Hearts of Iron IV News

[h3]Greetings all![/h3]

As you’ll no doubt be aware, the launch of the No Step Back expansion last year was the climax of a busy year of development for the HoI team, and it continues to be one of our best received releases to date.

Of course, the last year also saw the departure of @podcat as Game Director who was reassigned to Siberia greater things at Paradox. Many of you will also have read the roadmap document that was produced towards the beginning of HoI4 development, and are asking questions as to the veracity of that plan under a new director, and whether I have any different ideas or plans to announce.

[h2]Looking Forwards[/h2]

I mentioned at the beginning of my tenure that both @podcat and I see HoI4 in broadly similar terms. This hasn’t changed, and you can expect to see many of the parts of the previous roadmap make an appearance at some point in the future.

My approach to a ‘Grand Plan’, however, may be somewhat different. I have a preference for leaving plenty of space for reactive development (something that served us well on Imperator), and while there are many things that I feel are ripe for future development, I am also keen to leave a lot of space for changing course and acting on community sentiment.

There are two main points I want to raise before we get to details, however. Firstly, we intend to up the tempo of our releases a little. This is, of course, an ambition, and not a promise, however it informs some further decisions related to the development of HoI. Namely, that we are considering ways to change how and when we release information on development to you folks. Since faster development is the goal, this also means getting ideas into public view slightly faster, for feedback and conversation. We’re not exactly sure how this will look yet, but it is likely that there’ll be a reorganization of the traditional dev-diary schedule into something that feels less like a milestone delivery. This comes in tandem with a need to shift the community’s expectations on what ‘in development’ means: getting fans accustomed to seeing placeholders, WIP balance, and half-built systems in early phases, and seeing things develop as time goes on.

The last major point here is that we recognize a need to maintain the game as well as to develop it, especially if development pace is picking up. We’re still considering how best to achieve this, and I’m watching initiatives such as the Custodian team on Stellaris with curiosity. For the time being, what this is likely to manifest as, is the inclusion of older system maintenance into our patch planning - you may start to see patch bulletin features including things such as minor focus tree revamps, as well as attention paid to older systems and expansion content.

[h2]
Roadmap[/h2]

As mentioned above, the 2020 roadmap for HoI4 included many things which have now either been completed or rendered unnecessary. This leaves several from podcat’s list which I believe are still important for the future of the game:

• Improvements to frontline stability (progress in NSB, more to come)
  
• Long term goals and strategies to guide ai (progress in NSB)
  
• Improving peace conferences
  
• Update core national focus trees with alt-history paths and more options (Italy)
  
• Wunderwaffen projects
  
• More differences between sub-ideologies and government forms
  
• More National Focus trees
  
• Make defensive warfare more fun
  
• Adding mechanics to limit the size of your standing army, particularly post-war etc
  
• Have doctrines more strongly affect division designing
  
• Strategic and tactical AI improvements
  

In addition to these items, I will of course add some of my own personal intentions:

[h3]Great Power Diplomacy[/h3]
This is one area that I feel doesn’t need much explanation. More diplomatic tools are a clear area for expansion, and a careful look at how this module can be developed without interfering with the overarching global war, is likely to happen.
[h3]
Economic Decision Making[/h3]
The economic system is very abstracted in HoI, and I do not foresee ever making it a major part of the game loop. This said, there are elements of an industrial economy that I feel could do with being part of decision making in HoI.

[h3]Immersive/Roleplay Elements[/h3]
Optional tools for making your mark on a game, and/or development of further building blocks to enhance attachment to a HoI campaign. Bring the simulation to life.

And of course, many more that I feel do not need as much of an explanation:

• Battleplanner improvements
  
• Advisors/internal politics improvements
  
• Ideological distinctions
  
• Multiplayer & social layer improvements & support
  

I like to remain as open as possible to the needs of the community, and the inclusion or omission of any particular item above should not be considered ‘set in stone’.

As we look at how we plan on structuring future communications, there may be some space for a few more dev diaries on what you’ve all been getting up to in NSB in the near(ish) future!

/Arheo

Patch 1.11.5 "Barbarossa"

###
# AI
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- Majors will now send volunteers to the Spanish Civil War even without La Resistance
- AI will no longer consider enemy lakes to be dangerous
- AI has learned the definition of insanity and will now try to avoid attacking in same place if previous invasion failed
- AI will be more careful with their attacks if they start running out of manpower
- AI now assigns free aces to valid existing wings instead of only when creating new wings
- AI is now significantly less likely to release collaboration governments unless they have narrative reasons to do so

###
# UI
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- Supply map mode allows normal interactions with naval unit counters and doesn't hide fleet windows
- Fixed ship stats details pages not showing correct supply usage
- Fixed UI elements highlighting spurriously when tech template would unlock equipment which isn't included in current DLC profile
- Fixed Army and Navy view windows opening on top of each other
- Fixed shift+k shortcut for training air/navy
- Decision map icons with CP costs no longer overlap unreadably
- Fixed rail upgrade buttons sometimes not being generated. Buttons now line up with rails connecting to naval bases.
- Fixed Railway Gun supply icon never showing up and being in the wrong place when it did
- Fixed naval unit counters not showing low supply icon
- Naval battle screen now correctly shows admiral portraits
- Fixed operative map icons not getting frame mask applied
- Updated equipment conversion and ship refitting tooltips to use accurate language and include the relevant values and modifiers.
- Hold units command now applies to all selected units when mixed armies are selected
- Supply bottleneck tooltip should now include undersized ports

###
# Database
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- The Race for Germany achievement will no longer fail if the player does not control Luxembourg at the time of German surrender (it's complicated)
- Non-NSB tanks will now have their correct fuel usage again. It was fun while it lasted!
- Brazil should no longer have access to non-NSB tanks with NSB active

###
# Modding
###
- Added on_capitualtion_immediate on_action. This will be executed at the very start of the capitulation process, where on_capitulation is played in the middle of the process, which can bias the triggers result.
- Added multiplicative modifier equipment_conversion_ic_cost which reduces conversion IC cost for non-naval equipment edited with the equipment designer (i.e. tanks when NSB is active).
- Game will now try to reconcile provinces declared as coastal without bordering a seazone (and vice versa). Check your error log!
- Invalid buildings (like naval bases in landlocked provinces) in history setup will now be ignored and reported in error log.
- Modifiers declared in advisor character entries should now properly apply and persist between saves
- Made set_character_name also work for unit leaders
- Fixed a CTD when going over the building state cap with off-map buildings

###
# Balance
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- Blitzkrieg Theorist advisors now have increased base cost
- Smooth talking charmer now reduces maintenance cost for improving relations.
- Backroom Backstabber no longer grants political power factor, and instead grants subverseive activities cost; drift defence factor buffed to 0.25
- Compassionate Gentlemen now reduce resistance damage to garrisons in addition to monthly opinion gain
- Ideological Crusader now grants party popularity stability modifier in addition to old effects
- Armaments Organizer now increases supply hub construction -speed- by 10%
- Balance changes for armor and varient units
- Moved High velocity 2 to antitank_4 tech
- Increase mot equipments to 36 for mot AT
- Halved motorised breakthrough and armor
- Reduced AT gun piercing
- Added missing tungsten cost to mot rocket arty
- Total rebalance of tanks
- Tank weapons now based on turret weight class

###
# Stability & Performance
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- Fixed player/ai list not being properly reset when going back to menu, triggering OOS on new games
- Significantly improved game startup time

###
# Graphics
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- Fixed naval fort model luminance problem

###
# Bugfix
###
- Fixed issue where Danzig could get stuck with negative modifier when Polish Danzig focuses were getting bypassed.
- When loading a save from a lost ironman game, observer mode is loaded and ironman flag should be turned off.
- Fixed script parser silently ignoring last line of a file if it didn't contain a newline
- Fix positioning of the Expand Polish Intelligence branch when Man the Guns is not active. Without MtG the focus Expand Polish Intelligence will no longer require the player to complete the (MtG DLC-locked) parent focus Prepare for the Inevitable.
- Added newline at the end of equipment bonus tooltip
- Fixed George VI national spirit showing an advisor portrait instead of the regular national spirit portrait.
- Hooked-in several NSB Baltic portraits for generals that were using generic ones.
- Fix AI Queueing more railway upgrades than it intended
- Fix allied task force local supply draw
- fixed a reference to a missing German armor 3d model (this should not alter any 3d assets being displayed, just cleaned up the error log)
- Fixed issue where Generals, Field Marshals and Admirals were not being transfered when annexing through Polish and Lithuanian monarchist events.
- Made it less likely that The Soviet Union partitions Poland with Lithuania if Lithuania is AI, and even less likely if Poland is controlled by the player.
- Spanish generals should again be able to properly pick a side when the Civil War starts
- Fixed exploit which allowed circumvention of the building removal cooldown effective while at war.
- Adapt assignable trait skilled_staffer so field marshals can also gain xp in that trait.
- Air Supply now redistributes supply consumption to the hosting airbase.
- Fixed bugs with multiple air supply missions having zero effect."
- Soviet focuses will no longer grant tank designs if NSB is not active.
- Soviet focuses requiring certain armor tech will now check for the appropriate tech based on NSB being active or not.
- German focus Danubian Membership will no longer be bypassed if only one of the countries is gone, a subject, or allied to Germany. It requires all three countries to fulfill one of those conditions in order to get bypassed.
- Fixed supply network sometimes reporting no connection when shortest path traveled through an enemy province
- Added loc to an unlocalized Estonian country flag
- Fixed continous focus exploit which allowed stacking modifiers
- In civil war process, when copying unit leaders, use the clone function rather than recreating the unit leader from template (some unit leaders do not have template). Also use the character merge mecanism for those copies too if the revolter country receiving those copies already have the character.
- Fixed crash caused by invalid naval invasion order
- Railway guns should no longer be able to end up in a naval invasion
- Fixed crash caused by invalid province templates in mods during trade route computation
- Fixed CTD when playing tutorial videos or opening the ingame browser on DirectX 11
- Fixed Empire of Brazil being so much into Fascism
- Fixed inconsistencies with Dutch Wilhelmina national spirit portrait.
- Fixed logistics strike mission not taking plane number into account correctly
- Soviet focus 'Committee in Exile' focus can now be bypassed if the Civil War is completed
- Modifiers from propaganda campaigns are now properly cleared when Soviet Union capitulates.
- Emilio Mola will no longer be retired after completing the focus The National-Syndicalist State, he will just drop his country leader roles but will keep his advisor and unit leader roles.
- Swapped Soviet armored cars I and II in the tech tree.
- Communist support threshold to complete Estonian focus Break the Silence has been increased to be less than 5% (instead of less than 1%)
- Fixed several character issues with Spanish Falangists in the focus tree. Emilio Mola and Primo de Rivera should be properly handled now and will no longer be literally killed in order to allow the other to take over as country leader.
- Capital supply connection graph will now prioritize shorter sea routes
- Supply network now considers convoy availability and tries to prioritize throughput over unconditionally avoiding naval connections
- Naval Supply routes now respect blocked region flags.
- Fixed Patagonian lake being considered some sort of flooded plain aberration and prevented players from building nuclear reactors on it.
- Fixed an issue that made it impossible for players to progress down the Vichy focus tree because a Petain imposter was in charge
- German Air Innovations 2 now correctly reduces cost of air doctrines, rather than increasing research speed
- Fixed some design company ideas not having bonuses shown on equipment stats page
- Steal blueprints operation no longer gives access to locked out mutual exclude branches
- Taskforces operating in a blocked naval region can draw supply from naval bases in that region
- Characters no longer get traits for other classes of characters from national spirits
- Supply Network (and tooltips) now correctly factor in building damage when considering throughput
- Issuing a move command to a province the unit is already fighting in no longer resets combat
- Non-NSB tanks once again have their correct reliability (80%) across the board
- Fix rail construction partial progress not getting saved correctly
- The Turkish investment decisions should now actually work
- Fix British designers focus for baltics not giving correct air bonuses
- Fix crash in any_navy_leader, all_navy_leader, any_army_leader, all_army_leader when there is no general/field marshal or no admiral in a country
- Stalinist mission Behead the Snake should now properly kill Trotsky when the player is going opposition.
- Changed the Polish Focus 'Request Autonomous Status' so it can be bypassed if Poland is more than autonomous than a reichsprotectorate or integrated puppet.
- Fix so that Franco can use Nationalist Infantry Division names in 39
- Fix upgrade costs not being calculated consistently
- Fixed issue where event for Poland dismissing Lithuania's claim to its throne is sent to the wrong country.
- Fixed issue where Poland's Ignacy Moscicki would have the legacy portrait instead of using the new one from NSB.
- Rocket interceptors pilots don't consider themselves too cool for school anymore
- Toggling naval region access settings should no longer make captains panic when they reach a blocked zone and get stuck in place
- Rumors of TODOs in Soviet Stalinist missions flavor texts turned out to be counter-revolutionary propaganda. There never was any TODOs.
- Fix carrier based fighters sometimes not contributing to combat
- Fixed CTD when renaming a railway gun variant.