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HOI4 Dev Diary - Formables and Releasables

Hello everyone and welcome to another dev diary for La Resistance! I should begin by introducing myself: I am Meka, I joined Paradox just a few months ago as a Content Designer. Some of you may be aware of me due to my work on Theocracies and Burgundy over on EUIV, but now I'm here to show what mischief I've been up to in my time on Hearts of Iron.

Man the Guns saw the creation of a lot of new tags, making some countries balkanisable, and almost all of the world decolonisable. Waking the Tiger saw the introduction of formable tags, a mechanic that until now has not been further utilised. However, with the Husky patch, a whole slew of new releasable tags will be added to the game along with two new formable nations; one as part of the free patch, and one for owners of La Resistance.
Polynesia 001.png

Starting with releasable tags, Man the Guns allowed most of the world to be decolonised, but Oceania was mostly left unloved with only one nation being added to the continent, leaving the rest of the disparate islands untouched and still under colonial rule. However, I have added 6 new releasable tags and one formable for the region.

The Kingdom of Hawaii was only annexed by the United States 38 years before the start of Hearts of Iron and can be released along with most of the US’s pacific holdings.
Polynesia 002.png


Tahiti
Polynesia 003.png


Samoa
Polynesia 004.png


The Federated States of Micronesia
Polynesia 005.png


The Solomon Islands
Polynesia 006.png


The Mariana Federation
Polynesia 007.png


These disparate islands may struggle to survive on their own, and so a nation who holds enough of the Polynesian Triangle will be able to unite all Pacific peoples into a single state known as Polynesia. This state will be formable by any nation listed above plus New Zealand. Unlike other formable tags, this nation can be created by dominions meaning New Zealand does not necessarily have to leave the Allies in order to form this tag.
Polynesia 008.png


But perhaps players wish to live out an alternate history where the Naha Prophecy was fulfilled and Kamehameha united the Pacific several years earlier. With the Polynesian Empire game rule, Hawaii will begin the game having already conquered the entirety of the Polynesian Islands and built up a fair-sized industry.
Polynesia 009.png

Polynesia 010.png


The ability to form Polynesia is a free feature, as are the releasable tags.


Along with adding these releasable nations, I did also touch up the old fragmentation game options to make the world fully split into different continents. The UK now surrenders its African, Asian, and American islands to its former colonies, Portugal surrenders Timor to Indonesia, and a few other small changes like that.


Also, armies standing around in former colonial territories is now a thing of the past and nations will now only have armies stationed in territories where they have access.
Armies.png


Iberia is a focal point of La Resistance and as such, a few releasable tags have been added to the subcontinent as well.


Catalonia
Catalonia.png


The Basque Country
Basque.png


Galicia
Galicia.png


Spain can of course be fractured from the start of the game by selecting the appropriate option in the game menu. However, I noticed Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia simply weren’t enough to make Iberia look “shattered” so I took the liberty of adding an “11th of November” game rule, and I will leave it for you all to speculate what that option does.
Spanish Fragmentation.png


When it comes to the second formable, one must be opportunistic and take full advantage of the instability in Spain and Portugal. The Moorish people once reigned sovereign over all of Iberia, and owners of La Resistance will be able to restore the long-dead state of Al-Andalus.
Andalusia Conditions.png


Andalusia was once an Islamic Sultanate that ruled from the Iberian peninsula and a beacon of the Islamic world. Through struggles with the Catholic kingdoms in the medieval era, the Andalusians would slowly be pushed out of Iberia, ending with the conquest of the Emirate of Granada in 1520. However, the Moorish people continue to exist to this day in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria, many of whom are descendants from Moorish refugees fleeing the Spanish Reconquista.

Andalusia will be formable by any of the North African countries; Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Algeria, or Libya. In order to form this tag, one must occupy a large portion of both Spain and Portugal’s southern states and forming the tag grants cores on the entirety of the Iberian subcontinent.
Andalusia 1.png


But that isn’t the end of Andalusia. Similar to Byzantium’s “triumph” decisions, Andalusia will be able to sweep across the Mediterranean and beyond, restoring their old claims and titles.
Andalusia Decision 2.png


If a player can enact all decisions relating to the Andalusian conquests of North Africa and the Med, they will be able to press on for Egypt and Arabia and declare themselves the Umayyad Caliphate reborn, granting cores on the Arabian Peninsula.
Andalusia Decision 3.png


Upon doing so, Andalusia will unlock their final set of decisions, allowing them to restore the entire former claims and titles of the Umayyad Caliphate, effectively reuinifying the Islamic world.
Andalusia Decision 4.png

Andalusia 3.png


As we have expanded the scope of Hearts of Iron, some old bits of content started to become outdated and lead to some annoying bugs, which I have dedicated some time to fixing. One key thing I have improved is the way that the British Raj interacts with different game options and Britain doing strange things. From now on, the Raj will be able to freely pursue their focus tree even if Britain forces them into independence, with some focuses bypassing, and others no longer requiring the Raj to be a subject.
Raj Fix.png


Join Da9L, Bratyn and Jojo at 16:00CET on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive as they have a closer look at Anarchist Spain!
 
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Where's the formable Visigoth Kingdom? Where's the North Sea Empire? Where's the Karling faction? Where is Carthage? Where are the crusader Kingdoms? Where's the chainmail-machinegunner-models DLC for all these immersive WWII nations?

edit: just want to note I have no issue with however way devs spend their time and find that complaint absurd, nor do I question the quality of the content created, but I do think adding TAGs such as Al-Andalus to the official version of the game to be just slightly more absurd than people wanting artists to start working on AI and programmers to takeover marketing
 
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This is getting silly. At least Byzantium formable *sooooome* basis in reality with the Megali Idea. But al-Andalus??? There wasn’t even a sniff of a desire to revive that in the 40s.

Formables should only be available for nations with at most a thin claim of revival, not this...
 
I am sure adding pacific islands as releaseable tags had priority over fixing broken events and event chains that for example hungary has.

Yep, as we all know Content Designers usually fix bugs *facepalm* And as we all know as well, if someone on a team does one thing it means that the other part of a team can't work on something else. For example, no programmers can work if the artist is designing artwork.
We all know game development is absolutely binary, they either work exclusively on one thing, or not at all. /sarcasm

Jesus Christ...
 
Great going with that historical Al Andalus restoration in WW2!
For real tho, kinda unneeded and puts away the focus of development, for stuff that people are like never gonna use
 
Can't say I found this diary interesting. To me at least, it seems like wasting resources on meme content.

Fantasy nations releasable? What is next? Narnia and Atlantis?

[sarcasm] I am so glad that this is how we have spent time and resources improving the game experience of Hearts of Iron, what was once a World War II franchise. [/sarcasm]

Al-Andalus restoration in WW2 era, how very relevant

I just love all the angry comments at such a minor things like releasable tags, [sarcasm]yes I'm sure they pulled critical resources from the "WW2 era content" to create this.[/sarcasm]
Think of this like Easter egg extra content for fun, its not going to "disturb" anyone's WWII immersion unless you go after it you know?

Honestly this sounds like a group of snobs scoffing in an outrage after some tiny drops of their precious delicate tea fell on their pants.
 
A reminder that Content Designers can have Personal Development Time and do things outside of their contracted work I.e this didn't take any focus away from the content of the expansion, bug fixes or anything of the sort. Much the same as the releasable tags made by @Bratyn in MtG
 
This is very sad that in the DLC there will not be a possibility to balcanizade France.
I would very much like to tear at least Brittany and Occitania from it.
 
Yep, as we all know Content Designers usually fix bugs *facepalm* And as we all know as well, if someone on a team does one thing it means that the other part of a team can't work on something else. For example, no programmers can work if the artist is designing artwork.
We all know game development is absolutely binary, they either work exclusively on one thing, or not at all. /sarcasm

Jesus Christ...

And there is no content in the game that could be fixed instead of adding this nonsense...
 
Not a big fan of the formables, save Polynesia.

There should be fewer nostalgic formables and more modern, nationalist, pannationalist, and internationalist unions. So far this patch, the Global Defense Council is the only formable that interests me.

Like, we have Byzantium and the Rashidan caliphate, but not the United Nations?
 
I just love all the angry comments at such a minor things like releasable tags, [sarcasm]yes I'm sure they pulled critical resources from the "WW2 era content" to create this.[/sarcasm]
Think of this like Easter egg extra content for fun, its not going to "disturb" anyone's WWII immersion unless you go after it you know?

Honestly this sounds like a group of snobs scoffing in an outrage after some tiny drops of their precious delicate tea fell on their pants.
Sure, this is extra content, but that's exactly what it is. HOI4 requires more focus in other aspects of the game, meme content could always come at a later date. Like others have said, it's about using development resources efficiently.
 
This content looks very EU4-ish, I don't know how convincing it looks for a game like HOI4.

I'm not saying ahistorical stuff shouldn't exist, but stuff like Al-Andalus and the Umayyad Caliphate seem way out of whack. Aren't there movements closer to the game's actual timeline that would represent arab unity/irredentism better?
Having a Ba'athist or Nasserist-esque option is a much more contemporary basis for Arab unity
 
Yep, as we all know Content Designers usually fix bugs *facepalm* And as we all know as well, if someone on a team does one thing it means that the other part of a team can't work on something else. For example, no programmers can work if the artist is designing artwork.
We all know game development is absolutely binary, they either work exclusively on one thing, or not at all. /sarcasm

Jesus Christ...

This argument has been restated again and again, but it does not apply here.
Now it is a simple matter of prioritization of what the content designers do: content designers, as far as I can see, make a) decisions, b) events, c) focus trees.
The problem here is not content designers not programming the AI; it is rather that instead of working on existing problems within their purview (such as problematic focus trees interactions in general) or adding decisions/formables/events with at least some relevance to the 20th century (such as at least pan-Arabism instead of the damn Caliphate) that energy is put into Byzantium, the HRE, and Al-Andalus.

The best thing of this dev diary is the fix in the Indian focus tree, for which I must say "congratulations" but also "about time", honestly.
 
I have to say, I'm impressed.

I didn't think there would ever be anything added to this game dumber than Mussolini restoring the Roman Empire, yet here we are.