Hearts of Iron IV

[ArizonaTank]

In my most recent game as UK, I started in 1936. 

The AI Germans threatened to take Sudetenland on queue.  The Germans called my bluff, and France and Britain went to war over Czechoslovakia in '37. Germany against the UK and France.  Basically WWI without the Russian front.  The Japanese stayed out of the war.  The Italians jumped in on the German side in 38 and lost all over the place and capitulated.  Now it's late 39, the Germans did crush Poland with Russian help.  But the Brits are defending Denmark, and the low countries are holding against the Germans. 

Overall, a plausible alternate history result in my book. 

[jomni]

Overall, a plausible alternate history result in my book.

Wait until you get to the Peace Conference.

[glen55]

Great to read about this AI improvement, but did it fix the problem I mentioned earlier, i.e. the computer constantly re-adjusting your lines by sending units from one to the other, such that the Battle Planner is pretty much useless?

[Surtur]

Really good to hear about the AI improvements. As for the DLC, what do you guys think?

[Ian C]

The Xmas hotfix appears to have broken whatever 1.3.1 fixed. Maybe whoever compiled this put the previous build's files in with the hotfix, because pre-hot fix NONE of this happened:

UPDATE: Possible mod conflict.


Playing as Germany 1939, graphic mods only.

UK AI sends entire navy into Baltic sea. Then ensues a battle from September 1939 to January 1940 in which the German navy is destroyed along with 95% of the British Home Fleet, including 5 UK BB's. Pre-hotfix, the UK AI rarely moved into any German coastal areas, and NEVER into the Baltic.

UK AI continues to send invasions to German coast (spamming invasions was said to be fixed in 1.3.1) and then after running out of divisions, sends militia forces in sizes of 1 division - against a Garrison of 8 divisions including Panzer divs.

Naval invasions occur despite me having 100% air superiority (which is supposed to prevent naval invasions) and several hundred CAS and NAV aircraft on naval strike missions day & night in the sea area.


That's me done until this shambles gets fixed.

[sandman2575]

Ugh that's depressing to hear. I've been wanting to get back into HOI4 for a while but I just don't feel like investing the time has a payoff.  AI simply needs a *lot* more work. Until then, the game is very pretty with dozens of excellent ideas and improvements over previous games in the series -- but there's just no challenge.

What's depressing too is that I don't see any of the major mods moving in a direction to fix this. I've sadly given up on BlackICE. Panzeroo and his team seem determine to see just how much minutiae they can cram into the game's UI and AI limitations, regardless of whether it all actually contributes to a *better game* (I just don't think it does). Vanilla+ isn't quite ambitious enough, although I like that its philosophy is "try to stick to the main game design and improve around the edges", like CKII+. August Storm appears to have been abandoned (I get the sense that many of the modders are just throwing up their hands and giving up on HOI4 at this point -- lots of mods that I used early on have been outdated for months).

[Rayfer]

The Xmas hotfix appears to have broken whatever 1.3.1 fixed. Maybe whoever compiled this put the previous build's files in with the hotfix, because pre-hot fix NONE of this happened:

Playing as Germany 1939, graphic mods only.

UK AI sends entire navy into Baltic sea. Then ensues a battle from September 1939 to January 1940 in which the German navy is destroyed along with 95% of the British Home Fleet, including 5 UK BB's. Pre-hotfix, the UK AI rarely moved into any German coastal areas, and NEVER into the Baltic.

UK AI continues to send invasions to German coast (spamming invasions was said to be fixed in 1.3.1) and then after running out of divisions, sends militia forces in sizes of 1 division - against a Garrison of 8 divisions including Panzer divs.

Naval invasions occur despite me having 100% air superiority (which is supposed to prevent naval invasions) and several hundred CAS and NAV aircraft on naval strike missions day & night in the sea area.


That's me done until this shambles gets fixed.

Disappointing to read this.  I am in mid-1940 playing as the USA (with the recent dlc and 1.3.1 fix) and at war with the Axis including Japan. Still early in the war but nothing quite as baffling as your experience has occurred yet. Japan is hitting China hard but also going for Iwo Jima, Port Moresby, Northern Australia and Wake Isl.  Britain controls North and East Africa, Germany is at the border of France and Italy has conquered the south of France.

[FarAway Sooner]

I'll keep my ears peeled for more developments here.  This looks like the HoI title I'll finally get into, but only once the AI gets competent.  At least Paradox has a good reputation here, even if it takes a little while.

But the lack of modder participation is troubling, even on that front.

[Ian C]

UPDATE:

It may appear to be my bad. Original post updated.

The 'No Experience Limit' mod was enabled.

Even though it says its compatible with the current build, it's not .
The mod builder just changed the mod build tag without using the updated file, and it catastrophically broke the official update, erasing many of the fixes for invasions and fronts and completely missing vital new code that was added in the update.

I've notified the modder on STEAM and it has been updated.

Starting a new game, will report back....

[Ian C]

Update:

Even with the mod file fixed, the issues remian. The AI UK navy still sails right into the Baltic and sets up several invasions along the eastern German coastline with impunity, despite all of the Kriegsmarine and over 300 CAS and NAV bombers on Naval Strike missions. Also, Western Poland is now defended in the air by the entire combined French and UK air force, that teleport across regions defended to the teeth by my Luftwaffe.

None of these occurred in the previous patch.

I'm done until this is fixed. This completely destroys immersion for me. Leaving the thread before I start ranting.

[Gusington]

I want to get this to install the uber-WWI mod. What's the lowest price you guys have seen around for the Cadet version?

[bobarossa]

Update:

Even with the mod file fixed, the issues remian. The AI UK navy still sails right into the Baltic and sets up several invasions along the eastern German coastline with impunity, despite all of the Kriegsmarine and over 300 CAS and NAV bombers on Naval Strike missions. Also, Western Poland is now defended in the air by the entire combined French and UK air force, that teleport across regions defended to the teeth by my Luftwaffe.

None of these occurred in the previous patch.

I'm done until this is fixed. This completely destroys immersion for me. Leaving the thread before I start ranting.

Reminds me of when they tried to fix something in an earlier HOI and suddenly ever country was researching blitzkrieg techs and not unit upgrades.  And that included all the countries in China.

[sandman2575]

Which certainly illustrates the bind Pdox is in -- programming the AI for HOI must be hugely complicated -- fix one thing here, throw another thing way over there out of whack.

(Not to harp on it, but this is why I fundamentally don't understand what the BlackICE folks are trying to accomplish -- the AI already struggles mightily to use the existing systems effectively -- piling complexity upon complexity hardly helps matters -- unless the end goal is really to have HOI4 be just a multiplayer platform, and not a game to play solo. For me though, that's the worst of all outcomes.)

I don't know how Pdox is going to get a handle on this, but they need to. I think it's telling that the Together for Freedom DLC has very mixed reviews on Steam (taking that with the requisite grain of salt, as always) -- lots of dedicated players sense that adding new National Focus trees etc. is essentially just more superfluous bells & whistles at this point. The core of the game -- the AI -- is what requires urgent attention from the devs. I haven't even bought the DLC yet -- as an HOI fanboy of the highest order, I never thought that would be the case, that I'd feel completely uninterested in the first major HOI4 DLC....

[Ian C]

After reading their forums I see the 'all air units in one region' issue is a known bug.


The over-enthusiastic naval AI works fantastically well in the Pacific and fixes the static Pacific theatre that has always plagued each version of the game, but it breaks immersion in historically slower regions like the Baltic. Paradox really needs to pay some attention into making certain sea regions less attractive to the AI, in an historical sense.

I did read in a fairly recent dev diary that its possible for modders to change certain parameters but I can't recall if this might help on this occasion.

Off the top of their heads, can anyone recall why the Royal Navy or any allied naval force specifically didn't venture past Denmark and enter the Baltic in large groups during the war?
As far as I recall, it was the threat of the Luftwaffe and mined regions.

UPDATE: Beta hotfix is out which fixes the air bug, but not the huge naval suicide battles.

[jamus34]

My issue with the dlc is ultimately you are charging about a third of the game price for something that adds a couple of national focus trees and a gameplay modification.

This was always my fear when I saw these focuses appear and saw how few there really were.

I like the game, I still play it, the AI issues are regrettable but I'm no where near the player that can exploit them most times. But the incremental DLC is what really gets me.