Thursday 20th of Nov at 15:00cet - Hearts of Iron 4 Livestream

[jesperj13]

Good job on the map and graphics, it looks stunning!

Couple of remarks and questions though:

1) Do all islands of Indonesia need to have 'The Netherlands' written on them? (maybe I'm being too nitpicky).

2) It seems you switched the flags of the Netherlands and Yugoslavia: in-game the Netherlands is blue-white-red which needs to be the other way around. For Yugoslavia the opposite goes.

3) Seasons look brilliant, although did I understand correctly that frozen rivers are easier to cross? In that case I would suggest not freezing all the rivers in Western Europe. For major rivers to freeze over you need a couple of months of very low temperatures. Common in Northern Russia, not so much in Northern France... (same for England, Germany, Netherlands etc.)

4) Weather looks fantastic as well. Can't wait for the DD on that. My biggest wish regarding weather is perhaps weather forecasts in order to help plan your battle plans!

 

[CanOmer]

never heard of them. screenshot plz?

Sure;

http://s14.directupload.net/images/141120/yxpfqi9g.jpg

http://fs1.directupload.net/images/141120/ak4ghoe2.jpg

It is related to height map where heights are detailed on detailed coasts. I have had trouble with it when I was modding it in Eu4.

Additionally, lakes in high altitudes look very unrealistic because of current height method which makes all waters' surface elevation zero:

http://fs1.directupload.net/images/141120/ik4jpjnq.jpg

Surface elevation of Lake Van is 1640m actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Van

 

[Centurion1973]

Map look great. I loved map rotation - will we be abe to do it ingame?

Question: will UI scale well enough for game to be playable at 4K resolution?

 

[Sigrak]

Great video, I really like the map. At the start of the stream we got a little peek at the country selection screen. I really liked it with the portraits of the leaders of said countries. However, how will this work with smaller countries? From the video it seems that you choose one of the countries available (the majors) and then press "select country". It seems to me that this menu hasn't been completed yet as currently it seems to preclude the selection of minor countries.

I suppose what we saw were the recommended countries and in the final game we'll simply be shown these recommended countries at the start of a campaign and have a sort of "choose other country" button?

For those interested, the relevant menu pops up at around 14:40-43 and is there for just a few moments.

 

[Gre]

I just watched the replay, and I have to say that I really like the graphical approach. I wasn't convinced before, but now I am. I have some nitpicks, of course, but nothing major.
It would be great for colonial holdings to have more descriptive names, like in Victoria II: French West Africa would be ideal, but French Africa would be fine, too. It just looks odd to zoom the map out and have "France", plain and simple, over a large chunk of the Sahara. I've got a 1930's globe in my office, and all colonial territories have their own names and their colonizer's colors.
In a "strength" mapmode or when the battle planner is open, it would be great to be able to click on a "stack" and see where the units are actually located. It would be better to have the color fill the province that the unit occupies, but I'm not good enough at photoshop (or familiar enough with the map) to draw that.

 

[Thure]

you need to make that and pacific island a lot bigger. they are strategically important and need to have room to fight on. Accurate gameplay > map "accuracy"

But there are smaller provinces on the map...? I'm sure some of the provinces we have seen where smaller then this gigantic Gibraltar.

 

[wotanbrunilda]

very nice and reassuring

 

[HecNev]

Are we going to get a youtube link for all those poor people that had to work at the time the stream was broadcasted?

Thank you very much!

 

[sic96]

Are we going to get a youtube link for all those poor people that had to work at the time the stream was broadcasted?

Thank you very much!

+ 1

 

[podcat]

I suppose what we saw were the recommended countries and in the final game we'll simply be shown these recommended countries at the start of a campaign and have a sort of "choose other country" button?

yeah exactly. its WIP.

 

[Vanguard44]

The map looks really amazing. Like, incredible. I can't wait to play it. The problem is that I hate the unit models. I only hope they are somehow improved and this is one of the things they consider need serious tweaking.

 

[Gargoul-MotW]

Are we going to get a youtube link for all those poor people that had to work at the time the stream was broadcasted?

Thank you very much!

Muasst hoid a moi gscheid schaung!

Here you go my friends
Jump to minute 13:25 - then it starts :excl:

 

[safe-keeper]

Are we going to get a youtube link for all those poor people that had to work at the time the stream was broadcasted?

Thank you very much!

http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/profile/past_broadcasts

 

[Darkath]

Additionally, lakes in high altitudes look very unrealistic because of current height method which makes all waters' surface elevation zero:

http://fs1.directupload.net/images/141120/ik4jpjnq.jpg

Surface elevation of Lake Van is 1640m actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Van

Thanks I updated my thread about this

 

[Soapy Frog]

For probably the first time I am disappointed and discouraged going into a major paradox release.

The graphics look wonderful but they are mostly getting in the way. The fog of war pointlessly obscures the underlying terrain features which makes no sense at all. The terrain is very hard to see. The units are very hard to pick out against the background and the offset counter means precise unit location is deceptive. The info on the counters is not really readable. The zoom out counter merging is actually extra deceptive since at very zoomed out levels you cannot really tell where your troops are, where in previous games this was not a problem. If I am zoomed out and I pick out a specific unit how do I know where it is? This was never a problem in HoI3, now its a problem.

My fear is that they have just obscured sooo much information that was easy to see in previous games. I really can't see whats going on in this new game it's too much flash. All the time during the video where he is zooming in and out and the counters are popping all over the place and worse looking like they are in entirely the wrong place my heart was just sinking.

I am very discouraged. I don't know what to say. Again if I am to say anything good the map does look beautiful, and the previous game diaries about the other game systems were really encouraging. Really really encouraging. It is so depressing to see a game where the goodness of it is buried under layers of flash and where you just cant tell what is going on.

I'm sorry to be so negative but.... yeah maybe I am just a dinosaur and there is no longer a place for me as a paradox fan.

 

[redflag]

Aligators do not like honey you are cheating. Why not wrestle alligators wearing nothing but marshmellows
[video=youtube;fEhgsOM4078]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEhgsOM4078[/video]

Whilst covered in honey.

 

[Le_Carabinier]

Wow, this video was disappointing.

We learned absolutely nothing about the game that wasn't already known to us through screenshots from the latest DD. Not only did they casually handwave the whole NATO counters debate that has recently been raging on this forum, the only information that were given to us were along the lines of "Germany is green, Libya is yellow, and Australia looks like a melon."

I actually learned more about the game in the 10-minutes Arsenal video released the same day, which showed us the american tech tree, and told us that M3 Light was a medium tank. Yeah.

Moreover, I support Soapy Fog in his criticism of the fog of war. While the map is generally really good looking, and information about terrain, transports, the day/night cycle and weather is welcome, the fog of war basically obstructs all of this for the player. How am I supposed to think : "I'm going to invade that country : first I'll have to cross the swamps, then go through the plains, and I'll have to be carefoul about the mountains in the south..." if I can't see said swamps and plains unless my troops arealready inside ? You could see the terrain in fow-ed regions in HoI III with the terrain map mode, it seems you can't do that in HoI IV.

 

[Gamer_1745]

We learned absolutely nothing about the game that wasn't already known to us through screenshots from the latest DD.

Not True! We learned that we can blockout areas of the sea that convoys won't use, so as to better set their path. That is important! We also saw how weather is in video and not just stills. We learned that carriers air ops are effected by the weather.

 

[safe-keeper]

Wow, this video was disappointing.

We learned absolutely nothing about the game that wasn't already known to us through screenshots from the latest DD.

They promised a livestream about the map, and we got a livestream about the map so that we got to see it in motion, because all we had up to now was screenshots. What exactly is the problem?

Not only did they casually handwave the whole NATO counters debate that has recently been raging on this forum

Thank god.

 

[seattle]

Watching the video I gotta say that I'm disappointed by the current state of the map. While the resolution is great and the actual terrain and borders are great, the map is much too bright. It uses some weird overdone shader. Hurts my eyes to look at it a couple of minutes.

This will change of course, at least when modders get access to the game. Still I would do something about it now. The map in winter looks especially bad, when zoomed in the rivers look like a graphical glitch.

This neon-look ruins a promising map. It's somewhat similar to watching one of those abysmal Joel Schumacher Batman movies.