HOI4 Dev Diary - Future and Cornflakes

[Pyro157]

Why isn't this posted on Steam? I actually thought you gave up on developing HoI 4 until I checked the forums just now... Awesome roadmap, many things which are badly needed for the future of this game!

Well, the Steam Community of HOI4 is very negative and Paradox might be nervous that they'll get a nasty backlash in the comments.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Well, the Steam Community of HOI4 is very negative and Paradox might be nervous that they'll get a nasty backlash in the comments.

The Steam community is pretty negative in general, regardless of game. Those forums seem to attract the mentally deficient.

 

[American Traveler]

Hi everyone, this week I'm going to take some time and talk future plans with you all.

Right now
With the "Oak" 1.4.2 patch out the door and the team back from vacation its time to start looking at the future. This week we started work on the next DLC which is going to be a full-sized expansion. A lot of people have been asking for more mechanics and larger changes, and this will be it. As normal the expansion will arrive together with a free update we've dubbed 1.5 "Cornflakes".

As for exactly what these will contain you will need to bear with us a bit. As I said with us getting started on it now we need some time to actually make and test stuff before we start showing it off to you. This will mean that the next two diaries (if all goes according to plan) are going to be covering other stuff while we get ready. My plan there is to get some guest writing in from people who can talk about the business and process side of the company and team.

The five year plan
Not actually a five year plan, but I want to share with you some form of roadmap on what to expect in the future. Some of you may have seen me talk about some of this in my PdxCon talk earlier this year.

Just to be super clear, this is not any form of exhaustive or final list and unless we have already done it we can't promise anythings. Priorities change etc. The point of this is to give you an idea of things we would like to do. The order of things is also not in any kind of priority order, or order we would do them.

• Improve flavor and immersion with naming of things in the game. No more Infantry Division Type 1 etc.
• More player control over naval warfare and fleet battle behaviour
• A Chain of Command system allowing field marshals to command generals
• A logistics system with more actual player involvement (now you only care once stuff has gone very badly)
• Improved naval combat interfaces with good transparency to underlying mechanics (give it the 1.4 air treatment)
• Improve balance, feedback and mechanics for submarine warfare
• Long term goals and strategies to guide ai rather than random vs historical focus lists, visible to players
• Every starting nation has a custom portrait for historical leaders
• A way for players to take dynamic decisions, quickly. Something that fits between events and national focuses.
• Spies and espionage
• Changing National Unity to something that matters during most of the game rather than when you are losing only
• Improving peace conferences
• Update core national focus trees with alt-history paths and more options (Germany, Italy, USA, United Kingdom, Soviet, France, Japan)
• Wunderwaffen projects
• Properly represent fuel in some way in the game
• Add the ability to clean up your equipment stockpile from old stuff
• Rework how wars work with respect to merging etc as its a big source of problems
• More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms
• More National Focus trees. (Among most interesting: China, South America, Scandinavia, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Greece)
• An occupation system that isnt tied only to wars and where core vs non-core isn't so binary for access to things.
• Make defensive warfare more fun
• Adding mechanics to limit the size of your standing army, particularly post-war etc
• Allow greater access to resources through improving infrastructure
• Have doctrines more strongly affect division designing to get away from cookie cutter solutions and too ahistorical gamey setups

You'll notice that some of these are small and some of them are huge. I can't really talk too much details about this stuff though. That is stuff we will do once/if it makes it to dev diaries with feature highlights and has been implemented. Oh yeah, and before someone goes "why isn't improving AI on this list" the answer is that its not really something you can ever check off as done. We'll keep working on that in parallel with other stuff as we have since release.

There is no World War Wednesday stream today since the channel is all streaming from Gamescom today, but you can now check out last weeks episode on youtube to see me run the dev team as generals in a massive co-op.

This is a nice list, but I don't see any mention of one of the biggest problems in the game-- the over-aggressiveness of AI in attacking fortified positions and taking 10 or 15 to 1 casualties. As Romania, I beat Germany. This should never happen. The AI should be allowed to have better intel than the human players (if this isn't already the case) and should be governed by rules that keep it from trying to crash through every defensive line. If the way is too hard, they have to be able to either a. decide to do nothing, which is a fine course of action, or b. go around! Watching Italy murder all its manpower in Southern France is so predictable now. . . Really kills immersion for traditional human vs. AI players, of which there are so many.

 

[Ksyr]

This is a nice list, but I don't see any mention of one of the biggest problems in the game-- the over-aggressiveness of AI in attacking fortified positions and taking 10 or 15 to 1 casualties. As Romania, I beat Germany. This should never happen. The AI should be allowed to have better intel than the human players (if this isn't already the case) and should be governed by rules that keep it from trying to crash through every defensive line. If the way is too hard, they have to be able to either a. decide to do nothing, which is a fine course of action, or b. go around! Watching Italy murder all its manpower in Southern France is so predictable now. . . Really kills immersion for traditional human vs. AI players, of which there are so many.

It's there. Near the bottom.

Oh yeah, and before someone goes "why isn't improving AI on this list" the answer is that its not really something you can ever check off as done. We'll keep working on that in parallel with other stuff as we have since release.

 

[American Traveler]

It's there. Near the bottom.

Oh yeah, and before someone goes "why isn't improving AI on this list" the answer is that its not really something you can ever check off as done. We'll keep working on that in parallel with other stuff as we have since release.

I'm confused. When you reply "it's there," are you referring to the line which reads: make defensive action more fun? If so, this is not what I am talking about.

I'm talking about the non-historical game-breaking issue of AI suicide campaigns in every single run through of the game, where the AI engages in combat over the span of months and takes 10 or 15 to 1 losses, leaving their divisions decimated and vulnerable for even the most basic of counter-attack, which invariably leads to the complete destruction of all previously decimated division.

If "make defensive action more fun" is responsive to my concern, please elaborate. Thank you.

 

[JerkyJerry]

We'll keep working on that in parallel with other stuff as we have since release.

Who are we? Are you on the dev team?

 

[Ksyr]

@American Traveler

Oh yeah, and before someone goes "why isn't improving AI on this list" the answer is that its not really something you can ever check off as done. We'll keep working on that in parallel with other stuff as we have since release.

 

[mvm900]

Ever heared about the R-4? Helicopter saw their first real miltary use in WW2...
H2S, first air carried Radar in 1943...
X-4, first guided missile in 1945

The flying wing became a useful thing later, sure not a paradigm change, so fair enough to point it out from your side.

Other than that you should better check your facts.

Ok, I'm a bit harsh here and I guess, you actually know the above mentioned fact but you wanted to point out that these things didn't make a change in WW2.

No Wunderwaffe did, but these things actually became a really useful thing later and from a gameplay perspective the player could take the alternative history path and push these techs, especially if the war takes longer than up to 1945.

I don't know what you try to say by the Gustav, so what?

The R-4 was used for rescue. By that logic jeeps should be directly represented in game. There were also not even a thousand of them.
I asked what an air carried radar was, like to be specific in what it does. The H2S only scanned the ground, the only thing it'd be useful for is like bombing or recon. Which would be cool alright.
I didn't say anything about guided missiles.

I dunno about the next two parts. I never said they didnt make a change. Like what would a guided wing change in game? What would a helicopter change in game? Unless you mean like attack helicopters, and I think that's a *bit* too much and even then it'd just be CAS basically. Guided missile could be a nice update to fighters though.

I said the Schwerer Gustav is super heavy artillery. What do you mean so what? One of the biggest artillery pieces to exist.

 

[Axe99]

I dunno about the next two parts. I never said they didnt make a change. Like what would a guided wing change in game?

Helicopter's most important role in-game outside of the logistics/air-sea-rescue angle, was their potential for anti-submarine warfare. I'd need to read more to be confident one way or another as to whether they fit within the 1948 cut-off (in terms of historically plausibly - one of the trickier things in terms of game design is that military development was drastically reduced in US and UK after the end of the war, whereas had the war continued, far more resources would have been spent on new weapons and supporting equipment).

As for air-carried radar, they were important (at least) as early as 1941. They were used to find u-boats at night and helped win the Battle of the Atlantic. In the Pacific they were used to find enemy fleets at night, and iirc they were also used by strategic bombers for navigation. I'm fairly sure (99.9%, just a bit knackered and brain unreliable) later night-fighters had airborne radar to help them find targets in the dark.

 

[American Traveler]

@American Traveler

So wait, are you now retracting your first assertion --- It's there. Near the bottom-- and simply telling me not to complain about AI related issues? This is fine but the reason we are communicating right now is because you initially replied "It's there. Near the bottom."

 

[mvm900]

Helicopter's most important role in-game outside of the logistics/air-sea-rescue angle, was their potential for anti-submarine warfare. I'd need to read more to be confident one way or another as to whether they fit within the 1948 cut-off (in terms of historically plausibly - one of the trickier things in terms of game design is that military development was drastically reduced in US and UK after the end of the war, whereas had the war continued, far more resources would have been spent on new weapons and supporting equipment).

As for air-carried radar, they were important (at least) as early as 1941. They were used to find u-boats at night and helped win the Battle of the Atlantic. In the Pacific they were used to find enemy fleets at night, and iirc they were also used by strategic bombers for navigation. I'm fairly sure (99.9%, just a bit knackered and brain unreliable) later night-fighters had airborne radar to help them find targets in the dark.

Planes can... already fill that role. Helicopters are mostly used for equipment used to find the submarines.

You seem to only be partly right. It seems 'air carried radar' was effective for bombing, not finding your way around but finding your target, and there were later versions for uboats but it doesn't seem impeccably effective. Then again this just seems like a minor upgrade or something regular radar can do.

 

[Axe99]

Planes can... already fill that role. Helicopters are mostly used for equipment used to find the submarines.

You seem to only be partly right. It seems 'air carried radar' was effective for bombing, not finding your way around but finding your target, and there were later versions for uboats but it doesn't seem impeccably effective. Then again this just seems like a minor upgrade or something regular radar can do.

For some background info, the first airborne ground scanning radar, H2S, was widely used as a general navigational system (see here - I know this is just a wiki reference but I have read elsewhere, wiki is just easy to find and reference), even if it's primary purpose was the identification of targets (which is still a navigational task). Submarines, on the other hand, didn't use 'air carried radar', but rather had their own versions of it better suited for their needs (see here).

As for ASW, helicopters have a number of advantages, from being easier to carry on warships (particularly non-aircraft carriers) to being able to remain above a fixed point to deliver their ordinance or use dipping sonar. I'm not full-bottle on it, as it's post-WW2 and not a focus of what I've been reading lately, but given how widely helicopters were used for ASW during the cold war, I'd argue that a case would need to be made as to why they wouldn't have been useful (as there's ample evidence they were in the not-too-distant post-WW2 future), rather than the other way around. Aircraft also had their merits, but helicopters could do some things better than aircraft.

 

[Ksyr]

So wait, are you now retracting your first assertion --- It's there. Near the bottom-- and simply telling me not to complain about AI related issues? This is fine but the reason we are communicating right now is because you initially replied "It's there. Near the bottom."

I quoted the developer who opened this thread. The line you read is in the dev diary. Near the bottom of the first post in this thread.

 

[homerCCCP]

The R-4 was used for rescue. By that logic jeeps should be directly represented in game. There were also not even a thousand of them.

Ingame helicopters could serve as a support brigade beeing a mix of recon and field hospital brigade or give a bonus to both of these brigades.
Moreover it could be used for submarine hunting. Or air cavallary as in HOI 3

The H2S only scanned the ground, the only thing it'd be useful for is like bombing or recon. Which would be cool alright.

As I already wrote, these things might not have made such a big change in WW2, but later. In the Korea war air carried Radars already brought a decisive advantage to the US' F-86 Sabre. As you are able to develop the F-86 it would make sense also beeing able to develop its Radar equipment.

I didn't say anything about guided missiles.

check your post, that is "anything":

guided missiles are already in unless you mean on a smaller scale which also didn't come until later

I dunno about the next two parts. I never said they didnt make a change. Like what would a guided wing change in game? What would a helicopter change in game? Unless you mean like attack helicopters, and I think that's a *bit* too much and even then it'd just be CAS basically. Guided missile could be a nice update to fighters though.

Most of my suggestions already were implemented in HOI3, except for the flying wing. Guided AA missiles would pretty easily fit, as batallion with massive AA damage but in opposite to AAGs with no soft/hard damage and armor at all. And also it could boost province AA.
The flying wing is more of a difficult thing. Would be something for the Ho 229 fanboys.
Could be a lower range but more difficult to shoot down tactical bomber.

I said the Schwerer Gustav is super heavy artillery. What do you mean so what? One of the biggest artillery pieces to exist.

I know, but I don't know what's your purpose of telling it to me. Someone mentioned it before my post so I included "Super heavy artillery" to my list. That's why I say "so what"...

 

[Wraith11B]

Ingame helicopters could serve as a support brigade beeing a mix of recon and field hospital brigade or give a bonus to both of these brigades.
Moreover it could be used for submarine hunting. Or air cavallary as in HOI 3

In the modern usage, they are an entire brigade type for the US Army. I would keep it as an air unit, however, and for the Navy, have it just like an aircraft is treated now. It was only well after the end of the war when small surface combatants began receiving flight decks, and generally did not have hangars until the last quarter century of the 20th.

Most of my suggestions already were implemented in HOI3, except for the flying wing. Guided AA missiles would pretty easily fit, as batallion with massive AA damage but in opposite to AAGs with no soft/hard damage and armor at all. And also it could boost province AA.

I believe you are referring to SAMs; once the guided missile becomes a thing, SAMs are Surface-to-Air Missiles, SSMs Surface to Surface, AAMs are Air to Air, etc. Almost no nation that has SAMs only uses SAMs without ADA (air defense artillery), as they are used in conjunction with one another.

 

[mvm900]

Ingame helicopters could serve as a support brigade beeing a mix of recon and field hospital brigade or give a bonus to both of these brigades.
Moreover it could be used for submarine hunting. Or air cavallary as in HOI 3



As I already wrote, these things might not have made such a big change in WW2, but later. In the Korea war air carried Radars already brought a decisive advantage to the US' F-86 Sabre. As you are able to develop the F-86 it would make sense also beeing able to develop its Radar equipment.


check your post, that is "anything":




Most of my suggestions already were implemented in HOI3, except for the flying wing. Guided AA missiles would pretty easily fit, as batallion with massive AA damage but in opposite to AAGs with no soft/hard damage and armor at all. And also it could boost province AA.
The flying wing is more of a difficult thing. Would be something for the Ho 229 fanboys.
Could be a lower range but more difficult to shoot down tactical bomber.



I know, but I don't know what's your purpose of telling it to me. Someone mentioned it before my post so I included "Super heavy artillery" to my list. That's why I say "so what"...

You misunderstand quite a lot and I mean, why would we need a mix of that? That seems... really really niche. I mean they really only could find the subs, not really destroy them.

Why not just add that to the F-86' stats.

Misunderstanding here.

Guided AA missiles are just a thing that should be added to stats. Like sure maybe an attach on the regular research but because of the way research works, not like HOI3 where you had bunches of strings. I still don't know what you mean by guided missiles as you never explained despite me pointing out that you haven't. Air to air? Surface to air? If you mean SAM, that could just be lategame AA not separate.

 

[homerCCCP]

You misunderstand quite a lot and I mean, why would we need a mix of that? That seems... really really niche. I mean they really only could find the subs, not really destroy them.

Why not just add that to the F-86' stats.

Misunderstanding here.

Guided AA missiles are just a thing that should be added to stats. Like sure maybe an attach on the regular research but because of the way research works, not like HOI3 where you had bunches of strings. I still don't know what you mean by guided missiles as you never explained despite me pointing out that you haven't. Air to air? Surface to air? If you mean SAM, that could just be lategame AA not separate.

Just point out one thing I misunderstood.
SAM were the first deployed guided missiles, so SAMs would be the first thing that comes to mind. But later things like air to air missiles and ATGMs might be a possibility. As I already wrote in my first post and already referenced as OOTF but still in reach, while the post I referenced to suggested things that were purely phantasy or never made an impact.
And its still about the devs decision to add some "Wunderwaffe"-stuff, so I pointed out my view what ig could be and that it should enable the player to take a ahistoric path.
So I don't get where all your accusation aim and what you want to tell me by Schwerer Gustav.
You actually did not make a single proven point except, of "mimimimi you're idea is bad", so sry I'm out now...

 

[Wraith11B]

@homerCCCP

SAMs were not the first deployed guided missiles. The V1 and V2 (cruise and ballistic missiles, respectively) were both Surface-to-Surface missiles, not Surface-to-Air. While the Germans experimented with SAMs and ATGMs, they were not in widespread use until late into the 1950s. If they do come out with an Armageddon scenario which would include a Korean War/Cold War Goes Hot scenario, then clearly those techs should be represented in the game in some manner.

Airborne armor is something which could be developed for the game in its current form; the M22 Locust was designed to fill that role but the idea of air-dropping tanks or mechanized forces isn't in the conceptual idea of what they had in mind. The technology wasn't all there the way it was even in the 1960s or 70s.

I would say that the offered techs which you listed were already techs for a 1950s level, at best. Nuclear powered submarines (1954), surface combatants (1957), capital ships (1961 with USS Enterprise, CVN-65) or Guided Air-to-Air missiles (AIM-7 Sparrow/AIM-9 Sidewinder, 1958/1955, respectively) are also all great for a Cold War expansion which is not likely to be a near-term focus for the devs.

Finally, we didn't have much to go on for your "ideas", and I'm not trying to impugn your english, but it wasn't necessarily clear. There's no need to resort to childish behavior.

 

[homerCCCP]

@homerCCCP

SAMs were not the first deployed guided missiles. The V1 and V2 (cruise and ballistic missiles, respectively) were both Surface-to-Surface missiles, not Surface-to-Air. While the Germans experimented with SAMs and ATGMs, they were not in widespread use until late into the 1950s. If they do come out with an Armageddon scenario which would include a Korean War/Cold War Goes Hot scenario, then clearly those techs should be represented in the game in some manner.

Airborne armor is something which could be developed for the game in its current form; the M22 Locust was designed to fill that role but the idea of air-dropping tanks or mechanized forces isn't in the conceptual idea of what they had in mind. The technology wasn't all there the way it was even in the 1960s or 70s.

I would say that the offered techs which you listed were already techs for a 1950s level, at best. Nuclear powered submarines (1954), surface combatants (1957), capital ships (1961 with USS Enterprise, CVN-65) or Guided Air-to-Air missiles (AIM-7 Sparrow/AIM-9 Sidewinder, 1958/1955, respectively) are also all great for a Cold War expansion which is not likely to be a near-term focus for the devs.

Finally, we didn't have much to go on for your "ideas", and I'm not trying to impugn your english, but it wasn't necessarily clear. There's no need to resort to childish behavior.

Because I don't know about V2, yeah sry for my english, was a bit in a hurry and a bit annoyed.
About the other things, yeah I know and I already wrote this into this thread an I am tired of repeating this.
You should follow the full conversation to get a full picture.

1) A guy offered to add German "Wunderwaffe" weapons and some fanatasy stuff, such as power armor
2) I answered that I would prefer to add paradigm changing stuff that was already developed in timeframe, such as helicopters or air carried Radar systems.
As the second layer it could be stuff that was later(in the early 50s) developed. And as the third priority it could be these German Wunderwaffe stuff that never saw any interest after WW2.
3) Then this guy I am discussing with now (or actually not anymore) wrote that all the stuff I mentioned was developed after WW2, which is simply wrong and told me that "Schwerer Gustav" is a super heavy artillery gun (Well I know about this). And he asked me to be more specific about what I mean regarding guided missiles.
4) I answered that all the stuff I claimed to be available in WW2 was available in WW2, but I said that I get his point when he wants to say that this stuff wasn't really paradigm changing then. Sure, he is right then, it was later important, but i'd like to see the alternative history path beeing possible.
5) Then a discussion about possible implementation followed, where he claimed that he never mentioned guided missiles (I quoted where he mentioned it) and I offered some ways it could be implemented, not claiming that being the best way but it could also be done in the HOI3 way where most of this stuff was in the game.
6) Then he claimed that I misunderstand a lot, while it was never my intention (of my first point) to say how stuff should be implemented, but which stuff should be implemented. If they decide SAMsto be a simple stat modifier I'm fine with that. What has this to do with understanding? That realy anoyed me. I overreacted I'm sorry.

I'm also sry for my english, not my first language, not my best language, still in a hurry, writing on my phone. Sure no excuse I could takte the time, but it is like it is.

 

[mvm900]

Because I don't know about V2, yeah sry for my english, was a bit in a hurry and a bit annoyed.
About the other things, yeah I know and I already wrote this into this thread an I am tired of repeating this.
You should follow the full conversation to get a full picture.

1) A guy offered to add German "Wunderwaffe" weapons and some fanatasy stuff, such as power armor
2) I answered that I would prefer to add paradigm changing stuff that was already developed in timeframe, such as helicopters or air carried Radar systems.
As the second layer it could be stuff that was later(in the early 50s) developed. And as the third priority it could be these German Wunderwaffe stuff that never saw any interest after WW2.
3) Then this guy I am discussing with now (or actually not anymore) wrote that all the stuff I mentioned was developed after WW2, which is simply wrong and told me that "Schwerer Gustav" is a super heavy artillery gun (Well I know about this). And he asked me to be more specific about what I mean regarding guided missiles.
4) I answered that all the stuff I claimed to be available in WW2 was available in WW2, but I said that I get his point when he wants to say that this stuff wasn't really paradigm changing then. Sure, he is right then, it was later important, but i'd like to see the alternative history path beeing possible.
5) Then a discussion about possible implementation followed, where he claimed that he never mentioned guided missiles (I quoted where he mentioned it) and I offered some ways it could be implemented, not claiming that being the best way but it could also be done in the HOI3 way where most of this stuff was in the game.
6) Then he claimed that I misunderstand a lot, while it was never my intention (of my first point) to say how stuff should be implemented, but which stuff should be implemented. If they decide SAMsto be a simple stat modifier I'm fine with that. What has this to do with understanding? That realy anoyed me. I overreacted I'm sorry.

I'm also sry for my english, not my first language, not my best language, still in a hurry, writing on my phone. Sure no excuse I could takte the time, but it is like it is.

2) These things alone weren't paradigm changing stuff. I think it's obvious that certain things would just be given with the item it belongs to. Like air radar isn't really necessary, I'd say. You could just make another plane model. Flying wing wasn't really paradigm changing. It was just a cute idea. I don't think it offers anything special that regular planes don't. Helicopters didn't either until way later when they became attack helicopters. They're useful for anti submarine, sure, but not really attacking, only finding.
3) I didn't say it came after, I said pointed out flaws and stated that helos didn't become useful in general until way later. You're kind of bringing the gustav up at this point I only mentioned it once.
4) You didn't. You just now explained what you meant by guided missile. And I explained how SAM would just be a natural upgrade to regular AAGs. Unless you're talking about stuff like attack helos it's not really a game changer.
5) Didn't say that
6) You did misunderstand what I meant.