The Pacific is just a side quest

[Barron of Gondor]

China, and Japan are unimportant. How many SP UK games have you had where you actually cared if China fell? How many games have you seen Japan take Malaya and the Dutch East Indies from you? How many games did you have to put troops in Burma to halt the Japanese from invading the Raj? How many times did they threaten Australia? I’d bet, not very many. And even if your puppets did fall… so what? This is comical.

Now in MP there are incentives to fight a pacific war. Raj, Australia, and NZ are probably players, so you’re not gonna just let them die, because of peer pressure. However in SP… pfft who cares if AI Australia dies?.. Your stab and surrender limit is just fine, and the peace conference is through the occupation of Germany. The brutal occupation your allies and dominions are about to face? Nah! not important to prevent. You gotta save your IC to make Mech for your blitz to Berlin. Not for a Radar station and extra Nav’s to keep a close watch on the Coral Sea. "Where is the Coral Sea anyway... oh North East Australia, and the Solomon Islands? What game you think you're playing? War on the Sea? Lmao"

Yeah, the Pacific War was less important than the European theaters. No arguments here. But it wasn’t a side quest either. China was vital in the war against Japan. As Japan I want to get china over and done with fast, the game succeeds in that regard. And as UK/US you want to bog down Japan in China. Here the game fails at making me care about helping China. If anything I want Japan to win so it’s not a complete pushover, and I can have a, you know, a war with it.

AI Japan is so weak that making it fight a war of attrition is pointless. Just clap its navy, then invade the Home Islands. My G.I.'s are normally back home for Bubble Gum and Ice Cream before prohibition is repealed. In IRL the US expected a months to year long campaign and close to a million casualties to invade Japan. So much so that every physical Purple Heart metal ever awarded to US troops after WW2 was originally made in the anticipation for that invasion. In game? Maybe 25K casualties if you just battle plan it in 1941. Maybe?

I don't know. I find it hard to believe that Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan all deserve these (literally) unbelievable buffs and special focus trees to turn them into a powerhouse. But China and Japan are stuck with 7 year old focus trees from Waking the (paper) Tiger. And never can have anywhere near the power creep as say, Chile.

 

[Killer-Cosmo]

Good thing the signs are pointing towards the Pacific as the next expansion, then

 

[Lean_XD]

It didn't matter until, UK remembered that Italians were contesting the Mediterranean, and sinking convoys. Germany had a few hundred submarines in the Atlantic, and now the Japanese were keen on getting their most resource-rich colonies. In HoI4, it is more like "Who cares if I don't protect home waters? "German U-boats are a very rare type of submarine, mostly because Germany didn't build many of them." "Malay What?" "I'm gonna just move every single ship I have in one single fleet, that way I will always be able to win" "Fmous British Royal Air Force, consisting of 10k ww1 airplanes straped with torpedos. and 10k Fighters with 12 50. calls." "Who cares if we lose all of our allies?, It's not like our people can rebel, what are we, Italy?"

 

[Arieswolf]

Only a few more months of adding content to the last crappy country pack that no one wanted.

 

[Barron of Gondor]

Good thing the signs are pointing towards the Pacific as the next expansion, then

God I hope so.

Only a few more months of adding content to the last crappy country pack that no one wanted.

HOI Devs: "You know what nation deserves an extremely well fleshed out focus tree in our WW2 game? The Belgian Congo! Lets have our team research that before they match up the the P47's 3D model with it's sprite."

 

[Killer-Cosmo]

God I hope so.

Considering they've added independent Burma, given Siam a buff (and make them join Japan...?), and added this feature in the newest patch:

It may not be relevant, but the fact the Dutch East Indies and Siam are present could imply the devs desire to expand it further, possibly to an independent Indochina or Malaya

 

[Barron of Gondor]

Considering they've added independent Burma, given Siam a buff (and make them join Japan...?), and added this feature in the newest patch:
View attachment 1286813
It may not be relevant, but the fact the Dutch East Indies and Siam are present could imply the devs desire to expand it further, possibly to an independent Indochina or Malaya

Nah, you are obviously wrong. Don't you know; Honduras and Cuba still use the generic focus tree?

This cannot be allowed. We demand a tree for those nations first. lol

 

[GSP Jr]

If they are going to do anything in the Pacific, they need to fix carrier planes.

 

[RobbiusBossius]

The pacific war will simply not matter too much unless there's actually mechanical reason for you to care about it, for example there's not much reason to do any island hopping because there's no penalties, or buffs for either side for losing/gaining islands
Like, why island hop when i can operation downfall japan from day 1, or high castle USA in 2-3 months from war start? There needs to be buffs/debuffs from losing islands, rubber islands to give actual incentive to care about asia

 

[DaReal-BurningDeath]

Maybe a debuff based on the distance to target.

 

[Lamartine]

The pacific war will simply not matter too much unless there's actually mechanical reason for you to care about it

OTTOMH they could

1. Add naval supply range so convoys need to hop along a chain of controlled ports to reach their destination.
2. Add flight range for redeployment, so planes cannot fly around the world on a single tank of gas, they need to hop from airbase to airbase. If you lose a key airbase in your global daisy chain, then you're not going to get any air reinforcements at the end of that chain until it's restored.
3. Give some sort of bonus to navies that are sailing within the range of allied aircraft / malus when they don't. It would incentivise controlling a string of airbases that guard your sea lanes.
4. Add more 'strait crossings' between Pacific Islands so you don't need to complete a dozen application forms known in-game as Preparing a Naval Invasion. Or, more simply, make it less click intensive to plan naval invasions.
5. Have naval invasions automatically turn back if there's severe weather. D-Day was nearly cancelled because of bad weather. The longer you string out your invasion route, the greater the chance (approaching a certainty) that one of the tiles en route will have a storm that turns back the invasion. Players need to shorten their invasion routes to mitigate the impact of storms on their invasion.
6. For a less severe version of 5) make it so that bad weather diverts invasion convoys to other tiles. On D-Day, multiple landing craft disembarked troops at the wrong beach. The longer your invasion route, the greater the risk that your convoys land away from the target with no foreseeable supply.
7. Make naval supremacy a stat that builds and decays over time instead of insta-updating every hour. Suppose I want to invade Japan via the South China Sea. The IJN has 100% naval supremacy along the route. Then suppose the entire IJN goes into drydock. The IJN naval supremacy should only tick down by, say, 5% a week even while my US navy is patrolling the invasion route. My sailors aren't clairvoyant. they don't know for a fact that the IJN has ceased to contest the sea lanes. The USN must actively patrol the sea to establish that the IJN is gone before Nimitz would actually OK an invasion.
8. Subs should delete under-protected troop convoys.

 

[Killer-Cosmo]

Give some sort of bonus to navies that are sailing within the range of allied aircraft / malus when they don't. It would incentivise controlling a string of airbases that guard your sea lanes

This is already in the game, although I'm not opposed to a rework.

Being in range of airfields means task forces operating in the surrounding tiles have greater detection, access to air support in battle (without carriers), protection from enemy carriers in battle, and a boost to naval supremacy. Regardless of your ships your aircraft can also harass enemy fleets making excursions nearby risky

Add more 'strait crossings' between Pacific Islands so you don't need to complete a dozen application forms known in-game as Preparing a Naval Invasion. Or, more simply, make it less click intensive to plan naval invasions

This feels like a makeshift solution, and one that would probably result in some AI f*ckery.

At least currently you can chain naval invasions together in one sitting, if I'm understanding the mechanic right.

Starting a naval invasion allows you to target a nations ports to launch another naval invasion, and since most islands are only one tile, you can effectively island hop. It does mean some extra clicks but you can do them in one go rather than set up one invasion, have it land, then draw another one. I don't think they plan simultaneously so you will have to wait for the planning to complete

Edit: so some testing later and while yes, you can chain invasions together, divisions landing from one invasion aren't immediately attached to the next so you still need to micro it. A shame, but at least they tried I guess

Have naval invasions automatically turn back if there's severe weather. D-Day was nearly cancelled because of bad weather. The longer you string out your invasion route, the greater the chance (approaching a certainty) that one of the tiles en route will have a storm that turns back the invasion. Players need to shorten their invasion routes to mitigate the impact of storms on their invasion

This is one means to hinder super long naval invasion routes, which I agree could do with addressing, however I think the problem is exacerbated by the circumstances of Singleplayer. Having the game just go 'Oop no, sorry you can't go here, you need to turn around and go back to port.

How about a ticking organization loss, like when moving on land? So the shorter distance an invasion has to travel, the more org they have when they get there?

make it so that bad weather diverts invasion convoys to other tiles

This could be a neat addition

Make naval supremacy a stat that builds and decays over time instead of insta-updating every hour. Suppose I want to invade Japan via the South China Sea. The IJN has 100% naval supremacy along the route. Then suppose the entire IJN goes into drydock. The IJN naval supremacy should only tick down by, say, 5% a week even while my US navy is patrolling the invasion route. My sailors aren't clairvoyant. they don't know for a fact that the IJN has ceased to contest the sea lanes. The USN must actively patrol the sea to establish that the IJN is gone before Nimitz would actually OK an invasion

This is a very nice concept, however I feel 5% a week is a bit slow; perhaps 20% a week? it could even be influenced by certain factors (recon planes flying over seazones, naval intel etc)

 

[cdub8d]

The pacific war will simply not matter too much unless there's actually mechanical reason for you to care about it, for example there's not much reason to do any island hopping because there's no penalties, or buffs for either side for losing/gaining islands
Like, why island hop when i can operation downfall japan from day 1, or high castle USA in 2-3 months from war start? There needs to be buffs/debuffs from losing islands, rubber islands to give actual incentive to care about asia

It is too easy to build synthetic refineries. Makes needing rubber significantly less important.

 

[Barron of Gondor]

It is too easy to build synthetic refineries. Makes needing rubber significantly less important.

I mean if they didn’t nerff stat bombing so hard the need for rubber would still be there.

Idk, I haven’t strat bombed in the last few updates. But I remember putting 500 B17’s over western Germany once. Nothing happened.

I hope someone can prove me wrong

 

[LordWahu]

1. Add naval supply range so convoys need to hop along a chain of controlled ports to reach their destination.

Making it a supply range rather than an invasion range does fix one of the biggest issues with adding range: Operation Torch, which went straight from the US to Africa

This avoids that in game because they could still be supplied from Britain or Gibraltar

Give some sort of bonus to navies that are sailing within the range of allied aircraft / malus when they don't. It would incentivise controlling a string of airbases that guard your sea lanes.

This is technically in game already...by virtue of land based bombers being hopelessly overpowered. Sailing in red air is a good way to lose your fleet. The problem is that air ranges are rather large, so you don't need to control every airfield to control the entire sea zone. And unfortunately, if you make them less able to cover sea zones, you also get them less able to cover land zones, which causes problems in Germany

Make naval supremacy a stat that builds and decays over time instead of insta-updating every hour. Suppose I want to invade Japan via the South China Sea. The IJN has 100% naval supremacy along the route. Then suppose the entire IJN goes into drydock. The IJN naval supremacy should only tick down by, say, 5% a week even while my US navy is patrolling the invasion route. My sailors aren't clairvoyant. they don't know for a fact that the IJN has ceased to contest the sea lanes. The USN must actively patrol the sea to establish that the IJN is gone before Nimitz would actually OK an invasion.

This could easily be enhanced to ships needing to show a willingness to fight. A fleet that never leaves port is one that can't stop an invasion. This would kill two cheesy birds (both launching an invasion in the one tick window and never being able to gain superiority because you can't touch the enemy fleet) with one easy stone

I mean if they didn’t nerff stat bombing so hard the need for rubber would still be there.

Idk, I haven’t strat bombed in the last few updates. But I remember putting 500 B17’s over western Germany once. Nothing happened.

I hope someone can prove me wrong

Strat Bombing was affected by a bug that made it unable to do anything for the longest time. That bug has since been fixed