HOI4 Dev Diary - 5th Anniversary

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Maybe all the PDX developers needed was to address the "common" impression of Turkey joining the war, not the historically accurate version.

I thought they were one and the same, as the motive is rather obvious when you consider the date and the lack of fighting. I expect most people who have an inkling of WW2 don't even know Turkey joined the war at the last minute, as their lack of participation in the war is far more known.
 
Last edited:
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Maybe all the PDX developers needed was to address the "common" impression of Turkey joining the war, not the historically accurate version.
The problem with that is that when Turkey joined the war in 1945 Germany was all but defeated, they didn't even send anyone to fight.

Turkey joining during the 43-44 however is a massive difference, they open another front into Europe and additional one into Middle East and North Afrika, which basically turns the tide of war in the favour of the Allies even sooner. I wouldn't mind if they would join Allies sooner, but only if the Axis countries would start provoking them but on historical they should not join the Allies until 1945 and when Germany is well pushed towards the capitulation.
 
Last edited:
  • 9Like
Reactions:
Turkey joining the Allies in 1943-44 no matter what Germany's condition is, will be a strong deviation from realism and completely misses the point of why they joined IRL.
What annoys me most about the matter is that the German AI is not able to fight in this new front in '43 and inevitably who plays an axis power is forced to run for cover for an unplanned event: in my last game as Italy I had to withdraw divisions from North Africa (they were opposing the Anglo-Americans in Algeria) to cover Bulgaria, which alone would never have resisted to an invasion, and the occupied Levant. The second issue is the resources that are directly or not (if one offers the occupied territories to an ally) used to maintain the occupation of Turkish territories.
Now I know that starting from 1943 I will have to divert troops from the main fronts to send them to the eastern Mediterranean to be ready.
 
All this handwringing about Turkey's historical place makes me wonder what people here think Historical AI Focuses actually does. It's right there in the name, it makes the AI pick "historical" focuses in a "historical" order. Some of the suggestions for how this could have (nay, must have by moral imperative) been improved are totally beyond the scope of how historical mode functions and unprecedented in this game besides.

Turkey has a focus tree which has a focus for joining the Allies. Previously, the "historical" focus order had them pick this focus far too early. This minor change has added additional focuses to the historical order which causes Turkey to join the Allies not quite so early. You cannot seriously have expected a small-scale fix like this to have added an extremely detailed algorithm for gauging who is winning the war, the type of which the AI has trouble with even in the best of circumstances, can you?

A railroaded historical route is never going to take into account the actual situation of the game for the very simple reason that railroading explicitly means ignoring the actual situation of the game! This is what you wanted! "We want the AI to be railroaded into a historical path. No, not like that!"
 
  • 9
  • 1
Reactions:
All this handwringing about Turkey's historical place makes me wonder what people here think Historical AI Focuses actually does. It's right there in the name, it makes the AI pick "historical" focuses in a "historical" order.

The correct way to represent this would have not been by focus, but by decision.

Give Turkey a decision that becomes available once Germany reaches a surrender progress roughly corresponding to their historical situation in February 1945, somewhere around 80-90%. Another requirement would be for Turkey to not already be in a war.

Once AI Turkey clicks this decision, activate an AI strategy that prevents it from sending forces outside Turkish territory and home waters for the remainder of the war. To prevent exploiting the AI, this strategy is abandoned if another power declares war on Turkey whilst it is active, although preferably you'd still have an AI strategy active that makes AI TUR send forces to fight against its aggressor, rather than against Germany/other Axis members.

The reward of the decision would be something like political power, enough to make the temporary stability hit from war worth it, or perhaps stability as well, and better relations with certain Allied countries. Other effects would obviously be that Turkey joins the Allies and the war.

Or if this is not the desired approach, have the same decision as above, rewards and all, but abstract the formal declaration of war out completely and keep Turkey at peace in-game, replacing the state of war with a serious relations hit with Germany and an embargo to prevent trade. That might even be the best way to model it.

Either approach would have far more preferable to what the developers ended up doing.

EDIT: You could even have this remain a focus with the same requirements and effects, but I do think a decision would have been preferable.
 
Last edited:
  • 11Like
Reactions:
All this handwringing about Turkey's historical place makes me wonder what people here think Historical AI Focuses actually does. It's right there in the name, it makes the AI pick "historical" focuses in a "historical" order. Some of the suggestions for how this could have (nay, must have by moral imperative) been improved are totally beyond the scope of how historical mode functions and unprecedented in this game besides.

Turkey has a focus tree which has a focus for joining the Allies. Previously, the "historical" focus order had them pick this focus far too early. This minor change has added additional focuses to the historical order which causes Turkey to join the Allies not quite so early. You cannot seriously have expected a small-scale fix like this to have added an extremely detailed algorithm for gauging who is winning the war, the type of which the AI has trouble with even in the best of circumstances, can you?

A railroaded historical route is never going to take into account the actual situation of the game for the very simple reason that railroading explicitly means ignoring the actual situation of the game! This is what you wanted! "We want the AI to be railroaded into a historical path. No, not like that!"
No, they could literally add AI_strategy that on historical mode checks the capitulation progress of the USSR or Germany and joins the axis or allies according to that, it's not really that complex.
 
  • 5Like
Reactions:
All this handwringing about Turkey's historical place makes me wonder what people here think Historical AI Focuses actually does. It's right there in the name, it makes the AI pick "historical" focuses in a "historical" order. Some of the suggestions for how this could have (nay, must have by moral imperative) been improved are totally beyond the scope of how historical mode functions and unprecedented in this game besides.

Turkey has a focus tree which has a focus for joining the Allies. Previously, the "historical" focus order had them pick this focus far too early. This minor change has added additional focuses to the historical order which causes Turkey to join the Allies not quite so early. You cannot seriously have expected a small-scale fix like this to have added an extremely detailed algorithm for gauging who is winning the war, the type of which the AI has trouble with even in the best of circumstances, can you?
That is bs.

Nationalist Spain (Franco's path) also has focus where they can join the Axis (or the Allies) early on, yet the AI is railroaded to ignore it. I've seen Spain joining the war couple of times, but Germany was either dominating in Eastern Front or it was well passed over 1945 (i think Spain is also bugged because when they join the Axis, Franco's portrait gets swapped to his old one and ideology is flipped to fascist). Portugal also remains neutral for the enterity of the war so if your excuse is that Turkey must join the war because they have a focus in the way then you are mistaken.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
The correct way to represent this would have not been by focus, but by decision.

Give Turkey a decision that becomes available once Germany reaches a surrender progress roughly corresponding to their historical situation in February 1945, somewhere around 80-90%. Another requirement would be for Turkey to not already be in a war.

Once AI Turkey clicks this decision, activate an AI strategy that prevents it from sending forces outside Turkish territory and home waters for the remainder of the war. To prevent exploiting the AI, this strategy is abandoned if another power declares war on Turkey whilst it is active, although preferably you'd still have an AI strategy active that makes AI TUR send forces to fight against its aggressor, rather than against Germany/other Axis members.

The reward of the decision would be something like political power, enough to make the temporary stability hit from war worth it, or perhaps stability as well, and better relations with certain Allied countries. Other effects would obviously be that Turkey joins the Allies and the war.

Or if this is not the desired approach, have the same decision as above, rewards and all, but abstract the formal declaration of war out completely and keep Turkey at peace in-game, replacing the state of war with a serious relations hit with Germany and an embargo to prevent trade. That might even be the best way to model it.

Either approach would have far more preferable to what the developers ended up doing.

EDIT: You could even have this remain a focus with the same requirements and effects, but I do think a decision would have been preferable.
Hmm, you know the more I think of it the more I do actually like the idea of retrofitting a decision, similar to those retrofitted into Romania, into the Turkish tree would be a good idea (and would also potentially solve some outstanding bugs for free). I still maintain, however, that this would be orders of magnitude more work than simply adding a bunch more available focuses to the existing list and the comparison is therefore strained. They made this small change to bring the date of Turkey joining the Allies closer to history. I cannot agree that the potentially for a much higher-cost representation renders this low-cost move self-evidently worthless.

No, they could literally add AI_strategy that on historical mode checks the capitulation progress of the USSR or Germany and joins the axis or allies according to that, it's not really that complex.
It wouldn't be, except that the complaint is that historical mode has this happen too early. What else are they going to be doing until the capitulation progress reaches the specified point? When the AI runs out of focuses in its strategy plan it choses the next based on the default weightings. If you don't have Turkey commit in its baseline historical strategy plan, it will simply join a faction at random (or pseudorandom), and your capitulation progress-powered strategy plans will never even be used.

That is bs.

Nationalist Spain (Franco's path) also has focus where they can join the Axis (or the Allies) early on, yet the AI is railroaded to ignore it. I've seen Spain joining the war couple of times, but Germany was either dominating in Eastern Front or it was well passed over 1945 (i think Spain is also bugged because when they join the Axis, Franco's portrait gets swapped to his old one and ideology is flipped to fascist). Portugal also remains neutral for the enterity of the war so if your excuse is that Turkey must join the war because they have a focus in the way then you are mistaken.
Spain's focus tree has plenty of focuses to do before it has nothing left. You say it is "railroaded to ignore it" but this is precisely how this is achieved: the AI is simply scripted to take different focuses rather than Join Axis (or Allies). This is exactly the same approach you are now arguing is insufficient for Turkey. For Portugal it is even easier, since Proudly Alone is mutually exclusive with the focus that joins the Allies so Historical Portugal has no choice even once it runs out of scripted focuses. Is there an argument for revisiting the Turkish tree (as the Portuguese tree was, albeit much earlier in the piece)? Perhaps, but again you must admit that such a thing would be a far more intensive ask than simply padding out the historical focus roster so that joining the Allies happens closer to the historical date.
 
It wouldn't be, except that the complaint is that historical mode has this happen too early. What else are they going to be doing until the capitulation progress reaches the specified point? When the AI runs out of focuses in its strategy plan it choses the next based on the default weightings. If you don't have Turkey commit in its baseline historical strategy plan, it will simply join a faction at random (or pseudorandom), and your capitulation progress-powered strategy plans will never even be used.
Well, then change it so the focus gives a decision that the AI takes only when the specified requirements are met, that's it. We're not asking for the impossible, the devs could have implemented it if they had put a bit more work into it. I dislike how pdx likes putting band aids over problems instead of fixing them properly. Same thing with the recent bug that caused countries to release nations when over government capacity in EU4. Instead of fixing the problem, they gave Ming, the one country that had this issue in the starting bookmark, more government capacity.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Well, then change it so the focus gives a decision that the AI takes only when the specified requirements are met, that's it. We're not asking for the impossible, the devs could have implemented it if they had put a bit more work into it. I dislike how pdx likes putting band aids over problems instead of fixing them properly. Same thing with the recent bug that caused countries to release nations when over government capacity in EU4. Instead of fixing the problem, they gave Ming, the one country that had this issue in the starting bookmark, more government capacity.
See, that I agree with. Such a change would also involve tinkering with a somewhat-bug-prone section of the focus tree, which is in my opinion something that ought to be done anyhow (on account of it being bug-prone), but would fit nonetheless within the same structure.
 
It's not your birthday. It's the game's birthday.
Do you always ask, when joining a 5 years old birtday party: "Ok here I am. Where's my gift?" :p
Well CK2 did give out a free cosmetic DLC for the 5 year anniversary and EU4 had the biggest sale in years, PDX also gave away EU2 for free on EU's 20th anniversary, and HOI's 20th anniversary is coming next year, just sayin'.
Though personally I didn't expect any of this to be free considering the previous anniversaries.
 
About Turkey, I rank the solutions like this:
Best would be a Decision that triggered if either Axis or Allies is about to lose.
Second best would be Focus that when built on historical order would happen in 45.
Third would be for Turkey to stay neutral.
Which makes the current version worse then just having Turkey stay neutral.
The point is that while Turkey joined Allies, it didn't make any diffrence to the fighting, meaning that having it stay neutral wont change the war any.
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
The idea to add real soviet songs of the period was actually great! But I hope, that you wiil add some more soviet and russian tracks to the in-game radio. As a Russian, I find it more appropriate to hear the real songs of the Great Patriotic War than pseudo-national music of Komintern radio. I also would like you to add the Farewell of Slavianka, because this song is associated in Russia with the complicated history of the 20th century - with both world wars and the civil war. If you want to know more - here is an article from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_of_Slavianka

Some other nice russian songs of the WWII are Katyusha ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyusha_(song) ) and The Sacred War (maybe, the most appropriate song to create the atomsphere of USSR during the WWII, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_War ).
 
  • 2
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
I doubt there was much pressure for Turkey to join in 1945, I'm sure they only did it to get favours with the allies. Unfortunately, the AI handles every war like a total war and will rush units into combat instead of sitting back. Kinda felt sorry when my submarines wiped out 10% of Panama's population while they were sailling for Africa.
Thast depends on how you define pressure...

The United Nations were set up at that point, and an invitation to join depended on having declared war on Germany/Japan. That's what almost all the other war declarations in 1945 were about as well. All those declarations existed for the sole purpose of getting on the winners' good side. Most of the Central and South American nations, as well as Turkey had no interest in fighting an actual war. They only joined because there were no consequences. They didn't have to fight, and they didn't have to fear the wrath of the Axis, as the Axis was down and out. Thus it makes no sense for Turkey to be set on a path that leads to war, unless the war is all but over. Keeping them neutral is way more historic (and that's what we are talking about here, the historic focuses) than having them join the war in 1943/44, or having them join any side before the war is decided.
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions: