is realistic to think that all nations will eventually have it's own focus tree?

[rhuan]

In the beginning of the game (1.0) paradox made the focus tree system, but only major nations had it, and, honestly, the older major countries focus were really bad compared to today. anyway, first they added a free DLC to poland, which was nice of them. Them came TfV, which added 5 nations, all of the commonwealth. One year later, came DoD, which added 4 nations, all of whom were from central europe. Another year, they made WtT, which added NINE nations (2 being reworks) now, of course most had the same tree, but moving on. in 2019, they added MtG, with 4 nations (2 being reworks) which at the time was a historical low on added new focuses. they added the La Resistance, which added 3 focuses (1 being a rework). In the same year of La Resistance, they added BftB, which added 3 new focuses, totalling 5 that year and the first time 2 paid DLCs were added. in 2021, they added NSB, which added 5 focus trees (2 being reworks) and, if i recall correctly, people loved it back in the day. in 2022, came BBA, which added 4 new DLCs (1 being rework). In 2023, the added AAT, which added 5 new focuses, all being brand new. in 2024, they made ToA, which added 5 new focuses just as AAT. Still in 2024, but at the latter date, they made Gottedamerung, which added 5 new focus trees (2 being reworks). in this year, 2025, they made GoA, which added 4 dlcs, 1 being a rework.
That information is easily acquired through the paradox wiki, but we have been informed a new DLC will come out (probably at the end of the year, just like it happened in 2024) and i started to think: what's next for paradox? They are, of course, running out of things to rework, fix and add, there are, as of this post, 37 nations on the start date that have no Focus tree, most of them being in Asia and the Americas, so realistically, there aren't really anything to do to the game now, and if they keep the pace they are, they will not have no nation to add very soon.
So what will they do? Will they add country packs for the remaining nations and rework focuses pree man the guns (which are kinda lacking) because i don't see anything new they can do.
I've linked an old picture of an dev diary of the devs alking what's next, and if you really see, almost all of it is done, what else will they add? Of course we need some reworks to old focuses, but is that all after this DLC?

 

[Kakori]

We'll probably get HoI5 before that, tbh. Generally speaking, expansions include at least one major nation (Arms Against Tyranny being the only exception), while country packs don't. If we were to extend the current trend of expansions/country packs, we would get next:

Late 2025 - Expansion with a Japanese rework (probably China too)
Early 2026 - Country pack with minor nations (maybe Central America or something in Africa)
Late 2026 - Expansion with a US rework (Mexico rework? Caribbean nations?)
Early 2027 - Country pack with minor nations (finishing the remaining middle east nations?)
Late 2027 - Expansion with a UK rework (Commonwealth rework? Ireland?)
Early 2028 - Country pack with god-knows-what

Of course, there's no guarantee that they'll keep the current trend, they could shorten or extend this timeline according to their long term planning, but if they do keep the trend, that's possibly another 3 year worth of DLC content. By that time the game is going to be 12 years old already and they'll probably be looking towards HOI5, if they aren't already.

There is a slight issue of reworking US/UK while Man the Guns already exists, but they could remedy that by just incorporating MtG into the base game some months in advance.

So to answer the question, I don't think every country will eventually get a focus tree, mainly because they'll probably switch to HOI5 before we get enough country packs for that. That is, unless they decide to increase the number of countries per country pack, but I think it's a little bit too late now, they'll need at least another pack for the rest of South America and Middle East, since ToA and GoE didn't fully cover those regions.

 

[LastButterfly]

So long as the DLCs keep selling well, yes, it's realistic, albeit would take some time.

 

[General Tao]

I hope not. I think focus trees should have only featured for nations that fought in WWII. Everyone else can get the generic tree which honestly is a fantastic tree (and gives 5 research slots....).

Having said that, if the upcoming dlc doesn't have a focus tree for Singapore that results in a world conquest with coring any state you build a hawker centre in, I will be outraged.

 

[LastButterfly]

I think focus trees should have only featured for nations that fought in WWII.

Bit late for that.

 

[Corvinas]

I hope not. I think focus trees should have only featured for nations that fought in WWII. Everyone else can get the generic tree which honestly is a fantastic tree (and gives 5 research slots....).

Having said that, if the upcoming dlc doesn't have a focus tree for Singapore that results in a world conquest with coring any state you build a hawker centre in, I will be outraged.

Yeah, the infamous Afghanistan played a crucial role in WW2.
I hope that we will get French Entente rework. France for sure deserves better NF tree, current monarchist is a joke. Czech also deserves better tree and Romania and Jugoslavija as well.

 

[Firos01]

Something to also think about: The number of starting nations has changed over time in the current version of the game there are 91 countries. But that was not always the case, Belgian Congo, Sultanate of Aussa, Transjordan, Mandatory Palestine, Iceland, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Burma. those were 10 more starting countries two with unique focus trees.

Personally I would prefer to see all starting nations + croatia and slovakia with their own unique focus trees but as time goes on I think that will be unlikely. So development can go for quite a long time.

 

[Telenil]

I asked that exact question at a Paradox convention five years ago. The answer was that giving a tree to every country was the intent, though countries in Central America or the Carribean would probably be given the same single "regional" tree, like the Chinese warlords were.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

I think this was their intent at launch but I doubt it will happen now. The community kept demanding bigger and bigger focus trees with more and more alt-history paths, even for tags that have already had unique content. Since dev time is limited, the small countries' trees have consequently been postponed. But the game is almost a decade old now, so it's very likely that they're giving since serious thought to HoI5.

An interesting question would be whether EU4 has DLC content and mission trees for every tag in that game now that DLCs are ending. Although it's a different studio, it would at least be actual empirical evidence of how completionist PDX is these days.

 

[Kakori]

An interesting question would be whether EU4 has DLC content and mission trees for every tag in that game now that DLCs are ending. Although it's a different studio, it would at least be actual empirical evidence of how completionist PDX is these days.

Keep in mind that EU4 has about 4 times as many tags in the starting date as HOI4 has. AFAIK most tags don't have unique missions, but EU4 does have regional missions as well, that can either replace or add to the generic mission tree (e.g. native american tribes have an alternative to the generic missions, while european countries have only 2 extra missions on top of the generic mission tree). Regional missions can also be based on culture, religion, technology group and government type, not only in location, so it's a surprisingly dynamic system.

 

[Lamartine]

I hope not. I think focus trees should have only featured for nations that fought in WWII. Everyone else can get the generic tree which honestly is a fantastic tree (and gives 5 research slots....).

Having said that, if the upcoming dlc doesn't have a focus tree for Singapore that results in a world conquest with coring any state you build a hawker centre in, I will be outraged.

What kopi will you choose for your army? Kopi c siew dai for -10% enemy speed on core territory (it's sticky lah)

Edit. (for avoidance of doubt, this is a joke. No more meme paths please)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

focuses are super popular and that still baffles me a little, even though i've long since accepted it. nearly all of them boil down to:

• pick an ideology tree, sometimes civil war/casus belli goes here
• have some industry tree
• have some army/navy/air xp and pick a doctrine tree
• have some research bonuses

sometimes these blend together a little, and you get ic from the army tree, or the research boosts are specifically for industry. this above remains something like 80-90% of all focus trees. beyond that, countries will occasionally get some forts, a port, or a supply hub. but by and large, focuses are the generic tree with some of the numbers changed + a story written for them.

i would appreciate this more, except for most modders and the vanilla devs themselves don't use the tool properly and make focuses do things which break the game. allowing puppets to declare war/join other factions, scripted peace deals, war w/o notification...these are the common exceptions to the standards of focus trees, and their implementation is bad more often than it is good. "bad" in the sense that players can and do lose runs not to their own mistakes, but developer mistakes instead. doing this repeatedly erodes trust, and you can get that sense when cynical comments about it get upvoted heavily on reddit.

yet players still want more focuses instead of re-worked/functional mechanics and ui. they still tolerate being lied to, repeatedly.

 

[rhuan]

Something to also think about: The number of starting nations has changed over time in the current version of the game there are 91 countries. But that was not always the case, Belgian Congo, Sultanate of Aussa, Transjordan, Mandatory Palestine, Iceland, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Burma. those were 10 more starting countries two with unique focus trees.

Personally I would prefer to see all starting nations + croatia and slovakia with their own unique focus trees but as time goes on I think that will be unlikely. So development can go for quite a long time.

i agree with you, croatia, slovakia and all starting nations would be enough, but they don't stop adding new starting nations, however, there is serious need of rework from TfV to MtG (mtg only for the majors, netherlands only need very small tweaks) so they can finish in some 8 DLCs
my guesses are:
- current DLC (Japan, Chinas, Mengukuo and Mongolia)
- southeast asia DLC (maybe with french indochina included)
- Central Europe Rework (Albania, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, maybe some tweaks to the ones in BftB)
- trial of allegiance 2 (all other south american nations)
- trial of allegiance 3 (central america)
- trial of allegiance 4 (caribbean?)
- middle east (all puppets, Saudi Arabia and yemen)
- commonwealth rework (including ireland)
- USA rework (including liberia)
- small DLC for the himalayas (nepal, Bhutan, tibet and Sikkim)
That would only leave our beloved Luxembourg and Tannu tuva on the map with nothing, but i am being too hopeful here, ain't i?

 

[rhuan]

focuses are super popular and that still baffles me a little, even though i've long since accepted it. nearly all of them boil down to:

• pick an ideology tree, sometimes civil war/casus belli goes here
• have some industry tree
• have some army/navy/air xp and pick a doctrine tree
• have some research bonuses

sometimes these blend together a little, and you get ic from the army tree, or the research boosts are specifically for industry. this above remains something like 80-90% of all focus trees. beyond that, countries will occasionally get some forts, a port, or a supply hub. but by and large, focuses are the generic tree with some of the numbers changed + a story written for them.

i would appreciate this more, except for most modders and the vanilla devs themselves don't use the tool properly and make focuses do things which break the game. allowing puppets to declare war/join other factions, scripted peace deals, war w/o notification...these are the common exceptions to the standards of focus trees, and their implementation is bad more often than it is good. "bad" in the sense that players can and do lose runs not to their own mistakes, but developer mistakes instead. doing this repeatedly erodes trust, and you can get that sense when cynical comments about it get upvoted heavily on reddit.

yet players still want more focuses instead of re-worked/functional mechanics and ui. they still tolerate being lied to, repeatedly.

it's kinda good they follow a pattern and are not scattered all over, or people would have to be very tryhard to remember every single thing about every single focus tree (which they do nonetheless, bu it's easier)

 

[Firos01]

I mean they can still add more starting nations, and there are some awseome contenders there French indochina and Egypt, are two that pop up a lot around in the forum, but them they take development time and HOI4 is at the end of the day a program, and one day, way will be made for another, I just hope (and this hope dwindles with time) that we end with all starting nations with FTs.

 

[rhuan]

I mean they can still add more starting nations, and there are some awseome contenders there French indochina and Egypt, are two that pop up a lot around in the forum, but them they take development time and HOI4 is at the end of the day a program, and one day, way will be made for another, I just hope (and this hope dwindles with time) that we end with all starting nations with FTs.

I hope they add it and actually have content, and not just like the mid east nations

 

[herr anfsim]

They would probably keep pushing focus trees as long as people are buying, but I doubt that every nation will be covered. My impression is that there is a degree of ‘tiredness’ among the developers where ‘memes’ and minigames is a way of handling the tedium of creating yet another focus trees for countries they find increasingly uninteresting. I think we stsrted seeing it in AAT and it might have been the case for GoE. Uninspired content creates uninspired players, and I believe the recent pushback might help push the developers in a better direction.

Personally, I would prefer a move to better generic focuses and mechanics, and nation specific decisions. I recently had great fun building generic Iraq into a major arab power and prefer good generic mechanics and country specific decisions to uninspired and buggy content.

 

[pick-goslarite]

In the beginning of the game (1.0) paradox made the focus tree system, but only major nations had it, and, honestly, the older major countries focus were really bad compared to today. anyway, first they added a free DLC to poland, which was nice of them. Them came TfV, which added 5 nations, all of the commonwealth. One year later, came DoD, which added 4 nations, all of whom were from central europe. Another year, they made WtT, which added NINE nations (2 being reworks) now, of course most had the same tree, but moving on. in 2019, they added MtG, with 4 nations (2 being reworks) which at the time was a historical low on added new focuses. they added the La Resistance, which added 3 focuses (1 being a rework). In the same year of La Resistance, they added BftB, which added 3 new focuses, totalling 5 that year and the first time 2 paid DLCs were added. in 2021, they added NSB, which added 5 focus trees (2 being reworks) and, if i recall correctly, people loved it back in the day. in 2022, came BBA, which added 4 new DLCs (1 being rework). In 2023, the added AAT, which added 5 new focuses, all being brand new. in 2024, they made ToA, which added 5 new focuses just as AAT. Still in 2024, but at the latter date, they made Gottedamerung, which added 5 new focus trees (2 being reworks). in this year, 2025, they made GoA, which added 4 dlcs, 1 being a rework.
That information is easily acquired through the paradox wiki, but we have been informed a new DLC will come out (probably at the end of the year, just like it happened in 2024) and i started to think: what's next for paradox? They are, of course, running out of things to rework, fix and add, there are, as of this post, 37 nations on the start date that have no Focus tree, most of them being in Asia and the Americas, so realistically, there aren't really anything to do to the game now, and if they keep the pace they are, they will not have no nation to add very soon.
So what will they do? Will they add country packs for the remaining nations and rework focuses pree man the guns (which are kinda lacking) because i don't see anything new they can do.
I've linked an old picture of an dev diary of the devs alking what's next, and if you really see, almost all of it is done, what else will they add? Of course we need some reworks to old focuses, but is that all after this DLC?

I think all starting nations will get A focus tree. Many like in Arabia and Central Ammerica will almost certainly get an Aussa or Baltic style tree in which there is one tree with cosmetic variations that all of them have (Aussa with the Ethiopian Releasables) or a very similar tree with a slightly varied Political Focus Branch (Baltics). I don't think Cuba or Oman will get a fully original tree like more signifcant minors like Iraq, Afghanistan, Portugal, Chile, Machukuo, etc. have gotten.