[HOI4 Modding] Creating New Characters

This Hearts of Iron IV modding lesson will explain how to create new characters, including country leaders, advisors, corps commanders, field marshal and admirals.
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Timestamps for this tutorial/lesson:
00:00 - Introduction
04:12 - Folder and File Structure
11:48 - Creating Country Leader
26:07 - Creating Advisors (Political Advisor, High Command and etc)
38:14 - Creating Generals and Admirals
43:53 - Creating Portraits
56:32 - Creating Localization
01:01:31 - How to prioritize country leader
01:03:39 - Creating Generic and Shared Characters
Useful links:
Iron Workshop Discord server: / discord
Hearts of Iron IV wiki modding page:
Effects for characters:
hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Effect#...
Conditions, can be placed in available:
hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Conditions
If you would like to contribute to make the Iron Workshop better you can do so on Patreon: / playerhoi
Here are the download links to the various tools used during The Iron Workshop lessons/tutorials.
Notepad++ Download: notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/
Paint.net Download: www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn....
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[@Captain-Axeman]

Thank you, i was struggling too find out how too add my characters back in again.

[@r.a.2145]

Dang... took me about 2.5 months of trial&error, snooping other mods, seeing the games codes, etc. to figure this out. Just posted my mod recently, then found about about this. Devestated! But grateful i guess. 😔

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Doing it yourself will allow you to learn much more so don't feel bad, I learned the Paradox script language with EU3 and HOI3 at times when there were no modding resources ;)

[@extrage3061]

how do you look at other mods files?

[@jupity]

@@extrage3061Go to the Paradox launcher for Hoi4, then to mods/playsets and to the mod you want to look at, click the three dots for the mod, and click open in folder

[@boner7378]

You're really good mate, I'm a vanilla player since then, and it's kinda getting boring every time I play multi and single, yet because of ur lesson I now can make my own imagination apply in the game

[@cw732]

The idea token part of advisors makes it so that you can have only one advisor with that idea token set.

[@kreisais.]

Thank you! I tryed to do this about 2 days! Thank you for this video!

[@melamagno2426]

Always remain the best yt channel for modding... when you have time could you make a video on how to create new states? the old method no longer works with the new NSB patch. ty

[@TyutcheV_V]

God, thank you so much. I would never have figured out how this shit works without you in my life. Simply the best! Thank you, sweetheart.

[@TheIronWorkshop]

You welcome darling ;)

[@Gwyndolin.C.Desaulniers]

Mate we both know this man is a Legend... I never had so much fun coding and to see in the end what i have greated is beautiful, even tho i once Created Basicaly TnO Burgundy that gave me PTSD

[@jayhop960]

thanks brother appreciate it, thats a like and subscribe i support you man keep making those awesome videos

[@dekko6400]

Could you do a video on how to create new character traits? Your videos help a lot

[@philippplayz]

Ah yes, I just had to switch the places so now the correct leader rules. Great.

[@aaronc1472]

Grateful for your modding videos. Working through this one now for my Brazil project. Would you be willing to create a lesson explaining how to create army and army group icons?

[@dzabaudiobooks]

Everything works at its best!!

[@raffaeleminozzi647]

Hi, thanks for your help with this video. I was wondering however, how you can put at start game an advisor, like does the SOV with the NKVD advisor.

[@vector7788]

Hello again, I wanted to let you know that with the new DLC, I was wondering if you could show us how to mod the unit commander portraits and mess with the metal system? Possibly the officer corp bonuses as well? Thank you!

[@username.4019]

Might as well mention that running the game on non ironman mode and typing error in the console can show you the error log and can help find your mistakes

[@kiziox3402]

Thank you from Poland !

[@johannbautista1740]

Will there be a lesson for modding traits or adding new additional traits in hoi4?

[@-JA-]

Thank you.

[@MrCicarius]

Hello, great video, thanks. I have a problem, maybe you can help me. I created advisors for some countries. It works but when I chose one of them, the others desapears. It's pretty silly.

[@gman90]

Tutorial helps a lot, I wanted to know how to make scripted peace deals through events, almost like the one where you capture Paris as Germany in the base game, by any chance do you know how to do that

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Look at a lesson called "on actions"

[@Claseeimperial]

@@TheIronWorkshopI didn't understood this tutorial

[@discarded_productions1369]

@@Claseeimperial wut

[@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad]

@@Claseeimperial skill issue

[@slovak2141]

stfu @@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad

[@Blitz0555]

For some reason when I try to enable my mod (for a focus tree) in the debug mode to edit, the mod isn't show affecting the game. Is there anything i can do to fix it without scraping the whole thing?

[@Gwyndolin.C.Desaulniers]

Finaly, I can become Ruler Of Monarchist Germany and get my Friends as Commanders... Thank you very much

[@bekes3274]

Thank you , I really do like your videos 👍 . But no one made a tutorial about making hoi4 style portraits can you please also teach us how to

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Can't really tech something I don't know how to do myself...

[@cidehametebenenjeli6257]

¡gracias!

[@Daniel-en1on]

With NSB army high command, is it possible to have the same portrait for general and army advisor? For certain generals if you promote them they automatically get converted to an advisor portrait, even if they have none specifically. Some general portraits I added this doesn't work for. Is it how it is saved as a .dds file that this isn't working?

[@homojoe]

Could you maybe do a video covering dynamic modifiers? Woulb be really cool if you could do that

[@darks4ys]

I have a question. How can I make a country leader I created to rule the country after i complete a national focus?

[@vector7788]

Just wondering if you will be updating the submod video. In case the other comment doesn't go through, basically it doesn't work when you put in the dependents on Kaiserreich code as it gets removed when you load the game. Tried multiple times.

[@taey5699]

Thank you so much for uploading this video! This video was very helpful! But, I've been watching this video again for 3 days and I've been doing the modding, but even if I do the same, there's no additional general or admiral... I even took the basic file and changed the capabilities and checked if the change was made, but it doesn't change, so could you tell me what the problem is?? Ah, I have one more question. Do you know how to add more Spy?? Game version 1.11.10...

[@Martin-vy7mm]

any possibility for a tutorial on modding railway guns? im interested in modifying their gfx, range, bonus in combat, etc. is it atleast possible?

[@Zdeno8525]

Hi, so i run into a problem i created 2 characters in common folder as to add them to germany, i followed every step then i used in history folder recruit command but after the game load in debug it gives me message that the characters i created in common are unknown

[@TacticalAssassinator]

I have a question. Everything in the files looks right but im having a problem. I tried to replace William Dudley as the fascist leader of the US with a custom one but when I overwrite his code, it just pulls a random name with a generic template as the ideology leader and when I added my character as a standalone and keeping dudley in the code, it just makes him the ideology leader like normal. My character has priority as he's top of the list. Any idea's? Game Version 1.11.9

[@slovak2141]

heya does any errors pop up?

[@slovak2141]

and did you add recruit_character to the country file?

[@doktord.8403]

I got a problem where i don't know if its possible: there is a decision that i have to change, but only one, do i have to copy the entire decision file of that country or is there a way to just replace that one decision in an own file?

[@jameszog1018]

so i'm genuinely not sure what i'm doing wrong with the portrait, all the codes should be right, my character is the country leader, but the portrait is blank. not sure what i should be checking, I've watched the segment 3 times and can't seem to find a deviation in the code. I really do appreciate the video though, i know there's something i've done wrong, just no idea what it is.

[@thyburninglegion7282]

Help, I have tried to make generals for danzig in 8 different ways and 0 of them work, does Kurdistan have some special script I need to steal? (I tried using "Create Corps Commander".

[@starknight3415]

I have a problem with "your method" to create a new leader. Your method doesn't work in my game. Let me explain : When you say that you have to put the same name "GFX_Portrait_USA_Leader_Name", both in the sprites file (*.gfx) and in the characters file, at me, it doesn't work, I have to put the path of the DDS file like this : large="gfx/leaders/USA/Portrait_USA_Leader_Name.dds", In this case only, it works, the image of the leader is displayed correctly. I don't understand, it's very weird. However, I am not at my 1st mod and I followed your lesson well ! :) Oh and thanks for your lessons ! 😀

[@benedictpaloma5330]

I dont understand why when I created a new character like general it doesnt appear on my list ingame I followed all instructions u gave but it doesnt work no matter I tried

[@iliaschristens1051]

Nice

[@ruy123ofserenity]

How do I add character descriptions to advisors?

[@postmortem3260]

Every time I try to do this my leader's portrait is ether not what it is supposed to be, or their name had underscores. Why is this and how do I fix?

[@fusion2.048]

Also can you please make a tutorial on making a custom 3d model in heart of iron 4? if can

[@Snootingson]

Hey I can’t find the character folder, it isn’t appearing for me. I need some help. Thanks

[@cpurescuerhu]

say i want to change the default soviet leader from stalin to trotsky. how do i do that? i tried simply replacing "sov_iosif_stalin" to "sov_lev_trotsky" in the "recruit character = " line, but it saids "lev trotsky is already assigned to sov"

[@Sawdust_]

i have no idea whats going on with advisors i tried adding a custom advisor, but it just deleted all the advisors i had(all of them, even the designers) edit: i got that one guy to work, but the rest are still gone, guess ill have to do it manually

[@nerdiguy2]

For assigning traits to characters, how do you assign multiple? Do you just put a space and that paste another trait?

[@ubahni]

yes

[@theyanderechann]

Where can i find kings' portraits backgorund like Victor Emenual III or King George V?

[@andrzejhinc6404]

Well, I created General, but I have a question, do I need to have a mod file in my mod folder? Because alone it wont work

[@FP09]

I cannot find a steam or common folder on my PC how or where would I find these

[@Red_Wolf04]

do you really need the English folder? I forgot to add it and instead just pasted the files in the loalisation folder and all works fine.

[@Disco-Mike]

Nice, now I have myself as the Leader of Germany

[@mateoteoo805]

With the new updates, it has been very difficult to add characters, especially to the Battle Of Bosporus DLC package. I couldn't understand how the new system works from your videos. Can you shoot a separate video for the Battle Of Bosporus DLC package? It is very difficult to add character especially to Turkey. Characters are not created from scratch because most commanders are also set as advisors.

[@meyerburada]

let me tell you something, that's actually one of the rarest things that paradox ever managed to do historical. after the turkish independence war, there were no teachers remaining to teach stuff to the young children. there were no engineers to make new buildings. almost every one of them died for country. so most titles got acquired by commanders in the previous war.

[@mateoteoo805]

@@meyerburada That's not what I was trying to ask. I wrote about the difficulty of doing the character encoding. I know the history of Turkey :D

[@HuginX]

yoo. how do i add a scroll to focuses and events? They have so much texts and backstory and i don't want to remove all of it.

[@banana445500]

Can we get the original files for this as it would be a nice boilerplate tow work off of.

[@DatBoi_TheGudBIAS]

If I create a custom country and don't create advisors, does HoI4 generate some to me or I need to make them?

[@megalegonator]

Do you know why when a civil war starts, your custom character isn't used as the party leader of the original country when it switches ideology? For some reason, when the ideology switches in a civil war (as in not the breakaway country but for the original country) the character I want to become the country leader for the new ideology gets put in as a party leader for the breakaway country?

[@shrade8972]

Copy your code for current country leader but change the ideology to nazism. This worked when I had the same problem. So you should have your current leader in code and same leader but with different ideology. Hope it helps

[@gigantfilmgames6658]

Because actually the breakaway country is this first country. For example in German civil war the neutrals side is the GER tag, while the Reich is the D01 tag

[@AlistronicArts]

I need help. My portrait is not working. I'm sure I did everything right. but when I open the game, the stock portrait appears instead of the portrait I made.

[@Max200012]

how do I create different characters for different start dates though?

[@eymz_madis]

Didn’t work out for me 😢 won’t show up on the selection tab and political tab?

[@zidaanomar2204]

i have a problem i'm making new characters for USA but in the history file I write my recruit_character = USA_my_character the history file looks at the base game file for the character instead of mod file and can't find the character

[@wiganrugby]

Thanks for this, want to change some Conservative leaders in Millennium Dawn.

[@wiganrugby]

I take it I will have use MD files instead of the Vanilla game??

[@Claseeimperial]

you can make a tutorial on how to make new traits for country leader

[@st1ckzy98sg]

can u still create leaders and commanders through national focuses and events? If so, how do i define the pictures in those instances?

[@TheIronWorkshop]

AFAIK old code still works with country leaders and military leaders

[@Countryball_sweden_gmod]

Thanks man it really works but for some reason when I restart the game all the leaders were just regular leaders and I thought the gfx had something to do with it but when I did this part: 55:33. All the leaders were just regular hoi4 leaders except Poland, Ethiopia and Aussa. Can you explain why this happend?

[@maxwhite4177]

Same issue happened with me. I fixed it by copying over the entire _leader_portraits.gfx file into my mod folders and just adding the portrait details I wanted to at the top, without deleting any of the info already in it.

[@Countryball_sweden_gmod]

@@maxwhite4177 Oh okay thanks!

[@alexanderroblox4557]

If I follow these steps and delete the parts where you say to I lose all my military commanders, admirals, and advisors how do i fix this?

[@Arbeiter2]

Don't delete them if you want to keep them, although, this might cause problems (I highly doubt it will tho.)

[@alexanderroblox4557]

I tried readding them but still didn't work, I do have 2 original advisors now tho lol@@Arbeiter2

[@doriftoinwotb2796]

I have no character files i dont know why

[@tea7795]

Can you please make an eu4 event modding video?

[@lentejasrojasalvapor1853]

I can't find the characters folder ):

[@darksiderr8413]

Please help i've been trying for 3 days i do the same steps you showed and my leader portrait don't show up I edited the third reich

[@barorome497]

I did all the steps for the country leaders but when i change to a different ideology than the one put in the history country file it just gives me a default image and name, why is this happening, please halp

[@anshpradhan3004]

Hey there is no characters folder please help.

[@SteventheMoai]

Where is Alf Landon located in the character folder

[@The69Fish]

Now i can make breaking bad in hoi4!

[@That_Guy_Named_Epyk]

Please more stellaris!!! Maybe custom weapons

[@stadianowich4559]

it says it didnt find the texture file even tho i have done the path to it correctly.

[@mortimer687]

hello, will you be making an update for state modding? i've been trying to make new states but NSB just ruined my mod

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Yes, creating new states and countries will receive updated videos.

[@mortimer687]

@@TheIronWorkshop thank you! i can’t wait. you’ve really helped me alot with modding

[@iabusemyfish]

ive gotten to the stage where you see if its working ingame, but when i try it the country leader, all military high command, theorists, chief of army/navy/airforce, admirals, generals, field marshalls, and all but 3 advisors arent there and the guy im trying to mod doesnt show up. ive done basically everything the tutorial has up to this point, other than the code of the guy (code will be in comments), having the country be portugal instead of cuba, and not including the leaders folder in gfx because i dont want him to be a leader of the country. im new to modding so i mightve messed up something obvious but ive been looking for hours and cant find whats wrong with it. i have all but nsb dlc if that changes anything. any help would be greatly appreciated

[@iabusemyfish]

characters = { POR_leon = { name = POR_CHARACTER_LEON portraits = { army = { large = "GFX_portrait_por_jose_mendes_cabecadas" small = "gfx/interface/ideas/idea_POR_jose_mendes_cabecadas.dds" } } navy_leader = { traits = { navy_media_personality naval_lineage gentlemanly superior_tactician blue_water_expert } skill = 8 attack_skill = 6 defense_skill = 6 maneuvering_skill = 6 coordination_skill = 6 legacy_id = -1 } advisor = { cost = 100 slot = theorist ledger = navy allowed = { original_tag = POR } traits = { naval_theorist } } } }

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Did you recruit the character in Portugal's history file?

[@iabusemyfish]

​@@TheIronWorkshop somehow i missed that which i apologise for, just done it and i can now see the character but alot of other characters except 3 advisors are still not there. i added the recruit_character = POR_leon line and have tried deleting and keeping the others but no matter what they dont show up

[@iabusemyfish]

if = { limit = { has_dlc = "La Resistance" } recruit_character = POR_leon } if = { limit = { NOT = { has_dlc = "La Resistance" } } recruit_character = POR_leon } (the full code for the recruit character bit)

[@TheIronWorkshop]

I suggest you focus on one character at at time instead of trying all 3 to work, focus on one get it to work than move on to the next. If you need to, create those advisors from 0 until they show up.

[@MrFerrell55]

It works for me, more or less, but for some reason my country leader portrait has it's color swapped in game. Like, blue is orange, orange(ish) is blue.

[@TheIronWorkshop]

You saved the image in an incorrect format, repeat that step and make sure to get the right format.

[@MrFerrell55]

@@TheIronWorkshop Just fixed it. Thanks!

[@tombarton4410]

ok it works and I have created more than 1 advisor but when I use the one I want I can't add another you know at the top you have 3 slots for advisors I select them then the rest don't appear I want to have more than 1 advisor how to I fix this?

[@nikolica12q9]

Hey,same problem here. Anyway I don't know did you fix it,but I found how you can fix it. Remember that he said about idea token? That it doesn't matter? Well actually I think that is what idea token does. So how did I fix it? So lets say you created you character I created in my own mod lets say (this is an example obviously) characters = { MOS_zorica_radic = { and now other codes for GFX stuff. So at the start when you created,MOS is tag to my country,and after that name of the character I created. you put that or whatever is your character name into the idea token so it would be like this: advisor={ slot = political_advisor allowed = { tag = MOS } idea_token = MOS_zorica_radic cost = 150 available = { } I didn't put whole code of the advisor but I think you get the point Anyways if you still didn't find solution,here I hope it would help,if not then I don't really know what can,because now it works for me. EDIT: You have to put for all of them the idea_token otherwise it won't work

[@SchwarzeSonne130]

could you pls make a tutorial on how to make a custom religion in eu4 With deities etc. aswell? Didnt find any tutorial yet :/

[@_hamsi]

My mod doesn’t working when i activated.

[@Randomuser-yl4uq]

Does this still work with the new dlc?

[@skiddlless5981]

how do i give them a Deskription?

[@anafernandez9847]

one of the first

[@anafernandez9847]

can you also make a video explaining how to make leader traits?

[@iamkokan]

You can do it even without tutorial like i did, its not complex like 5 minutes or so. Its really easy just some brain power.

[@anafernandez9847]

@@iamkokan Thank you!

[@OnlyRodion]

I've been trying to edit Italy's leader but nothing seems to work, does it have anything to do with the country being a major or having a focus tree? I've followed all the steps and no matter what I do whenever in debug mode I see Mussolini each time.

[@TheIronWorkshop]

What exactly are you trying to do? Add a new leader? edit an existing one? Change who leads the country?

[@OnlyRodion]

@@TheIronWorkshop I firstly tried editing Mussolini out with another leader, nothing changed it still showed him as Benito Mussolini, so now I'm trying to create a new leader instead of Mussolini and that isn't working either, I want my character to lead the country at the start.

[@OnlyRodion]

By another leader I mean my custom character.

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Make sure that Italy has the correct political party in ruling_party, your leader won't show up if his sub ideology doesn't match the country's ideology. Besides that I'd suggest posting some of your code to see if anything is off... Best do this on the Iron Workshop Discord

[@OnlyRodion]

@@TheIronWorkshop leader I created is fascist and the sub ideology I gave is rexism, which matches with the files, Idk if it has something to do with italy being fascist to begin with or what because no matter what I try to do nothing ends up changing.

[@nikitasolovev4794]

So, is this working for soviet union? Tried 4 times, but my corps commander still missing, even when i recruited him

[@TheIronWorkshop]

It makes no difference which country you are doing this for. Check your code, paths and so on, no reason for it not to work.

[@nikitasolovev4794]

@@TheIronWorkshop and still, it isn't, maybe you can look through whats wrong? characters = { SOV_nick = { name = SOV_character_nick portraits = { civilian = { large = "GFX_portrait_ger_fritz_kuhn" } } corps_commander = { traits = { } skill = 1 attack_skill = 1 defense_skill = 1 planning_skill = 1 logistics_skill = 1 legacy_id = -1 visible = { always = yes } } } }

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Try the Iron Workshop Discord server, there is more context to this than just this code.

[@deadmonkeyhd2875]

Could you make another video on how to create a new state. the way described in your first video doesn't work anymore. at least for me it doesn't :(

[@TheIronWorkshop]

It's on my to do list, a lot has changed with regards to creating new states so a revised video lesson is indeed required.

[@tableprinterdoor]

I prefer the old one tbh

[@kkonacreed8638]

I can’t even find the mods folder on my computer I feel so damn stupid

[@cowwithinternet]

i think the "idea token" might have to do with using the console

[@TheIronWorkshop]

Actually I found it used in non console uses, like in events and focuses. I gave it a try and you can still scope (focus) characters without these tokens so I'm not sure why there are there...

[@shawnbass101]

So what’s the name of this mod

[@klodi9824]

thx

[@Tennouseijin]

An advisor who has a different ideology than their effect (e.g. they are democratic but have the trait communist_revolutionary) actually makes perfect sense. It's basically a character whose political actions are so controversial, it causes people to strongly oppose them. More people want to become communist because this politician is pushing extreme democratic reforms, and people hate it, so they join opposition en masse.

[@raysheyo2809]

did not work for me need help

[@iamkokan]

26:35 aahhh yes, a democratic dictator

[@mirzahamzabaig5667]

(laughs in Jinnah)

[@macedonac1821]

Hello, how do i set manpower at startgame?

[@TheIronWorkshop]

You have to change it in the states controlled by the country.

[@macedonac1821]

@@TheIronWorkshop Thank you, and thank you for replying.

[@clementkong8133]

@5:29 The latest vanilla file has no "characters" file

[@squirrelystew8323]

It is in the common file

[@clementkong8133]

@@squirrelystew8323 No

[@Blaze-uv2de]

there is no "character" file in the folder

[@CashLibertyMusic]

i’ve noticed the same. have you figured out how to do this still?

[@nuclearstupidity6594]

46:49

[@indig0p0rtal]

45:24