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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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One QOL think I ask is, when you play USA and you're in the process of expanding your mil industry a lot, you need to adjust constantly your trade deals to import what you need when new mil factories are put is services, ie at a rapid pace. Could the deals be automated somewhat ? ie if I know I will need to progressively import more rubber, that it is done automatically ?
 
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While temperature has no new modifier effects, we’ve taken a pass on temperature data across the world, with the intention of improving accuracy.

I hope so, because the temperature values that seem to be just pasted over from HoI3 are ridiculously high; judging by the tempetatures you'd think the game takes place in the 21st century. I've never seen temperatures in-game even remotely as low as the historical winter temperatures in Northern and Eastern Europe during WW2.

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.

Why is this the case?

By the way I wish you guys stopped using this DD format where multi-quoting is disabled. Makes addressing individual points in the post annoying, greatly so when replying on the phone as I'm doing now. The longer the OP, the worse it gets due to the constant scrolling back and forth between manually quoting parts of the post and replying to them. The "historical USSR tree" DD got so bad that I wrote a lengthy reply over the course of several days and I didn't even post it because most of it didn't get saved for some reason (I guess the drafts only save for so long in the comment box of a thread, or maybe I overwrote a part of it by accident, dunno) at which point I pretty much gave up on it.

Also welcome as game director @Arheo, looking forward to what your leadership brings to the development of the game.

EDIT: Turns out if you view the thread in the "show only dev responses" mode, the OP turns into a normal post you can multi-quote. Very interesting...
 
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Good luck Podcat in your future secret projects and could it be that this project is related to this franchise as a Spin off?

Congratulations Arheo for your new responsibility. I hope I play with you. I start another new stage that needs it in certain aspects where it deepens more in the aspect of internal politics and game diplomacy. a Victoria but I think that mechanics should be reviewed and get quite important rework in that aspect
 
I'm sad to see podcat go, after wiz left stellaris I thought things would be fine, but I ended up not playing it after a short while. Hopefully this won't be the case with hoi4.

(Also, while i dont know who made the decision, i absolutely hate that they tied game mechanics to portrait selection)
 
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Well, NSB is really content heavy, i have to admit it. But what about "more frequent updates" declared with BftB? Not to blame, just <3 the game and always want MOAR ;)
 
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Hmm, the team was already going through the change of some figures, but Dan's departure is quite unexpected. I would like to believe that the new project will justify such maneuvers. And welcome to the new leader - Archeo, the true Roman. Which is good, as Rome will be important in the next expansion.
 
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jokes aside, I feel like they might be working on eu5
Well, without any more info it's pointless to guess, but fun to make jokes.

It may be EU5, it may be Stellaris2, or it may be something entirely new.

Personally, I would love to something more contemporary, with crossing between Victoria production system and HoI4 combat system, like East vs West.

But anyway, whatever they are making - I hope that would be interesting. And quite likely it will.
 
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Nice finally allowed construction territory Allied and i have a question for supplies air your change it or a new plane type for it exercise example ME323 ?
 
Hmm, the team was already going through the change of some figures, but Dan's departure is quite unexpected. I would like to believe that the new project will justify such maneuvers. And welcome to the new leader - Archeo, the true Roman. Which is good, as Rome will be important in the next expansion.
I remember him hinting at wanting to move on already during MtG, so what surprises (and makes me thankful for) is that it took all the way till NSB.
 
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Hey! @Arheo

Hope you'll slip into the role all nice and swell!

I'd like to know if you think the direction of HoI4 should be prioritizing the more 'tactical' aspects, rather than prioritizing the big picture view of the war. With features like the tank designer coming soon, weather and supply mattering more province by province, the current naval ship designer and how they changed how Field Marshals and Generals worked (FMs used to be your wide front infantry commander, Generals were for your specialized divisions), and so on... as much as I'm looking forward to it, I worry HoI4 might become harder to juggle around and require more minute tinkering.

Do you intend to make future content less 'overwhelming' and more manageable?

A feature I've been waiting for a long time was some notification and list to show how many divisions were destroyed/lost. Being notified and seeing a window list of X divisions being lost would help keep track of complete losses. Because right now, you can lose divisions but not know what were destroyed if you weren't fully paying attention or remember right.

Total War games since Rome 2 let you see what armies of yours were destroyed and you can click 'Restore', which rebuilds those armies. I hope we can see something like that for HoI4 (but for divisions)
 
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Hey! @Arheo

Hope you'll slip into the role all nice and swell!

I'd like to know if you think the direction of HoI4 should be prioritizing the more 'tactical' aspects, rather than prioritizing the big picture view of the war. With features like the tank designer coming soon, weather and supply mattering more province by province, the current naval ship designer and how they changed how Field Marshals and Generals worked (FMs used to be your wide front infantry commander, Generals were for your specialized divisions), and so on... as much as I'm looking forward to it, I worry HoI4 might become harder to juggle around and require more minute tinkering.

Do you intend to make future content less 'overwhelming' and more manageable?

Well, most GSGs involve plate-spinning, but I think there comes a point where adding more plates to spin does more harm than good. We'll see how things land after NSB :)
 
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Very pleased that Arheo is taking the lead, he did a fantastic job on the impossible mission of fixing imperator and making it enjoyable, he will do great also on Hoi4.
One question: will there be QoL improvements on the air wings management in this espansion? I know there will be complete reword in the future but still...
I need a little temporary QoL that help me manage my OCD lmao
 
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Unless you added it in NSB, "Flooded" is not a weather modifier, its just in the same file

Whats with the Equipment Management UI? Does this mean the current Management UI gets removed and replaced with the DLC only UI?
 
Well, most GSGs involve plate-spinning, but I think there comes a point where adding more plates to spin does more harm than good. We'll see how things land after NSB :)
Yesssss, more polish less changes per patch and HOI can easily become a 10/10 game
 
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Man... he's leaving?!? :oops:

440px-1890_Bismarcks_Ruecktritt.jpg


Dan, my best whishes to you and your new project. Thanks for all!
Is @Bratyn joining you on the same "new adventure?

Also congratulations and my very best wishes to Peter. Nice to have you on board, Captain! :)
 
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Thanks for all the hard work over the years @podcat I'm excited to see where you move on to.

Considering I'm a massive fan of the direction @Arheo was taking Imperator in the 2.0 update, I'm very happy to hear he's the one to step into the new lead role. Very excited to see where the game goes from here, I know it's in good hands.
 
@Arheo

Welcome aboard! And as a welcome gift, i have some questions for you ;D

- Although either you or another dev already said there will be no rework on the doctrines themselves, can we expect some tweaking of numbers to make the remaining 3 doctrines viable alternatives to Superior Firepower?
(not by just nerfing SF though, as we already had this and it didn't do much)

- Will there be any changes to the rate and way with which Generals gain traits?
Right now you need to "play bad on purpose" to grind certain traits, or any at all, which is gamey and weird.

As i understand the most recent roadmap was the one from the PDX Con, albeit a small one. The "OG" roadmap though was the more detailed one made and updated by Podcat from here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...dev-diary-1-9-1-patch-roadmap-update.1370573/
Do you plan on continuing with the points mentioned there or will some be dropped? Some particulary interesting ones made by Podcat, in my opinion, are for example:
- More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms
- Make defensive warfare more fun
- Adding mechanics to limit the size of your standing army, particularly post-war etc

Cheers!
 
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