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Introducing: Hearts of Iron FRONTLINES

Generals!

Now that the QnA is wrapping up, we've got yet another announcement for you all:

We're proud to introduce HOI4 Frontlines - the brand new Hearts of Iron E-Sports community hub to help you set up your own Paradox supported HOI4 multiplayer events!

[h3]Find out more below![/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Developer Diary | Modding!

Hey there, everyone, Carlo here. As Content Designers, and developers, we not only make content, but we’re always trying to find new tools to do our job better and faster. And since HoI4 is crazy moddable, these tools are available to modders too, these are some of the new things you’ll be able to do when making mods, starting with Joint Focus Trees.

[h3]How do you make a Joint Focus Tree? [/h3]
Well, at its core, a JFT is a Shared Focus Branch, one where depending on conditions, has a set of member countries, and the completion of the focuses is shared between them, and different effects apply either to the country completing them, to the rest of the countries or to all of them equally.


After that it’s all Joint Focuses, and they’re different in a few ways. First thing you’ll notice is the text_icon parameter, we’ll talk about later, but the SECOND thing you’ll notice is the joint_trigger section. It’s a trigger that determines which countries will be considered part of the JFT and get their corresponding effects. In this case it’s checking if you have the alliance leader flag or you are in a faction with this country.


The other thing that’s different from normal focus trees is there’s 3 (THREE) different sections for Completion Rewards.


First one, regular old completion_reward does its effect in every valid country in the Joint Alliance, the same for everyone.

Then there’s completion_reward_joint_originator, that only applies the effect in the country that completed the focus.

And finally the completion_reward_joint_member, which applies the effect on every valid member of the alliance that is not the country that completed the focus.

That’s basically it. It’s a simple system, but we hope it’ll be flexible enough to have a bunch of use cases and variations, specially since it doesn’t need to be a faction! We used a faction as the most obvious use for it but you can make any amount of related or unrelated countries share the tree. Every country in a continent? Sure. Every communist country? Go ahead. Countries on both sides of a war? Can’t stop you!

I can’t wait to see what you do with it.

[h3]Focus Title Background[/h3]
In the previous point I mentioned a text_icon parameter, that’s the way we are giving you the ability to change the background for the Focus titles. It’s one of the features that were added to enhance the Joint Focus Tree, but can be useful for any kind of focus tree content..


It came about because we wanted a way to quickly differentiate normal focuses from joint focuses. At first we thought about just making them have the same framing on the focus icons but that proved… Not ideal.


The biggest problem is that it immediately made every focus icon be too busy and hard to read.


Plus, when the whole tree was pentagons everywhere, it looked way too repetitive.


Eventually, we accepted that we couldn’t solve this problem with art or design, and we were gonna have to resort to an extreme measure… Talking to a programmer D=

We barely survived, but after an arduous process we agreed to make a system to change the title background changeable. It was the best option; relatively simple to implement, noticeable, and we didn’t need to make every icon from scratch. Of course there was still a bit of trial and error to get the look right.


Setting them up is relatively easy. First, you will have to set up the 4 GFX entries you set up in the nationalfocusview.gfx, in our case, most of the animations and masks work just fine so it was mostly copy-pasting.


There’s a new file called 00_titlebar_styles where you can add style entries and specify the GFXs for each state, and set one as default so you don’t need to specify the style for every single focus..


And now you just use your new style with the focuses you want in the text_icon parameter. They’re set on a focus by focus basis so you can go wild and do dumb stuff with any kind of focus!



[h3]Dynamic Focus Icons[/h3]
Another feature that we added thanks to the Joint Focus Tree. You now can have the focus icons change depending on conditions. This is something I’ve wanted for a long time but never found a big enough excuse to do it… Until now.

The reason we finally added it for the JFT is that we want to have the option of playing it as more than one ideology, while still giving you some thematic distinction. After all, a democratic alliance should have a very different look from one formed by monarchies and dictatorships.


How they’re set up is very simple. Instead of specifying a GFX, you can open brackets and enter a trigger and a value. First one to be true becomes the icon for that focus! Just remember to add the “dynamic = yes” parameter so it’s updated more easily.



[h3]Showing Event Option Tooltips[/h3]
One of the things I hate the most when doing events is showing the effects of both sides of the events in tooltips. Usually, when we have an event option that sends another event to another country, we have to show you what will happen in your country, and in the other country, so you can better judge what’s the right choice. This has always meant adding effect_tooltips and duplicating the other side’s effects inside it, which is time consuming and annoying to maintain and keep track of.


Well not anymore! (Kind of). We’ve added an effect called event_option_tooltip, that allows you to show the tooltip that option will display.


This is also very useful for those effects that go after the “If They Accept” tooltip.


It does have some limitations, like ignoring anything inside a FROM so you don’t accidentally crash the game with an infinite loop if you have a show_event_tooltip on both sides, but it’s already been a time saver and we hope to improve on it in the future. .

[h3]Modifying the Effectiveness of Forts[/h3]
You know, not every fort is built the same, but until now they were in HoI. To make it easier to represent just how bad and outdated fortifications were in Norway and Denmark we needed something extra, so we added a couple of percentual modifiers that change the attack penalty inflicted on the attacking enemy by forts: land_bunker_effectiveness_factor and coastal_bunker_effectiveness_factor.


Before, if we wanted to represent having bad forts, our only option was reducing their production speed, which numerically could make some sense but feels a bit off thematically. You can be very fast in making really bad forts and vice versa.


For example, if a fort normally inflicts a 15% penalty and you have a -50% value in land_bunker_effectiveness_factor, that penalty will be reduced to 7.5%. Forts are already plenty effective so we’re mainly using this to make them worse, but of course, there are exceptions here and there.


And that’s it for me, but Mano de Zombi has a bunch of other stuff to show you!


Mano de Zombi here!
After returning from a sunny vacation to this Swedish deluge I really needed to go through some of the code support we've been getting lately in order to give meaning to my life and remind me of the things that I enjoy and that not even this weather can ruin for me.
So here you have a selection of functionality, tools and improvements that have been added during the past months by our amazing coders:

Scripted Loc can now be used in Dynamic Modifiers
Your dynamic modifiers can now dynamically change name (previously we needed to create duplicates and swap the modifiers and it was really painful and ugly T_T)

New Generator Parameters for create_wargoal effect
We can now use an array as the generator in the effect create_wargoal, allowing us to set the generator states based on the world conditions by the time the effect is executed:
  • You can use an already set array if you so desire:
  • Or you can create your own array and add states based on whatever requirements you'd like:


[h3]New Functionality for CTRL + ALT + Click[/h3]
We’ve added more functionality for the (debug-only) hotkey CTRL+ALT+Click on certain UI elements.
For those of you who might not know about this hotkey, this is an extremely useful tool for scripting and debugging: when used on a certain object in the UI, it will automatically open the file and lead to the line in which said object is defined, so you can immediately see the script behind it, and do whatever you need to do with it.
Quick example: (with debug mode on) you can CTRL+ALT+Click on a focus and it will open the appropriate focus file and lead you to the line in which it is defined:



As a reminder, this could already be used in focus, events (clicking on any of the event options), decisions, ideas (National Spirits, Designers, Laws, Officer Corps Spirits), characters (advisors, country leaders, unit leaders), technologies and doctrines.
Please forgive me if I forgot something, I can barely hear my thoughts on this rain…

Now, our amazing coders have fixed an issue with unavailable advisors not working with this (now they do!), and new functionality has been added so that we can now CTRL+ALT+Click on:

  • Designer Modules in the Ship/ Tank/ Plane Designers

  • Battalions in the Division Designer

  • Production Lines and Equipment in the Production Tab

  • Intel Agency Upgrades

  • Operations and Phases

  • MIOS and Traits


[h3]Improvements for Division Commanders.[/h3]
We have improved a bit the way of scripting Division Commanders (Field Officers). Now you can define them with a localized name and with portraits, both in OOB files and inside the create_unit effect:


[h3]Parameter random_select_amount[/h3]
This useful new parameter can be added to all the every_[scope] effects (every_character, every_state, every_other_country, etc.). The parameter takes an integer as value, and this value is the number of times the effect will run before breaking the “for” loop running behind the scenes.

Previously, we had a few different ways of applying effects to, let’s say, 3 random states, but all of them required an unreasonable amount of script and custom tooltips in order to make sure that the effects could not be applied to the same state twice, and they all generated very shitty tooltips.

Now, the use of random_select_amount allows us to apply effects to a number of random scopes (states, characters, countries…) in a very simple way with no possibility of choosing the same scope twice and generating a standard tooltip that indicates the actual states targeted by the effect:


[h3]Filter for including invisible unit leaders in effects & triggers[/h3]
If you ever had the need to apply effects to all your land and navy officers, regardless of them being visible to the country or not (due to, for example, the country not having completed a focus yet), you will find the new parameter include_invisible pretty useful.

This parameter is now available as an optional parameter in the full set of scoped triggers and effects related to unit leaders (every/random/all/any_unit/navy/army_leader). By default is set to false, so you only need to use it if you want to scope to all the unit leaders belonging to a TAG, regardless of them being visible (unlocked) to the country or not.


This is the full list of effects and triggers that benefit from this parameter:
every_unit_leader
random_unit_leader
every_army_leader
random_army_leader
every_navy_leader
random_navy_leader
all_unit_leader
all_army_leader
all_navy_leader
any_unit_leader
any_army_leader
any_navy_leader


[h3]Use of Variables as tag in targeted modifiers[/h3]
Now it is possible to input a variable as the tag parameter inside the targeted_modifier block, allowing us to store the appropriate country inside a variable and then apply the National Spirit targeting the appropriate country very easily!



And this is all for me, I’ll see you soon in a future Developer Diary but in the meanwhile I wish you all a great summer!

Developer Diary | Denmark Alt History

Velkommen tilbage to Danne’s Danish corner and the country where one of its leaders looks like Santa Claus while another one is literally named Christmas. It’s time for another Danish bashing Dev Diary, where we’ll look at what kind of alt-history shenanigans Denmark can do to avoid their world-breaking record for fastest capitulation. Will they be able to withstand German Panzer divisions? Will they be able to ally with the Germans? Will they be able to avenge their humiliating defeat of 1864? Will anyone finally make sense of the Danish language? Of all these questions, I have the least hope for the last one…

Before we get started, you might want to read up on the Historical Dev Diary if you haven’t done so, and keep in mind that all of this is still a work in progress - things might and will change before release.

Let’s start off with looking at a bunch of art assets that I either forgot last time around, or that weren’t finished back then. Here you can see Denmark’s standard infantry at the very top, together with the Danish Brigade and the Resistance militia divisions. And down in the left corner, you can see the literally brand new militia unit - based on Denmark’s WW1 uniforms. Fun fact: the faces of the Danish soldiers are in fact modeled after a real-life Danish officer who fought in WW2.


And here are 2 airplanes unique for Denmark - and definitely alt-history since these designs never left the design phase:


[h3]Aligning with Your Overlord[/h3]
Denmark (in)famously capitulated two hours after the German invasion, and if you capitulate to an invading enemy the Occupation Branch becomes available and you’ll be able to gather foreign support to eventually topple your evil overlord and become free once more. That’s all historical and nice and all - but what if you could join forces with your overlord and go on a conquering rampage through the Nordics? Wouldn’t that just be swell? Well, if that sounds interesting I got just the thing for you, chap!



Why not take advantage of being a puppet and use your overlord for your own gains? By completing the Focuses Align with Overlord and Contribute to the War Effort you unlock Denmark’s Military Branch again and you can conquer the rest of the Nordic countries you’re not in a faction with. Sometimes it just feels good being bad! This doesn’t preclude you from backstabbing your overlord though; you can still pursue your independence by building up a resistance movement, declaring your independence, and waging war against your former masters. Or, if you against all odds have had your fill of war, blood, and steel (I doubt it though), you can work on becoming independent through peaceful means.



[h3]Rearming Denmark[/h3]
But what if you really don’t wanna become a puppet of a bigger, stronger neighbor? Well, there’s something for that too. If you want to withstand the onslaught of the Wehrmacht, you better rearm and seek out allies in the Rearmament Branch.



Historically, there were forces within Denmark that wanted to rearm and strengthen the defenses - Christmas Møller, the leader of the Conservative Party, being a notable example. Thorvald Stauning, the Prime Minister of Denmark, even tried to seek an alliance with the rest of the Nordic nations, but those plans fell through. He then tried to initiate cooperation with the UK, where he under no uncertain terms was informed that they could not guarantee Denmark’s safety and wouldn’t make any commitment to military support. This cemented Danish pacifism and neutrality even further. But you don’t have to suffer the same fate…

Let’s start off with the sub-branch that is shared with the Historical Path:



This branch is all about building up and improving your industries and production. You’ll add 1 level of infrastructure in all of mainland Denmark, before having to choose what kind of regulations you want to impose on your industries - if any at all.


The astute among you will have figured out that there is no pure communist path for Denmark - but that will not be an issue if you want to overthrow the king and let the people’s revolution sweep across the nation! You simply have to use the election system implemented for Denmark ;) But they do have a Focus only they can take, namely Introduce the Five Year Plan



And if you don’t wanna go commie, you can have a Limited Social Mobilization to face any German looming threats



Now, let’s get to the meat and bones of the Rearmament Branch. One thing that’s prudent to do is to prepare every facet of society for the coming war, which you can do through the various Preparation Focuses before being able to do a Full Social Mobilization



Preparations are all fine and dandy, but it might still be a bit challenging to hold back German Panzers all on your own. As luck would have it - you don’t have to do it all by yourself. Completing the Focus Seek Protection will open up two distinct possibilities for you; seeking out a Guarantor of sorts, or joining a Faction. Both of these sub-branch's effects will vary slightly depending on the choices you make. But let’s break them down individually, shall we?

Signing a Non-Aggression pact might seem like a silly focus to do, and not at all worthwhile - but there are benefits to be reaped eventually. Completing the Sign a Non-Aggression Pact will open up the decision Seek a Guarantor, where you can choose between different countries to approach. Mind you, they will all have different ramifications for the following focuses!


Then with Negotiate a Trade Deal you get a couple of Subsidies for various equipment targeting the Non-aggression signator country - plus a Licensing Agreement with them



With Enter a Research and Partnership Program you start to truly see the effects of your previous choice of country to sign a pact with:


And the last focus of this sub-branch, Territory for Protection (which is precisely what it sounds like), is where the true effects of your choice of signatory country comes into play; which piece of your nation are you willing to part with in order to get a guarantee from a major power?



But there are other ways of getting friends if you don’t feel like parting with a single territory of your realm. All you have to do is seek Strength in Numbers, which will remove your National Spirit Declaration of Neutrality - which also means that you no longer will have the option of instantly becoming anyone’s puppet in case of an invasion. Completing this focus will give you a Decision to choose what nation you want to form an alliance with; do you want to join an existing one, or maybe start a brand new one? You also open up the Joint Focus Tree if you want to have deeper cooperation with your Nordic neighbors. But as with Sign a Non-Aggression Pact, the choice of ally will have ramifications for the following focuses.


Yeeeeeaaaaah, that’s one BIG tooltip, isn’t it? I’m afraid it’s necessary in order to show the different outcomes of each choice you can make; I would rather have a well-informed player than remove crucial information.

Last but not least, you can invite the other Nordic countries into your faction. But see, the Scandinavian nations weren’t too keen on joining any alliances at this point in time, so what do you do if or when they turn you down? Well, I suppose they would still need protection, whether or not they realize that themselves. And I suppose it would be best if a fellow Nordic brethren did the protecting. And I suppose you, who understand and see the severity of the situation, would be in the best position to offer said protection. And I suppose you have been rearming Denmark for a reason, so you might just as well put that brand-new grand army to use - to protect the Nordic peoples of course.


But what if you want to take a more… proactive approach instead of letting the Germans come to you? Well, you can always-

[h3]Let the King Assume Power[/h3]
Now, historically King Christian X didn’t meddle too much in politics - not after the Eastern Crisis, when a Civil War almost broke out in Denmark - even though he had the authority and power to do so. He actually served for quite some time in the army before becoming King, and as such he often wore uniform and maintained his identity as an officer. But even so, he can’t just overthrow the government and grab power for himself willy-nilly. You gotta work for it, where the first step is to Unify the Right and start to gather the right-wing parties in a form of coalition. The first few focuses in your effort to give Christian X full authority of the government will be all about strengthening the support for the Non-aligned party and undermining the Democratic parties, but also to gaining the support of the officer corps and strengthening them too. But while doing so, you’ll also boost the Fascist party - so be mindful not to let them become too powerful!


Having come to power, Christian X can promote unity with For Konge og Fædreland, where you’ll get access to the Chief of Navy and begrudgingly bad-ass-looking crown prince of Denmark.


And just here’s a non-game related picture of the future bad-ass-looking King of Denmark, Frederik IX covered in tattoos. Who knew royalties were even allowed to get inked?


You’ll also be able to realign the industries and economy to better serve national interests with Align the Industries to National Interests and Economic Mobilization and making sure that Denmark isn’t a technological backwater by expanding Copenhapen’s University and gaining one more Research slot.


While you can take a more proactive foreign political stance, you can still choose to join forces with the Allies, imperial Germany, or any of the Nordic nations and access parts of the Rearmament Branch. This would preclude a more offensive approach though - but the choice is there.

If you choose to take the offensive to your enemies and turn your gaze toward a Europe in turmoil you have first to secure your Northern Flank with Scandinavian Security. You’ll have to decide if you want to create your own faction, or if you wanna solo it completely.


After that, the Nordics are your oyster! You can try to influence countries around the Baltic Sea and eventually offer them proper protection in the form of subjugation - there is after all something to be said about the pen being mightier than the sword.


Or you can try to reclaim old Danish territory. Norway was after all united with Denmark for literally hundreds of years, and Sweden really should know its place under Danish rule - just like in the good old Kalmar Union days. On your way to conquering the Scandinavian countries, you’ll be helped by a nifty National Spirit;


But, if you manage to convince one of these nations to accept your protection and become a puppet, the focuses will offer other benefits;


And with Sweden under your control you can exploit their immense mineral wealth, and even offer resource rights to a nation for guarantees:


And lastly, we have the end focuses for Denmark - all based on different time periods in Danish history. You can either take on the Germans with Avenging 1864 - to make sure that they never threaten the Danish heartlands ever again. Or, you can pick up the Danish ambitions of establishing a Baltic Sea empire, the Dominium Maric Baltici; Danish expansions into the Baltics go back to medieval times and they fought the Swedes over dominance in the region.

Lastly, you can turn your gaze even further back in time, to when Denmark first emerged as a unified country, and try to re-establish the Danelagen, or the Danelaw. This will allow you to re-form the old Viking realm of the North Sea Empire.


But this last focus is only available to the fascists. Oh, I suppose we have to talk about-

[h3]The Fascist Options[/h3]
Having overthrown the government and installed a new one, you might not want to empower the monarchy any further, but take Denmark in a different direction. Well, then you’ll have to have the Fascists March on the Capital to show how discontent they are with the lack of influence they have in the new regime. And after reaching the capital you have to make a choice; do you wanna go alone about conquering the world, or do you wanna team up with your fellow Fascists down south, just across the borders; the German Reich?


If you simply Seize Power for yourself, a civil war will ensue, but after that, you can put Denmark First and create a faction of your own - but this will of course remove your National Spirit Declaration of Neutrality.


On the other hand, if you want a big, strong neighbor helping out in your expansions you can always turn to the Germans and Ask for Support. You can then deepen your cooperation with the focus Dano-German Military Cooperation.


But the country’s been through quite a bit at this point - not one, but two coups! - so you’ll have to Rally the Nation before moving on.


But after that is done you can wreak havoc as you see fit. The Fascist path largely shares the same expansionist focuses that the Monarchist path does, so you know all about that part already. But what the Fascists can do is Institute Corporatism


You’ll also get the opportunity to Prioritize Søværnet or Prioritize Hæren


And if things are going really badly for you and you find yourself being pushed back on all fronts and losing ground, you can declare Total Krig - Total War


I think that’s about it for alt-historical Denmark. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these Dev Diaries and found at least one of the branches intriguing - I have had a blast working on Denmark! I think their history with the occupation was really interesting, and trying to incorporate that somehow was a lot of fun. Their failed attempts to join or create an alliance were also really useful. Their rich history ranging from the Viking era to their different forms of empire throughout the ages gave a lot of inspiration to where to take their alt-history paths too. Hopefully, you can take this small nation and restore it to empirehood once again (I’ve heard that those pesky Swedes have been bad-mouthing the Danes - so go and teach them a lesson in humility)!

And with that,
Jeg må løbe, på gensyn!

Behind the Scenes of Säkkijärven Polkka!

Generals!

Arms Against Tyranny is on the horizon, and with it, our latest Pre-Order bonus track Säkkijärven Polkka!

In this latest video, we're letting you get behind the scenes in its production!

Make sure to check it out here



Developer Diary | Sweden Alt History

Good morning/evening/night!

Summer break is over here in Sweden, most of the team is back from vacation and it's full steam ahead towards the finnish line. As mentioned in the last Swedish DD there’s two designers for the Swedish tree, so you might see both of us answer in the comments below. Without further ado

[h3]Communist Sweden[/h3]
In game the path to communist Sweden is to the left side (we finally managed to have the communist path on the left and the fascist one one the right) of the democratic historical path where you instead choose to align with the Swedish trade union to unlock some communist advisors


When your support for the cause is high enough, you can flip communist with the leader Nils Flyg. This guy definitely does not fit into the HoI mold as he became disillusioned with the Soviet Union and became pro-axis.


In game this means that the non-comforming Flyg can join the Axis (for the rest of you historical figures it would really help us if you only stuck to your designated 4 allowed ideologies please)


Flygs grip on power will be challenged by Karl Kilbom after a period of time, where you can choose to align more with the allies for a less radical future.

As you flip communist the fascists are not all too pleased and will start gathering support for a counterrevolution, eventually also dragging in the military if you wait too long. Preventing a counter revolution will expose the big ringleaders of the plot.


The ringleaders are 3 of your generals, and you get to decide what to do with them. Either you prosecute them for treason using the legal system, which retires them permanently but gives stability, or you “promote” them away from power where they can do any real harm, keeping them as generals but getting a debuff.


In any case fascism is crushed in the country and we now get to a cornerstone of the communist branch, socialist reforms. All those toasters that you used to throw away? They are now used for something


You also get to enact different policies that relates to consumer goods, turning your civilian population into a potential powerhouse.


To the left there are two refuge focuses. The first one is quite self explanatory.


The second allows Sweden to get foreign communist advisors depending on what focus path other countries are going for. In this example Portugal has gone down the Iberian Wedding path, Poland has gone with the April constitution and Ethiopia has gone down the Fascist path, so these advisors will flee to Sweden and become available. This list will grow or shrink depending on what other countries pick as their focus path. Regardless, the player will always get the specialized Communist Military Council.


State planning committee and Establish Politibury both expand on the consumer goods decisions and give some needed factories, while the Starve the fascists/allies of iron embargoes your future enemy and increases your output at the cost of consumer goods.


The end of the tree deals directly with your neighbors, for Norway and Denmark you can more easily influence them and eventually topple their government in a civil war for that James Bond (™) spy experience.


The Finnish version is more about actively helping the Finns and use them as a buffer state against a potential angry USSR.


The capstone focus of the tree is when you offer everyone a base minimum income, which will help with newly conquered states compliance. At the end the path merges with the late game focuses as described in the first DD.

As you might see, a lot of this path is focused on using consumer goods in a beneficial way. You can control how much/little goods you spend, thus increasing the strength of Folkhemmet at the cost of your consumer industry.


In this extreme example I have gained a lot of bonuses


But it has also resulted in my civilian economy tanking.

[h3]Small changes since last time[/h3]
There's some small changes since the last DD that I think I should mention, first of which are changes to how Hungershield works.

Previously if you were under a % stability threshold the game would roll a die each month, and if the player were unlucky enough they would get strikes. While being under the threshold had the desired effect being at unease I never liked putting the player at the hands of RNGesus for such a critical component.

The most likely outcome if a player got a bad roll would probably just be reloading from the latest autosave, which was something I wanted to avoid.


The system is now more deterministic. The player can always see the conditions for the strikes starting to tick down, and it gives you some time to adjust your strategy accordingly, which is a more fair system. If you have ever played Mexico this might look familiar to you.

The Nordic defense council branch also got some additions. There are some new focuses, and the entire branch now hooks directly into the tail end of the democratic branch so that it is no longer just a dead end..


And if you get to a fully powered council you get to build the ultimate battleship, but it might sink your economy for a little while.


If you are unlucky and no one accepts your invitation, you can now coax them to join, so even if no one initially joins its not game over and you have to restart.


And here is the council portrait itself


Raoul Wallenberg is now an advisor and operative and Sweden now gets a snow focused armored car


[h3]Resource balance boggolo two[/h3]
Unrelated to Sweden here are some new numbers on the upcoming steel changes coming in the accompanying patch. All stats are at game start (‘36), with infrastructure and no production lines. The (start) rows are with the starting trade law of the country, while (total) is on closed economy.



Germany

PRE-AAT

AAT

Delta



Steel (start)

381

253

-128



Steel (Total)

508

284

-224



Austria

-

-

-



Steel (start)

5

15

10



Steel (Total)

10

29

19



France

-

-

-



Steel (start)

457

313

-144



Steel (Total)

914

625

-289



UK

-

-

-



Steel (start)

229

262

33



Steel (Total)

452

524

72



As you can see Germany and France still get axed in regards to some of their steel production, but not as bad as before. With the drastically reduced steel production presented in the first dev diary Germany had no option to go on any other law (unless spending massive amounts of resources on trade).

While making Germany more reliant on trade and reducing the overabundance on steel that the game has, essentially allowing Germany and France to bypass a lot of the resource aspect of the game was a goal, I did not want to force players to be on limited trade and that was the end all be all, which would be the same as free trade being the end all be all before.


Now a German player has the ability to go on Free Trade while still hovering on the green (barely) at game start with no additional mils (using the starting lines).

If the goal is to build civs for the first years of the game free trade might still be lucrative for you, but once you start ramping up military production you will probably be forced to change laws.

Vice versa if you are more into a mil rush build you might want to bump the law to export focus instead.

France instead has gained some steel from before, mostly due to Africa.


Northern Africa's deposits are now more abundant than before (note that you don’t access it all due to compliance at the start but can unlock it all with the Blum -Violette proposal). My hope is that it is gonna incentivize the Northern African campaign from both sides, with the allies wanting to secure the steel and the axis wanting to claim it.

As you can see the UK has also gained some resources, those are from the Sierra Leone and Ghana mines


This is to give a larger purpose to areas of Africa that historically in game has had little reason of justification to hold or conquer. The real value of the steel is a bit higher than is presented here but is lower due to occupation and compliance.



Germany also has 1 new focus where it can gain resource rights for Västerbotten, giving them a nice 49 tungsten, 55 steel and 21 chromium, and some nice buffs to Sweden’s economy



Additionally Operation Weserübung now has the additional effect of adding civilian factories if Germany controls Narvik. This hopefully will add some extra incentive to control the port. However this also gives the option of the UK launching Plan R 4


If the UK invades Narvik they can be given the option to go into Sweden, blow up the Swedish iron ore mines and get out. Successfully doing this will remove all the civilian factories that Germany has gotten from controlling Narvik, and sabotaging the Swedes mines. It will also give the UK the option to white peace Sweden to avoid a full scale Swedish war. This will only be available for a short period though as if you fail the operation the public will see through the charade of “we are just trying to help the Finns”, leading to a large drop in stability.

Currently the resource gained from compliance has also been increased from 60% to 65%, but as always balance is in flux and these might be changed later. Germany still starts with 2 extra civs.

[h3]Fascism and Monarchism[/h3]
Let’s dive into the other ideological alternate history paths for Sweden, those being monarchism and fascism. It isn’t really accurate to categorize Swedish far-right activity during this period as simply fascist. The public were largely disdainful of Italian style fascism, seeing it as a foreign ideology trying to undermine the foundations of their nation, much the same as they viewed communism. Instead, many would-be fascists looked to German National Socialism for inspiration due to the strong cultural and economic links between Sweden and Germany. While this would make the movement more palatable to Swedes, it would have repercussions for the movement in the long-run.


The National Socialist movement in Sweden during this time period, while active and visible, was unsuccessful in gaining much traction with the public. There were many reasons for this, but we shall try to summarize the main points. Perhaps the primary factor that undermined them, and the communists for that matter, was the success of the Social Democrats in providing a strong social safety net and employment for the masses. This meant people were less likely to be radicalized in the same way that occurred in Germany or Italy following the Great Depression. Furthermore, there were multiple National Socialist parties all bickering with one another, keeping the movement fragmented.

Geo-political factors also contributed to undermining far-right activity. The historic animosity with Russia led many to see communism as a Trojan horse for Russia to gain influence over Swedish affairs. This prevented the communists gaining too much support and in turn prevented large numbers of would-be National Socialists joining movements to curtail them, as had occurred in Weimar Germany following WWI. Furthermore, Swedish neutrality over the previous century meant there was little appetite for the militaristic rhetoric that was so successful in other nations of the time period and there were no seriously pressing territorial disputes that could be called upon to galvanize the public against a common foe. Instead, most of the public supported the nation’s continued neutrality, save for the Winter War when many Swedes were prepared to fight in defense of their eastward neighbor, Finland.

As mentioned above, the far-right in Sweden were predominantly National Socialist in character and this would ultimately be the undoing of the far-right in Sweden. Once World War II began there was a shift in Swedish attitudes against National Socialism, due to the threat Germany now posed to Swedish independence. While there were those of a ‘Quisling’ persuasion who hoped to be swept to power by a German occupation of Sweden, the National Socialist Movement fragmented further and was forced to drop their militaristic uniforms and tone down their rhetoric to maintain any semblance of support among the public.

With regards to the monarchy during this period, King Gustaf V had reigned since 1907 and had overseen the transition of the nation from a highly centralized power structure around himself, to a constitutional monarchy with universal suffrage. While there was much controversy over the King’s actions during the time period and high proportion of aristocrats in positions of power in the military, there was no movement advocating for the return to absolute monarchy.


Given all of this, you might be wondering if we even bothered to make a fascist or monarchist path for Sweden. Well, rest assured that we did. And whilst it took some time to figure out how to do it, I think we were successful in creating some engaging alt-history narratives that give players an immersive experience into how different things could have been in little old Sweden. So let’s get into it.


As you’re well aware by now, the National Socialists and the monarchy both suffered from similar issues and their supporters shared common grievances. Therefore, the path to restoring the monarchy or installing a National Socialist regime are initially the same. By taking the focus ‘The Old Enemy Stirs’ players can use the public’s fear of the Soviet Union and communism to gain support for their nationalist agenda. Players will have to walk a tightrope between lowering stability enough to gain support for radical political changes, while not enraging the political opposition too hastily and triggering civil disobedience.

The first real choice in this path is between undermining the fascists or revoking the anti-militia laws. ‘Undermine the fascists’ will put the player on the path towards restoring the powers of the King and becoming an absolute monarchy once more.



Meanwhile, ‘Revoke the Anti-Militia Laws’ will lead to the National Socialist movement coming to power. The historical context for this focus comes from 1931 when the Munckska kåren, a paramilitary organization of anti-communists were unveiled which led to a debate over such groups among the public. In 1934, the government would outlaw such organizations before they could get out of hand. This prevented the same sort of street violence that occurred in other nations during the time period, but in this scenario we are reversing course. In game play terms, this will allow players to recruit Stormtrupper militia divisions. These will be crucial to the player should the nation be embroiled in a civil war.

The following focus is shared between the monarchist and National Socialist branch, but allows the player to increase support for their respective ideology via decisions. However, these boosts in support will come at a price. Once democracy is suspended, missions will be activated whereby the player must fulfill their obligations to these benefactors, or face severe hits to stability.


On the National Socialist Side, another path must be chosen between pursuing a purely independent movement in Sweden, or approaching the German Reich for support. Gaining the support of Germany will be the easiest path for changing ideology and offers great rewards, however it will come at the cost of becoming their puppet. At least for now…


Let's take a closer look at the ‘Delegation to Berlin’ sub-branch first. As you can see, there are multiple mutually exclusive focuses here that allow the player to tweak the nation to their play style. While many will be content to fight alongside the Axis as a puppet, there are those who enjoy the challenge of overthrowing an overlord, both options are viable here. The path culminates in a decision to become the master of Scandinavia in the German sphere of influence or to backstab the Germans by declaring an independent Swedish Reich and attempting to defeat them militarily. Timing your betrayal of Germany with the war turning against them can be extremely fun.


Over in the independent part of the branch, the path to power requires gaining enough support to orchestrate a putsch. With the country undergoing so much internal turmoil in such a short space of time, the following focus gives a boost to rebuilding the nation and preventing adversaries from undermining the new regime via espionage.


If a monarchist play through is more your interest, you’ll have noticed the ‘Meet With the King’ branch. This section was inspired by three main factors, one being the historic ties between the Swedish royal family and Germany. The King’s wife, Queen Victoria, was one of many royals of German descent for example. These historic ties lead many to believe that King Gustaf was somewhat sympathetic to Germany during the time period. This wasn’t helped by him writing to Hitler of his support for the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The second factor that influenced our narrative was that the King invited the leader of the National Socialist party, Sven Olav Lindholm to the royal palace for a meeting. The third factor in our narrative was King Gustaf’s willingness to insert himself into political discussions despite the undemocratic nature of doing so. For example, in 1940 he threatened to abdicate as a means of forcing his preferred policy option during the ‘midsummer crisis.’
In our monarchist path, we’ve expanded on these factors so that we can see what might have happened if the King had been a little bit more politically active. The ‘Meet With the King’ focus triggers an event for unifying the nationalist movements of the nation under the banner of the King. Decisions are then unlocked to boost support for the King and the restoration of his authority. In order for this to work, the authority of the Social Democrats and the unions has to be undermined in the following focus. Finally, with enough support and destabilization, the King can return to power as absolute ruler.


Now, with either the King or the National Socialists in power, we come to ‘The Counter Revolution’ and the job of rebuilding Sweden upon a new ideology. This focus triggers the previously mentioned missions for fulfilling obligations to the supporters of your chosen movement as well as removing the Social Democrats’ Folkhemmet national spirit. This in turn allows the nation to more rapidly expand the military at the expense of stability. You may have noticed a number of hits to stability in this branch of the tree, this is because we wanted the process of changing Sweden from a well established, neutral democracy to a more authoritarian government to feel challenging.


Finally we come to the foreign policy aspect of this alt-history branch, which unsurprisingly allows for multiple expansionist opportunities at the expense of your neighbors. While we won’t go into every possible route today, the overarching theme for initial expansion is similar to Germany in the 1930s. These focuses give Sweden the opportunity to create an international crisis over small territorial disputes with their neighbors that ultimately undermines the integrity of said neighbors and allows Sweden to eventually conquer or puppet them.


However, we also have more co-operative methods of foreign policy here too. Sweden has the opportunity to approach the Allies and join their faction in exchange for Sweden’s historical overseas territories being returned to them. If accepted, Germany will be starved of much needed Swedish resources during the war and give Sweden territory in the Caribbean, Africa and India.


To the opposite end of this branch, we have opportunities to cooperate with the Axis and Finland in their dealings with the Soviet Union. This side culminates in Sweden gaining claims on the lands of Eastern Europe that once had historical ties to the Swedish vikings in centuries past. For those unaware, much of Russia and Ukraine was invaded or colonized by vikings who used the river networks of the region to navigate deep into the continent. While this may seem far fetched at first, it’s not unheard of for nationalistic movements to demand some sort of ownership of distant lands due to long forgotten or dubious claims. So it seems fitting that such a movement in Sweden would make such outlandish claims too. Plus, you’re still going to have to conquer and occupy those regions which offer interesting challenges.


The ultimate culmination of this branch though, is the creation of the Greater Nordic Reich. This focus allows Sweden to fully integrate the Nordic regions of their empire, gaining greater access to their resources and manpower.


That’s it for this week's dev diary! Hopefully you enjoyed this foray into alternate history Sweden and are looking forward to playing it for yourself in the not so distant future! Next week’s diary will be on alternate history Denmark with Daniel. See ya!