Why different techs for INF, MIL and CAV?

[cfp]

Cavarly was made seperate from infantry, just as in HoI2, to act as a gate keeper for motorised units. It was there to make motorising your army extra effort rather, so that countries like China (for example) harder to field large motorised armies without effort. Militia was sperated from infantry for balance reasons. We felt that spamming out militia units should give you pretty poor units unless you have focused on giving yourself good troops.

Having Militia units be weaker than Infantry statistically should be enough to clearly separate the two units. Just because MIL and INF are both armed with K98ks doesn't mean they need to have the same stats. If they were combined, so that one tech upgraded both, MIL would still be inferior to INF divisions. Therefore, "balance" is a poor argument IMO.

That is sort of a non-answer. We know PI made the decision that it made, the question was why. If the rational for requiring duplicative research for the same technology for cavalry and infantry was to make research into motorization more costly, why couldn't that objective been achieved more logically, like requiring research into techs such as internal combustion engin, automotive manufacturing and troop transportation theory or whatever?

This. Instead of researching cavalry rifles to be able to motorize our infantry, we should be researching I.C.E. etc. The way it is set up now hinders immersion. "Let's research new mortars for our cavalry so that we will be able to motorize our infantry divisions." WHAT?!

We chose one and although people here disagree with the choice it is not like the game is fundamentally broken because of it. The conception is the same as HoI2's and no one suggests that the game is fundamentally broken.

These two statements are debatable. I would have to say that the research system, as a result of many useless and redundant techs, is quite broken.

if you keep doing it you might end somewhere else...
btw, it is really annoying!

If you don't like it, then don't read it. That's the beauty of the internet.

 

[NikkTheTrick]

This is the basic truth. There were mutliple ways in which the effect could be achieved. We chose one and although people here disagree with the choice it is not like the game is fundamentally broken because of it. The conception is the same as HoI2's and no one suggests that the game is fundamentally broken.

While game is not broken, the idea of having different techs for cavalry, infantry and militia is fundamentaly flawed. Expansion is being made right now: what better time to fix the issue?

Cavarly was made seperate from infantry, just as in HoI2, to act as a gate keeper for motorised units. It was there to make motorising your army extra effort rather, so that countries like China (for example) harder to field large motorised armies without effort.

It also makes cavalry completely worthless once motorised infantry is researched. 4 techs every 2 years is a lot of leadership. For anyone other than UK, USA or Germany that is prohibitively expensive. Even those three can find better use for that leadership. Especially given that utility of up-to-date cavalry is questionable even disregarding extra research costs.

Militia was sperated from infantry for balance reasons. We felt that spamming out militia units should give you pretty poor units unless you have focused on giving yourself good troops.

Except effect is completely opposite of balance: to have good militia one must keep militia techs up to date. To justify the expenditure, milita must be spammed. So, choices are to either spam militia or to have no militia at all. For a minor nation, that means choice of going all-infantry or all-militia (with tanks, etc. supplementing that army). As a result, militia often ends up being better than infantry (in large part due to having half the frontage of infantry). For majors, expenditure is already there in the form of militia doctrines. Once again, solution is simple: add militia-boosting effects to infantry techs and hit militia with a nerfbat (probably, frontage is a good place to start). Making infantry techs much more expensive would be fine too (after all, who is going to skip them? )

 

[bbasgen]

We soon will have a very simple solution to this oddity: DI:G in!

 

[jju_57]

We soon will have a very simple solution to this oddity: DI:G in!

But the posters want it for the minors they are playing and not Germany which is what DI:G is for.

 

[Kaiser Bill]

All the argumens about leadership costs are largely hogwash unless you arer playing a tiny nation or one not involved in the war. These are incerdibly easy techs to research both because they are low difficulty and becaues you amass a huge amount of land combat experience, which factors in to the calculation, very early as one of the majors. My Nazi infantry and even Itallian infantry i usally well ahead of the date and rarely takes more than 120 days to research. Just to stay on target would be considerably easier. Exactly how much militia are you hoping to field and why would you feel it needs to be as technologically advanced as your regular units?

 

[Sirveri]

Bottom line, you HAVE to make a choice early in development and then build around it. If you don't you end up in a circular situation where you're constantly having to rebalance everything against itself and then nothing gets done. Is their choice perfect... maybe not, but it does work and it accomplishes what they wanted it to accomplish. But more importantly it allowed them to move beyond that point and into setting up the rest of the game.

 

[Pugmak]

Personally, I tend to find the situation with the differing unit types to be playable and workable. I make a plan, decide what troop types I want to use, then research accordingly. I tend to justify the expenditures in other than leg infantry branches as operational training and equipment adaptations.

Stuff I'd like to see changed in the future, assuming there is a future:

I'd like to see militia/garrison made to stay at least a full step behind the standard leg infantry. By this I mean, train up your infantry techs and the militia is dragged along on spec, just a step or two behind the regular infantry. This would eliminate the mlitia/garrison techs. Militia tended to be "hurried up" infantry of less than desirable manpower. This would mimic the poorer equipage such troops had to use. The "hand me downs" of the "real" infantry. I'd also like to see some sort of option to purpose task additional leadership to the militia/garrison as a decision that can be made by a player, or AI. This would mimic the decision to put "real" infantry NCOs and Officers into the various unit types so that the sheep could be led by lions (to paraphrase one of the old Greek guys). This could also be coded into the minor nation AIs that would rely more on militia than the expensiver infantry.

Another change I'd like to see, someday, somehow... motorized infantry should, imo, positively impact infantry practicals at least a little bit. Motorized infantry were, after all, infantry that fought more like old school dragoons. They drove to near the fight, dismounted and fought on foot... like, you know, infantry. The greater bulk of the manpower in any motorized infantry division is, you know, infantry. Without infantry, there's little reason to do the motorized thingy. Motorized infantry techs would still serve to cover the time and effort to customize equipment for the task, develop operational methodology for the use of such units, the training time at command levels to rethink the logistics aspects of such units, etc and so on, but...

Motorized infantry still needs its division of infantry, which still is gonna receive much the same old school training as leg infantry, so why doesn't moto inf have at least a little boost to inf prac?

 

[Kaiser Bill]

I am most of the way there to agreeing with you Pugmak, but they are different. At one level then yes they are still almost entirely composed on riflemen who do their riflemen thing however they reached the battlefield. However, outside of the riflemen in the larger organisational picture they are really different. The whole point about motorising a division or better still, mechanising it, in the true sense is that we mechanise all of it. Now there is a very large practical difference in the application of a Hetzer compared with a 37mm At gun pulled by a team of horses.

Tactically for the rifleman very little has changed. Operationally or the division though, its a very different picture. It really does fight differently, and presumably better. They also tend to have a much larger quanitity of support arms such as compared to reuglar infantry divisions. They tend to have a comensurately smaller rifle strength too.

Of course, part of the problem is I am not exactly sure what a motorised division is suposed to be. I am perfectly happy with a motorised rifle brigade, but the rest of the gear? Once you start pulling a gun with a truck or tractor it is usually considered mechanised (historically speaking).

... then there is the oily business of truck mounted infantry - very popular in some armies, like we British... they don't get a look in. Regular infanty moved in trucks that belong to a higher organisational or central logistics pool... Why give every man a truck when you can have trucks for one regiment in the brigade and move the boys one regiment at a time.

 

[JOR2010]

How do you delete a post?

 

[JOR2010]

I'd like to see militia/garrison made to stay at least a full step behind the standard leg infantry. By this I mean, train up your infantry techs and the militia is dragged along on spec, just a step or two behind the regular infantry. This would eliminate the mlitia/garrison techs. Militia tended to be "hurried up" infantry of less than desirable manpower. This would mimic the poorer equipage such troops had to use. The "hand me downs" of the "real" infantry. I'd also like to see some sort of option to purpose task additional leadership to the militia/garrison as a decision that can be made by a player, or AI. This would mimic the decision to put "real" infantry NCOs and Officers into the various unit types so that the sheep could be led by lions (to paraphrase one of the old Greek guys). This could also be coded into the minor nation AIs that would rely more on militia than the expensiver infantry.

I agree with Pugmak here, why can we not just have MIL being two stages of technology behind, with say, slightly less organisation and morale, but PROPORTIONALLY less officers, not one-tenth of infantry?

 

[comsubpac]

i don't see the point in this discussion anymore. the devs designed it that way and they won't change it...

 

[JOR2010]

That's saying the entire game was designed in a certain way and they wouldn't change a thing. There have been several changes, patches, technology edits by Paradox, we're just discussing our ideas.

 

[Kaiser Bill]

i don't see the point in this discussion anymore. the devs designed it that way and they won't change it...

Two reasons I can suggest.

One being it gives people the chance to talk about their understanding of military organisation and people do like to talk about stuff they find interesting

Two because talking about something and expressing a view is quite a different thing from expecting it to be changed any time soon. I have played Paradox games for many years now and they have gone through many patches and many versions and there will be more versions in the future. There will probably be a HOI 7 one day and all this mass of infomation and discussion and feedback form the community all builds onto the design process.

 

[Pugmak]

I am most of the way there to agreeing with you Pugmak, but they are different. At one level then yes they are still almost entirely composed on riflemen who do their riflemen thing however they reached the battlefield. However, outside of the riflemen in the larger organisational picture they are really different. The whole point about motorising a division or better still, mechanising it, in the true sense is that we mechanise all of it. Now there is a very large practical difference in the application of a Hetzer compared with a 37mm At gun pulled by a team of horses.

Tactically for the rifleman very little has changed. Operationally or the division though, its a very different picture. It really does fight differently, and presumably better. They also tend to have a much larger quanitity of support arms such as compared to reuglar infantry divisions. They tend to have a comensurately smaller rifle strength too.

Of course, part of the problem is I am not exactly sure what a motorised division is suposed to be. I am perfectly happy with a motorised rifle brigade, but the rest of the gear? Once you start pulling a gun with a truck or tractor it is usually considered mechanised (historically speaking).

... then there is the oily business of truck mounted infantry - very popular in some armies, like we British... they don't get a look in. Regular infanty moved in trucks that belong to a higher organisational or central logistics pool... Why give every man a truck when you can have trucks for one regiment in the brigade and move the boys one regiment at a time.

I think we're more close to being same page than suspected.

I do believe that motorized, mechanized should have mobile specific practicals and those should dominate. But I also hold that since the brigades are built around infantry, some infantry practicle should be included.

The reasons for dominace of mobile prac is manifold, of course. Not only is it a new fangled organization but it is substantially different from standard leg infantry in many important ways.

The division moves much faster. The division can out run its own logistics train much easier. The logistics reqs for the division are substantially more complex. These things the new generals and subordinate officers/NCOs need training/drill/practical experience time to get a handle on when a new mot or mech div is created. A predominance of mobile prac makes sence to cover this. Also, a motorized/mech division requires a much larger commitment to repair shop and motor service personnel than a leg div.

But, there are still infantry in them. The reason they exist is the infantry in them. The infantry in them will still, by and large, fight like infantry and need to be trained up in infantry skills first and foremost.

My feeling is that the pracs should be 3/1 mobile/inf.

Or even betterer... 2/1/1 mobile/inf/repair. The repair because much, if not most, of the developments in repairing disparate mechanical thingamabobs in far away places in less than comfy settings is gonna be done by such units with such a massive number of vehicles that are going to need constant care and attention.

Such things as better/quicker/speedier/smoother protocol developments in the care and feeding of things that go broke tend to come from bottom up, rather than top down during war time. Well, actually, it goes more like explosive fallout. Someone figures something out that really helps improve the situation, then that thing gets picked up by higher and then rained down on all the lowers in a slightly muddled up and dumbed down SOP form.

 

[jju_57]

How do you delete a post?

Select edit then delete.