Hearts of Iron IV: Community mod proposal

[KnyazSuvorov]

Ok, I would like to ask the people here; what changes are talked about for years that are easy to implement by any noob, that the devs haven't done yet?

Simplest example; Artillery & SPGs being 3 combat width over 2 combat width

I would like to propose compiling a list of basic stuff can then be made into a "Community mod" until the devs finally incorporate such stuff into vanilla. Waiting for the devs to take action on basic stuff for years, is pointless, time to take matters into our own hands.

Simple rule of thumb: if you have think someone's proposal is worth incorporating into the base game, upvote it with a green checkmark/agree. I'll start.

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

1. Make all artillery & SPG units, 2 combat width units instead of 3 combat width.

Anyone who thinks it's worth incorporating into vanilla in the future and a community mod/fix immediately, please upvote this proposal.

 

[herr anfsim]

I think being able to turn off focus tree (change to the generic one) and national spirits for specific nations would be neat.

 

[warchief1978]

The first 10 most popular suggestions can be found in the suggestions section of the forum.
As of today, it looks like this:

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

The first 10 most popular suggestions can be found in the suggestions section of the forum.
As of today, it looks like this:

View attachment 1051992

A lot of these are hard to implement for a noob.

Like a queue to focus & research trees, I think would be quite difficult to implement. Same goes to customizable special forces. And it would also require a lot of reasoning. 3-width artillery is just absurd, and everybody knows it.

I guess there's a fine line between changing values of a battalion type, making a battalion type accessible to every country instead of just some countries and going as far as adding new focuses/foci or new customizing special forces.

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

I think being able to turn off focus tree (change to the generic one) and national spirits for specific nations would be neat.

Not a bad idea actually. But is there a way to do it easily?

Like best idea I have is to add a national focus the completion of which leads to a generic focus tree being adopted. I am not sure if I could do that myself to be honest.

 

[herr anfsim]

Not a bad idea actually. But is there a way to do it easily?

Like best idea I have is to add a national focus the completion of which leads to a generic focus tree being adopted. I am not sure if I could do that myself to be honest.

I would assume so, seeing as you currently have the option to turn DLCs off.

 

[warchief1978]

A lot of these are hard to implement for a noob.

Like a queue to focus & research trees, I think would be quite difficult to implement. Same goes to customizable special forces. And it would also require a lot of reasoning. 3-width artillery is just absurd, and everybody knows it.

I guess there's a fine line between changing values of a battalion type, making a battalion type accessible to every country instead of just some countries and going as far as adding new focuses/foci or new customizing special forces.

This is true, but if someone takes the time to read them, they will find quite a few suggestions that can be implemented relatively easily. To be honest, I can say from experience that some of them can be implemented with a few minutes of work. A few minutes of work is okay for me, since I have quite a lot of experience in modding, but I don't deal with it anymore.But even a noob can make them relatively quickly.
Which are easy to implement:
- Making missing ships
Starsbourg battlecruiser, Richelieu battleship replacing bc armor with bb armor....etc.
- Add support artillery to Czech and Polish infantry division templates
It's pretty rough that the Czechoslovak or Polish armies don't have artillery, even though both countries had cannon production capacity.In addition, the divisions in both countries included a significant number of artillery units.
- Improving Hungary's starting army
In reality, it only had seven infantry and two cavalry units.Also, the starting infantry template is bad. They had one support artillery, one cavlary recon, one enginer battalion and one bicycle battalion. What Paradox planned was created after the template of the border guards brigades and the announcement of the Győr program.

I could list more, but these are the only ones that suddenly came to mind......

 

[Corpse Fool]

1. Make all artillery & SPG units, 2 combat width units instead of 3 combat width.

Anyone who thinks it's worth incorporating into vanilla in the future and a community mod/fix immediately, please upvote this proposal.

I would want to know the complete list of associated changes before I can say I agree with it or not. More would have to change than just the width, and I dont necessarily agree eith changing them to 2.

 

[Amberle]

With the huge playerbase, i always found it there never was a "community bugfix" mod, like warhammer total war has. Which is absolutely 100% essential if you want to play that game.

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

I would want to know the complete list of associated changes before I can say I agree with it or not. More would have to change than just the width, and I dont necessarily agree eith changing them to 2.

I'm just proposing to change the width, nothing more for now. in regards to artillery. The less changes from vanilla the better.

I do think there's a lot of rebalancing required, but that wouldn't fit a "community mod". A community mod is supposed to be as close as possible to vanilla, correcting the most blatant mistakes, ideally with examples of how things used to work in vanilla, not like a full realism mod.

 

[Corpse Fool]

I'm just proposing to change the width, nothing more for now. in regards to artillery. The less changes from vanilla the better.

I do think there's a lot of rebalancing required, but that wouldn't fit a "community mod". A community mod is supposed to be as close as possible to vanilla, correcting the most blatant mistakes, ideally with examples of how things used to work in vanilla, not like a full realism mod.

Then I dont think you should make any balance changes, like width. And that you should stay eithin the realm of bug fixes, like fixing the turret conversions.

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

This is true, but if someone takes the time to read them, they will find quite a few suggestions that can be implemented relatively easily. To be honest, I can say from experience that some of them can be implemented with a few minutes of work. A few minutes of work is okay for me, since I have quite a lot of experience in modding, but I don't deal with it anymore.But even a noob can make them relatively quickly.

You got a point there.

I will say though that whoever wants something done, needs to provide exact instructions on what needs to be done.

Which are easy to implement:
- Making missing ships
Starsbourg battlecruiser, Richelieu battleship replacing bc armor with bb armor....etc.

Strasbourg and Richelieu can be easily fixed I suppose

- Add support artillery to Czech and Polish infantry division templates
It's pretty rough that the Czechoslovak or Polish armies don't have artillery, even though both countries had cannon production capacity.In addition, the divisions in both countries included a significant number of artillery units.

My only issue would be that adding artillery to Polish & Czech templates will require me to know how much artillery was present in Czech & Polish armies on Jan 1, 1936.

Then I could either just add a stockpile of artillery to Poland and Czechoslovakia, or actually correct the division templates for both (which is a little bigger pain to do).

I don't know much about either, so I'd need to know:
A) How much artillery Poles & Czechs had as of Jan 1936
B) How was this artillery organized. I wouldn't want to see 75mm infantry support guns or mortars recorded as HOi4 artillery.

- Improving Hungary's starting army
In reality, it only had seven infantry and two cavalry units.Also, the starting infantry template is bad. They had one support artillery, one cavlary recon, one enginer battalion and one bicycle battalion. What Paradox planned was created after the template of the border guards brigades and the announcement of the Győr program.

I could list more, but these are the only ones that suddenly came to mind......

Bicycle battalions are a separate issue that's hard to touch. In HOI4 having a single bicycle battalion in a division isn't really worth it, as it doesn't add much value.

The support artillery btn: was there enough artillery to fill all Hungarian artillery battalions? What artillery was it? Total number, caliber?

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

Then I dont think you should make any balance changes, like width. And that you should stay eithin the realm of bug fixes, like fixing the turret conversions.

Generally yes, but the Artillery situation is a big exception. And it's basically reverting to one of the previous vanilla versions in that regard, so it would be justified.

What's the issue with turret conversion?

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

I would assume so, seeing as you currently have the option to turn DLCs off.

Turning a DLC off I suppose would turnoff a bunch of game mechanics as well, so I doubt there would be a solution there.

 

[Corpse Fool]

And it's basically reverting to one of the previous vanilla versions in that regard, so no biggie.

Would you happen to know which version that is? To the best of my knowledge, arty has been 3w since release. TD and spaa have shuffled around a bit.

What's the issue with turret conversion?

You cant convert (it will dismantle/replace) medium or heavy turrets into their respective fixed superstructure.
This is because it says "module=" rather than "module_category="

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

Would you happen to know which version that is? To the best of my knowledge, arty has been 3w since release. TD and spaa have shuffled around a bit.

You're actually right.

I found an old thread here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...s-up-combat-width.923026/page-2#post-21045739

For some reason I recall I played around with 2-width artillery somehow back in the years, but forget how that could've happened.

Guess I'm wrong on that matter. But I will have to say, as Cato the Elder "I still believe artillery should be diverted to 2 width" and any fix I make, will involve that. From a game balance perspective, tanks with artillery characteristics already exist, so we know what would happen if Artillery was balanced with tanks having same cannons.

You cant convert (it will dismantle/replace) medium or heavy turrets into their respective fixed superstructure.
This is because it says "module=" rather than "module_category="

In that case worth a fix if you ask me.

 

[mursolini]

There is no need to change artillery to 2 width, it just needs to buffed somewhat, and support arty slightly nerfed to keep it same. Smaller width would mean larger org penalty for infantry divisions, as more artillery battalions will decrease org more.

 

[tisqsaps]

There is no need to change artillery to 2 width, it just needs to buffed somewhat, and support arty slightly nerfed to keep it same. Smaller width would mean larger org penalty for infantry divisions, as more artillery battalions will decrease org more.

No, you are wrong. A 2 width arty will increase the org. Now if you have 2 arty battalions it uses 6 width. If you lower the width you just use 4 width for the two arty batallions and you can add one additional infantry battalion which increases the org for the division.

 

[DaReal-BurningDeath]

Here is an relatively easy one to implement

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/ui-qol-leader-details-view-switch-to-selected-army-army-group-by-burnie.1505021/#post-29277772