Jannies deleted the thread so here's the encirclement in action before I go to bed
what's the better formatone gsg thread with faithor a dozen, diguised, game-specific 'discussion' threads, where everything is discussed in a meta fashionbring back the brotherhood, i say
>>1797833Yeah that’s really weird they deleted that last one, do they hate the trve grand strategy WW2 game because they can’t play it? Or did some sperg appear? Debating my next play through. Either fortress Belgium keeping the magino line intact, continuing my nearly over France campaign, or Austria as it’s possible to join the axis during Anschluss and briefly invade Hungary to remake the empire
hoi3 is sexy and i always wondred why /gsg/ didn't give it more attention (filters)that said, post in /gsg/, chris
>>1797980Why can there be eu4 and ck and vk and hoi4 threads but no hoi3? Retard. This board is literally a neatly segmented GSG. Delete the board than if strategy games can’t be posted in the strategy game board.
;_;
>>1797833Oh right. I asked how effective air power would be at thinning down the chinese but didn't see if there was a reply before the thread got jannied.
>>1797981There is enough paraslop on this board
>>1797833I wish all starting oobs weren't shit and that starting a game as a major didn't involve deleting 50 border Guard divisions.
>>1798042Why delete them when you can just upgrade them for a fraction of the timeAnd price of a new division??>>1798029Good thing hoi3 isint afk ai map painting modern para shit slop like the rest
Japan is a lot of fun to pull off. Obviously it’s harder in BICE. Here is tword the end of my last Japan run.
>>1798053Lots of fun flavor pop ups In base TFH, I’m sure there’s even more in BICE.
>>1798054Stopped taking screenshots after this point. America has so many regions and a Damm victory point for every states capitol you literally have to occupy like 80 something % of the country to trigger a surrender. It’s Damm annoying, that’s why I usually wait until end end game and just spam them with nukes or my divisions that have way more experience and roll over the isolationist pacifists that stayed state bound. In this case I built tons of milita to help occupy the massive amount of territory, while using my main divisions to push back all remaining resistance
>why did the jannies delete my thread?Please note that, like /v/, "Generals"—long-term, one-after-the-other, recurring threads about a specific game are not permitted on /vst/. Such threads belong on >>>/vg/
>>1798056That looks very fun. Did you conquer China at this point?
>>179806170% of the threads in the catalog right now fit that description
>>1798056Please moar, interested in this campaign.
>>1798115I would personally recommend against it
Janitors are truly massive flaming faggots.>they do it for free
>>1797833redpill me on this game, why do people like it more than hoi4 besides the flavor? iirc hoi4 now has a deeper infrastructure system where railroad lines are more important gameplay wise, how does hoi3 gameplay measure up to that?
>>1798149Pure and unadulterated wargame autism
>>1798149It has more provinces, it has an actual order of battle, it doesn't have mission trees, it has money and resource stockpiles, it doesn't rely on weird exploits like drawing a battle plan to get a planning bonus and then deleting it
>>1797833The pocket held despite frantic Nationalist Chinese attempts at breaking through. Once this entire field army is liquidated, I think nothing will stop Japanese forces now from seizing the rest of the North China Plain and Nanjing towards the end of 1938. II. Homen Gun to the Northwest is also conducting its own offensive. Nationalist forces there have been diverted south, and Clique units by comparison are uniforms in name only.
>>1798188>460kWell then, get to work, gentlemen.
>>1797833why are jannies removing 1 hoi3 thread and leaving 50 separate hoi4 mods alone?
>>1798204Maybe they're /gsg/trannies
>>1798086Yes, I took china, I also took out Australia and NZ. weakening the French and British pacific fleets enough where I could leave a token force to keep the supply lanes open while I invaded the USA. I usually focus entirely on beating the Soviet Union first, but this play through I planned on leaving the Germans to suffer alone while I took the massive industrial base of the USA, then after that building a massive armored force to roll over the Soviets in the east to assist.
>>1798234I wanted to take out the USA as early as possible, once they get into the war they become nightmare fuel. With an unlimited Air Force and the capacity to build as many ships as they want. They’re a democracy though, so their peace time laws absolutely gimp them. They don’t have all the industry available and can’t pass conscription laws which severely impact their manpower.That’s the man advantage Japan has on the USA, the ability to put more men on the front lines early in the war, that was my exact plan. Build a strong navy to get to the west coast, then after that flood the mainland with cheap infantry and milita divisions that they can’t match numerically.Later in the game if you wait too long they pump out disgusting amounts of mechanized, heavy armor, and marine divisions making them very tough to deal with. The USA rarely builds its armies with a strong infantry backbone as that eats too much of its manpower, they build specialist mountain and marines, and tons of armor with the biggest Air Force in the game. If you wait too long to deal with the USA they will ignore the amphibious penalty and drop entire mechanized armies on your ports after bombing the garrison to shit with 15 carrier air groups.
>>1798241Incomplete list of what I killed before reaching the mainland. Couldn’t fit all my ships and I also lost a few battleships and cruisers with high kill counts, as to be expected.I was able to “wait out” a few American attempts to retake Hawaii and other island by shadowing their fleets and transports and sinking them as they attempted naval invasions, deleting much of their pre war, and first production run of troops making it much easier to invade the west coast.
>>1798245Post map so I can lay my eyes on glorious Nippon
>>1798251The save is on my old PC unfortunately, can’t load it up anymore.Here is an even better one. I never ended the original winter war, just made it WW1 until Germany invaded the Soviet Union. I then rolled over the Soviets once they had to shift divisions. My finns had incredibly high experience from defending for so long so they performed really well.
>>1798263lebensraum Was never for the Germans. The finns OWN the artvic! Since I was at war first with the Soviet Union, and I set my original war goal to conquer, I kept everything Germany wasn’t occupying when the Soviets surrendered
>>1798265Wew that's retarded. Just release 25 republics as vassals
>>1798265Oh I also invaded the rest of Scandinavia before the Soviets got to me. After the Soviets were gone I used my token navy to help Germany conquer the UK. Germany invaded on their own first, it seems in this play through the Italian navy wasn’t useless and combined with Japan actually weakened the UK navy up enough for Germany to get a supply lane across the pond.I went for the rougher terrain while the Germans rolled over much of England. Kinda hard to see since our colors are similar
>>1798196We manage to scrounge enough divisions and concentrate enough air power to conduct a successful river crossing and breakthrough which, combined with efforts from almost the SNLF at Shanghai, encircle Nationalist Chinese forces around the Nanjing area. Our hold is tenuous at best and there are a million holes in the line owing to the front being spread thin, but we should be able to take Nanjing and liquidate yet another Chinese field army by February of 1939.
>>1797833you're playing bice right?how are you avoiding the meme bullshit bice pulls when you try to break history like spawning 30 divisions on top of your face?>>1798056for example i'm pretty sure it used to go>america invaded>muh militia or some bullshit>*spawns full infantry divisions complete with artillery, at, engineers, and motorised transport*>>1798153or when i tried to invade nepal, which you don't seem to be at war with yet, i was met with -800% attack modifiers i had no way of predicting because "nepal would be hard to invade" and switzerland had the same thing toomy game would always crash before 1941 anyway>>1798188kino posting though i love some hoi3it's such a shame that hoi4 is just unmitigated garbage and that we will never get a more polished version of hoi3 with better ai
>>1798467>i was met with -800% attack modifiers i had no way of predicting because "nepal would be hard to invade"Reminds me of my communist china BICE play through when I tried taking Tibet. Infrastructure meant there was only like a one/two region corridor to attack through so I literally sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese patriots to their death to kill a thousand and change Tibetans to route their stack to break into the country.I imagine spamming bombers would have been the better method, or maybe production licensing pack artillery and mountaineers from the Soviets but alas it was not as much of a glorious people’s struggle
>>1797833Which version of BICE are you playing?
How does BICE compare to HPP / Downfall / other recent hoi3 mods?I'm less interested in historical railroading. Just give me the one with the most competent AI (Or do they all suck)
Hi guys. I'm not dead, I was just banned for racism. Anyway, we manage to close and liquidate the Shanghai pocket, bagging us another Chinese field army. This relieves pressure from other parts of the front as the Chinese desperately try to cover up weak sections of the line. During this time, they are reluctant to launch any big offensives. After this, a general offensive towards Wuhan is ordered.>>1798467>how are you avoiding the meme bullshit bice pulls when you try to break history like spawning 30 divisions on top of your face?BICE only gives the Chinks conscript divisions when you advance too far, but it also increases their territorial pride bonus, I guess to simulate an increasingly tenacious Chinese holdout. The conscripts are not much of a threat. I particularly like playing as Italy in BICE because they have the least amount of bullshit events.>>1799841The latest one>>1800121HPP streamlines the game and makes it easier, but I don't have a lot of experience with vanilla. You can conquer China and everything else very very quickly in HPP if you know what you're doing. For combat, BICE remains king. I'm not familiar with the other mods.
>>1800616Once Wuhan and Nanchang are taken by our newly christened I. Kidou Gun (translator's note: that's 1st Mobile Corps), we hatch a nasty plan to take out Chinese forces in the southeast. Now that we're clear of the North China Plain, the terrain becomes a lot more rugged, and infrastructure less developed. We do not want the war to develop into a mindless footslog where the Chinese will simply attrit us to death, so II. Tokubetsu Rikujou Gun (translator's note: that's 2nd Special Landing Corps) is earmarked to make a daring landing at Shantou. Shantou was targeted by bombers for a week before the landing, and the landing itself was supported by dreadnoughts from the IJN. With four other divisions parceled out from I. Homen Gun, they are to advance northward and meet up with I. Kidou Gun and effect an encirclement of Southeast China. Once that pocket is liquidated, we can then turn westwards once more and take out Chongqing and the Nationalist Chinese out for good. Not pictured are constant Chinese attempts to probe or even advance through weaker sections of our line in Inner Mongolia and the North China Plain. These are kept in check with army-level reserves and the prodigious application of the IJA Air Service's tactical bombers.
>>1800632It takes an entire month of hard fighting through forested rough terrain for northern and southern Japanese forces to link up and complete the operational objective of slicing the Chinese army in half. However, the pocketed enemy force is still capable of resisting. Vast supply dumps, entire months' worth, keep the bastards alive. Also, HoI3's game rules hamper us here in that the Chinese actually successfully supply them by way of the port of Xiamen from time to time whereas realistically our patrolling submarines, cruisers, and naval aircraft would have enforced a very tight blockade. Regardless, the fighting continues, and it's clear here that the IJA and IJN ground forces are being stretched to their limits. See that red pip? The sheer vastness of conducting a land war in China is finally overwhelming our supply system. Not to mention there are holes in the line that we are keeping the Chinese from passing through by way of bluff attacks.
>>1797833Good encirclement, shame it cuts off shitty units. Also, for maximum damage, you should allow them to retake Tsingtao and thus sunk bunch of convoys for naval exp. Unless, of course, you've already put Chinese merchant marine out of its misery
>>1798010Against Chinks? Don't bother. Especially not with mods. The only plane you want in China is transport for supplies in critical lines and a single Tac to bombard the shit out of any given railway hub.Tip on disabling infra: don't attack the "crossroads" province, attack the two provinces right before the crossroads. This means the spill-over is on shitty terrain and with massive loss of supplies on the way, so neither the frontline units get the proper supply nor the remaining industry can keep up due to waste of materiel due to shitty transportation
>>1800632>>1800633I'm confused. Why not redeploying Marines to land in Xiamen? Especially since it is literally empty?
>>1800616>I'm not dead, I was just banned for racism
>>1800633What’s your theater total man count for the theater?More than 500,000?BICE china being such a slog means your IJA will roll over inexperienced Soviet, British, and American divisions with ease. Your average unit has how much experience about? Probably something high from how long and how many battles you’ve fought
>>1801031After a month and a half of even more brutal fighting, two SNLF divisions are parceled out to land at Fuzhou and head west. Tactical bombers from both the IJA and IJN air services and even carrier air groups from the Kido Butai are called up to bomb supply dumps and troop columns among the encircled Chinese. The rest of the SNLF at Shanghai are ordered to conduct a general attack along the line, while I. Kidou Gun's motorized and tank divisions are made to head east with all available speed to link up with our forces at Fuzhou to further fragment Chinese resistance.>>1801031Xiamen was always garrisoned - espionage doesn't always give 100% intel. I chose Fuzhou because its approaches had the least worst terrain for motorized units to move fast. Still bad though.>>1801260Currently during March 1940 the Teitoku Shina Gunshuudan (renamed from Shina Zensen) numbers 602k men, not including 50k and counting rear area troops I'm using to police the back and keep partisans in check.>>1801028I've had submarines on convoy raiding just south of Hainan for the entire war so far and they've sunk a lot of trade ships.
>>1801314The Chinese are out of supply, but starvation takes time, and waiting is not the essence of Japanese martial tradition. I. Homen Gun is ordered to liquidate the two pockets as fast as possible, and fierce fighting continues in provinces with rough terrain and poor infrastructure. When disregarding surrenders, casualties are roughly 1:1 on par with the enemy. I. Kidou Gun continues to fight in this front despite tanks being ill-suited to the terrain as a proper reallocation of forces cannot be effected during this time.
>>1801316Fighting in this sector continues past October all the way to November before the noose around the final Chinese holdouts is tightened. The Sasebo Rikusentai moves southeastwards from Shanghai to take the port of Ningbo and envelop Chinese stragglers from the north. Multiple air wings continue to pound the Chinese for practice more than anything, while the tanks of I. Kidou Gun are finally sent elsewehere.
>>1801317State of the front - late November 1939. A Chinese probe to the north is kept in check by CAS aircraft and the usual application of army-level reserves, while our units in Taiwan are mopping up a native uprising.
>>18013181939 concludes with a concentrated effort towards the cities of Changde and Changsha. I. Kidou Gun spearheads the effort and takes Changde first before swinging south and east to bust into Changsha. Meanwhile the SNLF are mobilized under I. Tokubetsu Rikujou Gun and take Guanzhou in a corps-sized amphibious assault - our biggest one yet. They have been gifted with armored engineers who prove their usefulness ten times over during the operation. The Chinese garrison, weakened by days of aerial bombardment, had no answer to armor whatsoever, and the city was taken very quickly.
>>1798090Yeah the mods are inconsistent
>>1801321The Guangzhou pocket is formed, and supply dumps within the isolated Chinese field army are ruthlessly destroyed by tactical bombers. I. Kidou Gun is called up once more to do what they beast and spearhead another liquidation of massive Chinese forces. The rough terrain enables the enemy to fight very effectively despite their inferior quality. And for once, the Chinese no longer outnumber us.
I respect anyone who still plays hoi3. I tried playing it after getting bored with hoi4 and it was so difficult to understand anything I decided to not bother. <3
>>1801323Meanwhile up north, II. and III. Homen Gun get their asses into gear and repay the Chinese for two years of constant probing attacks. Enemy forces here are a shell of themselves as regular army units have been recalled south in an attempt to protect Chongqing from I. Homen Gun's wrath. The light infantry divisions raised during '36 - '37 finally prove their worth and excel as they sweep away militia and ill-prepared conscripts. What little armor the Chinese have left in the region are bombed to hell and back by Hakugekitai air wings. Translator's note: that means close attack, or CAS.>>1801324>I respect anyone who still plays hoi3.Thank you. We're a dying breed. Just like people who still play historical Total War.
>>1801326Two weeks later, progress is made with liquidating the Guangzhou pocket. Infantry divisions tighten the noose while I. Kidou Gun is recalled northwest for a drive towards Chongqing itself.
>>1801327II. and III. Homen Gun make decent progress into Shanxi by late February of 1940. They make such decent progress, in fact, that I'm certain that not even the fortress-city of Yan'an will last all that long against them.
>>1801330Taiyuan is taken March 1, 1940, and the next day, the entire Clique and its warlords surrender unconditionally to the Greater Empire of Japan. With masses of Shanxi soldiers laying down their arms, the enemy in this region is made much weaker, and rapid gains are expected in this sector in the near future.
>>1801332I. Kidou Gun, supported by the entire tactical bombers of the IJA Air Service, takes Chonqing after a week of brutal fighting. 1st and 2nd Kei Sensha Shidan are ordered immediately to make a river-crossing assault and barge their way into Chengdu to the northwest - however the last remnants of the Republic of China Army actually stop them in their tracks. This will likely be their last hurrah.
>>1801330>not even the fortress-city of Yan'an will last all that long against them.I played an older version of BICE I remember my Japan play through I was stuck at commie chinas capitol until I built heavy artillery or moved a railway artillery to the siege. They got me stuck, you can surround it but since it’s commie chinas capital they get reinforced and supplied no problem
>>1801333State of the front, March 19, 1940. The entire Teikoku Shina Gunshuudan is making a general offensive along the entire breadth of the Middle Kingdom. Meanwhile, intelligence reports that the Soviet Union is building their 30th Tank Division, which, compared to our mere three, is not a good sign.>>1801334I've played similar older versions of BICE. Seems like being unable to penetrate armor is heavily, heavily penalized, so I reckon I can just have I. Kidou Gun waltz over there and tear everything down with tanks. I haven't seen any significant armor or anti-armor from the commies so far.
what happens you build nothing but AT crews and sappers, and forts ??
>>1797833I could never get into HoI3, moving around squares on a map is extremely unengaging and boring. Even a retarded 3D model like in EU3 would suffice
What is the best start date in HoI3? Talking about non-modded game
>>18015281936 by far1944 GermanySome of the scenarios are ok if you don't like prewar
>>1801440>moving around squaresYou mean actual division counters used by the entire world’s actual command staffs?I find it boring and un engaging when an infantry divisions shows up on the map as a fucking low res picture of a helmet in 4 lmfao. But I guess that’s what’s retards and children like you prefer. You can also use sprites in hoi3 but it’s dumb to use them in any strategy game
>retards and children;_;
>>1801604the air and space envolopes look like boobies (lol)
>>1800616I played BICE as Germany and the game spawned American mechanized divisions on my face with a mountain of supplies and kept spawning Soviet guards. Is there a way to disable the free units for the AI?
>>1801435you have 0 combat width and cannot even fight
>>1801440HoI3 actually has the option to let the AI command your divisions. You can assign fronts and objectives and it will defend or attack like in HoI4. The difference is you are not penalized for not using it.
>>1801630lol you think the two biggest industrial bases with massive amounts of manpower can’t… build things???They out built you, not SPAWNED. They can build dozens of divisions parallel to each other.Maybe set the BICE difficulty decision at the beginning of the game to “very easy” so it will actually give the AI a production penalty since you can’t seem to out smart them and can’t handle them building units as they did historically.
>>1801659The Black Ice AI does get free event units thoughbeit.
>>1801604>I find it boring and un engaging when an infantry divisions shows up on the map as a fucking low res picture of a helmet in 4 lmfao. But I guess that’s what’s retards and children like you prefer.how did you arrive at that conclusion based on >moving around squares on a map is extremely unengaging and boring. Even a retarded 3D model like in EU3 would sufficeplease kindly castrate yourself so as to serve society, we don't need this kind of impotent incel energy in public discourse
>>1801731Injured.
>>1801659weak bait retard
>>1801829>the ai isint allowed to use the games production system Kys retard
>>1801831either you literally haven't played or you are baiting
>>1801928Seething. They spawn units conditionally but it’s shitty conscripts. The USA and Soviets don’t “le spawn” mechanized divisions or guards, they build them and deploy them.
>>1801941you're just outright wrongin bice the ai us gets to spawn divisions in normandythey don't land, they don't airdrop, they just appear and they count as the defender
BICE as Japan is fun
>>1801440Mouth breathing retards like you should stick to low IQ kiddie clusterfuck games.
>>1801974It's a shame that there doesn't exist a version of HoI3 where fuel matters.
>>1801974you should make your special corp level hqs into real units iirc because they get good bonuses
>>1797841latterdiscussions were always better with one off questions or topical threads about a game that lived or died depending on whether people found it interestinggenerals threads are run by autists or advertisers and interesting discussion gets buried and never seen from the front page, all it does is kill original content and fun
>>1798153why does this game look 10000 times better than hoi3
>>1802011Probably because you are a fucking moron who is impressed by lines drawn on a map, regardless of how meaningful those lines are.Go join a discussion with your fellow idiots about the Ukraine war, endlessly talking shit when they have absolutely no idea.
>>1802011wtf are you talking about it literally is hoi3
>>1797841>with faithEvery general, not just /gsg/, is doomed to eventually not be "with faith". You WILL run out of things to talk about and WILL resort to shitposting to keep the general going.>everything is discussed in a meta fashionSo like it's supposed to be? What do you want to discuss, the plot? You want a thread just full of AAR's? You can make a thread like that if you want.
>>1797833Protip. Just keep all your ground units at home. Wait for NC to go balls deep into Manchuria, even Korea. Then land everything around Dagu. Then advance North west to cut all the NC forces in Manchuria while annexing Shangxi and Communist China. NC is fucked then. Laugh as you machine gun them down as they run around uselessly.After that casually walk through the rest of the NC VPs. Should all be over within 3 months, perhaps a little longer if you aren't trying hard. Then dec on the UK, wipe them out while taking all the oil in Indonesia and Burma. They will send their fleet at you peicemeal. Once their carriers are sunk its over for them. Never worry about rares or fuel again. Dont dec on the USA. Save them for later. Advance across India, they will never reinforce it sufficiently to stop you. Then dec on Portugal and hop around the coast of Africa until your transports can reach the UK. Pretty much game over by that point. Before WW2 has even begun, lol. Just mop up the USA if you can be bothered crawling across that continent. Now you have more LS, MP, IC and resources than you can ever use. Take on Germany and then Russia after that if you like the idea of painting the entire map a shade of Imperial Japanese yellow. Doing that though is a bit masochistic, its a long tedious grind when you know you have already won a total world conquest.
>>1802079Bless.
How do you get this to stop crashing? Especially in the later years of the war.
>>1802238From what I can gather online, the game is very picky with modern processors and what it wants to work on. It uses a lot of processing power for its day, and is old enough that it requires something with beefy single core performance. Modern mid range processors sometimes can’t work properly with the game, and I imagine AMDs would have issues too. You can try to patch the exe to allow more ram but that’s just a bandaid you will probably still see poor performance and crashes.I’m really lucky I just built a new rig with a RTX and I7 processor and was worried I would have to set up my old PC whenever I wanted to play hoi3, but no it works great. I can even play into the 50s and start ww3 without crashes
>>1802238get the large address aware exe (laa patch) from the paradox forumvanilla should be decently stable but mods are just pot luck and there is nothing you can do>>1802269amd is a dumpster fire and anyone who buys amd products knew what they were signing up for
>>1802238I can only play the old version 8.4. Any version above it crashes on startup screen.
>>1801634Wait what? I have never heard of this.
>>1802654It’s a button you can select on theaters, or any command structure entity if you detach them from a manual controlled theater. It doesn’t work great, mostly because the players and Ais objectives will never line up exactly and both go about achieving them in different ways. I only find AI controlled units useful for suppressing partisans, garrisoning coastlines, holding a defensive line with unit superiority while you worry about elsewhere, and crushing completely outmatched minor countries.To get the AI controlled theaters to work properly, you actually will want to set production, and deployment to the AI, they will build as much as they can of what they need to be successful and preform more optimal. Yes the player can win the game with their preferred builds, but the AI doesn’t like using them.One of the most frustrating things about giving the AI control is that they will send 1/3 of your divisions to guard ports it sees as weak points, even if you have naval supremacy to deny an invasion.Creating a theater and assigning a bunch of interceptors is always useful when you are Germany dealing with British strategic bombings while you fight elsewhere.
>>1802654Obligatory rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1jeQrs8gr4Using small theaters helps
>>1802654It's mostly useful for partisan suppression and guarding coastlines you don't want to pay attention to. It can be useful to maintain a defensive line where you have no intention of attacking because as units retreat out of battle it will send them back in. For assaults you should always be manually involved since in HoI3, unlike 4, the small details make a huge difference. A player who is considerate about which generals are where will stomp all over one who just lets the AI handle the oob because Guderian, von Manstein, etc can be more than twice as effective as some nobody who maxes out at 2 skill.
Post best builds1xSupeheavy Armor1xAA1xGar1xATPowerful. Hard Hitting yet also defensive with the added bonus of being able to perform garrison duties against tanks and aircraft,
>>1802411>>1802379>>1802269>>1802238I have no clue why nobody knows about this, but this compatibility shim DLL for Victoria II also works on HoI3 and IME prevents 99% of crashes. With this and LAA (the "podcat exe"), basically the only crashes remaining come from script bugs. Make sure you follow the instructions and set up the borderless windowed correctly.https://old.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/2zr3b8/borderless_windowedmouse_cursor_fix_for_victoria/Funnily enough, with the semi-recent patch for V2, this now only works for HoI3 and MotE. If this works for you as well as it does for me, please spread the word. It makes me sad to see so many people drop the game due to fixable crashes.
>>1802957why on earth would you invest all the ic into sharm just to pair it with gar and not inf?you don't need aa if you don't have superior firepower (must have tech) and you don't need at with sharm because you have plenty of piercing and hard attack anywaybut sharm sucks and if you lack the leadership for superior firepower then you lack the leadership for sharmyour division comp depends who you are and your access to ic and manpowermanpower becomes much more important than ic later oninfantry is the king of cost effective combat but later ic rich nations can swap for mot or mech to increase hardness and mobilitynot being able to pierce the enemy is a death sentence so you need at past a certain dateartillery is the first thing you add when you have enough ic since soft attack is usually more useful than hard attack and it's the best sourceengineers give massive terrain bonuses making them a very worthwhile augment to other expensive brigades such as arm and specialized divisions such as marines but beyond that only manpower poor ic rich nations should consider them where you're aiming to maximize what you can do with your width rather than spreading it outsince at becomes a necessity later and fuel is never a problem td can be a great replacement for at to provide cost effective hardness and armourit's always better to have int than aa only nations with no hope of air superiority should even consider aathe bulk of your army should not actually do much attacking at least not after 1941 for even nations like japan, who wont be building armour, will want to have their best generals leading key offensives with their elite troops while the mainstay of the army holds the line behind them to complete encirclements or enters combat just to open up more fronts for extra widththese breakthrough divisions will generally want to be hard and armoured with narrow frontage to maximize brigade support besides marines for terrain bonuses
>>1803082Oh. Okay, I have taken your advice onboard.BEHOLD! My NEW superior build1x eng2x art1x mpMassive terrain bonus backed with the unbeatable power of massed artillery while securing the countryside against partisan scum.
>>1798153gigabased, I spend more time drawing fancy battleplans than playing the game.
>>1802096>Bro, just play like it's HoI4!
Most exciting game I had was the 1944 start as Germany on very hard with a 2 month AI control house rule ( basically means you are not allowed to do anything at all except watch for 2 months before assuming manual control ). Fuck it hurt to see entire corps getting wiped out because the AI wouldn't retreat in time, rushing in precious divisions just in time for them to get encircled and destroyed. Then trying to turn things around after that, Absolutely nail biting desperation trying to reorganize the whole clusterfuck while locked deep in a fighting retreat. Most fun I have ever had. Would recommend playing that scenario to everyone.
>>1797833I've had this idea floating in my head cause so much of hoi3 can be automated. > play USA. > automated EVERYTHING> only control a small detachment commanded by Eisenhower (and I guess the naval assets to move it) > as Eisenhower levels up (gets promoted), take command of more units. Can this work in hoi3? I've played Darkest Hour to death but I could never get into 3 because there's just too many units to control, so I'm thinking an automation heavy playthrough might be better.
>>1802957Haven't seen this in literal years but I guess I haven't been on gsg in literal years. Thanks for keeping it going.
>>1803530Playing as a WC candidate like USA is best done with stupid restrictions or goals.I like leapfrogging around the Med & Black Sea so I can nuke all the major capitals at a same time. Putting everything else on auto and then only playing a commando team of marines, LC, multirole, and strat would probably be a great time.
>>1803530I wouldn't trust the ai to do anything other than air and naval patrolling desu but it's probably doable. With the US you're going to outproduce anyone so you can afford to waste some units.
>>1803530Yes that’s literally how I learned the game. But I did one of the later scenarios and played as the Soviet Union. I set everything to AI control and detached a single army that I controlled fully. It was a lot of fun, you have limited tools and get to know your units and commanders very well. It was fun liberating Soviet cities and participating in larger offensives as a small moving part.
>>1803530>as Eisenhower levels up (gets promoted),you're gonna very quickly end up commanding at army group levelhoi3 is a bit odd in that you really want your best generals at the lowest level>theatre level skill reduces stacking penalty>army group reduces supply consumption>army increases org>corps is reinforce chance>division is direct combat efficiencythe corps bonus quickly becomes useless from doctrine tech and 1% org per skill is simply nominal and similarly the stacking penalty reduction is just not big enough to matter because you shouldn't usually be overstacking and where you are you usually are a lotthe supply consumption reduction is nice since it's essentially extra ic and potentially combat efficiency depending on the throughput of the theatre but 5% combat efficiency per skill level is simply huge: good generals can have as high as 8 skill and the 40% is additive which means in some areas it's the difference between 5% efficiency and 45%
>>1804999>>army group reduces supply consumptionThis is the most important one if you're playing as a major, there's just not enough throughput even on level 10 infrastructure. And for anybody that doesn't have a coastal capital, naval is right out.All my high level leaders get sent up to the AGs.
>>1805024it's certainly worth having a very high skilled leader in the role because you likely only have one or two army groups>there's just not enough throughput even on level 10 infrastructurewhere are you fighting? if you're talking about snakey lines through russia then yeah you will endlessly have problems but in germany where it's 10 across the board you probably wont until it starts to get destroyedeven then this isn't gonna be a problem in 1940 and will only be a problem much later on when hoi3 starts to stop workingin somewhere like china or russia it's a vital roleindependent of all of this though, 5% less ic spent on supplies is 5% more ic spent on useful things so, unless you have more ic than you know what to do with which you never do, you always want to max this role
>>1805127>you likely only have one or two army groupsI said playing as a major.
>>1805130Even as a major you don’t have that many units. A full army group is 5 armies. That’s 25 corps or 125 divisions. 125 divisions of a combat army is going to be 500-625 brigades. If you have more than 625 brigades in active combat units then it’s 1943 and sparing two generals is not a tall order. If you have over 1000 active combat brigades then it’s some multiplayer in 1946. By end game Japan I wouldn’t have two army groups full of divisions. There just isn’t that much manpower in the game and for air units it’s not a big deal: air units providing insane soft and hard attack after 1944
>>1805269>There just isn’t that much manpower in the game Japan, Germany, Soviet Union, and a player United china do have that much MP thoUk France USA and Italy don’t have a massive potential
>>1805269I don't think anybody said it was a tall order, the point is that AG is the position where a high level leader can have the largest effect and it's therefore worthwhile to put your highest level leaders there. All other positions you can just fire and forget.Also unless you're only playing in Central Europe you'll need more AGs just to fill out your theatres worldwide, even if you only have 625 brigades. For a player Major the limit is more leadership->officers than manpower.
>>1805289I said you can by very late game but by the time you have more than 1250 divisions you have surely won unless you're just spamming militia or something retarded. Manpower is the main limiting factor of most nations with leadership close behind. Even as Germany I've only ever had three army groups.>>1805293>to put your highest level leaders there. Which was said>you always want to max this role>All other positions you can just fire and forget.This is terrible gameplay. A good oob makes a huge difference and one of the main reasons nations like Italy struggle is their lack of decent generals. If you arrive at a point where you're using nobody as a general then it's a huge penalty. Making sure your potential 5+ skill leaders are commanding armoured, specialist, or otherwise elite divisions rather than picking their nose on garrison duty has a dramatic impact on your army.It's far better to have your 7 skill general leading one of your likely few armoured divisions in 1941 than have him reducing supply consumption in africa where nothing happens. The units which perform key maneuvers and encirclements do the overwhelming majority of the heavy lifting for your army. Perhaps it's different if you have a Soviet mindset of wanting to just bleed your opponent dry but even then one encircled division is a far more devastating blow than the average lost battle is.
Do BICE event spawned troops increase practicals?
>>1805924no
What are some recommended minor powers in HoI3? Sandboxy all rounder countries? I played a long time ago and had a bit of fun playing as Australia & Hungary. Don't feel like playing USSR, Germany, USA etc and commanding a billion brigades.
>>1807225nat china, romania, yugoslavia, and turkey
>>1807570Thanks. How do you handle research btw? It's a bit clunky having to research every constituent part of a tank, plane or infantry equipment separately. I'd let AI automate it but I'm afraid it would waste my research points on heavy cruisers or militia upgrades
>>1801336Sorry I haven't been posting guys. Pic related has been consuming my time
>>1797833Does anyone have a comprehensive GUIDE on how to get multiplayer working in 2024? We tried a normal internet game and obviously that didn’t work. Then we tried a hamachi vlan and that didn’t work either. What are we doing wrong?
>>1807953What game
>>1807899you say that like there are more than 4 parts to most things and it doesn't take 100-300 days to research anythingdon't let the ai do ityou should have some idea of how to tech having played a few campaigns but basically>infantry techs and at are must haves without these you will simply lose>doctrine techs are also vitally important>the manpower tech, while not massively significant, is probably going to help alleviate your main problem>you get to pick between navy, air, or tanks if you can even keep up with one>air is probably the most important ultimately but you may be able to outsource this to allies and just build airfields for them>if you can't then you can license techs which will allow you to be competitive with other minorsyou might only have 13 leadership as some minors you really won't have the luxury of being swamped with tech
>>1808223I thought air was absolutely shit in HoI3? Or was that DH?
>>1808236not recognising the power of air is one of the biggest noobtraps in hoi3while it doesn't do a lot in 1939 by the later years of the war air is absolutely devastating because most units never increase their air defence nor their air attackby 1941 cas has 9 soft attack and 7 hard attack and tac has 15 soft attack whereas armour has 5 in both and the difference only becomes greater and greater in addition to air doctrines increasing combat efficiencyair units can harry most land units liberally and cause serious strength damage to them (they are generally better at damaging strength than org) and having cas around is a great way to defend infantry divisions (still with sufficient piercing) from armour because they bring so much hard attack to the tableif you can't even compete for air superiority with int then your units are going to be absolutely raped from the skies and you wont be able to do anything about itas the game progresses air becomes the best way for ic rich nations to crush their opponents and in no small part because it's independent of frontageyou don't need to control the skies to defend yourself just make sure you can intercept bombing missions and disrupt their org enough to ground them so they can't just pound your troops into oblivionair is also very useful in naval warfare with cas and tac being competent nav and nav being ok tac toologistics bombing also completely breaks the gamei don't know about darkest hour honestly every war i ever fought in that just seemed like a random shitshow i won too easilypersonally, i don't rate darkest hour i think it's more of a role playing game than the pseudo wargame grand strategy hoi3 is although it does have its good points