Quick Guide to Creating Your Own Portrait in HOI4

Step 1: Create the History Folder

First, create a folder named:

history

inside your mod directory.

Next, open the folder and create another folder called:

countries

Copy your country's file from the vanilla game into your mod's history/countries folder.

Open the country file and scroll all the way to the bottom.

Step 2: Create the Portrait

Create your leader portrait.

Important: The portrait must be in .DDS format and have a resolution of 156x210 pixels.

Go to the gfx folder and create a folder with your country's tag. For example:

gfx/GER

Save your leader portrait inside that folder.

Step 3: Add the Leader

Open your country's history file and add the following code at the very bottom:

create_country_leader = {
name = "Wilhelm I of Hohenzollern"
desc = "POLITICS_Wilhelm_DESC"
picture = "Wilhelm_I_of_Hohenzollern.dds"
expire = "1965.1.1"
ideology = moderatism
traits = { }
}
Explanation
name — Enter your leader's name.
picture — Enter the exact filename of your portrait.
ideology — Use an ideology subtype, not just the main ideology.

This is very important. If you simply write fascism, democratic, communism, or neutrality, it may not work depending on your setup.

You can find all available ideology subtypes in:

Hearts of Iron IV/common/ideologies/00_ideologies.txt

That's it!

Save the file, launch the game, and your custom leader should now appear in your country.