Hearts of Iron IV News

Hi all, and welcome back to today’s developer diary!

It can be very easy to get super-focused on details when looking at individual systems or parts of features - something we often tend to do when writing developer diaries. Each week, we’re going to give you an overview of a core system that we’ve so far introduced in parts, and will include all of the changes we’ve made to that system over the course of development, since we first looked at it.

In addition to this, we’ll also take a look at some changes coming to the AI in No Step Back, so if that’s more your jam, feel free to skip to the end ;D
[h2]
We’ll begin with an overview of the Officer Corps:[/h2]
This image represents a near-final take on what the office corps screen will look like.

As you can see, the branch chiefs, theorist, and military high command have found their way to the officer corps screen, though for ease of access you may still view and appoint them in the country overview screen like before. This kind of change is the sort of thing that comes up during playtesting - while it made sense to collect similar things together, there was no good reason to change the player’s flow expectations.

The manner in which you’ll appoint advisors has changed a bit. We decided during the officer corps development process, to make a bigger deal out of the advisor ‘level’ (specialist, expert, genius) that all non-theorist advisors possess. In addition to adding a flat command power allocation (reduction of max command power) which is reduced by high advisor ranks, political power costs are raised by having a higher rank advisor.

Branch advisors now grant daily experience gain, meaning stacking your command cadre well is vitally important to the pre-war development of your military. To add to the choices, doctrines now cost experience rather than being something you spend a research line on:


For owners of No Step Back, military branches also possess several specialization options in the form of Military Spirits, which are also unlocked with experience:



We found during development that less was more when it came to creating a tightly balanced set of choices, and we’ve limited the number of options in each category to around six, with each category being strongly themed around Academy, Military Service, and Command.

To add slightly more nuance to choices here, we ensured that several options in each category would be made available based on situational factors - ideology, doctrine branch, and in rare cases, country choice, can all make new choices available.

The most important part of cultivating a strong officer corps, is the ability to give your trusted commanders advisory roles. Commander traits earned in active combat can make your characters eligible for specific advisory roles:



Characters promoted to advisory duties this way will continue to advance their advisory rank as their commander level increases - a highly experienced field commander will grow from specialist to genius over the course of their career.

Lastly, we are introducing the preferred tactics weighting system. This allows you to set a national, field marshal, and commander-level preferred tactic, which will weight the chances of picking said tactic in a combat situation. While the national preferred tactic can be switched out for a cost, selecting a preferred tactic for your commanders and field marshals is something that remains a permanent choice, representing their adherence to a particular doctrinal theory.

Of course, a host of minor changes accompany the officer corps, including new alerts, better resource tooltips, and adding some of this information into intel ledgers for opponent countries.

[h2]The AI[/h2]

And now, on to a topic that is sure not to evoke strong opinions from anybody here: the AI.

During the development of La Resistance, work was begun on adding additional tools through an imgui that allow modders and users to see various internal data. In NSB, a significant amount of time was spent adding to this tooling and providing support for future AI development, as well as laying the groundwork for easier iteration on AI behaviour and more.

One of our new in-game tools for assessing AI font priorities. These tools will be available for modders, who can continue to fine-tune AI for their own needs through the use of strategies and defines. Here, you can see that the AI has evaluated the topmost defense order as desiring a minimum of 7 divisions, an 'ideal' count of 8, and a maximum count of 50. Defense orders tend to fluctuate quite heavily in 'ideal' unit counts: they tend to be quite elastic to make up for units not needed elsewhere.

While much of the work done here was investment for the future, we’ve also made some pretty big changes to the way the AI evaluates where it commits its troops and more.

While it can be hard to indicate objective improvements in terms of AI, there are several key areas we aimed to improve for this release:

Use of specialized divisions - the AI for assigning armor and special forces to appropriate fronts has received some improvement. The practical upshot of this means you ought to see fewer armor divisions assigned to inappropriate orders (garrisons, pure defensive lines etc), and mountaineers used in frontlines that have the right terrain types.



Did I mention the AI likes tanks?

Unit weight distribution - combined with the new supply system, the AI evaluation of where to put units has been totally overhauled. In practical terms, this is likely to manifest as seeing the AI commit more troops to defend key areas (ports & coasts), care more about the active supply situation on frontlines, and provide something slightly resembling a defense in depth for their own core territory, even during active frontline pushes elsewhere.



You can see that the AI considers supply carefully when assessing front unit distribution. There are certain circumstances in which the logical supply capacity of a front can be exceeded by the AI - notably when a defensive frontline is facing a numerically superior foe, or when the AI determines that it needs to win a war fast.

Once Moscow has fallen, the supply situation can get pretty dire as you push east.

Naval Invasions - logic for AI naval invasions has seen significant improvement. You should be encountering larger, less frequent naval invasions overall. The Ai will try to take advantage of weak points in coastal defences, and generally be more keen to invade to support theaters. This got so scary we had to turn the new capabilities down several times (of course, these can be tuned back up).

Counters - while it can be difficult to determine a ‘right’ time to switch templates or create a specialized template, we’ve improved logic for majors utilizing specialized divisions such as Tank Destroyers in relevant circumstances. You should see the AI care a little more about what you throw at it.

Buffer Fronts - Several AI strategies now involve the use of buffer fronts. These are specially defined area defense orders which will request a proportion of national divisions to man them. Where these differ from regular garrison orders, is that these fronts will ‘loan’ their unit distribution counts to nearby fronts or invasion orders.

For example, the heatmap below show the distribution of US troops several months prior to Overlord. The troops stationed in Alexandria and the UK are using buffer fronts, which will supply frontlines in europe, in order to avoid having to relocate troops from much further away. Here you can see the (somewhat anachronistic) defense of Greek territory being supplied by the buffer front in Alexandria, which is in turn supplied with divisions from the US mainland (arriving through the Mediterranean).

The locations and weightings of these are instructional only.

[h3]Read the full Diary[/h3]

[h3]Welcome to this AAR dev diary![/h3]

Join me as I take on the task of surviving as Poland against both the Soviets and the Germans in the upcoming No Step Back expansion. This diary will function as a sort of compilation of the new features. Normal caveat is that there might be bugs here, and balance are prone to change. It's also a pretty screenshot heavy diary.

Without further ado, let's start.

[h2]1936 - The year of housekeeping​
[/h2]
First off let's start with some housekeeping and strategy. I know that Germany will attack first and I can’t properly defend against both the USSR and Germany. My plan is to give up eastern Poland when the USSR demands it to buy myself time and take out Germany, then swing around and take back my lost land.

Therefore I’ll focus my industry buildup on western Poland since I plan on losing eastern Poland, thus limiting my potential losses.


We start off with the looming peasant strike, which we need to deal with eventually but I like to start out taking care of Danzig first since it gives some easy factories and only takes 35 days. The strike is on a long timer so there is currently no emergency to deal with it from the get-go.


It is also the path where you can get rid of the Embargoed Economy law which is quite crippling. Since I need to build up compliance it takes some time to get rid off it, so I like to get that ball rolling as quickly as possible.

I know that I will need to increase equipment buildup since Poland has lots of borders to cover. I plan on making cheap tanks later on as well just to deal with basic infantry.

I am a bit worried about German bombing, both against my troops but also because I know that the AI likes to bomb trains, so I plan to make a token air force just to intercept bombers as well as AA tanks and get AA into my divisions.

[h2]1937 - The year of toaster buildup​[/h2]
I have started my industrial buildup and in early 1937 I have completed all the must have industrial focuses that I want. There are still quite a handful of very nice focuses to take here, but time is of the essence and I need to deal with the political focuses as well. I am on a very tight deadline.


The national defense fund is particularly good to kickstart the Polish industry.


I have also dealt with Danzig and achieved enough compliance to Ban the Nazi party. This will get rid of the crippling trade law. After that I will switch to dealing with internal politics.



While the industrial buildup was ongoing I was a little sneaky. Krystyna, the gunslinging seducer has quietly infiltrated the Reich with the end goal of preparing a collaboration government to make it easier to capitulate Germany.

I also started hiring military advisors for additional XP gain. Since historical Poland can’t farm XP in Spain, advisors are the next best bet.

This reduced my total command power cap, but it's more than worth it. I will need it to unlock doctrines but more importantly, design my tanks.
[h2]
Mid 1937 - The April constitution​[/h2]


It's now mid-1937 and I am starting to deal with the internal politics of Poland. As I do this people will get more and more irritated, and I would rather avoid a civil war, but I don’t like spending 100 pp to sideline people.


Luckily for me most of the focuses in the Sanitation path can be used to modify the left and right irritation (I like to think of it as a big aspirin).
There are also some really nice “bonus” focuses that can only be taken as long as you are dealing with the Sanitation, and then becomes locked out that I want to try and take. You can kinda mix and match which of these bonus focuses you want to take, depending on how much of a rush you are in.


I get the sense that someone is considerably more annoyed than the other



At the end of it all I manage to keep everyone relatively happy without too much effort.

I managed to pick up some focuses along the way, mostly advisors that will help me later on. It is now December 21’st 1938 and I am starting to feel a tingle in the back of my neck. Surely it's just my paranoia. No one is out to get me, surely.
[h2]
Early 1939 - Defense prepping​[/h2]
So, no ones really out to get me, but just in case I start to plan for all eventualities.


Before I go back and finish up the industrial focuses that I left behind I do a detour to take Plan West, which gives me some hefy temporary construction bonuses for forts.


At this point I start to look into what type of spirits that I have available to me.
Theatre training looks pretty tasty for getting terrain traits much faster, and is relatively cheap. This is a grand battleplan exclusive, but I don’t feel that I have enough XP to switch as I currently need it for other stuff, and it's pretty ok for defending.
[h2]
Designing a tank fit for Poland​[/h2]
When all this has been chugging along I have been researching tank modules. As said previously I plan on making a cheap tank that can deal primarily with light infantry. I need to be rather quick to deal with the German enclave in Köningsberg, while also working within the rather modest industry output that Poland has to be able to get out any divisions before the war starts.


It does not have fancy bells and whistles that other tanks have, but it is relatively cheap. With a Automatic cannon it's also moderately good at taking out infantry, but terrible at going against anything else.

This means that I need to focus these tanks on infantry v tank battles and avoid German panzers as much as possible.

Armor is also quite low, but as long as the infantry does not pierce it it's fine. I usually prefer welded armor since it provides a good balance between cost and armor. I use Christie suspension and Gasoline Engine to boost the speed of the tank considerably, and a 3 man turret for some extra breakthrough, with a radio to provide some extra breakthrough (gotta have the Poles being able to listen to the latest hits)

I am also setting up a separate tank construction for some AA tanks, which is using the same modules, except I am changing it from a Automatic Cannon to a basic anti air gun
[h2]
Late 1939 - Not peace in our time?​[/h2]


[h3]Uh oh[/h3]



This is how I am currently doing. I have 3 tank divisions in the field, 1 army guarding against attacks in the south, and 1 ⅓ armies defending central Poland, mainly huddling behind rivers. A full army is preparing to take out Köningsberg and then switch around to face the Germans.

As the Germans starts to pile in I spring my trap, reducing their supply to buy myself some time


Early on in the war and I am getting pummeled by CAS and Tacs, and even though my token air force manage to mitigate some damage I am quite happy that I have equipped my divisions with AA

Early in the war I am getting pushed on some fronts but I am sticking to my original plan, following the railway and sniping the ports.

Katowice is lost pretty quickly, despite reinforcing it with forts.

As I push into Memel I realize that my supply is getting awful. I don’t want to have to build railways at this stage as my industry is strained already. I try to alleviate the issues by motorizing the node closest to it. It did improve my situation a bit, but not enough to solve it.
In November there has been some back and forth. The Germans are piling up as I try to make another push against Köningsberg. I also manage to take over and link up a new Supply hub in Allenstein
A thrust has begun to form, and they are pushing quite hard as well. I need to finish Köningsberg fast. Things are looking a bit bleak, but in the darkness there is a hero ready to rise. It's Romania.


Romania coming to Polands aid, colorized

I convinced my neighbors to join our cause, and there they come, a shining beacon of hope.(A better love story than Twilight)

With the aid of the Romanian allies I managed to perform a push to take back some land, but in my negligence the Germans sent some medium tanks to Memel and quickly started pushing me back. As feared my automatic cannons could not deal with these tanks, and supply flow deteriorated quickly as supply lines were cut.


I used some of the XP I gained to add Quick Improvisation. By doing this I got the ability to do several force attacks in a row, finally cutting off Memel from the tanks. They are stranded now. With one last force attack I manage to finish the cornered Memel guard off, stabilizing the front.

[h2]1940 - Death on the Reich​[/h2]
With the last pockets dealt with and Köningsberg that entire army is free to deal with the German front.
Poznań and Łódź will be my 2 first targets since they contain a lot of industry that was lost early in the war.

Planning to go on the offensive decide to promote Marian Rukiei, my field marshal, who has now leveled up enough to be able to be an Chief of Army.

After that I plan my attack. I can see that the railways that supplies the Polish front is largely supplied by 3 points which if cut off, would create 3 breaches that would force the Germans to either fall back or start taking logistical penalties

2 of those are supply hubs which, if I take out, should force the Germans to leave Poznań . I can then go via the sea, taking the ports there for added supply all the way to Berlin.

One rail junction to the south is also susceptible to being cut off, close to Brno. I doubt I will be able to take it in the first offensive but if I can I will go for it. For now reclaiming my core territory takes priority so I will go for the two supply hubs.

Shortly after Hungary is doing what Hungary does and declares war on me, cutting a large portion of my force away from supply. I force deploy my now freed army via rails to respond. While it might have looked bad for a second it has opened up an opportunity elsewhere. I redeploy my tanks…


A coordinated push with my tanks later and Poznań is retaken, a pocket is encircled and the Berlin railway is cut off. Romania is struggling in the south against Hungary. My race-cars sees the opportunity and…


A temporary victory to be sure. The tank is alone and the railway is unguarded. I have some spare units to redeploy and I pray that they will get there in time.

Alas the tank was encircled and destroyed, but it did pull enough troops away from the front to allow me to advance and redeploy troops. With overstretched supply lines I stop my advance to allow the railways to be regauged.

As I have unlocked some tactics I set mine to Elastic Defense for some extra defense. I would have liked to have Blitz


But I feel that I don’t yet have enough tanks to make do with this tactic. I'll switch it around later

Through some shenaniganry Germany managed to get a hold of Norway and Sweden. I set a small task force to deal with this. It should be simple as I took every German port, so even though I know that there are German units guarding it, they are basically sitting ducks.


As expected the Soviet Union finally woke up and on the wrong side at that.


Although I planned for this already I cant resist leaving them a parting gift

As the end of the Third Reich draws near I draft plans for doing after the USSR.
The tanks made at the start of the war are now inadequate to go up against the Red army and as such I am drafting new designs


Tank destroyer with a high velocity gun and a Squeeze-bore adaptor for extra piercing


Main battle tank with medium canon and wet ammunition storage


Anti air


Flamethrower tank (these are support companies, which mainly gives attack boost modifiers to Urban, Jungle, Fort and Forests and are mutually exclusive with engineers)
[h2]
1942 - Death throes of the axis​[/h2]
In the first month of the new year Germany finally capitulated after a series of tank offensives. Supply started to become an issue, first due to lacking trucks for motorization and after a while just due to the sheer amount of troops in the field.

The last city to fall was Vienna (I am super happy that I did the initial collaboration government , otherwise I would not have enough victory points.


The state of the world

I grab my tanks to go straight for Hungary and Italy. Obviously I prioritize Hungary first to liberate the Romanians (yes I know I should go for Italy but it’s not my fault I get emotionally attached easily). Although I am stopped pretty quickly due to the German remnants holding key strategic railways which prevents supply from reaching the new front.


Once the railways are fixed Italy is a piece of cake to steamroll since they lost most of their troops in Germany.



The final tally of the war is as follows. The vast majority of casualties inflicted (90%) on me was early in the war from Germany where I struggled the most.


Post peace conference looks similarish to what it was during the war, with the added wormy southern Slovakia in the middle of it all as a bonus

The absolute nerve. Its alright we don’t need them where we are going

I now have time to prepare to retake Eastern Poland

[h2]1943-1946 - Years of the big quiet​[/h2]
Fast forward a couple of years to rebuild my armies to take on the Soviets. Not much happened in between since the bad man was destroyed.

I now have an army of tanks ready, with an army of mechanized to follow up behind them.

I got the cost of mechanization down to quite low by upgrading its production cost.


I also produced some Railway guns for support, which now give these effects (as per popular request)


And this is how my tank template current looks like



The plan is to follow the Kiev line up to Moscow since its mostly plains.


I want to avoid the north as much as possible since there is mud and marshes galore, which really makes offensives difficult.

I also sent a part of the army to Burgas (Bulgarian coast) in the south (which was why I grabbed that part of Bulgaria to begin with) to make a naval invasion using mulberry harbors into Baku to cut off the oil for the Soviets. I formed the Międzymorze to invite Turkey into my faction since I couldn’t get access with my submarines otherwise.


With everything planned and ready I guess its ok to knock and see if anyone's home?



I successfully land on the shores near Baku. Some of the divisions land without a port, although that is no problem at the moment since I have mulberry harbors, so I don't have supply issues, but I need to take a port for permanent supply quickly.

As you can see I also have transport planes delivering supplies by air, stationed in Turkey which also helps in really bad areas.


When I land I am met with fiery resistance and although I manage to take a port before the mulberry harbor is destroyed I realize that I will be unable to take Baku immediately. Although an opportunity presents itself as Sevastopol is vulnerable and lightly defended. I take 4 tanks and zoom across the Island, managing to encircle a lot of the Soviet southern front.

As the southern front collapses the Soviets are forced to retread from Baku to fill it

In the meantime a titanic air battle is happening in Eastern Poland. The enemy is trying to bomb my trains, and as the majority of my trains are War Austerity trains that leaves them vulnerable to bombing and disruptions.


As the caucasus frontline is in shambles I see an opportunity to cut off the entire supply chain. The entire frontline is supplied by just one railway, which I manage to cut off. Effectively forcing the Soviets to retreat towards Stalingrad

As the year comes to an end I have pushed quite a bit into the USSR. However I am having a harder and harder time advancing towards Moscow. The city of Bryansk is giving me quite a headache as it's quite well defended and attacking cities from multiple angles is less effective than other terrain. It also has a supply hub that I need in order to advance further, and my lines are quite stretched.


I stop for a while, build up the railway and then let them eat 2 nukes to the face. After that a breach is formed in the frontline as my tanks push towards Moscow. At its gates fierce fighting commences.


It does not help that it's January and a lot of the provinces outside Moscow are in deep snow. The red army is pretty exhausted at this point with most of its armor being destroyed. Eventually Moscow falls under a barrage of tanks, fighters and tac bombers.

During this Leningrad falls under a combined assault from Sweden by the allies and Rostov is encircled, entrapping a lot of the remaining southern army that defended Stalingrad.

[h2]1947 - The year of “please just capitulate”​[/h2]
Even though a lot of the army that defended Stalingrad is dead and the red air force lies in a scrapyard somewhere it is still somewhat tricky to take as the red army still controls a long stretch of the railway.

Trying to take Stalingrad head on is still impossible, so I focus on cleaning up the infantry protecting the Stalingrad outskirts. As supply becomes better (relative) I can finally perform the last push and take the city. This puts the USSR quite close to capitulation, and I only need to snipe a few victory points.

Casualties just before Stalingrad capture and their eventual capitulation.

That's that! I tried to show off as many features as possible, and I hope you enjoyed reading through my craziness.. Now I guess there's only one thing to do, as a reward for being a true friend in need



[h3]
Read the full article here![/h3]

[h3]Greetings all,[/h3]

Today we have two important topics to cover, for which we have reinstated @podcat with a battlefield commission, in order to detail our latest efforts to combat the width meta. In addition, Comrades @Bratyn and @Wrongwraith return for a dive into changes to the Soviet Exiles branch of the focus tree, based partly on community feedback.

[h2]Combat Meta[/h2]

Hi everyone, @podcat here for a little guest appearance to tell you some more about the combat changes coming with Barbarossa. Back in the Combat and Stats Changes diary we outlined our quest to break down the 40 width meta and try to combat an “overall best division”.
In there we outlined several changes such as varying terrain width without easy multipliers to exploit (meaning you can still make optimums for particular terrains but not all), as well as reduced penalties to going over widths.

To expand on this we have changed how targeting and damage spreading works. One way 40 width (and also larger) divisions were stronger than smaller ones was how they could concentrate all of their damage into one target overpowering defense more easily. Targeting is now changed so that divisions will select targets up to its own width (so a 40w can fire on two 20w), but doing so spreads the damage over them relative to their width (and just to be clear, it’s not just for 40w. This applies to any widths that match up like 30+10 say).

‘tis mathematics innit


With these changes I can say that I am not really sure what the best meta is anymore. I think there are likely some optimums depending on your opponent and location (when balancing Org versus cost and piercing and such) but what that is I look forward to see you players try to figure out :)

We also have one more change that I think will have a pretty big impact. When deciding if a division can reinforce to the battle line inside combat we no longer check in order of the order they joined combat, but instead we will now pick randomly among all waiting divisions with their chance weighted by their reinforce chance. This means that to optimize reinforcing you no longer need to pull micro feats to get the right divisions in order, and can much more safely toss in your newly designed tanks to save the day in an ongoing combat. Also, don’t forget your signal companies, they should be more impactful now!



[h2]Soviet Changes[/h2]

Hi guys! This is @Bratyn and @Wrongwraith, part of the CD team on the Exiles branch for the Soviet Union. The last month has (other than lots and lots of keyboard-scrubbing...) seen some significant changes to the branch, and while we’ve kept much of the original design, we’ve also incorporated feedback from you guys, the community, and did some further iteration of our own on how the tree looks and works.

I believe we mentioned last time around that the civil war was hard if you chose to go down this path of the focus tree. Really hard. “Realistically hard” someone might argue. "Unwinnable", our testers might say. And while that might be to some degree realistic, it isn’t that fun. So we decided to make it _slightly_ less hard, while also introducing a few new elements to make the war even more interesting. Among other things, you now use Command Power to recruit units, rather than Political Power. And we have increased the amount of things you can get from countries supporting your cause.

We also added a few new focuses.


As you can see, the main structure of this section is similar to what it was before, with some minor changes. Maybe it should be stated at this point that most focuses are short focuses. The new ones that you can access before the war are these:



Why do you need these? Well You really, really need to be the one triggering the war, and you want to ensure you have control of as much land and units as you possibly can. So you need to be juggling your PP’s and CP’s while keeping an eye on the Political Paranoia of the Soviet Union. If Stalin starts the war before you are ready, it will still be very hard to win. And in order to do the latter, you can use the Covert Operations focus to try and divert the attention away from you - by providing fake evidence that e.g. the army is plotting against the state. This will cause an inquiry into army affairs, and this in turn will both damage Stalin’s army, and lower the Paranoia level temporarily - allowing you to continue with your schemes. The other new focus here is intended to give you a better supply situation when the war breaks out. Fighting through Siberia can be tough. Extra so if you don't have a supply system that supports it. So why not get some more help from the Japanese, right?

But I suppose the most interesting thing is this set of Focuses:



What do they do? Well, they give you different options in how to deal with nations that declared independence during the civil war…


A number of countries can declare independence during the war, especially if it drags on for too long. You then get the choice to see that as an act of war, or as a potential ally (for a while at least). Getting help from minor nations can be a good distraction, and something that can greatly reduce the time you need to fight against the Bolsheviks. However, being the empire -wanna be, you might not want that situation to last forever, hence the post war options.



This, together with a few other events that can happen during the war, should make the 2nd Russian Civil War winnable for the exiles, although still a challenge.


Some of the biggest criticism we received from you was the fact that the Western and Eastern expansion branches depended on whether you went down the Tsarist or Fascist branches. And rightly so! It made no sense to arbitrarily lock some of these options behind an ideology choice; a Fascist Russia would certainly have cause to wish to reconquer in the West, and a Tsarist Russia might well have even more reason to exact vengeance upon the Japanese than the Fascists would.

Making these two expansion paths available to both branches would, however, mean other focuses were required to continue to offer a unique identity to both of the ideological branches. Some people suggested more focuses geared to creating alliances, and we paired these with certain focuses intended to offer some flavor to the branches. This is the current state of the post-civil-war branches:



The difference will be immediately apparent. The tree has ‘thickened’ quite a bit, with over 10 new focuses, and the branches against Sweden, the Baltics, and Finland on one side, and Japan on the other, are now available regardless of the political choice you made, clustered near the center of the branch. Nothing has changed in these focuses, except The Lonely Island, which, if you relied upon Japanese aid too much and thus were puppeted after the end of the civil war, converts into a “war for independence” focus.



Let’s explore the newly-added focuses. On the Tsarist side, Capital of the Tsars moves the capital to St. Petersburg, and adds a bunch of goodies for the state itself. Reforge the Triple entente does what it says on the tin: reach out to the UK and France to re-establish the old alliance aimed squarely at Germany.




To emphasize old Tsarist Russia’s emphasis on being a ‘defender of the Slavs’, there’s yet another “Slavic Commitments” focus. If you elected to go down Third Rome, this will still give you an option to send guarantees to the various Slavic powers (along with some other bonuses), after which you may invade Romania (The Fate of Romania) to establish a land connection to the Balkan powers. And finally, “The Iron Wall off Russian Resolve” gives major bonuses to research and production cost, reliability, and armor for Super Heavy Tanks, incentivizing their use by offsetting the most detrimental aspect of them (their production cost), and thus offering a more unique playstyle for the Tsarists.



On the Fascist side, Russian Corporate State offers some factories and industrial bonuses. There is a focus to create a Berlin-Moscow Axis, and follow-up focus Japanese Overtures allows for an alternative choice to simply avenging the war of 1905 by going to war with the Japanese: you can invite them into the new Axis and secure Russia’s flank that way.



Eastern Expansion is now Fascist-only. After this, there is still the option of meddling in the Americas and, ultimately, declaring war on Canada and the USA for the old Russian colonial possessions on the continent. A second branch can be taken, however, offering wargoals on Afghanistan and Iran, and ultimately leading into Iraq, Turkey (if it hasn’t already been taken as the Third Rome), Syria (France), and India.



These changes should offer a bit more identity to the Exiles branches, while also allowing both to fulfil the ‘basics’ of recovering Imperial Russian possessions in the West and avenging the war of 1905 in the East.

Finally, here’s some pictures of certain characters:


As usual, the tree is still under development, and even what you see here might not match what ends up being released :) See you next week for another dev diary!

[h3]Read the Full Diary here [/h3]