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Help an old HOI2/DH player get into HOI4

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Herbert West

Herbert West

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Jul 24, 2006
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Hey all

I have a total of over a thousand hours sunk into various iterations of HOI2 (probably more than that, but you get the idea), and I bought HOI4 on the current Steam sale.

I played a couple of games with Italy/Germany right up to the war, and sometimes into Case White. I also played through the tutorial, and at least skim-read the beginners guide.

(sidenote: the national focus trees seem somewhat lacklustre in the base game, is this fixed with the DLCs?)

I think I got the hang of the national focus/research aspects, but I have some major questions.

1, Where is the Statistics tab? I'd like to know how many divisions I've got, what air wings I've got, etc. And how much damage I've infilicted, and have taken.
2, Where is the intelligence aspect? Is spying just not in the game yet, or have I missed it?
3, I understand that divisions are now built in a system where you stockpile equipment, and then train your units. What determines how long this training will take? Can I modify that time in any way, apart from forced early deployment? When I have both current and outdated versions of equipment, what gets assigned and how?
4, What supply do units consume? I've had "low on supply" warnings for my armies a couple of times, but there is no dedicated ammo/supply slider like in HOI2. I am confused
5, On a related note, do units really not consume oil during runtime, only during production? Huh?

And the big one: Combat

I have no clue what is going on, how combat is calculated, and I am used to the much finer levels of control on being able to direct individual units, rather than having OKH level control only. Can I trust the AI to handle a front? How does it distritubte troops when I tell it to create a front line? Can I trust that it will use its hard-hitting divisions and commit all troops to a local breakthrough I ordered it to do? What's going on?

I think the game is growing on me, but my lack of understanding the combat aspect, and the apparent lack of feedback (stats tab) makes it not click with me yet.
 
1) It's split up. Top right there are army/navy/air force icons which open up tabs with full analysis of each force. In case you wanna see battle logs and equipment logs, it's on the right of the theater tab at the top right.
2) We think it's coming with the next patch.
3) The upgrade choice at the training tab is how you determine it. If you put high priority it will spread around newer equipment to divisions on the field. If you put it on low priority it will give the new equipment to the divisions in training first.
4) Press F4. If you click on a division icon you will also see how much supply it is consuming individually. This can be lowered by the mass assault doctrine or adding logistics companies.
5) This is also changing pretty soon and yeah, it's a weak point in the game at the moment.

As far as combat goes, attackers have soft attack, hard attack and breakthrough stats. Breakthrough is your "attacking defense" essentially. Defending divisions are entrenched when they are standing still over time. They also have soft attack, hard attack and defense stats. Basically divisions take turns attacking eachother. They deal org damage to one another, until one runs out of org and retreats. The big thing to watch for is having more soft attack than their defense/breakthrough (if it's infantry, armor has more hardness and hard attack matters) which results in significantly more org damage.
 
Wait, I'm confused as to the army/equipment thing

Surely, the point of simulating army equipment as individual pieces, rather than a blanket "Inf '18/'36/'39" system is that you now have the ability to equip units with outdated stuff. Like, as was done in lets say WWI, you have first line troops, getting the current equipment, and all the way down you have the "just give them a boomstick" troops who use old stockpiles.

So wth that in mind, what I would expect to see if the ability to train new divisions with really old equipment (lets say dedicated occupation forces), and just have them sit there.

Is the old "enable/disable upgrades" switch gone on a divisional level?
 
@Herbert West

You can do that; go into the division designer, select the template you want to receive the oldest gear, set them to reserve level (the three red echelons pointing down) - that means they have the lowest priority for new equipment - and you can also tick a separate box that means they only use old equipment.
 
Ah, thanks.

Skimming that document, it does seem like the game is deigned all around this frontline drawing functionality, with little design going into manual, HOI2-style control of units.

Is that the actual case? That's a real dealbreaker for me. I dont play a wargame not to order units around.
 
@Herbert West

You don't have to use the battle planner at all, although there are various advantages to doing so, and the Grand Battle Plan doctrine is very much based around using it.

It's perfectly possible never to use it, or use it only for very limited/specific actions (such as naval and airborne invasions, for which it is required), and a lot of people do that.

Whilst I think it needs a lot of work - particularly unwanted frontline shuffling of divisions - it's still a very useful tool, and I always use it.
 
Okay, watching parts of the video, and reading around, I can safely say that the design decisions in this game make it something I don't want to play.

Shame about that 2 hour refund window.
 
@Herbert West

No OOB, minimap, ledger, etc.? Yeah, you're not the only one.

HoI IV is - for what it is - a good game, and I've sunk a lot of hours into it, both playing and modding, but aspects of it are incredibly disappointing, and from a design philosophy perspective there were some very questionable decisions made, but I think it's worth giving it a chance.

Despite the bad, there are lots of good things about the game, and the recent dev diaries suggest the devs are improving on a lot of aspects that people complained about.

If you can't get a refund, at least give it a try?
 
I've given it about five hours.

But it's ostensibly a wargame. And as a wargame, I'd like to have some actual control on the war, apart from drawing fancy lines for my generals.

I have it in my library anyway, I'll revisit in a year.
 
Sleight of Hand said:
It feels more like Europa Universalis: World at War than a true sequel to Hearts of Iron III, but it's not a bad game.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, though.

Perhaps try this, I hear it's excellent:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/370540
Click to expand...

That's a bit on the "too much" side :)

Speaking of design decisions:

If National Focus is to represent you focusing your nation to achieve some great thing or another, then why, oh why, is their completion time set to 70 days (meaning that the game is more or less guaranteed to miss historic dates), instead of, oh, I dont know, being tied to the stat that represents how well you can direct your nation, National Unity?
 
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As others have said, you can control divisions manually if you want. I often take charge if I have to, for instance during D-day or when marching into Belgium as France (as you need to reach the rivers quickly and form a stable front).

However, on the Eastern front I prefer to leave it to the AI. I do often manually order attacks if I spot possibilites or retreat divisions I believe may get encircled.

Take it as it is. I didnt like it at first, but now I would never be without the AI control.

One thing i prefered in Hearts of Iron 3 was the naval aspect. I seem to lose sight of my fleet and find it sometimes clunky to find it and order it back to port
 
As a fellow DH player I really do sympathize with the lack of feedback regarding battles especially. This game has grown on me though, it just takes some adjustment.

Regarding the combat feedback though, I couldn't imagine how cluttered getting DH-style feedback in popups would be in this game, since in DH the provinces were a lot larger, so even combat across the entire front would be a fraction of what that is in HOI4. I'd still like a bit more accessible information in a sidebar, rather than having to open up a whole separate window, but those are my thoughts for what they're worth.
 
It’s grown on me so much that I think I’m gonna pick up EU4 and the major expansions. I looked a few weeks ago, crazy prices drove me away, but this Halloween sale is quite a bargain to get the base game and major expansions. I’m hoping a mature game will bring mature AI and a good experience.

As much as I love the HOI franchise, I am suckered every release to think that code is actually re-used, but in reality they rewrite the entire game from scratch, repeat previous mistakes, deliver the same pee poor quality that takes years to overcome, and I predict when the game is 80% perfect, major development will end due to slow sales, sustainment will only cover items reported in tech support forum and only critical game bugs, and the laundry list of excellent ideas and features they never got to could only be brought to us in an HOI5, which of course may never happen. All just like hoi 1, 2, and 3.

Maybe I’m wrong as the PDS revenue model is vastly different than it was 5 years ago, and EU4’s impressive life length is perhaps their shining example of how they can achieve infinite momentum. But from looking at the game in depth just today, i certainly see how HOI4 got “The EU4 Treatment”. If I didn’t know how old EU4 was, I’d say EU4 stole their GUI from HOI4 ;) So, why not try the mature version of HOI4? ;)
 
Dan1109 said:
It’s grown on me so much that I think I’m gonna pick up EU4 and the major expansions. I looked a few weeks ago, crazy prices drove me away, but this Halloween sale is quite a bargain to get the base game and major expansions. I’m hoping a mature game will bring mature AI and a good experience.

As much as I love the HOI franchise, I am suckered every release to think that code is actually re-used, but in reality they rewrite the entire game from scratch, repeat previous mistakes, deliver the same pee poor quality that takes years to overcome, and I predict when the game is 80% perfect, major development will end due to slow sales, sustainment will only cover items reported in tech support forum and only critical game bugs, and the laundry list of excellent ideas and features they never got to could only be brought to us in an HOI5, which of course may never happen. All just like hoi 1, 2, and 3.

Maybe I’m wrong as the PDS revenue model is vastly different than it was 5 years ago, and EU4’s impressive life length is perhaps their shining example of how they can achieve infinite momentum. But from looking at the game in depth just today, i certainly see how HOI4 got “The EU4 Treatment”. If I didn’t know how old EU4 was, I’d say EU4 stole their GUI from HOI4 ;) So, why not try the mature version of HOI4? ;)
Click to expand...

What are you actually trying to say here?

I own and play EU4, though not with the DLCs (I am not a sheep to be fleeced bare), and I despise the Monarch mana system.
 
Well, a statement for myself, to go diagonally backwards instead of forwards. Having not played another other PDS game besides the HOI franchise, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised with EU4 and be far less critical, especially on a mature title which HOI4 is not.
 
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