Unrealistic Parallel Production

[unmerged(131221)]

War is on the first place but the economy is the background that allows to fight wars. IMO there is not enough focus on economy. I know that you can say that many ppl dont like it and want a wargame but this aspect could be also automated but not neglected.
This war was all about economy and attrition. More resources and industrial elements would work fine without additional micro.

 

[unmerged(55919)]

I understand that HoI is primarily a wargame but it does try to reflect reality, albeit in an abstracted way, and I understand as a grand strategy game it reduces the level of detail to a manageable level. HoI3 is looking great and some design decisions will not please everyone no matter what is decided. However, ...

Venting mode activated

... in respect to capital ship production I think allowances should be made. If a nation wants to be a great naval power they should have the port levels to back it up (as an abstraction of shipyard capacity). If not already inplace, then a major port building project should be planned in advance. This prevents the obviously unrealistic situation of huge runs of CVs for GER/SOV immediately after the war in Europe is won and after no investment in port building. The practical values can counter some of this but I feel it will not completely be adequate (if I try to produce more tanks than my IC they do not get produced slower some stop completely; same situation with exceeding shipyard capacity).

I understand this could be seen as the first step down a slippery path of incessant detail but capital ships are unique in respect to the fact they are big single items products built in extremely specialized facilities. Tanks, planes, guns, etc can and are produced at many different locations but not major ship production.

The easiest way would be to have a comparison of total ports under national control to some level of capital ship production (depending on a determination of how many port levels a major ship would require and game balance). Exceed this and the capitals at the bottom of the production list start slowing down and stopping until port levels go up. Still an abstraction (10 level ones would be as good as 1 level 10) but an acceptable trade off to keep it very simple.

Venting mode deactivated.

Of course, I understand this is all a fool's errand. PI has an answer and is not going to change it at this late date but still worth a shot. Finally, this should not take away from the fact that PI is doing an astounding job and and it's wonderful they are keeping us so informed with the DDs.

 

[HMS Enterprize]

^This is basically what I suggested already.

Given the inherent sensibility of the proposal, I am really surprised Paradox has not implemented something along these lines already.

 

[Slargos]

What I would like to see with regards to gearing is a lasting result of production. Building your first capital ship should incur added costs for production facilities, and if two capital ships are constructed at once, the second should also incur this penalty, and so on and so forth.

Any subsequent productions should be without penalty since the facilities already exist.

I don't really like the current gearing system, as the gearing bonus disappears the moment you remove a series-construction even if you immediately start another of the same kind.

 

[unmerged(51418)]

Economy is part of strategy.

Not considering industrial re-conversion will bring us to be able to quit producing tanks and THE VERY NEXT DAY start producing only battleships.

Absolutely unrealistic and unobtainable IRL.

 

[LaDoncella]

Im more concerned in the "all production in capital" than on how many tanks or ships can I build at once

 

[Peekee]

What I would like to see with regards to gearing is a lasting result of production. Building your first capital ship should incur added costs for production facilities, and if two capital ships are constructed at once, the second should also incur this penalty, and so on and so forth.

Any subsequent productions should be without penalty since the facilities already exist.

I don't really like the current gearing system, as the gearing bonus disappears the moment you remove a series-construction even if you immediately start another of the same kind.

There could be an argument that just because you are building two carriers at the same time (to be finished at the same date) it does not mean that you need 2x the entire workforce, supplies and facilities. There will always be elements of slack time where different parts are waiting for one another with two ships these can be swapped over. Is it worth trying to model this? Probably not.

 

[unmerged(45464)]

I think much of the problem is that you know there will be a war and when. So if you are playing as USA you know you have to be ready by late 1941. If you are playing as UK you know you need to be ready in North Africa by mid 1940 to prevent the Italians from advancing etc.

However I don't think there is any way of "solving" this issue, unless you want the start of the war dates to be random, but even then you know there will be war.

If France knew by January 1936 that the Germans would be coming through Belgium in a bit over four years I bet they would have planned better for it.

This is why we can play as Soviet and IC rush and then when we have 500 IC just spam infantry, because even if we have zero divisions Germany won't attack until a certain date.

 

[Mr. Domino]

Well, historically, weren't there massive "parallel runs?"

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have any books on hand. But I recall reading, America's 1939 army and navy was orders of magnitude smaller than it was in 1942, and the Third Reich, a new history had some passage about how Germany's forces 1936-1939 and then again by 1944 had doubled several times (from 100k to several million men).

Regardless, starting in 1936 I never saw the AI seem to have ahistorically high armies.

The "fastest" serial/parallel build IIRC would be massive soviet gears from 1936 that could get you 400+ divisions in 1941, maybe a little more than 100+ divisions a year. Did any nation IRL come close to raising 100+ divisions in a little over a year IRL? If not, just how much do they need to be slowed down?

 

[HMS Enterprize]

^IIRC however, many Soviet divisions in reality were often of no more than brigade strength.

 

[unmerged(12217)]

I think much of the problem is that you know there will be a war and when. So if you are playing as USA you know you have to be ready by late 1941. (snip)

Not to argue with your basic point, which is in many ways well taken - but the US was not ready for war by late 1941 IRL - so why would we want it to be in the game? Unless, of course, we want to play entirely ahistorically. Which is OK, if that's what one sets out to do. But other times, I play just to try to duplicate history and see how much the game can be a simulator for the era. So in those games, I don't try to "be ready in 1941" since I know a big part of the challenge, for the US player, is playing "catch-up."

I do wish there were a few more "buttons" we could select before the game, to set levels of historicity for the scenario we are starting. This would allow us to either walk into a set-piece situation or start a more free-form one. Essentially, we would be able to pre-select some events and leave out others...without having to re-program or alter text files.

 

[unmerged(19915)]

Hearts of Iron is a strategic simulation of WWII. It is not designed to model 'random' wars, only the fairly narrow social, historic and technological events that occured in the mid-1930s to mid-1940s. Because the game is restricted to those narrow confines you can go into a great deal of planned and prepared material that you cannot realistically model in a more broad based system. This allows you to flavor your plans, and prepare for what you expect and anticipate happening, not entirely unlike the leaders of the time could do.

On the other hand, while it would be nice if real-world constraints such as shipbuilding berths or whatever were modeled closely, doing so would turn HOI as a series into a rigid system that could not be changed within the timeframe of the game as designed. You wouldn't be able to see what happens if, say, Germany built carriers or the USA went fascist (or socialist) because the timeframe needed to accurately model this falls outside of the games pre-existing design.

If you want the really open-ended approach that accounts for socio-economic and 'ship berth constraints' you need a different game. I personally suggest Victoria and the excellent mods and adons this community has produced for it. Victoria models world events over an appropriately longer timescale necessary to let you shape your nation's people and powers into your every whim. The drawback of that approach is of course the lack of scripted, 'flavor' events and settings in a more rigidly constrained title like the HOI series.

 

[Slargos]

Hearts of Iron is a strategic simulation of WWII. It is not designed to model 'random' wars, only the fairly narrow social, historic and technological events that occured in the mid-1930s to mid-1940s. Because the game is restricted to those narrow confines you can go into a great deal of planned and prepared material that you cannot realistically model in a more broad based system. This allows you to flavor your plans, and prepare for what you expect and anticipate happening, not entirely unlike the leaders of the time could do.

On the other hand, while it would be nice if real-world constraints such as shipbuilding berths or whatever were modeled closely, doing so would turn HOI as a series into a rigid system that could not be changed within the timeframe of the game as designed. You wouldn't be able to see what happens if, say, Germany built carriers or the USA went fascist (or socialist) because the timeframe needed to accurately model this falls outside of the games pre-existing design.

If you want the really open-ended approach that accounts for socio-economic and 'ship berth constraints' you need a different game. I personally suggest Victoria and the excellent mods and adons this community has produced for it. Victoria models world events over an appropriately longer timescale necessary to let you shape your nation's people and powers into your every whim. The drawback of that approach is of course the lack of scripted, 'flavor' events and settings in a more rigidly constrained title like the HOI series.

It's not difficult to set up alt-hist scenarios even under gearing constraints.

 

[Evie HJ]

I'm not usually in favor of adding details, but the specific ideas mentionned earlier of somehow typing warship build time to naval bases numbers and level as an abstraction sounds good to me.

I'd say something like this:
-You can always have 1 capital ship build.
-For each port size 4 or greater, you get another build.
-For each port size 8 or greater, you get two other builds.

Possibly restrict it to national ports, and that sound about right.

 

[Bullfrog]

It all depends on the severity of switching from one thing to another as Johan stated in the DD...if the penalties are high, people will not be so keen to pull a HoI2 army to navy switcharoo, or to build your pre-war forces in batches.

Personally I am hoping for pretty stringent penalties.

 

[Murkk]

The IC system is very cumbersome anyways. The game already has seperated manpower, factories, resources, and technology. Training can be pretty much hardcoded for the number of new divisions you can produce (and shouldn't be based on IC anyways) with some modifications for techs/faction/etc. There really is no need for IC at all. Each factory should just produce something or be used to enhance technologies or morale. You wanna switch, go ahead and pay a penalty for doing so. Take that whole screen and micromanaging away, it serves no purpose IMHO. Maybe in HOI4.

 

[HMS Enterprize]

On the other hand, while it would be nice if real-world constraints such as shipbuilding berths or whatever were modeled closely, doing so would turn HOI as a series into a rigid system that could not be changed within the timeframe of the game as designed. You wouldn't be able to see what happens if, say, Germany built carriers or the USA went fascist (or socialist) because the timeframe needed to accurately model this falls outside of the games pre-existing design.

I completely disagree here. Not being able to churn out 20 carriers at once by introducing appropriate dock facilities is hardly changing the game into a 'rigid system.' And even if it was, it is an emminently sensible suggestion that would prevent frankly ludicrous scenarios.

1936-48 is plenty of time to go a-historical if you want to.

It sounds like you basically want to be able to do very a-historical if not downright unrealistic things with HOI3...which is hardly the simulation of WW2 that you claim the game is and should be.

 

[unmerged(19915)]

I completely disagree here. Not being able to churn out 20 carriers at once by introducing appropriate dock facilities is hardly changing the game into a 'rigid system.' And even if it was, it is an emminently sensible suggestion that would prevent frankly ludicrous scenarios.

My example is only one of many limitations nations had placed on them by their their politics, economy and society in general that you don't have in the Hearts of Iron franchise. A more broad based one is the absurd idea that changing a minister can magically increase your manpower growth overnight, along with the idea that you can increase your proportion of national IC to consumer goods to reduce dissent at a steady, predictable rate. Removing these impediments, and allowing you to for example build massed carriers, or create an infrastructure 100 road across the Sahara if you wanted, without requiring the other huge, important logistic needs for such enterprises strikes a balance that is not perfect, I agree, but a balance nonetheless.

1936-48 is plenty of time to go a-historical if you want to.

In HOI2 that is all of 13 slider changes, and the scripted events and systematics get in the way of going ahistorical (officer purges in USSR, 2-2-6 incident in Japan to name two). There's not enough wiggle room to do truly interesting things in that context. If all you want to do is something like focus on controlling North Africa instead of attacking the USSR as Germany, that is much easier to accomodate, and can be done in scope of shipyards and such. But that is also severely limiting to the game's replayability.

It sounds like you basically want to be able to do very a-historical if not downright unrealistic things with HOI3...which is hardly the simulation of WW2 that you claim the game is and should be.

Yes, I would like to see how WWII would have turned out differently is Hitler had not been an irrational fool and instead focused on defeating the Allies before tackling the USSR. That 'what if?' desire requires a different set of circumstances and priorities for Germany that would have needed to have been started way before 1936 to come to fruition; the Kreigsmarine would have needed to be trained in a fundamentally different way from long before the 1936 time start. So, I require the game to be able to accommodate that, and it does so by not requiring shipbuilding facilities, for example.

The system accommodates, as best it can (at least in HOI so far, for HOI3 it's hard to say, obviously) player desires to see things through differently that require a degree of abstraction and gameyness. That's okay with me.