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HOI4 Dev Diary - 1.6.2 Open Beta Patch

Hello! As podcat noted in the prior Dev Diary, he is away this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, so I am filling in for him with a tech lead's perspective about our ongoing activities for the 1.6.2 open beta patch. (If you want to get access to the current open beta build, see the 1.6.2 beta thread for instructions.)

Content

The content designers continue to patch up a variety of problems that have been reported. In particular, this will include fixes to the Battlecry and Awake and Angry achievements, and news events to inform players of relevant changes in the game state, such as naval treaties being removed.

I am also informed that we have two new popular field marshals, already a part of the available 1.6.2 open beta, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim of Finland, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey:

carl_mannerheim.png
mustafa_kemal_ataturk.png


Code

The programmers are also working through a number of issues of various sizes. These include improvements and fixes for naval interfaces, like a new mission warning icon that will help players detect when their task forces are ill equipped for their missions and explain why. Also, some of the rules and behaviors surrounding naval missions and assigned regions have been reworked to avoid weird or exploitable issues with distant and disconnected regions. We have also made some incremental improvements to the naval invasion AI to make it better coordinate the timing of multiple related invasion orders, and we are continuing to iterate on the invasion AI.

Balancing the Numbers

One area that we have been looking to balance is the ratio of screen ships to capital ships that the AI is choosing to produce. We know that some countries could stand to have more screens, but we don't want to push those numbers up too far, so that they end up with too few capital ships instead.

To help efficiently guide our balancing, we have taken advantage of a cool system that our automation testing team has provided, to log out various game stats that can be collected and graphed each night. This has given us a baseline to know what the current ratios tend to be for various countries. Then, after making balance changes, we can watch the numbers the following night to verify that the AI has adapted appropriately, instead of requiring the designers to manually run a game for an hour to find out if the changes hit the desired target.

Here are a couple examples of the current screen to capital ratios for the U.K. and Japan, over time (note that the numbers are multiplied by 10, but the ratios are actually from about 4:1 up to around 8:1):

screen_cap_ratio_ENG.png

screen_cap_ratio_JAP.png


We hope to have an update to the 1.6.2 open beta patch with these and other fixes by the weekend. The current status of the open beta branch is documented here, and you can follow that thread for future updates.
 
I wouldn't say we need further buffs, instead we need nerfs. Nerfs for occupation and peacedealed conquest. That is where the Axis and Japan get a big chunk of their strength from.

The other would be Civ Building while having War Economy or even Total Mob, and with that reaching Civ Industry of USA.
 
If the Allies had not opened a second and third front in Europe it was certain that the victory of the Soviets in the Eastern Front could have taken a few years more and millions of lives.

If that is the situation in real life with a far weaker Germany imagine the situation here with a stronger Axis. The problem here is not that the Soviets need further buff, but that the Allies are unable to hold onto Egypt let alone to open a second front in Europe as the USSR wanted

I played 1.6.1 as France, hold against Germany and invaded into Italy. Allies with my help managed to conquer Afrika. And still Germany and Romania defeated USSR. So I think it is something bad with USSR AI.
 
wouldn't say we need further buffs, instead we need nerfs. Nerfs for occupation and peacedealed conquest. That is where the Axis and Japan get a big chunk of their strength from.

Then you have a very different vision. HOI4 like any other Hearts of Iron for that matter is a game were the Axis are buffed so they have real chances to win the war if they play their cards better than the Allies/USSR.

But If you nerfed occupation and non core factories as you want the game would be over for the Axis player once USA joins the war, 100% of the time. That is quite historical but it doesn't make for a fun game unless the Axis players like losing.

I played 1.6.1 as France, hold against Germany and invaded into Italy. Allies with my help managed to conquer Afrika. And still Germany and Romania defeated USSR. So I think it is something bad with USSR AI.

In my experience they always hold well into late 1942/1943 even against Germany, Romania, Italy, Hungary and Spain at the same time and zero help from the Allies. Your case most be a weird behaviour like France leaving the Maginot Line undefended.
 
The Allies get stronger than Germany, Italy, Japan and the smaller States which helps them. But the strongest Country is and will be Germany at the beginning. That´s realistic and have not be changed. Point!!!!!

The first years up to 1942 / 1943 you have to accept it. There you can make what you want. After that you have so many Dockyards, Industry and such that you could bomb Germany in 1944 following to the Stone Age like they did it in history. And if you take the historicalpath on all states it will come sooner or later.
 
The Allies get stronger than Germany, Italy, Japan and the smaller States which helps them. But the strongest Country is and will be Germany at the beginning. That´s realistic and have not be changed. Point!!!!!

Germany was FAR WEAKER than Great Britain and France in terms of industry, access to natural resources and even manpower if we take troops from the colonial possessions. And if we add USA who had near 50% of the GDP of the world you would see that Germany was completely outmatched.

If Germany have such an industrial power I'm the game is more thanks to game balance than historical facts.
 
Ataturk had left his uniform to build a modern govenment and to be a civil president. He never wore it again after 1923. Also he past away in 10 November 1938. I think it's not so much necessary detail.
You are right but when you think about wartime, who would lead Turks other than Atatürk? He was heroic commander, he would definitely wear his uniform.

And about his death, I feel like there might be alternate timeline where Atatürk didn't die early. This would be fantasy, sure, but why not? Hoi4 likes fantasy options and its not less realistic than forming Ottomans back or turning Germany to empire.
I dont know what game designers think but it might be fun to play. Really.
 
Then you have a very different vision. HOI4 like any other Hearts of Iron for that matter is a game were the Axis are buffed so they have real chances to win the war if they play their cards better than the Allies/USSR.

But If you nerfed occupation and non core factories as you want the game would be over for the Axis player once USA joins the war, 100% of the time. That is quite historical but it doesn't make for a fun game unless the Axis players like losing.

I nevet said Germany doesn't a ahistoric buff to make the game fun. But I think the community agrees, that Germany is to strong right now.

So instead of arbitraly buff thr Allies in return no,w why not dialing back Germany back a bit. One way would be trough changes in Occupation Policies, so Germany doesn't get 100% of the Industry of Poland, Benelux and France.

Also I am not saying, that Allies shouldn't be buffed in the sense, that the AI using more of the provided ressources. Better AI is always good.

I am just in favor of not escalting the buff everyone spiral,
 
Didn't Kemal Ataturk make a law banning Politicians (including himself) becoming Army Officers??

Yes. He forbade due to experinces in Balkan Wars disaster. During the Balkan Wars, Ottoman Empire was in a great political chaos. Mainly there were 2 political parties in the assembly and due to political contention also the officers with different political views refused the help each other in the war. At the end of the war, Ottomans lost almost whole Balkan territories. Cuz of that Ataturk forbade politics in army. He gave two choices the demanders; army or politics.
 
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Are you working on naval transport AI as part of the naval invasion AI as well? IMO AI loses most of its troops while transporting between friendly provinces.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ing-terribly-wrong-with-convoy-speed.1161580/
Shows Transports are taking twice as long to make crossings as done historically.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/army-navy-troop-transport-mission.1160606/
AI (and humans) need a way to protect the most important cargo in the war, manpower! Do you realize the US lost not a SINGLE person transporting troops over the Atlantic?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...sports-1000-miles-away.1161550/#post-25275876
Troop Transports appear to be 5x more visible than resource convoys according to these defines. Why???
 
Is anything going to be done about the USSR AI constantly reshuffling their armies? As a SP German player the state it is in now is a complete game breaker as it has gone from relatively frequent (which could be helped a bit by tagging in and teleporting their units) to constant. Leaves huge gaps and means Soviet forces are always at no org due to the strategic redeployments. Even with a bunch of self-imposed restrictions the USSR is now a cake walk.
 
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ing-terribly-wrong-with-convoy-speed.1161580/
Shows Transports are taking twice as long to make crossings as done historically.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/army-navy-troop-transport-mission.1160606/
AI (and humans) need a way to protect the most important cargo in the war, manpower! Do you realize the US lost not a SINGLE person transporting troops over the Atlantic?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...sports-1000-miles-away.1161550/#post-25275876
Troop Transports appear to be 5x more visible than resource convoys according to these defines. Why???

There should be a way to prioritize troop transport, or have a new Troop Escort mission.
 
There should be a way to prioritize troop transport, or have a new Troop Escort mission.

The one that supports naval invasions escorts transports, and then gives shore bombardment if possible.
 
The one that supports naval invasions escorts transports, and then gives shore bombardment if possible.
My feature proposal is basically Invasion Support but no invasion limit or prep time, when the destination is a friendly port.

Right now I am cheating by giving myself transport lvl 2, and invader on a fm and general, and I have to wait 2 days to “invade” a friendly port and assign an escort task force. I like it, it feels very cool having warships escorting all of my troop transports.
 
There should be a way to prioritize troop transport, or have a new Troop Escort mission.

I think that there Needs to be an override which would cause a Task force on patrol or convoy escort to immediately come to the aid of a passing troops convoy. Thus making it difficult for subs to sink transports if a patrol in is the region no matter what mission was assigned.