World Ablaze (8.0)

TOA Compatible!

Summary
World Ablaze is a ongoing project to completely overhaul Hearts of Iron 4 to become more challenging, historical, and exciting to play. It features a massive expansion and complete overhaul to the tech trees, focus trees, decisions, events, and economy. It also features custom mechanics, improvements to the AI, as well as numerous QoL and flavor changes that improve the core gameplay experience. We are in active development, and there are major updates to the mod every month or two. All Hearts of Iron 4 updates and DLC releases are made compatible with the mod day 1 of release.

Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/WorldAblazeMod
World Ablaze is our passion; we have toiled through the years to bring y’all the Premier Historical Experience in Hearts of Iron IV. We have experienced exponential growth recently; however, as our popularity grows, so must our responsibility and level of commitment. We spend an immense amount of time bringing you the content and experience you have come to expect. Since we all work full-time jobs, our free time is all the more valuable. Thus, the primary purpose of this Patreon is to offer those users who wish to donate to support our work a clear way to do that. To be clear, no content in the mod will ever be locked behind a paywall or Patreon membership. Each donation is reciprocated by us with an out-of-game perk, like a Discord rank, or by a game addition that is available to all users. Thank you!

Unique Technology
What is unique technology? Each Nation has a customized tech tree containing all of the historical equipment they built and produced during the game’s time frame. There are no "medium tank 1’s" or "fighter 2’s" in World Ablaze. Instead, each technology is researched and assigned unique stats depending on it’s historical attributes. For example, the T-34 (’41 variant) is a Soviet medium tank produced in 1941. In contrast, the Panzer III L is available in the same year, 1941, but has less armor than the T-34, as it did historically. All equipment (land, air, and naval) in World Ablaze is 100% unique and historical for a more immersive experience.

Disclaimer: World Ablaze closely follows historical statistics and dates, all of which have been rigorously researched and cross-referenced via historical sources. However, very few concessions have been made for the sake of gameplay and balance. It also assumes the war can last until 1948, and thus some post war technologies have been included, even those after 1948, to take into account the arms race and development speed that occurs during war.

https://discord.gg/cPskU6M

Unique Tech Trees
The following major nations have unique land, naval, and air technology trees:

• Germany
• France
• USA
• Soviet Union
• Italy
• UK
• Japan

The following minor nations have unique land, naval, and air technology trees:

• Canada
• British RAJ
• South Africa
• Australia
• Hungary
• Romania

Custom Focus Trees
The following major nations have completely overhauled or expanded focus trees:

• Germany
• France
• USA
• Soviet Union
• Italy
• UK
• Japan

The following minor nations have completely overhauled or expanded focus trees:

• Canada
• British RAJ
• South Africa
• Australia
• Hungary
• Romania
• Finland
• China
• Siam
• Greece
• Bulgaria
• Vichy France
• Free France
• Poland
• Spain

All others not mentioned here have also received tweaks and expansions.

Custom Mechanics

• Economic fatigue system
• Internal faction system
• Political cabinet system
• Country-specific mechanics (USA mobilization, German SS, etc.)
• Theater-specific mechanics (Pacific theater power projection, Mediterranean theater control, Eastern front control, etc.)

Unique Artwork

• All technologies (including new unique technology and even leftover minor vanilla ones)
• Focus icons
• National spirit/idea icons
• Division/naval/air icons
• Country leader/politician/general portraits
• Main menu/loading screens

Other Content

• Much more robust and dangerous AI (more so when going down historical paths)
• An overhauled map with more states, better strategic regions, more straits, and a far more historical weather system
• A complete rebalance of core game mechanics such as land combat, air combat, naval combat, supply, etc.
• New decisions and events for a more historical play through (D-Day, Polish uprising, etc)
• More realistic construction and industrial balance

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zv94YO29EcVSdqo47OCwFhxD_SUdFv2E8pTIFmIUxwA/edit?usp=sharing

Compatibility:

World Ablaze is meant to be played without other mods enabled. Only cosmetic, music, and official submods may work properly when enabled alongside World Ablaze.
This mod is incompatible with the vast majority of mods, especially those changing the AI, map, focus trees, tech trees, history files, decisions, and more.

DISCLAIMER: The base World Ablaze mod only supports the English version of the game. There are, however, official external language submods:
Russian Translation
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2890542722
Japanese Translation
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2156270330
Chinese Translation
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1700440588

Artwork:

All art is created by Uncharted, and I would greatly appreciate if you could check out my deviant art page for more of my work:

https://uncharted95.deviantart.com/

World Ablaze has its own UI mod for both music and UI changes, if you want it standalone for use with other mods, check out the link below:
World Ablaze UI Mod
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1690254968

Acknowledgements

Thanks to:
Slurpee12 for helping Uncharted begin modding.
Natt for work in our Chinese Content (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1845721455&searchtext=eight)
Finnish Portraits mod for Finnish Artwork by Monkey (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1919850246)
Finnish National Focus mod by Kartsa (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913038272)
Additional portraits from the following:
Karlefeldt https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1763488674
PoorBananaMan27 https://www.reddit.com/user/PoorBananaMan27/
ShotPT1 https://www.reddit.com/user/ShotPT1/
Noremac1700 https://www.reddit.com/user/Noremac1700/
Herman_Lindqvist https://www.reddit.com/user/Herman_Lindqvist/

Feedback

Unfortunately, we lack time to address any comments left here on the Steam Workshop page. Anyone who has questions or wants to leave feedback should go to the official World Ablaze Discord server where dedicated World Ablaze team members and players can help out and respond.

https://discord.gg/cPskU6M

Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.
The copying of any material original to World Ablaze is not allowed unless explicit authorization is given, in writing, by either mod author Uncharted or 156. This primarily includes, but is NOT limited to, custom artwork. If you would like to make your own private version of the mod, feel free. You may not, however, publicly redistribute the contents of this mod that are covered under this disclaimer.