Your top five issues?

[MontanaPrussian]

Some things I hjave seen others mention that I had meant to bring up...

CTF screens shouls stay with the Carriers,and the the CAG should patrol all adjacent sea zones. There is no way in hell a SAG would get close enough to a CTF to engage,barring very bad weather.

Also,the Political System is completely out of wack,Ireland,Switzerland,Sweden,Portugal joining factions AT ALL should be extremely rare,if at all.

 

[Kayapo]

1- Strategic AI balancing and tweaking: Well, it's been said already but it is by far my primary issue. I would like to see the AI understanding their spheres of interest more and concentrate their efforts on small things rather then trying to do too much. (Example: The UK should focus on defending the home island first before caring about anything else)

2- Production AI: Again it's been said time and again but well...my second issue.

3- Naval Combat tweaking: I would love to see submarine warfare isolated and totally abstracted from normal combat but that might be asking too much. Still naval combat needs tweaking. Convoys and escorts need to cost more and matter more. Naval combat right now seems too bloody and quick it takes 1 hour to lose an entire fleet but at the same time you can't use small squadrons at all since you'll lose everything in the blink of an eye if you cross a bigger fleet (and they are always bigger).

These two factors seem very contradictory to me. Using big fleets feels to me like we are rather abstracting combat to be more of a "control of the sea zone engagement" type of thing then a toe to toe shoot them up. If the system was geared towards using smaller fleets then toe to toe battles would make a lot more sense, as it is now the whole 30x30 battles where there are 40 ships sunk just feels wrong and not a whole lot of fun.

A faster fleet should never have to fight a slow fleet unless it wants to.

4- Intelligence tweaking: Tibet influencing Venezuela? Just...NO! Getting people into factions should be more tweaked and rebalanced. Influencing countries is too easy and just feels a bit out of character. I can influence pretty much every country by the same amount just by picking them as a target. More factors should be taken into account. Ideological closeness should matter A LOT more.

5- Theaters and commands: I want to define my own theaters. The command chain needs a total UI overlook. Get someone that really knows about ease-of-use and accessability to make it more user friendly.

 

[unmerged(151400)]

1. Leader flavor: Extremely slow leader XP gain at all levels. This takes flavor out of the game since leaders never really gain skill levels and can't "learn" new traits. This would add tremendous flavor to the game -- and could even be a pop-up window setting (e.g. Field Marshall Rommel has gained a new skill level).
2. AI VP protection: AI does not protect VP provinces appropriately. I really believe that static VP and port defense forces make sense, because the AI is consistently unable to properly defend these areas. The AI should recognize VP, resource producing provinces, ports, and airbases, as having significant strategic value. Everything with strategic value should be defended. To avoid production/manpower issues, give the AI starting units for all these areas. Even static, standing garrisons are a good idea -- Moscow, Pearl Harbor, London, Suez, etc should NEVER be completely undefended.
3. AI defensive strategy: AI does not use defense in depth (especially as Soviet Union or China). AI needs to get away from putting everything on the front lines, and needs to understand that a mobile rear force has many essential elements: allows for proper strategic deployment to break throughs, allows proper defense in depth, etc. AI doesn't seem to understand the relationship between the need for a "front line" and the need for "reserve units" (e.g. it will completely dismantle a front line in order to have "reserves" to support a different front line). This could also be a build issue, as it is with the UK or Italy in Africa: there simply seems to be not enough troops to deploy, so whoever has a single militia brigade can take all of Africa and the Middle East.
4. AI multi-front war & unit utilization: AI does not prioritize fronts. AI doesn't defend borders properly -- it places disproportionate forces on a front against a weak potential adversary, while meagre forces are against a huge adversary. Meanwhile, some fronts are totally undefended (I'm thinking of AI USSR here with an Axis Romania, for example). This ties in heavily with the idea of "reserve" units above, as forces could be shuffled much better if the AI understands a reserve. Similarly, AI should know that infantry is what should be used for front lines: armor is best used by the AI for reserves and breakthroughs only. It is terrible seeing the AI waste armor by "protecting" some worthless province on a very long front line. AI really needs a firm understanding of how to use particular units.
5. Command organization: Command organization is an important and time consuming part of gameplay. Of all the game's new features, this is probably the most prominent due to how much time you spend with it. Thus, it really needs considerable focus. An easy way to organize your forces is very important (this has been suggested many times before as a GUI OOB screen). Increasing radio range trough technology would be much better than through adding Militia brigades, for example. Radio range is surprisingly important in that the greater the range, the less micromanagement of command is required. Also, theater creation needs drastic improvement: Ideally, we ought to be able to define theaters as we see fit. At the least, it should work during war in a rational manner.

P.S. Thanks for asking!

I agree on all of this.

 

[thedarkclown85]

1: The fact that you can make a naval invasion anywhere! escepically against the ai this is bad since you can always just land nex to the harbour or where their units are place and avoid the penalties. Futhermore there is absolutly no way of guessing where an invasion might land and try to defend that area...Somekind og beach system would be nice so it was only possible to do invasions in harbours and a few other places..

2: Manpower, especially for soviet

3: General dificulty...It seems way to way to easy to conquer everyone even one hard...need more challange...maybe achived through better AI manegement of trops. For example have more than on line of defense that you need to break through in order to reach Moscow...

4: Some way to coordinate strategy with you AI allies...for example make a joint invasion with UK and US in Germany etc

5: some more descisions that makes sure that at least a partly historical development in the war happens...for example Germany declares war on soviet around 41 if france is out, japan declares war on USA etc

 

[Liquid Ghost]

4: Some way to coordinate strategy with you AI allies...for example make a joint invasion with UK and US in Germany etc

That's a tough one, and several people have mentioned it.

The only thing I can think of (other than everyone sending expeditionary forces to a single Ally) is the Allies creating a supranational entity, 'Allied Command', and all everyone surrendering their expeditionary forces to it, creating then a single chain of command for all of them. I guess minister benefits and techs are resolved as per the original owner. But what about the supplies? And also, what about leaders? Do you take them away from the owner for use on this entity? In a single player game the player controls it, but what about a multi-player game? Conquered territory becomes Allied territory unless its liberated. But who gets the resources from said provinces?

 

[Klaus Vitts]

Thanks for this thread.

1. Of course the AI. However, I don't hold out too much hope. Even after all of the patches and add ons of Hoi2, the AI was never more than a speed bump. Only DAIM or TRP made the game interesting but, hardly, a challenge.

2. The alignment of countries. Firstly, create a neutrality point in the middle of the triangle, to which nations can align. Secondly, lower the conversion rate of leadership to spies and diplomacy. Something like .025 and .15, respectively. This will make any diplomacy and espionage almost too expensive for any but the major players. Thirdly, raise the alignment rate so it takes both an espionage and diplomatic effort to sway a country.

3. The strategic air war. In this the answer is simple. Lower the air defense of the strategic bombers. Also, the +2 air attack that is applied to the interceptor with single engine airframe should be added to the multirole and cag units. I have implemented this and unescorted bombers get shredded.

4 One that has not been brought up yet. The air to naval combat is truly underpowered. The naval attack value on cags and naval bombers should be raised and the air attack and defense of naval vessels should be lowered. A ship, caught close to land without air cover before '44 should not survive. Even carriers shied away from land based aircraft during this time period. HOI2 represented this very well. I have been playing with this as well.

5. Allow a player to set a minimum function level. As in Hoi2, when a unit fell to a certain level of organization or manpower, it would stop performing its mission and return to a base.

I, really, must commend PI on a truly new concept. It has so much potential. I hope you are able to overcome the hurdles.

 

[Yorkist]

Ok, I have experience of only 2 games with 1.3, but here goes:

1. AI Japan getting pounded in china, Shanxi always conquers manchu & korea in my games.

2. AI GB failing to protect suez/middle east against italy ( I managed to sweep the resistance aside with one armoured and one motorized division).

3. AI not respecting bad infra enough. In the same attack as point 2 GBs one armoured division was bumbling around in the infrastructure 20 desert provinces, got bypassed and suffered horrendously at the hands of my CAS & TAC.

4. Manpower issue in GER vs SU war. I actually haven't seen this but it sounds very worrying.

The game is fun as is for a while, but a tad too easy as the AI doesn't do a good enough job defending. Otherwise the military AI combined with the command structure is the best thing since sliced bread .

 

[unmerged(139045)]

- I'm sorry if this has been mentioned before - but the channel islands super stack is almost completely game-breaking. Germany masses over a million men against six hundred thousand allied troops, and is unable to do anything, attacking at like 2 - 4% efficiency. It's crazy!

- Trying to select alot of units, usually I can't scroll down if there are more units than the screen allows, so I have to X out alot of units. Time consuming.

- Not being able to choose supply routes is an annoying one.

- The AI doesn't make use of it's overall command structure, I loaded up Germany from one of my save files and some of its divisions were 1000 km from their parent corps!

Of course some of these may be my naivety about the game's mechanics, and don't get me wrong: I absolutely love HoI and HoI3 is no exception!

 

[unmerged(52507)]

1. The Dominions must start as Britain's allies. Australia and Canada in the Axis is the most ridiculous thing in the game.

2. Suppression should be allowed after annexation to give MP and Gar bdes a role, and to be a bit more realistic.

3. Eng bdes are far too weak and need to be made a lot cheaper or they need to be strengthened.

4. Submarines are too expensive and should be made a bit cheaper.

5. This may be too much of a stretch, but support bdes attached to Corps should give some bonus to divisions in the samecorps and same province. This would remove some of the uselessness of many of the support bdes.

 

[bluepoo]

after reading through alot of non-ai related issues, i just do have to point out a thing. alot of the issues such as australia joining the axis and switzerland joining the axis etc is all relative. whether its historically accurate or not, thats something else. if you do something that creates an insecure atmosphere in the world, more often than not will you find reprecussions of your actions. it all depends on your actions.

i had switzerland join the allies while i was playing as germany. as a result, italy invaded and took over switzerland. what did i do for switzerland to dow on me? i sent in way too many spies for a long period of time disrupting their unity while they (switzerland) were being pushed closer to the allies camp by allied influence. oh yea, and they had a hostile neighbor to the north that had become way too beligerent by invading poland, the benelux and france. it also depends on how strong the country's unity is and what political party is in power. the foreign minister you appoint doesnt help either.

i was even playing as the americans and the canadians didnt like the fact that i had spies operating in and meddling with their politics. and they didnt like they fact that i had re-organized my military by putting them on the border. so i found myself (as americans) being the most the canadians felt threatend by.

its all relative on the decisions you make during game play. whether its historically accurate or not, thats another discussion or something the devs can offer gamers of hoi3, an historically accurate gameplay of ww2.

i'm thinking the point if you're playing from the '36 campaign, is that you decide which path you want to take. if you want a more historicall approach, then choose one of the scenarios. if those are flawed, then bring it to the attention of the devs and i'm sure they would gladly look into it and fix it.

its just that this simple fact of it being relative to the decisions you make during your gameplay, has been lost on alot of gamers who ridicule the diplomacy structure. i havent had, during any of my games any country other than the defaulted countries join comintern. and thats with the fact that most european countries have a communist party. why is that? if there was something wrong with the faction line ups and who joins which faction or not, then you would find alot of those countries with existing and powerful communist parties join the comminterm.

its all relative to what you do (or not do) and what the ai diplomacy does in return.

 

[mbabbs]

That's a tough one, and several people have mentioned it.

The only thing I can think of (other than everyone sending expeditionary forces to a single Ally) is the Allies creating a supranational entity, 'Allied Command', and all everyone surrendering their expeditionary forces to it, creating then a single chain of command for all of them. I guess minister benefits and techs are resolved as per the original owner. But what about the supplies? And also, what about leaders? Do you take them away from the owner for use on this entity? In a single player game the player controls it, but what about a multi-player game? Conquered territory becomes Allied territory unless its liberated. But who gets the resources from said provinces?

The ability to request Exp forces and to diplomatically set targets for Allied Theatre AI would solve this I think.

My issues with the game have mostly been covered already in this thread, but to repeat in a general sense in no particular order

- Allied cooperation
- Performance
- AI Unit production
- AI aggression, defence in depth and mobile forces
- Battle of the Atlantic: Subs need to be an effective tool and more focus on Convoy\Escorts
- Battle of the Pacific: Needs to have an island hopping strategy.

Also I'd like to see Paradox engaging some posters and getting them involved (if this doesnt happen already). Its clear that some posters have some very good ideas, are active members of the board, research the game\history in depth and could provide an excellent contribution. I've read some good ideas on sub warfare, manpower balance etc and opinions would help a lot I think.

 

[unmerged(87603)]

1. Proper ability to make peace (EU3 style) and redrawing of borders after war. (it's unrealistic that the UK wouldn't make peace with the Axis if mainland Britain was taken, providing that the US isn't in the allies)

2. Ability to request exp. forces from your allies.

3. A naval combat system that works. Make CVs usefull again. And fix the problem with fleets following allied fleets into ports while on patrol.

4. Realistic alliances. It's suicide when Holland joins the allies before the german attack on western europe.

5. A working supply system. The 30 day supply shouldn't be used up in two days. (A return of the offensive supply button, where selected units could gain additional supplies for at higher price)

 

[Phelan]

1. A screen to set up and change OOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Fleet Composition AI: As Japan I battled a long pacific war with the usa. But the fleets the us sends to me, were always very small and often without screens, for example 3 BBs and 1 CV but no screens. And a day later 2 DDs. And a Day later 1BC ... etc. Only a single time I encountered a real fleet with everthing together. I think the narval AI has to learn, to wait and build a complete fleet, before she is allowed to give any orders to this fleet.

3. Message Problem: When I send a narval unit on convoy raiding and have the message type "Inform me when a narval unit arrives" on, the I always get for every seazone this message. I only want to know when a fleet arrives, when they dont have a continous order. And turning the message of is not an option. I think there was a similar problem with planes, which is resolved with 1.3.

4. Interface Tooltip: When I hover the mouse over an counter or sprite I would like to see the names of the units. I always have to click on them to see which unit it really ist

5. Interface: When I hover the mouse over an counter or sprite I would like to see the command structure, i.e. to which unit the unit belong and which units are subordinated. I think to implement this a hotkey should defined, i.e. if I press ctrl and hover the mouse over a counter I see blue light on subordinate counter /sprites and green light on unit higher in the hirarchie.

 

[unmerged(181530)]

ryaninatree

2)I spend a large part of my time reorganizing my army (just as others do). Some divisions and corps have no leaders when there are leaders available. I also like to rename
my corps to make it easier. As of now these tasks are very tedious and boring.

Gaizokubanou
1. Improved military heirarchy organizer. As others mentioned before, making your military HQ structure should be more streamlined. For minors current way is ok, but for
majors, how annoying it is to set up the HQ system from corps to army group level makes me think twice before starting up a new game.

I agree, I wanted to do it for my game but it look too complicated so I let the AI select my officers and chain of command for me. I know it would make my wars more effective if i would select the right men to lead my armies with the right abilities and stuff. It's just too much work to do for me right now.

1. Poor sub performance.

I'm playing Germany now and the sub should be their main naval units but they always get sank so I stopped using them which is sad i find.

teramel0s
- Trying to select alot of units, usually I can't scroll down if there are more units than the screen allows, so I have to X out alot of units. Time consuming.

I forgot to mention that one in my management of unit number one problem in HoI 3. Thanx Teramel0s for writing it for me

Ilhador
1- When Germany invades France, there isn't any British troops there. In the reality, 1/3 oh the Allied forces are used to be from UK.

Me when I invaded France, around half way through on my way to Paris there was a huge army of british blocking me the way and i believe other allied aswell in the stack.

 

[Federkiel]

1. Ahistorical gang-ups in factions
I see no problem with the fact of CW dominions starting / quickly drifting towards ALLIES faction. But i see serious problems with their (and UK puppet's) espionage and diplomacy activities. They are too aggressive and too effective at the same time. This gang-up causes too many countries to follow up - even before the war has begun as well as emasculating AXIS in the field of espionage.
AXIS in turn should not influence too many countries, too. Spain, Greece, Portugal, Yunnan in AXIS for no reason is as weird as is USA, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland and more in ALLIES - for no reason, too.

2. Options in diplomacy
It's virtually impossible to share common war goals with allies. Territory of common conquests should be shared between faction members. At least it should be possible to request / cede territory within a faction.
Also cores of a nation should never end up 'occupied' in case the owner holds them. Why at all is province output reduced and partisans show up in what is considered homeland? Please do the whole matter similar to what it was in HoI 2. The mechanics worked well there.

3. Threat and AI force disposition
The border between Manchuria and USSR is one of the most prominent examples that this does not work properly. Sadly, it also might be the most game-breaking issue as it ruins AI JAP entirely and USSR overcommits there, too (what makes USSR defeat against GER much more probable as well).
AI also should not endlessly produce land units. It should recognise that HQ's needs will be fulfilled as soon as the units in queue already are being finished. This would also heal the manpower problems that do not arise at all with a reasonable build up on part of player and AI alike.
IMPORTANT: Practical bonuses for finished production should be applied to units in the queue!

4. strategic warfare
To make SUBs worthwile at all, the costs of SUBs and CONV need a serious overhaul. While SUBs work better than in 1.2, the CONV requirements got severly reduced. This counters any improvement regarding SUBs. SUBs are too expensive (and research intensive) in relation to CONV to make sense in the current state of the game.
Unity effects of strategic warfare (air/sea) should be applied properly. It MUST become possible to intercept STRATs.
SIDENOTE: Sadly, CAS and FTR are useless, too. Please reconsider their stats to make them worthwile to build at all.

5. Technological issues with '36 campaign
Research bonuses not working has be examined already and is claimed to adressed in patch process.
Still, it would be ever more nonsense if UK really gains 11% research bonus with '41 techs being finished before '36 has even begun! Unreasonable, imbalanced and a blunder for no proof or reason. Turing was a pure theorist and it needed Konrad Zuse to do in reality what Turing only did dream of.
Also, GER requires at least one tech level in CV because in the current state they cannot start to build one in '36 as they historically did.

 

[jacco]

My Top 7...

First of all I`d like to say thanks for starting this Thread, it`s a very good idea !

I play as Italy most of the time, so here are my problems.

1) When I build marines, paratroopers and transport planes and order the AI to take Greece he could take the two victorypoint-provs easily launching an airborne assault and an amphibious assault. Instead the AI uses my para`s and marines as normal infantry and sends them to the frontline. The transport planes stay on the ground and my well prepared amphibious taskforce is split up in little units patrolling the different seas.

2) Blitzkrieg. I see my tanks fighting on the frontline now, but I never see blitzing movements. I think when I order the AI to blitz he should break through and then rush on to one or more strategic objectives deeper in enemy territory. But the tanks always stay together with the infantry.

3) UK is not putting up a fight in Africa and Malta is too weakly defended.

4) It would be nice if allies could share technology

5) I miss a "demand territory" option in the diplomacy. Now Italy has claims on Yugoslavia but cannot demand territory.

6) Not all convoy routes are visible in the supply mapmode.
I traded for example with Japan, UK and America, but only the convoy to Boston was on the map. Why not the others ?

7) And last but not least: Teach the AI to properly defend its borders against invasion. Too many provs are undefended !

Well, that`s about it. Good luck with 1.4 !!

 

[Juippi]

There is a flaw in game mechanics right now that will always lead to wars that are way too short, this is most evident in a war between Germany and Soviet union.

And the problem is, there is no way for the units to recover from the initial clash at the border, once you get the enemy running, they keep running until they get encircled or overrun. I am sure many of you have loaded as Russia in 1941 when you wondered why Germany advances so fast and seen that Soviet Union has practically no army left. Thats because this happened to them. No amount of manpower for Soviet Union fixes this (altough I admit it is too low). Even defense on depth doesnt really fix this problem, there will be just few smaller bumps on the road instead of one big bump.

Few possible solutions:

1. Scale the org regain speed so that its faster when org is very low and slower when its very high, this gives retreating units atleast a small chance to delay the enemy and eventually attacker will run out of steam and have to recover before next push.

2. Reduce combat speed.

3. Increase speed of routing units.

 

[Hptm. Jaadoo]

1. game speed
game is no definetly playable, concerning the speed, but in the later years it's still to slow for my taste. which is varying depending on what country you're playing...

2. interface lag
when playing a big nation with quite some IC there often is interface lag in the production interface, depending of course on how much is in the productionlist.
Since I often improve the infrastructure of my provinces my list is always quite full, so I get the lag a lot.

3. Army hierachy/Combat AI
I'd like to see that the theatre-Ai puts troops, i give to it automaticly, in a good military hierachy (corps, army, armygroup, theatre) and not puts them subordinated to it self etc.
I also like to see, that the combat-Ai does fighting properly on his own, without me interfering all the time. e.g.: my troops just stand at front and nothing really happens, then when i add or delete an objective it starts moving again a does a rela good job. OR when i give obejectives and nothing happens, until i take a division and conquer a province (for example as germany attacking norway, or any other ambhipious attack) and then the ai does what it should have done quite some time ago.
It would also be nice, if the Ai wouldn't take so much troops when invading that they run out of supplies, because their demand is just do high

4. theatres
Please make the theatre-creation more intelligent. ones i pushed the nice button to adjust my theatres and the result was that one theatre was divided by another in the middle. beside the fact that it's just stupid...the ai just coudln't handle it.
It would also be great if could influence the creation of theatres a little bit.
so for example, that if i land in india (as germany) and try to adjust the theatres that i acutally get a new one for india and that region and not that it belongs to the east-front-theatre. also i want Gb allways be seperat theatre because the ai always things it need some much troops to hold that damn island even it would be enough to keep a few division there (I dont need the same amount of troops in gb as in france/western theatre)

5. names of hq's
PLEASE make it so that if I play Germany or any other non english-speaking country, that the HQ's don't get standart names in english when i create new ones. for example if creat a corps as germany the name should allways be armeekorps ...., a army allways .... Armee, and a army group is a heeresgruppe.
I#m really tired of all the HQ Corps etc. It costs to much time and energy to change it every time. and it costs some flavor of the game

 

[Laffertytig]

1 - fix the issue with the AI always movin units outa range of its hq
2 - stop the AI from reorganising forces when under AI control. be it land air or sea.

everything else has been covered in previous posts.

 

[Razor]

My top five (6) contribution

1. AI protecting it’s back. Example: I’ve often seen the German AI using too large portion of their forces in a war against for instance the Soviet Union, leaving none or an insufficient number of units to protect its back and mainland.

2. Manpower use and balancing. AI nations overproducing units making mobilizing reduce their reserves to nothing. Nations should be able to mobilize forces to an historically reasonable level and still have a resonable reserve. Also minor nations with unhistorical (too small or too large) total manpower and monthly gain figures. Examples (comparisons with German MP): Finland too large, Netherlands too small, Belgium too small, Poland too large etc. Please also add to the manpower tool tip information about how much manpower will be consumed in a mobilization so that the player will know how many more units he or she can afford to build.

3. Overall strength balancing. Example: If Germany attacks the Soviet Union early or on historic time table in the 1936 scenario, they will probably steamroll the red army. I find this a bit unrealistic. The Soviet should be better at replacing their losses, have more forces or manage their forces in a better way.

4. AI allied seaborne invasions of the European continent with too small forces to stand a chance. I’ve often seen especially Great Britain but also USA conduct invasions with just a few divisions which of course is thrown back into the sea by overwhelming German strength. Invasion attempts should be conducted but with forces giving it a chance.

5. Weserubung and northern Europe.
5.1. Weserubung: I’ve only seen Germany make a seaborne invasion of Norway twice, both times in 1.2. The German AI should be more willing to launch weserubung rather than “hoping” to go through Sweden.
5.2. A German dow on Sweden depend on a lack of Iron trades with Sweden. At the same time it’s really difficult to make the German AI request iron from Sweden. Germany should be more reluctant to buy iron from Sweden, I believe. Maybe there should be such a trade agreement from the very start of some scenarios, especially the 1936 scenario.
5.3. Finland should be more reluctant to join Germany in Barbarossa as in real life. It should not be hard coded but more likely.

6. Too important not to be mentioned, thus adding a number six. AI determination to clean up pockets. Example: I’ve often seen the German AI leave pockets of resistance in France for months and even years even though they have forces strong enough in the neighborhood to clean them up.