Today at 14:30 CET - "how I learned to stop worrying and love the Russian winter"

[Heruure]

Podcat..
"- if some cool modders make a converter. The only way I would code and maintain that is if you gave me a million bucks."
SEK, Euro or USD?

Nah, to be more serious thanks for answering all of those for us!

 

[Axe99]

A great stream and anticipation for the game high as ever . Some thoughts:

- Asking for control of State is great – hopefully no more silly boundaries during multinational invasions unless we want them.
- Showing allied battleplans a great feature.
- An invasion of the USSR starting in October (I think) ending with Moscow falling in Feb is hopefully something that will receive some balancing in the future!
- Da9l’s brief run-through of the map modes was great (as were the map modes themselves).
- In Johan’s view of his fleet Rodney and Nelson were Queen Elizabeth class – they’re a tad better than that . Same story for Bretagne and Lorraine and Courbet class. It’s probably also worth splitting out the Revenge class from the QEs as well, given the former got a bunch of post-construction improvements the latter missed out on.
- As others have mentioned, how is Japan getting the lend-lease, and are they getting it at all? Is there somewhere a player can see whether lend-lease they’re sending/receiving is getting through?
- Tutorials FTW.
- Glad to see the issues with the endless Battle of the English Channel have been identified before launch .
- Greece joined the Chinese United Front in historical mode?!
- Being able to invite faction members to specific wars is great.

 

[Anichent]

Kind of confused with just how concerned people are with Germany's success against the Soviets. I don't think people are accepting or understanding the factors involved. Saying you think it should always be insanely hard to attack the Soviets is like saying Poland should always be easily run over. Whats factors influenced both those attacks? Technology, preparedness, and equipment. If the Soviets are not ready, which in this game they weren't, it makes complete sense the Soviets would fall easily.

I think Daniel's success is just a mixture of his strategy and just luck and the factors at play in the USSR working for him. Sure balancing is an issue in the game still, but I don't think this is as outrageous as some think.

 

[JerseyUSA]

Kind of confused with just how concerned people are with Germany's success against the Soviets. I don't think people are accepting to understanding the factors involved. Saying you think it should always be insanely hard to attack the Soviets is like saying Poland should always be easily run over. Whats factors influenced both those attacks? Technology, preparedness, and equipment. If the Soviets are not ready, which in this game they weren't, it makes complete sense the Soviets would fall easily.

I think Daniel's success is just a mixture of his strategy and just luck at the factors at play in the USSR working for him. Sure balancing is an issue in the game still, but I don't think this is as outrageous as some think.

I have to say I kind of agree. I watched the stream and whoever was playing as Germany explained why USSR fell so quickly.
Apparently USSR had some national event going on which had a modifier attached to it which decreased USSR's industrial output by 40%!!
This clearly was the reason that USSR was steamrolled so quickly.. I imagine their soldiers had no equipment at all! Add the winter attrition onto that and they have no chance.

I think some tweaking needs to happen so that this modifier can be canceled when USSR is invaded though.
Also, the USA should not be sending their troops on suicide missions. One coordinated assault should be the end goal.

All in all, this game looks amazing and every suggestion I had from HOI 3 seems to be implemented! Thanks PDX!

 

[Caesar15]

AI looks a little lackluster, glad it's being delayed.

 

[Mannstien]

So one other thing I noticed from the stream though there is probably to much going on to see it is that regular infantry have no problems going through Mountains so I suppose Mtn. Infantry is pointless or did I miss in one of the diaries that it's another variant from standard infantry? Because I see Marines so I would think there would be a need for Mountain Divisions unless the regular infantry are taking a longer time to breakthrough + added attrition because they are attacking through this terrain type (Engineer Support helps I suppose).

Good Show, looks like Fortress Gotland will be the new earthen CV for the Allies

 

[safe-keeper]

Given how far along the game is and HoI AI in the past, you'll forgive me for being worried.

Don't see why my post got so many disagrees, and oh look, I was right all along:

There are lots of stuff going on here. lets dive in:

• AI is still in development (this never stops and its usually the last feature to feel finished), even minor stuff that could take 10min to fix will kick the legs from under an AI and turn it from Guderian to braindead duck. This week we introduced a bug where AI would use most of its units for garrisons (even tank divisions) rather than on the frontline, making for easy picking (pretty sure this bug was in the WWW build). This is just how development is when it comes to AI and say germany can flip between world conquest and getting owned by poland over one days testing.
• This savegame is getting quite old now, this kind of stuff makes a big deal for AI development and it cant have planned for changes done. We are doing our best not to break the savegame during development each week, but it gets trickier and trickier as stuff changes last weeks update made thousands of airplanes disappear for the AI for example and I had to hand-edit it so it wouldnt crash
• Soviet got (From a bug because it takes quite a while these days) a Trotsky coup very early. This has some severe ramifications where their industry was reduced by 40% early on putting them way behind and I suspect they got lost and couldnt remove the penalty. Soviet also at this point I think is suffering from purging its officers and not having sorted that out yet, so AI is way behind player at this point.
• Daniel caught soviet by surprise, their troops in training and in bad shape and it was still 1940. This is a huge advantage for him being prepared for it.
• Daniel is probably the best HOI player at the office. If you think a 1500 hours player, who is doing a ton of microing, on a major nation should struggle against a beta AI you need to check your expectations because you will never be satisfied with AI performance in any game.
• As for plan complexity, Daniel is getting away with this because he is microing to make up for it and has much better industry than the soviet AI. This is basically the same as playing HOI3 and microing all your troops, or say play HOI3, put a theater objective on Moscow and just managing your industry (this usually lets me win in HOI3 on regular difficulty as theater AI will just push).

Basically, stuff is in development.

 

[FieldMedic]

Don't see why my post got so many disagrees, and oh look, I was right all along:

Yeah sorry, I'm not going to stop worrying about the AI until I see it actually be good. It's the hardest thing to get right and so far from what I've seen, they have a LONG way to go yet.

 

[Noramia]

Those Soviets are so persistent. They have lost Leningrad,Moscow,Stalingrad and Vladivostok but they are still fighting!

 

[Anichent]

My only worry coming out of WWW is not AI or balance, but war aversion. I think there needs to be more of a sliding scale impacting the AI's war aversion than just world tension and whatever is currently in place. By 1940 it seems like every country in the world could be brought into the conflict if the human players invited them. Thats just too much. Most countries from ireland to Yugoslavia to Spain to Afghanistan were war averse and there should be more than needs to happen to slide them to a willingness to go to war than what is currently in place.

 

[Adonnus]

More nitpicking... in one event on the "fall of Baku" it says "Another victory for the Vaterland." To me this looks weird just having one German word at the end, it should be all in German, or just say Fatherland.

 

[Joppos]

Regardless of the state of the AI and how easy it is to win over say USSR, shouldn't the www-streams show different ways the game is intended to be played? Both in regards to the variety in complexity of battle plans you can make and execute, and micromanaging that include careful consideration of unit types selected instead of random selection? So far we've only been told that you can make plans as complex as you'd want, but we've never actually seen neither making or executing such.

 

[Axe99]

Kind of confused with just how concerned people are with Germany's success against the Soviets. I don't think people are accepting or understanding the factors involved. Saying you think it should always be insanely hard to attack the Soviets is like saying Poland should always be easily run over. Whats factors influenced both those attacks? Technology, preparedness, and equipment. If the Soviets are not ready, which in this game they weren't, it makes complete sense the Soviets would fall easily.

I think Daniel's success is just a mixture of his strategy and just luck and the factors at play in the USSR working for him. Sure balancing is an issue in the game still, but I don't think this is as outrageous as some think.

If Daniel had actually had a well-prepared plan, and some armoured spearheads, I could have gone for him getting to Moscow in five months during a reasonable time of year, but:
- The attack started in October - there should have been muddy hell for the first month or two, and at the very least some mud in their.

- The give months it took to get to Moscow included the three coldest times of the year in Russia. Now, I understand the weather is random, but even a 'warm' Russian winter is very, very cold, and very difficult to launch offensives though.

- Daniel wasn't prepared when he went in - he was at a huge deficit of infantry equipment, and he jettisoned most of his artillery. This isn't Barbarossa with a well-honed Wehrmacht and panzer spearheads. This is a mass rush of infantry lacking equipment and artillery!

My main concern was the impact of the weather was by no means enough to slow progress for an under-equipped, largely foot-mobile army. If it was that easy to march to Moscow, there's no way Russia would have lasted for three years against Germany in WW1 (and Germany then had artillery!)

Of course, the reasons Podcat gave for it happening this way are all reasonable, and I'm sure they'll be paying particular attention to the balance between Germany and the USSR in-game, as it's arguably the most important piece of balancing that needs doing (and has been an ongoing struggle in HoI and other games to get right), and I'm very confident that the devs will have far better balanced than in the WWW stream.

 

[Adonnus]

If Daniel had actually had a well-prepared plan, and some armoured spearheads, I could have gone for him getting to Moscow in five months during a reasonable time of year, but:

All good points. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I disagreed with it being reasonable that it should have worked the way it did, but "beginning during the Rasputitsa" would be one of em. It would be quite underwhelming for me as a player to have the enemy AI bungle their nation so badly simply due to events and random bad luck, I would at least like a challenge.

What a disappointment it would be to play your whole game through, preparing for Barbarossa the whole time, only for it to be a walk in the park! You'd have to start again to get the experience you desire.

 

[Anichent]

All good points. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I disagreed with it being reasonable that it should have worked the way it did, but "beginning during the Rasputitsa" would be one of em. It would be quite underwhelming for me as a player to have the enemy AI bungle their nation so badly simply due to events and random bad luck, I would at least like a challenge.

What a disappointment it would be to play your whole game through, preparing for Barbarossa the whole time, only for it to be a walk in the park! You'd have to start again to get the experience you desire.

If if Poland puts up a fight, with that irritate you? Seems to me you are just too easily annoyed when things aren't happening exactly like history. Perhaps this means the "historical route" needs to be more solid, but keep in mind WWW involves two human experienced players changing the world.

If you want everything to be the same as WW2 every single time, it seems your only options are to make sure the humans playing always make the historical choice, you delete all random events, and you play in historical mode. In which case its not really HOI4, its just a ww2 movie where you are clicking buttons for no real reason. In this case, a lot more went ahistorical, some was random, some was directly related to the choices of the human players involved. But there is no evidence that this is something that is a problem with the game or would always happen. Seems much more likely, especially if you take Podcat at his word, that this is just a "perfect storm" of events, choice, and randomness coming together to kick the Soviets in the back. In fact podcat clearly stated there are benefits to micromanaging rather than using advanced battle plans. I don't think the assumption you are making that one is way better than the other needs to be true. It just means the benefits of micromanaging depend entirely on the player doing it and their skill where as battle plans are better for inexperienced players. All in the the criticisms are unfair.

Denmark, Sweden, Greece, and China did just fine putting up a defence yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.

 

[adam_grif]

It would be quite underwhelming for me as a player to have the enemy AI bungle their nation so badly simply due to events and random bad luck, I would at least like a challenge.

The USSR being a pushover is definitely a problem for something that can just kind of randomly happen yeah. Based on podcat's statements they shouldn't get the 40% industry nerf as early as they did in the game, but even so, that's a major debuff that "can" happen.

 

[Adonnus]

If if Poland puts up a fight, with that irritate you? Seems to me you are just too easily annoyed when things aren't happening exactly like history. Perhaps this means the "historical route" needs to be more solid, but keep in mind WWW involves two human experienced players changing the world.

If you want everything to be the same as WW2 every single time, it seems your only options are to make sure the humans playing always make the historical choice, you delete all random events, and you play in historical mode. In which case its not really HOI4, its just a ww2 movie where you are clicking buttons for no real reason. In this case, a lot more went ahistorical, some was random, some was directly related to the choices of the human players involved. But there is no evidence that this is something that is a problem with the game or would always happen. Seems much more likely, especially if you take Podcat at his word, that this is just a "perfect storm" of events, choice, and randomness coming together to kick the Soviets in the back. In fact podcat clearly stated there are benefits to micromanaging rather than using advanced battle plans. I don't think the assumption you are making that one is way better than the other needs to be true. It just means the benefits of micromanaging depend entirely on the player doing it and their skill where as battle plans are better for inexperienced players. All in the the criticisms are unfair.

Denmark, Sweden, Greece, and China did just fine putting up a defence yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.

It's quite simple really, an invasion made in October can never be a success. I understand this "perfect storm" argument, but even so I should hope it doesn't happen. Wouldn't you disappointed if you prepared the entire game to invade USSR and it was a walkover? It's not a matter of it happening like real life every time, more of things occurring in game that could never occur in real life. Things that are within the realm of possibility I have no qualms with and annihilating Russia starting in the rasputitsa is not one of those things. For one, logistical difficulties and partisan activity alone should have stopped the Germans getting as far as they did, no? Stretching a massive military machine through such weather - close to impossible.
As for the industry event, the mere presence of Soviet troops less so the machines, many of which were destroyed on the ground (planes) or broke down before combat (tanks) was what hindered German progress, in most cases. The industry was important sure, for later on in the war, but by that stage in the WWW video Russia had lost all of its major cities west of the Urals.

The further you go, the wider the front gets, and the farther you are from your supply bases. It seems to me you're misinterpreting my point as preferring a historical route when really I am preferring things that were possible - not necessarily factual - in real life.

 

[Axe99]

If if Poland puts up a fight, with that irritate you? Seems to me you are just too easily annoyed when things aren't happening exactly like history. Perhaps this means the "historical route" needs to be more solid, but keep in mind WWW involves two human experienced players changing the world.

If you want everything to be the same as WW2 every single time, it seems your only options are to make sure the humans playing always make the historical choice, you delete all random events, and you play in historical mode. In which case its not really HOI4, its just a ww2 movie where you are clicking buttons for no real reason. In this case, a lot more went ahistorical, some was random, some was directly related to the choices of the human players involved. But there is no evidence that this is something that is a problem with the game or would always happen. Seems much more likely, especially if you take Podcat at his word, that this is just a "perfect storm" of events, choice, and randomness coming together to kick the Soviets in the back. In fact podcat clearly stated there are benefits to micromanaging rather than using advanced battle plans. I don't think the assumption you are making that one is way better than the other needs to be true. It just means the benefits of micromanaging depend entirely on the player doing it and their skill where as battle plans are better for inexperienced players. All in the the criticisms are unfair.

Denmark, Sweden, Greece, and China did just fine putting up a defence yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.

I know you're not addressing my post here, but on this issue, it's about whether it happens for plausible reasons. I have no issue with Poland putting up a good fight (there was a decent amount of potential for them to resist for longer than they did historically), and Denmark had a lot of potential to put up a more stout defence, so neither of those things happening in-game would bother me if they happened for reasonable reasons (ie, Denmark using its straits to its advantage makes sense, so a good thing - Poland putting up a good fight in 1939 because it's developed jet fighters less so).

In the case of the invasions of the USSR, for the reasons above and more, an advance of that speed just isn't plausible.

Edit: Sorry, started writing the above an hour ago, and then got waylaid by a bunch of stuff, apologies for being repetitive.

 

[VineFynn]

Good to see the additional faction possibilities being used in vanilla with the Chinese United Front.

 

[agentgb]

in hoi3, if i'm playing GB, and another player is playing germany, i usually attack sweden to secure the straits and bomb Berlin from across the Baltic, which is a nasty strat in hoi3, not sure if its feasbile in hoiV, but could alternatively potentially turn italy into a bloodbath for germany, with naval offshore bombardment and aerial support, until the yanks land somewhere. Reinforcing Finland would have been a good move if johan can resecure sweden.

But i usually attack sweden while the germans are busy in france, in hoi3, you could kill there supplies by bombing berlin making the invasion of france horrible for the germans. I once played a 2v1, me versus an italian & german player, i was bombing berlin from sweden, and bombing italy from sardinia, there attack into france became quagmired, and the german player raged quit when he saw his supplies weren't reaching his men in france due to the strat bombing. These two players weren't newbs either.