HOI4 - Development Diary - 5th of August 2016

[scroggin]

I don't think we necessarily need province names per se, but seeing province number when mousing over them would be very useful to at least have some way to identify provinces you want attacked to your allies in multiplayer. A "ping" or "marker" system would also be very handy for this purpose. Trying to describe in words over steam chat to my friend where I wanted his troops on the line to push was an exercise in frustration. Like I would absolutely take names too, but I would be satisfied with visible province IDs and a province ID search, for functional reasons.

I agree with this trying to describe provinces or even remember the one you are dealing with is difficult. I know leaving province names out was a consious decision by paradox done with good reasons but there are times when we need to identify a precise province. Being able to mouse over a province for the province number or even hold a key down to display province numbers would be helpful.

 

[Erdkampfabzeichen]

Do we really need something, as a priority (AI division design and limiting deployments to Africa), that has been effectively addressed by the modding community? There are other game breaking issues, such as AIs acting irrationally because of the NF system.

This is absurd. A decent amount of players don't bother with mods and shouldn't be forced to.

 

[Jakalak]

I'm pretty excited about the multiplayer hotjoin. Even as someone who very rarely plays Paradox games multiplayer (it's hard to find people you know to play with), desync issues have always been the fastest ticket to disappointment and loss of enthusiasm.

For the rest, I really hope the AI fixes solve some of the issues with the current game. I guess we'll see.

 

[safe-keeper]

I actually agree that making Sahara impassible isn't a good solution, except maybe as a last resort. As a matter of fact, from what I've read it already is impassble, what with the casualties you'll take going through there.

Much better to fix the AI so that it avoids those areas like the plague, and doesn't consider Ethiopia a critical objective.

 

[Squishmitten89]

One thing I would like to see after the bigger things have been address is training levels. Right now when training new divisions they auto deploy when fully train or when you force deploy. I would like to see an option to set auto deploy to something like this.
Conscript training: Deploy at 20%. Perfect for MP divisions or Russian tactics
Rushed training: Deploy at 60%. For when you need to get divisions into the field but things aren't quite desperate
Fully trained: Deploy at 100% the default setting. Good for Pre-war build up, or If thing are going your way.

 

[adam-tuck]

I think maybe they should make a dialog box so you can type in exactly what percent you want to deploy at, but good idea.. also you should be able to cap equipment at that cap so you can get more and more units in the feild at the cap you choose

 

[CVSeason]

I didn't mean for my previous reply to come off that sarcastic. I hope you had a good holiday.

Some other things I feel need addressing:

- General game performance. Late game slowdown is still quite severe.
- Manpower should probably be "sunk" in ways other than divisions. It's very common to see countries just overflowing with huge division counts. (this is directly related to the late game slowdown!)
- The battle planner is still pretty wonky, even though I've got the hang of it now.

#2 will screw every minor except China,Raj,and Brazil.

 

[Art1985]

#2 will screw every minor except China,Raj,and Brazil.

And it would be ok, minors should be screwed!

 

[tom_jones]

And it would be ok, minors should be screwed!

They don't need to be screwed, and reasonable army sizes can be established without "manpower sinks" -- currently the AI just keeps cranking out divisions with no regard for keeping any sort of manpower and (especially) gear reserve, once that's included in the mechanics like some mods do it you see the minors with much smaller armies (but also more capable of actual fighting, since their industry don't shatter the moment they start taking losses)

 

[whtuwantfrom]

What I notice all the time is that AI does NOT take into account supply limit. Italy loves to send hundreds of troops to Africa and suffer attrition due to lack of infrastructure and supply. AI needs to also check so it does NOT help you reinforce front lines where the supply limit is already reached. This is causing me a headache due to the massive amount of attrition I suffer whenever I fight in SA/Siberia/China/India/Africa.

 

[VitaminK]

Excellent news.

Ontop of OP; Varying National Focuses for smaller countries, Prioritized Fronts would go a long way.

Review a member wrote up that hits on a lot of good improvement. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-opinion-after-some-125-hours-of-play.957603/

 

[Art1985]

They don't need to be screwed, and reasonable army sizes can be established without "manpower sinks" -- currently the AI just keeps cranking out divisions with no regard for keeping any sort of manpower and (especially) gear reserve, once that's included in the mechanics like some mods do it you see the minors with much smaller armies (but also more capable of actual fighting, since their industry don't shatter the moment they start taking losses)

Minors unrealistically powerful in this game. They should not have same amount of research capacity like majors! There should be another way to give them ability to catch up with majors, here 2 ideas :

• When some technology gets researched by 4-5 countries in the world this technology should cost less , -50% for example
• When trchnologies are researched by 3-5 countries they could start automatically transferred to smaller nations, to neighbours and so on.

It's more realistic and logical that some minor with research abilities like Germany or other major.

 

[cyorir]

Minors unrealistically powerful in this game. They should not have same amount of research capacity like majors! There should be another way to give them ability to catch up with majors, here 2 ideas :

• When some technology gets researched by 4-5 countries in the world this technology should cost less , -50% for example
• When trchnologies are researched by 3-5 countries they could start automatically transferred to smaller nations, to neighbours and so on.

It's more realistic and logical that some minor with research abilities like Germany or other major.

Rather than having automatic cost reductions and transfers of technologies, I would want two systems: 1) ability to reverse engineer technologies by fighting against them - for example, gain a tech cost reduction for tanks by fighting against stronger enemy panzer divisions, which increases from 0 to 100% reduction as you fight more. 2) ability to try to steal enemy tech secrets - perhaps by spending political power, and based on encryption and decryption techs.

Otherwise, I agree that research should be harder for minors.

 

[tom_jones]

Minors unrealistically powerful in this game. They should not have same amount of research capacity like majors!

I have simply limited their interest in researching stuff outside of basic trees like infantry, support battalions, artillery and industrial tools etc while giving the majors one slot extra. Though i can't say am very concerned with the minors researching other more advanced stuff because even if they do it's not like they have much of IC to speak of, to make any real use of it.

 

[Oddb@ll]

People have to understand that one of the whole "minors are too strong"-thing is what paradox intended for, it's a design choice! They want to encourage us players to try out smaller nations and be able to actually have fun with them. Unrealistic? Sure, I agree it's not in line with history. But as a concept I think it's a good idea and adds to replayability and stuff.

AI minors' behavior could however be toned down a tad so that they don't field so many divs that they don't have a reasonable manpower reserve. Reasearch-wise I think we are on a good level as is.

 

[billcorr]

To solve the Sahara issue could you just add a really high attrition factor to the terrain? Would the AI be able to look at something like that and decide it's too costly to send troops there.

I actually agree that making Sahara impassible isn't a good solution, except maybe as a last resort. As a matter of fact, from what I've read it already is impassble, what with the casualties you'll take going through there.

Much better to fix the AI so that it avoids those areas like the plague,

Makes sense to me (high high attrition in the Sahara...especially in the summer months). Taking this approach is more in compliance with the laissez-faire philosophy of the game. "If players want to play in the Sahara sandbox, let them. But the attrition will be very high" (and perhaps replace the attrition symbol with a very large skull and crossbones)

 

[Nordman]

Excellent news that you are back and have spotted the most pressing issues! I have high confidence in this game in the future. Even though the AI is a bit wonky atm, I have put in about 200 hours in it. The MP sync problem have unfortunately ruined all the MP fun for us. So I look forward to this fix.

Just let us know asap when you have a date for this patch.

 

[grandad1982]

If you make the Sahara super harsh and teach the AI to not go there will you also stop the stupid battleplanner ai expanding into that area as you fight in north Africa?

I suspect what ever happens, unless its made impassable, I'll carry on using mods like no mans land.

 

[adam-tuck]

Well if the AI learns what fronts really matter in the future you should be fine. I play mostly MP and find the game really fun as is but ill admit its cause of the convo alot of the time

 

[safe-keeper]

People have to understand that one of the whole "minors are too strong"-thing is what paradox intended for, it's a design choice! They want to encourage us players to try out smaller nations and be able to actually have fun with them. Unrealistic? Sure, I agree it's not in line with history. But as a concept I think it's a good idea and adds to replayability and stuff.

AI minors' behavior could however be toned down a tad so that they don't field so many divs that they don't have a reasonable manpower reserve. Reasearch-wise I think we are on a good level as is.

A design decision a lot of us disagree with.
If it's really about making countries playable, they could instead for example have a "Lucky nations"-style bonus that you can activate when you're the one playing a given nation.