[HoI3] Hearts of Iron 3 - Allgemein

[noxx-0]

Hello, and welcome to the eight chapter of the HoI3 developer diary. This last week has been as busy as usual, with plenty of progress on naval combat, map design, orders & espionage.

Well last week we talked a bit about the division design system and promised you a bit more about land units. First off I suppose we start with the basic philosophy. We felt that the Heart of Iron 2 Division as a concept worked and worked well. So the division as an operation unit has not gone under any radical changes. Instead we have sought to improve the environment in which the division operates-

In previous developer diaries we talked about the additional provinces we added to make the combat more fluid, the frontage system to make combat more than the biggest stack and the division design system to make divisions more unique. So what else could we add to divisions?

However to add some much needed suspense and drama to this developer diary first we must diverge. As promised we will first give you a quick run through of what the symbols were in the previous developer diary. Although before we do that a quick health warning, these are alpha screen shots the numbers you see are purely place holders. So don’t try to read too much into them.

So running from left to right you see of course Strength and Organisation. The next one is a new concept of combat width. Then we have the three attack values; soft, hard and air attack. Then the three defensive values; when you are on the defence, on the attack and air defence. The next one is unsurprisingly the speed of the unit. Then we have suppression value. The next two are supply and fuel consumption. Then we have IC cost, manpower cost and time.

Most of these concepts are very familiar to those of you who played the previous incarnations of Hearts of Iron so you are probably wondering what we did add? As we mentioned in the presentation in Leipzig, we have added a command structure. Divisions now fit into a multilevel command structure. From Theatre, Army Group, Army, Corps through to Division. Each level has its own commander that gives its own bonus according to his skill level. At division level you get a bonus to combat while a corps commander increases the chances of reserves joining combat. Our goal is to leave you wanting good commanders at each level thus leaving you to think about should you promote that Major General to a Lieutenant General and give him command of a corps? At every position in the command structure, you can insert a leader of the designated rank.

Another important aspect of this is the fact that every division is its own unit on the map, and so is every HQ above it. Now you may think that this will increase micromanagement? Well, we have some pretty interesting plans on how to handle unit orders.

Well, having almost finished with land units, one thing left is what are we doing about supply. Maybe that should be next week’s dev diary?

To end this weeks development diary, we’re going with a few screenshot of South America, where so many of the major battles of WW2 was.

Quelle

[noxx-0]

Welcome to the 9th chapter of the development diary. We are continuing working on naval combat, and developing various logics to how naval units behave. It is also rather exciting to see the progress of the new espionage system.

Probably the truest maxim in war is that amateurs study tactics and professionals study logistics. When coming to do a game of the scope of Hearts of Iron 3 we knew that logistics would have to be one of the key constraints on your actions. However at the same time we aren’t making World War II Logistics Manager: Deliver Shells for the Fatherland, so although it should be important we felt that it should not be the be all and end all of the game.

[Just a note on terminology here, we have fuel and supplies. However through out this developer diary I am simply going to refer to both of them together as supplies.]

With this philosophy in mind we have totally rewritten the logistics system, there is no longer TC. Instead supplies move from your capital out to your units. The amount of infrastructure in a province acts as a limit to the amount of supplies you can move. The supplies advance on a daily basis. In addition there is a supply tax, the further your unit is from its supply source the more supplies it consumes. After all, supplies don’t move themselves; you are going to need people to move them, who in turn also consume supplies. In addition each unit carriers a small amount of supplies with them, if they cannot draw supply they will start to consume these instead. Like Hearts of Iron 2 if a unit is abroad it will have a supply stockpile point that acts as a base for its supply. However there is one additional factor, when convoying supplies abroad the maximum amount of supplies you can send is limited by the size of port. The bigger the port the more supplies you can ship in. The control of ports is very important if you wish to wage campaigns overseas.

So let’s talk a little about what this means in practice. First off, and sticking with our design philosophy, the actual nuts and bolts of delivering supplies to your units is automated. From the player perspective, logistics is something you work with not something you have to constantly manage.

When it comes to the actual supply itself the most important thing to remember is that supply lags, how many supplies a province asks for is based on how many it needed yesterday. Thus your ability to simply mass units for an offensive is limited by the fact that it will take time for your supply network to adjust. Since this request then needs to ripple back down through the supply network, you need time to prepare your troops for an offensive. This in turn gives the enemy a better chance to detect and prepare for it via intelligence. Also, coming back to that recurring theme of the superstack, with it now being possible to only deliver a finite amount of supplies you can no longer stack unlimited units in a province, especially not one sitting out in the middle of no where.

When advancing you start to devastate the infrastructure, dramatically reducing the amount of supplies a province can draw. Although given time infrastructure will recover, in the mean time the unit will start living off the supplies it is carrying. Sooner or later you are going to have to halt to allow your supply lines to catch up. When defending since your units have supplies and each province also has supplies, it means if your units are encircled they are no longer just simply out of supply; they will have a number of supplies inside the pocket allowing them to fight on for a while.

This system also puts new life into the logistical strike mission. Bombing infrastructure behind enemy lines will reduce the capacity of their supply network. Making it harder to keep their units at full fighting efficiency. Logistical strike missions can assist either the attacker or the defender, because troops always need supplies.

Technology is also your friend here. One of the logistics techs you can research will improve the number of supplies you can draw per level of infrastructure. So as you improve in this area which choice do you take? Do you use your improved supply capacity to put more units into the front lines to improve your punch on the offensive, or do you use the same number of units but with your improved draw ability sustain the advance that little bit longer? Well that’s what strategy is all about, the choices you are faced with.

I know we’ve sort of rambled on a bit here, but the logistics system was something we put a lot of work into designing and implementing and we are really pleased with the results.

Here is an example of the logistics mapmode, where you can see how the supply networks in France are going, while you also see the convoys going to and from France proper, depicted with arrows.

Quelle

edit: noch n screen:

[cjwet]

Irgenwie bekomme ich bei der Karte das Gefühl man muss wirklich um jedes kleine Dorf kämpfen.
Ob das wirklich so eine gute Idee ist, mit den vielen Provinzen?
Wie lange wird dann wohl eine Partie dauern?

[noxx-0]

Also ich finde das so wesentlich besser als bei HoI2 mit vielen Provinzen ...

[[VK]]

Irgenwie bekomme ich bei der Karte das Gefühl man muss wirklich um jedes kleine Dorf kämpfen.
Ob das wirklich so eine gute Idee ist, mit den vielen Provinzen?
Wie lange wird dann wohl eine Partie dauern?

Tja so war das halt im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg - das wurde glaub sogar um die Strassen gekämpft. Das ist übrigens Allgemein in einem Bürgerkrieg so.

War auch im Russischen so, da haben die Zarisiten in den Dörfern die ganzen Bauern ermordet, während die Kommunisten die ganzen Adligen, so das am Ende niemand mehr da war. (Quelle: Oma)

Ausserdem wird man zwar länger kämpfen aber dafür schneller durch die Provinzen düsen. Also der Weg Paris - Berlin wird zeitlich genau so lange dauern

[goethe]

Irgenwie bekomme ich bei der Karte das Gefühl man muss wirklich um jedes kleine Dorf kämpfen.
Ob das wirklich so eine gute Idee ist, mit den vielen Provinzen?
Wie lange wird dann wohl eine Partie dauern?

ist doch gut, wenn eine Partie lange dauert

[Mark]

Kleine Videos bei den Ereignissen wären doch nett. Und eine Textmeldung, wenn und wieviele Division in einem Kessel gefangen genommen wurden.

[Der Falke]

Tja so war das halt im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg - das wurde glaub sogar um die Strassen gekämpft. Das ist übrigens Allgemein in einem Bürgerkrieg so.

War auch im Russischen so, da haben die Zarisiten in den Dörfern die ganzen Bauern ermordet, während die Kommunisten die ganzen Adligen, so das am Ende niemand mehr da war. (Quelle: Oma)

Ausserdem wird man zwar länger kämpfen aber dafür schneller durch die Provinzen düsen. Also der Weg Paris - Berlin wird zeitlich genau so lange dauern

Hey, im WW2 wurde in jeder Stadt um die Straßen gekämpft .

[Sarim]

Hey, im WW2 wurde in jeder Stadt um die Straßen gekämpft .

Nö.
Denke nur an Paris.
Die Franzosen hatten die Stadt geräumt, damit die nicht all zuviel abbekommt.

[Der Falke]

Franzosen können auch nicht kämpfen. Ich denke da nur an den American's Guide to France: "In general, France is a safe destination, although travelers must be aware that from time to time it is invaded by Germany. Traditionally, the French surrender immediately."

[cjwet]

ist doch gut, wenn eine Partie lange dauert

Ich möchte mit einer Partie aber noch in diesem Leben fertig werden!
Sicherlich gabs Konflikte, bei denen um jeden Stein gekämpft wurde, aber in einem Strategiespiel, das in großen Dimensionen spielt, wäre es mir doch zu viel, um jede Ecke kämpfen zu müssen.

[Sarim]

Du weißt doch noch nicht mal, wie schnell es laufen wird.
Es könnte sein, dass du für Berlin-Paris genauso lange brauchst wie in HoI2.

[Der Falke]

Ich hoffe vor allem, dass HoI3 genauso leicht modbar sein wird, wie HoI2 .

[GFM Pascalovic]

ich hoffe das sich die schiffe vllt irrwie verbessern lassen koennen ...
zb neue gefechtstürme usw...

währ auch mal ne nette abwechslung

[[VK]]

Wollt nur mal Ausrichten das es wieder ein Update gibt: Quelle

noxx-0 viel zu lange gebraucht *Insert Smilie ;duck:*