Dev Corner | Faction Dynamics Part 2

[Dolfjuh]

Looks awesome, looking nice.
But could they also add 2 options maybe?:

1. the option to turn off that you get vollunteer forces from your puppets. (its really anoying to constant delete these worthless units)
2. the option in lendlease and global market that you can put all foreing equipment to the table with 1 button.

That would be great for a autistic person like me.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

1. the option to turn off that you get vollunteer forces from your puppets. (its really anoying to constant delete these worthless units)

Would you really prefer to have those units wandering around your frontlines doing their own thing? Because that's what drives me mad! People are very different....

 

[GermanDave]

Thank ye Devs, this looks like something I have been asking for for years (since launch).
Faction identity really gives the game flavor and allows different play-styles to become more defined. Hopefully the faction fonts also make a comeback.

 

[germaniec7]

When it come to Axis and Allies they should have some ideological manifests that make multiple "Great Powers" cooperate. Like beforementioned by many other comments Axis goal should be to eradicate commies from Europe/Earth. Allies on the other hand want to maintain peace and uphold independent nations on continent. The manifests for me should be(and how calculated if you insist it has to be expressed in percentage):

- Axis - Eradicate communism (liberated provinces from communism/number of provinces once under communism)
- Allies - Preserve independent nations in the world (have no idea how to calculate that, GL devs)[I dont like "Defense of Democracy" as Poland by no mean was democratic and yet war technicly was started in defence of Poland]
- Commintern - Spread communism (Number of provinces under communism ownership/total provinces)
- United Front - Maintain chinese controll of all chinese cores (chinese cores under china control/total chinese cores)
- Co-prosperity Sphere - Dominate Asia(?) /Remove European influence in Asia (number of provinces under non-european control in asia/total provinces in asia)[counting USA as European]

And then the goals. I think they could work like this: Faction has X amount of "Great Powers" > "Great Powers" have predetermind 1-2 goals> those objectives became Faction goals upon joining that faction.

So for example Italy would have 1 strategic objective that I believe would align with history: Dominate Meditarranean Sea (whether by "No coastline is owned by enemy in meditarranean" or "positive neval dominance in all/most seazones"). If Italy would join Axis naturally it would become its objective, if they would join Allies, then same objective would become Allied objective.

Germany would have 2 strategic objectives: 1. Avoid War on 2 fronts(I hope it would be possible to code) and 2. Secure oil for wehrmacht
GB would need to maintain naval dominance around Islands
USA also would want neval dominance but on Pacific
USSR would want to keep enemies as far from Moscow as possible(scaling objective? dependedn on how far Moscow is from nearest non aligned nation? promoting expansion both dyplomatic and military).
By doing it this way we avoid situations like Axis having Goal "Secure North Africa" with posibility of Italy not even being in the faction. If Italy will chose not to be in Axis, the whole point of this objective is pointless.

Other then this:
1. I dont like "Nuclear race" and "Armored Fist" as strategic objectives. "Securing Africa" gives you general objective with multiple ways to complete it. Nuke race and Armored Fist seems to me like "You have to do this the way we wont it". What about Infantry focused Germany? I dont see this as fun. And on the other hand I dont think it fits the general definition of strategic objective/goal. But having Nuke Race as seperate Mechanic in game would be intresting actually if pulled correctly.
2. Can we get to see United Front Faction Tab?
3. I would love for Manifest to be more flashed out on the UI. As it is now it looks kinda hidden as if faction is ashamed of it, and it should be MAING GOAL after all.
4. Can we revive Ferdinand Foch to appoint him as "Suprime Commander"?

P.S.: (I might have used "strategic objectives" in place of "goals" multiple times, but thats what I ment)

 

[GuillermoLvG]

Remember to give some love to other formable factions across the various focus trees.

For example, with communist Mexico you can form Bolivarian Alliance with Trotsky as president and these faction goals seem very sui generis and different from the other faction you can do which is Hispanic Alliance (more euro centric). And of course (or not) different from what Trotsky USSR would do if he was the leader of the 4th International instead.

With the ability of countries being able to form their own factions, I don't think a hardcoded set of rules per faction will result in a good experience for these "custom" factions. There should be a kind of selector of goals for your faction when creating it. But again, this is a fragile balance. Giving too many options for the "goal builder" would be overwhelming, but having just 3 options or something like that would not be enough either.

I would personally do it like: Conquest, Resources, Puppets, Goverment type. Then, for each type of goal, select a world continent: Europe, Asia, America, Etc. So you could build your goals like "Resources in South America", "Communism in Europe", "Puppets in Asia" and so on.

Also, there is a moment where you can form NATO. What would that look like?

gjgjgjgj

 

[Ollfardh]

Also, there is a moment where you can form NATO. What would that look like?

"Keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down"

 

[Li Three]

Can the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere include "expelling European colonizers" as one of its objectives? That is to say, in the Western Pacific region, there would be nothing but Japan's puppet states.

 

[DROC]

There are certainly many fascinating points raised in this DevCorners.
You are tackling a subject that generates high expectations and can quickly become complex.

The historical perspective

I completely agree with FORMICARIUS's comment:

• The Germans and Italians only signed the Pact of Steel on May 22, 1939.
• The Germans, Italians, and Japanese only signed the Tripartite Pact, known as the "Axis," on September 27, 1940.

There is no historical basis for creating a faction before these treaties are signed.

The goals of the Axis faction

From Adolf Hitler's earliest public statements, the objectives were, in my view, quite clear:

• The unification of all Germans within the Reich, with the exception of those in South Tyrol...
• The creation of Lebensraum in the East, specifically in Russia.

These two objectives should be considered the top goals for any faction that includes Germany.

Based on what I’ve read, the interventions in North Africa, Yugoslavia, and Greece were largely imposed on the Germans, rather than being part of their initial strategic plan.
Control of the North Atlantic and the construction of the "Festung Europa" were, in reality, consequences of the failure to invade the British Isles.

In conclusion

How will the new system handle the competing ambitions of the different members within the new factions?

How will it deal with new objectives that arise during the course of the game, as a result of unexpected developments?

The contributions on the forum are all remarkably insightful, especially the post by SeekTruthFromFx.

 

[hannibal_pjv]

Did you read Part I Dev diary? There will be rules that will affect who can join factions. But your post does make me wonder how the AI will choose which rules to pick. The Nazi-dominated Axis should never be keen to welcome the Mughals because of all their racist lies. But some alt-history German factions fighting the Allies (e.g. Central Powers), with less racist baggage, might be a possibility.

The most likely solution is that AI has predetermined (or couple to chose from) rules. Interesting to see how non historical situations are handled…

 

[Kadanz]

There is a Steam account registered to North Korea. Perhaps Mr. Kim is a fan of Hearts of Iron?

Executes one of his generals every time he gets reinforce meme'd.

 

[Kosaki MacTavish]

Just saying that this is a potential groundbreaking if done right.

 

[DaddySugar331]

What about governments in exile? This is a very interesting mechanic that should be improved. How about allowing all countries (not just democracies) to host governments in exile? Every faction member (except the leader ofc) should be able to support the allies that still in war and supply the resistance in occupied territory after surrendering.

 

[MDHP1997]

Will there be a faction for Italy and Austria if Italy stands up for Austria against Germany?

If so, what would its manifest be?

When I've played that route in the past, I've formed Stresa with France and Britain. Seems like it would be easy to model under the new system, a faction goal would be containing Germany, perhaps it would go on to expand to the low countries, Czechoslovakia and Poland

 

[VeeBear]

I think the ideal system would involve a voting for objectives each year or something like that, if there is a lack of harmony in the votes then it would cause drama and potentially faction splitting events

 

[Dolfjuh]

Would you really prefer to have those units wandering around your frontlines doing their own thing? Because that's what drives me mad! People are very different....

well you can turn logistics for allies off and then the ai will not move up to the front lines. Better yet you should get options to request port security or something like that.

 

[Jhon_Titor]

In Mexico's "Hispanic Alliance," it will allow Spain ,Filipinas and Portugal to enter, as well as other South American factions from the South American DLC.

And in Spain's Latin bloc, it can include Ibero-American nations.

 

[Umbosch]

As an independent Manchukuo obedience player I'm curious to see if I can take over the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Historically, I don't think the 50 Navy XP makes sense. Japan was more like ancient Rome. But as a player, I'm happy to take it for my Manchu Luzhan Dui Shi. And then all the landlocked Chinese puppet nations like Shanxi, PCR, Xie, Yunnan, and Mengkukuo can finally make good use of Navy Command.

 

[Live2014]

If you set goals like Secure the Resource Supply - Faction members control resources enough to ensure they can be at war with the world for some time and Secure North Africa - Control key areas in, and on the way to, North Africa to ensure the safety of the core Axis territory of continental Europe, are you planing on expanding the ressources in the area of africa to give players another reason to keep defending or reconquering? That would align with the first goal of Secure the Resource Supply so it would make much sense from my piont of few maybe lock a few ressources behind development but not like 3 steel that would not be very tempting to go to Egypt or stay in East Africa as Italy. But that whole Faction reworks looks very diverse and promising ^^.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

Will be interesting to see how faction goals react to the mess of ahistorical focuses that the AI may take.

Don't really envy the Devs trying to balance this system with an Allies faction led by Monarchist Britain facing off against a Democratic German Axis etc

Even just Greater Co-Prosperity Japan taking the Northern expansion route against USSR and not fulfilling any Chinese goals.

Yeah. This runs the risk of railroading even beyond Focuses.

 

[dididiipro]

The more I see of this faction rework the more I start to see a lot of potential! It's exciting! But I do think there may be some hurdles/additional things to consider to see this reach it's full potential.

Some that spring to mind for your consideration:

1.) For player-created factions, will the players be able to chose their factions goals + bonuses? This could very easily lead to a meta/OP selection that might make a player-led faction inherently superior; some ways to counter this might be by having the historical faction bonuses be slightly better than custom faction bonuses OR by designing 10-20 "preset" faction goals + bonuses along various lines (IE: Latin American Communism; European non-alignment/neutrality) which player can chose between. That way they are at a rough parity with one another.

2.) For factions created through focuses (IE: Humanitie Unie, European Union, Little Entente) will these factions be automatically assigned goals + bonuses or will the game allow players to select them?

3.) One potential I'd hope for this rework to accomplish would be to allow for these alt-history/player created factions to actually hold weight compared to the base game factions. A counter to the classic complaint of "Join the Comintern vs. Create a communist faction no one will join" perhaps a way to weight AI preference for factions that accounts for how well the faction goals align with their own? That way players are not completely restricted to focus-tree invites and the AI have incentives to consider alt-history factions instead of just joining one of the big three. IE: Hungary might be more likely to join an Italian Fascist faction than Germany since Italy doesn't have competing territorial goals with forming Greater Hungary.

I hope I explained what I mean well enough but I feel this is kinda complicated. Wondering what your thoughts are on these potential dynamics and/or if this is something y'all are trying to work towards?