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Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!


"I think the guy on the left is Stalin."

:negative:

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Ofaloaf
Feb 15, 2013

Darkrenown posted:

Everyone is wrong so far. It's Churchill, Hitler, FDR, and Stalin. These are the 4 playable characters who can choose on your quest to find out who stole Christmas. Are YOU are bad enough dude to save Santa?
:allears:

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy


Apologies for the bad quality from my phone, but I just couldn't resist

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

Reindeer brigade 1943 v11

DrSunshine
Mar 23, 2009

Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!
Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin Dada, Mohmar Gaddafi, and Kim Il-Sung.

Paradox presents: Tropico V: A Game of Dictators.

Ofaloaf
Feb 15, 2013

Fintilgin posted:

Reindeer brigade 1943 v11

Darkrenown again posted:

Have you played LotR of the Rings online? You kinda follow after the Fellowship and clean up their messes/deal with the aftermath there. HoI4 will be like that as you, as Stalin, follow after KISS and help save Christmas. Except we'll have more Orcs.
Can this be an actual game? Please.

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!
A present for one child is a miracle. Presents for millions of children is a statistic.

-Joe 'Christmas' Stalin

fuck off Batman
Oct 14, 2013

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!


No wonder Stalin went to Finland, he only wanted to help Santa!

Polikarpov
Jun 1, 2013

Keep it between the buoys

gradenko_2000 posted:



Apologies for the bad quality from my phone, but I just couldn't resist

Starring in this summer's hilarious new stoner comedy "Dude, where's my Army Group?"

Bishop Rodan
Dec 5, 2011

See you in the funny papers, liebchen!
Remember how EvW had a We Are the World thread for the Eastern Roman Empire? Well, EvW is equal-opportunity Roman, and has one for the Western Roman Empire too!

Patter Song
Mar 26, 2010

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.
Fun Shoe

Azipod posted:

Starring in this summer's hilarious new stoner comedy "Dude, where's my Army Group?"

"Well, Erwin, if you're here, where are the Panzers?"
"Um...I...left them with George."
"George? George who?"
"George Patton? He said he was a friend of yours, Doug."
"You gave George Patton your tanks?"

cut to Patton organizing a Panzer drag racing tournament in the LA River

"Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I'm driving your tank!"

Patter Song fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Feb 3, 2014

DrPop
Aug 22, 2004


How's Kaiserreich doing these days? Looks like it was updated recently. It's February so I feel like putting the world under the Bangladeshi Syndicalist Boot again

Also, HoI4 is looking pretty cool.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Patter Song posted:

"Well, Erwin, if you're here, where are the Panzers?"
"Um...I...left them with George."
"George? George who?"
"George Patton? He said he was a friend of yours, Doug."
"You gave George Patton your tanks?"

cut to Patton organizing a Panzer drag racing tournament in the LA River

"Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I'm driving your tank!"

That's a movie I would go see.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


DrPop posted:

How's Kaiserreich doing these days? Looks like it was updated recently. It's February so I feel like putting the world under the Bangladeshi Syndicalist Boot again

Also, HoI4 is looking pretty cool.

Yeah, we just released a new version in January. We've had a developer working on an update to India for what seems like forever, but I'm still not sure when it'll be done.

MrYenko posted:

That's a movie I would go see.

Same.

pdxjohan
Sep 9, 2011

Paradox dev dude.

GaussianCopula posted:

Someone should start the rumor that PDX did remove counters from the game, because they display little figures in the screenshot.

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


pdxjohan posted:

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

I wouldn't go for that.

I'd put it on my Steam wishlist and wait for a sale :negative:

pdxjohan
Sep 9, 2011

Paradox dev dude.

Kavak posted:

I wouldn't go for that.

I'd put it on my Steam wishlist and wait for a sale :negative:

But :shiny:

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

pdxjohan posted:

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

Well, I bought National Monuments II, and they don't even show up on the political map, so...

YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


pdxjohan posted:

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

:drat: An ice burn if I've ever seen one.

binge crotching
Apr 2, 2010

pdxjohan posted:

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

Please do this. I'll send you a case of that Bakon Vodka that you guys apparently love so much, their distillery is only a few minutes away.

Chickpea Roar
Jan 11, 2006

Merdre!

Fintilgin posted:

Well, I bought National Monuments II, and they don't even show up on the political map, so...

Related to this; I've bought NM I and II, but what horrible graphic option do I have to turn on to see them in-game? Please tell me it isn't bloom.

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

Nightblade posted:

Related to this; I've bought NM I and II, but what horrible graphic option do I have to turn on to see them in-game? Please tell me it isn't bloom.

Worse still... terrain mode.

Chickpea Roar
Jan 11, 2006

Merdre!

Fintilgin posted:

Worse still... terrain mode.

Actually it was that and "ambient objects." I can live with that. (The ambient objects, not terrain mode.)

V for Vegas
Sep 1, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER

pdxjohan posted:

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

Have a toggle switch for 'Grognard Mode' - Division, Brigade, Company leaders must be manually assigned, map can only display 2D with 256 colours, counters all use Russian military symbols, game pauses every hour... you could go on for ever.

Mantis42
Jul 26, 2010

The game comes with a USB compatible Enigma machine. You have to code every order you make or risk the enemy knowing your plans!

Box wine
Apr 6, 2005

ah crap

Gort posted:

Your assumptions were accurate - I broke all the infantry into 1-brigade divisions and was adding built anti-tank, artillery and engineer brigades to that to get a 20% combined arms bonus.

I suppose that does waste the 8 speed engineers have, but I would have thought it worth it for general combat power.

I'm intrigued - why does reorganising the structure of your army "eat supplies and manpower"? I had everyone in Berlin for the reorganisation.

Finally, what is a good structure for general German infantry divisions? Just the 3 infantry brigades they start with?

Cause the supply system sucks in short. I guess everyone in Berlin would of helped with not losing supplies. Dunno rearranging Russia's army always makes you use up supplies because of all the different infrastructures and distances. It probably isn't that much of a problem for Germany.

I use to just throw on engineers and a few artillery. I end up using motorized and tanks anyhow.

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

The Nozzle posted:

The game comes with a USB compatible Enigma machine. You have to code every order you make or risk the enemy knowing your plans!

code:

OBERKOMMANDO DES HEERS, MY OFFICE     JAN. 3, 2015

TO: GROSSADMIRAL DONITZ, COMMANDER 3RD UBOAT FLOTILLA
SUBJECT: ORDERS

YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO COMMENCE A COMMERCE RAID MISSION IN THE EASTERN ATLANTIC REGION FROM JANUARY 5TH 6:00AM 1939 UNTIL FEBRUARY 5TH  6:00AM 1939. 

DISCONTINUE IF ORG OR STR OF FLOTILLA FALLS BELOW 50 PERCENT

END MESSAGE

Raskolnikov38 fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Feb 4, 2014

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Raskolnikov38 posted:

OBERKOMMANDO DES HEERS, MY OFFICE JAN. 3, 2015

Great, undead and/or immortal Nazis, just the sort of casual poo poo I thought Paradox was above :reject:

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

pdxjohan posted:

Or sell counters as Grognard Edition.. +59,99$ dlc.. Kind of like the price of a matrix game.

Pfft, as if Matrix would ever crawl out of their shell far enough to do true dlc.

maev
Dec 6, 2010
Economically illiterate Tory Boy Bollocks brain.
Keep away from children
I'm bad at DH, Goons help.



Most infantry is 1939, and I've got roughly 9 or so T-34 tanks at this point, including a few oudated pieces of poo poo. This is the third time I'm getting my poo poo kicked in by :hitler: so what type of tactics do I need to employ to break this motherfucking meatgrinder.

I checked and Germany has more IC than I do, where is my mighty Soviet Industry!? :ussr:.

I don't seem to be able to outproduce or outmanpower these guys, which I honestly thought I would considering, erm, history.

uPen
Jan 25, 2010

Zu Rodina!

maev posted:

I'm bad at DH, Goons help.



Most infantry is 1939, and I've got roughly 9 or so T-34 tanks at this point, including a few oudated pieces of poo poo. This is the third time I'm getting my poo poo kicked in by :hitler: so what type of tactics do I need to employ to break this motherfucking meatgrinder.

I checked and Germany has more IC than I do, where is my mighty Soviet Industry!? :ussr:.

I don't seem to be able to outproduce or outmanpower these guys, which I honestly thought I would considering, erm, history.

You should construct some industry in the pre-war years since you're not likely going to be at war until '41. It also looks like you don't have as many infantry formations as you should and you should have a shitload of interceptor and CAS aircraft. Other than that you should add some depth to your line so the Germans can't punch through so easily.

maev
Dec 6, 2010
Economically illiterate Tory Boy Bollocks brain.
Keep away from children
I constructed industry all the way up to when I could build 1939 soldiers, then spammed them + 15 IL-2s and 4 Yak interceptors. I wasn't sure what else I could've done.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


maev posted:

I constructed industry all the way up to when I could build 1939 soldiers, then spammed them + 15 IL-2s and 4 Yak interceptors. I wasn't sure what else I could've done.

Switch to mobility doctrine. It's "Cheating" but it'll put you on parity with the Germans and actually let you play the game instead of getting your rear end handed to you. That and do Defense in Depth by attacking German stacks when they hit a new province, not by Reserves or anything.

maev
Dec 6, 2010
Economically illiterate Tory Boy Bollocks brain.
Keep away from children
The micromanagement of the Eastern Front is hella severe, especially since you can't rely on actually fighting man for man as the USSR. I haven't been so stressed in a Paradox game before, about 13 fights happening at once with a single breakthrough spiralling out of control as the AI sends 15 one-tank stacks to penetrate your lines and go wherever they want. I can't believe HoI3 actually has more provinces to deal with.

Koesj
Aug 3, 2003
Disclaimer: I am so, so sorry.

Gort posted:

Your assumptions were accurate - I broke all the infantry into 1-brigade divisions and was adding built anti-tank, artillery and engineer brigades to that to get a 20% combined arms bonus.

I suppose that does waste the 8 speed engineers have, but I would have thought it worth it for general combat power.

Finally, what is a good structure for general German infantry divisions? Just the 3 infantry brigades they start with?

Your method of building 'line' or standard infantry divisions based on only one infantry brigade (or 1xINF rather, I'll use abbreviations from here on) is... not a great idea.

This is a straight up 4xINF division:




A possible alternative, the 2xINF/AT/ART division:




Here's what you did - INF/AT/ART/ENG:




And these are their production times on 1/1/1936 based on Germany starting practicals, and a custom game start putting equipment and doctrine at similar tech levels:



And what does all this mean? I'll break it down; immediate advice is bolded, game concepts are italicized.

  1. You are foregoing a substantial amount of soft attack, large amounts of defensiveness and toughness, and a horrendous amount of strength and width with your boondoggle division compared to a bog-standard 4xINF one. Combined Arms provides not nearly enough added combat bonus to compensate for these losses.

  2. Especially the width and strength issue will mess you up because of the interplay between the game's frontage and stacking penalty mechanics. Frontage means that when attacking from a single province, 10 'line' brigades (INF/MOT/MECH or (L/H)ARM) can fight next to each other, and 5 more of those brigades can engage in combat with every added province you are attacking from (the 'Encirclement' and 'Tactical Withdrawal' leader tactics can influence frontage as well btw). Those 'support' brigades (AT, ART, ENG) you added, seemingly to get an extra 5% Combined Arms bonus out of each (for a total of 15% rather than 20 mind you), don't provide any fighting strength at the front outside of a stat raise for your 'line' brigade(s).

  3. Because these infantry divisions occupy only an infinitesimal 1 frontage each, the divisional stacking penalty will kick in as soon as you've hit the (3+1) maximum number of divisions attacking (or defending!) from the first province (add 3 more possible divisions per extra province you'd be attacking from). Since, as the HoI 3 Strategy Guide states:

    "The penalty is a percentage based on the number of excess divisions in combat. Thus, going one division over the stacking limit isn’t a big deal. But trying to use ten divisions with one width in a single province attack will seriously hamper the combat efficiency of all divisions involved."

    And were you to build divisions with 4 width rather than one (like the first one I posted above), you'd still be able to have a third enter combat at a total of 12 frontage, rather than have it languish in the back as a reserve and contributing nothing, because:

    "Divisions will continue to enter combat until width exceeds frontage."

    Imagine you trying to attack or defend against an enemy stack of three 4xINF divisions, who can bring 12 frontage worth of 'line' brigades to bear, with your very narrow forces. Either the stacking penalty will eat you up, or you'll never match even a moderately out-teched or shittily led force in both firepower and staying power.

  4. Among other things, IC opportunity cost is going to be very problematic with your divisions since they are twice as expensive as 4xINF ones for example, and build a bit slower to boot. The only saving grace here is that they consume little over half of the latter's manpower, but I can turn this advantage on its head just as easily by pointing out that the same amount of frontage costs you twice as much manpower and _four_ times the officers!

  5. When comparing terrain penalties, adding support brigades actually decreases your combat abilities in a lot of situations compared to straight up infantry divisions, to the point where the Combined Arms bonus is substantially negated. This doesn't mean that support brigades are useless, but it's something to keep in mind, especially when they can mess with the terrain bonuses that mountain infantry or marines provide.

  6. Yes, engineers are an exception to the rule in that they are useful when attacking over rivers, and are good on the defensive. But, as stated, engineers are wasted on regular infantry forces because of their speed (you can add them to MOT infantry and (L)ARM for good effect though!), and believe it or not a straight up Marine division is actually better when having to break a defensive line behind a river most of the times. Also, there are a number of support brigades I'd rather add than ENG since they're pretty expensive and niche-y. Also,

  7. because of the engineers, your infantry divisions are now consuming fuel. Don't do this, especially when you're playing Germany and fuel is at a premium

Some pointers on building divisions:
  • I posted the 2xINF/AT/ART as a more suitable option for maximizing the Combined Arms bonus with 4x brigade infantry divisions, but I still wouldn't go for them myself. They lack defensiveness and toughness, which means that more enemy shots will hit them when defending or attacking.
  • The extra soft attack provided by artillery is very nice in general, but the brigade itself has gotten more expensive after the last DLC, and I'm not sure whether they're that cost-effective anymore.
  • AT can be very important if you're on the defensive and facing lots of armor (when playing France for example), and their piercing stat will count for the whole division, but at the same tech-year as (L)ARM armor, infantry anti-tank weapons will actually pierce just fine.
  • Like I said, sacrificing frontage for stat boosts will cut your general firepower and staying power. Before you can add a fifth brigade to your infantry divisions it's probably a better idea to spread ART and AT over corps rather than divisions. Three 3xINF/ART and two 3xINF/AT divisions make for a fine fighting force, and as soon as you research superior firepower you can just add the missing fifth brigade to them.
  • IIRC there were people on the Pdox forums saying that Heavy Armor is a fantastic option to strengthen your infantry but ungh their fuel consumption, cost, etc.
  • Mobile forces are way better suited for trying to maximize the Combined Arms bonus IMO. They're very strong against enemy infantry divisions already and the extra 10/15% will get you an ever greater overmatch.
  • Armored cars (AC's) are a very cheap and effective way to do this. In general, you'll want to up the soft attack (SA) rating of your divisions, since the bulk of the units in this game will still be damaged by SA because of the 50% divisional 'hardness' threshold/armor rating for hard attack to kick in. AC's do just that while at the same time making most brigade combinations 'harder' themselves! Oh and a speed bonus in open terrain, aka the place where you'll want to use your MOT+LARM or MECH+ARM divisions anyway.

Again, I'm so, so sorry, and not even that great of an HoI3 players :shobon:

quote:

I'm intrigued - why does reorganising the structure of your army "eat supplies and manpower"? I had everyone in Berlin for the reorganisation.

I don't think it matters much if you're starting a custom game :shrug:

Koesj fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Feb 4, 2014

Box wine
Apr 6, 2005

ah crap

Koesj posted:

Disclaimer: I am so, so sorry.

This is ten times better the explanation then what I gave. Mine was vague as all hell and just lacked effort since I haven't played in a year probably.

Sulla
May 10, 2008

maev posted:

I'm bad at DH, Goons help.



Most infantry is 1939, and I've got roughly 9 or so T-34 tanks at this point, including a few oudated pieces of poo poo. This is the third time I'm getting my poo poo kicked in by :hitler: so what type of tactics do I need to employ to break this motherfucking meatgrinder.

I checked and Germany has more IC than I do, where is my mighty Soviet Industry!? :ussr:.

I don't seem to be able to outproduce or outmanpower these guys, which I honestly thought I would considering, erm, history.

That's seriously all the infantry you have by 1942? Did the rest of your army get surrounded or something? I've never seen an AI good enough to actually pocket my divisions, worst case scenario you can just strategically redeploy them further back so you don't lose them.

As the soviets the name of the game is infantry, infantry, infantry. Trade space for time, the Germans will usually run out of manpower by 1943 and then you can stomp their guts out. Attack them wherever you have local superiority in numbers - don't try to push them back even, just bleed them out slowly.

In the screenshot you posted, I don't know...I guess you'd better pull back your southern divisions to behind the Don and shorten your front, pull your northern divisions waaaay back to the low-infra provinces and keep building infantry like crazy. Seriously you could probably fall back to behind the Urals and make a comeback, there's gonna be a point where Germany simply won't be able to reinforce their troops anymore.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Koesj posted:

Actual HOI3 strategy holy poo poo!

Are you saying here that, setting aside ARM divisions for encirclements/maneuver warfare, it's still a very effective approach to just spam 4xINF divisions?

SickZip
Jul 29, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

gradenko_2000 posted:

Are you saying here that, setting aside ARM divisions for encirclements/maneuver warfare, it's still a very effective approach to just spam 4xINF divisions?

Its not close to optimal but its better than alot of the hodgepodge units people build. Pure infantry divisions are manpower heavy. Doing it with Germany will cause you to run out of manpower unless Russia collapses quickly. It also gives you the opposite problem as the Inf/Art/AT/Eng division. That kind of division caused you to have alot of units for not much frontage, pure infantry takes up alot of frontage for alot less firepower and units than better compositions.

3 Infantry and 1 Artillery is basically the default line unit for any decently industrialized nation. More firepower for less frontage, generally stronger and more rounded stats than pure infantry, a little heavier on industry but cheaper on manpower. You can switch to 2 Infantry, 2 Arty if you have good IC compared to manpower.

Engineer, AT, Spec Ops are all specialists that shouldn't be in every unit. AA is awful and should never be used

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Koesj
Aug 3, 2003

gradenko_2000 posted:

Are you saying here that, setting aside ARM divisions for encirclements/maneuver warfare, it's still a very effective approach to just spam 4xINF divisions?


Pretty much this. Personally I'd rather go for 3xINF/ART than 2xINF/2xART since the latter's cheapness in manpower could easily be offset by the increased losses from lower toughness and defensiveness.

Imma quote wholesale from the guide here until Paradox comes to my house and murders me (this poo poo should have been public btw):

quote:

While the mechanics of division combat are a little opaque, what basically happens is this: during each hour of combat, divisions use hard attack and soft attack to try and “hit” the target. Divisions use either toughness (when on the attack) or defensiveness (when being attacked) to avoid getting “hit.” Every time a division receives a soft or hard attack, it “spends” a toughness/ defensiveness point. While it still has points left, shots have an 80% chance to miss. Once those points are exhausted, shots have a 60% chance to miss. Each “shot” fired at a target “hits” either the soft or hard part of a division. For example, if firing at a division with 50% softness, each “shot” has a 50% chance of either using hard attack or soft attack. If a division has already used up all its hard or soft attacks, then it does no damage if it hits the wrong part of the division.

What this means is that even with five times the toughness or defensiveness of an enemy’s soft or hard attack, your division might still take damage. Conversely, even if the enemy has little or no defensiveness or toughness, it may still escape from harm. But because defensiveness and toughness are not an absolute defense against enemy fire, most players tend to favor additional firepower if forced to choose between the two.

Also note that if a division runs out of either hard or soft attack, the remaining “shots” might not be able to hurt a division with exceptionally high or low softness . For example, a division with a softness of 100% will take no damage from any remaining hard attacks. This is an absolute defense, compared to toughness and defensiveness.

Looks like I misremembered with the hard/soft thing!

Either way, your later war (after superior firepower's fifth brigade per division) industrialized army might very well be based on 3xINF/2xART, since it gives you such large amounts of soft attack while upping your frontage before penalties to 12 - the highest number possible. I also agree that AT is (way) more specialized and in their usefulness wholly substituted by CAS planes (air attacks can murder armor). Again, engineers can work out to lift your mobile units over rivers quicker (although marines have a bigger bonus in general) and give them nice combat bonuses in urban terrain - important since the number of urban provinces was upped in TFH. Or use them if you want to directly attack the Maginot line or something. Also, though most of my playing time was in FTM where 2xGAR/AT was actually a viable build for port protection, AA is indeed loving terrible. Use planes.

As for special forces: if you play as Italy against Yugoslavia/Greece mountain troops can be really useful. Want to do anything in the Caucasus? Again, MNT. Marines work super great in Jungle terrain and of course for island-hopping. The point where it all falls apart is keeping up with the separate doctrine techs for both org and morale, and having enough officers around. So yeah flood Japan with Marines as the US or something.

The real spamming in HoI3 occurs when you go all-in with Militia as Nat. China :getin:

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