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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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Will the French Basque territories be releasable? Can France also get a core on the Basque territories in Spain? The Basques didn't want to be part of Spain back then, but the French Basques were more loyal to France. A Fascist or Monarchist France ought to be able to unite them under French rule, while a communist France could decolonize by releasing the Basques to merge with their Spanish brethren.
 
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.
View attachment 540212
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.
View attachment 540213

Tahiti
View attachment 540214

Samoa
View attachment 540216

The Federated States of Micronesia
View attachment 540217

The Solomon Islands
View attachment 540218

The Mariana Federation
View attachment 540219

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.
View attachment 540220

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.
View attachment 540221
View attachment 540222

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.
View attachment 540223

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


Catalonia
View attachment 540224

The Basque Country
View attachment 540225

Galicia
View attachment 540226

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.
View attachment 540460

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.
View attachment 540227

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.
View attachment 540228

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.
View attachment 540229

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.
View attachment 540230

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.
View attachment 540433
View attachment 540231

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.
View attachment 540272

Join Da9L, Bratyn and Jojo at 16:00CET on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive as they have a closer look at Anarchist Spain!

Why doesn't the Kingdom of Hawaii have a Union Jack on its flag like it did historically? This was the flag of the historic kingdom, territory and the modern State so it makes sense that it would be the flag of an independent Hawaii unless the new state was Communist.

Also - if Morocco can Core Spain now is the UK ever going to get the opportunity to core South Africa and at least Southern India after Imperial Federation?
 
everyone is wondering why it isn't just a Pan-Arab formable but there's already a Pan-Arabia formable in the game- to be fair, I was only aware when I was testing Iraq in a mod I'm working on right now, but there is indeed an Arabia formable.
 
@Meka66 Please add Republic of Hatay as releasable. It is actually one state that declared indepence from French Syria and joined Turkey later. And all this happened in game's timeline.

Tayfur Sökmen got into TBMM by being elected independent deputy from Antalya in 1935. After France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon in 1936, he worked for the District of Alexandretta to gain independence as well. In the meantime Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was also taking serious steps for the District of Alexandretta to gain its independence.
In January 1937, the District of Alexandretta was recognized as a semi-autonomous district, which was subordinated to Syria in foreign affairs but was to be governed by its own constitution, and its name was changed to the District of Hatay. In the same year, upon the diplomatic note Turkey sent, France requested the issue to be resolved in the United Nations. With the agreement that was reached as a result of the imposition of international conditions, the League of Nations (United Nations) accepted a constitution for Hatay on May 19th, 1937 and declared that Republic of Hatay was founded under the supervision of a council consisting of Turks and the French. Tayfur Sökmen was elected the President of Republic of Hatay on September 2nd, 1938. Republic of Hatay joined the Republic of Turkey upon the decision of its own National Assembly on June 23rd, 1939. Sökmen, whose Presidency came to an end upon the joining of Hatay to Republic of Turkey, maintained his legislative task in TBMM as a deputy of Antalya (1939-50) and Hatay (1950-54).
Tayfur_Ata_Bey_S%C3%B6kmen.jpg

http://www.biyografya.com/biyografi/17812

He should be Hatay's president. He might be in advisor pool after Hatay joins Turkey, but not necessary.

These Turkish tags could be possible as well.
One in Thrace for Thracian Turks
One in Cyprus for Cypriot Turks
Yes there are 3 possible Turkish puppets I leave here, (Hatay is necessary as it was declared in hoi4 timeline) It is up to devs in the end.

1. Hatay State (1938-1939)
View attachment 459067
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatay_State

2. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (1983-)
View attachment 459065
Turkish Federated State of Cyprus (1975-1983) (old name)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus
3. Provisional Government of Western Thrace (1913)
View attachment 459066
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Western_Thrace
 
Why are people here so obsessed about making Content Designers program the AI? Do you people desire a worse AI so much?
Content Designers always need to be paid, and for that they also need to work, so they will always make something, no matter how well or bad programmers do.
Funny, how you ignored the part that would have fit the content designer thing...Finland, anyone? Winter War rings a bell? What about Italy and its civil war during WW2? Yugoslavia? I thought this DLC is about partisans and resistance, but the nation with the most successful and strongest resistance movement of the whole war doesn't get any love? Yes, he is a content designer. Probably he should design some content for Hearts of Iron then, not EU4. Because, you know...he is on the HoI4 team now. Polynesia I don't have a problem with, could be a vassal state formed by Japan. Fine with it. But Al-Andalus? There aren't any people left that would support this bullshit in Spain at this point! Also religion was far less influential back then, there is a reason why almost all freshly forming regimes in North Africa and Arabia where anti-religious after WW2. A United Arabian Republic or something like that, now that would at least make some sense...
 
Because a lot of people enjoy it. HOI4 is a game played by lots of different people and formables is one of those things people keep asking for more of. If you dont like it thats fine to say that, but try to keep in mind the different kinds of players we have.

I'll trust you on that, but part of my point here was that adding all these options dilutes the game, and that by catering to one fanbase you risk losing another. I don't think the game can be everything to everybody.

As an example we put a massive amount of development time into multiplayer despite the community not being particularly big. When it comes for ww2 history vs alt history content we probably spend 3x the resources on history stuff despite only about 50% of people play in a historical way. Its all about trying to balance a lot of different wants.

Well, that's good to hear. I hope we can expect some of the historical content I mentioned earlier, such as the Phoney War, Italian Civil War, or a fleshed out Winter War, in the future. Just speaking for myself here, but the historical aspect of the game is what makes any alt history play interesting. And most of the alt history scenarios feel toothless, as they screw up the "chess board" setup of the war.

Also fun side fact, me having to respond to people posting mean stuff to a guy who just wanted to show off some fun stuff he did in his off time IS eating into ai bugfixing which I am currently doing

Again, my apologies to @Meka66 for jumping on his first thread here like this. It's not personal and I'm sure a lot of great work has been put into this. The issue is more about the direction the game is taking - seeing new formables and alternate history trees make it into the game, but not iconic WW2 events - and this was a good moment to highlight that. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Godspeed on the bug fixing Podcat.
 
Wow, it seems HoI4 is really leaning hard on alt-history. I wonder if the game's development has been influenced by the popularity of Kaiserreich? Some of these concepts are pure fantasy, beyond the wildest stuff even Kaiserreich has ever contained.
 
Funny, how you ignored the part that would have fit the content designer thing...Finland, anyone? Winter War rings a bell? What about Italy and its civil war during WW2? Yugoslavia? I thought this DLC is about partisans and resistance, but the nation with the most successful and strongest resistance movement of the whole war doesn't get any love? Yes, he is a content designer. Probably he should design some content for Hearts of Iron then, not EU4. Because, you know...he is on the HoI4 team now. Polynesia I don't have a problem with, could be a vassal state formed by Japan. Fine with it. But Al-Andalus? There aren't any people left that would support this bullshit in Spain at this point! Also religion was far less influential back then, there is a reason why almost all freshly forming regimes in North Africa and Arabia where anti-religious after WW2. A United Arabian Republic or something like that, now that would at least make some sense...
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
 
Wow, it seems HoI4 is really leaning hard on alt-history. I wonder if the game's development has been influenced by the popularity of Kaiserreich?

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).
 
I trade without blink any extra-tags on pacific for

- just 2 more historical Japan focuses before that they could pickup "Southern Strike", so they dont early declare war on USA,,
- britsh AI dont suicide itself against Japan navy
- fix USA AI economy so they could bring a decent navy in later years like historical.
 
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A reminder that Content Designers can have Personal Development Time and do things outside of their contracted work I.e this didn't take any focus away from the content of the expansion, bug fixes or anything of the sort. Much the same as the releasable tags made by @Bratyn in MtG
I hope not everything that is done on personal dev time is automatically added to the game, and that it's someone's job to say "no". That person should have said "no" to this.

Otherwise I fear the time when a content dev will add the "myLittlePony" formable nation to the game in his free dev time.
 
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).
I tend to agree, although I have not played KR for HoI4, only for DH. This is just me popping in and reading an HoI4 dev diary after years of not following the game's development and being somewhat taken aback.
 
How much manpower and industry will Polynesia have? It will need an exaggerated ammount to be able to do anything I imagine.

Also will it be possible to play one of these releasables in iron man now?
 
Red flag! Red flag!

If that's the mentality, I may as well play civ
That was my approach to designing specifically the Andalusia formable, it does not reflect my stance on design for HoI4 as a whole.

@Meka66 Examples:
- East African Federation
- Greater Mongolia
- United South America
- Central Asia (Turan)
- Indochina
- Greater Antilles
- Transcaucasia
- Australasia (AST+NZL)
- Hispaniola
- The Gold Coast of Africa
I would be delighted at the opportunity to add more formables in the future :)

does come across as bug fixes being less worthy of mention than this. Even just two or three non-trivial bugs fixed (and maybe how they were found/analyzed/solved) would in my humble opinion make very good material for a dev diary.
Bugfixing has taken up a significant portion of my time on Hearts of Iron. While it has been time consuming and has improved the experience of the game overall, it didn't strike me as being something as interesting to talk about as some fun new features to play around with. While bugfixing is important and improves the game overall, it's not exciting and honestly once a bug is fixed and is verified as fixed, I largely forget there was ever even a bug there to begin with.

My job as a content designer is to create and refine content. It's something I'm passionate about and I like thinking of fun ways the player can enjoy the content I've made; maybe it's the challenge of it that appeals to someone, or the sandboxy fun you can have from a non-historic playthrough. Something like a formable doesn't take long to make or test, so it's easy to implement in my own time, whereas something like a focus tree overhaul as many in this thread have suggested takes up a lot of time to research, develop, and properly implement into the game. I'd love to take ownership of a focus tree in HoI's future, but 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 :)

Why doesn't the Kingdom of Hawaii have a Union Jack on its flag like it did historically? This was the flag of the historic kingdom, territory and the modern State so it makes sense that it would be the flag of an independent Hawaii unless the new state was Communist.
For neutral Hawaii, I have the royal standard as the national flag. The historical Union Jack design is available to a Democratic Hawaii. Hawaii as an independent nation is largely seen as either a republic or a restored monarchy, and since Non-Aligned is a bit finnicky to flip into, I made it their default starting ideology with a significantly high support for Democracy. While the monarchy did use the Union Flag as well, I wanted to make all Polynesian countries have four distinct flags for each of their ideologies.
 
Dear Paradox, don't you think that HoI4 is still not in the conditition when you can put your effort on some really absurd stuff? I don't want to be rude but there are plenty of major countries with little to no flavour and you just made another "memey" formable tag to hype on it. Also, really "nice" to see that you don't even bother yourselves to give some unique party names for Spanish splinters but almost every micro island nobody would play has at least one. Don't you think that there is something wrong with it?
 
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That was my approach to designing specifically the Andalusia formable, it does not reflect my stance on design for HoI4 as a whole.


I would be delighted at the opportunity to add more formables in the future :)


Bugfixing has taken up a significant portion of my time on Hearts of Iron. While it has been time consuming and has improved the experience of the game overall, it didn't strike me as being something as interesting to talk about as some fun new features to play around with. While bugfixing is important and improves the game overall, it's not exciting and honestly once a bug is fixed and is verified as fixed, I largely forget there was ever even a bug there to begin with.

My job as a content designer is to create and refine content. It's something I'm passionate about and I like thinking of fun ways the player can enjoy the content I've made; maybe it's the challenge of it that appeals to someone, or the sandboxy fun you can have from a non-historic playthrough. Something like a formable doesn't take long to make or test, so it's easy to implement in my own time, whereas something like a focus tree overhaul as many in this thread have suggested takes up a lot of time to research, develop, and properly implement into the game. I'd love to take ownership of a focus tree in HoI's future, but 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 :)


For neutral Hawaii, I have the royal standard as the national flag. The historical Union Jack design is available to a Democratic Hawaii. Hawaii as an independent nation is largely seen as either a republic or a restored monarchy, and since Non-Aligned is a bit finnicky to flip into, I made it their default starting ideology with a significantly high support for Democracy. While the monarchy did use the Union Flag as well, I wanted to make all Polynesian countries have four distinct flags for each of their ideologies.

So, all reasonable and really no thing to be as worked up about as everyone here is.
 
Because a lot of people enjoy it. HOI4 is a game played by lots of different people and formables is one of those things people keep asking for more of.
If you dont like it thats fine to say that, but try to keep in mind the different kinds of players we have. As an example we put a massive amount of development time into multiplayer despite the community not being particularly big. When it comes for ww2 history vs alt history content we probably spend 3x the resources on history stuff despite only about 50% of people play in a historical way. Its all about trying to balance a lot of different wants. Also fun side fact, me having to respond to people posting mean stuff to a guy who just wanted to show off some fun stuff he did in his off time IS eating into ai bugfixing which I am currently doing

Honestly, I think if Al-Andalus had been preceded by a bit about unifying all of Hispania either as a monolithic entity or as Castile/Potugal with the rest as puppets people would be more enthusiastic. It's just a bit difficult to get excited about new fringe content when there are big bugs eating a lot of us up.

For example, I'm British and the MtG bug which causes ships to have the wrong engines and armour gives me an almost irresistible urge to drydock Hood, Repulse and Renown for around 700 days each at the cost of 15 dockyards so that I can have the Ballecruiser Squadron to blow up German shipping. To say nothing of the bug with the G3 design leaving the British with no capital ship templates they can put into production on day one because the Washington Naval Treaty excludes all battleships from being produced.

This bug, and the AI issue with supply, really reduce my enjoyment of the game and make it feel like I'm fighting the engine and the AI - not fun.

On the other hand, I'll self aware enough in my old age to recognise that if you fixed the modules bug I'd probably start lobbying you to give the British ships higher tier guns across the board. So maybe we're just all terrible people. :(
 
Sorry, but this is very disappointing. There is much relevant content needed, and many design inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies to be fixed. Instead, we get a formable nation formed by countries which didn't even exist in 1936. It isn't even creating an alt-history from 1936, it's starting with an alt-history which is a nonsense. Somehow Morocco, Algeria or Libya didn't get colonized. And Pacific countries which are completely irrelevant to the game.

And please stop with that "every ideology must get a distinct name and flag for its country", some combinations are nonsense and break immersion.

The only interesting thing was bugfixing.