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HOI4 Dev Diary - Officer Corps #2

Hello there C0RAX, here!

For my first HoI dev diary, I’m here to show you the second part of the Officer Corps, a new way of personalising your military that will be included as part of No Step Back and the Barbarossa update.

In the last dev diary we explained how we want to allow you to specialise your military branches with the leadership and advisors. Today we bring to you some new features that allow you to customise how your military operates, and act as a further use for the new sources of branch experience that were hinted at last week.

You may have been wondering what all those shiny boxes with emblems were for. I'm here to tell you they are the new Officer Corps Spirits.

Spirits are a new way to specialise your military, generals and even help your division designs. Each branch has multiple categories for its spirits that affect different aspects of the way they operate. Here I have shown you the spirits of the army which provide bonuses to designing divisions or operating armies. Of course this category has analogs for both the air and navy branches.

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Now we have the more direct combat effect level spirits that let you improve specific parts of your units to best match your strategy. These also let you conduct some historical moves that previously were quite hard such as using your capital ships as surface raiders without screens. And for those keen eyed readers, yes the division spirits provide tactics weight increases if you also have them selected as your preferred tactic which we will get to shortly.

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Finally we have the final category for the army and navy branches, the academy spirits. Previously generating commanders was a purely random chance. Now with the academy spirits you can tailor this toward specific personality traits along with helping you generals progress in a particular direction. For the above image you can also see the new engineer officer personality trait that provides bonuses to xp generation for the engineer trait. This works in tandem with the advisor promotion mentioned last week, and adds another dimension towards tailoring your officer corps from the very beginning.

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With the new spirits some are limited by either your political ideology or doctrines and so you will have to take this into account when deciding the strategy of your officers corps.

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The final part of this week's dev diary brings us to preferred tactics. This new feature provides you with a tool to influence the likelihood of a specific tactic being used in combat allowing you to increase the chance of getting that favorable matchup in battle or possibly the perfect counter.

This simulates a doctrinal emphasis on doing battle in a specific way; but can also provide a tool that can be used to counter a strongly themed force.

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The new window will help show you all the tactics you have unlocked from doctrines and see what effect they have on the battle. If you combine this preferred tactic with your division spirit bonus you will double the effectiveness of the tactic preference so unifying your strategic direction will help you get the most out of the officer corps.

Well that's all for this week comrades, see you at the front. C0RAX
 
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So do the spirits have any requirements to select beyond XP cost? Like are certain ones only available to certain Doctrines? Require certain techs to be researched? Tied to chiefs of staffs? Require certain tags? Tied to focus completion?
 
So do the spirits have any requirements to select beyond XP cost? Like are certain ones only available to certain Doctrines? Require certain techs to be researched? Tied to chiefs of staffs? Require certain tags? Tied to focus completion?
From dev diary:

"With the new spirits some are limited by either your political ideology or doctrines and so you will have to take this into account when deciding the strategy of your officers corps."
 
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I cannot wait :cool: Great job hoi4 team
 
I'd like to have more information about the "Preferred Tactics". Recon/initiative/tactics is something I've explored a fair bit, I'm curious what the aim of the changes is and what the changes are. You can boost the weight of some of the tactics with preference, and some other spirit choices boost weight, kinda like how some officer traits and terrain boost weight?
 
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Very nice that new Features, Refits and Upgrades.

Hope that it won´t be long anymore, but I suspect, it will be Mid July or End July when we can get the new Update and DLC.
 
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Can you update a diplomacy ? Now diplomacy is going to be usless. If for example Turkey chouse to join Alies by focus you can't do nothink to convert them to comunist way. Even if you have +200 to relations and spies you can't prevent them joining Alies. All diplomacy relation system is broken by focus trees. AI schould consider it sytuation before it pick a focus and be flexible acording to power balanse. If Alies loosing a war joining them is just stupid and AI schould be abble to calculate it.
 
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There are a lot to cover, so we might show some off in future. For today, you can see the glorious USA unique spirit:

View attachment 734035

Oh that's awesome. But can you make the flavor text more petty and annoying? Maybe something about how the Bureau has done its job and laying the blame on crews and captains, or a note on how we all have to pull together on the face of budgetary limits.

Also, maybe kick that malus up a notch or two.
 
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Of course this category has analogs for both the air and navy branches.
75% cost reduction for ships and airplanes sounds kind of scary.
These also let you conduct some historical moves that previously were quite hard such as using your capital ships as surface raiders without screens.
And usefulness of 20% positioning without screens is how much, exactly (especially compared against other options)? While having lots of shiny new options make for a good eye candy, having meaningful options make for a good game.
The final part of this week's dev diary brings us to preferred tactics.
While the idea is good, by how much does it increase weight, exactly? Is it only a single choice?
(discouraging certain tactics might be a good option, too)
The new window will help show you all the tactics
Any chances of us getting window for showing all commanders while you're at it?
 
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