In Heart of Iron 4, there are a lot of hidden nations, conquered by the great powers of the world, that you will almost never see in a normal, historical game.
However, if you want to play as one of the hidden countries in HOI4, you will need to release them. This, unfortunately, is not an easy feat if you haven’t purchased the right DLCs.
Recommended Read: How to Become a Major Country in Hearts of Iron 4
Luckily, we have discovered a way even for players without the right DLC to play as their favorite, already conquered nations if you don’t use Ironman Mode.
To release nations in HOI4, you will need to open the Occupied Territories menu and press the “Release Nation” button. However, if you don’t have the Together for Victory DLC, you will need to use console commands.
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How to Release Nations in HOI4
Before we start, you should know that it is impossible to free some of your conquered territories as nations and play as them or make them puppets in HOI4 if you don’t have the Together for Victory DLC. All you can do is free those states as independent nations.
If you just want to see an interesting country in your game, then you can follow the steps below.
However, if you want to play as a released country or release it as a puppet without the TFV DLC, we have more instructions below for you.
Here is how to release nations in HOI4:
- Press the flag of your country in the top left corner of the screen to open the Political menu (or just press Q on your keyboard).
- Under the portrait of your head of state and under the icon for your ruling party, click the Occupied territories button.
- Here, you will see a list of all the countries under you that could be liberated. Find the nation you want to release as a puppet and press the “Release Nation” button.
- You will now see a pop up where there will be three options. Check and uncheck the ones that are relevant to you.
- Press the Release Nation button in the pop-up, and the country will now be released, either free, under your rule, or as your new player nation.
How to Release Nations Without Any DLC
If you don’t have the Together for Victory DLC, then you can’t play as a conquered or controlled nation in HOI4 with achievements since you need to disable Ironman Mode.
So, if you want to release nations in HOI4 and play as them without DLC, then you will need to follow the instructions from above and completely free the country you want to play as.
Now, you can either just save, exit to the main menu, load the save file, and select the released country to play as it, or you can just open the command console (press ~ on the keyboard) and use the “tag” cheat to change to the newly released country.
If you just want to release a territory and make it your puppet, you will need to use cheats. Once you’ve released the country you want to puppet, you will need to use the “puppet” command.
In both scenarios, you will need to know the country tag for the released nation, so here is how to do them both:
- Open the command console by pressing ~.
- Type “debug” and press Enter.
- Hover over the released nation to see its tag. You will see a line that pops up saying Owner: *Country Name* (*Country Tag*). If you want to puppet the nation, also look at your own tag.
- Type “tag *Country Tag*”, exchanging *Country Tag* with your released nation’s actual 3 letter tag, and press enter. If you want to puppet it, type “puppet *Your Country Tag* *Released Country Tag*”.
Here are some examples of both cheats:
- tag ger – This will change your controlled country into Germany.
- puppet ger fra – This will make France Germany’s puppet.
That’s everything you need to know about how to release nations in Hearts of Iron 4!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
