Paradox Games

HOI 4 lays off the railroading fairly well and has a toggle for the main source thereof (though more for the minors than the majors - the big 7 are fairly set in stone, and disabling "historical focuses" only really changes when the Axis is going to set the world ablaze) and has a lot less complexity for the sake of complexity. The most common complaint is that AI is kind of dumb, but if I stopped playing video games because the AI was dumb, I wouldn't ever play video games.

If you can spare 20 bucks (25 bucks if you want some shiny tank and cruiser models), HOI 4 is 50% off on Steam until July 5th. The DLC that's out right now spruces up the British Commonwealth (Together for Victory) and four regional powers in Central-Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia - Death or Dishonor) with shiny new graphics and new opportunities to go off the rails.

Air and Naval combat are pretty bad in HOI IV right now though IMHO, but I never played the previous ones so it might be the case there too.

Eh, they've gotten better. My only real problem with naval combat is that carriers melt fleets without their own carriers or land-based air superiority too easily and the AI doesn't apply these things nearly enough. Unless you're in the extreme north where night can last months, naval battles often end before a single gun can be fired at a ship. I mean, sure, the timescale is wonky, but battles take forever in most 4X and grand strategy games because time units that work for one thing aren't always good for another.

The two most damning issues right now are Axis suicide transport through the English Channel (allegedly the top priority of the devs at this point) and that the AI cannot into technology and fights the war in 1939 with whatever weapons it started with (except for Germany, which will sometimes research a medium tank before 1942) because it was more interested in factories and doctrine than weapons to execute that doctrine with to the point of pursuing mobile warfare with no tanks or trucks (supposedly made somewhat better in the newest beta patch).

edited 27th Jun '17 12:24:51 PM by Balmung

My problem with naval combat is how broken it seems to be at a "AI cheating" level.

They sunk a fleet of over 251 ships, headed by 4 super yamatos, and using the best tech that was available, using a 121 ship fleet, headed by a single WWI refit dreadnought.

And pushed me out of the entire war with that one incident, because from that point on it was literaly imposible for me to do any thing. :/

Not to mention that the AI doesn't actually need naval superiority to conduct naval invasions, if I recall correctly.

, I don't like the sound of that. But I'm still confident I will enjoy HOI 4. I guess I'll see.

was there land-based air cover or some extreme difference in screens? And did you lose in the sense that you actually lost more ships, or just in that your ships bailed despite doing more damage than they took? Because if it was the latter, keep in mind that the AI loves doctrines and may well have had much more ORG than you.

Also, if a large portion of your fleet strength was submarines, they aren't really much good in a fight and get slagged by destroyers and light cruisers, and destroyers also have a habit of taking heavy losses to light and heavy cruisers.

I'll say this much: I have never lost a naval battle where I had the advantage in carriers. My normal fleet comp is 4 CV + as many CL, CA, BC, and BB as I deploy in the same time as those carriers.

After the fight in question, I wouldn't call you out of the war, just delayed until you can assemble a CVBG and come back for another round.

edited 27th Jun '17 1:12:17 PM by Balmung

HOi4 is actually the first game of the franchise I got for myself (instead of playing on a friend's PC).

I kinda liked the second game, though it hasn't aged well, and absolutely despised the third one with a fiery passion.

I really like the build-up phase before the world explodes into war.

That reminds me, I should really do another singleplayer game at some point - still torn between trying out NatPop Gran Colombia in Kaiserreich again or try and go for a democratic China in the China mod - provided I don't actually get violated by Japanese naval invasions again.

Or I might actually try to finally do the Kaiserreich game I wanted to do since they released the mod for HOI4 and restore the Russian Empire.

edited 27th Jun '17 1:52:30 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Not in the extremes, but I had 80 aircraft and they had none, also lost in the sense that I lost my entire fleet, all of them sunk. :/

In addition I had minimal submarines, it was a fleet of 4 super yamatos, 8 lower tier battleships, 2 carriers, 21 subs, and something like 83 cruisers, and the remaining were destroyers.

So I have absolutely zero idea what happened.

edited 28th Jun '17 2:05:43 AM by Imca

Robobros, no!

Ooh, sounds fun.

Okay, then I got nothing unless it was an older patch in which specific kinds of screens were incredibly OP. But even then, it sounds like you had more screens than them unless your cruisers were incredibly CA heavy.

edited 28th Jun '17 5:44:28 AM by Balmung

So I bought HOI 4 (thanks for the recommendation Balmung ) and I've downloaded both Kaiserreich and the Millennium Dawn mod. I think my first game will be Fascist US, were my main goals will be to annex all of North and South America (and then we'll see were I go from there ).

Definitely advocate you playing Kaiserreich once you get the basics down.

Also Fascist US is gonna take a while; there's a national idea that cuts down on the political gain of anything that's not Democracy.

Not true - it cuts support from foreign nations, but employing your own advisor to boost the ideology is not penalized, save for by the scaling penalty for already having a certain amount of support.

Also, just a heads up, non-democratic USA cannot get a sixth tech slot and the effects of the Pax Americana tree change with your ideology (as of when you complete the focus).

Wait, really? What are they?

Also how does Kaiserreich play?

So at last the United States of America is dead, and from its ashes rises the glorious Free American Empire. Mexico and Canada look on with trepidation at what the jingoistic new state will do next.

If you were asking about my Pax Americana comment, the focuses in the tree apply a drift towards whatever ideology you have you complete the focus and they start civil wars and give wargoals on different nations (eg. USA gets a wargoal on Venezuela, while the Communist States get a wargoal on Chile).

And Kaiserreich plays quite well. Of some note, it generally has smaller factory counts, more ideologies (broadly grouped as far-left (syndicalism, radical socialism, and totalism (basically rebranded Stalinism)), centrist/democratic (social democracy, social liberals, market liberals, and social conservatives), and far-right (authoritarian democracy, paternal autocracy, and national populism)). Focus trees are often partially or wholly event locked (eg. the USA cannot take any focuses until Hoover leaves office). While there's a second Weltkrieg, Kaiserreich mostly focuses on a large number of smaller, regional wars and civil wars (so many that I might characterize it as "a world of bloody revolutions" to borrow a line from the first RWBY opening) than a single world-engulfing conflict and faction lines are often decided more by realpolitik than ideology. Also, note that design companies are applied constantly in Kaiserreich, rather than as modifiers on equipment researched while they're hired. Furthermore, ideology cannot simply be boosted via diplomatic action, puppets cannot simply be absorbed, and there are no self ideology drift advisors. Instead, your current ideology affects which ministers you can hire.

edited 28th Jun '17 7:25:41 PM by Balmung

Enjoy being locked out of a bunch of focuses. The US is actually the best example of how limiting most major focus trees actually are - apart from France, but even their focus tree is often considered to be one of the weaker ones.

Totalism seems to be somewhere between Stalinism and Strasserism, if I recall correctly - it's hard-left, but with a strong focus on both central power (DIRECT RULE and all that) and a degree of nationalism.

Sooo... maybe Kaiserreich's version of National Bolshevism?

To be fair, the more radical ideologies are kinda hard to grasp - the community still can't exactly pin down if National Populism ist just fascism under another name or just an umbrella term for non-conservative/non-left populist ideologies. The ruling party under the American Caesar is defined as National Populist (if I recall correctly) just as the racist wing of Long's AFP or Colombia's Corporatist Leopardos are.

What makes things even more complicated: A lot of historical fascists often started out as socialist before turning to the right - in Kaiserreich most of them actually stayed socialist, but they're actually adherents of Totalism (hello, Horseshoe Theory).

People often requested to make some of the ideologies more clear or even split up Totalism and National Populism further, but I can see why the devs have declined to do that so far.

edited 28th Jun '17 7:37:04 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Be warned you'll likely have to fight all of the Allies when you attack Canada.

Oh I know, I intend to subjugate them last.

I'm aware, but I consider it worth it. Mainly for the RP value, but also for the ability to (eventually once world tension reaches 100%) go to war more or less at will.

edited 28th Jun '17 7:41:22 PM by Fourthspartan56

Really hope we get this major focus tree overhaul Paradox hinted at a few times. How limited they are is actually one of the major reasons why I never played a country that's counted among the majors.

I'd also like it if America and the Allies could but out of South America. One of the things I want to do most is bring all of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean into a single faction that will be its own world power, but with America constantly exerting influence around and any country having a chance of joining all of the Allies and dragging them all into the war is annoying.

It's not just Nat Pop and Totalism that often seem a bit too similar at times. Paternal Autocracy (especially under Long) often contains redistributive policies we would often see as fairly far left. Indeed, at times, Long seems Not So Different from some of the more Totalist-leaning syndies or perhaps Social Democrats with Totalist sympathies.

And given that the most prominant examples of Nat Pop are extremely racist (Apartheid South Africa, Iron Guard Romania, Savinkov's Russia, and the AUS if Long is assassinated after winning the civil war), I'm pretty sure that it's basically fascism with a different name. I don't think a Macarthur permanent dictatorship or ceasarship changes the ideology, but it sounds more like a choice between Authoritarian Democracy and Paternal Autocracy. Paternal Autocracy seems to cover most cases of authoritarian populism that aren't inherently racist.

edited 28th Jun '17 8:11:43 PM by Balmung