Developer Diary | Switzerland #1

[CarloPDX]

Will it be possible to increase the professional army of Switzerland in historical focuses or will that be left to the alt history routes? Will it be possible at all?

Yes, you can improve the mountaineers in both Historical and Alt-Historical paths, but they won't be the focus, I think.

 

[CarloPDX]

Looks rather neat, the Citizen Militias seem quite interesting
I suppose the whole focus tree is locked behind the expansion, as will Ethiopia's?

Yes, Switzerland is all paid, both Historical and Alt

 

[CarloPDX]

1. Can you show some Generals or are they not ready yet?

2. Does the focus 'Case North' lead to a war with Germany? If yes i'd propose making another mutually exclusive focus that is truly neutral, so that the AI doesn't accidentally take it. We had the same issue with Portugal in MtG but thankfully the developer there added the focus 'Proudly alone' so that Portugal was not forced into the war if not under player control.

Case North just gives you a decision you can take for defensive and offensive bonuses, so it doesn't lead to war but it can help you if you find yourself in one!

 

[CarloPDX]

How come your showing parts of the Swiss focus tree instead of finishing talking about the Italian focus tree?

Different designers doing each, so I'm writing this while the designers doing Italy prepare the next one, and make the content that will be featured in it.

 

[CarloPDX]

1. Can you show some Generals or are they not ready yet?

2. Does the focus 'Case North' lead to a war with Germany? If yes i'd propose making another mutually exclusive focus that is truly neutral, so that the AI doesn't accidentally take it. We had the same issue with Portugal in MtG but thankfully the developer there added the focus 'Proudly alone' so that Portugal was not forced into the war if not under player control.

3. How does the Swiss AI generally deal with the new mechanics? Are the outcomes on historical most of the time the same or does it often get declared on?

Also, yes, General portraits are not ready so no point on showing them.

 

[CarloPDX]

So does Switzerland actually have a separate industrial/anything mountain or is it hidden in the main focus tree’s flowing hills?

Switzerland is a single mountain that has industrial parts, the idea is that Military, Industrial and Political aspects of the country are tied together.

 

[CarloPDX]

Impassable terrain is cool and all but can AI finally stop try to walk through them?

Yep! That's fixed. Not sure if it was in a patch or it will come with the BBA patch though.

 

[CarloPDX]

A small suggestion, concerning an italian translation, instead of "fortezza ticino" should be something along the lines of "rinforza il ticino", cause the former simply means that you have an actuall fortress simply called ticino, which i don't think it's the case here ^^;

Yeah I went back and forth with this name, it's not final, but the intention was a translation of "Fortress Ticino" which is a form maybe more used in English but not so much in Italian.

 

[CarloPDX]

Would love to see new swiss flags, since they're very bland in vanilla.

Yeah, if they're done by the alt history DD I'll show a couple!

 

[CarloPDX]

Pretty nice, but I have a side question. I was wondering if we will get any extra Reichskommissariats for Germany?

I'm gonna have to leave that as a cliffhanger

 

[CarloPDX]

Small nitpick, but the Gotthard Pass would actually be in the province to the right to the one you picked.
Also are you gonna implement the Gotthardtunnel going through the impassable terrain in some way?

Thanks for the info! Regarding making it impassable, as far as I know I can't make it actually impassable without a ton of code support but there is meant to be a state modifier for making it very slow if you choose to.

 

[CarloPDX]

Really interesting stuff! Can I just ask, what sources and references were used to come up with ideas for making this tree?

The Swiss History Dictionary was a major source, also Target Switzerland, other books here and there and of course Wikipedia as long as could found a backing source. At least for the historical bits.

 

[CarloPDX]

It would be neat if Italy, France, Germany/Austria would get benefits to occupation in the respective regions or even the ability to core them once a certain level of compliance has been reached.

I thought of something like this but ended up not splitting Switzerland by language (Except for Ticino) so this would be a bit harder. I think a form of this could be explored though.

 

[CarloPDX]

Huh. Is Austria getting a focus tree?

No, sorry if it sounded that way! Austria will not get a focus tree on BBA

 

[CarloPDX]

This focus tree is very interesting. As a Swiss, I’m happy to see some content for this country.

I would only have a minor complaint about the map changes. The Gotthard pass VP should be on the north east of where it is in the image as the current province is more the Simplon pass. Normally the Gotthard railway would go North-South from Zurich to Lugano and not through the Simplon pass. I know the path chosen is more coherent with the impassable terrain added but it makes less sense from a geographical perspective.

Thanks for the info! this is definitely a Work in Progress and this is one of those things that are relatively easy to change but will depend on gameplay aspects as well so we'll see where we end up but always appreciate input like this!

 

[CarloPDX]

Is the eastern border of the Vorarlberg State gonna be adjusted? It's quite inaccurate.

Will change it if I get the chance but touching provinces is something I wanna avoid but we'll see

 

[CarloPDX]

Historically the Swiss banned the "Nationale Front" (biggest nazi party) in 1943 which makes me wonder why the Historical Focus "Ban the Swiss nazi parties" is almost at the start of the focus tree. I suggest renaming it to Anti-Nazi efforts which add a passive decline of facism.

Yeah you're right that's wrongly named! Thank you.

 

[CarloPDX]

I know it's random and the borders don't really work for it perfectly, but it would be neat if Graubünden were releasable as a goof since it has a slightly different history with the confederation and none of the other loose allies of the confederacy that were annexed in the early 1800s really have the borders to fit.

I can at least consider it if I have time! So many things I want to do!!

 

[CarloPDX]

Will Switzerland have a communist branch?

That will have to be a cliffhanger unfortunately!

 

[CarloPDX]

"Unless you have elephants"
I mean, all but one of Hannibal's elephants (that one being his own) died crossing the Alps, and they were more of a hindrance than help in the crossing.
On top of that, while the Gotthard Pass was important it was far from the only important mountain pass in the Alps, although you kinda blocked off almost all the other major passes and didn't make Mont Blanc impassable. (The railway in South Tyrol goes too far East, it should be where I pointed to the Brenner Pass)
Any chance this will be addressed?

View attachment 852746

Well the elephant thing was a joke! I will address as many of your points as I can but some are gameplay considerations too, at the end of the day HoI is a game and sometimes we have to abstract some things and ignore or change others for the sake of a more fun experience.