I'd argue that part the reason why HoI4 has worse AARs might be because of the focus trees might make it all feel tad railroady. whenever or not that is the case.
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I'd argue that part the reason why HoI4 has worse AARs might be because of the focus trees might make it all feel tad railroady. whenever or not that is the case.
As a Belgian who is aware of our colonial history, I will say that comparing your colony to the Congo is a very low bar to set... The Belgian rule in congo was just terrible in every way, to a point where it wasn't even efficient at producing resources. The authorities, and especially rubber plantation owners (and their handlers), were killing off and maiming the workforce at such a rate that they were running out of local people to do the job, so they had to keep going deeper inland to find a new workforce to arbitrarily destroy. It's madness and cruelty for no reason whatsoever. Also, we even messed up the DRC for decades when it first gained independence by killing Lumumba and pushing Mobutu (also the CIA was involved). Mostly, the king, and a few big Mining Barons got rich beyond belief. Also, 'Big Boy' and 'Fat Man' were built using Uranium ore from the mines of the 'Union Minière de Katanga', so there's that.
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Agree - good point. If something is pre-ordained, 'artistic licence' is nigh on impossible...
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I am less surprised, the general consensus is that HOI3 was too complicated for new players. (which I must shamefully admit was true in my case) and the Dev's seem to have over corrected with HOI4. And seem to have spent the last few development cycles trying to fix that mistake.
Truthfully I think the reason why I am so partial to HOI4 compared to HOI veterans is my general dislike of micromanagement.
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This is essentially the reason. The devs have stated that they were seeking a middleground between the freedom (and randomness) of HOI2 and the absolute railroad (without mods) that was HOI3. And frankly they achieved that goal. Whether or not that has actually made a good game is up for debate...
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@Le Jones Where did you get your avatar? It is magnificent.
In unrelated news, the page-top has been taken by @Casko Which means that we'll probably have to wait another month for the next update (Pip sighs in relief). I choose to blame @Casko for this, and conveniently ignore that it was I who spawned this conversation in the first place.
In unrelated news, the page-top has been taken by @Casko Which means that we'll probably have to wait another month for the next update (Pip sighs in relief). I choose to blame @Casko for this, and conveniently ignore that it was I who spawned this conversation in the first place.
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From my very limited (so far) play of HOI4 vs more extensive HOI3 play and AAR writing, one reason IMHO is that the earlier games (for full or partial gameplay writers) provide more useable material. Reports, maps, presentation of units on the maps, etc. Makes it easier to follow, illustrate and write up, but that’s just from my own limited (so far) comparative experience,
@El Pip I love the idea of a ‘beleaguered League’. Has a sad and poetical kind of pathos to it.
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It's from the March of the Eagles section - I was bored, and browsed for a new avatar, and couldn't overlook old Nosey...
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Actually I think the opposite is true. being the complete sandbox that HoI4 is, it should be an AAR writers dream, as it can go completely off the rails.
But that's the irony. The AI makes such utterly stupid decisions, you cannot come up with a valid reason for the way it behaves. Each nation AI does it's own thing, with utter disregard to what other countries are doing, or what the world situation is at the time.
Personally I have completely given up on Hoi4. think I played it twice since the naval update, and that was it. i'm done.
@El Pip I would humbly suggest transferring to Hoi3, but I freely admit my bias for that version.
as long as it wont delay any potential updates on the horizon, as I imagine transferring will be a project in and of itself.
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I can understand that problem, as it is I'm already 'helping' the game to prod it into less ridiculous outcomes. There was a notorious bug / laziness in HOI2 where both Spains loaded the same AI file, but it was written so the Nationalist would be very passive and have long delays in their counter-attacks. Plus removing the events for Italian support, adding in some for French support. It's only going to get worse when the main war kicks off, for starters the French AI will need modding (the stock French AI is deliberately crippled to ensure Germany can win easily).
HOI3 is far from perfect, but it's easier to prod into the correct direction.
Sir H was seen last month, so he comes and goes. Hopefully just off on a summer break (well winter down there obviously).
AI has always been a dodgy point of these games, you'd think after four versions it would get better but apparently not.
Thank you for the opinion, it chimes with what I have observed and heard from others.
A proper lend lease system does indeed sound good and the military/civilian factory split does appeal. But the downsides seem too deep for me at present so I will continue to steer clear of HOI4 for now.
You can get around that with mods of course, but that is an additional hurdle the writer has to cross. You can't just leap straight in. Worse it's been infected with far too many Kaiserreich AARs (where 'any' is far too many) and a rash of video/lets play AARs which are just links to Youtube.
Hard to build a community on such unpromising ground.
We looked into the Congo's history at university, it is something of a warning tale to mining firms about their past and what not to do (and for some what to do, but keep quiet about).
The Eastern Front in HOI3 can get a bit overwhelming, certainly compared to HOI4. HOI4 wants you to be the supreme leader just pointing at the Caucasus and saying "take them this campaign season" and then your invisible staff just make it happen, which is one way of doing it. HOI3 requires that you take that objective and then make it happen by managing the troops, which I concede can be micro heavy (or left to the erratic AI) but gives more satisfaction when you pull it off.
The other common complaint is that managing the British Empire in say '41 to '44 can be overwhelming as you are constantly being pulled in different directions and can't just focus on one front, or one theatre, as something is always causing an urgent problem. I suggest that is entirely correct and something Paradox did well to capture it.
A month for the next update? I admire your ambition and optimistic over-estimate of my writing speed.
This seems very true. For all I mock Paradox's awful research most of the major powers are mostly correct. Having a list of politicians, generals, ships with actual names and that sort of thing helps immensely, even if you have to double check things and put in the correct detail it gives you so much more to work with.From my very limited (so far) play of HOI4 vs more extensive HOI3 play and AAR writing, one reason IMHO is that the earlier games (for full or partial gameplay writers) provide more useable material. Reports, maps, presentation of units on the maps, etc. Makes it easier to follow, illustrate and write up, but that’s just from my own limited (so far) comparative experience,
@El Pip I love the idea of a ‘beleaguered League’. Has a sad and poetical kind of pathos to it.
Also I am delighted someone noticed the Beleaguered League. Despite it's manifest failures I have something of a soft spot for it; almost everyone involved meant well and their aims were noble. It was just a terrible idea that was never going to work.
March of the Eagles! The game Paradox tries to forget. Certainly I'd forgotten it had existed until I read that.
Not the only person I have heard this from. It seems if you do force your way out of the focus tree railroad it all goes horribly wrong? Would that be right? Either way it's not a game I shall be poking at in the near future, if nothing else I have the full CK2 to explore if I ever get some actual gameplaying time.
Once again caffran you come to the crux of the issue, while I would definitely like to move to HOI3 the transfer would indeed be quite the monster project.
At present have found a solution to the current issues - I am going to ignore the naval classes all being wrong in the game and just make a note of what they should be when I come to write up those ships career. I've also modded the game so ship build times are far longer for everyone but far cheaper, overall IC-days cost is the same but they take sort of-ish historic times to build. Ships already in the build queue have had some editing done to the save game so they will pop out on time.
Therefore I will be carrying on in HOI2 for the foreseeable future, this frees up the time I would have spent modding to spend writing. Which is probably how it should be at this point in the project.
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At least Kaiserreich understood that people wanted to play most of the nations and made them viable in game...as opposed to the base game which is designed to play as Germany, Russia, or the United States...and no others.
I think the reason we don't have such promising AARs anymore is down to the generational change. The wonderful authors and community builders from the early 2000s have left or gotten old.
It was a golden time because of the people involved. It could again be golden if new people put as much effort into it as some of the old greats did.
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So, as a relic of that age who greatly enjoyed reading some top drawer stuff, I was saddened when I returned to the forums at the end of last year for a brief foray, and then more fully this summer. I agree that eight - ten years ago was a great time - HOI2 in particular had a rich seam of cracking stuff. Even though there was a stack of UK AARs (For King and Country, Against All Odds, The Butterfly Effect, my own effort) they all co-existed merrily; you had the superlative Crossfires and The Presidents for France and the US respectively. Then CK1 had Piety of the North Star, EU had Thrones - and that is the half-dozen that leap to mind without scouring the forum.
The lack of a 'commentariat' is something that jumps out, having strayed back here after a gap of a few years. I remember the large community being a huge relief whenever I posted an update - the notion that "someone, somewhere, is reading" is a massive morale boost (well it was to me). I have vowed that if I am going to use the Forums (either for AAR reading, or gameplay advice) then I should contribute to a community, rather than a transactional "take it and go".
I do note, though, that all of the AAR areas seem to be quieter, which is intriguing, as the game discussions are ticking over merrily.
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How did you manage to do that? I'd imagine that's something I'd like to work into any editing I might do for HoI3 for any future AARs I'd do here.
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I stumbled upon this AAR and well... it certainly appears that I will be reading this one for a while
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I think the focus tree system is going to kill HOI IV as a playable game. It's an interesting idea, but especially once you start adding in alternative history branches, you quickly reach the point that it's all too complex and nothing is going to mesh. Reducing everything to four ideologies and three ministers and about as much flavor as a saltine cracker didn't help, but the railroady focus tree system is the twisted, fractured spinal column to which any good new limbs will have to be unsatisfactorily appended. It's too much railroad, too many arbitrary 70-day limits, and too little in the way of flavor events/shading to make any country's path playable more than once. The Netherlands and Mexico trees in the latest DLC are actually really good, and seem to give a lot of flavor and texture to playing those countries, but even then, it pales in comparison to HOI II.
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Ahh, that explains a lot. Chalk it up as another reason not to get HOI4.
I think there we are just getting fewer new people in to replace the departing older generation. We get the same mix of incredibly industrious to mostly silent lurkers, I can think of several people putting ridiculous effort into works, but the whole community has got significantly smaller.
The level of comments is interesting, overall it's a bit lower but certain things can prompt a massive flurry - like this discussion which has nothing at all to do with the last update.
Like yourself, and I think most writers around here, getting some response to an update is a big morale booster and it's why I try to comment on things I read and respond to everything on my own threads. It feels like there are fewer people around, but it's not something I've put hard numbers on.
In the Units directory there are a long list of .txt files for each unit type. Take carriers.txt which covers the aircraft carrier. HOI2 uses cost and buildtime and has different values for each different model , HOI3 calls it build_cost_ic and build_time and they are constant for all models. Hopefully clear what they mean.
I multiplied cost x time to get the total IC-days. Worked out how long I wanted build time to be based on historic ship building and then used that to work out the lower IC cost.
It never works out quite the same in game because the values in the .txt file are the base values that get modified by tech levels, policy sliders, etc. So I would aim a little high on the base values to allow for that, but you can get something that looks about right while still being 'balanced' (or at least as balanced as the original HOI was).
Welcome aboard, I hope you enjoy catching up.
I can see why Paradox did it, if you have a few limited trees then it's easier to get the AI to react when going alt-history (if France does Branch A, Germany should do Branch D to counter it, etc) and the AI has always been a weak point in HOI. But it would make things feel railroaded and apparently hasn't even fixed the AI.
Going off on an alternate history jaunt can be a struggle for the game, when the big Butterfly war breaks out I am braced for having to 'help' the AI quite a lot, but I would always take that freedom over being railroaded. Alas that does not appear to be the HOI4 way.
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The level of comments is interesting, overall it's a bit lower but certain things can prompt a massive flurry - like this discussion which has nothing at all to do with the last update.
It's required to post in all the game aars yes, not just one anymore. Especially if you aren't writing for ckii.
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In the Units directory there are a long list of .txt files for each unit type. Take carriers.txt which covers the aircraft carrier. HOI2 uses cost and buildtime and has different values for each different model , HOI3 calls it build_cost_ic and build_time and they are constant for all models. Hopefully clear what they mean.
I multiplied cost x time to get the total IC-days. Worked out how long I wanted build time to be based on historic ship building and then used that to work out the lower IC cost.
It never works out quite the same in game because the values in the .txt file are the base values that get modified by tech levels, policy sliders, etc. So I would aim a little high on the base values to allow for that, but you can get something that looks about right while still being 'balanced' (or at least as balanced as the original HOI was).
Hmm, that's something I never noticed. One of my biggest gripes is how rapidly things in general get replenished/replaced/repaired, especially ships, and editing that might be a good way to slow down how effective a fleet might be.
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Not everyone can manage the Herculean feat of being everywhere and I fear this results in thin not deep engagement. As the producer of a work which requires a degree of commitment from it's readers, not to mention deep reserves of understanding and patience, I hope it is apparent why this is a concern for me. (
)Then longer build times might work for you. Definitely in HOI2 the formula was;
Repair time for a unit is damage_percentage*build_time*(1/(1+repair_modifier))*reinforcement_time
Might have changed a bit in HOI3, think they added the cap on air/naval base size and changed the name of a couple of variables, but I believe it is still tied to build time.
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It is a problem whenever a particular game forum gets stuck on one country or state for AARs, yes, but otherwise not too bad. EUIV seems to be the worst at the moment, lots of italian states there. Then again, HOI is literally a handful of countries played over and over again, and the ckii forum for the last few years can be summarised as 'England, the bits attached to England, the English bits of France, Byzantium and occasionally a wildcard in Scandinavia or India'.
The most variety come to think seems to be vicky 2 funnily enough, or that's how i remember it.
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