Developer Corner 2602001 - Country Selection Screen

Generals!It’s time for another Developer Corner.With the addition of more countries when we released No Compromise, No Surrender last year, we just managed to fit the new countries in the country selection screen’s flags section. It was an interesting challenge, but using some pixel precision we managed to squeeze them all in. Now, with the release of Thunder at our Gates around the corner, we’re facing the same problem; the UI is maxed out and there is no more space for more flags.Countries abound, where does it end?!In the next image the pink line shows the smallest screen sizes that we support. As you can see we cannot simply make the window bigger. So we thought “why not make it a bit better while we’re at it?” Said and done, we asked our UX designer to do some mock-ups and got back a “Here’s a draft for ya!”. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t easily find a specific flag among all the minor countries at glance.So many flags, so little space!We present to you: ✨Filters!✨The idea is to enable you to use these filters, to more smoothly find content and countries at the start of your new campaign, and also give you recommendations for unplayed content, unplayed countries or to easily find the country you always come back to. You know, that guilty pleasure you just keep on playing, over and over again.With the addition of scriptable groupings (filters), we even have something that modders can play around with as well. We haven’t quite decided what type of filters will be implemented in the end, but some ideas for other filters could be parts of the world, playstyle or alliances. All in the name of making choosing a country to play a little richer.Finally, there’s one additional thing that we want to improve on: How do we highlight countries that have had their content updated?One option we’re currently playing around with is to (locally) track which version(s) of each country you’ve been playing. Then we could add the previously mentioned groupings (filters): unplayed content and unplayed countries. Clever thought, but enter: the cold start problem.Hearts of Iron IV is an “old” game, approaching TEN years(!). This means that many of you have already played most of the countries, and we’d very much prefer to avoid flagging your most played country as having “unplayed content.” Thankfully, your career profile already has some data about your played countries. It’s not perfect for this purpose (because it doesn’t differentiate between, for example, Iceland with or without Arms Against Tyranny), but it gives us an opportunity to make an educated guess as to what to flag as “new content” the first time you boot the game after this has been implemented. As long as you own the DLC, we intend to flag all content for countries you have played as “already played.” This means that if, for example, you have played the original Iceland (generic focus tree) but not the Arms Against Tyranny version and you own the DLC, then we will flag both “versions” of the country as being played. Once we implement this update, this initial, educated guess will only happen one time, namely the first time you boot up the game. All consecutive boots will rely on the initial guess and the playthroughs you do afterwards.That’s it, those are our thoughts and where we want to get. Now, what are your thoughts? Let us know.—Pdxen

Mar 24, 2026 - 20:58

Developer Corner 2602001 - Country Selection Screen

Generals!

It’s time for another Developer Corner.

With the addition of more countries when we released No Compromise, No Surrender last year, we just managed to fit the new countries in the country selection screen’s flags section. It was an interesting challenge, but using some pixel precision we managed to squeeze them all in. Now, with the release of Thunder at our Gates around the corner, we’re facing the same problem; the UI is maxed out and there is no more space for more flags.

Countries abound, where does it end?!

In the next image the pink line shows the smallest screen sizes that we support. As you can see we cannot simply make the window bigger. So we thought “why not make it a bit better while we’re at it?” Said and done, we asked our UX designer to do some mock-ups and got back a “Here’s a draft for ya!”. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t easily find a specific flag among all the minor countries at glance.

So many flags, so little space!

We present to you: ✨Filters!✨
The idea is to enable you to use these filters, to more smoothly find content and countries at the start of your new campaign, and also give you recommendations for unplayed content, unplayed countries or to easily find the country you always come back to. You know, that guilty pleasure you just keep on playing, over and over again.

With the addition of scriptable groupings (filters), we even have something that modders can play around with as well. We haven’t quite decided what type of filters will be implemented in the end, but some ideas for other filters could be parts of the world, playstyle or alliances. All in the name of making choosing a country to play a little richer.

Finally, there’s one additional thing that we want to improve on: How do we highlight countries that have had their content updated?
One option we’re currently playing around with is to (locally) track which version(s) of each country you’ve been playing. Then we could add the previously mentioned groupings (filters): unplayed content and unplayed countries. Clever thought, but enter: the cold start problem.

Hearts of Iron IV is an “old” game, approaching TEN years(!). This means that many of you have already played most of the countries, and we’d very much prefer to avoid flagging your most played country as having “unplayed content.” Thankfully, your career profile already has some data about your played countries. It’s not perfect for this purpose (because it doesn’t differentiate between, for example, Iceland with or without Arms Against Tyranny), but it gives us an opportunity to make an educated guess as to what to flag as “new content” the first time you boot the game after this has been implemented. As long as you own the DLC, we intend to flag all content for countries you have played as “already played.” This means that if, for example, you have played the original Iceland (generic focus tree) but not the Arms Against Tyranny version and you own the DLC, then we will flag both “versions” of the country as being played. Once we implement this update, this initial, educated guess will only happen one time, namely the first time you boot up the game. All consecutive boots will rely on the initial guess and the playthroughs you do afterwards.

That’s it, those are our thoughts and where we want to get. Now, what are your thoughts? Let us know.

—
Pdxen

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