Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Chakerathe
Generals!

The day is soon upon us, with Arms Against Tyranny and the Stella Polaris update sealed up and ready to ship. The development process for AAT has been a pleasure to be part of, and the team have acquitted themselves admirably throughout - we’re all keen to see what you think of our efforts, and hope you enjoy what we have to offer.

The coming weeks also mark a period of post-release support for us. We prefer to remain reactive to the community’s needs here: creating an immediate post-release ‘roadmap’ actually makes it harder for us to do that. So instead, I’m here to explain that we’ll be here maintaining an active presence, and will react quickly as needed and as time and resources allow.

In time-honored fashion, we’re releasing the patch notes to you early, so you can theorycraft, eagerly anticipate, or commiserate the fixing of your favorite exploits a day or two early. As usual, missing notes can happen, and if we find these they will be added to a spoiler at the end of this post as time goes on.

The 1.13.0 Update & 1.13.1 will be released at the same time.

Note that Localisation for the Changed Log will be added later in the day, and if you missed the Dev Diary that went along with this, you can check it out here!


################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.13.1 "Stella Polaris" #########
################################################################


##################################
# Balance
##################################

- Improved light airframe MIO bonuses to air attack and air defence
- Removed speed buff from agility fighter initial trait
- Reduced air attack bonuses for agility MIO
- Reduced starting civ for SWE by 1 in Västerbotten
- national_socialist_veterinarian and Ardent Conservative now give flat conscription instead of conscription_factor and military conscription speed construction factor

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################

- Added design companies to some pre-designed equipment for Germany, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union
- Folkhemmet is no longer removed when going fascists or monarchist

##################################
# UI
##################################

- Fix of the bug where dynamic modifiers from Nordic Joint focus tree showed wrong text in other parts of UI.
- Fix of bug where plane designer did not update the sprites on auto design.
- From now the country leader traits in diplomacy screen support scripted localization.
- Hardness change in the equipment designer is now displayed as percentage
- Display the correct inter war chassis in research window
- Fixed several text boxes that were too small for non-english localization

##################################
# Modding
##################################

- Added shorthand alias "roic" for console command research_on_icon_click

##################################
# Performance & Stability
##################################

- Fixed a rare crash triggered when a unit is standing on a province involved in a border war without being a participant
-Fixed map overhaul mods crashing on Mac when they went over a certain amount of province/borders. This should address the issue of most major total conversion mods failing to start on Mac.

##################################
# AI
##################################

- Soviet AI sells less rifles and slightly increases armor production
- Non-aggression pact also positively affects acceptance score when purchasing equipment, not only market access
- AI groups equipment by archetype when deciding whether to sell it, instead of per individual equipment variant
- AI will now also buy convoys if needed
- AI should no longer use division templates that are marked as obsolete for suppression, plus added an extra cavalry battalion to the generic suppression target template

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################

- Do not show unactive MIOs when filtering for MIOs that can spend trait points
- NOR: Enabled several post-capitulation focuses.
- Disallow changing the attached policy if a MIO is not available
- Swiss MIO Hispano-Suiza will now require Switzerland to be at peace with Spain, like every other foreign MIO.
- Replaced national spirit Finnish Army by Repurposed Small Industries in the 1939 bookmark window.
- Fixed wrong BoP value for Finland in the 1939 bookmark.
- Fixed rare CTD when opening MIO History tab
- Fixed manpower laws being available when it was not supposed to be available
- Added Danish tank icons for when NSB is disabled
- Fix crash when opening Air Theaters after a civil war
- Fixed wrong icon name for Rikstanken tech icon
- Soviet Union will now lose any claims in Finland after being forced to peace out, and Soviet AI should no longer want to justify on Finland right after it.
- Fix of rare crash caused by border wars.
- Fixed Petsamo not being transferred to Soviet Union after they force Finland to peace out, even though the event tooltip said Petsamo would be transferred.
- Decisions to Fight Alongside our Comrades should no longer become available right after activating them and having the country intervening in the civil war.
- Prevented Finland from taking both decisions to "Request an Armistice with Moscow" and "Offer to Switch Sides in Return for Peace" simultaneously. Now one decision will hide while the other one is ongoing, and the hidden decision will come back if peace was not achieved.
- Fix role icons for planes and ships presets
- Added Danish air plane icons to the air plane designer for Denmark and added the Danish motorized infantry icon to the production line
- Added missing icons for Joint Alliance National Spirits
- Fixed issue with Norwegian Focus Lynrytter's Subsidy
- Adding missing Focus Filters to Joint Focus Tree
- Fixing missing icon for Joint Amphibious Effort National Spirit
- Few MIO traits with no parents and no prerequisites have been moved to the top row of an MIO tree.
- Added the correct starting National Spirits in the Bookmarks for the 1936 and 1939 starts respectively
- Added a missing tooltip claryfing that the Focus "Unify the Right" unlocks a Balance of Power Decision
- In Joint Focus trees, a country cannot start anymore a focus that has is mutually-exclusive with another focus that was already started
- Removed the Danish Balance of Power mechanic without "Arms Against Tyranny"
- More Finnish focuses will now require Finland to be independent.
- Countries with Joint Focuses in their tree but not part of the Joint Focus Alliance should not see the progress of the Alliance
- Added subsidies to the international market for various nations
- Fixed issues with Norwegian Territorial Claims focuses sending ultimatums to the wrong country.
- Removed the option to make Trotsky available from the first event of his chain if the player is going Stalinist
- NOR: Tweaked post-capitulation focuses for Norway. Added several offmap dockyards to the tree to allow for in-exile convoy production.
- Fixed issue with Arrest Quisling requiring the wrong focus to bypass
- Fixed missing names in Icelandic tech and doctrine bonuses from focus tree.
- Tweaked the Danish AI to be more prone to engage with the Balance of Power when under Occupation
- Added requirement for Germany to exist and be fascist for Norwegian focus 'Invite Fascist Engineers'
- Fixed issue where Norwegian Focus 'Proactive Defense' would add funds to unavailable MIOs
- Added missing script variable for national focus equipment modifier
- added a bunch of subject bypasses
- Birger Furugård can no longer be leader and advisor
- Fixed Finland not able to complete Lone Wolf and strike a pact for Continuation War in time when starting from the 1939 bookmark.
- Fixed Soviet production lines MIOs at game start.
- Added Portuguese MIOs to initial production lines
- Bulgarian MIOs now are unlocked with extra size to compensate for them being unlocked later.
- Bonuses from Nordic Alliance will now properly be removed if the faction is disbanded


################################################################
######## Update 1.13.0 "Stella Polaris" #########
################################################################


##################################
# Arms Against Tyranny
##################################

- Added ahistorical Finnish focus tree paths
- Added full Norwegian focus tree
- Added full Swedish focus tree
- Added full Danish focus tree
- Added a full ... other focus tree
- Replaced equipment design company ideas with Military Industrial Organizations (MIOs). MIOs can be attached to research and production, gaining funds and unlocking increased benefits upon your production and equipment.
- Diplomacy tab replaced by the International Market. Equipment can be bought and sold for civilian factory output, giving countries a way of arming themselves with advanced equipment, or war-profiteering for their own gain. Diplomacy menu can be accessed via a button at the bottom of the international market
- Added Special Forces doctrine page, with branches including unique gameplay utility for Mountaineers, Marines, and Paratroopers, and 3 new support battalions
- Added numerous new 3D models including snowmobiles, cold-weather infantry, and a reindeer for some reason
- Added many new music tracks for Nordic countries, as well as several main game themes

##################################
# Feature
##################################

- Land trade routes are now shown on the map. Trade Embargo action now prevents land-based trade from passing through a country if they are embargoing the final recipient.
- Land Doctrines now contain a variety of bonuses to specific support battalions which enchance the capabilities of other battalion categories in their division
- Added support for historical tank templates in the tank designer, accessed from tank chassis blueprints
- Added a new focus for Germany that gives Germany resource rights for Västerbotten, and Industry for Sweden
- Added modding and script support for 'joint' national focuses, allowing several countries to progress in the same shared focus branch
- Added Finnish historical focus tree paths

##################################
# Balance
##################################

- Reduced Germanys steel
- increased Swedens steel and tungsten from 220 Steel, 67 tungsten, 42 chromium to 260 steel, 123 tungsten and 63 chromium (closed trade respectively)
- Added seperate divison design groups for combat support battalions
- adjusted acclimatization tolerances across the board, it should now be gained in a more realistic range of temperatures
- added lend lease threshold modifiers to automomy and economy levels
- added lend lease threshold modifiers to ideologies
- Super Heavy tanks are now support companies. Super Heavy tanks are no longer line battalions
- Support company research times now have a curve with a shorter starting time (approx 120 days, from 200). Subsequent support techs have a gradually increasing research time.
- Cavalry supply usage returned to the same level as infantry
- Engineer support upgrade techologies now yield 33% entrenchment per level
- Added a new adjuster type: Snow. This kicks in if a province is considered to have the snow ground condition.
- Several nations now have the ability to unlock a second special forces branch specialism in their focus trees. Nations that reach major status can also unlock a second branch specialism after 1940.
- Most tank chassis' now grant 10-20% more armor
- Super heavy tanks now cost more overall, but require 20 per support company
- The winter war should now start according to historical timetable
- Tip of the Spear military spirit now grants flat special forces cap instead of naval invasion capacity. Commando trait now adds flat special forces cap instead of SF defence. This should make it possible to run a modest elite force irresepective of the size of your military.
- added 5% for local resources from compliance gain (from 0.6 to 0.65)
- People's Army focus now grants a battalion modifier from military police to horseback cavalry suppression value
- slightly reduced air accident rates
- reduced the factor on accident chance for air excercising
- New airwing deployment now takes 30 days, from basically nothing
- increased the max effect of intel on enemy mines
- Field Hospitals now grant 15% experience loss prevention from 10%
- Maintenance Company Research 3 now provides 1% Equipment Capture per armor battalion in a division, from 5% flat
- starting french Char B1 variant is now a basic heavy chassis
- ENG & USA start with 200 more convoys
- reduced the base damage of mines for both strength and org
- reduced mine accident chance´, reduced mine impact on speed
- mines are now much less potent in deep ocean and shallow sea's, hit chance reduced for mine in these areas
- maratime patrol bombers wing size is now 10
- AA tank anti-air modules have between 10-20% more air attack
- Super Heavy AA, TD, and SPART are now support battalions, not line battalions
- When a puppet controls a province that's part of a strait, the overlord's policy is now considered, preventing the puppet from letting through the overlord's enemies or their puppets.
- increased hardness penalty for wheeled and half track suspension for tank designer
- USA now starts with tank engine 1 tech
- slight balance changes to welded and cast armour to fit reality better
- tank speed & armour upgrades are now added stats not multiplicative
- tank base speed, armour & reliability rebalanced for changes to above upgrades
- Excess thrust will now increase agility instead of max speed
- airframes now how base max speeds to better representairframe size speed effects
- added damage reduction to piecing thresholds for naval combat
- convoy hitprofile reduced from 120 to 85 bringing it inline with new hitprofile calulations
- torpedoes accuracy increased to bring them back inline with new hitprofile calculations 145 > 100
- slightly decreased AA disruption from ship AA
- reduced terrain combat widths slightly, change support widths also
- major air rebalance pass for airframes and modules
- increased tech date for survival studies to 1939
- Improved aircraft turrets, slight decrease in agility hit for large bomb bays
- rebalanced, ship engines, removed visibility impacts from medium guns, rebalanced IC costs to reflect engine changes
- super heavy armour now part of normal heavy armors, rebalanced armors, added cruiser armour to carriers
- Armor skirts provide 1 more armor
- doubled the effect of agiltiy on naval anti air fire
- removed visibility effects of suepr heavy bb armor
- small airframe can only take single terret modules, adjusted turret stats so they are less powerful for fighters but better for bombers
- rebalanced thrust and weights of modules and airframes, added new modules
- Added new techs for blame designer
- Agility and speed increase effect on air combat
- updated combat width defines
- implemented type 2 combat widths
- rebalanced dismantle and conversion costs for BB eninges
- adjusted damage reduction thresholds for ships

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################

- Adjusted Swiss focuses so they pause instead of cancel when conditions are not met

##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################

- Fixed rare out of sync triggered by player observing armies intercepted at sea
- Improved game performance by up to 30% based on hardware. Machines with higher spec will notice a greater difference.
- Improved perceived performance and responsiveness during high processor load


##################################
# UI
##################################

- In the division designer you can now shift-click on a battalion to remove it from the template
- Fixed various issues with some tech folders in the tech tree on non-standard resolutions
- Fixed issue where some notifications were visible in front of windows and the loading screen.
- Now right clicking on railway gun repair line will pan camera to the unit and left clicking repair line will select the unit.
- Fix priority buttons for all production line types
- Now, if you hover mouse over a invasion arrow, the whole path will be visible even if it is overlapped by another one.
- Fix bug where the army leader traits overlapped the preferred tactics icon.
- Add equipment upgrades to have increment/decrement with 5 and 10
- Victory point map icons now have independent visibility thresholds based on their own VP value. Several new defines added to control this behaviour
- Doctrines with unfulfilled allow conditions now correctly display as unselectable, and list conditions.
- Show Active setting on generals subwindow is now respected the first time you open it

##################################
# AI
##################################

- AI now evaluates motorization per-supply-node, resulting in reduced truck usage, and more sensible overall priorities.
- Further improved AI behaviour for germany as regards Africa and suicide-invasions
- British AI will no longer be denied access to the baltic unless Germany is war mongering in europe (meaning trade can once again flow between UK and the Nordic states)
- AI should no longer embargo countries who are helping them with lendlease or volunteers (looking at you, Spain)
- AI more likely to upgrade divisions in the field even with equipment deficits
- added generic AI upgraded infantry template for late game infantry
- added ENG and USA upgraded infantry templates for AI and imrpoved their infantry templates in general
- reduced the maximum targeted sea regions per strike force fleet for AI
- improved air tech priorities
- ENG will build more Mil factories and ease up on fighters after it has enough, and will generaly build a few more bombers
- USA will build more maritime patrol bombers
- USA and ENG will try build more dockyards pre war
- USA will now do liberty ships national focus in 41
- added albania and sardinia ai areas
- eng will resist the urge to invade useless italian land to early
- Italy will once again join the anti-comintern pact
- ai build slightly more cas and bombers
- AI will now recreate Austro-Hungary by decision if they own the correct cores
- improved AI templates for planes
- SOV should now be more inclinded to defend Leningrad during the Winter war
- ai is less interested in railway gun research
- eng fighter templates are now upgraded with a higher prio
- improved the UK's invasion & defense strategies for historical accuracy
- Germany will now go to war with the USSR if the a Norweigan, Danish or Dutch controller is a player, for the Dutch both Belgium and France must have fallen
- Improved fascist AI peace conference logic resulting in less bordergore, but fewer puppets
- Switched default Peace Score options to roll in puppets to faction leaders
- Partially improved AI ability to use non-standard equipment types and templates. This will be further iterated on.
- AI for some majors will now unlock and construct additional Marines templates, along with unlocking the new SF doctrines
- AI for some majors will now unlock and deploy paratroopers as part of their line forces. By design, they will not perform paradrops.

##################################
# Modding
##################################

- Now the resource values will be localised.
- Make sure triggers are re-evaluted when reloading events and scripted loc
- effect give_resource_rights now accepts a variable or a keyword for receiver parameter
- From now on, tooltip for add_dynamic_modifier effect will show the variable values in dynamic modifiers
- Fix add_resource so that give_resource_rights can be executed right after without having to wait for an hour to pass
- Added ai_wanted_divisions_factor ai strategy, which acts as a % modifier
- Fixed the use of scripted loc in name and description of dynamic modifiers
- Add the heavy_fighter category for medium plane with fighter weapons
- fix is_subject tooltip when used within multiple targets triggers like any_country
- Ocean, the default naval region terrain type, is now handled as any other sea terrain type; tooltips will show modifiers as expected, and map colors and modifiers should be applied properly.
- Tech folders will now correctly hide their name field if disabled. Follow the naming pattern in countrydoctrinetreeview.gui to achieve this result.
- for has_resources_rights, if input state has no resource, the trigger will return false instead of crashing


##################################
# Graphics
##################################

- Use DX11 flip mode and allow tearing when supported by driver. Make sure FSAA pass isn't done on UI.

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################

- AI strategies that abort will no longer purge all values related to the strategy type they affected
- Fixed issue where exiting the intelligence window did not lead to swapping back the map mod to previous one.
- Now the recruiting of colonial division is capped in same way as recruting other divisions.
- Fixed the bug where long messages in the lobby message input field sometimes appeared in two lines.
- Super Heavy Battleship armor now reduces Torpedo critical chance instead of increasing it
- Fixed disappearing icons in division designer when NATO symbols are used
- Fixed issues with misplaced focus branches in UK and USA focus trees when Hide Obsolete Branches custom rule was set as "Show".
- Conscription factor modifiers under 0.1% are now respected [precision error]
- Now the deployment target state tooltip will contain the proper state name.
- Don't allow export (lend-lease etc) of chassis/hull/airframe equipment
- Fix serialization of 64 bit integers
- Various Military focuses now give the right completion effects, such as Night Penalty, or land doctrines, and research bonuses
- Fixed issue where some icons persisted on screen during peace conference.
- Fixed the bug, which made it impossible to play singleplayer after leaving a multiplayer lobby which loaded multiplayer save file.
- Fixed issue where certain regions did display the weather on the 3D map.
- Fix a CTD when loading an older save
- Units are now properly ejected from border wars
- AI should no longer attempt to design strategic bombers too heavy to fly
- fixed loc for prefered tactics modifeirs in army spirits
- recalcuate the cached trade influence
- Fixed Hungary being able to spam Sweden for support if they are democratic
- You can now paradrop in peacetime in your own territory, and paradropping should no longer cause airwings to get stuck
- Prevent CTD and log error if script invalidated a war relation while it is still being added
- German Ai should now use correct Tank icons and models where possible
- AI tank templates (and new historical templates) now work properly for templates that have out-of-order module requirements (big gun+ fixed superstructure ie)
- Japanese AI template for Heavy TD II is no longer too slow to move
- Axis AI and Historical tank templates now (probably) use the correct sprites and models
- incorrect count of military factories given to other countries
- player could request more licenses than available factories
- Fixed bugs in ReleaseFactories in trade
- Exiled templates should now be removed after peace conference even if the hosting country is not among the losers
- fixed incorect can convert for light tank super structure
- Paradrop missions can no longer get stuck when trying to target a region they are not allowed coverage in. Regions without coverage can no longer be targeted by paradrop mission selection.
- AI should keep using their factories even if all their equipment needs are fulfilled
- Turkish AI will no longer randomly decide to pick a military junta to succeed Ataturk on historical
- SOV should now try to be more aggressive at Karjala
- Fixed hardlock after getting kicked from a server
- Fuel Usage modifier will now appear with the right color: red when positive, green when negative
- fixed ship armour penetration calculation, proportional system can now work in parralel to stepped system
- old armor penetration value for ships set to 0
- fixed missing agility values for bomb bays
- fixed damage reduction happening before stat initialisation, fixed +1 to threashhold values
- Romanian and Hungarian focuses that created a tech sharing group for military doctrines now grant doctrine cost reduction instead
- Industrial Destruction modifier tooltip is now present
- Industry Liasons no longer provides double bonus to airframes
- Free French 'intervention in' focuses can no longer target countries in a faction with Free France
- Counter-decision 'Disarm Monarchist Militants' for targets of polish monarchism now correctly removes monarchy support
- Added missing flag localisation to Ethiopia's Build Resistance Force decisions.
- Democratic Hungary can no longer spam Sweden to join their war endlessly
- Changed Ethiopia missing localisation "GetName" to "Ethiopia" as opinion does not allow for dynamic names.
- POL : Made Develop Gdańsk Shipbuilding and Integrate Gdańsk Industries actually require Gdańsk.
- POL : The National Commonwealth can now be completed if Lithuania is a subject
- ETH : Hindenburg Wall now does not build in provinces not occupied by Ethiopia
- POL : Changed Integrate Gdansk Industries to require Coastal rather than Gdansk province, otherwise Naval tree is blocked.
- Soviet national spirit Transformation of Nature now grants a flat +1 Building slot.
- TUR : Join Axis focus will now check to see if Germany still exists and if they are the faction leader. Turkish Join Axis event trigger was also tweaked to give it a timer for more consistent with CD guidelines.
- British AI will no longer only use biplane images for every type of plane
- Fixed Penal Battalions being available outside of the locked template for Soviet Union.
- The German's no longer become upset at Lithuania for banning Naziism if they themselves don't accept the ideology
- The Soviet's can no longer resolve their Border issues with Japan by giving them North Sakhalin if either they don't control it, or Japan doesn't control South Sakhalin
- Some cities that should have been renamed after a white victory in the second Russian civil war were not included. They are now safe from Stalin.
- The Soviet focus "Claims on Bessarabia" can now lead to correct wargoals if denied by countries other than Romania, and will now bypass if the Soviets are already at war with the owner.
- Modifying a variant but retaining the same number of modules no longer fails to register any changes to the saved variant (in rare cases)
- Japan will once again surrender to Manchuko in an independence war, if the war was bloody enough
- Fix issue where the AI wouldn't design any planes if it didn't have any plane designs to produce.
- Fixes missing requirement in GER focus Expand Dockyard Facilities
- African countries with generic alll weather experts will correctly use a defined portrait
- Developing the Eregli steelworks decision is no longer visible to non-turkish nations
- Planning spirit awarded to czechoslovakia anbd faction members no longer disappears
- CZE will no longer be able to give away sudetenland while at war with Germany
- Switzerland tooltip fix
- Turkey will no longer be able to join the Axis if there is no Axis
- Opinon modifier is correctly removed from Spain if Balearic islands are transferred
- Tooltip for french advisor is more specific now
- Hungarian Re-armament events use the correct name def if hungary has changed cosmetic tag
- Hungarian FIghter Competition now provides the correct number of fighters (from 0)
- OTO Naval Guns now grants navy experience if MtG is not owned, as opposed to an unusuable research bonus
- Novus Ordo Italian state modifier now correctly has an icon
- Mohammad Yayyo no longer has a blank portrait if BBA is disabled
- Railway Guns are less likely to stay put
- El Salvador no longer has access to ancient Lost Technology when BBA is enabled
- El Salvador has replaced their ancient Lost Technology with the ability to produce basic infantry weapons
- Fixed Italian focus Flotta d'evasione being always unavailable with MTG
Anx Defense - Liador
A 2 hours livestream of Anx Defense. Discover this innovative tower defense gameplay and ask questions to the devs!
Sledders - BackwoodBeach
Exciting news for all the winter sports enthusiasts out there! As part of Steam Next Fest, Sledders will be brought to life in real-time by the one and only Red Duelist. Get ready for a high-octane ride down the virtual slopes and an exclusive sneak peek at Sledders' gameplay.

Date & Time:Today, during Steam Next Fest

Where to Watch:Visit the Sledders Steam page to catch all the action. Red Duelist will be going live.
See you on the slopes!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2486740/Sledders/
Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Chakerathe
Bonjour à nouveau, friends! I don’t know if the third time makes it a tradition but I appear once more before release to give some updates from HoI’s tech team.

If you haven’t seen much of me since last year, it’s because I’ve partly been busy with **REDACTED**, **REDACTED** and also with **REDACTED**, but my attention has fully returned to HoI for the last couple months.

So, what’s new with HoI’s tech in 1.13 “Stella Polaris”?

Mines, or the greatest urban legend

First off, great news, naval mines will not slow down the game anymore! Hurray!


Except that’s a lie. The “mine lag” I keep reading about in some community house rules isn’t a thing. Hasn’t been for 2 years. I know because I fixed it in 1.11 (Barbarossa). But don’t feel bad for missing the notice, as it turns out this change from December 2020 (shipped in 2021 with No Step Back) never ended up in the changelog.

commit da0ce4ac94ba1938459ffb6abe3bf2b0cd4bab1e Author: Mathieu Ropert Date: Mon Dec 14, 17: 38:59 2020 +0100 [X] Fixed performance issue when mines are used

Oops.

But I have even better news. While the usage of mines didn’t slow the game down, the existence of mines as a concept was still incurring a performance cost, whether you used them or not. This has also been greatly improved for 1.13.

So go ahead. Go nuts. Mine the whole ocean. See what happens.


V-Sync, G-Sync, Free-Sync, NSync…

While there is no big platform update this time (supported operating systems remain the same), we have introduced some small improvements to rendering tech in HoI.

The main one is support for variable refresh rate monitors and GPUs. If you use DX11 (the default since 1.12) and your hardware supports it (and you use Windows 10 or higher), you should get more FPS with vsync off. On my NVIDIA RTX 3060 at work, it goes up from 140-150 FPS in 1.12 to about 190 FPS in 1.13 when the game is paused.

I’m not saying you’ll actually be visually able to tell the difference, but you wouldn’t be our fans if you didn’t like when numbers go up, so this should give you some stonks for free.

We’ve also tweaked a bit how the game renders when unpaused, especially when your hourly/daily tick starts getting slower than 16/33/50ms (depending on game speed). Long story short, the “cost” of keeping the FPS going steady when the simulation gets more CPU heavy has been improved, meaning better FPS and less perceived “lag” especially in speed 4 and 5.


General performance improvements

I used the mines example earlier as a teaser, but in general this update comes with a good amount of performance improvements. Those were partly inspired by having spent time looking at our other titles and a bunch of secret stuff I sadly cannot delve into, and partly just due to getting a fresh set of eyes on old problems.

Here’s some side by side comparison between 1.12 (Avalanche) and 1.13 (Stella Polaris).

First, a fresh new 1936 game on my work i7-12700k and it’s 20 cores:

HOI4 1.12 “Avalanche” - 1936 - Intel i7-12700k


HOI4 1.13 “Stella Polaris” - 1936 - Intel i7-12700k

And here’s 2 similar-ish saves from 1943, same machine:

HOI4 1.12 “Avalanche” - 1943 - Intel i7-12700k


HOI4 1.13 “Stella Polaris” - 1943 - Intel i7-12700k


This might look a tad overwhelming if you’ve never seen the in-game profiler from previous dev diaries (console command imgui show profiler to make it pop in game). The bits I would like to direct your attention to are the “Ticks per second” and “Last 24 ticks average” that give you a rough idea of how fast the game is going.

Long story short, the 1936 scenario goes from a 15ms average to 10ms average for the hourly tick (the time it takes to simulate one in-game hour). Or if you prefer, from 42 to 64 hours simulated per second.

In the 1943 scenario, where there are way more wars, divisions, fleets and planes involved, we go from 43ms to 29ms hourly tick average. Or again, up from 17 to 27 in-game hours simulated every real world second.

In both cases, this makes the simulation about 1.5 times faster. In practice, the perceived speed will be a bit less because we still need to account for GPU time and the like, but it should be fairly noticeable still.

Of course, we understand that not all of you are running top of the 10th+ generation i7 CPUs, so it would only be fair to also look at what it means on lower end machines. Luckily, I also have access to a modest AMD Ryzen 3 1200, a quad core CPU that the internet tells me is roughly equivalent to an Intel i5-7400. Brace yourselves for more graphs.

First, 1936:


HOI4 1.12 “Avalanche” - 1936 - AMD Ryzen 3 1200


HOI4 1.13 “Stella Polaris” - 1936 - AMD Ryzen 3 1200

And then the same 1943 saves:


HOI4 1.12 “Avalanche” - 1943 - AMD Ryzen 3 1200


HOI4 1.13 “Stella Polaris” - 1943 - AMD Ryzen 3 1200

First off, if there was still any doubt in your mind, yes, switching to a beefier machine will absolutely make HoI run faster. As you can see in the numbers here, this ran about 3 times slower than the high end 20 core machine from before.

Second, you can also see that 1.13 still performs better than 1.12 (about 25-30% faster), but not as much as on a high end machine. “Why?” you ask. Because threads!


HOI4: You Can(not) Multithread

It is a recurring misconception that Paradox games don’t use more than one thread. This is obviously not the case. I’ve been talking about it since my days on Stellaris.

But it is true that some parts of the game simulation are better than others at making use of many cores. And once they’ve been made to only use one core, it’s usually quite difficult to change as the game simulation starts relying on it.

This all comes back to the olden days where Europa Universalis was a board game ported to PC. After all, it is fairly common for those to be designed in a way where each actor takes a turn. The German player moves all his troops on the board. Then the British. Then the Soviets. Etc… This is a very serial process. Easy to understand and design, but slower than if every player could go at the same time. And of course it is very hard to change after the fact, because if everyone suddenly starts moving at the same time then you get conflicts and need rules to identify and resolve them.

Crusader Kings 3 resolved most of those issues by taking a radically different approach to its technical design, but we obviously don’t have that luxury. And no, unlike what I’ve heard before, this has little to do with the engine. Understand that ol’ Clausewitz (and its friend Jomini) are mostly concerned with graphics, networking, loading and saving files, that kind of stuff. The bulk of the performance bottleneck isn’t there, it’s in the game simulation and that’s almost entirely up to each game to decide how they wanna approach it and that decision is usually made (and hard to change) in the first years of the game development, before it even releases.
Still, in this patch we were able to identify places where we could break that “turn-based” design and replace it with a simultaneous process and nobody would be the wiser. Which allowed us to throw all your cores at the problem, rather than rely on the one.

This is, I believe, the main reason why you will notice more improvement the more cores you have. For example, if a process took say, 2ms before. Now it will take 0.5ms with 4 cores (2/4) and 0.1ms with 20 cores (2/20), roughly speaking. Here’s a rough outline of HoI4 CPU usage in a late 1942 save with 20 cores for example:


Notice the CPU chart at the top which shows how many cores are being used at a given time. Ideally you’d want it to be fully green all the time, but this is what we get with the upcoming release of HoI4.

For those of you who are more technically inclined, I can recommend you this (updated) talk I’ve given at ACCU 2023 about multithreading challenges in PDS Games.

Multi Threading Model in Paradox Games: Past, Present and Future - Mathieu Ropert - ACCU 2023


And with that, I’ve just noticed something off while making the screenshots for this dev diary, so I’ll go back to investigate and see if there’s some more we can do to improve even more in the post-release patches 😎

I will leave you with this side by side comparison of letting the game run for 30 seconds on 1.12 vs 1.13. Keep an eye on the date/time at the top.


Oct 9, 2023
Stress Chess - fourorbstudios
Fixed a few levels not working as expected.
Thanks to Easy Target, Dokartist, Atslughorn, Spasic, AND92, and Magnus77 for helping diagnose the bug.
Last Train Home - THQ Nordic
Hello, Legionaries,

We have some exciting news to share about Last Train Home. This gripping survival strategy game is set to arrive on PC on November 28, 2023!



In addition, we're pleased to announce our participation in Steam Next Fest, where you can now experience the game demo. You can easily download the demo from our Steam page. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and reactions!

For those interested in watching the developers play the game and discussing it, we invite you to tune in to our live stream, scheduled for today at 5 PM CEST on THQ Nordic Twitch.

And finally, check out the new trailer and prepare to immerse yourself in the story of the Czechoslovak Legionaries, where battles are more than just fights; they're trials of your strategic wit and leadership skills.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1469610/Last_Train_Home/

Important links

Last Train Home


Ashborne Games


THQ Nordic

Dinkum - taj14
G’day everyone,

I’m happy to say that once again I’ve partnered up with the great people at Youtooz. And this time around, they designed this amazing Jackaroo Plush! It even has a little pouch you can put your stuff in. If you would love to have one of these Jackaroos, then don’t wait too long. Pre-orders are now on and will be available for 11 more days only. So make sure you pre-order before they are gone.

Pre-order your Youtooz Jackaroo Plushie right HERE!





I hope you will like it as much as I do. As always, have a good one, and speak to you soon.

James


PS. I know you've all been waiting for the Summer Sun update. We are nearly there! I’ll have more news for you soon.
Gladiators: Survival in Rome - Saturnus
Hey Brave Gladiators,

Last week we've shown you some of the sneak peaks on the upcoming major Halloween-themed event. We've brought some more cool videos of the content that is currently in development. This event will feature two new dungeons, here's work-in-progress footage of one of them!



Come join our Discord for more news and ability to communicate with the developer team directly!





Silent Rain - 2chab

We're excited to announce that Silent Rain will be featured in the October 2023 Steam Next Fest.
You can get your hands on a demo of the game throughout the festival, leading up to the Early Access release on October 20, 2023!

In celebration of this occasion, we will be hosting a second special livestream with our team members.
Mark your calendars for October 12th, 2023, at 7:00 PM PT.

We can't wait to have you join us for the event! 👻
Anomaly Agent - gcbndenis
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2378620/Anomaly_Agent/
Our game, Anomaly Agent, which we've worked on with great pleasure, is now live with its demo. In this demo, you'll get a glimpse of the introductory sections of the game. We wanted to show you a small portion of what we have in store for the full game.

We hope that you'll have an enjoyable experience while playing, and that you'll have a great time with its story. Thank you for your interest!
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