I think the latter idea has more merit, but any "fix" to make blockades doable must also include a complete rework of the Naval AI.
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I think the latter idea has more merit, but any "fix" to make blockades doable must also include a complete rework of the Naval AI.
Nope. Any fix must include a whole host of other mechanics.
The biggest problem with a "Close blockade" mechanic just being blindly added to HOI3 is that it would be to easy to park SAGs and CTFs off the coast of continental Europe or Japan and sing, "Trolololololol..." in the finest tradition of Eduard Khil while the Axis powers make frowny faces.
To make it be balanced, you have to include all the things that made such blockades dangerous in certain situations. We're talking about mines, e-boats, submarines lying in ambush, shore guns (with range equal or longer than BBs), spotters on land that can count ships and direct anti-ship efforts, spotter aircraft that can give defenders visibility just over the horizon (without RADAR!), Italian frogmen that can just manually guide torpedoes into capital ships and take them out (hey, now there's a use for covert ops points!), mine laying ships, mine laying aircraft, minesweepers, and about 2087 things I'm leaving out because I'm not an expert on WWII.
Think about it for a second: when was the last time you lost a ship to a mine in HOI3? Go look at US ship losses in WWII and look at the destroyers and submarine losses for a moment. While not the biggest killer of ships in WWII, mines and shore guns took their toll even without close blockades being in force for extended periods of time against fortified targets like Truk. Now imagine planting SAGs 3 kilometers from Cherbourg in 1941 for days on end to enforce a close blockade. It'd be like getting eaten alive by mosquitoes without extensive preparation.
It works the other way, though. The Allies mined areas to enforce blockades. Again, a lack of granularity in the mechanics.
Note that Allied ships were attacked by torpedo boats during Overlord, and the Allies lost a destroyer. But of interest to those counting is that the Allies lost no ships to mines on D-Day... because they knew where all the mines were thanks to ULTRA intercepts, not because the mines weren't a threat.
Leave it to the Master to pee in our Cheerios
Points well taken, but couldn't what you describe be abstracted? There could be a new "building" for port defense capable of inflicting damage upon the blockading fleet. Add to this any air power that could be brought to bear and parking a SAG off the coast could become very disadvantageous! It would also add some damage to any invasion fleet trying to take a defended port, thus ending the rather silly ability we have to invade ports with no "real" penalty.
Points well taken, but couldn't what you describe be abstracted? There could be a new "building" for port defense capable of inflicting damage upon the blockading fleet. Add to this any air power that could be brought to bear and parking a SAG off the coast could become very disadvantageous! It would also add some damage to any invasion fleet trying to take a defended port, thus ending the rather silly ability we have to invade ports with no "real" penalty.
ya, i agree, it would be so damn easy to just blockade the entire country and stop any supplies going anywhere without a direct land connection.
However I agree, its pretty dumb a port suffers no penalties for ships being in its seazone.
However I agree, its pretty dumb a port suffers no penalties for ships being in its seazone.
Leave it to the Master to pee in our Cheerios
Points well taken, but couldn't what you describe be abstracted? There could be a new "building" for port defense capable of inflicting damage upon the blockading fleet. Add to this any air power that could be brought to bear and parking a SAG off the coast could become very disadvantageous! It would also add some damage to any invasion fleet trying to take a defended port, thus ending the rather silly ability we have to invade ports with no "real" penalty.
Sure. I'm not saying there shouldn't be close blockades. I'm just saying that if you want to include close blockades, you will also want to include some kind of abstraction for coastal defenses. The two go together.
I've suggested in the past that coastal forts be made more expensive, but also cause attrition damage to enemy ships in the adjacent sea zone. The damage would scale based on the value of the coastal forts, and could be reduced via techs and doctrines on the naval side. Installation strikes would be allowed to damage these structures, but they would rebuild just like all other buildings if left alone.
Naval striking is also pretty ineffective in this game when air dominance isn't totally established.
How exactly many ships were lost to coastal guns? I think the only time that happened was when Germany invaded Norway.
As for US parking ships outside Japan, if that´s possible before 1942 the game is FUBAR and for many other reasons than only blockades, so that alone doesn´t invalidate the idea. Same with Germany blockading UK. I honestly can´t see Germany blockading UK with ships in a multiplayer game.
If a mechanic doesn´t work due to AI crap performance, analyze why it sucks and fix said crap performance. Having too many ports to defend and airbases to place aircraft is undeniably part of the problem.
Making mines a part of the game would be neat, however.
As for US parking ships outside Japan, if that´s possible before 1942 the game is FUBAR and for many other reasons than only blockades, so that alone doesn´t invalidate the idea. Same with Germany blockading UK. I honestly can´t see Germany blockading UK with ships in a multiplayer game.
If a mechanic doesn´t work due to AI crap performance, analyze why it sucks and fix said crap performance. Having too many ports to defend and airbases to place aircraft is undeniably part of the problem.
Making mines a part of the game would be neat, however.
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I count 6 USN losses (didn't look at other countries) to shore guns, including 1 submarine. :huh:
Actually, there are more, but I only included DDs, subs, and minesweepers.
I count 26 USN ships lost to naval mines (again DDs, subs and minesweepers) including one minelayer sunk by mines and 5 minesweepers.
The numbers are sketchy because some of the subs are presumed sunk by mines, but their fates are not known for certain. Again, I'm not saying the idea is invalid. I'm just saying that letting people park fleets off the coast without accounting for the possibility of mines and all that other stuff I listed would give too much of an advantage to naval powers.
Well, making attrition more relevant (so no parking ships 3000 km away for one year) and making parking ships next to airbases full of NAVs suicide would work well enough
I think going part of the way could be a good solution here.
Don't allow a 100% blockade but reduce the supplies and resources that are able to make the trip down to a noticeably lower "minimum" level, perhaps 10-50% of normal. This also means that a big part of the convoys on this route are intercepted and sunk so the AI has to be able to detect a blockade, and stop assigning new convoys to that route until it has been chased away by Naval and Air assets it directs to the sea-zone outside the port in question.
This could represent that the blockade is not a close one but sufficiently far out to sea that it's still possible for some convoy shipping to slip past it.
If naval forts include minisubs/raiding torpedo boats/mining efforts in the cost these could also cause attrition to forces trying to maintain such a blockade, as has been suggested above. And cause attrition to naval forces at an even higher rate if an invasion is started.
Don't allow a 100% blockade but reduce the supplies and resources that are able to make the trip down to a noticeably lower "minimum" level, perhaps 10-50% of normal. This also means that a big part of the convoys on this route are intercepted and sunk so the AI has to be able to detect a blockade, and stop assigning new convoys to that route until it has been chased away by Naval and Air assets it directs to the sea-zone outside the port in question.
This could represent that the blockade is not a close one but sufficiently far out to sea that it's still possible for some convoy shipping to slip past it.
If naval forts include minisubs/raiding torpedo boats/mining efforts in the cost these could also cause attrition to forces trying to maintain such a blockade, as has been suggested above. And cause attrition to naval forces at an even higher rate if an invasion is started.
To the devs : please never go back to big provinces!
More to the point, I understand your point but I honestly don't believe that's the problem.
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You know podcat just because solutions like this hoi3 is half-assed game. It has nice system but not detailed enough. AI is anyway a huge joke so handicapping realism, which btw was one major feature marketed, is another half-assed solution.
Anyway I really hope paradox is not planning to make hoi4 because previous hoi2 and hoi3 were really badly made and dont present at all how complicated, long and deadly conflict ww2 was. They are shame of this company.
HoI3 is already so detailed that the vast majority of gamers won't play it, and you want more complexity?
IMHO HoI3 is a great game, which is why I play it.
Its is still a joke after three expansions and numberous updates. More complexity doesnt mean more difficult game, it just matters how well it is done and HoI3 is on ass-level. Like I have no idea if this game breaking bug is ever fixed or will be:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...defensiveness-and-toughness-ever-fixed-for-SF
HoI3 is really ugly retarded child. Paradox modding policy made it even worse, thought it has never been so open like in civ4 and thats why it is still very popular. HoI3 has even less mods than HoI2.
Thats why better if paradox simply forgets this awfull game serie. It is really so badly done that even person like me who owns eu2, eu3, eu4, riccy, hoi2 and ck2 refuses to touch it. Telling "IMHO HoI3 is a great game" is not simply true. You may enjoy it, but simply vast majority gives a sad nod and says nothing.
Pretty sure what you are referring to was fixed more than a year ago.
It may very well be that you do not enjoy HOI3 but others saying they like it does not make them wrong. We make different games that focus on different aspects of strategy. If you prefer some of our franchises better, great play those. There are a whole lot of people that think HOI3 is a very good game and play it a lot. As long as they enjoy it and have fun, it is in fact correct that in their opinion it is a great game. You cannot tell them that their opinion is wrong, it is their opinion. You are free to have yours but you have to accept that other do not share your opinion.
As an aside, It always amazes me when people that claim a game is "awfull" and a "really ugly retarded child" are still posting in the forum for that game years after it came out. I mean your advice to us is to forget this entire series, while you yourself do not seam able to do so. Now I do not mean to single you out as it is a trend in general that I notice and am commenting on, I realize I have a pretty big bully pulpit and try and respect that.
I enjoy it as well. Immensely. I do go on Hoi 3 binges every few months, like now. I just finished a SOV campaign and launched straight into a UK game.
the game could defiantly do with some polish though. too often I encounter unprotected Cap ships which is something a human would never allow. Since I played this game since SF I have seen a lot of bugs and glitches but by and large it is an immensely fun strategy game which keeps me coming back. There just isnt another WWII out there which can compete and yea I've tried Gary grisbys war in the east and its crap turn based slow muck.
the game could defiantly do with some polish though. too often I encounter unprotected Cap ships which is something a human would never allow. Since I played this game since SF I have seen a lot of bugs and glitches but by and large it is an immensely fun strategy game which keeps me coming back. There just isnt another WWII out there which can compete and yea I've tried Gary grisbys war in the east and its crap turn based slow muck.
Man, no one wants HOI 2 map.
Me neither.
Besides I CLEARLY stated to make an OPTION for small and big provinces (and big in the sense of having like, half or less provinces. NOT HOI 2 map). Also, guess what - both CK 2 and EU 4 came after HOI 3. Did anyone complain that those didn´t have as many provinces as HOI 3?
No.
And through Calad was a bit agressive he has a point as many people didn´t like HOI 3, and not only due to AI but also gameplay. Period. Back to topic.
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In my book reducing the number of provinces to improve the AI performance is called dumbing down a game. It has to be the other way around; the AI must continue to be taught how to play the game as efficiently as possible.
Agreed.
That's because those games are nothing like HoI. HoI3 is almost solely about combat whereas combat is definitely not the core of EU4 and CK2 so your point is sketchy at best. Plus I really don't see an option for two different map with two different province sizes happening. Designing one map is hard enough so designing two?!
Why should he be taken seriously? Hearts of Iron 3 is a great game and one of Paradox's best sellers! Sure the launching wasn't flawless but many people really enjoy the game nonetheless BECAUSE of its gameplay...
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