Hi everyone! Sorry about the late diary as we had to scramble for some alternative content due to originally planned authors being cut off by an enemy encirclement and suffering terrible attrition (a.k.a being sick). That means that instead of talking about optimization and AI we will be focusing on balance stuff we have been working on for the 1.3.3 patch which is nearing completion.

Industry - Infrastructure effects
Infrastructure will now affect the cost of building factories in a state. At the highest level of infrastructure, the cost for each factory is the same as before, with a few minor cost reductions for readability. In less developed states with lower levels of infrastructure building factories is more costly. The bonus to build in high infrastructure states is shown in the construction map mode.

The reason for this change is twofold. We wanted to ensure that some states are more valuable than others as they will naturally become centers of industrialization. The other reason is to slow down the growth of industry in the mid to late game, which we felt was too excessive (we have also worked with tech progression here). Finally we felt that the value of infrastructure and infrastructure giving national focuses was too low and this will change this up quite a bit!

Industry - Efficiency Changes
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.

This is a famous joke in software development that is attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs. There’s a certain truth to this and it applies to more areas than programming. Whenever you start something new, initial progress is usually pretty quick but as as you keep working on it, each incremental improvement becomes harder and harder.

In Hearts of Iron IV, production efficiency used to have linear growth. We have changed this so that initial production efficiency growth is relatively fast, but it slows down as the lines become more efficient.


In this graph you can see the difference between the old and new implementation. The old implementation steadily grows in efficiency until it reaches the cap. With the new system, initial efficiency growth is faster, but it takes much longer to reach maximum. This is affected by technology, meaning that modifiers to efficiency growth speed, cap and base all affect efficiency growth.

The main benefit of this change is that high efficiency and efficiency retention has a lot higher value now and you need to think harder whether to change out a production line or not.

World Tension - new threat rules
Justifying a war used to only account for the cost of the states you selected for the wargoal. This led to a situation where it was too efficient to just claim a single state per war justification in order to keep world tension down. War justifications now accounts for the size of the country you are justifying a war against. This has the effect that justifying a war against a major nation, something that would be seen as a very aggressive move, will therefore result in a larger amount of world tension.

Justifying against multiple countries has also become a more costly affair, with political power cost going up per justification and war the country is already involved in. This should help with multiple justifications draining political power from guaranteeing nations and make player think a little before they start drawing up the new proposed borders.

When a country is at war the tension limit for them joining a faction is lowered. This allows nations to intervene in early wars through other means than guarantees.

Capitulation changes
Previously you would only get access to a country’s stockpile of equipment when they surrendered. We felt this was too restrictive and a but unrealistic, so there is now a new mechanic where you get access to a percentage of a nation’s equipment when they capitulate. It also gives you a neat breakdown of the most common equipment and detailed count of the rest


Next week we will be talking about AI, optimization and other things, so see you then!

Don't forget to tune in at 16:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today where me and Daniel will be starting a campaign of Kaiserreich in World War Wednesday!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone! Sorry about the late diary as we had to scramble for some alternative content due to originally planned authors being cut off by an enemy encirclement and suffering terrible attrition (a.k.a being sick). That means that instead of talking about optimization and AI we will be focusing on balance stuff we have been working on for the 1.3.3 patch which is nearing completion.

Industry - Infrastructure effects
Infrastructure will now affect the cost of building factories in a state. At the highest level of infrastructure, the cost for each factory is the same as before, with a few minor cost reductions for readability. In less developed states with lower levels of infrastructure building factories is more costly. The bonus to build in high infrastructure states is shown in the construction map mode.

The reason for this change is twofold. We wanted to ensure that some states are more valuable than others as they will naturally become centers of industrialization. The other reason is to slow down the growth of industry in the mid to late game, which we felt was too excessive (we have also worked with tech progression here). Finally we felt that the value of infrastructure and infrastructure giving national focuses was too low and this will change this up quite a bit!

Industry - Efficiency Changes
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.

This is a famous joke in software development that is attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs. There’s a certain truth to this and it applies to more areas than programming. Whenever you start something new, initial progress is usually pretty quick but as as you keep working on it, each incremental improvement becomes harder and harder.

In Hearts of Iron IV, production efficiency used to have linear growth. We have changed this so that initial production efficiency growth is relatively fast, but it slows down as the lines become more efficient.


In this graph you can see the difference between the old and new implementation. The old implementation steadily grows in efficiency until it reaches the cap. With the new system, initial efficiency growth is faster, but it takes much longer to reach maximum. This is affected by technology, meaning that modifiers to efficiency growth speed, cap and base all affect efficiency growth.

The main benefit of this change is that high efficiency and efficiency retention has a lot higher value now and you need to think harder whether to change out a production line or not.

World Tension - new threat rules
Justifying a war used to only account for the cost of the states you selected for the wargoal. This led to a situation where it was too efficient to just claim a single state per war justification in order to keep world tension down. War justifications now accounts for the size of the country you are justifying a war against. This has the effect that justifying a war against a major nation, something that would be seen as a very aggressive move, will therefore result in a larger amount of world tension.

Justifying against multiple countries has also become a more costly affair, with political power cost going up per justification and war the country is already involved in. This should help with multiple justifications draining political power from guaranteeing nations and make player think a little before they start drawing up the new proposed borders.

When a country is at war the tension limit for them joining a faction is lowered. This allows nations to intervene in early wars through other means than guarantees.

Capitulation changes
Previously you would only get access to a country’s stockpile of equipment when they surrendered. We felt this was too restrictive and a but unrealistic, so there is now a new mechanic where you get access to a percentage of a nation’s equipment when they capitulate. It also gives you a neat breakdown of the most common equipment and detailed count of the rest


Next week we will be talking about AI, optimization and other things, so see you then!

Don't forget to tune in at 16:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today where me and Daniel will be starting a campaign of Kaiserreich in World War Wednesday!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone,

As mentioned in last weeks diary, I wanted to go a little more into detail with a few of the changes modders can look forward to in 1.3.3.

Tech trees
A part of HOI4 we've often seen modded are the technology trees, specifically adding trees that are unique to one nation. This has so far been achieved with a clever little trick, where the first technology in a tree only is available to a certain nation. This does achieve the goal, but it also means all trees are visible, even though the player can never research them. In 1.3.3 we've added dynamic technology folders, which hides and locks any technology in the folder that does not meet the trigger. I've taken a book out of my click bait add and prepared a little before and after sample using BICE as an example of how the new mod feature looks.




Obviously they could chose to remove all the original folders and replace with country unique ones, but that's up to the BICE guys.
This does technically work with any trigger, but I recommend primarily using it for tags. Enabling during the game and and keeping it enabled for the rest of the game should not be a problem.

Industry
One of our focuses for 1.3.3 is to improve industrial balance. We will talk more about that in the future (when its actually done :D) but this has led to some new features modders have requested as well. Its now possible to separate the industrial bonuses between factories and dockyards for example (helpful for balancing concentrated vs dispersed industry also) as well as now being able to control the max number of factories assignable to production lines (some mods like to limit the max for naval construction for example so you produce more in parallel rather than serially) but so far this was only possible by limiting UI for player. Now it can be set separately for military, civilian and naval lines.

Change state names



Changing victory point names
Of course modders have also wanted to be able to change names of cities, and now you can!


More is more!
These new features will amaze you. I can't believe no 5

Apologies if some have already been mentioned =)

-Added trigger to technology folders. Will hide tab and disable research for techs if trigger is not met.

-Split up factory modifier into a new industrial_capacity_dockyard so dockyards get their own progression

-Added local_non_core_manpower state modifier

-Added effect add_state_modifier

-Added an on action for on_annex. Fired from both effect and peaceconference.

-Fixed on_civil_war_end having a fixed random seed

-Added has_country_leader trigger

-The AI is no longer quite as emotionally attached to modded ideas. Will now consider changing non-hardcoded ideas if the ai_will_do value is higher than the existing idea.

-Added new ai strategy "template_xp_reserve" that lets you modify how much AI wants to burn or not burn its xp for division design
-Added proper error handling when reading scripted ai strategies

-Added can_join_factions rule

-Added trigger has_tech_bonus. Works with specific technology or category

-Added has_resources_amount trigger

-Added on_startup to onactions

-Added count_triggers ( same as calc_true_if on other projects )

-Added set_state_category

-Added set_state_name

The rest of the team are squashing bugs, working on late game performance and as always improving the AI.

Also don't forget to tune in to http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive at 16:00CET today where we will be checking out Millennium Dawn: Modern Day Mod in our series of mod highlights in World War Wednesday!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone,

As mentioned in last weeks diary, I wanted to go a little more into detail with a few of the changes modders can look forward to in 1.3.3.

Tech trees
A part of HOI4 we've often seen modded are the technology trees, specifically adding trees that are unique to one nation. This has so far been achieved with a clever little trick, where the first technology in a tree only is available to a certain nation. This does achieve the goal, but it also means all trees are visible, even though the player can never research them. In 1.3.3 we've added dynamic technology folders, which hides and locks any technology in the folder that does not meet the trigger. I've taken a book out of my click bait add and prepared a little before and after sample using BICE as an example of how the new mod feature looks.




Obviously they could chose to remove all the original folders and replace with country unique ones, but that's up to the BICE guys.
This does technically work with any trigger, but I recommend primarily using it for tags. Enabling during the game and and keeping it enabled for the rest of the game should not be a problem.

Industry
One of our focuses for 1.3.3 is to improve industrial balance. We will talk more about that in the future (when its actually done :D) but this has led to some new features modders have requested as well. Its now possible to separate the industrial bonuses between factories and dockyards for example (helpful for balancing concentrated vs dispersed industry also) as well as now being able to control the max number of factories assignable to production lines (some mods like to limit the max for naval construction for example so you produce more in parallel rather than serially) but so far this was only possible by limiting UI for player. Now it can be set separately for military, civilian and naval lines.

Change state names



Changing victory point names
Of course modders have also wanted to be able to change names of cities, and now you can!


More is more!
These new features will amaze you. I can't believe no 5

Apologies if some have already been mentioned =)

-Added trigger to technology folders. Will hide tab and disable research for techs if trigger is not met.

-Split up factory modifier into a new industrial_capacity_dockyard so dockyards get their own progression

-Added local_non_core_manpower state modifier

-Added effect add_state_modifier

-Added an on action for on_annex. Fired from both effect and peaceconference.

-Fixed on_civil_war_end having a fixed random seed

-Added has_country_leader trigger

-The AI is no longer quite as emotionally attached to modded ideas. Will now consider changing non-hardcoded ideas if the ai_will_do value is higher than the existing idea.

-Added new ai strategy "template_xp_reserve" that lets you modify how much AI wants to burn or not burn its xp for division design
-Added proper error handling when reading scripted ai strategies

-Added can_join_factions rule

-Added trigger has_tech_bonus. Works with specific technology or category

-Added has_resources_amount trigger

-Added on_startup to onactions

-Added count_triggers ( same as calc_true_if on other projects )

-Added set_state_category

-Added set_state_name

The rest of the team are squashing bugs, working on late game performance and as always improving the AI.

Also don't forget to tune in to http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive at 16:00CET today where we will be checking out Millennium Dawn: Modern Day Mod in our series of mod highlights in World War Wednesday!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

We're thrilled to bring you our second music pack from Sabaton! This one with 10 new tracks illustrating moments of World War II with passion and power chords!

Tracklist:

1. Ghost Division: Tells the story of the elusive 7th Panzer Division
   
2. Resist and Bite: Recounts the experiences of a Belgian division facing German invasion
   
3. Coat of Arms: Deals with the difficult Italian invasion of Greece
   
4. Uprising: Celebrates the courageous but doomed Warsaw Uprising of 1944
   
5. Screaming Eagles: A song about 101st Airborne’s battles in Bastogne
   
6. 40:1: Honors the a small Polish brigade’s stalling defence of Wizna against a much larger Wehrmacht force
   
7. Panzerkampf: Song about the Battle of Kursk, one of the largest tank battles in history
   
8. Smoking Snakes: Honors three Brazilian soldiers who refused surrender against overwhelming odds
   
9. To Hell and Back: A song about Audie Murphy, the most decorated solider in American history, and his struggle with PTSD
   
10. The Last Battle: Tells of how a motley group of French prisoners, German defectors and American soldiers defended Castle Itter against a SS division

Get it right here:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/584141/

We're thrilled to bring you our second music pack from Sabaton! This one with 10 new tracks illustrating moments of World War II with passion and power chords!

Tracklist:

1. Ghost Division: Tells the story of the elusive 7th Panzer Division
   
2. Resist and Bite: Recounts the experiences of a Belgian division facing German invasion
   
3. Coat of Arms: Deals with the difficult Italian invasion of Greece
   
4. Uprising: Celebrates the courageous but doomed Warsaw Uprising of 1944
   
5. Screaming Eagles: A song about 101st Airborne’s battles in Bastogne
   
6. 40:1: Honors the a small Polish brigade’s stalling defence of Wizna against a much larger Wehrmacht force
   
7. Panzerkampf: Song about the Battle of Kursk, one of the largest tank battles in history
   
8. Smoking Snakes: Honors three Brazilian soldiers who refused surrender against overwhelming odds
   
9. To Hell and Back: A song about Audie Murphy, the most decorated solider in American history, and his struggle with PTSD
   
10. The Last Battle: Tells of how a motley group of French prisoners, German defectors and American soldiers defended Castle Itter against a SS division

Get it right here:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/584141/

Hi everyone,
As podcat mentioned in last weeks diary he would attempt to trick into writing a little something about modding. It didn’t work, I wanted to do it all along, hah! This week I will talk a bit about how to get into modding and how we work with requests from modders. Next week I will go into some of the new stuff modders can expect in 1.3.3.

Getting into modding can seem like a pretty daunting task and we’ve received some questions about how to get started. A good first step is going to the User Mods forum and take a look at the Useful threads/information for modders. and the wiki. The Hearts of Iron Modding Discussion subreddit is another good place to find resources.
Ask others in the Modding - Quick Questions thread. It’s a great place to ask specific questions once you’ve gone through some of the tutorials. If no one else can help, I might even show up to answer a few questions.

Starting the game with the -debug enabled gives you access to the console, where you can write trigger_docs. This will print a list of possible trigger and effect with some sparse (programmer made) documentation to the game.log. Sometimes you can find things here that have not yet been documented on the wiki. From there, it all depends on what you want to achieve.
Another useful launch option is start_tag=GER, which loads up the game as the specified tag, skipping launcher and country selector.

Starting in debug mode also enables the glorious error dog, who will show up and bark your mistakes at you, like a mad drill sergeant. The dog is your friend, do as it says and strive to fix all your mistakes before committing your mod to steam. Start from the top and work your way down. Here I’ve done something horribly wrong in the Centre state file, so I CTRL+ALT+Right-Click, open the file and fix my mistake.



Once you’ve gotten into it a bit you will most likely stumble across issues that cannot be solved with the current script features. This is where I come in… maybe! Go to the wishlist thread see if there is already a request for what you are trying to attempt and if there isn’t, make a post describing what you want to achieve. Most of the things in this thread end up in the document below, aptly named by podcat. We then go over the requests with the tech lead and decide what is possible to do. A lot of the requests we have gotten are for new triggers, basic effects, which is great. Other are basically new features, major core system changes or UI rework on a scale that is not modding, but making a new game.



A request could be:
‘I need a trigger for army experience’ (I can’t believe we don’t have this.).
‘I want to set state names with an effect’
‘I want the dynamic script flags EU4 has’
Etc etc.

Some will be implemented. Some will be rejected based on technical limitations. Some may even be planned for a future feature, in which case it really is worth waiting for the proper implementation by a team of programmers instead of just me.

Some of the recent additions include:

Exampletime:
You want to make a series of events where the German scientists goes celebrating after the fall of France.
This sets a flag with the value of 1 that disappears after 120 days.

You can then use the flag as a trigger for a national focus that gives you something like the Bob Semple, or what else your drunken scientists would come up with.
will change the country flag to 2, which you can then use to trigger something else. You can also see how long a flag has been set for and what date it was last set or modified.

You probably want to make you own tooltip though, since flags don’t generate proper tooltips at the moment. Proper tooltips for them might be a future request =)

Hope this gives you an idea of how to get started and encourages more people to start modding Hearts of Iron.

Next week I will talk in detail about the new modding features that will be available in 1.3.3.

podcat : Since people are probably curious about a little update from the rest of the team, we have been working on some optimizations to speed up late game a bit. Also don't forget to tune in at 16:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today where me and Daniel will be checking out the Kaiserreich mod in our series of mod highlights in World War Wednesday!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone,
As podcat mentioned in last weeks diary he would attempt to trick into writing a little something about modding. It didn’t work, I wanted to do it all along, hah! This week I will talk a bit about how to get into modding and how we work with requests from modders. Next week I will go into some of the new stuff modders can expect in 1.3.3.

Getting into modding can seem like a pretty daunting task and we’ve received some questions about how to get started. A good first step is going to the User Mods forum and take a look at the Useful threads/information for modders. and the wiki. The Hearts of Iron Modding Discussion subreddit is another good place to find resources.
Ask others in the Modding - Quick Questions thread. It’s a great place to ask specific questions once you’ve gone through some of the tutorials. If no one else can help, I might even show up to answer a few questions.

Starting the game with the -debug enabled gives you access to the console, where you can write trigger_docs. This will print a list of possible trigger and effect with some sparse (programmer made) documentation to the game.log. Sometimes you can find things here that have not yet been documented on the wiki. From there, it all depends on what you want to achieve.
Another useful launch option is start_tag=GER, which loads up the game as the specified tag, skipping launcher and country selector.

Starting in debug mode also enables the glorious error dog, who will show up and bark your mistakes at you, like a mad drill sergeant. The dog is your friend, do as it says and strive to fix all your mistakes before committing your mod to steam. Start from the top and work your way down. Here I’ve done something horribly wrong in the Centre state file, so I CTRL+ALT+Right-Click, open the file and fix my mistake.



Once you’ve gotten into it a bit you will most likely stumble across issues that cannot be solved with the current script features. This is where I come in… maybe! Go to the wishlist thread see if there is already a request for what you are trying to attempt and if there isn’t, make a post describing what you want to achieve. Most of the things in this thread end up in the document below, aptly named by podcat. We then go over the requests with the tech lead and decide what is possible to do. A lot of the requests we have gotten are for new triggers, basic effects, which is great. Other are basically new features, major core system changes or UI rework on a scale that is not modding, but making a new game.



A request could be:
‘I need a trigger for army experience’ (I can’t believe we don’t have this.).
‘I want to set state names with an effect’
‘I want the dynamic script flags EU4 has’
Etc etc.

Some will be implemented. Some will be rejected based on technical limitations. Some may even be planned for a future feature, in which case it really is worth waiting for the proper implementation by a team of programmers instead of just me.

Some of the recent additions include:

Exampletime:
You want to make a series of events where the German scientists goes celebrating after the fall of France.
This sets a flag with the value of 1 that disappears after 120 days.

You can then use the flag as a trigger for a national focus that gives you something like the Bob Semple, or what else your drunken scientists would come up with.
will change the country flag to 2, which you can then use to trigger something else. You can also see how long a flag has been set for and what date it was last set or modified.

You probably want to make you own tooltip though, since flags don’t generate proper tooltips at the moment. Proper tooltips for them might be a future request =)

Hope this gives you an idea of how to get started and encourages more people to start modding Hearts of Iron.

Next week I will talk in detail about the new modding features that will be available in 1.3.3.

podcat : Since people are probably curious about a little update from the rest of the team, we have been working on some optimizations to speed up late game a bit. Also don't forget to tune in at 16:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today where me and Daniel will be checking out the Kaiserreich mod in our series of mod highlights in World War Wednesday!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone, yesterday the 1.3.2 Hotfix went live for Hearts of Iron IV so now its time to talk a bit about what we are up to next.

As I hinted at last week we have been listening to the community and decided that we want to put a heavier emphasis on bug fixing and improvements this year for the team. Hearts of Iron IV is a big complex game with a lot of moving parts and we are doing this both for you the gamers and ourselves so that we have a more stable and polished base to build new cool stuff on as well. This is something we started laying the foundations for just before Christmas by making sure we organize all our recorded issues and tasks to make sure we focus on the right stuff and have good progress.

For starters we are currently working on 1.3.3 which is going to be things that didnt make it into the 1.3.x hotfixes previously, general improvements across the board with fixes and improvements to balance, AI, bugfixing etc as well as a big chunk of stuff for modders Havebeard has been working on. This means that 1.3.3 will have no major system rewrites or anything like that, but a bunch of nice stuff all over. You can expect this patch to drop in a couple of weeks.

After that will be focusing our efforts on the 1.4 Patch we’ve named “Oak” which will be a much larger work. Our highest priorities on the Oak patch will be improvements to air warfare and interfaces and AI as well as late game performance, but very much not limited to this. More details about this and the rest of the year will come once 1.3.3 is approaching readiness.

Turns out us showing off The Great War mod last year was very popular so for todays World War Wednesday (at 16:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today) we will continue with some more mod highlights. First up is Black ICE, but we plan to highlight a couple more and then decide which one we want to do a longer playthrough in.

Next week I’m going to see if I can trick Havebeard into writing a modding dev diary for you all about some of the stuff we have done as well as new stuff coming :3

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive

Hi everyone, yesterday the 1.3.2 Hotfix went live for Hearts of Iron IV so now its time to talk a bit about what we are up to next.

As I hinted at last week we have been listening to the community and decided that we want to put a heavier emphasis on bug fixing and improvements this year for the team. Hearts of Iron IV is a big complex game with a lot of moving parts and we are doing this both for you the gamers and ourselves so that we have a more stable and polished base to build new cool stuff on as well. This is something we started laying the foundations for just before Christmas by making sure we organize all our recorded issues and tasks to make sure we focus on the right stuff and have good progress.

For starters we are currently working on 1.3.3 which is going to be things that didnt make it into the 1.3.x hotfixes previously, general improvements across the board with fixes and improvements to balance, AI, bugfixing etc as well as a big chunk of stuff for modders Havebeard has been working on. This means that 1.3.3 will have no major system rewrites or anything like that, but a bunch of nice stuff all over. You can expect this patch to drop in a couple of weeks.

After that will be focusing our efforts on the 1.4 Patch we’ve named “Oak” which will be a much larger work. Our highest priorities on the Oak patch will be improvements to air warfare and interfaces and AI as well as late game performance, but very much not limited to this. More details about this and the rest of the year will come once 1.3.3 is approaching readiness.

Turns out us showing off The Great War mod last year was very popular so for todays World War Wednesday (at 16:00CET on http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today) we will continue with some more mod highlights. First up is Black ICE, but we plan to highlight a couple more and then decide which one we want to do a longer playthrough in.

Next week I’m going to see if I can trick Havebeard into writing a modding dev diary for you all about some of the stuff we have done as well as new stuff coming :3

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive