Australia, the Pacific, and a problem with Paradox.

[TheBigIbis]

Australia, with its incorrect starting political state (In 1936, Joseph Lyons and the United Australia Party was in power, John Curtin wouldn't be elected until 1941), barebones focus tree, and nonexistent effect on the world, is pathetic. Even Afghanistan has more content than Australia. This is just unacceptable for a country which had such an impact on the Second World War. Australia defended Tobruk for nearly 8 months, inflicted the Allies first land Victory against Japan in the Kokoda Track Campaign, and the Royal Australian Navy took part in most important naval battles in the pacific. Yet, a country that did nothing gets more content and flavor?

And, the situation with other major powers isnt much better. Japan and China get frankly pathetic focus trees, and the USA is only slightly better. Why? Paradox focuses all their effort on DLC and content for powers who didnt do anything during the war. Im talking about Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Switzerland, even Aussa. I kinda get Brazil and Aran, but Brazil only sent a division to serve in italy, and Iran did nothing, was tag teamed by Britain and the Soviets in 1943, and did nothing for the rest of the war.

It seems that Paradox is more focused on wild, out there, alt history. The focus on South America and the Middle East, the secret projects, its all... Its like they are slowly removing the WW2 aspect, and replacing it with a more alt history focus, similar to CK3 and EU4. Historical paths are now either boring, like Norway's historical Nygaardsvold path, or devolve into alternate history the moment things become speculation spectacularly fast, like Ethiopia's paths after beating Italy. Where has the historical aspects gone? Why can Lithuania crown the son of a planned king that never even made it there? Why can Iran form a new Persian Empire only a year after modernising to the same level as european powers? Where has the balancing based on country power gone? Why is it possible for countries to just demand land from superpowers and they just accept? Why is poland against giving Danzig to germany, yet happily becomes a puppet of lithuania because of a few diplomats? Why does Austria, Italy and France just give away their alps to switzerland? It makes no sense!

I may have gone off topic, but my point still stands. HOI4 is slowly becoming more alternate history focused. CK3 and EU4 Have to be about alternate history, after all, they play for centuries, as compared to HOI4, which barely gets passed a decade. You know, you'd suspect it would take more than 3 decades for Iran to even get close to forming an empire, like Japan did, but nope! Modernisation is instant, and European armies tremble at the sight of a mechanized army that only a year ago was just poorly trained and equipped.

Paradox, please, make historical mode realistic. Leave the other stuff to non historical mode. Just let Historical mean something, other than a way to stop the AI from going Schizo. Please.

 

[him_15]

Australia’s unique focus tree was released almost 10 years ago, you can’t compare it to the newly released DLC nations. i am sure once Australia get their turn the content would be as good if not better.

 

[Zenbeast]

Japan and China get frankly pathetic focus trees, and the USA is only slightly better. Why?

Because these are some of the oldest custom focus trees in the game at this point. We have certainly moved goal posts from what custom focus trees used to look like.

Its like they are slowly removing the WW2 aspect, and replacing it with a more alt history focus, similar to CK3 and EU4.

HOI used to be a game based on an event: WWII. A very pivotal, complex, and important event; but a singular event nonetheless. HOI4 is now more akin to a time period simulator, like the rest of the offerings from Paradox. The issue arises from the base game still built around the idea of WWII when all of the DLC has made it extremely easy to derail OTL events. You now have lots of franchise players who are here to play out history or near-historical timelines, and the majority of DLC does not offer anything to these players.

 

[Kosaki MacTavish]

I mean, Australia gets one of the earliest minor nation contents in Together for Victory back then in late 2016, with one month time gap between announcement and release.

Back then, it was a welcomed addition, but more than 8 years later it has showed its age with lots of 70-days focus and running out of unique foci to do by 1943.

I do hope that Australia would get a proper rework alongside New Zealand, but after Japan and Southeast Asia got their DLC first in Q4 2025.

Can't wait to support the Indonesian revolutionaries as communist Australia, or housing and helping Van Mook's Indies Exile Government as historical Australia.

 

[Barron of Gondor]

It really do be like that. Australia was one of the best examples of a “team player”.

Historically the Allies fought very differently than the Axis. The Allies formed joint commands. It was common to see both an American, Australian, and Dutch ship being placed under the command of a British admiral. Australia was a huge proponent for this. Australia’s military strategy was to work and integrate with their allies in defense of Australia. That is why we see so many forward developments from Australia.

At the outbreak of the war Australia sent a disproportionate amount of troops to Britain and North Africa. Not necessarily out of some sense of unwavering loyalty. But because of Australian doctrine. Their military planners wanted to fight the enemy tooth and nail, in areas of the world far away from the homeland, so the fight in the homeland never happens. This is why they went to North Africa, New Guinea and Malaya. Very akin to the British and American doctrines of Power Projection. Now Australia wasn’t a global power, so they relied heavily upon their allies to aid the power to the power projection concept. So Australia integrated into joint forces for the most part, to get the most bang for their buck.

The Devs really only give lip service to these joint commands. Exiled manpower and expeditionary forces. But this really doesn’t do a good job at modeling joint commands.

Rather than making focus trees for countries like Afghanistan, or adding war elephants to WW2 maneuver warfare; it be nice to have better mechanics for joint operations.

 

[Lamartine]

Australia could certainly use a rework. I even wrote out some suggestions for this nearly three years ago.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/fix-australian-leaders.1544292/

But the priority should be fixing Japan before anything else. Australia can wait, Japan cannot.

 

[GSP Jr]

If Japan is the next update (as it needs to be), I would suggest Australia and USA should be included AND FIX AIRCRAFT CARRIER WARFARE.

It is amazing to me that Iraq and Iran have focus trees and CARRIER PLANES DON'T WORK IN NAVAL WARFARE.

 

[KubiG37]

Australia’s unique focus tree was released almost 10 years ago, you can’t compare it to the newly released DLC nations. i am sure once Australia get their turn the content would be as good if not better.

Back then balance was actually considered too, and the UK dominions got worse industry than IRL to not make UK too powerful. Getting a national focus tree (and replacing the generic) was in many cases a 'nerf' to those countries.

Well, that was 10 years ago, now Chile can dwarf all of them combined, and major AIs behave as if they're minors and just accept everything these countries demand, because 'some players found it too difficult to face world power as Iraq'. I really wish they'd finally stop catering to these vocal minorities and kept some sort of power balance.

 

[FLUX2226]

If Japan is the next update (as it needs to be), I would suggest Australia and USA should be included

US won't be included since their previous rework is still a paid DLC (MtG).

In general it is very unlikely that two major powers will get reworked in the same patch, with how extensive national content has become by now. Japan's and Germany's trees used to be from the same DLC, but only Germany got a rework in GDR.

I am expecting a China rework to be shipped with Japan, but we will see.

 

[LordWahu]

US won't be included since their previous rework is still a paid DLC (MtG).

In general it is very unlikely that two major powers will get reworked in the same patch, with how extensive national content has become by now. Japan's and Germany's trees used to be from the same DLC, but only Germany got a rework in GDR.

I am expecting a China rework to be shipped with Japan, but we will see.

While I suspect MTG will be integrated before the next season pass, your second point stands. The US will probably get it's own DLC with it's own mechanics, rather than being relegated to second fiddle for the most needed update

MTG needs to be integrated for a new Japan tree, as they need to rework the naval system to allow Japan to do any of the things it did. And unfortunately the current Naval system is tied into MTG

But as the US tree is somewhat functional, while Japan is completely non-functional, the US will probably get it's own DLC. As the US did pretty much everything, their rework can include pretty much anything for the mechanical side of the DLC. But Japan needs naval mechanics

 

[herr anfsim]

I feel like a lot of these issues could be summarized as consequences of the games design philosophy. Sure, they could have prioritized relevant nations ahead of irrelevant ones, invested more effort into making new trees good etc. but the problem remains that already released focus trees will become increasingly outdated and out of touch with each new DLC introducing new mechanics and taking the game in new directions. That is, in my oppinion, the core problem of HOI4s design philosophy; focus trees, minigames and new mechanics rather than improving upon and expanding the core mechanics, so that much of the game will always lag behind and feel out of touch.

Together with the game director repeatedly stating that HOI4s focus trees makes comprehensive maintainance and improvement on the core game (like in Stellaris) impossible, this should cause quite a bit of scepticism towards the whole concept. It ends up giving us a whole lot of memey stuff while keeping the core game much more shallow and worse maintained than it could be.

 

[Vlad123]

I feel like a lot of these issues could be summarized as consequences of the fames design philosophy. Sure, they could have prioritized relevant nations ahead of irrelevant ones, invested more effort into making new trees food etc. but the problem remains that already released focus trees will become increasingly outdated and out of touch with each new DLC introducing new mechanics and taking the game in new directions. That is, in my oppinion, the core problem of HOI4s design philosophy; focus trees, minigames and new mechanics rather than inproving upon and expanding the core mechanics, sontat much of the game will always lag behind and feel out of touch.

Together with the game director repeatedly stating that HOI4s focus trees makes comprehensive maintainance and improvement on the core game (like in Stellaris) impossible should cause quite a bit of scepticism towards the whole concept. It ends up foving us a whole lot of memey stuff while keeping the core game much less shallow and worse maintained than it could be.

In short National focus are a creepy features...because are hard to manteinence...

 

[Zenbeast]

Together with the game director repeatedly stating that HOI4s focus trees makes comprehensive maintainance and improvement on the core game (like in Stellaris) impossible, this should cause quite a bit of scepticism towards the whole concept. It ends up giving us a whole lot of memey stuff while keeping the core game much more shallow and worse maintained than it could be.

I sort of understand Arheo's point though. Focus trees are very railroad-y, which with the direction of the game causes a lot of issues. Trying to maintain or make sense of however many custom focus trees there are (50?) and suss out all the myriad conflicts that exist in all of these railroaded experiences would be a monumental task.

In hindsight, focus trees work great for a WWII sim, but HOI4 isn't really one anymore.

Though, Devil's Advocate in me says 'you made this bed, now you gotta sleep in it'.

 

[Adonnus]

Poor Australia... we get no love, but it seems like... well I don't know what the dev team feels about WW2 in general, but as someone who has long had an interest in WW2 and has a history degree as well, it's somewhat painful to see Afghanistan and Argentina which never fired a single shot get more love and attention, it seems, than Australia and Japan. What I want the most is history, but I basically never play the base game for a variety of reasons, though this is the biggest one, all my time is spent playing mods like Kaiserreich. Because at least they take their fake history seriously, so there's something for me to enjoy there.

 

[Vlad123]

Poor Australia... we get no love, but it seems like... well I don't know what the dev team feels about WW2 in general, but as someone who has long had an interest in WW2 and has a history degree as well, it's somewhat painful to see Afghanistan and Argentina which never fired a single shot get more love and attention, it seems, than Australia and Japan. What I want the most is history, but I basically never play the base game for a variety of reasons, though this is the biggest one, all my time is spent playing mods like Kaiserreich. Because at least they take their fake history seriously, so there's something for me to enjoy there.

When a mod take seriusly thei what if history,than the company NOT take seriusly the real history is a problem