A glance at HoI3

[The Brain]

It's worse than the real thing.

You hate freedom.

And with good reason too.

[saskganesh]

Fuck that shit.  They got my cash.  Maybe they can use it to make something decent.

ck2 !

[frunk]

It's a very ambitious design, but still has huge flaws.  It's fun to play around and it's possible to get a good game out of it, sometimes.  I love the fact that I don't have to micro-manage every single facet of the war.  I hate the fact that the ai sometimes goes stupid and either what should be a difficult battle becomes a walkover or I end up having to micro-manage it anyway.  I think between Paradox's patches and user mods it will become one of the great titles, maybe in a year or so.

I like that Paradox seems to be focusing on the elements that they should (performance, ai, interface, major systems).  The two major changes to the game that are crying out for adjustment are the weather and supply routing.  The weather doesn't work very well, and supply should be sourced at factories instead of the capital.  Mods can take care of map/balance/historical issues.

[Razgovory]

Fuck that shit.  They got my cash.  Maybe they can use it to make something decent.

ck2 !

That would be good. I'm very I'm somewhat wary of VIcky 2.

[The Brain]

Fuck that shit.  They got my cash.  Maybe they can use it to make something decent.

ck2 !

That would be good. I'm very I'm somewhat wary of VIcky 2.

Pick one.

[Josephus]

Fuck that shit.  They got my cash.  Maybe they can use it to make something decent.

ck2 !

That would be good. I'm very I'm somewhat wary of VIcky 2.

Well the problem with Vicky 2, I think, is that they're using HOI3 as the template for it.

[Kleves]

Well, against my better judgement, and because I had an expiring Best Buy coupon, I bought HoI3. 

After playing around for a bit, I have one major question: is the new HQ/Theatre system anything other than a huge complication that add little to the gameplay? It seems that it makes thing a great deal more fiddly, and I'm not sure I see the upside.

[MadBurgerMaker]

After playing around for a bit, I have one major question: is the new HQ/Theatre system anything other than a huge complication that add little to the gameplay? It seems that it makes thing a great deal more fiddly, and I'm not sure I see the upside.

It stops being complicated pretty quickly once you get used to it.  One thing I use the theater system for (when the damn AI assigns me the one I want, that is) is to tell one side to automatically defend...say, for example....the western border, while I attack some shitheel country in the east. 

[ulmont]

After playing around for a bit, I have one major question: is the new HQ/Theatre system anything other than a huge complication that add little to the gameplay? It seems that it makes thing a great deal more fiddly, and I'm not sure I see the upside.

Check out this AAR; I found that after reading it, I could defeat Poland in historical time without ever touching an individual unit.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=416326

[Darth Wagtaros]

Fuck that shit.  They got my cash.  Maybe they can use it to make something decent.

ck2 !

That would be good. I'm very I'm somewhat wary of VIcky 2.

I don't give a damn about Vicky.  Me want CK2. 

[Ideologue]

Fuck Hearts of Iron 3.

I was playing as Japan earlier today, and about a month into my southern campaign, got a message that the Americans were landing on Kwajalein.  Kwajalein was defended by a 2INF/1MIL/1ENG division with latest (1942) weapons and three naval bombers of the G4M type, with extra striking power over and above vanilla due to some modifications I made to the air-launched torpedo tech.  Even so, I figured that since I had the modern half of the Combined Fleet in Truk, I should sail out to go do some major damage to the USN.

Predictably, I rapidly defeated the invasion force, or at least the invasion force's escorts, which included only one CV against my four, and half or fewer my number of BBs and other surface combatants.  In fact, I sunk three or four transport flotillas.  I chased the Ameritards 'round the Antares Maelstrom and so forth, actually revolving the CVTF and surface action group around Kwajalein several times.

Then, somehow, transports that over 300 carrier borne aircraft, 300 land-based aircraft, and dozens of warships had missed, finished unloading troops onto Kwajalein, destroying my defense unit.

I want Paradox to explain to me how some sixty ships and six hundred aircraft FAILED TO FIND THE ACTUAL INVASION FORCE THAT WAS LANDING TROOPS ON MY BEACH.

Add to the absolutely dumbfounding naval warfare model the facts that units are perpetually and inexplicably out-of-supply in China and elsewhere and that Germany never attacks the Soviet Union because of a bug that should have been caught in beta game number one, and you have a complete cock-up of a game.

I don't think I'll be playing this for a while.  It's sad, my favorite part of the game is playing as Japan and building a modern, sophisticated navy--that I can't use at fucking all, because the naval model is so tremendously stupid.  I need to go back to WitP.

Johan, why don't you care about navies?  If you don't care about navies, why is Japan in the game?  Why not just focus on your mediocre Barbarossa-simulator?

[Josephus]

Johan, why don't you care about navies?  If you don't care about navies, why is Japan in the game?  Why not just focus on your mediocre Barbarossa-simulator?

Because they can't get Germany to attack Russia?

[Habbaku]

Germany never attacks the Soviet Union because of a bug

Please tell me this isn't true.

[Ideologue]

Germany never attacks the Soviet Union because of a bug

Please tell me this isn't true.

I can verify that they've never attacked the USSR in any games that I've played, where I haven't played as Germany... at least they hadn't struck by 1942.

I've heard scuttlebutt that there is a bug that the German AI will not attack the USSR when it's at war with neighboring powers--unfortunately, it counts occupied Poland as a neighboring power.  Anyway, this is what I've heard.

Kind of a non-issue for me, I guess, since I'm through with this game till/unless naval warfare is fixed to the point that half the carriers and every battleship in the Japanese navy can stop a half-assed American invasion attempt in February 1942.  I'd also like supply fixed, although it's a balance of evils, I guess, since I could easily demolish the Natchis if 75% of the Chinese Expeditionary Army wasn't at 0% supply and literally immobile all the time.

I might go back to the autosave and see if I can replicate what happened exactly.

[Razgovory]

I guess not being able to even get the game to start isn't so bad now.