Willkommen zurück to another German Dev Diary!
Last time we talked about the Common Branches and the Historical Branch of Germany. Now, I, Paradox_Danne, ManoDeZombi, D3vil and Nattmaran (please insert joke about how many content designers it takes to make a Germany) will at least try to explain the various new systems for Germany. As we alluded to and hinted at in the last German Dev Diary, Germany has a whole swath of new mechanics we’d like to go through with you. Keep in mind that all of this is still very much a work in progress, which means things may change. So without further ado, let’s press on!
The MEFO Bills
Historically, the MEFO Bills played a major role in the German rearmament in the 1930s and were devised by Hjalmar Schacht. It was partly a way to keep military production hidden (because it directly violated the Versailles Treaty from WW1) and functioned as a means to pay for the actual rearmament program. While Austrian and Czech gold reserves that were seized helped to bolster the economy and staved off an impending collapse, it only bought the Germans some time. In the end, this glorified Ponzi scheme almost bankrupted the country and can be seen as a motivation for why Germany went to war when it did. The armament program constantly required new resources to devour, so Germany was forced to continue to feed the beast as it were. This led to large-scale plundering and theft wherever the Nazis and the Wehrmacht went, to sustain the ever-hungry war machine.
In-game, this economic collapse was never really seen or felt, and it wasn’t until after the first war that you had to pay back the MEFO Bills. This means that the vast majority of players probably never even knew there was a price to pay for them. This is all changing. The intention of the reworked MEFO Bills is partly to slow down early German build-up somewhat and at the same time drive a German player to go on a conquering spree.
The MEFO Bills at the start of the game in1936
Granted, this is a far cry from what the MEFO Bills looked like in the old version, but if you read the previous German Dev Diary (which you really should) you know that this National Spirit can be improved. But something else you probably picked up on, is that Consumer Goods Factories factor (that is to say, the percentage of your civilian factories that are put on producing Consumer Goods, ergo not able to trade or build anything) is increasing each month, and it will continue to increase until it reaches 100%. This is the price Germany pays for quickly rearming again; all available resources are diverted to military production. The keen-eyed among you have also read two other things; additional penalties will be added once you reach 100% Consumer Goods Factories factor (henceforth known as CGFF because I can’t be bothered to type all of that out every time I refer to it), and that the rate of increasing CGFF will be higher based on the amount of non-core states controlled by Germany. What does all of this even mean? Well, simply put, if you fail to feed the beast that is your arms industry, you will start to produce less material. And by controlling non-core states, you’re diverting valuable resources away from rearmament.
Bad things will happen if you can’t manage the MEFO Bills
Price Controls
There are of course ways you can manage the MEFO Bills - at least for a while. Institute Price Controls will not only lower the monthly CGFF increase by 0.5% (so from 3% to 2.5%), but it also unlocks decisions to temporarily lower the CGFF.
Institute Price Controls will reduce the monthly CGFF increase ever so slightly
Price control measures will be crucial to managing the MEFO Bills
Seizing Gold Reserves
Sooner or later you’ll run out of tricks to keep your economy afloat though, and what do you do then? You do what every other dictator does when things are going south at home; go to war. Going to war will trigger an event, asking you if you want to get rid of the rearmament program and receive Recovering Economy instead, or if you want to switch MEFO Bills for Economy of Conquest and unlock the decision to Seize Gold Reserves.
Would you rather have a Recovering Economy or an Economy of Conquest
The decision to Seize Gold Reserves is key to managing the ever-increasing CGFF. Once you have capitulated a country (and this is important; the country must have capitulated to you or one of your subjects) you will be able to seize their gold reserves. This will temporarily reduce the CGFF - just as with the Price Controls decisions. The CGFF reduction is based on the number of total factories in the core states of the targeted country you control. Ergo, more developed countries will reduce the CGFF more. These decisions can however only be taken for countries in Europe - so don’t go around thinking you can seize the USA’s gold reserves. There’s one catch though; seizing the gold reserves of a country will increase Resistance and lessen Compliance in the states. I’m also toying with the idea of giving each state a productivity penalty for a short amount of time.
Seizing Gold Reserves
Seizing other country's gold won’t fix your own economy though, it’s just buying you more time. Is there a way of getting rid of the Economy of Conquest? Why yes, yes there is! But it obviously involves a lot of conquering before you can fix the mess you’ve put your economy in.
By completing Autarky Achieved you will transform your economy and gain Wirtschaftswunder
As you can see, you need a lot of natural resources. (Just a quick fyi here; these numbers are not set in stone yet and might change before release.) Not only will Autarky Achieved replace Economy of Conquest with Wirtschaftswunder (or Economic Miracle, for those who didn’t read the previous German Dev Diary - naughty, naughty!) but it will also improve the Trade Law Autarky.
And that’s all there is to say about the MEFO Bills and Economy of Conquest and how to manage them. Let’s move on to another brand-new mechanic, an utterly unique one for Germany.
The Inner Circle
The Nazi government functioned in a pretty peculiar way; on the one hand, you had the proper government and all its institutions and whatnot, but on the other hand, you had the Nazi party functioning as a parallel ruling body. This system of having two governing bodies often clashed with each other, and people within the Nazi hierarchy often plotted and intrigued against each other to gain the favor of Hitler. Hitler was happy to let them do this, he even encouraged it - as long as the results benefited him. Nazi officials often had overlapping roles, and these roles often overlapped with government institutions, creating a chaotic administrative system. We knew that we wanted to have this represented early on - but we struggled for a long time to get it right. Finally, Arheo and ManoDeZombi found a very (imho) interesting solution.
The people of the Inner Circle will try to ascend within the Nazi hierarchy
So how will we represent the in-fighting between these fellas and the parallel administrative system that existed? By letting each one of them work on and complete focuses in their own mini-branch. This means that you will be able to work on multiple focuses at the same time.
An Ascending Reichsleiter will work on and complete his own set of focuses
If you paid close attention you will have noticed that the GUI (Graphical User Interface) for the Inner Circle is shaped like a pyramid with Mister Mustacheman himself on top, and three empty slots just under him. And some of you might already have guessed that you can only have three Reichsleiters ascending (that is, working on their own focuses) at the same time. Yes indeed, you can only have three Reichsleiters simultaneously completing focuses.
Only three Reichsleiters can Ascend within the Inner Circle at the same time
The cool thing though, is that you can swap out which of the Reichsleiters you want to ascend within the Inner Circle, which means that you can prioritize different things depending on your needs.
Swap out your Inner Circle depending on your current and future needs
This doesn’t mean that swapping out one Reichsleiter for another will save you from the jaws of defeat; it takes them quite some time to complete the focuses they work on.
Letting a Reichsleiter ascend within the Inner Circle takes time and investment
Besides, why would you even want to let someone ascend within the Inner Circle? Well, they all offer different bonuses based on their historical roles. You can see their traits and bonuses both in the new UI in the Focus Tree, by hovering over the portraits, and in the National Spirit tab.
All Reichsleiters have their unique traits and bonuses
Worth mentioning, most of these advisors have a small daily PP cost when ascended, which increases once they complete their second focus in their branch. On the other hand, your Party Chancellor (be it Bormann or Hess), will grant you daily PP bonus which counters part of the PP cost from the others, so if you are not swimming in PP it might be a good idea to save one of the Ascending slots for the Party Chancellor of your choice.
Another reason why you’d let someone ascend is if you want to swap out Hitler. Who needs that low-life scumbag anyways, right? Surely Himmler, Göring, or Goebbels could do a better job! Or why not maybe Hess? They all seem like very reasonable and stable people…. Yes, this is how you get to play with an alternative Führer. They keep their Inner Circle traits and get a new one to boot!
A new Führer has Ascended
How do you go about usurping Hitler then? Well, first off, you have to have three Reichsleiters completing all of their focuses they can complete and then finish A Strong Successor.
Whoever will you choose to become the new Führer
We hope you like this new feature and find it interesting! It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (mostly ManoDeZombi’s) to get this working. One of the main goals of this system was to declutter a bit the otherwise-overcrowded political advisor list, so players can choose different political advisors within the three political advisor slots, while still being able to pick among historically party figures in the Inner Circle, which can in turn evolve and provide different bonuses and effects on their own, allowing the player to utilize the invaluable focus time in whatever branches they consider most important.
Moving on, we would like to mention a small system that we didn’t have the time to talk much about in the first German Dev Diary, and that is quite interesting and can prove to be pretty useful if you are planning on expanding your influence across the Ocean, and challenge the USA’s hegemony in America.
The Monroe Doctrine
Hello again, Malin Monroe (it’s actually Nattmaran though) here to talk about the Monroe Doctrine. We’ve all come to know the Monroe Doctrine through Trial of Allegiance, but as a recap; the Monroe Doctrine was USA’s attempt at keeping the peace in America, primarily to make sure no one else, and certainly not someone hostile, got a foothold that close to them. Of course, the Germans however, would most certainly have liked to have a foothold that close, and we wanted to represent this in game.
The focuses below Crossing the Atlantic are meant to give you the tools to challenge the USA’s military and influence over America
Decisions on the map will appear to sway American countries, once you have brought at least five countries into opposition, you will be allowed to destabilize the doctrine once and for all.
The decisions are rather straightforward, you can bolster sentiments to boost the popularity of fascism in the target country. A fascist country is more likely to oppose the Monroe Doctrine. You are not alone in this endeavor however, the United States will be alerted of your actions, and like you, they might very well start their own campaign in search of support. Once you have garnered enough support (which is actually opposition) you can click the button, and demand the dismantling of the Monroe Doctrine, and as such, you will most likely have a good landing point for further American crusades, invasions and expansions.
Finally we are rid of some of the guarantees…when I took these screenshots, it came at a high cost however…
And we have one last system we need to talk about before wrapping up this Dev Diary, namely-
The Reichskommissariats
And now for the new Reichskommissariat mechanics, brought to you by D3vil and ManoDeZombie.
Hi, it’s me, Jonathan here again to now introduce all of you to the new mechanics and content surrounding the Reichskommissariats! Starting off with how to get them, you will enable the mechanic after completing the focus Uplift the Rosenberg Office near the top of the fascist part of the focus tree.
The focus in question.
Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Reichskommissariat projects, will not show up as a regular national spirit or advisor. Instead, he will show up in his own GUI in the decision category, and you will be able to see what effects he grants by hovering over his icon.
Alfred Rosenberg.
Now I hear you asking, why would I create these puppets when I could just occupy the territory normally? Well about that, as explained previously, the MEFO bills/Economy of conquest grows ever more taxing the more non-core territory you occupy yourself, not counting puppets. Apart from that, these special puppets have various bonuses to both their leaders and national spirits, and not only that, because Alfred Rosenberg gets stronger the more Reichskommissariats you create.
Alfred Rosenberg becoming stronger when founding a Reichskommissariat.
As seen in the image above, creating Reichskommissariats also gives you the choice of what kind of leadership you want to instate. One of them being a German governor who is better at keeping resistance down and granting more resources for you, the other being a local collaborator, one who will be better at gaining compliance in the Reichskommissariats-owned territories. The new Reichskommissariats do not have any cores, similar to Italian East Africa, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem due to the bonuses they possess.
The event you get when creating a Reichskommissariat.
Reichskommissariats also possess a new type of ownership referred to as contested ownership, where, apart from their established capital state, they do not actually own states unless you own them first before selecting their respective decision. This helps to not mess with the surrender progress of the nation you are invading, for example the Soviet Union, so that you won’t have to push past the Urals because you founded RK Ukraine, whilst also ensuring that not only the capital (for example Kiev for RK Ukraine) counts for the Reichskommissariats own surrender progress.
How contested ownership looks.
From the beginning, only European Reichskommissariats are available to you, but there are a few focuses that can enable the creation of such states in other continents as well.
All of the Reichskommissariat focuses.
And as one final thing before moving back to Paradox_Danne, here is how the world looks when having created every possible Reichskommissariat.
The New World Order.
Closing Words
Paradox_Danne here one last time for this Dev Diary, just to say that’s it from us! All of these systems and mechanics are part of the German rework and won’t require the Götterdammerung DLC, but will be baked into the base game. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed this Dev Diary about German Systems. We hope these systems will distinguish Germany from any other nation, and more importantly, that you feel they’re interesting and fun. But wait, we’re not quite done with Germany just yet! We still have to talk about the alt-historical branches for Germany; how will we handle the old Democratic and Imperial branches, and will there be a Communist one? Who knows! Tune in for the next, and last, German Dev Diary coming later. But before that, why not stop by to read the very next Dev Diary that’s coming on October 28th about Raids? And if that doesn’t sound too interesting, we have Belgium to look forward to as well!
Tschüss
Make sure to check out the Expansion Pass Here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3152810/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Expansion_Pass_1