Oct 3, 2024

Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Chakerathe

Greetings all!

YOUTUBE VIDEO ANNOUNCEMENT GOES HERE

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3152780/Expansion__Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Gtterdmmerung/

Aaand there we have it, with the release of this video there can be no more subterfuge: our expansion Götterdämmerung drops November 14th.

Of course, we’ve kept this one under wraps for a bit longer despite some … subtle hints, so now is our opportunity to explain a little about what Götterdämmerung heralds, and what else is coming for Hearts of Iron in the near future.

With the above said, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that Dev Diaries and related events will be arriving with high frequency over the next six weeks - two or three items per week up until launch. This means today we won’t be diving into extreme detail on each of the headline items, but you won’t have long to wait to see more.

Note: The original schedule was changed to swap the Raids and the Small Features DD's to give the Devs more time with the Raids DD

Special Projects

A German themed expansion is something many of you have been clamouring for for many years, and as we’ve been quite clear about in previous roadmaps, we’ve also wanted to work on a super-weapons feature since the release of HoI4. Naturally, these two things made sense to tackle together.

War drives all sorts of technological innovation in an attempt to out-do opponents and although many projects ultimately never saw the battlefield, Götterdämmerung aims to tie together existing research systems with a new experimental research mechanic that allows for both historical and less historical but plausible super-projects to be pursued. The research process will become an important part of gameplay, with scientists, map-located experimental facilities, and supporting infrastructure all combining to produce a wide variety of outcomes that can augment your forces or change the very nature of the war you are fighting.

Military Raids

Of course, the story of experimental project development during the war was one fraught with strategic implications. From the secrecy around the Manhattan project, to the dambusters raids or targeted strikes on important facilities such as Peenemunde, there are numerous examples of targeted military strikes that had a severe impact on the nature of the conflict.

The military raids feature aims to add more narrative to your conflict while remaining an inherently strategic tool in your arsenal. Target experimental facilities, important military installations and more with high-risk, high-reward planned operations across multiple disciplines. We’ve aimed to have as much integration as possible here with special projects: raids will be one of your main counterplays to an opponent scheming to develop their own [redacted].

Germany

Germany will be receiving a totally revised historical national focus tree and a host of new alternate historical paths. We’ll go into further detail about exactly what is coming here, but we’ve put a high premium on retaining the core feeling that Germany’s old tree gave the player: a sense that they are the protagonist in the events leading up to the war; that the conflict revolves around their actions.

Austria

Resist the oncoming storm, cast off the shackles of enforced military impotence and retool your nation around your chosen identity. Forge a new history for Austria free of German control, standing as a beacon of resistance or reclaiming your fractured empire.

Revised Hungarian Focus Tree

A completely overhauled Hungarian focus tree, with a detailed historical revision and a completely unique perspective on reforging the Austro-Hungarian Empire, independent of Austrian content.

Belgian Focus Tree

Resist or welcome German supremacy. Draw on the natural wealth of the Congo and build potential for an African government-in-exile. Alternatively, play as the Belgian Congo, and either support the war effort, or throw off your old masters.

And of course that’s not all. With any release there’s a host of other items that will appear, some small, some bigger, and notably some pretty nice improvements to the way the AI will play on a tactical and planning level.

Expansion Pass

With Götterdämmerung we’ll be trying something a bit new. The release will be part of an expansion pass. Expansion passes are our way of both giving you a Roadmap for the content that’ll be arriving over the next few releases, and for letting you sign up to get that content when it arrives with a discount of 20%.

The expansion pass will include:

Instant unlock of three new 3d tank models and a music track
The Götterdämmerung expansion (Nov 14th 2024) - $24.99/£21.99/€24.99
The Graveyard of Empires country pack (Q1 2025) - $14.99/£12.79/€14.99
Prototype Vehicles unit pack (Q3 2025) - $6.99/£5.89/€6.99

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3152810/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Expansion_Pass_1

Now to get ahead of the game here: we understand that this method won’t appeal to everyone. All items listed above except for the first bullet-point will be available for purchase individually as usual, or in the DLC subscription.

Aug 29, 2024

War Effort | Patch 1.14.8 Checksum 9d66

Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Chakerathe

Generals!

The latest War Effort update is here and with it arrives more bugfixes and balance changes, with a few changes to France, the Warlords in the east and some changes to certain spirits!

Check out all the changes below and let us know what you think, and what other changes you'd like to see~

################################################################
######## Patch 1.14.8 "Bolivar" #########
################################################################

##################################
# Balance
##################################

- Brazil: focus "Potenji River Conference" changed so that instead of having Brazil declare war on American major enemies, they now instead join the American war, thus not applying the Defensive War bonus on the Axis and Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere in the late-game.
- Brazil: now even more extra hyper-unlikely to reject unification with Portugal if their ideologies match
- Czechoslovakia: focus "United Population" now grants 10% stability and war support as well as 150 political power if the "Divided Nation" national spirit has already been removed by the focus "Czech Socialism".
- France: Fixed an issue where SOMUA S35 was previously called SOUMUA S35.
- France: focus ""Begin Rearmament"" will no longer be cancelled if you drop below the required war support.
- France: wargoals for the French focus ""Secure the Crown"" target all Spains.
- France: the Orleanist focuses Slum Clearing and Counter-Action are both now 35 days focuses, and added an extra building slot to the Slum Clearing focus.
- France: focus ""Diplomatic Freedom"" now takes 35 days and give 50 political power.
- France: fixed an issue with offsets in the tree when taking the focus ""Revive the National Bloc"".
- France: focus ""Defensive Focus"" now gives 30 command power.
- France: focuses ""Invite Yugoslavia"" and ""Invite Romania"" now are 35 day focuses.
- France: Trimmed down the decision tooltips in the focus "Reorganize Aviation Industry" and added 2 Military factories as an instant completion reward in the focus.
- United Kingdom: Fixed an issue with a duplicated available trigger in the British focus “Commonwealth Ties”. Also changed the focus to include British Malaya in its targets, as well as give the targeted nations 50 political power each. Also made it into a 35 day focus.
- Warlords: focus Industrial Investments now gives 2 civilian factories instead of one.
- Warlords: now start with the national spirit “Warlord State” which can be upgraded through 3 different new focuses, and which is removed upon becoming any other type of state.
- Warlords: national spirit “Long Term Economic Planning” now also gives a 10% construction bonus to Supply Hubs.
- China: national spirit “Public Works” now also gives a 5% construction bonus to Railways.
- Warlords: focus “Personal Leadership” now takes 35 days and additionally grants 30 command power.
- China: national spirit “Rapid Mobilization” now also gives a 10% bonus to mobilization speed.
- Warlords: focus “Opposition” now also grants 5% war support.
- Warlords: focus “Cooperation with the Nationalists” now also grants 5% stability.
- Warlords: focus “Cooperation with the Communists” now also grants 50 political power.
- Warlords: focus “Cult of Personality” now also grants 5% war support.
- Warlords: focus Local Arms Production now gives 2 military factories instead of one.
- Spirits: Professional Officer Corps now grants 15% division experience gain and 30 max command power in place of 5% land XP, -5% doctrine cost and 0.20 daily command power
- Spirits: Elevated Engineering Corps no longer grants a 25% engineer trait xp gain factor. Railway gun bombardment bonus is now 25%, from 20%
- Spirits: Proper Heritage no longer grants 5% cavalry attack, and instead grants 10% Leader Experience Gain
- Spirits: State Serves the Military now grants 10% offensive war stability, from 10% political power gain
- Spirits: Logistical Focus spirit now grants -10% fuel consumption instead of -5%
- Cavalry Recon now gains a 15% speed bonus from the Mass Assault doctrine "Pocket Defence".
- Horseback Infantry now have several early benefits in military doctrines. We would still like to see them phased out in favor of motorized infantry, but for countries with no real options in the early game they should lose their shine a little later then currently.
- The Dutch MIOs Fokker and DAF are now both available from game start, and instead of being unlocked, are granted 2 extra levels when taking each MIOs respective focus.
- Increased the spirit of the naval acadamy spirits chance to gain +skills on level up from 40% to 50% to be in line with the army spirits
- the AI will be significantly less likely to leave countries alive on tiny islands during peace conferences

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################

- Added decisions for Wales and Y Wladfa to core each-others states if they control them.
- The Free French focus “Refus Absurde” can now also be completed if at peace to remove the Defeatism spirit, and the focus “Form the Provisional Government” now also removes the spirit in case it hasn’t been removed earlier.
- Finland no longer cedes Petsamo to the Soviets when losing the Winter War.

##################################
# UI
##################################

- Added simple allow_branch and offset effects to the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian focus trees.

##################################
# Modding
##################################

- Can no longer unlock a severely broken form of intelligence agency without LaR; this will error appropriately to help you track down the issue.

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################

- Bulgaria: Players with BftB should no longer encounter Fatherland Front when going to war with the Soviet Union while wrong ideology
- The Request Expeditionaries feature works with size 0 armies once again
- corrected railways around lille and dunkirk
- All single category MIOs (naval, air, land) should now use the correct XP type
- Fixed a bug when if you had a spirit of the army (leftmost army spirits) would cause any spirit from spirit of the naval academy (leftmost navy spirit) to not work properly
- Fixed a wrong tooltip where the % chance to gain +attack/defense/manouver+coordination in the spirit of the naval academy would say you a way lower % chance to get the benefit that what it really was (it said 20% but it was in fact 40%)
- Fixed a number of Soviet CCP icons that were not appearing correctly when the pack is enabled.
- Fixed an issue where Argentina could core only Guatemala and no other central-american nations using their South-American unity decisions, as well as making them able to core Easter Island.
- Fixed an issue where the 30 day cooldown for the damage dealt by Paratroopers after taking the "Combat Insertion"doctrine wasn't working and could be done an infinite number of times in the same state.
- Fixed an issue where a Warlord state that had inherited Nationalist China's focus tree couldn't remove their version of the Ineffective Bureaucracy spirit through the Examination Yuan focus.
- Fixed an error where the British Plan R-4 couldn't be successfully completed.
- Land Doctrine: People's Army now correctly applies cavalry suppression buff to Military Police; buff reduced to 0.35 Suppression Per Honse from 0.5
- Unit supply consumption now correctly uses 2 decimal places in tooltips and UI (functionality remains unchanged)
- Fixed an issue where the "Blockade Venezuela" decision would still be visible when Venezuela didn't exist.
- Fixed an issue where the leader trait “Unbreakable” wasn’t properly granting attack and defense modifiers.
- Fixed an issue where the Spanish national spirit “The Anti-Fascist Crusade” wasn’t properly granting the attack it said it was.
- Fixed an issue where the Nordic national spirit “The Nordic March” wasn’t properly granting the attack it said it was.
- Fixed an issue where the Nordic national spirit “To Arms Against Tyranny” wasn’t properly granting the defense it said it was.
- Fixed an issue where the Latvian national spirit “Dievturība” wasn’t properly granting attack and defense modifiers.
- Fixed an issue where the various Italian Papal national spirits weren't properly granting attack and defense modifiers.
- Fixed an issue where the Spanish national spirit “Embrace the Spanish Destiny” wasn’t properly granting the attack it said it was.
- Fixed an issue where the Spanish “Crusade Against Democracy” national spirits weren’t properly granting the attack and they said they were.
- Gdynia is now also included among the states that Poland can return to a democratic Germany if they are close to capitulation.
- Fixed various issues with the requirements and effects of the Norwegian decisions to convert convoys into destroyers.
- Fixed an issue where Chile couldn't bypass the focus "Demand the Guyanas" when already controlling all three target states.
- Fixed an issue where the Portuguese focus "Portuguese Artillery" didn't grant funds to the correct MIO.
- Fixed an issue where the Brazilian focus "Bribe the Military" wouldn't grant a dockyard due to incorrect checks in the focus.
- Fixed various issues where the Japanese Zaibatsu national spirits could join the wrong side of a civil war.
- Fixed an issue where the Latvian focus "Renew the Constitution of Latvia" wouldn't correctly swap the trait of the political advisor Alberts Kvesis as it said it did.
- Fixed an issue where the French focus and decisions for "Arms Purchases in the US" could be completed despite the requirements not being properly fulfilled.
- Entrenchment Chief no longer refuses to follow naming consistency rules (Thanks Reddit, we hated it too)

Jun 10, 2024

Soviet Union 2D Art Pack | War Effort Update 1.14.6 [Checksum: 5a08]

Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Katten

Hello there! Katten here. Today marks the final day of our Anniversary Week. It's been one thrilling ride, kicking off with our teaser for the upcoming expansion, followed by a giveaway that saw over 10,000 participants! Then came our secondary announcement: our first Content Creator Pack - Soviet Union 2D Art. Sunday brought the sweat with our broadcast of the grande finale for this year's Community Cup, where the Red Baron team claimed first place!

And now, today, we're excited to release the War Effort Update 1.14.6: Operation Badger, alongside the Content Creator Pack.

This post below will contain two key sections. First, we'll delve into the details of our War Effort update, followed by our second and final Dev Diary for the Content Creator Pack. But without further ado, I'll hand over the mic to Game Director, Arheo.

Wait, I almost forgot! Before that, we are also running a sale on the PDX Store with up to 70% off! Check it out HERE.

War Effort Update

Hey folks,

Arheo here with the change log for Operation Badger, the War Effort update which we've been brewing for some time now. We've spent a little more time than usual on making sure that there's some good QoL or small-feature items in here as a part of the anniversary update, so I hope these keep you going for a while!

Of course, this update goes live alongside the Content Creator Pack that the World Ablaze team have been working on, so I'll hand over to them for a deeper dive into what's coming there.

################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.14.6 "Bolivar" #########
################################################################

##################################
# Balance
##################################

- Updated the French focus "Avenge Waterloo" to include Luxembourg in it's targets.
- Increased warscore from sinking ships by 4-5x (this will continue to be iterated upon). Increased warscore from sinking convoys, and decreased convoy build decay rate to warscore.
- Canada: Changed around the starting navy to be more historically accurate. Also fixed various issues regarding Quebec and their victory points, as well as a typo in their fascist party name.
- Canada: Updated Canadian Air Chiefs
- Norway: focuses “Invite Cadillac to Norway” and “Invite Soviet Designers” now grant extra levels to the MIOs unlocked, and the Cadillac focus now only takes 35 days to complete.
- Norway: Now only Germany can trigger civil war by attacking
- Norway: focus "Approach the Fatherland League" now gives -5% democratic support instead of -10% fascist support.
- Iceland: mineral prospecting focus no longer runs a random list to decide which resource you get. You will always get 10 iron and 6 aluminium. Fishing industry spirit now grants -10% convoy cost at both levels.
- Chile: Reduced research speed bonus from French Academia to 3% from 10% (this is not a subtle comment against French academics)
- Chile: Reduced the amount of political power and war support available across several branches.
- Chile: Rayen Quitral now grants 10% stability from 20%
- Chile: Manuel Manquilef now grants 5% factory output, from 8, and no longer grants ideology drift defense
- Chile: Antonio Neculman now grants 6% research speed, from 15%
- Chile: Manuel Panguilef no longer reduces research speed, however provides 5% war support and stability, from 10%
- Chile: Reduced most sources of attack & core division attack to be in line with similar nations
- Chile: Adjusted most sources of national manpower factor to be more consistent with other nations
- Chile: Reduced bonuses substantially
- Chile: Grand Armada focus no longer grants dockyard output, but has increased dockyard construction speed; rewarding future plans rather than flat improvements. Positioning bonus removed.
- Chile: Patagonian Giants focus no longer grants division attack and defense, but increases breakthrough by 10% from 8%
- Chile: Development Inwards focus no longer reduces military factory construction speed by 25%
- Chile: via trans radio chilena bonuses halved
- South America Shared: hot and cold acclimitization factor reduced to 15% per focus, from 25%
- South America Shared: Reduced potential for most direct combat stats from decisions and focuses (attack, defense & org)
- Brazil: Reduced speed for research bonuses granted by Promote Resource Extraction focus to 50%x2 from 75%x2
- Brazil: Increases research speed from bonuses granted by Stimulate Civilian Economy to 50%x2 from 40%x2
- Brazil: Reduced research speed from bonuses granted by Italian Car Industry to 50%x2 from 75%x2
- Brazil: Increased research speed granted by bonuses in Desenvolituddimeot.... that one; to 50%x2 from 40%x2
- Argentina: Increase research speed bonus for synth rubber granted by Reinforce the Education System to 100%x1 from 50%x1
- Australia: Australian Army Catering Corps now grants 3x100% research speed bonuses to logistics company, from 1x300%
- Australia: Airborne defence focus now grants 1x100% research speed bonus for paratroopers, from 1x300%. It also now grants 2x50% cost reductions for special forces doctrine
- Australia: CAC Woomera focus now grants 3x100% research bonuses for specific hulls, from 1x300%
- Australia: Uranium Mining now grants 2x50% research bonuses from whatever it was before, and now grants 2x100% research bonuses for excavation tech
- Australia: Dominate the Skies now grants 4 air bases from 2, and 2 doctrine cost bonuses from 1
- Australia: Rebalanced several focuses in the Australian military branch letting them unlock an additional special forces branch specialism (AAT) quite early and without being a major, and granting a significant number of doctrine cost reductions for the above.
- Baltic Shared: Original designs focus now grants 50% speed bonuses, from 75%
- Bulgaria: Uranium Prospecting focus now grants 2x 100% bonuses, from 2x200%
- Bulgaria: Normalized several tech bonuses, overall slightly reducing the efficacy of research benefits
- Canada: Normalized several tech bonuses. Canadian Parachute Battalion now grants 2x50% special forces doctrine cost reduction, but reduces paratroopers research bonus to 100% from 300%
- Finland: Normalized research speed bonuses
- France: France can now unlock a special forces branch specialism from their military branch. Military branch has been slightly rearranged.
- Special Forces Doctrine: special forces cap factor bonuses significantly reduced
- Ethiopia: Normalized -some- of the research bonuses
- Generic Focus Tree: increased army experience gains and normalized army research bonuses
- Generic Focus Tree: Add Truck
- Generic Focus Tree: Fascist branch now provides a total of 3% recruitable population, from 7%, but now also provides 25% mobilization speed and 15% reduced supply penalties on core territory
- Generic Focus Tree: Communist branch now grants 400 weekly manpower (yes this will stack with the military spirit)
- Greece: Normalized research bonuses
- Italy: Normalized research bonuses (while a few went up or had charges added, these mostly came down)
- Japan: Tweaked some research bonuses (no big changes)
- Reduced Nuclear research bonuses across all focus trees
- Norway: Normalized research bonuses
- Poland: Normalized research bonuses
- Portugal: Normalized research bonuses. Focus 'POR_tropas_paraquedistas' now grants 2 50% special forces doctrine cost reductions
- Romania: Focus 'ROM_expand_the_marine_regiment' now grants 2 50% doctrine cost reductions for special forces doctrine
- South Africa: Focus 'SAF_south_african_special_forces' now grants 2x50% cost reductions for special forces doctrine
- Sweden: Normalized research bonuses
- Soviet Union: Normalized Research bonuses (mostly unchanged, Jet research won't be as fast)

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################

- Mini-Feature: Variant version is now separated from name, resulting in an improved dynamic equipment versioning system. (Modding: unique version strings can be provided for ship, armor, and plane equipment on a per-country level.)
- Mini-Feature: Civilian Factories can now be assigned to prioritize repairing damaged constructions
- Mini-Feature: Captured ships can now be refit through the individual ship design screen. Once redesigned, you will gain a regular design variant to be used as normal. Redesigning this way will no longer cost the original creator the experience price.
- Added Rio de Oro (The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) and Khuzestan as new cores gained when taking the 'Unite Arabia' decision.
- Updated the British Blackshirt March decisions to include Cumbria and the Isle of Man.
- Norway: no longer starts a civil war with historical focuses enabled
- Norway: Added unique leader traits to the Norwegian country leaders who did not yet have traits, and added Edvard Christian Danielsen as a new Admiral for the country.
- Changed the mutual exclusivity of the Nordic formable nations so that the "Kalmar Union" focus can be taken alongside one of the others, and only the "North Sea Empire" and "Nordic Union" are now mutually exclusive.
- Norway: Added an event for the Kingdom of Norway to choose their Stance regarding foreign policy, allowing for different playstyles.
- Norwegian fascist civil war can now be started when either Germany has declared war or when support for the fascist coup is significant enough. Other fascist powers can no longer be invited to invade.
- Made the first news event regarding the Italian annexation of Aussa fire only for Ethiopia.
- Equipment Variants are now a lot more 'sticky' with their names when you refit them, leading to much fewer instances of '1936 Destroyer Hull Class'.

##################################
# UI
##################################

- Many info popups now appear at the bottom-right of the screen and do not require manual interaction to clear. This change should drastically decrease the effects of 'popup spam'.

##################################
# Modding
##################################

- Equipment property is_frame should now auto-obsolete

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################

- Fixed an issue where the Chilean decision to Demand a Snap Election to become Communist was unavailable if playing with localization using a non-latin alphabet.
- Fixed an issue where the Icelandic Admiral from the event "A Danish King once More" and a Swiss Admiral from the focus "Train Navy Staff" would have General skills instead of Admiral ones.
- Fixed a minor typo in the event "War in South America".
- Fixed an issue where AI Turkey would not always select Adnan Menderes as president when made to go the Ottoman path, thus locking themselves out of the branch.
- Fixed an issue where in some fringe cases, completing the Spanish focus 'Caudillo of Spain' would accidentally kill Francisco Franco.
- Fixed various issues with the American event "A New General for China" triggered by a Chinese focus, where Joseph Stillwell would always become unavailable to the US no matter who they chose to send, as well as the advisor position of the character sent not being available to China.
- Fixed an issue where the full names for the Chilean political parties chosen in the 1938 election event wouldn't properly appear.
- Fixed an issue where the non-MTG tree for the UK could start overlapping when going down the Home Defense path.
- Fix OS inconsistency in how scripted bool values (yes/no) are parsed, leading to fixing a few script parsing errors on Linux/Mac
- Fixed an exploit that allowed you to bypass the Mapuche civil war as Chile by using war support to instigate a small-scale communist uprising, and also added is_subject = no triggers to various Chilean focuses regarding ideology, factions and wars.
- It is no longer possible to avoid air accidents by stacking air wings in bases. Air accident calculation has been adjusted as well, and the tooltip improved a little.
- State mapmode stops trying to display modifiers without icon
- Fixed two typos in the Soviet focus "Return Democracy to the Party".
- Fixed various issues and inconsistencies with the name of the Arabian formable nation.
- Moved provinces 13234 and 13235 in the state Northern Epirus from being erroneously counted as North America to being in Europe.
- Changed the name 'Attu' from being applied to a province in Shanxi to actually being applied to Attu Island.
- Fix focus 'Scramble for the Baltic' for Sweden where after one war the other war goals would disappear
- Fixed an issue where Greenland would not start with control of their capital state when released in the Nordics Fragmented game rule.
- Fixed an issue where you would be unable to construct Super-Heavy Battleships when running the game without MTG.
- Fixed a few instances where MIOs did not provide the reliability they claimed to be.
- NOR: Changed Extensive Recruitment and Expanded Conscription Drive to give a timed weekly manpower modifier rather than conscription factor.
- NOR: Changed Build Supplies Network to provide construction boost to Naval Base as well as Supply Hub.
- NOR: Notraskip and other focuses that used to require in exile government, now require capitulation instead for Man the Guns compatibility.
- Fixed an issue where the name from the research bonus received when doing the Norwegian focus "Military Police" had the wrong name.
- Fixed an issue where Chile could demand control of Guyanese territory from themselves if controlling any of the territory when taking their focus to do so.
- Fixed an issue where the Norwegian focus "Forsvarets Intelligence Service" would show up when not having La Resistance active.
- Fixed an issue where Genoa and Hinterpommern had incorrect names when playing with Russian localization.
- Fixed two issues where the small portraits for King Haakon and Prince Olav of Norway weren't showing up as intended.
- Fixed an issue where the Russian focus "Intervention in the Americas" was bugged and didn't have an effect.
- Fixed an issue where South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands wouldn't get cored when handed over to them by Japan as part of their scripted peace deal decisions/events.
- NOR: re-balanced preparation system.
- Fixed an issue where the North Sea Empire formable nation wouldn't get a core of Finnmark.
- Do not trigger the event creating Free France and Vichy France if Paris is not owned by France (Avoids possible crash in Peace Conference)
- Made the Brazilian focuses 'Join the Comintern', 'The Latin American Socialist', 'Reach Out to Our Neighbors', 'Establish Berlin Accords', 'Establish Rome Accords', and 'Form Mercosul'; the Uruguayan focuses 'Join the Allies' and 'The Fuhrmann Plan'; the Argentinian focuses 'Forge Our Own Future', 'Bastion of Peace', 'Argentina First', and 'Join the Axis'; the Paraguayan focuses 'Join the Axis', 'Join the Allies', and 'Join the Comintern'; and the Ethiopian focus 'Towards African Unity' require independence to be undertaken.
- Super heavy armor now works for both Man the Guns and non Man the Guns superheavy battleships
- Fixed an issue where Germany wouldn't get a core on Danzig when gaining it through the focus "Danzig for Slovakia".
- Fixed an issue where Brazil would be locked out of taking their "propose integration" decisions from the "United States of South America" focus if a member of their faction left it when the decision was still ongoing.
- Fix a bug where focuses (with modded icons) could get wrong icon in popups in MP
- Spain: Fixed an issue where the POUM couldn’t release nations, an effect which was only intended for the Anarchists.
- Spain: Fixed a minor issue in the Carlist Ai-strategy plan for Spain.
- Spain: Fixed an issue where the state modifier Autonomous State wasn’t removed from the relevant states if Galicia, the Basque Country or Catalonia owned them.
- Spain: Fixed a multitude of issues with Manuel Anazña not being an actual “character”, thus not being able to take certain focuses that required him as country leader if using non-Latin localization and more.
- Spain: The Spanish Republican AI should no longer be blocked from taking the focus Enlist the Carabineros.
- Spain: Made the falangist focus “Primo de Rivera Prisoner Exchange” take 35 days and also grant 5% war support.
- Spain: Added a new late-game focus for Falangist Spain to core all Hispanic lands, provided they control them all first.
- Spain: The Spanish focus in the Falangist path, “Unite Iberia” now also gives claims on Portugal.
- Spain: The Spanish focus in the Falangist path, “Absorb the Portuguese Empire” now has a different description, and alongside the previous wargoals on their former colonies, also grants cores on any Portuguese core states controlled by Spain at the time of Completion.
- Norway: Made the communist militias gained during the civil war disband at the end of it, returning any equipment and manpower they possessed to the player.
- Norway: Rebalanced the Norwegian Communist Preparations system.
- Norway: Fixed various issues with the Norwegian focus "Join the Comintern".
- Norway: Added is_subject = no triggers to various Norwegian focuses.
- Norway: Fixed an issue where the claims from the "Norwegian Royal Family Arrives" event weren't working.

World Ablaze CCP Developer Diary | Creative Process

Hi everyone! Coinciding with the release of the Soviet Union 2D Art Content Creator Pack ($3.99), Paradox has asked me to go over some of the creative process that has gone into this pack. Before we begin, I shall first introduce myself. My name is Aqeel Mughal, also known as Uncharted, and I am the founder and one of the head developers of World Ablaze. I have a degree in Illustration and Visual Communication and have spent the past 6 years working on artwork for Hearts of Iron IV. It became my most played game very quickly as I am a huge fan of grand strategy games starting all the way back from playing the board game Risk when I was a teen. Suffice to say, working on this CCP was an absolute treat, and I look forward to sharing the next moments with you all.

The creative process involved in this CCP falls under 2 main sections: the National Focuses/Spirits and the Technology tree icons. For the focuses, the first step when creating the focus icons was to ensure as many icons in the focus tree conveyed a unique concept that represented the description and effect it was giving, and that meant for the vast majority drawing a tailor-made centrepiece.

For the industry, this meant having factories or industrial machinery being shown, for example. For some of the political icons, I took inspiration from historical soviet propaganda posters/statues. I was very keen on each one being something 3D to help the focus pop out.

After the centrepiece was drawn, an appropriate frame was chosen that allowed the centrepiece to be shown without too much negative space, and either a bespoke or regular background was used depending on the importance of the focus. Laurels and colours were picked by which one fitted the theme of the respective tree and the focus itself (you will see a lot of red in the politics section, for example).

For national spirits, most of the icons created were either a smaller representation of the focus it came from or historical iconography. The rest convey the description of the spirit, such as the Trotsky Plot showcasing the intense rivalry of Trotsky and Stalin which led to the 1936 purges.

When it came to the style I chose, I very much wanted to inject more colour saturation and a higher contrast in what I drew to make the icons pop out a lot more and give them energy which would harmonise well with the dynamic scenes depicted.

A selection of focus icons taken from different trees illustrating the diversity of what you will find.

A showcase of some of the national spirits that are part of the CCP.

A comparison of vanilla art with CCP art.

When it came to the tech tree icons, there were a multitude of issues to try and address, a lot of generic and dated art was being used and I set out the goal to completely overhaul all of it to ensure consistency and higher quality for the CCP. After deciding what to draw I would seek blueprints or historical images where possible to act as my foundation. Each tech art starts with creating every shape and detail present in said blueprints/images before applying texture, shading, colour, and blending effects. The goal here was to create icons that fit in the game but pop out more, are somewhat proportional to each other (for example, light cruiser icons are smaller than battleship ones) and are consistent in their look.

For any designs that are entirely fiction, they were based on the closest historical counterpart to ground them as proper “what-if” designs.

Infantry and support icons created to be unique and high quality.

New and improved tank icons with a colour scheme appropriate to the Soviet Union.

A highlight of air pieces with historical camouflage schemes used.

A completely new spin on ship icons for HOI4 prioritizing scale and using new shading.

Unique artillery icons drawn that match the equipment name in the localisation.

An example of a historical correction

An example of a quality improvement

With an overhaul of all soviet tech art, consistency is achieved with variant icons.

Well everybody, thank you for reading and I hope you now have a good understanding as to the intentions and process of creating the artwork for this CCP. What I have shown is just a small snippet of what is in the CCP and with hundreds of icons included, I hope that all your future soviet games will be much more immersive and aesthetically pleasing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2981720/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Content_Creator_Pack__Soviet_Union_2D_Art/

Jun 8, 2024

Content Creator Pack - Soviet Union 2D Art | Announcement

Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Katten

Hello there! My name is Katten, and I'm your Community Manager for Hearts of Iron IV. Today, we are excited to announce our first-ever Content Creator Pack (or CCP for short) for Hearts of Iron IV which releases on the 10th of June. This is something we have previously done for Cities: Skylines and Crusader Kings. The pack is created by modders and published by us.

Before I hand it over to Ethan Mayer, one of the two creators of this pack, I wanted to address two frequently asked questions, as I'm sure they will come up.

Did you just take a free mod and make it paid?

No, we collaborated with modders to create completely new content!

What do the modders get from this?

Modders get paid based on the number of copies sold.

Now you can see what was hidden in our Roadmap!

World Ablaze CCP Developer Diary | What is this & Who are we?

Hello everyone! I am not your usual Dev Diary writer, so let me introduce myself. I am Ethan Mayer, otherwise known online as 156, one of the Head Developers of the Hearts of Iron IV mod World Ablaze. I am proud to announce, with the support of Paradox, our upcoming CCP Content Creator Pack – Soviet Union 2D Art which will soon be for sale for $3.99. Today, I’ll be explaining to y’all who we are, what this is, and how it all came to be. Let’s get to it!

We’ll save the backstory for later in this Dev Diary and firstly get straight into it by talking about what exactly is a Content Creator Pack. As touched on a bit previously, CCPs are small DLCs developed by modders and published by Paradox for their games, such as has been done “for Crusader Kings III. This is a mutually beneficial deal for all parties: more content gets created for Paradox’s games while the modders, who already work hard in their free time to mod the game, can make some money. Essentially, Paradox is providing a convenient, official, and publicly accessible way for the community to support modders, and in return, you get a small CCP for HOI4. It is an incredibly generous program, and we are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to participate. This particular CCP is similar to the other existing cosmetic DLCs for HOI4, such as Unit Pack and Music DLCs, except the content will be in the distinct World Ablaze style rather than the traditional HOI4 vanilla style. As the name of the pack aptly suggests, the content we are providing for the CCP is 2D art for the Soviet Union. There are over 300+ pieces of high-quality 2D art found in this pack that cover a wide range of Soviet content, including (but not limited to) equipment, national focuses, national spirits, etc. Aqeel will show off the art and creative process involved in its creation in the next Dev Diary. There will be plenty of pictures to ooh and ahh at!

As I said initially, many of you know me as 156, one of the Head Developers of the World Ablaze mod. Professionally, I am an electrical engineer, software engineer, and entrepreneur. I’ve worked for the likes of NASA, Microsoft, and, best of all, myself. I am an avid gamer (maybe moreso in my younger years, but the passion remains), and my favorite genre is, of course, strategy games. Paradox games have always held a special place in my heart as some of the best Grand Strategy RTS games ever made. I started playing Hearts of Iron all the way back in HOI2 and have continued with every installment since (extra shout out to the great spinoffs like Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game!). Safe to say all these years later, I am as big of a HOI fan as ever. I followed the development of Hearts of Iron IV from its first dev diary to its last and have been playing it since the day it was released. Vanilla was great at first, but as soon as the workshop started getting populated, mods were my go-to way to play.

Several years later in 2020, I met my good friend, partner, and fellow World Ablaze Head Developer Aqeel Mughal, otherwise known as Uncharted, and joined him to work on the mod. The rest is history. We’ve worked hard over the years to make World Ablaze into the mod it is today: a historical and challenging overhaul of HOI4. We are proud of what we have built and look forward to continuing its development at least as long as HOI4 is supported. If anyone is unfamiliar with what World Ablaze is all about, you can check out our Steam Workshop page here. The main features of the mod include unique equipment and accompanying technology trees, custom mechanics, original artwork, challenging AI, improved map design, and other total overhaul changes such as custom content, focus trees, decisions, etc. World Ablaze started from humble beginnings as the Armed Forces Overhaul (AFO) mod, which was just a historical technology tree and equipment mod for tanks, planes, and ships. However, the scope of the project grew into a total overhaul. Once you overhaul equipment to the extent that AFO did, overhauling the rest of the game was not only natural, but required to accompany such impressive equipment work. Thus, the ambition eventually became to make the best historically accurate World War 2 overhaul mod for Hearts of Iron IV. We have focused on producing a high-quality and professionally run mod, and we can thank our persistent dedication to these standards for our steady rise to prominence. Our mod’s development complexity is high due to the amount of unique equipment and other complex mechanics. In addition to working on the mod itself, I use my professional expertise to create automated tools that help us with development. The results speak for themselves, and although we are not done yet, we have come a long way.

In the past couple of years, Paradox’s outreach and communication with mods has improved significantly. We were lucky to be a part of all these Paradox-modder initiatives from their inception. As time went on, our relationship with Paradox grew, and more opportunities arose. One day, we began talking with Paradox about partnering to create a “Content Creator Pack” (CCP) similar to what has been done for other Paradox Grand Strategy Games, such as Crusader Kings III. As with CCPs for other games, they would be made by a modding team and published by Paradox as a way of both adding content to HOI4 and supporting modders, who dedicate a significant amount of free time to adding to the game. We were super excited about this opportunity, so we jumped on it. We immediately began drafting up proposals of DLCs we could create to send to the HOI4 team. After many back-and-forth meetings, presentations, and negotiations, we settled on the terms of our partnership and started work on this CCP.

If you’ve played World Ablaze, you know there’s a lot of great custom 2D art in mod. So, what’s the difference between that art and the art included in the CCP? All the 2D art in the CCP is entirely custom and drawn from scratch for this CCP. While there will inevitably be similarities between the art in the mod and the art in the CCP (due to the fact the same entities, such as equipment, exist in both vanilla and our mod), all the art in the CCP will be of higher quality since any existing art was also redrawn from scratch to be better and more detailed. With this CCP, we've made our mark in the game by giving the Soviet Union an entirely new artistic feel. Featuring unique, high-quality World Ablaze-style historical art, every piece has been crafted to meet exacting standards to ensure a top-notch experience. It is a great addition to any player’s game, but bonus points if you already love the look of World Ablaze and want that in your vanilla games as well. Don’t take my word for it; more information and examples of the included art will be shown off in the next Dev Diary!

Finally, I wanted to take some time to give out some much-deserved thank yous. A big thanks to Paradox for allowing us this great and rare opportunity to create official content that will now always be associated with the game we love. And of course, I want to extend my gratitude to all of the Hearts of Iron players who decide to support us by purchasing this CCP. It means the world to us; we ultimately do all of this, both the mod and CCP, for you, and y’all’s support is the reason we can continue to do the work we do. We hope you enjoy our content!