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HOI4 Dev Diary - Scout Planes and breaking the Enigma - and Stream premieres today at 16:00CET!

Hi everyone! Today we are going to start talking about changes to Intel and present some of the tools you will have at your disposal for gaining it in La Résistance. We will also go back to the Agency and talk about code cracking.

Scout Planes
Scout planes is a great way of gaining intel on your enemies. This is a new plane type that comes in two tech levels
planes.png


These new planes are not capable of fighting or giving air superiority, but they have a new mission “Air Recon” which can also be performed in peace time. This mission will give you intel on nations under its area of operation, or their navy if covering trafficked naval regions. It also does spotting of ships and divisions so its a great way to figure out what the enemy is up to.

upload_2019-12-4_9-55-11.png


Other planes types can not do the air recon mission, although in war time other planes will be gaining you intel as well during regular operations.


Code Cracking
One of the things in WW2 that has always fascinated me was the allied efforts to break the axis codes, particularly the work done at Bletchley Park. When reading about this work you usually are told about the tough choices that had to be made, because after the enigma codes had been cracked and german messages could be read the allies were forced to only use this knowledge in limited ways. If they had not it would have tipped off the Germans that they knew and made the whole thing moot. Basically, to save the punch for when it was most needed. This is something I wanted to make sure that we captured when we started designing the new code cracking system.

To interact with code cracking etc you need to form a new department in your Agency. Under it are upgrades both for creating and breaking enemy ciphers.
upload_2019-12-4_10-8-23.png


The higher your decryption power the faster you can break enemy codes and the higher your crypto strength the tougher you in turn are to break.
upload_2019-12-4_10-16-13.png

In the above screenshot I have cracked Germany's current cipher. If they end up upgradign to a higher level I would lose some progress and have to continue the work. The 25 shown is your total decryption power and will be shared among all active projects. Right now Denmark is the only active one so gets the full attention and fastest possible code breaking.

Having a cracked code gives you some passive bonuses that are not possible for the enemy to see and confirm, such as air interception. To take full advantage you will need to commit and fully activate. Doing that gives you 30 days of full intel on the enemy as well as an assortment of other bonuses.
upload_2019-12-4_10-22-19.png

A perfect time to use it when launching naval invasions or starting fighting somewhere because when activated the enemy will know and ciphers will reset within 30 days. After this time you will need to crack their code again,, which probably will have had its strength upgraded.

Outside of just having a bunch of mathematicians working day and night on breaking the enemy codes you can also help them out though clandestine operations
upload_2019-12-4_10-41-11.png


This diary showed you more ways of gaining intel, next week we will be getting into the details about the intel changes. See you then!

Today we start streaming La Résistance!
Tune in to twitch at 16:00CET to watch us talking about Updated Garrison and Resistance Mechanics! The stream will be available on Youtube later.

steam_800x450.png
 
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Look at how damn cute the FW-189 is.
Yes, we must ask for production license of it.
If they refuse, we must invade German and hopefully get a few FW-189 when they surrender.
Anyway, we must have FW-189 :p
Wait...that feels like wrong game. :p
 
Navy scout planes? Like the Dauntless? Hm?

The Dauntless was a dive-bomber as well (and, iirc, in that capacity is already in the game). The impression I get from this dev diary is that it's more along the lines of dedicated, land-based scout planes (but if ship-based scout planes were included, that it would be more things like the Kingfisher than the Dauntless). I could be wrong though :).
 
The Dauntless was a dive-bomber as well (and, iirc, in that capacity is already in the game). The impression I get from this dev diary is that it's more along the lines of dedicated, land-based scout planes (but if ship-based scout planes were included, that it would be more things like the Kingfisher than the Dauntless). I could be wrong though :).
Should be naval Intel planes with spoting capacities and adding long range naval bombers similar as catalinas
 
Does breaking enemy's enigma code help revealing their convoy route? (which make convoy raiding more effeicent)
He said, that it's not reveled, but busted the raiding capacities, we need to see. Reading have some special modifies and special things(you see it when ships face between a raiding convoy to a mayor naval battle)
 
Americans and Britons will have their own reconnaissance aircraft models?

I wondered that.

I am cautiously excited; please don't break my heart, Paradox...
 
Hi everyone! Today we are going to start talking about changes to Intel and present some of the tools you will have at your disposal for gaining it in La Résistance. We will also go back to the Agency and talk about code cracking.

Scout Planes
Scout planes is a great way of gaining intel on your enemies. This is a new plane type that comes in two tech levels
View attachment 530126

These new planes are not capable of fighting or giving air superiority, but they have a new mission “Air Recon” which can also be performed in peace time. This mission will give you intel on nations under its area of operation, or their navy if covering trafficked naval regions. It also does spotting of ships and divisions so its a great way to figure out what the enemy is up to.

View attachment 530127

Other planes types can not do the air recon mission, although in war time other planes will be gaining you intel as well during regular operations.


Code Cracking
One of the things in WW2 that has always fascinated me was the allied efforts to break the axis codes, particularly the work done at Bletchley Park. When reading about this work you usually are told about the tough choices that had to be made, because after the enigma codes had been cracked and german messages could be read the allies were forced to only use this knowledge in limited ways. If they had not it would have tipped off the Germans that they knew and made the whole thing moot. Basically, to save the punch for when it was most needed. This is something I wanted to make sure that we captured when we started designing the new code cracking system.

To interact with code cracking etc you need to form a new department in your Agency. Under it are upgrades both for creating and breaking enemy ciphers.
View attachment 530132

The higher your decryption power the faster you can break enemy codes and the higher your crypto strength the tougher you in turn are to break.
View attachment 530135
In the above screenshot I have cracked Germany's current cipher. If they end up upgradign to a higher level I would lose some progress and have to continue the work. The 25 shown is your total decryption power and will be shared among all active projects. Right now Denmark is the only active one so gets the full attention and fastest possible code breaking.

Having a cracked code gives you some passive bonuses that are not possible for the enemy to see and confirm, such as air interception. To take full advantage you will need to commit and fully activate. Doing that gives you 30 days of full intel on the enemy as well as an assortment of other bonuses.
View attachment 530136
A perfect time to use it when launching naval invasions or starting fighting somewhere because when activated the enemy will know and ciphers will reset within 30 days. After this time you will need to crack their code again,, which probably will have had its strength upgraded.

Outside of just having a bunch of mathematicians working day and night on breaking the enemy codes you can also help them out though clandestine operations
View attachment 530142

This diary showed you more ways of gaining intel, next week we will be getting into the details about the intel changes. See you then!

Today we start streaming La Résistance!
Tune in to twitch at 16:00CET to watch us talking about Updated Garrison and Resistance Mechanics! The stream will be available on Youtube later.

View attachment 530158
This DLC is looking better and better. My only concern is that the complexity won’t allow the AI to fully utilize all the features and put it at an even bigger disadvantage against human players
 
I scrolled through the thread to find if that question was asked already. I didn't find it (or overlooked it), so:

For those plane catapults on ships to actually work will you need scout planes? Or are these still handwaved?
I seriously doubt they would change it from the way it is now.
1) The Scout Planes they are shown are definitely NOT the type of planes used from Cruiser/BB catapults (or even Carrier ones).
2) Even the float planes used by some countries as their Naval Bombers are NOT the type of planes used from Cruiser/BB catapults.
3) Do you really want to have to deal with the micromanagement of having to create and maintain a 2-3 plane 'wing' for each and every ship in your navy with catapults?
 
This DLC is looking better and better. My only concern is that the complexity won’t allow the AI to fully utilize all the features and put it at an even bigger disadvantage against human players

QFT. The new mechanics that the DLC introduce will only be as good as the AI's capacity to utilize them.
 
I like this, but one thing that worries me is that each update we get more and more types of units, but the amount of factories and research slots stays the same. How are smaller nations supposed to keep up with these changes when they only have like 5 military factories and 2 research slots? Maybe add more factory slots to each province but reduce the output and construction cost of an individual factory? That way smaller nations can produce a wider variety of stuff even if it's of lower quantity.
 
I like this, but one thing that worries me is that each update we get more and more types of units, but the amount of factories and research slots stays the same. How are smaller nations supposed to keep up with these changes when they only have like 5 military factories and 2 research slots? Maybe add more factory slots to each province but reduce the output and construction cost of an individual factory? That way smaller nations can produce a wider variety of stuff even if it's of lower quantity.

Simple, make sure that licenses and lend/lease work properly. Smaller nations were lacking all sorts of stuff. Either they were fortunate enough to get it from an ally, or they had to prioritise what to build. There isn't really a reason to boost smaller nations just so they can build everything. They aren't supposed to, that's what makes them smaller nations.
 
There isn't really a reason to boost smaller nations just so they can build everything. They aren't supposed to, that's what makes them smaller nations.

You're trying to manufacture limitations that don't exist in real life, thus making the game more limiting and illogical. A small nation has less space to build on and less population to bring into work, that results in a smaller industry. But it's up to the nation to decide how to use that industry. Are they going to mass produce a few things, or are they going to manufacture a bit of everything? That's a decision up for the player to make, not a decision that should be taken by the games design. You're basically tying up the hands of players forcing them to play in a "railroaded" way.
 
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