Expanded Map and Vanilla Gameplay
This mod is a full overhaul of the map and of some of the starting scenarios for tags at the beginning of the base game. The goal of the mod is to improve the historical accuracy of the game world while still retaining the base gameplay and accessibility of vanilla HOI4.
Much of the mod’s changes to the map are in the form of additional states and provinces outside of the parts of the world most HOI4 gameplay takes place in, particularly in Latin America, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Other new map features include impassible mountain ranges in the Andes, Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, Caucausus and Zagros, and more impassible states in Arabia and Siberia. These changes give greater "strategic resolution" in Latin America and Africa that allows for HOI4’s division-level combat to work in a more satisfying way.
The mod’s current changes to the vanilla gameplay and scenario currently affect China, South Africa, and the Soviet Union, along with new community-made leader portraits placed all over the world. China now has a more historically-accurate order of battle and many more historically-extant warlords that played a big role in the leadup to the Second Sino-Japanese War, and a new autonomy system and a path for swift annexation of these warlords now factor into Nationalist China’s gameplay. The Soviet Union now has an expanded focus tree that has more avenues for players and the AI to choose from.
In the mod, South Africa’s Together For Victory political Focus Tree is now completely revised to fit with later DLC’s design standards. South Africa is now Non-Aligned in ideology and has to balance their obligations to Britain with both the strains of white minority rule and an anti-English nationalist movement.
The Vanilla Focus Tree for the USSR has been expanded with more options while still keeping only Communist paths available. (This is meant to be a stopgap until Paradox officially updates the Soviet Focus Tree.)
Along with these map and country changes, there are new rules in the startup menu that allow for larger colonial unions to be released as independent or vassal states. This mod is in no means a finished work, and extra changes to the map and more features are planned.
This mod is not compatible with other mods that change the game map or the various autonomy / subject types.
- Hundreds of new in-game states and provinces with historical populations, industry, and cores for the 1936 and 1939 start dates.
- A new unit type: the "Ranger" special forces infantry type specializes in forest and jungle fighting, with the British Raj’s focus tree adjusted to include tech bonuses.
- Optional Game Rules to remove Camelry and Bicycle Infantry for all tags, along with an expanded list of countries to have the option of these unique unit types.
- A revised system of autonomy levels that works mostly the same, but with less tiers and faster gain and loss of autonomy.
- A revised 1936 and 1939 China Scenario, with 3 new tags and the historical Order of Battle for the Republic of China and its client warlords, now represented by a new set of autonomy levels. A more accurate event chain for the Marco Polo Bridge Incident is also included.
- A revised Soviet Union focus tree, with alternate paths for war with the British Empire or Scandinavia and the option to plot to overthrow Stalin as either the Trotksyists or the Right Bolsheviks.
- South Africa’s DLC focus tree is completely revised, with SAF starting as a Non-Aligned Dominion of the United Kingdom. Can you navigate the tensions between the white ruling minority and the Empire, or will the Union fall into rebellion as a new path is chosen?
- French Indochina (IDC) is now a colonial tag of France and Egypt is now a disgruntled neighbor of the UK with its coastline occupied.
- Colonial tags like Indonesia and British Malaya are now considered to be non-aligned puppets of their imperial masters, with an opinion bonus that supersedes the "different ideology" penalty.
- A list of new optional rules for games: add more historical colonies in Africa or Autonomous SSRs in the Soviet Union, divide Germany into more Germanies, or even release Super-Unions in Africa, the West Indies, and Central Asia if you have Man the Guns. Also, you can wipe Luxembourg off the map as God intended.
- Some minor adjustments to preexisting tags, including historical arsenal and dockyard locations for the USA. Colors for many nations have been tweaked for better differentiation between tags, though the colors chosen are as similar to the ones used in Vanilla or in other Paradox games as possible.
- Lots of new and more historical flags, party names, and post-colonial leaders for tags across the world.
I would like to thank and credit the following community artists for the use of their portraits and other assets:
- Abbus
- Chetson
- CirclePete
- facundoSim
- FoxDie24
- Ghosting1GP
- Herman Lindqvist
- Karlefeldt
- Kent / 黑隼
- M0nt-ASF
- Mapno01
- Markus1002
- Musvåk
- Portrochen
- TheBolshevikJew / TrotskyLeadsTheUnion
- TheHistoria94
- Scarecrowwwww
- wanwangrr
- anonymous authors I couldn’t trace an image to
- uncredited contributors to the Sensible Portraits mod
- uncredited contributors to the Beautiful States Reborn mod
- and The Road to 56 art team as a whole
- More victory points across the world.
- Custom focus trees for Egypt, French Indochina/Vietnam, and Siam.
- More provinces and states for sub-saharan Africa.
- I would like to include unique portraits for the new world leaders and generals added by my mod that match the base game’s style, though I would need the help of artists to do so. (If you have experience with this, please let me know if you would like to collaborate on this.)
- Revisions to the other Together For Victory focus trees to have them better match the current structure and effects of more recently-released focus trees (in particular India/British Raj).
If you have any suggestions about how to improve the mod, or you have issues with gameplay or bugs relating to my mod, please let me know by either commenting or starting a discussion.
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
