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HoI 4 Dev Diary - Border Wars: The Last Warlord

Hello from the frozen wasteland wrapped in eternal darkness that is Sweden in December!


In the base game, the Chinese Warlords lead a rather silly existence. They exist at game start, work was clearly done to make them playable (at least as playable as any country with a generic focus tree), and when the war with Japan starts and things could get interesting - they are swallowed up by Nationalist China.


That means there is little use for the Nationalist player to really interact with them, since they are going to be absorbed anyway when the war starts. This made the Nationalists' situation quite a bit easier than it was historically. So in order to really represent the problems the Nationalists faced, we had to make the Warlords a bit more dynamic - and while doing that, we also made them a bit more interesting to play.


It’ll still be possible for the Nationalist player to unite the country and take over the warlords - it will just take effort and resources that the Nationalist player may or may not be able to spare.

warlords_tree.JPG


We still knew that the Warlords tree would be a bit of a sideshow, so we decided that all 5 warlords (Shanxi, Xibei San Ma, Sinkiang, Yunnan, Guanxi Clique) would get the same focus tree, and that it would be somewhat smaller than what we would do for a normal country (instead of a splinter region).

However, we also wanted the player to be able to make a difference and not be stuck with the rather small and restricted warlords focus tree forever. The core idea behind the focus tree is therefore to give the warlords a way to win the struggle for supremacy in China, take over national leadership, and ultimately gain access to the full Nationalist or Communist Focus Trees. This turns them into more fully-fledged contenders in the Chinese Civil War.

Capture_warlord_leader.JPG


To do this, you have three basic options: you cooperate with the Nationalists, side with the Communists, or you strike out on your own (with an option to approach Japan later).

If you decide to ally with the Nationalists (as most warlords are scripted to do in historical mode), you get to build up your realm a little and fix some of the problems in the administration. Once your powerbase is secure, you can decide to join the political struggle and make a play for the leadership of China in the political sphere.

Capture_warlords_political_struggle.JPG


This uses the same mechanics we have outlined in the Dev Diary about Communist China, and if a political power struggle between Nationalists and Communists is already ongoing, a warlord will simply join into the struggle. If you win the struggle, and claim national leadership, your focus tree will then switch to the Nationalist Chinese focus tree.

Capture_warlords_takeover.JPG


Siding with the Communists starts out very similar, but the end game is different: instead of joining the political struggle directly, you appeal to the bigger Communist: Stalin. Getting the support of the Soviet Union won’t come cheap, though, and there is no guarantee that whoever leads the Communist party of China is willing to just accept you taking over. Should you succeed, you will be able to annex Communist China, giving you their troops as well as their focus tree. But beware: Stalin will come to collect his due.

Capture_warlord_stalin.JPG


Lastly, the option to strike out on your own is clearly the most difficult of all, making an enemy out of both sides - but it offers you the chance to claim China as your own, without having to make compromises. While you can try to make a deal with the Japanese, there is no guarantee that they will accept, and in any event you would only be trading one overlord for another. This approach also blocks off any chance of joining the political struggle inside China, meaning that you will have to fight for it.


However, since facing the nationalist armies in the field may be a bit too much despite all their many weaknesses, we have decided to expand on Border Wars a bit, giving independent-minded warlords a way to expand some territory while keeping the risk manageable.


Border conflicts start with someone staging an incident between two states (yes... they have to border each other). This costs some PP and fires an event notifying them that they need to position troops or risk losing control of the state.

hoi4_2.png


After a bit of time has passed, whoever staged the incident gets a decision to escalate the situation further. If this decision is left alone for too long the incident is forgotten and nothing more happens.

hoi4_4.png


To escalate the incident to a border conflict the instigator needs to place troops on the border and select the decision. Divisions from the two states start fighting in a limited form of combat with special rules such as terrain giving less bonus, lower combat width and so on. The country that first initiated the incident is considered the attacker.

hoi4_2 (1).png


The fighting will continue for a good amount of time, and if no one has emerged victorious by the time it runs out the conflict is considered to be a stalemate. This awards both sides with a bit of army experience and the defender with some PP for having successfully defended the territory. This is sort of a soft loss for the attacker, but does not come at a major cost other than the PP wasted on initiating the entire incident.


If the attacker wins the conflict, they seize control of the state and are awarded PP for their success. If the defender wins they gain a lot of PP, army experience and research bonus to land doctrine. All of the outcome effects are scriptable and there is a good chance we will add, tweak, or change them after more play testing.

hoi4_8.png


Both attacker and defender can choose to escalate the conflict further at the cost of addition PP. Doing so gives a combat bonus, allow more troops to join the fighting and pushes the conflict to the brink of all out war. Both sides can back down at this point, but this results in losing the border conflict. It might however be worth taking a loss over an all-out war you cannot hope to win.

If any of the sides chooses to escalate the conflict further, the other side will be notified and not long after, war breaks out.

Next week is going to be a Christmas special with some cool stuff for modders.

Due to an important company-wide conference that is not in any way connected to the release of a new movie from a well-known sci-fi franchise, the stream will be at 14:00 CET today. Tune in at https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive and watch the Kaiser restore order in Germany!
 
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Of the leaders of each warlord states, which do you guys feel is the most realistic for the various national focus trees? I think it goes without saying that if Sheng Shicai (Sinkiang) had continued on his pro-soviet path and had not expelled them in the 1940s to try to get closer to the nationalist government then the communist path would make sense for him. For siding with the nationalists, I think Yan Xishan (Shanxi) makes sense as he was at some points a serious contender for the presidency (Central plains war) but although he had been at war with Chiang Kai-Shek, he was also happy to collaborate with his political enemies to achieve his goals so I can see him being more political in taking over the government. Plus a lot of the focuses in that tree seem relevant to how he governed Shanxi throughout the period. The opposition path is a little harder to choose a warlord for, as it is a completely ahistorical focus tree. We are left with Li Zongren (Guangxi Clique), Long Yun (Yunnan) and Ma Bufang (Xibei San Ma.) I dont think Long Yun would have been ambitious enough to make a stand against Chiang and compete for the presidency, I think he was more focused on internal development of Yunnan. Ma Bufang by all accounts appears to have been very loyal to Chiang's government so I dont think he would take this path. This leaves us with Li Zongren, who I guess the tree does make quite a bit of sense for. He was very military minded and from the Northern Expedition onwards was opposed to Chiang Kai-Shek and obviously there were multiple occasions where he took military action against him and there would have been another war if not for the Mukden incident. Likewise, Guangxi was used several times throughout the warlord era as a center for opposition governments in the KMT. This leaves Long Yun and Ma Bufang out, but I feel neither of these warlords would have taken any of the focus tree paths.

Thoughts?
The Ma clique was nearly nothing, but Ma Bufang was pretty loyal to Chiang, I believe he belongs to the loyalist path but he was uncompetitive anyway.
Sheng Shicai is nothing more than a opportunist, he knows little about communism, I believe the playable warlords are GXC and SHX, Li Zongren No. 1!
 
BTW, what I find a bit odd is that leaders of warlord states change after ideology is changed. When they were conquered - that is logical. But what in case of they themselves chose fascist or communist path in order to stay in power with the help of powerful foreign ally?
@ChairmanMeow You surely know about China more than I, especially when we speak about history.
 
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The Ma clique was nearly nothing, but Ma Bufang was pretty loyal to Chiang, I believe he belongs to the loyalist path but he was uncompetitive anyway.
Sheng Shicai is nothing more than a opportunist, he knows little about communism, I believe the playable warlords are GXC and SHX, Li Zongren No. 1!

The Army of House Ma they fed alchohol to their horses and almost completely eliminated communist West Route Army, mind you.;) Scary!

I agree, Yan and Li are the most interesting warlords that worth to have a play!
 
RELEASEE DATEE!!!!!!!! Please.... I beg you, or at least let us preorder on Steam. Other than this very good changes!!! I’m really excited for this expansion!!!
 
Oh yeah, finally the Warlords are actually not a complete waste of space. Border wars look an interesting evolution from Vanilla (AKA the system where you put some troops on the border and whoever has most troops get a manpower drain).

Question: Will anything will be done about Wang Jigwei and the Reorganized National China regime?
 
To paradox hoi4 devs: as much as I love that you're adding in other alternative for war, that doesn't fix the broken war system. Not every single war was one that resulted in unconditional surrender. For example, as Japan I attack the United Kingdom. Am I really expected to invade London? AS JAPAN?! I propose that you change the war mechanic a bit. By adding in warscore (like euiv) wars would have some more diversity. And with the new decision system, you could add an option to escalate a war to one that requires unconditional surrender. So, as Japan, what I need to do in order to take colonial regions would be to take them, and let warscore tick up for awhile, instead if invading London, and having a completely ridiculous peace. The new warscore mechanic would also need to be coupled with a fixed peace mechanic and also lots of ai fixes to make sure that the ai doesn't do anything stupid. I have confidence that you all would be extremely competent in instituting these changes and I honestly, really, really hope you do because it would make hoi4 a MUCH better and more diverse game. Then naval combat should get some attention ;) Good luck devs, and keep up the good work, this next expansion looks really good despite my gripes about other aspects of the game, but I know you all are getting there.
 
So next week volunteer air corps (check the steam page its announced there it will be in the DLC) with the flying tigers of course being the most prominent.
I don't wish to derail the thread, but Condor Legion was a much more important volunteer force, comprising 600 planes and 16.000 servicemen+inf, as opposed to the 100 p-40's the Tigers had.
 
What we really need is a Thunder Dragon Empire Focus Tree.
 
I was watching the stream to see if I saw any AI improvements. I actually can say I did. The units did not flip around and attempt to move from four provinces to a new province to close a surround. the ai did use nearby troops to break through surrounds more humanly logical than before 1.5. Hoping this portends a better AI.
 
Besides these 5 warlords, there were much more lords that had closer relationships with Chiang. Shown as picture.
18859024.jpg

I think the relations between Chiang and warlords were like Brithsh puppets. 6 warlords(including Tibet) were dominions and others were colinies( Maybe change the class title of puppets.
This may weaken China in the war. So I think you should reduce Japan's offensive tendencies, especially after occupy Nanjing.

And the warlords were feudal lords. They would never become Democratic or Communist!
 
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When you switch from a focus tree to another, will you start from the beginning or will the already researched foci be bypassed? I'm asking especially for those who grant you free factories, building slots and ressources, which I don't think you should be able to use several time in a row just because a new ruler took power.