• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Developer Diary | Historical Sweden

Välkommen!

That is of course not English, but rather Swedish which will be today's dev diary. This DD will talk about the branches for the military and industrial branches, as well as democratic branches.

This tree has been a collaboration between me and AveeBee. We have had a longstanding rule in the HoI team that no Swede is allowed to touch a Swedish focus tree, but apparently that rule flew out of the window as long as the Swede in question was supervised by an adult.

Normal caveats apply, there’s work in progress stuff in here, and things might change before release.

Historical Context
As most of you already know, Sweden was the only Nordic country that was not invaded during WW2, but in a similar way to Switzerland was pressed by both the allies and the axis which led to some dubious concessions, but Sweden remained neutral through it all.

While Sweden arguably had the superior military capabilities compared to its Nordic neighbors, it was woefully unprepared for war and was caught with its proverbial pants down on the eve of WW2 with its government preferring to focus on the welfare state rather than its military, something that would change as the war progressed. This will be a major theme for the focus tree in large.

As you might have noticed I keep saying Democratic, not Historical. That is of course because historically Sweden did not join any wars. Me and Amy decided early on that we assume that players _will_ want to get into a war sooner or later, (which is after all a key tenet of the game), which is why even under the Democratic paths you will eventually join the war. (of course the AI will have guardrails against this on historical)

While there are a lot of historical references to things that actually happened, we are assuming that the player wants to engage in the warfare part sooner or later.

Start
At the start of the focus tree you will have the choice to pick from a total of 4 leaders. Historically this was Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp which only ruled for a few months until Per-Albin Hansson came back in the 1936 election, called the Summer Government.

You can try to keep Per-Albin which will result in a Vote of No Confidence, or you can pick Gösta Bagge which is the right leaning option
P1.png
P2.png
P3.png


Don’t worry about losing out on Per-Albin Hansson though! After the summer is over another election will happen, and you can return him to power. If you went through the hassle of having a Fallen Riksdag you get an additional option of appointing Ernst Wigforss as a Per-Albins successor, or if you want you can continue with the leader you have.
P4.png
P5.png


Hungershield and Folkhemmet
Before I continue I need to bring up the issue of stability, or rather Hungersköld (Hungershield). During the first world war Sweden was embargoed by the entente due to iron ore trade with Germany, leading to domestic protests, riots and eventually the ousting of the current Swedish government.

The Swedish PM at the time, Hjalmar Hammarskjöld was nicknamed “Hungerskjöld”, hence the wordplay. At the onset of WW2 the fear of food shortages again loomed large for Sweden, and drove both domestic policies and was a great fear for the populace.
P6.png


In the game this is represented with stability acting as a shield against such hunger strikes. Being above a % of stability protects the player against those adverse effects, and being below that threshold opens you up to the risk of getting strikes.
P7.png


Riots can happen if you are at a very low stability. . While they are temporary you will not want to get stuck in an endless cycle of these. There are a few safeguards that we have put in place to make sure that players that temporarily dip under these thresholds will not immediately get these strikes instantly due to a bad RNG roll, but you do not want to stay under the limit for very long.

That leads us to another concept, Folkhemmet (The People's Home). While you might know it as the name of communist Sweden, it was actually a set of social-democratic policies that paved the way for the welfare state that Sweden has today.

The focus on this welfare state was partially why the government at the time was hesitant to spend a lot of the budget on the military, as these programs were very popular. In game this is represented with the Folkhemmet spirit.
p8-png.994155
P8.png


As long as the welfare state is intact it acts as a buffer against the risk of getting strikes, but as you can see it also drastically reduces the military capabilities of Sweden.
P9.png


As you progress through the focus tree key focuses will start to orient the Swedish industry towards war, but the Folkhemmet shield that is protecting you from strikes will be chipped away.
P10.png


To demonstrate this is what a fully degraded Folkhemmet looks like at the moment.

To counter this there's a mix of things the player can do, such as employing advisors, picking focuses that add stability, picking decisions that add stability and so forth. We don’t specifically dictate how you handle this system, but rather hope that players will handle it differently depending on playstyle and how aggressive they want to be.

In a nutshell it is a question of “when do I rearm” and “how do I avoid the adverse consequences of those decisions”, and make sure you also do not get caught with your pants down. With those main themes explained, let's look at the actual tree

Industrial Branch
P11.png


This is the entrypoint for the focus tree. The Defense Act is where you pick your leader, and just below it is the industrial branch. As you can see there's a clear divide between the focuses, and that you can mix and match some of them.
P12.png
P13.png

P14.png
P15.png


These are two examples, and as you might glean the left side is more aligned with social-democratic policies, while the right one is more aligned with right leaning policies. The right side generally leans more towards ratcheting up the defense industry, while the left one focuses more on the internal stability of the state.

Putting this into context, if you amass a larger pool of stability from these focuses, you might be able to offset the dip in stability from Folkhemmet, but on the other hand it might take longer to do so.
P16.png


If you really do not want to deal with this at all you can lean heavily into the right and remove it completely.
P17.png


You can also leverage your ball-bearing trade (the things that make other things spin). Something that Sweden smuggled to both the axis and allies.

Flashpoints
As the events of history unfolds events will happen that put Sweden into contact with the great powers of the war. These are events that we nicknamed Flashpoints, which are historical contextual events that happened to Sweden during the war.
P18.png


Here Sweden gets accidentally bombed by the USSR
P19.png


The USSR can apologize or deny this. In this case they deny it, allowing Sweden to respond
P20.png


Sending military aid to Finland as a response will escalate tensions with the USSR
P21.png

P22.png


If the chain of tensions reaches a boiling point it will boil over, dragging Sweden into the war as well, or not depending on how Stalin responds
P23.png


This is one example of one of these events where tensions might lead to war.

Military Branch
P24.png


Scrolling right we find the 3 military branches of the focus tree which will be shared between all the paths of the focus tree
P25.png


What is a bit special though is that part of the tree is locked behind war support (or military factories if you get that far). Instead of providing stuff like military factories these focuses augment the military directly, think of them as a miniature doctrine tree.

The focus behind this “war support gate” is intended to put some additional pressure on the player to want to get war support up, tying back to the interplay of the Folkhemmet and Hungershield.
P26.png


These are generally divided into a defensive and offensive play style with the left one being more oriented towards defensive oriented players, and the right one being more oriented towards offensive offensive players. (pictured above is the panic button focus)
As you progress through the focuses these spirits grow in strength as you invest more resources into them
P27.png
P28.png


While these cornerstone focuses are strong, they require investment in both time, and being gated behind war support. How quick you get to them is decided by how fast you rearm.
P29.png


You might recognize Bofors in this example which made the popular 40 mm Anti Air gun. In this case Bofors gets a unique trait and funds for the MIO
The military branch of the focus tree is where a lot of Folkhemmet is going to be changed via focuses. It also provides some much needed funds for the Swedish MIOs
P30.png


Navy Branch
P31.png

Sweden's navy tree is mainly divided into whether you want to contest the Baltic directly via capital ships or if you prefer to go the German route and focus on submarines and light surface fleet for harassment.

The top shared part deals mainly in expanding the output of the domestic industry, as well as the option to buy older ships from other countries.
P32.png


As happened historically, the Italian destroyers might take a roundtrip through the world and end up in Iceland, so be aware :D
P33.png


Of course we couldn’t resist making a Vasa focus, however we hope that it is slightly more successful than its predecessor.
P34.png


While its a powerful battleship it deploys at 60% complete, so you’ll need to finish the other 40%.

Winter War
P35.png


When Finland was invaded by the USSR it reverberated through Sweden. Finland was seen as a first line of defense against the Russian threat, which has been a historic adversary of Sweden.

You are given a choice of whether to go the historic route and send volunteers, try and claim the Åland islands when Finland is weak, or get actively involved in the war. Getting involved in the war will give you a mission of taking Leningrad, and if you or Finland manages to take it the Soviet Union will either be forced to sign a white peace, or face massive unrest. Both Sweden and Finland also get the avatars of their nation to help out, for a while.
P36.png
P37.png

P38.png


If Leningrad is lost the USSR will either be forced to revoke their claim, or face embarrassment.

Democratic Branch
As you probably know Sweden did not enter the war. But in HoI all the preparation and buildup, and later on the war itself is a key component of the core game loop. Aveebee and I decided to take an early design decision to work under the key assumption that players who play Sweden will want to get into the war.

Meaning that we have had to modify the historical path to work with the plan that Sweden will enter the war at some point. Of course the historical Swedish AI will not enter the war unless provoked.

In practice that means that the historical branch will have focuses related to events that did happen in real life, but they work under the thesis of Sweden eventually getting involved as well.
P39.png


A lot of refugees from other Nordic countries fled to Sweden and were secretly trained as “police forces”. Some of these would later help liberate Norway. In game this focus puts these police forces in a separate pool that grows as more Nordic countries capitulate.

On the onset of war this banked manpower will be unlocked and transferred into the normal manpower pool. You can also expand the facilities to raise the training cap for

P40.jpg

Beep Beep

Most important of all is the Per Albin Bus (pictured above). This is a mobile headquarters that the Swedish government planned to run away into the forest with in case of invasion. In game the bus is a state modifier that can be moved to adjacent states, reducing the surrender limit. If the bus gets captured the country leader dies. (We actually got to see this bus when we visited the Army Museum last summer)
P41.png

P42.png


You can move the bus as long as you control an adjacent state,which means that you can take Per Albin all the way to Moscow if you really want to for some reason.
P43.png


Sweden also has access to Rangers, which are special forces that send out undercover troops to sabotage vital infrastructure behind enemy lines. Use it wisely as the casualties of these can be quite high. Very useful to blow up enemy ports in Norway.
P44.png


As you eventually enter the war by trying to either Save Denmark or Norway Sweden gets a goal to liberate every occupied Nordic country. The more occupied countries the stronger this bonus becomes, with an additional bonus once those countries are liberated.

Nordic Defense Council
P45.png


If the more careful path of building up your defensive capabilities is a bit too conservative for you there's always the option of forming the Nordic Defense Council. This involves more aggressively tackling the threats around you with the other Nordic countries' help.
P46.png


It invites every Nordic to become a member state of the council, and you get to pick whether to centralize its command at the cost of its member states not being able to defend themselves as well,
P47.png


Or decentralize its command into its member states
P48.png


Here is an example of a centralized command, with Mannerheim and Helge Ljung working side by side
P49.png


In the end you can opt out of picking either Death or Dishonor, growing stronger the more member states you have.

Late Game Focuses
P50.png


We also put in some late game focuses, mainly for those that want to continue the campaign after WW2 has concluded. These tie into late game technologies, the new special forces rework and finally dealing with the threat of the iron curtain.
P51.png


This Lion looks a bit more majestic than the Gripsholm Lion. A frequent on r/badtaxidermy
P52.png


Advisors, Military and States
As always we have new awesome advisors. Here are the ones available to Sweden.
P53.png
P54.png

P55.png


My favorite one in Sweden is Ebba Margareta, which does not cost anything to hire but can get traits depending on how the player chooses to invest.
P56.png
P57.png


We also have the couple Myrdal which feeds off of each other if they are both in the Cabinet.
P58.png
P59.png


As for the new generals here they are. Most of their experience came as a result of being in the Finnish civil war.
P60.png


And the Admirals! Charles de Champs is definitively winning the style competition here.
P61.png


And these are the new Swedish states! My pet peeve of having Norrbotten and Lappland on the map as two separate entities has finally been solved! (sorry for the weird slicing of the image Sweden has a…weird shape). Åland now also starts demilitarizing at the start of the game (which it still is to this day).

And finally, some nice 3D models!
P62.png
P63.png
P64.png

P65.png
P66.png


I call this one the Sardine deathtrap (The engine is in the front....)
P67.png
P68.png


The Resource redistribution
Finally there’s the question of resources. During WW2 Germany was partially reliant on Swedish iron ore, especially before the fall of France. Arguably the reason why the Narvik campaign happened at all was Germany's desire to secure the Gällivare mines, and the allies desire to blow it up (under the pretense of helping Finland).

We have tried several ways to model this in game but it has been hard for several reasons. The trade algorithm runs the shortest route capital to capital, while the actual resources are located in the north of Sweden. The algorithm also really prefers land routes, which would go across Denmark, or if by sea through the Baltics and not through Narvik as was historically. Changing this is outside the scope of this expansion and while we tried other adding content driven systems on top of this nothing worked satisfactorily up to this point.

I don't rule out some abstraction for Germany controlling Narvik gaining them some IC boost, but currently we decided to sidestep it in another direction, by making Germany a bit more reliant on imports.

Germany has in game had more domestic resources than it actually had in game, leading to a problem of it never really having issues with resources, especially steel. Whatever steel it needed was either in Germany proper, or soon to be taken from France, leading to the “Free Trade Meta” we often see these days.

Part of the issue is the abstraction of coke, ore grade, steel mills into the single encompassing iron which makes this hard to properly represent. All in all Sweden provided around 43%, German domestic production 28.2% and France 12.9% to the German war effort between 1933-1943. Having buildings such as steel mills was also outside the scope of this expansion.

This resulted in an overall reduction in iron for specific countries, main targets were Germany which overall had poor iron ore quality, and France which Germany will gobble up. Germany starts with 2 civilian factories more than before to use for import as needed. Portugal also got some tungsten shifted to Sweden. Below are the main changes, with no changes in trade law from 1936 starting dates, accounting for starting infrastructure and no equipment lines active.

Germany
AAT
P69.png


PRE-AAT
P70.png


France
AAT
P72.png


PRE-AAT
P71.png


Portugal
AAT
P73.png


PRE-AAT
P74.png


SWE
AAT
P75.png


PRE-AAT
P76.png


These numbers are not final and might change depending on balance and how the AI performs.
View attachment Focus Tree.png
Whole Focus Tree Above

I don't have any good ways to end this, so I'll just stop by saying
 

Attachments

  • P77.png
    6,5 MB · Views: 0
Last edited by a moderator:
  • 55Like
  • 21Love
  • 7
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
This focus tree has to be an ill timed april fools joke, the level paradox has fallen to is downright pathetic, this tree and literally everything about this DLC is the purest grade dogshit ive ever witnessed. A Single modder on any large mod does better work than the entire company making this game. Sad to see.
I think it's not a bad thing to develop a story for a "what if..." scenario. The purpose is also that any player find pleasure with the game, and depending on their personal style pick the right nation. You can always look elsewhere...
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
This focus tree has to be an ill timed april fools joke, the level paradox has fallen to is downright pathetic, this tree and literally everything about this DLC is the purest grade dogshit ive ever witnessed. A Single modder on any large mod does better work than the entire company making this game. Sad to see.
Play modded then, no ones forcing you to play vanilla
 
  • 3Like
  • 3
Reactions:
If I recall it right, Mannerheim himself writes in his memoirs of (him?) proposing that both Finland and Sweden garrison Aland together.

To quote Max Jakobson (translated by me):

"The dictates of the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Åland were in the environment of the 1930s so outrageously unrealistic that the island group formed a military vacuum, which constantly made the military brass of both Finland and Sweden nervous. Marshal Mannerheim noted already in July 1934 that the treaty weakened the security of the North [Nordic countries/Northern Europe -F], because it left the sea route between Finland and Sweden unprotected, and similar statements were also published in Sweden. The usual given basis in those was the prediction that either Germany or the Soviet Union would attempt to capture Åland already at the start of a war and the dangers this would inflict upon Sweden were highlighted. "Åland in the hands of a great power would be a pistol aimed at the heart of Sweden."

However before the end of 1937 Swedish government circles did not show even the slightest interest towards changing Åland's position. Only at the turn of the year 1937-38 did the question become contemporary in Stockholm as well. Certain obvious factors affected this change in direction: The collapse of the authority of the League of Nations, the bankruptcy of collective security, the danger of an incident between Germany and the Soviet Union, the ever more convincing Nordic orientation of the Finnish government. Additionally it is likely that securing the position of Åland did not attract [Swedish -F] Foreign Minister Sandler only for the thing itself, but also because of its politico-psychological effects: it offered an advantageous platform for even larger cooperation between Sweden and Finland."

This was followed by Finland and Sweden negotiating for a revision of the 1921 Åland Convention:

"Neutrality and Nordic cooperation belonged together like whiskey and soda. And Nordic cooperation was the same as securing the defence of Åland. The lengthening of the negotiations regarding this mission had caused even some loud impatience in Finland, when at the beginning of January [1939 -F] a prestigious delegation left for Stockholm to finalise the treaty. The significance of the event was highlighted by the fact that for hte first time in Finland's history the prime minister himself travelled abroad on official business. Others in the delegation were e.g. Minister of Finance Tanner and Minister of Foreign Affairs Erkko. Indeed at the end of the negotiations held on January 5th-7th, the news was announced that the treaty had been finalised.

Although from the beginning both the Finnish and Swedish governments had agreed that measures needed to be taken in order to ensure the security of Åland, the negotiations regarding those measures' nature and extent had not gone without disagreements. Indeed the treaty was, as Erkko admitted upon his return home, at several points a result of compromise, which didn't entirely correspond with the plans set by Finland's military brass. Specifically the garrisons and equipment to be placed on the main islands had to be downsized by the Swedes' demand. Additionally Sweden achieved the right to indirectly oversee the extent of the armament installed on the main islands. In order to satisfy public opinion in Sweden the Finnish government also acceded to further concessions beyond existing plans, that in order to protect the linguistic rights of Åland's population, that, among other things, the command and training language of Ålander military units would be Swedish.

As previously stated the so-called Stockholm Treaty involved both the downsizing of the demilitarised area and the arrangement of temporary defence measures on the main islands. South of a line going in the east-west direction from the southern tip of Lemlan, in other words on the outer islands of Köökar, Björkör and Lågskär, Finland would be able to perform military preparations without restriction; the intent was that fixed batteries would be placed there. North of the new line Finland would have the right for the next ten years to give Ålanders military training and deploy there other Swedish-speaking military units coming from other parts of Finland; to deploy to the area mobile coastal and anti-air artillery; to deploy there equipment necessary to the training of troops, mobilisation and upkeep; to store mines there and allow Finnish and Swedish warships to stay in the area temporarily for exercise purposes. The Finnish and Swedish governments were to agree with one another about the maximum amounts of these troops and materiel, as well as of the extent of the naval exercises: Sweden's overseeing rights were hidden in this paragraph. Regarding the protection of the Ålanders' special rights, the Finnish government gave detailed guarantees, which were contained in a separate declaration.

Sweden's participation in the defence of Åland was expressed only in vague terms in a joint declaration by both governments, in which it was stated that "in case the immediate threat of war presents itself in the area of the Baltic Sea, Sweden will reserve herself the right, as being the closest situated guarantor nation and taking into account her own vital interests, to give aid, upon Finland's request, to the carrying out of measures of defence which lend themselves to the securing of the neutrality of the Åland Islands." Formally therefore the Swedish government maintained its freedom of action; formally its neutrality policy of avoiding all military alliances remained unblemished. The treaty did not obligate it to give aid, if Finland requested it, but gave it the right to give aid, if upon Finland requesting it the Swedish government saw it necessary to the country's interests to partake in the defence of Åland. Morally however the treaty did obligate Sweden to give aid, and there is no question that Sweden's government at the time, or at least its foreign minister, saw the matter this way. Evidence of this is both countries' general staffs' firm military cooperation in planning for mutual defence measures [for Åland -F].

The Treaty of Stockholm was, out of a necessity set by circumstance, only preliminary in nature. Before the treaty could be made official, the ascent of the signatory states of the 1921 Åland Convention to the proposed changes would be needed, after which the matter would have to be subjected to the Council of the League of Nations. Furthermore its application necessitated legal measures in Finland, Sweden and Åland. Only once all these formalities were concluded, was the plan to confirm the plans by exchanging notes between Helsinki and Stockholm, followed by placing delegations from both countries to oversee the carrying out of the plans."

This translation is already way longer than I intended (in hindsight I probably could've cut out some of the less important stuff), and I even skipped a ton of pages, so I'm going to sum up what happened after this:

Everyone else was fine with revising the 1921 Åland Convention along the aforementioned lines, some countries were even glad about it, but the USSR, who wasn't even a signatory (the intention had always been that Moscow would eventually partake in the convention by signing it, but the USSR refused to do so), threw a fit, claiming the fortifications on Åland could be used against it (yes, really - e.g. Molotov to Finnish ambassador to Moscow Yrjö-Koskinen on 19.5.1939). Obviously the real reason the Russians were against the Finns (and Swedes) securing Åland was that it strengthened their, particularly the Finns', defence against a Russian attack.

This was followed by Sweden backing out of the plans due to pressure from Moscow.

Plans for a joint defence of Åland were raised again by Finland after the Winter War in 1940, and the same procedure repeated: the USSR made threats and Sweden backed out.

Source for the quoted text: Max Jakobson (1955) Diplomaattien talvisota [The Winter War of the Diplomats].
 
Last edited:
  • 8
  • 1
Reactions:
Looking at the focus tree at first I was a little confused but now looking at it better I really like it, my only hope is that the focuses won't take too long and won't bee too restrictive so that you will be ready for war in 1942

The post war focuses are always an welcome addition

There should be MORE chains of events like the soviet bombing one in the game, the back and forth of those focuses always make for an engaging gameplay and gives you the feeling that you're more in control of the situation that is unfolding rather than just one time even that you can either chose one or the other option and go all in.

The nordic defence council is also something I am looking forward very much, the only disappointment I have is that it's a dead end branch and it leads nowhere, maybe add a few more focuses to it for expanding into the baltics, germany and ussr or maybe some decissions that will allow that, like expanding finland into ussr, denmark into germany, or forming another nation from german costal regions/baltic states that will be added to the council, like the baltic defense zone.
 
Those are all already represented in the focus tree somewhere, either directly with focuses or with the market
tackar tackar <3





i hope sweden gets a super spy wallenberg was a double agent working for sweden cia nazis and smuggled stolen nazi gold out to sweden from hungary
there should be a special espionage mission to hand out passports, giving -5% consumergoods due to smuggled gold and 5% research from smuggled jews
 
Last edited:
  • 1Haha
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Portugal also got some tungsten shifted to Sweden.

Paradox (we know Paradox is from Sweden) has a bad tedency of putting things in Swedish Favor (trying to be nice here), but let me tell you something...

The following image represents tungsten production between 1936-1945. Courtesy of billcorr.
img1.png


But yes, lets give Sweden pratically a lot of Portuguese production, because why not? And here I thought we were speaking about a Historical Sweden... Such a tiny and insignificant Tungsten producer turned into one of the most important ones all of a sudden, lol. HOI4 is one of the few games from Paradox that I still buy DLCs from, but I guess that is something I will also have to start pondering about.
 
Last edited:
  • 11
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Paradox (we know Paradox is from Sweden) has a bad tedency of putting things in Swedish Favor (trying to be nice here), but let me tell you something...

The following image represents tungsten production between 1936-1945. Courtesy of billcorr.
View attachment 996746

But yes, lets give Sweden pratically a lot of Portuguese production, because why not? And here I thought we were speaking about a Historical Sweden... Such a tiny and insignificant Tungsten producer turned into one of the most important ones all of a sudden, lol. HOI4 is one of the few games from Paradox that I still buy DLCs from, but I guess that is something I will also have to start pondering about.
i feel like the trade system needs a overhaul. sweden needs some trade deal opinion factor. also france+ germany are far too rich in steel they never need to trade with sweden.
 
  • 5
  • 4
Reactions:
i feel like the trade system needs a overhaul. sweden needs some trade deal opinion factor. also france+ germany are far too rich in steel they never need to trade with sweden.
I'm pretty sure the point of reducing both of those nations by a couple of hundred was to do that exactly. Which is fine

What I'm worried about though is if you can't find anybody to buy steel from as an Axis minor after this if Sweden, Germany and Vichy are already depleted.
You'd probably need to either avoid joining Barbarossa or not join vs the Allies in that case to keep any steel supply unless you can somehow pressure them into trading with you over Germany.

Realistically you'll probably want to be able to field at least some mech to feel you have any impact over just having infantry in the meatgrinder as just a few factories on Inf 2 guns might consume your entire domestic steel production as for example Romania or Hungary.
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions:
What I'm worried about though is if you can't find anybody to buy steel from as an Axis minor after this if Sweden, Germany and Vichy are already depleted.
You'd probably need to either avoid joining Barbarossa or not join vs the Allies in that case to keep any steel supply unless you can somehow pressure them into trading with you over Germany.

Realistically you'll probably want to be able to field at least some mech to feel you have any impact over just having infantry in the meatgrinder as just a few factories on Inf 2 guns might consume your entire domestic steel production as for example Romania or Hungary.

It feels like this reduction in the availability of steel is going to hurt even more with the switch in BBA to make most non-majors idle their military factories starting in the mid-game.

Before BBA, you could usually get lend-lease from minors across Eurasia for Infantry Equipment, Artillery, and Support Equipment. It was mostly basic tier, but better than nothing if you were in danger of running a shortage. Now, very few neutral nations have any equipment to spare. If you don't have the steel to make it yourself, and you can't beg for it internationally, not sure how you will equip your armies.

I'm not sure if that idle factory has been fixed in a recent patch, or if this is the new-normal going forward.
 
It feels like this reduction in the availability of steel is going to hurt even more with the switch in BBA to make most non-majors idle their military factories starting in the mid-game.

Before BBA, you could usually get lend-lease from minors across Eurasia for Infantry Equipment, Artillery, and Support Equipment. It was mostly basic tier, but better than nothing if you were in danger of running a shortage. Now, very few neutral nations have any equipment to spare. If you don't have the steel to make it yourself, and you can't beg for it internationally, not sure how you will equip your armies.

I'm not sure if that idle factory has been fixed in a recent patch, or if this is the new-normal going forward.
I wasn't aware that non-participants turned their industry off now, I assume this is to reduce lag then?
 
I wasn't aware that non-participants turned their industry off now, I assume this is to reduce lag then?

I think it was done to combat division spam, but not entirely sure. Here's a bug report I saw about it a few months ago:

 
Last edited:
I'm not sure if that idle factory has been fixed in a recent patch, or if this is the new-normal going forward.
It's not fixed. E.g. Finland, mid 1939: 0/9 mils in use, constructing the 10th. The minors use their factories either in war or to meet some immediate demands, including upgrades. For others like the Nerthelands it's even worse, as they won't even produce the planes they can to fill the wings.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
It's not fixed. E.g. Finland, mid 1939: 0/9 mils in use, constructing the 10th. The minors use their factories either in war or to meet some immediate demands, including upgrades. For others like the Nerthelands it's even worse, as they won't even produce the planes they can to fill the wings.
That sounds terrible, I thought it was only like countries that actually don't participate like Lat/South America
 
It really looks like the resource rework is here against production spam and avoid late-game lagging. I never suffer lag and I regularly play until 1949, but it's true my computer is mid-tier 2 years old.
I was skeptical after BBA air war rework resulted in less planes built.
Maybe it's the same here, and we'll just need a dozen div. to resist the Reich's invasion... But it's true that WWII was about the sheer size of the armies, and a little bit of spam is good to mimic a bloody Stalingrad, Monte Cassino and of course the titanic battle of the Dnieper.
 
I wanted to ask and I hope they answer me, in the new international market that will be added to Heart of iron 4 will it be possible to buy warships? from submarines to battleships and aircraft carriers?

I believe that this would add more realism to the game, since the sale of small and large ships has existed for almost a lifetime, in fact the UK and the USA used to be the ones that sold the most ships to other countries, the UK sold and manufactured the majority of them. South American battleships, including aircraft carriers and well, the USA was not far behind, selling cruisers and destroyers, I'm just saying that it would be great to be able to buy ships so I wouldn't have to focus especially on manufacturing them, knowing that they wouldn't be very cheap
 
I wanted to ask and I hope they answer me, in the new international market that will be added to Heart of iron 4 will it be possible to buy warships? from submarines to battleships and aircraft carriers?
I believe that this would add more realism to the game, since the sale of small and large ships has existed for almost a lifetime, in fact the UK and the USA used to be the ones that sold the most ships to other countries, the UK sold and manufactured the majority of them. South American battleships, including aircraft carriers and well, the USA was not far behind, selling cruisers and destroyers, I'm just saying that it would be great to be able to buy ships so I wouldn't have to focus especially on manufacturing them, knowing that they wouldn't be very cheap
It looks like they removed the navy icon in the latest diary. while there was one earlier...
 
@CraniumMuppet Shouldn't Oscar Nygren be a Field Marshal, since he was the Chief of General Staff at the start of the game and thus held the most senior appointment in the Army (before Chief of Army was created in 1937)?

And does Sweden have any Field Marshals at all in 1936, if Oscar Nygren isn't one?
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: