HOI4 Dev Diary - Intel

[podcat]

Hi everyone! Next to last dev diary before christmas, and today we are going to talk about intel. We have been talking about ways to get intel a bit in previous diaries, like code cracking, scout planes and spies but not really talked about the system as a whole. So lets get to it!

Before intel was based essentially on comparing two nations crypto tech levels and it was a flat value covering everything. To make this more interesting we are splitting it into 4 separate values: Civilian/Industry Intel, Army Intel, Navy Intel, Air Intel. These affect what you can see in our new intel ledger, that replaces the little intel bit in the diplomacy interface from before for people with La Resistance:

Each of the tabs cover each type of intel (here we have civilian/industry selected), and they also come with mapmode information. As an example in the one above we aggregate building values as you zoom out (if you zoom in you see the same by state). This can help you when figuring out where to bomb or where and what kind of sabotage can be most effective.

The more intel you have the more information is displayed, we break down the levels in a tooltip per category:

So right now I can see how many army techs have been researched, but not specifically which. That requires 70% but then you can look at their tech tree. If I had 5% more I could see roughly how many of each division template the other nation had. At the moment I can only see that they exist but no real info about what they contain.

The army intel tab also lets you get a breakdown of the enemy stockpile of equipment.

Naval and air are similar:

Naval intel mapmode is quite powerful and at high intel levels will let you see where the enemy is placing certain missions

Intel can come from many different sources, for example:
- Spy networks
- Infiltrated spy assets
- Captured enemy spies
- Radar
- Broken Ciphers
- Scout planes
- Fighting the enemy in land combat
- Fighting the enemy in air combat
- Fighting the enemy in naval combat
And probably some I forgot.

Each source has a max it can contribute and may affect different intel values in different ways. For example if you have a spy network over the enemies coast, or scout naval areas with traffic you will get more naval intel. Each source also decays over time so its important to actively do things to keep your intel levels current and make sure you combine many sources to get as much intel as possible.

Here I have multiple sources:

Do note that the biggest chunk here is me doing some quick events with rewards of intel to cheat my way to quick screenshots . Also note that simply being democratic and having open trade laws make hiding the civilian part of your intel hard.

Knowing what kind of build strategy, templates, tech and stockpile an enemy has can be very useful allowing you to counter and attack them in the best way possible, but there is also direct advantage from relative intel which replaces the crypto level comparison from before.

See you next week for more cool stuff, and don't forget to tune into twitch at 16:00CET where we will be showing of France for the first time (aka watch Daniel accidentally leak stuff).

 

[podcat]

Is the Ai trained to adjust strategies based off of intel?

Ai uses intel for evaluating numbers and stuff in the background. Other than that we havent done any specific ai strategies for this atm, although its certainly possible in the future. Its the kind of thing that takes quite a bit of time.

Does this mean we can finally see what our allies have in terms of equipment, fuel and research ?

yes

Does higher cryptology give a static boost and if it does is it listed under events? Obviously numbers aren’t final I’m just seeing that other than things the target country does, swing democratic, free market etc. there doesn’t seem to be intel gathered by you without direct action

well, cracking someones code does give a lot. The levels of cryptology now only decide how long it takes to crack. The cracking itself has a separate source with separate decay etc

 

[podcat]

Are you able to keep past intel reports? I mean that when your intel level drops, do you suddenly forget that your target used to have Medium Arnour 1939, but now you have no idea because you can no longer see their researched tech levels, and your cleaning lady threw away the old report you were too busy at the time to read.

Also, will the division template intel show only templates in use (1+ division deployed/in training). Judging by the sheer number of templates my subject nations generate over time, knowing about a target's potential templates will be meaningless (hmm...36 variations of Infantry division - that should be a standardisation/logistics nightmare).

gotto check but I dont think you can see templates that arent in use so that limits the list.
Past reports are not saved although we do have some graphs etc for production numbers of ships/industry etc where you can see over time if you are wearign them down or not

I fear it could be way to much to Micro for me now. Intel seems very important or powerful to have over an enemy and you have to manage so much now only to not fall behind in MP for example.

Its mostly passive stuff actually, and you get a fair amount simly from actively fighting them so I wouldnt be too worried. Scouts can be assigned to armies, networks manage themselves and crypto cracking takes months to do so its not a huge attention seeker.

Does intel still provide any modifiers in combat like it used to? Or this will be only for those without La Resistance?

yeah see last screenshot. Its for everyone. The ledger GUI and various other ways to gain intel other than the basics are LaR exclusive tho.

 

[podcat]

Question will for example the USA be very good at spying due to all the immigrants and cultures they historically house?

not unless they invest in recruiting like that but its a pretty cool idea. Operatives with local tags (so sending an italian-american to spy in italy) do give better results

 

[podcat]

Another question will democratic countries get a modifier for spying due to them often being more diverse than fascist countries and them often housing refugees

atm when you get governments in exile and nations joining your faction after losing it will mean chance of recruiting from their nationalities

What about cheeky spying through "Request Licence Production"?

We are discussing that one. I think either a game rules to block it to factions or we have the diplo action have to be approved by the sender before they can see the list

Fake intel units? Did I miss something?

see https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-operations.1284812/

Hi Podcat, few really important questions:

1.) Does current "intel" system will be removed from the game? [eq. we can see a rough number of enemy ships in sea terrain or similiar things]

all the places that use fuzzy numbers will be using this stuff rather than comparign crypto levels now

Some other info I hope you'll add:

• Enemy convoy routes.
• Enemy trade partners. It's not obvious that Germany can import hundreds of oil from Iraq and Iran, which I only discovered by tag-switching one game. I now know it's important to deal with this in some way in my campaigns, but I feel it's a common noob-trap especially for those who only play on ironman and can't freely tag switch to see what's going on.

If you have higher intel levels you can see routes too. so this works

 

[YaBoy_Bobby]

Will democracies get any sort of bonuses to intel-gathering/operations? Given how they were ultimately victorious against fascist intelligence, hiding their cyphers and successfully cracking the enemy's, and attracting lots of defectors from the dictatorships.

Right now it seems Germany & Axis are gaining another ahistorical buff for no reason (other than the devs loving fascist gameplay I assume).

You know what they say about assuming...

Resistance rework will almost exclusively work as a debuff to axis. Democracies will have access to far more operatives in historical playthroughs. Democracies will also give up less intel on their armies and airforces.