HOI4 - Development Diary - September 23rd 2016

[llib]

Commonwealth/cooperation focus... most intriguing - looking forward to!

 

[Praetorian44]

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Paradox has in store for this excellent game

 

[Miaow]

I totally understand the need for the AI to do things that are least partially dumb. The main concerns are things like Germany starting Barbarossa despite having not defeated France or what I saw last night Russia declaring on Iraq and Iran despite losing on the eastern front, deploying 200 divisions there and then losing the war completely (I have a save for this, will upload tonight)

Don't forget that Barbarossa in anything close to the historical conditions is absolutely retarded too! In fact, starting WWII was a pretty retarded decision. Not to mention Pearl Harbour...as is often said, Yamamoto knew they would lose before they even started it.

I agree the AI should be generally competent and need scripted events to force it into the historical blunders that made WWII what it was. But we absolutely do need to to make some retarded, not just partially dumb, decisions, or we can't have WWII.

Axe is right, no doubt -- Everyone wants to be able to have (or see) a good set-to between Germany and the USSR. But honestly those of us with VERY long memories of the game have been waiting years for the naval aspects to be rendered properly and it's just a little discouraging to hear that we're going to have to wait for at least another year, judging by the rate these dlc's come out. I honestly do believe that the design of naval warfare is basically sound, but right now the actual performance is not all that good. There's still not real U-Boat war, etc.

The basic mechanics of naval combat are as good as they've ever been in an HoI currently. My major gripe is the air supremacy being able to replace naval supremacy and make a navy supefluous. That's actually easy to fix, if they bother to do it.

 

[podcat]

mods are probably very popular because of the bad state of the single player game

Thats not how the world works. Games that are good and people enjoy get mods. Bad games dont get mods in general.

Is the "Expansion Pass #1" on Steam, just the next DLC released, or does it cover other future DLCs as well? I couldn't immediately tell from Steam.

Thanks


Smiles

This is the relevant quote from the store page.

Expansion Pass #1
Includes the first 2 expansion and it’s related content, to an estimated value of $49.99.

Very nice, looking forward for the first expansion.

Are there going to be any cosmetic DLCs, lets say more 2d and 3d units? That would be very cool too.

future diaries will give more info on the expansion.

Out of curiosity, in those games where the Soviets lost, were they able to finish the focus to move industry to the Urals? Because from what I've seen, Germany usually is pretty good at grabbing one of the three provinces that the focus needs before they can finish it, and that cancels the focus if it is going, and locks the Soviets out of the focus that grants the free emergency forts around Moscow, making them even easier to beat.

not sure actually. from a balance perspective the optimum is that germany beats soviets (but not super easily)
- player plays soviet = tough opponent
- player plays germany = doesnt matter, its up to them
- player plays allies = tough opponent
- player plays japan = you can skip allying with them for more challenge, but you still have USA to deal with and germanys navy wont be very helpful
- player plays non-aligned minor somewhere = outcome doesnt matter as long as germany doesnt die early and war doesnt escalate

 

[Miaow]

not sure actually. from a balance perspective the optimum is that germany beats soviets (but not super easily)
- player plays soviet = tough opponent
- player plays germany = doesnt matter, its up to them
- player plays allies = tough opponent
- player plays japan = you can skip allying with them for more challenge, but you still have USA to deal with and germanys navy wont be very helpful
- player plays non-aligned minor somewhere = outcome doesnt matter as long as germany doesnt die early and war doesnt escalate

Actually, the optimum for a historical game is that Soviets beat Germany, albeit difficultly. Playing the allies really shouldn't be challenging, because unless you throw historicity out the window, the USA is just going to roflstomp eventually. "Gamey" balance shouldn't take priority, playing the historical losers should be hard and the historical winners easy (with the Soviet Union being intermediate).

 

[SensitiveDannyBoi]

So "the core theme will be around allied cooperation and the commonwealth"

Sounds boring to me personally- as the Axis is the one really struggling with suiciding its troops via transports and Italy suiciding its troops into high attrition areas in Africa (still, still, still). And Germany itself not having even basic scrub level mastery of its airforce. Japan needs the ability to take Netherland holdings in South East Asia so that the axis has rubber holdings etc etc etc.

War Ai is still terrible, construction Ai still does not build infrastructure/docks in low supply areas, or forts in highly sensitive areas. Ai cannot keep itself supplied or build synthetic factories efficiently, and here we are talking about dlc, which you called an expansion. Maybe you are calling it an expansion so you can charge more, you did not mention if there would be alot of content relative to calling it just a dlc.

So jaded at this point. 1.2 was not even close to enough.

 

[happyman40]

To be honest I think 2 levels could also add quite a bit of gameplay value if done right. More is probably not worth it. Even at 24 divisions it can be a bit difficult to keep track of divisions inside your army, so allowing subgroups of say 6 or 4 divisions each would make it fast and easy to build battle-plans ( assigning a corps of 6 tanks to one battleplan attack arrow in a single click for example without it needing a separate army ). I agree that doing field marshals first makes more sense though.

Yes, this!

@podcat In The current system, for me anyway, the generals / FM's may as well not even be in the game as I have no care for who I assign where really. It is one of those things I saw in HOI4 and just learned to let go of the "I wish it was more interesting / realistic".

I understand from the accessibility standpoint it makes sense to leave out complexity in this area. It also makes sense from the change of focus HOI4 has towards managing production and away from micro-battle management.

However, In thinking about how it might work better in the current game I had a little thinky and conceived pretty much what Alex said.

In gameplay terms, I think most experienced players essentially run the game like HOI3 was organised. Because it works best that way for efficiency and it adds flavour to make it feel like a WW2 game and not just a RTS point and click game.

If units were assigned into Corps / army size groups like HOI3 then one could assign smaller operational fronts / objectives that drastically restrict the range over which the AI is going to consider moving troops. This would remove the complaints about how the AI SR units all across the map, AND it would create a more focused and interesting battle planning aspect.

So to create gameplay elements that essentially formalise what a lot of players do and what works, seems to make sense both for realism and gameplay.

 

[Alex_brunius]

not sure actually. from a balance perspective the optimum is that germany beats soviets (but not super easily)
- player plays soviet = tough opponent
- player plays germany = doesnt matter, its up to them
- player plays allies = tough opponent
- player plays japan = you can skip allying with them for more challenge, but you still have USA to deal with and germanys navy wont be very helpful
- player plays non-aligned minor somewhere = outcome doesnt matter as long as germany doesnt die early and war doesnt escalate

I agree mostly, with some minor modifications.

I think most players tend to play Axis because they want to be the underdogs and want to see if they can change history, so they are looking for a tough Soviet.

From that standpoint you don't want to make Germany too powerful.

The Optimum balance IMHO is a Germany that has an early advantage so even when AI it can secure Europe reliably, but a Soviet that has super strong defensive positions / bonuses helping them survive around Moscow/Stalingrad as historical, and gets very strong around 42/43 industry wise (via LL or otherwise), so Players playing Germany/Italy/Japan get a challenge. And a USA that is a pretty much historical steamroller powerhouse endboss that's supposed to be more or less unbeatable in the air and on the seas making invasion of USA the final challange regardless of if you play Axis or Soviet.

 

[Axe99]

Thats not how the world works. Games that are good and people enjoy get mods. Bad games dont get mods in general.

Very much agree with this. While I enjoyed HoI3, it wasn't quite good enough to draw me into modding it. HoI4 has been (and my HoI4 playtime is now more than half my total HoI3 playtime, much, much more quickly than it got there with HoI3).

not sure actually. from a balance perspective the optimum is that germany beats soviets (but not super easily)
- player plays soviet = tough opponent
- player plays germany = doesnt matter, its up to them
- player plays allies = tough opponent
- player plays japan = you can skip allying with them for more challenge, but you still have USA to deal with and germanys navy wont be very helpful
- player plays non-aligned minor somewhere = outcome doesnt matter as long as germany doesnt die early and war doesnt escalate

I've always preferred a 'historical' balance where players choose their challenge based on the nation, rather than trying to 'balance' everything (which, with the difficulty sliders, should be much easier for people to do if they want to go down a balanced playthrough path), but understand where you're coming from (and can always mod in the balance I prefer for my games). That said, as Alex posted, this is a bit of a soviet-focussed prospect. For people who want the historical challenge of playing Germany (not an unrealistic thing for someone to expect from a WW2 GSG), I wouldn't say that it doesn't matter.

 

[excaleranth]

It is my hope that eventually you guys will consider expanding the game's timeline up through the cold war, but in order to do that some interesting things would have to happen without war, and also there'd have to be a whole rebalance of the game to prevent everyone from being at maximum deployment power 24/7. like, money or something i guess. Also attaching nukes to rockets is a no brainer!

Not anytime soon, but someday in the far future it would be cool.

 

[Axe99]

I dont really care that much about what is realistic or not to be honest. At least its not a very good argument for doing something gameplay wise. I do think at least a 1 level heirarchy would add a lot to gameplay as well as realism though. Field marshals sittign at the same level as generals atm feels a bit messy and doesnt really make you care so much about their traits

In terms of an extra level of hierarchy (and I'm just asking in the off chance it might be feasible without too much trouble, not trying to be a pain), if you did add one in, is there any chance that if it's not too much of a pain to do (I haven't the slightest idea of how easy/hard it would be to make this flexible - but if it's easy.....) it could be designed with moddability in mind, so it's easy to turn 1 extra layer into 2 or 3? That way, it'd be easy enough for modders to make HoI3 style OOB mods (hell, they could make mods where a division is a layer of the OOB and the division designer builds battalions, for the ultimate in detail and performance crushing granularity ) Not really asking for me (now, if it was a naval OOB system, on the other hand.... ), but I'm sure the Black ICE team and a few other mods would be all over something like that.

 

[scroggin]

Next expansion allied co-operation and the commonwealth ....... YES!
Exactly what I had hoped for, the Commonwealth relationship has never been done properly in any of the HOI series. It has so much potential for interesting gameplay options.

" Where Britain goes we go, her enemies are our enemies" - Michael Joseph Savage, Prime-minister of New Zealand

 

[scroggin]

It is my hope that eventually you guys will consider expanding the game's timeline up through the cold war, but in order to do that some interesting things would have to happen without war, and also there'd have to be a whole rebalance of the game to prevent everyone from being at maximum deployment power 24/7. like, money or something i guess. Also attaching nukes to rockets is a no brainer!

Not anytime soon, but someday in the far future it would be cool.

HOI would be very good at portaying a hot war rather than the cold war......... What if Russia had invaded western europe?..........What if the korean war had developed into a all-out war between china and the western allies?

 

[Donkey Kong]

Maybe Im a bit old school, but paid DLC/expansion at the 1.3 mark seems way too soon. HoI 2 and 3 was patched for far longer before you had to pay.

I realize I will get bug fixes for free, but surely Im not getting any substantial features in the patches. Call me unfashioned, but I prefer the old days.

 

[Jorlem]

not sure actually. from a balance perspective the optimum is that germany beats soviets (but not super easily)
- player plays soviet = tough opponent
- player plays germany = doesnt matter, its up to them
- player plays allies = tough opponent
- player plays japan = you can skip allying with them for more challenge, but you still have USA to deal with and germanys navy wont be very helpful
- player plays non-aligned minor somewhere = outcome doesnt matter as long as germany doesnt die early and war doesnt escalate

The Optimum balance IMHO is a Germany that has an early advantage so even when AI it can secure Europe reliably, but a Soviet that has super strong defensive positions / bonuses helping them survive around Moscow/Stalingrad as historical, and gets very strong around 42/43 industry wise (via LL or otherwise), so Players playing Germany/Italy/Japan get a challenge. And a USA that is a pretty much historical steamroller powerhouse endboss that's supposed to be more or less unbeatable in the air and on the seas making invasion of USA the final challange regardless of if you play Axis or Soviet.

I agree with Alex here, which is why I brought up the issue with the Urals NF (both here and in its own thread a week or two ago.) As there's no bypass on that focus, if the Soviets don't get it done in time, the defenses of Moscow are dramatically weaker, letting the Axis push through that much faster. I'm not a huge fan of the Soviet's NF tree helping the Axis if they start a slightly early snowball.

 

[scroggin]

As a friendly "please don't forget about it", a lot of features in the game are still a bit hidden behind the UI - I don't need pop-ups, but it would be nice to know when an army had finished its offensive, or finished planning for one, or an air wing was getting mauled (or mauling), or all the other things that were mentioned the last time this came up. As has been noted before, and counter to the design goals, the lack of information presented through the UI means that in many instances the game does, in effect, play itself (and, at least from my perspective, in many situations where I'd much rather be involved
Air base location is handy in terms of the distance it has to travel (particularly in and next to larger air regions), but a system where you just assigned planes to a region and then the AI automatically optimised them would get the best of both worlds?

Very well said Axe, lack of awareness of problems my navy is having is one of my biggest difficulties. I often dont notice they are involved in a battle till its too late to intervene.

I agree with you on the air management. But one thing I would like added is an ability to get your CAS to focus on a specific province for a short period before reverting to general operations in the whole region. Being able to call in the airforce to help with breakthroughs or deal with problems would add a lot of immersion to the game.

 

[Blastaz]

While you stick to a grand plan please squeeze out a few culture packs where you give NF trees to minor nations (and achievements) for some fun scenarios.

 

[Midden]

If it helps Dev and Support team morale, I am really enjoying the game.

 

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

Glad to hear about the Commonwealth DLC. One of my greatest ambitions for this game is getting a bunch of friends together and having a Commonwealth co-op game where we take on the Axis as India, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Each country having unique foci would definitely make that experience a lot more interesting.

Speaking of the Allies and foci. Is there any chance to add something to Italy's focus tree to make them seek out Allied help against Hitler's Germany once the buffer state of Austria has been removed? It's an interesting alternate history scenario, and Italy did end up switching sides eventually (kind of, that place was a mess after 1943) so it could be considered historical too. Plus, the allied democracies teaming up with Fascist Italy is just too weird not to pass up.

 

[Meglok]

@podcat I noticed a few posts raised this issue and it bothers me also. The AI Axis and Soviets are both horrible at garrisoning their captured territories to prevent resistance from wiping out gains from conquest. This really weakens them over the game as they can't use burnt factories. The AI needs to be able to build security templates with decent suppression and military police, and needs to know to use them as garrison units in conquered territories.

If possible please add this to the 1.3 to do list.