How to Spectate in Hearts of Iron 4 (HOI4) and Why You Would Want To

Paradox Interactive’s games are notorious for their complexity, with learning curves that stretch into the hundreds of hours and often require multiple full playthroughs just to grasp the basics. Over the years, I’ve tried—really tried—to get into several of them. Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron IV… just to name a few. And after sinking a ton of time (and more money than I’d like to admit) into various DLCs and expansion packs, I’ve finally thrown in the towel.

But that made me pause and ask myself: Why did I want to get into these games in the first place?

The real answer is that I love following the big picture. I enjoy watching alternative histories unfold—seeing how the world might have changed under different circumstances. Sure, it’d be even better if I could leave my own mark on history and feel the world react in kind, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

So instead, I turned to something simpler: learning how to spectate—aka “observe”—in Hearts of Iron IV.

How to Spectate/Observe in HOI4

Spectating and observing is actually really easy. There is just one requirement: you can’t have Ironman mode turned on.

Turn off Ironman mode.
Enter your game.
Hit tilde. The key with both ` and ~ on it.
Enter “observe” without the quotation marks and hit Enter.

That’s it—you’re now observing instead of actively playing. You’ll follow the actions of the country you selected, but without controlling it.

How to Remove Fog of War

One of the problems you may face is the inability to see what’s going on far away from you. To do this simply type “fow” (again without the quotation marks) to remove the fog of war.

Who Should I Play As?

Personally, I like spectating as Bhutan. It’s a tiny, landlocked nation far from most of the global conflict, so its actions (or lack thereof) won’t skew the course of the war too much. Some players prefer Switzerland for a similar reason—though being in the heart of Europe, it tends to get more involved. Either way, your “player” country will still do something, just not intelligently. Expect it to fumble its way through the war.

Why Do People Want to Watch AI Play?

There are plenty of reasons to spectate instead of play:

You don’t want to spend dozens of hours learning complex mechanics.
You’re more interested in the macro-level shifts of the war.
You don’t have the ability to play at high speeds while micromanaging everything, therefore making games take forever.
You enjoy watching how different scenarios play out across multiple timelines instead of committing to a deep dive in one.

At the end of the day, people engage with games in different ways. Some want to min-max and optimize every decision. Others just want to watch the world go up in flames from a comfortable distance. I’m in the latter camp—and if you are too, spectating might be the perfect way to enjoy Hearts of Iron IV.