Why is everything so... cartoony?

[Nuklearius]

The map, the portraits, the artwork... style- and gameplaywise Hearts of Iron 4 looks like the exact opposite of HOI3. And that just doesn't work for me (and I'm sure for others neither).
It's an immersion breaker to see your giant toy-soldier-troops doing push-ups while reading an event about the spanish civil war, or the battle of Leningrad. And immersion was a huge factor that made me play Hearts of Iron 3 in the first place. But from everything I've seen so far this game is a lot less realistic ("realism isn't a meaningful argument blah", I know).
Now we have political power, Hearts of Iron 4's mana points that you can spend either on promoting officers or puppeting greece (realistic, right?). And we got tanks and fleets that run without oil. Than there is research, world tension, ministers... all things that looked cool for me in the dev diary first, but when I thought about it again I noticed they were more or less better/more complex done in HOI3.
Another thing that is just off, is the map. it looks like an EU4 map mode with completely overblown effects. Why day-night-cycle? Can't remember anyone asking for it. Why creating all those unnecessary animations and force people to use them, who simply want counters? Why bright neon colours and huge letters with white outlines instead of simple names (the Soviet Unions "S" doesn't need to be larger than Spain...). Just to remind you, historical maps looked more like this (1944):

So far the only new things that I really like are equipment and the more realistic manpower pool. The rest is different, but not really that much better for me.

 

[erkkijuusto]

You know, I agree completely. I can't wait for someone to make a HOI3 style map mod.

 

[Sloeberjong]

That's your opinion and I fully disagree.

If you think HoI3 is better then by all means keep playing that. Also, this has been discussed to death a million times before.

Personally I love the artstyle. I think it fits really well.

 

[Kovax]

Paradox is obviously attempting to expand their market base from the serious and knowledgeable wargamer crowd into the grade school generation, competing with stuff like the Lego games and other colorful and cheerful titles.

 

[Aries666]

No one is forcing you to do anything, you don't have to buy the game. If you consider HOI3 to be superior in every respect you are perfectly able to continue playing it.

 

[Sloeberjong]

Paradox is obviously attempting to expand their market base from the serious and knowledgeable wargamer crowd into the grade school generation, competing with stuff like the Lego games and other colorful and cheerful titles.

I think of myself as a somewhat serious and knowledgeable wargamer and I happen to like the direction Paradox goes with HoI. You obviously seem to be forgetting that HoI was and always will be a game meant for entertainment and not for simulation.

 

[Zoob]

I momentarily considered going back and getting renaissance maps to demonstrate that a contemporary map is not always the best game map for a historical game. But your posting of the "historical map" is so totally spurious I won't waste time on Google images sourcing old maps.

Is it maybe possible, that wartime maps were printed that way due to the technology available at the time. It wasn't all black and white folks, it just looked that way on TV.

I will waste time finding the image below though, mainly because Earth from space looks amazing. This is what Earth looked like in WW2. and in the Renaissance. And in the classical era. And in 2015.

 

[Nuklearius]

I think of myself as a somewhat serious and knowledgeable wargamer and I happen to like the direction Paradox goes with HoI. You obviously seem to be forgetting that HoI was and always will be a game meant for entertainment and not for simulation.

I'm not an expert in rethorics but I think he didn't mean that seriously.

 

[kviiri]

I think the "glowy" effect in map mode is a bit excessive but it really doesn't bother me that much.

 

[Nuklearius]

I momentarily considered going back and getting renaissance maps to demonstrate that a contemporary map is not always the best game map for a historical game. But your posting of the "historical map" is so totally spurious I won't waste time on Google images sourcing old maps.

Is it maybe possible, that wartime maps were printed that way due to the technology available at the time. It wasn't all black and white folks, it just looked that way on TV.

I will waste time finding the image below though, mainly because Earth from space looks amazing. This is what Earth looked like in WW2. and in the Renaissance. And in the classical era. And in 2015.

the maps that were used by generals certainly didn't look like that one in HOI4. Or do you believe they used google earth or what?

 

[Victor Cortez]

Paradox is obviously attempting to expand their market base from the serious and knowledgeable wargamer crowd into the grade school generation, competing with stuff like the Lego games and other colorful and cheerful titles.

The game below is clearly their biggest competitor:

 

[Zoob]

Yes of course I believe they used Google Earth.

What did the maps used by Caesar during his Gaul campaigns look like?

 

[Nuklearius]

Yes of course I believe they used Google Earth.

I knew it!

 

[Nuklearius]

What did the maps used by Caesar during his Gaul campaigns look like?

Don't know, but I'm sure they didn't glow or had toy soldiers doing jumping jacks on them...

 

[Vidkjaer]

From an early showcase video PodCat disables borders showing the map without fancy colors. He says in the video they might put in a button for this because the map is beautifull to look at without the fancy colors and people would want it.

At 24:16 in this video. I think it looks beautifull.

 

[Paracetamol]

Yes of course I believe they used Google Earth.

What did the maps used by Caesar during his Gaul campaigns look like?

Caesar used iOS products according to most of historians,so it was Apple maps i believe.

 

[Nuklearius]

From an early showcase video PodCat disables borders showing the map without fancy colors. He says in the video they might put in a button for this because the map is beautifull to look at without the fancy colors and people would want it.

At 24:16 in this video. I think it looks beautifull.

Terrain-map looks good, no doubt. I still would have preferred a seperate "light" diplomatic map.

 

[Sloeberjong]

I'm not an expert in rethorics but I think he didn't mean that seriously.

I'd hope so, but then the sarcasm wasn't very clear. Text usually doesn't convey sarcasm very well this way without a smiley or something

Especially when the OP was being quite serious...

 

[Duke of Awesome]

The one thing I hate about the map that I've seen is the obnoxious transition from day to night that happens as time passes. Everything else looks good to me, art style-wise.

 

[Holdy]

The map looks very good. They already said there will be counters (there are some screenshots in the forums of that as well). HoI3 was more complex I agreee on that. But you need to keep in mind, that Paradox wants to maximize its profits, so they need to make a game, that fits both, hardcore gamers and longtime fans of the Paradox franchises, and casual gamers. So they needed to take away some complexity. But if that takes away realism also, we need to wait until the game comes out.