HOI4 Kaiserin Victoria: How to Get Her, and the Holy Roman Empire

Is Kaiserin Victoria a mod? No — and that is the most common mistake here

Kaiserin Victoria is not a mod. She is not from Kaiserreich, she is not from Thunder at Our Gates, and she is not from anything on the Workshop. She is a country leader Paradox ships inside Germany's own national focus tree — the reason so many people assume otherwise is that almost nobody opens the branch that leads to her.

What she actually is: Victoria Louise of Prussia, Wilhelm II's only daughter and a real historical person, who reaches the throne through a succession accident the game scripts for you. You overthrow Hitler in a 1936 civil war, restore the monarchy, and a chain of succession decisions ends with the rest of the Hohenzollerns dying aboard the Hindenburg. Victoria is the survivor, and she is crowned Kaiserin.

Two things follow from having her specifically, rather than any other German leader. She unlocks the Restore the Holy Roman Empire focus branch without you having to conquer Italy outright, and she is one of the two ways to earn the achievement Woman in a High Castle.

Where the German monarchist path lives: the opposition focus tree

Germany's focus tree has an opposition half that most players never touch, because opening it means fighting a civil war in 1936 instead of building tanks. That is where this entire run lives, and it is why the path has a reputation for being modded content — it looks nothing like the German tree people know.

With Götterdämmerung enabled, the spine runs:

Rally the Wehrmacht → Rally the Nation → Denazification Campaigns → Rebuild the Nation → Tend to the Future of Germany → Monarchist Sentiment → Revive the Kaiserreich → The Return of the Kaiser

Three details on that chain decide whether you get a Kaiserin at all:

• The Return of the Kaiser is mutually exclusive with Military Dictatorship. Take the wrong one of the pair and the monarchy is gone for the run — there is no way back to it.
• It requires your ruling party to be Non-Aligned, which the civil war is what delivers.
• It requires whoever controls the Dutch state Wilhelm II is exiled in to be at peace with you. The focus then asks them to lift that exile, through the event Germany Lifts Exile of Wilhelm II. If they accept, Wilhelm II takes the throne and your run ends as a Wilhelm run. You want them to refuse — that refusal is what puts a Wilhelm III regency in place, and the succession decisions below only exist because there is a succession still to argue about.

From there the run needs two more sub-branches: Weltpolitik, which holds Accept British Naval Dominance, Carve up the Congo and the Anglo-German Defense Pact; and Realpolitik, which holds Mitteleuropa, The Austrian Question and, at the end of it, Restore the Holy Roman Empire.

HOI4 Germany monarchy restoration guide: what you need before you start

The DLC line is the one worth checking before you spend an evening on this. Everything else on this page is recoverable; a missing Götterdämmerung means the focus you are looking for is not in your tree at all.

🎯 The core idea

The strongest Germany in the game is not the fascist one. It is the non-aligned monarchist path — honest civil war, Kaiserin Victoria on the throne, and then a run that forms the European Union in March 1939, restores the Holy Roman Empire in June 1939, capitulates the Soviet Union by June 1940 and annexes the United States by December 1940 on 1,338 factories.

It is also a path built out of hard gates: a 400 PP decision chain, a 50 PP focus almost nobody takes, a diplomatic roll against the United Kingdom that can simply fail, and a 20 September deadline you cannot slip. Miss one and the run is over — not harder, over. This page is mostly a list of those gates in the order you hit them.

Short version: five phases

1. Setup and civil war (1936) — prep the fallback line, fight an honest civil war, take Berlin, repair civilian factories first.
2. The Kaiserin (1936–38) — a specific chain of advisers, focuses, a 50 PP air-safety focus, the Anglo-German pact, and 400 PP of decisions that end with Wilhelm dead and the Kaiserin crowned.
3. The Allies (Sept 1938 – 1939) — create a faction at exactly the right moment, take France without capitulating it, invade the UK across the Channel, mop up Czechoslovakia and Portugal.
4. Europe (1939) — Italy, Austria, the Balkans, then the European Union and the Holy Roman Empire back to back, which cores most of a continent.
5. The two giants (1940) — trick the USSR into a defensive war so you only need 51%, then take the USA at a collaboration-reduced 35%.

1. Setup, before you unpause

1. Set construction priority and create the intelligence agency immediately 1:34
2. Set military and naval production priorities; switch the plane MIO to Germany's best 1:57
3. Fix trade — ignore deficits of 1–2, they do not matter 2:19
4. Gather the entire army onto a fallback line and recruit max infantry 2:19
5. Train all planes to Regular; gather and train the whole navy
6. At 16 navy XP — design torpedo destroyers 3:05

The full focus order and research order are in the video description, not spoken on camera. The focus spine runs Rally The Wehrmacht → Rally The Nation → Denazification Campaign → Rebuild The Nation → Tend To The Future Of Germany → Monarchist Sentiment → Revive The Kaiserreich → The Return Of The Kaiser → Weltpolitik → Accept British Naval Dominance → Carve Up The Congo → Anglo-German Defense Pact → Realpolitik, then the Four Year Plan / autarky line, the Austrian Question, Mitteleuropa, and finally European Confederation and Restore The Holy Roman Empire.

2. The civil war

Fires off the monarchist focus line. Take one more focus after it before the focus that requires the war to be finished.

1. On start: deploy all infantry, cancel the extra one, spy on northern Germany 3:28
2. Advisers: army organization expert + infantry expert
3. 24 divisions across the whole front with an offensive line — but do not push there
4. Main effort is the south, with both armoured divisions — rush VPs, close the encirclement 4:16
5. Planes on the armoured stack; navy repositioned for shore bombardment on the later northern push 4:40
6. Do not wait for planning — push immediately, light micro, take empty tiles 5:03
7. At 20 army XP — political loyalty spirit, for stability 5:49
8. After the southern encirclement, shift north along the coast where the navy is; end on Berlin
9. Afterwards: repair civilian factories first

3. Getting the Kaiserin

This is the load-bearing section. Everything here is a gate.

How to get Kaiserin Victoria in HOI4: the whole chain in one place

The checklists below are the run as played. This is the same thing stated as mechanics, because the order is unforgiving and one 50 PP decision taken late ends it.

1. Win the civil war and go Non-Aligned, then take Revive the Kaiserreich and The Return of the Kaiser — not Military Dictatorship.
2. Let the Netherlands refuse to release Wilhelm II. Their refusal is what leaves the succession open. If they accept, Wilhelm II is your leader and Victoria is off the table.
3. Sharpen Air Safety Regulations — 50 PP, and take it early. Around May 1937 the Hindenburg gets its historical disaster event. This decision is what makes the airship survive it, and you need it flying for step 5. This is the single cheapest way to lose the run.
4. Run the succession decisions, in order:

1. Send Victoria ahead as liaison. The UK accepts the restoration of titles and offers you the choice of sending someone in advance to prepare the ceremony. Send her. The rest of the royal family follows by air, and the Hindenburg event fires over London — the wiki files it as Hindenburg aflame in London. Everyone aboard dies. Victoria, already in Britain, is the only survivor in the line of succession.

That is the whole trick, and it is why the answer to "how to get Kaiserin Victoria in HOI4" is never a single focus: it is a 400 PP decision chain, a diplomatic threshold with Britain, and an airship you had to remember to keep in the sky eighteen months earlier.

The three decisions add up to exactly the 400 PP the section below tells you to bank. The 100 opinion requirement on the third is why the Anglo-German Defense Pact and the relations work are not optional flavour.

1. New cavalry + local police force template for occupied territory; upgrade fighter and CAS designs 6:58
2. Duplicate infantry into an OFF template, recruit max — but set "no location" and do NOT deploy 7:22
3. 150 PP — influential pastor 8:09
4. Design an interwar SPG with the infantry tank designer — 6 factories off infantry equipment 8:09
5. 150 PP — monarchist jurist 8:32
6. 50 PP — "sharpen air safety regulations" 8:32
7. Grow the OFF template with army XP — the final version needs 70 army XP
8. Diplomatic pressure and improve relations with the UK → non-aggression pact 9:18

The OFF template as it looks once grown to its final form: 30 width, and an estimated production cost of 1,321–1,420.

At 400 PP, run the chain: Reinstate the Prince → Modernize the Succession Laws → Request Restoration, then the event, then "We shall send a liaison". That last step kills Wilhelm and puts Kaiserin Victoria on the throne. 11:24 ↗

11:24 — the decisions panel, open on the Political Actions block where the chain lives.

Where the chain actually lives: the Political Actions block of the decisions panel. Easy to scroll straight past.

1. Stop training the navy around here — fuel 10:50
2. Deploy toward 48 infantry divisions
3. Improve relations with Japan, send an attaché → claim on the Dutch East Indies 12:00
4. Army HQ: remove light tanks, use motorized — light tanks drain supply 12:00
5. Navy doctrine: selective engagement → torpedo primacy → line of battle → fleet operations → light task forces 12:23
6. Netherlands must be down before 20 September 12:47

4. The Allies

Declare on France; Belgium joins. Spend the faction point on joint command structure, and immediately justify on Italy and Luxembourg.

Do not capitulate France. Do not take too many victory points, and specifically do not take Paris — encircle it. You are waiting on a focus that must be bypassed while at war with France to unlock the claim on Switzerland, and justifying Switzerland normally takes forever. Capitulate France too early and that focus cancels. 15:57 ↗

When you do take the peace: annex French cores, balkanise the rest, take the navy, annex Belgium.

The Channel crossing

Set the whole naval picture up before you declare — you hold naval dominance while not at war, and that is free. Casus belli come from claims on Portugal (UK-guaranteed) and Siam; wait long enough that Czechoslovakia also guarantees one and gets dragged in.

Declare and trigger the invasion immediately — the author calls it one of the easiest UK invasions he has done.

18:24 — the Channel. This frame is the air assignment, not the fleet: the table above comes from the narration, while what is on screen here is naval strike and patrol being drawn over the strait.

Two political notes for this window: wait for 150 PP before declaring, because this is your only chance to take War Economy; and spend 25 PP to seize the French gold, which later focuses gated on consumer goods will need.

Czechoslovakia counts as a major (with the DLC), so the UK falling does not end the Allies. Their forts are strong — push from the north and focus the single tile without one. Declare on Switzerland in time for them to join the Allies so they get pulled into the same peace conference. Peace out annexing Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, UK cores and Portugal; puppet the rest.

5. Italy, Austria, and the road to the EU

The claim on Italy lands days after the Allies fall. Push through the Alpine sector — bad supply, mountains, slow.

1. New SPG design: 9 engine, 4 armour. Design a light tank. Take the motorization drive spirit 21:55
2. Armour template: add another SPG, regimental and support companies, later flame tank, armoured recon, infantry guns, assault engineers, logistics. Build 12 22:40
3. Air doctrine: airspace dominance → pinpoint strikes. The rest does not matter
4. Agency: 3 upgrades (suicide pills, air dept, naval dept), then appoint a spymaster 26:05
5. 50 PP — sway public opinion in Austria. Austria refuses → claim AND cores → invade at once
6. 150 PP — Minister of Food and Agriculture. Then Luxembourg; justify Yugoslavia and Ireland together

The armour line in production by March 1938 — the SPG sits alongside the light tank rather than replacing it.

26:05 — faction intelligence with Canaris in as spymaster. Worth flagging: the collaboration governments that the later surrender thresholds depend on are never shown on camera. This screen and the spymaster appointment are the only espionage the video displays.

Autarky Achieved makes consumer-goods factories "just disappear" — this is the focus the seized French gold was for.

6. European Union and Holy Roman Empire

Take European Confederation. Two decisions are needed to form the EU and one of them is mandatory — hold PP back for them. Improve relations with Greece, Bulgaria and Albania if it is still alive. War on Yugoslavia drags in Romania. Annex Italy, puppet Hungary, and realise European unity in March 1939 — which cores an enormous amount of territory and makes much more corable.

28:35 — Realize European Unity fires and the Union of European States appears.

Annex Ireland and the British Isles become corable; UK cores complete in 70 days. Invite Greece and Bulgaria to the faction, annex Hungary, annex Romania.

Army XP now goes into land doctrine: assault infantry → self-propelled support → streamlined deployment → maneuver warfare.

Restore The Holy Roman Empire fires the moment Hungary is annexed — more cores again. By June 1939 you have both the EU and the HRE.

31:15 — the Holy Roman Empire restored.

Construction is now effectively free: skip military factories, upgrade railways and supply hubs instead. Recruit another 12 armoured and 72 infantry divisions, and annex Poland.

How to form the Holy Roman Empire in HOI4: restore it as Kaiserin Victoria

The run above forms it on schedule, but the requirements are worth stating separately, because the most repeated claim about the Holy Roman Empire on the internet is now out of date.

Restore the Holy Roman Empire is a national focus, sitting at the end of the Realpolitik sub-branch. Completing it does not itself create the country — it unlocks a decision called Revive the Holy Roman Empire, and grants the national spirit Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (+5% stability, +5% war support, and bonus division attack on core territory).

The branch opens if Götterdämmerung is enabled and either:

• Victoria is your current country leader, or
• you have completed the focus Conquer Italy.

The focus itself then wants one of Conquer Italy or Prepare Italian Coup, full independence, and full control of one specific Italian state (id 64 in the game files).

7. The USSR — make them attack you

Forces: 5 full infantry armies on a marshal line across the whole front, with the OFFs and 2 full armoured armies as the spearheads. Latvia comes via focus — but skip Latvia if it is guaranteed by an awkward country (Norway, or worse, Chile).

34:51 — the tooltip spelling out the defensive-war threshold: the USSR capitulates at 51% or less, and is sitting at 61%.

Result in the author's run: USSR capitulated June 1940 for about 47,000 casualties. He prefers a white peace with Finland so they do not share the score, and annexes the USSR outright rather than puppeting, since the collaboration governments make annexation cheap. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq join the faction via focuses. Start mass-producing mechanized for fully-mechanised armies.

8. The USA, and the achievement

Armour and OFFs push in; every other infantry division goes on defend. Call Canada in but do not defend it. Split the navy evenly between protecting convoys and patrolling the US coast — getting convoys across is the whole problem, not winning battles.

This is an offensive war, so the surrender threshold is higher — but collaboration governments drop the requirement to 35%. That is what the three spies on cooldown since Italy were for. Push Seattle → San Francisco → Los Angeles if needed; LA fell faster in the author's run. Mexico helps but is not needed.

Annex the USA and the achievement fires. Final board: December 1940, 1,338 factories, effectively infinite manpower, and the United States renamed the Holy Roman Empire.

22 December 1940: Victoria on the throne, non-aligned, no elections, and 1,338 factories in the resource bar.

The HOI4 Woman in a High Castle achievement, exactly as the game states it

The wiki's wording for the unlock is worth reading literally, because it is looser than most people expect:

Playing as Germany with a female leader either annex the USA, including Alaska and Hawaii or have an American puppet that owns all the American starting states, including Alaska and Hawaii.

Three things fall out of that sentence:

• It asks for a female leader, not for Victoria. She is the monarchist answer. The other is Eva Braun, reached down the historical fascist path via the Oster Conspiracy — a completely different run that earns the same achievement.
• A puppet counts. You do not have to annex the United States if a subject of yours holds every American starting state. This guide annexes because three collaboration governments make annexation the cheaper option, not because the achievement demands it.
• Alaska and Hawaii are named on purpose. They are the two everyone forgets, and the achievement does not fire without them.

As with every HOI4 achievement it wants ironman on Regular difficulty or above — which is the awkward part of this particular run, since the method above relies on reloading a diplomatic roll that ironman will not let you take back.

The numbers, in one place

From the comments

Where to go next

Kaiserin is one of two ways to open as Germany. For the historical alternative — the Anschluss rush, the Panzer designs and the focus order that goes with them — see the Germany focus order guide. If the plan is to fight east rather than west, the Soviet order sheet is what you will be fighting against.

Sources

• "BROKEN KAISERIN GERMANY Guide: Woman In A High Castle!" — MachiavellianStrategist, YouTube, 25 July 2026 (39:57).
• The full focus order and research order live in the video description, not in the narration. Reproduce them from there; the spine above is what is confirmed on camera.
• Detail is transcribed from the video's auto-generated captions, so German proper nouns in particular may be misspelled — including the Kaiserin's own name, which may render as Viktoria or Victoria Luise in your client.
• The "from the comments" box collects points raised by viewers Swindeller13, yakubisyourdad, KRIGSMAN_UTAN_NAMN, hansnightingale and keineahnung4193 that are not in the video itself.

Recorded on the live patch, not the open beta. The author expects regimental companies and SPGs to change and gives a medium-tank fallback for the SPG. The USSR and USA sections both jump to pre-built saves, so the months of buildup between them are not shown. The achievement requires ironman, but the guide's own method involves reloading the UK diplomatic roll — plan for restarts instead.