Death or Dishonor - New Country Pack Announced!

[BjornB]

New Country Pack for Hearts of Iron IV Expands Gameplay for Countries Trapped in a Tough Spot

STOCKHOLM - April 26, 2017 - Armchair generals extraordinaire Paradox Interactive today announced that Hearts of Iron IV players will soon have more difficult decisions to make with the launch of Death or Dishonor, a brand new country pack coming later this year. Death or Dishonor focuses on the countries of Europe caught between the dueling ambitions of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany - faced with total destruction by a much larger force or making uncomfortable alliances, survival will take compromise, guile, and perhaps a teensy bit of luck. Death or Dishonor will be available for $9.99 on Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs -- and will be delivered for free to all Expansion Pass owners.

Death or Dishonor introduces new National Focus trees for Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, which revolve around navigating the ideological (and physical) land mines of central Europe during World War II. This content furthers Paradox’s goal of capturing the unique wartime experience of every nation involved in World War II, but players will also find new opportunities to change the course of history if they so choose.

Death or Dishonor - and the accompanying free 1.4 Oak update - will also include:

• Revamp of Air Gameplay: Take to the skies with new mechanics and quality of life updates that make it easier to bring your airpower to bear. (Part of the Oak Update - FREE)
• Equipment Conversion: Update your arsenal by converting older units -- or make use of captured enemy vehicles and gear.
• New Music and Art: 3 new thematic musical tracks from composer Andreas Waldetoft, new art content for the four focus nations, and new troop voiceovers.
• New Diplomatic and Puppet Interactions: License military technology to bring other nations’ weapons to the field or sell your advances to the highest bidder. Fascist countries get new subject levels like Reichskommissariat, with access to licenses, industry and strategic resources. The instated governments are held in an iron grip, making it harder for them to break free.
• Improved Map Design and Display: the world map has been clarified to make it easier to follow the action around the world. New impassable areas create tactical choke-points and more historical gameplay (Part of the Oak Update - FREE)

For more information about Hearts of Iron IV, visit https://www.paradoxplaza.com/hearts-of-iron-iv.

 

[BjornB]

Tune in to https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive at 16:00CEST today (in 1 hour) to watch Dan and Da9L play on some Death or Dishonor hot code!

 

[Archangel85]

I'm hyped!

But yeah, very very weird Finland and Bulgaria aren't in this thing.

Finland is obviously on our list (and had some prep work done while we designing this DLC), but a well-researched and well-balanced focus tree takes a lot of time. We also wanted countries that were in close proximity to each other to avoid one of the main issues with TfV, where the countries were far apart and didn't really interact with each other. So if we wanted to do Finland, we would also have to do Sweden and Norway. It makes far more sense to do that in a future "Swedish War-profiteering" DLC in between two major expansions.

Bulgaria is a different story. It was in the initial outline and had some research done, but was dropped because we felt we couldn't make it particularly interesting - Bulgaria never joined the war against the Soviet Union, and did as little as they could to stay in the axis. When the Red Army arrived at their borders, they immediately switched sides. Compared to the viper pit that was Romanian internal politics in the period or Hungary's desire to see past wrongs set right, it did not feel like it was worth the effort (assume that it takes us between 3-4 dev-weeks to make a focus tree, plus another dev-week to make the art for the country).

As for China: We also strongly considered China and Spain for this country pack, but decided that these two countries required additional mechanics that would take too much time away from the air revamp and AI work to code, so they were quietly shuffled up the line. We are well aware that China is very popular, and they will get their own focus tree. Just not now.

 

[Archangel85]

Makes sense, but why the Czechs? They really didn't have a chance to even side with Hitler or Stalin and siding with the USSR seems kind of far off.

If you promise to tell no one: It was a lot easier to find cool Czech tanks and planes to make 3d models for than it was to find Bulgarian anything.

With the licensing system, it also made sense to look at Czechoslovakia, since Czech tanks may never have been used to defend Czechoslovakia, but they certainly fought for a large number of countries on many different fronts.

 

[Archangel85]

So Bulgaria is a never ever? It's too bad, Bulgaria might have as much grudge toward its neighbors as Hungary and it might be cool to play in a-historical mode.

It's an "unlikely", but I wouldn't rule it out completely.

 

[Archangel85]

So², does this means that you intend to release a $25 dlc as the third expansion, to equal the promise $49,99 value? I hope so, because I won't stand any longer your expansion policy for HoI IV. The game is almost a year old, and only little was added to it.

That's the current plan. Part of the reason why this DLC is smaller (and more focused on content instead of new mechanics) is to free up code resources to do air revamp, AI work and bug fixing, so we can focus on new mechanics in the next DLC cycle.

 

[BjornB]

We've been pretty active in other threads with more focused discussion points, so I wouldn't say we have been hiding.

I suggest checking out threads like the Dev Diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ev-diary-announcement-and-ai-update-1.1017112 or https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-4-development.1017363.

Listing the things you are unhappy with in the game as it stands now in the announcement thread is not recommended. If you have questions about the expansion itself in this thread we will do our best to respond.

 

[BjornB]

I agree that the game keep being supported because we buy DLC, but in the case of HOI4 the game was one, if not the game they sold the most in start. The season pass was also used so they have more income when the game was released so they can pass more time to patch the bug and the IA but in place we have half made dlc because they want to gain more with a not finished game and because they don't want to add more ressource and manpower for the AI team.

They have made 2 DLC and none of them add something in the game except focus, I have forgotten what was added in TfV besides the Blizgrieg button and skin. Even the part were they put the sprite / skin for countries and music pack is used so they can increase the price and hide the lack of content, for DoD it near half of the price if they were sold separatly.

This DLC has the same level of the Denmark patch for EU IV and it was free patch.

...and also Death or Dishonor will have a major, free, patch with it. As we stated on several occasions: The main reason for this expansion being a smaller one (again) is because we focused on mechanics for the free update that you will receive without any more money being put down.

 

[BjornB]

People have been asking for damage control. I get the feeling that the "damage control" requested is us saying "You are right, we will transform Death or Dishonor into a major expansion and we will release a patch that will make the AI perfect in the way you want it and add all the features you have been requesting within a month". I wish I could say that, but there is no way we could live up to it I'm afraid.

We will continue to work our butts off to improve on the game. Hopefully 1.4 Oak will make our louder critiques more satisfied so that we can put more effort into other aspects (new mechanics and features).

I'm still a firm believer that the best we can do is not to talk about what's going to happen. But instead work hard to release qualitative updates for Hearts of Iron IV.