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HOI4 Dev Diary - Formables and Releasables

Hello everyone and welcome to another dev diary for La Resistance! I should begin by introducing myself: I am Meka, I joined Paradox just a few months ago as a Content Designer. Some of you may be aware of me due to my work on Theocracies and Burgundy over on EUIV, but now I'm here to show what mischief I've been up to in my time on Hearts of Iron.

Man the Guns saw the creation of a lot of new tags, making some countries balkanisable, and almost all of the world decolonisable. Waking the Tiger saw the introduction of formable tags, a mechanic that until now has not been further utilised. However, with the Husky patch, a whole slew of new releasable tags will be added to the game along with two new formable nations; one as part of the free patch, and one for owners of La Resistance.
Polynesia 001.png

Starting with releasable tags, Man the Guns allowed most of the world to be decolonised, but Oceania was mostly left unloved with only one nation being added to the continent, leaving the rest of the disparate islands untouched and still under colonial rule. However, I have added 6 new releasable tags and one formable for the region.

The Kingdom of Hawaii was only annexed by the United States 38 years before the start of Hearts of Iron and can be released along with most of the US’s pacific holdings.
Polynesia 002.png


Tahiti
Polynesia 003.png


Samoa
Polynesia 004.png


The Federated States of Micronesia
Polynesia 005.png


The Solomon Islands
Polynesia 006.png


The Mariana Federation
Polynesia 007.png


These disparate islands may struggle to survive on their own, and so a nation who holds enough of the Polynesian Triangle will be able to unite all Pacific peoples into a single state known as Polynesia. This state will be formable by any nation listed above plus New Zealand. Unlike other formable tags, this nation can be created by dominions meaning New Zealand does not necessarily have to leave the Allies in order to form this tag.
Polynesia 008.png


But perhaps players wish to live out an alternate history where the Naha Prophecy was fulfilled and Kamehameha united the Pacific several years earlier. With the Polynesian Empire game rule, Hawaii will begin the game having already conquered the entirety of the Polynesian Islands and built up a fair-sized industry.
Polynesia 009.png

Polynesia 010.png


The ability to form Polynesia is a free feature, as are the releasable tags.


Along with adding these releasable nations, I did also touch up the old fragmentation game options to make the world fully split into different continents. The UK now surrenders its African, Asian, and American islands to its former colonies, Portugal surrenders Timor to Indonesia, and a few other small changes like that.


Also, armies standing around in former colonial territories is now a thing of the past and nations will now only have armies stationed in territories where they have access.
Armies.png


Iberia is a focal point of La Resistance and as such, a few releasable tags have been added to the subcontinent as well.


Catalonia
Catalonia.png


The Basque Country
Basque.png


Galicia
Galicia.png


Spain can of course be fractured from the start of the game by selecting the appropriate option in the game menu. However, I noticed Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia simply weren’t enough to make Iberia look “shattered” so I took the liberty of adding an “11th of November” game rule, and I will leave it for you all to speculate what that option does.
Spanish Fragmentation.png


When it comes to the second formable, one must be opportunistic and take full advantage of the instability in Spain and Portugal. The Moorish people once reigned sovereign over all of Iberia, and owners of La Resistance will be able to restore the long-dead state of Al-Andalus.
Andalusia Conditions.png


Andalusia was once an Islamic Sultanate that ruled from the Iberian peninsula and a beacon of the Islamic world. Through struggles with the Catholic kingdoms in the medieval era, the Andalusians would slowly be pushed out of Iberia, ending with the conquest of the Emirate of Granada in 1520. However, the Moorish people continue to exist to this day in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria, many of whom are descendants from Moorish refugees fleeing the Spanish Reconquista.

Andalusia will be formable by any of the North African countries; Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Algeria, or Libya. In order to form this tag, one must occupy a large portion of both Spain and Portugal’s southern states and forming the tag grants cores on the entirety of the Iberian subcontinent.
Andalusia 1.png


But that isn’t the end of Andalusia. Similar to Byzantium’s “triumph” decisions, Andalusia will be able to sweep across the Mediterranean and beyond, restoring their old claims and titles.
Andalusia Decision 2.png


If a player can enact all decisions relating to the Andalusian conquests of North Africa and the Med, they will be able to press on for Egypt and Arabia and declare themselves the Umayyad Caliphate reborn, granting cores on the Arabian Peninsula.
Andalusia Decision 3.png


Upon doing so, Andalusia will unlock their final set of decisions, allowing them to restore the entire former claims and titles of the Umayyad Caliphate, effectively reuinifying the Islamic world.
Andalusia Decision 4.png

Andalusia 3.png


As we have expanded the scope of Hearts of Iron, some old bits of content started to become outdated and lead to some annoying bugs, which I have dedicated some time to fixing. One key thing I have improved is the way that the British Raj interacts with different game options and Britain doing strange things. From now on, the Raj will be able to freely pursue their focus tree even if Britain forces them into independence, with some focuses bypassing, and others no longer requiring the Raj to be a subject.
Raj Fix.png


Join Da9L, Bratyn and Jojo at 16:00CET on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive as they have a closer look at Anarchist Spain!
 
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I hope that what this will accomplish is a serious internal discussion on where the game is heading and how to prioritize further development. If the road ahead is one of more fantasy content where simple bugs are ignored and historical content is flawed at best, maybe it’s time to be honest towards the players and tell everyone that.
But why do you think complaining about what a dev does on his free time will lead to that?
 
Bitching about 'this is relevant content or not' wich is in itselft an irrelevant disscusion: like they want to put some fantasy stuff good for them they don't force u to play that part of the game.
What BAFFLES me is nobody's complaining about this distilled ugliness:
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like look at THAT for the love of your god. You can't make an image that hideous on purpouse, it's some kinda chernobyl-level mistake...
 
as I have already mentioned above (if you had bothered to look), there is already a United Arabian Republic in the game right now you could launch the game right now and unite Arabia and get a united Arabia formable
Sorry I don't see every post on a thread that is currently racking up 3 pages in 30 minutes...but cool, thanks for the advice.
 
But why do you think complaining about what a dev does on his free time will lead to that?

I’m not complaining about what anyone does in his spare time. I’m seriously questioning how the the whole development is managed and what is considered relevant for inclusion in a DLC. That’s the big issue here, not if someone wants to spend time googling the first prime minister of Tonga.
 
While I do feel that there is definitely something to be said about this being a jumping the shark moment, if its happening anyway, might as well take advantage of it. Consequently here are some other ideas for formables that might work for Hoi4.

Intermarium-Probably best tied to a Poland rework, it would allow the Międzymorze faction to gain greater strength by unifiying into the equivalent of the EU tag for the Western Democracies.
Pan-Celtic Union-Exactly what it says on the tin, a tag formable by the Irish, Scots, Welsh and if Brittany is added as a tag, Bretons. The latter region's nationalist leaders did actually believe in a Pan-Celtic Union.
United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata-The FRCA but for South-America, formable by the Argentines, Bolivians, Uruguayans and possibly Chileans. (If its added, might as well let the formable be formed by and core Chile.)
CIS/Eurasian Union-Wouldn't need to be a formable per se, but might just be flavorful to have some sort of formable/cosmetic tag for a democratic Russia, rather than have them remain the same, whether they own all the Soviet Union's territory or one province in Siberia. There's already some precedent here with the cosmetic tag in the Soviets becoming the RSFR if all their releasables go free.
 
About two months ago I visited these forums for some advice. I was awe struck with the help I received, so much so I started reading more threads and found the most helpful and informative forum I have ever visited. I now visit almost every day. I feel like I am some small part of a fan base that tries to work together to help make the game better. As part of this team I cannot separate myself from what I see happening here today. Frankly, I am ashamed.

A new team member has joined us working on bug fixes, the very thing most of us want him to work on. Then this new team member decides to give us a gift of his personal time and what do we do? We drop trousers and crap on the floor.

I have the distinct feeling that there are few children playing this game, let alone helping each other in these forums. That means we have no excuse for being so ugly to someone who has done nothing but what we asked, worked on bugs, and gave us a gift of his free time.
 
the forum regulars call for better mechanics, bug fixing and the addition of significant WWII content and events... and PDX releases a diary about formable tags for Samoa and a decision to restore the Umayyad Caliphate (nearly 1000 years late and with questionable borders).

We are getting better mechanics, as detailed in the previous dev diaries, and the rework of the Spanish civil war and the French focus trees brings us closer to a more accurate WW2 depiction in HOI4 (Vichy joining the war as soon as they formed was a huge inaccuracy that made the game so much harder to play historically and has been a key complaint on the forum since the game launched). From what I remember, bug fixes are generally covered in one of the last dev diaries before the patch/DLC release, so Husky's is probably a way off given that we haven't even got a release date.

I can understand some frustration but there are always going to be smaller dev diaries that contain some bits and pieces that are part of the greater package. I remember enjoying the MTG dev diary that just covered the amphibious tanks and their models. Al-Andalus looks fun and adds goals for a number of the North African releasable nations, incentivising people to play them. Half the community plays with alt-history paths and much of the WW2 content people want (stuff for Turkey, Greece and Finland to name the more popular requests) are almost certainly planned for the future, just not as part of La-Resistance.

Again, I do not fault you at all for that, this reflects mostly on whoever decided to go ahead with a diary on this topic at this point in time

I don't think it's fair to criticise the timing when we don't know what's next. If the AI dev diary needed another few weeks to fix some issues, it needs those extra weeks. This is a fun smaller dev diary that covers some features that a portion of the community will enjoy. Almost 1% of the community have the Byzantium achievement, which I remember also seeing a lot of complaining about when it was announced. Using a couple of hours of personal dev time to build some new stuff with pre-existing systems for a chunk of the community seems fair.
 
1. Thank you for your hard work in creating new and unique ways to play this game.

2. Welcome to the team.

3. Now PLEASE fix my Soviet Union! It’s just so... bleh compared to the rest of the major players!
 
I still think that more resources are needed to fix bugs quicker.

there are bugs 10+ months old, that are reported repeatedly in the bug forum, just to be systemacally ignored till some reddit post explodes or some first reply in a DD gets the attention of Podcat.

Bugs lasting 1 year has been a thing since the releas of WtT, hope it can change.

Quite a few basic control bugs since 1.0, unfortunately. Battle planner in particular comes to mind, as it will send units outside of the displayed order.
 
Again, the problem is NOT that content designers are not working on the AI.
The problem is that the game direction is obviously happy to make memes. Byzantium is also a meme, and shouldn't have been in, despite what my inner Byzantinophile says. This is silly ISP-video worthy mod potential
Opportunity costs exist. Not all content should be in a game just because it is designed.
nofunallowed.jpg

Also, the way "bae" finally seems to be going out of fashion, I hope people will outgrow using "meme" outside of Reddit.
 
Well, that was unexpected. I mean, I am happy to have returned to the game with MTG, but...aren't there more important things to fix? Like, incredible stupid AI (the vast majority of players goes for singleplayer), bugs and actually quite important countries not even properly joining the war if you play historically (yes, you are sitting in Sweden and seemingly forgot about your neighbouring country, Finland!)? Please, at least hire someone to fix the AI and don't give us more broken, useless content nobody cares about.
"Programmers, keep fixing the AI.
Everyone else, paid vacation."
 
3. Now PLEASE fix my Soviet Union! It’s just so... bleh compared to the rest of the major players!

Maybe the Soviet Union will fix the other major players... :D

Personally, I'm hoping that the Purge is one day given its own separate mechanics and it's not just a focus on the tree anymore.
 
Kaiserreich's alt-history is acceptable and even cool (like the German monarchic path we already have). But things like Al-Andalus or the Roman Empire are just silly for a game about WW2 (and yes, I know about Mussolini's romanticised nationalist view about a restored Roman Empire).

They literally have a Second American Civil War hamfisted in there solely for balance. Let’s recap the US in KR: 15 years of nonstop economic failure. That’s plain unrealistic. Kaiserreich has some cool stuff, but by no means is it realistic. They have an idea of what they want and they craft a story to fit it. For instance, France being able to stand up to Mittleuropa, Austria lumbering on like it’s in a time freeze, the Ottoman Empire managing to hold on despite them cutting most ties with Germany. The mod is full of fiat and bias, don’t treat it as a monolith of historical plausibility.
 
I’m not complaining about what anyone does in his spare time. I’m seriously questioning how the the whole development is managed and what is considered relevant for inclusion in a DLC. That’s the big issue here, not if someone wants to spend time googling the first prime minister of Tonga.

No, you actually are complaining about exactly that:

[...] for now my job has mainly been to fix bugs and refine existing features, so anything creative like this has been done in my own time out of passion for the game

It has been established that Meka66 has been working on bugs and events, but the diary is about the other stuff: what Meka66 has been doing while off the clock. Management saw the releasable tags and found them acceptable, there are people who enjoy this far-fetched stuff. It doesn't mean the HoI4 roadmap was altered or impeded by adding it to the next patch/DLC.

We had the same stink of a response a year and a half ago when Bratyn talked about the releasable African tags he created during his free time. There were people who could not handle a dev diary not about the things they cared about, but what an employee did for the game on his free time.
 
Q["alsali, post: 26186009, member: 725382"]Again, the problem is NOT that content designers are not working on the AI.[/QUOTE]Tell this to the people in this thread complaining about exactly this. And about devs adding stuff in their free time.
 
I think its a bit too liberal with cores. Spain is going through a civil war between Catholic fascists and for the most part anti religion communists. I don't think either side is going to accept militant Muslims reforming a caliphate. You missed the opportunity for just having Maghreb be formable. A pan Berber state isn't too far fetched.

People don't mind Rome as much because its a poke at Mussolini. Byzantium is a running joke in paradox games as its formable or present in all of them. The HRE is a very hidden Easter egg that requires the Hindenburg to survive and very specific focus choices.