Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[GarfunkeL]

News from the front:

HoI2-style doctrine trees are back. No more pick'n'mix, you select your path and that's it. It will be possible to switch paths, with some sort of cost. Additionally, some paths share some techs, so after switching you don't have to start from the very top. As it was in HoI2, the country-examples for paths are Germany, USA, Britain, Soviet Union.

Divisional leaders are also gone, here's Darkrenown on the topic:

I'd describe myself as a pretty big fan of the HoI series (and bear in mind I did not work here until a while after Semper Fi was released, so it's not a "because I worked on them" thing), but re-arranging the leaders of the German army every game quickly went from a cool detail to a chore to something that made me want to kill myself half way through it. Use auto-assign? It wouldn't make the same choices I would make, it would not be optimal, I have to do it manually! I don't think I am alone in that. While we could spend time making much better auto-assign AI with the end-goal of letting players ignore a feature (except even a super good AI would not know your thoughts and you would likely have to tweak it anyway), that seems like a waste of resources. Features that are not fun should be made fun or removed, not shuffled off to be automated. Now I'm sure for some, assigning leaders was a task that was enjoyed every time, and I am sorry those people are losing a feature they liked, but we need to make what we think is a fun game.

I wonder if the chain of command will be next to go? It's one that probably most often leaves newbies scratching their head (SOOO DIFFICULT) and is just as much work as assigning divisional leaders.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

 

[Malakal]

I'd prefer more branches on my doctrine tree. Also desperate measures as a doctrine? Which part of "desperate" they don't understand? I hope that despite the name it will be a viable choice.

Also hilarious icons.

 

[GarfunkeL]

That's the historical Germany path, so they don't have to "respecc" to put it in MMO-terms, in 1944. More victorious Germany can continue with the Modern Blitz path.

 

[Malakal]

That's the historical Germany path, so they don't have to "respecc" to put it in MMO-terms, in 1944. More victorious Germany can continue with the Modern Blitz path.

I know they went that way but you wont tell me some senior German officers sat down and designed a doctrine about conscripting children and handicapped. It was done out of necessity not a true doctrine of the army.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I hope it is better than the HoI2 version of it, cause that shit was awful.

Also, I hope the tech, under mobile infantry, with the horse and the cart?/rocket arty piece over the prohibition sign is called Goodbye Horses.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Malakal, that's true. The tree-system doesn't fit very well at all with anything that tries to model reality. Except for trees themselves. It's not like any of the big players religiously followed only a single doctrine all the time. It's strange that when they are finally moving away from the rigid tree-structure when it comes to tank/ship/plane models, they return to it in doctrines.

 

[Raghar]

Boys are you aware you can research stuff from both branches simultaneously?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

In a way I'm happy they did this, I liked the old doctrine trees better than the HoI3 thou-must-research-almost-everything approach. Still, it's amusing how they went back to this while redoing some other things.

Any news on the national special bonuses they talked about (I'm still placing 50:50 odds on there being a special bonus for Sweden but only a generic one for Finland)?

I hope it is better than the HoI2 version of it, cause that shit was awful.

Yea, the HoI2 doctrines were REALLY unbalanced. That was the downside there. I think Darkest Hour and other re-releases actually made that shit even worse in terms of balance.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Boys are you aware you can research stuff from both branches simultaneously?

No you can't. Some stuff is identical to multiple trees, as the icons show, but you can only research one branch at a time, and there's exclusive stuff even inside branches.

 

[Average Manatee]

Britain as GBP? Soviets as Mass Assault? Cmon Paradox, you aren't really this dumb are you?

Realistically Mass Assault isn't a doctrine, it's the lack of a doctrine, and no one was dumb enough to just throw men away like that. Everyone should be GBP before the war breaks out, at which point Mobile and SFP open up. And I'm not even sure Mobile and SFP should really be separate doctrines, but we will see what they do with them.

Any news on the national special bonuses they talked about (I'm still placing 50:50 odds on there being a special bonus for Sweden but only a generic one for Finland)?

The announcement of these fills me with dread.

 

[GarfunkeL]

It's also amusing how much damage control Pdox devs are doing at their forums. Darkrenown already called me a troll and Johan said I'm being ridiculous for wanting non-Steam version of the game. Every other comment from them is "guys guys wait and see, it'll be awesome" or "4/10 bad trolling" or "we're NOT dumbing down the game, just streamlining it and making it more accessible".

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

GBP is the UK and Japan, iirc. Japan uses the old infiltration assault doctrines from WW1 while UK uses the slow, but steady advance.

I'm curious to see how Shock and Awe is portrayed vs Air Land Battle, because I'm pretty sure that doctrine (S&A) is from the mid 1990s.

Yea, the HoI2 doctrines were REALLY unbalanced. That was the downside there. I think Darkest Hour and other re-releases actually made that shit even worse in terms of balance.

Yeah, they did. They pretty much made the big three's doctrines the only good ones, GBP got buffed and nerfed, they very slighty buffed the French and British part of it and massively nerfed the Jap one. I hope infiltration assault is good again.

 

[Renegen]

The advantages of Steam for Paradox have been established, not sure why argue against that.

 

[Raghar]

It's also amusing how much damage control Pdox devs are doing at their forums. Darkrenown already called me a troll and Johan said I'm being ridiculous for wanting non-Steam version of the game.

Ridiculous for wanting nonsteam game?

GBP is the UK and Japan, iirc. Japan uses the old infiltration assault doctrines from WW1 while UK uses the slow, but steady advance.

I'm curious to see how Shock and Awe is portrayed vs Air Land Battle, because I'm pretty sure that doctrine (S&A) is from the mid 1990s.

Isn't Shock and Awe a name for using ridiculous number of guided missiles?
I tried Shock and Awe in my todays game in SupCom. Pissed everyone, and explained back player he should make missile defense. In retrospective it was hugely successful. One missile got through. I exploded 3 minutes later on GC when they were not dazzed by Shock and Awe. Thought I bound two opponents by being aggressive. If center used the chance, they could get trough. You can watch the replay in FAF vault as 2119002.

 

[Average Manatee]

GBP is the UK and Japan, iirc. Japan uses the old infiltration assault doctrines from WW1 while UK uses the slow, but steady advance.

The UK certainly went away from GBP as soon as France fell, and in fact the UK was much more motorized before the war than Germany ever was. Japan is kind of an oddball because a mobile doctrine wasn't really applicable, and they didn't have the production for SFP, so you could throw them into GBP as the odd way out.

I'm curious to see how Shock and Awe is portrayed vs Air Land Battle, because I'm pretty sure that doctrine (S&A) is from the mid 1990s.

It's funny because if someone asked me to explain what Shock and Awe was, I'd literally use the words "A Modern Blitzkrieg".

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

That is very true, so I wonder if they will add the post-WW2/ Cold War extra techs that everyone could research.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's also amusing how much damage control Pdox devs are doing at their forums. Darkrenown already called me a troll and Johan said I'm being ridiculous for wanting non-Steam version of the game.

Ridiculous for wanting nonsteam game?

There's not really any compelling reason to want a non-Steam version outside of a physical release.

 

[Renegen]

You can always pirate the game and buy a copy on Steam. Steam at this point is a lot more than a draconian DRM system, case in point EA's Origin. It has many advantages that Paradox likes and players like too.

 

[Renegen]

But it is a morally acceptable alternative, you ARE buying the product except you're not interacting with the DRM.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You can always pirate the game and buy a copy on Steam. Steam at this point is a lot more than a draconian DRM system, case in point EA's Origin. It has many advantages that Paradox likes and players like too.

Yeah no. I don't want Steam and I certainly won't buy any game that requires steam. Maybe I'll pirate it, maybe not, but Johan explicitly stated that they won't miss the 5% of customers that bought a non-Steam version of CK2 - which is pretty shitty logic, as I'm certain that percentage is much higher for EU3, HoI3 and Vicky2 - clearly meaning me. So fuck that and them. And the excuse of not having to make two different executables and patches is bullshit as well. The only difference, AFAIK, between Steam game and non-Steam game is the steam.dll file added and a number of hooks/calls in the executable for that. It's not like the entire patch/game has to be modified.

EDIT: don't get too hungup on the doctrine names. The tree system does not really reflect reality, so the names are only somesort of weak guidelines. Air-Land Battle was NATO doctrine invented in 1970's and 80's, Shock & Awe is an American "doctrine" from 1990's and 2000's and indeed is modern "blitzkrieg", which was never a formal name or doctrine anyway and so on.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Well then, that's no wonder. Pdox has got a lot of flak over the years for their shitty MP. Now it makes sense.

Still won't buy their Steamworks-exclusive game, though, but at least I can understand it. Why the fuck didn't Johan explain that, instead of whining about patching? And of course non-Steam customers being a tiny slice of the pie.

 

[Cassidy]

I am almost certain Hearts of Iron 3 was the rough peak of the series. I expect nothing good from EA Grand Strategy.

 

[Raghar]

There's not really any compelling reason to want a non-Steam version outside of a physical release.

Steam could go way of dodo any minute. What would you use for archiving?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There's not really any compelling reason to want a non-Steam version outside of a physical release.

Steam could go way of dodo any minute. What would you use for archiving?

Given Steam's market share, it's actually more likely that the alternatives go way of the dodo.