Most people know that Italy had the most embarrassing performance during and before the Second World War. Around 40 years before the start date of Hearts of Iron 4, Italy managed to lose their war of aggression against Ethiopia.
In hopes of fixing their past mistakes, Italy under Benito Mussolini launched another attack on the poor country in East Africa to try and conquer it again.
However, this campaign has again proved Italian incompetence, as they had to use chemical weapons to defeat the underdeveloped country.
Recommended Read: Hearts of Iron 4 – Focus Tree Guide
Italy has always been a meme in the Hearts of Iron 4 community, and the problems continue even in-game as the Duce gives the players a task to pacify Ethiopia, which we know quite well that they didn’t actually do properly in real life.
To pacify Ethiopia and finally get rid of the states controlled by the exiled government in Hearts of Iron 4, you will need to bring electricity to the whole region, discredit Haile Selassie at every opportunity, and grant as many concessions as humanly possible.
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How to Pacify Ethiopia in HOI4
There are two ways the war with Ethiopia can end:
- You defeat them before Haile leaves the country.
- You defeat them and Haile establishes an exile government.
We are not going to talk about the embarrassing scenario where you don’t defeat them.
No Government in Exile
If you manage to defeat Ethiopia before they manage to complete the Boarding the Train focus, then you won’t have any problems completing the Pacify Ethiopia mission from the Duce.
In that scenario, you just have to complete The New Emperor of Ethiopia focus and press the decision to form the Africa Orientale Italiana.
This will form a puppet government in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somaliland, with cores on all the provinces.
This will instantly complete the Pacify Ethiopia mission, allowing you to continue without worrying too much about Africa in the coming Second World War.
Government in Exile
If you’ve managed to capitulate Ethiopia after 105 days, the time it takes them to complete the Boarding the Train focus, then you’ll have quite the challenge ahead.
Your mission will be to increase Compliance to 60 in all Ethiopian states, while also keeping Resistance under 75% to avoid an uprising.
The first thing you will need to do after defeating Ethiopia is to set the occupation law to Civilian Oversight. You only care about Compliance, Resistance can be high as well, as long as you can avoid a revolution.
After that, complete the Servizio Informazioni Militare to get an Intelligence Agency.
Instantly start getting the Anti-partizan upgrade to level 2 and send at least one spy in Ethiopia to Root our Resistance. This will easily keep Resistance under 50%.
If you don’t have the La Resistance DLC, then you will need to use the Local Police Force until you unlock the Colonial Police occupation law.
We mainly rely on the spy to keep Resistance under check, otherwise Civilian Oversight will likely cause a rebellion.
You will also need to rush 4 focuses to make everything easier:
- The New Emperor of Ethiopia
- Topple Amhara Rulers
- Ministry of Italian Africa
- Develop Ethiopia
The New Emperor of Ethiopia
The Emperor focus will increase Compliance growth speed, as well as give you access to the Discredit Haile Selassie decision.
You will need to use this decision each time it appears, since it will give you 5% Compliance in all Ethiopian states and lower the Exile Government’s legitimacy.
Legitimacy is just a stat that allows Ethiopia to use decisions that would cause you problems. So, constantly lowering that stat will keep you safe from the random events that lower Compliance or increase Resistance.
Topple Amhara Rulers
Completing this focus will 10% Compliance in 4 states, while also starting a really useful event chain.
In this, you will have a choice to compromise with Ethiopian generals to recruit them, which will increase Compliance even further in some other states, but increase Resistance by 5% in them.
Since we have the spy keeping the Resistance in check, we can compromise at every opportunity for that extra 10% Compliance.
There will be around 4 events where you’ll also gain some really good generals, great to use on the African front.
Ministry of Italian Africa
The Ministry of Italian Africa will give you access to the Colonial Police. Do not use them unless you don’t have the La Resistance DLC.
Otherwise, you can start using them after completing the Pacify Ethiopia mission, since the law is actually extremely good.
Develop Ethiopia
After completing this focus, look at Ethiopia with the Decisions menu opened. You will see two buttons you can press on all states.
One will bring electricity to that state, which will raise Compliance by 15% for 25 Political Power, and the other will completely conquer the state if Compliance is above 60%.
Right now, all the states in Ethiopia are occupied, since you are still at war with Ethiopia. However, pressing the Expand Regional Control button will annex that state, allowing you to finally end the war.
Your job now will be to press the Electrification every 30 days in a new state to increase Compliance faster in the states.
Avoid pressing the button for Afar since you don’t need to raise the Compliance there to complete the Pacify Ethiopia mission.
By the time you finish developing all of Ethiopia, the mission should be done, as you might have states that are even over 70% at this point.
While discrediting Selassie, you should also get only one event that lowers your Compliance right after they capitulate.
Around 1938 you should be close to done with the mission, with more than 100 days left to complete it.
Once it’s done, change your occupation law to Colonial Police to lower Resistance to 0, while also completing the Expand Regional Control decisions, to finally create Italian East Africa, the puppet that can control the territories without any debuffs.
It would be a good idea to create this puppet before attacking the Allies, since you don’t have to call them into the war this way and you won’t have to worry about those useless territories, only focusing on the north of Africa and the Suez.
That’s everything you need to know about how to pacify Ethiopia in Hearts of Iron 4!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
