Just a very small hotfix to fix an issue with the 1.10.6 patch released earlier today,

################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.10.7 "Collie" ########
################################################################
##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Bonuses to specific batallion types will apply correctly again

For five years, wargamers around the world have been challenged to outbuild and outfight history’s most terrible war machines in Hearts of Iron IV, a grand strategy wargame from Paradox Development Studio. Millions of tanks and planes have been built as players fought through an infinite variety of alternate histories set against the backdrop of humanity’s greatest struggle.

In honor of the fifth anniversary of Hearts of Iron IV, Paradox has announced a new bundle that will give players even more style as they prove that they are the master of modern total war.

The Hearts of Iron IV Anniversary Bundle Includes:

Over 50 new airplane models for nations fighting in central and eastern Europe, including Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and Hungary.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1579991/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Eastern_Front_Planes_Pack/
13 new music tracks including the Soviet National Anthem, Lili Marlene and My, Pierwsza Brygada.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1579992/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Eastern_Front_Music_Pack/

A newly available Immersion Bundle collects the game’s cosmetic touches that add further visual and audio detail to the game, including:

• Radio Pack: 35 songs spread across all three factions, as well reproduced music from earlier games in the Hearts of Iron series.
  
• Axis Armor Pack: Over 60 armored vehicle models for the German, Japanese and Italian armies, including the StuG III, Japanese experimental heavy tanks and the L-6 light tank.
  
• Allied Armor Pack: Over 50 armored vehicle models for the American, Soviet, British, and French armies, including the M7 Priest, the French Renault tank and a host of new tank destroyers.
  
• Allied Speeches Pack: Over 70 minutes of speeches from some of the most inspiring moments from the Allied campaign, including MacArthur’s celebrated “I shall return” and Churchill’s pledge to “fight on the beaches”.

Paradox has also updated the Mobilization Bundle to include all of the available Hearts of Iron IV expansions.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/20999/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_5th_Anniversary_Bundle/

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################
- It is no longer possible to swap templates on divisions that are encircled
- For garrison reinforcement, check the division's blocked equipments to make sure they are not used
- Ethiopia now has the ability to submit a peace deal to Italy if they manage to push the Italians out of East Africa


##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- Random CTD fix in volunteer GUI
- Optimized triggers for Spanish "Ignite Anarchist Uprising" decision
- Refactored scripted ai_strategies to be less performance-intensive
- Fixed false positive out of sync 56 when mixing Windows and Linux/Mac clients
- Fixed CTD when going to menu after console cmd reloadtechnologies
- Fixed CTD caused by the transfer of ships currently being refitted from one country to another, e.g. at the start of a civil war. Refitting is now always cancelled when ownership is transferred
- Fixed a CTD when a decision expires with the decision UI opened and frame smoothing is enabled
- Trying to connect to a badly formed UUID will no longer crash the game while playing with PdxMP


##################################
# UI
##################################
- Added feedback for naval combat when one side consisted of only convoys
- Fixed some incorrect russian localization
- Display confirmation popup when kicking or banning a player from lobby
- Nation Focus name text now truncates if it is too long
- Change Division Template dropdown list for unassigned divisions will no longer be occluded by army containers further down in the list.
- Toggling the music player now displays the correct tooltip based on its visibility state
- Remove Ship roles gui elements when Man The Guns is not active, since they can never be set.
- Resume mission text now hidden in basic spy recruit window
- Fix timed events persisting on the alert bar beyond their expiration.
- Right-clicking on an air wing's aircraft count/reinforcement limit display now sets the reinforcement limit to the current number of aircraft in the air wing, as stated in the tooltip

##################################
# AI
##################################
- Turkey should now join the allies in late 1943 or early 1944
- when AI is refitting a ship, make sure it does not choose an obsolete model as target
- AI no longer deletes their whole naval production queue at game start
- Minor improvement to make the AI slightly less willing to ally back with Bulgaria, after Bulgaria has kicked out the country from the faction for refusing Balkan Unification
- Prevented Bulgarian AI from aborting its Historical strategy plan due to undesired reasons. Now the historical plan will only be aborted if Bulgaria is at war with Germany.
- Greece AI set to go Communist no longer spends lots of PP in the decision "Go to Paris to Negotiate Investment Talks" constantly
- Portuguese Ai should no longer go crazy on ship purchasing decisions
- Made ai more inclined to improve relations with neighbors for Bedrock of Balkan Financial Stability focus
- Japanese ai will now be cautious about the shanxi border during the marco polo incident
- Soviet strategy to keep volunteers out unless china is losing should now has enough score to work as intended
- Fixed ai not giving control of states to allies during war

##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Start date again supports year with 5 digits (for all you future mod bois)
- Added optional argument exclude_refitting to transfer_ship effect so that when for example the American civil war is set up ships that are currently being refitted are excluded in the search for ships to transfer to the CSA
- add_building_construction effect no longer targets non-land provinces


##################################
# Database
##################################
- removed "legacy test" fleet name from non-mtg fleet OOBs
- added Kurdish, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian namelists
- Changed nationalities of historical Japanese Operative
- the "Carry the revolution West" focus for France will now correctly describe its effects
- Added event informing Romania if the Megali Idea is approved, warning them they may soon be dragged into a war with France and/or United Kingdom, and offering them a chance to revoke their guarantee of Turkey
- Minor cosmetic update of some companies due to request
- Fixed error in navy tech tree where the first heavy shell tech, Armor-Piercing Capped Shell, was intended to be a 1936 tech but was set to be a 1938 tech
- José Díaz now has a working portrait if you do not have the LaR DLC
- added Tom Moore (RIP o7)
- Changed the "Ban Democratic Party" decision to be consistent with "Ban Fascist Party" and "Ban Communist Party"
- The "Expand Civil Support" decision for Democracies should now have sufficient effects
- Fixed text issues in the USSR-Greece investment events
- America should no longer be called "Loyalists" or "Constitutionalists" when puppeted or released
- Brazilian state names have been corrected. The game is now playable.
- British Raj now begins with Great War tank technology unlocked
- The province of Gyurmi is now correctly named Gyumri
- Sao Salvador dropped the Sao
- Chernivtsi re-spelled to use ostensibly correct Romanian


##################################
# Graphics & Audio
##################################
- Show divebombing animation for opposed air missions that still retain enough efficiency
- Minor improvements to the BftB loading screen (sadly not additional cats)
- Fixed some spy portraits that were too big
- Added Portuguese voice-over for La Résistance owners
- Added cooldown for garrison requirement alert sound
- added a generic 3d model for bicycles (!!!)
- Airplane 3d models in tech view now use same logic as on map so that specialized versions show


##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Fixed a bug where Transylvania was not being included as a Balkan nation
- Democratic Reformers all around the globe will no longer check if they're Portuguese or not
- Fixed some issues with Bulgarian Fatherland Front Coup being triggered too early and due to some inappropriate conditions
- Fixed Fatherland Front Civil War not removing Fatherland Front National Spirit and Decisions from the original tag
- Minor fix that should prevent an error triggered due to wrong scope when Bulgarian communist CW starts and the Fatherland Front is added to the appropriate wars.
- Fixed a bug by which Bulgaria could purchase equipment that was not researched by the seller. Bulgaria now needs to purchase equipment from a seller that has already researched the equipment tech. Bulgaria no longer needs to research the equipment tech by herself in order to purchase equipment.
- fixes to some peace conference error due to wrong scope
- fixed an issue where any country at war with the US could remove US cores from states (instead of just CSA)
- Fixed issue with War Overview opening the wrong national intel view
- Greece can now restore Byzantium if they have the BftB but not the WtT dlc
- Fixed localization error in South African event, making it appear like the help request came from the target country
- Fixed the Guardians of Kemalism Focus so that it shouldn't be able to randomly pick the same state twice
- Fixed Turkish on map decisions for Turkey so that they now cost the indicated amount of Command Power
- changed event so that turkey guarantees the Golden Square led Iraq, rather than the non-aligned regime
- Fixed Peninsular network of factories focus so that it now gives factories to Balkan Pact countries as well as to Turkey
- Changed Greek election to only fire for original Greece, not for spawned civil war countries
- South African focus for demanding Madagascar will now appropriately target the controller of the state, instead of France (regardless of whether they control it)
- Acquiesce to Fundamentalists decision for Turkey now has a clearer tooltip
- Greece will no longer experience a conscription crisis if following the communist path
- Anti-Communist Volunteers focus for Japan now allows you to send volunteers as well as applying bonuses.
- Invite Japanese Settlers focus for Manchukuo will no longer display incorrect state target if Germany has completed their industrial focus branch
- The independence war focus for Manchuria now works
- Correct event description now applied to romanian callback event from hungary (DOD_hungary.64)
- Fixed missing string in tooltip for Imperalist crises in British colonies
- Case Anton decision category now correctly shows up if Vichy France is not a puppet of Germany
- Tooltip for Czech subjugation in hungarian events no longer displays two similar lines
- the "London Conference" event chain related to Germany demanding Slovenia should no longer result in contradictionary news events and effects
- Fix inconsistent war names between world tension summary and war summary
- Fixed bug where the "After the capitulation of X we are now the leader of faction Y" popup was shown for all players in multiplayer and not only the new leader
- Fixed bug where the "We continue the fight as a Government in Exile" popup after capitulating was shown for all players in multiplayer and not only the player capitulating
- Fixed Spain's post-SCW un-cored states causing issues when Spain is annexed before they get around to re-integrating those states. Now, annexing Spain will grant them cores on those states, so Spain can be released as one contiguous whole afterwards.
- Remove invalid options for Investment Possibilities decisions
- Multiple Fixes to Destroy IMRO decisions both for Bulgaria and for other countries. Decisions now come back after being canceled. Skirmish Against IMRO state modifiers will be properly removed when decisions are canceled. Triggers and tooltips have being fixed/improved.
- if Italy initially accepts the invitation to the Megali convention but then attacks Greece, they are now removed from the convention as they are behaving in a disruptive manner
- The Greek Monarchist Civil War should now only fire once
- Fixed ship refitting not being cancelled when the ship is forced out to sea as a result of the ownership of the naval base changing
- Fixed issue where resistance wouldn't start in colony states as the Spanish Civil War ends
- The Damascus Diktat now refers to whoever controls Syria rather than always referring to France
- Greek fascist generals should now join the right side of the civil war
- Nepal should now have access to basic infantry divisions
- France should no longer go communist on historical when LaR is disabled
- Fixed certain Bulgarian News Events scoping to the wrong tag in loc
- Fixed typo in a Bulgarian cosmetic tag adjective breaking loc
- fixed targeted variables causing ctd if target is an integer outside of state limits
- fixed random seed on turkey random_list decisions
- Bulgaria can bypass joining the tripartite pact if they are a subject
- Fixed a few missing localization keys
- French civil war now has timed decisions for communist -and- fascist civil wars
- Themistoklis Sofoulis no longer slowly achieves world domination by accidental democracy
- Imperial Subjects can declare war now.
- Fascist France can now ally Spain if it is non-aligned and led by Franco
- infrastructure tooltip updated
- Operatives equipment allocation in Deploy screen no longer shown if you dont have access to that feature from La Resistance
- Tweaked values and fixed Loyalty Multiplier which was unintentionally removing days instead of adding them to the Fatherland Front Coup Preparations mission timer. This should significantly reduce the amount of days removed by a single complementary mission.
- New decisions UI for Bulgarian and Greek Internal Faction systems
- the French "Reach out to Spain" focus should now have (and show) an effect if Franco is the country leader of Spain in an unaligned government
- Fix puppeted states not being allowed to declare war even when the correct rules param is set
- Fixed an issue where Turkey could end up kicking itself out of their own faction (doh)

Various planes of different types for Germany, Soviet, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. 54 planes in total!

We’ve also added a new animation to CAS attacks to make them look a whole lot cooler on the battlefield (and so my, and clearly all other adults of sound minds' favourite: the Ju-87G - can shine).










A new radio pack themed around the countries fighting on the eastern front (although not necessarily eastern front songs). 13 tracks in total with tunes like The Soviet National Anthem, Lili Marlene and My, Pierwsza Brygada and others. Give it a listen below for samples while you continue reading :)


For the anniversary we also have a free update. We have mainly focused on bugfixing in older content, with an extra focus around BFTB but there are other goodies in there as well.

Some personal highlights:

• Ethiopia can now peace out Italy if they push them out
  
• You can now control the equipment of garrison templates like with other templates
  
• Fixed incorrect naval battle reports with convoys on one side
  
• José Díaz portrait should hopefully now work in all combinations of DLCs, alternate universes etc and stop haunting my nightmares
  
• Added Tom Moore as a military leader for Britain. Complete with a jungle trait to reflect his service in Burma and India in the 1940s. Captain Sir Tom Moore passed away at an age of 100 back in February due to COVID. With the team being filled with fans of history and from UK (or both) we wanted to take this opportunity to honor him in some small way.
  
• Added Portuguese unit voice-over for La Résistance owners!

All of this should be released/in store tomorrow! Aiming for before lunch, but you never know when the winds blow across the internet.

We also have some other cool stuff planned around the anniversary
Stream next wednesday looking back at 5 years of HOI with some Q&A
5 year anniversary multiplayer next week - We will tell you more soon(tm)

Read the full article here: https://pdxint.at/3fYe9L8

We finally announced the name of the next expansion at PdxCon! (I accidentally wrote it on twitter last week but apparently nobody had time to spot that hehe). No Step Back will launch together with the 1.11 Barbarossa update and the mission statement is to focus on Soviet, the eastern front and refreshing land warfare and logistics!
This is a huge undertaking that changes a lot of key components of the game, especially the AI. This has been a major reason for waiting with Soviet. We needed to build up both ai stability and get a new partisan system in place and have time to rework supply etc etc, so its the culmination of a long plan towards this goal and its nice to see it coming together.

No Step Back - Teaser Trailer

This wasn’t a full reveal - we will be showing off and announcing more features as the dev diaries come online. We also showed some more up to date visuals on the ongoing work on the (wip) supply system:



There will be some more in depth looks on this again. We are currently working on how motorization functions as part of it but it's roughly as presented before with a focus on connecting supply hubs using railways and convoys to project supply, with motorization improving the process. The mapmode is starting to really come around and is much easier to play with compared to the one we showed in the initial early look diary (just don't look too close on the red - lack of supply color above, I grabbed it from a bug report where stuff was intentionally made extra bad for those units to test… but I felt it showed off the state well).


placeholder train graphics as our proper models aren't in the game just yet, but doesn't it look cozy? :)

We also teased some pictures of the railways and trains, as well as confirming that there will be railway guns as a new unit type. They function a lot like naval bombardment support and are intended to help break tough defended positions (probably cities/railway hubs). More on those in a dedicated train porn diary in the future :p




Soviet tree wise we do not wanna show off too much yet. It will have its dedicated diaries (plural) and its one of our more ambitions trees yet, both in size and in player choices. Soviet is after Germany the nation thats most important to get right for a ww2 game, and compared to Germany a lot more complex. Here is a little teaser (are those icons placeholder or is it a shaved marx?), feel free to speculate what choices hide outside the screen...


(yes I know center is on the left. Trust me it makes sense. You are crazy I am not crazy!)


Let's start off with some yearly statistics updates!

We keep trending up on active players. This year’s record peak was 899k players in a month which is crazy!



Majors vs Minor nation picking keeps slowly converging towards an even split:


Modding wise here are the latest numbers for the biggest total conversion mods:

• Road to 56 - 10%
  
• Kaiserreich - 6%
  
• Millenium Dawn - 3%
  
• The New Order - 2.9%
  
• Old World Blues - 2.2%
  
• The Great War - 2.2%
  
• Cold War: Iron Curtain - 1.2%

We also talked about the future of Hearts of Iron after No Step Back and onwards, because we don't plan to stop any time soon on expanding the game.

• Yes, we will be reworking Italy in the future :)
  
• As games get older the harder it is to do large paid mechanics changes and HOI is starting to approach that stage now. Our current thoughts (that could totally change) is to focus more towards smaller DLCs like country packs, patches and free updates long term as this lets us focus on whats best for the game and get more flavor in.
  
• Speaking of country packs. Battle for Bosporus or Death or Dishonor is what we are thinking here. We want to focus on themes and specific regions here. At the moment the top contenders we think about are Scandinavia, Middle East and South America (so big its maybe two though), but we got more ideas. Game development is hard and no plan truly survives contact with the enemy etc so we will see, but this is our intent :)
  
• With a more focus on content and free updating we will be able to tackle big pain points like peace conferences as well is our goal.
  
• We also want to try and help onboarding for new players. HOI4 is a hugely complex game and the tutorial is really not what it could with. But we also have other improvement ideas here.

To be clear, none of this is promises because plans change, and I cant say exactly when these things happen - my goal is to keep you in the loop with how we think about things :)

If you want to watch the pdxcon panel here are some bookmarks to the twitch stream (I am told there will be youtube clips available in the future too):

• HOI4 Panel start
  
• NSB Talk
  
• Future
  

We have some cool team stuff happening, I will hand over the mic to @Arheo


Greetings all! Fresh from the Elysian fields, several of us previously from the Imperator: Rome team have swapped our gladii for KV-1s and have integrated with team HOI to create the ultimate combined arms, bear mounted (..thanks, Dan) division.

On a personal note, I’m thrilled to be joining HOI - it remains one of my all-time PDS favorites. The opportunity to give so much attention to such a short yet critical period of history is rarely afforded elsewhere. I have a great interest in the simulation of socio-political/economic causality behind the global narrative HOI provides, but find myself most at home micromanaging an ever-diminishing frontline in Russia… now with trains.

The ex-Imperator folks bring with them a wealth of knowledge which I’m certain can be put to good use here - we have spent a long time reacting, consulting, and working with our community to build a better game - something which I look forward to doing with the passionate fans of the HoI community as well.
Hi, I'm @Birken . I'm the technical director of Studio Gold and have been with Paradox since the release of Hearts of Iron III.
We're expanding the programming department in Studio Gold to better support the development of Hearts of Iron and future projects. Right now I'm looking for a Manager to help me develop our department as well as programmers that want to work with us to keep on building on Hearts of Iron and other GsG titles.
Please checkout the following job ads if you think it could be something for you.

Programmer Manager
Game Programmer
Senior Game Programmer

Read the full article here: https://pdxint.at/2QTrvjn

Hearts of Iron team members Drikus Kuiper • Content Design Lead - PDS, Daniel Sjöberg • Senior QA - PDS & Josh Bassett • Community Manager have attempted 'The Spanish Gambit' - win the Spanish Civil War in as few days as possible as the Republicans.


Think you can do better?

Head over to the PDXCON discord and submit your attempts on the PDXCON discord and assign yourself the HOI role!

We'll see you there: http://discord.gg/pdxcon

I would like to open up by showing the state rework I neglected to show last week, so here they are! The new Baltic States'... states.




Starting with Estonia, we have two starting focuses: Rally the Nation or the Era of Silence. Historically, the Era of Silence was a time in Estonian history where Konstantin Päts suspended all elections in Estonia out of fear of the fascist Vaps Movement.



While going down this path, the Vaps will gradually grow more and more agitated, and the player must use a series of focuses and decisions to prevent the nation from fracturing into a civil war. Once the Vaps are dealt with, Päts stands ready to prepare the nation for the inevitable wars to come.



A banker and economist, Päts has access to some powerful bonuses to the Estonian economy and internal stability.



Since his dictatorship was underpinned by the fear of fascists and communists, the threat both pose must be pushed into irrelevancy if an Estonian player wishes to restore democracy in their nation.



However, the dictatorship can be maintained by pushing not only communism and fascism into irrelevancy, but also democratic support.


Rally the Nation has the player take control of the Vaps in a series of decisions much similar to Britain’s fascist marches, whereby the Vaps must rally public support for their movement and overthrow the government. This culminates in a march on Tallinn and taking over in a civil war.



From here, it’s a race against time to bolster the military and ready the nation for war. As a movement made mostly of veteran’s societies, the Vaps have access to some powerful military bonuses and free units.



On top of that, the Vaps held close connections to the far-right veterans in Finland and as such, once they have taken over Estonia, they stand ready to give official support to the Finns to do the same in their own country by organizing marches through Finland.



Once this is done, Estonia is at a crossroads for where her identity lies. She may lean into her Scandinavian identity and conquer the Nordic countries, or she may lean into the Finno-Ugric identity and prepare for a war against Russia.



If Estonia successfully conquers the Nordics and completes the “Estonia is Scandinavia” focus, she will gain access to the old Nordic League decision from Waking the Tiger.



Leaning into the Ugric identity however will allow Estonia to form the new Empire of Finno-Ugra out of the Finnic identities living in Scandinavia and Russia.



*****************************************************

Next up we have Latvia’s political focus, beginning with Kārlis Ulmanis’ historical decision to suspend the constitution of Latvia.



The focus tree is split into the military and civilian governments, which may or may not merge into one depending on your choices.



Historically, Ulmanis assigned the marshal of Latvia to be his Prime Minister, replacing Kviesis of the Farmer’s Party. Choosing to do so will allow the player to vastly improve their military industry.



Marshal Balodis became so influential in Latvia that many believed the nation to be a diarchy between Ulmanis and Balodis, despite this not being the case. However, the player will be able to make this perception a reality and establish Balodis as dictator of Latvia, rather than keep Ulmanis’ rule.



Instead of assigning Balodis as PM, Ulmanis may also choose to renew Kviesis as prime-minister, adopting a more open attitude towards the former Saeima members, giving bonuses to the civilian economy.



Similar to the marshal branch, at the end here Ulmanis may either restore public elections and empower Fricis Menders, or he may integrate the Farmer’s Party into his own; strengthening the dictatorship.



Next we have the military side of the Latvian government. Latvia may choose to either suppress the fascist Thunder Cross movement, or collaborate with them.



Suppressing them will allow Latvia to empower paramilitaries and organizations more aligned with the government, such as the Aizsargi, eventually allowing women to serve in the Women’s Aizsargi.



Unlike Estonia, Latvia has the ability to court the fascist Pērkonkrusts group without having them take over the government. However, this is a delicate balancing act because if the Pērkonkrusts grow too powerful too quickly, Latvia will be split into a civil war, so collaborate with them with caution.



If the player can keep the Pērkonkrusts in check for long enough, they can complete the “Anti-German Propaganda” focus, pacifying the Pērkonkrusts for good while utilising their bonuses.



However, Latvia may also have the Pērkonkrusts supercede Ulmanis’ government and take over the nation peacefully, unlocking powerful focuses to help them conquer the Baltics.




On top of that, Gustavs Celmiņš viewed Christianity as a weak and foreign religion, and instead stated that Dievturība neopaganism be adopted as Latvia’s state religion. If the player goes anti-German, the Dievturība national spirit is upgraded as you progress down your fascist focus branches, eventually becoming quite a powerful boon to your nation.



Going pro-German however will allow Latvia to adopt the mantle of RK-Ostland, serving their German masters by occupying the Baltics and Belarus.



*****************************************************

Lastly, we have Lithuania’s national focus tree, and similar to Latvia’s, most everything is interconnected.



Just like Latvia, Smetona can choose to appoint either a military prime minister as they did historically, or assign Vladas Mironas, a priest turned politician.



No matter which they choose, Lithuania must fulfil Smetona’s ambition of empowering the Presidency and elevating the President above party politics. What this will mean for a Lithuanian player is that party popularity will have no impact at all on the nation’s stability, and they will instead gain a flat amount of stability as a base.



Over on the right here we have some of Lithuania’s external politics. Lithuania may attempt to seek peace and eventually mutual guarantees with their old enemies in Poland, or they may sign the Soviet Mutual Assistance pact, ensuring that Vilnius be returned to Lithuania upon completion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.



Lithuania may also center their politics by suppressing communist and fascist supporters in their nation, eventually allowing them to focus their efforts on their true enemy, be that Germany or the USSR.



Over on the left, we have focuses for dealing with Augustinas Voldemaras. Voldemaras was once Smetona’s Prime Minister, but in 1936 the Iron Wolf leader was in a Lithuanian prison. Lithuania may exile him, granting access to their usual political focuses, or free him, allowing the nation to slowly turn to fascism.



In the fascist branch of the Lithuanian tree, Lithuania is able to go on a war-path to restore the old borders of Greater Lithuania. Opposing the Germans will also allow Lithuania to lay claim to “Lower Lithuania”, AKA Königsberg.



A fascist Lithuania that manages to either occupy Poland or align them will be able to restore things to the way they once were: with a large dominant Lithuania and a small submissive Poland on their border.



But Lithuania does not have to assign a Prime Minister at all. A fourth option is open to Smetona, and that is inviting the son of the duly elected King of Lithuania: Mindaugas III.



And here we have the beautiful Karl Gero von Urach portrait I teased in last week's diary! Big thank you to @Indyclone77 for sourcing the reference picture from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg for us!



Should Lithuania choose to elect a king, the player will gain access to the same claiming mini-game as Poland but inverted, allowing for a Commonwealth in which Lithuania is the senior partner.



Should both Poland and Lithuania choose to go monarchist, the two nations will be allowed to decide how they wish to move forward. They may reject the other and go to war, or they may unite into a Commonwealth faction and stand as friends.

*****************************************************

There are also a number of shared focuses in the unique branches as well.

Any Baltic State may choose to form the Baltic Entente faction, and if they become democratic, they may also turn this alliance into an economic union. By completing focuses to draw the states closer together, the democratic Baltic state may be able to unite people of the region into one nation



Similar to Poland, all three Baltic states have a small exiled government branch, granting them access to some offmap factories and weekly manpower.



The Baltics may also choose to do as they did historically: granting basing rights to either the Soviets or Germany, and eventually submitting to their occupation. Should the Baltics submit to Soviet occupation, they will switch to their shared communist branch.




Full Article: https://pdxint.at/3owsceA

The Baltic States were in a difficult position in the build-up to world war 2; only recently liberated from Russian and German rule and less than 20 years on from a bloody struggle against both imperialist powers. In the 30s, each of the states had established authoritarian rule in fear of German and Soviet invasions, and a player hoping to survive as a Baltic state must take some extreme measures to overcome these overwhelming odds...

The Baltic States, like the Chinese, will share some branches of their focus tree while other branches will be unique to each country. This week I am going to talk about the shared branches; the industrial branch and the communist political branch.



Starting up with the industrial branch, each Baltic state was in something of a similar situation economically; relying heavily on foreign investment and equipment for their industry and armed forces. As such, each Baltic state may decide if they wish to put their faith in the democratic nations to supply their economy, or the Axis powers to fuel the war machine.



The other common issue facing the Baltics was that they had previously been occupied by the Soviets and Germany, and their industry was sorely lacking. So, the Balts can attract workers to their capital and begin their rearmament and develop their research sector.



Lastly, by modernising their industry, the Baltic states may become much more self-sufficient and end their reliance on foreign powers to fuel their war machine. They may expand raw resource production in their nation, which for Estonia and Latvia means the development of their on-map resources.

Lithuania however was uniquely very reliant on its agriculture, and thus starts the game with a variant of the “Agrarian Society” national spirit which can be slowly turned into a great benefit via their industrial tree.



Next up, each of the Baltic States had recently endured bloody struggles against the USSR, so popular support for communism was vanishingly low. A Baltic state hoping to overthrow the government and establish an independent communist state must do so through war.



The Balts can either choose to rely on the Soviet intervention or attempt to reconcile relations with the Baltic lower classes and try to maintain their independence while establishing communism on their own.



Once the revolution is done and your nation is communist, the player will have the option to re-establish the Lithuania-Belarus SSR. In the case you sided with the Soviets, the USSR will grant you their half of Belarus with the rest coming either through war or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.



If you are independent however, Belarus must be acquired through adversarial means. The Baltic state must propagandise support for unification in Belarus similar to the Spanish Civil War garrison control system. When time runs out, Belarus will be released and fight a civil war; the victor will be annexed into either the victorious Baltic nation or the USSR.



The Baltic nation will also be able to try to convert their neighbours to communism through a propaganda war. No matter which path the Baltic player takes to establish socialism across the Baltics; they will be able to form the United Baltic SSR.



From there, they may use their newfound strength against Scandinavia and Poland and achieve communism across the entire Baltic Sea.



That’s all for the Baltic States this week, next week I will be talking about the entirely unique political trees for each Baltic state.

******************************************************************

Something worth bringing up here is we did make some changes to the Polish tree since we last talked about it. Firstly, I do just want to show off some of the new focus icons we got since I wrote those dev diaries and I feel like our artists have done a really great job. There are more, but I don't want to spoil all of them just yet!

img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/9948323/813b8df0afcb3a3f28ee7bfa2d99be3dd753c2df.png[/img]

We originally planned to have Poland get an off-map reactor to essentially get them control of 1 nuke during play as an exile nation. This to reflect their role in the nuclear project, but we were already a bit on the fence on if this was too immersion breaking for the gameplay purpose, and it seemed many of you thought so too so we removed the off-map reactor and moved the focus to the industry branch.



Next, I managed to find time to implement Karl Albrecht von Habsburg as an option for monarchist Poland. He has his own branch which involves pressing the Habsburg claim on Czechoslovakia.





Claiming Czechoslovakia uses the same decision system as claiming Lithuania for the Commonwealth branch, and once the two nations are united, the ambition of West-Slavic unification is realised and the new nation may declare itself protector of the western Slavic peoples living in Germany.



Karl Albrecht I was known for the service he provided to the Polish army, and it’s unlikely that willingness to serve would vanish upon becoming King. So, as Soldier-King, he will gain a plethora of unique personality traits as well as becoming a field marshal.



With Hungary aligning itself with Poland’s enemies, Karl Albrecht can demand that Horthy step down in favour of Otto von Habsburg and force Hungary down their Habsburg path, diplomatically aligning them with Habsburg Poland.




Galicia-Lodomeria represented Habsburg rule over Poland and as such, Karl Albrecht may restore the Diet of Galicia which as well as giving the Royal Sejm national spirit, moves the nation’s capital to Krakow. While this centralises the capital between Poland and Czechoslovakia and surrounds the capital in defensible hills, the old Polish capital is also very close to the German border and may prove an easy target…



I feel I should also clarify the mechanics behind electing a monarch. When the Fulfil the 5th of November Act focus is complete, candidates come forward and present themselves to be King. So while it would make little sense for the regency council to reach out and invite candidates like Pavel Bermondt-Avalov to be King, Pavel is certainly the type to try and present himself for King.



The final thing I'd like to mention is that during testing we noticed that it was quite a chore to scroll back and forth between the Polish tree with it being so wide, so I implemented a system where the Polish tree automatically compacts itself when you've chosen a political path.






Read the full article: https://pdxint.at/3hse2JY

The story has unfolded and the Dual Monarchy stands at the precipice of a World War. In this modded, community built scenario a cast of Developers and Paradox Staff must lead our nation to victory in a world wide conflict!

Acting as our ‘Senate’, you can influence how each campaign unfolds. Want to see a more military focused nation, or one that values the power of diplomacy or trade? By debating and voting inside the Senate, you can shape the course of our nation through all four grand strategy games.

You can take your seat in the senate by heading over to the discord here: https://discord.gg/pdxcon

Each leg of the journey will also have a knock on effect on the next, crafting a completely unique gamestate by the time we reach our Stellaris endgame. You have the power to not only shape history, but the universe!

The Event will be broadcast live on the Paradox Interactive Twitch Channel at the times below:

1. Crusader Kings III: 21st April 12:00-22:00 CEST
   
2. Europa Universalis IV: 28th April 12:00-22:00 CEST
   
3. Hearts of Iron IV: 7th May 12:00 - 22:00 CEST
   
4. Stellaris: 15th-16th May 12:00 - 20:00 CEST
[/b]

Hi everyone and welcome back to another dev diary! Today is about various changes that affect combat and units. With the Barbarossa update we want to shake up the meta a bit and also change a few stats and other aspects to make using the tank designer more interesting and rewarding.

For a long time now unit bonuses from high command have confused people. Most expect that they apply to battalions, when in fact they apply only if their target unit type was “the majority type”, which was basically a weighted type count. They also could overlap, so infantry, mountaineers and artillery would apply to the same units letting you stack stuff in ways that was never intended and quite unintuitive.



This system has now changed, and divisions get bonuses based on their composition, this is a straight up ratio based on the number of non-support battalions of each type, so a 2x artillery 3x infantry division will be 40% artillery 60% infantry.

Battalions are always classified as a single type for this (even though some are scripted with multiple types) based on this priority:
cavalry > armor > artillery > motorized > mechanized > infantry

The exceptions being rocket & special forces, which both act as an addition, so if the 3 infantry divisions in the example above were mountain units, then the division would also be 60% special forces and if the 2 artillery are nebelwerfers it'd also be 40% rocket.

When counting the battalions of armies (ie when we have an actual unit and not only a division template), battalions that lack equipment will count as less, so a Light Tank battalion with only half it's tanks will count as 0.5 battalions (and not count at all if without tanks). The total sum of the compositions will still end up 100% (unless every battalion is without equipment).


To make it easier to see this we now have an indicator in the division windows showing the breakdown.

As a part of our efforts to shake up the 40/20 width meta, we have made changes to the combat width of province terrain. Province widths now range from 75 to 96. Plains have a new base combat width of 90, while Mountains have a new combat width of 75. Most of these widths will not divide into each other easily, hopefully moving the ideal width away from multiples of 10.

Urban provinces are now the “widest” with a width of 96. But this does not mean they will be the easiest provinces to overwhelm. Mountains, marshes, and urban provinces now have reinforcement widths of ⅓ of province width instead of ½. This should hopefully give these provinces a slight defensive buff, while allowing us to open up pushing power in the more open tiles.



In conjunction with these changes, we have also been looking at reducing the overstacking penalty. We hope that this will alleviate some of the need to have divisions that are the perfect width for a given province. But at the same time, smaller countries should now be able to specialize their division width to suit their home terrain more appropriately.

Breakdown (numbers not final etc etc)

Plains

• Standard 90
  
• Reinforce 45

Desert

• Standard 90
  
• Reinforce 45

Forest

• Standard 84
  
• Reinforce 42

Jungle

• Standard 84
  
• Reinforce 42

Hills

• Standard 80
  
• Reinforce 40

Marsh

• Standard 78
  
• Reinforce 26

Urban

• Standard 96
  
• Reinforce.32

Mountain

• Standard 75
  
• Reinforce 25

One of the major things that make larger divisions like 40 width armor hit disproportionally harder than smaller ones is also how targeting and damage works inside combat in relation to the enemies defense. Essentially the larger divisions make more efficient use of concentrated damage as it punches through defense. To solve this we are doing a few things. First of all we are weighting the targeting towards wider divisions being more likely targets and also when picking targets to try and match it to have wider divisions spread damage over smaller rather than always concentrating it. They will probably still hit harder, but combined with width changes and other downsides of larger divisions it should make it less clear cut.
However, this part isn’t quite done yet though so I’ll cover it again in more detail in one of the “bag of tricks” diaries in the future when i see how it pans out, but I figured it needed to be mentioned now ;) That said though, to wet your appetites here is a little tease from a debug mapmode in development...




Currently the effects of having stronger armor than the enemy can pierce, or being able to pierce an enemies armor are binary and give fixed bonuses. This meant that there wasn't really any benefit to have more armor than you needed to stop the enemies piercing, and also that being a single point of piercing under enemy armor was just as bad as having no piercing. So things were quite binary. With the tank designer coming we wanted to make it feel like your investments in upgrades were always worth it, so we are changing armor and piercing to have more gradual effects.

Armor > Piercing

• Unit takes half damage (as it currently works)

Armor < Piercing and Amor > 0.75 * Piercing

• Take damage between half damage to normal damage by difference in value

Armor < 0.75 * Piercing

• The unit takes normal damage

Lets break this down with an example:

• A panzer division has an armor value of 52
  
• Its being attacked by an infantry division with some anti-tank guns. Their piercing is 60
  
• If this was the old system this armor would be worthless and not reduce damage at all
  
• Now because its close enough (between 60 and 45), so you get roughly half of the normal effect around 25% reduction of damage.

For the tank designer it was important that reliability was more impactful if it was to be a good tradeoff with other aspects of design, so we needed to change it up (lest @CraniumMuppets 0% reliability tank monsters would take over the world). Now it will not just affect rate of loss in attrition but various other aspects:

• Reliability affects losses from attrition like before
  
• Reliability now affects org regain when moving, and also makes any weather related org effects more impactful when low
  
• Lower reliability scales up all impacts from weather so if facing extreme weather a unit with low reliability equipment will suffer more of those weather effects
  
• At the end of combat units with better reliability will be able to get back a certain amount of tanks etc to simulate that simple more reliable constructions would work better for battlefield repair and be less fragile when taking damage. So it's a bit like capturing enemy equipment in combat - but in reverse :cool:

Our goal is that this creates interesting tradeoffs when designing equipment and will make you have to consider if its worth switching a strategy focused on speed and firepower towards reliability when operating in bad weather and tough areas like the Russian winter or in northern africa or jungles.

Oh, and I figured now might be a good time to point out that there will be a future diary on weather changes and other cool related stuff, so these changes aren't completely in isolation. But one step at a time :)

But before we go, a few words about the studio...

Hello everyone, my name is Thomas, but perhaps better known as @Besuchov here on the forums.

As you saw here we have recently reorganized ourselves a little, moving from a big centralized Stockholm studio to splitting ourselves into Red, Green and Gold. This is mainly an internal org shift to make sure we keep our growing organization firmly focused around making good games. You shouldn't notice too many differences in the short term, we are still PDS making GSG on the Clausewitz engine, but it does mean that we can align each studio to the particular games. Since you will hear the studio names every once in a while, I just wanted to say who I am and what the studio is responsible for.

My role is Studio Manager, which means I'm accountable for the long term success of Studio Gold and working with things like management, staffing, and long term plans. Studio Gold has as its main focus Hearts of Iron (but we may or may not have some secret other stuff as well). Directly making the games though, that's still the job of Podcat and the team, but I intend to do my best to create an environment where we have the best chances to make great games together.

For me this is coming full circle at Paradox. I started as a programmer in 2004 and one of my first tasks was to work on Hearts of Iron 2. Since then I've done various things including being lead programmer for Hearts of Iron 3 (and Victoria 2), Project Lead for EU4 and more recently Studio Manager for PDS. Next to EU, HOI is my favorite game and I'm delighted to be back in a place where I can focus on fewer games and where that game is Hearts of Iron. You will see more of me in the future even though I will mostly take a backseat to the team working on the game.


Read the full article here: https://pdxint.at/3vJu32o