What is something you find VERY annoying in hoi4?

[balmung60]

The failure of the AI to use basic features like design companies and military high command. Even with completely random picks, they'd be better off than just never picking any.

Similarly, the absolute mess of AI armies. No, I'm not talking about things like frontline shuffling (though that's annoying), but how the AI will have several dozen "armies" of one or two divisions, most of which don't have generals.

Further similarly, the absolute mess of AI division and armor and air unit templates, with variations that seem to only exist because the AI noticed it had some experience to burn and either made a new unit model or randomly added or removed a battalion from a template.

For one that's not the AI, that there is no default ship class name. When you design a ship, the default class name could be the first name from the chosen name list that isn't taken by an existing or in production ship.

 

[qqmagnuz]

Here are mine, in addition to what you wrote:

1. Excessive pop up messages: Liberia has join the war. Suriname has joined the war. Kenya has joined the war. Mozambique has joined the war. Tannu Tuva has joined the war. Great! Thanks!
2. Naval invasion sound scares me: Me: Hears naval invasion sound. "Oh god did they D-day??? I forgot to put a garrison to defend my European coastline!" .. "No Mein Fuhrer, it's just they invaded Madagascar! We though't you'd like to know!" Great! Thanks Paradox!
3. Minors becoming majors: Plan on defeating the Allies faction? Great idea! Just remember, by the time you defeat the British and French you might realize that either Canada, India or Australia has become a major. Then as you take down that new major? Well guess what. Another one of those pesky minors has become a new major. Ridiculous.

 

[Alycidon]

I dont want to take anything away from your complaint but i wonder if you might be able to get around this problem by using a different template (even if its the same) for each of the corps you wanted; then you might be able to sort them by type??

Just a thought, not sure if it would work or not.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, it is appreciated.

I can't see any way to sort and the templates or different types of divisions don't really seem to make a difference, units within an army just seem to be randomly sorted from time to time.

@safe-keeper - That would be ideal. I know many people like to micro manage at different levels, many people don't. It would be good if the game had the flexibility to allow us to choose.

I seem to recall HOI3 had a drag and drop system similar to what you describe, that may have been a mod or an addon though, so long ago and my memory isn't what it was. I know spent many happy hours tinkering with it though lol

 

[Guffrus]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, it is appreciated.

I can't see any way to sort and the templates or different types of divisions don't really seem to make a difference, units within an army just seem to be randomly sorted from time to time.

@safe-keeper - That would be ideal. I know many people like to micro manage at different levels, many people don't. It would be good if the game had the flexibility to allow us to choose.

I seem to recall HOI3 had a drag and drop system similar to what you describe, that may have been a mod or an addon though, so long ago and my memory isn't what it was. I know spent many happy hours tinkering with it though lol

Wait you can totally do exactly what you want to do.

What you have to do is edit the name of the division.

Here is how you do that.

When you have an army list open on the left either by selecting the entire army with the button in the top right or by selecting one of your army groups in the bottom bar you can click on the unit type symbol, e.g. a rectangle with a cross through it for infantry doing that will bring up guess what?

Thats right, a pop up window.. lols.

Anyway, this pop up window is the unit details, you can see the stats and the template its using etc.

So once you have that if you click on the name of the division at the top of that box you can edit the name.

So now if you edit all the names of your corps to A, B, C or 1,2,3 you will be able to order the list by clicking on the sort by name tab in the army list window on mentioned previously which opens on the left.

 

[Guffrus]

Sorry there is another step which i failed to describe accurately.

When you click on it the first time you get just that division on the left, when you have it like that, that is when you can click the symbol to bring up the unit information pop up window and there edit the name.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

Here are some thoughts--

- Battleplanner, encouraging you to use AI. Yeah not doing that. I micromanage everything. Even drawing a frontline causes the AI to do things it cannot and must not do. I should be able to select a division or group of divisions and select those to attack or entrench or whatever.

- high research times for certain items, redundant research items (eg ammo for different naval batteries), having to research things Germany had already researched by 36 (eg radio, field hospitals, interwar infantry support)

- lack of hit and run for surface raiders. I like to try to use Graf Spree class panzerschiffe for commerce raiding... biut I have to micromanage to these go back to port after they hit a convoy

- inability to bifurcate tasks to specific fleets under same commander. After France falls, I want the mine laying destroyers to continue working on Norwegian coast, and the repurposed Typ II to do Bay of Biscay. but to keep them separate I have to assign the uboot mine layers to a different commander.

- not having right click or some easier way to strategically deploy armies, esp for long distances....

- 40 width game meta. Ban these or rework combat mechanics (we know the latter is not happening so....)

- having air superiority in Southern and Western Germany and having enemy fighters and bombers appear in Brandenburg, former Czechoslovakia or occupied Poland. NO!

- not being able to select specific targets within an airzone, whether its infrastructure along maginot line to slow armies from moving up or having impossibly large air zones in north Africa. I should be able to concentrate in subsections of airzones where the action is.

- concerning Maginot Line and Fall Gelb, even with expert AI, I find it disappointing that the AI keeps its armies along maginot line instead of along Belgium border. Problem is if AI were smart, would be tough sledding to punch through lines given division spam. Belgium could be a real slog if defended better for same principle reasons....

 

[Alycidon]

@Guffrus

Thank you for taking the time to reply again.

I knew of the ability to rename units, I can't find the sort by name button though in the army list.

I'm attaching a screen shot (hopefully, not tried to attach a screenshot before lol) to ensure I'm looking at the right thing

Gyazo

gyazo.com

 

[Guffrus]

@Guffrus

Thank you for taking the time to reply again.

I knew of the ability to rename units, I can't find the sort by name button though in the army list.

I'm attaching a screen shot (hopefully, not tried to attach a screenshot before lol) to ensure I'm looking at the right thing

Gyazo

gyazo.com

Groan.

Oh garbage.

I thought i had fixed your problem but youre right, its a mess.

Even if you rename them it makes no difference.

Its just hateful, why would anyone do that?

The best i can do is order it by name in the list of all land forces but not in the army group like you posted.

Sorry if i got your hopes up =/

 

[Alycidon]

No, no, don't be sorry, thank you for trying to help, that was very kind of you.

I'll continue to wait in the hope they may add a sort button or simply stop the list from randomly sorting itself, that would help.

Being able to fairly easily control your divisions was something that was an integral part of the earlier games, organising my army just so, placing them in preparation for carefully planned offensives was something I loved and made me feel involved.

Sitting and watching the Battle Planner, even when it does a good job, just isn't fun for me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1. The game lies to the player in UI in numerous cases. Some minor, some run-altering.
2. Core mechanics do not work in any coherent fashion. War score, peace conferences, who gets land during war are all broken and these are important components of the game.
3. Faction membership breaks the game in several ways
4. Getting team killed by allies, which is a bigger threat than fighting the enemy in many cases
5. Battleplan controls don't work, yet the devs try to force them even to the extent of undocumented changes that don't hold up to basic logical scrutiny. End result is a strict decrease in the quality of the UI for no reason + more in-game misleading/dishonesty.

 

[Icedkk]

AI declares wars without even checking for Army Strength.

An Example: AI Italy attacks Yugoslavia which is guaranteed by France and Czech.

Or Soviets attacks me(Germany) in 1944 long after I won the second world war annexed almost whole World(japan and US were remanining), got atleast double their amount of factories...

Main AI logic by declaring feels like: "oh I got claims therefore I start a war."

It does not even ask himself "can I win it?" or "Do I have a bigger army?"

Ps: Non historical

One more thing I find really annoying is these vassals are giving me every new popped division. I HAVE TO DELETE THEM ALL THE TIME WHEN THEY SPAWN A NEW DIVISION.

Just a fucking button, which prevents them not to transfer their shit divisions to me...

 

[ltccone]

How the battle planner sets up my troops can really bug me. 8 20W infantry divisions on a two province front. Does is put 4 divisions in each province? NOOOOO. 5 in one and 3 in the other. And when you make a manual adjustment to make it 4 and 4? The AI just moves it back...

 

[balmung60]

AI declares wars without even checking for Army Strength.

An Example: AI Italy attacks Yugoslavia which is guaranteed by France and Czech.

Or Soviets attacks me(Germany) in 1944 long after I won the second world war annexed almost whole World(japan and US were remanining), got atleast double their amount of factories...

Main AI logic by declaring feels like: "oh I got claims therefore I start a war."

It does not even ask himself "can I win it?" or "Do I have a bigger army?"

Ps: Non historical

One more thing I find really annoying is these vassals are giving me every new popped division. I HAVE TO DELETE THEM ALL THE TIME WHEN THEY SPAWN A NEW DIVISION.

Just a fucking button, which prevents them not to transfer their shit divisions to me...

It does check, it's just very confident. If you're really powerful, weaker AIs will just sit on wargoals. For example if you're France and have annexed Germany and Italy or cored most of your empire by focus, Japan won't try to take Indochina unless you do something like disband your whole army.

 

[Mousetick]

Between this thread and "Many grievances of the UI" and many other similar, past and future, discussions, I can't help but ask: Do the HOI 4 developers in particular, and the Paradox staff in general, actually play the game, other than for demo and testing purposes? Ever heard of "eating your own dog food", as it's affectionately called in software development circles?

Sure, some user complaints are purely a matter of personal taste, and as such not worth the attention of the developers. But some other annoyances, mostly regarding the UI, are so common and in-your-face that it's hard to believe the Paradox people are unaware of them and are not themselves annoyed by them. Assuming they play for any significant amount of time. This is puzzling.

I can understand the HOI 4 developers not playing the game extensively because they don't have the time for it and they run the risk of being fed up, but why not the guys in QA or marketing or whatever? It's tricky because those guys in QA or marketing may have zero interest in WW2 strategy.

So then the question would be: does Paradox have 'focus groups' of average users? Not beta-testers, as this is a different role. Just a relatively small group of regular, normal but motivated, players who can provide feedback on the game via a direct, privileged communication channel with the developers.

 

[Icedkk]

It does check, it's just very confident. If you're really powerful, weaker AIs will just sit on wargoals. For example if you're France and have annexed Germany and Italy or cored most of your empire by focus, Japan won't try to take Indochina unless you do something like disband your whole army.

This still is not explaining Italy willingly fighting against Yugo France and Czech. I mean Italy is fascist, and I am guessing it got better intel than Yugo or France or Czech. So Italy has to know the combine forces of these 3 countries will win. This is just a suicide mission.

And even just france could beat italy at this point. The italy ai should know or atleast check the division numbers. However, it is just agressive and wants to suicide.

 

[balmung60]

This still is not explaining Italy willingly fighting against Yugo France and Czech. I mean Italy is fascist, and I am guessing it got better intel than Yugo or France or Czech. So Italy has to know the combine forces of these 3 countries will win. This is just a suicide mission.

And even just france could beat italy at this point. The italy ai should know or atleast check the division numbers. However, it is just agressive and wants to suicide.

IIRC, Italy has behavior modifiers that make it exceptionally aggressive and reckless. Also, I'm not familiar with how their focus tree works, but any AI decision-making based on balance of power only comes into play if it's actual wargoal and war declaration as diplomatic actions. If it's by event, that goes out the window. Poland could somehow have ten times the army of Germany and that won't stop the German-Polish War because the Danzig or War event starts the war. If Italy sent an ultimatum by event and it was refused, that could on its own start a war.

 

[Emren]

How the battle planner sets up my troops can really bug me. 8 20W infantry divisions on a two province front. Does is put 4 divisions in each province? NOOOOO. 5 in one and 3 in the other. And when you make a manual adjustment to make it 4 and 4? The AI just moves it back...

Double-check that next time you see it. I will bet that the one tile with 5 divisions has more enemy tiles adjacent to it. So it is potentially a tile where your enemy will have a larger combat width, therefore it makes sense for you to have more divisions there if you’re going to be on the defense. The AI is - in a very few cases - smarter than we give it credit for.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

8- Ridiculous bonuses for the defender. Sometimes 2–3 pesky infantry repels an all-out 10 divs attack from multiple provinces. layer: Wait, What? Is this real ???

I fully disagree with this one for sure : don't you know about a lot of famous defensive battles, even quite small, like Bir Hakeim for exemple ?

 

[Atomichazza]

Based off the last time I played which was 1.9.0 with all DLCs except La Resistance.
-AI Division spam.
-AI making awful templates.
-AI making new divisions rather than updating/improving existing ones.
-AI taking up all the supply in areas.
-AI doing suicidal attacks/invasions with no care for it's equipment and manpower.
-Lack of cooperation between allies. Everyone just doing they're own thing, no joined battle plans or some sort o
-Lack of historical insignia.
-Lack of generals and admirals.
-Not being able to see what countries need for lend lease .
-Not being able to raise, train and deploy divisions in overseas territories.
-Not being able to drag and move templates up and down the recruit and deploy list.
-Ship designer not being clear with what a heavy battery actually is. 2 guns or 4 or 6 or 8??? Why does the picture display 2 heavy guns but the designer display 1?
-Turrets on the ship designer facing the wrong way.
-Some research being incorrect. For the UK the universal carrier is locked at 1940? Why is the 1918 Vicker MG and Stokes mortar not researched by 1936?
-Annoying and silly looking division icons. More nations helmets should be included as well as tanks rather than rainbows, sharks and unicorns...

 

[Takethe3]

For me (1.9, all dlcs bar la resistance):
- as the game has got more complicated there is more to research but the number of research slots stays the same. This is silly and ends up with me having a 1936 navy to ensure I can get some modern weaponry
- constant infantry spam. There should be much higher negative effects to having huge armies. How are these people being equipped?
- Strategic bombing is a waste of time
- naval warfare makes no sense
- no inter-allied cooperation