Expansion - Hearts Of Iron IV: Waking The Tiger

Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger will be available soon on major digital distribution channels for the suggested retail price of $19.99 and is available for pre-order now. Features in Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger include: Chinese National Focuses: Divided and under threat, China has great reserves of manpower and diplomatic flexibility. Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger adds new gameplay options with a special focus on the Asian front of the deadliest war in human history.

Despite the fact that Hearts of Iron IV still has some fundamental issues with its design, the HOI team at Paradox Development Studios are certainly doing a great job distracting us by doubling-down on what actually works (and fleshing out areas of the world bit-by-bit). That’s not meant to be an insult – Dan Lind and his team have been doing great work with what they have, but most fans acknowledge there are problems, even now. Thanks to the recently released Waking the Tiger expansion however, those problems feel a little less pressing.

As with every expansion for a Paradox game these days, it’s important to try and unpick what you’re paying for versus what you get for free. That’s why taken on its own Stellaris: Apocalypse was a disappointing expansion: for $20 you really didn’t get much, but it’s better to think of it as subsidising the free patch.

The story in Waking the Tiger is a little bit more complicated, but on balance it’s a pretty content-packed add-on.

For your money, you get new focus trees for China, People’s Republic of China and the various Chinese Warlords (otherwise they will default to the old versions). Along with this, you get an additional ‘branch’ the focus trees of Germany and Japan (their basic trees have been re-worked for free to accommodate this). It’s worth taking a moment to admire what the team have done here – by working Germany and Japan’s in a specific way, they’ve given themselves the ability to allow entire branches (which can equate to a whole narrative experience, such as reviving the German Empire) to be bolted on at a price, whilst leaving a perfectly functional and complete tree to interact with if you decided not to. I haven’t delved deep into Japan’s tree, but I’ve see a Democratic ‘State of Japan’ form a couple of times now. Germany’s Civil War branch I’ve documented a little bit already; while interesting you must be a lot more active once the Empire is revived because removing Nazi Germany makes Europe a pretty peaceful place, it turns out.

In addition to the above, you get new Command Power abilities that function with the (free) command power system, new traits that go with the (free) revamped commander and army management systems, lots of decisions that interact with the new (free) Decisions System, new formable nations like the Roman Empire, and host of other new bits and bobs that essentially just enhance existing systems. For example, the Acclimatisation system itself is free, but the unique unit skins that trigger depending on which end of the scale you’re on are premium. If you don’t have the expansion, your units just look the same. There’s quite a few littler things that we won’t be able to mention here – we highly suggest you check out this post and look at the ‘Waking the Tiger Expansion’ section at the top to see the full break-down of what you’re paying for.

There’s a lot more generic stuff in this expansion than there are things that specifically tailor to the theme of the day, which is China. You’d be quite right in stating that World War Two actually started in 1937 after the Marco Polo bridge incident, causing Japan to invade. Waking the Tiger focuses on the various Chinese factions, giving them new trees which allow the player to take the area in a few directions, as well as a new mechanic that seems like it has potential, but is a bit of a mixed bag right now.

China is in a delicate place at the start of the game – while ‘China’ itself has just successfully fended off the People’s Republic of China’s take-over attempt, they’re still surrounded by various warlord factions and colonial powers. Not to mention that unless Japan completely falls apart (which it can do), the Marco Polo bridge incident will trigger, and you will be locked in a war with the Rising Sun. The new focus trees for all the Chinese factions give them a lot of options with regards to coming together and facing Japan as one, as well as ways of boosting your economy by courting foreign powers for investment. It’s easy to get distracted by trying to get one over on each other as one of the Chinese factions (especially the smaller ones) but really, all this stuff is meant to be saved until AFTER you’ve fended off Japan. The Focus Trees themselves are fine – the HoI team are getting better at making them, and the only thing they could do at this point to up their game is to simply tell us what the optimum path through a tree is. That’d be nice.

The new mechanic that comes with Waking the Tiger and that is exclusive to the East Asian theatre is the ‘Border Conflicts’ system. Using political points, you can trigger small border wars between yourself and another faction that is contained within one state (that is on the border). You can only use so many troops to fight this war, and the conflict itself is automated until someone wins, or it ends in a stalemate. There is an option to just escalate the situation to a full-scale war if you want. The most disappointing thing about this mechanic is that you can’t control the units – I’ve had my most fun in Hearts of Iron making the best out of small armies – using the surgeon’s knife instead of the hammer. Outside of this, its usefulness compared to just trying to declare war normally is still up for debate. Again, part from maybe one early land-grab, this is something best left until after Japan comes a-knocking (of it Japan falls apart, so you know they’re not coming), because it’s easy to get distracted.

It’s not a very well sign-posted system either. The change-log for the expansion says that these border conflicts can be unlocked through the “asian focus tree”, but what that means is unclear. All I know is that, during a PRC play-through, the decisions just appeared randomly after a point.

I’d be hard pressed to say that you could live without Waking the Tiger. If you at all care about the conflict in China (even staunch euro-philes will probably get bored eventually) it’s a bit of a no-brainer. Further to that, the expansion comes with a lot of quality-of-life improvements that occupy that grey area between being essential (so really, should be free), and being additional tools in your toolbox to enhance gameplay. It also adds in a lot more flavour to the new systems brought in with the patch, like decisions/missions, Commanders (easily my favourite bit now), and the alt-history branches for Germany and Japan. I honestly feel a lot of these areas would be a bit dull without the content that comes with this expansion.

Hearts of Iron IV’s march to victory continues, but the big battle still looms in the distance. The old guard of Research, Diplomacy and basically anything to do with manually running your faction outside of warfare is falling back in the face of the new, dynamic and short-cut-frenzied Focus Tree. At some-point, these features are going to draw a line and will make their final stand. It’ll be interesting to see what the outcome of that will be, but in the mean time Waking the Tiger gives us some fun new toys to play around with.

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Paradox's grand-strategy wargame Hearts of Iron 4 hasn’t built up as powerful a salvo of DLC as its other squad mates in the Paradox Development Studio roster, but with the release of Man the Guns there’s now enough extra stuff available for purchase that you might want to know which order to attack them in.

We’ve called each paid offering to attention to assess their capabilities and see how well they pass muster.

Wargamer.com is affiliated with the Paradox Store.

Note on the Expansion Pass & Colonel Edition

If you’ve never heard of the Hearts of Iron 4 Expansion Pass before, none of this information is relevant as it’s no longer available for purchase. But if you did get a hold of it back around launch and are curious, every major DLC mentioned in this guide is included with the Expansion Pass up to Man the Guns. Anything from La Resistance onwardsisn't included and must be purchased separately.

Similarly, the Colonel Edition is no longer available for purchase, neither is the Colonel Edition Upgrade pack that was around for a while. All of the content that was originally part of this version (which was mainly cosmetic) has either been re-released in a more dedicated DLC, or has simply been folded in the base game for free. Check out the Miscellaneous DLCs section below.

What is the best Hearts of Iron 4 DLC?

Best Hearts of Iron 4 DLC (New Features):

1. Waking the Tiger
2. Man the Guns (could be no.1 if you enjoy naval warfare more)
3. Together for Victory
4. Death or Dishonor
5. La Résistance

Best Hearts of Iron 4 DLC (New Focus Trees):

1. La Résistance
2. Waking the Tiger / Man the Guns
3. Battle for the Bosporus
4. Death or Dishonor
5. Together for Victory

Which Hearts of Iron 4 DLCs do you need for a 'Complete' Experience?

• Germany - Death or Dishonor, Waking the Tiger, Colonel Edition Upgrade Pack, Axis Armor Pack
• Japan - Waking the Tiger, Man the Guns, Death or Dishonor, Axis Armor Pack
• Manchukuo, All Chinese Factions - Waking the Tiger
• Britain - Man the Guns, Together for Victory, Colonel Edition Upgrade Pack
• United States - Man the Guns, Colonel Edition Upgrade Pack
  
• France - Colonel Edition Upgrade Pack, La Résistance
• Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, British Raj - Together for Victory, Man the Guns
• Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia - Death or Dishonor
• Spain, Portugal - La Résistance
  
• Turkey, Greece & Bulgaria - Battle for the Bosporus, Man the Guns, Waking the Tiger

Hearts of Iron 4: Together for Victory

Released: 2016
Price: $15
Available from: Steam, Paradox Store

What’s in it?

• New focus trees for the Commonwealth nations: Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the British Raj.
  
• Autonomy system allows subject countries to assert their independence over time, and for overlords to integrate subjects more fully.
• Allows asking for, in addition to offering, lend-lease of equipment.
• Spearhead command allows your custom battleplans to include more direct, focused assaults.
• Technology sharing allows less advanced faction members to get discounts on technologies that have already been researched by another faction member.
• New voiceovers in German, French, Italian, British English, American English, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.
• 19 new infantry and airplane models for the featured nations.
• Read our Hearts of Iron 4: Together for Victory review for more...

Is it worth it?

The focus trees for the Commonwealth nations are pretty underwhelming. There are mods available on the Steam workshop for several them that, in my opinion, are more fun to play with than the official DLC ones. How much you’ll enjoy the rest of the grab bag features relies a fair bit on how much you enjoy playing minor nations. Autonomy can be a fun way to go from a subject to an equal partner, but from the overlord side, you’ll rarely have the time or resources to do much with it before the war ends. Spearheads can be a nice time-saver, but also don’t do anything you couldn’t accomplish already by micro-managing your tanks. Honestly, my main reason to recommend it is the new unit models and voice overs, which help add texture and immersion to the war.

Hearts of Iron 4: Death or Dishonor

Released: 2017
Price: $10
Available from: Steam, Paradox Store

What’s in it?

• New focus trees for four minor European powers: Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.
• Equipment conversion allows you to re-purpose old or captured equipment (such as refitting older Panzer models into StuGs).
• Licensing allows you to gain access to another nation’s equipment designs in exchange for industrial capacity, or license your own designs for a profit.
• New subject types for Fascist nations such as the Reichskommissariat which behave differently from normal puppets.
• New unit models and voice overs for the featured nations.
• NOTE: New content for Yugoslavia and Romania was added in the 1.10 Collie update (October 2020)
• Read our Hearts of Iron 4: Death or Dishonor review for more...

Is it worth it?

I think the content designers did an overall better job on the focuses and events in this pack than they did in Together for Victory. From restoring the Austro-Hungarian Empire to dealing with King Carol of Romania’s ongoing antics and shenanigans, I got some of my most entertaining playthroughs trying to scrape by on the mean streets of South-Central Europe. I don’t really find myself using equipment conversion that often, but licensing is great if you’re playing a country with limited research slots and you don’t, for instance, have the luxury of always staying up-to-date in fighter tech. As with Together for Victory, the new unit models and voice overs offer a lot of value for me - but your mileage may vary if you’re the NATO counter type of player.

Hearts of Iron 4: Waking the Tiger

Released: 2018
Price: $20
Available from: Steam, Paradox Store

What’s in it?

• New focus trees for Communist China, Nationalist China, the Chinese Warlords, and the imperial puppet state of Manchukuo.
• New focus tree branches for two of the major Axis powers: An 'Oppose Hitler' path for Germany that can lead to the restoration of the Kaiserreich or a democratic, constitutional monarchy, as well as democratic and communist paths for Japan.
• Command Abilities allow generals with certain traits to spend Command Power on temporary, unique buffs to the armies they lead.
• Expanded Decisions list including the ability to form or reform some anachronistic/ahistorical nations or develop strategic resources in historical areas that did not have them at the start of the war, but were discovered to have them later.
• Border Conflict mechanic allows certain countries to engage in a limited skirmish over control of a single state without declaring all-out war (Chinese Factions only).
• Infiltration mechanics allow Chinese communists to subvert local authorities and seize control of states covertly.
• Power Struggle mechanic allows Chinese factions to compete for national leadership politically, without bloodshed.
• Troops who remain in a hot or cold area long enough can become acclimatized, gaining modified unit models and reduced penalties for fighting in that climate.
• Air wings can now be sent as volunteers along with land divisions.
• New orders give more control over what types of targets strategic bombers prioritize.
• Sending military attachés allows countries who can’t send volunteers to aid a warring nation and gain some army xp.
• Allows merging of under-strength divisions.
• Allows you to set custom unit insignias for each, individual division.
• Adds a minimap.
• New unit models for Chinese infantry, cavalry, artillery, and planes.
• Read our Hearts of Iron 4: Waking the Tigerreview for more...

Is it worth it?

If that feature list seems huge compared to the previous two expansions, that’s because it is. Waking the Tiger is definitely the most value you can get for your money of the currently available Hearts of Iron 4 DLCs. It’s the first expansion that really feels like a Paradox expansion in how much it changes things up. The Chinese focus trees aren’t all great - for instance, a lot of the interesting power struggle stuff for China becomes irrelevant 90 percent of the time since the United Front must either band together or get absolutely demolished by Japan.

Border Conflicts, especially, seem like a rushed feature that doesn’t always behave in logical or predictable ways. The new options for Japan and Germany are a lot of fun, though. The new unit models and Acclimatization system bring even more realism and some unique strategic concerns - you don’t want to train troops you plan to send to North Africa in the mountains of Montana, for example.

Hearts of Iron 4: Man the Guns

Released: 2019
Price: $20
Available from: Steam, Paradox Store

What's in it?

• New Focus Trees for the US, UK, Mexico & Netherlands, offering a variety of alt-history and in-depth narrative options.
• New Ship Designer tool allows you to customise your ships by equipping different components to different slots.
• Ships can now return to a shipyard to refit and upgrade to a newer version.
• New Government-in-Exile feature allows you to keep playing even when you've lost your core territory.
• Admirals have now been given traits similar to what was introduced for land generals in Waking the Tiger.
• You can now deploy mines to sea zones to help defend key water-based territory.
• New Amphibious equipment in the form of tanks and troop transports have been unlocked for naval invasions & attacking across rivers.
• You can designate certain ocean territories as 'restricted' or 'off-limits' to your transports, allowing you to customise the route your shipping takes.
• Read our Hearts of Iron 4: Man the Guns review for more...

Is it worth it?

It's a pretty definitive 'yes', although the caveat is if you typically avoid big naval powers or generally don't play the nations that are getting the most improvements here, then you may struggle to get much out of this. Outside of that though, while it doesn't offer as many features as Waking the Tiger added, these features have a lot more impact and take better advantage of the changes that have come as part of the 1.6 Ironclad update (namely, the addition of Fuel and the overhaul of naval combat mechanics).

Being able to design ships, refit and all of the other little naval goodies completely revolutionises the naval game, where-as the Government-in-Exile mechanic is crucial if you like play nations that typically can get steam-rolled by larger powers. The new focus trees, while a bit complex to navigate, also bring the four targeted nations to up to the same level of flexibility nations like Japan, Germany and the Balkan nations. Overall, this is either tied, or a very close second, in terms of value, and the only real deciding factor is how much you enjoy the naval aspects of WW2.

Hearts of Iron 4: La Résistance

Released: 2020
Price: $19.99
Available from: Steam, Paradox Store

What's in it?

• New national focus trees for France, Spain & Portugal
• Improved Spanish Civil War, with potential for four-way conflicts
• Can create an Espionage Agency & recruit operatives
• Operatives that can perform missions and operations
• Scout planes, Armored Cars + special recon companies
• Collaboration Governments
• New Intel system and Intel Ledger
• Read our Hearts of Iron 4: La Resistancereview for more...

Is it worth it?

This one is less certain than previous expansions. It's not that it's a 'bad' expansion, but the new features are less ground-breaking and/or have less of an impact than what's come before. If you're interested in the Iberian peninsular and playing a more fleshed out Spanish Civil War (either as one of the Spanish factions, or as someone like Portugal) then this is a must-have. If you don't care though, the new SCW potential can still trigger without the DLC, adding another tool to the sandbox. The new units fill interesting little niches we didn't know were there, and the Intel system is a bit more interesting now.

But things like Espionage and the new 'agencies' don't pack as much punch as we might have expected. I guess they couldn't have designed this system to be too powerful as it might upset the game for non-buyers, but as it stands it's a fun system to play around with, but it's not game-changing. Or even war-winning, although we've yet to explore that fully. France gets some unexpected love here as well, and the free 1.9 Husky patch improves the way garrisons and resistances work.

Hearts of Iron 4: Battle for the Bosporus

Released: 2020
Price: $9.99
Available from: Steam, Paradox Store

Expansion - Hearts Of Iron Iv: Waking The Tiger The Tiger

What's in it?

• New national focus trees for Turkey, Greece & Bulgaria
• New 3D models for Balkan & Turkish armies
• New voiceover lines for focus nations
• New music

Is it worth it?

This is a very specific offering, and an attempt by Paradox to bring back the 'Country Pack' idea that was started with Death and Dishonor. If you care about Greece, Bulgaria or Turkey, then this pack is aimed at giving you a more complete experience with dedicated new national focus trees and some new 3D models.

It literally as no other content for any other nation, so if you're not that bothered living out a 'nu-Ottoman' fantasy, then feel free to skip. According to the dev team though, Turkey was the most requests minor nation that everyone wanted to see get a new focus tree, so we dare say that some of you may be interested at least.

Hearts of Iron 4 Next DLC

The next DLC for Hearts of Iron 4 is currently unknown. We suspect the next major expansion is likely to cover the Soviet Union in some form. According to the rough HOI4 roadmap that was updated in April 2020, along with Italy and Poland the Soviet Union is one of the last 'core' nations to receive any kind of special attention or overhaul.

When we spoke to Dan Lind at PDXCon 2019, he mentioned that many of the changes that came with La Resistance were needed before a full 'Eastern Front' rework could be considered. Tackling Poland and the Soviet Union in a new expansion seems likely.

According to this dev diary, the studio were working on two patches simultaneously - 1.10 'Collie' and 1.11 'Barbarossa'. The former was released in October 2020 alongside the Battle for the Bosporus DLC pack. Unless it's one massive red herring, we reckon the new expansion will drop at the same time as the 1.11 patch, and it will themed (at least partly) on the Soviet Union and the eastern front.

Miscellaneous DLCs

Radio Pack - $6.99

What's in it?

A total of 35 new songs spread across three faction specific radio channels, each with their own unique look and design.

Is it worth it?

The music in HOI4 is already quite good, but if you were looking to double-down on this side of things then there are worse things to spend your money on.

Allied Speeches Pack - $4.99

What's in it?

Another audio pack, this DLC contains around 70 minutes worth of speeches, spread across 13 specific excepts, recreating famous addresses given during the time period. These includes notables such as Neville Chamberlain's 'Peace in our Time', Churchill's 'We will fight them on the beaches' and even MacArthur's 'I have returned'.

Is it worth it?

If you're a history buff who already knows about these famous lines, then it might be a nice value add to have them playing while you're playing the game. If you're not that bothered this essentially becomes more background noise, and not even the musical kind.

Axis Armor Pack - $5.99

What's in it?

• 19 German Armor Models
• 22 Japanese Armor Models
• 12 Italian Armor Models

Is it worth it?

This is pack aimed at a very specific set of WW2 enthusiasts. If you're one of them, you probably already have this but this is basically just a cosmetic pack that adds in new skins for specific types of vehicles. Depending on your Division composition you might not even see most of them.

Allied Armor Pack - $5.99

What's in it?

• 7 British Armor Models
• 17 American Armor Models
• 8 French Armor Models
• 13 Soviet Armor Models
• 8 Additional Tank Models for each of the major Allied powers, for a total of 32.

Is it worth it?

This pack was released in June 2020 and is essentially meant to be a sequel to the Axis-themed armor pack. It's worth nothing this pack also includes unit skins that were previously available as part of the Colonel Edition, below which may reduce its value depending on whether you already have that or not. There's not as much interest in Allied armor models as there is Axis, but it does add another layer of authenticity.

Sabaton Soundtrack - $3

What’s in it?

• Five World War II-themed songs from Swedish power metal band Sabaton.

Is it worth it?

If you like Sabaton, sure.

Sabaton Soundtrack Vol 2 - $6

What’s in it?

• Ten more World War II-themed songs from Swedish power metal band Sabaton

Is it worth it?

If you really like Sabaton.

Make sure you check all our DLC Buying Guides regularly, especially after a major DLC release or around a major sales event. We'll always keep these up-to-date so you're fully informed as to what to buy.

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