Hearts of Iron 4 announced

This week’s dev diary is mostly just a PDXCON recap but I thought the bolded (my bolding) statement was interesting:

I wonder if this means spinning off some efforts to start working on HoI5 once this last big mechanics change is out. The country packs are not programmer-intensive, and it seems like early work on Victoria 3 was as early as 2016.

I was about to write a post arguing they need to be working on HOI5 at this point. But honestly, I can’t think of many things they should be doing differently when making a new game. I wouldn’t want to see significant changes to how production or battles work, or how the map looks.

The one thing I think they should redesign from the ground up are national focuses, and that can obviously only be done with HOI5. The idea of picking random bonuses from a MASSIVE tree that the UI can’t handle is just too artificial to be immersive or satisfying. I don’t have a solid proposal, but a more organic way of handling events and ways to focus your nation to certain goals would be nice.

I think it was Podcat who was musing about a potential HOI5 and said if it up to him, he would take it in a complete different direction - whereas 4 was focussed around production, that would be stripped out in 5 which would look at the war from a different angle. 5 wouldn’t so much replace 4 as compliment it.

Maybe I am crazy, but dropping the best part of your game from the next version seems - crazy?

It’s interesting if they have a concept for a WW2 game that would be radically different and not involve production, but I think it would be a mistake to call it HoI4. If it’s not a sequel, don’t give it the same name.

Edit: For myself, I hope they consider making unit position and battles more continuous. Like if you could an infantry corp unit attacked by enemy infantry divisions at several points along a front, and gradually fall back. Or have a flank overrun or routed by a fast-moving tank division. Basically instead of attacking and winning/not winning the battle, it’s more like attacking and shoving the enemy back a bit.

My hope is that if it’s more continuous, it would be more natural to control units at a higher level (e.g. corps or sometimes armies instead of divisions or brigades, except for manuever elements that you might want to control at the division level.

Yeah sorry, that is indeed what I meant. It’s a good intro nation because you have a couple of scripted wars with the neighboring gang controlled territory. Then you’re left alone for a little while while you can build up an economy.

I like HoI4 on a lot of levels but they could completely redesign the naval system from the ground up. I unabashedly dislike it and they could scorched earth the entire thought process and start from scratch for HOI5.

Highlights from today’s 5th anniversary dev diary.

  • Added Tom Moore as a military leader for Britain. Complete with a jungle trait to reflect his service in Burma and India in the 1940s. Captain Sir Tom Moore passed away at an age of 100 back in February due to COVID. With the team being filled with fans of history and from UK (or both) we wanted to take this opportunity to honor him in some small way.

in the WTF department.

  • AI no longer deletes their whole naval production queue of old ships at game start

I don’t like the Neval system, and while I like the concept of task forces, the implementation in MTG is pretty bad. It created so much micro that I can’t play the Naval powers so I’m pretty much stuck playing Germany/Russia and trying minors like Spain, Romania, and China.

I don’t remember it being too bad for micro. Mostly I set stuff up and let it run? Maybe I am playing really far from optimal. I do wish I could keep strikeforces from sailing out to engage subs or other stuff that’s too far beneath them. Burns a lot of fuel that way.

OWB: Starting up as Unity of Austin. We are the good guy mutants. Lead by Keats the Democrat and industrialist, and at odds with Shale and his warmongering mutants.

From the lore: “Attis Army has split into two halves, led by two mutants respectively. Shale, a die-hard mutant supremacist who wants to reform the Army, and Keats; a super mutant who wishes to create a place in which super mutants and humans live and work together in harmony, free from oppression.”

The initial map position is tricky. We are surrounded to the east by the Texan Brotherhood, who are on good terms and part of our economic alliance. But I have a bad feeling about them, since I cannot see the Brotherhood and my mutant nation getting along forever.

To the west is a smaller nation, Eden “lead by Scarlet who dragged Reese’s GECK from The Corpse to a remote location, to contain the spread of its taint from the outside world, and all who would covet its ruinous strength.” We have an truce for almost the next two years, after that I may attack them.

The national tree is custom but shortened. Mostly industry, and it looks like at the end I can try to either economically absorb the Brotherhood and become them (as a Mutant leader), or I can break away and establish the Republic of Austin. Not sure which way I will go.

I picked Austin to play some mutants! Top card is the regular Super Mutant unit, they have lots of HP, lower organization (morale), good attack and defense and very good breakthrough. Bottom card is the upgraded spec-ops Nightkin, with better organization and much better breakthrough. No one likes to fight Super Mutants that use Stealth Boys to become invisible!

The plan is to build up for at least one year and pick really safe infrastructure national stories. Let’s see how it goes.

Fun fact - this nation and most of Texas is based off Fallout Tactics - Brotherhood of Steel. I played it multi-player in 2001. It sucked, no balance, all I remember is my friend’s units taking combat drugs and killing me with assault shotgun bursts. One of my rare rage-quits! :-)

Today’s dev diary is a grab-bag of UI quality-of-life improvements:

I’m glad I won’t get half a dozen popups when some of the big wars kick off. Also a draggable list of division templates.

I want every single one of those UI improvements. Nice.

I like the emphasis on production in HOI4, but I agree that the naval system doesn’t quite feel right to me. Naval warfare is distinctive because much of it (movement, resupply, refitting) happens slowly, and some of it (naval-air combat) happens very fast. I wonder if the designers should consider two levels of UI engagement with the naval system – something like the current system for movement and resupply, but pause-and-issue-orders for the relatively rare carrier battle, say.

I agree. I like what they tried to do in adding more depth to the naval part of the war but it doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. Just setting things up reminds me a bit of the OOB hassle in HOI3. I really like where they were going, I just feel like they didn’t quite get there.

Mostly re-organization, but I assume they will be doing other stuff within this framework. The ability to hand-craft advisors from your generals, and have them get better as they gain experience is a nice touch.

Acquiring doctrines with experience is a good change, IMO. They were kind of halfway there before.

Ahh, so HOI4 is where Arheo ended up after Imperator was wrapped up. Really impressed with what he did with that title when he was given the reins post-release.

I like the changes. I’m curious how they will end up making Germany far ahead in Doctrines and if you will be able to to work on more than one doctrine at a time.

Apparently if you have the experience, you can unlock a doctrine right away. Not sure I agree with that, but it would make the one-at-a-time thing moot.

I was ready to say stop development on HOI IV, and start working on HOI V.

But it seems that No Step Back DLC is going to actually be HOI V.

Very exciting.