Development Diary #14 - National Focuses

[Cardus]

Yes, and Vietnam defeated the USA hence, according to your logic, Vietnam should be a major power

I did not say that Poland should be a major power, only that it did defeat Soviet Union.

Afghanistan too. So what?

 

[Moppy771]

Nationalist China is a major power.

However, I can envision that sometime after release the devs will patch up the game and, hopefully, give other countries some unique national focuses. Examples include Nationalist China, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and, of course, Sweden.

 

[unmerged(236784)]

Word Choice

"focii"?

Who the heck uses "focii" in a political conversation?

Direction is a much better term, and understandable to a lot more people than 'focii'.

 

[fiallach]

I'm all for France being a major power at the begining of the game, since it WAS one. It's also one of my favorite countries to play as with italy, an underdog that can do great things.

Also the attitude of France leading to the conflict is hugely important, so having some pointers for the AI is really nice.

Which doesn't means that china shouldn't get some love, in fact i hope the whole pacific area needs some love compared to the previous HOI games.

 

[safe-keeper]

China is definite expansion-fodder. I would be very surprised if it doesn't end up getting a dedicated expansion DLC that would address all the issues with it. Too much stuff that needs specially designed mechanics not to do this.

True. I'll be disappointed if this doesn't happen.

BTW - is anyone else thinking about how having an actually-coded DMZ in-game could be used in a Cold War scenario?

Oh god yes.

 

[Victor Cortez]

Please concentrate on the vital feedback on the dev diary this week. ie, the debate on whether it should be called “focii” or “focuses” in plural.

Focuses.

 

[pheonicia]

Befriend norway, denmark, poland, netherlands, and presumably sweden and hungary and etc?
Well it looks like plan german superfriends is a go!
Though i would hope that having japan as an ally would limit the effect of befriending netherlands.

 

[eleetsdier]

But how do our National Dogs enter into the equation?

I think I agree with bugwar - maybe the best approach is to use a different word such as direction. I personally would choose foci over focuses but the forum spellchecker seems to lean the other way so I guess focuses is in greater usage than I would have thought.

 

[Kovax]

Please concentrate on the vital feedback on the dev diary this week. ie, the debate on whether it should be called “focii” or “focuses” in plural.

"Priorities" solves the dilemma. No more problemsses or ideosyncraciiiiiii.

 

[th3freakie]

Please concentrate on the vital feedback on the dev diary this week. ie, the debate on whether it should be called “focii” or “focuses” in plural.

Policies.

 

[Concept2D]

Looks good, thank you for keeping up the commitment to quality, rather than pushing the game out ASAP.

Meaningful choices are great.

I like that Rhineland etc. will take ~70 days rather than the ~4 days (non decision) after a strategic move.

The 100% reduced research ahead of time penalty looks a lot of fun. Big boosts for a limited time.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

I don't even care that France is a major, just that it's fairly unimportant in terms of WW2 as far as combat and international importance is involved. As I said, it had a first rate military armament at hand, but it failed to organize into a coherent military to resist the German forces. Under this requirement as a "major", France absolutely fails. Nationalist China is far more important as a player in the game of WW2 as an active force still in combat, compared to France which was at best in a state of revolt after being conquered. Despite China's shitty industry and equipment, it still managed to exist WW2 as relevant and independent power that never surrendered. I fail to see how France was more "relevant" as a country which failed to stop the German advance for even two months, and did just about nothing after the war started. I am not arguing that France should be taken out of the game as a "major", because it's rather stupid PI can't just in another nation or two with their own unique focuses, but by what prerequisits does France fulfill that make it more important than Nationalist China during WW2 which fought throughout the entire duration and then some? If France was a superpower, then it was certainly the shitties one of them all, judging by its performance during WW2 and afterward as well with how it handled its colonies. None of this matters because China definitely will be expanded on in future dlcs, but let's stop pretending that France was anything but disappointing at best during WW2, and at worst completely irrelevant, not even worthy of being a punching bag for Germany.

I was gonna to..... but not worth to answer in fact.
Oh, yes, just a little question to response to your resentment of the naughty bad shity etc etc french country : which country would have won against or even managed stalemate in a complete conflict against Germany in 39-40 ?...
And a last one I can't resist to ask you : why do you keep complain that France hopefully has its own tree when there isn't any contradiction (as I explained in the post you quote) to the fact China could get its own ?

 

[Centurion1973]

"Priorities" solves the dilemma. No more problemsses or ideosyncraciiiiiii.

Good idea.

 

[Lord Ederon]

Reminds me of Shogun progression

 

[Chewy Yui]

Sadly the development team ignored my direct order to add Sweden as a major power for this purpose.

Some firing is in order? xD

Hopefully we will see more unique focus trees in later patches after the game is released

 

[rundstedt2001]

Sweden a major power....hahahahahaha

 

[jakt]

Yes, Canada always gets ignored. There were so many contributors during WW2, it's sad that all we get are the "seven majors" and everyone gets left out, again.

I wouldn't get too upset about it, this system seems like something ripe for DLC.

Just because Canada made important contributions doesn't mean it was at the level of the major powers (frankly, French ideas seem unnecessary at launch). Since the Axis is the aggressors, they need ideas to drive their aggression. US/UK/USSR also as they were the major powers against the axis. That's the core of the game. After that you can talk about adding them but I would say Chinese and Spanish civil wars would be the next most interesting tier, then some lesser powers in Europe (Swiss -- neutrality and "fort defense" etc, Finland -- something about elite sniper guerrilla warfare, maybe Turkey, which had pressure from both sides to declare for one or the other...), and then I would say the Commonwealth/British colonial nations, and finally some smaller nations in europe, asia, and south america.

Unlike EU4 which has some unique national ideas everyone still picks from the same idea groups (although those are set for the AI regardless of what is happening in the game) whereas this allows for completely unique trees. I wouldn't be surprised if there were trees for a dozen or two more nations that were half unique half generic for many nations 6 months after release; while some things can add flavor and interesting choices I think you'd get into whether or not it's worth researching and balancing and adding completely unique ideas for each nation.

 

[Johan]

Those statements seems to be contradictory.

Can you please explain that?

Why would that be? Just because the dev team submits something as alpha, doesnt mean its accepted as an alpha. QA will do a proper indepth testing, and if some things fail, it will be fixed and resubmitted.

 

[Johan]

Hi Johan,

Let me try to understand the mechanics better.

1. In the dialog box shown it has 70 days & a start button with requirements to start below. Does that mean it will take 70 days after you hit the start button? Or does that mean the player has 70 days to meet certain goals? If that is the case what happens if he fails to meet the goals in time?

2. Is there a max number of concurrent goals? Or if you have the political capital can you use as much as you wish?

3. I liked the old icons used that were unique to the goal. (comment) Can unique icons be modded in for each goal?

4. Can current political party in power effect availability/requirement or current political leaders for a goal? As I see one of the choices for Germany is 'Befriend Poland' and this was just not part of the National Socialist ideology (there was no collaborationist Polish troops allowed, there was from all other occupied countries. I could go into other things, but this is not the place for it). I fully understand not railroading players and re-playability and think this is a good thing. So for a ahistoric goal, you should need ahistoric political party/leaders.

1) That one takes 70 days after the button is pressed until you get the benefits.

2) one in process at a time.

3) Yes.

4) Actually, it was one of the options pursued before Danzig. After all, there were other non-german state that allied with Germany, but probably had no longterm lifeexpectancy in a german total victory.

 

[Johan]

National focus system looks good.

Questions:
1. Are there preconditions, which we have to meet to be able to start some of those focuses?

2. Can we skip some focus and still continue that tree? (something ahistorical might have happened preventing us from doing that goal - its hard to make an alliance with Italy, after it get annexed by Ethiopia ).

No, you have to follow the tree.