Hi everyone! Last week on Thursday we released Waking the Tiger and it has been a huge success breaking our active user records and is our highest rated DLC on steam for HOI thus far! Thanks everyone who has bought and played it and given us feedback, its super appreciated and the team is really happy!

The plan now is to get the 1.5.1 patch out with the most important fixes we have done. That one has been in open beta since Friday (but updated a few times), so thanks those who have braved its waters and helped us with feedback there too. We just updated that one again as well just now. The plan is to check it for any issues and if it's ok we hope it can go live tomorrow After that we will focus on a more long-term patch where we will have time to address balance issues and more risky changes. That one will be 1.5.2 and will get a rolling opt-in open beta you can participate in until it's done (about 3 weeks or so to give you a rough timespan) which will get updated frequently with fixes/balance updates for those who want to help test.

Overall the release has been very stable, but looking at reports and feedback the things we are focusing on are:

• Balance. There are several areas, but air involvement in land combat and general strength of spamming air power is a prio.
• Desynchs in multiplayer. Telemetry data only shows a minor increase of 2% more people desynching, but we are still prioritizing this. 1.5.1 has a few potential fixes but it has proven very hard to nail down the exact reason. If your MP group runs into this feel free to tell us and test on the open beta.
• Focus tree fixes. Germany not going fascist has had some unforeseen effects as well as other inter-country checks. Hopefully most of this have been taken care of in the 1.5.1 beta now.

The changelog so far on 1.5.1 is as follow:

Spoiler

################################################################
######## Patch 1.5.1 "Cornflakes" ########
################################################################

##################################
# AI
##################################
- "Desperate AI" improvements, ai know does not switch escape provinces as long as last one valid and fixed a case where it can try to escape a province that is also desperate
- fixed a case where armor divisions were being allowed in defense fronts

##################################
# UI
##################################
- Fixed positioning of add army portrait btn.
- Fixed Zaibatsus Challenged tooltip issue.
- Fixed balance, tooltips, and events for ideology switching decisions.
- Fixed border clash focus icons lost gfx
- Added infantry tech level 3 3D model. Copies lvl 2 version.
- Fix construction showing more building levels to be repaired than what was constructed.
- fixed naval production gui not updating when you switch equipment
- fixed ui scaling no longer breaking tooltips
- added tooltip that explains increased capacity for garrison orders
- Fixed battle plan tools going behind army list stopping you from training on small screens
- Danzig for Guarantees now mentions getting Poznan as well.
- fix for minimap positioning with UI scaling
- fixed drag and drop not working with ui scale
- Division Designer > Better layout, with instant preview when mouse over the edited battalion.
- Aligned division count on badge in theatre view to match army badge.
- Right click on an army group leader portrait while having unassigned divisions, will assign them to it's sub groups in a smart way.
- Added bunch of generic focus icons.
- Added icons for German CV CAS tech level 3, with a flavour names.
- Fixed icon for generic focus for tank production.
- Added icon for attack switzerland focus.
- Minimap is now working with scaled interface.
- Fixed a missing picture in a stability event.
- Adjusted trade window resource quantity label to be large enough to show more than three digits instead of wrapping.
- Updated leader promotion message to clarify that the decrease in skills will be temporary.

##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Added cancel_trigger to all types of decisions. cancel_trigger will not run remove_effect when true.
- Missions now use cancel_trigger to abort before completion and remove_trigger to remove and run remove effect if the decision stays in the interface.
- Added modifier army_org_regain
- Fixed "random variables" being broken with tooltips
- fixed an issue where mods were loaded in wrong order and couldnt overwrite DLC
- When using the effect add_offsite_building in a wrong way, the error log will warn about it.


##################################
# Database
##################################
- removed a focus from PRC 1939 start that caused an error
- Fix for two wrong division name lists in the 1939 start
- Event pictures "communists cheer" and "American hunger strike" now have interface entries
- unlocked Chennault as adviser for manchukuo and reduced cost for him
- Reenabled generic tank manufacturer idea for countries without
- Returned Samoa to its (then) rightful owner
- "Forced loans" decision is now repeatable.
- Assertiveness focus now bypasses if manchukuo is already free.
- Communist Japan can now only call for Soviet Volunteers once
- Unaligned Germany's Anti-Comintern Pact no longer invites India and China and other Asian minors that don't border SOV.
- Blow the Suez Canal event now has correct localisation.
- "Object to Attachés" decision is now more limited and its effects now depend on relative strength of nations.
- AST and SAF no longer locked out of Appeasement tree by Germany opposing Hitler.
- Adjusted bypass requirements for "Danzig for Guarantees", "Safeguard the Baltic", and "Support the Finns".
- "Schlieffen Once More" is now available in case of Franco-British Union.
- Added some missing (and fixed some existing) text translations to Russian.
- Political advisors unlocked from PRC/CHI focus trees, are now available to warlords that take over the government.
- Fixed some missing event pictures in Japanese border war.
- Added plenty of missing texts translations in various languages.
- Added bypasses to the "Japanese Non-Aggression Pact" focuses.

##################################
# Balance
##################################
- Germany should no longer lose 50% of its equipment upon starting the Oppose Hitler civil war.
- Communist Chinese focus tree, now get's some infantry equipment production bonuses, for better gameplay balance.


##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Prevented exploit of tech swapping military doctrines by starting level 2 tech in the current branch before switching to a different branch.
- Fixed Chinese Industry Relocation decisions to check for control of state.
- Changed remove_trigger to cancel_trigger for Political Struggle decisions to avoid sudden influx of points when someone claimed national leadership
- Reinstate Imperial Possessions no longer removes core for Alsace from France.
- Fixed not creating combats while moving into provinces that has combats that you can't join (where both are enemies)
- Made "Triumph for X" decisions non-repeatable.
- fix for double inflation spirit appearing under certain circumstances
- their cores are no longer lost when you puppet a nation (fixes soups in peace deals when AI cant liberate for example)
- Now guarantees can be mutual (fixes a path in japanese focus tree)
- Fixed frontlines around wastelands sometime disappearing.
- JAP nuke surrender decision now clears global flags
- PRC that takes over through political struggle will not inherit negative spirits from China
- added bypass checks for Confrontation with the warlords focus
- blocked taking national leadership if subject or leader is subject
- Fixed a case which could prevent nations from ever surrendering
- Manchukuo now loses Kwantung Veto when released through the Japanese focus tree.
- Changed local_org_regain to army_org_regain for communist china's spirits
- added bypass checks to Finish the Fight focus for japan
- Fixed planes being engaged in combat in another region than the one they are assigned to
- Added recalculation of support points if a state involved in the struggle changes controller
- Fixed an issue where states would show as being part of the strugle, though they were controlled by an enemy nation.
- Fixed female unit leaders being converted to males on save/reload
- Surprise Attack Plan idea for civil wars is now functional.
- Creating a Manchurian Airforce focus will now bypass if MAN does not exist
- Enabled increase Airlift decision for a China that is in the United Front
- Fate of the Imperial Family no longer requires Manchukuo to exist.
- Decision to escalate to a border conflict is now cancelled if in faction with the target
- Fixed issue where decisions updating decisions to remove could skip an element in the array if one was supposed to be removed
- fixed an issue where Manchuko's Assertiveness branch broke if Japan went with support Kodoha (lost Puyi, lost special autonomy level)
- Forcefully removing support for opposition in a state now properly reduces the gloabl support for the leader of China
- Added bypass trigger to Japanese focus Triparte Pact if either Germany or Italy is not fascist or Japan is at war with either of them
- Secret CIA reference now actually works (maybe. but thats CLASSIFIED)
- Removed max trait limit from unit leaders
- Fix for awake and angry achievement not working
- fixed a US resource decision pointing to the wrong state
- Adjusted Wilhelm II and von Mackensen minimum/average death dates.
- Fixed the never ending "connecting..." message when you fail to connect to a multiplayer session. The max timeout is 30sec, but now it will finally say "Failed to connect".
- Fixed attaches adding ideas twice on save/load.
- Fixed a double-Stalin-bug. If a player right click on a country with a leader, and then on your own country that is missing a leader portrait, it still shows the previous country portrait.
- Battleplans > Fixed bug in defensive orders being auto merged when painting them.
- Fixed a number of issues with Romania in base game without DLCs enabled.
- Fix for wrong event being fired from SAF decision.
- "Fall of Cairo" event now gives correct Italian leader
- Fixed "replace_path" not working for mods downloaded from the workshop.
- Socialism with Chinese Characteristics no longer creates a faction if player is already in one.
- Fixed missing occupying country name in the tooltip.
- Various generals generated from focus trees (or other effects) now has correctly scripted skill levels.
- Overall garrison order improvements.
- Fixed a bug where strikes from demobilization would be impossible to remove by restarting demobilization mission immediately on timeout.
- German focus to "align Hungary or Romania", now bypass if the country does not exist or is already a subject of another country. Effect from focus to integrate them now only gives factories to the country that becomes a puppet of Germany.
- It is now possible to bookmark with Ctrl+(1-9), not only a divisions, but also a selected province or a strategic region.
- Reverted Nazi Germany getting back their old focus tree if they won the German Civil War (because it broke a lot of things).
- South Africa now has referendum decision available if they went "South Africa First".
- "Test the soviets" decision should no longer require split-second timing for it to work.
- Poland now more inclined to ally Germany, and less inclined to ally UK, after giving up Danzig for guarantees.
- The amounts of air wings being sent as volunteers are now updated properly, and should no longer go negative.
- Fixed typo in the tooltip of command power description.
- Fixed some division names in German historical name list.
- Referendum decisions now have proper triggers, and will correctly display after Political Discourse is Opened, or ideology support is above 60%.
- "Test the Soviets" will now only execute a negative effect for Soviet Union if they actually lose.
- Splitted demobilization missions into two separate decisions, to fix an issue with strikes spirit getting stuck.
- Manchukuo "Five People Armies" - spawned divisions are no longer locked.
- Fixed some XP gain problems for unit leaders. Multiple leaders can gain XP from same combats now and XP gain does not depend on number of units in army (it depends only on number of units in combat) which should increase overall XP gain.
- Fixed command_power_gain modifier (which are currently being used in inflitration) behaving unexpectedly and causing too much effect on daily command power gain.
- "Expand Civil Support" and "Expand Military Support" decisions, are now removed when a civil war starts, even if still active.
- JAP, RAJ, SAF, ITA, and SOV revolters will no longer get their 'old' focus tree back if they miraculously win the civil war, because it broke many things.

##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- fixed an OOS that is caused by triggering same event twice
- added CTD safety checks to deployment destruction to avoid random crashes
- Prevented using the Continue button to load an old save from a previous and incompatible save version.
- Possibly fixed new game launch crash with modded initial state where it tries to instantly peace out countries at war
- Better handling of error messages from the DirectX function calls (so now if something goes wrong with rendering, we see what is it about).
- Fixed CTD when selecting planes on a non-owned carrier after a civil war.
- Fixed CTD related to the new division names system.
- Fixed CTD in our code responsible for parsing (searching) the folders and files.
- Fixed CTD when using event add_ofssite_building when it would put the building level below zero.
- Performance improvement caused by add_relation_modifier (seen especially when played with specific mods that use it a lot).
- Added extra safety checks to prevent potential CTDs when joining to a MP session.
- Filtered out superficial unit and country leader values when calculating checksum, to avoid false positive OOS.
- Fixed possible OOS cause when client and host have different sets of leader portraits or names (DLCs and MODs may cause that each player in the session has different portraits/names).
- Added hotjoin and error code details to telemetry for OOS events, which will help us with tracking OOSes that happens to the players.
- Fixed potential OOS if only some of the players are using mods with unit names (related to the ace generation).

Its always interesting to see what people play and like in the new expansion, so we took a look at some telemetry:

What paths do people pick?
Germany:
Rheinland - 55%
Oppose Hitler - 45%

Japan
The Unthinkable Option - 9.5%
Purge the Kodoha Faction - 65%
Support the Kodoha Faction - 16.8%
Strengthen the Civilian Government - 8.7%

People Republic of China
Marxist Orthodoxy - 9.8%
Agrarian Socialism - 81.5%
Social Democracy - 8.7%

Manchukuo
Assertivness - 89%
Obedience - 11% (I guess you guys arent very obedient ;D)

Nationalist China
They dont really have a top level choice like the others, so no data here.

Its early days so I expect these numbers to look different in a week or so

 

[Bratyn]

I would just swap it to a +20% construction speed on MIC bonus and call it a day

That should fill the original intention of boosting Military buildup, be fairly balanced with the 12 or so fewer MIC and prevent it from being possible to exploit for CIC spam.

What if the player wants to build infrastructure or forts? Also, we need to revisit the notification system for it, it seems people 'forget' about it too much. All these are things we want to look at and fix in one big go.

 

[Alex_brunius]

What if the player wants to build infrastructure or forts? Also, we need to revisit the notification system for it, it seems people 'forget' about it too much. All these are things we want to look at and fix in one big go.

Yeah good point about the notification.

 

[Thyriel]

I would just swap it to a +20% construction speed on MIC bonus and call it a day

That should fill the original intention of boosting Military buildup, be fairly balanced with the 12 or so fewer MIC and prevent it from being possible to exploit for CIC spam.

I hope very much they do not do this. I never build MICs before 1937 so I would just get out of the bills. They would be a liability and not a bonus. I do not believe the intention was to punish playing as Germany. I actually would prefer if you could start the MeFo bills when you want to. Then the speed up to MiL production could make sense, although I still would most likely prefer them to be taken out of the game and give me my starting 12 MiLs back.

Two other things I want to mention though is that PP now seems to be lacking. There are many new ways to use it but you still get only a very limited amount of it. Or maybe make decisions scale from Command power, at least some of them?

The second is command power. It is fully useless until you actually start a war. Can you invent some uses for it so that I do not sit on 100 for 3 years?

Lastly, can the trickle of manpower be sped up and penalties adjusted so that you do not have millions of people disappearing from factories but not showing in the army at all?

All in all the changes are ok and most ideas add to the gameplay. So I am more or less a happy camper with the DLC.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I hope very much they do not do this. I never build MICs before 1937 so I would just get out of the bills. They would be a liability and not a bonus. I do not believe the intention was to punish playing as Germany. I actually would prefer if you could start the MeFo bills when you want to. Then the speed up to MiL production could make sense, although I still would most likely prefer them to be taken out of the game and give me my starting 12 MiLs back.

The MEFO bills stays until you go to war 1939, so if you start building MIC in 1937 this means you still get to use it for 2.7 out of the 3.7 years preparation for war. ( With historical Danzig ). So even with a bit of Civilian buildup it would be a big boost, not a liability/punishment.

The reason I think it makes sense is because it promotes a historical aggressive Military buildup as Germany. Germany is not a nation that historically focused on building up it's civilian Industry until 1939 to get a civilian industrial base stronger then that of USA, so why should the game promote playing that way?

Two other things I want to mention though is that PP now seems to be lacking. There are many new ways to use it but you still get only a very limited amount of it. Or maybe make decisions scale from Command power, at least some of them?

The second is command power. It is fully useless until you actually start a war. Can you invent some uses for it so that I do not sit on 100 for 3 years?

Yeah I agree.

Maybe if Recruiting new Generals instead of costing PP could cost Command Power that would shift the balance a bit?

Lastly, can the trickle of manpower be sped up and penalties adjusted so that you do not have millions of people disappearing from factories but not showing in the army at all?

All in all the changes are ok and most ideas add to the gameplay. So I am more or less a happy camper with the DLC.

Makes sense, if it takes years to get everyone into the army, then industrial penalties from Scraping the barrels and so on should also take years to tick up. Or perhaps the later more desperate conscription laws could speed up recruitment speed a bit as well?

 

[davidc929]

honestly a very good idea. I had never thought of this as an idea to stopping air spam. We should have a pilot manpower pool as well as a sailors one (although navy can’t really be spammed as it takes so long to build, but might as well while at it.) Also could make pilot specific manpower laws that effect quality of planes/pilots the more pilots you have.

I thought in HOI3 days that it would be good to have 4 manpower pools. The first initial untrained manpower, then one each for trained army, air force and navy manpower. There should then be the option to raid the untrained, air force and navy pools for making ground troops as well, but only poorly trained and equipped militia or garrison type units in an emergency.

 

[myzael]

Maybe if Recruiting new Generals instead of costing PP could cost Command Power that would shift the balance a bit?

Arguably, in Germany's case, you have plenty of general traits to hand out before the war, (and spend CP on SCW/Sino-Japanese War), but yeah, making generals cost CP (and maybe PP still, but less), is a very good idea.

 

[Zwirbaum]

What if the player wants to build infrastructure or forts? Also, we need to revisit the notification system for it, it seems people 'forget' about it too much. All these are things we want to look at and fix in one big go.

IMO +20% general construction speed could be good replacement for that. Maybe there should be also option to 'enact whenever possible' - checkbox in terms of decisions? So you could mark MEFO bills to auto-enact whenever possible?

 

[Zwirbaum]

The MEFO bills stays until you go to war 1939, so if you start building MIC in 1937 this means you still get to use it for 2.7 out of the 3.7 years preparation for war. ( With historical Danzig ). So even with a bit of Civilian buildup it would be a big boost, not a liability/punishment.

The reason I think it makes sense is because it promotes a historical aggressive Military buildup as Germany. Germany is not a nation that historically focused on building up it's civilian Industry until 1939 to get a civilian industrial base stronger then that of USA, so why should the game promote playing that way?




Yeah I agree.

Maybe if Recruiting new Generals instead of costing PP could cost Command Power that would shift the balance a bit?



Makes sense, if it takes years to get everyone into the army, then industrial penalties from Scraping the barrels and so on should also take years to tick up. Or perhaps the later more desperate conscription laws could speed up recruitment speed a bit as well?

Yes, Service Requirement and higher mobilization laws should increase mobilization speed.

 

[A740]

Great work on the DLC!

But can you please fix the thing where if you have a garrison army and then select troops from another army or just deselced the garrison forces, the stripe graphic stays on the assigned garrisoned provinces until I change to naval map mode and and back. Its really annoying.

Thanks if you read this

 

[Nevrion]

Did I miss the statement or did you not fix the famous soviet civil war bug, that resets the focus tree of soviet union?

 

[Bratyn]

Did I miss the statement or did you not fix the famous soviet civil war bug, that resets the focus tree of soviet union?

This is fixed.

 

[po8crg]

Yeah good suggestion. I personally have also thought about being able to mark stuff as deprecated liek with equipment to hide from the list, but not need deleting

Something I'd like to be able to do from the division templates list is to change all divisions on that template to another template - for instance, I often have a mix of light tank and medium tank divisions for the invasion of France and then flip them all to mediums afterward. Be nice to do that centrally, rather than having to find them in all the various armies; especially important now that you have lots of smaller armies rather than fewer bigger ones.

 

[him_15]

Will the hotfix go live today?

 

[Bambilambi]

Army aircraft also needs to be tuned.
For example when attacking Poland I add CAS to my army in eastern Germany.
When I start attacking Poland, those CAS are flying missions in eastern Germany, when they really should be in western Poland since I am the aggressor.

After a few days they some of the planes switch to western Poland and actually does some use.
It looks like the decision logic for army aircraft is coupled to where the troops are and not to where the battles are. Should be fixed.

 

[zalk12]

Is there any chance you guys could give non-aligned Germany the chance to puppet in peace conferences

 

[Gamengervi]

Is there any chance you guys could give non-aligned Germany the chance to puppet in peace conferences

I'd like it if they added an exclusive focus to "Form the Reichskommissariats" for this. Possibly being able to restore the monarchies in Ukraine, Russia, Spain, etc. Or at least inviting them to return.

 

[GothicEmperor]

Is there any chance you guys could give non-aligned Germany the chance to puppet in peace conferences

Add Austria-Hungary to that as well. Since DoD came out I've been pretty miffed I can't Puppet (what's left of) Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland.

 

[Cpack]

eventually. we reply when we start processign/solving them generally

Hopefully, my bug makes the game unplayable for me atm.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi-4-ctd-always-on-07-05-1937.1079564/

 

[Zwirbaum]

@podcat

It's good to add that one of the achievements looks like it is LITERALLY impossible. (To have Field Marshal of 10 Skill level).

Leveling for leaders caps at lvl 9.

 

[grandad1982]

No, just from every player playing this game through Steam. Which means most players except those (like me at times) who prefer to play in offline mode.

Actually I don't think that is true. I recall a thread a few years back (maybe in the e4 forums) that was kicking off about this data collection. In that thread it was said that the data collected and sent independently of steam. I don't remember it very clearly but if people are interested I guess they can ping a dev.