Still waiting on pallet autoloader mod

Ok, So lets say you are the average polish man attempting to access your babcia's villa in the village of Pierog. Now the Polish state has abandoned this little village due the the extensive tax evasion by it's residents. The roads are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but the resources are cheap. This is due to all the tax evasion. You now must help your Babcia rebuild the infrastructure of Pierog. Now you are too deep in the infrastrucutre businuess and have to help your babcia's international friend group rebuild their infrastructure without the need to pay taxes.

Overall great game has a lot of DLC and there are some minor bugs with multiplayer. (Intercontinental multiplayer issues are there, Cannot refuel if the host is on a diffrent section of the map.)

I hate Amur.

After over 2 years since the review bomb of 2023, I still would not recommend this game to new players. It lures you in with easy unlocks at first and then it gets into hell territory where you cannot progress in a realistic timeline without a premium account. Even if you do want to get into the game, wait for the sale where 6 months of premium costs 20 Euro, it will be the best decision you can take to play this game. Also do not buy any gambling crates since the drop chances are extremlly bad. The event grind is bad as well apart from anniversary events.

\/ Review bombing review \/
This game is great, only if you don't want to progress without selling your organs on the black markets. The progression is pretty much stopped after you get hooked on the game. This game legitemetly made me rethink my life 5 times in the span of a week.

idk man im just here to get shot

Decent to play with the bros but balance is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ bad, everything is balanced against soviets. Unbalanced as ♥♥♥

Hearts of Iron IV is a strategy game set in WWII. The graphics are good for a map game but the optimisation leaves a lot to be desired. The game literally runs on like 2 - 3 cores of my CPU and the longer I play the game the slower it gets. The devs do listen to players tho.

The game is good, I sunk countless hours and I will sink more. Whilist the game ♥♥♥♥♥♥ my sleep scheduel because the playerbase is mostly US and europans cant host for ♥♥♥♥ ( I am european btw). right lemme review the game section by section


The Industry / construction
The game has a very basic industry system with 5 types of factories, these are;

Military factories which are responsible for producing all the equipment for your military and airforce.

Civilian Factories are used to construct the different types of buildings, that includes factories, infrastructure and fortifications.

Naval Dockyards are used to produce naval vessels of the military kind and convoys for trade, with the latest update you can also construct a floating harbour.

Fuel Refineries produce fuel and rubber for your country, this is useful when you are at war with the entire ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ planet and cannot import ♥♥♥♥. (germany moment)

Nuclear reactors… to build nukes.

There is also an option to convert military to civilian and vice versa. The game also allows for construction of missile silos that can be used to target enemy industry / infrastructure.

The Research
The game has a research system where you need to research technologies before you can use them. You need to research tanks and guns for the tanks, same with ships. There is also industry and electronics sectors in the research that give you buffs to research speed, construction speed, production speed and resource gathering / production.



The Diplomacy
The diplomacy system in my opinion needs rework, I want more options than “Improve relations” and “declare war” / “justify wargoal”. With DLCs you can acquire licence productions for other research. There is the “Lend lease” buttons that let you send a ♥♥♥♥ ton of equipment to bhutan, other than that the system needs a rework.

The Government
You can modify the government for different buffs, for example you can change the amount of resources you export or the mobilisation law in your country which dictates how much you can spend on construction at a given time. Equipment designers can be appointed that give a buff for certain equipment you produce as well as ministers can be assigned to provide buffs for your country. All that costs political power (pp) and to be fair by 1941 you will run out of things to do with pp.


The Focus Trees
The game has these nifty little things called focus trees, these are essentially what decide what you are gonna do, they allow you to develop your industry faster and acquire boosts for your research. They also guide you down an ideology that will define your play style for that match. Vanilla has 4 ideologies, Commie, Fascist, Democratic and Non-aligned. Democratic is the most peaceful one with the other three depending on the nation. If I were to rate focus trees I would say that the DLCs are required to enjoy the game to the full extent with focus trees being the main selling points of the DLC’s. The newer the DLC the higher the quality. But Italy needs a rework. NOW.

The Military
The military is the basis of this game, there are multiple aspects such as balancing production of equipment, creating templates for the divisions, i.e their composition using battalions, or even construction of railway artillery for that support by shelling. The order system allows for easy use essentially almost automatically of the army, it's literally to draw a line, then draw another line, then press the arrow. The system is easy to learn but these orders LOVE to ♥♥♥♥ up in wierd areas such as streights and other when you dont have military access to someone for example.

The Doctrines
The game has a doctorine system for all the branches of the military that give buffs to the Army, Navy and airforce. You need experience that can be acquired by combat or exercises, sometimes focuses give low amounts of experience. You can Also get a discount on doctorines by getting a theorist. He is in the government tab. In the same tab you can also get advisiors that give buffs.

The Air
The planes are easy. You build them with military factories., put them on an airfield / aircraft carriers (don't overstack) and assign orders. You need fuel for them to be effective. 9/10 gonna get reworked to be better soon.

The Navy
Nobody knows man. Build submarines and raid convoys. Surface fleet used to support naval invasions. Nothing else. Boat designer kinda fun in my opinion. Need DLC tho.

The supply systems
Got added with NSB. Train go zoom. Build a supply hub and be an artist with the railway. Use trucks. easy.

The spies
Just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ steal industrial blueprints from yemen (need DLC)

The DLC “Issue”
You do need DLC for a lot of the game features. To be fair the game is unplayable without DLC. BUT this is paradox. If the host of a multiplayer game has DLC you also have DLCs. That is what I like about Paradox Interactive.


The Multiplayer experience
The community has gone downhill but there are still some decent people. The game is fun and enjoyable with the right people. It just takes a long time to find those people. From what I have seen racism is happening a moderate amount. To be fair a low amount for a game where the moustache man is present.

The Modding Community
The modding community in hoi4 is very active, there are a lot of focus tree mods that allow you to do pretty much anything. The game is easy to mod as you literally use the steam workshop. The launcher is decent enough to be usable (it was unusable for a while). It is easy to create your own mods and publish them with a tutorial you can find on YouTube.

A solid 9/10 would waste another 3.5k hours.