Hearts of Iron IV

[frunk]

Two random thoughts:

Air combat doesn't work very well over water.  Assigning bombers to an area means they'll only fly when there's a target.  It doesn't matter how big or small a target is, as long as there's at least one the whole complement flies out.  Over land there's almost always a target with any area in conflict so they'll fly continuously.  Over water targets are much less consistent.  It looks like supply convoys won't attract their attention, but transport convoys or ships will.  If both sides have fighters assigned they'll beat the crap out of each other while their bombers flicker in and out, taking much fewer losses than their land targeting cousins (which already are far too little compared to fighters).  It looks like the best way to destroy the bombers is to establish air superiority and then bait the enemy bombers with cheap targets (minor country's division in a transport or sub) until they are reduced/eliminated.  This can take quite a while.

The mod Marching on your Stomach looks interesting.  Introduces supplies/fuel requirements for troops by using the attrition mechanism.  Supplies and fuel are equipment that you have to build in order to keep your divisions happy.  Supplies require steel, fuel requires oil.  Supplies and fuel both have very low reliability simulating their loss as units move/fight.  The oil requirement on building other equipment is removed.  It's neat but I think it needs to be extended to aircraft/ships to really work (he's working on it) and I'm worried that it will just mean the maintenance support will become an automatic add.

[DGuller]

In my German game, I found out just how good the Royal Navy is.  All my navies disappeared without a trace.  What the fuck?  Makes it really hard to play on Ironman mode if such bullshit happens.

[DGuller]

Naval warfare since the patch has been totally borked.  Royal Navy bothers you?  Just spam light cruisers, you'll execute it in a couple of engagements.

[frunk]

All you really need are naval bombers.  They take care of any fleet problems.

[DGuller]

All you really need are naval bombers.  They take care of any fleet problems.

Naval bombers are situational, light cruisers are fleet deleters everywhere they can operate.

[Valmy]

Naval combat must be all but impossible to simulate using this system. Paradox has had 14 years and four games to do it and they cannot even seem to do it adequately.

[Grallon]

I bought that yesterday.  I played as Canada, to be far away from the action while I fiddled around with the controls.  There was no Barbarossa in that game, Japan was a full fledged Axis member and had conquered all of India, Indochina and China.   When I joined the fray I in 1945 the Reich still controlled most of Northern Europe.  They did not capitulate even after Bremen, Hamburg and Hannover went up in nuclear fire in 1946.

Still, despite the streamlining of the mechanics, some basic actions like upgrading your armies or moving your air units seem overly complicated.  I shall explore some more.



G.

[Zanza]

I played a game with Germany in the 1939 scenario. After defeating Poland, I made France surrender in late 1939. I helped Italy a bit in Africa and in late 1940, I successfully conquered Britain in a naval invasion. My entire airforce controlled the channel and my puny navy even did some damage to the British fleet. Britain surrendered in late 1940 when my armies reached Scotland. The Soviets in my game look quite powerful though, but I guess once Japan has mopped up the last resistance in China, they don't stand a chance when we attack from both sides in 1941.

[DGuller]

Still, despite the streamlining of the mechanics, some basic actions like upgrading your armies or moving your air units seem overly complicated.  I shall explore some more.

Air warfare is a UI disaster, no doubt about it.  It also doesn't help that air mechanics are such that you need a shitload of small wings for most effective results, which runs counter to everything Paradox has tried to achieve in HOI4.

[crazy canuck]

Still, despite the streamlining of the mechanics, some basic actions like upgrading your armies or moving your air units seem overly complicated.  I shall explore some more.

Air warfare is a UI disaster, no doubt about it.  It also doesn't help that air mechanics are such that you need a shitload of small wings for most effective results, which runs counter to everything Paradox has tried to achieve in HOI4.

Yeah, every time I think of starting a game I think about the micro hell that is managing air forces and I do something else.

[DGuller]

I don't understand why air units couldn't be handled the same way as land units.  Why can't you have a template for the air wings, with default mission settings, and reinforcements for them handled much like reinforcements for tank units are handled?  Instead you have to basically define a template every time you want to deploy a wing.  Really dumbfounded by the design decisions there.

[Josephus]

I don't understand why air units couldn't be handled the same way as land units.  Why can't you have a template for the air wings, with default mission settings, and reinforcements for them handled much like reinforcements for tank units are handled?  Instead you have to basically define a template every time you want to deploy a wing.  Really dumbfounded by the design decisions there.

It's not that hard though. I just go "create new air wing" and cntrl click up to 50 planes from the reserves.

[DGuller]

I don't understand why air units couldn't be handled the same way as land units.  Why can't you have a template for the air wings, with default mission settings, and reinforcements for them handled much like reinforcements for tank units are handled?  Instead you have to basically define a template every time you want to deploy a wing.  Really dumbfounded by the design decisions there.

It's not that hard though. I just go "create new air wing" and cntrl click up to 50 planes from the reserves.

It's a whole bunch of clicks to mindlessly repeat, one wing at a time (you want to have multiple wings, even if it's the same airbase and region of operations).  And then you also have to select missions, operation hours, and minimum strength settings, one wing at a time as well, all of which usually stay the same regardless of circumstances.

[frunk]

Ideally I'd like to set up air wing creation in the division builder, then be able to assign newly created air wings either to a region or to a leader (just like you can with divisions).  Air wings assigned to a leader would follow them as they moved, rebasing as necessary.

That would be sweet.

[Josephus]

I agree the UI with a lot of this kind of stuff is annoying.

The thing I hate the most in the early game is figuring out where all my fleets are, and re-organizing them.

Everytime I start a new game, now, I'm saving the initial set up so I won't have to keep doing it.