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Starfire Historical Mod Available (Major Mod)

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Thank you Caesar! Good catch! Dang it's tricky to get all these files edited and documented in sync and in the correct places! I've got the research modifier properly set to match the docs now... it'll be in the next update (later today).

Seewodfen, yes, the AI doesn't always do logical things. And I know even tweaking it will only "help" it won't cure such oddities.

I'm also aware that many players use airpower to destroy retreating armies. I'm not sure how to handle it. In my opinion we have conflicting goals of increasing the value of airpower (some say it's too weak) while weakenning it (so it doesn't make an awesome weapon to destroy retreating armies). I haven't had time to study HoI 2 airpower yet.
 
Mithel said:
Thank you Caesar! Good catch! Dang it's tricky to get all these files edited and documented in sync and in the correct places! I've got the research modifier properly set to match the docs now... it'll be in the next update (later today).

Seewodfen, yes, the AI doesn't always do logical things. And I know even tweaking it will only "help" it won't cure such oddities.

I'm also aware that many players use airpower to destroy retreating armies. I'm not sure how to handle it. In my opinion we have conflicting goals of increasing the value of airpower (some say it's too weak) while weakenning it (so it doesn't make an awesome weapon to destroy retreating armies). I haven't had time to study HoI 2 airpower yet.
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Not at all, my good man! ;) Regarding air power, personally I believe that it is indeed quite effective, but not to actually obliterate retreating armies (=strength); the effectiveness of air power might be measured more in terms of further reducing organisation values, or, if it could be modded, to further slow down the organisation recuperation of these armies. There was something about this precisely but I can't remember where I read about it.

True enough you can mod the time it takes (24 hours) after one battle to make another go at it in the misc.txt, but about slowing down org recuperation, I'm not at all sure. Although maybe a work-around might be some type of event/trigger that would, say, double (or whatever is deemed appropriate) the time (48 hours) of a new attack if enemy air power reached a certain amount of effectiveness while these armies were retreating, if you get my meaning.

Seems a bit involved and perhaps this cannot be modded, or if this is even desirable... just thinking out loud, I guess. This game takes up some of the time of our lives, huh? :D

P.D. Minnesota, eh? I'm happy to say that I've been there once, in the very, very, merry, merry month of... march!!! Burrr.... :)
 
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Unfortunately there are often aspects of HoI that we can't modify enough to match historical realism. And there are a few gameplay issues that can be more important than historical realism (never thought you'd here me say that did you!).

Minnesota is a great place to live. Yes, we all hate the cold... but heck, cold weather and lack of mountains is about the only negative things about living here. Wait till I buy a castle in Europe {grin}, then I'll be an even happier resident (and will give up the rest of the fantastic benefits of living in Minnesota).
 
The long fights including night will give great bonus to that infiltration assault land doctrine tree :eek: Especially at winter, so could it be possible that it would hasten the offensives ,of the countries which have that doctrine, in winter.
 
Mithel said:
Unfortunately there are often aspects of HoI that we can't modify enough to match historical realism. And there are a few gameplay issues that can be more important than historical realism (never thought you'd here me say that did you!).

Minnesota is a great place to live. Yes, we all hate the cold... but heck, cold weather and lack of mountains is about the only negative things about living here. Wait till I buy a castle in Europe {grin}, then I'll be an even happier resident (and will give up the rest of the fantastic benefits of living in Minnesota).
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... And there are a few gameplay issues that can be more important than historical realism. GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME! :eek:

Oh, it was a tad cold when I travelled to Minneapolis and Rochester, but not that I mind the cold that much. Came across friendly folk indeed, but I did rather miss the rolling hills of my beloved Shire, true enough (By the way, "my" Shire where I live would be called "La Comarca", for I do not reside in the UK but in Spain). We have got some nice castles of our own in the province of Castile-León, if you want one! :)

As for historical realism, I think it's grand to know that you put all your efforts into it, but as we do not have critical internal information on game mechanics, we are at somewhat of a loss as to how exactly go about tweaking in the right direction. Trial and error (I'm used to that, myself!) works OK but is tedious and can result in insatisfaction when one's theories are proved incorrect.

But as our hobbit friends say, the road {ahem, to historical realism war in HOI 2 :D } goes ever on and on...
 
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Mithel said:
Unfortunately the combat modifiers aren't working very well (I spent several hours yesterday testing) and it looks like we may have to go back to our HoI 1 "GD = infinite" concept and that is undesirable because it then removes defence and toughness as useful variables. Right now though it's looking like the only way to fix combat.
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Oh ? Do tell (if it's not too much bother)

Caesar_Augustus said:
P.D. Minnesota, eh? I'm happy to say that I've been there once, in the very, very, merry, merry month of... march!!! Burrr....
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:) Same here, end of November. Double Burrrrr. First time in the States, you'd think I'd visit California or something. :rolleyes:
 
Jagger, yes, you must start a new game for the changes to take effect (sorry but that's the way it works!).

Boromir, the reason I brought armor SA back down is that the higher the combat values the faster combat is running and I seem to have hit a limit on other things I can do to slow it down. You'll notice I also lowered the armor softness rating. That makes a huge difference to the power of armor. Lowered softness makes armor much more effective against infantry. I need to do some testing and will be fine tuning these values later.

Finnegwyn, unfortunately raising defence/toughness to "infinite" is not working in HoI 2! Paradox changed something so that a large amount of damage is happenning no matter what. Thus I've maxed out "GD Eff Multiplier", % of a defended hit being blocked and % of an undefended hit being blocked. I've run out of ideas on how to get it any slower (other than lowering attack ratings of the units - and that is very undesirable).

{laugh} When it goes sub-zero for ten days straight in Minnesota you just don't go outside! (helps a lot to be self employed!)
 
Feedback

Ok, I'm playing a game with Starfire vA3 as Germany (normal/normal), GC '36.

I'm in october 1939 :
- The spanish fought like dogs until 1938, after a lot of spectacular counter-attacks nationalists won. (If you changed something in the SCW, it goes very well).
- Japan choose "no war" in Marco polo bridge incident;
My diplomacy went very well : Hungary joined in 1938; coups succeeded in Romania and greece, and they joined Axis in 1939 (But Hungary left the Axis in spring 39, traitors :cool: ). Did you change something here ? I never had so successfull coups, even with a minister giving +20%;


Combat : my first combats in Poland were the proof you're on the right way :) . They took much more time than in vanilla HOI2 : a typical combat took 3 days, with a big one (12 germans against 18 polish) going for one week !
The longer recuperation time is a welcome addition to realism.

On experience : I think it is very good to boost the land units experience during combat, but I still wait to see if later in war it goes well for air and naval units.

It seems that the air interdiction/ground attacks were less effective.

Nights were, as they should be, very quiet.

Combat in hills or urban were significantly longer.

Poland fell the 9th of october 1939, which is quite realistic, and they fought well.

So, for the time being, this is VERY cool !


16 october 1939

Energy : 189k
Iron : 34500
Fuel : 65000
supply : 76000
Rare : 11900

TC : 271/342
Available ic : 222

Germany : 65 inf; 1 cav ; 5 mot; 3 l-arm; 6 arm; 1 para; 5 moutain; 5 gar; 4 hq; 33 air wings

UK : 25 inf; 1 mot; 4 l-arm; 1 arm; 29 gar; 1 hq; 9 mil; 27 air wings

France : 42 inf; 2 cav; 2 l-arm; 4 mountain; 7 gar; 2 hq; 15 air wings

USSR (at peace) : 105 inf; 15 mot ; 5 cav; 12 l-arm; 11 mountain; 5 gar; 1 hq; 30 air wings

Italy (at peace) : 37 inf; 3 cav; 5 mountain; 1 hq; 10 mil; 15 air wings

Japan (at peace) : 61 inf; 6 cav; 31 gar ; 3 hq ; 27 air wings

USA (at peace) : 9 inf; 1 cav; 20 gar; 3 hq; 13 air wings

China (at peace) 68 inf; 1 cav; 1 gar; 12 mil; 18 air wings (!!!)
 
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Zakouski, great report.

I can't take credit for any diplomatic changes. I didn't do anything directly to fix that. Might be some side effects of the economy and money situations. Nor did I do anything specifically for the Spanish Civil War.

Combat will go a lot slower in rough terrain, bad weather, etc. In fact I may have to "speed" combat back up a tiny amount to avoid really bad problems in those situations.

I observed that air units gain experience rapidly but they also were taking horrible losses (thus would lose the experience again when reinforced).
 
And i noticed that the experience limit för units is 100. Is there a reasons for that?
I might add that several of my units reached 100 in experience after 2½ years of war (excluding winters).
 
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I don't mind at all if you switch the command limits back for yourself. Of course I feel "mathematically" they work better with my new values. {smile}

I'm assuming Paradox put in a hard cap of 100 experience and that's not really a bad idea as it avoids/minimizes some exploits and/or issues.

I'm pleased to hear reports of units hitting 100 experience after two years of campaigning. That sounds real good!
 
Starfire Feeback

Hi Mithel,

I installed your mod and begun to play the Barbarossa scenario (just copied the scenario files into starfire directory). I can safely make some coments about how its going:

-The combats are really longer than vanilla HOI2, for sure : typically, a fight is taking 3 days minimum when the odds are even, and I saw some combats doing 1 week+.
(I'm USSR and the comp is Germany, playing at below normal speed)

To take an example, here's a typical combat, with plain provinces:
* CPU see that it can attack my 9 divisions with its 7-8 (and it has some others available but dont use it yet).
* I see that CPU is not going to win this one (supposing my org is sufficient) so I dont do anything.
* 1-2 days later, CPU recognize that the odds are not enough and throw generally 2 or 3 more divisions to support the initial force.
* Consequently, I detach 3 or 4 divisions behind the front to support my 9 div. troops.
* CPU repeats this reinforcement procedure until he or me doesnt have anything more to add. The battle can long 1 or 2 weeks very easily if each of us have sufficient numbers. Generally, my initial forces (9 in this case) are not fighting anymore because of the org issue (too disorg.)
CPU brings reinforcement from several province, and I end up with a "envelopped" penalty.

NB: One time, we had a fight where it finished like 36 div for him, 40 for me (divs. completly exhausted in the end).

* As Ger has clearly more org than me (4 times I think), I (more often than I would) retreat manually my troops to take another defensive stance elsewhere, thus trading space for time/reorg.

Personnally, this is/was my best experience with HOI2! A hell of a fight raging along all the front. And now "support defense" has a role...

-Nevertheless, one consequence has to be noted: as the fight is longer, the attacker "advance" into my territory, and, as soon I retreated, they take the province (in fact, 1 hour later). While my retreating divs have 1 or 2 days to reach another province... CPU could attack the following provinces even before I could reach mine (altough he didnt do it often).
Theorically, if his divisions are advancing, I'm pushed back, thus the time to retreat should be lower imho. What's your opinion about that ?


-About the experience the divs take in combat, maybe it's a "little" higher now : I am in mid july 1941 (nearly 2 month combat), and some of the divisions (his or mine, btw) have already +36 as Exp Combat Modifier. At this pace, we'll hit the 100 limit at the end of the year, if not before.

-About strengh losses, I have no idea if I hit them or not, their strengh was always 100%, and as it is now, only ORG matters to me. I have the feeling that combat should make its divisions weaker as days pass, but the fact is Germany's divs are yet 100 % STR after 2 months.
As a sidenote, if I hover my mouse above reinforcement, it said that I use
-> 18 manpower per day at the start of Barbarossa
-> 10 manpower in mid-july
Dont forget that my panzer divs have 20 % of their STR at the beginning of the scenario, thus they must be reinforced even if no combats occur.
 
Combat losses and manpower

Great report, it is very nice to see that longer combats really makes defensive support usefull.

"-About strengh losses, I have no idea if I hit them or not, their strengh was always 100%, and as it is now, only ORG matters to me. I have the feeling that combat should make its divisions weaker as days pass, but the fact is Germany's divs are yet 100 % STR after 2 months."

I noticed the same thing in my game as Germany while fighting France. After 2 monthes of hard fights, my divs were still at 95% strength (and so were the French troops too). That's a bit odd, is it the consequence of a higher defense or toughness rating ? It seems we have here a dilemna : longer land combats OR higher strengh loss.
*My airplanes took very heavy losses in comparison.
*Ships seems much more resistant to attacks; after many air and subs combats, the allies did not loose ONE ship in 1940 ! :wacko:

But this mod definitely ROCKS ! ;)
 
LexLuthor said:
Theorically, if his divisions are advancing, I'm pushed back, thus the time to retreat should be lower imho. What's your opinion about that ?
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I made a request in the enhancements forum a while back for retreat speed to be tripled like support defense / reserves. Sort of got lost in the deluge though.

LexLuthor said:
-About strengh losses, I have no idea if I hit them or not, their strengh was always 100%, and as it is now, only ORG matters to me. I have the feeling that combat should make its divisions weaker as days pass, but the fact is Germany's divs are yet 100 % STR after 2 months.
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Seen the same. Reasonably large battles (say 12 divs attacking 6) in mud that last around 5 to 6 days result in a loss of maybe 30 strength points between both sides (out of 1800). I don't know anything about WW2 casualty levels, so this may be more accurate, but it's a lot less than in plain 1.1
 
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