Why do many players consider HoI4 to be easy/too easy?

[Alspego]

Perhaps one could make a case that learning the game and the deficiencies of the AI in HoI4 might be easier than the "x" or "y" game, but we still have to consider that you need to spend a certain amount of time to learn these things. HoI4 has a steep learning curve for a new player but after overcoming that part, the curve becomes a straight horizontal line meaning that there is no element of surprise and unexpected because you fully understand how the system works and what to expect from it, therefore it becomes an "easy" game.

This is a very good discretion. I think that a reason might for this might be the amount of mechanics giving you a "linear" growing benefit vs "exponential" (or threshold based) benefit.
Example for a "linear mechanic" in EU4: Trade efficiency. Having more is better and the effect is very predictable.
Example for a "exponential mechanic" in HOI4: Armor. Having more armor than piercing gives a extremely large advantage (~+50% Damage to the opponent and -50% less damage taken).
HOI4 has a lot more "exponential" mechanics. Other examples are soft attack (each point of soft attack over the opponents defense does 3x more damage compared to points below the defense value), airforce (having air superiority lead an very large advantage even if the total size of the air force is very small. As a minor having 100 CAS against a other minor helps a lot) and (a bit more questionable) speed (fast Units to overrun retreating units). The examples in EU4 that I can think off would be moral (Armies with a very high moral can stackwipe enemy armies) and military technology (some special tech level can give a nation a disproportional high advantage), but the first aspect is more relevant in mid/late game, the second one is more like a temporary thing until the enemy develops the same technology. Most mechanics are more linear giving you small benefits which must be accumulated to provide a strong combined effect.
Having many exponential mechanics lead to the flat line after the steep learning curve since there is no reason to explore alternatives if you already have a tool strong enough.

 

[RosegoldCrobat]

Not sure what speed you're playing at, but I'd suggest slowing it down to speed 1-2-pause, when it all kicks off. You can micro-m a lot more then and be aware of more things going on, and study why your not wining in combat areas x,y,z, is terrain, weather, the enemy has Air-superiority etc.

I've heard this. I should but I'm not very patient. I'm used to the super fast EU4. I will try playing slower.

I actually managed to defeat Britain and I think I found out roughly why I couldn't before. USSR is giving quite some trouble though. But I will just try encircling with tanks. I'd rather win slowly than just throw all my men to death.

 

[klopkr]

I think this games difficulty relies mostly on your nations ability rather than actual military strategy.

When you play the big boys like the soviets or germany or england or even france it's not hard to turn things your way and dominate. The big challenges of the game are the countries with literally nothing to rely on.

 

[ivhokie]

I might be alone, but I don't worry about Britain after the fall of France. Everything I do after that is geared toward being as strong as possible in June 1941. A large part of that is I don't want my air force to be chewed up fighting Britain. Ill grab some quick and easy factories in Denmark, but that is about it. Most of the time I don't even worry about Norway.

Slightly random thought for others though. Now that Yugoslavia has a bunch of chromium I really want that territory, but it always ends up going to Italy or Bulgaria. Is there a way of getting it other than going it alone and no allying with either?

 

[seattle]

With everything being moddable (or customizable via vanilla custom settings) and a plethora of mods out there from Fallout and Kaiserreich to Cold War and Millenium Dawn... and gameplay tweaks like expert a.i... and the whole RPG thing (playing Hitler and building super heavy tanks instead of what you really need)...

Man, there are so many things you can do to challenge yourself. If everything fails, just try to conquer the world as Bhutan.

Ah yeah, there's MP as well for the ultimate challenge.
So no, HoI4 is not too easy nor is it too tough, it is precisely as difficult as you make it to be.

 

[Shebaloso]

I find this ongoing "hoi4 is easy" rather misleading at the very least. There are multiple types of "easy", but to be honest, it does seem sometimes that people treat each playthrough like some sort of a test, with a clear objective to beat the game. I truly don't think this is a good way to play paradox games, but to each their own. But following this, there are some things which can't just be said in the same phrase. The 40 width division, for example. Not only are they inherently superior to 20 widht divisions with few exceptions, but also the AI doesn't use them. So why the hell would you use them against the standard 20 width AI and then say it's too easy to beat it?

There are certainly instances of AI insuccess making the game too easy, like the fact that they don't know how to deal with production really well, and flaws such as those need to be correctly addressed. But, as i illustrated above, there are a myriad of things that are not really AI flaws, but simply (poor?) design decisions which are constantly exploited and drastically alter the balance of power.

For me, HOI4 is a simple or easy game in the sense that it offers no complex mechanics, and as such it has no steep learning curve. But then again, the problems with paradox games have always been the lack of availability of vital information. Victoria 2 for example has somewhat complex mechanics, but what makes learning to play it rather tiresome is not the difficult in abstracting the mechanics themselves, but the lack of information about them.

HOI4 can also be unintendedly easy because how the AI handles some mechanics less than optimally.

But it really makes no sense to say it's easy when you're actively trying to find out every area the AI is bad at and then use it against them at the same time.

 

[Shebaloso]

I've heard this. I should but I'm not very patient. I'm used to the super fast EU4. I will try playing slower.

I actually managed to defeat Britain and I think I found out roughly why I couldn't before. USSR is giving quite some trouble though. But I will just try encircling with tanks. I'd rather win slowly than just throw all my men to death.

I'd like to help you, OP, but you're being too vague. Try to explain to us what is happening when you start noticing you're losing or, better yet, post some screenshots.

 

[Rebel1776]

I've heard this. I should but I'm not very patient. I'm used to the super fast EU4. I will try playing slower.

I actually managed to defeat Britain and I think I found out roughly why I couldn't before. USSR is giving quite some trouble though. But I will just try encircling with tanks. I'd rather win slowly than just throw all my men to death.

Do you mean to tell us that you attempted Barbarossa by using Infantry and having them ADVANCE into the Russians WITHOUT the use of Armor?

 

[ltccone]

I might be alone, but I don't worry about Britain after the fall of France. Everything I do after that is geared toward being as strong as possible in June 1941. A large part of that is I don't want my air force to be chewed up fighting Britain. Ill grab some quick and easy factories in Denmark, but that is about it. Most of the time I don't even worry about Norway.

Slightly random thought for others though. Now that Yugoslavia has a bunch of chromium I really want that territory, but it always ends up going to Italy or Bulgaria. Is there a way of getting it other than going it alone and no allying with either?

Capture Yugoslavia before bringing Italy or Bulgaria, or any other Axis member into the war. Give Slovakia to Hungary, or she will spoil everything for you.

 

[Bambilambi]

might be worthwhile to write up a good guide that actually explains what everything does, like what do air superiority actually do to speed and defence etc...
the official guide doesnt really explain much, the wiki have some though.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

The game is too easy for me, although WTT has slowed down conquest a little. That being said I have been playing map war games since before personal computers were a thing. I would have play groups with about 3 to 5 men meeting In a garage with a bunch of donut tables everywhere and game maps laid out on them. There were literally hundreds of unit counters for each player and the rule books were as in depth as a first year calculus course. So I had to understand those game rules early and fast or I was toast. I started playing those games by the age of nine. Computer games came along and most of them were made for children so there was never even a challenge to begin with. The problem with HOI is the AI. The AI just does some of the most rediculus tactical and strategic behaviour that I end up exploiting it to death without even trying to. To be fair I have never played against a good AI except with simple games like GO or chess. Others games tended to get better but it took years and was usually out of development and heavily modified. The really good games were always in a multiplayer setting with a strong and balanced system/rules/players base.

 

[stjern]

It all boils down to the VERY bad AI. Mainly:

1) AI is blind to combat. (Paradox claims this is a design choice and not a bug) So watch the AI suicide attack even if it has -1000% everything.

2) Major source code bug that tells AI to suicide attack in a defense order. (Watch a garrison unit garrisoning a port instant suicide attack a unit that appears)

3) AI Role system broken. SteelVolt added the role system for the AI to help the AI understand templates in patch 1.4. However, the source code for this has major errors that make none of it work so the AI will be LESS willing to use a marine unit for amph invasion order because of inverted values. (Watch AI use the wors garrison template for D-day invasion while the marines guard London)

The other points mentioned can be fixed by the mod tools and is just poor base game defines/setup of AI.

With the mod tools AI can handle economy, choices, template designing etc really well. (How many units of certain type AI should build is not inplemented in vanilla for example)

 

[Fulmen]

1) AI is blind to combat. (Paradox claims this is a design choice and not a bug) So watch the AI suicide attack even if it has -1000% everything.

I'm pretty sure the AI has some weighting to its willingness to attack based on at least how many enemy divisions the target province has, if nothing else. Logically the AI should also assess the amount of manpower, equipment and type of battalions in those divisions. But given that traditionally in PDX games only the number of units on the map matters to AI decision-making, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case here too.

What PDX probably said was that AI in HoI4 is also subject to fog of war, so I think you're misquoting them here. But by all means link me the quote if I'm wrong.

 

[Prince Ire]

I am highly amused by so many people talking about how much easier HoI4 is than other Paradox games, when I find it much more difficult than EU4, CK2, and Vicky2 which I'm much better at than HoI4.

 

[Fulmen]

I am highly amused by so many people talking about how much easier HoI4 is than other Paradox games, when I find it much more difficult than EU4, CK2, and Vicky2 which I'm much better at than HoI4.

You're doing something very wrong then.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I'm pretty sure the AI has some weighting to its willingness to attack based on at least how many enemy divisions the target province has, if nothing else.

Not really. It's common to see the AI attack with a single suicidal division into prepared defenses and it has no ability to cancel attacks or retreat from defenses "manually" either. The AI determines on a whole Army or even Army group level if it's OK to attack or not based on plan value and average shape of it's divisions, not looking at individual odds.

 

[Fulmen]

Not really. It's common to see the AI attack with a single suicidal division into prepared defenses and it has no ability to cancel attacks or retreat from defenses "manually" either. The AI determines on a whole Army or even Army group level if it's OK to attack or not based pn plan value and average shape of it's divisions, not looking at individual odds.

The point was that there exists some form of weighting to the AI's decision-making. Whether or not it's terrible is another matter.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The point was that there exists some form of weighting to the AI's decision-making. Whether or not it's terrible is another matter.

Yes, and my point was that the weighting has nothing to do with how many divisions a single province has.

 

[RosegoldCrobat]

Do you mean to tell us that you attempted Barbarossa by using Infantry and having them ADVANCE into the Russians WITHOUT the use of Armor?

So first I allowed Russian to attack while doing some encirclements with my 24 40-width medium tank divisions.

After Russia had maybe 4 million casualties I tried attacking with infantry but that just led to 200 000 of my manpower gone.

The thing is that encircling divisions using is SOOO slow. The war isn't progressing anywhere. I have no idea how Hitler reached Moscow so fast historically.

Honestly, if anyone has good films/books on real WW2 warfare I'd be interested. I'm curious.

 

[RosegoldCrobat]

You're doing something very wrong then.

I agree with Prince Ire. For me HoI4 is much more difficult than other Paradox games I've tried. CK2 isn't easy but it's quite easy to not lose.