>use Superior Firepower for years>hear that Grand Battle Plan is now the best>think it's a meme>try it>it actually is goodMy spearheads just can't stop, wtf?
>>1860141You could have used one of the other 400 HoI threads
>>1860141GBP has been the best for a while. Even though left path is "better" i prefer right for the supply. Planning is really just the best way to push
>>1860141GBP is good until your planning runs dry or you have to push where you don't have Intel superiority but in practice attacking in hoi4 is just about stacking as many modifiers as possible and you'll always have Intel and air superiority against the AI so it's just easy to battleplan them.SF gives similar stats but as raw stats and not planning, which can be more versatile if you're against people and not AI. The main downside is that it doesn't give infantry breakthrough, so it's less effective at enabling massed CAS and relies more on tanks to attack.
>>1860252Im not a big fan of SF for tanks as the the breakthrough is a lot lower than MW and all stats are lower than GBP with planning. SF shines when there is a tank rule(number of tanks in division is limited )though and you are getting more bang for each tank.
>Theatre Training >Tip of the Spear>Logistical FocusWWI bros... we keep winning!
>>1860141Counter argument: SF gives you air superiority
Is 6 INF + AA, ART & ENG support a good infantry division for holding in north Africa as Italy?
>>1860141GBP is great for small minorsMW for the rest
>>1860141There are doctrines better for singleplayer and GBP is just that. I'd recommend SF for a more flexible gameplay, because anything that helps you pump artillery or tanks will help you beat other players.
>>1860141I always use GBP but I don't know what Planning is
>>1860141using battleplans is broken in singleplayer but in multiplayer it's a recipe for getting baited into encirclements>pull back from the front in 1 tile>make a pocket>your frontline adjusts and your guys start to fill the pocket>close the pocket>you just lost 12 divisions>the only way to avoid this is to not use frontlines>which means you can't use battleplansbattleplans are easily the single worst thing in goi$
>>1861041>>1861035After the SP nerf GBP has been meta in most comp for most nations>>1861064Its why majors use co ops in comp. You can avoid getting baited if you only have one front to look at. What i see more if just soviet tanks wrecking infantry, dont move, and repeat over and over to drain all the equipment.
>playing as italy on ironman>start wondering why my rubber production is so shit despite keeping up with synthetic tech >mfw I've been building fuel silos instead of refineries for 2 years
>>1861206Playing as Japan on a support run, want to release a fash China, forgot to set occupation to civilian till 1940...Also, Marcus Island, population 42, 27300 troops garrisoned there 50% compliance. Must be some tought dudes, that 650 trops per capita can't subdue them.
>>1860262GBP is fucking awful for tanks l. Never build tanks around planning.If you're a tank nation like Canada you go MW. If you're a hybrid like the US you go either SF or mass mob for the 10w cheese. GBP is good but purely for inf specialist nations.If you try to get planning on a tank div you're just going to get clicked. Tanks have much more breakthrough than def so an attacking tank always beats a defending tank. You never want your tanks in a position where they can be attacked unless their tile is supported by other tiles with tanks that can counterclick. That's why they benefit much more from a doctrine that gives raw stats.
>>1860186None of them are about doctrines though
So what's the next DLC gonna be
Why is this in Latin? For fuck sake PDX, making basic fucking errors like that. It should be either in greek or russian. AAAAAA
>>1860141>I automate my frontsDisgusting. And fitting for a retard.GBP is a bot doctrine. It is only good when you are using automated frontages and let AI fight wars for you, using planning bonuses. In any other configuration its beyond dog-shit, even for the GBP standards (it's the worst doctrine since HoI2 introduced doctrines)
>>1861028No
>>1862235Ireland
>>1862235Tibet, Bhutan and NepalThe main theme is going to be peace and naval rework (the DLC will also add torpedo boats)
So, what's MA good for? I have never once used it
>>1861120If you use frontlines in mp you're just asking to lose because your troops can be baited effortlessly and the only way to prevent it is to not use frontlines. You can possibly get away with it at the very start of the game but there really isn't any whataboutism to be had. Even if you don't so encirclements, like you say you can leave completely indefensible plains tiles open and the enemy will just keep walking into them to die. It's ironic that the planning doctrine forces your opponent to take unfavorable engagements but rewards that with a ludicrous bonus.>>1862488The planning bonus is the single most powerful modifier in the whole game and it applies to all stats and all units. It absolutely dwarfs any other bonus you can get. It is, I agree, the worst addition to hoi period.>>1862517Losing.
>>1862517Sacrificing 100 million unarmed Chinese peasants to slow down the Japanese advance by a day
>>1862235They teased it ages ago. It's the Wunderwaffe update
>>1860141GBP-Left is the best for offense like tanks due to planning bonusMA-Right is the best for defense with 10w infantry org walls
>>1862517Defending.It gives you the quickest path to Guerilla Tactics to stall obnoxiously hard and gives you tonnes of org recovery rate so you can keep feeding shit org wall divisions into a battle and stall it out.In MP currently it's paired with 10w infantry divisions that are basically naked except for the infantry. You shit out hundreds of them, stack each tile like 14 divs high and put all of your industry on air production. Your org walls stall forever while CAS just steadily kills everything in combat with you.
>>1862266>t. gravy timothy
>>1862524You have to make specific frontlines for units individually mixed with fallback lines. This is why mp for the game sucks
>>1862235All but confirmed by Arheo to be Austria + Belgium.Possibly a German rework, too.
>>1862517The only thing I've seen about MA that could be considered OP is that it reduces the combat width of infantry units in one of its branches and gives you a fuck ton of recruitable pop in the other. The former can be good for making more powerful divisions, and the latter for if you're a nation with manpower shortages, but you're usually better off with other doctrines.
>>1862637Frontlines update and spread if the front shifts even in non-adjacent provinces and fallback lines give no bonus.
>>1862785It usually only becomes bad when the front moves too much or when you have impassable terrain
>>1862235Probably a Germany rework, then a japan and america rework, then probably middle east since the last notable axis member was iraq.Then we get HOI5 with VIC3's war system and CK3's ugly art style.
France reworks doko3 slots and ww1 technology is ridiculous
>>1862517MA-R is banned in "competitive" HOI4 meta.
>>1862517Niche use in multiplayer on the african front for extra supply, but if your allies are doing their jobs then you should have adequate supply in the areas that actually matter.Outside of the supply buffs, Mass Assault contains more infantry buffs than any other doctrine. If you have tons of manpower and no industry then Mass Assault makes a decent stopgap, though this mostly only applies to the various Chinas which already have better options.
>>1862517larping as a chinese tag
>>1862892France was on the level of Nepal and Liberia technologically.
>>1862857Wtf are you talking about? The point is giving control of your army to the AI lets your opponent abuse that if they know how the AI works. Intentionally leaving holes in your own front totally fucks with the enemy and prevents them from using their main tool the planning bonus. Fallback lines are fine and useful in multiplayer when managing a lot of fronts but frontlines are a recipe for getting baited and raped. Most players don't exploit this because they are shitters relying on frontlines and pressing the "meatgrinder go" button too.
>>1862942American propaganda
>>1861044It’s like entrenchment but for the attackIf you let your armies in a battleplan, they’ll gradually stack planning bonus which makes them stronger when attacking the ennemy.GBP gives bonus like increasing the max planning bonus your army can get, how fast it grows etc
>>1862517Guerilla warfare combined with massive recovery rate and reinforce rate buffs is hilariously broken on defence and it lets you stall out battles infinitely with pure infantry divisions if you can get air superiority. Which you will be able to do easily if you are spending your factories on nothing but planes. If you use MA properly it straight up breaks the game and has no counter except the enemy having 5 times as many factories as you do. In singleplayer you use it to stack supply reductions and stack more tanks on the same tile.
>>1862889>last notable axis member was iraq... siambros... are we done for?
>>1862892WW1 technology is accurate. France's backwards leadership genuinely believed the next major war would just be WW1 with trucks. The game has to impose some reasonable limitations so that player-controlled France isn't launching a space program in 1938.I do think it's total shit that both of France's research slots are locked behind the totally worthless foreign investments tree. They ought to move one of those slots to the political tree somewhere, like around where you solve your employment shortage.
What's best for fighting in mountains?Since the ideal terrain width is 25, what's the best composition to reach it?8 INF + 3 ART or11 INF + 1 ART or9 INF + 2 ART + 1 AA
>>1863114>What's best for fighting in mountains?For me, it’s mountaineers
>>1863115I should have added "besides mountaineers", lmaoI need to fill a large front line in mountain terrain and I don't have enough special forces cap to use only mountaineers
>>1863114Generally speaking the increased terrain penalty from artillery offsets the increased stats in mountains and makes them not worth bringing at all for a mountain specialist division. Instead just go 12 mountaineers + 1 AA and get your stats from support companies instead.Even if you have a way to mitigate the terrain penalties you don't usually want to load mountain divisions with expensive equipment because the high attrition in mountains will waste a bunch of it
>>1863042MA-L is worthless compared to GBP or SP.
>>1860141I fucking hate waiting for planning bonus to fill up so I never take grand battleplan. maybe I'm just retarded
>>1863123>12 mountaineers + 1 AACool, I've never thought of that. I will try that next.
>>1861700What should I use as France?
>>1862980It's hillarious that you can "plan" better than you can entrench. Units attacking can be outright superior to equal units defending just because of their plan, as though the defenders are incapable of counter-planning.
>>1863073france had the best tanks at the start of ww2 and small arms of at least equal quality to what the germans had their doctrine might have been behind but the only reason they are infamous for it is because they actually faced independent armour divisions while the usa was doing nothing, japan was fighting medieval armies, and the uk was running away
>soviet game>First vanilla one in a while (well, mostly vanilla)>After mismanagement, suboptimal choices, cockyness unfrequent saves and not paying attention finally things are looking ok>Frontline has stabilised, axis is bleeding manpower>Suddenly Germany goes from 3-7 divisions per tile to not enough to cover front>Denmark drags Japan into war with me when rebelling>Went for southern thrust and puppeted Iran and Iraq>Turkey declares war on me, dragging allies into itBrilliant job, paradox. I guess playtesting is for suckers, because a couple of completed soviet games would have shown that shit like that happens
>>1863338Also I got lend leased from fucking Spain. I guess Franko was playing some 5d chess. BTW that saved also had to be redone because of a fuck upNow UK failled to cap italy
Any other Black Ice/Hearts of Oak/Ultra Historical type mods?
>>1863389Eight year war of resistance.
>>1863389Total WarWorld Ablaze
How do you get good at navy?
>>1863302>france had the best tanks at the start of ww2This is such a fucking bad piece of pop history disinformation. The B2 was a WW1 tank with an autocannon turret. Everything about it, its suspension, its drive system, its fire control, etc. was horribly outdated by the outbreak of the war. Its engine was underpowered, which made it terribly slow and gave it a tendency to get stuck when moving. And it was prone to breaking down for one of any a dozen reasons.The only thing the B2 had going for it was thick frontal armour, but that wasn't anything special at the time. It wasn't some huge 1942 breakthrough that they could slap lots of armour on a tank, they started out huge and armoured in the interwar period and gradually transitioned to lighter and more mobile designs, because a fat slow brick with an 80% failure rate wasn't actually all that useful in maneuver warfare.Tanks like the Panzer 3, Crusader and even Shermans weren't designed the way they were because they couldn't figure out how to put more armour or a bigger gun on them. It's because they realized being able to move fast for long distances mattered. Actually dealing with targets 50mm couldn't penetrate didn't become an issue until improvements in drive and suspension meant all sides were beginning to field tanks that could keep pace while still carry lots of armour. By comparison, the B2 was just a piece of shit that was basically never in the fight in time to make a difference and usually broke down on the way there.
>>1863529>Panzer 3, Crusader and even Shermans>1939
>>1863529*knocks on your door* Oh I'm sorry, I didn't see you there big boy
>>1863534Panzer 3's saw action in Poland and France in 1939, yes. The point of that list is the tanks were all widely produced primary combat vehicles designed to emphasize mobility over protection and firepower and were highly successful for it even in the presence of opposing tanks with superior armour and firepower. It wasn't just a 1939 quirk that mobility mattered, it continued to matter throughout the war and was the defining characteristic of its most successful combat vehicles.
Any good China-centric mods? I've grown bored of RT56 and 8 Years' War of Resistance. Autumn Begonia looked like it would turn out cool, but I think development on that mod died.
>>1863548KR China region is the only well developed part of the mod.
>>1863529SOMUA though
>>1863496You have to split your subs from your main fleet, subs go in their own fleets and you ideally divide them in task forces of 10. Use them to raid enemy convoys.Use your main fleet for strike force mission and combine them with separate fleets of 2-4 light cruisers (or fast destroyers) with max sonar and max radar doing patrol missions.Use fleets of ~8 destroyers from escorting your convoys and assisting naval invasions.For your fleet production, meta players recommend building carriers since they are the strongest ships but I don't really like following the meta.A viable way non-carrier way to navy in this patch are battleships + light cruisers with LOTS of soft attack, so you want to design a cruiser filled to the brim with medium batteries and secondary batteries.Ideal fleet composition:No more than 4 carriers + n battleships/heavy cruisers/battlecruiser + n*4 screensItaly is a great nation to learn how to navy, their Littorio class is one of the best battleship designs in vanilla.
>>1863542Nobody is disagreeing that mobility mattered and just look at armor doctrine today for proof but to pretend that France was so significantly behind the times is just unfair. The S35 was not so much worse than whatever you want to compare it to. The British were barely experimenting with Matilda IIs instead mostly also using autocannon turrets and the Italian m11 has a machine gun turret. The point is that France gets hammered on tech slots because of memes when really command blunders are far more to blame than just doctrine. The French failed to even try and defend most of their country and that's a strategic error not an operational one.
M.S.406, never heard of it, we use less than 100 ww1 planes here
France is the most fun nation because they aren't overpowered like all the other majors.
>>1863604Britain was mass producing Cruiser mk 3s and Matilda 2s when the war broke out, they just barely got to employ them properly because Dunkirk happened, and replaced it with the Crusader shortly afterwards. The QF 2lber was already their main tank armament at that point, which was state of the art at the time.Comparing France to Italy is not really doing your argument any favours. Otherwise I agree that it would be nice for at least one of their unlockable research slots to be more accessible but I'm sure their focus tree design is made purely to ensure they actually fall like they're supposed to.
>>1863598It's sad.Hoi4's navy game has a lot to it and the potential for some great 'tism but just wrestling with the task force controls on top of designing and refitting each ship just kills off all enjoyment.
>>1863659>Comparing France to Italy is not really doing your argument any favours.italy gets more research slots so yes it is
>>1863659Italy is way stronger than France?
>>1863665It's not that badMaybe we have different kinds of 'tism, but now that I have finally learned how to navy I cannot ignore the naval aspect of the gameI hearth the ship designer and I hearth using the same designs in every game
Back to doctrines, is GBP the optimal doctrine for a nation like Italy? I don't really have the industry to slap artillery in all my divisions and I'm also ignoring tanks until 1941 at best, so mobile warfare would be pointless. From what I heard artillery got nerfed anyway.
>>1863659>Britain was producing these tanks in 1939>but they didn't get to use them>later after the lessons had been learned they had different tanksYou are literally admitting that France wasn't significantly behind. The S35 was fine and the B1 wasn't as bad as you're making out. France has the tech slots of a minor ffs are you seriously going to say that they were on the technological level of Romania and Turkey? Britain and Germany having better tanks is hardly an indictment when they were broadly the tech leaders of the world.>I'm sure their focus tree design is made purely to ensure they actually fall like they're supposed to.It's already incredibly easy to not die as France and more reasonable tech distribution wouldn't make any difference to it.
>>1863763gbp is the best doctrine because the planning bonus is the best bonusit isn't just +1% attack per 1% planning it's 1% of everything which means that a tech giving +20% planning is really +20% everythingthe entrenchment bonus is nice toohowever it means you have to use battleplans which makes me want to gouge my eyes out personally so in singleplayer i have no idea why you would subject yourself to that
>>1863926>however it means you have to use battleplans which makes me want to gouge my eyesIs there anyone that plays the game without battleplans? It's just an arrow on the map.
>>1863927me because i do not want to have to wrestle a retarded ai for control of my army and watch as it sends divisions into pointless battles just to die
>>1863763GBP is the optimal infantry doctrine, yes.
>>1863963MA-R is.
left or right?
>>1863496Step 1>take all your ships and make a death stackStep 2>set up a naval invasion Step 3>use the death stack to cover the invading forces, can throw some naval bombers in there for support if you have themStep 4>throw all your troops into the enemy country once you capture a port and capitulate the enemy Works every time when I have to deal with GB. After that you don't even need a navy because you can just annex Canada and invade the US from land.
>Play France>Only De Gaulle, Giraud, Leclerc and Juin are good
>>1864274>France>Having good commandersPretty sure they were culled from the genepool during the coalition wars
>>1864281Leclerc is one of my favorites
The place that I liked to post about my Hearts of Iron IV campaigns has been nuked more times than Japan.This... is my new home.Make sure to stick around for the DLC announcement that happens in about 2 hours.
any must watch videos before playing this game?
>>1864579https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ffQ5iPw8u8
Graveyard of Empires will feature:IraqIranAfghanistanIndian Raj
>>1864681Yesss all the best most relevant nations wooo!!Hoping for Bolivia and Honduras next.
can i just use creamapi for the dlc to play multiplayer if i own the base game?
>>1861064Unless things have changed, people always just make the battleplan for the bonuses but don't activate them
>>1862524>The planning bonus is the single most powerful modifier in the whole game and it applies to all stats and all unitsIt would be such a fucking shame if I just overrun you by not giving you time to plan, using flat doctrinal bonuses to punching shit out of GBP lacklustre units.You are effectively trading actual killing and staying power of your units for temporar, unpredictible bonus, that relies on you NOT fighting your own fucking wars. Brilliant!
>>1863496Not building any ships, ever, and not wasting a single research slot on developing any naval tech. Whatever you have at the game start is already too muchAnd if you don't have any navy at the game start: token sub, token destroyed, handful of transport ships is all you will EVER need.
>>1864250Right, and it's not even a contest
>>1864579https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Uufy9jSaM
>>1865022Yeah it's not like they were literally invaded or anything
>>1865139>Iraq>Iran>Afghanistanthese sideshows are just a total waste of dev time which would be better spent on soviet or chinese mechanicseuropean minors are infinitely more relevant and nobody gives a fuck about iraq
What's a good country to play after you get a hang of the game with Germany?
>>1865144More worthwhile than South America
>>1865159Totally depends on what you are interested in. Personally Italy (not after the horrible Italy update) and Japan were always my favorites. They were majors that tended to be disadvantaged, both have their fingers in a lot of different theaters, both have to build up their navy to defeat the more powerful Allied navies. They are really satisfying nations to win with with the goal of taking their historical path and trying to succeed with it.
>>1865159
>>1865160south america is the single most boring continent on the planet including antarctica so that really isn't much of a statement
>>1865163Italy is easier to play as than Germany desu. I played Italy on ironman a week ago and have beaten up every major in the war without making a single ship.The only real difficulty is taking over the balkans and Turkey before GB and France are able to start throwing guarantees all over the place.
>>1865302Is that just avoiding allied navies? I don't see how you are defeating them without expanding your navy through either construction or conquest.
>>1864681why raj they already have a focus tree
Belgium... next time
>>1865456Probably because the current one is not only shitty but borderline non-functional where the UK isn't supposed to be able to intervene in the civil war but does anyway.
Only Ireland and Luxembourg are missing now, pretty goodJipang reworks doko though, they need it more than Germany
Next time with the Siam, Malaysia and Indonesia dlc
>>1862235German autismmaxxing mememaxxing one.
>>1862517Army-wide, reinforce rate. Divisions that initially did not fit into the combat width or that join the combat after it has already started end up in reserves. Reinforce rate, improves the chance they will join in. Mass assault also buffs infantry (line and motor/mech) breakthrough, recovery rate, combat width etc. It also buffs tanks and armoured cars but not to the extend of mobile warfare.
>>1862517Reinforce rate, max planning, org loss while moving, max entrenchment, division attrition, supply consumption, training time, resistance growth speed, and manpower.
>>1865483>bad ideas which never existedi hate this meme
>>1865499>Reinforce ratemeaningless once you have radio which is 5% ie massive on its own>>1865505thanks chat gpt but anyone can read what it literally doesmass assault is only any good for nations who are left spamming infantry to hold on until something flipsthe width reduction is the best thing about it but org recovery and the tactics define ityou cycle huge numbers of quickly recovering infantry to try and bleed the enemy dry in a war of terrible attritionattrition and cas are where your damage comes from
>>1865600Do you put radio on regular divisions?
>>1865644not the brigades they are pointless just the tech which is free, 1936, and a +5% global reinforce rate which means over 12 hours you have a 46% chance to reinforce with each division in reserves before any other bonuses
What's a good division to use for push in north africa? Light tanks or infantry? I swear I have to build ports every two tiles, logistic is so shit that even level 3 railways are not enough.
Superior Firepower only makes sense if you have the same population count as Canada/Mexico or Portugal ( medium to small )For anything else, just go with Grand Battleplan Doctrine
You really think that I am going to go through all of the doctrines and their mutually exclusive paths and attempt to judge which is best?No, I am merely going to imitate what other people do on the internet.
>>1865907basedwho the fuck even understands half these nerd ass modifiersi'm not arumba i am not going to take out a spreadsheet to draw a line and click attack
You are the Soviet Union.The final Axis member left is Italy and you have reached their mountain line.Our forces have no navy so we won't be able to go around the mountains.What tools do you use to cross those mountains and enter Northern Italy?
>>1865918ELEPHANTS
>>1865931That would be quite a feat...
>>1865918Nukes/Paradops
Which doctrine should I use if I have a minor country with a low manpower pool and next to no industry?>>1863598>capital ships with lots of soft attackWhat if they find enemy capital ships? Skimping on hard attack can't be good in that scenario.
>>1865940Do be aware that however many elephants you send through the mountains you'll end up with exactly one, so you better make it count.
>>1865905gbp is still better>>1865975gbpi don't think some eople unerstand what "the single most powerful modifier" means and you get the most entrenchment too
I am worried about two things.1.That these wonder weapon projects will be useless vanity projects.2. That these wonder weapon projects will provide extraordinary power and utility.
>>1865975Light cruisers are the ones you should maximize soft attack on, not capitals
>>1866068Provided you have air superiority I'm pretty sure that landcruiser is just going to be rail artillery that isn't restricted to railroads. Would be funny if it caused infrastructure damage where ever it went.That being said I have no fucking idea how the Horten would work. Specialty/limited plane part upgrade?
>>1865163>Italyjustify France, take navy, justify UK, take navy. Invade USA from Canada. Game.
>>1865972Airbourne doctrine turns paratroopers into mini-org nukes.
>>1866202I said taking their historical path and trying to succeed with them. You could talk about invading the US with Japan in like 1937 as well but that's also stupid and gamey.
>>1865918Mountaineers + bunker breaching divisions + CAS + bombers to bomb bunkers blocking your pass.
Wil other countries get wunderwaffens too, other than nuclear bombs?
>>1866222Probably. Ideally they would all be different.
>>1866235I guess it will be stuff like revamping superbattleships, kamikaze planes, night vision, assault rifles, electric submarines, anti-submarine warfare, Katyushas, and so on.
>>1866222I assume so but they probably won't get theirs until their respective DLCs.I expect Germany to get its own unique wunderwaffe this dlc and everyone else to get something generic--like reworked nukes. Then they'll gradually replace the generics with unique ones with each DLC until only the minors still use generic ones
SP is still the best if you micro your armies.
For me, it's roleplaying and sticking with my country's historical doctrine.
I am thinking about losing my mod virginity.Any recommendations?
>>1866351Gachi music
>>1865321I formed a death stack with ships I get at the start in Germany before joining the war so that they wouldn't get cock blocked in the Mediterranean due to Gibraltar and Suez being in bong hands.Usually at the start the UK keeps all it's navy in the med to convoy raid Italian troops in Africa, so that+air control is plenty enough to launch a naval invasion. There's fuck all on the island in early war, so capping the UK is just a formality at that point. After that you just take Canada in the peace deal to have somewhere to invade the US from. Then you form your meme Roman larp faction with Portugal and Spain, which kicks you out of the Axis and lets you quickly backstab and cap Germany while they're balls deep in the USSR. All without making a single ship. All you have to do is puppet Yugoslavia, take the rest of the balkans and Turkey somewhere before 38 otherwise they'll all get guaranteed by allies.
>>1866386>There's fuck all on the island in early war, so capping the UK is just a formality at that pointYes I know, I am once again reiterating that I said >They are really satisfying nations to win with with the goal of taking their historical path and trying to succeed with it.>TAKING THEIR HISTORICAL PATHI know that Britain is defenseless if you make landfall. It's stupid. It's fun to actually win in the Mediterranean, to naval invade Malta and Gibraltar. To win in Africa, to jump to Yemen, and India, and Malaysia.
>>1866388Is it fun though? All of that is just a pointless loss of time and manpower. If I can achieve all my objectives by 41 then great, I just saved myself from the late war slog of 60 divisions per tile.Do I also have to lose half my army in Africa and get BTFO of Albania too in order to follow my historical paths? Playing as the good historical boy doesn't make you strong or give you cheevos.
>>1866388>Dealing with the USA and now BrazilI big groan
>>1866396>Is it fun though?Yes. Or at least, it was. The Italian update just made Italy a giant pain in the ass to play.
>>1866399If you're trying to blitz a victory by 1941 because you don't enjoy the game then I don't understand why you're playing
>>1866410I enjoy the game until nukes are the only way to advance
>>1866410People enjoy the game to a certain point. By 1945 things just become silly because the AI shits out so many divisions that not even fully kitted out tanks can make moves anymore.The earlier you finish the campaign the better for your sanity.
>>1863542>Panzer 3's saw action in Poland and France in 1939, yesPanzer 3s in 1939/40 used low velocity guns whose shells were shrugged off by any comparable medium armour tank
>>1866412>By 1945 things just become silly because the AI shits out so many divisions that not even fully kitted out tanks can make moves anymore.Skill issue
>>1866415Sure, go capitulate Italy once the AI sets up 30 divisions per tile on mountains if you like ball busting so much. I'll stick to my unhistorical playthroughs, thank you.
>>1866417You mean like this?
>>1866418I'm not saying it's can't be done. It's just not fun.
Achievement runs made me realize the first step to anything to is kill the british
>>1865918I wait for the unending bombing runs supported by the Soviet war machine inevitably forcing the shitalians to surrender
>>1866417you get tactical nukes
Has anyone ever used the railroad guns to good effect?
I have never utilised:TanksMotorised infantryMechanised infantryHeavy fightersSpecial forcesNaval ships (other than submarines)Rocket artillery
>>1866628They are bread and butter in multiplayer. The extra stats in combat are nice but the main thing is that railway guns reduce the effect of enemy entrenchment so it's always nice to just have one around making your enemy weaker wherever they're defending.
>>1866663Sounds pretty good for late game battles when the ai spams tons of divisions. I will have to start building them, I want any advantage I can take.
I was thinking of building some medium tank divisions but I don't really have the industry to build them, since I'm focusing heavily on planes, navy and infantry.Do you think properly designed light tank divisions and medium flame tanks as support company can be enough for single player?
>>1866659based ww1maxxer
>>1866659Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value am I right?
>>1866731Light tanks are strictly less cost effective than mediums and not even all that cheaper per battalion because there are 10 more tanks in each.If you're poor, just make smaller tank divs (ie 20w instead of 35) or use mot instead of mech. If you're really poor you can just pad it with leg infantry instead of mot and leave it as a 4spd breakthrough machine.The main thing is just to have enough breakthrough that AI infantry divs can't hurt you (which is easy even with shitty tanks) and enough armour that they can't pierce you. You don't have to be super minmaxed or premium to hit those reqs
>>1866659love me infantry love me artillery love me anti-airlove me grand battle planNot an old-guard, Just dont like em gadjitssimple as.
>>1866659>mechanized>heavy fighters>rocket artilleryAll way too late to matter
Consider this hypothetical.You are playing Qing and have just conquered all of mainland China.There is absolutely no navy or air force to speak of at this present time.Japan must be annexed to unlock an achievement.What is the quickest way to go about invading Japan?
>>1866811annex JAP
>>1866811You will need to cross the sea either by air or convoy. It would take too long to build a navy, but the US will likely destroy Japan's main force by 43 so you can always just wait, build up some supremacy bathtubs and naval invade around then.Otherwise you can use paratroopers but that will only work if Japan has its Airforce already fighting somewhere else. It only takes seconds for the AI to put up air and block paradrops, and securing air supremacy against a major that's had all game to stockpile planes takes ages.Both methods are kind of ass. This is why everybody just cheeses the UK early and steals their navy. Building your own is a waste of time
>>1866806Rockets are actually very easy to rush, but they are unfortunately not worthwhile.
>>1866811Just rack up warscore and then annex Japan when the US invades them like I did
70 IQ: Spam military factories from day 1100 IQ: Construct civilian factories for about 2 years and then focus on military factories130 IQ: Spam military factories from day 1
>>1866926Were there actual calculations done on that, actually? I never do civs early.
>>1866926150 IQ: spam only civilian factories and attack with bunkers
>>1866926>70 IQ: Spam military factories from day 1>100 IQ: Construct civilian factories for about 2 years and then focus on military factories>130 IQ: Spam military factories from day 1I made a big MATLAB script once to test the efficiency of various “civs until X date, then mils” permutations of X, and their effect of total IC output by the time the war kicks off historically. Iirc, in every single case, just spamming mils and skipping civs results in more IC output than any combination of civs then mils. However, I still like building civs for a couple years cause it’s fun to me to build infra, synthetic rubber plants, etc
>if you don't have MtG the AI still does nothing but spam battlecruisersSometimes I just want to turn off all the DLC bloat and play the game. Then I remember this happens and I can't bring myself to do it because it's just too fucking stupid and ruins naval combat even more than it's already ruined.
>>1866934Mils are better because you take civs from the enemy, but this becomes less true as they make occupations worse and encourage puppet states more.
>>1866934If all you want is the military output of mils, then building pure mils is strictly better than building some civs and then some mils, because you are limited by buildings slots and by an impending war in a few years (if you had infinite slots and unlimited time before war, then at some point snowballing civs would be superior) Building some civs is better if you want a balance between the mixture of output from civs for building and repairing things during wartime, and also some mils as well, but you’re sacrificing raw mil output for the former
>>1866659>I have never utilised:>Motorised infantryWhat is wrong with you? Ever since they've added Mot Art, this is the best thing in the whole fucking game.>>1866731Nigger, having tanks at all is more than enough in SP. You can literally have 2 LArm 2 Mot and you will roll over AI.>>1866781Counterpoint: LArm exists to make the cheapest, crappiest flame tank possible. Nothing will come even remotely close to those., and they are cheaper as LArm as opposed to Arm>>1866944>Plays HoI>Wants to have naval combat in it>Thinks it makes any difference ot AI
>>1866781Also>using mech at allFor what fucking purpose? Mech literally exists only to give 5% hardness to Mot, and people who produce those things are retarded even by HoI4 fanbase standards
>>1866926Counterpoint. If you are a nation that starts the war later, you can build more Civ factories. Case in point: the Soviet Union.The Soviets have to build factories per necessity to finish the 5 years plan. The focus trees and bonuses strongly encourage you towards industrial-building and expansion. While you could get away by starting in 1936 with mils from day one and get a lot of military hardware in storage by 1941, you will peak much earlier. If you are patient start later you will get a much more potent military-industrial complex and significally more hardware later on. The sweet spot for Soviet mils seems to be 1938. This is due to multiple focuses that gives you bonuses around that time. By 1942, you will have more hardware than if you started from day one. For that reason, there's little reason to build mils in 1936 unless you intend to fight Germany as early as 1939. There's also little reason to build Civs later on because you will overbuild. In multiplayer, compounding civ factory growth from the Allies buying from the Soviet Union yields even higher factory counts. Remember, Soviet bonuses encourage you to keep building the same stuff forever, so build stuff like infantry equipment, artillery, support equipment and tanks from day one. Start with infrastructure early on until you can change law to war economy with the Spanish Civil War, then build Civs like crazy. You can also change the law to Free Trade to encourage factory build-up for a couple of years.
Bad news: Europe is being utterly devastatedGood news: China is enjoying a period of peace and prosperity
I think that our American friends are daydreaming.
>>1866811>bait Japan to invade and grind their armies pointlessly against your entrenched infantry to stack war score
The single most valuable state in all of Hearts of Iron IV.Doesn't even need a focus tree.
>>1867050Late war aluminum is more premium than rubber.
>>1863417>>1863469Any others. Tried 8 years and was meh. Well done for China obviously but struggled even with like playing Japan instead with no content or events for winning as the Nips or anything post-Wang Jingwei's initial regime's setup. Also already tried World Ablaze and their supply system filters me hard. End up just spamming ports everywhere.
Is it possible to make a combat sub or are they only useful for raiding convoys and lone ships?
YOU BUILD-AH DA AIR-FORCE
>>1864681will they fix the dogshit turkish one next
>>1867465Turkey might get a little look at alongside the Middle East DLC.I am expecting for the DLC after Graveyard of Empires to focus on Japan and East Asia.
Why do we call Western Asia the Middle East?
So, I have mobilized to war economy early and now I'm getting strikes. What's the way to dealing with them?
>>1867522If you mouse over the strike on your decision tab, does it say anything about stability or war support being too low?War support can be improved by sending attaches to nations that are at war.Stability can be improved by improving working conditions.
Even with the Isolation debuff the American economy was still quite strong. We had about 60 civilians at all times and even with the -50% construction speed that is 30 effective civilian factories.This titan is about to be unleashed upon its enemies. Perhaps the entire world should fear us.
The American economy is about as large as Italy's and Germany's from day 1 of the war.USA already has 2 million men in the field in addition to a massive navy and a rapidly growing air force.It is almost as if America could single-handedly defeat the Axis.
>>1867499It's actually the "near East"The middle East refers to places like Iraq and Iran, because it's between the near East and the Indian subcontinent. But since most Americans can't point to Iraq on a map, the Iraq war turned middle East into shorthand for "Muslim country"
>>1865918cas + mountaineers + battleplan + extensive conscription
>Engine III x2 & 3x Quad HMGVs;>Engine III & 2x Quad HMG + LMG>Armor Plates, Self-Sealing Tanks & Extra Fuel TanksVs;>Armor Plates, Self-Sealing Tanks & Drop Tanks
>>1867804I don't even have the DLC that allows you to modify vehicles. I just put reliability and ability up to full on my fighters and hope for the best.Also, I have to reach the Ural Mountains to capitulate the Soviet Union.
>>1867804There isn't really any reason to ever do LMG over HMG. Cannons can however be overkill.
>>1867815I don't own any of the dlc and can do all of those things
>>1867909There is no overkill. Cannons are bad because they kill your agility, and the increased casualties outpaces the increased damage vs other fighters. Cannons are explicitly an interceptor weapon vs strategic bombers but are basically irrelevant because generic HMG fighters disrupt bombers completely anyways.>>1867804An extra HMG isn't worth needing double engines. The cost increase is too much for what you get.Drop tanks have no penalty if you can spare the weight, fuel tanks if you can't spare the weight.
>>1868025Yes that is the earlier game meta, but once you're using jets I believe meta is x1 cannon x1 hmg or something similar.
>>1868025Is there any point to ever send your fighter on interception, ever? Never used it before.
>>1868049>Is there any point to ever send your fighter on interception, ever?To conserve fuel, and if you’re losing and can’t replace them, to lose more slowlyHey I didn’t say good points
>>1868000Wow, I must have been missing a button all of this time.
>>1868185The creamapi button, learn to use it
>>1868049Planes on interception only run sorties when enemy planes on ground attack missions are detected.It saves fuel, because your planes aren't in the air 24/7, and it means your fighters are only exposing themselves to enemy fighters flagged as 'escorts' which is defined nebulously by the system but will always be a smaller proportion of the total fighters set to air superiority. In practical terms this means you lose planes more slowly, thought the kill/death ratio will still be the same as if it were an air superiority mission.Thus the main use is when you're losing (or have lost) the air war and your goal is to just contest the bombers and limit the damage you're taking with what you have left.In singleplayer you should basically always win the air war with an overwhelmingly positive ratio because the AI uses shit designs and manages their industry poorly, so there isn't much purpose to interception.
>>1866811prepare paradrop memes and spend the down time hoping the japs will leave a coast tile empty for an invasion
>>1867065by the late war you should have already won
Do you play World War 3 or quit once World War 2 has concluded?
>>1868374My first few games I tried to get a good WW3 together but the AI has usually shat the bed by that point and it's just a 1-sided battleplan stomp so I just gave up and now end my campaigns when I hit the WW2 peace conference or whatever alt-history equivalent.The real issue is that the game's AI is barely existent and essentially scripted by focus trees. When their focus tree runs out they just stop really doing much of anything.
>>1868430Paradox claims that they are adjusting the ai in the next DLC to make them more competent.We shall judge the truth of it for ourselves.
marine commandos or expeditionary units?
Why would I play as the Belgian Congo?
>>1868554Marine Commandos themselves are worthless and that side of the tree gives basically no buffs to actual marines, but gives you a big boost to Amtracs at the end.The other branch gives you all the actual marine buffs.So the question is basically are you a country with a big eco looking to spend all your special forces cap on amphibious tank divisions or are you literally anything else.
>>1868036>using jetsWhy? For what purpose?
>>1868637You'll get shit on by enemies that have moved on to spamming jets if you don't.
>>1868571Good to know. What about the other special forces?
>>1868686The other two are more straightforward. The second fork is just choosing between smaller buffs to all special forces or a bigger buff only to that type, so you pick whichever you're focusing on.First fork for mountaineers you always pick the artillery buff because it turns pioneers into a direct upgrade over cav recon. For paratroopers you do the org one because it turns them into mini nukes and is completely overpowered.
>>1863665I still have no fucking idea what the difference between a fleet and a task force is and I have like 1000 hours playing this slop
>>1866396Yes it is fun you meta gaming prick. You actually think its more fun and satisfying to just naval invade the U.K in 1939 because the AI is retarded and doesn't know you put all your navy in Germany before the war starts?Its so much more fun to whittle their fleet down to 40 ships, Break through Gibraltar while seizing the Mediterranean, and then triumphantly invade the home isles.Honestly all of these stupid meme invasions of the U.K could be fixed if the devs should figured out how to code something like : if U.K has less then 99% of It's VP's ---> Set every naval taskforce to convoy raid English Channel and North Sea.
>>1866409How the hell did you fight through Central Africa with the AI stacking millions of miracously fully supplied divisions?
>>1868714>yes it is fun you meta gaming prick>posts picture of him doomstackingembarrassing
>>1868374I world conquest every game.
>>1868690Do you know if there is a resource anywhere that breaks down all of the focus and research tree unlockable support companies? I tend to get excited at the prospect of an exclusive support company like the Italian Blackshirt Stormtroopers or whatever it was called without really understanding how they stack up relative to other support companies.
>>1868716How the fuck is that a doomstack? Are you touched in the head?
>>1868715I got a little lucky with West Africa going with Vichy (I've seen it go both ways and it seems random to me) which let me cut off over 100k men in the Sudan. I had also overrun a lot of divisions in Egypt, and destroyed another 120k or so that tried to naval invade Somalia. Central Africa is still a slog, and there is no way around that. You're going to have to build and upgrade rail lines.
>>1868714>i intentionally handicap myself to enjoy the gameuhh cool bro i'll just play a good game instead
>>1868715Build infrastructure and rail lines/supply hubs.Unless you went MA-R, they you can brute force with CAS.
>>1868716That's half my fleet, and the subs were in battle with their fleet before I joined. Not a doom stack.
>>1868865>enjoylmao you're just gonna speedrun the game using the best strategy, robbing yourself of the fun.
Speaking of naval warfare, can anyone enlighten me on naval bombers?They do a fantastic job at killing enemy submarines, but as soon as they get involved in a naval fight between two fleets they just get shot down en masse. Is it because of the enemy anti air on ships?What can I do to better protect my bombers?
>>1863938you literally can micromanage units in an ongoing battle plan
>>1865163>Personally Italy (not after the horrible Italy update)what's wrong with it?
>>1869019They killed xp farming in Ethiopia, now you have to rush them down so they can't go abroad. That system where Italy would lose stability for losing owned states (they didn't even have to be cored) and could even trigger repeatedly on one state if it kept trading hands. You had to manage this whole power balance mechanic which isn't terrible but was just more annoying bullshit you had to manage and re-learn just for one country.
Is it worth it to use MP for the extra defense bonus for infantry?
>the war in ethiopia has its own meme mechanicslmao yeah why not devote development to one of the weakest and most doomed countries in the game
>>1869114Most people would say no. I would say yes. They make your divisions stronger, for cheap, without increasing width, and they even make them recover org significantly faster.
>>1869114It might be worth it if you're really desperate but you'd probably be better off just using that support equipment to give your divisions more shovels.
Any other Black Ice/Hearts of Oak/Ultra Historical/Total War/World Ablaze type mods?
>>1869120But you have to understand, their head of state spoke to the League of Nations during the war. Imagine if the world... le took action? Naturally, this war is the only one where any of this could be applied.
>>1868430This is what rt56 should have focused their energies on, instead of making massive trees for minors no one will ever play.
>>1869305yeah just imagine if the world intervened to save nigtopia years before they didn't intervene to save czechoslovakia and unpopularly intervened to save poland
>>1869318I mean, the game already represents the strongest historic move of the League of nation: Soviets getting kicked out of it for starting the Winter war.Paracucks made a DLC about Finland and didn't include the more historical alternative of France proposing to halt the Phoney war and focus on the communist threat in Finland together.
Should I go with rough terrain specialist or cold weather specialists for Mountaineer Rangers as the Soviets?
Do the Japanese ALWAYS declare on the Philippines / Dutch east indies no matter what? If you don't want to fight the USA as an Axis member you basically have to take out both France and the UK by 1941, which is absolutely feasible as Germany, but it's much harder to achieve if you're playing as Italy and you've been busy fighting in Egypt, the Mediterranean and the Balkans up to that point.
>>1869428The japs are sadly retarded
>>1869391when it snows the entire map will be snow so what difference will +15% stats on your mountaineers really make? breaking and holding mountains is why you make mountaineers and it's sometimes what only they can do
>>1869444What if I want to include rangers to attack infantry divisions with heavy artillery? Is it viable?
>>1869428Japan thinks it is the early 19th century and that it is Great Britain but Asian. Please, do not comment on this delusion, simply smile and nuke them. It's what they want.
How do you create special force divisions without overspending your green stars?
>>1869467Do you mean creating the template? You can get better at farming xp, start taking the passive xp adviser first, and get more strategic with your officer corp upgrades so you take the upgrades that reduce the price by 100% right before you make a big template edit.
>>1869467Tip of the spear reduces sf template cost by 50% and then the doctrine tree will have another 50% discount, making them free. Just edit your infantry template into special forces so you don't need to repay for artillery or support companies
Some little population facts (big):Guanxi Clique has a larger population than FranceThe Dutch East Indies has a larger population than Poland and Spain combinedTannu Tuva has a population of 90 thousand people
>>1869428Their historical focus tree forces them to either declare on the Philippines, then the east indies, or bypass the Philippines and declare directly on the indies. If you allow non-historical focuses they may go a different focus branch and not do it, but on historical they always will because they historically did.I don't know what influences the AI to decide to bypass the Philippines. It has only happened to me once while playing as the UK. Doing this basically keeps the US out of the war until much later in the game.
>be Soviet Union>follow focus tree and puppet Iraq>UK always declares war on Iraq no what
What's the point of tank destroyers?
>>1870027to destroy tanks
>>1870015>be soviet union>don't invade Finland>get continuation war anyway
>>1870027TDs trade breakthrough for Piercing and Hard Attack. Since breakthrough is already penalized (and not really the purpose of the unit) you can afford to trim the design for a TD way down to save IC, use casemate turrets etc.Piercing works like armour in that your division's total piercing is based off of 40% of the highest piercer in the division, and 60% off an average of the rest. So a single TD battalion can greatly increase the overall piercing of a whole division.In singleplayer TD's are kind of irrelevant because the AI does not produce credible tank divisions to bother destroying.
>>1870040Thoughts on putting TD armor in an infantry template?
>>1870069Space Marine.
>>1870069The end result would be basically just an AT gun that's more expensive. The benefit would be that you could stack armour on it to give your whole infantry division more armour, but the question is whether you really need TD-levels of piercing and hard attack on your infantry templates since there are a lot of cheap sources of piercing (like AA support companies). If not, there are probably cheaper ways to put armour on infantry divisions, but if you really need that hard attack then a TD let's you do both and that's handy.
>>1868714That screenshot almost makes me want to download HoI4 again.
How do you defeat the German air force as the Soviet Union? It is very easy to hold my ground and survive the invasion but pushing them back is costing me dearly in Soviet people.
>>1870367>Soviet """people"""oh no!
>>1870104>there are probably cheaper ways to put armour on infantry divisions,tds have always been the cheapest source of armor and high piercing although you're right that against the ai you don't need this but against the ai you don't need anythingaa support companies are not going to pierce heavy tanks when even at battalions cannothard attack, on the other hand, is cheap and you can just mass at for it
>>1870037>He fell for the finnish revisionist history lmao
Do you invest in infrastructure?
>>1870520If you start the game on civ eco (or worse) and at least 15 civ factories you should build infra first in a few core states with lots of slots. The math on exactly how much infra to build and exactly when to switch to civ factories is overcomplicated and varies depending on which country you play.
For those who play the naval game:Is it better to build new improved ships from the start or do you refit the ships you start with?I did a few Italy games lately and I've tried both the approaches, and I noticed that my navy performed drastically better, even with fewer ships, against the AI. Even early hulls with some more guns slapped on them can do a decent job.
>>1870520>Do you invest in infrastructure?My Germany only builds factories in 100% infra provinces because it's the chad move.
>>1870732Refitting your starter ships is worthwhile because the hull was free, but the starter designs are usually super ass so refitting them makes a huge difference.It's worth refitting ships to add radar, sonar, upgrade the fire control and so on.Guns are questionable. Heavy guns are never worth the added cost to refit. Light guns are a border case but can be worthwhile if it's something like a light cruiser where that light attack really matters. AA is worth the cost but since the AI doesn't really ever bomb you it's not a big priority.Anything else is too expensive. You don't want to invest too much refitting early or '36 hulls because the hulls suck, so no matter what the ship is always going to be a little weak and probably die first. Be judicious cost-controlling your retrofits, because ultimately just adding t2 FCS and Radar for like 8 hours of IC is enough to make a ship pull its weight.
How the FUCK do I beat the Soviets in World ablaze? As soon as the war starts they just shit units out the ass and they're all really good
>>1870520Yes, but has diminishing returns. Generally, unless you want it for extracting resources, you don't want it to go above 80% because the difference with 100% is not that great. Building infrastructure increases supply and supply throughput. Increases the movement speed of land units. Affects the organization recovery rate of land units. Resources output is increased by +20% per level. Increases construction speed of Shared buildings. It is generally not economical to build more infrastructure solely for the purpose of increasing construction speed. Infrastructure is a relatively better deal in states with many empty slots; when planning to build civilian factories, refineries or reactors as they cost more; and at the start with countries with bad economy laws like the USA, as infrastructure construction isn't penalized like factory construction is.
>>1870367Send your volunteers Air Forces (preferably bombers or CAS) to all available conflicts (Spain, Britain) - this will allow you to gain a huge amount of air experience and you will be able to improve your aircraft long before the Axis war.Pick Independent Spirit Air Force - Independent Air Force -> pick Novikov Air Reformer genious for air experience build up early, just after Army Reformer Timoshenko around 1937-1938. After that, around 1939 you can pick air reform focuses like Encourage Aviation School to reduce the penalties to your aviation. For doctrines, I recommend choosing Battlefield Support - this doctrine will give a significant bonus to your ground units during the battle. Usually your volunteer air wings in Britain significantly help to reduce the number of the Luftwaffe and there should be no special problems with the superiority of enemy aircraft.Then spam fighters optimized for shooting down enemy planes. Generally, you want to fill all slots with HMG, 1 drop tanks, maybe 1 slot of a armour. Avoid self-sealing tanks, they require rubber and you don't have enough rubber unless you seriously invest in synthetic plants, which you will need for trucks. After fighters, build CAS and TAC (CAS are better but you start with only TAC and TAC can help you bomb supplies and airfields). Don't be afraid of dedicating 20 Mils to fighters alone by the time of Barbarossa, the number of factories necessary is similar to the number of tanks and rifles you'll need. Equip all your forces with an Anti-aircraft Support Company as well.
I've decided I'm going to have to block the AI from granting military access, sending volunteers, selling licences or sending lend lease because they refuse to stop doing nonsensical things like having Italian volunteers in China, America sending Lend Lease to a Japanese-puppetted China, or Venezuela giving the Axis military Axis (and the US being able to do absolutely nothing about it because granting military access is not considered a casus beli for some fucking reason).
>>1871687*access
How do you guys take down France as Italy, anyway? I ate Austria immediately after Ethiopia, then demanded Dalmatia from Yugoslavia immediately after that so that I could get a free war on them, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. I was actually hoping that France would keep their guarantee on the Yugoslavs, but I guess denying Dalmatia makes France pull out. Even if France kept their guarantee on Yugoslavia, I realised that, despite building mils from day 1, I didn't even have 100 Transports to paradrop cap France. Do you guys just justify on Romania for France or something instead? How do you get around the Transport issue (trying not to encircle and kill countries' troops as much as possible because I want to preserve their manpower, which Italy sorely needs). Benito/Italy First path btw since it seems faster than going Pope into Rome for the cheevo.
>>1871702You only need 50 to paradrop
>>1871669Also, pick Centralized Control for hunting down fighters. Once the Luftwaffe has been demolished, you can safely switch to Continuous Strike to boost your CAS.
>>1871669*Branch Independence Spirit NOT Independent Air Force.
>>1871719Well, it depends on if you want a cheaper Novikov (200pp is no joke) or more boost to your XP.
>>1871723Also, you can switch to Air Crew Surveys later on.
I pirate this game and DLCs and always disable the South America dlc
>>1871723The biggest mistake is paying 200 PP for Novikov since you can get him practically at the start for just 50 if you get some xp from spain and pick the Independent Air Force spirit for -75% air advisor cost. This also applies for a doctrine advisor which lets you get the most important air doctrines before germany invades.
Why the hell is Brazil guaranteeing all the nations I'm planning to attack? I don't even have the south american dlc.
Is the Iowa a battleship or a super-battleship ingame?
Does anybody want to discuss how powerful air superiority and close air support is? I was fighting World War 3 as the Soviets against the Allies and as soon as the air zone was green our units completely overwhelmed the enemy frontline. It wasn't even close.
>>1872579Lore accurate war
I bet that some of you spam civilian factories until just 1 year before the war.
>>1872728civs = rulemils = drool
>>1872763I need to get that Scandinavia DLC so I can sell my civilian factories for material goods.Global trade is good when it benefits me
>>1866351Kaiserredux if you like vanillaKaiserreich if you like gay minigames and """realism"""TNO if you think Kaiserreich sounds fun but wish it had less warRed Flood if you think Kaiserredux sounds fun but wish the entire thing was heckin' silly memepaths instead of just half of it
>>1872955Least obvious KX discordshill
>>1872993Kaiserreich is possibly THE best total conversion mod ever created for a strategy game. You should not be surprised to find that it has fans. Kaiserreich is a huge part of why HoI IV is so popular.
average ww2 mediterrean battle:4 destroyers sunk3 sunk or damaged cruisers1 damaged battleshipaverage hoi4 naval battle:45 destroyers sunk12 cruisers sunk8 battleships sunk4 carriers sunk50 planes shot down by convoys1 undamaged battleship
>>1873045Yep.https://youtu.be/l9ag2x3CS9M?si=IadQldYIvWRmWFNN
>>1873045Also am I fucking retarded or something or am I supposed to not have even 40% superiority yielding fleets over thrice as big as the enemy and never ever see their ships until they kill mine?Or is naval combat DLC-locked kek
>>1865103you can still fight your wars>play france>line troops on maginot>draw spearhead into germany> get bonus>simply don't activate plan>win
Since it's not worth to change the engine or the armor in ships, what should I do with outdated early hull starting battleship that have the lowest engine possible?Keep them in the main fleet, convert them into carriers or simply scrap them?
>>1873251Multiplayer sweats basically split their ships into two fleets: an 'old' fleet with the slow shitters and a real fleet with their fast, modern ships. That way the old stuff doesn't slow down the modern hulls. If you're actually investing in navy it's usually a good idea to rush 1936 or 1940 hulls so you can essentially standardize speeds when you start mass production. Speed matters a lot for actually getting into (or dodging) battles. But once the fast main fleet gets into combat, it will pin the opposing fleet long enough for the slower fleet to catch up and join so you still get combat value out of those older hulls.
Is there any way to use this?
>>1872993too be fair it's probably the most vanilla total conversion there is besides Road To 56
>>1873531It adds +1 max entrenchment, so it's useful for infantry support companies. I'd put it on airborne tanks for paratroopers, or on flame tanks if you're putting them in space marines.
>>1873220wait so planning bonus still buffs your units even if they aren't actually attacking?
>>1873715No, it buffs your units even if you don't click the "go" button. However, it decays at 8x the rate for manual orders iirc, maybe faster. Entrenchment is the equivalent of the planning bonus for defending.
>>1873534Isn't that just +1% or does it apply an extra +1% to each infantry company?
>>18737561 entrenchment is 10% combat stats.
Buy Germany DLC... Paradox makes another Germany DLCBuy Hungary DLC... Paradox makes another Hungary DLCBuy India DLC... Paradox makes another India DLCBuy Japan DLC... Paradox makes another Japan DLCThank god we are getting a Malaysia DLC for our troubles.
Are there any overhaul mods for vanilla Germany that are not not like RT56?I'd like to do one last Germany game before the dlc drops.
>>1874328It isn't up to date but I like Darkest Hour. Good mix of over the top fantasy in some ways (putting Dirlewanger in charge of Siberia, instituting Positive Christianity and converting Germany) with autism (autobahn construction, pre-set templates so different nation equipment is actually different, event driven peace deals)
>>1874341Just reminded me of that ultralib 1933 mod that was pretty well madeI think it died instantly though
>peacefully annex country>don't get any of their generalok
>download reichskommissariat plus mod because AI germany never takes the focus to release them>ally AI germany invades the USSR>germany slowly releases RKs as it occupies russian territories>moscow, leningrad ans stalingrad fall>germany reaches the urals, russia still hasn't capitulated>check war summary panel>the USSR somehow still is at 30% towards capitulation>germany releases yet another RK>surrender progress back at 100%>discover with horror that the released RKs get not only occupation but ALSO ownership of their states, they get released with full cored states>the soviets will never surrender until complete occupationPeak modding design.
Bigger air force = win
>>1875216it doesn't matter because in hoi4 you can create generals with mana
>>1875485>Peak modding design.vanilla rks also get ownership of their states though, this isn't a mod issue
>>1875485>the soviets will never surrender until complete occupationreal
>>1875766Do they? I've literally never seen AI germany releasing RKs so I didn't know how they worked. Maybe that's why germany doesn't release them during the war.
I used mountaineers and they were really good.
>>1875970I always go for their Rangers support.
>>1872993Meds and johnson
The Fire Rises has come
>>1862517Playing as China or Soviets. It's pretty much the best doctrine for their situation. It also makes sure you can REALLY throw some bodies into the grinder thanks to both decreased width and improved reinforcement.
Huh? Alt-historical getting weird
I hate how there's plenty of mod content for Germany's reichskommissariats releasables and Japan's GEACPS puppets but there's not a single mod that adds historic and fictional Italian governorate releasables. If the new DLC is not going to add any I'll just add them with my own mod.
>>1875788Yeah the ai is coded to never use the RKs because of the state ownership problem. The states get transfer to the RKs which makes them not count as part of the USSR for the warscore.
is there a tranny genocide path in TFR?
World tension caused by peace deals is a big fat joke, I fought for that land
>>1877076is this count?
grrrrr i hate these FUCKING FAGGOT DEVS CONSTANTLY BREAKING MY CREAMAPI
>>1877212Same to be honest, none of my dlcs count as registered now, worse than the hall of cost
TFR fucking sucks honestly
>>1877219Well in 2024? It honestly one of the only decent hoi4 mods released now and I think it will get better in the following updates
>>1877201The atomwaffen division is literally like if that one from hatred decided to form a political party and that why I love itIt just unshamed edgyness
>>1863302>france had the best tanks at the start of ww2it cannot be overstated how fucking shit french WW2 tanks were>>1863588plagued by a severe lack of radios, poor visibility and a one-man turret (although slightly less shit than what the infantry tanks had)>>1866414>Panzer 3s in 1939/40 used low velocity gunspanzer IIIs in 1939/40 used a high velocity 37mm gun, which is on the lower end of similar guns of its time but still perfectly capable against the majority of potential targets
I haven’t played in a minute, what is the meta when it comes to civil war preparation? I want to do this very cleanly so I can be better prepared for the main event. I tested having a bunch of divisions in training but it seems a third vanished and I’m assuming went over to the enemy. Should I go ahead and disband and put everything into training?
How would you break a stalemate in Africa? I have no navy, airforce, or armor. I've got three high width divisions with arty and 21 that are less suited to offensives. Allies have big bulges in my line but I can't even come close to breaking in behind them to encircle them. Frankly I'm pretty shocked that they have as much supply as they do since their nearest port is in Somalia. I don't think the congo even starts with rail lines. so I don't know how they are bringing in as much supply as they are.
>>1878248Belgium probably, but what do I know
>>1878248The AI blatantly cheats supply and it's part of what makes fighting in Africa and other supply deserts such total shit. You're unironically just going to have to wait until you can deploy more big divisions or for the axis to take the pressure off elsewhere. Remember to use spies to rob them of their entrenchment and build up full planning when you're ready to try again.Without armour or air you're stuck just bashing a square peg into a round hole until one side gives, and as long as the front is active the AIs anti player bias will force it to overcommit to your irrelevant side war and ignore the Nazis.
>>1878286Maybe I'll try and get a super cheap line of light flame tanks going for the support company, though I'm a ways away from that.
I took Somalia and somehow these fuckers around Elisabethville are still supplied.Can someone remind me, will a capitulated country "capitulate" again if you take sufficient land from their non-core colonies? I can't remember if that's a thing or not. All this local supply flowing out of the funcking Congo is really annoying.
>>1878286No, the AI does not cheat. You just cannot accept being out-played by an AI. Tag switch and you will see that they do not engage in cheating.You will have to get over this because ChatGPT is smarter than you and if you do not embrace AI then you will be left behind. Do not cry when Grok takes your job.
They're encircled now, must be all those local factories in the Congolese jungle keeping them supplied now.
Why are battles so insanely lopsided? Like how come I'll have 10 battles where I kill 2-5 thousand enemy and lose maybe 30 guys total?
>>1877219I want to like TFR, I really like the aesthetics and scenario, but I need to figure out what the division meta is here. I was riding with Biden, slamming tanks into Cheeto man's militia, and barely making any progress even with green air. Maybe I'll go play China or Russia instead, they seem like the easy mode nations.
Does anyone know how the hell naval bombers work? Before BBA and AAT you could use them to wipe half of the enemy fleets, now they barely do any damage, they only are goos at sinking subs.I don't understand why I should use them over CAS for naval bombing missions.
>finally about to destroy the magically supplied cut off forces in the Congo>Hitler annexes VichyI suddenly don't want to play anymore.
>>1879789were you using cas and mech?
Do you guys think helicopters will be any good?
>>1880042They won't be helicopter gunships because that's kind of meaningless without 1960s rocket tech. That means they'll just be reconnaissance and possibly transports. Recon could just be a support company, but any other use would require new mechanics that I just don't see them bothering with.
>>1880060Obviously if we are being realistic then with late 1940s tech it should still be mostly relegated to medivac type functions.But this DLC is adding fucking landship tanks, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to put rockets, cannons, or the guns available at the time on a helicopter. There were jets with 50mm cannons at the end of the war.
>>1880042They are confirmed to be support companies, with a generic version. They will also have upgrades into recon, hospital, or logistic support companies. I'm assuming those'll just be buffed version of their respective support companies.
>>1880067source?
Adding a support company that uses fuel means the entire division suffers fuel malus effects when out of supply.
>>1880069Just learned a trick today about making flame tanks (and this would also work with armored recon) with a template loaded up with fuel drums. It was always a huge waste of a slot on real tanks, but on support company tanks it adds a ton of fuel capacity to the division.
>>1880067if they add air assault i will be able to die happy
I think it's indicative of where their mind is at when a revolutionary change to the way the AI works is part of 'small changes' and 90% of their dev diaries focus on the streamerslop focus trees.
>>1880065The obvious intention with some of these anachronistic techs is to extend the game's timeline into the early cold war, Korean War kind of stuff so the player has more if a reason to do WW3 instead of quitting as soon as Germany caps.
>Just lost as Romania againI'm never getting those cheevos... I just don't know what to do anymore.Maybe I shouldn't have capped the UK, by the time I got around to the coup Germany has capped the Soviets, had 20k planes and simply bombed my fort line into space.
>>1880492Why would you help them at all?
>>1880492I'm really not sure how you lost a landwar to Germany while having the UK's factories. Put more AA in your divs? Train deeper reserves? They would've ground all their tanks and half their population smashing into Soviet marshlands so it's not like you're facing full power 1939 blitzkrieg.
>>1880518There is literally not enough manpower in Romania to compete with Germany. They only lost like 2 or 3 million on the soviets, which is absolutely fucking nothing as far as AI Germany is concerned. Even with 10k fighters and radars in the area I couldn't flip a single region green.
>>1880529Post fighter template.
>>1880596I don't have the air designer DLC
Germany can't make planes without Hungary, should have killed them first
Why did they lock the template size upgrade behind what is already the best doctrine? Shouldn’t it be in Mass Assault?
>>1880735it's in all doctrines, you just have to go far enough down whatever branch you picked
Are battlecruisers better at hunting down cruiser patrols than raiding?
It feels like Mass Assault Right path should have given to you extra artillery punch, maybe even give you hard attack to artillery given how the Soviets often used artillery in direct fires.
>>1880890Mass assault right is Maoist doctrine. Mass assault left is Soviet.
>>1880892Oh, right. I had a slight moment of dyslexia. Anyway, I think it should boost artillery, perhaps line artillery, given how much importance the Soviets gave it with heavily concentrated prepared fires and huge concentrations of artillery
>>1880892>Mass assault left is Soviet.uegh
>>1880892>Mass assault right is Maoist doctrine.It's Chinese in general.
>>1880954It's used by China in general in the game, but it's clearly meant to be modelled after what communists did. The other ones should just be GBP with debuffs to be accurate.
>try my best to not rush north Africa as Italy and plan carefully my advance to not scare the AI>the run I finally manage to take Suez and Gibraltar at the same moment the British fleet already pulled out of the Mediterranean
>Alfred Rosenberg gets stronger the more Reichskommissariats you create
>>1880621That's not true at all. Hungary was my first expansion target not counting puppeted Bulgaria.
I fucking regret buying Battle for the BosphorusIs there any way to kill bulgaria once we belong to the same faction? Because of their stupid deal with Germany they always take Macedonia and Thessaloniki from me (Italy) once I occupy them even though they also are claimed by me.I liled bulgaria better when I didn't have the DLC, they just sat down and do nothing for the entire game.
>>1881620so turn the dlc off
>>1881620Turning off Bosphorus and Allegiance only improve the game
What is your guys' favorite campaigns? I think mine was my Ethiopia campaign. It took me forever to really nail the opening to hold off shitaly. Then I had to spend like 10 years releasing a dozen puppet states in Ethiopia and waiting for them to complete their generic focus trees before re-integrating them because it was the only way for me to acquire an industry base. In the late 40s I was the last bastion of the Axis holding off the whole world. I was just striving to be the last man standing while the Allies and Soviets obliterated each other.No other campaign I've done has felt like such a journey.
Another thing I hate about hoi4 is that instead of actually having real internal management mechanics countries get their own mini-games to simulate political events. It's dumb.
Does anyone play with mods that add more icons for equipment/planes/tanks/ships and add more 3D models? I love tiny details that make an historical game more accurate.I mainly use Lamp's icons and paint the planes/paint the ships.Does anyone know more mods like these?
>>1883083Why would a WW2 sim have real internal management mechanics? Are you okay? Do you have brain damage?
Why do people say that it is not a WW2 simulator but a Operation: Barbarossa simulator?
>>1883117Because it simulates maneuver warfare on the eastern front well, but simulates every other aspect of WW2 extremely poorly.Air combat is abstracted out of existence, naval combat is a mess, the Pacific theater is relegated to hopping a million janky single tile islands, the battle of France is just a race for Paris, the battle of Britain doesn't even happen, north Africa doesn't happen (and is ruined by a supply system designed for the eastern front).Most of the battlefields and major events of the war are glossed over except the eastern front, and most of the game's mechanics really only make sense for modelling that front, like needing to convert captured railway gauges.
>>1883166What would you need to reproduce these other theatres more faithfully?
Speaking in terms of production, is it better to have 15 mils on a single production line or splitting them in two production lines of the same item?Same question also for naval production lines.
>>1883477always better to have one line. of course with ships i believe there's a limit to how many you can have on one-
Does anybody want to discuss how America has such an extraordinary amount of resources? I think that Texas has more oil than the rest of the world combined.
>>1884110That's accurate, if anything HOI4 nerfs america in many ways.
Still trying to understand navy, is it worth exercising ships once WW2 breaks out? Usually you want to replace your naval losses as soon as possible, but ships fresh out of docks have a nasty -10% malus to both attack and defense, while exercising them takes time and puts the ships in danger of getting sunk.
>>1884793If you have a safe area to exercise them, then it's not a bad idea but training up ships takes a really fucking long time so if you're training every new ship before joining the fight they may not be present in time for the decisive naval engagement.Since the meta of navy is basically doomstacking the naval war is typically decided in 1-2 decisive engagements followed by a tonne of 'cleanup' actions against small sub/destroyer groups. Any major surface combatant not in the doomstack for the big fight is basically wasted IC because it will never get its chance to fight a serious battle afterwards. This is why, in practice, navy is a game of building up to the second world war. Once it breaks out, new battleships, carriers etc. are unlikely to ever see enough action to pay off their resource and IC cost--unless your navy enters the war too weak to seek decisive battle and you need to hide and bide your time until latewar. Once you have your big deathstack put together you can essentially put all your dockyards on destroyer, light cruiser, convoy and sub production, and for the most part these ships don't need to be exercised because they aren't going to face real threats at sea while doing their jobs.
>>1883477One line is always better, because you get a scaling production efficiency bonus. Economies of scale and all that.>>1883272Air combat/logistics would probably need to be redesigned to involve more meaningful player control. The nitty gritty of aerial warfare was a huge part of the war everywhere except the eastern front, where it was purely a numbers game due to factors external to the eastern front. Same with naval combat. The current system is bad in general, but it's serially neglected because of course naval warfare is not relevant to the eastern front.The supply/logistic system would need to be tweaked. North Africa was a war of maneuver where logistics essentially decided the outcome but that just doesn't work in practice because the game turns it into a supplyless wasteland and the current supply system is basically a trinary between 'perfectly fine,' 'suffering massive crippling stat penalties' and 'taking massive attrition' where the determining factor is basically just whether you're within 3 tiles of an arbitrary structure that takes 2/3 of a year to build.The map would also need design changes. France is so compressed that the Ardennes doesn't exist and there's literally a single tile between Dunkirk and the next port. North Africa is so narrow that there's basically no room to maneuver. Pacific islands are largely either single tiles, or strings 1 tile wide (even the Philippines) which devolves island warfare in which there was often no established frontline into a simple static stat check.There's obviously more minute stuff. ASW is too simple and effective in the game. In reality, destroyers with Sonar and Depth charges were not actually effective ASW and the allies relied on air power to effectively hunt submarines and protect convoys, which is why the whole Mid-Atlantic Gap was such a focal point of the atlantic theatre--it was out of reach of aircraft from both sides and the UK couldn't spare any carriers to help patrol it.
>>1883477Depends entirely on what you are making and how the rounding works. Single line is mostly true for shit that you are producing in huge quantities and singular unit is dirt-cheap, so the rounding doesn't fuck you up too hard. The actual issue isn't "should I have 1x15 mil or 2x7 mil", but doing the math and checking the rounding at your max efficiency, so the end result is the closest to actual, full produced unit in a single cycle (ideally, everything should be divisible by 4.5 or at least 1.5 if that's not possible).For naval, remember this: you don't need navy. At all. Ever.
>>1884817>The supply/logistic system would need to be tweaked. North Africa was a war of maneuver where logistics essentially decided the outcome but that just doesn't work in practice because the game turns it into a supplyless wasteland and the current supply system is basically a trinary between 'perfectly fine,' 'suffering massive crippling stat penalties' and 'taking massive attrition' where the determining factor is basically just whether you're within 3 tiles of an arbitrary structure that takes 2/3 of a year to build.This actually was solved in one of the Chink mods (to better represent the clusterfuck that was Chinese theatre). The end result was having both rail (and also introducing roads) deliver supplies on their own, and depots being split into "large hubs" (representing important, massive depots and transport centers), materiel dumps (so a pre-war, pre-operation build-up) and "field ones" (so the shit you make as semi-ad hoc when the front moves), with different ranges, while introducing different gradients when it comes to supplies. That mod ALSO had general supplies a la pre-4 HoI games.In essence, it's not that the current system is entirely bad. It's that it's not granular enough to properly represent this shit. But all the elements are there, it just requires someone on the official level to say "yeah, let's finally put logistics back into this game"
Come on now
>>1863938>sends divisions into pointless battles just to dieSounds realistic, unironically
>>1883477For me it depends on which industry line I go down and therefore my overall capacity.For concentrated you really want to split so you can stagger production losses so you don't accidentally end up with deficits while the new line ramps up.
>>1884917That sounds so fucking good.The absence of roads is one of my biggest pet peeves about this game. For every war since the Great War, roads ARE the map. Like the importance of roads and how they reshape the terrain of the battlefield really can't be overstated. Instead that's just abstracted to infrastructure giving a tiny movement speed bonus.
>>1863496Radar and stack torpedoes on screens. Build up battleships with lots of heavy attacks.
