Buildings Hearts of Iron IV Guide
Last update: 06 July 2016
This part provides you with specific information about each one of the buildings available in the game. Remember not to make decisions here too hastily, because the process itself is relatively long and you can notice profits connected with proper management of slots nearly immediately. Also, the important thing is that you should maintain appropriate proportions between the slots that you use up.
If, e.g. a region generates 10 slots to use for general buildings, do not use more than 60% of the available slots to erect factories. Later into the game, it may turn out that, because of inappropriate management of slots, there is no room for you to build a missile unit or a nuclear reactor.
The below table presents all of the available buildings.
State buildings
The below structures have their own level of development that has been predefined by the game creators. In each region, you can erect only a specific number of these, without worrying about available space.
Icon | Description | Commentary |
| Infrastructure Cost: 3000 Limit: 10 | This structure is important for all the actions that you want to perform on your own territory. Thanks to the proper development of infrastructure, you can deploy your armies around your territory faster and you can be sure that your army will not run out of supplies. At the beginning of the game, development of infrastructure is not the key matter, but in the long run, you should reach the limit cap for each of the regions. Time required to organize infrastructure is short and in the case of enemy aggression, you can deploy your forces on many fronts at the same time. |
| Air base Cost: 1250 Limit: 10 | Thanks to using several air bases, you can increase the limit of units available for production. What makes it an important thing is that small amount of air bases can quickly result in them being overstaffed, which both decreases their effectiveness and promotes accidents, where you lose many units. It is best to take interest in this structure at the beginning of a war, when demand for aviation increases. |
| Anti-air Cost: 2500 Limit: 5 | In this case, there only are 5 slots available. Using them all will considerably increase your defense potential and will allow you to defend your air space. This is of great importance in wartime, as all of the units that you are unable to shoot down can dominate air space over your territory, destroy your buildings and block individual regions, which will induce chaos in activities of your infantry. |
| Radar station Cost: 3375 Limit: max 6 | These units become available only after you have developed specific technologies. This increases the number of maximum limit of units that you can build. Radars provide you with the option to spy on the neighboring countries and predominantly, they cooperate with AA units. Thanks to appropriate range of detection, you can identify aircraft threat earlier and counteract. |
Note: The above structures are important and therefore, you should start construction right after you meet requirements set by shared buildings. Of course, you do not have to start realizing those requirements from the very beginning of the game, but after a global conflict breaks out, and after you reach a large number of divisions, you should ensure their protection and ensure protection of your territories. Armies that do not receive their supplies in time will be unprepared for battle and their effectiveness will drop. The important thing is that, thanks to relatively low of expenditures on materials, the above structures do not require too much time to be erected.
Shared buildings
You should be especially careful while developing these buildings. The below structures are key for your economy and for your overall strength. Therefore, you have to make a good plan for your actions here.
Icon | Description | Commentary |
| Civilian factory Cost: 7200 | This is the basic unit of economic development. Thanks to appropriate number of your civilian factories, you can build the rest of the buildings. The relatively high cost of a single building is justified by its versatility. All development works should be started with this one. |
| Military factory Cost: 3600 | Military factory is for opening assembly lines for army gear. The cost to erect this building is twice as low as in the case of the civilian factory. High number of factories ensures stable production of all the land and air units. Each military factory can be turned into a civilian one, depending on demand. |
| Naval dockyard Cost: 3250 | The only purpose of this building is to produce all sorts of ships. A high number of docks for one assembly line speeds up works towards launching ships and it ensures a steady development of your fleet. It should be noted that you are going to require these since the very first minutes of the game for convoys. You can use them either for warfare or for transportation of goods. |
| Synthetic refinery Cost: 8750 | This building becomes available only after you have developed the specific technology. After the construction is over, the building yields passive income of 5 oil and 2 rubber. The higher the number of refineries, the higher the amount of the nation's supplies, which will allow you to avoid trading for those materials with other nations. If income from the buildings exceeds your needs, you can allot the supplies to trade. |
| Rocket site Cost: 3250 | Building a rocket site increases your offensive and defensive potential. Depending on your demand for this type of structure, you can build rocket sites in several regions. |
| Nuclear reactor Cost: 15000 | Building a reactor is a lengthy process and it makes sense only when you have, at least, 10 unoccupied civilian factories. Otherwise, construction may permanently block your building queue for years to come, and you will lose a lot of time that you could spend on development of the country. Of course, this building becomes available only after you have developed specific technologies, so you will have a lot of time to prepare your country for construction of the factory. Thanks to enriching atoms, in the interface, there appears a counter that shows you how long until you can develop nuclear bomb. Depending on the number of reactors, time necessary for this to happen will differ. The important thing is that you cannot build several bombs at the same time. |
Note: The first three items on the list are the basis for all development in the game (this especially goes for civilian factories). Building the remaining ones will not be possible until later into the game, but you should take interest in them relatively early, at least when it comes to development of the technology. Thanks to this, you will keep up with the rest of the nations and you receive several arguments key to victory.
Province buildings
You can build the below buildings only in specific provinces, depending on their purpose.
Icon | Description | Commentary |
| Naval base Cost: 3000 Limit: 10 | Apart from its obvious purpose, which is to maintain warships, this structure is also used to repair them. Large number of naval bases will have a decisive effect on your domination of seas and on repair of your naval units. What is important is that bases are also used for sea landing and you can do this only from the regions that have such a building. What presents the key role naval bases play is that from each base, you can perform landing of one army only. Therefore, you will require as much as a dozen-or so of such buildings, for a mass and well-coordinated attack. |
| Land fort Cost: 1375 Limit: 10 | These are ones of the cheapest buildings in the game. Each level of the building decreases the effectiveness of enemy attack in the region by 15%. This means that reaching the 10th level of development decreases the possible effectiveness of the enemy attack by 150%. You should especially focus on erecting this type of buildings in provinces that border your potential enemies. |
| Coastal fort Cost: 1375 Limit: 10 | Just like in the case of the above variant, the level cap for this structure is 10. Land forts can be erected only in provinces with access to the sea. The important thing is that sea landing takes a lot of time and resources. This is why fighting an enemy landing considerably increases chances of fighting the enemy back completely and of softening them. This type of defenses is required if you decide to wage war against an entire faction. |
Note: The significance of the above structures is strategic. You cannot skip them, while developing your nation and you should expand your defensive potential for the whole time. Especially naval bases are important, because they are the only structures that can launch sea landings. At the beginning of the game, the rest of the buildings are not of too high priority. As international tensions will grow, you should take the remaining buildings into consideration more and more often, especially that they are not too time-consuming to build.
Reorganization of factories
Changing the purpose of factories is one of the main driving forces of economy and also, it is a tool that will allow you to control it. It is not too time-consuming to reorient a factory and you can additionally try to lower the cost of the process. If you have civilian factories, and no free building slots, the best thing to do is to turn some of them into military factories.
Remember that civilian factories are used to change the profile of factories, which is why you cannot change all of them. Additionally, you have to keep in mind that additional military factories allow you to open new assembly lines. This is followed by larger demand for resources, so you should set aside an appropriate number of civilian factories, also for the event of increased import of goods. In general, you should decide to change civilian factories into military ones whenever you experience a higher demand for modernization of armies, or when you change a division template that is being used by the majority of your units.