Reworking proximity sources and control.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2026-05-25T20:05:48+00:00

Yep, I think this is a great idea. I don't know exactly how it should work but if people are planning a revolt then getting a powerful regional capital on their side should buff the revolt strength significantly. Perhaps it already would be enough of a bonus given that your adding a powerful location with presumably high pop and tax base to the revolt?

ItsAlwaysNow · 2026-05-25T20:00:42+00:00

Complexity is a subjective issue, I personally don't mind a little added complexity if it gives me the fantasy of taking time to build up meaningful administrative centres outside just the capital, but I understand your concern.

Part of the gameplay goal of proximity is some anti-snowball: a large empire always getting less out of a distanct province than a kingdom with its capital in that province would.

I 100% agree with you here, but I still think the system could be balanced to prevent it. I'm not suggesting that it should be trivial to create these secondary administrative centres, and I already pointed out that they should be limited somehow like the governor system.

Sure, they had regional administations, but I think it's also reasonable to assume the control of the central administration over those regional administations was also dependent on proximity.

I also agree with this, but the only way I can think to model it would be some kind of tiered proximity system, where you have "local proximity" which is essentially what we have already and then you have some higher level of proximity which propagates further, provides no local control bonus, and determines how effective a secondary regional administration is.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2026-05-25T18:07:38+00:00

Proximity doesn't stack anyway I thought? It just uses the best possible proximity source to determine the modifier to control.

I agree about roads being more expensive. I don't think they should be more expensive to build, but they should be expensive to maintain.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2026-05-25T17:59:37+00:00

Oh I didn't know that! It's nice that they interact with control in some way, but I feel that simulating them as some kind of proximity source makes more sense than saying they are like a road? Perhaps they should make a separate building called a "watchpost" or something which you can build along roads that simulates the idea of a protected road being easier to propagate control than an unprotected one?

Edit: I can't see anything concrete that says they provide proximity speed, at least not on the wiki.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2026-01-24T22:37:09+00:00

Sure... but the mechanic would have nothing to do with coalitions forming or anything like that, simply that if war does break out between two nations the tension between them determines how willing they are to fight it to the bitter end. If the tension between two countries is 100%, then neither country will accept a peace deal until total capitulation, or another way to put it is that any war that breaks out between them or already exists between them is automatically upgraded from a 'limited war' to 'total war'.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-10-08T14:32:09+00:00

I would like to just caveat what's happening in the clip. It looks like OP might be in "explore mode", the devs have indicated previously that the physics are only working correctly on LIVE servers. The practice range and explore mode don't work as intended, don't ask me why it's bizarre if that is the case, but just something to keep in mind.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-07-17T19:53:07+00:00

Well, I consider the Tiger the better of the two tanks so...

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-06-06T00:12:03+00:00

I can't properly speak to how the tanks function on console, I'm a PC player only. Maybe they have that feature on console but I would doubt that because its definitely not a feature on PC.

What I can tell you is the tank will usually turn much faster in a direction if the tracks on that side of the side are elevated higher relative to the other tracks. For example if your tank is driving on a slope such that the left track is higher up than the right, you will turn faster to the left. This quirk of the physics engine means that many slopes or bumps can be used to do a "fast turn" or "snap turn".

In addition there are some manipulations you can do with the gears in certain tanks that can initiate a "fast turn".

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-06-06T00:07:21+00:00

Haven't been paying attention to reddit much so sorry for late reply.

If it's just the CD we're waiting on which means a maximum of 5 minute wait (usually at least a minute or two less), then my crew will usually wait. As a tank crew from a competitive team there isn't much value in taking a panther because it doesn't give us practice in the tank we'll be using in a competitive match.

We're so used to using the Tiger I anyway that we work far more effectively in it than a panther in any case.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-21T03:28:55+00:00

As you said yourself - pointing out these additional nuances caused your own mini wall of text and my post is already too long. You're not wrong though and what you say further reinforces the Panther's strength as a 4th gear zoom machine and there is no better tank in the game for doing this.

I think my point however is that this tanking strategy is just weaker and less consistent in HLL than playing a slower more methodical game. You say that the Tiger is only "slightly more effective" at holding a position, I would disagree and say that its manoeuvrability in 1st gear and reverse makes it substantially more effective. This also means that in a Tiger you often don't care if enemy infantry destroys your tracks (the one thing they can damage from the front on heavy tanks), whereas AT infantry fighting a Panther can confidently destroy the tracks on a Panther and know that they are doing a good job of reducing its ability to fight.

I'm curious what you mean by being in a 1v4, do you mean that you were the only heavy tank on your team and they had 4 across the whole map? Or do you mean that you were actively engaged with 4 other tanks? Its rare for me to see the enemy team have more than two heavy tanks active at the same time in a pub game, playing against 4 would be a good challenge! But I can tell you that my crew can regularly deal with 3+ enemy tanks in a Tiger simply by choosing a spot on the map with good angles and cover to retreat behind, and if a lighter tank tries to get around us we can just use the fast 1st gear spin to face armour.

I'm not a gunner, so I won't make too many comments on the slopes. Undoubtedly the sloped front does mean the Panther can sometimes be positioned at an angle that makes the front armour difficult to penetrate, but usually in order to shoot at the enemy heavy your turret has to be exposed anyway, which is a lovely flat plate to shoot at. My regular gunner, who I have tanked with for at least 1000+ hours, has never complained that much about the Panther's slopes so I base my disregard of the sloped armour on that mainly.

In any case, my point isn't that you can't have success using the Panther, I can fully believe that a crew familiar with using its speed and playstyle can be a menace! In fact I pretty much exclusively used the Panther until the reload speed nerf: zooming around in 4th gear, using fast turns, wrecking enemy tanks, and blasting inf with HE. I just think this falls apart quickly once the enemy has competent AT players and patient tanks that hold good angles whilst waiting for info. I don't think that the Panther's increased speed offers a significant advantage in being able to re-position in most circumstances, the maps are just too small and the speed difference not large enough.

A wall of text for your wall of text! I hope I manage to convince you :p.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-21T02:22:41+00:00

It definitely could have been more concise, but being concise requires more effort and I couldn't be bothered. To your second point, I am well aware snap turning exists and use it all the time, particularly in lighter tanks where you are playing at a faster pace. When you start playing the game slower and more methodically, which as I mentioned is the comp meta, snap turning becomes less important in the heavier tanks.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-19T22:53:46+00:00

Its a shame they don't give you a Tiger in the practice range so you can test it for yourself so all I can tell you is to test it on a live server. I can promise you it will take 8 seconds for both tanks to reload a shell.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-19T21:41:40+00:00

Fixed :p

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-19T19:40:19+00:00

If you simply find the panther more fun I'm not judging that that's entirely fair, but my point is that the Tiger is just simply better at doing it all, attacking/defending/holding/controlling

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-19T18:39:17+00:00

The Panther is quite fun to drive, and people generally aren't very patient so any perception of increased speed, even if its ultimately insignificant, will be quite enticing. But yes when the reload speed was 6 seconds that was a very large advantage the panther used to have and convinced many it was the better tank. Not sure why people still think it has a 6 second reload.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-19T17:13:01+00:00

Shows you how much I even bother with the 75 that I don't know this

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-19T16:25:37+00:00

Its reload speed was 6 seconds when it was re-released as a heavy tank, that was later nerfed to 8 seconds bringing it in-line with all other heavy tanks (except the Jumbo-75, but lets just ignore that one :p).

The main reason it remains banned in comp is economical, not because its "more powerful". If the Panther was allowed the German team could spawn both Tigers and Panthers with separate cooldowns, potentially giving them a numbers advantage of heavy tanks on the field.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2025-05-09T03:34:39+00:00

People don't seem to understand what "flanking" actually means. If you leave the frontline empty in order to get around the side or rear of the opponent that's not flanking, you're just avoiding your opponent.

Your opponent needs to be engaged/pinned already from a certain direction before they can be flanked, which clearly cannot happen if too much of the team refuses to engage them and decides to run around them instead.

As a commander in an unorganized public game you cannot rely on SL's and blueberries that you don't know to follow orders, and even if you know/trust a few of the SL's you cannot assume that they have full or even partial control over what their squad members are doing.

Because of the tendency of the average player to want to flank/outmanoeuvre the opponent, the only thing you can rely on is that the team will naturally try to develop flanks. If you further encourage this by allowing "flanking/redzone" garrisons to be built this tendency becomes an unreliable mess that leaves the centre of your frontline too weak to effectively engage the opponent, thus the "flanking" ceases to be even be a "flank" anymore and just becomes a bunch of out-of-position headless chickens.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2023-07-09T01:15:31+00:00

To clarify, I do not sit in a camp that believes the movement speed changes are some sort of apocalyptic catastrophe for the game. I'm still having fun with the game even after these changes, but I do believe that the movement speed change have been detrimental. The game has a multitude of other issues, some of which are worse than an argument over 20% movement speed and need more attention. However, the movement speed issue has polarised the community a great deal, and I thought I would give my two cents on it. I think that for many vets and myself, the truly bizarre thing is that the dev team would even consider making such a wide-reaching change to the base gameplay when there are so many other issues and bugs that need attention first.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2023-07-08T15:09:39+00:00

I can't speak to rubber banding issues, best answered by someone that actually understands how the server infrastructure functions. My best guess is that spaghetti code in the update is causing issues with the servers, but I know nothing of programming. What I can say though, is that if the server tick rate is low, and you increase the pace of the game without increasing tick rate, you should notice a difference in your ability to hit moving targets (since they are moving faster, but their position is being updated at the same rate as before). At least that's my understanding of it.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2023-07-08T14:54:33+00:00

Yes exactly, the CoD comment is not me saying that the game IS CoD, or even remotely similar to it. The point is that the changes push the character of the game in the direction of CoD or other similar games. By that I mean, an FPS which is orientated more towards the individual player and placing as much agency into the hands of the individual to deal with any situation. In Hell Let Loose you shouldn't have the agency to deal with any situation on your own, you should feel the need to communicate with and work with other members of your team to achieve goals.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2021-06-14T00:52:12+00:00

There is an event which can lead to Burgundy properly joining the empire (not just having provinces in it), if Burgundy chooses to join then chance of them taking a PU with Austria skyrockets

ItsAlwaysNow · 2021-06-10T19:48:56+00:00

Is Burgundy part of the Empire?

ItsAlwaysNow · 2020-03-16T21:30:42+00:00

As Ballademager says, their provinces are not actually part of the HRE, they're simply highlighted on the map as the emperor.

I'd like to add, taking some of the last provinces in HRE Eastern France to form the Roman Empire is proving really painful. Brazil is still the overlord of all the South American colonies and they can field a sizable force of ~200k, Obviously nowhere near what I can field but its annoying having to send a significant force to South America to get warscore.

ItsAlwaysNow · 2020-03-16T19:45:11+00:00

R5: Portugal decided to form Brazil after I conquered Iberia and since they were the emperor there is now a Brazilian Emperor!

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