Hearts of Iron IV

[Ian C]

So with the new naval system an Admiral controls a Fleet. Fleets are made up of Task Forces that are assigned to an individual sea zone each. They are typically set on Patrol missions. You set a larger more powerful group to be the Strike Force which is set on the 'Strike' mission. When a patrol TF spots an enemy fleet, the Strike Force sorties and engages the target.
Spotting is affected by Radar Stations and Air Patrols.
Check.

What I'm understanding is that historical Task Forces were actually quite small with a couple of capitals and two screens, or just a couple of cruisers and destroyers; and the Strike Force typically being a 'standard' kind of battle fleet?

[Ian C]

The patchlog for tomorrow's update 1.6 is live:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-1-6-patchlog.1155760/


Update 1.6 "Ironclad" (Bugfixes, UI, and other fixes not listed here - visit the site)

Man the Guns Expansion

- New national focus tree for America (historical parts free)
- New national focus tree for United Kingdom (historical parts free)
- New national focus tree for Mexico
- New national focus tree for Netherlands
- Admirals can now unlock and earn new traits with access to a details screen for traits
- Ships can now be designed in a ship designer using naval xp with a variety of modules
- Naval treaties exist on start of game and can be intereacted with, they place dynamic limits on ship designs
- Existing ships can now be sent back to port and be refit with upgrades
- It is now possible to lay down mines and to sweep enemy mines in sea zones
- Democracies can create a new subject level on losers in war called "Supervised State". These are locked to master ideology and get a drift. They will slowly gain autonomy of their own.
- Its now possible for democracies to host Governments in Exile. They give different things based on legitimacy.
- It is also possible to play a GiE for those who want a challenge
- New Amphibious Tanks and Amphibious mechanized infantry for tougher invasions targets
- Its now possible to give docking rights to other nation's navies as a new diplo action
- Its now possible to set access settings for naval zones to tell navies and transports to avoid them if possible or to block access completely
- Player can now request expeditionaries for specific armies and plans directly from the army interface
- A nation that has become sufficiently strong can now take over faction leadership from the current leader with a new action
- Nations can now designate ships as Pride of the Fleet for bonuses, synergies and war support. For a cost
- New unit models for Mexico and Netherlands, including Dutch East Indies infantry.
- 8 new ship models for USA and UK
- New voice overs for dutch units
- 4 new music tracks


Free Features and Important

- Fuel is now a resource required by most moving things with an engine and produced from oil and synthetic refineries and can be stored in the new silo building
- New naval combat that uses different distance and role boxes for ships as well as a whole new spotting phase on the map for locating and chasing down targets
- New naval missions and many interfaces for controlling ships who are now organized into Task Forces within a fleet
- Ships and planes can now be trained, both for Naval XP and for personal experience level
- Naval production is revamped, ships can be named before they are launched and the ship calss dictates how many dockyards can be assigned to its construction at max
- Ship repair is no longer free but requires dockyards. A new interface lets you control this from the production screen
- Naval zones now have terrain which has effects on combat, movement etc. Fjords/Archipelagos, Shallow seas, Deep Oceans, Arctic waters and shark infested areas.
- Some technologies (like doctrines) can now be boosted by spending XP, in response their default time has been increased somewhat
- The effects of raiding on your trades and transports now has a scaling war support penalty on your nation
- Decisions now exist on map also making state picking a lot easier to navigate
- Admirals new have 4 new stats rather than skill level: Attack, Defense, Manouvering and Coordination
- Admirals now have personality traits
- Added ability to cancel national focus. Up to 10 days progress will be saved.
- New customizable gameplay rules available for single and multi player including the ability to direct ai nations.
- 21 new Achievements
- Naval invasions are no longer limited to one per starting port
- Justifying wargoals are now cheaper vs nations that assist enemies
- Naval battle reports will now automatically decay and go away based on importance
- added a repeatable decision for Austria-Hungary to lower the autonomy of CZE if CZE decides to become a puppet
- Added new decision for Lithuania to rename West Wilno state and Wilno victory point to Vilnius.
- Added Dismantle Czechoslovakian Forts decision for Germany
- Democratic King Hungary can now call in Sweden into its wars through a decision
- Added 70 new releasable nations:
-Kazakhstan
-Uzbekistan
-Tajikistan
-Kyrgyzstan
-Turkmenistan
-Bangladesh
-Sri Lanka
-Burma
-Papua New Guinea
-Maldives
-Fiji/Melanesia
-Kuwait
-Qatar
-United Arab Emirates
-Cyprus
-Belize
-Jamaica
-Bahamas
-Puerto Rico
-Guadeloupe
-Trinidad & Tobago
-Guyana
-Suriname
-Curacao
-British Antilles
-French Guyana
-Morocco
-Algeria
-Tunisia
-Sudan
-Eritrea
-Djibouti
-Somalia
-Uganda
-Rwanda
-Burundi
-Tanzania
-Malawi
-Zambia
-Republic of Congo
-Gabon
-Equatorial Guinea
-Cameroon
-Central African Republic
-Chad
-Nigeria
-Niger
-Dahomey
-Togo
-Upper Volta
-Ghana
-Côte d'Ivoire
-Mali
-Sierra Leone
-Guinea
-Guinea-Bissau
-Senegal
-The Gambia
-Mauritania
-Namibia
-Western Sahara (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic)
-Malta
-Moldova
-Scotland
-Wales
-Northern Ireland
-Slovenia
-Bosnia
-Macedonia



AI

- Central Powers now invites Austria-Hungary and Monarchist Italy, even if they are not AI.
- Corrected broken AI behavior when FIELD_MARSHAL_ARMIES_CAP was set to the special value of zero meaning no cap, fixing a game freeze and out-of-memory CTD.
- Fixed a bunch of problems in the air AI
- fixed ai miscounting existing exp forces while evaluating new exp force requests
- fixed some trade issues with ai
- fixed incorrect will do modifier in SOV focus "SOV_war_with_uk"
- increase AI 'will do' factor on RAJ Provincial elections focus for ahistorical play
- fixed bug where ai would cancel trades
- China will now tend to refuse ceding land to Japan in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on historical mode, unless China is at war
- fixed ai not promoting leaders
- National focuses that create a new faction now require that the country is not a subject
- Japanese Join Comintern NF now requires that you are at peace with the USSR and not a subject
- Decisions to increase stability not available at 100% stability
- fixed an issue where the AI was a little too happy to appropriate land during war time
- Improved AI evaluation of research bonuses (aka, its not 100% backwards anymore)
- Made AI France in historical mode never select the Franco-British Union (De Gaulle would be proud!)
- a high faction join limiter modifier now has the same effect on asking to join as well as being asked to join a faction
- Chinese AI will now tend to reject Japan's peace proposal if Japan is at war with lots of major powers
- fixes/improvements with ai following up naval invasions
- the Ai should now execute the Xian incident more reliably
- fixed ai committing more planes to a region than intended in case of having extra planes
- reduced the amount of CAS and TAC that germany is building slightly
- AI Iran and Iraq will now have more open trade laws because of their oil
- germany builds a lot more civs and builds some synth refineries in '38
- Changed americans to build more DDs and less BBs, also slightly less light cruisers compared to DDs
- Increased German air production
- increased likelihood that Germany will research improved rubber production for synth refineries
- Fixed various overflow issues in ai_strategy
- improved carrier plane production and assigments for ai
- ai now is a bit less reluctant to cover allied regions from naval invasions
- improved Japanese AI idea picking
- some improvements with ai naval invasions and ai unit assignments
- improvements to convoy raid evaulation
- AI will now be more careful with its fleets if numerically inferior. AI will also prefer repairing more often if inferior
- added checks for consider_weak strategy also to war declare logic. Japan should now go for the US throat even when it might not make perfect sense
- AI should no longer use industrial land appropriation if it has any decent state ( > 5 infrastructure) that still has free building slots
- the US and SOV AI should now be a little more eager to develop medium armor templates
- Ai now blocked from researching subtechs if already researching next base level (i.e. not researching basic medium tank destroyers while researching improved medium tank)
- Made ai care more about actual raiding locations and adjusted numbers so some areas actually fall outside of ai interestes for raiding/escort
- AI Japan will no longer underestimate the chinese once the war has actually begun
- Lowered the scoe of researching doctrines for ai depending on how many are actively being done
- Added new strategies to keep AI japan from overdoing its escorting when there are no credible naval threats
- Japanese historical AI should now pick spiritual mobilization and national defense state earlier
- research AI should now take amount of planes it already has into account when researching new planes - i.e. a country with lots of CAS planes will try to upgrade them
- Major AIs told that jet planes exist
- adjusted japans target templates for infantry to cover fronts better
- Japan will now consider GXC less good for invasions to limit their use of smaller invasions with a high risk of failure
- Ai should no longer produce more carrier fighters beyond its buffer
- fixed issues where ai template logic could get stuck in a loop by moving last fail checks to role instead.
- tweaked japanese template strategy for garrisons, and also lowered armor target a bit
- Ai is now more careful about switching equipment to new versions with no stockpile in war time
- Japan now puts less production on light tanks before it has a real industry
- ai will now consider if a guarantee concerns an offensive action or not when managing its fronts.
- Japan now boosts relations less
- ai that is executing an aggressive plan now gets a bonus to aggressiveness so it can continue to execute it
- fixed some issues with ai plan executing
- Japan now warned that going against philipines will make the allies its enemy most likely
- tweaked aggression settings on plans. ai now a bit less aggressive to not open itself to encirclements
- soviet now less keen on sending volunteers unless china is doing badly
- fascists at war now need better overall status before its ok with spending a lot of PP on relation boosting
- Ai now more careful with naval transfers around UK
- german ai now focus less on TAC and more on fighters
- Romanian AI will now try to improve relations with Germany in preparation of axis joining attempt
- added some ai strategies to focus ai on recently invaded areas
- made ai prefer land routes over naval routes a bit more for trades
- Ai can now trade for partial resources (eg less than 8 ) depending on how many factories it has
- Germany will now care less about light tanks early which should net it more medium armor later instead
- Germany will prefer more suppression garrisons after Poland falls and will have higher priority to research military police for them
- Japan should now weigh the invasion tech higher if its at war with USA or china is down
- Romania will now go free trade and focus more on oil focuses after it joins the axis
- AI will now be more likely to enable women in the workforce if low on manpower
- germany will now be more careful around total economic mobilization
- ai now are less reluctant to trade with countries that have dangerous convoy routes
- US AI should now pick fascist demagogue/communist revolutionary if required for their focus tree
- ai will now need better front relative strength to go for aggressive stance
- made the default suppression template a bit bigger and also targets correct width
- Germany will prefer more infantry/manpower focused doctrines in mobile warfare
- ai will now only use top prio plane assignment if its enemy main target home area
- ai will no longer waste air superiority missions where it planned to put bombers but lacked bombers
- lowered fighter amount ai thinks it needs to disrupt enemy bombers
- Brazil will now go free trade later in the game to alleviate some of the rubber lack if japan takes it all for itself
- Romanian ai will now try to build up a better infrastructure towards soviets to help with future invading
- Several research weight tweaks to help germany pick better stuff
- USA will prioritize hawaii more as a way to cover pacific
- German AI told, again, that Sweden is not dangerous and doesn't need to be invaded
- Germany should now build a bit more support equipment
- soviet will now prioritize quantity over quality on inf equipment
- soviet will avoid decisions that take its political power instead of saving up for manpower laws
- sov ai more careful with prospecting decisions and manpower laws
- more soviet fixes so they dont waste PP on other stuff than manpower when under pressure
- soviet will now make a bit more artillery
- lowered score for soviet naval ideas to keep focus on the whole german situation
- improved AI priorities for crypto techs
- Ai now evaluates front strenth more accurately
- added slightly smarter AI for evaluating requesting expeditionary forces
- Several improvements to AI ship building logic. It can now work with roles just like for divisions
- Used higher precision numbers for AI equipment priority calculations as a brute-force method to avoid overflows from unpredictable scripted values, and simplified the logic for how AI determines best equipment for each role.
- Tweaked AI strategies to better balance GER, SOV, and JAP.
- Fixes for AI not respecting max number of factories on a production line.
- air ai now needs 25% of provinces to be controlled by enemy to consider a region has is shared between him and enemy when prioritizing
- AI improvements for keeping naval invasions consistent on save & load
- ai naval invasion order unit assignment improvements
- main enemy of a country now gets a prio while assigning airplanes for combat zones
- added a strat for usa to focus less on defense if there are no nearby wars
- AI better at evaluating efficiency loss on production lines
- Lots of AI tech prioritiy changes to make AI research more good naval stuff and to prioritize the right other techs for most winningest results
- Lots of changes and improvements to naval ai
- reduced the massive boner the AI had for infantry weapons III
- AI should no longer prioritize naval doctrines quite as much, and will dynamically attempt to catch up in air doctrine research if it is sufficiently behind land doctrines
- Fixed so Venezuela no longer demands Curacao on historical focus
- Made Romania not declare war on Bulgaria if Bulgaria joined the axis but Romania hasn't (yet), if it's historical mode.
- slightly reduced AI weight to research better infantry weapons for small industrial bases
- historical German AI plan now has attack on Soviet union closer to historical date

[Jarhead0331]

Word to your mother! Cannot wait!

[Ian C]

I forgot about this - ships take specific hit location damage (which can be repaired) and can have critical hits!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R57qHxEUO3I

[SirAndrewD]

Took the day off tomorrow.  Going to hopefully be a good one.

[jomni]

Looking good. Maybe time to get back.

[HoodedHorseJoe]

Review embargo has lifted, so you should start seeing stuff come online if you're interested in impressions etc.... I know of at least one website that's gone live already...  :-"

Been playing the expansion myself. Have to say Naval isn't really my thing, but I do appreciate how they've re-done it with Task Forces etc... There's some production oddities that I think may be bugs.

I also found the US Focus Tree quite hard to navigate, but the new Congress mechanic is pretty neat.

[Ian C]

Paradox have changed certain borders to modern-day borders because they felt it would help modern-day mods.

Maybe it's a small deal to some, but, still, argh.

Here's a post:

"So i have just started the game after 1.6 Ironclad update and was completely shocked when i saw what you did to the borders of states or regions or whatever are they called. I knew that you wanted to add modern day borders to the game, as it was presented in one of DD's but i had hoped that it would mean that the historical borders which are actually important and iconic for the most important parts of HoI IV timeline would be preserved.

    Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact borders are no longer achievable. Borders of Germany (General Government) in 1942 are no longer achievable. Borders of Bulgaria are no longer achievable. Borders of Montenegro and Albania under Italian rule are no longer achievable. Zaolzie looks even worse and out of place than before the update. Borders from the partitions of Yugoslavia are no longer achievable.

    I do not understand. Why would you favor modern day borders, or the borders that were created after the war was ended over the iconic borders which existed during WW2? "

A devs reply:

    Anyway, I'm aware of the concerns of some people on this forum. HoI4 is played for various reasons, and a not-insignificant amount of people like to play the game to create modern-day European borders, or the modern-day borders of their own nation. I am not saying this may not be reverted at some point (though that is also not decided at this point), but for now this was the decision we went with.

Another post:

    Why on earth spend over a year making this historical DLC to then break it with historically incorrect modern borders?!

    I am absolutely shocked and appalled. I'm lost for words. Was this advertised as a feature? The map has been deliberately broken to appease modders.

    What about all of us that just bought the DLC for the historical accuracy? Why bother doing all that work on making sub warfare historical and realistic? Can't the modders make those borders anyway? I'm doing the Facepalm of my life.

    Really, really, cannot believe this. I literally cannot play this now. I feel it's broken. My God.

    Wow.

Thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/1-6-completely-ruined-historical-borders.1156050/

[Barthheart]

Wow.....

[Barthheart]

Why did you delete that post?!?

[Ian C]

Why did you delete that post?!?

I modified it - not deleted

[Barthheart]

OK, I came back to read it and it said deleted... now I see your mods....

[SirAndrewD]

The borders decision is a really, really odd move on the part of the devs. 

I would think a WW2 game would concentrate on WW2 era borders. 

[Jarhead0331]

Could they have done this because they have plans to take the HOI series in a new direction themselves in terms of timeline? I can't really think of any other reason why they would do this, and trying to appease the "mod" crowd doesn't really seem to pass the sniff test.

[SirAndrewD]

Could they have done this because they have plans to take the HOI series in a new direction themselves in terms of timeline? I can't really think of any other reason why they would do this, and trying to appease the "mod" crowd doesn't really seem to pass the sniff test.

While I would love to see a Doomsday II expansion, and really really hope they go in that direction, I can't see why they wouldn't implement those changes for THAT DLC rather than shove them into this one.