Historical mode desperately needs some love. I pledge for a "custodian" initiative like the one for Stellaris

[jimkoons]

As it has been now 80 years that Pearl harbor happened and that next year it will be 80 years that the battle of Midway took place I wanted to do a historical playthrough with the USA just to see the USS Enterprise with its little Douglas SBD Dauntless smashing the Akagi .

I played until 1948 but what I saw was, oh boy... honestly horrifying in terms of suspension of disbelief. The diplomatic AI makes no sense at all and I firmly believe the problem comes mainly from the NF. I don't care if the outcome of a war is different, we all play this game to change history BUT the story that unfolds in front of us needs to remain at least a bit plausible, even more in historical mode. Anyway, here's a list of what happened during my playthrough:

- First, it's a bug but you cannot correspond with Winston Churchill as Roosevelt, the condition that checks that Roosevelt is in command does not work anymore.
- UK attacks Iceland somewhere around 1941-1942. It makes absolutely no sense... why would they do that while being one of the only allies power remaining?
- The USSR was really being beaten up by Germany to the point that the germans were past Moscow (this is not a problem) BUT while being completely destroyed, they thought it was a good idea to attack Iran. I agree that historically they did that but it makes no sense to do so when you have lost Stalingrad, Moscow, etc... Iran also joined the Axis, which I'm doubtful it happened historically. I'm not sure a NF & war declaration is the proper way to simulate that rather short campaign anyhow..
- Italy had falled and while I was conquering Berlin (Axis was totally doomed) Spain thought it would be the perfect moment to join the Axis. Please, for the love of god, fix that behaviour, it makes no sense to join a war that is already completely lost. I had 5 divisions for 1 german division. Plus I hadn't even had to fight the spanish as Germany falled in a few days... thanks for the free territory in the peace conference (those should be updated too...) as spain is not considered as a great country (so if Germany & Italy fall, the axis falls).
- UK invaded Irak. Well ok, why not but maybe not the best timing when:
- Turkey joined the Allies way too soon!! it opened a new front for Italy and they got totally crushed to the point that I nearly lost the Suez Canal from the syria/palestinian side. Worst: Italy already surrendered at that time...
- And the highlight of this show: Communist China attacked the Nationalist China while still being at war with Japan. Not great not terrible but... they joined the Allies. Yep. So my final war was to fight the National China that streched up from Beijing to Irak (they rolled on India)... for the account of the communist china. I mean come on, I'm the US. McCarthy must have been turning in his grave while I was doing that playthrough.
- and the cherry on the cake: San Salvador thought it would be a interesting play to join the chinese united front so.. yep, I had to fight those guys too with their two provinces. On my continent. Monroe doctrine and all..

So please, please Paradox, create some kind of custodian initiative to at least get rid of the worst of what I mentioned here. Historical players deserves to have an experience that is somewhat plausible and interesting. At least the countries that entered the war latter (around 1945) should enter really late. Spain should check if it is interesting to enter the war, communist countries should not enter the allies faction, etc etc..

 

[kaspar42]

- UK attacks Iceland somewhere around 1941-1942. It makes absolutely no sense... why would they do that while being one of the only allies power remaining?

But the UK did invade Iceland in 1940:

British invasion of Iceland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[GabrielViolet]

UK invaded Iceland IRL too (Operation Fork), to prevent germans do the same and got naval base in north atlantic, so it's ok. But it should happened in may 1940, not 1942. And makes no sence after fall of France, because germans got all that nice french ports for subs operations.

In my games San Salvador joined Japan when I got Tokyo and was 1% to capitulate, and after Japan capitulated become major, so war still continued. And it's the hell to invade Salvador, rushed for nukes for this. It's no way to naval invade 20 divs in one province for 2 province minor. So it's really good idea to prevent nations to join on loosing side, but it should have some conditions (loosing side AI only, most countries are capitulated, total loses, relative strength, common enemies, ideology etc). WWII in early stage was loosing for Allies, so without those conditions USA should not join the Allies.

And yed game need some regulation mechanism to guide world in some direction. But not "custodian" from Stellaris, it's so op. It's better to implement conferences system (Cairo, Tehran, Yalta, etc) and proto-UN system, with actually forming the UN.

 

[Fulmen]

The British and subsequent American occupation of Iceland and Greenland would be better modelled as events that simply transfer them first to the UK and then to the US, free of local resistance. This is how it worked in HoI2. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall in HoI4 the UK never even gets Greenland and neither territories get transferred to the US at any point.

The UK declaring war also means that she and all those that join her in the war get slapped with the offensive war modifier. That's a -30% debuff to war support. I can assure you the people of the Allied countries did not care that much about the morality of the Allies occupying Iceland. Or does the debuff disappear if Iceland joins the Axis upon DoW and the wars merge? Been a while since I looked at it. Either way even if it did, that still leaves Iceland with resistance, when really there shouldn't be any.

 

[Jays298]

It is a general problem with the AI taking a focus but not having troops on the border with whatever war focus it is.

In my game as Poland the USSR did that Iran focus when they had minimal troops on the Iran border, garrisons only. That was a mess for at least a year.

I always say it but I hate that the AI does victory point garrisons instead of focusing on the front lines. They programmed it this way I guess to prevent abusive paratrooper behavior, instead of just penalizing that and focusing on making the AI fight effectively.

Though if AI Iceland appoints a fascist leader, it does kind of make sense that the UK would attack.

But agree that Turkey and also Switzerland should stay out.

 

[jimkoons]

UK invaded Iceland IRL too (Operation Fork), to prevent germans do the same and got naval base in north atlantic, so it's ok. But it should happened in may 1940, not 1942. And makes no sence after fall of France, because germans got all that nice french ports for subs operations.

In my games San Salvador joined Japan when I got Tokyo and was 1% to capitulate, and after Japan capitulated become major, so war still continued. And it's the hell to invade Salvador, rushed for nukes for this. It's no way to naval invade 20 divs in one province for 2 province minor. So it's really good idea to prevent nations to join on loosing side, but it should have some conditions (loosing side AI only, most countries are capitulated, total loses, relative strength, common enemies, ideology etc). WWII in early stage was loosing for Allies, so without those conditions USA should not join the Allies.

And yed game need some regulation mechanism to guide world in some direction. But not "custodian" from Stellaris, it's so op. It's better to implement conferences system (Cairo, Tehran, Yalta, etc) and proto-UN system, with actually forming the UN.

You're right, it's the Asian Co-prosperity Sphere that San Salvador joined, my bad.

About nukes. I think I nuked Nankin 10 times. With the other Chinese cities I must have nuked that country easily 30 times. And still the Chinese fought until I conquered 95% of their victory points seeing the modifiers they had. I mean come on, being nuked that much should at least impact the threshold for the peace conference to be triggered...

 

[LordWahu]

I think the big problem the OP is calling out is the stupidity on how nations join factions, and how they declare war

There should be something in the AI that tells it "I'm losing, maybe don't open a new front", or "They're doomed even with my help, maybe I shouldn't jump in bed with them"

 

[Ilyasviel]

- And the highlight of this show: Communist China attacked the Nationalist China while still being at war with Japan. Not great not terrible but... they joined the Allies. Yep. So my final war was to fight the National China that streched up from Beijing to Irak (they rolled on India)... for the account of the communist china. I mean come on, I'm the US. McCarthy must have been turning in his grave while I was doing that playthrough.

I would like to add to this since Communist China is by far my most played country. Sometimes I like to try to go ahistorical as them to make the game harder, which includes not forming the second united front. The problem that happens then is that all the chinese countries will join a foreign faction eventually, which ruins the area forever. Typically, the minors (Sinkiang, Yunnan, Guandong) will tend to join the comintern, while China itself will join the allies. This makes any sort of proper post-war civil war impossible, because unifying the country necessarily means turning it into another great war. I noticed that this problem is worse since NSB, as they tend to join factions much earlier than before.

 

[Kadanz]

I think the big problem the OP is calling out is the stupidity on how nations join factions, and how they declare war

There should be something in the AI that tells it "I'm losing, maybe don't open a new front", or "They're doomed even with my help, maybe I shouldn't jump in bed with them"

While they're at it, they should tell Italy 'I'm losing mainland Italy, maybe I shouldn't continuously invade the isle of man' lol

 

[ltccone]

Reading this is why I play Expert AI.

 

[anbeck]

And yed game need some regulation mechanism to guide world in some direction. But not "custodian" from Stellaris, it's so op. It's better to implement conferences system (Cairo, Tehran, Yalta, etc) and proto-UN system, with actually forming the UN.

Not sure if I am misinterpreting this passage, but I think there has been a misunderstanding: The OP is not advocating for "The Custodian" (nominated by the Galactic Council) that came with the Nemesis DLC. It's rather about the Custodian Team, a dev team that specifically focuses on polishing, tweaking and improving old content. And I agree wholeheartedly that HoI4 would benefit a lot from that (I had been looking forward to Man the Guns for a long time, but it effectively made me avoid playing naval countries, which is a shame).

I've also seen a lot of weird developments on historical recently: Spain always seems to be joining the East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (I was playing as Czechoslovakia and had a lot of "fun" fighting in Borneo), I saw Communist China join the Allies, and so on. But I was never sure how much of that was simply due to me changing the course of history by capitulating Germany in 1942 or something like that. I think that an AI-only game on historical should be balanced in such a way that in the majority of playthroughs, it will reproduce historical results. But if I play Czechoslovakia and capitulate Germany, I find it hard to blame the game for not following historical developments (butterfly effect and such).

That being said, I hope there will be a Custodian team for HoI4 sooner rather than later.

 

[Telenil]

I'm not one who normally advocates for heavy scripting, but wow, that list made me cringe. Spain and Turkey joining the war should be big no-nos in Historical.

 

[Ironside112]

The British and subsequent American occupation of Iceland and Greenland would be better modelled as events that simply transfer them first to the UK and then to the US, free of local resistance. This is how it worked in HoI2. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall in HoI4 the UK never even gets Greenland and neither territories get transferred to the US at any point.

The UK declaring war also means that she and all those that join her in the war get slapped with the offensive war modifier. That's a -30% debuff to war support. I can assure you the people of the Allied countries did not care that much about the morality of the Allies occupying Iceland. Or does the debuff disappear if Iceland joins the Axis upon DoW and the wars merge? Been a while since I looked at it. Either way even if it did, that still leaves Iceland with resistance, when really there shouldn't be any.

There are work-arounds, especially using features from DLC. I think in reality an event chain to have it all function would make sense, but here's how I've modelled Operation Fork in my Britain mod so far:

Spoiler

 

[jimkoons]

There are work-arounds, especially using features from DLC. I think in reality an event chain to have it all function would make sense, but here's how I've modelled Operation Fork in my Britain mod so far:

Spoiler

View attachment 785609

Honestly this is really great! I'd love to see those kinds of event chains that use decisions & intel in vanilla! Right now I can only think about the assassination of Trotsky but it's a bummer that we do not see more of these.

Besides, I'd definitely like to see many more historical operations such as Torch somehow implemented in the game.

 

[Ironside112]

Honestly this is really great! I'd love to see those kinds of event chains that use decisions & intel in vanilla! Right now I can only think about the assassination of Trotsky but it's a bummer that we do not see more of these.

Besides, I'd definitely like to see many more historical operations such as Torch somehow implemented in the game.

I'm glad you like it! There's a lot you can do with the intel. operations, and hopefully it doesn't derail the convo too much but I haven't been able to share what I've done with anyone other than a close circle of friends, but I've spent the past couple of months doing extensive operation modding, I'll add them below

Operation Chariot (my favourite):

Spoiler

Operation Remorse:

Spoiler

Operation Anthropoid:

Spoiler

Operation Foxley:

Spoiler

Can any mods just slip me a DM if I've missed a swastika, I'm pretty sure I've got them all though!

Anyway, hopefully that shows the extent to which intel. operations can be used for historical events; that's not even considering the wacky stuff PDX could use it for. I do feel like it's been a bit of a missed opportunity so far, but the Soviet tree has shown that it does have its uses. On the topic of Torch, I do feel like that should still function as it does in game (it'd be a bit like making D-Day an operation in the same vain) solely off of the fact it's then able to be countered. Anyway, the whole NA campaign could do with some love and I'm hoping at least the AI gets better direction in a potential Italy rework just so we can see stuff like Torch and then Avalanche once Libya has fallen.

I will say however, modding them takes ages, so far they've been the longest aspect of the mod to actually do because there's a lot of GFX work, localisation, and coding events and the like so it all interacts properly, which could be a case as to why they're not more widely used.

 

[hangry]

This perfectly describes why I stopped playing hoi iv. But there is another thing about NF that makes them bad game design imho. You push a button, wait 70 days and get stuff without having to do anything most of the time. Compare that with mission trees in EU IV where you have to act and actually do something and if you accomplish it you get the bonus.

 

[Áurum]

But the UK did invade Iceland in 1940:

British invasion of Iceland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the game, Finland joins the Axis when Britain declares war on it, exactly the opposite of what the British wanted with the invasion. It doesn't make sense.

 

[LordWahu]

I'm glad you like it! There's a lot you can do with the intel. operations, and hopefully it doesn't derail the convo too much but I haven't been able to share what I've done with anyone other than a close circle of friends, but I've spent the past couple of months doing extensive operation modding, I'll add them below

Operation Chariot (my favourite):

Spoiler

View attachment 785629

Operation Remorse:

Spoiler

View attachment 785626

Operation Anthropoid:

Spoiler

View attachment 785631

Operation Foxley:

Spoiler

View attachment 785628

Can any mods just slip me a DM if I've missed a swastika, I'm pretty sure I've got them all though!

Anyway, hopefully that shows the extent to which intel. operations can be used for historical events; that's not even considering the wacky stuff PDX could use it for. I do feel like it's been a bit of a missed opportunity so far, but the Soviet tree has shown that it does have its uses. On the topic of Torch, I do feel like that should still function as it does in game (it'd be a bit like making D-Day an operation in the same vain) solely off of the fact it's then able to be countered. Anyway, the whole NA campaign could do with some love and I'm hoping at least the AI gets better direction in a potential Italy rework just so we can see stuff like Torch and then Avalanche once Libya has fallen.

I will say however, modding them takes ages, so far they've been the longest aspect of the mod to actually do because there's a lot of GFX work, localisation, and coding events and the like so it all interacts properly, which could be a case as to why they're not more widely used.

If you're releasing this as a mod, would it be possible to add an additional generic "assassinate enemy general" mission?

A repeatable mission that would allow you to remove an enemy general from play, either by adding the "wounded" trait, or eliminating them outright?

 

[Ironside112]

If you're releasing this as a mod, would it be possible to add an additional generic "assassinate enemy general" mission?

A repeatable mission that would allow you to remove an enemy general from play, either by adding the "wounded" trait, or eliminating them outright?

I did consider doing that, but for a number of reasons I've decided against it:
1. not too sure how to actually get that to happen (suppose an event that randomly picks a general is fired?)
2. As I'm mainly developing this is a SP mod (gonna make sure the AI can use it though), the AI you fight against most of the time doesn't assign generals, so would be rather ineffective.
3. It would disproportionally effect minor powers who have a smaller starting pool

The wounded trait could be a workaround of course, but I'm still not too sure how it would actually work without assigning all generals an ID to tag for
Not to mention, you'd have to get quite lucky in major countries to hit someone valuable (Germany and the UK especially have a lot of level 1 generals which would be more likely to get hit) and again, not sure if it'd be possible to check if a general is currently in play or not.

That said, I would like generals and admirals to be killable or capturable in some way or another. I think giving generals/admirals a trait for "leading from the front" or "leading from the rear" could be pretty neat, and have generals operate from the nearest owned supply depot by default or an assigned location, meaning they could be captured. For admirals, have them be assigned to a "flagship" of a fleet/task force, meaning they can die if the ship is sunk in combat (such as Tamon Yamaguchi's flagship being destroyed in the Battle of Midway).

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

For Iceland, I agree that it should be an event chain with the historic option just having Britain annex them without a fight. It doesn’t make much sense as an intelligence operation or them resisting lowering UK stability, but otherwise I like the event chain.

For Iran, the Soviets have a focus to invade Iran. They can invite the British, as historical. Iran doesn’t join a faction as long as you beat them in 1 month. Unlike real life where Iranian morale crumpled and operation lasted a week, in game it’s a much harder feat to achieve, with poor infrastructure, defencive terrain, and a halfway competent army.

For Turkey, they did historically join Allies right near the end of the war (didn’t actually fight). Issue is they take the focus too early. It should be further down their focus priority list in historical.

Spain may partly be from Nationalists being pretty strong right now and thus winning early (and do removing their debuff to joining a new faction earlier).

Although ai faction joining logic could do with some general improvements. It is important though that you don’t overtune it and end up with a situation where US never join Allies unless attacked since Allies are losing the war sort of thing happening.

As for custodian initiative, my understanding is it’s more about a dedicated bug fixing team than splitting off parts of content design.