HOI4 - Diplomacy Doesn't Matter ... But It Should

[@ziggytheassassin5835]

They should add a 3rd mode in between historical and non historical called "reactive" that makes nations take their historical route but redirect it in response to the player. Maybe they could massively nerf improve relations and increase relations modifiers from taking focuses and then just have it be relations based. ie. If hungary has relations modifier < 0 of germany, they align with democrats. Also a non poland invading USSR should be able to switch to the allies faction

[@Qwerka]

Would be hard to implement probably

[@ziggytheassassin5835]

@Qwerka maybe in hoi5

[@ultimatewarrior733]

That's pretty much how historical works already. If Germany goes democratic or monarchist, france will go communist on historical. Your idea should be more fleshed out, though.

[@thepowerofsand6180]

It already does

[@Kardia_of_Rhodes]

This literally already exists but it's anchored solely on if Germany picks Rhineland or Oppose Hitler.

[@crazeelazee7524]

My favorite diplomatic tomfoolery in the new patch is Poland always giving away its former German lands to Germany if it goes down the non-Hitler paths. Apparently the reason Poland chose war historically wasn't because of losing sea access or, you know, losing a 3rd of their country but because they really really really didn't like Hitler's mustache.

[@kigr_33]

Can't blame them, Hitler needed a moustache stylist badly. I mean, look at August Von Mackensen, who wouldn't fall in love with that exquisite moustache and fur hat.

[@sld1776]

"Gateway to Europe." Sigh.

[@nsdapcommunism2780]

What?

[@sld1776]

@@nsdapcommunism2780 the foremost example of useless Hoi4 "diplomacy."

[@SketchG]

​@@sld1776What focus is this I haven't seen it in game I think

[@Bad_wolf_41]

@@SketchG Not a focus - A Decision where Britain and Germany both try to influence the netherlands. When theyre above 10 or 15 opinion (by taking the 10pp decision multiple times), the netherlands can progress in their focus tree and take sides with the winning nation. The nation who won, will get all the pooled pp by those decision. But historical ai of netherlands will never cave to the germans - so thats where the sigh comes in. Its the first thing i also thought baout :D

[@sld1776]

@@SketchG Not a focus, it's a mini-game.

[@КофаЛыч]

The problem is, HOI4 started as a fully railroaded game, with focuses being just experimental feature. But due to rise of alt history mods, they shoehorned althistory not only without changing fundamentals of game diplomacy, but without even having coherent vision. Dlcs are made by different people, so we have fairly grounded focuses, like Spain or British dominions. And we have insane stuff, like neo-pagan willing German puppet Lithuania. It's a mess. Pdx doesn't care about integrity, they're just doing dlcs based on current player trends and power creep.

[@JoeBidenEvilIncorporated]

Paradox when they have to make a complete and good game: 😴 Paradox when they can make DLC Slop for the 4639th time: 🤑

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

To be honest I like hoi4 the way it is. I don’t want to play a railroaded game. Playing the game historically gets boring very fast. Which is probably why I prefer to play with ahistorical AI and take an ahistorical path. It’s just fun to fight against fascist Britain and communist France as the non aligned Kaiserreich. But then again, why play ahistorical AI when there are alt history mods like Kaiserreich and TNO?

[@cr1tikal_arc]

paradox does not care about making a good game whatsoever, they clearly just want money evidenced by the slop they've been putting out. just look at those new portraits, they're so ew lol

[@SciRuler]

@@cr1tikal_arc do you have more reasons on why paradox doesn't care about making a good game other than poorly made leader portraits

[@cr1tikal_arc]

@@SciRuler hmmm, maybe the poorly designed focus trees, many historical inaccuracies, the many mechanics that are entirely useless and/or broken, and so on.

[@usrevenge]

The problem with hoi4 imo is you either get conquered or do the conquering outside of special events There is no "ok you win take this small stretch of land" or "take my guns but nothing else you win" There should be win conditions and conditional surrenders.

[@fearedjames]

The issue is that this is pointlessly expanding the scope. This is the era of the one true World War. Everybody fought far, far longer than historically expected with the sole exception of France. It is not an era conditional surrenders. People who want something else want something that isn't a world war game.

[@kigr_33]

@@fearedjames No it isn't a pointless expansion, the long war was mostly due to a series of decisions by all the powers and failures/successes of military operations. For example, you shouldn't *have* to capitulate the UK as Germany, historically if Churchill wasn't elected as the party leader UK might have probably negotiated with the Germans, in game it could be a series of events, either triggered by destroying a certain portion of the British army (perhaps at any point in the war as long as the Germans are on the winning side) or/and when the French capitulate. Also, at multiple points in Operation Barbarossa, there were secret peace negotiations between the Germans and Soviets, that could be an event chain too. My point being, if you want a large scale conquering war, you can either refuse offered peace treaties, or demand too much so the AI refuses, and if you want a short and quick war for only a couple territories, you can offer a peace treaty with those terms, that the AI may or may not accept based on the balance of power. This will ensure that you don't get involved in pointless wars that'll take too long to resolve/are unreasonable.

[@fearedjames]

@kigr_33 The issue is, this is hard to implement. If we were to establish basic goals and rules: A. It must be practically possible to win as any Axis power. They are basically the protagonists and must not feel ruined. B. Germany should never, ever, give up until totally and utterly conquered. C. The Soviet Union must be practically beatable by Germany, but still immensely strong D. The UK must be able to survive. E. It has to be a universal system so its not pure garbage. The base game only makes an exception for this for France and Italy, to reflect their unique fates, and even those are kinda gimmicky. F. An army advancing should never surrender. This leaves a huge amount of problems you somehow gotta find a really good solution for. Its just not easy.

[@johngalt5166]

@@fearedjamessome of this could be achieved by giving certain leaders an inability to conditionally surrender (Stalin, Hitler, etc.) Churchill could have the same trait that could only be removed via a special focus choosing to go down the surrender path maybe.

[@bigvinnie3]

@@johngalt5166 I like that Idea

[@Brian_i]

I think the worst offense of this is the Dutch trade mechanic, where you, as Germany, can dump as much pp on the dutch as possible, but the dutch will always cave to the British This renders the mechanic entirely pointless unless you play the Netherlands. Its such a tease.

[@farwynd2925]

Hey aren't you the Irish man in monarchord?

[@danielcrud9345]

That's why the better alternative is always spending 50pp to justify on the East Indies, then take both that and the entire Netherlands

[@Vanderyn]

HOI IV diplomacy works on two completely separate systems that clash immensely. The railroaded focuses and the sandbox "diplomacy". Why do a 70day focus to join a faction if you can just click a button? Why do a focus that invites a nation to your faction if it just leaves immediately after through diplomacy? At this point, non-focus diplomacy should just be removed.

[@polishscribe674]

I'd prefer if it was upgraded to the point railroaded focus diplomacy isn't needed.

[@HaartieeTRUE]

A good example of this exact thing is the Hungarians breaking the treaty of trianon, which cause a chain of events where the little entente is formed by romania, with the purpose of going to war with hungary..... from which czechoslovakia IMIDIATLY leaves after joining........ because reasons....

[@floriansen6001]

IMO Focuses should be a way to enforce a diplomatic action that would not be possible due to relations modifiers/restrictions of ideology. Focuses could set you back on a historical path if things got out of hand. In ahistorical of course, the relations modifiers should win out over focuses. It would however, still be usefull to bypass diplomatic restrictions due to ideology.

[@Vanderyn]

@@polishscribe674 Me too but I think Paradox at this point isn't capable of making working sandbox diplomacy.

[@archer8849]

they should also make being able to peace out separately without needing capitulation, especially for smaller nations

[@Pickouls]

Facts. They have the features to do so, generated world tension, acceptance of diplomacy, the opinions and trade relations, etc. I guess if someone told Paradox they could make an expensive DLC out of it they would get it going

[@brunitoforrester]

pana caldo

[@ryankitzan]

4:28 I mean, Hitler colossally and repeatedly dicked over Romania and they still chose to join. Though I guess Romanian politics were more unstable and more easy for the Germans to manipulate than Hungarian politics, which by that point were mostly stable.

[@carthagegamingstudios]

IIRC the fascist takeover of Romania was after the Soviet Union had annexed Bessarabia. The appeal of joining the Axis was that they would get that territory back and more. This is one of the reasons why the Romanian troops were so effective on the eastern front.

[@ryankitzan]

@ yep, though Ironically it was the Germans who green-lighted the Soviet takeover (as a provision of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) and pressured the Romanian government not to resist

[@crazeelazee7524]

It's because history only remembers what happened, not what could have happened. Romania was surrounded by hostile powers who all wanted to take them over. Someone (most likely the Soviets) would have invaded. The choices Romania had was "lose parts of the country" or "lose the entire country". Hitler mediated to "disarm" the claims of the aforementioned countries.

[@MyUsersDark]

@@carthagegamingstudios "Romanian troops were so effective" I mean, Stalingrad called...

[@CloudDieStrifende]

@@carthagegamingstudios They also hoped that, since they were a much more effective force than the hungarians, they'd get Transylvania back

[@RobinMeineke]

Well I almost always do Molotov-Ribbentrop because Historical, and in previous Game Versions it didnt take long for the Soviets to start justifying and declaring war on your after you conquered Poland. So i was a bit confused when indeed in the current version the Soviets just dont care that you take all of Poland. Im not 100% sure but I do think you need the Pact for the Soviet-German Trade Agreement to come up and thats pretty good so the Focus is not entirely useless.

[@RobinMeineke]

Also in previous Game Versions the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact allowed the Soviets to take the Baltics and Bessarabia, while the now need to do their own focusses.

[@carthagegamingstudios]

You know what, I vaguely remember this now that you mention it

[@crunch.dot.73]

I was looking for this comment, 100% the Soviets would justify on you if you did not take the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. As to whether this was a bug or not is debatable, but it would happen consistently

[@brucesim2003]

The trade agreement still happens. It just gets initiated from the Soviets a bit later. And the Germans can get a non-aggression pact after that manually, if you want it.

[@kingnikolaj]

I've always done molotov-ribbentrop, i mean those sweet, sweet tanks you get in that path, 1944 tanks in 1938-1939...Who's gonna stop those tanks?

[@usrw29292]

you should work together with the guy who made the mod "non-historical mode made actually playable", im sure he agrees with you as anyone would and could make that mod greater than it already is.

[@NixonIsTheBest-CatVeteran]

What's his mod called? Honestly I perhaps want to incorporate his mod into mine, perhaps work together with him too. Edit: Found out that you PUT THE MOD'S NAME IN your comment, mb

[@gafeleon9032]

This would require a diplomatic system that isn't complete garbage and for it to affect the political path of the involved nations Romania is a great example, you can drag them pretty early into the allies as czechoslovakia, but they'll still drop their pro allied government in favor of the fascists

[@sebastianl8848]

You wouldn't necessarily have to redesign the diplomatic system. You could use game flags, ideas or have the AI check for world tension, etc. to encourage certain outcomes. The old alt-hist focus tree for Germany does this with 1 focus. When you complete "Expatriate the Communist", France will go down the communist branch, even on historical mode. The focus gives France ticking +communist support, but the communist support itself isn't what flips them communist; instead, the AI gets an +100 factor to do Communist Focuses if they have the National Spirit "Communist Refugees". Although, I don't know at what amount of + or - AI factor does this just become scripting. This is the only instance of Reactive Alt-Hist I'm familiar with, but I believe some of the countries with older focus trees have something similar. (Romania and Yugoslavia come to mind, but I'm not 100% sure).

[@Торговецложками]

There is a slight inaccuracy in the sequence. The USSR offered Britain and France a pact against Germany BEFORE the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, not after. To be more precise, these negotiations began at the end of May 1939, on the 24th and 27th. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed on August 24 largely as a reaction to failed negotiations with Britain and France. The funny thing is that according to the original scenario, countries such as Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia or Finland were given guarantees of protection by France, the USSR and Britain, that is, if they had ended in success, these countries would not have fallen under the payback, as in the framework of Molotov-Ribbentrop. Before the Winter War, the USSR had its own separate negotiations with Finland on the EXCHANGE of territories (Google "negotiations between the USSR and Finland 1938-1939). The eve of World War II is one of the most interesting moments in world history and diplomacy, a game like HOI4 will never be able to fully convey what was happening in Europe, and then around the world at the diplomatic level.

[@MyUsersDark]

He did say "before" originally I think. He seems to have mixed it up at some point though

[@lordshaxx4693]

Problem is that Historical isnt reactive enough. It can handle alt paths okish but cant do alt-historical, like if Germany does the path that lets them core the Czechs

[@wawercat1516]

I gave slovakia to poland and used the befriend poland focus. But poland never joins the axis and never becomes fascist.

[@AdErOlEl]

9:36 it should be an event wich the ussr can: A) declare a war imidetly and gain some sort of "war of liberation" national spirit for a year with like -5% supply consomption, 10% atc and def agenst germany specifically to make up for the bad railways in the Soviet Union by the time of the war and to punnish germany harder B) get a decision to declare war whenever they want via a 10 day decision wich costs ether 25 or 50 pp, once again to punich germany

[@E.V.A.N-COProductions]

I think there should be three options. A: Declare war instantly, no bonus, nothing. Because yes, it'll hurt Germany early. But it *_also_* hurts the soviets early. They're not prepared for an all-out European war, and besides. Japan can easily swoop in unsuspecting soviet. B: Accept the influx of refugees and possibly issue a diplomatic protest to Germany. Something to the likes of: "Further conquests in the Baltics/Bessarabia equates war." And then obvious historical option C: Ignore refugees, and suffer a stability/ PP loss, with an increased relation with the Germans. And no risk of early war.

[@Qwerka]

HOI4 Civillian Industry should work a bit like the military industry.

[@Saveyourwifi]

I feel like I could get pretty crazy, try to focus on everything that would be happening

[@augustcederberg5904]

Try HOI3 then, you might like it

[@Dvolevkata]

BULGARIA MENTIONED RAAAAAAAHHHHHH🔥🔥

[@OpexRL]

Paradox watching this video: Wow! This is useless!

[@monsieursp00ky44]

A few observations. Changes (even on historical) can and do occur. If you Oppose Moustache Man then the UK is far more likely to go Brown or Red party. There's also some examples of changed behaviour in Romania & Yugoslavia (Romania will sometimes join the allies if brought into conflict too early, and Yugo will/will not rebel depending on if they invited a German military mission). It is my belief that it's no coincidence that all of the above examples are from old DLC focus trees where the "larp" was less prevalent. A lot of this is also a consequence of a larger problem, how ideologies are chosen immediately at game start or very shortly after for most countries. Once Germany remilitarises the Rhineland it's brown forever, same for Soviet Moustache man, France, USA, Japan, etc. Basically most countries aside from Romania funnily enough all choose their entire political disposition at the beginning of the game, and are therefore largely predictable. Changing this would be tantamount to making the Spanish Civil War not be a pain in the rear with a fake AI that cheats (in other words, something PDX do not care about). Lastly, you DO want to do the Mol/Rib pact because otherwise Soviets will declare in 1940 after the Winter War, at least that's how I remember it. Your points are, as usual, largely valid and in a more ambitious game would be worth considering for implementation. Unfortunately this is Paradox we're talking about.

[@zarbi64]

Problem is that DLC are too inconsistent from one to another

[@darkdragonsoul99]

There is nothing wrong with the Spanish civil war other then the stupid debuff to make it last longer. Just use the plan attack decisions and it's not even hard to win. And I say that as someone who's decidedly bad at this game.

[@monsieursp00ky44]

@@darkdragonsoul99 Dumb.

[@monsieursp00ky44]

@@darkdragonsoul99 Dumb.

[@MyUsersDark]

Given I haven't played this game in 2 years, but the way I remember it was that if you Opposed Hitler then it would be france that goes red, not Britain. I don't know if anything changed since then though

[@radicalesotericcentrist]

6:09 - Don't want to be the "actually 🤓"-guy, yet that isn't actually the case. He even was shocked at the allied response and looked at Ribbentrob with a gaze almost as his foreign minister had mislead him and asked him: "Now what?" as he didn't think Chamberlain had the balls to honor his gurantee. They gave in once (during the Sudeten crisis) and they will do so again, he thought. Other than that good video.

[@Torantes]

BASED I AGREE FULLY THIS GAME NEEDS MORE DIPLOMACY

[@tijmenwillard2337]

I was not expecting this video to be as good as it was. I fully agree with your assessment.

[@sahilhossain8204]

Lore of HOI4 - Diplomacy Doesn't Matter ... But It Should momentum 100

[@Laza10426]

Giving up Eastern Poland makes the beggining of Barbarossa easier because you don't start pushing into Belarussian swamps.

[@FranciTheGamer]

Bulgaria wanted revenge anyway and was coerced into the Axis anyways, but I get your point

[@ИванЕвдокимов-в4м]

Wdym no gameplay reasons for M-R? I don't know about current patch, but before for Germany USSR would justify and dec on you in early-mid 1940 if you didn't do it!

[@carthagegamingstudios]

They havent done that to me in a long time. I wonder if it's because the AI is scared of me. I've actually had that problem in my Soviet games lately. The Germans never attack me anymore or attack super early.

[@ИванЕвдокимов-в4м]

@@carthagegamingstudios Huh, did they not justify or justified and sat w. their war goal? I've personally felt like perhaps Soviet AI was too railroaded bc. in 39-40 they'd always go Baltics-Finland-Polish claim w/o M-R, regardless of guarantees or relative strength.

[@beowulfcole4173]

​@@ИванЕвдокимов-в4м Yeah I'm a game with friends the Soviet ai tried to go to war with all of Europe (mitteleuropa) while they were being imploded by the tsar lmao

[@beowulfcole4173]

With gotterdammerung as the kaiser, you can literally get basically all of euope - including scandanavia - into a massive faction using the mitteleruopa economics. The ai wont blink an eye and (at least for me) always accepts becoming your puppet.

[@BullyMaguire42069]

you can literally core all of europe now as kaiser/democringe germany

[@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4eva]

And there are still little bits of ahistoricity that sneak through regardless. I remember doing a Historical Italy game where I focused on navy and despite Germany giving Savoy and Corsica to Italy in real life, they still refused me when I did the focus to get those lands from Vichy, which are important because they're required for Greater Italy.

[@AldebaranBaron]

It’s sort of rare, but I do remember one time playing Germany, not doing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and when it came time to invade Poland, the Polish joined the Comintern and pulled the Soviets in, which was kind of neat but again, it’s rare when it happens.

[@SmallPotato2313]

I remember molotov-ribentropp being actually important at one point in the game because soviet union would do claims on poland and then demand your land or declare war while you are being preoccupied by allies in the west. This was around death or dishonor dlc so long time ago.

[@betalame2120]

Another comment for Molotov-Ribbentrop: A sequence of events should take place where each side gets to spend “points” on whether or not they claim a specific territory. In the original pact, Germany was designated less of Poland in exchange for Lithuania, however they conceded Lithuania for Warsaw and Lublin. Some sort of dynamic diplomacy where you have to appease the Russians while maintaining your own sphere of influence otherwise the Russians cut off all negotiations.

[@General_Karl4350]

Somebody needs to make this a mod

[@flameguy3416]

I once played a historical game as Poland where Czechoslovakia and Romania created a faction (Little Entente maybe) and when Germany inevitably took Czechia, it took all of Czechoslovakia, and it also took Romania. There wasn't a war or anything, my borders just suddenly became surrounded by Germany. I wish there was a mode where you can play non historical but make it more realistic, where it's not random and most democratic countries go communist of fascist.

[@Kiddo5010]

Paradox should just hire you at this point

[@topphatt1312]

Another thing I would like for the Soviets to do is to be able to fix their army on their own if you don’t attack them for long enough. Right now the game basically portrays it as the Soviet army being sucky, then the war happens and they learn from it and it gets better. But in reality they were undergoing reorganization in 1941. I wish there was a system where if Germany waits too long to attack then the Soviets will be able to reorganize and launch an attack of their own.

[@lordDenis16]

8:55 - Polish Government would never have accepted as Soviet alliance at this point, and did everything to torpedo the Franco-Czech efforts for a Soviet Alliance due to viewing both the Soviets and Czechs as hostile. Hence why for example Poland never allowed the passing of Soviet troops in support of the Czechs during the Munich Crisis. Just because UK is a major it had very little say in the East, France on the other hand had much more influence in the region but that was soon eroded. But on the premise of the video, I agree, democracy should play a much much bigger role and decisions should matter more.

[@fiddler9804]

Pretty cool vid. Diplomacy should exist more in hoi4. In my opinion, i believe Paradox could work some more on plausible Alt History Scenarios, like you mentioned in your vid. Stuff like Bulgaria aligning with the Allies or the Soviets aligning with Poland against the Germans makes more sense than Liberia becomes world power. Would also love to see a way of negotiating a peace treaty without having to capitulate all your enemies. For example, Axis took over mainland Europe, defeated USSR and had full control of Mediterranean. Instead of crossing the Atlantic to defeat the US, you could start a deal to negotiate the end of the war. P.S: Historical scripts so the AI can do historical stuff like invading N. Africa, Sicily and Normandy would also be extra cool.

[@Mankorra_Gomorrah]

You should check out HoI3s diplomacy system. I think that it almost perfectly resolves the issues you bring up with most of the decisions, events, and focuses mention just moving those countries closer to one point on the triangle rather than being a linear step toward them joining a faction.

[@tomm9963]

The fact that the game has been out almost a decade and Paradox still haven't fixed the diplomatic part of the game. The fanbase let them get away with murder

[@Gajus_Julius]

I think you are right but bringing up historical kinda drags your point down. Yes its true there should be diffrent reaction but historical is just that, no matter what will the player do countries will take their historical paths.

[@RichardGadsden]

Except it isn't - if you overthrow the brown ideology in Germany, then France will go Communist and Britain will go Fascist. Well, unless you do a bunch of economic focuses first and wait until Britain is locked into its historical path (you can't easily stop France going Communist; it tends to do that anyway if given long enough).

[@captainmccuckin2698]

On the Bulgarian issue imagine somebody crippling you and then buying you a wheelchair. Thats not how relationships are build. Also these decisions matter way more on alt historical and if you want to mappaint

[@gocool_2.0]

We do have that option while forming the Chinese United front. For some reason the player playing as the Soviets tell to kill Chiang Kai Shek, the Brits guarantee China leading to British and in turn allies involvement in the sino japanese war.

[@leolinguini260]

Here's a thought on fixing diplomacy: On your Molotov-Ribbentrop pact proposal, you specify the idea that the soviets can counter propose joining the allies, but then you explain that the UK would always refuse this on historical. This is exactly what the game does, and why diplomacy sux. With historical turned on, all crucial events get an ai_will_do_chance entry. Where if historical is on, they will always do this focus. What you are effectively proposing is a continuation of the problem. This is not the case on non historical. Funnily though, even if you manually change the game rules to a non historic option, these events fire hostorically. (You could for example never get the Ottomans to come in power for the AI with historical on as Turkey always picked Bayar over Menderes) This historical_is_on modifier needs to go entirely, or be conditional. One way you can get dynamic diplomacy is to play around with the ai_strategy_plans folder. As it stands, the AI boots up a file at the game start which dictates which focuses it should take in order. This can be aborted when certain things happen. (For example Turkey will abort the Balkan Pact path if Greece sidelines the king). When aborted the Ai picks random focuses with a weighted chance affecting the order more or less. (This is why some countries go off the rails if you start acting non historically in a historical game) What you could effectively do, is add more strategy entries which are affected by changes in the global scene. So for the Bulgarian example, imagine that the Historical strategy file dictates the focuses up mid 1939, then aborts itself while doing the last focus in the sequence. This means that Bulgaria will now start picking focuses at random (ai_will_do_chance) would then steer the country based on the previous diplomatic actions taken. Alternatively you could add a hidden effect trigger in the aforementioned focus (that aborts the strat), which checks for certain parameters, like rearmament or regional threats, and I then loads another strat file accordingly to continue down a different path. This is possible in a mod, but quite complicated as it needs to be done for many countries. This is a dense piece of text, and as a modder I might assume some things are clear when they really aren't. So questions are welcome.

[@snaiper195]

There is a wery simple solution to this problem, instead of unique fous trees, and events there should be generic systems, such as a demand system similar to demand it mod, that would take into account not only the demanders and demandees relative strength, but also demandees guarantier army strength proximity to demandee, and relations to demander. This is impossible to do with mods, but should be possible for Paradox. It would also save a lot of developing time, as not it will eliminate a need to make whole bunch of similar focuses, events, decisions, for similar actions each update.

[@carthagegamingstudios]

That's a good point. I would love a system where when you manually justify on a state and it sends a decision that those territories can be handed over without war and that a war goal of conquest would be a different justification.

[@snaiper195]

@@carthagegamingstudios I dont see a reason for war goal of conquest to be a different justification, just make so that if demanders demand is rejected, he would have an option to start a war.

[@fillipe4700]

9:54 if they ignored it, Soviet Ukraine and Belarus resistance increase and/or some stability or PP

[@päärynänugetti]

Before götterdämmerung you had to do molotov ribbentrop pact so ussr doesnt justify against you early. In this dlc apparently they do not

[@DawidKov]

Before No Step Back USSR justifying would be an issue, but with how awful USSR's army national spirits and doctrine are after NSB, it's not an issue - non-player USSR will cave that early on.

[@thorgrimgrudgebearer6844]

They need add event about Chz, because when Hitler move troops to border, Sov ask to move troops throu pol to go in Chz for help, pol reject and thats how poll get a small Chz land as gift from friend Hitler.

[@ADmajava]

Perhaps with Transylvania, they don't accept due to the guarantee of france

[@fillipe4700]

I wish we had more of domestic policy and diplomacy

[@qazdr6]

actually I feel you kinda want a mode between historical and non-historical. "Historically Plausable" mode

[@weierlowe9891]

Yeah its a real shame, but unfortunately this time period isn't the Victorian time period, so the only option you have is war, take it or leave it.

[@Lubnut]

While I agree with some things I mostly disagree overall with what you're saying. I see historical/non-historical as like game modes. When you tick 'historical', to me it means 'ok you are going to play world war two'. How you go about getting to that point is totally up to you, but if you decide to go off-script then that doesn't mean the AI needs to start going off script as well because it might not end up at that end goal of 'world war two sim'. For instance, if Germany rushes down its neighbours should that make it so that Poland rushes to join the allies early? Perhaps then the Soviets are less willing to accept German overtures. All of a sudden you're no longer playing historical and you mise well not have ticked the box to begin with.

[@seanregan1245]

This update has kind of shown the limits of Hoi4's current engine. Between the years old features that haven't ever been used as intended (looking at you conditional surrender) to the bugs that come as a result of the engines age like the developers having issues adding characters to the games font. It feels like the game is being held back and that it's time to move on.

[@johngalt5166]

I just play on non historical fr, fixes a lot of these problems.

[@krar9647]

Love everything you said

[@JS-iu3ce]

It’s like those Turkish and Greek investment events, clearly designed to align them with you if you use them but do literally fuck all lol

[@carthagegamingstudios]

This is very true. There was a very real chance the Turks could've joined the axis powers in 1942. Germany had been flirting with Turkey constantly and promised them the Caucuses and Turanist states in the Soviet Union. A lot of the political leaders were on board with it as was most of the military, but Inonu was still skeptical the Germans could win so it never happened.

[@wolfgang6517]

Big part of the problem is the philosophy behind how focus trees work. Fascist is always A) Axis or B) Wannabe Axis. A democratic nation is the same but for allies and soo on. Why bother giving concessions to italy if you know they will be a problem later. Countries are hard coded to follow a path which will result in a pre determined outcome: fascist expand, democracies fight fascists and conmunists… well do their own thing. You won’t see a fascist nation on the allied faction or a democratic nation on the axis. Countries don’t act based on their interests: Italy doesn’t care to try and get concessions out of the allies in return for help and, as you said, Bulgaria doesn’t care to align with anyone else but the axis since they are the only ones that will give them concessions.

[@beanburritos6393]

If you want a bit more diplomacy, maybe don't play historical focuses. The whole point of historical focuses is that they pick a predetermined path, unless you as the MC (Germany) goes ahistorical, then all bets are off. Turn that check box off and then you can try to get some more diplo happening.

[@Volt-jh3mb]

hmm..... nice idea for a mod

[@kaey6105]

Ill have to disagree with molotov ribentrop since the territory you give is pretty much empty and on top of that the next focus is a TWO HUNDRED percent research bonus on tanks wich is HUGE and the anti commitern pact only offers a little aliance and some exp bonuses

[@natanielkruger889]

There should be either a small path(couple of focuses) or a chain of events longer than it currently is for poland after they give up danzig maybe aside from getting claims in a second event bc for example if poland decided to just give up danzig wouldnt it mean they(not being facist) join the axis and get more claims like belarus and parts of ukraine and lithuania(their territorial ambitions). Why wouldnt they become like romania so they (regardless of the path altho if one was antigerman than they would probably refuse danzig) can flip when lets say sermany is close to capitulation for example they are a satelite or a dominion of the germans or free by this point and germany is about to fall nut the soviets have been knocked out why wouldnt there be an event for poland to flip democratic join the allies and immedietly declare war on the germans getting claims/cores on east prussia and idk upper silesia. Or why if the soviets are in the war as a poland player shouldnt you be able to just flip communist give up your land get cores on modern polish land and become a soviet pupet with an event. This added for more nations could realy make playthroughs more fun. Ex: going historical poland path but choosing the germans destroing the soviets getting the land you want and waiting until the west lands in france to do your comeback. But if you loose to the soviets you can flip(manoover your diplomacy). Simmilarily how romania can flip or italy has a civil war.

[@clutrike7956]

You missed the part where PDX devs are lazy af

[@darkdragonsoul99]

Historical locks them into the path they took historically

[@brucesim2003]

Until it doesn't. Manually selecting a path via game rule was supposed to overrule ALL other possibilities, including reactive AI. Try manually setting the UK to historical democratic, with historical on. Then play as a non-historical Germany. See how long the manual setting keeps them on historical democratic (it doesn't).

[@darkdragonsoul99]

@@brucesim2003 Much like the trigger for Barbarossa and the war between Germany and the soviets is Germany declaring war the same can be said about the UK. They aren't coded to declare war on the Germans . If you play as Germany and sit there til the 1950s and don't fight anyone on historical nothing much happens because Germany is the one who start the war. By the way the soviets and the UK don't change what they do in that scenario They do all the same focus but because they're not the aggressors historically them not declaring anyway is accurate. Hell just look at Finland to see just how hard coded those focuses are. If you never fight Finland as the soviets they'll still declare on you for the continuation war with the focus every time even though there is no war to continue.

[@darkdragonsoul99]

@@brucesim2003 You'd be amazed how many of those political shifts aren't the focus tree or more along the lines due to countries being locked out of the focuses they are suppose to take either by still existing IE France can't do the Free France tree if you're not Free France. or not meeting prerequisites like being at war world tension war support from said world tensions. Given Germany is the driver of most of the perquisites for these trees yes if you play as Germany and don't do anything everything changes.

[@brucesim2003]

@@darkdragonsoul99 The problem is, the game rules have NEVER worked as advertised. They are supposed to override ALL other instructions, including reactive AI. They don't. I use the UK as an example, because there is nothing stopping the AI from following the historical path - there is nothing in the path dependant on another country following history. I know this, because if you untick historical, it works flawlessly. But with historical ticked, reactive AI overrules game rules. As noted above, that's not supposed to happen. Edit: in fact all the UK paths are free from interference from other countries. But the only way to get the AI to follow the set path is to untick historical, otherwise reactive AI kicks in and does what it wants.

[@darkdragonsoul99]

@@brucesim2003 that's actually kinda the funny thing about the UK their historical path barely effects their politics. It goes in this order Limited Rearmament, Reinforce the Empire, Service Overseas, Encourage Colonial Elite, The Shadow Scheme, Air Defense, RADAR, Industrial Effort, Fortify East Asia, General Rearmament, Air Rearmament, The Burma Road, Naval Rearmament, Extra Research Slot, A Motorized Army, Steady As She Goes, Home Defense, Prepare for the Inevitable, Issue Gasmasks, Fighter Command. It doesn't even get to the political side of the thing til most of it's focuses are already suppose to be done. And yes some of these are in fact locked behind a wars and world tension. The thing is the AI in this game is kinda stupid and also won't wait for a focus so if it can't do something it'll pick something else seemingly at random and that's when weird shit starts to happen. Like instead of shadow schemes suddenly it runs change in course and you end up with a black shirt UK in 36 because world tension didn't rise to 5% fast enough.

[@Youcanatme]

I would find it cool if the germans and russian actually both attacked Poland and not germany conquering all of it and giving land to the soviets. Perhaphs alternate history where if the germans can get the soviets to attack first the british might enter against the soviets and the germans or not the germans at all as the germans pose as protectors.

[@khinev3128]

The game is rigged from the start be like

[@guppiapfeljustleopardthing8756]

10:03 Historically that question whould never be asked in the first place, after the ukrainians got invaded by the soviets in the 1920s. After wich purges happened, famins were caused that killed many ukrainians... Hell in real ww2 tge forst thing the soviets did with the polish land was rounding up all anti soviets, people of the intelligencia and sertain ethnic and religieus grouos and send them to a free holiday trip to siberia...

[@jayrodthered]

I see where this video is coming from, but I think you are far overstating the amount of sovereignty that Axis minors had, along with not giving enough credit to the mechanics in the game. For the first point about Axis minors moving away from the Axis and towards the Allies based off events: You seem to be confusing actual history with simple game play mechanics. In real life for example Bulgaria never wanted to join the Axis, instead they "joined" against the western allies due to an ultimatum sent by Germany relating to getting German troops in Greece. Bulgaria was then given land and occupation for their compliance and so that they were forced to have a stake in the war (side note Bulgaria never even declared on the Soviet Union). However, in gameplay terms this whole sequence of events is very difficult to make. None of these events are influenced by the UK allowing Bulgaria to rearm, as that did not even factor into the Bulgaria choice to join the Axis. It is far easier for the devs to make a clear path to joining the Axis (which is somewhat similar to history), rather than recreating the actual complexities that took place. Imagine if players wanted to play a "historical" Bulgaria game but were forced to first do years of neutrality base diplomacy and then have it all turn around because the Germans need troops in Greece. People probably generally wouldn't like playing like that too much, and for the small group of people who do there is always a mod like Black Ice. You talk about Hungary moving away or towards the Axis but again you seem to under play the actual historical complexities that took place. In real life Hungary just like Bulgaria tried to generally stay out of war (but they did enjoy the spoils from the Germans). In real life the Hungarian Prime Minister Pal Teleki tried his hardest to keep Hungary out of the war and stay neutral despite everything Hungary had gained. But again just like Bulgaria, Hungary was forced to join the war and Teleki killed himself over Hungarian entry to the second world war. How exactly does not getting/getting more of Transylvania impact the Hungarian decision to join the war? It doesn't, because they were under immense pressure from Germany either way. Just like Bulgaria this whole series of events is simplified for the game and shown as "Join Axis or Don't", but don't mistake the game's framing as actual historical choices. I would just like to say with both these examples I am not trying to undermine any crimes committed by these countries or alleviate responsibility, I'm simply trying to show how their actions were far more complex than "The UK allowed us to rearm so we'll move towards the allies". Also just to quickly point it out it is not like the game doesn't react to anything you do on historical, the game just doesn't react to minor shifts. If you go down an alt-history path then other countries will do the same. I won't levy criticism without also pointing out what I think your good ideas are though. I actually really enjoyed you bring up the fact that molotov-rivenrop is lowkey kinda useless and I really agree that there should be an event chain about Soviet troops entering Poland, working with the allies, if the pack isn't signed.

[@zwilder1]

armchair diplomat

[@thepowerofsand6180]

I mean thats why I play unhistorical because it changes the game. Historical is a optional choice if you want a predictable game for achievements etc... If you want the AI to do different choices, then turn it off. The AI does react to the strength of the player and rejects Sudentenland if you are too agressive or too weak. I just dont get the point of the video...

[@zarbi64]

Because it's not always historical in historical, like if you decide to rally the Warmarcht as Germany you may encounter a communist France or a fascist UK, which is not historical at all

[@CarpeVerpa]

The problem with just turning Historical off is that you get the opposite problem, with a lot of AI decisions being made entirely at random. It doesn't matter if you as Germany decide to snub the Hungarians if the AI has already decided to go full fascist, just as it doesn't matter if you decide to reward or entice them when the AI has already decided to go communist. It's not actually reactive to the decisions you as a player make, which is what this video is advocating for.

[@The_Devout]

5:55 caught me :D

[@Estoph11]

Honestly one of the things I think the game does just a piss poor job of doing is resistance in general. There is no way in current HOI4 to get the political mess that was the post war period. England had what? 8 revolutions and rebellions happen between 1944 and 1950? Also the idea that democracies cannot declare war without their target generating world tension is just utter silly. Not to be all "Allies were bad too" or anything, but its not like England, France, the US, and so on just willingly let Vietnam drift out of French control. These are still imperial powers after all. And its not like the land they controlled was super peacefully occupied like in game either. Syria has what 70% compliance at the start of the game? Insane. The Levant Crisis didn't just spring up out of no where. Syria as an "independent" state was signed in 1936. I get that the game absolutely does not want to go into the complexities of the war, after all its a WW2 game where there are 0 civilian casualties, no issues with feeding populations, and it feels like 90% of players forget entirely about weather effect. But at a certain point it stops being a simplification of history and becomes an erasure of it. Its a delicate line and I'm not sure if its even one we can really draw.

[@carthagegamingstudios]

Palestine starts out the game with 0 resistance and there was literally an Arab revolt from 36-39z

[@Estoph11]

RIGHT

[@nemzecski]

very good comment

[@Seer_Of_The_Woodlands]

Great video !

[@Luka__1]

Truth nuke

[@男失われた]

just make a mod for that

[@ninyaninjabrifsanovichthes45]

I keep trying to do the “influence the Baltics” focus for the USSR but the paranoia mechanic always kicks in before I can

[@CallyA]

Turn off historical focuses. There you go.

[@madizo9056]

Are you Tunisian ?

[@carthagegamingstudios]

No, I'm surprised my redneck accent didn't give away that I'm American. I studied a lot of ancient North African Christianity in college though.

[@omerfarukgonul1233]

very goood point

[@rogerr.8507]

6:09 Did he? i thought the french empire and british empire guarantee was secret between poland, and thats what made them so cocky to refuse giving up that german port city whatever its called

[@augustcederberg5904]

Single player is an inherent issue, it cannot be fixed.

[@drandren9093]

Clickbait thumbnail :(

[@coloniser.-]

hoi 6