I’m not exactly an art guy, but this was a really cool look at the process of making art for a computer game.
Now this is a Thanksgiving feast of patch notes here.
It’s way too much to copy and paste but I’ll grab the major features for the expansion and the free update.
Fellow revolutionaries might need this playlist
I have been following the development of the new expansion since I like playing as the USSR. However, after watching a few videos of the new systems they are implementing, I am not as enthusiastic. For one thing, the tank designer sounds like a cool idea in theory, but after watching the video it’s more than just selecting the best gun and chassis… it’s also about allocating individual armor points and increasing reliability through the addition of little things like “wet ammo storage.” This level of detail is too granular for me and will make designing tanks a chore. However, there is an “auto upgrade” button I am thankful for, but deciding when to change my production lines will be too much as well… should I switch over production because my tank design just got a 2-point armor increase? Should I wait until a 5-point armor increase? Ugh. Another overwhelming prospect is learning the new logistic model. Learning the current supply system was about as much as I wanted to learn about logistics. However, now I have to worry about building not only individual train tracks, but trains as well? Also, there is train artillery? How do I decide to build an artillery train instead of a light tank, or instead of mechanized vehicle? It seems to be a bit too much for me now.
They may have adjusted things, but I suspect the big hits to production efficiency only come when you change the base chassis. Armour upgrade should be the equivalent of an experience upgrade in the previous, which was a pretty minor efficiency hit.
I’m not really sold on that sort of thing. I’ve come to the conclusion over the years that “ship builder” type stuff just doesn’t really have a place in most high level strategy games. I’ve only found very few games where it added something to the game. Sword of the Stars is one game where I enjoyed it because tactical battles actually played out and each race had access to different levels of the various techs. For most 4X games, though, it usually just boils down to more micro than I want to deal with or pointless since there’s one or two meta configurations that everyone runs.
I’ll withhold judgement on the tank designer until I try it, but it’s not one of the features I have been looking forward to. New combat calculations and railways on the other hand I’m all kinds of looking forward to trying!
After this expansion, the only thing I’m really wanting is a rework of the Italian focus tree which I’ve been waiting for since the first DLC! It’s my favorite country to play so it’s been a long wait. Once I have that I’m all for sticking a fork in HOI4 and looking forward to what they come up with in HOI5.
I download NSB now, I’m actually looking forward to the tank design quite a bit. How they handle production efficiency is one of my concerns. It wasn’t an issue in the ship designer. I don’t expect the AI do to a competent job,but with the auto design function maybe it will be adequate. Although, I agree with Kevin that Sword of the stars was the last game where it had a huge impact. The mods in planetfall were also important but that was different
There is plenty of other things, in the expansion that I’m looking forward to. I play Germany a lot, and Russia a fair amount. So I’m looking forward to the new focus tree, logistics, and rail guns.
I honestly ready to move on from HOI IV. But in the weird position, thanks Covid, off working of my backlog. New world was bust for me, Old world is now my I’m bored I need a strategy game fix.
But there is really no game I’m dying to play, so I’m going to enjoy NSB (hopefully) until some shining new things distracts me.
Looks like HOI4 hit a new all-time concurrent player peak. Impressive for a game ~5 years old.
It’s because its a fucking classic, and perhaps the most fun strategy game I’ve ever owned.
Damn Germans, you shall be peace loving and you WILL love democracy.
Yet we shall conquer.
If its hitting Stellaris levels that’s impressive
Haven’t had a chance to fire it up yet but there are multiple threads on Reddit talking about a noticeably improved AI. I’m always really happy to hear that, especially after a major update that makes a lot of changes.
I’ve played as the soviets for about an hour and a half. I like the new focus tree and I’m still trying to get a handle on logistics.
I was surprised by an early event that fired for me. When I booted up the game, I noticed that Turkey had a demilitarized zone around the Bosporus. In Summer 1936 Attaturk moved troops there which allowed me to threaten them to get out. He didn’t and I ended up in a war with them and Romania. I’m doing okay since the USSR starts off with such a large army, but I’m having supply issues that I need to learn more about (for example, I’m learning not to flood an area with divisions since that simply compounds the supply problem). At the same time I’m making my way through the focus tree trying to avoid the Great Purge until I manage to peace out. Should I take Turkey and Romania or just puppet them? I’m thinking puppets might be better but I’m not sure.
I’m into early 37 as Germany, no civil war yet. I looked at reddit forum that does seem promising.
The paradox forums are less positive if that’s because of actual problems or just more whining on the PDX forums, IDK. There are definitely bugs, and I think everyone is confused about supply, ala Shadow Empire.
The other thing that is almost certainly true is that tanks are more expensive than before for the same capability. Perhaps as much as 50% more.
In resources, production time or both?
Production. For instance, the starting German panzer II, is 10 Production points. Add a machine gun, wet ammo storage and a few points of engine and armor it moves up 12. This is roughly the equivalent of adding 2 points of gun 3 points of reliability, 1 point of the engine, to a basic light tank II. Compared to the production cost of 8 in the base game.
In the base game if you spent lots of experience points you got a better tank. Now you have to spend a modest amount of experience point, to get a better tank but it requires more production points.
I suspect the Russian may be smart just to build a shit ton of Artillery and Anti-tank guns, and not worry about tanks until after the war has started.
The big sink for experience points is the doctrines, they require 100 XP per. However, you can have 2 or even 3 advisors that give you XP, and theorist that reduces the cost of doctrines by 15%
Resources is a bit more complicated. It appears tanks need less steel, but more chromium, the same or less tungsten.
I’m getting ready to dive in and see how it goes.
Hopefully my very few mods will work, if I can even remember what they did anyway.
I had to delete all of mine the only important one was Expert AI. No idea when it will be modified.
Supply is really a bear now.
I’m pretty frustrated with the game now. I posted on the PDX forums, they need to update the Wiki on supply.
Why in the hell don’t developers, assign someone to update the wiki’s as part of the release process?
I’m fumbling my way through the game as the USSR. Fortunately for me, the AI likes to bring about civil wars in most nations… Germany, Finland, Poland, Spain (lol), Greece, Yugoslavia, Japan, and even Latvia had a civil war. UK flipped to fascist on their own. I was able to puppet Romania and Turkey in 1936, and I just gobbled up Manchukuo since I had a way to DOW when Japan had their civil war. Now the world is in a weird situation where the allies (German Empire, fascist UK, Poland and Italy) are the allies, and France and the US formed a coalition against Italy. I was gonna pounce on France since I was able to puppet Spain after the civil war, but now I’m going to go after Poland/Germany/UK since I need to rid the world of fascism. Fun so far but too many civil wars.
Thought this was good to know as I get ready to dive in this weekend.
The games on hold for me until they patch. Just way too many bugs. First they screw up Surviving Mars, and now this. Fortunately, unlike Surviving Mars, I can revert to an older version of the game.