Hello everyone. Some time ago I set about fixing problems in some of the mods I had been playing since the HoI2 days, and before I knew it, my skills had improved quite a bit. For the time being I'd like to share with you a little project that I worked on to make a 7-player game of great power politics possible.
I give you BX 1914 DH. This is the original 1914 mod for HoI2, as complete as you may ever see it. No, it doesn't use the Darkest Hour map, nor has it filled in the many graphical and minor-country gaps. It is first and foremost playable. It is my personal conviction that no mod is really up to par if the mechanics are fundamentally broken, be they thematic balance mistakes, unit stat inconsistencies, illegible or mixed up unit model pictures, redundant technologies and units, major event chains with broken alternatives, etc.
It was not my intention to add to this mod so much as to fix what I found. No more will the tech tree unravel past 1920 with broken unit types. No more will strange unit model gaps result in all-metal airplanes reverting to 1910 experimental monoplanes. No more will the AI produce fleets of Monitors because it had a higher BB model than a superdreadnought. No more will the offense be superior to the defense in a game so focused on this era. No more will major decisions like the Bosnian Crisis railroad to inevitable conclusions. The only thing I can't be confident in is the AI, but it is what it is. This game is manifestly playable in multiplayer, which is where its simpler mechanics and less network-intensive numbers really shine.
All that being said, I did touch up some things. For starters, I'm a firm believer in using the decision system to the hilt, and the best way to do that is to make money valuable. Small countries can do wondrous things with foreign investments from big nations. Likewise, 1 level of intel provides "perfect" information on enemy stats, because everyone should have access to a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships in the modern era. Some serious historical injustices were corrected, such as huge stockpiles enabling Britain to fight forever despite a solid blockade, and France and Russia having their impressive fleets short-changed at scenario start. Land border tweaks have made France and Austria far more defensible against their respective foes using the original HoI2 map. Resources are tighter, causing players to really jostle for control of key locations with other empires. Victory Points were re-allocated to reflect great power competition at the turn of the century, restoring that system as a meaningful multiplayer goal beyond complete annexations. Naval ship stats were completely overhauled to reflect the capabilities of the times, and attachments were narrowed to only 2 per capital ship, turning a case of simply adding them all to carefully picking which systems are more useful for your country. Defensive stats grow over time, adding to deadlock right up to the point where high-value armored and aircraft units are able to break the lines open. To top it off, tech embargoes between great powers retain the flavor of each nation's research capabilities, preventing certain alliance arrangements from simply out-teching the rest of the world.
As I said, though, the AI is my current weak spot. As of this writing, I haven't been able to work through how it handles fronts and intelligence missions yet. Likewise, I haven't added non-core claims to provinces in order to give players some roleplay flexibility, but this can be easily abused by humans. My group game has a few house rules which will greatly improve the experience until I can figure ways around them:
- Do not claim and then demand territory from AI without a "great power conference," as the AI is too willing to let go of land.
- Do not use the Coup mission, as AI is not intelligent enough to defend against it by raising intel levels.
- In the event reloading a game causes the tech embargoes to disappear, and/or joining a new alliance does the same, refrain from abusing it until failsafe events fire to reinstall them.
Play 1897! The latter campaigns and scenarios weren't all that complete even when this was still an HoI2 mod in its prime. All of my playtesting was based on 1897.
Other than that, good luck and have fun. I added a high-quality, fleshed out soundtrack combining the original mod with Victoria 2 and a few thematic favorites. Let me know if you have any questions or problems.
UPDATE: August 26, 2020
The group game has long since ended, but we made more tweaks as we went, so I've updated the mod here. Mostly bug fixes, some things to make Imperial China slightly more viable. I added a comprehensive equipment purchase system (more use for money) and rebalanced some of those money-related events, including a rather serious blunder with loan repayments.
There is a significant but kind of unavoidable glitch with multiplayer games, relating to the Dreibund Treaty: With more than 2 players, and when any Dreibund countries are human-controlled, there is a momentary desync at game start in which one of them doesn't "exist" yet, breaking the alliance and therefore firing the Dreibund termination events. The bypass was to make the event only check after day 3 of each month, so when playing multiplayer, be sure to only use start of the month autosaves (or manual saves), otherwise you'll have to go in and tweak the alliances.txt file every time you load in.
I give you BX 1914 DH. This is the original 1914 mod for HoI2, as complete as you may ever see it. No, it doesn't use the Darkest Hour map, nor has it filled in the many graphical and minor-country gaps. It is first and foremost playable. It is my personal conviction that no mod is really up to par if the mechanics are fundamentally broken, be they thematic balance mistakes, unit stat inconsistencies, illegible or mixed up unit model pictures, redundant technologies and units, major event chains with broken alternatives, etc.
It was not my intention to add to this mod so much as to fix what I found. No more will the tech tree unravel past 1920 with broken unit types. No more will strange unit model gaps result in all-metal airplanes reverting to 1910 experimental monoplanes. No more will the AI produce fleets of Monitors because it had a higher BB model than a superdreadnought. No more will the offense be superior to the defense in a game so focused on this era. No more will major decisions like the Bosnian Crisis railroad to inevitable conclusions. The only thing I can't be confident in is the AI, but it is what it is. This game is manifestly playable in multiplayer, which is where its simpler mechanics and less network-intensive numbers really shine.
All that being said, I did touch up some things. For starters, I'm a firm believer in using the decision system to the hilt, and the best way to do that is to make money valuable. Small countries can do wondrous things with foreign investments from big nations. Likewise, 1 level of intel provides "perfect" information on enemy stats, because everyone should have access to a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships in the modern era. Some serious historical injustices were corrected, such as huge stockpiles enabling Britain to fight forever despite a solid blockade, and France and Russia having their impressive fleets short-changed at scenario start. Land border tweaks have made France and Austria far more defensible against their respective foes using the original HoI2 map. Resources are tighter, causing players to really jostle for control of key locations with other empires. Victory Points were re-allocated to reflect great power competition at the turn of the century, restoring that system as a meaningful multiplayer goal beyond complete annexations. Naval ship stats were completely overhauled to reflect the capabilities of the times, and attachments were narrowed to only 2 per capital ship, turning a case of simply adding them all to carefully picking which systems are more useful for your country. Defensive stats grow over time, adding to deadlock right up to the point where high-value armored and aircraft units are able to break the lines open. To top it off, tech embargoes between great powers retain the flavor of each nation's research capabilities, preventing certain alliance arrangements from simply out-teching the rest of the world.
As I said, though, the AI is my current weak spot. As of this writing, I haven't been able to work through how it handles fronts and intelligence missions yet. Likewise, I haven't added non-core claims to provinces in order to give players some roleplay flexibility, but this can be easily abused by humans. My group game has a few house rules which will greatly improve the experience until I can figure ways around them:
- Do not claim and then demand territory from AI without a "great power conference," as the AI is too willing to let go of land.
- Do not use the Coup mission, as AI is not intelligent enough to defend against it by raising intel levels.
- In the event reloading a game causes the tech embargoes to disappear, and/or joining a new alliance does the same, refrain from abusing it until failsafe events fire to reinstall them.
Play 1897! The latter campaigns and scenarios weren't all that complete even when this was still an HoI2 mod in its prime. All of my playtesting was based on 1897.
Other than that, good luck and have fun. I added a high-quality, fleshed out soundtrack combining the original mod with Victoria 2 and a few thematic favorites. Let me know if you have any questions or problems.
UPDATE: August 26, 2020
The group game has long since ended, but we made more tweaks as we went, so I've updated the mod here. Mostly bug fixes, some things to make Imperial China slightly more viable. I added a comprehensive equipment purchase system (more use for money) and rebalanced some of those money-related events, including a rather serious blunder with loan repayments.
There is a significant but kind of unavoidable glitch with multiplayer games, relating to the Dreibund Treaty: With more than 2 players, and when any Dreibund countries are human-controlled, there is a momentary desync at game start in which one of them doesn't "exist" yet, breaking the alliance and therefore firing the Dreibund termination events. The bypass was to make the event only check after day 3 of each month, so when playing multiplayer, be sure to only use start of the month autosaves (or manual saves), otherwise you'll have to go in and tweak the alliances.txt file every time you load in.
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