Worth getting now or wait?

[Stolen Rutters]

This makes me want to try the HOI4 darkest hour mod... I do not own HOI3.

Spoiler

I did buy the disk when HOI3 first came out but I couldn’t figure out how to play it, so it went back to Gamestop for Store credit. I am told they fixed the game up by the end of the development run. It’s on my steam wishlist, waiting for me to pay off debts before I invest in more games. Keeping up with just four games (HOI4, EU4, CK2, and Stellaris) overshoots my game budget as it is, not to mention playing games in general costs a lot of “make wife happy” mana too.

 

[Wasted Shampoo]

This makes me want to try the HOI4 darkest hour mod... I do not own HOI3. [/spoiler]

As a huge history buff disappointed by HOI4, since it’s everything but historical accurate, I had big expectations for darkest hour and it let me down too. Maybe they will do a wise use of the new decisions system, who knows.

 

[LakeClouds]

I had big expectations for darkest hour and it let me down too

Try the Darkest Hour game not the Hoi4 mod. It only cost a few bucks on steam. DH also has a mod called Total Realism Project which makes DH even more historically accurate.

 

[balmung60]

I'm really enjoying Darkest Hour and have been looking at Hoi4. However, seems like a lot of problems with AI? The strength of the AI is what I like most about DH so that's an important factor. Any thoughts on whether it's worth buying, especially from other DH players?

Never played DH, but my experience is that almost all AI is awful, and the few decent AIs I've seen have been for TBS games. Regardless, 1.5/WTT is a huge improvement overall. The decision system is great and WTT China (currently doing PRC) is the closest I've gotten to Kaiserreich levels of fun in vanilla.

One of the big problems is that a lot of players have odd expectations about "historicalness" - even when they themselves are deviating strongly from history, they often expect the AI to stay glued to a script. Historical Focuses mode only means that the AI will take national focuses in a certain order and respond to certain events in certain ways (unless the player goes completely off the rails, like removing Hitler as Germany, though prior to 1.5, the AI would still stay on its rails no matter what).

One of the biggest real problems with the AI is that it has no idea how to balance stockpiles, factory production, and division training. First off, it has no idea what a stockpile is. Even with a 9k artillery surplus, if it doesn't have the IC to make lots more artillery, it will just sit on that stockpile. Second, as mentioned, the AI only really works off its production. Third, the AI will never, ever stop training divisions until it is running Scraping the Barrel and it still zeros out its manpower, and it does so without regard to whether it has the equipment to make this a good idea - if it isn't attacked, it will usually match them up, but with no reserve equipment, which means that when combat starts, they have no replacements and quickly wind up with 200 divisions with full manpower, but only enough guns for 75 divisions.

 

[Bambilambi]

And that construction "macro" part Balmung60 is what expert ai 4.0 is fixing... somewhat
but normal ai wonkiness it cannot work around,

 

[LakeClouds]

First off, it has no idea what a stockpile is. Even with a 9k artillery surplus, if it doesn't have the IC to make lots more artillery, it will just sit on that stockpile. Second, as mentioned, the AI only really works off its production. Third, the AI will never, ever stop training divisions until it is running Scraping the Barrel and it still zeros out its manpower, and it does so without regard to whether it has the equipment to make this a good idea - if it isn't attacked, it will usually match them up, but with no reserve equipment, which means that when combat starts, they have no replacements and quickly wind up with 200 divisions with full manpower, but only enough guns for 75 divisions.

These seem like pretty serious bugs. The AI in Darkest Hour actually manages its production much better than what you described here. It's a different system as you have stockpiles of materials that you work from.

 

[BeauNiddle]

One of the biggest real problems with the AI is that it has no idea how to balance stockpiles, factory production, and division training. First off, it has no idea what a stockpile is. Even with a 9k artillery surplus, if it doesn't have the IC to make lots more artillery, it will just sit on that stockpile. Second, as mentioned, the AI only really works off its production. Third, the AI will never, ever stop training divisions until it is running Scraping the Barrel and it still zeros out its manpower, and it does so without regard to whether it has the equipment to make this a good idea - if it isn't attacked, it will usually match them up, but with no reserve equipment, which means that when combat starts, they have no replacements and quickly wind up with 200 divisions with full manpower, but only enough guns for 75 divisions.

This issue has been improved a lot in patch 1.5. It's not as good as a decent player still but it's not brain dead anymore.

 

[balmung60]

These seem like pretty serious bugs. The AI in Darkest Hour actually manages its production much better than what you described here. It's a different system as you have stockpiles of materials that you work from.

It's actually not as bad as it sounds, at least if the AI for whatever reason gets a decent stockpile (eg. Player ships a bunch of old artillery to an ally or Japan goes communist and Manchukuo inherits the IJA and most of Japan's stockpiles, which has given them a lot of endurance), it helps make up for its difficulty with having reserve equipment in the first place. The main problem is that it's bad at building said stockpile.