Who gave this game its raving reviews on Steam?

[Conad1985]

Finally someone saying truth at it is: this update completely ruined the game!!!
A part of the over-complicated, and, at the end of the day, irrilevant for the gameplay new logistic system (that , funny to say, should have been the core of the update), the thing most broken is the new research system for doctrines... USA can farm almost infinite Naval XP just training the entire fleet together and so finish all the naval research, instead other countries cant, and , at the opposite, will join the 1941 war with the first level of land doctrine researched.... simply ridicoulous, make no sense at all, and make game totally unbalanced

 

[ThatGuyFromSeinfeld]

I disagree with your point about the supply mechanic, that in my opinion was implemented quite well, though with a few bugs (like the one with airplane supply being broke), which is to be expected. Though I do agree that the 'Paranoia' mechanic is a bit strange and out of place. Having to manage the perceived personality of your ruler in a grand strategy game about warfare doesn't feel natural.

 

[ThatGuyFromSeinfeld]

Finally someone saying truth at it is: this update completely ruined the game!!!
A part of the over-complicated, and, at the end of the day, irrilevant for the gameplay new logistic system (that , funny to say, should have been the core of the update), the thing most broken is the new research system... USA can farm almost infinite Naval XP just training the entire fleet together and so finish all the naval research, instead other countries cant, and , at the opposite, will join the 1941 war with the first level of land doctrine researched.... simply ridicoulous, make no sense at all, and make game totally unbalanced

The USA being able to just train its massive navy to gain copious amounts of experience was in the game before, it's just more pronounced now since XP is all you need to research doctrines and it's done instantly. Definitely some balancing needed there. And what other countries are you talking about that have to join the war with the first level of land doctrine researched? If it's a minor with a tiny army, then it makes sense that their knowledge of military strategy and tactics wouldn't be as refined as that of a country that has a massive military and has actual combat experience (gained by sending volunteers or attaches, for example). Bulgaria shouldn't have the same knowledge of land doctrine as Germany or the Soviet Union.

 

[Fulmen]

If it's a minor with a tiny army, then it makes sense that their knowledge of military strategy and tactics wouldn't be as refined as that of a country that has a massive military and has actual combat experience (gained by sending volunteers or attaches, for example). Bulgaria shouldn't have the same knowledge of land doctrine as Germany or the Soviet Union.

You're looking at this wrong. A larger military comes with its own problems: it's rigid, harder to control and organise. A smaller military is the opposite.

History has shown that a small nation can keep up and even be ahead of major powers if they have a well-led military. Look at Finnish doctrine in WW2, for instance. For example in some areas of artillery doctrine they were ahead of the rest of the world by 1944. In aerial warfare they were the first to develop the very successful finger-four tactic, doing so in the 1930s. Germany developed theirs soon after independently, based on their experiences in Spain. The rest of the world played catch-up.

Without access to certain materiel, countries cannot practice their use, but it's nowhere as black and white as you may think.

 

[sdplissken]

The Paranoia mechanic really is too gamey.
Stalin was far more complex a figure than to boil him down to an “Aggro” bar like Dr. Wario or Dr Robotnik, I’m surprised the Russian player isn’t collecting coins in the green zone to lower paranoia. It’s distasteful, and I don’t like the system.

 

[TheSeraphim]

The Paranoia mechanic really is too gamey.
Stalin was far more complex a figure than to boil him down to an “Aggro” bar like Dr. Wario or Dr Robotnik, I’m surprised the Russian player isn’t collecting coins in the green zone to lower paranoia. It’s distasteful, and I don’t like the system.

You don't get it Stalin was a crazy paranoid little man who saw enemies where there were none! !!!PLEASE IGNORE THAT ALL THE OTHER FOCUS TREES HAVE YOU ATTEMPTING TO ASSASSINATE HIM OF START A CIVIL WAR!!!
-Paradox

 

[qer]

PS for people with positive iq it obviously has some issues and I personally have reported a few but it is a big leap for all humanity if you know what I mean not just a no STEP back!

Sorry for being pedantic, but every human being has a positive IQ...

Regarding the update I think it has some positives that overall overshadows the negatives. I think is a step in the right direction and that it can be improved upon with some further patches.

 

[Fulmen]

!!!PLEASE IGNORE THAT ALL THE OTHER FOCUS TREES HAVE YOU ATTEMPTING TO ASSASSINATE HIM OF START A CIVIL WAR!!!
-Paradox

All of those focuses are ahistorical fiction, and should be treated as such, i.e. having nothing to do with the historical branch. Historically there was no plot, no conspiracy and no internal threat to Stalin during the time frame of the game.

EDIT:

Stephen Kotkin is one of the leading experts on Stalin of our era. I recommend reading his three-volume biography on him, Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928, Stalin: Volume II: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 and the third book, which is to be announced, but will presumably be called Stalin: Volume III: Miscalculation and the Mao Eclipse, 1941-53, or along those lines.

There's also several great lectures and talks of his on Stalin on YouTube. Here's one where he talks about the Great Terror and Stalin's motivations behind it, see 26:33-45:50

 

[TheSeraphim]

Historically there was no plot, no conspiracy and no internal threat to Stalin during the time frame of the game.

Sure thing "comrade".

 

[Metz]

If the paranoia maxes out, it should lead to a military coup. A Great Purge would be a precursor to this in terms of paranoia level being high.

 

[sdplissken]

You don't get it Stalin was a crazy paranoid little man who saw enemies where there were none! !!!PLEASE IGNORE THAT ALL THE OTHER FOCUS TREES HAVE YOU ATTEMPTING TO ASSASSINATE HIM OF START A CIVIL WAR!!!
-Paradox

That’s exactly right, no one wanted to kill him except everyone else in every other tree. And they call him paranoid

 

[Bugnr01]

I gave it a positive review on steam. There are a few bugs and things that need balancing, but playing as russia (or against it) has never been more fun or interesting.

Also Stalin was responsible for many countless deaths and was not a good man, although he was a strong enough leader in a certian way to help the Soviets win the war. Paranoia is a perfectly good word for what was going on at the time. He was paranoid about people attacking him (sometimes he was right but often he was wrong... the paranoia was based on snippets of fact, as paranoia usually is). He is not defensible though, he was a dictator and was reprehensible. Why would you want to make it sound like anything else other than paranoia? To defend him? Surely not!? This isn't some strange altered or slanted history from an outside perspective, these are facts collated by many highly respectable academics over many years. Stalin was a bad man, but had a certain strength that may have helped keep things together enough to win the war. He was paranoid.

How do you manage to supply something from somwhere else than Leningrad? For example the black sea while at war with turky. Or your invasions of japan (where the supply goes from leningrad to nagasaka and then up the crappy railroads. Or how do you supply somthing in the med as germany after taking yougoslavia.

You dont because the dlc has not been testet enought. So PDX is willing to take my money but unwilling to spend theirs on propper testing.

That is just a shamefull practice of PDX! Overall a disgrace to sell somthing like that but thats wat Paradox is doing since ever (sell brocken stuff and fix it later).

PS for people with positive iq it obviously has some issues and I personally have reported a few but it is a big leap for all humanity if you know what I mean not just a no STEP back!

Would it be an improvement if it would have been playtested, yes. Atm i think i actually want my money back.

 

[Th3master]

You don't get it Stalin was a crazy paranoid little man who saw enemies where there were none! !!!PLEASE IGNORE THAT ALL THE OTHER FOCUS TREES HAVE YOU ATTEMPTING TO ASSASSINATE HIM OF START A CIVIL WAR!!!
-Paradox

Where’s my “Stalin takes his meds” focus Paradox?

 

[Harin]

Funnily enough I recently started to play both EUIV and HoI4 on easy or even very easy difficulty as I felt like the balancing and the core design philosophy is of little fun if not outright punishing on normal difficulty. I mean take technologies in HoI4 : so many have been added over the years yet we are still stuck with 4/5 technology slot. At this point even as a major it is impossible to have a reasonably up to date armed force in all three domains (land, air & sea) on normal difficulty.

It is the first time I do it since I started Paradox games when CK2 was released. I have like 800 hours on CK2, 650 hours on EUIV, 800 hours on HoI3 and 550 hours on HoI4. It is not just a matter of laziness or a wish to win with little effort. Due to the way recent games and recent DLCs are developped, it is getting less and less fun to play on normal. In a sense, I am not suprised the devs themsleves play on easy or very easy. But it is definitly the sign that something is wrong atm.

Back on topic the DLC review rating is slowly coming down. I think have to wait a few weeks before the rating becomes of any useful indication. As for the game rating, it seems normal : HoI4 base game is wonderful (or at least was).

Excellent point!

I edited my post because I agree; many players are not interested in parts of the game and for good reason. It might be best for some players to wait until those who like the new systems to learn them and start posting how they work and best ways to use them. I know I will be looking for those posts myself. While I am having fun digging into it, I am under no illusion I will find the METAs, or even correctly understand the systems. I am just having fun with no pressure, because I know players will come to my rescue and explain things later. The game does have one of the best player bases I have ever had the pleasure of communicating with.

 

[Sultan Suleiman]

The Paranoia mechanic really is too gamey.
Stalin was far more complex a figure than to boil him down to an “Aggro” bar like Dr. Wario or Dr Robotnik, I’m surprised the Russian player isn’t collecting coins in the green zone to lower paranoia. It’s distasteful, and I don’t like the system.

Why are you lumping these two together? Dr. Wario was a medical professional following the Hippocratic Oath, aiding as many people as he could through the prescription of safe, effective, and easily stackable pills.

I won't tolerate this slander.

 

[OnlyTheWeakFearWords]

The new focus trees are hilariously ahistorical, and dont even get me started on "Stalin's paranoia" which seems like it was taken verbatim from one of the reagan era robert conquests' books.

I mean, the dude was so paranoid and fond of initiating purges and punishing subordinates that, after he had a stroke, he lay in his own pee and excrement for 12 hours because everyone was too scared to enter his rooms without permission to check on him. Surprised you're not more upset about the issues with the tank designer since they seem to be your brethren.

 

[Mr_Dimento]

The supply system is hilariously unrealistic & very simplistic, arguably worse than the one shipped with the game in 2016. Profoundly bugged too.

The new focus trees are hilariously ahistorical, and dont even get me started on "Stalin's paranoia" which seems like it was taken verbatim from one of the reagan era robert conquests' books.

The game is arguably the worst balanced it's ever been. You can supply a million troops with 2 transport planes, unlock all air doctrines with 300 fighters as volunteers in the spanish civil war, etc.

So I'm wondering, how is that possible that the game's sitting at 93% positive reviews from the past 2 weeks with the DLC being at 78%? This makes no sense to me. Do people just buy it and then not play the focus trees nations? Do they play it having no idea how the supply system works (and therefore how bad it is)?

HOES MAD!

 

[anbeck]

If I had to guess, you don't find representing Stalin's Great Terror as fueled by his paranoia wrong because it was actually coldly calculated by Stalin, or to quote Stephen Kotkin, who is in the process of writing the final book in his three-volume mammoth of a biography on Stalin: "The evidence for an extremely high degree of calculation behind the terror is overwhelming.", but rather because you believe there was actually some kind of genuine threat to Stalin, or perhaps that it wasn't Stalin at all who was behind the Great Terror, but rather his underlings.

Let's assume here that Kotkin is correct: then the issue is that the paranoia-minigame in NSB does not fit the characterisation of exhibiting "an extremely high degree of calculation" at all. If that were the case, then the player would be able to calmly weigh which advisors and generals to remove, masterminding her way to a new set of generals, advisors and buffs/debuffs. But the way the game represents it (and I have not played enough to having formed a strong opinion yet) is via the continuously weekly rise in "paranoia", which forces you to act even if a rational assessment would have to come to the conclusion that it would be better not to do anything. That does not fit the "extremely high degree of calculation" at all. So which is it?

At the same time, the alt-history paths do pick up the idea that there were groups organising against Stalin, and if I understand correctly (I haven't played the alt-history paths yet), you can even start a civil war. So within the game logic, the purges are actually justified. So I'm not quite sure what to make of that all.

 

[Devourer1987]

How do you manage to supply something from somwhere else than Leningrad? For example the black sea while at war with turky. Or your invasions of japan (where the supply goes from leningrad to nagasaka and then up the crappy railroads. Or how do you supply somthing in the med as germany after taking yougoslavia.

You dont because the dlc has not been testet enought. So PDX is willing to take my money but unwilling to spend theirs on propper testing.

That is just a shamefull practice of PDX! Overall a disgrace to sell somthing like that but thats wat Paradox is doing since ever (sell brocken stuff and fix it later).

Would it be an improvement if it would have been playtested, yes. Atm i think i actually want my money back.

No those areas are supposed to be badly supplied and over the course of the game you need to build railways and hubs if you intend to launch combat operations. It's working exactly as it should, well play tested in my opinion.

 

[Poopfaust]

What do you mean "you can control your own supply path?"