Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[Average Manatee]

HoI3's AI for unit control was particularly bad. Even if the rest of HoI4 goes to shit if they get decent AI the game might be half-playable. Certainly HoI isn't the kind of game for which developing a competent AI would be hard.

 

[cw8]

The Youtube video for the map stream. Saw a unified China and nearly got a heart attack. Asked in comments and luckily Paradox answered that China and the east are still WIP.

 

[Blagrar]

The Youtube video for the map stream. Saw a unified China and nearly got a heart attack. Asked in comments and luckily Paradox answered that China and the east are still WIP.

The day/night transition looks terrible. It would be better to usea one or two hour "wide" dawnline instead of an instant transition.

 

[cw8]

I dislike the map myself. The weather effects don't really dawn on me as amazing. I was hoping all this while that they make a HOI4 using the CK2 map. My favourite looking map thus far.

 

[Destroid]

If it was so important for us to be able to tell what the terrain type was you'd think they would go with a more abstract art style that has more clarity about what sort of terrain each individual province is.

 

[Grinolf]

Almost missed funniest part of the last dev. diary:

In all our games we have tried to make the game look as pretty as possible, this is what is shown in screenshot and trailers.
Unfortunately, this is not how players choose to play, the info you need is not clear enough in terrain map mode, so political map mode is the only choice.

Looking at Paradox gamplay videos it's not only the players, but their own staff didn't use it also. I don't even know what to say anymore...

 

[Average Manatee]

If it was so important for us to be able to tell what the terrain type was you'd think they would go with a more abstract art style that has more clarity about what sort of terrain each individual province is.

Or, you know, add togglable map modes. Apparently EU4 can have something like 20 of them but HoI players are too dumb for manually selecting between 2 to be an option.

Almost missed funniest part of the last dev. diary:

In all our games we have tried to make the game look as pretty as possible, this is what is shown in screenshot and trailers.
Unfortunately, this is not how players choose to play, the info you need is not clear enough in terrain map mode, so political map mode is the only choice.

Looking at Paradox gamplay videos it's not only the players, but their own staff didn't use it also. I don't even know what to say anymore...

It's probably a clear case of the marketing division running the company.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Interestingly enough, I did play EU4 and CK2 mostly using terrain map when I wasn't doing some large-scale information gathering using various filters. Before those two, I never used terrain because it was too difficult to keep track of frontlines and borders.

But really, the standard terrain map mode still doesn't give actual information about the terrain ahead (nowadays the borders and province control are just easy enough to see in it so you don't need political 24/7). That I usually just find by click-scouting terrain, since Simplified Terrain is only for when the game is paused.

 

[Norfleet]

Ahoy thar, Vaarna. How do you find time to play all these different games, anyway? I'm awake 24/7 and I STILL can't fit this many games into my schedule. How the hell does a slacker like you manage that? Sure as hell isn't because you play more efficiently than I do, from what I've seen.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Depression and Asperger's is a helluva thing.

 

[Norfleet]

That doesn't explain anything at all. In fact, that's the opposite of an explanation. Depression is generally characterized by a lack of motivation. You'd have to be pretty damn driven to manage to play all these games. Unless you're not actually one person, but actually a collective of Vaarnas (Vaarnae?), all of whom are terrible slackers like I've seen, and thus can manage to slack their way through many different games at once.

What you up to, anyway, Vaarna?

 

[Spectacle]

The Youtube video for the map stream. Saw a unified China and nearly got a heart attack. Asked in comments and luckily Paradox answered that China and the east are still WIP.

Ideally that means they have found a better way to represent late1930's China than having military cliques as separate states. The warlord era was over by the time HoI starts.

While central control of the provinces was still quite limited in 1936, apart from Mao's communists there weren't any major factions openly challenging the Guomindang government's authority, just provincial governors following or ignoring government orders as they pleased.

 

[Raghar]

provincial governors following or ignoring government orders as they pleased.

They didn't get it right even in Victoria II, I doubt they would be able to solve it well in HoI4.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It would potentially end up as a overcomplicated mess. The warlord states solution is rough, but it's functional.

That doesn't explain anything at all. In fact, that's the opposite of an explanation. Depression is generally characterized by a lack of motivation. You'd have to be pretty damn driven to manage to play all these games. Unless you're not actually one person, but actually a collective of Vaarnas (Vaarnae?), all of whom are terrible slackers like I've seen, and thus can manage to slack their way through many different games at once.

What you up to, anyway, Vaarna?

Right now, doffing, then campaigning, then stuff, and later on the weekend jumpstarting new repping.

And actually, gaming is probably the most effective anti-depressant around, or at least the most effective one for me.

 

[Norfleet]

Why is everyone these days "depressed", anyway? Can't you just have a sad like a normal sadsack?

 

[GarfunkeL]

I'm not depressed.

And I play HoI games on the terrain mapmode. HoI1 and 2 were easy enough that you can just ignore most terrain but they increased the modifiers for 3, so now it's actually worth it to pay attention on what is in a province. Too bad the "pretty" terrain mapmode is donkey's balls. The simplified terrain mode is far more informative but ugly as hell, meaning that it is great for gameplay, poor for screenshots for marketing.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I've always found simplified terrain to feel confusing when stuff is happening, so I only tend to use it before doing something and then switching back to political (or regular terrain in CK2 and EU4).

 

[Norfleet]

The simplified terrain mode is far more informative but ugly as hell, meaning that it is great for gameplay, poor for screenshots for marketing.

Informative and Pretty seem to frequently be diametrically opposed. I've long been in the habit of redoing UIs for games....utterly destroying any semblance of beauty, but being totally and utterly functional and effective. Your pretty spaceship game reduced to a green triangles shooting lines and dots NORAD-esque radar display.

 

[GarfunkeL]

That's why I play Aurora instead of GalCiv or Space Empires or Distant Worlds.

 

[Average Manatee]

The Youtube video for the map stream. Saw a unified China and nearly got a heart attack. Asked in comments and luckily Paradox answered that China and the east are still WIP.

Ideally that means they have found a better way to represent late1930's China than having military cliques as separate states. The warlord era was over by the time HoI starts.

While central control of the provinces was still quite limited in 1936, apart from Mao's communists there weren't any major factions openly challenging the Guomindang government's authority, just provincial governors following or ignoring government orders as they pleased.

Xinjiang directly fought for Stalin and against Chiang Kai-shek in 1937. I'd call that openly challenging.

Separate states models the situation well. The correct regions that should support china are hardcoded to do so when the time comes. When the regional authority is able to do their own thing and ignore your orders at a whim then that is what is represented by a different state in HoI terms. It also allows factions to influence and puppet the regions without conquering china whole, which is very important.

 

[cw8]

New Dev Diary, Internal Politics:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-Iron-IV-Developer-Diary-12-Internal-Politics

I was worried that they might dumb down the politics scene, doesn't look like the case, yet... Looks like tech teams are back.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That does seem pretty awesome all in all, a big improvement over the previous nearly non-existent internal politics of HoI2 and the inconsequential and immutable internal politics of HoI3.

I do hope that company effects also count for equipment exported to your allies, it'd just feel right, and it offers potential for strategy if you have domestic production geared for one role and imported units for others.

 

[Average Manatee]

Political mana *confirmed*.

Iffy on tech teams. If they are the micromanagement mess that HoI2 was it will be a PITA again.

 

[Kane]

Today we come to you with a rather important message: Hearts of Iron IV will release in late Q2.

 

[Raghar]

Addentum, it will require three patches before becoming playable.