Welcome to another development diary about Hearts of Iron IV, this time we’re talking a bit about factions and wargoals.
In different incarnations of the series, factions have worked in slightly different ways, but the common theme have always been there was three of them. Axis, Allies & Comintern. In Hearts of Iron IV that is no longer true. There is no longer any limit on the amount of factions there can be. Germany, Great Britain & the Soviet Union starts off leading their own factions with the usual name you all recognise. The other nations gain the capability to form their own factions through their national focus trees.
So what does a faction do? A faction is a group of nations that can call on each other when fighting a war, and if a nation is overrun while in a faction, they are not eliminated entirely until the faction leader is forced to a peace-conference.
There are of course limits on how to start wars in HoI4. Even if you are a fascist warmongerer you need to have a wargoal to create a war. A wargoal is usually a conquest of a desired state. There are plenty of national focuses that will give countries wargoals if you wish to do some of the more historical conquests. However, sometimes, you may want to do something else, like for example to restore Sweden’s historical borders.
First of all, a democracy can not start a war against a democracy, so you need to switch to become fascist or communist. Democracies are also limited by the fact that they can’t justify against a nation that has not increased the World Tension.
There are a few other faction specific rules for wargoals:
- Annexing or taking non-core territory is much more expensive for Democracies.
- Comintern gets much cheaper wargoals for puppeting people.
- Axis get no cost reduction but are instead allow to declare war without justification if they already have a war ongoing.
Justifying a wargoal usually takes between 6-12 months, and cost a chunk of political power as well. When you have the wargoal, you can start a war against your target country.
Wargoals also has an impact when it comes to Peace Conferences where they give advantages to whoever claimed them, but more on that in a future diary on peace.
Of course, justifying a wargoal increases World Tension.
Tune in next week when we talk about glorious blue France.
