Unfounded concerns with Experience.

[Stenner]

I'd like to start by saying I really (reallyreallyreally) like all the new stuff for HOI4 that we've seen from the Dev diaries, and I've been telling everyone I know to watch out for this great game in 2015.

In the talk from one of the Dev Diaries for HOI4, there's floating around the idea that you research tech in research as per normal (basic tank, advanced etc.).

But then instead of researching gun upgrades, armor upgrades, engine upgrades and... The other one, I can't remember.
What you do is you use that type of thing in combat and it adds to the experience pool for that type of unit..

So definitely Tanks get their own pool, then infantry, aircraft probably get their own pool.. Divisions beyond that could be speculated (light tank pool, heavy tank pool) but I hope not as it would add to the confusion which I'm about to bring up.

In HOI3 you could research these "performance upgrades" in research, and I usually just went to sleep in between and had the game pause when I needed to research the next upgrade, or I'd research them all at the same time. It was no big deal.

The concern I have for Experience based performance upgrades is that depending on how many I build or use in combat the experience returns could be irregular (or nonexistant in some situations, say Japans tank tech if you don't crank them out). And my concern is that I may only get a few chances to upgrade in these situations and I'd really need to know which of the upgrades would help me most if I only get one or two (or the same one twice?).

And in that situation could there be a tool-tip or something that can help me figure out which one would be good? This goes to the core of the fact that I never really figured out combat in these games.. (Like, is defensiveness always used, or just on defense? Can you encircle troops without actually being on all sides? Is this just me?)

In the opposite case assuming you know all the facts and you get performance upgrades regularly, will we get a new screen to manage all the experience upgrades? Surely there'll be a screen for it, and maybe even if there were different pools for EACH division of forces (one for reg. infantry one for marines, one for para (extreme division of pools)), such a screen might make it as manageable as tech has been. But I think I'd hate it (extreme division).

Having given it the thought that it took to state my concerns I realize that the issue is almost a non-issue, given the idea for a combat primer or a screen for experience. Or I could just jump on the forums and figure it all out from you guys! (I JUST learned that tank divisions should be backed with infantry for better stats, usually I just put 2 tanks in a division and put (non mech) infantry in the same army groups and used them together. Am I just dumb, do I have real concerns? I just don't want to see the hoi 3 research screen copy/pasted in an HOI4 Experience screen.

 

[208]

Sounds to me that the issue you have is mostly presentation of information, which is certainly a valid concern. In HoI3, much* of the information you need to make the decisions you're referring to is given to you, but it may not be obvious to the neophyte which information is important (like the "combined arms" stat for divisions in the division builder).

Fortunately, Paradox has done pretty well recently with in-game tooltips and particularly the Help system in EU4, so I expect this will be much less of a problem. Hopefully they'll take this a step further in HoI4 and help even new players to be able to make accurate and informed decisions based on clear information provided by the game. Sure, some trial and error in the game is expected and even required in terms of balancing one's forces on a large scale, but it shouldn't be a puzzle or a math problem as to what the final statistical effectiveness of a given division template will be.


*But some is not - for example, what exactly does the "combat effectiveness" percentage shown in battles apply to? Hard/soft attack? Defense/toughness? Damage? All of the above? And even if you know the answer to that question, you still have to know fairly intimately how combat works to understand the potential impact.