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HoI3 isn't available for projects like this (yet), but HoI2 is, so that's why they're doing it off the HoI2 engine.

The other obvious question everyone likes to dodge: When is this planned to come out? and will it be digital download from steam/gamersgate?

Dec 17th, from what has appeared on other threads, and it almost certainly will be available through Gamersgate. Although it might be exclusive to the Paradox mail-order catalogue. ;)
 
That is v2.0: - if I am playing this game, what features from hoi 3 am I not getting (given it is based on hoi 2)

Well basically you get HoI2 features + some additionnal stuff, I think it makes more sence to compare it with HoI2 rather than HoI3.
 
Sorry if i'm not up with the modding community comings and goings but let me get this straight - you guys work / partner paradox and have dev'd a game based on hoi 2 irregardless of hoi 3? That is: why not dev an offshoot of the latest installment? That is v2.0: - if I am playing this game, what features from hoi 3 am I not getting (given it is based on hoi 2). Sorry for the roundabout question, but thats the logic used :p
'We' are a group of long-time fans and players of Paradox games (specifically HoI2 and its expansions) who took Paradox up on its offer to release, in a controlled manner, their "old" engine games to fans to develop in ways that they (the fans) thought fit. As such, AoD is more than a Mod - because we have been given access to the code of the core engine and been able to modify that - but still within the capabilities of a fan group that do not have a full software development house to call upon. As long-time players we had an assortment of ideas about what we thought the flaws were in HoI2 and how we thought the game could be made 'better'. We (specifically Lennartos) have welded those ideas into a vision for a "revised" HoI2:ARMA, and that is what AoD is. On top of that we have tried to incorporate a number of ideas and requests that have been made by other fans in the past and here on this forum.

We hope the result is a game that everyone who buys it will enjoy; it is different in a multiplicity of ways to HoI3. Apart from anything else, the design aims of the games were different in detail; where HoI3 uses computing power and modelling at a lower level to enhance the warfare model, we have used more abstract mechanisms at a higher level - so AoD still has bigger provinces and the division as the lowest independent unit, compared to HoI3's brigades. AoD also does not take automation/AI control as far as HoI3 - all military units must be ordered directly by the player, there are no AI 'Theatres' etc. nor is there a 'command pyramid'. All in all, playing AoD will be a different experience than playing HoI3 - personally I expect and hope that both will be absorbing and enjoyable, but in different ways.

The other obvious question everyone likes to dodge: When is this planned to come out? and will it be digital download from steam/gamersgate?
The Paradox marketing folk have the final say on exactly when, but the latest date we have is December 17th. It will be available for a very reasonable price (considering how good it is ;) ) via electronic distribution only (Gamersgate, specifically).
 
He probably just preordered it

I think the thing that really matters is that he DEVELOPED it. :rofl: However the little icon sux, too bad. It could have been somewhat more orignal, especially given that AoD has nothing to do with HoI3 at all.
 
I just skimmed through the thread so I might have missed it, but is there any release date known yet?

Overall what I read about AoD looked pretty good to me :)
 
Think the dev. team should have enlisted some help from For the Glory team to help out with the little icon. Now it gives the impression that AoD is a HoI3 expansion. And we all know that it isn't.

People are buying For the Glory just to get their awesome icon and avatar. Something to think about. ;)

You know pr isn't about people buying AoD for the right reason. It's about people buying AoD for whatever reason.

Good luck on your final days of development.
 
Why do you want omniscience and other cheats turned off? I mean the reasons it has many of these cheats is to account for the fact that it is and it doesn't use human exploits, doesn't use reciprocal trading for a profit, won't mass air effectively, doesn't use prediction to build efficiently and so on and so forth. The production cheats in particular compensate for the fact that the AI is stupid.

In the light of these facts does it still bother you? If so why? It's too hard to beat?

No. I have beaten the game as is, thank you very much.

Some of the cheats don't really bother me, but the AI should not be able to know everything about me without using spies. That is IMO laziness on the part of the developers - and since I write software for a living, I have seen plenty of examples of what that looks like, and how it affects code perrformance.
 
No. I have beaten the game as is, thank you very much.

That is good, because it is an easy game to master at any level of strength. Any game is. The only time these games become difficult is when they are played multi-player. There really isn't any system that can not be penetrated, and ultimately that is the issue with "systems". Knowing and using the system against itself; even something as simple as fooling the program into attacking a "weak" zone so you can pocket a group and other combat "techniques", which aren't really exploits amount to an exploit since you are really just using the facility of prediction based in learned experience, which the game can not do.

Fundamentally, if the complaint is that the game has abilities that the player does not, and that is "unfair" then the player making the complaint should stop using prediction and learned experience, and play the game as if all knowledge of the game comes to it at the exact moment in time in which he is playing, since of the machine has no memory whatsoever. From the perspective of the program, it is a human "cheat", so to speak.

For example, you have an idea of roughly the size and quality of the Japanese navy based on past games, or even your immediate short term memories of what ships you have seen in the game you are playing. You can't help it. You remember. It is just the way you are, and all of your reactions are based in that memory, whether you like it or not. The game, without omniscience, would have no such "knowledge" upon which to base its decisions on, and instead be reacting only to its immediate environment at the moment it is acting.

Hence my example above, where the AI "Cheats" by counting the number of units that are close enough to interfere in a battle, whether they are "visible" on the front or not. This indeed helps the computer avoid simple exploits such as creating a weakness in order to pocket a group, since it is given a basic awareness of the general strength of its human opponent in the immediate environment, and this compensates to some extent for not being able to "remember" what the player has is in a particular theater.

It is less likely to fall into the trap, since it is counting the "reserve" and now knows that the position is not really as weak as it "appears". Purely reactive game design systems are highly open to exploits such as bait and switch, and lures.

AI cheats are most often actually compensation for not being able to think and remember.
 
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For example, you have an idea of roughly the size and quality of the Japanese navy based on past games, or even your immediate short term memories of what ships you have seen in the game you are playing. You can't help it. You remember. It is just the way you are, and all of your reactions are based in that memory, whether you like it or not. The game, without omniscience, would have no such "knowledge" upon which to base its decisions on, and instead be reacting only to its immediate environment at the moment it is acting.

Hence my example above, where the AI "Cheats" by counting the number of units that are close enough to interfere in a battle, whether they are "visible" on the front or not. This indeed helps the computer avoid simple exploits such as creating a weakness in order to pocket a group, since it is given a basic awareness of the general strength of its human opponent in the immediate environment, and this compensates to some extent for not being able to "remember" what the player has is in a particular theater.

It is less likely to fall into the trap, since it is counting the "reserve" and now knows that the position is not really as weak as it "appears". Purely reactive game design systems are highly open to exploits such as bait and switch, and lures.

AI cheats are most often actually compensation for not being able to think and remember.

This is an excellent point, and very well explained. As much as any other tidbit, this revelation of the design team's philosophy convinces me to buy AOD. :)
 
I am not on the design team, just some loudmouth on the board, but thanks for the compliment. :cool:

But I doubt they will take omniscience out. Why would they? It is too useful a tool for making an AI properly reactive. Making it omniscient, does not preclude making it more reactive and intelligent.
 
Will it work for Vista?