Hearts of Iron 4 - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

DLC? Not free update?

 

DD. plans. naval rework and FUEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

Hi everyone! We are now back from PdxCon which was an amazing experience. If any of you were there, thanks a lot for coming! I had a lot of fun and interesting conversations with HOI fans and we had a very cool challenge to as Poland inflict as much casualties as possible on Germany in 1939 in just 30 minutes. The winner pulled off 1.8 million using clever tactics and a strong cavalry army! What better way to save Poland than to turn the false myth of the polish cavalry charging German tanks around



The myth itself is something based on reality where polish cavalry performed a successful charge early on in the war vs German infantry at the battle of Krojanty. Something the German propaganda machine tried to falsely portray as the poles being unprepared for meeting modern German armor (there were no tanks there). The myth apparently lived on a long time, notably taught in schools and promoted in soviet propaganda… that said, in Hearts of Iron IV at pdxcon the polish hussars did ride out and win!


The HOI4 booth where we ran the challenge.

We also announced the next big expansion for HOI: Man the Guns.


Man the Guns will focus on naval warfare primarily but also redoing UK and USA and giving them more fun options. There will also be other new focuses but those are secret for now. We will also be adding fuel to the game which a lot of people were very excited to hear about at pdxcon

The UK and US revamps we plan to handle the same way we did Germany and Japan, e.g the changed trees and historical path in the 1.6 'Ironclad' update and the new alt-history paths (despite my perhaps not so subtle hints people have figured out that there is going to be the possibility of a 2nd american civil war among other cool things).

As for the themes we decided to go with naval for several reasons. One, that it fits very well with USA (and they were on the top of our list of nations we felt needed more fun gameplay). Secondly we have already done big changes to both land and air in previous expansions and updates so it was time for the 3rd type of warfare to get its time in the spotlights. Its also currently in my opinion the weakest part of HOI and something we really want to make shine.

We are currently very early in development so things may change, but here are some things mentioned we are aiming to do (in expansion or free update or mixed):
- Ship design and the ability to refit older ships and keep things up to date
- Naval Terrain: different seas will behave differently and suit different ships and fleet compositions
- Revamped naval combat
- Fleets split up into task forces for better control
- New naval spotting system
- Ability to control naval routes and block areas you dont want units to travel through
- Fuel, obviously going to be a massive balance job for us and a big gameplay change for you
- Gameplay rules, particularly to help multiplayer groups out when it comes to manage their games
- of course other stuff as well. to be revealed in the future.

We don't have a release date yet, and most of the above is still subject to change because we are are still early. I really wanted to talk as much as possible about what we are up to at pdxcon though Hopefully I will see more of you next year there!

We also announced that HOI4 has hit 1 million sales (wooot), and to celebrate that we have decided to make an anniversary edition that comes with a super cool alt history diorama - Italian soldiers raising the flag over the rubble of Big Ben, Iwo Jima style . I felt italy invading London was one of the more hearts of iron things there was when it comes to alt-history


We had the first version for PdxCon in the booth fresh from the maker, and you can see it there in the picture above. The anniversary edition is actually possible to preorder already! Just follow this link.

As have been mentioned elsewhere this doesn't mean we are ready to start up regular diaries yet. You guys are not really fans of filler stuff, so we are going to have to wait a little longer for diaries to start up regularly again. I will let you know as soon as we feel ready to start showing things off proper.

Also from devs:
Q: What about Navel Doomstacks? Do you already have plans to prevent Doomstacks?
A: yup
Q: love the sound/idea of this however I'm fearful this will be a total and complete nightmare not only for humans but the AI as well. I can see so many issues here. The rest I like however this one scares me.
A: I guess it will be like galleys being better in inland seas in EU4

 

Adding fuel is the best change since release. It should've been in the game from the start.

 

Well for it to be worth it there needs to be more to it than as was the case of previous two games, where it was basically just a "tank cap" (and in case of HoI3, essentially an added a pointless step between oil and fuel). It cannot be something that's there just because it can be there, it needs to serve a purpose to be a worthwhile addition.

 

Good thing that i don't use any vehicles,just good old fire superiority .

 

The next DLC will add ammunition.

 

At that point BICE mod would add casings and powder.

 

Germany and Japan are dead.

 

But it was ingame from the start - if you don't have enough oil resource, it limits your production. It was simple solution but it did good enough job in stopping the player from just spamming trillions of high-tech equipment. Which is exactly the whole point of having fuel too.

So it all depends on the implementation - I don't mind having fuel in principle, but only as long as they rebalance the production and I don't have to have more refineries than Kuwait just so I can build a bunch of tanks. Because that just replaces one problem with another.

 

Geee in the next 2-3 year they will manage to come up with some original systems. Who knows,they might even run out of HOI3 things to re-implement.

Both ammunitions and fuel will be another slots to waste mil factories on.

 

Except that historically shortage of oil/fuel didn't really prevent Axis countries from building significant numbers of such equipment. However all Axis powers ran into serious problems during war with using the already built equipment. They all faced fuel shortages during the war.
In historical context of WW2, an abstraction where oil is needed to build equipment but not needed as fuel for military operations of armies, fleets and air forces doesn't cut it. You can't really simulate a situation where a fleet is sitting in port physically unable to mount a major operation because of lack of fuel. Or of your many armoured and motorised divisions you can only go into offensive with a small % because you lack fuel for all of them.
Lack of fuel was one of the reasons why after Barbarossa Germans were never able to mount a full scale offensive any more for the rest of the war. Even their 42 offensive was limited to what was Army Group South in 41. Their (small) reserve of oil was all used up during Barbarossa and after that they were running on deficit for the rest of the war, never able to build any reserve to speak of.

In short: In real world, a country might be able to build tons of fuel-hungry equipment but not to be able to use it at some point later in time. And that wasn't modelled in game from the start. Not at all.


Having said that, I just started with HoI4, feels like a serious downgrade from HoI2* when it comes to historical realism (and even more from the HoI2-based games AoD and DH). I'm not claiming that HoI2 was some hardcore realistic simulator of WW2. It clearly wasn't but at least it made an effort in some areas. This game feels more like a strategy game in a WW2 setting made with a "fun first, historical realism in a very distant second" mindset. Which isn't bad per se but feels a bit different from HoI2.

*I never really played HoI3.

 

i need help.
i'm trying to do something... anything with germany, but as soon as i peek my nose outside the automatic annexations i'm gangbanged by the whole world. so i read a guide, it told basically what i was already doing, then it suggested to switch at some point to the full infantry huge gigantic division of death, and as soon as i did it poof, no more manpower. either all the guides are severely outdated or i'm doing something horribly wrong but i can't figure out what it is.

 

Change recruitment laws

 

did that too, still not enough.

 

Did you do it quick enough? They changed how manpower works so now you need to wait for the population to get recruited into the new manpower cap, at a speed affected by War Support.

 

Autism much? If you can't build a lot of tanks, you can't have a lot of tanks in the frontlines. If you can't build a lot of ships, you can't have big fleet operations. For all practical purposes the fuction of oil and fuel is exactly the same - it puts a cap on how much advanced equipment you can send into battle. Tying oil to production wasn't the most sophisticated or historically accurate or logical solution, but whatdya know - it worked.

So while I don't mind adding fuel as a resource that needs to be stocked in preparation for campaigns and what not, adding fuel makes no sense unless they also remove oil from production requirements. Otherwise you'll just end up with two features that are doubling each other. It doesn't add complexity or depth, it just adds pointless bloat.

 

It works a little better in HoI4 IMO because there is no absolute pressure to have net positive oil, since in HoI2 the use of extra supplies and oil for offensives was extremely important. You would prefer never going to negative oil in HoI4, but if you absolutely need to you can try and wing it, so it makes for a more meaningful element of gameplay because the pros and cons are more on the level. There's also the additional aspect which is the way HoI4 changed how refineries work, since now you can sacrifice your IC potential in exchange for having net balance of oil and rubber by building refineries to your limited building slots.


Another problem with adding fuel is the whole "WW2 is poorly balanced" problem that comes with the scenario. Either fuel will serve no purpose, or it means Japan will be super-fucked and it's back to Germany vs Everyone Else.

 

Stupid much ? Is this (another) thread about exchanging insults personal questions, or is it about HoI4 ? I thought GD and politics threads are better suited for that but be my guest. After clearing it up, back to the topic.

The system sort of works as a game mechanic from purely game-ist perspective. In that you are correct. However from the perspective of historical reality it definitively does not.
When it comes to fun, it's a bit subjective. Paradox was never able to implement it properly in HoI2. Oil and its stockpiles were in game but stockpiling was unlimited by anything other that the resource itself, no price or limits for storage of reserves - from what I remember. The end result was that for the player it was very easy to stockpile huge amounts before the war/early war and never running out. But at least that required a bit of pre-planning.

With the current model in HoI4 You can never run into a situation where you have a big army or fleet but no fuel to use it. You can never face the same challenges leaders of Japan, Germany or Italy did in such situation. You might never be running against the clock / fuel gauge (and I mean on both grand strategical level and in operational level). All that a deficit of oil does is limiting your building capabilities (of new things) a bit - but it's not near as crippling as having your existing war machine paralysed and being unable to use most of it offensively If your stocks of oil/fuel run dry.

You are 100% CORRECT in one thing. If you add fuel consumption, you don't really need oil included in costs. In fact from game play perspective it's better to remove it completely from building costs both for the sake of simplicity but also to encourage players to build huge amounts of fuel consuming stuff... and then run out of fuel. You know life axis powers in WW2 eventually did. That could be both fun and educational. However as I said, Paradox failed at implementing it properly in HoI2 so I doubt they can do it in HoI4.

 

Are you suggesting oil being (relatively) less important is a GOOD thing ? That's... weird. From the "fun" perspective it's better for the player to have more meaningful choices and problems to solve in my opinion. And from historical perspective, it's obviously better to be more accurate. Which makes your opinion really strange.
The Japanese problem is in general with the poor AI and the fact that Japan WAS actually "super-fucked" in reality.
Paradox might chose to buff them for game play reason. Giving them unrealistic fuel would not be impossible if that's what the goal is (=balance or "fun" vs realism).
Implementation is another thing. Already covered in the post to IHaveHugeNick

 

Given how powerful synthetic factories (and civilian factories) are in HoI4 right now I doubt it would be any kind of problem for Germany or Japan to fight endlessly. Germany can be a superpower before invading Poland and Japan effortlessly annexes China and can be the same a year later.

 

Every synth factory is a slot away from other factories tho, so it comes with a cost. It's kind of a tightrope anyway, since you should not go under the minimum effectiveness or it won't be worth the effort building any refineries.

As for Japan vs China, there's a general problem that it's hard to make a stalemate situation work, especially if a player is involved. Snowballing advantage is a recurring problem, but another issue is in what to actually do when a stalemate happens and how the game could handle it or make it fun. The Great War mod is kind of a good example of this, there's not really anything fun or interesting in just waiting and doing nothing on multiple fronts because nothing happens.

I didn't say less important, I said a gameplay element that has more functions than solely being a cap. In the present system, adding fuel is kind of a question mark because it's hard to see where fuel would fit in besides becoming an unnecessary and pointless step mechanic like in HoI3. The balance concern for the scenario is another thing, since the thing I'm talking about is super-fucked in game context alone since woulda-coulda is kinda pointless but any alternate ending to WW2 would have to consider the fact that the US possessed half the global GDP at the time and was essentially guaranteed to win (in fact, just as how Japan is not quite as super-fucked as IRL, Kwa is very much underpowered compared to IRL). As you said in the other post though, having oil in production and in fuel would be better replaced by refocusing oil entirely to however fuel will work.

And as I said, the biggest problem EVERY HoI game has is that from a gameplay perspective WW2 is very poorly balanced so you end up with the whole Germany vs Everyone Else problem or alternatively Germany getting steamrolled by 1940, but this is more of a "and that's why Kaiserreich is so much better as a scenario" topic because there's not really anything you can do about the constraints of the historical scenario.

 

Serus

The problem of historical accuracy vs. fun has been debated here a lot. WW2 setting is horribly unbalanced if you rigidly stick to historical data, because it was a stupid fucking war and Axis had no chance from the start. The only reason why Germans weren't crushed already by 1939, is because they were able to pick countries one by one while Allies didn't coordinate their efforts.

On the one side, you have the Allies. They have advantage in technology, resources, manpower, navy and geography where UK and US are impossible to actually invade.

On the other side, you have Italy that sucks, Japan that sucks even more, and for all practical purposes it's Germany vs. the world.

This just isn't a compelling setting for a strategy game with long term replayability, which is why Kaserreich has always been the most popular mod - because it takes all the cool things about WW2, but places them in alternative history setting that is actually viable for a video game.

So while in principle I'm all on board that historical games should aim to be accurate, in HoI's case you really do need to game things significantly if the whole thing is going to be actually playable for more than couple of saves.

 

And it bears repeating that the US GDP by the end of the war would be half the planet's total. The total GDP of the Allies was nearly ten times that of the Axis (and you can't really pool together German and Japanese economic strength because geography effectively prevented all major cooperation between the two). If you'd actually go with historical statistics, the only thing stopping US from bitchslapping the Axis in 1939 (probably Soviets too while at it because why not) under player control is arbitrary restrictions to doing exactly as how things happened historically. HoI always has to balance between history and what's good for a game, at the heart of which is player agency. It really doesn't have a choice but LET Germany be an economic superpower by 1939 or let Japan do quick work of China, since you kinda have little alternative when the final endpoint is total victory and it needs to be within player agency. Albeit Japan vs China steamroll thing currently happens quite easily due to the way things worked out in Waking the Tiger to Japan's advantage as long as they don't go with the historical focus to attack; it was kind of stupid to try and force stalemate the war by slapping Japan with giant offensive penalties in Chinese territory.


It's not like there isn't a geographic problem for Kaiserreich too, but it's something that the team is aware and what they can change because they aren't constrained by what's real, which is that a war between Germany and France just happens on too small a patch of easily traversed land for it to really be the Big War. Then again, it's why Kaiserreich always had the advantage of having shenanigans go on in various larger and more difficult to travel locations like continental US or Indian subcontinent rather than be constrained to mostly Europe.

 

I agree that fun vs realism needs to be balanced and HoI is not a historical game first but a "fun" game first.That doesn't mean historical, realistic WW2 games cannot be fun at least in theory. Losing can be fun, as can be attempting to take as many "bastards" to the grave first. As can be just trying to do your best even if in the grand scheme the final outcome is set in stone. But that's not the kind of game HoI is and that's ok.
On the other hand, shortages of oil/fuel could, if done right, could be interesting and fun. Retaining an ability to win but having to run against the clock / fuel gauge could produce some interesting scenarios and a lot of tension and choices. However I doubt a bunch of once talented but now mainly greedy Swedes could pull it off.

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

I believe Germany had one shot at "winning" if by winning you define rising to dominant power in Europe and not losing. Beating USA (and by extension UK) to submission was absolutely out of the question of curse. However eliminating Soviets and dominating continental Europe would result in a stalemate for many years. Could possibly even lead to permanent peace. All that assuming beating Soviets was possible (doubtful but perhaps not completely in the realm of impossibility).
Japan on the other hand was hopeless from the start. Even if beating the Soviets sounds highly unrealistic for Germany, at least it's a scenario where they "don't lose" while in case of Japan there simply isn't any scenario where Japan can do anything not to lose to USA once at war.

Vaarna_Aarne
What stops USA early isn't arbitrary at all. USA was historically in the 30s still an isolationist and democratic country. FDR had to basically trick the Japanese to attack USA using the embargo because he couldn't easily start a war himself even if he thought it was necessary. Nothing arbitrary about it. Allowing the player to do anything he wants would be stupid. There are alternative history mods for that.
Having a high GDP and big population is not the end of everything. What USA didn't have - at least initially - was the political will to go to war. HoI is also about politics. What is arbitrary, is You wanting for USA to be as strong economically as in real life but not having the political system to go along with it.

Edit: Having said that, I never played Kaiserreich despite being a long time HOI2 (and it's spin-off games) player. I really need to play it some day, in HoI4 probably.

Edit2:

Not sure about the mod but The Great War consisting of "doing nothing on multiple fronts because nothing happens" is mostly an ahistorical myth. WW1 had many fronts and only the ones in France and Italy were somewhat static-ish. And even then not in first months and not in most of the last year of war And even then there were major offensive attempts on both sides during the 1915~1917 period. Front in Russia was mobile most of the time. There were also the Ottomans fighting on several fronts. And more.