So this is an idea I have been toying with for a few weeks and have decided to put to the HoI4 community openly having discussed it with a few people privately already.
HoI4 is promising to be an amazing game, with a new and completely different naval combat system, an improved AI a great new construction/IC system and huge mod support.
However, it won't tickle the realism itch of certain players and I'm proposing a mod that builds on these new features to create a deeper and hopefully more historical feel to the game.
It's probably early pitching a mod before release but we have seen a LOT of gameplay and a number of projects have already been discussed here on the forums.
This will be a multi-year project, no doubt, it is ambitious and I am open to anyone who wants to help although a few people have offered to help me out already.
I'm also not immune to criticism, if you don't like anything here for any reason then tell me. With that said, if you are one of those people who hates micro-management the mod might not be for you, any new feature has to be managed and I will try to implement everything as elegantly as possible so as not to be tedious, but it will all have to be 'managed'.
Prerequisite mods will be a working fuel mod, which I will hopefully be able to help @Commissar Yossarian with.
I'd also love to incorporate a good OOB mod, but won't be making it myself because, frankly, I dont know where I would even start.
Mod Features:
Overhaul of Manufacturing and War economy:
Production buildings split into Steelworks, Small engine factories, Large engine factories, Small arms factories, Heavy Armament factories, Military Factories, Civilian factories and Dockyards.
Steelworks: Produce Tank Chassis and Hull parts for ships, Airplane fuselages etc
Small engine factories: Engines for Tanks, Planes, Mechanized/motorized Vehicles and SP-Guns
Large Engine Factories: Ship engine production
Small arms Factories: Rifles, Smgs, Machine guns, Auto-cannons for planes and mechanized vehicles, mortars, anti-tank rifles etc
Heavy Armaments factories: Artillery, Tank turrets/guns, AT guns, Naval guns
Dockyard: Assemble ships.
Military Factories: Assemble constituent parts into tanks, mechanized vehicles, infantry equipment, planes etc
Civilian factories: Produce other kinds of factories.
There will be a complete rebalancing of global economies into somewhat historical lines too, as, currently, Hungary has an industrial economy about 30% the size of the UK's and an armaments industry about 42% the size. Which means currently blobbing is far far too tempting, especially when extra-factional nations have no GiE.
Equipment and combat overhauls:
Infantry equipment would be split into various types of small arms. SMGs and assault rifles would be late game standard while early game it would be smg's and bolt or semi-auto carbines. The SMGs would win in forest and urban fighting, while Carbines win in longer range conflict, so planes hills desert and grassland. Not going to give different stats to different nations for balance reasons.
Tanks: The same tank chassis can have different guns, Sherman firefly for example was a Sherman Chassis and Engine with a British QF-17pounder gun. This would allow modular building like this.
This will continue with Spitfire variants etc.
The hope is to make modular equipment so you can produce spitfire fuselages and fit them with better weapons and engines as time goes on. We will keep the variant system for 'tweaking' a build, for example the spitfire Mk.IX had clipped wings for more agility. Different parts will hopefully produce different end stats. New chassis/parts will be unlocked via research, which brings me to;
Research overhaul:
We want to keep the new linear system of researching the next incremental design for a unit type. the idea will be you research a new design, then upgraded parts for this design, then another new design. This is logical because the general design of the spitfire did not change dramatically between the Mk.II and the Mk.XIV however the armaments and engines were completely different. We may include short fuselage upgrades that improve the effectiveness of the existing fuselage without requiring a new production line. For most designs the sub-techs will be armament and engine techs, all of which must be completed before moving to the next overall design (chassis/fuselage design). Certain techs may unlock multiple fuselages and Chassis where different planes/tanks were designed at the same time using similar design principles but had significantly different fuselages or chassis.
Another area to look into will be doctrines, the idea being that there will be some doctrines available from each line to all nations however after a certain point they become mutually exclusive. Advanced nations will begin without any mutually exclusive techs in this but will have techs veering in one direction or another. Doctrines to be rebalanced.
Things like damage control training and fire control training to be looked into. Morale boosting techs to also be looked into as training techs. All of this will depend on how easy it is to make meaningful but balanced techs.
National Unity Overhaul:
National unity is pretty irrelevant as most nations, by the time you lose a major VP it is probably too late to turn the war around. Unless you are the soviet union of course. So a big priority will be making National Unity Great Again by making it effect the morale of armies, the maximum efficiency achievable by a production line, the rate of factory construction and conversion and a myriad of other things. This is to model the way Nations like Britain, Germany and Japan were able to completely mobilize their nations for the war effort while the USA, Canada, Italy and Australia struggled to do the same as the war wasn't really theirs.
If Japan attacks Pearl Harbour USA will get a big NU boost. If not, a USA player will struggle to join a war if not attacked themselves and will be almost unable to start one, even if they do they will suffer NU hits due to divided population. This is partly for balance, mostly for realism.
If you are a nation with high NU you will get combat bonuses as occupation progress increases and full state emergency mode kicks in. NU above 80% seems reasonable, will see about balancing it later. This is mostly for Japan and the SU who become more and more ferocious and determined as the war went against them, as opposed to Italy or China who folded. This Occupation progress would amplify some of the effects high NU already gave those nations, we may tailor the effects to be nation specific in the case of Japan and the SU and more generic for other nations.
A Rework of National Focii for more variety while still remaining historically plausible. USA, Canada and Australia for example will be able to move their industry west/east (for USA and Canada) or North/South (for Australia) in the even of a mainland Invasion similar to how the Soviets moved their industry to Siberia. I will of course add many focii related to the new manufacturing system. So BSA company for example will be a huge small arms hub not a military factory, I will look into specifics of the British Rearmament program for historical reasons. will do the same for other Nations afterwards. If good NF mods come out I will try and adapt them with the authors permission rather than make one from scratch. The goal will be to keep historically accurate NF but remove blatantly A-historical paths and give nations more variety in their National focuses within the boundaries of Historical Plausibility.
All of this is right now conjecture and I don't know if all of these features can be added, particularly the modular vehicles. The different terrain modifiers for different equipment can be done as confirmed in the Mod stream and adding new factory types should not be an issue however, the biggest concern is whether or not we can make a factory input the output of another factory. There is also the problem of DLCs potentially breaking features, but that is a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.
I don't expect to begin work on this until at least Christmas as I still have a lot of research to do on German and British Armament industries and I have pledged my time to getting a working fuel mod together.
HoI4 is promising to be an amazing game, with a new and completely different naval combat system, an improved AI a great new construction/IC system and huge mod support.
However, it won't tickle the realism itch of certain players and I'm proposing a mod that builds on these new features to create a deeper and hopefully more historical feel to the game.
It's probably early pitching a mod before release but we have seen a LOT of gameplay and a number of projects have already been discussed here on the forums.
This will be a multi-year project, no doubt, it is ambitious and I am open to anyone who wants to help although a few people have offered to help me out already.
I'm also not immune to criticism, if you don't like anything here for any reason then tell me. With that said, if you are one of those people who hates micro-management the mod might not be for you, any new feature has to be managed and I will try to implement everything as elegantly as possible so as not to be tedious, but it will all have to be 'managed'.
Prerequisite mods will be a working fuel mod, which I will hopefully be able to help @Commissar Yossarian with.
I'd also love to incorporate a good OOB mod, but won't be making it myself because, frankly, I dont know where I would even start.
Mod Features:
Overhaul of Manufacturing and War economy:
Production buildings split into Steelworks, Small engine factories, Large engine factories, Small arms factories, Heavy Armament factories, Military Factories, Civilian factories and Dockyards.
Steelworks: Produce Tank Chassis and Hull parts for ships, Airplane fuselages etc
Small engine factories: Engines for Tanks, Planes, Mechanized/motorized Vehicles and SP-Guns
Large Engine Factories: Ship engine production
Small arms Factories: Rifles, Smgs, Machine guns, Auto-cannons for planes and mechanized vehicles, mortars, anti-tank rifles etc
Heavy Armaments factories: Artillery, Tank turrets/guns, AT guns, Naval guns
Dockyard: Assemble ships.
Military Factories: Assemble constituent parts into tanks, mechanized vehicles, infantry equipment, planes etc
Civilian factories: Produce other kinds of factories.
There will be a complete rebalancing of global economies into somewhat historical lines too, as, currently, Hungary has an industrial economy about 30% the size of the UK's and an armaments industry about 42% the size. Which means currently blobbing is far far too tempting, especially when extra-factional nations have no GiE.
Equipment and combat overhauls:
Infantry equipment would be split into various types of small arms. SMGs and assault rifles would be late game standard while early game it would be smg's and bolt or semi-auto carbines. The SMGs would win in forest and urban fighting, while Carbines win in longer range conflict, so planes hills desert and grassland. Not going to give different stats to different nations for balance reasons.
Tanks: The same tank chassis can have different guns, Sherman firefly for example was a Sherman Chassis and Engine with a British QF-17pounder gun. This would allow modular building like this.
This will continue with Spitfire variants etc.
The hope is to make modular equipment so you can produce spitfire fuselages and fit them with better weapons and engines as time goes on. We will keep the variant system for 'tweaking' a build, for example the spitfire Mk.IX had clipped wings for more agility. Different parts will hopefully produce different end stats. New chassis/parts will be unlocked via research, which brings me to;
Research overhaul:
We want to keep the new linear system of researching the next incremental design for a unit type. the idea will be you research a new design, then upgraded parts for this design, then another new design. This is logical because the general design of the spitfire did not change dramatically between the Mk.II and the Mk.XIV however the armaments and engines were completely different. We may include short fuselage upgrades that improve the effectiveness of the existing fuselage without requiring a new production line. For most designs the sub-techs will be armament and engine techs, all of which must be completed before moving to the next overall design (chassis/fuselage design). Certain techs may unlock multiple fuselages and Chassis where different planes/tanks were designed at the same time using similar design principles but had significantly different fuselages or chassis.
Another area to look into will be doctrines, the idea being that there will be some doctrines available from each line to all nations however after a certain point they become mutually exclusive. Advanced nations will begin without any mutually exclusive techs in this but will have techs veering in one direction or another. Doctrines to be rebalanced.
Things like damage control training and fire control training to be looked into. Morale boosting techs to also be looked into as training techs. All of this will depend on how easy it is to make meaningful but balanced techs.
National Unity Overhaul:
National unity is pretty irrelevant as most nations, by the time you lose a major VP it is probably too late to turn the war around. Unless you are the soviet union of course. So a big priority will be making National Unity Great Again by making it effect the morale of armies, the maximum efficiency achievable by a production line, the rate of factory construction and conversion and a myriad of other things. This is to model the way Nations like Britain, Germany and Japan were able to completely mobilize their nations for the war effort while the USA, Canada, Italy and Australia struggled to do the same as the war wasn't really theirs.
If Japan attacks Pearl Harbour USA will get a big NU boost. If not, a USA player will struggle to join a war if not attacked themselves and will be almost unable to start one, even if they do they will suffer NU hits due to divided population. This is partly for balance, mostly for realism.
If you are a nation with high NU you will get combat bonuses as occupation progress increases and full state emergency mode kicks in. NU above 80% seems reasonable, will see about balancing it later. This is mostly for Japan and the SU who become more and more ferocious and determined as the war went against them, as opposed to Italy or China who folded. This Occupation progress would amplify some of the effects high NU already gave those nations, we may tailor the effects to be nation specific in the case of Japan and the SU and more generic for other nations.
A Rework of National Focii for more variety while still remaining historically plausible. USA, Canada and Australia for example will be able to move their industry west/east (for USA and Canada) or North/South (for Australia) in the even of a mainland Invasion similar to how the Soviets moved their industry to Siberia. I will of course add many focii related to the new manufacturing system. So BSA company for example will be a huge small arms hub not a military factory, I will look into specifics of the British Rearmament program for historical reasons. will do the same for other Nations afterwards. If good NF mods come out I will try and adapt them with the authors permission rather than make one from scratch. The goal will be to keep historically accurate NF but remove blatantly A-historical paths and give nations more variety in their National focuses within the boundaries of Historical Plausibility.
All of this is right now conjecture and I don't know if all of these features can be added, particularly the modular vehicles. The different terrain modifiers for different equipment can be done as confirmed in the Mod stream and adding new factory types should not be an issue however, the biggest concern is whether or not we can make a factory input the output of another factory. There is also the problem of DLCs potentially breaking features, but that is a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.
I don't expect to begin work on this until at least Christmas as I still have a lot of research to do on German and British Armament industries and I have pledged my time to getting a working fuel mod together.
- 6
- 4
