HOI4 - Development Diary - 5th of August 2016

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podcat

Game Director <unannounced>
Paradox Staff
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Jul 23, 2007
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Hi everyone, it feels good to be back! With the team trickling back after well deserved vacation this week, rested and tanned (well the ones who didn't spend most of it playing games in the dark), we are getting back into gear for the 1.2 patch which we've named "Sunflower" (bonus points for whoever figures out the reference first).

There will be more details in the future, but top priority for the patch is AI where we have identified division template designing and troop allocation to places like Africa as some of the more important issues we want to make sure we nail first. It doesn't mean we stop there though, for the patch or long term, AI will continue to always be top priority for us as we work on HOI4. A challenging opponent is important to keep things interesting and to keep the game alive and fresh as much as new features to play with.

Speaking of features, and a place with even more challenging opponents, we got a nice treat for the multiplayer community: @Guraan has been doing multiplayer voodoo and with the help of the great spirit penguin in the sky has managed to add hotjoin support to HOI4. That means that should an out of sync happen you no longer have to restart the session and can just resync, and if a friend needs to drop in later thats is fine too and they just can without everyone having to quit and rehost. This should make multiplayer a lot smoother for everyone when the patch is ready!

gF7ZS3S.jpg


See you next week for another patch update!
 
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Looks great! Most mp games have a rule set created by the host, any way in the future we could have the ability to set rules in the game rather than setting them and hoping everyone agrees? Maybe something where the host could select no player wars allowed until date X and no faction v faction wars allowed until Date Y sort of thing?
 
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Speaking of multiplayer, I hope you improve the chat as well.
  • Different colors for whispers
  • Creatable Chat groups by invite (useful for factions)
  • Sound effect for receiving whispers (optional)
  • Bigger chat window ( optional)
 
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Operation Sonnenblume

A.K.A. the "oh dear maybe the AI shouldn't stick 400 divisions in the Sahara" patch?

Please also consider making large sections of the world (e.g. major deserts in Africa, America, Asia and Australia) and major arctic regions (especially in the northern reaches of Russia) impassable. In general the terrain in HoI4 feels like it lacks a bit of character, it should be more limiting in some ways which would make regions feel more unique.
 
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Thanks for the update and healthy plans for the next patch.
I hope this will calm down some people (who don't know that game developers need vacation too)
 
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Please also consider making large sections of the world (e.g. major deserts in Africa, America, Asia and Australia) and major arctic regions (especially in the northern reaches of Russia) impassable. In general the terrain in HoI4 feels like it lacks a bit of character, it should be more limiting in some ways which would make regions feel more unique.
@podcat

I agree with this.

You need not physically remove the provinces ala the No Man's Land mod, simply create a new terrain type which means nothing can be built or move through provinces of that type. That should solve the issue, as well as keep the map looking nice.

But even more important than this... which portraits will you be adding, and will FRA and ITA be getting some new leaders? Two of the major powers, and yet loads of them are missing. Their commander lists pale to those of ENG, GER, JAP, SOV and USA.

e.g.

FRA:

Marie-Pierre Kœnig
Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque
Henri Giraud
Georges Catroux
Gaston Billotte
André-Gaston Prételat

ITA:

Italo Balbo
Rodolfo Graziani
Ettore Bastico
Mario Roatta
Italo Gariboldi
Gastone Gambara
Alfredo Guzzoni
Junio Valerio Borghese
Arturo Riccardi
Angelo Parona
 
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I didn't mean for my previous reply to come off that sarcastic. I hope you had a good holiday.

Some other things I feel need addressing:

- General game performance. Late game slowdown is still quite severe.
- Manpower should probably be "sunk" in ways other than divisions. It's very common to see countries just overflowing with huge division counts. (this is directly related to the late game slowdown!)
- The battle planner is still pretty wonky, even though I've got the hang of it now.
 
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Also (perhaps an idea for a future dlc pack) I would like to see the return of the HoI III province names. It gave the game a great amount of depth knowing exactly what you were fighting for. The current system of grouping a lot of provinces together sadly takes away the amount of detail rarely seen in any strategy game on the market.
 
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Also (perhaps an idea for a future dlc pack) I would like to see the return of the HoI III province names. It gave the game a great amount of depth knowing exactly what you were fighting for. The current system of grouping a lot of provinces together sadly takes away the amount of detail rarely seen in any strategy game on the market.

I don't think we necessarily need province names per se, but seeing province number when mousing over them would be very useful to at least have some way to identify provinces you want attacked to your allies in multiplayer. A "ping" or "marker" system would also be very handy for this purpose. Trying to describe in words over steam chat to my friend where I wanted his troops on the line to push was an exercise in frustration. Like I would absolutely take names too, but I would be satisfied with visible province IDs and a province ID search, for functional reasons.
 
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Thanks for the little update. Multiplayer stuff looks very good, kudos to Guraan!

Will there be small hotfixes/betas before the 1.2 patch?

Hope the Sahara will be impassable :)
 
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Welcome back. Get back to work lol.
 
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You should try to poach a few of sports interactive's AI programmers. Those guys are amazing on AI programming. The AI in Football manager is amazingly good. Just don't get too many of them so FM development suffer ;)
 
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Also (perhaps an idea for a future dlc pack) I would like to see the return of the HoI III province names. It gave the game a great amount of depth knowing exactly what you were fighting for. The current system of grouping a lot of provinces together sadly takes away the amount of detail rarely seen in any strategy game on the market.
I strongly disagree. Completely needless, and it would make the map look extremely untidy. What would you even call many of those obscure, rural provinces?

A better compromise would be adding a number of new minor victory points (1 - 5 VP) with important local town and city names on.
 
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