Impressions from early-access streams

[Deinhardt]

From what I've seen, submarines look like a real threat now. They're approximately 9,000 times more survivable in the next patch than in this one.

Yup. This should make the MP crowd happy. The allies spend most of the time dealing with the Battle of the Atlantik now. Only after that is done, once Radar and such is up to snuff, they can even start to THINK about D-Day.

The US Player had sitting thousands of tanks and other equipment sitting in his stockpiles and couldnt get it through. It was great.

 

[Pragmatic]

a pretty good summary that pretty much matches the design goals. I do expect people to struggle a bit in the beginning until they learn to adapt to all the changes

Is oil still subject to economic laws? Or fuel? That would limit how much advantage USA and other oil-rich nations get from free training XP.

 

[Deinhardt]

Any other takeaways you had from that stream?, I've not got time to watch it

For MP purposes. It seems that with the takeaway of fuel from the production of Planes, Tanks and Ships, the Axis is seriously able to churn out a fearsome warmachine. Fuel is the only limit, and if they can stockpile it sensibly, they can easily overwhelm others.

EDIT: Also Mines are a real good tool. The German player mined the american eastcoast and messed up Naval operations, trade and lendlease.

All in all. The Naval games has so many layers now and possibilities to prepare for. I dont know if the AI is capable of these shenanigans but for MP this just adds extra spice to the whole thing

 

[Gefallener_Held]

Have there been any SP games or games with a United Kingdom AI? Is AI UK fixed, ie defends Egypt and the home shores?

 

[Fulmen]

Have there been any SP games or games with a United Kingdom AI? Is AI UK fixed, ie defends Egypt and the home shores?

I saw an SP game with Japan and there was barely anything in India or Malaya, meaning the AI's defence elsewhere is probably equally lackluster.

Here's the video, timestamped:

 

[mdallion446]

I'm sure people will have difficulty finding their feet at first, kind of like riding a bike: it simply takes awhile to find your balance, but given enough time, people will (pardon the HOI4 pun) become acclimated to the new system in no time. Just be patient

 

[Ringwraith_JP]

I saw an SP game with Japan and there was barely anything in India or Malaya, meaning the AI's defence elsewhere is probably equally lackluster.

Here's the video, timestamped:

I'm hoping it means that the UK won't leave the home islands completely undefended.

 

[Pragmatic]

I saw an SP game with Japan and there was barely anything in India or Malaya, meaning the AI's defence elsewhere is probably equally lackluster

If I recall correctly, that was after the European war drained the manpower. Then Japan declared war, and faced a shattered colonial empire.

Which could mean the Axis was too powerful in Europe.

 

[Fulmen]

If I recall correctly, that was after the European war drained the manpower. Then Japan declared war, and faced a shattered colonial empire.

Which could mean the Axis was too powerful in Europe.

Ehh... I've seen far worse in MP and the Allies still recover to properly defend the Far East. It's just pure AI incompetence, nothing more. I still don't have high hopes for this game's SP.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Ehh... I've seen far worse in MP and the Allies still recover to properly defend the Far East. It's just pure AI incompetence, nothing more. I still don't have high hopes for this game's SP.

In 1939?

 

[Duke_Dave]

I have a question, isn't the DLC finished at this point? I mean surely they already started working on the Post-DLC patch. Changing things now wouldn't be save, so they have a working version lying around and are just waiting for Thursday evening to release. Why not release on Tuesday, if any big problems arise they have way more time to fix them. I mean I don't have to work Friday so its fine for me. Just wondering.

 

[Fulmen]

In 1939?

Ok, good point, I forgot the guy in the video attacks in Dec 39. But how badly can the AI British Empire get annihilated in France anyway? They still don't really commit a lot of troops there, or do they?

 

[Th3master]

I have a question, isn't the DLC finished at this point? I mean surely they already started working on the Post-DLC patch. Changing things now wouldn't be save, so they have a working version lying around and are just waiting for Thursday evening to release. Why not release on Tuesday, if any big problems arise they have way more time to fix them. I mean I don't have to work Friday so its fine for me. Just wondering.

I'd imagine they might still be balancing (they really should be after all of the exploits the streamers/youtubers found) and doing minor bugfixes to make sure the launch goes well. Plus, it would be weird to just randomly release the DLC two days beforehand since there's really no reason to do so. I want the DLC as much as everyone else, but I'm fine with waiting the <48 hours left before it comes out.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

It looked like engines and a lot of other components also dropped reliability. I assume it's to signify how many critical components you have on board. A hit to your fire control module should reduce the stats of your ship and possibly require repair work at a dock yard. I'm not too sure how they use reliability for ships (I hope it's not the same as planes where they have a chance to be destroyed every time they go on a mission!) A max level carrier with all mods had a 48% reliability IIRC from one of the streams - I assume they want it to be powerful but fragile.

All I have in complete speculation, but since they added critical hits that do damage to specific capabilities of the ship, it could make sense if not all crit hits result in huge raw damage. So maybe you get a crit hit, roll on a table of what the crit does (with some fraction of the table being extra damage). So adding some radar could expand the chance of a crit (by reducing reliability) but maybe not increase the chance of a high-damage crit (since some of the increased crits will be radar-disabling rather than extra damage).

 

[Lord of Beer]

Here's the Bokoen MP stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/386698723

@podcat please nerf the JagerNort decision in 1.6.1. -25% production cost on fighters is totally OP. Make the PP to select it much higher and reduce it to -5%?

 

[Oerdin]

Allies are just getting too much war support too fast plus gain a really large number of free war justifications. Or at least that is what the youtibe reviews make it look like with the US DoWing Japan and easily defesting it in 1937 or the UK conquering the world in record time.

So it seems there are some balance issues which still need to be addressed.

 

[Gort11]

I saw an SP game with Japan and there was barely anything in India or Malaya, meaning the AI's defence elsewhere is probably equally lackluster.

Here's the video, timestamped:

Keep in mind in this game the UK is at war with the Comintern, so it's effectively human-lead super-Japan plus the Comintern versus the British and Dutch. Those are not good odds.

 

[Fulmen]

Here's the Bokoen MP stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/386698723

Ahh, there's some people there who I don't think make videos... Should've given a shot at getting early access. Oh well, too late now.

 

[Pragmatic]

Keep in mind in this game the UK is at war with the Comintern, so it's effectively human-lead super-Japan plus the Comintern versus the British and Dutch. Those are not good odds.

On the plus side, Mexico and Central America being enemy Comintern, and Peru/Venezuela being enemy Fascist, gives America the excuse to go after a Pan-American USA.

 

[Gort11]

On the plus side, Mexico and Central America being enemy Comintern, and Peru/Venezuela being enemy Fascist, gives America the excuse to go after a Pan-American USA.

It was pretty cool when Chester Nimitz showed up with fourteen submarines and started running wild off the Home Islands.