Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Another thing is that by providing data that is both precise and that has the benefit of hindsight, it means that the numerous stabs in the dark that were made before and during the war will never ever happen because the player can see they simply don't work. Good examples would be the interwar multi-turreted tanks, Japanese superheavy battleships (the then unknown obsolescence of battleships in turn ties to the wider problem of WW2 games that if you'd actually make it realistic but still give players wide freedom to deviate, the only winning move is not to play; or because of realism you'd have no choice but to go to war because it was an ideological inevitability of nazism and Japanese fascism), and Porsche's catastrophic electric drive train.

There's already other problems that arise in not representing severe structural weaknesses, like in case of Germany fundamental problems in relation to mass production (just taking a look at a photograph of a Tiger being assembled after a photo of a T-34 or Sherman assembly line should give someone plenty of "WHY IS EVERYTHING SO WRONG" pointers with the Tiger production) and the general chaos and rivalries in upper echelons of military command and government. Also having Göring tell you fucking lies all the time.

Absolutely. One of the things that gives the early war its charm is the lack of convergent evolution which made forces more distinct and unique. In HoI4, conversely, the game encourages you to skip light tank development as much as possible and, in fact, if I recall correctly there even is a German focus that allows you to skip light tanks altogether. What initially seems like a bit of harmless pandering to treadheads ends up having a harmful effect on the game as a strategic-level experience. Many such cases!

Yea, it's a particular topic where simulationism fails. WE know how tanks are supposed to work, in the late 20's and early 30's and to a lesser degree until mid 40's it was whatever goes. Hindsight will make it that there is no sense in having deadend deviations from the path to the main battle tank, or simplifying them to just being stages in a linear progression (like, hey, I'm happy seeing the stupid T-35 on the map as much as anyone, but it's really just there for fanservice like all the historical models for equipment are at the end of the day).

BICE goes overboard with specific models, and IMO it highlights the problem with their air tech trees. You basically skip 90% of their giant ass trees because you actually just need about two to six techs to get an optimal air force. With Japan this again draws attention to a historical reality that then gets ignored, which is how venomous the relationship between IJA and IJN was and how that resulted in a huge level of waste when both wanted their own air forces.

Embracing gameism instead of simulationism and focusing tank etc research on divergences would possibly make for more interesting outcomes. This is only really present in the game as Tungsten vs Chromium surplus for picking between Heavy and Medium tanks, though that too has the whole problem that you only get into a specific unit if you have a huge number of factories (this is more of a problem of the scale the game uses). You could also in general add in considerations for the kind of issues tank design during the war ran into, whether it be American need for their tanks to be shipped and supplied over vast sea distances, or possible detriments like IJA high command's old guard opposition to mechanized warfare or German high command's insistence on artisanal tanks, or mixed bags like the deluge of variants with the Germans.


(PS: Light Tanks do have some value as a Motorized division template's support element, they're a relatively cheap way to get Breakthrough and they allow trucks to maintain full speed)

 

[Average Manatee]

The fact that there's still no way to mix outdated lights with new mediums without mandating a separate light battalion for all divisions astonishes me. Similarly the fact that essentially all your built up factory production bonus is lost switching from lights to mediums (or even mediums to better mediums) is absurdly stupid. It basically mandates ahead of time teching and beelining for specific models early so that you produce and use so much more of it so much more efficiently. Playing "historically" basically destroys your production every two years.

At least with aircraft there's no tech line changes that would force you to throw thousands of outdated fights into a shed to rot.

 

[downwardspiral]

The thing I don't like about detailed models in HOI4 is they aren't detailed at all for the real treadheads.
It also made historical OOB entirely pointless. You can't even larping in this game much, due to how much min max it encourages you to do.
And the system has no interesting simulation elements where you can use your sub optimal units to do stupid things.
A good simulation is where even sub optimal build/design will have interesting and unexpecting outcome, even if they are not accurately simulated.

One annoying trend I found is, game like Paradox GS want to get more and more into tactical numbers.
And games like total war want to get more and more like grand strategy.
They want to appeal to the broad audience but will piss player who want better tactical/strategy layer.
The end result is that extra detailed layers is not only meh but ruin the pacing and focus of the game.
But that is the usual fate of popular sandwich game where they try to include all layers in to one game.
One could have a bite of everything in such game and nothing is great. But it will usually sell the best.

 

[Raghar]

For instance, here we've got the typical proving ground figures treadheads know and love -- angles, ranges, armor thickness -- which provides objective data for when a "pen" is achieved. But a penetration, especially during the early war, was not synonymous with a kill. In fact, tank kill counts for the early war are very unreliable because tanks could be penetrated several times but remain functional -- under such circumstances crews would often "play dead" until they could safely withdraw under cover of darkness, so that a tank that might have been accounted as a kill by the other side was not, in fact, lost.

Well, in game about tank combat in WW II, penetration is necessary for cases with NO penetration. Aka to simulate situation like when Germans gave theirs no longer used 36mm guns to theirs allies, allies tried to use it against Russian tanks, and Russian tanks mauled them. In HoI4, you can put enough units and enemy tanks would eventually be destroyed. That wasn't case in the above situation, because Russians were able to replenish ammunition. And when antitank weapon isn't working and tank is at 500 m what would you do? In Paradox games you psyche up and tank is defeated. In real life, you send a trained dog with a bomb to go under Russian tank, but the problem is Russians know this tactic because they invented it, and they are shooting at the dog from every machinegun they have.

Yea, there are various maneuvers, traps, and whatever, but when enemy tanks don't cooperate with being trapped and antitank weapons don't penetrate then what?

Likewise, "shooting range" figures for accuracy mean little in real-life circumstances. Is it a clear shot? Has the ATG been spotted by the tank's infantry screen? Are the crew in good condition or have they been stunned by a Stuka attack or artillery barrage? Not to mention that tanks were sometimes abandoned intact by their crews under certain circumstances due to mechanical breakdowns, running out of fuel or becoming bogged down. And this doesn't account for petrol bombs, bundled charges, teller mines, etc. that were often sufficient for mobility kills or to get crews to bail.

I typed real world figures. Shooting range accuracy would be 100 percent instead of about 85.
A mobility killed tank changes into a pillbox. It kills stuff around until it runs out of ammunition, or battle is won, or until battle moves far away and crew/support can repair.

Frankly, Steel Panthers did angles penetrations with different ammunition and for end user it was transparent, simple, and easy to use. Division (brigade) combat will not bother with angles that would happen on background, but some basic stuff should be simulated. Penetration, munition use (HoI4 bundles it with other stuff as "supplies"), difference between weapons, difference between training, tank combat effective range, AA accuracy.

All in all, I already dislike the game's use of specific tank models for production and believe tying it to specific anti-tank weapons would be even more decline. A game played at the global level with divisions as the smallest unit of manoeuver should not concern itself with such things as individual weapons.

But divisions are using specific weapons. For example Japanese designed A5M, A6M, A7M airplanes to be used with carriers. While game doesn't need to bother with differences between A5M2 and A5M4, a decently made game could have A5M4 as a result of research instead of A5M. Aka bit randomized research.

There was large difference between division that used Pz IVH, and division that used IS-2. A large part of strategy and tactic was about how to get around design flaws.

 

[downwardspiral]

The problem with HOI4 is they let you design your units and weapons, instead of dev trying to make unit stat that fit into the simulation model they want to reflect the real world event.

Most operational war game that try to use statistic number to simulate real world event tend to design their number around such event abstractly not directly because they know their variables/factors are too few to result the event they want to achieve.
Most operational wargame that has pen/armour/breakdown stats already design the way you should play with those pre-made units. Sometimes it get very specific rule, to simulate certain equipment advantage/disadvantage.
But the thing is, all those units are pre made to fit into that simulation model. It can't live without that model.

If one want to have a custom made units to have a mechanical style of simulation that is built from ground up like a sandbox simulation,
you need to have even more complexity/variable/factors simulated than the usual operational wargames.

When the level of complexity is high enough to make chaos of battle a real thing.
It is fun, even they are not accurate, that level of complexity/factors itself is fun and chaotic.

But paradox is no where close to that level.
They didn't achieve what they want to simulate with that simple models. And ruin it with player-made units that go off the allowed simulation range of that simple model.
And the model itself is too simple to have any real sandbox complexity or fun that comes with toying all the possibility from player made units.

 

[Jugashvili]

Well, in game about tank combat in WW II, penetration is necessary for cases with NO penetration. Aka to simulate situation like when Germans gave theirs no longer used 36mm guns to theirs allies, allies tried to use it against Russian tanks, and Russian tanks mauled them.

That's the first issue. Hoi4 is not a game about tank combat in WWII. Hoi is a game that features tank combat, among many other things, seen from the perspective of an omniscient generalissimo who is in charge of all theaters of a world war.

Now, to address your point, I'd say it would be much more effective to abstract ATGs and infantry AT weapons into generations. Say you've got "1st generation ATGs" which generically includes all guns such as the PaK35/36, the Soviet M1932, French 25mm APX or the Ordnance QF 2 pounder. There is no need to make individual profiles for these weapons as, for all practicall effects and purposes, they are equivalent. Make them highly effective against interwar tanks, moderately effective against early-war tanks, and ineffective against mid- and late-war tanks. Problem solved.

In HoI4, you can put enough units and enemy tanks would eventually be destroyed. That wasn't case in the above situation, because Russians were able to replenish ammunition. And when antitank weapon isn't working and tank is at 500 m what would you do? In Paradox games you psyche up and tank is defeated. In real life, you send a trained dog with a bomb to go under Russian tank, but the problem is Russians know this tactic because they invented it, and they are shooting at the dog from every machinegun they have.

Yea, there are various maneuvers, traps, and whatever, but when enemy tanks don't cooperate with being trapped and antitank weapons don't penetrate then what?

Of course tanks can be destroyed without ATGs. Tanks may look scary, but they are blind and vulnerable things that are highly reliant on infantry to screen for them. In the Spanish Civil War, Nationalist tank hunters found that they could capture enemy tanks with as little as a crowbar as soon as they discovered their blind spots. Not to mention that, beyond improvised AT measures, there is a slew of other, non-specialized weapons that could easily take out a tank. In a pinch, a direct hit from a divisional howitzer would make short work of most tanks.

Besides, you talk about tanks "not cooperating" with being trapped, but are we to assume they "cooperate" by nonchalantly rolling into the muzzles of enemy ATGs? ATGs are also reliant on ambushing enemy armor and are extremely vulnerable once spotted, clearing enemy anti-tank defences is the role of the Schützen-Brigade in a Panzer division.

A mobility killed tank changes into a pillbox. It kills stuff around until it runs out of ammunition, or battle is won, or until battle moves far away and crew/support can repair.

In theory, yes. In practice a mobility kill usually means that the tank is abandoned. In practice it was unusual for a crew to stick around in an immobile tank "killing stuff around it" as an immobile tank is extremely vulnerable in an active battle situation and not able to use its main asset, i.e. mobility.

Frankly, Steel Panthers did angles penetrations with different ammunition and for end user it was transparent, simple, and easy to use. Division (brigade) combat will not bother with angles that would happen on background, but some basic stuff should be simulated. Penetration, munition use (HoI4 bundles it with other stuff as "supplies"), difference between weapons, difference between training, tank combat effective range, AA accuracy.

But HoI4 isn't a division-level game. The division is the smallest unit of manoeuver represented, but the level of command is above even a five-star general. The granularity should not be any lower than an abstracted representation of a division.

But divisions are using specific weapons. For example Japanese designed A5M, A6M, A7M airplanes to be used with carriers. While game doesn't need to bother with differences between A5M2 and A5M4, a decently made game could have A5M4 as a result of research instead of A5M. Aka bit randomized research.

"Divisions are using specific weapons" is not an argument, especially because there were serious issues providing divisions with the equipment they were supposed to receive on paper, but also because divisions are made up of 15,000 individuals, should we also represent how intelligent, strong and brave each and every one of these individuals are while we're at it? It makes sense to do so in a company-level game like Close Combat, where you can say "an NCO with a Sten gun, a Bren gunner and seven rifles are on the second floor of a brick building while a Vickers team is on overwatch down the road" and it is relevant to the immediate situation, but in a game on the scale of HoI4 it is absolutely irrelevant since the game cannot and does not simulate this.

There was large difference between division that used Pz IVH, and division that used IS-2. A large part of strategy and tactic was about how to get around design flaws.

The technical differences between tank models are not the purview of strategy, and small-unit tactics are not relevant to a game spanning the entire globe.

 

[downwardspiral]

There is one extra point I want to bring up.
That is in these operational wargame. (HOI's combat is roughly around that level)
A unit fights on the basis of formation/OOB/battle group not individual weapon system.
The abstract stats are there to achieve the simulation that reflecting result of specific BG against another specific BG.

If one's tank can't pen enemy's tank, do one just send rest of his armour to engage enemy armour directly?
Or one start fighting more defensively on complex terrain? Hull down? using hill more? and setup more AT traps? forming various tactical methods to delay and destroy enemy superior tanks?
That abstract "offensive/defensive" stat already take into this kinda of concept, but the problem is, those abstract values need to be fine tune to reflect the real world event.
When the game start to say "since I have this awesome tank so my breakthrough ability is enhanced by arbitrary 10"
what does that 10 means? in relative to whom? and what does that 10 represent in such simulation model? Like how many days it accelerated for breaking through enemy 1941 infantry division who set up a defense line in such terrain?
If one ignore all these and use pen/range/ on that simple model and set up a custom made "division/tank" .
In that case it is where one start to use the model on the wrong application. And eventually turning this abstract style simulation into a "game", a min max game that don't try to reflect reality at all.
If the game really ignore all of these simple details but just use that "100 tanks stand here and they theoritically can pen enemy tank at 1000m where enemy can't pen back"
Then the result will be a smooth one side massacre which is far from reality.

Most war is fought on the basis of groups performance.
A pike is nothing if they can't fight in pike formation.
Weapons > weapon platform > weapon system > weapon team of same type> small scale cooperation between different weapon system/team > individual unit that has all elements above
> individual units that has all logistic covering things above.

The difference between tactical and operational is that, once you go beyond certain level of organization, you don't talk about how different type of weapons cooperate, that is not really what you need to care when you are in charge of operational level warfare.

And any emphasize on what range does A pen B will involve simulation of such tactical details that ignore how real battle fight.
The abstract stats of generic German 1944 tank div vs generic USA 1944 tank div should already take all those things into account, it represent the overall combat performance of en entire division and battle group.


focus too much in weapon system might be not that bad if you are playing modern naval/air combat but it just too unrealistic to simulate modern land warfare that way.
Not to mention most of the "tacticool" games have an over representation of tanks on battlefield. The tank density in those games is just insane because they know tactical player want more tanks density than RL so they ignore real life battle log and OOB.

Land terrain is a bitch. Huge human organization is a complex nightmare.
Even seemly empty space of modern air combat can't use that simple missile effective range to calculate a sensible result.
Because the real range of AAM is dynamic that tie to various factors which involve tactical details.


I am not opposite to the idea of mechanical simulation but it is really hard and probably wrong to do it on operational level.
And I am pretty sure there are countless 4X/GS games already try that approach and failed spectacularly as a way to represent sensible combat result of RL.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

In theory, yes. In practice a mobility kill usually means that the tank is abandoned. In practice it was unusual for a crew to stick around in an immobile tank "killing stuff around it" as an immobile tank is extremely vulnerable in an active battle situation and not able to use its main asset, i.e. mobility.

This really bears emphasizing. As someone who was trained in anti-tank combat as part of a specialist group in a mechanized infantry formation supporting tanks, I can tell you that only a crew who are terminally depressed would stick around in an immobilized tank. Because it is not a pillbox. It's a coffin.

 

[Raghar]

Another thing is that by providing data that is both precise and that has the benefit of hindsight, it means that the numerous stabs in the dark that were made before and during the war will never ever happen because the player can see they simply don't work. Good examples would be the interwar multi-turreted tanks, Japanese superheavy battleships (the then unknown obsolescence of battleships

I looked into that, and I found some interesting stuff. First Japanese didn't plan for war with US, otherwise they would be building big carriers, and skip Musashi. They knew carriers would be needed, and airpower would be strong. But, they planned to replace old battleships with ships with new more fuel efficient drive train. And war with China didn't require carriers or a naval build up.

Second. Japanese HEAVILY copied advanced smart people like UK and Italy. UK was on island with about area of Japan, and they had empire that basically was around the whole world. They wanted to be as important in theirs own pond. When they seen UK basically killing Italian fleet with few aircrafts they thought. UK massacred navy of high end EUROPEAN power Italy, theirs navy kinda ceased to exist and Italians can't do jack shit. If Japan would have to defend against US, it might work as well. Nobody said Japanese are smart cookies. They are not smart cookies even today.

in turn ties to the wider problem of WW2 games that if you'd actually make it realistic but still give players wide freedom to deviate, the only winning move is not to play; or because of realism you'd have no choice but to go to war because it was an ideological inevitability of nazism and Japanese fascism), and Porsche's catastrophic electric drive train.

Not sure about Japanese. Are you talking about situation when they were in war in China at full speed and both Japanese and Chinese acted as: We would lose face when we would negotiate and then return to status quo to previous border, and pretend that shooting never happened. (aka in mid war) Or are you talking about the situation before KMT said (aka at the start of the war): If we would accept the negotiation results between Japanese and the local government on the North, people would think KMT has no authority and they would elect new government thus KMT would be kicked out of leading position and some warlord would rule instead.

Losing face/doing what Chinese demanded in aka Japanese problem, or sitting on too many rotten eggs simultaneously and losing authority aka KMT problem, created an environment where fighting only escalated, until Japanese kicked Chinese behind river. Chinese couldn't get at Japanese, thus problems caused by Chinese side mostly ceased, and Japanese didn't have many reasons to continue fighting... Thus everyone thought situation would calm down... It didn't.


But... even when Japanese wouldn't attack when they did, or when situation would calm down and they moved back, the war would eventually erupt anyway when China would get its act together and unified under one government, war would start because Chinese wanted Japanese out of China.


As for Germany, Hitler was 50, he wanted to see unified Europe, and war was a fast solution. In addition, Austrian school system had teachers that viewed theirs northern neighbors czechs as a bunch of irresponsible retards, who should be governed by someone else to save them from themselves. Views between German leaders differed between genocide to kick them out to Siberia. That part of German peace treaty proposal where Germans talked about czech basin was interesting. On the other had there was Churchill, a fat pig whos political career was saved when someone from czech basin transferred money to pay Churchill's debts. (I wasn't able to find if it was from jews who used transfer through czech basin to cover theirs tracks, or from czech government who tried to help more friendly politician to be elected before problems with Germany started. Munich happened before Churchill was elected, thus they were hosed.)

I can imagine a somewhat plausible situation:

The rest of the government made decision: Hitler is basically retirement age, lets move him from politic to pension. Also ask Eva to calm him down when he discovers what we did with czech basin, it was necessary for peaceful method of European unification.
20 years later Hitler is bitching: it took you 20 years while if you let me do it forcefully, I could do it in jiffy. Including destroying communists in Russia.
US general, but we can still destroy communists in Russia... Followed by Hitler outburst about how dumb must be US general to pick on nuclear armed Russia. And how he think Europeans are dumb who don't understand most damage would happen on European continent.

Yea, feels more plausible than most HoI4 absurdities.


So neither German nazism, nor Japan "we destroyed absolutistic ruling structures, now parliament has free reign to fuck the country" downward spiral automatically meant a war, it was just likely. (But, Japan war with US definitely needed active US attempts to drive Japan to war with US. If US allowed an exception from oil embargo for Japanese civilian industry, Japan would be happy, and war with US would probably never happen.)


I was born in socialistic country, had socialistic education, and textbook were saying Germans are bad... because they are bad... Thus I was spared from learning about terrors like "Porsche's catastrophic electric drive train." I'm kinda glad I missed this horrible shameful part of history.

There's already other problems that arise in not representing severe structural weaknesses, like in case of Germany fundamental problems in relation to mass production (just taking a look at a photograph of a Tiger being assembled after a photo of a T-34 or Sherman assembly line should give someone plenty of "WHY IS EVERYTHING SO WRONG" pointers with the Tiger production) and the general chaos and rivalries in upper echelons of military command and government. Also having Göring tell you fucking lies all the time.

Yea, during socialistic era, they shown that as an example why capitalism is bad for the country during times of war. Nowadays when I live in "market economy" era, I see why Germany and Japan were fucked (I mean on industry level.) And Goring is still probably more honest than Babish, Topolánek (Or was it the other person?), Okamura trio.

However, a proper grand strategy game should allow mechanism to correct German industry, for example by an industrial technology research, or by a decision "adopting sensible communist practices". (Stability fall to 20 percent, and +5 percent per 3 months assembly line efficiency improvement up to Russia/US efficiency.)
Japanese industry was beyond help. It would take over 15 years to make Japan industry to be able to find a way out of a paper bag.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[AwesomeButton]

Pistons. This is what the Soviet Union was about!

 

[Space Satan]

we moved doctrines out of tech slots (got a quick description in the pdxcon presentation), that should give you a lot more space for other techs.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, doctrines as an XP tree thing is a concept that might work.

 

[Fedora Master]

Paging fantadomat


It's your favorite Youtuber with your favorite nation!

 

[fantadomat]

Paging fantadomat


It's your favorite Youtuber with your favorite nation!

Nah HOI4 is pretty shit,prefer kaiserraich or the great war mods.

 

[Theodora]

Well, doctrines as an XP tree thing is a concept that might work.

IR essentially does this: https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Military_traditions

 

[Alter Sack]

Regarding recent paradox releases I wonder if they have already introduced female generals?

Or do we have to wait for the next installment to see that happen?

Just asking.

 

[shywn]

They had Yoshiko Kawashima as a general and she's still there but they ruined her photograph in a subsequent update.

 

[Anthedon]

We'll never know if Guderian deep down identified as female.

 

[Alter Sack]

They had Yoshiko Kawashima as a general and she's still there but they ruined her photograph in a subsequent update.

Oh shit.

It was meant to be a joke question.

It seems like there is really a not small chance in the not so far off future to play with Frau Generalfeldmarschall Rommel in your staff.

Fuck me dead.

 

[Space Satan]

Officer corps

HOI4 Dev Diary - Officer Corps

• Thread starterArheo
• Start dateToday at 15:00

Greetings all, Arheo here!

For my first HoI dev diary, I’m here to introduce the Officer Corps: a collection of new features that will be included as part of No Step Back and the Barbarossa update.

For quite a while, we’ve wanted to allow for more direct specialization of military branches, as well as tying together various disparate systems such as the high command, generals, military-focused national spirits, and doctrines. To achieve step one of this process, we’re giving the Officer Corps and associated mechanics a unique national interface:
pasted image 0.png

The Advisor rank (e.g. Expert) indicates both the magnitude of their modifier bonus, and the daily experience you will receive.

We’re also experimenting with a split political/command power costs to gate the experience ramp-up somewhat, along with some other minor changes to command power.

Behind the scenes, we’ve made a host of changes to the advisor, spirits, and commander systems. Where previously, if we wanted to create a national spirit related to having a certain character in your government, it would be entirely unrelated to having an advisor with the same name, masquerading as the same person - likewise for commanders and advisors masquerading as the same person. This has changed. These are (for the most part) now controlled by ‘characters’. This has pretty sweeping connotations for our internal content designers, as well as modders, but importantly also allows us to bring the following new system to the No Step Back release:

Advisor Promotion

The introduction of a more connected Officer Corps felt like the perfect time to bring more of a connection to the Generals and Field Marshals that oversee your active forces, and the various military offices that advise your government.

In No Step Back, Generals, Admirals or Field Marshals can be assigned an advisory desk duty in addition to their status as a field commander. This will effectively add the character as a new advisor to your roster.

The type of advisor available to you is dependent on the skill level and traits of the commander you’re ‘promoting’ (not everyone likes desk duty ), as you can see in the highly WIP interface below:

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Arheo · Jun 16, 2021 at 15:00

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Here, Herr Hell can be converted to an Entrenchment specialist as he possesses the Engineer trait, and has skill level 5. Currently, both Military High Command and branch Chief roles are available.

Experience

Experience generation in general has been weighted and balanced in order to achieve a more gradual switch from peacetime generation (a strong cadre of advisors, and unit training), through to wartime. Experience generation from combat and battles has been reduced fairly significantly to account for this, as well as capped (separately from other sources). Overall, experience generation will be consistently higher than in previous versions - this was done both to mitigate the introduction of the tank designer (and thereby increased costs), and to account for the other new ways in which you are now able to spend experience, which we shall cover below.

The eagle-eyed amongst you noticed in a previous diary that the doctrine branches had been removed from the technology window - they can now be accessed from the officer corps interface, and will function somewhat differently to before. Doctrines will be unlocked directly by spending branch experience, which can still be affected by instanced cost modifiers often found in focus trees and events.

pasted image 0 (2).png
Arheo · Jun 16, 2021 at 15:00

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(There have been no major structural changes to doctrine layouts)

There are, in addition to the above, several new and exciting things that branch experience will be used for in NSB, some of which are handily teased in the first screenshot of this diary. Alas, we will be covering what those are and how they might affect your gameplay in a future DD.

/Arheo

 

[Seethe]

Guys, how is the game right now? I usually let Paradox games to cook for a few years before they get better. I remember that the game was stupidly easy at launch, did it get any better? Does it have high replayability?

 

[Space Satan]

Greetings all, and welcome to today’s dev diary on the huge supply system update coming with the Barbarossa update. Before we begin, I’ll leave a heads up that this will be the last dev diary before we break for summer, so don’t expect anything new until some time in August at the earliest.

Since we last talked about supply, a few things have changed. We found that the way truck need could take off and spike was hard to deal with and that watching out so you didn't overload individual supply hubs was a bit too intensive. We also felt that the way the mapmode worked made it very difficult to project how well supply was flowing.

The iteration we have now aims at addressing these shortcomings. It's now possible for divisions to supply from multiple hubs. Trucks are now less of a strict necessity, rather something you can assign to hubs to make sure they can project supplies further away. Finally, the mapmode has changed to better show the spread of supply as well as current status for divisions.

Supply flow

From each hub connected back to the capital, potential supply is projected outwards - adding up when overlapping. This is represented by the brighter colors below. For each province in distance that supply needs to travel from a hub, there is a reduction in the amount as some is lost. The amount depends on various factors like terrain, crossing rivers etc. The dark purple areas below are reduced to local supply only, and the highlighted red-orange areas indicate locations where there are units suffering from significant supply issues.

1.png

2.png
Arheo · Jun 30, 2021 at 15:00

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Here, the clock indicates rails that are not yet converted, and the hub icons with red crosses indicate that they do not connect back to your network.

Motorization

To increase the range of a hub (perhaps to help supply the front above better) you can choose to improve the motorization level. The horse icon on the right indicates no motorized supply from the node, but you can opt to toggle it to a higher state of motorization. Be careful, as this will cost you trucks which are taken from the stockpile.

It is also possible to set the motorization level on an army, in which case it will automatically toggle on motorization for hubs that it uses without requiring further interaction from the player.

There are also some other options on a hub. The star icon lets you move your supply capital to a new location, provided that you have sufficient surrender progress. This lets you get around issues where your capital ends up cut off or surrounded, but also comes with a period of bad supply as the new location is prepared.

The blue flag next to it lets you control allied access to the node. This can be a great way to flag to an AI that you do not want them on your front, or to stop them from joining a tight landing situation.

The rail icon lets you quickly switch to construction mode and extend rails from there while the green plus will automatically queue up construction for rails to combat any bottlenecks your node may suffer from back towards the capital. The chevron icon lets you prioritize train allocation if you are running low.


Floating Harbors

As part of No Step Back, we’re introducing a new dimension to naval invasions. Floating, or ‘Mulberry’ harbors can now be constructed once the appropriate research has been completed.

These weighty and expensive pieces of infrastructure (don’t look too close at the numbers above hehe) aren’t intended for every-day landings, but are instead intended to represent the equipment used in large-scale operations such as the Battle of Normandy.

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Arheo · Jun 30, 2021 at 15:00

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Naval invasions utilizing a floating harbor will be represented by harbor apparatus placed parallel province targeted by the invasion, and will immediately create a stocked supply hub at their location:

Used carefully, one or more mulberry harbors can keep a sizable invading force supplied without requiring the immediate capture of an important enemy harbor. Of course, harbors should remain amongst the first targets of any successful invasion, and the supply hubs created by a floating harbor will be temporary; lasting a matter of weeks or months, depending on the strength of enemy air superiority and other factors.

Of course, there is yet more to cover regarding supply, and we'll have another diary on this subject in the future, but I hope you like what you've seen so far and we’ll be seeing you again after summer!

Oh, and one last thing - one of the new loading screens for NSB is this awesome Polish cavalry, so we figured we should share it as a summer wallpaper for you (fear not, there will be a soviet one eventually!)

The vision behind the painting was to present a more historically accurate depiction of the Charge at Krojanty. This was an engagement in the opening days of WW2, where the elite Polish cavalry surprised a German infantry unit at rest, charged before it could prepare for defense, and dispersed it. They later withdrew when faced with German armored cars.
This battle is famous because it started the, often officially repeated, ahistorical view of Polish cavalry charging German tanks and we wanted to try and make something more accurate (ignore the backdrop. we couldn't resist an epic sunrise on a field, but I hope the feel is there).
We have attached 3 different aspect ration wallpapers for you

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[TripJack]

this crap is a dollar on humble bundle, or more if you want dlc https://www.humblebundle.com/games/hearts-of-iron

 

[Raghar]

As you clearly see Japan is member of Chinese united front along with China (leader), comchi, yunan, comchi because it's so important it needs to be member twice, and ... Italy, fascist Greece, and German empire.
Situation is really really complicated.