Hearts of Iron IV- 'No Step Back' DLC

[Gusington]

Wow 

[Tanaka]

I have to say, I agree with much of the posted criticisms but.....all said and done I really enjoy the game and Steam says I have over 366 hours into it.

I'm having the best game I've had in a long time with the new DLC and beta patch. Playing as UK in '36. It's now February 1942. My usual strategy to counter the Italian takeover of East Africa is to transfer Indian divisions from the British Raj and then hold them off. A combined Armoured force in North Africa usually pushes the Italians back and by 1940-41 I usually take all of Africa.
Not so with the new supply system.

My 24 UK and Indian divisions in North Africa on the Libyan border with Egypt was a near-disaster. The group was under-supplied (around 16% supply status for each division and resulting degradation in organisation) and the Italian force of around 8 divisions pushed them back and then started hacking down the disorganised and under-supplied units. I had to increase motorization of supply and fly air supply missions just to hold ground. It then turned into sporadic skirmishes and half-hearted offensives until 1941. By then I'd built rail links from Alexandria, which improved supply, and achieved naval superiority in central Mediterranean. I'd beaten most of the Italian navy in continued skirmishes, air attacks and a major naval battle, had significant Intel bonuses from high-level Radar in Malta and was picking off axis supply convoys to North Africa.
I used my Intel bonuses by activating the cracked Italian cyphers, gained air superiority and launched an aggressive planned thrust. It was an intense battle, it looked like I wasn't going to win until I gave the order for a Forced Attack and the enemy shattered. I finally broke the deadlock and pushed the Italians back to Benghazi. By then Greece had been attacked so I sent half the Indian force to mainland Greece to hold the mountains while the other half pursued the Italians west. I checked my Intel on Greece and saw they were going down a path of war with Turkey with their Focus Tree. Barbarossa was in progress, so a war might push Turkey over to the Axis, which means the Soviets would be fighting on the southern Caucasus front, in Georgia and Armenia.
I'm considering pulling out my Indian force so that Greece falls, to prevent a possible collapse of the Soviets if Turkey joins the Axis. It's not a strategic decision I've ever had to make in any other game before, but the Axis lines are not too distant from Moscow and I'm not taking any chances. It's also worth mentioning that winters and bad weather are now proving decisive in supply considerations, battles and operations.

All this being said, it's an awful lot of data to deal with and it's been a hugely long game so far. I'm playing on speed 2 to 3 and having to check every theatre constantly, but I am really enjoying it.

Nice write up. This is the first time someone has convinced me to dust it off and give it another chance...

[Ian C]

I have to say, I agree with much of the posted criticisms but.....all said and done I really enjoy the game and Steam says I have over 366 hours into it.

I'm having the best game I've had in a long time with the new DLC and beta patch. Playing as UK in '36. It's now February 1942. My usual strategy to counter the Italian takeover of East Africa is to transfer Indian divisions from the British Raj and then hold them off. A combined Armoured force in North Africa usually pushes the Italians back and by 1940-41 I usually take all of Africa.
Not so with the new supply system.

My 24 UK and Indian divisions in North Africa on the Libyan border with Egypt was a near-disaster. The group was under-supplied (around 16% supply status for each division and resulting degradation in organisation) and the Italian force of around 8 divisions pushed them back and then started hacking down the disorganised and under-supplied units. I had to increase motorization of supply and fly air supply missions just to hold ground. It then turned into sporadic skirmishes and half-hearted offensives until 1941. By then I'd built rail links from Alexandria, which improved supply, and achieved naval superiority in central Mediterranean. I'd beaten most of the Italian navy in continued skirmishes, air attacks and a major naval battle, had significant Intel bonuses from high-level Radar in Malta and was picking off axis supply convoys to North Africa.
I used my Intel bonuses by activating the cracked Italian cyphers, gained air superiority and launched an aggressive planned thrust. It was an intense battle, it looked like I wasn't going to win until I gave the order for a Forced Attack and the enemy shattered. I finally broke the deadlock and pushed the Italians back to Benghazi. By then Greece had been attacked so I sent half the Indian force to mainland Greece to hold the mountains while the other half pursued the Italians west. I checked my Intel on Greece and saw they were going down a path of war with Turkey with their Focus Tree. Barbarossa was in progress, so a war might push Turkey over to the Axis, which means the Soviets would be fighting on the southern Caucasus front, in Georgia and Armenia.
I'm considering pulling out my Indian force so that Greece falls, to prevent a possible collapse of the Soviets if Turkey joins the Axis. It's not a strategic decision I've ever had to make in any other game before, but the Axis lines are not too distant from Moscow and I'm not taking any chances. It's also worth mentioning that winters and bad weather are now proving decisive in supply considerations, battles and operations.

All this being said, it's an awful lot of data to deal with and it's been a hugely long game so far. I'm playing on speed 2 to 3 and having to check every theatre constantly, but I am really enjoying it.

Nice write up. This is the first time someone has convinced me to dust it off and give it another chance...

I must mention that I'm using all expansions, all DLC (not the music DLC or unit packs) and patch 1.11.4 for 'Barbarossa' (b22c).

To get the most from the game you have to be aware that even though it's real-time, you can't play it above speed 2 or 3 while at war and you must pause every few days to take stock of the situation on the map. There's so much going on you can easily miss it and this is where most people lose it as things get out of hand. It is a huge game to take on. Most of my games last weeks.

There's actually a Paradox sale on at the moment and all expansions (apart from the latest one) and DLC are 50% off.
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/search?q=hearts+of+ron&lang=en_US

[Toonces]

Those are some pretty impressive numbers, Ian C!   

I find myself agreeing with much of the criticism re: the DLC storm to get a fully featured game.  On the other hand, considering the dev time to get it to this point, it's certainly possible that they've created a game that they never would have gotten their return on investment at $60.  We all know how gamers balk at anything above that notional limit.

I've thought of picking up this game a number of times.  I'm finding myself strangely intrigued after the last few posts...   :-"

[Toonces]

It looks like the full HOI IV game, with all DLC and expansions would run close to +/- $100 on the Paradox site.

[bobarossa]

Those are some pretty impressive numbers, Ian C!   

What a piker! (can't figure out how to insert image inline so it's an attachment)
Actually the hours include time spent Alt-Tabbed out to other programs as well as times I forgot to close program and it sat there overnight.  Probably half that number of hours actually playing. 

I restarted playing after the new patch (you get much of the logistics and focus changes without buying the DLC) and am enjoying the changes.  Reminds me of HOI3 where all the supply/fuel moved one region at a time away from the Capitol and you had to simulate a railroad by upgrading infrastructure in a line of regions from the capitol to the front. 

[Toonces]

Man alive!  Respect!   

[Ian C]

I was surprised myself that I'd clocked over 1,000 hours. I'm semi-retired, so I have a lot of time to spend gaming. Wonderful toys we have, these days.

I've found these mods help with immersion greatly. They are purely visual mods, and don't alter gameplay.

Insignia Collection - Historical Armies
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2580279781






Sensible Theatre Icons (Not compatible with Insignia mod above - use one or the other)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1915965716






Square Unit Counters
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172315725







NATO Template Counters
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=768448576






Historical German Flag (Swastika)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=698660211

[Pete Dero]

It looks like the full HOI IV game, with all DLC and expansions would run close to +/- $100 on the Paradox site.

Might be a bit cheaper here : https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/hearts-of-iron-iv/ or here https://us.gamesplanet.com/game/hearts-of-iron-iv-cadet-edition-steam-key--3030-1

You don't need the packs (armor, planes, ..) as they are only cosmetic.

[Ian C]

You can get the base game and all the expansions and DLC (not the unit packs or music – they don't add any gameplay, just get La Resistance, No Step Back, Battle for the Bosphorus, Waking The Tiger, Man The Guns, Together for Victory, Death or Dishonour) for $80 / £60;  or if you have the base game already, just the expansions for $70 / £50.

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/search?q=hearts+of+ron&lang=en_US

[bobarossa]

Playing as Soviet Union and am 1 month into war with Germany.  I have the new patch but not the DLC (only have Waking the Tiger and Man the Guns). I can confirm the AI still has no idea what it's doing.  Germany currently has implemented the Scraping the Barrel mobilization plan (with it's -40% hit to production) even though it has 2 million recruits waiting to be used.  It is also building 65 artillery a day while having 5k of the latest model in stock.  Meanwhile it has only 9 factories on Tanks while it is down 600 in it's deployed Panzers (and they only built 8 Pz Divisions!).  They also researched both amphibious tank models while not having any division templates that use them.  I do like the new logistics model though.  No more mass armies in the African desert.  Of course the British can't figure that out as they sit at 30% supply whithout trying to build any railroad from Alexandria towards Tobruck.

[Ian C]

Playing as Soviet Union and am 1 month into war with Germany.  I have the new patch but not the DLC (only have Waking the Tiger and Man the Guns). I can confirm the AI still has no idea what it's doing.

What year did you start and are you using any mods? This sounds like behaviour from one of the previous beta patches that was fixed some time ago.

[bobarossa]

Playing as Soviet Union and am 1 month into war with Germany.  I have the new patch but not the DLC (only have Waking the Tiger and Man the Guns). I can confirm the AI still has no idea what it's doing.

What year did you start and are you using any mods? This sounds like behaviour from one of the previous beta patches that was fixed some time ago.

I did the 1936 start and the only mod I have is Black Ice and it is disabled.  I've seen many stupid AI tricks when using mods but expected better from vanilla.  Problem might be that they simply don't test the new patch very extensively with PC's that don't have the latest DLC installed.

[88mmkwk]

Playing as Soviet Union and am 1 month into war with Germany.  I have the new patch but not the DLC (only have Waking the Tiger and Man the Guns). I can confirm the AI still has no idea what it's doing.

What year did you start and are you using any mods? This sounds like behavior from one of the previous beta patches that was fixed some time ago.

...I've seen many stupid AI tricks when using mods but expected better from vanilla.

I've often peeked at HOI 4, despite already owning Darkest Hour.  But I instead decided to jump into Paradox's Stellaris instead this year and bought the core modules plus some of the add-ons.  It's interesting that there is an ongoing MAJOR AI update being done for Stellaris (see store.steampowered.com/news/app/281990/view/3102414008263628904.  Maybe a similar treatment could be done for HOI 4 to "catch up" the AI on using all the feature updates.  I've always had deep respect for programmers that write excellent AI for games, and it's got to be frustrating to get it right only to have feature updates wreck it.

[Ian C]

Problem might be that they simply don't test the new patch very extensively with PC's that don't have the latest DLC installed.

You may be right. I did a run using 'observer mode' where I let the game run itself (all AI) and checked the builds etc. for each nation. It looked ok. The AI was acting historically for all nations I checked, and China was building new railways in 1936 etc. Something might be screwy if you don't have all the DLC, in which case that's not good.

If anyone wants to try this, start a non - Ironman non-modded game and open the console using "~" and type "observe". Run the game at top speed. Now you can view the game from any nation's perspective. Click the white binocular icon at the top of screen and click on any nation to view research, builds, construction etc. Apart from some odd ways the AI uses to form new army groups, it should appear to be ok. If it doesn't, then there may be an issue with the patch and various combinations of DLC.