Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 1 - Our Vision

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Well it was meant to evoke a "WWII feel", but a lot of people just found it dull.

Bingo. I could see what was being gone for, and it was an idea that probably sounded great before actually being implemented.

I think stuff like that, which creates the 'feel' of a game, is more important than a lot of people realise, perhaps. Of course mechanics and so forth are what makes a game, but the atmosphere is something you are soaking up 100% of the time you're playing, and if it's not working it's hard to ignore, for me at least.
 
So the factory in the interface from the screen shot with 53/15/69 is the amount of military/naval/civilian factories you have? Hard to guess what is what, but I would assume naval would be the lowest number. My biggest question is what sort of factory you use to build more factories, I would guess civilian, but you never know.
 
Great job, Paradox! I gotta say I love the icon for national unity! This is how we feel about this project! :cool:

2v19jbd.jpg
 
Sweet. I won't hide you that I was disappointed from HoI3, but I have high hopes for this one. Just one question, if anyone knows: Will there be flag changing when changing government types (aka V2) ?
 
More focus on planning and high level decisions.
Hearts of Iron III could either be played with full manual control, where micromanagement would be pretty heavy (often to the point where you would struggle to pay attention to all aspects of the game) or with AI assistance, where your control over the systems you surrendered to the AI was very limited. We are developing a planning system that gives you greater control while not being as taxing as the detailed manual play from the last Hearts of Iron game. We want to give you time to look at the bigger picture. In my opinion, this also adds a lot of immersion, since it feels more like I am guiding a military campaign rather just shuffling units between provinces.
For the micro-managers out there - you can still do very detailed plans and update them in real-time, which will basically work like the old manual control but the system will reward successful longer term plans, so expect to have a few things to learn! There won't be any large "automate this" buttons in the game. We want all parts to be fun and playable. If they are not, they get redesigned or replaced.

Very glad to see this. A happy medium between too much control and too little control is just what the doctor ordered for the franchise. Will be following with interest.
 
Maybe I'm old and cynical (well no maybe about it tbh) but isn't this exactly what they promised for HOI 3.
 
I love the day night on the main map. Looking forward to more information being released. Keep up the good work.

Yes, this realy helps for aircombat planning!!!!

But.....development diary "once every month" at the beginning.....*sniff*:sad:
 
Welcome to the first development diary for Hearts of Iron IV!
My name is Dan Lind
You're podcat, okay?

Oh, I almost forgot! Here is a screenshot of the map (click for larger version). This shows just the terrain currently. It is early and political borders are not yet polished to be accurate enough to show them off. Enjoy!
View attachment 100936
It's beautiful...
 
I'm starting to think that waiting is going to very difficult. If you come close to EU4/CK2 this will be amazing. Then you'll change something that will drive me crazy and it'll be another 50 hours of playing time before I think "ah, well, okay then".

I have an advertising slogan for you: "Hearts of Iron: where France just isn't all that scary anymore."
 
I personally wonder, will the province sizes change? I would love to see the smaller provinces like HoI3 instead of bigger provinces like EU4 and stuff.

Province sizes are like hoi3

I don't see the lit cities! :D

they get turned off that far out. forgot about tweaking up clip distance.
 
Glad to see that:

  1. GiEs will be in.

  2. Big "control this" AI intervention will be out.

  3. We're not talking about Nicaraguan WC (which I believe was still being cited as a plus back in pre-HOI3 days).

  4. That map just looks plain gorgeous.

  5. A new Germany flag - so maybe dynamic flags might be in, eh?

  6. Colour! HOI3's continuous grey-brown has become oppressive.


Niggles:

  1. Looks like China's being handled the same way - i.e., divided up between warlords etc. Yes, this was the way things were, but war lords were not exactly the same as independent countries. I was kind of hoping for some new thinking rather than the same set-up that we've seen since HOI1. Not the end of the world, but it might be nice if there's something new there.

  2. Looks like British India is going to be handled the same way again. Like with China, it wouldn't be the end of the world if this was the case, but I would like some new thinking here as well.
 
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