Is No Step Back a bad joke?

[Stacho]

I really don't understand the "very positive" rating on steam. Is it hype only?
This DLC and patch is broken as hell.

Historical as Germany:
1939 Germany invade Poland
1940 Italy invade Yugoslavia - Yugoslavia joins Allies. Italy lost Africa within days. With the new supply system, Italy is even more incompetent than before
1940 USSR declared war on Latvia - Latvia joins Allies. Now it is became Quake 3 Arena Free For All
1941 Germany invade USSR. Hungary and Romania did not accept war invitation.
1942 Fascist Italy left Axis and join Comintern
1942 Germany Alt+F4 rage quit

New supply system is total mess.
Germany cannot deploy even 24 divisions on entire Polish borders without attrition.
Over 3000+ fighters protecting Europe air space, but Allies (Britain only) keep destroying my trains with 300 CAS
While Romania is not at war with USSR, all Soviet encircled divisions fall back on Romanian territory (without military access) and gain full organization and supply.
Before patch, I earned 100% organizer trait during Spanish Civil War. Now I got barely 10%.
German - Soviet cooperation it says "Create Panzer IV Ausf A. variant.... well it is create... just nothing
Tank Designer, create Leopard variant but it has Flakpanzer IV Wirbelwind icon. "Best match"
etc. etc.

I just spent 20 eur to break my game.

 

[ClavintheGreat]

Completely agree. Bug filled mess. New supply system is terrible, focus trees are just about playing minigames instead of actually picking a path for a nation. I was super hyped, but after this.... not so much. Tank designer adds nothing to the game. Complexity without depth.

 

[jpd]

New supply system is total mess.
Germany cannot deploy even 24 divisions on entire Polish borders without attrition.

I have absolutely no problems whatsoever to deploy 120 divisions on the polish border, and have them all in supply. But you need to use the supply map, and configure your supply nodes along the polish border to use trucks from your stockpile. If you don't, you're be using horses, and these don't travel very far and carry not so much supplies as trucks do.

 

[Crecer13]

So far, I generally agree. The paranoia system is terrible. The supply is unintuitive and incomprehensible. Perhaps after a month of immersion, I will say differently. but yesterday I played from 19:00 to 23:00 and the USSR turned from a favorite country to play into an unloved one.

 

[pdstanbridge]

I think we all need to take a step back, (pun intended). I said this before release - we need to re-learn the game. It's such a complex affair. Don't rush into the game afresh as a major! There's too much going on. Play as a minor (but one that has had the treatment), and take baby steps. I'm trying a run through as Canada. I'#ve over 8000 hours in game and I'm still learning new things. Patience.

 

[Idle America]

The heart of the issue lies with the still-broken faction system, as I have mentioned previously.

 

[Deinhardt]

I think we all need to take a step back, (pun intended). I said this before release - we need to re-learn the game. It's such a complex affair. Don't rush into the game afresh as a major! There's too much going on. Play as a minor (but one that has had the treatment), and take baby steps. I'm trying a run through as Canada. I'#ve over 8000 hours in game and I'm still learning new things. Patience.

Patience is good and all, but there are clearly some rather big bugs.

 

[Idle America]

Patience is good and all, but there are clearly some rather big bugs.

Agreed. Poland getting a wargoal on itself after dismissing Lithuania's claim is a particularly glaring one.

 

[Stacho]

I have absolutely no problems whatsoever to deploy 120 divisions on the polish border, and have them all in supply. But you need to use the supply map, and configure your supply nodes along the polish border to use trucks from your stockpile. If you don't, you're be using horses, and these don't travel very far and carry not so much supplies as trucks do.

So horses cannot supply German basic 9 inf division template, 3 tiles away from supply depot?
That is why I encircled 30 soviet divisions near Odessa, they fall back to Romania (*edited original post) and get full org and supply without military access from Romania (which was in my faction, but not in the war)??

It looks broken to me.

 

[Nuklearius]

I let one game run in observer mode until mid 1943 just watching the AI and was also slightly disappointed. Just a few issues I've seen:
- Soviets can barely build any industry, they don't enough Civs and whatever they had they all put into building railroads when the war started
- Soviets didn't invade Poland as they did historically. Disappointing considering the DLC is focussed on Soviets and Poland...
- Soviets only started invading Finland in mid 1940s, not in Nov 1939 as they did historically
- baltic states get annexed via decisions which cost 70pp, which is to much for the AI to handle, as they kept on spending it on other minor stuff, Soviets also declared war on Latvia in my game, since the AIs starts fabricating wargoals on Baltic anyway, despite already having those decisions
- Baltic states have a staggering 20-30 factories each (!). Estonia doesn't even have 2 million inhabitants in game, why Paradox?
- Soviets didn't build railway artillery or trains thanks to lack of factories, Germany had railway artillery which was present on the Eastern Front but didn't fire because it was assigned to an African army that it obviously can't reach by rail, so it just idled
- Iran gets randomly puppeted through Soviet Focus. Not historical, it should be occupied by Soviet Union + Britain

Outside of Soviet Union:
- Germany still attacks BeNeLux in 1939, completely ignoring the historical timeline, also launches Weserübung simultaneously. Sad this is still not fixed
- Japan still overruns China even with the new supply system
- Spanish Civil War lasted like 3 months before Nationalists won


Paradox has to move away from AI railroading through wargoals gained by National Foci, they should receive wargoals through political decisions. The decisions to annex Baltic states, demanding FInland and Bessarabia should all not cost political power, since the AI can't handle it.
Generally political power is a terrible system and it causes both China and France to run out of manpower since the AI can't upgrade its laws.

 

[jpd]

So horses cannot supply German basic 9 inf division template, 3 tiles away from supply depot?

It's terrain type based. Supplying through a string of mountain provinces from node to target province is a lot harder than supplying through a string of flat plains provinces.

 

[Stacho]

The heart of the issue lies with the still-broken faction system, as I have mentioned previously.

Faction system is sad story same as peace deals.
When you play German Empire, Yugoslavia joins Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere for absolutely no reason in 1940.
When you play Czech Entante, Poland without invitation auto-join your faction when they are attacked by Germany, so after that you are attacked by Soviets too.

 

[Tarroque]

That's disheartening, if not unexpected. I could forgive a lot of these issues but Italy joining the comintern at the onset of Barbarossa takes the cake both in terms of how fully it breaks a save and how late the bug manifests. I'd ask if there was any hope of Paradox fixing these issues before the Christmas break, but that'd be a tough deadline if the AI and the diplomacy are more broken now than they were the day before yesterday. Guess I'll have to wait for the summer sale.

 

[Nuklearius]

Timelapses are out:

Soviets are seriously underindustrialized and are not even capable of annexing the Baltic states anymore. Really disappointing, the DLC was supposed to make the game more immersive. Simply slapping debuffs on Soviets was not a good idea.
Again I already took a look at their AI myself and it just can't handle all the political power sinks and can't get their national foci in time. The debuff to Soviet industry is completely unjustifiable and unhistoric and makes me question if Paradox actually playtested the entire thing.

 

[jacekgk]

I decided to learn by little steps and despite I'm very hyped on Poland, I have played Bulgaria yesterday. I wanna learn, how the new system of doctrines works, because I had a bad feelings with this. But - now I think, this is cool. It is not to hard to take that much army XP thanks: advisors, bonuses from focus tree, attache to Japan, etc, even if Bulgaria has a lot of things to spend PP. The mechanized offensive in early 1940 is not a bad result, but I have suspisious, that it will be not so easy to sneaky buffing navy (I mean: submarine spam) via Trand Interdiction path.

I had two easy wars during my first campagne in NSB - against Albania (avoiding italian guarantees by invating them to my own faction) and Yugoslavia. I have not a big issues with supplies (even if I put 24 division on yugoslavian border), but it has to remember:
- dedicate at least one factory to trucks as quickly as possible;
- fully motorize supply hubs;
- when You don't use Your army at the moment, relocate them along the railway line.

I saw Bittersteel video as monarchist Russia, where he explained, how to rush in terrain with a very bad supply. I don't want to pretend that I understand everything at this moment, but I think that is not so broken as players think - it needs more patient, attention and some more learnings, that's all. It is tempting for me to play today in China to look, how the things are going - on some videos, I saw, that terrible for Japan, but in my game China was eaten in half in 1940. I watched the situation in Asia from time to time - it seems, like a start was very, very bad, but after taking supply hubs on the coast, japanese armies went like a knife into butter. It would be cool, if AI finally learn, how to use supply. But I repeat - this is feelings after one not so long game without hard fightings.

 

[Stacho]

The debuff to Soviet industry is completely unjustifiable and unhistoric and makes me question if Paradox actually playtested the entire thing.

No they do not. They have a lot of work with inventing meme achievements.
Soviet AI cannot annex Baltics -> entire game is broken but Paradox did not notice.

 

[Leinad965]

Timelapses are out:

Soviets are seriously underindustrialized and are not even capable of annexing the Baltic states anymore. Really disappointing, the DLC was supposed to make the game more immersive. Simply slapping debuffs on Soviets was not a good idea.
Again I already took a look at their AI myself and it just can't handle all the political power sinks and can't get their national foci in time. The debuff to Soviet industry is completely unjustifiable and unhistoric and makes me question if Paradox actually playtested the entire thing.

1939 start is in very bad condition for long time

 

[Nuklearius]

No they do not. They have a lot of work with inventing meme achievements.
Soviet AI cannot annex Baltics -> entire game is broken but Paradox did not notice.

What frustrates me is that they don't even bother anymore with making it look historically plausible. The Baltic states were all occupied simultaneously right after the fall of France when the western powers were distracted, but that will never be replicated with the current system. It looks so stupid seeing them get annexed one by one with a 3 month difference between.
HOI3 did it right, why can't HOI4 fix it in its own dedicated DLC?

1939 start is in very bad condition for long time

True, but the failure to adhere to a very simply historical script and the underindustrialization also happened in my 1936 observer game.

 

[long_fella]

Outside of Soviet Union:
- Germany still attacks BeNeLux in 1939, completely ignoring the historical timeline, also launches Weserübung simultaneously. Sad this is still not fixed

Really? That's terribly disappointing . This annoys me every game I play. And, let's be honest, the game has been out for nearly five and half damn years now.

 

[Tullaris]

Give it two weeks. Feedback is collected as things are rebalanced and perfected. HoI4 is such a massive beast in terms of different systems and outcomes at play that its impossible to test for everything. A million people are now playing HoI4.

In terms of content, the expansion is great and will allow for much more depth in the years to come. You want it perfected in terms of zero bugs and great balance now, but for PDX its almost impossible to deliver because the nature of the games: endlessly replayable because every game is different, means they don't get everything right immediatly.

Give the feedback in the bugs/suggestions forum. Let the team collect the data. Non of your problems are fundamental design choices but rather bugs and balance issues.