/vst/ — Hearts of Iron IV Thread

>>2324959 (OP)
Just make HoIV, there's no salvaging this shit by now

>>2325041
>HoIV
Spelling mistake.

>>2324959 (OP)
I recognise PDX needs to eat, but I fail to understand the point of this and a lot of the other recent DLCs. The "country-packs"(?) just add a bunch of bloated tree crap that everyone quickly gets bored of, and then never touches again. The proper "expansions" add endless, pointless busy work, from the USSR's purges to Italy's faction balance to the research labs and now fucking coal. I feel like PDX has no real vision or idea of what to do with Hoi4, every time they create these incredible fucking trees that allow you to turn any minor into a superpower, and then they keep adding mechanics to make the game more difficult or slow it down even though at its core, Hoi4 is a map painting game. I ran into this problem where fucking Brazil and Chile would actually guarantee countries throughout the world if you tried to do an early conquest as Germany/Italy and capped the Allies early.

Too top it off, new trees and mechanics often don't mesh well with the old trees. Trotskyist Mexico has been completely unplayable since NSB because Trotsky will ALWAYS die even if you made him your leader. British Raj is immensely buggy with all sorts of resistance events cropping up even if you declare independence and portraits not working right. France is just stupid, Italy and Germany usually take out Switzerland and you end up fighting along the entire length of your border for a year.

Also, something fucky is going on with garrisons, they seem to be lagging the game harder than anything else, trying to do a world conquest as any countries usually makes the game faster but is much more of a pain and trying to open the garrison tab actually crashes the game when I do it.

>>2324959 (OP)
>navy
Aside from breaking the AI so hard that it's now completely meaningless to go navy in singleplayer, the changes to fleet range and basing basically made it impossible to actually do navy.
Destroyers can't patrol from North America to Britain following the historical North Sea convoy route because their hull literally just doesn't get enough range. Since naval bases no longer extend the range, the allies getting Greenland and Iceland do nothing.
The same goes for subs, there's basically no meaning in patrolling half the world's oceans because subs can't reach them anymore, so basically all naval warfare is just littoral now.
>b-but build the new infrastructure
Doesn't matter. Since access to the places you can build naval supply hubs are a zero sum game, it always comes down to one side has the range and the other side doesn't and can't contest. Not to mention the absolutely fucking ridiculous IC investment building 8 naval base levels and then another supply hub on top of that.
Navy is genuinely dead. I don't know how this shit passed testing.
>doctrines
A mixed bag. Most of them are worthless and undertuned in really obvious "how did anyone ever think this would be useful?" sort of ways while a small few are just the new go-to every time choices.
Overall infantry was buffed on the offensive but only when you invest a lot into supporting equipment, as opposed to the previous patch's mass mob cheese. But then buffing the hell out of SPGs just made it so that infantry is hard-countered and melts on contact no matter how heavily invested it is. Overtuned SPGs also just kind of trivialize singleplayer since the AI just spams shitty infantry to get buzzsawed by 2k soft attack tank blobs.
>Rangers
I think the idea behind these guys was retarded since they're literally just better infantry and that's how they shake out in practice.

How many simultaneous generals do you paratards need? Buy a fucking ad.

>>2325640
The HOI4 general here is more on modding though.

>>2325605
I haven't done Naval Battles far from the coast. I'm currently doing another Manchukuo -> Qing run and most of the battles I did was close to the coast. But I can see how they've shortened naval ranges now since I can only access half of the Sea of Japan despite puppeting Korea ( and having access to their ports )

Core game is broken, only reason to play nowadays are mods.

>>2325583
>I recognise PDX needs to eat, but I fail to understand the point of this and a lot of the other recent DLCs. The "country-packs"(?) just add a bunch of bloated tree crap that everyone quickly gets bored of, and then never touches again. The proper "expansions" add endless, pointless busy work, from the USSR's purges to Italy's faction balance to the research labs and now fucking coal. I feel like PDX has no real vision or idea of what to do with Hoi4, every time they create these incredible fucking trees that allow you to turn any minor into a superpower, and then they keep adding mechanics to make the game more difficult or slow it down
For several years I dabbled in vanilla Hoi4 with no DLCs
Couple Christmases ago I bought all the DLC to see how much more fun the game was, this was around when the air designer came out I think
It made the game suck ass, if I ever play HOI4 again I'll roll back to the last patch before any DLCs came out, and just play it vanilla
Nu-Paradox is retarded.

>>2326006
This.
I tire of Barbarossa Simulator.

>>2326035
I stopped at no step back.
The designers were the biggest mistake because they just add more busywork. There is no variance in actual design it's just one of two or three min/maxed unit templates based on what you're looking for. I think waking the tiger was the peak of the game and man the guns began the slide into the trash compactor. Gotterdamerung was the only great dlc they've ever produced and they know it. It has never gotten a substantial sale while all the others get thrown into the bargain bin soon after release.

Airfields should function as supplyhubs that use transport planes to feed them. I think it's so stupid that you can't emulate all the airbridge supply operations that happened through the war because of how stupid and asinine their implementation of air supply is. Paratroopers are only usable as one-way suicide drones or for instacap cheese because there's no real way to supply them by air

Would anyone disagree with me if I said the game was better on release than today?

Dev Corner for Siam
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-corner-2601002-thunder-at-our-gates.1896230/

Dev Corner for Australia
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-corner-2601003-taog-australia.1896093/

Dev Corner for the D. East Indies/Indonesia
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-corner-2601004-taog-dutch-east-indies.1896471/

>>2329460
Base game sucked massive ass. And no amount of contrarianism can change it otherwise.

>>2329265
I'd add on and say that they should overhaul the Aerial Mechanic and give us the option to promote Ace Pilots/Aerial Officers into becoming members of the High Command/Chief of Air Force.

>>2329460
It's a highguard situation
The base game was bad because it didn't have anything really going for it. But the current game tries to do everything and does it poorly.
It's just poorly planned and made regardless of version but the simplicity of the base game is preferable to the vomit smorgasboard of the current game.

>>2330720
>no amount of contrarianism can change it otherwise
HOI4 is one of the poster children of nu-Paradox ruining their games through DLC bloat. This is not contrarianism, this is the sincere opinion of many players.

>>2324959 (OP)
at this point the game just needs a refresh. It needs an economy and pop system that are less abstract than just adjusting some sliders.

>>2330728
>Pops
NO

>>2330729
sorry anon but all of these gsgs should have better economic and population simulation

>>2330730
>HOI4 should have better "population simulation"
You foul anti-Semite.

>first germany game with the new pops system
>3 years in the primary ethnicity flips to Ethiopian
>ask why this is
>Italy's war in ethiopia causes emmigration pressure and the mass mobilization of German troops creates a workforce vacuum that gets filled by ethiopians.

>>2330737
>that's a feature, chud
>what are you, some kind of Nazi?

>>2330738
Historically the proto germans were black from the area around ethiopia.

>>2330723
>It's just poorly planned and made regardless of version but the simplicity of the base game is preferable to the vomit smorgasboard of the current game.

To be honest, I was there when the base game came out in 2016 and heavily played the fuck out of it. And as simple as it was, it quickly got boring after a while.

DLC-wise, as much as I hate how broken some of them are on release, they also make an effort to fix them when it's generated enough heat. And cost-wise, I don't really give a fuck since I just pirate it.

>>2330728
Just play Victoria 2 lol

>>2325583
The goal was to reintroduce HoI3, but with a bit less autism.

>>2325583
>I feel like PDX has no real vision or idea of what to do with Hoi4
Nu-Paradox doesn’t know what to do with any of their games.

>>2330754
This. HOI4's recent devolution, Stellaris' repeated failed attempts at reinventing itself, there's a clear pattern here.

I think the core issue is that Paradox has this thing about not creating new content for their DLCs and not changing/improving/updating old DLCs. Every new DLC has to work standalone assuming it's the only DLC you have or work with all the other previous DLCs. In a 10-year old game like HOI, there's literally more DLC content than vanilla content and most of the outstanding issues with the game are issues with past DLCs. The designers need updated; old DLC focus trees like Britain, France, the Commonwealth etc. need updated; espionage and politics need updated; the supply system which still frequently bugs out needs updated.
None of these things ever get worked on because they were the subject of a DLC 5-8 years ago. So instead we just get endless remixing of vanilla mechanics everybody learned to ignore years ago, or increasingly obtuse and trivial changes like a fucking focus pack for Afghanistan and Siam.

>>2330949
Siam didn't even get a tree despite being an actual fucking participant in WW2 which you think would give it precedence in the fucking WW2 game

>>2331024
>Siam “participated” in WW2
Bruh.

what's next? South Africa did not participated in WW2?

Exhaustive list of WW2 player characters:
>Germany
>Italy
>Japan
>UK
>USA
>USSR
That is all. All others were NPCs.

>>2333209
Absolute brainlet behavior

>Dutch East Indies
what they can do for it, really? it's a nothingburger country

>>2333670
It's not even a country. It was a Dutch colony. The only reason it's a puppet and not just part of the Netherlands like French Indochina is part of France is because it was easier to code them carrying on the fight after the Netherlands caps this way.

>>2333670
the autist in the Paradox thread says otherwise

>>2333417
>screeching NPC noises
I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you. Could you try restarting from the beginning of your dialogue tree?

>>2333697
Requiring a dialogue tree is itself npc behavior.

>>2333704
>anon’s programming successfully responds to the keyword “dialogue tree”

>>2333690
that indonesian guy?

>>2333708
You don't need to narrate what you're doing AI-kun

>>2325583
>even though at its core, Hoi4 is a map painting game.
That's the problem though. Hearts of Iron, as a whole, shouldn't be a map painter. It should be a GS war game. You should be managing a global war on a tactical, operational, strategic, and geopolitical level.
4 gets DLC until the end of time because it's by far one of their most popular products but they should make 5 and inshallah do it right.

File: jej.jpg (22 KB, 317x267)

>2026
>pretending this visual novel is a strategy game

I get stuck in this weird cycle with HOI4 where I'll play it obsessively for days - but I only seem to play the Spanish Civil War (usually as the anarchists) over and over again. I enjoy the game from time to time but it feels like whether or not a given country is 'viable' is pretty much determined by whether or not they have a DLC dedicated to them and how long ago that DLC was. Being able to get free factories from focuses feels like a cop-out. Like fake content, almost. If that sort of thing has to be available then it should be one of the passive focuses and it needs some kind of drawback.

Controversial opinion: I think the division designer in general is kind of bad. Yeah you can make anything you want but really there's only a handful of actually good templates, assuming you aren't just making a 9block of infantry with support engineers, arty, AA, and AT. Sure, I can customize what my heavy tanks look like - and that's kind of fun in an RP sense (when playing as the Spanish anarchists, I like to imagine them throwing together some Bob Semple tier bullshit and voting on whether or not to shoot the enemy) but there's not really a reason to. It's not like I can designate which tanks go in which divisions in which proportion. And even if I could it'd be dumb because there's no reason not to just always use the vehicles with the best stats, even irrespective of factory efficiency loss.

HOI3, while it is an autistic mess, has the best division designer since it doesn't ask you stupid questions and lets you specialize your forces via research that gives incremental upgrades over time.

>>2333916
The division designer is a huge meme, should just be replaced with historical divisions, however that would cause a mass exodus of the troon playerbase.

Also I'm in the same boat as you, I can only enjoy Historical Italy runs.

>>2333921
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say 'historical divisions only'. I think a better idea might be having division templates locked behind focuses or research, so that Germany can be a threat with a special thing only they have but isn't just dumb modifier stacking. It would also create specific logistical concerns that the player has to actually consider and play around, and creates opportunities for counterplay.

>>2333921
A primary issue with divisions is the all or nothing aspect of armor and the efficacy of piercing on AA support.
The division problem will persist as long as AA piercing operates as it does. Support AA should apply no piercing to the division, line AA should have a reduced piercing stat until you reach a certain ratio of line AA to other units to reflect that while it can be used in that role its primary use is still AA duties until you have so many that it just doesn't matter.
Then either get rid of the unit designer or increase the base level of armor for all tanks in accordance with their type.

>>2325041
>just make next game
You people are the worst .how about you say improve the cureent game you stupid nigger. Im not going to drop another $60 on what will most likely be a shittier hoi until 5 years if dlc make it better than hoi4. Fuck you. Youre the reason shit like anything after civ 4 exists.
>i like civ 5 but it took like 10 fucking years for it to get good

>>2334106
Unironically because hoi4 is built upon faulty foundations and there is no fixing it without tearing it all to the ground. Making a new game is just easier.

>>2334107
Ywnbaw

>>2334112
Thank you, women are gay.

>>2333916
My biggest issue with the designer is that if you try to design multiple niche vehicles for different purposes, it just doesn't fucking work
>make 2 tanks, Tank 1 and Tank 2
>Tank 1 is a fast, cheapo tank meant for mass-production for 8-spd tank divisions
>Tank 2 is a slow, expensive armoured brick for infantry divisions
>Now I have to go into the infantry division template and disable Tank 1 so that it only draws on the Tank 2 stockpile, and vice versa for tank divisions
>except every few minutes ingame the game generates a new variant of each template which doesn't inherit those restrictions, so now my tank divisions don't disallow Tank 2mk2,3,4,5 and drops from 8 to 4kmh every time a day ticks over
>not to mention my army xp is taxed into oblivion making multiple templates for different tanks
The game just wants you to make 1 god template and spam it while cheesing with CAS. Trying to engage with any of the systems that look granular just reveals that they don't work and the game is as deep as a puddle with 10 years worth of ostentation.

>>2334128
I have not once tried to engage with that system. It feels like it's from a time when they were designing a very different game like everything with the patchwork of hoi4.

>>2333916
> but I only seem to play the Spanish Civil War (usually as the anarchists) over and over again
I have to ask, how are you able to sit through the mind-numbingly boring click-monkey busy-work of the first part? I've played the Spanish Civil War through as every side (Falange to Democratic) and I hated having to play that stupid minigame every time. I did manage to get it down to a point where like, I realise you can get to 'Disband Army' focus if you have enough PP to fire those events at least 8 times consecutively as Republicans. If the Nationalists go for the assassination decision early, you can do this easily and flip one of the Northern states to completely fuck them over early, if they decide to fight you over strikes, then you have to consign yourself to a long, drawnout BS war.

On a sidenote, the click-monkey BS just gets worse every DLC, USA was bad enough, making Spain center around it was stupid, spreading to USSR with their purge, Italy with their internal factions made them all a chore and a half to play.

>>2334801
HOI4 is infinitely improved by turning off all of the DLC.

>>2334801
>I have to ask, how are you able to sit through the mind-numbingly boring click-monkey busy-work of the first part?

I don't know. If I could answer questions like that I'd probably be playing better games.

>>2334128
>>except every few minutes ingame the game generates a new variant of each template which doesn't inherit those restrictions
wut
The game will never change your unit templates. Tank templates being on auto is your choice but even with that, if you want it on for some weird reason, you can use MSPGs or say heavy tanks for inf.

>>2334954
MIOs cause your templates to auto update whenever a new trait is applied, which breaks a bunch of shit.

File: 432.jpg (10 KB, 421x49)

>>2335033
You're welcome. But for real, diversify your used chassis and designations. You designate that 'tank 2' as TD or SPG or make it heavy and it sure as hell sounds like it wants to be a heavy and you solved your problem. At the very least make them staggered tier so the game doesn't get confused, so infantry gets tank 2s and mech gets tank3s; tech advances, 4 for mech and converted 3s for inf. 2s can convert into SPGs or whatever. The second method saves you a lot on IC as well.

>b-but i want to do it this way
Good luck with that then. I'm just trying to help you out - one multivehiclefag to another.

>>2334826
I only pirated DLCs up to By Blood Alone, and then PDX made it even easier by integrating the old DLCs. The Italian civil war mechanic pissed me off so much I don't even pirate the newer DLCs.
That said I'm too used to playing with La Resistance and Battle for the Bosphorus, those 2 allow you to get early War Economy with USSR since the first fixes the Spanish Civil War start date to Jul 1936 and the second gives a small event to boost War Support early.

>need a separate research facility and 6 months to figure out how to put a crane and a winch on a tank chassis
Fuck paradox