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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.
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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.

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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:
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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.

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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.

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Here is one of the prospecting decisions, already activated, if you control Nigeria:
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And @Bratyn 's favorite, activating the flooding defenses of Netherlands, directly on the map!

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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
 
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That would cost too much political power and also Brian Horrocks is in the game and I have his portrait right now.
I take 50 pp being "too much" as an exaggeration to say the least. Even if it is seen as an issue, one can simply & easily petition the devs to allow experience to be used when recruiting new commanders instead. Finally, unless someone is cheating-in new divisions, one shouldn't need to go about recruiting new commanders straight of the bat as UK - especially when considering that it already has approximately 23 commanders at its disposal in 36'.
 
Finally, a real D-Day in SP.

Despite my disagreements with some ways the game is going, thank you for at least showing you guys are listening to what we want for this game.
 
@AjayAlcos While the army experience method does sound pretty good I must say that the cost for a nation with 23 commanders is quite high as I would like to get some advisors too and I would like to have all of those Generals at some point (the cost increases by 25 pp each leader so that is quite costly) so maybe they could introduce a new system that introduces certain historical leaders (not all of them) at the correct date to slowly get new leaders and not have to use around 200 pp and up for a new General and I always need some more leaders as the U.K. because of the multiple front management and the new Field Marshal system but of course countries like Italy need new leaders much more than the U.K. but since this has the U.K. involved I was wondering.
 
@AjayAlcos While the army experience method does sound pretty good I must say that the cost for a nation with 23 commanders is quite high as I would like to get some advisors too and I would like to have all of those Generals at some point (the cost increases by 25 pp each leader so that is quite costly) so maybe they could introduce a new system that introduces certain historical leaders (not all of them) at the correct date to slowly get new leaders and not have to use around 200 pp and up for a new General and I always need some more leaders as the U.K. because of the multiple front management and the new Field Marshal system but of course countries like Italy need new leaders much more than the U.K. but since this has the U.K. involved I was wondering.

That does sound quite sensible.

Mayhaps instead of introducing generals however at a certain date, said figures can instead be procured at a reduced cost whenever a division/unit reaches
Seasoned.png
"seasoned" experience with costs being further reduced in the calculus for units that have reached
Veterans.png
"veteran" status. There are of course many ways the devs can go about this, and you aren't the only one who wishes to see a greater quantity of military leaders in the game. The problem ultimately arises with implementing it in a way that ensures the game remains balanced & enjoyable, as well as maintaining some consensus in that the base-game remains tied to its historical roots.

Another halfway measure (that may or may not incorporate the 1st proposal) would be to implement the "ace" system found in the air branch for army/navy branches, which would allow certain officers (such as the ones you've posited) to attach themselves to a single division/ship and exert a strong bonus to that particular unit or potentially others within the same area of operations. After gaining a sufficient degree of experience said "ace" can then promote to "field army command" and thus become an ordinary "lieutenant general", "vice admiral" or even "air marshal" (should Paradox decide to implement a command-system for the air branch) as depicted in the game.

All in all, there are numerous routes the devs could partake in when it comes further fleshing out the game - fluff-wise as well as mechanic-wise.
 
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:
Also it would be good to create army template from empty army, and put an order to fill it with certain type of divisions, from unassigned ones, or from available expeditionary forces, or from building new divisions. What do u think?
 
Supervised states in particular are a nice addition for democracies, hopefully the AI will make use of it in peace conferences.

In regards to prospecting decisions, have any new ones been added?
 
Should supervised states need to ask their "master" for permission to embargo, go to war, participate in lend-lease, send volunteers, etc.?
 
I'm at odds trying to find the proper thread, but here goes.

I have HOI4 and HOI3 but mainly play HOI2 'Darkest Hour' which perhaps categorizes me. I love what the new engine(s) are doing with regards to map and weather detailed textures(including Jomini) however I have trouble accepting these giant figures to represent units. I have played boardgames my whole life, and the idea of this representation is pretty much a non-starter as much as I love the game. The fact they're animated while chewing up 3d resources just seems such a waste. But i'm not here to criticize. I love this game.

It would be wonderful if the Dev team would find it possible to add NATO counters; if not stacked, then numbered(Clear, square counters) . I don't need animation. If there was an area I thought could have more detail(and not necessarily, I love the game) It would be in the number of provinces and perhaps missions/dispositions. I don't want to design my divisions. I just want to lead my country through time with the equipment and organizations it historically had. There's a bit too much bean-counting in HOI4 for me.

Diplomacy and economy were both perfectly complex enough for me in HOI2(Darkest Hour). Where HOI(all titles) could improve the most I feel is in the area of accommodating multiplayer games. Gameranger alone is not enough. I want to be able to select players based on criteria I want. This game can be played at many speeds and the only constant is that they require long sessions. I have to find players that are compatible.
 
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I'm at odds trying to find the proper thread, but here goes.

I have HOI4 and HOI3 but mainly play HOI2 'Darkest Hour' which perhaps categorizes me. I love what the new engine(s) are doing with regards to map and weather detailed textures(including Jomini) however I have trouble accepting these giant figures to represent units. I have played boardgames my whole life, and the idea of this representation is pretty much a non-starter as much as I love the game. The fact they're animated while chewing up 3d resources just seems such a waste. But i'm not here to criticize. I love this game.

It would be wonderful if the Dev team would find it possible to add NATO counters; if not stacked, then numbered(Clear, square counters) . I don't need animation. If there was an area I thought could have more detail(and not necessarily, I love the game) It would be in the number of provinces and perhaps missions/dispositions. I don't want to design my divisions. I just want to lead my country through time with the equipment and organizations it historically had. There's a bit too much bean-counting in HOI4 for me.

Diplomacy and economy were both perfectly complex enough for me in HOI2(Darkest Hour). Where HOI(all titles) could improve the most I feel is in the area of accommodating multiplayer games. Gameranger alone is not enough. I want to be able to select players based on criteria I want. This game can be played at many speeds and the only constant is that they require long sessions. I have to find players that are compatible.

Eh, Darkest Hour is obsolete now. It was a great game that I have over 400 hours in, but it had severe limitations which lead to some extremely unrealistic situations occurring.

The other thing is that NATO counters are already in HoI4.
 
That does sound quite sensible.

Mayhaps instead of introducing generals however at a certain date, said figures can instead be procured at a reduced cost whenever a division/unit reaches
Seasoned.png
"seasoned" experience with costs being further reduced in the calculus for units that have reached
Veterans.png
"veteran" status. There are of course many ways the devs can go about this, and you aren't the only one who wishes to see a greater quantity of military leaders in the game. The problem ultimately arises with implementing it in a way that ensures the game remains balanced & enjoyable, as well as maintaining some consensus in that the base-game remains tied to its historical roots.

Another halfway measure (that may or may not incorporate the 1st proposal) would be to implement the "ace" system found in the air branch for army/navy branches, which would allow certain officers (such as the ones you've posited) to attach themselves to a single division/ship and exert a strong bonus to that particular unit or potentially others within the same area of operations. After gaining a sufficient degree of experience said "ace" can then promote to "field army command" and thus become an ordinary "lieutenant general", "vice admiral" or even "air marshal" (should Paradox decide to implement a command-system for the air branch) as depicted in the game.

All in all, there are numerous routes the devs could partake in when it comes further fleshing out the game - fluff-wise as well as mechanic-wise.
All excellent ideas mate. I love the idea with the system of assigning a person that is somewhat prominent in a division or say maybe he is a Colonel or something and his actions in combat and leadership skills as well as the way in which he treats his men that in turn makes his men more efficient (or the shorter version being he gets promoted). I am just worried about the cost for getting those great Generals for a country like the United Kingdom specifically as the cost for getting a new General for them with no cost reduction is 525 pp and that is a lot of pp for you to spend for Achievement mode Normal and up (I didn't think of doing the math on the cost for the U.K. in the previous comment but I did this time and I was quite shocked at the cost to get more Generals and the U.K. along with a lot of nations will need more Admirals with this new update).