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HOI4 Dev Diary - Division Namelists

Comrade @podcat is at a conference in which he will be fed free sandwiches. Any rumors of a coup are Stellaris propaganda. While he's gone, I'll be writing today's devdiary instead.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Pallidum. I've been at Paradox for almost five years and most recently joined the HOI4 team in October last year as a game designer. Being part of this team is very exciting for me as what got me into Grand Strategy Games in the first place was the very first Hearts of Iron. Since then I’ve logged several thousands of hours in the series.

Enough about me though, let's talk about the topic of today's dev diary instead. Names! Or, rather the lack of them.

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(Animated gifs are popular here, amrite?)


A very subtle detail that I'm sure most of our fans have missed is that some of the division names in the game are occasionally not entirely historical. The initial OOBs at the start of the game are fine, but the astute observer might have noticed the occasional "23. Infantry Division Type 6" or two.

To be blunt, we’re not entirely happy with the names that are being generated for new divisions. It doesn’t look very good and to to be honest, they can be a bit immersion breaking. It has been bugging us just as much as I’m sure it has been bugging many of you.

Fortunately, we're now getting around to doing something about it.

Division Namelists
devdiary-namelist-picker.png


Each of your division templates will be able to choose a namelist. The namelist contains names of historical divisions for your country. Any new divisions created from this template will use a name from this list instead of the generated names. You’ll be able to get names such as the US 8th Infantry Division “Pathfinder”, or the German Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland.

The namelist also contains division numbers and these can be shared between several namelists. The game will try to ensure that divisions numbers don't overlap, even across different templates. What this means is that if you already have ten infantry divisions a new motorized division that shares the same numbering scheme will now be the 11th division. You'll no longer have to end up with "2. Infanterie-Divison", "2. Infanterie-Division (mot)" and "2. Infantry Division Type 12" in the same army.

Changing the template of a deployed division will also take this into consideration. The division will keep its number as long as it's available and will be renamed to the appropriate name for the new template. An example of this is the German 36th Infantry Division which was reorganized several times throughout the war, as shown below.
devdiary-namelist-36ID.png


Choosing a new namelist for an existing template will rename all divisions using that template. As in the above example, divisions will retain their numbers if possible but get new names. The exception is for divisions that have been manually renamed by the player. They'll never be automatically renamed.

The namelists are, of course, fully moddable. I'm sure that this will be used in moderation and that no modders will go overboard with representing historical division naming schemes and reorganizations to far, far larger extents than we are able to cover.

devdiary-namelist-picker2.png



 
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@Pallidum - Any chance for a beta soon, I can't wait to try this out, should be awesome......
 
For modding, will number skipping be supported? Some divisions were disbanded before they were even formed (paper divisions). We kinda have this feature already, perhaps accidentally and not by design, in the division training window. You disband a division in training, and decide to add more divisions later, and those previous numbers are gone. In general I would say skipping should be moddable but not occur in the manner is does today.

Players change their mind, I don't want to see cool historical division names lost, just because I was spamming divisions in groups of 6 or 12, just to find out if I had enough equipment to train them 100%. And because of lack of good equipment planning tools and mechanisms in the game, I have to do this ALL THE TIME.
 
I'm sorry, but I've seen too many uninteresting DD for HOI4 that add very minor things that are definitely not a priority, that I'm just gonna say this is another one of those....
 
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Maybe instead of focusing on division names, you should focus on how to balance division templates (like the fact you can make OP divisions by merging leg infantry with one tank destroyer and shit like that). And maybe rebalance air combat? At this point, CAS and Air Superiority bonuses are incredibly overpowered.

And let's not talk about the broken reinforcement system. Basically all you need is just CAS to deal so much damage to organization so fast to the point that no matter how many troops there are in reserve they won't have the time to reinforce and will retreat instead. It's just so broken
 
Nc-Rm said:
Maybe instead of focusing on division names, you should focus on how to balance division templates (like the fact you can make OP divisions by merging leg infantry with one tank destroyer and shit like that). And maybe rebalance air combat? At this point, CAS and Air Superiority bonuses are incredibly overpowered.

And let's not talk about the broken reinforcement system. Basically all you need is just CAs to deal so much damage to organization so fast to the point that no matter how many troops there are in reserve they will simply not reinforce and retreat instead. It's just so broken
Click to expand...

OP // leg infantry with one TD. Pick one.
 
Nc-Rm said:
(like the fact you can make OP divisions by merging leg infantry with one tank destroyer and shit like that).
Click to expand...

Such a division is not OP at all. It is significantly more expensive, and really easy to counter by adding AT.

Nc-Rm said:
And let's not talk about the broken reinforcement system. Basically all you need is just CAS to deal so much damage to organization so fast to the point that no matter how many troops there are in reserve they won't have the time to reinforce and will retreat instead. It's just so broken
Click to expand...

I tested that. Artillery inflicts damage to enemy divisions 5-10 times faster then CAS does in most situations where you don't have terrible combat modifiers. Per same industry cost Artillery inflicts damage ~20 times faster then CAS.
 
Nc-Rm said:
I'm sorry, but I've seen too many uninteresting DD for HOI4 that add very minor things that are definitely not a priority, that I'm just gonna say this is another one of those....
Click to expand...

1.5 target is Christmas I'm sure. 12 weeks till Christmas, up to 12 more features, the best (and most complex, too early to show now) for last....

This is good and needed, Patience Grasshopper...

Btw PDS - navy, navy, navy, navy, navy, navy, ad-pukage
 
No more 2+ hours of OCD-fuelled mental breakdown while changing 80+ division's name's? Oh sweet god, YES!!
 
Alex_brunius said:
Such a division is not OP at all. It is significantly more expensive, and really easy to counter by adding AT.



I tested that. Artillery inflicts damage to enemy divisions 5-10 times faster then CAS does in most situations where you don't have terrible combat modifiers. Per same industry cost Artillery inflicts damage ~20 times faster then CAS.
Click to expand...

Not every battle is offensive. If you're on the defense, CAS will simply destroy you
Alex_brunius said:
Such a division is not OP at all. It is significantly more expensive, and really easy to counter by adding AT.



I tested that. Artillery inflicts damage to enemy divisions 5-10 times faster then CAS does in most situations where you don't have terrible combat modifiers. Per same industry cost Artillery inflicts damage ~20 times faster then CAS.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about damage to strength. I'm talking about Organization. If you're on the defense, CAS will deal so much damage to your organization to the point that your reserve won't simply have the time to reinforce the battle because the divisions are losing organization so fast. I'm fine with CAS dealing certain damage to the strength, but the way it deals so much damage so fast to the organization to the point that no matter how many divisions u have they won't reinforce, and u lose key defensive provinces because of that is simply ridiculous.
 
Nc-Rm said:
At this point, CAS and Air Superiority bonuses are incredibly overpowered.
Click to expand...
. Add AA to your divisions. Counters most of the AS combat penalty, negates the movement penalty, and shoots down CAS. Can't remember if it disrupts...
 
Dan1109 said:
. Add AA to your divisions. Counters most of the AS combat penalty, negates the movement penalty, and shoots down CAS. Can't remember if it disrupts...
Click to expand...

Let's say hypothetically, you are defending in the extended maginot line okay? You have level 7 forts there etc, you can't afford to lose any province there. What difference will AS make? It shoots down few CAS okay? But CAS will come in and de-org your divisions and make you retreat from your key defensive forts, and the war is already lost by then. And now your AS is shooting down CAS okay good, too late anyway, and any big nation can afford to have those CAS planes replaced.

The effects of CAS and Airsuperiority go in so quickly to the point that you'll only need them in the first month of the war to breach, after that, whether you lose them or not it doesn't make a difference.
 
Nc-Rm said:
Let's say hypothetically, you are defending in the extended maginot line okay? You have level 7 forts there etc, you can't afford to lose any province there. What difference will AS make? It shoots down few CAS okay? But CAS will come in and de-org your divisions and make you retreat from your key defensive forts, and the war is already lost by then. And now your AS is shooting down CAS okay good, too late anyway, and any big nation can afford to have those CAS planes replaced.
Click to expand...

The UK should be able to help you with fighters in that multiplayer situation against a human Germany. Have you seen how fast artillery takes out organization on the offensive especially when you play as countries like Australia? CAS can be countered by fighters, but only mountains can stop an offensive by artillery divisions. CAS doesn't even do nearly as much damage than artillery and its effect is greatly reduced with air superiority.
 
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