Note that the following are personal opinions, and some may simply be wrong (and I am happy to be corrected). Note also that I mainly play USSR / Germany and don't play MP. That having been said I'd be interested to see what you all agree / disagree with 
. I care deeply about the success of HOI4 and want a game I can enjoy. At the moment, with some 500 hours played, I can't say that I do. In the main it's been a disappointing and frustrating experience.
What works well
* The map - it's gorgeous, detailed, and reflects the world well for a WWII scale strategy game.
* Single province combat.
* Division designer for the player.
* How the player has to make decisions about when and how to spend political power.
* CIC / MIL / Refinery (now that rubber is harder to achieve) development and decisions.
* Focus trees for the player.
* Recruitment and deployment for the player (does the AI still queue up hundreds of units it can't possibly equip, and deploy hundreds of units with limited equipment?).
What looks to have promise
* The new war support system
* The new decisions / missions system
What works well, arguably
* Research - clear, elegant, good interface, where decisions have impact, but it's tightly tied to
* Production - much better than previous HOI iterations, and improved with the recent 1.5 patch, but in turn is tightly tied to
* Trade - which is a bit clunky (sets of 8 units, no stockpiles) but more importantly is undermined by the state of naval warfare in general, and particularly the use of submarines.
* Air war - works well apart from two glaring issues, namely strategic bombers and how they can teleport, and secondly the air war at sea.
What works badly
* Focus trees for the AI - too often railroads the AI into stupid decisions even when playing a historical game. This seems to have got worse with 1.5.
* Battle planner - has never worked well, it's clunky, awkward, needs constant attention, and needs a lot of micro. Often as not you find yourself fighting against it rather than working with it.
* AI fronts - it rarely seems that the AI actually understands terrain or concentration of force. Most of the time it just feels like the AI grabs a number of divisions and says "you lot head in that direction". It pushes a front until (if) it finds a break and then pushes the break, there's no more "thought" involved than that.
* Naval warfare, especially use of submarines for trade interdiction (are supply convoys still completely unmolested?).
* AI naval invasions (but has improved over time).
* Division designer for the AI (but has improved over time).
** Army divisions still take suicidal naval routes to new locations.
** Daft / implausible AI front selection / theatre involvement selection eg Vichy France with no navy planning to get involved on the Indian sub-continent.
* DLC policy - I was a supporter of the approach until Cornflakes where player choice about general / field marshal traits has apparently been put behind a paywall. If it hasn't I can't find the interface.
* Paradox's approach to QA of their products prior to release.
What I have no experience of with 1.5 but has previously been open to criticism
* Peace conferences with multiple participants
* AI division design
* Volunteer spam
* Lend lease
* The supply system
tldr, I would love Paradox to prioritise working on the list of "What works badly" ahead of >>everything<< else.
. I care deeply about the success of HOI4 and want a game I can enjoy. At the moment, with some 500 hours played, I can't say that I do. In the main it's been a disappointing and frustrating experience.What works well
* The map - it's gorgeous, detailed, and reflects the world well for a WWII scale strategy game.
* Single province combat.
* Division designer for the player.
* How the player has to make decisions about when and how to spend political power.
* CIC / MIL / Refinery (now that rubber is harder to achieve) development and decisions.
* Focus trees for the player.
* Recruitment and deployment for the player (does the AI still queue up hundreds of units it can't possibly equip, and deploy hundreds of units with limited equipment?).
What looks to have promise
* The new war support system
* The new decisions / missions system
What works well, arguably
* Research - clear, elegant, good interface, where decisions have impact, but it's tightly tied to
* Production - much better than previous HOI iterations, and improved with the recent 1.5 patch, but in turn is tightly tied to
* Trade - which is a bit clunky (sets of 8 units, no stockpiles) but more importantly is undermined by the state of naval warfare in general, and particularly the use of submarines.
* Air war - works well apart from two glaring issues, namely strategic bombers and how they can teleport, and secondly the air war at sea.
What works badly
* Focus trees for the AI - too often railroads the AI into stupid decisions even when playing a historical game. This seems to have got worse with 1.5.
* Battle planner - has never worked well, it's clunky, awkward, needs constant attention, and needs a lot of micro. Often as not you find yourself fighting against it rather than working with it.
* AI fronts - it rarely seems that the AI actually understands terrain or concentration of force. Most of the time it just feels like the AI grabs a number of divisions and says "you lot head in that direction". It pushes a front until (if) it finds a break and then pushes the break, there's no more "thought" involved than that.
* Naval warfare, especially use of submarines for trade interdiction (are supply convoys still completely unmolested?).
* AI naval invasions (but has improved over time).
* Division designer for the AI (but has improved over time).
** Army divisions still take suicidal naval routes to new locations.
** Daft / implausible AI front selection / theatre involvement selection eg Vichy France with no navy planning to get involved on the Indian sub-continent.
* DLC policy - I was a supporter of the approach until Cornflakes where player choice about general / field marshal traits has apparently been put behind a paywall. If it hasn't I can't find the interface
.* Paradox's approach to QA of their products prior to release.
What I have no experience of with 1.5 but has previously been open to criticism
* Peace conferences with multiple participants
* AI division design
* Volunteer spam
* Lend lease
* The supply system
tldr, I would love Paradox to prioritise working on the list of "What works badly" ahead of >>everything<< else.
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