HOI4 Dev Diary - Beta Batch Update III

[valisk]

If my game from yesterday evening is any indication then there's an entry missing:

- AI now uses its navy to gain naval supremecy around its coasts to prevent sneaky early invasions.

Can someone confirm this?
If its true, than this is a very good change.

...however I still would like the cores of the formable nations fixed....

I started a new game as soon as I downloaded the patch, I didn't see evidence of this early on, probably as the main Italian Battle Fleet had based itself in Eritrea, leaving me and the French free to sweep the Mediterranean clear of Italian surface ships in a matter of a week or three and achieve total naval supremacy.

However, a little later The Italians invaded Norway before the Germans, and quite surprisingly the Soviet Union invaded Denmark at the very start of hostilities with Germany. (I'd pulverized both the German and Italian fleets by this point.)
*Nearly Forgot, Australia (in both tries so far) independently invades the Dodecanese.
So it does seem the AI is a little more aggressive now providing it can cover it's invasion forces, which is certainly a good thing, though I suspect it's old habit of not securing its supply lines (ports) and not being ready to reinforce a successful landing (except the Japanese AI which can be quite challenging if you don't interrupt it somehow) are still in play.

Some oddities I've noticed in the Betas so far

• If I don't manually guarantee Poland the Allies can't invite her into the faction when war starts as world tension is too low
• If I do invite her into the faction the war starts from late October sometimes early December ( @podcat Is this likely to be due to strength checks? By then the UK under my command will have a 300+ strong fleet, around 60 divisions and ~200 IC 60mil/40sip/100civ)
• Italy now seems even more determined than ever to wage war in the strategic backwater of East Africa where it can not properly supply it's troops under any kind of serious response. The past few Betas, this one included, now see 35-45 divisions down there who pretty much will get wiped out to a man every single time
• Vichy France on formation seems to immediately send large numbers of volunteer forces to the Axis
• Vichy France also gives access to Ports to the Axis
• When the USA joins the allies, it's very first move is to Justify on then DoW Vichy France, so I see Operation Torch in action in early 1941 rather than 43
• The UK And Allies have the Naval conference restrictions in place for 2 years longer than they did historically so they cannot modernize or rebuild their heavy ships to any extent pre-war (okay, okay I didn't just notice that, but still )
• As a general aside, Germany seems to stall much more often vs the USSR than 1.8.x not usually even getting through Ukraine and Byelorussia, lack of supporting Italian Divisions? Maybe shortage of bombers, as the Axis usually lose around 1.5-2k of these for the cost of a handful of destroyers and maybe a CL whilst fruitlessly trying to gain control of the channel. Or maybe the USSR AI is just doing a better job.

 

[sekelsenmat]

I appreciate the other changes, but this is no fix. It won't fix the problem, just make it smaller. Italy maybe won't release Somalia if it has already released Greece, and Japan won't release China if it has released the Mariana. But if Greece and the Mariana have been released, the problem is there, just smaller and less noticeable.

I just started a new game and Japanese Marianas and Italian Greece are still a thing. Jap Marianas even demanded that I withdraw my attache from communist China ..... Had to lose some pp to refuse

 

[Caudi]

Keep up the good work!

Could the Netherlands please get an elusive gentleman for the additional operative slot as most minors?

 

[Indyclone77]

Absolutely no man! I love the game, but really they need a couple of months to fix everything. France guarantee ruin the game for Balkan's nations and Italy too ( and no one is answering our questions about that ), collaborations government are totally out of control in most of the cases and performance are going down as well. I mean I have a Ryzen 3600X, 16 GB 3200mhz ram, an RTX 2700 and an NVME SSD and after the last major update ( 1.9 ) the game is practically unplayable after 1941 it lags as hell. So what kinds of pc do I need to play the game smoothly?

It's already been answered that it is an intended change, quite frankly France wouldn't have let Italy run roughshod all over the Balkans without intervening themselves

 

[Indyclone77]

Keep up the good work!

Could the Netherlands please get an elusive gentleman for the additional operative slot as most minors?

It should have one already, Have you constructed an agency?

 

[astartes906]

Petain shouldn't be the leader of the french fascist party in 1936, he only need to lead vichy france.
And the french AI has a problem : it keeps boosting the fascist party via the cagoule decisions even if it has gone royalist.

 

[Hemothep]

I started a new game as soon as I downloaded the patch, I didn't see evidence of this early on, probably as the main Italian Battle Fleet had based itself in Eritrea, leaving me and the French free to sweep the Mediterranean clear of Italian surface ships in a matter of a week or three and achieve total naval supremacy.

However, a little later The Italians invaded Norway before the Germans, and quite surprisingly the Soviet Union invaded Denmark at the very start of hostilities with Germany. (I'd pulverized both the German and Italian fleets by this point.)
*Nearly Forgot, Australia (in both tries so far) independently invades the Dodecanese.
So it does seem the AI is a little more aggressive now providing it can cover it's invasion forces, which is certainly a good thing, though I suspect it's old habit of not securing its supply lines (ports) and not being ready to reinforce a successful landing (except the Japanese AI which can be quite challenging if you don't interrupt it somehow) are still in play.

Some oddities I've noticed in the Betas so far

• If I don't manually guarantee Poland the Allies can't invite her into the faction when war starts as world tension is too low
• If I do invite her into the faction the war starts from late October sometimes early December ( @podcat Is this likely to be due to strength checks? By then the UK under my command will have a 300+ strong fleet, around 60 divisions and ~200 IC 60mil/40sip/100civ)
• Italy now seems even more determined than ever to wage war in the strategic backwater of East Africa where it can not properly supply it's troops under any kind of serious response. The past few Betas, this one included, now see 35-45 divisions down there who pretty much will get wiped out to a man every single time
• Vichy France on formation seems to immediately send large numbers of volunteer forces to the Axis
• Vichy France also gives access to Ports to the Axis
• When the USA joins the allies, it's very first move is to Justify on then DoW Vichy France, so I see Operation Torch in action in early 1941 rather than 43
• The UK And Allies have the Naval conference restrictions in place for 2 years longer than they did historically so they cannot modernize or rebuild their heavy ships to any extent pre-war (okay, okay I didn't just notice that, but still )
• As a general aside, Germany seems to stall much more often vs the USSR than 1.8.x not usually even getting through Ukraine and Byelorussia, lack of supporting Italian Divisions? Maybe shortage of bombers, as the Axis usually lose around 1.5-2k of these for the cost of a handful of destroyers and maybe a CL whilst fruitlessly trying to gain control of the channel. Or maybe the USSR AI is just doing a better job.

I'm specifically refering to an early invasion of France by Germany. This was quite easiliy doable within a week in octobre of '36, but now AI-France uses its fleet on a strike force mission to gain naval supremecy in the channel and the eartern north sea.

 

[Panzerschiff Graf Spee]

Nice to see phantom collaboration governments fixed, but It is still possible to yeet yourself out of existence by forming one, if the country you are about to form a collaboration government of does not exist and has cores on your territory.

 

[valisk]

I'm specifically refering to an early invasion of France by Germany. This was quite easiliy doable within a week in octobre of '36, but now AI-France uses its fleet on a strike force mission to gain naval supremecy in the channel and the eartern north sea.

Hahaha apologies Hemothep, my old bad habit of seeing a word or two I'm thinking of already and meditating on that coming through

As an unrelated aside the UK is still plagued by colab govt events, despite the fact that it cannot set them up.

 

[cetvrtak]

- Tito should no longer be able to serve as chief of army if he is dead

Well, that's a bit unrealistic.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

Absolutely no man! I love the game, but really they need a couple of months to fix everything. France guarantee ruin the game for Balkan's nations and Italy too ( and no one is answering our questions about that ), collaborations government are totally out of control in most of the cases and performance are going down as well. I mean I have a Ryzen 3600X, 16 GB 3200mhz ram, an RTX 2700 and an NVME SSD and after the last major update ( 1.9 ) the game is practically unplayable after 1941 it lags as hell. So what kinds of pc do I need to play the game smoothly?

Ok wow. Another hot mess. I am playing 1.9.1 batch w.o Would be nice to have armored cars.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Does the new Beta patch automatically get downloaded the next time I launch the game, or do I need to re-enroll in the beta to get the latest version? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I've never used a Paradox Beta before.

I see the below version info on my game today, so it looks like it updated automatically. Just wanted to confirm that I'm doing this correctly to get the new updates.

Also, I didn't see anything in the notes about issues with saves from the prior Beta version of two days ago? Should I fine to continue with that save or do I need to start over?

 

[Indyclone77]

Does the new Beta patch automatically get downloaded the next time I launch the game, or do I need to re-enroll in the beta to get the latest version? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I've never used a Paradox Beta before.

I see the below version info on my game today, so it looks like it updated automatically. Just wanted to confirm that I'm doing this correctly to get the new updates.

Also, I didn't see anything in the notes about issues with saves from the prior Beta version of two days ago? Should I fine to continue with that save or do I need to start over?

View attachment 559237

Auto updated and fine to continue on the same save

 

[gsayhi]

I'm still rather new to the game. Tell me, does the patch automatically update on my game our do I have do it? If so, how do I install the patch?

 

[Sn3ipen]

I'm still rather new to the game. Tell me, does the patch automatically update on my game our do I have do it? If so, how do I install the patch?

This is a beta(test version, possibly full of bugs) so you have to manually opt-in to it. Normally you don't have to do anything.

Right click on the game in your steam library and click on 'Properties', then click the 'Betas' tab. There you can choose what version of the game you want to play. Pick '1.9.1 Beta' for the beta and 1.9.0 is the one you are currently running in case you want to go back.

You may have to do this again when the patch get officially released. Not sure.

 

[gsayhi]

This is a beta(test version, possibly full of bugs) so you have to manually opt-in to it. Normally you don't have to do anything.

Right click on the game in your steam library and click on 'Properties', then click the 'Betas' tab. There you can choose what version of the game you want to play. Pick '1.9.1 Beta' for the beta and 1.9.0 is the one you are currently running in case you want to go back.

You may have to do this again when the patch get officially released. Not sure.

I did exactly as you said and updated to 1.9.1 beta. Thank you!

Question: I see a lot of older "betas". Should I update all those, too?

 

[Sn3ipen]

I did exactly as you said and updated to 1.9.1 beta. Thank you!

Question: I see a lot of older "betas". Should I update all those, too?

No. Just pick the version you want to play.

The older versions are there because Steam will automatically put people on the latest stable version and people sometimes need to go back. So they can finish their games if they have ongoing games in an old version.

 

[Gort11]

Yeah, looks like countries are still releasing tons of collaboration governments. Saw Italian Greece in my game, which was just the island of Rhodes.

 

[FLUX2226]

It's already been answered that it is an intended change, quite frankly France wouldn't have let Italy run roughshod all over the Balkans without intervening themselves

In 1936 France was too busy with their own security instead of keeping the little entente alive (which is what the guarantees represent). That's why they betrayed the Czechs when Germany knocked at their door, there's no explanation for why they would stand up for Yugoslavia and Romania but not for Czechoslovakia. If Paradox wants to keep the guarantees, at least remove them from all three nations after the Munich conference where the Sudetenland gets taken by Germany. This would be historically accurate under the game's circumstances because then France has made it clear that they won't defend the Balkans.

But even if I'm wrong about France's attitude, in the end I would gladly trade some historical accuracy for more fun. The guarantees have no effect in historical games, they only make non-historical runs less fun for everyone.

 

[Áurum]

I just started a new game and Japanese Marianas and Italian Greece are still a thing. Jap Marianas even demanded that I withdraw my attache from communist China ..... Had to lose some pp to refuse

I don't know why devs don't implement a thorough solution, many have been proposed, anything would be better than this partial solution.