useless variants!?

[phantomrider]

I think there is some confusion in this thread. "Fast tanks" (i.e. tanks with a high top speed say 30mph for example {compared to "slow tanks" say 10 mph don't necessarily make for "fast divisions"). The speed of a division movement has more to do with other parts (is infantry motorized or mechanized), is the supply system able to keep up, what is the terrain like (hard to speed through forests in any vehicle) what is the density of roads (mechanized infantry and tanks can move easily off road in open terrain but motorized infantry, towed artillery, supply and refueling vehicles are much more road dependent and oh by the way how often does your tank "break down" and need maintenance help. The other thing is that even if you have slow heavy tanks and you have good roads or railroads plus tank transporters these things can be moved fairly quickly.

 

[1alexey]

I think there is some confusion in this thread. "Fast tanks" (i.e. tanks with a high top speed say 30mph for example {compared to "slow tanks" say 10 mph don't necessarily make for "fast divisions"). The speed of a division movement has more to do with other parts (is infantry motorized or mechanized), is the supply system able to keep up, what is the terrain like (hard to speed through forests in any vehicle) what is the density of roads (mechanized infantry and tanks can move easily off road in open terrain but motorized infantry, towed artillery, supply and refueling vehicles are much more road dependent and oh by the way how often does your tank "break down" and need maintenance help. The other thing is that even if you have slow heavy tanks and you have good roads or railroads plus tank transporters these things can be moved fairly quickly.

Problem is, there is no such thing as "very fast" or "very slow" tank in WW2. Most tanks need decent off-road performance, which pretty much dictates they would be pretty fast on roads. Even beasts like Tiger or King Tiger could make 30-40 KmPH on a good road, because they had to at least move somehow without road, and all tanks are far slower off-road then on-road.

The speed of division, indeed should depend mostly on how reliable it`s vehicles are, and how fast can the supply train and artillery carriages move, because there were limitations on how fast most of the heavy artillery pieces could be carried without disassembling them.

 

[Secret Master]

The speed of division, indeed should depend mostly on how reliable it`s vehicles are, and how fast can the supply train and artillery carriages move, because there were limitations on how fast most of the heavy artillery pieces could be carried without disassembling them.

Which is why divisions in HOI3 don't move at vehicular speed. And that's why terrain kills the movement speed of certain units.

Actually, now that I think about it, outside of North Africa, were there any armored divisions that operated (successfully) without significant artillery backing them up? (Including corps level assets, obviously.)

 

[Big Blue Blob]

Armoured divisions moving at sensible speeds is one of the things I approve of in HOI3. Please keep it for HOI4.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The HoI3 AI was not good at all. Sometimes it would keep half its forces moving back and forth ad infinitum along the front line, launch attacks with only 1/3 of the divisions it could use, make idiotic amphibious assaults and so on.

Try actually playing with the expansions you have registered before you repeat old problems that don't really happen in TFH anymore.

No way the STW2 ai was that bad. It did its job perfectly because the gameplay was designed around it, like it seems HoI4 is (look at new air warfare for instance - much easier for an AI to handle that).

Or perhaps because gameplay is simplistic enough that the AI does not actually need to do as many things and yet it was not challenging at all. You don't even have naval landing battles in Shogun 2, there is no supply and so on and so forth.

Really, the fact that you deny there exist any good video game AIs at all just shows you are looking for excuses for PI to not cut micro from the game.

Haha, stop changing your own argument and then strawmanning my position to make yourself look good. I didn't argue that there are no good video game AI's. Your argument is that complexity should be removed (your "micro") because AI cannot cope with it and to prove your point you listed few games which you claim have better AI. My argument is that none of their game have AI that is actually any more challenging than the one on HoI3 and that an experienced layer will always defeat the AI, so removing features to make the AI better does not really work and the ultimate objective is impossible to reach, as anyone who has experience of computer strategy/war games knows. Your inability to accept that your entire premise is wrong does not change the facts.

 

[1alexey]

Which is why divisions in HOI3 don't move at vehicular speed. And that's why terrain kills the movement speed of certain units.

Yes, but you get speed increases from engine, so your tank with new huge engine is extremely fast, while you tank with zero reliability and maximum reliability upgrades still moves at same speed. Tell me, how that makes sense.

 

[Secret Master]

Yes, but you get speed increases from engine, so your tank with new huge engine is extremely fast, while you tank with zero reliability and maximum reliability upgrades still moves at same speed. Tell me, how that makes sense.

Well, in a game with zero equipment pools, it "makes sense" that you take more losses on the attack because of lower toughness. The game seems to be geared towards the attacker not recovering as many vehicles (hence more damage) when reliability is low, while the defender can recover the vehicles easier.

However, with equipment pools in, I'm hoping that low reliability (if there is such a thing) will result in higher unit losses overall and still have nothing to do with speed. You have crappy Panthers with lousy drive trains? Fine, but you lose more tanks per hour of combat than someone with more reliable vehicles.

 

[Denkt]

Speed will probably be as important tactical as strategical, we know that airplanes will get to attack first if they got the speed advantage, very important consider that airbattles are 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 1, a little advantage in speed can mean loopsided victories.
Same with navy because each ship use its own speed both on map and in battle.
We don't know yet how landbattles work, recon stat may mean we should expect something similar to navy battles, a fast tank get key areas quickly, hit artillery early in battle and maybe attack with a bonus enemy units while a slow tank have no choice in what unit it can attack because it can be avoided.
It is likely that we get some choice in which variant each division will use as first priority such as medium tank variant a for division A and medium tank variant b for division B.

 

[phantomrider]

Speed will probably be as important tactical as strategical, we know that airplanes will get to attack first if they got the speed advantage, very important consider that airbattles are 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 1, a little advantage in speed can mean loopsided victories.
Same with navy because each ship use its own speed both on map and in battle.
We don't know yet how landbattles work, recon stat may mean we should expect something similar to navy battles, a fast tank get key areas quickly, hit artillery early in battle and maybe attack with a bonus enemy units while a slow tank have no choice in what unit it can attack because it can be avoided.
It is likely that we get some choice in which variant each division will use as first priority such as medium tank variant a for division A and medium tank variant b for division B.

Good point (don't know how land battles work). This would be a very nice Diary subject. It also has great import on how much time to spend on division make up (will there be the equivalent of a combined arms bonus as in HOI3) and if so what (if put in or exclude a recon or engineer battalon in your division what are the pros and cons, what does an extra artillery regiment o battalon mean, how about unit stats -- if you upgrade your main battle tank gun from 50 to 75 mm what does that accomplish etc).

 

[1alexey]

Well, in a game with zero equipment pools, it "makes sense" that you take more losses on the attack because of lower toughness. The game seems to be geared towards the attacker not recovering as many vehicles (hence more damage) when reliability is low, while the defender can recover the vehicles easier.

However, with equipment pools in, I'm hoping that low reliability (if there is such a thing) will result in higher unit losses overall and still have nothing to do with speed. You have crappy Panthers with lousy drive trains? Fine, but you lose more tanks per hour of combat than someone with more reliable vehicles.

Why? :blink:
It should be the other way around. If your tanks are unreliable, your units are slow, but you can recover most vehichles eventually, unless you retreat, then you lose huge amount of vehicles that can`t retreat in time due to breakdowns. The amount you lose on attack should mostly depend on armor and firepower of opposition.

 

[Poh]

Why? :blink:
It should be the other way around. If your tanks are unreliable, your units are slow, but you can recover most vehichles eventually, unless you retreat, then you lose huge amount of vehicles that can`t retreat in time due to breakdowns. The amount you lose on attack should mostly depend on armor and firepower of opposition.

The following was what i had been thinking (not saying its more right ):
armor = less losses from direct combat
engine = speed, indirect effect on combat losses.
reliability = less tanks need to be replaced. Not affected by combat.

 

[Secret Master]

Why? :blink:
It should be the other way around. If your tanks are unreliable, your units are slow, but you can recover most vehichles eventually, unless you retreat, then you lose huge amount of vehicles that can`t retreat in time due to breakdowns. The amount you lose on attack should mostly depend on armor and firepower of opposition.

Unreliable tanks cannot participate in as many battles and require replacement parts to repair. Now, HOI4 won't have spare part equipment pools as far as I know, so you can't repair those Panthers with bad drive trains. But we do have an equipment pool for replacement vehicles. So, "broken" tanks, whether by enemy fire or reliability problems, are replaced instead of repaired. Reliability becomes an equipment tax at the macro level of HOI4.

So, if you want reliability to have a meaningful impact, you artificially increase casualties among your equipment pool during combat, since combat will put the most stress on those vehicles. It's not attack or defense; it's just combat in general.

You could just add an extra attrition value instead. A division just outright loses X% of vehicles per day to breakdowns regardless of being in combat, but that would have less impact on the game, I think.

Now, having said that, you mention recovering vehicles. I might be wrong, but my assumption is that recovery is already factored in to the situation in general. If you control the battlefield, you get some recovery. That would be immaterial to reliability, as either you get to recover them as losses or not regardless of whether they broke down or were destroyed by enemy fire.

 

[Big Blue Blob]

Why are there no spare parts? They are an important part of military production and should be in game. Tiger tanks will be untenable if they have to be replaced whenever they break down.

 

[Poh]

Why are there no spare parts? They are an important part of military production and should be in game. Tiger tanks will be untenable if they have to be replaced whenever they break down.

Actually its quite easy to abstract spare parts. We produce tanks and every part of said tanks are abstracted. If we had factories for the major parts with on map representation so that you could bomb part of a production line this would be a whole other story. Now the way to abstract is to tie spareparts to whole tanks, this can be done by looking at the breakdown fequencies, how industries were allocated etc.
If we take an example: An engine could be seen as 15% tank, if 20% of all panthers have engine breakdowns each week you then have X*0,20*0,15 = Y. If X = 100 tanks, then you need to replace 3 tanks each week due to breakdowns. This can be seen as the % of your tank production capacity which has to be allocated to producing spareparts instead of new tanks.

 

[phantomrider]

Actually its quite easy to abstract spare parts. We produce tanks and every part of said tanks are abstracted. If we had factories for the major parts with on map representation so that you could bomb part of a production line this would be a whole other story. Now the way to abstract is to tie spareparts to whole tanks, this can be done by looking at the breakdown fequencies, how industries were allocated etc.
If we take an example: An engine could be seen as 15% tank, if 20% of all panthers have engine breakdowns each week you then have X*0,20*0,15 = Y. If X = 100 tanks, then you need to replace 3 tanks each week due to breakdowns. This can be seen as the % of your tank production capacity which has to be allocated to producing spareparts instead of new tanks.

As stated it modeling spare parts, mission ready rates, or as above (secret Master)"reliability" should be quite straight forward. Having inferior rates for any of them would mean fewer of the combat vehicles are available for battle (lower combat statistics), unit movement is reduced (broken equipment must be salvaged/transported/repaired and may not be able to move on their own and slows the movement of the rest of the unit) and the more parts you need the less industrial capacity is available for making new vehicles etc.

 

[SonGoku]

Or play Gal Civ II - it is possible to have challenging AI in modern grand strategy games .

Oh yeah. Shoot with the lasers at them - they come with shields and mass drivers a few turns later. Use massdrivers, they'll have rockets and more armor. Use rockets, they'll have lasers and point defense. In the end the player ends up with a design that has defensive mechanisms to all three weapon categories and a BIG HUGE fire power advantage in one field (I prefer lasers ;D) that the AI can't "out defend". Speaking in HoI terms both sides should end up with the historical early MBT-designs to a certain degree. Powerful guns, very agile and armored enough to withstand - with the help of some luck - at least one direct hit of an enemy MBT.

For the AI to accomplish that it must have the ability to detect the shifts in the player's production early enough and accordingly and counter it with its own designs:

- the player sends heavy tanks to the battlefield, the AI should consider producing more light tanks and tank destroyers.
- the player shifts from the heavies to a more mobile medium tank with a still poweful gun the AI maybe should risk to shift to a slightly heavier armored medium with a bigger gun and retrofit her light tanks to SPART/TDs.
- the player comes along with a design that resembles the early MBT the AI should have the choice between panic (cranking out obsolete tanks to overwhelm the enemy by pure force) or copy the design to counter it.

 

[Secret Master]

I should point out that I actually am not sure whether spare parts are in or what form they take. I'm just making an educated guess that equipment pools will result in a system where you replace wrecked tanks with working tanks, not a system where I spend time retooling my factory in Bavaria to crank out spare drive trains for Panthers.

But I want to emphasize here that since we are talking about the macro level in HOI4, what's important to me is how many combat worthy Panthers I have. If a Panther is killed by a Sherman Firefly, I want to take care of that Sherman Firefly problem. If a Panther is rendered inoperable by a transmission that falls out after 100 off-road miles, I want to take care of that problem. And either way, I've lost a combat worthy vehicle.

What I don't want to do is play Maintenance Management Officer 1944 and spend time figuring out how to order more Panther drive trains through the supply system, then figure out how to ship them to my reaction force in Calais, and then spend hours assessing whether Panther #4764746 needs an actual new drive train, or whether I can scrape by using parts robbed from Panther #464548.

 

[steindroff]

If we take an example: An engine could be seen as 15% tank, if 20% of all panthers have engine breakdowns each week you then have X*0,20*0,15 = Y. If X = 100 tanks, then you need to replace 3 tanks each week due to breakdowns. This can be seen as the % of your tank production capacity which has to be allocated to producing spareparts instead of new tanks.

... so only 15% of your tanks have an engine!? :blink:

''if 20% of all panthers have engine breakdowns each week [and you have 100 tanks] you need to replace [20] tanks each week due to breakdowns'' haven't you!? :unsure:

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

I would like to point out you shouldn't lose equipment simply because of reliability. There should be 2 equipment pools, 1 damaged/unusable equipment pool, and 1 in working condition.

 

[PanH]

... so only 15% of your tanks have an engine!? :blink:

''if 20% of all panthers have engine breakdowns each week [and you have 100 tanks] you need to replace [20] tanks each week due to breakdowns'' haven't you!? :unsure:

No. You just need 20 engines, not 20 tanks. Let's say a tank is 15% engine, and 85% the rest (guns, armor, etc). If you just need new engines, you're not gonna produce new tanks, but it's easier to still keep whole tanks in the game. So you say that 3 tanks = 20 engines, so when you produce these 3 tanks, you've effectively repaired your tanks.
It's effectively much easier and to the (nearly) same effect to abstract spare parts and damaged tanks like that than simulating spare parts production, damage equipment pool or other stuff that just adds to micromanagement.