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[Hearts of Iron IV] Monarchist Germany vs Fascist Britain vs Socialist USA
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Oh for sure, I have no doubt that it isn't easy. I'll probably try to start that war early again some time later, but for now I'm just continuing with this playthrough to see what happens. I'm really surprised that Germany backed down.
-edit- Hah wow, yeah I got my ass kicked when Germany finally invaded Czechoslovakia. I got suckered into a false sense of security when they actually attacked the Maginot Line, then whoops, suddenly Luxembourg has fallen and I'm surrounded and yeah that's a game over. Learning how to handle these wars of maneuver properly is going to take some time. I'll probably restart this one and see if I can manage to go to war with Germany early, which I'll probably still lose because I'm bad, but I think I'd have a better time of it than this last one.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Get dunked on Germany. Plus, I don't have to even get in a faction with Italy so I'm just going to turn on them when it's finally over.
Don't alter a template with new equipment (dif size or type of tank, or switch from motorized to mechanized) and continue to use those divisions in a fight before they are fully refitted.
Just lost an absurd amount of armored divisions against Russia because of this. Fuck
I knew better too.
Doing Italy myself right now. War kicked off a little early because of German AI DoWing everybody it could find on the map, but so far so good. Most of Africa taken (working on South Africa), still haven't managed to take Gibralter (Spain won't join faction or allow access), but Suez is locked up. My fleet pretty much dominates the med with the help of a few hundred naval bombers.
Way behind in non-African divisions though (low supply, small, fast units).
I'd like to thank Shogun for pointing me towards that Let's Play series where the guy took out Germany in 1936 with France, he did a lot of things there that I had no idea were possibilities. In particular setting up a training army to deploy newly equipped divisions to so they automatically do exercises to get up to Regular experience levels, though I had to find another video to explain how to get newly deployed troops to automatically join an army. I've been watching a few more to try and figure out better ways to give orders to armies as well.
Now if I could just get my allies to send divisions to help.
Luckily I can take what I need from Vichy France to shore up the gaps until my new armored divisons are ready to go.
Edit- have two armies of 24 divisions of Modern Tanks apiece. Have been encircling huge amounts of Soviet divisions and destroying them using these two as pincers. The Soviets have lost roughly 16 million troops so far. Incredible
Edit 2- and the Cominterm is finished. Didn't take much further than Stalingrad and Moscow. Losing large amounts of units must factor into national unity as well.
Would just use the Spearhead with the armor to do it. Got dicey a couple times when they cut my thin spearhead line but the modern tanks and tier 3 mechanized outclassed them so bad I could break back through.
First time playing a scenario all the way through. Usually just get bored after a while and start up a new game.
A couple things helped alot. Japan didn't get bogged down in China, which is the opposite of what usually happens in my games. And I was able to start a civil war in the US and after I helped them win they took out Allied and Cominterm countries in South America and helped with Russia by starting a seaborn invasion by Leningrad. That created a pocket and a great big pile of dead Soviets when I closed it.
Whew. Time for a break from HOI4
A good strategy against the soviets is actually to play defensively. They can field massive armies but they don't actually have the industry to keep them equipped past the initial stage of the war. If you bait them into attacking a fall back line you will probably within 2-3 months start seeing their troops strength begin to decrease. Not from a lack of manpower, but from a lack of equipment. The Soviets doing the reverse to Germany is obviously even more effective, and in multiplayer Germany kind of has to try to rush out a victory against the USSR but in singleplayer you don't really have a time limit because the AI is so bad at naval invasions that you don't really have to worry about a D-Day scenario, even if the US becomes involved.
In my Austria-Hungary game I had pushed much further east and they wouldn't quit. And Japan had taken Vladivostok but not much else (and hadn't knocked out China). Does the status of their allies have any effect on it?
The USSR starts with very low NU (35%) because it has a low base (55%) and the Troskyist plot gives -20%. Various national focuses give more national unity and remove negative modifiers (this goes for all countries) so depending on how far they have gone down particular focus paths will determine how much of the USSR you need to conquer to get them to capitulate.
The only things that modify NU are focus trees, some politicians, some events and nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs are the only way you can influence another country's NU.
Meanwhile in Asia, Japan asked to join the Axis, and after thinking about it for a bit I agreed. I was hoping they would provide a distraction for the UK and what remains of France, but instead they seem to be losing to China, and I don't think I'm actually at war with China though I suppose I could ask Japan if they want me to help. I've got the Luftwaffe covering the Atlantic coast of France and the North Sea, and they're doing some damage to the Royal Navy and providing cover for my U-Boats to try and sink as much shipping as I can. I don't think I'm making much of an impact there. I've got a few battleships that I send out into the English Channel occasionally, and they've sunk some big boys like Ark Royal and some older battleships. They've also lost their escorts temporarily, so they're hiding in port until I can make some more. I also just recently noticed I have some old ships in the Baltic Sea that I might move over. They aren't doing much good over there and might be useful. I'm really not sure how I'm going to deal with the British Isles, though. I don't think I can get naval superiority in the Channel any time soon for a naval invasion (which I've never tried before) and I'm doubtful I can get air superiority to drop in paratroops.
The USSR declared war on Finland, but didn't make any progress and called it quits with a white peace. They don't seem to be making any moves towards war with me, though I'm keeping an eye on their national focus just in case. It'd be pretty hilarious if they decided to go after the UK, though.
Anyway, tips on how to actually invade the British Isles? The Luftwaffe is handling the combat over the English Channel reasonably well, but they aren't able to put enough of a hurt onto all that shipping. The U-Boats are doing pretty well, but when they are convoys coming through over 1k strong there is only so much they can manage. Do I just keep going with the U-Boats? I took that naval focus because it seemed like a good idea, but now I'm rethinking that. I may be able to operate a surface fleet in the Channel with a strong enough air presence. Also battleships do dirty things to carriers if they can get into range.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Are you building anything besides transports and fighters? Because don't bother building anything else until you have air superiority pretty much everywhere you want it.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Also yeah figthers are by far the most important thing for Germany. Second is probably naval bombers if you want to invade the UK and eventually the US.
The USSR has done basically nothing, I gave them their half of Poland to appease them and prevent a two front war from starting. They did the aforementioned White Peace with Finland. The annexed some minor nation in Asia. They have a war goal against Japan, but haven't pushed the button. Now that I'm not fighting the Allies, I guess I could actually fight Comintern. I'm slightly worried to see that the USA is justifying a war goal on me, though, so I might hold off on that. I'll need more than a couple battleships and lots of submarines if I end up going to war with them.
But for now, I'm gonna take a break. I'm sure I made tons of mistakes, like it probably wasn't worth it to send Rommel on his African adventure, but I was kind of bored and until I did the naval invasion there weren't many other places to fight. Also it feels like the force estimates under details on diplomacy are not very accurate. If the UK had 127-169 divisions somewhere, they sure as hell weren't on the home islands. Also is it a bug when you look at a convoy raid result and it says they had like 5k convoys moving in one big group? That doesn't seem very plausible.
Really? Hrm wonder why it was giving me the high unrest notification then. Perhaps I just hadn't unpaused it to let it update.
Ahhh
I nuked Moscow and 4 other cities. Makes sense now.
Will have to check out those details
Y'know a system like that might work and would be somewhat historical as the Allies did exactly this when it looked like they were going to defeat Germany.
In fact that event actually fires in game, but doesn't actually seem to do anything? At least based on the madness I typically see after peace.
Also on another note, I've had two games now where I sided with the Allies and we win then after the peace conference the USA gains Newfoundland. Like, wait what?
Pretty sure such a mod does exist.
That event allows Germany to be split into east and west Germany, but it doesn't mean it'll actually happen.
So now I'm at peace, but Japan and the rest of the Axis are at war with China. I'm not sure if I should ask to join that war, or if I should just send some volunteers. I could expand Nation Francaise's holdings up into China if I join in. It might be better to take on the Dutch, quickly crush them and take the Dutch East Indies first. That would nicely take care of my supply of rubber. Of course I suppose that the USA might invite the Dutch into a faction if I do that, they are currently researching the ability to come and fight me. And the USSR could jump me at any time. Kind of an interesting situation to be in. I'd better get to work on the Kriegsmarine I suppose, now that I know I don't have to rely only on submarines.
HoI4 is way more simplistic in that regard, but the main draw of the series is being an armchair general and in that HoI4 is pretty fucking awesome. So I can't give it too much flak, but I still wish it had a more robust political system.
-edit- Oh also something weird happened. Sometime while I was fighting through eastern North America my armies on the border with the Soviet Union lost all their frontlines and orders and such. I am now unable to give armies the order to fortify the Soviet Border. Is this because of my non-aggression pact with them? If so it seems kind of weird.
Also I finally finally figured out how subject manpower contributions work. I feel silly now.
On another note, I'm in a really weird situation. Japan refused to let me join their war against what remains of the Allies, which is just New Zealand plus the Netherlands and their puppet. They also weren't actually doing anything in the war, between both sides over the past year or so there have been about 15k casualties. So I decided to justify and declare on the Dutch. Of course that put me into a war where I am fighting the exact same enemies as the rest of the Axis (seriously Japan called in everybody except the country that has done all of the heavy lifting so far), which is really weird. I thought maybe it would merge the wars, but it didn't do that. So the Dutch actually put up a fight, my half-ass invasion ran into some decent resistance, so I sent in Rommel and his tanks and that ended that. Unfortunately New Zealand is somehow the only major power on the other side of the war, even though I'm pretty sure that the Netherlands is a bigger country. Whatever, so now I have to figure out how to get troops into New Zealand. My closest ports are in India and Myanmar, though puppet France has Vietnam. That seems like an awful long way to send a naval invasion. Could I maybe set out from Japanese Australia, despite them not being in my war and me not being in theirs? That would make things a lot easier. New Zealand has like one ship in its navy at this point, so I can easily get naval supremacy wherever I need it with my shiny new aircraft carriers.
-edit- Also something that aggravates me to no end is they don't give you anything other than a percentage on capitulation score. The game obviously knows the numbers to figure out the percentages, so why can't the UI tell me how many more victory points I need to force capitulation?
Bad news? My stupid communist allies decided to instigate a three front war vs Germany, the Entente, and Italy. I actually managed to do a naval invasion directly into germany and took Berlin... but mostly all I can do is hold it and France just got totally steam-rolled. I can probably defend my homeland forever and hope someone else eventually attacks germany to distract them, but I might just restart and do another Kaiserreich game since Japan and Russia both went peace-nik constinutional monarchy routes.
So I learned a very important lesson about playing Italy with an AI Germany. Do not join the Axis, since Germany's AI is just completely suicidal. I mean I completely get wanting to take land in Poland. Sure, no problem. I can even see a point to attacking the USSR, though I personally wouldn't do it first. What I don't get is why, when you are arguably losing the battle against the Soviets, do you then ALSO declare war on the Allies? Oh yeah, and when you do declare war on the Allies, you refuse to let your staunch ally Italy join. I had an army ready to go beat up France, no problem. They didn't have any forts on my border, and I'm pretty sure I could have moved forward steadily if given the chance. I guess we'll never know now, since I quit that game in disgust. I might try Italy again tomorrow, but this time make my own faction, with blackjack and hookers.
I went Communist and booted the Afrikaners out of power. The European powers were too busy fighting the Axis to pay much attention and I had taken most of the continent before I moved on.
Want to give it another go now that they updated the map
That's a thing you can do automatically? I always do it the hard way.
My current ironman game is going well, historical stuff off so some strange things happened. I DoW'd the Netherlands early and puppeted Dutch East Indies, which was sooooooo nice for rubber.
Then I flipped Finland to fascism, then took Poland and Romania without allies getting involved (they had formed the faction together). I then took on USSR (waited too long, they had gotten rid of most of the penalties from the purge) - they were tough, but finally took enough VPs. MOT and ARM divisions were pretty crucial for this, cutting off supply and extending the lines so the superior number of divisions they had needed to spread out. It helped when Finland and Turkey joined the war on my side and joined the faction. Czech (who I was flipping and used the national focus on to make them like me and fascism) had a civil war and the UK was guaranteeing the fascist side lol). Hugary and Bulgaria joined Axis as well.
Italy (who was in Axis) decided to attack the UK a little before the soviets were beaten so that was a little annoying, but got my troops back before France or the UK could get up to causing trouble.
This time I made ALOT of fighters and naval bombers, they seem to be making a big difference. France is about halfway capitulated (since I didn't DoW on Luxemburg or Belgium I'm having to go the long way around). Once they are down I'll start working on Sea Lion hopefully before the USA can get involved.