Hello Everyone,
I treat myself to 2-day binges of HoI2 twice a year: once after the spring semester and once after the fall semester. Coming off my most recent binge, I've been thinking of new ways to model large and small scale unit movement and organization.
When I play HoI2(DD+Arm), I typically play as one of the mid-range European powers (Austria, Czech, or Hungary) with a modified 1936 scenario. The modifications are to make Austria and Hungary have all the provinces of the former Austro-Hungarian empire as national provinces, and each of the mid-range/minor european powers have an extra 15-20 IC (and necessary resources). Basically, this allows me to play a complete, fun, and exciting game in 2-3 days without the overwhelming complexity as with playing the USSR (where most of my time playing is spent paused) or the mind-numbing boringness playing as, for example, Bulgaria (where most of the time is spent on extremely fast).
My idea revolves around making the command of a country's armed forces more scalable. Basically, I have been thinking of a model to make the vast difference in complexity between the nations (think Bulgaria and USSR) much smaller.
I don't want to dig into details (as I think that is pointless at this stage), rather have everyone post and respond to general ideas.
My idea is to have an extremely hierarchical unit tree. At the top, for example, is your chief of staff, at the leafs of the tree are the atomic units (divisions, brigades, regiment, whatever depending on the scale of the map...). Orders can be issued at any level of the hierarchy, which will apply to itself and every unit decedent from it. I think its immediately apparent that this model might not work well with the standard mission types of "move" or "attack", but I will try to address this later. What this would work for is to have certain lengths of a land-border to be under the command of a certain "front". Units allocated to this "front" are automatically spread along the front line. While commands could be issued to the atomic units themselves, commands to the "front" could be in the form of "avoid enemy contact", "stand ground", "skirmish/engage the enemy". Furthermore, rather than assigning air units for a specific mission over a specific area, air units could be assigned to support certain units, either atomic units or entire "fronts". Therefore, when engaged in a battle, a unit could request air support. This request could go into some kind of priority queue, and the air unit would support the unit with the highest priority (multiple air units could support more units simultaneously, naturally). I believe that from the point of view of a human player playing some large country (right now I'm thinking USSR during opening of Barbarossa) , his job is to guide unit production and assign land, sea, and air units to the appropriate fronts. He would no longer have to micromanage the offensives and retreats 200+ units along the length of an entire continent. The "front" would automatically handle air missions, the retreats of the troops (this will require a new map model as well, which I'll try to talk about later) and supplies. I think this will reduce the complexity of controlling 200 or so units by an order of magnitude. Again, having to work out specific offensives still has to be thought out more.
I also believe the same could hold true for naval combat. From my experience in HoI2, I never order a sea mission unless I have a huge stack of ships... it's just not worth my time to send out a dozen units of smaller ships and keep track of them and any losses the incur while also fighting a land war. Ships could be assigned to "naval" fronts where orders are carried out automatically. This would prevent one player from massing there entire navy into one stack and crushing the smaller fleets of their distracted enemy.
This post has been far longer than I had expected. Please remember that when I was thinking this model up, I had in my mind games such as Falcon 4.0, Korsun Pocket (the outstanding, but little-known hex based wargame -- I think its considered by many to be the best ever made), as well as HoI2 of course. To reiterate, the objective is to make a scalable unit organization model (to reduce complexity playing as large nations), while still keeping the same strategic principles (both tactical and in terms of resource management) of HoI2.
Below I'm including some details, which I think could implement this idea.
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Map: Based off a hex grid, each hex in the grid has an associated geography type, weather, main town, [population, and demographic proportions (e.g., 25% Polish Speaking, 75% Czech Speaking) -- no "national" provinces, each country gets recruits from members of its linguistic/demographic group, wherever they may reside], and connection type to each adjacent hex (e.g., rail connection north, dirt road south, empty land connection south-east, paved road north-west, etc...). Large enough blocks of hexes will constitute the area for a "front", and any units operating in that area will be under the command of that "fronts" HQ.
Also, I think having the map consist of the entire world is a bit too ambitious, I think focusing on specific areas, perhaps even continents is more amenable to this model.
And finally, on a philosophical level, I believe that warfare is far too complex to be accurately modeled by any discrete behavior on an ordinary PC (perhaps we could on the new supercomputer that was just developed at Los Alamos National Lab, but any ordinary computer has a billionth of that power). As such, the scenarios I have envisioned for this new "game" are ones where there is a strong historical context, but no expected behavior: Fall Grun (the invasion of Czechoslovakia that never happenend), an invasion of switzerland, Britain, Sweden, etc... These are scenarios that would take place over several months or weeks, but not years. They would allow for some unit development and deployment, but not on the massive scale of HoI2 (though thats not to say I dont think this new idea for a model could, in general, work for the existing HoI2 model)
After writing all this and reading many other posts on these forums, it seems most people are content with the general idea of the existing combat and organization model in HoI2, and this new idea may seem rambling and not particularly appealing. Anyway, I'm interested in hearing what all of you think, if not just about this idea but your thoughts on the organization structure of HoI2 in general.
I treat myself to 2-day binges of HoI2 twice a year: once after the spring semester and once after the fall semester. Coming off my most recent binge, I've been thinking of new ways to model large and small scale unit movement and organization.
When I play HoI2(DD+Arm), I typically play as one of the mid-range European powers (Austria, Czech, or Hungary) with a modified 1936 scenario. The modifications are to make Austria and Hungary have all the provinces of the former Austro-Hungarian empire as national provinces, and each of the mid-range/minor european powers have an extra 15-20 IC (and necessary resources). Basically, this allows me to play a complete, fun, and exciting game in 2-3 days without the overwhelming complexity as with playing the USSR (where most of my time playing is spent paused) or the mind-numbing boringness playing as, for example, Bulgaria (where most of the time is spent on extremely fast).
My idea revolves around making the command of a country's armed forces more scalable. Basically, I have been thinking of a model to make the vast difference in complexity between the nations (think Bulgaria and USSR) much smaller.
I don't want to dig into details (as I think that is pointless at this stage), rather have everyone post and respond to general ideas.
My idea is to have an extremely hierarchical unit tree. At the top, for example, is your chief of staff, at the leafs of the tree are the atomic units (divisions, brigades, regiment, whatever depending on the scale of the map...). Orders can be issued at any level of the hierarchy, which will apply to itself and every unit decedent from it. I think its immediately apparent that this model might not work well with the standard mission types of "move" or "attack", but I will try to address this later. What this would work for is to have certain lengths of a land-border to be under the command of a certain "front". Units allocated to this "front" are automatically spread along the front line. While commands could be issued to the atomic units themselves, commands to the "front" could be in the form of "avoid enemy contact", "stand ground", "skirmish/engage the enemy". Furthermore, rather than assigning air units for a specific mission over a specific area, air units could be assigned to support certain units, either atomic units or entire "fronts". Therefore, when engaged in a battle, a unit could request air support. This request could go into some kind of priority queue, and the air unit would support the unit with the highest priority (multiple air units could support more units simultaneously, naturally). I believe that from the point of view of a human player playing some large country (right now I'm thinking USSR during opening of Barbarossa) , his job is to guide unit production and assign land, sea, and air units to the appropriate fronts. He would no longer have to micromanage the offensives and retreats 200+ units along the length of an entire continent. The "front" would automatically handle air missions, the retreats of the troops (this will require a new map model as well, which I'll try to talk about later) and supplies. I think this will reduce the complexity of controlling 200 or so units by an order of magnitude. Again, having to work out specific offensives still has to be thought out more.
I also believe the same could hold true for naval combat. From my experience in HoI2, I never order a sea mission unless I have a huge stack of ships... it's just not worth my time to send out a dozen units of smaller ships and keep track of them and any losses the incur while also fighting a land war. Ships could be assigned to "naval" fronts where orders are carried out automatically. This would prevent one player from massing there entire navy into one stack and crushing the smaller fleets of their distracted enemy.
This post has been far longer than I had expected. Please remember that when I was thinking this model up, I had in my mind games such as Falcon 4.0, Korsun Pocket (the outstanding, but little-known hex based wargame -- I think its considered by many to be the best ever made), as well as HoI2 of course. To reiterate, the objective is to make a scalable unit organization model (to reduce complexity playing as large nations), while still keeping the same strategic principles (both tactical and in terms of resource management) of HoI2.
Below I'm including some details, which I think could implement this idea.
-------
Map: Based off a hex grid, each hex in the grid has an associated geography type, weather, main town, [population, and demographic proportions (e.g., 25% Polish Speaking, 75% Czech Speaking) -- no "national" provinces, each country gets recruits from members of its linguistic/demographic group, wherever they may reside], and connection type to each adjacent hex (e.g., rail connection north, dirt road south, empty land connection south-east, paved road north-west, etc...). Large enough blocks of hexes will constitute the area for a "front", and any units operating in that area will be under the command of that "fronts" HQ.
Also, I think having the map consist of the entire world is a bit too ambitious, I think focusing on specific areas, perhaps even continents is more amenable to this model.
And finally, on a philosophical level, I believe that warfare is far too complex to be accurately modeled by any discrete behavior on an ordinary PC (perhaps we could on the new supercomputer that was just developed at Los Alamos National Lab, but any ordinary computer has a billionth of that power). As such, the scenarios I have envisioned for this new "game" are ones where there is a strong historical context, but no expected behavior: Fall Grun (the invasion of Czechoslovakia that never happenend), an invasion of switzerland, Britain, Sweden, etc... These are scenarios that would take place over several months or weeks, but not years. They would allow for some unit development and deployment, but not on the massive scale of HoI2 (though thats not to say I dont think this new idea for a model could, in general, work for the existing HoI2 model)
After writing all this and reading many other posts on these forums, it seems most people are content with the general idea of the existing combat and organization model in HoI2, and this new idea may seem rambling and not particularly appealing. Anyway, I'm interested in hearing what all of you think, if not just about this idea but your thoughts on the organization structure of HoI2 in general.
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