Hearts of Iron IV News

Hearts of Iron 4: No Step Back is out now

Hearts of Iron IV's latest expansion, No Step Back, is out right now and this could easily be one of the WW2 war game's definitive releases. Which is a bit excessive if you ask me, because HOI4 is already Paradox's most popular grand strategy game.

The expansion itself largely focuses on Focus Tree updates for the Soviet Union, Poland, and the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. There are also extra features that build on top of new free aspects, such as individual supply mechanics that build on top of the free logistics overhaul, and a tank designer similar to the ship designer included in the Man the Guns expansion.

From what we've played so far, not only are the new mechanics fun, but the WW2 game seems to run more smoothly as well thanks to a bunch of behind-the-scenes updates. We'll need to wait and see what this does to the war game's meta, and you may need help re-learning how everything works. Speaking of help, a bunch of brand-new tutorial videos have now been introduced for individual mechanics that you can watch in-game to bring yourself up to speed.

Read the rest of the story...

Hearts of Iron 4 fans mark the end of current division meta with meme templates

Hearts of Iron IV's No Step Back expansion and free 1.11 update are coming next week, and I've not felt as excited about an expansion in a long while. One of the stated goals of the incoming content is to shake up the strategy game's fairly stale combat meta, where designing divisions for your armies has been reduced to a fairly clinical set of optimum choices.

The initial bones of this change can be seen in the recent patch notes, where the combat width for different types of provinces is changing. This means the old 40/20 meta (where you would build divisions of either 40 combat width or 20 combat width) is officially no more. Players have been celebrating this impending changing of the guard by sharing their favourite meme division templates.

User Comander-07 on the Hearts of Iron IV subreddit has shared an absolute beast of a template, which has a combat width of 60 and features ten battalions of super-heavy tanks (and 15 infanty battallions), which they have called 'Big Chungus'. You'd only need two of them to completely dominate a battle, although the resource requirements to actually build and maintain one would be crippling to most economies.

Read the rest of the story...

Hearts of Iron 4 1.11 patch notes are here, and we are not ready

Hearts of Iron IV's No Step Back expansion and the free 1.11 'Barbaorssa' patch release next week, and we can finally look under the hood to see just how the WW2 grand strategy game is going to change. Spoiler: it's going to change a lot.

We've covered bits and pieces in the past, from Poland's rich alternate history, to the fact that the Soviet Union rework required its own design team, as well as the various army changes and armoured trains. We've also kept up with the supply rework coming as part of the free patch. Seeing everything laid out in the patch notes really hits home the gravity of this update - Hearts of Iron IV is about to enter a whole new era.

In terms of the free patch, the supply rework isn't the only thing that's being overhauled. Experience generation in the early-game now comes primarily from advisors, although active combat will still net you plenty of learnings to spend on other things, such as doctrines. Army, naval, and air doctrines used to take up a research slot, but now they are folded into the new Officer Corps view, and are now unlocked via branch experience.

Read the rest of the story...

HOI4 Dev Diary - Patch Notes

An early look at our Patch Notes are available on our forums. Unfortunately, the notes are too large to fit onto steam in this format, an official patch notes post will accompany the release next week.

I will also take this opportunity to point out that as is normal for large updates, saved games from earlier versions will not be compatible with No Step Back. An opt-in rollback to the current live version will be provided when No Step Back and the Barbarossa update launch

[h2]
READ THE PATCHNOTES HERE[/h2]

Hearts of Iron 4 playerbase soars as Paradox reports poor performance

Paradox Interactive, the publisher behind strategy games Crusader Kings III and the upcoming Victoria 3, as well as city builder sensation Cities: Skylines, has today published its report for the third quarter of 2021. Spoiler alert: it could have been better.

Buried among the business stats and numbers were some neat game-specific facts, such as Hearts of Iron IV receiving more than twice the number of players now compared to what it did during the height of its launch period in mid-2016. It's one of Paradox's most popular grand strategy games, and contributes to the five million active users the publisher also reports for October 2021 across all its titles.

The report was mainly mired by disappointment, however. This quarter has proven to be one of the worst in company history - revenues are at a two-year low, with profits for the quarter the worst on record, the company reports. One of the big driving forces behind this quarter's slump involves the writing off of several projects that Fredrick Wester - newley re-appointed CEO - states the company felt had been in development for too long, and weren't of the desired quality.

Read the rest of the story...