Generals!

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Hearts of Iron IV - 70% off
Hearts of Iron IV: Starter Edition - 60% 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're rolling out a quick hotfix to address a few minor issues cropping up with some scripts and implementation of the Content Creator Pack.

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# Bugfix
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- Fixed ship creation script from autoincluding version numbering inconsistently, leading to a few instances of invalid script
- Non-Designer equipment will no longer show version naming by default*
- A few CCP icons were being shown in unintended locations, this is no longer the case

Hello there! Katten here. Today marks the final day of our Anniversary Week. It's been one thrilling ride, kicking off with our teaser for the upcoming expansion, followed by a giveaway that saw over 10,000 participants! Then came our secondary announcement: our first Content Creator Pack - Soviet Union 2D Art. Sunday brought the sweat with our broadcast of the grande finale for this year's Community Cup, where the Red Baron team claimed first place!

And now, today, we're excited to release the War Effort Update 1.14.6: Operation Badger, alongside the Content Creator Pack.

This post below will contain two key sections. First, we'll delve into the details of our War Effort update, followed by our second and final Dev Diary for the Content Creator Pack. But without further ado, I'll hand over the mic to Game Director, Arheo.

Wait, I almost forgot! Before that, we are also running a sale on the PDX Store with up to 70% off! Check it out HERE.


Hey folks,

Arheo here with the change log for Operation Badger, the War Effort update which we've been brewing for some time now. We've spent a little more time than usual on making sure that there's some good QoL or small-feature items in here as a part of the anniversary update, so I hope these keep you going for a while!

Of course, this update goes live alongside the Content Creator Pack that the World Ablaze team have been working on, so I'll hand over to them for a deeper dive into what's coming there.

################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.14.6 "Bolivar" #########
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# Balance
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- Updated the French focus "Avenge Waterloo" to include Luxembourg in it's targets.
- Increased warscore from sinking ships by 4-5x (this will continue to be iterated upon). Increased warscore from sinking convoys, and decreased convoy build decay rate to warscore.
- Canada: Changed around the starting navy to be more historically accurate. Also fixed various issues regarding Quebec and their victory points, as well as a typo in their fascist party name.
- Canada: Updated Canadian Air Chiefs
- Norway: focuses “Invite Cadillac to Norway” and “Invite Soviet Designers” now grant extra levels to the MIOs unlocked, and the Cadillac focus now only takes 35 days to complete.
- Norway: Now only Germany can trigger civil war by attacking
- Norway: focus "Approach the Fatherland League" now gives -5% democratic support instead of -10% fascist support.
- Iceland: mineral prospecting focus no longer runs a random list to decide which resource you get. You will always get 10 iron and 6 aluminium. Fishing industry spirit now grants -10% convoy cost at both levels.
- Chile: Reduced research speed bonus from French Academia to 3% from 10% (this is not a subtle comment against French academics)
- Chile: Reduced the amount of political power and war support available across several branches.
- Chile: Rayen Quitral now grants 10% stability from 20%
- Chile: Manuel Manquilef now grants 5% factory output, from 8, and no longer grants ideology drift defense
- Chile: Antonio Neculman now grants 6% research speed, from 15%
- Chile: Manuel Panguilef no longer reduces research speed, however provides 5% war support and stability, from 10%
- Chile: Reduced most sources of attack & core division attack to be in line with similar nations
- Chile: Adjusted most sources of national manpower factor to be more consistent with other nations
- Chile: Reduced bonuses substantially
- Chile: Grand Armada focus no longer grants dockyard output, but has increased dockyard construction speed; rewarding future plans rather than flat improvements. Positioning bonus removed.
- Chile: Patagonian Giants focus no longer grants division attack and defense, but increases breakthrough by 10% from 8%
- Chile: Development Inwards focus no longer reduces military factory construction speed by 25%
- Chile: via trans radio chilena bonuses halved
- South America Shared: hot and cold acclimitization factor reduced to 15% per focus, from 25%
- South America Shared: Reduced potential for most direct combat stats from decisions and focuses (attack, defense & org)
- Brazil: Reduced speed for research bonuses granted by Promote Resource Extraction focus to 50%x2 from 75%x2
- Brazil: Increases research speed from bonuses granted by Stimulate Civilian Economy to 50%x2 from 40%x2
- Brazil: Reduced research speed from bonuses granted by Italian Car Industry to 50%x2 from 75%x2
- Brazil: Increased research speed granted by bonuses in Desenvolituddimeot.... that one; to 50%x2 from 40%x2
- Argentina: Increase research speed bonus for synth rubber granted by Reinforce the Education System to 100%x1 from 50%x1
- Australia: Australian Army Catering Corps now grants 3x100% research speed bonuses to logistics company, from 1x300%
- Australia: Airborne defence focus now grants 1x100% research speed bonus for paratroopers, from 1x300%. It also now grants 2x50% cost reductions for special forces doctrine
- Australia: CAC Woomera focus now grants 3x100% research bonuses for specific hulls, from 1x300%
- Australia: Uranium Mining now grants 2x50% research bonuses from whatever it was before, and now grants 2x100% research bonuses for excavation tech
- Australia: Dominate the Skies now grants 4 air bases from 2, and 2 doctrine cost bonuses from 1
- Australia: Rebalanced several focuses in the Australian military branch letting them unlock an additional special forces branch specialism (AAT) quite early and without being a major, and granting a significant number of doctrine cost reductions for the above.
- Baltic Shared: Original designs focus now grants 50% speed bonuses, from 75%
- Bulgaria: Uranium Prospecting focus now grants 2x 100% bonuses, from 2x200%
- Bulgaria: Normalized several tech bonuses, overall slightly reducing the efficacy of research benefits
- Canada: Normalized several tech bonuses. Canadian Parachute Battalion now grants 2x50% special forces doctrine cost reduction, but reduces paratroopers research bonus to 100% from 300%
- Finland: Normalized research speed bonuses
- France: France can now unlock a special forces branch specialism from their military branch. Military branch has been slightly rearranged.
- Special Forces Doctrine: special forces cap factor bonuses significantly reduced
- Ethiopia: Normalized -some- of the research bonuses
- Generic Focus Tree: increased army experience gains and normalized army research bonuses
- Generic Focus Tree: Add Truck
- Generic Focus Tree: Fascist branch now provides a total of 3% recruitable population, from 7%, but now also provides 25% mobilization speed and 15% reduced supply penalties on core territory
- Generic Focus Tree: Communist branch now grants 400 weekly manpower (yes this will stack with the military spirit)
- Greece: Normalized research bonuses
- Italy: Normalized research bonuses (while a few went up or had charges added, these mostly came down)
- Japan: Tweaked some research bonuses (no big changes)
- Reduced Nuclear research bonuses across all focus trees
- Norway: Normalized research bonuses
- Poland: Normalized research bonuses
- Portugal: Normalized research bonuses. Focus 'POR_tropas_paraquedistas' now grants 2 50% special forces doctrine cost reductions
- Romania: Focus 'ROM_expand_the_marine_regiment' now grants 2 50% doctrine cost reductions for special forces doctrine
- South Africa: Focus 'SAF_south_african_special_forces' now grants 2x50% cost reductions for special forces doctrine
- Sweden: Normalized research bonuses
- Soviet Union: Normalized Research bonuses (mostly unchanged, Jet research won't be as fast)

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# Gameplay
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- Mini-Feature: Variant version is now separated from name, resulting in an improved dynamic equipment versioning system. (Modding: unique version strings can be provided for ship, armor, and plane equipment on a per-country level.)
- Mini-Feature: Civilian Factories can now be assigned to prioritize repairing damaged constructions
- Mini-Feature: Captured ships can now be refit through the individual ship design screen. Once redesigned, you will gain a regular design variant to be used as normal. Redesigning this way will no longer cost the original creator the experience price.
- Added Rio de Oro (The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) and Khuzestan as new cores gained when taking the 'Unite Arabia' decision.
- Updated the British Blackshirt March decisions to include Cumbria and the Isle of Man.
- Norway: no longer starts a civil war with historical focuses enabled
- Norway: Added unique leader traits to the Norwegian country leaders who did not yet have traits, and added Edvard Christian Danielsen as a new Admiral for the country.
- Changed the mutual exclusivity of the Nordic formable nations so that the "Kalmar Union" focus can be taken alongside one of the others, and only the "North Sea Empire" and "Nordic Union" are now mutually exclusive.
- Norway: Added an event for the Kingdom of Norway to choose their Stance regarding foreign policy, allowing for different playstyles.
- Norwegian fascist civil war can now be started when either Germany has declared war or when support for the fascist coup is significant enough. Other fascist powers can no longer be invited to invade.
- Made the first news event regarding the Italian annexation of Aussa fire only for Ethiopia.
- Equipment Variants are now a lot more 'sticky' with their names when you refit them, leading to much fewer instances of '1936 Destroyer Hull Class'.

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# UI
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- Many info popups now appear at the bottom-right of the screen and do not require manual interaction to clear. This change should drastically decrease the effects of 'popup spam'.

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# Modding
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- Equipment property is_frame should now auto-obsolete

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# Bugfix
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- Fixed an issue where the Chilean decision to Demand a Snap Election to become Communist was unavailable if playing with localization using a non-latin alphabet.
- Fixed an issue where the Icelandic Admiral from the event "A Danish King once More" and a Swiss Admiral from the focus "Train Navy Staff" would have General skills instead of Admiral ones.
- Fixed a minor typo in the event "War in South America".
- Fixed an issue where AI Turkey would not always select Adnan Menderes as president when made to go the Ottoman path, thus locking themselves out of the branch.
- Fixed an issue where in some fringe cases, completing the Spanish focus 'Caudillo of Spain' would accidentally kill Francisco Franco.
- Fixed various issues with the American event "A New General for China" triggered by a Chinese focus, where Joseph Stillwell would always become unavailable to the US no matter who they chose to send, as well as the advisor position of the character sent not being available to China.
- Fixed an issue where the full names for the Chilean political parties chosen in the 1938 election event wouldn't properly appear.
- Fixed an issue where the non-MTG tree for the UK could start overlapping when going down the Home Defense path.
- Fix OS inconsistency in how scripted bool values (yes/no) are parsed, leading to fixing a few script parsing errors on Linux/Mac
- Fixed an exploit that allowed you to bypass the Mapuche civil war as Chile by using war support to instigate a small-scale communist uprising, and also added is_subject = no triggers to various Chilean focuses regarding ideology, factions and wars.
- It is no longer possible to avoid air accidents by stacking air wings in bases. Air accident calculation has been adjusted as well, and the tooltip improved a little.
- State mapmode stops trying to display modifiers without icon
- Fixed two typos in the Soviet focus "Return Democracy to the Party".
- Fixed various issues and inconsistencies with the name of the Arabian formable nation.
- Moved provinces 13234 and 13235 in the state Northern Epirus from being erroneously counted as North America to being in Europe.
- Changed the name 'Attu' from being applied to a province in Shanxi to actually being applied to Attu Island.
- Fix focus 'Scramble for the Baltic' for Sweden where after one war the other war goals would disappear
- Fixed an issue where Greenland would not start with control of their capital state when released in the Nordics Fragmented game rule.
- Fixed an issue where you would be unable to construct Super-Heavy Battleships when running the game without MTG.
- Fixed a few instances where MIOs did not provide the reliability they claimed to be.
- NOR: Changed Extensive Recruitment and Expanded Conscription Drive to give a timed weekly manpower modifier rather than conscription factor.
- NOR: Changed Build Supplies Network to provide construction boost to Naval Base as well as Supply Hub.
- NOR: Notraskip and other focuses that used to require in exile government, now require capitulation instead for Man the Guns compatibility.
- Fixed an issue where the name from the research bonus received when doing the Norwegian focus "Military Police" had the wrong name.
- Fixed an issue where Chile could demand control of Guyanese territory from themselves if controlling any of the territory when taking their focus to do so.
- Fixed an issue where the Norwegian focus "Forsvarets Intelligence Service" would show up when not having La Resistance active.
- Fixed an issue where Genoa and Hinterpommern had incorrect names when playing with Russian localization.
- Fixed two issues where the small portraits for King Haakon and Prince Olav of Norway weren't showing up as intended.
- Fixed an issue where the Russian focus "Intervention in the Americas" was bugged and didn't have an effect.
- Fixed an issue where South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands wouldn't get cored when handed over to them by Japan as part of their scripted peace deal decisions/events.
- NOR: re-balanced preparation system.
- Fixed an issue where the North Sea Empire formable nation wouldn't get a core of Finnmark.
- Do not trigger the event creating Free France and Vichy France if Paris is not owned by France (Avoids possible crash in Peace Conference)
- Made the Brazilian focuses 'Join the Comintern', 'The Latin American Socialist', 'Reach Out to Our Neighbors', 'Establish Berlin Accords', 'Establish Rome Accords', and 'Form Mercosul'; the Uruguayan focuses 'Join the Allies' and 'The Fuhrmann Plan'; the Argentinian focuses 'Forge Our Own Future', 'Bastion of Peace', 'Argentina First', and 'Join the Axis'; the Paraguayan focuses 'Join the Axis', 'Join the Allies', and 'Join the Comintern'; and the Ethiopian focus 'Towards African Unity' require independence to be undertaken.
- Super heavy armor now works for both Man the Guns and non Man the Guns superheavy battleships
- Fixed an issue where Germany wouldn't get a core on Danzig when gaining it through the focus "Danzig for Slovakia".
- Fixed an issue where Brazil would be locked out of taking their "propose integration" decisions from the "United States of South America" focus if a member of their faction left it when the decision was still ongoing.
- Fix a bug where focuses (with modded icons) could get wrong icon in popups in MP
- Spain: Fixed an issue where the POUM couldn’t release nations, an effect which was only intended for the Anarchists.
- Spain: Fixed a minor issue in the Carlist Ai-strategy plan for Spain.
- Spain: Fixed an issue where the state modifier Autonomous State wasn’t removed from the relevant states if Galicia, the Basque Country or Catalonia owned them.
- Spain: Fixed a multitude of issues with Manuel Anazña not being an actual “character”, thus not being able to take certain focuses that required him as country leader if using non-Latin localization and more.
- Spain: The Spanish Republican AI should no longer be blocked from taking the focus Enlist the Carabineros.
- Spain: Made the falangist focus “Primo de Rivera Prisoner Exchange” take 35 days and also grant 5% war support.
- Spain: Added a new late-game focus for Falangist Spain to core all Hispanic lands, provided they control them all first.
- Spain: The Spanish focus in the Falangist path, “Unite Iberia” now also gives claims on Portugal.
- Spain: The Spanish focus in the Falangist path, “Absorb the Portuguese Empire” now has a different description, and alongside the previous wargoals on their former colonies, also grants cores on any Portuguese core states controlled by Spain at the time of Completion.
- Norway: Made the communist militias gained during the civil war disband at the end of it, returning any equipment and manpower they possessed to the player.
- Norway: Rebalanced the Norwegian Communist Preparations system.
- Norway: Fixed various issues with the Norwegian focus "Join the Comintern".
- Norway: Added is_subject = no triggers to various Norwegian focuses.
- Norway: Fixed an issue where the claims from the "Norwegian Royal Family Arrives" event weren't working.




Hi everyone! Coinciding with the release of the Soviet Union 2D Art Content Creator Pack ($3.99), Paradox has asked me to go over some of the creative process that has gone into this pack. Before we begin, I shall first introduce myself. My name is Aqeel Mughal, also known as Uncharted, and I am the founder and one of the head developers of World Ablaze. I have a degree in Illustration and Visual Communication and have spent the past 6 years working on artwork for Hearts of Iron IV. It became my most played game very quickly as I am a huge fan of grand strategy games starting all the way back from playing the board game Risk when I was a teen. Suffice to say, working on this CCP was an absolute treat, and I look forward to sharing the next moments with you all.

The creative process involved in this CCP falls under 2 main sections: the National Focuses/Spirits and the Technology tree icons. For the focuses, the first step when creating the focus icons was to ensure as many icons in the focus tree conveyed a unique concept that represented the description and effect it was giving, and that meant for the vast majority drawing a tailor-made centrepiece.

For the industry, this meant having factories or industrial machinery being shown, for example. For some of the political icons, I took inspiration from historical soviet propaganda posters/statues. I was very keen on each one being something 3D to help the focus pop out.

After the centrepiece was drawn, an appropriate frame was chosen that allowed the centrepiece to be shown without too much negative space, and either a bespoke or regular background was used depending on the importance of the focus. Laurels and colours were picked by which one fitted the theme of the respective tree and the focus itself (you will see a lot of red in the politics section, for example).

For national spirits, most of the icons created were either a smaller representation of the focus it came from or historical iconography. The rest convey the description of the spirit, such as the Trotsky Plot showcasing the intense rivalry of Trotsky and Stalin which led to the 1936 purges.

When it came to the style I chose, I very much wanted to inject more colour saturation and a higher contrast in what I drew to make the icons pop out a lot more and give them energy which would harmonise well with the dynamic scenes depicted.


A selection of focus icons taken from different trees illustrating the diversity of what you will find.


A showcase of some of the national spirits that are part of the CCP.



A comparison of vanilla art with CCP art.

When it came to the tech tree icons, there were a multitude of issues to try and address, a lot of generic and dated art was being used and I set out the goal to completely overhaul all of it to ensure consistency and higher quality for the CCP. After deciding what to draw I would seek blueprints or historical images where possible to act as my foundation. Each tech art starts with creating every shape and detail present in said blueprints/images before applying texture, shading, colour, and blending effects. The goal here was to create icons that fit in the game but pop out more, are somewhat proportional to each other (for example, light cruiser icons are smaller than battleship ones) and are consistent in their look.

For any designs that are entirely fiction, they were based on the closest historical counterpart to ground them as proper “what-if” designs.


Infantry and support icons created to be unique and high quality.


New and improved tank icons with a colour scheme appropriate to the Soviet Union.


A highlight of air pieces with historical camouflage schemes used.


A completely new spin on ship icons for HOI4 prioritizing scale and using new shading.


Unique artillery icons drawn that match the equipment name in the localisation.



An example of a historical correction



An example of a quality improvement



With an overhaul of all soviet tech art, consistency is achieved with variant icons.

Well everybody, thank you for reading and I hope you now have a good understanding as to the intentions and process of creating the artwork for this CCP. What I have shown is just a small snippet of what is in the CCP and with hundreds of icons included, I hope that all your future soviet games will be much more immersive and aesthetically pleasing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2981720/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Content_Creator_Pack__Soviet_Union_2D_Art/

Hello there! My name is Katten, and I'm your Community Manager for Hearts of Iron IV. Today, we are excited to announce our first-ever Content Creator Pack (or CCP for short) for Hearts of Iron IV which releases on the 10th of June. This is something we have previously done for Cities: Skylines and Crusader Kings. The pack is created by modders and published by us.


Before I hand it over to Ethan Mayer, one of the two creators of this pack, I wanted to address two frequently asked questions, as I'm sure they will come up.

Did you just take a free mod and make it paid?

• No, we collaborated with modders to create completely new content!

What do the modders get from this?

• Modders get paid based on the number of copies sold.

Now you can see what was hidden in our Roadmap!


Hello everyone! I am not your usual Dev Diary writer, so let me introduce myself. I am Ethan Mayer, otherwise known online as 156, one of the Head Developers of the Hearts of Iron IV mod World Ablaze. I am proud to announce, with the support of Paradox, our upcoming CCP Content Creator Pack – Soviet Union 2D Art which will soon be for sale for $3.99. Today, I’ll be explaining to y’all who we are, what this is, and how it all came to be. Let’s get to it!

We’ll save the backstory for later in this Dev Diary and firstly get straight into it by talking about what exactly is a Content Creator Pack. As touched on a bit previously, CCPs are small DLCs developed by modders and published by Paradox for their games, such as has been done “for Crusader Kings III. This is a mutually beneficial deal for all parties: more content gets created for Paradox’s games while the modders, who already work hard in their free time to mod the game, can make some money. Essentially, Paradox is providing a convenient, official, and publicly accessible way for the community to support modders, and in return, you get a small CCP for HOI4. It is an incredibly generous program, and we are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to participate. This particular CCP is similar to the other existing cosmetic DLCs for HOI4, such as Unit Pack and Music DLCs, except the content will be in the distinct World Ablaze style rather than the traditional HOI4 vanilla style. As the name of the pack aptly suggests, the content we are providing for the CCP is 2D art for the Soviet Union. There are over 300+ pieces of high-quality 2D art found in this pack that cover a wide range of Soviet content, including (but not limited to) equipment, national focuses, national spirits, etc. Aqeel will show off the art and creative process involved in its creation in the next Dev Diary. There will be plenty of pictures to ooh and ahh at!

As I said initially, many of you know me as 156, one of the Head Developers of the World Ablaze mod. Professionally, I am an electrical engineer, software engineer, and entrepreneur. I’ve worked for the likes of NASA, Microsoft, and, best of all, myself. I am an avid gamer (maybe moreso in my younger years, but the passion remains), and my favorite genre is, of course, strategy games. Paradox games have always held a special place in my heart as some of the best Grand Strategy RTS games ever made. I started playing Hearts of Iron all the way back in HOI2 and have continued with every installment since (extra shout out to the great spinoffs like Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game!). Safe to say all these years later, I am as big of a HOI fan as ever. I followed the development of Hearts of Iron IV from its first dev diary to its last and have been playing it since the day it was released. Vanilla was great at first, but as soon as the workshop started getting populated, mods were my go-to way to play.

Several years later in 2020, I met my good friend, partner, and fellow World Ablaze Head Developer Aqeel Mughal, otherwise known as Uncharted, and joined him to work on the mod. The rest is history. We’ve worked hard over the years to make World Ablaze into the mod it is today: a historical and challenging overhaul of HOI4. We are proud of what we have built and look forward to continuing its development at least as long as HOI4 is supported. If anyone is unfamiliar with what World Ablaze is all about, you can check out our Steam Workshop page here. The main features of the mod include unique equipment and accompanying technology trees, custom mechanics, original artwork, challenging AI, improved map design, and other total overhaul changes such as custom content, focus trees, decisions, etc. World Ablaze started from humble beginnings as the Armed Forces Overhaul (AFO) mod, which was just a historical technology tree and equipment mod for tanks, planes, and ships. However, the scope of the project grew into a total overhaul. Once you overhaul equipment to the extent that AFO did, overhauling the rest of the game was not only natural, but required to accompany such impressive equipment work. Thus, the ambition eventually became to make the best historically accurate World War 2 overhaul mod for Hearts of Iron IV. We have focused on producing a high-quality and professionally run mod, and we can thank our persistent dedication to these standards for our steady rise to prominence. Our mod’s development complexity is high due to the amount of unique equipment and other complex mechanics. In addition to working on the mod itself, I use my professional expertise to create automated tools that help us with development. The results speak for themselves, and although we are not done yet, we have come a long way.

In the past couple of years, Paradox’s outreach and communication with mods has improved significantly. We were lucky to be a part of all these Paradox-modder initiatives from their inception. As time went on, our relationship with Paradox grew, and more opportunities arose. One day, we began talking with Paradox about partnering to create a “Content Creator Pack” (CCP) similar to what has been done for other Paradox Grand Strategy Games, such as Crusader Kings III. As with CCPs for other games, they would be made by a modding team and published by Paradox as a way of both adding content to HOI4 and supporting modders, who dedicate a significant amount of free time to adding to the game. We were super excited about this opportunity, so we jumped on it. We immediately began drafting up proposals of DLCs we could create to send to the HOI4 team. After many back-and-forth meetings, presentations, and negotiations, we settled on the terms of our partnership and started work on this CCP.

If you’ve played World Ablaze, you know there’s a lot of great custom 2D art in mod. So, what’s the difference between that art and the art included in the CCP? All the 2D art in the CCP is entirely custom and drawn from scratch for this CCP. While there will inevitably be similarities between the art in the mod and the art in the CCP (due to the fact the same entities, such as equipment, exist in both vanilla and our mod), all the art in the CCP will be of higher quality since any existing art was also redrawn from scratch to be better and more detailed. With this CCP, we've made our mark in the game by giving the Soviet Union an entirely new artistic feel. Featuring unique, high-quality World Ablaze-style historical art, every piece has been crafted to meet exacting standards to ensure a top-notch experience. It is a great addition to any player’s game, but bonus points if you already love the look of World Ablaze and want that in your vanilla games as well. Don’t take my word for it; more information and examples of the included art will be shown off in the next Dev Diary!

Finally, I wanted to take some time to give out some much-deserved thank yous. A big thanks to Paradox for allowing us this great and rare opportunity to create official content that will now always be associated with the game we love. And of course, I want to extend my gratitude to all of the Hearts of Iron players who decide to support us by purchasing this CCP. It means the world to us; we ultimately do all of this, both the mod and CCP, for you, and y’all’s support is the reason we can continue to do the work we do. We hope you enjoy our content!

Generals,

Katten here. Today marks the day before our 8th anniversary of Hearts of Iron IV. Eight long years on the frontlines, millions of provinces painted in strange colours, thousands of wild encirclements, and countless amazing mods have been created. This year, we also hit a significant milestone: 1.5 million monthly active users! Important Note: If you are unfamiliar with MAU, it is a behind-the-scenes metric that tracks the number of unique individuals who play the game each month.

To celebrate, we have something special planned. Last year, we teased an upcoming expansion, but I think we can do even better! This year, we are celebrating what we call Anniversary Week! Five days packed with activities, from something you've been eagerly waiting for to something you've been asking for. How long have I worked here? Never mind that. Let's get to our Anniversary Roadmap!


The Roadmap is our way of showcasing what each fun day contains during the Anniversary Celebration.

• We are starting tomorrow, June 6th, with a Top Secret Reveal that we have uncovered through an enigma cipher.
  
• On June 7th, we celebrate our Discord server hitting 100,000 Generals by giving away 500 copies of Hearts of Iron IV! More info below.
  
• On the 8th, we have a smaller secondary announcement with something you might not have been expecting.
  
• On the 9th, we are ending our giveaway and sending out the keys. But that's not all! For the fourth year in a row, we are hosting the Community Cup, this year organized by Dankus Memecus. We'll grab our popcorn and soda and watch which team takes the grand prize of €2,500. But there is still another day!
  
• On the 10th, our secondary announcement has something more to show you. After a long wait, our next War Effort Update will go live with some much-requested fixes and changes!

Now, I mentioned a giveaway above, so let's get into how you can join! First, you need to join our Discord. Second, go to the Hearts of Iron News channel and press the reaction button on our Giveaway message! If you can't see it, make sure you select the News role in the role selection process. On the 9th, we'll let the AI take the wheel and pick 500 winners, who will be automatically notified by our PDXBot, so make sure you keep your DMs open! Terms of participation are available HERE.

I think that's all for today, but wait, is that a countdown on our YouTube channel? You might want to start looking for clues on my social media accounts.

The Quartermasters at steam are releasing more supplies - For the next week, you can rearm your Hearts of Iron arsenal with discounts of up to -70% as part of the Steam Replayability Fest!

Re-Up, Re-Arm, and Rejoin the fight with the savings down below;

• Hearts of Iron IV 70% off
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Starter Edition 60% 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: 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

Hello there! It's your friendly neighborhood Community Manager, Katten, here. The first War Effort update of the year has finally been released! It mainly focuses on bug fixes and some balance changes, including adjustments to the USA MIOs, which Content Designer Gareth will discuss below.

Remember to please send in any bug reports when you discover them HERE, so that we can fix them as soon as possible!


Hello! My name is Gareth (AKA MordredViking). I’ve grown to really like the MIO system we have in the game, and wanted to expand the unique variants (ie, the special nodes which certain MIOs get). First up, the USA.


For the tanks, I wanted to add more differentiation between Chrysler (quality), Army Ordnance (balanced) and Detroit Arsenal (quantity), so I have tweaked their initial traits and added some new unique nodes to represent this.

For example, this node for the Detroit Arsenal reflects its position as the first, purpose built tank production factory.


Next up, let’s take a look at the navy.


Here, I was rather more rigorous in changing the archetype to reflect their historical output. Norfolk had a significant role in the production of destroyers and liberty ships. Electric Boat Company was a pretty dedicated submarine producer, Brooklyn was the originator of many of Americas battleships, while Newport News had some of the largest drydocks, and was capable of maintaining the carrier fleet.

For example, to reflect Newport’s ability towards carriers, they were granted more carrier production output from their initial trait (vs Task Force Ship Builders which just adds HPs).


Next up, Aircraft.


I wanted to highlight some of the similarities between the design philosophies between North American Aviation and Lockheed, their initial trait and unique nodes now reflect a specialization towards Light or Medium aircraft while both give bonuses to range. Once again, more unique nodes were added to each MIO to give the USA some more flavour.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to do more for the Small Arms / Artillery / Motorized MIOs, but I hope to be able to spend more time on these (and other nations) in the future.


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- USA MIO: Changed description of North American Aviation and Lockheed to better describe their roles.
- USA MIO: Added new variants to Douglas, Detroit Arsenal, Brooklyn Naval Yard and Norfolk Naval Yard
- USA MIO: Switched Norfolk Naval Yard to Escort and Brooklyn Naval Yard to Taskforce
- USA MIO: Changed Electric Boat Company from Raiding Fleet to Submarine Designer
- Updated Paraguay and Uruguay with more accurate victory points
- The Chilean decision to release the Inuit now grants them cores on Attu Island and the Chuckchi Peninsula, as well as ownership of them if they are controlled by Chile or one of their subjects.
- Fixed multiple issues with the Canadian focus "The Newfoundland Act". The focus now has a clearer available tooltip. It should also be able to be taken in the patriation path, as the "demanded patriation" opinion modifier is now set to last for three years, instead of indefinitely.
- Fixed various issues with the final focuses in the shared Chinese focus tree, adding is_subject = no as well as a check for Japan not being a subject in the "Dominate Japan" focus.
- Fixed and updated targeting and bypasses for the Estonian focuses "Unite Karelia" and "Unite the Sami".
- Fixed an issue in the Romanian focus tree where the focus "Appoint Pro-Axis Government" would say it unlocked a decision to join the allies, despite instead unlocking one for the Axis, and made the effects of the three focuses "Appoint Pro-Axis Government", "Appoint Pro-Allied Government" and "Appoint Pro-Soviet Government" more readable.
- The "Caliphate of Cordoba" formable nations decisions no longer require you to control impassable desert states, as their controller can be more than finicky at times.
- Fixed incorrect grammar in the Norwegian Infanteridivisjon and Binærdivisjon unit templates.
- Mengkukuo no longer has MIOs only accessible through the shared Chinese focus tree, and has also received a generic plane MIO.
- Fixed a long-standing issue where the weekly negative change in the Italian Balance of Power wasn't removed upon them regaining control of their core states.
- Fixed an issue where the focus "British Guns" would only show two out of the three unlocked decisions, and added subsidies to the artillery decision to make it match the anti-air and anti-tank decisions.
- Added Luxembourg to the list of targets in the French focus "Natural Borders of France", as it is west of the Rhine.
- Poland now gets a puppet wargoal against Czechoslovakia if they are a puppet of another nation in their focus "King of Bohemia", instead of simply stealing said puppet.
- Added the option for a non-aligned Lithuania to adopt Mstislav Dobuzhinsky's flag design through a decision.

##################################
##################################

- Fix the speed of some scrollbar when using mouse wheel
- State mapmode now shows modifiers at state level

##################################
##################################

- Fixed Sinkiangs flag to use Cheng-Chi-Tsai's second flag, as the old one was their pre-1934 version.

##################################
##################################

- ICE: King Knud now gains proper skills when made an admiral.
- Fixed issue with Soviet Union not being able to generate a wargoal after a country rejected an ultimatum.
- Added decisions and events for Denmark's overlord to request the Faroes and Greenland back after these have been occupied by the UK and USA respectively.
- Denmark will now automatically declare war on one or several nations when completing the conquest focuses in the Occupation Branch.
- Enabled Danish Medals
- Added the is_subject = no available clause to multiple Turkish focuses regarding factions, wars and changing ideology. Also added a clause to the Turkish focus "Renew the non-agression pact with the Soviets", to disallow taking it when at war with them.
- Chile: Fixed an inverted tooltip for Encourage Bond purchases
- URG: Fixed an issue where Tour to italy wouldn't give you the tanks that you were supposed to get
- The Ottoman Empires decision to core the Khedivate of Egypt now includes the state of Cairo.
- China and Communist China now have the shared focus "Incite Foreign Investors" already completed in the 1939 start date, so that they no longer have completed focuses beneath them without having done their prerequisite focus.
- Prince Paul should now get the Collaborator King trait as intended when going down the fascist branch.
- Fixed the Romanian focus "Invite German Advisors" granting them access to Germany, and not the other way around as intended.
- Fixed an issue with the claims gained from the French "Congress of Paris" event chain which would not grant claims on the new African states added in BBA.
- Prevent exploit where already produced equipment could be modified by hiding it in the market stockpile
- Fix the Alaska Chromium prospecting bug
- Fixed an error where the names of one Argentinian and two Bolivian generals weren't showing up correctly.
- Fixed the illegal unit templates in the Romanian focuses "The Armored Division" and "Royal Guards Divison", the Spanish focus "The Army of Africa", the Lithuanian focus "Establish Royal Guards", and the Polish focus "The King's Guard".
- Fixed an issue where the "country is not Argentina" would show up on the Hold a national referendum decision no matter which country you were playing.
- Fixed an issue where the image wouldn't show for the Ethiopian event "Communist guerrillas in southern Ethiopia".
- The Soviet focus "Claim Bessarabia" now requires the owner of Bessarabia to also control the state, preventing some previous strange behaviours.
- Removed a TODO tooltip from the Ethiopian focus "A Libyan Revolt".
- Fixed the focus for Manchukuo "Claim the Mandate of Heaven", which was still using the old system for changing the name and portrait of a "character", so that it now actually interacts with the character of Puyi, thus letting him keep any traits he has gained.
- Fixed an issue where Iceland could still create communist uprisings in the UK against them even if they were communist themselves.
- Fixed an issue where choosing to go against the Soviet breakaway states in the Russian civil war would only put them at war with you, and not with Stalin as well.
- Paraguay: Fixed an instance where a general would get manouver bonus instead of planning
- Fixed invisible spirit for Legacy of the arms race if MtG was disabled
- Fixed various issues surrounding autonomy status and Indonesian civil war on_actions etc for Australia.
- Fixed a grammar mistake and a misspelling in Finnish "White Death" events.
- Fixed an issue where the Swedish focus "Reclaiming the Rus" would exclude giving a claim on Sao Tome instead of Crimea.
- Swapped out the train reliability effect in Soviet advisor Lazar Kaganovich's trait, as it is not applicable to trains.
- Fixed an issue where the British focus "Global Defense" would check if Malaya owned the state Malta, instead of checking for said aforementioned nation.
- Fixed an issue where the Chilean fascist advisors gained from the focus "Utilize National-Populism" would get transferred to the opposing side in the civil war when going down the Araucanian branch of the focus tree.
- Fixed two typos regarding the Treaty of Brussels decision and event.
- Fixed multiple occasions where Australia could build radar and air bases in the Central Australian impassable area.
- Fixed an issue where the lend_lease_tension_with_overlord modifier in the autonomy "Satellite" was broken and had no effect.
- added text to an event option that was missing
- Adds a requirement for Germany to control at least one coastal state for the focus "Expand Dockyard Facilities" to be available, adds loc to describe effects if the focus is not avail to avoid the standard "has no effect" string
- Fixes typo "Mathilda" -> "Matilda" for starting production of tanks in UK start in 1939
- Adds requirement for Spain to be fully independent before taking the focus "Support French Communists" to prevent strange behavior with French Communist Civil War
- Localizes the operative names Robert Ivanov, Nadiya Morozova and Julieta Soria from the focuses "Form the EICI" and "Sway the Neighbors"
- The Polish Międzymorze branch now requires the recipient country to be fully independent. Switches from is_puppet = no to is_subject = no to avoid edge cases
- Fixed various issues with cores and requirements for formable nations, notably Turan, Macedonia, Turkestan, Majapahit and Persia.
- Fixed unlocalized plane module category (Defense Turrets x2)
- Fixed an issue where the Italian focus "Corpo di truppe Voluntaire" would be bypassed automatically if reached before the Spanish Civil War had begun.
- The Anarchist economy law "Collectivized Society" now has its base expectation of 15% consumer goods back, having been accidental made into a 30% factories factor modifier.
- Fixed an error that caused you to be able to invite your faction members and puppets into MERCOSUL as Brazil.
- Fixed issue with German focus "Puppet Turkey" being unavailable when Greece was a German ally or fully occupied by Germany or German allies.
- Fixed the Free French focus "Intervention in Madagascar" to have the "is not in faction with Free France" available trigger, to match the other intervention focuses.
- When completing German focus Puppet Turkey, Soviets will now receive Turkish states as long as Turkey previously controlled them, and the state Van is now also transferred to Soviets.
- Fixed issues with some of the Communist Chinese focuses when having gotten the focus tree as a Communist Warlord through the focus "Proclaim Rival Government".
- Fixed issue for the music players' weighted shuffle where half the songs were not eligible
- Fixed an issue where Yugoslav military high command Borivoje Mirkovic's Portrait was replaced by a generic one.
- Fixed various unit and vp/building locations in the northern Amazon where they would previously show up outside of the specified province.
- Fix hotjoin ctd when division designer was opened
- Fixed additional incorrect and missing cores and requirements for the formable nations Al Andalus, Arabia and the Empire of Zion, as well as made Regnum Bospori become a Roman puppet upon their release.
- Fix to !11630 ( Fixed an issue with the British focus "Global Defense"), making the Malta stuff target Malta and Malaysia stuff target Malaysia.
- Soviet National Spirits Curtailment of the Collective Farms and The People's Revolution should now have the intended Recruitable Population modifier, with proper impact on the available manpower.
- Fixed issue in which the Synthetic Refineries granted by the focus Tire Factory at Nokia were not appearing if the DLC Arms Against Tyranny was not active.
- Fixes to make sure events only sends to overlord and not puppet, only allows for the compromise option of the target joining the faction if ITA is the faction leader
- Clean-up of some duplicated and messed GFX, aiming to fix some issues with a few DLC portraits and tech icons.
- Fixed a typo in Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci's trait Cultural Hegemony Theorist.
- Fixed an issue where Brazil could take the focus Potenj River Conference despite being a puppet. Also changed the focus filter for the focus "Establish Royal College of Rio de Janeiro" from political to research.
- Soviet Union: Fixed an issue with decisions to remove Junior Army/Navy Officers Purged national spirits not showing up after assassinating Stalin. These decisions should now show up after swapping country leader in either of the opposition branches or after assassinating Stalin in the Right Opposition branch.
- Soviet Union: The Right Opposition focus "Coup d'etat" will properly remove any Anti-Soviet Military Thinking national spirit (previously it would remove only the Army one, now it will check for and remove the Navy and Airforce ones too).
- Improved triggers in all the national spirits related to the purges to ensure they will be transferred to the Stalinist side in case of a civil war, even when Stalin is dead.
- Fixed a rare CTD in peace conferences

Generals!

The War Effort continues with Operation Grouse, so to prepare you for the battlefield, we've gone ahead and grabbed some intel from Command on the upcoming changes coming in patch 1.14.5 and are releasing them on an Open Beta.

To join the open beta, right click HOI4 in your Steam Library and go to Properties. Once there, you can go to 'Betas' and at the top right select " open_beta "

Prepare for some Balance changes, some minor graphics and UI changes, and a whole LOT of bug fixes!

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##################################

- USA MIO: Changed description of North American Aviation and Lockheed to better describe their roles.
- USA MIO: Added new variants to Douglas, Detroit Arsenal, Brooklyn Naval Yard and Norfolk Naval Yard
- USA MIO: Switched Norfolk Naval Yard to Escort and Brooklyn Naval Yard to Taskforce
- USA MIO: Changed Electric Boat Company from Raiding Fleet to Submarine Designer
- Updated Paraguay and Uruguay with more accurate victory points
- The Chilean decision to release the Inuit now grants them cores on Attu Island and the Chuckchi Peninsula, as well as ownership of them if they are controlled by Chile or one of their subjects.
- Fixed multiple issues with the Canadian focus "The Newfoundland Act". The focus now has a clearer available tooltip. It should also be able to be taken in the patriation path, as the "demanded patriation" opinion modifier is now set to last for three years, instead of indefinitely.
- Fixed various issues with the final focuses in the shared Chinese focus tree, adding is_subject = no as well as a check for Japan not being a subject in the "Dominate Japan" focus.
- Fixed and updated targeting and bypasses for the Estonian focuses "Unite Karelia" and "Unite the Sami".
- Fixed an issue in the Romanian focus tree where the focus "Appoint Pro-Axis Government" would say it unlocked a decision to join the allies, despite instead unlocking one for the Axis, and made the effects of the three focuses "Appoint Pro-Axis Government", "Appoint Pro-Allied Government" and "Appoint Pro-Soviet Government" more readable.
- The "Caliphate of Cordoba" formable nations decisions no longer require you to control impassable desert states, as their controller can be more than finicky at times.
- Fixed incorrect grammar in the Norwegian Infanteridivisjon and Binærdivisjon unit templates.
- Mengkukuo no longer has MIOs only accessible through the shared Chinese focus tree, and has also received a generic plane MIO.
- Fixed a long-standing issue where the weekly negative change in the Italian Balance of Power wasn't removed upon them regaining control of their core states.
- Fixed an issue where the focus "British Guns" would only show two out of the three unlocked decisions, and added subsidies to the artillery decision to make it match the anti-air and anti-tank decisions.
- Added Luxembourg to the list of targets in the French focus "Natural Borders of France", as it is west of the Rhine.
- Poland now gets a puppet wargoal against Czechoslovakia if they are a puppet of another nation in their focus "King of Bohemia", instead of simply stealing said puppet.
- Added the option for a non-aligned Lithuania to adopt Mstislav Dobuzhinsky's flag design through a decision.

##################################
##################################

- Fix the speed of some scrollbar when using mouse wheel
- State mapmode now shows modifiers at state level

##################################
##################################

- Fixed Sinkiangs flag to use Cheng-Chi-Tsai's second flag, as the old one was their pre-1934 version.

##################################
##################################

- ICE: King Knud now gains proper skills when made an admiral.
- Fixed issue with Soviet Union not being able to generate a wargoal after a country rejected an ultimatum.
- Added decisions and events for Denmark's overlord to request the Faroes and Greenland back after these have been occupied by the UK and USA respectively.
- Denmark will now automatically declare war on one or several nations when completing the conquest focuses in the Occupation Branch.
- Enabled Danish Medals
- Added the is_subject = no available clause to multiple Turkish focuses regarding factions, wars and changing ideology. Also added a clause to the Turkish focus "Renew the non-agression pact with the Soviets", to disallow taking it when at war with them.
- Chile: Fixed an inverted tooltip for Encourage Bond purchases
- URG: Fixed an issue where Tour to italy wouldn't give you the tanks that you were supposed to get
- The Ottoman Empires decision to core the Khedivate of Egypt now includes the state of Cairo.
- China and Communist China now have the shared focus "Incite Foreign Investors" already completed in the 1939 start date, so that they no longer have completed focuses beneath them without having done their prerequisite focus.
- Prince Paul should now get the Collaborator King trait as intended when going down the fascist branch.
- Fixed the Romanian focus "Invite German Advisors" granting them access to Germany, and not the other way around as intended.
- Fixed an issue with the claims gained from the French "Congress of Paris" event chain which would not grant claims on the new African states added in BBA.
- Prevent exploit where already produced equipment could be modified by hiding it in the market stockpile
- Fix the Alaska Chromium prospecting bug
- Fixed an error where the names of one Argentinian and two Bolivian generals weren't showing up correctly.
- Fixed the illegal unit templates in the Romanian focuses "The Armored Division" and "Royal Guards Divison", the Spanish focus "The Army of Africa", the Lithuanian focus "Establish Royal Guards", and the Polish focus "The King's Guard".
- Fixed an issue where the "country is not Argentina" would show up on the Hold a national referendum decision no matter which country you were playing.
- Fixed an issue where the image wouldn't show for the Ethiopian event "Communist guerrillas in southern Ethiopia".
- The Soviet focus "Claim Bessarabia" now requires the owner of Bessarabia to also control the state, preventing some previous strange behaviours.
- Removed a TODO tooltip from the Ethiopian focus "A Libyan Revolt".
- Fixed the focus for Manchukuo "Claim the Mandate of Heaven", which was still using the old system for changing the name and portrait of a "character", so that it now actually interacts with the character of Puyi, thus letting him keep any traits he has gained.
- Fixed an issue where Iceland could still create communist uprisings in the UK against them even if they were communist themselves.
- Fixed an issue where choosing to go against the Soviet breakaway states in the Russian civil war would only put them at war with you, and not with Stalin as well.
- Paraguay: Fixed an instance where a general would get manouver bonus instead of planning
- Fixed invisible spirit for Legacy of the arms race if MtG was disabled
- Fixed various issues surrounding autonomy status and Indonesian civil war on_actions etc for Australia.
- Fixed a grammar mistake and a misspelling in Finnish "White Death" events.
- Fixed an issue where the Swedish focus "Reclaiming the Rus" would exclude giving a claim on Sao Tome instead of Crimea.
- Swapped out the train reliability effect in Soviet advisor Lazar Kaganovich's trait, as it is not applicable to trains.
- Fixed an issue where the British focus "Global Defense" would check if Malaya owned the state Malta, instead of checking for said aforementioned nation.
- Fixed an issue where the Chilean fascist advisors gained from the focus "Utilize National-Populism" would get transferred to the opposing side in the civil war when going down the Araucanian branch of the focus tree.
- Fixed two typos regarding the Treaty of Brussels decision and event.
- Fixed multiple occasions where Australia could build radar and air bases in the Central Australian impassable area.
- Fixed an issue where the lend_lease_tension_with_overlord modifier in the autonomy "Satellite" was broken and had no effect.
- added text to an event option that was missing
- Adds a requirement for Germany to control at least one coastal state for the focus "Expand Dockyard Facilities" to be available, adds loc to describe effects if the focus is not avail to avoid the standard "has no effect" string
- Fixes typo "Mathilda" -> "Matilda" for starting production of tanks in UK start in 1939
- Adds requirement for Spain to be fully independent before taking the focus "Support French Communists" to prevent strange behavior with French Communist Civil War
- Localizes the operative names Robert Ivanov, Nadiya Morozova and Julieta Soria from the focuses "Form the EICI" and "Sway the Neighbors"
- The Polish Międzymorze branch now requires the recipient country to be fully independent. Switches from is_puppet = no to is_subject = no to avoid edge cases
- Fixed various issues with cores and requirements for formable nations, notably Turan, Macedonia, Turkestan, Majapahit and Persia.
- Fixed unlocalized plane module category (Defense Turrets x2)
- Fixed an issue where the Italian focus "Corpo di truppe Voluntaire" would be bypassed automatically if reached before the Spanish Civil War had begun.
- The Anarchist economy law "Collectivized Society" now has its base expectation of 15% consumer goods back, having been accidental made into a 30% factories factor modifier.
- Fixed an error that caused you to be able to invite your faction members and puppets into MERCOSUL as Brazil.
- Fixed issue with German focus "Puppet Turkey" being unavailable when Greece was a German ally or fully occupied by Germany or German allies.
- Fixed the Free French focus "Intervention in Madagascar" to have the "is not in faction with Free France" available trigger, to match the other intervention focuses.
- When completing German focus Puppet Turkey, Soviets will now receive Turkish states as long as Turkey previously controlled them, and the state Van is now also transferred to Soviets.
- Fixed issues with some of the Communist Chinese focuses when having gotten the focus tree as a Communist Warlord through the focus "Proclaim Rival Government".
- Fixed issue for the music players' weighted shuffle where half the songs were not eligible
- Fixed an issue where Yugoslav military high command Borivoje Mirkovic's Portrait was replaced by a generic one.
- Fixed various unit and vp/building locations in the northern Amazon where they would previously show up outside of the specified province.
- Fix hotjoin ctd when division designer was opened
- Fixed additional incorrect and missing cores and requirements for the formable nations Al Andalus, Arabia and the Empire of Zion, as well as made Regnum Bospori become a Roman puppet upon their release.
- Fix to !11630 ( Fixed an issue with the British focus "Global Defense"), making the Malta stuff target Malta and Malaysia stuff target Malaysia.
- Soviet National Spirits Curtailment of the Collective Farms and The People's Revolution should now have the intended Recruitable Population modifier, with proper impact on the available manpower.
- Fixed issue in which the Synthetic Refineries granted by the focus Tire Factory at Nokia were not appearing if the DLC Arms Against Tyranny was not active.
- Fixes to make sure events only sends to overlord and not puppet, only allows for the compromise option of the target joining the faction if ITA is the faction leader
- Clean-up of some duplicated and messed GFX, aiming to fix some issues with a few DLC portraits and tech icons.
- Fixed a typo in Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci's trait Cultural Hegemony Theorist.
- Fixed an issue where Brazil could take the focus Potenj River Conference despite being a puppet. Also changed the focus filter for the focus "Establish Royal College of Rio de Janeiro" from political to research.
- Soviet Union: Fixed an issue with decisions to remove Junior Army/Navy Officers Purged national spirits not showing up after assassinating Stalin. These decisions should now show up after swapping country leader in either of the opposition branches or after assassinating Stalin in the Right Opposition branch.
- Soviet Union: The Right Opposition focus "Coup d'etat" will properly remove any Anti-Soviet Military Thinking national spirit (previously it would remove only the Army one, now it will check for and remove the Navy and Airforce ones too).
- Improved triggers in all the national spirits related to the purges to ensure they will be transferred to the Stalinist side in case of a civil war, even when Stalin is dead.
- Fixed a rare CTD in peace conferences



Let us know what you think down below, and have yourselves a great day!

Hello there! It's your friendly neighborhood community manager, Katten, here. It's been some time, but starting right now until the 8th of April, the game is Free to Play! This is also accompanied by a Massive sale that is larger than any we have had previously, both of these starting at 19:00 CET
https://store.steampowered.com/app/394360/Hearts_of_Iron_IV/


If you are a new player or a veteran looking for people to play with, tips for your games, or just want to chat about the game, then join our Discord below. If we hit 100K members this weekend, we will be giving away 500 copies of the Base Game next week!

Click the above image to join the Discord, or click here instead!


Now, what is all of this new art and logos you see everywhere? Well, from player feedback and ourselves looking over the game, we thought it would be a good time for a brand refresh, as we call it. So, Hearts of Iron IV now has a new lovely key art with an additional gentleman in the back (let me know if you know who he is!), a new logo, and a little new icon that represents the game on Steam! This is also accompanied by "Waking the Tiger," "Death or Dishonor," and "Together for Victory" now being part of the base game in all senses. If you want to see a cool new trailer, check below!

• Hearts of Iron IV 80% 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 40% off
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: La Résistance 50% off
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Man the Guns 60% off

• Hearts of Iron IV: Battle for the Bosporus 60% 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 60% 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 60% off
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Axis Armor 50% off

I know it's been quite some time since our last War Effort patch, but we're restarting very soon with the "War Effort Roadmap"! The content will vary from patch to patch, but the size of the updates will be similar to last year's. They will also arrive monthly, with quite a few planned before the upcoming expansion about [REDACTED], which is arriving later this year.

Now for a recap of what War Effort is for those of you that might have forgotten or for any new faces that are present!

What is War Effort? It's what's in the middle of a maintenance patch and a major update. They tend to include bug fixes, small quality-of-life tweaks and changes, gameplay balance adjustments, but most excitingly, they include new gameplay perspectives and focuses for some countries with older content. Now, what that means is that we revisit older released content and give it a more modern look.

That all sounds awesome, right? But it's important to know that this does not involve large changes to major systems, feature-level implementations, or non-fix changes to key calculations (combat, production, etc.). This is partly to ensure that mod support during these small updates remains manageable. We will receive larger changes for major updates that come alongside DLCs.

Now, what you've all been waiting for. Below, you can see the new and improved Roadmap! And trust me, there's more lurking beyond the shadows.

Hello, Community Manager Katten here. I want to begin by thanking you all for the feedback we have received on our two latest news posts regarding the DLC Integration and Trial of Allegiance Reception & Thoughts. We are reading all your comments and are working on responding to as many as possible.


Since our update last week, which added "Country Pack" to the beginning of the names for Battle for the Bosporus and Trial of Allegiance, we have received more feedback about the unclear naming of our DLCs. Of particular concern is the Subscription, referred to as the "Expansion Subscription," which may suggest to some that it only includes expansions when it actually encompasses all DLCs for the game. As a result, we have made the following changes to provide better transparency:

• Hearts of Iron IV: Eastern Front Planes Pack > Unit Pack - Hearts of Iron IV: Eastern Front Planes
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Eastern Front Music Pack > Music - Hearts of Iron IV: Songs of the Eastern Front
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Axis Armor Pack > Unit Pack - Hearts of Iron IV: Axis Armor
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Radio Pack > Music - Hearts of Iron IV: Radio Pack
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Armor Pack > Unit Pack - Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Armor
  
• Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Speeches Music Pack > Music - Hearts of Iron IV: Allied Speeches Pack
  
• Hearts of Iron IV - Expansion Subscription > Hearts of Iron IV - DLC Subscription

Additionally, at 18:00 CET today, Waking the Tiger, Together for Victory and Death or Dishonor will have their store pages removed, as they will then be included in the base game purchase of Hearts of Iron IV for $49.99. However, the DLCs will not be fully integrated at this time, so you will still be able to toggle them on and off in your game launcher. Full integration is scheduled for a later time; we'll provide updates on this shortly The Anniversary Pack will also have its Steam page removed as it is already included in the base game of Hearts of Iron IV. We do not see a reason to have its own store page, as it currently only serves to confuse some of our new players.


Now at 15:00 CET, our 1.14.3 Patch is live! With plenty of new balance changes and bug fixes.

Feel free to leave your feedback in this thread or in the bug report forum as usual, especially if you encounter new issues not present in 1.14.3, or if something marked as fixed in the below changelog still occurs for you.

################################################################
######## Patch 1.14.3 "Bolivar" #########
################################################################

##################################
# Balance
##################################
- South America Shared: Reduced Maximum Command Power Increase from Joint Operations Command (from 30% to 15%)
- South America Shared: Reduced the org and core defense gain of strength of the common solider to 4% (from 5%). Also reduced the infantry bonus gained
- South America Shared: Reduced attack modifier for Spearhead tanks specialization from 10% to 3.5%
- South America Shared: Reduced specializing in heavy guns attack for artillery from 10% to 3.5%
- South America Shared: Reduced specializing in heavy guns AA production reduction cost from 20% to 6%
- South America Shared: Reduced specializing in heavy guns AT production reduction cost from 25% to 15%
- South America Shared: Removed Recruitable pop factor from Increase Conscription focus
- Reduced division defense from increased army professionalism from 10% to 5%. attack and org from 5% to 4%. Reduced traning time from +25% penalty to +15% penalty
- Argentina: Reduced Women in the industry and state unions max efficiency factor bonus from 15% and 10% (25% total) to 7.5% (15% max)
- Argentina: Reduced regulated salaries efficiency cap from 15% to 7.5%
- Argentina: Reduced daily xp gain from US army training to 0.1xp/d (from 0.2xp/d)
- Argentina: Reduced maintain neutrality spirit stability (from 10% to 5%) and efficiency cap (from 10% to 5%)
- Argentina: Reduced our own path spirit recruitable pop factor from 30% to 15%
- Argentina: Reduced spirit of the conquistadors attack (from 20% to 6%)
- Argentina: Reduced Argentine Nationalism conscription factor (from 15% to 7%) and Civilian construction speed (from 10% to 6%)
- Argentina: increased war division temp manpower gain from 50 weekly to 250 weekly
- Chile: Replaced mapuche social classes weekly stability with a flat stability factor
- Chile: Elena Caffarena gives a flat stability factor instead of a weekly stability
- Chile: Reduced Embrace Indigenous Corporatism Factory output (from 10% to 5%)
- Chile: Expand the agricultural field gives 1 additional build slot (from 3 to 4)
- Old Guard for Army now gives 0.2 army XP daily (from 0.3) due to costing only 50pp
- Chile: Gabriela Mistral - Reduced PP gain (from 20% to 15%)
- Chile: Transport Minister no longer gives civ construction speed. Increase railway and hub construction speed (from 10% to 15%)
- Chile: Minister of Trade development - Reduced Trade law cost factor (from -30% to -15%) and consumer goods factor (from -10% to -5%)
- Chile: Father of Industrialization - Reduced Construction bonus (From 15% to 7%)
- Chile: Minister of Defense - Reduced MIL construction speed (from 15% to 10%). Reduced Defense on core territory (from 10% to 6%)
- TOA Shared Minister of Defense - Reduced mil construction speed (from 10% to 7.5%)
- Chile: Reduced merchant marine manufacturer discount on convoy production (from -50% to -20%) and reduced their reliability gained (from +30% to +10%)
- Chile: Unified in spirit - Reduced Org gain (from 10% to 5%)
- Chile: Reduced Army attack of Patagonian Giants to 5% (from 10%), defense to 8% (from 10%) and breakthrough to 8% (from 10%)
- Chile: Reduced the miners representative building speed (from 10% to 6%) and its max efficiency factor (from 10% to 5%)
- Chile: Reduced conservative businessman civilian speed (from 15% to 10%) and its max efficiency factor (from 10% to 5%)
- TOA Shared: Reduced the minister of lands and colonizaition non-core-manpower to 4% (from 10%) and 6% (from 15%) from version 2. Increased global building slots gained (from 5% to 15%, and 25% for version 2)
- Chile: Reduced Minister of Economy and commerce trade laws cost (from -50% to -25%)
- Chile: Reduced defender of araucanian soverighnty factory output (8% from 15%)
- Chile: Reduced president of the central bank consumer goods reduction (to -5% from -10%)
- TOA: Reduced social economist consumer goods factor reduction (from -15% to -7%)
- Chile: Apostlic prefect of Araucania reduced factory output bonus (from 10% to 6%)
- Chile: Reduced Emperor Of France and the Americas attack core factor (from 15% to 5%) and core defense (from 20% to 10%), war support (from 15% to 10%), and stability (from 15% to 10%)
- Chile: Reduced Carabineros de Chile army core attack (from 10% to 5%) and core defense (from 15% to 7%)
- Chile: Reduced Christian Democrat pp gain (from 15% to 10%)
- Chile: Reduced Laizzes faire civ construction speed (from 20% to 10%). Reduces law cost reduction (from -50% to -25%)
- Chile: Reduced High Quality Nitrate bonus (from 10% attack to 5% attack)
- Chile: Utilize Famae Mil reduced by 1
- Chile: Reduced Carabineros de Chile Core attack (from 10% to 5%) and core defense (from 15% to 10%)
- Chile: Reduced factory output from opressed working class (from 20% to 10%) and consumer goods (from -15% to -10%).
- Chile: Reduced Francoist Model Defense (from 10% to 5%) and factory output (from 10% to 5%)
- Chile: Reduced Max attack bonus gain from Pan historic rhetoric (from 10% to 6%) and defense (from 10% to 6%)
- Chile: Reduced Max attack bonus gain from Pan historic rhetoric (from 10% to 6%) and defense (from 10% to 6%)
- Reduced max attack bonus gain from the francoist model (from max 10% attack to max 5% attack) and defense (from max 10% to max 5%)
- Shared focus tree: Reduced arty attack gained from heavy Guns industries (from 10% to 5%) and defense (from 15% to 10%). Gives 1 research boost instead of 2
- Chile: Spirit of the conquistadors now gives 6% breakthrough instead of 10% attack
- Chile: Fascist Theologian gives 8% pp instead of 15%. Other stats unchanged
- Chile: Reduced the true enemy factory output gain (from 10% to 5%)
- Paraguay: Reduced Flourishing Economy (from 20% output to 15%)

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################
- Brazil now has updated infantry equipment names and icons.
- Added an extra flag for US of Brazil
- Added some extra flags for forming the United Kingdom/Empires of Brazil/Portugal and altered an event so that Brazil can now annex Portugal rather than puppet them to form the United Kingdoms.
- Changed some icons for Uruguay & Paraguay

##################################
# AI
##################################
- AI no longer overwrites other countries' supply node motorization settings

##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Fix bug where on_ruling_party_changed sometimes didn't get the correct old_ideology_token
- Adding on_ruling_party_change_immediate on-action as a deprecated and unsafe backwards-compatibility for mods that rely on that behavior

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Added missing text for America Decolonized achivement
- Fixed a typo for the DEF name for Nordic Defence council
- Fixed a rare crash caused by government in exile eating resources without freeing them
- Fixed an issue where the Chilean communist focus "Propose Closer Cooperation" wouldn't properly be able to target your subjects, thus preventing you from annexing the way you were meant to be able to.
- Fixed an issue causing the Swedish AI to enable all strategy plans
- "Brazil/Argentina makes aggressive moves on Uruguay" event no longer triggers when TOA is disabled
- Fixed bugs where research agreements would kick out members for both Argentina and the Soviets
- Fixed a bug for the fascist demagogue causing "Fascism on the rise" decisions to appear
- Fixed a bug where Argentina would retain wargoal on UK after taking the Falkland and South Georgia islands
- Fixed a bunch of local_resources modifiers in state scope that should have been state_resources
- An attempt to maintain our neutrality bypasses if you are communist
- Added missing flags for America do Sul formable (Brazil focus tree)
- Brazil - 'Anuae!' national focus now gives a locked template to prevent an exploit.
- Brazil - 'The International Crisis' national focus now sets the game rule 'can send volunteers' for Brazil.
- Uruguay: Removed ghost focus in Uruguay
- Paraguay: Fixed being able to take Mass Drafts before adopt minority languages
- Fixed an issue where Paraguay could join cominterm despite not being allowed to
- Generic "join" faction events can no longer be used to bypass "can_join_faction = no" rules
- Brazil - AI Brazil will join Allies on historical instead of sometimes ending up in the Comintern.
- Removed a character for Argentina which was causing problems with the fascist path.
- Removed slot in Nigers impassable terrain. Niger proper now is rural

Happy Map Painting!