Wake Up!

[plasticpanzers]

true but i also think tho the AI is expecting you to research a balanced force(who can
expect to create a perfect ground force except with forsight 60 years down the
road?). It is requesting what it thinks you need. I think manpower is one issue
that needs fixing tho. Some places have way too much and others not enough.
Also, any field commander is going to try and get his hands on anything he can far
above his TOE! lol!

 

[AlanC9]

The graphic problems I saw, like the flags, were specifically caused by the Steam version. We couldn't duplicate the problems in house so we couldn't do anything about them. We aimed to fix everything we could.

You sure about the flags? The flag bug reports I read were all from users with ATI vidcards; the Steam version didn't have anything to do with it. I don't use Steam, I use an ATI x1650, and I have a flag problem. Or rather, I had a problem, before I downloaded the alternative flag file someone kindly uploaded.

 

[AlanC9]

Anyway after all that and about 60 pages of scouring later I found out how to auto the armies!...... Not sure why Paradox seemed to keep that hidden or tough to find.

What's hidden about section K 2.3, "Automating Below Theatre Level"? If I was looking for information on how to automate armies, I'm pretty sure I'd at least give a glance at a section with "Automating" in the title.

It's a poorly organized chapter, since automation at Theatre level is mentioned earlier but not explained. But the info is there.

 

[King]

Well now we have some more infromation about the flag troubles I can have another look at them. For those of you who felt the need to swear please go edit your posts.

 

[unmerged(185688)]

Everytime I restart unless I delete the tga files same problem.Anyway I've gone back to HOI2.Still enjoy it after 2 years.Will come back to HOI3 when the next patch arrives.

Yeah, this was what I had to keep doing, till I figured out the the file was the wrong size (1488x1024). Like I said, if you resize flagfiles.tga to 2048x1024 you won't have this problem. Well, at least I haven't since.

You sure about the flags? The flag bug reports I read were all from users with ATI vidcards; the Steam version didn't have anything to do with it. I don't use Steam, I use an ATI x1650, and I have a flag problem. Or rather, I had a problem, before I downloaded the alternative flag file someone kindly uploaded.

Hmm, there could be a problem with ATI cards too, but I have an SiS mirage 3 (integrated).

 

[henryjai]

From what I saw on the tech support page, the general impression I got was that the flag issue is video card related. Temp fix is available there. Supposed to be fixed for good in 1.4. I have it with my GG download on my laptop, but not on my desktop.

Not that I would dare contradict King...

thought I can tell you that it isn't only related to video card

try deleting(or move away) 2 of the files in the gfx/flags folder(I won't tell you which two!, figure it out yourself haha), I think it should work.

the game is almost unplayable unless one have a supercomputer, it simply take too long for a day to elapse...and you know people like me(Actually almost everyone!) don't have much time for gaming, sure I think I would be spending more time listening to the music tracks instead of playing...

 

[delra]

Well now we have some more infromation about the flag troubles I can have another look at them. For those of you who felt the need to swear please go edit your posts.

Hah. Finally on the 19th page of a ranting thread they filed a proper bug report for this thing allowing devs to fix it.

Apparently people are more likely to visit ranting threads than just go to tech support and tell devs how to reproduce the bugs they are experiencing.

 

[AlanC9]

the game is almost unplayable unless one have a supercomputer, it simply take too long for a day to elapse...

Huh? My old dual-core Athlon 3600 runs the game adequately. Nothing super about this rig.

 

[themousemaster]

Hah. Finally on the 19th page of a ranting thread they filed a proper bug report for this thing allowing devs to fix it.

Apparently people are more likely to visit ranting threads than just go to tech support and tell devs how to reproduce the bugs they are experiencing.

Is that really news though?

 

[QuinnDexter]

What's hidden about section K 2.3, "Automating Below Theatre Level"? If I was looking for information on how to automate armies, I'm pretty sure I'd at least give a glance at a section with "Automating" in the title.

It's a poorly organized chapter, since automation at Theatre level is mentioned earlier but not explained. But the info is there.

True however I am trying to indicate to designers that stuff like that(which is really important) needs to be there right upfront. It would have made people respect the game a lot more. I feel that the user friendly marketing side was lacking. Up until that point I too thought the game was seriously lacking. Just trying to win the "war" for paradox because I would hate to see them go under due to bad rep

 

[delra]

We all knew about it months prior to game's release. You need to read those annoucements and diaries.

See here, May this year: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403620

 

[plasticpanzers]

Thank you Delra for being the board hall monitor (LOL!). There is both good
and bad in the thread but i would be a bit less judgemental of other gamers.
Its almost as bad as us "whiners"! (LOL!) Tgere us alot of info on HOI3, especially
after the patches/hotfixes, that is not easy to find let alone have to dig it out
of the numerous threads on this board.

I have an older computer and have no problem with speed with HOI3 tho i have
had more memory added to it to help.

 

[unmerged(186438)]

Will 1.4 improve game speed/performance ?
Any dates in jan for the 1.4 release ?

 

[delra]

Will 1.4 improve game speed/performance ?
Any dates in jan for the 1.4 release ?

1. Yes.
2. Q1 2010 is the only official date we've got so far.

 

[menasure]

Theatre creation is a tricky one, we ditched player defined theatres pretty early because of interface issues. There are rather a lot of provinces out there and it was going to be so much work for a player to define areas. So that kind of thing will require a lot of work on interface which isn't patch material I am afraid.

However the AI problem you are seeing it not 100% a problem. The AI has two fronts against the SU, Denmark and Poland. Denmark is the weaker of the two so the AI is trying to eliminate the weaker front to allow it to concentrate its forces. Now the idea isn't bad it just needs to work a bit more on the execution here.

yet the player will expand it's territory in a wargame and the bigger this territory gets the more need there will be for at least a new theater, predefined or not. ignoring this because of practical reasons does not make the problem disappear but eventually enhances it when a single theater gets more and more territory to govern.

defining theaters is still less tedious than micromanaging every single troop or trying to free your troops from an out of supply situation created by a theater. play with a balkan minor or turkey in an "africa campaign" under a single theater's control and watch the supply disaster unfold.

 

[plasticpanzers]

Thats why i suggested additonal theatres based upon events or area. How can the
AI that can invade Russia continue to compitently control units when the area and
number of units grows greater and greater? What about Italy/N. Africa? These
areas are so seperate from France/Russia they need a seperate Theatre to operate.

 

[delra]

How can the
AI that can invade Russia continue to compitently control units when the area and
number of units grows greater and greater?

I can tell you this one. AI Germans after getting Bitter Peace "push" the Create Theatres button ruining their whole command structure. They get Moskva HQ and "Theatre 1" or something like that. And since they have no manpower by this point, they go medieval with their command structure so Moskva HQ ends up with 4 mil. soldiers attached to it, all as divisions without corps and armies.

About Italians, they get Adis Abeba Theatre fairly easily so aren't as affected. Other majors aren't affected much either, UK have too many theatres, Japan uses Kwantung for everything and US have Atlantic/Pacific commands. But Germans... they really are f***** here. Just load any of your late games where they won Barbarossa and see for yourself.

Two bugs at once.

 

[plasticpanzers]

Theatres are appearing in the wrong places then. They need to be hardcoded for
specific regions for the Germans. 1 for the Med and perhaps 1 more. i understand
that the Bitter Peace with Russia seldom lasts long. There is no need for a Moscow
Theatre unless the earlier East theatre is downgraded somehow to a "reserve" theatre
or control over forces in Russia is removed from it.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

Preset theatres work for historical situations. The problem comes when there is an ahistorical situation. There is also the issue of well we know Germany needs a Nrowegian theatre, but what about other countries? We personally thought that static theatres could cause as many problems as they solved and also give the player who did not use theatres an advantage over the AI.

There is the superstack issue there, there is also the nasty AI habit of trying to win quickly by deploying overwhelming force. Not a bad idea in general, just needs fine tuning.

What about simple north/south/east/west theatre for everyone?

Also rather than going through a number of small patches we are aiming for the big one, fix everything we can and the aim is you won't need another patch (want one perhaps, but that is a different question). With 1.03 we thought we had it, I think it went thourgh 9 interations as a public Beta to fix the things (see the tech support forum), you as a community wanted. Not quite there yet, so we aim for 1.04, once we have an RC we will probably again throw it out to public beta to see if we are there.

I would strongly advise you guys against this policy of big patches only. Game mechanics oriented patches could be held of for big ones, but as for bug fixes, there are some critical bugs that carry serious consequence to the series' name. And unless releasing few smaller bug fix patches here and there between the big ones seriously jeopardize the production speed of patches overall (which I doubt it would), holding off on few fixes that you guys have is nothing but counterproductive, as it would mean that community just waits for the fixes with absolutely no gain whatsoever. I mean we gain nothing and lose a whole lot from one big patch that comes in 5 months compared to 5 smallers patches that comes 1 month each if both adds up to same amount of fixes.

 

[King]

What about simple north/south/east/west theatre for everyone?



I would strongly advise you guys against this policy of big patches only. Game mechanics oriented patches could be held of for big ones, but as for bug fixes, there are some critical bugs that carry serious consequence to the series' name. And unless releasing few smaller bug fix patches here and there between the big ones seriously jeopardize the production speed of patches overall (which I doubt it would), holding off on few fixes that you guys have is nothing but counterproductive, as it would mean that community just waits for the fixes with absolutely no gain whatsoever. I mean we gain nothing and lose a whole lot from one big patch that comes in 5 months compared to 5 smallers patches that comes 1 month each if both adds up to same amount of fixes.

building and testing a patch installer (assuming it works first up) is a day long process so 5 small patches is 4 man days of time lost that could be fixing stuff.