My Thoughts on the Hearts of Iron IV Summer Open Beta
Paradox has released an open beta for Hearts of Iron IV that includes some of the changes that will be in the next patch of the game, Stella Polaris. The open beta changes are focused on the war aspect of the game, impacting the military, navy, and air force. Patch Stella Polaris itself will be released together with the Arms Against Tyranny DLC, which will add much-anticipated focus trees for the Scandinavian countries. Some of these changes are great, some less so.
Army Changes
The army changes in the patch include slight changes to the combat widths, which have been slightly reduced. It is now much easier to create powerful divisions without getting to a huge combat width as powerful tanks, infantry, and artillery battalions create less. Of course, it can also make the game harder since now the AI can deploy more powerful units in battle just as well as you. This is an impactful change that is overall a positive as it makes the game more dynamic and enables you to create interesting designs, which is a nice refresher from the 7/3 infantry that was always used to beat the AI.
Speaking of the AI, it also received a small change. The infantry division templates used by it have been improved. Late-game designs created by the CPU are now much better and provide a challenge. As for early-game, the AI is still weak and very easy to beat like it’s always been; This is a huge problem that’s been in the game since its release. This change does address some issues with single-player gameplay, but it almost completely ignores the biggest problem, which is how easy it is to beat the computer.
Tank designing has also received massive changes. Super heavy tanks have been moved from being a unit in the division designer into the support companies; There is now only one per unit, so when designing it, you can make it a lot more powerful. This is a very welcome change, as it again makes the game much more dynamic. Their armour has been increased overall, making them much more powerful against infantry and even against their counters. In verdict, tanks feel a lot more powerful now, and not in a good way. This is a big buff for Germany and makes early-game Germany much easier to play. Light tanks are also now a very viable option while heavy ones can feel overpowered if you don’t have the perfect division to counter them at any given moment.
Navy Changes
Paradox has not given as many changes to the navy, but it has definitely given it as much love — a new mechanic for armour piercing has been introduced. This mechanic adds an ability that, if the enemy fails to penetrate your armour, it will reduce their damage and critical chance, making armour penetration a much more important aspect of Navy battles and the fighting more intricate and complicated, which is very welcome in a game such as Hearts of Iron IV.
Torpedoes have received a buff that increases their hit chance, which brings them in line with hit profiles. This is a very simple and welcome buff that makes sense. It provides added realism, as torpedoes tend to be pretty accurate in real life.
Air Changes
The Air Force has received the most changes out of all the mechanics in the game. Up until now, excess thrust that your plane design had was converted into speed. That has been changed, and instead, it gets converted to agility, making excess thrust actually useful and allowing for some cheeky plane designs. It is a very welcome change as it makes the game a lot more interesting.
Airframes now impact planes’ max speed, making investing time to research new ones much more important than it was. This is a direct buff to airframe upgrades that also nerfs engine upgrades, effectively making engine upgrades harder and more expensive. While this change makes sense in terms of realism, it makes the gameplay feel more tedious, and I would prefer for it not to be in the full patch.
Turrets’ negative effect on bombers’ agility has been reduced; this change was made in order to make them a more viable option when designing the latter. Both the idea and the execution of this update are bad. Gameplay-wise, it makes sense for bombers to not have turrets on them or to only have little turrets. Air fighting in Hearts of Iron IV is a very intricate system, and this change makes it much more simplistic, basically rendering every plane design into a fighter with extra abilities.
Plane designs now cost less overall, making the Air Force a much more important and viable aspect in the early game. This modification puts players under more pressure in terms of managing resources and all aspects of the military. It’s always good to make elements of the game important throughout the entire experience.
And lastly, new techs and modules have been introduced. These allow for more variants in plane designs and improve the customisability of planes. It also makes air fighting a lot more intricate, which improves it massively. This might just be the best change introduced in this open beta, as it greatly enhances both late- and mid-game, and for some playstyles, even early-game.
Overall, the summer open beta is great but not without its problems. We need to remember it’s just a beta and Paradox is very likely to listen to players’ input and change the final patch according to it. I am very hyped for the release of Stella Polaris and Arms Against Tyranny.
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