Developer Diary | Military Industrial Organisations (MIO's)

Now we talked about the concepts of the MIO’s in the Dev corner in may but since then we have done a lot of work taking onboard internal and community feedback and from that work we have changed lots of things. This means that some of the things we talked about previously in the dev corner won't be true anymore. That's enough prefacing so let's get into it, let's see what the finished MIO’s look like.

So to reiterate what we went over in the last dev corner here is what we identified and how we wanted to improve it. Firstly we have the current model of companies in HOI.

Currently we have to provide static modifiers and sometimes change them via scripted decisions or focus rewards, this makes them very un-interactive and mostly something you click once and then forget about, it's just another modifier on your country.

By creating a more organic system to upgrade your design companies you the player can now decide what these upgrades are and tailor them to fit your playstyle. Additionally we can now reward the player for using a design company as opposed to simply having you save up a resource and click a button, rewarding you for putting effort into them.

From this we had an intent and goals established.

Intent

• Create a sense of a living organisation the player can interact with rather than a static bonus as with current design companies.

Goals

• Allow the player to define their designer direction.

• Integrate design companies into production

• Provide a framework for national specialisms that can be used on the world stage

So let's see what the final version of the MIO’s look like. So firstly how do you see your MIO's? This is as simple as previously you can find your MIO’s in the political menu where you would have found the buttons to unlock design companies before.

From here we can click on details and this will show the detailed page for that specific MIO, this is where you will upgrade that MIO as it grows in size.

Right so this is very different from the mock ups from the dev corner so let's go through this.

Firstly let's talk about the progression change in the middle. Previously we had 6 departments (3 design, 3 manufacture) each with their own stats and unlocks; this now has been condensed into 1 tree covering everything for the MIO. The old design was very void of narrative and feeling and often was overwhelming with choice but underwhelming in effect. By bringing everything into a tree like so with fewer actual unlocks your choices are more impactful and the compromises are clearer. The trees also allow for a narrative progression through the small advances made within companies that the bonuses provided represent.

In addition to this we have unique traits for some MIO’s that represent them having their historical unique capabilities.

Departments now represent the groupings of equipment an MIO will affect this allows you to have a quick snapshot of the bonuses an MIO can and is offering so if you see an MIO with a department for medium tanks you know to expect it to give you houses for that and once you’ve unlocked some of those traits you will see them on the department/