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You have completely missed the reason for all the complaints. Things you mention are not the problem.
Ok, maybe Finland invading the Pacific Islands, or Mexico D-Daying Germany, or Nazi Germany invading Australia, would have been FEASIBLE, although with enormous supply and range issues. Does that mean they should happen in the game? Not really, unless an expansionist and overpowered Finland expanded all the way to Asia and has now a REASON to invade Japan, or Nazi Germany has already defeated the Russians and the Allies and Australia is one of the last enemies still surviving. It's just too RANDOM. The game should DEFINITELY be allowed to go ahistorical, but along LOGICAL lines. Come on, MEXICO staging a sea invasion of GERMANY? That is just as believable as, say, Tibet researching carrier technologies. They would have neither the means, nor the reasons to do so.
Imagine a football simulator. It is technically possible for the left winger to tear off the corner flag and swallow it, if he wants to. Should it be included in a football game only because it's FEASIBLE? It has about the same believability of Finland invading a Pacific island.
Imagine a football simulator. It is technically possible for the left winger to tear off the corner flag and swallow it, if he wants to. Should it be included in a football game only because it's FEASIBLE? It has about the same believability of Finland invading a Pacific island.
Here's my take on this.......
The game is built on the EU3 engine and even though the computer magicians can do what they want up to a point there seems to be certain mechanisms such as the diplomacy that would appear to work better over a longer period but are tweaked rather badly for a shorter period so you end up with Japan allied to the USSR.
The player could control this but would need to actively force the game down an Historic path otherwise a very basic mechanism could create a situation where Japan is allied to the USSR, there will be no attack on the US and the Germans will end up fighting everyone.
Now people could argue that this is a possibility perhaps more than a possibility looking at way the game is constructed but it does mean that unless the player carefully manipulates the game to prevent unlikely diplomatic alignments the AI could face military decisions that make no sense and the military aspect of the game play then suffers.
Would you want to play the US and have the Japanese fighting the Germans in Moscow I think not.
There may be some fun to be gained by the German player seeing a Japanese carrier fleet off the North German coast , until they realise that perhaps every US division in the world is now heading for Sicily because there is no war in Asia.
I think that unless the game is historically more accurate the military game play will ultimately suffer.
The game is built on the EU3 engine and even though the computer magicians can do what they want up to a point there seems to be certain mechanisms such as the diplomacy that would appear to work better over a longer period but are tweaked rather badly for a shorter period so you end up with Japan allied to the USSR.
The player could control this but would need to actively force the game down an Historic path otherwise a very basic mechanism could create a situation where Japan is allied to the USSR, there will be no attack on the US and the Germans will end up fighting everyone.
Now people could argue that this is a possibility perhaps more than a possibility looking at way the game is constructed but it does mean that unless the player carefully manipulates the game to prevent unlikely diplomatic alignments the AI could face military decisions that make no sense and the military aspect of the game play then suffers.
Would you want to play the US and have the Japanese fighting the Germans in Moscow I think not.
There may be some fun to be gained by the German player seeing a Japanese carrier fleet off the North German coast , until they realise that perhaps every US division in the world is now heading for Sicily because there is no war in Asia.
I think that unless the game is historically more accurate the military game play will ultimately suffer.
What's wrong? HOI3 is a strategy game that plays while WW2. There are no fantasy nations in the game and the starting points in the different years represent exactly the historical conditions at this time. After that the game can drift in many directions. This fact is mentioned in the manual, in the strategy guide and in the dev diaries. They sell this game exactly as what it is. Of course, there are still bugs which lead to a more unhistorical behaviour as it should do, but these things will be solved in the future. The scaffold which defines HOI3 will stay.
No they just don't represent historical conditions.
Wrong OOB
Wrong geography
Wrong grasp of diplomatic, ideological, political, economical and operational plausabilities. Even the election dates are wrong.
Now you are just trying to find explanations. Apologist much ?
So having the game starting point be more or less accurate means the game is a world war 2 strategy game despite later descending into total unbelievable fantasy? Who exactly wanted this? Aside from you.
Bold emphasis mine. Nice strawman there.
Ah, that I understand. True, it seems that the game should run completely, more or less, historically if the player interacts as little as possible and lets the AI play the show.
The problem with that is the AI is a player in its own right, so to speak. It makes its own decisions based on code/statistics/whatnot. You would have to dumb it down considerably and/or script in events to get it to do what you want: a historical war.
I don't have to find explanations. Everything I describe are facts. This discussion was the same with EU2 and EU3. The old europa engine is gone and with it the straight historical gameplay. If you are dissatisfied with HOI3_1.3 then wait two weeks and get AoD. Or wait a little bit longer until some major bugs concerning your "fantasy WW2" in HOI3 are solved. There are a lot of people who play this game atm and aren't complaining over and over gain about the same things. Nobody likes the bugs that are influencing the gameplay in this way, but they will be solved in the future. Accept this or not. Many people enjoy the game in its current state despite the bugs. If you can not don't play it.
I don't know why people expect to be able to start in 1936 and have a historical or even semi-historical WW2. If the Allies knew they would be going to war with Germany and Japan in 3 years, things probably would have gone a lot differently, don't you think? Even simply ahistorically building up masses of arms and troops is going to change the entire dynamic of ww2. The only way you should be able to get a historical ww2 would be, imo, to play a scenario starting during the war, because it's unreasonable to just force ww2 to happen with a date trigger.
It's like starting a game about the Napoleonic Wars in 1787 or something.
It's like starting a game about the Napoleonic Wars in 1787 or something.
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That would imply that starting a game as Cuba, and only building infrastructure and IC, would provide a historical result. That is not the case, because even if the player plays a meaningless country, or pretends he doesn't know about the upcoming war and does NOTHING to prepare to it, the results will still be wildly ahistorical.
Besides, please find a set of ahistorical actions by the player as, say, Nazi Germany, that would realistically lead to a Finnish invasion of Japanese pacific islands?
It's pretty goofy, I gotta say, but that's why just about every other grand strategic ww2 game doesn't even try to simulate politics that much or the pre-war period. Don't see why HOI3 does.
Of course, a lot of decisions countries made during ww2 were stupid, and should they repeat these mistakes?
Stupid, but somewhat plausible and logical. "Let's not bother with England now, and let's launch a surprise attack on the Soviet Union instead" was stupid; "Let's not bother about our neighbours, but invade a country on the other side of the world, just for the sake of it, although the costs will be horrible and we won't really have anything to gain from it" would be illogical.
Not just illogical, but completely frikken stupid to a degree that it would require a mental disorder before you could think that these types of invasions were a good idea or even possible. If Hitler suggested invading Australia before the UK, all of his generals would beat him to death with their jandals (flip flops).
Opposite-side-of-the-planet invasions deserve to be in a fantasy game, not a WW2-era simulation.
Setting aside the "Finland invades Japan" stories for the moment (I haven't seen anything like that in 1.3) here's what I think the problem is.
You can't have an AI that has the ability to make non-historical decisions consistently produce historical results. You can have a single minor change in a single country's decision process change the whole course of the war. When you consider the enormous number of decisions being made, even a small chance for non-historical outcomes multiplies like a snowball over time.
The only other alternative (AI locked into historical actions) produces a very boring game for the player.
If an action is possible within the rules of the game (in other words, a human player could choose to take that action), then that should be a possibility for the AI as well. The probability that the AI will take that action should be tied to whether or not the action is likely to improve that nation's position within the game. If these non-historical decisions aren't in the best interest of the AI-controlled nation, then that's another question for a thread with a different title.
Some players seem to want an AI that gives them a challenging game and yet is bound by history when they are not so bound. It's like asking the already handicapped AI to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
You can't have an AI that has the ability to make non-historical decisions consistently produce historical results. You can have a single minor change in a single country's decision process change the whole course of the war. When you consider the enormous number of decisions being made, even a small chance for non-historical outcomes multiplies like a snowball over time.
The only other alternative (AI locked into historical actions) produces a very boring game for the player.
If an action is possible within the rules of the game (in other words, a human player could choose to take that action), then that should be a possibility for the AI as well. The probability that the AI will take that action should be tied to whether or not the action is likely to improve that nation's position within the game. If these non-historical decisions aren't in the best interest of the AI-controlled nation, then that's another question for a thread with a different title.
Some players seem to want an AI that gives them a challenging game and yet is bound by history when they are not so bound. It's like asking the already handicapped AI to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
If the AI has the ability to make non-historical decisions the alternative outcomes will surely come and it won't be due to some errors. With simplification the game model inevitably brings it pays off to do ahistorical things.
And I acknowledge that proposed semi-historicity will bring results to some bigger or lesser degree non-optimal from the game point of view. It is unmistakeably a disadvantage and fantasy proponents make a good point here nobody can deny. But it's a price to pay for recreating memorable historical moments from history which bring additional atmosphere, generated by books, films, imagery (which has some value in itself). Japan may make attacks here and there but choosing Pearl Harbor has some special meaning to the defending player. And don't tell that makes it so simple and gamey - French players know when and from where Germany will attack and can usually do #$#@ about it
(at least it was so in HoI2) Anyway one can play on hard/very hard to make it more ambitious but still choose historical setting.
It could really be brought down to good ole AI files (no need to despise them, they served their purpose in a couple of games and it was deterministic events not AI most people complained about), switched by hidden events (rich Clausewitzian contextual triggers) and the whole system triggered on/off in the options. Nowhere there is some behaviour hardcoded, only modifiers present to nudge USA in the historical (which not equals 100%-optimal) behaviour:
Or do the current .lua scripts (a bit cryptic to me) make it possible?
So if I'm in the mood of historical game and little to no alternative "exploits" from any side (I set my home rules), I switch the system on. But there's no push.
And I acknowledge that proposed semi-historicity will bring results to some bigger or lesser degree non-optimal from the game point of view. It is unmistakeably a disadvantage and fantasy proponents make a good point here nobody can deny. But it's a price to pay for recreating memorable historical moments from history which bring additional atmosphere, generated by books, films, imagery (which has some value in itself). Japan may make attacks here and there but choosing Pearl Harbor has some special meaning to the defending player. And don't tell that makes it so simple and gamey - French players know when and from where Germany will attack and can usually do #$#@ about it
(at least it was so in HoI2) Anyway one can play on hard/very hard to make it more ambitious but still choose historical setting.It could really be brought down to good ole AI files (no need to despise them, they served their purpose in a couple of games and it was deterministic events not AI most people complained about), switched by hidden events (rich Clausewitzian contextual triggers) and the whole system triggered on/off in the options. Nowhere there is some behaviour hardcoded, only modifiers present to nudge USA in the historical (which not equals 100%-optimal) behaviour:
Code:
USA_36.ai
{
belligerence = 0
befriend = { tag = MEX value = 50 }
befriend = { tag = CUB value = 20 }
join_axis = 0
join_allies = 10
join_comintern = -20
}
USA_41.ai
{
belligerence = 30
combat = { tag = JAP value = 50 }
join_axis = 0
join_allies = 50
join_comintern = -20
make_amphibious_assaults = { #provinces }
}Or do the current .lua scripts (a bit cryptic to me) make it possible?
So if I'm in the mood of historical game and little to no alternative "exploits" from any side (I set my home rules), I switch the system on. But there's no push.
Well said.
This discussion thread seems to have two points.
1) the game is allowing some very unthinkable actions. Like Finland invading Japan. BTW I have not seen this happen in 1.3. So if the indefinite invasion range is solved and a check to make actions closer to theater of action already involved in happens, then the really weird stupid things stop right!
2) People seem to want to act out WW2 just like it happened. Then find a multi-player game and all agree ahead of time that all must to everything political/industrial and diplomatic as did happen. that will solve the problem you will then have a repeat of WW2, for what fun that would be?
All the game needs is to solve the weird problems and solve a few of the broken things, like using your allies troops to your benefit.
I've been playing almost everyday since launch. The game is great but it will not be all things to all people. It is a simulator with a complex AI.
Viva la AI, with a few small improvements the game will be perfect for what I want.
Getting rid of the really wierd events (like out of theatre invasions) would definitely help. But it is not just nations doing things they should not, but nations not doing things they should, like the USA joining the war, then not doing any invasions of Germany or Japan, or England not being able to recognize and defend against a sealion, or Germany taking out Poland/France, and then sitting on their duff doing nothing. And some big problems for all nations, like their tendency to grossly overstack, with huge piles from oppoaing nations staring at each other doing nothing. These problems clearly need to be fixed.
But ideally I would still hope for more. And that does not mean compete historically duplication, or even anything close. Once you allow nations any degree of latitude, and also start the game in 36 rather than 39, your chances for a completely historical game are very low.
What I do want is something that at least has a historical feel. Whenever a nation deviates, it should deviate in ways that are still consistent with that nations capability/interest, and national philosophy/traditions. Some of those historical traditions led nations to do things that a human player playing the same country now would not do, but if you want a game that at least has a historical feel, then those type of historical decisions should be encouraged AI behavior, not with rigid scripting, but with general strategy/policy guidance.
For those who say it is unfair to constrain the AI's with historical traditions, while the player is totally free to ignore them, I would first say that if a player is deviating themselves from history, then it is fair game for the AI's to deviate themselves against him to restore history. But if the player is playing historically, then the AI's should too.
For those who say the AI's should not bother with history at all, and only do things that advance their nations, like a human player would, I would counter that they should not buy WW2 games. They should buy computer Risk or Diplomacy, or Sid Miers Civilization, with smarter AI's. Risk or Diplomacy or Civilization make no pretense to having anything to do with history (OK, maybe some things in Civ are historical, but the actions of the nations generally not), and it makes sense for their AI's to have no historical constraints. But WW2 games should have their AI's behave with some fidelity to the national policies/traditions of the actual actors.
But ideally I would still hope for more. And that does not mean compete historically duplication, or even anything close. Once you allow nations any degree of latitude, and also start the game in 36 rather than 39, your chances for a completely historical game are very low.
What I do want is something that at least has a historical feel. Whenever a nation deviates, it should deviate in ways that are still consistent with that nations capability/interest, and national philosophy/traditions. Some of those historical traditions led nations to do things that a human player playing the same country now would not do, but if you want a game that at least has a historical feel, then those type of historical decisions should be encouraged AI behavior, not with rigid scripting, but with general strategy/policy guidance.
For those who say it is unfair to constrain the AI's with historical traditions, while the player is totally free to ignore them, I would first say that if a player is deviating themselves from history, then it is fair game for the AI's to deviate themselves against him to restore history. But if the player is playing historically, then the AI's should too.
For those who say the AI's should not bother with history at all, and only do things that advance their nations, like a human player would, I would counter that they should not buy WW2 games. They should buy computer Risk or Diplomacy, or Sid Miers Civilization, with smarter AI's. Risk or Diplomacy or Civilization make no pretense to having anything to do with history (OK, maybe some things in Civ are historical, but the actions of the nations generally not), and it makes sense for their AI's to have no historical constraints. But WW2 games should have their AI's behave with some fidelity to the national policies/traditions of the actual actors.
Ideally, Paradox should be able to control the amount of realism that the user can expect. Realistically, this would be hard for us to expect given that the game barely works. By this, I mean that if you want to be able to know in advance that six years after game start there will still be "exciting" wars, if it is allowed to use this word in reference to such a subject, going on in Europe, North Africa, and the Far East, it is difficult to be able to predict this if trade, research, combat, weather, supply, and other major game systems, are chronically broken and/or being "tuned" via repeated boots to the head. The butterfly effect is a valid excuse for lack of realism, but since release this game has suffered repeated asteroid collisions. It's not a matter of "will Japan be doing okay in 1944", it's a question of whether the game will last that long without a save game corruption, or a war between allies, or a total resource collapse, or some other intolerable bug manifestation.
What I'm saying is that we're not going to get a well tuned game until basic QA issues are settled, and five months after release they are not, so don't hold your breath.
If Paradox QA had been better, we'd see a game that is better tuned to produce a realistic game with sensible and interesting variance, or even better, a game with a realism slider, or perhaps a whole variety of configurables that allow us to create worlds with attributes according to our own whims.
We're not going to get that, because Paradox is not going to give us something that big without making us pay for a whole new product, if even then.
What I'd settle for at this point is:
1) Sensible surrender events, or to hell with the whole idea of surrender events and just allow the world to play out like EU3, which has little or no storyline framework. "To hell with you, we're removing the VIC tag from the game" would be a fine response at this point.
If Paradox removed every diplomatic event and decision from the game other than "Danzig or War", a Barbarossa initiator, and a Pearl Harbor initiator, there would be net improvement.
2) An active AI that follows the game's rules and does smart stuff mostly, but sometimes does something a little weird but perhaps there is a point to it.
3) Some assurance that Paradox will upgrade from an "it compiles, therefore it must work" QA methodology. This is an incredibly harsh thing to say and I feel terrible saying it, but it's justified given the number of major code paths that are present in the game through several patches but cannot activate (Barbarossa, Pearl Harbor, for example).
This is actually a lot to expect, but Paradox set the bar high for this product by doing some parts of it very well. If you do parts of the product well, and focus on those in your advertising, the customer has a right to expect that the rest of the product will reflect a consistent level of quality.
What I'm saying is that we're not going to get a well tuned game until basic QA issues are settled, and five months after release they are not, so don't hold your breath.
If Paradox QA had been better, we'd see a game that is better tuned to produce a realistic game with sensible and interesting variance, or even better, a game with a realism slider, or perhaps a whole variety of configurables that allow us to create worlds with attributes according to our own whims.
We're not going to get that, because Paradox is not going to give us something that big without making us pay for a whole new product, if even then.
What I'd settle for at this point is:
1) Sensible surrender events, or to hell with the whole idea of surrender events and just allow the world to play out like EU3, which has little or no storyline framework. "To hell with you, we're removing the VIC tag from the game" would be a fine response at this point.
If Paradox removed every diplomatic event and decision from the game other than "Danzig or War", a Barbarossa initiator, and a Pearl Harbor initiator, there would be net improvement.
2) An active AI that follows the game's rules and does smart stuff mostly, but sometimes does something a little weird but perhaps there is a point to it.
3) Some assurance that Paradox will upgrade from an "it compiles, therefore it must work" QA methodology. This is an incredibly harsh thing to say and I feel terrible saying it, but it's justified given the number of major code paths that are present in the game through several patches but cannot activate (Barbarossa, Pearl Harbor, for example).
This is actually a lot to expect, but Paradox set the bar high for this product by doing some parts of it very well. If you do parts of the product well, and focus on those in your advertising, the customer has a right to expect that the rest of the product will reflect a consistent level of quality.
I think more I play it, more I can see the problem is that nations have no "personality" beyond some stats and few events that are given to them in this game.
The game is trying to draw the nations' behavior out of same AI that is simply adjusting to the nation's power/location. That is my take on it and I think any mod/patch that can add more flavor to each nation's personality will make things a lot better.
The game is trying to draw the nations' behavior out of same AI that is simply adjusting to the nation's power/location. That is my take on it and I think any mod/patch that can add more flavor to each nation's personality will make things a lot better.