The most recent DLC for Paradox‘s Hearts Of Iron IV added a feast of new features and updates to this formidable RTS title. In addition to these came a whole host of new achievements. One of the more convoluted achievements added was the Return Of The King achievement for Sweden. One that requires a very specific set of events to happen to unlock it. And that is where this guide comes in. Here you will find out all the steps needed to teach you how to unlock the Return Of The King achievement in Hearts Of Iron IV.
I won’t lie. This isn’t the hardest achievement to unlock. And compared to my previous guides for Hearts Of Iron IV (which you can find here with guides by other writers) this is one of the easiest and most straight forwards when you know how to do it. It just isn’t all that obvious at first glance. And even with that said it can still be a tad challenging. But before we get into the guide itself I feel that it is worth pointing out something to be cautious of if you do want to unlock this achievement.
A Word of Warning
I will admit dear reader that a title like this may sound a tad drastic, or even hyperbolic. However, I feel that I should give you a heads-up. You see, at the time of writing, there is an odd quirk (or bug) in the game which means that once you trigger the event for this to work you will be locked out of the politics section of your focus tree. This means that, whilst you will become a monarchist nation you will not gain access to the monarchist focuses. Or indeed any of the other political focuses related to the politics of your nation. Whilst this isn’t enough to doom a playthrough it will limit your future growth. And will prevent you from gaining claims/cores on neighbouring territory and any other buffs that you might otherwise have received.
This is about as much of the political tree you’ll have access to once you get the achievement.
So with that in mind, if you are planning on taking this from an achievement run and turning it into a playthrough you will be severely limited. Not so much that you will find playing the game there after impossible. Just far harder. There may be a future update or mod that changes this. But bear in mind that aside from a randomly selected buff for your leader you won’t gain much to help you on greater conquests. Sure, you are most likely a better player than I so you may do better in that regard. But hey, who am I to stop you from having fun? With that out of the way let’s get into the guide itself.
First Steps
To start us out on this How to Unlock Return Of The King Achievement in Hearts Of Iron IV I feel it is best to state our main aim here. Your goal is to reduce stability to under fifty 50% and increase communist support to over 35%. This will trigger a Civil War which you will need to win. To trigger this you need to take the right combination of focuses. And hire the right advisors. The sooner you get this done. The better state you will be in to not only deal with the rebellion but also any other regional rivals. When the game begins take the Defence Act focus. Whilst you are doing this you need to move your ground forces to the states marked in the screenshot below.
This fallback line will help you get a headstart in the civil war.
The reason why will become clear in due course. Whilst they are there I recommend setting them to train. Also train up some extra units. However, do not set them to deploy just yet. I recommend doing this as sometimes when the Civil War fires you will start with fewer units than before the event fired. So this is a way to quickly boost your numbers either way. Be sure to start saving up Political Power points. Once the Defence Act focus has been completed you need to get to work increasing communist support and reducing stability. Reducing stability is easy, however, increasing communist support is a little harder.
Reducing Stability
There are a handful of different industrial focuses that will reduce your base stability, usually at around -16% or so per focus. These focuses are Seize Landsverk, Bofors Anti-Tank Gun, From SAAB, and Gotaverken. In addition, you can hire Ebba Margareta Palmstiema as an advisor who will reduce stability by an additional 5%. Needless to say, you must avoid taking any focus that will increase your stability. Many of these can be completed later after the Civil War. But until then don’t take them. Also, for the sake of timing, I would avoid taking the Gotaverken focus. It will only improve your navy, which won’t factor into the Civil War. Instead, focus on any that will increase your military factories and production. Which will be vital in keeping your units armed.
Remember that you need to reduce your stability for the civil war to trigger.
In the early stages of this playthrough you will get the Government Commission Recommends Rearmament Event. Select the option to keep Per-Albin. This will reduce stability by 5% there and then. Alternatively, you can go with the Farmer’s Party. This will give you a boost to infantry equipment production but will increase the cost of changing laws and advisors which isn’t recommended. The opposition party option will reduce political power gain. This isn’t the worst fate but you need as much Political Power as you can bank for later. This isn’t the most important decision, but I go with Per-Albin. Once you have completed Seize Landsverk, Bofors Anti-Tank Gun, and Form SAAB you can focus on the next stage. Granted you can switch between the two of them, the choice is yours!
Increasing Communist Support
As mentioned previously in this How to Unlock Return Of The King Achievement in Hearts Of Iron IV guide you will also need to increase communist support to over 35%. You will notice that at the start of your game, there are no advisors that will do that. And that the only focus that will gain them requires you to have support for the communists at 10% or greater. To increase this you simply need to complete the Poverty Reduction focus. This will increase communist support to over 10%. Do not do any other focuses on this part of the tree once this is done. This will increase stability as well as support for other factions. As soon as the Poverty Reduction focus is complete do Align more Closely with Landsorganisationen as soon as you can. This will unlock the advisors you need.
Doing this opens the door for more communist support.
By now you should hopefully have enough political power to recruit them. However, I don’t typically hire Zeth Hoglund. As they will also increase democratic support which can slow you down. The only other focus that you can do at this point in the political tree is En Svensk Tiger. It isn’t essential and you can just skip it to build more PP. But the spy you gain from it can help you in the coming Civil War. From this point on it is something of a waiting game. So make sure your forces are properly equipped and that you have units ready to deploy when the Civil War triggers.
The Civil War
As you draw closer to the target support and stability figures I advise you to take your forces off training. And give them time to build up the organisation. Before too long the Civil War will trigger. The exact spawn location seems to have been updated since I first started writing this guide. When I first started writing it they spawned in the same location in the south and winning was almost a case of just walking in. However, now they spawn on either side of you as shown in the image below.
The Civil War will always start with these boarders.
Given that the rebels in the north will be slowed down by the terrain up there this will buy you time to take down the south. Deploy the extra units you’ve had on standby and head south. You need to move quickly as it is easy for the AI to spawn troops down there which will make this far harder. And will remove any advantage you may have had. As soon as the south is secure move your forces north and try to get around gaps in their line. Push as far as you can. However, don’t capitulate them just yet.
Evacuate the King
Before you can capitulate the enemy side you need to wait for the Gotland Proposal event to fire and then you must select the option “An Excellent proposal”. You will soon get an event which will tell you that the king was injured but don’t worry. It is just flavour text and will always happen regardless of any other factors. From this point on you will be fighting with a major debuff and can only spawn more units from Gotland. Once you get the debuff you need to get around your enemy. Pin them, encircle them. And use the speed boost to break through any gaps in their lines to take their victory points. Trying to fight them at this point is almost impossible given you will have a -90% debuff to division attack and a whopping -200% debuff to division defence.
It isn’t impossible to win with this debuff. But this is usually a sign to start playing defensively.
It is possible to win despite this debuff as I have done it in one of the runs done for this guide. But you need to be quick and expect a lot of micro-managing. However, if you fail to get around them then you can take a defensive position behind the river north of Gavle. You can build bunkers behind that river line and hold until the debuff is removed. Once it is gone you can start your counterattack. Once again, try to get as many encirclements and move around the enemy as much as you can. It is possible to hold further north. But don’t be afraid to fall back to the river line if needed.
Biding Your Time
In my most recent run, I was able to set up just north of the river (as seen in the image below) and the rebels wouldn’t attack me. You could build the bunkers behind the riverline ahead of time. But if you do so then you need to take those states as soon as possible to prevent the enemy from taking them. Otherwise, it will be incredibly difficult to take them out going forward. I should point out that winning the Civil War will not cause the achievement to unlock. To unlock it you need to wait for the Escaping The Mainland effect (which you gained by selecting to evacuate Gustav in the prior step) to expire.
If you start losing a tile try to cycle units out to prevent them from breaking your lines.
This can take up to a year in-game to run out even if you win the Civil War ahead of the expiry date. If you are playing defensively then you have no choice but to wait as otherwise breaking enemy lines is almost impossible with the debuff. The nerf does not stop you from invading your neighbours if you want to try and quickly form the Kalmar Union or one of the other formable nations before they get guarantees. But it will be hard. And the longer the Civil War has gone on for the poorer state you’ll be in to do that. Such a goal is something reserved for better players than me. But if you are just here for the achievement then all you need to do is wait. Stick the game on five-speed. Watch the world burn around you. And once the effect is gone the achievement will be unlocked.
In Conclusion
From here what you do is your choice. Without the Escaping The Mainland debuff and the leader trait that you gain you are in a better place to continue your playthrough. Granted the time taken to do all of this will put you at a disadvantage that will be hard to overcome. As from my time doing this the Second World War was either already underway or not too far off from starting. But I’m sure that better players than I can spin this into gold. However, if you only did this for the sake of the achievement then you can just move on to something else or just sit back and watch the world burn and hope you don’t get invaded. The choice is yours!
So there we have it. This How to Unlock Return Of The King Achievement in Hearts Of Iron IV guide is done. I hope you find it useful. If you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share with your fellow players you can do so in the comments down below.
