Hearts of Iron IV

[Tamas]

It feels like most of their community is a mix of multiplayers and achievement-junkies.

[Syt]

I entirely get that the forums have become quite the cesspool at times - which is a startingly contrast to the endless fanboism previously seen at Paradox.

I do wonder though is it all a cultural change of the posters or have Paradox's priorities fallen out of sync with fans.

Online communities change over time. E.g. when HoI1 was announced it led to an influx of a very different kind of gamer than EU 1 and 2 had attracted up to that point.

I don't like to do the "things used to be better back when ..." but I guess if your forum user base goes from a few hundreds or thousand to hundreds of thousands you will attract more, erm, "vocal" people who tend to set the tone of discussion. Going through the forums I feel there's a bunch of entitled dicks (like on most large game forums), but many people who seem reasonable or at least able to hold a civil discussion. Unfortunately, it seems the assholes are the ones who garner the most attention and have a tendency to move the line of what other people find acceptable to say.

Policing civil discussion has always been a delicate and often missed balance on Paradox forums with policies either being too strict or too lax, and occasional outbursts from certain people *cough*Johan*cough* didn't help.

Personally, I look at a lot of outrage around games and while I think bad behavior and quality from developers and publishers deserve to be called out and need to be criticized, occasionally warranting harsh language, personal attacks and death threats are counter productive.

I haven't checked the Paradox subreddits to see if they're any different in tone.

[Syt]

Had a look at what they're working on with this ... apparently after the ship designer they'll now add a tank designer where you can decide on type of armor, whether to fit radios or have sloped armor, what kind of suspension and engine your tanks will have.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/hoi4-devdiary-tank-designer.1470406/



That also means there's eventually going to be a plane designer, right?

[Solmyr]

What the fuck does a ship/tank designer have to do with strategic-level warfare that Paradox games usually have?

[Syt]

Not sure, but it adds a new level for min/maxers to meta-game the shit out of (and an AI struggling to deal with it).

My biggest concern is that instead of recreating historical models players will quickly figure out "optimal" designs because they won't have the historical designers' restrictions and they will have 80 years of hindsight.

[The Brain]

Will it be possible to link HoI4 and Tank Mechanic Simulator, so you can do maintenance on all your tanks?

[DGuller]

What the fuck does a ship/tank designer have to do with strategic-level warfare that Paradox games usually have?

Ship designer I can see.  Depending on your strategic aims, you're going to tailor your ships of the same class towards one task or another, or make them the expensive jacks of all trades.  Tanks, on the other hand, do seem to be too micro for strategy.

[frunk]

What the fuck does a ship/tank designer have to do with strategic-level warfare that Paradox games usually have?

Ship designer I can see.  Depending on your strategic aims, you're going to tailor your ships of the same class towards one task or another, or make them the expensive jacks of all trades.  Tanks, on the other hand, do seem to be too micro for strategy.

TBH they have a tailoring system already, with the army experience modifiers.  If they expanded that a bit it would be way better than a full blown designer.  Add options for reducing cost, reducing production time, better handling of terrain or other changes to a model.

[Syt]

Tbh, I thought making players produce rifles, support equipment, artillery pieces etc. and then have those stockpiles applied to your division/unit templates was a bit much already.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Just wait until you need to decide on mess kits and grenade styles.

[The Brain]

And design appropriately flamboyant uniforms for Hitler's famous Liebstandarte.

[FunkMonk]

What the fuck does a ship/tank designer have to do with strategic-level warfare that Paradox games usually have?

It has nothing to do with that and all to do with making a ton of money. I don't blame them for catering to their fanbase and squeezing every last dollar out of them but yeah, it seems like yet another piece of bloatware that doesn't add anything to actual gameplay.

MY PANTHRR-TIGERS HAVE SLOPED ARMOR NOW HEHEHEHEKEKE

[Habbaku]

Yeah, hard to blame them for wanting more cash out of the fans that seem to snap this stuff up. The people inclined to HOI are generally the sorts of nit-picky detail-oriented players anyway.

I hope they keep the more strategic focus for whatever they announce this month.

[Syt]

What are good current strategic/operational WW2 games that cover the entire war? Strategic Command and War Plan are fine, but a bit on the beer & pretzels side of things.

[Razgovory]

I've never been that interested in designing equipment in strategy games.  I always felt that should be someone else's job, not the guy running the whole war.