This game needs 1942 and 1943 starts

[gman551]

Not only has this been a standard feature in previous games but it would solve many of the problems that people such as myself have with Hoi4. Namely that there's not much of a way to play the greatest historical campaigns of WW2.

At the very least we imo we NEED a Operation Barbarossa start.

I fail to see how this has not been implemented.

Don't tell me it's available through mods. Some of us do not like using mods and prefer the polish that comes from the developers in a vanilla release.

How do all of you feel?

 

[Jorlaan]

No, no it does not. Additional start dates take a TON of dev time to keep balanced and working. There are a lot of real problems with this game that seem to linger on, seriously increasing the workload would not help matters.

 

[Tarkilth]

I agree with the premise that it could/should be cool - however, I believe they've stated before ith other games that the many start dates they offered are one of their larger regrets because of dev time issues as mentioned by Jorlaan above. On top of that the telemetry has shown in all of their titles that the vast majority never even tried the later bookmarks, preferring to try the earlier ones.

Sometimes I'd be tempted to think that it should be different with HoI because of its theme and the historical campaigns etc. like you mention, but it appears not.

At any rate if there was going to be one they would probably have made it before launch.
As an interesting side note - have you ever tried the 1939 start? I don't believe I have. Don't really see let's plays and the like of it either, despite it promising more instant action/more historical WW2 start and all that which one would have thought has appeal.

In short, I understand your desire but short of mods I seriously doubt it will happen.

 

[Pyro157]

I agree with the premise that it could/should be cool - however, I believe they've stated before ith other games that the many start dates they offered are one of their larger regrets because of dev time issues as mentioned by Jorlaan above. On top of that the telemetry has shown in all of their titles that the vast majority never even tried the later bookmarks, preferring to try the earlier ones.

Sometimes I'd be tempted to think that it should be different with HoI because of its theme and the historical campaigns etc. like you mention, but it appears not.

At any rate if there was going to be one they would probably have made it before launch.
As an interesting side note - have you ever tried the 1939 start? I don't believe I have. Don't really see let's plays and the like of it either, despite it promising more instant action/more historical WW2 start and all that which one would have thought has appeal.

In short, I understand your desire but short of mods I seriously doubt it will happen.

If you're interested in playing democratic majors, try 1939 mode-they become pretty much more viable with most of their focuses unlocked. If you want a challenge, there's always 1939 Poland or 1939 Soviet Union...

1939 China is also pretty fun, and was the first proper game I played.

 

[epicmemory]

I'd argue a fair amount of HOI4 mechanics (national focuses, production line efficiency, division design, equipment variants, etc) tend to give the player more satisfaction and gameplay value when done earlier rather than later. That said, I wouldn't object to seeing a later game start, but need is far too strong of a word. It's more like....if Paradox said, "hey guys, here's a present for you!", I'd appreciate it, and I'd certainly give it a whirl, but I doubt I'd spend a significant amount of time on it after the first day or so. Speaking completely personally, I personally find the build-up to the war to be some of the most entertaining parts of HOI4 (sue me!), and cutting that out really does sort of weaken the game overall. Just an opinion, of course.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if the devs in charge of this particular area spent some time to research the proper OOB, completed techs/NFs, and strategic position of the powers in the war at a start date...say, Operation Barbarossa, or perhaps Pearl Harbor, or even a 1944 Normandy start date and dropped it into a content patch somewhere down the line, but the last thing I'd want would be for limited resources (in this case, time!) to be spent on something that would be, at best, a novelty.

Given the disparity between the number of people that play 1939 vs 1936 (wasn't it something like only 4% of games are played starting in 1939..?), it's really, really, really hard to justify spending any real amount of resources on an even later start date. All that said and done, I'd enjoy a proper 1944 set-up just for that once in a while urge

 

[KopiG]

Given the disparity between the number of people that play 1939 vs 1936 (wasn't it something like only 4% of games are played starting in 1939..?)

I can confirm this is true.
Any new start date would be a huge waste of dev time. Hell I would go even as far as remove 1939 as it just takes unnecessary dev time when new things are made.

 

[FOARP]

What every one else said: most people don't play later start dates because they feel they don't get the full experience when doing so. The increase in playability for those who do is not worth the developer time needed to create and balance the later start-dates.

Look at the later start dates in HOI3: the 1944 one didn't work properly as the Allies started out without supplies in Normandy, but the devs didn't really notice this during testing and it was never fixed.

All the above said, I would like to see, say, a late-1944 start as I think struggling to rescue the Reich might be cool to try. Alternatively an "Operation Unthinkable" start-date might be interesting to try as well. But there's plenty of things I want more than these.

 

[Herz2146]

I've never played anything past the 1936 start . @podcat mentioned this is the case for most who play the game during his PDXCon presentation. I'm primarily a USA player and I need those extra three years for proper buildup.

 

[Hootieleece]

I would love to see more historical Start dates BUT unless a majority of players clamor for it.(Like Pagans or 769 Start dates in CKII) it will never happen.

Having played the 1939 Start date several times. It does deliver a more realistic World War II game.(not perfect but better).

Most players play the game because they want to change history........

As a historian I mostly disprove of the process even though plausible hypothetical Counterfactual history can be fascinating............see books like Red Sun Rising etc.

 

[GeorgieBest]

There are so many problems with the game that need to be addressed before they start to even consider extra things like this.

 

[pvt.conners]

I would prefer if the development focused on improving existing mechanics/features and adding new ones rather than making additional start dates that would only serve to exacerbate limited development resources every time they attempted to change or add something to the game.

 

[Secret Master]

How do all of you feel?

If I thought enough players would use it, I'd be all for devoting time to developing it.

But the lesson of HOI3 was that not very many people used the non-1936 and 1939 start dates. So, I can understand why the developers wouldn't want to waste time on it.

 

[koba134]

Leave this to modders. Devs have plenty of work as of now to have at least the AI be functional.

 

[TallTroll]

I'd be pleasantly surprised if the devs in charge of this particular area spent some time to research the proper OOB, completed techs/NFs, and strategic position of the powers in the war at a start date...say, Operation Barbarossa,

Wow, no. Germany would be unstoppable. At the start of Barbarossa, RL OOBs would give the USSR a large but almost completely INF/CAV army, a large-ish, but obsolete air force (and they had *just* swapped over the production lines, so prod. eff. will be tanked), and Japan should have a large-ish army in position to start eating the USSR from the East if they try to move any large part of the Far Eastern Army over to reinforce before winter comes. Even a moderately competent player should have little trouble destroying the Red Army in the West (as happened), shooting down the Red Air Force (as happened) and actually taking Moscow / Leningrad (as nearly, but didn't quite happen), and pushing to Rostov / Kharkov, if not taking the Caucaus in 1941 (which cripples Soviet production, because thats where most of the oil was, and IRL they only had a small synthetic program at the time). If the Axis can keep imports down for like 6 months, the USSR is just done. They'll still have manpower, but no equipment other than large quantities of obsolete infantry weapons, and no way to build more

 

[Riekopo]

Yeah, at some point I'd definitely like to play through other historical scenarios like D-Day, Battle of Kursk, Stalingrad, Barbarossa, etc.

 

[SirWallace]

No, no it does not. Additional start dates take a TON of dev time to keep balanced and working. There are a lot of real problems with this game that seem to linger on, seriously increasing the workload would not help matters.

i think its too late

 

[hkrommel]

More start dates are something that I would like to see once the game is stablized in terms of bugs and balance. The 1943 and 1944 starts were a lot of fun to play as various nations in previous titles. In addition, it's incredibly difficult to get a D-Day or Kursk situation from a 1936 or 1939 start, so that will likely satisfy the desire to play more historical scenarios.

There is a problem with mid-war starts though, and that is that real world organizations make no sense in-game. Play the 1944 scenario as the US in HOI3 and try organizing just the bomber command and you'll see what I mean. It's even worse for the Germans in 1943 because you need to hit the Soviets fast, but you have individual heavy tank brigades and a motley assortment of ad-hoc units that are useless because their strength or organization is too low.

 

[Meglok]

How do all of you feel?

Judging from the posts and disagrees I'd say the vast majority do not agree with your idea.

No, no it does not. Additional start dates take a TON of dev time to keep balanced and working. There are a lot of real problems with this game that seem to linger on, seriously increasing the workload would not help matters.

And this is why. Far too few people want to play additional starts dates to justify the time and effort it takes to create them.

 

[epicmemory]

Wow, no. Germany would be unstoppable. At the start of Barbarossa, RL OOBs would give the USSR a large but almost completely INF/CAV army, a large-ish, but obsolete air force (and they had *just* swapped over the production lines, so prod. eff. will be tanked), and Japan should have a large-ish army in position to start eating the USSR from the East if they try to move any large part of the Far Eastern Army over to reinforce before winter comes. Even a moderately competent player should have little trouble destroying the Red Army in the West (as happened), shooting down the Red Air Force (as happened) and actually taking Moscow / Leningrad (as nearly, but didn't quite happen), and pushing to Rostov / Kharkov, if not taking the Caucaus in 1941 (which cripples Soviet production, because thats where most of the oil was, and IRL they only had a small synthetic program at the time). If the Axis can keep imports down for like 6 months, the USSR is just done. They'll still have manpower, but no equipment other than large quantities of obsolete infantry weapons, and no way to build more

This entire post tells me that a scenario where the Soviet player has to defend against the things you described would be fun and challenging . The 1936 start is sandbox enough. On the tiny, tiny, tiny percent chance that Paradox makes a late war start, I'd want a realistic OOB, or as close to it as possible. The whole point of starting a late war scenario is to see if the player can take the exact situation that commanders saw in real life and adjust it to make a winning strategy. For that, you need realistic OOBs or it is more of the same as 1936 I'd say.

Your argument would also preclude some of the more fascinating scenarios from previous HOI games, like the 1944/45 scenarios when starting as Germany.

I like the idea of later starts, and the only real argument against them is one of resources (resources required to produce and balance them would detract from other aspects of the game that are far more pressing). If resources were not in the equation or if Paradox had unlimited time and money, I don't think there'd be a rational person on these forums who would say, "Hey, how dare you give me an optional later start date!". A 1941, 42, 43, 44, and 45 start would be really cool (like how EU4 has start dates that range all the way up to the 1800s), but the cost of producing them doesn't really pan out, given the small size of HOI4's dev team and the need to really perfect the 1936 start.

 

[him_15]

Hell no, need the Dev to concentrate on AI issue and bug fixing.