[091117]HOI4 Dev Diary - Decisive Action

HOI4

Hey everyone! In today’s dev diary for 1.5 “Cornflakes” and the unannounced expansion (SoonTM) we will finally be taking a look at that mysterious new icon in the top bar we’ve been mercilessly teasing you with these past months... ;) Make sure to grab a large stein of your favourite beverage. This diary is going to be pretty big...
嗨大家好，在今天关于 1.5 "玉米片"更新一集未公布的DLC的开发日志中，会揭晓上一期日志有关顶部栏神秘图标的谜题。这个功能已经测试了好几个月了。搬好板凳拿好瓜子慢慢来看吧。

Bringing down the gavel

Back in this diary @podcat talked about “a way for players to take dynamic decisions, quickly. Something that fits between events and national focuses”.
在之前的日志中， podcat 谈到了一个"让玩家做出迅速的动态决策，有时候这个东西可以填补事件和国策之间的空白"

Though it fulfils its role as a narrative tool very well, we’ve never been entirely happy with the focus tree system. It does some things very well: it shows complex story lines and long term options, and it allows the player to, well, focus their efforts in certain ways. However, it had significant problems in that it was rigidly tied to the design of the tree and never very dynamic, with most focuses needing a 70 day lead-up time before things actually happen. This not only made it problematic to the player (for instance, realizing you -really- need to move that industry to the Urals just 10 days after you picked a different focus, and so having to hold out for 130 days before it can be moved), it also made it very difficult for the designers, since it required us to essentially try and predict the state of the world years in advance.
尽管国策树作为一个叙述工具效果非常不错，但是它并不能让我们满意。国策树在某些方面做的就很好，它展现了复杂的故事线，长期选项以及让玩家注意国策带来的效果。然而，这带来的问题就是国策树过于死板，永远没有变化，绝大部分的国策都需要70天来生效。这就给玩家带来许多问题 (比如，在点了某个国策10天后想把工业转移到乌拉尔的话，恐怕就不得不等待130天才能实现了),这给游戏策划也带来许多问题，毕竟这使得我们必须提前预测整个世界的局势。

Enter the decision system. The idea behind it is that this would enable the player to be able to quickly react to dynamically arising crises, and not be locked in to the 70-day timetable for NFs. Furthermore, it also provides Content Designers and modders with new and exciting ways to create things for the player to do, or things to react to. The former of these are decisions, the latter are missions. All of these are divided into categories, which themselves can have an icon, flavor localisation, and even a small picture if desired.
在决策系统中，核心的理念是让玩家能够对动态发生的危机做出快速回应，不会有国策树一样的70天周期。不仅如此，这也给内容设计师和 mod 制作者新的有趣的方式来创建决策让玩家来执行，也可以创建任务让玩家来应对。所有的这些都会分成各个类别，每一类都会有一个图标，支持多语言且会有小图片。

We don’t intend for this system to replace the National Focus Trees. Instead, we want to supplement National Focus Trees with decisions to specify more generic focuses, and provide more dynamic gameplay - for example, a focus might give you a decision so that you yourself can choose when you’ll get the effect.
这个系统并不是为了取代国家焦点才有的。我们只是用更加通用的焦点和更加动态的游戏体验为了来补充国策树而已。举例来说，一个焦点可能会给你选择什么时候你要得到效果。

Decisions 决策

Decisions come in two forms. The most basic example of these are simple ‘click and receive’ decisions, much like in other Paradox titles. A simple click on the button will provide a one-off effect, not entirely unlike a national focus that finishes instantly. Decisions can also have permanent or temporary modifiers, acting more like a national spirit in this regard (this was done to keep the national spirit list a bit more manageable).
决策会有两种形式，最基本的是 "点击就送" 决策，就像其他的 paradox 游戏中的一样。点击按钮就能得到一次性效果，这点跟国策树是一样的，完成立即得到效果。决策还能给予永久或是临时性的修正，可以看成国家精神 (这是为了让国家精神列表更加容易管理)。

Other decisions are ‘timed’. They are active for a short while, can confer a modifier during that time (which can be either a bonus or a penalty), and once they time out they provide the one-off effect that regular decisions do.
另一种决策是"限时"的。这些决策只会在短时间内激活，会在这段时间内给予一定修正 (有可能是buff也有可能是debuff)， 时间到期之后，这种决策会像前一种一样给予一个一次性效果。

The base cost of these decisions is political power, but the effects can be scripted to result in other penalties or costs as well. For example, an “Army Reform” decision might have a penalty to Army XP as an effect, in addition to the listed political power cost.
决策的基础消耗是政治点数，不过在脚本中可以把它修改成其他的资源。举例来说， "军队改革" 决策可以修改成使用陆军经验来激活而不是政治点数。

An example of a system we have re-worked to utilize decisions extensively is the current ideology switching mechanics. Previously, you would need to choose an ideology pusher advisor (Fascist Demagogue, Communist Revolutionary, or Democratic Reformer) and would then receive events at random intervals, with little ability for the player to influence things, and little reason to choose a costly civil war over the referendum alternative. And then, of course, you were at the mercy of the random number generator to find out how long it actually took until the event you wanted fired.
一个我们正在重置的系统中大量使用到决策系统的是目前的意识形态切换系统。之前你只要钦定顾问，就可以定时收获一定的支持率，玩家并没有什么其他方式来干预，可以公投的话一般也不会选择内战。这样就导致了是随机数决定了你具体什么时候才能转政体。

Now, the player will have the option of taking a variety of decisions once an ideology pusher advisor has been taken. You get the choice of either a peaceful, but longer path, or a civil war path that is shorter and should be more attractive in general, now.
现在的话，玩家在钦定了意识形态相关顾问后会获得选项。玩家可以选择通过一种和平的，长期的路线，也可以是短期的内战路线来达到转政体的目的。

Various decisions now allow you to increase the future strength of your side in the civil war, to ensure the loyalty of certain generals, as well as gaining a temporary ‘surprise attack’ bonus and a small equipment cache. They are not all needed, but once you fulfill the conditions and feel you are ready you may simply ‘ignite the civil war’ and take your chances with what you have.
各种各样的决策可以让你在之后的内战中得到更强大的军事实力，某些将领以及临时的"奇袭"加成和少量装备库存。可能他们并不都是玩家所需要的，这样的话只要你满足了条件并且觉得时机成熟后就可以选择"激活内战"。

You have total control over when things happen when changing ideology, assuming you fulfill the criteria to take the decisions.
在转政体的时候，具体什么时候转完全取决于玩家。当然前提是你得满足决策的条件。

Another aspect that has been reworked is the resource system. It is currently quite rigid, and although tying it in with infrastructure level has made it a bit more dynamic, there was still no real way of drastically redrawing the resource map. Decisions now take this rework and propel it further. New decisions make it possible to ‘prospect’ for new resource deposits, depending on your level of excavation tech. For a cost, various historical deposits may now become accessible to nations controlling the relevant provinces. In the cases where there are already existing focuses to develop new resources (the Italian oil fields in Africa come to mind), taking the focuses will lock the decisions and vice-versa.
另一个重做的系统是战略资源。目前的话它是比较死板的，即时让它和基建等价挂钩给了它一点动态性，然而依旧没有什么方法能够提升战略资源的获取。决策现在则可以承担这个任务了。新的决策系统可以根据科技中的资源勘探等级，来"勘探"新的资源。各种各样的历史矿藏点或许会对控制国来说就可以开采了。 (比如非洲的意大利油田)， 选择相应的国策就会锁定决策，反过来也是一样的。

Missions 任务

Missions are in effect decisions that require an action on the player’s part to fulfill. Once they are completed, they provide bonuses just like decisions. However, they can also be made to have a limited duration, and to give penalties to the player if they do not accomplish the mission in time. This allows us, for example, to make Plan Z require the building of a certain amount of ships within a specific timeframe.
任务是需要玩家满足条件来达成才能获得效果的。一旦任务完成之后，它们立即给予决策一样的奖励。不过，任务是有时间限制的，在限定时间内没有完成的话会给玩家惩罚。举例来说，为了达成 Z 计划的任务，玩家需要在限定时间内建造一定数量的军舰。

It also gives us the ability to give more direction to the player’s objectives when invading the Soviet Union, or, indeed, other countries. These might be tied to other decisions that give a temporary boost to your forces - but only if you commit to certain objectives, with a possible associated penalty if you fail.
这还让我们可以给予侵略各国其是苏联的玩家更多的指引。这可能也会和其他的给予短时间增益的决策绑定在一起。不过只有完成任务之后才能得到奖励，失败的话是会有惩罚的。

Decision-Mission Interaction 决策-任务交互

Both of these can be made to interact with each other in interesting ways. For instance, the new German decision “Case Anton” will fire a mission for Vichy France, warning them of their impending demise but giving them a decision to scuttle their fleet beforehand, at least ensuring it will stay out of German hands. A fast-acting German player may be able to prevent this, and thereby obtain the whole (or remnants) of the French fleet.
决策和任务是可以以多种方式互相交互的。举例来说，德国的决策"Case Anton"会给维西法国一个任务，让它们放弃抵抗加入德国，不过也会给他们一个决策来选择在此之前凿沉所有军舰，至少不给德国佬。一个反应够快的德国玩家则可以组织这个事情发生并接受所有维西法国海军。

The British player may, in turn, attempt to force the French to transfer the fleet to British hands, or damage it.
而英国玩家，则可以让法国将海军转手，或是直接摧毁。

MEFO bills fire a mission every 3 months requiring the decision ‘extend MEFO bills’ to be taken. The alternative is to let the bills fall due and suffer through a period of down-payments that may hamper you in the short-term, but may save you a lot of political power in the long-term.
MEFO bills 则会每3个月激活一个任务，要求选择"延长MEFO bills"。不然的话就会一定时间内收到惩罚。不过长期来看可以省下很多政治点数。

Crises 危机

One of the things we wanted to do with the decision system is to make things a little more dynamic. This was often not possible under the old focus tree/event system, especially in hectic multiplayer games where you really need to pay attention to other things and can’t be bothered to read through an event right at that instant.
在做决策系统的时候我们还想着有个东西能让游戏更加动态化。这在之前的国策系统中是无法实现的，尤其是多人游戏中，玩家不得不注意各种各样的东西，而懒得看刚触发的事件。

With the decision system, we can now create a problem and give you the option to solve it when you have the time to do so. You have already seen one of these crisis way back in the dev diary about stability and war support: if either of them is very low, your people might become unruly, try to avoid the draft or go on strike. The decision system will then include a simple decision to handle it, which fires an event in which you can select different approaches to the problem. At the same time, a mission is used to simulate the situation deteriorating over time if your approach fails. We feel that this makes the game feel a little more dynamic and unpredictable, without turning into pop-up hell.
在决策系统中，我们可以给玩家抛出一个问题，玩家在有空的时候需要来解决。在之前的日志中出现过类似的危机例子，关于稳定与战争支持度。如果他们都很低，人民会变成刁民，尝试逃避兵役或是罢工。决策系统现在回用一个简单的决策来处理它，让玩家对问题可以有各种各样的选择。同时，任务可以用来模拟情况的恶化，万一你选择的方法失败的话。我们觉得这让游戏在没有太多弹出窗口的前提下更加动态，更难预测。

Special Projects 特殊任务

Some decisions may well involve such a large investment that it cannot easily be represented by a mere temporary modifier. This is especially true if it involves embarking on projects with huge industrial ramifications. A new category in the industry tab called “Special Projects” will now keep track of such investments.
某些决策会要求一些较大的投资，并且不能由临时修正来模拟。尤其是这种投资占据的是工厂。现在工业标签页中会有一个新的"特殊项目"，来追踪这些投资。

Counteracting Pop-up Spam 处理垃圾弹出消息

Another thing we aimed to address with the new decision interface is the issue of event spam. There is an ever-increasing amount of news (and other) events that are thrown in the player’s face. Sometimes this is desired, but other times it can be quite annoying. The new interface has handy checkboxes to select whether regular events or news events should be shown as a pop-up or simply be stored in the decision interface where the player can view them when they have time.
另一个我们在新的决策系统处理了的问题是垃圾事件。越来越多的弹出消息会不断的在游戏中出现。有时候玩家很乐意见到他们，而另外的一些时候这就很让人恼火了。新的界面会有一个勾选框来选择定期时间，新闻事件是弹出，还是保存在决策界面。保存在决策界面的话玩家可以有时间再去看。

This allows the player to quickly choose what form of notification they prefer. During a micro-heavy multiplayer invasion of the Soviet Union it may well be better to have all events be stored in the menu for later reference, while during the early-game build-up it may well be better to be informed of global news as it happens, to know what direction the game is taking.
这让玩家可以快速的选择他们喜欢的提示方式。在多人联机游戏中入侵苏联的时候，可能让各种事件存起来之后再看更好。而在游戏早期则尽早的收到提示更好。

The future for Decisions 今后的决策系统

Decisions are a great complement to focus trees and events and we see ourselves continuously adding to this with future expansions. The base system and core decisions needed for game balance and interacting with new things like stability will be part of the 1.5 “Cornflakes” update while most of the flavor, prospecting and special projects and such are part of the DLC. Decisions tied to the new focus trees are, obviously, also going to be part of the DLC.
决策系统是对国策与事件系统的补充。我们在之后的开发日志中会更加详细的介绍。基础的系统以及游戏平衡相关的核心决策会附带进1.5的免费更新中。然而大多数的资源勘探，特殊项目是DLC限定。国策附带的决策理所当然的也是DLC限定。

Next week we are going to be showing off a focus tree. Feel free to guess which one :)

PS. The third episode of our beginner-stream with @Da9L and @bus is coming up today. Even though most of you are probably familiar with the basics, this is perfect for any friends that want to join in. Check out the Paradox twitch today at 16:00 CET: https://go.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive