Hearts of Iron IV

[sandman2575]

Hate to be the negative Nellie but have to say, this DLC interests me even less than Together for Freedom did (which I still haven't bought).

Can't say I'm especially impressed with the way HOI4 has evolved since launch in June '16. Glad to hear the new "Oak" patch will address some glaring AI issues, but Pdox seems to have settled on a "DLC = New National Focuses" content that strikes me as very peripheral to the real issues -- mostly AI -- that HOI4 still struggles with.

Bummer.

[Rekim]

Another way to look at it is that DLC to date have been more optional than in the past. Something akin to the nationality DLC that's been available for most versions of the Civ series. And at a similar price point, too.

[jamus34]

As stated this was my fear when they went to a national focus path on country development. Makes it easy to skip it for HoI4 unless there is a country I really like but the bigger fear is this is what they do going forward for other games (Eu5, Vicky 3, etc al)

[Rayfer]

Out of curiosity I enabled the Black Ice mod in HoI4.  Even though I played a lot of HoI3, I never used the Black Ice mod, so I had no idea what it would entail. Yikes....it radically overhauls the research and production aspects of the game, making them more complex and detailed, with tons of additional options requiring much more time. I never got far into it so I have no idea what it does to combat. Not sure if it's my cup of tea or not.

[jomni]

Out of curiosity I enabled the Black Ice mod in HoI4.  Even though I played a lot of HoI3, I never used the Black Ice mod, so I had no idea what it would entail. Yikes....it radically overhauls the research and production aspects of the game, making them more complex and detailed, with tons of additional options requiring much more time. I never got far into it so I have no idea what it does to combat. Not sure if it's my cup of tea or not.

And can the AI cope?

[Ian C]

Hate to be the negative Nellie but have to say, this DLC interests me even less than Together for Freedom did (which I still haven't bought).

Can't say I'm especially impressed with the way HOI4 has evolved since launch in June '16. Glad to hear the new "Oak" patch will address some glaring AI issues, but Pdox seems to have settled on a "DLC = New National Focuses" content that strikes me as very peripheral to the real issues -- mostly AI -- that HOI4 still struggles with.

Bummer.

Pretty much the same. I just want them to fix the game.
About Black Ice - once you get past the expanded research and production menu it is much more fulfilling and historical than the base game.

[Rayfer]

Out of curiosity I enabled the Black Ice mod in HoI4.  Even though I played a lot of HoI3, I never used the Black Ice mod, so I had no idea what it would entail. Yikes....it radically overhauls the research and production aspects of the game, making them more complex and detailed, with tons of additional options requiring much more time. I never got far into it so I have no idea what it does to combat. Not sure if it's my cup of tea or not.

And can the AI cope?

Can't honestly say, I didn't get far enough into it to know. There is an overwhelming plethora of choices in the research tab, i.e. sub pens, munition plants, mortar squads, heavy machine gun squads and much, much more. I'm sure with time I'll make sense of it and put together a research and production plan that makes sense, but initially it is a head-scratcher.

[Rayfer]

Hate to be the negative Nellie but have to say, this DLC interests me even less than Together for Freedom did (which I still haven't bought).

Can't say I'm especially impressed with the way HOI4 has evolved since launch in June '16. Glad to hear the new "Oak" patch will address some glaring AI issues, but Pdox seems to have settled on a "DLC = New National Focuses" content that strikes me as very peripheral to the real issues -- mostly AI -- that HOI4 still struggles with.

Bummer.

Pretty much the same. I just want them to fix the game.
About Black Ice - once you get past the expanded research and production menu it is much more fulfilling and historical than the base game.

And that's why I will try to stick with it longer to get past these initial confusions and enjoy the historical piece of the game.

[sandman2575]

Out of curiosity I enabled the Black Ice mod in HoI4.  Even though I played a lot of HoI3, I never used the Black Ice mod, so I had no idea what it would entail. Yikes....it radically overhauls the research and production aspects of the game, making them more complex and detailed, with tons of additional options requiring much more time. I never got far into it so I have no idea what it does to combat. Not sure if it's my cup of tea or not.

And can the AI cope?

I think this is by far the overriding question for those of us who play single-player.

Honestly, I don't see how on earth HOI4's AI can cope with what BlackIce is trying to provide. If it struggles with the game's demands as it is, how in God's name is it supposed to handle everything BlackIce is trying to cram in there?

I loved BlackIce for HOI3 and pretty much found the game unplayable without it. But I'm really disappointed in the direction the mod is moving in for HOI4. It feels like they are just adding complexity for complexity's sake, rather than thinking carefully about how to improve the actual game experience. I mean, is it really necessary to have to build things like officers' staff cars to fill out your division's TOEs? BlackIce apparently thinks so. Vanilla AI has trouble doing basic things like building medium tanks. Why they're asking it to produce Rommel's Horch staff car is beyond me.

I'm all for a mod that makes HOI4 more historical. I just think BlackIce is going about it completely the wrong way this time.

[Rayfer]

Question....playing as Britain, early 1939. When I try to deploy a new air wing from reserves I am not allowed.....it says I do not have enough service manpower.  I had never had this come up before.  Anyone know what I'm doing wrong, or need to do to correct this?

[Ian C]

Question....playing as Britain, early 1939. When I try to deploy a new air wing from reserves I am not allowed.....it says I do not have enough service manpower.  I had never had this come up before.  Anyone know what I'm doing wrong, or need to do to correct this?

Yes, it means you need support staff taken from your available manpower and you don't have it, probably due to you having units being built and your conscription laws.


In other news -update on the coming patch / DLC. Air War has been updated and improved as well being able to name air wings.


https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-air-improvements.1022579/

[Rayfer]

Thanks Ian C.....I put the game on hold until the Oak update and DLC are released. 

[glen55]

It looks as if, along with the air changes, and perhaps even more than the air changes, the Oak update is finally going to concentrate on fixing the AI's constant redeploying units from one end of the line to the other that makes the Battle Planner worse than useless.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-announcement-and-ai-update-1.1017112/

Step No. 1 is admitting the problem:

The first major part I want to talk about is what we call the unit controller, or what you may know as the "battle plan AI". Since this is a feature intended to be used by the players as well, it is important that it feels as good as possible. As some of you have noted, there have certainly been room for improvements, the most severe issue seeming to have been its tendency to send units from one end of the front to the other and sometimes at the same time having another unit from the other side coming to meet it and take its old place. This was usually done with strategic redeployment, resulting in them having zero organization upon their arrival. Less than optimal, for sure.

While they don't claim to have fully solved the problem, they do claim to have already improved it:

The results is something that at first glance might not look significantly better, but it sure feels better to play with, and upon closer inspection does a better job over all. First of all it is much more reactive.

And the work continues! I was really excited about this game initially - until I played enough of it to become familiar with this problem: since the Battle Planner was the part of the game that excited me most, I set this game aside for a long time for this very reason. It's exciting to see that Paradox is tackling this, because sometimes in the past the HOI programmers seem to have thought that things I saw as terrible problems were WAD.

[sandman2575]

Yeah, frankly, I'd be thrilled just to have a vanilla HOI4 with a reasonably competent, non-division-spamming AI and effective Battle Planner. (Completely revamped naval combat would be a huge plus, too.)  Could not care less about new national focuses for Bulgaria, British India, etc. etc.

I still think -- hope -- that, when it's all said and done, HOI4 will live up to its potential and become the greatest installment in the series so far.

[FarAway Sooner]

I'm with Sandman.  Very stoked about the game's possibility, but without credible AI or a vaguely competent Battle Planner, the immersion is much harder to come by.  And if there's one thing that's a killer for WW II games, it's lack of immersion.  The mythology around WW II is what gives those games so much of their punch!