HOI4 Dev Diary - Bag of Tricks

[Markusmiless]

Zoomable & Searchable Focus Trees
We already went into this in detail back here. But since then we have improved the UI to make filtering better and set it up for old trees as well to make finding things easier. This below is for Mexico and lets you highlight stuff related to rebellions and church authority as special filters on top of the regular filters:

Spoiler: Edit: Picture

I noticed that the Caudillo Rebellion filter path here only shows one of the two ways you can solve it, with the other method "Arrest General Cedillo" not being highlighted. Considering both are solutions for solving it, shouldn't both be under said filter?

 

[xtfoster]

Not being able to see the whole tree, maybe they have already progressed far enough down to make "Arrest General Cedilo" not possible? IIRC just above and to the right (Purge the Bureaucracy) is blocked if you take a certain NF which I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

[leviathan_13]

Always nice to see QoL changes... and since that's the topic, I'd like to re-suggest two things I think they'll be a lot helpful:

• Grouping save games by playthroughs like Stellaris does. Meaning, instead of having a giant list of ALL save games you ever made, each time you start a new game, it will create a campaign/playthrough with its own saves and auto saves.
  
• I've found myself losing a lot of time in making air wings (especially if you have a lot of airplanes types) then I realized a very simple solution to drastically reduce the number of clicks and time needed: simply don't close the airwing window after you created one. If you think about it, the current "workflow" is click Add airwing --> Search and scroll to the desired type --> select the number of planes --> create airwing --> repeat from the beginning. If once you have create one airwing, the window wouldn't close and kept the same "scroll position", then you could simply make all airwings you wanted very fast. Alternatively, some option to make multiple airwings at the same time, like when you made your airwing, you can select how many of them you want (e.g.: make a 100 fighters airwing and then spawn 10 of them)

I'd also like the possibility of selecting multiple naval task forces and apply to all of them the same "template" in one go, without the need to apply it for each one of them...

 

[Idle America]

I want only a single new button: deny to your ally the permission to saturate your Frontline.

It should be a middle finger.

 

[El_Ploplo]

The mefo bills option is great but you could probably do the same with the escalate the war decision with Japan, I always forgot to do it !
Great changes overall but you should really have more people in the time, I don't even know how you manage to work in such a huge project with only 4 people involved !

 

[Gort11]

The mefo bills option is great but you could probably do the same with the escalate the war decision with Japan, I always forgot to do it !
Great changes overall but you should really have more people in the time, I don't even know how you manage to work in such a huge project with only 4 people involved !

Careful with "escalate the war" as Japan - it does make China easier to beat, but it also buffs up war support in the USA.

It's definitely not the same as the MEFO Bills "mash this button as soon as it's available" - you should consider if you actually need to escalate the war in order to win or not.

 

[kimidf]

Careful with "escalate the war" as Japan - it does make China easier to beat, but it also buffs up war support in the USA.

It's definitely not the same as the MEFO Bills "mash this button as soon as it's available" - you should consider if you actually need to escalate the war in order to win or not.

As I said in the suggestions, I think the Japanese should have a countdown when the war broke out with China to have a Malus spirit to fight against the Chinese troops since in reality the first advances of the important Japanese were quite enough to control the entire Chinese coast That's when the Japanese stagnated

 

[Somentus]

Are there any plans to streamline naval production? It is so bothersome when I want to produce the same ship ten times on 10 different (!) production lines. I have to add the ship ten times, then set max naval dockyards 10 times, which sometimes means a couple of clicks, because on some ships you can't Shift Click to add 5 dockyards, if the ship can only be produced by 3 dockyards at maximum. This is a very bothersome and annoying process, which I think can definitely be improved on!

 

[blahmaster6k]

Always nice to see QoL changes... and since that's the topic, I'd like to re-suggest two things I think they'll be a lot helpful:

• Grouping save games by playthroughs like Stellaris does. Meaning, instead of having a giant list of ALL save games you ever made, each time you start a new game, it will create a campaign/playthrough with its own saves and auto saves.
  
• I've found myself losing a lot of time in making air wings (especially if you have a lot of airplanes types) then I realized a very simple solution to drastically reduce the number of clicks and time needed: simply don't close the airwing window after you created one. If you think about it, the current "workflow" is click Add airwing --> Search and scroll to the desired type --> select the number of planes --> create airwing --> repeat from the beginning. If once you have create one airwing, the window wouldn't close and kept the same "scroll position", then you could simply make all airwings you wanted very fast. Alternatively, some option to make multiple airwings at the same time, like when you made your airwing, you can select how many of them you want (e.g.: make a 100 fighters airwing and then spawn 10 of them)

I'd also like the possibility of selecting multiple naval task forces and apply to all of them the same "template" in one go, without the need to apply it for each one of them...

The fastest way to create air wings is to make a wing of 800, then press d twice to split down to 200, then select one of those, increase the size to 800, and press d two more times. Air wings fully reinforce every 24 hours, so this method deploys planes much faster than creating new air wings.

 

[I'mDaJokahBaby]

May we have the ability to choose where we release a nation? I would like to release Czechia as Germany, but if I release them, I lose my cores on Sudetenland. Same with Poland and the Polish corridor. May we have the ability to choose what land we release a nation with, or at least the ability to not lose cores on land we release? (Being able to get cores on Poznan and Silesia without needing the Soviets would be nice too)

 

[Metz]

What about warnings regarding the threat of divisions being encircled?

 

[Lord Fattoni]

I like the decisions changes.
But, as an experienced gamer (almost 1400 hours of play), it is very annoying to start a game an unselect 20 decisions every time you start. Couldn't you add a button in the title of each decisions section so you can select/unselect all the decisions at once? It would be better than making 20 clicks in every game at the start.
Other thing I don't understand is why when you pick an alternate history game, Germany never goes for the democracy /restore the kaiser path. Could you increase the odds of Germany for choosing this path (just like Japan choosing comunism or democracy) It would very nice now that there are anothers countrys with national focus that can increase world tension without needing a fascist Germany.
The last thing I think you should change is the Hungarian focus tree. In all the games I have played as hungary, only 10% of the times austria and chekoslovaquia agrees to reform the austio-hungarian empire, and 90% of the times the dont agree and it is fucking game breaking, you have to restart to try it again. Once I had to restart 20 times to get the empire back again. Could you increase the odds just like 50-50, because if not it is like an useless mechanic that almost never works. An also, it would be nice that if Chekoslovakia has agreed to enter the empire again, a way to avoid the Chekoslovakia fate of fascist Germany. With a new focus or just a decision to be friend with Germany or maybe italy.
It would be great to see an alternate history game with austro-hungarian empire, imperial Germany and turkey/italy against the allies as revenge for 1WW.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

Has the Mexican Catholic Democratic leader bug been fixed?

 

[CundoSoilder13]

I hope that Finland will receive a change in its focus tree in the near future as do some countries in the Middle East

 

[Idle America]

I would like the option to disable notifications for entire groups of Decisions. Add one of the green dots next to the "Political Decisions," for instance, to immediately disable the Ideology Raids/Bans/Press Censorship decisions, so I don't have to tick them all individually at the start of each game.

 

[Shiny Dog]

can we get an option to customise or delete the whoooooop

To change the Naval Invasion "WHOOOP" to the first lines of "Primo Victoria" by Sabaton?
That'd be nightmarish.

 

[FLUX2226]

I like the decisions changes.
But, as an experienced gamer (almost 1400 hours of play), it is very annoying to start a game an unselect 20 decisions every time you start. Couldn't you add a button in the title of each decisions section so you can select/unselect all the decisions at once? It would be better than making 20 clicks in every game at the start.
Other thing I don't understand is why when you pick an alternate history game, Germany never goes for the democracy /restore the kaiser path. Could you increase the odds of Germany for choosing this path (just like Japan choosing comunism or democracy) It would very nice now that there are anothers countrys with national focus that can increase world tension without needing a fascist Germany.
The last thing I think you should change is the Hungarian focus tree. In all the games I have played as hungary, only 10% of the times austria and chekoslovaquia agrees to reform the austio-hungarian empire, and 90% of the times the dont agree and it is fucking game breaking, you have to restart to try it again. Once I had to restart 20 times to get the empire back again. Could you increase the odds just like 50-50, because if not it is like an useless mechanic that almost never works. An also, it would be nice that if Chekoslovakia has agreed to enter the empire again, a way to avoid the Chekoslovakia fate of fascist Germany. With a new focus or just a decision to be friend with Germany or maybe italy.
It would be great to see an alternate history game with austro-hungarian empire, imperial Germany and turkey/italy against the allies as revenge for 1WW.

The best thing is, the Austrian and Czechoslovakian AI has modifiers that make them ALWAYS accept any proposals of Hungary to reform the empire, if Hungary is controlled by an AI. So the AI is allowed to reform the empire no matter what, while a player has to gamble and restart countless times because you can't get their chance to a true 100% even if you fulfill all conditions from the AI event file that make them more likely to accept. (Not being able to get 100% agreement chance from the AI is pretty bothersome in other cases as well, e.g. as the British Raj when you ask Germany for support because if they say yes, you get an alternative leader with a special trait.)

No way to guarantee an AI decision success doesn't make the game more interesting, just more frustrating because if RNG screws you up, you either reload or restart anyway.

 

[Bearjuden]

On the topic of quality of life stuff like what you advertised, can we get a version of the frontline tool that snaps to coast so that you don't have to carefully draw a coastline when you want to guard against naval invasions?

 

[Shiny Dog]

On the topic of quality of life stuff like what you advertised, can we get a version of the frontline tool that snaps to coast so that you don't have to carefully draw a coastline when you want to guard against naval invasions?

Can't you just have the same effect by garrisoning the coastal states and setting it so that they only guard the coast?

 

[Casko]

On the topic of quality of life stuff like what you advertised, can we get a version of the frontline tool that snaps to coast so that you don't have to carefully draw a coastline when you want to guard against naval invasions?

Can't you just have the same effect by garrisoning the coastal states and setting it so that they only guard the coast?

Or for that matter, just create 2 garrison armies, one to guard ports with higher quality troops, and less quality for rest of the coastline.