hpp sf manual
TRANSCRIPT
1
The
Historical Plausibility Project
for
Hearts of Iron IIIHearts of Iron IIIHearts of Iron IIIHearts of Iron III Semper FiSemper FiSemper FiSemper Fi
2
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................................. 4
INSTALLATION............................................................................................................................................... 4
INTERFACE AND GENERAL GAME CONCEPTS....................................................................................... 5
MAINTENANCE.................................................................................................................................................... 5 CORES ................................................................................................................................................................. 5 GEOGRAPHICAL CHANGES................................................................................................................................... 6 LEADERSHIP........................................................................................................................................................ 6 WAR EXHAUSTION.............................................................................................................................................. 6 START DATE ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 GREAT WARS...................................................................................................................................................... 7 DECISIONS AND EVENTS ..................................................................................................................................... 7
ECONOMICS........................................................................................................................................................ 8
RESOURCES......................................................................................................................................................... 8 STORAGE EVENTS................................................................................................................................................ 8 MONEY AND INVESTMENT................................................................................................................................... 8
PRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 9
UNITS.................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Land............................................................................................................................................................... 9 Naval ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Air.................................................................................................................................................................. 9
PORT CAPACITY ................................................................................................................................................ 10 BUILDINGS ........................................................................................................................................................ 10 CONVOYS AND ESCORTS ................................................................................................................................... 10
DIPLOMACY...................................................................................................................................................... 11
LEADERSHIP...................................................................................................................................................... 11 THE DIPLOMATIC TRIANGLE ............................................................................................................................. 11 DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS AND THE AI ................................................................................................................... 12 FACTIONS.......................................................................................................................................................... 12
TECHNOLOGY.................................................................................................................................................. 13
BUILD COST....................................................................................................................................................... 13 PRACTICAL LIMIT .............................................................................................................................................. 13 TECHNOLOGY CHANGES.................................................................................................................................... 13
Infantry ........................................................................................................................................................ 14 Armour......................................................................................................................................................... 15 Escort and Capital....................................................................................................................................... 16 Bomber and Fighter .................................................................................................................................... 18 Industry........................................................................................................................................................ 20 Secret ........................................................................................................................................................... 21 Theory.......................................................................................................................................................... 22 Land Doctrines ............................................................................................................................................ 23 Operational Doctrine .................................................................................................................................. 25 Naval Doctrines........................................................................................................................................... 26 Air Doctrines ............................................................................................................................................... 27
POLITICS ........................................................................................................................................................... 28
LAWS ................................................................................................................................................................ 28 STANDING ARMY VS. DRAFTED ARMY ............................................................................................................. 30 LAWS AND IDEOLOGIES ..................................................................................................................................... 30 CHANGED MINISTER TRAITS ............................................................................................................................. 31 GOVERNMENT TYPES ........................................................................................................................................ 31
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POLITICAL CRISES............................................................................................................................................. 32 CHANGING THE GOVERNMENT TYPE ................................................................................................................ 33 OCCUPATION POLICIES ..................................................................................................................................... 33
INTELLIGENCE................................................................................................................................................ 34
LOWER NEUTRALITY ........................................................................................................................................ 34 OTHER CHANGES............................................................................................................................................... 34
SUPPLY ............................................................................................................................................................... 35
UNITS .................................................................................................................................................................. 36
UNIT TYPES....................................................................................................................................................... 36 Land............................................................................................................................................................. 36 Naval ........................................................................................................................................................... 37 Air................................................................................................................................................................ 38
UNIT SIZES ........................................................................................................................................................ 39 OOBS................................................................................................................................................................ 39
LAND WARFARE.............................................................................................................................................. 40
NAVAL WARFARE........................................................................................................................................... 41
STRATEGIC EFFECTS .................................................................................................................................... 42
VICTORY CONDITIONS ................................................................................................................................. 43
FAQ ...................................................................................................................................................................... 44
TROUBLESHOOTING ..................................................................................................................................... 46
CREDITS............................................................................................................................................................. 48
HPP-TEAM........................................................................................................................................................ 48 THIRD-PARTY WORK ........................................................................................................................................ 48 OTHER CONTRIBUTORS ..................................................................................................................................... 48
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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Historical Plausibility Project! This mod is an attempt to create a historically correct setup but
from then on allow the events to unfold on their own. Decisions will have their consequences, but you can forge
your own path. The AI will usually follow a more or less historical route, but it is capable of making decisions
based on the circumstances, so you can't expect it to make the historical choices. You will always have to be
prepared for the unexpected.
This manual will explain some of the features and changes of the mod. While writing the manual, I assumed that
you are familiar with the base mechanics of the game or at least read the original manual, including the one for
the Semper Fi expansion. (Which is required for this version of the mod. If you don't own the expansion, then
you can try our earlier version for the vanilla game. If you have For the Motherland as well, you can look for a
HPP version for that expansion on the Paradox forums!)
I won't go into detail for every single event or decision we made, you will have to explore them yourself. As a
rule of thumb, don't expect events to take care of your problems.
INSTALLATION
1. Download the latest version for Semper Fi.
2. Find your '\Hearts of Iron 3\mod' folder.
3. If you have a previous installation, you will need to delete that. Remove the '\HoI3\mod\HPP' folder and
the '\HoI3\mod\HPP.mod' file.
4. Unrar the files to '\Hearty of Iron 3\mod'.
5. Start the game with the launcher, select 'Historical Plausibility Project' in the "Select mod to play" list,
and hit "Start HoI3". Wait until it gets to the Main Menu, then quit the game.
6. Go to your ‘\HoI3\mod\HPP\map’ folder and copy the ‘\cache’ folder into your ‘\HoI3\map’ folder,
overwriting the ‘\cache’ folder there. (Missing this step will result in purple blobs all over the map.)
7. You can use the optional colored HQ counters included in the file "coloured_hqs.rar". To use them,
unrar the .rar file in the mod folder and overwrite when prompted.
8. Restart the game with the launcher.
9. Have fun!
Instructions for Steam users:
If you want to choose between vanilla and the HPP using the game's launcher:
1) Install the mod using the first five bullets above
2) Navigate to the game's folder. It should be in .../steam/steamapps/common/hearts of iron 3
3) Make a shortcut of hoi3.exe on your desktop
4) Start the launcher by clicking on the shortcut
5) In the bottom-middle you should see a drop-down box that says Default. Change that to the HPP
6) Start the game by clicking the Start HOI3 button
If you want to launch the mod using Steam:
1) Install the mod using the first five bullets above
2) Go to the Library tab in Steam
3) Right click Hearts of Iron III and choose "properties"
4) Click the "Set Launch Options" button
5) Enter the following into the space, then press OK: -mod HPP
6) Start the game
NOTE: In order to use a different mod in your mod folder or go back to vanilla, you will need to undo step 5
and make the text box be blank. You will also need to delete the map cache (the contents of the
‘../steam/steamapps/common/hearts of iron 3/map/cache’ folder), otherwise the game will crash on load.
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INTERFACE AND GENERAL GAME CONCEPTS
Maintenance
Some of the features we wanted to include require decisions or events. We didn't want to cause any hassle for the
player (nor open exploits), so we decided to add a neutral nation to take care of such tasks. Sort of like a janitor.
This country is called GOD in the game. (Any resemblance to in the name to any existing or supposedly existing
entities is purely coincidental.) So, sometimes you will get notified by events happening to GOD, decisions made
by GOD or GOD annexing GOD. Don't be alarmed by that, it is usually working as designed.
Cores
It is important to note that in HPP, a 'core' means that the population feels that it belongs to a certain country as
opposed to a country considering that province to be their own. It is not necessary that the whole population of a
province feels that way, a sizeable percentage is enough. (What counts as sizeable was determined after careful
consideration on a province-to-province basis.) An example would be Xinjiang, which China considers as its
own, but the local population is not supportive towards them, resulting in no cores.
Important note: owning a province at the start of the game does not grant you a core anymore. See Geographical
changes and Colonies below.
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Geographical changes
For the Semper Fi version of HPP, we are using the Magrathea Map made by Krazy19Karl and improved on by
cougar46. Their work provided a much better base map to work with, including more authentic rivers and
province shapes and also some nice features like some in-land ports in Europe. Aside from these, we also made
some important changes to the political layout:
- China. The territories of the Warlords were adjusted to resemble their historical area of influence better.
The French concession of Zhanjiang is also implemented (it works similarly to Macao and Hong Kong).
The two main factions of China (the Kuomintang-led Republic of China and the communist People's
Republic of China) start at war with each other. These two main factions also have cores over the lands
of Shanxi, Yunnan, Guangxi, Xibei San Ma, Manchuria and Taiwan. Tibet and Xinjiang are not
included in the cores because the population of these provinces were (and still are) against being part of
China.
- Colonies. There are four levels of independence represented in the game for the different colonial
holdings: former colonies with full independence (example: Cuba), dominions with full self-governance
(example: Canada), colonies with local governments or protectorates (example: India for the former and
Syria for the later), overseas territories or colonies ruled directly (example: Hong Kong, Libya or
Somalia). The first two are sovereign countries with only symbolic ties to the former master if any, the
third are represented as puppets and the last kind is owned by the master.
Leadership
Unlike vanilla Semper Fi, the HPP does not use a province-based Leadership system. The reason for that is that
the source of Leadership much easier to relocate than say Manpower or Industry. The Leadership of a country is
now determined mostly factors: the Education tech and International Status (a new law).
The Education tech determines how well educated the country is in the first place. It now starts in 1900 with 5
year progression and it gives +0.25 Leadership for every level through a Strategic Effect. Developed countries
will start with a decent level already at the game's start, while backwards and less civilized countries will start
with a lower level or none at all. Still, the tech is relatively easy to research, so it is possible to catch up if you
allocate enough resources.
International Status determines how much money and resources the government can spend on the areas covered
by Leadership. Countries with a strong economy and a dependable army can afford to have a much bigger
budget for research and development as well as an extensive spy network and strong Diplomatic influence over
their neighbours or even far away countries, while others might struggle with keeping their Officer Corps in a
decent shape. Still, the road to greatness is open to everyone, there are no nation-specific restrictions once you
overcome the obstacles of history.
But you should keep in mind that you will most likely have to make more compromises than in vanilla Semper
Fi. You won't be able to be up-to-date in every field of technology while keeping an excellent Officer Corps, an
extensive spy network and also doing Diplomatic agreements left and right.
War Exhaustion
War Exhaustion represents the people's growing unwillingness to fight in a major conflict. This value will
automatically increase while you are at war and decrease while you are at peace, but certain events, laws and
other modifiers can also effect it. In general if you are losing a war or forced to enact harsh measures, your War
Exhaustion will grow, while if you are winning or you can afford to provide for your people like normal, it will
decrease.
Start Date
There’s only one start date in the HPP: The Road to War, January 1st, 1936. We currently don’t have the
manpower to make the mod compatible with any of the other start dates.
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Great Wars
When a country is fighting a major (ie. a country that has at least 100 Total IC) and that country invades your
core territories, you will sooner or later receive an event giving you the "Great War" country flag (as well as
reducing your Dissent and giving some National Unity). This country flag is used by several events and Strategic
Effects to determine if your country is fighting a major conflict or only a minor one. In general it is required to
fight a Great War in order to enact the really harsh laws.
Decisions and Events
As I said earlier, in general you can't expect events to take care of your declarations of war. Most historical
campaigns are handled through manual declarations, only a few of them are event/decision-driven. Here's a
complete list of wars that can be started by decision:
• The Sino-Japanese War (Marco Polo Bridge Incident, but it might be settled without war)
• Anschluss of Austria (if Austria refuses to fold)
• Munich Treaty (if Czechoslovakia refuses to fold)
• First Vienna Award (if Czechoslovakia refuses to fold)
• Claims on Memel (if Lithuania refuses to fold)
• Annexation of Albania (if Albania refuses to fold)
• Danzig or War! (if Poland refuses to fold)
• Baltic States (after Poland falls, they might be puppeted and later on annexed, but they might refuse)
• Winter War (if Finland refuses to fold)
• Second Vienna Award (Hungary and Romania might go to war)
• Claims on Bessarabia (if Romania refuses to fold)
• Claims on Dobrega (if Romania refuses to fold)
The following conflicts are started by events:
• Changkufeng Lake Incident (only a border-skirmish, but can escalate)
• Battles of Khalkin Gol Incident (only a border-skirmish, but can escalate)
• Xinjiang-War (start as a rebellion, but can escalate into a border-skirmish, or all-out war)
• Death of Hu Hanmin (can result in a war between Guangxi Clique and the Republic of China)
The border-skirmish part might require some further explanation. These conflicts were smaller in scale then the
representation of Hearts of Iron would allow, but they still were important distractions from the Sino-Japanese
War, so we decided to include them. They are relatively scripted compared to the rest of the mod though. They
start out as an event which triggers the war. Then, after a somewhat bloody battle or if someone takes a province
from the other, the country who has the upper hand will get the option to settle down and return to Status Quo or
to escalate the conflict. If they decide the former, the participants return to peace. If they decide to escalate the
conflict, then the war continues as normal, with no more options to peace out via events.
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ECONOMICS
Economics and managing your home industry is very important in a World War. There were some important
changes in this aspect of the game you should be aware of.
Resources
While the resources themselves are the same (Energy, Metal, Rare Materials, Crude Oil), their amount is
somewhat more limited compared to vanilla Semper Fi. There were also changes in the distribution of resources.
For example, China has more Rare Materials (they were trading them with Germany historically).
There are two important trade arrangements that are handled in a specific way: the Swedish-German Iron Trade
and the American-Japanese Oil Trade. Both of these are represented by Strategic Effects. You can check the
tooltips for details. (If you are playing as an enemy of these trading partners, you should note that the trades can
be blocked by taking either Narvik for the Swedish-German Trade or every Japanese port for the Oil Trade.)
Also note that conversion from Energy to Crude Oil is no longer automatic, you need to research Synthetic Oil
Plants in order to get that ability.
Storage events
In the vanilla game, there's a limit of 99,999 units of any resource. This limit is completely artificial and also
very high, but unfortunately it can not be changed by a mod. But since it had a very bad effect on balance, we
decided to do something about it. Thus the concept of resource storage was born.
In HPP, you can still build up your resource stockpiles as high as you want, but once you go over a certain
threshold, the provincial income of that resource will decrease significantly. If you reach a second threshold, the
drop will be even greater. If you produce enough to still make a surplus, then you won't have any problems. But
if you start to lose resources, you still don't have to worry: once you get below a certain amount, the penalty will
disappear. The limits are dependent on your total IC, the more IC you have, the higher the threshold is.
Money and investment
Money is an interesting concept in Hearts of Iron. It comes from your IC base, but it is rarely actually spent.
When you trade with someone, it merely changes hands. There are two instances when money can disappear
from the game: when you change laws and by events. There's a feature in HPP called Investment. When you
have at least 500 money, you might get a random event that allows you to invest your money into a certain area
(research, industry, logistics, etc.). If you choose to do that, you will lose 500 money and get a modifier for a
year that lowers your money income, but gives some bonus to a field related to the investment.
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PRODUCTION
There's very little difference in Production compared to the vanilla game, but there still are some notable
changes.
Units
There are no automatic units in HPP, every unit has a tech that activates it. Here's a complete list of units with
their activation techs:
Land - Militia Regiment - Small Arms (Infantry)
- Garrison Regiment - Defensive Support Weapons (Infantry)
- Infantry Regiment - Infantry (Infantry)
- Cavalry Regiment - Cavalry (Infantry)
- Motorised Infantry Regiment - Motorised Infantry (Infantry)
- Mechanised Infantry Regiment - Mechanised Infantry (Infantry)
- Light Armour Regiment - Light Tank (Armour)
- Medium Armour Regiment - Medium Tank (Armour)
- Heavy Armour Battalion - Heavy Tank (Armour)
- Infantry Support Tank Battalion - Infantry Support Tank (Armour)
- Armoured Car Battalion - Armoured Car Armour (Armour)
- Artillery Battalion - Artillery Barrel and Ammunition (Armour)
- Anti-Tank Battalion - Anti-Tank Ammunition and Muzzle Velocity (Armour)
- Anti-Air Battalion - Anti-Aircraft Barrel and Ammunition (Armour)
- Tank-Destroyer Battalion - Medium Tank Armour (Armour)
- Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion - Self-Propelled Artillery (Armour)
- Rocket Artillery Battalion - Rocket Artillery (Armour)
- Self-Propelled Rocket Artillery Battalion - Self-Propelled Rocket Artillery (Armour)
- Engineer Battalion - Engineers (Infantry)
- Military Police Battalion - Security Training (Land)
Naval - Transport Flotilla - Ship Construction Material (Capital)
- Destroyer Flotilla - Destroyer (Escort)
- Light Cruiser - Light Cruiser (Escort)
- Heavy Cruiser - Heavy Cruiser (Capital)
- Battlecruiser - Battlecruiser (Capital)
- Battleship - Battleship (Capital)
- Light Carrier - Light Carrier (Capital)
- Carrier - Aircraft Carrier (Capital)
- Submarine Flotilla - Submarine (Escort)
Air - Light Fighter - Single Engine Aircraft (Fighter)
- Heavy Fighter - Heavy Fighter (Fighter)
- Light Bomber - Light Bomber (Bomber)
- Medium Bomber - Medium Bomber (Bomber)
- Heavy Bomber - Heavy Bomber (Bomber)
- Patrol Bomber - Patrol Bomber (Bomber)
- Carrier Air Wing - Carrier Aircraft (Capital)
- Transport Plane - Four Engine Airframe (Bomber)
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- Rocket Interceptor - Rocket Interceptor (Fighter)
- Light Jet-Fighter - Light Jet-Fighter (Secret)
- Heavy Jet-Fighter - Heavy Jet-Fighter (Secret)
- Jet-Bomber - Jet-Bomber (Secret)
- Flying Bomb - The Flying Bomb (Secret)
- Strategic Rocket - Strategic Rocket (Secret)
Port Capacity
There's a new practical type called Port Capacity, which represents a country's ability to build Capital size ships.
The construction of a ship consists of two distinct phases separated by the launching of the ship. This is the point
where the hull is put on water. From then on, it becomes considerably harder to make significant changes to the
design of the ship. In HPP (and to my knowledge in the vanilla game, too) the first phase is modeled by the
Research phase where you create the components and the second phase is modeled by the actual construction of
the ship using your IC in your production queue. In line with this concept, Port Capacity effects the efficiency of
the first phase, before the ship was launched. Most naval technologies are effected by this practical, although
some are more effected than others. For example, Battleship Design Principle gets 45% from Port Capacity,
while Capital Ship Anti-Air Armament or Light Cruiser Engine only gets 5%. Port Capacity is gained by
building Ports.
Buildings
The Nuclear Reactor was renamed to Nuclear Research Lab to better suit its role: Reactors at the time didn't
produce any considerable amount of Energy, only the required material for making Nuclear Bombs. In game
terms they do nothing at all, their purpose is twofold: first, they give Nuclear Bomb Making practical once they
are built and second, a certain level Nuclear Research Lab is a prerequisite for researching any nuclear-related
techs beyond the '36 'Atomic Research' tech. Similarly to Nuclear Research Labs, the Rocket Test Site is also
giving practical and the appropriate level is required for advanced research, but the building itself does nothing.
Anti-Air is four times as strong as it is in vanilla Semper Fi, and the appropriate tech strengthens it even more. It
gives much less practicals though.
Infrastructure takes one third as much time to build but it costs three times as much. It also gives considerably
less practical.
Convoys and Escorts
Building Convoys and Escorts is done in shorter bursts compared to the original game. In vanilla Semper Fi,
both of these are built in 10 unit batches, so if you click on the appropriate button once, 10 new individual
convoys/escorts will be built. In HPP, only 5 of them are built and Convoys are also slightly more expensive,
costing 3 IC instead of 2, but they both are faster to build. The result is that you have more flexibility when
managing your Convoys.
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DIPLOMACY
Leadership
Diplomacy is one of the four areas you can spend your Leadership on, so it is important to note here as well: the
amount of Leadership in HPP is lowered in general compared to vanilla Semper Fi. Unless you are at least a
Regional Power, you should restrain yourself from trying to be too active in Diplomacy. If you are an
Undeveloped Nation, then you will probably have to wait for others to send you their offers even for trading.
The Diplomatic Triangle
Several factors in the alignment system were changed.
• Influence. The efficiency of Aligning/Influence has been reduced greatly. It is still useful and important
to try and bring potential allies into your corner, but it is harder now.
• Cores. Having cores in countries no longer effect aligning in either direction. The reason for that is that
your targeted faction might end up holding your provinces after defeating your enemies and unlike
vanilla Semper Fi, there's a way for them to give those lands to you in HPP. Thus drifting away from
the holders of your cores no longer makes sense. (But you still get a considerable discount in Neutrality
when determining if you can attack the holders of your cores!)
• Threat. Threat no longer pushes you away from a faction. Previously it was possible to get stuck in the
middle of the Triangle because every faction generated so much threat that each of them would push
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you away, but only until half the way. That is no longer the case. But that doesn't mean you can get
away with murder! The AI will now take threat seriously into account when Diplomatic dealings! If you
are very threatening but you can't back it up by military strength, you might find yourself isolated pretty
quickly!
• Neutrality. As expected, countries with high Neutrality will be much harder to influence and they will
drift less on their own.
Diplomatic actions and the AI
In vanilla Semper Fi, the AI tends to be too eager to offer Transit Rights while never even considering to accept
Non-Aggression Pacts, or using obscure triggers when determining when to accept an invitation to a Faction. In
the HPP, I tried to make as many generic rules as possible for the AI to be able to decide when to offer and
accept a certain deal and when to turn it down. Here are some factors that are frequently used:
• Threat. If a country has a relatively high threat towards another, then the other will be less likely to
accept pretty much every deal. This goes up to a certain point (75 points of threat mostly), where the
target country will start to consider that the threatening one might have what it takes to materialize said
threat. Then, it will decide based on their relative military strength (including any allies), and if the
threat is not backed up by enough force, then the target will basically severe connections. On the other
hand, if the threat looks quite real, then they might become much more cooperative in fear of
retaliation!
• Relations. The relations between the two countries are the basis of most calculations, but they alone
won't guarantee success. Note, that Trade deals only increase Relations by 5 now (instead of 15), but
they also cost 1 Diplomacy instead of 3. The AI scales the offered trade deals by Relations, meaning
that if Relations are low, it will offer less than it needs, making another deal more likely, and thus
increasing Relations with multiple deals.
• Neutrality. Countries with a high Neutrality value will be less eager to sign treaties centered around
war. This includes Transit Rights, Alliances and joining Factions. Non-Aggression Pacts and Trade on
the other hand are just as welcome for Neutral countries as others.
Factions
When a faction loses its last major member, the faction will be dissolved. Any major country with the
appropriate ideology group can re-form that faction after that using a decision.
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TECHNOLOGY
Build cost
When looking around in the tech tabs, you will notice that many of the techs give insane reductions to build costs
of certain units. That's a bit misleading. The base costs are increased by the same amount, so the discount you
see in the tooltips brings the unit to its original cost. The reason for that is that the reinforce and upgrade cost is
calculated from the base cost in the file. By increasing that base cost, we were able to make units cost much
more to reinforce and upgrade than in vanilla, where these costs were unrealistically low.
Practical limit
The limit to practicals is 20. This is still enough to get a serious discount on build time and cost but it will decay
soon if you don't pay attention.
Technology changes
Most of the Technology Trees received a complete overhaul, so I believe it is necessary to explain all the tabs.
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Infantry
- Infantry and Cavalry type units use the same weaponry now. Militia uses the older weapons of Infantry
types. That can't be researched, it is automatically updated once you advance your Infantry weapons.
Militia only has access to Small Arms and Defensive Support Weapons (basically machine guns, giving
Defensiveness).
- The Infantry Weaponry techs start in '18 and their first upgrade is in '30. The early-war units will have
level 6-7 weapons already.
- Bridging Equipment and Assault Weapons give bonuses not only to Engineers but also to Infantry types
to a lesser extent, since these units also included smaller attachments of Engineers.
- Specialised units (Marines, Paratroopers and Mountaineers) start with slightly lower stats because of
their limited access to heavy weaponry. Researching Light Small Arms Modification, Light Support
Weapon Development, Weapon Salt-Water Proofing (also effects other unit types) and Light Artillery
Miniaturization can help them with that. The Amphibious Warfare Equipment, Airborne Warfare
Equipment and Mountain Warfare Equipment techs now have multiple levels.
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Armour
- There's a new unit type, the Infantry Support Tank. It represents the early approach to armoured
warfare, when Tanks were considered a new way of supporting the Infantry with their firepower. These
Battalion-sized units have speed comparable to Infantry and act as support brigades with low combat
width. (They replace the Super Heavy Tank, which was more of a failed experiment than a real
weapon.)
- The new tech, Motorised Support Brigades allows you to upgrade your Artillery, Anti-Air, Anti-Tank
and Rocket Artillery from being horse-towed to being truck-towed. This improves their speed but hurts
their maneuverability in tough terrain and also gives them some Fuel consumption.
- Truck Engine improves the reliability of Motorised Infantry and the speed of Armoured Cars.
Armoured Car Armour and Gun now improve the stats of Mechanised Infantry.
- Self-Propelled Rocket Artillery is effected by the two Rocket Artillery techs, Light Tank Engine, Light
Tank Armour and Light Tank Reliability.
- Self-Propelled Artillery is effected by the two Artillery techs, Medium Tank Engine, Medium Tank
Armour and Medium Tank Reliability.
- Tank-Destroyers are effected by the two Anti-Tank techs, Medium Tank Engine, Medium Tank Armour
and Medium Tank Reliability.
- Rocket Artillery has '38 Artillery tech prerequisites.
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Escort and Capital
- To research the different kinds of ships, you need to have own a port of matching size. You can't build a
Battleship hull, unless you have at least a level 10 port somewhere. The level requirements are:
Destroyer: 1; Light Cruiser, Submarine: 2; Heavy Cruiser: 4; Light Carrier: 6; Battlecruiser: 8;
Battleship: 10.
- The old 'Armour' techs were replaced by the 'Design Principle' techs. These include both the armour and
the overall design complexity of the ship. They increase Visibility, build cost and time, decrease Speed
and increase Hull (making the ship suffer less damage when hit).
- Engine techs increase speed, fuel consumption and Sea Defence (the ability to avoid being hit). It
offsets the decrease in Speed caused by Design Principle and Main Armament.
- Main Armament techs increase Sea Attack, Convoy Attack and Shore Bombardment, but decrease
Speed.
- Anti-Air Armament techs increase Air Defence and Air Attack.
- The Light Anti-Air Armament tech in the Destroyer's group effects all warship types, representing the
secondary AA guns.
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- Radar techs increase the firing range of ships.
- Torpedoes effect both Destroyers and Submarines.
- The new Ship Construction Material tech represents the advancement in metallurgy and the
improvement in the materials used for ship construction. The tech provides an increased Hull for every
warship type, including Submarines.
- The Aircraft Carrier Hangar is replaced by Aircraft Carrier Deck Armour, providing a further increase
in Hull.
- The Scout Planes tech increase Detection values for Light and Heavy Cruisers, Battlecruisers and
Battleships.
- The Carrier Air Group Focus techs allow the country to emphasize on one of the three roles of CAGs:
protection from enemy Aircraft, attacking naval targets or attacking ground targets. A country may
research more than one of these techs, but they negate each other if all of them are researched.
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Bomber and Fighter
- The 'Basic This or That' kinds of techs are removed.
- A new branch is created in the Fighter tab: the Escort Fighter. Escort Fighters are not represented by a
separate unit, because the AI wouldn't know how to use it. Instead, it is represented by a 'component' for
an Air wing, which you can research. Once researched, your Patrol Bombers, Medium Bombers and
Heavy Bombers will become escorted, giving them an increase in Air Defence, Air Attack and
construction cost while reducing their operational Range. Later on you can improve the Escort Fighters,
increasing the bonus Air Defence and you can also research Drop Tanks for them, giving back some or
all of the Range they lost by being escorted.
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- Advanced Aircraft Design is now a prerequisite for later levels of most Aircraft techs as well as Aircraft
Radars.
- The Speed of Aircraft will remain the same throughout the game if your research is balanced. You can
design faster planes by keeping the Aeroengine tech ahead of the Armament and Airframe techs.
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Industry
- The effect of Encryption and Decryption techs is increased from 1 to 2.5.
- The effect of Resource techs is halved from 5% per level to 2.5% per level.
- The Heavy AA guns tech gives +25% efficiency to the provincial AA building per level instead of
+10%.
- The effects of First Aid and Combat Medicine was swapped compared to vanilla, now First Aid
increases Casualties Trickleback (ie. the percentage of soldiers only wounded instead of dead or
disabled) while Combat Medicine decreases Attrition (ie. the percentage of soldiers dying of
environmental effects like disease).
- Agriculture (aside from the good old % bonus to manpower) now also fires an event which will give a
big temporary boost to manpower income but also some dissent from the people recently losing their
jobs because of the mechanisation of agriculture.
- Education no longer gives a percentage bonus. In fact, there's no visible bonus in the tech tooltip. The
bonus received from this tech is handled by a Strategic Effect: you get +0.25 Leadership for every level.
The tech uses no practical and gives none, so the efficiency of its research will only depend on the date.
If you are behind, it will take about 5-6 months, if you are ahead of time, it could take years.
- The new tech Combat Radios increases the Radio Strength of HQs, increasing their command range and
it also increases the Organisation of indirect fire Artillery pieces (towed and self-propelled,
conventional and rocket).
- Most of the Nuclear techs and the Rocket-related techs are moved to Theory because they don't have
any direct effect, so they belong there. Civil Nuclear Research is still under Industry though, and it
gives +1% Energy Production per level.
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Secret
- Proximity Fuse improves Anti-Air guns of any unit that uses them (mostly ships) and also Rocket
Artillery types.
- Rocket Launcher gives a considerable boost to the Hard Attack of Infantry-type units, including Militia
(they don't have any Hard Attack otherwise!) and Garrison.
- Light Jet-Fighter, Heavy Jet-Fighter and Jet-Bomber activates the appropriate unit types. These units
use the same equipment as propeller-driven Aircraft except for their Fuel tanks. This makes them
somewhat more formidable because they don't suffer the penalties to Air Defence and Surface Defence
while their Range and Speed remains constant. (Jet-Bombers can't be escorted.)
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Theory
- Aside from the old theory techs and the ones moved here from the Industry tab, there are four new ones,
each connected to one of the four Doctrine theories: Grand Battle Plan, Spearhead, Superior Firepower
and Human Wave. They might be useful if you plan on switching from one Doctrine path to another.
These techs have a Difficulty of 3. (They either represent groundbreaking ideas or a complete paradigm
shift, neither of which is an easy thing to achieve.)
- The pure theory techs still don't give any actual bonus aside from the theory now have a Difficulty of -5
and they start at 1932 with an offset of 1 year. This means that unless you get ahead of time, you can
research a new Theory level in 60 days. This can make them useful if you want to switch gears to
something your country wouldn't really be suited for historically.
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Land Doctrines
This tab was completely rebuilt from bottom up. The tab is divided into three areas: Training, Infantry Doctrine
and Armoured Doctrine. In the Training part you have techs that mostly improve the Organisation and Morale of
a specific group of units. Infantry Doctrines will effect your Infantry units, while Armoured Doctrines will effect
your tanks.
The six training techs are free to research for everyone, but the Infantry and Armoured Doctrines are a bit more
restrictive. They have five levels: '30, '37, '40, '43 and '46. You can select your preferred Doctrine path via an
event for every level. You can switch between two, if you want to, although you get a slight discount to Research
Time if you stay on the same path you choose the last time.
Some countries have certain Doctrines already researched, these can not be undone. Some countries may even
have their path selected for them for the next iteration, others might have the option to choose for themselves
right away. There are also some further requirements after you made your choice. You should be aware of these
requirements before choosing!
- Security Training - Activates the Military Police Battalion, a Battalion-sized peace-keeping formation,
and also improves the peace-keeping ability of the smaller detachments of Military Police present in
every Infantry-type unit.
- Infantry Training - Improves the Organisation and Morale of every Infantry-type units. (It does not
include Militia!) Required to select your first Infantry Doctrine.
- Artillery Training - Improves the Organisation and Morale of every indirect-fire Artillery type and also
the AA and AT Battalions. Tank-Destroyers work more like Tanks than Artillery, so they are covered
by Tank Crew Training.
- Tank Crew Training - Improves the Organisation and Morale of every Tank-type unit, including
Armoured Cars and Tank-Destroyers. Required to select your first Armoured Doctrine.
- Special Forces Training - Improves the Organisation and Morale of your Special Forces (Paratroopers,
Mountaineers, Marines and Engineers).
- Officer Training - Increases the size, Officer cost and Manpower cost of HQs. It also reduces the
Attack Delay and increases Combat Reinforcement Chance and Unit Cooperation (which in turn
reduces the stacking penalty for ground forces).
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Infantry Doctrine
- Firepower Focus - This path focuses on increasing the firepower of Infantry formations by allocating
them more heavy weaponry to maximize their effectiveness. Increases Strength, Officer cost,
Manpower cost, build cost and Organisation for several Infantry-types at every level. At first it
improves older unit-types (Cavalry, Garrison, Infantry), the later levels improve more modern units
(Motorised and Mechanised Infantry). This is the favoured Doctrine of the Western countries. You
should use it if you want to have strong units that can fight longer.
- Shock Focus - This path focuses on tight, quickly trained, highly motivated units. Reduces build time,
Supply Consumption, Officer need, Combat Width and increases Morale but also Toughness. This is
the favoured Doctrine of the Soviet Union and most Asian countries.
- Infiltration Focus - This path focuses on taking advantage of the surroundings. Reduces the penalties
for fighting in harsh terrain like Mountains or Jungle. This is the favoured Doctrine of Japan.
Armoured Doctrine
- Infantry Support Role - With this path, tanks are regarded as another form of supporting the Infantry. It
improves your Infantry Support Tanks at first, then later on it switches to Light Tanks (Cavalry Tanks
in the British terminology) and at the end it even gives some bonuses to Heavy Tanks and Tank-
Destroyers. It provides a small bonus to Combined Arms units but only allows you to research Medium
Tanks very late. This is the base Doctrine for most countries.
- Armoured Schwerpunkt - This path puts your tank units into the focus of your strategy. It gives you a
decent bonus to Combined Arms units, improves your Medium Tanks considerably and also adds slight
bonuses to Armoured Cars, Light Tanks, Heavy Tanks, Motorised Infantry, Mechanised Infantry and
Tank-Destroyers. This is the favoured Doctrine for Germany.
- Combined Arms - This path focuses on a balance of Infantry and Armoured units to maximize
performance. It only gives slight bonuses to the different tank types, but it gives the highest Combined
Arms bonus. This is the favoured path for the USA and the Soviet Union. Important note: You need to
have Motorised Infantry for the first three levels and Mechanised Infantry for the last two!
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Operational Doctrine
This tab is completely new and represents the overall Doctrine of your ground forces, giving general bonuses
and also helps out the support units. The techs in this tab are divided into four sections, plus one tech at the top.
The four sections represent the four major Doctrines we use: Grand Battle Plan, Superior Firepower, Blitzkrieg
and Human Wave. Their activation works similarly to the Infantry and Armoured Doctrines.
- Great War Experience - This tech gives no bonus but is required for every Doctrine on this tab. It
represents the lessons learned from World War I. You don't necessarily need to have fought in that war
to get this tech, but the countries that did will start with it already researched.
- Grand Battle Plan - This path builds on carefully planned artillery barrages supporting slow,
methodical, but with low casualties. It slightly increases Combat Reinforcement Chance, gives Delay,
Counterattack and Ambush and also improves the Defensiveness and Soft Attack of towed Artillery
units. This is the old Doctrine, favoured by most Western countries.
- Superior Firepower - This path focuses on massive, regiment-sized artillery formations for maximal
firepower to punch through enemy defences. It increases the size of support formations, increasing their
firepower but also their cost. It gives Counterattack, Tactical Withdrawal and Encirclement.
Researching any of these Doctrines will trigger an event setting a hidden tech, which will increase the
allowed number of Brigades in a Division from 4 to 5. This is the favoured Doctrine of the United
States. Important note: you need the Motorised Support Brigades tech from the Armour tab in order to
follow this path!
- Blitzkrieg - This path excells in fast, deep attacks supported by self-propelled artillery units. It reduces
Attack Delay, increases Attack Movement Speed (this is the only way to increase this value!) and the
later levels also improve Self-Propelled Artillery, Self-Propelled Rocket Artillery and motorizes HQs. It
gives Breakthrough, Encirclement and Assault. This is the favoured Doctrine of Germany.
- Human Wave - This path is based around large formations overwhelming the enemy defences. It
decreases the Combat Width of Infantry types, increases Unit Cooperation (which in turn decreases the
stacking penalty for ground forces), increases Combat Reinforcement Chance, give Shock, Assault and
Ambush. At the fourth level, the Mechanized Wave branches off, which moves the Width decrease
from Infantry to Motorized and Mechanized Infantry and Tanks. Human Wave is the favoured path of
most Asian countries and the Soviet Union, who will switch to Mechanized Wave later on.
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Naval Doctrines
Naval Doctrines are divided into four groups: Training, Sealane Control, Sealane Interdiction and Force
Projection. Unlike the Land and Operational Doctrines, you can freely research every tech on this page, but each
tech receives 60% of its research efficiency from the appropriate theory, it might be more efficient to stick to one
path.
- Ship Type Training - Increases the Organisation, Morale and Positioning of the appropriate ship type.
Carrier Crew Training effects CAG Morale, since the ground crew of CAGs is included in the crew of
the Carrier. Capital ships (BB, BC), Cruisers (CL, CA) and Carriers (CV, CVL) are grouped together.
- Fire Control System Training - Increases the chance of hitting the target in Naval Combat for every
ship type.
- Radar Training - Increases Detection values for every ship type. (It is not completely realistic since
having an actual Radar device on the ship is not required. The system does not allow the training to
only take place on ships where there's an actual Radar.)
- Commander Decision Making - Increases the chance of targeting a more important ship from the
enemy fleet for every ship type. (Note that the base value of this was increased compared to vanilla.)
- Underway Replenishment - Increases the range of ships in exchange for a small increase in Fuel and
Supply Consumption.
- Base Operations - Logistical training for port crews, increasing port capacity, allowing more Supplies
and Fuel to be shipped in every day.
- Sealane Control - This path focuses on the defence of convoy lanes. The techs give Escort Efficiency
bonuses (improving the efficiency of the Escorts you can attach to your Convoys), Organisation
bonuses to Capital ships (BC, BB), Positioning bonuses to Cruisers (CL, CA) and Sub Detection and
Sub Attack to Destroyers.
- Sealane Interdiction - This path focuses on attacking enemy convoy lanes. The techs give bonuses to
the efficiency of Convoy Raiding and to the Convoy Attack of different ship types.
- Force Projection - This path focuses on the use of Carriers to support the Army wherever and
whenever needed. The techs give bonuses to Positioning mostly and a bonus to the efficiency of CAG
Duty.
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Air Doctrines
Similarly to Naval Doctrines, the Air Doctrines are separated into Training and five Doctrines: Army Aviation,
Fighter Defense, Independent Airforce, Strategic Airforce and Naval Aviation. You can freely research from any
of the Doctrine paths with no restrictions, but again, most of the research efficiency comes from the Doctrine
theory, so sticking to one or two paths increases your overall efficiency.
- Aircraft Type Pilot Training - Increases the Organisation of the Aircraft type(s).
- Aircraft Type Ground Crew Training - Increases the Moreale of the Aircraft type(s). Note that there's
no CAG Ground Crew Training. That is included in Carrier Crew Training on the Naval tab.
- Night Mission Training - Reduces the Attack penalty for fighting at Night. Requires level 3 Radar.
- Army Aviation - This path focuses on Light Bombers, improving the Ground Attack mission. You can
also choose from Forward Air Control and Battlefield Interdiction. When your bombers attack ground
targets, they will randomly choose from a frontline and a reserve Division to attack. With these techs
you can effect the choice made. Since they negate each other, you can only research one of these techs.
Once you research Army Aviation, you will get an event which allows you to choose from the two.
- Fighter Defense - This path focuses on Fighters, improving the Intercept and Air Superiority missions
as well as improving the impact of Radar on Air Combat. The Bomber Targeting Focus and Fighter
Targeting Focus works similarly to Forward Air Control and Battlefield Interdiction.
- Independent Airforce - This path focuses on tactical bombing in general, improving the efficiency of
Logistical Strikes, Interdiction, Runway Cratering and Installation Strikes.
- Strategic Airforce - This path focuses on strategical bombing and airborne assaults, improving the
efficiency of these missions. (Important note: Airborne Assault Tactics improves the efficiency of the
air mission, ie. the Transport Planes. It won't effect the Paratroopers!)
- Naval Aviation - This path focuses on bombing ships, improving the efficiency of Naval Strikes and
Port Strikes.
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POLITICS
Laws
Most of the Law Groups are the same or very similar to vanilla Semper Fi, but there are some notable
exceptions. We have a completely new Law Group, Taxation Law. We also removed the Education Law and
introduced a new one (mostly, but not entirely in its place), the International Status. The role of some Law
Groups has also changed.
Enacting new laws may bring a cost with them. This is a one-time fee and a direct function of your money
production from your Industry. You can get information about the cost from the tooltip when selecting the new
law.
When you start the game, you won’t be able to change any laws right away because a global flag needs to be set
first. This was done to avoid the engine setting up some crazy laws when you wouldn't want it to. In vanilla
Semper Fi, the lower a law is on the list, the better its effects are, so the more desirable it will be. This is not
necessarily the case in HPP, thus the engine's automatic law selection is no longer optimal so it had to be
circumvented. Don't worry though, this global flag will be set on the first day, so you will have the option to
change laws soon enough.
Also note that you will probably get notification icons about "better laws". That only means that there are laws
lower on the list that you could enact, they are not necessarily "better". What's best depends on your
circumstances, the choice is always yours.
- Civil Laws - Determines the Civil Rights of your population or parts of it, ranging from a completely
Open Society to a Totalitarian System. Having a more Open Society will give you a slight Research
Efficiency bonus from private companies and free thinkers but also a slight penalty on
Counterintelligence from the basic Civil Rights interfering in the hunt for enemy spies. A more
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Totalitarian System will have a discount in both Wartime and Peacetime Consumer Goods Demand
from the oppression and a considerable bonus to Ruling Party Support and Counterintelligence from
rooting out undesirable elements.
- Press Laws - Ranges from Free Press to Propaganda Press and effects how much of the World's news
gets to your population. A more Free Press will increase your drift due to ideological similarities while
decrease your Counterespionage (the ability to keep information about your country a secret) and events
will have a greater impact on your National Unity (both positive and negative). The more power the
State has over your press, the less your country will drift due to ideological similarities and the more
effective your Counterespionage will be. Events will also have a lower effect on your National Unity
(again, both positive and negative) and you will also get a slight reduction in War Exhaustion.
- Economic Laws - This group represents the country's economical and military mobilization level. This
Law Group is a bit less straightforward then the above two, so a full description of the different levels is
required. Full Civilian Economy means that your country produces non-military goods for the most part
(Consumer Goods Demand is high) and your army is on a peace-time mobilization level (25% Strength
Reserves). Some of the resources go directly to consumers, too. This is the base for the calculation of
money production. Basic Mobilisation means that your units have called in some of their reserves (40%
Strength Reserves) and the government started to increase its influence over production (Consumer
Goods Demand is somewhat lower). There are still resources lost in the system, and you also lose 5%
money production from lost sales taxes and increased expenses. At Full Mobilisation, your Reserves are
at half strength, your resource production is at full capacity and the Peacetime Consumer Goods
Demand is at its lowest point. You have a -10% penalty on money production. With War Economy, you
will receive 25% bonus to your IC and your Reserves will be at 60% Strength, but you get -15% on
money production and Consumer Goods Demand is increased compared to Full Mobilisation. If you
don't have some other measures to negate that, this level might be less efficient overall than Full
Mobilisation because the additional IC will be spent on Consumer Goods Demand. It also gives some
War Exhaustion. Total Economic Mobilisation gives +50% IC, but Consumer Goods Demand is
increased again. You get -25% on money production and even more War Exhaustion. Also note that the
last two levels give more IC but no more resources, so feeding the additional IC might be a problem.
(The additional IC comes from retooling factories that originally produce non-military items. But a
stone quarry (usually...) can't be retooled to mine iron instead.)
- Industrial Policy Laws - This Law Group regulates the use of your Infrastructure and the overall
production scheme of Industry. Consumer Goods Orientation allows more freedom to private
companies, while Mixed Industry and Heavy Industry Emphasis will place more power into the hands
of the government over the production lines and the management of railways, resulting in more IC
Efficiency (lowering IC and time cost of items in your Production queue) and an increase in Supply
Throughput, but also increasing Supply Consumption from the added cost of maintaining the supply
lines.
- Taxation Laws - This one is pretty straightforward: you can increase money production at the expense
of Ruling Party Support (which effects Popularity of your Ruling Party), you can increase Ruling Party
Support at the expense of money production or strike a healthy balance between the two. It helps
autocratic countries to compensate for their lower money production and become able to trade.
- Conscription Laws - This Group is a bit more complicated than the others, so it has its own paragraph.
See below.
- Training Laws - Training Laws work similarly to vanilla Semper Fi with some minor changes. Firstly,
they completely took over the effect on Officer Recruitment (although there are other sources of
bonuses for this field). Secondly, the shorter Training times also mean shorter Reinforcement times as
well, so using Minimal Training or Basic Training will give you significant Reinforcement Bonuses.
Advanced Training and Specialist Training will increase the Starting Experience of units, but also the
Training time.
- International Status - As explained earlier, International Status is one of the main factors in your
Leadership capacity. But that's not all. If you have the armed forces expected from a nation of your
standing, you will also gain additional benefits from Strategic Effects. But keep in mind that if you don't
have what it takes, you might even receive penalties, so if you yearn for higher recognition, you will
have to work hard to keep it!
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Standing Army vs. Drafted Army
The HPP uses a manpower system quite unlike the one in vanilla Semper Fi. The original system was built for
long-term games like Europa Universalis, where manpower income represented the men coming of age each
year. This system does not work very well for a game with a timeframe of twelve years: every single potential
soldier that could fight in the war must have been born at the start of the game, so you don't really have any
influence on the amount of manpower you gain, it is completely predetermined. You should not have all your
population freely at your disposal at the start of the game, but the additional recruits should come in huge bursts
instead, when you enact the more demanding laws.
There are two paths you can take with your army: you can have either a Standing Army or a Drafted Army. A
Standing Army consists mostly of professional, volunteer soldiers who fight for a living, while a Drafted Army
has only a limited amount of professionals, the rest is only called upon at times of need. (Note: this difference
has nothing to with the amount of Reserve units in one's Army, nor their actual Strength.)
You can choose which route you want to take by selecting the appropriate law in Conscription Laws. Selecting
Standing Army will give a +5% bonus to Starting Experience for your units while Drafted Army gives no
immediate bonus. The main difference is when it comes to war.
When a country with a Drafted Army goes to war, they receive a Decision that will give them a bonus for a short
time that increases the manpower output of their provinces drastically. And when I say drastically, I mean
insanely. Seriously, you won't believe your eyes when you see it. This huge bonus represents the reserves
reporting for duty. They were already your soldiers before, but they worked in their civilian jobs until now. If
things get desperate, you will be able to Extend your Draft by enacting the Extended Draft law. This will allow
you to conscript even more people, giving you another huge boost to Manpower, but this time you are pulling
people out of important positions in factories, so this decision will increase War Exhaustion and also decrease IC
Efficiency.
Standing Armies work differently. They don't have an automatic surge of draftees at the start of the war. Instead,
they can choose when to start pushing for more recruits by using a Decision called Mobilize for War. This
Decision requires at least 70 National Unity and 35 Ruling Party Organisation to become visible, and even then
you need to have either 85 National Unity, 50 Ruling Party Organisation or be at War in order to use it. The
decision will generate some threat worldwide but it will also set a country flag, allowing you to the enact War
Economy and Mobilize for War laws which are not available otherwise. (War Economy is only available for
those countries that has either the Great War or the Mobilized for War country flags.) Enacting the Mobilize for
War Conscription Law will give a similar effect to the one from calling in the reserves but with a twist. The
effect lasts ten times as long with one tenth of the effect. In practice that means that you will get the same
amount of new recruits but at a much lower pace. Standing Armies don't have the option to simply extend the
draft though, since there's no draft to begin with.
Still, they are not without any means to get more Manpower. If things get really desperate, both a Drafted Army
and Standing Army can enact Emergency Draft. This will basically bring everyone into the Army who can lift a
rifle. The effects are dire indeed with an increase in War Exhaustion, -10 Starting Experience for units (it can
even go into the negative, giving a combat penalty, representing those that couldn't lift their rifle after all...) and
a staggering -45% on IC Efficiency.
Extended Draft and Emergency Draft really should be the final measure to fend off an otherwise overwhelming
invasion, because their effects can not be removed anymore. Even if the war is over and you could send your
soldiers home, since there's no way in Hearts of Iron III to remove the manpower from your units. Basically the
game will not last long enough for the effects to fade away.
Another important note: since Standing Armies can't have the additional manpower that Drafted Armies get from
the Extended Draft but the people are still there, enacting the Emergency Draft with a Standing Army will give
the manpower from both the Extended Draft and the Emergency Draft. In the end, both routes give you the same
amount of manpower, but at a different pace.
Laws and ideologies
Different political parties have different policies. You can still enact laws that are not in line with these policies,
but that will cause fractures in your own Ruling Party and also among your voters (or popular supporters, in case
of autocracies). If you have such laws, you might get Strategic Effects and random Events causing you some
trouble, disrupting your Party Organisation or Popularity. The different political parties favoure the following
laws:
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- National Socialist - Totalitarian System, at least Full Mobilisation (and no harsher unless at war), at
least Mixed Industry (and no harsher, only at war), at least Acceptable Taxes, Standing Army.
- Fascistic - Repression or Totalitarian System, at least Full Mobilisation (and no harsher unless at war),
at least Mixed Industry (and no harsher, only at war), at least Small Taxes, Standing Army.
- Paternal Autocrat - at least Legalistic Restrictions, at least Basic Mobilisation (and no harsher unless at
war), at least Mixed Industry (and no harsher, only at war).
- Social Conservative - Open Society (while not at war), Free Press, Full Civilian Economy, Consumer
Goods Orientation (while not at war), Drafted Army (while not at war).
- Market Liberal - Open Society (while not at war), Free Press, Full Civilian Economy (unless at war),
Consumer Goods Orientation (while not at war), at most Small Taxes, Drafted Army (while not at war).
- Social Liberal - Open Society (while not at war), Free Press, Full Civilian Economy (unless at war),
Consumer Goods Orientation (while not at war), at most Small Taxes, Drafted Army (while not at war).
- Social Democrat - Open Society (while not at war), Free Press, at least Basic Mobilisation, Consumer
Goods Orientation (while not at war), at most Small Taxes, Drafted Army (while not at war).
- Left-Wing Radical - at least Legalistic Restrictions, at least Basic Mobilisation (and no harsher unless
at war), at least Mixed Industry (and no harsher, only at war).
- Leninist - Repression or Totalitarian System, at least Full Mobilisation (and no harsher unless at war),
at least Mixed Industry (and no harsher, only at war), at least Acceptable Taxes, Drafted Army.
- Stalinist - Totalitarian System, at least Full Mobilisation (and no harsher unless at war), Heavy Industry
Emphasize (only at war), at least Acceptable Taxes, Drafted Army.
Changed Minister traits
There are a few minister changes.
- In vanilla Semper Fi, most Foreign Ministers have no use if your country is in a faction. In the HPP,
every Foreign Minister trait has some non faction-related modifier. Check the tooltips!
- Every Chief of the Navy has a 100% decay reduction on the new Port Capacity practical. This practical
is not supposed to decay over time.
- Some Chief of Staff and Chief of the Army traits were slightly changed as well. Again, check the
tooltips!
Government types
Unlike vanilla Semper Fi, in the HPP government types grant modifiers of their own. The exact effects can be
checked on the Politics tab under the name of the government type after the information about the elections (I
know there's a missing end-of-line character but I can't put it there, sorry, it's missing from the .exe), but here are
some general guidelines on what types of governments get what types of bonuses:
- Democracies have a tendency to drift towards the Allies, a decrease in Revolt Risk and the Threat they
generate towards others and an increase in drift from Ideology (whatever it may be).
- Right-Wing governments have a tendency to drift towards the Axis, an increase in the Threat they
generate towards others, an increase in their Consumer Goods Demand during war and a decrease
during peace.
- Left-Wing governments have a tendency to drift towards the Comintern, an increase in IC Efficiency,
Counter Intelligence and Ruling Party Support and a reduction in Money production.
- Monarchies have a slight decrease in Dissent and in the effect of events on National Unity.
- Puppet regimes have an increase in Revolt Risk and a penalty on Ruling Party Support.
- State of Emergency has an increase on Dissent and in the Threat generated towards others.
- An Empire has an impressive decrease in Dissent, an increase in Land, Air and Naval Organisation and
a small but continuous increase in National Unity. Only Japan starts the game as an Empire but other
Monarchies might turn into one later on. See below!
For ways to change your government type, see below!
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Political Crises
In vanilla Semper Fi, internal politics are very stable except for a few exceptional cases. Not so in the HPP. We
have a random political event that can potentially overthrow your current Ruling Party along with the
government. It is still a relatively rare thing to happen but several factors effect the frequency of Political Crises.
- Democracies are less susceptible to violent changes of government since they already have a peaceful
way of taking care of the issue.
- While Puppets are immune to such coups, countries with puppet-type governments that are no longer
puppets are much more likely to have their government kicked out.
- Having a high Dissent value will increase the chance immensely.
- Having a low National Unity will increase the chance.
- Having a low Ruling Party Organisation also increases the chance.
- Being at war lowers the chance.
- Being a member of an ideologically alien faction increases the chance. (For this purpose the closest
ideology to an ideology group is still acceptable, so for example a Social Democrat Ruling Party is
acceptable in the Comintern and a Paternal Autocrat Ruling Party is acceptable in the Allies.)
Having at least 30 Ruling Party Popularity, at least 50 Ruling Party Organisation, at least 80 National Unity or
less than 5 Dissent will protect you from such an event (any of the above is enough!). Governments in Exile and
Puppets are also immune and so are countries already in such a crisis.
When you get the event, you will have two options: resign or declare a state of emergency.
Doing the former should be your choice if you prefer to bring stability into your country over keeping your
current government. This will trigger an Election on the next day (even if your country wouldn't hold elections
otherwise) and your current Ruling Party will suffer a huge hit in their Organisation. (They may still win the
election, but that is unlikely, since in that case you probably wouldn't have suffered a crisis in the first place.)
After this you will be able to establish a new government type in line with the ideology of the new Ruling Party.
(NOTE: you might end up with the same Ruling Party as before, and if you had a specific government type, like
the Right-Wing Autocracy of Hungary, you will get a more generic one after the crisis. The revolution didn't
overthrow the government but they still managed to force some of their demands.) This should solve your
problems for a while, unless your new government is unstable as well.
The other option, declaring a state of emergency, might be your choice if you want to stick to your current
government. This choice will have several effects. First of all, it will change your government type to State of
Emergency. This government type doesn't have elections (even if your former one did) and it allows every
ideology, so you will be able to choose any minister you want. (Basically you are forcing your will on the
opposition as well, at gun-point if necessary.) Second of all, a new set of random political events will become
available. You might get open revolts (if your Popularity is less than 30), several options to try and handle the
situation (if your Popularity or Organisation is at least 30), an actual Coup d’état (if your Popularity is less than
20) or order might get restored (if have at least 35 Popularity or 65 Organisation). Note that restoring order won't
force you back to your original government type, you might keep State of Emergency as long as you like, but
doing so might not always be wise, considering the penalties of that government type.
As explained above, Puppets are immune to the normal Political Crisis events but that doesn't mean they are
perfectly stable. In fact, puppets have their very own Political Crisis event called "The regime is weak!", that
works a bit differently from the one for independent nations:
- Only puppets can get this event and only if they are not in exile.
- Having at least 20 Ruling Party Organisation is enough to avoid the event.
Once the event fires, some revolts will start immediately. At this point if the Overlord borders the Puppet, they
can decide to intervene. Doing so will have a random outcome: successful intervention (increasing the
Organisation of the Puppet's Ruling Party), an indecisive intervention (spawning more revolts and hurting the
Organisation of the Puppet's Ruling Party even more) or the Puppet regime might collapse altogether. If the
Overlord can't (or chooses not to) intervene the Crisis may pass on by itself (if Organisation gets above 40 or
Popularity gets above 20) or the regime may fall on its own (if organisation sinks below 10).
The important thing to remember here is that you can cause problems to your enemies by supporting their
opposition even in puppets and especially in Colonies that have no direct border to their Overlord, and also that
you should keep an eye on your Organisation and Popularity even if your government type happens to be an
autocratic one with no elections.
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Changing the Government Type
Changing the government type is also possible through peaceful means, specifically via changing/rewriting the
constitution. If your laws are more suited to a different form of government and you have enough influence in
your legislation (meaning you have at least 50 Organisation or 85 National Unity), you can change the
Constitution by using a Decision into a more appropriate one. In theory, you can go peacefully from one end of
the spectrum to the other, but there are some restrictions.
- You can only move towards a government type that fits your current Ruling Party. They always have
the most influence in the legislation (which is the reason why they are considered the Ruling Party in
the first place!), and they won't go for a constitution they wouldn't like.
- Left-Wing governments can turn into Parliamentary Republic, Right-Wing governments can turn into
Presidential Republics. Both types of democratic governments can turn into either way though.
- You can (usually) only go one step. A country with National Socialism can only move to the autocratic
version of the Presidential Republic (the one without actual elections), not to the democratic version.
But once that step is done, you can move on to being a real democracy!
- Monarchs can't abdicate willingly. While that might not be historically correct, there's no way to
simulate the reasons why a monarch would do that and there's no need for that either. Absolute
Monarchies can turn into Kingdoms and then into Constitutional Monarchies.
- Any Monarchy type can turn into an Empire if they have enough IC and enough provinces (and if they
can enact the required repressive laws!).
Keep in mind that when you change the Constitution, there's usually a catch. Turning your country more
Autocratic will hurt your Popularity and in extreme cases it can cause severe Dissent hits. Turning country into a
Democracy with elections will be a popular decision, reducing Dissent somewhat, but it will reduce your
Organisation, since you are handing over some of your power.
Occupation Policies
The available Occupation Policies in the HPP are as follows:
- Liberation. Available if the target country has a different ideology group than you do. You gain nothing
from the provinces but the local population will accept you as Liberators so you won't get any added
Revolt Risk or Partisan Support either.
- Collaboration Government. Available if any of the ideologies from your ideology group have enough
(20) Organisation or Popularity. (It may be the current Ruling Party as well. A party in the game is not a
single entity, it has its own inner opposition.) Revolt Risk is relatively low (although Collaborators are
usually not very popular), Resource output is high, Manpower and IC is low.
- Full Occupation. Available if you have at least Repression as your Civil Law. Revolt Risk is pretty
high. If suppressed, Manpower is minimal, IC and Resources are halved. If not suppressed, Manpower
is zero, IC and Resources are 10%. (Annexation is more efficient since the original government is no
more, so the people will lose hope. For the most part.)
- Total Exploitation. Available only for Totalitarian Systems. Revolt Risk is insane, Manpower is zero. If
the huge Revolt Risk is suppressed, there are no penalties to either IC or Resources.
- Civil War. Available only in some special cases. It gives no modifiers so you can take full advantage of
the occupied provinces.
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INTELLIGENCE
Lower Neutrality
The changes to Intelligence are small compared to some other areas but there are still some changes. One such
change is the replacing of the Support Resistance mission with the Lower Neutrality mission. This allows you to
lower the Neutrality of other countries. You still have the option to lower your own Neutrality as well. The AI
might consider this mission a hostile one if it has a very high Neutrality at the moment, but if it is not
extraordinarily high, it might be considered a helpful mission. (The difference is important because the AI will
switch to a more aggressive counter-espionage campaign if it suffers from a lot of hostile missions.) The
efficiency is one third of the domestic version, if you don't send enough spies, the effect might be negligible.
Other changes
- In vanilla Semper Fi, the Disrupt Production mission reduces the repair rate of the target. In HPP, it
reduces IC efficiency.
- The efficiency of the Political, Military and Tech Espionage missions are increased significantly.
- The efficiency of the Supporting Party mission is decreased.
- Again, it is important to note that the overall Leadership amount was lowered, so you might find
yourself with less room to maneuver when it comes to espionage.
35
SUPPLY
Most of the Supply system is not really moddable, only a few parameters can be tweaked, so don't expect any
major changes here. Still, there are some important things to keep in mind.
- Base Port Capacity was increased by 50%, so a single level of port will bring in 6 points of Fuel and Supplies a
day instead of the vanilla 4. The Basing Operations tech in the Naval Doctrines tab increases this with a further
7.5% per level.
- The base value of Supply Throughput for land provinces is decreased from 4 to 3 but the ownership multiplier
was increased from 2 to 3. That basically means that you will be able to supply your units in your own provinces
slightly better but the situation will be slightly worse in occupied territory.
- The required Convoys per route depends mostly on the amount of the cargo but also on the length of the route.
- The Infrastructure levels were redone in certain areas of the World, mostly in China, to help achieve a more
realistic Sino-Japanese War.
36
UNITS
Since most units went through some changes (some were changed more than others), it looks necessary to give a
brief introduction to every unit type. What they represent, what are their advantages and disadvantages. (The
required technologies for the different units can be found in the Technology chapter of this manual.)
But first, let's clear up any potential confusion around the words Brigade, Regiment and Battalion. In this manual
and (except for errors...) in the mod, they mean the following:
- A Brigade is the basic unit of a Division. It can be either a Regiment or a Battalion.
- A Regiment is usually a frontline unit with 3000 Strength or more.
- A Battalion is usually a support unit with about 1000 Strength.
So Brigade refers to the unit you can build from the Production interface while Regiment and Battalion refers to
the original size of a formation. Actually the confusing part is that the size of a Brigade can change, but that
won't change how it is referred to in the game. An Infantry Regiment will be called an Infantry Regiment
regardless of its size and an Artillery Battalion will be called an Artillery Battalion even if your Doctrines
increase its operational strength to Regiment size. Bear in mind that these are just names, nothing more.
NOTE: Aircraft and Ships now have Officer requirement as well!
Unit Types
Land
- Partisan Regiment - Partisans are self-organised or government-supported locals who try to win back
their freedom. Their only advantage is that they consume no Supplies, living off the land they fight in.
They are not buildable but you might receive some from revolts in your provinces that your enemy
occupies.
- Militia Regiment - Militia Regiments are the most basic form of a fighting force. They only have old,
obsolete small arms and some defensive weapons like mines or molotov cocktails but they can also
receive Rocket Launchers. Otherwise they have no Hard Attack value at all. Their main advantage is
their low build time and high Morale but their Organisation and overall combat value is very low.
- Garrison Regiment - Garrison Regiments are similar to Infantry Regiments with no offensive heavy
weaponry but an increased amount of defensive heavy weaponry. They are generally good at defending
and their Organisation is higher than Infantry but they are slow and not suited for attacking.
- Infantry Regiment - Infantry Regiments are the backbone of most armies. They have decent combat
stats and they don't consume fuel. Their main disadvantage is their speed.
- Cavalry Regiment - Cavalry Regiments are similar to Infantry Regiments with the exception of their
mode of transportation: they travel on horseback. They still fight on foot though, much like regular
Infantry.
- Motorised Infantry Regiment - Motorised Infantry uses trucks for transportation, otherwise they work
as normal Infantry. Their mode of transportation allows them to travel faster on plains but they will lose
most of their edge in rough terrain. They have the same combat values as Infantry but they consume
more Supplies and Fuel.
- Mechanised Infantry Regiment - Mechanized Infantry uses lightly armoured half-trucks for
transportation and also to support them in battle. Their vehicles provide some more firepower giving
them slightly better stats and the vehicles can be upgraded with Light Tank components.
- Mountaineer Regiment - Mountaineers are Infantry specially trained for Mountain Warfare with
specialized equipment for the task. They have a limited amount of heavy weaponry due to the
limitations of the environment but some further research can help with that disadvantage.
- Airborne Infantry Regiment - Airborne Infantry represents both actual Paratroopers (parachuting over
enemy territory) and Glider Infantry (arriving by glider planes in territory already secured). They have a
limited amount of heavy weaponry which makes them somewhat faster than normal Infantry.
- Marine Regiment - Marines are specially trained in amphibious landings. They have less heavy
equipment but they have lower penalties when crossing rivers or making amphibious landings.
- Light Armour Regiment - Light Tanks are fast, lightly armoured vehicles. They have high speed and
decent combat stats when on the offensive but they consume fuel. They suffer big penalties in rough
37
terrain because they can't take full advantage of their speed. They have a minor bonus when attacking
Forts. Tanks have a lower Organisation than Infantry, representing their limited capability for prolonged
campaigns.
- Medium Armour Regiment - Medium Tanks are a compromise between armour and speed. They are
strong enough to break a hole in enemy defenses and fast enough to take advantage of the breach. Their
advantage can disappear in unfavourable terrain. They have a small bonus when attacking Forts. Tanks
have a lower Organisation than Infantry, representing their limited capability for prolonged campaigns.
- Anti-Air Battalion - Anti-Air Battalions represent a higher than normal concentration of Anti-Air guns
in a Division. (Infantry Regiments include AA guns already.) As their name suggests, they excell at
keeping enemy bombers at bay. (NOTE: both AA brigades and provincial AA buildings will fire at any
enemy Aircraft that bombs anything in their province, even if they are not shown in the combat
window!)
- Anti-Tank Battalion - Anti-Tank Battalions represent a higher than normal concentration of Anti-Tank
guns in a Division. (Infantry Regiments include AT guns already.) They can provide a much needed
Hard Attack boost to Infantry Divisions.
- Artillery Battalion - Artillery Battalions represent a higher than normal concentration of high-caliber
Artillery guns in a Division. (Infantry Regiments include Artillery guns already.) They can provide a
boost to Toughness and Defensiveness, representing the pre-assault Artillery barrages lowering
casualties. (They also add some Soft Attack, but that is negligible due to the inaccuracy of indirect fire.)
- Rocket Artillery Battalion - Rocket Artillery Battalions represent the addition of Rocket Artillery to a
Division. They work similarly to conventional Artillery but their effectiveness is slightly higher in both
Toughness and Soft Attack.
- Engineer Battalion - Engineer Battalions represent a higher than normal concentration of combat
engineers in a Division. (Infantry Regiments include combat engineers already.) Their main task is to
help with the attack penalties the Division gets in rough terrain, their own combat values are negligible.
- S-P Artillery Battalion - Self-Propelled Artillery represents Self-Propelled Guns, massive Artillery
pieces placed on light tank chassis. Their main advantage over towed Artillery is their speed and not
only on the operational level. The ability to quickly relocate after a short barrage allows them to avoid a
counter-barrage.
- S-P Rocket Artillery Battalion - Self-Propelled Rocket Artillery represents rocket launchers built on
top of half-trucks or light tanks. (The Katyusha rocket launcher truck is more like Truck-Towed Rocket
Artillery.) Similarly to SP Artillery, their main advantage is their speed and maneuverability.
- Tank Destroyer Battalion - Tank Destroyers are similar to tanks but their gun is fixed instead of
mounted on a rotatable turret. This allows them to use higher caliber guns than regular tanks but it also
limits their flexibility. Tanks have a lower Organisation than Infantry, representing their limited
capability for prolonged campaigns.
- Armoured Car Battalion - Armoured Cars are used mostly for reconnaissance. In the game they
provide some minor combat bonuses and have 0 Combat Width.
- Infantry Support Tank Battalion - Infantry Support Tanks are heavily armoured but slow tanks
designed to operate closely with Infantry. They have a significant bonus when attacking Forts. Tanks
have a lower Organisation than Infantry, representing their limited capability for prolonged campaigns.
- Heavy Armour Battalion - Heavy Tanks are heavily armoured tanks with high caliber guns and strong
engines giving them almost comparable speed to Medium Armour but an increased chance for
mechanical failure (represented by an increased Attrition on every terrain type). They have a big bonus
when attacking Forts. Tanks have a lower Organisation than Infantry, representing their limited
capability for prolonged campaigns.
- Military Police Battalion - Military Police Battalions represent a higher than normal concentration of
Military Police units in a Division. (Infantry Regiments include Military Police units already.) They can
provide a boost to Suppression.
- Headquarters - An HQ is a collection of Staff Officers with little to no weaponry. They rely on other
units for defense, although they have a relatively high Air Defence. Their starting Speed is comparable
to Infantry but they can be motorised by the Spearhead HQs Doctrine in the Blitzkrieg path, increasing
their Speed from 4 to 10.
Naval
- Destroyer Flotilla - Destroyers are small warships with light armament only (compared to other ships)
and little to no armour. They excell in Anti-Submarine Warfare with their high Sub Detection and Sub
Attack value. The appropriate equipment and Doctrines will improve their efficiency even more.
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- Light Cruiser - Light Cruisers are somewhat larger than Destroyers with higher caliber guns. Their main
advantage though is that they have armour. (Note that in the game a Destroyer Flotilla consists of five
ships and the five ships together have the same Hull as a single Light Cruiser.) They can serve in Anti-
Submarine Warfare but they are less effective in that role than Destroyers. Their Air Defence and Air
Attack values are exceptionally high.
- Heavy Cruiser - Heavy Cruisers are used in different roles in different Navies. They can act as the poor
man's Battleship providing some firepower for land battles along the shores or to engage smaller enemy
fleets. With enough technological investment they can also help providing some protection against
Aircraft for their fleet. They are considered Screens, so they won't try to close in on the enemy if they
are part of a fleet with Carriers in it.
- Battlecruiser - Battlecruisers are meant to be strong enough to destroy what they can catch up with and
to outrun what they can't destroy. They have almost as much punch as Battleships but they have less
Hull so they can't take as much damage. But they are faster (even faster than a Carrier) making them
somewhat harder to hit. In theory, they could be used to hunt Carriers, but only if they can withstand the
attacks from the Aircraft.
- Battleship - Battleships are the Queens of the Sea. They are immense weapons platforms with
extremely high caliber guns. They have a high Range, they do a lot of damage while also able to take a
lot too. They are quite expensive though and they have low Air Attack and no Sub Attack. Their
Detection values are also very low. They should be screened by smaller ships all the time.
- Light Carrier - Light Carriers are like Fleet Carriers but smaller in size, usually 1/2 or 2/3 of a Fleet
Carrier. They are somewhat more fragile but also cheaper and harder to hit in battle. They can hold one
Carrier Air Group.
- Carrier - Aircraft Carriers or Fleet Carriers act like large, floating airfields able to hold two wings of
specially designed aircraft (the Carrier Air Group) allowing their Navy to project its force over large
distances. They have a relatively high speed and moderate Air Attack and Air Defence but no Sea
Attack value. In battle, they will try to stay away from the enemy fleet along with their screens (but
Battlecruisers and Battleships will try to close in!). They large size makes them relatively easy to hit if
an enemy ship manages to get into range.
- Submarine Flotilla - Submarines are developed to be able to operate below the sea allowing them to
approach their enemy unnoticed and to retreat into the depths if necessary. They have a very low
Visibility value making them rather hard to find but their weak Hull makes them easy pray once they
are found. For ships that have Sub Attack, that is. They are useful for convoy hunting. They should be
countered with Destroyers.
- Transport Flotilla - Transport Flotillas consist of ocean liners converted to be used by the Navy to
transport personnel over large bodies of water. They have absolutely no firepower and very low
Organisation so they will retreat if attacked.
Air
- Light Fighter - Light Fighters are small, fast, agile planes with weapons strong enough to damage a
Heavy Bomber. Their Air Attack and Air Defence is very high but they almost completely lack and
bombing capabilities or Surface Defence. Their Air Defence depends mostly on their speed (Aeroengine
tech).
- Heavy Fighter - Heavy Fighters are sturdier than Light Fighters with stronger but slower engines and
comparable weaponry (higher Air Defence, lower Air Attack). Their main role is to extend Air
Superiority over enemy territory but they also have some bombing capabilities. Their Air Defence
depends mostly on their speed (Aeroengine tech).
- Light Bomber - Light Bombers are single engine planes designed for dive-bombing. Their main role is
to support the army by precise strikes on valuable targets like tanks. They have an exceptional Hard
Attack value but relatively low Surface Defence so they are susceptible to AA guns. Their Surface
Defence depends mostly on their structure (Single Engine Airframe tech) and their Air Defence
depends equally on their structure and speed (Aeroengine tech).
- Medium Bomber - Medium Bombers are equipped to bomb medium-sized targets like houses, trenches
or supply columns. They have an exceptional Soft Attack and a decent Surface Defence value (flying
high enough to avoid most of the AA fire). Their Air Defence and Surface Defence depends mostly on
their structure (Twin Engine Airframe tech).
- Heavy Bomber - Heavy Bombers carry large enough bombs to level factories or even parts of cities,
but their bombs are not precise enough to hit moving targets. They have an exceptional Strategic Attack
value and a high Surface Defence as well (flying above most AA guns' range until the last moment).
39
They are susceptible to enemy fighters. Their Air Defence and Surface Defence depends mostly on their
structure (Four Engine Airframe tech).
- Patrol Bomber - Patrol Bombers or Flying Boats are big, long range planes equipped to engage
warships and submarines with torpedoes, bombs and depth charges. They have exceptional Sea Attack
and Sub Attack and decent Surface Defence. Their Air Defence and Surface Defence depends mostly on
their structure (Twin Engine Airframe tech).
- Carrier Air Group - Carrier Air Groups are a mixture of fighters and bombers. They are smaller than
ground-based Air Wings. They have moderate dog-fighting and bombing capabilities and they suffer
lower damage because of their smaller size. Their Air Defence and Surface Defence depends mostly on
their speed (Aeroengine tech).
- Transport Plane - Transport Planes consist of medium-sized passenger planes capable of dropping
Paratroopers and glider planes bringing Glider Infantry after the initial attack. They lack practically any
fighting capabilities, so you should only use them when you have Air Superiority. Their Air Defence
and Surface Defence depends mostly on their structure (Four Engine Airframe tech).
- Rocket Interceptor - Rocket Interceptors are a stepping stone towards Jet-Engine Aircraft. They have
an exceptional Air Attack and Air Defence value but their bombing capabilities are rather limited. Their
high speed is offset by their low range and high Fuel consumption. They receive absolutely no bonuses
from technologies.
- Light Jet-Fighter - Jet-Aircraft are the next step in the evolution of aviation. Light Jet-Fighters work
similarly to Light Fighters but their base stats are higher and they receive the same bonuses from most
techs.
- Heavy Jet-Fighter - Jet-Aircraft are the next step in the evolution of aviation. Heavy Jet-Fighters work
similarly to Heavy Fighters but their base stats are higher and they receive the same bonuses from most
techs.
- Jet-Bomber - Jet-Aircraft are the next step in the evolution of aviation. Jet-Bombers work similarly to
Medium Bombers but their base stats are higher and they receive the same bonuses from most techs.
- Flying Bomb - Flying Bombs are small, pilotless aircraft with heavy explosive warheads, inaccurate
but devastating when they hit. They have a high Speed, Strategic Attack and Surface Defence but low
range.
- Strategic Rocket - Strategic Rockets are medium-range weapons similar to Flying Bombs but with
even higher speed (basically impossible to intercept) and higher damage. They are still rather inaccurate
so they are useless against targets smaller than a factory.
Unit Sizes
Certain Doctrines increase the size of some Brigades. This means that the unit's Strength increases (so it can take
more casualties) but also its Weight, Manpower and IC cost and required Officers. It will also slightly increase
performance in battle, although that is usually a much lower effect than new weaponry provides. The Firepower
Focus line of Infantry Doctrines and the Superior Firepower line of Operational Doctrines will increase the size
of Infantry-type Brigades and support Brigades respectively.
OOBs
TZoli spent a lot of time improving (and sometimes rewriting) the starting OOBs. They can be strange at first.
Some of your starting Divisions might not make much sense from a gameplay point of view. These are (to our
knowledge) historical formations. We introduced a standardization of Destroyer, Submarine and Air Wing sizes
and used these to build up the starting Navies and Air Forces. Light Bombers and Transport Planes are also a bit
more common than they used to be. So, check out your OOB, it might hold some surprises for you!
40
LAND WARFARE
Some important changes were made compared to vanilla Semper Fi which you should be aware of before
starting a major campaign.
- Organisation of Tanks. As mentioned above, Tanks have a lower base Organisation in the HPP and
they also gain less through Doctrines. This represents their limited ability to participate in prolonged
campaigns in enemy territory. They are meant to get their job done as quickly as possible and when
they run out of steam, they will have to rest. Their firepower and low softness still allows them to
outlast Infantry.
- Frontage. Base Frontage of a single-province front was increased from 10 to 12 and each additional
angle of attack increases it by 8 instead of 5. The Human Wave Operational Doctrine and the Shock
Focus Infantry Doctrine lowers the Combat Width of some units, allowing more of them to fit in the
same battle, but there are several Brigade types that are considered 'supportive combat brigades',
meaning that they have a higher than 0 Combat Width. (For example Tank Destroyers or Engineers.
These units need to get close to the enemy to do their jobs.)
- Entrenchment. Units can dig in for 12 days instead of 10 and they receive 2.5% bonus per day for a
total of 25%. (Or more precisely, the enemy suffers this as a penalty.)
- Combat movement speed. Unlike in vanilla Semper Fi, in the HPP, units are not moving while fighting
by default. The Blitzkrieg Operation Doctrine Path allows units to move while fighting and there are
several Generals that increase Combat Movement Speed as well.
- Attack delay. The default Attack Delay was lowered from 168 hours to 60 hours. Operational Doctrines
and Officer Training can further lower this value, as well as a high Officer Ratio.
- Combined arms bonus. Unlike vanilla Semper Fi, the default bonus for Combined Arms Divisions is
rather small, only 5%. Each Armoured Doctrine increases this value by a certain amount. Infantry
Support Doctrine increases it by 2.5% per level, Blitzkrieg increases it by 5% per level and Combined
Arms increases it by 7.5% per level.
- Fort modifier. The base penalty for attacking Fortifications is now 10% per level instead of 9%. That
means that if you have no specialist help, it is completely pointless to attack a level 10 Fort.
- Encirclement. In vanilla Semper Fi, being encircled gives a -10% combat penalty. In the HPP, it gives -
30%.
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NAVAL WARFARE
The changes in Naval Warfare are limited but still noteworthy.
- Hull limits. The Hull Limit was decreased from 12 to 10 (because of the decrease in Hull values of
bigger ships) and the penalty was decreased from 4% to 2.5% (because of the increase of Hull from
technologies).
- Hull and technology. The Construction Material and Design Principle techs increase the Hull values of
ships. This will make them more resistant to damage but also larger, which might hurt their Positioning
in battle.
- Prides of the Fleet. Carriers can now be Prides of the Fleet. Also, the old bug with the Pride of the Fleet
gaining insane amounts of Experience is solved. (The tooltip is wrong though.)
42
STRATEGIC EFFECTS
We made a lot of Strategic Effects and replaced or removed most of the old ones. There are some notable groups
that you should be aware of:
- Lost Colonies. There are several cities in the game that are considered to be important colonies. The
owner of them will receive a penalty if they are occupied by enemies, unless the owner has a core on
the province.
- Education. As explained above, the Education tech provides a bonus to Leadership via a Strategic
Effect.
- Cooperation. Faction-members receive bonuses if there are many members in their faction when they
are at war.
- International Status. If you have the forces that your International Status would indicate, you will get
an added bonus. If you are significantly weaker, you will get a penalty.
- Army size. Having a huge army will give bonuses to Officer Recruitment.
- Defeated Commonwealth. If any of the major Commonwealth nations is defeated or joins the enemy,
then the rest will gain War Exhaustion.
- Canals, Straits, Gulfs, important sealanes. There are many of these and if you hold the required
provinces, you can gain some money and supplies from them.
- Technology. Some technologies have indirect effects. Decryption gives an Espionage bonus,
Encryption gives a Counter-Espionage bonus, Officer Training gives a bonus to Officer Recruitment,
Oil Refining gives a bonus to Crude Oil production, and Education gives a bonus to Money Production.
- Inappropriate laws. As explained in the Politics chapter, every ideology has a set of preferred laws. If
you have laws that your Ruling Party does not approve of, you might get Strategic Effects with
penalties.
43
VICTORY CONDITIONS
There are about 45 Victory Conditions in the HPP for every faction. By default, 11 of these will be selected for
you when you start the game and you will need to fulfill 10 of them in order to win. The default Victory
Conditions closely follow what happened historically (Historical Conditions) and mostly include conditions for
certain countries to be in the faction or certain provinces to be controlled by a certain country or a member of a
certain faction.
But 11 Victory Conditions might be too much or too few for you. We also included a set of Simple Conditions
and a set of Complex Conditions. The former have many small objectives like owning a certain province or
having a certain major nation in your faction while the later contains broader goals required for the long-term
stability of the faction. Choosing 25 from the former and all 5 from the later is recommended with requiring 20
and 4 to fulfill respectively. You can make the required changes on your own, or, if you have a Windows-
compatible operation system, you can use the VCSelector.exe file provided with the mod to automatically edit
the files with the required parameters to play with any of the three sets. (Non-Windows users can find the
source-code of the application in the repository of the mod here: http://www.gamefront.com/files/user/Slan.hpp
Note that the code uses the Windows file structure, you will need to adapt it to your own operating system!)
44
FAQ
Q) Why doesn't the Republic of China have cores near Beiping? A) That simulates the lack of support for the KMT party. China will get cores there when they beat the
communists or get exiled to Taiwan after Japan is defeated.
Q) Why can't xxx build destroyers/cruisers/battleships/etc even though they start with them?
A) That's because the nation in question purchased those ships and didn't build them itself. A country only gets
techs for what it built itself, including purchasing designs from a foreign nation and building the ship/plane/tank
domestically. An example of this is China. It purchased the Ning Hai CL from Japan, but is building its sister
ship the Ping Hai in Shanghai. Since they have the plans for it and are building the ship, China gets the techs for
the Ping Hai. If China had bought both ships from Japan, then it would not get the techs.
Q) I have no militia, so what does that militia weapons event mean? A) Militia use the previous weapons that the regular army had. This event represents handing the old weapons
to the militia, and boosts your militia small arms and defensive weapons techs.
Q) I can't research any tanks, why?
A) You need to first research the first level of tank crew training, wait a month, then pick your doctrine tree.
After that, you will be able to start researching tanks based on your doctrine choice.
Q) My naval techs are all grayed out! A) There are two possibilities here. The first is that the nation you're playing as is a signatory to a naval treaty.
If you're Germany, you'll need to reoccupy the Rhineland or negotiate with the UK (see below) to remove the
treaty. If you're the UK, US, France, Italy, or Japan, you'll need to leave the treaty when the appropriate event
fires sometime in '36.
The second possibility is that your Design Principle tech is too low. The Design Principle represents the quality
and size of the hull and ship interior. Things like lavatory and magazine placement, armor and bow design, as
well as component integration fit in here. If you can't research anymore components, then that means the hull is
too small/cramped to fit the larger components and you need to research/design a larger hull.
Q) Where did the Reoccupation of the Rhineland decision go? A) It's been replaced with an event. If you actually reoccupy the Rhineland and move troops to the
German/French border, then the event will fire sometime after March which gives the exact same effects the
decision used to give. If you don't move troops to the border, then in June of '36 Germany can fire a decision to
renegotiate the limitations imposed by Versailles. The renegotiation version gives less money, 5 dissent, -10
organization for the NSDAP, and no neutrality change, but doesn't lower relations with the UK. You can
research all naval design principle techs after either event.
Q) Where did the Bitter Peace surrender go?
A) I redid the Bitter Peace to be a decision instead of a surrender event. If Germany takes Moscow and the Axis
in general takes 20% of the USSR too, then the Soviets can fire a decision that sues for peace. Germany can
either accept the peace, which results in set pieces of territory being handed to the various Axis nations that
participated, or Germany can reject the peace and keep going.
If either Germany rejects the peace, the USSR surrenders before it has a chance to fire the decision, or the USSR
is attacked after the truce was made, then all nations at war with the USSR will keep what they control, and the
USSR will dissolve into Russia and the various other post-Soviet states, like Uzbekistan and Georgia. The post-
Soviet states will only control what hasn't been taken by the Axis already, so it's possible to see Azerbaijan or
Turkmenistan with only a few scattered provinces, for example.
Q) I can't research aircraft components anymore. What gives? A) To get past 1943 tech levels you need to research the Advanced Aircraft Design tech.
Q) Where are the motorized support brigades? A) Normal artillery is horse-towed. You can make them be truck-towed by researching the Motorized Support
Brigade tech. However, that tech doesn't automatically upgrade all of your existing artillery; only new artillery
is motorized. You can upgrade your horse-towed stuff manually using the unit upgrade feature when you click on
the division.
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Q) Why can't I research the Superior Firepower or Combined Arms techs? I have the flag set.
A) Superior Firepower requires motorized support brigades, mentioned above, to be researched first. The
combined arms tank doctrine has motorized infantry brigades as a prerequisite.
Q) I'm playing Germany and made the iron trade with Sweden, so why do I get a strategic effect saying the
trade is blocked?
A) During the Winter, the Baltic Sea freezes, so the only way you can get the iron is through the Norwegian port
of Narvik. However, at the start the Norwegians don't like you very much. You'll need to improve your relations
with Norway to 50 or more to remove the blockade. If the UK mines Narvik in the Spring of 40 because you
didn't do Weserübung on time, then the blockade event will also fire during the winter and won't go away. To get
your relations above 50, make 2 or more trades with Norway. Norway will normally buy oil from you, and will
normally sell you supplies. To prevent Operation Wilfred (the UK's mining of Narvik) you need to take control of
Norway before April '40, assuming a historical start. The actual conditions for the UK's decision is that the
month is between April and September of any year and Churchill is in office.
Q) Where is unit model xxx? A) Check out the files in the folder ../HOI3/mod/HPP/units/models to see what techs you need to research in
order to build the ship/tank/plane you want.
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TROUBLESHOOTING
Q) I'm not entirely sure how to use the mod folder. A) Most mods require you to make a copy of your vanilla folders and overwrite vanilla's files. The HPP doesn't
do that, and instead uses the mod folder and the game launcher, so you don't overwrite any vanilla files. That
way you don't need to have multiple copies of the game on your machine.
The install directions are pretty straightforward, but for people who've never used the mod folder, here are some
clarifications. When you extract HPP.rar, the contents of that need to go inside of the mod folder. The contents
should be a folder called HPP, a readme text file, a program called VCSelector.exe and the file HPP.mod. All of
that goes inside of your vanilla mod folder.
If you downloaded the graphical supplement, you'll see two folders after you extract it. The gfx folder needs to be
copied into your *vanilla* directory. You shouldn't have to overwrite any actual files, but make a backup just in
case you do need to overwrite something. The other folder needs to go inside of the mod folder and overwrite
when prompted.
Q) I have steam, so how do I play the mod?
A) Follow the instructions for Steam users in the download thread. There are two ways to play the mod if you
have Steam, and I listed how to do both in the download sticky.
Q) I have purple blobs all over my map! What gives? A) Please refer to the fifth and sixth step of the installation process! The engine needs a cache to build the map.
When you run the mod for the first time, the new cache in the mod’s own folder, but the engine will still try to use
the cache in the original folder. There’s currently no way around this issue, so you will need to manually
overwrite your vanilla cache with the one in the ‘\HoI3\mod\HPP\map’ folder.
Note that if you try to play the vanilla game again, you will need to delete the contents of your
‘\HoI3\map\cache’ folder so the game can rebuild the original cache again. Failing to do so will result in the
game crashing on load.
Q) I have the Common Weapons of WW2 DLC, can I play the HPP with it? A) No, the two mods aren't compatible and we currently have no plans to make an HPP version that would work
with CWoWW2. To clarify, you can have both CWoWW2 and the HPP installed with no problems, but you won't
be able to use the DLC units with the HPP. Not that you could anyway without modding the HPP, as the DLC is
selected as a mod in the game launcher just like the HPP is, so the files are kept separate.
Q) My flags are all black! The game crashes when I pick a country! The game crashes when starting up! A) 99% of these problems are caused by an incomplete download. When you visited the website to download the
mod, the site listed the total size of the download. Make sure what you actually ended up with is the correct size.
An incomplete download can be caused by three things: 1) your internet connection is slow and timed out, 2) the
download server is extra busy and cut you off, or 3) you closed your browser before the download was complete
and accidentally canceled the download.
The remaining 1% of these problems are caused either by a bug or by Windows Vista/7.
Q) But my downloaded files are the correct size, so why does it still not work? I have Windows 7/Vista. A) You're most likely experiencing problems caused by Vista's/7's security features. The way to fix this is to not
install the game in c:\Program Files\. As long as the game isn't installed somewhere in that folder, you should be
ok. If you have the game installed somewhere else and you verified your download is the correct size and still
can't play the mod, then please start a new thread so other users of the forum can try to help.
Also, some anti-virus programs will freak out when you unpack the rar. Nothing you can do about it outside of
OKing every file or disconnecting from the internet and disabling your AV program. Note that disabling your AV
program, even temporarily or when not connected to the internet or a network, isn't a good idea, so do so at
your own risk.
Q) I have the German/French/Spanish/Italian/Polish version of the main game, will the HPP work?
A) No, the mod is developed using English and does not use the other localizations. If you try to play the mod
with a non-English version of the text will be wrong. To play the mod you'll need to tell the game to use the
English localization files. If you have Steam, then you can set the language using the Steam interface. Everyone
else will need to change the file settings.txt in your HOI3 folder and change the language to "l_english". Make
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sure you either remember what the original language was set to or make a backup copy of settings.txt, so you
can go back to your preferred language if you want to play the original game.
Q) The AI is acting weird or doing stupid things
A) There are three possible causes. The first is that there's a problem with our AI files and we need to make an
adjustment. The second cause is that there's an LUA error and the AI reverted back to vanilla's. To see if there's
an LUA error, please look at the file ../HOI3/logs/system.log. Here's an example of what an LUA error looks
like:
[luainterface.cpp:69]: LUA Error: mod\HPP\script\ai_diplomacy.lua:688: attempt to call method 'IsSubject' (a nil value)
If you find one, please report it in the bug-reports thread. Please note that the logs are reset every time you start
the game, so if you see something odd like the AI releasing its puppets, then stop the game and please take a look
at the log.
The last possibility is that you saw something related to the military AI, which modders cannot change.
Examples of military AI problems are: the AI uses superstacks; the AI doesn't guard its ports; the AI doesn't
perform invasions; the AI performs invasions, but in small ports; the AI uses tanks in mountains; the AI has
mountain troops attack a plains province instead of the hills province next to it; etc.
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Credits I would like to thank everyone who helped making this mod and also Paradox Interactive for making the game in
the first place and providing a forum to gather the people working on the mod!
HPP-Team
Slan (lead designer, scripting, AI)
TheBromgrev (Chinese Theatre, provinces, starting techs, scripting)
Cybvep (brainstorming)
TZoli (technology names, unit models, unit pictures, OOBs)
Nephandus (brainstorming, naval and air doctrines, naval technology concept, history)
cougar46 (map)
Third-Party Work
The following elements of the mod are from other people’s work:
- Historical Flags Mod by CaptRobau
- parts of the New Nations Mod by Daboo
- the Burma nation from (DiDay’s I.C.E.) made by Sgt.Geumbles
- Naval counters and battle icons by Hr.Cyber
- parts of the Hungarian Improvement Mod by Kunadam
Other contributors
I would also like to thank
- TheLoneGunman for the name of the mod,
- Zach the Lizard for the HoI2-HoI3 Minister/Leader conversion utility,
- CPack for finding the ‘builder = tag’ command in the OOB files,
- Halibutt for his work on the You Forgot Poland mod and RangerPL for his work on adapting some
(most?) of that mod for the HPP,
- v. Falkenhausen for his help with the Blomberg Fritsch Affair,
- Aenri for finding tons of typos and bugs,
- Hakello for his work on the interface,
- Sangeli for the concept of the new land doctrines and the changes in the speed of mobile units,
- impspy for his extensive help with ministers,
- PaxImperator, SSmith and GrossmeisterM for their extensive testing and help with finding a lot of
bugs!