HOI4 - Development Diary - 12th of August 2016 **read OP edit**

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podcat

Game Director <unannounced>
Paradox Staff
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Jul 23, 2007
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Friday again and time for another update on the 1.2 patch (Sunflower).

Custom Difficulty
First up, despite some sickness we have managed to add a neat feature that I hope is going to help bring more challenge to the game (in combination with the AI improvements). There is now a game setup screen with custom difficulty settings for AI.

PYFlusG.jpg


In the above screen you can buff certain nations and make them stronger, so for example as Germany if you want a tough soviet opponent you can pull up the "Strengthen Soviet" slider. The actual bonuses are a bit work in progress at the moment and you might see some changes after we have had time to playtest more.

By the way the system is easily moddable for adding more settings. Settings can work with any regular modifier bonuses and you can specify which nations you want to apply them to, so making a "Strengthen european minors" slider is possible, or a slider just to control american industry etc.

AI
Time to hand the mic over to @SteelVolt to give us an update on AI:

Some of you have voiced concerns over certain aspects of the AI, and we have heard you. In the upcoming patch you can look forward to things like an AI not sending 75% of its army to fight in Africa as well as an AI that is able to efficiently swap out old templates for new ones, both for units in training and units in the field. For that last one it turned out that it was not only incapable of changing light armor to medium, but it only considered a single division every 14 days for upgrade. Needless to say, this was a massive handicap, particularly for larger countries with big armies. At this very moment I am working on making this progression fully scriptable so we can have much better control over how the AI evolves its division templates.

Apart from this there are of course minor tweaks and fixes here and there being done also (like managing straits and choke points better).

Next week I should be able to give you a rough date for release of Sunflower. See you then!

Edit
btw after wading through a few pages of hostility, it stops now. if you cannot post in a constructive manner and on topic, don't post.
 
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The Sunflower additions seem to already be shaping up nicely!
 
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Nice. How will custom difficulty work with achievements?

And can you also make countries worse (instead of stronger) with the sliders? In case you want your allies to be weaker.
 
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A new custom difficulty setting and some AI improvements... I mean, that's all good, and AI stuff is very important (crucial, even) but it doesn't seem very ambitious for the next full patch. When will we start seeing player feedback really being implemented?
 
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You mean you give us a cheat slider to buff the AI with wild boni since you cant get the AI to work as it is supposed to be? That does not sound too good.

Reading between the lines...
 
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Personally I hate balancing the game around handicaps and not around properly responding to the in-game situation AI. It seems to me like choosing an easy way around. Don't get me wrong, I understood that they are also going to put effort into improving AI but I'd me more happy seeing all the production capabilities being put into the AI and broken game mechanics rather than short term fix of the problem which are custom handicaps. Just my opinion tho.
 
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Friday again and time for another update on the 1.2 patch (Sunflower).

Custom Difficulty
First up, despite some sickness we have managed to add a neat feature that I hope is going to help bring more challenge to the game (in combination with the AI improvements). There is now a game setup screen with custom difficulty settings for AI.

PYFlusG.jpg


In the above screen you can buff certain nations and make them stronger, so for example as Germany if you want a tough soviet opponent you can pull up the "Strengthen Soviet" slider. The actual bonuses are a bit work in progress at the moment and you might see some changes after we have had time to playtest more.

By the way the system is easily moddable for adding more settings. Settings can work with any regular modifier bonuses and you can specify which nations you want to apply them to, so making a "Strengthen european minors" slider is possible, or a slider just to control american industry etc.

AI
Time to hand the mic over to @SteelVolt to give us an update on AI:

Some of you have voiced concerns over certain aspects of the AI, and we have heard you. In the upcoming patch you can look forward to things like an AI not sending 75% of its army to fight in Africa as well as an AI that is able to efficiently swap out old templates for new ones, both for units in training and units in the field. For that last one it turned out that it was not only incapable of changing light armor to medium, but it only considered a single division every 14 days for upgrade. Needless to say, this was a massive handicap, particularly for larger countries with big armies. At this very moment I am working on making this progression fully scriptable so we can have much better control over how the AI evolves its division templates.

Apart from this there are of course minor tweaks and fixes here and there being done also (like managing straits and choke points better).

Next week I should be able to give you a rough date for release of Sunflower. See you then!
The ability to strengthen other nations is nice. It will add some variety to playthroughs. I used that option with some mods in HOI3 at times, and liked it.

@SteelVolt: It's good to hear that you are making progress with the AI. I look forward to checking out the new and improved AI in Sunflower. :)
 
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I really don't mean to sound disrespectful here, but you guys need to do better. I know I am not the only one who has been frustrated with the lack of communication since the last hot fix, and Paradox really needs to take a hard look at how they are communicating to he HOI community.

The developer posts have almost completely dried up since the vacation, and the dev diaries have next to no content. I really do not want to wait another week for another two paragraphs of information.

These issues have been out there and identified since the last hot fix was issued back in the beginning of July. If you read the beta thread for that hot fix you will see reports of the AI leaving for Africa, etc. I know the devs are working on it and may not be able to communicate with us, but isn't that why you have a community manager? Someone needs to step up here and start feeding the masses information......

Maybe I am just frustrated, but I feel like it had to be said. Just for clarify, this is not something I think Podcat or steel lot should be doing.
 
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A new custom difficulty setting and some AI improvements... I mean, that's all good, and AI stuff is very important (crucial, even) but it doesn't seem very ambitious for the next full patch. When will we start seeing player feedback really being implemented?
As a player who has provided some detailed feedback on the AI, it seems to me like they are doing what you want. :)
 
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Thank you for your hard work and I hope everyone feels better soon. Good excuse for hot toddies. I recommend either Wild Turkey 101 or Blanton's, you will either feel better or won't care. :cool:

While i am sure these issues are on your to do list an idea of when they might be tackled would be appreciated:

Invulnerable and overpowerful Port Strikes
Invulnerable supply and oversea colony resource convoys
Naval production
Naval combat balance
AI partisan suppression
Edit - Pacific ocean inactivity (ie USA vs Japan)

These are issues that are difficult if not impossible for modders to tackle and directly affect play.

May I also suggest you look at the Enhanced Peace Conference mod? It really helps prevent peace conference silliness.
 
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These custom difficulty settings, are they achievement-friendly?

Some achievements where you say have buffed your allies will be disabled, but making your enemirs harder is ok :)

A new custom difficulty setting and some AI improvements... I mean, that's all good, and AI stuff is very important (crucial, even) but it doesn't seem very ambitious for the next full patch. When will we start seeing player feedback really being implemented?

Well, the top 2 items of feedback i see on the forum is improvement of AI and higher difficulty, so i think we are focusing pretty well on what the community wants so far. Do keep talking about what you want though, we are listening!
 
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You mean you give us a cheat slider to buff the AI with wild boni since you cant get the AI to work as it is supposed to be? That does not sound too good.

Reading between the lines...

I'd say you haven't thought about the difficulty settings fully. With a blanket difficulty slider you have problems like: You play as the UK, you want a challenge and so set the game to Very Hard. You now have some penalties and the AI has some bonuses....all the AIs have bonuses, including your likely allies and sorta allies, the USA and SOV which effectively and counter-intuitively make the game easier in some ways. With custom difficulty sliders you can solely boost your likely enemies when you want a challenge.
 
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It may be that people are considering the new sliders working with the currently "challenged" AI and not in conjunction with SteelVolt's improvements. A competent AI that has good templates and uses good strategy when considering fronts to fight on that you can also individually buff to provide a better challenge is a definite improvement over the current situation.
 
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Thank you for your hard work and I hope everyone feels better soon. Good excuse for hot toddies. I recommend either Wild Turkey 101 or Blanton's, you will either feel better or won't care. :cool:

While i am sure these issues are on your to do list an idea of when they might be tackled would be appreciated:

Invulnerable and overpowerful Port Strikes
Invulnerable supply and oversea colony resource convoys
Naval production
Naval combat balance
AI partisan suppression

These are issues that are difficult if not impossible for modders to tackle and directly affect play.

May I also suggest you look at the Enhanced Peace Conference mod? It really helps prevent peace conference silliness.

We are working on several naval issues but i also do not want to delay the patch too long either, so some stuff may need to wait for 1.2.1 to make sure we keep the fixes flowing
 
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Thanks Black ICE for the idea
 
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For me the submarine wars, and the italian goes crazy!!! , are the most important things, one it's about the basis game, and the other is AI, are you working on them?
Edit, while i was writing, u said about the naval issues, THANK pod, u're fast XD
 
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