Hearts of Iron IV (HOI4)

[MKSheppard]

So...

It's that time again.

For every Carrier above 4 you bring to a battle, 20% less of ALL their aircraft can be launched. So 9 carriers means 0 aircraft, even the 5th carrier is already redundant and everything above only hurts you. Just...

There's a similar thing with fleet repairs. If you have a fleet that is too large, the repair speed drops to 0.00%, and they will never repair.

[Gandalf]

Yeah, it's a fucking mess in places. One can't delete naval units for some reason.

On the upside it's only a few patches from being fun.

[MKSheppard]

as I posted on PDOX:

The tech tree is a bit not well thought out or named.

The rtillery R&D -- in particular the anti tank gun naming/descriptions/year research limits is pretty confusing.

As it is; it's currently:

Anti Tank
Artillery specialized in defeating armored targets like Tanks, it generally fires armor piercing shells.
|
AT upgrade
The importance of effective anti-tank weapons was established in the Great War. Introducing a new generation of these weapons will be necessary to combat modern tank designs.
|
Improved Anti Tank
"Larger caliber guns to combat heavier tanks with sloped armor."
|
Improved Anti Tank Upgrade I
HEAT (high-explosive anti-tank) rounds can be used in anti-tank artillery to make up for limited muzzle velocity.
|
Improved Anti Tank Upgrade II
New versatile anti-tank guns employing armor-piercing discarding sabot shots can penetrate the armor of nearly any tank.
|
Advanced Anti Tank
"Combining different kinds of new ammunition technology with guns with higher muzzle velocities, these anti-tank guns are prepared for whatever new armor our enemies may develop."



It's confusing for someone like me who knows something about the history behind artillery in WWII -- there was nothing stopping anyone from creating large caliber anti-tank guns in the late 1930s; many of the wartime heavy AT guns were adaptations of existing high velocity guns (anti aircraft / long range artillery) onto a low profile carriage.

A better named/designed ATG tree could be:

Light ATG (25-40mm)
|
Medium ATG (50-57mm)
|
Heavy ATG (75-90mm)
|
Super Heavy ATG (100-128 mm)

With no year restrictions -- building guns that shoot projectiles that go really fast is not rocket surgery -- the real reason anti-tank guns stagnated so long in the 1930 and early 1940s was WEIGHT.

37mm PAK: 720-990 lbs
50mm PAK: 1,800 lbs
75mm PAK: 3,100 lbs
88mm PAK: 9,600 lbs
128mm PAK: 22,400 lbs

The smaller caliber anti-tank guns could be easily manhandled around with a squad of people pushing around the carriage legs; or even put into odd places like the second stories of buildings, making them tactically useful for the infantry; whereas once you got into 75mm~ and above, you needed a prime mover (horse or motorized) to move them around any noticeable distance.

Meanwhile, split out the anti tank upgrade stuff into a parallel tree split off at the first entry:

Anti-Tank Upgrade (APCR)
|
Anti-Tank Upgrade (HEAT)
|
Anti-Tank Upgrade (APDS)

With some slight year restrictions on each of the upgraded ammo types to prevent people from running away -- it would be really useful if there was a way to track how long your nation has been in a war and using that instead of static year limitations.

I'd do this myself (I did the old Shep's Tech Mod way back for HOI1), and I took a stab at some of this (mainly renaming) last night; but given how fast the game is going to be patched, plus my severe lack of free time....

[MKSheppard]

Oh, and they've made the mod forums exclusive only (again). You have to link your steam account to the paradox forums to get access to the mod forums.

NOPE NOPE NOPE.

[Simon_Jester]

Reducing the accessibility of moderating is... not a good idea in the context of something like Hearts of Iron.

[Esquire]

(I haven't looked into it but) off the top of my head I don't see what the issue is; is it really that difficult to sign into the Paradox forums with your Steam account?

[Thanas]

It isn't, but it still is an additional hassle and some people might not want to give paradox access to their steam data.

[RogueIce]

So how broken/buggy is it, or did Paradox actually do some good QA this time?

[Gandalf]

It's a playable mess.

[RogueIce]

It's a playable mess.

So a bunch of stupid shit but at least it doesn't CTD?

What's the mess? Can you elaborate?

[Gandalf]

From what I've read, the AI is a mess in that it can't defend to save its life. The system is heavily invested in the idea that an AI general automatically defends an area. But it will put mountaineers in fields and tanks in mountains and leave gaps in the line, making it a bit of a mess. As a result you get Australia conquering the USSR in 1941.

There's some interesting ideas afoot, but implementation is a long way off.

[Purple]

Out of curiosity just how locked is the game into WW2? Like I have not touched HOI3 but HOI2 was so locked that if you wanted any alternate history you essentially had to mod the game. So how is this thing in that respect? Also out of curiosity how was HOI3?

[Dominus Atheos]

Depends on just how alt you want it. As Nazi Germany in HOI3, I've allied with Poland, Spain, Brazil and Persia; then been dragged into a war with the US when they allied with the Soviets and both attacked Poland.

[Purple]

Basically look at other paradox games. CK4 has about the perfect amount of variance for me. Where as HOI2 was basically scripted into WW2 or something bloody close to it.

[RogueIce]

In HoI2, you could change the course of WWII if you played one of the significant powers and acted deliberately to do so. Although random chance could still change things.

From what I've read, if left to their own devices the major powers in HoI4 are more likely to 'stay the course' but again, I've seen playthroughs where the players changed things up. It's still quite possible, you just have to make it so rather than just letting things play out.

[Purple]

Yea, that's hyper restrictive. Like you could not say start the game as Tibet and conquer all of Asia. You can do stuff like that in the other paradox games.

[Sgt_Artyom]

There's actually an option to make it more random. Can click a box that tells the AI to follow historical narratives or not. I've already seen Mexico split and go into a protracted period of civil war, Estonia hold of the Soviets for two years and the United States become the "Free American Empire" (fascists).

[Jub]

My issue is that the game is far too easy. By no means am I an expert, in fact, I bought and basically didn't play HOI3. Even so, playing on normal offers zero challenge.

I'm in the mop up stages of a game I played as France. I started in '36 with the goal of protecting Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg. To this end, I focused on production over political stability in terms of the focus tree. I also went for the fortifications along all borders so I could afford to grind the Germans down before making a heavy counter attack. Then, with my forces coming along nicely and an alliance with the UK secured I declared Poland a protectorate and started WWII early.

The BEF went to Italy while I started the slow push through their western flank, this and their refusal to pull out of Africa, caused them problems throughout the entire war. Meanwhile, Poland fell, but the low countries didn't. I held the line and Germany over the course of a year broke herself against me. I took the Rhine before the end of 1940 and Germany, too foolish to hold back any real reserves, was mopped up before the end of '41. Italy, Slovakia, and Romania fell shortly after. The USSR, aside from taking parts of Poland, never joined the war. VE day came in 1942 and the only Axis forces left are Japan and one minor Asian ally.

Now, I just have to decide if I want to finish off the Axis, or if I should let the US have her fun while I deal with the Soviet problem.

[Argosh]

I've been watching HoI4 devs play on their Youtube channel, they recently invited some youtubers/streamers for a multiplayer game and had the AI developer and others comment etc.

[darthkommandant]

Been playing this a lot since release.

I found a great mod for naval matters called the naval rework mod. It gives a lot of new ship types such as pocket bbs, AA light cruisers, large submarines among others. It also adjusted the variants for ships to be more historically accurate. The AI also uses the new units as well.

It is also compatible with the flavor names extension which adds support armor artwork and flavor names for artillery and other support brigades.

Mod for Naval tech tree below: