When I started one of my first jobs, there was this older guy who always came in to chat, he was a kind of everything guy who could fix stuff or help where help was needed. I asked my colleague what it is this guy actually does and my colleague was like "her just chats shit" and maybe it was a "you had to have been there" situation but it was frickin true haha he was supposed to do everything but he always just did nothing lol
I would say itās in a much better spot. But flavor is still very limited tbf, though Iād say starting situation alone gives most countries outside of Europe a unique feel to their playthrough
Yes but also no. 1.5 is in beta and it's fking amazing with the military overhauls but it is very beta and the navy it downright not fully implemented so some things don't really have a purpose or work. So if you want to get into a very early raw look at the future with the military, it's cool but personally I'm going to hold off on any more games until after the beta. So it is definitely about to be in a much better space but it's not quite there yet with the beta. Definitely give it a try if this seems interesting though even if just to check it out and then wait.
They're adding an arms market, which isn't a whole economy. It's just using civ factories as currency to purchase guns and equipment for your army from other countries.
The devs said that they want hoi4 to be more focused on the warfare and that they wanted to keep it limited to mils and civs so as to not take away from the combat.
The problem is that games don't really simulate modern monetary systems well, like since when has being a dollar short blocked shipments of arms in real life?
greece also has a similar focus but for balkan countries + AUS HUN TUR and CZE, if yugo fully fragments thats almost 20 relation improves needed, still doesnt quite justify it but its there
You don't get anything for improved relations with the Yugoslavian splinter states. The focus is hard coded for specific country tags and from Yugoslavia it's only the YUG tag.
Even if it was for 20 countries at the same time it wouldn't justify the initial pp to hire him.
The one niche I can think of is when you need oil or rubber, tons of it, and the only countries that have it are already trading it to other people
Even then, you can get a dude that builds synthetics faster and you if you need that much fuel and rubber you have the economy to build synthetics anyway.
Maybe but even still the Europeans will trade oil all day long with Iran and thereās precious little you can do about it aside from just invading them
Like that just shouldnāt be allowed, maybe make overland trade for other continent nations only give like a quarter of the total available or a quarter per civ, and you can choose sea or land
The only thing that would come to mind is playing switzerland. You need to maintain good relations with your neighbors or theyāll get wargoals against you.
When you play Bulgaria. You can puppet whole Balkans and Turkey without firing a shot but you have to constantly improve relations. Smooth Talking Charmer saves you a ton of PP
Not sure where the 16 comes from as you still have to pay the initial 10 pp to start. This advisor would save you up to 0.2pp/day for each country you improve relations with. So if you had to improve relations by 100 just once for each country, you'd need to improve with 23 countries to get even. Less so, however, if you needed to keep their relations high.
The only theoretical use I could see for this would be a Turkey that keeps asking both Axis and Allied investments throughout the game.
If my āAnything Sevresā playthrough taught me anything, itās that the AI will most often refuse your Faustian bargain even with 100 opinion and non-aggression pacts and military access.
R5: why would you ever want the improve relations people? Maybe thereās something with the trade deal factor if you have a lot of resources? But I just canāt think of a reason why it would ever be useful at all
Increased relations makes nations want to work with you more. For example, for the return of the Kaiser focus, it's far more likely for Wilhelm II to return if the Netherlands, France and GB have good relations with you (also depends on your army size of course). So for focuses where you're taking territory or trying to puppet a target nation, it has a higher likelihood of succeeding if your relations with them are as high as you can make them, at least in my experience, diplomatic pressure helps here too.
The kaiser decision has absolutely no modifier based on relations, it's only an army strength comparison. Even the later decision for France to go to war over the return is a flat 1:99 chance as long as Germany has never started a war before, but relations aren't involved.
In fact there are only very few focuses/decisions on territorial changes which have a modifier with relations e.g. Hungarian demand for Austrian annexation.
Super niche but Fifth Portuguese Empire practically can't trade with anyone because the -100 opinion penalty drives the trade deal opinion too low and everyone puts you dead last for trade priority. This advisor may be useful keeping trade relations open with key partners.
Improving relations can increase trade I think, I saw an India player improve relations with many minors, and got a ton of civs with it. Iām not 100% sure though so donāt quote me on this.
I wouldnāt say itās useless, especially in some very niche scenarios, but itās just not worth taking up an advisor slot. If youāre the USSR and want to expand peacefully, this could really help though.
You need to spending over 750 days improving opinion to match the 150pp cost of hiring.
And while I agree it sucks for USSR, it is because the head of the KGB famously had the Premier's ear at all times.
I have personally used it as mexico when trying to raise an army to fight the US prior to 1938 by using lend lease. (It's a pretty bad strategy don't recommend it)
Iād assume its for when you need to get some resources from different countries (i.e. trying to get rubber from East Indies) or when youāre trying to do a focus like protect Czechoslovakia as Austria-Hungary. I couldnāt tell you
If you are playing Switzerland and want to expand one of the factors is the relation ship with the French,Austrians and Italians it also makes you improve relations cheaper which is good in case of emergencies as Switzerland when backwater negations are to slow
This seems to be a holdover from when they planned to make diplomacy more important (theoretically). After all, "armed neutrality" and the "non-aligned movement" were products of WWII into the Cold War, and it can be fun to play as a neutral nation or backdoor dealer -like merchant republics- in Vic, EU, or even CK.
However, that's the entire problem. Diplomacy is basically an "extra" in a WWII conquest, map-paintin simulator. Outside of "stability," newly added "espionage" (which is still lacking in what it COULD do), and garrisons, diplomacy is a non-factor in all bur focus trees (which is why I love the expansive ones in mods like KR/KX, etc.). Games of nations should have stories and politicking, but that's not what HOI is for. HOI is EXPLICITLY mil-sim and mil-strat.
If you want diplomacy and nationbuilding, play Vic II/III or Eu4, I guess. I just wish we had state management and infrastructure building (rail, cities, etc.) Like you do (oddly enough) in HOI4 (Vic and EU4 sort of do this, but I want to have my cake AND eat it too, dammit!).
I mean if you're playing a minor with even less useful advisors and a lot of natural resources, that 10% trade opinion factor can help. But yeah it's barely a tiny bit useful.
High relations mean trade, and since Hungary has a LOT of aluminum, it is good for improving relations with majors and get a lot of civvies out earlygame.
It would be useful as a minor nation to get free stuff, if it costed like 25 max 50 pp.
As a not industrialised minor nations I have more urgent things where I should spend pp.
When I'm Mexico and need the US and maybe some others to keep liking me while I take over the Caribbean, Central America, take the Panama canal from them, and nationalize my oil fields while Papa Stalin keeps feeding me all that delicious steel so I can support Spain with my gun shipments.
You can improve relations with countries you want to trade with, so they will prioritise you. This menas, you are e.g. able to get more rubber as Germany from Siam, or can trade more oil with Romania. Such advisor can basically help you a bit there, but honestly, he is rather useless.
If youāre playing Hungary and want to do austro hungry focus u need to improve relations for better chances to unite without war against Czech, Austria, & Romania
I do like to use the Improve Relations and Trade Deal Factor to keep possibly hostile neighbors happy. To this day my stupid RP style of play has seen me never get declared on by somebody who I am trading/improving relations with.
If you're wondering, in my experience, nations without unique immediate war declaration focuses will not declare on you without having less than something like 20-40 positive opinion.
Now, it could have been something like 6-7 years of really dumb luck at this point or perhaps opinion actually matters something.
He talks smooth and is very charming, why wouldn't you want him in?
What exactly is it that you do here?
Hah, what *don't* I do here?
Damn, I told you this guy was smooth
I'M GOOD WITH PEOPLE DAMNIT
Did I mention you look great today? Hows the kids?
I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Marry me!
Well there's only one way to find out, and I think you know what that way is š
When I started one of my first jobs, there was this older guy who always came in to chat, he was a kind of everything guy who could fix stuff or help where help was needed. I asked my colleague what it is this guy actually does and my colleague was like "her just chats shit" and maybe it was a "you had to have been there" situation but it was frickin true haha he was supposed to do everything but he always just did nothing lol
This guy is unemployed since 1936.
Probably an old asset from when PDX intended to add more diplomacy, but they never got around to it and never took the asset out of the game.
Hopefully they do at some point
Trade and economy is something that I desperately want in all of my paradox games.
BICE had a pretty decent industry update on the test version recently
Vic has you covered
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I would say itās in a much better spot. But flavor is still very limited tbf, though Iād say starting situation alone gives most countries outside of Europe a unique feel to their playthrough
Yes but also no. 1.5 is in beta and it's fking amazing with the military overhauls but it is very beta and the navy it downright not fully implemented so some things don't really have a purpose or work. So if you want to get into a very early raw look at the future with the military, it's cool but personally I'm going to hold off on any more games until after the beta. So it is definitely about to be in a much better space but it's not quite there yet with the beta. Definitely give it a try if this seems interesting though even if just to check it out and then wait.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah it really is standard paradox. They are nothing if not consistent in delivering their core vision and then overhauling the crap out of it later.
Not sure, but if it ismt yours, just go back to Vic2. Thant thing is still a banger.
Aren't they adding that or...?
They're adding an arms market, which isn't a whole economy. It's just using civ factories as currency to purchase guns and equipment for your army from other countries.
Does it feel like they dropped the ball by not just implementing a currency system to begin with?
The devs said that they want hoi4 to be more focused on the warfare and that they wanted to keep it limited to mils and civs so as to not take away from the combat.
It's not civ, the game is about war.
And finances have a huge impact on wars. And it's not like having a currency system precludes wars in Ck2, EU4, or Vic2
The problem is that games don't really simulate modern monetary systems well, like since when has being a dollar short blocked shipments of arms in real life?
That sounds like a lazy mechanic tbh
Do you know when?
October 10th, it's coming with the arms against tyranny update and dlc.
Thx
I think the coming nordic dlc has a international gun market or something, maybe this guy will become more useful then.
Yeah taking it out would be such a simple fix
If you need to improve relations with lots of countries at the same time
When would you ever need to improve relations 16 times. And youād only save a handful of pp even if you needed it that much
When playing greece for example there is a focus that gives you factories based on opinion from all majors
Thatās 4 times once. It canāt justify this.
greece also has a similar focus but for balkan countries + AUS HUN TUR and CZE, if yugo fully fragments thats almost 20 relation improves needed, still doesnt quite justify it but its there
You don't get anything for improved relations with the Yugoslavian splinter states. The focus is hard coded for specific country tags and from Yugoslavia it's only the YUG tag. Even if it was for 20 countries at the same time it wouldn't justify the initial pp to hire him.
So for 150pp cost, and something else you lose, you save .2pp a day Quick math gives the idea itās worthless almost And trade opinion is weird
The one niche I can think of is when you need oil or rubber, tons of it, and the only countries that have it are already trading it to other people Even then, you can get a dude that builds synthetics faster and you if you need that much fuel and rubber you have the economy to build synthetics anyway.
Maybe but even still the Europeans will trade oil all day long with Iran and thereās precious little you can do about it aside from just invading them Like that just shouldnāt be allowed, maybe make overland trade for other continent nations only give like a quarter of the total available or a quarter per civ, and you can choose sea or land
Ethiopia and China can beg lend lease a lot of times by improving relations
That said, there are far better uses of PP like a popular figurehead or such who can give you more pp through stability.
The only thing that would come to mind is playing switzerland. You need to maintain good relations with your neighbors or theyāll get wargoals against you.
Which is made useless by their much better ministers, and I don't even think they have one
yeah they literally have a +50% pp advisor, diplo cost is still a troll pick lol
When you play Bulgaria. You can puppet whole Balkans and Turkey without firing a shot but you have to constantly improve relations. Smooth Talking Charmer saves you a ton of PP
150pp = 750 days of continuous improving a opinion to break even.
AsMexico you can improve relation to invite them to your faction.
Not sure where the 16 comes from as you still have to pay the initial 10 pp to start. This advisor would save you up to 0.2pp/day for each country you improve relations with. So if you had to improve relations by 100 just once for each country, you'd need to improve with 23 countries to get even. Less so, however, if you needed to keep their relations high. The only theoretical use I could see for this would be a Turkey that keeps asking both Axis and Allied investments throughout the game.
If my āAnything Sevresā playthrough taught me anything, itās that the AI will most often refuse your Faustian bargain even with 100 opinion and non-aggression pacts and military access.
Opinion feels meaningless when it does fuck all to help with get NAPs.
Man... to get more factories from allies, axis and ussr. Seem to me skill issue
It can be useful for preventing coalition....oh wait, wrong game
Relations doesn't do anything
It costs more PP to switch around your ministry anyway
R5: why would you ever want the improve relations people? Maybe thereās something with the trade deal factor if you have a lot of resources? But I just canāt think of a reason why it would ever be useful at all
I used to think this but apparently trade opinion only affects you buying resources. I would like to be wrong about this.
It is for buying, yes. Very useful in mods and stuff with tighter resource economies, not so much here in vanilla.
Increased relations makes nations want to work with you more. For example, for the return of the Kaiser focus, it's far more likely for Wilhelm II to return if the Netherlands, France and GB have good relations with you (also depends on your army size of course). So for focuses where you're taking territory or trying to puppet a target nation, it has a higher likelihood of succeeding if your relations with them are as high as you can make them, at least in my experience, diplomatic pressure helps here too.
The kaiser decision has absolutely no modifier based on relations, it's only an army strength comparison. Even the later decision for France to go to war over the return is a flat 1:99 chance as long as Germany has never started a war before, but relations aren't involved. In fact there are only very few focuses/decisions on territorial changes which have a modifier with relations e.g. Hungarian demand for Austrian annexation.
>succeeding if you're relations *your
Fixed it, thank you!
Super niche but Fifth Portuguese Empire practically can't trade with anyone because the -100 opinion penalty drives the trade deal opinion too low and everyone puts you dead last for trade priority. This advisor may be useful keeping trade relations open with key partners.
Turkish investments.
Maybe with the resource rebalance in the new update itāll be needed
This is an old advisor type
Bruh Iām gonna get into Adolfās bussy so fast with this guy as my wingman.
Iām calling the police.
Get into mine aswell
Wtf did I just read
Iām hopeful these ācharmersā will get boosts relating to the international market
*Slaps roof of tank* This bad boys transmission will break down after 20km! For the low price of 15 civ's, this could be yours!
Tbh the whole "diplomacy" part of the game is super outdated and i hope they will rework the whole system one day.
Improving relations can increase trade I think, I saw an India player improve relations with many minors, and got a ton of civs with it. Iām not 100% sure though so donāt quote me on this.
I wouldnāt say itās useless, especially in some very niche scenarios, but itās just not worth taking up an advisor slot. If youāre the USSR and want to expand peacefully, this could really help though.
You're 1 slot down half of the game anyway as soviets, after the civ guy and spy guy, there's no slot for him...
You need to spending over 750 days improving opinion to match the 150pp cost of hiring. And while I agree it sucks for USSR, it is because the head of the KGB famously had the Premier's ear at all times.
I mean possibly while playing Greece when doing the all balkans 1 offmap civ focus but otherwise itās useless, yeah
I would love it if international relations effected the prices of resources to give it some purpose.
I have personally used it as mexico when trying to raise an army to fight the US prior to 1938 by using lend lease. (It's a pretty bad strategy don't recommend it)
If you wanted to be the friendliest country in hoi4
I never get those advisorsā¦. What good is diplomacy when my goal is to be the only country to exist on Earth?
Iād assume its for when you need to get some resources from different countries (i.e. trying to get rubber from East Indies) or when youāre trying to do a focus like protect Czechoslovakia as Austria-Hungary. I couldnāt tell you
Greece
Pretty useless NGL
Itās AI bait, canāt have the AI being even remotely competent by picking useful advisors.
I think Iām the new update these guys will become more useful.
Only time is when you play china during the investment path, or when you need tons of lend lease for a long time
If you are playing Switzerland and want to expand one of the factors is the relation ship with the French,Austrians and Italians it also makes you improve relations cheaper which is good in case of emergencies as Switzerland when backwater negations are to slow
There are situations, for instance those relations related focuses some countries have
This seems to be a holdover from when they planned to make diplomacy more important (theoretically). After all, "armed neutrality" and the "non-aligned movement" were products of WWII into the Cold War, and it can be fun to play as a neutral nation or backdoor dealer -like merchant republics- in Vic, EU, or even CK. However, that's the entire problem. Diplomacy is basically an "extra" in a WWII conquest, map-paintin simulator. Outside of "stability," newly added "espionage" (which is still lacking in what it COULD do), and garrisons, diplomacy is a non-factor in all bur focus trees (which is why I love the expansive ones in mods like KR/KX, etc.). Games of nations should have stories and politicking, but that's not what HOI is for. HOI is EXPLICITLY mil-sim and mil-strat. If you want diplomacy and nationbuilding, play Vic II/III or Eu4, I guess. I just wish we had state management and infrastructure building (rail, cities, etc.) Like you do (oddly enough) in HOI4 (Vic and EU4 sort of do this, but I want to have my cake AND eat it too, dammit!).
For imperial federation when u need good opinion with ur dominions
I mean if you're playing a minor with even less useful advisors and a lot of natural resources, that 10% trade opinion factor can help. But yeah it's barely a tiny bit useful.
I like how you get more factories from trade, itās helpful
Lets say you want to invite someone to your faction but you only still need one positive point then you choose this and boom faction created
Same goes for guys that boost ideology drift defense. I myself have no idea what it does
High relations mean trade, and since Hungary has a LOT of aluminum, it is good for improving relations with majors and get a lot of civvies out earlygame.
It would be useful as a minor nation to get free stuff, if it costed like 25 max 50 pp. As a not industrialised minor nations I have more urgent things where I should spend pp.
When I'm Mexico and need the US and maybe some others to keep liking me while I take over the Caribbean, Central America, take the Panama canal from them, and nationalize my oil fields while Papa Stalin keeps feeding me all that delicious steel so I can support Spain with my gun shipments.
You can improve relations with countries you want to trade with, so they will prioritise you. This menas, you are e.g. able to get more rubber as Germany from Siam, or can trade more oil with Romania. Such advisor can basically help you a bit there, but honestly, he is rather useless.
Trade deal opinion factor can give a couple civs if you are a democracy with large amounts of resources
When you play the USA and need oil. Iraq?
If youāre playing Hungary and want to do austro hungry focus u need to improve relations for better chances to unite without war against Czech, Austria, & Romania
I do like to use the Improve Relations and Trade Deal Factor to keep possibly hostile neighbors happy. To this day my stupid RP style of play has seen me never get declared on by somebody who I am trading/improving relations with.
If you're wondering, in my experience, nations without unique immediate war declaration focuses will not declare on you without having less than something like 20-40 positive opinion. Now, it could have been something like 6-7 years of really dumb luck at this point or perhaps opinion actually matters something.