Continuing from where we left off last week, we have another briefing from Command. Find a comfortable chair, settle in, and read on.

Hey all,

Dev corners are back. What are they and how do they differ from the Dev Diaries we normally do? The key difference is probably the scope. Dev corners are usually shorter. Here we discuss things that are sometimes very early in development, whereas Dev Diaries are usually about describing and explaining the new features that come with an expansion. So less details, and also a lot less pretty screenshots. And above all, a lot more Work in Progress - the things we talk about here might not even make it into the game in the end - at least not in the shape they are presented.

But enough of that, on to what I was supposed to talk about. Today’s subject is Reinventing Faction Dynamics…

Not much has happened to factions since release, so we figured it was time to take a look at them. The main difference is that there are more of them as more countries can, and do, create factions now. But in general they are all very similar, and you don’t feel any difference playing as the Axis as opposed to the Allies, the Comintern, or the Chinese United Front - for example. The goal here is to change that. To make factions feel more unique, and immersive at the same time. 

Before we continue I should reiterate that this is very early stages - so not much in terms of final UI is implemented, sometimes you can’t do things except by commands, and in general things are constantly changing - so don’t expect pretty pictures!

But look at it from the bright side - you get to see very early UX mock ups - and some beautiful “coder art” :) 

Today I will try to run you through the core concepts of what we are doing with factions. Later on I will dive deeper into details, but for now, I’ll try to keep it relatively high level and give you the big picture of what we are working on for this feature.

Early mockup of Faction Window Header - showing the Manifest, the Faction Icon, and the Faction Power Projection

Each faction has a manifest. The manifest is about what the faction wants to do. Conquer new land, Stop the spread of fascism - or similar longer term purposes. 

Each manifest will have a percentage of fulfillment - that can go up or down during gameplay. If the fulfillment is high enough, some bonuses will unlock - depending on the type of manifest.

In-game view of the Faction header with manifest for the Allies - this is as raw as a screenshot will get. Placeholder art, no tooltips, no graphics added, and no attention to placement or final elements. But it is there, and it is working, and as the Allies, we want to defend democracy

In addition to the Manifest each faction will have shorter or longer term strategic goals. These can be things like conquest of specific territory or control, or instigation, of resources..

These goals, once completed, will give the faction members rewards that they can use to modify their faction in various ways - as well as more standard rewards like Army Experience. 

Together with the Manifest, the Goals will give the faction a direction. A direction you need not follow if you don’t want to, but if you do you will be rewarded.

All factions are based on a template. So when you create a faction you pick which type of faction it is from those available, and then you get a set of rules and goals etc to go with that. Factions created through a focus or event will have their type pre-defined. So setting up a faction shouldn’t require many more clicks than previously, but still give you a few options. And most importantly result in different experiences based on what you play as.

Each faction comes with a set of rules. These generally relate to a specific action type. Like for example who can join the faction or who in the faction can declare war.

Some examples: 

A rule for joining can be based on the ideology of the joining country. For example, the rule might state that only non-fascist countries can join. (It won’t prevent a country from turning fascist later though). Another Joining rule can be based on Geography, saying that only countries from a specific region can join.  

Other types or rules relate to things such as: 

• Peace Conferences - Giving you bonuses to certain types of actions

• War Declaration - Who can declare war and what are the requirements

• Call to war - Who can call to war, just the faction Leader, anyone, or Just Majors etc

• Dismissal - When can you kick someone from the faction

• Contribution - What are the minimum requirements for contribution to the faction

• Leadership Challenge - What are the requirements for taking over leadership  

There will probably be a few more, and some of these might not make it, but you get the general idea. 

These rules can be changed during gameplay, if the Faction leader, or any other member country, has Faction Initiatives available to do so.

UX mockup for changing your Rules (in this case the Join Faction Rules) 

Speaking of Faction Initiatives - lets move on to:

Initiatives are what you use to change things in your faction. These Initiatives are gained from completing Goals. Most goals will give one Initiative to the faction leader when completed. Some might give to other members as well. And if you have an Initiative to spare, you can change a rule. Or you can remove one. Or add one - it is basically up to you to decide what to spend your Initiative on, and how to modify your faction. But choose carefully, for initiatives will be few. (Which also means you won’t be spammed with decisions to make - which is something we want to avoid.)

Apart from just changing the rule set for the faction, you can add specific upgrades to your faction to make it more unique. 

• Example of upgrades you will be able to do are: 

• Adding or improving Research Sharing 

• Adding or improving Military Doctrine Sharing 

• Adding a Faction Supreme Commander

• Start up joint research sites

UX mockup of the research part of the Factions screen.

The last thing I want to talk about today is Influence and its close relative; Contribution. 

Each member Country has an Influence rating in the faction. This is basically an internal power level - how important a member are you within the faction?

Countries with high influence get more things from goal completions. Meaning they will also have a say in how the faction evolves - as some of these rewards can be Initiatives. 

Additionally, in order to take over leadership of a faction you need to have a minimum level of influence. 

You gain influence by War participation, Contributions, Industrial might, and from “Events”. Events can be various things depending on the faction and the content - but can include things such as executing daring Raids, or from focuses or decisions. 

Of these, Contribution is probably the most interesting to talk about. Basically whenever a country delivers something to the faction, or to other faction members they gain “contribution score” - which is directly reflected in their influence rating. Whenever someone receives contributions, or “withdraws” from the faction pool, they lose contribution score - thus lowering their influence. 

This means that Influence will build up and fluctuate over time. 

Another use of influence is in peace conferences. When your faction is on the winning side, all member countries will pool some of their war score, and this will be given to the most influential countries in the faction. Similar to the game setting where the Faction Leader can get part of other members’ scores. But here it is not just the faction leader, so if you are an important part of your faction, you will get more say in the peace deal even if you are not the faction leader. 

What are contributions then? 

Generally they are things you can do to support your faction or your faction members - such as sending expeditionary forces, pooling manpower for use by the faction, producing industrial goods, Lend lease to faction members. Those kinds of things. Some of those we already have in the game, but the goal is to streamline them a bit. Others are new - but regardless of whether they are new or old, they will contribute to your contribution score - thus making you more (or less) important in the faction. 

Another thing we want to add when working with factions, is the ability to tell your fellow allies where you want them to focus their efforts. Similar to how you can create pings to multiplayer allies, you should be able to tell your AI allies that I want you to focus on this region. It shouldn’t mean that they abandon everything else, but rather just increase their attention here.  

That was all for this time. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and I’ll do my best to answer questions, but do bear with me, I won’t be able to answer everything - party from a time perspective, but also based on the fact that there are quite a few things that are as yet undecided, or at least relatively untested - so I might not know what the end result will be. If it doesn’t play out fine, or smooth - things will change. But I will do my best. 

Additionally, I hope to be able to give you a few more details in a few weeks time - because as you can see I if you look at the draft schedule presented earlier, I do have yet another slot for this. 

And as I said, what you have seen here will most certainly differ from what will eventually make it into the game. It takes many iterations, and a lot of feedback to get a feature completed. But I hope you enjoyed this little peek into what I/we are doing at the moment. 

/Wrongwraith

Generals!

Not only is our nine year anniversary happening today, but we've got a lot of content for you all to read through so make sure to continue reading. We've got Developer Corners starting up again, HOI4 Anniversary Giveaways every day and the Multiplayer Mayhem happening in the 2025 Community Cup!

But first, a word from our Commander in Chief Arheo.

Greetings all,

As the oft-quoted Eisenhower stated, "In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”. In the spirit of this, we thought it would be time to take a look at the long-term roadmap for Hearts of Iron. It has been around three years since our last formal Hearts of Iron Roadmap, and while plan have changed and evolved, this statement of intent has been largely what has guided our development process up until the release of Götterdämmerung.

Our mainline intended innovations, when this was written just after No Step Back, included the following:

• Improvements to Frontline Stability (Progress in NSB, more to come)
  
• Strategic and Tactical AI improvements
  
• Battle Planner Improvements

Götterdämmerung included a lot of improvements to the AI including Force Concentration: a feature designed to simulate tactical pushes and armor concentration. This has been an interesting one: when released, we saw a lot of players taken by surprise by the AI using this approach, and a lot more discussion over players being defeated or losing to the new AI behaviour. However, most of the community seems to have adapted fairly quickly to this change. To me this is a positive thing: while having a broad playerbase with varying levels of skill means we need to be gradual about how and if we increase overall difficulty when playing against AI, the existence of community “meta” and learning materials gives most players tools to catch up. In short, there’s no reason not to continue iterating on AI features that may increase average difficulty or required skill levels.

On a related note, we’ve fixed a bunch of issues with frontline stability, but battle planning remains a tool that has a stark divide between how new and veteran players utilize it. We’ve done some quite deep user research into this particular area, but this resulted in few actionable results beyond handling edge cases better and improving frontline integrity.

Most of this is “under the hood”, but we’ve made a lot of progress adding tooling to interpret and direct how the AI performs long-term planning. This area of the game is notoriously opaque and it’s taken a fair while to get to the point where we have enough analytical insight into the mechanical decision-making process of the AI, but, we’re more or less there now. This has meant improved tooling such as AI strategies, imgui debug tools that modders also have access to, and better integration with existing mechanics that previously existed “on top” of the game without interacting much with the AI. This is of course a goal that has no defined end-point, but compared to where we were three years ago, much has improved.

By Blood Alone saw a contribution-based peace conference system added, with numerous narrative demand options. On reflection the design approach here was not super stable, and while the feature hit most of the key notes (contesting demands, earning defined contribution, rewarding better play), it fell into a similar trap to the old system when it came to AI antagonism. It took longer than it should have done for that behaviour to stabilize with tweaks and changes, but we’re in a better (if not perfect) situation now.

We’ve had a couple of methods of doing this. First are the maintenance updates included in some War Effort patches. These tend to be quite minor, but we’ve added a fair few things to various focus trees over time.

Secondly, revisiting focus trees such as Germany and Hungary represents a greater investment into this. Overall, I’m happy with the dual-pronged approach to this; reworking focus trees comprehensively is a full expansion-cycle affair, and doing it outside of a paid release is not something we will ever be able to do. I feel the majority of the community understand this, and our roll-in approach to DoD, TfV and WtT has been for the most part welcomed.

I’ve spoken at length on this in a few other places. Fundamentally, design ideas for this one always ended up conflicting with focus trees. HoI4 is a war simulation with a superimposed latch-driven state-machine that drives the global narrative. It is unlikely we’ll change that approach. However, the process of working through design ideas for this has given us some avenues for further exploration.

The Career Profile and associated features hit the social layer note pretty well. Traditionally, these features are designed to increase player engagement: something which HoI doesn’t really have an issue with. However, the feature has proven to be unexpectedly popular amongst specific groups within the community, both for completionists and as a learning aid. While I don’t think we’ll be making any fundamental additions to this, it won’t be going away and we’ll keep adding content such as new medals and ribbons.

We haven’t made any great strides here. We still have medium to long term plans to expand the industrial economy elements of HoI, while taking care to avoid simulating too many pure economic elements.

Götterdämmerung represents the culmination of this project. I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, though now that we’ve had some time to monitor the wider effects of special projects, it is about time to revisit balance and take a pass on the huge array of tech that was added in the Götterdämmerung update.

We didn’t really get here! This is quite a difficult topic to broach in a strategy game, and other things ended up taking precedence. We’ve had some minor changes to advisors, but nothing to write home about in the grand scheme of things.

Fairly Self-explanatory.

This is still a goal of mine, but we haven’t managed to tackle it yet. I think some of the fundamentals of HoI4 (ie, stuff we simply can’t/won’t change) stand in the way of doing this justice, though it also plays hand-in-hand with changes to doctrine and division design which are definitely in the works.

Definitely still planned, though not a major priority on its own - will have some words on this later. I don’t feel like this is something that has been glaringly missing for a game with a narrative of “crescendo to war”, though as we start to experiment around the fringes of that pillar (smaller regionally-focused conflicts and expansions), it will become more necessary.

We’ve had some success here with the changes to support companies and equipment streamlining. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is “done”, though. We have short-medium term plans regarding doctrines though, and having them affect division design more strongly is one of the key pillars for this effort.

We’ve added a lot of things that touch on this: division medals, plan naming, deeper recruitment design, MIOs and industrial specialization being chief among them, feature-wise. I think these features do what they set out to do: letting you leave your own mark on the battlefield and the campaign narrative. As you may have noticed from recent war effort patches, we’ve also identified that we need to be better with streamlining how players interact with these types of features.

I talked at length in the 2022 roadmap about the introduction of maintenance updates - something we ended up doing, and calling “War Effort” patches. On their own merit, these have been extremely useful for us, and have allowed us to iterate and introduce quite a lot of system updates and quality of life changes such as:

• Persistent equipment designs
  
• System Rebalances to designer modules and units
  
• MIO streamlining
  
• Some quite significant performance improvements
  
• Over 1000 bugfixes
  
• Mod support
  
• Focus tree updates
  
• Balance standardization of some systems (quite important for game health!)

One of the things we were uncertain of before we started War Effort patches was whether this would reduce the maintenance included in major updates, resulting in effectively just moving things around. With the exception of our approach to country packs (ie; not including maintenance updates at country pack release), it has not directly affected the size and impact of major releases.

The old Roadmap championed these as a method of updating older focus tree content. It’s fair to mention that this ended up not being a major focus of war effort updates. It became quickly apparent that developing focus trees is the majority of the work our Content Designers do; that’s not realistically something we can do in iterative updates.

So while there is success here, there’s also room for improvement. We will keep producing War Effort updates, but I want to try and find some form of structure to them, and a way of steering them in a way that more quickly addresses high impact community issues. Particularly, I would like to find a way to increase the visibility of our approach to handling community issues, though I will caution that this will require some time to achieve.

Aaand that’s our retrospective.

That ended up quite a lot longer than I’d expected, but that’s ok - the future plans are at least a little more concise! I want to give you an updated roadmap for our next few years, though with the usual caveats. As you can see above, these plans are not super specific, they aren’t promises, and they don’t always work out. Nonetheless, the act of planning is extremely important, and communicating those plans perhaps even more so.

So what does the future look like for HoI4?

It will come as little surprise that South/East Asia is next, with content primarily focused on Japan and China, and mechanics to support this narrative, as well as reinvigorating the Pacific war. I don’t want to go into too many specifics here (tune in next time for more!), but the war in and around Asia as well as the Pacific has been left behind by our recent developments directed at the European elements of the conflict. To give some broad strokes here, we’re looking at developing the narratives that faction membership will give you, improving and streamlining elements of naval control, with a particular focus on the types of naval warfare that carried the Pacific conflict, and adding much greater strategic narrative (and a less opaque simulation) to the flow of naval conflict. This is not an exclusive list, and it’ll probably leave you guessing - but you won’t have to wait long.

In the longer term, we have some other areas that we’re keen to take a pass on:

These systems are quite old and don’t offer much ability to shape your gameplay. I would like to link these better, in order to have doctrines shape both how you compose and how you use your military.

Watch this space.

HoI’s “crescendo to war” that I mentioned earlier is extremely important to the main narrative of the war. However, as time goes on we have released more content focusing on the smaller players in this conflict. There are elements of the game that don’t mesh particularly well here, and I want to take a look at the way wars and war escalation are structured to make this more engaging and less disruptive when minor conflicts erupt.

“But you said you couldn’t do this!”, I hear you cry. And mostly you would be right. However, with the introduction of late game technologies in Götterdämmerung, there is even more reason to continue playing after the end of the war. I would like to keep developing how the world “falls out” after the conflict, producing more realistic geopolitical results as well as the potential for new and more systems-driven “what if” conflicts after the end of the war. Of course, any such changes would be multiplied in effect if they could also touch upon the pre-war landscape too…

Well, that’s a broad category. This is one we’ve been looking at in quite a lot of detail. We see an increasingly stark divide within different groups of the community on how we (or even if we should) approach alt-history. For those that enjoy it, don’t worry, we’re not going to stop making alt-history content, however, I have asked the team to look, in the long-term, into ways of producing more structured, plausible alt-history content with clearer historically-adjacent narrative hooks. In addition, we have started to evaluate if it’s possible to create more deterministic global alt-history situations and produce some “semi-alt-history” ways of playing HoI - something that I think would capture the fun parts of the non-historical content we provide while also retaining the benefits of the determinism that the historical scenario imparts.

I have one, final note on the practical elements of what we release. We intend to continue releasing what we’ve previously termed “Country packs” and “Unit packs”, but we need to both be clearer about what is or isn’t included, and adjust the scope. We’re devoting some more resources to our Country pack development moving forwards, and we’ll be including mechanics and systemic changes in those the same way as expansions - albeit still focusing on “minor players” in the war.

Alright, I started writing this three hours ago and apparently I’m still going, so here I will force myself to stop. I’m here to answer questions.

/Arheo


Of course, these dates may be subject to change so keep that in mind!

As apart of HOI IV's Ninth anniversary, we've decided to do another giveaway with a different prize each day including some fan favourites and some keys for the new Song pack for those of you who missed out on some of those banger tunes. To participate and enter for a chance to win some of these codes, make sure to reply in the announcement post on each day you want to take part in the giveaway.

Because of time zones, we've decided that each giveaway "day" will start at 14:00 CEST, so for example, if you want to take part in the Bonus Songs Pack giveaway on Tuesday, then you need to reply between 14:00 CEST on Tuesday and 13:59 CEST on Wednesday. If you reply on Wednesday 14:00 CEST, then you're taking part in the Wednesday giveaway, etc.

You can reply as many times as you want, on as many days as you want, but if we're looking through replies and have to choose between two replies, we will probably choose the reply that has some substance (vs "Just replying to take part") so be creative, engage, comment on the announcement or on others' replies.

• Today: HOI IV Starter Edition So you can play with more friends x30
  
• Tomorrow:Bonus Songs Pack To listen to, even when you're paused x30
  
• Wednesday:No Step Back To bring Communism to the World x30
  
• Thursday:By Blood Alone Take your fight to the Skies x30
  
• Friday:Arms Against Tyranny To bring the fight to the Nordics x30

We are back for yet another round of the Community Cup, hosted by Dankus. This year, the Teams are participating for a chance to win 5000 Euros! With Casters such as Dankus themselves, Mo and one of our own Community Ambassadors Fraser, the finals will be played June 7th at 17:00 CEST.

Make sure to catch all of the action over on Dankus's Channel, or the HOI Youtube Channel!

Generals!

Welcome to Operation Brainstorm - File .: 1.16.6 :.

This is the release of the final part of Expansion Pass 1: Prototype Vehicles. All of these models were either blueprints or early prototypes that were created or designed during the war, but ended up never getting used, or even manufactured. Also, they’re all entirely optional to use. Everything in this Unit Pack is intended to add some flavour and doesn’t affect gameplay.

To facilitate and accompany this release we have included a War Effort patch, tweaking some balance, as well as fixing a bunch of issues.

I hope you enjoy this release! Our current plan is to be back in just a few weeks to give all of you more insight into what we are, and have been, up to.

-PDX_Gorion

• Germany: Fixed an issue where AI Austria would always reject Anschluss with historical settings turned off
  
• Fixed an issue where MIO selection persists across different equipment windows, which allowed using MIO for unsupported equipment.

• You can once again upgrade MIO on basic equipment if you chose not to upgrade it automatically

• New 3D models added for prototype vehicles for Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Poland, Soviet Union, and USA. (Also, have a look here!)

• Non-NSB Improved Medium Tank, Advanced Medium Tank, Improved Medium Tank Destroyer and Advanced Medium Tank Destroyers now have hardness value of 90%
  
• Close support gun soft attack reduced to 22 from 25
  
• Self-Propelled Anti-Air brigades now have a baseline +15% air attack modifier
  
• Self-Propelled Artillery brigades now have a +15% baseline soft attack value
  
• Tank Destroyer brigades now have a +15% baseline piercing modifier
  
• Tank Designer: Anti-Air cannon 2 now has 32 Air Attack from 36, and 18 piercing from 20
  
• Anti-Air cannon 3 now has 24 piercing from 30
  
• Auto-Loader reduced to 1.5 IC cost from 2.5
  
• Dozer blade IC cost reduced to 1 from 2
  
• Easy Maintenance module increased to a 10% cost reduction, from 5%
  
• Upgrading MIO on equipment no longer costs XP. Choosing to upgrade equipment via the checkbox or by using the MIO queue will automatically update any production lines producing said equipment for no additional cost or production efficiency loss.
  
• Easy maintenance reduced to -7.5% from 10% cost reduction

• The redundant words "Chassis", "Airframe", and "Hull" have been removed from most instances of equipment designer templates. These classifications were already implied.

• Fixed GFX issue where airplanes crashing into ground would remain for a while
  
• Fixed leader portrait not updating correctly in naval combat window
  
• Fixed state tooltip showing buildings under construction
  
• Fixed equipment design discount disappearing when saving and re-loading
  
• Advisor portrait will be colored if available but not affordable
  
• Fixed issue with 3D model selector for helicopters
  
• PZL P.23 now has a proper GFX icon assigned to it
  
• Fix issue where the AI would automatically deplete its stockpile of missiles
  
• Fixed empty string in land lease notification window
  
• Germany's Communist Influence sprit that it can apply to other countries will no longer cause a civil war when timed out if the amount of communist support in the country is insufficient
  
• Fixed a crash when deleting units that would get reassigned to a fallback order
  
• It is now possible to get the Shaken Not Stirred achievement
  
• Construct Aircraft Carrier focus can be started without MtG
  
• Ispettorato dei Mezzi Antisommergibili focus can be started without MTG
  
• Grosskampfschiff Construction focus can be started without MtG
  
• Soviet: Fixed spelling of acclimatization for adaptable army
  
• Command power above define_max+1advisor will no longer be removed upon loading a savegame
  
• Partial fix for RK resistance management and compliance: RK's now correctly get their intended 25% compliance as part of the leader installation event after they're created.
  
• Integrating the Volkskommissariat now correctly adds compliance
  
• Niche will now rest to the default niche for the chassis when loading an equipment design
  
• India: Fixed the partition event triggering incorrectly when going down the Loyalty Branch
  
• Fix equipment icon selection buttons sometimes not displaying correctly
  
• Iraq now sticks closer to the actual dates for historical events (such as breaking the treaty)

The Contents of this bundle include:

• 20% Discount
  
• Hearts of Iron IV Base Game
  
• Götterdämmerung
  
• Graveyard of Empires
  
• Prototype Vehicles Pack

Because this is now a Dynamic Bundle you can get the entire package, but only pay for the content that you do not already own. (If you do not see a difference, make sure you are logged into Steam)

Note that the Expansion Pass 01 Instant unlocks are not included.



The Bonus Songs pack includes:

• March of the Eagles
  
• Katyusha
  
• Bella Ciao
  
• Säkkijärven Polkka
  
• Carnaval Do Brasil
  
• Ride of the Valkyries

The Bonus Song pack is designed for those that wish to grab some more optional content they may have missed out on earlier to add to their collection, with it being priced at $4.99/€4.99/£4.29 respectively.

Note that this Bundle is NOT Dynamic


Here are a few examples of the Prototype vehicles, but if you want a longer list check out the table below!​

Generals!

Following the announcement of Project Caesar Europa Universalis V, the Paradox Interactive Publisher Sale has begun with deals up to 70% off for Hearts of Iron!

This sale runs from now until May 15th


Hearts of Iron IV - 70% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Starter Edition - 70% off

Hearts of Iron IV: Arms Against Tyranny 20% off
Hearts of Iron IV: By Blood Alone 30% off
Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back 30% off
Hearts of Iron IV: La Résistance 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Man the Guns 50% off

Hearts of Iron IV: Battle for the Bosporus 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Trial of Allegiance 20% off

Hearts of Iron IV: Songs of the Eastern Front 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Eastern Front Planes 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Speeches Pack 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Radio Pack 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Sabaton Soundtrack 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Sabaton Soundtrack Vol. 2 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Armor 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Axis Armor 50% off

Generals!

Paradox Interactive are proud to welcome another soldier on the frontlines: Europa Universalis V is now available for wishlisting.

Almost five hundred years of history unfold before you in Europa Universalis V, the latest version of one of the greatest strategy games of all time. Guide the destiny of any of hundreds of nations and societies in a simulated living world of unparalleled depth and complexity.

Read more about it at the store page below!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3450310/Europa_Universalis_V/

Generals!

The Steam Wargames Fest is already upon us, though we are joining later than most we are reinforcing the front lines immediately with up to 70% off!

Hold the line with some fantastic offers on DLCs, or perhaps recruit more comrades with the Hearts of Iron IV: Starter Edition!

This sale will run from Now until May 7th

Hearts of Iron IV - 70% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Starter Edition - 70% off

Hearts of Iron IV: Arms Against Tyranny 20% off
Hearts of Iron IV: By Blood Alone 30% off
Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back 30% off
Hearts of Iron IV: La Résistance 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Man the Guns 50% off

Hearts of Iron IV: Battle for the Bosporus 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Trial of Allegiance 20% off

Hearts of Iron IV: Songs of the Eastern Front 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Eastern Front Planes 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Speeches Pack 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Radio Pack 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Sabaton Soundtrack 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Sabaton Soundtrack Vol. 2 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Armor 50% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Axis Armor 50% off

Generals!

We have some good news! Prototype Vehicles are almost ready to roll out, so instead of releasing them in Q3 as initially announced, we will launch them in Q2! Yes, the Prototype vehicle pack will be dropping soon, and you’ll find some juicy details below. But first, a small disclaimer:

When our latest DLC comes out, Expansion Pass 1 will become a dynamic bundle. This means that you will get a discount for any DLCs from the Expansion Pass you already own. Good news for any holdouts! But, this also means the preorder bonuses will no longer be available in the bundle, so choose timely.

And now, for the juicy bits:

Hello generals!
My name is Slurpen, here again to talk about 3D art for Hearts of Iron IV. This time, I’m also joined by Mordred Viking (aka Gareth), who is one of our content designers on HoI4. We are here to bring you a closer look at the new vehicles in the Prototype Vehicles Unit Pack, as well as some fun facts along the way!

These are vehicles from a time when the arms race was in full force, and any means of getting the upper hand on the enemy was a battle within itself. Many vehicles were designed to improve on existing concepts, others were meant to tread new ground, and some were created purely out of desperation. Some of these prototypes were never built or fully developed, others reached the battlefield and were even successful to various degrees!

In some cases, we will never know what the final designs may have looked like. This is, however, my favourite part of this pack! We have had to look at the original blueprints to give you our illustrations of what these vehicles would have looked like had they been fully produced. I hope you have as much fun looking at these designs as we had making them!

These vehicles make for some fun topics of discussion. I have included the names of each one, so feel free to read up on the history of each one. We had a blast doing this ourselves!
Mordred Viking and I will make brief comments on our personal favourites as we go along!

Here are the high-res close-ups of these vehicles:


*The Modra Revolving Tank was designed with a rounded rotating hull that would deflect incoming projectiles.

*The “Grasshopper” was a tank designed to combine the newly developed helicopter designs with the power of a tank. However, this design was swiftly dropped due to a multitude of design issues.

*The Czech Skoda SK 13 was the German answer to the looming fuel shortage towards the end of the war. This vehicle was actually coal-powered.


* The “Praying Mantis” was an experimental machine gun carrier prototype that was tested for use in the British Army. At a glance, it looks quite futuristic, even though it’s anything but from the crew's point of view. Its fighting compartment can pivot up and down to lower its profile or shoot over terrain!


* The Jasquet Articulated Tank is a caterpillar-like tank designed to move over the trickiest terrain. Part of the idea is that if one cabin loses traction, the others would help push it along over hills and other obstacles thanks to its “bendy” design.


* The Giacomini Entrenchment is an interesting design that sticks out among other tanks. The tank features an entrenchment mechanism in the front. The design is unique, and the designer’s identity and nationality remain quite mysterious.


* Water was always going to be a barrier to a proper tank blitz, and it’s remarkably difficult to get a tank to float properly. How about just turning it into a submarine instead? The Biemmi Naval Tank, stealthy and practical!

* So-To Anti-Tank gun carrier. It’s a moving hull with a cannon on top. Why overcomplicate things?

* The Moto-Guzzi Semovente is a tank that features two tracks that can move up and down completely independently from each other. This enables it to move forward along sloped terrain!


* I want a tank with a big gun. I said a BIG gun! The 2B1 “Oka”. Perfection.

* The “Cobra” Light Cross Country Combat Vehicle (quite a mouthful), this vehicle featured multiple designs with different types of armament. This is our illustration featuring the four large caliber cannons!


* The M-V-Yoh is an American tank with a very interesting design. A crew member would sit inside the back of the turret and man the small MG on top. If you look closely you may also have noticed that there are backup tank tracks inside of the main tracks. These would provide friction if the main tracks would break.

We also included some interesting plane designs for the people who prefer air combat! However, we can’t guarantee that all of these planes are safe to fly..


* Belyayev DB-LK is a plane that is designed for people who don’t want to fly alone! This design features two cockpits as well as gunner seats in the back!

* Bachem Ba 349 Natter, The pilot in this aircraft would be launched into the air, and the plane would steer itself for a short period of time. After that, the pilot would take control of the aircraft and fly as close to the enemy as possible in order to launch multiple rockets into the enemy aircraft. This aircraft did not feature any landing gear, so it was up to the pilot to eject from the aircraft once the mission was complete!

Let’s wrap things up with a taste of how some of these vehicles look and behave in-game:


Can this thing really fly?


The mantis stalks its prey..


Rockets away!


It’s a caterpillar! It’s a snake! No.. It’s.. a tank?!


Don’t let your dreams be dreams!

That’s all for now! Thank you all for joining us through this brief look at some of these crazy and cool vehicles of the past. I hope you have as much fun using them as we had making them!

Until next time, generals!

Hey! @AveeBee here to give you a rundown of what we’ve been up to recently.

Since Graveyard of Empires released, we’ve been working hard to polish and refine the new content to make it more enjoyable. Some of this has taken the form of bug fixes of course, but we’ve also fully reworked significant sections of some focus trees, as well as added some completely new content that we really hope you enjoy.

Many of you may have seen these changes already if you participated in the open beta recently and I’d like to say thank you to all who did! Your feedback was much appreciated and really helped us refine the new content.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

Saadabad Pact
The Shared Saadabad tree is a joint focus tree that is shared between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. This tree represents the historical Treaty of Saadabad, which was a pact of non aggression signed in 1937 between these countries. Historical AI will only complete the first focus in the branch, which is what creates the non aggression pact and gives all nations that agree a (weak) national spirit. However, on alt-history there is potential for expanding this into a much stronger alliance. Every focus completed will improve the national spirit bit by bit, until it eventually becomes a major boon to all members.



The focus tree brings back the joint tree banners as seen in the Congo in Götterdamerung. The banner with all four flags can be taken by any member, and will give rewards to everyone, often with an additional bonus for the originator. Focuses with a specific flag can only be taken by that country, but these will also give bonuses to everyone.

The “Military Cooperation” focus leads to the focuses “Expand our Influence”, giving war-related diplomatic bonuses to all members, “SAVAK to Protect Us All” which Iran can complete after it has formed SAVAK, and “Joint Military Exercises”, which gives military XP gain to everyone.

On the other side you have the “Economic Cooperation” focus, which leads to the focuses “Expand Road and Rail Connections” and “Integration of our Infrastructure”, which opens the borders between the pact members, constructs a railway through the region, and gives every member a trade discount when buying resources from each other. There is also the “New Branches for the Baghlan Sugar Company” and “Joint Trade Through the Berlin-Baghdad Railway” focuses. These two can only be taken by Afghanistan and Iraq respectively, and allow them to share their resources with the rest of the pact, giving bonuses to every member including themselves.

After either “Joint Military Exercises” or “Integration of our Infrastructure” has been taken, the second half of the tree is unlocked.



Every member has one or two dedicated focuses that center on something they are good at. This focus can only be completed by said country. When they complete the focus, they get a relevant bonus, and a lesser version of the bonus is given to every other member.

An exception to this is the “Turkish Chromium Exports” and “Iranian Oil Exports” focuses. In the Open Beta, these received valuable feedback that adding resources they already have is not useful. They will now allow Iran & Turkey to export some of their primary resources (Oil & Chromium respectively) to private corporations across the pact, in exchange for small amounts of other resources.

Completing any one of those focuses unlocks the last two focuses of the tree, “Combined Arms” and “Saadabad Research Cooperation”, giving big combat bonuses toward major countries and creating a research sharing group respectively. In order to complete either of the two focuses, you are required to be in a faction with at least one other member of the Saadabad Pact. The Saadabad tree does not provide a focus to make this faction, as this would lead to weird interactions with political branches, instead you must use your own political tree or the vanilla faction mechanics for this to happen, how you wish to tell the story is in your hands.

Raj - Communist Branch
We have almost completely revamped the Communist Branch for India. We felt that there was room for improvement here, both in terms of the story being told and the gameplay itself. So we wanted to focus on improving the narrative and flow of the tree in a number of ways.

First off we redid how you turn communist. Beforehand you would use the autonomy system and break free, even in the communist path. Looking back later we agreed with community feedback that this didn't gel well with the narrative and was confusing for players.



You will now start to align the various elements of India to your cause. Doing the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny requires quite a lot of communist support, but you can reduce the requirement by infiltrating the British-Indian Government and the Independence movement, turning it to your cause.



The tree is now split into two separate branches. One is centered on Urban Industrialization, which focuses on heavy and rapid Industrialization in a similar style as the USSR or Agrarian Socialism with a greater focus on the countryside.

The trees are centered around your five year plan. How you see the future of your country will impact the plan itself. The Urban Industrialization is focused on Heavy Industry.



Whereas Agrarian Socialism focuses more on the countryside, boosting rural states and giving bonuses such as research and stability.



The different communist branches also have a unique way to style your army. The Urban Industrialization path focuses on a quality army to get the job done.



Whereas the left side focuses on the peasantry to get the job done, using India's vast amount of population to grind the enemy to dust, focusing on quantity more so than quality.



The Red curtain falls over Asia now gives you an opportunity to spread the revolution across Asia without getting directly involved in war.



If you perform a communist coup the AI can either decide to join you directly as puppets, or cast the country into a civil war.

It also now has a way to end the truce with Pakistan by winning one out of three border conflicts, which also transfers that state to you.



As you gather your strength you can take on the great Japanese threat.

Raj - Loyalty Branch
We also added a loyalist branch for India where you remain a dominion of the UK. The tree is divided into two industrial branches. One is where you continue to extract as much wealth from India as possible, helping to fuel the UK and the dominions industries, or a more moderate approach which aims to reform India's industrial capabilities to keep the wealth inside India. Less radical than the independence branch but more progressive than the former of these options.



Players will also need to deal with the independence movement in some ways, either by favoring one of the other, and meeting the demands of its leaders.



Becoming a dominion will cut down how much resources you need to ship to the UK, granting you more freedom than before, relative to other subjects, but still being a part of the empire.



The right hand side deals directly with military manners.

You can either choose to consult with congress leaders before entering the war alongside the UK, or ignore them altogether. You then form the South East Asia Command, giving you a specialization for your army.



The rest of the branch deals with helping the faction by picking which areas to focus on. These also allow you to get into the fight much quicker than before, either by focusing on the East, Central Africa of Northern Africa, or all of them.



Kurdistan Rework
Another one of the things that got a little bit of a revamp was the Iraqi Kurdish content. We heard your feedback and wanted the Kurdistan path to feel a little bit more viable and unique, thus we have given them some rather powerful buffs, and a potential change of ideology! The switch to communism will not be mandatory, but it will buff up Kurdistan significantly, allowing them to not only join the Comintern, but also to grab some sweet CAS from the Soviets. To make fighting in the region easier we also gave the Kurdish some bonuses to fighting in the mountains. While the terrain is still going to be a challenge, you will now be better prepared to face it!



Iran Changes
With Iran, we heard you were wanting for a few more characters, so we scoured the forums for your suggestions and decided upon two new Generals, and two scientists! That’s right, Iran now gets two scientists and a small bonus to building facilities by going down their democratic branch, and electing not to go through with the Islamic Revolution.



But wait, there’s more! We have also added some new content directly for Iran, as well as a little bit of flavor regarding the Kurdish regions of the country. First of all, let’s talk about the new Iranian content specifically.

We have now added the opportunity to put a Qajar Shah on the throne! This is available to anyone who has become a puppet of the United Kingdom, and appears within the subject branch underneath ‘Swear Fealty to the Invaders’. This focus will fire off an event chain that will give you the option to depose or exile the Pahlavi family if they are still in power. On doing so, you will bring Mohammad Hassan Mirza into power as the new head of the Qajar dynasty.

We have also added a new version of a released Kurdistan that can be triggered by the Soviet Union when they conquer Iranian states that have Kurdish cores. If Kurdistan doesn’t already exist, and Russia is communist, then the Soviet Union will receive an event that will allow them to grant autonomy to Kurdistan, releasing it as the Republic of Mahabad. This new country is run by Qazi Muhammad and will spawn as a puppet socialist republic under the Soviets.

Conclusion
That’s it for this dev diary, we hope it has got you pumped to dive back into the graveyard with renewed vigor! As always, we'll continue to adjust and improve this and all other content as we develop the upcoming war efforts. In the meantime, keep your feedback coming and have fun.

..: PATCH NOTES 1.16.5 :..

Shareable Equipment Designs
Tank, Plane and Ship designs can now be saved between playthroughs
Tank, Plane and Ship designs can now be exported to and imported from clipboard

Balance
Afghanistan
There are now more ways of increasing democracy support, making it easier to avoid the civil war in the democratic path
Germany
Added more places in the alt-history branches for Germany to lower the Consumer Goods Factory Factors if they have either the MEFO Bills or Economy of Conquest
Reduced chance of AI Lithuania and Poland giving up territory to Germany in the Brest-Litovsk Path
India
Reduced special forces cap gained from Kingmaker from 30% to 4%
Reduced volunteer size from Kingmaker from 6 to 5
Reduced cost of Reserve Bank of India from 150pp to 100pp
Reduced several focuses in the India focus tree to 35 days
Heavy Industry now gives 6 tungsten in capital state
Seek Financial Aid from the USSR now gives 5 oil, 4 Tungsten and 6 steel in capital state
Increased Resistance gained from Violence against the British to 60% (from 50%)
Princely Subjugation now increases resistance target by 60% (from 20%) and reduces damage to garrison by -10% (from +50%)
The "Anti-Imperialist Zeal" national spirit granted by the focus "The Sun Sets" now also gives attack and defense bonuses against France and the USA, matching the bonuses targeting the UK
Reduced the "Father of Pakistan" trait from 50% surrender limit to 25%
"Rally the Indian Left" now takes 35 days (down from 70)
Rebalanced national spirit "Growing Hindu Nationalism" to give +0.7% weekly war support rather than +1%
Iran
Added +75 Political Power and +5% Communist Party Popularity to the Iranian focus "Soviet Alignment"
Adjusted several Iranian focuses from 70 to 35 days, with minor tweaks to some of them as a result of the time being lowered
Iraq
now unlocks a decision to intentionally overflow its irrigation systems and dams for a limited time
Added a focus for Iraq to trade resource rights for oil to Germany in exchange for significant military aid
Soviet Union
AI will now make use of Heavy Tanks
Fixed bug where more equipment got recovered than lost due to reliability
Lowered the chances of the more obscure paths being taken by GoE countries if the game rules are set to non-historical or the country is set to random

Gameplay
Afghanistan
Added a country leader to the communist path, as well as a Field Marshal and German General to the fascist path
The Turkmen and Tajik states in Afghanistan are now cores of their respective tags
Added a new focus for the Afghan Democratic branch to gain more democratic support as well as unlock two new advisors
Reworked the tooltip for the focus "Retire the Uncles" to be more readable
Added a focus for Afghanistan to gain the support of former Basmachi Movement members in the fascist branch, enabling for easier conquest of Soviet Central Asia
India
Added a new 'Loyalty to the UK' branch to the Raj
Kingmaker now unlocks anti democratic/unaligned raids
Kingmaker now allows joining opposite factions
AI will now be more friendly towards Kingmaker India, being more likely to want to be in an alliance with them and accept volunteers
Added new communist branches for India
Added North-Central and Western-Central India as areas targeted during the Mughal Uprising, giving the Mughal side more options for conquests during the civil war
The focus "Revolt of the Princes" now gives a spirit that makes it easier to annex the princely states
Improved descriptions of several Indian focuses
the focus "Royal Navy Mutiny" now removes the Marginalized Muslim Community spirit
the Communist party will now be renamed to Communist Party of India when completing either of the focuses "Indian Socialism" or "Soviet Influence"
The Princely Breakaway State can now get more territorial concessions during the Mughal uprising, subdivided into Southern, Eastern, Northern, Central and Western India. Controlling all states in an area will let the Mughal side keep them at the end, instantly coring them.
Added bypass to Revolt of the Princes if you already control all of India. Bypass gives the manpower and War Support you would normally get
Added a way to core the princely states with the Akhand Bharat decisions
Subhas Chandra Bose can now become an advisor for Communist India if he is swayed
Reworked how to flip communist as India. Now unlocks infiltration decisions to undermine the independence movement and the British, which reduces threshold to flip communist and boost communist support, instead of using the Autonomy system
Renamed Train Robberies to the Peoples Railways, it no longer gives Train Robberies spirit, instead adds an optional decision and alters the railway focuses
Iran
Added a focus under the Fight For Iran path that allows Iran to reinstate the Qajar dynasty if they are a British puppet
Added historical Generals Haj Ali Razmara and Assadollah Hosseinpoor to Iran
Focus "Clash of The Titans" is now visible from game start, and is available even if Greece hasn't formed Byzantium yet, but doing so while Greek Byzantine exists will offer a healthy attack bonus
Added new focuses to the Iranian Communist Path to make the Soviet & Iranian Socialism branches stand out
Added an extra event as part of the Fight For Iran branch where allies of the faction leader will peace out if the leader chooses to accept the peace negotiations

Added political advisors Abdolsamad Kambakhsh, Rokneddin Mokhtari and Karim Buzarjomehri to Iran
Added two new focuses to give democratic Iran the chance to get scientists, facilities and breakthrough progress
Added new focuses to the Iranian Communist Path to make the Soviet & Iranian Socialism branches stand out
Iraq
Added Ma'ruf al-Rusafi as an advisor
Added four focuses to the Kurdistan path for Iraq, allowing Kurdistan to go communist and join the comintern
Soviet Union
Added an event that fires off if the Soviet Union are in control of Iranian Kurdish territory, which will release Kurdistan as the Republic of Mahabad
Turkey
Focus "Expand the Saadabad Pact" will now invite other signatories automatically with GOE enabled, but only if they share an ideology with Turkey
Added more resource variety in GoE nations, such as Chromium, Steel, etc.
Added the United Maghreb as a new formable nation
Added custom agency icons for British Raj, Pakistan and Bangladesh
Added formable "Mesopotamia" for Kurdistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, to allow for the restoration of the Cradle of Civilization
Added the Saadabad Pact shared focus branch to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey

Stability & Performance
Improved AI performance for diplomacy
Improve performance of French and Russian localization

Bugfix
Afghanistan
Kabul conference decisions are no longer missing certain regions from claimable state decisions
Decisions "Exploit Turko-Persian Heritage" now show up on the map as they should
Fixed an issue in the 1939 start where Afghanistan started with some focuses completed despite missing their parent focuses
Fixed an issue where the focus "Defender of Central Asia" would sometimes change the capital hub
The focus "Approach Foreign Intelligence Services" no longer attempts to create two separate agencies when playing as communist
The decision "Exploit Turko-Persian Heritage" no longer gets soft-locked if a country gets annexed during a pending invitation
The decision "Alliance with the Turkic People" will no longer be locked saying "Establishing a Resistance cell in progress" after a decision is aborted
The focus "Purchase Aircraft" no longer gives unusable British planes
Adds fitting focus filters
The focus "The Red Threat" no longer forcibly puts Afghanistan into the Axis
Austria
Fixed cancel trigger being visible on anti fascist raids for everyone when it just targeted Austria
India
The Raj can now join the Allies via the focus "Pledge for the Allies"
Focus “Jugantar” now bypasses if you are at war with Pakistan
Fixes missing country name in focus description of Raj's focus "Seek Financial Aid from the Soviet Union"
Removed RAJ_jim_corbett from focus.
The doctrine cost reduction from the Raj's focus "Special Operations Executive" now shares its name with the focus
Fixed Bose not getting his trait when flipping fascist
Fixed Princely subjugation and independent rule icons
National spirit "The Pakistan Movement" no longer grants a non-functioning weekly war support gain
You can no longer start the indian focus "Hegemony of the Subcontinent" that requires you to own pakistan right before india splits
Fixed broken implementation of icon for Raj's National Spirit "Army Cargo Prioritization"
Generals loyal to Pakistan or Britain will now be removed from the Raj upon completion of "Royal Indian Navy Mutiny"
Fixed an instance where democratic India could not join factions
Fixed an issue where fascist UK decolonizing would attempt to turn India into a Dominion rather than a Satellite
You now need to complete one of the two first railway focuses to complete "The People's Railway"
Fixed an issue where Bhoodan movement would give random states shared building slots
Fixed an issue where you could take the focus "Hegemony of the Subcontinent" before Pakistan spawned
The "Mughal Influence" state modifier is now removed if the Mughals lose access to the state
The decision to integrate the Princely States can now be taken even if the Princely states are puppets of the Raj
Adds a National Spirit that slowly erodes the autonomy of the Princely states if Raj takes the focus "Mughal Court"
Makes sure the icon for "Gun And Shell Factory" shows up rather than the generic icon
Removed War Support modifier, reduced Party Popularity and added 60 Political Power to the focus "All Indian Kishan Sabha"
Fixed issue with political branches in British Raj that could potentially hide them even when the custom rule option was set to NOT HIDE.
Subhas Chandra Bose no longer loses his country leader traits if India turns communist
After taking the focus "The Enemy of My Enemy" Japan will only come to help and invade the Andamans for India if the two are not at war with each other
Iran
Focus "Soviet-Iranian Oil Collaboration" will no longer add the oil to a hardcoded state that doesn’t correlate with the tooltip
Focus branch "The Fight for Iran" will no longer partially disappear when wars end even when you already completed the focuses
You can now get cores on South Baluchistan via the focus "The Memphis Initiative"
Iranian kurdish uprising is no longer always triggered as communist even if Iran has a different ideology
Focus "Diversify Industry" now gives "Fuel Storage" as well, if not already unlocked, to prevent getting "Synthetic Oil Experiments" before that
Focus "Swear Fealty to the Invaders" will no longer sometimes send several events to the same country
AI will no longer take the focus "Push for Negotiations" when it is winning
No longer donates resource rights to Germany for states they do not control in focus "Donate Oil Fields to the German Reich"
Focus "Persian Gulf Hegemony" no longer says it gives you an annex war goal even though it gives you a puppet war goal
Democratic Iran now has a way to remove the Kurdish and Azerbaijani resistance National Spirits
Fixed a bug that was hiding the last two focuses in the Swear Fealty branch, that appear if a joint Anglo-Soviet invasion happened. These focuses will now appear as intended.
Fixed an issue where Soviets would steal states from Kurdistan when Iran selected Swear Fealty to the Invaders
Decision "Soviet-Iranian Oil Collaboration" no longer only adds oil to Azerbaijan, despite mentioning two states
Focus "Soviet Alignment" now bypasses if Iran is already in a faction
The focus "One for All, All for One" no longer uses an unfitting icon
Adds the "Passive Defense" agency upgrade as a fallback reward for the focus "Fund State Intelligence"
Adjusted focus branch offsets for the Iranian focus tree and how the Saadabad Pact branch accounts for collapsing focus branches
Fixed generic portraits not showing in the pool of Iranian Officers
The decision "Destabilize Northern Iraq" now correctly removes 10% stability rather than adds it
Demand Afghan Territory and Demand Iraqi Territory no longer have broken tooltip names
Changed the bypass requirements for Soviet Alignment to prevent blocking if player joins faction manually
Makes sure the right leader is assigned to Iran if they go down the route of the Islamic Revolution
Iraq
Iraqi focus "Propose Syrian Unification" will no longer create a nonsensical tooltip
State modifier "Kurdish Resistance" will no longer remain in the state if Kurdistan owns it
The Constitutional Monarchy path no longer uses the country name "Iraqi Republic"
The focus "Propose Syrian Unification" can now be taken even if Syria is a puppet of Vichy France rather than Free France
Assures that none of the four members of the Golden Square join the Kurdish side when the focus "Launch a Revolt" is completed
Renamed the army national spirit from "Army" to "National Army"
National spirits for Army, Navy and Air force now update their name based on whether Iraq is Iraq, or has become Kurdistan
Soviet Union
Can no longer take the focus "Preemptive Invasion of Iran" if they are in a faction with Iran
Turkey
Focus "Expanding the Saadabad Pact" can now be taken with GOE if you are not in a faction
Focus "Reinstate the Darülfünûn-u Şahâne" no longer bypasses when you are not in a faction, locking you out of a research slot permanently
United Kingdom
Expand the Secret Intelligence Service typo fix (it's no-longer the Greta War).
British focus "Ceylon Forward Operating Base" now bypasses correctly
Fixed an error causing the EIC buying states to become locked out
Fixed bug with MIO window showing connection lines for non-existent traits
Declaring war on another member of the Saadabad Pact will no longer display a tooltip so large it goes off the screen
Forming Mesopotamia did not give you a core on Alexandria, despite it being a required state
Adds a tooltip clarifying that weapons granted from "Secure Weapons" Will be given upon completion of focus "Mughal Uprising"
The decisions to change the direction of "Azad Hind Radio" propaganda can no longer be taken at the same time
Fixed issue with subunit modifiers for marines on attack, defense, organization and speed not being applied properly.
Fixed broken event picture in Norwegian investment event.
Makes sure Atatürk dies even though very few focuses have been completed
Annexing or puppeting Afghanistan as Iran will now remove the "Afghan Helmand River Projects" spirit(s)
The Achievement "Cradle of Civilization" now only requires level 5 infrastructure in all core states that are *not* impassable, preventing potential softlocking
Syria & Lebanon will no longer be able to choose to support vichy france or free france if they are occupied/owned by an unrelated country such as Iraq
Subjects can no longer have collaboration puppets
Fixed broken tooltip for collaboration government
Fixes an issue where decisions with the default cost of Political Power did not display the text icon
Added AI strategy to have the UK always let a loyal Raj back into the allies if it completed "Tryst with Destiny"
The state modifier "Resistant to Occupation" given to states conquered from India is no longer permanently reapplied in states if India gets capitulated, modifier also doesn't reapply if it was previously removed or the state was given willingly
The "Anglo-Iraqi Treaty" is now removed if Iraq and the United Kingdom are at war with each other
Decisions in "The Kabul Conference" now can be taken even decision is cancelled
Removed controlling Maltya from the requirements of "United Kurdistan", adds Deir-Az-Zur as requirement instead
Kurdistans formed from focus trees are now valid for the "House of Kurds" achievement
Ensured that the player cannot take 'Expand the Imperial Guard' when not non-aligned or have the monarchy in power.

Our recent, and still incoming, updates
March 6 - Graveyard of Empires Follow up
March 10 - Update from the Developers
March 12 - Patch Notes | Operation HEAD (1.16.1)
March 20 - Patch Notes | Operation KNEE (1.16.2)
March 27 - War Effort: Patch Notes | Operation SHOULDER (1.16.3)
April 9 - Open Beta | Patch 1.16.5
April 16 - Open Beta | Patch 1.16.5 (Update 1)
April 28 - Patch 1.16.5 <- You are Here
June - Dev Corners kick off!

Generals!

For the next several days you’ll be able to test some things and give us all your feedback in this thread.

You can play around, test and give feedback on anything you like, but our focus will be on these points:

• Equipment Designer - We’ve added functionality to save your designs across game sessions. Save a tank/ship/plane design in one playthrough, and load it up in another.
  
• Also added is the ability to share designs with friends using the import/export feature.

• Saadabad Pact Branch - Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey are getting a shared branch that allows them to cooperate more with one another.
  
• Iran is getting some extra characters and focuses, including scientists and generals.
  
• Afghanistan is also getting some extra characters in the form of a communist country leader and some new advisors.
  
• Iraq’s Kurdistan branch is being expanded upon

We’re working hard on polishing Graveyard of Empires content on multiple fronts with the addition of new focuses, characters and events. We’ll continue to work on fixes, content and balancing as the beta progresses, and we may want to update the beta content during this time to make sure you have the opportunity to give us specific feedback relevant to the state of the game at that time.

The equipment designer persistence feature is something we might want to extend in the future towards other parts of the game as well, so please give us feedback on that! (The import/export feature is available in the equipment designer that comes with MTG, NSB or BBA)

- Gorion and AveeBee

The Open Beta continues with fresh Tweaks.

April 16th 2025

• There are now more ways of increasing democracy support, making it easier to avoid the civil war in the democratic path

• Reduced several focuses in the India focus tree to 35 days
  
• Heavy Industry now gives 6 tungsten in capital state
  
• Seek Financial Aid from the USSR now gives 5 oil, 4 Tungsten and 6 steel in capital state
  
• Increased Resistance gained from Violence against the British to 60% (from 50%)
  
• Princely Subjugation now increases resistance target by 60% (from 20%) and reduces damage to garrison by -10% (from +50%)
  
• The "Anti-Imperialist Zeal" national spirit granted by the focus "The Sun Sets" now also gives attack and defense bonuses France and the USA, matching the bonuses targeting the UK

• Added +75 Political Power and +5% Communist Party Popularity to the Iranian focus "Soviet Alignment"

• Added a focus under the Fight For Iran path that allows Iran to reinstate the Qajar dynasty if they are a British puppet
  
• Added two new generals

• Added new communist branches for India
  
• Added North-Central and Western-Central India as areas targeted during the Mughal Uprising, giving the Mughal side more options for conquests during the civil war
  
• The focus "Revolt of the Princes" now gives a spirit that makes it easier to annex the princely states
  
• Improved descriptions of several Indian focuses
  
• The focus "Royal Navy Mutiny" now removes the Marginalized Muslim Community spirit

• Added an event that fires off if the Soviet Union are in control of Iranian Kurdish territory, which will release Kurdistan as the Republic of Mahabad
  
• Added the option to add 'notes' to your equipment design

• Improve performance of French and Russian localization

• The Constitutional Monarchy path no longer uses the country name "Iraqi Republic"
  
• The focus "Propose Syrian Unification" can now be taken even if Syria is a puppet of Vichy France rather than Free France
  
• Assures that none of the four members of the Golden Square join the Kurdish side when the focus "Launch a Revolt" is completed
  
• Renamed the army national spirit from "Army" to "National Army"

• Iranian focus "Soviet Alignment" now bypasses if Iran is already in a faction
  
• The focus "One for All, All for One" no longer uses an unfitting icon
  
• Adds the "Passive Defense" agency upgrade as a fallback reward for the focus "Fund State Intelligence"
  
• Adjusted focus branch offsets for the Iranian focus tree and how the Saadabad Pact branch accounts for collapsing focus branches
  
• The decision "Destabilize Northern Iraq" now correctly removes 10% stability rather than adds it
  
• Fixed generic portraits not showing in the pool of Iranian Officers
  
• Demand Afghan Territory and Demand Iraqi Territory no longer have broken tooltip names
  
• Changed the bypass requirements for Soviet Alignment to prevent blocking if player joins faction manually

• Subhas Chandra Bose no longer loses his country leader traits if India turns communist
  
• Fixed an issue where fascist UK decolonizing would attempt to turn India into a Dominion rather than a Satellite
  
• You now need to complete one of the two first railway focuses to complete "The People's Railway"
  
• Fixed an issue where Bhoodan movement would give random states shared building slots
  
• Fixed an issue where you could take the focus "Hegemony of the Subcontinent" before Pakistan spawned
  
• The "Mughal Influence" state modifier is now removed if the Mughals lose access to the state
  
• The decision to integrate the Princely States can now be taken even if the Princely states are puppets of the Raj
  
• Adds a National Spirit that slowly erodes the autonomy of the Princely states if Raj takes the focus "Mughal Court"
  
• Makes sure the icon for "Gun And Shell Factory" shows up rather than the generic icon

• Fixed an issue in the 1939 start where Afghanistan started with some focuses completed despite missing their parent focuses
  
• Fixed an issue where the focus "Defender of Central Asia" would sometimes change the capital hub
  
• The focus "Approach Foreign Intelligence Services" no longer attempts to create two separate agencies when playing as communist
  
• The decision "Exploit Turko-Persian Heritage" no longer gets soft-locked if a country gets annexed during a pending invitation
  
• The decision "Alliance with the Turkic People" will no longer be locked saying "Establishing a Resistance cell in progress" after a decision is aborted
  
• The focus "Purchase Aircraft" no longer gives unusable British planes
  
• Adds fitting focus filters
  
• The focus "The Red Threat" no longer forcibly puts Afghanistan into the Axis

• Saadabad focus "Expand Road and Rail Connections" can no longer be taken when at war with a former member of the pact
  
• The USSR can no longer take the focus "Preemptive Invasion of Iran" if they are in a faction with Iran
  
• Syria and Lebanon now becomes free if they refuse the event sent by France from "French Union"
  
• Added AI strategy to have the UK always let a loyal Raj back into the allies if it completed "Tryst with Destiny"
  
• British focus "Ceylon Forward Operating Base" now bypasses correctly
  
• Turkish focus "Reinstate the Darülfünûn-u Şahâne" no longer bypasses when you are not in a faction, locking you out of a research slot permanently
  
• The state modifier "Resistant to Occupation" given to states conquered from India is no longer permanently reapplied in states if India gets capitulated, modifier also doesn't reapply if it was previously removed or the state was given willingly
  
• MIO's now reset to no MIO if you import an equipment design for which you don't have the MIO (shareable equipment designs)

- Tank, Plane and Ship designs can now be saved between playthroughs
- Tank, Plane and Ship designs can now be exported to and imported from clipboard

- Soviet AI will now make use of Heavy Tanks
- Added an extra event as part of the Fight For Iran branch where allies of the faction leader will peace out if the leader chooses to accept the peace negotiations
- Added more places in the alt-history branches for Germany to lower the Consumer Goods Factory Factors if they have either the MEFO Bills or Economy of Conquest
- Germany: Reduced chance of AI Lithuania and Poland giving up territory to Germany in the Brest-Litovsk Path
- Added historical Generals Haj Ali Razmara and Assadollah Hosseinpoor to Iran
- Added political advisors Abdolsamad Kambakhsh, Rokneddin Mokhtari and Karim Buzarjomehri to Iran
- Iran: Focus "Clash of The Titans" is now visible from game start, and is available even if Greece hasn't formed Byzantium yet, but doing so while Greek Byzantine exists will offer a healthy attack bonus
- Added two new focuses to give democratic Iran the chance to get scientists, facilities and breakthrough progress
- Lowered the chances of the more obscure paths being taken by GoE countries if the game rules are set to non-historical or the country is set to random
- Adjusted 24 Iranian focuses from 70 to 35 days, with minor tweaks to some of them as a result of the time being lowered
- India: "Rally the Indian Left" now takes 35 days (down from 70)
- India: "Reds in the Shadow" now takes 35 days (down from 70)
- India: "League Against Gandhism" now adds 30 Political Power
- India: Removed War Support modifier, reduced Party Popularity and added 60 Political Power to the focus "All Indian Kishan Sabha"

- Added a joint focus tree between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan to represent the Saadabad Pact, updated some content for Turkey to account for the new joint focus tree
- Afghanistan: Added a country leader to the communist path, as well as a Field Marshal and German General to the fascist path
- Added more resource variety in GoE nations, such as Chromium, Steel, etc.
- India: the Princely Breakaway State can now get more territorial concessions during the Mughal uprising, subdivided into Southern, Eastern, Northern, Central and Western India. Controlling all states in an area will let the Mughal side keep them at the end, instantly coring them.
- Added bypass to Revolt of the Princes if you already control all of India. Bypass gives the manpower and War Support you would normally get
- Added a way to core the princely states with the Akhand Bharat decisions
- Added the United Maghreb as a new formable nation
- Added custom agency icons for British Raj, Pakistan and Bangladesh
- The Turkmen and Tajik states in Afghanistan are now cores of their respective tags
- Afghanistan: Added a new focus for the Afghan Democratic branch to gain more democratic support as well as unlock two new advisors
- Iraq: Added Ma'ruf al-Rusafi as an advisor
- Iraq: Added four focuses to the Kurdistan path for Iraq, allowing Kurdistan to go communist and join the comintern
- India: Reworked how to flip communist as India. Now unlocks infiltration decisions to undermine the independence movement and the British, which reduces threshold to flip communist and boost communist support, instead of using the Autonomy system
- India: Renamed Train Robberies to the Peoples Railways, it no longer gives Train Robberies spirit, instead adds an optional decision and alters the railway focuses
- India: Subhas Chandra Bose can now become an advisor for Communist India if he is swayed
- Added formable "Mesopotamia" for Kurdistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, to allow for the restoration of the Cradle of Civilization
- Afghanistan: Reworked the tooltip for the focus "Retire the Uncles" to be more readable

- Modding: Fixed CTDs when attempting to scope to non-existing states
- Modding: Fixed dynamic scopes parsing for the fighting_army_strength_ratio trigger

- Fixed spelling issue for Uruguay focus "Pay Off All External Debts"
- Fixed rare CTD when removing advisors
- United Kingdom: Expand the Secret Intelligence Service typo fix (it's no longer the Greta War)
- India: Removed advisor Jim Corbett from the Rally the Indian Left focus, as he is actually unlocked by Lobby Parliament
- If Germany chooses to setup Bourbon France after capitulating France, Free France will now get its Focus Tree with the DLC La Résistance
- Iran: Updated the available triggers for the "Promoting Resistance in <state>" to be more clear
- Iran: Added tooltip explaining what Generals are unlocked from the focus "United Progressive Parties"
- Iran: Added more restrictions to when certain Iranian characters can be hired based on for example ideology or focuses completed
- Iran: Added small portraits for Jafar Kavian and Fazlollah Zahedi
- Iran: Resource rights are now reclaimed upon entering war with a country that bought resource rights to Khuzestan Oil
- Fixed bug where more equipment got recovered than lost
- Fixed a bug where spy network modifier was applied to countries, even if they are not at war with the country
- India: Fixed an erroneous tooltip that stated you had 1 year to finish the Mughal uprising, when in fact it was 255 days
- Iran: The focus "Soviet Alignment" now has an effect even if the Soviet Union isn't in a faction
- Iran: Removes state modifier "Promoting Resistance Here" applied by Iran in states that can be ceded to them if Iran gains control of the state
- Iran: Fixes a tooltip to avoid "Iraq declares war on Iraq"
- Added missing states to the formable nations the Macedonian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Turan, the Aksumite Empire, Al-Andalus, the Persian Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire
- Ethiopian focuses targeting Yemen now also correctly target the Province of Aden
- Iran: Fixes mutually exclusive branches under "Dig and Defend" and "Force Them Back" not collapsing
- Iran: Fixes focus branches collapsing no whether the rule was set to hide or not hide obsolete branches
- Fixed an OOS related to using random in Rajs history file
- Planes created with Iraqi focus "Purchase Alternative Aircraft" no longer give you non-functional fighters
- Fixed a minor typo in the description of indian focus "The Mughal Uprising"
- Fixed missing focus filters in Iraq
- Indian focus "Lobby for Increased Polling Responsibilities" no longer gives a non functioning bonus to militia attack
- Afghanistan: Bonuses from Mohammad Hashim Khan, Abdul Hai Habibi, and other historical characters will now be displayed correctly with the character name in tooltips.
- India no longer stays as a colony after Britain decolonizes
- Afghanistan: Bonuses from the generic advisor Sher Ali Sherkhanzai (fascist writer) and other non-historical characters will now be displayed correctly with the character name in tooltips.
- Fixed Dams built via the Afghanistan Focus Tree not showing up on the map with their 3D models.
- Fixed Purchase Dreadnoughts decision tooltip always stating payment to the United States, even when ships were bought from a different country.
- India: When GoE is disabled, the focus Institute of Fundamental Research will grant one scientist level to nuclear scientist Homi J. Bhabha
- India / Madras: Fixed Chithira Thirunal Balarma Varma not showing up with his unique portraits as Country Leader, Political Advisor and Army Leader.
- India: Fixed Princely Breakaway State using the wrong small flag on unit counters
- Afghanistan: Reform Quami - Support companies will now be added to template if the technology is researched after the focus is taken.
- India: Princely Breakaway State will now show the appropriate country flag
- India: Added advisors to the East India Company focus "Lobby Parliament" effect and tooltip
- Afghanistan: Afghanistan and the Soviet Union now join a tech-sharing group when 'Soviet Research Cooperation' focus is taken.
- Afghanistan: Chak Dam focus for Afghanistan now builds in a different state
- Adds Lebanon and Kuwait to the Mesopotamia formable
- Afghanistan: No longer tries to join the Axis from focus "Into the Plains of the British Raj" if they are already part of the Axis
- Afghanistan: The focus "Linchpin of Global Defense" now correctly modifies the Quami national spirit.
- Iran: Clarifies that only Main Instigator gets resource rights if Iran does "Push for Negotiations", but adds extra effects for other attackers and makes sure all attackers can peace out, added new flavor event for all parties
- Iran: Fixes branches not hiding when they should in the Iranian focus tree
- Iran: Making sure the non-aligned party actually take over if the Islamic Revolution happens
- Iran: Added a capitulation progress requirement to 'Swear Fealty to the Invaders' to ensure the AI doesn't surrender when it is winning the war.

Generals!

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Update - 07/04/24 - Thank you for getting involved with our survey, we have closed submissions in order to begin processing the results!