Hearts of Iron IV HOI IV - Open Beta SE Update 1 Notes (13th July 2026)
Paradox's first Open Beta SE update for Hearts of Iron IV softens the doctrine system's rigidity whilst reining in overpowered tank variants and artillery.

The doctrine system got a bit too punishing when you switched subdoctrines. Open Beta SE Update 1 addresses that by letting you retain 25% of invested mastery when swapping, plus any reserved bank you'd accumulated. It's an experimental tweak, but it signals Paradox heard the feedback that rigid doctrine locks were killing flexibility.
Tank balance took the bigger hit here. Superstructures now properly restrict amphibious tanks the same way they do land variants. No more slapping medium cannons on light hulls. More significantly, secondary turrets now carry soft and hard attack penalties that stack multiplicatively, meaning those multi-turreted monsters become progressively less effective as the game advances. Self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers both lost considerable offensive bonuses across the board, a deliberate step to rebalance armour variants against their standard counterparts without overcompensating.
Naval doctrines saw widespread tuning: anti-aircraft cruiser bonuses dropped from +20% to +10%, whilst submarine detection and depth charge rewards across the Torpedo Primacy line were trimmed. The AI also got smarter about fleet maintenance, raising its strength threshold from 65% to 75% before committing to combat.
The full list, including the Infiltration Tactics adoption bonus increase and Armored Car equipment cost reductions, is below.
Full Patch Notes
▲ Buff▼ Nerf✓ Fix◆ TweakGenerals!
Hello, I’m Zwirbaum, Game Designer for Hearts of Iron, and I want to welcome you to the first update of the Open Beta SE™ (Not really trademarked). To avoid writing too much, and boring everyone to the death, as I am fairly sure - you will likely skip to the patch notes section anyways.
For those that are not skipping immediately to the patch notes, I want to say thanks everyone for sharing your feedback and opinions, and engaging in discussions with me, that was incredibly helpful!
Now this update may contain even more of the highly experimental changes, so stay tuned, and look through the patch notes to look for them. They will likely (if I will not forget) be either mentioned in the developer commentary in regards to them, that they are experimental changes, or directly next to it. Anyways, that’s it for this update.
Thanks for reading, and until next time, Farewell!
/Zwirbaum
How to join this Open Beta:
This beta client is Operation Postern v1.19.2.0.4cba (a448)
To install Open Beta client, follow the instruction below:
- Right-click the game in your library
- Select Properties from the drop-down menu
- Select Game Versions & Betas
- Select the beta branch called open_beta
If you are already on the Open Beta client, you should get an update automatically.
Finally, to report any issues you find, in relation to this beta, please use the bug report forum and make sure to include the version you’re using. That way our Jira won’t go nuts trying to figure out what bug report belongs to what.
Open Beta SE™ Update 1 Notes
Developer Commentary: In this section I will write what has specifically changed since the last update:
Gameplay
- (EXPERIMENTAL) When switching Subdoctrines you retain now 25% of the invested mastery in that Subdoctrine, into the new Subdoctrine.
Developer Commentary: This is one of the new experimental features. As we have heard that the new doctrine system as opposed to our intention turned out to be a bit more rigid in how switching of the Subdoctrines turned out to be, we are now experimenting with new base value of 25% of retainment (on top of the reserved bank if you had any). There is also a new modifier related to it, that can increase or decrease the amount of retainment. Base Value is set in the 00_defines.lua. The new strings and modifiers are only localized in English for now - as this is an experimental feature that is not guaranteed to stay.
- Fixed Superstructures now also prevent from putting one category bigger guns on the Amphibious Tanks. E.g. Light Amphibious Tanks can no longer mount Medium Cannons.
Developer Commentary: This means that Amphibious Tanks should follow the same restrictions their land family members have to adhere to. This may have some negative effects on your game, if you already were using such a combination, HOWEVER unless you re-open it, they should work and once again SHOULD NOT cause any crash.
Balance
- Experimental Facilities now benefit from the Infrastructure bonus for the construction speed
- Experience bonus to combat for Land Units has been reduced by 5%. Green Divisions now have -15% Combat Penalty, Trained have 0%, Regulars have +15%, Seasoned +30% and Veterans have +45%.
Developer Commentary: This should be the final step in adjusting the stacking modifiers from the experience for now. However this doesn't mean we won't be looking in the future when it comes to how the experience is gained by land units, how much they lose, and how easy or hard it is to retain any meaningful amount of experience in the units.
- Secondary Turret HMG now provides also -4% Soft Attack Penalty
- Secondary Turret Small Cannon now provides also -5% Soft Attack Penalty AND -5% Hard Attack Penalty.
Developer Commentary: This effectively means that the more secondary turrets you will install on your tanks, the less benefits you will be drawing from your multi-turreted monsters. Also because it is a multiplicative penalty it means that the more the game progresses, the less effective those turrets will become.
- Breakthrough Penalty on the Heavy Howitzer, Rocket Launcher and Improved Rocket Launcher reduced to -2 from -4.
Developer Commentary: This change is to make sure that no equipment has a negative (by easy combination of modules and chassis) breakthrough, which then counterintuitively anything that was increasing breakthrough would also increase that penalty, and anything penalizing breakthrough would lower penalty.
- Reverted Self-Propelled Artillery Combat Width Change (It is back to 2)
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Soft Attack bonus from +15% to +5%
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Hard Attack by 10%
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Soft-Attack Progression from Artillery Technologies (Anything more than 5% was reduced to 5%, 5% boosts became 2.5%)
- Tank Destroyers Piercing bonus got reduced from 15% to 5%
- Tank Destroyers Soft Attack reduced by 10%
- Tank Destroyers and Tank Destroyer Regimental Support Progression from Technologies got reduced, including Bofors Technology.
Developer Commentary: This together with reverting combat width change to the Self-Propelled Artillery is a slightly different approach when it comes to trying to balance out the armor variants and their regular counterparts. While this will reintroduce some power back, it should not have overbearing impact
- Massed Strike Air Spirit - Air Superiority Effect has been increased from +10% to +15%
- Helicopter Logistics Company base Supply Reduction has been increased to -15%
- Helicopter Logistics Company Supply Reductions from Technology have been increased to -15% per technology. Using Helicopter Logistics at maximum level will now provide -60%
- Engineer III - Flame Tank bonus to attack in the Urban Terrain reduced from +10% to +5%
- Engineer IV - Flame Tank bonus to attack in the Urban Terrain reduced from +10% to +5%
- Engineer IV - Assault Engineers bonus to attack in the Urban Terrain reduced from +15% to +10%
- Armored Car Equipment Cost reduced from 3.5 / 5.5 / 7.5 / 8.5 IC, to 3 / 4.5 / 6 / 7.5
Doctrine Balance - Land Doctrines
- Infiltration Tactics Adoption Bonus increased from +5% Planning Bonus to +10% Planning Bonus
- Infiltration Tactics 3 Reward, Daily Command Power Bonus increased from +0.01 to +0.1.
- Desperate Defense can ALSO be adopted if a country has at least 10% Surrender Progress AND at least 50% War Support. In other words additional options to adopt this Subdoctrine have been added. Further tweaks to this adoption requirements will likely happen in the future
- Flying Batteries 1 Reward: It now also gives +5% Soft Attack and +10% Breakthrough to the Units previously affected by this milestone
- Flying Batteries 5 Reward: It now also gives +5% Soft Attack and +10% Defense to the Units previously affected by this milestone
Doctrine Balance - Naval Doctrines
- Anti-Aircraft Cruiser Adoption Bonus: Reduced Naval AA bonus from +20% to +10%. Added +10% Armor Bonus to Heavy Cruisers
- Anti-Aircraft Cruiser 4 Reward: Bonus to Destroyer Anti-Air reduced to 10% and Light Attack to +5%
- Patrol Boats 2 Reward: Bonus to Torpedo Attack reduced to +10%
- Torpedo Primacy 1 Reward: Bonus to Torpedo Attack reduced to +10%
- Torpedo Primacy 3 Reward: Bonus to Depth Charges for Destroyers reduced to +10%
- Torpedo Primacy 4 Reward: Bonus to Sub Detection to Destroyers reduced to 15%
- Torpedo Primacy 5 Reward: Bonus to Sub Detection to Heavy Cruisers reduced to 10%
- Hunter Killer Groups 1 Reward: Bonus to Sub Detection increased to 20%
- Hunter Killer Groups 3 Reward: Bonus to Depth Charges increased to 20%
- Light Task Forces 3 Reward: Bonus to Destroyers for Light Attack and Light Piercing reduced to +5%
AI
- Increased the strength ratio when the AI decides it should send it to be set at 75% instead of previously 65%. This means AI should hopefully be able to maintain a healthier balance between when their fleets and taskforces are operating and when they should be sent for repair. We will continue to monitor the situation on the naval fronts.
Open Beta SE™ Aggregated Notes
Developer Commentary: In this section, you will be able to find a total set of all changes.
Gameplay
- Battalion Adjusters now scale with the Equipment and Manpower status of the Sub-Unit. E.g. Super Heavy Artillery with Siege Artillery Sub-Doctrine no longer gives Army wide Soft-Attack Bonus due to the sheer force of will and imagination.
- Added Essential (Equipment) Blocks for the following units: Heavy Weapons Company and Motorized Heavy Weapons Company, Light Flame Tank, Medium Flame Tank, Heavy Flame Tank, Headquarters Staff, Engineer Staff, Reconnaissance Staff, Military Police Staff, Maintenance Planning Staff, Hospital Group Staff, Logistics & Service Staff, Signal & Intelligence Staff, Naval Liaison Staff, Forward Air Controller, Special Operations Coordination
- Adjusted Essential (Equipment) Blocks for the following units: Helicopter Med-Evac, Helicopter Transports
Developer Commentary: First change should fix the unintended player behavior when adding certain units for their Battalion Adjusters, like Super Heavy Artillery and then turning off the usage of such equipment and still getting the benefit of the modifiers from Siege Artillery. And even if players did not intend to abuse the system, any losses suffered from combat/attrition would not apply any effect to that Battalion Adjusters. Second change is that there were quite a number of units that because they lacked essential equipment defined that would result in them not scaling their modifiers and effects due to the potential lack of equipment. Tank Crews riding in pretend Flame Tanks will no longer confer the sense of bravery and invincibility that would let them attack enemy fortifications or cities at ease.
NEW NOTE(S)
- (EXPERIMENTAL) When switching Subdoctrines you retain now 25% of the invested mastery in that Subdoctrine, into the new Subdoctrine.
Developer Commentary: This is one of the new experimental features. As we have heard that the new doctrine system as opposed to our intention turned out to be a bit more rigid in how switching of the Subdoctrines turned out to be, we are now experimenting with new base value of 25% of retainment (on top of the reserved bank if you had any). There is also a new modifier related to it, that can increase or decrease the amount of retainment. Base Value is set in the 00_defines.lua. The new strings and modifiers are only localized in English for now - as this is an experimental feature that is not guaranteed to stay.
Balance
- Superior Tactician Admiral Trait now provides +15% Positioning Bonus instead of +25%
- Surface Detection Impact on the positioning has been reduced from maximum +25% to +15%
- Admiral Maneuver Skill impact on the positioning has been reduced from +2.5% per level to +1.5% per level.
- Admiral Maneuver Skill impact on naval retreat speed has been increased from +1% per level to +2% per level.
Developer Commentary: Positioning while exists as an interesting concept, in practice it was way too easy to counter-act massive doom stacks by just various plethora of the modifiers providing a lot of positioning benefits. This should give a bit more of a breathing space for the natural positioning penalties to occur and happen in-game. As the Naval Combat is already quite deadly, and retreating ships have hard time to disengage from the combat, increasing the speed with which ships can retreat could help save a couple ships here and there. This change is of a more experimental nature.
- Combat Bonus from division experience decreased from 25% to 20%. Green Divisions now have -20% Combat Penalty, Trained have 0%, Regulars have +20%, Seasoned +40% and Veterans have +60%.
- Combat Bonus from division experience decreased from 25% to 15%. Green Divisions now have -15% Combat Penalty, Trained have 0%, Regulars have +15%, Seasoned +30% and Veterans have +45%.
Developer Commentary: Experience bonus to the Land Units resulted in a massive boost to their combat capabilities as all modifiers during combat are multiplicative with each other depending if they belong from 'different source' that 75% bonus could result in a massive sway of the effective stats. This is a relatively modest reduction, but we may explore squishing that effect a bit or reworking it to have non-linear progression in the future.
- Air Crew Surveys Air Spirit Mastery gain for individual tracks got combined into Air Doctrine Mastery gain Factor.
- Dive Bombing Air Spirit CAS Design cost reduction got replaced with +15% Strike Aircraft Mastery Track gain Factor.
- Material Destruction Air Spirit Medium Airframe Design cost reduction got replaced with +15% Medium Aircraft Mastery gain Factor.
- Industrial Destruction Air Spirit Heavy Airframe Design cost reduction got replaced with +15% Heavy Aircraft Mastery gain Factor.
Developer Commentary: The goal of changing the Design Cost reductions on them is to replace: pay the air XP in order to potentially save some air XP down the line when designing more planes. However with the current amount of air XP incoming from the combat and missions, there is rarely a situation where as a player you feel starved out on the Air XP - in order to make a design, and if you really can't make a design, then paying those 50 Air XP upfront isn't helping with that goal either. Hopefully giving them a more dedicated and focused effect on the specific mastery track will make them somewhat more competitive. I will monitor feedback on this one as well - so depending on the feedback we may see doing further adjustments or going back to the original one.
- Increased naval targeting values for naval bombers for fully screened capitals from 10 to 15
- Increased naval targeting values for naval bombers for fully screened carriers from 10 to 25
Developer Commentary: One of the changes we did with the No Compromise, No Surrender release was to equalize the base weights for all ships when it comes to being picked as targets by the Naval Bombers, when screening value is 100%, and the old prioritization would be kicking in when the screening efficiency depending on how much screening was missing. While targeting would also take into the account strength of the ships (their HP, making Battleships even with equal base weights technically being a bit more of a viable target than 'Early Destroyer') - the result, especially with the meta depending on spam of the masses of the destroyers, would make them rarely targeted. The old behaviour where Carriers and Capitals ships being almost always prioritized with full precision, was not ideal either. Hopefully with this change, or a couple more tweaks, we will still have a possibility where all damage is NOT focused on big ships, but also isn't fully soaked by the screens either, resulting in a more spread out damage across the fleets and the taskforces. Carriers performance and their planes during naval battles should also hopefully get better results.
- Continuous Strike Air Spirit - Air Support Efficiency bonus has been reduced from 25% to 15%.
- Massed Strike Air Spirit - Air Superiority Effect has been increased from +5% to +10%
- Massed Strike Air Spirit - Air Superiority Effect has been increased from +5% to +15%
- Support Artillery now has -50% to Soft Attack, Hard Attack, Defense and Breakthrough from previous -40%
- Support Rocket Artillery now has -50% to Soft Attack, Hard Attack, Defense and Breakthrough from previous -40%
- Support Anti-Air now requires 24 equipment pieces from the previous 20
- Motorized Anti-Air now belongs to the Anti-Air Unit Category
- Anti-Air Unit Category has been renamed to Anti-Air Artillery Support & Line
Developer Commentary: This renaming will be only localized in English for now, if we will go further with these changes, we will localize it properly for all the languages.
- Anti-Tank 1940 Technology no longer provides randomly Motorized Anti-Tank with +10% Piercing and +10% Hard Attack
- Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Self-Propelled Artillery Combat Width increased from 2 to 3
- Naval, Land and Air Facilities cost has been lowered from 12000 to 10000. Scaling cost per facility has been increased from 5000 to 6000. This means that the first and second will be cheaper (10000 and 16000 vs 12000 and 17000). The third one will have the same cost, while starting with the fourth of the same type, they will become more and more expensive. This should make entering the world of Special Projects easier for smaller & less well developed nations. Nuclear Facility will remain at the current premium cost for now.
- Improved Amphibious Designs now reduce Amtrac production cost by 10% instead of 15%
- Helicopter Brigade and Helicopter Logistics now will have a proper Fuel Consumption instead of having -100%
NEW NOTE(S)
- Experimental Facilities now benefit from the Infrastructure bonus for the construction speed
- Secondary Turret HMG now provides also -4% Soft Attack Penalty
- Secondary Turret Small Cannon now provides also -5% Soft Attack Penalty AND -5% Hard Attack Penalty.
Developer Commentary: This effectively means that the more secondary turrets you will install on your tanks, the less benefits you will be drawing from your multi-turreted monsters. Also because it is a multiplicative penalty it means that the more the game progresses, the less effective those turrets will become.
- Breakthrough Penalty on the Heavy Howitzer, Rocket Launcher and Improved Rocket Launcher reduced to -2 from -4.
Developer Commentary: This change is to make sure that no equipment has no negative (by easy combination of modules and chassis) breakthrough, which then counterintuitively anything that was increasing breakthrough would also increase that penalty, and anything penalizing breakthrough would lower penalty.
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Soft Attack bonus from +15% to +5%
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Hard Attack by 10%
- Reduced Self-Propelled Artillery Soft-Attack Progression from Artillery Technologies (Anything more than 5% was reduced to 5%, 5% boosts became 2.5%)
- Tank Destroyers Piercing bonus got reduced from 15% to 5%
- Tank Destroyers Soft Attack reduced by 10%
- Tank Destroyers and Tank Destroyer Regimental Support Progression from Technologies got reduced, including Bofors Technology.
Developer Commentary: This together with reverting combat width change to the Self-Propelled Artillery is a slightly different approach when it comes to trying to balance out the armor variants and their regular counterparts. While this will reintroduce some power back, it should not have overbearing impact
- Massed Strike Air Spirit - Air Superiority Effect has been increased from +10% to +15%
- Helicopter Logistics Company base Supply Reduction has been increased to -15%
- Helicopter Logistics Company Supply Reductions from Technology have been increased to -15% per technology. Using Helicopter Logistics at maximum level will now provide -60%
- Engineer III - Flame Tank bonus to attack in the Urban Terrain reduced from +10% to +5%
- Engineer IV - Flame Tank bonus to attack in the Urban Terrain reduced from +10% to +5%
- Engineer IV - Assault Engineers bonus to attack in the Urban Terrain reduced from +15% to +10%
- Armored Car Equipment Cost reduced from 3.5 / 5.5 / 7.5 / 8.5 IC, to 3 / 4.5 / 6 / 7.5
Regimental Support Companies Balance
- Heavy Weapons Company and Motorized Heavy Weapons Company Organization has been increased from 20 to 30.
- Heavy Weapons Company and Motorized Heavy Weapons Company Max Strength has been increased from 0.4 to 0.6
- Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery Equipment needed was increased from 4 to 6
- Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery stat adjustments have been normalized and are now -75% to Defense, Breakthrough, Soft and Hard Attack. (Previously it was (-80%, -60%, -70%, -60%)
- Anti–Air Battery Equipment needed was increased from 12 to 16 and Manpower needed from 120 to 180
- Anti-Air Battery Breakthrough, Soft Attack and Hard Attack penalties were lowered to -60% from -80%
- Anti-Tank Battery Manpower needed was increased from 120 to 180
- Soft Attack penalty from Anti-Tank battery has been lowered from -80% to -60%
- Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Tank Destroyer Regimental Support units are for now excluded from the 'Tank Destroyer' category. They still benefit from the Tank Destroyer Regimental Support category.
- Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Tank Destroyer Regimental Support units now require 15 Tank Destroyers instead of the previous 10. For now I will refer to them as TD-RS (Tank Destroyer Regimental Support)
- Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Self-Propelled Anti-Air Regimental Support units are for now excluded from the 'Self-Propelled Anti-Air Artillery' category. They still benefit from Self-Propelled Anti-Air Regimental Support category
- Light, Medium, Heavy and Modern Self-Propelled Anti-Air Regimental Support units now require 15 Self-Propelled Anti-Air instead of the previous 10. For now I will refer to them as SPAA-RS (Self-Propelled Anti Air Regimental Support)
- TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Fuel Consumption for them has been increased from 33% of the equipment to 40% of the equipment
- TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Armor Value reduced from -33% to -66%
- TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Defense lowered from -25% to -50%
- TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Soft-Attack lowered from -33% to -66%
- SPAA-RS: Air Attack reduced from -15% to -25% and Hard Attack from -33% to -66%
- TD-RS: Hard Attack reduced from -33% to -50%
- TD-RS and SPAA-RS: Artillery Technologies impact on them for Hard Attack and Air Attack has been lowered by half after the full tech tree progression (From +30% Hard / Air Attack on them lowered to +15%)
Developer Commentary: Regimental Support Companies have been vastly overperforming when it comes to both their contribution in the pure stats, and especially compared to their low economical requirements. After this balance they should feel less overpowered and be closer in-line with what should be expected out of them. This doesn't rule out any further tweaks to them. Also for the time being the armored regimental support companies will be excluded from the main Tank Destroyer and Self-Propelled Anti-Air unit categories to make sure that the buffs aimed at those regimental support companies will be adjusted and tweaked separately, giving more control over what and in what magnitude each buff is applied to. Main Categories will likely be renamed to indicate that they refer to: Battalions, or 'Line Units'.
- Infantry Guns no longer get benefits from Infantry Support Weapons research, and instead get their benefits from Artillery tech tree improvements.
- Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery scaling effect with technologies has been reduced. (+5% Soft Attack for the Infantry Guns per Artillery Technology, +10% Soft Attack for Rocket Batteries from Rocket Artillery technologies, and +5% Soft Attack from the Improved Guidance). Infantry Guns no longer have Defense boost from the Technologies.
Line Artillery Balance
- Artillery, Motorized Artillery, Rocket Artillery, Motorized Rocket Artillery, Truck Drawn Rocket Artillery, Anti-Tank, Motorized Anti-Tank, Anti-Air, Motorized Anti-Air Max Strength increased from 0.6 to 0.8
- Artillery Equipment I stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Soft Attack +1 (from 25 to 26), Defense +1 (from 10 to 11), Breakthrough +4 (6 to 10)
- Artillery Equipment II stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Breakthrough +6 (from 7 to 13), Hard Attack +1 (from 2 to 3), Piercing +2 (from 5 to 7)
- Artillery Equipment III stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Breakthrough +8 (from 8 to 16), Defense +1 (from 18 to 19), Hard Attack +2 (from 2 to 4), Piercing +4 (from 5 to 9)
- Rocket Artillery Equipment I stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Defense +1 (from 12 to 13), Breakthrough +8 (from 9 to 17), Soft Attack +2 (from 30 to 32)
- Rocket Artillery Equipment II stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Defense +1 (from 15 to 16), Breakthrough +8 (from 12 to 20), Soft Attack +2 (from 38 to 40)
- Motorized Rocket Artillery Equipment stats have been adjusted to provide following stats: Defense +1 (from 15 to 16), Breakthrough +8 (from 12 to 20)
Developer Commentary: This is our starting point to increase the viability of the Line Artillery. We have heard and thought about various different approaches for making them more viable, including lowering their Combat Width from 3 to 2. However in the current environment where Regimental Support Companies, and all the various imbalances did exist, and the excessive 'stat' bloat as it was called was present - we have decided for now against taking that step. To make the presence of the Artillery - be a more viable tool in providing the combat stats other than Attack values (mainly Breakthrough), which should make Infantry supported by the Artillery a little bit more viable on the attack. We will continue working and tweaking on the Line Artillery to find the right spot for it.
Doctrine Balance - Land Doctrines
- Mobile Infantry 1 Reward: Cavalry Recon now receives bonus 10% to Defence and Breakthrough
- Mobile Infantry 3 Reward: Lowered Soft Attack Bonus to Infantry Guns and Rocket Batteries from +15% to +10%, now also increases Defense and Breakthrough by 5%
- Mobile Infantry 5 Reward: Motorized Heavy Weapons Company gets +10 Organization from +5
- Defensive Postures 1 Reward: Heavy Weapons Company now also receives +0.2 Entrenchment
- Defensive Postures 4 Reward: Soft Attack bonus to Infantry Guns and Rocket Batteries reduced to 10%
- Assault Infantry Adoption Bonus: Bonus to Support Artillery attack has been increased from +10% to +20%
- Assault Infantry 1 Reward: Bonus to Infantry Guns removed
- Assault Infantry 2 Reward: Bonus to Anti-Tank Battery and Anti-Air Battery reduced from +10% to +5% (Hard Attack, Piercing, Air Attack)
- Mounted Infantry 4 Reward: +0.05 HP to Mounted Infantry unit category was replaced with the battalion adjusters to the Cavalry Recon to give +5 flat HP to the Mounted Infantry
- Mounted Infantry 4 Reward: Reduced the Speed Bonus to Cavalry Recon and Cavalry to +40% (for a total of 8 kph instead of the previous 8.4 kph)
- Mounted Infantry 5 Reward: Increased Speed Bonus to Artillery, Anti-Air, Anti-Tank and Rocket Artillery to +100% (for a total of 8 kph)
- People's Militia 2 Reward: Infantry Guns Soft Attack bonus reduced from 15% to 10%. Infantry Guns now get +10% Breakthrough
- People's Militia 3 Reward: Now requires 50 Mastery like the other rewards in this doctrine.
- Great War Infantry 3 Reward: Support Artillery now provides +10% Bonus to Breakthrough to Leg Infantry from previous +5%
- Great War Infantry 3 Reward: Infantry Guns and Rocket Battery now provides +10% Soft Attack bonus instead of +20%
- Great War Infantry 5 Reward: Now also provides +5 Max Entrenchment
- Fire Concentration Adoption Bonus: +5% Defense bonus to Line Artillery changed to +10% Breakthrough bonus
- Fire Concentration 1 Reward: +5% Defense bonus to Line Artillery changed to +10% Breakthrough bonus
- Fire Concentration 3 Reward: +10% Breakthrough Bonus to Line Artillery and Support Artillery changed to +10% Defense Bonus and +5% Soft Attack Bonus increased to +10%. Bonus to Infantry Guns and Rocket Batteries removed.
- Fire Concentration 5 Reward: Bonus to Artillery and Rocket Artillery removed. Infantry Guns and Rocket Batteries now get +10% Defense and +10% Breakthrough
- Anti-Tank Frontline 1 Reward: Bonus to Anti-Tank Battery brought in-line with Line Anti-Tank. Anti-Tank Support now also receives the same bonus.
- Flying Batteries 1 Reward: Motorized Heavy Weapons Company removed from the reward
- Flying Batteries 3 Reward: Armored Signal Company now provides +0.2 Strength (from 0.8 to 1) to Line Artillery.
- Air Cavalry 2 Reward: 0.03 HP bonus is now being replaced with Maintenance Company Battalion Adjuster to the Helicopter Support Companies, giving +0.5 HP to each
- Mobile Recon and Support 5 Reward: Breakthrough bonus to TD-RS and SPAA-RS changed to +5% Hard Attack and +5% Air Attack respectively
- Self-Propelled Support Adoption Bonus: Soft Attack bonus reduced to +5%, Air-Attack bonus reduced to +5%
- Self-Propelled Support Reward 2: Soft Attack bonus provided by Recon units reduced to +5%
- Self-Propelled Support Reward 3: Speed Bonus reduced to +10% from +30%
- Self-Propelled Support Reward 4: TD-RS and SPAA-RS now get +5% Hard Attack and +5% Air Attack respectively, and +5 Organization
- Siege Artillery 2 Reward: Plains Movement bonus to Super Heavy Artillery and Self-Propelled Super Heavy Artillery replaced with 0.1 Recovery Rate
- Siege Artillery 4 Reward: Urban Bonus Attack reduced from +20% to +10%, and added Urban Defence Bonus of +10%. Soft Attack bonus to Infantry Guns & Rocket Battery reduced from +10% to +5%
- Armored Spearhead 3 Reward: SPAA-RS Organization bonus reduced from +10 to +5
- Armored Infantry Support 2 Reward: Piercing Bonus removed for TD-RS
- Armored Infantry Support 5 Reward: Air Attack reduced to +5% and removed Organization Bonus
- Mobile Defense 3 Reward: Air Attack for SPAA-RS removed
- Mobile Defense 4 Reward: TD-RS Organization bonus increased to +10, other benefits to TD-RS removed
- Tank Destroyer Force 5 Reward: TD-RS other benefits than the Organization were removed for them.
- Mission Type Tactics Adoption Bonus: Daily Command Power gain has been increased from +0.02 to +0.2
Developer Commentary: This is likely just a start of tweaking the doctrines. We may see doing a bigger balance pass or some redesigns moving forward, depending on the feedback received for them.
NEW NOTE(S)
- Infiltration Tactics Adoption Bonus increased from +5% Planning Bonus to +10% Planning Bonus
- Infiltration Tactics 3 Reward, Daily Command Power Bonus increased from +0.01 to +0.1.
- Desperate Defense can ALSO be adopted if a country has at least 10% Surrender Progress AND at least 50% War Support. In other words additional options to adopt this Subdoctrine have been added. Further tweaks to this adoption requirements will likely happen in the future
- Flying Batteries 1 Reward: It now also gives +5% Soft Attack and +10% Breakthrough to the Units previously affected by this milestone
- Flying Batteries 5 Reward: It now also gives +5% Soft Attack and +10% Defense to the Units previously affected by this milestone
Doctrine Balance - Naval Doctrines
NEW NOTE(S)
- Anti-Aircraft Cruiser Adoption Bonus: Reduced Naval AA bonus from +20% to +10%. Added +10% Armor Bonus to Heavy Cruisers
- Anti-Aircraft Cruiser 4 Reward: Bonus to Destroyer Anti-Air reduced to 10% and Light Attack to +5%
- Patrol Boats 2 Reward: Bonus to Torpedo Attack reduced to +10%
- Torpedo Primacy 1 Reward: Bonus to Torpedo Attack reduced to +10%
- Torpedo Primacy 3 Reward: Bonus to Depth Charges for Destroyers reduced to +10%
- Torpedo Primacy 4 Reward: Bonus to Sub Detection to Destroyers reduced to 15%
- Torpedo Primacy 5 Reward: Bonus to Sub Detection to Heavy Cruisers reduced to 10%
- Hunter Killer Groups 1 Reward: Bonus to Sub Detection increased to 20%
- Hunter Killer Groups 3 Reward: Bonus to Depth Charges increased to 20%
- Light Task Forces 3 Reward: Bonus to Destroyers for Light Attack and Light Piercing reduced to +5%
Doctrine Balance - Air Doctrines
Developer Commentary: Tweaks to Air Doctrines will happen next time
Bugfixes
- The Light Tank Destroyer Regimental Support unit now has the Soft Attack penalty as the rest of TD Regimental Support Units.
NEW NOTE(S)
- Zwirbaum forgot to mention last time that the Armored Engineers now provide a proper amount of the breakthrough (5+% to the armored units, instead of a paltry 0.05).
AI
NEW NOTE(S)
- Increased the strength ratio when the AI decides it should send it to be set at 75% instead of previously 65%. This means AI should hopefully be able to maintain a healthier balance between when their fleets and taskforces are operating and when they should be sent for repair. We will continue to monitor the situation on the naval fronts.
As you were!
Sources
Stay on top of every update — find all the latest patch notes and gaming news at XP Gained. Join our Discord for live patch note alerts and discussion.
Written by
Nathan LeesGaming journalist and founder of XP Gained. Covering patch notes, breaking news, and updates across 160+ games.
Related Posts

Hearts of Iron IV Thunder at our Gates, Patch (30th June 2026)
The last patch before summer brings balance tweaks and critical stability fixes to Hearts of Iron IV.

Hearts of Iron IV HOI IV, Open Beta Weekend Notes (25th June 2026)
Paradox is running 1.19.2 as an open beta weekend to catch bugs before the full release. Expect balance tuning for the Pacific theater and fixes to some long-standing issues.

Hearts of Iron IV Thunder at our Gates, Patch (17th June 2026)
The latest patch tackles mod compatibility and gameplay exploits while rebalancing Pacific theater nations.