Is anyone else puzzled by Pdox's half-hearted 'rollout' of Hearts of Iron IV?

[IronX]

Wow, they really got that forecast wrong. Oh well, I'm fine with waiting till later this year. Delayed games is pretty much the norm these days anyway.

[Hofstadter]

Oh my god that battle plan feature looks like so much fun

[sandman2575]

It looks amazing.  I've always pined for a wargame that would let you in essence recreate the kinds of maps you see in military history books, with their unit symbols and arrows and frontlines.  In HoI3 you could draw the arrows on the map to your heart's content, but it was completely cosmetic, affected gameplay in no way.  Here, it's going to be the main mechanic for carrying out operations.

I truly cannot wait. I have no doubt there will be birth pangs and bugs aplenty at first, but I think if anyone can pull this off, it's Paradox.

[George]

Very interesting feature indeed, I'm very interested in their approach as we're planning to use a similar approach to commanding units in our upcoming game. HOI IV's approach does seem to lack more than a single level of hierarchy, but given the game's scope it could be enough to avoid a lot of clicking. I wonder if they let you name the groups...

[sandman2575]

HOI IV's approach does seem to lack more than a single level of hierarchy, but given the game's scope it could be enough to avoid a lot of clicking. I wonder if they let you name the groups...

This has been a sticking point for me as well. I really loved HoI3's OOB organization, from Theatre down to divisional level. While I'm all for streamlining (and Lord knows there's much that can be streamlined from HoI3), the fact that they've tossed the OOB out the window in HoI4 doesn't feel great to me. I especially think the Division-Corps-Army-Army Group structure is needed, with emphasis on Corps, which seem the biggest casualty in the new system. Essentially you can 'lasso' a bunch of divisions and call it an "army" but that feels like a big step backward to the old days of "Stack = Army" of HoI1 and 2.

They've eliminated divisional commanders, and I actually think that's a good move -- the micromanagement of HoI3 with assigning divisional generals was tedious -- and on the scale HoI depicts, the quality of divisional generals cannot be really be considered a major factor. I would not say the same of Corps commanders, though. The idea that there are no Corps (less a problem for the Zhukov-reformed Red Army, but regardless) is a big drawback in my book.

Regardless, it's a somewhat minor thing to have to compromise on, given all else that HoI4 seems to be doing right.

[Hofstadter]

How the heck can you get rid of corps structure. Thats the backbone of the allied armies

[Ian C]

There's a feature on Theatres here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads%2Fhearts-of-iron-iv-41st-development-diary-22nd-of-january-2016.903595%2F



Quote:

"In HoI4, we call our basic military unit for a division, even if it may be as small as a single battalion, or as large 30 battalions. These can be grouped into what we call Armies. They have been referred to as command groups in the past, but that concept was a bit confusing. An Army is the entity which interacts with battleplans, and be given a commander. You can have as many armies as you want, but you need at least 1 division in each. Each Army can be named to whatever you want it to be*.

Armies are organised in Theatres, which is a convenient aspect to group divisions according to your needs. Theatres do not have a specific area they cover, but besides giving a proper UI for quick access and a reference name, you can also define the reinforcement priority for that theatre compared to others."

*In essence you can have those armies organised as Corps, if I understand correctly.

List of previews of game features in developer diaries : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-developer-diary-archive-live-stream-videos.847266/

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

If their goal was to make it less confusing, they failed.

[undercovergeek]

so has the whole concept of been able to design your divisions been dropped - i used to experiment with 3 elements of infantry and engineers, or 3 inf and 1 artillery, the same for the tank divisions?

[Ian C]

so has the whole concept of been able to design your divisions been dropped - i used to experiment with 3 elements of infantry and engineers, or 3 inf and 1 artillery, the same for the tank divisions?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-dev-diary-6-division-design.783017/

[undercovergeek]

hmmmmmm  :-\

[OJsDad]

If their goal was to make it less confusing, they failed.

Totally disagree.  I think it's pretty straight forward.

[sandman2575]

I do think overall HoI4 will be a lot more accessible and less confusing than HoI3 -- in the same way that EUIV improves on EUIII. Not less complex overall, but more user-friendly, with more information presented 'up front' so it's not a mystery why x is happening rather than y. And I'm sure the UI will be a big upgrade over HoI3 (not to mention the map -- HoI3's map holds its place of honor as the worst map Paradox has ever produced...)

[George]

I do wonder why they keep coming up with their own ideas for these mechanics, instead of falling back on something that resembles history. I get that you wouldn't want to confuse/burden the more casual gamer with having to study actual history, but that's the aspect of historical games I always found most appealing: if you DID your homework, you could become a better player. Figuring out some designer's abstract/streamlined reinterpretation of something like this, is less appealing to me.

[OJsDad]

It was stated early on after HOI4 was announced that the AI had a lot of trouble handling the hierarchy, thus they decided to drop it.