HOI4 Dev Diary - Yugoslavia and Air Zones

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podcat

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Hi everyone and welcome to another dev diary on Death or Dishonor and the 1.4 Oak Update. Today's country highlight is Yugoslavia!

When we envisioned Death or Dishonor, we wanted to put the player into a position where they had to make hard choices and decisions that they knew may come back to haunt them. Yugoslavia is in many ways made for that kind of gameplay.

dd_yug_land.jpg


Historically, Yugoslavia attempted to remain neutral for as long as possible, despite heavy pressure from both the Axis and the Allies to declare for their side. When the government of Prince Paul finally decided to join the axis - attempting as much as they could to stay out of the war even then - the government was swiftly replaced by a coup. This caused Hitler to decide on an invasion, and the country collapsed in less than two weeks - with some areas openly welcoming the invaders as liberators.

But we are in this to allow you to change that history.

yug_tree.jpg


The reasons for the collapse are many, from poor military preparations to discontent amongst the various ethnic groups, who believe that Yugoslavia is not so much a union of equals as it is a Greater Serbia with some attached territories. This situation is represented in game by a set of National Spirits, which lower national unity to just 30%, make political appointments and law changes more expensive, reduce factory output and make officer recruitment costly.

You have several avenues open to deal with these issues, which may even require you to give up some territory and allow some measure of self-government. Consequently, your decisions in other areas must take this into consideration - why build up territory that will not necessarily remain yours?

Time is quite literally of the essence, as both Germany and Britain have a keen interest to see you join their faction, and they will be around from time to time to remind you of that fact. Declaring for one will, of course, get you into conflict with the other, and declaring too early might well see your government rather aggressively changed or the country descend into a civil war.

To get to the focuses that allow you to join a faction, you must first solve the pressing issues of the country, which takes precious time. Considering that you will also want to rebuild your military, you will have to make tough choices. Some of the mutually exclusive branches have been deliberately designed to be short - the time saved being the major advantage.

With such huge problems to solve, we felt that it made less sense to give Yugoslavia many options to expand - that would require a capable military and a united population, both things the historical Yugoslavia famously lacked. However, you may find that a military solution to some problems might be preferable. Joining the Axis or the Allies will also give you the option to at least claim some reward.

Of course, you can also choose to join the world revolution and seclude yourself from the petty struggles of the destruction-bound imperialists. Unfortunately, your closest ally is on the other side of some rather aggressive neighbours, and while you can solve the main issues plaguing the country reasonably quickly, your military still leaves a lot to be desired. With enemies on all sides, you must choose...Death or Dishonor.

Of course also some neat portraits for new generals and leaders. Here is a sample:
yug_generals.jpg


And 3d models:
RenderYugoslavia.png


And of course pretty air and tank trees:
dd_planes.jpg

dd_tanks.jpg


Updated Strategic Areas
In a kebab-fueled frenzy @Archangel85 stepped up and started splitting up strategic areas and adjusting them to make sense. The goal was to allow easier coverage, particularly in areas that saw heavy and prolonged fighting historically. A secondary goal was to make areas where naval landing are likely to occur easier to establish air superiority in when using carriers. Here is some highlights:
hoi4_37.jpg hoi4_32.jpg hoi4_35.jpg hoi4_38.jpg hoi4_40.jpg hoi4_39.jpg hoi4_36.jpg hoi4_33.jpg hoi4_42.jpg hoi4_34.jpg hoi4_41.jpg


Here is a full list of zones changed:
Split Northern Scandinavia into three zones (added Northern Norway and Northern Sweden)
Baltic islands are now part of the Baltic airzone
Adjusted the Balkans air regions to allow a better air war over Transylvania
The Ireland air zone now covers the entire island
Split northern African airzone in two (added North-West Africa covering roughly the area of the Torch landings)
Sahara airzone now covers only the impassable area of Africa
Split sub-saharan Africa into several zones (Central, South-East and South-West Africa)
Split off Madagascar into its own airzone
Made Egyptian zone smaller
Split Middle East Airzone by splitting off Arabian Peninsula
Added Pakistan air zone
Expanded Himalayas Airzone to cover Tibet, connecting parts of the zone
Rolled Easternmost Himalayas subzone into Eastern India
Added Burma airzone
Added Malaya airzone
Split off Sumatra airzone from Sunda Islands airzone
Split Australian Airzone into 4 (North, East, South and Central Australia)
Added Korea airzone
All Japanese home islands now actually part of Home Islands zone
Created Qinghai airzone (split off from Central Asia zone)
Shrunk Urals airzone
Added Northern Andes Airzone, shrinking Amazonas air zone
Added New England airzone (also covers parts of Eastern Canada)
Added Midwest airzone
Added Rocky Mountains Airzone

We are still looking into how these changes affect balance and might make some more changes in the future (still not completely happy with Iberia and France). Hopefully, this will take care of the worst offenders.

Country Air Wing Naming Flavor
one small thing we did during the air revamp was to add the ability to name air wings. Originally, the game auto generated a name for each wing. We quickly realized that "1. German Heavy Fighter Wing" does not sound nearly as cool as "Zerstörergeschwader 1". So after a bit of whining from the content designers, @Havebeard added the ability to generate nation-specific names from a template. We have already added flavor names for all the majors, the TfV and the DoD countries, plus some more minors (Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Poland, Finland, China, Sweden).

Modding info:
Names are defined in common\units\names\00_names.txt (or specific country files in that folder).


The air wings are classed by equipment archetype.


Code:
fighter_equipment = {

        prefix = ""

        generic = { "Jagdgeschwader" }

        generic_pattern = AIR_WING_NAME_GER_GENERIC

        unique = {

        }

    }


They use a pattern you can specify (with a fallback if you don’t), so for example a carrier wing can use a different naming pattern than a land based one (so you can have 1. Fighter Wing but also VF 1 for the US). In the German case, the number comes last (so it is Jagdgeschwader 1, Jagdgeschwader 2 etc.):


AIR_WING_NAME_GER_GENERIC:0 "$NAME$ $NR$"


The patterns are currently defined in core.yml, but can of course be in any localisation file in your mod.


You can also have multiple generic templates:

Code:
jet_fighter_equipment = {

        prefix = ""

        generic = { "Sonder-Jagdverband" "Jagdverband" "Erprobungskommando" "Lehrgeschwader" }

        generic_pattern = AIR_WING_NAME_GER_GENERIC

        unique = {

        }

    }


Unfortunately, we can not yet specify name patterns for cosmetic tags.

Expanding this system to cover land divisions is on the list for A Future DLC (tm).

Thats all for today. Next week we will be having an AI update from @SteelVolt and go over Czechoslovakia.

Don't forget to tune in for World War Wednesday today at 16:00CEST at https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive as we will be starting a new campaign playing as Yugoslavia!
 
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Great DD Podcat. Yugoslavia seems to be one of the most interesting nations I've seen so far in DoD and even TfV! Can't wait to test it out.

I'm assuming that you've adding voice overs for Yugoslavia as well? And if so, are you going to add voice overs for the TfV nations?

And I can't wait for the dynamic divsion naming in the future! No more "25. Tank Division Type 4" and instead "33ème Division Blindée" or something along those lines. The lack of that has been sorely immersion breaking; but the shiny new whistles and bells in DoD will keep me sufficiently distracted :)

Thanks again for the DD!
 
I see that you can change quite a bit regarding how much self government you will allow, will such a... schizophrenic approach have a strong effect on the events?
 
Cheers for the DD Podcat, and big props to Archangel for the air zone work and the Great Bearded One for the air wing name (and, of course, to all the team involved in all of the above) :D. The Yugoslavian NF tree looks very interesting, both to play itself, but I'm also looking forward to seeing how all of the new focus trees interact with each other and the nearby major powers. Is there an interesting story behind how the team came up with a Yugoslavian Super-Heavy Tank?! :eek:

The new air zones look good - a substantial improvement where it matters (that Middle-East Arabia split :D) there might be some room in the future to make some further improvements (Mid-West in the US looks like a good candidate for splitting in two) but appreciate that it's a balance in terms of micro (in another thread, someone suggested pairing smaller air zones with multi-zone mission allocation like naval fleets which might help with this? Appreciate it'd probably be plenty of work, and may well not be what you want to do in any event) and teaching the AI to work with things).

Of course, big props to the moddability of the new name lists. Looking forward to hearing the latest on the AI and about Czechoslovakia :D.
 
Release date soon?
 
Much good stuff here!

The Air Zones are better but still need more work. With Egypt there needs to be a Northern Egypt (Ciro & north), Libya & Algeria should be split.

Now when can we get Air Bases changed from the State level to the Provincial level? With the mega states in much of the world you often can't get even a level 1 air base for your planes. Also RADAR would be nice to have on the provincial level for better placement.
 
Yay, more airzones. Definetly a step in the right direction. Hopefully more airzones to come in the future.
 
but I'm also looking forward to seeing how all of the new focus trees interact with each other and the nearby major powers.

Yes, that's the Gretchenfrage... the question of all questions... with this (especially the interaction with the majors) all is rising or falling imo ...

...

"Nun sag, wie hast du's mit der Religion?"
 
Thanks for the DD, looking forward to playing with all DoD nations.

I have a question tho. So far in game the resolution of the Yugoslavia situation was implemented through the German focus tree (Integrating Slovenia, creation of the croatian puppet). Is there some new events that might lead to the said resolution and/or is it stil in German focus tree?
 
So after a bit of whining from the content designers, @Havebeard added the ability to generate nation-specific names from a template. We have already added flavor names for all the majors, the TfV and the DoD countries, plus some more minors (Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Poland, Finland, China, Sweden).

Info tid-bit that might help you: the Finnish ones were all called Lentolaivue (Flight Squadron) regardless of role.

E.g. despite LeLv 24 operating fighters and LeLv 44 operating bombers, there was no distinction in the squadron name denoting this difference in role. So using "Hävittäjälentolaivue" (Fighter Flight Squadron) or "Pommikonelentolaivue" (Bomber Flight Squadron) etc. would be historically inaccurate.

Maybe it'd be too confusing for your liking, but I'm just saying what's historically accurate.
 
I have a question tho. So far in game the resolution of the Yugoslavia situation was implemented through the German focus tree (Integrating Slovenia, creation of the croatian puppet). Is there some new events that might lead to the said resolution and/or is it stil in German focus tree?

The events in the German focus tree are still there, but there are a few more interactions (such as exerting pressure on Yugoslavia to join your faction). I'm not entirely happy with how the German tree handles Yugoslavia, but fixing that will be part of the German tree rework coming in A Future Patch.

Info tid-bit that might help you: the Finnish ones were all called Lentolaivue (Flight Squadron) regardless of role.

E.g. despite LeLv 24 operating fighters and LeLv 44 operating bombers, there was no distinction in the squadron name denoting this difference in role. So using "Hävittäjälentolaivue" (Fighter Flight Squadron) or "Pommikonelentolaivue" (Bomber Flight Squadron) etc. would be historically inaccurate.

We cheated a bit and took the names from the HoI 3 namelist. Everyone uses Lentorykmentti NUMBER, except for strategic bombers and transport planes (Kaukopommituslennosto and Ilmakuljetus, respectively)
 
"Sahara airzone now covers only the impassable area of Africa"

What is the purpose of an air zone that covers only impasible terrain?

Edit:
"All Japanese home islands now actually part of Home Islands zone"

Doesn't that make securing air superiority for an invasion of Japan much more difficult? With the current setup you can easily contest air superiority over the southern island from Taiwan and Okinawa. It seems that with this change it will be more difficult due to lack of range.
 
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Time is quite literally of the essence, as both Germany and Britain have a keen interest to see you join their faction, and they will be around from time to time to remind you of that fact.

Good news on the air region changes.

The Yugoslavian NF tree looks very interesting, both to play itself, but I'm also looking forward to seeing how all of the new focus trees interact with each other and the nearby major powers.

My thought also after looking at the Yugo tree, how the major's interact. Archangel85 not being happy with it still is worrying.

Looking forward to next week's appearance by SteelVolt