effect · complete_national_focus

Hands-On Usage

complete_national_focus is commonly used to trigger specific focus completion in scenarios, bypass normal research time, and force a nation's focus tree progression in events or decisions. For example, in a "timeline reset" mod, automatically fill in historically completed focuses for the player at game start:

country_event = {
    id = my_mod.1
    hidden = yes
    immediate = {
        # Skip historically completed focuses at game start
        complete_national_focus = POL_build_the_gdynia_port
        complete_national_focus = POL_modernize_the_army
    }
}

Synergy

• [has_completed_focus](/wiki/trigger/has_completed_focus) — Check if the target focus is already completed before execution to avoid duplicate triggers or logic conflicts.
• [add_ideas](/wiki/effect/add_ideas) — After focus completion, often requires adding associated ideas (manual compensation when focus rewards fail to apply due to scripting reasons).
• [add_political_power](/wiki/effect/add_political_power) — Scripted focus completion does not consume political power; pair with deducting corresponding political power if economic balance is needed.
• [add_tech_bonus](/wiki/effect/add_tech_bonus) — Combine with tech-related focuses to retroactively grant the intended tech bonus buffs after forcing completion.

Common Pitfalls

1. Forcing completion without satisfied prerequisites causes state inconsistency: complete_national_focus does not verify prerequisite focus chains; direct invocation may skip preconditions, resulting in abnormal focus tree UI display or broken downstream unlock logic. Always manually complete all prerequisite focuses first or confirm the design permits skipping them.
2. Focus rewards do not trigger automatically: This effect only marks the focus as completed and does not execute the effects within the focus's completion_reward block. Beginners often mistakenly expect to gain rewards simultaneously, but you must manually call the corresponding effects separately.