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Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea
I'm a big fan of new players starting as Germany. You set the pace of the war, you have enough resources to gently caress up a bit, and you have a good progression of wars from Poland to France to the USSR.

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YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


Setting the pace of the war is not always the best thing for a new player though. You will end up constantly worrying if you built enough troops, if your front is looking ok, if you should declare war now or wait for the next wave of troops.

USA might be a better testing ground; another two years of prep time, a Pacific front to teach you naval combat, the UKAirstrip One as a giant forward base provided Germany doesn't pull a Sealion, a soft underbelly in north Africa when the time for Operation Torch hits... It's not a straight up land war so you learn more than just the basics but you are pretty much never in danger and given extra time.

AAAAA! Real Muenster
Jul 12, 2008

My QB is also named Bort

YF-23 posted:

It's not like WW2 doesn't have replayability though. Any of the majors fit into the scenario significantly differently enough that playing as a different one is not re-fighting the same war.
This is true, but between all of the HoI games/other videogames plus boardgames I have played all the scenarios in one way or another over and over and over again....I've played HoI3 as Germany many times; Italy, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Nat China, USA USA USA a couple times each (not always to completion). I've even made my own WWII era boardgame (it is a "free setup" game where you pick an archetype and build your nation from the ground up) because I love the era so much. I may be outlier but playing games about the bog standard WWII is getting old.

AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 23:59 on May 26, 2015

Don Gato
Apr 28, 2013

Actually a bipedal cat.
Grimey Drawer

YF-23 posted:

Setting the pace of the war is not always the best thing for a new player though. You will end up constantly worrying if you built enough troops, if your front is looking ok, if you should declare war now or wait for the next wave of troops.

USA might be a better testing ground; another two years of prep time, a Pacific front to teach you naval combat, the UKAirstrip One as a giant forward base provided Germany doesn't pull a Sealion, a soft underbelly in north Africa when the time for Operation Torch hits... It's not a straight up land war so you learn more than just the basics but you are pretty much never in danger and given extra time.

Plus in HoI3 the US doesn't have an ungodly huge military at the start that you have to reorganize like, say, Japan or the Soviet Union :shepicide:

I know it's historically accurate but Japan's starting OoB in HoI 3 was such a mess and seemingly designed to make sure you wouldn't get any bonuses from properly utilizing the command structure unless you literally reorganized the ENTIRE Kwantung army from scratch.

Top Hats Monthly
Jun 22, 2011


People are people so why should it be, that you and I should get along so awfully blink blink recall STOP IT YOU POSH LITTLE SHIT
Here's a scenario that you can fudge your own way for a new, exciting WWII

Cohesive US, but with communists being dickheads
Communist Mexico after revolution (Maybe keep Veracruz occupied)
Japan is a neutral dictatorship that's letting the chips fall
Eastern Europe is a series of fascist-like states
Western Europe is ignoring what Hitler is doing
Fun times in India
Soviet Union stronger for some abject reason (Trotsky?)
Pro-USSR Republican Spain

That way it becomes less of a generic Allies v Axis and more of a power play to see which side the communists see fit

BBJoey
Oct 31, 2012

Nitrousoxide posted:

Without the US there though WW1 would have ended substantially differently. Without the lend/lease support of the US the allies would not have been able to hold out as long as they did, and Russia would have collapsed at lot earlier. With Russia falling maybe a year earlier Germany probably would have crushed Italy and France before they suffered their own collapse.

lmao what

Wooper
Oct 16, 2006

Champion draGoon horse slayer. Making Lancers weep for their horsies since 2011. Viva Dickbutt.
They sold a lot of poo poo to the Entente.

BBJoey
Oct 31, 2012

That's a pretty far cry from lend-lease though.

Fidel Cuckstro
Jul 2, 2007

Top Hats Monthly posted:


Soviet Union stronger for some abject reason (Trotsky?)


Hahaha, but seriously folks...

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



BBJoey posted:

lmao what

Well, more lending really. The center of commerce in the world shifted from London to New York in WW1 and the allies racked up huge balances with private lenders in the US that they were still paying off 10 years ago. US grain was one of the big reasons why the Allies (well, except for the Russians) weren't starving like the Germans.

SoggyBobcat
Oct 2, 2013

I asked this earlier and got no response, but now that we're back to HoI/DH talk, I'll ask again: does anyone know what changes to the DH settings ini file to make to make the upgrade/reinforcement sliders better?

Top Hats Monthly
Jun 22, 2011


People are people so why should it be, that you and I should get along so awfully blink blink recall STOP IT YOU POSH LITTLE SHIT

Slime Bro Helpdesk posted:

Hahaha, but seriously folks...

Nobody said realistic!!

CatsPajamas
Jul 4, 2013

I hated the new Stupid Newbie avatar so much that I bought a new one for this user. Congrats, Lowtax.

Bort Bortles posted:

This is true, but between all of the HoI games/other videogames plus boardgames I have played all the scenarios in one way or another over and over and over again....I've played HoI3 as Germany many times; Italy, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Nat China, USA USA USA a couple times each (not always to completion). I've even made my own WWII era boardgame (it is a "free setup" game where you pick an archetype and build your nation from the ground up) because I love the era so much. I may be outlier but playing games about the bog standard WWII is getting old.

I'm all for alt. history, though I think from Paradox Games perspective it makes the most sense to polish the core game and scenario, and leave other scenarios for expansions ala Sunset Invasion or of course mods.

Also, that boardgame you mentioned making sounds really interesting! Is it something you can show off with a link to the mechanics or some such?

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

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

SoggyBobcat posted:

I asked this earlier and got no response, but now that we're back to HoI/DH talk, I'll ask again: does anyone know what changes to the DH settings ini file to make to make the upgrade/reinforcement sliders better?

This is just me, but I like to set the reinforcement to upgrade ratio to 1.

Dibujante
Jul 27, 2004

BBJoey posted:

lmao what

Nitrousoxide posted:

Well, more lending really. The center of commerce in the world shifted from London to New York in WW1 and the allies racked up huge balances with private lenders in the US that they were still paying off 10 years ago. US grain was one of the big reasons why the Allies (well, except for the Russians) weren't starving like the Germans.

The US playing this role is what basically propelled them to being the industrial leaders of the western world in the wake of WW1. Combined with the embargo, this worked brutally effectively - the Entente was so much better-supplied by the end of the war that they could have simply waited a few more years and Germany would literally have starved back to pastoralism. In the last year of the war, famine and disease alone effectively halved German combat numbers - and that was after the Turnip Winter of '16-17 wreaked havoc on Germany. By the end of the war, the German army was more than half-starved, stumbling backward, dressed in rags.

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Nitrousoxide posted:

Without the US there though WW1 would have ended substantially differently. Without the lend/lease support of the US the allies would not have been able to hold out as long as they did, and Russia would have collapsed at lot earlier. With Russia falling maybe a year earlier Germany probably would have crushed Italy and France before they suffered their own collapse.

At best, even if the Allies managed to hold things together it would not have been a crushing defeat against the Germans/Austrians/Ottomans. Austria and the Ottomans would not have been broken up and you'd likely have a much more similar country layout for a WW2, just with better tech.

If you're going to go back that far, World War 1 wouldn't have looked anything like it did, and indeed all of Western Europe would have been markedly different if they hadn't had the wealth of American colonial trade to bootstrap their previously backwater empires. Unless the world was in fact as small as Colombus thought it would, in which case you get even more butterflies going as Spanish explorers run straight into China and the Indies.

Basically if we're going to postulate a WW2 without America it's probably best to ignore what came before unless you want to completely alt-history it up.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Europe, and the world more generally, would look entirely different without the discovery of the Americas.

ArchangeI
Jul 15, 2010
I for one would just like a multiplayer scenario that is basically a sandbox. No alliances at game start, full IC/techteam takeover, no restrictions on DoW, go hogwild. Might have to rebalance the starting forces a little.

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

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

ArchangeI posted:

I for one would just like a multiplayer scenario that is basically a sandbox. No alliances at game start, full IC/techteam takeover, no restrictions on DoW, go hogwild. Might have to rebalance the starting forces a little.

They did that, it was HOI2: Armageddon

Fidel Cuckstro
Jul 2, 2007

Phlegmish posted:

Europe, and the world more generally, would look entirely different without the discovery of the Americas.

No baseball. No apple pie. gently caress it, let Hitler win at that point :(

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


Raskolnikov38 posted:

They did that, it was HOI2: Armageddon

Was Armageddon ever as fun in multiplayer as it looked? Those were back in the days when Paradox's netcode was basically unplayable (I only ever got one HoI2 game to work in multiplayer over Hamachi and it died after like 20 minutes).

Riso
Oct 11, 2008

by merry exmarx

Phlegmish posted:

Europe, and the world more generally, would look entirely different without the discovery of the Americas.

Without England's deep pockets from colonialisation and the resulting trade it seems very likely nobody would be strong enough to challenge France's domination of Europe.

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

ThaumPenguin posted:

Wasn't there a National Focus for Germany to go democratic? That'd change things up.

No, that was in the older Goals system which was ripped out and replaced with Focuses. Technically Germany could still go Democratic, but only by appointing a Democratic reformer and waiting for support to tick up until a coup/gov change/civil war happens - it's not a defined path that the AI would pick. They do have a somewhat peaceful "Build a big navy and befriend Scandinavia/Low countries" Focus path, but they remain Fascist outside of player shenanigans.

GaussianCopula
Jun 5, 2011
Jews fleeing the Holocaust are not in any way comparable to North Africans, who don't flee genocide but want to enjoy the social welfare systems of Northern Europe.

Riso posted:

Without England's deep pockets from colonialisation and the resulting trade it seems very likely nobody would be strong enough to challenge France's domination of Europe.

But the Iberians would have become filthy rich by exploiting/trading with Asia, after discovering the sea route while on the other hand the influence of Italian city states would have diminished much faster. Depending on how much this would have strengthened Spain's position it is possible to envisage a decisive victory of the Catholic League in the 30year war, with Habsburg supremacy secured in continental Europe for quite some time.

Edit: It's probably also important to look at the Ottoman Empire and how the decrease in trade profits would have diminished their strength, which would have further strengthened the Habsburgs.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Guys I don't think "what would the effect be of simply wiping America off the map" needs to be examined much deeper than "it'd shake up the balance of power in a WW2 showdown to make for a more interesting scenario"

I mean, that's basically what Kaiserreich already does a bunch of times over.

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands
So, here's a question - how many of you guys remember the Crete LP Wiz did back in the day?

Well, seeing as the LP never got archived properly because nobody was willing to sit down and do session summaries for every single goddamn Senate session, I thought perhaps it might bring the LP slightly closer to being archived if the various people involved in the LP instead wrote a few overarching histories on the bits of Crete that they thought important and interesting, as opposed to trying for a highly detailed record of literally everything that went on. Figured that if a couple of Senate members did that and then had that stuck in the LP Archive with the updates themselves, you'd probably end up giving newcomers with something of an idea of the kind of shenanigans that went on behind the updates.

And as I managed to scrape together some spare time to have a whack at things, I therefore present my own contribution to maybe someday archiving Crete properly: A Brief History of Populism.

(I'd have done this in Wiz's "Islam is the Light" LP instead, but apparently that fell into the archives, so apologies to anyone here who doesn't give a drat about Crete.)

Takanago
Jun 2, 2007

You'll see...
:getin: Oh, yes, Crete.

I always did kind of want to write my own history of how things really went down, but then after that ended I kinda felt like I had already written more than enough words about Populism.

Plus that's already a pretty nice 14-page essay about Populism right there (not that I've read through it yet), so whatever I have to say might be redundant.

...But it's not out of the question. I'm pretty sure that any person involved big-time in that LP really loves to hear themselves talk about pretend greek politics.

(Though I'm not sure if I would want to try to tell the Real Story, or an incredibly Pro-Populist 'Real Story')

e: I really do appreciate that you took the care to properly capitalize The People

Takanago fucked around with this message at 15:48 on May 27, 2015

Groogy
Jun 12, 2014

Tanks are kinda wasted on invading the USSR
I get so jelly when people talk about Crete, I feel like I really missed out on something amazing... :(

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Takanago posted:

:getin: Oh, yes, Crete.

Funny that you should be the first person to respond - I'm pretty sure you're the only senator I ever mentioned by name (mostly because I wanted to avoid singling people out for whatever reason, but you were the guy who invented the idea of The People, so...)

Edit:

Groogy posted:

I get so jelly when people talk about Crete, I feel like I really missed out on something amazing... :(

An amazing amount of people screaming at each other over the fate of pixelmen, some of whom weren't even properly represented in the game, yes.

Tomn fucked around with this message at 15:52 on May 27, 2015

Nothingtoseehere
Nov 11, 2010


I'm pretty sure there's some academic research you could do on the Crete LP and political processes and arguments, and how people approach them. The same way the Aurora LP has interesting parallels to actual bureaucracies, there's something in Crete about how political decisions, consensus ( or lack of it), and arguments happen, and how easily you get chaos and partisanship.

Nothingtoseehere fucked around with this message at 16:04 on May 27, 2015

Takanago
Jun 2, 2007

You'll see...

Tomn posted:

Funny that you should be the first person to respond - I'm pretty sure you're the only senator I ever mentioned by name (mostly because I wanted to avoid singling people out for whatever reason, but you were the guy who invented the idea of The People, so...)

Why yes I guess I'll accept the honor of being History's Most Important Populist.

(But really, other people did do a lot of important work for Populism and there was a lot more than me at work there. Wouldn't have worked so well without Gorgo's radicalism to point at so I could be a moderate.)

Anyway, this is a pretty cool read so far. If I don't feel lazy when I'm done looking at it, I'll maybe write a follow-up or a rebuttal or something.

Tomn posted:

An amazing amount of people screaming at each other over the fate of pixelmen, some of whom weren't even properly represented in the game, yes.

Yeah, there were times where that thread got pretty bad. Still a good time overall, though.

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Takanago posted:

(But really, other people did do a lot of important work for Populism and there was a lot more than me at work there. Wouldn't have worked so well without Gorgo's radicalism to point at so I could be a moderate.)

Anyway, this is a pretty cool read so far. If I don't feel lazy when I'm done looking at it, I'll maybe write a follow-up or a rebuttal or something.

Yeah, that's true - there were a lot of subtle interplays like that which I skipped over, but this is supposed to be a brief history of Populism, and at 14 pages we're already pushing it a bit. Maybe someone else could do a more involved look at things, like yourself, or perhaps a brief biographical sketch of the careers of the more prominent senators in Crete. I'd read that.

(Also, let me know when you get to the shameless self-promotion)

AAAAA! Real Muenster
Jul 12, 2008

My QB is also named Bort

CatsPajamas posted:

Also, that boardgame you mentioned making sounds really interesting! Is it something you can show off with a link to the mechanics or some such?
:shobon: I sadly do not have much on this computer or the web at this point, but it was designed around a map of Europe that I printed out. I drew the provinces on it and named them myself, some are off or just wrong but lol whatever. The map spans out to the Urals, one province north of Stockholm, and has Egypt-Libya-Algeria-Morocco as the southern border. I think it has roughly 150 provinces divided into 12 Risk-esque continents that I call Kingdoms. These Kingdoms are subdivided into 2,3, or 4 Duchies. To start the game, people bid on a Kingdom they want start off owning. They then bid for adjacent duchies so most of the map is owned by a player. Then you get to pick a national "archetype" from Industrial, Land, or Naval, which gives your country inherent advantages for units or abilities and stuff. The combat is Axis & Allies-esque except it is not annihilation based - units get disabled and pushed instead. Income goes to upkeep and other stuff so people do not proliferate into huge stacks that stare at each other. This is a Paradox thread, though, so I dont want to keep going :v:

Ms Adequate
Oct 30, 2011

Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling



nothing to seehere posted:

I'm pretty sure there's some academic research you could do on the Crete LP and political processes and arguments, and how people approach them. The same way the Aurora LP has interesting parallels to actual bureaucracies, there's something in Crete about how political decisions, consensus ( or lack of it), and arguments happen, and how easily you get chaos and partisanship.

The Aurora LP is amazing for that, everyone's desperate to get the resources they need for their projects and resources, so poor Grey Hunter is mostly concerned with allocating and adjusting production percentages and riding herd on debates about whether we should devote 33% or 34% of industrial capacity to building a new shipyard or whatever.

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


Mister Adequate posted:

The Aurora LP is amazing for that, everyone's desperate to get the resources they need for their projects and resources, so poor Grey Hunter is mostly concerned with allocating and adjusting production percentages and riding herd on debates about whether we should devote 33% or 34% of industrial capacity to building a new shipyard or whatever.

Oh man, if Grey Hunter were the one running the Aurora LP, I'm like 95% certain that half of the colonies would have been obliterated by mass driver mineral packets because he forgot to build drivers on the receiving ends. :allears:

<3 u grey

Ms Adequate
Oct 30, 2011

Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling



Drone posted:

Oh man, if Grey Hunter were the one running the Aurora LP, I'm like 95% certain that half of the colonies would have been obliterated by mass driver mineral packets because he forgot to build drivers on the receiving ends. :allears:

<3 u grey

Holy poo poo why did I think it was Grey Hunter? Sorry about that bgreman :psyduck:

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Riso posted:

Without England's deep pockets from colonialisation and the resulting trade it seems very likely nobody would be strong enough to challenge France's domination of Europe.
WW2 in this case would be a struggle between Russia, China, and France over the riches of Central Asia and the Middle East.

GaussianCopula posted:

But the Iberians would have become filthy rich by exploiting/trading with Asia, after discovering the sea route while on the other hand the influence of Italian city states would have diminished much faster. Depending on how much this would have strengthened Spain's position it is possible to envisage a decisive victory of the Catholic League in the 30year war, with Habsburg supremacy secured in continental Europe for quite some time.

Edit: It's probably also important to look at the Ottoman Empire and how the decrease in trade profits would have diminished their strength, which would have further strengthened the Habsburgs.
Wasn't Spain's golden age of trying to establish a universal monarchy in Europe fueled to a major degree by American gold? Even if it eventually led to economic troubles in Spain, American riches still allowed Spain to be a much bigger player than it would have otherwise been. I'm not sure Asia could replace that in the short term.

Westminster System
Jul 4, 2009
Aurora is one game in definite need of a Paradox-esque UI overhaul. Its a fantastic idea and experience thats just marred by the engine it was built on and the UI of nightmares, though that was likely a necessity of the lone soul that put all the work in.

It really needs a sequel, but theres already been 2000 attempts at that.

PhantomZero
Sep 7, 2007

Drone posted:

Was Armageddon ever as fun in multiplayer as it looked? Those were back in the days when Paradox's netcode was basically unplayable (I only ever got one HoI2 game to work in multiplayer over Hamachi and it died after like 20 minutes).

Kind of, it didn't have too many desyncing issue because there weren't any events, but it wasn't really balanced well and playing against one person who was really good would ruin everyones poo poo by teching aircraft carriers to hell and back. But fun, like a more detailed mid-game risk where everyone has kind of blobbed up.

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Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

GaussianCopula posted:

But the Iberians would have become filthy rich by exploiting/trading with Asia, after discovering the sea route while on the other hand the influence of Italian city states would have diminished much faster. Depending on how much this would have strengthened Spain's position it is possible to envisage a decisive victory of the Catholic League in the 30year war, with Habsburg supremacy secured in continental Europe for quite some time.

Edit: It's probably also important to look at the Ottoman Empire and how the decrease in trade profits would have diminished their strength, which would have further strengthened the Habsburgs.

While the wealth coming from India and Malacca was super sweet it was absolutely nothing compared to just how much wealth you could have by sucking America dry. It was effectively a world where you could step in and kill all the locals and replace them with slaves to extract the unimaginable riches from. How would the Habsburgs survive without all that gold? The Fuggers couldn't finance them all by themselves!

Plus, what are we speaking of when we say "no American continent"? Are thinking of a earth much smaller than ours or the exact same planet but just without that massive piece of land between Asia and Europe\Africa? You know how the Portuguese discovered Brasil due to the natural way the winds blew them that way? Without Brasil there the winds would blow the Portuguese to nothing. Colombus would sail and die stuck in the middle of a gargantuan expanse of water. That area of the world would be pratically impossible to cross, how are you going to carry a Galleon full of spices when a Galleon full of water and food would still struggle to cross that expanse?

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