Main Game Concepts

EonAB plans to become a total conversion of almost all vanilla elements, and in the core of these edits are the main game concepts. Main game concepts are things that EonAB revolves around, and takes as granted compared to vanilla. All game concepts are centred around either improving the game experience in general or making the game further compatible to playing for two centuries.

This is a page to find any core concepts you'd like to know about while modding the game or out of pure curiosity, but having a thorough understanding of the core concepts outside of the boundaries the game explains isn't required to play the game. You won't find any digits(background numbers) or lore(flavour content) here, but a general walkthrough of what we considered when designing this mod. It isn't advised to look at this post for exact information or min-maxing, since this post is no more than a general skim.

Exact values and intricate 'how's will be explained in individual pages. On this page won't be explained of how they will be implemented, or if they will even work; this page is meant to tidy up ideas for future development.

Continuous Game and an Extended Timeline
In vanilla HOI4, the end of a war is the absolute end of a conflict, where the victor has complete control over the loser at a price for complete victory. This is due to represent the ideological conflicts and stance of total war, neither side being able to back off during an ideological war. This wouldn't be the case for a war in the 1800s, or in fact a war that isn't caused by fascist governments.

The game results in a halt of conflict after a war is won, and after the peace conference there is nothing to do. Similarly, winning a war has a far too hefty price, being perfect for a certain scenario but a certain scenario only, it being WW2. Even if a third threat exists after a global scale war is over, the imbalance of power and lack of content troubles a smooth, balanced and realistic gameplay. VHOI4's goal isn't having a strong nation, making world peace or even dominating the world- it's simply winning one war.

EonAB plans to expand the game from a 10-year world war experience to a two centuries' effort of growing and maintaining a giant nation. Most game concepts revolve around this central concept, but in this paragraph we'll describe the lengthened timeline itself.

The timeline is planned to start from the uprising of the Indian Rebellion and end in a near futuristic age where we can predict technology(2050 or so). The game itself will be able to continue, but no new content will be added for post-2050 since it wouldn't make much sense. Originally it was planned to begin at the start of the American Civil War where modern combat is considered to have first begun, but due to requests for the US to have time to prepare for the war, and having two timelines with a few month's difference wouldn't mean much the bookmark was pulled back a few years. Plans for content after 2050 or before the first bookmark is not currently drawn out, and is only a possibility after the entire timeline is complete.

Eras
Unlike vanilla, technology greatly advances within the span of one game and it's difficult to use vanilla mechanisms to make a realistic gameplay experience for two centuries. This is why we have the concept of Eras, that represent how industry, ideologies and the general population has changed over the years. Do not mistake this with tech bonuses; Eras will only change things that in vanilla don't change over time.

Eras will effect the following; ideologies, event randomness, AI tendencies, global tension etc.

Currently there are 8 eras planned, and generally their periods will be Victorian Era (1857~ 1883), Machine Era (1884 ~ 1901), Oil Era (1902~ 1918), Aviation Era (1919 ~ 1935), Modern Era (1936 ~ 1945), Atomic Era (1946 ~ 1972), Information Era (1973 ~ 1992) and the Digital Era (1993 ~). These Era distributions can be changed at any time.

Point Scenarios
When allowing the game to play for 200 years, it's very difficult to make content within HOI4 that's interesting and deep as vanilla. Often the situation spins of out control and devs can't keep up with every possibility. In order to make interesting events happen in a confined manner that devs can follow up with, the idea of Point Scenarios was introduced. Point Scenarios are central scenarios that act as a background for a set of flavour content. Like the American Civil War, or the Unification of Germany, Point Scenarios span for about 10 to 20 years and acts as a cause of many major events. Whether it is an international conflict(WW1, Cold War etc.) or a series of national events(Destalinisation), Point Scenarios act as a 'mother' of global events and  Compared to the 'smaller network' between single focuses, events and such, Point Scenarios are connected between each other in a larger scale in the 'point network'. Here's an example :

When the American Civil War ends with a Union victory, the USA remains a democratic unified nation and aims to liberate Cuba, leading to the American-Spanish War Point Scenario.

When the ACW leads to the Confederates remaining a sovereign state in any way or form, they will aim to conquer the nations around the Mexican Gulf, leading to the Golden Circle Point Scenario.

Within a single Point Scenario there are many different possibilities and (should be) almost infinite ways to play the game, but when a Point Scenario ends the results will be divided into only a few options.

Peace Conferences and Peace
VHOI4 peace conferences are very imbalanced, along with the concept of peace itself. Making a peace without capitulating all major opponents is impossible, and even that causes a white peace, throwing your hard effort in the trash. (Abandoning your allies during war is also "impossible"- as documented our main goals are changing "impossible" to "considered impossible", giving hefty penalties.)

Peace will not only be decided by the diplomacy screen, but through events. When you are winning/losing a war in a certain amount, you will be able to send the opponent a peace treaty- you decide whether you send it or not. These events aren't sent from anyone, they are suggestions by the AI that allow you to send a peace offer. Events you get will generally look like this- "Title : Demand Alsace-Lorraine/Renounce control on Alsace-Lorraine (Send peace offer)""Description: We control the region of [Alsace-Lorraine], their population support us and the war is going in our favour. The [French] fear our advance and seem to be tired of war after [10] months, and will certainly give in to our demands if we were to send them. We are on the upper hand, perhaps it is time for negotiations./ The [Germans] threat our nation with their continuous victories and charge into our lands. We are devastated, most of our land is in their hands and we don't have enough time or resources to retaliate. It may be only a matter of time before we fall to them. Perhaps offering what they came for would reduce both of our losses, before it's too late.""Options: 1. This war is now our stage. Why refuse a low-risk-high-return for a trivial idea like peace? 2. Perhaps our losses may not be much compared to them, but they still have broken our nation and only will grow with time. / 1. Nonsense! We are a part of this war, and will fight for what is ours notwithstanding what we may lose! 2. This war is lost. We must put our nation before our pride; let us offer them peace.""Title : The French ask for peace/The Germans demand reparation (Receive peace offer)""Description : After the successful war we have had, the [French] have given in and have decided to give in to our demands. Our wargoal has been achieved, and just a few hours ago we have received requests for peace. Shall we meet at the table?/After the unsuccessful war we have had, many of our resources have been spent and our people are exhausted. We have lost in defending what was rightfully ours, and the [Germans] are at our doorstep. They have sent an offer of peace, and promise to stop their tracks if we were to accept.""Options: 1. We have achieved what we have came for, accepting the treaty will reduce any more catastrophes. 2. We already are in high ground, what reason is there for us to retreat? / 1. We have lost this war. Send the diplomats and reduce any possible losses. / 2. Not all is lost. There is always a chance for us to recover, and they mock us and underestimate us by calling for peace!"If a peace offer is sent, a peace offer is received; the content would be the same, but your options would be the opposite. Using this mechanic, wars can halt if a certain goal is accomplished, so you don't have to rely on focus trees to retake your historic provinces. They also give a meaning to wargoals; if the wager of war has a wargoal for taking/retaking a province, the peace will be based on said wargoal. The event localisation would be different, and there would be a higher chance for acceptance.

Of course, allowing peace to be settled without complete victories/losses would be meaningless if war wasn't a big trouble. If the opponent was in such a bad state that they would give in to your demands, they would fall anyways when time is given. That's why war will be designed to be much, much more devastating and demanding than vanilla.

War Exhaustion
In VHOI4, the idea of war exhaustion isn't necessarily well represented. War will be risky, will be easier to make middle defense, and peace would sound like a good idea if the damages of war weren't only represented by decreasing manpower numbers and broken factories. War exhaustion won't be a value like in EU4, but will be represented by active events. If a certain amount of people die in your nation, flavour events will trigger and people will revolt against your current war effort. In special occasions, like the Christmas Truce special events will occur causing not only reduction of recruitable population, but could even chain towards a forced peace and no troops at all.

War exhaustion is largely divided into 3 categories, burnout, revolts and pressure. Burnout is the material edge of war exhaustion; it is caused by the usage of resources during the war effort, and includes the investments in the war machine before the war, and recovery after the war. Along with the loss of manpower and destruction of infrastructure/factories, burnout events give a much larger challenge and make war risky. Starvation, diseases, and blackouts will plague your war effort, and when not treated will spread to a war epidemic. Guerrilla warfare's effects come into a similar category, ruining infrastructure and foundations to the war machine.

Revolts are the morale edge of war exhaustion; they are caused by the people desiring peace. This won't happen unless you're losing the war, a large portion of your nation is influenced by pacifism or conscription laws are too harsh. These events will cause divisions to refuse to fight, disbanding them and lowering your manpower, along with increasing pacifism. When untreated, revolts can be used by opponent nations and could grow to a great threat, eventually into a civil war.

Pressure isn't an internal cause; neighbouring nations that think you're invading their sphere of influence, too aggressive or whom disagree with your stance of war can give pressure on both sides for cease fire through events. They could threat for embargoes, support the other side(in the case of an uneven war) or even join the war against you, similarly being a threat.

Recruitment Overhaul
It's quite an experience for the average computer to last past the 1945 point, where every country seems to field around 100 divisions. Imagine how this would turn out after 200 years. The VHOI4 system shows a "growth" in nation manpower, perhaps not linear, but when left for a century or two nations like Germany or the States could possibly have thousands of divisions and tens of millions of men in the field. This isn't very sensible, and caused by linear laws that reduce civilian factories/increase manpower without any prices.

When a certain amount of men are in the field, growth, recruitable men and training speed will reduce; it will induce a maximum amount of people in the field. This number will vary by ideology, but mostly won't excede 5 million.

Stability Overhaul
VHOI4 doesn't have the best idea of national stability; certainly changing your ideology entirely would cause instability within the government, but national unity doesn't effect your nation so much. Political power is quite similar, it doesn't represent any accurate figure. ToI aims to add two new figures, Stability(National Unity) and Political Control(Political Power).

Stability
Stability is a figure of how content your people are about the current government, its policies and its laws. It also shows how devoted your people are towards your current goals. Note this is different from party popularity as it also includes factors your government isn't necessarily responsible for, like famine or the social regime. Stability isn't much different from National Unity in the base game as it represents how much people are united; it slightly differs at it also includes the contentment of your people. What differs in ToI is what it effects; higher Stability increases recruitment, ideology drift defense, factory production etc. and decreases civilian factories, partisan effects, capitulation threshold etc.

Stability can be controlled mostly through laws and policies, but also is greatly effected by event chains. Generally stability and production efficiency have inverse relations, but this isn't always the case; there are many situations where one-dimensional trade between stability and production efficiency aren't all that matter. Stability is also increased by having high Political Control.

Stability can range from 90%~80%(Very High), 79%~ 70%(High), 69%~60%(Content), 59%~50%(Discontent), 49%~40%(Low), and 39%~(Unstable). Each step has its effects that are specified in the Stability page.

Low Stability means your people are discontent with your current doings and will revolt against your actions; their goals are rarely aligned with ideologies without outside manipulation. Low Stability effects general production and battle; the physical engine of your war machine. Your nation would capitulate much easier as well as like in VHOI4. On the other hand, high Stability means your people are inspired and eager to follow your commands. This increases combat strength of your soldiers and production efficiency.

Political Control
Political Control is a value of how much control you have over the general government. High Political Control allows you to execute laws and policies without much problem, and keep your government stable. Unlike Stability, Political Control isn't a status that has to do with your general people, but your cabinet and system of government.

Unlike Political Power in VHOI4, Political Control isn't a spendable currency; it's similar to Stability being a term that represents your percentage of control. New cabinet members, laws/policies and generals aren't introduced by expending Political Power, but can be appointed when Political Control is higher than a certain value. Only in certain situations, like employing a fascist cabinet in a democracy or increasing recruitment will expend small amounts of political control. Political control is gained by having the right collection of cabinet members, making the right decisions in policies and events, having high stability and having high party popularity.

Low Political Control isn't a direct hazard, and doesn't immediately effect your nation. But in the long run, your nation will be much easily politically divided, and without being capable to control your nation event chains are most likely to run haywire. Certain decisions in events are blocked with low Political Control, and very low Political Control can even cause civil wars.

Political Control and Stability have overlapping areas, both representing how well your nation is being maintained. Keeping them at sound values are crucial for having a successful game, nonetheless dominating the world.

Alongside the vanilla causes for instability, ToI plans on adding new causes for instability through events. This also gives a challenge for the player aiming for world conquest, enforcing the idea of "easy to learn, hard to master",

Independence Revolts
Owning a large amount of uncored territory shouldn't accept your rule as soon as the war is over. Owning uncored states that releasable nations can control cause instability. Quite similar to this but not exactly the same are the overhauls for releasable nations; releasing a nation will no longer only create a puppet with no divisions, but will have consequences through events.

Pacifism
In a real world where people aren't composed of digits and 3D graphics, people aren't willing to fight for your every order. In general most 'lowly' soldiers aren't willing to join the army and spare their lives, but when the king's order was first in the medieval ages pacifism was hardly a thing. However in the modern day, the general public has gained a sense of human rights, freedom to not be drafted and opposition against violence in general. Simply waging a war will cause unrest, and certainly drafting more and more people will cause pacifism to rise. In most cases pacifism is a simmering value and won't largely effect your nation other than protests and lower conscription. However when pacifism increases to high numbers, they interact with other values and cause devastating results, like civil wars, revolutions and coup de tats.

In the Victorian age to the First World War(or any giant conflict) pacifism will practically be nonexistent.

Modern Day Concepts
Unlike VHOI4 that only describes 9 years of the border of the Atomic Age, modern day has many complicated and intertwined mechanisms. Technology, politics, diplomacy, trade and more are all extremely complicated, and when translated into the basic HOI4 engine it becomes hilariously oversimplified; to make a more realistic experience it is required to add in Modern Day concepts into the game that are not existent within VHOI4.

Research
Researching is unfortunately not completely governed by the central government, and discoveries are, not something that can be found by investing a definite amount of time. However the vanilla system is extremely centred in the tech-tree system, and the idea of research institutes/facilities are rendered useless. To change this the idea of research facilities will be represented through buildings; yes, the same ones as mill facts and civ facts. Similar to the system of BICE where different types of factories effect different types of equipment production, not having any research facilities will hinder your research in large amounts while having more of a certain type will increase research speed. Constructing them will take a large amount of time and it is not advised to invest in building facilities with less than 30 civilian factories. Most nations will have a research facility of their own in the start of the game, and ones ravaged by war will take a long time to recover.

Having research facilities will also trigger certain events like 'discoveries'; throughout history several scientists and institutes have made breakthroughs in technology while VHOI4 lacks representation of these breakthroughs. For example when Switzerland converts their research facility to Nuclear Research and takes a focus tree for CERN, they will have the 'CERN Research Facility' that gives them a high chance to make global breakthroughs in Nuclear Technology. Only one breakthrough per technology can be made globally, and a nation that receives this breakthrough will have a boost in research speed.

Nuclear Warfare
Yes, nuclear warfare is represented as the A-Bomb within the game, and the lead-up to it is very well polished. However, HOI4 doesn't often go past the 50s, and trying to represent the tension of MAD in the Cold War or modern day nuclear warfare doctrines with experimental atomic bombs is not a great idea. VHOI4 also lacks the usage of missiles and space programs, and along with this the impact of nuclear weapons are surprisingly weak.

Nuclear weapons will be much more difficult to develop in the beginning stages; nations will have to go through several tests and survive international pressure to develop the atomic bomb. Of course the United States have the upper hand in this situation, and in almost all realistic situations either the US or the Soviets will be the first to develop nuclear weapons. We don't intend to make it impossible to do it as Nazi Germany or any other minor nations, but it will require many resources and a long time of investment. This could be represented as a series of focus trees, or the construction of Nuclear Weapons research facilities like above.

The might of nuclear weapons are underestimated in VHOI4 for balance reasons as well, and due to some policies it doesn't kill anybody. This is very unrealistic; nuclear weapons are meant to be the end-game death weapon that would destroy anything in its path. To reenact the fear for nuclear weapons, they will remove a substantial amount of population depending on the province(or state if Paradox does not allow province detection).

Also in VHOI4, the speed of one producing nuclear weapons increases in time in a linear manner; as you build more nuclear reactors you build nukes faster in a linear manner. However the buildup of nuclear weapons was extremely fast once as the US and the Soviet were equipped with the right tech. Along with the number of nuclear reactors, the speed of creating nuclear weapons will increase as technology advances, if Paradox allows this to be edited.

Nuclear weapons also are no longer delivered by strategic planes in modern day; the development of nuclear warheads allowed nations to fire nuclear weapons even without air superiority. ICBMs were able to be fired across the globe, and this is what enticed the horror of MAD. With vanilla coding it is possible to create a 'missile' type strategic plane with almost infinite range and high rates of air superiority. However this means that missiles can be misused as an OP air superiority tool; if Paradox were to allow editing nuclear weapon conditions, this would be much easier to reenact. The idea of adding missiles open a new branch of technology, and would hinder any nation behind the space race inferior, like real life.

Economy
Inside VHOI4, the economy is not expressed at all; it is only minimally used in concepts of strategic resource trade and equipment management. However within a war and a country during the post-modern age, the economy of a nation is crucial to understanding how a nation would plan their future, and respond to current events. Without economy the Great Depression, Black Monday, hyperinflation and international trade all become arbitrary events without any figurative description, and leads to a lacking game. However currently VHOI4 doesn't support custom variables, and without them it is near impossible to emulate an economy. We make the assumption that variables are available in the enactment of economy, and to make sure the game doesn't lead of too far we will focus on a few deterministic factors of economy.