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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.
 
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Going to have to see exactly where all the hot and cold weather is going to be - and when. Is India Hot? Is Texas Hot during summer? Is New England Cold during winter?

Will German Troops in northern Germany be able to acclimatize to cold during the German winter, or is it just regions where this is available?

I see that changing from hot to cold will have a unit start to flip and have them fight with a malus, but is there middle ground, where a unit can be cold acclimitized, but not be in hot or cold? (Thinking like Fighting in Winter in Sweden, then garrisoning German Coast in Summer. Will that unit keep it's 'cold' designation?

I like the theory behind this definitely. If Germany doesn't have a place to winterize troops (Do I hear a reason for an Early Scandinavian attack?), looks as though there will be much more urgency into getting deep into the USSR before the winter hits, and more unlikely to be able to successfully press forward against resistance that is there once the cold weather sets in.
 
Great changes. I was hoping for something to shake up the stale meta of 14/4 mountaineers/marines.

It will also make spamming of paratroopers by countries like Bulgaria and Ireland in MP just slightly more difficult, since they will have to maintain some base infantry divisions also.
 
Constans said:
I disagree. It further prioritizes and emphasizes planning pre-war. it makes sense now to wait until 6 months (or whatever the time is) before planning on attacking Egypt as Italy, and then positioning all the troops you plan on using into Libya. that way you may have a decisive advantage in acclimatized troops over the Brits in the first few months of the war as they have to shift units from elsewhere.
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Like I said, it will happen so very infrequently that it is nothing that I would ever run into and think "wow, I should have planned for that." It is just another in the long line of modifiers that are so numerous I can't keep track of anyway.
The number of countries this will have zero effect upon is rather large. The number of countries this will affect, is very few.
There are two deserts that matter and one winter zone (russia) other than those areas and in unique situations like attacking Russia in the winter.
Like I said it is a nice addition. I just don't think it deserves the hype. It is going to be just like WT or day/night cycle, not that interesting when it is all said and done.
 
Are all kinds of the Special Forces battalions going to count against the shared limit, or will they have individual ones per kind? If the latter, 5% might be tolerable, forcing you to employ both marines and mountaineers and whatever (separate jungle troops eventually?), but if former... I honestly think that increasing that limit to 20% or 15% at the very least would be better, as otherwise, as others have duly pointed out, the extra oomph of SF over regular infantry won't justify the research time expenditures involved.

Make them Special all right, but please, don't make them too rare to actually matter. Other than that, great and exciting news!
 
So how are we going to perform D-Day with such limited amounts of marines? You will need hundreds of normal divisions to provide for even one or two dozen marine divisions. DDays of historical size, and marines require very significant numerical advantages to successfully land in the first place, and a landing will usually take several days to actually take a province.

Special forces are going to need significant buffs to actually be effective, such as marines on naval invasions having planning bonus along with increased base stats, presumably provided by the naval invasion tech.


Additionally, the soviets need to be strong enough to hold long enough to allow for increased buildup by the allies since DDay or other landings will be much harder.


Edit: This also makes raj really sad. The only thing good about them is that they have good mountaineers (much of the focus tree is devoted to this), and now they're not really left with anything.
 
Would extreme winter acclimatize faster than a regular winter?

Is attrition more severe for an unacclimatized division?

Will divisions from hotter countries take longer to acclimatize in colder countries and vice versa?
 
Achab said:
Will this be the last blow to JAPs already minimalized chances vs CHI?

Also what is the estimated meta on special forces division widths ... 60? 80?
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Well with a maximum of 5x5 battalions, the maximum combat width for purely special forces will be 5x5x2 = 50 (the maximum anyway is 75 for 25 line artillery)
 
Dlin369 said:
Will countries like Greece and Italy get spirits to boost their cap on mountaineers? Or something similar for countries with a lot of a particular terrain?
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donagel said:
Special Forces: How are the number of battalions allowed determined? Will the base be different per country or will everyone have a set % based on total troops?
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For mountaineers, what if the % cap correlated with the % mountain districts in the starting country (or controlled territories)?
  • Nepal and Switzerland and to some extent, Greece, could have higher percentage of mountaineers.
  • Some nations without a mountain province would get 0% (or very few) mountaineers.
The same approach could be used for desert and jungle units.

This would increase the value of some minor nations.

Gurkhas!
 
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Has any thought been given to allow the player the option of pre training for winter or desert conditions?

We can train divisions now to get them to a set XP level, could an additional button be added like "Winter/Desert Training" that could reduce the time needed for acclimatization by a set amount?
 
US had 6 marine divisions. Each marine division had 3 battalions in three regiments. that's 9*6=54. The way the game works, certain leg infantry divisions have to have been designated marines as well for D-Day to have worked. that is at least another 6 divisions with 9 battalions each or another 54. Airborne forces: 4 divisions, 9 battalions = 36. 2 mountain divisions = 18. Two ranger battalions as well, (corps/Army asset) So the US historically had 108+36+18 +2 = 164. 164/ .05 = 3280 battalions required to build actual force. 3280/9 = 364.44 divisions. Wait, total US divisions in WWII was 97, 91 in the army and 6 in the marines. So historically the US had 164 SPs out of 875 battalions (9*97+2 rangers) or 18.74%. I like the idea of limiting the special forces but the 5% rule is too low.
 
SlavicAmerican said:
Still need some GIs to guard the borders tho, especially if you plan to use mobile warfare doctrines.
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well maybe not delete all spare battalions but the point I’m getting at is that you could produce extra battalions and then delete them just to increase the special forces count
 
ChairmanMeow said:
What about split heat acclimatization into desert acclimatization and jungle ones? Maybe there are more options we can utilize.:)

EDIT: Oh, I get it. This is a factor apart from terrains.
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I'm not sure I do. Are they going to be treated the same due to the temperature?
 
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