Hoi4 Dev Diary - Thoughts & roadmap

[xLilBoiDenmark_]

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Greetings all!

As you’ll no doubt be aware, the launch of the No Step Back expansion last year was the climax of a busy year of development for the HoI team, and it continues to be one of our best received releases to date.

Of course, the last year also saw the departure of @podcat as Game Director who was reassigned to Siberia greater things at Paradox. Many of you will also have read the roadmap document that was produced towards the beginning of HoI4 development, and are asking questions as to the veracity of that plan under a new director, and whether I have any different ideas or plans to announce.

Looking Forwards

I mentioned at the beginning of my tenure that both @podcat and I see HoI4 in broadly similar terms. This hasn’t changed, and you can expect to see many of the parts of the previous roadmap make an appearance at some point in the future.

My approach to a ‘Grand Plan’, however, may be somewhat different. I have a preference for leaving plenty of space for reactive development (something that served us well on Imperator), and while there are many things that I feel are ripe for future development, I am also keen to leave a lot of space for changing course and acting on community sentiment.

There are two main points I want to raise before we get to details, however. Firstly, we intend to up the tempo of our releases a little. This is, of course, an ambition, and not a promise, however it informs some further decisions related to the development of HoI. Namely, that we are considering ways to change how and when we release information on development to you folks. Since faster development is the goal, this also means getting ideas into public view slightly faster, for feedback and conversation. We’re not exactly sure how this will look yet, but it is likely that there’ll be a reorganization of the traditional dev-diary schedule into something that feels less like a milestone delivery. This comes in tandem with a need to shift the community’s expectations on what ‘in development’ means: getting fans accustomed to seeing placeholders, WIP balance, and half-built systems in early phases, and seeing things develop as time goes on.

The last major point here is that we recognize a need to maintain the game as well as to develop it, especially if development pace is picking up. We’re still considering how best to achieve this, and I’m watching initiatives such as the Custodian team on Stellaris with curiosity. For the time being, what this is likely to manifest as, is the inclusion of older system maintenance into our patch planning - you may start to see patch bulletin features including things such as minor focus tree revamps, as well as attention paid to older systems and expansion content.

Roadmap

As mentioned above, the 2020 roadmap for HoI4 included many things which have now either been completed or rendered unnecessary. This leaves several from podcat’s list which I believe are still important for the future of the game:

• Improvements to frontline stability (progress in NSB, more to come)
• Long term goals and strategies to guide ai (progress in NSB)
• Improving peace conferences
• Update core national focus trees with alt-history paths and more options (Italy)
• Wunderwaffen projects
• More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms
• More National Focus trees
• Make defensive warfare more fun
• Adding mechanics to limit the size of your standing army, particularly post-war etc
• Have doctrines more strongly affect division designing
• Strategic and tactical AI improvements

In addition to these items, I will of course add some of my own personal intentions:

Great Power Diplomacy
This is one area that I feel doesn’t need much explanation. More diplomatic tools are a clear area for expansion, and a careful look at how this module can be developed without interfering with the overarching global war, is likely to happen.

Economic Decision Making
The economic system is very abstracted in HoI, and I do not foresee ever making it a major part of the game loop. This said, there are elements of an industrial economy that I feel could do with being part of decision making in HoI.

Immersive/Roleplay Elements
Optional tools for making your mark on a game, and/or development of further building blocks to enhance attachment to a HoI campaign. Bring the simulation to life.

And of course, many more that I feel do not need as much of an explanation:

• Battleplanner improvements
• Advisors/internal politics improvements
• Ideological distinctions
• Multiplayer & social layer improvements & support

I like to remain as open as possible to the needs of the community, and the inclusion or omission of any particular item above should not be considered ‘set in stone’.

As we look at how we plan on structuring future communications, there may be some space for a few more dev diaries on what you’ve all been getting up to in NSB in the near(ish) future!

/Arheo

Is there any chance that germany will get a new focus tree within the next DLC?
If so, send your ideas on the new focus tree (I feel like it needs alot more Alt History than it does now, even a communist tree)

 

[Dsingis]

Improving peace conferences

This is the most important out of all of them. Magnitudes above anything else. This must happen sooner rather than later.

 

[marxwasright]

I hope since a Scandinavian pack would be 'bftb tier' it could be produced quicker, tide us over. I also hope Austria gets thrown in with Italy. Siam and the Phillipines I would like to see, but don't know where they would fit. Then eventually places like South America for fun. I think there is a big player base in Brazil.. if the Turks deserved a DLC, so do they.

 

[kaguravitro]

The peace conference and limit the units deploy are quiet much important thing to do.

But there's a mod idea in iron coutain mod that should be in the base game: influence vs sovereignty. The foreign influence as a tool to force countries to trade (getting harder condition to trade and maybe with piece modifiers), but also a tool to flip to a side maintaining the non aligned alignment or preventing to side with enemies Alliance. A generalization of the cave for Germany or uk.

A influenced country will have side effects, many focus could affect the sovereignty. Also like sovereignty could lead to a commi or fascist coup. Just ideas but very likely the best feature of a mod I have seen.

 

[ScottyWired]

I'd love more tools to reduce micro-management.

1. Rework of the ace system. Allow stacking aces onto airwings, so that there's no difference between 500 planes and 50 x 10 planes.
Or maybe have other uses for aces? Spend them at home for propaganda? Buy decisions with publicity instead of PP? Or as a resource for high-risk air/intelligence operations like wounding an enemy general?

2. Tools for managing production. Built-in calculator for telling me how many factories I need, or some level of automation.

My idea: The factories you "assign" are basically immovable. The factory AI isn't allowed to touch those. This is for the player making long-term production plans like future tank divisions or the air force. All the "unassigned" factories are "open" and will re-assign themselves based on current divisions and current shortages.

Obviously needs some checks in place so that the Factory AI isn't just grinding efficiency into the ground with constant re-assignment.

3. Apply task force templates to multiple task forces at once. I'm a huge submarine user, and it's a bit of a pain managing so many task forces when submarines get built so quickly.

 

[ashelee1]

It might be interesting if there was a more direct relationship between production and manpower. As things stand, total mobilization reduces your recruitable manpower and the more extreme conscription laws have maluses to production, but I think it might be more interesting if the choice between manpower for the army or for the factories was more direct, such as, if factories needed manpower directly to work. This could also be used to limit the size of the standing army, since, in peace, there wouldn't be much of a point to having all your men in the army when they could be working in the factories.

 

[JerkyJerry]

The improvements sound good to me and I'm glad so many generals are very excited but not what I was hoping for.
I'm more of a sandbox player at this point. With thousands of hours played, I just can't play the historical way, with any country, any longer. Been there and done that too many times now.
I love the game, of course, however more player abilities to change up the game sure would have been appreciated by this HOI4 loving general!

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Excited for the idea of a custodian team.
This DD should also put an end to those annoying "Game is dead/abandoned" threads that have been popping up here reccently.

 

[filmaty98]

We will never add money to HoI

So the Economy in this game will be always trash. Anyway, thanks for your reply.

 

[Harin]

Since there have been so few posts requesting help on the naval portion of the game, I would like to request such help. I do appreciate the nudges naval has received lately and hope it continues. Right now, naval is an afterthought in most games, despite it having plenty of tools to be an exciting part of the game. This thread gives hope that it does not have to be on the roadmap to get attention.

 

[Culann]

Like to add that fixing peace conferences and more interaction in the creation of the post war order should be top priority or close to it.

 

[Dalnar]

If anything, I'm happy for update of Italy. So many missing things atm.

 

[jacekgk]

@Arheo, few more feedbacks from me yet about content:

1. About new focus trees.

I very like most of national focus trees in the game. I love the idea, when I get a country, which is totally mess (debts, totally oposition, low manpower, some moroons in charge - nothing was changing through these years...) and I need to figure out, how to remove most of these before I would be ready for something.
To do it, I need focus trees with dedicated political branch, but other things could be shared. For example, if whenever we get DLC dedicated Near and Middle East, things like: industry, army, airforce, naval force (after consideration: not for You, Afghanistan, sorry) could be the same. But different should be political directions. I speak for myself: I don't care, if I get from the foci the same amount factories as Saudi Arabia and as Iran. But I want to one day ask british nicely for Kuwait as Saudi Arabia, and second day: establish puppet gouverment in Iraq as Iran.
I see this approach in Baltic States and I think, that it is step in right direction.

2. About complication in the game.

Don't let me wrong, I like BftB, even if this DLC generated a few really weird bugs in the game. Most of this became because focus trees are to big, slow and complicated. They are cool, very OP, if You find Your own way (communist Turkey can justify war goals by 90 days in 1937, Bulgaria can re-core all Balkans without single shot in 1939, Greece can do it with some fight this plus Italy), but there is to many things, witch still doesn't work as it was intended.
I see less dedicated mechanics in the next DLC's. I know, that SCW needed something like that in La Ressistance, but next DLC's gave us more things, witch are not continueing. That was with faction managing and foreign investing in BftB, which are not implement (rightly or wrongly, probably this first) in NSB. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have suspicious, that this same will happen with increasing monarchist simpatizing from NSB in next DLC's.

These things: shared subbranches and less dedicated mechanics should give You opportunity to speed works on next focus trees. As You can see, people (included me ) want more countries with own focus tree. Sending this job to external team potentially is a good idea, but with the commandment that it should looks like Portugal or Baltic States, not as Bulgaria or Turkey. Phillipines deserve for focus tree, but not deserve for focus tree bigger then german one

3. About new creators and resources.

I'm not a big fan for adding to mutch details in the games. Already the tank creator is pointless for me, probably this same would be with postulated aircraft designer. I don't want to see in HOI4 things such as: money, food, clothes, etc - this is not Civilization VI (witch I really like, I confess ). One step forward and we will draft uniforms for our soldiers, not give them a orders in frontlines But maybe for consideration: it would be not a wrong idea to add uranium / plutonium as a resource? It would be necessary for making atomic bomb, appears after finishing "atomic research" and it would be only resource, witch You cannot trade with anyone except Your puppets. That could make atomic bomb little harder and would avoid Bhutan becoming a nuclear superpower in 1943.

4. About peace conference and diplomacy.

People (including me) wrote everything about it and I don't want to repeat in this place.

Maybe I stuck a stick in an anthill, but as I said - I speak for myself, this is only my opinions

 

[Hank the Blobfish]

they're a heck of a lot bigger than Luxembourg

although I agree that Lesotho and Eswatini shouldn't be part of South Africa (in fact the entire British Empire needs a rework imo), the argument that they are bigger than Luxembourg is kind of a terrible argument, as Luxembourg was an actual independent nation, while Lesotho and Eswatini weren't

 

[Balesir]

It might be interesting if there was a more direct relationship between production and manpower. As things stand, total mobilization reduces your recruitable manpower and the more extreme conscription laws have maluses to production, but I think it might be more interesting if the choice between manpower for the army or for the factories was more direct, such as, if factories needed manpower directly to work. This could also be used to limit the size of the standing army, since, in peace, there wouldn't be much of a point to having all your men in the army when they could be working in the factories.

I agree that such a 'naturalistic' incentive to demobilise when war ends would be good. That can still leave industry mobilised for war, however; a drain on Stability from high levels of industrial mobilisation might be a good (and realistic) way to approach this.

 

[Balesir]

although I agree that Lesotho and Eswatini shouldn't be part of South Africa (in fact the entire British Empire needs a rework imo), the argument that they are bigger than Luxembourg is kind of a terrible argument, as Luxembourg was an actual independent nation, while Lesotho and Eswatini weren't

Yes, the whole colony-dominion system is right there, but hardly really used. Making most of the Empire various shades of puppet would make for a much more realistic representation (and could add lots of interesting issues to solve as Britain!)

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Arheo, and lots of great thoughts there - I'm very much looking forward to what's next in the pipeline for HoI4

We’re not exactly sure how this will look yet, but it is likely that there’ll be a reorganization of the traditional dev-diary schedule into something that feels less like a milestone delivery. This comes in tandem with a need to shift the community’s expectations on what ‘in development’ means: getting fans accustomed to seeing placeholders, WIP balance, and half-built systems in early phases, and seeing things develop as time goes on.

Very nice - I think this is a great idea, there's a wealth of knowledge on the forums. There'll inevitably be people that don't take quite as well to it, but touch wood it'll work out well once everything's accounted for

The last major point here is that we recognize a need to maintain the game as well as to develop it, especially if development pace is picking up. We’re still considering how best to achieve this, and I’m watching initiatives such as the Custodian team on Stellaris with curiosity. For the time being, what this is likely to manifest as, is the inclusion of older system maintenance into our patch planning - you may start to see patch bulletin features including things such as minor focus tree revamps, as well as attention paid to older systems and expansion content.

This also sounds excellent - HoI4's an excellent game (my favourite ) and it's generally well polished, but there are a few rough edges that could be sanded down (perfectly understandable, given its complexity).

I think you saw from the last beta patch just how painful he can be

Fixed that for you That said, I very much agree - making the UI more cohesive and more informative (in ways that players can tailor to their playstyle) is something I'd be a big fan of

We will never add money to HoI

You mean "we'll never add money to HoI without a system of dynamic floating exchange rates, currency arbitrage, HoI4-themed traveller's cheques and international traders that rig currency interactions to make extra-large bonuses", aye?

This said, there are elements of an industrial economy that I feel could do with being part of decision making in HoI.

I'd like to put in a suggestion for a naval dockyard management simulation mini-game I'm only joking of course, maybe..... (pic is of Impero pre-launch).

 

[Mr Schnabel]

it's hard to understand that we need experience to change a template, especially when an expansion only replenishes units without experience. then there's the abuse with changing e.g. kaverlarie to motorized to complete the "connection" after 3 months already. Why is it not done like in real life. There regiments are raised, which are integrated after successful training in divisions. You can do it like in the porduction of the equipment. for the training there is a material wear and after a certain time ready trained soldiers (infantry, tank, artillery ect.) tumble into the stock. From the stockpile, I can then raise divisions for myself. For example, if I have 100 000 infantrymen and 20000 artillerymen in the stock and I raise 10 divisions of 10k infantry and 2000 artillerymen, all divisions are 100% filled. With 20 divisions only 50%, unless I prioritize some. Exactly the same with a focust attack. I do want to have my most experienced units on an advance and right now that is not possible. In addition, then the 1000 different Ai templates fall away.

 

[Arheo]

You mean "we'll never add money to HoI without a system of dynamic floating exchange rates, currency arbitrage, HoI4-themed traveller's cheques and international traders that rig currency interactions to make extra-large bonuses", aye?

The only floating exchange I accept is the exchange of 18.1 inch shells from several dozen miles away.

I'd like to put in a suggestion for a naval dockyard management simulation mini-game I'm only joking of course, maybe..... (pic is of Impero pre-launch).

I'd play it

 

[man0lo]

@Arheo When will be the next hotfix about?? ...in which some game breaking bugs will be fixed. I can't play the game for 2 months now. Plz we need support!!!
Thanks a lot in advance!
Midgeman also faced the Bug @Midgeman_Official