HOI4 Dev Diary - 1.5.2 Update #1

[billcorr]

Is their anychance we could have a Dismiss general button, i really want to only have a select few generals and if one fails miserably in an attack it could be nice to have some roleplay aspects such as this, (deleting the general)

In the U.S. Army during WW2, firing generals helped cycle through the inventory till a good leader was in the right position to propel a unit to victory.

In WW2, General officers were fired left and right according to Thomas Ricks' Atlantic article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-failure/309148/

(see opening paragraphs below, if you are interested)

But the damage to the general was not like it is today.

In WW2, there appeared to be a churning of general officers...kind of like a steel ball in a roulette wheel. Keep going till you get a winner.

Kind of like in EUIV where you roll up a new general, hoping to get a good 'un.

Spoiler: Opening paragraphs from article about firing US Army generals in WW2

On june 13, 1944, a few days after the 90th Infantry Division went into action against the Germans in Normandy under the command of Brigadier General Jay MacKelvie, MacKelvie’s superior officer, Major General J. Lawton Collins, went on foot to check on his men. “We could locate no regimental or battalion headquarters,” he recalled with dismay. “No shelling was going on, nor any fighting that we could observe.” This was an ominous sign, as the Battle of Normandy was far from decided, and the Wehrmacht was still trying to push the Americans, British, and Canadians, who had landed a week earlier, back into the sea.

Just a day earlier, the 90th’s assistant division commander, Brigadier General “Hanging Sam” Williams, had also been looking for the leader of his green division. He’d found MacKelvie sheltering from enemy fire, huddled in a drainage ditch along the base of a hedgerow. “Goddamn it, General, you can’t lead this division hiding in that goddamn hole,” Williams shouted. “Go back to the [command post]. Get the hell out of that hole and go to your vehicle. Walk to it, or you’ll have this goddamn division wading in the English Channel.” The message did not take. The division remained bogged down, veering close to passivity.

American troops were fighting to stay alive—no small feat in that summer’s bloody combat. One infantry company in the 90th began a day in July with 142 men and finished it with 32. Its battalion commander walked around babbling “I killed K Company, I killed K Company.” Later that summer, one of the 90th’s battalions, with 265 soldiers, surrendered to a German patrol of 50 men and two tanks. In six weeks of small advances, the division would use up all its infantrymen, requesting replacements of more than 100 percent.

General Collins removed MacKelvie on the very same day that his tour revealed no fighting in progress. Collins instructed the 90th’s new commander, Major General Eugene Landrum, to fire the commanders of two of the division’s three regiments. One of those two, the West Point graduate Colonel P. D. Ginder, was considered by many to be a disaster. One man, a mortar forward observer, remembered that Ginder “almost constantly made the wrong decisions.” He had been in command of his regiment for less than a month when he was replaced.

MacKelvie’s successor, Landrum, was given a few weeks to prove he was an able commander, but by midsummer he too was judged to be wanting. Before he was relieved, Landrum fired the assistant division commander he had inherited, Sam Williams, with whom he had clashed. “I feel that a general officer of a more optimistic and calming attitude would be more beneficial to this division at this time,” Landrum wrote. General Omar Bradley, the senior American general in France at the time, concurred. He topped off the dismissal by demoting Williams to colonel.

Within a few weeks, Bradley relieved Landrum as well, and sent Brigadier General Raymond McLain, whom he had brought from Italy to England to have on tap as a replacement when someone was fired, to take over the 90th Infantry Division. “We’re going to make that division go, if we’ve got to can every senior officer in it,” Bradley told him. Two days later, McLain gave him a list of 16 field-grade officers he wanted out of the division.

The swift reliefs of World War II were not precise, and while many made way for more-capable commanders, some were clearly the wrong move. Nonetheless, their cumulative effect was striking. The 90th Division, for instance, improved radically—transforming from a problem division that First Army staff wanted to break up, into “one of the most outstanding [divisions] in the European Theater,” as Bradley later wrote. Retired Army Colonel Henry Gole, in his analysis of the 90th Division, directly credits the policy of fast relief:

Because incompetent commanders were fired and replaced by quality men at division and regiment, and because the junior officers of 1944 [who were] good at war … rose to command battalions in a Darwinian process, the division became an effective fighting force.

Generalship in combat is extraordinarily difficult, and many seasoned officers fail at it. During World War II, senior American commanders typically were given a few months to succeed, or they’d be replaced. Sixteen out of the 155 officers who commanded Army divisions in combat were relieved for cause, along with at least five corps commanders.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

Were performance issues in this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-cornflake-1-5.1077091/page-10#post-23966186 addressed in this new patch? Also Felix Steiner needs some traits, and he is the only SS officer that doesn't side with the SS in the civil war focus tree.

 

[ithillid]

what happened to the experience that divisions earn, you fight battles and the experience goes backwards. You can be fighting for years and your front line divisions are all green instead of elite.

Looks like you are taking too many casualties (in bad attacks, perhaps local enemy superiority, airstrikes, attrition few other options in there) for the amount of experience that your units are earning. This is something that makes for really interesting outcomes some of the time, as it leads to green German units holding an ever tightening perimeter.

 

[obren]

Playing Germany under 1.5.2beta vanilla, at the end of the Spanish Civil War the expeditionary forces are retained by Spain. The image below shows 2 German Panzer divisions plus and an Italian mountain division retained after the end of the war. There was no message of returning expeditionary forces. In addition, as Germany, I can still see the Spanish deployments even though Spain is not part of the Axis.

Edit: Spain returned the 180 aircraft sent in support of the two Panzer Divisions after a delay.

I have attached a save file.

Addendum: The division names are still active, as they are not allocated to newly built divisions. Further, the 2 divisions are still accounted for under Germany's division template.

 

[SkyRex]

So, Achievement The people have stood up seems to be fixed. Verx good! (Damn, now I really need to keep Mao...)

BUT Battlecry and Awake and Angry are still World Conquests. Could you pleace add three/four lines each:

all_state = {
                OR = {
                    AND = {
                        NOT = { is_core_of = CHI }
                        NOT = { is_core_of = PRC }
                        NOT = { is_core_of = JAP }
                    }
                   state = 729
                   state = 326
                   state = 728
                   state = 524
                    is_owned_by = ROOT
                }
            }

To exclude the city-colonies (And maybe Taiwan, but not neccesarily)

OR clearly say that this is intended to be a world conquest?

 

[Duck Jibe]

v1.5.2 beta changes:
- great idea for AIr regarding[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif] [/FONT]"Penalty applied for changing region" though
- haven't noticed any of those XP gain changes yet ...

 

[Boomboog]

As always PDX keeps major MP changes in secret. Gonna love this new air mechanics

 

[Alex_brunius]

Did you forget to tell us about that?
It's in the defines and looks awesome!

EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_PENALTY_FACTOR = 0.9,                -- Penalty applied for changing region
    EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_DAILY_GAIN_DEFAULT = 1,    -- Default how much efficiency to regain per day. Gain applied hourly.
    EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_DAILY_GAIN_CAS = 0.9,                -- How much efficiency to regain per day. Gain applied hourly.
    EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_DAILY_GAIN_NAVAL_BOMBER = 0.2,        -- How much efficiency to regain per day. Gain applied hourly.
    EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_DAILY_GAIN_TACTICAL_BOMBER = 0.2,    -- How much efficiency to regain per day. Gain applied hourly.
    EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_DAILY_GAIN_FIGHTER = 0.9,            -- How much efficiency to regain per day. Gain applied hourly.
    EFFICIENCY_REGION_CHANGE_DAILY_GAIN_STRATEGIC_BOMBER = 0.072,    -- How much efficiency to regain per day. Gain applied hourly.

I hope it will help to fix the "teleportation" of planes and remove the necessity of having a "plane manager".

Looks interesting:

 

[myzael]

Looks interesting:

View attachment 350429

Here goes one of the most irritating issues in MP, I think.

 

[hail kaiser sir]

You mean like this? It is already done.

View attachment 349336

Unfortunately there is no real end to how many changes we could make to the map, and we have to draw the line somewhere if we are to have time for other development. Danzig being its own separate state is unfortunately a bit more work than switching the 5 provinces above from Serbia to Vojvodina, and not within the scope of changes we're able to make right now (remember: the stuff I did for Germany was 'on my own time'). Besides, gotta leave something for the mods

Frick modders, fix the borders without thinking about them, they can always find other issues to fix without you leaving those problems on purpose

Spoiler

Can't wait for the downvotes galore because i pushed devs to do historical ww1 borders without leaving holes on purpose

 

[hail kaiser sir]

This, along with a couple more changes.
Vital:
The Wilno/Vilnius line. So that the territorial dispute between Lithuania, and Poland can be more accurately portrayed (best amended in the Millennial Mod). With possibly another state made in southern Lithuania around Alytus, and another to represent Sulwalki in Poland. A little more depth could be added to the Baltics by adding another province in mainland Estonia, and the offshore Island of Ösel. Whilst Latvia should be formed into it's accurate five regions of Kurzeme, Zemgale, Augšzeme, Latgale and Vidzeme.
Western Alps (Savoy/Savoie, Nice/Nizza and Alpes Cottiennes/Alpi Cozie) and Liguria should really be added as a province in Italy too (among others, the division of Italy leaves a bit to be desired).
Trieste and the Istria partition. Again, so that pre WW1, interwar, and post WW2 boarders can be accurately replicated.
States of Australia. For the love of God these are an easy fix, by all means add regions for sake of geographic and strategic necessity (York Peninsular, the Kimberly, Gasgoyne, Gippsland, ect); but as they stand, it's horribly inaccurate and an eye-sore to boot.
Hungary. The present state of northern Hungary renamed 'Felföld'. The present state of 'Transdanubia' split into at least two provinces; Dunantul in the southern part, and Bakony in the northern part.

Of lesser importance.
Burgenland / Alpokalja.
Memeland, split into two two provinces to make up the state.
The Saarland and Ruhr regions, possibly splitting Baden from Wuttemburg.
The historical regions of Austria of Styria, Carinthia, Salzburgerland, and possibly Vorarlberg.
Netherlands. Gelderland and Friesland cannot be properly represented on this map, really shouldn't take too much to fix. Likewise Eupen-Malmedy should be a seperate province within Belgium (possibly a Deutsche-Wallonien?).
The Bulgarian / Turkish / Greek boundaries in Thrace (to work for Balkan War and Great war frontier changes in the region; and hence to work with any possible focus tree changes which (one would think) be inevitable for the region in the future). Along with much of the Southern Balkans as a whole (The shape of Montenegro and Vojvodina, the partitions of Vardar Macedonia, Northern Epirus, Greece and Bulgaria needing at least another state each, the sub parts of Yugoslavia such as Herzegovina and Slavonia, ect).

Do not forget the Lorraine region to make up Kaiserreich's border in there, Nanzig

 

[NiKuTa_SG4]

Devs fix AI. Mostly frontline, garrisoning AI, etc. - Empty countries, no units to protect countries (New Zealand, India, etc. -all countries form British comon.), they send their all troops to European theatre. AIR AI is bad. He always concentrate all his air unit in one place

Devs don't give us a new content to the game, no new DLC, just fix the AI. AI is the worst part of the game.

 

[ltccone]

I just noticed a new German general, Adolf Schmidt, who has no portrait. He's only lvl 1. I wonder why he was included?

 

[moscal]

@podcat - if polish map will be reworked, is it possible to rework Polish focuses?

 

[CptMaDnezZ]

Bug in Beta 1.52 found:

When you send Volunteers to Nations, and the War Ends, The Nation which gets the volunteers keep them in there army as own divisons + the General... thats a little shitty. xD

 

[Dioj]

If you took up a rework of possible post-war borders, you should devide Eastern Prussia into 2 provinces. In real life Poland got most of the land, but north part with Königsberg was taken by USSR.

I think you mean taken by Russia SSR. Poland (SSR) was in the USSR at that point.

 

[Ringsto]

love the new xp system

 

[SnakeInATopHat]

OK

 

[Mitusonator]

And what about making post ww2 polish border possible?

 

[Thure]

I think you mean taken by Russia SSR. Poland (SSR) was in the USSR at that point.

No. Poland wasn't part of the USSR.