Developer Diary | End of Year 2023

[Svenska Super]

Every time the HOI4 team adds more realism, people don't like it. For example, air accidents. Military air warfare had a LOT of accidents and deaths and other casualties.

People love the IDEA of realism, but they don't like it when it actually negatively affects them.

It depends on how you package it, what a great time to re-package the game and re-present in a time where most people are enjoying being or aspire being an armchair general (my chair ikea markus).

You make an intro with a defence staff member (you done this before) and than say i approve this game on realism being a legitimate armchair general

 

[Lamartine]

Overall the top 10 played nations are (5h+ games):
Germany - 22%
Soviet - 12%
China - 6%
PRC - 6%
Italy - 4%
USA - 4%
Japan - 4%
France - 3%
England - 2%
Turkey - 2%

...

“Next year you will see both a new face on something familiar, and take our first step into an untouched continent”

*disappears with a mysterious hiss into a cloud of smoke*

I wager that Japan and somewhere in East or South East Asia is the new face on something familiar. Looking at the most played nations, Japan + China + PRC is 16% of games. Improving those nations, or the nations they interact with, would effect a lot of games.

The untouched continent has to be Central or South America. Africa has South Africa and Ethiopia. Oceania has Australia and New Zealand. Asia and Europe have many nations. North America has every nation covered - Canada, United States and Mexico. The Middle East has nothing except Turkey, but the Middle East in and of itself is not a continent. Only Central America and South America have no direct, in-game content.

 

[WilliamSF]

Please do the Middle East before South America! And more 3D infantry models for France and the UK would be really nice! (Tirailleurs, French Foreign Legion, Gurkas, Chasseurs Alpins, Fusiliers Marins...)

 

[WilliamSF]

Please add a Belgian focus tree!

 

[marcelo r. r.]

Every time the HOI4 team adds more realism, people don't like it. For example, air accidents. Military air warfare had a LOT of accidents and deaths and other casualties.

People love the IDEA of realism, but they don't like it when it actually negatively affects them.

Also the reality of the world is just entropy, decay, aging.

No game can survive all that "realism" without be boring, and if is boring like real life why play a game?

Im in 1951, most of my generals should have retired(LOL), in hoi2 they have something like this for most famous deaths(like Patton), that was no joke.. imagine the rage if Hoi4, used to have few generals, implement famous deaths or retirment.

I can see 2 trends in players demands: a very slow paced game with tons of "realism", small scope(delete minors!), and something that fit more a RTS that represent battles, not wars............ and ppl who still wants traditional Hoi4 scope.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

*disappears with a mysterious hiss into a cloud of smoke*

So the Brazil is coming...

Pls implement a achievment: "The King of Jungle" - get jungle rat trait for a General or Field Marshall.

 

[Idle America]

I can't wait for "Rigged Elections", the Liberian DLC!

 

[Arheo]

Is this in the same vein as the custodian team from Stellaris? If so this is great news, that was IMO the best thing to happen for Stellaris development

No

 

[FindFloppies]

I'm Brazilian, only i can say is be careful with South America, Braziilian internet/game geeks tends to be too passionate abouts politics, and Vargas 30's is a very divisive figure til today, some love him with passion, and others hate him with passion.

Monarquism is just pure fantasy(i'm older i have 40, before 90's restore monarchy ideas was like a joke), but BR-internet bubbles tends to believe that was a big thing, so i don't recommend "experiments" like did with Norway monarchy, otherwise you will bring lots of hate from BR's. Brazil have the most singular history in americas becaus was once the home of only european monarchy in the new world(without be a forced puppet like mexico imperator).

Well, if we can 'fiddle with history' with other nations, Brazil is NOT exempt. imo. History is known, and alt-history can go about anywhere. If someone doesn't like that, well, I think that's their problem. People make up all kinds of motives and 'possible' actions for the country I live in, so why is yours somehow exempt?

 

[blahmaster6k]

Every time the HOI4 team adds more realism, people don't like it. For example, air accidents. Military air warfare had a LOT of accidents and deaths and other casualties.

People love the IDEA of realism, but they don't like it when it actually negatively affects them.

I don't know if I would use that particular example. A lot more planes were produced IRL in world war two than are produced in this game. I don't think in HoI4 you're going to see the USA building 300,000 planes like they did in real life, so accident losses need to be lower too.

Antarctica DLC confirmed.

Finally, the map update that adds Antarctica to the world map!

 

[Kosaki MacTavish]

Well, if we can 'fiddle with history' with other nations, Brazil is NOT exempt. imo. History is known, and alt-history can go about anywhere. If someone doesn't like that, well, I think that's their problem. People make up all kinds of motives and 'possible' actions for the country I live in, so why is yours somehow exempt?

As a mod developer who touched my home country (Indonesia), yeah, touching an important part of our national history is a pretty delicate task, especially if one has a vested interest on it because of their ideological beliefs.

Already some has asked me about their inability to make a Reich-aligned Indonesian-ruled Indonesia in my mod.

 

[FindFloppies]

As a mod developer who touched my home country (Indonesia), yeah, touching an important part of our national history is a pretty delicate task, especially if one has a vested interest on it because of their ideological beliefs.

Already some has asked me about their inability to make a Reich-aligned Indonesian-ruled Indonesia in my mod.

You, of course, can opt to not send your country down X path or Y path, in a mod you wrote,, but, someone else is under no constraint to follow your rules. Just keep that in mind. (And I'll go back to the fact that my country has been celebrated and reviled in equal parts by many, and no one's asking my opinion, either...)

 

[HmJ_JP]

Interesting to find France in the top 10, even before the UK. Maybe worth investing a bit, like adding special forces 3D models (mountaineers...) and do some fine-tuning

 

[Kadanz]

“Next year you will see both a new face on something familiar, and take our first step into an untouched continent”

Atlantis confirmed.

 

[ketil brambgard]

Atlantis confirmed.

With Antarctica and Atlantis in the horizon, it would be possible a crossover with SG-1?
Jokes apart. There was a possibility of alien invasion in some mod of HOI2? Or it was in the Armageddon Expansion?

 

[Lamartine]

Is this in the same vein as the custodian team from Stellaris? If so this is great news, that was IMO the best thing to happen for Stellaris development

Devs have been even more explicit in other threads that there's no foreseeable plan for a Custodians Team.

Do you support using the Joint Focus Tree to revamp China and Japan?

my viewpoint is as follows: Regarding China's focus tree, which can only be unlocked through paid DLC, its actual enjoyment does not justify the cost for players. The content for various warlords is repetitive, resulting in homogeneous gameplay...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Teutonic_Knight_2000]

You forget Czechoslovakia, Belgium too, possibly Hungary and Romania also..

Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary (and Yugoslavia) are included in probably the first DLC for HoI 4. Of course, they are very old and could use a rework.

Belgium could be included in the Austria and Germany DLC - maybe even non-European countries.

 

[Ossiv]

The "big bad wolves" must be kept interesting, meaning totalitarian countries that can be played aggressively. I hope for some kind of rework for Axis majors; Japan needs it more, but also Germany should get some new content. Also, their main early war adversaries could get some rework at the same package, meaning China and the UK.

I play most often Germany and I hope to get an alternative solution to the historical after tha fall of France. IRL Germany was not prepared to invade the UK, but in game an experienced player knows how to prepare fot it. If Sealion is done successfully, the Allies surrender and that part of the war is over. Maybe there should be possibility that part of the Allies continue the fight, even if Germany takes Great Britain. Maybe the British government could escape to Canada.

Another alternative history could be to allow Germany make a peace agreement (not surrender) with the UK after the fall of France, so that the UK still exists, if the war breaks up again in 1941.

A third wish is to allow human player to lauch attempt to Hitler's life, to overthrow the Nazis and switch power to the historical opposition (Beck, Witzleben, Canaris, possibly Rommel and others).

 

[prometheuskathoristikos]

Would’ve hoped to have seen more information here about sales—Steam players hit an all-time high at AAT’s release, continuing a consistent upward trend since the vanilla launch, and I think that’s something worth celebrating.

 

[DukofDeth]

Holly hell please be South America

Has to be unless they're doing that Sci-Fi Fantasy DLC with bases in Antarctica. Out of seven continents one is uninhabited and five of the the other six have been touched in some way or another and all without anyone filing a restraining order. So unless they've got some manner of meme-material about Bolivia being lead by a Zombified Butch & Sundance team [both looking strangely like Paul Neuman and Robert Redford] I'd be inclined to bet that Brazil fans are finally getting more than just an achievement to look forward too.