• 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 - 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!
 
Last edited:
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Can we choose to disable this particular formable? Or maybe have a restricted option? It's one thing to have Morocco sweep across North Africa and unify the Islamic world. It's not super realistic but there's something going for it, given how recently the Ottoman Empire collapsed and it claimed to speak for the Islamic world, so okay. I can buy that part.

But...I mean...Spain?! What? I echo what the others have expressed so far, that this basically invalidates what a core is and just stretches the concept to its breaking point. In what world do the people of Spain cooperate with their Moroccon conquerers?
 
@Meka66

First of all, welcome to the forum!

Second, it is obvious that you are passionate about your work (because you invested a LOT of work into the pacific) and I am pretty sure that there are players who will enjoy this.

Third, I am sorry for the negative feedback that you received - especially as some of the feedback could be seen as belittling the work that you did in your personal time, which hurts even more.

Now, having said this, you would probably have received a MUCH more positive feedback if you would have highlighted your bugfixes first - there are MANY more people looking forward to that than people who are enthusiastic about playing minor nations in the pacific (no offense intended, more an observation).
After that, you could have presented your work in the pacific - I can see that you were passionate about it - and then, with an "while these nations are relatively plausible, here comes a really unlikely one:" and introduced Al-Andalus.

The feedback would have been much different.

Another point is that even when we talk about releasable nations, there are other releasable nations that would probably have more public interest like Quebec (but my guess is that your passion lies in the Pacific Ocean :) ).

Now, I have one question:

Wouldn't the Ryukyu Islands have been a logical candidate for an independent nation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_independence_movement

Not that Japan would ever voluntarily release them, but when Japan looses a major war, it should be on the table.

This is not a criticism nor a request, just curiosity.

Thanks,

Roland
 
reforming Ummayyad Caliphate suits Saudi Arabia more than Morocco imo

Iraqis, Yemenis, and Omanis are more suitable too....

Well, perhaps there should be a rework on how to form Arabia instead of making Al-Andalus (should've added Mahgreb instead, with aim to conquer whole Saharan Africa + bonus decisions to core Western Egypt and Timbuktu). The countries who are able to form it are still same, the Arab MENA nations, that is.

First of all, the Arabian peninsula should be conquered (with or without UK's holdings there) to form the initial Arabia. If UK still controls it, their lands would be cored too.

It would unlock 3 separate decisions to core Iraq, Syria-Lebanon, and Palestine-Jordan, much like Byzantium's "Victory in" decisions.

After getting 2/3 of the 1st set, a second set of decisions regarding of North Africa would be unlocked so that we can core Egypt-Sudan, Libya-Tunisia, and the rest of North Africa.

Clicking all decisions (both 1st and 2nd set) above would led to final two sets of decisions:

Proclaim the Union, which would re-core any Arabian states in MENA that aren't cored early on, along with increased stability and decision to move the capital to Cairo, Baghdad, or Damascus

or Restore the Caliphate (name and flag change) which increases war support and brings along decisions such as "Retake Anatolia", "Rashidun Expansion" into Iran and Afghanistan, and "Reclaim Caucasus" with cores up to Georgia and including Kars and Trabzon in Turkey. Also with option to move the capital either to Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad, or Medina.

This is the furthest we can go, perhaps. With Pan-Arabism is at large at that time, and the Islamic majority of those Arabs longing for a caliphate....

Arab Expanded.png


Edit: wording, additional decisions, image added
 
Last edited:
I've read most of the comments and I haven't really seen personal attacks. Why can't people voice their concerns and opinions without being called out for supposedly doing something awful? Maybe the bad messages have been removed? Regardless the new content designer is not at fault, but the guy approving this is where the concern lies. As podcat says a lot of different people play hoi4 I get that and good for paradox so I'm guessing they want to cater to the biggest audience they can because money speaks. But should us that want a "real" ww2 game be ridiculed? It's a perfectly logical thing to want from a hearts of iron game even though we don't get that anymore because perhaps the majority wants something else? Which is absurd when you think about it and the history of hearts of iron games. But I get it, money speaks and I accept that, I still would like to voice my concern and opinion over the direction the game is going and what I miss from previous games.

Regarding bug fix dev diary I think you guys would be surprised. There are some old nasty bugs that people would REJOICE if they were addressed. It's a huge issue and complaints going on for years now, surely you must realize that.

I haven't seen any post ridiculing those that don't like this, but a lot of people have been making attacks on the new formable nations Meka66 has done on his own spare time. I think it's more the way you word it, a lot of this is pure malignant criticism, not very constructive at all. :(
I don't see why the new formable nations would be a problem for anyone who wants to play historical. You won't even see the decisions to form the new formable nations unless you're New Zealand and even then you can just ignore it. Formable nations are optional, you don't have to take it. Meka66 has also been fixing bugs it's not a make formable nation ignore bugs scenario, but more of a make formable nation and fix bugs scenario. Why can't he do both? As for him designing this and not focus trees, well who's to say that paradox hasn't already started designing the focus trees for the next DLC? As for AI improvements, podcat is already working on it, so I don't really see why formable nations would be a problem for those who want to play historical, they don't ignore bug fixing or AI improvements in favor of formable nations, so I don't see why formable nations is a bad thing.
 
Anybody who is criticizing the addition of "fantasy" content to this game has probably forgotten that it is just that - a game.

I don't know how many times I can watch a historical WWII play out before I finally decide to chuck my PC out the window, but it's probably not enough to warrant the price I paid for this game. I paid a premium price for this GAME, and I happen to appreciate the devs adding more content to it to make it more interesting.

The game in its current state is both playable and fun, and there is no reason to believe that it will not be made even more enjoyable in the future. Taking the opportunity to use this dev diary to bash the game, the dev team, the dev team's work ethic... It's in very poor taste. I cannot see why the team cannot continue on with their current strategy - making realistic historical content AND ahistorical "fantasy" content. Could they spend more time working on bug fixes? Sure. But am I really going to boot up HoI4 and start a new game just so I can enjoy the fact that they finally fixed carrier air wings? No. I'm going to do it because there is new content.

There's historical mode for a reason. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to make use of these formable nations.

I'm very disappointed at the response to this DD. Criticism is fine when it's constructive, but so much of this is just pointless whining.
 
Can we choose to disable this particular formable? Or maybe have a restricted option? It's one thing to have Morocco sweep across North Africa and unify the Islamic world. It's not super realistic but there's something going for it, given how recently the Ottoman Empire collapsed and it claimed to speak for the Islamic world, so okay. I can buy that part.

But...I mean...Spain?! What? I echo what the others have expressed so far, that this basically invalidates what a core is and just stretches the concept to its breaking point. In what world do the people of Spain cooperate with their Moroccon conquerers?

I don't think we have to worry about it much. The fact is that we'll mostly forget this even exists because Morocco doesn't even exist in the game in either the 1936 or 1939 start dates. Only by enabling a special rule that decolonizes the world and disables achievements can it be done. It's also a super boring and unappealing game mode because none of the decolonized countries have focus trees and just sit around doing nothing for the whole game.

It's one of the reasons I think that these are dumb additions in the first place, but it does have to be admitted that adding formables is something that takes like 30 seconds to code and none of this really is going to have been at the expense of other things in the game, although I do have to admit it's somewhat infuriating that you can unite Iberia as Morocco, but not Portugal or Spain. At least there is a rationale there given that the incorporation of Portugal into Spain was part of the Falangist programme.
 
It's one of the reasons I think that these are dumb additions in the first place, but it does have to be admitted that adding formables is something that takes like 30 seconds to code and none of this really is going to have been at the expense of other things in the game, although I do have to admit it's somewhat infuriating that you can unite Iberia as Morocco, but not Portugal or Spain. At least there is a rationale there given that the incorporation of Portugal into Spain was part of the Falangist programme.
Can't you? I thought I saw some foci pertaining to that in the Nationalist and Portuguese trees.

Also, given that Monks and Mystics happened, I can't really fault people for being worried about meme content crowding out historical/plausible/vaguely in-theme content.
 
Cheers for the DD Meka66 and great work on those formables and releasables (and some very impressive flags there :cool:). While I spend most of my time playing historical (or historical-ish) games, I do enjoy something a bit more off-the-wall sometime, and a Pacific Union at game start rule is a pretty cool alt-history thing to have for a bit of fun :).

For all of those not keen on formables or releasables, I wouldn't sweat it. Just roll on and look forward to the mass of historical and historical-inspired content that is coming :). It would be no fun at all around here if everyone complained every time a game design decision was made that they didn't agree with, and it makes very little sense at all to design a game so narrowly that limits audience appeal. Don't forget that a broader audience may well mean more resources are spent on things like improving core mechanics - such as the espionage and intelligence systems we're getting, which look like they're adding a bunch of historical plausibility to go with our Al-Andalus. Live and let live and all that - it's a happier world when we can be happy that someone else is made happy, rather than we complain because the whole world isn't revolving around us :).

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.

Love your work :D.

Supply areas in S. America and China were pretty wonky and have been redrawn

Nice one :)

India and Pakistan will no longer go to war 100% of the time

I'm particularly fond of you fixing this one - cheers :).

Can we choose to disable this particular formable? Or maybe have a restricted option?

Formables are generally only for players, or at the very least for non-historical national focus mode. I don't think I've ever seen the AI pull off an ahistoric formable in historical focus mode (and very, very rarely in ahistorical mode). It's basically fun for players that want it. I think it's very (very!) unlikely we're going to see AI Morocco forming Al-Andalus in a normal playthrough. For MP, of course, you'll need rules, but MP already needs those, so that's hardly new.

For a naval pic for this week, I'll include a picture of HMAS Kanimbla's ship's cat - hopefully the creatures outside Podcat's shipping container are actually more like this cute little furball than they are like mountain lions :eek:

4078046.JPG
 
I'm late to the party, but given that this dev diary appears to be particularly controversial, I suppose I'll throw in my two cents.

I like the new releasable nations in Iberia (I was hoping Catalonia and Basque Country would make appearances!) and in the Pacific, The ability to form a pan-Polynesian state is cool too. However, I think that being able to form Al-Andalus is a little far-fetched, and I question the need for a "1444" option in the rules. If we want to play EU4 we can just play EU4. That said, most, if not all of the formable nations in HOI4 are pretty unrealistic and I've had fun trying to restore Byzantium and Rome.

I hope you devs don't feel discouraged when you get backlash for little stuff like this. I think most of the frustration from us fans comes from the fact that we really like this game and enjoy the updates and DLC, but wish they would come out faster. That's why there are complaints when little aesthetic stuff gets "prioritized" over major changes. None of us want to wait another two years for both the Soviet and Italy reworks. The content you put out is fantastic, but I feel the HOI4 team just isn't large enough to get the great stuff out fast enough.

Thank you for everything you do!

PS: When you restore the Ottoman Empire as a formable nation, can you make it so you get a Sultan national spirit? It's not very Ottoman without a member of the House of Osman on the throne. ;)
 
Cheers for the DD Meka66 and great work on those formables and releasables (and some very impressive flags there :cool:). While I spend most of my time playing historical (or historical-ish) games, I do enjoy something a bit more off-the-wall sometime, and a Pacific Union at game start rule is a pretty cool alt-history thing to have for a bit of fun :).

For all of those not keen on formables or releasables, I wouldn't sweat it. Just roll on and look forward to the mass of historical and historical-inspired content that is coming :). It would be no fun at all around here if everyone complained every time a game design decision was made that they didn't agree with, and it makes very little sense at all to design a game so narrowly that limits audience appeal. Don't forget that a broader audience may well mean more resources are spent on things like improving core mechanics - such as the espionage and intelligence systems we're getting, which look like they're adding a bunch of historical plausibility to go with our Al-Andalus. Live and let live and all that - it's a happier world when we can be happy that someone else is made happy, rather than we complain because the whole world isn't revolving around us :).



Love your work :D.



Nice one :)



I'm particularly fond of you fixing this one - cheers :).



Formables are generally only for players, or at the very least for non-historical national focus mode. I don't think I've ever seen the AI pull off an ahistoric formable in historical focus mode (and very, very rarely in ahistorical mode). It's basically fun for players that want it. I think it's very (very!) unlikely we're going to see AI Morocco forming Al-Andalus in a normal playthrough. For MP, of course, you'll need rules, but MP already needs those, so that's hardly new.

For a naval pic for this week, I'll include a picture of HMAS Kanimbla's ship's cat - hopefully the creatures outside Podcat's shipping container are actually more like this cute little furball than they are like mountain lions :eek:

4078046.JPG
Oh my gosh, she reminds me of Chessie the Railroad Kitten!
 
I adore the ridiculous possibility of reforming Al-Andalus into Umayyads Mk. II.

More seriously though, one of the things that puts me off HoI4 (cf. other PDX GSG's) is the lack of interesting tags for alt. history. It's nice to at least see a start to that with the Pacific states and those of Iberia.

Please continue this trend as far as you half-plausably can! ‍‍[why can't we use emoji? i need my japanese bowing girl telling you: 頑張ってください]
 
I literally just created this account only to defend the devs here.
You see this content update someone spent his free time for, because he loves the game so much, while in his work time he fixes bugs all time. And your response is negative towards that person? Way to kill passion of the devs. Is that your intention?
I get that you think you are not gonna use that feature. Sure, but does the feature existing harm your ingame experience? I doubt it does.
I have not once used a coffee cup holder in a car, yet I think the one who designed it was a genius, as many people enjoy drinking their coffee. It would never come to mind to rage against that person. Is a coffee cup holder a necessary feature of a car? Hell no. Does it improve driving experience for some? I guess so. (It’s a bad comparison but the first one i could come up with. And i felt that I had to say something.)

Congratz on your first dev diary, looking forward to hearing more from you and the upcoming expansion!
 
Do you really not understand or are you willfully pretending not to understand that the "unnecessary nations" are being worked on during people's free time and not during bugfixing work hours?

Do you really not understand or are you willfully pretending not to understand that the "content made during free time" =/= "good content" by itself? There are hella lot of broken content desperately in need for fixing, why don't they focus on it during their free time instead of some childish fantasy? We don't critisize devs because we are meanie or something, we just want to play a stable game. If the DD was about something like "Hello there, I've spent my free time to add peace event for Ethiopia in Italo-Ethiopian war, this should make Ethiopia playable at last because it was broken since day 1" or "you know, commie Yugoslavia tree was poorly designed and doesn't work as intendent, the other devs just trying to ignore the issue, so I've fixed it and you can now play commie Yugoslavia properly", then I would be the first one to say "Well done, your work is very appreciated". And I really appreciate Meka66's work on fixing bugs, this is really what content designers should dedicate their work to, but this Al-Andalus stuff is neither suitable for game nor needed.
 
There are hella lot of broken content desperately in need for fixing, why don't they focus on it during their free time instead of some childish fantasy?

Because it's the dev's free time and if they want to make something ahistorical, why not? I'd never expect nor want them to do work on their free time and if they are I would hope the union would speak up. And if the people responsible for the project decide to merge the dev's personal work into the game, that's fine by me - after all IIRC both Iron Century and Sunset Invasion begun as personal projects of devs.
 
Because it's the dev's free time and if they want to make something ahistorical, why not?
Maybe this would be a revelation for you, but fixing broken content is their JOB. Since when Paradox is a little team of enthusiastic modders who can do whatever they want because rule of cool? It's nice that devs dedicate their free time on their product, but maybe they should dedicate it on something they couldn't do during their work time instead of adding roof to the house without solid foundation?
 
In response to my earlier comment calling the formable nation "absurd," I would like to add that the fans need to calm the hell down.
 
Hi, welcome to the HOI4 team, thats a great dev diary, new formable TAG is always enjoyable, the same for releasable countries.

About the fantasy of the tag i would that you remenber that when Tariq ibn Ziyad ( a berber general) launch the initial invasion of iberia the number of is troops was between 7 000 and 9 000, so not so much, and you know the result...

After that Abd al-Rahman (half berber by is mother) do the same again withe a small army...

And Morocco do it several time after this two …

During this thime of muslim rule was establishe the «convivencia». A period of peace, tolerance and cooperation betwen each comunity. The goal of the decision is to re establish this "convivencia" that will be translate in game with core.

About this core, we can already get core on non european country by the reformation of the roman empire.

I know what people think never a white european people will accepte to cooperate withe an arab muslim country . But this will be like other colonisation a rebelion, the rebellion is crushed and people shut their mouth until the next one. Also that was cas case in the past.

About the plausibility, the plausibility is the same that musolini restoring the roman empire 0,01%.

Also i would like you to remenber that the fate of the western roman empire was sealed in 476, the eastern one in 1453, and the last muslim city in spain fall in 1492...

Also the game take place at a period where a country of few million souls hold against a red colossus... Nothing seem impossible.

For the end sorry for the bad english.