# HOI4 UK Guide 2026: Focus Tree, Navy and Division Templates
> A political route for the United Kingdom that engineers a war with France to trigger an early George VI accession, then runs the King's Party and Empire focus branches in parallel to core the United States through Canada and the Imperial Federation focus. Covers the France-war trick, the Create Pan-North-American State decision, one fully-specified late-game infantry template, and the eventual succession to Elizabeth II.
- **Game:** Hearts of Iron IV
- **Category:** Nations
- **Author:** LongBeam (https://guides-factory.com/about)
- **Difficulty:** Intermediate
- **Reading time:** 38 min
- **Published:** 2026-08-09
- **Updated:** 2026-08-31
- **Tags:** Division templates, Economy, Focus tree, Single player
- **Adapted from:** [Murcenary - The BEST Way to Play Britain in Hearts of Iron IV | HOI4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDNkG91TyOw)
- **Canonical URL:** https://guides-factory.com/guides/hoi4-uk-guide
---
Up to date for patch unknown, DLC unknown. No version string or DLC name is spoken, shown on screen, or listed in the video's description or tags — checked against the video's upload date instead, 17 March 2026.
**How to play the UK in HOI4** comes down to a decision the 1936 start never forces on you: which of the five branches of the British focus tree you commit to first. Nothing collapses if you dither, which is exactly why so many UK campaigns drift into 1940 with a huge navy, a small army and no plan. This HOI4 UK guide for 2026 keeps the whole walkthrough of the run it was built from — a monarchist King's Party route that gets Edward VIII off the throne early and ends up coring the United States — and adds the reference sections around it: the focus tree branch by branch, the naval doctrine choice, how to keep your colonies or hand them away deliberately, the Commonwealth dominions, the British Raj tree, and the templates worth building.
The opening position is the same whichever route you take. The UK starts with four research slots and four national spirits: **London Naval Treaty Signatory**, which caps designs at 9,500 for a carrier, 5,300 for a cruiser and 10,000 for a heavy ship; **British Stoicism**, worth +50% ideology drift defence and the ability to create factions; **The War to End All Wars**, a −30% recruitable population factor; and **King George V**, a popular figurehead. That third spirit is the one that shapes every UK strategy on offer — you begin with the largest navy in the game and an army you cannot fill, so most branches of the tree are really an argument about where the missing manpower comes from: the colonies, the dominions, or a law change at home.
## 🎯 The core idea
This is not the historical "appease Germany, hide behind the Royal Navy" United Kingdom. The
plan is to force an early monarchy change — engineer a war with France so that France's own
strategic bombers hit London, which triggers Edward VIII's death and installs George VI years
ahead of schedule — then run the political King's Party branch and the colonial Empire branch
in parallel to snowball manpower and factories, eventually coring the United States itself
through Canada and finishing with the [Imperial Federation](/guides/hoi4-imperial-federation-guide) focus.
free costs nothing
cheap small cost
setup needs preparation
grind pays off slowly
skip the thing to avoid
## The UK focus tree at a glance
The **HOI4 UK focus tree** is unusually wide and unusually forgiving — nothing you click in the first month locks you out of the rest of it, and the two branches that decide the shape of your game sit at opposite ends. Here is the whole tree in one table, so you can see where the run below actually sits.
| Branch | What it is for | Where it ends up |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cryptologic Bomb / Limited Rearmament | industry, research bonuses and intelligence | Extra Research Slot, Royal Ordnance Factories, The MAUD Committee |
| Reinforce the Empire | developing and holding the colonies and dominions | Hold the Imperial Conference, then Imperial Federation |
| Revisit Colonial Policy | decolonisation — dismantling the empire on purpose | Decolonization and The Winds of Change |
| Steady As She Goes | the historical, democratic path | Global Defense or Home Defense, then War with Germany |
| A Change in Course | rewriting British politics | The King's Party, then Unite the Anglosphere |
| Establish the ABDACOM | the joint Pacific command | Unified Naval Command and The Malay Barrier |
Two entries in the industrial branch repay an early look. **Extra Research Slot** is the actual focus name behind the UK's fifth research slot, which the video never reads out on screen. And **Royal Ordnance Factories**, which this run does take, adds 6 military factories spread across three random home states — a large part of why the factory count in the American-war section below is as high as it is. **The Shadow Scheme** in the same branch is worth remembering too: 4 building slots and 4 military factories, delivered when you enter a war rather than when you take the focus.
**Establish the ABDACOM** is the newest thing in the tree, and it is not really a British branch at all: Australia, the [Dutch East Indies](/guides/hoi4-dutch-east-indies-independence-and-conquest-run), France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States all share it, and it exists to give the Allies a coordinated answer to Japan. It needs the Thunder at Our Gates expansion.
## What patch 1.19 changed for the UK
The run below was recorded on 17 March 2026. Patch **1.19** landed on 11 June 2026 alongside the **Thunder at Our Gates** expansion, so some of what is on screen no longer matches a fresh install. None of it breaks the route; it does change what you should be building.
- **Army HQs.** Generals can be deployed into the field as an HQ supporting the army they are attached to, with 11 HQ-specific support companies for tailoring them to a job.
- **Ship Captains.** Individual vessels now carry named captains who earn medals and can be promoted to admiral. Every major country, the UK included, starts with 8 historical captains in both bookmarks.
- **A new row in the Division Designer.** Regimental Support was added, with 12 regimental support companies, and special forces got a doctrine system of their own.
- **The Fortify East Asia branch was reworked** — that is the colonial sub-branch running through Singapore, Malaya and Hong Kong.
- **Blackshirt "replace dominion government" decisions now fire an event** instead of switching a dominion's ideology unilaterally, which takes a lot of the certainty out of the fascist route's grip on the Commonwealth.
- **Royal Navy dominance in the Mediterranean was increased**, specifically so that naval invasions launched from there land better.
## Setup and rules of this run
The creator plays with Ironman mode on, historical AI focuses on, and achievements enabled — so
nothing about the run relies on mods changing mechanics, only cosmetic ones. Two production
calls are made in the first two minutes that shape everything after:
1:29 ↗
## The King's Party path
The political branch runs alongside the colonial branch shown above. A Change in Course opens
the door; Royal Marriage of Edward VIII unlocks The King's Party itself. None of the focuses in
this branch have their day counts read aloud in the video, so the table below only records the
order the creator actually takes them in — treat the "Days" column as "not stated" rather than
guessing what the tree would show.
Focus
Days
What it unlocks
A Change in Course
not stated
Opens the path toward The King's Party
Royal Marriage of Edward VIII
not stated
Unlocks The King's Party
The King's Party
not stated
The political-branch centerpiece
God Save the King
not stated
Taken right after Edward VIII takes power; extra war support
Cores the USA outright once the Dominion of North America is a subject
## Forcing the war that installs George VI
This is the part that makes the whole run work, and it hinges on two observations the creator
flags on-screen without fully explaining the mechanic behind them.
In the video
Two things the creator flags as important without fully explaining the underlying trigger: the
German Reich "breaks off negotiation" event, which he believes prevents Germany from being pulled
into the Spain war later; and sending the second warning to French Spain seems to also give
Germany a war goal on the same puppet, dragging Germany into a war with France — which the run
actively does not want, because a fascist uprising in France would remove the strategic bombers
the whole plan needs.
Once Edward VIII takes the throne, France's strategic bombers start hitting London — that's the
actual mechanism, not a coincidence of war exhaustion. Buckingham Palace gets bombed, Edward VIII
dies, and George VI takes over.
The creator narrates the headline numbers — +15% stability, −15% consumer goods factories
factor — but the two negative traits shown above (Stammer's −10% political power gain, and
Humble's +0.05 daily support for unaligned) and the exact party-support counts are never said
aloud at all. At the moment George VI takes over, the UK is still fighting France on **1% war
support and 23 stability**, so the stability boost is doing real work.
═══ empire and ireland ═══
## Consolidating the British Isles and the colonies
11:02 ↗
The Royal Navy that gets scrapped early on is deliberate for this specific political route — if
you'd rather keep a real battle fleet and fight the naval war straight, the
[navy guide](/guides/hoi4-navy-guide-2026) covers fleet composition and ship design for
a UK that keeps the Home Fleet intact.
═══ the american war ═══
## Uniting the Anglosphere and the war with the USA
By the time Royal Ordnance Factories and Unite the Anglosphere are queued, the UK is running
**152 civilian and military factories total**, with 10% of them diverted to consumer goods by
event stacking. The American military is scouted at roughly 63 divisions — described on-screen
as "screwed."
In the video
The creator makes a real mistake here and corrects it on-screen: he intends to hand the
conquered USA territory straight to Canada, then realizes Great Britain has to annex the USA
itself first before a decision can transfer it. "I think I had to annex the USA instead of
giving it directly to Canada, right? Oh no... okay, well we got to annex Canada." All construction is
redirected into Canada afterward so it can be annexed and re-released to receive the cores.
## Create Pan-North-American State
From the comments (not in the video)
- Not everyone can reproduce this: — Newstrategies2191 reports that when trying this path themselves, the Create Pan-North-American State decision never becomes available, disputing how reliably this central trick reproduces.
- An alternative version exists: — degen83 describes doing the same trick as Fascist Britain instead, then spending political power to form the European Union and core all of Europe section by section — bigger empire, but you run out of enemies to fight sooner.
- A step the video skips: — cyborgbever9907 and — SPTSPIRITReal both point out the run never forms the EU, which would add cores on most of continental Europe on top of everything else.
═══ research and templates ═══
## Research order
Research names and durations are never read aloud anywhere in the video — this panel, opened
briefly mid-game, is the only source for them. At that point in the run the UK is queued on
Streamlined Line (72 days, 1943), Advanced Small Airframe (59 days, 1944, a Hawker design), Fuel
Refining III (208 days, 1939, giving +20% fuel gain per oil and +10% fuel gain from refineries),
and Advanced Oil Processing (76 days, 1941), running at +40% research speed with 3 limited
research bonuses active.
## Division templates
Only one template gets a full stat readout in this video: the Infantry Division open in the
Division Designer during the second Barbarossa push. Everything else — the Colonial Garrison and
the Cavalry Brigade it's built on — stays at its unedited default in the Recruit & Deploy panel,
so there are no comparable numbers for those to put in a table honestly.
Template
Width
Soft attack
Breakthrough
Org
Cost (IC)
Infantry Division (late-game, ~Oct/Nov 1943)
19
249.4
124.4
~65
991–1450
That 249.4 soft attack on a plain infantry template is a stacked-modifier number, not a base
stat — if you want to understand where numbers like that actually come from, the
[modifier stacking guide](/guides/hoi4-modifier-stacking-red-bubble) breaks down how
soft attack bonuses compound. And if this single-template approach isn't enough and you want a
proper defensive line-up instead, the
[defensive division templates guide](/guides/hoi4-defensive-division-templates) has
comparable width/org/cost tables across several designs.
## The best UK division templates
The table above is the only template this video specifies in full, and it is a single late-game infantry design. Here is the rest of the roster a UK campaign actually needs, and what each one is for. The Division Designer gives you up to five combat regiments of up to five battalions each plus five support companies — and since patch 1.19, a Regimental Support row with twelve more companies on top of that.
| Template | Built on | What it is for | Why the UK specifically |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Colonial Garrison | 2–6 cavalry battalions plus military police | occupation duty and suppressing resistance | the empire is enormous, and every state a garrison holds is manpower you are not spending at the front |
| Line infantry | infantry battalions plus support companies | holding ground in Africa, France and the Low Countries | The War to End All Wars costs 30% of recruitable population, so each division has to earn the men in it |
| Marines | marine battalions | naval invasions | 1.19 raised Royal Navy dominance in the Mediterranean specifically to make invasions from there work |
| Armour | tank battalions with motorised or mechanised | the breakthrough force once the front stops moving | the industrial branch has Royal Tank Regiment and A Motorized Army waiting as research bonuses |
The garrison row is the one worth copying exactly. The standing recommendation for rear-area security is military police attached to two to six minimally equipped and minimally trained cavalry battalions — which is precisely the Colonial Garrison this run builds on the Cavalry Brigade chassis and sets to "local police force". Military police raises the suppression stat of the division's line battalions, so a cheap cavalry chassis with police attached holds a province against partisans for a fraction of what a combat template costs, and the equipment it wants is equipment your gun factories are already making.
The best UK templates in one sentence: one cheap garrison you print in bulk, one infantry template you keep upgrading all game, marines for the invasions, and armour only once the factories from Royal Ordnance Factories and The Shadow Scheme are actually running.
═══ the war fronts ═══
## Africa and the second Barbarossa
After the American war, the front moves to Africa and then to a fight against Germany that ends
with the UK re-running Barbarossa itself once Germany capitulates.
19:14 ↗
In the video
The creator does draw and name actual operations on the map (Operation Slapstick, above) rather
than just clicking move orders — narration only ever gestures at this generally ("let's put some
pressure on them"), so the drawn plan itself is easy to miss if you're not watching the screen.
France's own strategic bombers are the mechanism that makes the George VI trigger work earlier in
this run — if you're curious how the AI on the other end of that exchange is actually built, the
[France guide](/guides/hoi4-france-guide) covers France's focus order and air doctrine
from its own side.
═══ imperial federation ═══
## The Imperial Conference and Imperial Federation
21:44 ↗
## Elizabeth II's succession
George VI eventually dies too — late enough that the creator says he'd run this exact strategy
many times before without it happening this early, and that the video was originally meant to be
a speedrun to Elizabeth II rather than a George VI video at all. Elizabeth II's "Inexperienced
Monarch" spirit is never described numerically in narration ("thank god we don't have to worry
about doing or changing anything with this") but the screenshot shows +25% cost increases across
conscription, trade, and economy laws, the political advisor slot, and every service chief plus
High Command.
From the comments (not in the video)
- — Soujihyde adds historical context: in this timeline Elizabeth comes to the throne at 17, with a regent from December 31 to April 21 — "yeah that's really early," corroborating the video's own framing.
- — perfect-cell----perfect-form questions the run's pacing directly, asking how the creator accumulates political power fast enough to scrap the navy and warn Spain by February when their own attempts need until March.
Focus day counts, most political-power costs, and the exact focus name behind "the extra research slot" are not readable from this video — narration skips them almost entirely, and they appear on screen only in passing. No tank, plane, or ship design is shown at any point, so equipment specs beyond the Infantry Division template above are out of scope. Patch and DLC are both unconfirmed; see the note at the top of the page.
---
The rest of this page is reference rather than walkthrough: the branches the run above never touches, the doctrine choice behind the fleet it scraps, and what happens to the empire if you play the United Kingdom a different way.
## The historical path: Steady As She Goes
The **HOI4 UK historical path** is a single branch. Steady As She Goes gives stability and democracy support for 365 days and then splits into two mutually exclusive halves: Global Defense, which looks outward at the empire, and Home Defense, which looks inward at the British Isles. This is the democratic, historical-order route, and if you are learning the country it is the honest place to start — the manpower and war-support problems get solved in the open instead of through a political trick.
| Focus | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Steady As She Goes | stability and democracy support for 365 days |
| Global Defense | air and naval bases across imperial territory; mutually exclusive with Home Defense |
| Every Man Will Do His Duty | removes The War to End All Wars, at a cost in stability |
| Motion of No Confidence | the event that replaces Chamberlain |
| No Further Appeasement | lets you justify war goals and lowers the tension limits |
| Kickstart the War Industry | military industry in the home states |
| Maintaining Imperial Integrity | three 50% discounts on naval doctrine, and −0.5 daily autonomy progress for dominions in your faction |
| Enforce the Naval Treaties | decisions demanding other countries cut their capital ships, with a puppet war goal if they refuse |
| Home Defense | +5% war support and coastal fortifications in the British Isles |
| Issue Gasmasks | +5% war support and +10% stability |
| Military Training Act | removes The War to End All Wars and enables volunteer forces |
| War with Germany | a puppet war goal on Germany |
Two things about that table are worth saying out loud. Both halves of the branch carry their own way of removing **The War to End All Wars** — Every Man Will Do His Duty under Global Defense, the Military Training Act under Home Defense — so whichever side you pick, the 30% manpower penalty is a focus away rather than a fact of life.
And **Maintaining Imperial Integrity** is the most quietly important focus in the entire tree. It requires No Further Appeasement, it is mutually exclusive with Maintaining the Balance of Power, it takes three 50% discounts off naval doctrine research, and it hands every dominion in your faction a spirit worth −0.5 daily autonomy progress. That last number is the difference between a Commonwealth that is still yours in 1942 and one that drifted free while you were busy in France.
The rest of the branch is a war-goal generator: Secure the Oil Imports against the Middle Eastern producers, Continental Intervention against whoever is driving world tension, Secure Iraq and Secure Iran, the Scandinavian and Benelux interventions, Operation Unthinkable against the [Soviet Union](/guides/hoi4-soviet-union-guide-2026), and finally War with Germany.
## UK naval doctrine: Fleet in Being, and the navy war against Germany
The **HOI4 UK naval doctrine** question has a default answer and a reason to think about it anyway. The UK starts on **Fleet in Being** — "a traditionalist focus on naval artillery and heavy armor, to overwhelm the enemy fleet" — which is exactly what the 1936 Royal Navy is built to do. The alternatives are **Trade Interdiction**, "an indirect approach to naval warfare focused on strangling maritime trade", and **Base Strike**, the carrier doctrine that strikes from beyond the horizon. The three roots are mutually exclusive, so this is a genuine choice rather than a research order.
Underneath all three hang the same four tracks — Submarines, Screens, Capital Ships and Carriers — carrying the same sub-doctrines: Wolfpacks and Long Range Submarines, Convoy Escort and Hunter Killer Groups, Line of Battle and Fast Battleships, Carrier Battlegroups and Massed Carrier Fleet. Staying on Fleet in Being does not cost you the anti-submarine half of the tree. It changes what those sub-doctrines are worth, not whether you can have them.
That matters because **HOI4 UK vs Germany navy** is not the fleet battle the map makes it look like. Germany starts on Trade Interdiction, the doctrine written for strangling maritime trade, so the German plan is your convoys rather than your battleships, and the fight is decided in the Screens track long before anything meets in the North Sea. Convoy Escort and Hunter Killer Groups are the two entries that decide it, and both are available whichever root you took.
Three UK-specific things bear on the whole subject:
- **London Naval Treaty Signatory** caps what you may design while it is in place: 9,500 for a carrier, 5,300 for a cruiser, 10,000 for a heavy ship. Your ship designs have to come in under those numbers.
- **Maintaining Imperial Integrity**, on the historical branch above, is worth three 50% discounts on naval doctrine research — by some distance the cheapest way down any of the three trees.
- **The Sun Never Sets**, on the political branch this run takes instead, gives research bonuses for every ship type rather than a discount on doctrine.
Patch 1.19 also gave naval vessels named captains who earn medals and can be promoted to admiral, with eight historical captains for each major country in both bookmarks, and raised Royal Navy dominance in the Mediterranean to make invasions launched from there work better. If you want fleet composition and ship design rather than the doctrine choice, the [navy guide](/guides/hoi4-navy-guide-2026) covers that side of it.
## How to keep your colonies as the UK
**How to keep colonies as the UK in HOI4** is a question about one running number: daily autonomy progress. Every subject accumulates it, and when enough stacks up the subject climbs a rung — Integrated Puppet, Puppet, Colony, Dominion, Independent — handing you less of its trade, manpower and industry at every step.
| Autonomy level | Extra trade for the overlord | Industry the overlord controls |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Integrated Puppet | +100% | +25% civilian, +75% military |
| Puppet | +100% | none |
| Colony | +50% | none |
| Dominion | +25% | none |
| Independent | none | none |
Moving a subject one tier by hand costs 50 political power in either direction; annexing one outright costs 300, and a subject buying its own freedom costs the same 300. So in the ordinary case the empire is not held together by force — it is held together by keeping that daily number negative. These are the levers that actually move it:
One subject arrives already leaning your way: the British Raj carries **Princely States**, worth −0.1 daily autonomy progress, from the first day. And one focus leans the other way while looking harmless — **Unify the Territorial Army of Malaysia** unifies the Malayan forces and increases autonomy by 150. It is still a good focus; just take it knowing what it costs.
## The decolonization path: Revisit Colonial Policy
The **HOI4 UK decolonization path** is a real branch with fourteen focuses in it, and it is the mirror image of everything above. Revisit Colonial Policy opens it — political power in exchange for stability, and an admission that the empire is ending — and the branch then walks it out region by region.
| Focus | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Revisit Colonial Policy | political power, at a cost in stability |
| Guide the Colonies | restructuring aid for dominions preparing for independence |
| Towards Dominion Independence | transfers governmental tasks to the dominions, raising their autonomy |
| Foundations for an Indian State | industrialises and restructures Indian governance |
| Towards Indian Independence | transfers control gradually, with autonomy progress attached |
| The Three-Nation Solution | partitions India into separate states |
| Withdraw from Contested Territories | hands disputed overseas territory to the neighbours claiming it |
| Self-Government For the Mediterranean | releases Malta and Cyprus |
| Self Government For Africa | releases the African territories |
| Self-Government For the Middle East | releases the Middle Eastern territories |
| Self-Government For the Americas | releases the Caribbean and American territories |
| Self-Government For Asia | releases the Asian and Pacific territories |
| Decolonization | frees every remaining subject and removes the guidance spirits |
| The Winds of Change | brings colonial assets home and raises democratic popularity |
Why anyone takes it: the Self-Government focuses release regions as puppets rather than simply losing them, the political power is real, and the branch ends with the colonial assets repatriated and democratic popularity up. Why most people do not: you are trading away the trade and manpower in the autonomy table above, and the UK is already 30% down on recruitable population before you start. Treat it as a route with a payoff of its own, not as an optimisation of the empire route.
## The Commonwealth: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
Most of what a **HOI4 Commonwealth guide** has to cover is the autonomy arithmetic from two sections up, plus the handful of focuses that exist only because these are separate nations rather than states you own.
| Subject | Starts as | The UK focus that develops it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Canada | Dominion | Development in Canada |
| Australia | Dominion | Development in Australia |
| New Zealand | Dominion | Develop New Zealand |
| South Africa | Dominion | Develop South Africa |
| British Raj | Colony | Develop the Raj |
| British Malaya | Integrated Puppet | Expand the Royal Malay Regiment |
Three focuses tie the group together. **Commonwealth Ties** needs Encourage Colonial Elite and at least one Commonwealth nation in your faction, and pays each of them 50 political power and +15 opinion. The **British Commonwealth Air Training Plan** spreads air experience across the whole group. And **Hold the Imperial Conference** — which needs Development in Canada, Develop New Zealand and Develop South Africa finished first, plus the right governments in Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand — pays 120 political power, fires the Imperial Conference event, and opens its decisions for 60 days.
The Commonwealth also stopped being scenery in 2026. **Thunder at Our Gates**, released on 11 June 2026, gave Australia a national focus tree of its own, alongside Siam and the Dutch East Indies, and added the joint ABDACOM branch shared by Australia, the Dutch East Indies, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. If your plan runs through the Pacific, the dominion down there now has ideas of its own about it.
## The British Raj focus tree
The **HOI4 British Raj focus tree** matters to a UK player for two reasons: the Raj is the largest single block of manpower in the empire, and it is the one subject with a tree long enough to talk itself out of your hands.
It starts with four national spirits, and every one of them is a penalty. **Princely States** costs −0.1 daily autonomy progress. **Marginalized Muslim Community** is −20% recruitable population factor and −10% stability. **Risk of Famine** fires if core Indian states are lost and not retaken within 30 days. **Agrarian Society** is −70% recruitable population factor, or −72% with the Graveyard of Empires expansion, which also adds The Great Depression on top of the pile. The old Together for Victory tree is in the base game; Graveyard of Empires replaces it with a far larger one.
That larger tree runs in three directions:
- **Great Depression Price Controls** — the economic branch, tying the rupee to sterling and working the depression off, with the Look to the Past and Look to the Future sub-branches under it.
- **Onto the Road of Independence** — the independence branch and the biggest of the three, holding the Mahatma sub-branch and Tryst With Destiny, the League Against Gandhism with Forward Bloc and Netaji beneath it, and Reds In The Shadows for the communist route.
- **His Majesty's Loyal Government** — the branch that stays inside the Empire. The Government of India Act delegates authority to local ministries, Confer with the Congress opens the concessions decisions, then Favor the Muslim League and Court the Princes fork, as do The Indian Parliament and The Integrity of India Act. Its capstone is **The Dominion of India**: dominion status within the Empire rather than a flag of its own.
From the UK's side of the relationship there are three focuses and no more. **Develop the Raj** adds civilian factories and is the prerequisite for the other two. **Indian Autonomy** makes the Raj a dominion and gives it +0.5 daily autonomy progress for 730 days. **Indian Independence** frees it outright, or — on the version where you only promise it — leaves you a spirit costing 10% stability for 1,460 days. The two are mutually exclusive and both are optional; taking Develop the Raj alone is the version where you keep the factories and the men.
One focus on the Raj's own tree points back at you, and is worth knowing about before it happens: **The Jewel Becomes the Crown** requires the United Kingdom to have capitulated, and raises the Raj's factory and dockyard output when it does.
## Sources
Murcenary, "The BEST Way to Play Britain in Hearts of Iron IV | HOI4," 25:11. Top comments (31
root-level, sorted by likes) were reviewed for corrections and alternative approaches; see the
callouts above.
---
## FAQ
### How do you get George VI early in HOI4 as the UK?
Scrap most of the surface fleet to unlock naval-treaty warnings, warn Spain into a war goal, let France puppet the Spanish land you conquer, then warn that French puppet a second time — this pulls the UK into a war against France itself. Once Edward VIII takes power, France's own strategic bombers start hitting London, which eventually kills Edward VIII and installs George VI far earlier than the historical date. The video never explains the underlying trigger fully, just that this sequence reliably produces it in the creator's runs.
### What does George VI's national spirit actually do?
Popular Figurehead gives +15% stability. Two negative traits come with it: Stammer (-10% political power gain) and Humble (-15% consumer goods factories factor, +0.05 daily support for unaligned). Only the stability and consumer-goods numbers are said aloud in the video; the political power and daily-support figures are only visible in the tooltip screenshot.
### How does the UK core the United States in this HOI4 strategy?
Two separate steps. First, annex Canada and immediately release it again so it becomes a subject able to take the Create Pan-North-American State decision, which folds UK-held American territory into a renamed Dominion of North America with cores on every American state. Second, later in the game, hold the Imperial Conference and take the Imperial Federation focus (70 days), which requires that Dominion of North America subject and cores the USA outright on top of it. A commenter on the video reports the Pan-North-American State decision doesn't always become available, so this isn't guaranteed to reproduce exactly.
### What division template does this UK strategy use?
The video only fully specifies one: a late-game Infantry Division with combat width 19, soft attack 249.4, defense 555.6, roughly 65 organization, and an estimated production cost of 991 to 1450 IC. Colonial Garrison and Cavalry Brigade templates are used for occupation duty but are never edited from their defaults on screen, and no tank, plane, or ship design is shown at any point in the video.
### Does George VI eventually die too in this run?
Yes — later than the creator expected. He notes he'd run this strategy many times before without George VI dying this early, and that the video was originally meant to be a speedrun to Elizabeth II rather than a video about George VI at all. When George VI does die, Elizabeth II inherits an 'Inexperienced Monarch' spirit that adds +25% cost to conscription, trade, and economy laws plus every advisor and service-chief slot — numbers that are shown on screen but never stated in narration.
### How do you form the Imperial Federation in HOI4 as the UK?
Imperial Federation sits at the bottom of the Reinforce the Empire branch and needs Hold the Imperial Conference finished first, which in turn requires Development in Canada, Develop New Zealand and Develop South Africa plus the right governments in the dominions. The focus then checks Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, each of which has to be an integrated puppet, and the British Raj, which has to be an integrated puppet or be led by a Viceroy Emeritus. On completion the United Kingdom becomes The Imperial Federation, annexing those dominions, taking on their unit leaders and updating cores. The run on this page reaches it by an unusual road, coring the United States through Canada first, but the requirements are the same however you get there.
### How do you keep your colonies as the UK in HOI4?
Subjects accumulate daily autonomy progress and climb the ladder from Integrated Puppet through Puppet, Colony and Dominion to Independent, handing you less of their trade and industry at each step, so holding the empire means keeping that daily number down. The strongest single lever is Maintaining Imperial Integrity on the Steady As She Goes branch, which gives every dominion in your faction a spirit worth -0.5 daily autonomy progress; moving a subject a tier by hand costs 50 political power and annexing one costs 300. Avoid Indian Autonomy, which hands the British Raj +0.5 daily autonomy progress for 730 days, and stay out of the Revisit Colonial Policy branch unless giving the empire away is the point of the run.
### Which naval doctrine should the UK take in HOI4?
The UK starts on Fleet in Being, the artillery-and-armour doctrine that suits the fleet it is handed in 1936, and the two alternatives, Trade Interdiction and Base Strike, are mutually exclusive with it. Germany starts on Trade Interdiction, so the naval war against it is fought over convoys rather than battle lines, and it is decided in the Screens track by Convoy Escort and Hunter Killer Groups. Those tracks hang off all three roots, so staying on Fleet in Being costs you none of the anti-submarine tools. If you want down any of the trees quickly, Maintaining Imperial Integrity is worth three 50% discounts on naval doctrine research.
### Does the British Raj have its own focus tree in HOI4?
Yes. The Together for Victory tree is now part of the base game, and the Graveyard of Empires expansion replaces it with a much larger one split between the Great Depression Price Controls economic branch, Onto the Road of Independence, and His Majesty's Loyal Government for staying inside the Empire, which ends at The Dominion of India. The Raj opens with four penalties: Princely States, Marginalized Muslim Community, Risk of Famine and Agrarian Society. From the UK's side there are only three relevant focuses: Develop the Raj adds civilian factories, while the mutually exclusive Indian Autonomy and Indian Independence hand it dominion status or freedom.