Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[mutonizer]

Damn, just finished first game as French, going full democratic "French Entente" and was a blast.
Ended up again the Axis and then later on Comintern and while it took a while to end the Fascists (Japan was a little bitch), that screen kinda made me chuckle...

Spoiler

That's right, while I liberated and converted stuff, Iran just land grabbed like crazy and ended up with most Russian lands. Once we cleaned up Japan (bloody Allies where useless, as expected), Iran gone and grabbed Japan too while I consolidated France in Africa and some of the Pacific Islands.

Spoiler

After that, it was world peace, until end of 1948 when, for some reason, Democratic Germany declared war on Yougoslavia, part of my Entente, and we proceeded to destroy Germany, again, before the end of the game a month or two later.


Overall, awesome game though it was a fucking bitch at first.
French option for "Little Entente" is really interesting and it makes sense too. The UK is safe on it's island so cannot be a reliable ally for a continental France since we perceive threats very differently. Meanwhile, aligning with Yugoslavia and Romania early on, then defending Poland, is bloody rough to handle once the shit breaks but insanely fun.

One thing that REALLY annoyed me is that securing peace had me cause insane amount of World Tension increase, something like 110% for war against Comintern and something alike for war against Axis. That made EVERYONE on Earth not part of my Entente hate me, which is fucking stupid! Aside from that, tons of fun

 

[mondblut]

Did you manage to get the diplo focuses done BEFORE Japan makes some kind of peace conference in China that causes over 9000 world tension?

Dunno, but probably not. Tension went 100% by about 1940.

If I'll ever try this crap again, I'll probably go supporting party everywhere and do all the "befriend" foci before "award"/"fate of" stuff. Dunno if it has the "threat" mechanics like the blessed HoI3 did, but it appears me carving Yugos made everybody and their grandma run crying to the Brits. Should have invoked the more aggressive diplomacy last.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

To me creating the bizarro alternate history where Adolf goes down in history as the guy who saved The White Man from the Red Tide and Irishmen seemed to work best to just rush the diplo-foci. Did you have Historical Focuses on? I had that turned off in order to get a crazy game.

 

[mutonizer]

To me creating the bizarro alternate history where Adolf goes down in history as the guy who saved The White Man from the Red Tide and Irishmen seemed to work best to just rush the diplo-foci. Did you have Historical Focuses on? I had that turned off in order to get a crazy game.

Last French Entente run was historical turned off.

I'm going at it again actually since it was so much fun, ironman and historical this time. First try, I was doing "ok" but suddenly Franco spain entered the war before even finishing spanish war and caught me totally unaware and rolled through France while Both Germany and Italy made a push. Ended right then and there. Won't stop me from trying again though.

 

[Ulminati]

 

[Ulminati]

It was going so well. Then france and UK failed to attack italy, so I had to deal with that. Hungary declared war, so I had to make a front there too. Then Romania joined in. Then USSR and Axis allied...

I really want to shrink the front, but all of my poles are spent holding the line

 

[Whisky]

Just got finished MAKING ANATOLIA GREEK AGAIN!

Now fighting the Allies, but I did not join the Axis; I will fight the Allies with the NEW ROMAN EMPIRE (Consisting of Slavs and Greeks)

 

[curry]

Is this game out yet?

 

[Talby]

My Australian empire is going well.

I had planned to take the Philippines but the American navy was too strong, so I'm focusing on defence of the isles with ground forces while I build a larger navy. The US attempted several naval invasions but they were no match for the diggers.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

So I finished my Germany game UND DER DEUTSCHES VOLK SIEG HEIL! Though given that it ended in Summer 1945 I figure I wasting time just building even biggerer and betterer stuff because I'm too cautious. The winning stroke was smuggling troops to New York after supporting a Silver Legion coup. I dunno if my Atomic Blitz that came with it made things faster or slower, because the entire Eastern Coast was bogged down at zero Organization for months because of the nuked Infrastructure and things didn't get better until I requested control of Boston just to rebuild its ports and infrastructure ASAP by Summer.

Seems like it's very important to focus on building as many Civilian Factories as you can by 1939 because that's what truly powers your war effort by letting you constantly keep up with the building slot cap increases.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Surprisingly easy at 1939-1940 tbh.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I think the best reason to stage coups mid-war is to have maps that make some goddamn sense. Also, I really wish they eventually add a Client State feature like EU4 has so you can do something about all these swathes of insanity.

Also, I had nothing to do with what's going on in Poland. They've had two civil wars now after joining the Axis, with communists winning the one they started around 1940 after Soviet Union was carved up (and the commies stayed in the Axis and all that, so what the shit mang), and after the war and the civil wars in BR and Argentina that German volunteers won they had another one and this time it's the Axis putting down the fascist coup what the fuck I don't even...

EDIT: Oh yea, and the Allies are still around, only members being Philippines and Liberia. Their opinion of Germany is magnificent -1391.

 

[Average Manatee]

Surprisingly easy at 1939-1940 tbh.

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.

Seems like it's very important to focus on building as many Civilian Factories as you can by 1939 because that's what truly powers your war effort by letting you constantly keep up with the building slot cap increases.

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.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

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.

 

[Average Manatee]

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.

 

[Sranchammer]

This is a WW2 game?

 

[Average Manatee]

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

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

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.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

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.

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).

 

[Average Manatee]

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.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

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...

 

[mutonizer]

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...

 

[Average Manatee]

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.

 

[Ulminati]

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

 

[mutonizer]

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.

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.