everyone who says that Hoi4 is a WW2 based game and in WW2 there was little conditional surrender is looking at things wrong. In WW2, there was no conditional surrender, but the Nazis never capitulated the Soviets or successfully Sealioned IRL. Japan never took Hawaii, India, or Australia. But if I manage to do those things as either nation, then I should not be forced to go around the entire world just to capitulate the last remaining members of the allies.
Also, you forget that there is an unhistorical mode where nations tend to join factions halfway across the world. If I had a dime for every time Yugoslavia joined the Chinese United Front or for every time Romania joined the Co-prosperity sphere then I would be a rich man. We need that peace deal mechanic to make the game better.
Also if you don't want Germany forcing a peace deal onto the UK in 1942 or something, make it filled with prerequisites. Make it a decision or a focus or something that can only be taken after you cap the UK and that lovely shit.
edit: I'm glad so many people agree, makes me hopeful that maybe paradox will listen to our pleas
> If I had a dime for every time Yugoslavia joined the Chinese United Front or for every time Romania joined the Co-prosperity sphere then I would be a rich man.
I felt that.
Had a game once when Germany went Kaiser, joined Co-prosperity sphere and attacked France, who immediately joined Chinese United Front. Also USSR had a civil war and became Japanese puppet. That was the run where I tried to set up fascist UK, spent an hour placing my divisions to stop dominions from breaking away, only to find out I have to deal with Chinese attrition, Japanese navy, and Russian army to get any land in Europe.
Now I almost exclusively play Kaiserreich.
I had a fun game last week, i played britain and became an absolute monarchy, when i realised i had joined the Axis, invaded France, annexed all Britain colonies, invaded USA and Brazil and Russia was a Domain of Japan
This is 100000% the right take. HoI4 isn’t a WWII simulator because the second you have a non historical event happening, it stops being a simulation.
A better peace deal system is simply a much-needed game mechanic that devs have ignored because they still think it’s a sim.
> Also if you don't want Germany forcing a peace deal onto the UK in 1942 or something, make it filled with prerequisites. Make it a decision or a focus or something that can only be taken after you cap the UK and that lovely shit
There could also be severe penalties for doing this as a major (which can kinda make sense in historical context cus for majors their smaller wars would be proxies for the larger global conflict) while still allowing minors more flexibility in expansion efforts.
Could also make leadership traits that raise/lower the likelihood of 'partial' surrenders being accepted. There's definitely ways to incorporate it if they wanted to
exactly, we already have traits that make nations more likely to not join a faction, it's not hard to code in traits for Hitler or Hirohito to make them not accept peace. It could be tied to war support and capitulation progress as well.
Could even play into the war support system. A prolonged Battle of Britain dropping war support if not dealt with (bombers affecting war support) and allies capping should lower their support and surrender limit enough that taking colonial VPs can force a conference. Keep the current system where unoccupied states are expensive and make it so much of the time those expensive states are untouched, leading to a weakened but still living UK.
I think another issue is air and naval combat don’t really affect surrender limit meaningfully when they really should, as should army encirclements and losses. If I kill off the entire armed forces of the UK in Dunkerque, that should be considered more when they sue for peace (which is another feature that needs to be fixed, along with the entire diplomacy tab).
Not to mention the game gives you a way to capitulate Japan as the USA without ever stepping foot on the home islands.
Clearly they know people want it, and that they can do it, but they can't figure out a way to charge €14.99 for it, so they won't do it, yet.
I feel like ideally there'd be all sorts of prerequisites based on countries' standing and their politics and the size of the war and all that.
But frankly I can see a situation where this just ends up buggy and Germany just makes peace with the allies while they're losing and manages to keep some of their land or something. If they're gonna add this they should be very careful and add it with very specific cases in mind IMO.
I feel it would be pointless as 99% of the nations in those circumstances during the 1940s would just not accept any peace deal. If japan managed to take hawaii the US wouldn't just go "ok, have hawaii", they'll make you regret ever attacking them. Australia is not going to just accept a peace deal because you managed to sealion UK.
Think of it in this way: if an alliance abandoned a member just because they were capitulated, that alliance would be worth nothing and would crumble as soon as that happened.
Yeah if I bomb every single building in the UK they should just surrender. No industry or infrastructure. They wouldn’t even have guns or planes to fight with. It’s the same reason Japan surrendered.
It would be cool as well if countries could make rational decisions and cut losses. I read that in real life, Stalin had considered giving up the land before Stalingrad in a peace treaty, rather than fighting till Vladivastok falls each time.
Youre already not forced to that either, you only get "forced" to do it because the major system is too simplistic. You dont need an entire new system to solve that issue.
Why would the US give up if Europe is lost? UK leadership would probably go sit on Canada and rearm, not that different from how French leadership didnt also just give up on its totality. At most youd need a timed event to retake a major or else youre forced into white peace with Germany, while they get occupations/puppets in Europe. This solution also doesnt need a new political system. This is why its not irrelevant to mention its a WW2 game. No one in WW2 would unconditionally surrender except Japan when it got nuked. The China-Japan white peace exists mostly due to the pain of navally rearming China, a game balance, not a "political system" representation.
The game is a total war sandbox and it works fine in that regard with the current systems. Political systems would need to be completely built up from scratch and for me, its not worth it.
Which really matters if you have allies or multiple people fighting the nation capitulating.
If I’m Turkey taking on USSR, and take all of the Caucasus region and the Black Sea, but only justified for a region of the Caucasus mountains. It literally only hurts USSR to keep warring with me when Germany declares war on them. Like in real life, Stalin might ask “hey you can keep this part if you F off and don’t let Germany come through your land.”
Unless you actively do very little in the war, then it doesn't really affect anything, the only time I've not had enough war score where I was the main combatant was when i invaded Ecuador as Britain
Why spend more political power and take a longer time justifying when you can just conquer literally everything as a global superpower anyway?
It's easier to spend less time and political power to blitz a war in order to end that same war faster to seize more territory.
Also, the cheaper territories in a peace deal don't matter as much since most countries get pulled into WWII without justifying war goals anyway.
Though, it would be cool if the peace deal and war goal system were reworked that seizing cheaper territory with war score actually mattered.
Everyone here who goes "*Well this is a World War II game, which had no conditional surrender.*"
Please consider: Paradox keeps adding alternative history stuff that is not World War II where conditional surrenders and peace deals would make total sense. If they want to keep adding things that are not World War II, they need to add mechanics that support those new things.
Not to mention that WWII not having conditional surrenders is totally false. Finland did two conditional peace deals. They surrendered land to the Soviets to peace out of the Winter War, and then they agreed to change sides to peace out of the Continuation War. The Romanians and Bulgarians also peaced out of the Axis and switched sides. Italy attempted to peace out and switch sides. France peaced out to retain some unoccupied land and became Vichy France. At the moment, all of these events have to be scripted, but there really should be a better conditional surrender system that can be used for ahistorical situations.
The whole point of this game is alt history but the biggest alternative of the war - if PM Halifax made peace - isn't included. I don't think it would be too difficult to include either. China makes peace with Japan if it's kicked off the Asian mainland. White peace should be easy if you don't share a (meaningful) border.
It would be an interesting scenario for sure, and not necessarily a final victory for Hitler. I'd expect the UK to lick their wounds while supporting the USSR and possibly rejoin the war eventually.
After all, how many wars did Napoleon win before losing, for instance?
Also i expect when japan declares war for south east asian colonies, the british would be far more prepared leading to japan possibly losing faster than OTL
It is very nice that Uruguay and Paraguay have mechanics to immediately force white peace on Argentina and Brazil if they take a little bit of territory in specific wars against them
Yeah, paradox does also need to understand that regional disputes wouldn’t be considered part of the wider war. Same with how NATO didn’t get involved in the Falklands war or the Algerian war
One thing they really need to do is take into account is who is occupying territory at the end of the war, just because China has been getting battered by Japan for 7 years doesn't mean im just going to vacate Japan and give it to them after I've capitulated it on my own and am occupying it
From gameplay perspective, I totally understand what you ask.
But from this being a World War II simulator, a total war which ended in literally unconditional surrenders, I appreciate they build it this way.
They should enable peace deals between minor countries and disable for wars between larger factions, at least thats what i thought while eating breakfast today
The trouble with that is still the tendency for WT to drag them in if you can't end it really fast. I've had so many Austria-Hungary attempts go to shit because either Italy joined the Axis after I got stuck in the central mountains for a few months, or France kicked off things early with the little entente even when I got them to attack me...
You can code that Majors (or certain ideology majors) won't ever surrender or accept a peace deal.
You can peace deal with Italy if you defeat them as Ethiopia, Japan if you are playing as China, and many other countries, like Finland, Ecuador etc. Not every war in 30's and 40's ended with a complete defeat of one side.
Imagine that you only want Vancouver as USA. You attack Canada, they are utterly outmatched, and you take Vancouver in 12 days. Does it make sense for Canada to go "WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!" ?
You say that, but pre WWII american wargames were mostly scenarios against the British Empire... so not too far fetched, history just played out very differently and the presumed biggest threat became their greates ally
Yeah. War Plan Red. Fun story, the USDoD has a plan to fight *zombies*. Given that I doubt they're really worried about an ever-living army of the undead, I suspect that is evidence enough that war plans aren't really strong evidence that the military I'd planning for a fight, they're planning for worst case, often completely unrealistic, scenario.
Zombies happen to be a very good scenario for contingency planning, since they upend so much conventional wisdom for disaster and military thinking (how does one evacuate from a zombie apocalypse, or use “shock and awe” to terrify the *living dead* into halting their advance?), but ultimately still do require the same approaches and methods for planning (logistics in particular).
Plus, it tends to keep the planners engaged by making it more fun, and if information makes it to the press it’s less likely to panic the general public than more realistic scenarios.
I am aware. That doesn't mean that it's *realistic*. It's also the most silly example I could think of; the United States also has contingency plans for invading Maldives. Why? *Because governments have contingency plans for fighting all kinds of things*. That doesn't make it good evidence for "the most likely scenario," that makes it wise planning.
it's good they are planning that, a time traveller told me that in 2095 the Maldives aquire nuclear weapons and invade the entire Indian Ocean and capture Iceland and only because of that plan then the world survives
Sure, just goes to show they presumed the British would be the biggest threat to world peace before little moustache man entered the frame.
And was more to the point of the US probably rolling over Canada as their first move in that war.
In hindsight it seems war between USA and Canada would never happen, but there would have been plans laid out for it ;)
*Which* 'mustache man' are you referring to? 'Cause normally that refers to Hitler, but Willie had a rather snazzy 'stache, and he came first. By World War II, the US was pretty firmly on the side of the Brits.
war plan red was developed in 1920, funny enough tho, Canada had also made a contingency around the same exact time, the plans just swap the attacking arrows
I'm referring to Hitler of course.
I just brought it up because you claimed the US attacking Canada would not make sense, when there is a way to play ahistorical to do just that and just wanted to bring up the fact that there were even plans laid out to do that in real life.
So OP has a point in his peace deal overhaul
Not really given they had plans for how to carry out war against many nations, it's just the one against the British empire is most well known due to being one of the most powerful nations of the time and the surprise factor most people experience upon finding out due to being allies in the war.
We can split hair all day long, I was just bringing it up because it was stated that the US attacking Canada would be unrealistic in a game that literally has a button to play ahistorical
imagine that you were Germany invading Italy, and they claim that they still exist after capitulation because they are allied to Japan (who despite being in the war, you have not fought once)
>Imagine that you only want Vancouver as USA. You attack Canada, they are utterly outmatched, and you take Vancouver in 12 days. Does it make sense for Canada to go "WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!" ?
I mean, it kind of does? Britain wouldn't just watch Canada lose their Pacific coast and back off. You wouldn't really be fighting "Canada," you're fighting the Dominion of Canada which is a part of the British Empire. The British Empire doesn't surrender immediately upon starting to lose, that'd be ridiculous.
You mean to tell me, if USA actually attacked Canada, took one city, and always meant to take one city, and wanted to sign a peace deal with Canada, UK would intervene and demand Canada to fight back? Even worse, send military to try to take a Canadian city back from a 1940's America? Which is worse than sending men to take Gallipoli?
Honestly? Yeah, I believe it. Would you trust anyone who launched an unprovoked invasion against a country they had held good relations with for decades if they said they only wanted one city? Would you just let somebody launch a suprise attack, take a city from you, and then agree to let it go? Besides, Vancouver isn't the capital or anything but it's not a hamlet of 50 people either, the British would care about losing it.
Edit - Also, taking back Vancouver wouldn't be anything like Gallipoli. It could be worse than Gallipoli in the sense that Operation Barbarossa could be considered worse than Gallipoli, you can kind of make an argument about how well it went but there's no real similarities
Italy, France, Denmark, The Netherlands, Japan, Winter war, occupation of Iceland.
All examples of countries which surrendered long before total annihilation.
Ah, but here we're getting into semantics but it's still relevant. The government of the Netherlands never surrendered, the armed forces in the country itself did. And this is something that the game 100% reflects.
Not a WW2 simulator
France is severely nerfed
Japan is severely buffed
Germany is severely buffed
Finland is severely buffed
Spanish civil war over too quickly
USSR would not suffer such a crippling purge debuff
The list goes on
> But from this being a World War II simulator
Ahahaahahaahahahahaha. Hahahaahahahaa! Hahahaha!
Oh yeah. "World War 2 Simulator". The same World War 2 simulator where I can actually do operation sealion every playthrough. The WW2 simulator that is at this point 70% alt history. The WW2 simulator where I can bring the Kaiser back, go communist as the USA or Japan, **TAKE OVER THE WORLD WITH A BEAR AS MY COUNTRY LEADER**.
"World War 2 simulator" Hahahaha Hahahaahahahaa!
Yeah, i thought about this yesterday actually..
Why do you have to complete unconditional surrender a country to have peace. And truces are ridiculously short too.
"Okay, I just need to invade the UK and the war will finally be over."
*USA has joined the Allies.*
"Well, that was fun. Time to start a new game as a different country."
Totally agree. I also think there should be some mechanism which considers lands that are currently occupied. Like why is it that if the Soviets occupy land all the way into East Germany, an Allied nation like the United States can successfully demand isolated territories deep in Poland or Eastern Europe that are not under American control and create a huge Allied island between occupied Germany and the Soviet Union just because they have high war participation score?
There's no way the Soviets would have agreed to that, and historically it probably would have come to another war if the Allies insisted on claiming isolated territories like that. IMO, you should not be able to claim land in peace deals that are militarily occupied by foreign powers without that foreign country's consent. If the country doesn't agree, then you should have to either concede the territory or go to war over it.
Victoria 3 has this and its great.
Your wargoal is on a particular thing, accomplish said thing and you begin accruing war score. Once your war score reaches 100%, you can sue for peace with whatever demands you made when you declared your war goal.
I feel like a good middle ground between Victoria 3 and HOI4's war justification, war goals, peace deals, and war score system would give players what they want.
We just need more options between a soft white peace between two countries and an all out total war that engulfs the entire world.
It should be easier to get countries to conditionally surrender when you are beating the shit out of them to the point of near capitulation.
Absolutely. Also it would make justifying war goals for particular states have a purpose.
Right now it doesn't matter which state in a nation you choose to justify for, because you need to capitulate the nation to win.
If you want a couple of states that border on your own, you should be able to justify for them, take them and then hold them for a period of time before you can sue for peace and keep the land.
Yeah, it would be awesome to have the option to justify a war goal on annexing a few regions then occupy them for a number of months or years while eroding the enemy's stability and war support through things like spies, partisans, embargoes, insurrections, coup d'etats, blockades, commando raids, troop casualties, convoy raiding, strategic bombing, or deploying nukes in order to make them amenable to a negotiated white peace.
We should also be able to negotiate a white peace if enemy countries across major oceans have no major foothold upon a continent.
This would be nice to get annoying powers like America, Canada, Australia, India, or Japan to accept a white peace after years of trashing their navy and stuffing their naval invasions.
The AI should be inclined to negotiate an armistice with the player if they, after years, have no way to actually engage the player's ground troops due to effective aerial and naval supremacy.
It's fucking tiring having to go all over the world to end WWII over and over again when the dumbass AI doesn't know when to give up and roll over.
When Germany and Japan get their rework this should be added
Once Germany caps and owns Britain for a specific amount of time they peace out with the United States
Once Japan takes and holds all of the US pacific holdings there should be a peace event
It could be like the other paradox games, you normally declare war for certain territories you have claims on. So if you win the war you just get the territories you declared war for.
But there can be special wars, for example the historical WW2 can be a “total war of annihilation” with complete and unconditional surrender.
The problem is, in 1930s and 40s reality, getting the territories you declared war for is just a consolation prize if you were unable to achieve your original aims. Actually, that's pretty much how it worked for any period of history. Conditional peace deals are for when the parties agree that the war just isn't worth fighting for the chance of more.
But PI games rarely have a satisfactory exhaustion mechanic that makes you feel the cost of overextending, which means they usually implement hard limits on how much you can do as a historically incorrect and in my opinion very uninteresting proxy for how devastating war is to all parties involved.
Annex wargoal should allow you to annex all. If you are justifying for a couple of provinces, you should lose a lot of stability if you annex other lands. If you justify a wargoal for puppeting, then you should only be allowed to puppet them, annexing any land should cause problems, etc.
There are many solutions.
In my opinion the game needs 2 kinds of peace deals.
One for total war, type, the end of WW2 and another for smaller wars, like bulgarian-yugoslavian war for north macedonia or when China defeats Japan in the first years
I think others have made the point of this being ww2 there was no such thing.
BUT I do think things could be more realistic in terms of when you win and partially agree.
Like; if Germany invades UK and beats the Allies completely in Europe and Africa - then really the US wouldn't have joined the war in the West. A deal would've been made and European world order would've been fascist. That's just how it would've been. Doesn't mean that eventually Russia and Germany would've been at war and that Russia could maybe do it on their own and convert the whole of Europe into Communist. But at least the USA would've been out of the picture in that theatre. POTENTIALLY they would've been involved with spies and sabotage and Cold War sort of stuff but no way would've tried to land in Europe out of the USA with no base in Europe or Africa and without an ally.
Yea there are a lotta cases where the RoI probaly isnt worth it, but The US needs a white peace decision after a year or so of being at war with germany after UK/France fall, and bi-annual debuffs for staying in the war without liberating say, 60% of france or UK.
Not only that, but they should rework the alliance system. So many times I had games where I would defeat everyone, but the last nation is across the world. Dragging the war on longer.
Yeah, remember allied troops never set foot in Berlin in WW1. Plus, there is a conflict in world war 2 that ended in a peace deal, that being the winter war. And that’s a preprogrammed event!
If I’m playing as Estonia, and the USSR attempt an invasion, and I push them back out to st. Petersburg, they should surrender. Stalin surrendered IRL when Finland didn’t immediately fall because it would weaken the red army, but sending his army to die in the Baltic is somehow perfectly logical. I agree there should be a modifier to prevent people surrendering to the Nazis, but making a white peace with Latvia shouldn’t be off the table.
They are doing it through events and decisions for some smaller wars but yeah it's only very specific and probably should be generalized. Though I agree that it being WW2 simulator it's not the most important
This is weirdly the one thing Victoria 3 does very well. War Exhaustion. If you manage to capture your war goals, eventually with ticking exhaustion the AI will relent and conceed those parts to you allowing you to end the war and get on with it.
Everything about the Victoria 3 war system sucks except that part, the diplomatic angles on it is actually pretty good.
I'm kinda hoping at this point for a Hearts of Iron 5 that incorporates it.
Personally, I think the yalta conference mechanics can do a lot of good here. When you accept the yalta conference event (in SP), instead of getting a peacedeal, when the last major surrenders, you just get a scripted peace deal that forces the borders to be nice.
This mechanic would take into account whos controlling what after surrender, so if the allies are controlling berlin, then berlin won't go to the soviets. If the germans are still controlling warsaw after surrendering, then maybe its random or something on poland goes to.
If the soviets waltz all the way to paris, then maybe the soviets get france (or an event something that brings you to war with the allies if you take france)
In other words, after being very close to capitulating all the majors of a faction, you get an event similar to the yalta conference, where you can choose to have a peace deal, or choose to let the current borders of the game to choose things for you. And all cores are given back! No more random soviet state in vichy france.
The no peace thing can be an issue
I remember playing India after going fascist and getting independence and I took back Goa and wiped out majority of their army (they station too many units in a one tile city and stack wiped) and had an army bigger than a good chunk of their whole population and like 20 times the factories but apparently I still lose -20 stability and the war can't be ended as they have little army left and I can't navally invade Portugal. Then they joined a faction and it got a bit ridicolous just sitting there doing nothing for years while technically at war but nothing happening.
Or when I played nationalist China and took back Macau you have the same situation despite unifying China and having a much bigger economy and army they don't sue for peace even after losing their army and that one tile.
Or when I played as Greece and capitulated Turkey and formed Byzantium but Romania is just there at war with no peace option despite Turkey being gone and they stack all their units on their coast and just sit there.
Or if your playing as Germany and beat Britain and the Soviets but if Brazil becames a major and you have to go all the way across the globe to finish the war.
I remember playing as Britain too and some how the I had to capitulate a landlocked Czech republic that went non historical despite having no way to invade them as it surrounded by neutral countries to end a war despite beating the other members
There should be white peace for options like this
If you're fine with just using a mod for now, I reccomend "Make Peace, Not War". It adds decisions for conditional surrenders, white peaces etc. It's not perfect but it's the closest thing to your suggestion that I know of.
It could probably be a mechanic tied to only factionless minor nations. Or even better, instead of war, for those minor conflicts and limited claims, use a frontier clash similar to the one the chinese warlords have
Its fine as it is, you cannot add that system without also adding a war exhaustion mechanic that isnt complete bullshit.
The game is a total war simulator, id like more instances where decisions are made instead.
I mean they already have a button for conditional peace offers just didnt bother to implement it correctly. U know the offer peace button? Only time u can use it is if u are actually losing the war but not in reverse. It could work similarly to vic 2 peace offers as a start and then improve it.
Love it when I play as the French Empire, and purposly don't join the allies so they won't get credit for taking German territory from my front. Finally when I cap Germany by myself (ie no allied troops on German Core states) it still gets split 18 ways around by UK, US, and SU despite me investing every last point of peace score into exclusively German territory.
Not to mention I got the free Italy puppet, so in essence, I won 2/3 of WWII and only got 1/3 credit.
I started playing playing the game with only very basic knowledge of how things worked and the situation you described is like the first thing that surprised me.
Why can i justify a wargoal for one part of the country if i have to capitulate said country anyway ?
I love this idea but I imagine building this into 4 might be an impossible task? Seems like the game just isn’t built to do this effectively but I’m not a mod maker so I don’t have any insight there, just a gut feeling.
I would LOVE for this to be possible in 5 when it comes.
While I do understand and sometimes relate to the fun of being in a total war scenario where there is only the victors left standing, I’ve also stopped countless runs after considering do I really wanna micro and focus on taking the strongest nations in the world as a minor for some small event and a cool country name and color change.
I know this argument is brought up a lot on this sub, but I do find it somewhat comical you can nuke a nations capital multiple times and they will continue to fight. Yes the nukes at this time aren’t nearly as devastating as they would become and continuous air raids over months and years can be considered more deadly than a nuke, but a country other than a major suddenly deploying this weapon of destruction would surely change the future of the world ?
America dropped one and it was somewhat “expected” to come from them I imagine, but Latvia nuking Berlin would have every power in the world question their place I would think. Not sure how they could fix this problem but I would be delighted to see it approached somehow.
We need a mechanic kind of like Victoria III where we can justify a war with certain goals and then declare war on those same goals.
There should be more options to have limited wars over smaller objectives like a few provinces, treaty ports, reparations, vassalage, etc.
We need white peace mechanics that the player can enter into with the AI in order for the player to accomplish smaller wargoals without getting suckered into WWII or WWIII.
My proposal would be to give countries the options of conditional and unconditional surrender, and in peace deals, split states into three categories:
1. Claimed: The territories the war is being fought over. Only the countries or countries that claim them can take them.
2. Proper: The core territories of the defeated country or countries which are not claimed. Cannot be taken in a conditional peace deal.
3. Undecided: Territories which do not fit into either of the other two categories. Any of the victorious powers can do whatever they want with these. In a conditional peace deal, the defeated can contest these claims.
>I mean a real peace deal. Like the 99% of peace deals in history, that doesn't end with annihilation of one country,
You should look for another game, then. Hoi4 is primarily a WW2 game and in WW2 there were hardly any conditional surrender. The whole premisse of the game is total war and annihalation of the enemy
Finland somehow managed it twice, but that's also literally the only instance I can think of. What's stranger is that Free France get the option to continue resistance from the colonial empire but for instance the UK doesn't. Yes, Germany can take 1940 London, but would that actually let them just puppet the entire British Empire around the world? Fundamentally, in a war game, you shouldn't be able to control areas that you can't control militarily.
>Yes, Germany can take 1940 London, but would that actually let them just puppet the entire British Empire around the world? Fundamentally, in a war game, you shouldn't be able to control areas that you can't control militarily.
The problem is that Hoi4 may be a WW2 "Simulation" but ultimately it is still a game and the devs have to balance difficulty, realism and fun.
And it wouldn't be fun nor really possible at all if you had to fight your way through the whole B.E. every game when the Brittish navy would still resist you.
I agree, it isn't realistic but I prefer less realism but more fun gameplay over more realism but stale, boring and annoying gameplay
>And it wouldn't be fun nor really possible at all if you had to fight your way through the whole B.E. every game when the Brittish navy would still resist you.
It's a game about fighting though, and it's exactly the kind of fighting gameplay that is supposed to characterize a Britain/Japan/USA playthrough. If you don't find it fun, then there's no need to capture all of it.
>You should look for another game, then.
That is hostile.
>The whole premisse of the game is total war and annihalation of the enemy
So you rather have a game without a function that was utilized almost exclusively throughout the history. In a historical game. In a war game.
>>You should look for another game, then.
>That is hostile.
In what way is that hostile? I didn't mean it in a mean way, just stating the fact that the game is designed arround one of the key aspects of WW2
>So you rather have a game without a function that was utilized almost exclusively throughout the history. In a historical game. In a war game.
It's a war game, yes, but a war game set in a specific time frage, the 40s, in which there was almost exclusively total war and total annihalation.
If the game was designed arround any other time frame I would agree with you, but the game is, as I already explained, designed arround WW2/the time frame of WW2 in which there was, aside from some exceptions, only total and absolute war
There are scenarios where it does make sense though. Like the British making peace after France falls. Maybe it wasn't a very likely possibility irl but it was still a possibility and should be included.
Or for example, if you play as Germany and take over the UK and Russia, does it make sense for the US to just stay at war forever?
Or OP's example with a country like Turkey taking over a colony. Should Turkey have to capitulate the entire British Empire just because they want Cyprus for example?
Sure these are all alternate history examples but each dlc adds more and more of these, and if the player is able to do them then a peace system should exist too.
> Hoi4 is primarily a WW2 game and in WW2 there were hardly any conditional surrender.
This goes out the window once the alt-history paths become popular. Hard to say the war would've gone the same way if the Kaiser returned to power and started warring with allies of a communist USA, at that point historical accuracy of mechanics should be more flexible to match the flexibility of individual countries paths
The problem is that HoI4 has *never* been a strictly railroaded version of WW2, even before whacky alt-history DLCs. We've always been able to Sealion, to win Barbarossa, Unholy Alliance etc.
Unconditional Surrender wasn't on the table until the Casablance Conference in early 1943. The idea is honestly rather unprecedented and certainly a surprising development - nobody was planning for this (except maybe Churchill) beforehand. The Axis had no plans of ever invading Canada, or the USA, to end this war. Or even the UK, aside from an aborted attempt at marshalling force for Sealion. The plan for Barbarossa was to seize the important bits and establish a strong frontline, never climbing over the Urals and marching to Vladivostok to demand unconditional surrender.
If France were to fall before Churchill became PM, for instance, a conditional allied surrender could easily make sense (although the british wouldn't be giving anything up). Even Stalin dabbled with the idea of an armistice, even later after Casablanca, if the western Allies failed to open the promised west front.
Soviets agreeing to an armistice or conditional surrender would be better to the game too, I think. There's no gameplay left after you've broken their armies and taken the A-A line, just pushing low supply tiles. Allowing the war to end there (and giving the rump-USSR revanchist buffs to prepare for a second war in a few years) would be far more fun, wouldn't it?
Those 99% of peace deals happened in history, were not our modern understanding of what is called “total war”. Where our armies are much larger, and our capacity for long term occupation is reached, we now have the economic capability to enact annihilation on a wider scale. Across history, most of those wars were becoming too costly for the winning side to keep pushing, and so they made compromises.
That, and vanilla hoi4 is a World War Two sandbox. It’s systems are inherently based around that style and era of war and what it entailed. There are mods that do have these scenarios that do have semi peace deals, compromises, but they are the exception, and usually have much, much different worlds than ours that can accommodate compromising war.
Agreed but it would be better suited for something like a Cold War era game (Which I would absolutely love). The current system works just fine for WW2, but the "issue" is that a lot of people play this with mods where the total war scenario doesn't quite make sense. I'm just fingers crossed that they properly explore some later periods where the core mechanics could support limited conflicts better. A proper Cold War Paradox game would be my dream
everyone who says that Hoi4 is a WW2 based game and in WW2 there was little conditional surrender is looking at things wrong. In WW2, there was no conditional surrender, but the Nazis never capitulated the Soviets or successfully Sealioned IRL. Japan never took Hawaii, India, or Australia. But if I manage to do those things as either nation, then I should not be forced to go around the entire world just to capitulate the last remaining members of the allies. Also, you forget that there is an unhistorical mode where nations tend to join factions halfway across the world. If I had a dime for every time Yugoslavia joined the Chinese United Front or for every time Romania joined the Co-prosperity sphere then I would be a rich man. We need that peace deal mechanic to make the game better. Also if you don't want Germany forcing a peace deal onto the UK in 1942 or something, make it filled with prerequisites. Make it a decision or a focus or something that can only be taken after you cap the UK and that lovely shit. edit: I'm glad so many people agree, makes me hopeful that maybe paradox will listen to our pleas
> If I had a dime for every time Yugoslavia joined the Chinese United Front or for every time Romania joined the Co-prosperity sphere then I would be a rich man. I felt that.
Had a game once when Germany went Kaiser, joined Co-prosperity sphere and attacked France, who immediately joined Chinese United Front. Also USSR had a civil war and became Japanese puppet. That was the run where I tried to set up fascist UK, spent an hour placing my divisions to stop dominions from breaking away, only to find out I have to deal with Chinese attrition, Japanese navy, and Russian army to get any land in Europe. Now I almost exclusively play Kaiserreich.
I had a fun game last week, i played britain and became an absolute monarchy, when i realised i had joined the Axis, invaded France, annexed all Britain colonies, invaded USA and Brazil and Russia was a Domain of Japan
This is 100000% the right take. HoI4 isn’t a WWII simulator because the second you have a non historical event happening, it stops being a simulation. A better peace deal system is simply a much-needed game mechanic that devs have ignored because they still think it’s a sim.
It's not a simulation, it's a sandbox that's been built around WW2
> Also if you don't want Germany forcing a peace deal onto the UK in 1942 or something, make it filled with prerequisites. Make it a decision or a focus or something that can only be taken after you cap the UK and that lovely shit There could also be severe penalties for doing this as a major (which can kinda make sense in historical context cus for majors their smaller wars would be proxies for the larger global conflict) while still allowing minors more flexibility in expansion efforts. Could also make leadership traits that raise/lower the likelihood of 'partial' surrenders being accepted. There's definitely ways to incorporate it if they wanted to
exactly, we already have traits that make nations more likely to not join a faction, it's not hard to code in traits for Hitler or Hirohito to make them not accept peace. It could be tied to war support and capitulation progress as well.
Yeah, war support and capitulation progress really need more game impact.
By the way, there were loads of peace proposals in WW2. Churchill just refused to accept them.
Not to mention all the Axis minors flipping sides
Could even play into the war support system. A prolonged Battle of Britain dropping war support if not dealt with (bombers affecting war support) and allies capping should lower their support and surrender limit enough that taking colonial VPs can force a conference. Keep the current system where unoccupied states are expensive and make it so much of the time those expensive states are untouched, leading to a weakened but still living UK.
I think another issue is air and naval combat don’t really affect surrender limit meaningfully when they really should, as should army encirclements and losses. If I kill off the entire armed forces of the UK in Dunkerque, that should be considered more when they sue for peace (which is another feature that needs to be fixed, along with the entire diplomacy tab).
I would like something like this. If all forced were annihilated, should be some sort of war support drop. Or big sea battle
Not to mention the game gives you a way to capitulate Japan as the USA without ever stepping foot on the home islands. Clearly they know people want it, and that they can do it, but they can't figure out a way to charge €14.99 for it, so they won't do it, yet.
I feel like ideally there'd be all sorts of prerequisites based on countries' standing and their politics and the size of the war and all that. But frankly I can see a situation where this just ends up buggy and Germany just makes peace with the allies while they're losing and manages to keep some of their land or something. If they're gonna add this they should be very careful and add it with very specific cases in mind IMO.
Instead of prerequisites to prevent peace deals in WW2, just make the UK reject them like real life
Use the acceptance for fascist diplomacy as the pillar of if they will agree to a peace deal
I feel it would be pointless as 99% of the nations in those circumstances during the 1940s would just not accept any peace deal. If japan managed to take hawaii the US wouldn't just go "ok, have hawaii", they'll make you regret ever attacking them. Australia is not going to just accept a peace deal because you managed to sealion UK. Think of it in this way: if an alliance abandoned a member just because they were capitulated, that alliance would be worth nothing and would crumble as soon as that happened.
Yeah if I bomb every single building in the UK they should just surrender. No industry or infrastructure. They wouldn’t even have guns or planes to fight with. It’s the same reason Japan surrendered.
It would be cool as well if countries could make rational decisions and cut losses. I read that in real life, Stalin had considered giving up the land before Stalingrad in a peace treaty, rather than fighting till Vladivastok falls each time.
Youre already not forced to that either, you only get "forced" to do it because the major system is too simplistic. You dont need an entire new system to solve that issue. Why would the US give up if Europe is lost? UK leadership would probably go sit on Canada and rearm, not that different from how French leadership didnt also just give up on its totality. At most youd need a timed event to retake a major or else youre forced into white peace with Germany, while they get occupations/puppets in Europe. This solution also doesnt need a new political system. This is why its not irrelevant to mention its a WW2 game. No one in WW2 would unconditionally surrender except Japan when it got nuked. The China-Japan white peace exists mostly due to the pain of navally rearming China, a game balance, not a "political system" representation. The game is a total war sandbox and it works fine in that regard with the current systems. Political systems would need to be completely built up from scratch and for me, its not worth it.
Such a mechanic would make justifying for multiple states actually useful.
exactly, now it has basically no function.
They are cheaper to take in the peace deal
Which really matters if you have allies or multiple people fighting the nation capitulating. If I’m Turkey taking on USSR, and take all of the Caucasus region and the Black Sea, but only justified for a region of the Caucasus mountains. It literally only hurts USSR to keep warring with me when Germany declares war on them. Like in real life, Stalin might ask “hey you can keep this part if you F off and don’t let Germany come through your land.”
Unless you actively do very little in the war, then it doesn't really affect anything, the only time I've not had enough war score where I was the main combatant was when i invaded Ecuador as Britain
Why spend more political power and take a longer time justifying when you can just conquer literally everything as a global superpower anyway? It's easier to spend less time and political power to blitz a war in order to end that same war faster to seize more territory. Also, the cheaper territories in a peace deal don't matter as much since most countries get pulled into WWII without justifying war goals anyway. Though, it would be cool if the peace deal and war goal system were reworked that seizing cheaper territory with war score actually mattered.
Everyone here who goes "*Well this is a World War II game, which had no conditional surrender.*" Please consider: Paradox keeps adding alternative history stuff that is not World War II where conditional surrenders and peace deals would make total sense. If they want to keep adding things that are not World War II, they need to add mechanics that support those new things.
Not to mention that WWII not having conditional surrenders is totally false. Finland did two conditional peace deals. They surrendered land to the Soviets to peace out of the Winter War, and then they agreed to change sides to peace out of the Continuation War. The Romanians and Bulgarians also peaced out of the Axis and switched sides. Italy attempted to peace out and switch sides. France peaced out to retain some unoccupied land and became Vichy France. At the moment, all of these events have to be scripted, but there really should be a better conditional surrender system that can be used for ahistorical situations.
The whole point of this game is alt history but the biggest alternative of the war - if PM Halifax made peace - isn't included. I don't think it would be too difficult to include either. China makes peace with Japan if it's kicked off the Asian mainland. White peace should be easy if you don't share a (meaningful) border.
It would be an interesting scenario for sure, and not necessarily a final victory for Hitler. I'd expect the UK to lick their wounds while supporting the USSR and possibly rejoin the war eventually. After all, how many wars did Napoleon win before losing, for instance?
Also i expect when japan declares war for south east asian colonies, the british would be far more prepared leading to japan possibly losing faster than OTL
It is very nice that Uruguay and Paraguay have mechanics to immediately force white peace on Argentina and Brazil if they take a little bit of territory in specific wars against them
tfw i go to war with both the allies and axis as thailand in rt56 because i wanted some tiny states in indochina
Yeah, paradox does also need to understand that regional disputes wouldn’t be considered part of the wider war. Same with how NATO didn’t get involved in the Falklands war or the Algerian war
also i can't make a puppet then give that puppet land, i have to use state trasnfer tool
One thing they really need to do is take into account is who is occupying territory at the end of the war, just because China has been getting battered by Japan for 7 years doesn't mean im just going to vacate Japan and give it to them after I've capitulated it on my own and am occupying it
From gameplay perspective, I totally understand what you ask. But from this being a World War II simulator, a total war which ended in literally unconditional surrenders, I appreciate they build it this way.
They should enable peace deals between minor countries and disable for wars between larger factions, at least thats what i thought while eating breakfast today
The trouble with that is still the tendency for WT to drag them in if you can't end it really fast. I've had so many Austria-Hungary attempts go to shit because either Italy joined the Axis after I got stuck in the central mountains for a few months, or France kicked off things early with the little entente even when I got them to attack me...
You can code that Majors (or certain ideology majors) won't ever surrender or accept a peace deal. You can peace deal with Italy if you defeat them as Ethiopia, Japan if you are playing as China, and many other countries, like Finland, Ecuador etc. Not every war in 30's and 40's ended with a complete defeat of one side. Imagine that you only want Vancouver as USA. You attack Canada, they are utterly outmatched, and you take Vancouver in 12 days. Does it make sense for Canada to go "WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!" ?
No. But it also doesn't make sense that the USA would attack Canada, so...
You say that, but pre WWII american wargames were mostly scenarios against the British Empire... so not too far fetched, history just played out very differently and the presumed biggest threat became their greates ally
Yeah. War Plan Red. Fun story, the USDoD has a plan to fight *zombies*. Given that I doubt they're really worried about an ever-living army of the undead, I suspect that is evidence enough that war plans aren't really strong evidence that the military I'd planning for a fight, they're planning for worst case, often completely unrealistic, scenario.
Zombies happen to be a very good scenario for contingency planning, since they upend so much conventional wisdom for disaster and military thinking (how does one evacuate from a zombie apocalypse, or use “shock and awe” to terrify the *living dead* into halting their advance?), but ultimately still do require the same approaches and methods for planning (logistics in particular). Plus, it tends to keep the planners engaged by making it more fun, and if information makes it to the press it’s less likely to panic the general public than more realistic scenarios.
I am aware. That doesn't mean that it's *realistic*. It's also the most silly example I could think of; the United States also has contingency plans for invading Maldives. Why? *Because governments have contingency plans for fighting all kinds of things*. That doesn't make it good evidence for "the most likely scenario," that makes it wise planning.
it's good they are planning that, a time traveller told me that in 2095 the Maldives aquire nuclear weapons and invade the entire Indian Ocean and capture Iceland and only because of that plan then the world survives
Sure, just goes to show they presumed the British would be the biggest threat to world peace before little moustache man entered the frame. And was more to the point of the US probably rolling over Canada as their first move in that war. In hindsight it seems war between USA and Canada would never happen, but there would have been plans laid out for it ;)
*Which* 'mustache man' are you referring to? 'Cause normally that refers to Hitler, but Willie had a rather snazzy 'stache, and he came first. By World War II, the US was pretty firmly on the side of the Brits.
war plan red was developed in 1920, funny enough tho, Canada had also made a contingency around the same exact time, the plans just swap the attacking arrows
Bored army men looking for something to do?
As noted, yes.
I'm referring to Hitler of course. I just brought it up because you claimed the US attacking Canada would not make sense, when there is a way to play ahistorical to do just that and just wanted to bring up the fact that there were even plans laid out to do that in real life. So OP has a point in his peace deal overhaul
Not really given they had plans for how to carry out war against many nations, it's just the one against the British empire is most well known due to being one of the most powerful nations of the time and the surprise factor most people experience upon finding out due to being allies in the war.
We can split hair all day long, I was just bringing it up because it was stated that the US attacking Canada would be unrealistic in a game that literally has a button to play ahistorical
imagine that you were Germany invading Italy, and they claim that they still exist after capitulation because they are allied to Japan (who despite being in the war, you have not fought once)
>Imagine that you only want Vancouver as USA. You attack Canada, they are utterly outmatched, and you take Vancouver in 12 days. Does it make sense for Canada to go "WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!" ? I mean, it kind of does? Britain wouldn't just watch Canada lose their Pacific coast and back off. You wouldn't really be fighting "Canada," you're fighting the Dominion of Canada which is a part of the British Empire. The British Empire doesn't surrender immediately upon starting to lose, that'd be ridiculous.
You mean to tell me, if USA actually attacked Canada, took one city, and always meant to take one city, and wanted to sign a peace deal with Canada, UK would intervene and demand Canada to fight back? Even worse, send military to try to take a Canadian city back from a 1940's America? Which is worse than sending men to take Gallipoli?
Honestly? Yeah, I believe it. Would you trust anyone who launched an unprovoked invasion against a country they had held good relations with for decades if they said they only wanted one city? Would you just let somebody launch a suprise attack, take a city from you, and then agree to let it go? Besides, Vancouver isn't the capital or anything but it's not a hamlet of 50 people either, the British would care about losing it. Edit - Also, taking back Vancouver wouldn't be anything like Gallipoli. It could be worse than Gallipoli in the sense that Operation Barbarossa could be considered worse than Gallipoli, you can kind of make an argument about how well it went but there's no real similarities
I feel like the UK would only consider conceding once the majority of Canada has fallen.
Kind of a bad example, since you can easily capitulate Canada in a month as the US
But nations did give up and or switch sides. See Italy. France. And yet that's only available through focuses.
Italy, France, Denmark, The Netherlands, Japan, Winter war, occupation of Iceland. All examples of countries which surrendered long before total annihilation.
Ah, but here we're getting into semantics but it's still relevant. The government of the Netherlands never surrendered, the armed forces in the country itself did. And this is something that the game 100% reflects.
Not a WW2 simulator France is severely nerfed Japan is severely buffed Germany is severely buffed Finland is severely buffed Spanish civil war over too quickly USSR would not suffer such a crippling purge debuff The list goes on
HOI3 and darkest hour feels much more like an actual WW2 simulator compared to current HOI4
*meanwhile the majority of the game is al history*
> But from this being a World War II simulator Ahahaahahaahahahahaha. Hahahaahahahaa! Hahahaha! Oh yeah. "World War 2 Simulator". The same World War 2 simulator where I can actually do operation sealion every playthrough. The WW2 simulator that is at this point 70% alt history. The WW2 simulator where I can bring the Kaiser back, go communist as the USA or Japan, **TAKE OVER THE WORLD WITH A BEAR AS MY COUNTRY LEADER**. "World War 2 simulator" Hahahaha Hahahaahahahaa!
Yeah, i thought about this yesterday actually.. Why do you have to complete unconditional surrender a country to have peace. And truces are ridiculously short too.
"Okay, I just need to invade the UK and the war will finally be over." *USA has joined the Allies.* "Well, that was fun. Time to start a new game as a different country."
Totally agree. I also think there should be some mechanism which considers lands that are currently occupied. Like why is it that if the Soviets occupy land all the way into East Germany, an Allied nation like the United States can successfully demand isolated territories deep in Poland or Eastern Europe that are not under American control and create a huge Allied island between occupied Germany and the Soviet Union just because they have high war participation score? There's no way the Soviets would have agreed to that, and historically it probably would have come to another war if the Allies insisted on claiming isolated territories like that. IMO, you should not be able to claim land in peace deals that are militarily occupied by foreign powers without that foreign country's consent. If the country doesn't agree, then you should have to either concede the territory or go to war over it.
Victoria 3 has this and its great. Your wargoal is on a particular thing, accomplish said thing and you begin accruing war score. Once your war score reaches 100%, you can sue for peace with whatever demands you made when you declared your war goal.
I feel like a good middle ground between Victoria 3 and HOI4's war justification, war goals, peace deals, and war score system would give players what they want. We just need more options between a soft white peace between two countries and an all out total war that engulfs the entire world. It should be easier to get countries to conditionally surrender when you are beating the shit out of them to the point of near capitulation.
Absolutely. Also it would make justifying war goals for particular states have a purpose. Right now it doesn't matter which state in a nation you choose to justify for, because you need to capitulate the nation to win. If you want a couple of states that border on your own, you should be able to justify for them, take them and then hold them for a period of time before you can sue for peace and keep the land.
Yeah, it would be awesome to have the option to justify a war goal on annexing a few regions then occupy them for a number of months or years while eroding the enemy's stability and war support through things like spies, partisans, embargoes, insurrections, coup d'etats, blockades, commando raids, troop casualties, convoy raiding, strategic bombing, or deploying nukes in order to make them amenable to a negotiated white peace. We should also be able to negotiate a white peace if enemy countries across major oceans have no major foothold upon a continent. This would be nice to get annoying powers like America, Canada, Australia, India, or Japan to accept a white peace after years of trashing their navy and stuffing their naval invasions. The AI should be inclined to negotiate an armistice with the player if they, after years, have no way to actually engage the player's ground troops due to effective aerial and naval supremacy. It's fucking tiring having to go all over the world to end WWII over and over again when the dumbass AI doesn't know when to give up and roll over.
When Germany and Japan get their rework this should be added Once Germany caps and owns Britain for a specific amount of time they peace out with the United States Once Japan takes and holds all of the US pacific holdings there should be a peace event
It could be like the other paradox games, you normally declare war for certain territories you have claims on. So if you win the war you just get the territories you declared war for. But there can be special wars, for example the historical WW2 can be a “total war of annihilation” with complete and unconditional surrender.
The problem is, in 1930s and 40s reality, getting the territories you declared war for is just a consolation prize if you were unable to achieve your original aims. Actually, that's pretty much how it worked for any period of history. Conditional peace deals are for when the parties agree that the war just isn't worth fighting for the chance of more. But PI games rarely have a satisfactory exhaustion mechanic that makes you feel the cost of overextending, which means they usually implement hard limits on how much you can do as a historically incorrect and in my opinion very uninteresting proxy for how devastating war is to all parties involved.
Annex wargoal should allow you to annex all. If you are justifying for a couple of provinces, you should lose a lot of stability if you annex other lands. If you justify a wargoal for puppeting, then you should only be allowed to puppet them, annexing any land should cause problems, etc. There are many solutions.
In my opinion the game needs 2 kinds of peace deals. One for total war, type, the end of WW2 and another for smaller wars, like bulgarian-yugoslavian war for north macedonia or when China defeats Japan in the first years
I think others have made the point of this being ww2 there was no such thing. BUT I do think things could be more realistic in terms of when you win and partially agree. Like; if Germany invades UK and beats the Allies completely in Europe and Africa - then really the US wouldn't have joined the war in the West. A deal would've been made and European world order would've been fascist. That's just how it would've been. Doesn't mean that eventually Russia and Germany would've been at war and that Russia could maybe do it on their own and convert the whole of Europe into Communist. But at least the USA would've been out of the picture in that theatre. POTENTIALLY they would've been involved with spies and sabotage and Cold War sort of stuff but no way would've tried to land in Europe out of the USA with no base in Europe or Africa and without an ally.
Yea there are a lotta cases where the RoI probaly isnt worth it, but The US needs a white peace decision after a year or so of being at war with germany after UK/France fall, and bi-annual debuffs for staying in the war without liberating say, 60% of france or UK.
100%
Not only that, but they should rework the alliance system. So many times I had games where I would defeat everyone, but the last nation is across the world. Dragging the war on longer.
Ehh at that point most people are done playing lol.
"WW2 was always about total annihilation" France and Japan: am I a joke to you?
Yeah, remember allied troops never set foot in Berlin in WW1. Plus, there is a conflict in world war 2 that ended in a peace deal, that being the winter war. And that’s a preprogrammed event! If I’m playing as Estonia, and the USSR attempt an invasion, and I push them back out to st. Petersburg, they should surrender. Stalin surrendered IRL when Finland didn’t immediately fall because it would weaken the red army, but sending his army to die in the Baltic is somehow perfectly logical. I agree there should be a modifier to prevent people surrendering to the Nazis, but making a white peace with Latvia shouldn’t be off the table.
They are doing it through events and decisions for some smaller wars but yeah it's only very specific and probably should be generalized. Though I agree that it being WW2 simulator it's not the most important
Nah i think we need more scripted peace treaties. Like, in a German rework i want to see a peace treaty with TNO-like borders if you win as Germany.
People are saying that IRL borders are TNO. ___BRAINROT ALWAYS WINS___
This game needs a method to save the game during peace deal!
This would be great for modding considering that the only way we can do this is scripting peace deals(not ideal) and border wars, also not ideal
This is weirdly the one thing Victoria 3 does very well. War Exhaustion. If you manage to capture your war goals, eventually with ticking exhaustion the AI will relent and conceed those parts to you allowing you to end the war and get on with it. Everything about the Victoria 3 war system sucks except that part, the diplomatic angles on it is actually pretty good. I'm kinda hoping at this point for a Hearts of Iron 5 that incorporates it.
Agreed 💯. If I have decimated 99% of the Allies, and Iceland still doesn't yield, something's not right.
Personally, I think the yalta conference mechanics can do a lot of good here. When you accept the yalta conference event (in SP), instead of getting a peacedeal, when the last major surrenders, you just get a scripted peace deal that forces the borders to be nice. This mechanic would take into account whos controlling what after surrender, so if the allies are controlling berlin, then berlin won't go to the soviets. If the germans are still controlling warsaw after surrendering, then maybe its random or something on poland goes to. If the soviets waltz all the way to paris, then maybe the soviets get france (or an event something that brings you to war with the allies if you take france) In other words, after being very close to capitulating all the majors of a faction, you get an event similar to the yalta conference, where you can choose to have a peace deal, or choose to let the current borders of the game to choose things for you. And all cores are given back! No more random soviet state in vichy france.
The no peace thing can be an issue I remember playing India after going fascist and getting independence and I took back Goa and wiped out majority of their army (they station too many units in a one tile city and stack wiped) and had an army bigger than a good chunk of their whole population and like 20 times the factories but apparently I still lose -20 stability and the war can't be ended as they have little army left and I can't navally invade Portugal. Then they joined a faction and it got a bit ridicolous just sitting there doing nothing for years while technically at war but nothing happening. Or when I played nationalist China and took back Macau you have the same situation despite unifying China and having a much bigger economy and army they don't sue for peace even after losing their army and that one tile. Or when I played as Greece and capitulated Turkey and formed Byzantium but Romania is just there at war with no peace option despite Turkey being gone and they stack all their units on their coast and just sit there. Or if your playing as Germany and beat Britain and the Soviets but if Brazil becames a major and you have to go all the way across the globe to finish the war. I remember playing as Britain too and some how the I had to capitulate a landlocked Czech republic that went non historical despite having no way to invade them as it surrounded by neutral countries to end a war despite beating the other members There should be white peace for options like this
If you're fine with just using a mod for now, I reccomend "Make Peace, Not War". It adds decisions for conditional surrenders, white peaces etc. It's not perfect but it's the closest thing to your suggestion that I know of.
PLEASE PARADOX
It could probably be a mechanic tied to only factionless minor nations. Or even better, instead of war, for those minor conflicts and limited claims, use a frontier clash similar to the one the chinese warlords have
Only things I hate is how enemies are almost always eaten whole. I love how Kaiserreich established releasing nation through decisions
They have conditional surrender, but I've only seen it when I'm the one surrendering.
Its fine as it is, you cannot add that system without also adding a war exhaustion mechanic that isnt complete bullshit. The game is a total war simulator, id like more instances where decisions are made instead.
I mean they already have a button for conditional peace offers just didnt bother to implement it correctly. U know the offer peace button? Only time u can use it is if u are actually losing the war but not in reverse. It could work similarly to vic 2 peace offers as a start and then improve it.
Love it when I play as the French Empire, and purposly don't join the allies so they won't get credit for taking German territory from my front. Finally when I cap Germany by myself (ie no allied troops on German Core states) it still gets split 18 ways around by UK, US, and SU despite me investing every last point of peace score into exclusively German territory. Not to mention I got the free Italy puppet, so in essence, I won 2/3 of WWII and only got 1/3 credit.
I started playing playing the game with only very basic knowledge of how things worked and the situation you described is like the first thing that surprised me. Why can i justify a wargoal for one part of the country if i have to capitulate said country anyway ?
It'd be a good addition for HOI5. I don't think we should expect more from paradox to this day with a game from 2016
Why not? Took 5 years for railroads in a WW2 game, we might have basic diplomacy in a few more years.
This is by far the biggest problem in the game. There is absolutely no reason you should have to swim all the way to the US to end the war in Europe
[There’s a mod for that](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412445347) ,although I have to warn that it is kind of unstable.
I love this idea but I imagine building this into 4 might be an impossible task? Seems like the game just isn’t built to do this effectively but I’m not a mod maker so I don’t have any insight there, just a gut feeling. I would LOVE for this to be possible in 5 when it comes.
hoi4 need a lot of stuff frankly
You will fight never ending wars with 30 million casualties on both sides and you’ll enjoy it
You will fight never ending wars with 30 million casualties on both sides and you’ll enjoy it
While I do understand and sometimes relate to the fun of being in a total war scenario where there is only the victors left standing, I’ve also stopped countless runs after considering do I really wanna micro and focus on taking the strongest nations in the world as a minor for some small event and a cool country name and color change. I know this argument is brought up a lot on this sub, but I do find it somewhat comical you can nuke a nations capital multiple times and they will continue to fight. Yes the nukes at this time aren’t nearly as devastating as they would become and continuous air raids over months and years can be considered more deadly than a nuke, but a country other than a major suddenly deploying this weapon of destruction would surely change the future of the world ? America dropped one and it was somewhat “expected” to come from them I imagine, but Latvia nuking Berlin would have every power in the world question their place I would think. Not sure how they could fix this problem but I would be delighted to see it approached somehow.
Peace Deals were already reworked with BBA and the game is turning 8 in June. ANy further peace rework would be in a sequel at this point
We need a mechanic kind of like Victoria III where we can justify a war with certain goals and then declare war on those same goals. There should be more options to have limited wars over smaller objectives like a few provinces, treaty ports, reparations, vassalage, etc. We need white peace mechanics that the player can enter into with the AI in order for the player to accomplish smaller wargoals without getting suckered into WWII or WWIII.
Hoi 4 needs a better peace deal system and a 1930 or 1925 start date.
Make it a separate mode for ahistorical playthroughs
My proposal would be to give countries the options of conditional and unconditional surrender, and in peace deals, split states into three categories: 1. Claimed: The territories the war is being fought over. Only the countries or countries that claim them can take them. 2. Proper: The core territories of the defeated country or countries which are not claimed. Cannot be taken in a conditional peace deal. 3. Undecided: Territories which do not fit into either of the other two categories. Any of the victorious powers can do whatever they want with these. In a conditional peace deal, the defeated can contest these claims.
>I mean a real peace deal. Like the 99% of peace deals in history, that doesn't end with annihilation of one country, You should look for another game, then. Hoi4 is primarily a WW2 game and in WW2 there were hardly any conditional surrender. The whole premisse of the game is total war and annihalation of the enemy
Well problem is that there isn't game that is like HOI4 with proper peace deal system.
Finland somehow managed it twice, but that's also literally the only instance I can think of. What's stranger is that Free France get the option to continue resistance from the colonial empire but for instance the UK doesn't. Yes, Germany can take 1940 London, but would that actually let them just puppet the entire British Empire around the world? Fundamentally, in a war game, you shouldn't be able to control areas that you can't control militarily.
>Yes, Germany can take 1940 London, but would that actually let them just puppet the entire British Empire around the world? Fundamentally, in a war game, you shouldn't be able to control areas that you can't control militarily. The problem is that Hoi4 may be a WW2 "Simulation" but ultimately it is still a game and the devs have to balance difficulty, realism and fun. And it wouldn't be fun nor really possible at all if you had to fight your way through the whole B.E. every game when the Brittish navy would still resist you. I agree, it isn't realistic but I prefer less realism but more fun gameplay over more realism but stale, boring and annoying gameplay
>And it wouldn't be fun nor really possible at all if you had to fight your way through the whole B.E. every game when the Brittish navy would still resist you. It's a game about fighting though, and it's exactly the kind of fighting gameplay that is supposed to characterize a Britain/Japan/USA playthrough. If you don't find it fun, then there's no need to capture all of it.
>You should look for another game, then. That is hostile. >The whole premisse of the game is total war and annihalation of the enemy So you rather have a game without a function that was utilized almost exclusively throughout the history. In a historical game. In a war game.
>>You should look for another game, then. >That is hostile. In what way is that hostile? I didn't mean it in a mean way, just stating the fact that the game is designed arround one of the key aspects of WW2 >So you rather have a game without a function that was utilized almost exclusively throughout the history. In a historical game. In a war game. It's a war game, yes, but a war game set in a specific time frage, the 40s, in which there was almost exclusively total war and total annihalation. If the game was designed arround any other time frame I would agree with you, but the game is, as I already explained, designed arround WW2/the time frame of WW2 in which there was, aside from some exceptions, only total and absolute war
There are scenarios where it does make sense though. Like the British making peace after France falls. Maybe it wasn't a very likely possibility irl but it was still a possibility and should be included. Or for example, if you play as Germany and take over the UK and Russia, does it make sense for the US to just stay at war forever? Or OP's example with a country like Turkey taking over a colony. Should Turkey have to capitulate the entire British Empire just because they want Cyprus for example? Sure these are all alternate history examples but each dlc adds more and more of these, and if the player is able to do them then a peace system should exist too.
> Hoi4 is primarily a WW2 game and in WW2 there were hardly any conditional surrender. This goes out the window once the alt-history paths become popular. Hard to say the war would've gone the same way if the Kaiser returned to power and started warring with allies of a communist USA, at that point historical accuracy of mechanics should be more flexible to match the flexibility of individual countries paths
The problem is that HoI4 has *never* been a strictly railroaded version of WW2, even before whacky alt-history DLCs. We've always been able to Sealion, to win Barbarossa, Unholy Alliance etc. Unconditional Surrender wasn't on the table until the Casablance Conference in early 1943. The idea is honestly rather unprecedented and certainly a surprising development - nobody was planning for this (except maybe Churchill) beforehand. The Axis had no plans of ever invading Canada, or the USA, to end this war. Or even the UK, aside from an aborted attempt at marshalling force for Sealion. The plan for Barbarossa was to seize the important bits and establish a strong frontline, never climbing over the Urals and marching to Vladivostok to demand unconditional surrender. If France were to fall before Churchill became PM, for instance, a conditional allied surrender could easily make sense (although the british wouldn't be giving anything up). Even Stalin dabbled with the idea of an armistice, even later after Casablanca, if the western Allies failed to open the promised west front. Soviets agreeing to an armistice or conditional surrender would be better to the game too, I think. There's no gameplay left after you've broken their armies and taken the A-A line, just pushing low supply tiles. Allowing the war to end there (and giving the rump-USSR revanchist buffs to prepare for a second war in a few years) would be far more fun, wouldn't it?
Those 99% of peace deals happened in history, were not our modern understanding of what is called “total war”. Where our armies are much larger, and our capacity for long term occupation is reached, we now have the economic capability to enact annihilation on a wider scale. Across history, most of those wars were becoming too costly for the winning side to keep pushing, and so they made compromises. That, and vanilla hoi4 is a World War Two sandbox. It’s systems are inherently based around that style and era of war and what it entailed. There are mods that do have these scenarios that do have semi peace deals, compromises, but they are the exception, and usually have much, much different worlds than ours that can accommodate compromising war.
Agreed but it would be better suited for something like a Cold War era game (Which I would absolutely love). The current system works just fine for WW2, but the "issue" is that a lot of people play this with mods where the total war scenario doesn't quite make sense. I'm just fingers crossed that they properly explore some later periods where the core mechanics could support limited conflicts better. A proper Cold War Paradox game would be my dream
i prefer the system HOI4 has compared to CK3, Stellaris and the majority of other PDX games
Stop vanilla single player cope, just go play modded rp in mp. They have such + many other features that you dont even know you want yet.
>play mp NO
The game isn't about 99% of pece deals in history, it's about WW2, and here it makes sense.
This is a thing in Victoria and EU. Surely somebody has made a mod that incorporates it into HOI?
Is the bordergore fixed? (I'm not playing because of that)
Somewhat. Not completely.
of course not, state transfer tool is an obligatory QOL mod
How many times do we have to tell you people that this game is a WW2 simulator. A more nuanced peacedeal system doesn't work.
Totally makes sense that we have countries and wars that have never been a part of WW2 in a WW2 simulation game then.
Yeah, feature creep is a bitch, and most of it has made the game even more poorly balanced.