What Is Paradox Doing With Germany’s Focus Tree in HoI4????

[Pumpgun-Petrus]

I just finished my first playthrough of the new DLC with Germany, and honestly, I’m furious about the direction Paradox seems to be taking here. I usually stick to the modifiers and focus paths without paying too much attention to the "Inner Circle" mechanics, but even with that surface-level playstyle, the sheer amount of tone-deafness on display is staggering. When I started looking closer—at the portraits, the tooltips, and the mechanics—I couldn’t believe how much of it feels like an attempt to glorify figures and events that should not be glorified.

Let’s start with the little things, like Göring’s tooltip describing him as a "great German pilot" during the Great War. Why? Why does he get this glowing description when 95% of the advisors in the game don’t even get a tooltip at all? Why is this extra level of detail—and the subjective praise—necessary? It’s not just amateurish; it feels deliberate, like someone at Paradox thought, “Hey, let’s make him look cool.” And that’s just one example.

Then there’s the "Gold Reserves" mechanic. Are you kidding me? It’s such a bland, sanitized way to replace the actual historical atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht and SS. It gets even worse when you’re given the option, after the Soviet Union’s capitulation, to send "ethnic German settlers" into the East. The game conveniently forgets to mention why there’s suddenly all this space for new inhabitants. No context, no acknowledgment—just a convenient gameplay mechanic. How do you look at history and decide, “Let’s skip over the horrifying reality and turn it into a ‘feel-good’ empire-builder moment instead”?

And then there’s the Easter egg with Eva Braun. Seriously, what were they thinking? She’s portrayed as this edgy, eyepatch-wearing action movie protagonist, like she’s leading some badass revenge quest instead of, you know, being tied to one of the most evil regimes in history. It’s beyond tasteless—it’s offensive. It’s the clearest example yet of how Paradox is turning Germany into some weird power fantasy where you can just ignore everything that makes playing as them historically uncomfortable.

And that’s really the core problem, isn’t it? The game lets you play as some of the most horrifying regimes in history, but with Germany, there’s no attempt to acknowledge or reflect on that. Stalin gets mechanics that force you to deal with purges. Mussolini has incompetence baked into his path. But Germany? You’re encouraged to be an expansive, warmongering empire—but hey, that’s fine, because you’re just paying off your MEFO bills. There’s no downside, no weight to your actions, just a button that swaps "crimes against humanity" for "Gold Reserves" after every conquest. What the hell, Paradox?

I love HoI4. I love its gameplay, and the DLC mechanics are, on a purely technical level, well-executed. But playing as Germany feels wrong now. It’s not just ignorant—it’s actively trying to make you feel good about playing as one of the most destructive regimes in human history. It’s like Paradox is leaning into the power fantasy, hiding behind the excuse of “it’s just a logistics game with edgy memes,” but this isn’t Warhammer or some alternate universe. It’s history. And if you’re going to dive into that, you don’t get to ignore the uncomfortable parts just because it doesn’t fit your gameplay loop.

Am I the only one losing my mind over this? How do you defend this kind of presentation in a game that’s supposed to have some respect for history? Or is Paradox just catering to the worst parts of their fanbase now?

[Kinski]

In Germany there was a big outcry because of this DLC and some German content creators were tried to be cancelled because they dared to actually play this DLC and even have fun doing so giving it a good review.

In my opinion it's similar to the old debate about violent video games. Just because you play Counterstrike doesn't mean you'll become a mass shooter.

Most of the people playing these games can perfectly differentiate between fiction and reality and stuff like a scarred Eva Braun as playable country leader is completelly over-the-top and can't be taken seriously which shows that the intention was not to glorify anything but to simply entertain the players.

[Stealthkibbler]

The tooltip system sucks (no floating windows that lock) compared to ck3 and i dont bother reading most the flavor that comes in events unless you get bombarded with like 4 different options. Thus i never encountered any of what you mentioned, a lot of the dlcs trend towards being ahistorical anyway so i dont think its worth the energy or thought.

[Ryan]

Meh, the game is not reliving history. It's a mis-mash of alternate history. What's the difference between this and GTA when it comes to doing evil in games? If it offends you then don't play it.

[_Ex0dus_]

Homie. Relax..... dont be soft about a game reliving WW2 lol. They avoid any of the horrific things that happen and focus on the war side. This is just proof someone will always be upset.

[moron_with_a_gun]

I would argue that they used kid's gloves when it comes to showing the atrocities committed under communism. The Soviets killed millions of their own people, not just generals. But like the others have suggested, its a game, not a historical recreation. I imagine that if they accurately portrayed everything that every country did, the game wouldn't be allowed in some markets, or at least more restricted, and there are plenty of sources to find historical information outside of the game. So is it all that terrible that they provide a "soft" portrayal of events?

[00yiggdrasill00]

while i understand your point please keep a few things in mind. firstly, that it is a game and not a full historical record. secondly, as has been said it needs to actually be sellable. thirdly, when playing as a regime in this game you are doing so from their perspective...and few recognise themselves as a villain or harmful to society.

[TheGovernor]

who cares?

[Dedelblute3]

This is a video game, not a book about Germany from 1936-1945. It's trying to make you feel good about playing a historical path because it's a video game and they want the player to feel good, not feel like a piece of ♥♥♥♥ for causing the holocaust. There is a time and place to bring up these topics, Hearts of Iron 4 is not the place, and when someone's winning it's not the time.

[Immortalis]

Please.
Nobody is going to be offended by how faithfully and precisely a videogame depicts the history of the entire world over one of the most complicated decade in our collective history; that is, unless they came in with the specific purpose of being offended and looking for something that would trigger them so they can complain about it. And honestly, there would be no point to satisfy that kind of people.

That being said, Goering *was* a war hero and one of the best pilots that Germany had during WW1.
So much so that at the end of the war, when he was taken captive by the US Air Force, he was paid high honours by its officers (much to the chagrin of the American president).
No matter what happened later on, that’s not an attempt to glorify him or his politics, it’s merely recounting history as it happened.

And on the matter of not depicting the atrocities committed, yes, the game sanitises quite a lot in order to obtain a product that can be sold in an actual market, let alone sold to minors.
But that is true for the atrocities committed by all sides, Germans, Italians and Japanese just as well as those committed by the Soviets or the Americans or even the various “liberation forces” as they freed their homelands and punished those who had collaborated with the occupying forces (most of the time resorting to highly civilised means like mob lynchings in the public squares).

And honestly I’d argue that the way the game depicts the purges under Stalin (“oh, well, that person has lost favours with the leadership” as opposed to “him, his family, their friends, their colleagues and anyone who lived in the next three buildings have been shipped off to Siberia to die of hunger, disease and cold while toiling for the glory of the People of the Soviet Union”) is much more offensive and much more watered down than “yes, Germany is sending some settlers in the land they’ve just conquered”

[マイク]

As a German, cope and seethe. This is a game set in WW2, go play animal cwossing if you can't handle it, Junge.

[daxter]

Can't be that offensive when there are players who get banned asking for way more offensive things. Which they should be considering the gross stuff it is and how unnecessary to the game it is. But complaining about this really is just a waste of time. They didn't add anything that actually goes beyond typical paradox historical/ahistorical stuff. They didn't get into actual war crimes that were committed by the countries that fought. Actually glorifying Nazi Germany would be to the effect of nerfing all of the other factions and making every game a slam dunk for Germany and giving them all of the fun stuff. Which it isn't. That is basically what every "Germany could have won" person is into.

[Mayer]

Nazi Germany is still a taboo subject, hence the ridiculous overreaction over a advisor description of a German politician.
Yes, Goering was a great pilot in WW1 who became the commander of Richthofen's Flying Circus, with this fame he rose to become Air minister and designated successor of the Führer. He was a human and not the manifestation of evil.

Germany's economy was on the brink of financial collapse and was kept afloat by pillaging foreign countries and stealing jewish property. Paradox put a mechanic in the game which reflects this and now they are attacked for both being too insensitive or white-washing history.

Ethnic cleansings and atrocities are not reflected in the game, Paradox does not want to portray them. This can be argued is a cowardly attitude and misrepresents history.
Stalin's Soviet Union is also whitewashed without a mention of the Holodomor which killed 4-5 million people, and the real-life Soviet purges were insane with half a million people being sentenced to death on phony charges.

Seriously, just play another country if you feel uncomfortable with Germany.

[El Jeffe Epstein]

Originally posted by Mayer:

Nazi Germany is still a taboo subject, hence the ridiculous overreaction over a advisor description of a German politician.
Yes, Goering was a great pilot in WW1 who became the commander of Richthofen's Flying Circus, with this fame he rose to become Air minister and designated successor of the Führer. He was a human and not the manifestation of evil.

Germany's economy was on the brink of financial collapse and was kept afloat by pillaging foreign countries and stealing jewish property. Paradox put a mechanic in the game which reflects this and now they are attacked for both being too insensitive or white-washing history.

Ethnic cleansings and atrocities are not reflected in the game, Paradox does not want to portray them. This can be argued is a cowardly attitude and misrepresents history.
Stalin's Soviet Union is also whitewashed without a mention of the Holodomor which killed 4-5 million people, and the real-life Soviet purges were insane with half a million people being sentenced to death on phony charges.

Seriously, just play another country if you feel uncomfortable with Germany.

Absolute rubbish, the German economy was third in the world, second in Europe only to the USSR, surpassing the UK and France by 1937 in terms of productive capacity.
gold doesnt magically generate value, life is not a video game where gold is some magical substance that everyone values the same that people use for common exchange. Commercial gold trading is a complex enterprise and gold itself has its own economy.
Germany's total GDP increase from plundering "jews" (whatever that means) and plundering other countries was a grand total of 0.2%. It was not even 1% of their GDP. It is absurd to say they were on the brink of financial collapse when every other country in Europe was worse off than them in both debt, production, and domestic inflation.
Exclusively the US, Germany, and the USSR survived the great depression and put themselves on the path to recovery, the reason being, the USSR was newly industrializing and using slave labor, while the US and Germany were using Hamiltonian economics. Please do not read the moronic Tooze takes on wikipedia and then reply to me, if you want to post @ me read Michael Hudson. If you know about economics you will know what I am talking about.

[Mayer]

Germany was impoverished after years of inflation, civil unrest and reparation payments. The country was unprepared for the Great Depression which killed all hope of economic recovery. The fiscally conservative thing to do was Brüning's policy of harsh austerity, but the German people were unwilling to sacrifice more.

The Nazis blamed Jew and went on a crazy spending program for rearmament. The MEFO bills were a Ponzi scheme to hide a massive increase in debt.

"Gold" stands for jewish expropiations on a massive scale. Jews had to give up their personal property and jewish businesses became "Aryanized", i.e. forcibly sold and proceeds go to the state.

The reality was that the German economy was out-of whack and the illusion of wealth could only be maintained by stealing foreign goods.

And The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze is considered one of the best sources on the German war economy.

[Sergey Popofikki]

pls play your democratic countries because they would never do such things as warcrimes