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HOI4 Dev Diary - The Baltic States 1/2 and Poland 3/2

Hello and welcome to another dev diary for the Barbarossa patch! Today I’m back with you to talk about not one, not two, but three new focus trees coming with the upcoming expansion: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia!
Baltic States Map.png


The Baltic States were in a difficult position in the build-up to world war 2; only recently liberated from Russian and German rule and less than 20 years on from a bloody struggle against both imperialist powers. In the 30s, each of the states had established authoritarian rule in fear of German and Soviet invasions, and a player hoping to survive as a Baltic state must take some extreme measures to overcome these overwhelming odds...

The Baltic States, like the Chinese, will share some branches of their focus tree while other branches will be unique to each country. This week I am going to talk about the shared branches; the industrial branch and the communist political branch.
Baltic Total Focuses.png


Starting up with the industrial branch, each Baltic state was in something of a similar situation economically; relying heavily on foreign investment and equipment for their industry and armed forces. As such, each Baltic state may decide if they wish to put their faith in the democratic nations to supply their economy, or the Axis powers to fuel the war machine.
Baltic Industry Branch.png


The other common issue facing the Baltics was that they had previously been occupied by the Soviets and Germany, and their industry was sorely lacking. So, the Balts can attract workers to their capital and begin their rearmament and develop their research sector.
Attract Workers.png


Lastly, by modernising their industry, the Baltic states may become much more self-sufficient and end their reliance on foreign powers to fuel their war machine. They may expand raw resource production in their nation, which for Estonia and Latvia means the development of their on-map resources.

Lithuania however was uniquely very reliant on its agriculture, and thus starts the game with a variant of the “Agrarian Society” national spirit which can be slowly turned into a great benefit via their industrial tree.
Natural Resources.png


Next up, each of the Baltic States had recently endured bloody struggles against the USSR, so popular support for communism was vanishingly low. A Baltic state hoping to overthrow the government and establish an independent communist state must do so through war.
Estonia civil war.png


The Balts can either choose to rely on the Soviet intervention or attempt to reconcile relations with the Baltic lower classes and try to maintain their independence while establishing communism on their own.
Restore Workers Republic.png


Once the revolution is done and your nation is communist, the player will have the option to re-establish the Lithuania-Belarus SSR. In the case you sided with the Soviets, the USSR will grant you their half of Belarus with the rest coming either through war or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Lithuania Belarus Soviets.png


If you are independent however, Belarus must be acquired through adversarial means. The Baltic state must propagandise support for unification in Belarus similar to the Spanish Civil War garrison control system. When time runs out, Belarus will be released and fight a civil war; the victor will be annexed into either the victorious Baltic nation or the USSR.
Latvia Belarus decisions.png


The Baltic nation will also be able to try to convert their neighbours to communism through a propaganda war. No matter which path the Baltic player takes to establish socialism across the Baltics; they will be able to form the United Baltic SSR.
Baltic Socialist Republic.png


From there, they may use their newfound strength against Scandinavia and Poland and achieve communism across the entire Baltic Sea.
Baltic Warpath.png

That’s all for the Baltic States this week, next week I will be talking about the entirely unique political trees for each Baltic state.



Something worth bringing up here is we did make some changes to the Polish tree since we last talked about it. Firstly, I do just want to show off some of the new focus icons we got since I wrote those dev diaries and I feel like our artists have done a really great job. There are more, but I don't want to spoil all of them just yet! ;)
Poland focus icons.png


We originally planned to have Poland get an off-map reactor to essentially get them control of 1 nuke during play as an exile nation. This to reflect their role in the nuclear project, but we were already a bit on the fence on if this was too immersion breaking for the gameplay purpose, and it seemed many of you thought so too so we removed the off-map reactor and moved the focus to the industry branch.
Poland atomic bomb.png


Next, I managed to find time to implement Karl Albrecht von Habsburg as an option for monarchist Poland. He has his own branch which involves pressing the Habsburg claim on Czechoslovakia.
Karl Albrecht I.png

Habsburg Path.png


Claiming Czechoslovakia uses the same decision system as claiming Lithuania for the Commonwealth branch, and once the two nations are united, the ambition of West-Slavic unification is realised and the new nation may declare itself protector of the western Slavic peoples living in Germany.
West Slavia.png


Karl Albrecht I was known for the service he provided to the Polish army, and it’s unlikely that willingness to serve would vanish upon becoming King. So, as Soldier-King, he will gain a plethora of unique personality traits as well as becoming a field marshal.
Soldier King.png


With Hungary aligning itself with Poland’s enemies, Karl Albrecht can demand that Horthy step down in favour of Otto von Habsburg and force Hungary down their Habsburg path, diplomatically aligning them with Habsburg Poland.
Demand Habsburg Rule.png


Galicia-Lodomeria represented Habsburg rule over Poland and as such, Karl Albrecht may restore the Diet of Galicia which as well as giving the Royal Sejm national spirit, moves the nation’s capital to Krakow. While this centralises the capital between Poland and Czechoslovakia and surrounds the capital in defensible hills, the old Polish capital is also very close to the German border and may prove an easy target…
Diet of Galicia.png


I feel I should also clarify the mechanics behind electing a monarch. When the Fulfil the 5th of November Act focus is complete, candidates come forward and present themselves to be King. So while it would make little sense for the regency council to reach out and invite candidates like Pavel Bermondt-Avalov to be King, Pavel is certainly the type to try and present himself for King.
Cossack King Event.png


The final thing I'd like to mention is that during testing we noticed that it was quite a chore to scroll back and forth between the Polish tree with it being so wide, so I implemented a system where the Polish tree automatically compacts itself when you've chosen a political path.
Tree compacting.png


That’s all for this week, next week we will be covering the paths unique to each Baltic state and for now I’ll leave you with this teaser.
funny_hat_dot_png.png
 
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I am counting on separate dev diaries for Ukraine and Belarus, before the USSR / Russian dev diaries.

I think that the Belarusian mission tree could be much more modest than the Ukrainian one. It could consist in unification with Ukraine - the "creation of Rus" as a counterweight to the USSR, or in the conquest of the Baltic states.

Ukraine would also have the "creation of Russia". This branch of the mission tree could have a monarchist branch - "the return of the Romanovs to the throne of Russia". Thanks to this, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia would become the ruler of Rus, and a civil war would break out in the USSR (a monarchist Russia would arise with Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia on the throne) after winning it, Monarchist Russia was annexed by Rus. The further part of this branch is the liquidation of the communists. At the end of this branch, you can transform Ruthenia into Great Ruthenia. The Ukrainian mission tree, I think, should be multipolar - friendship with Poland, friendship with the USSR or hostility towards all of them. Ukraine may also have the ambition to restore the glory of Kievan Rus. It may also be an ally of the Third Reich and take away Poland's eastern territory and the western lands of the USSR. It may also be tempted to expand to the north or south. I think Ukraine can have a really interesting mission tree.

I would also like to see some love for the Caucasus, but I think that Poland + Baltic + Finladnia + USSR (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine) is a lot. The Caucasus could fit perfectly with the Near East DLC.
 
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I am counting on separate dev diaries for Ukraine and Belarus, before the USSR / Russian dev diaries.

I think that the Belarusian mission tree could be much more modest than the Ukrainian one. It could consist in unification with Ukraine - the "creation of Rus" as a counterweight to the USSR, or in the conquest of the Baltic states.

Ukraine would also have the "creation of Russia". This branch of the mission tree could have a monarchist branch - "the return of the Romanovs to the throne of Russia". Thanks to this, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia would become the ruler of Rus, and a civil war would break out in the USSR (a monarchist Russia would arise with Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia on the throne) after winning it, Monarchist Russia was annexed by Rus. The further part of this branch is the liquidation of the communists. At the end of this branch, you can transform Ruthenia into Great Ruthenia. The Ukrainian mission tree, I think, should be multipolar - friendship with Poland, friendship with the USSR or hostility towards all of them. Ukraine may also have the ambition to restore the glory of Kievan Rus. It may also be an ally of the Third Reich and take away Poland's eastern territory and the western lands of the USSR. It may also be tempted to expand to the north or south. I think Ukraine can have a really interesting mission tree.

I would also like to see some love for the Caucasus, but I think that Poland + Baltic + Finladnia + USSR (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine) is a lot. The Caucasus could fit perfectly with the Near East DLC.
So would Ukraine and Belarus become puppets?
 
See, as a Pole, I have a small problem with the name "Zapadoslavia". It worked well for Yugoslavia because all nations that made up that country used the word "yug" (or rather "jug"), which means "south", in their languages.

In the case of Zapadoslavia ("zapad" means "west" in case someone hasn't figured it out), however, that wouldn't be true. Polish language doesn't use the old slavic names for cardinal directions anymore and so there's no longer such a word as "zapad" in Polish (just like there's no "jug"). Poles call west "zachód".

If you're creating a pan-nationalistic country whose name is supposed to unite all nations within it, you should probably use a word that actually exists in all the languages of the nations you're trying to unite. That is my opinion. Unless you're also planning to reform the Polish language in such a way as to bring back the old slavic names for cardinal directions, but that would just be inpractical.
Playing as "Zachód" would be very funny in czech, where similar "Záchod" means toilet :-D
 
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But if they aren't existing at beginning of game then why should they get a focus tree
There may be an event during the attack of the Third Reich on the USSR - the rise of Ukraine in the territories occupied by the Third Reich. It will then be possible to decide whether we want to continue playing TR or Ukraine. A similar situation may be in the USSR - the Ukrainian Uprising as a reaction to the Hunger in Ukraine and Stalinist terror. Similar events could have other Tags that would be in the USSR. The USSR was a power on clay feet - national uprisings make sense. Much more than the Peasant Uprising presented in the 1st Polish Dev Diary.
 
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There may be an event during the attack of the Third Reich on the USSR - the rise of Ukraine in the territories occupied by the Third Reich. It will then be possible to decide whether we want to continue playing TR or Ukraine. A similar situation may be in the USSR - the Ukrainian Uprising as a reaction to the Hunger in Ukraine and Stalinist terror. Similar events could have other Tags that would be in the USSR. The USSR was a power on clay feet - national uprisings make sense. Much more than the Peasant Uprising presented in the 1st Polish Dev Diary.
The same could also apply to other TAGs, such as Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and more TAGs.
 
Had some conversations with our Polish beta testers and we determined that "Zapadoslavia" doesn't make sense as a name as a Poland-lead union. So, when you annex Czechoslovakia you will get renamed to something along the lines of "The Kingdom of West Slavia".
i think you shuld give event that will be choice betwen multiple names of new state, like: Empire of Zapadoslavia, United kingdom of West Slavia or Poloczechoslovakia. I am polish and personaly i like "Zapadoslavia".
 
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Can you stop derailing this thread and instead move to the history-discussion forum if you want to continue your conversation?
 
Just passing by to tell the devs that they are doing an amazing job, I love everything we have seen so far, the new supply system and the new focus trees!
The Baltic States can become a small but annoying new factor for either side on the world stage with these new focuses - and this United Baltic SSR looks like it will be able to deliver quite a punch to Germany ;)

Also the new Polish tree looks damn tasty! I love all the possible paths and I encourage the devs to not listen to all the whiners: The Alt-history are what they are: Alt-history. People claiming "But it doesn't make any sense" - who are we to say if it makes sense or not, humans often don't make sense. And these Polish paths, also the new Habsburg one, sound all very interesting - and the Cossack King is so weird that I love it almost the most.

You guys are doing a fantastic job over there and I can't wait for the release of this DLC!
 
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Great work. Interesting and imaginative. I myself will never use any of these features.

IMHO, Playing as one of the Baltic states in 1936 is like playing chess and choosing neither black or white. Instead, I choose to be the chessboard, I choose not participate directly in this game, and have both sides use me as a battlefield.
 
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Hello and welcome to another dev diary for the Barbarossa patch! Today I’m back with you to talk about not one, not two, but three new focus trees coming with the upcoming expansion: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia!
View attachment 717411

The Baltic States were in a difficult position in the build-up to world war 2; only recently liberated from Russian and German rule and less than 20 years on from a bloody struggle against both imperialist powers. In the 30s, each of the states had established authoritarian rule in fear of German and Soviet invasions, and a player hoping to survive as a Baltic state must take some extreme measures to overcome these overwhelming odds...

The Baltic States, like the Chinese, will share some branches of their focus tree while other branches will be unique to each country. This week I am going to talk about the shared branches; the industrial branch and the communist political branch.
View attachment 717412

Starting up with the industrial branch, each Baltic state was in something of a similar situation economically; relying heavily on foreign investment and equipment for their industry and armed forces. As such, each Baltic state may decide if they wish to put their faith in the democratic nations to supply their economy, or the Axis powers to fuel the war machine.
View attachment 717413

The other common issue facing the Baltics was that they had previously been occupied by the Soviets and Germany, and their industry was sorely lacking. So, the Balts can attract workers to their capital and begin their rearmament and develop their research sector.
View attachment 717414

Lastly, by modernising their industry, the Baltic states may become much more self-sufficient and end their reliance on foreign powers to fuel their war machine. They may expand raw resource production in their nation, which for Estonia and Latvia means the development of their on-map resources.

Lithuania however was uniquely very reliant on its agriculture, and thus starts the game with a variant of the “Agrarian Society” national spirit which can be slowly turned into a great benefit via their industrial tree.View attachment 717420

Next up, each of the Baltic States had recently endured bloody struggles against the USSR, so popular support for communism was vanishingly low. A Baltic state hoping to overthrow the government and establish an independent communist state must do so through war.
View attachment 717422

The Balts can either choose to rely on the Soviet intervention or attempt to reconcile relations with the Baltic lower classes and try to maintain their independence while establishing communism on their own.
View attachment 717423

Once the revolution is done and your nation is communist, the player will have the option to re-establish the Lithuania-Belarus SSR. In the case you sided with the Soviets, the USSR will grant you their half of Belarus with the rest coming either through war or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
View attachment 717424

If you are independent however, Belarus must be acquired through adversarial means. The Baltic state must propagandise support for unification in Belarus similar to the Spanish Civil War garrison control system. When time runs out, Belarus will be released and fight a civil war; the victor will be annexed into either the victorious Baltic nation or the USSR.
View attachment 717425

The Baltic nation will also be able to try to convert their neighbours to communism through a propaganda war. No matter which path the Baltic player takes to establish socialism across the Baltics; they will be able to form the United Baltic SSR.
View attachment 717427

From there, they may use their newfound strength against Scandinavia and Poland and achieve communism across the entire Baltic Sea.
View attachment 717426
That’s all for the Baltic States this week, next week I will be talking about the entirely unique political trees for each Baltic state.



Something worth bringing up here is we did make some changes to the Polish tree since we last talked about it. Firstly, I do just want to show off some of the new focus icons we got since I wrote those dev diaries and I feel like our artists have done a really great job. There are more, but I don't want to spoil all of them just yet! ;)
View attachment 717428

We originally planned to have Poland get an off-map reactor to essentially get them control of 1 nuke during play as an exile nation. This to reflect their role in the nuclear project, but we were already a bit on the fence on if this was too immersion breaking for the gameplay purpose, and it seemed many of you thought so too so we removed the off-map reactor and moved the focus to the industry branch.
View attachment 717429

Next, I managed to find time to implement Karl Albrecht von Habsburg as an option for monarchist Poland. He has his own branch which involves pressing the Habsburg claim on Czechoslovakia.
View attachment 717430
View attachment 717436

Claiming Czechoslovakia uses the same decision system as claiming Lithuania for the Commonwealth branch, and once the two nations are united, the ambition of West-Slavic unification is realised and the new nation may declare itself protector of the western Slavic peoples living in Germany.
View attachment 717431

Karl Albrecht I was known for the service he provided to the Polish army, and it’s unlikely that willingness to serve would vanish upon becoming King. So, as Soldier-King, he will gain a plethora of unique personality traits as well as becoming a field marshal.
View attachment 717432

With Hungary aligning itself with Poland’s enemies, Karl Albrecht can demand that Horthy step down in favour of Otto von Habsburg and force Hungary down their Habsburg path, diplomatically aligning them with Habsburg Poland.
View attachment 717433

Galicia-Lodomeria represented Habsburg rule over Poland and as such, Karl Albrecht may restore the Diet of Galicia which as well as giving the Royal Sejm national spirit, moves the nation’s capital to Krakow. While this centralises the capital between Poland and Czechoslovakia and surrounds the capital in defensible hills, the old Polish capital is also very close to the German border and may prove an easy target…
View attachment 717434

I feel I should also clarify the mechanics behind electing a monarch. When the Fulfil the 5th of November Act focus is complete, candidates come forward and present themselves to be King. So while it would make little sense for the regency council to reach out and invite candidates like Pavel Bermondt-Avalov to be King, Pavel is certainly the type to try and present himself for King.
View attachment 717435

The final thing I'd like to mention is that during testing we noticed that it was quite a chore to scroll back and forth between the Polish tree with it being so wide, so I implemented a system where the Polish tree automatically compacts itself when you've chosen a political path.
View attachment 717437

That’s all for this week, next week we will be covering the paths unique to each Baltic state and for now I’ll leave you with this teaser.
View attachment 717449
#LatvianApproved
 
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Hello and welcome to another dev diary for the Barbarossa patch! Today I’m back with you to talk about not one, not two, but three new focus trees coming with the upcoming expansion: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia!
View attachment 717411

The Baltic States were in a difficult position in the build-up to world war 2; only recently liberated from Russian and German rule and less than 20 years on from a bloody struggle against both imperialist powers. In the 30s, each of the states had established authoritarian rule in fear of German and Soviet invasions, and a player hoping to survive as a Baltic state must take some extreme measures to overcome these overwhelming odds...

The Baltic States, like the Chinese, will share some branches of their focus tree while other branches will be unique to each country. This week I am going to talk about the shared branches; the industrial branch and the communist political branch.
View attachment 717412

Starting up with the industrial branch, each Baltic state was in something of a similar situation economically; relying heavily on foreign investment and equipment for their industry and armed forces. As such, each Baltic state may decide if they wish to put their faith in the democratic nations to supply their economy, or the Axis powers to fuel the war machine.
View attachment 717413

The other common issue facing the Baltics was that they had previously been occupied by the Soviets and Germany, and their industry was sorely lacking. So, the Balts can attract workers to their capital and begin their rearmament and develop their research sector.
View attachment 717414

Lastly, by modernising their industry, the Baltic states may become much more self-sufficient and end their reliance on foreign powers to fuel their war machine. They may expand raw resource production in their nation, which for Estonia and Latvia means the development of their on-map resources.

Lithuania however was uniquely very reliant on its agriculture, and thus starts the game with a variant of the “Agrarian Society” national spirit which can be slowly turned into a great benefit via their industrial tree.View attachment 717420

Next up, each of the Baltic States had recently endured bloody struggles against the USSR, so popular support for communism was vanishingly low. A Baltic state hoping to overthrow the government and establish an independent communist state must do so through war.
View attachment 717422

The Balts can either choose to rely on the Soviet intervention or attempt to reconcile relations with the Baltic lower classes and try to maintain their independence while establishing communism on their own.
View attachment 717423

Once the revolution is done and your nation is communist, the player will have the option to re-establish the Lithuania-Belarus SSR. In the case you sided with the Soviets, the USSR will grant you their half of Belarus with the rest coming either through war or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
View attachment 717424

If you are independent however, Belarus must be acquired through adversarial means. The Baltic state must propagandise support for unification in Belarus similar to the Spanish Civil War garrison control system. When time runs out, Belarus will be released and fight a civil war; the victor will be annexed into either the victorious Baltic nation or the USSR.
View attachment 717425

The Baltic nation will also be able to try to convert their neighbours to communism through a propaganda war. No matter which path the Baltic player takes to establish socialism across the Baltics; they will be able to form the United Baltic SSR.
View attachment 717427

From there, they may use their newfound strength against Scandinavia and Poland and achieve communism across the entire Baltic Sea.
View attachment 717426
That’s all for the Baltic States this week, next week I will be talking about the entirely unique political trees for each Baltic state.



Something worth bringing up here is we did make some changes to the Polish tree since we last talked about it. Firstly, I do just want to show off some of the new focus icons we got since I wrote those dev diaries and I feel like our artists have done a really great job. There are more, but I don't want to spoil all of them just yet! ;)
View attachment 717428

We originally planned to have Poland get an off-map reactor to essentially get them control of 1 nuke during play as an exile nation. This to reflect their role in the nuclear project, but we were already a bit on the fence on if this was too immersion breaking for the gameplay purpose, and it seemed many of you thought so too so we removed the off-map reactor and moved the focus to the industry branch.
View attachment 717429

Next, I managed to find time to implement Karl Albrecht von Habsburg as an option for monarchist Poland. He has his own branch which involves pressing the Habsburg claim on Czechoslovakia.
View attachment 717430
View attachment 717436

Claiming Czechoslovakia uses the same decision system as claiming Lithuania for the Commonwealth branch, and once the two nations are united, the ambition of West-Slavic unification is realised and the new nation may declare itself protector of the western Slavic peoples living in Germany.
View attachment 717431

Karl Albrecht I was known for the service he provided to the Polish army, and it’s unlikely that willingness to serve would vanish upon becoming King. So, as Soldier-King, he will gain a plethora of unique personality traits as well as becoming a field marshal.
View attachment 717432

With Hungary aligning itself with Poland’s enemies, Karl Albrecht can demand that Horthy step down in favour of Otto von Habsburg and force Hungary down their Habsburg path, diplomatically aligning them with Habsburg Poland.
View attachment 717433

Galicia-Lodomeria represented Habsburg rule over Poland and as such, Karl Albrecht may restore the Diet of Galicia which as well as giving the Royal Sejm national spirit, moves the nation’s capital to Krakow. While this centralises the capital between Poland and Czechoslovakia and surrounds the capital in defensible hills, the old Polish capital is also very close to the German border and may prove an easy target…
View attachment 717434

I feel I should also clarify the mechanics behind electing a monarch. When the Fulfil the 5th of November Act focus is complete, candidates come forward and present themselves to be King. So while it would make little sense for the regency council to reach out and invite candidates like Pavel Bermondt-Avalov to be King, Pavel is certainly the type to try and present himself for King.
View attachment 717435

The final thing I'd like to mention is that during testing we noticed that it was quite a chore to scroll back and forth between the Polish tree with it being so wide, so I implemented a system where the Polish tree automatically compacts itself when you've chosen a political path.
View attachment 717437

That’s all for this week, next week we will be covering the paths unique to each Baltic state and for now I’ll leave you with this teaser.
View attachment 717449
Have you thought about reshaping the map of South America? It does not go to the subject but as a South American I would like a little more prominence and at least more than just three departments / states in the case of Venezuela or Colombia or just one province in Ecuador! An other things; good job
Hello and welcome to another dev diary for the Barbarossa patch! Today I’m back with you to talk about not one, not two, but three new focus trees coming with the upcoming expansion: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia!
View attachment 717411

The Baltic States were in a difficult position in the build-up to world war 2; only recently liberated from Russian and German rule and less than 20 years on from a bloody struggle against both imperialist powers. In the 30s, each of the states had established authoritarian rule in fear of German and Soviet invasions, and a player hoping to survive as a Baltic state must take some extreme measures to overcome these overwhelming odds...

The Baltic States, like the Chinese, will share some branches of their focus tree while other branches will be unique to each country. This week I am going to talk about the shared branches; the industrial branch and the communist political branch.
View attachment 717412

Starting up with the industrial branch, each Baltic state was in something of a similar situation economically; relying heavily on foreign investment and equipment for their industry and armed forces. As such, each Baltic state may decide if they wish to put their faith in the democratic nations to supply their economy, or the Axis powers to fuel the war machine.
View attachment 717413

The other common issue facing the Baltics was that they had previously been occupied by the Soviets and Germany, and their industry was sorely lacking. So, the Balts can attract workers to their capital and begin their rearmament and develop their research sector.
View attachment 717414

Lastly, by modernising their industry, the Baltic states may become much more self-sufficient and end their reliance on foreign powers to fuel their war machine. They may expand raw resource production in their nation, which for Estonia and Latvia means the development of their on-map resources.

Lithuania however was uniquely very reliant on its agriculture, and thus starts the game with a variant of the “Agrarian Society” national spirit which can be slowly turned into a great benefit via their industrial tree.View attachment 717420

Next up, each of the Baltic States had recently endured bloody struggles against the USSR, so popular support for communism was vanishingly low. A Baltic state hoping to overthrow the government and establish an independent communist state must do so through war.
View attachment 717422

The Balts can either choose to rely on the Soviet intervention or attempt to reconcile relations with the Baltic lower classes and try to maintain their independence while establishing communism on their own.
View attachment 717423

Once the revolution is done and your nation is communist, the player will have the option to re-establish the Lithuania-Belarus SSR. In the case you sided with the Soviets, the USSR will grant you their half of Belarus with the rest coming either through war or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
View attachment 717424

If you are independent however, Belarus must be acquired through adversarial means. The Baltic state must propagandise support for unification in Belarus similar to the Spanish Civil War garrison control system. When time runs out, Belarus will be released and fight a civil war; the victor will be annexed into either the victorious Baltic nation or the USSR.
View attachment 717425

The Baltic nation will also be able to try to convert their neighbours to communism through a propaganda war. No matter which path the Baltic player takes to establish socialism across the Baltics; they will be able to form the United Baltic SSR.
View attachment 717427

From there, they may use their newfound strength against Scandinavia and Poland and achieve communism across the entire Baltic Sea.
View attachment 717426
That’s all for the Baltic States this week, next week I will be talking about the entirely unique political trees for each Baltic state.



Something worth bringing up here is we did make some changes to the Polish tree since we last talked about it. Firstly, I do just want to show off some of the new focus icons we got since I wrote those dev diaries and I feel like our artists have done a really great job. There are more, but I don't want to spoil all of them just yet! ;)
View attachment 717428

We originally planned to have Poland get an off-map reactor to essentially get them control of 1 nuke during play as an exile nation. This to reflect their role in the nuclear project, but we were already a bit on the fence on if this was too immersion breaking for the gameplay purpose, and it seemed many of you thought so too so we removed the off-map reactor and moved the focus to the industry branch.
View attachment 717429

Next, I managed to find time to implement Karl Albrecht von Habsburg as an option for monarchist Poland. He has his own branch which involves pressing the Habsburg claim on Czechoslovakia.
View attachment 717430
View attachment 717436

Claiming Czechoslovakia uses the same decision system as claiming Lithuania for the Commonwealth branch, and once the two nations are united, the ambition of West-Slavic unification is realised and the new nation may declare itself protector of the western Slavic peoples living in Germany.
View attachment 717431

Karl Albrecht I was known for the service he provided to the Polish army, and it’s unlikely that willingness to serve would vanish upon becoming King. So, as Soldier-King, he will gain a plethora of unique personality traits as well as becoming a field marshal.
View attachment 717432

With Hungary aligning itself with Poland’s enemies, Karl Albrecht can demand that Horthy step down in favour of Otto von Habsburg and force Hungary down their Habsburg path, diplomatically aligning them with Habsburg Poland.
View attachment 717433

Galicia-Lodomeria represented Habsburg rule over Poland and as such, Karl Albrecht may restore the Diet of Galicia which as well as giving the Royal Sejm national spirit, moves the nation’s capital to Krakow. While this centralises the capital between Poland and Czechoslovakia and surrounds the capital in defensible hills, the old Polish capital is also very close to the German border and may prove an easy target…
View attachment 717434

I feel I should also clarify the mechanics behind electing a monarch. When the Fulfil the 5th of November Act focus is complete, candidates come forward and present themselves to be King. So while it would make little sense for the regency council to reach out and invite candidates like Pavel Bermondt-Avalov to be King, Pavel is certainly the type to try and present himself for King.
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The final thing I'd like to mention is that during testing we noticed that it was quite a chore to scroll back and forth between the Polish tree with it being so wide, so I implemented a system where the Polish tree automatically compacts itself when you've chosen a political path.
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That’s all for this week, next week we will be covering the paths unique to each Baltic state and for now I’ll leave you with this teaser.
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Have you thought about reshaping the map of South America? It does not go to the subject but as a South American I would like a little more prominence and at least more than just three departments / states in the case of Venezuela or Colombia or just one province in Ecuador! But for the other things; very good work, the game is amazing and in every path is better
 
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It's supposed to come out alongside (or as a part of) the 5th-anniversary pack and hoi4 came out on the 6th of June so I'd expect it to be then.
Hope we don’t have to wait that long and that PDX will release a Beta so we as community can test the whole change and give some feedback and even get most of the bugs out of it.

Well fingers crosses ….
 
In the case of Lithuania, I believe that the "Columns of Gediminas" flag belongs to monarchist Lithuania, not nationalist one.
I think the clear fit would be the Vytis since it was the monarchist flag of lithuania for centuries.

I think the Iron Wolf flag fits perfectly with the Lithuanian fascist flag.
People in this thread earlier pointed out that the Iron Wolf flag actually has no connection to any Lithuanian fascist movement. Its difficult to point to any one flag or symbol since there was never a big fascist movement in Lithuania but some decent suggestions have been provided.
 
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Cheers for the DD Meka, and the extra info/super-wide Polish tree Photoshop Podcat :cool: Lots of super-cool stuff there, and some great nations to play for a challenge run. Love that you've got unique bits for each of the three Baltic States - wonderful attention to detail :). Nice work collapsing the Polish tree as well - more of this in future (as appropriate) and, if time allowed, some tinkering with some of the older trees if it'd work would go nicely if time/capacity allowed.

Ah yes, I meant to include a screenshot of the new states but I forgot, here they are!

Ooooh - very nice :)

yeah so if he died in the 20s who could it be :cool:

HoI4 Zombies mode confirmed!

Good thing it's not him then! ;)

Awwww, unconfirmed (JJ, I'm very happy without HoI4 zombies, no offence intended to the to the HoI4 zombie mode fan club).

The content team is bigger and we have more of a quality over quantity rule these days so we have much more time to devote to each individual nation we're doing.

I've always thought you've (ie, the HoI4 dev team) had a good focus on quality - I see the development of the trees being more of an iterative thing - as people have tried new things, it's become clear they add new and interesting ways to replay nations, so it's cool to make large trees with lots of different choices (and thus, as the experiments have been successful, more resources have been dedicated to doing focus trees large and deep as time's gone on). You weren't to know spending the resources you do now on focus trees made sense back in the day, and lots of the ways of approaching different things have built up over time, and it wouldn't have been feasible to sit there and iterate on focus trees to come up with them all at once.

We consider crunch a sign of planning failure, not business as usual. In my 4+ years at PDS, I think I've done it maybe two times. We have no intention (nor in Sweden, even the legal right) to deathmarch overtime our people.

This is one of the many reasons I'm a big fan of Paradox. The main reason being that I firmly believe in the value of humans, and I find it hard to wholeheartedly support a game dev that treats theirs poorly. But I also have no doubt that the quality of your games - humans don't do their best work in a crunch, so beyond the "don't be a nasty boss" side of things, I believe (and have seen through experience) that regular crunch is a recipe for lower-quality results produced inefficiently for the resources put in - ie, it's a management failure if the goal is to use resources efficiently or to produce reliably quality content, and generally only possible due to being able to wield political advantage in the market over workers that is, in a neoclassical sense, a sign of market failure.

Yikes, that was a complicated para. I think it needs a baltic nation ship pic to round things out :) Here's the Estonian submarine EML Kalev, built by Vickers in the UK and joining Estonia's navy in 1937 :)

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