• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Can the Russians create Guards units via production? It seems so. Guards was a status, along with better ToOE, awarded to units that were repeatedly successful in combat. Shouldn't be able to pop them out the production tube.

I agree with this. When a Russian unit gets to a certain experience level, the option to "promote" that unit to a guards division should become available.
 
What I would like would be some better tutorials.

Especially a few scenarios to learn the battle system better. Maybe 2 similar sized nations could have a small war, (in tutorial only) with diplomacy, trade, etc locked so you can just focus on learning how best how set up and fight a war, even on a small scale.

It is the part of the game that eludes me as I like setting up techs etc, but lose it when the war starts.
 
* A way to minimize windows (for example the division overview window you get when a division is selected) without having to deselect units, provinces, etc. Sometimes you need the screen space, but don't want to deselect whatever you have selected.

* A way to prioritize battles, units, etc. When several battles erupt, it'd be incredibly convenient to be able to flag them as "important" or "unimportant" (like you can do with e-mails). An important battle, or unit, or province, generate far more pop-ups and is marked with a red exclamation mark (!) in the ledger (the list of stuff in the top-right corner). An unimportant item, for example, a division that is under AI control and that you're confident the AI is handling well on its own, or a backwater province where you're just building factories or whatever, can be marked as unimportant and gets a blue exclamation mark next to it. Unimportant items do not generate pop-ups like "division x has safely arrived in y". Perhaps there could also be a 'critical' setting, which makes the game produce pop-ups and pause the game whenever anything happens to the flagged item.

This way, you have more control (with minimal work) over how many pop-ups you receive, and you can also for example fight over a large front and know at a glance which battles require your attention. For example, in my current game I have a level 10 fort, in a forest, guarded by 5 divisions. The Germans keep assaulting it -- across a strait. That's a guaranteed defeat no matter how many times they try, so that's one province/battle I'd flag as "unimportant".
 
My addition to the table, covers a lot of functions and topics

Aquire Territory - now instead of selecting which region from the list of names, you would be able to select it on a map. Much more easier and faster than to search for it using a map filter.

Capital Cities - Regardless of nation, losing your Capital should mean a big National Unity hit and some organisation penalty.

Post-War conference - After defeating a nation, the faction leader or the bigger nation would get the event of dividing conquered territories between them. Also, you could give a territory to your Faction Allies.

Monument bombing - A task for airforce to severly decrease National Unity or increase revolt risk in a certain territory (since naming it Bombing Cities and Suburbs is wrong)

Naval Blockade - Blocks a port from ANY convoy ships. Similar like Move order, but this is way more efficient.

Generals on the Front! - Like Rommel often did, he was visiting his troops on the frontline, increasing morale and unity, soldiers seen him as an other soldier, instead of some guys sitting in a comfortable office. You should be able to do it in politics tab, to send a General inspect the frontlines, to increase organisation. Ofcourse, there would be a chance for the General to be injured, decreasing organisation.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Alt and +/- keys to quickly toggle music volume.
 
The naval DD made me think of a small thing I would like.

Instead of only being able to pause/unpause the clock or change game speeds, there are times when regardless of game speed I would like to advance one hour only and then pause again. A button for one hour only would come in handy during naval engagements.

For some reason this makes me picture Ramius' line in Hunt for Red October. "One ping only, Vassily"
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Yes. You can do this in Dwarf Fortress and it can be incredibly handy.
 
Overall I'd like the Paradox to have mechanics for more significant things that happened historically, even if they happened only couple of times. That would significantly increase "potentiality" that would exist as a result of interaction between economic, military, diplomatic, research and intelligence factors. I think that would result in the game becoming less a school-level interactive history textbook-play and more of an academic level agent-based type system.

1) Ultimatums? "Unless you give us... we'll go to war". From 20th century history we know this includes bases, friendly government, puppet status, annexation, territory, biased trade treaties, alliances, stopping mobilization.

2) Economic buildup towards autocracy in strategic sectors?

3) Overall huge amount of resources invested in "potential" projects (including "insane" ones like ice aircraft carriers, batbombs, biological weapons, super-planes, etc) that never got anywhere close to killing even 1 enemy. Because at the time it was unknown what will and what will not result into real application. Building our bias into game mechanics forbids and narrows down potentiality paths.

4) Causes and effects systems from internal to external workings of a country. Building up your autocracy? Building divisions? Researching military tech? Adopting ever-more militaristic laws? AND MOVING ALL YOUR ARMIES TO BORDERS?? (you're insane to do that in real life unless you want to go to war the next week). Your threat should not just go up, it should skyrocket. If Germany historically did all those things as it does in game then it should be at war by 1937.

5) Fifth columns. What Germany did with German communities in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia was a huge success for its propaganda and intelligence networks.

6) Something akin to "fifth columns" aka collaboration. The previous point pales in comparison to how successfully Germany and Japan managed to actually recruit and maintain allegiance of Russians and Chinese who in hundreds and maybe millions not just agreed to collaborate passively, but actually fought alongside the Germans and Japanese.

You can also look at this from Allied perspective - it was a success of Allied propaganda to get Italians on their side by the end of the war. It didn't just "happen". Allies actually spent resources to get those results. So why not let player choose *where* those resources should be spent? Maybe its more important to get Sweden into Allies instead of getting widespread collaboration from occupied Italians?

7) All other types of Intelligence warfare. Sorry to say but Intelligence has been a very limited success in HOI2, in DH and in Hoi3. Its just not fun. Its tedious. Its boring. It feels shallow. How much effort did Britain historically put into intelligence warfare? How many resources and effort did Soviet Union put into its intelligence networks that were probably the best in the world - capable of stealing nuclear secrets not once, but on continuous basis, multiple times?

8) National Unity concept is a good step forwards, but its not really enough.

9) International conferences with major consequences for Europe? Happened in 19th century. Could have happened and avoided WW1. Happened in Munich, 1938 but with ridiculous results. Might have happened in 1939, for example concerning Polish corridor.

10) Personalities of ministers of your government influencing your government time to time based on their own priorities and type of government you have. Player shouldn't have "full control". Does player have "full control" in for example CK2? No, it has control to influence and lead towards. Not sure if ministers are still in-game, I think they're out..

11) Foreign arms sales. A significant part of military diplomacy should be the global market of military goods. Not just some rares and metals, but real goods. Because majority of countries were not producers of their own military equipment (except light equipment). Also, economic model in Hoi series is quite unrealistic. There were plenty of states that relied on export of consumer goods to get international currency to spend it on military goods. Here, you have to have local military strategic resources to be able to produce the consumer goods.

12) Please leave the political laws in-game, but do expand number of them, less-streamline them. 15 type of laws would allow to individualize and represent all types of countries that existed, especially if requisites would be closely linked with other parameters of the state.

13) Custom states. The possibility in EUIV to create unique states should be here as well. After all, Lokot autonomy was one such puppet state. Reichkommissariats would be exactly the same - artificial states that are also supposed to be colonial states, like French Algeria. General Government - exactly the same, an artificial state. Why pre-set them and not allow any others when instead they should just be in a list of possible state names for artificial states created by specific countries. Soviet Union had no problem creating artificial state of "Finnish Democratic Republic". It should have no problem creating "British People's Republic" as well. Or "People's republic of South Africa".

14) Movement of industries as a mechanics available for all countries.

15) Movement of manpower as a mechanics for all. Did Finland move its "manpower" from lost provinces? Definitely. Would it have moved its "industry" as well if more time would be available? Absolutely, though it should depend on the peace treaty terms. Should Romania have chance of moving its manpower and industry from Moldavia? Yes. Give those tools to players, please.

16) Core, claims and development of cores. Should Soviet Union have any difficulty of coring provinces of Gobi Desert? Having an algorithm for coring that has modifiers of manpower amount, industry amount, terrain and distance from nearest existing core and amount of any other infrastructure objects in the province - would be easy. For example, should Gdansk province have German core in 1944? Definitely. Should Soviet Union have cores in rural provinces of Western Belarus in 1948? Yes, definitely. But not in cities that fast. Also, the Italians should have a realistic chance of coring at least parts of Libyan coast, as they did historically. What if they stayed out of war, prepared for longer and entered the war in 1944? By that time a couple of Libyan cities should be cored.

17) Dynamic mechanism for damaging and permanently reducing industry and manpower. Why should population of London be ignorant and not evacuate if German invaders in Kent have been trying to cross river Themes for the third year straight? Why should Stalingrad still have any sight of manpower when 95% of its buildings no longer exist in 1943? I don't think this is difficult. Does Crusader Kings 2 have dynamic spread of technology? Yes it does. Can population and industry obey to similar rules (influenced by state laws, for example totalitarian state forbidding evacuation instead preferring full loss of manpower in fear of dissent from panic) in HoiIV?

18) Include potentiality for post-WW2, cold-war processes, like proxy warfare. Because what was Spanish Civil war if not at least partly a war hijacked by global powers to battle out their differences, enlarge their sphere of influence, test and improve their weapons? Greek civil war was one such as well and it definitely was within game timeframe.

19) If you have some type of global arms market then linking it with intelligence warfare tools for supporting proxy warfare should become very realistic and fun. Why shouldn't USA player have chance of profiting from war in USA by selling some strategic goods to multiple parties via neutral countries that are also trying to profit from such transactions? And plus, why should a fully democratic country have full control over some private trade deals of metal ore..

20) Dynamic system that leads to more then 3 major alliance. Japan should have chance of having their own major alliance especially if they successfully buildup their Greater Prosperity Sphere and have control over majority of China, South-East Asia and India. They should by that time be in no need for patronage from some German-led alliance. Also, it would simplify the life of modders greatly.
 
Last edited:
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Haha Ithron, if that's your version of a tiny suggestion, your big suggestions would crash the forum ;). Some good ideas, but I'm not sure if coring as a mechanic is really appropriate over the course of a game like HoI. Even in EU, when national loyalties were often far more malleable, it takes a long time to core. By the time WW2 cropped up, national identities were becoming far more rigid and regions less open to being 'swallowed up' than back in the day.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Why, aren't each of those a small suggestion? :p

Concerning cores: look at what happened to the Alsace - Lorraine, how it went from primarily German to primarily French. Are you sure Gobi desert or a small province of Abrene (Eastern Latvia) had or would have problems in their assimilation? Would inhabitants of Greenland truly be "long-time defenders" of Danish nationalism if in 1937 Germany would occupy them? It would take what, 500 or 1000 Germans put into political, administrative and economic key positions for the Greenland to be fully German. And that would take less than couple of years. So having "core" depend on a formula, would be a better approach.

Also, please take into mind that totalitarian regimes had far more drastic approach to political loyalty and administrative procedures than did colonial-era monarchies.

During EU era loyalties far more often still were "non-state" and "local". Not so in 20th century. In modern times it takes but a few years for a person to go from radical socialist to founder of new political ideology - fascism (Mussolini). Or go from law-abbiding soldier of Soviet army to being member of Russian Liberation army. Would it be really that hard to imagine Nazi Germany populating post-war Leningrad and Moscow with mostly those who fought in Russian Liberation army and their families? With their families thats already couple of million of people. So, should such artificial polities have some chance of coring? Yes, definitely. But with strict rules and limitations.

P.S. Plus, what other proof than modern Russian foreign policy do you need to show that nationalism and identity are overrated in face of guns and dictatorship. How come Transnistria, Abhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea and Donetsk are or are "any moment now" ready to become parts of Russia? Because: 1) if you eat lands in small baits its manageable from international perspective. Especially if you have previous claims on that. 2) Population transfer is a practical and viable method to de-populate and re-populate whatever you need to. 3) Administrative occupation is the easiest part - as long as your army is on the site you just change administrative officials with whatever you need to. Its practical and it works. Within 2-5 years the province - if it is small enough - will function fine.
 
Last edited:
Supply depot or some means to adjust auto created supply route.
-In game means to adjust province control or ownership.
-Enhanced diplomatic options. Conferences for strategic bartering. Designate SOI. Coordinate international efforts. Balance influence by capability/contribution. Yalta, Casablanca... etc. But an option available for Axis and Com.
-Dynamic state behavior based on national resources. (human capital, financial capital, land resources, industry concentration, shoreline/province ratio, threat proximity). These would drive minister selection, which then drive research which drives production. Think low human capital, high threat proximity, more inclined to produce fixed fortification/fixed AA. High shoreline to land ratio larger emphasis in naval production/tech.
-Trade min/max settings. If surplus goes above x start trading, below y stop.
 
Concerning cores: look at what happened to the Alsace - Lorraine, how it went from primarily German to primarily French. Are you sure Gobi desert or a small province of Abrene (Eastern Latvia) had or would have problems in their assimilation? Would inhabitants of Greenland truly be "long-time defenders" of Danish nationalism if in 1937 Germany would occupy them? It would take what, 500 or 1000 Germans put into political, administrative and economic key positions for the Greenland to be fully German. And that would take less than couple of years. So having "core" depend on a formula, would be a better approach.

I don't think there'd be problems assimilating, but it'd likely take a generation or two - and don't forget somewhere like Alsace-Lorraine was French before it was German, and had only been party of German for 40-odd years before WW1 broke out, so there's a fair chance many of its residents would have had a more relaxed view of their German-ness.

As for coring something like Greenland or a tiny corner of Latvia, I think that's a situation ripe for exploits, given you could deploy to cores in HoI3 - if you could do the same in HoI4, then there's the potential for Germany to take and 'core' Greenland, and then build a decent naval and airbase there and use that as a stepping-stone for an invasion of the US, where all its newly produced units could magically pop up in Greenland. In the context of HoI, where cores are used as a limit on where production can be deployed as much as anything, being able to create new cores would mean the need for a new deployment mechanic. I agree with your comments that you could effectively overwhelm a current population in a small area, but I'm not sure what gameplay benefit this would hold in the first place?

I do like the idea of international conferences (so Munich as a gameplay mechanic rather than an event), but this might be tricky to get working.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Auto-Transport. Would make playing as a naval nation like England or Japan so much more fun. Streamlining at its best :) .
 
Auto-Transport. Would make playing as a naval nation like England or Japan so much more fun. Streamlining at its best :) .

Or the US - the US does a lot of transporting! Totally agree, particularly with the strategic zones in the naval combat DD we saw. As long as you were transporting through strategic zones where you had some kind of presence (or no risk of enemy presence), have a dedicated auto-transport fleet with some destroyer escorts say (up to however big you wanted, depending on threat in the theatre), and auto-transport away. I actually think this could work better in HoI4 than in EU4 (although as someone who plays the UK a lot in EU4, I'm looking forward to it there as well!)
 
"Ghost arrows" when units are selected that shows you the path they're going to take when you right-click a province. Often in HOI3 I'll give divisions orders and when I right-click, they take an entirely different route than I expected, often cancelling existing movement (as in, the division was halfway to a new province and has to start over because all of a sudden they have an entirely new route).

The ability to "paint" a path by selecting a unit and then dragging the mouse pointer over the provinces while holding shift or something would be awesome, too. Would be so much more convenient than shift-clicking to create waypoints.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
From just what we've seen from pdxcon15 if you highlight a plan's arrow it will show you the path that the units will follow. But it seemed like you could just draw multiple 1 province advancements between each battle line you draw.