HoI4 DevDiary - Art and Achievements

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No Hoxha portrait :(
With that aside, I'm very surprised with this update, the focus trees are some of the best I've seen in the base game, and everything else looks nice as well, the achievements seem fun. I just thought of making an account right now to thank everyone working on the game.
 
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I actually know this guide but it requires Vichy France to form below turkey. Without it, turkey is flooded with Allied troops and you'll lose. That's what happened to me sadly. Though i didn't do the turkey entitlement so i might have to try that one. But i had a game where Vichy France never formed. :(

Ive had games where Romania held on and devoured my manpower and i couldn't push with my 7-2 divisions. A guide is useful but the game plays out differently each time and requires a certain set of circumstances every time.
Play on historical, always.
 
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The art is so good ! I'm really impatient to get my hands on the USSR rework, hope to see some really beautiful communists focuses. Still, this expansion looks amazing
 
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Probably not as many trees mean you get locked into an ideology early on in the tree
Yeah, I think the band is back together would be easiest to do as Germany since you can restore the Kaiser very quickly, and can get Italy and Austria-Hungary through the focus tree, but trying to do it as, say, Turkey, would be total random dumb luck.
 
This looks like it will be a good DLC, so I am ready to buy. Will there be a pre-order?

It kind of took me by surprise, because as has been said, USSR and Italy need the most help right now. But since it was apparently outsourced, the core team is (hopefully) focusing on those things. And, these nations getting touched on was also kind of necessary. Not because Turkey, Greece or Bulgaria had great impacts.. Well maybe there's an argument that Greece delayed Barbarossa. But they are simply popular places to play.

The outsourced team also seems to be very thoughtful and competent, and has produced some trees as good or better than the in-house team. And that's the good, recent standard for trees too. I'll call them 'Bratyn-tier' since I think he was the Dev most responsible for it? Shame he got moved to imperator or whatever, to try and save that dumpster fire.

It's also good that there is a precedent now for going back and redoing things from old DLC, instead of leaving them as-is. I would especially like TfV to get another pass, because I often play Canada. But that can wait until bigger issues are dealt with.
 
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We’re Putting the Band Back Together: As Turkey, be in a faction with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
I have yet to see Austro Hungary formed in any of my games. I suppose you can form them yourself, ally with Axis, and then conquer Turkey and release it as a subject but I don't think it's what the designer was aiming at.
 
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Can't wait to try Finnish him and House of Kurds.

But I wonder, the last diary had a "Autonomy for Slavic Transylvania" and there is and now there is an achievement "Dracula’s Revenge". This is meant to be the reverse of "Divide Yugoslavia" in terms of alternative history. But at the time, all of Transylvania wasn't even 10% slavic. It was about >58% Romanian, 24% Hungarian and 10% German. That leaves only 8% other ethnicites, that included Jews.

If that focus tree makes Transylvania a puppet of Romania or an independent country, it's way too far fetched. I don't mind alternative history where Japan is going communist, but this is the equivalent of an alternative history like "Autonomy for Korean Nagasaki". Alternative history, however unrealistic it is, has to diverge from real history at some point. And in 1936 there were >8% slavs in Transylvania.

That being said, I'm not against the idea of the focus, it's just that the excuse for it is too far fetched. Instead of "Autonomy for Slavic Transylvania", Yugoslavia could go for "Break the Great Union" or "Divide Romania". Something that doesn't imply Transylvania got separated from the rest of Romania to grant autonomy for >8% of its population.
 
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Does the Kurdistan archievement mean the Kurds will have also their cores in Iraq, Iran and Syria?

And the crazy thing is putting the band together theoretical it could be also possible for the Dutch because they have a focus to bring back the Kaiser in Germany and if they would be able then somehow to archieve this too it would be fun too. Even that would be way a crazy move. ^^ Yeah and Bulgaria is a central power too.
 
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Putting the Band Back Together seems to be solely reliant on the RNG making Germany oppose Hitler and on Hungary putting Otto on the throne, which are two things I haven't seen the AI do simultaneously. I've seen the AI restore Austria-Hungary loads of times when I'm playing as Germany (most often after I kick Hitler the the curb) but I've never seen the AI hit both in the same game. Come to think of it, I almost never see Hungary restore the monarchy unless I'm playing as Germany.

Normally, adjusting the game settings deactivates achievements, but I wonder if the devs are going to set it so that the player can manually change Germany or Hungary's behavior at the start, to prevent us having to start a game, see if Hungary puts Otto in power, restart, rinse, repeat, etc. I mean, this doesn't seem like a difficult achievement to get, mechanically. It just seems 95% reliant on the RNG deciding that it loves you today.

Apart from that, the art for this looks amazeballs. I'm loving the They Might Be Giants references, too. I'm so eager to play this that I'm seriously going to update my game to the newest version.

I suppose that means I'll have to change my signature at some point...
 
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Putting the Band Back Together seems to be solely reliant on the RNG making Germany oppose Hitler and on Hungary putting Otto on the throne, which are two things I haven't seen the AI do simultaneously. I've seen the AI restore Austria-Hungary loads of times when I'm playing as Germany (most often after I kick Hitler the the curb) but I've never seen the AI hit both in the same game. Come to think of it, I almost never see Hungary restore the monarchy unless I'm playing as Germany.

Normally, adjusting the game settings deactivates achievements, but I wonder if the devs are going to set it so that the player can manually change Germany or Hungary's behavior at the start, to prevent us having to start a game, see if Hungary puts Otto in power, restart, rinse, repeat, etc. I mean, this doesn't seem like a difficult achievement to get, mechanically. It just seems 95% reliant on the RNG deciding that it loves you today.

Apart from that, the art for this looks amazeballs. I'm loving the They Might Be Giants references, too. I'm so eager to play this that I'm seriously going to update my game to the newest version.

I suppose that means I'll have to change my signature at some point...
True, I can't imagine making this possible with Turkey or Hungary. But maybe you will have additional decisions to reform the Ottoman Empire or at least make Turkey join the Central Powers while playing Imperial Germany.
 
Putting the Band Back Together seems to be solely reliant on the RNG making Germany oppose Hitler and on Hungary putting Otto on the throne, which are two things I haven't seen the AI do simultaneously. I've seen the AI restore Austria-Hungary loads of times when I'm playing as Germany (most often after I kick Hitler the the curb) but I've never seen the AI hit both in the same game. Come to think of it, I almost never see Hungary restore the monarchy unless I'm playing as Germany.

Normally, adjusting the game settings deactivates achievements, but I wonder if the devs are going to set it so that the player can manually change Germany or Hungary's behavior at the start, to prevent us having to start a game, see if Hungary puts Otto in power, restart, rinse, repeat, etc. I mean, this doesn't seem like a difficult achievement to get, mechanically. It just seems 95% reliant on the RNG deciding that it loves you today.
A lot of people are misreading this achievement. Although thematically it makes sense that it would want the Kaiser instead of the Nazis, the description just says "Germany". So you can join the Axis (or conquer and puppet Germany, or any other more exotic way of being in their faction) and fulfil that requirement without any further reliance on the German AI.

For Austria-Hungary, it will depend on how exactly it's scripted but I would assume it would accept equally:
- Hungary on the Habsburg Prince focus tree path
- Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Hungary under the influence of the German "Rekindle Imperial Sentiment" focus
- Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Croatia having taken the baseline decision to form Austria-Hungary.

The last one suggests to me a strategy which, while not exactly easy, would require only minimal reliance on the AI.

1. Must be on non-historical (because the AI won't form nations on historical mode)
2. At some point, conquer Yugoslavia. In the peace deal, liberate (NOT puppet) Croatia and feed them at least the northern part of Yugoslavia (pre-1914 Serbia and Montenegro are safe to take for yourself or make into puppets)
2b. Alternatively, form a faction with either Austria or Czechoslovakia beforehand and invite them into the war with Yugoslavia. Feed them the same territory you would have given Croatia.
3. Conquer Germany (easy, right?) and puppet them. Feed Austria and/or Czechoslovakia to your faction partner.
4. Clean up any more Austro-Hungarian cores still left over and feed them to your ally.
5. As soon as the AI has the required territory it will take the decision to form Austria-Hungary and that's achievement unlocked.

Now, obviously this is untested as the patch isn't out yet, and I'm not 100% certain about whether the Croatia manoeuvre will work, but this is a starting point and doesn't seem too egregiously luck based.

ETA: Also, having gone back and checked the Turkey dev diary there is indeed a "Press the Austro-Hungarian Claim" focus in the Ottoman branch which sounds like it could be a fourth way of forming Austria-Hungary ready made for Turkey, rendering my elaborate plan totally moot.
 
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The last one suggests to me a strategy which, while not exactly easy, would require only minimal reliance on the AI.

1. Must be on non-historical (because the AI won't form nations on historical mode)
2. At some point, conquer Yugoslavia. In the peace deal, liberate (NOT puppet) Croatia and feed them at least the northern part of Yugoslavia (pre-1914 Serbia and Montenegro are safe to take for yourself or make into puppets)
2b. Alternatively, form a faction with either Austria or Czechoslovakia beforehand and invite them into the war with Yugoslavia. Feed them the same territory you would have given Croatia.
3. Conquer Germany (easy, right?) and puppet them. Feed Austria and/or Czechoslovakia to your faction partner.
4. Clean up any more Austro-Hungarian cores still left over and feed them to your ally.
5. As soon as the AI has the required territory it will take the decision to form Austria-Hungary and that's achievement unlocked.

Now, obviously this is untested as the patch isn't out yet, and I'm not 100% certain about whether the Croatia manoeuvre will work, but this is a starting point and doesn't seem too egregiously luck based.

Ok, yeah. That makes sense. I guess we're all getting thrown by the achievement icon having Otto and Crown Price Willy in the picture. That may be why everyone is assuming the AI has to do things the law of probability won't allow for.
 
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Can't wait to try Finnish him and House of Kurds.

But I wonder, the last diary had a "Autonomy for Slavic Transylvania" and there is and now there is an achievement "Dracula’s Revenge". This is meant to be the reverse of "Divide Yugoslavia" in terms of alternative history. But at the time, all of Transylvania wasn't even 10% slavic. It was about >58% Romanian, 24% Hungarian and 10% German. That leaves only 8% other ethnicites, that included Jews.

If that focus tree makes Transylvania a puppet of Romania or an independent country, it's way too far fetched. I don't mind alternative history where Japan is going communist, but this is the equivalent of an alternative history like "Autonomy for Korean Nagasaki". Alternative history, however unrealistic it is, has to diverge from real history at some point. And in 1936 there were >8% slavs in Transylvania.

That being said, I'm not against the idea of the focus, it's just that the excuse for it is too far fetched. Instead of "Autonomy for Slavic Transylvania", Yugoslavia could go for "Break the Great Union" or "Divide Romania". Something that doesn't imply Transylvania got separated from the rest of Romania to grant autonomy for >8% of its population.

I'd rather see it lead to breaking up Romania into the three old Principalities, Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia, also Yugoslavia/Serbia/Banat or whoever should get a way to get East Banat from Romania, ideally the rest of Baranja and Backa from Hungary but I don't know if we could get the state for that, unless we did something like the Vojvodina state.
 
This is definitely missing:

F4GnsfAnKGrxQGsn-637375883835293391.jpg
 
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Cheers for the DD Achangel, and big props to the art team and the composer - some top-drawer work and very easy on the eye/ear as appropriate :cool:

Turns out NATO doesn’t seem to have a proper counter for Camelry

NATO's elite camel corps are so top secret they don't have an icon!

were_putting_the_band_back_together.jpg
We’re Putting the Band Back Together: As Turkey, be in a faction with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Lots of great art in the achievements, but this is my favourite :) As others have mentioned, though, it might be a wee reliant on RNG to pull off (it looks like it's less of an 'achievement' (unless someone really likes restarting the game until A-H pops in a situation where it's not going to be at war with Germany - which, to be fair, would be a fair effort!) and more of an 'I got lucky' thing).


Game finally literally playable.

lolol :) In all seriousness, though, a nice touch :)

Some absolutely spectacular beards on display here.

Are there what, one is even Crutchley-worthy!

I quite like the Battlecruiser, the ex-German SMS Moltke, which will be a unique model for Turkey.

I'm in love :D Also, it's likely the only chance I can legitimately post an on-topic pic of the Moltke* in a HoI4 dev diary thread :)

Moltke forecastle small.jpg

* Very minor point of order - the Yavuz was formerly the Goeben, of the Moltke class, but not Moltke itself. Yes, I need to get out more :p
 
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I'd rather see it lead to breaking up Romania into the three old Principalities, Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia, also Yugoslavia/Serbia/Banat or whoever should get a way to get East Banat from Romania, ideally the rest of Baranja and Backa from Hungary but I don't know if we could get the state for that, unless we did something like the Vojvodina state.
I would like to see a focus that's the opposite of "Divide Yugoslavia", breaking Romania into the 3 old principalities. But I would like it to happen under a reasonable pretext. The pretext "We need autonomy for the slavs in Transylvania" when there were less than 8% slavs in Transylvania is laughably unrealistic. It's not unrealistic like Japan goes communist, but unrealistic like "France demands autonomy for French in Catalonia".

Transylvania's population censuses:

YearTotalRomaniansHungariansGermansSzékelys[a]Notes
19205,114,21458.3%26.7%9.7%-Romanian statistics
19305,548,36357.8%24.4%9.8%-Romanian population census[83]
19485,761,12765.1%25.7%5.8%

According to the last censuses, Transylvania was about >58% Romanian, 24% Hungarian and 10% German. That leaves only 8% other ethnicites, including Jews. Granting autonomy to all of Transylvania for >8% of the population breaks immersion. Because it's not an unlikely scenario, it's logically impossible.

Yugoslavia could have the same focus, but rename it "Break the Great Union" or "Divide Greater Romania". Something that doesn't imply Transylvania got separated from the rest of Romania to grant autonomy for >8% of its population.
 
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