Huh, I thought I had Doomsday patched up to date, but I swear that Zhukov and Konev are winding up on KP sometimes. Maybe I ought to check the version again.
Anyhow, I suppose it depends on the country and its resources, but as the USSR, I don’t want generals at all for garrison units, much less rank 2 ones (after Stalin’s purge, there’s not that many skilled officers after all, and I have all these myriad tiny stacks due to a lack of full generals).
I’d be happy if they were in effect all rank -1, as they’re really only there for partisan suppression, so they might as well be a small supply/transport province cost or something like that, not an actual unit. I wind up with little conquest countries almost entirely covered with these useless units and I have to go through each Korpus manually assigning a rank 0 general and renaming it so I can tell the real units apart on the list…
Oh, i full-well understand what the task represents - and considering what’s happening (and all at once), their attempt is notable. However, notable in some kind of academic sense isn’t quite what i want in a game - and watching units get lost in the middle of russia, or attack until useless, or jump between 2 provinces ad infinitum, just isnt fun. Turning off FoW doesn’t really help for me cause once i know it’s happening…it just bugs me - kinda like when you know how a magic trick is being done.
HoI 2 really made me bitter about Paradox. Much like hoi 1, it was a first day purchase, and I really came to resent what i bought. Hoi3’d have to be one fantastic product to make me waver on my commitment to not buy anything from paradox until it hits the bargain bin…
I should have clarified by saying that it also prioritizes ranked generals that have 1) defensive doctrine 2) logistics support and 3) old guard.
I use those generals the least, regardless of rank, so the fact that the AI assigns them for me makes me happy. And even on the ones it screws up on (sometimes I need defensive doctrine) all I need to do is go to the ledger, sort by type, then rank, and pull the general I want. Takes about 15 seconds, no lie.
Also, use counters instead of sprites if you are having trouble distinguishing units. I never, never rename my units unless I’m roleplaying. It’s completely unneeded.
watching units get lost in the middle of russia, or attack until useless, or jump between 2 provinces ad infinitum, just isnt fun.
All of these were absolutely true the first year of HoI2’s existence. Then the AI mods came, then the mods were integrated into patches/expansions. Now, you almost never see the kind of behavior you describe. The current AI is aggressive and does an excellent job on the attack, and a decent job on defense. Any human player, up to a certain point where the war is virtually won, will be constantly on guard and challenged.
As the USSR, why the hell are you building garrison/militia in the first place. You have enough industry to build real infantry and you will need it. The secret to winning as the Soviets is to specialize on one thing - infantry - and build the CRAP out of it while teching up to support just that and only that. Once you have 400 or so Infantry/Artillery divisions supported by 20 or so HQ, then (and only then) move to an Armor/Mechanized/Paratroop mix. The 400 divisions will absorb the German invasion, slowly march into Poland, by which time your armor/mech units will be coming on line and can spearhead the drive into Germany and France.
As for leaders - Russian leaders are mediocre in general. Just make sure every group has one, promote if needed and move on. The German leaders will ALWAYS outclass you unless you match up Koniev vs Himmler or something, so don’t get too hung up in micromanaging them. You also get a ton of leaders available in 1940, so again, if you have no-leader groups in 1939 don’t be too concerned, it’s by design.
He said it was for partisan suppression, which is a legitimate need if you are on the offensive in Western Europe or China/South Asia.
Also, the tiny stack strategy is the best strategy in terms of game mechanics, just FYI. Lower rank generals level up faster and your forces are more versatile if they are in groups of 3 divisions.
Trailer is not loading, probably because of all the traffic. Here are some screens grabbed by people who managed to get in early:
Well, I’m happy. I think they shouldn’t waste time on 3d units (I’ll just switch to counters anyway) but I’ll take what I can get. The map is pure sex, and it looks like they are using Victoria style provinces/states.
Yeah, if I take over Finland or Turkey or whatever, that’s 20 divisions worth of junk garrisons right there, much less later on if I take over the Balkans with all those useless tiny provinces. All of them are automatically named 23ya Korpus, 24ya Korpus, etc. etc. just like my real troops, so when I’m scrolling through my list of 200 infantry divisions scattered all over the world and ordered by creation date, it’s hard to tell which is which unless I rename them. Sure I can see the unit types if I spend a few seconds of effort, but there’s more cognitive load and tedium there. If I rename all those garrisons “NKVD”, then I don’t have to mouseover or study the unit at all, I can just skip past those 50 divisions without thinking.
Really there should just be a province checkbox that says “partisan suppression” and spends some supply and/or transport on it.
Practice using the ledger, it’s much easier than the normal UI when you are sorting units. You can sort by province name and click on the unit to be taken right to it.
I’m sure the gameplay won’t be total free-form as they mention HOI as one end of the straightjacket spectrum when talking about the decisions made for EU3.
Also I think we recently learned from Tom’s EU:Rome interview that HOI2 was their biggest commercial success so I guess they have to keep that franchise fresh to pay for the other ones.
I do hope it has more improvements than just graphics though, but I guess we have a year to find out about them bit by bit. I’m hoping it will be easier for me to actually finish a game. :)
Some info from a convention in Europe was posted on the Paradox forums:
–time frame 1936 - 1948 (no news here)
–research is a bit more like HoI 1 than HoI 2, you research multiple parts instead of complete units
–divisions will be composed of several brigades which can be chosen
–the resource system will be different, you have to buy commodities in the economic system (?)
–there’s a mobilization mechanic and reserves, democracies can’t deploy loads of troops during peace and but have to mobilize when war is near
Interesting stuff there. I enjoyed the tech tree in HOI1 more than 2, and the brigade customization of divisions sounds very fun.
–research is a bit more like HoI 1 than HoI 2, you research multiple parts instead of complete units
–the resource system will be different, you have to buy commodities in the economic system (?)
Oh god no, don’t bring that useless tedium back from the first game.
The brigade system sounds great though. I just hope they pair it with a supply limit system on provinces - I’ve gotten tired of seeing the Italians and British throw thirty or fourty divisions of combat troops into North Africa without penalty when some provinces should only be held by a brigade.
Also, why do the frogs control the channel islands in those screens?
I like the brigade idea very much. I’m sure what they mean by “multiple parts” is that you research mortars, MGs, AT, etc independently. At least they’d better not mean researching gears.
Oh, I assumed it meant you’d research “heavy bomber airframe” and then that would be a component you would use both for your transports and your strategic bombers. I can see how that would be annoying, but no doubt it makes the tree more detailed and complex, which was their design goal… On the other hand, I suppose it would make tanks, SP artillery, and tank killers easier to produce together, since they share so many parts.
I like the idea of researching different parts, as long as that can applied in the game. So you can focus your tank research on getting a better main gun, or better armour, or a more powerful engine, etc.
Again, if it’s developing frames/guns/whatever independently, fantastic. It might even bring more flavor to the individual countries (explain again why a Sherman division is equivalent to a Panther division?) As long as it’s big-picture type things instead of the thousands of tedious research bits you needed in HOI I I’m there.
