@Arheo
In this thread I'd like to offer to look at flawed design choices in HOI4, that constrain further development with performance issues, excessive effort required to further develop the game or simply cause user inconvenience.
As of present day, it is visible that despite HOI4 being an innovative breakthrough in wargaming (AI managed frontlines, task force order assignments, tank & naval designers), HOI4 is reaching a state when it reaches moral obsolescence:
AKA the original design is no longer possible to meaningfully develop without significant penalties.
It's not the fault of the devs, I suspect their original intention for the game was a "majors focused" WW2 grand strategy for which the original game design was fairly well suited when built in 2016.
But the game course changed after "Death or Dishonor" from a WW2 Majors-oriented Grand Strategy to a 1936-1945 Majors & Minors Grand Strategy. Instead of 10 major actors, that number is up to 20 at least right now, and will grow as more DLCs will be released.
Since then there is patchwork after patchwork, that creates an incohesive Frankenstein. The devs managing this monster are already struggling and it's noticeable.
Why raise this matter?
With the course the game has taken, we can expect the following trends that will increase the pressure on our machines:
1. More detailed minors focus trees consuming more processing power from machines
2. New variables/mechanics (Stalin's paranoia, command power, war support that were introduced in separate DLCs, tank designer, ship designer, fuel)
3. Greater nation detail (designers, advisors, spirits)
These are the issues I see:
1. Massive Standing Armies in Peacetime
I think anyone knows that the more units you have on the map, the more processing is demanded from the computer. By 1945 every Nepal, Uruguay or Cuba has multiple divisions deployed
The Kaiserreich mod was the first to hit this problem, and had to institute a soft-cap on on-map units.
The devs tried to reduce the impact of this by revising the original game design, for example by introducing the garrison system to remove at least some divisions off the map, but that did not reduce the problem by much as too few divisions ever played a garrison role.
With further DLCs(because at the end of the day, HOI4 is a commercial game that wants to sell DLCs which is normal) this problem will only grow, as more and more minors with limited manpower will have a reason to spawn 2-10 width units to man their frontlines.
Proposed Solution & Justification:
Replace the current "100% on-map standing army system" with a "Off-map reserve" and "Mobilizational system".
As you well know, there is virtually no situation in peacetime when the full mobilized army is deployed. There is always a "1st Line/Cover Line" echelon of divisions that are actually on the frontline from day 1, while the rest become ready as drafted civilians from the reserve arrive to recruitment centers and get sent to the respective army units.
HOI4 should use the same logic: have a number of divisions that can be deployed from day 1, while the rest become available only after the war starts.
Currently this is attempted to be simulated by mobilization laws, but it's failing as:
A) You have units on the map consuming processing
B) There is virtually no difference whether you are at war or not in terms of on-map unit count. You as France have the same number of men in field in 1936 as in 1940 which cannot be correct.
You may have 900,000 men in 1939 as France, but the game does not fully represent basic "bakers, supply staff, drivers" and other non-combatants that are part of the army. In WW1 for example, manpower-constrained France had 33% of its army as non-combatants, while Germany had 42.5% in 1916.
Proposed Solution:
A) Create drawbacks for mobilization laws that impact the civilian economy output
B) Reduce on-map divisions to 25-50% of what they are currently through penalties to civilian economy output.
C) Potentially adding "Recruitment Camps" buildings similar to EUIV, allowing to expand your deployed army. It's not a secret that any military unit needs, housing, sewers, services and much other amenities and units in their peacetime location consume a lot less than when at war because of this. A significant budget portion went to building this for any nation, and it would be reasonable to represent it.
The rest can be "deployable from the reserve" that is off-map until a "general mobilization" is declared.
Keeping units in reserve offmap reduces their upkeep (think of 2nd-line units). This disincentivizes people from immediately deploying their army in 1936.
Benefits of solution:
i. Less processing required
ii. More realism
2. Reliance on Centrally-planned civilian economic development
A specific design choice made by the HOI4 dev team was to remove the concept of money(present in prior HOI series) and instead use "Civilian factories" as a way to represent the productive capacity of the economy.
Despite all best attempts: this seems to be an unrealistic historically and failing gameplaywise concept for the vast majority of countries. The only country for which this fully works is the USSR- because of a centrally planned economy. Any other country (including Germany) could never order on a consistent basis where to build its civilian factories, instead offering incentives at best.
Specific problems:
A) The civilian economy concept does not allow for the accumulation of wealth that can later be used. This forces weird workarounds such as the Spanish Civil War gold reserve relocation mechanics.
B) You have weird situations when basically every country(developed UK & France included) doubles-triples its economy between 1936 and 1941, which is totally unrealistic.
C) It also demands excessive clicking on the player side, that adds no real value(click "fill all slots at the start of the game in provinces in this order", then "convert civs to mils" maybe at the start of the war: and that's it).
D) It limits the possible game mechanics severely by not allowing armament trade mechanics for example
E) It creates a need to create multiple additional foci for industrial development that consume dev time and processing power
F) It creates a situation when everyone rushes to get on partial mobilization or war economy in 1937-1938: absolutely unrealistic, as war economy in reality has severe drawbacks in terms of long-term development
G) It makes the game poorly playable economically 5-7 years after game start.
Proposed Solution:
1) Remove civilian industrial output entirely and replace it with political power
2) Remove the possibility of building civilian factories manually and instead give a base chance for the civilian economy growing (more PP generation if you invest current PP output)
3) Create a continuous "stimulate civilian economy" decision or even national focus that can be enacted for political power and that increases the chance the civilian economy will grow
4) Change the impact of "Economic Law" from % to factory construction (as is the case in Partial Mobilization, War Economy, Civilian Economy) to impact the chance of the civilian economy growing (PP) at the expense of military factory cost (represented in PP)
5) Replace the "1 PP per day per focus" system with a "% of daily PP" focus system for national focus completion
6) Military factory construction can still be centrally mandated: (as you may not want military factories near your border) and funded by PP instead of civilian output
vii) Civilian factory conversion to military factory conversion can also be done via decisions and grant random-location military factories
7) USSR specific: USSR has the opportunity to go on war economy early on, but that will be detrimental to civilian industry as it was historically. At the same USSR would require less civilian factory upkeep.
8) National focuses would then consume a % of PP rather than a fixed number of PP
Benefits:
i) Less player micromanagement with non-military industry without losing player control
ii) An actually playable economy for more than 7+ years
iii) Less national foci microbalancing
IV) Separate benefits to war and civilian economy making it a player choice: when to switch, instead of everyone just rushing to partial mobilization as soon as the game starts
v) No more situation when economies grow 2-3 times between 1936 and 1941
3. No war reasoning or victory goals
If we think about it, HOI4 does not really address the issue why to fight war in the first place and what's the end goal.
You can capture a country and take a % of its factories, but come on, what are you supposed to do with them next? You just paint the map.
Proposed Solution: Covered in the next point.
4. Implausible economy directing 95%+ of industrial capacity to war
The biggest issue in the current depiction of the HOI4 economy is it puts up to 90% of civilian factories towards non-consumption expenditure.
If we add military factories into the mix, we find that by the end of the game the population is consuming 0-5% of total industrial output which is nonsense even in the context of low-consuming USSR.
That's just not possible in real life UNLESS...
Unless you borrow.
Every country in WW2 ended up with huge debts (including the USSR) to their population and foreign investors.
This was what actually paid for the war effort, nothing else.
Proposed solution: add a mechanic to borrow Political power at the expense of penalties to civilian economy growth
Benefits of the proposed solution:
A) Gives a real wargoal to every involved nation:
For Germany, Italy, Japan: to win the war and force the rest of the world to pay its military expenses
For France, UK, US: to win the war and minimize the debt load they take and have to repay after the war (representing the living conditions reduction as a result of the war). Failure to do so makes a WW1 scenario possible("What did we fight for? Time for revolution lads!")
For USSR: to win the war and profit from importing capital from conquered countries (think of USSR dismantling entire German factories that got sent to the USSR post-WW2)
B) Remove the absolutely unrealistic 95% industrial capacity going to the military. If it does, the explanation is, "now it means that we'll have to repay this after the war").
C) Gives a penalty for increasing the debt-load to civilian industry growth (representing capital tied up in war effort).
D) Increases realism, as no longer can you literally devote 100% of your industry to war supplies. Also explains why Germany did not go on war economy until 1944 historically.
E) Gives Germany a chance to win WW2: represented by the desire of the Western powers to limit their military expenditure, which may miscalculate how far Germany may truly go
5. Industrial foci.
Currently industrial foci comprise a solid 20-40% of national foci of every country. Every expansion adds more and more foci to countries, demanding more and more processing power from computers.
This becomes especially difficult for minors, which is why most multiplayer servers explicitly ban minors from being released. Because every day the computer evaluates 50+ focus trees.
Limit nation-specific focuses to politics, air, navy, army and military factories, while removing all civilian-factory related foci.
Yes it demands a lot of work, but sooner or later there will be a discovery made that the number of national foci have to be reduced. Something will have to go. And industrial foci are the easiest to condense, unlike military(which are a lot more nation specific) or politics(which are even more nation specific).
6. Improved Diplomacy mechanics
Specific problems I see:
1. There is no easy way to get out of a war. There's the "White peace" mechanic which is very non-intuitive, but there is no "limited war" mechanic when you can strike a peace deal after capturing certain provinces.
I understand that the original goal of the game was to simulate "WW2 total war with only full capitulation as a peace option" but since then the game has gone beyond the Axis vs Allied dilemma, and even historically Hitler repeatedly attempted to sign peace with the allies and USSR in his own favor (why it didn't work is a separate story).
2. There is nothing in diplomacy except war, and war-related matters.
I don't see for example the option to embargo anyone, even though Japan was forced to declare war on the US specifically because of their oil embargo.
I also don't see an option to trade military equipment, which is currently portrayed by the lend-lease system but come on, sending stuff for free is unusual. And it also forces to give supersized industry growth potential to the US, because the game doesn't portray how allies bought US arms for wealth fully.
Solution:
A) Add peace deal offer mechanics similar to EUIV, with extra debuffs in "historical focus settings" preventing premature WW2 endings and maybe a "war length" mechanic that prevents wars from ending unless they've lasted for 3-5 years let's say(basically a "length of war" penalty from EUIV).
B) Add arms purchases & economic embargo mechanics.
7. Expand Frontline mechanics
AI-managed frontlines were the most innovative mechanic in HOI4, that it will be remembered for in years to come. Right now however it is plagued by issues making it easier for players to micromanage rather than actually use them.
Issues:
A) Currently frontlines are incapable of keeping your force condensed. For example, I have an offensive army that I want to cover no more than 3 provinces with its frontline to maintain concentration: currently there's no such option, you have to manually micromanage which is not very fun. Players refuse to use the battleplanner for that reason.
B)You may have multiple division types in the same army performing different responsibilities. Let's say you have 4 Line Anti-tank+ Infantry divisons, 4 Line Artillery + Infantry divisions + 8 pure infantry divisions. They all perform different roles:
i) Anti-tanks fight tank units
ii) Artillery fights infantry
iii) Infantry just gives org to hold ground long enough for reinforcements to arrive
Now if you use the frontline mechanic, you may find all anti-tank divisions in one province, all artillery in another, all infantry in the the other two. Suddenly your whole plan is collapsing.
Proposed solution:
1) Add an optionto tell an army "do not expand your frontline beyond X provinces"
2) Add an "Attachment" button that allows to attach divisions other divisions.
Any constructive criticism and thoughts are welcome.
In this thread I'd like to offer to look at flawed design choices in HOI4, that constrain further development with performance issues, excessive effort required to further develop the game or simply cause user inconvenience.
As of present day, it is visible that despite HOI4 being an innovative breakthrough in wargaming (AI managed frontlines, task force order assignments, tank & naval designers), HOI4 is reaching a state when it reaches moral obsolescence:
AKA the original design is no longer possible to meaningfully develop without significant penalties.
It's not the fault of the devs, I suspect their original intention for the game was a "majors focused" WW2 grand strategy for which the original game design was fairly well suited when built in 2016.
But the game course changed after "Death or Dishonor" from a WW2 Majors-oriented Grand Strategy to a 1936-1945 Majors & Minors Grand Strategy. Instead of 10 major actors, that number is up to 20 at least right now, and will grow as more DLCs will be released.
Since then there is patchwork after patchwork, that creates an incohesive Frankenstein. The devs managing this monster are already struggling and it's noticeable.
Why raise this matter?
With the course the game has taken, we can expect the following trends that will increase the pressure on our machines:
1. More detailed minors focus trees consuming more processing power from machines
2. New variables/mechanics (Stalin's paranoia, command power, war support that were introduced in separate DLCs, tank designer, ship designer, fuel)
3. Greater nation detail (designers, advisors, spirits)
These are the issues I see:
1. Massive Standing Armies in Peacetime
I think anyone knows that the more units you have on the map, the more processing is demanded from the computer. By 1945 every Nepal, Uruguay or Cuba has multiple divisions deployed
The Kaiserreich mod was the first to hit this problem, and had to institute a soft-cap on on-map units.
The devs tried to reduce the impact of this by revising the original game design, for example by introducing the garrison system to remove at least some divisions off the map, but that did not reduce the problem by much as too few divisions ever played a garrison role.
With further DLCs(because at the end of the day, HOI4 is a commercial game that wants to sell DLCs which is normal) this problem will only grow, as more and more minors with limited manpower will have a reason to spawn 2-10 width units to man their frontlines.
Proposed Solution & Justification:
Replace the current "100% on-map standing army system" with a "Off-map reserve" and "Mobilizational system".
As you well know, there is virtually no situation in peacetime when the full mobilized army is deployed. There is always a "1st Line/Cover Line" echelon of divisions that are actually on the frontline from day 1, while the rest become ready as drafted civilians from the reserve arrive to recruitment centers and get sent to the respective army units.
HOI4 should use the same logic: have a number of divisions that can be deployed from day 1, while the rest become available only after the war starts.
Currently this is attempted to be simulated by mobilization laws, but it's failing as:
A) You have units on the map consuming processing
B) There is virtually no difference whether you are at war or not in terms of on-map unit count. You as France have the same number of men in field in 1936 as in 1940 which cannot be correct.
You may have 900,000 men in 1939 as France, but the game does not fully represent basic "bakers, supply staff, drivers" and other non-combatants that are part of the army. In WW1 for example, manpower-constrained France had 33% of its army as non-combatants, while Germany had 42.5% in 1916.
Proposed Solution:
A) Create drawbacks for mobilization laws that impact the civilian economy output
B) Reduce on-map divisions to 25-50% of what they are currently through penalties to civilian economy output.
C) Potentially adding "Recruitment Camps" buildings similar to EUIV, allowing to expand your deployed army. It's not a secret that any military unit needs, housing, sewers, services and much other amenities and units in their peacetime location consume a lot less than when at war because of this. A significant budget portion went to building this for any nation, and it would be reasonable to represent it.
The rest can be "deployable from the reserve" that is off-map until a "general mobilization" is declared.
Keeping units in reserve offmap reduces their upkeep (think of 2nd-line units). This disincentivizes people from immediately deploying their army in 1936.
Benefits of solution:
i. Less processing required
ii. More realism
2. Reliance on Centrally-planned civilian economic development
A specific design choice made by the HOI4 dev team was to remove the concept of money(present in prior HOI series) and instead use "Civilian factories" as a way to represent the productive capacity of the economy.
Despite all best attempts: this seems to be an unrealistic historically and failing gameplaywise concept for the vast majority of countries. The only country for which this fully works is the USSR- because of a centrally planned economy. Any other country (including Germany) could never order on a consistent basis where to build its civilian factories, instead offering incentives at best.
Specific problems:
A) The civilian economy concept does not allow for the accumulation of wealth that can later be used. This forces weird workarounds such as the Spanish Civil War gold reserve relocation mechanics.
B) You have weird situations when basically every country(developed UK & France included) doubles-triples its economy between 1936 and 1941, which is totally unrealistic.
C) It also demands excessive clicking on the player side, that adds no real value(click "fill all slots at the start of the game in provinces in this order", then "convert civs to mils" maybe at the start of the war: and that's it).
D) It limits the possible game mechanics severely by not allowing armament trade mechanics for example
E) It creates a need to create multiple additional foci for industrial development that consume dev time and processing power
F) It creates a situation when everyone rushes to get on partial mobilization or war economy in 1937-1938: absolutely unrealistic, as war economy in reality has severe drawbacks in terms of long-term development
G) It makes the game poorly playable economically 5-7 years after game start.
Proposed Solution:
1) Remove civilian industrial output entirely and replace it with political power
2) Remove the possibility of building civilian factories manually and instead give a base chance for the civilian economy growing (more PP generation if you invest current PP output)
3) Create a continuous "stimulate civilian economy" decision or even national focus that can be enacted for political power and that increases the chance the civilian economy will grow
4) Change the impact of "Economic Law" from % to factory construction (as is the case in Partial Mobilization, War Economy, Civilian Economy) to impact the chance of the civilian economy growing (PP) at the expense of military factory cost (represented in PP)
5) Replace the "1 PP per day per focus" system with a "% of daily PP" focus system for national focus completion
6) Military factory construction can still be centrally mandated: (as you may not want military factories near your border) and funded by PP instead of civilian output
vii) Civilian factory conversion to military factory conversion can also be done via decisions and grant random-location military factories
7) USSR specific: USSR has the opportunity to go on war economy early on, but that will be detrimental to civilian industry as it was historically. At the same USSR would require less civilian factory upkeep.
8) National focuses would then consume a % of PP rather than a fixed number of PP
Benefits:
i) Less player micromanagement with non-military industry without losing player control
ii) An actually playable economy for more than 7+ years
iii) Less national foci microbalancing
IV) Separate benefits to war and civilian economy making it a player choice: when to switch, instead of everyone just rushing to partial mobilization as soon as the game starts
v) No more situation when economies grow 2-3 times between 1936 and 1941
3. No war reasoning or victory goals
If we think about it, HOI4 does not really address the issue why to fight war in the first place and what's the end goal.
You can capture a country and take a % of its factories, but come on, what are you supposed to do with them next? You just paint the map.
Proposed Solution: Covered in the next point.
4. Implausible economy directing 95%+ of industrial capacity to war
The biggest issue in the current depiction of the HOI4 economy is it puts up to 90% of civilian factories towards non-consumption expenditure.
If we add military factories into the mix, we find that by the end of the game the population is consuming 0-5% of total industrial output which is nonsense even in the context of low-consuming USSR.
That's just not possible in real life UNLESS...
Unless you borrow.
Every country in WW2 ended up with huge debts (including the USSR) to their population and foreign investors.
This was what actually paid for the war effort, nothing else.
Proposed solution: add a mechanic to borrow Political power at the expense of penalties to civilian economy growth
Benefits of the proposed solution:
A) Gives a real wargoal to every involved nation:
For Germany, Italy, Japan: to win the war and force the rest of the world to pay its military expenses
For France, UK, US: to win the war and minimize the debt load they take and have to repay after the war (representing the living conditions reduction as a result of the war). Failure to do so makes a WW1 scenario possible("What did we fight for? Time for revolution lads!")
For USSR: to win the war and profit from importing capital from conquered countries (think of USSR dismantling entire German factories that got sent to the USSR post-WW2)
B) Remove the absolutely unrealistic 95% industrial capacity going to the military. If it does, the explanation is, "now it means that we'll have to repay this after the war").
C) Gives a penalty for increasing the debt-load to civilian industry growth (representing capital tied up in war effort).
D) Increases realism, as no longer can you literally devote 100% of your industry to war supplies. Also explains why Germany did not go on war economy until 1944 historically.
E) Gives Germany a chance to win WW2: represented by the desire of the Western powers to limit their military expenditure, which may miscalculate how far Germany may truly go
5. Industrial foci.
Currently industrial foci comprise a solid 20-40% of national foci of every country. Every expansion adds more and more foci to countries, demanding more and more processing power from computers.
This becomes especially difficult for minors, which is why most multiplayer servers explicitly ban minors from being released. Because every day the computer evaluates 50+ focus trees.
Limit nation-specific focuses to politics, air, navy, army and military factories, while removing all civilian-factory related foci.
Yes it demands a lot of work, but sooner or later there will be a discovery made that the number of national foci have to be reduced. Something will have to go. And industrial foci are the easiest to condense, unlike military(which are a lot more nation specific) or politics(which are even more nation specific).
6. Improved Diplomacy mechanics
Specific problems I see:
1. There is no easy way to get out of a war. There's the "White peace" mechanic which is very non-intuitive, but there is no "limited war" mechanic when you can strike a peace deal after capturing certain provinces.
I understand that the original goal of the game was to simulate "WW2 total war with only full capitulation as a peace option" but since then the game has gone beyond the Axis vs Allied dilemma, and even historically Hitler repeatedly attempted to sign peace with the allies and USSR in his own favor (why it didn't work is a separate story).
2. There is nothing in diplomacy except war, and war-related matters.
I don't see for example the option to embargo anyone, even though Japan was forced to declare war on the US specifically because of their oil embargo.
I also don't see an option to trade military equipment, which is currently portrayed by the lend-lease system but come on, sending stuff for free is unusual. And it also forces to give supersized industry growth potential to the US, because the game doesn't portray how allies bought US arms for wealth fully.
Solution:
A) Add peace deal offer mechanics similar to EUIV, with extra debuffs in "historical focus settings" preventing premature WW2 endings and maybe a "war length" mechanic that prevents wars from ending unless they've lasted for 3-5 years let's say(basically a "length of war" penalty from EUIV).
B) Add arms purchases & economic embargo mechanics.
7. Expand Frontline mechanics
AI-managed frontlines were the most innovative mechanic in HOI4, that it will be remembered for in years to come. Right now however it is plagued by issues making it easier for players to micromanage rather than actually use them.
Issues:
A) Currently frontlines are incapable of keeping your force condensed. For example, I have an offensive army that I want to cover no more than 3 provinces with its frontline to maintain concentration: currently there's no such option, you have to manually micromanage which is not very fun. Players refuse to use the battleplanner for that reason.
B)You may have multiple division types in the same army performing different responsibilities. Let's say you have 4 Line Anti-tank+ Infantry divisons, 4 Line Artillery + Infantry divisions + 8 pure infantry divisions. They all perform different roles:
i) Anti-tanks fight tank units
ii) Artillery fights infantry
iii) Infantry just gives org to hold ground long enough for reinforcements to arrive
Now if you use the frontline mechanic, you may find all anti-tank divisions in one province, all artillery in another, all infantry in the the other two. Suddenly your whole plan is collapsing.
Proposed solution:
1) Add an optionto tell an army "do not expand your frontline beyond X provinces"
2) Add an "Attachment" button that allows to attach divisions other divisions.
Any constructive criticism and thoughts are welcome.
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