Developer Diary | Small Features #2

[C0RAX]

Who is shown in the image with white camouflage?

The white snow suit is specifically the British style, but most snow suits look the same.

 

[C0RAX]

What will determine the difference in the sprites?
I notice 3 different styles of US Marines, and 2 versions of the US paratroops
Or are these just mock ups?

One will be the default but you will be able to also use the alts, cold/hot weather uniforms are changed automatically from the base

 

[Arheo]

A few questions :

1) Will AI be able to use those Raiding Commandos ?

Sort of. The AI’s ability to perceive a high depth of risk is limited though (I shall preempt the inevitable by saying: this is a general challenge, not something unique to HOI), so it is likely to be a poor investment for them. In short, If they’re recruited, they’ll be used - but they are not recruited yet.

2) About Breakthough vs Defense for Mountaineers : sadly, I don't believe it will be a real choice. If AAT doesn't change the game engine on this, currently Defense affect **both** breakthough and defense, while breakthrough affect only...breakthrough. So 10% flat defense will be way better than a 15% breakthrough modifier via artillery...

Fair point, but balance subject to change still.

3) Will paradrop mechanic change ? Like a rebalance, or updated defines ? Because there won't be any incentive to build large Airborne divisions, and I fear the 2 Width (10 Width in Mp with rules) meta will remain, because of how bad paradropping divisions are with all their debuffs

‘Meta’ changes. And honestly, I don’t much consider it when designing - that ends up in a self reinforcing loop. MP will always have its own rules, and that’s ok.

4) Will the Shore bombardment bonus remain capped at 25%, or will those 15% bonuses bring the limit to 40 ? Indeed, it's pretty easy to achieve 25%, and there is no need to look after such bonuses once your fleet is sufficient for achieving the 25% cap.

not a bad idea. It’s the former currently, though.

Does this mean the AI will attempt to diversify their special forces and attempt to use paratroopers?

You may see more paratroopers around, but they will not create drop orders. Note that having ‘line’ paras is also a valid path here.

This comes up a lot, so I’ll just say that it’s highly unlikely we ever do this. It’s a high investment task with the propensity to become unmanageable for non-veterans.

Just wondering how will focuses that spawn elite units (e.g. Force Z, Maori Battalion) be affected by this change will they grant special boosts for tech or still just deploy a infantry unit that has elite training?

Some focuses have been changed to grant appropriate bonuses, but those granting units will remain as they are.

Also last thing Paras are infamously hard to get working due to a lot of issues ranging from lack of clear information being dispensed by the game and some persistent bugs. Was any work put into trying to improve the system and make it easier to use and more consistent in its results?

Yes.

Airborne light armour, is that going to be a support company addition? Or a full on battalion? Like could I make a division of nothing but airborne light tanks?

Support company

Why not just unlock and give the ability to Marines with Naval Commandos instead of making an entirely different unit? And do stat modifiers for regular Marines also apply for Marine Commandos?

Marine modifiers mostly(?) apply. Divisions have to be built quite specifically to make use of this, I didn’t want to create a need to change all your old marine templates to make use of the feature, and narratively it doesn’t make much sense anyway. This is special training for a special purpose.

When we train special troops will we get military experience or will paratroopers give air experience and marines will give sea experience?

No change here. I’m not overly fond of xp training and generation but changing this now would upset balance in several directions.

Will the old special forces techs remain in place too?

Only if you don’t own the expansion. The regular branch techs will persist though.

So will the AI be able to utilize these new features? Or will they fall short of using it all in a truly challenging sense against the player?

Most of that is subjective. They’ll benefit from using them, and part of designing in a sustainable way is to create new gameplay or narrative from existing habits. Most of these abilities were designed with that in mind. The AI benefits disproportionately from some techs like invasion capacity due to its ability to plan in breadth better than a human.

The exception is paradrops, still - see the answer above.Unless you're in terrain that's super useful for mountaineers, I can see the by far most used option in this is the one that allows mariners to withdraw.

This dev diary seems to think it will be used for "hit and run" tactics.

It might, but the most useful thing is that you'll be able to do naval invasions where you can pull out the valuable troops if they don't capture a port

Which is also fine imo.

Could the Marine Comandos also enable the exfil feature for amtracs? It would make a lot of sense for amtracs to be able to drive onto shore from the water and also back into the water from the shore

Unlikely, but we’ll see. It’s simple enough to change.

Will there be bonuses for amphibious mechanized battalions in marines branch?

Currently yes, but dlc ownership combinations make this awkward. We’ll see.

 

[C0RAX]

@Arheo Hello, will you add decent auto-template for divisions and tech design? Just like the one in Stellaris. The current state of hoi4 designer is the reason why i stopped playing the game, its so uncomfortable for me as a casual player.

I suggest you take a look at the small features #1 Dev diary here

 

[Arheo]

Sorry, something is still unclear to me: what's specific to new AAT DLC and what's to be included from generic 1.13 patch forward? I'm afraid adding new mechanic just for a DLC is not future proof, and the integration with rest of the game in future might suffer. We're still doing fine tuning with air war/BBA air designer, same with naval designers/MTG.
At least, when new mechanics (except focus trees maybe) get included in the main game, like infrastructure after NSB/1.11, everyone gets used to it but especially everyone's using it, so there's an incentive to debug and maintain the said new mechanics.

As @bitmode has noticed, yes, this tree is DLC locked. Adding new mechanics in DLCs is a constant challenge to which I don't have a good solution. We've tried various methods of balancing free and dlc locked items over time, and each has its downsides. There isn't always a good solution where business and design meet, but you can't have one without the other.

 

[Arheo]

Why why why is there so much opposition to individual special forces caps at Paradox?
The general cap encourages too much min maxingr ather than running all 3 types of spec ops with the possibility of somewhat optimizing one of them.
I'd love the ability to use and improve all three and IRL every major used all types of spec ops to some extent with varying success.

That blocker is entirely psychological. I'd wager that a combined arms offensive of statistically disadvantaged divisions would beat a brute force offensive of 'min-maxed' divisions. This approach allows you to do either.