Developer Diary | Historical Norway

The year is 1936. After 30 years since gaining their independence from Sweden, things in Norway finally seem to be looking up: Its enormous merchant marine continues to be a steady source of wealth, the meager industrial base is starting to recover from the ravages of the Hard Thirties, and there’s finally a majority government, led by Johan Nygaardsvold, who is in the process of enacting sweeping progressive reforms and will bring political stability to this young nation.

The wind may seem to be on Norway’s back, but it is merely the harbinger of the storm to come.

Hey everyone! I’m Carlo, Content Designer for Hearts of Iron 4, and in charge of the Norwegian content. I’m really excited to present to you how we’re depicting Norway in this period; It’s a fascinating country that played a huge and exciting role during World War II, and I’m sure you’ll all have a lot of fun trying to defend it. Let’s get to it. Disclaimer: All of this is Work In Progress and subject to change.

As I was saying in the prologue, the political situation of Norway is getting better, but they have let their armed forces languish, and not only for budgetary reasons: You see, Norway had declared themselves neutral, and while Switzerland hoped to stay out of the war by making itself be as annoying to conquer as possible, Norway hoped to achieve the same result with the opposite method, trying to appear so harmless and accommodating that nobody would think of invading.

I don’t think I need to tell you, dear reader, this plan failed miserably.

They made themselves so damn harmless, that when the war started, BOTH sides were making plans to invade preemptively before the other one had a chance to do so, and when it finally happened, they were caught completely off guard.

And why did both sides want to keep Norway out of the hands of the other? Well, the main reason I presume you read in Sweden’s Dev Diary, Narvik was where iron from Sweden was shipped to Germany when the Baltic ports were frozen. The second one is simply that Norway is very well positioned to launch aerial and naval operations against Britain.

This is why, if you want to change the course of history and defend democratic Norway against the German threat, it will be a challenge. Here are the starting National Spirits:

Complacent Cabinet is meant to represent the unduly confidence the Nygaardsvold government had in a future smooth sailing, and how unprepared it was for a swift reaction to war. It basically makes it harder for you to switch laws and to change the terrible Theorist you start with. Why is he so bad? Well, to represent the infamous miscommunication that occurred when the cabinet found out about the invasion. TL;DR: The government asked for a Partial Mobilization, but unbeknownst to everyone except Birger Ljunberg, this meant sending the conscription orders by post, a terrible idea when you know the enemy is at the gates. Instead of, you know, telling this to the rest of the cabinet and asking if they were sure, he just went ahead and instructed to send the orders by post [Clownemoji].

Obsolete Armed Forces to represent the sorry state of the Norwegian army at the time, ESPECIALLY the forts. That’s why we added two new modifiers so we can make a country’s forts worse than usual. Don’t worry, you can remove this National Spirit later.

The Hard Thirties: