My personal favorite is Old World Blues, specifically the "Enclave Reborn Redux" submod - building the entirety of the US, Canada, and Mexico back from the apocalypse is so damn fun, and because Fallout is an RPG, there's a lot of narrative writing to go with it.
It's a military game, not a military-industrial game. The biggest flaw both for the political sim and the military sim is the lack of a dialectical materialist approach, which is why their non pop-based simulation games are simply worse than their pop-based games. If HOI 5 doesn't have the same shift of approach as what the transition from eu4 to eu5 had, then I'm honestly not that interested. I've mostly already quit hoi4 anyway and the new dlc just looks like wehraboo slop
Focus trees are also a way to add certain actions like coring, claiming demilitarizing a zone and demanding subjugation, a state or annexation without adding a universal mechanic. And the railroading aspect of focus trees allows the devs to simply have an easier time forcing ai to take a certain focus tree order instead of training them for using mechanics to create a historic output while fitting their build to the players influence.
That's pretty much why Egypt doesn't exist at the start of the game. The UK AI wouldn't properly defend it. The game is the way it is so the AI wouldn't screw up, even if it's still pretty bad at actually putting up a fight.
I'm fine with focus trees, they are a staple of HOI 4 but I wouldn't mind if HOI 5 tried something else. To be fair, HOI 4 is the first game in series I got into so I have a different perspective, I'm aware earlier entries were different.
@@giuliano.h agree, also I kinda like espionage so I think it would be cool to flesh out that part too. In HOI4 it's there but not really all that useful
A little advice. TH-cam preview play tends to cut the first 2-3 seconds of a video. Having an introduction to yourself at the start let's people have a little leeway for that.
I feel like the focus trees are good in theory, but they should be made so that they are far more dynamic and are still available for historical games if you want to have a track already laid for where to go (especially if you are a new player, because paradox games are complicated AF) but if it isn't possible to have a dynamic system while also keeping focus trees, they should ditch focus trees.
I my opinion hoi4 starts too late to actually have meaningful systems like what you describe in the video. They need to push it back to the ‘20s, right after ww1 ends so that you can guide your country through the turmoil of the interwar period instead of trying to ram through massive unrealistic political changes in the 3 short years before the game kicks off. They have to abstract anything interesting about the diplomacy and political situation because there isn’t any time to develop it naturally. Man, that sounds like a much better game, trying to race to sculpt your country into what it needs to be before the Second World War breaks out.
Aaaaand subscribed. You can see that Paradox tried to make dynamic systems on release and with Together for Victory, but by Waking the Tiger we got the full focus tree approach
You never actually what's wrong with focus trees as a concept, just that they don't interact with each other enough or in more meaningful ways. You keep drawing parallels between HoI4 and Vic2 but you say you don't want Vic2's systems? What I do agree on is that diplomacy would need a massive update with a lot more diplomatic options.
I get what you are trying to convey but i think base hoi4 is just a warfare game. The political and diplomacy elements are enshrined in other games by Paradox, like you mentioned, Victoria 3. I think it is not easy to balance warfare and the ideas you mentioned in the video, and hoi4 would definitely be a huge bloated mess that may not have a clear direction. Hoi4 fulfills the niche of military warfare, while Victoria 3 is more political and diplomatic (in turn it gets like a really odd military system). Anyhow, I understand your opinion and I do wish Paradox can make Hoi5 more in depth like you suggested. I also think mods like Kaiserreich kinda catch the balance between politics and warfare imo.
interesting idea about removing the focus trees, but i feel like paradox knows that if they do this for hoi 5 the community might be pissed. focus trees have their place, and what i see happening going forward is more dynamic focus trees with good curated content reacting dynamically to the world around them - kind of like the new belgium/congo tree with joint decisions etc. focus trees also allow for easier modding as you dont have to redo the entire world and every event/singular party or support number in it just to do something like an alt history mod/different time period. i agree on the economic stuff tho, its desperately needed - but anything as complicated as TNO economy is too much. I actually like your idea on simple mi/civ worker pops.
so basically hearts of iron 3 vs darkest hour: a heart's of iron game edit: for anyone who hasn't played, hearts of iron 3 is a very historically focused game with an emphasis on realism, and the HoI 4 mod, Black Ice, was originally a mod for Hearts of Iron 3. Darkest Hour, on the other hand, was/is a standalone community version that's much more accessible and was built in mind with alt-history choices, and the mod Kaiserreich was originally for Darkest Hour.
Even om its "historical" mode, the game is so insanely oversimplified that its nowhere near a "simulator", as that implies that its trying to get things right and show them as they were, which this game does NOT do. At its best, its just a gramd strategy game set in ww2, its neither historical nor a simulator
i get what you are saying, but as you said yourself, hoi4 isnt a political game, the game mostly focusses around military stuff, so making the game that political will just ruin it. the american and soviet political systems rn will already ruin you if you havent tried some builds before your run since they are very unforgiving
The US's control of the house is like the easiest mechanic in the world to understand, you literally click a button to turn red dots green. How is that messing with how you do anything in HOI4? It's literally just clicking a single button every 30 days.
i agree but it would be extremely difficult to implement a better solution in my opinion (as someone with knowledge with programming), i can see there being decent ways to improve things but it'll still be extremely difficult
I know it's not really what you meant, but it's funny to release a video saying the game needs to change when it was going to in 3 days haha! But I definitely agree with lots of these ideas. I've been cooking up a mod, with lots of custom focus trees for new nations, and it's really hard to make these complex political systems work using the focus tree system. I'm finding myself wishing there was a different system for managing politics, and then a focus tree that would actually be a focus tree, "What is the nation focusing on right now?"
Great video! Look forward to more videos. I wish HOI4 had a POW mechanic. Especially for certain countries. Canada had a large POW camps spread throughout the country. Lots of them ended up staying after the war as well. It would be cool to able to use them for trade, or gain extra civ factories to simulate work camps. It would also be cool to have a refugee aspect as well where you can gain population when other countries capitulate if you were in an alliance with said country. Last thing is I wish we had a cold war era Paradox game that focused more of diplomacy, spies, and proxy wars than direct warfare.
i wish there was a mod that allowed you to build your own focus tree with custom effects just to replace the original ones and add extra stuff that some of the focus trees lack
So in essence, you want a WW2 mod for Vicky 2 👍. Also, Austria needing Fascist support to get Anschluss‘d is contradictory since Austo-Fascists opposed the Nazis. Though granted, this is a limitation of Paradox turning the world into 4 ideologies.
Yeah, the fascist ideology in Austria should be divided between ndsap(nazism) and vaterlandische front (Austro fascism). This division is already made in the game by the way, but it goes almost completely unused. The same applies to communism in the Soviet union, it should be divided between centrists and rightists. While democracies should be divided on liberalism or conservatism.
@@giulianopisciottano8302 What people, devs included, misunderstand about the "political" pie in Hoi4 is that it's meant to show ideology. It's more of a an alignment chart, to make it more or less easy for countries to align with a power block.
@@Sauron17011 but a lot of times those ideologies weren't aligned at all. Look at the differences between the Nazis and the Austrian fascists, or the differences between Trotsky, Bukharin and Stalin, mao for one was only aligned with Stalin, not with the others
@@giulianopisciottano8302 Not an expert on Austrian history, but what I remember reading proves my point. In game, the austrian fascists are non-aligned, the national-socialist party, which ultimately surrendered the country to Hitler, are fascist in game.
unrelated to the main point, but i never thought of Victoria 2 as a historical materialism simulator, and yeah you are so right. That really opened my eyes and what i like about the game makes alot more sense now
I sincerely wish Victoria 3 was that. Such a depth of military mechanics would make Victoria 3 a more enriching experience. However, the Victoria dev team can't just import the mechanics into the game simply because they work at the same company as the hoi dev team.
I think the main problem your having is thinking the alt hist paths are a sandbox, like victoria or europa universalis where you can play the game for hundreds of years, guiding the nations and seeing others rise and fall. HOI 4 is a wargame focused on WW2 no matter what, even if you turn historical off and everyone goes all wacky, it still stays focused on the WW2 period and nothing more. The alt hist paths are not here for sandbox, they are here to showcase paths the country could have gone down and how that would have fit in WW2, not how the country would have politically driven it self into the future, most of the time they give tons of buffs as they assume everything went well and as planed by the party the path is trying to show, we can´t really say "well, this plan was shit and would just fail", at that point might as well not have that here at all, HOI4 is still a game that´s meant to be played, not the devs opinions on what political ideas were good or bad by certain parties and thus we assume all their ideas work as intended which often results in them being much more powerful than they would have been if they had been tried in real life. HOI 4 does not have good politics as it does not matter to the main game, same goes for factions, diplomacy and internal politics. If HOI 4 was Europa Universalis but starting a bit before WW2, i would agree those are big problems to it but its not. HOI 4 is a wargame focused on WW2, if you halt hist its "what if X nation was X ideology instead of what it was really during WW2", the scope of the game is limited to WW2 period, thus most of the things that its missing are missing as they would also harm the halt hist paths, WW2 starts, "hmm, well i can´t join for 5 years as the democratic in my nation are unhappy and i have to juggle 2 minigames to keep them happy", Turkey is generally held as a shit focus tree as it takes such a long time to be able to do anything, which maybe historically correct but in terms of gameplay its boring as fuck, especially as the focuses are generally kinda bad for how long they take. So TLDR, your problem is not really that HOI4 has problems, its that you want HOI 4 to be able to be played as a Victoria or EU type game but the start is a bit before WW 2.
Thank you for the video! I fully agree with you! First 20 hours in HOI4 were sooo confusing for a CK2 player myself, because I was trying to build up the industry by constructing the factories manually, which is much more logical, interesting and rewarding instead of a free creative mode focus tree that makes 0 sense in terms of realism.
About the mechanics, wr have a system about turning conviys to destroyers as norway, the balance of power of switzerland but no system of armyexhaustion between the the soviet and the germans. In sp i just march in take a 3 month break and continue further. Why not add a mechanic that adds a debuff on how many casulties u have taken during german invasion like the soviets had organisation difficulties in early barb. And then theyll have finnish it by winter and have a choice to reorganise further or get boni for a winter campaing. This way each sides fighting capability would in or decrease depending how bad they are doing the last 6 months. Of course for that the easten front units would need a seperate army bonus which would be another mechanic. All that is akready hard to implement when doing each major nation as a dlc each.
I kind of disagree with your point. Without focus trees, I’d feel really lost. The level of scope you’re describing sounds fun, but also incredibly broad and easy to get lost in. In real history, things go on and on because no nation can or will conquer the world-power always balances out. But in a game like HOI4, you can conquer the world and paint the map however you like. Focus trees are important beacuse each focus tree tells a specific story, and while it can feel a bit railroaded at times, it provides the benefit of a cohesive narrative. You also only have 12 years so the scope of the game is very condescend unlike Victoria which is 100. As for alternate history, I do think it's unrealistic for a country to just keep getting buffs over time, especially if they can just follow whatever path the player chooses. But that's done to make the game fun and engaging. For example, Denmark would never allow me to reinstall the king and conquer Scandinavia, and it would be incredibly difficult to pull off in reality. If you were to try to implement that in a more realistic way, it wouldn't really be fun. Another thing to consider is that democracies aren't as fun to play in real life, especially when you don’t want to start a war because it means people could die, and there's the whole political complexity. But in HOI4, the best part is often the war-the challenge and excitement of military strategy and conquest. Complexity docent neccarily mean fun.
Personally, I like the focus system. Sure, they do not interact with each other, but it is satisfying when you complete one or get on a snowball and begin to become powerful. While being simple, it is a core mechanic and I don't know how the game would work without it.
Good video, man. I think the problem HOI4 has is that it tries to be a sandbox while also trying to be railroaded. If you look at mods like KR and TNO, those have (to varying degrees) committed to be on-rails experiences. In my opinion, this helps them be more solid compared to the base game.
I completely agree with you. One of the core principles of strategy is the constant action/reaction between the different actors. HoI 4 completely lacks this.
There's a fair point to be made about focus trees, but at the other side we have a question of why am I playing HoI instead of vicy or eu? Because focus trees remove that portion of the game from me, automating it to a click every now and then. I don't need to worry about ploys and intrigue and... It's just funny button makes man go BRR and now Austria is mine. Then I get to play what I want on the field - invading UK as a Finland, overthrowing ussr as Mongolia or whatever else the case might be. In a perfect game made in a fantasy lala land we would have nation customization from stellaris, ruler system from CK, beliefs from ck, politics from vicy and eu, research from vicy and stellaris, economics of vicy, and combat from hoi4 Game would start at 984 or so. It would lag you out by 1010 and HollowBeing would make a 17 hour video of pure suffering forcing the engine To struggle to 1455 before entering permanent BSOD loop. No mortal would see the endgame at 2500. Maybe it's a good thing they're separate games after all. 😂
This is more what HoI5 could be, not what HoI4 should be, the game has been out for 9 years, and has worked brilliantly, being (as of writing this comment) the 31. place on most active players in the entirety of Steam's game library, trailing Helldivers 2. Not to mention the active modding and competitive communities, which are constantly reaching new peaks. HoI5 will probably come with more dynamic and controllable mechanics regarding to the use of smaller army units, and the progression of countries in WWII, with ways to manipulate its politics past focus trees.
A lot of the complaints, diplomacy wise, could be accomplished by branching focus trees or internal path decisions for country AI. For example, if Italy goes down the "Ratify the Stresa Front" focus, democratic France and Britain should be hard coded to accept, as well as to guarantee the next nation Germany threatens with annexation. This is really more on the laziness of the developers rather then the inadequacies of the system. Kaiserreich manages a system with many branching paths for each nation, where each nation has a set goal and place in the world system, regardless of what direction other nations take.
the thing with compering victoria to hoi4 ai doesn't hold up 1. imagine germany getting aggressive and then britain says enough is enough and declares war on them what would france ai do A. help germany B. help britain or C do nothing of course they will not know which one to take because it will conflict with who did what because germany did get aggressive but at same time britain did too by declaring war on them 2. Changing the AI too much could make the ai break down or worse go none historical path even tho you have historical on it will make ai choose based on what others did instead of following the historical path
Tbh I think the greatest issue is timespan. Victoria covers 100 years and EU 400, whereas HOI covers 12. I would like the greater diplomacy and politics, but the issue is material conditions in reality would not allow anywhere near the level of divergence of the focus trees. You probably couldn't crown a polish king, bring back the Russian Tsarists and you definitely couldn't do whatever the hell was going on in the Chile French king path. The issue is, however, that a lot of these more essentially narrative driven trees kinda define a lot of the fun in HOI4, a mildly different WW2 (eg idk Sweden gets involved or the Czechs are the start of the war) is kinda... boring compared to the other paths. If you wanted to do a materialist thing, I think it would be best to expand the timeframe of HOI to maybe like 1920-50? That way you have 30 more years to delve into material conditions, represent the rise of the authoritarian regimes who pushed the war and the rebuilding of the post war period. The current 12 years just doesn't give a lot of breathing room. May even be interesting to merge HOI with a Cold War simulator, with WW2 being the war that decides who the superpowers post war are. Unfortunately, there is little case for this happening in Hoi4 and we can only hope these things happen with Hoi5.
I think the focus trees may stay, albeit they MUST be greatly expanded, featuring every single possible interaction with other countries when it comes to diplomacy and external politics. Focuses are simply the most efficient (both gameplay and development cost wise) way to simulate politics in HOI4 setting, however, they can learn a lot from Millennium Dawn mod. I really think interactions between countries there are way better than in the base game. A lot of those changes can simply migrate to base hoi4 and it would make for a staggering quality of life improvement. Otherwise, your suggestions are good. HOI4 AI definitely could use more tuning and expansions.
What I hate the most is when you have to capitulate all your opponents to get a tiny piece of land or a puppet, even if it is a war between two landlocked states and the enemy cannot reach you ever. There is a conditional surrender button but I have only ever seen it used once, in a game where both germany and the Soviets had 0% war support after an atomic bombing by me playing as the Baltics, after which both remained at war with me. Edit: I do hate how diplomacy is non existent, but while the AI could have a system where it takes decisions based on the current events in the world, and not a focus tree, then this game would no longer be a ww2 simulator. Edit 2: What i also dislike is that focus trees give your country buffs and never real nerfs. Yes, the soviets do have the purge mechanic, the spanish have their civil war, but for the most part, every decision you make make your country better, focus tree wise. I understand how there needs to be a feeling of progression and working towards a final goal, but this way it is plain dumb. Especially for nations that historically didn't develop at all during that time, due to global trade sort of shutting down during the war
The problem also stands for the fact that hoi4 has a much narrower time period Ck3 and EU4 both have around 600 years worth of game, Vic has 200 and hoi 10 at most, with most campaigns ending by 1942-3 While yes, there need to be changes, you can't exactly do that much diplomacy There are a few ways one can improve this 1. Extend the time period 2. Rework the game 3. Ignore the problem (something that paradox does)
I think what Paradox must realize is that their target audience, more often than not, is interested in simulating politics rather than simulating war or the economy. Hence, why most HoI4 mods focus on alt-hist or extended focus trees and why Victoria 3 failed.
Stop right there. Both are interesting players want both they want control over the military and politics taking away too much of the military creates Vic3 like situations. While I agree that the political and economic dynamics are mostly more interesting War is too and especially for playing smaller nations it the changed of ways due to war you can change the status quo rather quickly
The problem with HOI4 I see in relation to this is that the grounded historical and more realistic game and ww2 sandbox game are just, kind of hugely different appeals. There is of course overlap, but I know my dumbass would not even hoi on my radar as a series at all if not for the alt history shennagans and mods that allow for more 'tall' play styles like Milennium Dawn. It's almost like being Jewish has an impact that on how I would feel about the first game vs the sandbox one or something. Ahem. But either way, my main point is IDK if Paradox can make HOI just one of these and still have hoi be even remotely the money maker for Paradox it is. Which like, aside from maybe Stellaris, is Paradox biggest money makers bar none. Maybe EU4 but also Project Caeser is a thing so if the series is even going to be the same name or really even the same series in only but the vaguest senses is another thing, HOI no matter what outside of mods has to stay by the WW2 timeframe. Which is also the smallest time frame any Paradox game has. The only way they really could expand the timeframe is maybe the cold war but that has it's' own unique things and features and aspects as a historical period and might just be best a whole other game and also is a massive minefield of history still far too fresh to really poke into like that I feel. Hell, I would argue WW2 itself also could qualify as that.
Focus trees are really just up to the developers, look at new zealand or germany for example. While the latter is rather fun, it's outdated and just filled with alot of waiting for the slow 70 days focuses to finish which probably provide a small industry or army buff. It lacks flavour. And I think the opposite of that is also true, like the new south american focus trees focus on having a really sluggish country to begin with and then getting buffs after buffs that it's almost sucking the joy out of it. The sweet spot I find is greece where it still has that "do it yourself" factor and not just giving the best possible chances for you to win the war
The issue PDX has is a) materialist view doesn't work to describe the very different happenings of the 20th century. Going by sheer materialist view, Germany should have been the soviet union, not russia. Yet that is not what happened. People are not purely material animals, but respond to ideas as well. Very strongly in fact This can be seen in the modern-day by looking at government programs that are supposed to incentivize increased birth rates. Programs that provide financial aid, reward having just one more child etc, do not work, like they did in 20th century germany. Hungary, Russia, South Korea, Japan etc, they all are attempting to jump start it somehow by meeting material conditions. With little to no success. We are talking about "gains" of 0.1 at best, slowing of the decline at worst. The real issue that is at play is getting people to want to have kids. What did Hitler (and Stalin and a few others) do, that increased birth rates? They tied status to it. Ideology had mothers be seen as supreme examples of womanhood. And even then, lets be real here, Germany's birth rate did not exactly skyrocket into the atmosphere. But it actually did what fixing material conditions could not.
I agree with a lot of this but I do think the sandbox part of the game is what gives it alot of replay ability. There’s a lot of people who do challenges like conquering the US as the state of Israel. That can’t work if you have to rely on the real demographics of the region or the logistics of governing Greenland as a naval base in the way there. I do think hoi4 could be alot more fun with smarter ai and would love to see it. I just don’t see it happening
the problem I have, though, is that the people that are interested in ww2 are majority starting history fanatics and thus might enjoy more simple history games more. I agree that Hoi4 is a very not-dynamic game and as someone that can appreciate Vicky 2's complexity, I'd love to see Hoi4 improve like that, but it might kill the appeal that Hoi4 has. how i see it, Hoi4 is vicky 2 with a more fun combat system and an internal and external diplomacy system that makes sure the player stays on track. the reason they can get away with complicating systems in their other grand strategy games is because those games are played more by hardcore History fanatics
Dynamics and diplomacy have to maintain such a structure beccause too many factors and variables would be running around if you can dynamiucally react to anything as you wish, it could derail certain paths or unecessarily hamper your progression (as well as the AI), thus interrupting the narrative or direction an alt history game would be trending towards. not even mentioning how unreasonably bloated the base game would be if such a thing were to be implemented, imagine all the development time and subsequent bug fixing for such a complex web of dynamic interactions in a game bloated enough with the main point of warfare, don't get me wrong, the idea is sound, it just isn't feasible or makes sense development wise for what the game is trying to be. Also maybe reconsider it like this, alt history game mode isn't about a sandbox, a sandbox allows for a nigh unlimited level of freedom, view it more as a clay pot, there is still freedom to mold but not absolute freedom to sculpt as you please, this game has to prioritize game 1 as that is what it's main purpose is and ultimately that is what will limit it's ability to explore pure dynamic capabilities. This isn't a simulator, just a simulator of a simulator. Take that quote as you will.
14:20 you have a point but honestly victoria 2 economy its the intare focus of the game and its very complex and unclear, I personaly dont play victoria becuse I just dont undestand what am I suppose to do in the economy while hoi4 is more simple: use factories to make factories. Is it realistic? No! But atleast its undestandable
To be honest that’s the main problem with the argument that hoi4 need more economic complexity, yes the economy is an important thing in war but it can be abstracted to a more simple thing in a more war-focused game.
This is one of the few instances I think actual neural network based AI would heavily benefit a game (at least when it comes to the diplomacy and geopolitical aspect).
You just described thing that bothered me with Hoi4 for a long time, game become so boring after a while. Comparing it unknown to me titles, showed what's the problem. Great breakdown
hearts of irons game design has been on a downward spiral since HOI2/Darkest Hour. HOI3 was a broken unfinished mess that expanded too much without making the necessary gameplay expansions to make it interesting. HOI4 is a streamlining of 3's broken state, and is therefore completely removed from the basic game design in HOI2/Darkest hour.
Honestly you bring up great points, imo the whole focus tree system could simply be replaced with decisions, for those things that need to be scripted (like anschluss) while requiring some conditions to be met first. The AI would then be reacting to things actually happening in the world according to your actions, allowing for more time and diplo gameplay
The game is rigged from the start😮 though a more real game in hoi5 would be better with dynamism ignoring events of the past.. it is kind of best to mirror the current geopolitics of the 2020 for hoi5
It seems like your argument in favour of historical materialism comes from the believe, that it only correct way to analyse history, while it is highly disputed. While I like Victoria series, I can recognise that lances of historical materialism limits ability to properly represent many historical events.
hey man, I liked your channel and have a basic but important tip. While editing, could you please try lowering the musics sound, especially while you're talking? With a very high sounded music in the background, I had a hard time trying to listen to you. When I increase your videos sound to hear your low sound of talking more properly, the music starts hurting my ears. Have a great day!
The silly alt hist stuff is why the game is so replayable, i wouldnt have 1600 hours if it werent for the great modding scene and alt hist silliness
I wouldn’t have 2600 hours if there wasn’t multiplayer multiplayer non hist rp
GET THOSE HOURS UP I GOT 4.5k
My personal favorite is Old World Blues, specifically the "Enclave Reborn Redux" submod - building the entirety of the US, Canada, and Mexico back from the apocalypse is so damn fun, and because Fallout is an RPG, there's a lot of narrative writing to go with it.
That's nothing mate
*looks at my 1000 hour mostly spent on BICE*
Wait, there's alt history in this game?
"I have put in an unhealthy amount of time"
*Shows a mere thousand hours*
True those are rookie numbers
not nearly enough
My man literally did the tutorial and started to complain.
My man
A thousand hours in a game IS unhealthy
@@Leo-ok3uj r/whoosh
"Historial ww2" bro, you can literally win without producing uniforms or being worried about food
*infantry equipment *war support and stability
It's a military game, not a military-industrial game. The biggest flaw both for the political sim and the military sim is the lack of a dialectical materialist approach, which is why their non pop-based simulation games are simply worse than their pop-based games.
If HOI 5 doesn't have the same shift of approach as what the transition from eu4 to eu5 had, then I'm honestly not that interested. I've mostly already quit hoi4 anyway and the new dlc just looks like wehraboo slop
try hoi4 black ice mod
@@hko2006It sucks
BICE! BICE! BICE!
HoI needed to change 5 years ago. It's not going to change at this point.
Hopefully after EU5 releases they start developing HoI5 too
It will have no content on release like Victoria 3
@@Bluestripsenclavelove knowing paradox, yeah... it will be Vic 3 all over again
@@Yobama_BabyWe don’t even need a EU5 yet. Why the fuck do we need a Hoi5?
Focus trees are also a way to add certain actions like coring, claiming demilitarizing a zone and demanding subjugation, a state or annexation without adding a universal mechanic. And the railroading aspect of focus trees allows the devs to simply have an easier time forcing ai to take a certain focus tree order instead of training them for using mechanics to create a historic output while fitting their build to the players influence.
That's pretty much why Egypt doesn't exist at the start of the game. The UK AI wouldn't properly defend it. The game is the way it is so the AI wouldn't screw up, even if it's still pretty bad at actually putting up a fight.
MIFO bills shows exactly how Germany industrial power rose - not due to being Germany, but by printing money from thin air
The MIFO bills was more about taking a comically large debt than printing money to be honest.
@@El-Huggerprinting money was the idea before the MIFO Bills
Germany is actually still paying that stuff off
Imagine the warfare of hearts of iron with the economics of victoria 2
some of us who were waiting for East vs. West have been imagining for the past 10 years
Tno but more warfare
Vic2 was the perfect game. Just need to extend the timeline 400 years backwards and 20 years forward.
vic 3 was the biggest disappointment paradox ever released. i knew it wouldnt live up to the hype but holy shit
@@doogralyks87 Nah I think Imperator on release and Cities 2 were bigger.
just out of curiosity, do you tend to play beyond 1900 in Victoria 2?
@@MrUrze most people do, game changes drastically after 1900s. When a war happens you wish for hoi4 frontline management tbh
@@MrUrze Yes. Crimeamod extends the timeline to 1944. I have zero desire to play hoi4 when I can have the WW2 era in vic2.
I'm fine with focus trees, they are a staple of HOI 4 but I wouldn't mind if HOI 5 tried something else. To be fair, HOI 4 is the first game in series I got into so I have a different perspective, I'm aware earlier entries were different.
i want flashed out economics and better politics
@@giuliano.h agree, also I kinda like espionage so I think it would be cool to flesh out that part too. In HOI4 it's there but not really all that useful
@@giuliano.h we all do
A little advice. TH-cam preview play tends to cut the first 2-3 seconds of a video. Having an introduction to yourself at the start let's people have a little leeway for that.
I feel like the focus trees are good in theory, but they should be made so that they are far more dynamic and are still available for historical games if you want to have a track already laid for where to go (especially if you are a new player, because paradox games are complicated AF) but if it isn't possible to have a dynamic system while also keeping focus trees, they should ditch focus trees.
I my opinion hoi4 starts too late to actually have meaningful systems like what you describe in the video.
They need to push it back to the ‘20s, right after ww1 ends so that you can guide your country through the turmoil of the interwar period instead of trying to ram through massive unrealistic political changes in the 3 short years before the game kicks off. They have to abstract anything interesting about the diplomacy and political situation because there isn’t any time to develop it naturally.
Man, that sounds like a much better game, trying to race to sculpt your country into what it needs to be before the Second World War breaks out.
Aaaaand subscribed. You can see that Paradox tried to make dynamic systems on release and with Together for Victory, but by Waking the Tiger we got the full focus tree approach
Me laughing with 8,449 hours
You never actually what's wrong with focus trees as a concept, just that they don't interact with each other enough or in more meaningful ways. You keep drawing parallels between HoI4 and Vic2 but you say you don't want Vic2's systems? What I do agree on is that diplomacy would need a massive update with a lot more diplomatic options.
The problem is they are very specific while stuff like the pops mechanic is rather dynamic and he basically onyl talked about that
I get what you are trying to convey but i think base hoi4 is just a warfare game. The political and diplomacy elements are enshrined in other games by Paradox, like you mentioned, Victoria 3.
I think it is not easy to balance warfare and the ideas you mentioned in the video, and hoi4 would definitely be a huge bloated mess that may not have a clear direction.
Hoi4 fulfills the niche of military warfare, while Victoria 3 is more political and diplomatic (in turn it gets like a really odd military system).
Anyhow, I understand your opinion and I do wish Paradox can make Hoi5 more in depth like you suggested.
I also think mods like Kaiserreich kinda catch the balance between politics and warfare imo.
interesting idea about removing the focus trees, but i feel like paradox knows that if they do this for hoi 5 the community might be pissed. focus trees have their place, and what i see happening going forward is more dynamic focus trees with good curated content reacting dynamically to the world around them - kind of like the new belgium/congo tree with joint decisions etc. focus trees also allow for easier modding as you dont have to redo the entire world and every event/singular party or support number in it just to do something like an alt history mod/different time period. i agree on the economic stuff tho, its desperately needed - but anything as complicated as TNO economy is too much. I actually like your idea on simple mi/civ worker pops.
HOI III was the better wargame; but HOI IV is easier to get into
agreed. I remember getting hoi3 and just feeling immediately overwhelmed trying to play it.
I think you forget that hoi4 is a LARP map painting game and little else
so basically hearts of iron 3 vs darkest hour: a heart's of iron game
edit: for anyone who hasn't played, hearts of iron 3 is a very historically focused game with an emphasis on realism, and the HoI 4 mod, Black Ice, was originally a mod for Hearts of Iron 3. Darkest Hour, on the other hand, was/is a standalone community version that's much more accessible and was built in mind with alt-history choices, and the mod Kaiserreich was originally for Darkest Hour.
Victoria with hoi4 combat would be the absolute peak paradox game ever made
"I've put an unhealthy amount of hours in it" Bro I have 300 hours more than you and I'm still a newbie
Even om its "historical" mode, the game is so insanely oversimplified that its nowhere near a "simulator", as that implies that its trying to get things right and show them as they were, which this game does NOT do. At its best, its just a gramd strategy game set in ww2, its neither historical nor a simulator
dynamic ai in hoi4 is interesting topic
i get what you are saying, but as you said yourself, hoi4 isnt a political game, the game mostly focusses around military stuff, so making the game that political will just ruin it. the american and soviet political systems rn will already ruin you if you havent tried some builds before your run since they are very unforgiving
The US's control of the house is like the easiest mechanic in the world to understand, you literally click a button to turn red dots green. How is that messing with how you do anything in HOI4? It's literally just clicking a single button every 30 days.
@@chrisriverata1917Switzerland on the other hand...
@@giulianopisciottano8302See there's a system that so convoluted there's a leader for Switzerland no one uses because of how hard it is to get him.
But even the military stuff is so painfully dumbed down and simple
i agree but it would be extremely difficult to implement a better solution in my opinion (as someone with knowledge with programming), i can see there being decent ways to improve things but it'll still be extremely difficult
Background music is too high.
I know it's not really what you meant, but it's funny to release a video saying the game needs to change when it was going to in 3 days haha! But I definitely agree with lots of these ideas. I've been cooking up a mod, with lots of custom focus trees for new nations, and it's really hard to make these complex political systems work using the focus tree system. I'm finding myself wishing there was a different system for managing politics, and then a focus tree that would actually be a focus tree, "What is the nation focusing on right now?"
Great video! Look forward to more videos. I wish HOI4 had a POW mechanic. Especially for certain countries. Canada had a large POW camps spread throughout the country. Lots of them ended up staying after the war as well. It would be cool to able to use them for trade, or gain extra civ factories to simulate work camps. It would also be cool to have a refugee aspect as well where you can gain population when other countries capitulate if you were in an alliance with said country. Last thing is I wish we had a cold war era Paradox game that focused more of diplomacy, spies, and proxy wars than direct warfare.
ah yes i found - the extremely underrated pdx philosophy youtube essayist, what a good time of year
Mods are the main only reason HOI4 is still where it is today.
i wish there was a mod that allowed you to build your own focus tree with custom effects just to replace the original ones and add extra stuff that some of the focus trees lack
Focus trees force players to railroad themselves - breaking immersion.
Focus tree is like unironically the only thing interesting after they dump down the micro controlling battle
So in essence, you want a WW2 mod for Vicky 2 👍. Also, Austria needing Fascist support to get Anschluss‘d is contradictory since Austo-Fascists opposed the Nazis. Though granted, this is a limitation of Paradox turning the world into 4 ideologies.
Yeah, the fascist ideology in Austria should be divided between ndsap(nazism) and vaterlandische front (Austro fascism). This division is already made in the game by the way, but it goes almost completely unused. The same applies to communism in the Soviet union, it should be divided between centrists and rightists. While democracies should be divided on liberalism or conservatism.
@@giulianopisciottano8302 What people, devs included, misunderstand about the "political" pie in Hoi4 is that it's meant to show ideology. It's more of a an alignment chart, to make it more or less easy for countries to align with a power block.
@@Sauron17011 but a lot of times those ideologies weren't aligned at all. Look at the differences between the Nazis and the Austrian fascists, or the differences between Trotsky, Bukharin and Stalin, mao for one was only aligned with Stalin, not with the others
@@giulianopisciottano8302 Not an expert on Austrian history, but what I remember reading proves my point. In game, the austrian fascists are non-aligned, the national-socialist party, which ultimately surrendered the country to Hitler, are fascist in game.
unrelated to the main point, but i never thought of Victoria 2 as a historical materialism simulator, and yeah you are so right. That really opened my eyes and what i like about the game makes alot more sense now
Man your kind of just asking for Victoria 3
I sincerely wish Victoria 3 was that. Such a depth of military mechanics would make Victoria 3 a more enriching experience. However, the Victoria dev team can't just import the mechanics into the game simply because they work at the same company as the hoi dev team.
let's Make hearts of victoria 4
@@Jesus_Offical Iron Crusaders III: Hearts of victoria. And then stellaris DLC for endgame.
It's a video game. It's just something to do when you have spare time.
Subscribed, you're a fella with an astute grasp on the games pitfalls!
who let bro cook. you just made opps with 99% of the hoi4 community
I think the main problem your having is thinking the alt hist paths are a sandbox, like victoria or europa universalis where you can play the game for hundreds of years, guiding the nations and seeing others rise and fall.
HOI 4 is a wargame focused on WW2 no matter what, even if you turn historical off and everyone goes all wacky, it still stays focused on the WW2 period and nothing more.
The alt hist paths are not here for sandbox, they are here to showcase paths the country could have gone down and how that would have fit in WW2, not how the country would have politically driven it self into the future, most of the time they give tons of buffs as they assume everything went well and as planed by the party the path is trying to show, we can´t really say "well, this plan was shit and would just fail", at that point might as well not have that here at all, HOI4 is still a game that´s meant to be played, not the devs opinions on what political ideas were good or bad by certain parties and thus we assume all their ideas work as intended which often results in them being much more powerful than they would have been if they had been tried in real life.
HOI 4 does not have good politics as it does not matter to the main game, same goes for factions, diplomacy and internal politics.
If HOI 4 was Europa Universalis but starting a bit before WW2, i would agree those are big problems to it but its not.
HOI 4 is a wargame focused on WW2, if you halt hist its "what if X nation was X ideology instead of what it was really during WW2", the scope of the game is limited to WW2 period, thus most of the things that its missing are missing as they would also harm the halt hist paths, WW2 starts, "hmm, well i can´t join for 5 years as the democratic in my nation are unhappy and i have to juggle 2 minigames to keep them happy", Turkey is generally held as a shit focus tree as it takes such a long time to be able to do anything, which maybe historically correct but in terms of gameplay its boring as fuck, especially as the focuses are generally kinda bad for how long they take.
So TLDR, your problem is not really that HOI4 has problems, its that you want HOI 4 to be able to be played as a Victoria or EU type game but the start is a bit before WW 2.
I wouldn't have my 3,500 hours without alt history and mods.
Thank you for the video! I fully agree with you! First 20 hours in HOI4 were sooo confusing for a CK2 player myself, because I was trying to build up the industry by constructing the factories manually, which is much more logical, interesting and rewarding instead of a free creative mode focus tree that makes 0 sense in terms of realism.
About the mechanics, wr have a system about turning conviys to destroyers as norway, the balance of power of switzerland but no system of armyexhaustion between the the soviet and the germans. In sp i just march in take a 3 month break and continue further. Why not add a mechanic that adds a debuff on how many casulties u have taken during german invasion like the soviets had organisation difficulties in early barb. And then theyll have finnish it by winter and have a choice to reorganise further or get boni for a winter campaing. This way each sides fighting capability would in or decrease depending how bad they are doing the last 6 months. Of course for that the easten front units would need a seperate army bonus which would be another mechanic. All that is akready hard to implement when doing each major nation as a dlc each.
You get a debuff when you take casulties, which can lead to a massive shitshow for you
“Navy’s not engaging” sounds like u don’t know navy
I kind of disagree with your point. Without focus trees, I’d feel really lost. The level of scope you’re describing sounds fun, but also incredibly broad and easy to get lost in. In real history, things go on and on because no nation can or will conquer the world-power always balances out. But in a game like HOI4, you can conquer the world and paint the map however you like. Focus trees are important beacuse each focus tree tells a specific story, and while it can feel a bit railroaded at times, it provides the benefit of a cohesive narrative. You also only have 12 years so the scope of the game is very condescend unlike Victoria which is 100.
As for alternate history, I do think it's unrealistic for a country to just keep getting buffs over time, especially if they can just follow whatever path the player chooses. But that's done to make the game fun and engaging. For example, Denmark would never allow me to reinstall the king and conquer Scandinavia, and it would be incredibly difficult to pull off in reality. If you were to try to implement that in a more realistic way, it wouldn't really be fun.
Another thing to consider is that democracies aren't as fun to play in real life, especially when you don’t want to start a war because it means people could die, and there's the whole political complexity. But in HOI4, the best part is often the war-the challenge and excitement of military strategy and conquest. Complexity docent neccarily mean fun.
Personally, I like the focus system. Sure, they do not interact with each other, but it is satisfying when you complete one or get on a snowball and begin to become powerful. While being simple, it is a core mechanic and I don't know how the game would work without it.
Good video, man. I think the problem HOI4 has is that it tries to be a sandbox while also trying to be railroaded.
If you look at mods like KR and TNO, those have (to varying degrees) committed to be on-rails experiences. In my opinion, this helps them be more solid compared to the base game.
you are a weak man that cant handle anything other than the most vanilla boring shit possible
youtube "essayists" need to quit whining about everything for content
I completely agree with you.
One of the core principles of strategy is the constant action/reaction between the different actors. HoI 4 completely lacks this.
There's a fair point to be made about focus trees, but at the other side we have a question of why am I playing HoI instead of vicy or eu?
Because focus trees remove that portion of the game from me, automating it to a click every now and then. I don't need to worry about ploys and intrigue and... It's just funny button makes man go BRR and now Austria is mine. Then I get to play what I want on the field - invading UK as a Finland, overthrowing ussr as Mongolia or whatever else the case might be.
In a perfect game made in a fantasy lala land we would have nation customization from stellaris, ruler system from CK, beliefs from ck, politics from vicy and eu, research from vicy and stellaris, economics of vicy, and combat from hoi4
Game would start at 984 or so. It would lag you out by 1010 and HollowBeing would make a 17 hour video of pure suffering forcing the engine To struggle to 1455 before entering permanent BSOD loop. No mortal would see the endgame at 2500.
Maybe it's a good thing they're separate games after all. 😂
This is more what HoI5 could be, not what HoI4 should be, the game has been out for 9 years, and has worked brilliantly, being (as of writing this comment) the 31. place on most active players in the entirety of Steam's game library, trailing Helldivers 2. Not to mention the active modding and competitive communities, which are constantly reaching new peaks. HoI5 will probably come with more dynamic and controllable mechanics regarding to the use of smaller army units, and the progression of countries in WWII, with ways to manipulate its politics past focus trees.
I have thought about this before. Glad somebody actually is talking about it. 👍
16:58 Well Austria was ruled by a Fascist anti-Nazi party. But I get the point you're making.
Dude has rookie hours
A lot of the complaints, diplomacy wise, could be accomplished by branching focus trees or internal path decisions for country AI. For example, if Italy goes down the "Ratify the Stresa Front" focus, democratic France and Britain should be hard coded to accept, as well as to guarantee the next nation Germany threatens with annexation. This is really more on the laziness of the developers rather then the inadequacies of the system. Kaiserreich manages a system with many branching paths for each nation, where each nation has a set goal and place in the world system, regardless of what direction other nations take.
Hoi4 doesn't need change they just need to make hoi5 imo
To make hoi4 better: make it more like vicky3
To make vicky3 better: make it more like hoi4
the thing with compering victoria to hoi4 ai doesn't hold up
1. imagine germany getting aggressive and then britain says enough is enough and declares war on them what would france ai do A. help germany B. help britain or C do nothing
of course they will not know which one to take because it will conflict with who did what because germany did get aggressive but at same time britain did too by declaring war on them
2. Changing the AI too much could make the ai break down or worse go none historical path even tho you have historical on it will make ai choose based on what others did instead of following the historical path
Hope HOI5 can become the alt history narrative game and HOI4 can focus more on war simulator
Tbh I think the greatest issue is timespan. Victoria covers 100 years and EU 400, whereas HOI covers 12. I would like the greater diplomacy and politics, but the issue is material conditions in reality would not allow anywhere near the level of divergence of the focus trees. You probably couldn't crown a polish king, bring back the Russian Tsarists and you definitely couldn't do whatever the hell was going on in the Chile French king path. The issue is, however, that a lot of these more essentially narrative driven trees kinda define a lot of the fun in HOI4, a mildly different WW2 (eg idk Sweden gets involved or the Czechs are the start of the war) is kinda... boring compared to the other paths. If you wanted to do a materialist thing, I think it would be best to expand the timeframe of HOI to maybe like 1920-50? That way you have 30 more years to delve into material conditions, represent the rise of the authoritarian regimes who pushed the war and the rebuilding of the post war period. The current 12 years just doesn't give a lot of breathing room. May even be interesting to merge HOI with a Cold War simulator, with WW2 being the war that decides who the superpowers post war are. Unfortunately, there is little case for this happening in Hoi4 and we can only hope these things happen with Hoi5.
Lore of Hearts of Iron Needs to Change momentum 100
I think the focus trees may stay, albeit they MUST be greatly expanded, featuring every single possible interaction with other countries when it comes to diplomacy and external politics. Focuses are simply the most efficient (both gameplay and development cost wise) way to simulate politics in HOI4 setting, however, they can learn a lot from Millennium Dawn mod. I really think interactions between countries there are way better than in the base game. A lot of those changes can simply migrate to base hoi4 and it would make for a staggering quality of life improvement. Otherwise, your suggestions are good. HOI4 AI definitely could use more tuning and expansions.
What I hate the most is when you have to capitulate all your opponents to get a tiny piece of land or a puppet, even if it is a war between two landlocked states and the enemy cannot reach you ever. There is a conditional surrender button but I have only ever seen it used once, in a game where both germany and the Soviets had 0% war support after an atomic bombing by me playing as the Baltics, after which both remained at war with me.
Edit: I do hate how diplomacy is non existent, but while the AI could have a system where it takes decisions based on the current events in the world, and not a focus tree, then this game would no longer be a ww2 simulator.
Edit 2: What i also dislike is that focus trees give your country buffs and never real nerfs. Yes, the soviets do have the purge mechanic, the spanish have their civil war, but for the most part, every decision you make make your country better, focus tree wise. I understand how there needs to be a feeling of progression and working towards a final goal, but this way it is plain dumb. Especially for nations that historically didn't develop at all during that time, due to global trade sort of shutting down during the war
Nice audio quality, don't worry .
Also interesting ideas , devs definitely should listen and consider .
The problem also stands for the fact that hoi4 has a much narrower time period
Ck3 and EU4 both have around 600 years worth of game, Vic has 200 and hoi 10 at most, with most campaigns ending by 1942-3
While yes, there need to be changes, you can't exactly do that much diplomacy
There are a few ways one can improve this
1. Extend the time period
2. Rework the game
3. Ignore the problem (something that paradox does)
Liked the vid! Keep up the good work.
1376 hours? Man you have it good....
Ive got over 4k 😐
(Maybe 200 hours from that without mods, In ww2 I only play with road to 56)
Sadly the bottom feeding lowest common denominators that support this game blindly enable paradox to grunt out garbage games and still make money
War. War never changes.
I think what Paradox must realize is that their target audience, more often than not, is interested in simulating politics rather than simulating war or the economy. Hence, why most HoI4 mods focus on alt-hist or extended focus trees and why Victoria 3 failed.
Stop right there.
Both are interesting players want both they want control over the military and politics taking away too much of the military creates Vic3 like situations.
While I agree that the political and economic dynamics are mostly more interesting War is too and especially for playing smaller nations it the changed of ways due to war you can change the status quo rather quickly
Controlling war is a Cathalyst for player agency.
The problem with HOI4 I see in relation to this is that the grounded historical and more realistic game and ww2 sandbox game are just, kind of hugely different appeals. There is of course overlap, but I know my dumbass would not even hoi on my radar as a series at all if not for the alt history shennagans and mods that allow for more 'tall' play styles like Milennium Dawn. It's almost like being Jewish has an impact that on how I would feel about the first game vs the sandbox one or something. Ahem. But either way, my main point is IDK if Paradox can make HOI just one of these and still have hoi be even remotely the money maker for Paradox it is. Which like, aside from maybe Stellaris, is Paradox biggest money makers bar none. Maybe EU4 but also Project Caeser is a thing so if the series is even going to be the same name or really even the same series in only but the vaguest senses is another thing, HOI no matter what outside of mods has to stay by the WW2 timeframe. Which is also the smallest time frame any Paradox game has. The only way they really could expand the timeframe is maybe the cold war but that has it's' own unique things and features and aspects as a historical period and might just be best a whole other game and also is a massive minefield of history still far too fresh to really poke into like that I feel. Hell, I would argue WW2 itself also could qualify as that.
Focus trees are really just up to the developers, look at new zealand or germany for example. While the latter is rather fun, it's outdated and just filled with alot of waiting for the slow 70 days focuses to finish which probably provide a small industry or army buff. It lacks flavour. And I think the opposite of that is also true, like the new south american focus trees focus on having a really sluggish country to begin with and then getting buffs after buffs that it's almost sucking the joy out of it. The sweet spot I find is greece where it still has that "do it yourself" factor and not just giving the best possible chances for you to win the war
Just play Kaiserreich bro
The issue PDX has is a) materialist view doesn't work to describe the very different happenings of the 20th century. Going by sheer materialist view, Germany should have been the soviet union, not russia. Yet that is not what happened. People are not purely material animals, but respond to ideas as well. Very strongly in fact
This can be seen in the modern-day by looking at government programs that are supposed to incentivize increased birth rates. Programs that provide financial aid, reward having just one more child etc, do not work, like they did in 20th century germany. Hungary, Russia, South Korea, Japan etc, they all are attempting to jump start it somehow by meeting material conditions. With little to no success. We are talking about "gains" of 0.1 at best, slowing of the decline at worst. The real issue that is at play is getting people to want to have kids. What did Hitler (and Stalin and a few others) do, that increased birth rates? They tied status to it. Ideology had mothers be seen as supreme examples of womanhood. And even then, lets be real here, Germany's birth rate did not exactly skyrocket into the atmosphere. But it actually did what fixing material conditions could not.
I agree with a lot of this but I do think the sandbox part of the game is what gives it alot of replay ability. There’s a lot of people who do challenges like conquering the US as the state of Israel. That can’t work if you have to rely on the real demographics of the region or the logistics of governing Greenland as a naval base in the way there. I do think hoi4 could be alot more fun with smarter ai and would love to see it. I just don’t see it happening
the problem I have, though, is that the people that are interested in ww2 are majority starting history fanatics and thus might enjoy more simple history games more. I agree that Hoi4 is a very not-dynamic game and as someone that can appreciate Vicky 2's complexity, I'd love to see Hoi4 improve like that, but it might kill the appeal that Hoi4 has. how i see it, Hoi4 is vicky 2 with a more fun combat system and an internal and external diplomacy system that makes sure the player stays on track. the reason they can get away with complicating systems in their other grand strategy games is because those games are played more by hardcore History fanatics
Dynamics and diplomacy have to maintain such a structure beccause too many factors and variables would be running around if you can dynamiucally react to anything as you wish, it could derail certain paths or unecessarily hamper your progression (as well as the AI), thus interrupting the narrative or direction an alt history game would be trending towards. not even mentioning how unreasonably bloated the base game would be if such a thing were to be implemented, imagine all the development time and subsequent bug fixing for such a complex web of dynamic interactions in a game bloated enough with the main point of warfare, don't get me wrong, the idea is sound, it just isn't feasible or makes sense development wise for what the game is trying to be.
Also maybe reconsider it like this, alt history game mode isn't about a sandbox, a sandbox allows for a nigh unlimited level of freedom, view it more as a clay pot, there is still freedom to mold but not absolute freedom to sculpt as you please, this game has to prioritize game 1 as that is what it's main purpose is and ultimately that is what will limit it's ability to explore pure dynamic capabilities.
This isn't a simulator, just a simulator of a simulator.
Take that quote as you will.
14:20 you have a point but honestly victoria 2 economy its the intare focus of the game and its very complex and unclear, I personaly dont play victoria becuse I just dont undestand what am I suppose to do in the economy while hoi4 is more simple: use factories to make factories.
Is it realistic? No! But atleast its undestandable
To be honest that’s the main problem with the argument that hoi4 need more economic complexity, yes the economy is an important thing in war but it can be abstracted to a more simple thing in a more war-focused game.
I feel like removing focus trees is stupid, it has became the "core" of the game maybe add a good diplomacy features.
Have we really forgotten about HOI3 already?
So you just want a victoria/eu game set in ww2 with a HOI4 look to it?
Its a war game, mainly focusing on land sea and air, not knitting uniforms and cooking meals 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
This is one of the few instances I think actual neural network based AI would heavily benefit a game (at least when it comes to the diplomacy and geopolitical aspect).
Have you played HOI3? It had it's flaws, but the politics and threat system was at least somewhat dynamic and there were no focus trees.
Honestly I don’t get Hoi4 being scared of the Pops system due to genocides I mean Stellaris exists.
You just described thing that bothered me with Hoi4 for a long time, game become so boring after a while. Comparing it unknown to me titles, showed what's the problem. Great breakdown
8:16 material conditions is a repulsive set of words
Underrated channel. Subscription earnt.
idealism is the truth tho
hearts of irons game design has been on a downward spiral since HOI2/Darkest Hour. HOI3 was a broken unfinished mess that expanded too much without making the necessary gameplay expansions to make it interesting. HOI4 is a streamlining of 3's broken state, and is therefore completely removed from the basic game design in HOI2/Darkest hour.
Honestly, you can boil most of the issues down to the AI being very simple and boring in hoi4.
Honestly you bring up great points, imo the whole focus tree system could simply be replaced with decisions, for those things that need to be scripted (like anschluss) while requiring some conditions to be met first. The AI would then be reacting to things actually happening in the world according to your actions, allowing for more time and diplo gameplay
The game is rigged from the start😮 though a more real game in hoi5 would be better with dynamism ignoring events of the past.. it is kind of best to mirror the current geopolitics of the 2020 for hoi5
At 6:12 which music is playing? Besides that, great video!
What is the image on the thumbnail? I like it a lot
Nice video
It seems like your argument in favour of historical materialism comes from the believe, that it only correct way to analyse history, while it is highly disputed. While I like Victoria series, I can recognise that lances of historical materialism limits ability to properly represent many historical events.
HOI4 is not remotely a simulation.
hey man, I liked your channel and have a basic but important tip. While editing, could you please try lowering the musics sound, especially while you're talking? With a very high sounded music in the background, I had a hard time trying to listen to you. When I increase your videos sound to hear your low sound of talking more properly, the music starts hurting my ears.
Have a great day!