Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

[Colonel_Kraken]

On Super-Heavy Tanks as support battalions . . .

Please, please, please, PLEASE allow Medium and Heavy (Light tanks are already represented in Recon) to be support battalions also (as well as line battalions).

I've used CrabMonarcy's "Support Armor" mod for so long, I can't remember playing HoI4 without it. Please consider this simple change to the game.

Thanks!

 

[STABBY5]

The big point with this is the efficiency difference is very low from one CW to another so you don't need to care so much so long as you in are in the "good" range of CW's somewhere between 10-45cw. of course you can specifically design for a terrain type but this is a rare case.

I hate to ask but has someone done the math? The original width changed were supposed to reduce overall size of divisions but it in fact made them larger and made it 100x more confusing for people to understand what division to make because the numbers were no longer had a pattern. You could look at the old width and easily see how big to make a division. No casual player understands what the mix of seemingly random numbers means even if its oddly a critical mechanic.

I'm not sure combat width should be a thing in most cases. Look at the battle of the budge. More than half a million men fighting effectively over what is probably a few titles in game.

 

[SW HOI4]

How would fighting the Ai be like if they upgrade their units? Do they just put more guns or they upgrade there division template?

 

[Eruth]

Add an "Airframe" module radial button in the air designer just like the engine or armor module in the tank designer. This represents improved production capabilities working with aluminum, wing design, struts, spurs, flaps designs, metal smoothing, etc. (I do understand much of this is represented in the airframe techs but hear me out). You can hit the '+' sign to make slight improvements to your airframe (could affect speed, range, agility) while adding production cost (and possibly more aluminum at the highest levels). This allows you to keep your "Basic Airframe" fighter viable later in the war (think Bf-109 k vs. Bf-109 b) while still not negating later airframes (Improved and Advanced) which represent better "from the ground up" designs.

I liked the rest of your post, but this really stands out. I like having tank upgrades as a sink for extra army XP points, and because it makes me feel like even if even if we all have the same tech I can still make better tanks by having more battlefield experience. I want this back for planes.

 

[CanterburyITA]

Thanks for making this new patch. Very interesting. In a short testing:

1. Italy and other similar nations should start the game with Air Launched Torpedos researched (the default SM.79 template has a torpedo on it).
2. This was probably like this before, but I noticed that switching an airframe from a 2x engine to a 3x or 4x engine configuration did not change the weight or range as expected.

Example: Roach 1940 Tactical Bomber (Medium Bomb Bay x1 and 2x Engine I only) for Italy has (updated for July 7 hotfix):
375 kph speed
1000 km range
0.28 Supply Usage
19 thrust - 14 weight
22.5 agility
20 air def
0.32 fuel usage
40 IC production cost

Same plane with 4x Engine I has:
same speed, range, supply usage, weight, air def
32 thrust - 14 weight
29.0 agility
0.64 fuel usage
64 IC production cost

The above stats apply to all valid missions.

I know you intentionally made excess thrust not contribute to speed in this patch, so that's fine I guess, but I don't think it makes sense that having double the number of engines keeps weight and range the same. If they're burning double the fuel, where do they store it?

 

[vermicious knid]

Love this direction. The one glaring thing I see missing is another pass on artillery. There must be a better way to represent its impact...and it really shouldn't be eating up a bunch of combat width.

 

[Packerfan504]

Wasn't this already true? I know the wiki isn't the end all be all but I was under the impression armor always mattered for reducing damage when not pierced, as did the COMBAT_ARMOR_PIERCING_DAMAGE_REDUCTION define.

@C0RAX looking for clarification on this question, as I am currently balancing around this info in a mod. Does armor not reduce damage already? Is this replacing that system or in addition to it?

Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

Hello there, it's me C0RAX. A bit of the different DD than you’re used to this week. I'm here to introduce a new thing I will be doing over the summer. This summer for 4 weeks we will be giving you the chance to test some of the balance changes...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Agiknight]

If on nearly every tile everyone is experiencing some minor combat width coverage penalty or 1-2 width below max…then is it so bad?

A lot of the criticism I see of combat width changes are often centered around the notion that one should never experience width issues. As in, back in the day there only was 80 width and there was no reason not to be 20w.

if everyone is slightly off on combat width, then it becomes a relevant stat. If everyone just rolls around in perfect divisors of 80, no one ever has to consider width.

I think it’s a good thing. Since there isn’t an expectation to be perfect on width you can now factor that into your division size with consideration of the terrain you’ll be fighting in.

The concern is that generally the game's mechanics favor defending over attacking. Attacking a properly defended position in multiplayer requires a proper concentrated attack. This is the case across the entire front on Barbarossa, and you have the entire Axis micro'ing vs multiple Soviet players. This is all well and good, and I think people feel the game balance overall is generally in a good state, but this change is effectively a huge nerf to attacks in Forests/Jungles, and the concern is the huge number of Forests across Barbarossa front become a stalemate due to tanks not being able to push through them.

 

[Lamartine]

Super Heavies should not be airdroppable

 

[icedlemon]

The concern is that generally the game's mechanics favor defending over attacking. Attacking a properly defended position in multiplayer requires a proper concentrated attack. This is the case across the entire front on Barbarossa, and you have the entire Axis micro'ing vs multiple Soviet players. This is all well and good, and I think people feel the game balance overall is generally in a good state, but this change is effectively a huge nerf to attacks in Forests/Jungles, and the concern is the huge number of Forests across Barbarossa front become a stalemate due to tanks not being able to push through them.

I feel like this is an issue that could be addressed in so many other ways, and it doesn't outweigh the benfit of the new width system. Besides, the actual new patch will include new support company balance, MIOs, and we are yet to see how the change in air designer could influence ground combat. All in all it's a really minor issue imho.

 

[Ossiv]

Why not make heavy tanks support units too? They were used as independant battalions, there was never a division of them.

Heavy tanks were used as a full battalion in divisional organization by the French, the Soviets and the Germans. If you were referring to the German heavy tank battalions, most were independent, but the Grossdeutschland Division had an integral heavy tank battalion between 1943-45.

 

[Chromgamer]

I feel like this is an issue that could be addressed in so many other ways, and it doesn't outweigh the benfit of the new width system. Besides, the actual new patch will include new support company balance, MIOs, and we are yet to see how the change in air designer could influence ground combat. All in all it's a really minor issue imho.

What are the benefits of the new system. For me it just unessecarily complicates cw and reinforce cw.

 

[Thunderhog]

Not a fan of Jet Engines getting hit with a 40 percent malus to range.

 

[him_15]

Dear dev, please kindly take this opportunity to fix some of the minor annoying graphics issues that have been lasting for ages! Such as the air icon and german army icon issues. Thx!

 

[Kanitatlan]

I think one of the best ways to deal with the combat width issue would be to decrease the penalty a bit so that being over width was more a waste of the the extra forces committed than an actual penalty.

COMBAT_OVER_WIDTH_PENALTY = -1.5, -- over combat width penalty per %.

I would have thought this open beta period would be an excellent opportunity to test reducing the value slightly. This would tend to flatten the peaks and troughs in the "optimum division width" graph. I appreciate that there are issues with the way this would interact with large over-width deployments but there is some lee way for slightly smaller values to make it so that an over width attack (or defence) is more a waste of resources than actually penalised.

Obviously it needs to be more than -1 but it would be nice if we could get some of the players who actively research optimum combat width to see what effect -1.2 or -1.3 would have.

 

[Gort11]

So, who's got thoughts on the optimal division width now?

 

[icedlemon]

What are the benefits of the new system. For me it just unessecarily complicates cw and reinforce cw.

I think the dev has said it in the thread. It's about lowering the gap between the better performing width and the worse ones. Unless we could get rid of width all together, which we probably have to wait for Hoi5 for that, I'm all down for making division design less restricted by width.

 

[ltccone]

Heavy tanks were used as a full battalion in divisional organization by the French, the Soviets and the Germans. If you were referring to the German heavy tank battalions, most were independent, but the Grossdeutschland Division had an integral heavy tank battalion between 1943-45.

While there were a single battalion of heavy tanks in divisions, there were no divisions consisting entirely of heavy tanks. Most HOI4 players are not going to put a single heavy tank battalion in a medium tank division.

 

[Kanitatlan]

While there were a single battalion of heavy tanks in divisions, there were no divisions consisting entirely of heavy tanks. Most HOI4 players are not going to put a single heavy tank battalion in a medium tank division.

On the other hand most players (who know what they are doing) do put a single "heavy" tank battalion in their tank divisions, it's just that the heavy tank is in fact a medium tank destroyer with maximised armour. What is interesting is that this medium tank destroyer is there for exactly the same reason that divisions had attached heavy tank battalions in WW2. I think it kind of works except for the fact that the speed of a division is dictated by the slowest attached battalion. In WW2 you would commonly have the situation that the independent heavy tank battalion would simply get left behind and, in effect, detach from the division. HOI4 doesn't really have a mechanism for this and I hesitate to say it ought to as it seems like potentially a lot of developer effort for little gain.

 

[hannibal_pjv]

I feel like this is an issue that could be addressed in so many other ways, and it doesn't outweigh the benfit of the new width system. Besides, the actual new patch will include new support company balance, MIOs, and we are yet to see how the change in air designer could influence ground combat. All in all it's a really minor issue imho.

All in all… Defending is allways better. You normally need more than four times strengt to be able to attack!
We can see this even in current Russian vs Ukraina war. It was also true in the WW2. Finns should not have any chance against Soviet, but defending in home territory is so, so much easier. So any changes that makes defending better arre quite realistic.