Like Fred Durst and the Nazi war machine, Hearts of Iron IV [official site] patches keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’. Paradox today launched Patch 1.2, codenamed Sunflower, which focuses on improving the WW2 grand strategy game’s AI and user interface but also fiddles with balance and… history? That doesn’t seem safe.

Paradox will tell you these are the highlights of the patch:

Changes to how peace conferences are handled, based on a design by Steam user Neutrino

Hotjoin now available for multiplayer games, so you can connect to a match already in progress

Custom difficulty settings let you adjust the relative power of Germany, Italy, France and the Soviet Union

More nations can now be released as independent countries

Re-sync button added to address connection issues without rehosting the game

AI more likely to update templates, build nuclear reactors and cancel unnecessary production

AI less likely to risk encirclement, opt for a Communist France or throw everything at North Africa

Naval combat has been balanced to prevent light cruiser spam

Changes to national territorial cores (Portugal loses, Sinkiang gains)

A number of crashes caused by modding have been fixed

Submarines better at finding surface ships, worse at finding other subs

But do you believe everything Paradox tells you? Hit the full patch notes to find out what’s really going on. Think for yourselves, sheeple.

The full notes are where Paradox are hiding their meddling in history, their tweaks to the game’s database dictating the state of the world at various points. I don’t think they’re in Command & Conquer: Red Alert territory quite yet but I’ll just leave this link here okay now catch you later bye.