I've got about 850 hours on Hoi4 and several thousand on Hoi2 and Hoi3. Great series, obviously! I have completed the first five years of my first play through on By Blood Alone and I'm giving my feedback. Should my suggestions not make their way into the game, I hope to create a mod that addresses my issues, so any help from the modding community is very much appreciated.
In my first game I played as France and got my stability up so that I could avoid strikes and civil war and still intervene in Spain. Added Spain to Little Entente in 37 and main war broke out in 38 after Munich. Germany capitulated in 39 after Yugo, Romania, and Poland joined the war against them. My first experience with the new peace conference mechanism went very well. There was no "border gore" and the results made sense based on the history of the time and the countries involved. So a big congrats to Paradox there.
However, after the peace, the nations who lost, even democratic Germany, simply continued down their focus trees and started new wars. Germany, with no army whatsoever, went to war with the benelux countries. Italy with Greece. Then led to quick mop up wars after the main war, and, in the case of Germany, the war was democracy vs. democracy. The resulting peace treaty with Germany did result in border gore. Point being, only half the battle here is done, we have to implement a system where the AI doesn't make stupid decisions right after the peace conference to undo the entire peace. My intuition is that this fix shouldn't be that difficult-- is there not a way to allow Germany and Italy to continue down their focus trees without engaging in suicidal wars?
This leads into a more general critique of the game-- the decision making from the Ai on starting wars.
In Hoi4, Italy always goes to war with Germany right away. This is ahistorical. Mussolini was opportunistic. He only joined the battle when France was hopelessly beaten. My question for the modders or developers-- is there no mechanism in place to ask the question of the AI whether the war is likely to be won?
The above is my main issue and would be the focus on whatever mod I attempt, but I am including some other issues below. Thanks for reading.
-All or nothing air force. AI likes to put all its planes in one zone instead of spreading them out. This allows odd results. In my game, I beat Germany easily because Germany employed zero planes in Germany.
-Interception results are way off. In Hoi4, you have to have near parity in planes to have any effect on an interception mission. As France, I had 500 semi-modern fighters in Yugoslavia on interception. I didn't stop a single bombing run. Sure I shot down a few fighters and even a few bombers, but I didn't effect the mission efficiency of the bombers one bit. This should be changed to reflect WW2, wherein the point of the interception mission was in large part to use a small air force against a large air force and to redirect the bombers, not necessarily to shoot them down.
-Plane design is very basic. This has been addressed by others. Felt odd that after I created fighter 36, there was nothing to do but churn these out until 40. This area should be beefed up with wing design, engine options, retractable gear, etc.
-AI has vastly improved in the last few years, but it really struggles in two areas. The first being in an area of the world where it has few divisions. For example, It's painfully easy to outflank the scattered divisions of Italy in Africa. Second is that the AI still attacks too much. This has been massivly improved since Hoi4 was released, but even today the AI takes too many casualties and purses hopeless offensives too long. A big reason for this problem is the battle planner. First of all, the battle planner is pointless micro, I think we can all agree. Any player use of the battle planner is simply to get the planning bonus. Second, the battle planer is to blame for much of the AI's issues on offense. The AI can't launch a small offensive. It has to launch all freaking twenty-four divisions at once, even though at best there is only one weak point in the opposing line. This is not only insane, but obviously this is completely ahistorical. In real life, armies normally strike in smaller areas where they have a 3 to 1 advantage of men and material. Not across and entire front regardless of chances of success. This makes me wonder-- would the AI behavior be noticeable better if the battle planner was simply done-away-with?
THANKS.
In my first game I played as France and got my stability up so that I could avoid strikes and civil war and still intervene in Spain. Added Spain to Little Entente in 37 and main war broke out in 38 after Munich. Germany capitulated in 39 after Yugo, Romania, and Poland joined the war against them. My first experience with the new peace conference mechanism went very well. There was no "border gore" and the results made sense based on the history of the time and the countries involved. So a big congrats to Paradox there.
However, after the peace, the nations who lost, even democratic Germany, simply continued down their focus trees and started new wars. Germany, with no army whatsoever, went to war with the benelux countries. Italy with Greece. Then led to quick mop up wars after the main war, and, in the case of Germany, the war was democracy vs. democracy. The resulting peace treaty with Germany did result in border gore. Point being, only half the battle here is done, we have to implement a system where the AI doesn't make stupid decisions right after the peace conference to undo the entire peace. My intuition is that this fix shouldn't be that difficult-- is there not a way to allow Germany and Italy to continue down their focus trees without engaging in suicidal wars?
This leads into a more general critique of the game-- the decision making from the Ai on starting wars.
In Hoi4, Italy always goes to war with Germany right away. This is ahistorical. Mussolini was opportunistic. He only joined the battle when France was hopelessly beaten. My question for the modders or developers-- is there no mechanism in place to ask the question of the AI whether the war is likely to be won?
The above is my main issue and would be the focus on whatever mod I attempt, but I am including some other issues below. Thanks for reading.
-All or nothing air force. AI likes to put all its planes in one zone instead of spreading them out. This allows odd results. In my game, I beat Germany easily because Germany employed zero planes in Germany.
-Interception results are way off. In Hoi4, you have to have near parity in planes to have any effect on an interception mission. As France, I had 500 semi-modern fighters in Yugoslavia on interception. I didn't stop a single bombing run. Sure I shot down a few fighters and even a few bombers, but I didn't effect the mission efficiency of the bombers one bit. This should be changed to reflect WW2, wherein the point of the interception mission was in large part to use a small air force against a large air force and to redirect the bombers, not necessarily to shoot them down.
-Plane design is very basic. This has been addressed by others. Felt odd that after I created fighter 36, there was nothing to do but churn these out until 40. This area should be beefed up with wing design, engine options, retractable gear, etc.
-AI has vastly improved in the last few years, but it really struggles in two areas. The first being in an area of the world where it has few divisions. For example, It's painfully easy to outflank the scattered divisions of Italy in Africa. Second is that the AI still attacks too much. This has been massivly improved since Hoi4 was released, but even today the AI takes too many casualties and purses hopeless offensives too long. A big reason for this problem is the battle planner. First of all, the battle planner is pointless micro, I think we can all agree. Any player use of the battle planner is simply to get the planning bonus. Second, the battle planer is to blame for much of the AI's issues on offense. The AI can't launch a small offensive. It has to launch all freaking twenty-four divisions at once, even though at best there is only one weak point in the opposing line. This is not only insane, but obviously this is completely ahistorical. In real life, armies normally strike in smaller areas where they have a 3 to 1 advantage of men and material. Not across and entire front regardless of chances of success. This makes me wonder-- would the AI behavior be noticeable better if the battle planner was simply done-away-with?
THANKS.
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