Development of infrastructure Hearts of Iron IV Guide

Last update: 06 July 2016

Development of building technology is one of the key elements of the game that decides your final success. Thanks to this, you can take advantage of additional factors and at each point, you will be prepared for the incoming threat. Proper management of your resources may contribute to increased supply of army gear and its overall combat value. Individual types of buildings will pave your way to many military operations and will help you defend your territory.

You should keep in mind that you gain access to specific buildings only after you develop certain technologies, but a vast majority of buildings are available from the very beginning of the game. The basic unit is civilian factory. It is thanks to the factory that you will be expanding your territories and processing your resources that you receive from trade. A sufficient number of buildings of this type may considerably speed up construction works and set the pace for the economy of your country.

The above screenshot presents the building window. Thanks to this panel you can obtain useful information and control the building queue. What is most important is that thanks to the panel, you can have new buildings erected. To learn more about individual elements of the panel, see the first chapter of this guide.

The process of erecting a building is simple, but not always clear. To build, you require civilian factories that will manufacture materials that you need. You do not have to worry too much about materials. They are included in the cost of the building itself and the entire process is automatic. remember that you should have, at least, one free civilian factory, to make this process possible to carry out. In the above screenshot, a building queue with two structures in it has been presented. To build a single item from the queue, you can use up to 15 free civilian factories. The important thing is that if you have more free factories, all factories above the number of 15 are busy producing materials for another structure. This means that with 45 free factories, you can build at the same time 3 buildings, without additional requirements.

Cost specified by each of the buildings represents the throughput factories will have to have for the building to be erected. By default, each factory works at the speed of 5 units a day. This value changes and the change is affected by positive or negative modifiers. They may occur as a result of technologies that you have developed, your national goals, political representatives and corporations. Remember that modifiers can have overall meaning and they will affect complete reduction or speeding up the building speed, but there are modifiers connected with individual buildings.

If for a building, which is currently under construction, modifiers are favorable, daily production of materials will exceed 5. If they are unfavorable, this value will go down. Of course, if you have plenty factories, you receive 5 units for every factory engaged into the construction process.

The number of slots available for construction has been predetermined by the game's creators, but you can increase their number by means of technological research and by developing national goals favorable for industry. In the case of research, the number of available slots will be increased for all the regions under your control, but national goals have been defined in such a way, as you receive one erected building every time you receive an additional slot. You can dwell into whether this is a good thing, but it is definitely advantageous at the beginning of the game. It should be noted that number of general slots has its reflection only in the case of regional buildings. Apart from that, there are buildings that have their specific, set value in each district, and they allow you a wider array of actions.

The key element of development is to obtain as many civilian factories as possible. For that, you can take advantage of your political aims, where you receive a building, or buildings within 70 days, which is much faster than in the case of situations in which you erect them on your own. A good solution, of course, is to have buildings erected via the panel, while you are developing your national goals. Efficient actions in this respect will ensure faster development and will allow you to expand your infrastructure faster than you opponents.

It is also important to have many civilian factories from the viewpoint of your military development. If you have excess factories, you can turn some of them into military factories, thanks o which you can open more assembly lines and you will be able to replenish your divisions faster. You can use the remaining factories for trade or for construction of fortifications and AA defenses. The process of changing the purpose of factories is included into the construction queue of all buildings, so you have to set queues properly to receive the desired results.

Remember that a part of the overall amount of factories will be allotted to production of consumer goods, so you will be unable to make use of them. This is especially important, because you will lose access to a certain percentage of factories, as a result of your selected option in the politics panel, as counted on the basis of the overall number of structures - both civilian and military ones. Try to change the law as soon as possible and remember that, if you control certain territories for a longer time, you do not have to fear rebellions, or any other signs of social unrest.