China is always a rather difficult beast for Hearts of Iron games, still we have put on our thinking cap and seen what we can do to at least make things better. So as the game opens we have the Chinas at peace but hostile to each other.



The Kuomintang government will get the option launch an offensive against the communist insurgents, which will eventually end up in the possibility of a border war between Mao and Chiang. There will be no actual fighting, but units in border states will start to suffer attrition.



Maybe not 100% accurate but we are much more interested in what happens when Japan attacks and the peace afterwards. Should a Nationalist player chose to go for a real war, we’ve given Mao the ‘Cornered Fox’ trait which will help him defend.



Sometime during the hostilities, the Xi’an incident occurs and pressures Chiang to accept a temporary truce with Mao. This is the first step towards the Chinas looking outwards to the imminent threat of Japan that looms to the east.
When Japan attacks China the Nationalists get an event that allows them to set up the Chinese United Front faction against Japan. Communist China will get the option to join this faction. If they do then there is a follow up event where they annex Shanxi (a player Shanxi can refuse this). The other warlord states (except Sinkiang) will get the option to join with the Nationalist Chinese. Sinkiang will continue to be the odd man out until a war between the USSR and Germany breaks out. At that point they will throw their lot in the Chiang because the USSR is now a little too busy.



Our united China has proven a much more effective road block to Japan (more balancing to be done there but we are pleased with our progress). If Japan gets defeated the Chinese United Front will end, this was always an alliance of convenience for the two sides. Sneaky Mao will take advantage of the confusion to seize northern China and Manchuria. This is part a reflection of communist strength in those areas but also to give the PRC a better territorial base from which to get the civil war rolling.



Before we kick off the civil war we first give the PRC some free troops (supplied from unspecified communists somewhere in the world). With the PRC armies now nicely reinforced with their new territorial base, we fire an event to kick of the war between the two sides, to help the communists along we also hit the KMT forces with a morale penalty for the opening stages of the war. China is far more finely balanced than before.



Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

China is always a rather difficult beast for Hearts of Iron games, still we have put on our thinking cap and seen what we can do to at least make things better. So as the game opens we have the Chinas at peace but hostile to each other.



The Kuomintang government will get the option launch an offensive against the communist insurgents, which will eventually end up in the possibility of a border war between Mao and Chiang. There will be no actual fighting, but units in border states will start to suffer attrition.



Maybe not 100% accurate but we are much more interested in what happens when Japan attacks and the peace afterwards. Should a Nationalist player chose to go for a real war, we’ve given Mao the ‘Cornered Fox’ trait which will help him defend.



Sometime during the hostilities, the Xi’an incident occurs and pressures Chiang to accept a temporary truce with Mao. This is the first step towards the Chinas looking outwards to the imminent threat of Japan that looms to the east.
When Japan attacks China the Nationalists get an event that allows them to set up the Chinese United Front faction against Japan. Communist China will get the option to join this faction. If they do then there is a follow up event where they annex Shanxi (a player Shanxi can refuse this). The other warlord states (except Sinkiang) will get the option to join with the Nationalist Chinese. Sinkiang will continue to be the odd man out until a war between the USSR and Germany breaks out. At that point they will throw their lot in the Chiang because the USSR is now a little too busy.



Our united China has proven a much more effective road block to Japan (more balancing to be done there but we are pleased with our progress). If Japan gets defeated the Chinese United Front will end, this was always an alliance of convenience for the two sides. Sneaky Mao will take advantage of the confusion to seize northern China and Manchuria. This is part a reflection of communist strength in those areas but also to give the PRC a better territorial base from which to get the civil war rolling.



Before we kick off the civil war we first give the PRC some free troops (supplied from unspecified communists somewhere in the world). With the PRC armies now nicely reinforced with their new territorial base, we fire an event to kick of the war between the two sides, to help the communists along we also hit the KMT forces with a morale penalty for the opening stages of the war. China is far more finely balanced than before.



Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Welcome to a new development diary. This time *takes a sip of earl grey* we are going to look at United Kingdom. They start as the leader of the allies (who at this point is basically the commonwealth) and what really sets them apart is their sprawling colonial empire and the Royal Navy - the strongest fleet in the world at this time at 35 capital ships and around 200 smaller vessels.



United Kingdom starts with 3 national spirits. British Stoicism which makes them less affected by foreign attempts to change their political alignment. The War to End All Wars which impacts their conscription negatively (war is not as popular as since the first world war), and finally the King (King George V) boosts their national unity.

United Kingdom has a well developed naval industry already at start with 19 dockyards. They also have 34 civilian factories and only 14 military factories.

United Kingdom has one of the widest focus trees with lots of different options. It's split into 3 major parts.

Rearmament
The rearmament tree focuses on getting ready for and fighting another war. You will find things like research bonuses to motorized and mechanized troops, implementing the Shadow Factories scheme to allow quicker conversion of civilian industry to military.


Reinforce the Empire
Managing your empire takes up a large portion of the focus tree. The main choices are: Focus on buildup in asia, further developing the commonwealth nations, fortifying the mediterranean (suez malta etc), or securing Iraq and Iran which will set you on a path of war with the Soviet Union.


Home Defense
Home defense focus both on local defense such as coastal fortifications and getting rid of the The War to End All Wars spirit as well as allowing intervention to stop nations from joining the axis. You can for example step in and set up a puppet government in norway should their fascists leanings become too strong, so as to secure scandinavia from Hitler.


Armor & Planes
United Kingdom relied heavily on lend leased American Sherman tanks (which you of course also can through lend lease) but also had their own tank design and eventually developed the incredibly successful Centurion design (too late for the war though).

A well developed air force is important if you want to stop German bombers as well as give them back some of their own medicine.


Read the original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Welcome to a new development diary. This time *takes a sip of earl grey* we are going to look at United Kingdom. They start as the leader of the allies (who at this point is basically the commonwealth) and what really sets them apart is their sprawling colonial empire and the Royal Navy - the strongest fleet in the world at this time at 35 capital ships and around 200 smaller vessels.



United Kingdom starts with 3 national spirits. British Stoicism which makes them less affected by foreign attempts to change their political alignment. The War to End All Wars which impacts their conscription negatively (war is not as popular as since the first world war), and finally the King (King George V) boosts their national unity.

United Kingdom has a well developed naval industry already at start with 19 dockyards. They also have 34 civilian factories and only 14 military factories.

United Kingdom has one of the widest focus trees with lots of different options. It's split into 3 major parts.

Rearmament
The rearmament tree focuses on getting ready for and fighting another war. You will find things like research bonuses to motorized and mechanized troops, implementing the Shadow Factories scheme to allow quicker conversion of civilian industry to military.


Reinforce the Empire
Managing your empire takes up a large portion of the focus tree. The main choices are: Focus on buildup in asia, further developing the commonwealth nations, fortifying the mediterranean (suez malta etc), or securing Iraq and Iran which will set you on a path of war with the Soviet Union.


Home Defense
Home defense focus both on local defense such as coastal fortifications and getting rid of the The War to End All Wars spirit as well as allowing intervention to stop nations from joining the axis. You can for example step in and set up a puppet government in norway should their fascists leanings become too strong, so as to secure scandinavia from Hitler.


Armor & Planes
United Kingdom relied heavily on lend leased American Sherman tanks (which you of course also can through lend lease) but also had their own tank design and eventually developed the incredibly successful Centurion design (too late for the war though).

A well developed air force is important if you want to stop German bombers as well as give them back some of their own medicine.


Read the original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Time for another friday diary! Today I'll be talking about one of the biggest changes in Hearts of Iron IV compared to the previous titles: Battle Plans.



Design Goals
When I started looking at what direction to take HOI4 for unit control and provinces I first looked at HOI2 and HOI3 to see what worked well and what didn't.

HOI2
+ Fewer provinces making full manual control always possible
- Few provinces leads to a lot less cool encirclements and removes a lot of interesting tactical gameplay

HOI3
+ Lots of provinces allowing encirclements and interesting gameplay
+ HOI3 had a purely cosmetic battle plan drawing system, and still people used it - because drawing plans feels natural in a strategic wargame like this and it feels right to see and makes showing things to others in say AARs easier.
- Lots of provinces means manual control everywhere can be overwhelming, difficult to manage in multiplayer and annoying in areas where you "don't care so much".
- You could hand over control to HQ units run by AI for you and give them objectives. The problem was that effectively you had very little control, and features that play themselves are generally not a good idea. Giving up control also isn't something most players like to do.

For HOI4 we decided we wanted to attempt the best of both. Keep the high province count, always allow manual control override, enough tools to automate parts that didn't matter and control and feedback when managing lots of units at the same time so you would not be surprised by the system doing things you didn't tell it. The system is specifically not allowed to be clever, that is the player's job, so if you tell it to suicide into the maginot line it will say it thinks it's too risky, but do it anyway.

The battle plan system in HOI4 lets you draw plans on the map which are followed by assigned divisions, but at any point you can go in and reassign things or issue manual overrides. The player's role is then basically to draw up high level plans and to watch for opportunities and situations to take advantage of (such as small encirclements, or prioritizing fighting a certain enemy, or cutting off someone's retreat). Generally the strategic situation will change over time, so while you may have prepared a longer plan expect that you will need to improvise and adapt parts as you go or break off a group to manage some emergency, or particularly stubborn enemy section.


Controls
Battleplans are controlled for each Army and you have several tools for drawing them:

Naval Invasion & Paratrooping:
Used for planning naval and paratrooper invasions. We will cover these in a diary in 2 weeks or so.

Assign Frontline:
Used to assign divisions in an army to a frontline. You can either assign to the whole frontline with a nation by clicking it, or click and drag to assign just a part of it. Having an assigned frontline is required for making offensive plans because you need to know where to attack from.



Offensive Line:
This tells divisions assigned that you want them to advance along their axis of attack (represented by an arrow that you can bend and adjust as you want) from their assigned frontline to the offensive line. You can chain several of these together if you want as well.

Offensive lines and frontlines may also be overlapping. I prefer to assign a big front line of infantry to a frontline with a broad attack plan, and then manage my panzer divisions or other breakthrough units along smaller sections of that front and with a much narrower offensive line. In my barbarossa plan above Guderians panzer divisions are operating in this way together with von Rundstedt's infantry.

When you have drawn an offensive line you can hover mouse over its arrow and the game will show you a map highlighting step by step of how your units would move to take this area (the green strips in the picture below)


Fallback Line:
This lets you paint a line useful both for say setting up a defensive position behind a river or other position (for example a coastline). They are very useful for falling back in a controlled manner as well by reassigning your attackers to it they will instantly rush back and hold that point instead (I do recommend leaving some defenders to slow the enemy during your retreat).


Garrison Area:
For this order you give the army an area of responsibility instead of a frontline. Divisions will spread out to guard the most important provinces, keep resistance down, or take back provinces as long as it's pretty safe. So useful for home defense, or mop-up of areas.


Assign Divisions
Lets you quickly reassign divisions between frontlines, attack orders or command groups. Super useful and you'll be mostly accessing it by holding down the Control key.

Edit Mode
Lets you adjust any part of a plan by clicking this or holding down the Alt key. You can do things like changing the axis of attack, reshaping offensive or fallback lines.

Delete
You can of course delete whole plans (just right click), or parts of plans (click on the plan on the map).


Planning Bonuses
Battle plans are not just a way of controlling your units, they also come with advantages if you put the time in to prepare them. The longer you prepare a plan the more bonus is acquired up to a point that depends on your doctrine. For example Mobile Warfare Doctrine gives you faster planning but you can only plan to half the level of a player using Grand Battleplan (Even units given manual order as part of a plan will gain this bonus by the way). As you progress along the plan the bonus slowly goes away, so you may want to time it to coincide with a good defensive position for regrouping. There are also certain leader traits that improve planning and can create powerful combos with the right doctrine.


Next week we will take a deeper look at Britain.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Time for another friday diary! Today I'll be talking about one of the biggest changes in Hearts of Iron IV compared to the previous titles: Battle Plans.



Design Goals
When I started looking at what direction to take HOI4 for unit control and provinces I first looked at HOI2 and HOI3 to see what worked well and what didn't.

HOI2
+ Fewer provinces making full manual control always possible
- Few provinces leads to a lot less cool encirclements and removes a lot of interesting tactical gameplay

HOI3
+ Lots of provinces allowing encirclements and interesting gameplay
+ HOI3 had a purely cosmetic battle plan drawing system, and still people used it - because drawing plans feels natural in a strategic wargame like this and it feels right to see and makes showing things to others in say AARs easier.
- Lots of provinces means manual control everywhere can be overwhelming, difficult to manage in multiplayer and annoying in areas where you "don't care so much".
- You could hand over control to HQ units run by AI for you and give them objectives. The problem was that effectively you had very little control, and features that play themselves are generally not a good idea. Giving up control also isn't something most players like to do.

For HOI4 we decided we wanted to attempt the best of both. Keep the high province count, always allow manual control override, enough tools to automate parts that didn't matter and control and feedback when managing lots of units at the same time so you would not be surprised by the system doing things you didn't tell it. The system is specifically not allowed to be clever, that is the player's job, so if you tell it to suicide into the maginot line it will say it thinks it's too risky, but do it anyway.

The battle plan system in HOI4 lets you draw plans on the map which are followed by assigned divisions, but at any point you can go in and reassign things or issue manual overrides. The player's role is then basically to draw up high level plans and to watch for opportunities and situations to take advantage of (such as small encirclements, or prioritizing fighting a certain enemy, or cutting off someone's retreat). Generally the strategic situation will change over time, so while you may have prepared a longer plan expect that you will need to improvise and adapt parts as you go or break off a group to manage some emergency, or particularly stubborn enemy section.


Controls
Battleplans are controlled for each Army and you have several tools for drawing them:

Naval Invasion & Paratrooping:
Used for planning naval and paratrooper invasions. We will cover these in a diary in 2 weeks or so.

Assign Frontline:
Used to assign divisions in an army to a frontline. You can either assign to the whole frontline with a nation by clicking it, or click and drag to assign just a part of it. Having an assigned frontline is required for making offensive plans because you need to know where to attack from.



Offensive Line:
This tells divisions assigned that you want them to advance along their axis of attack (represented by an arrow that you can bend and adjust as you want) from their assigned frontline to the offensive line. You can chain several of these together if you want as well.

Offensive lines and frontlines may also be overlapping. I prefer to assign a big front line of infantry to a frontline with a broad attack plan, and then manage my panzer divisions or other breakthrough units along smaller sections of that front and with a much narrower offensive line. In my barbarossa plan above Guderians panzer divisions are operating in this way together with von Rundstedt's infantry.

When you have drawn an offensive line you can hover mouse over its arrow and the game will show you a map highlighting step by step of how your units would move to take this area (the green strips in the picture below)


Fallback Line:
This lets you paint a line useful both for say setting up a defensive position behind a river or other position (for example a coastline). They are very useful for falling back in a controlled manner as well by reassigning your attackers to it they will instantly rush back and hold that point instead (I do recommend leaving some defenders to slow the enemy during your retreat).


Garrison Area:
For this order you give the army an area of responsibility instead of a frontline. Divisions will spread out to guard the most important provinces, keep resistance down, or take back provinces as long as it's pretty safe. So useful for home defense, or mop-up of areas.


Assign Divisions
Lets you quickly reassign divisions between frontlines, attack orders or command groups. Super useful and you'll be mostly accessing it by holding down the Control key.

Edit Mode
Lets you adjust any part of a plan by clicking this or holding down the Alt key. You can do things like changing the axis of attack, reshaping offensive or fallback lines.

Delete
You can of course delete whole plans (just right click), or parts of plans (click on the plan on the map).


Planning Bonuses
Battle plans are not just a way of controlling your units, they also come with advantages if you put the time in to prepare them. The longer you prepare a plan the more bonus is acquired up to a point that depends on your doctrine. For example Mobile Warfare Doctrine gives you faster planning but you can only plan to half the level of a player using Grand Battleplan (Even units given manual order as part of a plan will gain this bonus by the way). As you progress along the plan the bonus slowly goes away, so you may want to time it to coincide with a good defensive position for regrouping. There are also certain leader traits that improve planning and can create powerful combos with the right doctrine.


Next week we will take a deeper look at Britain.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Hello everyone! This weeks topic will be the side effects of war: Occupation and Resistance.

Resistance
The main goal of modeling local resistance in HOI4 is to remove whack-a-mole of rebels running around and to model the strategic problems with occupying large chunks of enemy territory.



Each occupied state you control has a resistance value indicating the strength of the resistance there. It will slowly grow over time. To reduce or halt growth you need to station troops in the area (preferably special divisions with military police support battalions which are very effective for this) or lower your occupation policy for the nation in question.

As the resistance grows in an area it has several effects:

• available supply is reduced creating bottlenecks
  
• your enemies get increased intel and will be able to see more of what is going on
  
• factories will suffer from sabotage and will need to be repaired
  
• troops will take more attrition

So it's important to station troops to combat this, but of course that ties up valuable divisions you might want to use to fight the enemy. You can also appoint ministers with the Prince of Terror trait which will help to combat resistance growth in your occupied areas.

Occupation policies
You can set occupation policies for each nation you occupy. They range from Gentlest to Harshest, where harshest has the most aggressive resistance growth but lets you exploit the most

Gentlest:
- least factories
- local resources
+ most manpower
+ less resistance growth

Harshest:
+ most resources
+ most factory output
- no manpower
- fastest resistance growth



Handing over occupation
Unlike say EU4 or some of our other games, in Hearts of Iron a lot of the map tends to be occupied for most of the game rather than a short period, so it is important to be able to control the occupation during playing. To help with this we have included diplomatic actions where you can select states you occupy on the map and offer the occupation to an ally. This doesn't give them more score for a future peace conference, but it does give them the benefits of the area (industry, resources etc). AI will be quite happy to hand you stuff if you are doing the heavy lifting in the war as well and you can hand over areas you don't have troops to manage, or simply don't care about.




See you all next week again when we will be talking about battle plans!

Read the original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Hello everyone! This weeks topic will be the side effects of war: Occupation and Resistance.

Resistance
The main goal of modeling local resistance in HOI4 is to remove whack-a-mole of rebels running around and to model the strategic problems with occupying large chunks of enemy territory.



Each occupied state you control has a resistance value indicating the strength of the resistance there. It will slowly grow over time. To reduce or halt growth you need to station troops in the area (preferably special divisions with military police support battalions which are very effective for this) or lower your occupation policy for the nation in question.

As the resistance grows in an area it has several effects:

• available supply is reduced creating bottlenecks
  
• your enemies get increased intel and will be able to see more of what is going on
  
• factories will suffer from sabotage and will need to be repaired
  
• troops will take more attrition

So it's important to station troops to combat this, but of course that ties up valuable divisions you might want to use to fight the enemy. You can also appoint ministers with the Prince of Terror trait which will help to combat resistance growth in your occupied areas.

Occupation policies
You can set occupation policies for each nation you occupy. They range from Gentlest to Harshest, where harshest has the most aggressive resistance growth but lets you exploit the most

Gentlest:
- least factories
- local resources
+ most manpower
+ less resistance growth

Harshest:
+ most resources
+ most factory output
- no manpower
- fastest resistance growth



Handing over occupation
Unlike say EU4 or some of our other games, in Hearts of Iron a lot of the map tends to be occupied for most of the game rather than a short period, so it is important to be able to control the occupation during playing. To help with this we have included diplomatic actions where you can select states you occupy on the map and offer the occupation to an ally. This doesn't give them more score for a future peace conference, but it does give them the benefits of the area (industry, resources etc). AI will be quite happy to hand you stuff if you are doing the heavy lifting in the war as well and you can hand over areas you don't have troops to manage, or simply don't care about.




See you all next week again when we will be talking about battle plans!

Read the original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

This week we will be going over all the diplomatic and otherwise options you have for affecting other nations. Diplomacy ties into a lot of stuff so expect links to previous diaries for all the nitty gritty! Lets go through all the diplomatic actions available...


Factions
One of the goals for HOI4 was to break free factions from ideologies and let players create their own. Ideology of creator will still matter for the factions special rules and bonuses and who will want to join it (for example being part of a fascist led faction let you declare war on anyone as long as you are already in war).

To create a faction a nation who doesn't start with one needs to take a national focus giving them the ability to do so. Some focuses also sets up factions directly (like France ability to create the Little Entente with the Czechs). Even minors can make factions if they unlock the right focuses. If you make your own you are free to name it and will be its leader. Nations can leave factions in a few situation: Being Couped, leaving on their own (only works if they haven't joined a war together) or some special focus and events. This means that in general, once you have joined a faction you are an ally that can be trusted.



Justify War
To declare war agaisnt someone you need a valid war goal (no matter how falsified). Fascist's special power is that they only need a valid war goal for their first declaration and may continue to declare wars as long as they are at war after that which let them act much more swiftly. Democracies are limited in that they can't justify war goals against someone who has generated no world tension. Having a wargoal is useful once the war is over as it makes demanding those claims during the peace deal cheaper compared to your allies. You can also get war goals from national focuses in special situations, which bypasses all rules.

Offer peace
For HOI4 it's possible to offer to surrender assuming the war has gone on long enough. Terms are set by the winners in this case, but needs to be approved by the surrendering nation. This is different from an unconditional surrender which is what happens when your nation get occupied past the limit set by its national unity. You can read more about peace conferences in this diary.

Guarantee Independence
This is the main tool for democracies trying to stop expansionist powers. By guaranteeing someone's independence you are called into war to protect them no matter what the world tension is (The actual guarantee requires at least 25% tension). Guaranteeing someone cost political power and these get (a lot) more expensive the more guarantees you have so carpeting europe is not a particularly good option.

Military Access
Like in most paradox games, this lets you move troops in a nation's territory, but not attack from there. Airbase and naval base access requires factions and military access is not enough for this.

Improve Relations
Similar to EU4, you can spend political power to smooth talk other nations. This will help getting them in factions or in trade.

Non-aggression pact
A non aggression pact between you and another nation will stop you both from declaring wars. When first enacted you have 12 months where it can not be broken. After that it can be broken if they have a lot fewer units than you on your mutual border. The exact amount of troops required to ensure it's not breakable will get progressively smaller to break over time.

Lend Lease, Volunteers and Expeditionary Forces
There are several ways to help allies, or tip the balance in neutral wars. See this diary for all the details.

Boost party popularity
You can spend political power to affect the popularity of parties in other nations. It's much less powerful than say enacting a minister in your own nation for that purpose, but it means that you can shift nations closer to you or set things up for a future coup.


Coup
By spending political power and equipment you can set up a coup in a foreign nation. The size of the resulting civil war depends on several things: Their national Unity, the power of the ideology you are supporting and the amount of equipment delivered. For those worried there are ministers and national focuses available to make yourself safer from foreign tampering like this.

For more info check out this diary on civil wars & coups check out this diary.

Transfer Occupation
It's possible to give control of occupied territory to others on your side in wars as well. We will talk more about this in the next diary where we talk about occupation and resistance movements.



Then finally I am happy to let you know that our Beta submission was approved yesterday, so we are now officially in Beta. I can't give you any release dates yet, but this is one of the last big steps to nailing one down and saying that the project is on course.

Anyway, we have been working on HOI4 for a long time so you can imagine that this feels really great, and we plan to celebrate with beers and cigars tonight as is appropriate :)

Read the original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

This week we will be going over all the diplomatic and otherwise options you have for affecting other nations. Diplomacy ties into a lot of stuff so expect links to previous diaries for all the nitty gritty! Lets go through all the diplomatic actions available...


Factions
One of the goals for HOI4 was to break free factions from ideologies and let players create their own. Ideology of creator will still matter for the factions special rules and bonuses and who will want to join it (for example being part of a fascist led faction let you declare war on anyone as long as you are already in war).

To create a faction a nation who doesn't start with one needs to take a national focus giving them the ability to do so. Some focuses also sets up factions directly (like France ability to create the Little Entente with the Czechs). Even minors can make factions if they unlock the right focuses. If you make your own you are free to name it and will be its leader. Nations can leave factions in a few situation: Being Couped, leaving on their own (only works if they haven't joined a war together) or some special focus and events. This means that in general, once you have joined a faction you are an ally that can be trusted.



Justify War
To declare war agaisnt someone you need a valid war goal (no matter how falsified). Fascist's special power is that they only need a valid war goal for their first declaration and may continue to declare wars as long as they are at war after that which let them act much more swiftly. Democracies are limited in that they can't justify war goals against someone who has generated no world tension. Having a wargoal is useful once the war is over as it makes demanding those claims during the peace deal cheaper compared to your allies. You can also get war goals from national focuses in special situations, which bypasses all rules.

Offer peace
For HOI4 it's possible to offer to surrender assuming the war has gone on long enough. Terms are set by the winners in this case, but needs to be approved by the surrendering nation. This is different from an unconditional surrender which is what happens when your nation get occupied past the limit set by its national unity. You can read more about peace conferences in this diary.

Guarantee Independence
This is the main tool for democracies trying to stop expansionist powers. By guaranteeing someone's independence you are called into war to protect them no matter what the world tension is (The actual guarantee requires at least 25% tension). Guaranteeing someone cost political power and these get (a lot) more expensive the more guarantees you have so carpeting europe is not a particularly good option.

Military Access
Like in most paradox games, this lets you move troops in a nation's territory, but not attack from there. Airbase and naval base access requires factions and military access is not enough for this.

Improve Relations
Similar to EU4, you can spend political power to smooth talk other nations. This will help getting them in factions or in trade.

Non-aggression pact
A non aggression pact between you and another nation will stop you both from declaring wars. When first enacted you have 12 months where it can not be broken. After that it can be broken if they have a lot fewer units than you on your mutual border. The exact amount of troops required to ensure it's not breakable will get progressively smaller to break over time.

Lend Lease, Volunteers and Expeditionary Forces
There are several ways to help allies, or tip the balance in neutral wars. See this diary for all the details.

Boost party popularity
You can spend political power to affect the popularity of parties in other nations. It's much less powerful than say enacting a minister in your own nation for that purpose, but it means that you can shift nations closer to you or set things up for a future coup.


Coup
By spending political power and equipment you can set up a coup in a foreign nation. The size of the resulting civil war depends on several things: Their national Unity, the power of the ideology you are supporting and the amount of equipment delivered. For those worried there are ministers and national focuses available to make yourself safer from foreign tampering like this.

For more info check out this diary on civil wars & coups check out this diary.

Transfer Occupation
It's possible to give control of occupied territory to others on your side in wars as well. We will talk more about this in the next diary where we talk about occupation and resistance movements.



Then finally I am happy to let you know that our Beta submission was approved yesterday, so we are now officially in Beta. I can't give you any release dates yet, but this is one of the last big steps to nailing one down and saying that the project is on course.

Anyway, we have been working on HOI4 for a long time so you can imagine that this feels really great, and we plan to celebrate with beers and cigars tonight as is appropriate :)

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