Country Pack - Hearts of Iron IV: Graveyard of Empires

Just don't bother. I started an Iran game, and not only have I no intention to finish it, but I also lack the interest to explore what else the DLC has to offer. India, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan all received new content, with India already needing a rework mere months after the release to re-balance the poorly implemented focuses. I personally never played India prior to this update, but from what I've heard, they essentially had laziness fucked into their gameplay such that they are now a relentlessly sluggish nation to play. But enough on India. The remaining three nations have a tirelessly uninteresting and bland flavour to them to the point where it's just boring to have to slug through years of getting shit handed to you because you decided to not sit on your ass for seventy days at a time. Firstly: Why are focuses still majority seventy days in length? Germany got a little better, but it's still too much time. Secondly: what's the fun in having everything handed to you? I mean seriously, these are three very, and I mean VERY weak nations, especially considering the time period, and yet they can just do shit all because it's the player now controlling them. Free factories, free manpower, free buffs, everything, for absolutely no reason other than they would be relentlessly boring otherwise. To add insult to injury, most of my hoi4 play time recently has been multiplayer with a friend, and recently we've had endless trouble with having to deal with these pissy fuckin' countries because they are now considered important enough to have a seat at the table, which just doesn't make sense. Paradox have very clearly lost the plot with what hoi4 is supposed to be. Every other paradox instalment is a sandbox with no real historical guide; the second you press play, the game is unpredictable. Yet in hoi4, the fun is being able to master the battlefield in a very complicated conflict of recent times, so there's solace in the predictability because that's what it's supposed to be, with every game still able to differ from the last in different ways, albeit to a lesser effect. Except now, you are no longer playing the WWII strategy game we payed for, but rather a very slow and unpredictable sandbox. Now, I laud the unpredictability in Paradoxes different franchises, but the unpredictability in this case refers to the fact that you might invest several hours, only for a run through to be doomed to fail due to most minor nations being a slave to the majors. I'm not calling for the removal of non-historical, but it's basically unplayable at this point. Every nation has beef with another, and they can just throw a spanner in the works for no apparrant reason other than a focus tells them to. I also don't understand the idea of forming ancient nations? Like what? Rome is the only acceptable one, because Mussolini's literal goal was to restore Italy to it's former glory, but anyway. Hoi4 wasn't designed for a lack of structure, it works because of it, and now, Paradox are slowly removing that mould before its properly taken form. The last thing I want to mention is my frustration with a lack of accountability for the numerous still outdated focuses for most major nations. The axis are now complete after Germany's rework, and the Soviets are still going strong. But the allies...the allies need love. The US has outdated mechanics and their purpose is a little unclear depending on the path you want to take. The UK is alright for the most part, but they definitely need some work in the same ways as france. But these are just the precursor to the most outdated nation, hell continent, in the game. What's happening with Asia? Japan has one and only one path worth taking, and it's barely substantive enough to warrant existing. I love playing Japan, but seriously, their focus is so restrictive there's really only one way to play them. I've never cared for China, but they definitely need work too. Now I am writing this at a time such that Paradox have revealed they are going to be working on these nations next, but why did the middle east get the attention first? No one wanted them. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want them at all, but certainly not before Japan, and certainly not in the way they were handled. I lost the plot with this review, but no more than Paradox has with their intentions of late.

As a Persion I waited so long for IRAN dlc and i just wanna say im disappointed . Iran is full of resources and they just add more oil . The focuses are so long that when you reach your important focuses germany has conquerd half of the world and world tension is so high that every country will join a faction after getting war goal. And another disappointment is that they thought IRAN is just desert and mountains . pls if you care at least a little bit to fans more than money buff this things and consider them for future updates

It's not that bad. As of June 2025, I think the focus trees are decent - if anything, India is on the bloated side. Like all country packs, it only affects a specific area, so if playing something like 1936 Afghanistan or fascist Iraq doesn't strike your fancy, there is no reason to take it. But if you are interested in playing in the Middle East, it does the job as a flavor pack for a theater of WW2 that gets overlooked almost everywhere else.

I usually do not write reviews but I nearly forgot but this is a Hard Pass. Probably the worst DLC released - If I didn't have the pass I would've skipped this one Entirely. I played Afghanistan and it was utterly boring and suffers from the fact most of the National Focuses are the most Generic uninspired Join Germany, Form your own Axis powers, Join the Soviets, form your own communists with all of those ending with you fighting an endless war against the allies. Democracy is boring as usual, and Neutrality also puts you at a endless war with the allies.

its physically painful to play some of the paths they made, whoever made the focus tree for the Mughals needs to be executed. if the AI owns a single Provence of a single state in a whole region you don't get that region when the timer runs out. so after you have to re-declare war on the raj with spawns a load of puppets, handy for kicking the brits out, not handy for all the cores you miss out on, the pain of slowly integrating them AND YOUR AT WAR WITH THE ALLIES FOREVER. There is no event or anything that ends the war and gives you the raj, you are forever fighting off tonnes of naval invasions.

What a god awful DLC, I usually check in with the game every DLC cycle and my GOD. Why would you make these minor countries in the first place so so SOOO difficult to play with mechanics that are so bad you never want to play the countries again? Like once again did anyone play test these at all?

Well, I'm so f_king glad to see Paradox offend everyone that they can and fail their product. Hopes it would make they realize somethings more important and return their focus on main nation like US, UK, and Japan (and their rival RoC.)

This was honestly the worse DLC i had ever come across, you cant do anything and wait until pretty much the end of the game to do anything... honestly not even worth it and i deeply regret paying for this... do yourself a favor and save your money for something else

Love the game, I'm easy to please but there are known bugs that were reported and confirmed since launch that are still not fixed. There are several focuses on the Iran tree that just don't work, and Paradox QA knows they don't work. It's been almost four months at this point. The DLC was sold before it was ready.

Months later the DLC is still not worth buying, even on sale, and following extensive reworks. Focus trees can still be finicky, nations even with non-historical toggled on do nothing interesting. I don't remember if this mod came with music, which in itself is a reason not to buy; either it has no music, or it is extremely forgettable. It's like paying for a windows 11 dlc, random developers leave little messages in the code saying sorry for being bad at their job instead of using their fingers to type better code, and half the event descriptions and focus tree descriptions are AI generated. Portraits of people like Gandhi are unnaturally smooth whether it be the result of AI or taking a new style, which stick out alot and make the game... UNPLAYABLE!!!! DLC also adds new british & french led puppets in syria, lebanon, palestine, jordan, and burma. these are historical but have no content, and if you have a dated or lower end PC it could slow your game down needlessly. In some rare cases the older focus trees can mean nations like Turkey, Britain, & Russia get weird borders when expanding into the Middle East If you truly want a middle east rework or thing or whatever try Road to 56 or one of the many many mods over the past decade

20$ For this ? I got it for free with the pass and TBH I only enjoyed because it was free, also kinda sucks that India/Bharat got all the work while like Kurdistan (which I was rly hyped by) got a tini-smol tree. Fascist Iran could have be great and fucking hilarious as the Idea of going full Archemenid is just but there's barely anything :') My review is marked as positive cause for free it barely pass by tbh I rly get why ppl are pissed.

The DLC is absolutely Rubbish, They ruined the Borders of the Raj, The Additional nations like Transjordan weren't necessary, the Focus trees are awful, the Modifiers are broken, and it just isn't enjoyable

I rarely review games, but omg this DLC is just a buggy mess. I played as India and went Pakistan route. After getting my independence I conquered Afghanistan. Was rebuilding my strenght waiting for perfect oportunity to strike Raj I suddeny changed into UK puppet. Without any decision, no way of getting Independence. What is this? This company is a mess. DLC not worth purchasing. Stay away.

Got this for free xD (No one I know plays hoi4 too, prob just a mistake) Still a shit DLC even after all this time but I like the elephants :p

$15??? For this??? Content for Iraq Iran and Afghanistan with a touch-up for India... in a world war II game... costs $15??? Just by the shear mass quantity of output the modding community makes the fact paradorks has the audacity to charge money for "content packs" is sick and twisted

can they make the middle east relevant without cahrging 15 bucks?

tried the mughal empire, got naval invaded by UK trying to win against british raj wtf 0.1/10

I was really looking forward to this DLC, it was right up my alley, but oh god did it let me down. A boring mess that flows like it was playtested exclusively by wine-drunk sloths. Usually I keep away from writing reviews but having paid full price for this, seen the mess it came out as and then having waited for the inevitable post-release fixes, I'm just too disappointed by it all. Just don't get this DLC. Even if you're a middle eastern history enthusiast like me. Not even on sale. Note: To be fair I want to add that I have not played as Afghanistan yet. I left it for last but after the other three trees I just gave up.

I got this in a package with Gotterdamerung. Played a lot of paths they all feel pretty bad. Worst one was Mughal Empire, if UK goes communist they force puppet you, make you declare on their enemies, white peaces anyone you were fighting (I was fighting UK already). Then you are unable to ever break free from them as you can not get any of the three focuses. This DLC is honestly a disgrace upon Paradox and they still need to fully rework this a third time. Honestly they should make the next DLC $15 cheaper for how horrible this one is. They clearly have no one play testing these DLCs.

10/10 would cause terrorism in middle east again

Don't listen to the haters..... Anybody who has rated this mod negatively have never played vanilla Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan or properly looked at the middle east before this dlc... It gave 4 countries updated focus trees (3 of them never had one in the first place), added resources to provinces (not just oil), added new provinces that actually make sense, and added more colonies of the allies into the middle east making the map look more historical...... all in all, get this mod if you would like to play in the middle east, especially Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Thank you Paradox for making an Iran dlc and focus tree.

Another lazy DLC from greedy game developer

Worse kontent than one week of a single mod developer's effort

Too expensive. Bugged. Inconsistent. Very antihistorical.

Shit dlc first time i fell almost asleep playing this shit

A solid add on to this massive game! I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

should be a free update. You know why? Rt56 and mods like that add more and are free.

i have never played any of the besides Raj before. and i still will never

Garbage what were the developers thinking?

Absolute dogshit

Very silly.

Lock tf in paradock yogurt

Untested broken DLC

Just straight buns

THEY GAVE LUXEMBURG SOMETHING

ts bums 🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

trash

eh