• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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.

0.png


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.

1.png



2.png



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.

3.png


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.

4.png


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.

5.png


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
 
  • 192Like
  • 61Love
  • 24
  • 9
  • 3
Reactions:
As with all dev diaries, values are subject to change.
True. And there are a lot more things to consider than simple comparison of numbers in a single tab: when applied to certain countries even "useless" buff has potential to become useful (even if it's rarely the case in reality).

All I'm saying is that at least some people would appreciate not having drastic disbalance in these choices. Having both eye candy and a good game would be great, but it would require you running those numbers thoroughly - so, please do ;)
 
Looks really good.
Why the obsession for attach communism to resist into pocket instead of the manpower?
I see some people asking for Commodore or air generals, I'm not very interested in it, but adding them to limit the amounts of planes on the airfield be a better update
 
Of all the dev diaries, this is the one that has hyped me the most for this future patch ! Thanks tonthe HOI team, now I can't wait to try all the possibilities to personnalize my army !
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Stalin apointing himself as the sole commander of the red army and micromanaging every division like a true gamer.
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

don't tell me they were actually busy developing shooter minigame for Stalin path >.>
 
  • 4Haha
  • 3Love
  • 2Like
Reactions:
I understand that the values are subject to change but with NO screen protection whatsoever, how's +20% positioning can help the capitals from getting blown to bits by torpedoes and such? Am I missing something in terms of existing naval mechanics?
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Will the Reichskommissariats get any changes or updates in the new expansion and patch? And will we be able to annex them as Germany? And will there be a way to core territory?
 
  • 7Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
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.

View attachment 734000

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.

View attachment 734001


View attachment 734002


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.

View attachment 734003

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.

View attachment 734004

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.

View attachment 734005

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
As I read this DD, I am already predicting the Historical picks for the Officer Corps Spirits of Major Nations.

Ex. Japan - State Serves The Military, Night Fighting, Victory or Death, Bold Attack. (subject to player's discretion, of course). :D
 
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Hi everyone, i have a few question to the devs - even if i'm sure no one will care about this post - as a player and modder

1) With the Ausburg branch for Poland will we be seeing an Austro-Polish Empire with the usual AH empire cores?

2) Are you working on a TOTAL and not only alternative history rework for SOV since its tree is terrible?

3) Will the Troskyst path allow the player to with time gain cores everywhere as it should be?

4) Should this dlc make the player actually experience the great patriotic war?
 
  • 9
  • 2Like
Reactions:
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.

There is only 1 change you need to make to this. Have 1 preferred offensive tactic and 1 preferred defensive tactic as you don't fight the same way for offensive operations and defensive operations.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
In my opinion this is pretty much needed as the german tree is already looking old to today standards, they run out of decisions really fast, they don't really have a lot to do when it comes to their historical branch after a while and they lack interactions with Barbarossa, I hope devs answer your question, I'd like to know it too.
Those are some fair desires but adding a communism branch would not address them at all.
 
  • 5
Reactions: