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HOI4 Dev Diary - Bag of Tricks #2

Greetings all, and welcome back for a slightly less content-focused dev diary than our latter soviet efforts. Today we’ll be covering a couple of smaller additions to be added in NSB, some of which have been hinted at before, followed by a small announcement from project management.

Weather 2.0

One of our long-standing goals with the new supply system, was to introduce some changes to the way weather affects the gameplay experience. To give some strategic relevance to weather, we’ve slowed down the system to modulate between potential weather effects on a less frequent basis. This gives a player some time to react to potentially advantageous/disadvantageous conditions, as well as being somewhat more predictable on a larger scale.

In addition to this, we’ve taken a broad look at the combination of stat effects on ground conditions, temperatures, and weather, in order to mesh more closely with the new supply system, and to give a greater impact on campaigns - especially those conducted in adverse conditions:

  • In addition to Org recovery, weather will now affect org loss from movement, and in extreme cases, supply consumption.
  • While temperature has no new modifier effects, we’ve taken a pass on temperature data across the world, with the intention of improving accuracy.
  • Ground conditions now also have the potential to affect org loss on moving divisions. This becomes particularly important in muddy/cold conditions such as the eastern front, where the combination of various conditional effects can severely slow an advance.

New Weather Effects: (WIP)​

ConditionOrg RegainOrg Loss While MovingSupply Consumption
Rain-5%+5%
Storm-15%+10%+10%
Snow+10%
Blizzard-10%+25%+15%
Sandstorm-20%+25%

New Ground Conditions: (WIP)​

ConditionAttritionDiv SpeedDiv AttackDiv DefenseDig InOrg RegainOrg Loss While Moving
Deep Snow+25%-25%-30%+25%
Snow-10%-10%+10%
Mud+70%-50%-40%+25%
Flood-50%+50%+20%+25%

Visually the weather effects have been updated to be easier to spot on the map, with updated particle effects weather will look better than ever. This also makes it clearer when a region is experiencing a weather event so you can react to it faster.

Equipment Management

In NSB, we’re upgrading the ability to manage specific equipment usage by division template. This means you can ensure that your elite breakthrough divisions have everything they need, while line divisions have equipment of a lower priority.

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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.

1.png


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.

2.png



Changing these settings will not incur any explicit cost, though you’ll need to maintain awareness of your production lines when using these settings prodigiously. The update division tooltip, as before, will give you a summary of the scope of your changes, as well as how many divisions are likely to be impacted by this change. Lastly, it is important to note that these settings will affect reinforcement and training only - your existing divisions will not have their weapons immediately confiscated.

Allied Construction

Indeed, as hinted at yesterday, we’re introducing allied construction to the game. This oft-requested feature will allow you to build certain buildings in the territory of members of your faction.

3.png


Unlike subject construction, this will utilize only your own factories, leaving your favored ally to continue with their own constructions as before. We have limited the building types permitted for allied construction to Infrastructure, Railways, Airbases, and Radar, however this setting is easily moddable for those interested in expanding their options. We initially allowed the allied construction of forts, but, well, the office MP proved why that was a terrible idea.

For balance reasons, constructions with levels dependent on technology (ie Radar) will be limited by the tech of the recipient country, not the builder.

Graphical Encircled Unit Icons

We've taken the opportunity with NSB to add some feedback to one of the more serious situations an army can find itself in - encirclement. Whenever an encircled division is destroyed, a short animation will be played to draw some attention towards it. Of course, this animation also plays if you are the one doing the destroying.

4.gif



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Changing of the Guard

Here, I’ll hand over to @podcat to cover an upcoming change in the HoI development team.

Hi everyone Dan here, I want to let you know that you’ll be seeing Peter more and more as he is now taking over as game director on Hearts of Iron IV.

Looking back I have been working on HOI4 for about 7 years now and before this I worked a few years on HOI3. So it's fair to say that Hearts of Iron will always be close to my heart, but I also feel like it's time for something new to sink my teeth into.

I’m going to be working with a Secret Project which I can't tell you very much about - except that I am super pumped about it, and that it isn't HOI5. While I’m sure the time will come for that, right now we feel that HOI4 still has room to be developed with content and cool stuff.

Timing wise it fits well for me. No Step Back was the last expansion step I had penned down back when the original game released in 2016 so it's time for another 5 year plan (heh). It takes the game full circle as with NSB we will have touched on all the major systems in free updates and expansions at least once. It's also a perfect time to get more fresh perspectives to help evolve the game when most of my original ideas and plans have now been done.

Of course you will still see me around and I expect I’ll be poking around here and there in HOI (one does not simply let go of their baby so easily!), but I am confident in Peter and the team to take the helm and keep steering the ship now, and I am sure No Step Back will be awesome and that you will all love it.


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Et tu, Peter?! Game development is serious business!

Peter here again - I’m honored to have been asked to take the reigns on HoI. I’ve been working closely with Dan and the team over the last months, and feel confident that we can keep on building HoI in the right direction.

As some of you will be aware, I’ve come to HoI by way of Imperator, having previously worked on several PDS projects as a content designer. Prior to that, I had a long and entirely unrelated career in classical music. Historical PDS titles are something I’ve been an avid fan of from long before I worked here, and I’m super excited to take my experiences forward from Macedonian nation-building to the 20th century.

We have many plans for the future of HoI so after NSB is safely out of the door, you’ll get a chance to see my take on the future of the game. This said, I’ll point out that Dan and I are very much aligned on the creative direction of HoI 4, so to pre-empt some questions, a switch in game director does not mean lootboxes, mana, or any radical shift in core design philosophy.

What does it mean? Well, it’ll take time to see that properly. We’ve made no secret of the intentions around future dlcs and content (see last PDXcon for more details!), so the best answer I can give you there is that we’ll be doing our utmost to meet this potential roadmap while I begin to put my personal spin on the game. I’m more than happy to try and answer broad questions about my thoughts on the future of this excellent game, my industry experiences thus far, or myriad other topics, but please be aware that (beyond what I’ve already implied) we will not, as usual, be able to answer qualitative questions on future releases.

In general, you’ll find me present and willing to engage in polite discussion on the forums and other media inasmuch as my time allows, so I expect to begin interacting more with this passionate community in the near future!

/Arheo
 
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flood.crush.png


I can already imagine the amtrac captain ... sorry, amtrac skipper shouting:

"Ahoy, mateys! Time to lower the anchor! We'll get an extra +20% dig-in if we do!"
 
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Please consider including an Allied repair mechanism in the Allied Construction feature to assist Allied minor nations when their industry is nonexistent. It is necessary because, during D-Day, the democratic AI France's industry is nonexistent or is too small to prioritize repairing the essential constructions such as infrastructure, ports, and airports.
 
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Equipment Management

In NSB, we’re introducing the ability to manage specific equipment usage by division template. This means you can ensure that your elite breakthrough divisions have everything they need, while line divisions have equipment of a lower priority. Please bear in mind that the interface is still a work in progress!

View attachment 750668

You can access this new feature in the division designer, where you’ll have a comprehensive breakdown of all equipment types currently stockpiled.

View attachment 750669

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.

Beyond that, you’ll be able to toggle categories (such as Infantry Equipment II), all the way down to individual variants.

View attachment 750670


Changing these settings will not incur any explicit cost, though you’ll need to maintain awareness of your production lines when using these settings prodigiously. The update division tooltip, as before, will give you a summary of the scope of your changes, as well as how many divisions are likely to be impacted by this change. Lastly, it is important to note that these settings will affect reinforcement and training only - your existing divisions will not have their weapons immediately confiscated.
Could you also modify the division UI so it would show stats using latest SELECTED equipment? Because now it just uses latest equipment stats and doesn't care that it can be unchecked. It would be nice to play around with allowed equipment to watch how it changes division stats, especially when we will have tank designer.
 
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Some questions about Allied Construction. Which construction bonus will be apply? the owner of the state or the contry building? you can repair infrastracture or ports in your allied? i hate landing to discover the port completly broken and the IA never repair it
 
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Very, very good.

:):):)
Great , now the Winter Blitz becomes far more difficult as well as the italy takes whole africa in 3 months might be impossible.

Far more realistic.

But:

There are so many changes (and hoi wasnt an easy game) so that i strongly suggest : 2 or 3 shows on twitch, youtube so that the players can learn. Maybe world war wednesday again or something like that....

I really hope that the release will be this year,too.

QUESTION: Does this mean that the PC's resources (processor load, memory, and most importantly the lag rate :rolleyes::rolleyes:) will be higher?
 
As indicated, you can build radar in foreign territory. Not using the territory owner's technology breaks a lot of rules tho, and I don't expect this to change.
How about allowing more things (radar, port?) to be built in a puppets territory than with an ally? It should at least be somewhat harder to exploit?

(Or would it be possible to add it as a game rule that could differ between MP and SP? Or will we have to turn to mods?)
 
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how will the weather be decided(/how is it currently decided tbf)? is there a set path? weighted randomized? or are only some major
weather event like the russian winters garuanteed
 
Congrats Arheo on your new position! :)

And nice to see some I:R forum veterans in this thread too (missing the good old times during 2.0 development)



@Arheo If you have the time, I'm a bit interested in the following topics:

1. Somebody already asked with your I:R background in mind, if some mechanics in the future will be added related to internal affairs (without changing the games focus on military of course)

2. Can we expect another (smaller) improvement of older and already reworked major nation focus trees (especially the ones from Germany and Japan)?
Imo they cannot compete with the newer ones, when it comes to unique and cool events and smaller mechanics (Stalin's Paranoia, Propaganda campaigns, etc.).

3. Are there still mechanical updates coming in the future to things like air combat?

4. My question about peace deals is already answered :D - I'm happy with the answer.

5. Why is podcat now secretly working on the next major update for I:R and not you? ;D
 
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Nice Dev Diray. Couldn´t be long anymore to get the Version 1.11 "Barbarossa" incl. DLC "No Step Back"-Base-Game-Refit and play it.

Since waiting an very good Big Mod (Hoi 4 Ultra Historical Industry Project) will fill the Gap with the 1.10.x-Version.

Sadly Podcat goes, he and the Team make a very good Job for Hoi 4. They brought it from an 32 Bit-Game, where the Player loose in the beginning Wartime with AI-Rushes in the Base-Version (1.00 to 1.6.2) incl. all DLCs (TfV, DoD, WtT and MtG) to a full playable Game on 32 Bit.

With the Modernisation-Groundwork from the Base-Version in 32 Bit to 64 Bit (1.7 to 1.10.8) as well as brining in much cool Stuff like Lend-Lease, Autonomy, Equipment Conversion, Traits and Abilitys for Generals / Admirals, Decissions and Missions, the long awaitet Ship Designer to make the Navy useable, Espionage as well as many more small, medium and big Features, they did the best Groundwork for an Base-Game-Refit.

With 1.11 "Barbarossa" incl. the upcomming DLC the Team made with Podcat as Leader an second big Step forward for many Reasons. Existing Features get an Refit / Rework or other Modernisations to make the Game more interessting. In every Version of the Game the Devs work together with the Modders and notice what the Community tells.

But not every Notice from the Community can be done at once, like the Navy-, Army-, Espionage-, Resistance- and Focusses-Integration and Modernsisaton. The To-Do-List for Hoi 4 isn´t done yet, there are several Country-Packs open (Skandinavia, Afrika, forgotten Major-Colonies in the East-Indies, South-America) and other Features which can only get Reworked / Refited, Integrated etc. after the 1.11-Restart.

I hope too, that we get in the Modernisations 2 more Start Dates (1930 and 1933) with more previous Focusses for the Major and Minor-Major Countrys. If no Focusses in that Timeline are possible to bring in a Focus-Brake, which Start the existing ones first 1936.


From that what Podcat said, it will be a complete new Frenchise. All other Games (Stellaris, Hoi, Survining Mars, EU and whatever) are all in Refits and Upgrades since they came out 2015 or later.

The same I have heard as well as read from an other Company too (Firaxis), which make the Civ- and XCOM-Rows.
 
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I’m going to be working with a Secret Project which I can't tell you very much about - except that I am super pumped about it, and that it isn't HOI5.
East v West 2: Resurrection
 
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More proposed weather effects:

  • Fog (bad for everybody)
  • High winds (problematic for aircraft, increase cold weathers' effects)- can also abstract for tornadoes/hurricanes/monsoons that damage buildings/infrastructure
  • Ice (blocks surface ships and river resupply, reduces river crossing penalties)
  • Rubble (good for forests and urban)
  • Wildfires/smoke
  • Nuclear fallout/WMD weaponry lingering effects

Also, there should be modifiers for beach/river provinces, since these only affect naval invasions/river crossings:
  • Sandy beaches
  • Rocky beaches
  • Mud flats
  • Volcanic Ash
  • Mangrove swamp
 
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