HoI3 Released: Broken on Launch (Surprise!)

[Bluewolf]

I have a feeling this is going to fail horribly. Hell, AoD is meant to be the improvement upon HoI2 and even that game has some strange bugs and tons of things to fix.

[montypython]

Victoria I found interesting once I figured out how the system worked, but the HOI series had so many bugs/issues/inaccuracies/headaches that I just lost interest in that.

[TC Pilot]

I have a feeling this is going to fail horribly. Hell, AoD is meant to be the improvement upon HoI2 and even that game has some strange bugs and tons of things to fix.

I don't think that's actually very surprising, considering it was made by modders.

[Duckie]

Simplicus, you have his sentence wrong, I believe- he means that even HOI2, a much simpler game, has massive problems with bugs, so HOI3 with its crazy ambitious expansion is so complex and ridiculous that such goals could never work: how the hell would you even bugcheck such a complex AI in any reasonable QA timespan? I could be mistaken too and he meant it the way you read it, but AOD is actually pretty bug-free compared to normal paradox stuff, because it's not made by paradox. The initial release was playable, with the two biggest problems I know of being that all plains provinces counted as forests so tanks were a bit hosed and that espionage was too likely to succeed. Compare that to any paradox release.

This HOI3 expansion sounds more like "Features that should have been in the game that we'll charge you more money for now" with the exception of #1 which just sounds like "more ways to make the game completely unfixable"

AOD is actually pretty good, although Patch 1.3 slows the game, Patch 1.4 will be out soon to fix that. And even in 1.2 the game wasn't unplayable like HoI3. It feels like HOI2-DD-Armageddon's final form, which was an okay game, plus a shitload of useful things like passable trade automation, spy automation, and solutions to things paradox is too retarded to realize are problems like "Surround the capital".

For people who like HoI2, I heavily recommend AOD, especially if the CORE mod for it actually happens as promised. It feels like the game paradox was trying to make, which makes sense since it's made by modders who bought the rights to the source code and modders have always been fixing paradox games.

Other features I've enjoyed in it, just off the top of my head- You keep gearing bonus if you just upgrade a production line, since the factories are still there, just retooling. For minor IC costs you can keep a production line mothballed but active to keep gearing bonus. Air combat now actually matters. Radar makes your interceptors actually go find bombers over your provinces. You can set air missions for any duration and any size area. Logistics is based on province infrastructure. Each province generates its own supplies so that units don't starve during encirclements without airplanes hitting their logistics, and capital-surrounding now starves the capital, not the nation. You can convert old destroyers into convoy escorts. Nuclear power plants give quantities electricity. Bombers can be specifically directed to target planes, logistics, factories, or general targets. You can control how much synthetic oil and synthetic rubber your nation makes via sliders, and you have plants that do the conversions that the enemy can damage. AI is rewritten to be somewhat less retarded, doesn't have infinite ship/plane range anymore AFAIK. AI management of those annoying sliders is fine and AI management of trade is doable- you can also tell it "don't export oil, don't import electricity" or whatever too. I'm sure there's more I'm missing.

Granted, if you don't like HOI2 and standard paradox anorak gaming, don't bother. It's just basically a standalone expansion of HOI2 that is "HOI2 But Better".

[Duckie]

Ghetto Edit- Aha, that's what I'm trying to say with that long list of features nobody cares about: A lot of them like being able to mothball production lines feel like really natural, obvious things to such a degree that I actually stopped playing for a bit every now and then to enjoy how liberating it was not to have retarded shit like microing sliders, deadly capital encirclements, or the Soviet economy's gearing up for mass infantry spam being canceled by a slightly new machine gun model. It's like HOI2 was crippleware* and the modder team disabled all the irritating lack of premium options

*My girlfriend adds "Nagware, too". I forgot about the whole trade deals canceling and having to manually do those. That was such bullshit.

[TC Pilot]

Simplicus, you have his sentence wrong

I'm TC Pilot. Both are avatars of Groucho, but aren't the same.

how the hell would you even bugcheck such a complex AI in any reasonable QA timespan?

I imagine this is the AI that should (ideally) have been in HoI3. But that's assuming the AI actually gets any smarter, which with PI is questionable.

I could be mistaken too and he meant it the way you read it, but AOD is actually pretty bug-free compared to normal paradox stuff, because it's not made by paradox. The initial release was playable, with the two biggest problems I know of being that all plains provinces counted as forests so tanks were a bit hosed and that espionage was too likely to succeed. Compare that to any paradox release.

Likewise with For the Glory. It's funny comparing it to, say, the first HoI, which inevitably froze without fail on January 10, 1941 in the unpatched version, or the unpatched Victoria, where you could basically be set for life by building a single luxury goods factory.

[Duckie]

Simplicus, you have his sentence wrong

I'm TC Pilot. Both are avatars of Groucho, but aren't the same.

Well that's just strange. Go back to being Simplicus like you were when I wrote the post.

how the hell would you even bugcheck such a complex AI in any reasonable QA timespan?

I imagine this is the AI that should (ideally) have been in HoI3. But that's assuming the AI actually gets any smarter, which with PI is questionable.

Yeah, plus they want you to pay money for an AI that doesn't suck, which would be bullshit even if it works.

I could be mistaken too and he meant it the way you read it, but AOD is actually pretty bug-free compared to normal paradox stuff, because it's not made by paradox. The initial release was playable, with the two biggest problems I know of being that all plains provinces counted as forests so tanks were a bit hosed and that espionage was too likely to succeed. Compare that to any paradox release.

Likewise with For the Glory. It's funny comparing it to, say, the first HoI, which inevitably froze without fail on January 10, 1941 in the unpatched version, or the unpatched Victoria, where you could basically be set for life by building a single luxury goods factory.

Now, granted, this latest patch is a bit paradoxian in AOD- 1.3 supposedly fixes superstacks and a bunch of other problems- fixes the naval AI, makes naval battles more decisive, makes the AI not terrified of defensive terrain. But it also accidentally makes logistic calculations fire every hour rather than day, which means terminal slowdown for non-top-of-line computers.

Wait, wasn't this the same mistake that was why the HOI3 Demo ran so slow and HOI3 to this day runs slow, checking supply lines every hour? That's actually funnier than it is annoying, then. And I don't begrudge them a botched patch when they're fixing it next version, and the only reason why it wasn't fixed within minutes with a hotfix is contractual issues that they can't release patches without sending it to paradox and steam and the like for "QA" testing.

[PeZook]

I have a running theory that Paradox simply don't have any developer tools for their games, so they code all the events, leaders, provinces, etc. manually, spending all the time on typing fluff for events and foregoing QA

Sure, the way their games are structured make them moddable with ridiculous ease without having to learn any scripting, but if you, say, accidentally made all leaders of a certain country disappear after 1937, it takes an inordinate amount of time to correct the problem unless you have some sort of semi-automated process for it.

And damn, Arsenal Of Democracy sounds like HoI2: Annoying Shit Removal expansion.

[TC Pilot]

Yeah, plus they want you to pay money for an AI that doesn't suck, which would be bullshit even if it works.

It's almost guaranteed to suck regardless, but I'd wager it won't be as bad as their older attempts, like EU2's "AI shuts off after ten in-game years." HoI2 really wasn't too bad about it. I could never manage to survive as, say, France against Germany. Of course, it's been years since I've used anything other than mods (particularly Kaiserreich's "What if Germany won WW1," which is surprisingly good AI).

Wait, wasn't this the same mistake that was why the HOI3 Demo ran so slow and HOI3 to this day runs slow, checking supply lines every hour? That's actually funnier than it is annoying, then. And I don't begrudge them a botched patch when they're fixing it next version, and the only reason why it wasn't fixed within minutes with a hotfix is contractual issues that they can't release patches without sending it to paradox and steam and the like for "QA" testing.

FtG's team is a bit worse than these guys, it sounds. They lied about releasing a new map with the game (the stupid twit whose been working on it for like 4 years now, approaching Team Gizka levels of incompetence and douchebaggery), but apparently their mod leader's in the hospital now, so it's understandable. In any case, these mod teams seem to be more capable of producing playable games than PI. Granted, their building off pre-existing products, but a lot of the stuff is just things anyone with half-competent beta testing would have fixed.

[Samuel]

Are the mods compatible with Arsenal of Democracy or only the origional HoI?

[Duckie]

What Mods? You'll have to rephrase your question. If you mean "Are mods for HOI2 compatible with AOD", then:

If you have skill in modding you can pretty easily retrofit stuff into AOD, although it won't work off the bat, and I don't know if there's a list of what commands have changed/broken (spycost is the only one I know that has to be deleted), and there are patches on the forum to make, for example, Kaiserreich work in the new system, IIRC. AI scripts will almost certainly not work and certainly won't take advantage of the new features, meaning any compatability will be rather... 'iffy'.

The CORE update is in private in-house beta and I know nothing about if it'll come out, and some things like TRP don't seem like they'll make a move. Which is sad, as the AOD devs seem very responsive and seem like they're making lots of neat tools and functions, even to the point of asking one modder making a new map if there were any limitations inherited HOI2 he needed removed for his projects (limiting the number of provinces/ports, as an example). Granted also because it seems like they might adopt his map for a later patch, but still that's pretty cool.

If you mean, "Are AOD mods compatible with HOI2" then I don't know why you're asking that as very few complete AOD mods exist yet.

[Samuel]

The first and since I have no skills with computer programming...

[Duckie]

Well, uh, modding isn't at all like computer programming, but if you're confusing them then yeah, you probably (like I) don't have enough knowledge about how to do it to import a mod. Probably best to wait and see if your favourite mod makes the switch, whatever one it is. I'm hoping for SMEP's surrender events to wander into the picture myself.