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2021? Damn, we are in the future now boys and girls!

I wanted to write this diary because it feels like it's been a really long time since we chatted. Well I guess it wasn’t that long actually but 2020 has definitely made everything feel like its taken forever ;D

2020 has probably been the most challenging year so far for the team since release. The COVID-19 situation really messes with your wellbeing, even if your life normally is chilling inside with your cat and computer games so I hope you are all taking care of yourselves. Looking back I think we overestimated direct impacts to work efficiency and absolutely underestimated impacts to mental health and general well being - things that are also incredibly important for doing a good job and being productive, as well as helping to onboard new members to a team. We have absolutely been impacted, and as a result I want to be pretty clear that you should not expect the next big expansion to drop before summer this year, which is what I was planning before COVID hit us right after La Resistance dropped.
I know a lot of you have been asking about dates for diaries to start up and for us to show stuff again, but you are going to have to wait a bit longer for that. I can say though that the expansion we are brewing up is gonna be pretty sweet I think and focus on a lot of things people have been wishing for :)

So, given that there was no PDXCON last year, where I normally do this, I felt I should take this opportunity to drop some statistics on you all…

Player Counts
With COVID keeping us all inside we and I suspect a lot of the rest of the gaming industry has seen a lot more players than normal playing. I know personally I have gotten a lot more gaming in. It's going to be interesting to see if there is a dip once our lives go back to normal again (whenever that may be).

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Top Mods
I am just highlighting the biggest total conversion mods here, and % numbers are based off daily player numbers.

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I think the standout here is TNO having jumped up in popularity quite rapidly during the year so congrats to the team behind that! Also feel free to chime in in comments if you think we have any other big up and coming mod to keep eyes on!

Road to 56 and KR keeping their top spots from before, and I also want to say that I am really inspired and impressed by the cool video and other transmedia content the KR team is putting out. I’m eager to see if any other mod teams do similar stuff in the future :cool:

Top 20 played nations
Counting most sessions > 5h

Germany - 17.9%
Italy - 7.4%
Soviet - 7.7%
France - 5.5%
Turkey - 5.1%
Britain - 4.7%
USA - 4.6%
Japan - 3.9%
Hungary - 3.7%
Spain - 3.2%
Greece - 3.0%
Romania - 2.0%
China - 1.9%
PRC - 1.9%
Bulgaria - 1.8%
Yugoslavia - 1.7%
Netherlands - 1.5%
Portugal - 1.5%
Mexico - 1.4%
Czechoslovakia - 1.2%

I think it's really cool to see Turkey this high. It was always popular but with Battle for the Bosporus it jumped up overall 60%. Greece and Bulgaria also more than doubled in popularity.

While I got you all gathered here reading, I also want to make sure to highlight here that there was an accidental released update of the launcher and that the launcher team is working on reverting that as quickly as they can as it introduced some bugs. Read about it here. I also want to say that we have received increasing amounts of reports of people using cheat tools to mess with multiplayer games over christmas, and we are looking into it.

See you all later, and to be clear this is not the start of regular diaries just yet. You'll have to be patient a bit longer on that front.
 
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Exactly. Im not totally against wars developing into total wars, I just hope we get a way to decide the scale of the conflict.

Agree. And it does not need to be watered down with border conflicts. Lets take WW2. After the fall of Poland the Allies can get an event if they want to peace out. After the fall of Norway and Denmark those two nations get the same option - IRL Denmark chose peace, Norway not.

After the fall of France, Britain get another event.

From that point on, UK (and only UK) can offer peace. And not the current peace system that I feel is bugged. When Casablanca is fired, then and only then, is the war a total war as now.

Historical AI will not offer peace, and the Germans will not accept it. Perhaps also make difference in leaders, i.e Halifax more prone to peace.

This is just an example. For minors, lets say Hungarian-Romanian war they can get an event when they take out all of Transylvania and hold it for x time as the Sino-Japanese war. Normal war, limited with a set of requirements without resorting to border conflict
 
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Agreed. These would be perfect for places like South America or Eastern Europe, where low-level border skirmishes were fairly common. Just maybe have a restriction that they can't be used by or against a Major Power to avoid triggering the main war too early.
It would work in many regions.
For example realistic Turkish claims were towards Cyprus, dodecanese islands and maybe Thrace? Not whole Greece.
Or realistic Greek claims were towards western Anatolia, mostly İzmir, Edirne, İstanbul and Cyprus.

Instead of full annex there could be small conflict for that kind of claims. For Greece to get İzmir it shouldn't be in need to occupy Ankara, occupying and holding İzmir etc enough should force Turkey to accept its loss.
Or vice versa, for Turkey to get Thrace shouldn't mean it starting naval invasions to Athens!

For Greece or Turkey to annex Cyprus they need to end UK completely, like occupying London! which is weird.
 
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Agree. And it does not need to be watered down with border conflicts. Lets take WW2. After the fall of Poland the Allies can get an event if they want to peace out. After the fall of Norway and Denmark those two nations get the same option - IRL Denmark chose peace, Norway not.

After the fall of France, Britain get another event.

From that point on, UK (and only UK) can offer peace. And not the current peace system that I feel is bugged. When Casablanca is fired, then and only then, is the war a total war as now.

Historical AI will not offer peace, and the Germans will not accept it. Perhaps also make difference in leaders, i.e Halifax more prone to peace.

This is just an example. For minors, lets say Hungarian-Romanian war they can get an event when they take out all of Transylvania and hold it for x time as the Sino-Japanese war. Normal war, limited with a set of requirements without resorting to border conflict
No, Hitler wanted peace with the United Kingdom.
According to many, Hess's flight was an EXTREME thing to achieve peace.
In fact, the peace he proposed was quite sensible: The return of the pre-1914 border with some colony. (and maybe a sop for Italy to speak separately). But churchill already wanted total victory. This total victory will cost the British Empire its empire. Because, most historians agree that if the UK had accepted peace in 40, the empire would have been much stronger ... perhaps it could not have prevented India's independence (control it yourself a mega ultra territory How sparsely populated you are, I remember that only 20% of the divisions were purely British, the rest were from the Commonwealth), but that of Australia, NZL, Canada and other more "English" areas is VERY likely.
So if the UK agrees to make peace, it makes peace!
Alternatively, if you choose alternative things (Fascist / Monarchist UK) you could get something like "the partition of France" where the UK declares war to reclaim the French territories that belonged to the UK (and maybe some colony, making some exchange of the like "I take some French colonies and Italy takes some colony like British Ethiopia, Malta etc)
 
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No, Hitler wanted peace with the United Kingdom.
According to many, Hess's flight was an EXTREME thing to achieve peace.
In fact, the peace he proposed was quite sensible: The return of the pre-1914 border with some colony. (and maybe a sop for Italy to speak separately). But churchill already wanted total victory. This total victory will cost the British Empire its empire. Because, most historians agree that if the UK had accepted peace in 40, the empire would have been much stronger ... perhaps it could not have prevented India's independence (control it yourself a mega ultra territory How sparsely populated you are, I remember that only 20% of the divisions were purely British, the rest were from the Commonwealth), but that of Australia, NZL, Canada and other more "English" areas is VERY likely.
So if the UK agrees to make peace, it makes peace!
Alternatively, if you choose alternative things (Fascist / Monarchist UK) you could get something like "the partition of France" where the UK declares war to reclaim the French territories that belonged to the UK (and maybe some colony, making some exchange of the like "I take some French colonies and Italy takes some colony like British Ethiopia, Malta etc)

No. This is details. I am not here to discuss history, I literally wrote an example in 5 minutes at work. The point is, it does not need to be this total war as is the default currently. And yes, Churchill wanted total victory. Historic UK (under Churchill) will not opt for peace. Put one and one together...
 
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No. This is details. I am not here to discuss history, I literally wrote an example in 5 minutes at work. The point is, it does not need to be this total war as is the default currently. And yes, Churchill wanted total victory. Historic UK (under Churchill) will not opt for peace. Put one and one together...
Yes, yes ... look for "hitler asked for peace 35 times" but obviously if the player wants to be crazy (and doesn't want to wait 1 year or more for the US to come) he can make peace with the Nazis
 
Yes, yes ... look for "hitler asked for peace 35 times" but obviously if the player wants to be crazy (and doesn't want to wait 1 year or more for the US to come) he can make peace with the Nazis

Again, I only wrote an example. I am no dev, the final impletation (if at all) is not up to me. Such a debate require another thread. In addition it might be a game balance act. But again, I am not interested in discussing a possible peace in this thread or "defend" the choice of my example.
 
Yes, yes I got it! Maybe I expressed myself badly before! : D
Again, I only wrote an example. I am no dev, the final impletation (if at all) is not up to me. Such a debate require another thread. In addition it might be a game balance act. But again, I am not interested in discussing a possible peace in this thread or "defend" the choice of my example.
 
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Thanks for checking in, please do so more often, we miss you all. Stay safe, sane, and hydrated while we ride out what is hopefully the back half of the pandemic.
 
The fact that Hungary is the second most popular minor nation, even after a minor nation DLC was released just proves that the nation desperately needs a full rework! Unfortunately Hungary is mispresented in various ways and the democratic leader hasn't even got a portrait!
 
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No, Hitler wanted peace with the United Kingdom.
According to many, Hess's flight was an EXTREME thing to achieve peace.
In fact, the peace he proposed was quite sensible: The return of the pre-1914 border with some colony. (and maybe a sop for Italy to speak separately). But churchill already wanted total victory. This total victory will cost the British Empire its empire. Because, most historians agree that if the UK had accepted peace in 40, the empire would have been much stronger ... perhaps it could not have prevented India's independence (control it yourself a mega ultra territory How sparsely populated you are, I remember that only 20% of the divisions were purely British, the rest were from the Commonwealth), but that of Australia, NZL, Canada and other more "English" areas is VERY likely.
So if the UK agrees to make peace, it makes peace!
Alternatively, if you choose alternative things (Fascist / Monarchist UK) you could get something like "the partition of France" where the UK declares war to reclaim the French territories that belonged to the UK (and maybe some colony, making some exchange of the like "I take some French colonies and Italy takes some colony like British Ethiopia, Malta etc)
The Empire was always going to end, accepting peace would have destroyed it faster due to public outrage, and the fact that the Commonwealth would see Britain abandoning France and the people of Europe as a betrayal. Abandoning the people of other nations whom you swore to protect or liberate doesn't exactly strike me as "quite sensible." It wouldn't have been to the public, the French, or territories of Britain across the world who would now see Britain abandon its friends as a sign that it would not defend them either if given the chance to abandon them to save the Home Islands.

Not only that, Hitler would... not have at any juncture allowed a free UK to continue to exist, at all, and Japan would also have invaded the Pacific either way, which may have given Germany all the flimsy justification it needed to revoke the peace. Hitler would have dominated the continent, turned around, and did what he did with Molotov-Ribbentrop, rip it up and use his concentrated force to destroy Britain. Churchill beat out Halifax because of that fact. Letting Germany be had backfired in the interbellum, and doing it again no longer made sense especially when British men had already given their lives in France. The public wasn't fond of the idea of wasting those lives and sacrificing their allies just so Germany could break yet another promise to them.

There should in any case, be events or things that happen to allow Halifax to negotiate peace if the player or AI picks him when given the choice between Churchill, which should cause a fairly large stability hit, a -100 opinion malus with Free France and all other countries at war with Germany, a smaller -25 malus to the Empire, things like that.
 
The fact that Hungary is the second most popular minor nation, even after a minor nation DLC was released just proves that the nation desperately needs a full rework! Unfortunately Hungary is mispresented in various ways and the democratic leader hasn't even got a portrait!
frankly speaking the whole "death or dishonor" nations need some kind of re-work in a sense, same goes for the ones of "together for victory" but at this point i feel it's like wishful thinking, no offense for anyone of course. Also i feel like France could get some minor tweaks too, and maybe so needs greece (even if in greece case it's just a REALLY minor adgiustement)
 
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frankly speaking the whole "death or dishonor" nations need some kind of re-work in a sense, same goes for the ones of "together for victory" but at this point i feel it's like wishful thinking, no offense for anyone of course. Also i feel like France could get some minor tweaks too, and maybe so needs greece (even if in greece case it's just a REALLY minor adgiustement)
I think they are working on improving the DoD nations - Yugoslavia and Romania got small touchups and they are definitely working on something for Codreanu as of the Battle for the Bosphorus release (they added his portrait but haven't added a path for him yet).

I think Together for Victory nations could definitely use a touchup, mainly India, but I think DoD will probably get prioritized because they often bounce off each other and are also situated in Europe where a lot of the action occurs in HOI4
 
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I think they are working on improving the DoD nations - Yugoslavia and Romania got small touchups and they are definitely working on something for Codreanu as of the Battle for the Bosphorus release (they added his portrait but haven't added a path for him yet).

I think Together for Victory nations could definitely use a touchup, mainly India, but I think DoD will probably get prioritized because they often bounce off each other and are also situated in Europe where a lot of the action occurs in HOI4
totally agree, would be nice if Romania got some more tweaks also i feel like france needs some too, at least concerning their airforce and the monarchic branch.
 
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Ive been taking a break from HOI4 to pursue other games within my gaming time.

I look forward to coming back to it though soon but just wanted to say “keep it up guys, you all do a fantastic job with this game”... I don’t even know how the next DLC can be tested properly anyway, running those sessions overnight given no access to the office... unless your doing it through the cloud.

Looking forward to playing the new soviet tree though in the next release!
 
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Ive been taking a break from HOI4 to pursue other games within my gaming time.

I look forward to coming back to it though soon but just wanted to say “keep it up guys, you all do a fantastic job with this game”... I don’t even know how the next DLC can be tested properly anyway, running those sessions overnight given no access to the office... unless your doing it through the cloud.

Looking forward to playing the new soviet tree though in the next release!
To me the Soviet tree is of minimal interest, there are many mods that make beautiful NF.
I'm interested in THAT THE MECHANICS they do come out well and balanced, not bad as in LaR and what a fix the peaces! Where you practically see states that are dismembered in a totally absurd way, total bordergore!
 
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I´m happy that we get a big one now with many Refits, Reworks, Upgrades, Bugfixes, new Implementations of Missing Trees etc. etc. etc.

I love the Game, because it´s easy to learn and easy to play with about 80 % to 90 % of the full playable Nations (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and smaller Commonwealth- Asiatic- and European-States).

Japan, UK, USA, Russia and China need some Knowledge and Experiance, which is easy to learn from the Learning-States.
 
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To me the Soviet tree is of minimal interest, there are many mods that make beautiful NF.
I'm interested in THAT THE MECHANICS they do come out well and balanced, not bad as in LaR and what a fix the peaces! Where you practically see states that are dismembered in a totally absurd way, total bordergore!
Honestly agree. Mechanics are by far the most important parts making up a DLC/update. Trees can be modded in even though it prevents achievements but the good mechanics that'll make the game more full to play can't be added in as easily.
 
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