Hearts of Iron IV

[Agelastus]

I could very easily be wrong, but my impression of both the Egypt and Paris nighttime screenshots is that Paradox have taken a modern satellite image for the background and have either forgotten to, or have not yet, modified it to reflect more 1940s light levels. Certainly I wouldn't have thought Egypt would have been electrified enough to produce that much light circa 1940.

Given Paradox included Lake Volta on the original HOI3 map I would not be surprised if they've simply not considered the difference 70+ years make.

[garbon]

Cool story, bro.

[Valmy]

I wish they would just make a HoI game that had a WWI scenario instead me having to keep waiting for modders to do it for each version. 

[garbon]

I hadn't realized but apparently this was supposed to come out soon. They've now delayed it till Q2.

[Agelastus]

I wonder if they'll actually fix some of the spelling mistakes in the OoBs this time - such as the ones in the British OoB that have been present since HOI2 IIRC ("10rd Destroyer Flotilla", "Galathea" etc.)

[garbon]

You really are on about the minor details.

[crazy canuck]

I wonder if they'll actually fix some of the spelling mistakes in the OoBs this time - such as the ones in the British OoB that have been present since HOI2 IIRC ("10rd Destroyer Flotilla", "Galathea" etc.)

I 2rd that.

[Agelastus]

You really are on about the minor details.

Spelling mistakes that have survived ten years*, two games, multiple expansions, and a couple of dozen patches? One would think someone would have fixed this "minor detail" in that period of time - especially as, for example, "Galathea" is spelt correctly in the unit names files; it's just wrong in the OoBs.

It annoys me, OK?

*And where the hell have those ten years gone! January 4th was apparently the tenth anniversary of the release of HOI2.

[garbon]

I'm not saying they shouldn't fix it - just that you knowing you had this spelling nitpick and then that nitpick about incorrect historical widespread availability of electric lighting.

[Syt]

Only just saw the dev diary on the naval system: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-dd-15-on-the-high-seas.850123/

That's a change that might actually fix the crappy naval warfare of HoI1-3:

Areas & Missions
Just like the strategic air war navies spend most of their time on missions in strategic areas, but are also able to move province by province. When in a strategic area each fleet has a value indicating how spread out it is. In general a more spread out fleet can cover more area and have a higher chance of finding the enemy, but will take time to concentrate its forces and bring them all to bear. Things like how fast fleets of a certain composition can converge and how well they can search in an area is controlled in large part from Naval Doctrines. We'll cover those in detail in a future diary, but as an example if you pick the Trade Interdiction doctrine you can unlock Wolfpack tactics which will make sure your subs find more targets and can all get together and strike more often.

There are several missions available:
Patrol - Focus on finding the enemy as efficiently and as spread out as possible
Search & Destroy - Much like Patrol but less efficient at searching while keeping the fleet together more. Suitable for trying to force large fleet vs fleet battles, say like the Battle of Midway.
Convoy Raiding - Focus on raiding convoys and avoid engaging warships.
Convoy Escort - Protect any convoys in an area from raiders.
Invasion - used to control large scale land invasions. We'll cover this in later diaries.
Hold - Not really a mission, but can be useful for ships like Carriers that you want to just position like a floating airfield.

When fleets find each other or convoys of the enemy naval combats will trigger. Depending on how spread out the fleet is, doctrines and luck its going to be a smaller part of the fleet that makes initial contact. Naval battles in HOI4 can simulate longer affairs where ships join over time as the rest of the fleet rushes to help.

Strategic warfare
While you need to actually directly conquer an enemy to beat them, doing so after they are weakened is always better and easier. Production in HOI4 requires resources that gets convoyed from trade, or from overseas territory so a good way of weakening an enemy is to hurt their ability to produce equipment and reinforce their armies using convoy raiders. In HOI3 it never really felt like submarine warfare had enough impact and we want to fix that in HOI4 and force nations to have to spend resources to counter it. The way the strategic area mission system works also allow you to use surface raiders, like how Germany historically used its few heavy cruisers to tie up and frighten the British navy.

Convoys are extremely important and transport both replacement equipment to oversea battlefields, supplies and resources so hurting them will have a large effect, sunk convoys can't be instantly replaced either so active defense is necessary, you cant just try to outproduce the enemy's sinking. Lend lease of equipment and tanks to allies also use convoys and this material can all be lost to the bottom of the ocean when faced with an efficient submarine net.

[Syt]

Beta applications now open: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads%2Fhearts-of-iron-4-beta-signup.888039%2F

[Zanza]

Will finally be released on D Day 6th June

[Norgy]

The amount of time P'dox has spent on it in development may mean it isn't going to be superbugged from release.

[Alcibiades]

Very long development, will get it.. Hope it's good. 

[jimmy olsen]

I hope the inevitible expansion is of WWI rather than the Cold War going hot. Seems much more viable given how paradox games work than a nuclear slugfest.