Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV

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MTG Expanded Improved Lite
   
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69.182 MB
24 Aug, 2024 @ 11:41am
12 Sep, 2024 @ 2:49pm
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MTG Expanded Improved Lite

Description
This mode is an unofficial trimmed down and updated implementation of MTG Expanded Improved. While most of the added ships are retained, such as Escort Carriers, Light Carriers, Flight Deck Cruiser, etc, the overpowered custom modules aren't. While I can't speak for compatibility with other mods or DLCs, since I only have a few, it seems to play well with mods that don't affect ship techs, and of course requires Man the Guns.

Included are:
Escort Carriers
Light Carriers
Flight Deck Cruiser
Additional Sub Types
Battle Carrier (Think battleship equivalent of flight deck Cruiser)
Some Additional hangar modules from MTG Expanded Improved
Upgradability to the next hull design, but you can't just go straight from a 1922 hull to a 1944 directly. You'll have to do it step by step
Ability to upgrade from converted cruiser carrier, to a light carrier 1.
Ability to upgrade converted battleship carrier to a full fleet carrier 1.
Ability to upgrade coastal defense ships to cruiser 1, or to converted cruiser carrier, or Flight Deck cruiser.
Ability to convert a convoy ship to an empty escort carrier via decision (to reflect real life examples of refitting frieghter ships to CVE) - WIP

Removed are all of the overpowered custom weapons that the AI doesn't understand anyway, and never properly counters.
Removed is the ability to upgrade a base tier ship all of the way to 1944 hull in just 1 jump
Removed is the ability to refit a destroyer to an escort carrier.
And other tweaks.

That mod was made for the purposes of allowing me and my friends to play using MTG Expanded Improved since the original hasn't been updated, using the most useful but not overpowered parts. It is for our own use, though you are welcome to use it as well. It seems to work decent, but take in mind, I'm not a modder, and it was converted/updated in only a few hrs. Don't expect perfection. Expect frequent tweaks as I learn how do fix stuff and dial things in.

*****Mod Stacking*****
For those asking if this mod works with this mod or that, while I've tidied up the mod structures and files to only disturb what it absolutely necessary for this mod to work in hopes of increasing likelihood for it to coexist with other mod, I cannot guarantee it since I'm not targeting a specific mod for compatibility. This mod is intended to stand on it's own, and not being chained to another mod as a submod. That being said, I have had some success getting it to run alongside Expanded Designers combined mod, and The Road to 56, overwriting just their naval trees and equipment. While expanded designers seems to naturally load first by default with this mod loading after, nothing was required to make it work. However, The Road to 56 by default loads after, every time, overriding this mod entirely. This cannot be changed, since Paradox only briefly gave us the capability to change load order from the launcher playsets, and then took the ability away later. While the launcher appears to let you swap load ordering around, this does nothing in reality. And this ends the ability for this mod to be loaded on top of mods that default to loading after it such as The Road to 56 right? No, there is a workaround. Both mods must be saved as local mods. This does have some downsides. 1, it requires copying a few files and modifying the descriptor files. 2, the local copies of these mods will not receive updates automatically, though the subscribed copies still will, and you may be able to update the local copies manually by copying the updated subscribed copy's folder over the local copy, overwriting the files. And 3, while I did verify my mod did run, as well as either of these mods, y seeing items from both were visible in the game, I did not fully analyze that there weren't tech dependencies, or decisions, or focii, etc that might be looking fora naval tech to make them valid. Thus, you may play the game all the way to the 40's only to find that you can't activate some decision that requires you to have a 1950 carrier, which doesn't exist in this mod, yet. Or this mod calls X tech by a different name.

Here's how to stack mods, and get this one to load last, modifying the 1st mod. In this case, I'll use The Road to 56 as an example. This is in windows, but the process should be similar in linux. You'll just have to look up the relevant folders.

1: Assuming you are subscribed to both mods already, identify and write their mod numbers somewhere. This can be done by browsing to them in steam, and looking above at the address, the mod number follows the part saying "id=". In the case of this mod you'll see "3316349391", and "820260968" for The Road to 56.
2: Go into your steam folder, and find steamapps, then workshop, then content, then the folder with this game's number (394360) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\394360" in my case. There you will see a bunch of folders with numbers for names.
3: Locate the 2 folders with numbers matching the numbers you written down that match these mods. Open a new explorer window and browse to your documents folder, then paradox interactive, then hearts of iron IV, then mod Mine looks like this "C:\Users\(redacted)\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Hearts of Iron IV\mod". You'll copy those 2 folders into here.
4: Rename the folders to something you can identify for each, and find the file in this folder with a name like "ugc_(mod number).mod". In the case of my mod it'd be "ugc_3316349391.mod". Open this file in the text editor of your choice, and immediately Save As (whatever you just named the matching folder to) For example, if I renamed the folder to this mod to "mtgeil", I'd save the file as "mtgeil.mod". DO NOT just hit save. Do not overwrite the original ugc_(mod number).mod file. We are copying it under a new name that matches your folder. Do this for both mods, each with a different name you can remember. No spaces.
5: In each newly named file, in your favorite text editor. You will need to delete the line with remote_file _id, and change the pat to the full patch of your locally saved folder you renamed a couple of steps back. Using the example above again, in my case it would be (path="C:/Users/redacted/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Hearts of Iron IV/mod/mtgeil". This has to point to it's respective folder in order to work. Do the same for the other mod's .mod file, pointing to the folder you renamed for it.
6: Enter each of those folders, and you'll find a file called "descriptor.mod" Open them in your editor and you'll notice it almost the same. It will not be necessary to change any patch in this file, as there is none, but you will need to delete the remote_file_id here too.
7: Here's the step that'll determine effective load order, in both the *.mod files of the mod you wish to load second., meaning, the *.mod file in the root folder with all of the ugc_ files, and the similar descriptor.mod file within the folder, you will need to add the line dependencies = { "<first loaded mod here>" }. For example, I'm trying to load The Road to 56 mod first, and then have my mod lay on top of it to change the navel tech, I'd put in my mtgeil.mod file, and the descriptor.mod file int he mtgeil folder, dependencies = { "The Road to 56" }, below the supported_version line, on a new line. This name must match the name shown on the name= line of the primary mod's desciptor.mod file.
8: Lastly, when you start the launcher, you'll set up your playset, when you add new mods, you should see a duplicate of each mod, just without a thumbnail. Those are the mods to add. When you launch, you should have both working. In the Case to The Road to 56, it'll be obvious from the music, load screens, and menu screen that it's running. And when you start your new game, you should be able to view research, and see this mod has taken priority over the naval tech.
21 Comments
TY 14 Feb @ 5:01am 
Update pls
Soul_XP 5 Dec, 2024 @ 9:48pm 
Hey, you updating this?

Just asking is all.
SteahmChip 3 Oct, 2024 @ 10:53pm 
I like that youi ncluded extensive instructions to migrate the mods to the local drive from its subscription form.

You might wish to include a copy of a portion "before" and "after: of some of the files edited to get a better visualization of the changes required in those files from what they were before.

especially the mod load order and how to set it up and what the file contents look like and as far as a load order emphasizing how the lines should look to get "mod A" to overwrite "mod B"

The result should be posted as a guide!
Diabeetus  [author] 13 Sep, 2024 @ 7:49am 
@Torres, this mod should let you do pretty much that, at least by avenue of refitting to the next hull level. You can refit from one hull year to the next. Was just playing with a friend with it, and upgraded my early subs to '36s.
Torres 13 Sep, 2024 @ 12:38am 
What I mean is that there's a point in which it doesn't matter how good of a crew you got, at some point next level tech rolls out and they just utterly destroy your subs.

Mainly because for some reason there's no way to take those expert submariners and just send them into a new type of sub (with a tiny penalty hit as they get used to a new type of boat).

We're forced to scrap old submarines along with their crew and just make the new ones do training exercises or send them to war at green level of training.

I just don't get it I was hoping there was a mod that allowed for all ships of all kinds to be refitted to even the newer models to avoid this or some sort of mod that allows you save the experience of your men, even in battleships, and export it into a newer model as you would "reassing the crew to a new vessel".
Diabeetus  [author] 12 Sep, 2024 @ 2:03pm 
Not sure what you mean about rolling the sonar. But I can certainly double check the scripts to see if I missed an entry or 2. But you should be able to upgrade just about everything between tiers, if only by 1 step at a time. The original mod allowed upgrading all the way on the whole line, which we opted against for balance. It wouldn't make sense to be able to upgrade a 1922 destroyer straight to a 1944 hull design, and it posed too much of a player advantage. But a 1922 destroyer to 1936, then later from a 1936 to 1939, etc makes more sense, and less exploitable. Should work the same with subs, but I'll double check on this.
Torres 12 Sep, 2024 @ 7:34am 
Could you add the ability to refit all subs into newer models? even at 3 times the cost? because it's a pain in the ass to get a proper trainer crew and they're all in type VII 1936/39 subs and now comes rolling the sonar and they're all dead...
Diabeetus  [author] 6 Sep, 2024 @ 2:12pm 
@tetsumeko13, sorry, the previous comments were actually for @Soul_XP. Lol. However, good news for you too. After my last cleaning up in the mod, I have successfully gotten it to load on top of road to 56. Unfortunately, the way mod load ordering works, it'll require you to copy this mod as a local mod, and edit the descriptor files to add road to 56 as a dependency. Pretty easy, and I'll write how when I'm home from work later.
Diabeetus  [author] 2 Sep, 2024 @ 11:41am 
@Tetsumeko13 check the update. Additional sonars, and additional airplane launcher, and super heavy 2.
Diabeetus  [author] 1 Sep, 2024 @ 12:50pm 
Incidentally, we are discussing contacting the road to 56 to include their extended era tech to allow for extended play. This would be limited to naval tech, as opposed to other things 56 touches, like focii, events, decisions, and the other techs. If that were to happen, and our mod gets loaded after 56 and overwrites 56s naval tech, it may work quite well. Or adjustments can likely be made to facilitate that. But RN, I'm just looking to fix, stabilize, and flesh out what's already there, while trying to keep balanced.