Whats wrong with a semi-historical war?

[Mjarr]

Imagine the military conference, in which the Finnish high command convinces itself that now's the time to stop Japanese influence in the Pacific.

"President Kallio, I have urgent business with you!"
"... General Mannerheim, have you been drinking?"
"No... well yes, but I've also been smoking extensively!"
"Good God! Wha..."
"Now listen to me! While smoking and drinking last night I had a vision that we must defeat the japanese! They're going to amass a major invasion to Russia and eventually becomes a threat to our own country!"
"..."
"They already humiliated Russia back in 1905! They can do it again, especially now that they're training new top secret ninjas to conquer the country! They're also planning to launch another attack from Sweden shortly after and..."
"Fine, enough. Get some sleep right now."
"No, I am not done yet so..."

Two years later in the coast of Japan.

"There's a armed fishing boats sailing towards our coast, emperor Hirohito!"
"No worries, they're only finns. They have probably come to trade some fish and the route from Finland to here is very dangerous, full of polar bears and sharks."

that will solve the problem you will then have a repeat of WW2, for what fun that would be?

My guess would be the variability of the events. While I am not against ahistorical or odd game at all, HoI3 seems to be that minor nations most often go for odd conquests while major nations are bit more passive and reluctant to do anything and often results into weird chain of events where you can see more or less weird things happening, effectively leaning slightly towards that the AI dictates how the game goes rather than the player be the major influence behind that.

AI that does things diffrently or not the same is not a bad thing, but I'd rather see AI Germany or UK or USA do something that would feel bit odd (albeit more realistic due country's industrial and military capabilities) than see Cuba invading half of the world by 1939, or see Mexico launching amphibious assault to Germany etc.

 

[mike^_^]

I was happily playing my first USSR campaign ever, building roads and factory's in my newly acquired land in manchuria and korea, solidifying the defenses etc.

When it all came crashing down, to my surprise, I had all of the sudden lost a province, when clicking the locate button, it turned out to be a japanese landing of 3 marine divisions in murmansk. Completely ridiculous, here the japanese just got rolled in manchuria and korea, for about 3-6 months they attempted amphibious assaults on my pacific ports of varying strength, they just assaulted murmansk instead when that failed.. (which btw was immediatly annihilated and they are now out 3 marine divisions)

meanwhile they have like 250 brigades in 3 provinces in china, which are trapped and cannot attack each other, because of aforementioned design flaw.

So I figured, no harm done, I'll just use the acceptall cheat to get my land and a peace w/ japan so their AI can focus on china, except YOU CANNOT BROKER PEACE DEALS IN HOI3!!! WTF! It's white peace or unconditional surrender? WTF!

needless to say, I'm not wasting any more of my time playing this game. Back to doomsday.

edit : these are two issues by the way, that worked perfectly well in HOI2 if you wanted them to. the unlimited naval range was mitigated by use of AI parameters for target seazones and attack priorities and such, and HOI2 had a perfectly working peace system, which although relied heavily on events (of which there were many) was far better in terms of replayability. Interesting that one of the main driving force in the philosophy of HOI3 is that it tries not to rely on deterministic events, yet it's the one that actually NEEDS A LOT of events (of which there are few) if you are to have any kind of decent peace, apart from annex or white

let's not mention trading provinces through diplomacy either.

 

[unmerged(56429)]

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.

Good point. In effect the game is playing the nations the same way that an AI for Risk or Diplomacy would, strictly to benefit the nation, but with little regard for national policy or characteristics.
Also, a lot of events seem to get ruined because ahistrical things happen far too often to ruin the precedence requirements. Like Finland constantly joining the Allies, and thus making the wnter war moot. It is reasonable for this to happen sometimes, but not most of the time, like it seems to now.

 

[Beagá]

It´s pretty simple, actually.

Paradox tried to make a HOI game with EU III caracteristics. They failed, and I´m pretty sure they are aware of this by now.

When people play a World War 2 game, they want it with what-ifs; the wide array of options in HOI 3 allows for too many variations. some might say, "Well EU III too was a game about what ifs!" Ok, but it it´s like this. That was a game about the modern era. The what-ifs, in that case, would be:

What if I play a Britain that is a land power and allies with Spain to beat France over the centuries? Or I play China and become a progressist and colonizer country?

HOI 3 is game about WW 2. A War that should begin in 1st of september of 1939, and should end, (should the player go and take an uninvolved country like Uruguay), by 1945, with the Allies and USSR victorious, Germany divided and Japan subjugated. And the what-ifs would be,

What if I make more subs as Germany or invest more in the Luftwaffe as a strategic force? What if I try to appease Stalin? What if as Britain I commit more forces to defense of France in 1940? And so on.

THAT´s what a World War 2 strategy game is about. Not Finland joining UK and fighting Germany in 1937. At least, IMO.

And no, HOI2 wasn´t as predictable as some people try to make!

 

[LaDoncella]

whats interesting to note, is that the few events and decisions in the game are pretty much deterministic.
Danzig or War. German AI will always trigger it as soon as possible. And Poland AI will answer war 100% of time. The only variability is the AI nonsense before and after those few events.

 

[AlanC9]

So I figured, no harm done, I'll just use the acceptall cheat to get my land and a peace w/ japan so their AI can focus on china, except YOU CANNOT BROKER PEACE DEALS IN HOI3!!! WTF! It's white peace or unconditional surrender? WTF!

needless to say, I'm not wasting any more of my time playing this game. Back to doomsday.

Anyone else amused by folks complaining about a cheat not existing in Hoi3?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The problem with possible history in HoI3 is the fact that you haveonly 10 years to play the game. However, in EU3 or Viki, you had hundreds - the alternative history slowly unfolded itself. A county wouldn't be crushed in a single war, but rather loose power slowly within decades and vanish in the end.

I had some brilliant games in Viki, having Russia being turned in a democracy or Japan getting owned by a awaken China. THESE resuls were exported to HoI2 and made a great alternative WW2 experience. But again: These alternatives riped over hundreds of years...

Another problem with HoI3 is the fact that it would need a lot of good events to make the alternative history approach work. If Australia joins the Axis it is okay - but it would have made sense to prepare some sort of event chain that leads towards this alternative event once you have "triggered" their drift.

Although I have to agree that MP could become very interesting as it is now. Without the hassle of events and the fixed timeline, I can imagine a lot of cool game situations.

 

[Modestus]

Anyone else amused by folks complaining about a cheat not existing in Hoi3?

No not for HOI3.

I have never really cheated with a Paradox game except this one by edited the save to give me provinces that the USSR retained after their defeat because it was preposterous that they would retain strips of land next to Romania and little islands of land in Finland.

I also had to give Germany the channel islands because it was pain in the arse to have the British launch pointless attacks every couple of weeks.

Cheating is the wrong word fixing is more appropriate and I think I will be doing a lot more.

 

[unmerged(138184)]

Generic AI for each nation and unlimited naval range basically leave this game broken right now - perhaps even beyond redemption.

If you know anything about history (and suffice to say probably 99% of people here do) you know that nations have always tended to act like THEMSELVES.

Sure this has changed in the whole post-Cold War world of now, but in the past you had the UK always wanting to protect its routes to India, Russia eyeing the approaches to the Bosporpous, US growling at everyone so much as looking cockeyed at the Western Hemisphere, etc etc.

Stuff like this persisted through all political and regime changes. Whether under Nicholas II or Stalin, Russia acted like Russia.

But in HOI3 the USSR sinks large resources into the construction of huge capital ships, Finland menacingly plots against Japan, Peru nurtures a "world police" streak of wanting to physically intervene in European conflicts, and Germany acquisitively schemes to get that lobster bisque on the New England seaboard.

INDEFENSIBLE.

(And to the much earlier poster - yes, lobster bisque in Maine is equalled nowhere in the world!)

 

[truth is life]

My guess would be the variability of the events. While I am not against ahistorical or odd game at all, HoI3 seems to be that minor nations most often go for odd conquests while major nations are bit more passive and reluctant to do anything and often results into weird chain of events where you can see more or less weird things happening, effectively leaning slightly towards that the AI dictates how the game goes rather than the player be the major influence behind that.

AI that does things diffrently or not the same is not a bad thing, but I'd rather see AI Germany or UK or USA do something that would feel bit odd (albeit more realistic due country's industrial and military capabilities) than see Cuba invading half of the world by 1939, or see Mexico launching amphibious assault to Germany etc.

Good God, why wouldn't you want the AI, also, to be an important player, and a factor that can actually screw up your plans? It is, frankly, rather boring to play and always dominate your AI opponents, with them never doing anything that surprises you in the least, and I quite applaud Paradox for moving away from that (though at the same time I think it rather sucks that the AI isn't clever enough/the game functions aren't well-designed enough to make it play out plausibly. It will improve with time, though, like the performance trouble people have had).

 

[nervi]

Nice talk about EU3, but I think the majority of the HOI players are not that fond with EU3.
I play it sometimes, but I dont like it that much, because EU3 is rather unrealistic, small countries in the eu3 timeframe had often MAJOR advances over big countries, yet you barely see this effect back in the game.
And sorry to say it: but I find it rather boring

Then again, I am not playing hoi3 now even, If i play hoi, its hoi2 with or without mods.

 

[mike^_^]

Anyone else amused by folks complaining about a cheat not existing in Hoi3?

Anyone else amused by people who make a post for no other obstensible purpose other than to increase their post count?

Oh look, isn't that what I just did?

I always wondered what it is that motivates people to respond to one sentence of a post, as if that was the sole issue being brought forth, when it usually is a peripheral part of the original post.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Anyone else amused by folks complaining about a cheat not existing in Hoi3?

Anyone else amused by people who make a post for no other obstensible purpose other than to increase their post count?

Oh look, isn't that what I just did?

I always wondered what it is that motivates people to respond to one sentence of a post, as if that was the sole issue being brought forth, when it usually is a peripheral part of the original post.

And now get back to the discussion and stop these personal attacks.

 

[Mjarr]

It is, frankly, rather boring to play and always dominate your AI opponents, with them never doing anything that surprises you in the least, and I quite applaud Paradox for moving away from that

My point is that instead of major nations being passive as they seem to be currently and minor nations going batshit bonkers to some degree, why not make it that the major nation AI actually might do something unexpected as 1. they have the capability to do so and 2. it's less breaking the suspension of disbelief.

The legendary joke of Finland taking Albania or going wild in the pacific, or mexico landing in Germany is something that would be simply be mildly said, stupid. If Jugoslavia were to invade Albania, or UK would make proper amphibious assault to Germany or so, then it would make alot more sense. Minor nations shouldn't be the ones going gun-ho everywhere, but those major nations\some regional powers that actually have the capability to do so.

It's not about wanting 1:1 stroll of history books or education, rather have some sense in the game itself.

 

[unmerged(44315)]

I believe that Johan made a comment/joke during the development about an "historical" option in the game-setup. At the time it was scoffed at and apparently Johan did mean it to be a joke. However, I think that some sort of optional "historic" option will be the easiest way to appease both groups. When checked - diplomatic influences are no longer valid. The player and the AI would get diplo events that followed a reasonably close historic timeline, i.e. when to invite historic allies into their alliance, declare war, etc. (Obviously this would require a lot of work to do right). Players that enjoy the freeform play can just leave that option unchecked.

 

[Buh the Ghost]

Just for those who don't know:

you can change the impact of diplmatic drifting in the defines.lua. To prevent all these nations joining factions very early, change these lines under "diplomacy":

alignment = {
ALIGNMENT_INTERVAL = 24,
RELATION_WEIGHT = 0.02,
IDEOLOGY_WEIGHT = 1.25,
PROXIMITY_WEIGHT = 0.02,
REVANCHISM_WEIGHT = 1.0,
THREAT_WEIGHT = 0.15,
REPULSION_WEIGHT = 0.01,
FACTION_JOIN_DIST = 50.0,
WAR_THREAT = 35.0,
LARGE_COUNTRY_IC = 300.0

For example change "FACTION_JOIN_DIST" to 20(or less) and combine it with a "REPULSION_WEIGHT" of 0.015 (or more). This will lead to a slower drifting the closer the nation is to one corner. This means that it will take REAL diplomatic or threat impacts for a nation to get near enough to one corner to be able to join them.

Or you can set the alignment interval to 48 or 72. This will lead to 1/3 of the original drifting speed (doesn't change anything else).

Perhaps you can do good solutions with the other ones, too. I prefer the first one.

EDIT: Be carefull with the repulsion_weight: I tested it playing haiti: with 0.02 NO nation joined the allies until 1940 and there are none near their corner. Just Italy joined into Axis in 1936. With 0.015 or something, it should be realistic.

 

[unmerged(56429)]

From what I have been seeing in various threads, fixes of several major problems would at least help a little bit:

1. Stop most of the BS minor invasions, and unrealistic out of theatre invasions, by enforcing real naval ranges on the AI's. If this causes a problem with AI's not being able to change to the right bases, perhaps just say the AI at least needs some naval base in range of the target, even if they have no units in it. And then require that after the invasion, the invasion fleet must rebase at a base in range of the target.
2. Stop the everybody joins the Allies diplomatic drift. And saying you can stop this by German diplo action is a cop out, because the German AI wont do it, so that alternative only works if you play Germany. And if you are playing a major and using diplo to grossly distort historic alighments, the other AI's should effective oppose you to try and restore them.
3. Do something to stop the AI's from creating all those huge stacks that cant be supplied and cant attack, and sit there staring at each other, exemplified by the channel islands, but also occuring in lots of other places.
4. Make sure the majors have an appropriate level of activity, and that their choices are sensible alternatives. Germany should either come down hard on England or invade USSR after taking France, not sit on their duff. If Germany attempts a Sealion, England should resist effectively, on land/sea/air. If Germany ignores USSR because they are busy against England, then eventually, perhaps 42-43 the USSR should attack them. By 44, sometimes 43, both England, supported by the commonwealth, and the USA should be launching credible invasions of Europe. Japan should not be getting constantly defeated by China, but China AI should be good enough not to totallly fall very often either. Ideal is for Japan to make good progress, but be stopped just short of total victory. By 41, Japan should make an effort to either join Germany against USSR, or invade important Pacific areas, like Indochina, East Indies, Australia, Philipines and sometimes Pearl. IRL these areas had rares and oil that was critical to Japan. By 43-44 the US should be trying to take these areas back, and taking bases they can use to bomb Japan. Once USA joins war Japan shouold competantly defend their home islands if the USA has a base in range. I would not expect each of these major actions to happen all of the time, but each of them should individually happen at least the majority of the time, since they are not only historical, but make good game sense for the nations involved, and indicate effective, active AI's.

Note that most of the things I listed here, are not just good history, but actually effective and sensible play for the AI's involved, so they should also satisfy the why worry about history as long as its fun crowd. All of these things should be easily testable in AI run games.

 

[unmerged(56429)]

I believe that Johan made a comment/joke during the development about an "historical" option in the game-setup. At the time it was scoffed at and apparently Johan did mean it to be a joke. However, I think that some sort of optional "historic" option will be the easiest way to appease both groups. When checked - diplomatic influences are no longer valid. The player and the AI would get diplo events that followed a reasonably close historic timeline, i.e. when to invite historic allies into their alliance, declare war, etc. (Obviously this would require a lot of work to do right). Players that enjoy the freeform play can just leave that option unchecked.

I'm not sure this is a reasonable choice either, since it involves an either or choice, either almost exact history, or none at all. I think what most people want is a decent middle ground, something that is not a complete historical duplicate, but at least has a historical feel, which the game does not have now, because of far too many bizarre actions, and not enough realistic ones.

 

[plasticpanzers]

I don't think folks want an exact historical game. Anyhow the first major nonhistorical
loss (say France holding out for 6 months) starts a progression of history changes. Those
changes are what will make the game playable, not hard-coded dates of events tho there
should be quite a few triggered by who owns what terrirory and threat levels that cause
the aggressor to declare war, attack, etc. Tone down the weird stuff, make smaller
nations REGIONAL rather than international in reach. Make alliances in war mean something.