HOI4 Dev Diary - Bag of Tricks #2

[Simon_9732495]

From my understanding the choices of what DLC to make was the choice of Podcat, as he even says here No Step Back was his last planned DLC, implying he had some authority of what they were making and when. Obviously there's the publisher side of things but Podcat would be the one pitching the expansion ideas to the publisher if he's the one with the planned DLC.

Correct, see this podcat quote:

I know you mean well but the "evil bosses" cliche needs to go. I know its an attractive thing to cling to but without knowing how a company works it can be very misdirecting. If the hoi team releases a buggy release that is ultimately my fault because I am responsible for hoi4. Do people ask me if we can make more money? yes of course its a business ;D but if I would ever get overruled and told to release something I havent signed off on I wouldnt be working here.
We, and all teams at PDS, are always trying to hire and its super hard to find good people, especially during COVID, and also often more manpower doesnt make stuff go faster or better, its a common fallacy.

 

[Magaan_625]

I beg to differ.

While weather has been a part of the game, I never took it into consideration for my operations - well, not quite (sandstorms, snow), but not really. My issue has been, that the impact has personally not been visible enough as an effect on my forces. I would like to know how other players took weather into consideration.
Looking at historical events and how weather impacted operations, I appreciate this dev effort.

What interests me though and what I’d like to know more about is how the visibility of weather effects will be increased, and in particular on faster game speeds.
Would this be added to unit info on movement and supply in better visibility? Just seeing weather effects on the map did not do it for me.

I meant changes involving Equipment Management only. The rest makes difference, especially weather changes. Good to see it will actually matter now.

 

[Maxsdox]

Hi Arheo,

Is there a plan to improve AI political decision making, especially the handling of war focuses, wargoals, and war declarations?

Ahistorical games tend to fall into an utter mess really soon by nations declaring unreasonable or outright suicidal wars, many times resulting in an everyone against everyone else scenario.

The force comparison logic should be improved at first as as far as i know the game still only compares division counts to assess the power of a country. It should rather compare estimated combined attack values or something like that. Also it should factor in important things like guarantees, land and air power of would-be-enemies, land and air power of would-be-cobelligerents, and naval power of allies and would-be-allies as well as enemies and would-be-enemies in case the target is overseas.

The handling of wargoals should be changed so that they don't automatically mean an instant preparation for war for both sides but it rather means a kind of hot claim upon which the country might start preparing for war when he thinks he is in a position to win, handled by decisions. So that wargoals would not mean essentialy a state of war from day 1 like they do now but this state of war would be ignited by the country having the wargoal running a decision to prepare war against the country having the wargoal against. In the meantime the wargoal would cause a severe diplomatic and trade penalty but the countries would not treat each other like outright enemies.

Thanks!

In a good way, we need to redo the system of diplomacy and add a type of "Friendly country" that can send volunteers weapons and so on, but does not lead a war and drawing it there will require diplomatic efforts . So that minor countries do not pritenziy to the opposite side does not enter the war just like that. The enemy also does not enter the war without it, unless there is no aggression towards the ally .And especially the colonies could, with the help of an "active decision", choose not to send troops or act close to home (at a certain distance ).

A very big problem is that the area is described in general terms , for example, it is difficult to compare New York and London , the first has a lot of high-rise buildings and the fights should logically differ . As for the mountains , the problem is that there are mountains where only climbers can fight , and that there is a ridge of mountains along which it is easier to attack . There are no displays of small lakes and reservoirs (to do through the river map ) and the simplicity of small water barriers .

The problem is that "province" does not have the same size (at least close) , which makes many regions (Africa, for example) not playable .If it is still relative with Europe , then in some places in the place of breakthroughs and girths we get a " long knock-out. The problem of the liberated countries, why not give them at least 1-2 poorly trained divisions when leaving ?
If you approach the normal way, you need to split the "state" that is now into : "Area" that can be included in the composition and so on. but it is about the size of Luximburg and actually "State" that consist of presenters and carry as a reflection of the political situation and can act as proto-countries. At the same time ,the province is~ 900 km2, this is the area that 2 divisions should overlap by themselves according to the norms . Reduce the level of the minimum combat unit from a division to a regiment (a separate battalion) , which will give management flexibility and remove the problem of closing the front when increasing the number of"battlefields". Chiefs of Fronts (Groups of armies ) select a special menu where you can give priority to the supply and regulate the independence of their actions . It will turn out something like a military council.

 

[Mister Analyst]

@podcat
Thank you and your team for all of the hard work that went into making HOI4 such a great game. It seems that you and your team have pleased most of the people most of the time, but not all of the people all of the time as evidenced by the fantastic sales figures and number of positive reviews. You will be missed. Best of luck on the new, secret project (Clausewitz Engine perhaps?).

@Arheo
Welcome to the HOI4 team. I look forward to seeing your fruits and those of the team in the coming fixes and DLC for the HOI4 game.

 

[DukofDeth]

Great to see these minor additions, especially allied construction!

However, many of us are still left with a few questions about the upcoming DLC and expansion, namely, will the trucks used in the supply system have some sort of fuel consumption? For many of us, this will make or break the DLC, as it is a huge historical factor in many of the events that took place during WW2. If you feel it is too harsh for the casual player, will we modders at least have the opportunity to play with the possibility?

Yeah. A lack of fuel in theater put the brakes to Patton - they diverted it to Monty so he could continue driving on the Benelux ports [or maybe it was NE French ports - I'm rusty on the topic]

 

[DukofDeth]

Great changes.

Not sure if that encirclement animation will be that noticeable though. Should there be a warning kind of like naval invasions?

yes, please. as annoyingly nerve-grating as possible, too

 

[WastelandScout]

Yes, HoI4 is extremely lenient with environmental conditions. Mud chokes off supply throughput. Tanks do not dare to go near forests. There's no fog, no distinction between a light drizzle and a heavy downpour (which would create mud), no hail, no black ice. And the game is very shy about weather and environment effects dealing damage directly to HP. Reminder the winter in 1941 dropped to -40 degrees C, and Germans did not provide their troops with winter gear.

Well for what it is worth provinces are still pretty big areas. So you could argue that it is pretty unlikly that the whole province ist covered in mud, just large enough areas that the division can’t avoid it entirely and thus the modifier. The same goes for many other modifers, you can't drive a tank across a mountain at all, but you can drive it over a mountain pass.

 

[Harin]

Can sandstorms dramatically increase supply consumption? I think more than anything those sandstorms fouled up guns and equipment and so something of that nature should take precedence over org loss etc.

I have never been in a sandstorm, but I would imagine the force of the wind and the penetrating power of sand would ruin a lot of equipment, ammunitions, and food/water not protected to a level of almost waterproof. In the game that is all supply.

While real life organization may be effected, it would probably not be the same type organization as the game uses. In the game, organization is not a degradation of combat capabilities, it is closer to a timer to retreat. In a sandstorm, I do not believe retreat, or advance, is really possible.

Of course, I may be thinking of those hollywood level sandstorms, where it looks like the end of the world is at hand and the developers are thinking of something a little less powerful.

 

[grommile]

you can't drive a tank across a mountain at all

Certain Axis units made the unpleasant discovery, in North Africa, that a Churchill tank could perfectly well climb gradients considerably steeper than expected.

And of course, there's US Army general John O'Daniel's comments about the British armoured units in the Korean War: "In their Centurions, the 8th Hussars have evolved a new type of tank warfare. They taught us that anywhere a tank can go, is tank country: even the tops of mountains."

 

[Sighfer]

you can't drive a tank across a mountain at all

That's what IJA thought when planning a defense against a potential Soviet invasion and they got clowned for it in just 11 days. (The trick is to use two support vehicles as anchors, and you can lower/raise tanks using tow cables) Making what is or isn't considered impassable conditional and dependent on land doctrine would be a neat feature (Ardennes forest? why watch it?), but I suspect the game isn't coded that way.

Manchuria, by the way, is actually the size of Central Europe, from Denmark to middle of Italy. Please scale infrastructure cost.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

The Dev Dirays are on the Home Straigths. After Checking it with the older ones the Bag of Tricks 2-Part ring the final Phase of them. Looks like that we can play the new Version in Beginning / Mid Oktober.

 

[Leinad965]

The Dev Dirays are on the Home Straigths. After Checking it with the older ones the Bag of Tricks 2-Part ring the final Phase of them. Looks like that we can play the new Version in Beginning / Mid Oktober.

MTG, which was developed similar long time, had another 12 diaries after bag o tricks 2.

 

[safe-keeper]

Couple thoughts:

1. yes, game seems to lenient about weather conditions. Easily modded, of course, but either way I wonder if it has to do with AI? As in, maybe it's difficult to get the pretty suicidal HoI4 AI to not attack or advance too much during really terrible weather?
Either way, hope that changes before the release of the DLC.

2. I agree it'd be helpful to be allowed to build ports for allies. If the devs are worried about exploits, maybe add an MP game setup option to forbid port-building for allies.

3. overall -- looking great, really looking forward to this, patch and DLC both.

 

[WastelandScout]

Couple thoughts:

2. I agree it'd be helpful to be allowed to build ports for allies. If the devs are worried about exploits, maybe add an MP game setup option to forbid port-building for allies.

Maybe only allow upgrading existing ones, but not creating new ports?

 

[safe-keeper]

Great changes.

Not sure if that encirclement animation will be that noticeable though. Should there be a warning kind of like naval invasions?

In general, the game needs to get better at conveying all sorts of developments like this -- naval invasions, encirclements, armies out of supply, the frontline being breached, and so on.

 

[Idle America]

Cheers for the DD Arheo, and many, many thanks for all of your work on both HoI3 and HoI4 Podcat - best of luck for the secret project, and I have no doubt it'll be something to look forward to once we know a bit more about what's going on .

Lots of great things in this DD as well, although I have some thoughts on one or two things:



While I appreciate it's important not to be to 'unforgiving' to players, this seems a very 'gently gently' take on mud. My impression on the impact of mud, from reading Mud: A Military History (as well as military history more generally - although I don't focus on the dirty, landy stuff unless I really focus on the dirty landy stuff!), is that it has a significantly greater impact on both speed and attack. I'd suggest -70% movement and -60% attack, with movement modified by infra (like it should be already) - but with strategic movement not impacted if strategic movement is tied to rail networks.



So, so wonderful



I know it's been mentioned a bit already, but ports would be my #1 request here. The inability to build (or repair) ports in allied countries forces me to adjust my gameplay around it when making naval invasions, because the AI is terrible at this and recently liberated nations have no CIC to repair/build ports in any event. It's historically implausible and seriously impacts gameplay. As for 'exploits', I'm not clear how it would be crazily exploited - it's not as if allies can build the ports until after troops have landed, and once troops have landed ports can still only be built at their maximum rate (I presume and hope that nations can't stack builds for extra speed). Pre-invasion ports have never, ever been a barrier to me invading, but at the moment it usually makes sense to let allies get overrun after successfully invading and then invading myself, rather than supporting my ally, because sending troops into support just results in them stagnating supply-wise and going nowhere at best, and being overrun and destroyed at worst.

That said, thank you very much for making this moddable . I usually play vanilla, but if the settings stay "as is", I'll go back to playing modded games, as after message settings the way ports and allies work in relation to invasions is one of the more annoying and immersion-breaking parts of the game for me.



It's great that you're adding more user feedback as to in-game events, but that effort has been spent on something that tells plays after a failure state, and is something that is only visible when being looked at in the first place, is a bit disappointing. The game's big UI challenges relate to things that aren't visible on the current window (ie, other parts of the map), not things that players can already see - and relate to telling players before failure, not after. It's better than nothing, and appreciated, but it's a curious prioritisation of in-game UI challenges (I'd have thought alerting players that a unit had been encircled, rather than destroyed by encirclement, would have been much more valuable, and doing it in a way that was viewable regardless of where there map focussed a good deal more useful).



Can't wait Best of luck with everything, and again many thanks for all of your work on HoI4



Congratulations, and best of luck for the future - I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in store for us



How does this work though? There are enough ports in ENG at game start to launch D-Day, and any nation powerful enough to launch D-Day can coat ports everywhere after landing by themselves (indeed, it's generally necessary to build a few ports after the initial invasion, given the way supply works in-game and the lack of capacity to supply over the beachhead, although Mulberries will change this a bit, and other supply changes may have also influenced it). Were I not to mod this (which I will be doing, so no issue for me personally) I'd just continue doing what I do now, and instead of invading France, drop straight into Germany where I can build and repair ports. Not allowing ports doesn't seem to achieve much beyond making historical play inefficient due to arbitrary limits on where allies can build ports. I usually play an allied nation (not always a major) and invading an occupied country, or supporting an Allied invasion, is generally a mess because of the lack of port-building capacity and the AI's inability (occupied country with limited CIC) or disinterest (AI invading an enemy directly) in setting up appropriate supply infrastructure.

It's not a biggy, of course - but it seems like a huge missed opportunity - the one thing I'd like to be able to build on allied territory is left out, for reasons that don't really seem to stack up at least at first glance (and I'm very open to be proven wrong here ).



They would indeed, but what about a game that started, say, with the Seven Years' War and went through to the end of the Napoleonic Wars? Sure, it could get fairly crazy, but cool crazy


For a naval-themed pic today, to say goodbye to Podcat, here's a period-appropriate naval cat:

View attachment 750809

I remember HOI3 gave optional notifications every time you lost a province, and every time a unit was shattered (org ran out), along with a much weaker version being assembled in the capitol made of the men who were in the hospital/on leave. Of course, the first one got annoying SUPER fast when a bug caused one province to flip-flop between myself and the enemy, even though there were no troops anywhere near it.

I think the port build issue can be resolved with mulberry harbors, depending on the mechanics in the final release. Though I do agree, it would be nice to be allowed to build ports on allied soil. Maybe it could just be limited to a Level 1 port, or something like that?

As for cats, I have just the cats for this post!

Chessie the Railroad Kitten! Introduced in 1933 as an ad for the new sleeper lines on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, with the motto "Sleep like a kitten." She proved extremely popular, and quickly became the mascot of the railroad. In 1937, she was joined by her mate Peake, and their kittens Nip and Tuck.

The family was used for propaganda purposes during the war, with Peake serving overseas and his family supporting the war effort at home. I believe the one on the bottom-right was made after the war, and is probably my favorite. I just love the "returning veteran" theme, and the idea of him sneaking in to surprise his sleeping mate, only for their kittens to catch him first, is too adorable!

When the Chesapeake merged with the B&O and Western Maryland in 1972, the new company was named "The Chessie System," with her silhouette forming the "C." She remains the official mascot of the CSX corporation to this day, nearly a hundred years later.

 

[Shneemaster]

I would quite like a notification for when some of my units are encircled.

 

[MR2]

You can access this feature in the division designer, where you’ll have a comprehensive breakdown of all equipment types currently stockpiled. You'll now be able to allow/deny by category, both in archetype and variant, without the need to manage everything individually.

We’ve provided several broad methods of manipulating equipment usage, in the form of a togglable setting on whether this division template should automatically have newly researched equipment enabled, and a quick method of toggling the usage of foreign equipment.

Begone carpal tunnel, salvation at last! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!

 

[Arrianus]

I have a conservatoire education in vocal studies (primarily early renaissance music)

@Arheo: A period with some of the most brilliant works. Would you share some preferences f.e. in composers or even some most loved pieces?

 

[Axe99]

When the Chesapeake merged with the B&O and Western Maryland in 1972, the new company was named "The Chessie System," with her silhouette forming the "C." She remains the official mascot of the CSX corporation to this day, nearly a hundred years later.

That's brilliant - love it

I think the port build issue can be resolved with mulberry harbors, depending on the mechanics in the final release.

As long as Mulberries are temporary, and there are limits to how well the AI will repair/build ports, there'll be a long-term supply challenge for invading over allied rather than own-controlled territory. Given the Allies historically cooperated to get port capacity into action, it's not implausible to allow it, and I'm still not clear as to how enabling port construction creates meaningful exploits - but I'm sure the devs will have thought about it at least, and may well have thought through all the things I've raised, in which case it's all good. Either way, it's moddable, so I'll be happy