German Focus Tree Overhaul

This modification to Hearts of Iron IV expands and improves the focus tree of the German Reich, giving it a few buffs to increase its viability and staying power, especially for the AI and for the human player in order to allow it to more effectively fight against the allies.

Let me present:
              
Click the text here for a larger image of the focus tree[i.imgur.com]

This mod has elements of both alternative history and historical accuracy! Many focus points that are added was things that Germany did during this time and the focus tree tells a story about Germany’s return to the world stage during this era. The nationalistic goals presented in this tree isn’t completely synonymous with those of the nazi party but of the German nationalistic movement that predates the nazi party and it’s quest to unite the people of Germany.

Great care has been taken to make the AI be more historical with its approach when Historical AI is turned on and play more intelligently when Historical AI is off. It’s designed to be fun to play as while still allowing the players to feel familiar with the old focus tree. The AI is also designed to use the rarer focus points such as the "Ally USSR" which is renamed to "Unholy Alliance" in this modification. An alternative path the German Reich now can take is to be the protector against communism, giving the "Befriend" nations focus points a bit of more use and purpose as a viable mechanic even when they don’t turn fascist before you start fighting the allies. If you’re quick you can get them in on a war against Soviet but if you’re afraid to fight Soviet they’ll just abandon your pact.

This focus tree makes Germany much more powerful so it may be a good choice if you’re looking for a challenge or want to see something new in the game.

Germany is more powerful now so it’s easier to wage war against other major powers in the game, putting them into more equal footing with the Allies.

Since the release of Waking the Tiger DLC I’ve been eager to make use of the many new mechanics in the DLC since they open a lot of interesting doors and create better modding potential. However I’ve also for a long time wanted to make a Soviet Union focus tree mod as well that better depicts the relations between the Soviet Union and the German Reich and move away from working on this mod alone (but I’ll support this mod until I’m done to release such as project). I started studying at a university during the Spring 2017 and I’m probably not going to have much time between studies to work on the mod. Expect progress and updates to be slow until I’m done with my studies which might be as "quick" as Easter 2019 or 2020.

I have painstakingly attempted to make this mod as compatible with other mods as possible and while conflicts are unlikely – it might still conflict with mods that change the default event trees for Germany and Soviet since I’ve had to make a couple of changes there. I’ve done my outmost to make sure that this mod is compatible with any other mods and edited as few default files as possible – however since I absolutely HAVE to edit the German default focus tree (or else the mod will not work properly and might be overwritten by the game itself) it means that my mod isn’t compatible with mods that also edit the default focus tree (a few AI mods do this in order to make the computer choose better focus tree points).

Too much compability work also breaks saves which would ruin playthroughs for busy players so I try to avoid working on compability too often.

Remember that good focus tree mods also make use of events and this mod contains about two dozen of those and improvements to the default events in the game to make them run better and be more flexible to changing circumstances in the game. For a year after I released this mod I witlessly edited the default events in the game but after a lot of experience working with events I’ve managed to create entirely new and better events that are unlikely to conflict with other mods. However since I’m making new events – these can take a long time to code, write text for and aren’t always easy to debug so there is a lot of work that go into this mod.

This mod wasn’t made to excuse or revision history. Nor does it take any stances in regard toward nazism. I’ve tried to be as objective as possible when making the mod and not to add too much nazi ideology or imagery (and this mod contain limited amounts of it in certain pictures such as when the Volksvagen news article) but I don’t want to censor it and neither do I want to chastize the Germans for their history. I just want to make a fun mod for people to play and in some way make their experience of the game better. I hope that I succeeded.

This mostly a one-man project so all support is appreciated. Just hearing that it makes someone’s playthrough a lot more fun is all that it takes to make the work that I’ve put into this worth it. So if you like this mod, please take a few seconds out of your day to like this mod or comment on it so that other people can see it easier and enjoy it.

Please enjoy this mod – the Author