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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
 
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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.
 
Hello,
Here comes a question that maybe is stupid.
Is Mengkukuo going to get a own focus tree like the rest in the area or are they just to small? Maybe I have missed info about it earlier.
 
@Archangel85 Can you clarify what you mean with "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."

Does that mean that a puppet Manchukuo gets territory from Japan in China? If so, what is the point of invading China as Japan?
 
Hello and welcome back to another Dev Diary. This week we will look at the last unrevealed focus tree for Waking the Tiger: Manchukuo.

Alright, I'm going to say that provisionally this looks excellent (depending on what's in some of the focuses). It's much better than I had been anticipating and I'm sorry for naysaying.


On the other hand, though, please can we fix the borders already? It's seriously not a difficult change.
 
We are going to cover this stuff in a future diary. maaaaaybe next week
Sort of like the Soviet Union being at war with Poland but not he allies? Or is that something different?
 
So what kinda path does Manchukuo take in historical mode? Does it still take the two brother emperors focus? Did Japan really plan on restoring the Qing? I'm a little confused/concerned about this.
 
Will manchuko get new 2D and 3D art?

We decided rather than showing portraits in each diary we will do a diary before release and go over all the art. so stay tuned for that :)
 
So is poor Mengkukuo the only chinese region stuck with the default tree? I forget if it was announced if they would get the warlord focus as well. If not, thats really a shame, because theyre the only independent (more or less) nation in the region that has not been changed.

Tibet will be stuck with the Generic Focus Tree too.
 
Will manchuko get new 2D and 3D art?

Already got the most important one in )))
raids.jpg



So what kinda path does Manchukuo take in historical mode? Does it still take the two brother emperors focus? Did Japan really plan on restoring the Qing? I'm a little confused/concerned about this.

I can't say about what they take in game, but historically Japan did not support Pu'yi's claims on pragmatic grounds. If you were trying to mimic the historical situation best, you'd have the option there but locked behind limits that the historical Manchukuo did not come close to passing in terms of military power and the like.
 
We decided rather than showing portraits in each diary we will do a diary before release and go over all the art. so stay tuned for that :)
portraits? No heroic miniature soldiers charging forward? No 3D art? :(
 
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.

With all these possible Royalist restorations, maybe Royalism should be its own ideology?
 
I think Thailand and Mongolia need some focuses too, if you try to include all the far east in this DLC
I think Siam would work more in a south east asia DLC with Dutch East India and British Malaya and maybe Burma. Mongolia had 800.000 inhabitants and was de facto a puppet of the Soviet Union.
 
Hello,
Here comes a question that maybe is stupid.
Is Mengkukuo going to get a own focus tree like the rest in the area or are they just to small? Maybe I have missed info about it earlier.

Well, it is Mongolian instead of Chinese, to be fair. It would be nice if it gets a few tweaks like being able to core the rest of Mongolia or w/e, at least.

I would say that still having the wrong name is a bad sign for its chances at getting a good re-work, but I said that about Manchukuo's incorrect borders too and I was pleasantly surprised.