HOI4 Dev Diary - South Africa - together for victory?

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podcat

Game Director <unannounced>
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Jul 23, 2007
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  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
Welcome to the 4th dev diary for the Together for Victory expansion currently in the works! Today we talk about new features as well as the next new focus tree - its time for South Africa.

South Africa
South Africa starts out in a precarious position. You don't have a lot of industry, but your manpower is even worse. The national spirit "History of Segregation" reduces the recruitable population by a crippling 55%. You will be able to remove it through a series of national focuses, but it will make building up for the war a lot harder. Politically, South Africa was by no means a united country during the late 30ies. While it was a British Dominion, the memories of the Boer Wars are still alive, and historically, joining the war was a very narrow thing that cost the prime minister his job - Hertzog had campaigned to keep South Africa out of the war, while his party decided that they would stand with Britain. A strong pro-German opposition even carried out acts of sabotage inside the country. In the event of war, you will have to deal with them.

saf_dd1.jpg


Of course, if you wish to depart from history, you will have ways to do so. One of our design goals in this expansion was to give more alternatives to playing a country, while also faithfully representing the historical outcomes. Another goal was to open up new areas of the map to warfare, which were fairly untouched in the historical timeline. If you know the location of every swamp province in eastern Europe by heart, perhaps the lands south of the Sahara will provide a new challenge.

In the fascist branch, you decide to side with the hardcore anti-British Afrikaner Broederbond and either try to use the opportunity of the war to roll back the loss of Boer colonies or decide to go with Germany (they won't ask for their colony back...for now), which will even allow you to join into a tech sharing arrangement with them. But seizing power will not be easy, and you must time your moves carefully. If you play your hand a little too late or a little too early, you will face the might of the British Empire without friends to help you. Once you are securely in power, however, you may even decide to crown a new King for your country (you may have to make do with a slightly used one for starters).

In the communist branch, you will first work to unmake the discrimination against your fellow black workers, before facing a difficult choice - you can decide to join the comintern and become a staunch ally of the Soviet Union in Africa. Soviet Advisers will help you improve your military, while a tech sharing arrangement helps you find the scientifically correct way to achieve victory. The alternative is called the anti-colonialist crusade: Having thrown off the shackles of your colonial masters, it is time to start decolonising the rest of the continent. For this purpose, we have added a number of African countries which you can liberate. Don't worry, you won't have to march into Lisbon to free Angola. If you control the state, you will get the option to free them even if you are still at war with Portugal. But of course, you may instead decide that these young nations need more firm guidance...

With South Africa's limited resources, you must make careful choices to navigate the war. Tech sharing can provide you with a powerful boost to your research speed - a boost you will lose the moment you decide to leave the Commonwealth. Britain will also be a source for more advanced military equipment that will not be available when you leave.

Like the other commonwealth nations we are fleshing out there are new portraits for leaders and generals too:
saf_leaders.jpg



Continuous Focuses
With Together for Victory we introduce a new type of national focuses. These can only be taken if you have done at least 10 regular focuses first and rather than taking 70 days and giving you a rewards they instead give you different kinds of bonuses while they are active (this means you can turn them off if you are low on political power or need to do something else). The base system here will be part of the 1.3 Torch patch, while the focuses related to new mechanics in the expansion will only be available to people who get that.
saf_dd2.jpg

  • Army Training - Speeds up training of divisions
  • Naval Production - Gives a general production boost to producing all kinds of ships
  • Air Production - Gives a general production boost to producing all kinds of aircraft
  • Resistance Suppression - Helps you suppress resistance in occupied states so you will need to tie up less of your fighting forces
  • Technology Sharing - Lets you gain a technology sharing effect (if you do not already have one) from faction members. Only members who actually use this focus will gain the benefits though.
  • Increase Autonomy - Will help you work towards more autonomy (details next diary!)
  • Suppress Subjects - Will help keep your subjects under control (details next diary!)
  • Construction Engineering - Speeds up construction of all non-industry buildings
  • Construction Repairs - Increases the amount of free repair that gets done to damaged buildings and infrastructure (simulating locals helping out) and also increases the effect of ordered repairs substantially.

Speaking of construction and repairs, we have changed costs of forts so that they now ramp up in cost with higher levels, and made base level cheaper so its now a major investment to try and build something like the maginot line which should make things less exploitable and more strategically interesting. The base free repair effect has also been reduced to make the Construction Repairs focus more interesting.

Next week we will be talking about the new Autonomy system hinted at through the so-far revealed focus trees. See you then!

In the meantime, check out this trailer to set the mood for our upcoming Commonwealth focused expansion: Together for Victory.


And speaking of the Commonwealth. How will they and their allies handle the warmongering Axis aggression towards Moscow in today’s World War Wednesday Livestream? Watch it live @16:00CET over at https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!
 
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I am sooooo ready for this!
 
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Great Idea on the continuous focii. :)

Thumbs up!!!
glad you like it. I think its something we will keep expanding on in the future
 
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Continuous focuses are very nice addiction!
Overall the new national focuses are very interesting. Even more interesting of the original ones for the major powers .
Do you plan to take a review/refresh at the focuses of the current big powers, in a possible future?
 
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I really like the historically base alt-history. This alt-history is very realistic!

For those interested in Germany's relationship with Africa you might like my mod Tanganyika! which will get a major update for the new expansion. In the version for Together for Victory there will be opportunities for the German player to effect things in South Africa! And if you are playing as South Africa it will be more interesting, 'What is the German spy ship doing?'.


tangathumb.jpg


Link to mod thread.
 
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I like everything you guys said :), it al looks good but will there be improvements to the ai????
of course. the expansion will be released together with the 1.3 Torch patch
 
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So the new focuses are free excepting tech sharing and autonomy, right?
yes, stuff not related to the other features will be in the patch for everyone.
 
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So the new focuses are free excepting tech sharing and autonomy, right?

they cost PP to maintain

EDIT: scratch that, thought you were talking about something else
 
With Together for Victory we introduce a new type of national focuses. These can only be taken if you have done at least 10 regular focuses first and rather than taking 70 days and giving you a rewards they instead give you different kinds of bonuses while they are active (this means you can turn them off if you are low on political power or need to do something else). The base system here will be part of the 1.3 Torch patch, while the focuses related to new mechanics in the expansion will only be available to people who get that.

Just wanted to ask one thing: won't this cripple some countries will smaller trees with bigger timers? Like, i'm not sure that USSR will get a lot of bonuses from this, while Poland can have faster and more bonuses. Is it logical and is intended?
 
Ooo! The new continuous focii paves the way for a lot of new mechanics.

Perhaps the resistance and subject desire for independence should undergo new changes that make them more formidable so that countries actually consider choosing those focii instead of production ones.
 
This look very promising. Good work!
And makes me dream of an more Axis oriented expansion later. The German NF three looks rather bleak compared to this. Not much to do after 1940....
 
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Air Production - Gives a general production boost to producing all kinds of aircraft and infrastructure (simulating locals helping out) and also increases the effect of ordered repairs substantially.

Sorry I'm a little confused by this. I get the first part about the production but when you say infrastructure do you only mean airbases or do you mean infrastructure infrastructure if you see what I mean.

Also what do you mean by ordered repairs? As in repair speed for damaged airbases?
 
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