Have been playings some HIP 0.374 recently. In my opinion, HIP is such a good mod that it really deserves its own sub-forum. If ordinary user "squeaking" can get HIP such a thing, I'll be happy to post or PM some admin.
After playing Japan up to '42, and France up to '43 (so far), both Hard/Normal, here are the comments and criticisms I've come up with so far:
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- Japan is very powerful when played by a human. With a decent industry, cheap resources, very low build costs, and early and strong mobilization, I found playing Japan HIP to be much easier than in any other mod I've tried. The sheer number of '36 carriers and light cruisers I cranked out made global naval domination a very real possibility, and China wasn't too difficult to conquer (12 months to annexation) even though I built precious few land or air units. Stopped and decided to look for challenge elsewhere when the USA and UK had lost most of their capital ships.
- I also found France to be a powerhouse compared to its position in most other mods. Smashed Germany and her three allies by early '40, and am now crushing Japan with no great difficulty. What keeps me playing is the anticipation of DOWing the USSR and her 425-division army.
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- I love the extended timeframe of land warfare. However, you might consider lowing GDE efficiency to 0.96 / 0.92 and dropping various attack/defence values.
- I'm a huge fan of the easier and more important experience increases. A little voice in my head is trying to tell me that the +80 combat mod makes my gallic tank divisions outrageous instead of merely super-powerful, but I assure you that I can ignore it.
- I don't know whether I agree with the increase of speed for foot troops in later versions of HIP. Yes, a speed of 2 is SLOW. No, I didn't find that it reduced my rate of conquest (using alpini) overly much.
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Unit balance needs some attention.
Armour divisions are tremendously powerful in most situations (mountains and amphibious assaults being the big exceptions) compared to infantry. The earlier versions are surprisingly inexpensive to build and field. Greatly superior speed is also a huge advantage (somewhat lessened in the latest HIP release, so I understand).
Mech infantry are even more cost-effective, and are clearly the obvious choice later on. Their low hard attack further encourages the continued use of armour (which, I assure you, needs no encouragement).
Alpini, unlike infantry, are an excellent choice in the mountains, in the snow, across rivers, and even in light amphibous assaults. They are cheaper to field than infantry (in this mod, this fact is of cardinal importance), cost fewer manpower to build and replenish after battle, and need not be upgraded so often. Despite their lower attack values, they seem the better choice. I therefore build lots of alpini, and no infantry.
Marines are also very good value for money ... for nations with enough IC and tech. Japan can get huge mileage from marines in China.
Cavalry I've never bothered with. Ditto motorized; by the time they get fast enough to keep up with the armour, mech has arrived. So how do I tap into those lovely combined arms bonuses? HQs, of course!
- Light tank divisons seem greatly underpowered.
- The low cost to field brigades is very nice, and their bonuses are generally tempting, but there are precisely two (in practice, only one) brigades that I use for everything: engineers and (eventually) SP rocket arty.
- The reason why I don't pay very much attention to brigades that raise hardness is twofold: infantry have fairly good hard attack, and armour is so powerful already that it doesn't need the help. Recommend that many units (inf, cav, alpini, marine) get their hard attack rating reduced (along with a serious rebalance of armour unit power).
- You might consider either 1) raising the hard attack of various AT brigades, or 2) lowering the hard attack of middle and late-model armour.
- Kudos on the solid balance of the surface capital ships in HIP. First time I've ever built battlecruisers and been glad I did. Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships all feel "right".
- However, submarines, at least for nations other than Germany, are not much use. They are, granted, highly effective at convoy raiding, but they roll over and die when surface ships find them. As France, I had 30 model IV subs, all full strength and org, gathered in two fleets of 15. A large surface fleet with about 12 mixed light cruisers and destroyers (mixed models from I to IV) found one of these fleet and sent it packing with the loss of six subs and no surface ships. This general result occured over and over again to both fleets, despite my consistent use of more modern ships in greater numbers, at night and in bad weather. In another game, Japanese subs had slightly more success, but only because other forces were leaving them only badly weakened foes to finish off.
- Destroyers are about twice as costly to build as they should be, given their relative combat power. They are also way too expensive to field - they are, in fact, so expensive that I immediately scrap every destroyer in any fleet I own. If subs were more dangerous, then my opinion might change, but for now, it's light cruisers all the way.
- Carriers also need some help. They do acceptable combat damage, but heavy surface combatants only need to close the range once to devastate them. This comment applies at daytime in good weather; at night or in bad weather, carriers are good only for target practice.
- Air versus sea battles are massacres - there's no kinder way to describe it. I use CAS (who needs naval bombers?) to rule the oceans; they kill carriers and battleships so quickly, at sea or in port, that as France I destroyed every capital ship in the Japanese inventory in 45 days. Osawa's 10 CV armada lasted 11 days from the morning I caught it cruising off Saigon. Germany's fleet took even less time; my flyboys found 1 BB, 5 BCs, and 3 CAs in Koniegsberg port and wiped them and their many escorts out inside of a week. And that was with port_strike_effectiveness = 50%... Just to drive the point home:
There is no point to well-balanced naval units if airplanes come equpped with Exocet missiles!
- CAS also do nasty, nasty things to land units. How am I going to handle 55 soviet tank divisions? Airpower, man, airpower.
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Unit costs are sometimes problematic.
- The most serious problem is the rapidly rising time to build for many modern versions of many units. Time to build is critical. Increases really hurt. It just isn't worth researching any ship other than carriers past '41. Carriers are iffy; you need modern CAG groups, but the time to build carriers rises far, far too quickly. If you can, it's better to build huge numbers of '36 (or perhaps '38) -model carriers, and then supply them with CAGs as needed. As Japan, I cranked more than 15 '36-model carriers by late 1938. Air units sometimes have the same problem; turbojet CAs and TAC increase in cost/time faster than they do in power, a very dissapointing thing, and one which I'm glad I found out before researching them.
- The fuel usage of tanks rises very quickly as well; this makes me think long and hard about advancing this tech past '41. Early tanks lack hard attack and speed, true, but can be fielded in great numbers, perfect for crushing infantry. Mech infantry, in contrast, keep their low fuel usage throughout, making them very attractive indeed.
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- "Minor" nations seem shortchanged with high build costs and low mobilization values. In particular, relatively powerful second-rank powers such as Canada, Australia, Hungary, and Romania should not be so crippled.
- Unlike as in some mods, I found manpower in the nations I played to be fairly well balanced. Good show on that!
- 1 vote for more graphical unit pictures. Crudely-drawn NATO icons really are ugly.
- Money seems over-valued. As France, I'm trading away enough excess gold that my friends and puppets are giving in excess of 140 supplies per day. This essentially means 70 free IC.
- Oil is definately under-valued. My standard practice is to trade for virtually every drop of oil available on the world market. As Japan, I amassed 302,000 units of oil by the time I hit Pearl Harbor in 7-Dec-41.
- Consider making "hard" and "very hard" settings, well, harder. The lack of an industrial penalty is important.
- Consider making India a British puppet state under British playr military control, and explicitely encouraging the British player to use that military control. Adjust IC/manpower as appropriate.
- Speaking of puppets: When I release a puppet, it has a much higher modified IC than it did before; effectively, it's devoting 100% of GNP to warfare.
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Again: superb job on this mod. Love it.
