Greetings, salutations, and merhaba - we now return to your regularly scheduled programming with the reveal of Turkey! It’s going to be a long one, so settle in with a dish of köfte and a glass of rakı and then let’s get into it!



So, let’s address the obvious - Turkey did not formally enter the Second World War until 1945, and never participated in any active fighting, yet as a nation they consistently held the dubious honour of being able to fundamentally alter the war’s trajectory with their own participation throughout almost the entire conflict. They were courted by every alliance but maintained and leveraged their position of strength so that they could maintain their neutrality while still winning all the favours of courtship from the Allies, the Comintern, and the Axis. The other factor in considering Turkey for a rework was… well, a lot of people love to play it. Turkey, to this day, remains the most played non-reworked minor in Hearts of Iron IV! So, it was very important that playing Turkey felt like playing a country with a potentially winning hand, but in a scenario where if they lost they’d lose everything.



The Turks had some prior experience with wars where they’d have everything to gain by winning, and everything to lose by failing. When the Ottoman Empire exploded, the Entente imposed one of their signature devastating treaties on the Turkish people by carving up the new Ottoman state into a small rump state in Anatolia. This state of affairs didn’t sit too well with many of the Turkish people, so an alliance of revolutionaries set to work - the most prominent of which was the legendary Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (more on him in a bit!). The Turkish revolutionaries repulsed the Entente and the encroaching Greeks (who we discussed two weeks ago), and cast down the Ottoman Sultanate in favour of the nascent Republic of Turkey. Of course, Turkey was not totally let off the hook as a former Central Powers member, but compared to their former comrades-in-arms the Turkish Republic got off relatively light!



By Hearts of Iron IV’s start, the Republic of Turkey was a mere twelve years old! Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party (the CHP) wasted no time in reforming Turkish society top-to-bottom in order to modernise and westernise (to a degree) the entire nation. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s messianic founding father, was dedicated to the concept of a liberal democratic Turkish state but that doesn’t mean every Kemalist figure was. Kemalism was the unique ideology of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the framework through which the entire Turkish state was supposed to be moulded, but even though Atatürk’s own views were unshakeable Kemalism itself was very flexible as an ideology. Kemalism, all at once, had elements of socialism, western liberalism, and Italian fascism - and these elements could be enhanced or obliterated at the snap of the Atatürk’s finger. It could be (and has been) argued that it was the dynamism of Kemalism that shielded the Republic of Turkey from the worst of the Great Depression.



Turkey would remain a one-party state under the CHP until May of 1950, where under the leadership of İsmet İnönü the Kemalists received a thumping in the elections and gave the conservatives a majority until they were couped out by the Kemalist officers. However, there were attempts to hold multi-party elections during Atatürk’s lifetime - but when these opposition parties were inevitably taken over by Islamic Conservatives the opposition parties would be banned and the elections called off. Now, I love my history but I do not belabour my points for the sheer fun of it - Turkey’s very recent history all plays a part in the Turkish rework, which we should waste no more time in getting into.



Compared to many of the Balkan nations, Turkey’s position looks surprisingly stable - but that strength is very tenuous. The Kemalist system of governance seems infallible with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in charge, but once the Father of the Turks passes away things consistently become much more uncertain. Let’s have a look at what makes Turkey’s position so fragile, and why a Turkish government might have good cause not to rush headlong into war…



Something the recently collapsed Ottoman Empire left behind for the Turkish people as a little present was its insurmountable debt. The Ottoman Public Debt Administration was restructured into the Debt Council: an organisation chaired by Entente victors. However, Turkey was not Greece - the Allies had very little interest in bullying Turkey to the point of alienation, and the whole situation is much easier for Turkey to deal with in general. The Debt Council, as one of the only controlling interests in the Turkish economy, occupies Turkey’s starting Industrial Concern as an unremovable spirit. Is it crippling? No, but you’re probably going to want to reorganise the entire entity into a more distinctly Turkish entity so you can actually get rid of it!



Even though the elite of the Turkish armed forces was in an excellent state, the army was absolutely ruined after the exceptionally brutal and hard-fought War of Independence. With a centrally managed economy, Turkey has had to be particularly picky with how it allocated its resources during its intricate processes of nation-building. With Atatürk’s mantra of ‘Peace at Home, Peace in the World’, the armed forces - and the army in particular - has fallen a little behind the curve compared to the rest of the world. But don’t count the Turkish Armed Forces out just yet, because as the 1920s proved the Turkish forces can show their greatest qualities in a time of crisis.



The best of the Turkish Armed Forces can be found in its dedicated, experienced, and loyal officer corps. Well… they’re loyal most of the time… it really does depend on just how committed you are to the ideals and principles of Kemalism! Stay true to the vision of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and you’ll enjoy some healthy buffs, but straying from the path may lead to some… adverse effects for your country…



Speaking of adverse effects, let’s look at Turkey’s unique internal situation. The verdict: it’s not good. Kurdish rebels to the east, hardcore traditionalists in the hinterlands, and Kemalists in the west and north. Turkey is not fractured along ideological lines like Bulgaria and Greece, rather its divisions are all of an ethnic or religious element. What’s more, these divisions are not drawn along party lines, but rather by geography. So, let’s take a look at Turkey’s own faction system.



But before we do that, let’s just take a quick detour to look at the reworked states and provinces for Turkey! State lines and categories have been corrected to be closer to the real deal, and those unsightly mega-states have been carved up into smaller states. Istanbul is now also a separate state, so any would-be conqueror who wants their own occupied Regime of the Straits can now make that a reality without taking all of Edirne with it! What’s more, the Turkish provinces have been corrected to be closer to reality: in short, the centre of Turkey is no longer one gigantic desert!

It should be noted, this relationship - the one between a developer and a player - it’s a give-and-take relationship. I know this might be contentious to some people, but for DLC owners none of the Kurdish core states in Turkey will start as a core of Turkey. So let’s talk about that, let’s look at the Kurdish role in the faction system.



But before we do that, let’s just take a quick detour to look at the reworked states and provinces for Turkey! State lines and categories have been corrected to be closer to the real deal, and those unsightly mega-states have been carved up into smaller states. Istanbul is now also a separate state, so any would-be conqueror who wants their own occupied Regime of the Straits can now make that a reality without taking all of Edirne with it! What’s more, the Turkish provinces have been corrected to be closer to reality: in short, the centre of Turkey is no longer one gigantic desert!

It should be noted, this relationship - the one between a developer and a player - it’s a give-and-take relationship. I know this might be contentious to some people, but for DLC owners none of the Kurdish core states in Turkey will start as a core of Turkey. So let’s talk about that, let’s look at the Kurdish role in the faction system.



I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that the quest for Kurdish statehood inside of Turkey is a somewhat controversial issue. The thing is… it’s always been pretty controversial. There were a number of Kurdish rebellions between the Republic of Turkey’s foundation and the beginning of Hearts of Iron IV, and there was another rebellion that took place during Hearts of Iron IV’s timeframe. Instead of hard-scripting that event, I wanted to make it more dynamic, and the new resistance mechanic introduced in La Résistance seemed an excellent medium to interact with in this regard.

Kurdish state modifiers ensure that governing Kurdish areas feels like a constant tug-of-war between the national government and the people in the states. The modifiers can scale up, getting worse in their intensity, or they can be brought down to the point where they cease to be a problem. Many of the ahistorical paths encourage the whittling down of resistance and the building up of compliance for the purposes of getting a core on the states, but I hope for reasons that don’t need to be explicitly stated it’s understandable why the historical path focuses more on the placation of these states rather than their coring.



Remember how I mentioned the give-and-take relationship? Here’s some more of that take. Yes, Turkey is treated to an abundance of redrawn and recategorised states, but many of them also have an… issue… with the government. One of the most divisive elements of Kemalism was its staunch and unfaltering commitment to secularism and separating religion from state. Funnily enough, not all of the Turkish people were so hot on the idea of Islam being split from their government and being stowed into their private affairs.

Traditionalist modifiers, like the Kurdish modifiers, scale: and they can get worse or they can get better. If your government isn’t a Kemalist government, they can get WAY better! But that might not necessarily be a strat to depend on, because if we take a look over at the Kemalist states…



Yeah, they’re really good. Kemalist modifiers aren’t plentiful, and spreading them can be an expensive affair, but the Kemalist modifiers can be found in most of Turkey’s most urbanised and industrialised regions of the country. It creates the desired effect that the player, even though they can build anywhere in the country, is encouraged (like the historical government) to invest in these richer regions due to the added boons and ease of access. Kemalist regions also give additional recruitable population to help offset the loss of those Kurdish non-cores.



Not every state starts aligned on game start, and the player might find themself in a race against time to apply as many of their own state modifiers as possible while the A.I. applies opposing state modifiers.

But enough about these peripheral features, let’s get to the meat of the rework: the focus tree! I know, I know, I took my time getting here but we’re in it now!



Turkey was in a very unique situation in 1936, and I really wanted the player to feel like they were playing a pivotal part in Turkey’s nation-building process. All the paths are there: two non-aligned paths, two fascist paths, two democratic paths, and a communist path. Let’s dissect it a little!



The tree is broken up in a way that should feel rather interconnected, and that’s because of Turkey’s unique political situation. All the paths in the political tree save for one are not about conjuring a fascist party out of the thin air or a magical communist revolution, but about redefining what the ideology of Kemalism is and what it means for the state. On the left, you can see the liberal and democratic paths - tied in with Turkey’s little industry tree which for the most part is actually built into the decision tab. In the centre are Turkey’s historical action focuses, and yes - Hatay is a state that has been added to the game! To the right you have the wide-sweeping authoritarian government forms, in which you’ll find the historical path starting down from Peace at Home.



Everything starts with the Montreux Convention, which kicks off an event chain where Britain, Turkey, and the Soviet Union start a quarrel over the Bosporus and permissions to them. Try to be deft with your approach, and do not underestimate the Bolshevik hunger for your Turkish Straits - it may just come to war…



Survive the first crisis, and you can side with Celâl Bayar and his liberal-democratic minded ilk by integrating the İş Bank and its political sponsors into your government, or maintain the one-party state by continuing the state economic policy of Etatism as sponsored by future historical president İsmet İnönü. Etatism is a powerful boon that can help rapidly industrialise the mostly empty Turkish state, but if you try to juggle your centrally managed economy with a war economy you might find that you get more than you bargained for.



Here we have the two likeliest successors to the Kemalist legacy after the Father of the Turks passes away: İsmet İnönü and Fevzi Çakmak. İsmet İnönü’s left-wing non-aligned path is accessible through Peace at Home where you try to juggle and appease all sides while never making anybody truly happy. Fevzi Çakmak’s right-wing non-aligned path is accessible through Reinvigorate Turkish Nationalism, and focuses on appeasing the Traditionalists without totally shirking your Kemalist ideology. Fevzi Çakmak can additionally take the role as a Francisco Franco-like fascist dictator through Fatherland First!



Next, we’ve got the more radical Kemalist candidates: Recep Peker and Şevket Süreyya Aydemir. The fascist and communist paths are not about fully tilting Turkey into any particular ideological mould, but rather about remodelling Kemalism along their more radical lines. To that end, both paths are free to intervene in the Spanish Civil War, and put a focus on clamping down on Traditionalist sedition while uplifting the Kurdish people into a position where they are equals in the Turkish state.



On the other end of the tree, we have the democratic path featuring Celâl Bayar, who’s batting for the Kemalists, and Adnan Menderes, who’s pitching for the Conservatives. Once you open up the floodgates of a free and fair election, there is no going back.



So, the election goes down and either the Kemalists are provided a democratic mandate to rule, or their reign is cut short by Menderes and his Demokrat Parti. If the latter course of events takes place, then what you’ve done is essentially fast-tracked Turkish history, and you shouldn’t expect the end result to differ too much from reality. One should be weary of old ghosts returning to haunt the state when you pander to their views and topple their enemies…



So, you’ve established your state of choice and now it’s time to stop looking inwardly and time to start looking at the rest of the world at lar- [Troy GIF on fire]

Alright, so… the world’s in a bit of trouble! Looks like the whole ‘Peace in the World’ aspect of Kemalism isn’t working out so hot, and maybe it’s time to directly intervene in matters. Or alternatively… why not just bask in the love of your secret admirers in Berlin, London, Rome, and Moscow? The foreign policy branch lets you play the historical route of letting things play out until 1945 without getting involved (which the historical A.I. should do), or you can beeline straight for your faction of choice so you can jump into the action!



Some of the favours you can garner from your gallant sponsors are pretty neat, and can be very useful to a Turkish state trying to build up to preparedness for total war. Every faction path has a way for Turkey to expand either peacefully or through more traditional means.

Join up with the Allies, and see if they might be willing to sponsor your hegemonic aims in the Middle East (I know, how uncharacteristic of Turkey). Join the Axis and cause chaos in the Middle East by sponsoring the Golden Square’s coup in Iraq, or ready your troops for the long winter march to Moscow through the Caucasus. Align with the Comintern and ditch your phoney Turkish socialism for some honest-to-Stalin Turkish Bolshevism by lifting the Turkish Communist Party’s exile! Or perhaps the normal factions aren’t cutting it, perhaps a more independent route is warranted. Well, you can do that too - form the Covenant of the Mediterranean with Italy, or invite Republican Spain to the Anti-Bolshevik Accord.



Or cut the major powers out of the picture entirely for a truly independent route. Under a Kemalist government, the player will be free to continue the government’s long-standing foreign policy aims of a stable and free Balkans. Extend the Balkan Pact into a formal Balkan Entente, and stand tall as the paragon of the Balkans - ready to stand up to any threats whether they come from the north, east, south, or west. Although, perhaps you don’t want to play the good guy… maybe you’re invested in this to cause a little chaos...



...well, we have you covered. Of course, no Turkish rework was going to be complete without some sort of Ottoman restoration path. Yes, topple the Kemalists in the election and you can wager they’ll use their clout in the military to try and take you down, and when they do that’s when the Faustian Bargain can be struck.



Root the Kemalists out of their cities one-by-one and prepare the weakened nation for the return of the Sultan. The glorious Sultan: the one who will restore the Empire, the one who shall conquer the world, the one who shall make the Western Imperialist hounds kneel to kiss his royal scepter, th-



-oh, he was actually a pretty gentle guy. Well, that’s okay - because his court is absolutely clogged with vengeful former exiles who have been restored to the Ottoman Sultanate frothing for a second chance to right the humiliating end of the Great War which saw their prestige and identity annihilated.



Should they exist, you can get the old band back together and link up with the Central Powers! If they don’t but the Austro-Hungarians do, then you can still reform the Central Powers. If you’re alone, that’s alright, press the Austro-Hungarian claim for them and cause some mayhem in the southern Balkans in their name. When the Sultanate has been cemented, the option to make a bid to reclaim your empire and the title of Caliph will become available once again. But conquering territory in the Middle East is thirsty work! That place is real hot, and there’s so much sand! Good news, we’ve got you covered.



Introducing… the camelry unit! They’re more reliable and resource efficient than cavalry, but they’re slower, tougher to train, and they cost more equipment. Cavalry is also good in a variety of environments, while Camelry is great in a select few environments but not so good in most others. However, with an even higher level of suppression than cavalry they make fantastic garrisons in a pinch.

Well, that’s about everyth-



Oh no, wait, there’s more! Hearts of Iron IV can be an unpredictable game, you never know which way it might go! The world post-WW2 might be left in a state unpalatable to your senses, so following any branch to the end in the Reconfigure Turkish Foreign Policy let’s you take on the role of a rogue state trying to serve its own interests against the wills of the major powers. Mind you, a sudden heel turn in Turkish foreign policy isn’t always going to be received positively by every major faction leader, and you might find yourself thrown out on your ass if you cause too much of a ruckus.



Of course, if you’re going to play the role of a rogue state then why not go all the way and become the ultimate pariah state?

Well, that’s all for this week! Before signing off, I’d love to give a special thanks to our beta testers for all their hard work testing the pack, Indyclone77 for his help with many of the art assets (including the portrait double-ups in this diary!), and withche.07 for his prolific Turkish suggestions forum thread!

Farewell, and see you soon for the first stream!

Today's Development Diary by ManoDeZombi



Здравейте всички - Hi everyone! And welcome to a new Hearts of Iron 4 Dev Diary!
Today we’ll be talking about the second country in the upcoming DLC, which I’ve been working on after La Resistance. A country that didn’t make it into DoD because by that time the team considered that they lacked the appropriate tools to depict both its multiple internal conflicts and its complex diplomatic relations. And as many of you had already guessed, the country in question is... Bulgaria!



As a defeated member of the Central Powers, Bulgaria suffered severe territorial losses, army restrictions and economic sanctions after the Great War, which led to a period of great instability and depression in the country.

In May 1934, the military organization Zveno carried out a coup d’etat and formed a new government, led by Kimon Georgiev, which dissolved the National Assembly, banned political parties and dealt a critical blow to the Macedonian revolutionary organization IMRO.

However, the Tsar forced Georgiev to resign in January 1935, appointed new puppet ministers and managed to seize full control over the country, imposing an authoritarian regime that benefited greatly from the measures imposed by the Zveno.

In 1936 Bulgarian society was split between different political and military organizations and social movements, most of them illegal thanks to the Zveno and the Tsar.

Bulgarian international relations were not in better shape, the IMRO, one of the most important Macedonian revolutionary organizations, carried out numerous fights and terrorist acts during the 1920s in both Yugoslavia and Greece, frequently operating from Bulgaria, and culminating in the 1930s with several assassinations including King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou. The actions taken by the Zveno to eradicate the IMRO helped improve Bulgaria’s image in the Balkans, but relations with its neighbors and with the countries of the Entente were still very cold.
In contrast, a very welcoming Third Reich helped Bulgaria overcome its sorry economic situation and seemed to offer a very promising future for Bulgaria....

Now let’s see how this turbulent country looks in HOI4 when you start a new game:



Bulgaria will start the game with Tsar Boris as the country leader, who will provide nice bonuses for non-aligned support and a flat penalty to war support (he seemed to be very reluctant to join the war after all, agreeing only to declare war on the allies later in 1941, probably believing that it would be nothing more than a symbolic act… How wrong he was!).

To be fair, the title ‘Tsar Unifier’ historically came with the Bulgarian occupation of previously lost territories in Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania, but I think the title fits pretty well with Boris’s modifiers.

Now let’s take a look at the Bulgarian National Spirits, from left to right:





The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, signed after the Bulgarian defeat in the Great War, required Bulgaria to pay huge amounts in war reparations and forced the country to cede various territories, including western Thrace, cutting off Bulgarian access to the Aegean, and a significant area on the western border, very close to Sofia. It is no wonder why this treaty was known in Bulgaria as the Second National Catastrophe...



In addition to the sanctions above, the Treaty of Neuilly imposed very severe restrictions on the Bulgarian army, not only drastically limiting the amount of troops and forbidding the acquisition of modern equipment, but also prohibiting any military maneuvers and even stipulating the number of rifles that the Bulgarian security forces could use.



The Zveno dealt a major blow to the IMRO in 1934, but there were still many people that considered themselves Bulgarian Macedonians. In-game you can attempt to re-ignite this sentiment to your own benefit, or you can appease your neighbors and major European democracies by rooting out any remaining revolutionary cells in Bulgaria.

I know, there’s a lot of red in these three national spirits, not very inviting, huh...? Well fear not, for as you progress throughout the focus tree you will be provided with the tools you need to get rid of them, so we will be talking about them again later in the diary.

One last thing before we move on, did you notice that guy occupying a political advisor slot in the picture above? Well, since you will be seeing his face every time you start a new game with Bulgaria, let me introduce you to Georgi Kyoseivanov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 1936, who was not seen as a very competent leader, but more as a puppet of Tsar Boris, a prime minister who did not dare to defy the Tsar’s Regime and who was forced to resign and become ambassador to Switzerland in 1940. Even the Germans might ask you (as happened historically) to replace him with someone more suitable.



Looking at his modifiers, you can see a pretty poor PP bonus, and a pretty decent weekly stability boost. Do you remember that -0.30% stability from IMRO National Spirit? Well, so as long as you do not mess with the Tsar, you will have this guy working on countering that malus. But if you don’t plan on getting along with the Bulgarian monarchy, then you should plan ahead for this important stability boost that you will lose, especially if the IMRO penalty is still active.

Alright, now that we know about the situation in Bulgaria at the start of the game, let’s have our first glance at the new Focus Tree!



As you can see, there are two main branches, and as most of you have probably already guessed, the one on the left focuses on the industry and military, while the one on the right focuses on political affairs, but note that you will also find plenty of industrial, military and research stuff within the latter.

Let’s start with the industrial branch, on the left:



A very important decision that you’ll have to face when playing Bulgaria is how you want to develop your industry:

• Relying on foreign investors leads to faster industrialization, being able to ask certain major powers to make industrial investments and build some civilian factories in Bulgaria.
  
  
• Investing in your domestic industry, on the other hand, leads to slower industrialization, where you'll have to sacrifice some Consumer Goods to get progressively better bonuses in production and building speed, eventually removing that CG penalty and getting a fairly powerful national spirit by mid-to-late game.

Different industrial Designers will be unlocked based on your approach, national vs foreign. National designers are slightly weaker at first, but will be improved once you complete “Utmost Optimization” focus:



The small sub-branch to the right is more focused on getting some extra resources, a matter in which Bulgaria was really lacking at the time… I see you thinking “Uranium Prospecting… Bulgaria? What a waste!” Well, you may be right, but do not worry, if you feel that Bulgaria will not be able to get the most out of this focus, you can always sign a treaty with an allied major country granting them the associated National Spirit in exchange for a bonus in consumer goods, that’s what I call teamwork!



Then we have the military sub branches, within them you’ll find not only military factories and research bonuses, but powerful national spirits, valious XP and very appealing designers:



But before you can enjoy all that, you must get rid of the army restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Neuilly sur Seine, and how will you do that? Here is the answer:



Historically, despite the fact that Bulgaria acquired some military equipment during the 30s, the country (unlike others…) generally complied with the military limitations imposed by the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine. However, the Bulgarian government (or more accurately, governments) protested on several occasions and called for these restrictions to be lifted, arguing that the League of Nations could not protect Bulgaria against the rising powers and their threatening territorial ambitions in the Balkans… But it was not until Bulgaria strengthened diplomatic relations with its neighbors, and fearing that the Germans might exert too much influence over the country, that the United Kingdom eventually pressured France and the Balkan Entente to allow the Bulgarian rearmament.

In-game, this focus will unlock some decisions allowing you to pressure the British to lift your army restrictions. If you behave politely in your neighborhood, they may be more inclined to accept, but in case the British government does not listen to reason, you can always look for new friends elsewhere, friends who can back you up if you decide to flout the treaty.



Once you have removed that disgusting National Spirit, you will be able to start working on your military industry for real.

Similar to the industrial branch, here you will be presented with foreign vs national designers, and likewise, national designers will be weaker at first, but will be upgraded once you complete “Prussia of the Balkans” focus, which by the way will also grant you one of the most powerful National Spirits:



It may seem too powerful I know, but keep in mind that Bulgaria will have to spend some precious time (and PP) in dealing with those army restrictions before progressing on this branch and even start producing any big toys for the army!

Now let’s take a look at the Naval sub-branch:



If Bulgaria wants to participate in naval conflicts, it must first develop its shipbuilding industry, which it can do in two stages, the first one leading to the construction of infrastructures and facilities to start the production of small warships and defend the Bulgarian coast in the Black Sea, and the second one focused on the expansion to the Aegean and the building of more powerful, capital ships.



This last part of the branch is kind of an experiment of mine. Once Bulgaria has developed its military industry and asserted its supremacy on the Bosporus (which is no small feat), the country will be in a position from which it could seek to consolidate its dominance in the various seas that, many centuries ago, bathed the coasts of the former Bulgarian Empires.

And we’ve made it to the political tree! Let’s start with the uppermost focuses, which will allow me to introduce you to the Bulgarian internal factions system:



Once you complete either “Power to the Tsar” or “Oppose the Royal Dictatorship” you will be presented with a new decision category where you can interact with the different Bulgarian internal factions represented in-game. These organizations were not actual political parties by 1936, since they were either banned political parties (Broad Socialists and Agrarian Union), a far-right paramilitary movement (National Social Movement) or a soon-to-be-dissolved political and military organization (Zveno).



You can interact with these factions in two ways: Cooperation or Oppression, each of them unlocking a decision chain that will lead to either the integration of the faction into your government or its utter destruction.

If a faction has a low Loyalty value towards the government it will eventually cause some trouble by triggering a dissident event, ranging from industrial strikes and disturbing far-right demonstrations to the Zveno plotting against the government and leading (if not addressed in time) to a military coup. So if you are not planning on getting along with any of these factions, it could be worth rooting them out before they start making noise.

The oppression chain is the shortest but, apart from getting rid of a potential nuisance it does not offer any other big rewards.

The cooperation chain, while being more expensive and time-consuming to complete, will grant some benefits in the form of new advisors: Each faction has its own political advisor available only once you are about to integrate the organization into your government. Additionally, cooperating with the Zveno will unlock a handful of military advisors.



You will be able to cooperate or oppress these factions based on the Focus path you take, but save for a few exceptions (communists were probably not very eager to cooperate with the national social movement) you will be able to choose how to interact with each faction. The upper half of the political tree has plenty of focuses that (besides other effects) will have an impact on these factions as well as provide you with precious PP so that you can keep taking more decisions.

And before going through the different ideologies, let’s talk about the IMRO, because regardless of your ideology, you will have to deal with them eventually:



Publicly condemning the IMRO and investing resources in rooting out any remaining active cells in Bulgaria will help you in developing good diplomatic relations with the Allies and, of course, with your neighbors. Through a few decisions, you will be able to reduce the penalties of the IMRO National Spirit and eventually remove it completely.

If, on the contrary, you choose to support Macedonian Revolutionary Organizations in Bulgaria, you will be able to remove some of the penalties from IMRO National Spirit, but not all. However by cooperating with the IMRO you will increase Bulgarian popularity in Macedonian states, adding useful state modifiers that will take effect once you control them, and even creating resistance in Macedonian states controlled by others.





And we are finally ready to talk about the political branches now! Let’s start with the communists!



As I mentioned before, many of the focuses in the upper half of the branch will have a small impact on the internal factions and will provide you with some Political Power.

“Overthrow the Tsar” (just like its counterparts in other branches) can be taken fairly early, but be warned, if your stability is not high enough when you complete this focus, you might find yourself in the middle of a civil war, which might not be the ideal situation for Bulgaria once the major powers begin to make their moves in the Balkans…

In case of a peaceful abolition of the monarchy, the incompetent Georgi Kyoseivanov will be put in charge, so you might want to complete “The People’s Republic of Bulgaria” as soon as possible and form a communist government.

After that, you can approach the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia (or both of them) and attempt to sign a treaty with them. You will see similar focuses to approach different countries in the other branches, and as long as you don’t join a faction (or you join theirs) you will be able to approach both countries. Approaching major countries will also unlock decisions to purchase different types of military equipment from them.



And back to the communist branch:



As you can see, approaching each of those countries leads to different “faction sub-branches”.

On the left we have the Stalinist branch, which is focused on cooperating with the Soviet Union, strengthening your army and your military industry and spreading the Stalinist doctrine within the Balkans.

On the right we have a branch mostly focused on the Balkans, leading to the formation of the Balkan Federation of Socialist Republics (an old project revisited several times, but never realized). Throughout this branch you will be able to influence Balkan countries and entice them to join your faction.



“Balkan Trade Union Secretariat” and “United, We Shall Prevail!” will grant economic and military boosts not only to Bulgaria, but to every other Balkan country in the faction too.

“The Unification of the Balkans” is the last step in the Balkan Federation Dream, unifying the territories and peoples of the Balkans under a centralized government, giving your Balkan allies the option to choose between being annexed by you or not (players can also choose to become puppets).



If you go through the Democratic Branch you will be able to choose to follow a more socialist approach, abolishing the Bulgarian monarchy and forming a popular Bloc, or you can seek the cooperation of the Tsar, following more liberal policies.



As you can see, even if you cooperate with the Tsar, you will be able to remove him from charge eventually, via “Plot Against Boris” focus, which will unlock some decisions leading to the assassination of the Tsar. We will talk a little bit more about this later.

Once you complete “Legislative Elections” and become Democratic, you can start working on developing good relations with Greece and the UK.



Similar to the communsit branch, approaching the major nation leads to joining its major faction, granting access to focuses offering, among other things, important military bonuses against Communist and Fascist nations.

“Assert our Claims” will grant you cores on any historically claimed state under your control (those former Bulgarian territories lost during the wars in the 1910s) and allow you to claim any neighboring enemy states.

And just like the communist branch, approaching the Balkan country (that being Greece) leads to the formation of a Balkan faction, this time the Balkan Confederation which, as you can see, shares its focuses with its communist counterpart. However, different decisions make for a slightly different way of influencing your neighbors. “Organize a Balkan Summit” will add a timed National Spirit to all Balkan countries, boosting democratic support and acceptance of democratic diplomacy. “Industrial Investments” and “Capital Injection” will boost democratic in the target country (and leave it more exposed to your ideology influence) while also providing them with some benefits.



Last of all, “Free Balkan States”, accessible from both democratic faction branches, may be an interesting alternative to “United Balkan Federation”, guaranteeing every independent democratic and non-aligned Balkan countries, creating a war goal against the rest, and providing Bulgaria with a powerful National Spirit that escalates based on the number of countries guaranteed.



Now let me to talk about both the Monarchist and Fascist branches together, since their paths are very intertwined:



One of your short-term goals when going through either of these paths will probably be to complete “Bulgarian Irredentism” as soon as possible, since this focus will ignite an irredentist sentiment in Bulgaria, replacing “Second National Catastrophe” spirit and turning its former weekly stability penalty into a weekly war support bonus:



Fascist Bulgaria can choose between deposing the Tsar or forming a pro-fascist (yet monarchist) youth organization.
International relations will focus on Germany and Italy in both paths, while the monarchists will also be able to approach the UK and access the Allies branch.

Strengthening relations with Germany will unlock a decision to negotiate Bulgarian territorial claims in the Balkans with the Germans (yes, before actually choosing a side).



If Germany recognizes Bulgarian territorial claims, a state modifier will be applied to the appropriate states:





And yes, you can combine this with the state modifier provided by the IMRO, so that when Macedonian territories are transferred to Bulgaria, you will benefit from some nice resistance & compliance bonuses right away!

Back to “Plot Against Boris”, which is available through both the Democratic and Monarchist branches… But it will also be automatically completed if Boris dies of “natural causes” throughout the game, replacing its name and description to fit the new context, and allowing you to go further in that branch (assuming you haven’t already abolished the monarchy).





So once Boris is dead you can choose to form a Regency Council, and there can be several versions of it:

First of all, depending on your ideology, you can form a pro-allies (democratic), pro-axis (fascist) or independent (non-aligned) regency council.

Additionally, you will keep your former country leader as the head of the council, meaning that it will inherit his trait together with the Regency Council’s specific trait.





But maybe you think that the best person to rule Bulgaria is none other than Boris's father and former Tsar, Ferdinand I.

Ferdinand developed a great interest in Byzantium (as did his son) and it is said that he dreamed of the formation of a “New Byzantium”... Anyways, he definitely was a belligerent ruler who seeked to expand Bulgarian borders and who led the country into multiple wars during the 1910s (most of which didn’t end very well for his country), and was finally forced to abdicate in favor of his son after the defeat of Bulgaria in the Great War as part of the Central Powers.



Regarding the factions available to both Monarchist and Fascist Bulgaria, let’s start talking about the Axis branch:



After Signing the Tripartite Pact you can choose the militaristic, aggressive “Total War” focus, by which you will join all wars against the enemies of your faction leader.

On the contrary, “Peaceful Development” leads to a more subtle path that will allow you to ask for control over neighboring Balkan States occupied by an ally.

In addition to this, “Bulgarisation of the Balkans” will grant you cores on certain historical claims if they are controlled by Bulgaria, and also unlock decisions to core other occupied Balkan states.



As some of you would have surely guessed, this is the Bulgarian historical path. After having signed the Tripartite Pact early in 1941, Bulgaria did not participate in the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, but instead played the role of “peacekeepers”, taking control over certain pre-arranged territories and relieving Axis troops to be sent to other fronts, only declaring a symbolic war on the allies several months later. Bulgaria then started a Bulgarisation campaign in the occupation zones under its control, attempting to strengthen Bulgarian territorial claims on these regions after an Axis victory in the war.

As the final focuses on this branch, “Restore the Bulgarian Patriarchate” will grant powerful compliance, stability and political power bonuses while “Third Bulgarian Empire” will, among other things, set a new cosmetic tag for Bulgaria.



Last but not least, we have the “Fate of the Balkans” branch, available through not only the Fascist and Monarchist paths, but also the Democratic one (again, assuming you have not abolished the monarchy).



Completing “The Fate of the Balkans” focus will create a Bulgarian faction and unlock decisions to influence and coerce Balkan nations to join your alliance. Once a country has joined the faction, you can demand its submission and puppet them (the more you influence a country, the more likely it is to give in).



“Toppling Giants” will give you wargoals and significant attack and defense bonuses against major European neighbors, while “Guardians of the Balkans” will grant very nice combat bonuses on core territory and construction speed for military buildings not only to you, but also to your Balkan puppets, as a slightly weaker version.

As you can see, this is a fairly harsh and independent path focused on subjugating the Balkans and defending them from foreign invaders, which will not be easy, but I’m sure you’ll be up for a challenge!

Now allow to me give you one last piece of advice before saying goodbye: Choose your allies and your wars wisely when playing as Bulgaria, because if you or your faction mates aren’t doing very well in the wars, you can end up in a very delicate situation, just like the one faced by Bogdan Filov and his government in September 1944…



(By the way, big kudos to our freelance artist Indyclone for his magnificent event pictures!)

Aaaaand that was all from me! I hope you enjoyed the dev diary and make sure to stay tuned for the next one!

Hey all! After a long break over the summer, we are back with our regularly-scheduled dev diaries! Before we delve into today’s main topic, let me give you some info on what we will be doing next and how this dev diary fits into the overall scheme of things.

Way back in 2017, we released Death or Dishonor, something we called a Country Pack at the time. Back then, the community was mainly asking for big new flashy mechanics and revamps of game systems, so the initial reaction from the community was pretty mixed. In hindsight perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised :D. These days though we are bombarded with requests of more, better and bigger focus trees, and people are wondering if it's going to take 10 years to add trees to everyone? As a Content Designer, it has been very rewarding to see the community get more excited to see focus trees!

So we have decided to bring back the idea of a Country Pack, a smaller expansion that focuses on a specific part of the world and covering 3-4 minor nations. But at the same time, we didn’t want to put the entire team on it while there were still other parts of the game we wanted to work on such as adding an intelligence system. The idea is that this will let us increase how many focus trees and flavor we add while still being able to deliver big juicy features in larger expansions.

The approach we took was to recruit a freelancer to work on the focus trees while the rest of the team in Stockholm worked on the next big DLC, which would eventually become La Resistance. Today we are going to show you the first of the new focus trees coming in the next country pack, and in the coming weeks we will share more information on what other countries get focus trees in the pack, as well as what other content will accompany the release. As always, the country pack will be accompanied by a patch that will fix some bugs as well.

We think that this approach allows us to get more content to you faster, without taking resources away from the main team, which continues to work on the next big DLC. You will get more information on what that DLC contains after the country pack releases later this year (disclaimer: it is 2020 and fate can be fickle).

I’ll now hand you over to the man of the hour: Freelance CD Busby, working from Australia!

G’day, my name is Busby and I am the Freelance Content Designer who was responsible for putting together Greece and another soon-to-be-revealed mystery nation! ‘Freelance Content Designer’, I hear you ask, ‘how does that differ from your standard run-of-the-mill Content Designer’? Well, with COVID-19, those lines have certainly blurred; nominally, it means that I work remotely of the core team so I can focus on getting this pack out to you while they all collaborate on the next big expansion! Of course, I didn’t work alone, and you’ll be hearing from a familiar face who worked with me on this next week!

Before kicking things off, I just want to say as someone who used to read Hearts of Iron IV Dev Diaries on my lunch break in high school that it is an absolute privilege and an honour to be presenting you all with one of my very own! So, without further ado: Greece!

Greece was a very interesting challenge to tackle, they are well known for repulsing the Italian invasion of their nation and then successfully launching a counter-offensive of their own, which culminated in the Capture of Klisura Pass. So, it was important that Greece be able to play defensively, but it would also have been thoughtless to neglect what might be one of the world’s richest histories that shared in some of the grandest of accomplishments. Greece has been the beating heart of many historical empires, so they had to be capable of reaching their historical heights but without neglecting the many challenges that faced them at the time.

To say that Greece is in a challenging position in 1936 would be a great understatement. The Hellenic Armed Forces are the one positive in a sea of negatives, and even they’re woefully underequipped. Greece’s economic and political issues are represented through their starting national spirits:

• I am going to start first with Greece’s broadly encompassing Political Instability spirit. Greece was mired in political uncertainty throughout the entirety of the Great War, and although they were finally able to rally around the prolific political leader and vocal republican Eleftherios Venizelos for a time, this newfound stability was not to last. Greece decisively lost the Greco-Turkish War that immediately followed the Great War, and this loss sent shockwaves throughout the entire political scene: there were many coups, a dictatorship, and finally the Second Hellenic Republic came to a bitter end by November of 1935. In 1936, the country remains divided among those who believe in the institution of the monarchy, and those who are followers of the liberal democratic ideologue Eleftherios Venizelos.
  
• The restoration of the monarchy turned the Greek political situation on its head: King George II, exiled in 1923, is back on his throne while Eleftherios Venizelos hides in exile after being forced to flee the country in 1935. The status of King George II serves as the ‘hook’ for every political path in the focus tree, but that will be addressed shortly. For now, understand that King George II’s status as monarch of the Kingdom of Greece is precarious to say the least.
  
• The next four spirits are related to Greece’s economic situation, which is… not in a good state. Greece is buried underneath the tremendous debt it has accumulated over the past few decades, and this is represented through Greece’s Debt to the International Finance Commission spirit. If Greece wishes to free itself from the burdens of its debt, it will have to satisfy the three great powers holding the Greek economy hostage, and those would be the usual suspects: France, the United Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Italy.
  
• Greece’s colossal debt is only the start of Greece’s economic woes: Greece remains one of the only mostly agrarian economies in all of Europe by the game start, and this has spawned two issues: 1). Greece’s economy and working class are centered around their agricultural sector rather than the nation’s industrial output, and 2). Greece’s agrarian economy has led to a dependence on foreign nations to supply their heavy industry for Greece’s construction needs. Greece’s industrial paths are focussed on nullifying these issues while also rapidly modernising the country so Greece is able to still compete with its neighbours.
  
• But it’s not all bad for Greece, for they have a continental guardian angel to assist with their crippling economic hardship… Germany! Yes, the Schachtplan, a clever mechanism that gives the Germans a higher degree of control over the country’s finances and natural resources, but when you’re struggling as hard as Greece you take any form of reprieve you can get - even if it is ultimately serving German hegemonic aims in Europe.

Now, I know these debuffs seem rough - perhaps even discouraging - but every negative national spirit can be removed or mitigated through Greece’s focus tree, which you can see here!

We shall be going through the focus tree from right-to-left, like an old Japanese novel!

Greece can often find itself wanting for manpower so most Greek games aren’t going to be about amassing large armies but rather about fielding a smaller, professional army. The same applies to Greece’s navy and air force, but with the right sponsor who’s to say Greece couldn’t put one of its decommissioned battleships back into action?

Each armed forces branch offers at least one permanent national modifier that helps ensure Greece can set up a successful defensive game even if it can’t muster the manpower or equipment for a large army. The Hellenic Academy Battleplans should help quite a great deal in this!

Greece can preemptively draw up defensive plans against the major powers of Europe as well as its smaller but no less threatening neighbours. These temporary boosts to defense, and even to attack in some cases, should ensure Greece can successfully hold any frontline so long as they aren’t being faced with an overwhelming force - very much like real life! Next, let’s look at how you can get your industrial base to match the level of excellence of your armed forces.

Greece’s industrial path is your one-stop shop to access the means of eliminating those pesky national spirits that Greece starts with. The first focus, which is 35 days, unlocks the ability to chip away at that pesky Debt to the I.F.C. through decisions.

Greece immediately unlocks the ability to make small debt repayments after finishing the first industrial focus, and other options can be unlocked along the way. The forced industrialisation path, for example, offers a faster route to getting rid of the Debt to the I.F.C. spirit by unlocking large debt repayments - and while they are more resource intensive than small debt repayments, they can clear a debt away very quickly. Of course, if Greece happens to fall under the influence of a regime that doesn’t quite play by the established rules of the liberal democratic world then there will of course be other roads opened up to circumvent the nasty capitalist plot to ruin the Greek economy!

Greece’s two branching paths in the industrial path allow the player to choose how the Greek economy modernises: they can either double-down on their service economy and use Greece’s large commodity export sector to enrich the nation using the means of the outside world, or they can force their farmers off their farms and into the cities so Greece can be brought fully into the twentieth century. As the path progresses, the effects of the Foreign Monopolies spirit will be lessened and lessened until finally they can be abolished or co-opted to the benefit of the Greek state. Greek national companies, which require the Foreign Monopolies to be banished, apply better modifiers but the foreign companies are cheaper and ultimately easier to attain.

Next up are the investment focuses: the middle ground between the industrial branches and the political tree. Investment is a nifty way to spend any spare political power in the pursuit of free factories courtesy of your ally or sponsor. It would be wise to show restraint, however, for the sponsoring country will take on a pretty hefty penalty while they prepare to fulfill any pledges they’ve made to Greece.

Ah, and now we get to the real meat of the tree: the politics. The first big choice of the game comes in the very first month via either a focus or decision, where the player will have to decide whether to place the king under arrest to prevent him from meddling in the election or allow him to forcibly establish a governmental mandate for the monarchists.

Let’s start with the historical path, where the monarchists win their election and the king appoints former officer and arch-enemy of the republicans Ioannis Metaxas as prime minister and soon-to-be-dictator.

The Metaxist path is all about trying to maintain your neutrality for as long as possible so you can take all the Metaxist focuses which provide some tremendous national buffs that all go away the moment Greece enters a faction. The exception is if the player reaches the end of the Metaxist branch by finishing Reviving the Spartan Warrior Spirit before they join a faction. Of course, the player doesn’t have to wait that long - they can go straight to the Allied path on the left or transform Greece from a quasi-fascist dictatorship into a full-blown fascist regime.

The aim of the fascists is not only to bring themselves closer to the Axis, but to pressure Turkey into joining the war as an equal ally and partner. To achieve this aim, the player can choose to either appoint George Mercouris or Ioannis Metaxas as their fascist dictator. Of course, there’s always the chance negotiations could be sabotaged, giving the Greek player the opportunity to act counter to Germany’s wishes by forcing the Axis into a conflict with the Turkish regional power. Perhaps that might not be so bad, because while Metaxas is fixated on crafting his Third Hellenic Civilization Mercouris has a decidedly fixated obsession with the First Hellenic Civilization…

But let’s return to Metaxas, because even though he was a Germanophile it must be said that not every member of the Axis has Greece’s best interests at heart.

Strange times call for strange bedfellows, and despite Metaxas’ fascist leanings he is free to align Greece up with its historical allies in the Mediterranean: the British Empire. Once the overtures have been made, Greece will be free to get down to the business of Cyprus and the facilitation of a change in administration of the island. But Metaxas isn’t the only possible would-be Allies member in the King’s administration…

...so let’s talk about the Anglophilic King George II himself! Perhaps Metaxas just isn’t going to cut it for Greece, perhaps what Greece really needs is a strong monarch who can serve as a beacon of stability and hope for the Greek people! Of course, the people aren’t going to see it like that - in fact many of them are going to really hate the government’s guts.

Years of instability and infighting shall culminate in a triumphant civil war between the monarchists and the republicans! It’s perhaps not the most delicate solution, but a good civil war really does have the habit of ironing out a nation in contempt of itself. Take on King George II as your absolute monarch and assist the British in scourging fascism from Europe, or alternatively perhaps a good bit of that fascism has already been purged away and the Central Powers have been reborn. Well, in that case link up with your royalist brethren and fight together to protect the divine right of kings!

Political Instability keeps coming up as a concept, so let’s look at the spirit. Greece is divided into four factions: the Monarchists, the Republicans, the Communists, and the Fascists. They’re all pretty hateful of each other, but there was also a common consensus that Greece needed to be strong and united in the face of a global catastrophe (like a World War). Not every leader saw it that way, *cough* Metaxas *cough*, so there will be three primary ways of dealing with political instability.

First, to progress the spirit and lower its debuffs it's necessary for progress to be made down the political tree - every ideology has its own unique Political Instability spirit but although the modifiers change the universal principle remains the same.

The player can choose between smashing a faction and negating the negative debuffs applied to the nation by having a hostile faction, or they can go the longer and more expensive route of co-opting a faction and making them an ally. Generally, the more allied factions the better because more allies means more manpower and more ministers, but sometimes the resources required to commit to such an act would be better spent elsewhere preparing for external threats rather than internal ones.

Speaking of factions, how about some insight into the most incongruous of factions - the communists! Communism, being allied with the concept of republicanism, requires the Venezelists to seize the election. Once that is done, they can choose to ally together with the communists so that a Third Hellenic Republic can be reborn. However, as you can imagine the communists aren’t really content with anything short of… well… full-blown communism.

Of all the branches, the communist one perhaps adds the most in terms of industrial potential for Greece: while all those other sucker ideologies focus on culture and heritage, the communists focus on more material achievements. Although, would it really be a communist branch without a doctrinal split near the end?

Take the nation under the wing of the uncompromising revolutionary Markos Vafeiadis, and assist Josip Broz Tito in his ascent to power in Yugoslavia as you prepare to tackle the fascist menace in Europe. Or perhaps you’re a little more loose with your Marxist morals; perhaps Stalinism doesn’t seem so bad after all! Chairman Nikos Zachariadis is your man!

Why waste precious resources fighting fascism when you can leave that to the capitalists! Your objective, like your theory, is based on practicalism and not idealism. Orders from Moscow dictate that the Bosporus must be taken at any cost. To fulfill Stalin’s whims, a crisis must be started - one border conflict shall escalate into another, and before the world knows it Southern Europe will be red from Corfu to Kars!

...well, that might be all fine and dandy for everybody whose favourite colour is red, but we’ve got one last path to discuss! Yes, yes, the so often spurned democratic path - but even though this path comes last it is certainly not least! Few parties were as influential in Greece’s history between 1910 and 1936 as Eleftherios Venizelos’ Liberal Party, and it was important to me that the player felt some weight playing as these titans of Greek politics. Although, if the Venezelists were titans then Venizelos himself was a colossus. This is reflected in his Ethnarch trait, which provides some much needed manpower and stability - but utilise him while you have him, for he is not long for this world!

Something that sets Greece’s liberal democratic party apart from many others is that warmongering is a core part of their doctrine. The Venezelists were staunch believers in the Megali Idea - the irredentist dream of a Greater Greece incorporating many parts of modern day Turkey. The Venezelists made a grand attempt to fulfill the Megali Idea after the Great War… it led to the Greco-Turkish War… which, to put it mildly, did not end well for the Greeks. They were decisively defeated by the Turkish Kemalists, and the Hellenic Republic fell apart shortly afterwards.

When you restore the Venezelists, you inherit their shattered legacy - the only way to restore the reputation of Venezelism is to couple yourself with the monarchists, fulfill the Megali Idea, and avenge the terrible loss the Greek nation endured. But not everybody in Greece believes the Venezelists deserve a second chance…

Enter, stage left: a new breed of fascist, Ethniki Enosis Ellados. The EEE collapsed in 1935 due to infighting, but with the reemergence of the Venezelists they have found new purpose: to unite the millions of Greeks who were exiled from their homes in Anatolia after the Greco-Turkish War, and to oust the government that led them into defeat last time. The EEE is a ‘no half measures’ movement, to them the Megali Idea is not worthy of the paper it was written on - when it comes to reclaiming territory from Turkey, it must be all… or nothing.

Playing as the Venezelists, the EEE are going to be a serious thorn in the side of any government trying to effectively unite the country, and before the Megali Idea can be addressed the EEE must be dealt with. There’s a particularly famous and talented young man who was also an exile from Anatolia, and it might be expedient to encourage him to form a counter-movement to thwart the nascent EEE. Or perhaps the player wants to see the EEE in government, well, the option to take them into a coalition is certainly available - although the consequences of this course of action will be on your head…

Once the EEE are out of the way, it will be time to call on the original Treaty of Sèvres signatories so that a frank discussion on the future of the Turkish state can be had. The end result of a particularly fruitful Heraklion Convention is truly a sight to behold.

But should the Venezelists fail… should their legacy be trashed once again, and their leaders thrown out of office… well, that could be a truly dark day for Europe indeed…

That’s all for this week, so thank you for reading! Make sure to stay tuned for another Dev Diary next week!

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!