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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.

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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!
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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!





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Nice to see more depth to the exiles paths! And it will be good for people to see that we dont need to Poland Dev Diary you in order to make you listen. Constructive criticism works just as well if not better.
 
These changes are great. Thank you, as always, for responding to player feedback.

I did have a question on supply and infrastructure. HOw will it work in the new system across straits? For instance, do I need a port to connect Istanbul to the rest of Turkey?
 
There will be some kind of events or decisions for the Germans so that they can join the Russian volunteers like ROA And some of their commanders like Vlasov desert from the Soviet ranks and end up on the German side
 
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Dijiste que este diario de desarrollo será más grande, debido a que falta de la semana pasada ...
Los retratos son muy buenos, pero después de 2 semanas de espera esperaba ver más cosas, incluido un avance, ¡decepcionante!
Well, certainly less expansive than the Communist branch, but this is good too. Reminder that Bratyn says this is still WIP and our input are still counted too.
 
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?
 
I love these new additions to the exiles path! :D The addition of being able to recreate the Triple entente completely gets rid of my worries that I had from a democratic path not being included.

Btw will there be any interaction between the Triple entente focus and the French Little entente? Maybe the Little entente and its members could be integrated together into one alliance with Russia when they choose to recreate the Triple entente.
 
I love these new additions to the exiles path! :D The addition of being able to recreate the Triple entente completely gets rid of my worries that I had from a democratic path not being included.

Btw will there be any interaction between the Triple entente focus and if the French creates the Little entente? Maybe the Little entente and its members could be integrated together into one alliance when Russia chooses to recreate the entente.
It works sort of like this. It checks first whether UK is in a faction and is leader - if so, it will request to join the alliance and rename it. If UK is not leader, it will check if France is in a faction and is leader - if so, it will request to join the alliance and rename it. If one of them isn't in a faction it will then also get invited to that faction. If neither are in a faction, Russia becomes faction leader of a new faction and invites both.
 
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Thank you for this DD, i'm happy to say that the Exiled tree is looking 100 times better than it was a month ago, really cool that you guys listened to our feedback.
There are a few other things the community pointed out that haven't been answered yet, like supply trucks using fuel, or even flamethrowers being added as a support, so, were those already decided?
 
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I'm happy to see more content added to the "exiles" path to make the civil war actually winnable, even tough I think that, from an historical perspective, that Stalin was in fact impossible to overthrow in 1936 by one of the White movements.
 
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Yet another note to all people saying "whining in forums is pointless!!!". Give feedback to the devs that are willing to listen and you may be heard.

Disappointed that Ridiculous ArchpatriArch is still there though
 
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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).

View attachment 760936?
‘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 :)

OK, as the dev diary says a division with 40 CW will split it's damage over 2 20 width units. Let's say we have a 39 Width unit. That means all 39 CW worth of damage attacks 1 unit or is it splitting 20 -19 or is it only doing 20 to one and 0 to another? Like some clarification on this. Also This feels like it can be exploited and broken. My programmer gut says there might be some bad edge cases here but I'm not sure where yet.
 
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I know you are not adding a democratic path, but could you please make a portrait for the democratic leader (Alexander Kerensky)? This will add flavor and will be the same as how Wilhelm Pieck has a portrait even though Germany has no communist path.
 
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It works sort of like this. It checks first whether UK is in a faction and is leader - if so, it will request to join the alliance and rename it. If UK is not leader, it will check if France is in a faction and is leader - if so, it will request to join the alliance and rename it. If one of them isn't in a faction it will then also get invited to that faction. If neither are in a faction, Russia becomes faction leader of a new faction and invites both.
But what about if BOTH France and England are leaders of different factions? Will it merge both factions and Russia into one super-faction or will only the English faction be brought in?
 
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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?
 
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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).

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 :)

Frankly the 40 meta is long gone IMO (on vanilla hoi4/unmodded game), unless we are speaking about multiplayer (which I have no experience with). Logistics and lack of army XP (even the costs and other factors) will, for the most part, keep you out of 40W divisions. Even in Europe. You won't be able to keep a line of defenders large enough to defend on their own and multiple 40w divisions due to lack of supplies even in Europe in most cases (infrastructure is nuked to kingdom come in many cases due to combat and supply is lowered to absurd values).

Army XP isn't really a factor because you keep getting it later on, but early when you want to create said divisions (while they are useful due to weaker armies and the fact you can have relatively weak units that consume less supplies defending/holding the line), you won't be able to in most cases due to lack of Army XP.

20W is pratically as good as it can get right now. 18inf with a heavy tank (making it 20w) to get a cheap division that is able to withstand a lot of punishment due to high armour value no one is able to pierce, or heavily mobile divisions (multiple combos up to 20w or around that) are pretty nasty early on. Mobility's usefulness wanes as time passes due to amount of armour/soft dmg (possibly other stats too) present in the game, and it shouldn't (by the time you manage to breach a line the AI already reformed a line to defend in most cases).

The real problem is the lack of encirclement and that we are usually forced to focus on soft dmg (or armour/hardness to prevent dmg) and the 'push the enemy army at the borders and fight at the borders' mentality. WW2 is a period that focuses heavily on army encirclement (and destruction), yet the AI (and the player to a large extent) is forced to place troops at the border and force on pushing the enemy till it capitulates. You can still encircle armies, but you can rarely pierce a static frontline and go around its back to kill a good portion of the enemy army. In most cases the encirclements only happen because you have reached the sea / another country's border and not due to your skill. The Soviet army kept being encircled in-land over and over again during ww2. But in this game the Soviet Union is beaten only due to lack of supplies. At least in the field.

I have over 2500 hours on HOI4 and already tried to play around with countless tactics btw. Big divs did work in the past but they are no longer viable anymore. You should focus more on supplies/infrastructure system AND making speed valuable and encirclements a thing more rewarding for AI and to the human player. And preventing speed from losing its usefulness, because speed was valuable even in 1944 during the war in Europe.

EDITED: Only 1 agreement and 9 disagreements already... I guess most people prefer building nations AND armies for years... and playing major countries like Germany all the time, lol. Try playing other nations or being an early rusher, than come disagree with my post (curiously many of those disagreements came from people with barely any post around here so I am guessing they are far from my 2500 hours in-game as well to even be able to disagree to start with.
 
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I appreciate abstractly that this was probably required given all the lolmeme althistory LARPers screeching but I still think this entire half of the tree shouldn't exist. Good changes to combat and I look forward to the DLC.
 
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