Hearts of Iron IV Patch 1.13 Dev Diary – Historical Sweden

In the first developer diary since the Arms Against Tyranny announcement, Paradox covers the changes coming to their home country of Sweden. Although historically Sweden never fought in World War 2, there will be opportunities to join the war as a democracy and indirectly influence things.

New Sweden Features

Naturally, almost the entire diary was focused on Sweden and its overhauled focus tree. The focus tree will require players to balance domestic stability at home with future war preparation. This is represented through the Hungersköld and Folkhemmet national modifiers, which help protect you from riots or labor strikes as long as you are prioritizing the welfare of your people. As you shift towards war preparation, these modifiers will decay and leave you vulnerable to domestic strife.

A major benefit for Sweden is the ability to leverage the ball bearing trade for it’s advantage. Spending 30 political power will allow you to open negotiations with a country, where you can choose different benefits for trading ball bearings with them. Players have three options for benefits, choosing between food, military expertise, and knowledge. Military expertise is confirmed to provide military experience, while food will likely bring some stability benefits and knowledge will provide some research benefit.

Another feature coming to Sweden are events referred to as Flashpoints. These historical events will force Sweden to make decisions about how they will interact with the powers around them. An example presented in the developer diary was an event forcing you to respond to an accidental Soviet Union bombing. Depending on your choices, it could lead to direct war with the Soviet Union down the line.

For some alternative history fun players will have multiple approaches to the Winter War, including directly intervening, stealing the Ã…land Islands from Finland, or sending volunteers. A more aggressive approach will be forming the Nordic Defense Council to unite the northern countries militarily.

Resource Rebalance

In addition to the Sweden changes, some resource changes are coming to Europe to better reflect history. Germany’s domestic iron is being reduced to 35% of its previous total, going from 381 to 136. The goal of this is to force arguably the most powerful country in-game to rely on more resource imports.

Other resource changes include France losing 46 percent of its iron and Sweden seeing a considerable buff to aluminum, going from 2 to 120. These numbers may change before the DLC is released. The full diary can be found at Paradox Plaza.

Overall, it looks like Sweden will be exciting to play in Arms Against Tyranny. I’m excited to see how these Flashpoint events work out, as that could be an excellent way to bring some variety to Hearts of Iron. Paradox mentioned some weaknesses in the trade system at the end, which could point to a future overhaul of one of HOI’s oldest systems.