Developer Diary | Joint Focus Tree

[CarloPDX]

could this feature be tweaked such that 2 competing nations shared a joint focus tree, but when one side completes 1 focus, it gives bonus to itself, but debuffs to competitor? I am thinking of Communist vs. Nationalist China. Each side will have different conditions in order to start the joint focus, and gives different buffs/debuffs to other side depending on who completes it first. so you will have a 'race' to see who get to the joint focus first. This could be interesting via mod or future update to WtT content

Nothing stopping us, or modders to do this, and who knows how this will be used in the future

 

[CarloPDX]

Are there going to be multiple Joint Focus Trees included in the next DLC or only one for the Nordic nations?

For example, would we see a Joint Focus Tree for the Balkans or Austria-Hungary or China or Latin America?

For this DLC, only one Joint Focus Tree, after that, who knows

 

[CarloPDX]

Well, JFT icons look great! However, I've got a question about research slots. Currently, you can get 6 research slots as New Zealand, but can't as UK or historical Germany. It's quite strange. So, are you going to change balance of research slots (I mean why don't you set maximal research slots for minors to 4 or 3; for majors to 5 and for USA, UK and Germany to 6)? I speak not about the exact number, but about idea. Hope, you will answer and thanks for your work)

Thanks! It's not impossible in princple, but since we treat each country very differently and there are gradients of minor and major, we deal with them on a case by case basis, even if there will always be discrepancies.

 

[CarloPDX]

Thanks for you answer. However, maybe I don't get it. So, you're saying that you treat majors and minors differently, though all of them (except several countries) can get exactly the same amount of research slots. And do you have in mind rebalancing the amount of research slots per country? Sorry, for not fully understanding your comment)

hahaha I think you misunderstood me. What I mean is that we will not set any max amount of slots based on whether they are minors or not, each content designer deals with that balance according to their judgement, since no two majors or minors are the same.

 

[CarloPDX]

Looks fun and also really hard to balance!
But I can see axis union when/if germany gets rework
and so on...

So this open up a lot of options... and yeah will be pain in the *** to balance.

Balance? What's that?? I'm a content designer not a content balancer B)

 

[CarloPDX]

I have 2 questions.

1: How does one open the joint focus tree? Will there be a new button on the UI or a button on the Focus tree UI?

2: Is it possible for a country to be a member of 2 separate Joint Focus Trees? Like hypothetically speaking, for Britain to be a member of both an "Allies" JFT and a "British Empire" JFT?

1. The JFT is in the same window as the normal focus tree. We're not sure of the position yet. I have it below the normal focus tree, but others have it beside it. We'll see.
2. Nothing under the hood would stop such a scenario, but we would probably not design a JFT to be like that

 

[CarloPDX]

Some mechanics questions:
It was mentioned that while a focus is actively pursued by a nation it will be marked by a flag which nation is doing it. Will this indicator remain there even after the focus is completed to allow one to track which tag completed which focuses?
Also it was said that AI will avoid picking mutually exclusive focuses is that something that was coded into the way AI always interacts with any JFTs or were the mutually exclusive focuses individually marked to be avoided by the AI like one would any other focus?
Finally are there any hard or soft limits to how many countries can be assigned the same JFT or how many can do a focus from a JFT at the same time? In this scenario only 4 countries will take part in this nordic JFT but with mods the number of tags involved could end up quite big if one chooses to do that and im worried whether this mechanic can handle that?

Yep, they will remain, you can see it in one of the screenshots.
The AI will avoid them as they would any other focus, with a ai_will_do thingy.
As long as a country has the origin shared focus in their focus tree, and they meet the conditions, you should be able to have as many countries as you want. I have never tried it though, so not sure if there's a bug preventing that

 

[CarloPDX]

Don't you think +2.5pp for the Kalmar League's leader is a bit too much? I mean that's Germany levels of insane pp gain.

Yeah that always happens to me. I tend to make first pass stuff with very high modifiers and adjust from there, but every now and then one or two escapes. I changed that number to a more reasonable one.

 

[CarloPDX]

This a very nice game mechanic, but I have a question:
Wouldn't it be more effective to make them Decisions instead of Focuses, so that EVERY country that you can play as can have similar options, without having to update every single Focus Tree? There are a bunch of Focus Trees that need an update, and this is just going to make them seem even more obsolete.

Well, there are several reasons why I wouldn't use decisions:
First of all, the decisions panel is already pretty packed and we throw most things that are not focuses at it. They're not as flavorful as a focus tree and it's harder to show a progression, in a focus tree, you can clearly see all the options and what you need to do to get to them, plus, in my opinion decisions are best for quick and repeatable actions, instead of shaping a faction through them. Also, even if we made it into decisions, I wouldn't want them to be generic for every country, we want every country and expansion to feel different from the rest.
And on the last bit, if we didn't add features because they would make old content feel obsolete we wouldn't add any features period. And changing the old content to incorporate every feature we release would take an enormous amount of effort and time. We already do stuff like going back and replacing effects in old content when we add a new designer, or making old design company content work with the new MIO system and it takes a lot of time away from making new content. You can at least be sure that every new feature, makes every following DLC potentially better and more diverse.

 

[CarloPDX]

Will Scando-Estonia have access to this focus tree?

No

 

[CarloPDX]

Are the data displayed in these images the final version? It seems the situation of numerical inflation has become more severe, and the game's balance is being challenged (it seems this issue started with the Baltic three countries in the NSB DLC).

Continuing what I was saying in an earlier reply, this is a Work in Progress, and the thing that's the most malleable are numbers