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HOI4 Dev Diary - Chain of Command

Hi everyone and welcome back to regular dev diaries. This and upcoming diaries will be covering stuff happening in the 1.5 "Cornflakes" update as well as the unannounced expansion that will come out together with it. One of the main focuses of those can be summarized as "making players care more about armies, leaders and troops" (our DLCs tend to have 1-3 main focuses or missions). The first feature that touches on this, and the topic of today's dev diary is adding a military chain of command to the game.

After Hearts of Iron III, where something like organizing the soviet chain of command could take about an hour of the players time we decided that we wanted something that was a lot less effort to work with for HOI4. We basically settled on a flat level with field marshals with no restriction on commanded divisions, and generals with a limit on division count but with a different set of traits. Over time we felt that we lost a bit too much of the WW2 military flavor with this abstraction, so we started thinking about how to do it in a more interesting way.

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What we have done now for 1.5 is that field marshals are now leading an Army Group, which is a certain number of Armies (what we had before) led by Generals. There are then places in theaters as before. Theaters are like before just a geographical organizational tool for the player and don't have a commander or the like to keep them as flexible as possible. This means that we have a Theaters->Army Groups->Armies->Divisions structure now.
While the Generals still come with a soft cap for how many divisions they can efficiently command, the field marshals will now have a number of armies they can efficiently command.

I also want to make sure to point out that this is still very early on in development, so stuff is very likely to change, and some stuff aren't completely working as it should yet. So we are showing you this in progress rather than showing a completely finished feature, and as always any numbers you see are extremely subject to change ;) Also I very sneekily hid the topbar for now ;)
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When it comes to controlling your troops the new system introduces some changes to the battle planner. You can either do a plan for each army in the army group, or have a central plan for the whole Army Group where each army has a part of the frontline assigned as its responsibility. You can also do a mix, in which case an Army will finish its plan and then fall back to executing the Army Group's plan. We are still iteration on this stuff though but I figured you all wanted to know how it would work in practice.

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Something that does not really come across in the images is that we are working on ways to streamline the process for setting up fronts using the new army groups. This should make at least the basic cases feel smooth to set up, even with one more command level and more armies without a ton of extra clicking.

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The sharp eyed reader will also notice that we have removed the skill level for generals. This is now replaced with separate skills of different kinds. Attack, Defense, Planning and Logistics. Attack and Defense do what you expect while Planning improves planning speed and Logistics lowers supply consumption. Field marshal stats apply together with army general stats at a reduced capacity, so you will always want to have a chain of command for best efficiency.

The chain of command feature is going to be part of the free update, although there is some cool DLC features that tie into it we will be revealing in later diaries. Also expect to read more details about the system itself like how things in combat are affected etc.

See you next week when we will be taking a look at national unity...
 
It'll include new focus trees, yes.

Washington, D.C. (Associated Press) - April 23, 1943

The tiny island nation of Lilliput detonated a bomb with incredible destructive power, destroying Berlin in a single airstrike. Sources say that this may be the same type of device which resulted in all communications being cut off from Tokyo two days prior. When questioned about the overuse of force ruining the game, Emperor of Lilliput, Golbasto Momarem Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue, responded by saying "Have you seen out National Focus Tree? When players select Veteran, little do they know that all of us minors get all the bonuses meant for the majors and are free to reign terror upon the world! Regardless of our transports being able to slip into any harbor without Japanese Naval resistance, we're too tiny to use USA Lend-Leased weapons. We were forced to harness the power of the sun. Its not my fault that my country can research atomic weapons prior to the Americans...oh, and thanks for the crackers, we used them to build up to 400 factories."

This is about the only reason I can think of for more Minor Nation focus trees. Want to experience what one of these minor nations contributed in WW2? Read a 300 page book on the war, I'm sure you'll find the right paragraph.
 
One of the main focuses of those can be summarized as "making players care more about armies, leaders and troops."

Forum folk tend to be detail-fixated, and I don't think anyone has mentioned your concept. As concepts go, this one is excellent and badly needed. For 1.7 or 1.8, please extend the principle and make players care more about pilots as well. For RP reasons I never send them to their deaths in obsolete junk, but from a game-win point of view it currently makes sense to do so. Make pilots separate from planes, and the whole air war will become infinitely more engaging and strategic.
 
This is about the only reason I can think of for more Minor Nation focus trees. Want to experience what one of these minor nations contributed in WW2? Read a 300 page book on the war, I'm sure you'll find the right paragraph.
Does that mean you don't want to change what minor countries can currently do?
 
With regards to supply, you can currently choose the level of priority for each theatre.

With the new system, will it be possible to choose which Army Group within a single theatre to prioritise in terms of supply?

One historical example being Wehrmacht juggling supply priorities between Army Groups North, Centre and South on the Eastern Front.
 
Sometimes when handling a large front additional tools for front lines are needed.
For example:
- Advanced orders where certain front will not advance until other front comes towards some line in the distance.
-Certain front stopping if adjacent front is having a hard time pushing (to prevent going to deep and getting cut of)
- Timing paradrop attacks once the front reaches x distance from the paradrop.
-Timing orders by ingame time (for example once you know something will happen on June 18th you can time all attacks to start/end at that date)
- Drawing paths and then assigning certain special divisions designated to a front line so that they move only on that path(Different from shift right clicking)
 
Sometimes when handling a large front additional tools for front lines are needed.
For example:
- Advanced orders where certain front will not advance until other front comes towards some line in the distance.
-Certain front stopping if adjacent front is having a hard time pushing (to prevent going to deep and getting cut of)
- Timing paradrop attacks once the front reaches x distance from the paradrop.
-Timing orders by ingame time (for example once you know something will happen on June 18th you can time all attacks to start/end at that date)
That's all possible by simply stopping/starting execution of orders. There's this thing called micro, and there's a minimal required amount of it in HOI which should not be lowered, unless you want the game to play itself. Also, how would you envision a GUI that allows to sanely define such constraints in game?
Drawing paths and then assigning certain special divisions designated to a front line so that they move only on that path(Different from shift right clicking)
That's somewhat possible with multiple spearhead orders. Having frontlines not overlap, which I imagine PDS will add when they add the CoC described in this DD will make this even easier. But the micro argument is also applicable here, so it is kinda moot talk.
 
  • Is there any way to define the OOB set-up in a unit file (or elsewhere, but the unit file feels like the best place) at the start of the game? While it's far (faaaarrrr) easier than HoI3, there's still a bit of fiddling around to do at the start of each game. Have predetermined OOBs at game start is one less 'barrier' a player is faced with at game start (it could also add interesting immersion if you add a PP cost for adding/removing generals - but now I'm probably going and overcomplicating things again :oops:).

@podcat and team

Adding this would be great. One of the things that turned me off to playing HOI III was the time it took to set up the OOB at start up. I eventually created a save game post set up for each country I enjoyed playing. It would be nice to be able to create a German start up file that had your AF/NAVY/ARMY units set up the way the player would prefer them at start up.
 
I don't think you need to worry. The HoI3 chain of command had 5 levels! ( Division, Corps, Army, ArmyGroup, Theatre ), and 4 of them had HQ units you had to keep track of as well.

This is only about adding a second level, and no HQ units revealed so far so it's no where near HoI3. :)

You could argue that the "level" at divisional scale was pretty hands-off. Yes you could switch around brigades within divisions but for all intents and purposes they behaved as a single unit.
I wish HOI4 had dynamic levels, not 5 but 3 would suffice, 2 is ok but a bit on the short end if you really want to dig down into minute battleplans.
 
You could argue that the "level" at divisional scale was pretty hands-off. Yes you could switch around brigades within divisions but for all intents and purposes they behaved as a single unit.

My point was mainly focused on that you had to manually assign leader ( or end up with lvl 5 panzer leaders with best traits commanding a militia division when using auto )

I wish HOI4 had dynamic levels, not 5 but 3 would suffice, 2 is ok but a bit on the short end if you really want to dig down into minute battleplans.

It might make sense to have a 3:ed level for HoI4 as an organization only level ( no leader assigned ). I don't think they will add corps leaders considering how much art that would require.
 
That's all possible by simply stopping/starting execution of orders. There's this thing called micro, and there's a minimal required amount of it in HOI which should not be lowered, unless you want the game to play itself. Also, how would you envision a GUI that allows to sanely define such constraints in game?

That's somewhat possible with multiple spearhead orders. Having frontlines not overlap, which I imagine PDS will add when they add the CoC described in this DD will make this even easier. But the micro argument is also applicable here, so it is kinda moot talk.
Yes microing is possible in single player but have you ever played multiplayer as SOV with many players over many fronts?
 
Washington, D.C. (Associated Press) - April 23, 1943

The tiny island nation of Lilliput detonated a bomb with incredible destructive power, destroying Berlin in a single airstrike. Sources say that this may be the same type of device which resulted in all communications being cut off from Tokyo two days prior. When questioned about the overuse of force ruining the game, Emperor of Lilliput, Golbasto Momarem Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue, responded by saying "Have you seen out National Focus Tree? When players select Veteran, little do they know that all of us minors get all the bonuses meant for the majors and are free to reign terror upon the world! Regardless of our transports being able to slip into any harbor without Japanese Naval resistance, we're too tiny to use USA Lend-Leased weapons. We were forced to harness the power of the sun. Its not my fault that my country can research atomic weapons prior to the Americans...oh, and thanks for the crackers, we used them to build up to 400 factories."

This is about the only reason I can think of for more Minor Nation focus trees. Want to experience what one of these minor nations contributed in WW2? Read a 300 page book on the war, I'm sure you'll find the right paragraph.

It's worth keeping in mind that even if you're not interested in playing minors, giving them unique focus trees also means giving them unique behaviour (and often, like for the RAJ, making them less powerful, not more). While it sounds like there are still some rough edges in terms of how a few of the longer event chains in DoD work together, the Balkans are more interesting now than they were pre-DoD when I'm playing a major, as well as when I'm playing one of the smaller countries.
 
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My point was mainly focused on that you had to manually assign leader ( or end up with lvl 5 panzer leaders with best traits commanding a militia division when using auto )



It might make sense to have a 3:ed level for HoI4 as an organization only level ( no leader assigned ). I don't think they will add corps leaders considering how much art that would require.
Whenever I thought of corps in hoi4 it didn't have dedicated leaders but I did imagine the ability to set a corp 'focus' of some kind that you could unlock via tech (eg doctrines).
 
I like the idea of swapping the blanket "skill level" with 4 stats, to make generals more fleshed out and varied. However, one thing which is still somewhat immersion breaking is the ability to assign generals to any rank from the beginning.

This basically means from the 1.1.1936 you assign the best skilled guys to top command (this especially applies to major powers, who start with a reasonable pool of recruited generals), even if at that point they did not even hold a "general" rank. The whole issue that many countries had (old guards who had political clout and could not just be removed and ignored with no consequences) is bypassed.
This makes so much sense to me and would greatly add to the game IMHO. After all, we're stuck with basic div templates and have to upgrade them over time and so why not the same with generals? Different mechanic, same theory.
 
I hope Strategic Bombing gets improved, since it is pretty much worthless as of right now. Naval combat and just the naval part needs a huge overhaul as well.
 
Nice to see some improvement, though I wish it'd go further with Corps & Lieutenant Generals (default formed automatically if within an army), and theatre commanders.
 
I know division commanders are likely much beyond the scope of your art teams capabilities (rip writs). But would be awesome if we could be allowed to have theater commanders, even if just for flavor.