Reception & Thoughts | Patch 1.14.2 [Checksum fbf7]

Gun Metal Grey said: I'm personally bummed out about the lack of equipment names and icons for most of the TOA countries', will they be ever fixed?

Pluto2006 said: Do you also read reviews on Hearts of Iron IV base game, or only on the DLCs?

Ringwraith_JP said: Not going to go into detail about what I think about the contents of TOA, but I do have a question. Can you share a bit of information about how your team researches and plan regional content? Is it a local (SWE) team, do you have regional advisers? How does this look like?

jag95 said: Hey I’m just wondering, are you planning on implementing ai into the game? Are you going to do anything with ai?

jag95 said: Yeah especially with all the new developments in ai. Has that affected you guys at all? Or changed the way you do stuff?

Staden said: One thing I've noticed is that Argentina lacks an Illusive Gentleman, in addition to lacking flavor when creating an intellingence organization, is this an oversight?
It is not a huge deal, but it makes establishing an Intelligence organization as Argentina more punishing and less rewarding. Other than that I've found the DLC to be quite fun.

Observia said: Thanks for the communication.

How does the paradox team pick which major features (MIO’s, International Market, etc) are added?

Observia said: If a major rework or overhaul of a country with a preexisting DLC (Japan, for example) occurred, would it be distributed as an update for those who own the DLC, or would it be a separate purchase? I ask as a rework of Japan would be extensive, and resource intensive, and it seems like a tricky situation.

salamin15 said: I'm waiting for a day when paradox developers will finally understand that without mods their games would die quickly. People wants from you new mechanics because they are interesting and they give new life into game. New country packs will never be interesting like new mechanics because there are already tons of mods which add content to South America or any minor country that have generic NF tree and usually these mods are much better than your content because their creators have better sources, they working on them few years not months. You will always lose with mods in creating new content. But you will never lose with mods in creating new mechanics because modders cant do that ( in most cases ). Players know that, modders know that, but it looks like you dont know that and that's sad.

Louco doido said: I loved this DLC, I had a lot of fun invading all my neighbors and creating a great nation with all of South America.

Paraguay is, in my opinion, the most fun to play.

The only thing I didn't like about it was the lack of an option to do cores in South America with communist Brazil and the lack of content with Lampião in power, so I ask you to take a look at it.

TheHostName said: This was also the first DLC i didnt buy. My reason for it was that it doesnt include any mechanics aswell. AND THAT IS GOOD.
I dont want to spend X amount of money for a country pack with nations i dont care about only to have to spend a vaste majority of that DLC price on those countries.
So i want to say that its correct to keep country packs mechanic free and i wont have to buy and complain about it through negative reviews or even dropping the game after too many of those cases (which would be financialy worse for you then just producing country packs and keeping mechanics out of them)


( i dont know why but i couldnt directly quote like i usally can from a post)

This is more of a half truth though. Yes it doesnt impact the Hoi4 "main" team. But one could argue that those Juno team members could be part of the main team and help it do things faster. They also cost wages so if they were not to deliver a revenue, then that would indanger Hoi4 as a whole.
Iam not of the opinion that the later part is the case. But the former part about them helping the main team to produce mechanical content faster is not unreasonable.

On the regional prices. I think some south american currencies were hit bye those changes if i remeber correctly. So yeah not supprising then.

Gobbe said: I wanna start off by saying i really liked the DLC, its very refreshing for global conflicts that south america is something to keep an eye on.

I think a really good idea for future DLCs is to make small tweaks to countries that are not nessecerily the focus of the DLC.

A lot of people i know (me included) got very excited the day Yugoslavia got a slight rework on the BFB(Or it might've been BBA im not sure), or how Romania got a couple extra focuses, or when PRC started with 1 extra military factory. Small things like this give a refreshing feeling to "old" countries and make the game more interesting overall. Adding a new one or two decisions or focuses for 3-4 countries per DLC could do a lot more than a full content pack centered only around the tip of a content no-one ever reaches. (For example, the German focus tree could really use some spy bonuses considering Italy gets like 8 spy slots alone.)

Lamartine said: Could you say more about how mods factor into planning DLC, if at all. A lot of people say that country packs are pointless because mods can fill in focus trees, or at least, never do justice to the focus tree of a dedicated modder passionate about that country. Others that DLC should stop reinventing the wheel and just adapt the content straight into the release.

Can you share anything to clarify those views among players?

MrMcQue said: Will we see an updated roadmap soon, or do we have to wait until after the next full-size dlc comes out?

Lean_XD said: Why not give USA-made Aircraft models available for SA nations to USA, since the USA model pool for aircraft is a bit lacking, like P-36 or TBD are available for Bazil but not for the US

Zoponen said: Tbh dlc is good but one thing ruining it mostly is USA with Monroe doctrine because its hard to do anything without USA coming into things. It would be better if it would be clearer for knowing boarders but same time I think USA has too much power over South America. So I would wish you nerfed USA on behalf of SA

Observia said: In AAT, we saw that some states in non-Nordic (UK and Albania, too) countries got much needed reworks.

Could we ever expect a War Effort patch that contains a good deal of state reworks for cleaner and more unique borders?

sreckom92 said: Personally, I would've considered buying this DLC, had it contained update for every South American country.
I know there are too many countries in that region for a single DLC, but Paradox already knows how to make shared focus trees. This way, I'm looking at a DLC with tons of alternate history paths and meme content. And I know there are mods that can satisfy the itch for memes.
I'm not really overly negative about this DLC. I just don't care, since I don't have it. But I am growing distant from this game, as I would prefer meaningful content.
As it stands right now, I can apparently expect South America DLC #2 for the rest of the countries, or a pack containing focuses for Albania+Belgium+Luxembourg+Ireland... Not overly enthusiastic about that.

ChoricColony said: No new mechanics are done, but this is a South America DLC titled Bolivar, and Bolivia didn’t even get a focus. Or Columbia. Or Venezuela.

SocialistRepulbicofItaly said: Is it intended for Argentina, Brazil and Chile to start with 2 research slots and end with 4?

(I’m korean i’m not good english)

Kosaki MacTavish said: Wait, you guys really did it again by hardlock the number of research slots to only 4 and not making the 5th softlocked industrially (only available through a difficult-to-obtain industrial requirement) like i have suggested?

renorp said: Can you add a way to remove “Neglected state” debuf from Brazilian provinces, if it conquered by another countries?

Red Mapoleon said: I would like to know what percentage of players like to play minor countries vs the traditional major countries. I believe there are many players like me who don't find it very appealing to play minor countries other than our own personal home country.

Red Mapoleon said: I expect most are looking for improvements or change in the main major ww2 countries and games mechanics.

While I see the value of regional DLCs, I believe interest will always be limited without also including changes that improve overall game mechanics while playing the major countries.

Red Mapoleon said: In terms of games mechanics, I would like to see improvements in analytics in terms of providing players more insights as to battles results so we can make adjustments.

Red Mapoleon said: Why are my fleets or division losing battles? Not enough AA? Piecing? It would be great to have a better way to get insights. I would like to be able to view view past battle results, analytics and insights.

ItThatAltersSanity said: I do wonder if some players making such reviews are taking inflation into account. Perhaps they are only considering it in one direction: their own disposable income is shrinking and they don't want a reminder that inflation can hit other sides of the world too. The book "Scarcity" by Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir presents research on how people obsess over a resource (money, time, calories, friends, etc) when they're aware of a scarcity. Meaning some people will be very closely tracking exactly how much mileage they get out of every dollar, euro or other currency.

ItThatAltersSanity said: My theory is that players don't like being reminded that they belong to a diverse community. Some feel left out that they don't get anything fun while others do. Then there's some who think everyone plays with mods. And those who think it's fair to compare the fruits of unpaid labour of love with that of salaried, scheduled labour.

mecanojavi99 said: I would like to say that I greatly enjoyed the DLC and I specially enjoy playing small nations like Paraguay and Uruguay to teach the big kids how it's done, which brings me to my main complain about the DLC.

I understand that Paraguay and Uruguay were meant as small scope focus trees and I don't have a problem with that, but I find that they lack a "flavour".

Things like having only 4 generals between the 2, no admirals for Uruguay, almost no unique looking Focus icons or Spirit icons (specially egregious when you see things like the shared army branches that give you Ethiopia's Army and Air Focus icons instead of the bespoke ones for those nations like with BRA, CHL and ARG), lack of historical Intelligence agencies (something even Iceland got), lack of voices and lack of 3D sprites for the infantry (an issue shared with Iceland)

This may look like small things when separate, but if you look at them as a whole it really starts to sour an experience that otherwise would have been almost perfect.

mecanojavi99 said: An example of extra flavour that made me incredibly happy was when you added Portuguese voices in a patch for Portugal, you didn't have to, but at least for me it greatly enhanced the experience.

I don't know if you'll have time to go back and add some of the things I mentioned for Paraguay and Uruguay (and Iceland as well plx), but if its possible please be more mindful about this short of things in the future.

mecanojavi99 said: Sorry for the long post and I cannot way for your next content drop (Tannu Tuva focus tree when)

twinxor said: I'm not sure it would be profitable but revisiting the trees from the first few DLCs would be very welcome. They don't all need to be super powered but a number of countries just have a very boring focus tree compared to the more recently developed ones. Also it's pretty weird this game still has no mention of the Pearl Harbor attack.

DarthSigma said: I understand that many people play without historical focuses, but it seems odd to me that the game which is and was a world war two simulator first now seems to be completely shifting to creating focus trees with the purpose of alt history instead of reworking the focus trees of the nations which are most relevant for the "ww2 simulator" that hoi4 claims to be

austrianemporer said: I think on a fundamental level, the problem boils down to the game's foundational design around focus trees. Not only are focus trees manpower intensive to create, but they also box the game and the player into a set of predetermined routes with no organic paths without actually immersing the player. Combined with a paucity of flavor outside of focus trees and mechanical staleness (in my opinion, the last major positive overhaul to HOI IV's mechanics was logistics which was quite a few years ago), DLC is less well-received now than before. I think a big part of the prominence of focus trees is the rigidity and simplicity of politics and production. Although they are not the first thing someone may think of when they think of World War II, they were no less crucial to the victory of the Allies over the Axis than simple military operations.

DarthSigma said: I would disagree. The steam store page's description states "Victory is at your fingertips! Your ability to lead your nation is your supreme weapon, the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV lets you take command of any nation in World War II; the most engaging conflict in world history," clearly emphasizing that it is a strategy game revolving around World War Two. Additionally, the "about this game section" states "Hearts of Iron IV is a compelling simulation of modern war that rewards replay and strategic thinking," so combining the two we get a simulation of modern war focusing on World War Two. If that isn't a World War Two military simulator, I don't know what is.

DarthSigma said: I don't say this to argue or be rude, but I am simply pointing out that it is odd to me that the focus of the development teams has shifted to created focus trees for the purely a-history paths before refining the main contributors of WW2 and adding the rest of the nations that were involved in the conflict more directly than south america (ie Dutch East Indies, Siam, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Phillipines). I enjoy the alternate history paths and they add interesting flavor, but the game is mainly marketed as a ww2 game so its odd that before finishing a refined ww2 game (with alt-hist options for the nations involved) the developing team has shifted to purely alt-history additions.

ValmyLipbalm said: I'm probably unduly obsessive about this, but in Paraguay, Ciudad del Este (the second victory/capture point) didn't exist in 1936. Not even a village, not even a project for anything until the 50s. And the place wasn't called Ciudad del Este once they founded it either. It was called Puerto Flor de Lis, then soon after and for most of its existence Puerto Presidente Stroessner (the old dictator's name). It got the current name in '89. I think you should probably add Encarnacion further south as the second city in Paraguay instead. It's rather immersion breaking, at least for me.

Colombiano1492 said: Why is Gustavo Barroso as a general named something else? And Who is domingos bras???? Lowkey this dlc kinda sucks and I’m just waiting for you guys to update it because this game is just unplayable now….

jag95 said: Just a few questions.

When will we get a Communist focus tree path for Germany with Ernst Thalmann and his KPD? and why don't we currently have one?

Why wasn't the North sea oil implemented as an exploitable resource option for players during the Norway focus tree in the previous expansion? We have Nazi Germany with nuclear weapons, why not North sea oil?

Also what about a Rhodesia focus tree and making it playable? Since it was part of the British Empire and Ian Smith fought for the British empire during WW2 and there was a referendum in Rhodesia about whether it and South Africa should become one country in the 1920s.

Luis Mao Zedong said: I really can't see any difference between before and after and i am not the only one.
Look at his picture on Kaiserreich, look soo much better

herr anfsim said: Reading the forums, there is no lack of players requesting that features sold in previous releases are fixed or brought to a more functional state, and I would guess that some annoyance is generated not only from the DLC revolving around content one isnt too interested in, but that said content ist prioritized above improving what has already been sold and possibly contribute to introducing new problems.