HoI4 Dev Diary - Fuel Review and Motorized Artillery

[Fulmen]

They already do, Mot R-Art has higher soft attack than towed R-Art. It probably should have higher Breakthrough and Defense as well, but they're the same in game atm.

Edit: towed R-Art 2 has the same BRK and DEF as Mot R-Art, R-Art 1 has lower values in these areas.
Additionally, Mot R-Art adds hardness, towed R-Art doesn't.

Well I meant compared to truck-towed R-ART, whose stats we don't know yet. But thanks for the information. It's probably safe to say then that MOT R-ART will have better stats than the truck-towed variant, meaning they can still fill a role in e.g. MOT divisions. A division type that I hope will become more viable with the addition of fuel, since tanks will guzzle up fuel far quicker than trucks, yet you'll still want fast-movers capable of exploiting breakthroughs. Currently MOT is so expensive that most experienced players only use them as battalions combined with tanks, not as independent divisions.

 

[Nikolai II]

Well I meant compared to truck-towed R-ART, whose stats we don't know yet. But thanks for the information. It's probably safe to say then that MOT R-ART will have better stats than the truck-towed variant, meaning they can still fill a role in e.g. MOT divisions. A division type that I hope will become more viable with the addition of fuel, since tanks will guzzle up fuel far quicker than trucks, yet you'll still want fast-movers capable of exploiting breakthroughs. Currently MOT is so expensive that most experienced players only use them as battalions combined with tanks, not as independent divisions.

Truck-pulled rocket artillery should have the same stats as other towed rocket artillery, except higher movement speed, imo

 

[Fulmen]

Truck-pulled rocket artillery should have the same stats as other towed rocket artillery, except higher movement speed, imo

But not with truck-mounted rocket artillery, which was the point.

 

[isip]

Nice job with the fuel system looks interesting. Is there any chance you could do something similar but with food rations seeing how important that was for the UK and germany because of their experience during WW1. That would be a cool dynamic by increasing civilian rations for increased war support and stability while leaving less for your military operations.

While you are at it why not make a stockpile system for the other resources as well, like steel and rubber, so you can make some longer time planning for the war. That is one of the things that i feel hoi3 does better at the moment and i find that mechanic very interesting.

Maybe you could even make a new supply system, so you could build supply depots by the frontlines to prepare for your big push. Then you could build railways as a province level building that connects your supply depots and then from there the state infrastructure could take over and deliver the supplies to the troops but that would be less efficent the further away from the supply depot you are depending on infrastructure level. Maybe you could even make troops strategically redeploy using the railways? I think it would mak operation barbarossa a lot more interesting and simulate the german supply problems better. Also it would add another level of strategic dept by trying to cut of the enemy railways making them unable to do a quick retreat and get supplies to the front. Supply depots would become like mini capitals that you would try to defend or be forced to retreat to your next line of supply, maybe cities could function as some sort of supply depots aswell? It would also make aircombat more interesting by trying to bomb more specific strategical targets and therefor also make radar and anti air more useful.

I get the argument that it would make the game more complex and scare away customers. But i think that was a stronger argument in the games early life seeing as presumably your main source of income now would be to maintain the current playerbase and keep them buying interesting DLCs. And that player base has probably mastered the games basic mechanics to such an extent that they are ready to take it to a more indepth level. Anyway Man the Guns has really reignited my interest in the game a lot and this will be the first hoi4 dlc that i actually feel will be worth buying without a sale, so great job guys keep it up!

 

[GarfunkeL]

They did this with HoI3 too. 3 was totally barebones at release, then slowly they added back features and content that was there in 2, through a paywall of course. The last expansion in 2012 more or less brought HoI3 up to the same quality as HoI2 had been for years, though mostly with much less historical flavour (e.g. HoI2 had at least 4000 events IIRC, HoI3 had maybe 200-300).

We'll see how far HoI4 will go, and if it'll truly become a better WW2 GSG than HoI3 or even AoD.

That's not true at all, please don't make up such silly lies. HoI3 vanilla had all the features of HoI2 at launch as well as additional features like complex weather and supply models - which only barely existed in HoI1 and HoI2. HoI2 was more complex and had more features than HoI1 and HoI3 was more complex and had more features than HoI2. HoI4 was the first one to completely cut away existing features and the excuses Paradox used I already listed in my previous post. They could have honestly said that their business models relies on nickel'diming their fans through excessive DLC sales, just like Johan was honest back in the day with the whole Steam debacle - he bluntly stated that non-Steam users were only ~5% of their userbase so it was economically viable to throw us under the bus and focus on Steam only to save on development costs.

 

[Fulmen]

That's not true at all, please don't make up such silly lies. HoI3 vanilla had all the features of HoI2 at launch as well as additional features like complex weather and supply models - which only barely existed in HoI1 and HoI2. HoI2 was more complex and had more features than HoI1 and HoI3 was more complex and had more features than HoI2. HoI4 was the first one to completely cut away existing features and the excuses Paradox used I already listed in my previous post.

Sorry but that's just plain wrong, and accusing me of "making up silly lies" won't change that. HoI3 at release was a sad excuse of a game, lacking even the most basic of flavour content like a death event for George V, making him immortal. In HoI3 generals couldn't even learn traits until that HoI2 feature got added back in 2012 with TFH. They even screwed up the map so at release e.g. Stalingrad was off its actual location by something like 1000km. They patched that and a few other locations but you can still see how overall everything's out of place with the HoI3 map. At release in SP you could frequently see things like Finland naval invading Japan, etc. because there were no limitations on naval invasion range.

One can argue that after TFH HoI3 more or less got to the same general level of quality as HoI2 was after its last patch, but content-wise to this day HoI2 still has thousands of historical and generic flavour events that were never ported over to HoI3, while the latter has a few hundred events at best. HoI3 also never received the same diplomatic functionality that was there in HoI3; once you were in a faction with someone you were stuck with it for the rest of the game, you couldn't release puppets out of conquered territory while at war, etc. HoI3 also represented almost none of the international agreements of 1936 that HoI2 did extensively, e.g. most of the guarantees, non-aggression pacts, certain puppets, etc.

It's been a long time and I don't remember all the details anymore, but PDX got so much flak for making HoI3 a garbage sandbox game that they made a special mode called "arcade", that no-one of course ever played, then made one called "historical" and put a bunch of content in that was already there in HoI2.

HoI4 is by no means the first PDX game to suffer from this kind of radical dumbing down. Arguably HoI4 at release was in a much better state than HoI3 was in 2009.

 

[GarfunkeL]

It's been a long time and I don't remember all the details anymore

Either you have Alzheimer's or you live in a different reality. Because that's not what happened with HoI2 nor with HoI3 at release or later, nor is what you say about the two game modes true. The only difference between Arcade and Normal mode is that Arcade mode disables the complex supply system and units are always in supply unless encircled. Commanders had traits at launch. Stalingrad was in its right place. No HoI game had naval ranges for the AI because Paradox has never been able to code an AI that could understand such restrictions.

And again, you're ignoring the fact that HoI3 brought features that never were included with HoI2, like the vastly increased map, a proper chain-of-command, and actual weather simulation. The supply model of HoI3, for all its issues, is also much better than the simplistic one in HoI1 and HoI2, not to mention the completely redone research system.

Now I can understand people preferring HoI2 over HoI3, that's a matter of preferences and taste, and both games are good. But saying that HoI3 "dumbed down" from HoI2 is blatantly false, and no, HoI4 at launch was not in "much better state" than HoI3 in 2009.

 

[Fulmen]

Because that's not what happened with HoI2 nor with HoI3 at release or later, nor is what you say about the two game modes true. The only difference between Arcade and Normal mode is that Arcade mode disables the complex supply system and units are always in supply unless encircled.

Oh I know that, but they added the distinction because they got so much flak while still trying to cater to the sandbox crowd, even though I'm pretty sure practically no-one ever played the arcade mode.

ed. Commanders had traits at launch.

I never said the contrary. They couldn't learn traits, i.e. new ones until TFH. They could always learn new ones in HoI2.

Stalingrad was in its right place.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-have-they-done-to-stalingrad.424744/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stalingrads-position-map.416221/

https://hoi3.paradoxwikis.com/Map_patch_project



Too bad I couldn't find an actual screenshot of HoI3 v1.0 Stalingrad, because it was waaay off, wasn't even close to the Volga. The whole map was/is distorted.

actual weather simulation.

You mean that broken "simulation" that claimed the winters of the 1930s and 40s were mild 21st century winters with -15°C above the Arctic Circle? Btw HoI2 and 1 also had weather.

The supply model of HoI3, for all its issues, is also much better than the simplistic one in HoI1 and HoI2, not to mention the completely redone research system.

It was better than HoI2's, but AoD (a HoI2-spin-off) had a similar supply system. AoD actually had a lot of great mechanics that I wish they had put into HoI3, but seems like PDX never even took a real look at that game. They've now re-invented the wheel with some features for HoI4 that were there in AoD 9 years ago.

The leadership system was OK, even though diplo mana was basically useless because it was so easy to get, and spies were mostly useless anyway, leaving it being used mainly for research and officers. One thing I do disagree with HoI3's research system is that a country like Bolivia can get as good as Germany in building and researching tanks just by spamming them, where as in HoI2 they would've more realistically been limited by the skills of their tech teams. That's a fairly extreme example though and one that rarely occurred in HoI3.

But saying that HoI3 "dumbed down" from HoI2 is blatantly false, and no, HoI4 at launch was not in "much better state" than HoI3 in 2009.

If we're going by flavour/historical content, which is what I was talking about in the first place, then the sheer volume of it is in HoI2's favour, no two ways about it.

We can agree to disagree with the state of release.

 

[DukeVicodin]

Good Work!! I liked.