• 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.

HoI 4 Dev Diary - Manchukuo

Hello and welcome back to another Dev Diary. This week we will look at the last unrevealed focus tree for Waking the Tiger: Manchukuo.


Manchukuo is perhaps one of the weirdest players in the Chinese Civil War. Formally an Empire led by an Emperor, it was also a puppet. Despite owning a large chunk of China, it was never able to field the numbers the other Chinese factions brought to the fight. Despite being ruled by the last legitimate Son of Heaven, no one particularly liked this government.


Capture_intro.JPG



As such, your position at the start of the game is precarious at best. You have practically no support from the population, your industry base is mostly working for the Japanese, your army is somewhat less than befitting your station and to start with, there are bandits running around the country causing havoc.


man_ft2.jpg



So your first step has to be the pacification of the countryside. You can do this by either maintaining a military presence in the relevant areas or spending some manpower and infantry equipment in a more aggressive campaign to hunt them down. You should hurry, though, as the bandit raids will damage your infrastructure and industry if you let them proceed too long.


raids.jpg



Once the country is reasonably pacified, you face a more difficult choice: Either you decide to be an obedient little puppet or you start down on your path to independence and restoring the Empire that has always been yours by birth.


We developers, of course, withhold any judgment about which path you take.


Should you choose to remain a mere pathetic lapdog of the Japanese, you sell your dignity and freedom very dear indeed, as that branch gives you a much more powerful economy. Five year plans allow you to shape the direction of your industry for the next, well, five years, giving you the option to focus on industrial growth, military production or aircraft development. You will gain more infrastructure and factories along the way.


Capture_fyp.JPG



Finally, by allying with the Kwantung Army, you can position yourself as the natural leader of China from the Japanese perspective and get all captured Chinese territories turned over to you. Only then can you gain some autonomy and finally arrive at an equal standing with your supposed “Brother-Emperor”.


Should you, however, decide to take a stand for your freedom and independence and assert yourself, you will have a much harder job ahead of you as your imperial masters will not invest nearly as heavily into your state.



hoi4_120.jpg


More than that, in order to gain your independence, you will have to be patient and gain some small concessions here and there. The next fundamental choice for you is whether you want to turn your country into a society dominated by Manchus, or if you will make good on the propaganda of five equal races under one banner. Each will give you different advantages.

Afterwards, you will at last prepare for the war of independence against Japan (we actually had to rewrite our war system to allow you to be at war with both Japan and China, while they are also at war with each other). However, this branch will allow you to eventually get rid of the penalties from low legitimacy as you climb the ladder to restore your Imperial rule all across China. Once you break free from your Japanese overlords, you will once again be known as Qing China. Conquering the rest of China allows you to claim the Mandate of Heaven and announce yourself to the world as The Chinese Empire (2.0)


hoi4_121.jpg



Much like the other main Chinese factions (Nationalists and Communists), Manchukuo has access to the shared focus tree that allows them to build up their industry and develop new technologies. Owing to its position in the world, the only viable paths at game start are Germany and Japan, but breaking free will give you the opportunity to reach out to new partners.


That is all for this week. There will be a dev diary next week, but we won't tell you what it is just yet (we are working on a number of things that may or may not be done in time for the dev diary). At World War Wednesday today, our intrepid team of Daniel and Gabriel will continue to try and conquer China while making some of the worst jokes known to humanity. Tune in at 16:00 CET and ask your questions about the focus tree: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive


Rejected Titles for this Dev Diary:

China - under new MANagement

This Focus tree sponsored by Burger Qing

MAN-spreading all over China

Henry Puyi and the Dragon Throne

This focus tree will make a MAN out of you

This DLC is basically MAN-datory

Hail to the Qing

Coming up with rejected titles took longer than writing the rest of this diary
 
Last edited:
grts
 
I have question. Why her name is called Yoshiko Kawashima? This is the nihongo name... Her real name is Aisin Gioro Xianyu, name from the Manchu language. In the screen shot we see free Manchukuo not Japanese puppet
 
They already said why there aren't any ideology changes. Each "China" (KMT, Commies, Manchuria) represents one ideology. So basically you don't pick your ideology with focuses, but in the country selection screen.

I think it goes like this:
  • Communist China: Communist, or democratic (if social democracy path is chosen)
  • China: Non-aligned, maybe democratic?
  • Manchukuo: Fascist
 
I think it goes like this:
  • Communist China: Communist, or democratic (if social democracy path is chosen)
  • China: Non-aligned, maybe democratic?
  • Manchukuo: Fascist

Democracy is the only path China can chose. The only political choice they get is crushing the warlords before picking the fight with Japan or working together with them.
 
Nice to see Japanese Port Arthur on the map again.

Btw is there no way to stop Manchukuo from eventually allying the Kwantung Army? This path is not historical at all as the Japanese wanted to create a collection of individually weak puppet states. They were never going to allow Manchukuo to gain too much power.

Right now there seems to be no truly historical ending in the Manchu focus tree. At the very least this path should be made mutually exclusive with a historical path.

EDIT: Since this is a China-themed expansion, PDX should by now be well aware that the name of Mengjiang as well as the flag of Communist China are still both incorrect.
 
Last edited:
"Five year plan", reference to Stalin's five year plans? Unless there is cooperation with the Soviets or they just both decided to name their economic plans the exact same, I really hope that is not in the non-Communist paths.
 
You should write Ryojun Port :p

Looks like they've given them a lot more than that.


"Five year plan", reference to Stalin's five year plans? Unless there is cooperation with the Soviets or they just both decided to name their economic plans the exact same, I really hope that is not in the non-Communist paths.

The planned economy in Manchukuo worked on development in terms of five year plans for a bit, same as with several other countries.
 
"Five year plan", reference to Stalin's five year plans? Unless there is cooperation with the Soviets or they just both decided to name their economic plans the exact same, I really hope that is not in the non-Communist paths.
Other nations had state planning. Germany had it under the four year plan and I believe Japan started state planning when they realized the war in China wasn't going to be a walk in the park, so around 1940.
 
I think it goes like this:
  • Communist China: Communist, or democratic (if social democracy path is chosen)
  • China: Non-aligned, maybe democratic?
  • Manchukuo: Fascist
From the dev diary, it seemed like the Republic of China can only go democratic and there's no non-aligned option. I put in my two cents in that thread and hopefully they have a more historically appropriate alternative by the time the DLC is released.
 
Well it still sounds like the game is a fair way from being finished. When the Devs stop saying things like this “ (we are working on a number of things that may or may not be done in time for the dev diary).“ and start talking about ballancing the game we will know its getting close
 
Great Dev diary, but in the stream "I know Daniel is the Greatest" the war in china went to fast! There should be more penalties if you don't garrison what you take from a country you are still at war with. Really starting to miss partisans.
 
Well it still sounds like the game is a fair way from being finished. When the Devs stop saying things like this “ (we are working on a number of things that may or may not be done in time for the dev diary).“ and start talking about ballancing the game we will know its getting close
They always end up having to cut content to meet a deadline. It's actually a good sign things are starting to wrap up with this expansion. I think it's safe to say they have covered most of the big features and the rest of the dev diaries with be filler content as they tidy things up for release in a month from now.
 
I must say I do enjoy these additions to nations to give them a path to restoring former glory. Especially looking forward to restoring the German Empire allthough this looks promissing as well.

That being said after diving back in HOI4 a little bit again these past weeks the peace conference still is hell. I hope PDS will aim to rectify the ridiculousness there a bit. Yesterday in my (modded) Byzantium game I attacked Saudi Arabia aiming to make it a puppet, they immidiately joined the fascists which merged our war with the italian war of agrassian against me so I said allright I'm cool with that, I'll just tackle you and then head north to jump on the fascism destruction bandwagon by the Sovjets and the allies (Germany was soundly beaten before 1940).

Then with the fascists beaten we entered the peace conference over the fascists dead corpses (me, allies and sovjets picking them clean) and lo and behold! Before I could say Oil sjeid the damn sovjets puppetted Saudi Arabia! Seriously but that's just rubbish, there wasn't a war anywhere near SA except my war of aggrassion against them and the nearest Sovjet soldier was thousends of miles away well north of the Causcasus.

Can't PDS include something where demanding provinces or puppetering in areas becomes extremely expensive (warscore-wise) when you where not involved in fighting in that area, have no soldiers around and have no base of operations to start with?

At Jalta the sovjets didn't start demanding Ethopia out of the blue didn't they? They pupetted eastern Europe which makes a lot more sense.

They actually did that. Costs 10x more to take territory not held by your faction. Problem is SU doesn't care and just pays the extra points.
 
Awesome. Awesome to the max

Finally I can form
Qing 2: Xuantung Boogaloo
Qing 2: The Search for Puyi's Gold
Qing 2: The Empire Strikes Back
Qing 2: 2 Qing 2 Empire
Qing 2: Kwantung of Secrets
Puyi v Hirohito: Dawn of Monarchism
Qing Empire Reloaded
Qing 2: Honey I blew up the Co-Prosperity Sphere
Qing 2: I want to Puyi
Qing 2: Puyi Never Sleeps
Qing 2: Into Darkness
Qing 2: The Wrath of Kwangtung
Qing 2: The Lost Throne
Qing 2: Return to Beijing
Qing 2: The Chronicles of Puyi
Qing 2: Your Sisters a Monarchist
Book of Fascists: Qing Empire 2
I could go on but I feel that's enough

My only suggestion, The achievement for reforming the Chinese Empire should be called "The Last Emperor No More" or something along those lines.
 
A good achievement name might be, "The Manchurian Candidate".
 
Looks great, but I can't say that I like the decision between freedom and japan, because everyone will want freedom and few will go for the other option. I would prefer a tree design, where you have all options open.
Also, I hope it is possible to become free without fighting Japan, at least in theory. I think that becoming free, take your chinese cores and supply the Axis with an endless supply of manpower would be a nasty strategy.
Another thing I would appreciate would be an option to become non-aligned. I have my doubts that country under PuYi's full control would be fascist.
Yeah I was expecting a new 4th team in the form of the nonaligned/monarchist countries in the form of the Kaiser Reich, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Italy (after you remove Mussolini with the focus) and Imperial China