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2021? Damn, we are in the future now boys and girls!

I wanted to write this diary because it feels like it's been a really long time since we chatted. Well I guess it wasn’t that long actually but 2020 has definitely made everything feel like its taken forever ;D

2020 has probably been the most challenging year so far for the team since release. The COVID-19 situation really messes with your wellbeing, even if your life normally is chilling inside with your cat and computer games so I hope you are all taking care of yourselves. Looking back I think we overestimated direct impacts to work efficiency and absolutely underestimated impacts to mental health and general well being - things that are also incredibly important for doing a good job and being productive, as well as helping to onboard new members to a team. We have absolutely been impacted, and as a result I want to be pretty clear that you should not expect the next big expansion to drop before summer this year, which is what I was planning before COVID hit us right after La Resistance dropped.
I know a lot of you have been asking about dates for diaries to start up and for us to show stuff again, but you are going to have to wait a bit longer for that. I can say though that the expansion we are brewing up is gonna be pretty sweet I think and focus on a lot of things people have been wishing for :)

So, given that there was no PDXCON last year, where I normally do this, I felt I should take this opportunity to drop some statistics on you all…

Player Counts
With COVID keeping us all inside we and I suspect a lot of the rest of the gaming industry has seen a lot more players than normal playing. I know personally I have gotten a lot more gaming in. It's going to be interesting to see if there is a dip once our lives go back to normal again (whenever that may be).

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Top Mods
I am just highlighting the biggest total conversion mods here, and % numbers are based off daily player numbers.

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I think the standout here is TNO having jumped up in popularity quite rapidly during the year so congrats to the team behind that! Also feel free to chime in in comments if you think we have any other big up and coming mod to keep eyes on!

Road to 56 and KR keeping their top spots from before, and I also want to say that I am really inspired and impressed by the cool video and other transmedia content the KR team is putting out. I’m eager to see if any other mod teams do similar stuff in the future :cool:

Top 20 played nations
Counting most sessions > 5h

Germany - 17.9%
Italy - 7.4%
Soviet - 7.7%
France - 5.5%
Turkey - 5.1%
Britain - 4.7%
USA - 4.6%
Japan - 3.9%
Hungary - 3.7%
Spain - 3.2%
Greece - 3.0%
Romania - 2.0%
China - 1.9%
PRC - 1.9%
Bulgaria - 1.8%
Yugoslavia - 1.7%
Netherlands - 1.5%
Portugal - 1.5%
Mexico - 1.4%
Czechoslovakia - 1.2%

I think it's really cool to see Turkey this high. It was always popular but with Battle for the Bosporus it jumped up overall 60%. Greece and Bulgaria also more than doubled in popularity.

While I got you all gathered here reading, I also want to make sure to highlight here that there was an accidental released update of the launcher and that the launcher team is working on reverting that as quickly as they can as it introduced some bugs. Read about it here. I also want to say that we have received increasing amounts of reports of people using cheat tools to mess with multiplayer games over christmas, and we are looking into it.

See you all later, and to be clear this is not the start of regular diaries just yet. You'll have to be patient a bit longer on that front.
 
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valentin4 said:
Please don't bump this thread, I briefly assumed that this game's developement was emerging from its deep lethargy.
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Keep in mind that just because we don't get DDs, that doesn't mean nothing is happening - it just means the dev team aren't ready to reveal stuff yet. I would be very surprised if the dev's activity at the moment was anything remotely resembling lethargy (they get a lot done in the time they have, as best I can tell).
 
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You guys think they’ll resume DDs this month? Given the described size of the expansion I imagine there’ll be around 25+ diaries spanning 6ish months. Assuming their aiming for a late summer to late fall release diaries should start coming out between now and March right?
 
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Dlin369 said:
You guys think they’ll resume DDs this month? Given the described size of the expansion I imagine there’ll be around 25+ diaries spanning 6ish months. Assuming their aiming for a late summer to late fall release diaries should start coming out between now and March right?
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If they did start DDs this month, they would have to be extremely careful with their words, since Podcat said they have not reached the point where they know what parts they are working on will make it to the end. Could you imagine the flames if they told us some of the things they are working on, but then did not make it in the game?

I am hoping that this means they are digging deep into mechanics and do not dare speak a word until they find the combination of things that will play nice with each other.
 
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Dlin369 said:
You guys think they’ll resume DDs this month? Given the described size of the expansion I imagine there’ll be around 25+ diaries spanning 6ish months. Assuming their aiming for a late summer to late fall release diaries should start coming out between now and March right?
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Forget about it, they said the expansion will not be released before the summer, that means most likely autumn, if it is to be released this year at all
 
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Ketchup & friends said:
PDX announced that a feature (Vassal rework) was dropped form IR development back in May. The community understood and approved it. (although they didn't resume wrk on it yet.)
The HoI IV roadmap is slow but reliable. Features that won't make it into 1.11 will be part of 1.12.
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I back caution on the part of the devs here - I'm not entirely sure the HoI4 community is quite the same as the IR one (although there is some overlap of course, including I suspect both of us :)* )

valentin4 said:
Forget about it, they said the expansion will not be released before the summer, that means most likely autumn, if it is to be released this year at all
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There's no certainty in life, but the "if it is to be released this year at all" seems a tad on the pessimistic side - we haven't had a year without an expansion since HoI4's launch, and a number of years with two :)

* Although energy limits mean I'm only a lurker over there.
 
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I mean it’s supposed to be a big expansion but I imagine they’ll be able to get it out before New Years at latest. Or at least another country pack (assuming they’re working on another one in parallel)
 
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Is there any plan to expand the number of operatives you get from la resistance? I wanted to invest into spying all around the world, but having only 3-6 operatives feels very restrictive...
 
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GeorgieBest said:
Is there any plan to expand the number of operatives you get from la resistance? I wanted to invest into spying all around the world, but having only 3-6 operatives feels very restrictive...
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Espionage should be less expensive so that it could be used more by even the smaller countries.
 
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I'd like to see the number of operatives be a bit more fluid. All large countries should be able to expend resources to have a large number of operatives if they want to.

I think part of the problem with the current system is that once you've invested the resources to build your intelligence agency, it has no upkeep.
 
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They're holding regular live meetings despite the pandemic.
A minor embarrassement ensued yesterday when the project lead forgot to turn on their human filter while meeting with the PDX leaders.

PODkatt.png
 
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Gort11 said:
I'd like to see the number of operatives be a bit more fluid. All large countries should be able to expend resources to have a large number of operatives if they want to.

I think part of the problem with the current system is that once you've invested the resources to build your intelligence agency, it has no upkeep.
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You get your second operative by building 5 intelligence buildings, but no more afterwards. That feels pretty lacklustre.

Maybe they'll learn from the stellaris team - the way they are doing intelligence looks to be much more fun to use.
 
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Yeah, stuff like the USSR being limited to only a couple of agents is the main thing I had in mind there. You should be able to just invest resources into your intelligence agency to get more operatives (up to some high-ish limit like 8), regardless of the state of your faction.
 
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W-what if freelancers did another Minor Country Pack focusing on South America this time ... Just asking though...
 
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Rachidelson said:
W-what if freelancers did another Minor Country Pack focusing on South America this time ... Just asking though...
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I’d say depending on the sales numbers of Battle for the Bosporus and/or whether or not having freelancers was easy on the team they may already be starting similar projects
 
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