Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[AwesomeButton]

Sale begins one day in advance of the release of Man The Guns...

I'm having thoughts about buying it... how disappointing is the AI?

 

[Agame]

Sale begins one day in advance of the release of Man The Guns...

I'm having thoughts about buying it... how disappointing is the AI?

How low are your expectations? It will certainly be interesting to see how it handles fuel...

 

[LizardWizard]

. how disappointing is the AI?

I'd argue it can be the worst of any paradox game at certain times, but at least it spawned dank memes

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Sale begins one day in advance of the release of Man The Guns...

I'm having thoughts about buying it... how disappointing is the AI?

Passable with mods and patches. The biggest remaining problem right now is that WW2 itself was hilariously unbalanced and becomes even more unbalanced by introducing a human player with advantage of hindsight about who attacks who and when or which weapon lines are worth investing in.

You can't really make a competetive AI without turning the whole thing into alternative history game.

 

[AwesomeButton]

How low are your expectations? It will certainly be interesting to see how it handles fuel...

Ah, yeah, fuel. This will take them about a year to get about right. I should pass then. Until the next expansion DLC.

Passable with mods and patches. The biggest remaining problem right now is that WW2 itself was hilariously unbalanced and becomes even more unbalanced by introducing a human player with advantage of hindsight about who attacks who and when or which weapon lines are worth investing in.

You can't really make a competetive AI without turning the whole thing into alternative history game.

It's difficult to translate subjective factors which affected the historical path and represent them through objective game rules and mechanics, yeah. That is what comes down to the great "scripting vs sandbox" debate, where sandbox won because Hitler memes sell better. Yet I like the approach taken in To End All Wars, where each power gets its custom rules and abilities, represented by the off-map "events", which are decisions that can be taken outside of the game's general rules so to speak. They make up for a branching pre-configured path of "scripted" decisions, but the player can still make alternative history decisions.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I feel that the new naval gameplay is extremely unintuitive and obtuse.

 

[Agame]

I feel that the new naval gameplay is extremely unintuitive and obtuse.

The new UI is a clusterfuck. I also saw someone complaining that zerg spam DD fleets are still optimal, I really hope thats not the case.

 

[Agame]

Also from the official forum, a guy has been experimenting with NAV, his conclusion is NAV still hard counter any fleets if you get air superiority. If true this is extraordinary, as a problem that existed before MTG (ie. NAV spam wrecking all fleets) has been completely ignored by Paradox and invalidates the entire point of the DLC...

Its hard to believe, but Im pretty sure Paradox have never made an official statement on the NAV problem, so they are either unaware it exists or they dont care enough to do anything.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well to me the biggest immediate concern is that the new way ships are done is kind of annoying and kinda pushes you to just keep the old stuff for most of the game, since as far as I can tell you need to get that naval XP to design ANY new ships (and the design process itself is kinda confusing due to the UI). It'd be better to get a baseline version with research like previously, and leave the additional upgrades as stuff you can research and add on top with naval XP. There's also kind of a thing now that there's so much naval research that you have to take a huge hit to EVERYTHING ELSE if you want to have more than a primitive but functional fleet (well, functional aside from the confusing and overcomplicated UI and chain of command).

Also I'm going to question DD spam being effective previously, since due to firing ranges and so on DDs without capital ships would be destroyed by the hundreds without even one enemy sunk.


And yea, NAV seems to still be in the same problem as stated previously. As I've mentioned before, this is a problem that can only ever be fixed in HoI in general by simply removing all non-carrier-launched air missions at sea. EDIT2: This obviously wouldn't really help with naval warfare in itself, which would because of the abstraction still be dominated entirely by meta. "Sea terrain" could make it into multiple metas, but it would still unavoidably end up in this because of the fact it is fundamentally, like it always has been in Pdox games, be a purely mathematical affair. EDIT3: Airplanes basically dominating coasts aside, I figure the open sea meta remains unchanged: Tons of meatshields, with a BB/BC/CV core to mass murder enemy canoes.

EDIT: The new British focus tree is a lot of fun tho.

 

[Agame]

There's also kind of a thing now that there's so much naval research that you have to take a huge hit to EVERYTHING ELSE if you want to have more than a primitive but functional fleet (well, functional aside from the confusing and overcomplicated UI and chain of command).

That was one of my first concerns, bloating the tech tree just means its far more efficient to ignore most of it and "rush" the optimal stuff. Though it seems training fleets can offset naval research, which just raises a new problem as now it seems the USA with its massive fuel reserves can generate crazy amounts of navy xp.

And yea, NAV seems to still be in the same problem as stated previously.

I know its been discussed earlier, I think the only solution is to do something "gamey" and limit NAVs ability to destroy ships, maybe give them some kind of 'soft' modifier similar to how air superiority works that boosts allied ships. But I honestly wouldnt care that much if they removed NAV entirely, from a historical perspective there were no major WW2 naval battles won by thousands of NAV bombers minus a fleet.

 

[Beastro]

Also I'm going to question DD spam being effective previously, since due to firing ranges and so on DDs without capital ships would be destroyed by the hundreds without even one enemy sunk.

I wouldn't say that, but the cost to benefit ratio would be insanely out of whack.

It also ignores the niches classes fitted in. DDs are too small to make good scouts even by WWII, cruisers till filled that role for good reasons.

I think a game like this is simply too abstract to really grasp the nuances.

There's also other factors players don't give a damn about like loss of life. Expending dozens of DDs to accomplish something looking on their cheapness and replaceablity ignores the loss of life which players don't give a damn for. I think the only solution to something like that would be to deepen the depths inexperienced military arms could descend if denuded too much by their competent men, but that could open up other problems Paradox wouldn't want to deal with.

Keeping good levels of competency was a big issue in both World Wars and it played a huge role both in the Western Allies successes and the Axis' and SUs failures.

But I honestly wouldnt care that much if they removed NAV entirely, from a historical perspective there were no major WW2 naval battles won by thousands of NAV bombers minus a fleet.

It sounds me to like the game has a problem allowing both the player and AI to concentrate forces beyond what would be possible by not forcing them to tie down aircraft and ships doing necessary, but time consuming and unglamourous duties.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The problem with "necessary, but time-consuming and unglamourous duties" is fairly perfectly illustrated by the new way patrols and strike forces work in MtG: Simply, it's a layer that is confusing, time-consuming, and ultimately throughoutly unenjoyable. Sure, doomstacks were lame, but they were very intuitive and easy to understand compared to the chaotic patrols to strike forces.

But even that would never fix the fundamental problem that allowing NAV and land-based fighters to participate in naval combat can only have one of two outcomes: Either they are not worth using at all, or navies are not worth using at all.


Also DDs can't really accomplish through spam alone. It's more of a side effect of NAV being in effect by the thousands, since then NAV and Fighters will actually fight the battle and DDs are just there to establish naval superiority for operations afterwards. A DD on its own has basically no chance of even notably damaging a BB or BC, even against LC they are destroyed in vast numbers. What DD are for is providing expendable meatshields, detection, and for destroying submarines.

That was one of my first concerns, bloating the tech tree just means its far more efficient to ignore most of it and "rush" the optimal stuff. Though it seems training fleets can offset naval research, which just raises a new problem as now it seems the USA with its massive fuel reserves can generate crazy amounts of navy xp.

Yea fuel so far seems to be just like HoI3, in that you can either ignore it entirely if you're the US, or it's the hardcap you operate under if you're anyone else (okay, not just the US in HoI4, since you'll probably do the old "refinery in every home province" longterm construction plan which at least based on Edward VIII->Unite the Anglosphere->Imperial Federation playthrough is enough to offset even a massive military force, even if I had to skip on tanks due to tech restraints). It really acts as an additional thing you keep build towards and sacrifice tech to (silos seem completely useless to me so far, due to how it's better use of tech and slots and trade to just raise the hardcap above your need), unless you're Kwa and have such massive oil gain that you have basically infinite fuel outside of truly extreme build-up.

As for naval tech, the thing is that it's not really something you can easily gauge because of how complicated and obtuse it is. Based on experiences so far, it seems to me that the optimal things are heavy and secondary battery components (since hulls also raise production cost, and the battery research is something you can speed up and not covered in Hull), (maybe) SHBB Hull, and Radar. Carrier Hull probably too, but again it's kind of hard to gauge like said before.

EDIT: Also one thing that's really neat is the new custom rules and AI behaviours that you can set, it can help for make for a much more fun and chaotic scenario.

 

[Trithne]

Also I'm going to question DD spam being effective previously, since due to firing ranges and so on DDs without capital ships would be destroyed by the hundreds without even one enemy sunk.

I wouldn't say that, but the cost to benefit ratio would be insanely out of whack.

It also ignores the niches classes fitted in. DDs are too small to make good scouts even by WWII, cruisers till filled that role for good reasons.

I think a game like this is simply too abstract to really grasp the nuances.

There's also other factors players don't give a damn about like loss of life. Expending dozens of DDs to accomplish something looking on their cheapness and replaceablity ignores the loss of life which players don't give a damn for. I think the only solution to something like that would be to deepen the depths inexperienced military arms could descend if denuded too much by their competent men, but that could open up other problems Paradox wouldn't want to deal with.

Keeping good levels of competency was a big issue in both World Wars and it played a huge role both in the Western Allies successes and the Axis' and SUs failures.

But I honestly wouldnt care that much if they removed NAV entirely, from a historical perspective there were no major WW2 naval battles won by thousands of NAV bombers minus a fleet.

It sounds me to like the game has a problem allowing both the player and AI to concentrate forces beyond what would be possible by not forcing them to tie down aircraft and ships doing necessary, but time consuming and unglamourous duties.

I saw a China game that went into the 1950s where the player was putting over 15,000 planes into each air zone. Due to however HoI4 calculates air combats, once you pass a certain threshold of planes in a zone your planes become functionally immortal.

 

[Raghar]

And we have a ship with negative speed...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well what would it actually do if you used it? Would it cause something insane to happen?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Well what would it actually do if you used it? Would it cause something insane to happen?

It would sail backwards?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well what would it actually do if you used it? Would it cause something insane to happen?

It would sail backwards?

Or something more interesting, like because the game isn't supposed to have negative speeds it instead has infinite speed?

 

[Raghar]

Folks I looked into WWII fuel usage for Japan ships, and found interesting data. Japanese:
DD had 1.35
CL 3
CA 5
CV 11-13
BB 15
Yamato 12-14.

US navy used destroyers as disposable ships for ASW and anti-air, and ponied up with fuel costs.
CVs increased destroyers range by a lot, but at the cost of its own fuel, for example endurance of one CV after it refueled its accompanying DDs dropped from 9 days to 7.

 

[Raghar]

And this is why you kill Spain. Also lookie Finaland.

BTW every game I start as Italy either they coup nazi Germany to be democratic, or assassinate Hitler and coup Germany to be democratic. And then dificulty increases massively.

 

[AwesomeButton]

This red army-orange army-cyan army stuff always looked repulsive to me.

 

[Micormic]

Well what would it actually do if you used it? Would it cause something insane to happen?

It would sail backwards?

If you want an actual WW2 game get HOI 3 instead, I'd even say Hoi2 DH over 4 but that one is probably too dated for someone who didn't play it as kid.

I'm not trying to be edgy on purpose but we're talking like fallout 2 -> 3 level decline from Hoi 3->4. The game is actually complete garbage.

 

[Raghar]

Well what would it actually do if you used it? Would it cause something insane to happen?

It would sail backwards?

If you want an actual WW2 game get HOI 3 instead, I'd even say Hoi2 DH over 4 but that one is probably too dated for someone who didn't play it as kid.

I'm not trying to be edgy on purpose but we're talking like fallout 2 -> 3 level decline from Hoi 3->4. The game is actually complete garbage.

Problem with Hoi3 is they killed tech team, and replaced them by "national leadership", which fucks minors.

HoI2 research had tech teams, where each tech team was proficient in different area. Thus poor countries like Africa countries, which are not simulated because WWII has only few countries because majority of them are listed as colonies which makes WWII less interesting than WWI games, or 1400 warfare where there was plethora of small countries. Tech team with skill 1 and expertise in certain areas was better than team with skill 1 and expertise in unrelated areas. And the kicker is Germany had teams with skill 8 and expertise in correct area. With tech team usable after annexing of a high tech country, a ComChi could get high end team with experience in ship building and aircraft manufacture.

HoI3 acts as every black and white are equal, there are no companies with long term experience in the field, which developed quite high tech, and all required is national leadership. The problem is it can't simulate a country with high research, but crap military leadership.

Another problem is WWII is quite unbalanced. Hobsbawn wrote about betting in US govenment, it was about when theirs president force Japanese into war. Japanese situation was completely fucked. They acted before war like complete morons and thought that US is free market, and as rule in free market they would sell for profit, and somehow didn't thought about consequence of losing scrap metal sales from US (for example when US would start do do something useful from that scrap). However US government wanted to screw Japanese, killing scrap metal exports to Japan, killing Japanese investments in US, killing Japanese oil imports, blocking Japanese assets in US. (Remember folks, never store your gold in US, it's bad idea. They have you by balls.)

As a consequence, US concentrated its effort against Europe, because even with 1/3 of effort Japanese would likely collapse on its own weight. Added with Japanese incompetence with ASW, and lack of transport ships, situation ended like UK would end when Donitz would get free hand with his plan. (But German HQ didn't want to overcommit into navy, and then lack land forces.)

Which causes problem with balance. The more you simulate the more Japan is hosed, thus better simulation starts to cause problems with game balance. Yea, they can add historical balance setting, for these who want to play bunch of cowards who are exaggerating danger, or win by a massive forces and massive loses even when they are completely oblivious to warfare.

Frankly, WWII game that tries too much to repeat history is worthy for about one playtrough. (It's not like HoI4 air interface wasn't designed by moneys for monkeys. But HoI3 managed to shoot itself into feet much more.)

 

[Micormic]

Well what would it actually do if you used it? Would it cause something insane to happen?

It would sail backwards?

If you want an actual WW2 game get HOI 3 instead, I'd even say Hoi2 DH over 4 but that one is probably too dated for someone who didn't play it as kid.

I'm not trying to be edgy on purpose but we're talking like fallout 2 -> 3 level decline from Hoi 3->4. The game is actually complete garbage.

Problem with Hoi3 is they killed tech team, and replaced them by "national leadership", which fucks minors.

HoI2 research had tech teams, where each tech team was proficient in different area. Thus poor countries like Africa countries, which are not simulated because WWII has only few countries because majority of them are listed as colonies which makes WWII less interesting than WWI games, or 1400 warfare where there was plethora of small countries. Tech team with skill 1 and expertise in certain areas was better than team with skill 1 and expertise in unrelated areas. And the kicker is Germany had teams with skill 8 and expertise in correct area. With tech team usable after annexing of a high tech country, a ComChi could get high end team with experience in ship building and aircraft manufacture.

HoI3 acts as every black and white are equal, there are no companies with long term experience in the field, which developed quite high tech, and all required is national leadership. The problem is it can't simulate a country with high research, but crap military leadership.

Another problem is WWII is quite unbalanced. Hobsbawn wrote about betting in US govenment, it was about when theirs president force Japanese into war. Japanese situation was completely fucked. They acted before war like complete morons and thought that US is free market, and as rule in free market they would sell for profit, and somehow didn't thought about consequence of losing scrap metal sales from US (for example when US would start do do something useful from that scrap). However US government wanted to screw Japanese, killing scrap metal exports to Japan, killing Japanese investments in US, killing Japanese oil imports, blocking Japanese assets in US. (Remember folks, never store your gold in US, it's bad idea. They have you by balls.)

As a consequence, US concentrated its effort against Europe, because even with 1/3 of effort Japanese would likely collapse on its own weight. Added with Japanese incompetence with ASW, and lack of transport ships, situation ended like UK would end when Donitz would get free hand with his plan. (But German HQ didn't want to overcommit into navy, and then lack land forces.)

Which causes problem with balance. The more you simulate the more Japan is hosed, thus better simulation starts to cause problems with game balance. Yea, they can add historical balance setting, for these who want to play bunch of cowards who are exaggerating danger, or win by a massive forces and massive loses even when they are completely oblivious to warfare.

Frankly, WWII game that tries too much to repeat history is worthy for about one playtrough. (It's not like HoI4 air interface wasn't designed by moneys for monkeys. But HoI3 managed to shoot itself into feet much more.)

DH/2 is probably my favorite game over 3. I'm into the EU/Viccy series over HOI but I have played all the games.



The problem with HOI4 is it isn't a game. You draw lines on a map and let a really shitty ai make attacks for you. Interface I don't have a problem with in either game, both are simple to learn in like 20 minutes.


If you guys enjoy HOI4 that's fine, but I personally consider it one of the worst strategy games I've ever played. Right up there with AOE 3 and some other shit games I've probably forgotten

 

[Raghar]

In HoI2 you can't have clusterfuck like this. Remember folks it started by German Uganda war, then Japan joined alies. (While sitting in the corner and forcing me to beat up natinalist china without weakening it. While US was sitting and saying about theirs neutrality, and we don't mind communist and fascist coup in latin amerika, or two.

 

[Beastro]

It would sail backwards?

Through time.

However US government wanted to screw Japanese

They wanted them to stop overrunning China~

Whether the Japanese realized it or not, they were looking to destroys themselves the way they acted into the 30s.