Battle for the Bosporus will need the same balance patches most DLCs receive after launch

[Harin]

Last night I played Turkey. I went straight down the left side of the focus tree to declare war on Greece as soon as I could, ignoring improving my military. It was 1940 before I was able to get that far down the tree and declare war. I invaded Greece immediately, but just before I could get her to capitulate she joined the Allies, effectively ending the game for me.

To address situations like above, two recommendations come to mind:

1. Prevent minors from joining alliances, after the fact, when they become involved in the alt-history created by activated focuses.
2. When a minor becomes involved in the alt-history created by activated focuses, any guarantees it has from a major is down graded so it is only enforced when attacked by a major or alliance that is hostile to the guaranteeing major.

It should be plausible that a country like Turkey can use focuses to simulate major political and diplomatic actions to resettle world expectations. The entire goal of such diplomatic actions would be to greatly increase their regional influence, especially on their own borders, to take actions that were not possible before. If the focus succeeds, then the expectations of alliances and majors should be effected by these focuses and begrudgingly accept the minor has achieved some power and influence in the region covered by the focus. In such a situation, outside majors and alliances would not routinely declare war over regional affairs, unless the minor makes the mistake of joining a hostile alliance.

Such changes would be realistic, in my opinion. IRL, majors routinely get involved in affairs far away from home, because there is no stable power in the region to prevent other hostile majors from moving in and creating disadvantages for them. When a regional power, that is not aligned with hostile majors, is, more or less, keeping that sphere free of outside influence, then the need to get involved drops dramatically.

 

[donald dawkins]

For some strange reason I keep seeing Italy invade Greece in 1937 as the world watches...

this is with historical focuses set to being on.

I also keep seeing Romania getting declared on by the axis...

 

[Caeric]

For some strange reason I keep seeing Italy invade Greece in 1937 as the world watches...

this is with historical focuses set to being on.

I also keep seeing Romania getting declared on by the axis...

Romania guarantees Greece and Turkey at least until foci are done that remove said guarantees by leaving the Balkan pact, so Axis attacking too early may trigger them joining

 

[Harin]

For some strange reason I keep seeing Italy invade Greece in 1937 as the world watches...

this is with historical focuses set to being on.

I also keep seeing Romania getting declared on by the axis...

Oh my gosh! Thanks for bringing that up. You are correct, I practically always see Italy invade Greece in a historic game. When I played my game as Turkey, I was on historic, but Italy did not invade Greece. I did not even notice that quirk. Was I super lucky, or did the fact I was playing Turkey change something?

Good observation.

 

[Áurum]

The recent Yugoslavia and Romania updates prove otherwise.
Admittedly, there are some bugs, but they gain no extra money for an update of a previously released DLC, so kudos to the dev team.

There are still too many bugs and design errors. Even some of the recent fixes and improvements are still wrong or introduce new bugs, so there are hardly less errors. The truth is that Yugoslavia has been reworked twice and STILL needs another rework because devs don't want to do things right. About Romania, they moved a focus because its position was wrong and they still placed it in a wrong position. The focus Demand Transnistria still doesn't demand Transnistria after many years when the fix is literally minutes. They have added many new states, and Roman Empire is broken again. The USSR can't claim Istanbul anymore. Every time they add new states, the same errors. They took years to fix Roman Empire, they still haven't fixed Soviet claims after 2 or 3 years. I'm starting to think that devs are simply incompetent. Vanilla feels like a beta version or a mod made by newbie amateurs. I could do better than them just by thinking what I'm doing.

 

[Zeprion]

There are still too many bugs and design errors. Even some of the recent fixes and improvements are still wrong or introduce new bugs, so there are hardly less errors. The truth is that Yugoslavia has been reworked twice and STILL needs another rework because devs don't want to do things right. About Romania, they moved a focus because its position was wrong and they still placed it in a wrong position. The focus Demand Transnistria still doesn't demand Transnistria after many years when the fix is literally minutes. They have added many new states, and Roman Empire is broken again. The USSR can't claim Istanbul anymore. Every time they add new states, the same errors. They took years to fix Roman Empire, they still haven't fixed Soviet claims after 2 or 3 years. I'm starting to think that devs are simply incompetent. Vanilla feels like a beta version or a mod made by newbie amateurs. I could do better than them just by thinking what I'm doing.

You are right on every issue you mentioned. The problem is that for such a big game, they are a very small team. And they usually work on design, balance and other stuff. I doubt any of them is a historian therefore the many inconsistencies you mentioned. They seem to focus a lot more on new game mechanics than flavor and historical accuracy, maybe that's what most of the players want.

If you want, you can create a giant topic with what improvements you would like to see in the game and constantly update it, if the topic becomes popular and there are a lot of upvotes from people, the devs will eventually see it. I know you wanted better, but what point is just complaining? and what's the next best thing you can do?

To be honest, I too think I could do better than them as far as designing the focus trees is concerned. And I modded the game a bit. But I think most of their world revolves around hard coding such implementing new mechanics in the game, which I would not to better than them.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can even create a mod with the improvements you would like to see in the game.

I understand your thoughts, really, the Kaiserreich team for example is a lot bigger than the hoi4 team, ironic, and the mod shows. It's a lot more balanced, has less bugs, has less historical inaccuracies (for a mod about alternative history, that is saying a lot) and overall a lot more content than the base game.

 

[Harin]

I stayed up entirely to late last night, playing Turkey. I think I keep trying, because I really like the focuses, decisions, and small scale you have to work with in the beginning. Unfortunately, I keep running into issues like nowhere to turn, because every nation in the area is locked down with guarantees or alliances, by the time I get my first DoW.

I think I might give Turkey a break until the developers give it their first balance patch. Hopefully, they are already listening and making their list.

 

[TalyonUngol]

I stayed up entirely to late last night, playing Turkey. I think I keep trying, because I really like the focuses, decisions, and small scale you have to work with in the beginning. Unfortunately, I keep running into issues like nowhere to turn, because every nation in the area is locked down with guarantees or alliances, by the time I get my first DoW.

I think I might give Turkey a break until the developers give it their first balance patch. Hopefully, they are already listening and making their list.

I would say shorten the amount of time it takes to get to the first wargoal by about half a year. Doesn't need to be major but maybe let them DoW in mid 1939 and slowly start to build up. I say keep them from being a super empire by WW2 but also give them a fighting chance if you're skilled enough... but Peace deals need work for this.

 

[Beserker]

I would say shorten the amount of time it takes to get to the first wargoal by about half a year. Doesn't need to be major but maybe let them DoW in mid 1939 and slowly start to build up. I say keep them from being a super empire by WW2 but also give them a fighting chance if you're skilled enough... but Peace deals need work for this.

Since many of the starting focuses do nothing other than unlocking decisions, they could probably be reduced in duration without unbalancing Turkey, as one would still need heaps of political power to actually make use of them

 

[TalyonUngol]

Since many of the starting focuses do nothing other than unlocking decisions, they could probably be reduced in duration without unbalancing Turkey, as one would still need heaps of political power to actually make use of them

Most of those decisions are worthless anyway. Lol

 

[Caeric]

Most of those decisions are worthless anyway. Lol

That seems to be a common recurring theme with many of the pp decisions introduced this expansion, they are basically gambles that you never know if they will pay off or not, at least from my experience trying Greece so far.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

That seems to be a common recurring theme with many of the pp decisions introduced this expansion, they are basically gambles that you never know if they will pay off or not, at least from my experience trying Greece so far.

But isn't that the beauty of the design? The results are not consistent, even if everyone takes the exact same step.

 

[Caeric]

But isn't that the beauty of the design? The results are not consistent, even if everyone takes the exact same step.

I wouldn't quite say so when you have no way of knowing the odds and are basically throwing away pp and stability for what might be nothing. Either give more clarity so people understand how the mechanics actually work or I'd say they need a redesign as right now it's just plain confusing, and gambling away 5% stability plus a bunch of political power only to maybe get +1 building slot when you succeed seems rather disproportional especially since 4/5 tries usually fail.

 

[TalyonUngol]

But isn't that the beauty of the design? The results are not consistent, even if everyone takes the exact same step.

Uh no, that's an annoying design and I wont ever take these decisions if they aren't consistent. RNG is not fun in this manner.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

I wouldn't quite say so when you have no way of knowing the odds and are basically throwing away pp and stability for what might be nothing. Either give more clarity so people understand how the mechanics actually work or I'd say they need a redesign as right now it's just plain confusing, and gambling away 5% stability plus a bunch of political power only to maybe get +1 building slot when you succeed seems rather disproportional especially since 4/5 tries usually fail.

So it would be ok, if it stated somewhere that the decision only had a 20% chance of success?

Uh no, that's an annoying design and I wont ever take these decisions if they aren't consistent. RNG is not fun in this manner.

But they are consistent. Maybe you mean you want a higher chance of success?

To me, this type of design, is what makes any historical playthrough something that is not railroaded. Let Germany make a demand on Czechoslovakia. 90% of the time they will fold and given in (ie the historical result). But for that 10%, they will resist, with Allied backing. There are of enough of these situations, to make a historical game different each time.

 

[TalyonUngol]

So it would be ok, if it stated somewhere that the decision only had a 20% chance of success?



But they are consistent. Maybe you mean you want a higher chance of success?

To me, this type of design, is what makes any historical playthrough something that is not railroaded. Let Germany make a demand on Czechoslovakia. 90% of the time they will fold and given in (ie the historical result). But for that 10%, they will resist, with Allied backing. There are of enough of these situations, to make a historical game different each time.

Okay, but its not WORTH taking these decisions because the risk is not worth the reward. 1 factory for 25 PP that wont even be guarenteed so I could potientially just waste hundreds of PP for no good reason? Sorry, but thats just not worth it to me for a risk-reward. Neither is the PP sinks for Turkey for the kurds. The strategy right now is let them openly rebel and they remove their modifiers because the PP sinks are HORRIBLE.

 

[Caeric]

So it would be ok, if it stated somewhere that the decision only had a 20% chance of success?

But they are consistent. Maybe you mean you want a higher chance of success?

To me, this type of design, is what makes any historical playthrough something that is not railroaded. Let Germany make a demand on Czechoslovakia. 90% of the time they will fold and given in (ie the historical result). But for that 10%, they will resist, with Allied backing. There are of enough of these situations, to make a historical game different each time.

Not really since you're paying disproportionally much for a very low chance of reward, risking your stability constantly for a low success rate will just screw you over. There could have been far less frustrating systems to solve this problem as an alternative, as Greece introduced a debt system that could have been used to finance investments.

Okay, but its not WORTH taking these decisions because the risk is not worth the reward. 1 factory for 25 PP that wont even be guarenteed so I could potientially just waste hundreds of PP for no good reason? Sorry, but thats just not worth it to me for a risk-reward. Neither is the PP sinks for Turkey for the kurds. The strategy right now is let them openly rebel and they remove their modifiers because the PP sinks are HORRIBLE.

25 seems rather cheap compared to the Greek that cost 75/150 for a small chance at +1 building slot / +1 civ respectively with the -5% stability penalty if it fails.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I would say shorten the amount of time it takes to get to the first wargoal by about half a year. Doesn't need to be major but maybe let them DoW in mid 1939 and slowly start to build up. I say keep them from being a super empire by WW2 but also give them a fighting chance if you're skilled enough... but Peace deals need work for this.

Focuses that take longer than 1939 to declare war are a joke/sideshow. Even non-aligned can justify in 125 days during 1939 on historical focuses after WW2 starts, and they can do it for less political power (25 vs 70). Fascist minors can do it for even less. And you might as well, since you are guaranteed to have allies intervene if you declare a war so late anyway.

But isn't that the beauty of the design? The results are not consistent, even if everyone takes the exact same step.

UI needs to be clear on the chances you're taking in each instance, otherwise it's an instance of hiding game rules. Which is not okay if one continues to purport "strategy game".

Strategy games do introduce chance based elements and those work as long as the risk/payout are clear and the player can make an expected value estimation and fit it into his strategy. There's a difference between making an expected value assessment based on known chances and "lolrandom". Regardless, the value proposition from RNG investments should be competitive with/better than things you CAN get guaranteed, otherwise there is no incentive to take the chance rather than the guaranteed course. That's...not consistently the case in HOI 4.

 

[Harin]

I am at work and it hit me that in my attempts at playing Turkey, I was rushing to get to my first war. The earliest I could manage was 1940 and the majors eventually become involved. Has anyone decided not to start that first war and just try to grow strong internally? Does Turkey get strong enough to have some actions it can take later in the game, on its own? It does not seem plausible, but I realize I never tried it.

 

[TalyonUngol]

I am at work and it hit me that in my attempts at playing Turkey, I was rushing to get to my first war. The earliest I could manage was 1940 and the majors eventually become involved. Has anyone decided not to start that first war and just try to grow strong internally? Does Turkey get strong enough to have some actions it can take later in the game, on its own? It does not seem plausible, but I realize I never tried it.

I mean, what do you plan on doing exactly? The war won't end. Germany and Italy hardly, if ever, sea lion Britain let alone going for America. The axis hardly ever dies to Russia and the Allies combined from what I've seen. You can only go so far with your singular country without any expansions to assist you. Not to mention your manpower is pretty garbage with just Turkey. You NEED expansion options in order to grow. If you just sit there, all of your options are gone.