Rule the Second World War as a person, not a flag. Iron Dynasties is a new grand strategy game built on your own installed Hearts of Iron IV and Crusader Kings II. HOI4 supplies the world and the war machine; CK2 supplies the people who rule it. You need both games, and nothing from either is shipped: their maps, characters, traits, religions, portraits, interface art, fonts, event pictures and music are read from your copies while you play.
What you get
- HOI4's real map and nations. Every 1936 country, state and factory, drawn on HOI4's own terrain and water maps with its flags.
- Both games' real interfaces, combined. HOI4's top bar, politics, production, construction, diplomacy and focus-tree screens (silver where HOI4 uses green), and CK2's character sheet, council, event windows and parchment letters.
- You are the ruler. When your leader dies, loses an election or is overthrown, you continue as their heir. With no heir left, your story ends.
- CK2 characters. Traits, the five skills, education, opinion, ambitions and religion, all from your CK2.
- 16 ideologies, 4 for each HOI4 group, separate from faith.
- About 110 real people for 15 nations (Germany, Britain, France, the USA, the USSR, Italy, Japan, Spain, China, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Turkey and Sweden), plus HOI4's own leaders and generals and courts with 1930s-40s names everywhere else.
- CK2-style portraits for everyone: CK2's layered faces, dressed in uniforms, suits, dresses and royal dress of the era.
- Written diplomacy: compose letters from a tone and a proposal (alliance, pact, dynastic marriage, romance, territorial demand, aid, praise, insult, call to arms, peace). Each recipient answers as a person.
- Romance: affairs, marriages between dynasties, and children who inherit CK2 traits.
- HOI4's mass war: factories, construction, HOI4 equipment on production lines, manpower, divisions, fronts and capitulation. Generals are characters whose skill and traits matter.
- A national focus tree with HOI4's goal icons, built around relationships, identity and ambition.
- 28 CK2-style events written for 1936-45, illustrated with CK2's event art.
- Music: the HOI4 and CK2 soundtracks, alternating.
Playing together
Up to 8 players. Each picks a nation, and the host starts the game from 1 January 1936. Melty's join link puts friends straight into the host's game. Friends on the same network can always join. Across the internet, joining works when the host's router allows UPnP; no port forwarding is needed.
Requires
Hearts of Iron IV and Crusader Kings II (Steam), on Windows 10 or 11. Any CK2 portrait DLC you own adds its faces.
Built with Claude (Anthropic). Third-party libraries: NAudio and NVorbis (MIT). Hearts of Iron IV and Crusader Kings II are © Paradox Interactive.
