Hearts of Iron IV - 47th Development Diary - 4th of March 2016

[Super-Soviet]

Can we get a shot of the focus tree for China? Pretty please?

There isn't one. The focuses you see in the screenshots are all from the generic focus tree.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

So you are going to solve the Chinese problem using event after event?

 

[WSnova]

A cornered Fox is more dangerous than a Jackal1

 

[Sergius64]

Before we kick off the civil war we first give the PRC some free troops (supplied from unspecified communists somewhere in the world).

Sigh... magic spawning troops out of nowhere again???

 

[Naimen]

This DD is totally PC
Is that the promised national dog which captures errors in the right down corner?

 

[MartinSWE]

Sigh... magic spawning troops out of nowhere again???

Why not ? Atleast this time it would pretty historical.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Although the Chinas don't have their own unique focus trees yet, the Soviet and US focus trees should have focal choices regarding the Chinese Civil War (CCW) for which, in accordance with Paradox's principle, the AI would choose the historical option. Which was for Stalin to provide relatively modest yet important help at a critical time, and the US to indireectly aid the Chinese Red Army by coercing the KMT into ceasefires and negotiations that provided Mao with valuable breathing room, credibility, and freedom of action. US and Soviet players might choose differently.

For OOB and division/corps structure, is Paradox to use the excellent information posted in the forum? The argument for the divisional template representing Chinese corps of genreally comparable size seems quite compelling in terms of historicity and playability.

I see the border war attrition mechanism as a variant of the occupation/resistance mechanics and a good and effective step in the direction of broadening the mechanics beyond main-force engagements to represent the protracted and corrosive nature of guerrilla and partisan warfare.
The border attrition seems to me to be a variation on a theme relative to the occupation mechanism already highlighted in World War Wednesday

When the time comes for focus trees, those of the KMT and CCP should be complementary but asymmetrical - not an easy task.

 

[Naimen]

If only there were millions to play paradox games in China

Actually, the paradox titles are pretty popular among chinese strategy enthusiast, they are known as the "Four moes from studio P". Even it's few people in china, it's still a lot of them when looking at the numbers, sad thing is, HOI is banned due to not PC enough

 

[Sergius64]

Why not ? Atleast this time it would pretty historical.

Because they should come from somewhere. At least lower manpower pool slightly for the nations that were likely to have Communist Sympathizers that would travel all the way to China to support the Chinese communist state. Also their arms need to come from somewhere, likely from Communist China instead.

This magic troops out of nowhere has been a bandaid balancing tool that's over used in many Paradox games. Think of all the magic giant rebel stacks that spawn in EU and CK series.

 

[bestmajor]

@PDS: Your research department is not very good, it's sloppy.
Look at this Mao image: way too old.


There were other images with wrong uniform items in previous DDs as well (Genda Minoru for instance, an imperial JAP Naval Officers hat is easy to google; soviet air forces collar tabs are not red but cornflower-blue, and more).


If HoI4 uses coloured images things need to be *a bit* more accurate IMVHO.


I colored appr. 10.000 images for HoI2 (AoD) myself and spent hours in researching uniform items, hats, orders, etc.
Please do the same. The game looks childish with fantasy uniform colours.
Using B&W images is superior if things are done so sloppy.

 

[Balesir]

no it wouldnt. we looked into it.

There is so much dynamic and timing dependent stuff that it fits much better as event series.

I'm fine with an event series, but I would also be interested by the mechanisms of "Resistance"/guerilla war - it would seem like a fair representation of Communist China's approach to the Civil War to have them developing "cells" throughout China through WW2 to be used when the Japanese are defeated. It would also encourage a historical lack of hard engagement with the Japanese if they were spending resources on this - and would be a quick way to seize Manchuria from a defeated Japan.

 

[MartinSWE]

Because they should come from somewhere. At least lower manpower pool slightly for the nations that were likely to have Communist Sympathizers that would travel all the way to China to support the Chinese communist state. Also their arms need to come from somewhere, likely from Communist China instead.

This magic troops out of nowhere has been a bandaid balancing tool that's over used in many Paradox games. Think of all the magic giant rebel stacks that spawn in EU and CK series.

Arms come from the destroyed Kwantung Army (completely historical since the Soviets did leave the equipment there on purpose for Mao's forces).

During the civil war oppression from the KMT made LOADS of former peasants/workers/students join the communists and there where also defections from the KMT Armed Forces. These are the 'magical' soldiers you are critical of.

 

[Dinglehoff]

These NatChi nerfs and PRC territory and troop hacks are the worst kind of railroading.

 

[Alliegorical]

You and me both. And Mao is not the only case, but art is unfortunately rather busy all the time.

Mao's photo is only anachronistic by ten years. My vote for priority goes to Franco's portrait, which looks as though it was based off a photo taken in the 70's.

 

[MartinSWE]

These NatCom nerfs and PRC territory and troop hacks are the worst kind of railroading.

What´s the alternative then (if one want's to have a chance for a historical outcome in this conflict). I also begin to expect that many people don´t want to see the PRC being formed and that's why they are so negative in boosting them in any way.

 

[nkibilko]

Mao's photo is only anachronistic by ten years. My vote for priority goes to Franco's portrait, which looks as though it was based off a photo taken in the 70's.

Yeah, i got curious and looked into it as much as simple searches allow... And he looked almost the same in the 1940s, only slightly less bald.

 

[hewhoispale]

@PDS: Your research department is not very good, it's sloppy.
Look at this Mao image: way too old.

I don't think it is wildly inappropriate to use the older photo of Mao, it is really recognizable. He looks a fair bit different in photos from the exact time frame from the "stock" photo of Mao that everyone is familiar with these days.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Havebeard and get well soon Podcat . The Chinese civil war is an interesting one, and while (like others have said) an event tree feels a bit 'railroadey', it definitely sounds a step up from HoIs past, and given the complexity of the situation, the amount of time that it would likely take to make China work through game mechanics (many of which, I suspect, would be primarily only applicable to China), it sounds like a good way to go about it .

Am intrigued by the border war mechanic - does that get used elsewhere, and can players initiate border wars of their own, and how does one win/lose a border war, or is it a specific China thing? Only asking if easy to answer and you've got time/interest, can wait until game releases to find out .

 

[bestmajor]

Well it is not only Mao, but Franco as well.
Additionally a lot of uniform items are simply wrong. Even things which are easy to find out via google are messed up in this game.

 

[Traks]

Looks much better than Vanilla but to be honest, I still think this is largely inferior to HOI3s HPP-Mod. Here a Screenshot from a USA game (I tagswitched to CHI):

I completely agree. Let's give Communist China arbitrary modifiers so they can defend their territory well, then more arbitrary modifiers to China so they can defend against Japan. Of course if human player uses this nation, he instead gets negative modifiers!