HOI4 Dev Diary - Stability and War Support

[Metz]

Before every German declaration of war starting with Poland there was anxiety due to the risk of losing. After every victory though the population and the High Command trusted Hitler's decisions more. This could be represented with a drop in stability upon declaring war. It also upsets people due to broken trade.

 

[Dalwin]

That is some interesting stuff. It will add a new dynamic to parts of the game.

One thing that is obvious from such a broad change is that it has the potential to drastically alter balance. This requires extensive play testing.

It is one thing to get functional balance in the common conflicts, e.g. Germany v France or Russia as well as Japan v China, but it also needs to be balanced for the less common conflicts. The game has to work if Brazil is trying to consolidate South America or if the Soviets push south into the Middle East. Barbarossa cannot be allowed to become impossible simply because the SU grabbed Turkey and Iran.

 

[Sinterclair]

Very interesting, looking forward to this.
I always found it a bit weird that you could keep fighting till the end even though almost all of the faction had been defeated.

 

[TheDungen]

Note that in the picture below France is getting +30% war support because they have been attacked by Germany. An offensive war on the other hand for Germany actually hurts their war support. This comes with some interesting balancing effects:

But in reality France declared war on Germany not the other way around.

 

[CharlieFox]

Will Churchill appointment increase War support for the U.K.? Or will the U.K. have new events that rise war support?

If anything the Fall of France(despite being the capitulation of a major ally) and the appointment of Churchill made the U.K. more committed to the war and should not result on decreased war support.

 

[Daddl]

So if you are removing NU and thus touch surrender mechanics...care to add options for peace other than total surrender pretty please? I'm totally willing to help you with amazing zigzag-line 90s MS Paint art in return. Thats what you meant with art time, right?

I'm looking at you, eternal Japanese-Chinese war. Or my personal favorites, the eternal Australian-Dutch or Australian-Portuguese wars over Indonesia or...Timor Leste. Its just frustrating.

 

[CrazyZombie]

That is some interesting stuff. It will add a new dynamic to parts of the game.

One thing that is obvious from such a broad change is that it has the potential to drastically alter balance. This requires extensive play testing.

It is one thing to get functional balance in the common conflicts, e.g. Germany v France or Russia as well as Japan v China, but it also needs to be balanced for the less common conflicts. The game has to work if Brazil is trying to consolidate South America or if the Soviets push south into the Middle East. Barbarossa cannot be allowed to become impossible simply because the SU grabbed Turkey and Iran.

Just to define... IRL Barbarossa has failed.

 

[WeissRaben]

What you are talking about here is a war willingness (interventionism) scale. The way I read the devs, they want to add a popularity rating for the specific war for the participants. A stable country can still hate a war they are participating in.

That said, your idea of war willingness in addition to war support and stability sounds very interesting.

Oh, I'm leaning exactly on the definition Podcat gave: the willingness of the population to make sacrifices for war. And the Italian willingness to sacrifice a lot to war was very low, but the first reaction to the Empire - before the war involved any real cost - was very nice. The average Italian just didn't care enough to send their own sons to die for Italy. And when occupation, death, starvation were slammed on the table of possibilities, the average Italian went "I'm out".

Compare and contrast with Naples rising when Hitler gave the order for the city to be razed - the population raided the armories, assaulted the German positions, and chased the Nazi out of the city before the Allies even arrived.

Whit the current focus tree italy as the way to gain war support seems to take the "Italy Frist" and making as much allies as possible whit out really expanding...
But could in the future be added more possibility for italy to gain territory whit out war? like pressing yugoslavia to cede Slovenia and Dalmatia insted of going to war?
Or the possibility of siding whit the allies and they cede colonial territories to Italy?...

It's just that the new sistem seems to favor a lot germany now and going to play as italy is going to be more hard (not that i hate the challenge)

Italy should probably be harder, way harder, to play successfully as history went, mostly because Italy was nowhere ready - in mentality and military preparation - for how history went.

 

[scroggin]

The team is split on the issue of money. 14 out of 15 people on the team want money in. @podcat thinks differently.

The issue is that money played very little role in the internal economies. The Reichsmark was essentially monopoly money during the timeframe of the war. Inflation was an issue, but price controls and rationing could counteract that. Manhours spent is a far better value to assess the "cost" to the war economy of building weapons. For the purpose of paying soldiers, the government could always just print money, so in this particular event the effect is simply that it costs more pp.

Personally, I would love to get money back in the game at some point, but it'll probably be focused more on international trade where you actually had to pay in hard cash.

First of all I would like to say I think the new concepts you are bringing in are great. This DD is a very pleasant supprise!

Secondly money would be a great thing to have, its more divisable it can be saved and spent later on a large item and is just more flexable than using CIV's as a form of currency.
In game money should reflect the real value of man-hours expended rather than be able to be devalued by printing like sometimes happened with real currencies.

 

[scroggin]

Will Churchill appointment increase War support for the U.K.? Or will the U.K. have new events that rise war support?

If anything the Fall of France(despite being the capitulation of a major ally) and the appointment of Churchill made the U.K. more committed to the war and should not result on decreased war support.

I think we can guarantee churchill having events or effects that change britains war support. It would be very hard for the developers to not notice how churchill could contribute to making this new feature interesting.

 

[Riekopo]

Seems like a more detailed modeling so that's good.

 

[George_VI]

But in reality France declared war on Germany not the other way around.

Germany attacked Poland in violation of French and British guarantees of its independence, so in the game it would count as a defensive war.

 

[landj]

Is the phone my allies hot line where they have to ask for permission from me before they launch yet another suicidal invasion of France and the little number is the number times I've sent them to answerphone? Please say yes!

 

[CrazyZombie]

Germany attacked Poland in violation of French and British guarantees of its independence, so in the game it would count as a defensive war.

On the other hand, France was not willing to fight at all, no matter, defensive or offensive this war was. For the time, active combat lasted in French campaign, on the Eastern front Germans managed to cross one street in Stalingrad.

 

[Soliy]

Omg whats the telephone for XD

 

[Secret Master]

Hmm, I like what I see in the DD. Spaatz does to. He sent me this message:

 

[Winterwolf00]

These are very good changes to current mechanics. 10/10 would approve again.

 

[Armacalic]

A question on the negative effects of enemy bombings: in actual practice, terror bombings don't cow populations but instead tended to stir them to continue fighting on. For example, the Blitz of London and the carpet and fire bombings of German and Japanese cities only served to further encourage each recipient to keep up the fight and overcome their hated enemies. Suffering strategic bombings would seem to encourage a nation's resolve to fight to the bitter end, not reduce it. Would it not make sense that receiving bombings would increase support for the war, not reduce it?

The thing is, for the most part, people were seeing their own fighters engage the german bombers, and the several measures England took to keep the bombing of important places, kept the people reasured. The Dev Dairy already mentions that killing enemy bombers over your territory gives you a small amount of War Support, which is kind of logical.

On the otherhand, wouldn't people get that much discouraged when it's clear that despite their country's best efforts, the factories, the cities, and their families are getting turned into charred mincemeat?

 

[ashbery76]

The problem is bombing increases war support because grannies getting firebombed tends to make people angry.It's a game logic but not a reality one.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

The problem is bombing increases war support because grannies getting firebombed tends to make people angry.It's a game logic but not a reality one.

According to Strategic Bombing Survey (at least the Japanese one) it reduced morale by showing the government could not do anything about it and this was essentially admission of failure.