Hearts of Iron IV

Generals!

Greetings from sunny Stockholm to everyone, I’m Batya, Game Director for Hearts of Iron. The summer period is upon us and I wanted to share some information with you all. Unlike the norm of armies planning summer offensives, game developers actually do the opposite and take time off. Of course I am not here to just tell you we will be out for the summer, instead I want to talk about the Open Betas we’ve been running in the last few months.

Some of you might have seen, or even opted into, the betas that we ran for Naval changes and also the Anniversary patch. First of all a big thank you to everyone who involved themselves and provided feedback. It is important for us to co-operate with our community to make a better game and that is exactly what we want to do more of.

I’d like to introduce another beta initiative codenamed ‘Sommarfältprov’, which mainly aims at re-balancing different parts of the game. One of the bigger ones has been, for example, Regimental Support that did not entirely hit the mark balance wise. Some other ones are (Sub)Doctrines as well as the long and arduously discussed Line Artillery.

These are all things that we want to take a stab at for the betterment of the game. The person spearheading this over the summer-y period will be Zwirbaum and he will be the main person to inform about changes happening on that branch. He will also fill in a bit more on what to expect so I will happily hand over the proverbial mic to them.

Have a wonderful summer y’all!

/Batya

Hello, I’m Zwirbaum, Game Designer for Hearts of Iron, and I want to welcome you all to this new Open Beta, Summer Edition™. Similarly to how we had Open Naval Balance Beta run during the Spring, where efforts were mostly focused on adjusting the balance and fixing some of the issues for the naval aspect of the gameplay, this time I will be taking a bit broader look across the game balance and some of the pain points of Hearts of Iron IV.

What is changing for this Open Beta Summer Edition™ - as opposed to the Naval Balance Beta? During the spring I found out that trying to keep up with the weekly update cadence on top of my regular responsibilities, was imposing too much of pressure on me, which meant that I had a bit less time to think about certain things, respond and participate in the discussions with the community and to proceed with the actual implementation and changes. This time there will be no guaranteed or any REGULARLY planned update cadence. Also as we are entering Summer period, there is a small chance that my posts may be a bit more irregular in what they would contain, in order to keep it vacation themed somewhat. So less lengthy posts, with a lot of dry information, but either more concise posts, or a bit more unusual content? This time we may also have more experimental changes that will take more time to reach full maturity.

What is not changing from the previous Naval Balance Beta? Once again there is no guarantee that this Beta will be integrated into a main version, when or in what form it would happen, not to mention that it would of course depend on the feedback we would be getting from you, our dear community.

For more comments on what is changed, and why, check out for the developer commentary in the specific sections in the Patch Notes.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, Farewell!

/Zwirbaum

How to join this Open Beta:

This beta client is Operation Postern v1.19.2.0.40eb (f387) To install Open Beta client, follow the instruction below:

• Right-click the game in your library

• Select Properties from the drop-down menu

• Select Game Versions & Betas

• Select the beta branch called open_beta

If you are already on the Open Beta client, you should get an update automatically.

Finally, to report any issues you find, in relation to this beta, please use the bug report forum and make sure to include the version you’re using. That way our Jira won’t go nuts trying to figure out what bug report belongs to what.

Open Beta Summer Edition™ Notes

Gameplay

• Battalion Adjusters now scale with the Equipment and Manpower status of the Sub-Unit. E.g. Super Heavy Artillery with Siege Artillery Sub-Doctrine no longer gives Army wide Soft-Attack Bonus due to the sheer force of will and imagination.

• Added Essential (Equipment) Blocks for the following units: Heavy Weapons Company and Motorized Heavy Weapons Company, Light Flame Tank, Medium Flame Tank, Heavy Flame Tank, Headquarters Staff, Engineer Staff, Reconnaissance Staff, Military Police Staff, Maintenance Planning Staff, Hospital Group Staff, Logistics & Service Staff, Signal & Intelligence Staff, Naval Liaison Staff, Forward Air Controller, Special Operations Coordination

• Adjusted Essential (Equipment) Blocks for the following units: Helicopter Med-Evac, Helicopter Transports

Developer Commentary: First change should fix the unintended player behavior when adding certain units for their Battalion Adjusters, like Super Heavy Artillery and then turning off the usage of such equipment and still getting the benefit of the modifiers from Siege Artillery. And even if players did not intend to abuse the system, any losses suffered from combat/attrition would not apply any effect to that Battalion Adjusters. Second change is that there were quite a number of units that because they lacked essential equipment defined that would result in them not scaling their modifiers and effects due to the potential lack of equipment. Tank Crews riding in pretend Flame Tanks will no longer confer the sense of bravery and invincibility that would let them attack enemy fortifications or cities at ease.

Balance Superior Tactician Admiral Trait now provides +15% Positioning Bonus instead of +25% Surface Detection Impact on the positioning has been reduced from maximum +25% to +15% Admiral Maneuver Skill impact on the positioning has been reduced from +2.5% per level to +1.5% per level. Admiral Maneuver Skill impact on naval retreat speed has been increased from +1% per level to +2% per level. Developer Commentary: Positioning while exists as an interesting concept, in practice it was way too easy to counter-act massive doom stacks by just various plethora of the modifiers providing a lot of positioning benefits. This should give a bit more of a breathing space for the natural positioning penalties to occur and happen in-game. As the Naval Combat is already quite deadly, and retreating ships have hard time to disengage from the combat, increasing the speed with which ships can retreat could help save a couple ships here and there. This change is of a more experimental nature.

• Combat Bonus from division experience decreased from 25% to 20%. Green Divisions now have -20% Combat Penalty, Trained have 0%, Regulars have +20%, Seasoned +40% and Veterans have +60%.

Developer Commentary: Experience bonus to the Land Units resulted in a massive boost to their combat capabilities as all modifiers during combat are multiplicative with each other depending if they belong from ‘different source’ that 75% bonus could result in a massive sway of the effective stats. This is a relatively modest reduction, but we may explore squishing that effect a bit or reworking it to have non-linear progression in the future.

• Air Crew Surveys Air Spirit Mastery gain for individual tracks got combined into Air Doctrine Mastery gain Factor.

• Dive Bombing Air Spirit CAS Design cost reduction got replaced with +15% Strike Aircraft Mastery Track gain Factor.

• Material Destruction Air Spirit Medium Airframe Design cost reduction got replaced with +15% Medium Aircraft Mastery gain Factor.

• Industrial Destruction Air Spirit Heavy Airframe Design cost reduction got replaced with +15% Heavy Aircraft Mastery gain Factor.

Developer Commentary: The goal of changing the Design Cost reductions on them is to replace: pay the air XP in order to potentially save some air XP down the line when designing more planes. However with the current amount of air XP incoming from the combat and missions, there is rarely a situation where as a player you feel starved out on the Air XP - in order to make a design, and if you really can’t make a design, then paying those 50 Air XP upfront isn’t helping with that goal either. Hopefully giving them a more dedicated and focused effect on the specific mastery track will make them somewhat more competitive. I will monitor feedback on this one as well - so depending on the feedback we may see doing further adjustments or going back to the original one.

• Increased naval targeting values for naval bombers for fully screened capitals from 10 to 15

• Increased naval targeting values for naval bombers for fully screened carriers from 10 to 25

Developer Commentary: One of the changes we did with the No Compromise, No Surrender release was to equalize the base weights for all ships when it comes to being picked as targets by the Naval Bombers, when screening value is 100%, and the old prioritization would be kicking in when the screening efficiency depending on how much screening was missing. While targeting would also take into the account strength of the ships (their HP, making Battleships even with equal base weights technically being a bit more of a viable target than ‘Early Destroyer’) - the result, especially with the meta depending on spam of the masses of the destroyers, would make them rarely targeted. The old behaviour where Carriers and Capitals ships being almost always prioritized with full precision, was not ideal either. Hopefully with this change, or a couple more tweaks, we will still have a possibility where all damage is NOT focused on big ships, but also isn’t fully soaked by the screens either, resulting in a more spread out damage across the fleets and the taskforces. Carriers performance and their planes during naval battles should also hopefully get better results.

• Continuous Strike Air Spirit - Air Support Efficiency bonus has been reduced from 25% to 15%.

• Massed Strike Air Spirit - Air Superiority Effect has been increased from +5% to +10%

• Support Artillery now has -50% to Soft Attack, Hard Attack, Defense and Breakthrough from previous -40%

• Support Rocket Artillery now has -50% to Soft Attack, Hard Attack, Defense and Breakthrough from previous -40%

• Support Anti-Air now requires 24 equipment pieces from the previous 20

• Motorized Anti-Air now belongs to the Anti-Air Unit Category

• Anti-Air Unit Category has been renamed to Anti-Air Artillery Support & Line

Developer Commentary: This renaming will be only localized in English for now, if we will go further with these changes, we will localize it properly for all the languages.

• Anti-Tank 1940 Technology no longer provides randomly Motorized Anti-Tank with +10% Piercing and +10% Hard Attack

• Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Self-Propelled Artillery Combat Width increased from 2 to 3

Developer Commentary: With the release of No Compromise, No Surrender we made balance adjustment to Self-Propelled Artillery so that their Combat Width was reduced from 3 to 2. This however had quite a big impact on the ‘stat bloat’ and increased offensive powers, resulting in certain combinations of units having much . With keeping (at least for now) Regular Artillery still at 3 Combat Width, we will try out bringing back SP-ART to the previous combat widths.

• Naval, Land and Air Facilities cost has been lowered from 12000 to 10000. Scaling cost per facility has been increased from 5000 to 6000. This means that the first and second will be cheaper (10000 and 16000 vs 12000 and 17000) . The third one will have the same cost, while starting with the fourth of the same type, they will become more and more expensive. This should make entering the world of Special Projects easier for smaller & less well developed nations. Nuclear Facility will remain at the current premium cost for now.

• Improved Amphibious Designs now reduce Amtrac production cost by 10% instead of 15%

• Helicopter Brigade and Helicopter Logistics now will have a proper Fuel Consumption instead of having -100%

Regimental Support Companies Balance

• Heavy Weapons Company and Motorized Heavy Weapons Company Organization has been increased from 20 to 30.

• Heavy Weapons Company and Motorized Heavy Weapons Company Max Strength has been increased from 0.4 to 0.6

• Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery Equipment needed was increased from 4 to 6

• Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery stat adjustments have been normalized and are now -75% to Defense, Breakthrough, Soft and Hard Attack. (Previously it was (-80%, -60%, -70%, -60%)

• Anti–Air Battery Equipment needed was increased from 12 to 16 and Manpower needed from 120 to 180

• Anti-Air Battery Breakthrough, Soft Attack and Hard Attack penalties were lowered to -60% from -80%

• Anti-Tank Battery Manpower needed was increased from 120 to 180

• Soft Attack penalty from Anti-Tank battery has been lowered from -80% to -60%

• Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Tank Destroyer Regimental Support units are for now excluded from the ‘Tank Destroyer’ category. They still benefit from the Tank Destroyer Regimental Support category.

• Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Tank Destroyer Regimental Support units now require 15 Tank Destroyers instead of the previous 10. For now I will refer to them as TD-RS (Tank Destroyer Regimental Support)

• Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Self-Propelled Anti-Air Regimental Support units are for now excluded from the ‘Self-Propelled Anti-Air Artillery’ category. They still benefit from Self-Propelled Anti-Air Regimental Support category

• Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Self-Propelled Anti-Air Regimental Support units now require 15 Self-Propelled Anti-Air instead of the previous 10. For now I will refer to them as SPAA-RS (Self-Propelled Anti Air Regimental Support)

• TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Fuel Consumption for them has been increased from 33% of the equipment to 40% of the equipment

• TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Armor Value reduced from -33% to -66%

• TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Defense lowered from -25% to -50%

• TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Soft-Attack lowered from -33% to -66%

• SPAA-RS: Air Attack reduced from -15% to -25% and Hard Attack from -33% to -66%

• TD-RS: Hard Attack reduced from -33% to -50%

• TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Artillery Technologies impact on them for Hard Attack and Air Attack has been lowered by half after the full tech tree progression (From +30% Hard / Air Attack on them lowered to +15%)

Developer Commentary: Regimental Support Companies have been vastly overperforming when it comes to both their contribution in the pure stats, and especially compared to their low economical requirements. After this balance they should feel less overpowered and be closer in-line with what should be expected out of them. This doesn’t rule out any further tweaks to them. Also for the time being the armored regimental support companies will be excluded from the main Tank Destroyer and Self-Propelled Anti-Air unit categories to make sure that the buffs aimed at those regimental support companies will be adjusted and tweaked separately, giving more control over what and in what magnitude each buff is applied to. Main Categories will likely be renamed to indicate that they refer to: Battalions, or ‘Line Units’.

• Infantry Guns no longer get benefits from Infantry Support Weapons research, and instead get their benefits from Artillery tech tree improvements.

• Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery scaling effect with technologies has been reduced. (+5% Soft Attack for the Infantry Guns per Artillery Technology, +10% Soft Attack for Rocket Batteries from Rocket Artillery technologies, and +5% Soft Attack from the Improved Guidance). Infantry Guns no longer have Defense boost from the Technologies.

Line Artillery Balance

• Artillery, Motorized Artillery, Rocket Artillery, Motorized Rocket Artillery, Truck Drawn Rocket Artillery, Anti-Tank, Motorized Anti-Tank, Anti-Air, Motorized Anti-Air Max Strength increased from 0.6 to 0.8

• Artillery Equipment I stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Soft Attack +1 (from 25 to 26), Defense +1 (from 10 to 11), Breakthrough +4 (6 to 10)

• Artillery Equipment II stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Breakthrough +6 (from 7 to 13), Hard Attack +1 (from 2 to 3), Piercing +2 (from 5 to 7)

• Artillery Equipment III stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Breakthrough +8 (from 8 to 16), Defense +1 (from 18 to 19), Hard Attack +2 (from 2 to 4), Piercing +4 (from 5 to 9)

• Rocket Artillery Equipment I stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Defense +1 (from 12 to 13), Breakthrough +8 (from 9 to 17), Soft Attack +2 (from 30 to 32)

• Rocket Artillery Equipment II stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Defense +1 (from 15 to 16), Breakthrough +8 (from 12 to 20), Soft Attack +2 (from 38 to 40)

• Motorized Rocket Artillery Equipment stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Defense +1 (from 15 to 16), Breakthrough +8 (from 12 to 20)

Developer Commentary: This is our starting point to increase the viability of the Line Artillery. We have heard and thought about various different approaches for making them more viable, including lowering their Combat Width from 3 to 2. However in the current environment where Regimental Support Companies, and all the various imbalances did exist, and the excessive ‘stat’ bloat as it was called was present - we have decided for now against taking that step. To make the presence of the Artillery - be a more viable tool in providing the combat stats other than Attack values (mainly Breakthrough), which should make Infantry supported by the Artillery a little bit more viable on the attack. We will continue working and tweaking on the Line Artillery to find the right spot for it.

Doctrine Balance - Land Doctrines

• Mobile Infantry 1 Reward: Cavalry Recon now receives bonus 10% to Defence and Breakthrough

• Mobile Infantry 3 Reward: Lowered Soft Attack Bonus to Infantry Guns and Rocket Batteries from +15% to +10%, now also increases Defense and Breakthrough by 5%

• Mobile Infantry 5 Reward: Motorized Heavy Weapons Company gets +10 Organization from +5

• Defensive Postures 1 Reward: Heavy Weapons Company now also receives +0.2 Entrenchment

• Defensive Postures 4 Reward: Soft Attack bonus to Infantry Guns and Rocket Batteries reduced to 10%

• Assault Infantry Adoption Bonus: Bonus to Support Artillery attack has been increased from +10% to +20%

• Assault Infantry 1 Reward: Bonus to Infantry Guns removed

• Assault Infantry 2 Reward: Bonus to Anti-Tank Battery and Anti-Air Battery reduced from +10% to +5% (Hard Attack, Piercing, Air Attack)

• Mounted Infantry 4 Reward: +0.05 HP to Mounted Infantry unit category was replaced with the battalion adjusters to the Cavalry Recon to give +5 flat HP to the Mounted Infantry

• Mounted Infantry 4 Reward: Reduced the Speed Bonus to Cavalry Recon and Cavalry to +40% (for a total of 8 kph instead of the previous 8.4 kph)

• Mounted Infantry 5 Reward: Increased Speed Bonus to Artillery, Anti-Air, Anti-Tank and Rocket Artillery to +100% (for a total of 8 kph)

• People’s Militia 2 Reward: Infantry Guns Soft Attack bonus reduced from 15% to 10%. Infantry Guns now get +10% Breakthrough

• People’s Militia 3 Reward: Now requires 50 Mastery like the other rewards in this doctrine.

• Great War Infantry 3 Reward: Support Artillery

Generals!

Today marks the last pre-summer patch with fixes and tweaks to Thunder At Our Gates. After this the team will have limited presence in the office for the summer period.

We know that this patch does not hit all the sought after balance changes but for that we’d like to refer to you a new Open Beta that we will be running over summer that will address some of those issues.

For now, be fully immersed in the rumble in the jungle with the summer heat seeping through your windows. See you all after summer!

ROLLBACK For this release we’ve added the option to roll back to our recent Patch 1.19.1. This is useful for players that have saved games that they would like to finish, before moving onto 1.19.2.

• Right click the game in Steam

• Go to Properties, then Game Versions & Betas

• Select 1.19.1

• Default Public Version will use the latest public build, in this case 1.19.2

If you are wondering about which patch to use, you can also see version history on the Paradox Wiki

PATCH NOTES

Balance

• Expeditionary Leader trait Non-Core Attack and Defence reduced from +15% to +10%.

• Tuned down the "Spirit of St. Bernard" spirit, which in combination with other things could give 105% casualty trickleback and unending armies of resurrected zombie Swiss. Fixes

• INS: Feint uprisings now cost more manpower (2500 > 5000), but less infantry equipment (2500 > 1500).

• INS: Indonesia will now core all of their starting states in the revolution

• AST: Decreased Non-Core Attack / Defence values by roughly half on the 'Australian Military Forces' National Spirit .

• AST: Decreased Citizen Army penalty to non-core Attack and Defence from -25% to -15%.

• AST: Rebalanced the Australian Air Branch, decreasing especially their mission efficiency.

• SIA: Increased Siam's starting stability from 19% to 29%.

• SIA: Reduced Build cost IC for 'Unconventional Tank Designs' from -15% to -10%.

• SIA: Removed Reliability penalty for 'Unconventional Tank Designs' and added a -5% Soft attack penalty instead.

• SIA: Reduced compliance gain from full Civilian support from 10% to 5%.

• SIA: Reduced compliance gain from the Focus 'Built to Withstand Every Flame' from 10% to 5%.

• SIA: Reduced Research speed, Production efficiency cap, Defense, Organization, Entrenchment and Output by on average ~1% gained from Asian Democratic Compact per faction member.

Gameplay

• Updated tooltip for "Establish the ABDACOM" shared focus to make it more clear that only faction members are eligible to receive invites to join the ABDACOM.

• Fixed the description for the focus "Reestablish the Guominjun" to not make the rather bold claim that Sinkiang was led by Moustache Man in the 1939 start. Fixes

• A subject owning a single state no longer creates a 'new war participant' popup when joining a war.

• Added a new event sound tickbox to disable/enable scripted event sounds. For example speeches.

• The new releasable nations in Indonesia now also have access to the Nusantara/Greater Indonesia formable decision category

• Added joint focus tree icons to ABDACOM focuses.

• INS: Clarified the effect of the Focus 'Privately Owned Military Industry'.

• INS: The Indonesian focus 'The Timor Issue' will now dynamically switch icons & loc if Timor is independent.

• INS: Indonesia can now core East Timor using Unity in Diversity decisions.

• INS: Indonesian decision "Order a Ceasefire" now requires escalation 2+

• INS: Allow an Indonesian-formed Netherlands-Indonesia union to take most Dutch economic focuses from the joint tree.

• INS: Added a decision for the Netherlands-Indonesia Union to move its capital to Amsterdam or Batavia.

• INS: Hollandia will now be renamed to Jayapura if Indonesia is independent.

• INS: Added a small naval branch for the Dutch East Indies joint tree, which is available during peacetime.

• AST: Added the Australasia formable.

• AST: The Focus 'Reclaim the Lost Territory' now transfers all land, naval, and air forces to Australia.

• AST: The Focus 'Singapore Strategy' is now available if either ENG or AST controls Singapore, instead of only ENG.

• AST: The 'Alice Springs' Focus has been reduced to 35 days.

• AST: Australian Infantry Divisions now have the proper division icon.

• AST: A. Ruthven set as leader if monarchist UK starts uprising in Australia.

• SIA: Added a decision to increase the Civil/Military wings approval of you if they are rebellious at the cost of a temporary negative National Spirit.

• SIA: A civil war triggered through the Khana Ratsadon only happens once now. If they become rebellious again a negative spirit is applied instead.

• SIA: the Royal Palace Directive focus now unlocks a decision to increase the Military/Civil wing opinion of you, without pissing the other party off. This has a 365 day timeout.

• SIA: Added a new focus in the Pan-Thaiism branch that allows you to end the factionalism of the Khana Ratsadon if both the Civil and Military wing approve of you for 270 days. This focus shuts off the Khana Ratsadon system and merges the civilian and military wing spirits.

• SIA: Added the king of the white elephant as a Movie poster decision, giving weekly stability.

• SIA: Removed increasing cost for theater decisions.

• AST: Decision 'Scorch the North' gives effect when specific states are naval invaded instead of when at war.

• SIA: Added option to pick a new leader when the Seri Thai Takes over, Phin Choonhavan or Khuang Aphaiwong.

• SIA: Added options to sway individuals via decisions for the Seri Thai. Each general increases the strength of the civil war for your side by 5%.

• SIA: The Seri Thai civil war can now be avoided if the combined civil war strength for the player is over 80% (5%/general swayed + total democratic support).

• SIA: In the Seri Thai branch the Focus 'Prepare to Drop' now gives a special forces National Spirit.

• SIA: Rising up as the Seri Thai against Japan now seizes some valuables, giving a temporary bonus.

• SIA: Made the requirement for forming the Greater Thai empire more clear.

• SIA: Starting a limited war now requires the territory to be adjacent to yours.

• SIA: When agricultural tax reduction is removed you now gain a one time tech bonus for industry.

Stability &Performance

• CTD: Fixed a crash that occurred when calling 'gain_xp' command on a fleet without an Admiral.

• CTD: Fix a crash that occurred when assigning a deployed Field Marshal to an Army Group

• OOS: Fixed a late-game gamestate OOS caused by MIOs.

• OOS: Fixed an OOS that happened if a client had previously played an ahistorical game in the same session before joining a historical MP game.

UI

• The Division Designer click-shortcuts now also apply to HQ templates.

• Fixed an issue where Division Designer dropdown items buttons did not have the right size.

• Added dams to the States & Construction mapmodes.

• Fixed wrong interactions and tooltips for Generals while assigning a leader to an Army Group.

• Now showing all manpower modifiers in tooltips even if they sum up to a neutral number.

• Divisions with multiple active commander abilities now show them all instead of just one.

• Divisions with an active ability that is being nerfed because of late joiners show that reduction.

• Fixed Assign Commander tooltips with TAOG disabled.

AI

• ITA: Introduced historical Italian fighter designs for the AI to build.

• GER: Introduced some intermediate plane variants for the improved_small_airframe.

• ENG: The UK will build more synthetic refineries to safeguard their supply of rubber. (autarky is king)

• USA: Added home guard defense logic to protect the continent once the Axis become a threat.

• JAP: Japan is more likely to naval invade Borneo now.

• ENG: The UK will be more likely to take 'Gateway to Europe' decisions on Historical mode.

• INS: Indonesia’s AI will have a higher risk tolerance for raids if the only alternative is cancelling them.

Modding

• Updated script documentation following the addition of new math functions.

• Added logical AND, OR, XOR and NOT math expression functions.

• Added a lerp function to the math expressions.

• Add 'always_show_on_actions_tooltip' bool field on Advisors to avoid 'on_add and on_remove' effect tooltips being lost when the advisor has a trait with a custom tooltip.

• Added support for scripted 'unit_animations' on raid types.

• Added atan and atan2 math functions

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug where pending hot-joins didn't show up in the UI to be accepted.

• Fixed bug where clients could join the lobby directly, instead of hot-joining once the host loaded into the map.

• AST: Changed incorrect value in the tooltip of the mission 'Final Reforms'.

• Fixed a bug where a leader's description would appear twice.

• Fixed an issue where Volunteers would not come back when Air Base Access is enabled.

• ICE: Fixed 'Reclaiming the Empire' focus for Iceland to be doable again after a war with the owner of Greenland is concluded.

• Fixed a case where Romania could snatch Bulgarian territory from a third party occupying them totally via the 'Puppet Romania' focus. Now Bulgaria is required to be at peace for this focus.

• Fixed a bug where a spearhead or offensive line order was not advancing to destination tiles

• When writing a file, it's now guarded by a try/catch and will error when unable to write.

• AST: The Focus 'World Peace' will now actually allow sending Volunteers to the Spanish Republicans rather than Nationalists.

• AST: Australia now gains the 'Liverpool Dockworker' uprising from 'Out of the Den'.

• AST: The Focus 'Lang is Right' shows the right tooltip (it is -0.05 Political Power Cost instead of -0.05%). Colour is also now green for good.

• AST: Fixed missing localisation in Smuggle Arms decisions, and made the Irish and Northern Irish smuggling use the same timer.

• AST: The Focuses 'Liberate the Colonies' and 'Red Solidarity' now have a tooltip to show what they do.

• AST: The Focus 'Join the Comintern' has a better tooltip explaining what is going on. Australia's faction will only merge into the Comintern, if Australia is the faction leader.

• SIA: Fixed an issue where you could demand to release your own territories.

• INS: Fixed a bug where Indonesia could have two resource trades.

• INS: Fixed a bug where Indonesia would suddenly become the Republic of Indonesia again after forming the Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: Fixed certain characters not appearing for the Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: Fixed a bug where Indonesia could start a new volksraad decision before clearing the event, allowing the same decision to be taken twice.

• INS: Fixed a typo in the Focus description 'Women in the Military'.

• INS: Fixed a typo in the Focus 'Women's Sufferage'.

• INS: Fixed a typo in the Focus description 'Continue the Hybrid Politics'.

• INS: Fixed several Focuses occasionally attempting to target Interior Borneo.

• SIA: Fixed missing tech names for tech bonuses.

• HOL: The Focus 'Continue the War in Batavia' now moves the capital to Batavia instead of Bandung.

• Fix Army Leaders cloned for a Civil War still thinking they are deployed with the Army of the original Leader.

• Fixed a bug where infiltration tokens disappear when loading saves.

• Fixed an issue where Army HQs became the default garrison garrison template if all other templates were locked.

• AST: 'The Phosphate Commission' now requires both owning and controlling Nauru.

• INS: Indonesia's leader will no longer reset after peacefully gaining independence.

• AST: The National Spirit 'Nauru Pact' tooltip has been edited so its effects alter depending on GER being in the faction or not.

• AST: Phosphate Commission spirit is now being removed by completing the Focus ‘Nauru's Return to German Hands’, instead of being removed by the event, making the effect clearer.

• AST: Added fallbacks for effects of event Nauru's Return to German Hands to cover if Australia is subject to the UK but not in the same faction or if not subject at all.

• AST: Event Nauru's Return to German Hands either gives a German Guarantee or adds Australia to the German faction, not both.

• JAP: After being defeated in the war, Japan is now discouraged from joining the Axis.

• Fixed a bug where lobbies with more than 20 players would struggle with more people connecting to the game

• SIA: Fixed a bug where the Allies could decline Siam's offer to join from the Seri Thai.

• SIA: Fixed a bug that caused the Seri Thai to not add intel bonus properly

• SIA: Fixed a bug that caused players without La Resistance DLC to not get a proper bonus from the Seri Thai OSS Focus

• AST: The Focus 'Defying American Interference': Added fallbacks if the Philippines are no longer a subject of the USA.

• AST: The Focus 'Defying American Interference': Added event chain asking JAP to guarantee AST if they're not in the same faction, and updated tooltips for the focus and its event chains.

• AST: Changed event images for AST_diplomatic_events.73, AST_diplomatic_events.76

• INS: The Indonesian communist branch will no longer create a generic faction with the 'Strength in Unity' manifest.

• INS: The Indonesian AI will no longer wait before establishing a revolutionary HQ, and will be far less likely to build the HQ in Papua.

• Fix the commander skill bonus modifier not being properly applied

• JAP: Fixed Japan's 'Strike the Southern Road' Focus being unreachable if Siam no longer existed.

• HOL: The Netherlands will no longer sometimes cave to the British when going communist or fascist.

• AST: Added TAOG check to event The 1938 Sesquicentenary (AST_political_events.6)

• SIA: Fixed an incorrect tooltip in the Seri Thai Branch.

• HOL: The Netherlands will now be invited to the Allies despite being at war with Indonesia after getting invaded by Germany.

• Fix issue where militia raid unit models were in an idle pose while displayed above the raid arrow.

• HOL: Fixed bug where the Netherlands would not get the 'Obtain Foreign Colonial Investments' decisions after completing the required focus.

• AST: Focus Done Meddling will no longer flood error log on hovering over it.

• Remove incorrect tooltip which falsely claimed an advisor would be unlocked.

• Fix AI constantly deploying and withdrawing Army HQs under Field Marshals.

• INS: Indonesia can no longer take the 'Purge the Opportunists' Focus, which creates a faction, if Indonesia is puppeted.

• INS: Fixed an issue where the Indonesian National Revolution ending would sometimes not whitepeace the rest of the Allies.

• Fixed some missing idea icons - for Design Companies and others, amongst them AST_kirov, BEL_kirov, smb_organization_of_american_states_member

• AST: Set to correct Fascist cosmetic tag when becoming independent manually.

• SIA: Fixed an issue where changing laws would not properly adjust the Khana Ratsadon.

• AST: Renamed the Bristol Blenheim to the Bristol Blenheim Mk IF (this variant replaced the bomb bay for extra under-carriage guns).

• SIA: Advisors when playing without Thunder at Our Gates enabled should no longer be displayed as question mark placeholder.

• AST: Added tooltip for Planned Extraction to show this focus will give access to the endless Pilbara steel decision.

• AST: Mount Isa Industrial Concern will now display correctly when upgraded through Planned Extraction.

• Division Designer should now save correctly restricted equipment types

• Fixed the crash that could happen due to the spy operative mastering ability to be in two countries at the same time

• Fixed the tooltip for the Maphilindia achievement

• Fixed the Treaty of Saadabad focus branch overlapping the Kurdish focus tree as Iraq when obsolete focus branches are shown

• AST: Event The Prime Minister Succumbs localization has been fixed to reference correct character

• Fixes Czechoslovakia not puppeting Hungary after taking the Neutralize Hungarian Threat Focus and capitulating Hungary.

• Sync HQ deploy template and CP reservation when retemplating a deployed HQ

• Anzac Achievement is now correctly only triggered by generals and field marshals

• Event Loyalties to Britain: Added triggers to hide old options if the Dominion is on the same ideological path as ENG, making it unavailable to leave the Commonwealth through event; Added new option with triggers to show if the Dominion is on the same ideological path as ENG.

• ENG: Fixed an issue where the United Kingdom wouldn't Bypass the focuses Secure Iraq and Secure Iran when they already had them as their puppets or were at war with them

• Give Control of State action should now display why you can't give control of a state in a specific condition, instead of allowing it to be done, but failing to properly act.

• AST: Fixed an issue so the Focuses 'Done Meddling’ & 'The Ultimate Overseas Duty' don't reset war participation.

• INS: Fixed an issue where the Indonesian Volksraad would be inaccessible after a veto.

• INS: Conrad Helfrich is no longer unavailable as a Chief of Navy for Indonesia

• HOL: the National Spirit 'Profitable Colony' is no longer removed immediately upon being added

• HOL: The achievement 'Bevrijding' is no longer impossible with TAOG enabled.

• SIA: Fixed 2 planes not showing up in the tech tree without BBA.

• AST: Updated Expéditionnaire Français en Extrême-Orient name to CEFEO.

• Heavy Armor HQ Security is now capable of exercising instead of relaxing all day in their Tanks.

• The Regimental Support Rocket Battery no longer affects division speed.

• GER: German focus 'Around Maginot' now targets an Indonesian-formed Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: Fixed a missing loc string in an Indonesian event

• INS: Indonesia no longer needs to control impassable states such as Interior Borneo in order to win the revolution

• AST: Now has access to their second Special Forces branch via the Marines focus.

• SIA: Fixed an issue which caused a limited war to white peace without transfer instead of correctly transferring states if France capitulated while the limited war was ongoing.

• SIA: Removed a redundant requirement in the Focus 'Spread Democratic Sentiment In Universities'.

• AST: Failsafes for mission 'Organize a Strike' and spirit 'Strike Ongoing' to cancel both when completing the Focus 'All for One, One for All'.

• AST: Removed misplaced trigger on 'Strike Ongoing' which made it cancel if not owning Nauru.

• AST: Fixed so advisors Milford, Northcott, Jeffrey, Goble & Burnett get discount from Relief of Command/Independent Air Force,

• ETH: The Focus 'Freedom at Gunpoint' now will only take African states and leaves the rest alone.

• AST: The Focus 'The Irish Anti-Britain Pact' now correctly grants Australia military access and docking rights through Ireland.

• AST: Decisions Vichy Out of Africa is now removed by the Focus 'Undeniably Ours', not 'Done Meddling'.

• ABDACOM: Vichy France no longer has access to the ABDACOM joint focus tree.

• INS: Indonesia will no longer lose Dutch generals when having completed ‘Volksraad Compromises’.

• INS: Made it so that Indonesia cannot side with Japanese invaders if the Focus 'The Industrialized Colony' has been completed, making it no longer possible to gain 7 research slots as Indonesia.

• Block disbanding armies with a deployed HQ, preventing an exploit

• GER: Decision Reichskommissariat Australasian required states has been adjusted to match map changes.

• SIA: The 'Artillery Enth

Generals!

We decided it would be best to run 1.19.2 as an Open Beta over the weekend to get some potential player input over the weekend. This will allow us to make any necessary fixes as well that might pop up as a result from having a wider testing net.

The upside is earlier patch notes!

One thing I want to mention beforehand however is that there are no massive balance changes in this patch at the moment. This does not mean that we are not seeing the flagged issues, and we are aiming to do a wider balance pass, but more on that next week.

For now, thank you for the input and stay safe out there.

/Batya

How to join this Open Beta:

This beta client is Operation Postern v1.19.2.0.a69c (d7b6)

To install Open Beta client, follow the instruction below:

• Right-click the game in your library

• Select Properties from the drop-down menu

• Select Game Versions & Betas

• Select the beta branch called open_beta

If you are already on the Open Beta client, you should get an update automatically.

Finally, to report any issues you find, in relation to this beta, please use the bug report forum and make sure to include the version you’re using. That way our Jira won’t go nuts trying to figure out what bug report belongs to what.

**Open Beta Notes **

Known issues

• Pending hotjoins can be overwritten by new requests, resulting in an inability to launch the game

• Players bypass the hotjoin flow when joining a lobby that has loaded into the map, but not started yet

Balance

• Expeditionary Leader trait Non-Core Attack and Defence reduced from +15% to +10%.

• Tuned down the "Spirit of St. Bernard" spirit, which in combination with other things could give 105% casualty trickleback and unending armies of resurrected zombie Swiss. Fixes

• INS: Feint uprisings now cost more manpower (2500 > 5000), but less infantry equipment (2500 > 1500).

• INS: Indonesia will now core all of their starting states in the revolution

• AST: Decreased Non-Core Attack / Defence values by roughly half on the 'Australian Military Forces' National Spirit .

• AST: Decreased Citizen Army penalty to non-core Attack and Defence from -25% to -15%.

• AST: Rebalanced the Australian Air Branch, decreasing especially their mission efficiency.

• SIA: Increased Siam's starting stability from 19% to 29%.

• SIA: Reduced Build cost IC for 'Unconventional Tank Designs' from -15% to -10%.

• SIA: Removed Reliability penalty for 'Unconventional Tank Designs' and added a -5% Soft attack penalty instead.

• SIA: Reduced compliance gain from full Civilian support from 10% to 5%.

• SIA: Reduced compliance gain from the Focus 'Built to Withstand Every Flame' from 10% to 5%.

• SIA: Reduced Research speed, Production efficiency cap, Defense, Organization, Entrenchment and Output by on average ~1% gained from Asian Democratic Compact per faction member.

Gameplay

• Updated tooltip for "Establish the ABDACOM" shared focus to make it more clear that only faction members are eligible to receive invites to join the ABDACOM.

• Fixed the description for the focus "Reestablish the Guominjun" to not make the rather bold claim that Sinkiang was led by Moustache Man in the 1939 start. Fixes

• A subject owning a single state no longer creates a 'new war participant' popup when joining a war.

• Added a new event sound tickbox to disable/enable scripted event sounds. For example speeches.

• The new releasable nations in Indonesia now also have access to the Nusantara/Greater Indonesia formeable decision category

• Added joint focus tree icons to ABDACOM focuses.

• INS: Clarified the effect of the Focus 'Privately Owned Military Industry'.

• INS: The Indonesian focus 'The Timor Issue' will now dynamically switch icons & loc if Timor is independent.

• INS: Indonesia can now core East Timor using Unity in Diversity decisions.

• INS: Indonesian decision "Order a Ceasefire" now requires escalation 2+

• INS: Allow an Indonesian-formed Netherlands-Indonesia union to take most Dutch economic focuses from the joint tree.

• INS: Added a decision for the Netherlands-Indonesia Union to move its capital to Amsterdam or Batavia.

• INS: Hollandia will now be renamed to Jayapura if Indonesia is independent.

• INS: Added a small naval branch for the Dutch East Indies joint tree, which is available during peacetime.

• AST: Added the Australasia formable.

• AST: The Focus 'Reclaim the Lost Territory' now transfers all land, naval, and air forces to Australia.

• AST: The Focus 'Singapore Strategy' is now available if either ENG or AST controls Singapore, instead of only ENG.

• AST: The 'Alice Springs' Focus has been reduced to 35 days.

• AST: Australian Infantry Divisions now have the proper division icon.

• AST: A. Ruthven set as leader if monarchist UK starts uprising in Australia.

• SIA: Added a decision to increase the Civil/Military wings approval of you if they are rebellious at the cost of a temporary negative National Spirit.

• SIA: A civil war triggered through the Khana Ratsadon only happens once now. If they become rebellious again a negative spirit is applied instead.

• SIA: the Royal Palace Directive focus now unlocks a decision to increase the Military/Civil wing opinion of you, without pissing the other party off. This has a 365 day timeout.

• SIA: Added a new focus in the Pan-Thaiism branch that allows you to end the factionalism of the Khana Ratsadon if both the Civil and Military wing approve of you for 270 days. This focus shuts off the Khana Ratsadon system and merges the civilian and military wing spirits.

• SIA: Added the king of the white elephant as a Movie poster decision, giving weekly stability.

• SIA: Removed increasing cost for theater decisions.

• AST: Decision 'Scorch the North' gives effect when specific states are naval invaded instead of when at war.

• SIA: Added option to pick a new leader when the Seri Thai Takes over, Phin Choonhavan or Khuang Aphaiwong.

• SIA: Added options to sway individuals via decisions for the Seri Thai. Each general increases the strength of the civil war for your side by 5%.

• SIA: The Seri Thai civil war can now be avoided if the combined civil war strength for the player is over 80% (5%/general swayed + total democratic support).

• SIA: In the Seri Thai branch the Focus 'Prepare to Drop' now gives a special forces National Spirit.

• SIA: Rising up as the Seri Thai against Japan now seizes some valuables, giving a temporary bonus.

• SIA: Made the requirement for forming the Greater Thai empire more clear.

• SIA: Starting a limited war now requires the territory to be adjacent to yours.

• SIA: When agricultural tax reduction is removed you now gain a one time tech bonus for industry.

Stability & Performance

• CTD: Fixed a crash that occurred when calling 'gain_xp' command on a fleet without an Admiral.

• CTD: Fix a crash that occurred when assigning a deployed Field Marshal to an Army Group

• OOS: Fixed a late-game gamestate OOS caused by MIOs.

• OOS: Fixed an OOS that happened if a client had previously played an ahistorical game in the same session before joining a historical MP game.

UI

• The Division Designer click-shortcuts now also apply to HQ templates.

• Fixed an issue where Division Designer dropdown items buttons did not have the right size.

• Added dams to the States & Construction mapmodes.

• Fixed wrong interactions and tooltips for Generals while assigning a leader to an Army Group.

• Now showing all manpower modifiers in tooltips even if they sum up to a neutral number.

• Divisions with multiple active commander abilities now show them all instead of just one.

• Divisions with an active ability that is being nerfed because of late joiners show that reduction.

• Fixed Assign Commander tooltips with TAOG disabled.

• Improvements to MP security

AI

• ITA: Introduced historical Italian fighter designs for the AI to build.

• GER: Introduced some intermediate plane variants for the improved_small_airframe.

• ENG: The UK will build more synthetic refineries to safe guard their supply of rubber. (autarky is king)

• USA: Added home guard defense logic to protect the continent once the Axis become a threat.

• JAP: Japan is more likely to naval invade Borneo now.

• ENG: The UK will be more likely to take 'Gateway to Europe' decisions on Historical mode.

• INS: Indonesia's AI will have a higher risk tolerance for raids if the only alternative is cancelling them.

Modding

• Added logical AND, OR, XOR and NOT math expression functions.

• Added a lerp function to the math expressions.

• Add 'always_show_on_actions_tooltip' bool field on Advisors to avoid 'on_add and on_remove' effect tooltips being lost when the advisor has a trait with a custom tooltip.

• If a radio station is disabled, scripted 'play_song' effects will respect this.

• Revert " If a radio station is disabled, scripted play_song effects will respect this".

• Added support for scripted 'unit_animations' on raid types.

• Added atan and atan2 math functions

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug where a leader's description would appear twice.

• Fixed an issue where Volunteers would not come back when Air Base Access is enabled.

• ICE: Fixed 'Reclaiming the Empire' focus for Iceland to be doable again after a war with the owner of Greenland is concluded.

• Fixed a case where Romania could snatch Bulgarian territory from a third party occupying them totally via the 'Puppet Romania' focus. Now Bulgaria is required to be at peace for this focus.

• Fixed a bug where a spearhead or offensive line order was not advancing to destination tiles

• When writing a file, it's now guarded by a try/catch and will error when unable to write.

• AST: The Focus 'World Peace' will now actually allow sending Volunteers to the Spanish Republicans rather than Nationalists.

• AST: Australia now gains the 'Liverpool Dockworker' uprising from 'Out of the Den'.

• AST: The Focus 'Lang is Right' shows the right tooltip (it is -0.05 Political Power Cost instead of -0.05%). Colour is also now green for good.

• AST: Fixed missing localisation in Smuggle Arms decisions, and made the Irish and Northern Irish smuggling use the same timer.

• AST: The Focuses 'Liberate the Colonies' and 'Red Solidarity' now have a tooltip to show what they do.

• AST: The Focus 'Join the Comintern' has a better tooltip explaining what is going on. Australia's faction will only merge into the Comintern, if Australia is the faction leader.

• SIA: Fixed an issue where you could demand to release your own territories.

• INS: Fixed a bug where Indonesia could have two resource trades.

• INS: Fixed a bug where Indonesia would suddenly become the Republic of Indonesia again after forming the Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: Fixed certain characters not appearing for the Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: Fixed a bug where Indonesia could start a new volksraad decision before clearing the event, allowing the same decision to be taken twice.

• INS: Fixed a typo in the Focus description 'Women in the Military'.

• INS: Fixed a typo in the Focus 'Women's Sufferage'.

• INS: Fixed a typo in the Focus description 'Continue the Hybrid Politics'.

• INS: Fixed several Focuses occasionally attempting to target Interior Borneo.

• SIA: Fixed missing tech names for tech bonuses.

• HOL: The Focus 'Continue the War in Batavia' now moves the capital to Batavia instead of Bandung.

• Fix Army Leaders cloned for a Civil War still thinking they are deployed with the Army of the original Leader.

• Fixed a bug where infiltration tokens disappear when loading saves.

• Fixed an issue where Army HQs became the default garrison garrison template if all other templates were locked.

• AST: 'The Phosphate Commission' now requires both owning and controlling Nauru.

• INS: Indonesia's leader will no longer reset after peacefully gaining independence.

• AST: The National Spirit 'Nauru Pact' tooltip has been edited so its effects alter depending on GER being in the faction or not.

• AST: Phosphate Commission spirit is now being removed by completing the Nauru's Return to German Hands, instead of being removed by the event, making the effect clearer.

• AST: Added fallbacks for effects of event Nauru's Return to German Hands to cover if Australia is subject of UK but not in the same faction or if not subject at all.

• AST: Event Nauru's Return to German Hands either gives a German Guarantee or adds Australia to German faction, not both.

• JAP: After being defeated in the war, Japan is npw discouraged from joining the Axis.

• Fixed a bug where lobbies with more than 20 players would struggle with more people connecting to the game

• SIA: Fixed a bug where the Allies could decline Siam's join offer from Seri Thai.

• SIA: Fixed a bug that caused the Seri Thai to not add intel bonus properly

• SIA: Fixed a bug that caused players without La Resistance DLC to not get a proper bonus from the Seri Thai OSS Focus

• AST: The Focus 'Defying American Interference': Added fallbacks if the Philippines are no longer subject of the USA.

• AST: The Focus 'Defying American Interference': Added event chain asking JAP to guarantee AST if they're not in the same faction, and updated tooltips for the focus and its event chains.

• AST: Changed event images for AST_diplomatic_events.73, AST_diplomatic_events.76

• INS: The Indonesian communist branch will no longer create a generic faction with the 'Strength in Unity' manifest.

• INS: The Indonesian AI will no longer wait before establishing a revolutionary HQ, and will be far less likely to build the HQ in Papua.

• Fix the commander skill bonus modifier not being properly applied

• JAP: Fixed Japan's 'Strike the Southern Road' Focus being unreachable if Siam no longer existed.

• HOL: The Netherlands will no longer sometimes cave to the British when going communist or fascist.

• AST: Added TAOG check to event The 1938 Sesquicentenary (AST_political_events.6)

• SIA: Fixed an incorrect tooltip in the Seri Thai Branch.

• HOL: The Netherlands will now be invited to the Allies despite being at war with Indonesia after getting invaded by Germany.

• Fix issue where militia raid unit models were in an idle pose while displayed above the raid arrow.

• HOL: Fixed bug where the Netherlands would not get the 'Obtain Foreign Colonial Investments' decisions after completing the required focus.

• AST: Focus Done Meddling will no longer flood error log on hovering over it.

• Remove incorrect tooltip which falsely claimed an advisor would be unlocked.

• Fix AI constantly deploying and withdrawing Army HQs under Field Marshals.

• INS: Indonesia can no longer take the 'Purge the Opportunists' Focus, which creates a faction, if Indonesia is puppeted.

• INS: Fixed an issue where the Indonesian National Revolution ending would sometimes not whitepeace the rest of the Allies.

• Fixed some missing idea icons - for Design Companies and others, amongst them AST_kirov, BEL_kirov, smb_organization_of_american_states_member

• AST: Set to correct Fascist cosmetic tag when becoming independent manually.

• SIA: Fixed an issue where changing laws would not properly adjust the Khana Ratsadon.

• AST: Renamed the Bristol Blenheim to the Bristol Blenheim Mk IF (this variant replaced the bomb bay for extra under-carriage guns).

• SIA: Advisors when playing without Thunder at Our Gates enabled should no longer be displayed as question mark placeholder.

• AST: Added tooltip for Planned Extraction to show this focus will give access to the endless Pilbara steel decision.

• AST: Mount Isa Industrial Concern will now display correctly when upgraded through Planned Extraction.

• Division Designer should now save correctly restricted equipment types

• Fixed the crash that could happen due to the spy operative mastering ability to be in two countries at the same time

• Fixed the tooltip for the Maphilindia achievement

• Fixed the Treaty of Saadabad focus branch overlapping the Kurdish focus tree as Iraq when obsolete focus branches are shown

• AST: Event The Prime Minister Succumbs localization has been fixed to reference correct character

• Fixes Czechoslovakia not puppeting Hungary after taking the Neutralize Hungarian Threat Focus and capitulating Hungary.

• Sync HQ deploy template and CP reservation when retemplating a deployed HQ

• Anzac Achievement is now correctly only triggered by generals and field marshals

• Event Loyalties to Britain: Added triggers to hide old options if the Dominion is on the same ideological path as ENG, making it unavailable to leave the Commonwealth through event; Added new option with triggers to show if the Dominion is on the same ideological path as ENG.

• ENG: Fixed an issue where the United Kingdom wouldn't Bypass the focuses Secure Iraq and Secure Iran when they already had them as their puppets or were at war with them

• Give Control of State action should now display why you can't give control of a state in a specific condition, instead of allowing it to be done, but failing to properly act.

• AST: Fixed an issue so the Focuses 'Done 'Meddling & 'The Ultimate Overseas Duty' don't reset war participation.

• INS: Fixed an issue where the Indonesian Volksraad would be inaccessible after a veto.

• INS: Conrad Helfrich is no longer unavailable as a Chief of Navy for Indonesia

• HOL: the National Spirit 'Profitable Colony' is no longer removed immediately upon being added

• HOL: The achievement 'Bevrijding' is no longer impossible with TAOG enabled.

• SIA: Fixed 2 planes not showing up in the tech tree without BBA.

• AST: Updated Expéditionnaire Français en Extrême-Orient name to CEFEO.

• Heavy Armor HQ Security is now capable of exercising instead of relaxing all day in their Tanks.

• The Regimental Support Rocket Battery no longer affects division speed.

• GER: German focus 'Around Maginot' now targets an Indonesian-formed Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: Fixed a missing loc string in an Indonesian event

• INS: Indonesia no longer needs to control impassable states such as Interior Borneo in order to win the revolution

• AST: Now has access to their second Special Forces branch via the Marines focus.

• SIA: Fixed an issue which caused a limited war to white peace without transfer instead of correctly transfer states if France capitulated while the limited war was ongoing.

• SIA: Removed a redundant requirement in the Focus 'Spread Democratic Ssentiment In Universities'.

• AST: Failsafes for mission 'Organize a Strike' and spirit 'Strike Ongoing' to cancel both when completing the Focus 'All for One, One for All'.

• AST: Removed misplaced trigger on 'Strike Ongoing' which made it cancel if not owning Nauru.

• AST: Fixed so advisors Milford, Northcott, Jeffrey, Goble & Burnett get discount from Relief of Command/Independent Air Force,

• ETH: The Focus 'Freedom at Gunpoint' now will only take african states and leaves the rest alone.

• AST: The Focus 'The Irish Anti-Britain Pact' now correctly grants Australia military access and docking rights through Ireland.

• AST: Decisions Vichy Out of Africa is now removed by the Focus 'Undeniably Ours', not 'Done Meddling'.

• ABDACOM: Vichy France no longer has access to the ABDACOM joint focus tree.

• INS: In

Generals!

Thanks for all of the feedback we’ve received over the last few days. We’re hard at work addressing as much of it as possible and plan to incorporate more into another patch that will happen later down the line. The main issues we wanted to address were the country selection screen being broken in several mods, as well as an exploit regarding ‘Force Attack’. Both of these issues are fixed now alongside a bunch of other bug fixes and balance changes.

Besides letting us know what to focus on, I’d also like to ask if there are any changes people would like to see regarding the patch notes. For example I’ve bounced between using country tags and full names for highlighting purposes. I’d like to know if there’s a preference.

/Batya

PATCH NOTES

Balance

• Blockade Runner admiral trait requirement reduced from 37 to 32 knots to allow for support and repair ships.

• The Grand Assault milestone 'Forward Command Posts' supply reduction was reduced from -0.05 to -0.01

• INS/HOL: Significantly reduced the factories required for the focus 'The Industrialized Colony'.

• INS/HOL: Significantly reduced the factories required for the focus 'The Soetardjo Act'.

• INS/HOL: The focus 'The Republic of Indonesia' no longer requires a minimum number of civs, mils, and dockyards, and instead only checks your factory count, regardless of which type. Also reduced the factories required to take the focus.

• INS/HOL: The focus 'Economic Integration' now requires a minumum of 50 factories of any type, instead of 45 civilian factories specifically

• AST: Changed focus length from 70 to 35 for several focuses, and swapped a few icons.

• AST: Tweaked the values of Decisions and National Spirits for the Fascist branch.

• AST: Locking default advisor to die in Air Crash event.

• AST: Fixed a bug with the small portrait of John Lavarack showing the wrong portrait.

• AST: The 'Governor General' Advisor Trait has had a balance tweak lowering the Democracy drift from 0.10 to 0.05 and adding -5% consumer goods factor.

• AST: Rebalanced Australia's various population growth modifiers

• AST: Democratic branch autonomy gain has been increased from 0.1 to 0.3.

• AST: Fascist autonomy gain has been increased from 0.1 to 0.3.

• AST: Edited advisor Richard Dixon available check, added leader trait to focus Eastern Focus, and tweaked prereqs of focus The Pacific Pact

• AST: Toned down the tech rushing capability through 'Lee-Enfield No.1 Mk III*' and 'Owen Gun' focuses.

• AST: Added MILS to fascist focuses 'Walls Like Uluru' and 'Crush the Gates' + spirit National Defense modifier tweaks

• AST: Decision Call On Fascist now has a dynamic cost.

• AST: Upgraded the focus 'Coastwatchers' with Air Wing Experience Loss When Killed reduction, and Naval Auxiliary Patrol with Casualties on Sink reduction to represent the many airmen and sailors saved by these two organisations.

• SIA: Slightly increased the probability that asking for the return of territories goes in Siams favor

• SIA: German Tank Studies now grants +5% piercing bonus instead of a -10% build cost reduction.

• SIA: American Tank Studies now only grants its attack bonus instead of -5% build cost reduction as well.

• ABDACOM focuses are now mostly 35 days (first and last are 70 day).

• SIA: 'Asian Democratic Compact' now only counts non-puppets that are in your faction.

• SIA: Unconventional Tank Construction now grants -15% build cost instead of -20% and -10% reliability instead of -15%.

Gameplay

• INS: Militia unit upgrades now increase the success chance of Indonesian raids.

• INS: Indonesia now gets events after finishing a militia base decision.

• INS: Clarified an Indonesian tooltip in the declaration of independence focus.

• AST: Rebalanced AI weight to focus a little more on air.

• AST: Tweaking Democratic and Communist volunteer focus effects.

• AST: Australian Communists no longer need to deal with the Cabinet Trust following the Canberra Air Disaster. Their government has already changed.

• AST: Refunding UAP/ALP advisors when they're removed; Counting completed Castle Crumbling mission as election win; Adding party votes modifier to Castle Crumbling mission fail

• SIA: 'Army of Siam' is now a dynamic modifier instead of a National Spirit to reduce spirit bloat.

• SIA: Added decisions to Develop Northern Malaya and Eastern Burma.

• SIA: Finishing the 'Triangular Defense network' now gives a flat +10% Compliance boost to any occupied territory.

• SIA: Kedah is now renamed to Syburi if cored by Siam.

• SIA: Recover Indochina and Demand the return of lost territory are no longer mutually exclusive

• SIA: Thailand is now evil red instead of blue when Siam turns to Thailand.

• PHI: Added Sergio Osmena as a country leader option after Manuel Quezon's death.

• Shift + Clicking a Commander while assigning to an Army will now also automatically start deploying them in the field with an HQ.

UI

• AST: Added mission to Australia First Movement decisions to visualize and keep track of the insufficient funds timer.

• AST: Tooltip for locked Air Crash advisor to show he's available only if Canberra Air Disaster hasn't happened.

• Pending Commander now shows up as a smaller portrait when re-assigning them to another army.

• Allow queuing the HQ deployment of en-route Commanders.

• Armies with deployed HQ can now change Commander, who will wait for the HQ to be withdrawn.

AI

• Indonesian AI will be heavily encouraged to switch to a different leader after completing the focus 'A Democratic Indonesia', if Indonesia's leader is still a governor general.

• Fixed a bug where the AI could be over-eager with their lendlease offers, they will now keep in mind the amount of available convoys you have in their offer.

Modding

• Add impassable_ignored_links for impassable states, a list of state IDs that will be ignored when computing the owner and controller of an impassable state

• Added a few common math functions pow, sqrt, cos, sin, tan, exp and log

Bugfix

• INS: Fixed several incorrect equipment names for Indonesian mechanized and armored cars.

• INS: The mission 'Moestopo demands promotion for his efforts' no longer gives +2 levels without the relevant skill increases.

• INS: Fixed a broken modifier added by the Indonesian 'Arm the Students' focus.

• INS: Fixed a broken command power modifier given by the Indonesian 'Laskar Rakyat' focus.

• INS: Indonesia can no longer use demorcatic elections (which dont work) after forming the Netherlands-Indonesia Union.

• INS: The focus 'A Democratic Indonesia' will no longer reset the country leader to Cornelis even if Tjarda was chosen to replace him

• INS: The Netherlands-Indonesia Union will now transfer all characters, including advisors.

• INS: Indonesia can no longer access the Volksraad when independent.

• INS: No longer display an inacurrate icon for the M23 Vickers

• INS: Fixed unlocalized string in Indonesian democratic elections tooltip.

• INS/HOL: Fixed a missing icon in Dutch spirit 'Agricultural Taxes'.

• AST: Setting and clearing flag in Vichy territory requests for decisions Vichy Out of Africa.

• AST: Removing effect for focus Under the Rule of Canberra that gave puppet to puppet; instead it annexes the states that are owned by an AI player

• AST: Applying A Sound Voice trait which failed earlier in the decision A Sound Voice

• AST: Adding a is_coastal check to several focuses that gave coastal forts

• AST: NCNS disabled fallbacks to focuses giving Faction effects

• AST: Australia now must own Nauru for The Phosphate Commission focus.

• AST: Australia now has a level 2 rail connection all the way from Canberra to Alice Springs if they complete both 'Standard Gauge Line to Darwin' and 'Alice Springs' focuses.

• AST: Changed Naval Engineer (Percival McNeil) icon to be more relevant.

• AST: Added TAOG/Non-TAOG DLC checks for Custom Game Rules / AI Behavior to prevent displaying a double set

• AST: Fixed a bug where communist Australia had a hard time ending civil wars.

• AST: Hidden Australia's prospect decisiosn which were TAOG only (they never worked, but showed up in the list).

• SIA: Fixed a bug that would cause Yellow Dossier events to fire after 'Spring the Trap' was completed.

• SIA: Fixed a bug where you could get a wargoal against yourself if you controlled parts of Indochina while asking France to return it.

• SIA: Pridi now gets his Civilian Wing Leader correctly when completing Secure the state.

• SIA: Replaced an inappropriately themed focus icon.

• Tooltip for maximum command power now correctly shows the name of the advisors.

• Added missing spriteType entry for event picture and switched out two event pictures.

• Sir Mohammed Iqbal and Agha Khan III will now be unhired when Pakistan starts existing.

• Load and continue buttons in main menu now correctly displays cosmetic flags

• Fix a bug where deployed Generals were able to be deployed as Field Marshals.

• Fixed a bug where Command Abilities cost was affected by a general's planning skill

• Fix an issue where Czechs puppets would trigger the Sudetenland Crisis.

• Fixed a missing localisation string (Mt. Isa Mines).

• Fixed a bug where Special Forces doctrines were shown to everyone, even if you didn't own the relevant DLC. (AAT or NCNS).

• Fixed a bug where Commander Ability cost was determined by number of divisions instead of number of battalions

• Fixed an issue where dynamic countries could be created without valid Army HQ templates, causing a crash.

Anniversary SALE: Up to 80% Off! Shop Now.

Generals!

We’ve just released a small hotfix (1.19.0.1) to address two of the issues that we’re seeing right now.

• There was a particular crash related to the Spanish civil war kicking off into a four-way civil war and the new Army HQ feature.

• There was an issue where the TaoG DLC icon in the main menu wasn’t lighting up properly if you have the DLC unlocked.

Both of these should now be fixed.

Crashing and MODs

We also can see in our reporting telemetry that most other crashes players are experiencing right now are related to playing with mods. If you do crash, and you are 100% certain that you’re NOT playing with mods, please submit your crashes in the crashreporter tool so we can look into fixing them.

Balance and stat bloat

We hear your concerns with balance & stat bloat, and we’re looking into this. We also see the complaints about command ability cost being affected by the general planning skill, causing in rare cases the ability cost to be pretty much free. This was unintentional and will be reverted in 1.19.1.

More patch

We’re already working on Patches 1.19.1 and 1.19.2.

Our aim is to release the former (early) next week, and 1.19.2 should be not too far after that.

PATCH NOTES

Stability & Performance

• Fixed a CTD when Army HQ units were destroyed in combat under specific conditions (risks happening in, for example, a 4-way Spanish civil war).

Bugfix

• Main menu icon for TaoG now correctly shows ownership.

Generals!

Thunder At Our Gates is officially out now! Jump into the thick of the South-East Asian rainforests and battle your way through to victory. Or if you prefer a more grainy environment, stick to the Australian continent and send your expeditionaries to hold Tobruk like a real desert rat.

This is our first Theater Pack, a smaller DLC which includes both country content as well as gameplay features. With it you get new content for Australia, Siam, and Indonesia as well as the inclusion of the new Army HQ feature and Ship Captains (and regimental support in the free patch!).

We hope to see you out there protecting the Pacific or uniting it under your banner!

/Batya

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3796290/Theater_Pack__Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Thunder_at_our_Gates/

Enjoy the brand new Thunder at our Gates soundtrack!

These Major Mods have, or soon will be, updated so that you can keep playing them (or try them out!)

(The dates can change, however)

June 11th End of a New Beginning

World Ablaze

June 30th Cold War Iron Curtain

We’re almost there, our free weekend is starting today!

Need some Help getting started? Have a look at HOI Designer (Not affiliated with Paradox Interactive)

Generals!

Tomorrow at 18:00 CEST we’ll be releasing Thunder at our Gates. It feels like only two months ago that we brought you Peace for our Time.

Accompanying this release we’ll bring you Patch 1.19.0 and, just like the recent Anniversary Patch, it’s another beefy one.

Patch Notes (1.19.0)

Thunder at our Gates

• Added new Focus tree for Australia and a new Democratic Election system.

• Added new Focus tree for Siam.

• Added new Focus tree for The Dutch East-Indies.

• Updated states in South-East Asia.

• Added new VO for Australia, Siam, and The Dutch East-Indies.

• Added 6 new Music Tracks.

• Added 50 new and revamped airplane models

• Added 4 new and revamped ground vehicle models.

• Added 21 new and revamped tank models.

• Added 3 new infantry models.

• Added 14 Army HQ commander models including 3 generic cultural variants.

• Introducing Army HQs which allows for the deployment of generals into the field to provide additional support to their army.

• Deployed Army HQs can be assigned to specific orders and buff troops accordingly.

• Added 11 unique HQ support companies that allows for tailoring Army HQs to different needs.

• Added 5 new commander abilities that are unlocked through HQ support companies.

• Added Dispersed Operations doctrine for Thunder at our Gates, focusing on hardening logistics & reduce the effect of enemy air power.

• Added Ship Captains to Naval vessels and the ability to grant them medals and promote them to become Admirals.

• Added 8 Historical Ship Captains in both bookmarks for all Major countries (and Australia!).

Free Features & Models

• Added a new row for Regimental Support to the Division Designer.

• Added 12 Regimental support companies that are unlocked through techs and synergise with the doctrine system

• Added the new Doctrine system for Special Forces.

• Added 3 revamped Infantry models, and 2 Artillery models for the Commonwealth

• Added 2 revamped tank models.

• Added 4 revamped ground vehicle models.

• New Zealand received several new Focuses, Advisors and Industrial Concerns.

Balance

• The Pearl Harbor raid now has a lower base success chance, but it is improved by taking the focus 'Form the Kido Butai'.

• Command powers daily costs now scale with amount of battalions affected.

• The negative effects of failing the 'People's Trust' mission as the PRC are now better displayed in the tooltip, and have been merged into one National Spirit.

• Split the Japanese Home Islands airzone into Northern, Central, and Southern Japan.

• Manchukuo: Improved the trait the leader gains when completing the focus 'Claim the Mandate of Heaven'.

• The UK is now less likely to select a faction rule that reduces the tension needed to guarantee other nations when playing on historical.

• Commercial Nuclear Reactor will now contribute 0.01% Daily Breakthrough towards 'Physics/Nuclear' category. (As it already contributed to the production of the Nuclear Bombs, it will now also be listed in the respective tooltip).

• Iran no longer gains redundant research bonuses when going down the Negotiate with America / Establish the Iranian Nuclear Program focuses, instead getting breakthrough points.

• Rejigged the Mexican AI strategy plans so that they build up and prepare more before they eventually go to war with the USA and the Allies.

• Supervised States can now decline being called into a war, to represent the difference between regular puppets and democratized governments.

• Continuous Offensives: All armour additionally gains +10% breakthrough.

• Self-Sufficient Battalion: Armored signal battalion_mult on tank destroyers nerfed: AP attack reduced from +20% to +10%.

• Artillery Groups: Support artillery now also benefits, gaining +5% soft attack and +10% breakthrough.

• Pakfront: Anti-tank brigade +20% defense moved to Emplacement Rotation & +20% soft attack moved to Weakpoint Studies

• Multirole Support Vehicles: Moved all SP-vehicle bonuses to regimental-support equivalents.

• Shoot and Scoot: All three SP categories had max organisation reduced from +10 to +5 and recovery rate from +20% to +15%. SP artillery additionally gains +5% soft attack; SP anti-air additionally gains +5% anti-air; tank destroyers' hard attack reduced from +15% to +5%.

• Integrated Support Batteries: Support artillery soft attack nerfed from +10% to +5%; anti-tank and anti-air support companies now also benefit (+20 max organisation, +5% AP and +5% hard attack for anti-tank, +5% air attack for anti-air).

• Breaking Out: Army-wide soft attack nerfed from +20% to +15%.

• Combined Arms Integration: Removed +4 max organisation for tanks; removed +10% air attack for anti-air support company (migrated to anti-air battery).

• "Quick Decision Offensive Warfare" Militia now gets 1.5% Initiative bonus instead of 1%

Gameplay

• Added in more critical states for ships: Leaking Pressure Hull, Leaking Battery, Jammed Torpedo Tube, Broken Diesel Engines, Broken Bilge Pump, Shortcircuited Radar, Leaking Fuel Tanks, Reactor Coolant Loss, and Fire Direction Breakdown.

• Inflexible strategist is now Stubborn Defender.

• UK: Reworked the Fortify East Asia focus tree branch.

• Clarified tooltip for Dominions on effects of accepting Imperial Federation.

• UK: Changed 'Blackshirt replace dominion government' decisions to send event instead of changing dominion ideology unilaterally.

• Fascist China now has access to the Sino-German Technical Mission tank MIO after approaching Western Powers.

• Iraq forming the Hashemite Arab Federation will now annex any subject included in their newly gained core territories.

• Brazil: Pedro Gastão can now take over the throne when his father dies.

• Portugal: Added focuses regarding the Asian colonies to the colonial branch.

• The two Japanese focuses locked behind having Yamakawa Kikue as the country leader can now also be taken if she is hired as an advisor, which she can be if her husband is the country leader.

• Added the ability for all releasable nations within the British Raj as well as Nepal and Bhutan to unite the Indian subcontinent into a formable nation.

• Raid units are now sorted on success rate rather than distance to raid source.

• When sending multiple armies as volunteers, they will be preserved instead of combined into one.

• Torpedo Mountings and Anti-Ship Guided Missile - they are considered one family, and as such Upgrade Option in the Plane Designer will upgrade them Torpedo Mounting I -> Torpedo Mounting II -> Torpedo Mounting III -> Anti-Ship Guided Missile

Stability & Performance

• Reduced save file size from provinces.

• Trade system now use more cores.

• Optimized Naval HQ calculations & reduced pathfinding for Army HQ.

UI

• Tweaked the Ship Details window: moved manpower, display fuel consumption, removed Terrain tab.

• Move the Naval HQ button to the Navy Overview screen.

• Shows en-route duration on generals in 'Select Commander' window.

• Added the ability to Shift+Click on a template icon to open the division designer for that template from the Army List view and Unit Details view.

• Added filters to the Country Selection Screen for unplayed countries and the various continents.

• Added arrows to the Italian BoP decision names to indicate which direction they will push the Balance in.

• The Indian focus 'Princely States Policy' now shows the effects of the unlocked laws upfront, and if taken by an ai the Independent Rule law is now automatically applied.

• Map Arrows that are too short will now display the arrow head anyway.

• Hovering a province will now show the information about the province control instead of the state's.

AI

• Added a small optimization for borderwars where the AI tried and failed interacting with it while technically not allowed to do so. (AKA: Made the AI stop trying (and failing) to cheat in border wars).

• Added script support for changing Taskforce ship target settings.

• Updated the Japanese AI to be more willing to attack islands to their south when they are going historical.

• Stop AI continuously exchanging Army Groups Field Marshals while they are in combat.

• Stop AI creating Frontlines they cannot reach (because of a demilitarized zone for example).

• Made the AI verify that they don't have access to special research facilities before building another one of them.

• Made United Kingdom more competent at defending egypt and attacking Tripoli, and Iraq.

• Germany will produce slightly more light tanks, and produce less trains overall.

• Italy will use its airforce more in Africa and keep a strong presence in North-Africa, even when its attacking Yugoslavia, and Greece. They also no longer will reinforce mindlessly in the Sub-Saharan region.

• AI is more keen on training their Air Wings.

• Added basic infantry template to Iraq.

• Added early tank destroyer variants to Soviets, USA and Germany.

• Soviets and Germans have updated AT and armored templates. The AI will also more likely prioritize templates that need updating.

• An AI hosting governments in exile no longer stops upgrading its own division templates as a side effect of refreshing exile templates.

• The UK is encouraged to help with air in north africa if needed.

• AI is better at filling their carriers with airplanes, even if they can't field the best, they will reuse old equipment.

• Increased UK naval dominance in the Mediterranean for better naval invasions.

Modding

• Add support for subdoctrines being assignable to multiple different doctrine track types.

• Add allow_in_multiple_tracks property for subdoctrines, which determines whether one subdoctrine can be added to multiple tracks simultaneously (default is no).

• Decision's war_with_on_remove/timeout/complete are now scoped variables.

• reduce_focus_completion_cost now correctly localizes dynamic text in its description.

• Add unlock_subunit effect which unlocks a subunit for a country.

• Add ship_modifiers to medals.

• Add captured_army_leader as a raid target type.

• Implement xor property for subdoctrines which makes subdoctrines mutually exclusive between separate tracks.

• Add officer_xp field to unit medals.

• Removes support for 'add_temporary_buff_to_units' and adds new 'unit_modifiers' to cover these use cases. All Army HQ abilities now use 'unit_modifiers'.

• focus_count command now also shows you a summary of the focuses and the days it takes to complete them.

• Add modifier for casualty_trickleback.

• Add avg_unit_entrenchment_ratio scripting scope.

• Added ai template weighting to imgui show ai_templates.

• Add is_leader_visible trigger to check whether the given unit leader is visible for its owner.

• Add ai_min_success_chance raid type property to override AI launch threshold.

• Add max_distance raid type property capping source-to-target path length.

Bugfix

• Fixed an issue where multiple Pacific releasable tags were missing generic military advisors.

• Fixed some timing issues with decisions.

• UK: Fixed Dominions getting event to leave Commonwealth when UK goes fascist/communist even if a dominion has the same ideology.

• Chile: Fixed an issue where taking the focus 'Treading the Straight Line' would break Ibanez' small portrait.

• PRC: The MIO Dalian Shipbuilding Company now properly requires control of Dalian rather than Liaoning.

• Romania: Fixed a broken AI weight in the event King Carol's Lifestyle - 'King bans critical book'.

• Added missing unit namelists for new Chinese Warlord states.

• Fixed an issue where the Japanese AI would sometimes puppet or liberate states out of its own core territory at the end of their Civil War.

• Fixed an instance where the Brazilian monarchist civil war triggered by Portugal would cease 1 day after.

• Nils Flyg can now join the German Reich again, let the reddit confusion continue!

• Fixed an issue where some warlord leaders wouldn't be promoted through the Personal Leadership focus.

• Fixed an issue where Iraq could become permanently locked out of their decisions to invite nation to the Hashemite Arab Federation if they ended up at war with them or they disappeared while the targeted decision was still ongoing.

• Fixed an issue where the 'Manchuko People's Army' and 'People's Liberation Army' National Spirits didn't give any Recruitable Population Factor.

• The British Raj will now drop their 'Raj' cosmetic tag at the end of a peace conference if they are either independent or a subject of a different nation than the UK.

• Re-added an airbase that had been accidentally removed for the 1939 scenario and fixed an issue where the Warlord focuses 'An Autonomous Tibet' and 'Conquer Tibet' wouldn't properly bypass.

• Fixed an issue where the Republic of Congo focus would not bypass if Congo was at war.

• Fixed an issue where the available tooltip would appear twice for the Radio Propaganda decision if not playing as Brazil or Afghanistan.

• Fixed two instances where the Stresa Front could be ratified while Italy was a subject of a foreign power.

• Japan: If the pressure Siam focus isn't available due to them being in another faction, Japan will now pivot to their focus Occupy Siam.

• Fixed 700+ typos across the game.

• Fixed fascist Latvia decision to incite civil war in Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland.

• Fixed an issue where the visual representation of the Naval HQ range did not match the range of the buff.

• Fixed an issue where Afghanistan would be forced into a faction with Germany despite being in its own one when completing either 'Into the Plains of the British Raj' or 'The Red Threat'.

• Fixed an issue where the Japanese focus 'Hasten the Integration of Taiwan' wasn't bypassable.

• Fixed multiple instances of VPs being scripted in the incorrect states.

• Raj: Fixed an issue where the Mughals could puppet existing countries when having the Princes Revolt against British India if they held a core of theirs. Also fixed a few characters not being correctly recruited, who are now available for the path.

• Fixed Balance Of Power transferring to new country after reusing a dynamic country tag.

• 'And the Snake Smoked' achievement now requires you to be in the Allies, and requires germany to be capitulated or no longer exist.

• Nordic support collaboration tech now correctly reduces experience loss instead of increasing it.

• Fixed a bug where Canadian & Italian focus tree still referred to 'medium gun batteries'.

• Fixed an issue where the decision 'Diversify Elite Forces' checked for an implicit 'and' instead of 'or', causing it to not show up correctly.

• Added missing upgrades and MIO trait support for amphibious mechanized equipment.

• If Sweden joins the Winter War as a result of the Finnish focus 'A Cry for Help', it is no longer considered an offensive war.

• Axel Pehrsson Bramstorp and Gösta Bagge no longer keep the trait 'Minority opposition party in power' after being re-elected in the 1936 general election.

• Fixed an issue where in the Swedish focus, 'The Åland Issu', Finland would refuse to cede Åland if Sweden was much stronger, contrary to what the focus describes.

• Transport Plane 3 Technology - now has the same 1945 Year for both BBA and non-BBA technology.

• Take Control of the Executive Yaum now properly updates autonomy of Warlord Puppets.

• Nuclear Production Tooltip now counts all the buildings with nuclear_reactor = yes.

• Fire Concentration Subdoctrine will now properly provide +5% Defense Bonus as well as +5 Organization to the Line Artillery Unit Category in the Initial unlock.

• Change Mountain Gun tech localisation to reflect that it is not only Indian.

• Fixed an issue where the Indian focus 'Kingmaker' would grant two non-functioning rules changes.

• Fixed an issue where the Faction Research panel flickered on hourly ticks.

• Afghan focuses granting foreign ideological influence now mention that the ideas will last for 1 year.

• The Indian focus 'Varunas Armor' now has a name assigned to the tech bonus it gives.

• Fixed an issue where the event chain from the Iranian focus 'Push for Negotiations' was missing descriptions.

• RAJ: The Focus 'Constitution for the Masses' now also has a Political Filter.

• The Iranian focuses 'The Iranian Socialist Revolution' and 'Force Abdication' now properly inform the player that a civil war can be avoided if certain conditions are met.

• Afghanistan: The 'Eliminate dissent' in a state decisions under 'Shadows of the King' are available again if the decision got canceled without completing the decision.

• Fixed an issue where Navy leaders could be assigned to multiple Naval Headquarters after saving the game.

• Fixed a crash that can occur when opening the production window.

• Fixed various issues and inconsistencies with the decolonization game rule for Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

• Fixed exploit where you could gain more manpower from leaving and rejoining your faction.

• Fixed an issue where subjects could impose a naval blockade on their overlord.

• Fixed various issues where Syria and Lebanon could escape from war and territorial losses when Vichy France was created by siding with them or declaring independence, and made it so they properly peace out enemies or not depending on their choices in the event chain. The now also gain historical flags and leaders when becoming Vichy puppets.

• Sir Mohammed Iqbal and Agha Khan III will now be unavailable if Pakistan has broken free from the Raj.

• Only bordering states will be transferred if taking the 'Swear Fealty to the Invaders focus'

• The focus Propose Syrian Unification can now be taken if Syria is independent.

• [p

Generals!

Batya here with another patch.

The focus is around Czechoslovakia’s content that was recently released with Peace For Our Time. Besides that there have been a few crashes that were fixed and included in this patch. I also want to extend a special thanks to the wonderful team behind Peace for our Time and all the balance changes, bug fixes, and other additions that they made since release!

This is currently the last planned patch focused around the release of PfoT, but any additional issues will of course be picked up in future patches. We hope that you will enjoy these changes and as always let us know what you think and if you find any other issues do let us know!

As a final note, the team added a little secret and wanted to provide a little hint so here is my (maybe not so) cryptic hint: A.E.I.B.U.

Happy hunting and see you on the Sudeten front!

**

Patch Notes

**

Gameplay & Balance

• When Czechoslovakia uses the Austria-Hungary reformation decision, they now get a unique cosmetic tag called Great Moravia.

• Changed the flag for the Bohemian Kingdom so it still includes Slovakia.

• 'Integrate Hungary' is now 'Integrate Former Austrian Lands', and can grant the integration idea to more puppets than just Hungary.

• Certain Czech characters now go into exile to some countries sometime after the 'Fate of Czechoslovakia' baring conditions are met.

• Slightly tweaked the balance of a few advisors.

• The option to demand land in return for joining their faction that Hungary and Poland get when invited now has a tooltip about what happens if CZE accepts the counteroffer event.

• Some of the Balance of Power Decisions reappearance times have been rebalanced slightly.

• Overhauled late-game industry and Peace For Our Time branch ideas to use idea swaps to reduce the amount of ideas displayed.

• Added conscription/training & militia bonuses for the army spirit to some focuses.

• Added two new division name lists: Rangers & State Defense Guard.

• Germany can no longer start ‘Fate of Czechoslovakia’ if CZE still owns the Sudetenland, they will get a wargoal instead.

• Added a slight color change to Czechoslovakia when it starts its monarchist or fascist branches.

• Two Polish MIOs (Naval and Tank) can be gained by Czechoslovakia depending on completing a focus or having a core related state.

• Added tooltips to a few focuses when they don't have any targets (faction members/puppets) yet to make clear what they do.

• Added some extra visual and focus effect flavor in the fascist branch.

• The Ready for Anything decision to remove the BoP now has slightly more forgiving requirements.

• Czechoslovakia no longer uses the Balkan Union cosmetic tag, using a new Pan-European one instead

• Completing the Czechoslovakian focus 'Lessons of War' now removes the BoP modifier 'Threatening Neighbors'.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash that can occur when a rocket silo's 'Surface-to-Air' mission is set to a naval region.

• Fixed a crash that can occur on Mac during peace conferences.

• Radola Gajda now has a Militarist trait.

• Removed two army leader cost reductions as together with unremoved ones they could accumulate to -125% army leader cost and make promoting division leaders cost 0 CP.

• Unifying with Poland now grants their unit leaders.

• Buffed the monarchist integration idea from -1 daily autonomy for Hungary to -2.

• Added a new cosmetic tag for Czechoslovakia's (integrated communist) puppets so they don't stay blue while CZE isn't.

• Fixed Galicia's default capital being in the Sudetenland.

• Fixed two Slovak navy chiefs having the same idea token.

• Fixed communist path overlapping with democratic paths if a democratic path was chosen with the gamerule to show normally auto-hidden branches enabled.

• Fixed multiple scope mistakes in the new special project.

• Czechoslovakia no longer loses cores on Slovakian and Ruthenian states with the historical event chain.

• If Czechoslovakia is puppeted by a non-aligned nation, Hlinka is now automatically replaced by Emil Hacha as leader for the non-aligned party.

• Fixed an issue where the Industrial Concern Apollo would become available unintentionally through an upgrade focus linked to the concern.

• Fixed an issue where Skoda's industry company required an extra focus after being upgraded.

• Swapped around two victory point names that were misplaced on the map. (The tiles have 0 VP points so the name is only visible in bottom left when selecting the province).

• Integrated some community feedback on localization for naming and usage of the correct characters.

• Fixed typo in Hácha's name.

• Fixed an issue which cancelled the focus 'Fortify the Crossroads' if Slovakia exists.

• Multiple cosmetic tags achieved after doing the autonomist path no longer disappear when reannexing Slovakia through the autonomy system.

• Fixed Peru having access to a Czech Industrial Concern.

• Fixed broken Visibility conditions with some Czech MIOs for Germany and Poland.

AI

• Slovakia is now more likely to fight on the Eastern Front when they are a German puppet.

• Increased the chance that Germany does its new raid on Czechoslovakia.

• Hungary is now more encouraged to take part in Operation Barbarossa.

• Germany's historical plan will cancel if the Czechs annex Austria.

• Kommisariat Böhmen-Mahren is now more likely to assist Germany. Either support in the war, defending territory, or lend-lease.

• Fixed broken allowed statements in a Polish naval and tank MIO making them show on every country when PFOT is disabled.

• Added a lot more detail to a bunch of AI event considerations.

• Germany was given an even stronger nudge to do the Berlin-Moscow Axis when faced with a strong Czech faction under certain circumstances.

Art

• New advisor portrait for navy chief František Placák.

• New advisor portrait for air chief Jaroslav Kejla.

• New idea art for Leveraged Sokol.

• New focus icons for: Compromise with the Veteran Agrarians, Powerhouse of Europe, Leverage Sokol, Forgive Trading Debts, Deepen Ties with Trademen, Bolster Domestic Construction & Trinec Ironworks.

• New flags for CEF (Central European Federation) formable.

• Removed all uses of USSR GFX CCP focus icons, replaced the one on Industrial Relocation with a new icon.

• Certain Focus icons in the Czech tree will be switched for different ones depending on ideology.

Generals!

Before we head out on our 4-Day LOA we wanted to give you another OB update. Give it a try, leave us a lot of feedback here, and we'll be back soon to take it all in and make potential adjustments.

How to join this Open Beta:

This beta client is Case Green v1.18.1.0.9197 (01c8)

To install Open Beta client, follow the instruction below:

• Right-click the game in your library

• Select Properties from the drop-down menu

• Select Game Versions & Betas

• Select the beta branch called open_beta

If you are already on the Open Beta client, you should get an update automatically.

Finally, to report any issues you find, in relation to this beta, please use the bug report forum and make sure to include the version you’re using. That way our Jira won’t go nuts trying to figure out what bug report belongs to what.

**Open Beta Update V Notes **

Gameplay

• Made lend lease default to max amount for 'once' and to 100% for 'percentage' modes

• Updated supply tooltip to show more careful where all supply is coming from

Stability & Performance

• Fixed performance in very large scale naval battles (1000+ ships)

• Fixed a dx11 rendering bug

AI

• Fixed a bug where England could not build improved battleships

• Extensive rework of italian naval equipment

• The AI will now train their troops more often

• Updated generic taskforces so they are a bit more sensible

• The AI will try to train their ships a bit more opportunistic

• The AI will be a bit more sensical with picking a homebase for its standby fleet

• Added logic to prevent the AI from assigning too many patrols to support naval invasion

Modding

• AI objectives will respect blocked naval regions now and not consider them for naval mission assignment anymore

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where ships were partially considered for supply need

• Fixed a bug where USA was unable to build 1940 CVs

• Fixed a bug where a strike force sometimes gets stuck on an invalid target and stops working

• Fixed a bug where wrong snow modifier values were shown + fixed a bug where the leader snow adjuster didnt work as intended

• Snow attack penalty is now shown on the move-arrow tooltip

• Removed legacy plane techs from BBA-enabled starts for 36 minor nations

• RI Bolzano in the 1939 OOB now uses the correct ship_hull_cruiser_2 (Bolzano Class)

• Convoy raiders won't join or reinforce a combat unless there are enemy convoy's to shoot at

• Fixed a crash related to carrier airplanes being deployed

As you were!

(And try to leave this place in one piece while we're out!)

Generals!

Here’s your first update since we released Peace for our Time last week. Fire up HOI, annihilate your enemies, get your puppets under control and connect with your allies. Then, let us know your thoughts, and, should you find any more bugs, remember to drop them in the HOI IV Bug Reports forum.

Gameplay

• The Bohemia formable now uses a golden colour

• Poland now has a small branch that gives them access to Czech MIOs/Concerns

• Swapped several focus icons from the CZE political communist branches that used mismatching art from the Soviet 2D art pack

• Added a new focus to the Czech tree - "Wielding the Hammer" which gives a new idea

• Added a new focus to the Czech tree - "Emergency Measures" which gives a new idea

• Added a new focus to the Czech tree - "Demand the Czech Corridor" which allows Czechoslovakia to demand land from Austria

• Completing "Contact the Czech and Slovak Legion" now gives a number of aces

Bugfix

• Fixed a bug where "End the Oppression of the Hungarian workers" required the wrong state (León, Spain instead of South Transdanubia, Hungary)

• Fixed an issue where the Skoda tank MIO would by default be assigned to your Armored Car when creating a variant and producing it

• Fixed several typos in names and descriptions

• Fixed an issue where the Protektorat Bohmen-Mahren could reach 7 research slots in the 1939 bookmark

• The "I Didn't Hear No Bell" achievement can now be unlocked after changing cosmetic tag

• Fixed an issue where puppet Slovakia changing overlord from CZE to GER would not correctly update their cosmetic tag

• Fixed an issue where the "Divided Nation" spirit would not disappear if the very last decision was interrupted

• Fixed an issue where two Slovak Navy Chiefs had the same Trait, used the same generic portrait, but had varying costs

• Fixed the tooltip for the focus "Demand a Corridor to the Soviets"

• The Skoda inlay window should no longer overlap with some focuses when going down a specific political branch

• Correcting small mistake in what Czech word for "Daddy" was used for Tatíček Masaryk

• Replaced modifiers for Czech special projects that were not working

• Corrected the year in the localization of a focus from "Revert the 1926 Anti-Military Laws" to 1927

• "Realize the Polish Czechoslovak Confederation" now requires Poland to be at war with the same nations Czechoslovakia

• Rebalanced Slovakia Army Idea

• The event to demand Katowice from Poland now uses the correct option text

• Corrected the localization for a Japanese MIO to use correct special text characters

• Corrected the localization for the "Tatíček Masaryk" focus and "Ceské Slezsko" state name

• Fixed a typo in "Smaller Air Plants" focus

AI

• Adjusted German AI to produce enough transport planes

• Added new AI strategy for Slovakia so they will help Germany with the Eastern front

• Fixed some inverted ai_chance blocks when puppeting Hungary

• Add some more granular AI chance modifiers to a number of Czech events

Generals!

Now that you’ve watched your entertainment; the first order of business: The 1.18 Patch Notes that we posted yesterday, read them. Want to roll back a version? You’ll find those instructions there as well.

It’s time then to roll back the date to 1936, and experience the dark days leading up to the Second World War; welcome to Czechoslovakia!

Features of Hearts of Iron IV: Peace for Our Time include:

New Czechoslovakia Focus tree:

• Democratic path: Balance the needs of various political factions and help the Allies ensure they will honor their commitment to protecting Czechoslovakia. Or strike out on your own path to defend Central Europe.

• Communist path: Choose between the factions of Köhler, Gottwald and Zapotocky and either pursue Stalinism and align with the Soviet Union or pursue an independent course, while also forming and then expanding a Czechoslovak Union

• Monarchist and fascist paths: Establish an authoritarian government to lead the country, either under a king or the military and enlarge Czechoslovakia with former Bohemian lands in Austria, the Balkans, Silesia and Poland, or cooperate with Germany, establishing a smaller sphere of influence under their protection

• Shared paths: Strengthen the 1935 Czechoslovak-Soviet pact or intervene in the 2nd Soviet civil war if it happens, form the Little Entente with new cooperation options and countries to ally with. Continue a focus on fortifications and moving the arms industry away from the border, or abandon these policies

• Army industry Management: Use a new focus tree GUI to dynamically prioritize sectors of your armaments industry; the boosts this provides are further strengthened by doing focuses, and your prioritization also unlocks certain focuses

• Army Readiness Balance of Power: Keep your army at peak readiness, or indulge in the benefits of sidelining rearmament for industrial benefits

• Divided Nation Decisions: Alleviate stresses in Czechoslovak society by investing in education and industry in areas that feel underemphasized

Other additional content includes:

• Destroy Forts with ease with a new Special Project and related technology

• Take up the mantle of Vodca with new generals, country leaders, and a 3D unit model for Slovakia

• Integrate Czechoslovakia Equipment Designers into the Reich’s war machine with a new National Focus for Germany

And here is an overview of the DLC Content.

Peace for Our Time

Added a new focus tree for Czechoslovakia:

• Monarchist branch: Establish a Bohemian empire under Karel VI Schwarzenberg.

• Fascist branch: Work with Italy against Germany, or capitulate to German demands and work with them.

• Communist branch: Choose one of three communist factions and expand the Czechoslovak Union with neighboring countries.

• Democratic branch: Try to get stronger backing from the Western powers or look to your neighbors and assemble a Central European confederation.

• Two new and one reworked tag mechanics: Army Readiness BoP, Industry focus GUI and Divided Nation decisions.

• Added new Slovak generals and country leaders with unique portraits.

• Slovakia has been given two new startdate National Spirits.

• Reworked over 60 Czechoslovak equipment icons.

• Added a new national focus for Germany that gives them Czech-related MIO/Concerns.

• Added 2 new Landmarks.

• Added 2 new music tracks.

• Added 2 new 3D unit models.

• Added 1 new Special Project.

• Added 1 new Paratrooper Raid for Germany.

• Poland, Austria, Ethiopia, Hungary, and Slovakia will get access to certain Czech MIO/Concerns if certain conditions are met.

• Hungary will be able to do a border war with Slovakia if the circumstances permit it.

Gameplay (Non-Peace for Our Time)

• Czechoslovakia has a new focus: “Healing a Divided Nation” in its democratic branch.

• Czechoslovakia was given 4 new Political Advisors.

• Czechoslovakia was given 1 new Naval Commander.

• LaR: Czechoslovakia was given an Armored Car MIO/Concern “Ringhoffer-Tatra”

• GD: Czechoslovakia was given a helicopter MIO/Concern “Praga Aviation.”

• South Sudetenland was given a start date dam.

• Czechoslovakia's air theorist Alois Vicherek has been given a Chief of Air Force role.

• Czechoslovakia now has a brief window in which they can release Slovakia upon game start.

• Slovakia starts with ‘Branná moc Slovenskej’ (Slovak Army) National Spirit.

• Germany now has an option for “The Fate of Czechoslovakia” event to set up both the Protektorat of Bohmen-Mahren and Slovakia as puppets.

• Bohmen Protectorate exists from game start in the 1939 start date.

• Protektorat Bohmen-Mahren was given various Czech Concerns and MIO’s.

• Added 2 generals to the Protektorat Bohmen-Mahren.

• Romania now gets an event when Germany finishes the national focus “Demand Sudetenland" that allows them a chance to revoke their Guarantee on Czechoslovakia in a majority of circumstances.

• BBA: Ethiopia was given “CKD-Praga” as an Aircraft Designer Concern to match the country already having the MIO version.

• GD: Belgium has a new Industrial Concern.

Adjustments

• MIO/Concern ‘CKD-Praga’ was switched to a Multi-Role Aircraft Designer

• MIO/Concern ‘Skoda Armor’ was switched to a Standardized Production Designer

• MIO/Concern ‘Aero’ was switched to being a CAS Aircraft designer

• Czechoslovakia's starting naval advisors have been replaced with some figures historically linked to the Czech Army’s Naval forces.

• 1 military factory was removed from Bohemia and added to Czeske Slezsko.

• Czechoslovakia’s start date political party popularity has been changed.

• Some of Czechoslovakia's national spirit modifiers have been adjusted and/or given additional modifiers.

• Edvard Benes was given ‘De facto Leader’ country leader trait to reflect his role in leading Czechoslovakia despite not being the de jure leader of the country.

AI

• Fascist Germany AI is far more likely to want to ally with the Soviet Union if faced with a very strong Little Entente.

• German AI will be more inclined to try to break Czechoslovakia’s defenses in South Sudetenland and Western Slovakia if they’re stalled out in a war with Czechoslovakia in certain circumstances.

• German AI shouldn’t demand Slovenia or the Sudetenland if they are outnumbered by the Yugoslav/Czech faction, until they get allies or get an army that can compete.

• German AI will now delay acting on a war goal against Czechoslovakia until after August 1939 if it senses that the faction Czechoslovakia is in is relatively strong and could give Germany trouble before that date.

• Fascist Germany AI will be less inclined to ally with fascist Czechoslovakia just because they’re fascist.

• France and England will be way less likely to guarantee Czechoslovakia again if they previously threw them under the bus during the Munich Conference.

• Czech AI will be very willing to license equipment to certain countries that they were historically trying to sell or sold to in 1936/1937, and tags that share the same ideology with, and that the Czechs have a high enough opinion of, after they complete the national focus “Keep the Focus on Weapon Exports.”

Graphics

Czechoslovakia now has unique medals!

• LaR: Czechoslovakia now has a unique spy agency icon.

• Germany’s “Demand Slovenia” national focus has a new icon.

• Improved a few Spain and Yugoslavia-related focus icons.

Bugfixes

• The event sent by fascist Germany’s focus to integrate Czechoslovakia will no longer annex Czechoslovakia, even if they refused it.

• If the USSR cedes Western Poland to Germany when Molotov-Ribbentrop has been signed, they can no longer cede a Slovakia owned by their faction member.

To check out Expansion Pass 02, click HERE or the image above for more information!

Admirals!

Here’s a small hotfix for Warships of the Pacific, 1.17.5.2

Patch notes:

Bugfix

• Fixed issue causing only a single support model to be shown in division designer

• Fixed a bug where AI or other players updating division templates would be affecting your template updates (UI only)

• Added several missing tank pools for various tank models so they show up correctly

• Fixed an issue where a debug 3D model would show after disabling equipment in the division designer

Admirals!

Here’s a small hotfix for Warships of the Pacific, 1.17.5.1.

Patch Notes:

Bugfix

• Fixed incorrect ordering of some infantry models which caused some nations to display the generic 3D model

• Fixed an issue where the M24 Chaffee (USA) model shows up first in the list for Great War tanks if you have NSB disabled