of the trade panel labeled "Sell Energy", "Buy Energy", "Sell Metal", ...."Buy Fuel" would be very helpful. The list of countries appearing in the panel would be reduced to only those countries having a likelihood other than "impossible" for the indicated trade type. Only countries with the potential of "Maybe", "Likely", or "Very Likely" likelihood for that specific trade type would appear in the list.

2) On the "Offer Trade Agreement" Panel pulled up after I click the "Offer Trade Agreement" button, an indication of the likelihood of trade by highlighting, asterisk, or other means would be extremely helpful. Once I have selected this panel for a specific country, the only way for me to determine the likelihood of trade, is to adjust the sliders of each trade type individually in either direction. It would be extremely helpful if I received an indication of which type ("Sell" or "Buy") of resource trade would result in a likelihood other than "Impossible". At a glance, I would be able to see whether moving a slider might yield a positive result. This would prevent me from wasting time moving sliders that only result in an "impossible" likelihood.

3) An additional filter of only countries whom it is possible to conduct trade with would also be helpful.
A check box or toggle button labeled "Trade Possible" would filter the country list to only include those whom I am able to trade with. Countries with the "Offer Trade Agreement" button greyed out and the hover text of "You cannot initiate overseas trading.." and the like would be filtered from the list.

Occasionally I use the Diplomacy screen to perform actions of diplomacy.

The overwhelming majority of time I use the Diplomacy screen is to conduct trade.

A significant amount of my time is spent simply seeking a likelihood better than "impossible" for a specific type of trade. I find this to be the largest "waste" of my time while playing the game. It truly is a "waste" of my time, because during my process of attempting to find a likely trade, I mostly receive a negative "Impossible" likelihood from most of the countries most of the time, for most resources. There is very little value to me, while playing the game, in spending time performing all of these clicks and slider moves only to determine which countries might have a likelihood of conducting trade. Reducing the time I spend in this manner, helping me focus on only trade types which have a likelihood of ultimately being accepted would be a hugely significant improvement.

1) In order to determine the list of countries which might consider the desired type of trade of a given resource, I am required to repeat the same sequence of a button click and then slider movement for every single country. Currently I do not have the ability to see a list of countries that would have a likelihood of accepting a certain type trade. If I am interested in a certain type trade, for example to buy metal, I am required to click on each country individually, then click the "Offer Trade Agreement" button, then move the resource slider in the direction of the type of trade I am interested in. The is an interactive process for me involving moving the slider, adjusting my visual focus to the likelihood text, then incrementally moving the slider again. At only a specific point in this process, am I able to determine that trade of the desired resource would be considered likely by a specific country. The time spent for each country is at least several seconds of my work. When I perform this process for each country, the amount of time I spend is multiplied by the number of countries. This accumulates to a significant amount of time spent. For most of my work, in this process, I receive mostly a negative result.

2) As soon as the "Offer Trade Agreement" panel opens, if the display presented with a visual indicator for the type ("Sell" or "Buy") trade of any resource which would result in a likelihood other than "impossible", the time spent (wasted) moving sliders without a successful result, would be greatly reduced.

For example, once I have accessed the "Offer Trade Agreement" panel, the "Sell" or "Buy" buttons used to adjust the slider in those directions could be greyed out if the only possibility of that trade would show something other than "impossible". I suppose, some people might like the option to offer a trade with a likelihood of "impossible". To accommodate this option, the greyed out "Sell" or "Buy" buttons would remain operable. Alternately, an asterisk indicator, highlighting, or other means of visual clue for the likelihood of trade could be used. I suppose rather than "greying out" of the "Sell" and "Buy" buttons and also preventing clicking, a different shade of brown could be use to indicate that pressing the button to move the slider in that direction would result in a likelihood other than "Impossible".

3) Currently I am required to click a country in order to determine whether or not the "Offer Trade Agreement" button is greyed out indicating trade is not possible. It would be much more helpful for me to be able to filter the country list to only those I am capable of trading with.

The Diplomacy screen is a well designed, multi-functional screen offering the ability perform many tasks with many countries. Any of the features I suggest would be very helpful toward improving the overall experience of game users.

 

[jmknpk]

For large trade amounts, I am familiar enough with the trade circumstances available to go directly to those countries likely to trade a certain resource. For example, as Germany, I go to USA or Venezuela to buy oil.

But, as Germany, I would also like to sell all the supplies that I any country is willing to buy. I do not want to miss the opportunity to sell 1 supply to a third world country when they are willing to buy. These are the cases where time spent seeking such possibilities becomes inordinate.

Currently, in HOI3 tfh, I sort on resource type to yield better results in my search. Searching for an opportunity to buy oil is aided by placing countries with a surplus of oil at the top of the list. For crude oil, sorting in this manner effectively produces the feature I am seeking. Because there are relatively few countries with a surplus of oil.

However, for most other resources, there is a rather lengthy list of countries having a surplus, indicating that there might be a possibility of success in finding better than "impossible" likelihood of buying the desired resource.

When I wish to sell a resource, sorting by resource type is much less helpful because the likelihood is related to both amount of money each country has available to purchase, combined with a deficit of the resource I would like to sell. In this case, the sort does help to some degree by ordering the list to those having more money to buy. But the surplus or deficit of a resource remains unordered.

Also, I have realized that on some extremely rare occasions, even when it appears that a trade is less likely by deficit, I do receive a "maybe" or "likely" likelihood for countries with a slight deficit or surplus favorable to the trade type I seek. By using the surplus/deficit amounts in eliminating countries I choose to view, I might miss countries which have that rare likelihood somewhat inconsistent with the amount of surplus/deficit. If the suggested filters were available, countries with a likelihood of accepting trade would appear in the filtered list, despite an otherwise negative assumption, on my part, based on judgment that a lesser amount of surplus/deficit would indicate otherwise.

 

[GsusNSV]

I am honest, I haven't read all of you text yet.
BUT one point I want to make clear. You can decide from who you buy, but not to who you sell. So likelyhood of trade is always 100%. (Of course you won't trade with someone you are at war.)
The number of ressources a country puts up for trade is handeld by the Trade Law. This is a fixed number. How much you are able to get, depends on a few factores. Your relationship with the country, troops at the border (?or ships at the coast?) will give also a bonus.

Example:
So if the USA have 100 Oil for trade, Germany can only trade for a max of 40. While GB could get 80 units.

 

[GsusNSV]

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another development diary[...]
You have no control over who you export to, except you will not trade with anyone you are at war with. The amount of resources that are assigned to export depends on your trade laws which let your government demand resources for your own production. Embargos can be placed through certain national focuses as well to block trade.

Getting resources from another nation requires convoys, and it is always the buyer of goods that has to provide the convoys. Of course, this is all done automatically.

Each nation has a trade influence with another nation, which is depending on distance and relations, but can also be modified by placing troops on their borders to threaten them to trade to you before other nations. Any puppet nations are always forced to give up full trade rights to their masters.

 

[jmknpk]

Thank-you Johan! I have not been following the development of HOI 4. I mostly play HOI 3 and make a suggestion for improvement when I see one.

As the leader of a nation, I would give simple orders to an aid or adviser to carry out. I would say "Buy as much oil as possible" or "Sell all the supplies we can" or "Maintain the current stockpile by avoiding deficit or surplus". The HOI3 "Automate Trade" feature would be more like a leader saying "I have no idea what your goals as my trade adviser are; but just go about doing your business anyway. I understand your goals would be identical for whichever country or leader you serve regardless of current conditions of my country". This does not seem feasible or realistic in this sense.

If I were to set goals for resource stockpiles in HOI3, I would always use the "Automate Trade" feature. The reason I don't use that feature is that the AI seems to base automate trade decisions only by surplus/deficit status. I might use the "Automated Trade" feature, if I had the ability to choose my target for each resource. Not sure if this would relate at all to the new HOI4 trade system.

For example: For each resource I would be able to either select an amount for "Target Stockpile" or "Avoid Surplus/Deficit".

 

[Zaku]

Thank-you Johan! I have not been following the development of HOI 4. I mostly play HOI 3 and make a suggestion for improvement when I see one.

As the leader of a nation, I would give simple orders to an aid or adviser to carry out. I would say "Buy as much oil as possible" or "Sell all the supplies we can" or "Maintain the current stockpile by avoiding deficit or surplus". The HOI3 "Automate Trade" feature would be more like a leader saying "I have no idea what your goals as my trade adviser are; but just go about doing your business anyway. I understand your goals would be identical for whichever country or leader you serve regardless of current conditions of my country". This does not seem feasible or realistic in this sense.

If I were to set goals for resource stockpiles in HOI3, I would always use the "Automate Trade" feature. The reason I don't use that feature is that the AI seems to base automate trade decisions only by surplus/deficit status. I might use the "Automated Trade" feature, if I had the ability to choose my target for each resource. Not sure if this would relate at all to the new HOI4 trade system.

For example: For each resource I would be able to either select an amount for "Target Stockpile" or "Avoid Surplus/Deficit".

There is no stockpiling of resources in hoi4 any more.

 

[jmknpk]

I have painfully become aware that I had previously been unnecessarily micromanaging trades to achieve desired resource stockpiles.

In the past, I noticed frequent fluctuation in resource deficits or surplus when starting a game. I believed it was necessary to react to each of these subtle changes with additional trades. Those reactionary trades I continued to make throughout the game caused additional subsequent changes and fluctuations, which I also reacted to.

I recently ran some quick test cases where resource stockpiles were not significant to me. What I came to notice is that during the first few months of the game, resource changes fluctuated frequently. But when I left them alone, they more or less balanced out after about six months. Ultimately, only a few large trades were necessary to balance toward my goals. I didn't need to make hundreds of little changes (cancelling and making new different trades) in order to balance the system.

I wish I'd have realized this years ago. I was complaining about spending an inordinate amount of time in trades. I hadn't realized, until now, that this was due only to my perception, and lack of understanding, rather than the game or interface. Lol. Live and learn.