Hearts of Iron 4 Allies

[TheMetalfreak]

I am wondering if the Ally AI will get a overhaul, because when I played HoI3 as German, both with and without the Black Ice mod I found the allies more or less useless. They would clog supply lines or they would just go back and forth between the front lines and the back cities. I don't think I have seen/heard about any info about this, so please, if you know of something, please let me know.

Would really love to see allies that can actually do something outside of their own "sphere".

 

[GhostKiller01]

I am wondering if the Ally AI will get a overhaul, because when I played HoI3 as German, both with and without the Black Ice mod I found the allies more or less useless. They would clog supply lines or they would just go back and forth between the front lines and the back cities. I don't think I have seen/heard about any info about this, so please, if you know of something, please let me know.

Would really love to see allies that can actually do something outside of their own "sphere".

That's weird, in the base game (with or without their finest hour), My allies would always help my advance, except as Japan, as Japan they were trash. But as Germany, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Italy, Hungary, the Baltic States, Finland, and Turkey would make substantial contributions to victory

 

[Denkt]

We have to see. Probably the battleplan system will help the ai, the developers have said the ai use the battleplan system.

 

[TheMetalfreak]

That's weird, in the base game (with or without their finest hour), My allies would always help my advance, except as Japan, as Japan they were trash. But as Germany, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Italy, Hungary, the Baltic States, Finland, and Turkey would make substantial contributions to victory

Not here, with me they just stand in their own lands or when they leave they just clog up areas and are a annoyans more then helpful. Finland on the other hands helped me a great deal.

 

[GhostKiller01]

Not here, with me they just stand in their own lands or when they leave they just clog up areas and are a annoyans more then helpful. Finland on the other hands helped me a great deal.

When I played as Japan, my puppet states did nothing except protect their own lands. Some sent me expeditionnary forces, but they were so outdated it was worthless for me to send them to combat. I can understand you pain, as the AI seems to sometimes be rather, how to put it... particularly stubborn on the defense in an offensive war. I had to rely on mostly my troops for the conquest of India, and since I was running low on manpower I annexed Nationalist China (did have to place 5 units of military police squadrons, but no revolts). All the other were relatively free. But you might want to check on your units during those games, the AI might instead of comitting its own soldiers directly send you expeditionary forces instead.

 

[TheMetalfreak]

When I played as Japan, my puppet states did nothing except protect their own lands. Some sent me expeditionnary forces, but they were so outdated it was worthless for me to send them to combat. I can understand you pain, as the AI seems to sometimes be rather, how to put it... particularly stubborn on the defense in an offensive war. I had to rely on mostly my troops for the conquest of India, and since I was running low on manpower I annexed Nationalist China (did have to place 5 units of military police squadrons, but no revolts). All the other were relatively free. But you might want to check on your units during those games, the AI might instead of comitting its own soldiers directly send you expeditionary forces instead.

Yeah, and I guess that makes sense as well, that they send the exp. forces, still a bit annoying though, especially when they "try" to be helpful, like you see them go to the frontlines and think "WOW! Italy is going to actually do something useful for a change?" Nope, they just go between the frontline and the Balkans effectivily destroying the supply lines you need for the advancing German forces.

Oh well, guess you can't have everything. I normally now just play as a minor ally of German or UK, like Italy, China, Canada etc. Like that more, there I can actually be a useful ally for the main factions of the game.

 

[GhostKiller01]

Yeah, and I guess that makes sense as well, that they send the exp. forces, still a bit annoying though, especially when they "try" to be helpful, like you see them go to the frontlines and think "WOW! Italy is going to actually do something useful for a change?" Nope, they just go between the frontline and the Balkans effectivily destroying the supply lines you need for the advancing German forces.

Oh well, guess you can't have everything. I normally now just play as a minor ally of German or UK, like Italy, China, Canada etc. Like that more, there I can actually be a useful ally for the main factions of the game.

I'd like you as my ally. My friend and I agreed that we'd play multiplayer on the game, and since he loves to play as UK and me as Germany, there's going to be conflicting priorities. I still managed to convince him to have our first multi game as Germany and Italy (he's Italian btw).
But the supply poblem shouldn't be that annoying anymore now that the supply has been reworked, I won't run out of supplies attacking Singapore or New Guinea as Japan and clogging my soldiers instead of losing Sinkiang to the USSR. Hopefully the AI bug won't happen again, and the nations that are supposed to help you will actually help you, instead of mirroring your actions whenever an ally calls you in a war you are not needed in / have any interest in (EUIV and CKII)

 

[TheMetalfreak]

Would have been cool to play a game with the 3 major Axis, I hate Japan, not because of the country itself or whatnot, but the island jumping I find a tad boring truth be told, rather fight France and UK in the Medi. + North Afrika. But if I play as Japan then I would never go against USA, rather fight USSR. Makes more strategic sense as well, to get their oil in the north and also avoiding getting USA on the Axis arse. Can even USA get into the war in Hoi4 if Japan dosen't attack? Roosevelt didn't really have a way to get the country into the war without it happening, would never passed the Congress. I guess it depends on their choices? Dunno how the AI will work on that front though.

 

[ajarnlance]

The USSR has oil in the north? I never attack the USSR as Japan... don't want that Russian Bear breathing down my neck... but I thought the Soviet oil was in the Caucasus... which would be south west from Japan.

 

[TheMetalfreak]

Well in real life there are oil fields right north and west for Japan in Russian lands. Ofc i can be mistaken. And also thee can be new ones. In areas like Siberia and such, also dunno if the game will add some strategic resources there. But there might be things like like metals there in HoI4.

 

[amalric de g.]

The USSR has oil in the north? I never attack the USSR as Japan... don't want that Russian Bear breathing down my neck... but I thought the Soviet oil was in the Caucasus... which would be south west from Japan.

In Hoi3 there is Oil in Siberia, not far from the Eastcoast. I think two provinces have oil but it´s not a lot of oil.
In the interior of Siberia there is also oil but reaching it with a Japanese army is a bit tricky.

 

[GhostKiller01]

In Hoi3 there is Oil in Siberia, not far from the Eastcoast. I think two provinces have oil but it´s not a lot of oil.
In the interior of Siberia there is also oil but reaching it with a Japanese army is a bit tricky.

Not really, I just waited for Germany to attack it and until I had annexed Nationalist China and then declared war on the USSR. The Imperial Army, which is defaulted to work for the whole Eastern Theatre then just attacks it (I'm lazy so I put them in auto attack mode). Plus, once Nationalist China is dead you can just invade Tibet, Sinkiang, and the other unprotected Asian states without risk. I wanted to support Germany so I invaded Siam and took India. But the oil provinces, no matter how meagre, are really useful as Japan, you need all the oil available, even if that means invading Canada (which I also did)

 

[LordOfWar16]

Not here, with me they just stand in their own lands or when they leave they just clog up areas and are a annoyans more then helpful. Finland on the other hands helped me a great deal.

You have to give them goals which they should attack. Otherwise they wont join your fronts. If you attack the Soviet union for example setting moscow as their goal, they will push towards it on your front. I usualy let them handle the flanks and push the north and south.

 

[BBBD316]

I think there are a few multinational battle plans floating around, so you inform your allies which part of the front they will be responsible for.

 

[GhostKiller01]

I think there are a few multinational battle plans floating around, so you inform your allies which part of the front they will be responsible for.

I really hope so, but it would mean that the players would be leading the tip of the spear for a multi-national faction, no matter the national interests and all that? I believe it would require that they trust you a lot.

 

[amalric de g.]

Not really, I just waited for Germany to attack it and until I had annexed Nationalist China and then declared war on the USSR. The Imperial Army, which is defaulted to work for the whole Eastern Theatre then just attacks it (I'm lazy so I put them in auto attack mode). Plus, once Nationalist China is dead you can just invade Tibet, Sinkiang, and the other unprotected Asian states without risk. I wanted to support Germany so I invaded Siam and took India. But the oil provinces, no matter how meagre, are really useful as Japan, you need all the oil available, even if that means invading Canada (which I also did)

Sure you can conquer Siberia, Tibet and so on, but Tibet and Eastern Siberia are not a big gain in resources, conquering Siberia is a pain in the arse. Before your troops reach your goals the SU is sometimes allready down. I usually take the VPs on the coast and thats it.

SEA has enough resources to operate my "tiny" Japanese fleet and my tank corps.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

Metalfreak and Goshtkiller, your discussion made me appealed to lead the Bulgaria into the war, so HoI3 is back to service probably for the last time, I hope.

I'm going to specialise the Bulgarian forces into air fighters (interceptors first then why not some more versatile single engine planes) : A lot of them, Bulgarian manufactured, and all the focus on air in general in oder to provide an as much as significant help to THE bad guy, who neglected the fighters all the war during...

 

[TheMetalfreak]

Metalfreak and Goshtkiller, your discussion made me appealed to lead the Bulgaria into the war, so HoI3 is back to service probably for the last time, I hope.

I'm going to specialise the Bulgarian forces into air fighters (interceptors first then why not some more versatile single engine planes) : A lot of them, Bulgarian manufactured, and all the focus on air in general in oder to provide an as much as significant help to THE bad guy, who neglected the fighters all the war during...

I wanted a game as them or Yugoslavia now, damn.

Also, yeah the points for the allies helped a bit, but they were much better when I declared war against Turkey, they invaded that and went for Russia afterwards. Now they opened a new front and are advancing fast, pulling forces from Moskva. Nice!

 

[Evan05]

Sine Hearts of Iron 3 is came out in 2009 and Hearts of Iron 4 is coming out in 2016, a seven year difference, I'm sure the AI will be a lot better.

 

[Anichent]

all good points.

I'm also wondering if there is a way for puppet AIs to be reworked as well from HOI3 - I hope they'll show us DD or in one of the play-throughs how this works. In HOI3 I found puppets didn't have enough economic independence to make their country realistically workable and when I play as USSR, and sometimes other countries, I like to puppet more than anything else but I want them to also be effective "allies" in the sense of being able to manage themselves rather than just be pointless leaches