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HoI4 Dev Diary - LaR UK AAR

Join me as I recount some of the highlights from my recent prerelease testing playthrough of LaR in this After Action Report (AAR) where played I as the UK.

Phase 1: The buildup

When playing the UK in singleplayer I don’t really like trying to hold France, as I feel doing so kinda ruins the pacing of a historical playthrough. So I spent all my time from game start only building civilian factories with about 85% of my mills making aircraft. I also began establishing my intel agency in late 1937. I focused on improving my intel generation and code-cracking ability first so I could give some force multiplication to my rather small army.

agency.png



Phase 2: Naval Dominance and Focused Defense

At the start of hostilities, I began cracking Germany’s encryption and used my airforce in the Mediterranean in conjunction with a large part of my navy. I figured it wasn’t worth sacrificing too much air strength against Germany in France at this point. I had just switched to building military factories from only building civilian factories, so I could not afford to use my more limited airforce recklessly. I also set up the majority of my operatives to set up intel networks in Germany.

I attempted to recruit mostly “seducer” trait operatives as they have a lower chance of being caught. In the process, I got some interesting seduction experts.

OperativeSeducerLAdy.png


Most of my rather small army was deployed in Egypt to hold the Suez. With air superiority and an intel advantage over the Italians, Holding Egypt was a great success. I was able to recruit the famous Nancy Wake and I decided to send her on a Roman holiday to help me get more intel on Italy since I would be fighting them in Africa for the foreseeable future.

Wake In Rome.png



Phase 3: Battle of Malta

After the Italian navy was largely defeated, I infiltrated the Italian airforce to help get a more clear idea of how close I was to breaking it. At this point, the Italian airforce started port striking my Mediterranean Fleet in Malta. After looking at their plane counts in the intel ledger, I built up some radar in Malta and deployed the airforce to intercept the Italians in the region. Baiting them to bomb my exposed, and no longer as useful, fleet worked as phase one of my plan to break the axis airforce.

Battle of Malta.png


Meanwhile, In Germany and occupied France, my intel networks had become rather strong and were providing good info on the state of the axis. I had at this point also infiltrated the German civilian govt’ and army to open up further options for operations and to get a more clear picture of their strengths.

By late 1940 I had broken both the German and Italian ciphers and had weakened both the German and Italian airforces by fighting in favorable conditions where I had a large radar advantage combined with my passive cracked crypto advantage. Having enemy ciphers broken increases interception efficiency as well as adds to air detection.

Phase 4: Battle of Greece


At the end of 1940, Greece was invaded by Italy and Germany. By this point, I had a significant intel advantage, was close to matching axis airpower, and had a large and equipped Free French volunteer force. I decided I would turtle southern Greece as long as I could and brutalize the axis in the air in the process. I scrambled a large part of my North African forces to Greece and deployed the majority of my airpower. At one point my defensive line was nearly broken. I was able to save it by activating my broken ciphers on Germany, giving myself a temporary 30day combat. Before the buff expired I was able to get some extra forces in and save Greece.

CrackTheCodes.png


By mid-1941 I had overtaken the axis in the air and southern Greece looked more and more secure. I decided it was time to start boosting resistance in France and laying the groundwork for eventual liberation. I also was well on my way to cracking the new Italian and German ciphers.

greece airwar won.png


Once the ciphers were cracked again and my tac bombers were no longer needed in Greece, I decided to start harassing the Germans with a strategic bombing campaign in their homeland. With my Intel levels, I was able to track how my bombing campaign was impacting Germany. I had also begun targetting resource-rich areas in France with targeted sabotage operations to further put stress on the German war machine.

StratBombingUnderway.png


Phase 5: Yugoslavian Uprising

Over the course of the next year, America and Vichy joined the war and a fight for North Africa broke out again. With Intel and Air advantage pushing Vichy France back was pretty easy. During the North Africa campaign, I noticed that Croatia was barely keeping occupied Yugoslavia under control. So I sent some of my Operatives to support the resistance there, pushing it over the edge and causing a full-scale uprising. Many of the Axis forces in northern Greece were then cut off and annihilated.

YugoRises.png


After a great victory in Yugoslavia, I dedicated my operatives to building a massive spy network across all of Germany. This resulted in several captured Operatives, as they are more likely to be discovered in large and powerful networks, but I decided it was worth it to keep my intel on Germany maxed and the mainland set up for my Arrival.

Phase 6: La Resistance and D-Day

By mid-1942 the French Resistance, due in no small part to my support, had become disruptive. It was not fully rising up in rebellion but was strong enough to disable strategic redeploy in northern France and was providing constant attrition to local Axis forces. This combined with local spy network buffs, general intel advantage, air superiority, and ongoing fighting on the eastern front made securing my beachhead in France very smooth.

ParisFallsAgain.png


After setting up a plan to drive the Germans out of France, I once again fully utilized my code-cracking for a 30day buff and battle planned the Germans back into their homeland. By late 42 The Axis was all but broken and crumbling on all fronts. The combined Allied air, land, and intelligence efforts proved to be too much and everyone was Home for Christmas of ‘42.

I hope you all enjoyed my war story! See you next time.
 
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I missed that. An eye opener; thanks !!
Yeah, this kinda sums its up perfectly: "Most of the time things work correctly, and we are generally OK about the state of AI."
 
Yeah, this kinda sums its up perfectly: "Most of the time things work correctly, and we are generally OK about the state of AI."
Smells suspiciously of: Sales are ok= we are ok with the AI, and how we roll with this
 
The fact HoI4 in singleplayer is incapable of providing even a remote WW2 GSG experience because doing basically anything to the AI as any nation will cause it to collapse like a house of cards is very sad indeed.

Even assuming a competent AI, the player has a native advantage because *we know how WWII happens, or even that it happened* unlike the people in 1939.
 
Interesting use of the new espionage system. I do agree that the AI in this game is a bit problematic, but I think its also important to keep in mind that the AI in HOI3 was arguably worse, as doing ANYTHING even remotely ahistorical would cause major problems with AI nations and event chains from what I remember. As a side note, am I to infer from this AAR that something has finally been done to reign-in steamroller Germany?
 
disable strategic redeploy

Maybe I missed that ability in a previous DD, but I'm sure glad I know about it now. It will certainly make Overlord a bit more interesting.

It could also make Barbarossa more interesting.

It might even make breaking the NAP between Japan and the Soviets more interesting. :eek:
 
Even if there was a competent AI, actually putting up a spirited, intelligent defense in France and going all in on it, the game is likely to end in Axis defeat rather early.

Having played hundreds of historical multiplayer matches spanning a few thousand hours, often with some very skilled players and practically always with a human France in the game, I can with absolute certainty say that if your games ended in France, it was because you had a weak Germany and to a lesser extent Italy, whose main pre-war job is to build planes. Provided you banned unbalanced silliness like the Americans gifting the Allies thousands of fighters for the Battle of France, or the entire Commonwealth stationing its troops there.

France's main job in multiplayer is to give the Axis a bloody nose. It can't hold against a good Axis under a balanced rule set. Without a player France, the Axis will suffer almost no casualties in the West, and the Russian player will have a harder time not collapsing in 1941.
 
Having played hundreds of historical multiplayer matches spanning a few thousand hours, often with some very skilled players and practically always with a human France in the game, I can with absolute certainty say that if your games ended in France, it was because you had a weak Germany and to a lesser extent Italy, whose main pre-war job is to build planes. Provided you banned unbalanced silliness like the Americans gifting the Allies thousands of fighters for the Battle of France, or the entire Commonwealth stationing its troops there.

France's main job in multiplayer is to give the Axis a bloody nose. It can't hold against a good Axis under a balanced rule set. Without a player France, the Axis will suffer almost no casualties in the West, and the Russian player will have a harder time not collapsing in 1941.
The commonwealth can station troops in france all it likes, a good German player will not lose the air war, and so will not lose the the Battle of France.
 
Cheers for the DD Bobby :D. Looked like a great showcase of how the espionage system can impact on a whole range of HoI4's systems - very cool :). Although whether that's as cool as a septuagenarian seducer or not will depend on personal taste :).

Baiting them to bomb my exposed, and no longer as useful, fleet

An easy naval pic for this week - here's an Italian bomber attacking a British ship during an air attack on a British convoy in September 1941, from the British Imperial War Museum (cropped a bit) :)

Italian bomber attacking British ships.jpg
 
Not directed at you two, or anybody else whose patience with AI excuses is wearing thin. There should come a time soon, where either the devs put their foot down for more AI resources, or we the customers do something like an IR.

Yes, all the usual, AI is difficult to code. But this is YOUR business, your thing, your game. And releasing games and DLC where the AI doesn't even use some of the key features is somewhat taking the piss.

There is no excuse for it at this stage. AI speak to devs. Devs speak to AI. Make features that work for the AI too. Also both speak to money people and get more resources on the AI; time in development- information- and AI cycle; coders, what ever it takes to move away from the PPP of AI and shambles of so much of the core of it.

It baffles my mind the level of disconnect that exists between developer and players. Hearts of iron 4 is like a house at the edge of a cliff supported by rotten beams and slowly being turned into a mansion without reinforcing the supporting structure.
 
Very interesting. So this is not a real dev diary, but the recount of a your game play VS ai. Interesting.
But what about the real work on balancing the game? You know that USA can go partial mob in 38? You know that there is no real gameplay in multiplier because of continuous lobby simulator, and custom rules and mods because the game is slow and unbalanced? What about the ranking of the players? Why Japan has less carriers than USA at the beginning? And finally.. How you can think espionage could we be done in multi-player games, since it needs heavily civilian factory effort, expendable probably only by USA that is in total isolation?
 
I'm so sorry I'm just not sold. Still not sold I should add. :(

To me this is another layer of abstraction that isn't required. I absolutely hate the idea of the buffs.

To me the game was relatively balanced without this, so how does the AI counter those buffs? For example the Invasion of Greece you use there. Generally it's quite difficult to keep hold of Greece if you play historical due to the constant pressure (rotation) from Italian/German forces and then if Yugo turns axis it makes it even harder. In your example you manage to defeat the Germans and Italians in the area simply because of the buffs. I can understand why you have implented this side of it; to aid the human player in an Allied invasion of Germany, but at what cost. The AI is already hamstrung in certain areas, and I see this layer complicating it even further.

I would have preferred fleshed out focus trees or new ones entirely personally,
 
You know, there's a lot of people with lots of thoughts about how the AI is barely competent and will likely have issues handling the new DLC features, like with Man the Guns.

But you have to give Paradox some credit - their AI models Italy as a wartime ally very effectively!


/levity

Wald
 
I would have loved to see in one of the developer diaries how powerful the new tools can be.

What I mean?

For a bit of variety off the historical path, I play very passively with Germany, for example. No attacks. Just politics, coups, alliance and so on.

At the moment I have no idea how much I can use the new tools to put my stamp on Europe without having to conquer every country.
But this is what really makes me want to have that DLC.
 
I would have loved to see in one of the developer diaries how powerful the new tools can be.

What I mean?

For a bit of variety off the historical path, I play very passively with Germany, for example. No attacks. Just politics, coups, alliance and so on.

At the moment I have no idea how much I can use the new tools to put my stamp on Europe without having to conquer every country.
But this is what really makes me want to have that DLC.
Well, if you aren't going to go to war in Hoi4, you're playing the wrong game.