Development Diary #6 - 19th of November 2008

[Carroarmato-P40]

But dood! I actually want WW2 to start!

[jorian]

We're going to implement a strict historical accuracy mode in HoI3, where things will not be able to go unhistorical.

...Well, I can't cheer for this one, i hope it's only for the AI and not for the player

and even then, does this mean we know with closed eyes who will win the war without player intervention?

[Veldmaarschalk]

...Well, I can't cheer for this one, i hope it's only for the AI and not for the player

and even then, does this mean we know with closed eyes who will win the war without player intervention?

It was a joke !

[Syntalynder]

We're extremely excited by our logistics model.

Me too.

[jorian]

It was a joke !

I nearly had a heart attack, that wasn't funny!

[HavoCast]

Me too.

How can I get to work in Paradox Interactive?

[jorian]

I would like to see next time a screenhot of something ahistorical, something daring or wacky, or maybe an independent ahistorical nation

[Nikolai]

It was a joke !

Incredible how people actually managed to believe that joke was serious. It was obvious from Pluto that it was not a serious comment.

[The Great Duck]

Not neccessarily...maybe there will be different levels of how historically the game will progress,like e.g. the difficulty level?

[Kasakka]

I actually thought it would be a good idea for the AI. Atleast to some degree. It would be a nice option for example playing Canada, Finland or some other non-major, with whom the level of playing enjoyment is quite dependant on the desicions of the majors. Knowing that the AI will fight the war atleast somewhat historically, or atleast attempt to do so, and give historical answers to events (if there will still be some) would assure that it will not turn out completely boring. Germany not going to war over Danzig being the utmost example, or Japan deciding against PH when human plays as USA.

[Alexander Seil]

What happens if Germany rolls the dice wrong and loses the Battle of France? Sorry, but Johan's comment was obviously a joke, and a pretty good one (I actually believed it for 0.5 second).

[Hansag]

I am really anxious about this new logistic system cause some general said: "tactics if for amateurs, the professionals study logistics".

I agree. Although... One does wonder how many 'nerd' points one gathers for being excited about the new logistics within a game

What about secret or illegal parties? How parties affect dissidents?

Easy way would just be to have 'illegal' parties having a very tough time raising their organization. I mean, if you're not allowed and the government is after you... it might be pretty hard to get voted in to office etc.

[Enewald]

I wonder how many dev diaries we are going to get. 40?

[Kayapo]

Very nice job.

I must say it scares me a little to get away from events yet again. I guess that is the way Paradox games are going and there is no turning back. I'm not going to try to swim against the current, but I for one am going to be disapointed if every HOI3 game is crazy with countries switching ideologies and weird parties coming to power left and right.

I don't know if I'm the only one but I like the game to be historical when I want it to. At least the ability to lock the game in historical mode. No, not the silly German will surrender in 45 , but at least to keep things from going wild.

Sometimes WE want to be the changing factor instead of every country out there. There is nothing more irritating than when the AI choses a non historical path in an event when you want to play a historical game. Most of the times I quit the game cause, nowadays since HOI2 is stable I barelly have to save. The first thing I do after a patch is to go in the event files and set every A option for the AI to 100% AI chance, including election events. I won't be able to do that anymore

I hope the dynamic politics won't make a historical game impossible or even very unlikely.

[Veldmaarschalk]

I must say it scares me a little to get away from events yet again.

There are events, see this post

Of course its harder without an event system.


Last time I checked we

a) have a very powerful working event system

b) have repeatedly announced that there will be events and decisions on the same level as HoI2 had.

c) have spent quite a few months designing and implementing events.

[lionhead]

I love the changes in the gameplay. The party system, crude oil/fuel, all good.

But i need to see some serious changes too the map. I mean, don't show a screenshot of the map if it isn't finished yet. My country looks horrible.

I like how they added the Waddeneilanden and how they got the city names of regions almost correct.... But come on, forgetting the "afsluitdijk" between Den Helder and Leeuwarden? I would like to give the map designers a bit of information: A big dike that was build between 1927 and 1933 and damming off the "Zuiderzee"(the Southern Sea) too protect Amsterdam from storms. This meant Amsterdam Harbor was also cut off from the open sea so they could only recieve ships from the North Sea canal through the country towards the West coast. a town there with a big harbor and the biggest waterdoors in the world in 1929 called IJmuiden(where i'm from). The region has the name Haarlem correctly over it though, Haarlem is bigger and is the capital of the Province.

The point is the Zuiderzee was cut off from the open sea so no ships(certainly not war vessels) could not pass it to get to open sea. The Dutch navy was located at Rotterdam.

Another major harbor next too Rotterdam was Den Helder. Which you got correct in HOI2.

Den Haag hradly has a harbor.

[Amallric]

It's fun that you talk about this considering what they have done to Zeeland...

[Kayapo]

There are events, see this post

I know there are events. My point was in regards to the election system etc, in that case they are going to develop a different system and get away from event driven elections.

Which is fine, I guess we'll have to wait to see what happens. Events though give you the ability to garantee that things go a historical way, or at least 97% of the time

With a dynamic system we don't know what will happen. It might just turn out that every country gets to 39 with different parties, ideologies and what not.

Personally, I wouldn't like to not be able to ally to the historical Axis minors because one went communist and the other two are now isolationist democracies, but that might just be me.

As I said before it is fun to be the deciding factor and the changing force in the game. If everyone is a changing force it loses interest to me, again that might just be me.

[kunadam]

Do Paradox need help with the smaller nations? I mean it is probably not so easy to dig up party names for minors. (to be honest I know very few party names for Hungary myself, but at least I know I can dig up the important ones).

[Narakir]

Awesome addition, though I hope there'll be an option to keep a little bit of historicalness that allow WW2 to be played (at least from the date you pick) as it was. I suppose that all these pretty things will be modable isn't it ? What about ministers ? Do you plan to keep them, pictures & personal profile ? will they be part of a party now and able to integrate collation government depending of their parties alliances ?