HOI4 Dev Diary - Future and Cornflakes

[mwyeoh]

Great list. Updating national focus trees is always exciting. Chain of command, national unity and espionage are the other things that stood out for me.
I hope they all make it into the next patch!

 

[maltsefalcon204]

@Dev team

My one sore spot is naval range, now I understand a fleet will not operate so well further from a friendly port but they should be able to navigate from friendly port to friendly port.

My major example is the Netherlands whose European navy forgot how to sail to Indonesia

 

[Dalwin]

Hi everyone, this week I'm going to take some time and talk future plans with you all.

Right now
With the "Oak" 1.4.2 patch out the door and the team back from vacation its time to start looking at the future. This week we started work on the next DLC which is going to be a full-sized expansion. A lot of people have been asking for more mechanics and larger changes, and this will be it. As normal the expansion will arrive together with a free update we've dubbed 1.5 "Cornflakes".

As for exactly what these will contain you will need to bear with us a bit. As I said with us getting started on it now we need some time to actually make and test stuff before we start showing it off to you. This will mean that the next two diaries (if all goes according to plan) are going to be covering other stuff while we get ready. My plan there is to get some guest writing in from people who can talk about the business and process side of the company and team.

The five year plan
Not actually a five year plan, but I want to share with you some form of roadmap on what to expect in the future. Some of you may have seen me talk about some of this in my PdxCon talk earlier this year.

Just to be super clear, this is not any form of exhaustive or final list and unless we have already done it we can't promise anythings. Priorities change etc. The point of this is to give you an idea of things we would like to do. The order of things is also not in any kind of priority order, or order we would do them.

• Improve flavor and immersion with naming of things in the game. No more Infantry Division Type 1 etc.
• More player control over naval warfare and fleet battle behaviour
• A Chain of Command system allowing field marshals to command generals
• A logistics system with more actual player involvement (now you only care once stuff has gone very badly)
• Improved naval combat interfaces with good transparency to underlying mechanics (give it the 1.4 air treatment)
• Improve balance, feedback and mechanics for submarine warfare
• Long term goals and strategies to guide ai rather than random vs historical focus lists, visible to players
• Every starting nation has a custom portrait for historical leaders
• A way for players to take dynamic decisions, quickly. Something that fits between events and national focuses.
• Spies and espionage
• Changing National Unity to something that matters during most of the game rather than when you are losing only
• Improving peace conferences
• Update core national focus trees with alt-history paths and more options (Germany, Italy, USA, United Kingdom, Soviet, France, Japan)
• Wunderwaffen projects
• Properly represent fuel in some way in the game
• Add the ability to clean up your equipment stockpile from old stuff
• Rework how wars work with respect to merging etc as its a big source of problems
• More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms
• More National Focus trees. (Among most interesting: China, South America, Scandinavia, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Greece)
• An occupation system that isnt tied only to wars and where core vs non-core isn't so binary for access to things.
• Make defensive warfare more fun
• Adding mechanics to limit the size of your standing army, particularly post-war etc
• Allow greater access to resources through improving infrastructure
• Have doctrines more strongly affect division designing to get away from cookie cutter solutions and too ahistorical gamey setups

You'll notice that some of these are small and some of them are huge. I can't really talk too much details about this stuff though. That is stuff we will do once/if it makes it to dev diaries with feature highlights and has been implemented. Oh yeah, and before someone goes "why isn't improving AI on this list" the answer is that its not really something you can ever check off as done. We'll keep working on that in parallel with other stuff as we have since release.

There is no World War Wednesday stream today since the channel is all streaming from Gamescom today, but you can now check out last weeks episode on youtube to see me run the dev team as generals in a massive co-op.

A very nice list, though I would think that an even bigger item for removing cookie cutter solutions to division design would be variable width. I would really like to see the prevalence of 20/40w go out the window.

 

[Casko]

• Update core national focus trees with alt-history paths and more options (Germany, Italy, USA, United Kingdom, Soviet, France, Japan)

• More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms

I do hope we'll get Monarchism at one point (or whatever else you may want to call it) so we can get to return Kaizer to Germany and Napoleon to France. or go full on Imperialist with Great Britain and decide to Elect Mannerheim as grand duke of Finland. and not suffer from the fact that imperial nation names are only limited to fascism like Russian Empire.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for a most excellent DD Podcat . This may just be a sign of me being crazy, but when I read that DD, "Oh what a list" played in my head to the tune of Oh What a Night . Lots of great stuff there, and all heading in the right direction from my (as noted, crazy ) perspective .

Two things that weren't on the list (noting that it's been well noted it's not a comprehensive list - so their omission may not be noteworthy ) that have been mentioned by others are message settings and spicing up technological progression.

On the first, I don't think there's a need to go back to 'old style' PDS message settings, but I still find myself regularly forced to do 'map sweeps' to keep an eye on things - in effect, UI micro-management - because notifications don't tell me enough of what's going on. Obviously, I'm still happy playing the game with this, but reducing it would be a good thing.

On the second, I'm finally at the point of starting to mod a probability-based, Rule the Waves style (so everything that a nation can research is researched all the time, but stuff that are in the research slots are researched faster) tech system. The three big benefits such a system should (by all means laugh at me when I crash and burn ) provide is:

• Less certainty over when technology is researched, and the potential for different technologies to be important at different times in different playthroughs.
• Easier balancing of technological progression (as it's less dependent on a relatively small number of tech slots)
• Easier adding of new technologies without playing merry havoc with balance (again, because it's less dependent on a small number of tech slots).

Just a thought - assuming you're not doing a technology rework in this DLC, I'll hopefully have something working before you'd have a chance to look at it.

More player control over naval warfare and fleet battle behaviour
Improved naval combat interfaces with good transparency to underlying mechanics (give it the 1.4 air treatment)
Improve balance, feedback and mechanics for submarine warfare

In terms of naval stuff (and not to take away from the substantial improvement in naval mechanics from HoI3 to HoI4), the underlying mechanics are far 'wonkier' than for air or land, and there's more room (particularly in the context of commerce warfare) for a broader rethink of how things are done. The addition of coastal zones and moving to an 'attritive' model for commerce warfare could potentially allow for the inclusion of things like mines and MTBs in a fairly low-'player attention' way, for example. Commerce warfare and sub interactions more broadly are the biggest issue, but the other things that stand out are 'screen slaughter' and the general lethality of naval combat (far, far too many ships are sunk in each battle relative to historic conditions). There's plenty of suggestion in the suggestions thread, but if you want more on anything in particular, just say the word .

The other thing about naval is that in land and air mechanics, there's a 'technological race' between the capabilities on both sides. At sea, however, this race was less in the ships themselves (by the time advanced late-war destroyers and cruisers were at sea, the war at sea was all but won), but more on what was mounted on those ships* (and particularly in terms of AA, radar and ASW, but also fire control (particularly close-in AA))**. If there was some way to represent this race (and the way that it was a race between ships, subs and aircraft) in the same way as the armour/piecing issue for tanks, say, that could maybe work well.

* That's not to say there weren't naval design improvements, but much of that happened before war broke out, and in the 1922-1936 period - so it's worth representing in-game, but things like improvements in the thickness of battleship deck armour, or gun performance, were a longer-term thing and less critical in the game's time period (but still critical in terms of the fleets fielded - it's just that many of those ships were built or laid down before 1936) in terms of a 'race' for performance or the outcome of the war.

** Submarines are the obvious exception here, although even then fittings to subs were probably almost as important as new sub designs - but I need to read more to be sure of that comment.

Long term goals and strategies to guide ai rather than random vs historical focus lists, visible to player

This would be a grand thing indeed. Are you thinking something like "Germany focus on the south in Barbarossa" or "Italy, focus on Greece instead of Africa", or more "Germany, focus on Sealion over Barbarossa"? Either way, would be tops - keep players guessing, and hopefully help the AI have more focussed offensives. Probably good for giving Steelvolt nightmares as well, but I assume that's all part of your job .

A logistics system with more actual player involvement (now you only care once stuff has gone very badly)
Properly represent fuel in some way in the game
Adding mechanics to limit the size of your standing army, particularly post-war etc

These three kind of go together (not suggesting that you weren't of a similar view or, if you're not, I'm not off the mark). If you had some kind of representation of (and impact of) the 'tooth-to-tail' ratio for the military, as well as some representation of the tail (either on map or as an off-map resource), and then some kind of more intrinsic and incremental mechanical impact on the proportion of the mobilised population on the civilian economy (even the US had trouble with personnel for its civilian and war industries in 1944/45, and they never hit the levels of mobilisation of most of the other combatants) that could help.

Some kind of basic 'minimum attrition' (or even supplies ) level thrown in with this, as well as an NU (and PP/economic?) impact of being 'over-mobilised' (so staying at high levels of war economy/conscription) after the war is over could help with demob. At least Britain actually started demobbing before the Pacific War was over, because their finances were in such a mess (and then faced financial difficulties re-mobbing for Korea, as they'd hardly recovered financially from WW2). I know you're not keen to add 'money' into the game, but if you had some kind of 'domestic economy CIC deficit' (needs a far better name obviously!) that needs 'working off' after the war is over, and can only be worked off once demobbed to a certain level (and more demob means more working off) - and the larger it gets, the larger the penalty on economic behaviour?

Random thought on logisticy type things - what about having an on-map supply depot (or depots) for a battleplan. The supply depot is slow to move, and the further units are from the depot, the slower they receive reinforcements or regain org. Plans are then forced to pause as they bring their depots forward (or risk overstretching and being counterattacked when their reinforcement/org regain rate is too low?

A way for players to take dynamic decisions, quickly. Something that fits between events and national focuses.

This would be all kinds of cool and useful from a modding perspective, and I can't imagine it wouldn't give you and the team plenty of new options to play with as well .

An occupation system that isnt tied only to wars and where core vs non-core isn't so binary for access to things.

This in the context of colonial territories would be all kinds of awesome. Something similar-ish to the various puppet states but for directly controlled areas maybe? You could even have a situation where if a directly controlled area became (through resistance or what-have-you) too 'un-controlled', it could switch control to a rebel/nationalist movement? Some kind of mechanic for occupied, directly-controlled territory in peacetime becoming 'less controlled' could also provide a spur for a decolonisation mechanic (ie, the writing is on the wall in terms of direct control, so it makes sense for a country to puppet or even 'let go' an area)?

Make defensive warfare more fun

Some kind of 'reserve forces' mechanic, that benefits from setting up plans (so setting the areas and priorities for reserve commitements) maybe?

Have doctrines more strongly affect division designing to get away from cookie cutter solutions and too ahistorical gamey setups

I was literally thinking about this last night . (I have no idea why - I'm currently modding naval production factory allocation, but hey) - if there were bonuses for a mix of battalions in a unit that weren't incremental - so some bonuses only happen if there are two (or some other combo) of battalion types (and bonuses are doctrine specific). So, for example, if there's an an ARM and a MOT or MEC, then there's a bonus to breakthrough (just an example, breakthrough may not be the best stat). However, if a unit was all ARM, then there might be a penalty to defence (no screening infantry).

It should be noted that this isn't a "this is what will be in the next DLC"-list. It is a list of things we want to do eventually, spread over several DLCs.

Hahaha, how long do you think you'd need to bend the laws of time/space to make days long enough for all of that to be done for the next DLC?!!! That list looks like years of work (at least a couple, probably more) - but it looks like a great list .

Inb4 most of this is locked behind paywall

Because why should the devs be paid for their time and effort eh ? Given how much free content Paradox provide, this kind of attitude is only more likely to lead them to think "well, bugger this, let's paywall the lot". I don't think they'll do this, but you're not doing yourself any favours, and you have absolutely no justification for expecting anything for free in terms of video games, ever*. Devs need to eat too .

* In a general sense - if you receive a particular offer, then by all means have an expectation - but more generally, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Hm. That sounds like a gamey sort of "gotcha" strategy, and not one that you can find any historical basis for I think?

There's the examples others have listed, but to throw another into the mix, what about the Battle of the Bulge?

@podcat This looks like a great list and I'm not surprised at all to see HOI IV starting to gain exit velocity.

Obviously I'm here to post about message settings. I've refrained for months as I know you've had bigger fish to fry and I wanted to give you time to come up with your alternative solution you brought up.

I'm guessing you're still planning on doing something and the omission from the list is an oversight, but I think it's pretty telling. I'm not going to rehash the arguments in favor of some sort of system that lets you know who what when and where instantly, as well as going to the spot if you want. I think they've been made, and if you're not persuaded you basically never will be. I'll reiterate that making this moddable, if possible, would result in a community solution pretty quickly.

What I do want to suggest is that whatever you end up deciding to do, bring @Axe99 in on the process. He loves this game and is one of its most visible supporters on these forums. He is a modder, so he's at least somewhat familiar with coding on a basic level. And most importantly, he plays in the style that no one at Paradox understands, so he's going to be able to be straight with you and let you know if you are really solving the problem (assuming you don't just implement message settings a la HOI III). He almost certainly will not leak to the forum or badmouth your behind closed doors discussions or decisions. To me it looks like there is a TON of groupthink at PDS right now when it comes to UI and how to engage with your games and I think you need a different perspective if you're going to do something about this problem (which you have acknowledged is a problem) that works.

You're far too kind . Of the people who I know who are already betas, they're pretty good value, so fear not .

Since you mention modders, do you mean like "what not to do" or how to structure triggers etc for better performance? Optimization is one of those things we also do in parallel like AI and we tend to bring up when solutions are interesting etc (Tomasz did a good diary for 1.3 if I recall right).

I terms of modding, some insight into how the ai_strategies work (and what hard-coded factors are also at play, that we can't see but are quite obviously still a thing) would be very handy.

eventually probably. capital ships are a big investment and its sad not to be able to modernize them etc

Would work great with some kind of ship-designer system (where an upgrade would be the ship designer, but with only certain elements upgradeable) - figured it can't hurt to suggest .

We actually tested tabs in development and it has downsides. Improving the production interface for handling the past-midgame amount of production going on is definitly on our lists for sure though

One thought could be instead of tabs, have two levels for each production item. So, for example, have 'infantry equipment' (covering both INF and Support equipment), that when clicked on takes you to a second-level (or a pop-up, similar to the variant upgrade pop-up) with details of which factories are on which lines for the various pieces of equipment - with players setting ratios of how many factories to apportion to each piece of kit). Same for tanks, single-engine aircraft, multi-engine aircraft, etc;. With some reworking of the production system (impact of resource shortages spread more evenly between factories, for example, and differences in the rate of loss/change of gearing bonus when factories are moved within a 'production group' rather than outside it), this could help make it more manageable maybe? Again, just a thought.[/QUOTE]

Hope all those crazy ideas not completely useless (or, if so, at least entertaining? ). Looking forward to the guestwriter DLCs over the next few weeks, always interesting to get some insight into the broader development process, and very much looking forward to whatever you and the team are planning for the next expansion .

 

[astec]

stuff isnt locked down at all in this list. this is supposed to give you an idea where we are moving, so feel free to discuss and suggest stuff

You said this next expansion was Asia focused right? We NEED to have focus trees for Manchukuo, PRC, Nationalist China (maybe a generic tree for the rest of the Chinese minors?), Siam, and maybe even the Philippines. Make the naval combat less ONE DIMENSIONAL (rather than having ships advance either towards or away) make naval combat a top down perspective of the different fleets with different levels of positioning with naval COMBAT TACTICS determining fleet positioning. Maybe allow the player to make a deck of tactics that improves as he researches naval doctrines or gets naval XP. Make the island campaign more interesting, maybe create dedicated transport units for naval invasions and allow planning bonus to build on naval attacks to take out the stubborn holdouts.

 

[Gamer_1745]

You're far too kind . Of the people who I know who are already betas, they're pretty good value, so fear not .

No, really you should be in the Beta!

 

[Merrivale]

You're far too kind . Of the people who I know who are already betas, they're pretty good value, so fear not .

I think your post here speaks for itself (although I chopped out the rest). I'm sure there are great folks in the beta, but I KNOW that you understand my perspective on managing units in Paradox games and your dedication to this game is apparent to anyone on the forum.

 

[Grave461]

• A Chain of Command system allowing field marshals to command generals.

I've been wanting something like this since the first day I played HOI4. Looking forward to seeing if this implemented.

As far as the "5 year plan" is concerned: you mentioned about making things more interesting post-war. Any possibility for a future DLC that focuses on the Korean War?

 

[Landsturmamrika]

• More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms

.

Maybe this is narcisissim, but I feel like my thread I started a few weeks ago has made a difference. You're a good guy @podcat.

Fix DIVISON SPAM please.

 

[Rauzy2222]

In next DLC I would like see, that's important improvement in performace of game, a like this game, but is not playable after 1944, the game havy terrible performace, all modifications now it's useless, if not is possible play the game, i see lives in youtube people with computer with configurations very good, as with I I5,video card gtx 980,8g ram, with bad performace, this has to stop!, thats is main thing, and ''custom nations'' as EU4, and a more historical gameplay, Japan not win war with China, and not join axis, and naval modification, and IA improvements,
I sincerely, a think that game need improvement performace and IA.

 

[Meglok]

@podcat Fantastic list of improvements for the future. So you will have this all done in time for Christmas, right? (Just don't ask which Christmas )

You know what my vote for priority is, a working Pacific war and a partisan/suppression system where the ai can actually suppress partisans

 

[bwhite9]

@podcat @SteelVolt

I was wondering if you guys have ever experimented or looked at any of the mods on the workshop that say they improve the AI? Mods like "Expert AI 2.0" or "Better Mechanics: Frontline AI". Have you guys adopted anything that they have done or taken any inspiration from them?

 

[Jeankazuhiza]

If Chile get his own national focus, then i'm in!

I hope you can include Mexico as well (it would be interesting see a Synarchist Mexico trying to invade Cuba).

Also, any chance that in the Iran political focus tree we would a religious-like option? (I know that religion is not an important thing in HOI4, but it would be interesting to see something a like an Islamic Revolution or something like that).

 

[Rommel41]

I really thought that list was for the next DLC as a whole! I figured you guys hired a dozen new programmers and decided to give the game a complete overhaul!

Maybe you can still hammer out 90% of that list in less than a year for under $30-$40 cost to us?

I look forward to playing seriously again one day and it looks like you guys are seriously preparing to make it happen!

Thanks for all the hard work!

 

[Spartanlemur]

Nukes. Ideally a nuclear race mechanic which is part of the espionage system.

 

[luxfelix]

• Improving peace conferences

Perhaps it would be useful to treat the war-ending peace conferences as the conclusion to a process that takes place during the war as well.

What I mean is that, even during the war, the allies would meet (such as the Tehran Conference historically).

We currently have a system for transferring occupied territory, claims/cores, and AI preferences based on government type (etc.).

If extended occupation of an area gave that nation more say in how that territory will be handled in the peace treaty (reduced cost or something, based on troop presence/occupation length?), that could provide an incentive for players to harbor ulterior motives and prioritize certain theaters of war over others (possible betrayals...? ).

If there are periodic conferences (with or without game pauses if possible for dealing with only one or two issues at a time), this could provide for more direct goals (for bonus warscore reward etc. if/when achieved?), reduce the big warscore unloading of the final peace conference at war's end, and likewise open up time and potential uses for influencing government/increasing opinion diplomatic actions. Maybe a nation could trade warscore like a currency/influence to support one proposal or another, incentivize occupation transfers, or trade for equipment/licenses/etc. (smaller cobelligerents can form coalitions to buoy the ambitions of the great powers -- will great powers avoid calling in certain countries to war when considering this as well?).

Some gameplay precedents to consider -- for good or for ill: Flashpoint Crises mechanic in Victoria II, and the game phase flow found in the classic board game "Diplomacy".

http://www.wizards.com/global/images/ah_prod_diplomacy_pic3_en.jpg

 

[luxfelix]

• Spies and espionage

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...eration-paperclip-industry-intrigues.1037106/

 

[Ksyr]

@Dev team

My one sore spot is naval range, now I understand a fleet will not operate so well further from a friendly port but they should be able to navigate from friendly port to friendly port.

My major example is the Netherlands whose European navy forgot how to sail to Indonesia

You can move your fleet to a far away friendly port by ctrl clicking on the port to make it home port and then give the order to go there.

 

[myzael]

Any chance to improve Polish national focus tree? Now it is weaker than a generic tree. And they has not own voices like countries from Death or Dishonor (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania etc). Generally "United and Ready" DLC content looks a bit poor in comparison to counterparts from other DLCs. So maybe is 1.5 patch a good opportunity to change it? .

While the Polish NF tree definitely should be overhauled, or, at the very least, rebalanced, Poland did get it's voice pack.