Developer Diary | Arts & Achievements

18 Nov at 17:37

No Compromise, No Surrender — Developer Diary

Hi, I’m CreamGene. In this diary I’ll walk you through the fresh artwork and visual updates we’ve prepared for the NCNS expansion — icons, portraits, doctrine UI, 3D assets, loading screens and the new achievements. We hope you enjoy the results as much as we did making them.

Focus Icons

Here are a few of our favorite national focus icons included in the DLC. Which one catches your eye?

Portraits

Next up: portraits. We picked a few new and updated portraits we’re particularly happy with — tell us which ones you prefer.

By popular request we’ve also refreshed a few older portraits to better represent those figures before their post-war appearances.

Manuel Quezon — Before & After

Some historic portraits were originally based on post-captivity photos. We felt those images didn’t do the individuals full justice, so we created new portraits that reflect how they appeared prior to those events. Below are two such updates.

Arthur Percival — Before & After

Arthur Percival after — After — a brighter presentation

Look at him glow.

Jonathan Wainwright — Before & After

Jonathan Wainwright after — After — refreshed

Just because he looks very nice in this glow-up!

Loading Screens

This time we produced two different loading screens so you won’t miss any of the artwork. Art by Max_Art — please use responsibly.

Loading screen - Use Responsibly — *Use Responsibly*

Japanese themed loading screen — **Japanese themed:** A pilot climbs from a crashed Zero, surveying an aerial skirmish near Mt. Fuji. This is a composition piece rather than a depiction of a specific battle.

Chinese themed loading screen — **Chinese themed:** Inspired by the Battle of Sihang Warehouse, where defenders held out for six days on October 26, 1937.

3D Art

Now for the 3D update — over to Slurpen_Paradox for a closer look at the models we added or polished for this release.

We begin with several new infantry pre-renders that show the level of detail added to uniforms and equipment:

Infantry model 1 — Infantry model — close-up

Infantry model 2 — Infantry model — alternative pose

All models introduced in Waking the Tiger are included, plus several new additions. One highlight is the new landmark: the Great Wall of China.

Great Wall of China landmark — The Great Wall of China — now a playable landmark with a modest entrenchment bonus for units on covered provinces.

Mechanically, the wall provides a small entrenchment bonus to units in provinces it covers. Visually, the wall follows province edges with a slight gap from the border so ownership and bonuses are clear. We also adjusted building rendering to avoid occluding front-line visuals.

Great Wall in-game shot — Great Wall integrated with province borders

Other landmark — Other added landmarks and assets

We’ve also added a mix of aircraft — some familiar frames with new liveries and some completely new types. A few favorites are shown below.

Plane 3 — Distinct paint schemes and new models

On the land side, some borrowed vehicles receive unique local modifications — for example, an M10 GMC fitted with extra turret armor or a Type 91 105mm field gun. Existing national models have been enhanced with higher-fidelity textures and minor touch-ups.

Land vehicle 1 — Land vehicle — upgraded texture

Vehicle or building — Additional vehicle and building assets

We also added new models for Naval Headquarters, the Naval Supply Hub, and unique hulls for submarine carriers, support ships, and repair vessels.

Naval assets — Naval Headquarters and ship models

The Doctrines Feature

Hi again — marblemadness here to explain the updated doctrine UI. For this DLC we refreshed the land, naval and air doctrine interfaces that hadn’t received major visual updates since near launch. The mechanical changes were covered previously by Jaboth in a dedicated dev diary; here I’ll focus on the visual redesign. (See Jaboth’s post for the mechanical overhaul: link here.)

Current doctrine UI — *The current look*

Our brief was to modernize the UI while keeping the core HoI4 identity. We retained the rectangular frame typical of the game and added riveted trim to give a functional, mechanical feel. Backgrounds from the old doctrines were reworked from a horizontal layout to a vertical one so they better suit the new button arrangement while remaining visually interesting.

Old doctrine backgrounds — *Horizontally faced, neutrally colored backgrounds…*

Land doctrine new background — *…land doctrine window with vertically oriented, green-tinted backgrounds*

We also wanted unlocking milestones to feel satisfying. Each doctrine track now has a milestone indicator that appears when the track is fully completed, providing a clear visual reward for finishing a path.

Milestone comparison — *Uncompleted (left) vs fully completed milestone (right)*

Every doctrine track now has a unique milestone to discover — we hope you enjoy unlocking them all.

Achievements

Back to me, CreamGene, to present the new achievements. Below is the roster we designed for the expansion; difficulty varies and some names or requirements may change by release. Disclaimer: Names and descriptions might be altered at launch.