Rework on Historical Mode? (Developers Please Respond)

[Evan05]

When did being a whiny little complainypants entitle the customer to anything?

Sure, @podcat 's answer was not "super nice and friendly". I have the impression that you are very much influenced by the US-way of handling customer complaints: being the nicest person ever to even the biggest assholes and then just flipping them off when they turn around. Other nations have other customer relationship cultures, and I personally prefer the honest and direct way.

I think podcat also was just a bit annoyed because people (especially the "HOI must be railroad hurrdurr"-people) complain about this game for 2 years now. Pre-order went live about 3 weeks ago, after HOURS of WWW, 50ish DDs and an incredible amount of Devs Forum interaction. And then some people still buy the game and then complain that it is the way it was presented like all the months before. If someone is that dumb to not realise what he is buying, nothing will keep him as a satisfied customer. And even if this statement lost paradox a few sales, I think it is a price I would be willing to pay just so I don't have to deal with this nuisance anymore. I disagree with several things paradox does, but this statement right there made podcat very likeable to me

Btw, comparing podcats statement with "being racist =/= honesty" is pretty strong. Not to say way off the chart.

Perhaps people are just voicing their constructive criticisms of the game, so Paradox can make it better? You know as a consumer if you see something you don't like, you shouldn't just bend over and take but actually try to help a company improve their product by recommending changes that you think would better improve it.

On one of the youtube videos of HOI4, here is a special comment that I think it is quite nice:

"you know when i heard paradox was going to make hoi4 less railroaded i didn't expect it to mean "humongous clusterfuck" "~Foranyed, 2016

I think this comment is nice not because it is kind, but because it is accurate. The timelapses have been a "humongous clusterfuck". You can make a game sandboxy without it being a "humongous clusterfuck". That is what many people are asking for, not railroading, but also not a "humongous clusterfuck".

 

[Kayapo]

I believe there is an unfortunate confusion in this OP argument and in many posts in this thread. The game being scripted or not is really a dead horse, this discussion started after EU2, it has been soo long that the horse is probably already living a second or third life somewhere.

Now, Japan landing in Finland has nothing to do with the game being "historical", it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with it the AI being more "realistic" and efficient.

It should be a simple request: "Hey Devs, see that parse where Japan is landing in Finland, can we double check the AI and create rules so that it reacts in a more realistic and efficient (this being key) way?". That is it, that is the whole argument there.

If you wish the game followed a historical path you really shouldn`t be too excited for HOI IV or any Paradox Games for that matter. If you like EU4 however you already know what a "Paradox Historical Setup for a Sandbox Experience" means. If you like that, you will enjoy HOI IV, if you don`t like that then Matrix Games might have something that is more to your liking.

Japan landing in Finland is something to be tweaked, no doubt about it. Not only it isn`t realistic it isn`t efficient AI. I very much doubt that Japan was so relaxed and winning it`s side of the War that it thought sending an invasion to Finland was a good idea (that is something a human player does when they are bored and roflstomping).

During the France stream (WWW) there were italian troops manning the german border, both streamers (one of which was the AI guy) reacted like it was very normal for it do so. Well, maybe they are right, but I feel the AI would be much more efficient and deadly if it was much more selfish. It needs to think about their goals 99% of the time and with 99% of their effort. Why would Italy send troops to Germany when it should have been worried about the "Comunist French" menace? Case in point when the war started France managed to take the whole coast with only their defensive units, because Italy was thinking it was a good idea to send troops to guard the German border instead of caring for itself. That is what should be looked into.

When I watched the stream I wanted to shout at the dev guy to turn on the debug and check why Italy was manning the german border right there and fix it imediatly. They used to do that in Stardock`s streams, fix the AI during the gameplay. It was great.

 

[Rommel41]

I remember Japan invading Estonia and Murmansk in release version of HoI3. Though historically, Japan and Germany should be detached allies and never exchange more than minimal resources and technical advisors. Let's be real. 1930's governments saw the other side of the globe as the dark side of the moon. Hitler's staff couldn't immediately tell him where Pearl Harbor was on Dec 7, 1941!

I'd also swear that the release AI would smear-up the map just as badly as those videos going around now.

I'm planning on playing everything as historic as possible (even save scum to avoid a "France in '36") until June 1940 and then, with Sealion, we'll see how things go.

I enjoy 3 very much today (though I always edit saves and tag switch to ensure both a fun, challenging game and historically reasonable results). They cleaned it up well. I expect equal results on this title.

 

[zmarcos]

There should be 3 modes:

1) Historical. 100%, railroaded historical, AI always picks historical option.
2) Ahistorical - what historical is now. Chance for each AI decision to go off rails.
3) Sandbox - EU4 WW2 DLC.

Better yet:
1) Self-fulfilling prophecy
2) Semi-historical
3) Fiction

 

[adam_grif]

Pure historical mode by definition will be unhistorical because players will not play historical when they know exactly what will happen. For example, why bother building up an army to be able to take over austria/czechs if you know they will just fold every time no matter how weak you are etc.
Also, for the Ai to be adaptable at all there needs to be flexibility. Otherwise you get HOI3 ai that collapses as soon as something goes in a different direction from history.

Ai for a game like this is an enormous task, and a task that never ends either. So yeah of course we will be improving it. but a game is not a timelapse of AI stuff, you are supposed to be there actually playing it.

HOI4 is much more of a sandbox than HOI3 and we have always been very open about that in hours and hours of streams. If that is not what you want HOI3 is still around.

Hi Podcat,

You need to build up to take the Austrians and Czechs because the national focuses have army size requirements. At some point in the future, there could conceivably be mechanics included in those decisions to have them assess the "threat" as part of their likelihood of capitulation - that is, you need to actually have armies on their borders that could invade, otherwise they can laugh in your face.

Something like the French contesting the Rhineland re-militarisation is more than a little bizarre though, because it's something that is very likely to throw everything off the rails a mere couple of months into the game. The weighting for that event when in historical mode may be set to 0 safely for that option.

My own personal wishlist for "Historical mode" includes something that most people don't care about, which is fixing the outcome of the random events like the Hindenburg crash or Amelia disappearing during her flight. For me personally those things should always have historical outcomes when in "historical mode" - it doesn't impact gameplay but makes sense to include.

 

[Fenian]

I'm totally cool with the 1936 french capitulation video - from what I could tell the streamer quite enjoyed it too. It's important to note that he was after completing 5 or 6 other play throughs suprised by this turn of events.

 

[Mnoracle]

Most likely AI just incapable of taking rational decisions at this point of time. And historical/non-hisrtorical is only chance of some events going historical or ahistoriacal way. However due to nature of the AI that doesn't matter that much. The game goes of the rail right away.
Think it's as WW2 themed fantasy.

 

[adam_grif]

I'm totally cool with the 1936 french capitulation video - from what I could tell the streamer quite enjoyed it too. It's important to note that he was after completing 5 or 6 other play throughs suprised by this turn of events.

The BenjaminMagnus LP thing was mystefying because not only did the French oppose the Rhineland in Q1 36 causing the war to break out, they were totally unprepared to defend the tiny frontage that they had with Germany. They had 4 divisions manning 6 provinces. That's simply bad AI. Of course the Germans are going to break through if they don't at least man each province with 1 division. The only way I can explain it in any way that makes remote sense is if we assume that half of all French divisions instantly teleported to Calais to take part in the rebellion.

Speaking of, an instant civil war is questionable at best. I don't mind the idea of doing something like that triggering a civil war, but I feel like it shouldn't happen day 1, it should be more like it sets you down the path of a civil war that will break out "soon". Civil wars need time to develop.

 

[Pasta_Man]

I knew something was wrong when I couldn't be arsed watching WWW anymore. Things just don't sit right these days.

 

[Fenian]

The BenjaminMagnus LP thing was mystefying because not only did the French oppose the Rhineland in Q1 36 causing the war to break out, they were totally unprepared to defend the tiny frontage that they had with Germany. They had 4 divisions manning 6 provinces. That's simply bad AI. Of course the Germans are going to break through if they don't at least man each province with 1 division. The only way I can explain it in any way that makes remote sense is if we assume that half of all French divisions instantly teleported to Calais to take part in the rebellion.

Speaking of, an instant civil war is questionable at best. I don't mind the idea of doing something like that triggering a civil war, but I feel like it shouldn't happen day 1, it should be more like it sets you down the path of a civil war that will break out "soon". Civil wars need time to develop.

I think your right that Frances war prosecution was poor but I don't have an issue with the ahistorical decision in and of itself.

 

[Admiral Piett]

AI Japan shouldn't have troops in Europe. That is silly. As for other non-historical things happening. Ehhh. It doesn't bother me too much. What does bother me from watching playthroughs is the UK AI seems to be back to its old "I'm not going to defend any of the Empire outside of the British Isles" ways. It makes playing Japan or Italy really boring, because one of your main opponents has like two divisions opposing you in its imperial positions.

 

[adam_grif]

I think your right that Frances war prosecution was poor but I don't have an issue with the ahistorical decision in and of itself.

It's two separate issues I agree. I think everyone can agree that the French performed appallingly in the conflict, whether or not we think the historical mode should restrict such decisions in the first place.

Also another thing - Italy jumped in the war way too fast imo. The Rhineland affair should arguably be a much more low key conflict, especially taking place in 1936 when Italy is busy in Ethiopia and there has been no time for meaningful diplomacy to align the two countries! It feels like something that needs a bit of a rebalance on that.

 

[Silas1775]

The BenjaminMagnus LP thing was mystefying because not only did the French oppose the Rhineland in Q1 36 causing the war to break out, they were totally unprepared to defend the tiny frontage that they had with Germany. They had 4 divisions manning 6 provinces. That's simply bad AI. Of course the Germans are going to break through if they don't at least man each province with 1 division. The only way I can explain it in any way that makes remote sense is if we assume that half of all French divisions instantly teleported to Calais to take part in the rebellion.

Speaking of, an instant civil war is questionable at best. I don't mind the idea of doing something like that triggering a civil war, but I feel like it shouldn't happen day 1, it should be more like it sets you down the path of a civil war that will break out "soon". Civil wars need time to develop.

French national unity was bottomed out, and the communists were well-entrenched in the French political sphere(evident based on their popularity, which is high even from game start and thus before) . It STARTS developed. And these aren't communists like hold 2% of the seats in a given parliament nowadays, these are the days of the COMINTERN and the realistic prospect of global communist rule.

Some people just want to sit on the ride, have the bar come down over their lap and ride to the "natural" conclusion. But they don't realize that that conclusion was held together with duct tape, chewing gum and a thousand different kinds of good luck, bad luck and seemingly random choices. Is it unbelievable that the French government/army would launch what they would hope is the phoney war with the re-militarization of the Rhineland, and is it unbelievable that French communists would seize their chance to exploit the lack of popular support for that choice and their own massive popular support? In the military we often base our wargames on FAR less plausible scenarios than that.

Ever heard of the Algiers putsch? Rogue French paratroopers almost dropped into metropolitan Paris and Charles De Gaulle appeared on national television in his old uniform to order all French people to resist and obey. This was in 1961. Stranger things have happened, or almost happened. If you asked every senior member of the U.S. government and the military in 2000 if the US would be in Iraq three years later, they'd laugh you out of the room.

Anyway, I always support smarter and more vicious AI. But if you want an Epcot ride of WW2 it's been made and it's called HOI3. True 'realism' will be found in smart AI, not a script. Kayapo is correct.

 

[Fenian]

Also another thing - Italy jumped in the war way too fast imo. The Rhineland affair should arguably be a much more low key conflict, especially taking place in 1936 when Italy is busy in Ethiopia and there has been no time for meaningful diplomacy to align the two countries! It feels like something that needs a bit of a rebalance on that.

Agreed Similarly I felt the Commonwealth jumped in too quickly as well given that the UK had made the call not to enforce Versailles

 

[adam_grif]

French national unity was bottomed out, and the communists were well-entrenched in the French political sphere(evident based on their popularity, which is high even from game start and thus before) . It STARTS developed. And these aren't communists like hold 2% of the seats in a given parliament nowadays, these are the days of the COMINTERN and the realistic prospect of global communist rule.

Some people just want to sit on the ride, have the bar come down over their lap and ride to the "natural" conclusion. But they don't realize that that conclusion was held together with duct tape, chewing gum and a thousand different kinds of good luck, bad luck and seemingly random choices. Is it unbelievable that the French government/army would launch what they would hope is the phoney war with the re-militarization of the Rhineland, and is it unbelievable that French communists would seize their chance to exploit the lack of popular support for that choice and their own massive popular support? In the military we often base our wargames on FAR less plausible scenarios than that.

Ever heard of the Algiers putsch? Rogue French paratroopers almost dropped into metropolitan Paris and Charles De Gaulle appeared on national television in his old uniform to order all French people to resist and obey. This was in 1961. Stranger things have happened, or almost happened. If you asked every senior member of the U.S. government and the military in 2000 if the US would be in Iraq three years later, they'd laugh you out of the room.

Anyway, I always support smarter and more vicious AI. But if you want an Epcot ride of WW2 it's been made and it's called HOI3. True 'realism' will be found in smart AI, not a script. Kayapo is correct.

So you think that it's historically plausible that if France announced that they were at war with Germany over the Rhineland, within 1 hour a civil war would break out, and large portions of the French Army would have defected to a Communist faction in a civil war that would break out in Calais and the overseas colony, instantly? It makes minimal sense from a realism perspective. It takes time for a military coup to build up momentum, it does not happen overnight, regardless of the degree of popular support. Currently in game, this is represented fairly by external coup / civil war mechanics, where it takes time for a civil war to break out once preparations have begun. In this case though, it's the snap of a finger. What I'm proposing is that instead of it breaking out on day 1, the mechanics are put in place for a civil war to build up and break out "soon" after the war occurs. As in, a scale of perhaps a few weeks or months.

Secondly, please drop this condescension. Oh when I'm on historical mode I want an "epcot ride"? Come off it. I want a plausible World War II scenario to play inside of. If I want to make to make Communist Australia conquer the world I'm not going to click historical mode. It's for when I want to play a country and have things roughly go as they really did so that the point of divergence is my conduct during the war, not some random AI silliness 4 years before it breaks out. I just don't want to see Polish space marines in Algeria when I click historical mode. I don't want countries to randomly turn fascist and declare war when nothing has gone differently from real history elsewhere. That's the kind of thing I want to prevent. In this case, the player could not plausibly have done anything substantially differently in the first 3 months of the game as Germany, so it makes sense that when in historical mode the game wouldn't fly off the rails completely so soon based on AI decisions. I'm not asking for 100% historical realism, but this, specifically, seems to break it too far.

Also, the relationship between the French Communists and the invading Germans was ??????????. Would the Germans really have respected the sovereignty of the Calais communist block? Would the French communists have been 100% ok with Germany taking over their whole mainland except that tiny enclave? Even as an alt history, it isn't plausible within its own confines.

Agreed Similarly I felt the Commonwealth jumped in too quickly as well given that the UK had made the call not to enforce Versailles

Yes, Aus/NZ joining before UK joined was frankly bizarre.

 

[tom_jones]

Let's be real. 1930's governments saw the other side of the globe as the dark side of the moon.

I don't think this is anywhere near accurate -- or you have to wonder why in this case there were Japanese spies organizing intelligence network in Europe, and talks of possible cooperation between Poland and Japan in tackling Russia, in 20-30s. And that's just two mild examples.

The major powers had lot of reasons to be interested in stuff on "the other side of the globe", these reasons being generally their colonies over there.

 

[Evan05]

So you think that it's historically plausible that if France announced that they were at war with Germany over the Rhineland, within 1 hour a civil war would break out, and large portions of the French Army would have defected to a Communist faction in a civil war that would break out in Calais and the overseas colony, instantly? It makes minimal sense from a realism perspective. It takes time for a military coup to build up momentum, it does not happen overnight, regardless of the degree of popular support. Currently in game, this is represented fairly by external coup / civil war mechanics, where it takes time for a civil war to break out once preparations have begun. In this case though, it's the snap of a finger. What I'm proposing is that instead of it breaking out on day 1, the mechanics are put in place for a civil war to build up and break out "soon" after the war occurs. As in, a scale of perhaps a few weeks or months.

Perhaps a coup was already building in the French Republic prior to 1936, and all it needed was one final spark; a final push to convince the populace that the French regime is incompetent and to convince the people planning the coup that is regime is weak and it's now or never.

That "final push" would be France's declaration of war on Germany.

 

[Diomedene]

HOI4 is much more of a sandbox than HOI3 and we have always been very open about that in hours and hours of streams. If that is not what you want HOI3 is still around.

Sadly, this may very well be what happens. I am already experiencing buyer's remorse and remember how that very soon after HOI II was released I went back to playing the original until HOI III came along. It would seem that I am simply not a big fan of the "streamlined" and "more of a sandbox" style of the even numbered HOI titles.

In fairness this has been a slow but progressive change in Paradox's designs away from wargame style designs and toward video game style designs. I am sure that they are more aware of their market than I am and for every long term customer such as myself that is turned off by this approach there are at least 1.01 new customers that are attracted.

 

[Kayapo]

Drama is getting strong in this thread.

 

[jaredstanko]

its not a historicity complaint, its a realism complaint. there must be something restricting the AI from launcing in unrealistic theatres, some sort of supply distance penalty, based on navy.

in addition, this is a more minor complaint, but bordergore needs to be something that is worked on from now until the final patch. its good the way it is, but it has much room for improvement, and it is my most anticipated improvement from HOI 3 and 2