Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[Azeot]

ehm, why are they not games in a classical sense?
EU4 and CK2 and Victoria 2 give the player a lot of freedom and agency. Apparently, HoI4 is a bit (or a lot) more restricted on this. I was just wondering what's the appeal of playing ww2 for the Nth time, after other 3 games in the same time period and with similar mechanics, and why deny the player the crazy scenarios so common in the other paradox titles just for the sake of it.

 

[Renegen]

mods will fix it.

Actually HoI has plenty of choices to make even if you know WW2 will happen every time, succeeding where Germany has failed proves to be quite difficult.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That's been a bit of a thing for Hearts of Iron for a while now: HoI2 was *very* railroaded by its event structure. They then tried to introduce a more open system in HoI3, but this didn't quite work out and had to gradually haul the game increasingly back on rails because without WW2 happening within vaguely historical limits it just didn't work out due to the mechanics having certain flaws that required the decisions and events to take place for shit to get real, and the resource distribution being too heavily predisposed to historical conflict (tho in all versions either causing an instant German or USSR curbstomp of the other when AI went up against AI). It just happens that your number of possible deviations always ends up being limited by the number of events and decisions implemented. HoI4's more robust political and economic models might be a step towards overcoming this weakness.

HoI2 generally had a better situation of "mods will fix it" because the game was more approachable as a modding target compared to HoI3 (even though Clausewitz has a more accessible structure) due to the simple fact that HoI3 is fucking gigantic and has a much larger quantity of shit you need to consider compared to the more accessible "arcadey" style of HoI2. Mods like Fallout's Doomsday and especially Kaiserreich are pretty impressive in the number of deviations they support (though I still think Kaiserreich should have a method of setting up certain parameters and handicaps to have a certain direction take place in history instead of the parade of random chance; it's just more fun if you have to go fight a globe-trotting war against the Syndicalists from either Canada, Japan, Austria, or GODDAMN MONGORIA).

 

[Szioul]

He mostly plays EU4 though.

 

[Andnjord]

Shows zero depth regarding the battle planner, . Maybe in the hands of a competent player it could be nice, but the way he uses it screams of "grab a bunch of troops and point them in the general direction of the enemy" .
Then again, the guy doesn't seem to have played HOI games before, or at the very least he is addressing a public that never did, Three months to beat down Yugoslavia? Pah! They are also playing on speed three in the middle of wars, I'd imagine that in SP or at speed one in MP it should be possible to do more refined stuff.

The other aspects do seem promising, but nothing we didn't already know.

There are many things to criticize regarding the game's look though. From the night time super bright cities to the visual mess that is the zoomed in battle map with planes flying everywhere, 3d soldiers running around mixed with counters it is a stark departure compared to the visual simplicity and clarity that the series possessed before. And that UI with all its gigantic cartoonish buttons reminds more of mobile games than wargames.

 

[Azeot]

combat looks like a clusterfuck, good thing it is pre alpha

 

[curry]

Apparently if you choose to micromanage units they'll be less effective so the game literally rewards the player for using dumbed down mechanics.

 

[Tytus]

Apparently if you choose to micromanage units they'll be less effective so the game literally rewards the player for using dumbed down mechanics.

Mods will fix it. The mod will become popular to the point Paradox will realease an expansion that reworks combat and ditches the dumb system. The same thing happened with EU4 when features from Veritas et Fortitudo the most popular EU4 mod ended up in the expansions.

 

[Makabb]

Music sounds awesome, EU 4 had quality music, but this sounds even step above or just i'm a bigger fan of ww2 theme styled music.


I hope you can turn off the day/night fly-by effect. Because it will be very annoying.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Apparently if you choose to micromanage units they'll be less effective so the game literally rewards the player for using dumbed down mechanics.

Making a plan several in-game months ahead of the event is hardly dumbing down. Longterm planning SHOULD outperform micro mechanically. That's the basic idea behind the battleplan system, issue is generally that it's a really long shot for it to work as intended.

 

[Makabb]

This is not EU4 or ck2. In this game you are larping Hitler,Roosevelt,Churchill, and Hitler did not gave orders to every troop on front. He gave general orders to his majors and majors to generals etc. This longterm planning reflects this as Vaarna said.

Also giving orders single handledly to 10k troops is a chore. This is why Hoi3 is a Excel simulator and not a game. I for one welcome the new planning system.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It depended on where you were playing in HoI3, and it was mostly a matter of player stamina on how much you wanted to indulge the simulator. Main carrot there were that the combat mechanics themselves were top-notch and should have had more taken to Paradox games that came after it.

The main problem that the battleplan system will have to tackle is quite simply that it needs to at the same time encourage use, avoid becoming a labyrinthine mess, and not favour "everyone march to Moscow" level planning.

 

[Makabb]

Everyone march to Moscow sounds gud.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'd prefer "Army Group A will blitz the Baltic coastline, Army Groups B and C will launch a two-pronged offensive in Ukraine, Army Group D will maintain a steady pressure around Belarus and advance cautiously in an attempt to tie up forces there; next Army Group A links up and provides flank support to Finnish allies, Army Group B will launch a pincer offensive towards Moscow, and Army Group C will launch a slow, cautious offensive Northward from Ukraine" level of planning (example is at a too large scale, I'd see same size operation planned for Poland's geographical area alone).

 

[Andnjord]

I'm assuming in the final release the Battleplan system will have various types of offensive stances, but right now I can't see any of that in the video we have. All I can see is front defense, front advance, arrow advance, naval invasion and paradrop. And recycle infantry sign, no idea what that is. Doesn't feel terribly in depth for now. And as we've discussed before not likely finished either, so you never know.

EDIT: just to be clear on my position, I'd fucking love to be able to do what Vaarna described above, I just feel like the recent "it's done when it's done" delay might be in big part due to the fact you can't.

 

[a Goat]

I think the battleplan system is meant to make the wars more... planned. But I'll hold up with my opinion before it was out.

In HoI2 or 3 you would make huge strategic plans(mostly for yourself) but at some point, the game devolved into something I don't know how to even call a single name, basically you're picking next provinces you'll attack in "everything's covered" fashion. As in, you're moving army from a province that won't be on the frontline if the target province will be taken over. This is sometimes "broke" a bit by force concentration and various manurers but as soon as you spread your forces out a bit, you're coming back to it. It happens in every Paradox game and is a consequence of using provinces, but in HoI it's extremely visible.
With more large-scale planning HoI4 tries to impose it may be partially solved, but as I've said before - I'm highly sceptical about it.

 

[Makabb]

I'd prefer "Army Group A will blitz the Baltic coastline, Army Groups B and C will launch a two-pronged offensive in Ukraine, Army Group D will maintain a steady pressure around Belarus and advance cautiously in an attempt to tie up forces there; next Army Group A links up and provides flank support to Finnish allies, Army Group B will launch a pincer offensive towards Moscow, and Army Group C will launch a slow, cautious offensive Northward from Ukraine" level of planning (example is at a too large scale, I'd see same size operation planned for Poland's geographical area alone).

everyone march to moscow still sounds better

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Apparently if you choose to micromanage units they'll be less effective so the game literally rewards the player for using dumbed down mechanics.

Really? WTF God Damn it all to hell!!!! I was hoping that although they clearly do not want you to play that way they wouldn't be penalizing you if you did.

Where is this info coming from?

I think they've stated this ever since the first devblog referenced to Battleplans that you can still directly command your units at any time but that you will do so at a penalty compared to planned operations.

To me the important thing that's missing there is saying HOW LONG must you have made the plans beforehand. I mean, I'd say you should have at least a few weeks after making a plan before any bonuses (or penalty reductions, depending on what way you look at it) start kicking in progressively up to, say, three weeks or a month, before capping out.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Only the terrain system has been given any real detail I think.

 

[Space Satan]

As the primary AI coder on HoI 4 I will try to shed some light on this to try to reduce the ammount of nervous speculation.

Some various responses to topics in the thread:
* The AI was not the main reason for the delay, but rather one of several things that needed more work. The game was simply not ready when we had initially hoped it would be.
* Comparing the AI of two different games will never be fully fair.
* It is most assuredly easier to build the AI around a more or less complete feature than guessing based on design. Features may change over iterations and that means the AI will have to change along with them. As such, the AI will (by necessity) be in development as long as the game is, but it is folly to start working on it too early.
* So far it has been stated that the AI will use the same battle plan system as is available to the player, so there is that piece of information
* Would you really like to know the details of the AI? Wouldn't that kind of be like having a human opponent write down how they intended to play the game before hand?
* "Optimal" decisions is not such a clear cut concept as it may seem in a complex game like HoI. If the AI consistently makes the same decision percieved as optimal, it will become predictable (and would thus no longer be optimal.)
* Of course we will do what we can to make the AI as good as possible, do we really need to state that? Currently we have one coder dedicated only to this, and the legendary Wiz as overseer.

And indeed, if there will be an AI DD, it would be reasonable to put this rather late in development, especially if it were to relate in any way to the features of the game (which it would be making decisions about.) I admit, though, that I have not seen the intended DD topics list myself, so I guess Johan or Podcat might surprise even me on this.

At any rate, it feels good to see that people care about the AI. Rest assured that we do as well

I think it is an interesting idea, at least to some extent. Since the plans would require rather specific conditions to be valid at all I am affraid it would not fit very well with how dynamic HoI 4 is, though.

The time when such a model would be interesting would be when wars start, before countries or borders have had a time to change. After that so much can happen so differently that it would require an unreasonable ammount of scripted plans. I would judge it to be more worth the time making an AI that can think on its feet dynamically rather than going down the road of scripted plans.
But I guess if we go down the road of more detailed campaigns it would be worth looking at, but unless it turns out scripted plans are necessary for a tutorial I do not see this happening in a foreseeable future. The step from that to matching a good selection with a certain situation is kind of a big one though.

Thanks for the input though, and sorry for having to bring bad news.

 

[cw8]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...diary-26th-of-june-2015.866109/#post-19536513

And yes!

Oh, and yes, there will be NATO symbols there for those that prefer those. And probably an option to use NATO symbols instead of great-looking-informative-paradox-style ones.

 

[Andnjord]

 

[Spectacle]

The ability to deploy half trained and underequipped units sounds great. Finally a way to represent the Soviet army in '41 without silly special modifiers.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It might provide a great relationship between manpower, economy, and warfare.

 

[Average Manatee]

The ability to deploy half trained and underequipped units sounds great. Finally a way to represent the Soviet army in '41 without silly special modifiers.

That was already kind of the way it worked in HoI3. With reserve units and minimal training you could churn out a ridiculous number of skeleton crews quickly. Only issue is that vanilla HoI3's reinforcement system made it far cheaper to reinforce from 0% to 100% than to build a unit 0% to 100%, for reasons no one knows. So instead of it being something that could kill you, it ended up giving a huge advantage and verging on being an exploit.