Hearts of Iron 4 - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

Insanely easy in 1937, most minors including Mexico could probably do it. And if they don't join the allies you get full 100% production out of all their huge civilian factories at your wonderful war economy laws.

It depends, civilian factories seem to take around 5 years to pay themselves off. If you just build up military and blitz everything you'll probably do better as most majors.

The important thing though is to never have civilian factories repairing shit like infrastructure unless absolutely needed. It will repair completely on its own pretty quickly, so periodically go and check your queue to make sure actual buildings are at the top of the queue way ahead of any repairs.

 

I suppose it depends on the number of Military Factories you start with and whether or not you'll run Free Trade or keep your own damn resources. With Japan, I can definately see Military Factories being more important because they don't have time to mess around and need to get their game on faster, but as diplo-Germany I found that you have enough factories to focus on the essentials that cover your ass and instead need the industrial base to prepare for skyrocketing your military production after 1939.

 

Germany (and the Soviets) can totally blitz Europe to death if they focus entirely on military. What you want to do is get the focus that gives -100% ahead of time penalty while researching the 1939 tanks, which means that the bonus will apply to 1941 tanks. From there you'll get 1941 tanks and SPART/TD researched before danzig or war, immediately dump XP into variants and you're rocking armored divisions that are literally twice as good as anything else in the world pound-for-pound. At that point just go full-blown importation of resources, if you have to spend 20 civilian factories to import 160 resources then its a good deal, your armor will conquer hundreds of factories by the next year.

Of course, if you are going diplo-germany and are planning war in 1940/1941 then its a no-brainer, civilian factories have paid themselves off easily by then.

 

This is a WW2 game?

 

It's a map painter/arrow drawing game with WW2 pictures.

 

pr much

So no need to cheese things. I never went for maximum efficiency in any non-multiplayer game, someties in many multiplayer games that I was very good at as well, like WiC, Wargame, dark souls pvp etc. Just do what is fun for you and mod in whatever you like.

 

Yea I've figured out that how you use the ahead of time penalty removing focuses is of paramount importance. I got the best hang of it with Germany this time, and when the War started at last in mid-1940 I had prepared a plan to have Königstigers well ahead of schedule and stick with those until the end because no way it lasts into 1948 or whatever when I could actually switch to Standardpanzers. More than anything, I figured the Civilian Factories were needed to be able to build up a Kriegsmarine that could defeat or at least distract or bleed UK+Kwa navies (my sole 1942 carrier fleet was able to win its battles with acceptable losses but it had to withdraw to repair all the time) enough for naval transportation WITHOUT massive casualties (though it does seem that the AI does not have the player's naval invasion crystal ball or whatever since I've only had a few divisions in transport sunk by enemies).

I still can't figure out how one could find the factory space to account for SPART on top of all the other shit, even if one would use modded difficulty settings that aren't just flatout cheats, which is why I've mostly stuck with MotRArt for mobile divisions as Soft Attack booster. Though I guess I might be seriously overdoing the army size out of habit with the older games (though the second theater of Jerries there is just small cavalry divisions for garrisoning to suppress vast areas).

 

MotRART is horribly bad in HoI4. SPART is slightly cheaper and has twice the soft attack after applying your +5 soft attack enchantment bonus.

SPART is basically the best battalion in the game as your source for soft attack per unit of production. Better even than standard artillery, which means as soon as you research SPART you should end all artillery production lines and slowly phase it out in favor of SPART for your infantry. Throw in a TD as well with your +5 piercing enchantment bonus and your standard leg infantry can stand up to anything at a pretty reasonable cost. For armored units just see my previous post on cheesy 44-width super divisions that effectively instagib enemy divisions with 3-4k soft attack.

HoI4 is not even remotely a balanced game at the moment.

 

To me MotRArt attraction seemed to be in the fact it doesn't require changing the production line, but it does take its sweet time producing anyway...

 

Hmm, you guys realize that Fascism/Communism is kind of easy mode right? Good fun for sure but I mean the difficulty IS in the limitations of Democracy not to do whatever the fuck you want

Personally I'm trying to redo my French Little Entente victory but this time Ironman Historical and just lost attempt 6...
I've isolated my main weakness now, manpower, but damn I can't find a way to solve it in time just yet...

 

France is actually kind of OP if you stack up to +105% planning bonus early on. No other doctrine comes close to as powerful as Grand Battle Plan's maxed out planning bonus is (think it caps at 140%). I killed Germany in under a year and came out ahead in a war with Italy/Spain/Soviets/Japan simultaneously. Fucking Japan had hundreds of divisions in east europe defending soviet soil, was pretty dumb.

How do you run out of manpower? Every major gets absurd amounts from later laws. You must be wildly over-investing in infantry rather than much more effective armored divisions.

 

I'm trying to do spanish civil war on vet ironman nationalist... But the russians sent 3 divisions worth of tanks and they're kicking my ass

 

Yea bit too much infantry but mainly it's because I'm political point starved, can't switch and manpower runs out fast. Next try I'll save up everything from the start and wait to change manpower laws but otherwise, "Little Entente" early war trigger because of Yougoslavia and -100PP fucks me up otherwise.
The one time I tried to immediately go full scale against Germany, bloody Nationalist Spain (without even actually winning against Communist Spain) triggered a war as I pulled some troops from the Pyréennées into the Alps to counteract Italy and they rampaged unopposed through France. Haven't tried again since but yea, nailing them while they're busy East is the only way I see this working.

 

Yeah I don't think there's anything you can do to stop nationalist spain from joining the axis and sinking a dagger into your back. Since you can't send volunteers and nationalist spain is supposed to be stronger, you just have to get lucky and hope the republicans win without aid. "historical" just means the AI takes focuses in a certain order, the AI is still going to invite anyone it can and eventually every focus will be taken even if its ahistorical or inappropriate to the situation (in my game Germany declared war on the lowlands to get around the Maginot... while French troops were about 20 miles from Berlin).

You might try bunkering up behind the Maginot and naval invading Italy. From what I've seen Italy is a joke if you invade around Rome and split the country in two. The UK does it all the time, sometimes even before Poland has lost. That was the usual strategy for HoI3, where France didn't have a chance at immediately confronting Germany and the manpower issue was far worse.

 

You shouldn't overdo your army size either, since you are limited by Combat Width and supply limits on how effectively you can use those divisions. Given that France has the advantage of Maginot Line significantly reducing their frontage, they actually need less forces to prevent Axis offensive (not to mention doesn't France has more manpower than UK anyway?) and can much more readily invest more into building an offensive army to take out Spain or Italy.

 

Thing is, Maginot line is great....till German are done in the East and then come around, fuck over BENELUX in a month, then run you over. In try 5, I almost managed to take out Italy early but ran out of manpower and Germany came around, and it's down hill from there.
Otherwise, I'd say I've seen Communist and Nationalist spain win 50% split. I always allow passage to Communist when asked, hoping it'll help them but haven't noticed either way.

Haven't tried Marine invasion yet but that seems a bit cheesy. Will try to see how the AI handles it.

Manpower issue comes from the fact that you just cannot switch laws due to PP starvation, at least for me so far. Without the mega penaly from Little Entente Yougslavia early engagement it'd be no problem. As said, I'll try complete backup of all PP generation JUST to absorb the penalty when it happens, get 50% world tension then switch. I'll also focus less on Infantry as advised.

 

If you don't mind pissing off benelux, you can take a NF to extend the maginot line.

 

Yea, but I arn't got time usually.

I mean, when I see the date ticker going, I'm usualy like this...

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

And then I get fucked

 

Well, you know Danzig or War happens in 1939 on historial focuses. A focus always takes just over 2 months to complete. so as long as you time your NFs so you can extend th emarginot by the time germany goes for poland, it'll be up before they can finish Around the Maginot.

Pay attention to anschluss of austria, fate of czechoslovakia, claiming memel, danzig or war etc. They're your doom countdown. Make sure you're ready.

 

With "Little Entente", you break from the Allies completely and form your own faction though, with Czecho, Yugoslavia and Romania. That happens soon as Germany goes on Czecho (earlier than usual with Allies) and Italy joins a month later usually. I'll need to ignore the Industrial/Extra research branch to get Maginot line in time but might be worth it indeed.

 

Can't remember what the fortification level is like, but I think it's worth delaying research a few months for it. The AI has a ton of trouble dealing with fortified positions

 

Forts are like -10% combat ability per level I think. Completely brutal to the AI by level 4 or 5.

That said, if the little entente is giving you czechs, romania and yugoslavia, an offensive approach might be better. I'll give it a try. I won offensively really easy in the regular 1939 war, the issue I see with the little entente is that you won't have time to get medium tanks while light tanks start out pretty shitty and are a dead end. I expect that you could be a bit gamey and deploy a combined-arms formation with the cheapest light tank possible in every infantry division, exploiting the lack of AI Anti-Tank to give you cheap armor advantage everywhere. The AI is really bad about AT in HoI4 compared to HoI3 where every division had either AT or TD in it.

 

What do you expect from the autistic?

Reading how this game plays out I couldn't stand it. Far too much hindsight given what I know of a time about weapons development.

The mere fact anyone can compete with the US in this timeframe, let alone defeat their navy and air force and invade CONUS, is absolute bullshit.

 

Oh yea I'm sure anyone putting his mind into it can do it no problem, but I try to stick to the "role" and macro managing, not really any micro. I never control troops directly for example, only design plans, fallback lines and whatnot, then just assign and let AI handle it 100%.
I need to dive a bit more into army design though yea.

 

I didnt played against US, but if you do it before 1940 or so it is possible. Their navy was spread out and their factories didnt start to explode on manufacturing until a bit later. But yeah, like any Paradox game, is still needs a lot tweaking, but due to the "map painting" and some decent features its has more value than Stellaris at the moment. I am actually enjoy it but its quite flawed, but more playable for me than Hoi 3, which indeed was more complex or just had more micro management. As with all Paradox games, it might turn better in one year and at -75%...The trade and industry was better imho in Making History I Gold.