Unit Choices in Hearts of Iron 4 - What do you want to see?

[Bane5]

Something that needs to be discussed and that is very important to the core of the game is what units should be included in the division building process. Hearts of Iron and its various mods have handled this in different ways. Every person seems to have their own ideas on how this should be handled from the vanilla method of having seperate arty/at brigades to HPP's one size fits all support brigades to Black Ice's plethora of unit types. For HoI4, however, there are some factors we have to consider:

1). There must be a historical basis and a compelling reason for a unit to be its own seperate type.
2). This game is played on the strategic level. Certain weapon systems like super heavy railway guns, armored trains, and prototype helicoptors, while great for a single battle, only had a minute impact on the strategic level of the war.
3). There has to be compelling reason for building the unit. If unit x only differs in stats from unit y by 2% then there is no point in making them separate.
4). We need to avoid over-complexity as has been the trend with recent Paradox titles.

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So without further ado here is my personal dream list and and brief explanation for the purpose of each unit. I would encourage other posters to offer their vision as well.

5 Special Checkboxes:
[ ] Reserve
- similar to HoI3, checked by default
[ ] Colonial
- allows the unit to be deployed instantly on territories that don't have your cores, good for oversees and emergency deployment. The unit belongs to the core it is placed on. If the core nation that the colonial unit is associated with becomes independent, then the colonial unit is transferred to the new country. In combat, the colonial unit receives its "patriotic bonus" if it fights on the core it is associated with. Examples would be GB raising indian colonial troops or Germany raising a few french divisions.
[ ] Specialize for winter warfare
- Think ski troops (when combined with light infantry) or Soviet Mongolian divisions redeployed to defend Moscow in 1941. Has greatly increased build time and IC cost
[ ] Specialize for jungle warfare
- Self explanatory, used for the burma and indochina theatre. Has greatly increased build time and IC cost
[ ] Specialize for desert warfare
- Self explanatory, North Africa and the Middle East. Has slightly increased build time and IC cost

12 Fontline Infantry units:
- Militia - Produced in just a few weeks. Use for emergencies and for home defense. Weak in combat.
- Garrison - Intended for guarding forts, coastal defenses, and cities. Very slow, cheap, not meant for offensive operations.
- Light Infantry - Infantry division but with a notable lack of heavy weapons (less toughness). Suffers less movement penalty in rough terrain. Good for countries with low IC or areas with poor infrastructure (think China or Finland).
- Infantry - Mainstay of any army that cannot afford motorization or mechanization.
- Semi-Motorized - Moves faster than infantry but less than fully motorized. Has a higher defensiveness due to the ability to redeploy in combat to meet new threats.
- Motorized - Expensive, Moves fastest, good for breakthroughs. Similar defensiveness to semi-motorized.
- Mechanized - Very expensive, Increased hardness and best attacking stats, Weak in urban combat.
- Light Cavalry - Light infantry brigade with increased movement speed and less penalties in rough terrain, longer build time than light inf. Can provide recon support when mixed with other units. Fights dismounted. (was widely used by most nations in some amounts)
- Cavalry - Cavalry division with heavy weapons. Slightly increased movement speed and less penalties in rough terrain, longer build time than inf. Fights dismounted. (think Poland)
- Marine - Specialized for amphibious landings or river assaults.
- Mountain - Specialized for mountain warfare (automatically is specialized for winter warfare).
- Airborne - Can be paradropped. Lightly equipped.

4: Tank size categories
- Light
- Medium
- Heavy
- Superheavy

4: additional Sub classifications for each chassis
- Tank Destroyer - examples: Marder, M10 3-inch Gun Motor Carriage, SU-76
- Self-Propelled Artillery - examples: Wespe, Hummel, M7 Priest
- Self-Propelled AA - self explanatory
- Infantry Support - tanks that are meant for supporting infantry, have bonuses to urban combat and vs fortifications compared to other tanks
- examples: shortbarrelled pz3 and pz4 variants that fire HE rounds, STUG III, Mk IV Churchill, KV-2, various types of flamethrower tanks

8 Dedicated Support Brigades
-Engineer - helps with entrenchment bonus, bonus to urban, fortifications, and river assaults
-Motorized Recon - Armoured cars and motorbikes, has some softness and hardness, provides recon bonuses like light calvary
-Horse Towed Artillery - Poor man's artillery, weaker stats, only for the very lowest IC nations and 2nd-rate divisions
-Truck Towed Artillery - self explanatory
-Horse Towed AT - Poor man's AT, weaker stats, only for the very lowest IC nations and 2nd-rate divisions
-Truck Towed AT - self explanatory
-AA - Small caliber guns, has some soft attack
-Motorized AA - Larger truck mounted or towed AA, can contribute to some minor hard attack in addition to some minor soft attack
NOTE: mechanized is represented by tank destroyer and self-propelled in the tank section

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I think the above would cover most possible avenues of equipment and strategic planning. Didn't cover air and naval but I'm sure others may have their own ideas for it as well.

Thoughts?

edit: see further justification here <<<<
and here <<<

 

[Friedericus Rex]

Good list!

I really like the idea of an Infantry Support model. The doubling up on arty with rocket arty always seemed like a waste to me. Would be great if the devs implemented that, because it adds a meaningful variant, think Stug assault gun rather than TD.

 

[Denkt]

I would rather have fewer troop types and focus on other things instead.

 

[Moppy771]

Let's take your list and try to simplify juuust a little bit.

Definiate NOs:

Cavalry and light cavalry should be one unit.

Light infantry is very similar to other special forces, scrap that rather.

I can never choose between artillery or anti tank, rather combine them into one support brigade and let research handle the rest (artillery research improve soft attack, AT research improve hard attack ect.)

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Not sure:

We had a big thread about semi motorized infantry, like how they should cover all the mixed oddities (bikes, bikes being towed by trucks, bikes being towed by motorcylces), but in the end, IMHO, it's too much choice. It should b flat out infantry, or motorized/mechanized. Maybe? IDK, because then we would have 4 standard inf types. For me atleast it's either I have oil, or I don't, no middle ground.

What is the point of having motorized AA and self propelled AA? There are 3 standard (if I leave out semi-mot) inf types, (inf, mot, mec), 2 standard modes of support (horse, truck). I don't think we need 3 different AA types. It's either we are pulling that AA or it's moving by some sort of mechanized transportation. Simply have self propelled. But then again, that requires tank research.... See, this is why I'm not sure.

Motorized recon.... I've rarely found myself using armoured cars. But that's just me. Plus it is basically your "up-gunned" version of light cavalry like tanks are for standard cavalry.

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Big thumbs up and flying +1s

Colonial troops would help a lot when defending the Empire.
I love the idea for combined (ART+AT) support units.

 

[No idea]

I would rather have fewer troop types and focus on other things instead.

Having into account that pds is giving us a much detailed (i mean with more slots) division builder than in hoi 3, having less kind of units would make no sense.

I am hoping for the same number of different units than in hoi 3 (tfh). They basically cover all the different units of ww II quite well. I would just add, more for a bit more flavour than anything else, motorized artillery (truck towed) or sky troops. CVLs might also make it, to differentiate among the early war carriers, which were small in most cases, compared with the late war ones.

 

[1alexey]

Did the OP actually read the DD about divisions/military?

There is no need for so many infantry types.
Militia is just under trained and equipped with outdated weapons infantry.
Garrisons and light infantry differ in support battalions, not in infantry.
Semi-motorized is needless.

We also obviously need recon battalions, and many other battalions the OP missed.

 

[Moppy771]

We should have less to be honest. Combine art and at.

 

[Midden]

It depends also on if Paradox has had some new ideas on modelling the combat algorithms. Like when TFH bought in the concept of piercing, this made AT quite a significant type (not really going to leave out of your unit). There may still be a combined arms bonus, and artillery would likely be at the heart of that.

I think the super heavy tank category is dumb, fantasy stuff and is overripe to be dropped.

I don't see the need for a some of the extra infantry types in the OP - I personally would not include extra's like, light Infantry, colonial, and semi motorised and two types of cavalry. For example if you built a unit containing basic infantry and gave it no other support / heavy weapon regiments, how would it's stats differ significantly from a light infantry unit?

If there were game mechanics that supported it, I would like additional regiments for recon, signals etc. I am a fan of having more artillery stots in the division builder, and some sort of Corps level unit that has those.

 

[Bane5]

This is why I made this thread, because everyone's opinions vary wildy and its going to be the number 1 complaint when the game actually releases.

Some explanation for the unit types from my perspective:

-The light/normal distinction is to offer a cheaper variant. Not all units were given a full compliment of heavy equipment (think MGs, mortars, etc). Doctrines *could* fill this; however, the player becomes stuck with that choice and can't vary their composition if they have different needs for different fronts. Here you can vary the bulkiness of your divisions by changing the proportion of light/normal inf brigades within a division (according to the dev diary there are about 15 or so slots).
-Ski troops, an idea which has been floated around on these forums, would just be light infantry with the specialize for winter warfare box ticked. The picture/icon could change accordingly if it is checked.
-Combined art/AT all depends as the poster above me said on whether there is still a piercing mechanic. I would also be ok with combined art+at.
-Semi-motorized is to help the HUGE IC leap between motorized and no-motorized. Medium-tier countries need an option: infantry with some trucks that make more round trips.
-Super heavies are only on that list because its in the tank dev diary.
-On the subject of light cav vs normal cav, think about the following: Is it a light small force for screening/for fighting in remote areas (think mountains in the invasion of Italy or the remote Middle East) or is it a main fighting force meant to stand toe-to-toe and engage in prolonged combat? (think about Poland and some instances in the early war Soviet Union) There is indeed a big difference.

I'll leave it at that.

 

[jodirola]

nice list, i like the colonial troops you mention, but super heavy tanks! :laugh: xD
and reserve had to be like the reserves that EvW may have had, so when the war start you can deploy them and cost in IC and MP to reorganise and get full strenght, but if you are in peace time the unit will cost high in CG

 

[scroggin]

I would like it to be the same as HOI3 with the addition of Ski troops and Armoured Engineers.

Having home guard would also be useful, if a new mechanism was set up for them. I would like them to have similar stats to militia but be unable to be moved from their home province until "activated" they could be activated once Enemy forces attack your core territory There would be a 10% penalty to IC when you activate the home guard. This would simulate factory workers and other civilians changing from weekend warriors to full time fighters.

 

[1alexey]

I would like it to be the same as HOI3 with the addition of Ski troops and Armoured Engineers.

Having home guard would also be useful, if a new mechanism was set up for them. I would like them to have similar stats to militia but be unable to be moved from their home province until "activated" they could be activated once Enemy forces attack your core territory There would be a 10% penalty to IC when you activate the home guard. This would simulate factory workers and other civilians changing from weekend warriors to full time fighters.

There is no point in such mechanism. There is militia unit, that can be trained really fast, if you need it.

 

[scroggin]

There is no point in such mechanism. There is militia unit, that can be trained really fast, if you need it.

having that is not a big issue to me but it would solve the problem of a AI UK leaving its homeland undefended and it is historically accurate.

 

[tommylotto]

I like the idea for special check boxes. I don't like having to upgrade all my troops with desert warfare equipment -- even the troops sent to Finland.

However, with battalions as the basic building block, lets go crazy. See here.

 

[Denkt]

Having into account that pds is giving us a much detailed (i mean with more slots) division builder than in hoi 3, having less kind of units would make no sense.

I am hoping for the same number of different units than in hoi 3 (tfh). They basically cover all the different units of ww II quite well. I would just add, more for a bit more flavour than anything else, motorized artillery (truck towed) or sky troops. CVLs might also make it, to differentiate among the early war carriers, which were small in most cases, compared with the late war ones.

I did mean compared to this suggestion.

 

[darkpatriot]

HOI4 will have a new equipment system which if implemented right will be able give lots of flexibility in outfitting divisions without needing a whole bunch of different unit types. I would like to see fewer unit types but with the ability to give them different equipment to allow them to specialize more in different roles or different expected enemies. I prefer this because it will give you more flexibility.

For example you could equip in Infantry division with cold weather Infantry kits if you were gonna send them to fight in Norway but if you wanted to move them to reinforce North Africa you could re-equip them with warm weather Infantry kits instead. If your Infantry divisions were gonna fight in rough terrain with poor infrastructure you could could give them them Infantry kits that had less heavy weapons so they that used less supplies and moved quicker but if you brought them back to a theater with good infrastructure you could give them an Infantry kit with more heavy weapons.

I'd prefer this kind of flexibility over locking units into certain roles and capabilities by requiring them to be a bunch of different specialized unit types. It would also give us the ability to differentiate different divisions even if they are the same division template. That way we wouldn't need as many specialized division templates for different situations since a more general division template could fill different roles depending on what they are equipped with.

 

[Snow Wolf]

3). There has to be compelling reason for building the unit. If unit x only differs in stats from unit y by 2% then there is no point in making them separate.
4). We need to avoid over-complexity as has been the trend with recent Paradox titles.

Inb4 "SS-Truckpulled-biketransporter pulling bikepulled-SS-AT guns"
It's important that it's SS because that gives them +10 Soft Attack and a lot more piercing and HA

 

[scroggin]

HOI4 will have a new equipment system which if implemented right will be able give lots of flexibility in outfitting divisions without needing a whole bunch of different unit types. I would like to see fewer unit types but with the ability to give them different equipment to allow them to specialize more in different roles or different expected enemies. I prefer this because it will give you more flexibility.

For example you could equip in Infantry division with cold weather Infantry kits if you were gonna send them to fight in Norway but if you wanted to move them to reinforce North Africa you could re-equip them with warm weather Infantry kits instead. If your Infantry divisions were gonna fight in rough terrain with poor infrastructure you could could give them them Infantry kits that had less heavy weapons so they that used less supplies and moved quicker but if you brought them back to a theater with good infrastructure you could give them an Infantry kit with more heavy weapons.

I'd prefer this kind of flexibility over locking units into certain roles and capabilities by requiring them to be a bunch of different specialized unit types. It would also give us the ability to differentiate different divisions even if they are the same division template. That way we wouldn't need as many specialized division templates for different situations since a more general division template could fill different roles depending on what they are equipped with.

I like this. Will the new equipment mechanism in HOI4 be flexible enough to do it?

 

[Axe99]

I like the idea for special check boxes. I don't like having to upgrade all my troops with desert warfare equipment -- even the troops sent to Finland.

This and the colonial troops idea are my two favourite parts of the OP. Lots of other suggestions as to various battalion types, I'm pretty happy with whatever turns up, am sure it won't be over-simplified (no point having no choice with a division builder based on battalions) and if it approaches tommylotto levels of detail more the better .

 

[darkpatriot]

I like this. Will the new equipment mechanism in HOI4 be flexible enough to do it?

I hope so. I have done some speculating based on the fact you are able to make different variants. Since you are able to make different variants and models then there must be some way to control what units are being equipped with.

I think it is a pretty sure bet we will have a prioritize upgrades toggle for divisions like we have had the last several games. This only covers replacing obsolete models with newer models though. Consider if you were producing two variants of the same generation tank destroyer? One variant that focused on heavier armor and one variant that focused on better engines. You are going to have to have some way of letting the game know which divisions are getting which tank destroyers.

I think it is also a pretty sure bet that at a minimum you are going to be able to control this at least at the division template level. I would prefer if you were able to control it at the division level as well but Paradox seems to be shying away from things that increase micromanagement too much so they might not be doing that. In the absence of a way to set it for each division I hope we will be able to control it at the theater, army, and/or corps level.

A combination all of these would work well IMO. You could set equipment preferences on the division template, but you could override these preferences at the different echelons all the way down to the individual divisions. That way you would only have to micromanage as much as you wanted or needed to and could otherwise just leave it at whatever the default/template preferences were. A negative to that approach though is that it is going to add more complexity to the user interface which will make it harder to design a good user interface.

They have given some information about how designing and manufacturing equipment is going to work in Dev Diaries but I hope future Dev Diaries shed some more light on how assigning equipment to units is going to work. They may not have that locked down yet though. They might still be trying different options and seeing what works and what doesn't.