HOI4 Dev Diary - Stability and War Support

[CV10]

I am also looking forward to this alteration. It is indeed a much welcome and much unexpected addition to the game (at least in my opinion)

 

[Sulphurous]

Finally, another feature to the game that should have been included on release, or in DLC, and is included in mods. I have high hopes this will actually be good update that will bring back HOI3's list of features to HOI4, which in it's current state is still critically incomplete compared to the previous game. Will they be re-implementing any HOI3 features into HOI4?

 

[Invader]

I really think you guys shouldn't add money to the game, here is why:
HoI4 is a very short period game, its not EU, where you need to balance your budget on the years ahead. As i see it, every Paradox title has its own spirit, and HoI4 is about leadership and consolidating resourses to throw them against enemy. It is understandable why you want to add money, but maybe you should rather think about more abstract thing? For example, level of involment of economical elites of other state on your country. You know, like in Vic2 where you can build factories and stuff in another country. (Probably expand that on political power and resourse dependense on other countries) So, like when you trying to start a war with somebody who you making business with - you gonna suffer some penalties

Don't think of it as money, because money can be printed. As all currencies were pegged to gold (Bretton Woods), trade was basically in gold. So think of it as the Central bank's gold supply. You can run a trade deficit, but if your gold supply runs out. you can't trade anymore and must cut back on imports. I suggest ignoring that gold can be mined since the game is short timespan as you say. If you run a trade surplus, you amass gold and can afford a deficit later by living off savings. A HOI4 trade currency should only be usable for trade between nations and not interchangeable with anything. (You don't need gold to pay your soldiers, they are dumb enough to accept paper money that you print for free).

Gold supply physiically stored in a nation's capital would be eeeepiiiiic. Germany aaaallmost managed to steal Norway's gold IRL, but it was evacuated with just a few hours margin and they managed to ship it to Britain, where the Norwegian exile govt purchased military equipment for it. Imagine the "Poland has capitulated" screen telling you how much gold you looted from the central bank in addition to the number of military equipment captured.

 

[grandad1982]

Finally, another feature to the game that should have been included on release, or in DLC, and is included in mods. I have high hopes this will actually be good update that will bring back HOI3's list of features to HOI4, which in it's current state is still critically incomplete compared to the previous game. Will they be re-implementing any HOI3 features into HOI4?

Except as they point out in the dd, this isn't bringing back hoi3 features, it's replacing a hoi3 feature with something better.

 

[Algerian Major]

I really wonder what that Red phone could be: Espionage? probably not cause that might be the number on the newly added button. Available Decisions? Possible.
It's next to the army experience and such so maybe it's related to the military knowledge you gather in a war? We'll have to see I guess

 

[Mr Friendly]

Changing national unity to two values is cool and all, but when are we are going to see major changes you have planned for the next expansion? A major over haul of ahistorical mode, like King of the Hill mode where everyone (and the AI) plots world domination, or a random mode where countries have random manpower/industry, could be cool also. New laws, new historical events for historical mode, new ways/stronger ways of dealing with max forts, would increase replayability.

 

[Aztlantix]

Don't think of it as money, because money can be printed. As all currencies were pegged to gold (Bretton Woods), trade was basically in gold. So think of it as the Central bank's gold supply. You can run a trade deficit, but if your gold supply runs out. you can't trade anymore and must cut back on imports. I suggest ignoring that gold can be mined since the game is short timespan as you say. If you run a trade surplus, you amass gold and can afford a deficit later by living off savings. A HOI4 trade currency should only be usable for trade between and not interchangeable with anything. (You don't need gold to pay your soldiers, they are dumb enough to accept paper money that you print for free).

Gold supply physiically stored in a nation's capital would be eeeepiiiiic. Germany aaaallmost managed to steal Norway's gold IRL, but it was evacuated with just a few hours margin and they managed to ship it to Britain, where the Norwegian exile govt purchased military equipment for it. Imagine the "Poland has capitulated" screen telling you how much gold you looted from the central bank in addition to the number of military equipment captured.

Cool beans man, if they ever decide to add money, hope it will revolve around gold reserve

 

[Sleight of Hand]

@Archangel85

Can we get some more motorized/mechanized artwork in the next patch, please? Some Italian stuff was added in v1.4, but France still doesn't have its own truck or half-track icons.

 

[CrazyZombie]

Don't think of it as money, because money can be printed. As all currencies were pegged to gold (Bretton Woods), trade was basically in gold. So think of it as the Central bank's gold supply. You can run a trade deficit, but if your gold supply runs out. you can't trade anymore and must cut back on imports. I suggest ignoring that gold can be mined since the game is short timespan as you say. If you run a trade surplus, you amass gold and can afford a deficit later by living off savings. A HOI4 trade currency should only be usable for trade between and not interchangeable with anything. (You don't need gold to pay your soldiers, they are dumb enough to accept paper money that you print for free).

Gold supply physiically stored in a nation's capital would be eeeepiiiiic. Germany aaaallmost managed to steal Norway's gold IRL, but it was evacuated with just a few hours margin and they managed to ship it to Britain, where the Norwegian exile govt purchased military equipment for it. Imagine the "Poland has capitulated" screen telling you how much gold you looted from the central bank in addition to the number of military equipment captured.

Polish gold was taken by running Polish government. And also "evacuated" by Brits. They didn't care much about government, but gold could be useful.

 

[Chreees]

This is excellent stuff, especially since I've enjoyed the stability system in Kaiserreich. I'm really glad the devs have worked out how the can make substantial changes to the game's mechanics as well.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

PS: Has @Sideburnout gone?

 

[Archangel85]

@Archangel85

Can we get some more motorized/mechanized artwork in the next patch, please? Some Italian stuff was added in v1.4, but France still doesn't have its own truck or half-track icons.

France should have gotten its truck icon in 1.4.2

 

[Invader]

Polish gold was taken by running Polish government. And also "evacuated" by Brits. They didn't care much about government, but gold could be useful.

My point exactly: gold mattered, and could be captured, even though it was not in the cases of Poland and Norway.
The Brits would not have risked anything to evacuate 10 tons of Polish zloty paper bills

 

[Sleight of Hand]

France should have gotten its truck icon in 1.4.2

ITA did, but not FRA I think. They both got new infantry weapons, though.

Both ITA and FRA still need mechanized icons AFAIK (I can help with vehicle suggestions for these if you like) and I think after that all the majors should be up to date? I'd need to double-check as I don't tend to play vanilla.

 

[CrazyZombie]

@Archangel85

Is current armored tree "set in stone"? It feels "too generic" and in some places odd. Light tanks existed until MBT introduction and a bit further, medium tanks appeared in 1920-s. Don't remember "stop-gap" in development between early 1930-s heavy tanks and early WW2 models.

It seems like you tried to make tree, loking mostly at German tank development, but it was an odd decision, honestly.

 

[Sulphurous]

Continuing my previous comment, I think mobilisation itself should be a top line variable. Affecting fielded manpower cap, factory output, manpower available etc

National unity means something at least.

On the Discussion of an Economy System in HOI4, here are my criticisms:

- Compared to HOI3, They abstracted the entire economy into "civ factories woo"
- When you get economy-related debuffs, you lose construction speed or civ factories. THAT'S IT. You don't actually feel like the economy has tanked, you just take longer to build yet another factory...
- If you lose enough factories, you cannot build anything. That doesn't make any sense real world.
- YOU DO NOT NEED FACTORIES TO BUILD FORTIFICATIONS, THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. Seemingly to compensate, They made armies entrench automatically but...it's dumb. If anything, you should lose trucks and resources and WHY IS THE RESOURCE SYSTEM SO SIMPLE TOO

- Completely Unbalanced and Unhistorical Resource Distribution System for nations (Increased resources fixes this), The GP's (France, Germoney, USA, Soviets) are literally the only people with any kind of resources, maybe Hungary/Romania but that's just for Oil/Aluminium.

- Why is Africa so bloody useless? No resources, no factories, nothing. It's useless, what exactly was the "scramble for africa" for if it's so useless in hoi4? Nobody would care about loosing it. Africa is rich in natural resources IRL.
Why would the allies care about losing africa? IT'S USELESS
Why would the axis care about invading past the suez? The rest is useless

At least the Middle East has Oil, but only Oil.

- The soviets are such pushovers in HOI4, Huge country, loads of resources, great focus tree, lots of buffs and the ability to build a huge industry...and they suck. They are a mindless blob just waiting to be gobbled up by someone, if you annex the USSR you win the game, there's nothing else to do.

- The Timeline is WAY too short, there should be an Interwar period start for a change.
- Because of the above mentioned issue, HOI4 is just supposed to be 3 year buildup -> war -> exit game. There's no reason to own land besides "lmao factories and resources yay"

They abstracted everything
There's no need for population growth, proper economy modelling or anything longterm really, when you're just supposed to play for a max of 10 years. Where are all the new features HOI4 Promised?

- You can't even make historical borders for many countries
- Peace treaties are broken, the AI cannot use them properly and even the player has a hard time.

- And why is there no culture/ethnicity/nationality mechanic for the population in the land? I mean come on. The time period was all about nationalism, and there's nothing about it. There's literally no reason that you should grab Austria as Germany instead of some other country aside from the fact that you get a focus to do it. It's not special, you don't feel that they're Germans, you just get the land. And cores. Woohoo.

- Political Parties are mostly useless, they're not actual forces in your country.
- The land doesn't develop itself, you have to build factories, it's like all the civilians are braindead
- The only remotely "complicated" part of HOI4 Industry is Production Lines
- Mods are better than actual DLC
- Too many Generic National Focuses, etc

I mean come on...

This should have been noticed at this point by someone? We were supposed to get a shiny and improved version of HOI3, with all new features and mechanics, and yet it's everything but.

 

[Archangel85]

@Archangel85

Is current armored tree "set in stone"? It feels "too generic" and in some places odd. Light tanks existed until MBT introduction and a bit further, medium tanks appeared in 1920-s. Don't remember "stop-gap" in development between early 1930-s heavy tanks and early WW2 models.

It seems like you tried to make tree, loking mostly at German tank development, but it was an odd decision, honestly.

Nothing is set in stone, but it is probably set in burnt clay. The system sort of works for most countries, even if the flavor names don't always match (Matilda...Matilda!), so it is not really a priority right now. Personally I would love to put in more of a national flavor to tech trees (like the British doctrine of infantry and cruiser tanks), but it is a balancing nightmare and a bang-for-buck issue (takes a lot of time to do well, probably not something people will pay enough money for)

 

[permanently_afk]

Continuing my previous comment, I think mobilisation itself should be a top line variable. Affecting fielded manpower cap, factory output, manpower available etc

National unity means something at least.

On the Discussion of an Economy System in HOI4, here are my criticisms:

- Compared to HOI3, They abstracted the entire economy into "civ factories woo"
- When you get economy-related debuffs, you lose construction speed or civ factories. THAT'S IT. You don't actually feel like the economy has tanked, you just take longer to build yet another factory...
- If you lose enough factories, you cannot build anything. That doesn't make any sense real world.
- YOU DO NOT NEED FACTORIES TO BUILD FORTIFICATIONS, THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. Seemingly to compensate, They made armies entrench automatically but...it's dumb. If anything, you should lose trucks and resources and WHY IS THE RESOURCE SYSTEM SO SIMPLE TOO

- Completely Unbalanced and Unhistorical Resource Distribution System for nations (Increased resources fixes this), The GP's (France, Germoney, USA, Soviets) are literally the only people with any kind of resources, maybe Hungary/Romania but that's just for Oil/Aluminium.

- Why is Africa so bloody useless? No resources, no factories, nothing. It's useless, what exactly was the "scramble for africa" for if it's so useless in hoi4? Nobody would care about loosing it. Africa is rich in natural resources IRL.
Why would the allies care about losing africa? IT'S USELESS
Why would the axis care about invading past the suez? The rest is useless

At least the Middle East has Oil, but only Oil.

- The soviets are such pushovers in HOI4, Huge country, loads of resources, great focus tree, lots of buffs and the ability to build a huge industry...and they suck. They are a mindless blob just waiting to be gobbled up by someone, if you annex the USSR you win the game, there's nothing else to do.

- The Timeline is WAY too short, there should be an Interwar period start for a change.
- Because of the above mentioned issue, HOI4 is just supposed to be 3 year buildup -> war -> exit game. There's no reason to own land besides "lmao factories and resources yay"

They abstracted everything
There's no need for population growth, proper economy modelling or anything longterm really, when you're just supposed to play for a max of 10 years. Where are all the new features HOI4 Promised?

- You can't even make historical borders for many countries
- Peace treaties are broken, the AI cannot use them properly and even the player has a hard time.

- And why is there no culture/ethnicity/nationality mechanic for the population in the land? I mean come on. The time period was all about nationalism, and there's nothing about it. There's literally no reason that you should grab Austria as Germany instead of some other country aside from the fact that you get a focus to do it. It's not special, you don't feel that they're Germans, you just get the land. And cores. Woohoo.

- Political Parties are mostly useless, they're not actual forces in your country.
- The land doesn't develop itself, you have to build factories, it's like all the civilians are braindead
- The only remotely "complicated" part of HOI4 Industry is Production Lines
- Mods are better than actual DLC
- Too many Generic National Focuses, etc

I mean come on...

This should have been noticed at this point by someone? We were supposed to get a shiny and improved version of HOI3, with all new features and mechanics, and yet it's everything but.

To speak in the words of my boss: Make it compile first, then worry about the rest.

 

[CrazyZombie]

Agree with @Sulphurous

Current HOI4 is too abstracted, as "game of one war". Which is too sad.

Wars are fought to get suitable peace. What is the sense for USSR to paint the world one color if the price would be half of adult population killed on the battlefields, destroyed economic and tired from everything society?

I want more social and economic aspects, want earlier start (1931-1932), want alternative paths for majors to get unpredictable world.

 

[Miganto]

"War support is also affected by how your allies manage. If a major ally surrenders it will lower your war support, so make sure to keep your friends in the war. On the flip side successfully capitulating major enemies increases your war support."

Will these changes not cause a snowball effect whereby if you are just about being beaten by a superior enemy and an ally falls, that superior enemy gets a buff and you get a debuff meaning your chances of recovering become harder. If you have multiple allies, this could stack and stack, hence snowballing.

I thought this used to be an issue in EU4 and so coalitions were brought in to ensure people couldn't snowball. A big issue with HOI is that once you manage to beat one large enemy, the game becomes trivial and I can only see this change make the situation worse.

It could be better to think that if an ally falls, a country remaining becomes more resolute and increases their support to not let their country fall, and as a country starts to steamroll enemies, their war support reduces because they see little need to continue what with all the extra resources and ... member swinging they've already done?