HOI4 Bonus Diary! - Modding & 1.9 Patchlog

[blahmaster6k]

That moment when the patch is called after the event that is linked to the country which did not get its focus tree...

As for the history logger, it is a bit worrisome that Germany gets defeated already in 44...

They've posted several save games in the AI Dev Diary, Sometimes Germany gets defeated in 46, sometimes 49, and I'm assuming it wins sometimes too, though I don't remember. I'm honestly very happy to see a patch where there is big variance in how games play out and especially where the allies are capable of winning(as historically happened and almost nothing Germany did could have changed this outcome). Almost anything is better than "Germany breaks the USSR's army as a fighting force in 1942, then slowly beats back untrained and under-equipped Soviet infantry towards the Urals until they capitulate in 1944/5 every single game if the player does not intervene.

 

[Calle]

I’m struggling to understand how hard it can be to fix the ship module bug.

 

[Admiral Ciprian]

@CraniumMuppet @podcat

Hello! and Cheers for another patch/dlc update to my preferred game. A few weeks ago i saw Daniel and Cranium Muppet playing La Resistance and i said to them something about Special Forces (Paratroopers especially) to be used/assigned for special operations with the brand new espionage system. As we speak the Paratroopers have nothing special added to them other than just paradrop somewhere. What i had in mind is a new mechanics in which you assigned a special division for example 101st Airborne Division a special tag like capital ships have "Pride of the Fleet" and be assigned in conjunction with espionage system for various specific missions like saving the captured spy/spies, so instead of using another operative why not send a dedicated military division as paratroopers ( a special divisions like SS from Himler in Germany) to rescue thus not blowing the cover of your espionage. The current system is more likely of a Cold War system rather than WWII operations but at least got implemented in the game so for now we can add tweaks and improvements to it.

Many best wishes! Looking for the next dlc and possibly Hearts of Iron V

 

[Leinad965]

Is that supply zone in China fixed ?

"- Gannan has been moved into the same supply region as the rest of XSM"

 

[MadDog64jr]

Please FIX towed rocket artillery and motorized rocket artillery on the left side of mobile warfare doctrine specifically Mobile Infantry there should be no reason for towed and motorized rocket artillery to be slower then towed anti tank and towed artillery.

 

[Zyrox]

Nice

 

[Mister Analyst]

@podcat

Thank you and your team for the effort and creativity to deliver this long awaited DLC and patch!

How are the air superiority balance changes affecting the red/yellow/green color indicators for air regions? Were many tests conducted to insure that paratrooper drops, port strikes, and nukes could still be reasonably obtained?

Also, do you think that there is any merit to changing the yellow to green color threshold from 60% to 70% so that it matches the paradrop minimum air superiority (70%) and gets much closer to the nuke drop minimum air superiority (75%)? How about allowing a player to click a radio button of an air region to toggle the green color threshold/priority to match the minimum superiority needed for "default" (60%), "paradrop" (70%), "nuke drop" (75%)? This might be nice to have as a player could see at a glance if a region is enabled instead of constantly checking.

 

[TorAndreKongelf]

Thanks alot for the job you do. Its amazing as always. Can't wait for the expansion.

I have been asking for this in every patch notes thread since first DLC:

Gerd von Rundstedt, Gunther von Kluge and Walter Model werent Field Marshals in 1936.

In the division designer the artillery unit has the amount of guns of a regiment, but its Manpower size is the same as a Battalion.

The division designer only has room for 5 support Battalions at division Level so you cant support the amount of historical of support units in a division.

In the game a Field Marshal can manage up to 5 armygroups instead of the historical 3. And historically an army Commander had a max of 12 divisions. (USSR is a radical exception)

Why the AI can put 39 divisions in a tiny province and attack With no penalty or supply issues is Beyond me.

Sorry for the uneccesary Capital letters. Don't know why it happens.

 

[currylambchop]

@podcat have you considered adding a stealth modifier to all naval terrain in the Pacific that is affected by the carrier night time bug, that just increases carrier sortie rate in the Pacific? It would be a good bandaid before the bug is patched properly.

EDIT: There was another good suggestion for a temporary fix to this bug:

If they change the sortie times to, say, 0300 0900 1500 2100, it should result in 2 sorties a day anywhere in the world.

 

[Áurum]

Unfortunately, don't count on this happening anytime soon.

Podcat described this as a "huge undertaking" on Twitter(Note: use of quotes here denote his exact words). Frankly, I'd expect to see this maybe two years from now. It seems we get about two new systems per expansion, following the new model established by Man the Guns. We get one free with the update, and one exclusive to the DLC. In Man the Guns, this free component was the fuel system, and the paid component was the naval rework. In La Resistance, occupation and resistance rework is the free system, while intelligence is the paid one.

A huge issue with the game right now is the AI's inability to handle supply. Also even just from a competitive MP and singleplayer standpoint, many players have requested fleshed out logistics. I believe a logistics and supply rework will come before a peace deal rework. So, in following the model, it's likely that the free system added in the NEXT DLC after La Resistance will be a supply and logistics overhaul, with the paid component being either a defensive/land warfare overhaul, or wunderwaffen(the odd one out will be the paid component of the following DLC I predict). As such, then it would logically follow that the free rework in the DLC following the next one will be peace conferences. If the current trend holds, and without an increase in the size of the HoI 4 team we have no reason to expect it to change, that would place a supply/logistic rework to about one year from now, and a peace conference rework to about two years from now. This is my prediction, at least.

The problem is that right now, GER annexing all of SOV will probably cause enormous resistance and will weaken GER a lot. There should be a white peace with SOV in the Urals and maybe fragment SOV in many tags, this is not difficult nor time-consuming to do.

- Superior Firepower tech soft attack bonus changed from 20% to 10%
- Shock and Awe tech soft attack gets an additional 5% soft attack to all fighting battalions
- Mobile Defense tech defense bonus changed from 20% to 10%

Interesting, I like that SF is slightly nerfed so that other doctrines may be better, SF was better in most cases so I hope there's more variety now.

- lowered base mil factory output by 10%

This should reduce unit spam, fine.

- Austria Hungary now gets -40% tension needed for justification

Now it's much more playable, fine.

- changed IC cost of infantry equipment 0 to 0.43
- lowered IC cost of infantry equipment 2 to 0.58
- lowered IC cost of infantry equipment 3 to 0.69

Interesting, which were the previous values?

- Event button items are disabled for 0.3 seconds

OH GOD THANK YOU

 

[General Von Trapp]

Gerd von Rundstedt, Gunther von Kluge and Walter Model werent Field Marshals in 1936

Neither was our beloved Monty. Really quick fix as well, it's not as if it matters about the CP... It's hardly anything.

 

[valentin4]

Thanks alot for the job you do. Its amazing as always. Can't wait for the expansion.

I have been asking for this in every patch notes thread since first DLC:

Gerd von Rundstedt, Gunther von Kluge and Walter Model werent Field Marshals in 1936.

In the division designer the artillery unit has the amount of guns of a regiment, but its Manpower size is the same as a Battalion.

The division designer only has room for 5 support Battalions at division Level so you cant support the amount of historical of support units in a division.

In the game a Field Marshal can manage up to 5 armygroups instead of the historical 3. And historically an army Commander had a max of 12 divisions. (USSR is a radical exception)

Why the AI can put 39 divisions in a tiny province and attack With no penalty or supply issues is Beyond me.

Sorry for the uneccesary Capital letters. Don't know why it happens.

All this is WAD, these are acceptable compromises between gameplay and historicity.

 

[Orlunu]

All this is WAD, these are acceptable compromises between gameplay and historicity.

No, several of these are not "compromises between gameplay and historicity". I can see examples of both cases of pure flavour - where no gameplay impact is involved - and cases where both the gameplay and the historicity are being hurt by the same bad decision. Just vaguely waving the concerns off like that would be a pretty lacking piece of argumentation anyway, but when compounded by being wrong it is even worse.

 

[DDRussian]

I've had a few questions about the new systems:

How will the resistance system work if multiple countries have claims or cores on a state? Especially if one of them controls that state?
Now that some resistance is tied to off-screen countries, can governments-in-exile for such countries be formed outside of wars?

 

[sekelsenmat]

Gerd von Rundstedt, Gunther von Kluge and Walter Model werent Field Marshals in 1936.

I prefer like it is now, otherwise it is a pitfall for people who don't know who got promoted when in ww2.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Not a modder, but this stuff looks like it will be really helpful for the modding community.

 

[pvt.conners]

Interesting, which were the previous values?

0.40 for IE 0, 0.60 for IE 2 and 0.70 for IE 3. Minor adjustments all in all.

 

[Leinad965]

0.40 for IE 0, 0.60 for IE 2 and 0.70 for IE 3. Minor adjustments all in all.

Minor? Factory output -10% and IE0 price +8% means almost 20% less IE0 weapons for small countries.

 

[Federkiel]

Thanks for this dev diary! I appreciate it very much to find several matters that were brought up recently are actually being adressed by the upcoming patch. In effect, my stance towards the expansion in general gets more positive since i can make out a renewed tendency of the dev team actively following our discussions and trying to tend issues that matter for us.

As of yet, we have to find out the real value of the expansion itself. But at least my interest got an important spark as hopes for improvement of the game live up again. Hopefully AI GER does not become a pushover again - crumbling without all too much external pressure - as it was boring to play against them until 1.5.

 

[fighting_falcon93]

Hmm, I don't like some of those changes in the patch log...

- "Superior Firepower tech soft attack bonus changed from 20% to 10%"
Last patch you nerfed it and now you're nerfing it again? Why are your nerfing SF rather than buffing the doctrines that you consider inferior to it? For example, MW could get lower fuel consumption and GP could gain entrenchment while in reserves. I don't have any good idea for MA right now.
The whole point of SF is to have better soft attack, if the difference between having SF or not is down to just 30-40 soft attack per division, then why even bother with it? Not to mention that doctines take a lot of time to research, combined with having a research tree overstuffed with a lot of things and only 5 research slots, this means that if the doctrines become worse players will stop prioritizing them.

- "Made the lack of fuel penalty on torpedoes -80% rather than -50%"
Why messing around with illogical penalties when you could just make planes and ships unable to do their missions if there's no fuel? Where's the logic in a nation running out of fuel, but still having every 4th plane in the air and every 5th torpedo in the water? What's the point in even adding fuel into the game if you're not going to model it correctly?
Right now it feels like things cost way too much fuel (3 tank divisions alone can eat up 1900 fuel), but if you run out of fuel, the penalties are quite forgiving. It should be the other way around. Most nations should atleast afford to have a few tanks and planes, but if they run out of fuel, the penalties should be really harsh (as in, all planes stay on ground, all ships stay in port).

- "lowered screen ratio for navies from 4 to 3"
If you made changes to screens, why not fix the issue where carriers get shot by enemy capital ships if you have no capital ships but still screens in the battle? You're basically forcing players to use capital ships when in reality it would be sufficient to only have carriers and screens.

Some other really important issues are also missing from the patch log. For example, we still need to use multiple air ports to drop multiple paratrooper orders in parallel, otherwise they drop sequentially. We still can't delete divisions of a puppet (in the case the AI made a bad division that we want to free up the manpower from). We still can't force a puppet to change laws (more manpower, other trade law, etc). We still can't de-construct buildings like ports, forts, radars, etc. There's still a constant lack of political power (so many things that cost it, but we only gain 1 per day with focuses). The AI is still doing a lot of dumb things. And the list goes on.

On the other hand, it's nice that the air zone in France has got a bit smaller. Although most air zones are still waaay too big...