THE WORST Focus Trees In Hearts of Iron 4

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#hoi4 #heartsofiron4 #tierlist

[@clementdeformosa8885]

I feel each Chinese warlord should have their own focus tree, not totally copy from Nationalists and Communists focus tree

[@krasnamerah1926]

I remember Chant of the Forgotten

[@comradezhukov1938]

I think you could find something for all of them to be special. Like for Guangxi, form some kind of Cantonese state, Xinjiang, form like East Turkestan and attempt to unite Turkestan, Ma could form an islamic Chinese state, Inner Mongolia form a greater Mongolia, Shaanxi idk, Yunnan maybe take their claims from Burma. I think that they should add more warlords and sto simplyfing the warlord era, while they could sure unite some, like the various Ma Cliques.

[@andreikovacs3476]

@@comradezhukov1938 Oh yeah, Shanxi is massive wasted potential We got Yan Xishan himself, one of the most fascinating warlords. Instead of the game making him into this wacky benevolent dictator with lots of good ideas and crazy bonuses(man should have more personal bonuses than post-NSB Stalin); he's a meh piece of furniture that mostly exists just as a speedbump for the Japanese and the CCP

[@comradezhukov1938]

@@andreikovacs3476 you seem to know some stuff about the warlord era, so Imma ask this, I always wondered if Long Yun's name has something to do with the fact that he rules Yunnan?

[@andreikovacs3476]

@@comradezhukov1938 Funny question actually, I asked one chinese woman about this a few years ago and she helped me understand it was named like that before Long Yun came to rule it My best explanation is this: Yun- means 'cloud' and -nan means 'South', where the whole area is mountainous and elevated So it's be meaning something like "Land of the Southern Cloudy Mountains" At the same time, another character which means 'man' also translates as Yun, so it causes a potential confusion Yes, I spent more time than I am willing to admit thinking about this obscure HOI4 country

[@sylvananas7923]

The problem with most focus trees are the 70 days only, 70 days spent for a simple bonus or something non major feels wasted

[@tankfarter]

35 days some times 18 and 120 once

[@KennyNGA]

​@@tankfarteror 140 for a science focus for mexico

[@KennyNGA]

And Bulgaria

[@NaDIOpoopenfarten]

i hate this game because of the 70 days shit. it makes the whole game extremely repetitive

[@KennyNGA]

@@NaDIOpoopenfarten just use wemod and instant research a few national focusses so it's not taking so infinite long

[@berkayylmaz3285]

i think the purpose of soviet's focus tree is to create an ultimate role play game. you can go agressive/neutral/defensive stance, you can fulfill stalins socialism in one country policy or export communism to the world, or you can go bukharins planned economy, so many advisors, commanders, options etc. its really fun to do a world conquest when playing soviet union espically on higher difficulties edit: i started to comment and now a wanna go play soviet union. srsly its really addictive :D

[@krasnamerah1926]

Yup. Playing the Romanovs early on this week and it's more fun than Stalinist one. I actually finishes the game too until peace (in early 1947) and i blobbed all the way from Carlsbad to Hainan.

[@berkayylmaz3285]

@@krasnamerah1926 my favorite route is bukharin's alternative commie path, with little purge as possible. at the end of the tree when you create a democratic socialist council, feels soooo rewarding 🤌

[@epicnob]

Its bad as fuck

[@Dartyus]

It's the only reason I play vanilla

[@user-yd5qh1mj3y]

@@epicnob skill issue

[@CosyGrave]

0:30 Germany 1:34 US 2:40 UK 3:37 France 5:08 Italy 6:23 Japan 8:07 China 9:23 USSR 10:54 Poland 12:02 Turkey 13:27 Ethiopia 15:18 Bulgaria 16:25 Canada 17:17 Czechoslovakia 17:51 Greece 18:22 Yugoslavia 19:02 Mexico 19:45 Netherlands 20:26 Switzerland 20:53 (S)pain 21:30 Portugal 22:07 Hungary 22:39 Romania 23:09 The Baltic countries 23:30 British Raj 24:10 Chinese warlords 24:52 PRC 25:22 Manchukuo 25:41 Australia 26:21 New Zeland 26:52 Sultanate of Aussa 27:16 South Africa 28:11 Nepal (Generic)

[@MiguelAbd]

King!

[@berkayylmaz3285]

i also think turkey's focus tree completion times need to be halved again. i mean even on 35 days it takes forever because there are so many focuses to complete to actually join war. 21 and 14 days for some focuses should be ideal

[@trrr938]

It was done on purpose to make minors join the war latter so they don't destroy the global timing and balance of power.

[@roxen4]

exactly

[@kusturucu1015]

That would ruin the immersion though

[@carlpilkington]

Perhaps some focuses should just be events&decisions. Same with Soviets…

[@salzmann4207]

Fully agreed

[@zaph8015]

I think the Soviet focus tree is S+, absolute banger focus tree. It forces you to make conscious choices about how you want to build up and what areas you focus on. Like if I want to build a fat industry I aim for completing the 5 year plan ASAP. I could focus on the navy and do the reinforce bases focuses, and get tons of dockyards early, or I could focus on early expansion by going down the Comintern part of the tree and getting my subjugation decisions and war goals. There are so many unique runs you can do with it even when sticking to Stalin's path and I love that. Italy's new focus tree is amazing in this regard too. With some of the older countries it's very linear. Germany - Rhineland, Anschluss, Sudetenland, Poland, Soviets. Same thing each run I feel, not much variation. Japan suffers from the same issue, as well as China. At least with countries like France you get the cool option to reform the Entente if you want, or as the UK you can go interventionist and muck about in Scandinavia and the Benelux. Personally what I'd do to improve the focus trees is add (as mentioned before) more choices. Give me options to boost my industry in one area or another. Give me a choice to focus on a particular branch of the military. Give me unique national spirits, decisions and events where picking a particular option matters somehow. Just things to add flavour so I can look at the game in retrospect and go "yeah, that was a cool campaign".

[@m.s.cheung8471]

I absolutely hate the Soviet focus tree, most of it is just a shittier version of France's Disjointed government. My build-up years are mostly wasted on dealing with the annoying purge mini-game. When I finally have time to do build-up and military focuses it's usually too little too late. 5 year plan eats up so much CG and focus time it's usually of dubious value. The good part of the military industry tree opens up only AFTER I got most of my needed tech already. The airforce tree is a complete joke that makes 0 difference, and you can't do shit about the army until Hitler comes knocking. And don't even get me started on all those filler diplomacy focuses which then requires even more pp to work. The only focuses that actually feel rewarding are (ironically) the collectivization process and foreign experts. Is it too much to ask for a focus tree that actually rewards me instead of punishes me? Sometimes I feel like not doing any focus will be a net gain in my Soviet playthroughs.

[@zaph8015]

@@m.s.cheung8471 I should clarify when I say "completing the 5 Year Plan" I never do the THIRD five year plan. I rush down the right side, getting the extra civs, Foreign Experts, research slot and science academies. The bonuses from the third 5YP are good and all, but I don't think they're worth giving up consumer goods % for.

[@m.s.cheung8471]

@@zaph8015Yeah the 3rd 5YP is not very worthwhile. And of course the right side is essential. But that goes back to my problem with the Soviet tree: there shouldn't be focuses so bad that they are best avoided. Otherwise the devs are just wasting both their and our time.

[@marcusbrown188]

I think communist China is an S tier because u are a struggle group not even a real country and u have spirits that are totally against u and u have to fight everyone not just Japan and ur the first country to go to war and get to declare your group as a real county PRC 🇨🇳

[@zaph8015]

@@marcusbrown188 I like it too, it's just kind of cancer since NSB and having no supply in China

[@Mini1124]

"I don't like the purge mechanic, I feel like people just die randomly, you don't really have a lot of control over it." Yup, sounds like a Soviet purge to me. Working as intended.

[@viridiscri9713]

That's the point 😂

[@Nombre-nn5dj]

It's not a bug it's a feature lmao

[@willywonka6487]

no your quite wrong because its RNG based. Your playing as stalin so you should have control

[@Nombre-nn5dj]

@@willywonka6487 Honestly with Stalin's paranoya it's more acurate for It to be rng.

[@stefanburkhard9931]

As a swiss and a history nerd, I'm really conflicted when it comes to the swiss focus tree. On one side, the "look and feel" is really cool, they really managed to capture the style and attitude of the time in Switzerland. I generally like how they tried to reflect the specialities of the swiss political system in game and I think they did a good job at. Gameplay-wise however, the tree is pretty underwhelming, confusing and weird to interact with. Really sad overall...

[@histo6651]

In the end i enjoyed looking at the tree, hated playing it. It DOES explain Switzerland irl but since hoi4 is a game it doesnt fit.

[@NoobWarsGames]

I agree, I personally think the Swiss Focus Tree should be in the main game. (but that comes with almost every DLC in the game) It's really cool and it does represent switzerland but it's really confusing to work with. If I remember right you had the choice to get Axis Gold, but that also came with that you had to side with the axis and stuff? Pretty confusing stuff I have to say.

[@yoda9240]

I am also a Swiss history nerd and was very excited for them to get a tree. Originally I was a bit underwhelmed by the gameplay but I’ve learned how to do it. Once you play it a few times you learn how to manipulate your balance of power to go down all the different branches of the tree at once. In doing so, you also ensure the Germans don’t get so pissed off that they declare war on you. The flavor is on point and the fact that by the early 40’s I can have over 100 factories and 80 divisions as Switzerland is great.

[@funnySIMON99]

As a Belgian I'm afraid to have the same reaction to the Belgian focus tree once they (finally) make one

[@saopro21]

The fact that USSR isn't S tier is a war crime. The purge mechanics are interesting and take genuine skill to maneuver around. You have to take into account purge cooldown times, paranoia lowering focuses as well as decisions in order to get the least amount of non-focus purge event ppl killed (i.e., zero army generals/advisors and political advisors, because no one gives a shit about the soviet navy). Historical is really good, especially the race against time of getting your industry focuses (and using the research bonuses meaningfully) before barb. Even alt-history paths are good because of the pre-civil war buildup (choosing your capital, taking states, blaming ppl, swaying ppl, etc.) makes it interesting. The judgement you gave, to me, indicates someone who hasn't played with the country enough.

[@pizzaspy]

Mostly agree but what sucks about paranoia is the gamey aspect of counting days for each step. I know that is part of every tree to an extent but this one is like a year long puzzle where you plot out the entire plan in advance, and know exactly how it will go. Not really immersive and the opposite feeling of paranoia for the player.

[@604guy]

As someone who probably has 1000 hours with USSR, the only bad thing about soviet union is once you know what you're doing, you can just start steamrolling Germany at the start of Barbarossa and it kinda isnt fun since you then become SOOOOO overpowered via Lessons of War and Stalin's personality that not even nuclear war is a threat anymore

[@sumtenwitty6021]

Nah shifty commies

[@omgwind5217]

I disagree the monarcist path is lacking for me

[@604guy]

@@omgwind5217 agree the alternatives to communist paths are lame af

[@archer8849]

still sucks they didn't make Finland focus tree in NSB. I get they might wanna include them in future DLC around Scandinavian nations, but it feels it belongs more in NSB which is focused on German-Soviet war and it took direct part in it. in game playing as Soviet Union you can have a very easy winter war (or even skip it outright) and then forget about Finland altogether which is pretty ahistorical, because no Continuation war.

[@haukionkannel]

Well at least Finland Focus trees will be the new ones, so it could use many options to Italy, Ethiopia and so on, so there is possibility that New Finland focus tree can be actually fun to play. Most likely hard, but fun. Same as with Ethiopia!

[@weybye91]

sorry but doubt they will touch the scandinavian countries, else they would have done it by now

[@haukionkannel]

@@weybye91 The main point of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and to some extend Finland is. That their historical part in the war was quite boring. Finland did have Winter war and Continuation war, but that is that. In the last years Paradox has focused much more towards alternate histories and that can bring Scandinavia to the line. But... Lets see. They make these if old stuff sell well enough. When DLC stop selling, no point of making more of them.

[@weybye91]

@@haukionkannel the italian front barely had any italian soldiers involved, so why give them a an overhaul on the focus tree? the italians couldnt even fight the british without help. and in that logic the amaricans shouldnt even have a focus tree that focused on anything before 41

[@haukionkannel]

@@weybye91 Heh! Italy was players favorite "When we will get updated focus tree" It was almost meme. For me the old Italy was good beginner focus tree. Very OP and simple. And yeah historically Italy was bad, really bad. So if you play Italy historically, you should lose... badly ;) But they did add alternate history a lot and Now Italy can either suck a lot or be a superpower, but much much harder now than it was before. I don´t mind and with AI the Italy still seems to be bad, so it is working as intended :) I have stopped to look HOI4 seriously long time ago. It is sandbox game where most unlikely things happen quite often. Fun game to spend couple of hours, but it is not a history simulator by any standard!

[@afass.7447]

in my opinion the soviet tree is really great, if you are on historical and rush the purges you can avoid people randomly beeing purged fairly easy, at least if you have some pp for the purge decisions sved up. the propaganda mechanic is great and something really important to understand is, that you have to make decisions. Just ignore the red airforce if you want to focus on your industry, or dont do the propaganda if you want to rush your army improvements. And while the civil wars for the alt hist paths are tidious, the Right opposition communist path allows you to have a peacful coup if you chose so. as a side not i think all polish paths, historical or not are great

[@jba8472]

One thing that I think PDX should do is bring those older style trees up to par with the brand new ones. Currently it's possible to see "four eras" of focus trees within the game (1-first launch; 2-TfV and DoD; 3-WtT, LaR, BftB, and MtG; and 4-NSB and BBA). The generic tree is the only "era 1" tree left I think, but it's painfully obvious at times that some of the era 2 and 3 trees need some work to get up to the era 4 current standard. Edit: Forgot BftB and LaR

[@andreikovacs3476]

I see it a little different: First era: launch focuses+P:UaR Second era: TfV Third era: DoD+WtT Fourth era: MtG+LaR+BftB Fifth era: NSB+BBA

[@krasnamerah1926]

@@andreikovacs3476 1st Era: 1.0 and 1.1 (P:UaR), they did say that Poland was meant to be for 1.0 but hasn't been completed by release date 2nd Era: 1.3 (TfV) and 1.4 (DoD), first DLCs that are kinda meh but passable when compared to previous focus trees for 1.1 3rd Era: 1.5 (WtT) and 1.6 (MtG), introduce stability-war support, decisions, ship designer, and fuel. The focus trees are built around them and start to be meatier than the previous ones. 4th Era: 1.9 (LaR) and 1.10 (BftB), the Dork era. They kinda overcomplicated the DLC-only mechanics and as a result the focus trees are kinda meh despite the sizes are bigger than 3rd Era 5th Era: 1.11 (NSB), transitional era from Daniel's leadership to Peter's. A nice parting gift from Dirkus and James too despite they scrapped the Constitutional Monarchy path. Soviet focus tree would still not ended by 1949 but is exciting. Baltics are good, Poland reworked is great. Reworked supply mechanics is superb too. 6th Era: 1.12 (BBA) until now, first production headed by Peter. Italy's focus tree is clearly reworked with Early Cold War in mind. Plane designer is so-so but Balance of Power has so much potential. Ethiopia is good and meant for experienced players, also Switzerland for the seasoned ones.

[@alexraney2312]

When you go from a tree with lots of 35 day get 2 factory focuses, to an older one with a 70 day build a railroad, it is staggeri g

[@squashyhex9818]

I do think Yugoslavia's recent changes warrant a boost out of its technical TfV era, the choice between splitting your nation up entirely, and whether or not to put it back together again, makes for an interesting game

[@user-fu1yt7vb8h]

Still major issue I have with Japan is that once you start your big war you’re stuck in it. Like ok so you expect me to go all the way to England to knock them out?

[@haukionkannel]

As it should! As it should. If you are war monger (Germany / Japan) you either kick everyone or everyone kick you!

[@user-fu1yt7vb8h]

@@haukionkannel ok but that’s the issue, with Germany a peace deal isn’t too hard, just operation sea lion barbarosa and maybe invade the USA. With Japan you either track through the entire Siberian peninsula, Sail all the way to Europe and set up a naval invasion or try to take control of the largest body of water in the world

[@TexanNative]

I love Spains focus tree, I can’t believe he said Raj’s is better 😢

[@netherflowers]

Omg, the Spanish Empire and Anarchist Spain paths are so good !!

[@masterdong8676]

True. I need to try the carlist and communist paths, but for now only the Republican path is shit in the spanish Focus tree, at least in my oppinion. Nationalist tree is okay and anarchsit path is so good. Carlist path seems very good too

[@adrianbeltran6925]

​@@masterdong8676 when a player in multiplayer chooses spain you know that he's a troll or a psycho because you wont know what is going to do with his life until it would be too late xddd

[@masterdong8676]

@@adrianbeltran6925 unless you see the anarchists winning the civil war. Then everyone knows they are fucked

[@guillefive7241]

He hate Spain, its too obvious

[@strikestehl]

On the subject of nations changing paths if your major nation does, I had an extremely bizarre incident that happened on historical when I went for some German Empire achievements. When I won my civil war as Germany, Britain went Fascist. All of a sudden things went drastically different as I spent my time setting up against the British Empire. Things went even weirder when Italy lost the war in Ethiopia because of course they would, starting a communist uprising. I restored the Central Powers and consumed France, then defended against the Allies consisting of Fascist Britain, Communist Italy, and Ethiopia once they went in on the war. It was an absolutely fascinating game to play resulting in all of Europe and Africa allied together as the Soviets declared war on a Central Powers-aligned Poland. So having a neighbor change ideologies in response to you is a great way to spice things up.

[@zaph8015]

I kind of like that, yeah. I noticed that if you do the Alliance with the Shade path as German Empire (for certain reasons I will not spoil for those who don't know), France will go communist. Not just because you exile your own commies there causing them to flip, but because they will actively go down the communist path in their focus tree. It's actually one of the few cases where PDX had enough foresight to think about making the game somewhat balanced in alt-history scenarios.

[@Rudron1]

I feel a little bit sad for Czechoslovakia focus tree, even more after trying The Road to 56. We were one of the most industrial countries at that time, with massive industry, a professional army with around 280k people and after mobilization 1,25 million people and more importantly advanced for that time, sadly history showed what happened, and after literally getting backstabbed by mainly France, just surrended.

[@wolfsoldner9029]

cope

[@seangallagher9435]

Any tree with a unification path (that isn’t asinine to get like the byzantines) is a great path. Poland Estonia and Lithuania are all my favorite trees because you have so many options. Also I kind of like the older ones. Romania is a fairly strong country with some good manpower, similar to turkey, but you can just start going almost immediately. If they redid Romania i can bet you they would have so much bloat with changing nationality, balancing fascism, give them massive army debuffs that would make Romania a chore for the first 4 years of the game.

[@CoffeeSuccubus]

Italy went from F tier to S tier for me. That's hilarious. The worst tree, meme tree, becomes swole doge

[@ardzemhm]

Ever since I got EU4 i just noticed how much better it is that hoi4, at least singleplayer or mini multiplayer wise. There's so many better features I could go into, but the main differences I'd say are the missions instead of focus trees, they just feel so much more rewarding and can be done at a very fast pace if you know what you're doing, instead of always having to wait for a set amount of days, and the other thing would be the wars, in hoi4 everything is a death war, if you want to take like one province or something you go into an all out war where its all or nothing, which draws the wars out for way too long sometimes just because you wanted something very little to make your boarders nicer or to form a nation.

[@AWESOMERACECAR2013]

i agree, EU4 feels like you are in control of your nation a lot more and it feels much more like a sandbox than HOI4. diplomacy and economy are so much better in EU4, the only thing HOI4 really has going for it is ease of access for new players and warfare (excluding peace deals).

[@squashyhex9818]

I'd honestly strongly disagree, I find EU4's mission trees to often be very unrewarding. Temporary buffs for completing objectives being most common as a reward just isn't that fun

[@ikeamaistr4288]

I feel Spain is very good. Unlike in every other Focus trees Spain has military, political, economical and research put into this one big tree and that feels fairly unique. Anarchists are super fun, having the ability to effectively core any territory you conquer is interesting, the rest is pretty okay too, gives you all sorts of flavours... I'd give it at least solid A. Sure it can feel "linear" since its just "going down through the tree" but you have all options right at the start of the game and it is up to you which path you'll take. I agree with the rest. I'd very love to see Asian nations Focus tree tweaked. Japan needs proper alt. paths, Chinese warlords could use their own small focus trees and complete overhaul of the "All-Chinas focus tree" part. Also Australia and New Zealand could use a bit more love too.

[@segiraldovi]

The Nationalist get really good bonuses, anarquist allow to core every territory, Monarchist has crusade against democracy and allows you to core portugal and get parts of france, Franco allows you to finish the war quickly(for me it was like mid 1937), the only bad one is the republic. So for my is an A too.

[@francisquito4590]

@@segiraldovi the worst one is the commie path where the USSR gets the crown of aragon (which is like, 2/3rds of your industry when you finish the war) and you have to fight them

[@saiien2]

Czechoslovakia definitely need a rework. Most of the older focus trees need it.

[@jaredsheehan480]

I can understand the paranoia mechanics being annoying, but it is manageable and not entirely RNG if you know the best way to keep it down (satisfy reports and inspect the navy, those two keep it down for the most part and cause the least damage). I've played numerous Stalin runs where I kept paranoia down and still kept certain advisors. You have to play Stalin once and do his purges to know who gets removed no matter what. If you have knowledge on that then you can pick your advisors pretty easy. Overall, the Soviet tree is one of my favourites, had huge amount of fun with it. Everyone's got their different tastes though at the end of day! Oh and Switzerland is a bit mind boggling. It's pretty confusing honestly on where you suppose to go on that tree. It's a bit of a politics simulator than a traditional HOI4 experience, which is quite different. Don't hate it, but it is a dense complicated tree.

[@Mrcoffe-xw8gz]

Poland should be A or even S imo. Although the monarchist paths are the most OP, other paths are really fun. Loyal German puppet path is actually great fun, colonial Poland is cool, and can make for a fun exiled aythrough where you cap yourself and try to return. Sanacja is also preety fun, with either massive faction path and path where you conquer the baltics and Czechoslovakia. Many people underestimate the fun and power of other paths, only because the monarchist ones are one of the most OP paths in the game.

[@johngalt5166]

The French tree is great but it hurts me that the Orlienist monarchy doesn’t get a decent National spirit at the end

[@detroitdave9512]

I feel like every country paradox "updates" now more just cripples and them and adds a slog of focuses to distract you doing a bunch of maintenance and fixing until the war starts. It gives you much less freedom as a player imo.

[@seanboothby3112]

Mexico's focus tree is my favorite by far. Such a flexible path that you can play Mexico 100 times and have 100 different games as silly as that sounds. There's a reason it's my most played nation.

[@bradpitt5355]

I like how some streamer point out - Czech focus tree- > "give up Sudetenland and let germany just kill you, who on earth will go whit that .ty path" .... well historicaly Czechoslovakia kind of go that path.

[@emilsoderman3691]

One problem wiht the dutch focus tree is that because ofhow the gateway to europe stuff works the AI can't do any of the alternate paths, so even if you set it to do so it just gets stuck.

[@DarthAnimal]

The biggest disappointment is that NONE of the focus tress get updated to match new mechanics. No other country than spain gets to use the spanish civil war mechanics, despite civil wars being in their focus tree, because they came out before that update

[@zaph8015]

Man, I understand the sentiment, but THANK GOD other countries don't have to do those f%$@ing offensives. It's just there to drag the SCW out. If I'm halfway decent at the game, let me use my skills to win the war quicker. I get there are some edge cases where you can meme it with naval invasions and stuff but that is so annoyingly tedious. Other than that I think Spain and the CW mechanics are solid.

[@eleanorgreywolfe5142]

Yeah, thank god they don't. I absolutely despise the Spanish Civil War. Instead of coming up with interesting ways to make it a prolonged conflict, they instead put massive debuffs on every province so you can't do fuck all except press offensive buttons. Then when you win you are rewarded with having to recore your own damn territory. Horrible system, it is genuinely the most unfun experience i have ever had in this game.

[@UnoThief]

my main issue with the USA tree is how the alt history paths make little sense but the fascist tree in specific is really odd the concept of restoring the CSA had kinda died out by this point, there wasn't really a neo confederate movement until the 60s which was in response to the civil rights movement so that entire idea is a bit ridiculous on it's own, especially since the Fascist path isn't breaking off from the North it's taking over the US fully and the leaders you can get being Pelley or MacArthur don't make much sense either, MacArthur came from a Union military family and Pelley was born in Massachusetts the communist tree is also strange in it's own right, in specific how they're just able to simply merge the USSR and USA just like that without any international outrage as a Communist mega state gets formed, alongside that their understanding of Browder is REALLY surface level, his early bill of rights socialism concepts aren't even mentioned.

[@UnoThief]

Oh and GOD i hope they rework China's tree, i think it's the only tree in the game where there ISN'T a historical path, cause the KMT was def not on track to democratization under Chaing around this time

[@TupaOtdihaju]

My opinion about Germany. Her focuses really need to be reworked, as many of them don't really fit with the historicity. Not to mention the demilitarized Rhineland, which should be on the entire border with France. Also, my favorite topic is the Reichkomassariats. Not only are there few of them, they do not correspond to historicity along the borders. Sorry for my English. I wrote everything with a translator

[@fernandoluis5117]

I like the France focus tree. It's real challenging, you have to rush hard to reach focuses in order to get rid of the bad national spirits while also having to keep an eye in the military to have a decent army when the germans invade.

[@alekj3104]

I cannot understand why the British raj tree is higher than Soviet Union

[@AK-bm1yl]

Spain has the worst gameplay. The Civil War that if you don't cheese will take a year at least, and then you don't have cores on your own territory, so you have to spend more resources and PP to get them back as a core. You don't play the game until 1943

[@wilson2182]

Hungary needs to utilize the new personal union subject mechanics that Poland and Lithuania got in NSB. That would make Austria-Hungary a lot less frustrating due to the needless RNG

[@robertdragan2333]

I personaly don t agree with you Dave on the French focus tree. The industrial tree mainly upsets me because it s extremly underpowerd (70 days for 2 building lots+ 70 days to build factorys) i usually just rush the research slots because france, a great power starts with only 3 (less than the italians)

[@franconbean]

I haven't played India since the recent improvements, but last time I did, I discovered that it's possible to essentially lock yourself out of the tree if you take the far left path and both Germany and the Soviets have a civil war

[@morange492]

The civil war is also completely busted if United Kingdom goes ahistorical and releases you prior to kicking off the war from the Indian people's army/indian national army focus (unless that's been fixed in the update). You could have like 90% support and yet when the war starts you have one province and no soldiers no matter what

[@guybrushthreepwood362]

Honestly the worst part of decolonizing in HOI 4 is that all the new countries run down their focuses and spit out units equipment and relation interactions that cause the game to eat all the memory on your PC

[@shadowfox8537]

I enjoyed France’s but I do wish the alt history paths were a little longer. It has been a little since I played them though.

[@bartusaron5909]

Hungary had great potential , but the result is pretty sad, there are some good mods tho

[@sandercohen5543]

I just came here after rage-quitting for the first time in my life from hoi4, because i realized that there is no way to reverse the hyperinflation caused by the chinese focus tree. I just spent half a day micromanaging the long march through siberia, invading the soviet union in reverse, and now i'm stuck with hyperinflation for the rest of the game? cmon paradox... Edit: I get that you don't have to do all the focuses, but when you're playing a nation for the first time, you kinda just do them all to see what happens, and the fact it literally seems like you're not meant to do all of them just rubs me the wrong way... It feels unfinished.

[@ordinaryrat]

There is a way, you take a focus which gives you decisions.

[@filippogamer2994]

I love that Italy and Mexico brothers of flag are the only s tier for you

[@Backebo10]

The UKs decolonise for the commies would be okay if it didn't lag the game so much, that has honestly always been the biggest issue with it

[@emilsoderman3691]

One thing with the chinese focus tree is that it really doesen't have any real alternate history path, which feels weird. You'd think there'd be a Wang Jiangwei collaboration path, or a more fashy Chiang-path, but no, not really.

[@VarenvelDarakus]

what i hate about some focus tree's is if you go certain paths it locks you out from a lot things lots other minors "dont even need focus tree for" and some are way way too long , like 70 days for 1-2 factories i think(and hear me out) there should be system to reduce focus tree time on some focuses , similar like research bonus works , and this would work only in non-political ones (ones who not gain your wargoals or change countries) , like getting 1 50% reduction in next industry focus Could maybe cost PP , maybe id work like american thing where you have to build something , or like musollini missions where you do X , and if you do you get focus cost reduction as all other mechanics got something like that , like reserch getting bonuses or reductions , but focus tree alweys...have same time , where you get to point quite quickly that " all these take too long and not worth the time" maybe also system that "early(ones near top) focuses get cheaper very slowely as game goes on? , so even if they give you not much , they be fast to do.

[@seangallagher9435]

Yeah I’d say it’s fine to block you off from progressing down a tree, but it would give you time to work on other parts of the tree.

[@leofwulf268]

the fact that they gave the baltic peeps trees for some reason but haven't given jack to austria, sweden or belgium is gay

[@FeedbackIRL]

NPC they given XXXX but not XXXX beep boop 💩

[@leofwulf268]

@@FeedbackIRL I got a reply LESS GOOOOOOO

[@YunWeiLi]

The soviet union's focus tree is my favorite anyway.It has a lot of buffs especially efficiency cap.it also requires people to try hard to defend GER.Italy's focus tree is B-,it is too easy and too alternative.

[@swisscheese6664]

I’d have to disagree about Mexico and Switzerland. Mexico to me is one of the worst, and Switzerland is my favorite nation to play as

[@FeedbackIRL]

500% bad take

[@cirokistermann7834]

I know the video is old now, but I don't know what problem the person(s) have with the purge, it is extremely simple to deal with, you can do 3 focuses of 35 days before choosing the 2 focuses necessary to go to Stalin (i.e. the first to choose communism, the second to choose Stalin), since when you choose Stalin the purge drops by -20, so you are 2 points away, from there it is standard, you only have to make decisions about 3 or 4 times , 2 of falsifying production reports, one from the navy and another from the air force, then you can remove the purge.

[@MB-eb9ed]

Sinkiang is the secret ultimate world power. Going opposition path means cores on China and also you have a formable nation if you take over Soviets for even more cores. You can basically be late game soviets x2

[@squashyhex9818]

Wait what, they have an extra formable?!

[@MB-eb9ed]

@@squashyhex9818 on decisions tab it’s the one called “Unite the Turks.” I unlocked it once after annexing Soviets. The picture near it implies you need more land than that but you don’t

[@zegmakker5869]

they are strong but rly annoying to make work bc of that horrible start they have (no supply, no units, no guns)

[@GaleN956]

Personally my favorite focus tree is polish one (definitely not because i am a Pole :)). The sanation "historical" path is my favorite, because you need to juggle between left side and right side and get as many bonuses as you can while not getting yourself into a civil war. You also need to take care of peasant revolt and remove economy embargo while preparing for german onslaught.

[@raginasiangaming910]

Personally, I love the British Monarchy focus tree. I know, it doesn't have a whole lot to it (most of it is just war goals). Still, it's got some fun, alt-history flavor. Like what if, in the wake of WW1, the British monarchy had gained more power and decided to restore and strengthen the Empire? Plus turning the US into a monarchist puppet is sort of funny. I ended up playing through and bringing monarchy back to all of Europe.

[@Admiral_Jezza]

The less powerful nations seem to have better focus trees and the more powerful or influential nations have worst focus trees. I think it's because it's easy to give a less powerful nation bonuses (or fixes to debuffs), where giving a powerful nation a good focus tree would risk making it overpowered.

[@yoda9240]

It’s because more influential nations were given focus trees first, and newer trees tend to be designed better since Paradox has gotten more practice.

[@user-yj6ul9kz3p]

You are wrong, Italy is strong while Japan is weak, it is ridiculous.

[@JWaltter]

As a country with the generic fous tree, like Finland, if you go to civil war with the navy first focus on and it finishes while at civil war, you get bouble naval factories.

[@Mr.Thunderer]

it would be interesting to see balance of power in ussr or usa with possibility of right opposition coup tree or the actual rework of usa political focuses based on balance of power mechanics

[@kingsarues1586]

Something you missed is the facist Australia path is literally bugged. Theres a focus which has a zero percent chance to work no matter what you do. It also has a focus that asks you to give up land to join a faction you can join for free. So Australia is pretty much only playable historically.

[@Moomoo254]

Really wish they would flesh out the individual Chinese warlords trees, they deserve more flavor.

[@captain_toonces_8041]

Tbh as a Canadian I think they could’ve done so much more. They could’ve had a war of independence tree, which could lead into a war with the USA. Canada could be a very interesting minor country, if they do a rework of the tree.

[@raycegumpxx2209]

The balance of power system would be good implemented everywhere, but it’s still in development, and BBA acts as an early access for it

[@thepinebros.1873]

You really don't have to decolonize for the communist UK path, everyone keeps saying it's necessary but it's not. I formed the imperial federation before the civil war and it's incredible easy to beat

[@krasnamerah1926]

Japan's old focus tree has "Our own way" foci that only creates "Dai Toa Kyoeiken" focus.... Kinda meh.

[@dripball]

Soviet and turkish focus trees are underrated

[@WhoMadeThisBurger69]

Turkish one is long and confusing... But it is a very good focus tree yes.

[@dripball]

@@WhoMadeThisBurger69 I like them because they are historically accurate (if compare to others)

[@kickassgreek]

it felt like the american civil war was just ctrl c + ctrl v from kaiserreich

[@orsonbrawl4529]

I really really like playing Hungary. I guess less for the focus tree and more for all the chances for interaction throughout the game.

[@101jir]

Yeah, Raj focus tree isn't great but they are really fun to play if you are comfortable playing more defensively. You're a lot weaker than Japan, but Japan will modify how many troops they send your way to hold off but they aren't too focused on advancing versus Phillipines or Indonesia, or China if they haven't finished yet. Basically the better you do, the harder it gets but you slow down Japan's progress on their primary goals. The worse you do, the more Japan pulls out for other operations. All this is only to an extent, until Japan either completes their main goals and focuses on you or the war in Europe ends and Britain sends a ton of support. The other fun thing is how distinct each front is. You can send a small, elite force to hold off in the Himalayas if China is defeated. I already described Burma somewhat, but additionally the length of that frontline fluctuates wildly. Then of course you have coastline protection, which generally requires good raiding capability and a mobile force to mop up anything that arrives.

[@bobi88899]

The historical Poland path is actually really strong, I had no problem fighting the Germans and Soviets at the same time and it was a lot of fun.

[@SteventheMoai]

What screen mode do you play on? Fullscreen, borderless or windowed?

[@theentertainer6198]

The UK Monarchist path doesn’t involve a civil war and if you do the Blackshirts path the Civil War can be done before the end of 1936. And also you get the ability to form the EU.

[@TheCutePillow]

As a Turk i completely agree on you with the turkish focus tree it seem like much but it is not and i feel like they didnt put much effort in the focus tree they just said yea make it look like there is so much to do but you dont really need to make it good just make it seem like it is good.

[@gabrielspringsteen2605]

I feel as if Germany, Japan, and China need a complete overhaul of their focuses

[@emib6599]

I don't agree about generic focus three positions. You can quickly change ideology and get on conquest very early and you can also switch between ideologies. 7% more recruitable population it's a lot. You can try to rush planes or tanks. It's good for min mxing for world conquest

[@redcrown5154]

yeah but is it fun?

[@Tricerius]

The critique about civil war for the SU is understandable, but it's definitely not D tier. The potential brought about by it's tree is immense, though it does lead to a rather linear experience because you're invariably incentivized to do purge things first to get them out of the way, and then rush 5YP to make sure you don't get locked out by a war with a major. True in historical, very true in ahistorical where you can get randomly declared by say, nonaligned Japan. The purge mechanic is a non issue considering it's managed well. You either don't have to kill anyone that doesn't get killed by the foci tree already, or you can gut your naval officers which let's be real, it's virtually free for the SU anyways. I think that a B to A rating is fair. It's not Italy S tier because I think that Italy adds more flavor (one of the only main reasons to go non-Stalin communist, from memory, is keep Tukhachevsky), doesn't need a civil war (barring communist italy), isn't hamstrung by the purge, and relatively speaking Italy has more potential because of mare nostrum. But still, sharing a spot with Japan which is rather underwhelming is certainly not it.

[@darkdragonsoul99]

I do love the papal states it's a shame I can never seem to manage to get it finished before 1941

[@Ariel_Alpaca]

When it comes to Italy for me personally I don't have a sudden thought to rush down on the political tree and the only war is related to the Balkans and only focus on development and militarisation

[@zentiphy8663]

I wouldn’t really call the Marco Polo bridge incident a complete debut as you can literally just let china attack you and waste troops till you take the decisions to get rid of those debuffs and eventually get buffs against them

[@davidduszek709]

I play dem. Japan all the time in rt56, it's very fun to invade the soviets from siberia!

[@thomasjames9678]

I had a problem with focus trees from the beginning of HOI IV. It is just a never ending job for the developers and it also railroad's the player's experience. It got a little better when they introduced "Decisions" but before that it was so generic, boring and railroaded for the playthrough. 70 days and boom 3 mil factories bugs me... I agree, I think Italy has one of the best as it isn't just focuses that build factories out of thin air but actual political focuses that would help build up the nation and take those negative modifiers off. Also, Germany could easily have that as well. But again, they would have to reformat the tree, this would be the 3rd time doing so...

[@mr.fijeron]

For me generic focus tree is the best, additional 7% of manpower is just, damn, and you also can Create your own fraction as , I don’t know Ireland

[@deilusi]

what I think is missing is randomness at start. If you are not historical, why some nations did not make literally random breakthroughs, or during the game, make an event that just finishes one of the research, regardless of what it is and how advanced it was, and trigger it once in nation "life". Add to that random resource for each nation, poland got 4 steel, germany get 2 oil in its coast. and game would get way less memorizable, much more interesting. Either that or that certain pieces of focus tree move up, like amtracks go earlier, and need interwar tank, not better one, for certain nations, but make it less reliable for example. or rockets/rocket arty, being available at start of the war. Most changed you can do in vanilla is to permanently strengthen or weaken certain nations. just random tiny tweaks, that make the history less hardcored where you start.

[@panoskappos2735]

i dont know i love playing soviet and france their focus tree feels so good and you have things to do throught the war not until 1939 like most nations

[@otamabinladen6005]

In the Right Opposition path in the Soviet focus tree, you can avoid a civil war.

[@SmallDeemoAzeri]

I agree with what he put in the higher tears. But the E and F tears are very miss placed. I simple cant get under how he put New Zealand over Turkey

[@liamgriffin218]

The thing I hate most about the USSR is that it takes me out of the game, I'm supposedly the leader of the country yet I have no control over who gets purged and I have to keep track of Stalin's (my own?) paranoia? As the USA I feel more like a president in that I have to make sure I have the support of Congress to unlock certain focuses or as Germany I feel like a dictator conquering other nations. The USSR just feels out of place

[@101jir]

7:55 "that gain you nothing." Fortify the border is honestly really nice if the USSR attacks. Makes it a lot easier to keep them at bay while the bulk of your forces are elsewhere (e.g. invading US). As for the others, you didn't even mention the biggest weakness: if Manchukuo goes assertiveness, it works against you as they will be stronger when they fight you. Only take after they have chosen obedience or have been defeated in war. Also, I presume if you are going ahistorical focuses, the difference in power by building them up early likely increases the chance they will ho assertiveness in the first place. It's just a whole bunch of focuses that are really punishing to take prematurely.

[@banjo3960]

hold on, the Swiss focus tree is actually *playable* , I havent gone to war as switzerland even when I play non historical, but still

[@mpk4712]

The Argument about the polish Focus Tree that its historical Path is not good and thus it should be in a lower tier i find a bit dumb, because who would even go historical when you play Poland? You will be getting destroyed between the UDSSR and Germany. No one would pick this

[@ilgufo1146]

The thumbnail is actually the final result of the video. Amazing

[@General_Karl4350]

we NEED a south/central American DLC

[@slimtrim7751]

I'm in desperate need of understanding how to get Spain on the anarchist path but I cannot get out of the civil war.

[@3rg025]

My favourite is Manchukuo while the least favourite must be Greece. Hungary is pretty good imo, but certainly not for replaying it several times

[@AndrewBunch1]

I think the Romanian focus tree is very underrated. It is a very simple one but is very powerful

[@wetwillyis_1881]

I think that the only thing wrong with the Japanese one is the alt-hist stuff. I really like it.

[@ayuvir]

Shout out to Portugal in A tier. As a Portuguese myself, I am amazed that Paradox did a decent job with the focus tree though I've a big issue with it. The most fun path is the Portuguese empire one and it never really embraces the meme of remaking the empire. What I mean to say is that Portugal's ambitions for an empire extended to Africa, India and possibly China. For some reason Paradox decided to dismiss China and India and put the African conquest on another path. As a tradeoff the path gets wargoals on the entirety of South America, which you can't really benefit from since Big Brother is watching by the time you get to that decision. If Paradox ever update Portugal when they decide to make a Brazil Focus tree I'd like them to update the Empire path to be something kinda like the Italian mega pope path, just go all in on the ridiculousness of this one small country finding former "glory" and deciding to curbstomp England's overseas dominion.

[@lukas54cz71]

I think they made Switzerland like that so it can stay neutral and historical because AI will do every kind of focus tree it can, It is not even an Ai by the way lmao.

[@aronmirk2161]

Poland is easilly S tier just by the monarchist path itself. Yeah its kinda annoying when it comes to the defence focuses wich adds a unit or 2 to either german or soviet border.

[@WarrHunter]

Thanks for video! Must try Italy and Portugal. I played over 200h only for 5 nations. Germany is too easy, but solo commie china was really enjoy tool. Sad thing is czechoslovakia. I found in mod road 56 everything was much more accurate. Like Thomas Bata (king of shoes), or "Air is our sea", generals name (Lůža was gran grandpa of my wifes husband!) And it is in mod, not in core game sadly. So thank you! I must try Italy

[@bucket1442]

Me waiting 70 days for 1 civ factory Me also waiting 70 days for 6 civ factories in a different nation

[@iseeyou5061]

France honestly feels like an underwhelming focus tree. Many trees takes 70 days without significant pay off although it still works well enough. Boring and somewhat underwhelming i rate it C Italy being S tier i agree though definitely my most fun nation regardless which route i take

[@FlinzPrime]

Generally there is two common problems with current focus trees. Either they are too long to get through and you waste a lot of time wating to get somewhere or they just total mess compared to each other where one nation has straight choices while another just barely holds with all that taping. Focuses should be something that gives direction how to develop nation, who you are siding with and such. Not ten focuses next to each other to get one factory, then 5 army xp, then 20 political power. Sure bonuses can be there but that's not what focues should be for. Italian tree is good example of what it can be when it works. Same time soviet tree is horrible example of tree that works for historical sense but is horrible for actual focus tree. Soviets have it bad even for historical sense as you mostly just go through it without achieving much else than trying minimize purge damge.

[@olodinful]

Have you actually played as Soviets? It's seems like no since you talk about purge mechanics being a fundamental problem. For Stalin's path it is own mini-game that you play and if you know what to do (which pretty simple thing - just rush political focus tree while doing simple math of counting how many focuses you can complete until next big purge focus and how many paranoia you shall accumulate while doing other focuses). If you get the pattern, it very easy to finish last Big Purge without killing any of non-scripted generals/advisors and if someone thinks that it’s “too complicated” than I can’t get how this people learned to play HoI4. If you do everything correctly you finish your purges after 840 days (easy math) which is just a middle of 38 year - you will have the same amount of free time to do anything else and prepare for Barbarossa and I’m not even talking that you have to take other focuses during purges due to 175 days time-gates and the paranoia reducing focuses in Stalin’s tree gives you nice bonuses as well. And regarding other paths - you don’t care about most purges at all since it’s gives your faction more people support, by blaming some general other generals get “cowed by Stalin” trait that makes it more likely that they side with you and only Stalin keeps the debuffs when civil war starts.

[@Prauwlet213]

1:02 I gotta disagree. Firstly, Germany exists as a country that is simple to play, good for beginners, as you are in control of ww2. Other countries have become complicated and convoluted, but Germany exists as a nice, simple nation to play from time to time, when the newer focus trees are too much to handle. Secondly, the whole power struggles in Germany never really existed until Germany started to lose. The SS and the army were both loyal to Hitler for most of the war, and the balance of power would make no sense.

[@SkraLord]

Hoping for Sweden , Finland , Norway , Denmark. Probably won’t get all 4 at once if at all.