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Rob Zacny

Episode 360: Hearts of Iron IV

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Three Moves Ahead 360:

 

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Hearts of Iron IV

Rob is joined by Bruce, Jonathan Bolding, and Fraser Brown to discuss the latest in Paradox Interactive's stable of historical games, Hearts of Iron IV. This latest entry in the series returns us to World War II, except it's not always World War II, but that's kind of the point, except when it's not. Despite a few glaring oversights in documentation, the panel has plenty of good things to say about the joy of being "historish". Tune in to find out: is the whole game great, or just Parts of Iron?

 

Hearts of Iron IV

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What is the podcast that had Bruce talking to Mark Herman?

 

Designer Notes?

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I've probably had more fun with this Paradox game than more or less any other Paradox game I have played though I agree with almost all of the criticisms made in this pod (especially Bruce's). The supply system doesn't appear to really work to me. I've seen Barbarossa launched in December and get to Moscow in record time and chinese nationalists march in to central Siberia in mid winter too. In my most recent game as Russia Britain invaded Germany across the alps and cut a line straight up the middle to Denmark. You end up with a very detailed complex but bad simulation and I wonder if they just abstracted out the moving units around and had you assign resources commanders and select doctrines for campaigns or fronts and then let the AI work it out. I do love the political and economic engine though. I find up until the war really interesting. I've been playing multi player a lot (with 4 or 5) and this has yielded some great moments. The best part of the game for mewas wimping out as the UK at the Munich agreement. We had to pause the game for about 5 minutes whilst i stared at the screen and thought this out. In the end i decided I had sent too many divisions to find Japan in China with my French allies.

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I hope the absence of good documentation doesn't end up repeating this goofy but MAJOR bug that persisted in HoI3 for like 2 expansions.

 

Basically the bug was that none of the defensive stats worked... and it wasn't even known by anyone for like 2 expansions or so.

 

I'm definitely going to buy this game soon ish but from sound of it it is so much better than what I had to deal with HoI3 gladly hehehehe

 

I also think HoI3 initially had this supply simulation that was inherited from HoI2, where all supplies flew out of the capital so early on you can do some goofy thing like logistics bomb the capital and entire ground force would fall apart (or am I recalling HoI2 and mixing it up here?).

 

There was also this bug where Allies would get stuck on channel island with like all 100+ divisions, which messed up Axis AI into putting their entire army next to it.  I think documenting and providing a savefile for this bug got me into Their Finest Hour beta.  At least I like to think that's what happened.

 

Also there was this weird controversial tactics where if you build nothing but paratroopers, you could "ENCIRCLE" the enemy by dropping and covering the entire line behind their army which got the forum pretty heated.

 

I'm so sorry for this old man "back in my days" rant (especially ironic since I'm probably the youngest regular member here???) and this isn't like pooping on HoI3 either, like all those bugs and odd features, no matter how weird or game breaking they were, I have such a fond memory of the bugs themselves and the game.  Such a diamond in the rough, glad to hear that HoI4 is basically more refined version.

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Designer Notes?

 

No, he and I recorded a special talk for 3MA just a few days ago - it should be up sometime in the next coupla weeks.

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I hope the absence of good documentation doesn't end up repeating this goofy but MAJOR bug that persisted in HoI3 for like 2 expansions.

 

Basically the bug was that none of the defensive stats worked... and it wasn't even known by anyone for like 2 expansions or so.

 

I'm definitely going to buy this game soon ish but from sound of it it is so much better than what I had to deal with HoI3 gladly hehehehe

There's some of that kind of stuff in hoi4 already.  A guy on reddit dug into the ai scripts and discovered that most nations (except Germany) refuse to build armor in decent numbers and wont research aircraft beyond the 1936 models for any reason whatsoever.  Combine this with the way armor vs piercing works (high armor cuts the number of attacks a division takes in half) and its pretty easy to design divisions which are nearly invulnerable to enemy attacks just by adding a single battalion of heavy tanks.

By the way, I enjoyed the episode and found it amusing that there seemed to be a consensus that the air game is 'vital' to winning battles.  I've found the exact opposite.  I recently finished a PRC campaign where I never built a single aircraft and still managed to dominate Asia easily destroying Japan with divisions made up of mostly just artillery and infantry.  I also ran into the late game slog where all the axis had capitulated except for Japan (no one had invaded the home islands).  Since I was playing a largely inland nation I didn't have a navy or any naval technology.  I ended up building a single 1936 destroyer, parking it in the sea of japan just long enough to gain naval superiority before their fleet came to destroy it and in the brief 5 min period where I had naval dominance I launched a massive invasion of the home islands and ended the war about a week later.  That was probably the dumbest thing I encountered in the game so far, but otherwise I've been enjoying it.

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I'm mixed over HOI4 :/

 

I love the new production system, the politics system, the modding capabilities, and the alternate history possibilities :D

 

And yet, i find the actual fighting just... distant and rather boring :C I think the biggest reason being the lack of Battle Results. You aren't told about the casualties on your side and the enemy's side in that battle. I think that was why I was able to prevail with HOI3 when I first started that game. Seeing divisions pitted against one another and then seeing how many casualties were inflicted or how many were lost to take that one province allowed me to 'role-play' (?) or visualize in my mind, with imagined battles inspired by documentary footages or war films. With that gone in HOI4, i have no connection to any division or battle :/ It seems like all that matters is you achieve this big large scale offensive or not. And even then it doesnt tell you how many were lost in this operation, only overall casualties from the entire war.

 

Another big problem I have with the game is that save for the war historically starting in 1939 with the historical focus between Poland and Germany, it seems that...

a.) Japan will always beat China and take it over

b.) Germany will NEVER attack Russia, even when France is occupied. (It was 1943 before I decided to attack Germany since it seemed like Germany wasn't going to ever attack me, the soviets)

c.) In my 5 full games i played, only ONCE did France fall to Germany D: And that was only because somehow Switzerland joined the Allies which triggered Spain to join the axis and declare war on France. And hilariously France was pushing Germany inwards before that happened O_o And even more pathetic was that I had a Germany Buff mod.... :sigh: The other 4 times France and Britain managed to land in Rome and then take over Germany

 

So, the German AI is pretty bad and Japan just steamrolls through China with the historical focuses on. The former in particular robs me of my Great Patriotic War which I spent years preparing fortifications, choke points, and so on D:

 

I have several other nitpicks but i'm sure that Paradox will eventually resolve (most of) them.

 

Until there's Battle Results or the AI/Historical mode isn't so Alt-History (France + Britain defeating Germany, Japan taking over China, Germany never attacking the USSR), i think i'm going to sadly wait and not play the game till then :'C

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I've seen China beat Japan, though i'd argue that with out interference they should beat china most of the time. I think because the AI struggles with amphibious invasions so Japan is usually going to send most of its resources to china rather than taking the dutch east indies. I agree that the AI isn't quite smart enough to get around the Maginot line most of the time. The AI seems to be the same generic ai for each faction with the game pinning its hopes on the national focus tree to drive the action. The issue with this is that china and Germany will try to fight the war the same way but with just different army setups.

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I think the topic of "How Do We Learn Games?" would be an interesting one.  Manuals vs. wiki vs. tooltips vs. "Let's Play" videos on youtube, etc.  I'd just rather the topic didn't take up so much of this particular episode.  Essentially, the first half hour of this episode was a complaint about how Paradox expects gamers to learn their games, followed by complaints about game systems that boiled down to  "I don't know how this works."  I make this criticism as a big fan of you guys.  You have a much better HoI4 episode in you.  I hope you come back to it in the future.  

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There's some of that kind of stuff in hoi4 already.  A guy on reddit dug into the ai scripts and discovered that most nations (except Germany) refuse to build armor in decent numbers and wont research aircraft beyond the 1936 models for any reason whatsoever.  Combine this with the way armor vs piercing works (high armor cuts the number of attacks a division takes in half) and its pretty easy to design divisions which are nearly invulnerable to enemy attacks just by adding a single battalion of heavy tanks.

 

Does that 'except Germany' include major nations??? 8*)

 

Ahhh good old 'there is no stalemate in China'.

 

I think the topic of "How Do We Learn Games?" would be an interesting one.  Manuals vs. wiki vs. tooltips vs. "Let's Play" videos on youtube, etc.  I'd just rather the topic didn't take up so much of this particular episode.  Essentially, the first half hour of this episode was a complaint about how Paradox expects gamers to learn their games, followed by complaints about game systems that boiled down to  "I don't know how this works."  I make this criticism as a big fan of you guys.  You have a much better HoI4 episode in you.  I hope you come back to it in the future.  

 

Maybe it took too much of the episode but with a game complex as Paradox ones, if there is no RTFM option available because there is no manual, it seems completely natural?  Like that major bug about defensive stats not working in HoI3 for multiple versions shows (for the all that time, community (perhaps even PDX?) just assumed that defensive stats were just poorly balanced), hard to judge a game when it's hard to tell exactly how you are interacting with it (some of which I take as personal positive cause I enjoy figuring that kind of stuff out) and so it seems completely natural that it would be a topic that eats up lot of the talk... like if they don't understand certain aspects of the system and there is no documentation for it except for community 'guesses'... what more could be said? :/

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I assume the online wiki does not count as proper documentation (online wiki available via the ? icon in the upper left hand corner of the screen.). An option exists to view the wiki offline as well (via game settings). Nothing was discussed in the podcast regarding this option which is curious. Another curious thing is the critique regarding the aggregation of production, since lend lease is a diplomatic option with every nation.  That is, you can select lend lease with a nation, go into your logistics screen and send 500 T-26 tanks to China, which may help delay the conquest of China by Japan.  That is a very cool system, and much better implemented than a system like Triumph and Tragedy (which is limited by its board game mechanics of diplomacy).

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Does that 'except Germany' include major nations??? 8*)

Nope, just Germany.  Here's a link to the thread so you can see for yourself.

Also I don't like online wikis integrated into strategy games.  I especially hate the total war style web browser that has to load up every time you want to read about a unit.  I think Empire was the last game in the franchise to use an in-game encyclopedia.

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I think the topic of "How Do We Learn Games?" would be an interesting one.  Manuals vs. wiki vs. tooltips vs. "Let's Play" videos on youtube, etc.  I'd just rather the topic didn't take up so much of this particular episode.  Essentially, the first half hour of this episode was a complaint about how Paradox expects gamers to learn their games, followed by complaints about game systems that boiled down to  "I don't know how this works."  I make this criticism as a big fan of you guys.  You have a much better HoI4 episode in you.  I hope you come back to it in the future.  

 

I don't think any of us planned to talk that much about documentation or tutorials, but when the point was raised, we all obviously realised we had a problem with it. Such is the nature of these chats! I definitely agree that it could be an interesting standalone topic though. 

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given that no one out side of paradox seems to really understand how the core game mechanics work (fighting) i think this merited some discussion.

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I don't think any of us planned to talk that much about documentation or tutorials, but when the point was raised, we all obviously realised we had a problem with it. Such is the nature of these chats! I definitely agree that it could be an interesting standalone topic though. 

 That's fair, and I think the free-flowing nature of your conversations is part of what makes the podcast great.  

 

I am probably more frustrated than I otherwise would be because I think all the information you need to play the game is out there.  The wiki is good, the tutorial videos are good, the forums are okay.  Also, tooltips!  Hover that mouse of yours over any stat that has  you scratching your head, and a pop-up box will tell you most of what you need to know.  There is a ton of information in those battle screens.  

 

That being said, there are some incredibly important concepts that are not obvious or explained anywhere.  For example, I just happened upon a Paradox forum post about how to build divisions.  Did you know that divisions have a "width" number?  Do you know how important that number is?  I sure didn't, and other than having a lightbulb go off while watching a battle screen, I don't think I'd ever have figured it out.  I know I'm not the only one who was clueless.  I've been watching a Let's Play by a guy who seems to be a pretty good player, but he keeps gleefully creating these monster divisions with no thought of their width.  How long until he figures out why only 2 divisions can ever enter an attack?

 

Listening to the podcast, and watching some "Let's Play's", I think that people have yet to figure out exactly how to play this game.  I don't think most of us have really figured out the optimal use of the battle planner, how to use our air forces, etc.  Again, I'd be really interested in having you guys revisit this in a few months (or after the first DLC).  

 

(I'm 18 hours in.  I've played France twice.  The first time I struggled with basic interface issues, as well being generally clueless, and I got stomped by the Germans in 1940.  My second run has been an epic blast.  I almost collapsed a couple of times, but managed to turn the tide in 1941.  Now it's late 1942 - Germany and Italy have been defeated, I'm mopping up Balkan fascists, and Japan is next on the list.)

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I do wish the game had a manual. However, I'm sympathetic to the cost because I understand Paradox would have had to cut features or polish to afford to document the game, and Paradox' strength is in making their games as bursting full as possible.

 

In software development, we have automatic documentation/manual generation tools. Do any game developers use an analogous tool to automatically update their game manuals? I'm aware that a lot of games upon release are hacked together in a way that would make that difficult, but Paradox' engine must be mature enough by now that the data in their games are stored in an orderly way.

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I feel HoI as a series suffers from this eternal problem of being split into grand strategy and wargame. Kinda like Total War only not that bad. 

 

They were on a right track by giving you indirect control over fighting via battleplans. This way I can still imagine being supreme commander: I can see what divisions perform badly, can decide we need air superiority so I tell factories, scientists and engineers to give me better stuff and chose where to send it. But I dread the idea that I'll have to switch from Paradox grand strategy to a Eastern Front grind.

 

Haven't played the game, mind you, just saw videos. Guys say it's a better release than Stellaris and that gives me hope.

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As much as I think that devoting the best part of 20 minutes to the fact that there isn't a manual was a complete waste of time (manuals are static objects and out of date the moment they are published), there does see to be a lot going on in the game which is just too unfathomable or covert.  I was playing as Bolivia last night, I feel that I progressed my tech in quite an optimal way, I had conscription running, was using improved firearms and my divisions were each trained to level 3 and comprised of 20 infantry battalions and 5 advanced artillery (with engineers and artillery support).  I also had air support and radar so that I could examine the Chilean forces at my border.  They were a democracy so surely my manpower as a fascist nation would be a telling advantage?  Sure enough, I studied their divisions and they generally had around 11 battalions of infantry and 1 of artillery.  Ha Ha, weaklings!  

 

Confident that I had them outgunned, outnumbered and out-trained I declared war and launched my 13 divisions at the 8 of theirs.  The result was that I was utterly demolished.  It was an annihilation and halfway through the humiliation, another 12 divisions of theirs appear from the South and join the fray!  WTF?  I am maxing out my man power conscripting 13 divisions and yet freaking democratic Chile can pump out 20 divisions!!!  The effect was that I just have no idea why I lost the battle or why my numbers are so much lower than the army of my weak neighbour.  I shall probably give it another shot but the linearity of the tech trees is starting to making each play through feel like groundhog day and I clearly have no idea of how to judge a battle before I enter it.  I've enjoyed my time with the game but it's starting to feel like it may be more trouble than its worth. 

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No, he and I recorded a special talk for 3MA just a few days ago - it should be up sometime in the next coupla weeks.

 

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. Looking forward to that!

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Wait tech is linear?  Cause in HoI3 my favorite thing to do is go hard on one tech (my favorite plays are USSR with everything into nothing but industry/manpower/conscript so I would have militia units that are like 8 years ahead)... so I can't pull off those weird optimization builds anymore??? D:

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Well I feel as though they are. Not sure if others agree but due to the penalties for researching a tech early and the mutually exclusive tech lines and nation focuses means I seem to follow the same paths each time.

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. . .  and my divisions were each trained to level 3 and comprised of 20 infantry battalions and 5 advanced artillery (with engineers and artillery support).  

 

This is where that (way too hidden) width mechanic comes in.  I estimate each of your super-divisions would have a width of 55 (infantry =2 width, artillery =3).  When you attack from just one province, you get 80 width to work with.  Each additional province gives you another 40.  On defense, you only ever get 80 width.  So you could only ever defend with one division at a time, and probably were never able to attack with more than 2.  Your enemy, on the other had, employed divisions with width of 24.  Still not optimal, but they could always bring at least 3 to every fight.  

 

I read on the forums that you should try to keep your divisions at either 10 width or 20 width to maximize their effectiveness.  I've found that to be a VERY useful guideline.  Most of my French infantry weighs in at 19 width, which has been close enough.  

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Artillery has width now?  The whole point of them in 3 was that they had no width and was IC/supply heavy way of getting more firepower into limited front line... argh

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