By Blood Alone

By Blood Alone

---

Type

Expansion

---

Release date / Patch

2022-09-27 / 1.12

---

Store: Expansion

Paradox / Steam

By Blood Alone is the 5th expansion for Hearts of Iron IV. It was announced on 2022-06-07 and was released on 2022-09-27. The expansion coincides with patch 1.12.

Expansion features

Build a new empire, resist foreign aggression or explore the limits of neutrality in Hearts of Iron IV: By Blood Alone. This new expansion adds new alternate history options and gameplay variety for three nations, as well as other significant changes.

Features include:

• New Italian Focus Tree: Follow the historical path of Mussolini’s Italy or rewrite history by restoring power to the monarchy, leading a Communist revolution or promoting democracy.
• New Ethiopian Focus Tree: Defy the odds to defeat the Italian invader or resist the conqueror from abroad using unique Government in Exile abilities.
• New Swiss Focus Tree: Surrounded by France, Germany and Italy, the mountain nation of Switzerland finds strength in its neutrality, balancing competing factions and overtures from the great powers.
• New Peace Conference Options: Demilitarize zones of the map or entire nations, bid on the capital ships of defeated powers, or claim control of enemy resources or factories as reparations.
• Aircraft Designer: Design and build your own planes, from nimble interceptors that prioritize speed to durable bombers crafted to unload tons of destruction from high above.
• Unit Medals: A log of each division’s accomplishments lets you track their performance, and even allows you to award unique medals to division commanders for their actions in the field.
• Embargo Interaction: Embargo your enemies with a new diplomatic interaction, preventing them from trading with you if they have generated enough world tension.
• New Unit Models: Over 20 new unit models for Italy, Ethiopia, and Switzerland.
• New Plane Models: 67 new plane models.
• 12 New Music Tracks.

Free patch features

• 74 new states on the map in Switzerland, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Ethiopia, Austria, Siam, all over African colonies and the Soviet Union.
  • Modders can find the new provinces listed in definitions.csv between the numbers 13236 and 13256.
• New puppet names for major countries, such as occupation zones in puppeted germany for the big 4, or new Reichkommisariats for Germany.

Videos

Cinematic trailers

By Blood Alone: Release trailer. Decide the fate of Italy, Ethiopia & Switzerland. As the world plunges into war, a single decision can offset the balance of power and change the course of history.

By Blood Alone: Pre-Order trailer. The future of war hangs in the balance. Take to the skies and pen the annals of history.

By Blood Alone: Announcement trailer. Explore a variety of alternate histories. New focus trees for Italy, Ethiopia and Switzerland open a number of possible paths. You'll also be able to design your own warplanes as you conquer the skies.

Video diaries

By Blood Alone: Feature Highlights #3. Peter Nicholson and Gabriel Blum go to the drawing board and the planning table as they take a look at the divisional command changes as well as the plane designer.

By Blood Alone: Feature Highlights #2. Come and explore the focus trees for Italy, Switzerland and Ethiopia. Peter Nicolson, HoI4's game director, and HoI4's development team take a dive into the various alternative futures that can unfold in the coming expansion!

By Blood Alone: Pre-order bonus song. Sing the songs of rebellion and infiltrate behind the scenes of the creation of our latest pre-order bonus song “Bella Ciao”! Join head of music Tobias Gustavsson and composer Håkan Glänte as they explore the creative process of our unique rendition of this classic track.

By Blood Alone: Feature Highlights #1. Join HoI4's developers as they detail the coming developments with the avalanche update, including the changes to Peace Conferences and Naval Combat as well as the reworks to the Air systems.

Devs play

By Blood Alone: Ethiopia. Presented by Community Ambassador Erik Jakobsson, this video features QA Lead Viktor Dahlberg & Game Designer Bradley Faithfull-Wright and explores the coming Ethopia focus tree in broad strokes.

By Blood Alone: Ethiopia and Air Rework. A few of HoI4's developers discussing the updates and new content coming to the game.

Developer diaries

Main article: Developer diaries

All developer diaries about the By Blood Alone expansion and patch 1.12 (aka Avalanche).

Patch 1.12 (Avalanche)

No.	Title and Link	Description	Date
18	Post-Release	Post-Release graphs and feedback	2022-10-12
17	Release!	Release of the By Blood Alone expansion and patch 1.12	2022-09-27
16	Art & Achievements	New art and achievements for By Blood Alone	2022-09-21
15	Tech	Updated OS requirements and performance improvements of Avalanche	2022-09-14
14	Modding	Overhauled Career Profile with Playthrough Overviews and (moddable!) in-game Awards	2022-08-31
13	Quality of Life Improvements	Changes to war support, piercing, AI tank strategy, and more	2022-08-24
12	Peace Conference Roundup	Overview of the new peace conference system, including UI and new demand types	2022-08-17
11	Division Commanders & Unit Medals	New field officers and awardable medals for divisions.	2022-08-10
10	Plane Designer	A look at the new plane designer.	2022-08-03
9	Ethiopia #2	A look at the alternate history branches of the new Ethiopian focus tree.	2022-07-20
8	Switzerland #2	A look at the alternate history branches of the new Swiss focus tree.	2022-07-12
7	Italy #2	A look at the alternate history branches of the updated Italian focus tree.	2022-07-05
6	Ethiopia #1	A look at the common and historical branches of the new Ethiopian focus tree.	2022-06-29
5	Switzerland #1	A look at the historical branch of the new Swiss focus tree.	2022-06-22
4	Italy #1	A look at the common and historical branches of the updated Italian focus tree.	2022-06-15
3	Designer Corner: Naval Rebalance	Goals and implementation plans for naval rebalance.	2022-06-01
2	Designer Corner: Air Changes	Open discussion for changes to Air management and combat.	2022-05-18
1	Designer Corner: Peace Conference	Open discussion for changes to peace conferences.	2022-05-04