Hearts of Iron IV News

Greetings all!

As I indicated a few weeks ago with the launch of the open beta for 1.12.6, the Hoi4 War Effort initiative is well underway. To recap, this will take the form of a consistent series of monthly updates containing smaller content additions, bugfixes, and quality of life improvements, primarily targeting nations that have older (perhaps outdated) content.

Today we're launching the first of these updates to the live branch. You can find the patch notes (unchanged from the Open Beta version) below:

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# Balance
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- India now has access to a new focus and series of lengthy decisions which allow the offset of the Agrarian Society national spirit
- Imperial Associates can now become spymaster of their faction
- Manchukuo focus 'Hoankyoku' now grants a free Spy Agency if unbuilt, and a national focus granting +1 free operative slot
- Two new one-use war support decisions added, which simulate the effects of radio and film industry propaganda
- One new focus added to Romanian air section: 'White Squadron'
- Air supply mission cp cost has been reduced by 75%
- truce period after kicking a country from faction increased to 60 days from 30
- Hungary's Support Urbanization focus now grants one civilian factory in addition to the three building slots. Institute for Industrial Techniques now requires one of the prerequisites, not both.
- Hungarian spirit 'Invite Foreign Investors' now grants 10% research speed in addition to previous effects.
- Hungary now receives 2 uses of the 25% doctrine cost reduction from the 'Mobile Corps' spirit, from 1
- Default occupation law is now set to Military Governor, from Civilian Oversight
- AI is somewhat less likely to blow the suez canal without reasons
- Soviet NKVD advisors are no longer omniscient beings - enemy spy detection chance reduced to 0.2% base from 5% base
- Italian 'Air Innovations' focus now grants a 50% research bonus, from 75%
- Italian focus 'Reggianes Exports' now grants 1x 50% bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian Focus 'Citta del Aria' now grants 4x 25% bonuses, from 3x 75% research bonuses
- Italian focus 'Standardization' now provides 1x 75% research bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'specialization' now grants 2x 50% research bonuses, from 3x 50%
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori Leggeri' now provides 2x interdiction cost reductions, from 3
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori pesanti' now provides 2x 75% cost reductions for fleet in being, from 3x 75%
- Italian Cruiser Sub and Midget Sub focuses now grant 1x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75% cost reductions
- Italian focuses 'Navi da Battaglia' and 'Caccia... Cacciatorpprs... never mind' now provide 2x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'Redirect Alfa Romeo production' now grants 2x50% research bonuses for light aircraft, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'thermojet research' has been made less powerful
- Czech Communist focus 'Communism with a Human Face' now grants 3% Recruitable Population from 2%
- Czech focus 'War College' now grants -100% Field Officer Promotion Penalty
- Czech focus 'Air is Our Sea' now grants -15% fighter production cost, from -10%
- Czech focus 'Equal Access Guarantee' no longer reduces heavy tank production cost, but reduces light tank production cost by 15%, from 5%
- Czech Fortification focuses (left side) now grant significantly more army experience (10-30 each, from 5 each)
- Czech Hungarian Line and Polish Line focuses now take 35 days to complete, from 70
- Ethiopia: Cost to invite to executive council reduced to 100pp from 150, cost to integrate is now 3% stability, from 150pp
- Indian Focus 'Rhani of Jhansi' now provides a commander of level 5, from 3 (with associated skill increases)
- Indian focus 'Navy Funding' now provides 50 naval xp, from 20
- Indian focus 'British Army Support' now grants 2 uses of the 100% research bonus for support technology from 1 use, and 30 army experience, from 20
- Indian focus 'Lions of the Great War' now provides 30 army experience. The spirit granted by this focus now also provides 5% war support
- approximately 2 million people have been returned to Mozambique
- Romanian focuses 'Invest in the IAR' and 'MALAXA' now grant 3 of their respective factory types, from 2
- Romanian focuses 'Ground Support' and 'Air Defense' now grant 2x 50% doctrine cost bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'Air Superiority' now grants 2x 50% cost reduction bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'The Armored Division' now grants 2 armored units, from 1
- Warscore from taking a province for the first time increased by 50%
- Garrison Manpower lost per resistance attack reduced slightly
- Small Bomb Bay now has -15 agility, from -20. Bomb Locks now have -20 agility from -15
- Several ai modifiers have been added to the 'Protect Czechoslovakia' triggered event in the Hungarian focus tree, and a tooltip has been added to indicate what you can do to make it more likely to succeed
- Non-strategic materials module now decreases production cost of airframes by 7.5%
- Manchukuo focus 'The Two Emperors' now reduces the Low Legitimacy malus by 20% war support and stability
- Slightly reduced manpower requirements again for lower tier occupation laws
- Timed peace stackables (resource rights + war reparations) now only cancel when at war with the receiver, rather than when at war with anyone.
- The USA now has a significant peace cost reduction for puppeting Japan

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

- Hovered state highlighting is now used in construction and deployment mapmodes
- You are once again able to click and shift-click to set the priority on production line elements, using the priority frame indicator

##################################
# AI
##################################

- AI will now pick somewhat more interesting military spirits
- Slightly adjusted thresholds for AI using occupation laws, towards a more severe approach
- If Czechoslovakia is at war with Germany, Germany should now wait a while before declaring war on Poland
- improved air role ratios for countries AI
- Gave the AI an extra layer of though process behind taking states in peace conferences. Added several key areas of interest, and reduced their general interest elsewhere.
- AI contesting other AIs in peace conferences should now resolve their conflicts based on a combination of relative power and map aesthetics

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

- Added pc_turn trigger for peace conferences

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# Bugfix
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- Italy can no longer claim territory or the subjugation through decisions of a Balkan country if they are in the same faction
- If Italy tries to join the Stresa Front and has any wargoals on a faction member, they will be removed before Italy can join the faction
- Prevent CTD for observer when someone hotjoins
- Fix crash when putting the focus on an Edit text box and closing the screen by using the Escape key
- World Threat will now correctly build and decay from the fabrication of claims
- Fixed inconsistencies with BoP impact in Italy when losing/retaking core states.
- Switzerland now correctly updates best democratic allies when another country changes governments
- Former Presidents of the Swiss Confederation are now available as Councilors again after 1950
- Generic versions of Switzerland generated through Peace Conferences don't inherit Switzerland's systems or Focus Tree anymore.
- Indian civil war will no longer give you 0 units if you complete a civil war focus while Free
- Herzegovina is now transferred to Croatia if the appropriate event option is selected by Germany
- Cairo is now required to form Arabia, and is appropriately cored by the same decision
- Forming the ottoman empire without BftB now grants a core on Cairo. Cairo is now required and cored for the respective decisions in BftB
- Constantinople and Amasya are now cored by the Form Persia decision
- Ticino is now cored by the HRE decision
- Forming Byzantium without BftB will now appropriately grant cores on Constantinople and Amasya. Victory in Egypt and Tunis now requires and grants core on Cairo
- Forming Macedonia now requires and grants cores on Istanbul, Amasya, Van, and Cairo
- Decision alert should now show again if available decisions are present

Soon we'll begin an open beta period for our next War Effort patch, so those of you who are keen on getting your hands on changes early - keep your eyes peeled.


[h3]Message from the Team[/h3]

One of our primary motivations here is to work with the HOI community in greater depth for these updates. Suggestions are always welcome, ideas considered, and feedback, as always, is requested. While some ideas will always be outside the scope of the work we are doing for the War Effort, or at odds with the direction I see the game going, I'd urge those with strong opinions on how we can improve the game to leave feedback in one of the War Effort threads, or in the suggestions forum. Many items from the suggestions forum have already been appraised, and some implemented - this is a practice we will continue, so long as they make practical sense.


[h3]The War Effort Continues![/h3]

Our recon vehicles have spotted the way forward! We can now see the coming two Operations, but with reconnaissance, things can be quite uncertain so we will work hard on confirming these dates to make sure they are correct being sharing them with you all.

[h3]Greetings all![/h3]

Shortly, we'll be releasing the first of our slightly revamped monthly updates in the BBA cycle, which we're terming 'War Effort' patches. This is to distinguish between hotfix material and major updates, and to get everyone accustomed to a certain process and expectation. As per usual, we're going to run a short open beta on these changes before they're pushed to the live build.

As you read the patch notes, it may become evident that we're tackling some different stuff to our usual maintenance patches. While the usual bugfixes and balance are present, we're also extending these updates to include the addition of changes to older content. We have not yet settled on a defined scope or cadence for these 'War Effort' updates, but it is our intention to continue providing small upgrades to older country content that we may not revisit for some time, in one way or another. We'll be making selective use of the suggestions forum here, as there are often productive threads on these matters.

While the content changes are something we've wanted to tackle for a while, these patches give us a great opportunity to react to the general balance situation with relative speed.

What We Want From This

To summarise, you can expect monthly updates to contain a variable bucket of the following sort of things:

- Bugfixes
- Small QoL tweaks and changes
- New gameplay perspectives and focuses for some countries with older content
- Gameplay balance changes
- Career profile balance changes

What This Is Not

In the spirit of expectation control, there are a few things you can expect these updates not to contain:

- Large changes to major systems
- Non-fix changes to key calculations (combat, production etc)
- Feature level implementation

This is partly to ensure that mod support during these small updates remains manageable: we will reserve larger changes for major version iterations.


Why Open Beta?

The context behind our use of open beta branches is often misunderstood. We use these as an extra step to verify the changes we have made in a public setting, and to give mod teams a chance to adapt to any upcoming changes. An open beta will often transition to the live branch without any intermediate changes - this means we were satisfied with the integrity of the changes we made. We don't use feedback on open betas to get more changes and fixes in, unless there has been a regression from live content introduced in said beta. This does not mean such feedback is of no value; if we consider such feedback valuable and achievable, it may be added to a future monthly update.



[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

[h3] Balance[/h3]


- India now has access to a new focus and series of lengthy decisions which allow the offset of the Agrarian Society national spirit
- Imperial Associates can now become spymaster of their faction
- Manchukuo focus 'Hoankyoku' now grants a free Spy Agency if unbuilt, and a national focus granting +1 free operative slot
- Two new one-use war support decisions added, which simulate the effects of radio and film industry propaganda
- One new focus added to Romanian air section: 'White Squadron'
- Air supply mission cp cost has been reduced by 75%
- truce period after kicking a country from faction increased to 60 days from 30
- Hungary's Support Urbanization focus now grants one civilian factory in addition to the three building slots. Institute for Industrial Techniques now requires one of the prerequisites, not both.
- Hungarian spirit 'Invite Foreign Investors' now grants 10% research speed in addition to previous effects.
- Hungary now receives 2 uses of the 25% doctrine cost reduction from the 'Mobile Corps' spirit, from 1
- Default occupation law is now set to Military Governor, from Civilian Oversight
- AI is somewhat less likely to blow the suez canal without reasons
- Soviet NKVD advisors are no longer omniscient beings - enemy spy detection chance reduced to 0.2% base from 5% base
- Italian 'Air Innovations' focus now grants a 50% research bonus, from 75%
- Italian focus 'Reggianes Exports' now grants 1x 50% bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian Focus 'Citta del Aria' now grants 4x 25% bonuses, from 3x 75% research bonuses
- Italian focus 'Standardization' now provides 1x 75% research bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'specialization' now grants 2x 50% research bonuses, from 3x 50%
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori Leggeri' now provides 2x interdiction cost reductions, from 3
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori pesanti' now provides 2x 75% cost reductions for fleet in being, from 3x 75%
- Italian Cruiser Sub and Midget Sub focuses now grant 1x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75% cost reductions
- Italian focuses 'Navi da Battaglia' and 'Caccia... Cacciatorpprs... never mind' now provide 2x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'Redirect Alfa Romeo production' now grants 2x50% research bonuses for light aircraft, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'thermojet research' has been made less powerful
- Czech Communist focus 'Communism with a Human Face' now grants 3% Recruitable Population from 2%
- Czech focus 'War College' now grants -100% Field Officer Promotion Penalty
- Czech focus 'Air is Our Sea' now grants -15% fighter production cost, from -10%
- Czech focus 'Equal Access Guarantee' no longer reduces heavy tank production cost, but reduces light tank production cost by 15%, from 5%
- Czech Fortification focuses (left side) now grant significantly more army experience (10-30 each, from 5 each)
- Czech Hungarian Line and Polish Line focuses now take 35 days to complete, from 70
- Ethiopia: Cost to invite to executive council reduced to 100pp from 150, cost to integrate is now 3% stability, from 150pp
- Indian Focus 'Rhani of Jhansi' now provides a commander of level 5, from 3 (with associated skill increases)
- Indian focus 'Navy Funding' now provides 50 naval xp, from 20
- Indian focus 'British Army Support' now grants 2 uses of the 100% research bonus for support technology from 1 use, and 30 army experience, from 20
- Indian focus 'Lions of the Great War' now provides 30 army experience. The spirit granted by this focus now also provides 5% war support
- approximately 2 million people have been returned to Mozambique
- Romanian focuses 'Invest in the IAR' and 'MALAXA' now grant 3 of their respective factory types, from 2
- Romanian focuses 'Ground Support' and 'Air Defense' now grant 2x 50% doctrine cost bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'Air Superiority' now grants 2x 50% cost reduction bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'The Armored Division' now grants 2 armored units, from 1
- Warscore from taking a province for the first time increased by 50%
- Garrison Manpower lost per resistance attack reduced slightly
- Small Bomb Bay now has -15 agility, from -20. Bomb Locks now have -20 agility from -15
- Several ai modifiers have been added to the 'Protect Czechoslovakia' triggered event in the Hungarian focus tree, and a tooltip has been added to indicate what you can do to make it more likely to succeed
- Non-strategic materials module now decreases production cost of airframes by 7.5%
- Manchukuo focus 'The Two Emperors' now reduces the Low Legitimacy malus by 20% war support and stability
- Slightly reduced manpower requirements again for lower tier occupation laws
- Timed peace stackables (resource rights + war reparations) now only cancel when at war with the receiver, rather than when at war with anyone.
- The USA now has a significant peace cost reduction for puppeting Japan


[h3] UI[/h3]


- Hovered state highlighting is now used in construction and deployment mapmodes
- You are once again able to click and shift-click to set the priority on production line elements, using the priority frame indicator


[h3]AI[/h3]


- AI will now pick somewhat more interesting military spirits
- Slightly adjusted thresholds for AI using occupation laws, towards a more severe approach
- If Czechoslovakia is at war with Germany, Germany should now wait a while before declaring war on Poland
- improved air role ratios for countries AI
- Gave the AI an extra layer of though process behind taking states in peace conferences. Added several key areas of interest, and reduced their general interest elsewhere.
- AI contesting other AIs in peace conferences should now resolve their conflicts based on a combination of relative power and map aesthetics


[h3] Modding
[/h3]

- Added pc_turn trigger for peace conferences

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

- Italy can no longer claim territory or the subjugation through decisions of a Balkan country if they are in the same faction
- If Italy tries to join the Stresa Front and has any wargoals on a faction member, they will be removed before Italy can join the faction
- Prevent CTD for observer when someone hotjoins
- Fix crash when putting the focus on an Edit text box and closing the screen by using the Escape key
- World Threat will now correctly build and decay from the fabrication of claims
- Fixed inconsistencies with BoP impact in Italy when losing/retaking core states.
- Switzerland now correctly updates best democratic allies when another country changes governments
- Former Presidents of the Swiss Confederation are now available as Councilors again after 1950
- Generic versions of Switzerland generated through Peace Conferences don't inherit Switzerland's systems or Focus Tree anymore.
- Indian civil war will no longer give you 0 units if you complete a civil war focus while Free
- Herzegovina is now transferred to Croatia if the appropriate event option is selected by Germany
- Cairo is now required to form Arabia, and is appropriately cored by the same decision
- Forming the ottoman empire without BftB now grants a core on Cairo. Cairo is now required and cored for the respective decisions in BftB
- Constantinople and Amasya are now cored by the Form Persia decision
- Ticino is now cored by the HRE decision
- Forming Byzantium without BftB will now appropriately grant cores on Constantinople and Amasya. Victory in Egypt and Tunis now requires and grants core on Cairo
- Forming Macedonia now requires and grants cores on Istanbul, Amasya, Van, and Cairo
- Decision alert should now show again if available decisions are present

Hello there Generals!

Another update has arrived, and this is a big one! Today we release 1.12.5, that targets some of your most pressing concerns. But there is more! As we have a plan in the works to release monthly updates for By Blood Alone. So keep your eyes peeled for more information related to that!

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# Balance
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- Minor tweaks made to further railway/infrastructure focuses that were a bit weak, or were unchanged in the last iteration
- Changed certain Italian Balance of Power Decisions from being available only one time to once a year. This should give players more leeway with the whole balancing act
- Songgotu Zhanshan is now an economist for MAN to avoid a double Captain of Industry for MAN
- Stopped medium and heavy flame tanks from being able to be paradropped.
- Reduced values for some modifiers in Swiss National Spirits, including Spirit of Saint Bernard.
- Reduced values for the modifiers in swiss Weapons Designer and Popular Dictator traits.
- Made it less likely for countries to accept Swiss demands for territories.
- Influencing Cantons decision in Switzerland is now slightly more expensive and less likely to succeed.
- Cohesion settings should no longer result in unit clumping for the AI, and provide a much more stable frontline situation for all orders with less relocation, but may have slightly more overall movement than before. [GD note: from a design perspective, cohesion now works significantly better than previously; feedback particularly appreciated here]
- Changed the Yalta conference to make it better interact with the new Peace Conference Format.
- AI peace conference behaviour changed significantly when taking land for themselves. This is now much more distance based, and should result in more cohesive borders. [Iterative change #1]
- Peace Conference AI is now slightly more self-aware about contested bids. They will early-out of contests in some cases as an effort to reduce point wastage and to create more cohesive borders. Several defines added to control this behaviour. [Iterative change #2]
- Adjusted base org values for ship types
- Reduced org bonuses for some ship classes in doctrines
- Medium and heavy batteries attack and piercing adjusted, bb and bc armour no longer increases visibility and have higher armour values
- Increased xp spend cut off for legacy land equipment upgrade
- COMBAT_DAMAGE_SCALE_CARRIER returned to 5 was 1, NAVAL_STRIKE_DAMAGE_TO_STR decreased to 1 from 2, NAVAL_STRIKE_DAMAGE_TO_ORG decreased to 1.5 from 2
- Air combat COMBAT_DAMAGE_SCALE increase from 0.25 to 1
- SHIP_TO_FLEET_ANTI_AIR_RATIO increased from 0.2 to 0.25, ANTI_AIR_POW_ON_INCOMING_AIR_DAMAGE increased from 0.2 to 0.25, ANTI_AIR_MULT_ON_INCOMING_AIR_DAMAGE increased from 0.15 to 0.2
- Removed multiply stats ic cost and AA from Ship AA modules, increased base AA attack to replace them
- Reduced base Heavy hull costs slightly,all treaty battleships should now fit within treaty limits
- ENG now starts with 36 BB hull researched, nelson class now obsolete at 36 start
- Slightly improved Fascist/Neutral approach to beating overseas countries


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# Stability & Performance
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- Fixed a crash during hot joining on Mac.
- Reduced the size of the flags texture so the game works on GPUs with 8k texture limit
- Fixed rare CTD during GUI initialization in DX11
- Fix CTD caused by incorrect parsing of persistent AI strategy

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# AI
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- Improved ENG BB ai templates
- AI no longer treats obsolete equipment as best available equipment
- AI ENG will now try to build at least some KGV class BB's on time
- AI ENG now wants to build slightly higher ratio of BB's

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# UI
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- Airbase tooltip will now aggregate airwings of the same type, country and mission to make it more readable
- Glow effect is now shown when you can afford a BoP decision
- The game will now prevent incompatible saves from loading when continuing from the Launcher

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# Modding
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- Added has_completed_custom_achievement trigger and debug_custom_achievements console command
- More configurable AI behaviour in peace conferences (through defines)
- Reworked how ai_strategy unit_ratio is used to calculate and set build_airplane values. See common/ai_strategy/documentation.info for details.
- Added a list of all active ai_strategy entries to the imgui view ai_strategy.
- When retrieving a list of equipment icons or 3D models from the equipment graphic_db to display in the tank or plane designer any duplicate entries will now be removed.

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

- Minor loc fix for concessions to monarchies for Switzerland. Used to say "Concessions to Swiss Monarchies", now "Concessions to X country (German)" Monarchies
- Added a variable to whichever nation that cedes Bessarabia to Soviet so it shows up correctly in news events
- Fixed typos in Guarantee events for Switzerland.
- Fixed minor comment in Guarantees event for Switzerland.
- Adjusted "Side Active" condition for Balance of Power so it's more accurate.
- Added tooltip for Political Advisor Adolf Furrer so it's clear he can unlock an extra Research Slot
- Fixed typo in one of the Italo-Ethiopian war events
- Improved tooltip in Italian focus All Roads Lead to Rome so that the way wargoal targets are picked is more intuitive.
- General Cedillo is now again a leader of the Mexican revolt
- The Grand Council of Fascism will now actually oust Kings or Christian Democrats in the form of the National Military Junta, if the Balance of Power is low enough.
- Fixed old news event not having a dynamic loc for the USSrs name
- Slight loc fix changing 'Embargos' to 'Embargo' in the League of Nations embargo event.
- Added conditions for entering peace talks between Italy and Ethiopia, as well as events, and loc, and other things concerning the peace conference.
- Fixing missing Modify Government alert for a political advisor can be assigned.
- Salvador Abascal now has a portrait if you have MtG enabled
- Puyi now gets nationalist symbol correctly
- UK shouldn't be able to give Turkey Levant states that they no longer own.
- Germany no longer ignores Switzerland after they've stopped being neutral.
- Fixed trigger not showing appropriate requirements in Human Torpedo decision.
- Suppress the Mafia decision will, no longer show infantry equipment requirements twice.
- Italy's Focus 'Negotiate Claims' will be bypassed if certain criteria is met. Certain events will also be skipped, if the criteria isn't met.
- Fixed Germany granting territories to Switzerland in Fascist Path
- Added extra tooltips for expansion focuses in Switzerland
- If France is faction leader, all its allies will join them in the Stresa Front with Italy
- If Italy declines Germany's offer to assassinate Mussolini, Germany won't be able to ignore that rejection and go ahead with the assassination anyways. Also, if the Balance of Power is active for Italy, Mussolini's side will be switched out to the King's.
- Typo fix for BBA_ethiopia_anti_colonialism_events.4
- Fixed bad texture conversion on DX11 when using R8G8B8_UNORM, R8G8B8_UNORM_sRGB and X1R5G5B5 formats
- Ivan Smirnov, Ivar Smilga and Alexander Shlyapnikov now gets released out of prison if they are still alive and hasn't been released yet when completing Return Democracy to the party
- You can no longer use the "No Garrison -> Kurdish uprising -> Annex" exploit to fast remove Kurdish separatism faster than normal
- Turkish puppets can no longer pick the "invite to alliance" focuses and break free from their overlord that way
- Remade some checks that only checked for "puppet" subject type to include all subjects for Turkey
- Italy can no longer claim the throne of Montenegro if the controller of said state is at war with Italy.
- AI should now respect the equipment_production_min_factories AI strategy even when there is no need for the equipment type
- It's no longer possible to see certain Balance of Power Decisions before finishing the required National Focus for Italy
- Paradrop orders without enough assigned transport wings now display how many wings are missing on the order instance (map arrow) tooltip.
- Scrambled carrier air wings that can perform naval strike or kamikaze missions will prioritise them over air superiority and interception unless they are fighter or interceptor air wings.
- Fixed missing localization of equipment categories fighter and CAS, displayed in a naval combat tooltip and probably in a few other places too.
- Fixed issue where Vorarlberg wouldn't be a core of the Holy Roman Empire when formed by Germany.
- Fixed an instance where the Italian AI would always decline Ethiopian territorial expansions if Ethiopia went up to a satellite via the focus tree
- At the end of peace conference, for new puppets, calculate the right type of puppet
- Songgotu Zhanshan and Megata Toshiro are once again Manchurian advisors
- Tooltips in Northern and Southern Italian designers now specify the need to complete the Focus New Industrialization Program to improve them.
- Fixed issue with Italy completing two mutually exclusive focuses when failing on mussolini's missions to conquer North/South Ethiopia and withdrawing from Ethiopia at the same time.
- Turkeys join alliances focuses now bypasses if in faction
- Fixed missing core in the Siberian union that created a weird gap
- Losing non-cores as Italy will now only reduce BoP if the value is below 30% towards the Grand Council. Losing a core will now reduce 15% BoP instead of 20%.
- King Vittorio Emanuele III will no longer get the crown of Albania if he abdicated or died.
- Pressure government decisions will no longer show up if the target country already has the same ideology and is in faction with the sender.
- Focus Topple Amhara Rulers will no longer be available if ideology is not Fascist or Non-Aligned. The Ethiopian characters that become the country leaders of their respective puppet countries will become the leaders of both Fascist and Non-Aligned ideologies.
- Added tooltips in Swiss Focus Tree to notify when the Absolute Neutrality and Swiss Citizen Militia Decision Categories are disabled.
- If a subject of Yugoslavia controls Dalmatia and Italy demands those states, Yugoslavia will get to decide the fate of those states - not the subject nation.
- You can no longer hire several advisors of the same type
- Fix potential OOS on hot-joining caused by data on executing air missions never being written to the savegame.
- Fix CTD when leaving a game where an air group for whatever reason contains a faulty air wing reference.
- Fix potential OOS on hot-joining a second time without restarting the game, caused by erroneous reading of daily port strike limits from the savegame.
- Fix OOS involving interception missions targeting an enemy airwing that's passing through a region, where both the enemy's mission region and the interception region updates on the same hourly tick.
- Ceding Bessarabia is now properly showing the former owners name in an upcoming news event
- Switzerland will now seize the gold reserves of countries it enters war against.
- Added bypass for Swiss Focus 'Trade Agreement with Germany' for when Germany is not fascist, and it will not be completed if Switzerland is at war with Germany
- Added bypass to the Swiss focus 'Withdraw from the League of Nations' for when the League of Nations has already been disbanded.
- Fixed issue where Switzerland would not have a Viable European Fascist to complete Fascist Path.
- Set the correct population in the Swiss Plateau state in Switzerland, and adjust the population in other states.
- Fixed first loading screen background flipping immediately as GUI is being loaded
- Increased AI weight for Japan to abandon the naval treaty in early 1937.
- Fix crash on Leader details screen, officer corps tab, when the player clicks on an advisor role to give to a unit leader
- Switzerland no longer gets a "Breach of Neutrality" event when the Absolute Neutrality category is not present or when the hostile country is in a faction while not being the faction leader.
- Switzerland will not be able to offer trading gold with countries they're at war with.


And always remember, if you discover any bugs or if you have suggestions for the game, please do submit it in the forum section dedicated to those areas.

/Katten

Hello there Generals!

Another update has arrived! Today we release 1.12.4. But we are working on a larger patch that will target some of your concerns about By Blood Alone, and itl have a slightly extended open beta that's opening soon-ish. So keep your eyes peeled for that!

################################################################
######## Hotfix 1.12.4 "Avalanche" #########
################################################################
##################################
# Balance
##################################
Peace conference:
- reduced lend lease warscore gains and losses from fuel to 0.01 warscore per fuel to 0.001 warscore per 100 fuel
- reduced lend lease warscore gains and losses from equipment IC from 0.1 warscore per IC to 0.001
- reduced war score per sunk convoy from 10 to 0.05
- reduced war score offset from convoy production from 5 to 0.04
- reduced war score per ship IC sunk from 0.04 to 0.002
- reduced war score per sailor lost when a ship sinks from 0.02 to 0.001
- increased IC value of sunk ships when determining warscore from 0.002 to 0.004
- increased base province value from 0.3 to 2.0
Air Warfare:
- Fixed primary role of guided missile for large airframes (now sets naval patrol bomber)
- Fixed aircraft naval strike mission module limits (light = 1 slot, medium = 2 slots, large = 3 slots)
- 1938 and later air module tech costs are higher
- Air engine 4 is now 1944 tech
- post 1936 Air weapon tech dates increased
- All aircraft electronics module unlocks are one tech later
- reduced USA combined bomber offensive range increase
- reduced strategic bombing stat for large bomb bays
- With BBA uk air focuses give less research bonuses but give doctrine discounts
- increased small/medium bomb bay weight
- reduced lmg turret weight
- Fix incorrect mutliengine thrust for level 2 engines. increased torpedo weight. added speed malus to floats/flying boats
- rebalanced lmg and hmg for planes
- Fixed primary role of guided missile for large airframes (now sets naval patrol bomber)
- Updated air supply to use a better calculation for per aircraft supply amount.
Balance of Power:
- Removing all the BoP requirements for the alt fascist branches; no other branch has such requirements, and it is very punishing if the player loses a core state to reach to necessary BoP levels to proceed down the alt fascist branch
Navy:
- Refresh airwing stats when setting a scrambling mission (this should fix the 1 damage 'carrier bug')
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# AI
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- Reduced the demand of AI nations to build tactical and strategic bombers
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# Database
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- Hooked up the already existing historical and generic plane variant names to the corresponding BBA plane types, leaving only plane types without a non-BBA equivalent without proper variant names (we'll get there soon).
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# Stability & Performance
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- Prevent potential CTD when reading a savegame with a faulty persistent AI strategy.
- Fixed CTD when disbanding units while paradropping
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# Bugfix
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- Don't autopause when a hidden event pops up (Aces)
- Added requirements to several focuses and fixed the completion rewards for some of them.
- Loosen the Laws on Secularism can no longer target the same state more than once.
- Romania and Hungary should no longer loose their conquered territory if puppeted after Germany completes Integrate War Economics
- Allies should be less likely to kick out Russia from the Triple entente due to generated world tension
- Chances of having a brainless Italian AI with no real plan have been reduced to 0.
- Fixed CTD when using console command "research all" and then interacting with the Kamikaze module Fixed Explosive Charge as any country other than Japan.
- Finland's leader's name will now display properly in the Estonian event '(Finland's leader) Steps Down'
- Fixed missing cost for Swiss political party concessions decisions.
- Italy is now sending the right events to the UK if the UK is hosting the Ethiopian government in exile and Italy has war with them. Also added conditions to 2 Italian focuses
- Event option to complete Italian focus Abyssinian Fiasco should no longer show up if By Blood Alone dlc is not active.
- Yugoslavia can now submit to Italy's ultimatum and become a puppet
- Improved available and bypass triggers for Italian focuses War with Greece and War With France.
- in peace conference, take navy peace action is now correctly unavailable if the victor does not own any naval base prior to the peace conference
- Italian decisions Vallo Alpino del Littorio will no longer be visible if the targeted provinces already have max fort level.
- Releasing Ostland while at war with SOV should no longer return the Baltic states to SOV
- Fixed reduced production when converting old equipment in production lines.
- When a player unlocks a mod achievement without having the cloud storage activated, catch the exception that was causing the game to shut down
- Characters with Unit Leader roles can now become President in the appropriate focuses
- Rolf Henne in Switzerland now gets the correct trait when promoted
- Fixed bug that caused an ungodly amount of divisions to escape when a country goes into exile
- Added missing Vorarlberg claim if AUS rejects the ancshluss.
- You can no longer use the exploit of leaving a minor DEI island free while you gobble up the rest of the resource giving island as Germany and expect Japan to just be fine with it
- Fixed instances where Vorarlberg is not included when granting cores.
- Franco should now get his old portrait after 1950 again
- Fixed portrait for Jonas Cenerius for Lit
- Fixed some countries (e.g. Italy) not being able to lend-lease convoys.
- Philippe Pétain has returned to lead Vichy France for Non-Lar users
- The Balance of Power will now shift towards the country leader, and away from the Grand Council, when reclaiming lost, none core territory.
- Japan will now bypass Tripartite Pact focus if Germanya dn Italy is at war with each other
- Clear active GiE division deployments for losers in a peace conference
- Fix crash when opening the Details tab of diplomacy view when DLC La Resistance is not activated
- Battleship generated by Ethiopia's 'Request Soviet Battleship Hulls' focus now has a name.
- Anarchist Spain's event to annex Portugal after their civil war will now trigger correctly.
- Young man Franco will now become old man Franco after 1950
- Fixed autonomy impact score not getting updated correctly, when closing and opening Start Lend Lease window.
- Frankfurter event no longer triggers unless GER is fascist
- Austria should no longer give up land to Switzerland if at war with Switzerland
- Fixed an instance where the Alpine protectorate would get hardlocked if you did the Alpine conferedation first
- Alpine Redoubt now correctly gives forts in Alpine states
- Don't display plane airframe names when BBA is not active.
- Avoid war score numbers to overflow and become negative when they get too big
- Fix opinion modifiers with a fixed time or with a decay. When the end date is reached they are now removed
- Airwings will now deal damage in air battles that involve very large numbers of planes.
- Variant comparison in the designer view will now take mission adjusters into account.

Remember that if you discover any bugs, please do report them in the bug report area on the forum.

/Katten