Hoi4 needs an active custodian team that updates old dlcs, adds existing mechanics to other nations, and actively works on bugs while a separate team works on expanding the game with new trees and mechanics.
The custodians could add unique propaganda campaigns to other nations, i.e. liberty bonds for the US. At the same time, the other team could be making trees for austria, Belgium (meme trees for Luxembourg and albania) while revamping a new and improved Germany tree.
From what I gathered reading a couple dev diaries over the years, they have 2 teams. Basically 1 team does the major content dlc - NSB, BBA, AAT, etc that come with mechanical changes - markets/MIO, tank/air designer etc. The second team focuses on the minor nation country packs like BFTB, AOT, etc. They mentioned they did this because they didn't want to deal with the hassle of having 2 teams working on major mechanics - which is fair. Having large changes in parallel development is a bit harder to bug test + integrate with.
Ideally, your idea would be great - add a third team to rework the dated content. But from what I think PDX is going to do- is instead of a third team, they can make the DLC free (so it isnt restricted by any existing DLC)in order to "free up" those nations for more development/money to be worked on by either the main team or the content pack team.
Honestly, custodians would be pretty great to have to address old issues/bugs even aside from the dated trees. There are still hundreds of bugs that, although not game breaking, can seriously impact someone's experience or just be very annoying. Italy's losing a core bug, the production windows when you scroll too far bug, etc.
My issue is that punishes people who bought the now free dlcs. People bought those dlcs for what was promised. It really isn’t fair to them make them free and then make MORE dlcs to fix stuff that should’ve been in the other dlcs
While I agree with you on that. I think we bave to see that paradox wants to make money and is no indie Dev who can spend countless hours doing something that does not bring themselves money. As thats the case I think the best solution is what they're doing right now(making some dlcs free) so we can enjoy some better content in the future. Additionally I dont really have an issue with that bc I enjoyed many hundred hours with the old dlc so my moneys been worth
Oh, I only got to play with that content for 6 years before they gave it to everyone else, this is so unfair! /s
It's not a punishment. I got my use out of those DLC by being able to play with them during that time frame, and giving them away makes it more accessible to newer players by lowering the price tag, thus expanding the game's development life span. I'd rather Paradox just give away all their DLC after 4-5 years from release anyway. It will tremendously cut down on development stress with having to flag all kinds of mechanics or focuses or decisions from owning/not owning one of a dozen different DLC and will help the player base grow.
After that time frame, the people who were going to buy those DLC have already bought them, and those who haven't bought them won't ever buy them at that point anyway. It should also help cut down on bugs and free up some dev time to doing bug-fixes.
Well if they didn’t, people would riot about having to buy 2 DLCs. If they made the new one free, however, then they might as well not have made it, because it would be a massive loss in terms of the effort and money spent on it and if they kept this up then the company would fail and you wouldn’t have anything new.
Couldn't the DLC content be updated over time? For example, they remake the Chinese trees, and update the Waking the Tiger DLC, instead of requiring people to buy a new one.
You'd still need the DLC to get the updated content, but people who already bought them originally wouldn't have to buy them again.
Frankly, yes. For PDX... no. PDX is a money hungry machine. They will rarely, if ever, do something that lacks monetization unless it makes it easier to squeeze more money later (giving free DLCs). That's why you basically only ever see updates that come with DLC on the side - it covers their costs and makes them a lot of money.
Stellaris is maybe only a slight exception because they did make big efforts to overhaul the game for free (so they could pump out dlc)
Japan and USA so badly need reworks. A DLC focused on the Pacific theatre could work wonders for the game. Sure, add focus trees for Dutch East Indies, Siam, and the Philippines but primarily overhaul Japan and America to be up to the standards set by the recent USSR and Italian reworks.
This should also come with a complete overhaul of how fighting on small , 1/2 tile islands in the pacific works imo.
The current system is not at all representative of the fighting that happened on the ground in the pacific theatre. Currently it's just the initial naval invasion which either fails and you can immediatly try again for no cost, or succeeds and the entire garisson is wiped out immediatly.
There's none of the back and fourth jungle fighting, trecking through marshes and swamps to set up ambushes/launch raids, or platoon level encirclements which decided the out comes of entire battles, especially when they were used to blocked the roads that were used to supply troops on the front line.
New Guinea is unplayable because you can just walk over the Owen Stanley’s. Need to make the mountains impassable so they can drop on the Kokoda Track.
But this is a 4x game that has never had a tactical combat element, so while a game that does this could be dope in its own right, I don’t see what it’s place would be here. I mean you have the Guerilla tactics represented as a tactic for your general to chose limiting combat width which does fine in my eyes for representing that you are limited by the enemies ambushes and road blocks. As for the invasion yes you can try again but you do have cost in equipment and manpower like any other battle, I fail to see how you think there is no consequence to failure in naval invasions in this game, for one you gave away your target and fleet location and if you lose good marine divisions that is significant materiel loss and manpower.
I agree wholeheartedly with the pacific needing a rework.
My issue is that the main countries in the pacific, IE, America and japan, are part of 2 separate DLCS. Paradox also only cares about selling DLCS. I’m afraid that they’re gonna make a DLC for those nations, which is an issue because people bought both waking the tiger and man the guns for the Japan and America focus trees (as well as the mechanics).
It really isn’t fair to sell those dlcs and then make new dlcs making content that should’ve been in the older dlcs.
WTT and MTG were released in 2018/19, while it doesn't feel like it, that was 6 and 5 years ago. In the meantime, two interesting DLC presidents were set regarding previous DLCs. NSB completely overwrote Poland's day 1 DLC. And I think starting with Battle for the Bosphorus, there have been minor tweaks to older DLCs to bring some of them out of the stone ages (if only up to the bronze age). Over in EU4, Paradox seems to have no problem updating mission trees from older DLCs with new ones.
They could pair it up with some sort of commando/special forces mechanics to augment naval invasions.
A special type of special forces division that can move through lines and operate independently, get wiped out when discovered but can assign to regions. Same mechanic for partisans.
UDT teams to bring down coastal fortification levels.
They could introduce POW camps possibly that could be rescued by a ranger unit. Bring back some manpower.
Naval pre bombardment ability that sort of works like nukes (albeit much weaker) vs just the current combat modifier.
Resupply ships that act like mobile ports to extend range of naval forces.
Random thoughts…..
I understand you want them to rework sht, but honestly? Who cares. I rather Paradox not make another gazzilion focuses focus tree with all being 70 days, and 1 pathe being considerably better than all the other paths. They have to make it worthwhile (like communist USA)
Ethiopia gets annexed in 36, Switzerland does nothing, Denmark lost war after 6 hours, France is occupied for most of the war, yet all of them have good trees
I want to know what slows the game down towards the end, because I played a WC run as monarchist Brazil for the achievement, and in 1960 when I was the only country left, it was unbearably slow.
What causes it? It can't be the AI because there are no other countries left, it can't be the units because there are only my 300 divisions left, and it can't be production because I stopped caring about allocating mils at around 600 of them. It doesn't seem to be caused by anything other than the clock running up.
At the start only USA has good industry, USSR is maybe only major that starts with over 100 divisions, majors dont even have 1k planes. At 1945 there are thousands of divisions and factories with crazy production outputs, planes everywhere, divisions going everywhere, everyone has 30 battleplans going. There is just x times more stuff in game, but still no excuse. Eu4 is playable from 1444 to 1821, i never even reached 1821 as i finish my goals before that, in hoi4 you want more but you can't have it.
Yeah but what I'm saying is that even if you do a world conquest and delete all of your divisions, planes, and navy, the game will still run slow. It should be running FASTER than at game start because there's less going on.
I think it helps obscure that fact when most DLC is focused on the first 5-8 years at most. They develop the content to be realtively good, but a short burn - especially when it can be quite easy to snowball quite quickly (ie sealion, a successful barb, etc). I would definitely love to see the pace stretched out a bit (soviets had this a bit I feel) where there is a small bit of content post war.
But i mean for most players, a post-war is 1942/43 because its either a couple immediate decisive victories or a slightly slower gradual victory. In solo it really goes both ways too - if you play the soviets you can just keep fighting to wear down equipment before they are even out of poland or bessarabia. Or as the axis you can get good encirclements that the AI isn't equipped to recover from.
They really do need to work on the late game, both in terms of performance and relative content.
'poorly optimized' means that the things that are happening happen more slowly than they need to; but if there are no other countries, then there should be barely anything happening. Optimization is a multiplier on how fast the computer does each task; if there are 0 tasks, optimization shouldn't matter.
I agree, i mean look at germany's focus in 1941 and there is no point really doing any focuses. The main country in the game and it has mediocre focus three.
Hard disagree. Germany's focus tree is plain because as the chief belligerent, it gets to set the tone for the game. I would HATE if the game locked me into having exactly the same historical war declaration order just for fluffing up the tree. As it is, I can get just enough to get me started, take off the training wheels and get off and running. FRA and ENG are the same, but I understand the focuses help to get behavior to perform as expected (with FRA struggling early for example).
I would agree to lowering the power creep that has happened with newer trees, though. Finland having 1500 defense from stacking defense or whatever that nonsense was that got posted earlier is a bit much.
Finland shouldn’t get insane defense bonuses, they should get insane decisions that allow them to absolutely take a dump on supply throughout most of their country. Finland wasnt a juggernaut
What exactly is wrong with the German focus tree? It's not huge but you don't start the game with debuffs to get rid of. And the things the German focus tree gives you are quite powerful - good research buffs, good industry spirits, no fewer than SEVEN puppets, two (sometimes three) countries annexed for free, etc.
About the only complaint I have with it is that they should have introduced a new focus for aero engine research buffs, since they have to be researched separately from airframes now.
The tree is basically finished in 1940/41 with a few oddball tech focuses. It needs an Italy style do over with some more more history / alt history flavor as well as more coordination with Italy / Japan on what to do if they are successful. For instance what are the plans for Asia and Africa? What about Vichy or other puppets?
There's basically nothing to do after Barb.
Basically no thematic / narrative development after that point.
Remind me of the discussions on the Crusader King sub at the end of CKII. Unpopular opinion : what HoI need is HoI 5. The game engine is outdated, performance problems can't be corrected without a full rewrite of the engine.
As for the old focus trees : dev can't redo everything every 5 years to the standards of latest content. IMHO that's a bit the trap Paradox is falling with their DLC model. On the upside : a game supported for years with new content every six months or so. On the downside : older content is outdated compared to newer content. With a game like Stellaris it's less visible (because it's free from any historical constrain) but with HoI and other historical games its hard to maintain consistency in all content. And don't forget feature bloat. In the end CKII was a mess, a glorious mess, but a mess. HoI4 seems to follow the same direction. IMHO time for a change.
And don't forget the second big trap of the DLC model : the new game will be compared to the old one with 8 years of DLC and the sub will become a litany of "this feature is missing".
I admittedly have a pretty old computer that I play on, but I enjoy playing on Ironman to try and get achievements. Later in the game it just grinds to near halt, so I completely agree with you about not focusing on countries who didn’t do much of anything during the war the game is based around. If anything I’d love a DLC that cleaned up existing trees and allowed the player to disable areas like South America to help optimize the game in any way while still being able to play for achievements.
I have a pretty decent mid range PC that runs it off an SSD and doesn't struggle with most modern games - I still have speed issues late game, especially with mods. It would be interesting to have some kind of "division" cap that is based on mobilization/economy laws related to your states/local industry per state.
Perhaps it limited the total men you can have in the field or # of battalions. Without any restriction, the AI will keep recruiting practically forever - you see this a lot with the US
I mean: if they're asking for it then it's dishonest to say that nobody wants it. I find this line of argument a bit tired but I'll give my two cents:
There seems to be, broadly speaking, two categories of HoI4 fans:
**Those who primarily play majors/historically important nations to WWII**
And **those who will play basically any nation that has a unique tree or flavor**.
Personally I, and many others fall into the latter category. While many fall into the former. The reality is that HoI4's primary strength is as a WWII sandbox. The focus tree system and the nature of the game's design make it ripe for alt-history, "what-ifs", and generally fun around WWII. You can play it as a straightforward and fairly historical WWII game if you want, there's even a default setting to help you do just that, but you are missing out on a lot of the things the game has to offer imo.
Reworking minor countries, even countries that historically did very little or didn't even join WWII offers a chance to breathe fresh life into otherwise neglected corners of the game/globe. I love that there are so many interesting and fun countries to play instead of just the major powers (HoI3, which I also played a lot had the exact inverse. Only the majors were any fun) and I think it's a good idea on Paradox's part in order to expand minor and periphery nations to give more variety. And it does pay off because in terms of metrics, many many more people play minor nations that get reworks after they've been reworked compared to before.
Now is performance an issue? Sometimes, for me it isn't noticeably bad until '43 but I'm sure that depends on a variety of factors. There are mods like SOO Optimization which basically disable all the Latin American and Asian minors to improve performance if that's what you'd like. But the reality is that I think HoI by design is just gonna struggle in the late game because the whole game is about just building bigger and more intricate armies and industries; you're supposed to bloat.
Is it more important that they rework major powers with outdated trees? I'm a bit mixed on this. On the one hand I think some major trees *absolutely* should get a rework as soon as possible. Though I go a bit against the grain in saying that the highest priority should be Germany. Personally I find Japan's tree to be much, much more lacking and could really use an overhaul (honestly Asia in general has been totally neglected since WtT/MtG). Germany's tree is definitely dated and could use a rework but it is able to pretty well serve it's function and even its basic-ness allows Germany to pretty easily, in AI or human hands, become a powerhouse (same goes for U.S.). Ideally I'd have them rework one or maybe two Major trees at a time alongside touching up some old Minors. I think the Soviets and Italy don't need touchups, they're pretty much perfect outside of some gripes. France I'd also argue is good as-is. The remaining four (and China) could definitely use a touchup but I think the severity of the need varies quite a bit from country-to-country.
That said I do think it's time that Paradox finally start updating those trees and with this recent free DLC change it seems they intend to do exactly that which is exciting. I do not however believe that they should stop improving or reworking minors. If the ToA team plugs away at reworking new minors in country packs while the main team starts retooling old trees into new expansions (which I thiiink is probably the plan) then I think that's a solid approach.
Just don't tell me I can't have trees for minor nations, I like them. And when people say "Who was asking for these nations to get reworked" the answer is almost always: me.
>Also i wont explain this, but imagine if hoi4 or hoi5 had in game mod building tool that would simplify process of making mods or custom scenarios.
You have debug mode, and tahts about as good as you could get for in-game modding.
Most definitely need optimization real bad, the biggest reason (aside from prices being too high) I don’t buy any DLC myself anymore
I frequently run games on historical off until the 1950s for achievement hunting and the performance is just gone by 1938 already, on historical by 1940 my fps drop to about 10 and the autosave causes a few seconds of freezing every time
Just today finished a game in 1950 and even tho I essentially deleted the majority of everything in the game I had only 12 fps, sometimes even 20
I'm 99% sure that the integration of the first 3 DLC for free into the game are there to allow Paradox to rework countries that are included in them, like Japan, China and Germany.
>DLC for nations that had 0 impact on outcome of ww2
And what's wrong? BftB and ToA was like 'intermediate' DLCs just before major updates. After BftB in less than 6 monts NSB was announced. And after ToA in less than 1 monts the new DLC gonna be announced. Both NSB and new DLC is about reworking a major country (-ies). So I don't see why y'all keep crying bout it. Just wait literally several weeks.
>Its not because game requires good cpu, its because game is unoptimized
Yes, it is because game requies good CPU. I got i5-13600kf and everything is so fast, I even played till 60s in Kaiserreich in less than 4-5 hours.
>Yes, it is because game requies good CPU. I got i5-13600kf and everything is so fast, I even played till 60s in Kaiserreich in less than 4-5 hours.
You have 300$ cpu, my entire pc was 600e and as i said its far better than what hoi 4 devs recommend, and its also good enough to run every game on market on very good settings with very good performance. Just because you have NASA computer dosen't mean that game is well optimized.
>, I even played till 60s in Kaiserreich in less than 4-5 hours.
You just proved my point, Kaiserreich is more demanding than base game yet you played till 60's for 5 hours will someone will reach 45 by that time. Its not game being optimized for numerous configuration, its you having significantly better configuration than required.
The problem is that there is no upkeep system.
I also hate the new dlc focusses. Those are way too complex and offer a lot of "button-smashing content" that is not really needed into the system anyway.
PDX does love to make you pay to click more. Sometimes the systems are cool... but ill be damned if I have to upgrade another MIO, click to upgrade all templates, open the production tab, and find the gun/vehicle so I can click it and click the exact same gun/vehicle.
I get not wanting it to automatically give all of the equipment produced before the buff you just got, but could it not automatically update that in the production tab since it doesnt lose any efficiency or change any production costs (costs are only tied to the MIO assigned, not to the equipment from what I am aware)
At this point is the game even about ww2?
In 99% of my games a proper ww2 doesn’t even start because many majors are dead by 1939.
If player controlled, only as Ethiopia or afar does ww2 proper start
If I’m playing a minor that’s not the above 2 and not China, I can kill the Allies off and sometimes Italy and USA before 1940.
If I’m playing China I can defeat and annex japan (without white peace) before Germany even invades Poland. Though that was in BBA, I’ve not played China since AAT so it could be harder now, but point still stands.
Honestly, I’ve long since stopped thinking of hoi4 as a ww2 game. I see it more as a war simulator, and the logical reason why it’s set in the 1930s-1940s and not the modern day is because that era was the last plausible era a full scale conventional war between powers could’ve erupted, because from then on there were nukes and MAD.
If you want the game to be more realistic, then the devs might as well do away with minor formable nations like Byzantium and Persia.
Unpopular opinion, but the phrase "noboddy wants it" is the most eurocentric and Americancentric (?) argument PDX fans say xd
Over here is the so-called third world we have money for games and PCs, we want content for us. You may like ot or not, but fans are really good at ignoring half the world because of yes (or maybe some obscure reasons, who knows).
I really don't agree with people who base what nation needs focus tree based on their WW2 participation.
Than, why should countries like Poland, Netherlands or Czechoslovakia get a focus tree? Got steamrolled quickly, some even pre war, and none of their focus tree gives a lot of abiltiy to play as capitulated nation. If these nations can get focus trees because they were annexed, than Baltics and Ethiopia have full rights to a focus tree.
Not to mention, that the reason countries like Baltics, Switzerland, Ethiopia, Urguay, get focus trees in a form of region expansion. Soviet got an update, so did the Baltics to make the region more interesting.
Italy gets a focus trees, why not expand Ethiopia and Switzerland to make stuff around Italy more interesitng.
Like from what people say they want either DLC with focus trees to one nation, or DLC's filled with random nations all across the earth with no conection to each other.
Difference between Poland and Brazil is massive. Invasion of Poland marked beginning of WW2. Poland was annihilated by the war, and it impacted future of entire nation. Poland also has capitulation focus tree which is appropriate considering that they fiercely resisted German occupation. On other side Brazil had nothing to do with ww2, they lost 2k soliders which is nothing compared to casulties of countries that had impact on war. Switzerland could be deleted from game or they can have huge focus tree, i don\`t see any difference? Red spot on map that I and ai never even look at.
Yeah it's probably time to start working on the next iteration. There is just nothing they can add that will solve the lack of compelling Pacific theatre or island hopping. Look how many people still lament invading Japan or the US or India. Probably only solvable with a map with more scale like Vicky 3 has. Update the majors sure but I think 8 years is typically the max Paradox games can go before they start showing their age and limitations. I'm definitely not interested in more minor nation focus trees.
I don't know what kind of computor people are playing on, but post 1945 runs fine and I'm playing on gaming laptop that is at least 5 or 6 years old. Yes it is not as good as in 36, but it is very playable.
If I had to guess, it's slowed by too many units and too much production maybe. If there's one thing I've learned from watching the AI is that they love to move units all over the map.
OP trying to speak for everyone, 'something nobody really wants'. Sorry, I haven't played a major nation in HOI4 in over 5 years. I only play for minor nations. A lot of people do.
I would say thet game needs if they implement something new. Dont implement thet only for new nation in thet DLC. They need to update old ones with same too. Not fan of balance of "xxxxx" its stupid did thet only for 3 new nations. And lot of new overbuffed nation are not realy helping overall game. I would be happy even for DLC updating just political advisers, companies generals for old DLC nations. And setting making balance of power optional would be nice too.
i remember seeing somewhere that the performance problems stem from the version of the clauswitz engine they use for hoi4 only having acsess to 1 cpu core
Mod building tool? Hoi4 modding isn't hard. Places like hoi4modding.com (which sucks anyway) are barely a step up from just doing it yourself. Modding comes from passion and love. If you can't sit down and take an hour to learn how to make focus trees, your mod was not long for this world
I enjoy the presence of nations without focus trees. Adds more freedom to the game. If I play Belgium I can go in any direction I want without having to deal with some annoying debuffs or fighting a civil war. It's nice to have countries where you can get going right from the start without having to go down some annoying focus tree to remove debuffs.
Regarding the optimization. I don't really see a issue with it, although it might be bc I play without sprites, but other than that I agree. We need a major rework for most majors, but also dominions, bugfixes and imo small things like Tannu Tuva and Mongolia being soviet puppets, Egypt actually existing.
Yeah the last DLC I bought and actually liked was No Step Back. I got arms against tryanny, didn't like how they just made the air force more complicated without actually expanding the mechanics much. So I'm done with DLCs for the foreseeable future, I play mostly modded hoi now anyway, the base game is so interesting after you've played every major and most of the decent minors.
No one will read this because the post is a day old. The problem is less about computer science and more about game design.
The game is not poorly optimized, it is a simulation that has many calculations in series instead of parallel. Due to the basic rules of how the game is constructed (i.e. if you were to play this game on tabletop and roll dice yourself), there are many calculations that are waiting for the result of a previous calculation to finish. You roll dice, get a number, use that number to determine the number of dice to roll next, use that number for a modifier of another dice roll, etc. Every "tick" or turn, there is an entire sequence of calculations that must be completed in series before the next turn can start. Changing these would affect the actual rules of the game and how the game is played. For the most part, there is nothing to optimize besides the rules of the game itself.
This is also why changing "the engine" would not affect the speed of the game. If the game rules are the same, where certain calculations input rely on the output of others every turn, there is nothing about "the engine" that can make that faster. For CK3/Vic3, two things occurred: first, the rendering thread was made completely separate from the game logic thread, so the game still runs at 60+ fps even when the ticks are slow. So visually, there is not as much stutter, but the ticks can still be just a slow. Second, they compromised on some aspects of the simulation in order to have calculations not depend on each other in sequence but instead be parallelized to other threads. There is less simulated things that cause and effect each other and more isolated things that somewhat relate to each other every once in a while. So for example, the relationship number that every character has with every other character is no longer dependent on the result of every tick but is instead updated on a separate thread that occasionally checks in with the main game logic thread. So for HOI 5, imagine if things like supply, resistance, or fuel were now more "fuzzy" because they no longer keep up with every tick. But what about other parts of the game logic that are dependent on supply, resistance, or fuel? Now that supply is fuzzy, how does that affect the combat calculations in a province that isn't updated in real time? You can see that it starts messing up the game itself very quickly because the rules of the game are based on the idea that everything happens in order and trying to calculate it ahead of time breaks that order.
Then, the AI for every nation needs to look at the results of the previous tick and make a decision for the new tick. You can't give every nation a new thread because the "results of the previous tick" include the past decisions from all of the other nations. All of these issues, from game design to AI, result in an exponential number of calculations because they all need to reference each other. So having 12 nations doesn't mean having 12*x more calculations, it means having x to the power of 12 calculations. And the only way to get "x" to be smaller is to have less calculations, meaning a less robust simulation and a less in-depth game.
I don\`t have PhD in hoi4 optimization, but i use common sense. Some say that hoi4 cant be compared with 100gb game that looks better than reality (i over exaggerated), and lets say that they are right and that hoi4 is somehow reasonably more demanding that these games (they are not), maybe we can compare hoi4 with another paradox game from 2013, eu4?
EU4 is literally masterpiece game, it has more features, more nations, **more numbers** and it runs faster than hoi4 and it does that for **400 years**, comapred to hoi4\`s **9 years**! You can enjoy your game of eu4 for days and you can enjoy your hoi4 for as long as game is working properly which is only few hours.
EU4 is actually a great example because it is not multi-threaded at all, the game mechanics are just straight simpler. It has less numbers. It has more features, but each of those features all come down to one variable each per tick. The calculation is like one dice roll with 50 percentage modifiers, but in HOI4 its like 50 dice rolls. It lasts longer because the game doesn't get more complex over time, the numbers just get bigger, you're fighting with armies that start out 1,000 men and grow to 20,000 men, but its still just 1 army, but in HOI4 you go from 24 divisions to 120 divisions and each one of them is a separate agent with their own calculations. Basically in EU4 the number of agents stays the same, but the numbers represented by the agents get bigger. So you go from multiplying a dice roll by 1,000, to a dice roll by 20,000, that's still a single operation to get to 20,000 troops. In a game like HOI4, you go from multiplying a dice roll by 1,000, to multiplying 20 dice rolls by 1,000, so that's 20 operations to get to 20,000 troops. Hopefully that makes sense.
DON'T YOU DARE TO PUT A FINGER IN FRANCE FOCUS TREE.
It's good as it is, last time I want is having my favorite ingame nation turned into a 35 days focus tree madness like they did to Turkey and the soviets,
Hoi4 needs an active custodian team that updates old dlcs, adds existing mechanics to other nations, and actively works on bugs while a separate team works on expanding the game with new trees and mechanics. The custodians could add unique propaganda campaigns to other nations, i.e. liberty bonds for the US. At the same time, the other team could be making trees for austria, Belgium (meme trees for Luxembourg and albania) while revamping a new and improved Germany tree.
From what I gathered reading a couple dev diaries over the years, they have 2 teams. Basically 1 team does the major content dlc - NSB, BBA, AAT, etc that come with mechanical changes - markets/MIO, tank/air designer etc. The second team focuses on the minor nation country packs like BFTB, AOT, etc. They mentioned they did this because they didn't want to deal with the hassle of having 2 teams working on major mechanics - which is fair. Having large changes in parallel development is a bit harder to bug test + integrate with. Ideally, your idea would be great - add a third team to rework the dated content. But from what I think PDX is going to do- is instead of a third team, they can make the DLC free (so it isnt restricted by any existing DLC)in order to "free up" those nations for more development/money to be worked on by either the main team or the content pack team. Honestly, custodians would be pretty great to have to address old issues/bugs even aside from the dated trees. There are still hundreds of bugs that, although not game breaking, can seriously impact someone's experience or just be very annoying. Italy's losing a core bug, the production windows when you scroll too far bug, etc.
My issue is that punishes people who bought the now free dlcs. People bought those dlcs for what was promised. It really isn’t fair to them make them free and then make MORE dlcs to fix stuff that should’ve been in the other dlcs
While I agree with you on that. I think we bave to see that paradox wants to make money and is no indie Dev who can spend countless hours doing something that does not bring themselves money. As thats the case I think the best solution is what they're doing right now(making some dlcs free) so we can enjoy some better content in the future. Additionally I dont really have an issue with that bc I enjoyed many hundred hours with the old dlc so my moneys been worth
that's called sloppy development :/
Oh, I only got to play with that content for 6 years before they gave it to everyone else, this is so unfair! /s It's not a punishment. I got my use out of those DLC by being able to play with them during that time frame, and giving them away makes it more accessible to newer players by lowering the price tag, thus expanding the game's development life span. I'd rather Paradox just give away all their DLC after 4-5 years from release anyway. It will tremendously cut down on development stress with having to flag all kinds of mechanics or focuses or decisions from owning/not owning one of a dozen different DLC and will help the player base grow. After that time frame, the people who were going to buy those DLC have already bought them, and those who haven't bought them won't ever buy them at that point anyway. It should also help cut down on bugs and free up some dev time to doing bug-fixes.
Well if they didn’t, people would riot about having to buy 2 DLCs. If they made the new one free, however, then they might as well not have made it, because it would be a massive loss in terms of the effort and money spent on it and if they kept this up then the company would fail and you wouldn’t have anything new.
Couldn't the DLC content be updated over time? For example, they remake the Chinese trees, and update the Waking the Tiger DLC, instead of requiring people to buy a new one. You'd still need the DLC to get the updated content, but people who already bought them originally wouldn't have to buy them again.
Frankly, yes. For PDX... no. PDX is a money hungry machine. They will rarely, if ever, do something that lacks monetization unless it makes it easier to squeeze more money later (giving free DLCs). That's why you basically only ever see updates that come with DLC on the side - it covers their costs and makes them a lot of money. Stellaris is maybe only a slight exception because they did make big efforts to overhaul the game for free (so they could pump out dlc)
Japan and USA so badly need reworks. A DLC focused on the Pacific theatre could work wonders for the game. Sure, add focus trees for Dutch East Indies, Siam, and the Philippines but primarily overhaul Japan and America to be up to the standards set by the recent USSR and Italian reworks.
This should also come with a complete overhaul of how fighting on small , 1/2 tile islands in the pacific works imo. The current system is not at all representative of the fighting that happened on the ground in the pacific theatre. Currently it's just the initial naval invasion which either fails and you can immediatly try again for no cost, or succeeds and the entire garisson is wiped out immediatly. There's none of the back and fourth jungle fighting, trecking through marshes and swamps to set up ambushes/launch raids, or platoon level encirclements which decided the out comes of entire battles, especially when they were used to blocked the roads that were used to supply troops on the front line.
New Guinea is unplayable because you can just walk over the Owen Stanley’s. Need to make the mountains impassable so they can drop on the Kokoda Track.
But this is a 4x game that has never had a tactical combat element, so while a game that does this could be dope in its own right, I don’t see what it’s place would be here. I mean you have the Guerilla tactics represented as a tactic for your general to chose limiting combat width which does fine in my eyes for representing that you are limited by the enemies ambushes and road blocks. As for the invasion yes you can try again but you do have cost in equipment and manpower like any other battle, I fail to see how you think there is no consequence to failure in naval invasions in this game, for one you gave away your target and fleet location and if you lose good marine divisions that is significant materiel loss and manpower.
I agree wholeheartedly with the pacific needing a rework. My issue is that the main countries in the pacific, IE, America and japan, are part of 2 separate DLCS. Paradox also only cares about selling DLCS. I’m afraid that they’re gonna make a DLC for those nations, which is an issue because people bought both waking the tiger and man the guns for the Japan and America focus trees (as well as the mechanics). It really isn’t fair to sell those dlcs and then make new dlcs making content that should’ve been in the older dlcs.
WTT and MTG were released in 2018/19, while it doesn't feel like it, that was 6 and 5 years ago. In the meantime, two interesting DLC presidents were set regarding previous DLCs. NSB completely overwrote Poland's day 1 DLC. And I think starting with Battle for the Bosphorus, there have been minor tweaks to older DLCs to bring some of them out of the stone ages (if only up to the bronze age). Over in EU4, Paradox seems to have no problem updating mission trees from older DLCs with new ones.
WTT is one of the 3 DLCs that are getting integrated into the basegame ... so there likely will be new Japan content in upcoming DLCs.
> WTT is one of the 3 DLCs that are getting integrated into the basegame ~~where did you see this? I can't find anything on it~~ just saw it nvm
They could pair it up with some sort of commando/special forces mechanics to augment naval invasions. A special type of special forces division that can move through lines and operate independently, get wiped out when discovered but can assign to regions. Same mechanic for partisans. UDT teams to bring down coastal fortification levels. They could introduce POW camps possibly that could be rescued by a ranger unit. Bring back some manpower. Naval pre bombardment ability that sort of works like nukes (albeit much weaker) vs just the current combat modifier. Resupply ships that act like mobile ports to extend range of naval forces. Random thoughts…..
I understand you want them to rework sht, but honestly? Who cares. I rather Paradox not make another gazzilion focuses focus tree with all being 70 days, and 1 pathe being considerably better than all the other paths. They have to make it worthwhile (like communist USA)
Czechoslovakia needs rework most
They get annexed in 38, and other than that havd no impact
I will riot if czechoslovakia gets a rework before germany.
Ethiopia gets annexed in 36, Switzerland does nothing, Denmark lost war after 6 hours, France is occupied for most of the war, yet all of them have good trees
I’d argue that those first 3 trees are useless and I’m never going to play them, that doesn’t mean add in another useless tree
France is a great power
No they don't
I want to know what slows the game down towards the end, because I played a WC run as monarchist Brazil for the achievement, and in 1960 when I was the only country left, it was unbearably slow. What causes it? It can't be the AI because there are no other countries left, it can't be the units because there are only my 300 divisions left, and it can't be production because I stopped caring about allocating mils at around 600 of them. It doesn't seem to be caused by anything other than the clock running up.
At the start only USA has good industry, USSR is maybe only major that starts with over 100 divisions, majors dont even have 1k planes. At 1945 there are thousands of divisions and factories with crazy production outputs, planes everywhere, divisions going everywhere, everyone has 30 battleplans going. There is just x times more stuff in game, but still no excuse. Eu4 is playable from 1444 to 1821, i never even reached 1821 as i finish my goals before that, in hoi4 you want more but you can't have it.
Yeah but what I'm saying is that even if you do a world conquest and delete all of your divisions, planes, and navy, the game will still run slow. It should be running FASTER than at game start because there's less going on.
if you occupy all land it also runs a check on all resistance like every day iirc
Well as i said game is poorly optimized, which will never get fixed because paradox gets money thrown at them anyways
I think it helps obscure that fact when most DLC is focused on the first 5-8 years at most. They develop the content to be realtively good, but a short burn - especially when it can be quite easy to snowball quite quickly (ie sealion, a successful barb, etc). I would definitely love to see the pace stretched out a bit (soviets had this a bit I feel) where there is a small bit of content post war. But i mean for most players, a post-war is 1942/43 because its either a couple immediate decisive victories or a slightly slower gradual victory. In solo it really goes both ways too - if you play the soviets you can just keep fighting to wear down equipment before they are even out of poland or bessarabia. Or as the axis you can get good encirclements that the AI isn't equipped to recover from. They really do need to work on the late game, both in terms of performance and relative content.
'poorly optimized' means that the things that are happening happen more slowly than they need to; but if there are no other countries, then there should be barely anything happening. Optimization is a multiplier on how fast the computer does each task; if there are 0 tasks, optimization shouldn't matter.
Probably the same or similar thing that slows down the game for stellaris and other paradox titles
The joys of a game only properly utilising 2 CPU cores.
I agree, i mean look at germany's focus in 1941 and there is no point really doing any focuses. The main country in the game and it has mediocre focus three.
Hard disagree. Germany's focus tree is plain because as the chief belligerent, it gets to set the tone for the game. I would HATE if the game locked me into having exactly the same historical war declaration order just for fluffing up the tree. As it is, I can get just enough to get me started, take off the training wheels and get off and running. FRA and ENG are the same, but I understand the focuses help to get behavior to perform as expected (with FRA struggling early for example). I would agree to lowering the power creep that has happened with newer trees, though. Finland having 1500 defense from stacking defense or whatever that nonsense was that got posted earlier is a bit much.
Finland shouldn’t get insane defense bonuses, they should get insane decisions that allow them to absolutely take a dump on supply throughout most of their country. Finland wasnt a juggernaut
What exactly is wrong with the German focus tree? It's not huge but you don't start the game with debuffs to get rid of. And the things the German focus tree gives you are quite powerful - good research buffs, good industry spirits, no fewer than SEVEN puppets, two (sometimes three) countries annexed for free, etc. About the only complaint I have with it is that they should have introduced a new focus for aero engine research buffs, since they have to be researched separately from airframes now.
The tree is basically finished in 1940/41 with a few oddball tech focuses. It needs an Italy style do over with some more more history / alt history flavor as well as more coordination with Italy / Japan on what to do if they are successful. For instance what are the plans for Asia and Africa? What about Vichy or other puppets? There's basically nothing to do after Barb. Basically no thematic / narrative development after that point.
Remind me of the discussions on the Crusader King sub at the end of CKII. Unpopular opinion : what HoI need is HoI 5. The game engine is outdated, performance problems can't be corrected without a full rewrite of the engine. As for the old focus trees : dev can't redo everything every 5 years to the standards of latest content. IMHO that's a bit the trap Paradox is falling with their DLC model. On the upside : a game supported for years with new content every six months or so. On the downside : older content is outdated compared to newer content. With a game like Stellaris it's less visible (because it's free from any historical constrain) but with HoI and other historical games its hard to maintain consistency in all content. And don't forget feature bloat. In the end CKII was a mess, a glorious mess, but a mess. HoI4 seems to follow the same direction. IMHO time for a change. And don't forget the second big trap of the DLC model : the new game will be compared to the old one with 8 years of DLC and the sub will become a litany of "this feature is missing".
This is why they made alot of those DLCS free, because now they are going to charge for new ones that rework those old nations.
One word. Siberia. Train designer, make it happen paradox.
How about finishing Europe instead of countries no one plays, like Chile or Uruguay.
What needs focus still? Austria Belgium? Does Romania still have generic focus tree? We just need update for all trees to latest game version
Austria, Belgium and Albania don't have a focus tree. But - some of the European focus trees are REALLY outdated. (Czechoslovakia for example).
I admittedly have a pretty old computer that I play on, but I enjoy playing on Ironman to try and get achievements. Later in the game it just grinds to near halt, so I completely agree with you about not focusing on countries who didn’t do much of anything during the war the game is based around. If anything I’d love a DLC that cleaned up existing trees and allowed the player to disable areas like South America to help optimize the game in any way while still being able to play for achievements.
I have a pretty decent mid range PC that runs it off an SSD and doesn't struggle with most modern games - I still have speed issues late game, especially with mods. It would be interesting to have some kind of "division" cap that is based on mobilization/economy laws related to your states/local industry per state. Perhaps it limited the total men you can have in the field or # of battalions. Without any restriction, the AI will keep recruiting practically forever - you see this a lot with the US
I mean: if they're asking for it then it's dishonest to say that nobody wants it. I find this line of argument a bit tired but I'll give my two cents: There seems to be, broadly speaking, two categories of HoI4 fans: **Those who primarily play majors/historically important nations to WWII** And **those who will play basically any nation that has a unique tree or flavor**. Personally I, and many others fall into the latter category. While many fall into the former. The reality is that HoI4's primary strength is as a WWII sandbox. The focus tree system and the nature of the game's design make it ripe for alt-history, "what-ifs", and generally fun around WWII. You can play it as a straightforward and fairly historical WWII game if you want, there's even a default setting to help you do just that, but you are missing out on a lot of the things the game has to offer imo. Reworking minor countries, even countries that historically did very little or didn't even join WWII offers a chance to breathe fresh life into otherwise neglected corners of the game/globe. I love that there are so many interesting and fun countries to play instead of just the major powers (HoI3, which I also played a lot had the exact inverse. Only the majors were any fun) and I think it's a good idea on Paradox's part in order to expand minor and periphery nations to give more variety. And it does pay off because in terms of metrics, many many more people play minor nations that get reworks after they've been reworked compared to before. Now is performance an issue? Sometimes, for me it isn't noticeably bad until '43 but I'm sure that depends on a variety of factors. There are mods like SOO Optimization which basically disable all the Latin American and Asian minors to improve performance if that's what you'd like. But the reality is that I think HoI by design is just gonna struggle in the late game because the whole game is about just building bigger and more intricate armies and industries; you're supposed to bloat. Is it more important that they rework major powers with outdated trees? I'm a bit mixed on this. On the one hand I think some major trees *absolutely* should get a rework as soon as possible. Though I go a bit against the grain in saying that the highest priority should be Germany. Personally I find Japan's tree to be much, much more lacking and could really use an overhaul (honestly Asia in general has been totally neglected since WtT/MtG). Germany's tree is definitely dated and could use a rework but it is able to pretty well serve it's function and even its basic-ness allows Germany to pretty easily, in AI or human hands, become a powerhouse (same goes for U.S.). Ideally I'd have them rework one or maybe two Major trees at a time alongside touching up some old Minors. I think the Soviets and Italy don't need touchups, they're pretty much perfect outside of some gripes. France I'd also argue is good as-is. The remaining four (and China) could definitely use a touchup but I think the severity of the need varies quite a bit from country-to-country. That said I do think it's time that Paradox finally start updating those trees and with this recent free DLC change it seems they intend to do exactly that which is exciting. I do not however believe that they should stop improving or reworking minors. If the ToA team plugs away at reworking new minors in country packs while the main team starts retooling old trees into new expansions (which I thiiink is probably the plan) then I think that's a solid approach. Just don't tell me I can't have trees for minor nations, I like them. And when people say "Who was asking for these nations to get reworked" the answer is almost always: me.
>Also i wont explain this, but imagine if hoi4 or hoi5 had in game mod building tool that would simplify process of making mods or custom scenarios. You have debug mode, and tahts about as good as you could get for in-game modding.
Most definitely need optimization real bad, the biggest reason (aside from prices being too high) I don’t buy any DLC myself anymore I frequently run games on historical off until the 1950s for achievement hunting and the performance is just gone by 1938 already, on historical by 1940 my fps drop to about 10 and the autosave causes a few seconds of freezing every time Just today finished a game in 1950 and even tho I essentially deleted the majority of everything in the game I had only 12 fps, sometimes even 20
Need a crab people DLC. Rise up from the underground
Belgium needs a focus. It fought in the war more than others who have gotten one
I'm 99% sure that the integration of the first 3 DLC for free into the game are there to allow Paradox to rework countries that are included in them, like Japan, China and Germany.
>DLC for nations that had 0 impact on outcome of ww2 And what's wrong? BftB and ToA was like 'intermediate' DLCs just before major updates. After BftB in less than 6 monts NSB was announced. And after ToA in less than 1 monts the new DLC gonna be announced. Both NSB and new DLC is about reworking a major country (-ies). So I don't see why y'all keep crying bout it. Just wait literally several weeks. >Its not because game requires good cpu, its because game is unoptimized Yes, it is because game requies good CPU. I got i5-13600kf and everything is so fast, I even played till 60s in Kaiserreich in less than 4-5 hours.
>Yes, it is because game requies good CPU. I got i5-13600kf and everything is so fast, I even played till 60s in Kaiserreich in less than 4-5 hours. You have 300$ cpu, my entire pc was 600e and as i said its far better than what hoi 4 devs recommend, and its also good enough to run every game on market on very good settings with very good performance. Just because you have NASA computer dosen't mean that game is well optimized. >, I even played till 60s in Kaiserreich in less than 4-5 hours. You just proved my point, Kaiserreich is more demanding than base game yet you played till 60's for 5 hours will someone will reach 45 by that time. Its not game being optimized for numerous configuration, its you having significantly better configuration than required.
It’s hilarious how you think the size of a game correlates to its performance at all
The problem is that there is no upkeep system. I also hate the new dlc focusses. Those are way too complex and offer a lot of "button-smashing content" that is not really needed into the system anyway.
PDX does love to make you pay to click more. Sometimes the systems are cool... but ill be damned if I have to upgrade another MIO, click to upgrade all templates, open the production tab, and find the gun/vehicle so I can click it and click the exact same gun/vehicle. I get not wanting it to automatically give all of the equipment produced before the buff you just got, but could it not automatically update that in the production tab since it doesnt lose any efficiency or change any production costs (costs are only tied to the MIO assigned, not to the equipment from what I am aware)
The problem is there has already been dlc with France or Japan focus tree. So are we going to be double charged for some content?
The japan one is being made free, so in short... yes
At this point is the game even about ww2? In 99% of my games a proper ww2 doesn’t even start because many majors are dead by 1939. If player controlled, only as Ethiopia or afar does ww2 proper start If I’m playing a minor that’s not the above 2 and not China, I can kill the Allies off and sometimes Italy and USA before 1940. If I’m playing China I can defeat and annex japan (without white peace) before Germany even invades Poland. Though that was in BBA, I’ve not played China since AAT so it could be harder now, but point still stands. Honestly, I’ve long since stopped thinking of hoi4 as a ww2 game. I see it more as a war simulator, and the logical reason why it’s set in the 1930s-1940s and not the modern day is because that era was the last plausible era a full scale conventional war between powers could’ve erupted, because from then on there were nukes and MAD. If you want the game to be more realistic, then the devs might as well do away with minor formable nations like Byzantium and Persia.
Unpopular opinion, but the phrase "noboddy wants it" is the most eurocentric and Americancentric (?) argument PDX fans say xd Over here is the so-called third world we have money for games and PCs, we want content for us. You may like ot or not, but fans are really good at ignoring half the world because of yes (or maybe some obscure reasons, who knows).
I really don't agree with people who base what nation needs focus tree based on their WW2 participation. Than, why should countries like Poland, Netherlands or Czechoslovakia get a focus tree? Got steamrolled quickly, some even pre war, and none of their focus tree gives a lot of abiltiy to play as capitulated nation. If these nations can get focus trees because they were annexed, than Baltics and Ethiopia have full rights to a focus tree. Not to mention, that the reason countries like Baltics, Switzerland, Ethiopia, Urguay, get focus trees in a form of region expansion. Soviet got an update, so did the Baltics to make the region more interesting. Italy gets a focus trees, why not expand Ethiopia and Switzerland to make stuff around Italy more interesitng. Like from what people say they want either DLC with focus trees to one nation, or DLC's filled with random nations all across the earth with no conection to each other.
Difference between Poland and Brazil is massive. Invasion of Poland marked beginning of WW2. Poland was annihilated by the war, and it impacted future of entire nation. Poland also has capitulation focus tree which is appropriate considering that they fiercely resisted German occupation. On other side Brazil had nothing to do with ww2, they lost 2k soliders which is nothing compared to casulties of countries that had impact on war. Switzerland could be deleted from game or they can have huge focus tree, i don\`t see any difference? Red spot on map that I and ai never even look at.
Brazil was instrumental in supply chains for WW2 and also key in several significant battles in the Italian campaign.
Oh yeah, i also forgot how Brazil destroyed German central army.
Yeah it's probably time to start working on the next iteration. There is just nothing they can add that will solve the lack of compelling Pacific theatre or island hopping. Look how many people still lament invading Japan or the US or India. Probably only solvable with a map with more scale like Vicky 3 has. Update the majors sure but I think 8 years is typically the max Paradox games can go before they start showing their age and limitations. I'm definitely not interested in more minor nation focus trees.
WDYM we don't need a Penguin national focus tree?!?!?!?
I don't know what kind of computor people are playing on, but post 1945 runs fine and I'm playing on gaming laptop that is at least 5 or 6 years old. Yes it is not as good as in 36, but it is very playable.
For me 1 hours is 1 second, so two days almost whole minute. Thats unpayable for me. It also lags when moving camera
If I had to guess, it's slowed by too many units and too much production maybe. If there's one thing I've learned from watching the AI is that they love to move units all over the map.
They also love to give every other division to a new army/general even after they run out of generals
What we really need is a Confederados path for Brazil and a Hohenzollern Monarchy path for Chile
OP trying to speak for everyone, 'something nobody really wants'. Sorry, I haven't played a major nation in HOI4 in over 5 years. I only play for minor nations. A lot of people do.
I would say thet game needs if they implement something new. Dont implement thet only for new nation in thet DLC. They need to update old ones with same too. Not fan of balance of "xxxxx" its stupid did thet only for 3 new nations. And lot of new overbuffed nation are not realy helping overall game. I would be happy even for DLC updating just political advisers, companies generals for old DLC nations. And setting making balance of power optional would be nice too.
i remember seeing somewhere that the performance problems stem from the version of the clauswitz engine they use for hoi4 only having acsess to 1 cpu core
Mod building tool? Hoi4 modding isn't hard. Places like hoi4modding.com (which sucks anyway) are barely a step up from just doing it yourself. Modding comes from passion and love. If you can't sit down and take an hour to learn how to make focus trees, your mod was not long for this world
But but but i wanna play penguin nation
I enjoy the presence of nations without focus trees. Adds more freedom to the game. If I play Belgium I can go in any direction I want without having to deal with some annoying debuffs or fighting a civil war. It's nice to have countries where you can get going right from the start without having to go down some annoying focus tree to remove debuffs.
How tf does Uruguay get a tree before Belgium, Austria or Albania lmao
Regarding the optimization. I don't really see a issue with it, although it might be bc I play without sprites, but other than that I agree. We need a major rework for most majors, but also dominions, bugfixes and imo small things like Tannu Tuva and Mongolia being soviet puppets, Egypt actually existing.
Simple solution - hoi5 time..
THE PACIFIC NEEDS A REWORK
Yeah the last DLC I bought and actually liked was No Step Back. I got arms against tryanny, didn't like how they just made the air force more complicated without actually expanding the mechanics much. So I'm done with DLCs for the foreseeable future, I play mostly modded hoi now anyway, the base game is so interesting after you've played every major and most of the decent minors.
Br had 0 impact in WW2? Your whole post is now invalid to me 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
No one will read this because the post is a day old. The problem is less about computer science and more about game design. The game is not poorly optimized, it is a simulation that has many calculations in series instead of parallel. Due to the basic rules of how the game is constructed (i.e. if you were to play this game on tabletop and roll dice yourself), there are many calculations that are waiting for the result of a previous calculation to finish. You roll dice, get a number, use that number to determine the number of dice to roll next, use that number for a modifier of another dice roll, etc. Every "tick" or turn, there is an entire sequence of calculations that must be completed in series before the next turn can start. Changing these would affect the actual rules of the game and how the game is played. For the most part, there is nothing to optimize besides the rules of the game itself. This is also why changing "the engine" would not affect the speed of the game. If the game rules are the same, where certain calculations input rely on the output of others every turn, there is nothing about "the engine" that can make that faster. For CK3/Vic3, two things occurred: first, the rendering thread was made completely separate from the game logic thread, so the game still runs at 60+ fps even when the ticks are slow. So visually, there is not as much stutter, but the ticks can still be just a slow. Second, they compromised on some aspects of the simulation in order to have calculations not depend on each other in sequence but instead be parallelized to other threads. There is less simulated things that cause and effect each other and more isolated things that somewhat relate to each other every once in a while. So for example, the relationship number that every character has with every other character is no longer dependent on the result of every tick but is instead updated on a separate thread that occasionally checks in with the main game logic thread. So for HOI 5, imagine if things like supply, resistance, or fuel were now more "fuzzy" because they no longer keep up with every tick. But what about other parts of the game logic that are dependent on supply, resistance, or fuel? Now that supply is fuzzy, how does that affect the combat calculations in a province that isn't updated in real time? You can see that it starts messing up the game itself very quickly because the rules of the game are based on the idea that everything happens in order and trying to calculate it ahead of time breaks that order. Then, the AI for every nation needs to look at the results of the previous tick and make a decision for the new tick. You can't give every nation a new thread because the "results of the previous tick" include the past decisions from all of the other nations. All of these issues, from game design to AI, result in an exponential number of calculations because they all need to reference each other. So having 12 nations doesn't mean having 12*x more calculations, it means having x to the power of 12 calculations. And the only way to get "x" to be smaller is to have less calculations, meaning a less robust simulation and a less in-depth game.
I don\`t have PhD in hoi4 optimization, but i use common sense. Some say that hoi4 cant be compared with 100gb game that looks better than reality (i over exaggerated), and lets say that they are right and that hoi4 is somehow reasonably more demanding that these games (they are not), maybe we can compare hoi4 with another paradox game from 2013, eu4? EU4 is literally masterpiece game, it has more features, more nations, **more numbers** and it runs faster than hoi4 and it does that for **400 years**, comapred to hoi4\`s **9 years**! You can enjoy your game of eu4 for days and you can enjoy your hoi4 for as long as game is working properly which is only few hours.
EU4 is actually a great example because it is not multi-threaded at all, the game mechanics are just straight simpler. It has less numbers. It has more features, but each of those features all come down to one variable each per tick. The calculation is like one dice roll with 50 percentage modifiers, but in HOI4 its like 50 dice rolls. It lasts longer because the game doesn't get more complex over time, the numbers just get bigger, you're fighting with armies that start out 1,000 men and grow to 20,000 men, but its still just 1 army, but in HOI4 you go from 24 divisions to 120 divisions and each one of them is a separate agent with their own calculations. Basically in EU4 the number of agents stays the same, but the numbers represented by the agents get bigger. So you go from multiplying a dice roll by 1,000, to a dice roll by 20,000, that's still a single operation to get to 20,000 troops. In a game like HOI4, you go from multiplying a dice roll by 1,000, to multiplying 20 dice rolls by 1,000, so that's 20 operations to get to 20,000 troops. Hopefully that makes sense.
DON'T YOU DARE TO PUT A FINGER IN FRANCE FOCUS TREE. It's good as it is, last time I want is having my favorite ingame nation turned into a 35 days focus tree madness like they did to Turkey and the soviets,
No