Hearts of Iron IV

[Rayfer]

The 1.4 Oak update is live. Lots of AI and air war changes. The new dlc is also out.

[Greybriar]

Hearts of Iron IV: Colonel Edition is on sale for $21.25, Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet Edition is on sale for $17, and other Hearts of Iron offerings are reduced in price at Green Man Gaming.

[solops]

Anxious to hear about AI improvements. Still have not gotten HOI4 pending decent AI.

[SirAndrewD]

Just some quick impressions. 

AI seems to handle a front better so far, this is a very good thing. 

I'm digging the improvements to air.

The axis AI has not abandoned its suicidal behavior in declaring chains of wars once Poland kicks off. 

The Franco-German AI overall still fights over the Maginot line and Westwall.

The UK still suicides its land forces in unsupported, regular amphibious operations.

Axis still commits mass suicide by sea redeployment of troops through areas with allied naval and air supremacy.

The new DLC pits Germany and a resurgent Austria-Hungary on a collision course for a southern war over Austria and the Sudetenland.   From what I saw on the Paradox forums this may be a pretty common thing.

[SirAndrewD]

I had some more time with it, and ran some hands off as Haiti with FOW off to watch the AI work. 

Man the fronts hold better.  Watching the Spanish Civil War progress was totally different from the previous patches.  There was actual give and take and it took the Nationalists a while to win.

Japan performs a lot better in this patch.  They can actually make it to the Yellow River before being ground to a halt by the Chinese.  After that, it was a much more slow, grinding advance for the Chinese to expel the Japanese, and they held on when pushed back to the Luan.   The Japanese are significantly better at sending reinforcements to the Chinese front, and although the Nationalist Chinese juggernaut still exists vs the AI, it's not forcing a Japanese military and governmental collapse by mid to late '38 as before.

Germany is consistently defeating France and the Benelux finally.  They're still doing it while taking significant losses on the Maginot, but they're doing it. 

Every country is making sensible division templates, at least when I jumped around and looked. 

I think right now, I'd suggest perhaps NOT getting the DLC.  The added emphasis on Hungary, and the fact that it's goals are at odds with Germany's is something I'd rather not see in the game.   Great for someone that wants to play as Hungary, but bad for any other situation.  Even if Hungary's bid to restore the Empire fails, it still creates a nightmare situation in the Balkans that is ahistorical and messes with the progress of everyone else.

[Ian C]

Well I patched and got the DLC.

Started '39 as UK on 'Historical' mode. Spent 30 minutes setting up my theaters and forces, research etc.

War declared by Axis on Poland. Italy joins war straight away (as it did every single time in the previous version -even on Historical mode).

Germany started suicide offensive across Maginot line.

That's when I exited the game.

Someone let me know when they fix it. Thanks.

[Ian C]

Thought I'd play as Germany '39.

UK AI Navy sailed through the Western North Sea and Baltic with a two-division task force to topple the Third Reich despite me having total air superiority and hundreds of CAS and NAV on Naval Strike and a fully garrisoned coastline. Suicided their two divisions on the shore and then I slowly destroyed their entire navy in the Baltic by November 1939 with just my air force. At least we now know CAS and NAV air attacks against ships are working.

[jamus34]

Thought I'd play as Germany '39.

UK AI Navy sailed through the Western North Sea and Baltic with a two-division task force to topple the Third Reich despite me having total air superiority and hundreds of CAS and NAV on Naval Strike and a fully garrisoned coastline. Suicided their two divisions on the shore and then I slowly destroyed their entire navy in the Baltic by November 1939 with just my air force. At least we now know CAS and NAV air attacks against ships are working.

In theory shouldn't that improve the pacific theatre?

[Rayfer]

Thought I'd play as Germany '39.

UK AI Navy sailed through the Western North Sea and Baltic with a two-division task force to topple the Third Reich despite me having total air superiority and hundreds of CAS and NAV on Naval Strike and a fully garrisoned coastline. Suicided their two divisions on the shore and then I slowly destroyed their entire navy in the Baltic by November 1939 with just my air force. At least we now know CAS and NAV air attacks against ships are working.

I wonder if either of your two games would have played out differently with a 1936 year historical start?

[Ian C]

In theory shouldn't that improve the pacific theatre?

It indeed does -at the cost of the European theater being broken this way. If they could code certain sea areas to be less likely for the AI to do this it would increase the game's fun greatly.

I wonder if either of your two games would have played out differently with a 1936 year historical start?

Not tried it in this version but in previous versions it does and it's more ahistorical. Ironically, starting in '39 should produce more historic results as there's less chance for the AI veering of course from the Historical mode.

[jamus34]

In theory shouldn't that improve the pacific theatre?

It indeed does -at the cost of the European theater being broken this way. If they could code certain sea areas to be less likely for the AI to do this it would increase the game's fun greatly.

Well I think we knew to fix Europe it would be a lot more than 1 patch. To me that's air war seemed especially broke so now it looks like it is somewhat functional.

[SirAndrewD]

Not tried it in this version but in previous versions it does and it's more ahistorical. Ironically, starting in '39 should produce more historic results as there's less chance for the AI veering of course from the Historical mode.

The AI handles itself a bit better if it starts in '36 since it has time to build forces and industry adequate to overcome its handicap. 

However, you're right, the possibility of ahistorical outcomes is a lot higher, especially post DoD.   

[Rayfer]

Not tried it in this version but in previous versions it does and it's more ahistorical. Ironically, starting in '39 should produce more historic results as there's less chance for the AI veering of course from the Historical mode.

The AI handles itself a bit better if it starts in '36 since it has time to build forces and industry adequate to overcome its handicap. 

However, you're right, the possibility of ahistorical outcomes is a lot higher, especially post DoD.

Started a 1936 start as Britain. Got to Sept 1938 when the Czech decision came up. Decided to guarantee their independence and the war with Germany started. A month into it and the Germans are defending their border with France  (who is my ally and is on the attack) while they pursue their attacks on the Czechs.  Belgium, Netherland, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia all remain neutral. Not sure how this is going to play out. I'm playing with the Oak 1.4 update, the first dlc but not the new one.

[Ian C]

There's a new patch on the way to fix some issues mentioned here:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/a-little-update-on-1-4-1.1029907/

    Leaders for nations with generic tree changing sometimes - this was a messup on our part between anniversary DLC and release which let some testing code slip in (don't even ask. it was a crazy day). Its mostly cosmetic, so not really that bad. but it is stupid and annoying. That has a fix now

    Late in development for 1.4 we kept finding more issues with air combat internals, and while we fixed a bunch of important stuff like being able to actually disrupt and intercept all incoming planes with enough of yours and the like there kept popping up annoying stuff, so we decided to rewrite the core of it so we could better control things. We are getting to the final steps of testing that atm and its looking decent now, so I am hopeful it will get into 1.4.1. Would have loved to have it in 1.4, but turns out it was incredibly difficult so I didnt want to mention it until I knew it was going to work. Its not going to make stuff drastically different, just remove a lot of wierd edge cases and bugs (like battles being more or less bloody depending on amount of wings involved and bombing support fights generally being more brutal also).

    a whole bunch of fixes to tricky edge cases in focus trees and event chains that have been reported (sorry too much effort to go into detail. there will be patchlogs with the patch release).

    several tweaks to AI invasion logic

    an issue where AI would use too aggressive stance vs maginot line when it should do attacks around it instead

    some rare CTD fixes

    important fix for a case where german ai would identify small areas along coast, or between poland/czechoslovakia incorrectly as encirclements and pull away a lot of troops to "break out". ruining its defense.

    now the slovenia/slovakia flag is actually fixed >_<


and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Our plan is a 1.4.1 patch released as open beta early next week. Open beta because we want to make sure we catch any extra problems as soon as possible.

[FarAway Sooner]

This feels to me like an out-of-control code base.  Anytime fixing one thing, or trying to introduce a minor new tweak, creates this many unintended consequences, it worries me that the code is just unmanageable.

I've never played the game, so I could be completely off-base.  But when I see stuff like this in apps at work, my sense is that the dev team is in over their heads and will never get it working the way they (or I) want it.

Paradox has a record of working long and hard to get games in great shape, and I'd love to see that here.  But as each new patch makes only modest improvements in the AI, and seems to introduce unintended consequences elsewhere in the AI, I grow more pessimistic that this one will ever make it past C+ status.