• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

HoI4 Dev Diary - Combat Changes & Soviet Exiles

Greetings all,

Today we have two important topics to cover, for which we have reinstated @podcat with a battlefield commission, in order to detail our latest efforts to combat the width meta. In addition, Comrades @Bratyn and @Wrongwraith return for a dive into changes to the Soviet Exiles branch of the focus tree, based partly on community feedback.

---

Hi everyone, @podcat here for a little guest appearance to tell you some more about the combat changes coming with Barbarossa. Back in the Combat and Stats Changes diary we outlined our quest to break down the 40 width meta and try to combat an “overall best division”.
In there we outlined several changes such as varying terrain width without easy multipliers to exploit (meaning you can still make optimums for particular terrains but not all), as well as reduced penalties to going over widths.

To expand on this we have changed how targeting and damage spreading works. One way 40 width (and also larger) divisions were stronger than smaller ones was how they could concentrate all of their damage into one target overpowering defense more easily. Targeting is now changed so that divisions will select targets up to its own width (so a 40w can fire on two 20w), but doing so spreads the damage over them relative to their width (and just to be clear, it’s not just for 40w. This applies to any widths that match up like 30+10 say).

Screenshot_21.png
?
‘tis mathematics innit

With these changes I can say that I am not really sure what the best meta is anymore. I think there are likely some optimums depending on your opponent and location (when balancing Org versus cost and piercing and such) but what that is I look forward to see you players try to figure out :)

We also have one more change that I think will have a pretty big impact. When deciding if a division can reinforce to the battle line inside combat we no longer check in order of the order they joined combat, but instead we will now pick randomly among all waiting divisions with their chance weighted by their reinforce chance. This means that to optimize reinforcing you no longer need to pull micro feats to get the right divisions in order, and can much more safely toss in your newly designed tanks to save the day in an ongoing combat. Also, don’t forget your signal companies, they should be more impactful now!
image.png

________________

Hi guys! This is @Bratyn and @Wrongwraith, part of the CD team on the Exiles branch for the Soviet Union. The last month has (other than lots and lots of keyboard-scrubbing...) seen some significant changes to the branch, and while we’ve kept much of the original design, we’ve also incorporated feedback from you guys, the community, and did some further iteration of our own on how the tree looks and works.

I believe we mentioned last time around that the civil war was hard if you chose to go down this path of the focus tree. Really hard. “Realistically hard” someone might argue. "Unwinnable", our testers might say. And while that might be to some degree realistic, it isn’t that fun. So we decided to make it _slightly_ less hard, while also introducing a few new elements to make the war even more interesting. Among other things, you now use Command Power to recruit units, rather than Political Power. And we have increased the amount of things you can get from countries supporting your cause.

We also added a few new focuses.

DD_pict_1_civil_war_tree.png


As you can see, the main structure of this section is similar to what it was before, with some minor changes. Maybe it should be stated at this point that most focuses are short focuses. The new ones that you can access before the war are these:

DD_pict_2_covert_operations.png

DD_pict_3_smr.png


Why do you need these? Well You really, really need to be the one triggering the war, and you want to ensure you have control of as much land and units as you possibly can. So you need to be juggling your PP’s and CP’s while keeping an eye on the Political Paranoia of the Soviet Union. If Stalin starts the war before you are ready, it will still be very hard to win. And in order to do the latter, you can use the Covert Operations focus to try and divert the attention away from you - by providing fake evidence that e.g. the army is plotting against the state. This will cause an inquiry into army affairs, and this in turn will both damage Stalin’s army, and lower the Paranoia level temporarily - allowing you to continue with your schemes. The other new focus here is intended to give you a better supply situation when the war breaks out. Fighting through Siberia can be tough. Extra so if you don't have a supply system that supports it. So why not get some more help from the Japanese, right?

But I suppose the most interesting thing is this set of Focuses:

DD_pict_4_breakaways.png


What do they do? Well, they give you different options in how to deal with nations that declared independence during the civil war…

DD_pict_5_uprising.png


A number of countries can declare independence during the war, especially if it drags on for too long. You then get the choice to see that as an act of war, or as a potential ally (for a while at least). Getting help from minor nations can be a good distraction, and something that can greatly reduce the time you need to fight against the Bolsheviks. However, being the empire -wanna be, you might not want that situation to last forever, hence the post war options.

DD_pict_6_uprising_map.png


DD_pict_7_breakaway_focuses_detail.png


This, together with a few other events that can happen during the war, should make the 2nd Russian Civil War winnable for the exiles, although still a challenge.

DD_pict_9_desertions.png


Some of the biggest criticism we received from you was the fact that the Western and Eastern expansion branches depended on whether you went down the Tsarist or Fascist branches. And rightly so! It made no sense to arbitrarily lock some of these options behind an ideology choice; a Fascist Russia would certainly have cause to wish to reconquer in the West, and a Tsarist Russia might well have even more reason to exact vengeance upon the Japanese than the Fascists would.

Making these two expansion paths available to both branches would, however, mean other focuses were required to continue to offer a unique identity to both of the ideological branches. Some people suggested more focuses geared to creating alliances, and we paired these with certain focuses intended to offer some flavor to the branches. This is the current state of the post-civil-war branches:

dev diary total branch new.png


The difference will be immediately apparent. The tree has ‘thickened’ quite a bit, with over 10 new focuses, and the branches against Sweden, the Baltics, and Finland on one side, and Japan on the other, are now available regardless of the political choice you made, clustered near the center of the branch. Nothing has changed in these focuses, except The Lonely Island, which, if you relied upon Japanese aid too much and thus were puppeted after the end of the civil war, converts into a “war for independence” focus.

dev diary lonely island independence.png


Let’s explore the newly-added focuses. On the Tsarist side, Capital of the Tsars moves the capital to St. Petersburg, and adds a bunch of goodies for the state itself. Reforge the Triple entente does what it says on the tin: reach out to the UK and France to re-establish the old alliance aimed squarely at Germany.

dev diary capital of the tsars.png


To emphasize old Tsarist Russia’s emphasis on being a ‘defender of the Slavs’, there’s yet another “Slavic Commitments” focus. If you elected to go down Third Rome, this will still give you an option to send guarantees to the various Slavic powers (along with some other bonuses), after which you may invade Romania (The Fate of Romania) to establish a land connection to the Balkan powers. And finally, “The Iron Wall off Russian Resolve” gives major bonuses to research and production cost, reliability, and armor for Super Heavy Tanks, incentivizing their use by offsetting the most detrimental aspect of them (their production cost), and thus offering a more unique playstyle for the Tsarists.

dev diary iron wall of russian resolve.png


On the Fascist side, Russian Corporate State offers some factories and industrial bonuses. There is a focus to create a Berlin-Moscow Axis, and follow-up focus Japanese Overtures allows for an alternative choice to simply avenging the war of 1905 by going to war with the Japanese: you can invite them into the new Axis and secure Russia’s flank that way.

dev diary japanese overtures.png


Eastern Expansion is now Fascist-only. After this, there is still the option of meddling in the Americas and, ultimately, declaring war on Canada and the USA for the old Russian colonial possessions on the continent. A second branch can be taken, however, offering wargoals on Afghanistan and Iran, and ultimately leading into Iraq, Turkey (if it hasn’t already been taken as the Third Rome), Syria (France), and India.

dev diary last break southward.png


These changes should offer a bit more identity to the Exiles branches, while also allowing both to fulfil the ‘basics’ of recovering Imperial Russian possessions in the West and avenging the war of 1905 in the East.

Finally, here’s some pictures of certain characters:


DD_pict_8_generals.png
dev diary tsar vladimir I.png
dev diary archpatriarch meletius.png


As usual, the tree is still under development, and even what you see here might not match what ends up being released :) See you next week for another dev diary!





.. .----. -- / ... - .. .-.. .-.. / -... . .. -. --. / .... . .-.. -.. .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- / - .... . -.-- .----. ...- . / .-. .. --. --. . -.. / - .... . / -.. --- --- .-. / - --- / ... --- -- . / ... ..- .-. ... - .-. ---. -- -- .. -. --. / -.-. .- -. ... .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- / .. - .----. ... / ... ..- .. -.-. .. -.. . / - --- / ..-. --- .-. -.-. . / .. - / --- .--. . -. -.-.--
 
  • 158Like
  • 40Love
  • 18
  • 13
  • 10
Reactions:
Will some kind of mechanics be inserted so that some Soviet republics can rebel against the Soviet power in the middle of a foreign invasion as a step historically in the Barbarossa operation as in Ukraine?
 
  • 5Like
  • 3
Reactions:
Vladimir Romanov would be Vladimir III, not Vladimir I
Depends on how you count! The other Vladimirs either weren't from Russia or they weren't kings, but dukes. There's just as much reason to call him Vladimir I as there is to call him Vladimir III. We elected to go with the former.
 
  • 33
  • 15
  • 4Like
  • 2Love
  • 1
Reactions:
The changes to divisions and exiles are nice, except for Arch-Patriarch part. However...

What is "Free State of Saint George"?
Do you mean US breakaway kingdom-state?
Because Georgia is NOT named after Saint George ;)
That's actually the current name of non-aligned Georgia in the game... So not a new thing. But yeah, agree that it is a bit odd.
 
  • 29
  • 9Like
  • 2
Reactions:
1632922512533.png


Did the historical branch equivalent of this focus get renamed to use this name as well, or is it still "Secure Leningrad"?

1632922574550.png


To clarify why I ask, I'll quote myself from another thread:

Even the reason for the Winter War is chalked up to the official Kremlin line of "a need to secure Leningrad", a blatant propaganda lie that's obvious to anyone acquainted with the USSR's actions regarding Finland before, during and after the Winter War. The notion that the Germans or the English could successfully naval invade Finland and then proceed to threaten Leningrad through the Karelian Isthmus is laughably absurd, yet that is the excuse the Russians used to make territorial demands on the Finns, that if accepted, "incidentally" would have cut through the main Finnish fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus, rendering it useless and leaving the country's defence severely weakened. Furthermore it's clear from Red Army plans and force deployments that the primary reason for demanding a base in the western part of Finland was not to secure Leningrad against a seaborne threat - that was already done by the Russian bases in the Baltic States - but to create a bridgehead for an invasion of the country's interior from the west: a second front against the Finns.
 
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Well, no radical change has happened, as expected. Indeed, the tree has become more ... flexible. This is good, but not for Kerensky, Baydalakov, the rest of the Romanovs, socialists - revolutionaries, republicans, anarchists ...
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Wouldn`t these changes force a new, 2-10 width meta?

Why would you even want to have big divisions?

Will org damage finally be remodeled similarly to how HP damage works, so smaller and bigger divisions have roughly same staying power?
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Why can't we use Third Rome, Pan-Slavism and invade both South and Alaska at the same time as the Russian Empire? I mean, everything with the exception of getting back Alaska was used as policies in day-to-day life of the Empire throughout the 19th century. There is no reason for newly created RE to choose between its old policies, it can follow each of them as it did before.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
So I am glad that we added opportunities to restore the Romanov Empire, but why did not we add path return to democracy? Pavel Milyukov could be added as the head of the government, that is, the president. One could add about the creation of a coalition based on the former republics of the Soviet Union. Is there a way to add path democracy?
 
Why can't we use Third Rome, Pan-Slavism and invade both South and Alaska at the same time as the Russian Empire? I mean, everything with the exception of getting back Alaska was used as policies in day-to-day life of the Empire throughout the 19th century. There is no reason for newly created RE to choose between its old policies, it can follow each of them as it did before.
And you're perfectly able to do this - just justify a wargoal for whatever you'd like to go to war for :) The reason the focuses are mutually-exclusive are because they give some other bonuses (which would be way too powerful if you got all of them), and they give custom cosmetic tags to Russia, and those cannot be active at the same time.
 
  • 21
  • 16
  • 4Like
  • 1Love
Reactions:
Will there be any events for the White Russians finding the bodies of the murdered Tsar and his family?
 
  • 5Like
  • 1
Reactions:
And what about optimization? The change in the 40w meta means that we will have more divisions (even if not very many), which means the game will be even slower? Now, by 1942, the game starts to slow down, and by 1944 it is impossible to play it. Considering that we also have a bunch of new mechanics, I'm not sure I was able to play calmly as before. Will we have a separate blog about optimization, AI or something close?
 
.. .----. -- / ... - .. .-.. .-.. / -... . .. -. --. / .... . .-.. -.. .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- / - .... . -.-- .----. ...- . / .-. .. --. --. . -.. / - .... . / -.. --- --- .-. / - --- / ... --- -- . / ... ..- .-. ... - .-. ---. -- -- .. -. --. / -.-. .- -. ... .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- / .. - .----. ... / ... ..- .. -.-. .. -.. . / - --- / ..-. --- .-. -.-. . / .. - / --- .--. . -. -.-.--

Morse's translation:

I'M STILL BEING HELD... THEY'VE RIGGED THE DOOR TO SOME SURSTRÓMMING CANS... IT'S SUICIDE TO FORCE IT OPEN!
 
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
Given the rather impractical placement of Leningrad (and how quickly it was abandoned as capital in WW1) I'd suggest either:
It was abandoned by Bolshevics, as Estonian independence and unfinished civil war, allowed easy land invasion, and there were land invasions by Entente, Archangelsk, Odessa, Vladivostok were invaded from sea.
Don't move the actual capital, just move some 20 VP from Moscow to Leningrad (to show how half of the government moved there)

Or have a cheap decision to move the capital to Moscow during wartime (but it can be returned to Leningrad during peace)

(Cheap as in few pp, but maybe some stability and/or we costs since it's an admission that the position is a bad place for a capital during wartime, especially during a war against some western powers)
Just allow move after Estonia and Finland are "secured".
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Are you planning on tackling the speed issue in combat? As of now, there is no reason to design tanks that travel faster than their division, while in reality, the speed of a vehicle would greatly affect how it performed in combat, not just how fast it could go from A to B. I hope you'll consider making speed more usefull so the new tank meta doesn't turn into ''add penetration and armor til the tank reaches division speed and call it a day''.
But in reality, infantry tanks have no reason to be faster. Tanks without infantry support are extremely vulnerable. There is no reason to make tanks faster than infantry (or motorized).
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions: