Hearts of Iron IV: Finland was in the Axis

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Agean90: Jun 28, 2008

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

I wonder which of those things will be what Paradox uses in Man The Guns for why the US is split.

FDR basically called up a bunch of people and told them it was either The New Deal or an Angry Mob, seems to me the easiest is a choice where either the new deal gets done or it doesnt

# ? Aug 25, 2018 13:18

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 21:05

distortion park: Apr 25, 2011

Imo it would be cool to have a canonical "balanced" ai focus order as well as the current historical and random ones. One where USA always splits, Germany does sensible invasion sequencing etc. At the moment if literally anything goes wrong for Germany before it invades France a human UK or France player can easily stop them just by keeping the low countries (and their troops) alive.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 13:20

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

pointsofdata posted:

Imo it would be cool to have a canonical "balanced" ai focus order as well as the current historical and random ones. One where USA always splits, Germany does sensible invasion sequencing etc. At the moment if literally anything goes wrong for Germany before it invades France a human UK or France player can easily stop them just by keeping the low countries (and their troops) alive.

Have you read the Developer Diaries? I'm pretty sure that this is something that we are getting.

The AI Germany being poo poo is a separate issue though. As France I can let the Low Countries die then sit on the extended Maginot line for however long it takes Germany to end up at war with the Soviets and subsequently run out of manpower.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 13:28

Funky Valentine: Feb 26, 2014; Dojyaa~an

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

I wonder which of those things will be what Paradox uses in Man The Guns for why the US is split.

Man the Guns is seemingly going to have a new American Civil War, so probably the Southern Democrats getting mad that FDR would be okay with helping black people.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 13:41

Agean90: Jun 28, 2008

Funky Valentine posted:

Man the Guns is seemingly going to have a new American Civil War, so probably the Southern Democrats getting mad that FDR would be okay with helping black people.

gonna get the south to start a civil war just so i can do it right and shoot all the big whites this time

# ? Aug 25, 2018 13:42

Gamerofthegame: Oct 28, 2010; Could at least flip one or two, maybe.

I think it's a separate start that has the CSA around still

# ? Aug 25, 2018 15:16

HerraS: Apr 15, 2012; Looking professional when committing genocide is essential. This is mostly achieved by using a beret.

Olive drab colour ensures the genocider will remain hidden from his prey until it's too late for them to do anything.

no it isnt

# ? Aug 25, 2018 16:27

distortion park: Apr 25, 2011

E: oops

# ? Aug 25, 2018 18:22

Strudel Man: May 19, 2003; ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

chairface posted:

Pretty much. Units in forts get protected like they have armor/hardness, and piercing from AT guns can get through that for decent AT guns vs. lower level forts.

??? Forts are a totally different mechanic to armor (takes half damage from units with insufficient piercing) and hardness (subject to a greater fraction of hard attack vs soft). Forts provide an overall penalty to the attack and breakthrough values of attackers.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 18:35

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Yeah, I was thinking that "forts are like armour and you need AT for them" made no sense both realistically speaking and by the game rules.

You want big HE rounds for killing forts - not the high-velocity AP rounds AT guns fire.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 19:00

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

MiddleOne posted:

German AI succeeding always seems to come down to sheer coincidence and insane-level butterfly effects going on in the background. Like, Germany you should not be losing to the Sovjets when I'm pushing their eastern borders with a 100+ Chinese divisions and yet somehow you do.

This is so true. Jesus, ya filthy krauts, I�ve taken every bit of Russia east of Moscow, and you�re somehow still stuck at the Polish border? It was hilarious when I declared war right as Stalin was about to finish moving his industry to the Urals. Thanks for the factories!

E: I met the German forces at the Polish border.

Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Aug 25, 2018

# ? Aug 25, 2018 19:47

Davincie: Jul 7, 2008

i managed to conquer all of mainland europe, and easily hold back the russkis but then the americans and brits kept loving with me with a thousand naval invasions. the ai cant hold them back at all, so eventually they just kept coming at every possible place until i got overwhelmed. very annoying

at least the russians still never got past the polish border

# ? Aug 25, 2018 19:59

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

It's extremely frustrating that instead of working to make the game actually good they just keep throwing in wacky alt history weirdness

That stuff is supposed to come after you make a good game

# ? Aug 25, 2018 21:12

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Is this game good yet or is it still just "I took half of Germany as Yugoslavia"

# ? Aug 25, 2018 21:15

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

Decrepus posted:

Is this game good yet or is it still just "I took half of Germany as Yugoslavia"

Well, it depends on whether or not you play multiplayer. I hear it�s pretty alright vs humans, though I�ve never tried it myself.

You can also selectively buff specific nations before a game (so the USSR and the Axis if you plan on going with the Allies). The US doesn�t really need buffs as long as you leave them alone and don�t invade them in 1936 as Canada or Mexico, or whatever. Not exploiting the AI helps too. Setting a fallback line a few provinces back away from the Maginot line as Germany, for example, causes the French to rush forward off of their forts and lose their main advantage of being super-entrenched, while also overextending themselves and begging to be encircled.

E: I also tend to play minors in bad positions, like the Chinas, Czechoslovakia, etc. Been a long time since I did an Albania run...

# ? Aug 25, 2018 21:30

MiddleOne: Feb 17, 2011

Playing majors is just a miserable experience. I just had an ironman game ruined by the field marshall auto-allocation spazzing out, leaving a huge hole in my front-line and loving Czechoslovakia seizing half of Germany before I could re-appropriate my army manually.

EDIT: Give me the DLC that makes frontlines work as intended.

MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Aug 25, 2018

# ? Aug 25, 2018 21:39

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

MiddleOne posted:

Playing majors is just a miserable experience. I just had an ironman game ruined by the field marshall auto-allocation spazzing out, leaving a huge hole in my front-line and loving Czechoslovakia seizing half of Germany before I could re-appropriate my army manually.

EDIT: Give me the DLC that makes frontlines work as intended.

I use the Field Marshall orders on aggressive for cleanup or roflstomps. For breakthroughs and static defense, I assign individual orders to the Generals and micro the occasional unit to shore up the line or push for encirclements.

The Field Marshall orders are definitely a huge hammer when you usually want a scalpel.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 22:01

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Davincie posted:

i managed to conquer all of mainland europe, and easily hold back the russkis but then the americans and brits kept loving with me with a thousand naval invasions. the ai cant hold them back at all, so eventually they just kept coming at every possible place until i got overwhelmed. very annoying

at least the russians still never got past the polish border

Re: Ai Naval Invasions - do you use the Garrison order for armies? It lets one commander command 3x the divisions and you decide what the army protects, such as "Ports" or "The Whole Coast". I feel like the AI does an excellent job using the resources that it has to successfully defend the coast when I have used that command. Even as Nat China with 1918 guns I can set like 48 divisions to guard the entire Chinese coast, including Guanxi, and never lose a port. The Japanese sometimes land beside the port but since there are like 4-6 divisions on the port they just sit there and laugh while the AI shuffles a few extra divisions over to clear the Japanese out, then sends all of the divisions back to a port.

On the other hand, micromanaging the front in Northern China works wonders for managing to never take a step back (never lose a province) and to encircle over-eager Japanese divisions in the Gobi desert.

Pvt.Scott was it you that said that you kicked the Japanese off the mainland remarkably fast recently? Was there anything special that you did to pull that off? I just got to the Marco Polo Bridge incident in a new Nat China game and what I have done in the past works well but I'm curious what I could do better.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 22:15

Davincie: Jul 7, 2008

yeah i had 2 armies garrisoned along my coast (24 divisions each) but i don't feel like they really handled garrison duties very well. they wouldn't shift troops to where the enemy landed so half of them would just be sitting there scratching their asses while i was busy with the eastern front. i could micro the individual invasions on my part of the land back, but guarding all the puppeted minors as well would have costed too many troops i didn't have... and that i wished they would have taken care of

# ? Aug 25, 2018 23:29

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

Re: Ai Naval Invasions - do you use the Garrison order for armies? It lets one commander command 3x the divisions and you decide what the army protects, such as "Ports" or "The Whole Coast". I feel like the AI does an excellent job using the resources that it has to successfully defend the coast when I have used that command. Even as Nat China with 1918 guns I can set like 48 divisions to guard the entire Chinese coast, including Guanxi, and never lose a port. The Japanese sometimes land beside the port but since there are like 4-6 divisions on the port they just sit there and laugh while the AI shuffles a few extra divisions over to clear the Japanese out, then sends all of the divisions back to a port.

On the other hand, micromanaging the front in Northern China works wonders for managing to never take a step back (never lose a province) and to encircle over-eager Japanese divisions in the Gobi desert.

Pvt.Scott was it you that said that you kicked the Japanese off the mainland remarkably fast recently? Was there anything special that you did to pull that off? I just got to the Marco Polo Bridge incident in a new Nat China game and what I have done in the past works well but I'm curious what I could do better.

It was mostly just a fluke. The Japanese AI was just way more aggressive than usual, which got them repeatedly pocketed by me and the warlords, especially with their coastal invasions.

My standard build for China is to have 3 generals up north with 24 20-width pure infantry divisions each (1 general on the Japanese line, 1 general on the Shanxi line, letting them overlap is fine, 1 general hanging back to rush onto your ally�s territory to man a fallback line on the river/mountain line ), with another general packing 24 20-width divisions on garrison duty (ports only, don�t garrison the port up north by Beijing, or your garrison will be constantly moving up there to try and take territory). I build a few level 2 forts on the starting front, adding a few more levels to Beijing and 1 naval fort on the port up there if I have the spare production.

When warlords send me troops, I add them to the coastal garrison and pull them into proper forces from there if I need them.

Putting 2 factories on interwar fighters and another 2 on interwar bombers can help you have an air force that won�t instantly melt once the Japanese planes arrive. Spend air xp on your fighters every 200 xp or so for new models, prioritizing range, reliability, and then agility and maybe a point in weapons eventually. You�ve got two military dudes that can buff your air superiority, so pick them up soonish to help keep your fighters competitive. Also dedicate extra ground crews in Northern China for 20 command power or whatever to scrape up extra air mission efficiency. The interwar planes are trash, so they�re mostly just a bandaid to ward off total Japanese air superiority.

The most important bit is to spend xp on reforming your army and leadership ASAP. Never stop making the lovely starter rifles until you have at least 20k in the bank after equipping your 20-width infantry. Picking up the extra army xp and a land doctrine/xp guy early will help you get you divisions expanded quickly. Use your third research slot for land doctrines and abuse the bonus -7% to doctrine research speed that you have from Germany for as long as possible.

Don�t mount any offensives until you�ve got at least the first army reform step finished, unless you can guarantee an easy encirclement (like when the Japanese punch through your line with tanks and motorized. Let them steam ahead of their line infantry a few provinces deep and then cut them off). Letting the Japanese AI push deep into the Gobi Desert/1 infrastructure warlord backwater is a little gamey, but sure will eat all of their supplies if you think you�ve lost the momentum.

If you think you can spare the research for a heavy/light fighter and a tac bomber/CAS model before the war and a doctrine or three, go nuts

Ignore the naval game entirely until you beat Japan. Just make convoys to keep your 1 shipyard productive. Only trade for resources with nations that will send you stuff without convoys over land routes. Any convoys you use for trade will explode in short order once Japan declares.

Sniping Guan Xi Clique (you�ll have to take Subjugate the Warlords and pray they refuse) before the war begins can get you a decent resource boost, even if you�ll be forced to trade most of it away. It�ll at least net you a few more factories from trade and whatever the provinces have built. If you go this route though, you�ll be facing Japan alone (really not that bad).

Trying to get support equipment and artillery up and running before the war is a waste of production/army xp in my experience.

# ? Aug 25, 2018 23:56

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

I've found it hard to shift my brain out of small-but-high-quality army mode, but when you have Chinese manpower you really can just throw bricks of 40 infantry at your enemies like it's nothing. Who needs armor when you have this many men?

# ? Aug 26, 2018 00:22

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Pvt.Scott posted:

It was mostly just a fluke. The Japanese AI was just way more aggressive than usual, which got them repeatedly pocketed by me and the warlords, especially with their coastal invasions.

My standard build for China is to have 3 generals up north with 24 20-width pure infantry divisions each (1 general on the Japanese line, 1 general on the Shanxi line, letting them overlap is fine, 1 general hanging back to rush onto your ally�s territory to man a fallback line on the river/mountain line ), with another general packing 24 20-width divisions on garrison duty (ports only, don�t garrison the port up north by Beijing, or your garrison will be constantly moving up there to try and take territory). I build a few level 2 forts on the starting front, adding a few more levels to Beijing and 1 naval fort on the port up there if I have the spare production.

When warlords send me troops, I add them to the coastal garrison and pull them into proper forces from there if I need them.

Putting 2 factories on interwar fighters and another 2 on interwar bombers can help you have an air force that won�t instantly melt once the Japanese planes arrive. Spend air xp on your fighters every 200 xp or so for new models, prioritizing range, reliability, and then agility and maybe a point in weapons eventually. You�ve got two military dudes that can buff your air superiority, so pick them up soonish to help keep your fighters competitive. Also dedicate extra ground crews in Northern China for 20 command power or whatever to scrape up extra air mission efficiency. The interwar planes are trash, so they�re mostly just a bandaid to ward off total Japanese air superiority.

The most important bit is to spend xp on reforming your army and leadership ASAP. Never stop making the lovely starter rifles until you have at least 20k in the bank after equipping your 20-width infantry. Picking up the extra army xp and a land doctrine/xp guy early will help you get you divisions expanded quickly. Use your third research slot for land doctrines and abuse the bonus -7% to doctrine research speed that you have from Germany for as long as possible.

Don�t mount any offensives until you�ve got at least the first army reform step finished, unless you can guarantee an easy encirclement (like when the Japanese punch through your line with tanks and motorized. Let them steam ahead of their line infantry a few provinces deep and then cut them off). Letting the Japanese AI push deep into the Gobi Desert/1 infrastructure warlord backwater is a little gamey, but sure will eat all of their supplies if you think you�ve lost the momentum.

If you think you can spare the research for a heavy/light fighter and a tac bomber/CAS model before the war and a doctrine or three, go nuts

Ignore the naval game entirely until you beat Japan. Just make convoys to keep your 1 shipyard productive. Only trade for resources with nations that will send you stuff without convoys over land routes. Any convoys you use for trade will explode in short order once Japan declares.

Sniping Guan Xi Clique (you�ll have to take Subjugate the Warlords and pray they refuse) before the war begins can get you a decent resource boost, even if you�ll be forced to trade most of it away. It�ll at least net you a few more factories from trade and whatever the provinces have built. If you go this route though, you�ll be facing Japan alone (really not that bad).

Trying to get support equipment and artillery up and running before the war is a waste of production/army xp in my experience.

I'm going to need to get to my computer to submit a proper reply, but holysgit you don't spend 100% of your Mil Factories on Guns up though 1939? Also, do you ignore everything else to go for the One China focus so you can snipe Guanxi?

# ? Aug 26, 2018 01:09

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

I'm going to need to get to my computer to submit a proper reply, but holysgit you don't spend 100% of your Mil Factories on Guns up though 1939? Also, do you ignore everything else to go for the One China focus so you can snipe Guanxi?

I experiment a lot. The safest and surest option is building nothing but guns, yeah. I�m always trying to find a sweet spot where I can do a side project (mobilized? Tanks? Planes?) and still hold the line. I enjoy working under the short deadline.

I try to get the army xp and extra research slot up ASAP.

I just lost a game 5 minutes ago because I was playing on 4x time and didn�t realize Japan had pushed to the coastline from the west. Whoops!

# ? Aug 26, 2018 01:30

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Pvt.Scott posted:

I experiment a lot. The safest and surest option is building nothing but guns, yeah. I�m always trying to find a sweet spot where I can do a side project (mobilized? Tanks? Planes?) and still hold the line. I enjoy working under the short deadline.

I try to get the army xp and extra research slot up ASAP.

I just lost a game 5 minutes ago because I was playing on 4x time and didn�t realize Japan had pushed to the coastline from the west. Whoops!

Very Interesting. I cant even figure out how to get a NAP with the Soviets to skip that one focus first :psyduck:

Though I did manage to kick the Japanese out in August of 1938 without doing anything exotic.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 03:29

SHISHKABOB: Nov 30, 2012; Fun Shoe

MiddleOne posted:

Playing majors is just a miserable experience. I just had an ironman game ruined by the field marshall auto-allocation spazzing out, leaving a huge hole in my front-line and loving Czechoslovakia seizing half of Germany before I could re-appropriate my army manually.

EDIT: Give me the DLC that makes frontlines work as intended.

Almost always when I have a huge long frontline, like say fighting as one of the Americas in the civil war in Kaiserreich, I end up throwing the majority of my divisions into one army with no general, instead of trying to make a bunch of armies with generals under a field marshal. It just doesn't handle things very well with the field marshal controlling things.

I still put the huge army under a field marshal, for the bonuses, but I don't give them commands through him.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 03:46

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Decrepus posted:

Is this game good yet or is it still just "I took half of Germany as Yugoslavia"

Just play with Expert AI (a mod) and let it use 40 width divisions. Imma have to start posting this with giant blaring klaxons on every page

# ? Aug 26, 2018 03:51

Disco Godfather: May 31, 2011

Has anyone ever seen Pearl Harbor happen?

# ? Aug 26, 2018 03:55

chairface: Oct 28, 2007; No matter what you believe, I don't believe in you.

Disco Godfather posted:

Has anyone ever seen Pearl Harbor happen?

Not without the Japanese landing and taking Hawaii entirely as part of it. I've seen that a few times. AI may not be going for the Pearl Harbor gambit as USA.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 04:39

Acute Grill: Dec 9, 2011; Chomp

The only two ways I've seen the United States even enter a state of war is by declaring on Nazi Germany or responding directly to player actions (direct invasion, violating Pax Americana, etc).

# ? Aug 26, 2018 12:02

spectralent: Oct 1, 2014; Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Acute Grill posted:

The only two ways I've seen the United States even enter a state of war is by declaring on ~~Nazi~~ Germany

fixed

Seriously the amount of times I've seen the US declare on democratic or communist germany is insane. I think the intended behaviour relies on the GER tag vanishing when WGR and DDR appear, but in most games that doesn't happen and the US declares war on a country that's already lost WW2.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 12:07

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

spectralent posted:

fixed

Seriously the amount of times I've seen the US declare on democratic or communist germany is insane. I think the intended behaviour relies on the GER tag vanishing when WGR and DDR appear, but in most games that doesn't happen and the US declares war on a country that's already lost WW2.

the best is when the allies install democracy in japan after the war and then eventually redeclare war on a democratic japan

# ? Aug 26, 2018 14:37

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Pvt.Scott posted:

Heavy fighters on intercept will seriously increase your kills against bombers.

E: you can strat bomb airbases, yeah?

The thing is that "increase your kills against bombers" isn't the same as "actually stopping the bombers from bombing things". Making a big dent in the enemy bomber stockpile isn't much consolation when your fleet is already at the bottom of the Channel. The air model is largely attrition-based, built around a long-run model of diminishing the enemy stockpile by inflicting casualties over time. If the enemy sends bombers into enemy air supremacy, they're punished not with mission failure but with the loss of expensive bombers. Which is fine on land, since reinforcing damaged divisions or repairing damaged buildings is much cheaper and faster than rebuilding destroyed bombers, and the air superiority modifiers in land combat ensure that bombing without air superiority is unlikely to change the course of the battle.

The problem just stands out a lot more in naval combat because it's not attrition-based or supply-based, so the flaws in the air model are much more apparent. Ships are much more of a pain to repair, and they're much more expensive and slow to build, so taking fleet damage in exchange for destroying enemy bombers isn't a good trade. And it's hard to whittle away the enemy's naval bomber stocks without offering up some ships as bait to get them in the air.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 15:16

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

Fuligin posted:

Just play with Expert AI (a mod) and let it use 40 width divisions. Imma have to start posting this with giant blaring klaxons on every page

How does this prevent the AI from not arming their troops or not considering supply lines? It seems like that would make the problem worse.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 17:46

Communist Bear: Oct 7, 2008

I'm playing this at the moment and converted Britain to communism via civil war, but the process was an utter mess because the tactics system flipped out several times, with my generals proceeding to March entire lines the opposite direction. At one point the enemy managed to cut a line all the way to London without encountering any resistance because my armies were too busy herp derping themselves into one already occupied province. Eventually I gave up and started manually controlling everything.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 18:00

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Yeah, weird poo poo happens when you encircle provinces. Sometimes I end up with a dozen of my divisions encircling like two enemy ones. You just gotta stay vigilant and re-arrange poo poo when it goes wrong.

# ? Aug 26, 2018 23:05

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Alright, I'm stumped: As Nat China how do I get that Non-agression pact with the Soviets to skip the focus in the Soviet Branch of the foreign aid focus tree?
Improving Relations isn't enough and I don't know what else you can do to get them to like you enough.

# ? Aug 27, 2018 00:29

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

Alright, I'm stumped: As Nat China how do I get that Non-agression pact with the Soviets to skip the focus in the Soviet Branch of the foreign aid focus tree?
Improving Relations isn't enough and I don't know what else you can do to get them to like you enough.

Maybe try trading with them?

It might be because I tend to favour playing Communist China, so that means I can get the NAP by dint of also being communist, but I think I've done it as the Nationalists as well. I think it's still the shortest of the foreign investment paths, even without that.

# ? Aug 27, 2018 10:54

Davincie: Jul 7, 2008

is the italian ai coded to be incompetent? cause he can�t even hold off spain while im juggling 300 russian divisions, several american landings and a random invasion by the scandinavians

i got so far into russia before his buffoonery got me killed. japan never got past mongolia either, despite owning all of china

# ? Aug 27, 2018 22:59

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Pvt.Scott posted:

How does this prevent the AI from not arming their troops or not considering supply lines? It seems like that would make the problem worse.

Because it makes the AI massively better at managing its economy, construction, and division design. It also lets you coordinate naval invasions (or put a moratorium on them) with your faction members and suggest production priorities to them, if you are so inclined.
I can't imagine playing without it at this point.

# ? Aug 27, 2018 23:52

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 21:05

Funky Valentine: Feb 26, 2014; Dojyaa~an

Kaiserreich is taking out Sternberg declaring himself Genghis Khan II, dead mod.

# ? Aug 27, 2018 23:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Hearts of Iron IV: Finland was in the Axis

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