HOI4 - Development Diary - September 23rd 2016

[Ctanr]

@podcat

will Saddam be available as a head of government for canada?

 

[Wminus]

WOW. Before you are even CLOSE to fixing the base game you are now spending your resources on a new DLC ?!

 

[Number 7]

Can't we just get a major expansion just on the AI and making sure everything works properly? Game doesn't seem to be in a position to start working on new content...

 

[podcat]

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.

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).



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.

ok, I might have worded it badly. As a german player you can strengthen Soviets if you want to make it harder. You can strengthen allies also. Historically soviet was very strong, its not compeltely implausible that they would have managed with much less help from allies on its own and if we make them (without sliders) strong enough to defend against germany in every run there isnt much incentive and fun playing UK & friends because you wont have to work very hard at it.

 

[Alex_brunius]

ok, I might have worded it badly. As a german player you can strengthen Soviets if you want to make it harder. You can strengthen allies also. Historically soviet was very strong, its not compeltely implausible that they would have managed with much less help from allies on its own and if we make them (without sliders) strong enough to defend against germany in every run there isnt much incentive and fun playing UK & friends because you wont have to work very hard at it.

Why is it only valid that a German player can strengthen Soviet to get a challenge but not that a UK player can strengthen Germany to get a challenge?

I'm not saying make Soviet strong enough to beat Germany on it's own (without sliders), only defensivly strong enough to halt the German offensive around Moscow and to survive, but not be able to push a counterattack without help from the allies ( either as massive LL or a historical LL + allied invasions of Italy/France ).

In HoI3 this was done via events greatly strengthening Germany when triggering Barbarossa, and other events strengthening Soviet only on the Defensive once the Germans had gotten far enough. Maybe a bit artificial but it worked pretty well.

 

[Ogredy]

The game needs expansion of Internal Politics and Economy. There is NOTHING in the game except for war, literally NOTHING. You build troops, you station them on the front lines and wait.

I am looking forward to More Events, Improved Economy, More Laws and Policies, More Parties, Espionage, Improved Diplomacy.

I am glad that I am not alone in that desire, considering that every major mod that came out or is in the process of development aims to implement those ideas.
In the end, you can't have Grand Strategy focused only around managing armies, it's not chess after all.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The game needs expansion of Internal Politics and Economy. There is NOTHING in the game except for war, literally NOTHING. You build troops, you station them on the front lines and wait.

Did you play the previous HoI games?

HoI3 had 1 type of factory ( instead of 3 ) and 3 resources ( instead of 6 ), as well as a way simpler production and construction system.

So economy have been greatly expanded in HoI4 already

In the end, you can't have Grand Strategy focused only around managing armies, it's not chess after all.

You can have a Grand Strategy game focused on war, and it's basically what Hearts of Iron always was.

 

[Ogredy]

Did you play the previous HoI games?

HoI3 had 1 type of factory ( instead of 3 ) and 3 resources ( instead of 6 ), as well as a way simpler production and construction system.

So economy have been greatly expanded in HoI4 already



You can have a Grand Strategy game focused on war, and it's basically what Hearts of Iron always was.

Hearts of Iron 3 had much better political system. There was a real pool of ministers, there were events that represented internal politics, there were actual laws. The current system looks like I am playing Fallout 4 and upgrading my Perks with EXP. points.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Hearts of Iron 3 had much better political system. There was a real pool of ministersrs, there were events that represented internal politics, there were actual laws

And the impact either of them had on the actual game was close to zero.

Even right now with the very basic political system in HoI4 it can have massive impacts on the game like triggering civil wars. The laws in HoI4 have tradeoffs too, unlike the ones in Hoi3 which was just no-brainer progressions.

I will take a system that has meaningful impact on the game any day over one that has alot of details which doesn't matter or change how the game plays the slightest except for adding a bit immersion.

 

[billcorr]

improving ... information to players is high prio and each major patch/expansion will improve that.

Outstanding! Good to hear that improving information to players is a high priority.

Looking forward to seeing how will the in-game feedback loop will evolve...pop ups? graphics? audio? charts and graphs? cartography? Time will tell.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Meglok]

@podcat @SteelVolt Here is a quick fix for 1.3 that might help the AI. Change the military police tech from an ai_will_do = 0.5 to at a value of at least 1.0 for GER, ITA, JAP, and the SOV. Right now the ai won't even look at researching military police, there are too many other techs with higher priorities.

 

[Axe99]

ok, I might have worded it badly. As a german player you can strengthen Soviets if you want to make it harder. You can strengthen allies also. Historically soviet was very strong, its not compeltely implausible that they would have managed with much less help from allies on its own and if we make them (without sliders) strong enough to defend against germany in every run there isnt much incentive and fun playing UK & friends because you wont have to work very hard at it.

Aye, it's definitely a tricky proposition to get a balanced game between the three, not least because of the different starting times for major players. That, and what the actual balance is, is far from settled historically (so when I say I prefer a historical balance, what I'm actually saying is I prefer what I see as my best guess at what the historical balance was). In the long-run, a metric for 'winning' that was a bit deeper than simply being the nation with the biggest blob at the end of the game/conquering the world would go a long way to helping with these kind of things, and has been used in other WW2 strategy games (like HoI3 - I wouldn't be surprised if you had something deeper planned for the future in that Grand Plan).

 

[Enzo]

Good to see Paradox continue to improve and dedicate resource on their games, I'm not surprised on this as this is the case since EU1, but happy to see this policy is on-going, this is clearly for me the signature of any Paradox's game.

Would be very nice also to see a roadmap of future expansion or patch, if you begin with Allies cooperation @podcat , there is one thing that always irritated me in all HoI games, is that as an ally you can't build an air base / naval base / infrastructure on an ally's territory, this is especially frustrating in mp when playing as US you invade North Africa and can't improve the naval base in Casablanca for instance, because of course you don't usually have a France player in mp. this should not be too difficult to fix, and I see it as a major improvement. if the next expansion name is Torch, you can't miss this one

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.

3 levels should be just what we need (theater, army, corps) this will greatly facilitate naval invasion or paradrop operation from a gameplay point of view, not saying that managing around 6 units per group is probably the right scale, I find 24 too large.

 

[Slickzor]

HoI3 had 1 type of factory ( instead of 3 ) and 3 resources ( instead of 6 ), as well as a way simpler production and construction system.

So economy have been greatly expanded in HoI4 already

energy, rare materials, metals, oil, supplies, money. Add to that the special resources and its the new game that is less developed. I believe it has been settled in the forums already that an abstracted to some, simplified according to others view on the game has been implemented through the transition from the previous installment to the new.

 

[Alex_brunius]

energy, rare materials, metals, oil, supplies, money. Add to that the special resources and its the new game that is less developed. I believe it has been settled in the forums already that an abstracted to some, simplified according to others view on the game has been implemented through the transition from the previous installment to the new.

• Money was basically only a means to spend IC to import resources, the same thing exists in HoI4 too, so it doesn't count as an added resource, unless you want to count "trading feature" as a resource in HoI4 bringing it up to 7.
• Supplies, also exists in HoI4.
• The special resources were added in one of the last expansions ( and they were not really used as resources either, only provided small bonuses to certain areas ), so wait until HoI4 has had a few years of development if you want to make a fair compairson there.

And the final point. Resources in HoI4 actually have a meaningful impact on your production unlike HoI3. If you don't have enough steel in HoI4 you will struggle to build tanks while in HoI3 a lack of metal meant that you could just lower airplane production and keep spamming out tanks ( after a few years had passed and your stockpile was emptied ).

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

You might be incredibly unlucky, but I see japan win in more than half my test games (being conservative here, its probably more around 70% tbh). I see germany beat soviets in roughly 50% of games and I havent seen them struggle before attacking soviets in weeks.
Are you basing this on the 1.2.1 patch?

@podcat

Basing this on 1.2.1 with likely historical path on : I just fired a spectate (I mean not a real spectate, just a normal game) as Honduras (nice pick for that imo). The not so good things that happened :

- Japan was loosing all Manchuria and Corea while pushing in a very uncertain offensive in south-east China, now they're more or less loosing the war. China isn't at war with Popular China which is pretty ahistorical and the base of the problem imho. Tchang Kaï-Chek had said that for him war against Mao was even more important than war with Japan, which always seemed to be a dead-end eventually to him. This was a very complicated front and situation to occidental eyes : while at war, there still were some checkpoints where opium traffic was continueing for example. Better : TKC concluded a pact with Japanese at a time, in order to they let thousands of brand new troops get through the front with Japan, to let those forces continue the fight against communist China into the newly Japanese controlled area, that couldn't be reached.

- Germany managed to hurry its war in Europe, and France felt by '39 spring : ok. But then allies managed an amphibious invasion that Germany didn't take care enough appearently (how could defeated little british forces and annihilated french forces could handle an immediate counter-offensive by invasion of the whole north of France ??). But Germany did struggle at eradicating this front, loosing Paris. Then it declared war against USSR, openning the famous second front which they historically absolutely didn't want.

- Of course things could'nt go nice then : USSR managed to gain a bit of territory and Germany is so in a defensive position, in the East and in the West. But, of course, it decides to declare war on Yougoslavia, openning a 3rd front !.. -_-

- Still some occupying problems where Germany isn't able to pacifiate controlled territories.

Edit : I forgot to mention a very odd and unrealistic thing : While France was being liberated as Free France, Vichy France entered the war against them : so Vichy France was fighting Free France when Germany controlled only Alsace Lorraine and was continuesly retreating. That shouldn't happen of course. Vichy France does exist and can even fight with Germany, yes, but only if Germany is controlling west Europe, or, for the very least, if basicaly Germany's power is high.

 

[Slickzor]

• Money was basically only a means to spend IC to import resources, the same thing exists in HoI4 too, so it doesn't count as an added resource, unless you want to count "trading feature" as a resource in HoI4 bringing it up to 7.
• Supplies, also exists in HoI4.
• The special resources were added in one of the last expansions ( and they were not really used as resources either, only provided small bonuses to certain areas ), so wait until HoI4 has had a few years of development if you want to make a fair compairson there.

And the final point. Resources in HoI4 actually have a meaningful impact on your production unlike HoI3. If you don't have enough steel in HoI4 you will struggle to build tanks while in HoI3 a lack of metal meant that you could just lower airplane production and keep spamming out tanks ( after a few years had passed and your stockpile was emptied ).

Supples in HOI4 ?
lol
the game hardly has a supply system.
But you can enjoy the Japanese invasion of the Gobe desert and claim this is a "strategy game".

We can argue semantics for the 2 games and aesthetic differences do matter. But with the new implementation I feel I lost more from the transition from 3 to 4.

Will I go back and play HOI3?

NO! I did that 5 years ago. I m looking at the future but the new implementation is far from it. Given that PDS is not a small regional company nowadays but a mainstream gaming company that can handle games in a proper way a not expect to be treated as "those cool guys from Sweden (?) who make these niche games".

Niche got popular, not the other way around. Keep that in mind.

 

[Alex_brunius]

But you can enjoy the Japanese invasion of the Gobe desert and claim this is a "strategy game".

Historically it's actually part of a Soviet operation called August Storm. It involved 654 thousand men, 9700 artillery pieces and 6000 tanks, self propelled guns and rocket launchers "invading through the Gobi desert" (what they called the Transbaikal Front). It was a brilliant invasion strategically that achieved all it's goals in rapid pace, and they advanced 70km per day.

But with the new implementation I feel I lost more from the transition from 3 to 4.

Will I go back and play HOI3?

NO!

So you say that HoI3 is better, but still think HoI4 is more fun to play?

This is what I am trying to argue, WHY is Hoi4 more fun to play?

Because there are alot more meaningful choices and the features that are implemented so they actually have an impact on the game.

Having a thousands small details and complexity just for the sake of complexity like Hoi3 doesn't make the game more fun to play, just harder to understand what things actually matter and which does nothing.

 

[Slickzor]

What I mean to say is I played HOI3 to the death. I think I still got a couple of pounds on me back from the days.

Thing is, HOI4 is only good to get ME frustrated.

It happens when the Netherlands keep sending convoys in the baltic region after I have sunk literaly 1000 of their vessels with submarines.

It happens when the Japanese invade Gobe and somehow lose the Chinese war because they turn their forces to the Phillipines for some reason.

It happens when I can rule the seas with my '44 destroyers, pitting them against fleets with battleships.

It happens when I realize that every minor once you got the hang of the game can tech as fast as a major due to the foci.

It happens when I watch the AI not once try to boost its own political agenda.

It happens when you realized you don't need an air-force but just fighters and its OK. You get enough bonus.

It happens when simple things like messages for invasions, the resolution of a sea or land battle dont pause the game or even alert you, but PDS games did that for the last decade.

It happens...

 

[Alex_brunius]

What I mean to say is I played HOI3 to the death. I think I still got a couple of pounds on me back from the days.

Thing is, HOI4 is only good to get ME frustrated.

So the HoI3 AI which didn't intercept transport ships at all at release for example did not bother you any bit at all, allowing you to easilly invade UK as Germany? (fixed in HoI4) Or the HoI3 AI that didn't ever fight in the Pacific until the 3:ed expansion ( will be fixed in HoI4s first according to the devs ). Or the HoI3 AI that sent 100 divisions to deal with a few partisans that rose up? ( fixed and revamped system in HoI4 ).

Sometimes it's important to take of the nostalgia glasses, and remember not only the good things with previous games but also the bad things.