Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
These niggas been playin' Kaiserreich.
-
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Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game
- Thread starter GarfunkeL
- Start date
Space Satan
Arcane
DD: Jap tree second rework
Hello, and welcome to the first dev diary of 2018!
Although considering today’s topic perhaps we should call it the first dev diary of the year Heisei 30.
When we decided to expand on China for Waking the Tiger, we also decided that we would need to take another look at the Japanese focus tree and maybe do some minor rework and some alt-history expansions. While we were basically happy with the existing German focus tree, we felt that Japan might need a somewhat more extensive rework, so we asked our QA to compile a list of issues they had with the existing tree.
QA noted the lack of flavor and interesting choices, as well as the lack of really unique gameplay. Their final recommendation was fairly short:
Burn it down. All of it.
So we did.
As you can see, we have expanded the focus tree somewhat in comparison to the old one. The choice between striking north or south was a single focus each in the old tree, but has now been expanded into a full branch.
The first basic choice is what to do with the Kodoha (“Imperial Way”) faction in the military. This faction wanted to remove the last remnants of civilian government and restore the Emperor to his rightful place (i.e. a figurehead while the military has the actual power, as things were before the Meiji Restoration of the 19th century). Historically, supporters of this faction launched a coup in February of 1936 which failed within days as the rest of the military refused to support it.
For reasons of transparency and playability, we decided to not have the coup be an event that fires on or around a set date but made the choice of whether to support or purge the Kodoha faction part of the focus tree. Purging the faction sends you down the historical path to attack China, strike south and attempt to seize the European colonies for their resources.
As you can see, we decided to make Japan form its own faction in the historical path instead of having them join the Axis. The cooperation between Japan and Germany does not fit neatly into our current faction system. While Japan did join the Tripartite Pact, it did not join the war against the Soviet Union, and indeed the Germans concealed preparations to attack the Soviet Union from their Asian allies. While there was some military cooperation and exchange of technical know-how, it wasn’t anything like the scale to which the Western Allies cooperated and indeed closer to the military cooperation between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.
Still, it is a historical fact that Japan joined the Tripartite Pact, and as such you can do so in the historical path. But instead of joining the Axis faction, it creates a set of mutual guarantees between Germany, Italy and Japan. Should either of them be attacked instead of being the aggressor, they can be called into each other’s wars (and frankly, that is a lot closer to the relevant Article 4 of the treaty).
While still not perfect, we believe that this solves more problems than it creates. In particular, it means that Germany isn’t considered to still be fighting until Japan is taken (which led to amusing side effects such as the Luftwaffe forming the Legion Pekingente and evacuating to Japan when Germany falls). Speaking of taking Japan: AI Japan will now surrender if they have been nuked twice or lost Manchuria and Korea when they aren’t holding any territory in China. A player has the option through the same decision but can, of course, choose to fight to the bitter end (the AI is simply scripted to always pick the decision as soon as possible).
Simulating the war in China itself has come with its own challenges. We wanted to make the war feel like the long campaign it was (lasting, historically, from 1937 to 1945), not least because a Japan with a secure China can bring far more resources to bear on other targets than it did historically. At the same time, China starts with crippling penalties to its army, which means that Japan could easily defeat them. This is not particularly historical, as the Japanese expected a quick victory and were rudely surprised as the Chinese divisions fought very tenaciously.
So in order to make the campaign in China feel historical and give the Chinese player a chance to survive the initial invasion, we gave Japan some penalties for fighting in China (or, specifically, when fighting against Chinese troops). These penalties can be reduced through decisions, which raise world tension, so you will have to balance out the need to finish the campaign fast against raising world tension too quickly. We feel that this best represents the disdain the Japanese military held their opponents in - the Chinese simply weren’t worth a proper effort. Of course you, as the player, can hound your military into actually taking this conflict seriously, but the rest of the world may not like the idea of all-out warfare in China.
If you decide to side with the Kodoha faction, you effectively decide to strike north against the Soviet Union (as many in the Kodoha faction believed that the Soviets were the bigger threat). Subsequently, you will have to do some diplomatic maneuvering to keep your southern flank secure: Where historically the Japanese signed a Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union while they were engaged in China (at least in part because the Battle of Kalkin Gol revealed some serious shortcomings in the Japanese military) to secure their northern flank, now you will have to sit down with the Western powers to ensure they will stay out of your hair while you deal with the Soviet Union. The London Naval Treaty reduces your dockyard output quite dramatically, but should serve to keep the Allies happy enough to look the other way when you go to war with the Communists. You will also have to send some equipment to your Manchurian “ally” to enable them to actually be somewhat useful in the war.
Later on, you can join a technological exchange program with Germany and even gain access to German Rocketry. Going down this path will also allow you to prospect for resources in Siberia.
But of course, you don’t need to follow history quite so closely. The democratic branch assumes that there could have been a significant pushback against the militarization of Japan from forces inside the civilian government. After all, Japan did have a functioning system of democratic elections and a working parliament during the Taisho period, a mere 10 years before the start of the game.
However, the militarists will not go quietly and will rather flee to Manchukuo than to surrender their position. Those elements of the army that can’t or won’t go abroad will start a civil war. Once that has been dealt with, you can rewrite the constitution to turn the Emperor into more of a constitutional monarch like the Europeans have. Afterwards, you can either try to reach out to the British and revive the Anglo-Japanese Alliance that has served so well during the beginning of the 20th century, or you can form your own West Pacific Treaty Organization (or WPTO).
But that still leaves the problem of Manchukuo, now firmly run by the Kwantung Army and supported by the very militarists you kicked out of the country. You will have to go and remove this threat to your freedom with some good old fashioned liberty bombs. From there, you can go and ensure that the colonial powers actually make good on their promises of freedom and self-determination for the native people. After all, if you can have a functioning democracy, why can’t the rest of Asia?
Finally, there is the communist branch, which is not quite as far fetched as it may seem. Historically, Japan experienced the same rise of leftist agitation as the rest of the world, and the Japanese Communist Party enjoyed some successes until new legislation effectively banned it. Extensive measures by secret police agencies ensured that by 1936, the party posed little threat to the establishment. That, however, does not mean that there wasn’t a potential for a revolution. A large number of young officers came from a peasant or working-class background, and many civil servants considered socialism to be the way of the future (or in any event better than the Japanese form of capitalism dominated by the huge industrial conglomerates, the Zaibatsus).
Historically, these civil servants were quickly banished to Manchukuo or “encouraged” by the secret police to reconsider their political stance. The first step towards a communist revolution in Japan, therefore, is to recall those civil servants that have kept the faith back to the homeland as well as sending a number of militarist hardliners to serve in Manchukuo instead. By arranging for a number of younger and more revolutionary minded officers to be promoted, you will also gain three very loyal and reasonably capable Generals who will definitely serve on your side in the unlikely event that a civil war should break out.
In the next step, you trigger a civil war.
Here, the decision to send the militarists to Manchukuo is both a blessing and a curse, as the Japanese holdings in China are taken over by loyalist troops - who are nonetheless unable to interfere in the civil war in the homelands. Once you have secured the Home Islands, you face another problem: The Emperor has been the foundation of Japan’s political system for thousands of years, and you have just deposed him. Your government has very little legitimacy in the eyes of the people, so you will have to rebuild their trust and stabilize the country. Only then can you go over to the Asian mainland and eradicate the pest of militarism before making common cause with either the Soviets or the Chinese Communists.
The Japanese military was famous for the poor relations between the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy (for example, it took the Navy until 1943 to confess that the Battle of Midway hadn’t gone exactly as planned and had in fact included a minor setback). In the game, this is represented by a number of decisions about the prioritization of resources and resolving conflicts between the two parties. Each decision affects a national spirit representing the balance of power between Army and Navy, which affects things like factory output and dockyard construction speed.
Finally, as part of the rework, we decided to give Japan a bit more flavor by adding two units that are currently unique to Japan: Bicycle Battalions and Torpedo Cruisers. The former are about what you’d expect: infantry mounted on bicycles move a little faster than regular infantry but require some more resources. Although they are currently restricted to just Japan, they might end up being accessible for the rest of the world if we can find a place to put them in the tech tree. The Torpedo Cruisers were a fad in the Japanese Navy, who refitted a number of light cruisers with no less than 40 torpedo tubes (20 per broadside). Together with the Japanese bonuses to torpedo range, they can become a very terrifying force on the high seas - if you can manage to lure the enemy into a decisive surface battle.
In the process, we also fixed a small issue that pestered some fans of Japanese aviation:
Similar to the German focus tree, parts of the new focus tree will be part of the Waking the Tiger DLC. While most of the new focuses are free, the communist and democratic branches of the political part will be paid.
We will continue to rework vanilla focus trees in future DLCs (assuming, of course, that this meets with approval from the community), with an eye to which countries make sense with the overall theme of that DLC (for example, reworking the Soviet Union doesn’t really fit into a naval-focused DLC). Expect further updates on future plans after the release of Waking the Tiger.
DLC focus trees will see occasional updates when necessary to accommodate new mechanics (for example, Hungary now inherits Austria’s generals if they manage to form Austria-Hungary) but probably won’t see major reworks.
That is all for today. Tune in next week, when we open up Bag of Tricks #3. There is no World War Wednesday stream today, but it will be returning next week as normal.
Although considering today’s topic perhaps we should call it the first dev diary of the year Heisei 30.
When we decided to expand on China for Waking the Tiger, we also decided that we would need to take another look at the Japanese focus tree and maybe do some minor rework and some alt-history expansions. While we were basically happy with the existing German focus tree, we felt that Japan might need a somewhat more extensive rework, so we asked our QA to compile a list of issues they had with the existing tree.
QA noted the lack of flavor and interesting choices, as well as the lack of really unique gameplay. Their final recommendation was fairly short:
Burn it down. All of it.
So we did.
As you can see, we have expanded the focus tree somewhat in comparison to the old one. The choice between striking north or south was a single focus each in the old tree, but has now been expanded into a full branch.
The first basic choice is what to do with the Kodoha (“Imperial Way”) faction in the military. This faction wanted to remove the last remnants of civilian government and restore the Emperor to his rightful place (i.e. a figurehead while the military has the actual power, as things were before the Meiji Restoration of the 19th century). Historically, supporters of this faction launched a coup in February of 1936 which failed within days as the rest of the military refused to support it.
For reasons of transparency and playability, we decided to not have the coup be an event that fires on or around a set date but made the choice of whether to support or purge the Kodoha faction part of the focus tree. Purging the faction sends you down the historical path to attack China, strike south and attempt to seize the European colonies for their resources.
As you can see, we decided to make Japan form its own faction in the historical path instead of having them join the Axis. The cooperation between Japan and Germany does not fit neatly into our current faction system. While Japan did join the Tripartite Pact, it did not join the war against the Soviet Union, and indeed the Germans concealed preparations to attack the Soviet Union from their Asian allies. While there was some military cooperation and exchange of technical know-how, it wasn’t anything like the scale to which the Western Allies cooperated and indeed closer to the military cooperation between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.
Still, it is a historical fact that Japan joined the Tripartite Pact, and as such you can do so in the historical path. But instead of joining the Axis faction, it creates a set of mutual guarantees between Germany, Italy and Japan. Should either of them be attacked instead of being the aggressor, they can be called into each other’s wars (and frankly, that is a lot closer to the relevant Article 4 of the treaty).
While still not perfect, we believe that this solves more problems than it creates. In particular, it means that Germany isn’t considered to still be fighting until Japan is taken (which led to amusing side effects such as the Luftwaffe forming the Legion Pekingente and evacuating to Japan when Germany falls). Speaking of taking Japan: AI Japan will now surrender if they have been nuked twice or lost Manchuria and Korea when they aren’t holding any territory in China. A player has the option through the same decision but can, of course, choose to fight to the bitter end (the AI is simply scripted to always pick the decision as soon as possible).
Simulating the war in China itself has come with its own challenges. We wanted to make the war feel like the long campaign it was (lasting, historically, from 1937 to 1945), not least because a Japan with a secure China can bring far more resources to bear on other targets than it did historically. At the same time, China starts with crippling penalties to its army, which means that Japan could easily defeat them. This is not particularly historical, as the Japanese expected a quick victory and were rudely surprised as the Chinese divisions fought very tenaciously.
So in order to make the campaign in China feel historical and give the Chinese player a chance to survive the initial invasion, we gave Japan some penalties for fighting in China (or, specifically, when fighting against Chinese troops). These penalties can be reduced through decisions, which raise world tension, so you will have to balance out the need to finish the campaign fast against raising world tension too quickly. We feel that this best represents the disdain the Japanese military held their opponents in - the Chinese simply weren’t worth a proper effort. Of course you, as the player, can hound your military into actually taking this conflict seriously, but the rest of the world may not like the idea of all-out warfare in China.
If you decide to side with the Kodoha faction, you effectively decide to strike north against the Soviet Union (as many in the Kodoha faction believed that the Soviets were the bigger threat). Subsequently, you will have to do some diplomatic maneuvering to keep your southern flank secure: Where historically the Japanese signed a Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union while they were engaged in China (at least in part because the Battle of Kalkin Gol revealed some serious shortcomings in the Japanese military) to secure their northern flank, now you will have to sit down with the Western powers to ensure they will stay out of your hair while you deal with the Soviet Union. The London Naval Treaty reduces your dockyard output quite dramatically, but should serve to keep the Allies happy enough to look the other way when you go to war with the Communists. You will also have to send some equipment to your Manchurian “ally” to enable them to actually be somewhat useful in the war.
Later on, you can join a technological exchange program with Germany and even gain access to German Rocketry. Going down this path will also allow you to prospect for resources in Siberia.
But of course, you don’t need to follow history quite so closely. The democratic branch assumes that there could have been a significant pushback against the militarization of Japan from forces inside the civilian government. After all, Japan did have a functioning system of democratic elections and a working parliament during the Taisho period, a mere 10 years before the start of the game.
However, the militarists will not go quietly and will rather flee to Manchukuo than to surrender their position. Those elements of the army that can’t or won’t go abroad will start a civil war. Once that has been dealt with, you can rewrite the constitution to turn the Emperor into more of a constitutional monarch like the Europeans have. Afterwards, you can either try to reach out to the British and revive the Anglo-Japanese Alliance that has served so well during the beginning of the 20th century, or you can form your own West Pacific Treaty Organization (or WPTO).
But that still leaves the problem of Manchukuo, now firmly run by the Kwantung Army and supported by the very militarists you kicked out of the country. You will have to go and remove this threat to your freedom with some good old fashioned liberty bombs. From there, you can go and ensure that the colonial powers actually make good on their promises of freedom and self-determination for the native people. After all, if you can have a functioning democracy, why can’t the rest of Asia?
Finally, there is the communist branch, which is not quite as far fetched as it may seem. Historically, Japan experienced the same rise of leftist agitation as the rest of the world, and the Japanese Communist Party enjoyed some successes until new legislation effectively banned it. Extensive measures by secret police agencies ensured that by 1936, the party posed little threat to the establishment. That, however, does not mean that there wasn’t a potential for a revolution. A large number of young officers came from a peasant or working-class background, and many civil servants considered socialism to be the way of the future (or in any event better than the Japanese form of capitalism dominated by the huge industrial conglomerates, the Zaibatsus).
Historically, these civil servants were quickly banished to Manchukuo or “encouraged” by the secret police to reconsider their political stance. The first step towards a communist revolution in Japan, therefore, is to recall those civil servants that have kept the faith back to the homeland as well as sending a number of militarist hardliners to serve in Manchukuo instead. By arranging for a number of younger and more revolutionary minded officers to be promoted, you will also gain three very loyal and reasonably capable Generals who will definitely serve on your side in the unlikely event that a civil war should break out.
In the next step, you trigger a civil war.
Here, the decision to send the militarists to Manchukuo is both a blessing and a curse, as the Japanese holdings in China are taken over by loyalist troops - who are nonetheless unable to interfere in the civil war in the homelands. Once you have secured the Home Islands, you face another problem: The Emperor has been the foundation of Japan’s political system for thousands of years, and you have just deposed him. Your government has very little legitimacy in the eyes of the people, so you will have to rebuild their trust and stabilize the country. Only then can you go over to the Asian mainland and eradicate the pest of militarism before making common cause with either the Soviets or the Chinese Communists.
The Japanese military was famous for the poor relations between the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy (for example, it took the Navy until 1943 to confess that the Battle of Midway hadn’t gone exactly as planned and had in fact included a minor setback). In the game, this is represented by a number of decisions about the prioritization of resources and resolving conflicts between the two parties. Each decision affects a national spirit representing the balance of power between Army and Navy, which affects things like factory output and dockyard construction speed.
Finally, as part of the rework, we decided to give Japan a bit more flavor by adding two units that are currently unique to Japan: Bicycle Battalions and Torpedo Cruisers. The former are about what you’d expect: infantry mounted on bicycles move a little faster than regular infantry but require some more resources. Although they are currently restricted to just Japan, they might end up being accessible for the rest of the world if we can find a place to put them in the tech tree. The Torpedo Cruisers were a fad in the Japanese Navy, who refitted a number of light cruisers with no less than 40 torpedo tubes (20 per broadside). Together with the Japanese bonuses to torpedo range, they can become a very terrifying force on the high seas - if you can manage to lure the enemy into a decisive surface battle.
In the process, we also fixed a small issue that pestered some fans of Japanese aviation:
Similar to the German focus tree, parts of the new focus tree will be part of the Waking the Tiger DLC. While most of the new focuses are free, the communist and democratic branches of the political part will be paid.
We will continue to rework vanilla focus trees in future DLCs (assuming, of course, that this meets with approval from the community), with an eye to which countries make sense with the overall theme of that DLC (for example, reworking the Soviet Union doesn’t really fit into a naval-focused DLC). Expect further updates on future plans after the release of Waking the Tiger.
DLC focus trees will see occasional updates when necessary to accommodate new mechanics (for example, Hungary now inherits Austria’s generals if they manage to form Austria-Hungary) but probably won’t see major reworks.
That is all for today. Tune in next week, when we open up Bag of Tricks #3. There is no World War Wednesday stream today, but it will be returning next week as normal.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Honestly tho, while Finland for example also had bicycle battalions in the timeframe, I am not certain if they warrant distinguishing from regular infantry.
not an artichoke
Cipher
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 272
They don't. But there is a certain subset of players - the same ones who thing Black ICE is awesome - that believe every variant of equipment imaginable should be represented with its own unit type.
IHaveHugeNick
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2015
- Messages
- 1,870,558
Is this game even alive? The launch was a shitshow but we all told ourselves, let's just wait for DLCs and eventually it will be this great WW2 strategy.
Now it's been 2 years and they've done what, 2 DLCs, one good and one half-assed . They barely even patch anymore. It seems like they literally have one guy left working on this thing, and he spends most of his time shitposting devblogs about amazing feature updates that are work in progress. What he doesn't say it that Voyager 1 will probably manage to leave the Milky Way before most of these features make it to the game.
Fuck Paradox.
Now it's been 2 years and they've done what, 2 DLCs, one good and one half-assed . They barely even patch anymore. It seems like they literally have one guy left working on this thing, and he spends most of his time shitposting devblogs about amazing feature updates that are work in progress. What he doesn't say it that Voyager 1 will probably manage to leave the Milky Way before most of these features make it to the game.
Fuck Paradox.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
That does mean one thing tho:
ICE's next version will have you also building bicycles for your divisions on top of ALL the other shit.
Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 15,269
Not only that, they need researchable and army XP-variant improvements. Because after your elite German research team has finished their Panther designs they should be reassigned to the '44 series jockstrap development project and German generals need to be invited from the front to lend their field expertise to an improved design.
IHaveHugeNick
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2015
- Messages
- 1,870,558
And they vocally insist all these changes make the game deeper and more complex. In reality HOI4 AI can't even efficiently navigate research and equipment in vanilla game, so adding anything on top of that only gives the player a huge advantage.
Space Satan
Arcane
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Oh you don't wanna get into that, because ICE came up with a solution that's worse than the problem, while being amazingly cumbersome and OCD.
(ICE grants historical divisions et al through events, templates and all)
Also the naval and air trees must be labyrinths where you go back and forth and where what replaces what is a mystery because even the game doesn't understand it.
(There's some pretty hefty screw-ups overall within individual trees too IMO, since for example Do 335 Pfeil is just way better than other options next to it)
But most of all! Don't forget the gigantic German focus tree where the Wunderwaffe branch alone is so bloated and oversized you just shouldn't bother!
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2015
- Messages
- 4,793
I wonder how much of that is thanks to Kaiserreich. Out of these four games vanilla HoIIV is easily the worst by a pretty large margin.
Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 15,269
Probably a lot due to mods + MP. HoI4 is the only game that can really do both.
fantadomat
Arcane
Paradox fanatics are just retarded,they can eat any type of shit as long as it have the paradox logo on it.
and of course the best game out of those 4 has the lowest player count
not an artichoke
Cipher
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 272
It's also the most difficult for a casual to pick up and quickly understand. And probably the least flashy.
Space Satan
Arcane
Both Stellaris and HoIIV have solid MP community. Stellaris even more than HoIIV, because I often see it in streams. Kaiserreich is overhyped mod, which is not quite different from BlackICE.
not an artichoke
Cipher
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 272
Uh? KR and BlackICE have precisely one thing in common and that's being HOI4 mods.
I do agree that part of CK2's low playerbase is probably in part due to low MP suitability
I do agree that part of CK2's low playerbase is probably in part due to low MP suitability
Deflowerer
Arcane
- Joined
- May 22, 2013
- Messages
- 2,078
and of course the best game out of those 4 has the lowest player count
You mean Victoria 2?
Lone Wolf
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2014
- Messages
- 3,703
You've got something mixed up, here. BICE is an attempt to inject enough detail and micromanagement into the game to make your eyeballs bleed. KR is a sterling alternate-history epic that elevates the game beyond its otherwise meagre potential.
kris
Arcane
And older than the others.
and of course the best game out of those 4 has the lowest player count
>normie kings
>best
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
I wouldn't call HoI4's potential or base game "meagre" (because one thing KR does well in contrast to BICE is that they leave much of the basic gameplay intact because all BICE does is bloat it into obese dysfunctionality; sometimes it's better to go with simpler and gamey-ir than detail for the sake of detail), but the thing is that what KR sets out to do it does perfectly well to such a degree that it does elevate the entire game by taking the entire toolbox the game presents itself with and produces a level of synergy between all those factors that could barely be envisioned, and a big part of that is how they are trying to fashion an "alternate-history epic" with their focus trees instead of purely mechanical effects. The return of decisions should serve all the further to improve this.
IHaveHugeNick
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2015
- Messages
- 1,870,558
KR feels so much better than vanilla simply because WW2 is not that good of a setting for this type of game. Yes it's a historical era that people are fascinated about, populated by interesting characters and cool technological advancements you can play with. But as a platform for what-if kind of playthroughs it kinds of sucks. The Axis never really had a chance, Allies have on the war before it even started, it was just a matter of time in the end. And that's how most vanilla playthroughs unfold. It starts interesting, you're having fun, but by mid 1940s it just becomes bland slog where you're just pushing to the finish line.
I was bored once so I picked Panama, gave all the Axis powers all the possible buffs, and I just left it running to see what happens. And nothing does. The Germans do take out USSR but after that it just becomes a stalemate. US can outproduce everybody even with the buffs (as they should), Axis can't make advances anywhere, and that's basically it.
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