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HOI4 Dev Diary - Acclimatization and Special Forces

Hi everyone and welcome to another dev diary where we show off stuff as we work on Waking the Tiger. Today we are going to be talking about a feature I’ve been wanting for a long time - troop acclimatization.


Acclimatization
We have long wanted to simulate the problems associated with shifting troops to new fronts with more extreme weather they are not used to. We currently have two types: Cold Acclimatization and Heat Acclimatization. It is not possible to be acclimatized to both at the same time, so if you take troops from the desert and put them down in the Russian winter, they will need to “work off” their heat acclimatization first before they start getting accustomed to the cold. When a division is sufficiently acclimatized, it will change its look, as you can see below. On the left are troops in winter with no acclimatization and on the right is what they will look when acclimatized.
Screenshot_1.jpg

And an example from Africa:
hoi4_4.jpg


For most countries, we do this by switching the uniform on the 3D model to use more appropriate textures. In some cases, like where people only had tropic uniforms with short pants and the like, we replaced their uniforms to be more winter appropriate (suggestions by the art department to simply color their knees blue were sadly rejected). The new textures come with the DLC, but the core mechanic is free as part of 1.5 Cornflakes. You can see your acclimatization status as part of the unit list and its effects:
Screenshot_2.jpg



With full acclimatization you will reduce extreme weather penalties by about half. We will also be increasing the impact of harsh weather a bit to compensate for being able to avoid it now.

There are a few things that will help you gain acclimatization also. If your commander has the Adaptable trait or Winter Expert it will speed things up. There are also technologies that influence the acclimatization speed (more on that later).
upload_2017-12-6_14-41-16.png



Special forces
Up till now, we have had a bit of a balance issue with Special Forces (Marines, Mountaineers, Paratroopers). They were, pound for pound, better than regular infantry and many people simply replaced all their infantry with mountaineers.

To make sure special forces stay special, we added a restriction based on your whole army:
Screenshot_3.jpg


To ensure that you always know how many special forces you can field, the division designer and deployment will help you keep track:

Screenshot_4.jpg


Along with this change in how Special Forces work, we wanted to make them stand out a bit more. Six new infantry technologies have been added to improve these elite troops.

Special forces are trained and equipped for conditions that ordinary soldiers aren’t expected to excel in. The first tech will give them a boost to acclimatization speed. Afterwards, the tree splits. One option is to train your special forces harder, to improve their skills and their ability to fight for longer before having to be resupplied. The other option is to expand the special forces training programs to accept more recruits. Your special forces will be more numerous, but come with more drag and not quite as high speed. In the end though, they will still be elite forces and will be able to develop training to make them even more skilled in fighting in the harshest of conditions.

Screenshot_5.jpg


See you all next week when we return to take a look at the Chinese warlords.

Also, don’t miss out on World War Wednesday today at 16:00 CET as normal. Me and Daniel will continue our fight against communism (or the British fleet… we are still arguing about that) as Germany under the rule of the Kaiser.
 
so that would be a support type unit, not a specialized inf reg

Alpine div had 2 inf reg vs stadard inf having 3 inf reg

all total for the costal, reg inf mountain and mot that is 272 normal regiments, and 12 mountain... guess what 5% of 272 is?
Ok but the game does not model a 2 or 3 regiment system... I don't know how you come up with the 272 number.
 
Ok but the game does not model a 2 or 3 regiment system...

Can't the game model a regimental system?

I thought each regiment was composed of several battalions, which are the smallest maneuver unit represented in HoI4. ( What are called "support companies" are that, support...not the force-on-force element of the unit. And I understand that there is a movement afoot to rename the "support companies" as "support battalions".)

HoI4's division designer allows for a unit to be made up of several battalions.

One would think that is sufficient for the game to model a 2 or 3 regimental system.

But there may be other considerations to contemplate and I could be missing or mis-interpreting something important.

Thoughts?
 
480?! The game starts choking when five of the majors pass 200!

It's battallions, not divisions. Let's say you use the meta of 20 with divisions with 7 inf + 2 art -and assuming art doesn't get counted- that's 480/7=68.5 divisions probably rounded up or down before the game starts increasing the limit on your special forces. That's how I'm interpreting the tooltip.
 
Great features, don't understand how stuff like unlimited special forces even makes it way into the base game though.

You do make a good point. The personnel in the special units were (are) typically the créme de la créme of their respective societies. They were special. Only a certain percentage could fulfill the recruiting standards, with a fair amount washing out during initial training.

But. HoI4 has a story to tell, a tale in which even little nations -- for example -- such as Haiti can make a difference on the international scene by fielding a carrier task force.

A story where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the recruitable population are above average.

Thus, in HoI4 version 1.4.2, there can be unlimited special forces.

All the population have The Right Stuff.

upload_2017-12-7_10-24-52.jpeg
 
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Ok but the game does not model a 2 or 3 regiment system... I don't know how you come up with the 272 number.
btw my post was suppose to be tongue and cheek, however in rereading it didn't come across as I meant... anyways the 272 came off of
3 x all inf/mot/mountain div and 2x coastal for a total of 272 regiments. The alpini have 2 reg per div for a total of 12.

conceptually the game allows you to do 2 v 3 v 4 in that you could use one column as each reg... however that delves into an area that I think is lacking in the game and realistic div compositions...
 
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This is the first DD for Waking the Tiger, I've been really underwhelmed by.
I find both of the features to be more busy work than fun.

I think in practice not many players will bother researching the special forces techs. Really only the US seems to be significantly impacted by the limitations (depending if it is 5 or 10%) and there are so many things for the US to research I find it hard to imagine they'll sacrifice a bomber, CV, or electronics research for a special forces research. Adding more research options when you already can't research everything that you could historically, I find more frustrating than fun.


As for acclimatization, I'll echo some of the other comments. The deserts of the Middle East, and the jungles of Solomon Islands are both very hot (I've been to both) , but I doubt seriously spending 3 months in one place will make it easier for you to fight in the other. Jungle fighting requires different training than desert fighting. It is true that Japanese after a couple of years fighting in the jungle got pretty good at it, but I'd argue that was the impact of specific General, more than specific troops. I think for the most part this turned out to be a wash, neither the Africa Corp, nor the British 8th Army started off as desert experts but they both learned and I believe at roughly the same rate.

The one obvious place where acclimatization made a huge difference was Russia. But I really feel that should be handle how it is in most WWII game by giving the Russian troops a winter bonus the first year. I really don't want the hassle of training my US troops in Texas or Alaska, or as the Japanese Manchuria and Truk and constantly have to rotate them out. More importantly, it is one more thing for the AI to screw up doing.

It sounds like the feature is already part of the update, but I hope they give us the option to disable it.
 
Does anyone know if it will be possible to raise the special forces cap by means other than increasing army size (national focus, decision, research, etc.)?
 
Does anyone know if it will be possible to raise the special forces cap by means other than increasing army size (national focus, decision, research, etc.)?
They mentioned in the bottom of the dev diary that there is a tech branch allowing for more special forces. Hopefully some nations will get other buffs to their SP caps to match their historic strengths/traditions
 
It's battallions, not divisions. Let's say you use the meta of 20 with divisions with 7 inf + 2 art -and assuming art doesn't get counted- that's 480/7=68.5 divisions probably rounded up or down before the game starts increasing the limit on your special forces. That's how I'm interpreting the tooltip.
Oh, thank goodness! I still get some of the terminology mixed up, even after all this time. At least I don't call magazines or clips "cartridges" anymore!
 
The HOI4 MP community is a one giant big Circlejerk for the most part.

Can't judge if that's true or not, but it's definitely an unusual marketing slogan.

'Come join the HOI4 MP community, it's mostly a big giant Circlejerk! P.S. Bring your own tissues.' :D

Like, where do I sign up? Or not. :p
 
Any Special Forces for regular infantry types?

While there were and are special forces that are classified as "regular" Infantry all of them still get special training in at least one of the areas HOI4 Special forces excell at. Even units like the Devil's Brigade got special alpine and parashoot training. Same for the Green Berets and similar units all around the world. The only real objection might be that there are units that are trained multiple of the special forces skills but I think for the purpose of the game it is ok to stick to one.
 
The whole idea about preventing players from building only marines or mountaineers could be solved by giving normal infantry a slight terrain bonus in plains and forrests. 10% or 5% would probably be enough to give the proper incentive.
 
The whole idea about preventing players from building only marines or mountaineers could be solved by giving normal infantry a slight terrain bonus in plains and forrests. 10% or 5% would probably be enough to give the proper incentive.
By what logic would regular infantry be better in plains and forests (or any terrain type for that matter) than special forces?
 
By what logic would regular infantry be better in plains and forests (or any terrain type for that matter) than special forces?
Because their primary training and equipment is geared towards combat in plains and forrests? HOI4 is the first HOI where mountaineers and marines have the same stats as regular infantry. They always had less soft and hard attack to account for them being "light infantry".
 
Because their primary training and equipment is geared towards combat in plains and forrests? HOI4 is the first HOI where mountaineers and marines have the same stats as regular infantry. They always had less soft and hard attack to account for them being "light infantry".
They dont. Spec Ops has higher recovery rate and higher org +30% breakthough AND terrain bonuses. Even worse comes with national bonuses for Spec Ops. But they are expensive for the ecomony with 140 Infantry Equipment used ( compare to 100 of reg inf). It is fine right now, yet the number of spec ops per county must be nerfed ( as it is nerfed)