Hearts Of Iron 4 Is A Broken Mess (And It's Great) 

16500 subscriber special

The fact it takes so long to upgrade a minor railway in Australia is actually accurate to how competent the Australian government is at building shit

>Hoi4 has a lot of content >No new continents in eight years Paradox get your shit together

4:55 sudden shipyard focus does actually give you 3 dockyards but that is only if you control a coastal province, if you dont have any coastal provinces it only gives 10 naval xp

The tutorial is much worse than the hoi3 one where literally Hitler teaches you the game mechanics

To be fair that czech naval focus actually gives 3 dockyards, it just don't show up as an effect if you don't have a coast.

70 days to have a 10 plus opinion with China or Japan as Germany. Yeah...

As Portugal, if you go monarchist, and instead of picking the normal reuniting with Brazil path, you choose the take Brazil by force focci, congrats you broke the game. You are now stuck with a permanent spirit that will eventually reduce your stability to zero with no way to remove it.

I randomly played Mengkukuo today and theres a weird thing going on with the Japanese focus tree. If Japan either goes communist or democratic usually Mengkukuo becomes a puppet of Manchuria, but this happens *even* if Mengkukuo is a free nation. You can achieve this by going through a civil war as Mengkukuo, winning and waiting for Japan to go through their civil war. I guess the devs never really expected for Mengkukuo to be a free nation, like ever

We’re not getting any Paradox sponsorships with this one 🗣🗣🗣

I think the coordinated strike is supposed to be an ATTEMPT to simulate things like Taranto and Pearl Harbor but fails so darn miserably.

I once actually used Plant False Intelligence and I think it actually did something. It was in a game as historical Finland where I put all the fake troops on ports and the Soviets actually stopped naval invading for the duration they were there. But this could be a placebo effect.

I used to think that "free civilian factories" meant that I should build a bunch, and once the popup goes away I had ran out of my free factories that I had been awarded by an obscure Nigerian prince.

I bet the Sudden shipyard focus is meant to give 10 xp as a bonus to 1 or 2 dockyards. I would say that it would pick a state that has naval access to put the dockyards in, but I can't verify because why would I do naval Czechoslovakia?

In Waking the Tiger, there's a mechanic where, as a minor Chinese warlord, you can engage in border skirmishes with another warlord or, eventually, with China itself. It's a 6v6 where, if you win, you gain control of the entire province. However, there are two massive problems with this system. 1, you cannot pick where you start the border skirmish. The decision will say "start one in X province", and you don't get multiple options here, you have to pick where the game decides your next fight will be - but when it actually comes time to fight, it could be a completely different province for no reason and you only have 30 days to redeploy your best units there. 2, it used to be prior to 2023 that terrain did not factor into the battle. But I believe it is still bugged where you now get terrain penalties as the attacker - and given a vast swathe of China is either mountain tiles or city provinces, it's hard to win against warlords even though they tend to have worse supply, divisions, and tech, but near impossible against China itself, without pulling some shenanigans. Effectively this means a warlord can never conquer all of China without outside help!

"Let's make it so focuses show different things based on if you have stuff for them." iSorrow: "10 NAVAL EXPERIENCE!" "...... and dockyards if you get a port"

France having a +2% special forces modifier when South America has like +15%, lmao

The one time I saw the 'Plant Intelligence' operation worked was in a Bokoen game where the Finland player lived rent free in one of the Russian player coop. So yeah, that operation is for multiplayer only...

How is this game 8 years old and it still feels like the devs are figuring out the kinks still?

Really enjoyed this 16500 special, almost as good as last video, the 0 subscriber special, bravo ISP, another “Drew’s Daddy” banger

My favorite is that sending all your gear to a random nation right before a civil war then immediately getting it back still works.

As someone who got into the game post the reworking of planes/tanks etc, i've always wondered what the focuses were talking about when they say something like "100% bonus for fighter research" I'm like wtf, there's a fighter specific technology??? It's quite impressive that they haven't bothered to reword the text in what has been years at this point.

I think the wasted tutorial in this case is extremely funny considering how they handled the one from hoi 3. There you had a "mustached man from austria, who is working on a crude painting" explain to you how to wage war on over nations

If Paradox let them, the community would just fix all these silly little fuck-ups in the classic focus trees. Some of them are just so useless, especially if you're playing singleplayer, or trying to do anything "fun" as a major power like America.

Petition for ISP to play the tutorial and finish it's weird goals

I think paradox should add an achievement to complete the tutorial just so ISP has to go through it to finish the A to Z series. The mental anguish would be comical.

cool to see isp actually talk about what he thinks of the game with no memes or anything, just a good old monologue

Without designer DLCs (NSB, MTG, BBA) the AI are actually capable to keep consistently upgrading their weapons using Exp. Air battles are more challenging as you cannot snowballing them without doing specific focuses to get advance fighters (Yugo's and Hungary's ahead of time fighters are the common strat). I think they just need to add more template to the designer and having AI to build it from there.

1939 starting date is actually useful if you are roleplaying or don't really want to spend whole bunch of years of a setup. Paradox usually gives you couple of interesting division templates or models of tanks/aircrafts that you now have to live with. Not everyone plays vanilla hoi4 just for achievements and new wacky schizo paths. Sure, sometimes 1939's mechanics are not working properly, however, I've also noticed that the AI in this bookmark is somehow more aggressive and smarter (???), which is particularly true for the Germany and Japan. Also, 1939 is kinda vanilla China Engsieg scenario...

Sloppy timmy

This is just a synopsis of all the years we've spent watching ISP complain about 70 day focuses. This is the REAL content right here

I like how there is still the text "Shift + Click to add +10" for the plane, even though the max upgrade is 5 ( 13:47 )

I like this channel, for the same reason I like Drew_IRL. It’s just ISP talking, and very laid back. I love it

One that's frustrated many of my games is that if you're playing the baltic states and go down the baltic-belarus ssr path, and the Soviets decide to do a civil war, your decisions to increase influence will disappear alongside the belarusian civil war not firing. This is because the decisions and even check for the SOV tag controlling the states, while the civil war results in SOV being replaced by alternate tags for the stalin side of the war, much like how the spanish and american civil wars work. Not exactly the result of update shenanigans, but rather failing to account for alt hist paths.

Eu iv actually has a "bookmark" for every day of the playable timespan

I have played the tutorial, and I must say the biggest problem is that it doesn’t tell you how to PLAY the game. I mean, sure it explains what everything does and how to carry out basic functions, but it doesn’t really tell you anything about how it all comes together to make gameplay, or any advice on what strategies to do. So I would build terrible units really slowly, go down superior firepower doctrine, play nations in ways they weren’t meant to be played, etc., so it took me a long time to figure out how to actually be competent at the game, and that was mostly through trial and error and watching hoi4 RU-vidrs.

The JU-86 existed in the '36 start date too. Germany started (and still starts) with either 40 or 80 of them.

Since Crusader Kings is character based and not nation based the multiple start dates actually work quite well. It and Stellaris are the only two are also the only two games that don't have focus trees which also helps too. There are a variety of factors making multiple start dates really not work in Stellaris but in Crusader Kings they're great.

"you could just build forts" yeah because my factories are doing nothing obviously

0:12 No way

you forgot the france focus that give you naval bomber research speed and nothing else.... Nice Video :)

Really enjoying the more quirky editing. I'm glad you have somewhere to vent off your inner artist, Mr Slopper.

9:30 I tried the tutorial when I first got the game. I only learned how to move divisions and set up a Frontline, but nothing else, and just ended up watching a RU-vid video to learn the game.

The generic focus tree also has outdated air focuses for CAS, Fighter and Naval Bomber models, which are all applicable to light frame, meaning you can have 1944 light airframe in 1938, making the generic air focus tree more powerful than most paid focus trees. I had a lot of fun CAS spamming as Brazil before it received its focus tree

ISP and HOI4 being great are the words I never expected to see together

my guess with sudden shipyard... is that it will also build some naval dockyards if it is possible to do so, but without being able to it just shows it's amazing amount of naval experience.

I have unironically completed the tutorial in all paradox games.

and here I thought the main channel was perfection

Just now finding out isp had to create a HoI4 quarantine channel. Amazing.

The problem with port strikes is that you only get 1 notification at the start for what damage you did, and that is it. your planes will continue to bomb the fleet in port but you will no longer get updated on it while the only way to know if your sinking ships is to have enough intel to see the fleet in port to see if the number goes down or continuously watch total fleet count to see if it goes down.

coordinated strike is quite good if you know that bots send their fleets to repair if a ship gets scratched. That way you can naval invade british right away without them doing any naval supremacy

It's dangerous outside, take this "10 naval experience"

I learned from the tutorial and have regretted it ever since. I learned more from just starting a game as Germany after knowing the basics, then from the tutorial. 10/10 game, I only had all of thr DLCs that were given for free. My life is pain, and HOI4 is not an addiction.

In Japan's navy, some of the ships you start with are impossible ship types with their designs. If you build more of the same class, it will be the correct types while only the original one will be the other type.

WHERE IS THE RAT?

The special divisions that Italy starts with that can only be disbanded by decision still can't be disbanded if you get control of them by annexing Italy, but without the decisions, so you're stuck with them. Unless you have them naval invade a random tile and get destroyed of course.

i recall doing the tutorial when i first downloaded the game. i remember it differently, it had me mastermind the italian invasion of ethiopia and i felt super proud microing around the units and such of course then i realized you can just smash your entire army into them with the general set to "aggressive" but the tutorial was actually really useful for me to learn the game. hoi4 is a complex game, and it's pretty intimidating if you play it for the first time

French Stresa Front straight up doesnt work as Austria just accepts the unification referendum even when guaranteed by Italy, France and the UK

I'm pretty sure that Sudden Shipyard focus gives 2 or 3 dockyards if you control a coastal state

Plant false intel operation helps you to lure enemy units to certain parts of your front line when it is stable. I got like 70 Soviet divisions encircled to Kola peninsula and Karelia as Finland using false intel.

Manchuria' national focus gives 7/2 divisions which is illegal today.

I've been eyeing up this game as potentially my next strategy game, but it's hard to stomach the price tag of the game + dlcs. I do tend to play strategy games for hundreds of hours, but man the thought of spending 100$ (on sale) for the complete game and not ending up liking it is a big deterrent. I'll probably end up playing Civilization 5 for another decade lol

I actualy used surrender option a few times. It kinda saved my ironman soviet achievment run

The purpose of Coordinated Strike is to let you do a pearl harbor. Unfortunately, pearl harbor was stupid and didn’t pay off.

The tutorial immediately scared me away from the game for like 4 years. Then my ex tried getting me back into it and after a few hours of that I was just too bored to try again. Also, would love some EUIV content.

In EU4 you don’t even have to pick a specific bookmark start date, you can actually scroll year by year from 1444 to 1821. And you can play any year you like. It’s so random and I wondered if anybody’s actually seriously used it. You should!

Fun and relaxing! I was wondering about the railway focuses recently - glad to have the answer

Nobody is going to talk about the difficulty settings right above the "historical focus" toggle? Never seen these changed by anyone, no idea what they do.

Recently I played 1939 start date in exile Poland and actually had fun. You get new focuses related to capitulation, the political focus tree is just started, so you can still get a lot of useful traits, modifiers and advisors, at the top of 10% attack and defense from in exile exclusive leader, who can stay permanently, as long you don't change the leader. Also, even with traits and advisors, which give ticking popularity to other parties, the neutral party popularity will never drop below 50%.

Which world leader gets the best sloppy toppy

I completed the tutorial in like 2017 when I got the game. It was semi helpful for learning early stuff, but with how much more complicated the game has gotten, I doubt the tutorial is too useful now. I even had to learn alot more from videos back then. (Took forever to learn how to navel invade)

Back in the day you actually needed atleast like 2 naval xp to make a boat so if u had none and had no ship designed u literally couldnt gain naval xp so that 10 kinda makes sense

Mr President, a third iSorrow has struck youtube

4:46 I think ot gives you Dockyards of you own a costal state could be wrong tho

I would love to see the mess that is the alternative eu4 start times

I think back in the day in EU2, you could start at ANY date. It was fun to play with, scrolling throough the dates. I wonder who was the poor dev, who had to implement all those billion different scenarios.

Man I love watching Isloppy

it's crazy after two videos you're getting this big. I've been here since the beginning and I want to say I think eventually you'll reach 800k subscribers

You know what? I actually like the 1939 start date. Sometimes you just wanna fight a war.

I can say with confidence I have tried the tutorial when I first bought the game (during man the guns DLC) after I had my ass handed to me playing one game as Britain and one as Germany and it was the worst experience I ever had. Italy without DLC and one of the slowest most painful instruction manual I ever experienced. In short after that... experience I nearly gave up on HOI4 intirely and stopped playing for a couple months

When they added Man the Gun DLC, there was a time were you could get a crazy % of XP (4.5323) when training your ships. This was so broken with the US you could max all of the Navy tech within a year.

I remember trying to play the tutorial, being completely confused by everything in it, and just watching a youtube tutorial

Paradox been real quiet since this video dropped.

It really isn't good. This game is one of the most exhausting games I've ever encountered

Czech’s becoming a naval superpower sounds like a fun gimmick ngl, but still weak naval focus tree it seems

this is not slop. This is a well edited and interesting video that could've been on the main channel.

Paradox is such a garbage developer. Release an alpha level game. Flesh it out via hundreds of dollars of DLC over YEARS. Rewrite the game mechanics multiple times. Abandon it with an incremental sequel that doesn't have half the features of the previous game so you can continue to nickel and dime to re-release the same features.

If you wanna showcase more weird bugs, you should show the exploit that lets Slovakia core the entire world.

There was an interesting situation in my Dutch East Indies game. I tried to break free by doing fascist civil war and right after I finished I noticed that I somehow became Allies member. And not only that, but also Australian puppet. So it is apparently connected to Australian fascist path where they can cause mentioned civil war. Yet game doesnt check if Australia has gone democratic, so you cannot break free as fascist Indonesia :) .

4:45 The "Sudden Shipyard" focus doesn't tell you what it does if you don't have a coastal state but I think it gives 3 dockyards if memory serves in that state. Since you're looking at it without having a coastal state, it looks pointless when it's less pointless than you think. That is a hilariously unhelpful tooltip though XD

To be honest, I have been burned by the EU3 tutorial that was bugged. At one point it asked you to move a unit to Berlin as Brandenburg and if you did it it just didn't count because at some point they renamed the province they want you to move the unit to but forgot to update the tutorial. Ever since then I avoid PDX tutorials like the plague. Also most of the timestamps in EU4 are just boring. They start you out in huge deficit, usually the later the date the more the deficit. The last time I tried the American independence war America went bankrupt in like half a year and couldn't win the war. In general the game is very bad at simulating that war in specific so in most cases (even at release EU4 from 20 years ago) you just can't ever beat the Brits. I believe they start with some stacks in america occupying some of your provinces and if you do manage to beat those, they will just drop off their entire army via ships anyways.

I remember actually trying the tutorial when I first got the game many years ago, never seen any content on the game prior. Took me a good half an hour of digging through the game to figure out how to actually use my civilian factories

the fun side effect of Australian focuses for CAS and NA airframes is that they are the same airframe and if you plan right you can get 1944 NA in 1938 and you can sink the entire Japanese fleet in 1940 as Australia, which is just hilarious. I am sure this was not intended, but no one simply checked the balance after air rework

i did an unorthodox communist playthrough of japan ...things were broken left and right. i didnt go communist right away

The most egregious start date in a Paradox game is the Great War start date for the OG Victoria, a whole 22 years of late game play.

If you check out the different starting years in EU4, I remember that if you go to the years when Zulu exists (the South African country the British struggled against IRL), click on them, and then go back to the starting year, you could play as them in 1444 and colonize all of South Africa for yourself. Since Zulu has the militarization mechanics enabled they are fairly OP for the early game, and you can invade the nearby gold provinces in Mutapa. But it's been a fair while since I played EU4, so they may have patched that out, idk.

Canada and Australia have multiple bits of focus tree blocked behind world tension or being a puppet. The devs want to make sure you really appreciate your 2 research slots

The tutorial stuff is true. I don't own HoI4, but I learned to play EU4 and Vic2 mainly through Let's plays.

When I first got the game back when it released I did the tutorial because it was my first time playing a grand strategy game. It was bugged and you couldn't actually finish it lmao

It's weird that of all channels on youtube the person I follow the most, is a man losing his sanity on a map game, which I don't even play anymore