Developer Diary | Chile

Hola a todos! Jonathan here to bring you a brand new Hearts of Iron 4 Dev Diary for the upcoming DLC Trial of Allegiance! I will be introducing you all to Chile, a country mostly known as South America’s Prussia. And as such, it’s time for a country almost no one knows about (nor is probably all too invested in), it’s time for Chile!

And breaking from how we have done it ever since No Step Back, this Dev Diary will tell you about all of the Chilean content, as was done in the Argentinian Dev Diary.

As usual, please do keep in mind that everything you’re about to see is still WIP so things might change before release and you will see some placeholder art and WIP values. The team thanks for your understanding!

Now then, on to the actual stuff!

So seeing as most if not practically all people know little-to nothing about Chile, I will start with some historical context, to get everyone on track, and catch you up (hopefully also slightly increasing interest in the country). I didn't know anything about the country prior to being assigned to work on it either, so you can imagine my surprise when I got to know what to work on, but after reading about it, despite having had no interest in the continent whatsoever, I can actually say that I now find it a whole lot more fascinating than I ever did before! The few things that are more widely known are Salvador Allende's socialist rule during the Cold War, and General Augusto Pinochet’s CIA-sponsored coup d‘etat in 1973. But those are much later, so let’s turn back the clock a bit.

In the beginning there was nothing, but somewhere around 3000 BC the first people seem to have moved in. Jumping forward, by the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors began to colonize the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony between 1540 and 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. In Chilean history, the earliest period of the nation is referred to as the Patria Vieja, and the Patria Nueva (the old and new fatherland respectively), where Bernardo O'Higgins led the country to victory against the Spanish Empire during the Latin American wars of independence. From 1826 to 1932, Chile underwent many government changes and the people got quite used to coup d’etats and political instability. The Great Depression that began in 1929 was felt strongly in Chile starting from 1930, and was felt all the way into our current game-time. Chile was the country struck the hardest by the USA closing down their borders, as a vast majority of the Chilean economy revolved around exports of Nitrate and Copper to the United States. This all led to the coup that established the Chilean Socialist Republic briefly in 1932, and which led to a former president, Arturo Alessandri, being recalled to counter-coup the coup makers. Once the Republic of Chile was back on track, he began working to restore the country, and that is where we find ourselves at the start of the game.

Chile also took part in a few wars during this period, even winning conflicts in which they were outmatched. Examples of wars they took part in are the War of the Pacific against Peru and Bolivia from 1879 to 1884, and the Occupation of Araucanía against the Mapuche and the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia that took place from 1861 to 1883. It’s all very interesting, have a read up on it sometime!

TLDR