Hello and welcome to our second video on the upcoming expansion
for Hearts of Iron 4: By Blood Alone.
I'm Peter Nicholson, Game Director, and today, along with the team,
I'd like to begin by introducing to you
some of the country content shipping in By Blood Alone,
beginning with the Italian focus tree.
We've added a lot of possible options
so that the player can not only feel and immerse into the historical experience
but also have a lot of choice to customize their country
throughout the game.
For the 1936 start, we've changed, first of all,
the OOB, the divisions that were actually fighting
on the Ethiopian front.
We added regular troops, and we added the Blackshirts as well.
Then Italy starts with some debuffs now,
meant to represent dangers they had both in terms of industry,
especially military industry, and in the army.
The idea with these debuffs is that you can actually fix
some of these issues in the focus tree,
you can actually specialize your army branches
to make them very powerful and focused on a very specific kind of warfare.
The alt-fascist branch focuses mainly on Italo Balbo and Dino Grandi.
Italo Balbo was very much a military man, being an air marshal.
So it'll focus a lot on the military and building up Libya,
since he was a governor there.
And for Dino Grandi,
he will focus mostly on seeking new alliances and diplomatic ties
with other nations,
and with the help of other people, building up the industrial base of Italy.
The common branch between them
will focus on dealing with the Fascist Party of Italy
and the legacy of Mussolini.
And once you've done that, you can move forward
to a brand-new future for Italy and fascism.
The nonaligned path for Italy is basically the monarchist branch for Italy,
where you can go either absolute monarchist,
or you can go down the path of a democratic monarchy.
You will also have to decide what to do with the fascists,
the Grand Council of Fascism.
You can either disband the Blackshirts
or form the Royal Guard.
You can also seek the support of the Papacy
to oust the concept of fascism totally.
The monarchy branch will also have its own small industrial branch,
which will give different buffs and bonuses.
What would an Italian alt-history branch be without the Roman Empire?
Of course, we need to have that in the game,
and, of course, we do.
The idea with the Roman Empire branch
is that you try to find some epic war machines
to get this technological advantage that the Romans had,
with super-heavy tanks, super-heavy battleships,
stuff like that.
And you will also be able to deal with a lot of ancient Roman regions
that you will be controlling, and get the most out of them.
Italy, of course, is just the beginning.
No story of Italy's sphere of influence during World War II would be complete
without giving a voice to their main adversary
at the beginning of the campaign: Ethiopia.
Ethiopia started a war with Italy. They are probably going to lose that war:
trying to balance that is really fun.
It's going to be Heart of Iron on not easy mode, playing Ethiopia.
The main idea is that you can play as Ethiopia
and try to survive basically,
either by going into exile, or trying to stay and fight the Italians,
and then reclaim your country, and build on that.
Your main choice of action would probably be to find somewhere to go into exile
and try to get them on your side and then retake your country.
The idea of a fascist path is to try and survive
by collaborating with the Italians and backstabbing the Emperor of Ethiopia.
The other path is about doing the complete opposite of that
and focusing on regaining independence from Italy.
In the communist path, there's an option to try and gain support
from the Soviet Union, and go down a more authoritarian communist path.
And the other option is to go down the anarchist path
and try to form a loose-knit federation in Ethiopia
to try and push back the Italians from East Africa.
The anti-colonialism mechanic is a way for Ethiopia
to liberate countries from imperial rule.
The colonial mechanic allows Ethiopia to funnel weapons
and give political support to resistance movements in countries
to overthrow those European powers.
The African Union is an organization
that allows Ethiopia to form a supranational federation
across the continent of Africa,
kind of in a similar style to the European Union or the Soviet Union.
With Italy and Ethiopia covered, we scale the Alps
to experience the tenuous balancing act of Switzerland's historical position
and a deeper look into timelines that might have been.
It's a country that was officially neutral,
but had a major influence on how the war developed
and how it ended up.
In the historical focus tree for Switzerland,
you will not join the war,
but you will have to keep all the external forces balanced
so you can manage to stay out of the war
and keep your independence and democracy alive.
In alt-history, Switzerland can join the war
and can train proper troops,
and there's two general ways it can go.
We do have a focus branch for fascism,
but it's a branch where Switzerland is coerced by its fascist neighbor,
in this case, Germany, as it was at the time,
to join them, or else.
In the fascist alt-history path, you can join Germany
as a reluctant ally of them.
On the other hand, you can stay democratic
and join the Allies either by joining France as a puppet,
joining the Allies as an equal partner in Europe,
or personally, my favorite one,
making a secret pact with the Allies:
you can stay "neutral," and then help the Allies covertly
until you're ready to join the war properly.
The Alpine Confederation is an alternate version of Switzerland,
where Switzerland seeks to spread their democratic system
to the other Alpine states.
Eventually, you will form a democratic confederation
that consists of all the Alpine states,
and this will put you on a better footing to go against major powers.
In By Blood Alone,
we'll be introducing the Balance of Power mechanic
designed to represent factional division on a governmental level.
The Balance of Power mechanic is a major new mechanic
that will affect all nations in different ways,
and will have major consequences for Italy.
Of course, you have Benito Mussolini, on the one side,
who will face off against the Grand Council of Fascism.
And if you want to oust Mussolini,
you just gotta make sure that he's not in power,
that he's not controlling the balance of power.
The balance of power will also affect the democratic path and the communist path
in different kinds of ways.
In Switzerland, the powers evolve to the cantons,
the leader is just a mere council with some vague powers,
but not a lot of power.
So the balance of power is between a decentralized Switzerland,
which is how it starts as,
and a more central Switzerland.
As you centralize Switzerland,
you're able to take more aggressive actions
because if you're decentralized, cantons don't want to join the war,
cantons want to stay neutral and deal with their own problems
instead of having to join a war.
You can leverage the centralized power to make a more militarized Switzerland.
And that's all for now.
But we'll be back soon to detail further mechanics
coming in By Blood Alone.
Until then, make sure to follow us on social media
and see you again soon.