Hearts of Iron IV: Historical Artillery

This mod adds Historical Artillery to the Game.

***Historical Artillery***

Version: 1.3.1

Summary:
Historical Artillery rescues artillery from the dustbin of Paradox’s questionable design choices and restores it to its historical importance, all with a keen focus on game balance and playability. If you think the current balance of artillery in Hearts of Iron 4 is flawed and ahistorical, this is the mod for you!

Kaiserreich Version: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1713370859

Why This Mod Exists:
I’ve always been bothered by the way the division designer in HOI4 works. On one hand, players and the AI are encouraged to build divisions with a width of 20. On the other hand, the weird combat widths of artillery, anti-tank, and anti-air battalions seem designed to make them as unoptimal as possible, and make it impossible to create an even vaguely historical-looking division without it being laughably bad. It also seems that Paradox made a deliberate decision to abstract line artillery into infantry battalions, which explains why no countries start with any line artillery in their divisions. The de-emphasization of artillery doesn’t just offend the sensibilities of perfectionist history nerds such as myself – it negatively affects the game’s balance by devaluing advantages in industry and leaving the AI too vulnerable to things like tanks and paratroopers.

Main Features:
– Artillery, anti-air, and anti-tank battalions each cost 0.5 combat width. The optimal 20-width infantry division should now consist of 9 INF and 4 ART/AA/AT battalions. This mod isn’t balanced around 40 width divisions because I consider those to be an exploit, but if you do use them they shouldn’t be any more broken than they are in vanilla.
– Non-rocket artillery soft attack has been increased by 10% and defense has been increased by a whopping 50%. If you want to hold the line you better bring artillery.
– Rocket artillery has gotten a 10% boost to soft attack and a 20% boost to breakthrough. Rocket artillery is great for cheap breakthrough units but doesn’t have the sustained fire to blunt attacks like regular artillery does.
– In addition to the above buffs, a large portion of infantry equipment’s defense and breakthrough values have been transferred to artillery equipment. A 9 INF 3 ART division in this mod is now roughly equivilant to a 9 INF division in vanilla.
– Artillery, anti-air, and anti-tank battalions are half the size but use just as much manpower. Without factoring in this mod’s other balance changes, 2 modded artillery battalions are essentially equivalent to 1 vanilla artillery battalion except they now use twice as much manpower and cost more organization. If this seems like a nerf that’s because it mostly is, and it’s necessary to counter this mod’s other buffs, discourage excessive artillery spam, and allow for greater freedom when designing divisions.
– Although the stats anti-air and anti-tank equipment are unchanged, the lower combat width of artillery and the smaller size of AA and AT battalions make it more viable to include them in your divisions.
– SPG battalions now cost 1 combat width. These have not been halved in size like the other types of artillery battalions as that would require a total rebalance of armored battalions, which is outside the scope of this mod.
– Most industrialized countries now start with line artillery in their armies, and less advanced countries start with less or no artillery.
– The AI will actually build enough artillery to properly equip its divisions, and certain countries will also build AA and AT. This brings down division spam (because fewer factories are being used for infantry equipment) and makes the AI a little more resilient to the types of strategies employed by competent players.

1.1 Changelog:
– Fixed a nasty bug which caused ART/AA/AT to become MASSIVELY overpowered. Balance should be greatly improved.
– Banned Japan from building AT because the Japanese Army thought it would be a good idea to spam anti tank guns against enemies struggling to equip their men with rifles.
– Italy now uses slightly more artillery than it did before.

1.2 Changelog:
– Most majors start with 3 artillery battalions in their infantry divisions, up from 2.
– The USA should now use more artillery and less anti-tank.
– The Soviet Union should now use less anti-tank.
– Germany should now use more artillery and less AA.
– Support artillery, anti-tank, and anti-air now have 20 organization up from 0. This is to bring them in line with other support companies, reflect their greater integration with infantry, and slightly increase the organization of the typical division.

1.2.1 Changelog:
– Added compatibility for Hearts of Iron 4 Version 1.6.1

1.2.2 Changelog:
– Added compatibility for Hearts of Iron 4 Version 1.6.2

1.3.0 Changelog:
– Infantry have lost 4 defense and 1 breakthrough.
– Artillery have gained 12 defense and 3 breakthrough.
– Rocket artillery has gotten a slight buff to breakthrough and defense to bring it in line with changes to regular artillery.
– Infantry battalions (including motorized, mechanized, and special forces) have gained 10 base organization.
– Special forces battalions now have the same HP as infantry battalions. This is to compensate for special forces divisions usually not using line artillery and also corrects a vanilla balance decision that no longer makes sense due to the introduction of the special forces cap.

1.3.1 Changelog:
– Added compatibility for Hearts of Iron 4 Version 1.7.0

The Future of this Mod:
I will continue to tweak this mod based on player feedback and my own observations. I am looking into tweaking SPGs and support companies in a future patch.

My Other Mod:
If you like Historical Artillery, check out my other mod, Historical Industry: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1703287756

Compatibility:
Historical Artillery is incompatible with any mod that alters artillery, anti-tank, anti-air, and infantry battalions or equipment. It is also incompatible with any mods that change starting divisions or AI templates. If you’re not sure whether a mod is compatible with this one, you can look at the files for both mods in your Steam workshop folder; if another mod contains the same files as Historical Artillery, it’s not compatible.