HOI4 Dev Diary - Performance and AI

[podcat]

I understand it is a massive endeavor to add scripts for every nations in relation to every other nation. And i wouldnt expect them all to be in now.

Yeah this is something we invented pretty late. So only a few nations have this stuff. I expect us to keep developing on it and adding more though

 

[Archangel85]

Thank the gods!

On the subject of these AI strategies, it appears everything in Europe is centered on how Germany plays it.

Has similar work been done in Asia for Japan?

I understand it is a massive endeavor to add scripts for every nations in relation to every other nation. And i wouldnt expect them all to be in now.

But can we assume in further DLCs we will get scripts added to relevant nations for reactions to the Majors updated in that DLC?

Do you think it makes sense for germany to have reaction scripts for UK/USA (particularly Democratic)? Or will the AI always have Democracies/Communists reacting to Fascist aggression?

I suspect it will be part of making the AI for new focus trees to add reaction scripts for other nations.

 

[Groogy]

Would changing the defines values for the various garrison priorities change how the tool shaded the map? If so, this tool be pretty handy to modders tinkering with how the various garrison priorities worked. Would making this kind of thing to modders be feasible/appropriate, if it was easy to do? License granted to roll eyes at silly forumite asking for something that's inappropriate and hella hard because they're clueless .

Yes you can, just trigger `track_unit_controller_weights` in the console for the country you want to track.
To enable the mapmode you write `debug_unit_controller_mapmode`

You can also specify different mapmodes, though right now there is only province_weight, state_weight and state_min_units or something like that don't remember exactly.

 

[podcat]

Can someone explain what this Twitter teaser was about?

Its a strategy you can set for Ai which makes it ignore temporary modifiers. There is a lot of that going on in asia and without it japanese ai will want to wait and not attack china and such. Its useful to simulate historical behaviour and decisions where leaders did not know the state of the troops or the enemy

Is @SteelVolt still there though? I miss him

SteelVolt is actually on Stellaris now since a few months back. Now we are spreading out AI among several people more although we got a new guy who's main responsibility it is (he is still a little forum shy, but I plan to lure him out when he is ready to show some really cool modders tools he has been working on in his spare time. Thats going to be for a patch later though not for release)

 

[podcat]

Is Paradox committed to getting HOI4 to the closest approximation of the ideal game for its genre or are/will you be working on an HOI5?

This is a very interesting question. There are already ideas i would want to try in a HOI5 that are so different that it wouldnt be doable in a dlc so a HOI5 i can imagine one day for sure. It would be a different game just in the same way hoi2, hoi3 and hoi4 are all different (they also all had different lead designers so may not even be me doing hoi 5 once the time comes. who knows!)

As for hoi4 there are a ton of more ideas and ways i want to grow and improve it. At some point i will do a diary on some of that like we did after DoD

 

[Groogy]

Use this in stellaris, EU4 and ck , plz

It is from EU4? If you check we had a dev diary before, the charts should look familiar
I'm borrowed by HOI4 until end of February, then I'm going back to my project.

 

[Bratyn]

Excellent idea for France reacting to Germany. Does this French behavior only apply to player Germany, or to AI Germany as well? Will France delay choosing a political direction (Revise/Status Quo) if Germany doesn't go Rhineland/Oppose straight away? If so, for how long will they linger? Regardless, this is a great way to make Single-player more interesting.

It applies to AI Germany as well. And yes, the choice to 'go with Britain' has been delayed until the last possible for a historical playthrough, meaning that even if you don't pick immediately, France will still refrain from leaping on the 'go with Britain' focus. At the same time, they will still go with Britain in time to be ready for a war with Germany, assuming Germany sticks to a historical timeline.

 

[SteelVolt]

Does this mean you are creating an AI A-Team? A team responsible for all the AIs in your games? It is really a good idea in my humble opinion. I also applaud the scripting idea for different responses in the various nations. Less weird things to happen due to cross code responses.

Answer to those questions is both yes and no. Each team organizes their own AI development, but we do organize everyone actively doing AI work into regular synch-ups for knowledge sharing and such. I am responsible for this, and while it is not a dedicated team as such, the effect is along those lines.