HOI4 Dev Diary - Ally Down Under

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podcat

Game Director <unannounced>
Paradox Staff
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Jul 23, 2007
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  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
So, last week we announced the name of the expansion we are working on: Together for Victory. A big focus of the expansion is fleshing out the commonwealth nations and first up last week was Canada. Today we will be showing off Australia!


Australia Focus Tree
Australia ended up with a really big tree actually (although much is mutually exclusive paths where you need to make a choice). We put extra effort into their alt history paths because we figured their location made them well suited for this.
ast_tree.jpg


Australia start with the national spirit Great Depression, which limits their production capacity during the initial years. This is modified through a number of wartime emergency foci that become available as tension rises and war breaks out.

On the political side Australia has a few choices. The main choice one is whether to stay with the commonwealth or break free.

If Australia decides that it is tired of fighting Britain's war, there are a few option. From here Australia can either focus on protection against the Japanese menace lurking next door, by trying to form an alliance with USA.

The fascist path features civil wars and, deceit and a glorious deal with Japan to split to South West Pacific between the two empires.

The communist path focuses on helping communist China by sending equipment or volunteers. Once Australia has proven it is willing to make sacrifices for the revolution Soviet will accept them as a member of the Comintern.

Like Canada we have also been adding extra leaders with unique portraits (magnificent beards make such a difference for admirals).
Portrais.jpg



Technology Sharing
You might have noticed that the Canada tree presented in the previous diary as well as this one made references to mysterious technology sharing focuses. This is a new feature part of Together for Victory which is set up from focus trees or events. It allows nations to share their technological progress with other members of their sharing group (not necessarily limited to factions etc). The way it works is that the more members of your group have unlocked a certain technology the more bonus you will have to research and catch up. Some like the commonwealth basic one has no limitations on affected technology, but things like the Tizard Mission between UK and USA are limited to electronics, radar etc. You’ll have ways to improve your bonuses from sharing, and some nations will get less out of technology sharing than others, but we’ll get to that when we start showing details about how the new autonomy system works (in a future diary).
ast_tech.jpg


I expect some people here are new to how we work with DLC at paradox, so going to go over it again. Whenever we release an expansion there is also going to be a free patch coming out for players along with it with fixes and changes, and this is no matter if you buy the expansion or not. For Together for Victory this will be 1.3 Torch. I'll be holding off on printing bug fix lists until just before release, but I figured I'd let you know that we have made some good progress on solving the issue with small vs big air wings (and similar issues in naval combat) as well as done some rebalancing there last week.

See you again next week where we’ll be taking a look at South Africa :)
 
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Cannot state how excited I am for more depth to Australia.

#Absolutelynobiashere
 
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Cool! Australia might be my first game seen torch.

Tech starting sounds nice and making different missions have different bonuses will help add some good flavour.

Will existing NF trees get any changes in this is future patches?
 
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Hi @podcat,

Thanks for the update. It was previously mentioned by I believe Steelvolt that one of the priorities when it came to the AI was tuning the War in the Pacific. Is that still the case?
 
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@podcat are their any changes to the Australian and Canadian resources incoming? Both Countries to this day have some of the largest fuel, iron and other metal reserves on the planet. I could understand requiring focus development to get the resources, but something has to give.

Also what does adopt westminster do? Is australia now a puppet until that focus is chosen as it was historically?
 
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quote removed - Had a dad

Would you honestly prefer the alternative of waiting 4 extra years for the release and having to pay $100+ for the base game, as well as having zero input and ability to provide feedback on what features are working well/badly?

I think most of us would not.
 
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quote removed - Had a dad
I prefer PDX' approach to having to pay $70-80 for the game like I had to with War in the East. Can't imagine what CK2 would have cost had they tried to implement all their current features into the base game. Probably a three-digit number for sure.

You get "the complete game" by buying the game. Then you can play and enjoy this game and buy the DLCs that suit you. A few of them add so much that they're almost mandatory, but most aren't. I enjoy both EU4 and CK2 without most of the DLCs.
 
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Can you please also add a notification system to let us know when a naval invasion is taking place. I've been crushed 4 games in a row to a sneaky naval invasion. I'm running the game on a fast speed, managing a busy front line. Only to look and see 30 enemy units have taken my capital and most of my homeland by naval invasion. On speed 3 and 4 this happens in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.
It's literally game breaking for me to have no notification of it happening.
 
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The improvements for Australia are nice, but the tech sharing it great! This really fits the Commonwealth very well!
I agree with you 100%
I'm thinking 10% is too low. If it is to be a bonus with some real teeth to it, maybe more? How much will 10% help a minor country?
 
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I agree with you 100%
I'm thinking 10% is too low. If it is to be a bonus with some real teeth to it, maybe more? How much will 10% help a minor country?

Doesn't it say 10% per country on the screenshot and DD text? So if for example UK, Canada and New Zealand all have a tech then Australia will get 30% bonus to research it?
 
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Doesn't it say 10% per country on the screenshot and DD text? So if for example UK, Canada and New Zealand all have a tech then Australia will get 30% bonus to research it?
The way it works is that the more members of your group have unlocked a certain technology the more bonus you will have to research and catch up.
To be honest I have zero idea what this means. I want it to mean what you posted but I don't really read that from Podcat. I don't think anyway.
 
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@podcat
Well, that's what I expected after the announcement last week. You'll have to surprise us a little more. ;)
 
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I agree with you 100%
I'm thinking 10% is too low. If it is to be a bonus with some real teeth to it, maybe more? How much will 10% help a minor country?

with the stacking of the bonuses I am more afraid it could be too much overpowered ...

we'll have to see how they balacing it in the end... but it is really great!! Hope they integrate it in the NF's and maybe change the existing NF this way too...

we'll see.. but really great feature!!!
 
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Cool! Australia might be my first game seen torch.

Tech starting sounds nice and making different missions have different bonuses will help add some good flavour.

Will existing NF trees get any changes in this is future patches?

We modified the Tizard mission focus. For others I am not sure the historical paths are so appropriate as it was mostly shorter or more limited sharing afaik.

Hi @podcat,

Thanks for the update. It was previously mentioned by I believe Steelvolt that one of the priorities when it came to the AI was tuning the War in the Pacific. Is that still the case?

Yea we have been working on invasion management and such as well as other ai things.

Can you please also add a notification system to let us know when a naval invasion is taking place.
There are two. you get a warning alert for when someone you actually detect is planning an invasion (this is less useful because quite often the AI will do this early). There is also a second level alert with a sound (the one that has a pirate flag skull on it) that appears when the enemy is about to land or is taking provinces as part of a naval invasion.

What happends if you try to join the commitern by focus but there is no commitern? Or deal with japan if japan is not fascist?
Generally focuses get bypassed where it makes sense so you can try on your own etc.

The way it works is that the more members of your group have unlocked a certain technology the more bonus you will have to research and catch up.
To be honest I have zero idea what this means. I want it to mean what you posted but I don't really read that from Podcat. I don't think anyway.

as an example, if you have 3 countries in your tech sharing group who have researched Fighter II you would get 30% bonus to doing so (you might get more if you have improved tech sharing as some focuses allow).

@podcat
Well, that's what I expected after the announcement last week. You'll have to surprise us a little more. ;)

Fine. next week will be all about Newfoundland and their nuke focused focus tree :p

@podcat are their any changes to the Australian and Canadian resources incoming? Both Countries to this day have some of the largest fuel, iron and other metal reserves on the planet. I could understand requiring focus development to get the resources, but something has to give.

Also what does adopt westminster do? Is australia now a puppet until that focus is chosen as it was historically?

it gives some PP, unlocks a minister and "affects your autonomy" (will need to talk details in future diary when its all done).
 
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