HoI3 Released: Broken on Launch (Surprise!)

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I bet they've got their bullshit Soviet purge penalty from HoI & HoI2 still there too.

I spent the last few minutes looking through the Event and Country files and I can tell you that the Soviet Purge doesn't seem to exist as an event or law, and the arbitrary penalty to Soviet Ground Defence Efficiency doesn't exist either. Both of those mainly existed in HoI2 to prevent Russia, with its huge stacks of manpower, IC, and one front to throw them at, from steamrolling Europe, but here it's more flexible and is likely represented by the Soviets remaining un-mobilized until the German invasion thanks to their high neutrality, and having low leadership so that they won't have many officers or good practical/ theory values for their troops. Or at least, that's how it'll work after a few months and patches. For now I have no idea what the fuck will go on, aside from the roll-of-the-dice Consumer Goods bug potentially eating all of your industry.

EDIT: Wait, I've actually found the file for the National Decision for the Officer Purge now, and... It actually makes a bit of sense. By choosing to purge, you gain a bit of dissent and kill a few ministers and a ton of leaders, but you also get a shitload of National Unity. (Unlike events, National Decisions are not either/or - you can just choose to enact one or not when the triggers are right. In this case, if it's 1937 and Stalin is alive and in your government, you can purge.) And that's it. If you don't choose to purge, you just carry on your merry and less bloodthirsty, paranoid way without absurd penalties.

[MKSheppard]

EDIT: Wait, I've actually found the file for the National Decision for the Officer Purge now, and... It actually makes a bit of sense. By choosing to purge, you gain a bit of dissent and kill a few ministers and a ton of leaders, but you also get a shitload of National Unity.

How does killing lots of people in great purges = national unity?

[Gandalf]

EDIT: Wait, I've actually found the file for the National Decision for the Officer Purge now, and... It actually makes a bit of sense. By choosing to purge, you gain a bit of dissent and kill a few ministers and a ton of leaders, but you also get a shitload of National Unity.

How does killing lots of people in great purges = national unity?

I imagine it scares people into line.

[MKSheppard]

ZOMG, people who don't own the game can now view teh mods forum on Paradox plaza!!!!

[MKSheppard]

So from reading the forum threads, the new updated map by Clio won't be ready until 2010 at the least. So we can wait that long; unless paradox fucking puts stalingrad back where it should be, same for baltimore.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

How does killing lots of people in great purges = national unity?

It actually sort of makes sense since from the mechanics of national unity it seems to be more about how easily your nation bends to a single will, ie, high national unity is good for changing your nation's laws, and continuing to fight rather than surrender for longer. From that perspective, since the purges generally forced many organisations within the Union towards capitulating only to Stalin, it works. I think the point of it is just to make following the historical path semi-viable for a player.

[Stark]

All they'd need to do is implement 'personality scoring', where each leader has goals/beliefs and you get scored by how much you follow these, and those who wanted 'historical' play could compare how CHURCHILL your Churchill was, and everyone else could play a sandbox wargame and ignore it.

I mean, playing as Germany, taking all the Hitler stupidness (getting high Hitler rating) and still winning? That's an achievement.

[The Yosemite Bear]

lol, I remember when Shep was modding the first one, I suggested adding in techs that didn't/couldn't work, (Eugenics, Occult Research, etc), just to simulate that.

[Stark]

Yeah, finishing a game as Germany by losing, 10 million <random minority> gassed, viking relics gathered, ark of the covenant secured and moonbase designs finalised? GREAT SCORE!

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

That would indeed be awesome, and actually perfectly possible with the way the HOI system works, since techs, events, laws, etc, can all be used to grant free victory points, change ideology, etc, and do all sorts of wacky shit.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Remember it's not just Germany, Remember that superheavy weight amphibius transport aircraft, that Hughes wants you to build, oh and Tessla wants money for a "Deathray"

[Steel]

Remember it's not just Germany, Remember that superheavy weight amphibius transport aircraft, that Hughes wants you to build, oh and Tessla wants money for a "Deathray"

There was something a bit similar to this in Imperium Galactica 2 ages ago tech wise. You would occasionally get scientists coming along offering to sell you breakthrough technologies or tech they stole from other races. Other times they would scam you and say "only 9 Trillion credits for this black hole gun" and disappear with the GDP of a planet.

[Stark]

That's just a random, random event. It's not a solution to the difference between people who want 'historical simulation' and 'wargame' in the same package.

[MKSheppard]

And both could easily be accomodated.

Hell, in the game I'm monopolizing a lot now; "War in the Pacific Admiral's EDition", they have settings for:

FOG OF WAR: In addition to the standard "don't see other side unless you have a unit that sees it", this means wildly inaccurate reports; your patrol pilots can misidentify cruisers as battleships; and your dive bomber pilots can wildly inflate claims, like claiming fifteen hits when only two actually hit; the other just went just a bit wide and exploded in the water.

ALLIED DAMAGE CONTROL: If toggled on, Allied ships will repair damage more rapidly than Japanese ships. This represents the historical advantage the Allies had. Japanese damage control was very very bad. Oh sure, they had trained DC teams; but that was it. If the DC teams got killed, they were SOL, as there were no other trained DC people on Jap ships. Meanwhile, the US trained every sailor in the basics of damage control, so that casualties in DC teams could be made up.

HISTORICAL FIRST TURN: Scenario Designer picks the side that goes first. On 7 Dec 41 starts, that's Japan

DECEMBER 7th SURPRISE: When chosen, during the Morning Phase only on December 7, 1941, the following occurs to represent Allied surprise:

»» Allied air units flying patrols (CAP, search, etc.) have a 50% chance of not flying any aircraft
»» If an air group passes this test and elects to fly, the number of aircraft that will fly is reduced by 75%
»» The Allies will launch no airstrikes
»» Japanese Naval TFs may have enhanced first turn movement, depending upon TF settings in the scenario (see Editor Manual for details)
»» Aircraft making a port attack during any December 7 phase will attack ships 100 percent of the time if there are at least 10 ships in the port
»» Aircraft hit on any Allied airfields suffer increased damage
»» Aircraft hit on any Allied ships suffer increased damage due to lack of Damage Control

RELIABLE USN TORPEDOES: Self Explanatory

You can be as historical, or as ahistorical as you want.

My preferred scenario is the ahistorical grand campaign which gives a bit better preparation to Japan than Historical, because having Japan all die in 1942 isn't fun.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

So, Paradox have released a hotfix for the CG bug which also improves game speed and loading times. The community speed fix is better, and doesn't require you to register your game at their forums, if you don't want to do that. It doesn't include the CG fix, though.

[Steel]

That's just a random, random event. It's not a solution to the difference between people who want 'historical simulation' and 'wargame' in the same package.

A similar line of thinking could offer a solution to some things though. Imagine for a second if the numbers the research screen told you for a technology were an estimate, and the actual tech may or may not resemble what it tells you there. AMAZING I know, to not have everything spelt out as a single numeric value that you can trivially maximise, but instead to have it give a general indication (possibly based off your science teams skills/traits) of what the technology is expected to provide.

This would give the germans the option of sinking lots of resources into "Eugenics PogromsPrograms" to get the predicted +10 loyalty +100 production +277 attractiveness bonuses, which in the end do fuck all. Or alternatively the "Occult rituals" which promises te ability to call magical storms but the research never actually finishes.

Alternatively your advisors could say that conducting a purge would inspire greater loyalty, but in fact it wont give the bonus.

Would this be far too subtle to the average gamer? Will there be floods of people complaining that theres magic in their historical sim (when in fact there isnt and they have missed the point entirely) or that they spent loads of time and money researching eugenics but it doesnt actually give a bonus and therefore the devs need to fix the "bug". This allows people to reenact history by choosing to follow historical options, but doesnt require you to actually waste time/money if you dont want to. Alternatively it makes the game harder for stupid people (Well nobody has any shoes, but that wont matter once I get my death rays! They say its almost ready, just a couple more months...) which is always a good thing.

On a side note, I'd actually prefer to not know which gun is better by seeing that X gun does exactly x damage and Y gun does exactly y damage, but to have general characteristics listed and then try stuff out to see which I preferred, instead of getting told X dominates Y or taking 2 seconds to deduce it from the outset.

[Vympel]

On a side note, I'd actually prefer to not know which gun is better by seeing that X gun does exactly x damage and Y gun does exactly y damage, but to have general characteristics listed and then try stuff out to see which I preferred, instead of getting told X dominates Y or taking 2 seconds to deduce it from the outset.

Meh, I'm not into it. The measurement of the combat effectiveness of a cannon/ gun / missile whatever is something that can be objectively measured and tested and that's the sort of information you should have at your disposal.

[Steel]

On a side note, I'd actually prefer to not know which gun is better by seeing that X gun does exactly x damage and Y gun does exactly y damage, but to have general characteristics listed and then try stuff out to see which I preferred, instead of getting told X dominates Y or taking 2 seconds to deduce it from the outset.

Meh, I'm not into it. The measurement of the combat effectiveness of a cannon/ gun / missile whatever is something that can be objectively measured and tested and that's the sort of information you should have at your disposal.

The "Men of War" system is to give penetration values in mm at ranges of 10, 50 100 200, which allows you to estimate if, given the angle you're firing at, will the shot be able to penetrate the armour of the target.

I suppose I'm more talking about RPGs and games with simpler mechanics where you get "this sword does 15 damage" "this guy has 83hp" so it takes 6 slashes to kill him. When you get stuff like that I feel it results in turning the thing into a mini spreadsheet that you can work out in 5 minutes, rather than gauging the effectiveness of various things yourself. Or knowing that Soldier Bob has 64 rifle skill and therefore is better than Soldier Jim who has 58 rifle skill, as opposed to having some assessment of how they perform.

[MKSheppard]

From Paradox Plaza:

Has anyone else been able to slough off the dead hand of Stanley bloody Baldwin? It's 1941, and he holds Britain in his clammy grip while that benign old duffer King George V toils along, apparently immortal, his wastrel son Edward condemned forever to wait in the wings.

Translation:

"AFAIK there are no death events, which means that your beginning HoS and HoG will remain the entire game. It's a fairly major omission."

" Great. Can't wait to hear how that's a 'feature' and 'easily moddable'. "

"What a joke. I'm starting to wonder if Paradox is a branch of Ikea--here are the nuts and bolts, you get to make the game yourself; 'WAD', 'easily moddable', and 'feature rich' are phrases I don't want to hear for a very long time. . . ."

I've been playing a multiplayer game as Nat Chi.

First thing I noticed - not at war with ComChi. Fair enough, I guess, the event usually forced matters a few months in. A little strange I'm allied with them and all the warlords too....

Then I realized - not only are we all allied, but I have no territorial claims on them. The threat level between us stays at 0, so there's no opportunity for me to go and try to unite them, and even if I did, I'd suffer lots of partisans and etc, since I don't even have claims on them.

How is the Chinese Civil War supposed to start (or re-start)? I dug through the events folder and all I could find were events relating to soviet interference in my war. Maybe I missed something obvious. But it seems like we're treated as a bunch of completely separate countries in an alliance together.

Kind of disappointing... was hoping to unify China at some point. Looks like I'd have to put all my leadership into generating threat from the warlords to accomplish that =\.

[Duckie]

Amazingly, there are people (customers, fans, not paradox employees) defending the diplomatic system as 'dynamic' and 'not playing the same game twice'. They don't want a 'world war II simulator' that forces you to do everything historically.

I am wondering what these people thought HOI3 was when they bought it, and when they saw mexico take control of the SHAEF and land it in oldenburg or albania invade finland did they really go "yay novelty, I'm glad it's not WWII!"

[Ar-Adunakhor]

It seems that the German and US sprite packs are available for download on Steam for the low low price of 2.00 each. Apparently I just missed this glorious bit of humor since it says they were released on the same day as HoI3, but that also means they planned in advance to milk money from them. I mean, hey, quality sprites for two major players in WWII should obviously be DLC and not come with the game. Right?

[Thanas]

^Dear Lord, that is worse than CA.

And I never thought I'd say that.

[Duckie]

We're working on a 1.2 patch including fixing reported bugfixes and improving gameplay.

The goal is to have it released in late august, but may be first week of september.

Our goals includes.

- New autocontrols for sliders and trade agreements.
- Severe performance improvement.
- New mapmode for simplified terrain. (hoi2 style)
- Day&Night indications
- Cancellation of orders
- Revised Technology Setup for all scenarios.
- Improved Invasion & Theatre AI.

& of course, fixing reported bugs.

Did I call it? I think I called it being playable at 1.2 based on past experience with paradox games. Once they get the whole "playable" thing they might actually try to not make it such (see Shep's post about China).

[MKSheppard]

Or this might be paradox's evil idea to halt software piracy, by making patches only availabe through their forums to registered users of the game, by making v1.0 and 1.1 so horribly unplayable....

[Thanas]

Wait, what....you couldn't cancel orders before? How stupid is that?