Hearts of Iron IV

[Valmy]

Languish: making the world very dangerous for democracy.

[Zanza]

Japan has an event to puppet China with a 60% chance of acceptance. As there is not much to gain in China, this seems to be a no brainer. You can still separately conquer the Guangxi Clique for their resources.

[PJL]

On the game itself, I've actually bought it on the back of the Paradox HOI multiplayer session they had with Quill18, Ariumba, Marbozir, EnterElysium and the other one (Dan?). I did play HOI1 and HOI2 (not much though), but not HOI3 as I thought it was too complicated and too much micro (from the demo). But HOI4 suits my management style much better than 3 did (issue strategic orders and let them get on with it). The production and equipment system is nice and streamlined as well.

Played Romania first (1939 start), but quit that game by Aug 1941 as Germany failed to invade the Soviet Union. It did give me a good insight on the research, political and production side though. I'm currently playing Nationalist China and having a blast against the Japanese (losing but I think I'm winning the attrition war, or least the Japs are increasingly getting worn down at a faster rate).

[DGuller]

That multiplayer session was such a letdown.  The two best players played the Axis powers and exploited the shit out of the game, while USSR and US were played by mediocre players, and Marbozir as GB was so awful that it made me wonder how much he save scums when playing SP.

[Solmyr]

I actually got the game after watching Marbozir's Poland playthrough. In that MP game apparently he was supposed to play Italy and prepared for that, but was given the UK 20 minutes before the game started. So he had no idea what to do.

[Agelastus]

But HOI4 suits my management style much better than 3 did (issue strategic orders and let them get on with it).

And that's why I haven't bought it myself yet; I thought the worst thing about HOI3 was that you could no longer take control of your military allies as you could in HOI2. To me there looks like huge chunks of the design that have been oversimplified in attempts to appeal to the lowest common gaming denominator. And what I'm reading about the military access issues hasn't been very encouraging either.

[Admittedly I was going to extremes towards the end of my time playing HOI2 or derivative games and mods; I was loading up as my militarily controlled allies every six months or so and managing their production queues as well... ]

[FunkMonk]

But HOI4 suits my management style much better than 3 did (issue strategic orders and let them get on with it).

And that's why I haven't bought it myself yet; I thought the worst thing about HOI3 was that you could no longer take control of your military allies as you could in HOI2. To me there looks like huge chunks of the design that have been oversimplified in attempts to appeal to the lowest common gaming denominator. And what I'm reading about the military access issues hasn't been very encouraging either.

[Admittedly I was going to extremes towards the end of my time playing HOI2 or derivative games and mods; I was loading up as my militarily controlled allies every six months or so and managing their production queues as well... ]

If counting the number of Mausers and mortars each one of your meticulously placed coastal garrisons has equipped, this game isn't for you. 

[DGuller]

I actually got the game after watching Marbozir's Poland playthrough. In that MP game apparently he was supposed to play Italy and prepared for that, but was given the UK 20 minutes before the game started. So he had no idea what to do.

Yeah, but he was doing sloppy shit left and right.  Leaving his civilian factories producing nothing for most of the game, leaving invasions unmanned, not assigning units to an army outside of England, the list goes on and on.  You still need to do all of that as Italy.  He seems to be quite slow on the uptake.

I found it funny how from midway through the game, the stream organizers were going "Let's see what UK is up to.  *click*  Oh.   "

[frunk]

The mod "Full AI Overhaul" looks interesting, haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet.

[frunk]

Here's the mods I currently like:

Coloured Buttons
DzK Better Counters
Flavor Names extended
Full AI Overhaul
More NATO Counters
Motorized Artillery Units
better terrain view
more theatre icons

Here's ones I'm using but they need some work:

More Variants - Lets you spend Army EXP to make Truck/Artillery/AA/AT variants.  Nice idea, but I think the Army EXP needs to tweaked up by ~25% to make it viable.
CompactProductionLineUI - Reduces the height of production line entries.  Works great except when you need to adjust the number of Factories.


Other game thoughts:

Endgame slows to a crawl on my machine, but that's not new for a Paradox game.
Unit building, training and experience should be applied to Aircraft as well.  It's weird that you can have a few hundred aircraft in reserve, assign them to an airfield and after a little while you've got a fully functioning air force.  Considering the importance of pilot training during the war it's weird.
Along that line exercises for aircraft and naval units to gain unit and naval/air experience would be nice.
I'd like to be able to set the training level that a division queue will pop a unit out.  It would be easier than monitoring the queue for when it finishes a given experience level.
Other than the minors I think Germany has the least interesting National Foci.

[Kleves]

So, is this worth picking up? It seems like there are quite a few kind of obtuse design decisions.

[frunk]

So, is this worth picking up? It seems like there are quite a few kind of obtuse design decisions.

By far it is the best HOI at release, but considering the previous versions were all unplayable before patches in one way or another that's a pretty low bar.  They've avoided the micro-management hell that HOI 2 and HOI 3 could descend into.  I enjoy playing and I find myself thinking of different things to try on a new run through, but there's definitely still UI and play issues.  I don't see any fundamental problems with the design though.

If you prefer a well polished game wait for patches/mods/expansions.  If you don't mind a rough around the edges but still fun game go for it.

Here's my list of good:
Research System
Production System
Division creation/management
Combat/Front management and AI (with the Full AI Overhaul)
Aircraft abstraction
Naval abstraction
Lend Lease and Volunteers
Concept of National Focus
Partisan system

Bad and needs work:
Air UI and reporting
Naval reporting
Peace Resolution
National Focus implementation
Air wing deployment too simple (should use division deployment system)
Party influence on other countries too strong

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm taking a break from HOI4 and Stellaris to play the highly polished EUIV. I'll return to them once a few things are sorted out.

[MadImmortalMan]

The air interface is actually starting to make sense to me now. I might be insane.

It's more thought-out than it seems at first.

[DGuller]

Both the air and the naval really suffer from lack of ledger.  I've lost count of how often my fleets wound up doing nothing because I didn't notice it lost its sea zones.  And collecting all those air wings that are two air zones behind the front lines can get old as well.