Line up soldiers!

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

Music:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading “Hearts of Iron IV – Development Diary 51 – Music & Sound Design” →

Super Friends of Asia! In this part a lot of stuff happens – fast forward 🙂

 

Extra Credits has a Hearts of Iron partnership now! I am so excited!

Arsenal of Democracy is an official HoI II mod too by the way 🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

The generic tree is really fun and flexible and hopefully it will make you dream of stuff you can do with the country of your choice.
Continue reading “Hearts of Iron IV – 50th Development Diary – 1st of April 2016” →

In this stream… he invades just a bit of China.

Today’s topic is an explosive one (heh) – nukes!

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

To launch a nuke you need to have strategic bombers in range of the target and air superiority.
This is early days yet, so nukes, while incredibly powerful are not the massive world destroyers of the cold war. However they can still do serious damage, and other effects:

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

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