Let’s play Hearts of Iron 4 (Black Ice) - Italy - part 1 (Setup)

Hello everyone and welcome to a new let’s play.
This is the first play through I am doing of Black Ice so any feedback is welcome. Now one thing that I want to stress is that this is going to be a role-play let’s play, I will try to retrace the steps of Italy in the real World War but we will see how it is going to go. I also plan to not „play the game“ itself, abuse any mechanics or anything.
Last but not least let me stress that I am not an expert in Black Ice. I am a veteran of Hearts of Iron 2 and Darkest hour and I got into this playthrough via other mods. So let’s see how it will go.
This is the first episode where we take a look at what we have here. I explain my thoughts about the future course of our actions, what technologies we will go for and how we go about it. And boy is it something - we do not have the equipment, we do not have the technologies, we do not have the industrial capacity nor do we have the resources.
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."
Benito Mussolini,
History of Italy: en.wikipedia.o...
Italy in WW2: en.wikipedia.o...
Italian campaign in WW2: en.wikipedia.o...)
BlackICE Historical Immersion Mod Steam page:
steamcommunity...
Hearts of Iron 4 Steam page:
store.steampow...
From BlackIce Steam page: "We aim to bring Hearts of Iron 4 to an all new level, making your game experience more immersive, historical and challenging. Black ICE completely overhauls most national focus trees, changes game mechanics, adds in tons of events, technologies, units and much more. While playing ahistorical will work, Black ICE mainly aims at improving the plausible historical experience.“
From Hearts of Iron 4 Steam page: “Victory is at your fingertips! Your ability to lead your nation is your supreme weapon, the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV lets you take command of any nation in World War II; the most engaging conflict in world history. From the heart of the battlefield to the command center, you will guide your nation to glory and wage war, negotiate or invade. You hold the power to tip the very balance of WWII. It is time to show your ability as the greatest military leader in the world. Will you relive or change history? Will you change the fate of the world by achieving victory at all costs?”
You can also follow me on Twitter (Alfapiomega) and chat with me on Steam (Alfapiomega) or Discord: / discord
This LP is recorded on my new computer (i9-9900k, 32GB RAM, SSD harddrive, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER).

[@DarthVantos]

miss this series i watched it everyday from episode 20 to the end. And even started playing black ice.

[@Alfapiomega]

I am planning another one, once the BI has been updated :)

[@sercravenmohead3631]

I am also doing BI Italy play through, definitely using this for inspiration. I’m ahead from this point I’m in 1939, this mod is certainly overwhelming but I’m trying to find any mistakes I made because I’m cautious getting into WW2. I don’t know if I’m ready lol.

[@Alfapiomega]

Happy to hear that mate. I wonder if you could post some notes if you go through the playthrough and watch my let's play. It would be intersting to see how differently it can go :)

[@sercravenmohead3631]

@@Alfapiomega Sure, so far I’ve seen this one but I’ll watch them whenever I play. I’m definitely joining the war late lol

[@AhmedMostafa-ir2bl]

@@Alfapiomega quick question do Egypt have a focus tree and what dose the generic focus tree look like and will you play as Egypt in bi because it had a important role in ww2

[@heitoroliveira2025]

Looking foward to this. Alot of people play black ice and just go straight to Germany even tho the other majors have some good flavour.

[@Alfapiomega]

Thanks! I am now (at the moment of upload) about 7 episodes in, some 6 hours of playtime, and I am having a blast. Events, descriptions, techs, equipment... All is awesome! My next choice would be either Yugoslavia or Finland, Turkey, Australia or Japan or China.

[@Razzlion]

@@Alfapiomega Would love to see you take on Japan in BI!

[@Alfapiomega]

I think this playthrough will be a good introduction :)

[@mwch4554]

Thank you for not milking 3-4 episodes to get everything arranged and sorted

[@zevia515]

Awesome!