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Developer Corner | International Market

Hello there, it's me C0rax back for another dev corner, and some of you may have noticed in our last dev corner I mentioned in the MIO goals we wanted to have MIO’s “Provide a framework for national specialisms that can be used on the world stage” well i'm here to show you that stage and introduce international markets.

This is all super WIP, you are going to see WIP mock ups, and some details are still being finalized!
Feature Intent & goals


[h3]Feature Intent and Goals[/h3]
Introducing a place for nations to buy and sell equipment benefiting both nations with a reward. Creating a new way for countries to contribute specialist equipment to other nations
Be able to source equipment from other nations as needed
For majors to set the global standard for common place equipment leveraging their superior economic might.

The international market acts as a one stop shop for all your equipment needs from other countries. It's intended to be an international store front, with multiple sellers being able to sell the same thing from the same store front. This means that provided you have the appropriate market access, you can go into the international market and buy tanks from the USA and planes from Germany in one interface (but not 1 buy order).

[h3]The Flow
[/h3]So to start us on how to get to the market. Well we will be replacing the diplomacy menu with the market UI, the diplomacy window was one of the least used parts of the UI and so we want to replace it with something that will get more use. The diplomacy menu is now accessed from within the market menu at the bottom of the market window, you can also still right click on a country on the map to open diplomacy with them directly.


From here we can start buying equipment or selling equipment by clicking on the respective button. Beyond that any currently active contract with other countries will be displayed here so you can easily see their current status.

The buy and sell modes look like this;


As you can see we don't currently have access to anyone's market, so let's look at how we can fix that.

[h3]Market Access[/h3]
For market access we need to go to the diplomacy menu for a country where we will find the negotiate market access diplo action, this is what we want in order to send a request. For nations with factions or puppets this market access is given implicitly. This is important since in many cases you don't want those pesky enemies seeing or trying to buy all the amazing equipment you are selling. This is especially important to stop them seeing your latest equipment stats and MIO modifiers. With this only the people you want to see and buy your wares are able to.

So now we’ve got market access and we can start buying and selling equipment. Since we have access to a market the buy screen will now show the equipment they have put up for sale.

[h3]Buying[/h3]


Let's buy some rifles. To do this we click on the rifles equipment from here we choose how many rifles we want and how fast we want to pay for them and thus receive them. The price per rifle is decided by an IC to CiC conversion rate. This gives you all the information you need like total cost, convoys needed and how long it will take to pay/deliver all equipment



We send of our request and the seller has agreed to the contract



The contract will now appear in our market window as an ongoing contract, it will show all the information you need to know about each contract you have ongoing.


[h3]Selling[/h3]
Now let's look at how we sell our equipment on the market. To start off we need to add equipment to the market. We do this by first clicking sell equipment and then clicking the add to market buttons. From here we can add our equipment from the stockpile to the market. We can choose here how many of every variant we have we wish to put up for sale.

So now we have put up some equipment on the market and it appears in the list. The list shows all of our equipment on the market but not currently sold on the market.

Right on time we got a request to buy some of our equipment, this menu will show you what they are buying, how fast they are paying and how many the resultant deliveries there will be. We will accept this request.


We have accepted the purchase request and now we can see the selling entry in our master list of contracts along with all the information around that contract.


So that brings us to the end of our quick journey through the international market and we brushed over a lot of details so that what the next part will focus on.


[h2]Technical Details[/h2]

[h3]Market Access[/h3]
Market access is a Diplo action to request access to a market and to offer access to your market thus it is a Bilateral relationship. Faction members share market access, as do puppets and overlords.

[h3]Market access blockers[/h3]

- Market access and Contracts are canceled between enemies in war.
- Embargoing someone will cancel market access, and all selling/buying contracts with that country.
- Capitulation cancels all contracts and if the country is NOT going into exile, it will lose all market access too.
- Civil war will change nothing. The original country will have original market accesses and contracts after the start of the civil war.
- Making a country puppet will cancel all market access and contracts of that country.
- Losing market access to a country will not cancel an ongoing contract with that country.
- Puppets can have market access to other countries (and not just to the overlord's market) and trade with them. (this might be based on puppet level)
- There will be a scriptable limit on equipment trade for things like US neutrality act etc

[h3]Contracts[/h3]
Purchasing equipment costs CiC. We use a conversion ratio to convert IC value to CiC value. A contract has 2 main variables, CiC cost from equipment and Civ factory allocation for payment.

So with this information we can talk about how a contract is structured.

A contract is broken down into payments every 30 days. So every 30 days you will make a payment and receive equipment. The amount of equipment to be delivered is based on the payment rate of the buyer. So the more Civ’s you assign to a contract the more equipment you can receive per delivery.


[h3]Selling[/h3]
We have a new stockpile called the market stockpile, equipment can be moved from the normal stockpile to the market stockpile. Equipment in the market stockpile can be requested for purchase by any nation we share market access with.

[h3]Payment[/h3]
So payment is handled via a new construction entry for contracts. When you start a contract a new entry will be created in the construction menu for the number of factories you agreed to pay with and for the total CiC of the contract. This construction task has priority over normal construction.

[h3]Contract Storage[/h3]
CiC payment and equipment before being delivered is stored in a “Contract storage”. At the end of the month the minimum payment/delivery is transferred to each country from the Contract storage. CiC is delivered to the bank while equipment is delivered to the equipment stockpile

[h3]The Bank[/h3]
The bank is a special container for CiC you receive from other countries as payment for a contract it is used in construction by providing bonus CiC to your construction entries.

Here is a flow chart to show you how a contract payment works and then how the bank CiC is used in construction.



[h3]Cancelation[/h3]
Either side can request to cancel the contract at any time no more deliveries are made and all payment to the Contract storage is returned to their originator.

Things that are not part of this feature:
-Trading Ships
- Money
- Supply/demand pricing

Things that we are looking into:
- Limited cost of equipment changes (some active choices, some passive)

[h3]MIO Addendum[/h3]
Last dev corner I spoke about MIO’s, I did my best to explain and answer questions but I want to add an addendum to the previous dev corner to show some things that should hopefully make some things much clearer.

It seems there was some confusion that MIO’s were a totally free form “design your own company” system, this isn’t what was intended to be conveyed. MIO’s have pre predetermined choices which are designed to offer compromise and strategic choice. So Let's talk about what an MIO looks like in terms of a real MIO I get access to for a country.

I’m going to show some numbers here but these are just starting values for initial implementation and so don't read into the modifiers or values too much yet.

So here we have a Generic Infantry MIO


So the definition for this MIO is

Design teams (red arrows show mutually exclusive)

INFANTRY OFFENSE DEPARTMENT


INFANTRY QUALITY DEPARTMENT


SUPPORT EQUIPMENT DEPARTMENT


[h3]Industrial Manufacturers[/h3]


As you can see this focuses almost exclusively on improving infantry equipment with small bonuses for support equipment. Generic MIO’s are generally focused on one specific equipment providing departments that are generally focused around offensive, defensive and quality/reliability.

Here's some more example of generics


Generics can sometimes also have specializations for specific stats that are not normally in the equipment specific ones also such as the aircraft range focuses MIO.


Or pacific fleet MIO


Of course these are generics and that is why they are very simple. They are there to replace the current generic designer set already present so every nation can enjoy some level of customisation for their mio’s. More major countries might have specific MIO’s that are unique to your country and thus offer very different choices to make. These are just some simple ones but they can be much more branched choices with lots of content tie-ins, but we will show those in a later dev diary.


I hope this makes what an MIO looks like as a structure you play with clearer and again I hope to see you in future dev corners.

That's all I have for this week, as always please ask questions and comment. I hope to see you in 2 weeks for the next Dev corner where Arheo will introduce you to another feature coming to you in the future

War Effort - Operation Alpha [1.12.13 Checksum b721]

[h2]Generals![/h2]

Its time for the final patch of this War Effort Initiative cycle! This patch contains a host of balance changes and fixes as well as language localization for Simplified Chinese! We're going to be winding down the Initiative for the time being as we move onto other lines of development!

Furthermore, stay tuned for another message from us later, pertaining to some feature content that we are working on.

Now, onto the patch notes!

[h3]Localization[/h3]

-Added Simplified Chinese language support.

[h3]Balance[/h3]
-Lord Halifax now has two leader traits and reduces the requirements with the British Raj when forming the Imperial Federation/Commonwealth of Nations.
-If Lord Halifax is used to annex the British Raj as part of the Imperial Federation, India will suffer increased resistance.
-Fixed non-MTG ships having incorrect base speeds.
-Increased biggest speed and agility factor diff by 1.0, increasing the maximum effect of these stats on air combat.


[h3]UI[/h3]
-Available medals are now present on army screens for Divisional Commanders.
-Added a new Hearts of Iron IV YouTube channel link to menus.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
-Added effect remove_civil_war_target.

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]
-Fixed an issue in the Pressure Government event chain for Italy and the Soviets in which the feedback event communicating the target's choice was sent to the target instead of the sender.
-Playing as a released country is now persistent over saves in ironman.
-Observers now retain the observed country on hotjoin and resynch.
-Fixed License Production Access not being restored when reloading a save file.
-Democratic Italy can now send volunteers to Spain after completing the Aid for Spanish Republic focus.
-Fix for Belgium Congo sometimes flipping to Germany after Belgium capitulates.

Introducing the latest edition of the War Effort Map, where a thrilling challenge awaits! Take a look and observe: only one stop remains. Are you up for the task of unraveling its mystery? Keep in mind, appearances can be deceiving.


That's it from us today, as always we appreciate all your feedback! If you encounter any bugs, make sure to create a bug report over on the Forum, and don't forget to join our Discord!

Huge Paradox Steam sale lets you try Crusader Kings 3 for free

A Crusader Kings 3 free weekend leads a mighty Paradox Steam sale from the developer of some of the best strategy games. With the likes of Europa Universalis 4, Cities Skylines, Stellaris, Victoria 3, Age of Wonders, Hearts of Iron 4, and more up for grabs alongside Crusader Kings 3, it's safe to say that whatever your strategy tastes may be, you'll find some fantastic bargains here.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

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Humble Bundle's Choice Premium is 40% off for newbies - but be quick

Publisher Weekend and Players' Choice Bundle!

Generals!

The Publisher's Weekend sale is now here, bringing deals across the board for the content you're missing, but also introducing an even better deal with the Players' Choice Barbarossa Bundle, as voted by you all :)

This bundle adds an extra 10 percent off on top of the other savings!

[h3]Players' Choice Barbarossa Bundle[/h3]
  • Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back Additional 10% off
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Sabaton Soundtrack Additional 10% off
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[h3]Base Game [/h3]
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet Edition 70% off
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[h3]Expansions[/h3]
  • Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back 30% off
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Battle for the Bosporus 50% off
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[h3]Music & Model Packs[/h3]
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War Effort - Operation Alpha [1.12.13 Open Beta]

Hello there, generals! May has arrived, and with it comes a new open beta, this time for Operation Alpha!

This patch, as usual, contains balance changes, bug fixes, and something for you awesome modders out there. However, something we have also been working on for a while is language support for Simplified Chinese. This means that all our new Developer Diaries will be translated for Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. And this is just the beginning of what we have planned for our non-English speaking generals!


###########
[h3]Localization[/h3]
###########

Added Simplified Chinese language support.

########
[h3]Balance[/h3]
########

Lord Halifax now has two leader traits and reduces the requirements with the British Raj when forming the Imperial Federation/Commonwealth of Nations.
If Lord Halifax is used to annex the British Raj as part of the Imperial Federation, India will suffer increased resistance.
Fixed non-MTG ships having incorrect base speeds.
Increased biggest speed and agility factor diff by 1.0, increasing the maximum effect of these stats on air combat.

######
[h3]UI[/h3]
######
Available medals are now present on army screens for Divisional Commanders.
Added a new Hearts of Iron IV YouTube channel link to menus.

##########
[h3]Modding[/h3]
##########

Added effect remove_civil_war_target.

#########
[h3]Bugfix[/h3]
#########

Fixed an issue in the Pressure Government event chain for Italy and the Soviets in which the feedback event communicating the target's choice was sent to the target instead of the sender.
Playing as a released country is now persistent over saves in ironman.
Observers now retain the observed country on hotjoin and resynch.
Fixed License Production Access not being restored when reloading a save file.
Democratic Italy can now send volunteers to Spain after completing the Aid for Spanish Republic focus.
Fix for Belgium Congo sometimes flipping to Germany after Belgium capitulates.


And yes, there is no War Effort map update because that will come with the release of this patch! Now, have a lovely weekend, everyone, and we will see you again next week with something even more fun to talk about!