Hearts of Iron 4: Hearts and Minds mod
Available on Steam Workshop
This mod is aimed at multiplayer or more varied singleplayer experiences and is not intended to be historically accurate.
Greater strategic options and political management
I want the player to be able to cruise through the game at a constant speed 3 and still have plenty to do. Currently you more or less go at full speed until something pops up, but that feels kind of stale and like a wasted opportunity. Here you should be able to keep going at a middle speed and have issues to tackle and decisions to make at a steady pace.
Some central features:
- Cabinet of Ministers. This is where you choose who you want to lead the different departments of your country. They each provide different bonuses to different fields. From left to right there is -
- Minister of War, mostly giving battlefield bonuses
- Minister of Finance, dealing with internal production & manufacture
- Minister of Education, manipulating young people for your nation
- Minister of National Development, managing matters of construction
- Minister of Science & Technology, providing research bonuses
- Minister of Foreign Relations, handling how other nations percieve your own
These ministers are designed to be cheap and swapped out according to your need, however they sometimes also include downsides to balance out extreme bonuses. The biggest thing here is that they also hold their own political beliefs. This means each minister is either a democrat, fascist, communist or conservative (ideology drift defence) that applies a boost to each ideology when they serve your nation. You have to balance this out or can choose to let it slide for the sake of a great leader.
- Use political power to boost your own nation, rather than just other people's ideologies. Certain policies, such as higher conscription laws, will now drain political power, so it is a balancing act, not just a race to the highest manpower pool. Conversely, disarmament gives you a boost to PP so should be a valid choice in certain circumstances.
- National unity is also something you need to balance. Certain divisive policies will result in a reduction of unity, internal political struggles can reduce faith in your ability to lead and drawn out, painful conflicts leave the population divided.
- Research bonuses provided by your Science Minister should be meaningful enough that they actually put you significantly ahead in a certain direction.
- Set your political party's public policy, for a nice overall booster effect at the cost of political power. This can be used to strongly promote certain ideologies by enabling its supporters, impose rationing to reduce consumerism, promote hard work, or boost national unity with a patriotic ad campaign.
