Hearts of Iron IV has had a substantial update today, with the release of Patch 1.2 (AKA ‘Sunflower’). This patch makes changes to certain mechanics, alters how the AI behaves in various circumstances, and allows custom difficulty levels.
The relative power of Italy, Germany, France and the Soviet Union can now be adjusted before launching a new game. There are also changes to how Peace Conferences work; the patch notes don’t go into detail here, but it’s based on a design from Steam user ‘Neutrino’.
According to the patch summary, AI powers will now be more likely to build nuclear reactors (uh oh), cancel unnecessary production, and update templates. Conversely, they will be less likely to decide North Africa is the most tactically important location in the world, risk encirclement, or send France full Communist.
‘Hotjoin’ functionality has been added to Hearts of Iron IV multiplayer games, so people can hop into a game already in progress. In addition, Paradox says a ‘re-sync’ button has been added to make it easier to address connection issues without rehosting games.
A great deal more changes and fixes have been made too. The full patch 1.2 Sunflower notes can be read here, or below. Older saves should be compatible, say Paradox, but add that if you’re in the middle of a crucial Ironman campaign you should probably stick to 1.1. You can revert to older patches via the beta branch.
Features
– Added Hotjoin for smoother multiplayer experience.
– Added Resyncronization option for the host if the game decides to go out of sync.
– Added custom difficulty settings
AI
– Added abort to AI strategy that made germany down-prioritize navy
– Romania now has a chance of refusing soviet demands on Bessarabia if in a faction
– Japan AI now has semi sanity triggers before starting new wars via focus
– Added AI weights for election events. Should stop nations from always moving towards fascism or communism over time
– Added AI chance to prevent France turning communist during first election in a historical play through
– Lithuania may now reject German demands for Memel if Germany is losing a war when demanding it
– Various front balancing to improve situations like countering invasions, not piling everything in Africa, overassigning to straits etc
– AI is now able to remove factories and build nuclear power plants in stead. Also made the AI better at reasearching nuclear tech. Watch out, the nukes are coming!
– Fixed a bug that made the AI unable to properly reorganize volunteer troops
– Various changes and bug fixes to template design AI, making it better at creating new ones as well as designing according to target templates
– Improved (read “fixed”) match score calculation for AI template design
– Added a minimum target template match to avoid AI moving on to worse templates too early
– AI now evaluates current deployment lines to see if they should be replaced by newer templates
– Made AI much faster at replacing templates for units in the field. Will primarily impact large nations. Seriously, it was WAY too careful about this before
– Improved AI nuke targeting
– Units is no longer make arbitrarily long port rushes. This should reduce the number of map snakes significantly
– AI is now be better at noticing when they are about to get cut off from the front and react to it
– Germany is not backing down from declaring war on tiny Luxemburg just because it is so tiny that it does not prepare a full on invasion
– AI can now cancel unit production if they are struggling with supporting their units in the field
– Made AI better at balancing multi type production
– Made sure AI does not retreat willy nilly from a valuable VP
– Made AI a bit more cautious/clever when deciding on plan activation for undermanned fronts
– Now AI actually turns on naval defence when it is threatened by an ongoing wargoal generation or actual wargoals
– Now ai does nuke only cores and when it will actually lower NU
– Germany should no longer have a crippled fighter production
– Merged in Enhanced Peace Conference AI mod (for more historical ai peace behaviour), with a few modifications
– AI will now avoid taking occupied land from its faction members in peace deals
– Fixed a booboo in AI code that counted front size in a way that resulted in min units being one less than intended (sometimes leaving a hole in the front)
– Historical France should no longer go early communism.
– AI should no longer attack the swiss during historical period if france etc alive
– Now ai will be less careful in some attacks 
(Previously it was SUPER careful)
– Made unit controller more reluctant to leave empty front provinces
– Tweaked template progression script to make it better at moving to medium tanks.
– Tweaked down AI desire to make variants in stead of templates.
– Tweaked AI template design script to improve modern armor designs.
– Changed AI blocker for Germany’s USSR war goal to only look for neighboring wars in home area
– Fixed a bug in AI template switching and tweaked the balance of it a bit to match the correct functionality
– Added tooltips for add_leader_trait and remove_leader_trait
– Tweaked AI to be slightly less cautious against fortified enemies.
– AI now able to pick all ideas players could (was restricted by allowed during play that was scripted for startup condition only)
– More robust check for enemy capital area, fixing stuff like ITA abandoning ETH before they were defeated.
UI
– Build cost of 0.1 or lower will no longer be shown in the tech window
– Fixed some stats for ships showing navy stats instead of ship stats
– Changed some highlights in navies and air overview to reflect if modifiers are good or bad
– Moved French foci to display the ‘mutually exclusive’-arrows.
– Juggled some stuff around in the deafault mapmode tooltip.
– Added attack modifiers to unit tooltip when multiple units in the same province are selected.
– Added focus icon and national spirit icon for fourth international
– Ship combat history list no longer cuts at bottom
– Fixed texts out of boundaries issues in modding sub window
– Fixed linebreaks issue in production entries for names
– Fixed an issue with Czech letter ý not showing up in english version
– Added more army icons, there are now 14 in total
– Added ability to assign groups to orders on the theater item
– Added collapsing deployment conveyors
– Added changing order of deployment conveyors
– Added visualization for stalled lines (icons and progress bar coloring) in the deployment interface
– Focus progress bar now shows amount of saved days
– Navy and army leaders have now better area for skill tooltip
– Organizing airwing entry names no longer overlap
– Improved the damaged building progress bar, should be clearer now
– Replaced english flag with american in launcher for language selector
– Added tooltip for max factory modifiers
– Added tooltip explaining factory repair speed modifier
– Changed how and when National Focus displays tooltips for cancel triggers and requirements
– Added descriptive tooltip for resource gain efficiency modifiers
– Now when unit is not advancing because of too low str/org, the shoutmark with tooltip explains why
– Added better tooltip for Trotsky Focus. Proper effect shows up when Trotsky is back.
– Fixed a truckload of spelin erors and tpyos
– Lots of localization fix. Some minor, some embarrasing
– Added 2nd level invasion alert after enemy has landed
– Wargoal justification modifier for fascists now shows that it requires you to be at war with a major instead of just stating: “Fascist”
– Updated tooltip to reflect that you can get Trotsky to return by picking the Purge
– Added damage info tooltip to survivors in naval combat
– Tooltips showing complex keyboard shortcuts now display correctly (like ctrl+h)
Database
– Added portrait to Japanese general Naruhiko Higashikuni. Bumped skill 1 -> 3
– Moved some units and buildings around.
– Gotland is no longer considered a colony of Sweden. In the game…
– Added German Claims on Poznan and Danzig in 39 start
– Removed coastal from some inland provinces
– Added some more Persian names
– Removed Portugese cores in Africa
– Added Sinkiang cores to 36 start
– Removed building from Menguko in 39 start to avoid the wrath of the errordog
– Returned Fehmarn to Germany, despite my Danish heart wanting to cling on to it forever!
– Made new soviet province coastal and added naval base to avoid troops getting caught
– Added new Cambodia state
– Adjusted states in the Caucasus
– Added Stalinabad as a new state
– Added history files and cores for Cambodia
– Added history files and cores for Vietnam
– Added history files and cores for Laos
– Added history files and cores for Malaysia
– Added history files and cores for Indonesia
– Added history files and cores for Azerbaijan
– Added history files and cores for Georgia
– Added history files and cores for Armenia
– Added history files and cores for Ukraine
– Slightly toned down Croatia’s color
– Fixed positioning of units in the province two east of Amsterdam
– Added TUR communism leader Sefik Husnu portrait
– Fixed urban terrain texture in the city of angels
– Cut down some 3d trees around Hannover and planteed some new ones in finland. Also cut down lots of trees in various parts of the world, global warming here we come
– Added armored division templates to commonwealth countries
– Removed lake Volta from the map
– Added portrait for leader of fascist Palestine
– Fixed missing portraits for Georgia. Fixed Georgia generating arabian leaders
– Fixed some state and city names
– Changed date triggers in UK focus tree to look for threat levels and war instead
– Made sure Soviet can always create factions even if ideology changed
Modding
– Added trigger: has_non_aggression_pact_with = <TAG>
– Changed every_country random_country any_country all_country to include current country. -Added _other_ versions of all of the above. eg. any_other_country
– Autogeneration of cores in home area now only adds core if no other country has core on the state
– Added ROOT and PREV support for has_government
– Fixed CTD when the players capital state did not contain any provinces
– Fixed CTD when scripting victory points in a province that has no state
– Diplomatic actions now use FROM instead of PREV scope to store stuff
– is_ai trigger no longer unaware of human_ai console cheat
– added new “ignore” ai strategy for when we want ai to ignore actions against someone (implemented as stopping justifications and sets neutral attitude).
– Added console command to give nukes
– Added add_equipment_to_stockpile effect.
– Added is_researching_technology trigger.
Balance
– Added anti-Daniel trigger to USA focus Issue Warbonds. Now available if at war with any sufficiently large nation
– Added focus to access purge part of the Soviet focus tree if the player choses Trotsky
– Rebalanced some armor values for tank varaiants that were inconsistent with how the rest were distributed. 36 light tank AA armor 20 -> 10. 41 light tank AA armor 35 -> 25. 36 medium tank artillery armor 35 -> 45
– Lowered communist support 8 => 5 gained from revoking workers rights in ‘Matignon Agreements’ event
– Now regain of convoy efficiency starts after 7 days instead of 3
– Now regain base speed of convoy efficiency starts was lowered and has been changed to non-linear change
– Moved Around Maginot before war with france focus so its easier to take for AI when needed
– Subs no longer detect other subs leading to wierd infinite battles
– Reduced naval ranges across the board
– Balanced most ship’s stats
– Fixed a bad bug with org impact on ship hit chance making it over all much too small (rebalanced base chance a bit to compensate)
– Evasion stat on ships now no longer makes such a drastic impact on hit chance (now capped and multiplicative)
– Ships with torpedoes AND guns will now try to close to torp range vs capital ships
– Added stacking penalty to hit chance for multiple ships targeting same target in naval combat
– Made ships spread targeting a bit more rather than focusing fire
– Fixed situation where ships would switch targets so often that they didnt bother closing range
– Dispersed industry now gains 5% higher starting efficiency for new production lines per level
– Lowered participation score from casualties in war
– Submarines are now much better at detecting surface ships
– Submarines now worse at detecting other submarines
– Increased xp cost of land upgrades a bit (+5 base)
– Armor gun soft attack upgrade on variants now goes up to +15% rather than +50%
– Speed upgrade now stronger (max 20% rather than 10%)
– Fleets in combat in naval regions now also count towards supremacy so that you can’t sacrifice some ships so easily and rush across
– SPART now much more costly (almost 2x)
– Increased mechanized infantry supply use by 30% and increased cost to be in line with MARM (+20%)
– Signal companies now give more effect on planning speed and cost less
– Reduced Hitler’s PP bonus from +50% to +25%
– Battleship lvl 1 no longer have too high surface detection
Bugfix
– Prevented Zombie Amelia from returning from the dead to fly around the globe and other related weirdness
– Faceless leaders should no longer be a thing in HOI4. Forwarded idea to Stellaris
– Fixed a bug that required London to be held by France for ‘Fall of London’ event to fire
– Moved all houses in Los Angeles to the province next door. Moved urban terrain modifier to reflect this
– Blocked ‘Communists Influence Foreign Policy’ event from adding popularity with nations you are at war with. Added communist popularity to option for the event
– Germany no longer demands Slovenia while at war with Yugoslavia
– Game no longer suggests R’lyeh won’t give you a building permit. Building tooltip no longer refers to water as “foreign territory”
– Fixed an issue with how saved event targets works with tooltips
– Fixed a bug where would lose all thirst for vengance during a civil war. Romania now retains revenge ideas
– Fixed 2 supply areas having the same state in Brazil
– Fixed a bug where Soviet focus ‘Southern Thrust’ would only work for Afghanistan if Persia owned the states
– Fixed a bug where UK would hand out land they didn’t own in return for some old boats
– Stopped dead Roosevelt from dying again, and pulling the current president into the grave with him. What is dead may never die!
– Stopped zombie Chamberlain from coming back to sign Churchill’s resignation papers
– Japan now keeps its promise to not kill Siam. Added check for NAP to ‘Pressure Siam’ focus for Japan
– Added special case for Anschluss when Austria has a civil war
– Fixed an issue where German AI would get stuck on demand sudetenland. Changed reward from the focus if another nation has taken sudetenland
– Fixed a bug where Germany would hand out territory and not care about ownership during the Vienna Award
– Blocked warlords from joining Chinese front if at war or in a faction
– Autogeneration of cores in home area now only adds core if no other country has core on the state.
– National Foci now looks for control of state before building in it
– Being a puppet now quenches Japans thirst for war. Blocked war foci
– National Foci are now blocked by default when a country has capitulated. Added “available_if_capitulated = yes” to disable
– Added trigger to look for control of state before loading units from China Unite event
– Added province for Eastern Chukota. Added to eastern Siberia
– Added check for different ideology for a bunch of foci leading to war
– Made sure it is not allowed to give control over a state to someone who is not an enemy of the owner
– Now on game sturt up puppet airbases are accessable for master
– Now submarines target only non empty routes
– Fixed efficiency interpolation, now it can regain to 100%
– Now Convoy efficiency will also cap to actual amount of convoys performing
– Now for supply calculation is used naval cap instead of supported cap
– Now the unit with strategic redeployment will cancel movement towards enemy territory
– Fixed the bug when naval base capacity was not updated on loading the game
– Fixed the bug when sunk ships was removed from combat
– Fixed the bug when after peace conference pause was not properly updated on clients in multiplayer
– Now resistance drop will be properly shown when it is bellow the resistance cap
– Fixed not maching estimation number on the production entry and the tooltip on the production screen
– Resistance modifier in the army overview is now shown as positive value
– Fixed the bug when supply system was not properly initialized on start (fixed SOV supply alert on new game)
– Fixed the bug when game could froze in the production screen for a long time
– Fixed the bug when player could trade with infinite amount of factories
– Now division performing support attack can’t have planning bonus gain
– Fixed the bug when player could remove guarantee preformed by other country
– Fixed the bug when countries was not surrendering while being fully occupied
– Glorious return of navy delete button
– Now if user disconnected from steam cloud save button will notify about that
– Fixed issue when save game status was not updated for achievements after selecting bookmarks
– Now while peace conference after capitulation winners can annex all of the territory of surrendered nations instead of only controlled by winner and lost nation
– Fixed the bug when sometimes military and naval factories were redistributed incorrectly
– Now air combat kills counts towards killer statistics
– Added tooltip over red striped zones in the deployment map mode
– Added air superiority as requirement for port strike
– Now planes put on port strike will not add up to air superiority in the region
– Now port strikes demands less than 30% of enemy superiority (instead of heaving more than 70% of our)
– Now adjuster values given from leader traits apply in land combats
– Now resistance doesn’t apply in states occupied by revolter during civil war
– USA intervenes in inter american war event now adds USA to the war instead of starting a separate war
– Com China can now move it’s capital if it own Beijing OR Nanjing, not both
– Fixed Fourth International news event not showing for the player
– Fixed script error that required London to be held by France for ‘Fall of London’ event to fire
– Party popularity boosts correctly stack now when several countries boost the same ideology of target country
– Fixed rebasing of planes to puppet airbase on game start
– Ship types are not duplicated in navy statistics anymore
– Fixed issue where min convoy efficiency was not applied (plus smooth efficiency change showing)
– Changed tooltip for Compassionate gentleman to reflect what he actually does
– Fixed a case where too large defender fleets destroyers would guard capitals rather than convoys in a convoy assault
– Guarantees can no longer be used to call in nations to war if you have no defensive war
– Nuke count can no longer go so big it becomes negative (max 999 nukes)
– Added fallback surrender target based on war leaders if you somehow end up needing to surrender to someone without warscore. should stop infinite wars that could happen in soem wierd situations
Stability & Performance
– Fixed CTD for active naval missions.
– Fixed CTD when moving navies.
– Fixed CTD upon resign when running the game at high speed.
– Fixed CTD in AI when Handling Navies.
– Fixed CTD when validating if a province can be nuked or not.
– Fixed CTD when merging navies.
– Fixed CTD in the description of Remove Ideas Effect.
– Fixed few CTD’s occurred during peace conference
– Optimized lategame AI handling of garrisons
– Strategic air view open no longer drops the performance to 1FPS at the late game. Now it takes almost no CPU!
– Fixed CTD when a nation would surrender to capital owner who might not be at war
Published: Sep 16, 2016 06:15 pm