Greetings all!

Welcome back to today’s feature dev diary on a series of interconnected subsystems being added to the game in By Blood Alone.

One of the major points in my first roadmap dev diary was that I felt quite strongly about the inclusion of further roleplay and immersive elements in Hearts of Iron. What I’ll be showing off today is intended to fulfill a small part of this bullet point.

Those of you with keen memories will recall an early teaser I posted here. Some of you guessed correctly, and in BBA, we’ve introduced a dynamic system for naming battleplans. For many major nations, battleplan names can be provided through a list of locations, resulting in a historical series of operation tags which will be applied when plans are created:​


Of course, the war does not always proceed historically, and battleplan names can also be generated from several component lists for instances where a historical variant cannot be found. These name lists are fully moddable, and can be unique to countries. In some cases (ie; Soviet Union) a different naming convention can be utilized to represent the somewhat uninventive approach to naming operations that was used in reality:


Naturally, in the spirit of roleplaying, these operation names can be modified in-game, and you can replace the text with whatever operation name you desire. This will apply to any sub-orders derived from the initial drawn line:


If unset, naval landing and paradrop orders will have a unique pattern to remain unique.

This system however, goes further than a simple naming convention, and ties into another addition being made to BBA.



In BBA, we’re replacing the standard method of recruiting new generals out of thin air. Instead, every division will be created with a commanding officer upon game start, or when they are trained:


These are predominantly generated from country-specific namelists, however in some cases we have set these individually for starting divisions. When a new unit is created, they will be provided a randomly generated character name and portrait. To accommodate the increased use of generic portraits for these, we’ll be adding a large quantity of additional generic portraits for owners of BBA. The work involved in creating these is not insignificant, so for now we’ve limited ourselves in adding portraits to major nations only.

You’ll be able to get an overview of all division commanders in your army within the officer corps screen:


In an effort to avoid unnecessary micromanagement, we’ve made a few important decisions. Division commanders themselves will not directly confer bonuses upon the divisions they command, however the divisions they command will now earn and log a record of important actions they may perform during the natural course of a campaign:


Important actions such as taking a capital, securing a high-value victory point, and more, constitute actions for which a unit can be awarded a medal. It is expected that over the course of a campaign, many units will qualify for receiving medals, often several - the system is not driven by scarcity, as we do not intend for players to micromanage individual actions, rather to manage the macro-level step of choosing when and what to award their units.


As mentioned above, division commanders will not explicitly confer bonuses, however the medals awarded for action will. Medals are intended to act as a pp sink for the mid-late game, as we find a lot of players tend to end up with a significant amount of this resource as decisions, advisors and focuses begin to dwindle.

Units can receive multiple medals, however the cost for each will increase as more are granted to any given unit, and the effect of stacking specific medals will decrease per instance of the same effect.

As you will note above, medals can be specific to countries, and we’ve included a series of generic medals based on alignment, as well as unique medal sets for each major country. A medal’s effects will only extend to the unit it belongs to.

A medal’s name and description will in most cases be dynamic depending on what action it was awarded for, and extreme valor while on a specific named operation can also result in receiving a medal for that action.

To further streamline the process of awarding medals, you can perform quick actions to do this through the officers entry in the corps screen:


As mentioned previously, we’re removing the old method of recruiting generals by means of reaching into the void and plucking out a fully qualified officer. This means that your army generals will now be directly linked to your field of divisional officers, and their capability directly linked to their actions in the field.

Divisional officers will store experience based on the experience gain of the unit they are commanding, as well as receiving a lump-sum when a medal is awarded. While active as a divisional officer, this experience will have no meaningful effect, however, when in need of a new army general, you can promote divisional commanders out of their divisional role and directly into their new role as a general.

Any medals awarded to the division will be retained by that division, however, the newly created general will keep a reference to their awarded medals as a means of remembering their accomplishments in the line of duty (albeit with no direct effect on their new army - although we’ve elected to support this behavior for modders should they wish):


When a divisional officer is promoted this way, the experience they have earned during the course of their field command will be applied to their experience level as a general (up to a maximum cap). Promoting someone with field experience can prove a lot more valuable than hiring another pen-pusher, after all. If they have earned at least a certain quantity (as yet undecided) of field experience, they will also begin with a personality trait corresponding to the type of division they were commanding (armor officer, infantry officer, etc).



You will also note that my roadmap included a wish to improve the battle-planner. While this is likely to be a slow, iterative process, BBA heralds the inclusion of a new frontline parameter intended for advanced users.


The Cohesion parameter can be set on any root frontline order, and will affect how the unit controller places divisions across that frontline. The default setting of ‘Flexible Cohesion’ functions as you have grown to expect - all units will be evaluated for placement suitability and potentially relocated to fill perceived gaps in frontline cohesion.


Balanced Cohesion’ will only successfully evaluate units that are within a defined distance from the target (distances are moddable). In practice, this results in less unit shuffling along frontlines, but should still ensure that frontlines respond to changes in size and shape.


The final setting, ‘Rigid Cohesion’ is intended primarily for long defensive lines, and will only successfully evaluate unit positions that are within a very short distance from the target location. In practice this results in relocations only taking place to neighboring provinces, and can result in gaps being created in frontlines if left unattended. It is expected that this setting will be used by players who primarily rely on micromanagement of frontlines.

The AI will make use of flexible and balanced cohesion settings depending on the ratio of divisions:frontline length, but will avoid the use of rigid cohesion.

It is worth noting that units that are not placed directly on the frontline (having been left behind or recently added to an order instance) will not be subject to the same cohesion restrictions, and will make use of strategic relocation to find themselves a new place on the frontline. Additionally, the cohesion setting will be respected regardless of whether an order is being executed or not.



For those of you interested in modding, the addition of these subsystems also comes with some new tools regarding units. It is now possible to iterate over unit arrays in states and countries by condition, and apply a series of effects, including the awarding of medals, history entries, and other basic parameters such as affecting org, strength, and more. For performance reasons, units do not currently support storing or being stored as variables, though we will monitor the need for, and performance implications of doing this in future (I SEE YOU EaW).

Predefined divisions can be set up with lists of historical commanders that they will draw from when their current commander if replaced, should you wish to opt for extreme historical fidelity.


The visual display ranks of divisional commanders correspond to their gained experience, and are fully customizable, though confer no gameplay effect.

Medals themselves can be added to the medal array based on arbitrary conditions, and support a variety of modifiers, not all of which are represented in our vanilla use-cases.


Name combinations can also be split from various random lists, if you have a particular penchant for randomly generated names.


That’s all for now, tune in next week for a second look at how peace conferences are progressing!

PDXCON returns to Stockholm this September! Meet the devs, join a massive board game session, attend Paradox games’ orchestra & play our games!

Hello, and welcome back to another Dev Diary for the upcoming By Blood Alone DLC and accompanying Patch 1.12! The team has returned from the summer vacation, and we are now back fixing bugs and tweaking the balancing of the new features and focus trees.

Today, we are taking a look at the Plane Designer. As always, any number value that you are going to see in this DD is subject to change.

The Plane Designer became a subject of discussion, both inside the team and in the community, almost as soon as we announced that No Step Back would feature a Tank Designer. We felt that it would mesh well with the rework of the Italian focus tree, not least because the Italian aviation industry was very well developed and produced some of the best combat airplanes of the war - hampered mostly, as Italy so often was, by lacking production capacity.

We also felt that a Plane Designer would help plug some gaps in the lineup of available aircraft. Over the years, many players have commented on the fact that many nations modified their fighters to also be able to carry bombs, or their tactical bombers to also carry torpedoes. One of the big goals of the Plane Designer was to allow for these types of multi-role aircraft.

At the same time, we didn’t want to make these multi-role planes too powerful. Instead, a plane design optimized for a single mission should still be more effective than a multi-role plane. Where multi-role planes offer flexibility, optimized designs offer top performance, if you can afford them.

The basics of the Plane Designer are probably not a surprise for anyone who is familiar with the Ship or Tank Designers. The base is called an airframe, which roughly corresponds to the hulls and the chassis of the ship and tank designers. The Airframes have a number of module slots, where you can put the modules that give the final design its actual stats. There are three different size classes of airframes: Small, Medium, and Large. Small planes also come in a carrier-capable variant of the airframe.

The types of module slots in the Plane Designer are slightly different from the Tank Designer. There are effectively only three types of slots: Engines, Weapons, and Special modules.

Engine modules are perhaps the most straightforward of them. Unlike tanks, where this slot dictates what type of engine the tank uses and a separate stat determines what its speed is, engine modules in the plane designer determine the number and power of the engines mounted on the aircraft. These engine modules produce a new stat called Thrust, while all other modules have another new stat called Weight. These two stats are effectively the limiting factor of what and how many modules you can put on the plane. A design is only legal if Weight does not exceed Thrust (some people might point out that the only planes with a Thrust/Weight ratio of 1 or better in reality are modern, high-performance fighter jets, but these people will be summarily ignored).

Any excess Thrust is converted into extra speed, which is intended to provide a reason not to fill every module slot.

One thing to note here is that jet engines (and rocket engines, for that matter) are part of these engine slots, which means that they are available for all types of planes. This, by necessity, means that Jet Fighters and other jet-powered airplanes are no longer their own unit type - they are now simply fighters with jet engines. Jet fighters will therefore reinforce regular fighter wings, and also that you can now effectively make jet carrier planes, jet CAS, jet heavy fighters etc.with the plane designer.
​
Or Rocket Naval Bombers, one supposes, if you really hate your pilots on a personal level.


Weapon modules are also fairly self-explanatory. But beyond providing offensive stats like Air Attack, weapon modules fulfill two other major functions. The first is that the weapons define what type of plane a design ends up being. For this the designer has a Primary Weapon Slot. The module in this slot defines the role of the final design, i.e. Fighter, CAS, Naval Bomber etc.

This is relevant because the weapon modules also unlock what missions a design has available. That means that the strict separation of mission by type of aircraft will be gone. You can now create fighters that can provide ground support, or Strategic Bombers that can do naval strikes, depending on the modules you put on the plane. There are, of course, some restrictions - strat bombers can never mount the modules necessary to unlock air superiority missions, for example.

We still wanted to give you an easy way to classify your designs on a high level and it also makes it a lot easier to tell the AI what a design actually is and how it should be used. Without accounting for doctrines, there are no stat differences between, say, a fighter that has a set of 4 Heavy MGs in the Primary Weapon Slot and bombs in a secondary weapon slot, and a CAS that has the bombs in the primary weapon slot and the MGs in the secondary slot - but one goes into Fighter Airwings and the other goes into CAS Airwings.
​
CAS planes have a large variety of weapons available to them to attack ground targets.


There is a full list of weapons, the missions they unlock, and what they classify a plane as if mounted in the primary weapon slot, below (stats omitted because balancing is still ongoing):


While some of these weapons are unlocked in the (reworked) Air Tech Tree, some of them are also found outside of it, in a similar manner as the tank weapons are found in various trees. I will note that the total number of techs in the Air tech tree has actually decreased.
​
A view of the Air Tech tree. It has a total of 28 techs, compared to the old tree’s 38 techs.


One notable aspect is that a lot of these modules provide different stats only for specific missions. For true multi-role planes to make sense, we wanted to make sure that building a design with a mixed set of missions didn’t make the plane useless in some of them. Hanging bombs off a plane should make it less agile and slower, but a fighter that was able to do CAS missions shouldn’t be useless in air superiority missions. Thus, the weight and agility penalties only apply to the fighter if it is actually on a CAS mission, not if it is on an air superiority mission.

Modifiers only apply to certain missions. Here, the bombs the Stuka carries make it less agile, but the dive brakes give it better air defense


Finally, we have the so-called “Special” module slots. These are effectively a catch-all term of various different items, a list of which you can find below:​

Armor Plate: Increased Air Defense, reduced range
Self-Sealing Fuel Tanks: increased Air Defense, costs Rubber
Drop Tanks: increased range (small airframes only)
Extra Fuel Tanks: increased range, reduced air defense
Dive Brakes: increased air defense, increased naval strike hit chance
Radio Navigation I: reduced night penalty, increased strat attack
Radio Navigation II: reduced night penalty, increased strat attack
Air/Ground Radar: reduced night penalty, increased strat attack, increased naval detection
Air/Ground Radar II: reduced night penalty, increased strat attack, increased naval detection
Air/Air Radar: reduced night penalty when on intercept mission
Air/Air Radar II: reduced night penalty when on intercept mission
Floatplane: increased naval spotting (small airframes only)
Flying Boat: increased naval spotting (medium+large airframes)
LMG Defensive Turret: increased Air attack, reduced agility
2x LMG Defensive Turret: increased Air attack, reduced agility
HMG Defense Turret: increased Air attack, reduced agility
2x HMG Defense Turret: increased Air attack, reduced agility
Cannon Defense Turret: increased Air attack, reduced agility
2x Cannon Defense Turret: increased Air attack, reduced agility
Recon Camera: unlocks recon mission (LaR only)
Demining Coil: unlocks demining mission (MtG only)
Bomb sights I: increased strat attack
Bomb Sights II: increased strat attack
Non-Strategic Materials: reduced Aluminum cost, reduced air defense

Special Modules are primarily intended to help optimize planes for various missions or give them different niches.

The eagle-eyed amongst you have already spotted that planes now have a surface and sub detection stat. Up until now, planes that were active in a sea zone always provided a flat bonus to the spotting speed of any navies active in the seazone. This will now change, with planes having dedicated spotting stats that determine how well they do with helping the navies spot. There are modules, like the Air-Ground Radar and the Flying Boat hull, which give bonuses to naval spotting.

Vanilla planes have those stats already baked in, with some being better than others - carrier planes are better than their land-based counterparts, naval bombers are better than fighters etc.

To further support this, we are adding two more things: Maritime Patrol Planes as a dedicated unit type and a special Naval Patrol mission for planes with the right modules.

Maritime Patrol Planes are built on the Large Airframe, giving them exceptional range. They are able to mount the whole array of naval bomber weapons, but naval strike is really not intended to be their primary role. Maritime Patrol Planes are meant to help with spotting raiders in the deep ocean, where smaller planes with shorter ranges struggle to provide much mission efficiency.
​
You can run naval patrol missions with many different types of planes.


Finally, let’s talk a bit about art! While we already have a large amount of historical art for various plane types, we also wanted to give you more options to visually distinguish your designs, even if it is just to find the plane design more easily in the production menu. For the tank designer, we split up the existing art and recombined it into various combinations to quickly generate a large number of assets. We realized early on that this wouldn’t work for the plane designer. So instead, we decided to fill in some gaps in the existing art as well as add some art for a number of prototypes that flew but were historically passed over for mass-production.
​
Here is a partial list of new plane icons coming in BBA. Which one’s your favorite?


We also decided that we wanted to add more 3d art. Much like the tank designer, you can select these assets when you design the plane. We are adding about 80 new 3d models for planes to the DLC, but more on that in the future!
​
Here is just a teaser of some of the new assets coming in the DLC:


That is about it for this week. We hope that you will enjoy playing with the Plane Designer as much as we enjoyed making it. To end this DevDiary on a personal note: The Plane Designer will be my final contribution to Hearts of Iron 4. After close to 6 years on the project, all the way from the early days on Together for Victory, the time has come for me to leave the company and move on to greener pastures. It has certainly been an eventful and productive couple of years, and there are many things that I am very proud of (and a few that I regret - like adding Austria-Hungary as a joke and then finding out that people love monarchism). Working on the Hearts of Iron series has always been a dream for me, since the day I launched Hearts of Iron 1, almost 20 years ago now. Few people can say that they had an impact on a piece of entertainment that has had a similar impact on themselves. But the thing I am most proud of is the team we have built. Hearts of Iron is in very good hands, and there are years of content still to be released. I’m looking forward to it - but, once again, as a player.​

Weird designs that QA came up with:

This single plane outguns an entire tank platoon, unfortunately it can’t ever turn:


And then we restricted the number of bomb bays you can have on a plane:


6 engines, 8 cannons, 4 cannons in turrets, and a production cost 50% higher than a strategic bomber. Needless to say, this combo is no longer possible:


When you look at the Spitfire Mark I’s armament and wonder: but what if…more guns?

PDXCON2022 returns to Stockholm this September! Join us on the road to PDXCON2022 with another Grand Campaign!

Watch our developers as they play through a customized game of Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and Stellaris and follow laws passed by our Community-led Senate. Following the great tradition laid down last year for PDXCON, there may be familiar faces, returning arch-rivals, and maybe some new friends!




The story of a Grand Campaign is written in the senate, where Community-formed and led parties propose and vote on laws, that our developers have to follow on stream. This Grand Campaign spans the timeframe of four of our games, spanning several thousand years of alt-human history. Starting in the Crusader Kings era, all the way to Stellaris. In between games, we will transfer elements of one era to the next, so that the entire game is played in the same universe. This year, we've teamed up with some of your favorite modders, to make it that much more entertaining!


Join the Senate on discord! Parties on discord are still accepting newcomers, and while the bills have been passed for Crusader Kings, there are still around a thousand years of history, and ~40 hours of streams that your laws can directly affect! There will also be quick votes held on discord for in-game events deemed appropriate to pass to the senate by our Game Masters.


Join us on http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive, starting at 1000 AM CEST (0800 UTC)!


PDXCON2022 is an opportunity to meet some of your favorite developers, live in person at our annual Paradox Convention! Join a massive board game session, attend Paradox games’ orchestra & play our games (potentially including some cool new unreleased content)! Get the tickets while supplies last!

]

See you there!

Hey, AveeBee here. This is my first time writing a development diary for you all, having only joined the Hearts of Iron team earlier this year. However, I’d just like to say that it’s a great honor to get to do this having been a fan of the series for literally decades at this point, (yeah, look it up, Hearts of Iron I came out in 2002, crazy right?) I’m really excited to be contributing to this awesome game. With that out of the way, let's once again dive into Ethiopia!

As explained in the last Ethiopian dev diary, Ethiopia starts in a dire situation with the Italian invasion of the country well under way and any hope of winning the war rapidly diminishing. Haile Selassie historically left the country to rally support through the League of Nations for stopping Italy’s illegal invasion. But Haile Selassie wasn’t the only one in Ethiopia with ideas on how to end the war…


Let’s wind back the clock to early 1936, before Selassie leaves the nation for Geneva. In such desperate times, there are rumblings of discontent with the emperor’s handling of the conflict. Among the regional aristocrats, there is talk of reaching out to the Italians and switching sides in the hopes of maintaining hereditary titles. Meanwhile, the troops grow ever more disgruntled with officers leading them into defeat after defeat, knowing well that they were only given their ranks by birth right. Behind enemy lines, the fierce anti-fascist Black Lions begin to wonder if their successes and sacrifices are having any impact on the war as the Italians continue to push deeper and deeper into the heart of Ethiopia.

With so many disgruntled factions, the slightest nudge can drastically alter the structure of the empire.

Let's start by looking at the fascist sympathizing aristocrats. Starting at the top of their focus branch, we have Reach out to the Italians. This focus puts the feelers out to see whether the Italians would be willing to support a coup against Selassie in exchange for letting them maintain some level of control once the dust finally settles. This focus also determines who will be the leader of the revolt against Selassie. As can be seen from the icon, there is a choice of three potential leaders, Haile Selassie Gugsa, Hailu Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam and Abba Jofir of Jimma. Each leader has different strengths and weaknesses and will move the power center of the country to their respective regions, should they succeed in overthrowing the emperor. Unfortunately the portraits for these guys aren’t complete, yet so I can’t show them off today.


Should the Italians rebuff your attempts to reach out to them, the focus tree will unlock the first section of the historical/imperial branch and the fascist sympathizing aristocrats will have to swallow their ambitions and do as the focus says, Rally around the Emperor. The decision to lock the player in this path in such a scenario is due to the importance of time for Ethiopia as it is immediately at war with Italy. Italy’s decision to accept the proposal will be weighted on how close they are to defeating Ethiopia and the war escalation levels mentioned in the last Ethiopia dev diary. For instance, if the war is dragging on for Italy, the odds of them accepting the deal will increase. Meanwhile, if Ethiopia is close to capitulating, Italy will be less likely to accept the deal.​


However, if the Italians are receptive to the idea of Ethiopia tearing itself apart, the next two focuses, Sway the Warlords and Expand the Bodyguard will be available. Swaying the warlords will boost the popularity of fascism in Ethiopia and give access to loyalist generals once the current war is won. Meanwhile expanding the bodyguard will guarantee a number of elite divisions will be loyal to their Italian backed leader when the empire inevitably fractures.​


Once the fascists have built their support network up, it’s time for them to Declare for Italy. Once this focus is taken, the fascist supporters will break away from Ethiopia to become an Italian puppet. Who that puppet is will depend on which leader was chosen to reach out to the Italians. With the backing of the Italians, it won’t take long to defeat the diminished forces still loyal to Haile Selassie and finally bring ‘peace’ to the region.​


Once the civil war is over, what was once Ethiopia will be in tatters and under the yoke of Italian rule, as can be seen by the ‘Victor Emanuel I’ national spirit and the loss of some territory. But while it might otherwise have been annexed completely into Italy, the former empire retains a semblance of independence under the watchful eye of its new fascist leader. The initial objective after the war is of course rebuilding the damaged infrastructure and generally strengthening the reorganized rump state. There are of course the general economic and military branches explored in the last DD available at this point, however there are also bonuses for rebuilding that are unique to the fascist path too.​


After completing Rebuilding the Country, we have a few options to take. Each of them begins the transition of moving Ethiopia away from a traditional empire and more towards a nation united under a leader with absolute authority. Replace the Abuna allows the removal of Qerellos IV from leadership of the Ethiopian Coptic church and the ability to replace him with someone more… loyal to the new order.​


The Victory Parade gives the people of the capital a chance to thank their supposed savior for preventing the destruction of the nation. This also has the added effect of boosting the country leader’s stats, depending on who was chosen of course.​


To the left we have Invite Italian Settlers which does exactly what it suggests. This adds the Italian Settlers national spirit to Ethiopia which gives massive boosts to construction and population growth. It also converts two pastoral states into rural states, as new Italian settlements in the countryside begin to take shape. However, this all comes at the cost of reducing Ethiopia’s effectiveness at fighting the Italians due to their people and culture becoming intermingled with its own.​


This is also the point at which choices must be made over the future of Ethiopia. Will it be a loyal and indispensable subject of Italy? Or will it make schemes in the shadows for the eventual restoration of independence? It might seem like an easy choice, after all, who wants to be a puppet right? However, as mentioned above with Invite Italian Settlers there are advantages to getting cozy with the Italians.​


Lets see what those advantages are by exploring the collaborationist path first. In order to gain the Italians’ trust, Ethiopia’s leader will have to secure support from the regional governor of East-Africa, Prince Amedeo. And what better occasion to do so than the feast of Maskal! Trivia time, this meeting actually happened during Italy’s occupation of Ethiopia as the Italians attempted to secure control of the region by courting the remaining Ras’ (Ethiopian aristocracy). The Feast of Maskal is a celebration performed by followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian church celebrating the discovery of ‘the True Cross’ in the 4th century by Queen Eleni.

Back to our alternate timeline, as mentioned earlier on, when taking the Sway the Warlords focus a number of military officers will pledge themselves to the new fascist order. Now when taking the Feast of Maskal focus, these officers will become available again. On top of that, the Victor Emanuel I national spirit will also gain some boosts to make him less negative to Ethiopia.​


Following this, we have a number of focuses to take advantage of Italy’s military experience and sweet, sweet industry for the benefit of Ethiopia. On the economic side, the nation can gain extra civilian industry by Inviting Italian Investors and Adopting the Lira. On the military side, Ethiopia can recruit Italian General Staff to act as advisors or gain some infantry equipment and artillery via the Request Italian Equipment focus. At the neck of this branch, Ethiopia can utilize an array of Italian design companies via the Outsourced Production focus.​


Following this, we have a number of focuses to take advantage of Italy’s military experience and sweet, sweet industry for the benefit of Ethiopia. On the economic side, the nation can gain extra civilian industry by Inviting Italian Investors and Adopting the Lira. On the military side, Ethiopia can recruit Italian General Staff to act as advisors or gain some infantry equipment and artillery via the Request Italian Equipment focus. At the neck of this branch, Ethiopia can utilize an array of Italian design companies via the Outsourced Production focus.​


But at the very end, the big finale for towing the Italian line is the recognition of Ethiopia as a loyal partner to Italy rather than a simple colony. This culminates in the formation of the Italo-Ethiopian Empire in East-Africa and the unification of what was once two separate crowns. And as a goal for the reformed empire, it also gains the Arranged Expansion idea which will transfer control of conquered lands in the region to Ethiopia.​


So, we’ve explored what loyalty gets you, now let’s see what betrayal gets you! If we go back to the Feast of Maskal focus, you might have noticed it is mutually exclusive with the Negus of Shewa focus. This focus sets Ethiopia on a collision course with Italy by rejecting their influence and rekindling pride in the nation once again. This will cause the Victor Emanuel I national spirit to become detrimental to Ethiopia’s stability as the people reject the new sovereign. Reinforce Ethiopian Identity builds on this further by increasing support for going to war as the people rekindle their fighting spirit.

If the new regime intends to fight the Italians, then they must prepare the military. Luckily, taking the Underground Wargames focus will give the troops a substantial advantage when engaging the Italian military. While the collaborationist branch is focused on integrating into the Italian economy, this branch is more about being the absolute worst subject possible. Options for doing this include Set up a Customs Barrier which allows Ethiopia to make trade with Italy as difficult as humanly possible while still avoiding the Regia Marina resorting to gunboat diplomacy. This protectionist measure will give Ethiopia an economic boost, while reducing Italy’s colonial gains from its unruly puppet. If that isn’t good enough of an insult to the Italians, there’s also the option to Contact the Exiles who fled Ethiopia and have them return with foreign weapons for the troops.​


Due to the lack of economic support by following this sub-branch, Ethiopia is going to be much more reliant on foreign aid if it is to succeed in driving Italy out of the country. Luckily, there’s usually not a shortage of nations who would like to see Mussolini knocked down a notch or twelve. This can be utilized by Our Enemies Enemy, which allows the other great powers to send military equipment to Ethiopia.


Another fun way to make the Italians hate you is to raid their depots for equipment and destroy what you can’t carry. Sounds fun right? Luckily we have a focus that lets you do exactly that! Raid Italian Depots will trigger a number of raids over the following months which increase Ethiopia’s stockpile of weapons while increasing Italy’s supply consumption.​


But, what’s a revolt without friends, am I right? Together for Victory allows Ethiopia to reach out to the various resistance groups in East-Africa who are opposed to Italian rule. If conflict breaks out between Ethiopia and Italy, these resistance fighters will take up arms behind enemy lines and join the conflict alongside Ethiopia.

Once Italian rule in Ethiopia has been sufficiently weakened and the underground army is ready to leap into action, it is time to declare independence and prepare for the backlash. Negusa Nagast is the focus that allows Ethiopia to do exactly that, but it shouldn’t be taken lightly. If Italy is stubborn enough, they may come down hard on this rebellion, but hopefully preparations made earlier will tip the balance in Ethiopia’s favor.

Even if the Italians are too busy dealing with conflicts elsewhere, they may still be in control of land that is rightfully Ethiopian, which leads me to the next focus. Reclaim the Empire allows Ethiopia to regain cores on territory earlier ceded to Italy, once they are back under Ethiopian control. So, the new emperor has made it this far, apparently saving the empire on multiple occasions through various levels of back stabbing and insurrection. But what now? What is there to do for a newly crowned, backstabbing, insurrectionist of an emperor once he has gained his throne? Probably subjugate everything in the vicinity right? Great, because the final focus of this sub-branch, Consolidate East-Africa, gives Ethiopia claims on territory across the region and the ability to core them once conquered.


The collaborationist and independent fascist paths will hopefully offer a lot of replay-ability as the various choices throughout the two sub-paths make for various different narratives. Since the last dev diary, we’ve had a lot more great artwork added into the game for focus trees and events. Here’s an overview of the fascist branch at the moment, but remember that this is still a work in progress and may be subject to change.

Now, you might be thinking, ‘I’m fed up with this aristocratic stuff, this ain’t CK III!’ Well, fascism isn’t the only alternate history path for Ethiopia. Let's wind back the clock again to 1936. As mentioned earlier, there are rumblings from the front and in the streets, it’s not only the aristocracy that are growing frustrated with Haile Selassie’s leadership. The people and the troops are questioning the centuries old aristocracy and turning to the likes of the Soviet Union for inspiration.

This branch starts off with the focus Military Communism which will rally the troops on the front line and get them thinking about alternative systems of government. This starting point for the communist path was influenced by the types of movements that sprung up in Africa during the Cold War which often centered around the military acting as a vanguard party to overthrow the old order. In this timeline, we’re seeing that a little earlier due to the bleak position Ethiopia is in during 1936 and the memory of Russia’s 1917 October revolution still being fresh in the minds of people during the time period.


Now, the military isn’t the only place where communist influence is spreading during this time period. The Black Lions were an anti-fascist resistance movement in Ethiopia during the Italo-Ethiopian War and some members struggled on even after the country surrendered. While historically the Black Lions were mainly focused on anti-fascism and independence for Ethiopia, a number of members of the Black Lions were supposedly communist leaning. So alongside the spreading of communist thought among the military we also wanted to explore the what if scenario of the Black Lions, with all their skills and organization as resistance fighters, becoming increasingly disillusioned with the imperial system too.

Following on from this, we have Defending our Homes which grants defensive bonuses on core territory as the troops become desperate to prevent the destruction of their homeland. We also have Anti-Imperialist Agitation which adds a wave of communist support as more and more people turn their backs on the failing imperial system. In order to progress beyond this point of the branch, Ethiopia needs at least 20% support for the communists. As mentioned earlier, Military Communism is based around the military forcing a communist revolution rather than the types of mass movements that have started them in other countries. But while 20% support may seem low, it’s worth remembering that the Italians will be steadily chipping away at your territory, so even getting to this threshold can be a real race against time.


Once there is enough support for the communists, the next focus in the branch In the Name of the People will become available. This focus, as you might expect, triggers a coup against the government of Haile Selassie. The Black Lions and members of the military will arrest the emperor and form a provisional government. At the head of this provisional government is Alemework Beyene, the chairman of the Black Lions. From the offset of this provisional government, relations will be strained between the military communists and the Black Lions. The Black Lions’ constitution places the political sphere above the military and enshrines the rights of peasants, while those in the military believe they alone can govern Ethiopia in this time of crisis. This instability will be a key issue going forward.

Due to the dire situation brought on by the Italian invasion, the two political factions are forced to cooperate. For the time being anyway. During the coup, Black Lion and Red Guards divisions will become available to help maintain a smooth transition of power and to back up the beleaguered troops on the front line. With control of Ethiopia established, the first major decision to make is how to continue the fight against Italy. The Black Lions advocate for A Callout to the World which will set Ethiopia on a course to rally support from anti-fascists across the globe.


Meanwhile the military communists believe the only real hope of victory lies in gaining the support of the Soviet Union. Let’s start by looking at the Soviet sub-branch which starts with Soviet Aid. This focus gives the Soviets the option to support Ethiopia with volunteers and opens the door to future cooperation. The well equipped Soviet divisions and air force make a massive difference in turning the tide against Italy. Following on from this, there are options to request more Soviet material support in the form of rifles, aircraft and armored vehicles. Or there’s the option to invite experienced Soviet generals to lead your armies. Of course the downside to this decision is that your own officers are not gaining experience, but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. As the country becomes increasingly influenced by the Soviets, Alemework Beyene and the provisional government will be ousted to be replaced with the military administration of Ethiopia.​



With the tide of war shifting and the Italian invasion brought to a halt by the combined efforts of Ethiopia and the Soviet Union, it’s time to start thinking of a way out of the conflict. This is where the focus Soviet Mediation comes in. This focus will prompt the Soviet Union to demand Italy withdraws to pre-war borders in East-Africa, or suffer the wrath of the Red Army. There’s a game of chicken here though, depending on the strength of both nations, Mussolini may call Stalin’s bluff and Stalin may back down. Or Mussolini might think Stalin is bluffing and quickly find the Red Army on the march. For Ethiopia, this is somewhat of a win-win scenario however as it is already at war with Italy. So it either gets peace or a strong ally in the ongoing conflict.​


All of this support from the Soviet Union of course doesn’t come for free. Uncle Joe is going to want you firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence going forward, which means becoming a puppet. At least for now. Similar to the fascist branch, there are benefits to being a puppet but it doesn’t necessarily have to be permanent either...​


With the revolution in Ethiopia finally secure, it is time to start building a glorious workers republic. Luckily, Soviet Engineers are on hand to support reconstruction efforts. Here, we have a few mutually exclusive choices depending on priorities. Taking advantage of being a puppet of course comes at the cost of autonomy but gives access to Soviet design companies and factories via the Mytishchy-Abba Machine Plant and Soviet-Ethiopian Trade Agreement. But there’s also the option to push back against Soviet influence by dismissing their advisors and officers from the country as well as pursuing trade agreements with nations beyond the Soviet sphere of influence. While deciding on which course to take there are also focuses to expand Ethiopian influence in the region by ‘liberating’ the people of the Afar and Djibouti.​


Loyalty to the Soviet cause will allow Ethiopia to Request Soviet Ships to help make the Red Sea a little more red. But, if the Ethiopian military administration has grown disillusioned with Soviet meddling in their affairs, Our Own Path will allow them to declare independence once again. However, the Soviets may not take too kindly to having their investment in Ethiopia thrown back at them.​


Either as an independent socialist republic or a Soviet backed one, East-Africa can be dangerous with all those imperialist powers nearby. Freedom at Gunpoint unlocks decisions for waging liberation wars against the neighboring powers to release their colonial territories. Don’t worry though, this doesn’t mean successfully marching from Addis Ababa to London in order to liberate Sudan. Once Ethiopia gains enough territory in the nation they are attempting to liberate, they will have the option to request a peace deal with the colonial power. With bigger enemies to deal with closer to home, they’re likely going to cut their losses.​


This system for releasing African nations will come in very useful later on. But first of all, let's take a step back to A Callout to the World. We’ve seen how the military communists will lead the country if given a chance, taking it in a more Soviet inspired direction, but what about the Black Lions? Due to the decentralized, anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian values of the organization it seems they would take Ethiopia in a much different direction.

Taking the Callout to the World focus will unlock a number of advisors from across the world including socialists and anarchists such as Sylvia Pankhurst and Emma Goldman. Japanese Anarcho-Communism builds upon this further by recruiting the anarcho-communist Iwasa Sakutarō and the anarcho-syndicalist Ishikawa Sanshirō. Although be aware, these two supposedly really disliked each other, so you won’t be able to hire both of them at the same time. Following on from this, a choice must be made between International Brigades which creates a steady stream of manpower and war support for Ethiopia, or The Peoples Army which reforms the military by removing the conservative high-command and its associated penalties.


With the support of the anarcho-communists of the world, Ethiopia should finally be starting to halt the Italian advance. However, without the support of the League of Nations or a major power, any peace negotiations are going to be limited to essentially a ceasefire with the Italians. But much as we explored in the fascist branch, so long as part of Ethiopia survives, there is hope of restoring it fully someday.​


With an uneasy peace settling in with the Italians, attention can be turned to reforming what remains of the nation into a more economically prosperous and egalitarian society. The decisions made here will determine how far towards anarchism Ethiopia will go. Will it totally decentralize to become an anarcho-communist federation of loosely knit communities? Or will it remain somewhat centralized with a more traditional government to hold the republic together? These decisions will lead to various different leaders, including an anarchist council.​


With Ethiopia reformed under a new political system, it’s time to start thinking about the enemies around East-Africa. In this sub-branch, the people of Ethiopia won’t be rolling into the surrounding areas in tanks to forcibly liberate their neighbors. Instead the African Wildfire focus will allow the revolutionary government of Ethiopia to funnel supplies into the neighboring states to increase resistance against their colonial overlords until they eventually break free on their own. You might have noticed that both sub-branches here offer means of freeing the people of Africa from colonial rule. And that’s because of the final section of this branch.​


Both the anarcho-communist and Soviet sub-branches lead to this focus, The Organization of African Unity. In real life, the organization was established in 1963 with its headquarters in Addis Ababa. The organization strove to become a unifying force in African politics and ultimately became the African Union, a union somewhat similar to the European Union that many might be more familiar with. The roots of this pan-Africanism were already spreading in the 1930s and 1940s however.


Here, we explore those ideas from a more radical perspective. By becoming the founder of the Organization of African Unity, Ethiopia unlocks decisions to invite independent nations in Africa to join it. Each member gets a national spirit to signify their membership.​


Here, we explore those ideas from a more radical perspective. By becoming the founder of the Organization of African Unity, Ethiopia unlocks decisions to invite independent nations in Africa to join it. Each member gets a national spirit to signify their membership.​


Finally, as the various nations begin to pull together, Ethiopia’s final focus will become available, The African Union. Ethiopia will become the heart of the African Union with a beautiful new flag and the ability to integrate and core the territory of the Organization of African Unities member states. Hopefully it makes sense now why releasing African countries from colonial rule is so important in the run up to this part. While each individual country may be lacking in strength, together they can become a real menace in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans which leads to really interesting clashes against the Allies and the Axis powers. Depending on the path taken to forming the African Union, the organization can feel very different. When coming at it from the Soviet sub-branch, it will feel a lot more like a ‘Soviet Union of Africa’ for example.​


That’s all for this week folks. Remember all of this is still a work in progress and may be subject to change. But hopefully this has got you excited for Ethiopia’s revamped focus tree and its potential for fascinating alternate history. And I hope you’re excited for the next development diary two weeks from now which will be on the new plane designer. See you then!​

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The year is 1944, the future (If you live in 1936), you may find yourself in the middle of a war against France, as the Alpine Confederation, with a beautiful flag, the sound of gunfire off in the distance​


You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large army, composed of regular troops, marching through mountains and plains. You may tell yourself, This is not my Guisan, this is not my neutral and democratic Switzerland. And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?​


Hey there, it’s Carlo again, to update you on the alt-history paths of the Swiss Focus Tree! Now let’s go back a bit. To the present, 1936. It all started with the focus Swiss Guiding Principles, which triggered an event for you to proclaim the overall direction of the Balance of Power for the rest of the game. Should Switzerland continue with their policy of devolved power to the Cantons? Or is the current world situation too tense to go ‘business as usual’? Picking any will not block you from going one way or the other in the BoP, but it will certainly help getting to where you want to be more easily.​


By keeping the balance of power in the Cantons for enough time, you are able to complete some focuses in the historical path, giving you bonuses to militias and recruitable population, and allowing you to build up a large militia army. You might think it’s not worth the time considering you want to go alt-history, but you’ll see the reasoning later.

A bit afterwards you can go down the Federal Police Intelligence Department focus, which unlocks a series of focuses that give you bonuses for managing resistance in occupied states (And your own states if they are occupied, just in case), and more importantly, a military sub-branch, to develop your war capabilities further. This sub-branch is shared with the fascist path, but you don’t need to go fascist to access it.​



Then Allied Gold, GotthardBund and where things really start to diverge; Press for Vorarlberg.

Remember the last Switzerland Dev Diary where I stopped to give historical context? Well this is one of those. In 1919 the very rural Austrian region of Vorarlberg held a referendum to decide if they would join the Swiss Confederation, and the vote actually went towards uniting with Switzerland. Unfortunately for them, neither Austria or Switzerland wanted this to happen. Austria because, well, governments tend to prefer to keep their territory and Switzerland because, among other reasons (Including World War I), they already had a majority of their population speaking German, so they didn’t want to increase that gap further. In a Switzerland that seeks to defend their democracy by projecting power and growing in military might, this is not as important, so Vorarlberg is the first stepping stone on their quest to expand.

When you complete that focus, an ultimatum is sent to Austria (Or Germany if you let the days go by), demanding that they hand over Vorarlberg, or else. Hopefully it doesn’t get to the “or else”, and if that’s the case, congratulations, you’re the proud owner of Switzerland’s newest canton!​


After this you’re confronted with another fork in the road. You can go the fully autocratic way, and Pre-empt Anschluss, allowing you to annex the rest of Austria; or you can go slightly more democratic, with The New Eidgenossenschaft. They both allow Switzerland to expand. With the Preempt Anschluss path, you’ll be able to core all of the alps, finally becoming the Alpine Empire of your dreams, and if that’s not enough for you and you’re ready for a real challenge, you can bring the fight to Germany, Italy and France, in the name of Democracy and peace of course. After all, how dare these psychos keep fighting amongst themselves for centuries, someone ought to bring a stop to that.​


Now it’s not all fun and empires on this side of Vorarlberg, when you go for The New Eidgenossenschaft you find a more civilized form of conquest, with Expand the Federation. It’ll unlock decisions to spread democracy in your future cantons neighboring states, and claim them afterwards. If their current owner decides to let you take them peacefully will depend on your military might and how many other states of theirs you’ve influenced. Unfortunately, this time, France wasn’t very keen on you bringing democracy to Rhone, so that’s how you find yourself with no other choice than to declare war on them.​


Before going further let’s briefly talk about the military branch they share. The focus Switzerland on the Offense, right under GotthardBund, will surely come in handy: It’s one of the focuses that allows Switzerland to train regular troops, edit templates, and notably, it’ll turn all the militias into regular troops, including all their upgrades. Suddenly, your citizens become full time soldiers, just doing their part​


This is why it can be beneficial to beef up your militias before going fully alt-history, you can train cheap troops, with a template you upgrade without spending Army XP, with a large manpower pool that comes with no downsides most of the time, and then they can become regular infantry. It’s mutually exclusive with The Neutral Entente focus, which allows you to invite other Neutral and Non-Aligned countries to your faction. Under those two, you get to upgrade your military and even prepare Switzerland for a real navy!

After Expand the Confederation and completing some very necessary military focuses, you go Empower the Council, putting the Balance of Power squarely on the council, and getting rid of the Cantons vs Council struggle, this gives you more War Support, Political Power among other things.​


Now that the council has consolidated power, it’s time to use it and make the president of the council the true leader of the Swiss government, granting some bonuses but more importantly, making the president of the Council Switzerland’s Country Leader forever! (These portraits are not ready so not showing it yet)

You can continue your war as you are, in either the Eidgenossenschaft or Anschluss branch, but there’s a man that’s not happy with where Switzerland is at the moment, and that’s our guy Henri Guisan. As far as I can tell he was not that much of a radical democrat, after all he was a professional soldier, and those tend to favor rigid hierarchies, but despite that he was also a Swiss patriot who praised the Swiss tradition of Armed Neutrality and Independence, so he would definitely not be happy with a Swiss-led empire, regardless of name. This is why on this timeline, you can nudge him towards a coup, and with his popularity both in the Military and civilian populations, resistance to him is very limited. Of course, as much as he is committed to traditional Swiss values, he is a soldier, and he will finish the fight with his military bonuses as a Country Leader and General, like a Cincinnatus once in a lifetime kind of thing.

And that’s how we got where we are. The rest is up to you; you can take the war to other countries, or simply finish the war and then complete the focus Return to the Old Switzerland which allows Switzerland to neutrality and democracy. Same as it ever was.

Before giving you a taste of the other alt-history paths, I think it’s important to take a look at the full focus tree (Please note it’s a work in progress and a lot can change. Also, still waiting on some icons, as you can see).​


Now that’s not the only alt-history path for Switzerland. You also have the option of taking a stance to help the Allies win their war against the fascist powers of Europe. After you complete Closer Democratic Ties you have 3 different ways of joining the war as an ally:​


First one is through Join France, which makes Switzerland into a French Puppet and later, into the Second Helvetic Republic, a successor of the Napoleonic Republic I was talking about in the olden days of the first Swiss Dev Diary. The advantage of this path is that Alpine Aspirations allows you to core some alpine states, handy for the peace conference at the end of the war.

The middle one, Join the Allies, as it says in the name, allows you to join the United Kingdom as an ally. It’s a relatively pain-free way of joining the war, but it also doesn’t offer additional rewards.

The last one is through the Secret Pact with the Allies focus. You get to this one from a different part of the tree, by completing some focuses on the Buero Ha branch and three focuses directed at supporting the Allies’ espionage efforts: Support Allied Espionage unlocks a decision that allows Switzerland to give itself and their secret ally (In most cases the leader of the biggest democratic faction) a timed National Spirit with bonuses for espionage. Expand Spy Network gives Switzerland an extra Operative Slot, and increased Intel Network Gain. Share Spy Network unlocks a decision to send an event to your secret ally, and they can choose to get either a Swiss-German, Swiss-Italian or Swiss-French operative, the best part is that you get one too! Then in Secret Pact with the Allies itself, you unlock a decision to support your secret ally, giving them a percentage of your military and civilian production in exchange for Command Power, Army, Air and Navy experience.​



After that you still have more to unlock, and eventually you can choose when to complete Jump into Action and join the war at the most opportune moment.

All of these paths have a shared industrial and military branch to get you ready, ending on Weapons of Democracy. Aaaand these are the Democratic-ish paths for Switzerland! Hope you at least enjoyed reading about them.

The left-side paths are the ones I thought plausible for Switzerland keeping their democracy (At least for a little bit) while still joining the war. They’re about Switzerland using its past and tradition to justify joining the war, either against fascism, or as a preemptive defense. While Switzerland in this period did have a fascist movement, it was always very small and on the fringes, for example, there was only one member of parliament elected under a Fascist party; Robert Tobler. This small minority quickly faded once it was obvious to them where it would lead, and especially so after Anschluss. This is why the right side of the focus mountain is not as much a story of Swiss Fascism rising to take over the government, but a scenario where Switzerland sees the power of Fascism rising in Europe and is slowly coerced into reluctantly joining it.​


The start of the fascist side is populated by focuses about events that actually happened, but often did not end up going further, or were historically rejected. Purchase German Planes, Ban the Swiss Communist Party, Withdraw from the League Of Nations, Limited Censorship of the Press, The National Front, and The Petition of the 200 are based on real events, policies or organizations in Switzerland at the time that ended up not affecting the Democratic system of Switzerland enough to topple it, but because this is a fascist path, in this timeline they will have repercussions, and will tighten the grip of fascism over Switzerland.


Unlike the alt-democratic branch, this one’s not as focused on espionage, but instead, focuses on becoming closer to Germany and developing the military industry. After Abandon Neutrality, which does exactly what you think it does, you have a choice between 2 leaders: Robert Tobler and Rolf Henne.​


They were both leaders of The National Front at different points, and while they were both Fascists, they diverged in key ways. Rolf Henne was closer to the German Nazi party and more openly wanted for Switzerland to join Germany, while Robert Todler wanted Switzerland to have its own form of fascism, achieved by working with the government and slowly changing it, without burning down the house. Despite this, they were both directly or indirectly supported by the German Reich.​


Tobler’s path will lead to a slower and more stable transition to fascism, until you centralize Switzerland and join the Nazis. Henne’s path on the other hand allows you to become a German Puppet almost immediately, but with the advantage that you can ask Germany for territory, including Vorarlberg and Austria, and if you’re lucky enough, the alps in France and Italy.​


Both of them have access to the Professionalize Militias focus, which is another one of those that convert your militias into professional soldiers, very handy for the conquest of Europe. Besides this, there’s a military branch that is shared with the Federal Police Intelligence Department branch, which allows you on one side to mechanize your army, and in the other to improve special forces, planes and ultimately, give you Mountaineer Paratroopers, which give Swiss paratroopers bonuses in mountains.

Lastly, there’s an elephant in the Dev Diary I would like to address. Many countries in Hearts of Iron feature civil wars when they change political parties, and that’s a very cool mechanic because it allows you to have a combat snack before the main course. In Switzerland, that’s not the case, when the government changes, it does so progressively but peacefully. The main reasons are:​

1. Switzerland is mostly mountains and forests, leading to a slow and grinding war.​
   
2. A lot of the content centers around building fortifications, and improving defense, because that was Switzerland’s focus at the time, and even before that. It would’ve led to an even slower and grindier war.​
   
3. I felt the territory was way too small to have any sort of interesting war in it.​

Those were the reasons we decided not to have government changes through civil war.

Oh, and one more thing, I felt like Brandy the St Bernard wouldn’t stay for the fascist path, after all Brandy is a good doggo, so we managed to find an evil timeline version, doubt it will make the cut, seeing as my photoshop skills are not up to par.​

Ok I’ll end this Dev Diary now before I stop making sense. Come back next time for the Ethiopian Alt-history Dev Diary! I think you’re in for a treat.​

Buongiorno! And welcome to not only my first post here on the forums, but also to Italy’s Alternative History Dev Diary! I know that a lot of you folks out there have been looking forward to Italy’s re-work, and I bet that a bunch of you have already read Mano de Zombi’s absolutely gigantic Dev Diary for Italy’s Historical path. (If you haven’t, it might be worthwhile to do so before continuing here, since he explains new features that will pop up here too.) Well, today it’s time to look at what could have been if only history had turned out slightly (or sometimes wildly) different.

And please remember that all of this is still very much a work in progress; a lot of things might and will change from here until we release in- oooops, no spoilers ;)

Due to Steam post limitations and the length of this diary, we can only host the publication on our own forums.

To read the article, Click here

MAJOR DISCLAIMER - This dev diary is written before the majority of art has been delivered, so it features a lot of placeholder graphics - you have to imagine really cool focus icons, and a lot of characters with hats that are beyond fabulous, for example

But we have some cool art coming!

Work in progress image of Ethiopian Irregular Infantry

So, I was asked to write a dev diary about the development of a focus tree and related stuff for Ethiopia. Mainly because I was the one asked to do Ethiopia in the first place*, I guess. It would probably have felt weird to do a dev diary on something else then…

Anyway, Ethiopia. I wanted to make playing Ethiopia a somewhat different experience than the average game of HoI. It has to be, right? For one, Ethiopia starts at war, which puts some constraints on the design. Also, it is a war that they historically lost. After the initial invasion in October 35 they more or less managed to push the Italians back to their starting positions in what became known as the christmas offensive, but by the time we are entering the scene the Italians were preparing to once again go on the offensive. And historically this time Ethiopia didn’t stand a chance. However, in 1942 Ethiopian units such as the Gideon force and the Arbegnoch were fighting alongside the Allies to retake their country. So the design had to feature that as well.

But enough of that - lets take a look at Ethiopia and what we did with it for the DLC:
The theme of the design for Ethiopia was actually twofold. Firstly it is about survival. As mentioned, you start under attack from Italy. Outgunned and outmanned. So initially you will mainly focus on finding a way to survive. There will be a few different options there, some that will be discussed today, and some that will be discussed later. Secondly, it is about modernization. Ethiopia was not industrialized at all, and the army was in many ways still partly feudal; and as such you will need to work hard to improve the country and the armed forces if you are to compete with the rest of the industrialized world.

Now then, let’s take a look at how Ethiopia looks in-game in 1936:
First you might have noticed, that Haile Selassie has himself a new trait - with one of the cooler names so far in HoI history​


And the country also starts with a set of national spirits (compared to before where it was severely lacking on that front):

Not all of which are entirely positive however….​
​

One of the first things you will see is that what used to be a single state called Ethiopia is now split up into a bunch of new ones. Some of the extremely large provinces have been split into smaller ones as well, to allow for a more interesting gameplay and more realistic combat and supply-lines. While doing that I also added a few victory points to make the map look a bit more interesting, and to give the players something more concrete to fight over. Finding the right level when doing this is always a bit of a balancing act between gameplay, consistency with other things, and what you would ideally want. Sacrifices were made, but this is what we ended up with:



Additionally, the Ogaden desert is now classed as - well, yes - desert:


As mentioned above, Ethiopia starts at war with Italy. To simplify things a little bit when you start up the game, all units start within their own borders, just like before. It is not too far from the truth as the Christmas offensive of 35 had basically pushed the Italian army back all the way, so I feel it works (even though technically some parts of Tigray and some areas in the south were occupied by Italy at this point in time).​



The thing is, Haile Selassie really hoped the International Community would do something to stop Italy. After all, both nations were part of the League of Nations. We decided against doing a full scale League of Nations feature, so instead it is tied to the Ethiopian focus tree, and a small mechanic that affects both Italy and Ethiopia. (After all the LoN was mainly active before 36, so it makes sense I think)

There were numerous reasons why the League didn’t act against Italy, who in turn tried to play down their invasion as something of a border dispute in one of their colonies. But the longer Ethiopia holds out and the more Italy commits to the war, the harder it will be for Mussolini to downplay the conflict and for the LoN to turn a blind eye.

So to simulate this we have a ticking “War Escalation” that affects both sides in the war.



The higher it ticks, the more focuses you unlock for Ethiopia - should you decide to go to the League to plead your case - and additionally both sides will get events that affect their ability to continue the war.

We’ll get back to that stuff further down the line…

Before we look at the war and foreign politics part of the tree, we will need to look at the prospect of modernization​



The entire industrial tree for Ethiopia.

In 1936, Ethiopia starts without any major industrial capacity. It has 2 military factories, and 2 civilian ones, one of which goes to consumer goods, and one is needed to fulfill trade requirements in order to produce the weapons needed for the war. Some more factories can be acquired through the focus tree, but many focuses are also about different bonuses and removing debuffs etc.​



All Ethiopian states also start with this modifier, which is -30% in all states except for the capital shown here. “Develop the Capital Region” as well as other focuses in the right-most part will unlock decisions to eventually remove this modifier.
Ethiopia doesn’t start with a plethora of designers and companies like other countries, but will instead have options to invite off-shoots of companies from other nations through the “Invite Foreign Industrialists” focus.

Also I cannot stress enough how good the 2D art is looking.​



The designers and industrial concerns native to Ethiopia or unlocked through ways other than the “Invite Foreign Industrialists” focus.

The Ethiopian army has been revamped a bit in BBA. It is larger than in vanilla, and it now consists of two main parts, the regular Mehal Sefari and the irregular forces raised and paid for by the various lords and regions of Ethiopia. The irregulars are fast to raise, have some bonuses in certain types of terrain, but are generally weaker than regular units. You have a limited amount of them as well.

The fact that Ethiopia has a different system for raising units than other countries is represented by a recruitment law unique to the country. In peacetime it allows for a rather small recruitable population, but in wartime it is increased automatically, but incur penalties to production etc.

Playing Ethiopia, you will be given the choice to expand on the irregular system, or instead move towards the more “regular” system employed by other HoI countries.​



The focuses in this branch will let you specialize your army to some extent, and also helps a little bit if/when you decide that an airforce and/or navy could be good things to have.

Here you can see the military branch in all its glory:​



Ethiopia will start with an active balance of power, similarly to how Switzerland and Italy have one, which is a connecting thread between the nations in By Blood Alone. Ethiopia’s BoP will focus on the power of the Mekwanint on one side (the centrally appointed officials) and the Mesafint on the other (the hereditary nobility of Ethiopia). Pushing towards one side or another will bring different benefits as well as penalties, as well as both having potentially catastrophic effects if one side gets absolute power over the other, but more on the details of the BoP system for Ethiopia in its next dev diary!

As Italy and Ethiopia start at war, Ethiopia gets a number of (mostly 35 day) focuses to help them customize how they want to run the war. These are all blocked once the war is over one way or the other.​



Should I go or should I stay?
The first decision you will need to take when playing as Haile Selassie's Ethiopia is if you want him to stay in Africa and attempt to beat the Italians back the hard way (that is, without any foreign aid, which will be required for certain cult of personality-esque focuses later down in the tree) or if you want to get on the train and go to Switzerland to address the League of Nations and utilize the different focuses tied to them, which all get unlocked through different levels of war escalation.​



If you decide to go for the historical option, and have Haile Selassie leave the country you get access to this subset of the tree:​



The section serves the dual purpose of giving you access to focuses that can help you, if you get the war escalation up high enough, and allowing you to continue the fight in exile, should Ethiopia capitulate while the Emperor is away. The focus chain that starts with Addressing the League of Nations culminates in the “International Mediation” focus which sees the LoN pressure Italy for a white peace. (Doing this will not be able to gain you any immediate territory from them, so you will have to get to that later in the post war tree)

Additionally, the International Brigades focus is very useful, as well as fun and flavorful, as it allows you to send events to LoN members asking for volunteers, making it to where about 4-8 random minors send you a division each, becoming very colorful very quickly.​



After having done the focus “Boarding the Train” and having found a host nation to flee to, Haile Selassie will go there to continue the fight if and when Ethiopia capitulates to Italy, just like he did historically. Due to the LoN resolution however, he cannot ask his host to join the conflict before completing the focus “Reclaiming Ethiopia” at the end of the exile branch, and they also cannot ask him to let them join the war.

Many of the exile focuses unlock various decisions to do, in order to make a playthrough at least somewhat interesting to a player. Some focuses such as “The Patriots” and “Anti-Italian Propaganda” also unlock new unique continuous focuses for Ethiopia to do, such as increasing resistance growth and lowering compliance gain in areas occupied by Italy. This is because the only way for Italy to get rid of you once you have gone into exile is for them to get enough compliance in your states to take a decision that gives them ownership of it, eventually creating the Africa Orientale Italiana to completely erase you if you do not oppose them enough.

And as you can see, hiring the Abuna (leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), Qerellos IV will grant you some bonuses which are going to prove very useful when in exile.​



Different host-nations also means different extra focuses (all require a certain level of legitimacy to do).​




As you can see in these images, your focuses and campaign will be quite different depending on what nation you send Haile Selassie off into exile to. (Be aware that you will have to ask the country for permission first, which will be very hard if they do not have good relations with you)
Also, can you guess what nations these might be? (Yes, they are very obvious, aren’t they?)

Now you might be wondering, what happens if I choose to refuse outside help? Well first of all, it is much harder to win. Below you can see the entire pre-peace branch for choosing to stay:​



When getting peace with Italy through this branch however, you can in fact gain territory from them, as long as you control it when you complete the focus “Fait Accompli”. What makes this branch harder is not only the lack of support from the West, but also the fact that you need to at a bare minimum control all of your core provinces to do the focus that grants you peace with Italy. The focuses here do however give some nice bonuses both to Haile Selassie as a Field Marshal, but also to the troops and generals of Ethiopia.

Here is the full “war with Italy” part of the Haile Selassie focus tree.​


But once the war is done, what’s next?



As you can see here, there are two sub-branches to choose from following the end of the Italo-Ethiopian war ; “The King of Kings” sub-branch and the “Rebuilding the Country” sub-branch. The latter one is accessible through any of the war with Italy branches. The King of Kings branch is however only available to you if you managed to win the war without foreign help, cementing Haile Selassie as the true ruler of Ethiopia. Here you can upgrade his ruler trait, and get decisions to restore the long-gone Empire of Axum, gaining cores and wargoals on many of the kingdom’s historical claims.

You can then also choose between a couple of different end-game options, such as taking advantage of the Rastafari movement, and requesting overlordship of Jamaica from the British to expand your influence in the Americas, or embrace the Solomonic dynasty’s legacy and attempt to reclaim king Solomon’s lands from it’s occupiers, eventually coring it and moving your capital there. However, to do either of those you must have defeated the Italians without going into exile, and built the cult around the Emperor. If you didn’t, you still have two choices open to you, which both focus on Africa.​



Actually, take a look at these new advisors Ethiopia has before you leave, because they have quite a few:​

And this guy:

Military Personnel:

And some Swedes and an American:


But those aren’t all the advisors, as some of the ones available to the alt-hist branches are not shown here, but they can be a fun surprise for the next Ethiopia dev-diary.

That was all for this time, as I didn’t want to make this dev diary as long as the Italian one, but in a couple of weeks Ethiopia will return to showcase its BoP in more detail, as well as its a-historical paths.

* Tbh - asked is a bit of an oversimplification. It was decided that Ethiopia would feature in this expansion - I was (figuratively) jumping up and down saying equivalents of pretty please… So in the end arheo et.al. caved in and gave it to me

Hey everyone! You probably don’t know me, but I’m Carlo, the Content Designer in charge of Switzerland for BBA. I’m very excited to present to you all, the Swiss Focus Tree, our first circular focus tree, allowing Switzerland to go back and forth between the Make Fondue and Stay Neutral focuses. Through the power of Fondue and Chill, plus all that Nazi gold, Switzerland will prevail over its rivals by completely staying out of the war in absolute comfort and safety.​


[Record Scratch Sound] If that’s how you imagine Swiss life during World War II, I got news for you buddy, that is far from how it went.

Yes, Switzerland is not a country most people associate with World War II games, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place in HoI, and in this Dev Diary I hope to bring you to my side of the Alps and show you how interesting and unique Switzerland can be in Hearts of Iron IV.

First, it’s always a good idea to have a bit of historical context. Switzerland was founded in the late Middle Ages and from the start, it was a loose confederation of small territories near the alps (3 at this point). They pledged to help each other militarily and economically. This oath, or Eidgenossenschaft as it’s lovingly abbreviated, kept growing while always maintaining a decentralized government centered on the cantons, and with a strong military reputation (Despite their current neutrality). Then Napoleon forced Switzerland into a centralized ‘Helvetic Republic’, which didn’t last long. Swiss Neutrality was established after the fall of Napoleon and of this Helvetic Republic, and then finally, in 1848 they became the Switzerland we know and love after adopting the 1848 Constitution following a short revolution (Revolutions were all the rage that year).

So what’s the Switzerland we know and love? A country with 4 different populations living as one in a period of rising ethno-nationalism. The oldest continuous democracy in Europe, second in the world only to the United States, and arguably, the most direct democracy in our times, and even more so in the 1930s. Each canton and the confederation itself decide most of their laws through referendums and a limited representative body. If you’ve ever wondered why the Country Leader of Switzerland is a building, that’s not because it gained sentience, but because there is no Swiss President/Dictator/Regent as other countries have; The Swiss confederation is led by the bi-cameral Federal Assembly and a Federal Council of 7, with a mostly ceremonial ‘First among equals’ Presidential role; only the whole Federal Council can act as the Head of State, not a single member.

Switzerland in 1936 is a country gripped by the fear of war breaking out. Thanks to Germany going through Belgium during The Great War, they know that their status as a neutral country is not sacred, and when their two biggest neighbors, the Third Reich and France inevitably clash, there’s a real possibility one of them will stomp through Switzerland to avoid the other's defenses. How to avoid this, while keeping Swiss Democracy alive, and being ready in case it actually happens are the main pillars of playing Historical Switzerland in Hearts of Iron IV.

So what does the Swiss Focus Tree look like? Well like this:​

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Because this one’s more of a focus mountain than a focus tree, you always start at the peak, with the center being the historical path, and the sides the two planned alt-history branches, but it always starts with the Swiss Guiding Principles focus. This will initiate the Balance of Power system for Switzerland and trigger an event where you can choose the general direction Switzerland will take. Let’s stop to talk a bit about the Swiss version of the Balance of power:

If you don’t know what the Balance of power is, make sure to read Mano de Zombi’s amazing and gargantuan Dev Diary.​


Switzerland’s path through the Hearts of Iron period will depend heavily on where the power lays. Is the power mostly on the cantons? That means it will go the way it went historically, with local citizen militias and limited council power, which made it hard for the country to ally with a foreign power, but at the same time, prevented a central government from being intimidated into capitulation. If instead, the Balance of Power is in the council, you’ll be locked out of part of the Historical Path in the middle, but when the BoP closes a door, it opens a window into the two alt-history paths. That’s a topic for my next dev diary though.​


Each side and segment has its advantages too, the more cantonal power, the cheaper assigning advisors will be, and moving it to the council will grant you War Support. Some of the decisions in the other systems will depend on it, and others will affect it, so keeping an eye on it will be vital to your survival.

Now let’s keep going down the slope. These two focuses will kickstart the rearmament of Switzerland, giving you a National Spirit that will be helpful for you no matter which path you choose and can be upgraded later.​



Switzerland had committed to defending their country both physically and spiritually in 1935; we saw the beginning on the physical part with the rearmament focuses, and now it’s time to recommit to the spiritual bit. This will unlock the Spirit of Helvetia National Spirit, in its passive mode.​



As you progress through the Historical path, it will change to a defensive stance, an aggressive stance if you go alt-history or it might just stay in the passive stance. Each one also has an “at war” variation, and different modifiers for the six of them.
This is fine…

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In case you’re wondering who this Helvetia person is, I must take you back to the Helvetic History Hole(tm): Back in Roman Empire times, a tribe called the Helvetii lived in what we now know as the Swiss Plateau, so people since have used the adjective “helvetic” to define confederations, republics and organizations in and around this area, specially after Napoleon created the “Helvetic Republic''. Due to the multilingual nature of Switzerland, its official name in Latin is Confoederatio Helvetica (Yes, that’s where the font name comes from) and its internet domain is “.CH”. From this root, in the 17th century Helvetia is popularized, the personification of Switzerland and the Swiss people, featured in coins, statues, stamps and World War II Grand Strategy games. That’s who Helvetia is.

Ok, so far, I haven’t given you much of a chance to deviate from history, and that’s because up to this point, this is a nation very committed to Democracy, Neutrality and Grassroots Defense, and even the alt-history paths will stem from the desire to keep these. Here is where the slope starts to open up:​

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Historically, Switzerland fortified their borders with its three biggest neighbors, and the three countries it shares languages with, and with good reason, they all wanted to walk through Switzerland towards their enemy, and thought their shared language would serve as an excuse to annex it, or a possible door to friendly relations and taking them from neutrals to allies. Naturally though, fortifying against a country can be seen as suspicious, and that’s why this triggers the start of a very important system: Absolute Neutrality.​


As a small neutral nation, you want to keep a balance between all countries around you so none of them feel like you’re favoring one over the other, otherwise, they could use it as a way to argue that you’ve broken your neutrality, and prompt them to invade. This system keeps track of your biggest neighbors’ opinion of you, and allows you to appease them or antagonize them; most actions will have repercussions to the other countries' perception of you. If one of the countries considers you in grave violation of your neutrality, and has a very negative opinion of you, it’ll trigger a timer, at the end of which they’ll get a wargoal against you and likely invade Switzerland, so you better scramble and do anything in your power to calm them, or it’s game over.​


This system is pretty flexible and can keep track of up to 4 majors around Switzerland, and even adjusts if one or more are in a faction. Also, many focuses will have negative and positive effects on this system, and others will require you to reach a certain opinion of them before starting them, so it’s integrated into how you play as Switzerland.​


After Ban the Swiss Nazi Party (Which does what it says on the tin, plus some negative opinion modifiers), we have the Armed Neutrality branch. This is the central defensive branch of the Swiss tree, and unlocks another system we need to talk about: The Swiss Citizen Militias.


Going back to the Helvetic History Hole now. Because of Switzerland’s political system, there’s no centralized government powerful enough to conscript a large standing army, but on account of where Switzerland is located, it needs to have the ability to defend itself, or at least deter other countries from invading. This is why historically, the Swiss Army relied on training their population and giving them the required equipment to keep at home, so when needed, they would take up arms and form local militias. This means that they could have up to 20% of their population ready to be deployed in as quickly as 24 hours to stand up to any invaders. This is why Historical Switzerland’s military needed its own system.​

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Switzerland will start with a unique Recruitment Law giving it 10% recruitable population, and no negative effects, that’s because the enlisted population is still participating in the economy. The downside is that you cannot train regular troops, only some mountaineers, to represent their small professional army, whose purpose was holding out for 24 hours until the civilian militias were ready.​


To make up the bulk of the army, you can train Militias (Italy’s DD also explains this new battalion type). There is a cap to how many divisions you can train, it’s a locked template and on top of that, the Dormant Citizen Militias National Spirit makes them very weak, but that’s ok, you can deal with these issues by earning, and spending Military Readiness.​


You can find this system in the Decisions panel, and it lets you use Political Power, Command Power and other resources to gain Military Readiness, and then you can spend it to improve the Militias Template, increase the amount you can train, expand the Military Readiness cap, even increase your military production; but most importantly deploying your Citizen Militias, which removes Dormant Citizen Militia and adds Active Citizen Militia, allowing them to perform at their true level, but giving your economy some penalties, which grow the longer you keep them active.​


Back to the Focus tree, under Armed Neutrality you’ll find three branches; The Promote Guisan Branch, the Frontier Defense Plan Branch and a shared one in between. The Frontier Defense Plan was Switzerland’s old strategy of fortifying the borders, and not giving any ground to the enemy, so this sub-branch focuses on improving divisions, and fortifying the borders. Historically, this plan was abandoned when Guisan was promoted to General and Commander-In-Chief.​

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Another of the many quirks of the Swiss military and political systems, is that their military ranks only go up to Corps Commander, and there can only be a single General (Who also acts as Commander-In-Chief) when the country is at risk of, or at war. Only 4 people have been assigned this role, and the last was our guy Henri Guisan in 1939, who brought the strategy the Promote Henri Guisan sub-branch focuses on. Broadly speaking, the Réduit National approach consisted in letting the enemy advance through the Swiss Plateau and systematically retreat the armed forces to well fortyfied and supplied forts along the alps. Once there, they could maintain their extremely favorable positions and wreak havoc on the enemy, stuck on the exposed Swiss Plateau. The expectation was not necessarily to liberate the rest of the country, but to make it clear taking Switzerland wouldn’t be easy, and thus deterring any invaders. This is why this sub-branch focuses on making it easier for you to hold out in the mountains for as long as possible, and even adds the Gotthard Pass victory point, which becomes the capital once Bern is lost.​

Ok, that’s the Armed Neutrality branch done, now on to the rest!

Switzerland’s neutrality and proximity to the conflict made it a prime stage for espionage, for both the Allies and Axis, so of course, the Swiss government also needed to keep up with it, often collaborating with the Allies, and, sometimes unknowingly, with the Soviet Union through the Lucy Spy ring. On the historical part of this focus tree, you have two ways of getting a free Intelligence Agency:

Federal Police Intelligence establishes the agency of the same name, an extension of the existing Federal Police, and gives you a National Spirit with a bonus to counter intelligence, and opens the door SpAb to further counteract foreign intelligence efforts, and other fun militaristic alt-history stuff I won’t talk about today.​

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On the other side we have Buero Ha, which focuses on building spy networks in other countries and opens up a bunch of defensive, cultural and resistance oriented focuses. Ha History Hole: The Swiss government couldn’t risk other countries finding out they were gathering intelligence on them, so to keep it under wraps and have a measure of deniability, they established a covert pseudo-independent intelligence office; Hans Hausamann’s Büro Ha (The “Ha” part comes from his name). It was an office in a hotel in Teufen with a couple of desks, and they gathered and reported on intelligence from different sources, including the Lucy Spy Ring, which deserves its own historical rabbit hole but not today.​

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And that, in very broad strokes, is the Swiss Focus Tree, but there’s still some important things to talk about.

I’ve babbled on about Switzerland’s unique political system in real life, but now it’s time to explain how it’s being represented in HoI4: Switzerland will start with 3 assigned political advisors, and these represent the ‘leading’ Federal Councilors (Out of the 7 on the real council), plus a President of the Confederation. Each advisor has one of the new traits unique to Switzerland, most of which correspond to the advisor’s role and/or political position during the period. Each year, starting from 1937, you’ll get an event prompting you to elect a new president from your active advisors, this advisor will be removed, and retired forever, but for the next year you’ll get a powerful decision based on the trait they had when they were advisors. After that you better assign a new advisor quickly, or you’ll suffer the consequences of an empty seat. In total there will be at least 25 Political Advisors to choose from with at least 10 different traits, that I hope will make for an engaging and unique system, and a key to the Alternate paths through its interactions with the Balance of Power. More about that on my next Dev Diary.​

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At this point you’ve probably noticed that the map has changed a bit in and around the Alps, let me explain what we’ve done: The most important change is that we reshuffled the states in Switzerland, it now has five states: The Swiss Plateau, Western Swiss Alps, Eastern Swiss Alps, Ticino and Jura Mountains (Fun fact, this is where the term Jurassic comes from), there’s also some new Victory Points. On top of that, Austria did get something after all, Voralberg, a new state I might talk about in the next Dev Diary.​

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The other change you might’ve noticed is that a lot of the provinces along the alps now have impassable borders, helping represent how much of an obstacle the alps were in moving troops and attacking (Unless you happen to have elephants), and showcasing one of Switzerland’s bargaining chips during this period: the Saint Gotthard Pass. This route was vital as a fast passage between Germany and Italy, and the possibility of its destruction was a major deterrent against Invasion. HoI4’s Switzerland now has 2 out of the 3 connections through the alps, making it a more tempting prize for anyone playing one of its neighbors; German command even considered invading Switzerland as a way of retreating from Italy in the late stages of the war.
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And that’s about it. If these 2800+ words didn’t at least pique your interest in the Swiss Focus tree, well… We do have one extra card up our sleeve:

Switzerland will feature the first dog in a Focus Icon, also featured as a National Spirit: Brandy the St Bernard. The focus Spirit of Saint Bernard will give bonuses for Field Hospitals, slightly ahistorical, but worth it.​

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Hope this Dev Diary helped you understand all the ways the real Switzerland was and continues to be fascinating, and how it serves as a great base for unique gameplay for Hearts of Iron IV, or at the very least provided some mild entertainment and a nice dog picture.

And if you won’t have to wait too long for another super interesting country, because next week, it’s Ethiopia time! A country that has always been pivotal to World War II, now gets to have its moment to shine in Hearts of Iron IV.​

Join the forum discussion here!