[1.3.1] Several exploits that are still not fixed

[Fulmen]

@podcat

Here's a list of exploits that are mostly an issue in MP:

-Denying transferring occupation allows the other country to just force the transfer anyway. Basically if one side denies giving or asking for states, the offer gets bounced back which is quite annoying in MP if someone is abusing it and is generally just confusing.

-Skipping the first level of a doctrine tree if you already have the first level researched in another tree. For example England can skip the first level of Mobile Warfare by beginning research on the second level of Grand Battleplan and then switching the research to Mobile Warfare.

-Expeditionary forces retain doctrine-given stats when sent to another country, yet also receive the doctrine of the receiving country. E.g. Germany with Mobile Warfare can give its ARM to Hungary with Grand Battleplan, giving these divisions the +50% planning bonus while retaining BRK and ORG gained from Mobile Warfare.

-Naval invasions getting preparation days without divisions assigned to them. You never have to research transport techs when you can just setup multiple invasions without divisions assigned to them, then assign divisions and launch them almost simultaneously one-by-one.

-Naval superiority being achieved with submarines set on "Do not engage".

-Spotting non-hostile fleets to level up admirals.

-Subjects artificially raising autonomy by sending convoys to their master, who then sends convoys to a third nation, who then sends them back to the original subject. E.g. RAJ -> ENG -> FRA -> RAJ will lead to an independent India within 3-4 months of WWII breaking out.

-Sending volunteers one-by-one to generate less World Tension than if they were sent in bulk.

-Going around Non-Aggression Pacts by inviting into the faction. E.g. GER going around Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by inviting FIN to the Axis during the Winter War. This also denies SOV the Great Patriotic War since they'll be counted as the aggressor.

-Changing templates of volunteer or encircled forces. E.g. SOV changing tank divisions into INF in Spain to avoid losing tanks.

There are others too, but some are more tied to balance so I won't list them at least in this thread.

All of these have been in the game since release, except for the subject LL. It really feels like PDX doesn't do a lot of PvP multiplayer testing which shows in HoI4 in particular. I hope this thread will bring more attention to fixing these exploits as a few of them are potentially very broken.

EDIT:

-Paratroopers landing on forts and being counted as the defender.

 

[Labatyd]

- Overcrowding air bases to 0% efficiency and assigning these wings to an airzone yields air superiority contribution of 100%. Hence, it is possible to have full air superiority with more but inferior planes that will never engage in any air combat. Fix: Reduce the amount of airplanes counted for air superiority by the efficiency of their respective airwing.

- Setting fleets (not only submarines) on never engage AND/OR never repair (works only if 1 ship is damaged) to have them flee every naval battle asap while maintainin naval supremacy. Fix: Fleeing fleets should not be counted for naval supremacy for 24 hours!

 

[m3tal]

its dangerous to make these public, but I guess most people already know about those exploits anyway. Who knows, maybe they will be fixed some day.

- It's still possible to abuse a 1 x 50% Research bonus to use it unlimited times by changing the Research just before it finishes (1-2 days left) to another Research from the same area, where the 50% also applies to and then using a different Research-Slot to finish it (just takes 3-5 days, since its already at 99 %). It's possible to rush to very high Tech-Levels very quickly this way and skip a lot of Research-time, this can't be intended.




Edit: While I'm at it, I might just add a few more things that are not really exploits, but still huge issues in MP.

- There is no effective Counter against Strat-Bomber-Spam (on Night-Bombing-Mission) and the fully-unlocked Strategic-Destruction-Air-Doctrine in the game. Even 100% radar Coverage, full static-Anti-Air and Heavy-Fighter-Spam does not work sufficiently. This might be more of a Balance-Issue, but some people exploit this fact to its fullest in MP.

- There does not seem to be an effective Counter to Kamikaze-Strikes, even if the Fleet has Carriers with Fighters in them, Land-based fighters in the Region and 100% Radar-coverage.

- Sub-Hunter Fleets (Destroyers) on "Patrol" or "Convoy Escort" seem to always, almost instantly join a naval battle where Subs have detected enemy convois (even if subs are still undetected). Additionally, Subs don't really seem to care about this and happily continue to drive towards their certain death. Strategic Sub-Warfare is made impossible due to this behavior. (balance-issue)

- Naval Bombers have been over-nerfed, even with Radar and doctrines they can't kill stuff.

- Splitting a large Fleet to repair in multiple Harbours still displays the Harbour-Capacity-Usage of the "original Fleet" far too high. Not sure if just tool-tip issue or real bug.

- "Do not Engage" on Navies, as already mentioned, seems to grant 0% chance of Engagement. Not just for Naval, but for Air-Engagements as well.

 

[Napoleonetniet]

-Naval invasions getting preparation days without divisions assigned to them. You never have to research transport techs when you can just setup multiple invasions without divisions assigned to them, then assign divisions and launch them almost simultaneously one-by-one.

found out one day this happens too on a 'bounced' invasion..
I can send one weak div on an invasion plan over to a defended landing spot, it will bounce back because the invasion fails..but the plan still stands.. now i can send as many as im allowed over AT ONCE without any more waiting/planning than was needed for that 1 div. - all thats needed is they're in the same army and on the same port to go right away.

 

[P3D]

@podcat

The Total Mobilization Manpower calculation bug is alive as well.
Start the 1939 scenario as Germany. Tooltip says there is 3.61M total manpower, with 1.1M in the Wehrmacht, some in the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine, and 2.34M available.

DoW Poland, and switch to Total Mobilization. The total manpower by tooltip drops to 1.44M (correct), but 1.28M of it would still be available for recruitment.

Startint to swap the MP and industrial mobilization laws is also inconsistent. Aftera few switches the 1.28M available jumped to 1.44M.

 

[Taraan]

@podcat

IMO the biggest, most game breaking issue with the game is research bonus juggling.

By juggling it's possible to use one or two research bonuses and apply them way many more times than intended, as long as the research bonus can be applied to at least two lines of research that can be researched at the same time. The way it seems to work is this: the bonus is applied to the research slot, and the research bonus only gets consumed when the research is finished, it's possible to juggle it as long as you have a second line of research to switch to 1 day before the research finishes. Then you use a different research slot to finish the research without the bonus. With this you can do stuff like using Armor Effort from minor focus tree and use the bonuses on every single tank tech as long as you have great war tank tech researched.

 

[bitmode]

The Total Mobilization Manpower calculation bug is alive as well.

The Total Mobilization manpower is WAD as explained by @ARMORIOS here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-did-they-all-go.987037/page-2#post-22208150
Effectively, when a good portion of the manpower is already recruited into the army, the man power drain from Total Mobilization will only become noticable when increasing to the next conscription law.

Example for one of the german states, Pommern:
- at the '39 game start there are 26.71K/70.37K recruitable population still available and 1.33M/1.33M civilians in the state
- switching to Total Mobilization changes this to 26.71K/28.14K, i.e. no overflow happens and the available pool stays the same
- on the other hand the civilian population is now 1.33M/1.37M, i.e. lacking 3% that will not flow into recruitable on the next conscription change

 

[Fulmen]

It would be nice to get some kind of acknowledgement from the devs to this thread. Have these issues been logged? Are they being worked on?

A few weeks ago @podcat said that the HoI team will work on fixing bugs, but since then most of the official stuff has been about mods, modding and some stuff about AI I think. None of which are that interesting to people who only play this game in multiplayer.

MP works relatively well now, but only with a long list of house rules on the similarly long list of exploits and balance issues. Those lists need to get shorter though and it's PDX's job to fix the game.

 

[FrancescoT]

I brought the topic to Dev attention.. in meantime someone can make an up-to-date list of major MP exploits?

 

[Misaka_Complex]

Not sure if its considered an MP exploit but the Allies can go to war in 1937 by Guaranteeing China since WT is usually above 25% by that time in MP even if Japan doesn't declare any wars before they declare on China. Although debatable if its an exploit, its a serious issue in MP and unfair to the Japan player when UK can guarantee China without Japan having expanded previously.

 

[bradles0]

Not sure if its considered an MP exploit but the Allies can go to war in 1937 by Guaranteeing China since WT is usually above 25% by that time in MP even if Japan doesn't declare any wars before they declare on China. Although debatable if its an exploit, its a serious issue in MP and unfair to the Japan player when UK can guarantee China without Japan having expanded previously.

Britain can just rush the "war on japan" section of their tree too, you can get the puppet war focus on japan 140 days after they declare war on china. They usually aren't allied with germany yet. I used that for my "one empire" run, took japan in 1938, Germany never got involved. Sadly america spanked me later, so i had to try again.

 

[bradles0]

while we're here, transport fleets are irrelevant, you can assign an infinite number of troops to the beachhead lines, and they get assigned to the relevant naval rout. (still takes a long time to prep)

I recently performed a naval invasion with about 100 divisions and level 1 transport tech (should be limited to 10 divisions)

 

[FrancescoT]

while we're here, transport fleets are irrelevant, you can assign an infinite number of troops to the beachhead lines, and they get assigned to the relevant naval rout. (still takes a long time to prep)

I recently performed a naval invasion with about 100 divisions and level 1 transport tech (should be limited to 10 divisions)

If you didn't already, can you bug report this? With a save it will be wonderful..

 

[Misaka_Complex]

Britain can just rush the "war on japan" section of their tree too, you can get the puppet war focus on japan 140 days after they declare war on china. They usually aren't allied with germany yet. I used that for my "one empire" run, took japan in 1938, Germany never got involved. Sadly america spanked me later, so i had to try again.

Didn't that require Japan to have caused at least 30% of world tension alone? I doubt they can cause that much by simply declaring on China unless they puppet the main China and declare on every warlord.