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Announcement | Hearts of Iron 4: By Blood Alone

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Greetings Generals.

The long tradition of HoI anniversary surprises, while slightly delayed, has not been forgotten.

Today, we have the pleasure of announcing to you the next milestone in the Hearts of Iron story: By Blood Alone. Over the coming months, we’ll be revealing more on what each of these features consists of, but for now enjoy a snapshot of the future for Hearts of Iron.

In By Blood Alone, you will chart the course of Mussolini’s regime in Italy or subvert Italy’s historical path in one of many new alt-historical paths in the new Italian focus tree, driven by the constant involvement in war from the beginning to the end of the game.

Choose to take on the task of resisting the Italian colonial occupation as Ethiopia in their new, expansive focus tree. Will you go into exile only to return stronger than ever when the greater conflict ignites, or can you beat the ultimate challenge and evict Italian troops from your land before forging a new path for your country in the prosperous Horn of Africa?

Experience the true meaning of ‘building tall’ by balancing your precarious situation as Switzerland, sandwiched between an ever-growing array of totalitarian regimes. Will you succumb to their pressure, or stand as a shining beacon of democratic ideals in the face of greater odds?

Alongside a number of changes to the air warfare system, take advantage of a comprehensive Plane Designer feature, as well as numerous quality of life improvements and new functionality for owners of La Resistance and the intel system. Accompanying the plane designer, we’ll be adding a whopping 67 new 3d plane models including a wide array of new Italian planes as well as going back and adding models to many important planes currently lacking them.

In By Blood Alone, you will be able to make use of a variety of new demands in the overhauled peace conference feature. Demand the demilitarization of states, the dismantling of military industry in defeated foes, civilian factory war reparations, and access to resource rights in addition to the expected array of peace conference actions. Of course, we can’t forget that navies played an important part of post-war negotiations - augment your victory by partitioning the navies of defeated foes, and put these behemoths of the sea to good use as you look towards the next conflict.

Divisional Commanders will now be the bread and butter of your future officer candidates. Grow their skills passively as they perform their duties in command of divisions, reward their actions in combat with country-unique medals, and see their persistent achievements follow them as they are promoted to higher positions over the course of a game.

Encounter up to 20 new unit models and associated SFX, 12 new radio-integrated music tracks, and new diplomatic actions as well as many more quality of life and functional improvements to HoI in By Blood Alone.

As mentioned above, we’ll be delving much deeper into what each of these features will consist of in the coming weeks and months leading up to release. Stay tuned for more information!

Wishlist it here! https://pdxint.at/3mmbDBX
 
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I am really excited for all of this! Aviva Italia!

I got one question in my mind though, why Switzerland and not Austria? In my mind it would have been more compatible due to the regime and all that.
 
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Cannot wait to get my hands on this. Just checked out the Steam page, it seems the Ethiopia tree is still in debugging phase as Menelik has the same trait twice. Feels really sad that Austria will not be included in this, or are they being held back?
 
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Italy focus tree, plane designer, confiscating enemy fleets, divisional commanders, improved peace conferences - this is such a great set of features that people were asking for. Amazing!

also a good fit, Regia Aeronautica (Italy's RAF) was one of the prides of Mussolini's regime, makes sense to bring them to the game together
 
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I really like what i am seeing but i am kinda bummed that Austria will not be touched. I'd have rather seen them instead of Switzerland.

Apart from that i hope we will get some more General portraits for nations that already have had their focus trees done,
as missing historical OOB leaders and El Genericos contribute to significantly reduce the immersion (specifically France, the Death of Dishonor nations and Poland).
Agree. Switzerland instead of Austria is desicion really difficult to understand for me. Czechoslovakia gets it's own tree and she's, most often than not, getting annexed as well. That only proves we may never see Austrian Focus Tree unless will get "Austria, Slovakia and Croatia dlc" one day

Oh and perhaps Albania as well :)
 
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I am really excited for all of this! Adivasi Italia!

I got one question in my mind though, why Switzerland and not Austria? In my mind it would have been more compatible due to the regime and all that.

A combination of the synergy between Italian and Ethiopian/Swiss focus trees, and being able to imagine a scenario in which Austria would make a prime focus tree in its own right.
 
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I’m surprised no Austria since their alt history path seems to basically write itself. But I’m glad Italy is getting changes and can’t wait to see it come out!
I guess it's because the big alt history path, to restore Austria-Hungary, is already covered by Hungary's focus tree.
 
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Damn sounds cool, would prefer Finland/Sweden or Brazil over a Swiss or Ethiopian focus tree though. But I hope they'll be fun.

I hope the new peace conferences will work in practice as well as they sound on paper.

One thing that worries me is that divisional commanders will be too much micro. Choosing a general for your 100+ Soviet divisions will just give me nightmares... Hope there will be some sort of auto-assign feature. Since if you have 10 or even maybe 20 divisions, choosing commanders might be fun, or for your tank divisions. But for the big majors with 100+? micro hell. I'd probably just click through it without looking at the commanders.
It sounds more like you can promote new generals from existing divisional commanders, but not as if there is new interaction with existing divisional commanders
 
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Finally, the Swiss focus tree we yearn for.
 
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OOF not even most bugs from NSB adressed and yet another DLC already coming lol
1.11.12 is coming tho.

Does Albania get anything?
Please, please, please
I really like what i am seeing but i am kinda bummed that Austria will not be touched. I'd have rather seen them instead of Switzerland.

Apart from that i hope we will get some more General portraits for nations that already have had their focus trees done,
as missing historical OOB leaders and El Genericos contribute to significantly reduce the immersion (specifically France, the Death of Dishonor nations and Poland).
Same here.

Also, CC to @Simone87, of course.
 
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I really like what i am seeing but i am kinda bummed that Austria will not be touched. I'd have rather seen them instead of Switzerland.

Apart from that i hope we will get some more General portraits for nations that already have had their focus trees done,
as missing historical OOB leaders and El Genericos contribute to significantly reduce the immersion (specifically France, the Death of Dishonor nations and Poland).
This

I was always expecting an Ethiopia Focus tree after the Battle for the Bosporus happened because there had to be other nations that italy had to pair with. I feel like Austria should have been an easy yes.
I guess it's because the big alt history path, to restore Austria-Hungary, is already covered by Hungary's focus tree.
Poland and Lithuania already can both restore the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth with similar paths. The issue is that we have Otto von Habsburg as the only one who could probably rule over it in this timeperiod. Poland and Lithuania both have completely different rulers.
 
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I like the idea of unit medals. Always wanted more than just the traits the generals get.

Will there be country specific ones? Like for example can the Soviets award the Hero of the Soviet Union or the British the Victoria Cross?
 
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Quando a cobra vai fumar?
Smoking snakes when?
After Pearls of the Orient (Southeast Asia a.k.a. Japan's Battlefield), ofc..... Well, i hope for that, at least.....
 
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Nice, i looking forward to this one.

Do I understand correctly that we also can equip our aircraft with glide bombs (In the top row, third from the left) in the aircraft designer? How do we get something like this? Through the engineering technology tree?

edit: Or are this Fuel tanks?

477EC321-0E12-4741-A7AE-E8F6D1E8909C.jpeg
 
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