Why I’m Not Purchasing No Compromise No Surrender
No compromise, no surrender is Hoyor’s next big DLC release. And am I going to buy it? Well, no, as I’ve decided that I am not going to purchase this DLC. And here’s why. First up, Graveyard of Empires released this year. Remember, it is now November 2025, and to date, Graveyard of Empires is still Hoy’s most recent major DLC release. It came out only eight months ago. And have Paradox managed to fix it even with all of those patches that they rushed out in a panic. Well, if the reviews are anything to go by, they absolutely did not. Because look at them. Very negative to overwhelmingly negative. Not even Trial of Allegiance has it that bad. It’s only mostly negative. In my opinion, Paradox did the bare minimum to make people stop talking about GOE. They applied some quick fixes, called it a day, and moved on. Do you really think they’ll go back and fix it again? Outside of war effort patches, they have no reason to do so. So why, oh why, are we trusting that Paradox won’t just mess it up again? They willingly released GOE in the original state that it was. Communist India was basically unplayable. Many other paths didn’t function properly. And don’t quote me on this, but I heard some achievements were borked. Well, the main reason seems to be that the people developing NCNS are not the same people who developed GoE. If you didn’t know, Hoy 4 actually has two development teams that actively work on it. From what I recall, one of them works directly in Sweden, while the other one works remotely all over the world, which unsurprisingly does have its downsides. So, yes, on the surface, the situation does look better. GDR’s team is the one who is actually making this one, and that DLC was actually wellreceived. So, what is the big problem? The teams do not exist in a vacuum. They both work for the same company on the exact same game and ultimately they both report to the same person. As far as I am concerned, both Hoyore teams are responsible for all of Go’s problems. The remote team might have made it, but it was the Sweden team that had all the time to look over it, delay it, or even improve it, but it was still published all the same. They did not do their due diligence during GOE’s developments, and on the whole, the Hoy 4 team’s track record recently isn’t that good. Trial of Allegiance had extreme power creep that had to be nerfed. GOE should not have been released in the state that it was, and despite any issues, GDR was okay, as that happened to include countries people actually wanted to play. So, it gets a pass. But that’s still two out of three DLCs recently that had major problems. Don’t mistake this as me saying I want or expect the DLC to be bad. I don’t. However, with all of this taken into account, being extremely skeptical of Paradox’s ability to make a good DLC is justified. And if you want to take any advice from this segment, do not pre-order anything. But that’s not the only red flag Paradox has given us. More recently, we had the Man the Guns incident. On September 23rd, 2025, Paradox announced that Man the Guns would be integrated into the base game and no longer would be sold, which to be absolutely clear, I don’t agree with. I believe there are better solutions that Paradox could have done. And before we get into this, I want to address something that people like to bring up whenever this is discussed. and that is, oh, you just don’t like it when people get stuff for free, do you? Which is just not the problem. No one has a problem with that. The big problem is what Paradox is actually doing. The first thing I’d like to cover is the idea of, “Oh, you got your money’s worth already. Why do you care?” Which I just think is absolutely insane and borderline irresponsible a paradox to be throwing that around like they do. It’s not your right to tell someone else that they have gotten value from their purchase. You cannot decide that for them. And yes, I’m sure for some they did get theirs. However, saying this discounts all the people who didn’t get value from their purchase, especially people who only bought the DLCs recently. A lot of people likely got rugpulled because of this. And yes, Steam will likely give a refund for that. But that’s not Paradox is doing. That’s just Steam being a good platform. Let’s not forget Paradox’s official excuse for this is that it would make development easier. Since most DLCs have mechanics baked into them, they have to account for people who do and do not own these DLCs, which I would have agreed with, as DLC mechanics are one of Hoy 4’s biggest sins. if and big if they integrated all of the DLC exclusive mechanics, but they didn’t. Spies are still DLC exclusive. So are many designers and our MIOS. Don’t remember, but I think some are. If Paradox made all DLC mechanics base game and kept the DLCs around, maybe that would have been an okay middle ground. Not perfect, but understandable. Remember as well, they have the ability to improve these DLCs without reselling them. This is literally why the War Effort patches exist. They didn’t charge us for Canada’s new communist tree back in 2023, did they? No, they’re not short of money either. According to their own report, they made $160 million last year. Despite that though, they’re still cutting corners, like hiring modders for the Czech DLC and not giving Manuria a new focus tree. Side note, I have nothing against the modders who chose to be hired by Paradox. I would have done the same in their situation. It’s understandable. No qums, no trouble. We’re cool. But for Manuria, they’re only expanding it, which is something I would be fine with if it was free. The majority of the work was already done 7 years ago. Why are they price gating such minor changes instead of just giving Manuria a whole new tree? Another side note, I’m recording this obviously before the update comes out. It’s entirely possible that Manuria’s stuff is free. And if that is the case, disregard this section. I just can’t predict the future, believe it or not. But the real issue for me is where does this end? Who’s to say once a UK and US rework is done that Paradox won’t integrate L resistance to do another French DLC? Then Battle for the Bosphorus by Blood alone and so on until GDR is suddenly the oldest DLC and everyone says old Germany’s DLC is so old we need another Germany DLC and the cycle starts again. Some of you might think that the idea of this is insane and Paradox would never do that, but the idea that they would have done this at all years ago would have been insane and here we are. For the record, I also think Paradox doing this in 2024 with the first three Hoy for DLC’s was wrong as well. But I was in no state to talk about it then. But by buying this DLC, I feel like I would be condoning this behavior again, and I don’t want to do that. And to go back to that you got your money’s worth statement, a better question would be did Paradox respect your purchase and your money cuz I think the answer is largely no. They did basically nothing to compensate, apologize, or lessen the blow for what they did. Have they fixed these older DLCs? Again, no. And giving people the right to buy new focus trees doesn’t count. Just think of those who cannot afford these new DLCs. They’re out of luck. I don’t know what the right compensation would have been, but something is better than nothing. In 2011, my favorite game, TF2, went free to play and players got a proof of purchase hat as a reward. It’s not the best hat, but at least Valve did something. And that was a oneoff incident for TF2 Hoy. However, there’s no breaks on this crane. Right, enough of those. We haven’t really talked about the DLC itself yet. And well, the DLC doesn’t do it for me. This DLC is really expensive since you’re pretty much forced into buying the second expansion pass that costs $49.99. And remember, Hoy for itself cost only £1 more than that. So, in a way, Paradox are equating this past to be worth the same as Hoy 4 itself, which it just isn’t. I’m fairly certain Hoy 4’s original free DLCs had more focus trees in them for less. Not the same quality of trees, sure, but you understand. You could look past its price if the content was actually worth buying. Now, since we only know the full content for NCNS at this point, I can only use it to decide whether or not there’s anything I actually want to play. But to be honest, I’m not that interested in what this DLC is actually offering me. I don’t think there’s much wrong with it yet. I’m sure most of you will find something you actually enjoy, but there’s no big hook for me to latch on to. Japan’s rework, eh. China’s rework, warlords and the PRC included, eh, it has the potential to be very fun, but very tedious, and I don’t want tedium right now. Normally for big DLCs, there is something I do want to play and do stuff with. GOE had India, mostly because I realize how messed up their communist tree really was. GDR had Belgium mostly because of what do you think Bittersteel was going to be there and even TOA had a morbid curiosity to see how it would play but I was apprehensive about that DLC going in for NCNS. The only thing that got my head turning was the Philippines and it was for all the wrong reasons. I think their fascist and communist paths are way too small and alongside the monarchist and democratic paths all lead to the same end goal. So, I think it lacks flavor, which if you couldn’t tell, isn’t a good thing and it would probably make for a good video. However, I don’t think it’s worth overlooking all the other issues I have to make that video. In any case, this is what my fellow YouTubers are for and to still feedback bitter and so on. Most of them will cover this DLC themselves, and I don’t blame them for choosing to buy this DLC. For most of them, this is their job, but for me, this has always been my hobby. And like all things, you choose what you do and do not want to engage with. Despite all of that, there is still another reason as to why I’ll be skipping this DLC, and that’s because I want to do other stuff. What do I mean by this? Well, unusually for me, my upload schedule is actually pretty full. I have ideas for videos well into next year. There’s some gaps, I will admit, but not many. There’s pretty much no way to fit NCS into what I’m doing without doing something like two videos a week. However, it’s not the best idea. It’s a brilliant way to ensure you burn out 100% faster. I pulled off like five videos back to back after GDR released. And while it was extremely satisfying to pull off, it’s just not something I could do again. It was just the perfect storm of me having the time and the ideas available to do something like that. And like I said in the previous segment, I’m ambivalent to this DLC’s content at best. I don’t really have a well of ideas specific to it to tap into this time. And that brings us on to the time part because I want to spend my time doing other stuff. Nothing special. I’m not going to Tomcot you and fly off into the sunset, but there are things outside of Hoy 4 that are calling my name. And while I could make the exception to play Hoy 4, I’ve already done that for the last four years. It’s time to switch things up and see what will happen. Both could turn out wrong, but I’ve made up my heart on this one. So, what am I actually going to do Hoy 4 videos wise? Well, I’m not going to spoil everything. There’s no fun in that. But I can tell you the next video of mine will be a Soviet run. It’s quite nonsensical and out there, but I like it for that. I’m also going to do some other video essays. As long as I can get my mic in the right place, I’ll be fine. And some other stuff as well. Please be there. I think you’ll like them. Two things before you go. One, obviously this isn’t every reason I could think of, but eventually they get extremely superfluous, mostly involving my interactions with Paradox. And yes, the door to buying this DLC is always open if I want to walk through it. Never say never and all of that stuff. However, that won’t be for a long time, I reckon. So, until next time everybody, I thank you for watching. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it. And until we meet again from me, Bubbles Zest, goodbye.
With the release of HOI4’s next big dlc, No Compromise, No Surrender imminent I think it’s time we have a talk, as I have decided that I will not be purchasing this dlc. And we’re going to into depth as to why this decision was made.
From former dlcs, Paradox’s own actions and even the content of ncns itself, we will cover all areas surrounding dlc, there are some things in this dlc that I actually happen to be interested in, but there are many more red flags that make me turn my head away…
Music used from:
A Hat in Time:
Hearts of Iron IV:
Sources:
TF2 Wiki (Hat)
Paradox Earnings Report:
https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/year-end-report-january-december-2024
17-11-25.