An Introduction to HOI4

I have been on JetPunk for 3 years, heading for 4 in July. Although I loved learning about geography, I also got pulled into other stuff, like wargames. One example was with Roblox, with some low quality games. I soon moved to Risk Online, and soon I got a Steam account.

One of my friends nagged me to play a certain wargame, called Hearts of Iron 4. I refused over the 50$ budget, but on Christmas, I got a Steam giftcard, and decided to at least try it out. Unbeknownst to me, this is now my favorite game after 3-4 months of playing. So, I would like to introduce this game to you!

NOTE: Bolded words are going to be shown in the glossary.

Hearts of Iron 4 (or most known as HOI4 by the community) is a game in the Hearts of Iron series created by Paradox Games. The premise is that you take command of the military and diplomacy of a certain country of your choice in WW2. You can go along a historical path, maybe invading China as Japan, or initiate Operation Barbarossa as Germany, or spice things up. Maybe you feel like playing France and holding back Blitzkreig, or as Mexico and make a Trotskyist state.

In each country, there is a "focuses" tab. This tab will give you options on how to run your country. Each focus has prerequisites you need to meet before you are able to start the focus. When you finish said focus, you will earn the effects of the focus.

The above is a focus tree for the German Reich. It is quite hard to read, so I'll show step by step what each arrow and circle means.

1: Pointed at completion time. To finish the "War With the USSR", you have to wait on this focus for 70 days.

2: Prerequisites: To complete "War With the USSR", you need to be an independent country (not a puppet of another nation) and have completed the needed focuses before (refer to 5) to start said focus.

3: This shows the effect of completing the focus. for this one, you earn a wargoal against the Soviet Union.

4: A historical focus, which is "Anchluss". The effect of this one is that you send an event to Austria to ask if they want to be apart of Germany. If they accept, Germany annexes Austria.'

5: The Rhineland focus is what would be called the start of the focus tree. Usually starts of trees will be sorted into Political, Army, Air, Navy, and Economic. You must start with the start. For example, to start the Anchluss focus, we need to do the Rhineland focus in order to unlock it, then we can do the Anchluss focus. Usually political trees (the main tree) can have historical and ahistorical focuses. We are looking at the historical, but instead you may go down a mutually exclusive path where you may revive the German Empire under the Kaiser.

Decisions are another way to affect your country, and are different from focuses. Some are to remove nerfs, and others are to increase factors, and some are special decisions for certain countries. This is the decision tab for the Soviet Union, and I'll show you step by step with each arrow and circle.

1: The blurred decision shows the prerequisites of the decision "Improved Worker Conditions." In order to pick this focus, you need less than 100% stability in your country.

2: This will be talking about the effects of focuses. Note that "Improved Worker Conditions" is not an exclusive decision for the USSR, and you can choose it for any country you have. This makes you use 5% consumer goods factories (this will be explained in the next blog), +0.5% weekly stability, but -10.00% factory output (also will be explained in the next blog) for 180 days after you select this decision.

3: To do focuses, you also need the needed amount of "Political Power". I'll be abbreviating this as pp to make the blog shorter and to make every kid under 10 giggle. Anyways, you earn "pp" passively throughout the game, but the amount you get every day can be affected by stability, doing focuses, or hiring political advisors.

4: Some countries, like the Soviet Union shown, have a special mechanic within their decision tab they need to do. For one, the Political Paranoia tab (which I may cover if I ever do a "HOI4 Soviet Union 101") is a special tab for the Soviets. I'll do a quick briefing on what this is.

Stalin has been paranoid of the Trotskyists and other major parties overthrowing his rule, and so his political paranoia began. And so the Great Purges happened, killing what Stalin said to be traitors to the Soviet government. The higher his paranoia is, the more generals will accuse each other of being traitors. 

Overall, it is one that can nerf the Soviet Union, and you will have to use decisions and focuses in order to keep Stalin's Paranoia down and keep the Soviets strong.

There are others I may cover someday, like the Spanish Civil War or ahistorical ones like the Polish Peasant Uprising or the Bolivarian Alliance, each with different mechanics.

5: This little bubble is a small decision that pops up in certain territory. This one is a bubble to "Build Steel Plants in Leningrad", and will use your Civilian Factories in order to earn more resources.

I talked about civilian factories earlier, but what are they? Well, there are actually military factories as well, and I'll cover them in Construction and Production.

Companies- You can hire these for buffs in research speed (more in next blog)

Mutually Exclusive- When two focuses are mutually exclusive, you can only use one of the two.

Nerf- The opposite of a buff, to make one weaker, usually as a game mechanic.

Political Advisors- Can hire for buffs in your country (more in next blog)

Researching- Research to buff your country and learn new weapons (more in next blog)

Stability- The stability can be effected through many factors. When it is low, it can nerf your country.

Wargoal- A justification of war to another country, with this you can declare war.

I hope you learned something about this game, and my next blog will be covering more on this game. If this interests you, it is 40$ on Steam, but sales are often so I advise you track it on a sale. Although there are also many DLCs to the game to spend more on, overall this is a super fun game to play singleplayer, or with friends. Well, I hope you enjoyed this blog, and goodbye.