Developer Diary | Hungary

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Jó napot kívánok!



Jonathan here to bring you another Dev Diary for the upcoming DLC Götterdämmerung! I will be (re)introducing you all to Hungary. Originally we had planned to do a minor update to accommodate the Austria rework, but quite early on in the project we decided to give it a proper overhaul as we were going to rework it anyhow and felt it could do with one. Well, since it’s been a long time since the last Hungarian dev diary (7 years to be more precise), let’s start off with a bit of historical context!

Oh, and as usual, please do keep in mind that everything you’re about to see is still WIP so things might change before release and you may see some placeholder art and WIP values. The team thanks you for your understanding!


The new country select screen for Hungary, with a TL:DR for the historical context


A zoomed out overview of the Hungarian Focus Tree’s general layout

From Austria-Hungary to World War 2 So to keep it very brief and as simple as possible; at the end of the Great War, Hungary, alongside other states such as Czechoslovakia and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, broke off from Austria-Hungary in an attempt to avoid partition and blame for the war. History would not however be lenient on the Hungarian state, and through many twists and turns, the Treaty of Trianon was signed, leaving them with 92,962 of the 325,408 square km that had constituted the Hungarian crown, as well as with a practically completely dismantled military, and large reparations to be paid. The first Hungarian Republic had been declared, but was soon toppled and reorganized into the Hungarian Soviet Republic. In an attempt to reclaim lost territory the soviet republic entered wars against Cechoslovakia, Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and the Hutsul Republic. All of this resulted in the destruction of the Soviet regime and a counterrevolution which in turn led to the reestablishment of the Kingdom of Hungary, where admiral Miklós Horthy would take up the role of regent, a role which he held until the Kingdom was disestablished at the end of the second World War.

I know that you all didn’t come for a history lesson, so let’s move on to Hungary’s starting situation in the game.


The National Spirits at startup for Hungary

Hungary now starts with four national spirits instead of the old usual one. As can be seen above however, this isn’t a purely negative thing for them, though the Treaty of Trianon has been made harsher to be more accurate to the historical stipulations. Apart from that one, Hungary starts with an economic dependency on Germany, as well as with two different types of active paramilitary organizations in favor of the government.

Apart from this, admiral and regent Horthy also shares a part of his power with Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös, who signed the previously shown treaty with Germany, and who seeks greater influence over Hungary's politics.


Miklós Horthy and Gyula Gömbös

And with this background and knowledge of the starting situation, we can finally jump into the focus tree, starting with the industrial and military branches!

Common Branches
An overview of the common branches, with the industrial tree on the left, and the military branches on the right.

As can be seen above, with the rework of the focus tree, I tried to keep it in similar shapes and general positions as the old one, so that the memory and muscle-memory of our old players won’t fail them when starting a new game as Hungary.

The Industrial branch on the left eventually leads into the military branches in the center and right, and contains most of the expected factories and research slots, whilst the air force, land forces and naval trees contain bonuses and effects that pertain to their respective branches of the armed forces.


These focuses which previously started the political branches, now start the industrial branch.

The main goal of the industrial branch is to get the Győr program up and running, in order to resuscitate national industries and expand Hungary military capabilities, a program historically launched by Prime Minister Kálmán Darányi.


A few of the effects and items relating to the Győr program.

The start of the military branch revolves around getting rid of the Trianon restrictions, just as it did before. With the right-most side of the land branch being available immediately, the more technology and industry focused parts on the left of it, as well as the air force branch, require the Győr program to have been started before becoming available.


The Air and Army branches.

That should be a good overview of the common branches, so let's move over to the real highlights: the political branches!
Historical Branch
The focuses available to Historical Hungary

The general shape and feeling of the old Hungarian focus tree has been preserved, while being expanded upon. The main difference to the old Hungarian tree however is that historical Hungary, though joining the Axis, now stays as non-aligned under Horthy. The reason for this is that when seeking to gain peace with the Allies and the Comintern and betray Germany, Hungary was invaded and Horthy was replaced by German puppets (with a bit of a back-and forth), the leader and party of whom is now the fascist party for Hungary, with its own branch if they are what you want to play.

The tree starts with reinforcing the regency and the admiral's grip on the nation, while repairing it and repressing opposition groups. The latter half focuses on alliances (to the left) and expansion (to the right).


Some of the focuses and their effects

The ultimate goal of post-trianon Hungary is almost always to restore Greater Hungary in some shape or form, as will be seen in other branches as well.


Greater Hungary, restored.


And as historically, Gyula Gömbös will eventually die, leading to you having to decide on how to deal with the M.O.V.E, the paramilitary organization loyal to him.

But now, on to some alternative history, starting with the actual fascist branch.

Fascist Branch The fascist branch begins with the same focus as the historical focus, deciding to continue the regency. After that though, things will start to change for Hungary.


The Hungarian fascist political branch.

Here you will start the game by having Gyula Gömbös attempt to overthrow Horthy and take the mantle of regent for himself. To do this he will strengthen the fascists, which in turn has some unintended consequences…


The Lead Up events to becoming fascist.


Gyula Gömbös and Ferenc Szálasi as country leaders.

Though I will not take too much of your time for this branch, here you can see some of the focuses available to the fascists in a bit more detail.


Some both early and later game focuses.


You can also embrace the Turanist ideas of Hungarian origin.

But that’s that. Now I think it’s time to show a lot of players’ most anticipated parts of the tree, the monarchist branches (Yes it is indeed in plural).

Monarchist Branches The monarchist branches start differently from the historical or fascist branches. There are a total of 5 different monarchist branches available to Hungary, that share certain parts with each other or with the historical/fascist branches. They revolve around Horthy deciding to actually name someone king, either choosing to comply with the stipulations laid out by the little entente and thus selecting a non-Habsburg monarch, or going against their will and doing just that, leading to some elevated tensions with your neighbours.


The monarchist branches in all their glory.

Before we go into detail on any of their specific branches, though there are only five branches, here are the six different country leaders you can get throughout these branches.


The different monarchs.

So starting on the right, and going to the left, first up we have the fascist king, which works relatively similar to the old version. The reason this is still around is to enable for a only slightly alt-hist Hungary, as well as being able to go a flavour-wise different route while still sticking with the Axis. Friedrich Franz’s two completely unique focuses are these:


The Fascist Kings focuses.

To the left of him lies the democratic king, which is no longer the only way for Hungary to go democratic, but which has been expanded to have a bit more to do, such as hold referendums to regain territory, reverse the Hungarian brain drain and get a head start on some nuclear projects, or even propose a union between themselves and Romania, forming Hungary-Romania. (And perhaps Carl V Wilhelm might want to return to claim the Swedish crown as well)


Some of the Democratic King’s focuses.

If none of these are to your liking however, but you still don’t want a Habsburg on your throne, perhaps Horthy has just the thing you are looking for. As seen previously, he or his more popular son can now be crowned king, and they have a chonky branch of their own.


Horthyist monarchist focuses.

Taking this or the democratic king path, the fascists will begin preparing to oust you, as they won’t endorse a new dynasty nor some liberal Swede. This takes the form of a short decision system, in which you can attempt to stamp it out before it has the chance to escalate to a civil war.


The Arrow Cross’ coup attempt.

But with those brief appetizers out of the way, it is time to move on to the main course, namely the Habsburgs, of which we will start with the last Habsburg ruler in Hungary, namely Palatine Joseph August.


Joseph August’s focuses.

His goal is to recreate Greater Hungary, unlike Otto who will attempt to restore Austria-Hungary.


Some highlighted focuses from the branch, including Hungary’s own “fifth empire” focus.

And now on to the last (but most certainly not least) of the monarchist branches, Otto’s Austria-Hungary tree!


The new Austria-Hungary branch.

Oh, and do not fret, for I have not forgotten @Nattmaran promising that I would show you what we refer to as the Austro-Hungarian joint focus tree, something accessible by not only Austria and Hungary when going down their relevant branches, but also by any of their puppets who were a part of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, such as Czechoslovakia, Croatia or Lombardy-Venetia, to name a few. This branch allows you and your “newfound friends” to jointly build up and increase the combined strength of the new Austro-Hungarian empire (or Danubian Federation if that is more your style).


The Austro-Hungarian JFT.

Otto’s new tree starts off with restoring the personal union between Austria and Hungary, now with Hungary as the “main part” of the union. While the tree however plays using the new puppet type of “Austro-Hungarian vassal state”, which was introduced in the Austrian dev diary, there are two avenues to annexing your puppets and gaining the old Austria-Hungary cosmetic tags, this being through the focus “A Thousand Year Federation” at the end of the joint focus tree and “Renovatio Imperii” at the end of Otto’s tree.

The foreign policy of Austria-Hungary can be very flexible, as it has the option to either formalize an alliance with a monarchist Germany if there is one, sign an agreement to join the Allies by calling back to the Grand Alliance, or to only trust family, and found the Habsburg Alliance. If you are rejected from joining another’s faction, the Habsburg Alliance focus will be automatically completed.

An image can say more than a thousand words (well I guess in this case because the images themselves contain words..), so I will now highlight some focuses and other interesting things in the Austro-Hungarian branch.


Some of Otto’s focuses.

And though many Habsburgs were mentioned in the Austrian dev diary, there are always more. Among those are Carl Pius of Spain, Vasyl Vyshyvanyi, Joseph Ferdinand of Tuscany, and Maria de Iturbide of Mexico. There are also other figures that can appear as you play, such as Ferdinand Pius of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Wilhelm of Wied, and George Bagration “to name a few”.

Enough about monarchism and traditionalism though, how about some republicanism?
Republican Branches
The Republican branches in the focus tree.

The republican branches all start with preparing for the only required civil war in order to go down a certain political path in Hungary, where they will eventually oust Horthy from power and dismantle the regency. When the civil war is over, it will be time to choose who will lead, all of which will take you down different paths in the tree.


The possible republican country leaders, main three at the top.

Starting left to right of the branches we have Mihály Károlyi and the Second Republic branch, a democratic branch in which you will also have the option to elect any of the bottom two characters above to become your president. In this branch, the two main choices are between taking the diplomatic approach and attempting to formalize a Danubian Alliance, also unlocking the Austro-Hungarian joint focus tree, or to go for achieving Hungary's ultimate goal of reclaiming the lost lands, doing all in your power to restore Greater Hungary.


Some democratic focuses.

Now to the communist branches. The first one is Mátyás Rákosi and his Comintern-friendly branch, which centers around utilizing connections with the Soviet Union to build up the industry and military, eventually becoming their bulwark towards the west, acting as a strong minor power in the Comintern.


Some of Rákosi’s focuses.

And last but not least we have Béla Kun and his, well, Comintern unfriendly branch. As someone who was on good terms with Lenin, but who was nearly executed by Stalin, Béla Kun will attempt to establish his workers paradise in Hungary, no matter the costs. His ultimate goal, like that of many Hugnarians during this time, is to restore Hungarian borders, just like the reds tried to during the civil war. The end goal however in the branch, once you have achieved your peak form, is to take down Stalin’s empire of evil and bring an end to his Marxist-Leninsit charade.


Some of Kun’s focuses.

And before we end this, here is a quick peek at some advisors and such available to Hungary.


Political Advisors.


Generals at the start of the game.

Conclusion And that’s all for today folks. I hope this brief introduction has wetted your appetites and has enticed you to load up a game of Hungary once the DLC drops. Up next is the big one that you have all been waiting for, Historical Germany brought to you by ManoDeZombi and Paradox_Danne.

Oh, and speaking of dev diaries, as a fun throwback I must say, we sure have come a long way since Death or Dishonor[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Viszontlátásra!

Make sure to check out the Expansion Pass Here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3152810/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Expansion_Pass_1