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[EnigmaticHat]

The got rid of the HQ management stuff right?  Like you don't need to constantly tell the game where your command staff is based?

[Jopax]

Nope, it's all abstracted into a neat three click deal where you assign troops to an army with one click, then pick a commander for said army in two clicks and that's about it.

[mainiac]

FDR had a very hostile congress which enforced the neutrality acts. Only the sinking of USS Reuben James and Pearl Harbour turned opinions.

If by "enforced the neutrality acts" you mean, "revoked the neutrality acts during the third week of war".

People exaggerate things to such ridiculous extents.  The Americans were reluctant to send troops into harms way.  They thought that the French and British could handle Germany with a minimum of fuss (for good reason, they should have won were it not for Gamelin).  But the fact that the US hoped to avoid belligerancy doesn't mean it wasn't clear where American sympathies lay.  The US started mobilizing for war just in case almost as soon as the war started.  US warships started firing at German subs long before Pearl Harbor.

Really the national focus system displays things quite well.  The US isn't mobilized until Germany racks up a decent chunk of world tension.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

The got rid of the HQ management stuff right?  Like you don't need to constantly tell the game where your command staff is based?

Nope, it's all abstracted into a neat three click deal where you assign troops to an army with one click, then pick a commander for said army in two clicks and that's about it.

Yes, and while some applaud it--it's meh. The commanders learn a little more dynamically at least, which is fun. Personally I see no reason why the OOB system had to go, I actually like it a lot.

EDIT: I agree the US reacts accordingly in game, being quite vulnerable until it can begin to mobilize.

EDIT: I'm not actually sure I like the new economy system. The removal of money is blergh.

[EnigmaticHat]

I actually think HoI3's HQ system is one of the worst systems Paradox has ever invented.  You have multiple different HQ units, all of which have different radio ranges and need to be in range of different units.  And then whenever the front moves forwards or back you have to move all of them alongside it.  Its a mess, and there's very little to justify it as there's no good way to gank enemy HQ units aside from them messing up.  The only thing to recommend it was the multiple leader levels for each troop, but even then it had the effect of diluting the effects of a commander and making all armies feel about the same in terms of command effectiveness.  You might have one unusually good commander in EU but in HoI 3 you're hardly going to get any noticeable difference when there are 5 levels of command.  And its not like anyone was going to each province like "this specific group of 3000 infantry needs +20% chance of elastic defense tactic."

[mainiac]

It's definitely better then HOI3 but I'd kinda like if there was another layer.  Divisional commanders was needless busywork but corps command might be nice.

[Orange Wizard]

EDIT: I'm not actually sure I like the new economy system. The removal of money is blergh.

I was thinking about this earlier, actually. One of the big limiting factors for the UK, for instance, was trying to drum up the cash to finance the war. It'd be neat to see some sort of basic economy. Nothing complicated, but maybe a few policies like tax and seizure of wealth as govt. options, the possibility of bankruptcy, and so on.

honestly air wing assignment is one of the most tedious portions of the game for me.

Aircraft interface is disgusting, yeah. I still haven't properly worked it out. Half the time I find myself losing air superiority and saying "fuck it" because I can't be arsed dealing with the stooooopid air wing system.

It's definitely better then HOI3 but I'd kinda like if there was another layer.  Divisional commanders was needless busywork but corps command might be nice.

The ability to designate your military HQ migt be nice. If you can work out where your enemies' HQs are you could get a significant advantage by wrecking it and disturbing their command. So you'd also want to put it somewhere it can't be bombed/stormed too easily.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I think that DLC/mods will have a profound effect on this game.

[mainiac]

The ability to designate your military HQ migt be nice. If you can work out where your enemies' HQs are you could get a significant advantage by wrecking it and disturbing their command. So you'd also want to put it somewhere it can't be bombed/stormed too easily.

That's a feature that only comes into play when someone screws up.  Such features are bad.  The good thing about HOI4 is that it avoids those kinds of mechanics.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

The ability to designate your military HQ migt be nice. If you can work out where your enemies' HQs are you could get a significant advantage by wrecking it and disturbing their command. So you'd also want to put it somewhere it can't be bombed/stormed too easily.

That's a feature that only comes into play when someone screws up.  Such features are bad.  The good thing about HOI4 is that it avoids those kinds of mechanics.

What's your thinking there? You want to be protected from screwing up? Why are such features bad? If you screw up you should be punished. Isn't half the fun of such games capitalizing on mistakes?

[EnigmaticHat]

Ok let me put it like this: what if in every FPS you could run, and there was a button you had to press every 5 seconds or you would trip.  The button didn't do anything else, it was just the button to avoid falling over.  Would that be a good feature?  No, no it wouldn't.  Your character knows how to not trip, its a reasonable abstraction that shouldn't demand much of the players' attention.

In the same way, the HQ system was stupid.  On a strategic level, in WW2, "stealth" did not mean actually sneaking *past* the enemy.  Tens of thousands of infantry supported by combined arms are not quiet, or hard to see.  Furthermore, the more valuable a commander is, the further they were from the front.  Its not like Hitler was sending a division of infantry to sneak up to the bunker that Eisenhower was hiding in.  Even when one side gets surprised (e.g. the Battle of the Bulge) they still have hours to move reinforcements in and move vulnerable assets like command staff away from the frontline/destroy anything too heavy to move.  Because even tho WW2 was known for mobile fronts, that was compared to WW1.  Shit was still ponderous, especially considering the massive distances involved.  Furthermore, the only way in the actual game that your HQ units are going to be killed or leave radio range is if you either accidentally select too many units, or you throw up your hands and give up trying to micro them.

TL;DR:  Your command staff is smart enough to stand behind your lines and radio orders in, its immersion breaking that they have to be told how to.

[mainiac]

Ok let me put it like this: what if in every FPS you could run, and there was a button you had to press every 5 seconds or you would trip.

Or you need to press it once at the start of the battle or you randomly trip 10 minutes later.

[EnigmaticHat]

I mean that would still be a bad mechanic.

[Radsoc]

I enjoyed my USSR playthrough very much, I like the optional reduction in micro-management, but the music grows tiresome. The game has some really nice potential to proceed further into the cold war. Good progression/adaptation to the situation after one faction is beaten, unlike earlier games. I would guess there'll be nation and timeline DLC-packs later on.

But, the main issue is the forced liberal view point of the game that it forces upon you. They try to describe things through a non-liberal perspective to get into the caricature hollywood-commie "mood" but it just fails in a straw man ironic humor type of way, that belittles everyone else. The devs don't know the basics, so focus descriptions turn out to be really stupid/amateurish, among other things. C'mon "ultra-left" comintern, really? Or fascists getting glad about "anticapitalist" policies, when they are there as a reaction to safeguard the capitalist relations of production in the first place. But that's just concerning accuracy. However, I think there's a fallacy when you're labeled paranoid when dealing with a supposed trotskyite plot, and basically a failure when you end up with a civil war (for some reason) when you don't deal with it (so in reality you weren't paranoid in the first place).

Labling the USSR a "totalitarian" government with no elections is just wrong. Shading Hitlers portrait is also a really bad decision, as if all bad things were randomly up to one single guy, who "happened" to do crazy things, and not as part of a system. There are dozens of "Hitlers" in the game already.

I also think there should be a compulsory civil war as a reaction to communists growing larger in a country. Not-in-name-only communist parties winning elections (or getting close enough) in bourgeois so called democracies is just a crackpot fantasy.


It's a good game, but if you like accuracy, combat, logistics and good troop management I would suggest "Revolution under Siege".

[mainiac]

Labling the USSR a "totalitarian" government with no elections is just wrong.

Well take that up with George Orwell, noted socialist.