Hey!
@AveeBee here to give you a rundown of what we’ve been up to recently.
Since Graveyard of Empires released, we’ve been working hard to polish and refine the new content to make it more enjoyable. Some of this has taken the form of bug fixes of course, but we’ve also fully reworked significant sections of some focus trees, as well as added some completely new content that we really hope you enjoy.
Many of you may have seen these changes already if you participated in the open beta recently and I’d like to say thank you to all who did! Your feedback was much appreciated and really helped us refine the new content.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the highlights.
Saadabad Pact
The Shared Saadabad tree is a joint focus tree that is shared between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. This tree represents the historical Treaty of Saadabad, which was a pact of non aggression signed in 1937 between these countries. Historical AI will only complete the first focus in the branch, which is what creates the non aggression pact and gives all nations that agree a (weak) national spirit. However, on alt-history there is potential for expanding this into a much stronger alliance. Every focus completed will improve the national spirit bit by bit, until it eventually becomes a major boon to all members.
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The focus tree brings back the joint tree banners as seen in the
Congo in Götterdamerung. The banner with all four flags can be taken by any member, and will give rewards to everyone, often with an additional bonus for the originator. Focuses with a specific flag can only be taken by that country, but these will also give bonuses to everyone.
The “
Military Cooperation” focus leads to the focuses “Expand our Influence”, giving war-related diplomatic bonuses to all members, “SAVAK to Protect Us All” which Iran can complete after it has formed SAVAK, and “Joint Military Exercises”, which gives military XP gain to everyone.
On the other side you have the “
Economic Cooperation” focus, which leads to the focuses “Expand Road and Rail Connections” and “Integration of our Infrastructure”, which opens the borders between the pact members, constructs a railway through the region, and gives every member a trade discount when buying resources from each other. There is also the “New Branches for the Baghlan Sugar Company” and “Joint Trade Through the Berlin-Baghdad Railway” focuses. These two can only be taken by
Afghanistan and
Iraq respectively, and allow them to share their resources with the rest of the pact, giving bonuses to every member including themselves.
After either “
Joint Military Exercises” or “
Integration of our Infrastructure” has been taken, the second half of the tree is unlocked.
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Every member has one or two dedicated focuses that center on something they are good at. This focus can only be completed by said country. When they complete the focus, they get a relevant bonus, and a lesser version of the bonus is given to every other member.
An exception to this is the “Turkish Chromium Exports” and “Iranian Oil Exports” focuses. In the Open Beta, these received valuable feedback that adding resources they already have is not useful. They will now allow Iran & Turkey to export some of their primary resources (Oil & Chromium respectively) to private corporations across the pact, in exchange for small amounts of other resources.
Completing any one of those focuses unlocks the last two focuses of the tree, “
Combined Arms” and “
Saadabad Research Cooperation”, giving big combat bonuses toward major countries and creating a research sharing group respectively. In order to complete either of the two focuses, you are required to be in a faction with at least one other member of the Saadabad Pact. The Saadabad tree does not provide a focus to make this faction, as this would lead to weird interactions with political branches, instead you must use your own political tree or the vanilla faction mechanics for this to happen, how you wish to tell the story is in your hands.
Raj - Communist Branch
We have almost completely revamped the Communist Branch for India. We felt that there was room for improvement here, both in terms of the story being told and the gameplay itself. So we wanted to focus on improving the narrative and flow of the tree in a number of ways.
First off we redid how you turn communist. Beforehand you would use the autonomy system and break free, even in the communist path. Looking back later we agreed with community feedback that this didn't gel well with the narrative and was confusing for players.
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You will now start to align the various elements of India to your cause. Doing the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny requires quite a lot of communist support, but you can reduce the requirement by infiltrating the British-Indian Government and the Independence movement, turning it to your cause.
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The tree is now split into two separate branches. One is centered on Urban Industrialization, which focuses on heavy and rapid Industrialization in a similar style as the USSR or Agrarian Socialism with a greater focus on the countryside.
The trees are centered around your five year plan. How you see the future of your country will impact the plan itself. The Urban Industrialization is focused on Heavy Industry
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Whereas Agrarian Socialism focuses more on the countryside, boosting rural states and giving bonuses such as research and stability.
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The different communist branches also have a unique way to style your army. The Urban Industrialization path focuses on a quality army to get the job done.
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Whereas the left side focuses on the peasantry to get the job done, using India's vast amount of population to grind the enemy to dust, focusing on quantity more so than quality.
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The Red curtain falls over Asia now gives you an opportunity to spread the revolution across Asia without getting directly involved in war.
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If you perform a communist coup the AI can either decide to join you directly as puppets, or cast the country into a civil war.
It also now has a way to end the truce with Pakistan by winning one out of three border conflicts, which also transfers that state to you.
View attachment 1286617
As you gather your strength you can take on the great Japanese threat.
Raj - Loyalty Branch
We also added a loyalist branch for India where you remain a dominion of the UK. The tree is divided into two industrial branches. One is where you continue to extract as much wealth from India as possible, helping to fuel the UK and the dominions industries, or a more moderate approach which aims to reform India's industrial capabilities to keep the wealth inside India. Less radical than the independence branch but more progressive than the former of these options.
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Players will also need to deal with the independence movement in some ways, either by favoring one of the other, and meeting the demands of its leaders.
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Becoming a dominion will cut down how much resources you need to ship to the UK, granting you more freedom than before, relative to other subjects, but still being a part of the empire.
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The right hand side deals directly with military manners.
You can either choose to consult with congress leaders before entering the war alongside the UK, or ignore them altogether. You then form the South East Asia Command, giving you a specialization for your army.
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The rest of the branch deals with helping the faction by picking which areas to focus on. These also allow you to get into the fight much quicker than before, either by focusing on the East, Central Africa of Northern Africa, or all of them.
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Kurdistan Rework
Another one of the things that got a little bit of a revamp was the Iraqi Kurdish content. We heard your feedback and wanted the Kurdistan path to feel a little bit more viable and unique, thus we have given them some rather powerful buffs, and a potential change of ideology! The switch to communism will not be mandatory, but it will buff up Kurdistan significantly, allowing them to not only join the Comintern, but also to grab some sweet CAS from the Soviets. To make fighting in the region easier we also gave the Kurdish some bonuses to fighting in the mountains. While the terrain is still going to be a challenge, you will now be better prepared to face it!
View attachment 1286623
Iran Changes
With Iran, we heard you were wanting for a few more characters, so we scoured the forums for your suggestions and decided upon two new Generals,
and two scientists! That’s right, Iran now gets two scientists and a small bonus to building facilities by going down their democratic branch, and electing not to go through with the Islamic Revolution.
View attachment 1286625
But wait, there’s more! We have also added some new content directly for Iran, as well as a little bit of flavor regarding the Kurdish regions of the country. First of all, let’s talk about the new Iranian content specifically.
We have now added the opportunity to put a Qajar Shah on the throne! This is available to anyone who has become a puppet of the United Kingdom, and appears within the subject branch underneath ‘Swear Fealty to the Invaders’. This focus will fire off an event chain that will give you the option to depose or exile the Pahlavi family if they are still in power. On doing so, you will bring Mohammad Hassan Mirza into power as the new head of the Qajar dynasty.
We have also added a new version of a released Kurdistan that can be triggered by the Soviet Union when they conquer Iranian states that have Kurdish cores. If Kurdistan doesn’t already exist, and Russia is communist, then the Soviet Union will receive an event that will allow them to grant autonomy to Kurdistan, releasing it as the Republic of Mahabad. This new country is run by Qazi Muhammad and will spawn as a puppet socialist republic under the Soviets.
Conclusion
That’s it for this dev diary, we hope it has got you pumped to dive back into the graveyard with renewed vigor! As always, we'll continue to adjust and improve this and all other content as we develop the upcoming war efforts. In the meantime, keep your feedback coming and have fun.
..: PATCH NOTES 1.16.5 :..
Shareable Equipment Designs
- Tank, Plane and Ship designs can now be saved between playthroughs
- Tank, Plane and Ship designs can now be exported to and imported from clipboard
Balance
- Afghanistan
- There are now more ways of increasing democracy support, making it easier to avoid the civil war in the democratic path
- Germany
- Added more places in the alt-history branches for Germany to lower the Consumer Goods Factory Factors if they have either the MEFO Bills or Economy of Conquest
- Reduced chance of AI Lithuania and Poland giving up territory to Germany in the Brest-Litovsk Path
- India
- Reduced special forces cap gained from Kingmaker from 30% to 4%
- Reduced volunteer size from Kingmaker from 6 to 5
- Reduced cost of Reserve Bank of India from 150pp to 100pp
- Reduced several focuses in the India focus tree to 35 days
- Heavy Industry now gives 6 tungsten in capital state
- Seek Financial Aid from the USSR now gives 5 oil, 4 Tungsten and 6 steel in capital state
- Increased Resistance gained from Violence against the British to 60% (from 50%)
- Princely Subjugation now increases resistance target by 60% (from 20%) and reduces damage to garrison by -10% (from +50%)
- The "Anti-Imperialist Zeal" national spirit granted by the focus "The Sun Sets" now also gives attack and defense bonuses against France and the USA, matching the bonuses targeting the UK
- Reduced the "Father of Pakistan" trait from 50% surrender limit to 25%
- "Rally the Indian Left" now takes 35 days (down from 70)
- Rebalanced national spirit "Growing Hindu Nationalism" to give +0.7% weekly war support rather than +1%
- Iran
- Added +75 Political Power and +5% Communist Party Popularity to the Iranian focus "Soviet Alignment"
- Adjusted several Iranian focuses from 70 to 35 days, with minor tweaks to some of them as a result of the time being lowered
- Iraq
- now unlocks a decision to intentionally overflow its irrigation systems and dams for a limited time
- Added a focus for Iraq to trade resource rights for oil to Germany in exchange for significant military aid
- Soviet Union
- AI will now make use of Heavy Tanks
- Fixed bug where more equipment got recovered than lost due to reliability
- Lowered the chances of the more obscure paths being taken by GoE countries if the game rules are set to non-historical or the country is set to random
Gameplay
- Afghanistan
- Added a country leader to the communist path, as well as a Field Marshal and German General to the fascist path
- The Turkmen and Tajik states in Afghanistan are now cores of their respective tags
- Added a new focus for the Afghan Democratic branch to gain more democratic support as well as unlock two new advisors
- Reworked the tooltip for the focus "Retire the Uncles" to be more readable
- Added a focus for Afghanistan to gain the support of former Basmachi Movement members in the fascist branch, enabling for easier conquest of Soviet Central Asia
- India
- Added a new 'Loyalty to the UK' branch to the Raj
- Kingmaker now unlocks anti democratic/unaligned raids
- Kingmaker now allows joining opposite factions
- AI will now be more friendly towards Kingmaker India, being more likely to want to be in an alliance with them and accept volunteers
- Added new communist branches for India
- Added North-Central and Western-Central India as areas targeted during the Mughal Uprising, giving the Mughal side more options for conquests during the civil war
- The focus "Revolt of the Princes" now gives a spirit that makes it easier to annex the princely states
- Improved descriptions of several Indian focuses
- the focus "Royal Navy Mutiny" now removes the Marginalized Muslim Community spirit
- the Communist party will now be renamed to Communist Party of India when completing either of the focuses "Indian Socialism" or "Soviet Influence"
- The Princely Breakaway State can now get more territorial concessions during the Mughal uprising, subdivided into Southern, Eastern, Northern, Central and Western India. Controlling all states in an area will let the Mughal side keep them at the end, instantly coring them.
- Added bypass to Revolt of the Princes if you already control all of India. Bypass gives the manpower and War Support you would normally get
- Added a way to core the princely states with the Akhand Bharat decisions
- Subhas Chandra Bose can now become an advisor for Communist India if he is swayed
- Reworked how to flip communist as India. Now unlocks infiltration decisions to undermine the independence movement and the British, which reduces threshold to flip communist and boost communist support, instead of using the Autonomy system
- Renamed Train Robberies to the Peoples Railways, it no longer gives Train Robberies spirit, instead adds an optional decision and alters the railway focuses
- Iran
- Added a focus under the Fight For Iran path that allows Iran to reinstate the Qajar dynasty if they are a British puppet
- Added historical Generals Haj Ali Razmara and Assadollah Hosseinpoor to Iran
- Focus "Clash of The Titans" is now visible from game start, and is available even if Greece hasn't formed Byzantium yet, but doing so while Greek Byzantine exists will offer a healthy attack bonus
- Added new focuses to the Iranian Communist Path to make the Soviet & Iranian Socialism branches stand out
- Added an extra event as part of the Fight For Iran branch where allies of the faction leader will peace out if the leader chooses to accept the peace negotiations
- Added political advisors Abdolsamad Kambakhsh, Rokneddin Mokhtari and Karim Buzarjomehri to Iran
- Added two new focuses to give democratic Iran the chance to get scientists, facilities and breakthrough progress
- Added new focuses to the Iranian Communist Path to make the Soviet & Iranian Socialism branches stand out
- Iraq
- Added Ma'ruf al-Rusafi as an advisor
- Added four focuses to the Kurdistan path for Iraq, allowing Kurdistan to go communist and join the comintern
- Soviet Union
- Added an event that fires off if the Soviet Union are in control of Iranian Kurdish territory, which will release Kurdistan as the Republic of Mahabad
- Turkey
- Focus "Expand the Saadabad Pact" will now invite other signatories automatically with GOE enabled, but only if they share an ideology with Turkey
- Added more resource variety in GoE nations, such as Chromium, Steel, etc.
- Added the United Maghreb as a new formable nation
- Added custom agency icons for British Raj, Pakistan and Bangladesh
- Added formable "Mesopotamia" for Kurdistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, to allow for the restoration of the Cradle of Civilization
- Added the Saadabad Pact shared focus branch to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey
Stability & Performance
- Improved AI performance for diplomacy
- Improve performance of French and Russian localization
Bugfix
- Afghanistan
- Kabul conference decisions are no longer missing certain regions from claimable state decisions
- Decisions "Exploit Turko-Persian Heritage" now show up on the map as they should
- Fixed an issue in the 1939 start where Afghanistan started with some focuses completed despite missing their parent focuses
- Fixed an issue where the focus "Defender of Central Asia" would sometimes change the capital hub
- The focus "Approach Foreign Intelligence Services" no longer attempts to create two separate agencies when playing as communist
- The decision "Exploit Turko-Persian Heritage" no longer gets soft-locked if a country gets annexed during a pending invitation
- The decision "Alliance with the Turkic People" will no longer be locked saying "Establishing a Resistance cell in progress" after a decision is aborted
- The focus "Purchase Aircraft" no longer gives unusable British planes
- Adds fitting focus filters
- The focus "The Red Threat" no longer forcibly puts Afghanistan into the Axis
- Austria
- Fixed cancel trigger being visible on anti fascist raids for everyone when it just targeted Austria
- India
- The Raj can now join the Allies via the focus "Pledge for the Allies"
- Focus “Jugantar” now bypasses if you are at war with Pakistan
- Fixes missing country name in focus description of Raj's focus "Seek Financial Aid from the Soviet Union"
- Removed RAJ_jim_corbett from focus.
- The doctrine cost reduction from the Raj's focus "Special Operations Executive" now shares its name with the focus
- Fixed Bose not getting his trait when flipping fascist
- Fixed Princely subjugation and independent rule icons
- National spirit "The Pakistan Movement" no longer grants a non-functioning weekly war support gain
- You can no longer start the indian focus "Hegemony of the Subcontinent" that requires you to own pakistan right before india splits
- Fixed broken implementation of icon for Raj's National Spirit "Army Cargo Prioritization"
- Generals loyal to Pakistan or Britain will now be removed from the Raj upon completion of "Royal Indian Navy Mutiny"
- Fixed an instance where democratic India could not join factions
- Fixed an issue where fascist UK decolonizing would attempt to turn India into a Dominion rather than a Satellite
- You now need to complete one of the two first railway focuses to complete "The People's Railway"
- Fixed an issue where Bhoodan movement would give random states shared building slots
- Fixed an issue where you could take the focus "Hegemony of the Subcontinent" before Pakistan spawned
- The "Mughal Influence" state modifier is now removed if the Mughals lose access to the state
- The decision to integrate the Princely States can now be taken even if the Princely states are puppets of the Raj
- Adds a National Spirit that slowly erodes the autonomy of the Princely states if Raj takes the focus "Mughal Court"
- Makes sure the icon for "Gun And Shell Factory" shows up rather than the generic icon
- Removed War Support modifier, reduced Party Popularity and added 60 Political Power to the focus "All Indian Kishan Sabha"
- Fixed issue with political branches in British Raj that could potentially hide them even when the custom rule option was set to NOT HIDE.
- Subhas Chandra Bose no longer loses his country leader traits if India turns communist
- After taking the focus "The Enemy of My Enemy" Japan will only come to help and invade the Andamans for India if the two are not at war with each other
- Iran
- Focus "Soviet-Iranian Oil Collaboration" will no longer add the oil to a hardcoded state that doesn’t correlate with the tooltip
- Focus branch "The Fight for Iran" will no longer partially disappear when wars end even when you already completed the focuses
- You can now get cores on South Baluchistan via the focus "The Memphis Initiative"
- Iranian kurdish uprising is no longer always triggered as communist even if Iran has a different ideology
- Focus "Diversify Industry" now gives "Fuel Storage" as well, if not already unlocked, to prevent getting "Synthetic Oil Experiments" before that
- Focus "Swear Fealty to the Invaders" will no longer sometimes send several events to the same country
- AI will no longer take the focus "Push for Negotiations" when it is winning
- No longer donates resource rights to Germany for states they do not control in focus "Donate Oil Fields to the German Reich"
- Focus "Persian Gulf Hegemony" no longer says it gives you an annex war goal even though it gives you a puppet war goal
- Democratic Iran now has a way to remove the Kurdish and Azerbaijani resistance National Spirits
- Fixed a bug that was hiding the last two focuses in the Swear Fealty branch, that appear if a joint Anglo-Soviet invasion happened. These focuses will now appear as intended.
- Fixed an issue where Soviets would steal states from Kurdistan when Iran selected Swear Fealty to the Invaders
- Decision "Soviet-Iranian Oil Collaboration" no longer only adds oil to Azerbaijan, despite mentioning two states
- Focus "Soviet Alignment" now bypasses if Iran is already in a faction
- The focus "One for All, All for One" no longer uses an unfitting icon
- Adds the "Passive Defense" agency upgrade as a fallback reward for the focus "Fund State Intelligence"
- Adjusted focus branch offsets for the Iranian focus tree and how the Saadabad Pact branch accounts for collapsing focus branches
- Fixed generic portraits not showing in the pool of Iranian Officers
- The decision "Destabilize Northern Iraq" now correctly removes 10% stability rather than adds it
- Demand Afghan Territory and Demand Iraqi Territory no longer have broken tooltip names
- Changed the bypass requirements for Soviet Alignment to prevent blocking if player joins faction manually
- Makes sure the right leader is assigned to Iran if they go down the route of the Islamic Revolution
- Iraq
- Iraqi focus "Propose Syrian Unification" will no longer create a nonsensical tooltip
- State modifier "Kurdish Resistance" will no longer remain in the state if Kurdistan owns it
- The Constitutional Monarchy path no longer uses the country name "Iraqi Republic"
- The focus "Propose Syrian Unification" can now be taken even if Syria is a puppet of Vichy France rather than Free France
- Assures that none of the four members of the Golden Square join the Kurdish side when the focus "Launch a Revolt" is completed
- Renamed the army national spirit from "Army" to "National Army"
- National spirits for Army, Navy and Air force now update their name based on whether Iraq is Iraq, or has become Kurdistan
- Soviet Union
- Can no longer take the focus "Preemptive Invasion of Iran" if they are in a faction with Iran
- Turkey
- Focus "Expanding the Saadabad Pact" can now be taken with GOE if you are not in a faction
- Focus "Reinstate the Darülfünûn-u Şahâne" no longer bypasses when you are not in a faction, locking you out of a research slot permanently
- United Kingdom
- Expand the Secret Intelligence Service typo fix (it's no-longer the Greta War).
- British focus "Ceylon Forward Operating Base" now bypasses correctly
- Fixed an error causing the EIC buying states to become locked out
- Fixed bug with MIO window showing connection lines for non-existent traits
- Declaring war on another member of the Saadabad Pact will no longer display a tooltip so large it goes off the screen
- Forming Mesopotamia did not give you a core on Alexandria, despite it being a required state
- Adds a tooltip clarifying that weapons granted from "Secure Weapons" Will be given upon completion of focus "Mughal Uprising"
- The decisions to change the direction of "Azad Hind Radio" propaganda can no longer be taken at the same time
- Fixed issue with subunit modifiers for marines on attack, defense, organization and speed not being applied properly.
- Fixed broken event picture in Norwegian investment event.
- Makes sure Atatürk dies even though very few focuses have been completed
- Annexing or puppeting Afghanistan as Iran will now remove the "Afghan Helmand River Projects" spirit(s)
- The Achievement "Cradle of Civilization" now only requires level 5 infrastructure in all core states that are *not* impassable, preventing potential softlocking
- Syria & Lebanon will no longer be able to choose to support vichy france or free france if they are occupied/owned by an unrelated country such as Iraq
- Subjects can no longer have collaboration puppets
- Fixed broken tooltip for collaboration government
- Fixes an issue where decisions with the default cost of Political Power did not display the text icon
- Added AI strategy to have the UK always let a loyal Raj back into the allies if it completed "Tryst with Destiny"
- The state modifier "Resistant to Occupation" given to states conquered from India is no longer permanently reapplied in states if India gets capitulated, modifier also doesn't reapply if it was previously removed or the state was given willingly
- The "Anglo-Iraqi Treaty" is now removed if Iraq and the United Kingdom are at war with each other
- Decisions in "The Kabul Conference" now can be taken even decision is cancelled
- Removed controlling Maltya from the requirements of "United Kurdistan", adds Deir-Az-Zur as requirement instead
- Kurdistans formed from focus trees are now valid for the "House of Kurds" achievement
- Ensured that the player cannot take 'Expand the Imperial Guard' when not non-aligned or have the monarchy in power.
Our recent, and still incoming, updates
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