Start Date

[Swinds]

Looking at History 1933 seems like a good place to start. maybe for an DLC expansion.

FDR takes over as President and Starts the new deal.
Japan leaves the League of Nations and decides on the road to the pacific war and Chinese invasions.
Britain, France, Italy and Germany signed the 4 power pact. Churchill warns of German re-armament.
Hitler came to power and started the road to WW2.

and not forgetting Paraguay declares war on Bolivia.

The game is designed to allow different choices, for example Britain becoming Fascist.

Would this start date not be better as this was when Historically the nations of the world made the decision to start along the paths they did. Starting in 1936 is, if you forgive me after the horse has bolted from the barn.

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

If you start in 1933, players will find a way to find themselves in a blown out global war around 1936 and that would ruin the feel of the WW2 background. Also, if you start in '33 and the game allows you to declare war only around the late 30s, it will be a somewhat boring 7 year prelude of rearmament only and will take a long time to reach the real cool stuff of the war. In other words, there isn't a really interesting incentive to start the game earlier unless you are more into the production/logistics aspect of WW2 and not the actual military aspect of HOI4.

What I want more though, is to have a date beyond 1948 to keep on playing.

 

[Big Nev]

and not forgetting Paraguay declares war on Bolivia.

So THAT'S how it all kicked-off.


Isn't it just amazing what you can learn in this forum huh?



But seriously, IMHO, you could only implement a 1933 start date if you had a much better political system and the treaties.

Even then, knowing war is coming that far in advance would make it way too easy to game the system.

 

[Caesar15]

What I want more though, is to have a date beyond 1948 to keep on playing.

Well you can play beyond 1948, the game won't stop you from doing that.

 

[DiegoVaz]

If you start in 1933, players will find a way to find themselves in a blown out global war around 1936 and that would ruin the feel of the WW2 background. Also, if you start in '33 and the game allows you to declare war only around the late 30s, it will be a somewhat boring 7 year prelude of rearmament only and will take a long time to reach the real cool stuff of the war. In other words, there isn't a really interesting incentive to start the game earlier unless you are more into the production/logistics aspect of WW2 and not the actual military aspect of HOI4.

What I want more though, is to have a date beyond 1948 to keep on playing.

hey was this guy on the other post ?

 

[Swinds]

If you start in 1933, players will find a way to find themselves in a blown out global war around 1936 and that would ruin the feel of the WW2 background. Also, if you start in '33 and the game allows you to declare war only around the late 30s, it will be a somewhat boring 7 year prelude of rearmament only and will take a long time to reach the real cool stuff of the war. In other words, there isn't a really interesting incentive to start the game earlier unless you are more into the production/logistics aspect of WW2 and not the actual military aspect of HOI4.

What I want more though, is to have a date beyond 1948 to keep on playing.

Well by clever design you can make finer decisions on what you build and more interesting decisions on treaties. The player can be restricted to what they build, e.g. Germany built their industry and their Military from 1933 not 1936. so decisions could be Waffen SS or 'Guard Army units' as one example, Reveal the Luftwaffe in 1935, Anglo - German Navel treaty.

The USA could chose a different leader than FDR to lead on a different road.

More time for China to unify.

Italy sides with France and GB etc.

This does not mean war in 1936.

 

[Takeo92]

In fact, i aggree that 1933 is better date, because of reasons you stated.

 

[Swinds]

So THAT'S how it all kicked-off.


Isn't it just amazing what you can learn in this forum huh?



But seriously, IMHO, you could only implement a 1933 start date if you had a much better political system and the treaties.

Even then, knowing war is coming that far in advance would make it way too easy to game the system.

Not often the thread originator goes off on a tangent, Monroe doctrine without an American invasion, HOI3

 

[Kazansky22]

Looking at History 1933 seems like a good place to start. maybe for an DLC expansion.

FDR takes over as President and Starts the new deal.
Japan leaves the League of Nations and decides on the road to the pacific war and Chinese invasions.
Britain, France, Italy and Germany signed the 4 power pact. Churchill warns of German re-armament.
Hitler came to power and started the road to WW2.

and not forgetting Paraguay declares war on Bolivia.

The game is designed to allow different choices, for example Britain becoming Fascist.

Would this start date not be better as this was when Historically the nations of the world made the decision to start along the paths they did. Starting in 1936 is, if you forgive me after the horse has bolted from the barn.

I always wanted an earlier start to simulate myself being a "forward looking" leader for a nation such as Italy. I always thought 1936 was a bit of a late start, at least in TFH they added in the "custom start" which I would use as a tool to customize my techs and armies to start in 36 to simulate my forward looking leaderships from the end of WW1 or thereabouts.

 

[neusaap]

I think this should be perfectly doable, but it would mean the national focus and maybe even the tech tree should be rebalanced in order to prevent world war 2 from starting in 1936...

 

[2dme]

If you start in 1933, players will find a way to find themselves in a blown out global war around 1936 and that would ruin the feel of the WW2 background. Also, if you start in '33 and the game allows you to declare war only around the late 30s, it will be a somewhat boring 7 year prelude of rearmament only and will take a long time to reach the real cool stuff of the war. In other words, there isn't a really interesting incentive to start the game earlier unless you are more into the production/logistics aspect of WW2 and not the actual military aspect of HOI4.

What I want more though, is to have a date beyond 1948 to keep on playing.

Yeah, whilst i generally like the idea of extended start dates, HoI doesnt have the same sort of non-war focus that Vicky has. 7 years of peace is fine in Vicky because you have to manage your capitalists and build factories and whatnot, whereas in HoI it would just be build factory, build ship, build division over and over.

 

[Daddl]

HoI is after all a game series about WW2. The only reason why there is peace is to build up your army for the inevitable war. Now, I do agree that I like the initial build-up phase in HoI3 where you see your OOB growing and make sure all is ready for combat at the desired time, but after a certain timespan it becomes rather pointless. If your time is somehow limited by roughly historical dates, which means you have 3,5 years to prepare for war with most countries, you actually have to make some decisions. You won't be able to create the perfect army that is superior on all levels compared to your enemies in that period. Every additional time to build up just leads to the point where you research and build almost everything - thus, having made no real decisions about your strategy. If one so desires it will surely be no problem to adjust the start date via modding, or adapting your playstyle (in HoI3 playing as Germany it is possible to delay outbreak of the war as long as you desire, if you carefully watch not to create any threat, so you can have your 6 years build-up phase without much problems).

So generally speaking, for a game that is supposed to follow the historical path of events at least roughly (whatever degrees of sandbox vs. historical accuracy game modes will finally be in the game), 1936 is a fine start date in my opinion.

 

[MaximillanVoss]

Im fine with the start date, but lategame could scale better. Ending in 1950-1955.

 

[Kazansky22]

I just want to make long term leaderships decisions. Like do I want to form an axis of power? Or do I want stronger ties to the west for an eventuality with Communism.

And do I want to focus on building up my navy? Do I want tech transfer agreements with the UK/GER/US or whoever.

Do I want to spend resources on developing this new crazy idea of planes landing on ships, or invisible radio waves traveling at the speed of light to detect objects at night and in bad weather? Both sound like voodoo to me.

Do I want to do a massive military buildup, or do I want to focus on industrial advance, educational system advances. And have a small but ultra modern military?

Perhaps I want a proxy war in a weak but resource rich nation. Or maybe I want to spend my resources on backing friendly politicians in large elections of foreign nations to sway them to see my way of things.

Or maybe I want to spend money developing the industry of friendly nations so they may be of better help in what is coming over the horizon.

Long term grand strategic planning for a war that the smart people know is certainly coming. After all everyone with half a brain knows that the treaty of Versailles is nothing more then a short term ceasefire.

Given you can do a lot if not all of those things from 1936, but that time-frame "feels" too short to be realistic for alot of that stuff. Especially naval/economic/educational buildup.

 

[ringhloth]

If you have an earlier start date, it's going to be the one that's going to be played at least 90% of the time. More, really. 1444 starts in EU4 make up over 99% of all starts. So 1933 can't just be an interesting start date, it has to be the most interesting start date. Is 3 years of peace really the most interesting thing for the major powers of Europe?

 

[planefinderMT]

I'll jump on the '33 bandwagon as well if we are talking "sandbox" vs. determinism (which by the way seems to be the bent of HOI 4). As stated in this thread, '36 pretty much commits everyone to history whereas the political and leadership dimensions of '33 allow greatly different outcomes.

I think the biggest argument against though is boring gameplay as Paradox likes to not have players waiting forever to get the war started. If they loosen the diplomacy a bit and allow for more flexibility for alliances, war declarations, etc, especially for the democracies though, it might work. Also, the bid economic focus also provides more to do.

 

[Bloodshok]

A little bit of an earlier start date might be fun, maybe add in some more peace mechanics early on before all the wars start.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Podcat stated in an QA livestream that they dont want 1933 as a starting date because then the game would require a whole different bunch of gameplay mechanics since it would be the rise of hitler and not the road to war. Hearts of Iron is about world war 2, not about political stuff for 7 years before the war. 1936 is the perfect start date since things started happening and its a good time to start preparing for the war and 1939 is there to skip that part entirely. It wasnt until 1936 when things started happening anyway. Do you really want to play an germany which literaly only sits still for 3 years until they do anything with a couple of informative events popping up? I am sure that we will see dozens of mods which extend the timeline in both directions.

For an 1933 start to really make sense the game would require different gameplay mechanics. Thats one reason why we have seperate games for different timeframes aswell.

 

[Lunarc]

Rules, Mod33, Mod33 rules HOI....
More seriously, I think a DLC for add a thing a mod can add easily is silly. It's again Paradox DLC politic for EU4 and CKII