Heart of Iron 4 Just celebrating its ninth birthday, the World War I Grand Strategy Game is the most popular Steam of its type, reaching over 50,000 active players on a nearly day basis. But the developer paradox clearly still has ideas about how to build on its core. The 2024 Götterdämmerung expansion brought about major changes to central players in conflicts in Germany, Austria and Hungary. Now, in a new developer blog, the studio explains that it is planning to overhaul the Hoi 4-type mechanism.
“It’s not been happening much to the factions since its release, so I thought it was time to see them,” writes Hearts of Iron 4 design manager, Writh. More countries can create facts in the Grand Strategy game than they can at launch, but they are all very similar. “In contrast to the united front of the Allies, Comintern, or China, for example, I don’t feel the difference in playing as an axis, and the goal here is to change that.
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Wraith, the wrong wraph emphasizes that the piece is in “very early stages,” so while there aren’t many examples of the final UI or artwork, it offers a basic mockup. The core concepts played here consider the terrorist manifesto, goals, rules, initiatives and influence. To begin with, each faction has a manifesto that determines its central focus, whether it conquered a new land, stops spreading fascism, or something else.
Progress to this manifest is monitored by fulfillment rate and bonuses are provided when hitting a specific fulfillment milestone. Furthermore, all factions have short-term and long-term strategic goals. Smaller purposes, such as taking over certain territory, managing resources, and adopting more countries into the alliance. These conclude the direction you intend. And you are not forced to follow them, but you will be rewarded for doing so.
Facts are also defined by rules. These may determine which countries are able to participate in factions, or which members are permitted to declare war on their behalf. Perhaps only people from the same continent as the leader are permitted, and on the condition that they are currently at war and do not have fascist ideals. Similarly, other rules can qualify a country to be expelled from the ranks or, conversely, take over its leadership.
There is also a range in which the leader adjusts these rules as the game progresses. Faction initiatives are derived from completing a specific goal and are spent making changes to Factions by adding, modifying or removing rules, providing privileged eligibility. The paradox points out that these are handed out modestly, ensuring that things are constantly chopped up and unchanged, and that they are not plagued by the decision “you are what we want to avoid.”
Instead, initiatives can be used in other ways. Some of the examples given are the addition or expansion of research or military doctrine sharing between member states, the construction of a joint research site, or the introduction of the group’s commander-in-chief.
The final aspect of the play is influence. This shows how much power each member of the faction holds and is acquired through participation in the war, industrial forces, events and contributions. These latter are acquired by delivering something to other faction members, or to the entire group. The higher the influence you have, the more rewards you will receive from achieving your goals and the more war scores you will get from the Peace Conference on the winning side.
Of course, if you are considering moving towards becoming a new leader in the current faction, you need to accumulate enough influence to do so. To close the overhaul, the wrong wraith says that the paradox is trying to add a way to tell your ancestor allies where they want to focus their efforts. “It doesn’t mean they’ll give up everything else, they just raise their attention there.”
If successful, rework could dramatically change the interaction of Hearts 4 with the Allies in Iron 4, but you will have to wait a while to see how the system evolves before reaching the final game.
For now, I recommend playing in 2025.
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