u/Sea_Shelter_1382

The current state of the AI in HOI4 is just unacceptable for a game that’s been in development for over a decade. Even the most basic stuff like division/tank/air templates is a total mess, yes you can make a “historical” argument but against a play who knows what they’re doing everything the AI builds just melts against even reasonably competent templates. It’s totally unacceptable that it takes something like Sheep’s mod to get the AI building templates that are actively competitive in the context of the game, even if you wanted to include “easy” or historical designs that should be configurable through game settings.

When we get to the more complex stuff the AI is just objectively broken. Go load up a Japan game and tell me if the U.S. AI can get anywhere close to a reasonably competitive Navy against you. I’ve run games to 1944, tagged switched over to the Allies, and seen them building 1936 carrier designs. Half of the mechanics in the game aren’t even used by the AI, I’ve never seen it intelligently use spotting/NAV aircraft against me and when was the last time you saw the AI pull off a large encirclement maneuver against you?

95%+ of the player base plays HOI in SinglePlayer, it is absolutely reasonable to expect the AI to be able to use the basic mechanics of WW2 combat like encirclements instead of just pushing their entire line of infantry against fortifications. Hamfisting “fixes” for this like giving nations an absurd amount of manpower isn’t really a fix, it just papers over the fact that the AI has no idea how to coordinate a push against an enemy line which should be one of the most basic mechanics in a WW2 game.

How does HOI5 fix this? I’m not really sure, but mechanically everything it builds needs to be designed around “how do we make a game that the AI can sustainably play”. Just getting countries to play the game at the level of a player with ~50 hours of experience would be a *massive* upgrade over where we are now

I’m an endurance athlete who can spend up to 10 hours outdoors at a time, often with UV indexes between 7-11. It can also be extremely humid during those hours, so while it is hot and sunny I’m also getting extremely wet. I’m also unfortunately pretty pale and burn easily

I’ve been trying out a few brands of sunscreen over the years but still haven’t found a great combination of price/performance/durability. It’s sort of a unique use-case because I do NOT care about sheen/whiteness at all, the only thing that really matters is that

A. The sunscreen is easy to apply when my skin is sweaty

B. It is resistant to sweat AND salty sweat

C. It lasts for a very long time (ideally the whole day)

D. It isn’t exorbitantly expensive

Of the U.S. sunscreens I’ve tried most do not last more than a few hours. The best performer has been Riemann’s P20 Kids, which I’ve found to last much longer than the other sub brands (sensitive skin ect.) I will also occassionally double up a layer of something more expensive like Riemann or La Roche Posay with a cheaper brand like Blue Lizard just to get more physical sunscreen on. But I have had many expensive Euro brands come off during the day leaving me with a deep tan if not a burn.

Curious if folks here have any recommendations, again sheen/whiteness does NOT matter and is almost desired because it tells you if the sunscreen is still on. I assume kids formulations are often better here because they don’t optimize for looks, they’re just about protection. Open to reasonably priced foreign brands of course (I was about to buy $100 of R P20 but figured I’d ask first)