Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[Spectacle]

So in the new system, Japan's fleet should in theory require supplies that require oil to be produced.

As I understand the system, not having the required inputs for a factory just means reduced production efficiency, so Japan will be able to keep their fleet running fine without oil if they just allocate enough factories to it.

I would bet that running factories at low efficiency is a lot cheaper in the long run than going to war with the US to secure oil supplies....

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how it works in practise, but hypothetically based on hype it should provide a basis for a system that can be modified to higher flexibility (assuming you can finetune what kind of things are needed for supplying stuff, which in theory could be used to mod in fuel factories if one wants more supply production complexity) and dodge the whole AI-is-a-dipshit problem.

 

[Irenaeus II]

No fuel in a fucking WW2 game really smacks of a "the AI can't handle it so instead of fix the AI we dumbed the game down" philosophy. Their "fix" of stopping production when you lose control of a resource is silly. Japan didn't attack the Allies because they wanted to be able to have 4 carriers in the production queue rather than 2, they attacked because their thousands of ships would be 100% useless in a few months due to the oil embargo if that didn't.

Yeah, the 4 party thing has been known for a while. It's dumbing down but I can take that in a WW2 game. The HoI3 system had tons of weirdness (like, the UK can invest in espionage to sponsor a democratic coup in Japan in 1936, but the USA and France can't. Why? UK is Social Conservative while France and USA are both Social Liberal). It's a distinction that makes sense in a Victoria 3 game, not a HoI4 game.

Good post.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's a tradeoff for hindsight, when in HoI3 players hoarded amount of fuel enough to last for entire war.

As I said, this is only a problem because the AI was so bad that Paradox had to give the Axis 10x as much fuel as they should have. AI's literally consumed an order of magnitude more fuel randomly driving tanks in circles like idiots, you can put your carefully managed east front on AI control and watch your fuel reserves plummet.

There is no hindsight factor in HoI3. "Hoarding" fuel, in terms of buying fuel from the Allies before war, was insanely, massively expensive, and the only way to get a decent amount of it was to sell the Allies huge stockpiles of supplies (which then effectively gave them your IC since you are producing supplies for them), so its not like something that you magically got for free because you knew ahead of time "I'll need fuel for war". HoI3's problem was purely that Germany produced tons more oil than they should have and that careful micromanagement of units ensured that you used almost nothing (keep in mind that strategic redeployment used no fuel and units sitting still also used no fuel, so tanks effectively only needed fuel when in the middle of battle).

 

[Irenaeus II]

Never really played a HoI game, this will be my first*. Anything I should know aside from history of the period (which I already know)?

* I'm familiar with most Paradox strategy games and their mods btw, just never played much HoI beyond checking out the interface a bit.

 

[Random Word]

As I understand it all replacement parts for motorized units of any kind require Oil, and units require replacement parts even when idle. They require parts at a much greater rate when in battle or training. This means tanks now do consume oil while at rest and when strat redeploying, and that Japan's navy will fall apart, losing organization and strength without access to sufficient oil to support them.

Have I misunderstood?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I guess the big question that remains unanswered is what are the naval supply items (since somehow I doubt the game expects you to build another carrier for supplying a carrier), and if there are other supply items for group troops besides the (ie) tanks themselves. That's the basic outline of the system, but it hasn't been detailed much outside of the new way supplies are shipped and distributed.

 

[GarfunkeL]

There is generic "small arms" and then there's generic "supplies". I don't know if there is generic "spare parts" required for tanks and trucks and planes and ships. If there is and producing those consumes oil and moto-mechanized units consume them 24/7, then the system might work. If not, then it'll mean that Rommel will drive to Baghdad in 1941 and that's that.

 

[Average Manatee]

As I understand it all replacement parts for motorized units of any kind require Oil, and units require replacement parts even when idle. They require parts at a much greater rate when in battle or training. This means tanks now do consume oil while at rest and when strat redeploying, and that Japan's navy will fall apart, losing organization and strength without access to sufficient oil to support them.

Have I misunderstood?

It's unclear. It seems to be what Paradox is describing, but if it actually works like that then there are massive holes in the system as I pointed out earlier (ideal Japan strategy being to scrap most of their fleet in 1936). If not then there is essentially no oil constraint on supplying units.

There is generic "small arms" and then there's generic "supplies". I don't know if there is generic "spare parts" required for tanks and trucks and planes and ships. If there is and producing those consumes oil and moto-mechanized units consume them 24/7, then the system might work. If not, then it'll mean that Rommel will drive to Baghdad in 1941 and that's that.

As for Germany, similarly as it is for what I describe as Japan. If units always consume oil, and there is no oil stockpile, then there's no reason to build the excess tanks like Germany did that they eventually couldn't supply due to stockpile shortfalls. Instead, simply build up to what your constant stream of oil supports, then never worry about building new units or running out of supply.

Never really played a HoI game, this will be my first*. Anything I should know aside from history of the period (which I already know)?

* I'm familiar with most Paradox strategy games and their mods btw, just never played much HoI beyond checking out the interface a bit.

Assuming you're talking about HoI3, just jump right in. The game IS complex in many ways but pretty easy to grasp if you just play it and automate the parts you aren't ready to understand yet, learning it all a piece at a time.

If you're talking about HoI4, give me your beta code

 

[Irenaeus II]

Assuming you're talking about HoI3, just jump right in. The game IS complex in many ways but pretty easy to grasp if you just play it and automate the parts you aren't ready to understand yet, learning it all a piece at a time.

If you're talking about HoI4, give me your beta code

I have HoI3 with all expansions (not all dlcs) but can't be arsed to play it with HoI4 around the corner... Just wanted to know if I can attack the US, the UK or the USSR as Brazil to achieve immortal glory or die trying.

ideal Japan strategy being to scrap most of their fleet in 1936

lol if Japan did that in real life they would lose all their colonies and the war with China. Basically going back to feudal age.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I have HoI3 with all expansions (not all dlcs) but can't be arsed to play it with HoI4 around the corner... Just wanted to know if I can attack the US, the UK or the USSR as Brazil to achieve immortal glory or die trying.

Well, in THEORY... But HoI3 doesn't like it if you try exiting the rails, one consequence of which is that Brazil is given fuck-all to do that sort of stuff with. This tends to mean that Brazil is one of those countries generally used as suggestions for L2P campaigns where you just figure out how things work and such because you have no enemies and after a few hours you'll be able to invade a weaker neighbour. Another thing is that you'd spend most of the game waiting for Neutrality and Threat to finally collide.

HoI3 is about the war in Europe (and to a lesser extent in Asia, but that's generally only a thing if you're playing as Japan yourself since AI Japan is generally useless due to being unable to really handle that sort of war), everything else is not really a concern. And I do emphasize it's about *war* in Europe, and it handles that exceptionally well (it's got hands down the best combat mechanics Pdox has made so far).

 

[Irenaeus II]

Not even an expeditionary force?

I think Brazil has no ships, no planes, no tanks, no industry, right? #LMAO

Just these little fellas

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Brazil has a little bit higher than average industry and manpower IIRC (which is still about the same as fuck-all since average is generally the same as one-quarter of Italy's base IC and Italy's base IC is puny). Expeditionary forces from the rest of the world later on when everyone has joined Allies are generally unacceptably low quality meatshields, if even that. The real problem though is not IC (since you can just get lend-lease from alliance's major and spend next three years spending it and half your normal IC building more IC and then auto-trading supplies for resources from aforementioned alliance's major since around 80% of the world's resources are in Kwa, Germany and USSR, and resource situation is immutable without modding), the real problem is Leadership. AKA the stuff you use to make NCOs *and* research *and* diplomacy *and* espionage. One of the early patches actually gave minors (read: Everyone except UK, Kwa, USSR, Germany, and sort of Japan, France and Italy) acceptable base level of Leadership, but ever since then the value has been so catastrophically low it's completely pointless to play as minors in unmodded HoI3. Like aforementioned resources, it's another example of the game having no way to make more of something, and majority of it going permanently to Germany (seriously, Germany has such vast quantities of Leadership that the only reason they won't have a Carrier superfleet is if the player doesn't feel like it).

Also that black guy in the middle looks familiar:

Bet he's going to give his spicy meat a good rub too.

 

[Average Manatee]

Brazil has manpower to muster around 30 divisions, maybe a bit more by the time war breaks out. Pretty damn good, keep in mind that US forces in europe only numbered about 60. Yes it's still low but HoI3 is made with the assumption that nations outside Europe aren't mobilizing to fight to the death against an invader like Europeans are, so their manpower reflects that. Leadership isn't a problem. C&C regarding what you focus on is a good thing.

Checking the fleet/air force Brazil starts with 2 battleships, 2 light cruisers, a bunch of transports and an interceptor wing. Not too shabby, might be able to get into a scrap with Italy and come out ahead.

In any case just play Germany for your first game. Don't let the fact that it seems overwhelming get to you. Turn on AI control for your units if you want a massive confidence boost by seeing how poorly the AI fights.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Also that black guy in the middle looks familiar:

Bet he's going to give his spicy meat a good rub too.

Yeah, he's a local meme

 

[Space Satan]

I suppose oil supply would be fluctuating violently due to strategic bombardment. It seems that players now must put MUCH more effort in protecting their oil regions.

 

[Grinolf]

 

[Makabb]

I hope all the tech trees are viable and not only land warfare for germany for example where blitzkrieg etc is.

It's nice to see hoi on their latest engine because you get all the improvements from ck2 and eu4, i'd realy love this to be good as this is my favourite time period out of their games.

 

[Makabb]

 

[Space Satan]

Regarding volunteers: supplies are handled by receiver and reinforcement of equipment by sender

 

[Space Satan]

DD

Spoiler

Hello and welcome to the 37th Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary. We’re crunching like mad, to make a new beta-submission on monday. Today I want to show a little bit about carrier warfare in our game.


The Aircraft carrier is a floating airbase. So each carrier functions as a small airbase and can base naval versions of small aircraft (no strategic bombers, sorry Doolittle). You can have fighters, naval bombers and close air support aircraft. Close air support aircraft fulfil a dual role as both a Naval dive bomber and a land based dive bomber so you can use your carrier fleets to hit the enemy and on a ground support role for troops close to land.



When you construct your carriers, you can easily set up its airwings composition, and you can also assign larger airwings to a carrier than it can take, reducing its effectivity.

You can spend navy xp, to make special variants, as we have mentioned earlier. Where carriers have the possibility to increase reliability, armor, engine and decksize.

As with land based airbases you can choose the blend of aircraft you want to put on your carriers. This in part depends on what aircraft you happen to have on hand but also what role you carriers are filling and your strategic situation. The air war is going well, maybe you can reduce the number of fighters and increase the amount of bombers (or vice versa). Maybe you have control of the seas and are looking to some naval landing, then less naval bombers and a few more CAS are the answer.

Have fun!

 

[GarfunkeL]

In a completely non-surprise to everyone but Paradox developers, their forums blew up in outrage once they published that the game will not have fuel/oil requirement for units. How bad is it, you ask? Well, for the first time ever, Pdox forum moderators have utilized that tool so familiar to Codexers:

THE MEGATHREAD!

Unlike on Codex though, they didn't merge a bunch of threads together, instead they locked them and made one "official" logistics/oil/fuel thread that's already at 20 pages of silly fanboy-defense and frothing rage of ruining WW2. Considering that they gave in and promised to implement transport planes as separate from bombers after far less pressure, I would surmise that fuel will make a comeback - but OTOH, no amount of rage over chain of command has managed to bring that feature back, so I guess it's all up in the air.

In any case, expect Johan to make whole slew of sassy passive-aggressive comments about this in future videos and dev diaries.

 

[Sranchammer]

Good post.

Great reply.

 

[Irenaeus II]

This game gets worse every DD

 

[GarfunkeL]

No Oil/Fuel Requiremnts? What is this, Atompunk WWII?

To be fair, you still need oil to produce units - but once they are built, they only require generic supplies and 1 type of equipment (if even that). So for example, as a Germany, you can build as much as you want because you don't have to worry about upkeep. German industry will be able to put out as much supplies as you need - its basically a necessity because otherwise German AI will not be able to perform a historical WW2 - so there is nothing to limit a player Germany from making massive navies, air fleets and moto-mechanized armies. Because apparently tanks run forever with a single tank of fuel. I "predicted" this as soon as that DevDiary came out because anyone with 2 brain cells could figure out that it was a bad idea. I have no fucking clue how Pdox came to the conclusions that A) this is a good change and B) their fans will swallow it up.