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HOI4 Dev Diary - Railway guns never tire

Hello there, C0RAX again.

It’s time again to reveal some more secret information that was hinted at in the last dev diary. Specifically this week will be revolving around the final part of railways and trains. So without any more need for introduction here are our stars of the show today.

The railway guns.

So to start off I'll go through how you get a railway gun on the map because it’s a little different to normal land units. First of all you are going to want to research railway guns which comes after armoured trains.
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Then you can find it in your production tab just like building normal equipment. But unlike other equipment you build, these production lines are limited to 5 factories and the railway gun won't be added to your stockpile.
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Instead, once completed, your brand new railway gun will appear in your capital, in this way they are built similar to capital ships.
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Moving your railway gun is limited to provinces with railways, and so to get to the front you must have a rail connection. Taking into account the rail conversion time when capturing territory is important as you will have to wait for the big guns to be able to help you out.
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You can also attach railway guns to armies just like with planes and they will attempt to place themselves relative to the frontline. If you have several, they will be distributed where possible to support your army. There is also a quick select button on the army to select all railways guns attached to an army should you need to.
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Finally, the last bit of control understanding is range. Railway guns have a range in which they can support and so from any one point are limited in which provinces they can support. This range is shown by hovering over the unit icon.
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On to combat now, here we can see a combat with a supporting railway gun, we have added the useful icon on the combat progress indicator that there is a supporting bombardment. This new icon will also show if there is shore bombardment happening in the combat.
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The combat effects of railway gun bombardment work just like shore bombardment, causing negative combat stat modifiers to those on the receiving end of the big guns. These modifiers affect both soft and hard attack as well as defense values. Notably, these effects do not stack - it becomes more important to spread out your railway artillery than to concentrate it.
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Finally we need to talk about capture and damage, railway guns can be captured via encircling them and damaged by damaging the railway they are placed upon.

Now railway guns are the biggest guns by far used on land and so it's important that we have representations of those built by the major powers. So now we look at the unique guns for the major powers.

This is the German Schwerer Gustav model you will see when playing as the Germans. It's perhaps the most famous railway gun and definitely the biggest and so had to have a part in this feature.
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This is the BL 9.2inch railway gun, a relic of the first world war but these big guns were kept in service until 1945.
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Following that we have the French Canon de 305 another veteran of the first world war.
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Next up is the USA’s 8-inch Mk. VI which remarkably first entered service as late as 1941!
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Type 90 240 mm railway gun whose claim to fame is being destroyed by the retreating Japanese in the soviet invasion manchuria.
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And finally the TM-3-12, three of these were made in 1938 and were used in the winter war against finland, unbelievably these where in service until 1999 (a whopping 61 years of service)
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Finally here's a cool clip of the Schwerer Gustav firing in game.
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How hard-coded will be the movement on railways? Can we somehow mod units so they can move only on provinces attached to water? To create river monitors. How will sea transport work?
It is pretty much hardcoded for RGs. They can, however, be navally transported if you want to bring some on your invasion holidays.
 
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This reminds me, it was mentioned previously that implementing divisions strat redeploying through railways would be attempted, does the fact that railguns are indeed restricted to it mean it was successful?
Not related. That said, we do still intend to have strat redeploy at least favor railway.
 
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So let me get this straight:

You have to spend research time, 5 factories at a cost of 20 steel, 10 tungsten and 10 chromium to build 1 of those 800 IC behemoths, that can only support 1 combat at a time so long as it is close enough to a railroad to be in range, and that railroad has the right gauge, to get a maximum effect of -15% on enemy stats? Which is the same bonus a lvl1 fort would provide? And after doing all of that, if the enemy pockets it, can capture it and use it against you for free?

In what scenario will this be a sensible investment instead of assigning those 5 factories and resources to tanks, fighters or CAS?

Wouldn't it make more sense if they provided bombardment bonuses similar to CAS?

Not being sarcastic, just trying to understand the purpose of these.

Not limited to 1 combat
 
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Going to voice and unpopular opinion: Dissapointed they made them tactical fire support units, something they would be wholly ineffective on. Instead they should be used as a siege unit and fortress buster.

I.e Schwere Gustav would have been a poor unit to shell advancing tank formations (calling in arty is a long process, even during WW2. It is a reason why battleships wasn't used in this role, but destroyers, or why strategic bombers did not provide CAS) but it was used to weaken i.e Sevastopol.

I think HoI4 should include the possibility of pounding rear echelon units (something startegic bombers and battleships did) and saturate those areas.
 
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Hmm do the railway guns provide the stat in all types of combat? Weren't they ineffective in regular combat and only (slightly) useful against fortified positions like in Sevastopol?
 
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@C0RAX will railway guns provide extra bonuses against fortifications and urban provinces?
 
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Why can RWG not be used to assist a naval invasion combat in range?
They can. They just need to be in range.

What I meant is that they aren't shipped as a part of a naval invasion.

If you invade a port and there's a friendly RWG on land in range of said port they will indeed provide support.

But an RWG in a convoy won't provide support.
 
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Going to voice and unpopular opinion: Dissapointed they made them tactical fire support units, something they would be wholly ineffective on. Instead they should be used as a siege unit and fortress buster.

I.e Schwere Gustav would have been a poor unit to shell advancing tank formations (calling in arty is a long process, even during WW2. It is a reason why battleships wasn't used in this role, but destroyers, or why strategic bombers did not provide CAS) but it was used to weaken i.e Sevastopol.

I think HoI4 should include the possibility of pounding rear echelon units (something startegic bombers and battleships did) and saturate those areas.

100%. Just looked it up and Schwerer Gustav had a fire rate of 14 rounds per day. That's fourteen!

So considering any kind of tactical use for it just bonkers! There's no way it would hit a moving tank 100km away even once if it only had 14 tries a day!
 
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So let me get this straight:

You have to spend research time, 5 factories at a cost of 20 steel, 10 tungsten and 10 chromium to build 1 of those 800 IC behemoths, that can only support 1 combat at a time so long as it is close enough to a railroad to be in range, and that railroad has the right gauge, to get a maximum effect of -15% on enemy stats? Which is the same bonus a lvl1 fort would provide? And after doing all of that, if the enemy pockets it, can capture it and use it against you for free?

In what scenario will this be a sensible investment instead of assigning those 5 factories and resources to tanks, fighters or CAS?

Wouldn't it make more sense if they provided bombardment bonuses similar to CAS?

Not being sarcastic, just trying to understand the purpose of these.
Just like real life, railway guns are a waste of resources that could be used better. If anything they are far more powerful here than in reality given they provide the same debuff as shore bombardment
 
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Seeing the Japanese example. It makes me wonder. How will railway guns work for Island nations like Britain and Japan? If the Railway Gun will spawn in the capital. Then does that mean it's locked to the island? Will we be able to just move it across seas as we do with regular units?

I do hope railway guns are actually effective. If we have a limit to how much they can affect a battle, then I think this will be a disappointment. If I invested 4,000 Production points on building 5 Railway guns, but the combat effectiveness is capped off at something like 25% then it won't be worth it. Not only are these things incredibly expensive. You are also limiting us to only 5 of these at once. I have always thought this was a bad idea for Capital ships in the navy. I don't think this is gonna be a good idea for Railguns.

Though I would love to see a game where Germany just decks itself out in railways and builds an absolute ton of Railguns. Artillery only 2.0
It is pretty much hardcoded for RGs. They can, however, be navally transported if you want to bring some on your invasion holidays.
 
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Very weird design decision :confused:. Weren't the big railway guns mainly intended for stuff like sieges of strongholds, and not for tactical support. There is a reason they weren't often used. That would be like using strategic bombers for close air support. Also if it gets damaged, how does it get repaired?
 
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I too support the notion to make railway guns fortress buster weapons.
At the moment, fortified positions lead to hard to break stalemates with little action going on. In my last game 5 divisions, 100 fighters and 3 level 10 forts kept the British from retaking the Suez for the whole game.

Making railway guns damage forts would spice these situations up. You could literally "bring in the big guns", leading to some interesting gameplay decisions and forcing action:
- The enemy is shelling my forts, do I try to break through to capture the railway gun? Deploy my airforce to damage it? Bomb the railway?
- Do I risk my expensive railway guns for the breakthrough? Or should I go around the forts and use my IC for something else?

It'd be great if you could consider something like this.

Otherwise, I'm looking very much forward to the expansion!
 
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