In addition, there is a TEST version of BICE that is updated more frequently, but keep in mind that there may be more bugs or instability between saves and versions.
In order to maximize your Black ICE experience, you will need to download both the main version of the mod and the Events GFX addon linked here. For more specific questions or for help with any issues you encounter it is recommended to hop onto the BICE community discord server to ask for more help! This guide will cover the most up to date version of BICE, and it is intended to serve as an exhaustive resource for many of the new mechanics and concepts introduced in the mod. The mod is also not particularly fine-tuned for multiplayer, though the BICE discord community still regularly hosts multiplayer games, and we are always looking for more players. BICE does not include many alternate history scenarios or focuses, and the developers generally don’t provide support for bugs in ahistorical games. It is very important to note, however, that unlike the base game, selecting the ahistorical focus setting is very likely to ‘break’ the game by having countries act in unforeseen ways. If you do not have a DLC, some of BICE’s expanded mechanics and features related to or relying on that DLC may be unavailable to you.īICE is designed for singleplayer playthroughs that roughly follow historical events, but still allows for a few alternative choices. BICE incorporates mechanics from many official DLCs, though none are required in order to play the mod. Many influential minor nations also have their own national focus trees, events, and flavor. All of the major nations have had an extensive makeover, with improved national focus trees, events, technologies, units, and more.
Introduction to Black ICEīlack ICE is a total overhaul mod for Hearts of Iron 4 that intends to give the game a more historical feel while keeping to plausible outcomes.
This guide contains the more important aspects of the mod that should be understood, as well as country specific mechanics and FAQs. This guide has been developed by the BICE team to help ease in new players coming from the base game. Also check out our big slew of tips about preparing your units and armies, and other Hearts of Iron IV tips.The official Black ICE mod guide for Hearts of Iron 4. Sometimes starting at the beginning makes sense. These are just the basics, but Hearts of Iron IV isn’t always as intuitive as we would like. You can even make battle plans with multiple steps: just draw further front lines and your units will push forward after getting to the first ones. The arrows, representing your forces’ paths toward those positions, will autopopulate based on the front line you draw. You aren’t drawing the armies’ movement path, but the new front they’re going to advance toward. When you're drawing your battle plan, don’t think that’s the path your armies will actually move along. This one’s a little obvious… unless you’re messing it up, in which case you’re probably really frustrated. Try building lots of civilian factories at first, then start splashing in military factories when your production has some flexibility. They’re an investment, but they’re worth it in the long run. So they accelerate your overall production rate down the line.
Here’s the lowdown: they increase the number of structures you can build at once (and, to some degree, the speed in which you build them). The Hearts of Iron IV tutorial loves to tell you to build civilian factories, even before military factories, but it doesn’t do a great job of explaining what civilian factories actually do.