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Hearts of Iron 4

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HoI3 was the most confusing Paradox game I ever played. Is this one any more user friendly?

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HoI3 was the most confusing Paradox game I ever played. Is this one any more user friendly?

 

Well, I looked at HoI3 when it came out and thought "no thanks" and shut it down never to open it up again.  I've also never really played much EU4 or CK2 (despite wishing I had the time and owning all million and one dlcs for them).  However, I recently got into Stellaris and loved it and it was that really (along with listening to a BBC podcast about the 75th anniversary of Operation Barbarosa) that caused me to buy HoI4.

 

I have to say, it's got it's claws into me already.  It's excellent, easy to understand and wide in scope.  I've played around 8 or 9 hours so far as Australia, just to get to grips with the game - it's early 1941 now and we are a fascist state allied with Germany and Japan in fighting mother Britain. It won't end well but I'll be able to try manage a larger power next time around.

 

If you do pick it up (and you should), I recommend going through the inadequate tutorial mission as Italy and then watch the 5 tutorial videos from the Paradox Extra YouTube Channel. You should have no problem managing your war machine and multiple fronts after that. 

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I've been playing it.  I like it, a lot.  I like that it's easier to go down alternate history paths than in hoi3 (such as communist germany, facist france, etc.)  I think the trade screen is genius.  I don't have to automate trade anymore, because they made it actually easy to set up trades on your own.  I appreciate that they got rid of the old process of producing civilian goods to make money then trading money for resources, instead you can just rent out your civilian goods industry in exchange for resources.  I like the national focus trees, but I wish they were longer and more varied (something mods will address no doubt).

Most of my complaints right now are related to the AI.  It's mostly competent when it comes to combat and can even pull of naval invasions (sort of).  However, I find that when it comes to diplomacy it seems like I'm playing by myself.  I've boosted ideological support in several countries and even staged coups causing the countries to flip to a different political ideology, but have never seen the AI engage in the same tactics.  In fact you can flip basically any country in the game to your faction ideology if you just start supporting it from the beginning of the game.  By 1939 you're virtually guaranteed to have flipped even major powers like the US or UK.  There needs to be more push back from AI nations.  I also think peace conferences are pretty messed up at the moment, but I understand they are already working on it.

Overall if you're on the fence, I'd maybe hold off for a month or two and then dive in.  It's much more approachable than Hoi3, like exponentially so and most of the changes seem to have been for the better.

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Yeah I find the research trees a little linear too. It would be nicer to have a big pool to choose from rather than picking an initial path and just progressing down it. I suppose it does commit you to an ideology though.

Regarding trade, one thing that irritates me is that I can't seem to sell my surplus resources. For example, It would be nice to be able to trade my extra steel for the oil I need rather than have to give up my factories for it.

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I've been playing it.  I like it, a lot.  I like that it's easier to go down alternate history paths than in hoi3 (such as communist germany, facist france, etc.)  I think the trade screen is genius.  I don't have to automate trade anymore, because they made it actually easy to set up trades on your own.  I appreciate that they got rid of the old process of producing civilian goods to make money then trading money for resources, instead you can just rent out your civilian goods industry in exchange for resources.  I like the national focus trees, but I wish they were longer and more varied (something mods will address no doubt).

Most of my complaints right now are related to the AI.  It's mostly competent when it comes to combat and can even pull of naval invasions (sort of).  However, I find that when it comes to diplomacy it seems like I'm playing by myself.  I've boosted ideological support in several countries and even staged coups causing the countries to flip to a different political ideology, but have never seen the AI engage in the same tactics.  In fact you can flip basically any country in the game to your faction ideology if you just start supporting it from the beginning of the game.  By 1939 you're virtually guaranteed to have flipped even major powers like the US or UK.  There needs to be more push back from AI nations.  I also think peace conferences are pretty messed up at the moment, but I understand they are already working on it.

Overall if you're on the fence, I'd maybe hold off for a month or two and then dive in.  It's much more approachable than Hoi3, like exponentially so and most of the changes seem to have been for the better.

Dang it now I really want to pull off my plan of building up the Turkish military and conquering Greece when the German fortunes turn in Russia. Might have to get this game now.

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Yeah I find the research trees a little linear too. It would be nicer to have a big pool to choose from rather than picking an initial path and just progressing down it. I suppose it does commit you to an ideology though.

Regarding trade, one thing that irritates me is that I can't seem to sell my surplus resources. For example, It would be nice to be able to trade my extra steel for the oil I need rather than have to give up my factories for it.

Yeah you can change export laws which control how much of your resources leave the country vs how much you can use.  Higher exports give a bonus to factory construction and research speed, but there is no discrete trade 3 oil for 4 steel like there was in previous games.

I think they may be able to fix the national focus problems just by slowing down how long it takes to get them.  It takes so little time to blitz through the focus trees that you end up with most of the good stuff by the time the war has barely started.  I would think that a country would have to invest significant resources in its nuclear program to the exclusion of other parts of the state if they wanted to develop nuclear weapons early.  However, with the way it currently works every country will eventually get the nuclear weapons focus if only for lack of other things to do.  So even poor Honduras or Bhutan will end up with the ability to produce nukes by the end of the game.  I think it should be a bit harder than that.

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I "finished" my first game as Germany during the weekend. I stopped in 1942 after completing the invasion on the UK. I was expecting the Western War to end then since all Europe and African was in mine or the Italian hands. The USA was fascist and I wasn't yet at war with the Soviet Union. The Allies were done but refused to recognize this. Canada and Australia weren't places I cared enough to build up the Kriegsmarine to go attack. It kind of felt like a let down and couldn't be arsed gearing up for Barbarossa.

 

I really really like the battleplan system. It feels really good to have my main infantry armies set up to just sweep a long line into enemy territory. My armor and motorised is staged on tiny fronts, aimed directly at far objectives and out strips the infantry line. Watching it go with only the odd manual control to push a panzer division into a gap feels very much like blitzkreig.

 

Something about the way it plays feels slightly off. Maybe that it is too balanced. I think it might be that every focus tree is kind of the same (flavour text differences) but mostly the same tracks to be followed. As a result all the countries seem to be in roughly the same position after a couple of years. I think the elements of the focus trees should have different costs, it's all well and good having 90 days for Germany to justify going back into the Rhineland but Plan Z should be longer than 90 days. How quickly the national focuses come and after you have filled your cabinet, political power seems very easy to come by.

The air war is very definitely broken though. From elsewhere it seems the only winning strategy with fighters is to use them as a doomstack as splitting into 200 plane wings just sees them wiped out piecemeal. I lost most of my fighters in the first month of war on the Western Front and despite building all the time. I was only able to recover air superiority after to using the old park a tank on their airfield trick.

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I can confirm that the game is much more understandable than HoI3. I played the tutorial quick then jumped into playing Turkey. My plan was to conquer Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and snag Armenia/Azerbaijan from Iran. After that I would wait for the war to turn against the Germans and join the Allies to secure some more European territory for my Ottoman Empire 2.0.

My plan went fine up until the war with Iran. I quickly secured my objectives but due to a miss-understanding of how war score works I ended up having to conquer most of Iran to get them to surrender a relatively small part of their nation. The end result of which was a very long war that ended with my just claiming all of Iran because I had already conquered most of it.

 

The next hurdle was joining the Allies. I had used my National Focus to industrialize and try to get nukes (My end goal was a Turkey controlling almost all of Middle East oil and with a few Nukes in its pocket, making it a Cold War powerhouse.) As a result I had a different ideology than the allies and they would not let me in. I solved this by declaring a war of conquest on Fascist Bulgaria and getting pulled into the war when all their allies declared on me. Now on the allied side I was able to quickly smash Bulgaria and join up with the Soviet lines in Romania. (In my game the Soviets declared war on the Germans first and had been pushing a front line towards them for almost two years. The US seems sort of aimless? and France ended up liberating themselves.)

I am not at the point where Europe has been completely liberated, but because all of Africa fell to the Italians and a little bit to Spain and Germans, the war has moved there, but is almost over. The problem now is that Japan is not getting attacked. Hopefully I can figure out how to build some nukes and shortcut my way to victory. I do not want to load Turkish troops onto boats to invade Japan.

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The new expansion is everything I was hoping for, more national focuses, more system complexity, more nations to liberate. Super excited about it. I hope the next several expansions just go more in depth for different regions/groups like this.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-south-africa-together-for-victory.979679/&sdpDevPosts=1

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Got this over the holidays and made it through the inevitable Paradox learning curve with the help of You tubers like Bridger. 

 

My first HOI. Really enjoying the era specific Grand Strategy feeling that permeates the game.  I'm also digging my first Japan in WW2 strategy play through in any game ever.

 

I am finding the army order mechanics VERY fiddly, so I tend to micro the battles  but I'll keep trying to master those controls.

 

Fighting a land war in China was intensely fun but it's all over now and Mao is toast.  I let Chaing have Tibet and Xingiang as a consolation.  It's  time to take to the seas and build the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity sphere,while hopefully sinking dozens of Anglo American fleets in the process 😀 

 

Aluminum is going to be a resource problem though and I need those Zeros!

 

I love combined arms games, I just wish HOI didn't have all those endless entire fleet v.s. 1-2 ship battles like EU and CK have. Oh well can't have everything.

 

Perhaps I'll I become disenchanted as I dig deeper -- I've struggled with EU and Vicky in the past- but this has been a lotta fun for $25 or so.  

 

 

 

 

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44 minutes ago, Gatazhk said:

Got this over the holidays and made it through the inevitable Paradox learning curve with the help of You tubers like Bridger. 

 

My first HOI. Really enjoying the era specific Grand Strategy feeling that permeates the game.  I'm also digging my first Japan in WW2 strategy play through in any game ever.

 

I am finding the army order mechanics VERY fiddly, so I tend to micro the battles  but I'll keep trying to master those controls.

 

Fighting a land war in China was intensely fun but it's all over now and Mao is toast.  I let Chaing have Tibet and Xingiang as a consolation.  It's  time to take to the seas and build the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity sphere,while hopefully sinking dozens of Anglo American fleets in the process 😀 

 

Aluminum is going to be a resource problem though and I need those Zeros!

 

I love combined arms games, I just wish HOI didn't have all those endless entire fleet v.s. 1-2 ship battles like EU and CK have. Oh well can't have everything.

 

Perhaps I'll I become disenchanted as I dig deeper -- I've struggled with EU and Vicky in the past- but this has been a lotta fun for $25 or so.  

 

 

 

 

I really hope the next expansion focuses on the pacific. There are some decent China national focus mods, but that nation really feels like the biggest missing part of HOI4

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Looks like we are getting a bloodlands DLC. A weirdly vocal part of the community is upset Bulgaria isn't in this one.

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I bought this while it was on sale, and am having a lot of fun. The one thing that I've had a hard time understanding is the concept of troop supply. The wiki has some information, but I'm still not 100% clear on it. Anyone have a more detailed information source?

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13 minutes ago, Dewar said:

I bought this while it was on sale, and am having a lot of fun. The one thing that I've had a hard time understanding is the concept of troop supply. The wiki has some information, but I'm still not 100% clear on it. Anyone have a more detailed information source?

Its essentially how much access your troops have to fuel and replacement equipment/mans, you need railroads and ports to connect your troops to supply properly. Consumption goes up when in combat, moving etc. although there is a base level at all times. If your troops run out of supplies offensives grind to a halt and your troops will probably all die. 

 

Here is a Dev Diary on the topic: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-33rd-development-diary-supply.891122/


P.S. I am loving the new DLC, more ahistorical madness!

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Paradox interactive has a huge variety of games, which I appreciate.  Hearts of Iron is one of my favorite series from them, but I also really like Mount and Blade.

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