A few thoughts about the recent dev diary responses

[bitmode]

First of all the purpose of dev diaries is to show off in progress stuff

This is you just a few months ago, when there hadn't been dev diaries (while stuff was in progress):

Usually we don't really talk about stuff until its mostly done, or at least done to a level where we know we don't have to toss it or the like because its not fun

To my understanding, stuff that is being presented in a dev diary is done -- to the extent that a piece of software can be called "done". Of course there can always be changes after the fact but the principal development is completed. Dev diaries never say something like "I'm currently reading up on topic X" or "we'll have to decide between monarch Y and Z, what do you think?" or the "naval part of the tree does not exist yet, but here is our draft of the political part, based on these sources". On the contrary, they are written in a matter-of-fact tone (e.g. "those who wish to see the return of Wincenty Witos will be able to bring him back to leadership via event") and there will be mentions like "these numbers are still subject to change" -- which implies that by default things are *not* subject to change.

The devs take time away from critical work to talk to you guys and we we do that because we are gamers too and know that nobody likes talking to marketing drones

What makes you think that? The Poland nuke thing is a storm in a teacup of course, but a marketing person would have known that you don't dedicate the last paragraph of a text to the thing you *don't* want the readers to think/talk about.
I'm clearly not the core audience but after I've read a dev diary, I feel like "phew, I just read an advertorial for a product I'm not going to buy" instead of "I now know what this developer is up to or is excited about". Which is fair; no company would leave the opportunity of 100K page impressions weekly on the table. But in my opinion your "dev" diaries are more about marketing than development related. So I don't consider the idea of them being instead written by a marketing "drone" outlandish at all.

 

[DicRoNero]

But in my opinion your "dev" diaries are more about marketing than development related.

Great post as usual @bitmode, a lot of good points and ugh... catches, but I just felt appropriate to say this one bit is unfortunately a common plague in game dev nowadays, at least for top/large companies.

 

[Znail]

Asking for feedback earlier in the development might be a good idea to reduce the amount of complaints when it's almost finnished.

 

[Agen1234]

There does exist a sense of ''finality'' when it comes to dev diaries. And that major changes to them won't be made. At least that has been my experience of them.

 

[safe-keeper]

I'm glad Podcat's post got mostly positive reactions. I'm still a bit disappointed so many people downvoted it, though. Come on, people, he's asking you to be civil and polite. What's so unreasonable about that?

 

[podcat]

There does exist a sense of ''finality'' when it comes to dev diaries. And that major changes to them won't be made. At least that has been my experience of them.

Look back on past nations. There is usually plenty of changes

 

[SRhistory]

It’s a lot to read through this thread. Must say dev did a great job in what i saw to make playing Poland more fun for everyone. And it doesn’t matter what someone (dev) makes... there will always be people who don’t like it.
But I strongly agree: “we can discuss” but lets keep it clean, polite and respectfully.

And.... everyone got the choose NOT to play the new parts (I am one of the historical guys. Like to see the alt-historical parts but i will probably never play them). More waiting on the railroad part and Barbarossa.

 

[Taniwha]

In the spirit of constructive engagement then: when will Paradox address the concerns of those of us worried about what looks like pandering to the right wing?

Paradox has talked a very good game about making the community unwelcome to its most obnoxious fans, but banning slurs from the forum doesn't address the root of the problem: that there is a minority of the fanbase who are attracted to your games to live out nationalistic fantasies.

That's not something within your control. But what is in your control is whether you cater to them.

You were very explicit when you released Hearts of Iron IV that to avoid Germany's historical weakness leading to a very short game you were going to artificially weaken the western democracies. Again, perfectly defensible game design. But as a studio, you keep talking about how democracies are unpopular to play so you have no choice but to focus on monarchist and fascist paths without addressing the fact that by your own admission democracies are designed to be less fun to play!

This new Poland DLC features three- three!- different monarchist paths as well as multiple fascist paths. I frankly don't give a damn about which of the claimants are plausible or not. If you had to have the monarchist option, I would have preferred a single path being done well instead of multiple alt-history paths all done at a very light, memey level that feels like it has more in common with Kaiserredux than Kaiserreich.

But what frankly offends me is the colonial path. You've given Poland a chance to gain territory in Madagascar and Palestine.

First of all, that's reducing colonial territories to easily exchangeable strips of land in a way that's completely ahistoric- the 1930s were a time when France and Britain and the rest were using the rhetoric of paternalism and the League of Nations. They flattered themselves that they didn't just trade away their colonies- they were looking after them.

They weren't, of course, but it's still ahistorical. It's silly that in EUIV, a period where colonial swaps did happen, they can't occur in game. In HOI IV, where they didn't... they do.*

Secondly, it remains concerning that five years into the game the colonial world is still so underdeveloped. To use the British example, the crown colonies were not independent or autonomous actors like the Dominions, but they played their role in the war. Madagascar was a site of Vichy brutality and its own campaign; Palestine was, of course, integral to the complicated politics and strategic manoeuvrings of the Middle East. That deserves to be represented in the game, and its concerning that Paradox is ignoring the real stories and sufferings of those regions to let another white power play map painter.

Thirdly, and most importantly: this is breaking your own stated policies on the depiction of atrocities. This takes us back to my first point about the toxic parts of the fanbase; I know that there are damn good moral reasons not to depict Axis atrocities on the map, even if there weren't legal reasons not to. But there's a worrying pattern now where DLC depicts right-wing atrocities that didn't happen but could have, and makes it part of the player's game. The US alt-history path where the focus tree explicitly lets you target African and Asian Americans is the most obvious example.

The colonial path in this DLC is based on anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing. Poland didn't want Madagascar or Palestine to be a base for an exile government; it wanted them because it wanted to move millions of Jews out of their homeland and overseas where they could die out of sight. Including this path means either grotesquely whitewashing it (It would be like saying the Great Purge was just an organisational redevelopment!) or it's allowing the player to carry out a a right-wing fantasy of ethnic cleansing. Either way, it should not be in the game.


I realise this is a very harsh argument, but if you want real engagement this is it. You need to begin taking some responsibility for what you depict in the game but also for what you choose not to depict, and how.


But I just don't think that as a studio you've shown an interest in the hard work of doing this tastefully and doing it right. I may be wrong- maybe your Soviet and Russian rework is going to sensitively engage with a hugely complex area instead of reducing it to the simplest meme paths for internet monarchists. But I'm betting you'll have at least two different Tsarist paths and a secret Anastasia path too....


* Yes, there was talk about buying Italy off at the last moment with colonial border adjustments. That was a move of desperation, and nothing like randomly awarding a third rate power land it had never had any legal claim to or economic presence in.

 

[filmaty98]

Ok. So I'll also write sth. I'll try to make it constructive, and maybe not necessarily critics. Keep in mind, that no offense giviness is intended, if you take one so easly, even if it would sounds so. This post is made just to help you improve HoI4, nothing less, nothing more.

I'm sorry, to write this, but at least for me it is hard to assume that, there is a "hard working person on the other side of the screen" (I'm trying, but it's hard), while after almost 5 years since release of the game there are still issues with peace conferences, and diplomacy in general just does not work. Does not work - I mean available options work, but these are very rarerly used, or automatic. Still after these 5 years you can't:

1. Make separate alliance without entering into faction (in WW2 Grand Strategy!!!)
2. Make seperate peace while beeing in a faction (like Finland did, like Italy did, like Romania did, Bulgaria did etc.)
3. Make peace without complete conquest of enemy (again, absence of such option in WW2 Grand Strategy)
4. Claim enemy territory (not just make wargoal via "make wargoal option")
5. Threaten foe country with war over claimed territories, or over subjugation
6. During peace conferences it is not possible to:
   • force disarmament
   • force reparations
   • (other options like ending other annual treaties I will just skip, because of de facto lack of their existence in the game)
   • (there's de facto nothing that would prevent you from annexing the whole enemy country)
7. Intervene in wars
8. Force alliance break

I'm really sorry, but this game for now lack any proper diplomacy, other than this one via focuses in national focus trees, despite the fact that such diplomacy was present in not only previous editions but also other Paradox games, like Victoria 2, or Europa Universalis 4 (where diplomacy, and warscore system is absolutely perfect masterpiece. I understand that it cannot be directly converted into HoI4, but dammit, you had 5 years for sth that was present in previous editions and should be present in game since its release in 2016).

Lack of at least seperate alliances option leads to ridiculous situations, when alt-historical Napoleonic France for example enters faction with Soviet Union. And this one in fact happens very often to me. Or fascist Italy joining some South-American Fascist faction with Mexico considered as a great power for example. And now man, conduct the war as A-H for example over South Tirol. For one damn province you have to create navy and travel half world only to defeat Mexico, which drags you back from your "dreamed borders" for another year, two or more, just to fight completely unpleasant and unnecessary war, because who the hell wants to fight war on two or three continents, only to take one or two prowinces, to make borders of your country looks fine?

Moreover, there are still some issues even with scripted actions, like "Arbitration over Transylvania", while playing as Habsburg Monarchy. War still sometimes breaks out, even after Romanians give up Transylvania. It's a bug. Event about Greek Civil War is also bugged. It can pop out 3 or 4 times in a row.

Game still after 5 years lack any mechanics that would limit countries' armies' sizes, again despite the fact that such mechanics were present in previous editions of the game. Together combined with battalion-system of division designer and "defence" and "breakthrough" increasing values when technology advances it's probably the main reason for poor performance during "late-game". In HoI2 Darkest Hour for example there were "defence vulnerability" and "offence vulnerability", which were high in "early-game", when there are few divisions, and were lowering with technology advance in late game, when number of divisions significantly increases. It was probably helping at least to some level in increasing the performance of the game.

Techtree ends somewhere in 1948-50 (and not in all tech branches it reaches such far date).

Lack of these mentioned above by me features leads to the situation, when you my darling Devs are getting from us completely mixed feedback about focus trees you are creating. Some are arguing, that "it sucks, that some country can't become powerful and huge" by '37, '38 or '39 or whatever, when you are creating more "historical and "plaussible" one, while when you are creating focus tree that allows to become powerful and huge before the war breaks out, because of "gameplay reasons" suddenly you are facing negative feedback with charges of making WW2 game "completely unhistorical" or "extremly-althistorical" (like this one history about nuclear reactor and cossak king for Poland).

Both of it is caused by the fact, that the fun does not lay in starting total war with the whole world to establish your dreamed borders and government type in your country, but it lays in having it already, and ONLY THEN starting total war with the rest of the world, over any other reason, like I don't know, colonies, hegemony on the continent, purging ideology you don't like or anything else. Because in the first case, if you are forced to fight total war to establish your dreamed country it always takes a long period of time, and ends somewhere between '43-'45. So till the end of the tech tree you have only 3-5 years of gameplay to really enjoy your reward which is your dreamed country. And worst of all, without using consol commands you can't really enjoy it, because after such total war there are very often no countries that can provide any sort of real challenge to you. Again because peace conferences are constructed way, that almost forces you to annex everything, otherwise your allies will do it for you, and they will annex and puppet everything moreover creating a bordergore. And it is even more frustrating, if you are forced by stupid and underdeveloped mechanic of the game to fight with some country on the other continent (and start total war with other faction in conclusion) over one province, because there are no alliances other than these in factions, and making separate peace without complete conquest is impossible.

And the fact that after 5 years, and paying you very often by many of us, twice the price of AAA game, it still lack really these important mechanics that were present in previous editions of HoI, and in other your games, you are placing "nucelar reactor" in historical part of focus tree, instead of focusing on more important problems (that game still unfortunately faces), leads to people "losing their religion" and their temper and becoming salty and unkind in the comments, making uneasy to stand jokes out of content you've created.

In other words, the problem is your game lack diplomatic and peace mechanics that would let player to arrange himself some kind of story, that he'd play his dreamed country in case content in focus trees ends, or this total war (that always breaks up, sooner or later) has ended . And now, my opinion - nowadays HoI4 too heavly relies on scripted focus trees. Besides them in fact there are very few (or non maybe?) things that would help you to create your own story, you'd like to play when you have established your dreamed country.

And above all, I do not deny you are hard working, over the game, and surely you do. Surely you are putting all your talent, passion and love into your work and creation of this game. But please, keep in mind, that you are not working as a volunteers, but we as a gamers are paying you for your product. I do not know, how many of this pay flows to you, but company you're working for is valuing product you made quite considerably. And it ain't chep. Keep that in mind please, because seeing expensive unfinished product you paid for, and texts like:

• " If people can not be civil and respectful like adults and keep in mind that there is a hard working person on the other side of the screen it doesn't work."

leads to irritation and frustration at best. We really, understand You, but please, try also to understand us. Because such posts like this one you made here ain't helping in melting the rift at all.

Keep yourselves well lads, and I wish you a pay raise

 

[PARAfel]

Alt history is fine and hella fun, but I think you crossed the line a little bit with the previous Dev Diary, that's why the community protested so much! Don't get me wrong, I found that Meka guy to be awesome and fun, and his historical, industrial and war planning branches for Poland were amazing, but by trying to make alt history for that focus tree more diverse it just ended up being extremely silly and unappeling, players just couldn't feel any connection with what they were seeing because it was absurd! Now, I hope that the suggestions we gave you will actually play any role in the final result and I hope Meka doesn't feel bad because of all the agressive people that just offended him and Paradox as a whole.

For me the Alt H for Poland it is soo diverse and it is fits the model of the game. The Fantasieys things must be fixed but i agree that offer wider perspectives is in agreement levels because in Poland we have much politicals things in that time.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

"hey guys we gave free nukes to poland lol they come from the shadow realm lol don't think about it too hard lol"

-The Next Day-

"This time we have gotten a lot of valuable feedback, but also quite a lot of rudeness and borderline personal attacks. That shit is not acceptable. This is a place where passionate devs share stuff with you. If people can not be civil and respectful like adults and keep in mind that there is a hard working person on the other side of the screen it doesn't work.

Communicating online can be hard, but that doesn't mean you can be lazy when you do it. Read your post and think about the person its directed at. The devs take time away from critical work to talk to you guys and we we do that because we are gamers too and know that nobody likes talking to marketing drones, but this comes with a certain amount of expected respect from your side."

 

[lingo74]

This time we have gotten a lot of valuable feedback, but also quite a lot of rudeness and borderline personal attacks. That shit is not acceptable. This is a place where passionate devs share stuff with you. If people can not be civil and respectful like adults and keep in mind that there is a hard working person on the other side of the screen it doesn't work.

Communicating online can be hard, but that doesn't mean you can be lazy when you do it. Read your post and think about the person its directed at. The devs take time away from critical work to talk to you guys and we we do that because we are gamers too and know that nobody likes talking to marketing drones, but this comes with a certain amount of expected respect from your side.

I appreciate that you defend your employees. As someone who used to work retail in the US, I and others I’ve known have been on the end of some awful comments and abuse from customers. We all would’ve killed for a manager or two that would’ve stuck up for us like you did here.

 

[Rachidelson]

"hey guys we gave free nukes to poland lol they come from the shadow realm lol don't think about it too hard lol"

-The Next Day-

"This time we have gotten a lot of valuable feedback, but also quite a lot of rudeness and borderline personal attacks. That shit is not acceptable. This is a place where passionate devs share stuff with you. If people can not be civil and respectful like adults and keep in mind that there is a hard working person on the other side of the screen it doesn't work.

Communicating online can be hard, but that doesn't mean you can be lazy when you do it. Read your post and think about the person its directed at. The devs take time away from critical work to talk to you guys and we we do that because we are gamers too and know that nobody likes talking to marketing drones, but this comes with a certain amount of expected respect from your side."

All seriousness though, I actually do think some people were being rude, if everyone had disagreed but had still written their ideas as to why they didn't think X made sense and that Y could be better, they would still take the feedback. Now, wether they are going to change the polish tree to a point where the main issues are fixed, I have my doubts, but I believe in their word.

 

[ThaHoward]

"hey guys we gave free nukes to poland lol they come from the shadow realm lol don't think about it too hard lol"

-The Next Day-

"This time we have gotten a lot of valuable feedback, but also quite a lot of rudeness and borderline personal attacks. That shit is not acceptable. This is a place where passionate devs share stuff with you. If people can not be civil and respectful like adults and keep in mind that there is a hard working person on the other side of the screen it doesn't work.

Communicating online can be hard, but that doesn't mean you can be lazy when you do it. Read your post and think about the person its directed at. The devs take time away from critical work to talk to you guys and we we do that because we are gamers too and know that nobody likes talking to marketing drones, but this comes with a certain amount of expected respect from your side."

Tbf, the Shadowland remark was a joke on my Atlantis joke. Contex matter. Moreover, I see where the dev was coming from with the reactor and I presented an alternative example how to represent Polish nuclear phycisists (sic). Lastly, as said in the DD I and others have given feedback and we need to see if they accept it or not, I will enjoy the game anyway and it is not the end of the world nor hoi4.

Railways look intriguing, as do Poland despite a few things that look off, I havea good impression of it. And really, let us see the other DDs, streams and early access youtubers first before we make hasty judgements.

 

[OldCleric]

You have a mix of complaints. Some people are upset about the ahistorical trees.

But a lot of people disagree with the general development direction.

It's not acceptable to have another paid content DLC be the focus when half of the TfV trees are still bugged or broken. Diplomacy and peace conferences need a full overhaul, as soon as possible. Many of the other core mechanics need reworks, small and large. I can't even think of a 4x game in history that has plowed ahead like this with new paid content while there are so many open bug reports and broken day-one features.

I think a forthright discussion about where you are with hotfixes and mechanic reworks is in order.

People have no right to be personally rude, but you should just moderate that behavior as most forums do. The reaction to that dev diary ought to serve as a wake-up call; your priorities aren't aligning with the playerbase.

 

[Zeprion]

I want to take this opportunity to address a bit what happened with the Poland part 2 diary yesterday.

First of all the purpose of dev diaries is to show off in progress stuff so we can get feedback from the fans - you guys. I feel like people have started expecting something more like a release feature highlight and that is not what they are or should be.

This time we have gotten a lot of valuable feedback, but also quite a lot of rudeness and borderline personal attacks. That shit is not acceptable. This is a place where passionate devs share stuff with you. If people can not be civil and respectful like adults and keep in mind that there is a hard working person on the other side of the screen it doesn't work.

Communicating online can be hard, but that doesn't mean you can be lazy when you do it. Read your post and think about the person its directed at. The devs take time away from critical work to talk to you guys and we we do that because we are gamers too and know that nobody likes talking to marketing drones, but this comes with a certain amount of expected respect from your side.

This isn't 4chan or twitter. Be respectful, constructive and open minded. Don't be bullies and we wont have to bring out the big flammenwerfer.
To the people who helped with constructive and respectful suggestions - thanks a lot! We have been discussing the feedback and will look into where we want to go with it. You guys will be the first to know if and when we change stuff. This is why we have weekly dev diaries.

I'm sorry you got to go through this. I understand what a tiresome task is to work on such a big project and the passion behind it. I'm sorry you have received such negative comments and I thank you for being the better man and taking the feedback constructively although it was presented negatively.

I hope this didn't demoralize you and your team, and I thank you for actually taking the time to give a response to the community, and a positive one at that.

Although their rude and personal attack reaction was unnecessary, I hope you don't take it the wrong way when I say there are a lot of expectations behind this patch/DLC. Although their reaction was childish and immature, it shows there is a lot of pressure from the fans for this patch/DLC. A lot of desire to get something great.

Hearts of Iron 4 had many DLCs and patches before, but this one is perceived as a major game-changing patch and DLC to overshadow all others. Whether or not that is true or only the fan's perceptions, it creates strong expectations around it nonetheless. I'm not saying this excuses the rude and immature behavior, but you have to understand where it's coming from. It doesn't come from a place of hate for the dev team or the game, it comes from a place of desire to see a great patch and DLC that wouldn't miss a thing for the countries it tries to cover. The haters were angry because they were disappointed, not because they hate you, it's just their immature way of expressing things.

Personally, I loved everything you had in your dev diaries so far, from the 1st to the 3rd. In fact, I would love to play your Poland right now and can't wait until the summer. If I were to give my personal opinion on this, I would say don't change a thing (except maybe rename the "Międzymorze" faction to it's English equivalent "Intermarium" for faction names consistency), only add additional stuff to the focus tree that the raging fans are demanding. But that is for you to consider.

Have a good day!

You have a mix of complaints. Some people are upset about the ahistorical trees.

But a lot of people disagree with the general development direction.

It's not acceptable to have another paid content DLC be the focus when half of the TfV trees are still bugged or broken. Diplomacy and peace conferences need a full overhaul, as soon as possible. Many of the other core mechanics need reworks, small and large. I can't even think of a 4x game in history that has plowed ahead like this with new paid content while there are so many open bug reports and broken day-one features.

I think a forthright discussion about where you are with hotfixes and mechanic reworks is in order.

People have no right to be personally rude, but you should just moderate that behavior as most forums do. The reaction to that dev diary ought to serve as a wake-up call; your priorities aren't aligning with the playerbase.

I agree with the sentiment, I wasn't shy about my dislike of the Battle for the Bosporus DLC, and had a fair amount of playbase support in the comments and reactions, but even then I tried to give constructive criticism, because I know negative criticism and hate has no use.
For example: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...er-history-interesting-and-plausible.1451683/

But I think you are deeply unfair to the developers. In this last dev diaries, at least in my opinion, they have improved a lot, the focus tree for Poland looks simply amazing. It's big, flexible, well researched and looks fun. It has none of the non-intuitive focus tree or "spam this decision/event or your nation will die" mechanics that plagued the previous DLC and looks even better than some of the previously best focus trees in the game in my opinion: Oppose Hitler Germany, The Chinas, Mexico, France.

That some other people see flaws and want improvement I'm not going to comment on that, if that's what the playerbase wants that's what the playerbase wants, regardless of their level of maturity in stating such things.

But I hope that even those players who complained about Poland's focus tree being incomplete and missing key elements, can see a great improvement from previous patches and DLCs.

And with that, I think you're deeply unfair to the developers because you expect them to do a herculian job. They are on the path towards improvement, that's good in my view. But they cannot improve the whole game all at once. It's great that we see improvements for these nations, but you cannot expect them to improve all of the previous DLC nations and outdated game mechanics like the peace system all at once, while working on new content for this DLC. It's simply too much to ask, a herculian job.

In time, maybe they will get to look back and rework on those other aspects too, but so far, I think they are doing a great job and are on the right path.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

All seriousness though, I actually do think some people were being rude, if everyone had disagreed but had still written their ideas as to why they didn't think X made sense and that Y could be better, they would still take the feedback. Now, wether they are going to change the polish tree to a point where the main issues are fixed, I have my doubts, but I believe in their word.

I mean, sure, but do we the players need to write a dissertation on how absolutely bananas it is to give Poland free nukes? Afaik, they don't even have a reactor today, much less in 1944 in a secret off-map site.

 

[safe-keeper]

In the spirit of constructive engagement then: when will Paradox address the concerns of those of us worried about what looks like pandering to the right wing?

Paradox has talked a very good game about making the community unwelcome to its most obnoxious fans, but banning slurs from the forum doesn't address the root of the problem: that there is a minority of the fanbase who are attracted to your games to live out nationalistic fantasies.

That's not something within your control. But what is in your control is whether you cater to them.

You were very explicit when you released Hearts of Iron IV that to avoid Germany's historical weakness leading to a very short game you were going to artificially weaken the western democracies. Again, perfectly defensible game design. But as a studio, you keep talking about how democracies are unpopular to play so you have no choice but to focus on monarchist and fascist paths without addressing the fact that by your own admission democracies are designed to be less fun to play!

This new Poland DLC features three- three!- different monarchist paths as well as multiple fascist paths. I frankly don't give a damn about which of the claimants are plausible or not. If you had to have the monarchist option, I would have preferred a single path being done well instead of multiple alt-history paths all done at a very light, memey level that feels like it has more in common with Kaiserredux than Kaiserreich.

But what frankly offends me is the colonial path. You've given Poland a chance to gain territory in Madagascar and Palestine.

First of all, that's reducing colonial territories to easily exchangeable strips of land in a way that's completely ahistoric- the 1930s were a time when France and Britain and the rest were using the rhetoric of paternalism and the League of Nations. They flattered themselves that they didn't just trade away their colonies- they were looking after them.

They weren't, of course, but it's still ahistorical. It's silly that in EUIV, a period where colonial swaps did happen, they can't occur in game. In HOI IV, where they didn't... they do.*

Secondly, it remains concerning that five years into the game the colonial world is still so underdeveloped. To use the British example, the crown colonies were not independent or autonomous actors like the Dominions, but they played their role in the war. Madagascar was a site of Vichy brutality and its own campaign; Palestine was, of course, integral to the complicated politics and strategic manoeuvrings of the Middle East. That deserves to be represented in the game, and its concerning that Paradox is ignoring the real stories and sufferings of those regions to let another white power play map painter.

Thirdly, and most importantly: this is breaking your own stated policies on the depiction of atrocities. This takes us back to my first point about the toxic parts of the fanbase; I know that there are damn good moral reasons not to depict Axis atrocities on the map, even if there weren't legal reasons not to. But there's a worrying pattern now where DLC depicts right-wing atrocities that didn't happen but could have, and makes it part of the player's game. The US alt-history path where the focus tree explicitly lets you target African and Asian Americans is the most obvious example.

The colonial path in this DLC is based on anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing. Poland didn't want Madagscar or Palestine to be a base for an exile government; it wanted them because it wanted to move millions of Jews out of their homeland and overseas where they could die out of sight. Including this path means either grotesquely whitewashing it (It would be like saying the Great Purge was just an organisational redevelopment!) or it's allowing the player to carry out a a right-wing fantasy of ethnic cleansing. Either way, it should not be in the game.


I realise this is a very harsh argument, but if you want real engagement this is it. You need to begin taking some responsibility for what you depict in the game but also for what you choose not to depict, and how.


But I just don't think that as a studio you've shown an interest in the hard work of doing this tastefully and doing it right. I may be wrong- maybe your Soviet and Russian rework is going to sensitively engage with a hugely complex area instead of reducing it to the simplest meme paths for internet monarchists. But I'm betting you'll have at least two different Tsarist paths and a secret Anastasia path too....


* Yes, there was talk about buying Italy off at the last moment with colonial border adjustments. That was a move of desperation, and nothing like randomly awarding a third rate power land it had never had any legal claim to or economic presence in.

This is so well-written and thought out that it deserves to be the OP of its own thread. Well said. Especially the ethnic cleansing part. Put in context like that, the Palestine/Madagascar path becomes disturbing.

I also wonder if the people downvoting it could perhaps tell us why ? Edit: if you don't, I get the feeling you're downvoting his post because he's right.

 

[Wombat69]

Yes, I was mostly focused on their pre capitulating war efforts, but even after that Poland was more than a "dead minor" as their aces helped in the Battle of Britain, their scientist helped crack the Enigma, they had exiled divisions that fought all over Europe, they also contributed to the Nuclear bomb and their politics and resistance movements were really interesting, so I definitely agree with what you said.

Although their scientists, especially those who helped decrypting the enigma, where ignored by both France and Great Britain at the beginning of the war, and later on mostly forgotten in comparison to Alan Turing (which is sad).
Can the average person name any Polish nuclear scientist contributing to the Manhattan Project? I admit I can't. But most people do know Oppenheimer. There were a few exiled Hungarian scientists who warned the US scientists of potential German progress - but who even remembers their names apart from a few history buffs?

I think that Poles in exile are best known for their part in the Battle of Britain, and their contribution in the land war (Monte Cassino, Arnhem) - and I say that with respect.

I think this is something that HOI 4 can build on even stronger, because claiming to be a game based mainly on history, this is where its strongpoint should be in my humble opinion.

 

[Ghili]

In my opinion, the polish focus tree looks awesome. Lots of variety and options, but each path still looks interesting and unique. There was an implementation of new ideas, like the Plan East/West that looks like an interesting approach to the military branch, and all of the pieces of new artwork looks amazing.

Yes, there are some weird things, and if you don’t like them you should be allowed to express your opinion. However, what happened yesterday was that the negatives stole all of the spotlight, and that is a real shame.

In addition, there are some ways and argument that have sense and other that don’t. In this forum many forget that there are more than one way to play the game. There are those who play multiplayer, those who play single player, some who loves wild alt-history, and those who hate it, some that believe that de Devs should focus not in new focus trees but in rework the core mechanics, and others that love to play with new countries. I think the Devs are doing a great job giving all these groups some love. What happened yesterday was a weird display of childish ungratefulness. Clamming the effort put in these branches would be better spent in historical things or in reworking core mechanics means denying a way of playing this game. Last week a huge branch was shown for historical and soft alt-historical Poland. Two weeks ago the supply system rework was announced, which has been the most requested of all core mechanics to overhaul.

Stating that the Devs are wrong for not putting all the effort in what you want, or for making fun and engaging stuff for this GAME, is extremely childish.

I know the Devs will be able to distinguish between real criticism and this kind of tantrums that are very common in this eco chamber that’s the forum.

Keep it up with this great work.