A shame, considering there are many bugs still not addressed. Yugoslavia can still get cores on Transylvania using the same method that was supposedly fixed in 1.10.2, missing portraits and polishing problems here and there.
This has unfortunately been the trend with HoI4 throughout its development, no doubt linked to the fact development has always advanced at a glacial pace compared to the other PDX games.
I
used to speculate it's because the HoI4 team is small, but
Johan assured me otherwise, though I'm still a little skeptical as to whether HoI4 has maintained such a large amount of resources at its disposal, or if this was just something they did during those final 18 months of pre-release development. Remember HoI4 was originally slated for January 2015; it was delayed by 18 months. We have also consistently seen DLCs for the game release much later than initial developer "guesstimates" have implied (they have since become a lot more conservative with speculating release dates).
I'm not sure what gives, but I presume it's to do with HoI4 being harder to work with, and possibly a lack of sufficient resources being allocated to its development.
I doubt he assured you otherwise, he is basically saying that before 2015 the Hearts of Iron 4 team was huge. I don't think this is the case anymore. It makes sense to have a huge team pre-release, but now they only work on update and new DLC, the core framework is already there. It may be the only project with a 100% dedicated AI developer, but the AI is not the reason a lot of users feel that Hearts of Iron 4 is neglected. The real concerns are just like you said in the OP: very long list of balance issues and bugs, some of which are easy to fix and have been solved by modders.
Take King Michael's Coup's coup for example. Originally, it worked not even close like the real life King Michael's Coup. When it was added in 1.10.0 it was an alternative to Forced Abdication which makes no sense historicalwise. The coup happened 3 years after the abdication, they both happened and one would not have happened without the other. And now while that was fixed the swich sides decisions are all messed up. They are unlocked at
"appoint government" which is not even remotely related to the change of government in 1938-1939 that those focuses are supposed to represent. And King Michael I, a staunch defender of democracy who hated fascism and communism equally and plotted against fascist leader Ion Antonescu, has the options to switch sides to the Axis or the Comintern.
Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that the switch to Axis and switch to Comintern decisions are available in the game, but the location where they are implemented is just terrible. And there are countless such examples across multiple nations. I don't wish for a complete overhaul, just fix these bugs. You don't see a lot of stuff like that in EU4 or CK3 by comparison, which is why I personally feel that Hoi4 is the neglected child of Paradox. I don't expect the devs to be historians, but if CK2 and EU4 can be historically accurate then there must be something missing from Hoi4. If they don't have a historian to compare game mechanics with real life events they should get one, if they have a historian, they should fire him and get a good one.
That feeling is with me for more than 2 years now.
I can't proove it or even give some sort of evidence but the whole of HoI IV feels as if it is last when it comes to allocation. So as if it is Paradox least favorite child. They said it isn't but it feels like it.
Compared to Stellaris the progress is glacial and the bug fixes minimal. We get new stuff yet, but thats getting weirder and weirder while bugs remain.
I have the same feeling. And I don't think it's only in my head, it's a great game, but not exactly polished around the corners:
- Lots of bugs, a focus tree works well alone. But if you go multiplayer and different players go alt-history there's a fair chance everything becomes a mess.
- A lot of historical inaccuracies in Hearts of Iron 4 are not present in Europa Universalis 4, Crusader Kings 2 or Crusader Kings 3. And being the most recent, World War II is a lot more doccumented than any of the timelines of the other games, so it's supposed to be way easier to get doccumentation for Hoi4 than CK3 for example.
- Even the alt-history path has historical inaccuracies, simply because that's not how that thing was supposed to work, such as France's communist revolution when below 25% stability with 0% communist popularity or Yugoslavia's puppeting of Translyvania in West Banat that gets cores on the rest of Transylvania.
