Teaching Paradox: Hearts of Iron IV, Part IIIb: The Opposite of Love

This is the second half of the third part (I, II IIIa) of our long-delayed series looking at the theory of history advanced by Paradox Interactive’s Hearts of Iron IV, one of the most popular strategy games today. This part (both halves together) is fundamentally about politics and policy and the implications that HoI4‘s choices – and its chosen omissions – have on the vision it presents of the history of the 1930s and 1940s. Last time, we looked at HoI4‘s political simulation and concludes that in an effort to streamline the political aspects of the game – to better facilitate the player getting to the ‘good stuff’ of fighting the war – HoI4 adopted a top-down, state-power-centered, frictionless vision of politics which was essentially authoritarian in nature. Democracy, meanwhile, was presented as something between meaningless and simply a collection of penalties. Such a vision of politics, we noted, is hardly required by the period, but is instead a product of the effort at…