Greetings, Generals!
I’m Zwirbaum, a Game Designer for Hearts of Iron. I’m thrilled to welcome you to the first update of our Open Beta SE™ (not officially trademarked, of course). I’ll keep this brief to spare you the fatigue, as I suspect many of you are already scrolling straight to the patch notes.
For those sticking around, thank you for your continued feedback and engagement; your insights have been invaluable during this process.
This update introduces several highly experimental changes. Please keep a close eye on the patch notes—I’ve made sure to mark these experimental tweaks either directly in the notes or within the accompanying developer commentary. If I haven’t forgotten to label them, you’ll see them clearly highlighted. That’s all for now—until next time, farewell!
— Zwirbaum
How to Access the Open Beta
The current beta client is Operation Postern v1.19.2.0.4cba (a448).
To install the Open Beta, follow these steps:
- Right-click the game in your Steam library.
- Select Properties from the drop-down menu.
- Navigate to Betas.
- Select the open_beta branch from the dropdown.
If you are already opted into the Open Beta, your client will update automatically.
Please report any bugs via the official bug report forum, and be sure to include your version number. This helps us ensure your reports are routed correctly in Jira, preventing our team from going completely stir-crazy trying to track them down.
Open Beta SE™ Update 1 Notes
Developer Commentary: This section details changes implemented since our last iteration.
Gameplay
- (EXPERIMENTAL) Switching sub-doctrines now retains 25% of the mastery invested in the previous branch.
Developer Commentary: We received feedback that the current doctrine system was overly rigid. We are testing a 25% retention baseline (stacked with any existing reserved banks). We’ve also introduced a new modifier to influence this retention rate, with base values defined in 00_defines.lua. Please note that these strings are currently only localized in English as this is an experimental feature.
- Fixed an issue where superstructures incorrectly permitted the mounting of over-sized guns on amphibious tanks (e.g., Light Amphibious Tanks can no longer equip Medium Cannons).
Developer Commentary: Amphibious tanks will now adhere to the same restrictions as their land-based counterparts. If you had existing designs using these configurations, they should remain functional without causing crashes, provided you do not attempt to re-open/edit those specific designs.
Balance
- Experimental Facilities now receive the Infrastructure construction speed bonus.
- Land unit combat experience bonuses have been reduced by 5%. Green Divisions now suffer a -15% penalty, Trained remain at 0%, Regulars receive +15%, Seasoned +30%, and Veterans +45%.
Developer Commentary: This is the final planned adjustment for experience stacking for the time being. We will continue to evaluate how units gain and lose experience over the long term.
- Secondary Turret HMG now incurs a -4% Soft Attack penalty.
- Secondary Turret Small Cannon now incurs a -5% Soft Attack penalty and a -5% Hard Attack penalty.
Developer Commentary: This ensures that stacking secondary turrets creates diminishing returns; as the game progresses, the effectiveness of these multi-turreted designs will scale down multiplicatively.
- Breakthrough penalties for Heavy Howitzers, Rocket Launchers, and Improved Rocket Launchers have been reduced from -4 to -2.
Developer Commentary: This adjustment prevents equipment from suffering negative breakthrough values through simple module combinations, which previously caused counter-intuitive behavior where stat-boosting modifiers would inadvertently worsen the penalty.
- Reverted Self-Propelled Artillery combat width to 2.
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Soft Attack bonus from +15% to +5%.
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Hard Attack by 10%.
- Capped Self-Propelled Artillery Soft-Attack progression from technologies at 5% (previously higher values were reduced, while 5% boosts were halved to 2.5%).
- Tank Destroyer piercing bonus reduced from 15% to 5%; Soft Attack reduced by 10%.
- Regimental Support progression for Tank Destroyers (including Bofors tech) has been reduced.
Developer Commentary: By reverting the combat width and scaling back these bonuses, we aim to better balance armor variants against their standard counterparts without rendering them ineffective.
- Massed Strike Air Spirit: Air Superiority effect increased from +10% to +15%.
- Helicopter Logistics Company: Base supply reduction increased to -15%; maximum level now provides -60%.
- Engineer III/IV: Flame tank attack bonus in urban terrain reduced to +5%.
- Engineer IV: Assault Engineer attack bonus in urban terrain reduced to +10%.
- Armored Car production costs adjusted from 3.5 / 5.5 / 7.5 / 8.5 IC to 3 / 4.5 / 6 / 7.5.
Doctrine Balance – Land
- Infiltration Tactics: Adoption bonus planning increased to +10%.
- Infiltration Tactics 3: Daily Command Power bonus increased to +0.1.
- Desperate Defense: Now adoptable at 10% surrender progress and 50% War Support.
- Flying Batteries 1/5: Rewards now include additional Soft Attack, Breakthrough, and Defense bonuses for affected units.
Doctrine Balance – Naval
- Anti-Aircraft Cruiser: Adoption bonus reduced to +10% AA; added +10% Armor bonus to Heavy Cruisers.
- Various Torpedo Primacy and Hunter Killer rewards have been re-tuned for better balance in sub-detection and depth charge effectiveness.
AI
- The AI fleet repair threshold has been increased from 65% to 75%. This should result in a more balanced operational cycle for AI task forces.
Open Beta SE™ Aggregated Notes
Developer Commentary: Below is the comprehensive list of all changes in this beta build.
Gameplay
- Battalion adjusters now correctly scale based on equipment and manpower availability.
- Added “Essential Equipment” blocks for various support companies (e.g., Headquarters, Engineer, Recon, Military Police, etc.) to ensure proper scaling.
Developer Commentary: This prevents units from retaining powerful modifiers while effectively operating without the necessary equipment.
Balance & Bugfixes
- Superior Tactician Admiral Trait positioning bonus reduced from +25% to +15%.
- Admiral Maneuver skill impact on retreat speed increased to +2% per level.
- Fixed an oversight where Armored Engineers were providing insufficient breakthrough (previously 0.05, now +5%).
- Support Artillery/Rocket Artillery penalties adjusted to -50% for all stats.
- Motorized Anti-Air now correctly categorized under the “Anti-Air Artillery Support & Line” designation.
As you were!