Three Moves Ahead Podcast - 3 Games Journalists at the HOI4 Event Discuss their impressions

[redflag]

I listened to the review here are my comments. I have not played the HOI4 game so I don't know if their criticisms are valid however my issues with subjective aspects of their criticisms are

1. One author complained that only total war is allowed. Given that this is a game of total war and not limited war I don't see how this is a valid criticism. Germany also had this problem in WW2 when it defeated Poland and France and somehow their opponents were not willing to discuss peace. .

2. At the 11 minute mark complaining that Germany got smashed in every game is not a valid criticism. In reality Germany and her allies had an uphill battle and dodged a bullet with France by winning so quickly and painlessly. Yes is supposed to happen that Germany gets smashed most of the time otherwise there is no challenge since in reality Germany lost. What is supposed to happen is Germany has a massive advantage early on but if it cannot take advantage of its short term position of advantage it will lose since it is faced with crippling disadvantages in terms of economic strength manpower and resources compared to the Soviet Union (never mind the United States).

3. If you start WW2 4 or 5 years early you should not be surprised that the game ends rather quickly. Just because you can do something does not mean you should do it as Germany.

4. Whatever side the US is on crushing everyone else goes back to point #2.


That being said, the interface issues in regards to the Air force concern me
1. Having the air force as a hassle is a serious problem. Hopefully the user interface for the Air Force is either streamlined or made more obvious to the player.

 

[henzington]

The US had over half of the total global industrial production during the war so yes whichever side they join will have a huge massive advantage.

 

[redflag]

There is a project called the fallen of WW2 that shows just how much of a titanic struggle WW2 was. It shows how more people died in WW2 than any other war in history. This destruction on such an unbelievable scale contributed to the Long Peace from post WW2 to 1990 and the New Peace from 1990 to now. Why I mention this is simple WW2 is on a scale totally different than any war in history. Limited wars would be ridiculous too many people had died to allow any nation involved to even consider this concept. The only countries that wanted a limited war were the aggressors and by the time those nations wanted to talk about limited war (aka peace talks) the War of Annihilation train had already left the station.

To allow limited wars in HOI4 would be silly and a historical since it was a cognitive impossibility for the populations involved at the time for reasons that are beyond discussing here.


Edit when I mean peace I mean peace in Europe in the sense that European countries have not fought each other since WW2 ended (with minor exceptions).

 

[Gamer_1745]

I disagree, I think it is the Nukes that have kept the peace. Not the fear of tank battles & air strikes.

 

[ILoveLamp]

The new resource system sounds a little wonky. If I'm understanding correctly, there is a flow of resources that come either from trade deals or owned provinces that go directly to your factories, no stockpiles. This created a problem where the German player was starved for steel, and had to invade the Luxemburg (Luxemburg steel?) to help keep the war machine humming. It also sounded like players were getting instant access to the resources of conquered provinces.

I like the idea of removing stockpiles from the map (having all your stuff dumped in your Capitol was annoying) and I like having more incentive to go after regions for more economic concerns (acquiring resources was too easy in HOI3), but it would be nice to have some kind of abstracted stockpile that you can build up so that you have a buffer of resources to work with when you go to war. Right now it just sounds like an instant on off switch.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Yep, Luxemburg big player in steel at the time!

I agree with you that the stockpiles were too big & easy to get in HoI3. I also agree that no stockpiles is too much of a correction.

 

[redflag]

My concern is in regards to the user interface and it allowing a player to command divisions and planes in a non convoluted manner. House rules can take care of resources ( soviet union trading with axis forces till operation Barbarossa)

 

[Filou]

2. At the 11 minute mark complaining that Germany got smashed in every game is not a valid criticism.

3. If you start WW2 4 or 5 years early you should not be surprised that the game ends rather quickly. Just because you can do something does not mean you should do it as Germany.

War was initiated by the Allies, not by Germany. So I do feel it's valid criticism.

In one game France reacted aggressively to Germany remilitarizing the Rhineland and DoWed quickly afterwards. If this can happen then there's not much of a game to be had since Germany can't hold-off France in spring of 1936.

I think it's good that France has an aggressive option to react to the Rhineland, I always wanted one in the previous titles. But it should come at a very steep cost of internal troubles, and maybe even some diplomatic trouble.

 

[JamesJameson]

War was initiated by the Allies, not by Germany. So I do feel it's valid criticism.

In one game France reacted aggressively to Germany remilitarizing the Rhineland and DoWed quickly afterwards. If this can happen then there's not much of a game to be had since Germany can't hold-off France in spring of 1936.

I think it's good that France has an aggressive option to react to the Rhineland, I always wanted one in the previous titles. But it should come at a very steep cost of internal troubles, and maybe even some diplomatic trouble.

In a way you kinda pointed it out yourself. France should get a pentaly, a huge one. If France would have delcared war without the consent of the UK the UK would have a tough choice to make. If UK does join then they should get a major penalty as well.

If that happens the US should not be able to join on the side of the Allies tell they get attacked themselves, no matter what because a lot of people thought that Germany's reoccupation of the Rhineland was there right. This would cause so much dissent at home, and if France does that Germany should get a huge bonus because there people would have been outrage that a country like France was attacking them before they attacked anybody.

It was not tell Germany takes poland that the allies delcare war, and even then they seriously dragged there feet (for good reason) tell after the invasion of Russia. The reason that it didnt work? Because it's not balanced yet, it's alpha/fresh beta so of course there will be no balance or small things like events, and therefore his criticism is not grounded and not a valid complaint that is constructive.

Also you could tell they started to feed of each other later in the podcast, and that caused them to be almost goofy and just start agreeing with whatever anybody said.

Sounds like the game is a bit of a mess right now. TMA guys are not just random noobs and they usually know what they are talking about.

Well this time may be there one unusual time because you can ask lots of people here about the majority of what they were saying and I know modders were sitting around going, " Thats just little stuff, events and balancing for WT." Even the Aircraft UI was already confirmed that PI knew it needed work and is on the list to get worked on.

Also I think WT should be called Allied Tension, since when countries who are natural allies like France, attack Germany they should increase the Allied Tension, thus pushing back Americas entrance. Any aggression that would not fly in that period should not fly in the game. If France really did that they would have been part of Germany without a war, and the war would have started with Russia...and maybe not even then. Since Germany did not attack Poland yet, and the UK would have said don't do it or we wont back you, France would have been eaten all up and nobody would have cared.

 

[redflag]

War was initiated by the Allies, not by Germany. So I do feel it's valid criticism.

In one game France reacted aggressively to Germany remilitarizing the Rhineland and DoWed quickly afterwards. If this can happen then there's not much of a game to be had since Germany can't hold-off France in spring of 1936.

I think it's good that France has an aggressive option to react to the Rhineland, I always wanted one in the previous titles. But it should come at a very steep cost of internal troubles, and maybe even some diplomatic trouble.

In terms of balance the question is what the axis was doing besides re militeriziing the rineland.
If Japan was going wild in Asia and Italy was going wild in the balkens than guess what Germany got screwed by its own team.

 

[Zoob]

Indeed. Japan in asia and the other nations tearing things up in Europe would have made it much harder for Germany to make hostile moves. We have to view the road to war as being a time of little escalation, with germany the prime mover. In the context of a much more volatile Europe, the re-armament of Germany would have been a much harder pill to swallow.

 

[podcat]

In terms of balance the question is what the axis was doing besides re militeriziing the rineland.
If Japan was going wild in Asia and Italy was going wild in the balkens than guess what Germany got screwed by its own team.

in this particular case there was a bug with the french event for answering the rheinland challenge and it skyrocketed world tension, so USA could join in rather than just being France (and maybe UK) vs germany

 

[tomstegmeier]

well its alpha for a reason, take time and make an awesome hoi4 please...

 

[Zoob]

Thanks for taking the time to explain that Podcat.

There was also the bug that gave hungary Turkey in a peace deal, it's a shame that these bugs gave the attenders at the event a false impression of the system as it means a lot of the feedback, especially in the podcast, were based on things that really aren't an issue and were simply not WAD.

I hope you got a lot of productive feedback from the process though and I hope all goes well for the rest of Development.

 

[Hans_Schnitzel]

The new resource system sounds a little wonky. If I'm understanding correctly, there is a flow of resources that come either from trade deals or owned provinces that go directly to your factories, no stockpiles. This created a problem where the German player was starved for steel, and had to invade the Luxemburg (Luxemburg steel?) to help keep the war machine humming. It also sounded like players were getting instant access to the resources of conquered provinces.

I like the idea of removing stockpiles from the map (having all your stuff dumped in your Capitol was annoying) and I like having more incentive to go after regions for more economic concerns (acquiring resources was too easy in HOI3), but it would be nice to have some kind of abstracted stockpile that you can build up so that you have a buffer of resources to work with when you go to war. Right now it just sounds like an instant on off switch.

Well, you can stock pile equipment and you never want your factories to stop producing anyway.

 

[podcat]

Well, you can stock pile equipment and you never want your factories to stop producing anyway.

That is the idea. Otherwise you just end up with hoi3 where nobody is ever using "Old stuff". Not having resources also is not a hard blocker on production, just a penalty to efficiency (a quite heavy one), but the interface isnt very clear on this so a lot of people misunderstand. alpha and all that.


That said, a lot of feedback we are taking seriously.

 

[dizzle3]

That is the idea. Otherwise you just end up with hoi3 where nobody is ever using "Old stuff". Not having resources also is not a hard blocker on production, just a penalty to efficiency (a quite heavy one), but the interface isnt very clear on this so a lot of people misunderstand. alpha and all that.


That said, a lot of feedback we are taking seriously.

Shouldn't the loss of efficiency be a smooth curve rather than a step function. Being without a source of steel for one day shouldn't have a noticeable effect, but for a whole year should be disasterous for your economy

 

[Wulf145]

I sure hope they are as this sounds just like the target audience for HOI IV. And beyond any of the problems they are bringing up HOI IV should either move in the direction of EU in the 20th century or more of a WWII Wargame that EU players can access (UI type issues). Being stuck in the middle might be the kiss of death, not enough like EU or not enough WWII.

For me this has, sadly, confirmed my fear that this game was not made for HOI players but for EU4 players.

I sure hope that PDX will listen to some of the points, especially the point about having to do more than just select a national focus/goal to achieve it.

 

[AlexNightingale]

Sounds like non-HOI fans doesn't like this game, Paradox is trying to please non-hoi fan base but they don't like the traditional hoi mechanics. It ends up if paradox wants to accommodate non-hoi fan base, they would have to change a lot of the old mechanics. Which would make the game way to simplistic and not as good as hoi3.

Maybe paradox should have done a victoria 3 instead.

 

[Paglia]

I sure hope they are as this sounds just like the target audience for HOI IV. And beyond any of the problems they are bringing up HOI IV should either move in the direction of EU in the 20th century or more of a WWII Wargame that EU players can access (UI type issues). Being stuck in the middle might be the kiss of death, not enough like EU or not enough WWII.

They are at a crossroads, like you say. And a huge one. But, honestly, trying to make a EU like game with a game that have a 10 years span of time seems like a bad choice.

Their true option is to offer choices to manage domestic stuff while going for war. Offering a way to players to avoid the war (like one commentator suggested) would be counterproductive. Since the goal is to come at each others throat, the best would be to offer various paths to get there, with various implciations.

Sounds like non-HOI fans doesn't like this game, Paradox is trying to please non-hoi fan base but they don't like the traditional hoi mechanics. It ends up if paradox wants to accommodate non-hoi fan base, they would have to change a lot of the old mechanics. Which would make the game way to simplistic and not as good as hoi3.

Wether they are seeking to expand the fan base or not remains to be confirmed. Hard to simplify a wargame that raises interest because it has a a high level of complexity, while not drowning the user in details.