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Announcement | Hearts of Iron 4: By Blood Alone

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Greetings Generals.

The long tradition of HoI anniversary surprises, while slightly delayed, has not been forgotten.

Today, we have the pleasure of announcing to you the next milestone in the Hearts of Iron story: By Blood Alone. Over the coming months, we’ll be revealing more on what each of these features consists of, but for now enjoy a snapshot of the future for Hearts of Iron.

In By Blood Alone, you will chart the course of Mussolini’s regime in Italy or subvert Italy’s historical path in one of many new alt-historical paths in the new Italian focus tree, driven by the constant involvement in war from the beginning to the end of the game.

Choose to take on the task of resisting the Italian colonial occupation as Ethiopia in their new, expansive focus tree. Will you go into exile only to return stronger than ever when the greater conflict ignites, or can you beat the ultimate challenge and evict Italian troops from your land before forging a new path for your country in the prosperous Horn of Africa?

Experience the true meaning of ‘building tall’ by balancing your precarious situation as Switzerland, sandwiched between an ever-growing array of totalitarian regimes. Will you succumb to their pressure, or stand as a shining beacon of democratic ideals in the face of greater odds?

Alongside a number of changes to the air warfare system, take advantage of a comprehensive Plane Designer feature, as well as numerous quality of life improvements and new functionality for owners of La Resistance and the intel system. Accompanying the plane designer, we’ll be adding a whopping 67 new 3d plane models including a wide array of new Italian planes as well as going back and adding models to many important planes currently lacking them.

In By Blood Alone, you will be able to make use of a variety of new demands in the overhauled peace conference feature. Demand the demilitarization of states, the dismantling of military industry in defeated foes, civilian factory war reparations, and access to resource rights in addition to the expected array of peace conference actions. Of course, we can’t forget that navies played an important part of post-war negotiations - augment your victory by partitioning the navies of defeated foes, and put these behemoths of the sea to good use as you look towards the next conflict.

Divisional Commanders will now be the bread and butter of your future officer candidates. Grow their skills passively as they perform their duties in command of divisions, reward their actions in combat with country-unique medals, and see their persistent achievements follow them as they are promoted to higher positions over the course of a game.

Encounter up to 20 new unit models and associated SFX, 12 new radio-integrated music tracks, and new diplomatic actions as well as many more quality of life and functional improvements to HoI in By Blood Alone.

As mentioned above, we’ll be delving much deeper into what each of these features will consist of in the coming weeks and months leading up to release. Stay tuned for more information!

Wishlist it here! https://pdxint.at/3mmbDBX
 
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I really like what i am seeing but i am kinda bummed that Austria will not be touched. I'd have rather seen them instead of Switzerland.

Apart from that i hope we will get some more General portraits for nations that already have had their focus trees done,
as missing historical OOB leaders and El Genericos contribute to significantly reduce the immersion (specifically France, the Death of Dishonor nations and Poland).
 
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This sounds really great. My community and I are anticipating this update and look forward to the new features and quality of life improvements. Very nice job, team.

I have one major request/suggestion for you all. I hope that you are or can consider adding in a pilot mechanic/resource. As you know, historically the issue wasn't how many planes a country could build, but how many good pilots it had. In order to naturally fix some unrealistic air spam issues, I hope you will consider adding this feature in. I imagine it would work well similar to the Officer resource in HOI3. Hope you take my suggestion into consideration, as my mod and community would very much enjoy it. Thanks!
 
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Alongside a number of changes to the air warfare system, take advantage of a comprehensive Plane Designer feature
PLANE DESIGNER? I thought it was ruled out in the planes design corner?

In By Blood Alone, you will be able to make use of a variety of new demands in the overhauled peace conference feature. Demand the demilitarization of states, the dismantling of military industry in defeated foes, civilian factory war reparations, and access to resource rights in addition to the expected array of peace conference actions. Of course, we can’t forget that navies played an important part of post-war negotiations - augment your victory by partitioning the navies of defeated foes, and put these behemoths of the sea to good use as you look towards the next conflict.
I'll only believe it when I see it, and honestly, the thought of not having to use Player Led Peace Conferences is inconceivable
Divisional Commanders will now be the bread and butter of your future officer candidates. Grow their skills passively as they perform their duties in command of divisions, reward their actions in combat with country-unique medals, and see their persistent achievements follow them as they are promoted to higher positions over the course of a game.
Will this mean that we finally have a realistic balance to the power of smaller divisions?

The game pretty much gets it right about the fact that smaller divisions are better, but the problem IRL was that officers were not infinite, will this finally bring an end to the reign of terror of 10W inf?
 
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I’m surprised no Austria since their alt history path seems to basically write itself. But I’m glad Italy is getting changes and can’t wait to see it come out!
 
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That Divisional Commander aspect I am super siked about!

The Plane Designer I am hoping will be implemented and balanced well. I can already see numerous issues with it
 
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Damn sounds cool, would prefer Finland/Sweden or Brazil over a Swiss or Ethiopian focus tree though. But I hope they'll be fun.

I hope the new peace conferences will work in practice as well as they sound on paper.

One thing that worries me is that divisional commanders will be too much micro. Choosing a general for your 100+ Soviet divisions will just give me nightmares... Hope there will be some sort of auto-assign feature. Since if you have 10 or even maybe 20 divisions, choosing commanders might be fun, or for your tank divisions. But for the big majors with 100+? micro hell. I'd probably just click through it without looking at the commanders.
 
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Damn sounds cool, would prefer Finland/Sweden or Brazil over a Swiss or Ethiopian focus tree though. But I hope they'll be fun.

I hope the new peace conferences will work in practice as well as they sound on paper.

One thing that worries me is that divisional commanders will be too much micro. Choosing a general for your 100+ Soviet divisions will just give me nightmares... Hope there will be some sort of auto-assign feature. Since if you have 10 or even maybe 20 divisions, choosing commanders might be fun, or for your tank divisions. But for the big majors with 100+? micro hell. I'd probably just click through it without looking at the commanders.

There'll be a dev diary on this later, but broadly speaking, it does not introduce any new micro.
 
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