HOI4 Dev Diary - Acclimatization and Special Forces

[podcat]

Hi everyone and welcome to another dev diary where we show off stuff as we work on Waking the Tiger. Today we are going to be talking about a feature I’ve been wanting for a long time - troop acclimatization.


Acclimatization
We have long wanted to simulate the problems associated with shifting troops to new fronts with more extreme weather they are not used to. We currently have two types: Cold Acclimatization and Heat Acclimatization. It is not possible to be acclimatized to both at the same time, so if you take troops from the desert and put them down in the Russian winter, they will need to “work off” their heat acclimatization first before they start getting accustomed to the cold. When a division is sufficiently acclimatized, it will change its look, as you can see below. On the left are troops in winter with no acclimatization and on the right is what they will look when acclimatized.

And an example from Africa:

For most countries, we do this by switching the uniform on the 3D model to use more appropriate textures. In some cases, like where people only had tropic uniforms with short pants and the like, we replaced their uniforms to be more winter appropriate (suggestions by the art department to simply color their knees blue were sadly rejected). The new textures come with the DLC, but the core mechanic is free as part of 1.5 Cornflakes. You can see your acclimatization status as part of the unit list and its effects:

With full acclimatization you will reduce extreme weather penalties by about half. We will also be increasing the impact of harsh weather a bit to compensate for being able to avoid it now.

There are a few things that will help you gain acclimatization also. If your commander has the Adaptable trait or Winter Expert it will speed things up. There are also technologies that influence the acclimatization speed (more on that later).

Special forces
Up till now, we have had a bit of a balance issue with Special Forces (Marines, Mountaineers, Paratroopers). They were, pound for pound, better than regular infantry and many people simply replaced all their infantry with mountaineers.

To make sure special forces stay special, we added a restriction based on your whole army:

To ensure that you always know how many special forces you can field, the division designer and deployment will help you keep track:

Along with this change in how Special Forces work, we wanted to make them stand out a bit more. Six new infantry technologies have been added to improve these elite troops.

Special forces are trained and equipped for conditions that ordinary soldiers aren’t expected to excel in. The first tech will give them a boost to acclimatization speed. Afterwards, the tree splits. One option is to train your special forces harder, to improve their skills and their ability to fight for longer before having to be resupplied. The other option is to expand the special forces training programs to accept more recruits. Your special forces will be more numerous, but come with more drag and not quite as high speed. In the end though, they will still be elite forces and will be able to develop training to make them even more skilled in fighting in the harshest of conditions.

See you all next week when we return to take a look at the Chinese warlords.

Also, don’t miss out on World War Wednesday today at 16:00 CET as normal. Me and Daniel will continue our fight against communism (or the British fleet… we are still arguing about that) as Germany under the rule of the Kaiser.

 

[Archangel85]

So can i still use Mountaineers in my infantry divisions?

Yes, but you can't build an unlimited amount of those divisions.

 

[podcat]

I love it!

A bit disappointed that there still isn't new special force types, though. Such as rangers (forest/jungle) or desert fighters.

I toyed with the idea but there wasnt room in it for Tigers. The object here was primarily balance. I can totally see us giving more options in future expansions tho when we have time to make custom art and such and make things more unique gameplay wise

Special Forces: How are the number of battalions allowed determined? Will the base be different per country or will everyone have a set % based on total troops?
Also, while I understand the need to stop the SF spam, from a design perspective, why go with a cap instead of a cost approach?

There is a fixed base limit and also a percentage. You can affect both from technologies.

Will certain nations have bonuses to allow them to have more mountaineers or marines?

Edit: Love this idea! Keep up the good work guys!

atm we dont have any country special bonuses, but we havent really finished balancing this so we may add something. Will tweet if so

I like the ideas about the special forces, it make them more... special.
BTW, how acclimatization is moddable ? Can we add acclimatization available for something else than weather. Terrains for example (jungle...) ?

its fairly moddable

 

[Archangel85]

I'm a little worried. You put a lot of new research trees in the next update. It was already nearly impossible for most nations to get all important researches during the main period of the game. (Let's assume most wars happen between 1937-1945) Will there be more research options in 1.5? Will that be a balance-breaker for weaker nations with only a few research slots? Or is it intended to specialize to specific research slots and leaving other slots untouched for later/other strategies?

The whole idea of the research system is to make you prioritize and make choices.

 

[podcat]

Will this be the last blow to JAPs already minimalized chances vs CHI?

Also what is the estimated meta on special forces division widths ... 60? 80?

depends on how and if you need force concentration. Note that limit is on battalions not divisions so having big divisions will use up your cap fast

What exactly does "more numerous" mean? Does this add more men to each SF battalion, or it increases the SF battalions limit?

Increasing the limit.

Will the acclimation just change the color of skins for majors? Or will we get an actual reskin and model, like proper German DAK troops and camos.

Artists have tried to get as close as possible to uniforms without havign to do whole new models (except for the ones where it just didnt work). The desert is also interesting in that a lot of uniforms and equipment wasnt all that standardized due to lack and such.

Why there is a minimum quantity of special forces available?

I do wonder what will happen to units serving in Central Asian Deserts and have becomed acclimatized and Winter comes? How long will it take to shift?

We are still balancing this so right now I dunno. The target is something like 6 months (longer, so something like 8 if fully desert acclimatized) for full acclimatize. but it depends how bad weather is and if you are fighting or doing nothing. In really bad weather and fightign it will go fastest.

 

[podcat]

How do I gain Acclimatisation? By mere presence in a Hot or Cold Zone or by fighting in one? The former gives the Option to actually prepare your troops for a certain weather condition, by parking them in a comparable, but owned, area.

oh I probably should have explained that more. Its visible in one of the screenshots with the tooltip. Being in the area with those effects will see you gain acclimatization. If you are actively fighting it however goes much faster