One of the climaxes to World War II was the United States dropping a pair of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A new developer diary in the Paradox Interactive forums discusses how to employ the doomsday weapons in the upcoming strategy game Hearts of Iron IV.
Getting nukes are a complicated process, of course. ”Nuclear weapons are a late game tech and there are several steps to acquire one,” states the post. Players have to start researching Atomic Research (1940), Reactors (1943), and Nuclear Weapons (1945). However, just knowing how isn’t enough to produce them. Players must construct the reactors to build them; the more reactors, the faster it is to build them. Major countries will have “national focuses” that makes it easier for them to develop them.
However, owning nukes isn’t enough. Players must have strategic bombers and air superiority to actually deliver the packages to their targets. The atomic bombs in World War II weren’t the same as the nukes available today, being far more tactical in nature. Of course, using the bombs will have drastic effects on a country.
As with Japan in 1945, nuking a country will make it far more likely to surrender, though it’s also dependent on their victory point worth and their infrastructure, so the bombs are more useful as a coup de grace. Otherwise, it’ll do everything one expects an atomic bomb to do: damage all buildings and units.
Hearts of Iron IV will be launched on PC on June 6th, 2016. A new developer diary will be released in two weeks, as the studio is taking Easter off.
