Hearts of Iron IV: Europe Expansion

Authors description: Europe Expansion

EUROPE EXPANSION – AN OVERHAUL OF EUROPE
THE FUTURE OF EUROPE EXPANSION
This was the first mod I made, and subsequently, it’s quite messy and fairly unbalanced and in many ways unrealistic. I have decided to leave this project in favour of another – this mod won’t be updated anymore. I hope that the new project will be a suitable replacement for this mod.
This new project will be a collection of smaller mods, and users can subscribe to whichever ones they want.
I will dissect this mod and put each of the features into separate mods. These mods will be built around the features, adding more content and ideas. Old content will be reshaped to match a new standard of realism and immersion.
These are the mods in planning phase:
Ambitions: many countries will receive new decisions which promote a wide array of paths to take on. They hope to show the player the country’s interests of the time, giving an immersive and relevant perspective that may promote historical accuracy. Accordingly, there are appropriate awards for the ambitions, also accompanied by many new events. Here are a few of the planned ambitions: Beat the Royal Navy (Germany). Sow the East European Plain (Germany). Achieve internal stability (France). Push the border to the Rhine (France). Seize the Mediterranean fortress (Italy). Replace British influence in Iran (Soviet Union). Maintain neutrality (Bulgaria). Reintroduce Greek irredentism (Greece). Cultural naming: aims to consistently name states and cities after their local culture’s exonyms. Many countries will get claims on states that make demographical and historical sense. Upon capture of a claimed state, a country can choose to spend some political power and sometimes manpower to integrate (core) the state, in which case it will also be renamed. More events: add many new relevant and historical events that corresponds to conditions in the world. Their main purpose is to combat repetitive games and diversify existing events. There will also be many “post-war” events, meant for after the world war is over, in order to make the late game more interesting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION, AND WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MOD
This mod aims to give Europe more flavour by adding focus trees, events, decisions and more. “Why should I use this mod rather than one of the other overhauls out there”, you might find yourself asking. A goal I’ve always kept in mind while making this mod is that the mod should add flavour to Europe, while still maintaining the vanilla feel to it. To me, massive overhauls such as “The Road to 56” are too messy, inconsistent and chaotic. This mod strives to not distance
itself from the vanilla game experience, but enhance it. Play with historical or ahistorical focus and experience some believable scenarios.

FEATURES:
New focus trees, and their highlights:
Norway: remain democratic and light the beacon of freedom, or utilise the ski infantry and seek to restore ancient glories and take back what have been stolen. Sweden: sway the countries of the Baltic Sea to your side and return the crown to its rightful rule. Build the Vasaskeppet to wrest control of the seas. Denmark: aggressive actions to reintroduce Denmark as a major power in Europe is necessary for Denmark’s survival. Fuel the berserker rage and use old Danish shipmaking to reclaim lost territories. Finland: seek closer cooperation with Sweden or Germany to fight the Soviets, or join them. Bulgaria: get rid of the unfair treaties that were imposed on Bulgaria and take a stance with one of the ideologies and become the dominant power in the Balkan peninsula. Minor changes to some of the existing treesFocus trees to expect in the future: Greece, Belgium, Portugal and some others.

Consistent coring and dynamic state and city names
Why is South Tyrol a core of Austria, but southern Slovakia isn’t a core of Hungary, and Danzig isn’t a core of Germany? This mod aims to fix what seems to be sloppy work by Paradox. Countries with a significant minority or even a majority in a foreign state will have a core on that state. There will be opportunities for countries to core states through events, focuses or decisions. For instance, The Netherlands may core some states through what’s called “goedendag” and Germany can core Polish, Ukranian, Belarusian, Baltic and Czech states through a set of decisions called “lebensraum”.
In addition, all states with more than one core have dynamic names, that includes the state’s cities. This system is similar to how names were in Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis. That means no more “Poznan” if you’re playing Germany, and no more “Bratislava” if you’re playing Hungary. While we’re at Hungarian, if you’ve restored Austria-Hungary, either as Hungary or any other country, you can choose to keep all states and cities in Hungarian, or move the capital to Vienna and have German names for all states and cities.

More states!
An array of states have been implemented, including Artois, South Jutland, South Switzerland and Vilnius. These states have been added to make some empire borders more aesthetic, but also for historical and demographical logic.

Hundreds of events
About three hundred events have been added, plus about 150 “liberation events”, these are events that occur when a country captures a state that they have a core on, resulting in name changing. Perhaps the most interesting sets of events are post war events. These fire when certain conditions are met, usually after the world war. They intend to keep the game interesting even after the tension is lowering. Example of post war events are “The Tyrol Question”: give Germany an opportunity to demand South Tyrol after Soviets and Allies are defeated, “Great Britain”: if the British Isles are unified either under Ireland or UK, the country will get cores on all the states and a new name and colour, “The Partition of Switzerland/Belgium”: two event chains that hope to carve up the countries of Switzerland and Belgium between their neighbours.

Immersion-friendly pictures
About 20 event pictures, three flags, about 30 focus and idea icons and about 30 leader portraits have been added. Keeping the vanilla-like has been the primary focus when designing these pictures.

Future Plans: Greece overhaul. More depth to Bulgarian expansionism: push the border to the Carpathians and Adriatic etc. Expand Sweden’s fascism and neutrality focus branches. Vaguely planned: Overhauls of the Iberian, Alpine and Benelux regions.
Compatibility This mod only touches Europe, so any mod that doesn’t make any changes there is compatible. It is not advised to have any mods that overwrite one of the following national focus trees or events: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia and the UK. Any mod that conflicts with this mod may cause some bugs and mess up the game; you will not receive the full experience of Europe Expansion. No support for other languages than English.

Requirements This is a standalone mod and therefore it doesn’t have any dependencies.

Credits Dat Fish for allowing me to use his Gustav Adolf portrait. Although I made this mod mostly for myself (I wasn’t happy with vanilla coring and naming), it makes me glad to see people enjoying my mod, thank you!