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HOI4 Dev Diary - Officer Corps #2

Hello there C0RAX, here!

For my first HoI dev diary, I’m here to show you the second part of the Officer Corps, a new way of personalising your military that will be included as part of No Step Back and the Barbarossa update.

In the last dev diary we explained how we want to allow you to specialise your military branches with the leadership and advisors. Today we bring to you some new features that allow you to customise how your military operates, and act as a further use for the new sources of branch experience that were hinted at last week.

You may have been wondering what all those shiny boxes with emblems were for. I'm here to tell you they are the new Officer Corps Spirits.

Spirits are a new way to specialise your military, generals and even help your division designs. Each branch has multiple categories for its spirits that affect different aspects of the way they operate. Here I have shown you the spirits of the army which provide bonuses to designing divisions or operating armies. Of course this category has analogs for both the air and navy branches.

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Now we have the more direct combat effect level spirits that let you improve specific parts of your units to best match your strategy. These also let you conduct some historical moves that previously were quite hard such as using your capital ships as surface raiders without screens. And for those keen eyed readers, yes the division spirits provide tactics weight increases if you also have them selected as your preferred tactic which we will get to shortly.

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Finally we have the final category for the army and navy branches, the academy spirits. Previously generating commanders was a purely random chance. Now with the academy spirits you can tailor this toward specific personality traits along with helping you generals progress in a particular direction. For the above image you can also see the new engineer officer personality trait that provides bonuses to xp generation for the engineer trait. This works in tandem with the advisor promotion mentioned last week, and adds another dimension towards tailoring your officer corps from the very beginning.

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With the new spirits some are limited by either your political ideology or doctrines and so you will have to take this into account when deciding the strategy of your officers corps.

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The final part of this week's dev diary brings us to preferred tactics. This new feature provides you with a tool to influence the likelihood of a specific tactic being used in combat allowing you to increase the chance of getting that favorable matchup in battle or possibly the perfect counter.

This simulates a doctrinal emphasis on doing battle in a specific way; but can also provide a tool that can be used to counter a strongly themed force.

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The new window will help show you all the tactics you have unlocked from doctrines and see what effect they have on the battle. If you combine this preferred tactic with your division spirit bonus you will double the effectiveness of the tactic preference so unifying your strategic direction will help you get the most out of the officer corps.

Well that's all for this week comrades, see you at the front. C0RAX
 
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I still dont get what these bonuses have to do with an Officer Corps
Forget the term "Officer Corp". Think National Military Doctrine.
 
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I also wonder what support company design is, but sure it is intentionally showed, support company designer will be new thing I guess?
We should be so lucky. Probably just the way they worded it and nothing more than a unit cost reduction.
 
Hey, this is really neat. It will add a lot of different gameplay.
 
Then why does it say Officer all over that tab... and as an icon ... Its just spirits with XP trigger in a seperate tab, big disappointment imho
I don't think any of the HoI4 developers are military professionals. So the distinctions in the terms means nothing to them.

Big disappointment? We're being given the ability to have unique doctrines (how nations fight) for each nation. PDX has laid the foundation. The player base will make it truly shine.
 
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Then why does it say Officer all over that tab... and as an icon ... Its just spirits with XP trigger in a seperate tab, big disappointment imho
Same, I was hoping at the very least of a HoI3 style officer pool to better simulate the struggle of army expansion and the degradation some countries had in terms of command ability.
 
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Devs stepping up their game in this one! PLEASE add a few more generals, at least to majors. *cough* Eduard Dietl
 
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75% cost reduction for ships and airplanes sounds kind of scary.
And usefulness of 20% positioning without screens is how much, exactly (especially compared against other options)?
As with all dev diaries, values are subject to change.
While the idea is good, by how much does it increase weight, exactly? Is it only a single choice?
You can prefer one tactic and the base weight is doubled, if you also have the corresponding division spirit the base weight will be tripled. So if a base weight is 4, it will be 8 when preferred, and 12 with the spirit and preferred. commander and battle specific weights are added on as normal.
 
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As with all dev diaries, values are subject to change.

You can prefer one tactic and the base weight is doubled, if you also have the corresponding division spirit the base weight will be tripled so if a base weight is 4 it will be 8 when preferred and 12 with the spirit and preferred. commander and battle specific weights are added on as normal.
Is that hardcoded or controlled via define or just a modifier bracket in the respective tactics? :D
 
Wouldn't it be cool if, after having done the purge as the Soviets, you get to choose a focus tree path that unlocks various exclusive officer spirits and stuff to simulate how you are remodeling the military after having killed off all the officers?
 
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The final part of this week's dev diary brings us to preferred tactics. This new feature provides you with a tool to influence the likelihood of a specific tactic being used in combat allowing you to increase the chance of getting that favorable matchup in battle or possibly the perfect counter.

This simulates a doctrinal emphasis on doing battle in a specific way; but can also provide a tool that can be used to counter a strongly themed force.
At the moment recon plays some role in choosing the tactic, will there be some change with the recon?

Also, how will be the tactic choosen? by division, army or just for all the nation?
 
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