Over the last couple of weeks we've been running a contest for the Hearts of Iron community to suggest and vote on a new achievement to be added to the game.

Voting has been open for a little over a week, and we had more than 31,000 votes cast on the shortlist of 10 achievement suggestions.

Here's the placings from 4th-10th:



In third place, with 5,506 votes is 'I am the Senate'!

The goal here was to achieve 100% support in both the Senate and the House as democratic USA.



In second place, with 5,765 votes is 'The chad Chad'

This achievement required you to take all of Africa as Chad.



Which means, with 6,343 votes, the winner of the contest is 'Finnish Him!'

The challenge here is to conquer all of the Soviet Union as Finland, without joining a faction.

We'll be adding this one into the game with our next major update



As the winning achievement, we'll be adding 'Finnish Him!' into the game with our next major update.

Let us know what you think the best strategies will be for accomplishing it!

Ever wanted to have some input into what we pick as an achievement for Hearts of Iron IV?

This is your chance!

Over this week we asked for suggestions on social media for new achievements. Having received around 400 submissions, we've distilled these down to a shortlist of just 10.

The choice of which one gets added into the game at our next major update is now yours!

Click here to cast your vote or read on below to see the details of all the achievements on the shortlist.



Tordenskjold would be proud: As Denmark or Norway sink the pride of the fleet of a major power


Quick Revolution: As the Soviet Union, put Trotsky in power and make all major nations communist before 1945


Better Late Than Never: As Monarchist England, conquer Normandy, Aquitaine, and Paris


Finnish Him: As Finland, conquer the Soviet Union without joining a faction


Finding Old Zealand: As New Zealand, conquer Zeeland


Afri-Khan: Conquer all of Africa as Tannu Tuva or Mongolia


I am the senate: As Democratic US, have 100% control in the house and senate


All the Romes under Romania: As Romania, control Rome, Istanbul and Moscow


The chad Chad: As Chad, conquer all of Africa


The French Prince of Belair(us): As any Monarchist France, own and control all cores of Belarus

You can click here to cast your vote!

Chain of Command: Devs vs. the HOI4 Community: 1800-2000 CEST, 10/11/12 June



Tomorrow at 1800-2000 will be the first session of a special kind of Three Day War: It's the Devs vs. the Hearts of Iron IV community at large, spearheaded by four content creators.

Each team will be playing entirely within one nation: Imperial Germany for the Devs, and Democratic Britain for the Community team.

We've taken the 'democratic' element literally, electing a Virtual 'House of Commons' from across the HOI community to vote on and discuss the strategy for the UK. Some actions will be decided by what the house wants, not just the four players.

Read on below to find out about what the 'Virtual House of Commons' has been up to in preparation for the event.

There will be a two-hour session of the event streamed each day from June 10th - June 12, live over on our Twitch channel.

https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Make sure you sent a reminder on the right of this page so you don't miss any of the action!

The Developer team is led by Kaiser Bratyn; he and his three supporting characters will be out to stop the community team in their tracks.




Playing the game for the HOI Community team is Taureor, Feedback Gaming, Mordred Viking, and PrussianPrince.


They are supported by the 'Virtual House of Commons'; an assembly of 32 people drawn from Mod communities, content creators and elected from steam and our social channels. They sat for the first time on Sunday, divided quickly into rival parties and began debating.

https://twitter.com/HOI_Game/status/1269993038136344579


One of the first actions for the vHoC was to choose one of the content creators to take overall charge and become 'Prime Minister'. In a close fought battle, Taureor was victorious with support from the larger Commonwealth First Party.




The vHoC has since been busy debating and approving strategy, binding the hands of the players to enact their will. We'll show more of what has been happening at the start of the stream tomorrow.

Update: The Polls have closed and the results are in!




We can certify that SwedishKaiser, Dankuser, Spartacus, Coffee Monster, Acy, Matius, Joseph, and Toastyman, are duly elected to serve as Members of (virtual) Parliament for the Steam constituency.

Congratulations to the winners and commiserations to those who didn't make it.

We will be in touch with the winners shortly to invite them to the Discord.

---

Yesterday's Election Details [vote closed]

It's election day for the 'virtual House of Commons', as part of our chain-of-command multiplayer event next week!

If you missed the information about this event a few days ago, we're having a group of ordinary HOI players from across the community take part in advising and voting on strategy for the community team (made up of YouTubers and Streamers) via Discord.


Click here to see full event info


Below is the shortlist of candidates from all the applications we got on Steam. You can find a link to vote at the bottom. There will be eight representatives elected from Steam.




Hi, first of all thanks for the event. I am excited to my bones right now. Secondly, the reason i want to participate is simply because i love everything related to ww2 and games, guess what merges both :) . I have bought the game not so long ago ( before that i thought it would be boring, but here we are ), and in a short time period i mastered the art if i dare to say. I have watched almost all of youtube content of hoi4. Another reason for me to participate to this event is feedbackgaming(dave), and taureor. I love the way those guys play and i think i have some ideas or tactics of the game myself. Finally, i am filming some videos in my home language ( i think there is a lack of turkish content ) and will soon post those to youtube.


I have 2.3k + hours on HOI4, both in vanilla and just about every mod. Several hundred of those hours have been in competitive MP. I've gotten many (but not all) of the achievements, including Don’t Die for Your Country, Last for a Thousand Years, Crusader Kings, Crusader Kings 2, and I Swear I’m Not a Byzantophile. So if you need a level 10 field marshall, I'm your guy.

Also, always remember that: Giraffes are heartless creatures, and that no enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr.


I would like to take part because i have played this game ALOT and just wish that I could have fun with this and have the best of times for a game that introduce me to paradox games and all the fun that these games have and meet alot of good people through these games. I would be good because through the countless hours i put into this game and many of games of yours and the tactics are good from the beginnings of learning the game to being very good at the game it would just mean alot to do this.


Dear Paradox Games and its fans,

The upcoming election is an event of great importance. The community has the ability to elect the new prime minister. Instead of giving your vote on the famous plutocratic youtubers who play HOI4 you can invest it on someone like me. A simple man who has gotten tired of the oligarchy that dominates in every election. I'm the voice of the people and will make a better future for all of us.


I Sitarik Should be voted for a part in the house of commons due to my extreme lack of intelligence. That was a joke. I should be elected into the house of commons because of my knowledge of democratic Britain and more specifically both the Air and Infantry aspects of it. A big part about being elected is also being respectful which I think is important, while you can disagree, you should not rage about the argument at hand. I Sitarik, should be elected to be apart of the House of commons to help our great leaders determine the best course of action in both assessing and acting on action taken by the imperial German Reich.


I am a hoi4 player that just wants to have fun playing the game and sometimes i like to watch more competitive sessions, i have played this game for 900 hours and is one of my favorite games of all time and for sure the most liked of the strategy genre for me.
I am from Brazil and all my kinsmans are germans, including me. I think i could help the community set up a nice and fun game that everyone could watch and Germany has been by far the country i played most so i think i understand and know how a one's game as it goes and the best strategies for one's to take at determined moments.
The main reason i want to participate on this is, besides making choices and voting to set up a fun and interesting game for everyone to watch, because i think Hoi4 has been and important part of my life and i am sure that i would contribute to the ""Virtual House of Commons"""


Hearts of Iron 4 has been probably my favorite game since I bought it, and since the quarantine started here in Mexico I have started to play more of it and the other paradox games and to take part in any thing that paradox organizes would mean the world to me and the fact that its HOI4 would make it that more special.

I probably aren't the best candidate as I am sure that so many people with hundreds more hours in this game will apply but I have played many hours of multiplayer (with strangers as none of my friends own this game) and I am kind of a history buff and do know the mechanics well.

Thank-you for the consideration,
Fernando Borja


Hello. I am Brexdz and i would be a good part in this election due to my cooperation. I am taking a law degree and i know a lot about parliament and would like to be on the United Kingdom side please. I am a good leader and i a good listener so i will be good for parliament, thank you for reading. May the odds be with you. Sincerely Brexdz


I would be a good member of the Virtual House of Commons because I am a strong proponent of an aggressive foreign policy. Not only must we be able to gain allies diplomatically but we must also be willing to step up militarily to the growing menace that is Nazi Germany. With me I will vote to never give an inch to Germany and will fight tooth and nail to get an aggressive Prime Minister who will also not give an inch.


I have extensive hours playing Hearts of Iron 4, around 1,200 at the time of me writing this. I have earn many of the hardest achievements in the game, with my most recent achievement run being with Great Britain and earning the Imperial Federation achievement. I usually play as either France or Britain so this competition would be right up my knowledge of expertise. I also play almost every other paradox strategy game extensively when I am not playing Hearts of Iron. I have plenty of free time and I will be sure to commit all of it to the cause. Put simply, I've spent way too much time in this game and studying World War 2 in general (21th century history major) to not apply. A vote for me is a vote for victory!


I see the dark times ahead, Europe will be under fascist domination without my guidance, I will lead us through the great policy of appeasement! We will lead the Germans into a passive state by letting them reunite their lands, and with this, Europe will remain at peace. I am also ready to be a member of the house after my time being the mayor in a small town in northern England, the national government needs my help and my help exclusively.


My friends, war is descending upon Europe. With the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia, and even the threat of Japan in the east, we need a strong leader who can help us out of these dark times. With your support, I will take part of this Virtual House of Commons, and help give us this leader that I speak of, as well as a representative you can trust who will vote to keep our great nation safe. With 757 hours and growing in HOI4 and many more in other Paradox games (including 867 in EU4), I believe I would be a fine candidate for the job. With my experience in government, now showing to be extensive, I'm sure you can understand how I am very qualified for the position. Some of you may question what my stances are, what policies I will lean towards, or even how aggressive I will be to the fascist or communist threats. In short, I am not a warmonger, but I will not stand down when a threat to our great nation is presented. I will not support the expansion of threats to our nation, but I will do my best to prevent a war if possible. British blood should not be needlessly spilled, but if we allow the threats to our freedom to grow unchecked, we will surely lose more than only blood. My friends, war is descending upon Europe, and only you, with a vote for me, have the chance to stop it.


With over a thousand hours in Hearts of Iron 4 and complete dedication to the title since I pre-ordered it, I believe I would serve wonderfully in this House of Commons. I know how to play the United Kingdom quite well if I do say so myself and it would be a wonderful opportunity to work alongside those that make the community so great.

Vote for me and I will ensure all of my policies reflect a strong and prosperous Empire to withstand the test of time.

Much love from the eldest dominion; Canada. I look forward to serving King and Country!


I think I would be a good candidate for the House of Commons because I will keep our country steadfast and unrelenting in the fight to come. I would make decisions for the people, and to let people understand that we are not a nation to be fooled with. We must listen to the people, and if we do not listen to the people. We are not a government for the people and it will be changed if need be.


Greetings, I am writing this address as I seek to be elected to the Virtual House of Commons, one of the mains reasons I seek to take part in this election is due to my vast knowledge of the british administration and my ability to apply and assist with my knowledge to the VHoC is immense, I do believe that over everyone else I would be a better option than most due to my past experience and skills with virtual house's of commons and virtual house's of lords and I do believe that I would serve the administration the best with my time in the VHoC. Thank you.


This will be my first ever time participating in a community event and I would love to join and create an amazing in game story for everyone involved. I, at the moment have 3,585 hours in Hearts of Iron 4 though I have limited multiplayer experience I will do my best to stand for my nations ideals and lead, alongside my peers, our nation to ultimate victory over our foes! (Also, I really like to RP)

"My fellow countrymen, I fear that the world is moving toward the edge of a second great war. Though peace is preferable than war, forces outside out control will force us into one, if we don't take action we would risk our annihilation via the means our future foes. If you elect me I, Coffee Monster, shall take every action necessary to prepare our nation for war. I understand it is a harrowing thought, war, every single one of us has lost someone or known someone who has lost a loved one in the Great War, the 'War to End all Wars' they called it. We all know that title is false even after the deaths of tens of millions, even before the ink dried on the Treaty of Versailles, man took up arms against man. Peace is a spectacular thing and I understand that many would like to believe it will continue forever more, but the peace that was won back in Nineteen-Eighteen is a fragile one. Already the cracks are showing. We must prepare for war, for it will come for us weather we like it or not. Vote for me Coffee Monster and I shall fight for you in the House of Commons, I shall fight to protect you from foreign aggression, for through Overwhelming Firepower we shall defeat our foes, we shall drown our enemies in bullets, bombs, and shells. Vote for me and I shall do my best to keep your boy in the field alive, for every one of our men's lives is precious. Vote for Coffee Monster the man who will keep our boys in the front safe!"


I believe in only three things: democracy, myself, and memes. As two of those are already inseparable parts of this event, that being democracy and a liberal sprinkling of memes, I feel that it is my duty to add the third component into the mix. This is why I'm running for a seat in the House of Virtual Commons - because I'm a selfish bastard, but also because I am a man of ideals, ideals that need to be heard.

As a citizen of Poland and a low-key Poland main, I do not believe in the common definition of victory. You don't win when you kill your enemy and take their clay. Rather, victory is achieved when you either die with honour, or live long enough to put on a good show. Victory is when you create a fun and memorable game for the other players, or, in the case of a live event, for the audience - You. But that is no easy task. It requires a careful proportion of healthy competitiveness and a strong gentlemanly spirit from all the people involved. A certain degree of seriousness contrasted by pure, undistilled memery. All of those, when balanced correctly, create fun.

In moments when that balance is threatened as a direct cause of tryharding, I elect to make my vote count. Because it is my core belief that nothing, not even the threat of an imminent Sealion, is an excuse for foregoing fun, honour, and the spirit of the good show. And also memes. 'Tis the DNA of the soul, after all.


The only things I have to offer are blood, tears, sweat, and toil. I can help with all I can in this crucial moment, I will give my all and if that's not enough then I will give even more. We have all the odds against us, we are against the code masters, the people that have built this world, but fear not because we will fight them in France, we will fight them in north Africa, in the Atlantic and we will fight them right where it hits them the most.

We must win so that we can finally prove to them who the real masters of this game are, the gods who built this world or the people who live every day in it.

WHO IS WITH ME?


Hoi 4 is my favourite pc game and I really like this idea about chain of command and that is why I would like to participate.I have spend over 1,200 hours playing this game so I think I could be helpful to the community and to the Virtual House of Commons. I hope we will all have fun watching or participating.


I have ~1,300 hours on HOI4. I've played multiplayer and singleplayer continually since the original release. I know how minor nations mechanics work, and I've played every single minor nation in the game, and know how they can be advantageous to a player. I also know most of the functions of naval combat after Man the Guns DLC, and would love the give the community an edge when defeating the Devs. I haven't been on multiplayer for a while. However, I have always kept up with news regarding the game and players who discover new exploits/meta tactics. I may not be the best player, but I know some things about multiplayer that may be able to help the community destroy the Devs.

I hope I am elected to help our HOI4 community, or atleast to watch in the end. Good luck to everyone, and thank you for considering me.


I would love the opportunity to serve the HOI Community as it would prove to be a politically intriguing experience. I believe that I would be experienced and balanced in my approach to working with other Virtual Members of Parliament in the struggle globally due to my lengthy gameplay of HOI 4 (over 300 hours), and a wider understanding of military and political conflict. I know that as a community we can achieve significant success and I would be a willing and able candidate to do so.


I wish to take part as a member of the House of Commons to aid the United Kingdom in its role as the global peacekeeper and defender of nations which cannot defend themselves against those who would see them conquered. I have studied naval gunnery and tactical history in-depth and promote that in order for the UK to keep her place in the sun, we must grasp new naval technologies fully and prepare, that no cost is too great to defend the world from Tyranny.


Ladies and Gentlemen of this green and pleasant land,

I come before you today to humbly ask for your support in the forthcoming election to such a Great British institution that is the House of Commons. With the mandate you give me I will be sure to lend my wisdom and support in this most trying time to His Majesty's Government so that we might all prevail against the dastardly Hun. Once again the Kaiser has brought misery to the continent and as upstanding citizens of the British Empire it is our duty to ensure that all German ambitions above their station are curtailed, a resurgent Germany is a threat that cannot be ignored. If you elect me I will advocate for an aggressive policy of containment that leaves no cards off the table when it comes to dealing with the German threat.

A vote for me is a vote for the Empire and lasting British security.

God Save the King!


I have good experience whit Hearts of Iron, having played it for now over 2100 hours, I have a strong will to lead our team and our country to victory against the Germans and to be a contributor towards a standing democracy in the face of the upcoming world war, I will help guide our brave generals towards a better future for Britain, democracy, and a better world. Vote now, you wont regret it.


Hello good people at paradox !

I would absolutely love to take part in the Virtual House of Commons because Hearts of iron
IV is by far my favourite game to play. I'm always looking for more ways to have fun with the game and this seems like a brilliant opportunity to do so. As for my 'qualifications' It's easily my most played game with over 1830 fun filled hours spent blitzing through Belgium and ambling across Africa. I have also just completed a historical campaign as Britain so should to be well suited to the task. I'm a rational thinker but not averse to pulling of a risky encirclement.

Thanks for reading my address, Looking forward to smashing the Kaiser and his chums.


My fellow citizens,

in front of us are dire times that will require a lot of sacrifices and tough decisions so we must choose the people that can make us emerge victorious. I am bringing my name to the ballots because I believe I am one of those people. I believe in this nation and I believe that the people understand the need for strong leadership. So I assure you that my stance against the fascists will be tough.

NO APPEASEMENT! NO SURRENDER!

Vote for a better future! Vote for Spartacus!


I have over 10k hours on HOI4.


I am seeking your vote to be an MP because I want to represent you, the distinguished and refined public. As a veteran of HoI III and IV I have seen the horrors that can befall people such as you when the nation is run without regard for the baking industry. As a talking pastry I am passionate for ensuring the rights of all forms of breads, cakes, pies and assorted baked goods are protected during times of war. As an MP I will spend every baking hour fighting for your right to take a break from the blood and tears of war and enjoy a nice relaxing glazed doughnut. Vote for me and I will ensure our nation rises to glory like a rustic loaf of sourdough!



You can vote for eight candidates, and the eight with the most votes will be elected.

Voting will close at 1400 CEST on Saturday 6th June.

1.9.3 "Husky" is now live and downloadable through Steam. Checksum is a7a4.

We should be compatible with 1.9.2, but if you for some reason want to remain on 1.9.2 or older Here are instructions for reverting to patches since 1.5.4, or special instructions for 1.5.3 and earlier.

Please make sure that any mods you are using are updated for 1.9.3, or your game might not run properly (seriously)

If you discover any bugs in patch 1.9.3, please report them in the bug report forum as usual.

For the ones who were on the beta and experienced performance issues with the latest update, things should be back to normal now.

################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.9.3 "Husky" ########
################################################################

##################################
# Balance
##################################
- decreased suppression value of SP-Art battalions
- decreased suppression value of SP-AA battalions
- decreased suppression value of SP-AT battalions
- decreased research cost on destroyer hulls
- decreased research cost on depth charge technologies
- increased research cost on 1940 and 1944 submarine hulls
- increased research cost on torpedo module upgrades
- decreased research cost of naval munitions upgrades for light and heavy guns
- decreased research cost of armor schemes
- increased the cost of initial radar tech, lowered cost on all other radar techs
- decreased IC cost of all ship heavy batteries
- increased damage of all heavy ship batteries
- increased piercing of all medium ship batteries
- increased damage of all medium ship batteries
- Carrier planes no longer take area coverage penalties on their targeted/ground missions
- Increased carrier hull surface detection base from 20 to 26
- Added a cooldown timer after naval transfers are engaged at sea and escape to avoid stun-locking issues with many small fleets. The cooldown depends on the screening efficiency of the defenders so a defended convoy will have a longer cooldown the better defended it is
- Added an extra speed boost to convoys retreat speed when screened
- Effective carrier plane advantage in naval combat now gives penalties to positioning for the other side
- Increased air-to-air damage factor in carrier battles from 5 to 6
- increase air attack targeting scoring for carriers to make them more likely targets for other carriers
- increased naval hit penalty from 10% to 20% in heavy rain
- reduced carrier traffic penalty from 100% to 80% in heavy rain
- Reduce heavy gun target signature from 90 to 80 and increased light gun target signature from 40 to 45 to make heavy guns a bit more versatile and light guns a bit slower at picking off screens
- Patrol convoy raiding and convoy escort missions now rely on local navy position for air superiority rather than average of air zones to stop high air superiority in a zone from saving the ships from spotting in another.


##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- Fixed OOS related to asking an operative to resume their mission after the operation they are assigned to completes
- Fixed OOS linked to technologies not being properly reset between games
- Fixed OOS triggered by a country asking for manpower after a civil war
- Prevented crash when trying to respond to faction invite from a faction that no longer exists
- fixed a ctd that happens when a non-existing capitulated country checks for uncapitulation


##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Added play_song and scoped_play_song effects
- added on_war_relation_added on action (scope is attacker, from is defender)
- Made targeting weights for air-to-ship in naval combat moddable. See NAVAL_COMBAT_AIR_*_TARGET_SCORE defines.


##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Updated the forum link in main menu to match the new forum
- Bulgaria will no longer start with Flexible Navy focus completed in 1939

Today's Dev Diary by Podcat


Hi everyone! This week is Hearts of Iron IVs 4th anniversary. I’ve got some cool data to share with you, new armor and radio packs as well as patch for you to celebrate! All of this releases tomorrow :)

A Look Back & Cool Numbers

It's crazy how Hearts of Iron keeps growing. I personally started with playing HOI2, and worked on HOI3 as a coder and game director on HOI4, and while people still call it a niche experience for WW2 buffs, it has also grown to be so much more (or us WW2 nerds are more numerous than we think :D). Around La Résistance release we clocked a new record on monthly players of 899k (the 1000 of you that didn't log in that month are responsible for my OCD flaring up!). HOI4 is quite unique in how stable the growth is. Most games that aren't multiplayer or the like usually has big dips between releases. I think the two big factors that keeps us so stable is the replayability as well as the amazing mods that keep updating giving people new stuff to play with continuously :) Here is what the curve has looked like over the years:



I also took a look at country popularity between the last year and the release year. These are the top 10 nations currently with comparison to 2016:



Most see relative reductions here because we have in general made a lot more nations playable with more focus trees and other improvements (in 2016 Poland had Hungary's spot while now its pushed below both Spain and Hungary). There are a couple of obvious increases who all seem to come from focus tree changes also :)

Allied Armor Pack

Tomorrow we also release the followup to last years Axis Armor Pack, this time for the allies. This includes 45 armored vehicles for USA, UK, France and Soviets. On top of this we also add in 32 tanks from the Colonel Edition for those nations also for a total of 77 :) This is one of the reasons that we stopped selling the Colonel Edition last month - it was making it messy to buy cosmetic packs and we didn't want to split stuff up further.

To make sure previous colonel edition players don't feel like they get as much, and also because its been such a great year for HOI4, we will be giving the whole pack for free to all those who had the colonel edition. Enjoy!

(the observant players may remember that there is some ships in the colonel edition also, people who have that will keep them but they are not included in this armor pack. We will sort those boat boys out in the future).

Below are some examples of vehicles included:

Allied Speeches

People seemed to like the radio addition last year, but this year we wanted to test something a bit different and more tied to gameplay. We have added 70 minutes of speeches from allied leaders and commanders, set them to music and trigger them based on ingame events. So for example when Japan declares war on USA you will be able to hear Roosevelt deliver his "a date which will live in infamy" speech.

Here is a sample using one of Churchill's more famous speeches to give you an feeling for how it will sound:



Its a great feeling when they kick in and adds some really nice historical flavor :) Note also that they are playable like any other tracks should you want to.

1.9.3 Patch

For this patch we wanted to focus on naval issues and improvements as we didn't touch that very much for La Résistance. To summarize the most important changes:

Naval tech rebalance
It's best to check the changelog for details here, but our goal has been to make tech investments into more efficient submarines more expensive and sub countering and investments into capital ships cheaper.

Convoys and stun-locking
A very annoying strategy in multiple and sometimes in SP has been being able to essentially stun lock an enemies transports of troops in place at sea by lots of small naval engagements with submarines. Even if well screened they still need to wait to retreat and then would get caught again and again, sometimes taking months to get across the atlantic. To deal with this we have increased the retreat speed bonuses from being well screened and also implemented a cooldown system. This system will give transports a cooldown after being caught where they can not be re-spotted again. The length of it depends on the length of their path as well as how well screened they are. For an unscreened vessel they will be caught pretty quickly in more interceptions while a properly screened one can continue on until the invasion beach if its not too far.

Carriers and other naval changes
Carriers in the pacific really struggle with the large air zones and the weather penalties. It didn't make sense to us to apply the area size penalties to a mobile base with so few planes, so now any mission targeting a specific location (port strike, CAS etc) for planes stationed on a carrier will not have this penalty.

On top of this it didn't make sense to have carriers planes suffer a 100% penalty from bad weather when land based ones had a much smaller one. While I doubt any planes could take off during a really bad storm, it makes little sense when we only really have one level of weather here to make it so brutal, so this penalty has been reduced to 80%. We also felt that if the weather is truly this bad guns really should be struggling more than they do as well as doubled that penalty to 20% to close the gap.

Carriers now also help the fleet overall. The side with the carrier plane advantage in the battle will penalize positioning of the other side, similar a bit in spirit to the effects of air superiority on land. We also made light guns a bit worse and buffed targeting and power of bigger guns to try and strengthen mixed fleets. We have also increased the base detection abilities of carriers a bit to better model how important they were for spotting enemies at sea.

Another thing of note is that we have fixed an annoying interaction between air superiority and naval spotting. Because air superiority applies on average on the zones a task force was operating you could shield them with planes in a zone they were not even in, which might be somewhere your enemy couldn't even reach and contest. Now it will be looking at the specific area they are in instead.

Out Of Syncs
Telemetry was telling us that the vast majority of out of syncs were happening in the first half of 1936, and for weeks we simply could not reproduce this inhouse, but recently we had a breakthrough. We found some data related to technologies that was not properly reset when entering a new game and this is hopefully the core reason for this. We will be looking at telemetry data to hopefully see the OOS frequency take a nose dive, because this stuff is truly hard for us to test fully ourselves, but we are optimistic!

Full Patch Notes:

################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.9.3 "Husky" ########
################################################################

##################################
# Balance
##################################
- decreased suppression value of SP-Art battalions
- decreased suppression value of SP-AA battalions
- decreased suppression value of SP-AT battalions
- decreased research cost on destroyer hulls
- decreased research cost on depth charge technologies
- increased research cost on 1940 and 1944 submarine hulls
- increased research cost on torpedo module upgrades
- decreased research cost of naval munitions upgrades for light and heavy guns
- decreased research cost of armor schemes
- increased the cost of initial radar tech, lowered cost on all other radar techs
- decreased IC cost of all ship heavy batteries
- increased damage of all heavy ship batteries
- increased piercing of all medium ship batteries
- increased damage of all medium ship batteries
- Carrier planes no longer take area coverage penalties on their targeted/ground missions
- Increased carrier hull surface detection base from 20 to 26
- Added a cooldown timer after naval transfers are engaged at sea and escape to avoid stun-locking issues with many small fleets. The cooldown depends on the screening efficiency of the defenders so a defended convoy will have a longer cooldown the better defended it is
- Added an extra speed boost to convoys retreat speed when screened
- Effective carrier plane advantage in naval combat now gives penalties to positioning for the other side
- Increased air-to-air damage factor in carrier battles from 5 to 6
- increase air attack targeting scoring for carriers to make them more likely targets for other carriers
- increased naval hit penalty from 10% to 20% in heavy rain
- reduced carrier traffic penalty from 100% to 80% in heavy rain
- Reduce heavy gun target signature from 90 to 80 and increased light gun target signature from 40 to 45 to make heavy guns a bit more versatile and light guns a bit slower at picking off screens
- Patrol convoy raiding and convoy escort missions now rely on local navy position for air superiority rather than average of air zones to stop high air superiority in a zone from saving the ships from spotting in another.


##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- Fixed OOS related to asking an operative to resume their mission after the operation they are assigned to completes
- Fixed OOS linked to technologies not being properly reset between games
- Fixed OOS triggered by a country asking for manpower after a civil war
- Prevented crash when trying to respond to faction invite from a faction that no longer exists
- fixed a ctd that happens when a non-existing capitulated country checks for uncapitulation


##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Added play_song and scoped_play_song effects
- added on_war_relation_added on action (scope is attacker, from is defender)
- Made targeting weights for air-to-ship in naval combat moddable. See NAVAL_COMBAT_AIR_*_TARGET_SCORE defines.


##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Updated the forum link in main menu to match the new forum
- Bulgaria will no longer start with Flexible Navy focus completed in 1939

So what are we up to now?

We have been wanting to shorten the time between content update for a while and are going to take a serious stab at it now. That means that we are currently working on two things at once in parallel actually. In the pipe we have 1.10 ‘Collie’ as well as 1.11 ‘Barbarossa’. That's about as much information as I can give you right now. We are not yet ready to start dev diaries on ‘Collie’ but look forward to it some time after summer vacation. We have some massively awesome stuff planned and I think you are all gonna like it (if people wanna see the roadmap, it was last updated in this dev diary).

As part of the anniversary we are also doing a really cool new take on the 3-day war stream with influencers vs devs and... democracy?



Check out full event details here!

Chain of Command Multiplayer - Developers vs. The Hearts of Iron Community


It's Hearts of Iron IV's 4th anniversary on June 6th, and to celebrate we're holding a multiplayer event for the ages.

From June 10-12 a team of four heroic content creators, backed by the wider
Hearts of Iron community, will do battle with a team of four of the most dastardly devs around.

For the first time in an official multiplayer event, you can participate, helping to shape the community teams strategy and choosing its leader. Read on to find out how.


It's going to be a chain-of-command stream, meaning that all each team will be playing one nation; Democratic UK for the Community team, and Imperial Germany for the Devs.






The Developers won't just be playing against the four players controlling Britain, but also a 'Virtual House of Commons' made up of ordinary Hearts of Iron players from all kinds of different communities.

The Virtual House of Commons will, via Discord, choose which of the four players will become 'Prime Minister', discuss and vote on strategy, war declarations and other major decisions, and if they are unhappy with how the game goes... vote to sack the Prime Minister and appoint another.

How You Can Take Part


In order to take part in the Virtual House of Commons, you'll need to be either be nominated by one of the participating Hearts of Iron Communities, or win election on Hearts of Iron's official communities, like Facebook, Twitter, the Paradox Forums and here on Steam.

If you would like to be a part of this, you can nominate yourself using this form: https://pdxint.at/2XTSLxr

You'll be asked to write a little bit about your prowess at HOI and how you'd be good if chosen, and then we will create a shortlist of candidates from the entries to be voted on by the Hearts of Iron community on Steam.

The election will take place on June 5th 2020, for 24 hours. We'll do another Steam post with a voting link then.

If elected, you'll be able to join a Discord server and take part in votes and discussions from Sunday 7th June, through to the end of the event on Thursday 12th June. We don't anticipate this will take up a lot of time, but obviously that depends on what the house wants to discuss and vote on!

Good luck if you choose to stand!

Join Fiona and Daniel once again at 14:00 CEST for the penultimate episode of our tutorial stream series.

Tune in over on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

1.9.2 "Husky" is now live and downloadable through Steam. Checksum is a73d.

We should be compatible with 1.9.1, but if you for some reason want to remain on 1.9.1 or older Here are instructions for reverting to patches since 1.5.4, or special instructions for 1.5.3 and earlier.

Please make sure that any mods you are using are updated for 1.9.2, or your game might not run properly (seriously)

If you discover any bugs in patch 1.9.2, please report them in the bug report forum as usual.

For the ones who were on the beta and experienced performance issues with the latest update, things should be back to normal now.


###############################################################
######## Hotfix 1.9.2 "Husky" ########
################################################################


##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- The Bell Tolls for Us achievement should now trigger when winning the civil war.
- the bonuses for collaboration governments are no longer reversed so the special outcome ends up worse, also adjusted levels according to actual old default
- both outcomes on civilian tech stealing no longer gives max bonus
- Our Chief Weapon is Surprise will no longer check how many operatives you have and will correctly only check if you have done 5 coups.
- fixed an issue where the British Raj could end up with no recruitable manpower if they went down the swaraj focus path (TfV only)
- Countries should no longer leave the Latin Bloc formed by Spain after a day
- fixed an issue with Carlist spain losing its 3d models after reinstating the monarchy
- fixed an issue with the Spanish unique 3d tank model not appearing correctly
- fixed some issues with coordinated strike that was making them with naval bombings
- Fix AI constantly cancelling sending expeditionary units for a player and ai
- Fixed issue with cores and resistance during and after SCW.
- Korea should now correctly be released if Manchukuo breaks free from japan and forces a peace settlement with them
- fixed an issue with army training xp generation
- Fixed operative resuming their mission after an operation being able to run their mission in a quiet network
- it is now possible to recruit local agents in countries occupied by a third party
- Tech stealing can no longer unlock mutually exclusive techs and will let you unlock techs with less than 50% progress on them directly also
- Hinder NKVD Interference focus will be canceled if The Stalinist Doctrine is completed, fixing an edge case where player could unlock both sub-branches.
- Soviet now retains the old behaviour of sending volunteers to spain
- Fix end of civil war events no longer firing (initially reported on German Civil war)
- Tech stealing text now matches what you always get rather than sometimes being random
- Fixed an issue with the Iberian union not getting the correct 3d model


##################################
# Balance
##################################
- added mil factory to china that was incorrectly set up in 1.9.1
- capture cypher operation now gives between 30-50% decrypt and requires a bit lower network.
- Lowered operation duration for infiltrate Army/Navy/Air from 90 to 75
- Lowered boost resistance operation duration to 50 days from 60
- Lowered duration on targetted sabotage from 120 to 90 days
- sabotage operation now also increases damage done rather than just aiding in targetting
- lowered chance for agent capture and increased chance for harm and hiding to reduce the amount of rescue missions needed
- reduced cost increase for repeating tech steal operation from a target
- reduced cost increase for repeating sabotage operation on a target
- Increased weights for equipment unlocks a bit from tech stealing operation
- Carrier planes no longer suffer the range coverage penalty during coordinated strikes
- Spain will not get resistance from the states until the SCW is completely over, meaning that the second uprising has been triggered/avoided. This is also applied if a Spanish faction defeats the other Spanish tags before her second uprising happens, since the SCW will not end until the second uprising has been dealt with.
- if France backs down during the Sudeten Crisis, French guarantees on Yugoslavia will also be removed (no one believes you anymore France)
- French guarantees on Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are now cancelled if France goes with Britain


##################################
# AI
##################################
- AI japan will no longer make Marianas a collaboration regime, similarly with Czechoslovakia which is a bit too complex to represent well with the AI here
- AI Spanish Factions will now surrender if they do not control any state in the Iberian Peninsula, but own other territories outside of it (preventing the player from needing to execute naval invasions to win the SCW)


##################################
# UI
##################################
- The coordinated strike operation now has proper effect descriptions explaining what it does
- removed a unlocalized debug tooltip when planning operations


##################################
# Database
##################################
- Removed tooltip in News Events showing up after defeating the other faction/s in the SCW before the second uprising. Added tooltip in News Events showing up after actually wining the SCW.
- Fixed an issue where, under specific circumstances in some edge cases, Gibraltar cores/claims could be lost.


##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- Fixed OOS related to different language settings between the host and client
- Fixed OOS due to differing ship name in combat result
- Fixed OOS when joining a MP that has not LaR with a client that has LaR enable while comming back from a game with active operatives
- Added basic land and naval combat details to hourly OOS checks
- Fixed save game formatting of AI strategies for managing production of army roles, to use text instead of unstable numeric IDs
- Enabled the abort on map error for when game files are modified in the installation directory
- Fixed CTD when showing the leaderboard before going back to the main menu
- Fix a CTD on related to clearing strategic air data and processing air activity
- Fixed OOS caused by a client that has been kicked from or lost connection to their last game when the client has different DLC settings than the new host
- Reduced the hourly tick cost of checking for out-of-syncs by calculating checksum only for existing countries, and only for technologies actively being researched.
- Fixed a crash that could happen when assigning operative to an operation
- Fixed OOS in naval combat when convoys are sunk in a MP with at least one client using a different language than the host
- Fixed OOS when a player asks an AI for a lend lease
- Fixed OOS caused by differing name of the airbase airwings participating in naval combat are coming from when a client has a different language setting than the host

Hi everyone I hope you are enjoying 1.9.1 and La Resistance. Today will be a smaller diary to let you know that we are putting out a beta for 1.9.2, and also to fill you in on what the plan is now moving forward into next expansion work.

1.9.2 Beta
Since we came back from easter we have been working hard on nailing down some stubborn out of sync bugs. Some of those still elude us so the quest continues but we have also gotten some other things dealt with.

1.9.2 Changelog (so far!)

##################################
# Balance
##################################
- added mil factory to china that was incorrectly set up in 1.9.1

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Soviet now retains the old behaviour of sending volunteers to spain
- Fix end of civil war events no longer firing (initially reported on German Civil war)

##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- Fixed OOS related to different language settings between the host and client
- Fixed OOS due to differing ship name in combat result
- Fixed OOS when joining a MP that has not LaR with a client that has LaR enable while comming back from a game with active operatives
- Added basic land and naval combat details to hourly OOS checks
- Fixed save game formatting of AI strategies for managing production of army roles, to use text instead of unstable numeric IDs
- Enabled the abort on map error for when game files are modified in the installation directory
- Fixed CTD when showing the leaderboard before going back to the main menu
- Fix a CTD on related to clearing strategic air data and processing air activity

The beta patch thread is over here and includes info on how to opt into it :)

We have no release date on this yet, but its not planned to be a giant mega patch like 1.9.1. The goal is to deal with the OOS issues and mop up anything major we missed.

Future

Working from home during the corona pandemic has started to feel more and more normal for us although I really miss hanging out with co-workers at the pub or the like. We are very fortunate to be able to work on at home and not be impacted as heavily as other companies. Paradox has also been super supportive and sending us dinners from local restaurants (gotta make sure they are still there when we go back to work!) and the like.

As for development we are still fixing some stuff but the team is transitioning over to working on the next expansion now. That means that this will be the last dev diary for a while. We will let you know when they kick off again when we know :) If you want to follow work on 1.9.2 keep an eye on the beta thread. That said expect to hear from us from time to time during the work period :).

Stay safe inside your panzers everyone!