Line up soldiers!

Welcome the 51th DD and for this week we will talk (mostly) about the music and sound design:

Music:


Hi, my name is Andreas “Jazzhole” Waldetoft and I am the music composer at Paradox.

Now, I have done a few Hearts of Iron’s by now (HoI2 and HoI3) so let’s just say that I didn’t need to research Second World War as much this time around.

However, Hearts of Iron series is the one that is very close to my heart indeed. It was the first game I had scored.

Back when HoI2 was being developed, Fred Wester handled the music (among a lot of other things I presume, as we were not as many people at paradox back then). Fred was kind enough to take me in for HoI2 and let me do the music even though I was still in university with only a few short-films and orchestration jobs under my belt and the rest I guess is history for me… well until I did Stellaris to be fair.

Anyway, As I said, we had some ground laid out music wise from the past games in the series. I have tried to build on that and sometimes reprised a few of the themes from those earlier HoI’s to get the feeling that this is the same game. Only bigger and better I hope.

I am an orchestral composer so being able to write for a large orchestra was the first thing I requested for HoI4.

Funny story though, I went down to record with Brandenburg State Orchestra which is a German orchestra. Same one we used for EUIV main theme. When I came to the music hall, the orchestra leader told me to maybe... not tell the players what the music was for. I guess “don’t mention the war” still holds true in some parts of Germany? We were doing Axis, Allied and Comintern inspired music so I do however think the orchestra knew exactly what was going on. They did a great job in my opinion.

This video is a recording from a sample of one the Axis tracks. It’s not the Main Theme for HOI IV mind you.

And no that is not me conducting the orchestra, that is the brilliant Bernt Ruf. I was supervising it from the studio so I could hear everything more clearly, and I would tell the orchestra through the conductor if something was not how I wanted it.
[MEDIA=youtube]u1PCcKC9_DU[/media]


The chromatic violin line is my way of trying to give that german-panzer-on-tracks-going-forward feeling. It is used quite a few times in the soundtrack, especially for Axis music. The Tenor and later Bass Trombone’s are playing the theme and snuck in there is also a chromatic passage that references the violins. I tried to orchestrate it in style of German composers that comes to mind from that era.


Sound Design:


Hi guys! If you don’t know I’m Metal King aka The Audio Director here at Paradox. Usually if you work with audio / sound design you tend to be involved with all the projects that are being developed.

For this DD I thought that I should show you guys some “behind the scene” pictures and talk about some the sound effects that I’m pleased with in Heart of Iron 4:

Propeller / Airplanes:


When I started working on Heart of Iron 4 we were missing some decent sound effects for all the airplane animations. While I was looking for good audio resources, like actually recordings of aircrafts from the era, but I wanted to have a good placeholder sound so that the team would get a better “feeling” of how it could end up.

Then I noticed this beauty in the “Engine Room”! More know as model “FD-40KI” or as I call it “Metalcraft-666”.


I placed a microphone behind the fans and started to record and the results was so good that I actually kept to the game! Then with a combination between actual recordings of aircrafts from the same era and with my recordings it turned out to be a good sound effect:

[MEDIA=youtube]jdGu6nKaQfE[/media]

GUI:



Found a neat old typewriter at Paradox’s HQ when we had our old office. I took the opportunity to record it so that I could use some of the audio to our GUI. As you see I did couple of recordings where I placed the microphone on different angles. The recording that turned out to be the best was when I had the microphone behind the typewriter, as you see in the photograph.

"Foley":

As a former Foley Artist for Films and TV I wanted to create some audio assets for the walk animations on our troops/infantry to give more "life" to the screen. I wanted to have the sounds of walking around with heavy boots, a lot of equipments and weapons. So what I did, before we got our awesome sound studio, was to build up a “surface” with old vhs tape, cardboard paper, clothes and other “junk” while wearing a denim jacket with a bag full of “metallic stuff” in one of our meeting rooms in the old office and just walking on the same "spot" over and over. People didn't really understand from the beginng why I was walking around in "junk"..

I'll end this small part about some of the sound design with a picture of the new sound studio. Spent a lot of time in hear and mixing the game audio to make sure you will get the best sounding experince possible.




This is it for this week!

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Line up soldiers!

Welcome the 51th DD and for this week we will talk (mostly) about the music and sound design:

Music:


Hi, my name is Andreas “Jazzhole” Waldetoft and I am the music composer at Paradox.

Now, I have done a few Hearts of Iron’s by now (HoI2 and HoI3) so let’s just say that I didn’t need to research Second World War as much this time around.

However, Hearts of Iron series is the one that is very close to my heart indeed. It was the first game I had scored.

Back when HoI2 was being developed, Fred Wester handled the music (among a lot of other things I presume, as we were not as many people at paradox back then). Fred was kind enough to take me in for HoI2 and let me do the music even though I was still in university with only a few short-films and orchestration jobs under my belt and the rest I guess is history for me… well until I did Stellaris to be fair.

Anyway, As I said, we had some ground laid out music wise from the past games in the series. I have tried to build on that and sometimes reprised a few of the themes from those earlier HoI’s to get the feeling that this is the same game. Only bigger and better I hope.

I am an orchestral composer so being able to write for a large orchestra was the first thing I requested for HoI4.

Funny story though, I went down to record with Brandenburg State Orchestra which is a German orchestra. Same one we used for EUIV main theme. When I came to the music hall, the orchestra leader told me to maybe... not tell the players what the music was for. I guess “don’t mention the war” still holds true in some parts of Germany? We were doing Axis, Allied and Comintern inspired music so I do however think the orchestra knew exactly what was going on. They did a great job in my opinion.

This video is a recording from a sample of one the Axis tracks. It’s not the Main Theme for HOI IV mind you.

And no that is not me conducting the orchestra, that is the brilliant Bernt Ruf. I was supervising it from the studio so I could hear everything more clearly, and I would tell the orchestra through the conductor if something was not how I wanted it.
[MEDIA=youtube]u1PCcKC9_DU[/media]


The chromatic violin line is my way of trying to give that german-panzer-on-tracks-going-forward feeling. It is used quite a few times in the soundtrack, especially for Axis music. The Tenor and later Bass Trombone’s are playing the theme and snuck in there is also a chromatic passage that references the violins. I tried to orchestrate it in style of German composers that comes to mind from that era.


Sound Design:


Hi guys! If you don’t know I’m Metal King aka The Audio Director here at Paradox. Usually if you work with audio / sound design you tend to be involved with all the projects that are being developed.

For this DD I thought that I should show you guys some “behind the scene” pictures and talk about some the sound effects that I’m pleased with in Heart of Iron 4:

Propeller / Airplanes:


When I started working on Heart of Iron 4 we were missing some decent sound effects for all the airplane animations. While I was looking for good audio resources, like actually recordings of aircrafts from the era, but I wanted to have a good placeholder sound so that the team would get a better “feeling” of how it could end up.

Then I noticed this beauty in the “Engine Room”! More know as model “FD-40KI” or as I call it “Metalcraft-666”.


I placed a microphone behind the fans and started to record and the results was so good that I actually kept to the game! Then with a combination between actual recordings of aircrafts from the same era and with my recordings it turned out to be a good sound effect:

[MEDIA=youtube]jdGu6nKaQfE[/media]

GUI:



Found a neat old typewriter at Paradox’s HQ when we had our old office. I took the opportunity to record it so that I could use some of the audio to our GUI. As you see I did couple of recordings where I placed the microphone on different angles. The recording that turned out to be the best was when I had the microphone behind the typewriter, as you see in the photograph.

"Foley":

As a former Foley Artist for Films and TV I wanted to create some audio assets for the walk animations on our troops/infantry to give more "life" to the screen. I wanted to have the sounds of walking around with heavy boots, a lot of equipments and weapons. So what I did, before we got our awesome sound studio, was to build up a “surface” with old vhs tape, cardboard paper, clothes and other “junk” while wearing a denim jacket with a bag full of “metallic stuff” in one of our meeting rooms in the old office and just walking on the same "spot" over and over. People didn't really understand from the beginng why I was walking around in "junk"..

I'll end this small part about some of the sound design with a picture of the new sound studio. Spent a lot of time in hear and mixing the game audio to make sure you will get the best sounding experince possible.




This is it for this week!

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

There are some really exciting stuff happening with Hearts of Iron IV at the moment which I will be announcing, but first as promised; it's time to talk about the generic focus tree.

The generic focus tree is what all nations who don't have specific trees (the major 8) will get. The design goal of the generic focus tree is flexibility and freedom, allowing a player to take the nation in any direction they chose. It also contains a lot of focuses giving extra factory slots and industry, something that is a huge boost for small nations percentage wise compared to a larger nation allowing players more freedom in taking a minor somewhere worthwhile. So, let's look at each branch in detail:




Army, Aviation and Naval Effort
Gives technology bonuses in chosen fields. We have tried to give lots of choices here so you can tailor your path depending on your nation. Naval effort for example allows a choice between trying to build up a larger fleet or focusing on submarines, convoy interdiction and smaller ships while Army Effort focuses on things like infantry and support equipment primarily which will be important for a minor nation, but does also include some bonuses to armor and mechanization if your nation's industry can sustain such choices.

Industrial Effort
Focuses on building up your nation's industry. As I mentioned earlier it's very powerful for a small nation and should make lots of smaller nations more viable for fun play compared to HOI3.

Political Effort
This tree lets you more easily alter your nation's political makeup, or further develop your current one. The initial choice is between collectivism or liberty. The Liberty track is good for neutrals or democratic nations and splits off immediately in a choice between taking a neutral stance or interventionism as your foreign policy. Result wise it basically is a choice between better defense and being able to send more volunteers to indirectly involve yourself in conflicts.

The collectivist track is split between fascism and communism where the fascist track give you access to more manpower and faster training times, while the communist track gives you more power to meddle in other nations and helping existing forces fight better with political commissars. The final step of collectivism is Ideological Fanaticism which let you set up your own faction and unlocks things like kamikaze strikes for your air force.

The generic tree is really fun and flexible and hopefully it will make you dream of stuff you can do with the country of your choice.


Now to the important announcement: Hearts of Iron will be delayed until Q1 next year. This is because after getting lots of valuable design input from DDRJake we have realized that Hearts of Iron IV as it is now is missing a crucial physical connection with its players, and it would be unfair of us to release it until this is done.
Worry not however, we have a great solution for this proposed by Jake himself - Dance Dance Revolution Mat integration! No longer are you simply a passive observer, you can instead march in real time (soundtrack will be replaced with 100% marching band music) with your soldiers towards Moscow! Not enough for you? We have also developed a revolutionary Bucket DLC System(tm) that lets you slosh through authentic pripyat swamp water*, mud and scorching hot sand (requires oven (not included)).



We believe this will revolutionize grand strategy gaming like nothing else and are super excited to take you with us on this journey!



See you next friday when we will cover exciting head to head multiplayer dance-offs used to decide conflicts in peace negotiations!


* Paradox Interactive takes no responsibility for customers suffering from trench feet or sustaining other injuries while enjoying the DDR mat experience.

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

There are some really exciting stuff happening with Hearts of Iron IV at the moment which I will be announcing, but first as promised; it's time to talk about the generic focus tree.

The generic focus tree is what all nations who don't have specific trees (the major 8) will get. The design goal of the generic focus tree is flexibility and freedom, allowing a player to take the nation in any direction they chose. It also contains a lot of focuses giving extra factory slots and industry, something that is a huge boost for small nations percentage wise compared to a larger nation allowing players more freedom in taking a minor somewhere worthwhile. So, let's look at each branch in detail:




Army, Aviation and Naval Effort
Gives technology bonuses in chosen fields. We have tried to give lots of choices here so you can tailor your path depending on your nation. Naval effort for example allows a choice between trying to build up a larger fleet or focusing on submarines, convoy interdiction and smaller ships while Army Effort focuses on things like infantry and support equipment primarily which will be important for a minor nation, but does also include some bonuses to armor and mechanization if your nation's industry can sustain such choices.

Industrial Effort
Focuses on building up your nation's industry. As I mentioned earlier it's very powerful for a small nation and should make lots of smaller nations more viable for fun play compared to HOI3.

Political Effort
This tree lets you more easily alter your nation's political makeup, or further develop your current one. The initial choice is between collectivism or liberty. The Liberty track is good for neutrals or democratic nations and splits off immediately in a choice between taking a neutral stance or interventionism as your foreign policy. Result wise it basically is a choice between better defense and being able to send more volunteers to indirectly involve yourself in conflicts.

The collectivist track is split between fascism and communism where the fascist track give you access to more manpower and faster training times, while the communist track gives you more power to meddle in other nations and helping existing forces fight better with political commissars. The final step of collectivism is Ideological Fanaticism which let you set up your own faction and unlocks things like kamikaze strikes for your air force.

The generic tree is really fun and flexible and hopefully it will make you dream of stuff you can do with the country of your choice.


Now to the important announcement: Hearts of Iron will be delayed until Q1 next year. This is because after getting lots of valuable design input from DDRJake we have realized that Hearts of Iron IV as it is now is missing a crucial physical connection with its players, and it would be unfair of us to release it until this is done.
Worry not however, we have a great solution for this proposed by Jake himself - Dance Dance Revolution Mat integration! No longer are you simply a passive observer, you can instead march in real time (soundtrack will be replaced with 100% marching band music) with your soldiers towards Moscow! Not enough for you? We have also developed a revolutionary Bucket DLC System(tm) that lets you slosh through authentic pripyat swamp water*, mud and scorching hot sand (requires oven (not included)).



We believe this will revolutionize grand strategy gaming like nothing else and are super excited to take you with us on this journey!



See you next friday when we will cover exciting head to head multiplayer dance-offs used to decide conflicts in peace negotiations!


* Paradox Interactive takes no responsibility for customers suffering from trench feet or sustaining other injuries while enjoying the DDR mat experience.

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Today's topic is an explosive one (heh) - nukes!

Nuclear weapons are a late game tech and there are several steps to acquire one. First up is researching Atomic Research (1940), Reactors (1943), and finally Nuclear Weapons (1945). To actually produce nuclear bombs you need to construct Reactors which will slowly churn out the weapons. The more reactors the faster you can produce nukes (note that reactors compete for space with industry in states). Many majors have national focuses that let them focus on the nuclear research program and speed things up.



To launch a nuke you need to have strategic bombers in range of the target and air superiority.

This is early days yet, so nukes, while incredibly powerful are not the massive world destroyers of the cold war. However they can still do serious damage, and other effects:

• Hits national unity making the target nation more likely to surrender (amount depends on victory point worth and infrastructure level, so you cant just nuke some island they don't care about). This is really their primary use: to force surrender on a stubborn enemy.
  
• Damages building. Everything from forts to naval bases to factories.
  
• Damages any units in the province, including airplanes stationed in bases.

Oh btw, in case someone missed the announcement HOI4 now has a release date set for 6th of June!
Next week we will be off for Easter, but the week after we taking a look at the Generic Focus tree that all non-majors use. If you get the HOI craving next week there is still the World War Wednesday stream where I believe Daniel and Jake have started to take on China as Japan.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Today's topic is an explosive one (heh) - nukes!

Nuclear weapons are a late game tech and there are several steps to acquire one. First up is researching Atomic Research (1940), Reactors (1943), and finally Nuclear Weapons (1945). To actually produce nuclear bombs you need to construct Reactors which will slowly churn out the weapons. The more reactors the faster you can produce nukes (note that reactors compete for space with industry in states). Many majors have national focuses that let them focus on the nuclear research program and speed things up.



To launch a nuke you need to have strategic bombers in range of the target and air superiority.

This is early days yet, so nukes, while incredibly powerful are not the massive world destroyers of the cold war. However they can still do serious damage, and other effects:

• Hits national unity making the target nation more likely to surrender (amount depends on victory point worth and infrastructure level, so you cant just nuke some island they don't care about). This is really their primary use: to force surrender on a stubborn enemy.
  
• Damages building. Everything from forts to naval bases to factories.
  
• Damages any units in the province, including airplanes stationed in bases.

Oh btw, in case someone missed the announcement HOI4 now has a release date set for 6th of June!
Next week we will be off for Easter, but the week after we taking a look at the Generic Focus tree that all non-majors use. If you get the HOI craving next week there is still the World War Wednesday stream where I believe Daniel and Jake have started to take on China as Japan.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

This week at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, Paradox Development Studio announced that its eagerly awaited World War II grand strategy game Hearts of Iron IV is going to be released June 6th 2016.

Hearts of Iron IV will be the newest version of one of Paradox’s best selling series. Players can guide any nation in the world through the trials and terrors of war. Draft elaborate battle plans as you hop across the Pacific or push deep into the Eurasian steppes. Build diplomatic coalitions that will turn into an iron wall of tanks and aircraft. Research cutting edge weaponry and industrial technology, and give your army an edge in the destructive conflict to come.In a video introduction to the series, the development team behind Hearts of Iron IV explains their vision for the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMkRSRP1IPY

Hearts of Iron IV is designed to be the most complete grand strategy game about World War II yet made, and dares players around the world to take the reins of power in humanity’s darkest hour.

This week at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, Paradox Development Studio announced that its eagerly awaited World War II grand strategy game Hearts of Iron IV is going to be released June 6th 2016.

Hearts of Iron IV will be the newest version of one of Paradox’s best selling series. Players can guide any nation in the world through the trials and terrors of war. Draft elaborate battle plans as you hop across the Pacific or push deep into the Eurasian steppes. Build diplomatic coalitions that will turn into an iron wall of tanks and aircraft. Research cutting edge weaponry and industrial technology, and give your army an edge in the destructive conflict to come.In a video introduction to the series, the development team behind Hearts of Iron IV explains their vision for the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMkRSRP1IPY

Hearts of Iron IV is designed to be the most complete grand strategy game about World War II yet made, and dares players around the world to take the reins of power in humanity’s darkest hour.

Hi everybody, the topic for today is Naval Invasions.

The main design goal for naval invasions has been to make invasions something that requires a lot of preparation to make it possible to pull off, combat "gamey" tactics of sneaking troops in when others are not looking and make it clear how you go about defending yourself, something that requires both navy, air and land.



Let's start with what is required to do a naval invasion:

• You need to position troops at a starting naval base and draw up an invasion plan for where you want them to go.
  
• Before the invasion can be launched you need to prepare the invasion. This is first a matter of needing a certain amount of convoys available (which the invasion plan will grab) and a time. Both these depends on just how big this invasion is. Small invasions can be planned and executed quickly but large amount of divisions will require plenty of preparation time.
  
• For each strategic area you pass through with the invasion plan you must have sufficient Naval Supremacy. You get that by having sufficient amount of ships on patrol and by controlling the skies (air superiority). If you do not control these things you won't be able to invade (no sending your whole army to suicide). This makes it pretty clear now to defend as well. For example as UK - as long as your fleet is strong and stationed around the island and your air force is up and about you can feel safe from naval invasions.

There are also things you can do to improve your chances of successful invasions:

• Use special troops - Marines are much better than other troops for securing the beach.
  
• Make sure to always have ships set up as escorts. Even if you have sufficient naval supremacy to launch the invasion - if the enemy rallies their whole fleet after the invasion is already under way there is still a chance some of the convoys could get intercepted.
  
• Station battleships in the destination coastline. They will support the invasion with naval bombardment which will help your guys get the edge when fighting on the beaches.
  
• Use a commander with the Invader trait, he will help speed up the preparation as well as speed up to time it takes to get invading troops ready for fighting.
  
• And finally: make sure to research transportation technologies. The really useful ones are only available from 1940 (unless you research ahead with the penalties for that), but you can improve things like: Needing less transports to carry out invasions, halving the preparation time required, get extra defense from damage taken during invasion and speed up the time it takes for your troops to get out of the ships and on to the beach where they can fight.

The actual invasion combat has some special rules. Once troops land they first need to unload from ships and during this time they are unable to fire back effectively. If you have the right technologies researched troops will actually get some extra protection during this time, but still it's something you want to do as quickly as you can. Once on the beach they can fire back, but will still be suffering from naval invasion penalties.

Next week we'll talk about nukes!

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Hi everybody, the topic for today is Naval Invasions.

The main design goal for naval invasions has been to make invasions something that requires a lot of preparation to make it possible to pull off, combat "gamey" tactics of sneaking troops in when others are not looking and make it clear how you go about defending yourself, something that requires both navy, air and land.



Let's start with what is required to do a naval invasion:

• You need to position troops at a starting naval base and draw up an invasion plan for where you want them to go.
  
• Before the invasion can be launched you need to prepare the invasion. This is first a matter of needing a certain amount of convoys available (which the invasion plan will grab) and a time. Both these depends on just how big this invasion is. Small invasions can be planned and executed quickly but large amount of divisions will require plenty of preparation time.
  
• For each strategic area you pass through with the invasion plan you must have sufficient Naval Supremacy. You get that by having sufficient amount of ships on patrol and by controlling the skies (air superiority). If you do not control these things you won't be able to invade (no sending your whole army to suicide). This makes it pretty clear now to defend as well. For example as UK - as long as your fleet is strong and stationed around the island and your air force is up and about you can feel safe from naval invasions.

There are also things you can do to improve your chances of successful invasions:

• Use special troops - Marines are much better than other troops for securing the beach.
  
• Make sure to always have ships set up as escorts. Even if you have sufficient naval supremacy to launch the invasion - if the enemy rallies their whole fleet after the invasion is already under way there is still a chance some of the convoys could get intercepted.
  
• Station battleships in the destination coastline. They will support the invasion with naval bombardment which will help your guys get the edge when fighting on the beaches.
  
• Use a commander with the Invader trait, he will help speed up the preparation as well as speed up to time it takes to get invading troops ready for fighting.
  
• And finally: make sure to research transportation technologies. The really useful ones are only available from 1940 (unless you research ahead with the penalties for that), but you can improve things like: Needing less transports to carry out invasions, halving the preparation time required, get extra defense from damage taken during invasion and speed up the time it takes for your troops to get out of the ships and on to the beach where they can fight.

The actual invasion combat has some special rules. Once troops land they first need to unload from ships and during this time they are unable to fire back effectively. If you have the right technologies researched troops will actually get some extra protection during this time, but still it's something you want to do as quickly as you can. Once on the beach they can fire back, but will still be suffering from naval invasion penalties.

Next week we'll talk about nukes!

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive