Games developed by Paradox Interactive fit hand-in-glove with mods. Hearts of Iron IV is no exception. The Steam Workshop is teeming with a plethora of top-notch content that adds even more replayability to a game that is already quite addictive. From bug fixes to UI enhancements, mods have all the bases covered.
The total conversion mods are arguably the best of the bunch. These types of mods add and/or change so much of the vanilla content that it often feels like playing a completely different game. Some make the experience more realistic while others are purely fantastical in their settings. The common denominator among them is that all deserve some serious attention from fans.
9 BlackICE Historical Immersion
Many gamers enjoy a good challenge. Sometimes ramping up the difficulty to the maximum level in Hearts of Iron IV still isn’t enough. In addition, when it comes to history-related titles, some gamers are proponents of a high attention to detail when it comes to historical accuracy.
The BlackICE Historical Immersion mod is the heavyweight champion when it comes to these two trains of thought. The difficulty scale is blown off its hinges as the mod adds an astounding level of detail when it comes to managing a country and its military. The care taken to maintain historical accuracy is nothing short of admirable. If you want to fight WWII as it actually happened, then this is the mod that comes the closest to achieving that goal.
8 Cold War: Iron Curtain
For some players, maybe fighting WWII has become a bit stale? The legacy of the Cold War still looms large in today’s world. Interestingly, the list of strategy games that tackle this subject is still surprisingly small, at least compared to WWII. Thankfully, mods have come to the rescue.
The Cold War: Iron Curtain mod recreates the post-WWII world with an amazing level of detail. Nuclear weapons obviously play a much larger role than they do in the vanilla game. The mod feels and plays more like a chess match between West and East. Famous events like the building of the Berlin Wall and the Vietnam War can be experienced through multiple starting dates that span the late 1940s, 1960s, and 1970s. Definitely give this mod a try if storming through the Ardennes Forest has become too tiring.
7 Old World Blues
The Fallout franchise is immensely popular with gamers. Some fans may have thought the Fallout games wouldn’t translate well when combined with Hearts of Iron IV‘s engine. It turns out the two styles blend quite well with each other.
Old World Blues recreates the Fallout universe in the year 2275. All the major players from the lore are represented: the Enclave, the NCR, Caesar’s Legion, etc. Custom focus trees, ideologies, models, and events are all included. Although it may not seem like it at first, playing Fallout like an armchair general is surprisingly fun.
6 The Road To 56
The Road to 56 mod gives players the opportunity to dabble in a bit of alternate history. Much of this is accomplished in new and expanded focus trees for almost every nation under the sun. Brand new nations and alternate historical events are included as well that adds some much-appreciated variety.
The timeline of the game is extended to 1956, hence the name. As such, most technology trees are given a revamp to account for the extra time. In many ways, this mod is the opposite of BlackICE. It gives the player a lot of freedom to steer their country in different directions, most of which are purely fictional.
5 The New Order: Last Days Of Europe
This mod poses a terrifying question: What if the Third Reich had emerged victorious in WWII? In a similar vein to the Wolfenstein series the map of the world in The New Order: Last Days of Europe has been radically redrawn. Starting in the 1960s, the mod deals with the slow disintegration of the Nazi empire as the ailing Adolf Hitler nears death.
The most interesting aspect of this mod is its story-driven focus. Decisions have to be made constantly and many of the major choices have their own branching narratives. It adds to some fun replayability that some other mods lack. The New Order is certainly worth checking out for players who enjoy “what if” scenarios.
4 Kaiserreich
Whereas the previous mod dealt with a Nazi victory in WWII, the Kaiserreich mod explores what might have happened if the Central Powers won WWI. This mod takes alternate history to a new level. Kaiserreich is unique in that it possesses its own massive lore, something akin to what a player might find in an RPG title.
Interestingly, the setting of Kaiserreich is a lesson in role-reversal. Although victorious in WWI, by the 1930s the former Central Powers are now weak and suffering from the Great Depression. The losers of the Great war, namely Great Britain and France, are in a process of ascendancy and are therefore quite powerful.
3 End Of A New Beginning
End of a New Beginning is perhaps the most ambitious mod on the list. It seeks to provide an unbroken playing experience that starts in 1857 and continues to the modern day. That’s a lot of ground to cover. As such, the mod isn’t fully complete yet, but still worth checking out.
Fans of Victoria II will be pleased to see the Victorian Age made playable in the Hearts of Iron IV game engine. Playing through 18th-century events such as the American Civil War can be a nice change of pace from the familiar WWII experience. Steering a country through three centuries of warfare is a neat idea that will be very cool to play once it’s completely finished.
2 Endsieg: Ultimate Victory
Hearts of Iron IV only offers two starting bookmarks: 1936 or 1939. Some fans may have been disappointed in the lack of options regarding when to jump into the game. Endsieg: Ultimate Victory fixes that problem by providing a variety of different starting dates, including 1910 and 1914.
For WWII, there’s the option of starting in 1941 in the midst of Operation Barbarossa. Players are also given the choice to start in 1942, 1943, 1944, or 1945. Veteran players may want to test their skills controlling Germany in the 1945 scenario. Now that’s quite a challenge!
1 The Great War
It was only a matter of time before a WWI-themed mod entered the scene when Hearts of Iron IV was released. The Great War mod was one of the first to tackle the subject and is still the best of the bunch, hands-down.
The mod offers three different starting dates, including 1910, 1914, and even 1919. The mod plays and feels very much like something Paradox themselves would have made, which is a testament to the level of talent at work by the mod authors. It’s a very faithful recreation of WWI that definitely shouldn’t be missed.
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