Hearts of Iron 4

Gonzovision

Hearts of Iron 4 is out tomorrow, anyone going to pick it up?

Could never really get into the last one. Loved the premise of it, but I found it far more complex than CK2 or EU4. I have watched a few of Quill18s "Let's Play" and it does seem a bit more streamlined than the previous game. Things like supply seem a lot more straight forward, which I think, for me at least is a good thing.

Pre-ordered anyway, as I love Paradox games, so looking forward to playing tomorrow. Sunk 40 odd hours in to Stellaris so far, so would be happy if this was as approachable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiqAAGj79hc

pablomakaveli

Im going to hold off I think. I have HOI3 but never played it much. And of all the Paradox grand strategy titles I have is the one that interested me least. If it gets positive feedback might give it a try eventually though.

Sand

I've pre-ordered, enjoyed HoI 2 and 3, and Paradox are on a bit of a roll with Stellaris.

I like the battle planning - in HoI 3 I micro managed everything, but the battle plan AI seem's 'good enough' that I don't have to. The supply system has been streamlined, which is excellent. The HoI3 was extremely complex and very opaque. Things would suddenly start going horribly wrong due to some event that happened 30 days ago. In HoI3 it was critical to build up air transports and establish air-supply chains to circumvent the supply AI, because the player could not influence it or instruct it.

They've also got rid of so much micro with the removal of leaders at division/corp level. And the removal of HQs - my god, the micro required when starting a Soviet game in HoI3. It literally took hours to reorganise that hellish OOB.

I also really like the sandbox nature of the game, with the national focuses offering a way to custom a nation/game to the way you want to play it. I.E. instead of invading Poland, Germany can ally with it and build a network of allies from the Baltic states to Romania to face off against the Soviets. Alternatively, the allies can go to war (at the cost of a French civil war) over the Rhineland in 1936.

The sandbox nature of the game is the aspect most under threat - there is definitely a forum group out there which hates the idea of a sandbox WW2 game. They want the game to run to the timetable set in the history books, and any deviations from it are 'ahistorical' or 'impossible'. HoI3 was initially very sandbox-ish but the forums were besieged with people moaning about things not falling into place without their own effort. Paradox conceded by basically railroading the AI so that every game of HoI3 was basically the same unless the player did something drastically different. There was entire strategies for Germany that relied on disbanding most of the military in 1936 because you could be 100% certain you would never be attacked by the railroaded AI. Hopefully the same thing does not happen in HoI4.

pablomakaveli

Sand wrote: »

The sandbox nature of the game is the aspect most under threat - there is definitely a forum group out there which hates the idea of a sandbox WW2 game. They want the game to run to the timetable set in the history books, and any deviations from it are 'ahistorical' or 'impossible'. HoI3 was initially very sandbox-ish but the forums were besieged with people moaning about things not falling into place without their own effort. Paradox conceded by basically railroading the AI so that every game of HoI3 was basically the same unless the player did something drastically different. There was entire strategies for Germany that relied on disbanding most of the military in 1936 because you could be 100% certain you would never be attacked by the railroaded AI. Hopefully the same thing does not happen in HoI4.

I hate those kind of people. You often see them on the paradox forums, and not just the HOI but EU4 and CK2 as well. The most fun thing about these games for me is the oppurtunity to take history on a completely different course. I hope they are ignored.

TerrorFirmer

How accessible is this game to a newbie? Never played Hearts of Iron but I'm a massive history buff so this is right up my alley, on paper at least. Love Company of Heroes (I know it's like comparing a leaflet and a novel) and used to be a big fan of Civ 2 back in the day.

Sand

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

How accessible is this game to a newbie? Never played Hearts of Iron but I'm a massive history buff so this is right up my alley, on paper at least. Love Company of Heroes (I know it's like comparing a leaflet and a novel) and used to be a big fan of Civ 2 back in the day.

Seems to be much more accessible than HoI3. The supply system is simple - every region has a limit, go over it you have problems. Stay under it, you dont. There is no HQ units to assign units to and organise into an optimal OOB. The leaders are assigned at army level only. Hit a button to create a theatre, grab some units to assign to it, add a leader - drag select their initial positions and their target. Done.

When changing a division template, you do not have to manually build and attach brigades to dozens or hundreds of units like in HoI3 - just change the template, and they will automatically feed into existing divisions as you build the equipment. Trade system is much simpler - no need to do a half dozen micro trades to build up relations before doing the real trade. Practicals are looked at from a different aspect - in HoI3 it was often optimal to build a host of units you had no interest in using because it generated practicals for units you did want to build.

Its basically HoI3, but better as far as I can see.

Paradox are also doing a lot of 'Beginner Tutorial' videos for every aspect of the game which you can see on Youtube - they're linked from the Steam page.

Gonzovision

Only a few hours left until release. After watching a few more 'Let's Plays' this morning, I'm pretty confident I have a reasonable handle on the basics at least.

I think on first play through I'll go for a historical German game.

Reviews coming in have been very promising so far.

riffmongous

I loved HOI2 but I just couldn't get into 3, there was just too much detail for me, same thing happened with Europa Universalis

Gonzovision

riffmongous wrote: »

I loved HOI2 but I just couldn't get into 3, there was just too much detail for me, same thing happened with Europa Universalis

Ye, think I only completed two games of three.....started dozens, but the level of micromanagement made me quickly lose all interest. This one looks far more stream lined in that regard, so very excited now.

Sand

Gonzovision wrote: »

Only a few hours left until release. After watching a few more 'Let's Plays' this morning, I'm pretty confident I have a reasonable handle on the basics at least.

I think on first play through I'll go for a historical German game.

Reviews coming in have been very promising so far.

I'm going to go for a fairly ahistorical 'good guy' Germany game. Going to try gain what I can as peacefully as possible, build up allies in the east against the Soviets and see how long I can keep things peaceful for.

Gonzovision

Played for about 6 hours last night. Have to say I'm really liking it.

I quickly drifted from historical focus, I started boosting fascism in the US, and the fascist party won the next election. USA became the Freedom States, and even sent me troops after the allies declared war on me.

Currently the German Reich stretches from the borders of Russia to Spain, and I also have large tracts of land in Central Africa, where the Allies are struggling to hold the Italians and Germans back.

I have a couple of options now, whether to continue eats and crush the Soviets or concentrate on breaking the UK.

I'm not 100% on how to use navy or airforce efficiently, so will have to have a look into this. If I turn my attention to UK I'll need a large strategic bombing force also.

Sand

My 'good guy' Germany is going well - Its late 1941. The world is still at peace, and Japan is the primary bad boy. I've been able to use the national focus tree to peacefully take Austria, Memel, Sudetenland and Czechslovakia. Traded Poland Slovakia for Danzig so sidestepped the Allied guarantee. I carved up Yugoslavia, some going to neighbours but the majority is part of the Reich. I gave northern Greece to Bulgaria and puppeted the rest. I've built a comintern pact, with Poland & Co. but I need a border with the SU to turn it into a full anti-Soviet alliance, so am waiting for the Soviets to demand eastern Poland which should give me the border.

I love Paradox, own every single title they have on Steam, but there is absolutely no chance I'm picking this or Stellaris up just yet. Their DLC practices really aren't cool with me. I can wait.

JD1763

Loving this game. I know on the stream Daniel didn't think Italy was a good tutorial country but really enjoying their campaign. The national focus tree presents really interesting political options with Spain, Portugal and Yugoslavia that can completely change the direction you take.

I did make the mistake of pushing too aggressively too early for Yugoslavia and tension went over 50% so now France and UK are guaranteeing the other Baltic States and Albania. Trying to organise a fascist coup in Albania right now and planning an Africa campaign to take the French, UK and Belgian holdings when war breaks out. Going to let Germany worry about Europe and hold the French line with strong Alpine units. All that oil in Iran is also very tempting...

Gonzovision

Ye have to say, I'm having a fantastic time also.

In my German campaign the UK has capitulated after I invaded at the south coast. All was going well until I got somewhat impatient on the Russian front. I tried to send some divisions through the centre towards Moscow, and supported by the remaining divisions pushing forward across a wide front line. I got overwhelmed and the Soviets have eaten up land to the North all the way down to Warsaw. Now I'm in quite the pickle as my factories are being constantly sabotaged, so I have zero production, not enough supplies or support.

I think where I went wrong was managing the occupied countries. I may have been too strict with them.


Think I'm going to start a new game as France later.

Blowfish

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

How accessible is this game to a newbie? Never played Hearts of Iron but I'm a massive history buff so this is right up my alley, on paper at least. Love Company of Heroes (I know it's like comparing a leaflet and a novel) and used to be a big fan of Civ 2 back in the day.

Just for anyone else wondering about this, I'd highly recommend watching the dev Single Player Japan campaign before/during your first playthrough.

Paradox's strategy games have a serious amount of depth and complexity which is ultimately incredibly rewarding, but they do lump you in the deep end a bit if you've never played one before.

Gonzovision

First hotfix is out in beta now.

hotfix beta

Hotfix 1.0.1

Stability & Performance
Fixed several rare CTDs.
Late-game performance optimizations.
Large peace conference resolutions are now faster and also properly indicate that they are active to non-participants.
Added GUI scaling option for people with very small or very high resolution displays (experimental).
Added a max framerate limiting system (defaults to 75 fps) to help people with the combination of bad cooling, great graphics cards and very high screen refresh. If you are one of these with heat issues I would love to hear if this solved it (changing max_fram_rate in settings can let you remove its effect by making it higher, or go lower if you still have issues)

Gameplay
Fixed an issue with deploying troops during spanish civil war when continuing savegames.
Can now zoom in and out using PgUp and PgDown buttons on keyboard.
Stopped an exploit where player could redirect a naval transfer into an invasion without preparation.
Fixed a case where fleets who found themselves outside base range would be instantly deleted.
Fixed some highlighting issues in tutorial.

Content
Added 9 new unique nation leader portraits.
Improved some VP/state names in China.
Improved a lot of alternate ideology nation names and party/leader names.
France can now send volunteers to Spain if they choose the Support Nationalists focus.
Fixed many localization issues, both in english and other languages.

JD1763

Just finished my first game last night - ended up as the Republic of Italy :P after capitulating and joining the allies in 1946. It was all going pretty well - nationalist Spain had won, Germany had crushed France, I had taken Yugoslavia and Greece. Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria were all fascist governments and in the Axis. But then China beat Japan, Germany went after Russia and the US joined the war. African theatre turned into a real slugfest - there's just too much territory with no supply lines.

Ended up losing most of my navy in the Med to the UK and was invaded by a huge US/UK army. Managed to beat them though as they pushed up north and ran into the German line on the other side of the Alps. I rallied and cut off their supply routes so they ended up trapped in a pocket in the Alpine region with huge attrition. But it bought space and time for a landing in the Netherlands and for the Soviets to push Germany back to Danzig. A second mass invasion through Italy and that was it. Switzerland joined the Allies and smashed into my northern lines and it turned into a long slow decline with Germany fighting on three fronts. The Soviet wall of red is something else it just swept through the Balkans, Turkey and Iran.

Interesting occurrences were Nationalist Spain joining the Axis in '45 just as Berlin fell and getting eaten by the Allies. Sweden invaded Japan. Ireland also joined the Allies in '46 and even had a division knocking around Spain at the end. All in all a great game (despite losing) very tempted to try Italy again or maybe Sweden...

SpannerMonkey

Has anyone mastered naval invasions yet. Its driving me mad. I started a game as USA and turned them communist so i can invade who i want. I conquered all of the americas mainland (north / central / south america ). But when i tried to invade Haiti i get hammered . I have total naval and air supremecy . I launched an invasion with over 120 divisions of high tier troops and got hanmered by 8 divisions from haiti.

After numerous failed attempts i nuked them 10 times includeing as i was about to invade. Launced massive air strikes from every air base in the region over 20 air squadrons . Had over 100 naval units surrounding the island and nearly 200 divisions attacking . Still got hammered .

So unless Haiti has star trek technology how are they holding out ?

Gonzovision

I'm not sure to be honest. In my American game I had my "D-Day" in the north of Spain. I was able to successfully invade with about 30 divisions.

Did you try invade the island form another point? It definitely doesn't sound right though, might be worth asking on the HOI forums or on Reddit.

Let us know if you hear anything back.

CruelCoin

Gonzovision wrote: »

First hotfix is out in beta now.

hotfix beta

Good.

Around 1943-1944 the game starts chugging.

I have a pc powerfull enough to run every single game on the market at 60fps on max settings, but it cannot run this smoothly beyond late-war? pffft.

Patch can't come soon enough

Gonzovision

Think we'll be waiting a bit longer for performance issues to be fully sorted. Beta patch made a difference, but in 1949 in my Soviet campaign and it's very painful.

SpannerMonkey

Gonzovision wrote: »

I'm not sure to be honest. In my American game I had my "D-Day" in the north of Spain. I was able to successfully invade with about 30 divisions.

Did you try invade the island form another point? It definitely doesn't sound right though, might be worth asking on the HOI forums or on Reddit.

Let us know if you hear anything back.

Haiti is small . Only 3 seperate land areas. I eventually landed in one because there was no army there but my army ran out of supplies because i didnt have the port . It was one of my smallest armies that did . Only 10 divisions . And onece they had me beat they spread out anx covered every area so i couldnt do it again with a bigger force

JD1763

Have not looked at the Americas yet but are there high level land and sea forts or they do have high defensive (skilled defence general and entrenchment) values?

Maybe try upgrading landing craft and marines to level 3 before invading (if not already tried). Will have to load up the game later and take a look at Haiti's characteristics as this sounds very interesting.

SpannerMonkey

JD1763 wrote: »

Have not looked at the Americas yet but are there high level land and sea forts or they do have high defensive (skilled defence general and entrenchment) values?

Maybe try upgrading landing craft and marines to level 3 before invading (if not already tried). Will have to load up the game later and take a look at Haiti's characteristics as this sounds very interesting.

eventually took them by launching a massive invasion of the dominican republic with 6 sea invasions OVER 200 DIVISIONS !! and paratroopers . aswell as over 400 aircract and 500 ships . and once i had that i launched a land invasion of haiti . insane i took that much though

CruelCoin

Gonzovision wrote: »

Think we'll be waiting a bit longer for performance issues to be fully sorted. Beta patch made a difference, but in 1949 in my Soviet campaign and it's very painful.

According to Reddit, its because HOI utilises only the 1st core of your cpu.
So what you need is a really fast single-thread speed cpu. The extra cores are doing nothing.

What might help a tiny bit i imagine is to set your processor affinity to different core. Most of the usual windows stuff is loaded into core 1, so setting HOI to use core 2 might give you an extra 10%.

Chugginess will start in 1944, not 1943 now!

SpannerMonkey

This is probably the best strategy game ive ever played its unreal !!!!!!!!!!
there are so many different ways of doing things and different combinations for different terrain / weather/ political allegiances / trade etc its mahoosive .

one major critic of it is the tutorial is god awful . might aswell not be there . this is my first hearts of iron game and the learning curve is severe .

well worth it though





PS: i have found there is some weird time warp effect when im playing it . you look at your watch and its 10pm and look again 10 mins later and its 3am :P

Gonzovision

Pretty embarrassed to say, I've played for 101 hours already

jaffusmax

Gonzovision wrote: »

Pretty embarrassed to say, I've played for 101 hours already

49 Hours here and would have been more had work and children not eaten into game time LOL

Great game!

SpannerMonkey

Gonzovision wrote: »

Pretty embarrassed to say, I've played for 101 hours already

over 75hrs myself and i only have it 2 weeks .

Gonzovision

Haha not feeling so bad now :-D

SpannerMonkey

so has anyone messed around with division designer ? what combos are ye using ?

Gonzovision

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

so has anyone messed around with division designer ? what combos are ye using ?

The main one I use is adding to artillery to my infantry division. If you compare it to adding artillery as support there is quite a big difference between the soft attacks.

It does require a fair bit of extra production lines of towed artillery but has worked well for me so far.

SpannerMonkey

what is the difference between soft and hard attack ?

Gonzovision

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

what is the difference between soft and hard attack ?

Basically my understanding is hard is for armored and soft is for infantry.

CruelCoin

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

so has anyone messed around with division designer ? what combos are ye using ?

All my land divisions are made up of:

6 battalions infantry
Engineer company
logistics company
anti-tank company
Recon company

I find artillery such a pain in the hole to build and maintain in terms of resources.

Stack the divisions high and focus on encirclement.

pawrick

Been trying to learn how to play the game as Brazil, got bored declared war on Ireland mid rampage around South America to get closer to the action in europe. Now I'm being invaded by the allies which it joined after I declared. It's a little irritating that I got sucked in to a war with the allies which I cant win but I'm using this as a trial run to get used to the settings etc. Had HOI 3 but never had time to play it so it's all new to me. Crusader Kings 2 was always my go to game.

What else...still trying to figure out how to a sea attack with marines, I just cant seem to do it. Might have to google a you tube vid on it. Paratroops also, I managed to drop them once and cant remember how to do it again. I need a lot more practice with this game before i have a serious go at a campaign.

CruelCoin

pawrick wrote: »

Been trying to learn how to play the game as Brazil, got bored declared war on Ireland mid rampage around South America to get closer to the action in europe. Now I'm being invaded by the allies which it joined after I declared. It's a little irritating that I got sucked in to a war with the allies which I cant win but I'm using this as a trial run to get used to the settings etc. Had HOI 3 but never had time to play it so it's all new to me. Crusader Kings 2 was always my go to game.

I played Brazil too. Staying neutral while you convert it to Democracy, so you can join the allies in 1941 or so worked well for me.
Gave me time to focus on getting a powerhouse of an economy before i went to town in Africa and retook all the land for the allies. Brazil is well placed for that given how close it is.
One big tip for brazil is to focus on infrastructure and naval ports. Its godawful to start with, and will really screw with you supply wise

Doodleking

the game seems unfinished to me

SpannerMonkey

Doodleking wrote: »

the game seems unfinished to me

in what way

AllthingsCP

Loving it right now. I play non historical mainly online. Anyone interested add me
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198095467281/ private til you add me

SpannerMonkey

so anyone doing the Achievements ? started the northern light one last night . was seconds away from getting it, had Norway and Sweden puppeted and out of nowhere the allies became allied with Denmark and messed it all up i went from attacking 8 divisions to 75 and allied invasions starting all along my coastline

AllthingsCP

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

so has anyone messed around with division designer ? what combos are ye using ?

Infantry
Front row 3 Arty
Second Row 3 Inf
Third Row 3 Inf
Fourth Row Right Flank Arty Middle Inf Left Flank Arty

Support
Arty
Recon
Field Hos
Engineer
Log

I thinks is 26 Width but 3 attacking is enough.

Soft Attack is just under 300,

Once you get Anti Tank take out a Middle unit of inf and replace

This works great for a Minor nation

SpannerMonkey

anyone still playing this

Gonzovision

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

anyone still playing this

Ye still plugging away it now and again. Should get a new lease of life with the next expansion.Big overhaul on the naval front.

SpannerMonkey

ya ive been working my way through the achievements . all the easy ones gone . now im on the likes of conquer russia and germany as romania while at war with the allies or some other mad one like that . looking foward to the expansion . looks to be really changing the game up a bit . the new fuel system will be interesting

TheValeyard

I'm terrible at this game.

Just finished a Man in the High Castle binge. I wanted to play as Germany and conquer the known world.

Poland not only beat back my invasion but also conquered my Eastern region.

SpannerMonkey

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

I'm terrible at this game.

Just finished a Man in the High Castle binge. I wanted to play as Germany and conquer the known world.

Poland not only beat back my invasion but also conquered my Eastern region.

LOL HOW ?

TheValeyard

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

LOL HOW ?

That's how bad I am.


Seriously bad. I'm the Italy of actual war.

Dave_The_Sheep

If it's any consolation, I am similarly sh*t. It's a game I really want to get into, but haven't devoted the time to get good at it. I really should watch a few beginner's guide videos etc, because the replayability is massive I presume.

SpannerMonkey

once you get the basics down its pretty easy . if ye want a tutorial some time i can go through it with ye in game it is a hard game to start from scratch . as there really isnt a tutorial that teaches you the basics . but it has massive repeatability . i have over 500 hours in it . one of my favourite games