Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[fantadomat]

Will there be a nice Balkan patch soon? Would love remaking the Byzantine empire. And expanding on Bulgaria will be nice.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

They redid trees and events for Bulgaria and Serbia in 5.0.

 

[Space Satan]

DD. They are starting to fix their shit

Spoiler

Welcome to another bag of tricks dev diary for 1.5 “Cornflakes” and the unannounced expansion. Today we have several smaller features and improvements for you and all are connected to equipment in one way or the other.

Building your own stuff
Managing production lines is something you do all the time, and thus we want the interface to help you as much as possible. We have done several things to help out with this, like allowing you to collapse entries:

The UI now also has more filters, so its easy to just look at lines lacking resources, lines used for upgrade, lines going straight to stockpile etc. Its also possible to assign up to 150 factories to a line (not naval production lines) by using the x5 and x10 toggles.

Toggling on x5 lets you put down 5 factories with each click so its easier to manage big lines (this part is still a bit more work in progress than normal and may see changes before release though).

We have also added drag-and-drop to the production interface and the civilian construction interface too. It makes reordering and changing priorities a breeze. See the future! In moving pictures:

Hopefully this will make it a lot easier to manage things for everyone and if it proves popular we may start adding this to other interfaces too.


Taking other people's stuff
At the end of combats it will now be possible to capture enemy equipment. The divisions involved will grab stuff depending on participation (higher level maintenance companies help a lot here if you want to take full advantage of capturing). If the equipment isn't something the division needs it goes back to your stockpile. This one will be available for people with the DLC.

Getting rid of stuff you don't want
There are sometimes situations when you just want to get rid of some of your equipment stockpiles. Death or Dishonored added the ability to convert equipment, but that is not always applicable. For people who get the DLC we have now added the option of straight up cleaning out your stores of stuff you don’t need or want anymore. To avoid exploits around surrender where someone in MP would try to destroy things to keep them out of enemy hands these are held in a special “being destroyed” storage, and will be accessible to the conqueror if you fall within 90 days.

Also finally there is another way available to all. Lend Lease has been changed to allow to send equipment that isn’t originally yours. This means that you can give captured stuff to your allies etc.

Sending equipment that isn't yours like this will however not give you any XP (you wasn't the one who did research and development after all).

See you all next week for more updates and details!

Also, do you need more friends to invade and annex? Tell them to take a look at our new stream starting later today, Blitzkrieg for dummies! As always on Twitch: https://go.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive .

 

[fantadomat]

They redid trees and events for Bulgaria and Serbia in 5.0.

In the name of the Tzar i will storm CS.RIN.RU !

 

[fantadomat]

So, how much time until this becomes good? I get a lot of requests to port FODD to HOI4.

Not much,a decade at worst.

 

[Destroid]

Is it possible to introduce intermediate products into the HoI4 production system? For example build chassis/cannon/turret separately then assemble them into tank?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Hmmmm... I believe so, but it'd be something clunky like using a decision or event to turn X parts of each to X tanks.

I don't really see the point though, it'd serve no purpose and be detrimental to gameplay. Complexity for the sake of complexity is never good.

EDIT: A good example of this sort of thing in HoI4 is the BlackICE mod, which IIRC increases the types of equipment a division will end up having by roughly tenfold. The only real thing it does is make the production tab much more crowded because instead of just small arms your infantry wants small arms, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, uniforms, sniper rifles, flamethrowers, mountain kits, jungle kits, desert kits, hills kits, swamp things, forest kits, helmets, anti-tank weapons, horses...

 

[Space Satan]

DD: Aircraft and lootboxes

Spoiler

Hi everyone! Today’s diary is sort of a logical continuation on the 1.4 “Oak” updated where we did a full revamp on the air interfaces and much of the underlying combat mechanics. So lets dive into some more air stuff!

Attaching air wings to armies
It's now possible to attach air wings directly to armies. This means that if you assign them to an army pushing into a hostile nation those wings will get automatically move to bases in range and assigned to areas the army is fighting in. This should hopefully mean no more accidentally forgetting your air force in france when you move forces up to the russian front in hectic multiplayer games or needing to manage things manually when crossing into new areas under an advance.
Assigned wings show over armies in air mapmode (you can’t attach to army groups) for easy check on how your attached air forces situation is. We show them in 3 groups: Fighters, Close Air support/tactical bombers and Transports for supply. You can’t attach strategic bombers, because, well, having planes on order to destroy the area you move through is generally not good. You can also quickly select those planes in each group which makes sending them around and rebalancing easy and quick.
Attaching is a free feature for everyone as part of the 1.5 “Cornflakes” update. The rest of the diary will cover features in the upcoming (and still unannounced. Trust me I’m itching to tell!) DLC.

Air Supply
Ever had your troops encircled and out of supply and wished there was some way to help them out? Now you can assign your transport planes to bring supply across enemy lines. Each plane assigned to a strategic area will boost supply in supply areas there. These planes can be intercepted as any other mission resulting in less supply, and destroyed planes. Air supply is designed to be a costly thing that you only want to use at a smaller scale, or to adjust minor supply problems. To ensure this we are rebalancing transport planes a bit so you will need a lot more of them (although with reduced costs as their “air fleet” status right now works badly with being intercepted) and air supply being a logistically tricky affair will require tying up new country resource to work. More info on that in a later diary though when we can show the whole picture. What is important here is that it's hard to use this at a large scale, and that it will come with some trade-offs.

(German planes delivering loot-boxes in a totally not-artificial at all situation of troops trapped in the middle of Poland)

To make it easy to identify where to send your transport planes on supply missions the air mapmode now has a special indicator showing areas with a supply need where planes could be assigned. If you are over supplying them through the air this is also shown, so that you may want to withdraw some of your wings.

Prioritization for strategic bombing
Players can now affect target selection for strategic bombers. The way it works is that you mark your prioritized targets when picking the strategic bombing mission. Those building types selected will have a higher chance of being targeted compared to others. Bombing isn't the most exact process and we felt it would be weird if you could completely control what doesn't get hit etc. So instead we decided on a system where you can somewhat affect it, but won't be able to walk into an area with all refineries destroyed but pristine infrastructure and factories.

We also have one more air related feature as part of the DLC, but we will be showing that off in a future diary where it fits in better with the content there ;P

Next week is a diary I have been looking forward to - we are going to explain what that new topbar button does that you may have spotted in screenies

PS. The second episode of our beginner-stream with @Da9L and @bus is coming any second now. Even though most of you are probably familiar with the basics, this is perfect for any friends that want to join in. Check out the Paradox twitch today at 16:00 CET: https://go.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

 

[Inf0mercial]

Huh that actually looks nice, might make invading Asia easier if you can jump assign transport planes to the army with orders to resupply.

Also fucking finally i have been looking for a mod that did that Air force to armies thing since i got this game.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Good changes.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, it's a great thing to be able to tag air units to armies. Only question mark there is if the AI is obstinate about overcrowding airfields or if you can tell it not to do that and prioritize armies' air assets repositioning.

Being able to direct strategic bombing primary targets is also a nice thing, even if less important.

PS: Kaiserreich has a SPOOKY update which just alters portraits.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

PS: Kaiserreich has a SPOOKY update which just alters portraits.

Literally triggered my aurtistic sensibilities and I'm waiting for the Halloween crap to be reverted before I play

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

To me the bigger issue is that they didn't use the chance with Wilhelm II and add yippy wippy, wippy sound effect somewhere.

 

[Space Satan]

Seems like both Stellaris and Hearts of Iron face a serious rework
Decisions DD

Spoiler

Hey everyone! In today’s dev diary for 1.5 “Cornflakes” and the unannounced expansion (SoonTM) we will finally be taking a look at that mysterious new icon in the top bar we’ve been mercilessly teasing you with these past months... Make sure to grab a large stein of your favourite beverage. This diary is going to be pretty big...

Bringing down the gavel

Back in this diary @podcat talked about “a way for players to take dynamic decisions, quickly. Something that fits between events and national focuses”.

Though it fulfils its role as a narrative tool very well, we’ve never been entirely happy with the focus tree system. It does some things very well: it shows complex story lines and long term options, and it allows the player to, well, focus their efforts in certain ways. However, it had significant problems in that it was rigidly tied to the design of the tree and never very dynamic, with most focuses needing a 70 day lead-up time before things actually happen. This not only made it problematic to the player (for instance, realizing you -really- need to move that industry to the Urals just 10 days after you picked a different focus, and so having to hold out for 130 days before it can be moved), it also made it very difficult for the designers, since it required us to essentially try and predict the state of the world years in advance.

Enter the decision system. The idea behind it is that this would enable the player to be able to quickly react to dynamically arising crises, and not be locked in to the 70-day timetable for NFs. Furthermore, it also provides Content Designers and modders with new and exciting ways to create things for the player to do, or things to react to. The former of these are decisions, the latter are missions. All of these are divided into categories, which themselves can have an icon, flavor localisation, and even a small picture if desired.

We don’t intend for this system to replace the National Focus Trees. Instead, we want to supplement National Focus Trees with decisions to specify more generic focuses, and provide more dynamic gameplay - for example, a focus might give you a decision so that you yourself can choose when you’ll get the effect.

Decisions

Decisions come in two forms. The most basic example of these are simple ‘click and receive’ decisions, much like in other Paradox titles. A simple click on the button will provide a one-off effect, not entirely unlike a national focus that finishes instantly. Decisions can also have permanent or temporary modifiers, acting more like a national spirit in this regard (this was done to keep the national spirit list a bit more manageable).

Other decisions are ‘timed’. They are active for a short while, can confer a modifier during that time (which can be either a bonus or a penalty), and once they time out they provide the one-off effect that regular decisions do.

The base cost of these decisions is political power, but the effects can be scripted to result in other penalties or costs as well. For example, an “Army Reform” decision might have a penalty to Army XP as an effect, in addition to the listed political power cost.

An example of a system we have re-worked to utilize decisions extensively is the current ideology switching mechanics. Previously, you would need to choose an ideology pusher advisor (Fascist Demagogue, Communist Revolutionary, or Democratic Reformer) and would then receive events at random intervals, with little ability for the player to influence things, and little reason to choose a costly civil war over the referendum alternative. And then, of course, you were at the mercy of the random number generator to find out how long it actually took until the event you wanted fired.


Now, the player will have the option of taking a variety of decisions once an ideology pusher advisor has been taken. You get the choice of either a peaceful, but longer path, or a civil war path that is shorter and should be more attractive in general, now.

Various decisions now allow you to increase the future strength of your side in the civil war, to ensure the loyalty of certain generals, as well as gaining a temporary ‘surprise attack’ bonus and a small equipment cache. They are not all needed, but once you fulfill the conditions and feel you are ready you may simply ‘ignite the civil war’ and take your chances with what you have.

You have total control over when things happen when changing ideology, assuming you fulfill the criteria to take the decisions.

Another aspect that has been reworked is the resource system. It is currently quite rigid, and although tying it in with infrastructure level has made it a bit more dynamic, there was still no real way of drastically redrawing the resource map. Decisions now take this rework and propel it further. New decisions make it possible to ‘prospect’ for new resource deposits, depending on your level of excavation tech. For a cost, various historical deposits may now become accessible to nations controlling the relevant provinces. In the cases where there are already existing focuses to develop new resources (the Italian oil fields in Africa come to mind), taking the focuses will lock the decisions and vice-versa.

Missions

Missions are in effect decisions that require an action on the player’s part to fulfill. Once they are completed, they provide bonuses just like decisions. However, they can also be made to have a limited duration, and to give penalties to the player if they do not accomplish the mission in time. This allows us, for example, to make Plan Z require the building of a certain amount of ships within a specific timeframe.

It also gives us the ability to give more direction to the player’s objectives when invading the Soviet Union, or, indeed, other countries. These might be tied to other decisions that give a temporary boost to your forces - but only if you commit to certain objectives, with a possible associated penalty if you fail.

Decision-Mission Interaction

Both of these can be made to interact with each other in interesting ways. For instance, the new German decision “Case Anton” will fire a mission for Vichy France, warning them of their impending demise but giving them a decision to scuttle their fleet beforehand, at least ensuring it will stay out of German hands. A fast-acting German player may be able to prevent this, and thereby obtain the whole (or remnants) of the French fleet.

The British player may, in turn, attempt to force the French to transfer the fleet to British hands, or damage it.

MEFO bills fire a mission every 3 months requiring the decision ‘extend MEFO bills’ to be taken. The alternative is to let the bills fall due and suffer through a period of down-payments that may hamper you in the short-term, but may save you a lot of political power in the long-term.

Crises

One of the things we wanted to do with the decision system is to make things a little more dynamic. This was often not possible under the old focus tree/event system, especially in hectic multiplayer games where you really need to pay attention to other things and can’t be bothered to read through an event right at that instant.

With the decision system, we can now create a problem and give you the option to solve it when you have the time to do so. You have already seen one of these crisis way back in the dev diary about stability and war support: if either of them is very low, your people might become unruly, try to avoid the draft or go on strike. The decision system will then include a simple decision to handle it, which fires an event in which you can select different approaches to the problem. At the same time, a mission is used to simulate the situation deteriorating over time if your approach fails. We feel that this makes the game feel a little more dynamic and unpredictable, without turning into pop-up hell.

Special Projects

Some decisions may well involve such a large investment that it cannot easily be represented by a mere temporary modifier. This is especially true if it involves embarking on projects with huge industrial ramifications. A new category in the industry tab called “Special Projects” will now keep track of such investments.

Counteracting Pop-up Spam

Another thing we aimed to address with the new decision interface is the issue of event spam. There is an ever-increasing amount of news (and other) events that are thrown in the player’s face. Sometimes this is desired, but other times it can be quite annoying. The new interface has handy checkboxes to select whether regular events or news events should be shown as a pop-up or simply be stored in the decision interface where the player can view them when they have time.

This allows the player to quickly choose what form of notification they prefer. During a micro-heavy multiplayer invasion of the Soviet Union it may well be better to have all events be stored in the menu for later reference, while during the early-game build-up it may well be better to be informed of global news as it happens, to know what direction the game is taking.

The future for Decisions

Decisions are a great complement to focus trees and events and we see ourselves continuously adding to this with future expansions. The base system and core decisions needed for game balance and interacting with new things like stability will be part of the 1.5 “Cornflakes” update while most of the flavor, prospecting and special projects and such are part of the DLC. Decisions tied to the new focus trees are, obviously, also going to be part of the DLC.

Next week we are going to be showing off a focus tree. Feel free to guess which one

PS. The third episode of our beginner-stream with @Da9L and @bus is coming up today. E

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'm okay with this. Should be very useful overall, albeit it will cause weeks of nightmare for modders.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Kaisserreich is going to get even better now

 

[Dakka]

These new changes sound good! Maybe there is hope for this game after all.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Kaisserreich is going to get even better now

But as said I feel kinda bad for the poor guys since this probably massively increases the workload for the KR update that comes after this.

 

[Thane Solus]

:russiastronk:

 

[Average Manatee]

>weekly war support
Why the hell would you add a modifier based on such a weird unit of time? And 90 days? Divide 90 by 7 and tell me how much war support that decision buys you.

 

[fantadomat]

Guys,even if the changes sound cool,there is good chance to be shit. After all we are talking paradox here. The best thing that could come from this is modders having more options.

 

[Space Satan]

Gook Expansion

Spoiler

Hi and welcome! Today we announced the expansion we have been working on for the last couple of months: Waking the Tiger. The names comes from a quote by Mao: “When waking a tiger, use a long stick”. A major theme in the expansion is Asia, with a special focus on China. We will be presenting focus trees and other content leading up to release, as well as going over other features we haven't shown off yet. But first a word on the expansion pass:

The expansion pass for HOI4 was the first one we’ve done, and we’ve learned many lessons.

For example, we decided to release "Death or Dishonor" as a country pack rather than a full-sized expansion so that we could still release something cool during a period of time when we were busy staffing up and focusing on technical issues. We saw that with the resources we had, at the time, we couldn't release a full-sized expansion at the same time as we were spending time on improving the AI and doing other free updates to the base game, such as the significant revamp of the air combat system.

It turns out that scope changes of this type do not go well with an expansion pass if you look at the value we promised to pass-owners. So, in order to make sure we over-deliver and make everyone happy, we have decided that the next expansion - the one after "Waking the Tiger", which is planned to be similar in scope - will also be included in the pass.

This means that the initially promised two expansions have now actually become four. This also means that we are also no longer selling the pass. So if you picked it up yesterday: jackpot!

More info about this here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/expansion-pass-faq.975687/

Now back to the regular diary!


China in 1936 was one of the most confusing and interesting countries on the planet. After a revolution in 1911 deposed the last Qing Emperor, the young republic quickly found itself ripped apart by a brutal civil war that would continue, on and off, until 1949. In 1936, the Central Government under Chiang Kai-Shek had established some measure of control over the central regions of China. A number of provincial governors, nominally under the control of Chiang, ran their provinces as essentially separate political entities. The Communists under Mao Zedong had successfully evaded annihilation and created a Base Area in Yan’an.

In 1931, the Japanese military had engineered a false-flag terror attack on a Japanese-owned railroad and used the “Mukden incident” to invade and occupy Manchuria, eventually setting up a puppet government under Puyi. The deposed Qing Emperor, eager to reclaim the throne that was so rudely taken from him, is unlikely to give them too much trouble. The Japanese, of course, have their own designs on China - and they don’t necessarily involve Puyi.

The stage is set for the showdown between 3 large players and 5 smaller ones, with the ultimate prize the title of Ruler of China. Historically, the conflict would lead to a savage war against Japan, causing millions of deaths. The following renewed Chinese Civil War ended up in the disgraceful retreat of Chiang Kai-Shek’s government to Taiwan, with the Communists in control of the mainland. But history need not have followed this path…


Given that the various ideologies are already well-represented in the different players in the Chinese Civil War, we have diverted from our past practice of making alternate ideology paths for every country. It made little sense to us that you would want to turn Nationalist China communist when Communist China is already a thing you can play. This also meant we didn’t have to resolve all the weird edge cases that would spring up from this (the days of Mao vs. Mao battles for control of China are sadly over).

The first new focus tree we want to show you is Nationalist China. It has consistently been one of the most requested nations and is actually one of the most played nations even with the generic focus tree. We originally looked at China as a whole during the early development of DoD, but decided that with the available resources we couldn’t do it justice. Events have proven us right, since the new decision system in particular has been critical in modelling the complex issues in China and turn it into interesting gameplay.

In 1936 Nationalist China is coming out of the brief golden age of the so-called Nanking Decade, in which the Nationalist Government tried hard to industrialize the country and build a modern system of government. Guided by the political theories of Sun Yat-Sen, founder and first president of the Republic, this rested on three pillars, called The Three Principles of the People: Nationalism, Democracy and Welfare (note that the Chinese terms have various meanings and don’t map perfectly on what we understand those words to mean).

In the game, the three principles form the start of three separate branches. The Welfare branch builds a modern welfare state, as it was envisioned by the leading experts of the time. Making the people invested in your leadership by improving their livelihood will increase their willingness to defend it against any aggressor, raising your war support. It comes at a cost, however. The Chinese economy is not yet up to the task of supporting a large welfare state, and so your government will have to make up the deficit by printing money, increasing inflation. Inflation is represented by a national spirit in 5 levels, reducing factory output and the number of civilian factories available for construction. You will have various options to reform your taxation system in the industrial branch, but they might not be popular with everyone.

The Democracy branch concerns itself with reforming the government to a state that truly deserves the name “Republic”. Part of this is the establishment of the 5 branches of government (as opposed to the three the rest of the world has to make do with): Executive, Legislative, Judiciary, Control and Examination. Creating a system of checks and balances will finally allow you to get rid of the “Ineffective Bureaucracy” spirit, which reduces conscription by 35%.

The Nationalism branch concerns itself with the struggle to unite China under your banner and defend it against foreign aggression. It offers you a fundamental choice: do you focus on uniting the country first, leading to a confrontation with the warlords and the Communists, or do you put your petty squabbles behind you to focus on defending against Japan? Or perhaps, you might want to take the fight to the Japanese directly? After all, nothing unites a people like a common enemy…

Before you do, however, it might be wise to review the state of your army, which is less than impressive. Usually under-equipped, often poorly trained and shoddily led, your army suffers crippling penalties to attack and defence until you have had the chance to reform it. Each step will have to be paid for with Army XP, meaning you will be on the back foot for a while until your army has absorbed the harsh lessons of warfare.

The only upside in your rather bleak position is that you are, after all, the internationally recognized government of China, which offers up a large number of avenues to get outside support: German advisors can help you reorganize your officer corps and assist you in building up your tank force, while approaching the Soviet Union might gain you some desperately needed planes as well as support in developing new tanks.

The French and British will send you supplies directly through the Burma Road and Hanoi, represented by off-map factories helping you produce equipment. They may, however, withdraw the support if they wish. Should Burma be overrun, they will also be unable to help you.

Finally, the US can help you build a navy and will support you in building up a domestic aviation industry. Should you find yourself in the position to approach Japan, they can help you with modernizing your navy, although they won’t help you to the point where you may become a legitimate challenger in their own home waters.

Lastly, once you have built up your forces, it may be time to throw off the shackles the Great Powers have laid on you, and reclaim the position you were meant to have: the undisputed, unchallenged hegemon of the Eastern Hemisphere. Whether you will be a benevolent overlord or institute direct rule from Nanking is up to you.

The expansion will come with a bunch of new 3d models for china, more details of this in a later diary.

A sample of the new general pictures for nationalist china

See you all next week with another diary!

PS. The last episode of our beginner-stream with @Da9L and @bus will start at 16:00 today and run for 30 minutes and then I’ll pop in and talk a bit about the expansion. So check out the Paradox twitch today at 16:00 CET: https://go.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

PSS: This is not the thread to discuss the recent removal of HoI from sale in China. To discuss this issue, please go to the relevant thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-iron-iv-removed-from-steam-in-china.1052971/ . Moderators will remove posts concerning this issue.

PSSS: If you missed the trailer, check it out here:

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'm actually surprised PRC hadn't banned the game yet. They're usually very very touchy about the time period because of the party line "canon" about it, Hearts of Iron 2 and 3 were IIRC banned because they had warlord states in them. Though making a China expac with that much focus on KMT and alt-history of KMT winning would definately cause some Chinese censors to go apeshit. In fact, I appear to have found live footage of the Chinese censors attempting to contact Paradox about the matter:



EDIT: But really, the big interesting feature in their list for the expansion is troops becoming accustomed to a climate. That to me sounds like a whole bunch of additional tools for modders to make terrain, season, and climate have all new sorts of shit tied to them.

Also, Rommel casts a spell!

 

[Raghar]

In 1931, the Japanese military had engineered a false-flag terror attack on a Japanese-owned railroad and used the “Mukden incident” to invade and occupy Manchuria, eventually setting up a puppet government under Puyi. The deposed Qing Emperor, eager to reclaim the throne that was so rudely taken from him, is unlikely to give them too much trouble. The Japanese, of course, have their own designs on China - and they don’t necessarily involve Puyi.

Actually, Japanese were perfectly content with having just Manchuiria and keeping China at original borders. They merely were not able to kick out certain officer in time and apologies to Chinese for doing military action before trying to solve these missing soldiers diplomatically and giving Chinese sufficient time to find what happened to these soldiers to avoid falsely accusing of China of belligerence.

Peace for Japan and Manchuria with its mineral riches which Japan was sorely lacking was the best outcome for Japan. Japan was trying to mimic Western colonial activities from 50 years ago. And wanted to do stuff like Japan co-prosperity sphere, which it assumed would allow to have massive influence of foreign politic without war or occupation. Japan also did industrialization attempts in Korea (which still hates them because Japanese had different sexual traditions than Koreans, and bed girls was something of normal for Japanese).

Hitler was of course livid. He didn't want to destabilize situation in Asia. He wanted China to be friendly with Germany, and future ally. And Japanese practically destroyed all that effort and made situation much worse for Germany in long term.

If I'd be participating on HoI V development, I'd try to find facts about US and Japanese before war. From what games distributed only in Japan implied, Japanese had some grievance with US before WWII. Something like they usurped some rightfully Japanese territories. US had also problems with cheap but quality Japanese workers, which killed US job market. That's quite rare to see something protecting jobs from foreigners nowadays, Merkle practically threw Germans to lions. And from what I remember from Hobsbawm history book US parliament took bets when US president would manage to piss of Japanese enough and Japanese declare war. History didn't record name of person who won the bet.

 

[Average Manatee]

China being considered a "tiger" in WW2 is an absurd exaggeration of their abilities. They were destroyed by Japan about as easily as the US destroyed Iraq, it was merely the occupation that was difficult. Course, naming a DLC "Millions of chinks slaughtered, still unable to stop fighting amongst themselves and barely managing to not die before Russia and USA decapitate their enemies" would both be a bit long-winded and not very inspiring.