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Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 1 - Our Vision

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Hearts of Iron IV 45495 Bug Reports 15183 After Action Reports (AAR)
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mursolini said:
IDK about ICE, but BICE is actually really good, but is focused less on the overall picture, and more on making the game hard and challenging. HPP dificulty is similar to vanilla, and you can game a lot of things, especially the "rank" system to get more leadership.

Just different mods for different audiences, as it should be, and it is good to have both.

I seriously don`t get this sentiment. The games have difficulty settings for a reason. What is the point of having very hard difficulty, if it doesn`t take almost any more effort to complete then normal.

And i don`t mean just the number of deaths, but the conscious selection of strategy. Since someone mentioned Biowere, i`d say that ME(2-3) series had different squad mates that were good against different types of enemies. Ideally, at very hard, you should know who are your squad mates good against and pick your squard accordingly, to make the difficulty manageable. That would be a good increase in depth of the game.

Same applies to weapons. Theoretically they are specialized, but you can use any and still complete a VH play through.

But instead, BW opted for approach where you can take any squad mate to any mission and still have no problem, you can take any weapon, and any squad mate basically killing any strategy and depth in the game. What is the point of having different squad mates, different weapons and a sort of skill tree, if you don`t need them on VH to be successful?

Basically that is the complain. You can argue what level of difficulty should there be, but since there is, theoretically at least easy, normal, hard, and very hard, why not make very hard, actually challenging, in that you should shoot well, and pick the right combination of weapons and squad mates to complete?
I see nothing wrong with that.

And in HOI3 the difficulty settings were just a throw away afterthought. PI didn`t even bother to make sure that the AI buffs stack properly, akka on WH in HOI3 AI tends to be weaker then on Normal, because it got much more IC but it`s leadership remained the same , meaning it would field larger bur crappier army.
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Honestly, I think every post in this "discussion" deals with a radically different topic, with no relation whatsoever to the post quoted (and maybe I'm to blame too). So... no, no problem with that situation you explained, obviously you're right (Skyrim being a total cakewalk in the highest difficulty level was disappointing too). I never said anything that could be interpreted to the contrary. Games having a level of difficulty and complexity that would make everyone except a committed hermit unable to play them does not mean, or stops meaning, that difficulty sliders are a great tool that should always be used. There's no relation between those two clauses.
 
Map looks pretty.

As someone who prefers microing everything in HoI3 I am a bit worried about how easy the ai will be to work with. It was simple to just move them where you wanted them. Will be interesting to see how it would work with the pacific as well. It just feels like there's a lot of risks of the ai working against you (leading to frustration) but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
Please make it so that it is possible to change a province from being land to sea and viceversa. This has been a great problem for mods that cover for example the time of the construction of the Panama Canal and post war Netherlands.

I know it is an engine thing, but it would be so awesome if this could finally be done :D
 
Marshall18 said:
Please make it so that it is possible to change a province from being land to sea and viceversa. This has been a great problem for mods that cover for example the time of the construction of the Panama Canal and post war Netherlands.

I know it is an engine thing, but it would be so awesome if this could finally be done :D
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Or maybe just add a flooding mechanic. The flooding of the Netherlands and the breaking of the Yellow River dikes would both use it. (Making them into sea would be odd as it wasn't like the Kriegmarine started sailing into the flooded Netherlands.
 
Well, atleast no fake cyrillica... but other than that everything else is saddening.
 
Hey! I'm sorry I haven't scrolled through all 20 pages reading, but I just have three quick questions regarding the game, and sorry if it has been adressed! :)
1) Personally I love the way the Victoria II and EUIV maps were maps and I've seen a few others thinking the same (atleast with Vic). Will there be a mapmode (political/"normal" map?) where you get the glorious 2D map feel like in Vic?. I like how it then really feels like you are planning something on a map. I would really just prefer the topographical map in terms of terrain mapmodes and similar :) but hey thats me!

2) I've read about the planned invasion of Japan once, when I just randomly browsed Wikipedia, and I saw something that I find interesting in terms of this game. Will there be civilian resistance? I don't feel there should be a military game that mixes civilians with military, but atleast some sort of modifier? Possibily the most nationalistic nations will have this more (Japan, Russia?).

3) I am gonna be brutally honest and say I forgot my last question (LOL) but I can throw two fast ones out! As mentioned above here, will there be factories? I think that would be really cool and a whole new dimension. And secondly I would like to see a more intense and realistic amphibious landing and shore bombardment maybe, what can you say in terms of this?.

Thanks for reading at least, if you feel like it's too much to answer or too silly questions :)
Have a nice day!
 
Simen113 said:
2) I've read about the planned invasion of Japan once, when I just randomly browsed Wikipedia, and I saw something that I find interesting in terms of this game. Will there be civilian resistance? I don't feel there should be a military game that mixes civilians with military, but atleast some sort of modifier? Possibily the most nationalistic nations will have this more (Japan, Russia?).
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I think this can be/ is represented by attrition in occupied territory if no troops are there and with regular troops by territorial pride.
Just to make it easy and compatible with game and forum roules
 
So I just got the Paradox Newsletter and it said Dev Diaries would be coming biweekly, but I'm pretty sure it's been said they'd be monthly here. So... Which is it? Inquiring minds want to know.
 
illathid said:
So I just got the Paradox Newsletter and it said Dev Diaries would be coming biweekly, but I'm pretty sure it's been said they'd be monthly here. So... Which is it? Inquiring minds want to know.
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They got that one wrong ;D I'v let them know. Next diary should be end of next week though.
 
Beagá said:
Nope. In fact mods in HOI 3 exemplify the question very well.

HPP has less complexity than Black ICE but more depth. Yes it has less units and tech - but each one feels meaningful, thus creating the palpable element of CHOICE, while ICE tech tree and multiple brigades are a complete mess with no regard for balance or useless/pointless techs.
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You're comparing two very different mods. I haven't played HPP since Semper Fi so my opinion on it is probably outdated, but I remember HPP aiming to make vanilla more sandbox. So it's geared towards players who seek ahistorical outcomes while playing by the rules of vanilla. I recall a fun and challenging campaign where I took over Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and a decent chunk of USSR as Bulgaria (I don't remember if on Normal or Hard). However, playing a major on vanilla/HPP is simply too easy even on Hard. And the Very Hard difficulty option was silly (the AI essentially had triple your IC by default, but also triple the resources so the sheer abundance of resources on the world market actually made Very Hard easier than Hard).


BICE is geared towards making the game more historical (less sandbox) and more challenging (by handicapping the player wherever the AI scripting is weak and unable to compete against human intelligence). The "useless brigades/techs" are mainly the SS ones since those are primarily there for flavor (they aren't meant to be cost-efficient because historically they WERE costly to indoctrinate), so players who are looking for pure optimization have the choice to just disable the SS all-together if they wish. There's an Easy Mode for players who want to experience the BICE content without the difficulty. From my own extensive experiences playing BICE, the large amount of techs and brigades actually matter very much on Normal/Hard for majors because in order to minimize casualties and preserve your resource/manpower/officer pool you will need much more specialization in technology and division composition. For myself and many other veteran players I've come across on these forums, BICE on Hard is the quintessential single player challenge, especially now that it has integrated TRP so there's now a completely reworked infrastructure system with railways, heavy industry, pillboxes, and more (adding even more strategic and tactical depth).

misterbean said:
I tried it a couple of times, because I do love their attention to details, where it concerns historical units, but it's just too much and way too hard.
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There's an Easy Mode for players who want to experience the BICE content without the difficulty. :laugh: You can then graduate to Normal once you're comfortable with the new content. Also, pushing along a wide front simply doesn't work in BICE (unless you are USSR) because you will always lose a war of attrition against the AI on Normal/Hard/VH difficulty settings. So learning to make use of tactics such as holding attacks and opting to bypass river crossings and land fortifications when possible becomes critically important; as such, AI Control of important fronts is highly discouraged. Alternatively, you might have special division comps (ie. Inf ART ENG ENG Commando, or Amphib Tank + Amphib Tank + Panzer Engineer + Panzer Engineer + Mobile Artillery) to attack a river crossing or land fortification that you can't bypass. These tactics are not added complexity - the problem is most players never had to utilize these tactics to win in vanilla.

Final thoughts: BICE is to HOI3 what Magna Mundi was to EU3 is to what Stony Road was to HOI1&2; a harder challenge and more historically accurate, but once you've adjusted you can never go back to vanilla. The content and depth added far outweighs the added complexity. Each mod's shortcomings are mainly derived from game engine and AI limitations. So as long as HOI4 gives the players (and modders) even more diversity to tinker around with and make improvements to the AI, I'll be happily playing HOI4 vanilla until the next BICE / Stony Road rolls around.
 
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I know graphics probably sell games but I'd be willing to keep the HOI3 looks for a lively and logical AI. This game looks pretty enough to me, other than showing some fires and smoke. It needs to get much SMARTER. People can design chess programs that can beat us, they should be able to do the same with war games at this stage.
 
Der Kunstler said:
It needs to get much SMARTER. People can design chess programs that can beat us, they should be able to do the same with war games at this stage.
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On the other hand computers still have a hard time against humans at Go, and this is with vastly more computational resources and time than would be available to the average end user of HoI. What is simple to a human may not be simple to a computer and vice versa.
 
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