Once a focus has started, the player can't manually stop or replace it, unless the player has the Man the Guns expansion. For example, Motorization Effort can be bypassed if the Motorized Infantry technology has already been researched beforehand.

For cases such as the latter, focuses will have bypass conditions to allow the player to proceed past them - the player will be notified of the bypass within a few days (they will display a golden bracket as if completed regularly). If a requirement of an on-going focus has become invalidated, the focus will either be paused until the requirement is restored (if possible) or outright be cancelled when such a thing is not easily possible. When completed, the player may go up to 10 days without picking a new focus and still have those days (and their accumulated Political power) count towards the new focus.ДЄside from the branches' top level focuses, most other focuses have additional requirements in need of fulfillment before they can be picked. A focus requires 70 Political power to complete at a progress rate of вЂ“1 Political power per day - this means a focus would usually be completed within 70 days. Only a single focus can be taken at a time. Although branches are mostly isolated from each other, they will be connected (locally) if they happen to coincide over a common point. The Generic national focus tree has 5 different branches.Д«ranches in a focus tree revolve around a common theme or goal with the individual focuses within intended to help in achieving that goal. All other nations use the generic national focus tree. Additional countries - as detailed below - received a unique focus tree as part of different DLCs. The seven great powers (and Poland) have a unique national focus tree in the base game. It is important to note, however, that player nations are not bound by this and as such their in-game actions can still force the AI to pick somewhat less than historical choices.

Players wishing to have a more historical-based campaign can choose to do so by ticking the Historical AI Focuses option on the country selection screen (map) just before the start of a new game. The individual options can range from political, diplomatic and warfare-related focuses to more economic and research-related focuses.Дue to the semi-random nature of the AI it ensures that no two games will play out in precisely the same way. These paths may be based on actual historical situations or on alternative historical possibilities. Each country has a focus tree, representing a number of progression paths (branches) available to that nation.

The focus trees allow the players (and the AI) to direct the development of their nation. National focus trees serve as a replacement for the mixture of decisions and triggered events which directed countries in previous iterations of Hearts of Iron. The game map, showing only countries with non-generic focus trees.

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