# HOI4 Poland Guide

> What Poland starts with in Hearts of Iron IV, what its national spirits cost it, where the focus tree leads, and the openings the wiki's own editors recommend. Written for a nation with almost no video coverage, from the game's reference wiki.

- **Game:** Hearts of Iron IV
- **Category:** Nations
- **Author:** LongBeam (https://guides-factory.com/about)
- **Difficulty:** Intermediate
- **Reading time:** 9 min
- **Published:** 2026-09-06
- **Updated:** 2026-09-06
- **Tags:** Focus tree, Hearts of Iron IV, hoi4, nation guide, national spirits, poland
- **Adapted from:** [Poland — Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki](https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Poland)
- **Canonical URL:** https://guides-factory.com/guides/hoi4-poland-guide

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Poland is one of the nations the guide sites skip, which is exactly why the starting position is worth reading before the first pause. This page covers what Poland begins with, what its national spirits do to that, where the focus tree can take it, and the openings the wiki's own editors recommend.

## Quick answer

| What | Answer |
| --- | --- |
| Starting military factories | 9 |
| Starting civilian factories | 17 (-10) |
| National spirits at the start | The April Constitution, Looming Peasant's Strike, Low Sanation Left Opposition, Low Sanation Right Opposition |
| Main paths | The Polish national focus tree can be divided into 10 branches and 9 sub-branches: The Four Year Plan Branch The industrial branch gives Poland factories, research slots, railways  |
| Source | Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki, patch 1.16 |

## What you start with

| Industry at the 1936 start | Amount |
| --- | --- |
| Military Factories | 9 |
| Naval Dockyards | 0 |
| Civilian Factories | 17 (-10) |
| Building Slots | 78 |

| Resources at the 1936 start | Amount |
| --- | --- |
| Oil | 5 (-1) |
| Aluminum | 12 (-3) |
| Rubber | 0 |
| Tungsten | 0 |
| Steel | 56 (-14) |
| Chromium | 0 |
| Coal | 59 (-15) |

## National spirits

Poland does not start from a clean sheet — these are on before the first day passes:

| Spirit | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **The April Constitution** | Political Power Gain: -15%; Conscription Laws Cost: +15%; Economy Laws Cost: +15%; Political Advisor Cost: +15%; Daily Support for Unaligned: +0.05 |
| **Looming Peasant's Strike** | Angered by a total lack of action to counter the cross impoverished conditions of Eastern Poland, a Peasants' Strike is on the horizon for Poland. |
| **Low Sanation Left Opposition** | Stability: -5.00%; Daily Support for Unaligned: +0.02 |
| **Low Sanation Right Opposition** | War Support: -10.00%; Daily Support for Unaligned: +0.05 |

## The focus tree

With the No Step Back DLC, this tree is expanded. If neither DLC is enabled, Poland will use the generic national focus tree instead. The Polish national focus tree can be divided into 10 branches and 9 sub-branches: The Four Year Plan Branch The industrial branch gives Poland factories, research slots, railways and infrastructure. It also removes and delays the Peasant's Strike penalties.

## Sanationist Poland - Complete the April Constitution path

If the player wishes to have a somewhat historical WW2 and dislikes the mindless territorial expansion of the monarchist paths, this would be the ideal choice. Sanationist Poland is arguably the strongest path for Poland in terms of national spirits, as it gives the player a lot of buffs to political power, stability, war support, factory output, building slots (in the case of Sanation Left) and especially recruitable manpower, but it does not give extra cores other than the decision to form Poland-Lithuania available to all versions of Poland. The first focus, Complete the April Constitution, will activate the Sanation irritation mechanics, which means the Sanation left and right factions will get more irritated every 180 days, therefore it is recommended to not do this focus until you have dealt with the Peasant strike and Danzig. Once you do the focus, rush through the tree as fast as possible until you have sufficiently dealth with one or both Sanation factions and the sanation irritation mechanics is removed, and only after that do you go back to doing industrial expansions. You should do every single focus in both the Sanation Left and Sanation Right branches - all of them gives lots of bonuses. Modus Vivedi gives you two very good advisors: Stanisław Wojciechowski, a silent workhorse (+15%PP) that also gives you 5% stability, and Wanda Wasilewska, who gives you +5% research speed (basically another Electronic tech), but she does also give +0.05 communist support daily, which can be dealt with if you repeatedly spam anti-communist raids.

## Monarchism in Poland

It should be noted that while turning historical AI off has a chance to lock you out of some focus trees due to the Baltics becoming a puppet of the Soviets, historical AI on is likely to doom you even more as the Soviets will not have an otherwise somewhat likely revolution and will demand land or justify on you relatively soon. There are 5 subpaths in the monarch tree. If one looks at the focus trees of Poland, it seems there are only 4, but the 5th is secret and will be exposed when the monarch is selected. To start the Monarchist campaign, first go down the first 2 focuses of the monarch tree. When you complete the 5th of November Act, every 35 days an event appears in which you can either crown a king or pass to the next option. The events will show the rulers in the order of (Commonwealth, Habsburg, Poland - Romania, Cossack King, Commonwealth, Habsburg, Poland - Romania, Cossack King, Romanov, Commonwealth, Habsburg, etc).

## Habsburgs' Last Stand

This is a fun way to play against historical AI. Go straight down the Habsburg focuses with the objective of finishing "Unite with Bohemia" by July 1938 and "A Habsburg Alliance" by January 1939. This is a tight schedule and it does not allow more than a few focuses from other branches (take "The Four Year Plan", "Fill the Railways Gaps", "Polish School of Mathematics", and "Agrarian Reform" in 1936, and possibly a couple more later on). Aggressively recruit but watch your stockpiles. You'll get a large quantity of infantry equipment when you annex Czechoslovakia, but the rest (support equipment, artillery) will remain tight. Restructure the military into three groups.

## Organise the Peasant's Strike

On the surface they seem to be the weakest paths excluding the puppet paths as they necessitate a civil war which significantly slows you down before the actual WW2. Indeed, the democratic PSL path is inferior to Sanation Poland for the most part, and the ability to buy colonies is from the Allies is almost never relevant, since Africa in game is a desolate wasteland with few resources and industry. However, the independent Communist path has the focus "Support Colonial Workers' Strike", which gives you +0.15 extra daily compliance. For this reason alone this path, in some sense, is the strongest path in the whole game; since as a Communist government you will have access to the "Liberated Workers" occupation law, which when coupled with the daily compliance, means that you will have full access to every region's industry and resources within a year of occupying its territory, akin to coring them, only without the extra manpower. This also mean you can usually pop out a collaboration government within a year of occupation, making peace deals very favourable to you; and you can always milk your collaboration puppet of their manpower before re-annexing them. The problem is that this is also likely the hardest path to play in the game, since you have to fight a civil war and there is no free land to be given in the tree except for Liberia, so you will have to fight for every piece of land you own.

## As a puppet of giants

The Fascist and Communist republican approaches have two sub-branches each: independent and dependent - 4 branches in total. The independent branches are not that different from Sanation branch - to defend against Germany and Soviet Union at the same time. Features are, that the communist and democratic independent branches makes the player able to get some colony from Ally powers, while the fascist independent branch makes the player able to form a faction against Germany, with a powerful potential ally Italy, which will help the player to defeat Germany before the Soviet invasion. The dependent branches, technically are separated into two smaller sub-branches each: keeping being dependent and declaring independence. No matter the side Poland decides to pick, the German-Soviet war will always break earlier than expectation, and Poland will be the battle field. Both branches would force Poland to cede some territories to giants: for Germany, it's the border of former Kaiserreich, while for Soviet Union, Eastern Poland.

## Others

Finally a few notes on Poland itself: Poland's biggest problem beside it being between Russia and Germany is resources. When at war with Germany, Poland will be starved of almost all resources. It can actually be very useful not to upgrade your equipment, as doing so leads to more steel being used up. Even doing this, when fighting Germany, it is not useful to build more than 30 or 40 military factories as building more will lead to equipment that you have no resources to produce. For the same reason, you must protect Katowice at all costs when fighting the Germans. This is because Katowice holds the majority of your country's steel.

## 30 Minutes of Hel; 1939

Ironically, attempting this achievement almost certainly necessitates abandoning the original Hel fortified area (which, in the in-game map, would be at the very thin line of land off the top of Gdynia) and concentrating all units in three tiles from Warsaw to Lódź. Although, theoretically the better position would be to somehow occupy the 5 tiles of Katowice to Tarnów through Kraków (maintain control of the steel produced in those states for equipment production), it would require perfect conditions to hold in comparison to 3 tiles, a herculean task for the forces Poland has in the 1939 start; and the loss of any victory point in those tiles would be an instant capitulation. All units should become infantry units despite the equipment deficit, as 1939 start Poland does not have the industrial capacity to maintain sufficient equipment for a diverse army, and much less when the invasion begins. It simplifies what equipment will be needed, and maximizes the production efficiency if practically all factories are put on infantry equipment before the game is unpaused. (game mechanic: putting factories on existing production lines at the start date does not lower efficiency) Construction should focus on constructing forts in the tile of Lodz and Warsaw; these tiles would be the constant target of unceasing attack by the overwhelming army of the Reich. Without fortifications, the incompletely-equipped divisions Poland has would lose organization and break too quickly and be too slow to cycle back into the tile after retreating from the damage of constant battle against German land artillery, and more crucially enemy air on Close Air Support missions.

## Also worth knowing

- **The starting numbers above are the 1936 start.** A 1939 start hands you a different army and a different industry, and most written advice assumes 1936.
- **National spirits are removable.** Several of them are the first thing a focus tree clears, and the order you clear them in is usually the whole opening.
- **Wiki strategy is written by players, not by the developers.** It is the best free advice there is for a nation nobody films, and it can still be out of date with the current patch.

Source: [Poland](https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Poland) on the Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki.

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## FAQ

### What does Poland start with in HOI4?

The tables above list Poland's factories, dockyards and resources at the 1936 start, taken from the game's wiki. A 1939 start differs, and most written advice assumes 1936.

### What are Poland's national spirits?

Poland begins with The April Constitution, Looming Peasant's Strike, Low Sanation Left Opposition, Low Sanation Right Opposition. Each one is a modifier applied before the first day, and clearing them is usually what the early focus tree is for.

### Is Poland good for a beginner?

A minor nation teaches the parts of the game a major hides — supply, manpower limits and industry order all matter immediately. The starting tables above are the honest measure of how much room there is.