The logic in Heart of Iron IV

[Pluto2006]

Greetings,

in this post, I would like to show you why the game has no logic. Do not take this post as an annoying rant or complaining but rather like an experience I've encountered. I will get to the point in the last screenshot.

Without further due, let's jump into it, shall we?

Playing as China, the year is 1948 and I finally managed to pick a fight with Japan focus.

The announcement popped out. The war has not started yet! (notice 100% stability and 100% war support) I am showing this out of excitement, I have not seen this announcement ever.

The war has started. The sky is filled with thousands of planes, the seas with ships from China and Japan. Both Chinese and Japanese cities are bombed. Dozens of ships and hundreds of planes are wrecked and lost.

Casualties after a month of constant fighting:
China: 0
Japan: 0

Oh no! Chinese national hero was shot down by the Japanese! This will cause minor anxiety among the Chinese. At least -3% stability is not so much. However, the Japanese started sending their men to boats to observe the Chinese bombers above in the seas. A loss of one man caused -3% of stability for the entire nation, let's see how the Japanese are doing.

Oh, like for real? How do they keep their stability and war support so high? 238 Japanese to 1 Chinese are lost and still, they somehow manage to don't care about its people.


Is this fair or reasonable?
Thank you for your time [:

 

[porta80]

The Japanese leader has 60% base stability afaik.
And he is in a defensive war.

 

[SophieX]

How do they keep their stability and war support so high?

In addition, what @porta80 correctly stated:
Open your save game as JAPAN and hover over those symbols. In these pictures you find the answer

I would like to show you why the game has no logic

To much "typos"; I assume you, you wanted to write: " I would like to show you something, which seems illogical for me"

 

[klopkr]

Imo Stability has to be completely rethought. There should be a difference between the will for the government to fight and the will of the people to support their government.

Stability should be something constantly moving that you want to keep a decent eye on to keep your nation fighting. Giving concessions or harshening the jackboot of your nation and building nationalist zeal should be a part of focusing on the war. So long as nobody steps foot into your core territories the stability should stand (unless you're well nuked like japan) but as you lose your capital and are on the backfoot your stability should lower.

Part of stability should also be the way you burn through your manpower. Aggressive pushed with little gains should tick down your stability while cautious pushed and defences should raise your stability. Gaining enemy territory should also raise your stability bu losing core territory would lower it. If you're not an anarchist bottoming out your stability should either make you call for a white peace (england and germany once they're getting invaded) and it's up to the enemy to decide to make it a total war or not (they all will if they think they can win). Basically you should be able to stall out of the war like world war one if things are completely stuck and you lose control of your nations stability and war support. Once you're at the point of white peacing but not capitulating civil wars and coups to switch sides should become a greater risk like in italy.

 

[SophieX]

In this game stability represents the people's support for the current government in an abstract from. I see no need to make more game-details far that case.

 

[klopkr]

In this game stability represents the people's support for the current government in an abstract from. I see no need to make more game-details far that case.

I disagree because I don't feel that stability really reflects that. The anarchists are stuck at 0 stability which sounds reasonable for anarchists except surely they would support their own anarchist government right?

I also feel the way you change and move stability in game through focuses, events, and aces/shot down pilots are silly and don't represent the actual support governments in game actually had. There's no good representation of Russians becoming more patriotic as germans genocide their way through the east. There isn't much of a battle as britain to keep your population stalwart and invested in the war nor a way to peace them out the way hitler hoped for both the english and russians at many turns in the war.

I think i forgot an important aspect in my earlier comment but I think that your actual in game tactical actions involving your allies and soldiers should have an effect on war support with your entire government forcing a whitepeace or a civil war if you bottom out through stalling invasions and massive casualties with little gain like in world war 1 for nearly all the powers. Stability should be effected by your direct control over the core population of your nation and the efficiency of your nation to rule it. When you lose your stability by losing important parts of your country you should start facing coups and rival governments like in vichyfrance and italy respectively.

Those very real aspects of world war 2 are just not represented in game. Unless you lose a civil war or a conventional war you have inherent control of your nation and its politics and that's just not necessarily the case during world war 2.

 

[SophieX]

....
Those very real aspects of world war 2 are just not represented in game. Unless you lose a civil war or a conventional war you have inherent control of your nation and its politics and that's just not necessarily the case during world war 2.

It is not wrong, what you wrote.
If you look deeper in this forum, you will find many "ideas" of what should be implemented next, with the reason of becoming more realistic.

The more "realistic-details" you picture in a game, the more complexity you get. And that means the source of game-errors will grow.

Therefore you "abstracted" things or make global summaries of them like: currency is pictured in IC...

I know, that this is not easy to understand for everyone.

As I stated in an other thread:
The game now partially mirrors historic-reality, the game is quite balanced and it makes fun to play.

No one denies, that there is still room for improvement. The problem is, how to implement this without "ruining" the game itself.

 

[Secret Master]

The Japanese leader has 60% base stability afaik.
And he is in a defensive war.

I see you covered it.

Tooltips and understanding some of the basics of various countries helps in an analysis of situations like this. While Hirohito is in power, Japan's stability is like iron.

 

[Pluto2006]

Only a lunatic would have 100% war support after such heavy losses after such a short amount of time. Remember the Japanese cities are constantly bombed and when talking about stability I don't see a point why I lost the stability after declaring war. In the end, it was my decision, and even though through the focus so why would I do something which does me harm? (in this case, lowering stability and war support)

I see the mentality of Japanese people at that time has been transferred to the game.

 

[KDEstroy]

I see the mentality of Japanese people at that time has been transferred to the game.

Yes?

Even after most of their navy was annihilated, the destruction of their merchant marine, and the entire country was subjected to relentless firebombing campaigns, Japanese war support is still close to 100%. They only surrendered after 2 nukes and the disastrous lost of Manchuria. I would say this is accurately modeled in Hoi4.

 

[Secret Master]

Remember the Japanese cities are constantly bombed and when talking about stability I don't see a point why I lost the stability after declaring war.

Unopposed strategic bombing hurts war support.

Looking at the screenshots you posted, it's certainly not unopposed. In fact, the screenshot shows you are hardly doing any damage via strategic bombing at all.

If you are being disrupted 80%+ of the time, your strategic bombing campaign is not doing a whole hell of a lot. Until you see 30+ buildings bombed a month, you are simply a gadfly in strategic bombing terms.

 

[Pluto2006]

Yes?

Even after most of their navy was annihilated, the destruction of their merchant marine, and the entire country was subjected to relentless firebombing campaigns, Japanese war support is still close to 100%. They only surrendered after 2 nukes and the disastrous lost of Manchuria. I would say this is accurately modeled in Hoi4.

Yes?

And what about the Chinese iron will? 8 years of terror and fighting in the Chinese mainland and the bombing of the Chinese cities. Shanghai, Nanking, and Beijing lost in the half a year. Air force devastated, not mentioning the navy. The army equipped with outdated guns and weaponry, political turmoil and mutinies, heavy losses of all kinds, and not mentioning war crimes. So the Japanese are not any better than Chinese.

But if I stick to the game, still, I have lost stability and war support by being the aggressor? meaning I brought harm to myself

And thank you for your feedback.

@Secret Master Thank you too. I did not know that.

edit:

@Secret Master Wait! You got it wrong! The second picture portrays Japan(enemy) bombing me! Not me bombing Japan. And they do hardly any damage.

 

[Harin]

But if I stick to the game, still, I have lost stability and war support by being the aggressor? meaning I brought harm to myself

With a population of hundreds of millions, China did not need a lot of war support to stay in the fight and still field a decent sized army.

 

[Harin]

@Secret Master Wait! You got it wrong!

You might want to take a picture of that. It don't happen often.

 

[Secret Master]

Wait! You got it wrong! The second picture portrays Japan(enemy) bombing me! Not me bombing Japan. And they do hardly any damage.

You're right. It does.

Got a screenshot of your bombing of Japan?

 

[Pluto2006]

@Secret Master Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots from bombing. Normally when I find a thing which seems illogical I don't continue playing. I have a plenty of photos but those are from different playings.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

In this game stability represents the people's support for the current government in an abstract from. I see no need to make more game-details far that case.

I disagree because I don't feel that stability really reflects that. The anarchists are stuck at 0 stability which sounds reasonable for anarchists except surely they would support their own anarchist government right?

Stability does not represent how popular the government is, Support for the ruling party (ideology) does that.

Considering the main effects of Stability (on Mobilisation speed and Command Power) stability seems to represent the Government’s ability to enforce their decisions. This is influenced by both the support of those governed and the Government’s capability and willpower.

This explains the anarchists: They are anti-authoritarian and are not willing to force their people to do things faster.

But we agree with @Pluto2006 that some events have an excessively great effect and they should be rebalanced.

 

[SophieX]

Government - Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki

hoi4.paradoxwikis.com

 

[bitmode]

when talking about stability I don't see a point why I lost the stability after declaring war. In the end, it was my decision, and even though through the focus so why would I do something which does me harm? (in this case, lowering stability and war support)

Yes, maybe leaders should ask themselves that before starting a war of aggression Why are you doing this?

 

[Acy is here]

@Ketchup & friends However, support for the ruling party increases stability 20% percent at max i believe