Hearts of Iron IV News

Hello there, it's me C0RAX.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
A bit of the different DD than you’re used to this week. I'm here to introduce a new thing I will be doing over the summer. This summer for weeks we will be giving you the chance to test some of the balance changes coming with the 1.13 Stella Polaris patch. These changes are hand picked for testing in order to get feedback from the community on specific changes that might have large impacts. These changes will affect all three major combat groups (Army, Air, and Navy), and vary from value changes to some new functionality and behavior so be sure to read the change list so you know what you're getting yourself into.

So let's go into how this is going to work. From July 6th until August 3rd there will be a special Summer Open Beta branch on steam, this branch will have the new changes listed below. Additionally it won't have anything new coming with AAT just changes for base game and previously released DLC’s. In the last week of the test we will post a feedback form to be able to collect feedback data that we can use to analyze your responses. Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t post about it outside the form, I want to encourage as much discourse, theorizing and number crunching as possible so give it a try and let us know what you think.

Now lets go over the change log.


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[h3]Balance[/h3]
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[h3]Mid Summer Beta Update[/h3]
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- updated combat width defines as per
- implemented type 2 combat widths as per
- improved some templates for planes
- balance pass on new modules
- rebalanced dismantle and conversion costs for BB engines
- adjusted damage reduction thresholds for ships

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[h3]hotfixes[/h3]
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-fixed damage reduction happening before stat initialisation
-fixed +1 to threshold values

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[h3]Air[/h3]
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- Excess thrust will now increase agility instead of max speed (0.5 AGI per excess thrust)
- airframes now how base max speeds to better represent airframe size speed effects
- reduced terrain combat widths slightly, change support widths also
- major air rebalance pass for airframes and modules
- increased tech date for survival studies to 1939
- Improved aircraft turrets
- slight decrease in agility hit for large bomb bays
- small airframe can only take single turret modules
- adjusted turret stats so they are less powerful for fighters but better for bombers
- rebalanced thrust and weights of modules and airframes,
- added new modules
- Large autocannon
- Large bomb rack
- Armor piercing bomb rack
- 3 levels of torpedo mounting
- Added new techs for plane designer (see above)
- Combat better Agility and Speed has increased effect on air combat

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[h3]Land[/h3]
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- Super Heavy tanks are now support units. Super Heavy tanks are no longer line battalions
- Armor skirts provide 1 more armor
- Most tank chassis' now grant 10-20% more armor
- Super heavy tanks now cost more overall, but require 20 per support company.

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[h3]Navy [/h3]
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- added damage reduction to piecing thresholds for naval combat
- convoy hitprofile reduced from 120 to 85 bringing it inline with new hitprofile calculations
- Ship torpedoes accuracy increased to bring them back in line with new hitprofile calculations 145 > 100
- slightly decreased AA disruption from ship AA
- removed visibility effects of super heavy bb armor
- rebalanced, ship engines
- removed visibility impacts from medium guns
- rebalanced IC costs to reflect engine changes
- super heavy armor now part of normal heavy armors
- rebalanced armors
- added cruiser armor to carriers


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[h3] AI[/h3]
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- AI more likely to upgrade division in the field even with equipment deficits
- added generic AI upgraded infantry template for late game infantry
- added ENG and USA upgraded infantry templates for AI and improved their infantry templates in general

Right now let's get into some explanations.

Thrust and weight:
Let's get the big one out the way thrust and weight for planes. This change requires a bit of game explanation and some explanation of aircraft. So why affect agility, agility previously was a stat that was seldom increased but often reduced by making it something you are rewarded by not using all your thrust budget you can lessen the agility effects of modules by not loading up your entire plane creating a choice between maximizing raw damage or maximizing damage bonuses during air to air combat by bring higher Agility.

Now the aircraft stuff, so power/weight is very not intuitive for aircraft, adding more power will make a plane faster but taking weight off a plane won't make it faster since speed is almost entirely determined by thrust against drag not weight. What less weight does provide is better climb rate acceleration plus some other things. These are abstracted into agility in game. So now if you want your plane to go faster you either use a newer airframe with lower drag (higher base speed) or by putting a bigger engine in the existing airframe.

Combat widths:
Now the next big change, terrain combat widths. This is the change that originally spawned the open beta idea. These changes are generally intended to flatten the efficiencies further for combat widths while also reducing division sizes. There will obviously still be certain numbers that fit better than others but overall these differences should be less extreme.

• Terrain = CW+Reinforcement Width
  
• Desert = 82+49
  
• Forest = 76+40
  
• Hills = 72+36
  
• Jungle = 74+34
  
• Marsh = 68+22
  
• Mountain = 65+25
  
• Plains = 82+49
  
• Urban = 86+28
  

Ship penetration:
Finally the last change I want to discuss is the new penetration effect for ships. To put this imply they now reduce damage directly on top of reducing critical chance. The damage reductions are smaller than for land combat but that's because they have a much greater effect on the combat but be careful defeating an armored foe with just small guns should be much harder now.

Thresholds and damage are as follows





That concludes the run down of the upcoming “Summer open beta” and it's coming to you tomorrow!. I hope to see you try it out and give feedback on the changes. See you next week for more Arms Against Tyranny content coming your way. It's going to be a pretty one.

Generals!

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Velkommen til Danmarks historiske Dev Diary! As you might have so astutely observed, today’s Dev Diary is all about Historical Denmark (and if you didn’t catch that, it’s ok; no one understands Danish anyways, so you’re not alone). Denmark has had the great misfortune to be designed by a Swede, namely me - and why would that be such a terrible thing you might ask yourself? Well, let me shed some light on that and give you a bit of context dear reader. Denmark and Sweden have fought the most wars between them than any other countries, so there’s some old blood and rivalry here. Which is thrilling to me; I now have the chance to make them as underpowered as I want - muahahahaha!

Before we go any further, do keep in mind that everything is still a work in progress and might change before releasing in- oooopsie! Spoilers ;) But every bit of feedback and correction is welcome! Do you think I missed something? Do let me know! Did I misspell something in Danish? Don’t even bother - I’ll never get it right anyways ;)

Denmark is famous for surrendering after merely 2 hours when Germany invaded, so this Dev Diary will be similarly short and sweet. Let’s jump straight into it, shall we?


And there you have it folks, that’s all from-

….

….

So, this is awkward…. I’ve been told that this won’t do and that Denmark needs at least 2 more focuses. I might be able to throw something together. But before we get there we have other things we gotta talk about.

[h3]Historical Context[/h3]
Let’s start with some historical context because it’s crucial to understand Denmark’s situation leading up to the war and why they surrendered so quickly. Denmark’s entire foreign policy was based around their perceived biggest threat, which prior to WW2 was Germany (and thereafter the Soviet). This way of viewing the world was shaped by their disastrous war with Prussia and subsequent defeat by them in 1864. From this date onward they pursued a policy of neutrality and did all it could not to anger Germany, lowering military spending and eventually focusing on what would become the welfare state.

One of the reasons why they kept this strict neutrality and disarmament was because they were unable to obtain security guarantees from the UK or from a Nordic Alliance once the war was looming on the horizon. The UK was in no position to offer any meaningful support to the Danes (and told them so in no uncertain terms) while the rest of the Nordic nations had widely different security concerns and couldn’t unify behind a common policy. The Danes realized that they had no hope to withstand a potential German invasion and didn’t, therefore, bother with military spending except to keep a symbolic force to emphasize their sovereignty.

[h3]Map changes[/h3]
Before we delve into what changes are coming to Denmark, let’s first look at some maps! My suggestion to simply bundle up all of Denmark into one state and rename it Southern Sweden was sadly downvoted (but just barely!). Instead, Denmark gets a whole bunch of new states (so that any Swedes - and Norwegians too! - can really savor the sweet, sweet sensation of conquering all of Denmark, bit by bit). As you can see, Germany is getting an additional state as well, and the Kiel channel has moved to a more accurate position. In total, Denmark starts out with 7 states now.


Besides that, the Danish Belts have gotten a makeup too


[h3]At the Game's Start[/h3]
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at Denmark’s starting position in 1936.



The more observant of you might notice that Denmark now starts out as a Disarmed Nation to better reflect their unpreparedness and policy of disarmament. Secondly, you might also have noticed that there’s an upcoming election in April of 1936 - which isn’t at all the usual 4 years cycle other nations have. Denmark actually has this little quirk where an election has to be held within the next 4 years from the last one, meaning an election can be held after 2 years, or 3 years, or whatnot. In-game, this is represented by Denmark holding elections every 3 years (this will be a great opportunity for you to switch the ruling party - but more on that later), but I digress! Other things some of you might have picked up on is that the non-aligned party is now called Bondepartiet and not Venstre. I would say that this is a more accurate reflection of the political landscape in Denmark during the 1930s, but it also fits better with how elections and politics at large has been reworked for Denmark with Arms Against Tyranny.

What’s also noticeable is that the Danes are starting out with 3 new National Spirits, 2 of them are quite bad and the third one is in bad shape.

Neglected Military is a reflection of the poor state that the Danish military was in when WW2 broke out, but by completing certain focuses you can improve this spirit and remove it entirely.


The Great Depression hit Denmark slightly later than other places, but it did have a great effect on the country. It led to businesses going bankrupt, farmers foreclosing and skyhigh unemployment. All of this spurred the growth of extremist movements on the political fringes. This is all represented by Economic Crisis, which the player can use to their advantage if they wanna boost Bondepartiet, for example. But like with Neglected Military, you can improve and even remove this spirit through focuses.


The last of the 3 starting spirits is Danish Industrial Capabilities, which also can be improved through focuses, but as you can see is in a pretty rough spot at the start of the game. Oh, that Consumer Goods Factories factor might look quite high, and I know that a few of you are wondering about that. We know this seems high but don't worry it's a new modifier which we will be explaining in a future dev diary.


[h3]Balance of Power[/h3]
Before we move on to advisors and the actual Focus Tree, we need to check out Denmark’s Balance of Power since it’s going to be affected by all of these things. This is where all of the political decisions will be happening, and all of them will affect the balance between Welfare and Warfare. Now, what exactly does Welfare and Warfare actually do? Good question, and I’m glad you asked! Let’s take a closer look.


The more you spend on Welfare, the more you’re pouring into developing your country. This is reflected in population growth, faster research, and the construction of Infrastructure, Civilian Factories, and Railways. On the other hand, this means that you are pulling resources away from military build-up and construction.


If you go all out on Military Spending civilian construction will suffer, but you’re going to produce military equipment much faster and deploy troops at a quicker pace.


[h3]Advisors[/h3]
As I mentioned, Advisors will affect the Balance of Power - so you better think it through properly when hiring someone. What they will do is push the Balance of Power in either direction - largely based on their historical leanings.


[h3]Politics[/h3]
Like I previously mentioned, Denmark has a 3-year election cycle now, and the perceptive among you might have noticed a Balance of Power decision called “Motion of No Confidence”. This all plays into how politics works in Denmark for Arms Against Tyranny. You will be able to select between different democratic parties and leaders now, as well as the Non-aligned, Communist, and Fascist parties.

The “Motion of No Confidence” decision allows you to choose a different country leader based on if their political party meets the right criteria.


Not only can you change your country's leader, but you can also call for a snap election if other political parties have high enough popularity.


If you called for a snap election you get the opportunity to boost the popularity of a political party and give them a higher chance of forming a new government. This is also what happens during the regular elections.


[h3]The Focus Tree[/h3]
Sadly, I wasn’t allowed to only make a 2 focuses long tree - even though I argued it was historically accurate! Anyways, without further ado, here it is


[h3]The Industrial Branch[/h3]
It’s through the Industrial Branch that you can improve and eventually remove the Economic Crisis spirit, but even before starting out on the Industrial Branch, you have to make a decision that will affect the rest of your game. Will you go for Sign the Kanslergadeforlig or Fortify Our Borders?


Historically, Denmark signed an agreement called the Kanslergadeforlig which was the very beginning of the modern Welfare State they have to this day. This will also unlock Karl Kristian Steincke as an advisor.


Moving down this path will provide civilian factories and building slots, as well as a National Spirit called “Danish Produce”.


If you on the other hand are more concerned with how flat Denmark is and how it’s just perfectly suited for, let’s say tanks, then you might wanna fortify the borders and receive the Defense Minister Alsing Andersen as an advisor.


This path will yield forts and military factories all over Denmark, as well as the spirit “Improved Logistics”

But no matter what your first choice is, there are plenty of focuses the 2 paths have in common! The first one is Devalue the Krone, which leads to being able to trade with both the UK and Germany. This is actually something Denmark did during WW1 and leading up to WW2


And with Connect the Islands both paths meet up again and share the same focuses.


You can also get Niels Bohr as an advisor


With Expand the Industries you unlock the decision to develop Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Bornholm.


You can also improve an Industrial Concern and/or unlock one.


But you can also extract more minerals from Greenland


The intention with the Industrial Branch is to make it flexible so that you can really focus on your overarching strategy and have the branch complement that vision. And speaking of which, let’s move on to the military side of things!

[h3]Military Branch[/h3]
I gotta be honest with you all here. I could have put most of this part in the alt-history dev diary since Denmark didn’t do most of these things. As I’ve already mentioned, Denmark was fearful of angering their bigger, southern neighbor, so they spent as little money on the military as possible. But playing like that makes for a boring WW2 war game! Wanna play a little game? Guess how far Denmark got in the branch below ;)


You’ve made a guess? Ready for the answer? They completed Expand Ubådsvåbnet. To be fair, they were also like 90% through the Foreign Designs in the Airforce path. But that’s it! The rest is me piecing together stuff they did after the war and just finding something to do that kinda makes sense for Denmark. Anyways, I’m digressing again…

Do you remember that Neglected Military spirit I mentioned way back when we started this dev diary (feels like ages to me who’s been writing this dev diary for several days now, but for you, it’s been like… what? 5 minutes? 10?)? Yeah, this is where you work to improve it and completely remove it through various focuses, including Stockpile Oil

But let’s take a closer look at the Army branch. This is where you receive the Hæren spirit and improve it throughout the branch. You will also be able to improve your MIO’s here. It’s mainly defensive in nature, while the more aggressive stats can be found in the political branches.


The first Focus will see you take your first step in reorganizing the army after almost a century of peace and lack of actual combat experience.


Then you can choose between investing in your MIO’s, namely Hærens Tekniske Korps, and Dansk Industry Syndikat

With Hjemmeværnet you get the decision to activate the Home Guard during wars, but also the Hæren spirit.


I could go on about each individual focus here, but it’s mostly about improving Hæren, research bonuses, and increasing funds for the various MIO’s. Let’s instead take a look at what Hæren yields after completing these focuses instead!


These stats can be improved even further in the political branches - which will add entirely new modifiers as well.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the Naval Branch, where you’ll get the Søværnet spirit. Here you have a few choices to make, depending on where you want to take your navy. You can refit old ships, or modernize the navy. You can try to dominate the Baltic Sea with smaller ships or try to rule the North Sea with carriers and capital ships.


Going with the Refit Old Ships will improve the Danish Industrial Capabilities spirit and unlock two decisions to get access to ships fast.


If you on the other hand Modernize The Navy you will get the Søværnet spirit. This will give you two ship variants in production; one for a Coastal Defense Ship and one for a Destroyer. These variants are actually based on designs the Danish navy had but were abandoned due to budget constraints. There are actually different variations of these variants depending on the tech level.


Towards the end of the branch, you face the second choice you will have to make; do you aim for Baltic Sea Domination or do you have North Sea Ambitions? The Baltic Sea Domination is the more straightforward of the two;


Having completed this focus and the Generalkommandoen in the army branch will open up the Frømandskorpset, which might be helpful for naval invasions…


The North Sea Ambitions is a bit more complicated though, since it’s affected by what choice you made between Refit Old Ships or Modernize the Navy (and I know the tooltip is egregious, but it’s necessary to show off the effects):


And finishing off this focus will also open up the Torpedofly focus in the Airforce Branch;


Before we leave the Navy Branch and take our first look at how the International Market can interact with the Focus Trees, let’s see what the Søværnet can look like after completing the Naval branch. After completing the Baltic Sea Domination:


And after completing North Sea Ambitions;


Now, let’s fly over to the Airforce Branch - where you’ll have to decide between Domestic Designs or Foreign Designs for your aircraft straightaway.


What you’ll get by completing Domestic Designs is two aircraft variants which are actually based on historical designs Denmark were working on when they got invaded.


But if you on the other hand opt to go for Foreign Designs you’ll receive something called a Subsidy, which will make you as a buyer pay off your purchase faster. As a seller, you’re receiving the full payment with the only difference that the deliveries will go faster. So it’s kind of a win-win situation. You can read more about the International Market in the this dev diary.


This specific Subsidy is for airplanes, but others can be for tanks, trucks, infantry equipment or what have you. If you look closely you’ll also realize that this Subsidy is only eligible for airplanes purchased from the Netherlands, The UK, Germany, or Sweden. That’s pretty cool, huh? I know you wanna know more about all of this, and we’ll talk more in-depth about it in an upcoming dev diary, so don’t you worry! Anyways, let’s move on with the Airforce Branch.

The next focus is Unify Flyvevåbnet, where you’ll get the Flyvevåbnet spirit. Denmark used to have two different airforces; the Army’s and the Navy’s, but they were eventually unified in the 50s. You don’t have to wait that long though!


After that, you improve the Flyvevåbnet even further before choosing how you want to specify your Airforce; do you want to focus on fighters, close air support, or bombers? It’s really up to you and how you want to play the game. After completing the Airforce branch and having done the Jagerfly focus, the Flyvevåbnet spirit would look like this:


[h3]Political Path[/h3]
Now we’ve come to the Political branch, where we’ll only take a look at a small part of it, and leave the rest for the alt-history dev diary (because this is getting long). The left part of the branch is accessible after completing the Policy of Disarmament, which will see you enhancing your industrial capabilities even more.


And in the end, you'll be able to complete Full Employment

But before getting this far you have to first Reaffirm Neutrality as your very first focus in the political branch. Yeah, yeah I’m doing this backward; finishing with the beginning - but there’s good response for that! You see, when you have taken Reaffirm Neutrality you’ll get the Declaration of Neutrality spirit which will give you the option to fight or fold when attacked.


Historically, Denmark surrendered after two hours of the German invasion (even though fighting took place up to four more hours). The Danes had a very different experience as an occupied country from everyone else that got invaded; they got to keep their government and even had elections during the occupation. And that’s what you’ll get too if becoming a puppet while having the Declaration of Neutrality spirit.


And to be honest, this is the true historical path. Let me introduce to you the resistance, or as they say in Denmark; velkommen til modstanden!

[h3]Occupation[/h3]
This is what you have to work with as a subject; the Industrial Branch and the Occupation Branch. But don’t think for one moment that you’ll be a good little puppet that will do your master's bidding. No no, this branch is all about gathering foreign support and building up a Resistance so you can topple your overlord! There are also plenty of International Market Subsidies throughout the branch, to build up your forces even more.


With Align with Foreign Powers you’ll seek out support that can provide you with weapons and support during the occupation, but once you declare independence you’ll also be able to join their faction - gaining an ally in your war for freedom.


Historically, Denmark set up an exile force in Sweden. They were training to help in the liberation of Denmark under the guise as “military police”. This is of course something you’ll be able to do as well! Having gained a host for your Danish Brigades, you’ll also get a new division template that you can improve through focuses.


To help you resist your overlord you have the Motstandsbevægelsen spirit which you have to improve to stand a chance against Germany.


[h3]Balance of Power Redux[/h3]
As a subject you’ll also get a different Balance of Power which will be crucial to regaining your freedom. All of these decisions are unlocked through various focuses and will help you in your struggle against your overlord.


And that’s about it for me this time around. Who knew there was so much to say about such a small country? It’s barely more than a suburb of Sweden, but there are surprisingly many interesting things going on in Denmark during this time period. I hope you enjoyed the (looong) read! And if you don’t want to become a puppet of the Germans - don’t fret! There are ways to resist an invasion, but those will have to wait until another time.

Farvel!

The year is 1936. After 30 years since gaining their independence from Sweden, things in Norway finally seem to be looking up: Its enormous merchant marine continues to be a steady source of wealth, the meager industrial base is starting to recover from the ravages of the Hard Thirties, and there’s finally a majority government, led by Johan Nygaardsvold, who is in the process of enacting sweeping progressive reforms and will bring political stability to this young nation.

The wind may seem to be on Norway’s back, but it is merely the harbinger of the storm to come.


Hey everyone! I’m Carlo, Content Designer for Hearts of Iron 4, and in charge of the Norwegian content. I’m really excited to present to you how we’re depicting Norway in this period; It’s a fascinating country that played a huge and exciting role during World War II, and I’m sure you’ll all have a lot of fun trying to defend it. Let’s get to it. Disclaimer: All of this is Work In Progress and subject to change.

As I was saying in the prologue, the political situation of Norway is getting better, but they have let their armed forces languish, and not only for budgetary reasons: You see, Norway had declared themselves neutral, and while Switzerland hoped to stay out of the war by making itself be as annoying to conquer as possible, Norway hoped to achieve the same result with the opposite method, trying to appear so harmless and accommodating that nobody would think of invading.

I don’t think I need to tell you, dear reader, this plan failed miserably.

They made themselves so damn harmless, that when the war started, BOTH sides were making plans to invade preemptively before the other one had a chance to do so, and when it finally happened, they were caught completely off guard.

And why did both sides want to keep Norway out of the hands of the other? Well, the main reason I presume you read in Sweden’s Dev Diary, Narvik was where iron from Sweden was shipped to Germany when the Baltic ports were frozen. The second one is simply that Norway is very well positioned to launch aerial and naval operations against Britain.

This is why, if you want to change the course of history and defend democratic Norway against the German threat, it will be a challenge. Here are the starting National Spirits:


Complacent Cabinet is meant to represent the unduly confidence the Nygaardsvold government had in a future smooth sailing, and how unprepared it was for a swift reaction to war. It basically makes it harder for you to switch laws and to change the terrible Theorist you start with. Why is he so bad? Well, to represent the infamous miscommunication that occurred when the cabinet found out about the invasion. TL;DR: The government asked for a Partial Mobilization, but unbeknownst to everyone except Birger Ljunberg, this meant sending the conscription orders by post, a terrible idea when you know the enemy is at the gates. Instead of, you know, telling this to the rest of the cabinet and asking if they were sure, he just went ahead and instructed to send the orders by post [Clownemoji].


Obsolete Armed Forces to represent the sorry state of the Norwegian army at the time, ESPECIALLY the forts. That’s why we added two new modifiers so we can make a country’s forts worse than usual. Don’t worry, you can remove this National Spirit later.


The Hard Thirties: AKA country coming out of the great depression starter pack, it makes it slower for you to build and increases your consumer goods usage.


Anti-communist Sentiment increases fascism because there wasn’t a massive communist or fascist presence in the country, but the fear towards communism was one avenue fascists used to recruit.


These are just the starting National Spirits, through the Focus Tree you will be able to remove some of them, and add some new ones. Here’s the political branch for Historical Norway:


As you can see, most of the starting focuses will be geared towards building up civilian industry and improving the political situation, ignoring military buildup.


In fact, if you want to develop Norway properly, you’ll have to complete the focus Broken Gun Policies, which will lock you out of most of the military focuses, but gives you access to the central decision system for Historical Norway:


The idea is that you can develop each state individually so you can get civilian benefits out of them, at the cost of military readiness for that state. You can Develop a state up to 3 times, with increasing civilian benefits and harsher military penalties. As I said, Norway’s focus before the war was civilian development rather than military preparedness, if you started building up the military right away it wouldn’t be historical would it?


Don’t fret though, once the war starts, you’ll be able to leverage this development into military benefits to properly defend against the incoming Fascist bully. It won’t only cost you development and political power, you will also spend convoys; after all, Norway had one of the largest merchant marines in the world, so shedding it represents the economic cost of shifting towards military power.


When you convert the development of a state into military military effects, the state will go one level down in development and you will get a different benefit based on the development level:
At level 1 you will get a dynamic modifier in that state to defend it better.
At level 2 you will get a free military factory in that state
And in level 3 you get two militia divisions, plus a dynamic modifier for the resistance on that state when it is conquered.






This means that which states you develop, and up to what level, matter a lot if you hope to have a chance against Germany.

Now back to the Focus Tree!


Now you might be asking yourself “What’s the deal with this “Fascist Invasion of Norway focus to the side?”, and I say, don’t worry about it… Nothing to see here.


…


I told you already, nothing important is happening over there. Here, have this focus with a doggo.


This is the focus Preparing the Return to Norway, and it features Bamse, the San Bernard mascot of the Norwegian Free Forces. He was a crew member of the NoHMS Thorodd, he broke up fights, saved people from drowning and even a stabbing. A true, certified good boy. The focus is meant to…

Alright, alright. You win….


When the… inevitable happens, and Germany decides to invade Norway, two things will happen(Besides getting invaded). First, that focus completes and then you get an event about Quisling’s historical coup, which gives you three choices:
Try your luck. If you trust your preparations then you shouldn’t have much trouble fighting against Germany and Norway’s evil twin.
Delay the coup, at a cost that you can reduce depending on Oslo’s Development level. You’ll get the coup without the possibility of delaying it further once you hit more than 50% Surrender Progress, but if you do well enough you won’t see it ever again. Or…
You can take the coward’s way out, and betray everything you’ve been doing so far to fight on the side of the fascists. Congrats! You’re a Quisling!


Look… Listen, jokes aside, it happens to the best of us; you’re on your ironman campaign, distracted building toaster factories and reorganizing your navy and suddenly you realize you’re totally not ready for what’s about to come. If it happened to the Norwegian Government in 1940, it can happen to you. With this, you have the option of salvaging your campaign without having to go into exile, and if you prefer to go into exile there’s a small sub branch for that too; Norway has both a Historical Democratic and a Historical Fascist focus branches.


Now that the Oslo shuffle is done, let’s take a look at the Historical Fascist Branch:


I’m saving it for the alt-history dev diary but there are fascist focuses before this one, and they allow you to lay the groundwork for a fascist civil war, where you’ll be better prepared and potentially have control of more states than just Oslofjord.

If you’re going fascist from the getgo, or delayed the coup, you can complete this 7 day focus at any time and start playing as fascist (It autocompletes if you switch sides). It also adds the National Spirit Contested Leadership, to represent that Quisling, despite being liked by Hitler and some other inner circle Nazis, was not meant to be the ruler of Norway, it was just a temporary stopgap, and an overeager fascist.


That’s no problem though, because soon enough you get to make this choice between going alt-history by keeping Quisling in power, or continuing the historical path by getting rid of him, replacing him with Josef Terboven, the German administrator of the Reichskommisariat.





The difference between the two, is that Quisling’s path leans more independent, but lacks the industrial and military cooperation of the Terboven path. You’ll have another chance to bring him back later though, which is what happened historically. But you can choose to put Quisling’s rival, Jonas Lie in power, who will bring Norway closer to Germany, since Quisling wanted to emulate the German Reich but didn’t want to be a puppet of the Germans, while Jonas Lie was called at the time ‘Germany’s man’ and might’ve been content with being a puppet of the Reich.





You might be wondering, though, why would anyone not take the independent Fascist Norway path, and the answer is that Quisling has terrible modifiers:


And he gets worse:


AND EVEN MORE WORSE:


But hey, at least you get some troops and viking claims!


Besides those two branches, every ideology will have access to the common branches to build up industry and improve the armed forces. They have some light overlap, but in general they are divided between: Rearmament Branch, with general army and industrial focuses; the Independent Norway Branch, with civilian industry and tech; the Airforce branch, with bonuses to all things flying; and finally, the Navy branch, which will help your efforts trying to defend your comically long coastline.



It is important to note, that if you’re playing Historical Democratic, you will have the Broken Gun national spirit at some point, which will block you from all of those focuses except for the ones in the Independent Norway branch, so you might be a bit delayed in getting to them if that’s the case.


Now, let me go on a tangent for a bit. This is the story of Norway’s first, and for our period, only tank.


In 1937 the Norwegian government realized that they needed to start thinking about armored warfare, to prepare to fight with tanks, and against tanks, so after some thought, they approached the Swedish company Landsverk to buy a tank. The thing is, they realized tanks were expensive, and way outside their budget, so they just ordered an L-120 Light Tank Chassis, no armor, no turret. Kinda like ordering just the fries and soda, no burger. After it finally arrived, they fitted it with metal sheets as armor, and a “turret” that was basically a cylinder with a hole for a heavy machine gun. People nicknamed Norway’s only tank, ‘Rikstanken’ (The Realm’s Tank), and ‘Kongstanken’ (The King’s Tank). The whole thing is even funnier when you learn that ‘tank’ in Norwegian is the word for ‘thought’, so Rikstanken becomes a metaphor for the idea of Norway itself.

For comparison, this is what a Landsverk L-120 looks like:



And this is what the Rikstanken looked like:



Granted, that’s a particularly bad picture, but I recommend researching a bit more for yourself. It really was a wonderfully bad tank, so bad that they didn’t even use it when the country was being invaded. It’s ok though, we still love you just the way you are, Rikstanken.

Of course I wouldn’t be talking about this if there wasn’t content for it. By completing the Rikstanken focus, you’ll start an event chain that will let you buy a single tank from Sweden. Or if you want to go wildly ahistorical, you can spend a little more and buy a bunch of tanks from them, or from the Soviet Union. Another option will be accepting some political influence from Germany or the Soviet Union in exchange for a bunch of tanks, or even starting a tech exchange for developing your own tanks from scratch.




And when you do get that tank, you’ll be able to enjoy it in all its 3D glory:



Of course, this beauty will be able to tour the whole kingdom, all 11 states:

• Oslofjord
  
• Telemark
  
• Opplandene
  
• Agder
  
• Vestlandet
  
• Trøndelag
  
• Helgeland
  
• Nordland
  
• Troms
  
• Finnmark
  

And, if you have the boats, Jan Mayen.


With that, I conclude this Dev Diary, feel free to ask any questions. Now go and wishlist Arms Against Tyranny and stay tuned to learn all about Denmark’s historical content, it might take you longer to read it than what it took Germany to invade it, but it will surely be an interesting read!

[h2]Generals![/h2]

Word has just reached us from the Requisitions office - The Grandest Lan tickets are now available!

Make sure to grab yours to join in on all the action, to view the castle, and to have a great time.

[h3] Get yours here![/h3]