Give your thoughs about the aircraft tech tree of this strategy game

[Easy1]

Hearts of Iron IV - Developer Diary 9 - Vacation and Air tech

US tech tree

German tech tree

I'm a big fan of this WWII strategy game (which is still in pr-alpha). I'd like to hear what you guys think of the air tehcnology aspect of it. The six columns are different classes of aircraft.

They are currently taking a beating for excluding transporters in the game as a seperate class, making it so that bombers will take that role too. I also have a feeling that the way in which you can customize your aircraft by improving reliabilty, range, weapons and engine is not a very accurate representation.

What are the weaknesses of this system and what can be improved?

 

[GrauGeist]

Some really odd choices in there and the P-40 wasn't available before 1940...

 

[Easy1]

Some really odd choices in there and the P-40 wasn't available before 1940...

Odd choiches for aircraft you mean?

 

[GrauGeist]

yes, odd...like the P-1 Hawk at the head of the list for 1933...it was a 1920's era aircraft and the Boeing P-26 would better fill that slot for early 1930's or better still, the P-36 for the late 30's. Both the P-26 and the P-36 actually saw combat in the early stages of WWII.

As far as the XP-58 is concerned, it was a technical nightmare with too many problems, hence only one prototype made and was eventually cancelled. Why not the P-61 Black Widow, which was a proven performer?

Then there's the Axis aircraft...

You have the prototype Ju187 for ground attack, which was never even built. Why not the actual Hs129, which flew countless successful missions over the Eastern front?

Also, the far right column of the Axis aircraft...I am not sure what to think...it starts out with a Do22 seaplane which was never produced in any quantity, and ends up with a Fw300 concept that was never built?

Then in the Jet list, it starts with a Me262...why not the He280 that was built and flown first? The Ho229 was still in trial stage when the war ended, so it's potential will never be known. The He280 on the otherhand, proved on several occasions to have a real potential as a fighter.

These are just observations of mine

 

[Easy1]

yes, odd...like the P-1 Hawk at the head of the list for 1933...it was a 1920's era aircraft and the Boeing P-26 would better fill that slot for early 1930's or better still, the P-36 for the late 30's. Both the P-26 and the P-36 actually saw combat in the early stages of WWII.

As far as the XP-58 is concerned, it was a technical nightmare with too many problems, hence only one prototype made and was eventually cancelled. Why not the P-61 Black Widow, which was a proven performer?

Then there's the Axis aircraft...

You have the prototype Ju187 for ground attack, which was never even built. Why not the actual Hs129, which flew countless successful missions over the Eastern front?

Also, the far right column of the Axis aircraft...I am not sure what to think...it starts out with a Do22 seaplane which was never produced in any quantity, and ends up with a Fw300 concept that was never built?

Then in the Jet list, it starts with a Me262...why not the He280 that was built and flown first? The Ho229 was still in trial stage when the war ended, so it's potential will never be known. The He280 on the otherhand, proved on several occasions to have a real potential as a fighter.

These are just observations of mine

Thank you very much. I'm gonna make a post on their forum that address this. As for the Ju187 for ground attackinstead of the Hs129, I think they, for some reason, decided to go for only single engine aircraft in the three columns to the left.

What do you think of the aircraft customization aspect seen in the picture below?

 

[Greyman]

The game developers here face a tough situation because they have to shoehorn the extremely varied aspects of each nations' air forces into a ridged 'tech tree'.

There are bound to be many abstractions in the game because each country took different routes to solve their problems during the actual war.

 

[GrauGeist]

Well, if the ground attack must have a single engined aircraft, perhaps start with the Hs123, which made it's debut in 1936 and was still seen in action by war's end. Then Progress to the Ju87D and finish with the Ju87G.

The problem with putting "paper aircraft" into a simulation, is that you're relying on optimistic projections of the concept. The reality of the Ju187, was that it would have been too heavy and performed no better than the old Ju87D because of it's large tail structure and the mechanism to rotate it. As the Luftwaffe's ability to protect the bombers and ground attack aircraft faded mid to late war, anything like the Ju187 would have had a very low survival rate over the battlefield.

As far as the P-51D goes, I'm not sure what options are available in that menu, but the P-51D came with a Packard V-1650-7 engine...there weren't any other options.

 

[Easy1]

The game developers here face a tough situation because they have to shoehorn the extremely varied aspects of each nations' air forces into a ridged 'tech tree'.

There are bound to be many abstractions in the game because each country took different routes to solve their problems during the actual war.

It would be interesting to know which route the different countries took, say, if you tink of it as different doctrines.

 

[GregP]

I don't understanbd the lines at all. Junkers designs are unrelated to Messerschnitt designs. Why would they show up on the same line? If they showed up at the same timeframe, they should be on different lines at the same height in time.

Makes little sense to me.

Typical game superficiality.

 

[parsifal]

never played this game, and its starting to show now that I have been out of the loop for a while because ive not read any reviews or comments. So, could you perhaps give a bit of a briefing as to what the game does, and how this works please?

 

[Njaco]

Guys, I'm moving this to the Games section....

 

[razor1uk]

Double Post, please remove.

 

[razor1uk]

The HoI series has been since its creation, one of the most detailed and complex strategy games available that is still owned by its makers, Paradox.

Myself I still regularly play HoI II. And almost all countries in the world from 1936 each have their own events, tech trees industrial/knowledge centers along with ministers and historical events. have III too, but its not installed on my laptop as its CD drive died long ago. III has over 10,000 counties/provinces on its map, and I hear has slightly more.

I would say for the US bomber line, that the B46 Tornado comes before the B57 Canaberra in that tree, even the B47 Stratojet was in US service AFAIK before the B57 was.

Where as it did enter service with RAF (and then RAAF RCAF) shortly after the war, I think it quite few more years before the USAAF expressed a wanting for it; some examples albiet heavily modified still fly for NASA and DARPA - it could be the 57 number is a hint to its service entry with the US (in a most uncommon designation method for the USAAF).

Mmm, just thinking, what sort of normal unmodded 'start' and 'end' dates are being envisaged within the new HoI IV game/historical events timeline?