• 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.

HOI4 Dev Diary - Bag of Tricks 2

Hi and welcome to another diary! I am home sick today, so this gives me something to do (besides suffering)! Today it’s time for another Bag of Tricks diary where we cover a couple of features that aren’t necessarily connected. Two of these do fit quite well with the expansions sub-theme of fleshing out democracies. Lets dig right in!

Expeditionary Force Requests
The Allies are made up of many nations and coordinating them can be difficult. To help with this Man the Guns adds the ability to request expeditionary forces from multiple nations directly when organizing your forces.
Screenshot_2.png


The AI will respond immediately and assign the troops to your plan if it approves. That means you can control how they get there, should you wish it.

Screenshot_3.png


It is also possible to request expeditionaries straight from an empty army. To do that click the new expeditionary army button at the bottom of the new army button:
Screenshot_1.png

Useful if you have no units in an area, but an ally i your faction does. Then you could draw a plan there and tell them what to do. AI will prefer picking troops close to the plan if they can.

The AI is pretty helpful, but will not give you more than it can spare and still ensure its home areas are safe. It will also be a bit watchful, so if you always send them ahead to die you might find that it doesn’t want to hand over as much troops anymore. Depending on what plan you draw up it will also try to send suitable units. So marines for invasions for example. This means that for the AI to know if and what it should send you must first draw up the plan before sending your request.

Note that I am talking about AI here. This action isn't available towards players. It's just a lot simpler to talk to each other and use existing expeditionary sending for that.

To be able to request expeditionaries, you must either be the faction leader (which with MTG can now change from whoever created the faction), or have subject nations as the action is also available for those. The action is available for all ideologies, but we think it fits the democratic theme the most considering the plethora of smaller nations banded together against the axis.


Supervised State
Supervised States are a new autonomy level in MTG. Designed to let democracies do puppeting in a way that suits them better, and ensures the targeted nations can't just turn around and go against them.

Screenshot_8.png


West Germany is here a supervised state set up by the British. A supervised state is not particularly oppressive, but does come with restrictions.
  • The nation is locked into masters faction.
  • They will ideologically drift towards master, and can not use other ideology ministers to affect things.
  • The master will be able to get some cheaper trade and more trade access.
A Supervised state is essentially on a timer, as they will also slowly regain autonomy, so you can not really keep them a subject forever. They also do not have any other steps and go directly to Free once they are autonomous enough. At this point restrictions drop and they are free to leave factions etc.


On-map decisions
This one is something I’ve been wanting as soon as I noticed that people wanted to be able to do state based or decisions with location. Often the interesting part of a decision is where, and huge lists of states isn't all that nice to scroll through. We actually had to restrict some stuff for Waking the Tiger because the list of states would have become unmanageable otherwise. To deal with that the 1.6 Ironclad update will also make decisions available on map as long as you have the decisions view open. Some are simply mirrored, so you can pick them in either the list or on the map, and some are only on the map. A good example of the second type is the Blackshirt Marches when turning UK towards fascism. A lot of different states with different costs make for overwhelming choice, but on the map it is quite easy to see both where and how costly they are.

map.png


Here is one of the prospecting decisions, already activated, if you control Nigeria:
map2.png


And @Bratyn 's favorite, activating the flooding defenses of Netherlands, directly on the map!

Screenshot_1.jpg


See you all next week and don’t miss out on the stream at 16:00 CET for more United Kingdom gameplay.

Rejected Titles:
- "Commonwealth, assemble!"
- HOI4, now with less giant decision lists of places you secretly don't know where they are but are too embarrassed to ask
- CLICK ALL THE THINGS
- What do you mean “A slightly less oppressed chess piece” isn’t clear art direction?
- FEATURE: Britain can now accurately represent the brilliant idea that was the Dieppe Raid
- Deliberately flooding your country is now 200% easier
- Click ~here~ to become fascist
- We are running out of chess pieces for autonomy level
- Winston Churchill has a BRILLIANT IDEA and only needs a few Colonials to do it..
- Clickbait
 
Last edited:
I am most interested in that green bar and 66 day at the very top of the first screenshot.

I assume that is estimate of how long your fuel stockpile will last.

ya. we'll have another fuel diary before release explaining more and showing UIs

There will be more changes in frontline mechanic in mtg? Once a line is penetrated actual system is very bad containing a flood of units, and I'm not talking of a tank encirculment

MTGs theme is naval + democracies. I kinda agree with you, but its definitly not in the scope for this expansion. For the future it could be tho, but no promises.

In the example provide, you requested units for a landing and got unit at 20% strength which is useless for such task.
yeah, but I also wouldnt ask for my D-day divisions from Malaysia in 1936 in a real game. I'd most likely wait for US troops to start piling in etc
 
I assume this is more a player mechanic and the AI won't use it? But if it does, would it be safe to assume naval transportation has gotten a lot of love? otherwise it would just give the AI even more units to suicide on endless and fruitless naval invasions.
 
I assume this is more a player mechanic and the AI won't use it? But if it does, would it be safe to assume naval transportation has gotten a lot of love? otherwise it would just give the AI even more units to suicide on endless and fruitless naval invasions.

as I wrote in the diary, its player to ai only.
 
yeah, but I also wouldnt ask for my D-day divisions from Malaysia in 1936 in a real game. I'd most likely wait for US troops to start piling in etc

Will AI know that I'm planning a landing and provide marines ?
Or plan an attack in the mountains and provide mountaineers if any ?

Sorry read to quickly the DD. Thanks Yigito123
 
Will AI know that I'm planning a landing and provide marines ?
Or plan an attack in the mountains and provide mountaineers if any ?
Depending on what plan you draw up it will also try to send suitable units. So marines for invasions for example. This means that for the AI to know if and what it should send you must first draw up the plan before sending your request.
So it looks like they will. At least, they will try. It IS the HoI4 AI after all, can't be too certain about anything.
 
Ohhh I think I saw invasion from one province to several provinces in the image am I wrong?
 
@podcat

Random minor request: can you add Sedan as a VP, please? It was the site of several famous battles and is in the Ardennes region, so it's a good VP to fight over.
 
Hi and welcome to another diary! I am home sick today, so this gives me something to do (besides suffering)! Today it’s time for another Bag of Tricks diary where we cover a couple of features that aren’t necessarily connected. Two of these do fit quite well with the expansions sub-theme of fleshing out democracies. Lets dig right in!

Expeditionary Force Requests
The Allies are made up of many nations and coordinating them can be difficult. To help with this Man the Guns adds the ability to request expeditionary forces from multiple nations directly when organizing your forces.
View attachment 414376

The AI will respond immediately and assign the troops to your plan if it approves. That means you can control how they get there, should you wish it.

View attachment 414377

It is also possible to request expeditionaries straight from an empty army. To do that click the new expeditionary army button at the bottom of the new army button:
View attachment 414378
Useful if you have no units in an area, but an ally i your faction does. Then you could draw a plan there and tell them what to do. AI will prefer picking troops close to the plan if they can.

The AI is pretty helpful, but will not give you more than it can spare and still ensure its home areas are safe. It will also be a bit watchful, so if you always send them ahead to die you might find that it doesn’t want to hand over as much troops anymore. Depending on what plan you draw up it will also try to send suitable units. So marines for invasions for example. This means that for the AI to know if and what it should send you must first draw up the plan before sending your request.

Note that I am talking about AI here. This action isn't available towards players. It's just a lot simpler to talk to each other and use existing expeditionary sending for that.

To be able to request expeditionaries, you must either be the faction leader (which with MTG can now change from whoever created the faction), or have subject nations as the action is also available for those. The action is available for all ideologies, but we think it fits the democratic theme the most considering the plethora of smaller nations banded together against the axis.


Supervised State
Supervised States are a new autonomy level in MTG. Designed to let democracies do puppeting in a way that suits them better, and ensures the targeted nations can't just turn around and go against them.

View attachment 414380

West Germany is here a supervised state set up by the British. A supervised state is not particularly oppressive, but does come with restrictions.
  • The nation is locked into masters faction.
  • They will ideologically drift towards master, and can not use other ideology ministers to affect things.
  • The master will be able to get some cheaper trade and more trade access.
A Supervised state is essentially on a timer, as they will also slowly regain autonomy, so you can not really keep them a subject forever. They also do not have any other steps and go directly to Free once they are autonomous enough. At this point restrictions drop and they are free to leave factions etc.


On-map decisions
This one is something I’ve been wanting as soon as I noticed that people wanted to be able to do state based or decisions with location. Often the interesting part of a decision is where, and huge lists of states isn't all that nice to scroll through. We actually had to restrict some stuff for Waking the Tiger because the list of states would have become unmanageable otherwise. To deal with that the 1.6 Ironclad update will also make decisions available on map as long as you have the decisions view open. Some are simply mirrored, so you can pick them in either the list or on the map, and some are only on the map. A good example of the second type is the Blackshirt Marches when turning UK towards fascism. A lot of different states with different costs make for overwhelming choice, but on the map it is quite easy to see both where and how costly they are.

View attachment 414383

Here is one of the prospecting decisions, already activated, if you control Nigeria:
View attachment 414384

And @Bratyn 's favorite, activating the flooding defenses of Netherlands, directly on the map!

View attachment 414382

See you all next week and don’t miss out on the stream at 16:00 CET for more United Kingdom gameplay.

Rejected Titles:
- "Commonwealth, assemble!"
- HOI4, now with less giant decision lists of places you secretly don't know where they are but are too embarrassed to ask
- CLICK ALL THE THINGS
- What do you mean “A slightly less oppressed chess piece” isn’t clear art direction?
- FEATURE: Britain can now accurately represent the brilliant idea that was the Dieppe Raid
- Deliberately flooding your country is now 200% easier
- Click ~here~ to become fascist
- We are running out of chess pieces for autonomy level
- Winston Churchill has a BRILLIANT IDEA and only needs a few Colonials to do it..
- Clickbait

Useful stuff.

Do I understand correctly that no longer can the overlord simply take control of subject units without the subject having a say in the matter? Sometimes that has actually been useful as the UK in MP if the Commonwealth player in question is particularly bad and doesn't really know how to send expeditionary forces properly.

Also, the decisions tab is still missing a hotkey assigned to it. If MtG could introduce one, that'd be nice.
 
Note that I am talking about AI here. This action isn't available towards players. It's just a lot simpler to talk to each other and use existing expeditionary sending for that.

To be able to request expeditionaries, you must either be the faction leader (which with MTG can now change from whoever created the faction), or have subject nations as the action is also available for those. The action is available for all ideologies, but we think it fits the democratic theme the most considering the plethora of smaller nations banded together against the axis.

In MP - especially for the Allies - I've often had players run the ETO and PTO rather than countries, and used expeditionary forces to allocate troops correctly between the two. Usually that means the UK player in Europe and the US player in the Pacific. Air forces are usually dealt with with an air controller player (or two) and splitting the navies between the RN in Europe and the USN in the Pacific is usually adequate.

But if there are AI allies (and there usually are at least some), then that means that they can only be summoned by one of the two players.

It might be a good idea to let a faction leader designate another player to be able to request expeditionaries from a particular AI nation (so the UK could designate Australians and New Zealanders to the US, for instance).
 
Do this mean the Montgomery will be asking for every US unit in his theater to be in his expeditionary force? :)
 
The revised expeditionary forces look like an excellent feature; I'm already planning to buy MTG because of the naval features, but this is the kind of thing that would justify buying an expansion on its own. There's an outstanding feature extension request for a 'Supreme Commander' mode that would allow players to command genuinely Allied armies; the mechanic in today's diary looks like another route to the same destination.
 
If we are starting to get more control over where to have decisions in certain states, then is it possible in the future to have far more control over where we release puppet nations? For example if I annex the entire Soviet Union, but want to release them in Siberia exclusively, I cannot. Instead, I can only release them in their entirety where I do not have cores or claims. Will we be able to choose where we release them, as well as giving them certain non-core states? The current all or nothing model seems very simplistic.