Is HOI 4 still a Hearts of Iron.

[Hjalfnar]

The supply system in HoI4 is basically nonexistent. It is either "you have enough infra and provinces" or "you don't have enough", and as in HoI3 the AI is not able to recognise if it's placing to many troops in an area.

While I like quite some aspects of HoI4, especially production and division templates, it is not nearly as interesting on the Wargame aspect. Either you put up a plan and an army to execute it (with a horrible interface, sorry to say that but the planning interface is a mess, at least for newbies) or you try to command your armies manually, which results in a clickfest far worse then HoI3. In HoI3 you had to click a lot...at the beginning. The rest was done with a good organised OOB.

I for my part loved to command my armies in detail and historically correct, at least until Barbarossa. In HoI4 I do not get enough info and OOB structures to do so efficiently, and I am happy if the Soviets don't declare war on me in 1940, with historical mode activated. So, compared to HoI3, HoI4 is en par. Not better, not worse. It is what it is...but it is no HoI for me. It is an WW2 Sandbox.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

1, Agreed, it is a better game.
2. Supply system exists it's just different
3. Is VP's producing supply less realistic than the entire production/supply coming from a capital? That is like imagining that only tyhings made in Washington DC were able to supply the US army in WW2.
4. Air supply exists in the form of airport capacity.
5. CAS in Western Europe work great, it is only when you use them in the East that the distance causes CAS problems. Seems plausible to me.
6. Fuel in HOI3 consisted of stockpiling as much as possible so that I could curb stomp the AI and prove I was better than it.
7. Click fest was much more rampent in HOI3, how many clicks did it take to set up a OOB for Germany? A few hundred?
8. Not sure what you mean by this one. Invest in intel maybe?
9. Yep, compared to 3 it is kinda great.

Time to waste some more of my time:

1. I am glad you like it.

2. No, the "supply system" in HOI IV is non-existent since units live off the land just like in EU IV (the HOI IV starting canvas).

3. You don´t know how HOI III supply production works. Supplies (and fuel) are not produced only in the capital; they are produced in all core provinces with IC. After they are produced they´ll either move (one province at a time) to the capital for storage, will be consumed by any units stationed in the core province (s) with IC or will move towards units farther away (....)

4. Rofl you do have a vivid imagination. Do you even know what air supply is?

5. Yeah it seems totally plausible that my airplanes are suffering eff. penalties bombing a province 50 km away from their air base simply because the arbitrary/arcade air regions are several thousand km long.

6. Seriously? Can´t you come up with a better excuse/joke?

7. Again "you know nothing John Snow". I need less than one minute to create an OOB for Germany with only a few clicks. To customize said OOB to my liking I´ll probably need another 4 minutes or so if I am about to do operation Barbarossa.

8. It is funny that you talk about Intel especially because a spy system is absent from HOI IV. Btw did you know that in HOI III TFH planes could be used to spy/scout enemy provinces? That was useful to try to find out how many and what kind of brigades/airplanes/navies were stationed there. Just like in real life but who cares with realism, right? I guess this is kind of hard to do in HOI IV given that airplanes are also non-existent.

9. I am glad you like it but I guess that if you knew how HOI III TFH works you would probably like it better… or not.

Btw another thing that I love in HOI IV is the non-existent money which ofc allows for Barter economics, a XX century invention that replaced money to facilitate arcade games… or was it trade? I am confused now.
Yet another thing that I used to love in HOI IV due to its amazing state level constructions was seeing my engineers building stuff (like air bases) for the enemy to use. Totally awesome.
I could go on and on...

 

[Axe99]

2. No, the "supply system" in HOI IV is non-existent since units live off the land just like in EU IV (the HOI IV starting canvas).

While HoI4's supply system is a stacking-limit style system a la EU4, it does differ (significantly, in application) by requiring a flow of 'stacking limit' from the capital - in EU4, the stacking limit in a province is what it is. In HoI4, having a port bombed can reduce it, because it reduces the flow from the capital (and, if over water, it relies on convoys as well - something else EU4 doesn't have to worry about). We both want a better supply system . However, it's not correct to suggest that HoI4's units just 'live off the land' like EU4's.

 

[wildbillhdmax01]

People forget, but EU4 felt very arcadey in the beginning, but tremendous depth has been added since.

For me, HOI3 was an exercise in frustration. It was a micromanager's dream. I like being able to delegate things to the AI, as delegation is part of management. The problem is that the AI doesn't even come close to competent. It should be competent enough to present realistic execution of orders, so the human can manage more critical things.

Having to actively control almost everything is not wargaming, it's OCD.

This is from my Last game as Germany. That's right South Africa has 285 Divisions. It's not even arcadey anymore. It's straight up fiction. This is why after 1941 the starts to slow down to the point of being unplayable. This game is nothing but a numbers game. All you have to do is spam.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

This is from my Last game as Germany. That's right South Africa has 285 Divisions. It's not even arcadey anymore. It's straight up fiction. This is why after 1941 the starts to slow down to the point of being unplayable. This game is nothing but a numbers game. All you have to do is spam.
View attachment 288850

The exact same thing happened in Darkest Hour, in the late game the AI would never stop building divisions. At-least HOI 4 did something by actually implementing national manpower that is tied to population. Yes the system needs to be improved but I don't believe anyone here was suggesting otherwise.

 

[Secret Master]

This game is nothing but a numbers game. All you have to do is spam.

Tell that to the 6 million Soviets I encircled and destroyed in 12 months last time I played Germany. I'd have encircled more, but the Soviets stopped spamming divisions. Something about having insufficient war material to do it...

Then try to just spam with no knowledge of supply or air power or ORG or any of a hundred other mechanics in an MP game. Tell me how far that gets you against a human.

 

[wildbillhdmax01]

Tell that to the 6 million Soviets I encircled and destroyed in 12 months last time I played Germany. I'd have encircled more, but the Soviets stopped spamming divisions. Something about having insufficient war material to do it...

Then try to just spam with no knowledge of supply or air power or ORG or any of a hundred other mechanics in an MP game. Tell me how far that gets you against a human.

But I'm not playing against human now an I? I don't play MP, either way when It's comes to SP it's a mess.

 

[Dalwin]

But I'm not playing against human now an I? I don't play MP, either way when It's comes to SP it's a mess.

You may not be playing against humans, but that means your claim of all you have to do is X, means little. The same is true for all such claims. In your case X is spam units. Others have said it was spam CAS or a dozen other things. Any of these dozen things are all you have to do. So even in the disappointing single player game there are options.

The biggest disappointment I see about the single player game is those who will use cheese to defeat it and then claim that it is broken. When asked the best way to play they will even share their particular form of cheese as advice. In single player you get out of it what you put into it. If you use cheese then a cheesy game is what you get.

On the other hand, if you find the right mods and use the difficulty sliders and avoid exploiting the system's weak points, if you actually try to play straight up, you might be surprised how much better the game becomes.

Though even then, SP at its best, nothing is more challenging than a good MP group.

 

[Secret Master]

But I'm not playing against human now an I?

I wasn't when I wiped out those Soviet divisions.

 

[wildbillhdmax01]

I wasn't when I wiped out those Soviet divisions.

Yes I've done similar stuff too. I had a screen shot, (I think i lost it when my SSD died on me a few times) whereas Germany I inflicted 10 million casualties on The Soviet Union, while not even breaking half a million casualties myself. Encircling is not that hard in this game.

 

[Secret Master]

Encircling is not that hard in this game.

Thank you for admitting the spamming is not the only factor for winning.

 

[Landsturmamrika]

Tell that to the 6 million Soviets I encircled and destroyed in 12 months last time I played Germany. I'd have encircled more, but the Soviets stopped spamming divisions. Something about having insufficient war material to do it...

Then try to just spam with no knowledge of supply or air power or ORG or any of a hundred other mechanics in an MP game. Tell me how far that gets you against a human.

I agree with SecretMaster.

Nevertheless, even a multiplayer game can not have 122-odd human players for each possible combatant, so having outstandingly intelligent AI is absolutely critical for a grand strategy game.

No one here realistically expects AI to behave identically to a human, but no one likes to fight armies of division/bacteria that spread all over the map. I do think the AI is getting better and better though. The amount of "divisions" doesn't really tell us everything about the enemy's forces, but, If the AI is going to spawn hundreds of under strength "divisions," the AI's division templates should be renamed to Brigades, or Battalions etc. This isn't really the fix either though. That would be a band-aid. The AI just needs to be more involved and engaged in smarter division template design.

 

[Templer]

...having outstandingly intelligent AI is absolutely critical for a grand strategy game...

You nailed it!

 

[Lord Dakier]

Would reply fully, but still micro-managing my OOB from my save in 2012...

Tried to get into HoI3 as a Paradox noob and couldn't play any nation except the South American ones... also done Romania to some success. HoI4 I enjoy playing all nations, except French and German, but being British I can't help that. Seriously the less micro in HoI4 has been a massive plus, I feel they could actually add some more in though and I'd still be happy.

 

[safe-keeper]

See my sig. As I use to say, if the devs had gone in the opposite direction, we would have had angry posts asking why the division template designer was gone, and why we were spending "IC" on "air wings" and "divisions" instead of building factories which in turn built guns, planes, and tanks, why there was suddenly only one type of river, and why every incremental level of forts cost the same.

HOI4 promises to be a really good, deep, and challening strategy game. A HOI3-style chain of command system seems to be the main thing people miss, and the devs have said they'll add that eventually. Then there were people going nuts over the game not having the "mandatory" board game-style counters, but that's a minor cosmetic issue.

What I'm looking forward to the most is when the battle planner is fixed and balanced so that we have to fight operation by operation, like in reality: planning an offensive, waiting for our divisions to prepare, and then execute the operation and advance for as long as possible, until our troops are exhausted and we have to halt, dig in, and start planning where to draw the next set of arrows. Rather than HOI3's ahistorical non-stop fighting along the entire front, we'll have operational warfare, which will be great both for gameplay and for AAR and Let's Play enthusiasts.

Once they work out how to make the XP system and variant designer make logical sense and, you know, have a system beyond "durr, amass infinite XP and max out every stat instantly", that will be great, too . So you unlocked a new fighter. How do you want it to perform? For example, you may have a total of eight points to assign. Do you try to apply these equally, or do you for example make a "Zero" by putting all your points into speed and agility?

Yes.

The real question though...was Hearts of Iron III still Hearts of Iron?

This. The changes it wrought upset people, just like some people are upset with the transition from 3 to 4. The more things chance, the more they stay the same.

 

[safe-keeper]

The supply system in HoI4 is basically nonexistent. It is either "you have enough infra and provinces" or "you don't have enough", and as in HoI3 the AI is not able to recognise if it's placing to many troops in an area.

I forgot about that. At the same time, though, even here we do have improvements, like individual cities producing supplies rather than only the capital. Remember how easy it was to cripple an enemy's military simply by focusing all of your strategic bombing on their capital city, or by surrounding it with your troops?

I for my part loved to command my armies in detail and historically correct, at least until Barbarossa. In HoI4 I do not get enough info and OOB structures to do so efficiently, and I am happy if the Soviets don't declare war on me in 1940, with historical mode activated. So, compared to HoI3, HoI4 is en par. Not better, not worse. It is what it is...but it is no HoI for me. It is an WW2 Sandbox.

Yeah, right now it's incredibly frustrating to play in both modes. When your forces are automated, the stupid AI ruins everything. When you manually control things, the lack of information ruins everything. Now I know how the Führer must have felt when no one dared wake him when the Normandy invasion began.

 

[Secret Master]

Would reply fully, but still micro-managing my OOB from my save in 2012...

Well played, sir.

I forgot about that. At the same time, though, even here we do have improvements, like individual cities producing supplies rather than only the capital. Remember how easy it was to cripple an enemy's military simply by focusing all of your strategic bombing on their capital city, or by surrounding it with your troops?

I actually did an experiment in HOI3. I decided to see how long it would take to eliminate the fuel and supply stockpile of the UK by logistically bombing London.

It took about 24 months. Not really cost effective, but consider the implications. I could destroy the entire stockpile of supply and fuel for the entire British Empire by bombing London. If that's not silly, I don't know what is.

 

[Sarmatian]

I very often bash newer Paradox games. They can be too ambitious, they lack direction, clear design vision (Stellaris) and later in development cycle they suffer from feature creep, where new feature are thrown in with more care taken whether they're marketable than how will they work within the game's existing features (CK2, EU4).

HOI IV, on the other hand, feels like it was developed with a very clear vision of what it was supposed to be. The mechanics of the game are spot on. It needs a lot of tweaking (AI first and foremost) but I don't think it will require an extensive overhaul of basic game mechanics at any point in the future. Since the basis of the game is healthy, they can easily correct what doesn't work and/or add new features.

Compare that to Stellaris. Sectors still feel like a third wheel, and we're at a point where maybe, hopefully some time in the future they will add features to manage internal affairs of your space empire at which point sectors might become an interesting feature.

So, in conclusion, I think that HOI 4 will be the most successful HOI game and will be considered a true classic 5-10 years in the future, unless they go overboard with feature creep.

 

[Axe99]

I share Sarmatian's view above - while HoI4 has some 'gaps', it feels like it's been designed very well with the potential to fill the necessary gaps as time and resources permit. I ramble on about it every now and again, but it's important to keep in mind that developing a complex WW2 GSG is not the same amount of work as developing EU4 (no disrespect to the EU4 team, it's a great game).

The biggest disappointment I see about the single player game is those who will use cheese to defeat it and then claim that it is broken. When asked the best way to play they will even share their particular form of cheese as advice. In single player you get out of it what you put into it. If you use cheese then a cheesy game is what you get.

On the other hand, if you find the right mods and use the difficulty sliders and avoid exploiting the system's weak points, if you actually try to play straight up, you might be surprised how much better the game becomes.

I'd second this strongly. SP, as long as one is willing to exercise some discipline and not take advantage of the AI's weaknesses, can be a lot of fun. Yes, the AI can have some brain explosions and mess things up royally (but it could in HoI3 as well - so this doesn't mean it's not a HoI game, if anything it means it's more definitely a HoI game ) but most of my single-player experiences (which are the only HoI experiences I have) are enjoyable and challenging initially (the AI grinding its manpower and equipment down is the biggy, and there are defines that can help if not fix that - but it is the case that over a long land campaign the challenge factor can drop as the AI loses control of its manpower and equipment). The AI on an operational level can often provide a very good challenge if you're playing with historically plausible division templates and aren't min-maxxing your production in a gamey fashion.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Would reply fully, but still micro-managing my OOB from my save in 2012...

Well you can spend 10 years managing the HOI III OOB if you want it because unlike HOI IV, HOI III TFH actually has a detailed OOB. However I sometimes like to focus my attention on other aspects of the game so for example in this video I only needed a few seconds to create a functional OOB. I created a functional OOB (keeping most divisions in range of the HQs), managed production, the air force, navy, trade, tech and conquered France while still playing much better than the AI opponents; all of this in ~5 minutes. I would play much better/faster if I was not so rusty at HOI III TFH (the last time that I played it was last November and I played Black ICE)