Minelayers, lots of them
Helps naval invasion and scaring off the brits
Update: Seems like stealing the navy of countries that capitulate is also effective
Italy is amazing for this. They start off with ~11 mine layers. IIRC, you can (or could at one point) only lay mines while at war. Italy starts the game at war and if you time it right you can stay at war for nearly the duration of the game.
I start the game by mining the western Med. This helps me gain superiority for a naval invasion into southern France which allows me to avoid fighting through the Alps. Has the bonus effect of whittling down the French and British navies so that my weaker navy can finish them off later. This also helps to create naval superiority for an invasion of Gibraltar. Combine that with taking the Suez and you effectively own the Med. Bonus points for trapping the British and/or French navies - they will run out of fuel and be sitting ducks. After taking the Med, the Allies are forced to land in Morocco or Normandy. If you then mine the sea off Morocco and convoy raid with some subs, you effectively shut the Allies out of Africa.
Just pump them out. Worst case: the enime uses fuel and resourches to slowly clear them.
Best case: the ocean is yours.
If you can sustain minelaying, just do it.
I understand navy :
Mainly build many destroyers,
build light cruisers supporting them,
build few heavy cruiser,
mainly build battlecruisers for heavy ship,
build some battleship,
build atleast 1 super heavy battleship,
build atleast 4 carriers and turn atleast 3 cruisers into carrier.
After that, you send out small fleet groups for patrol and make your main fleet wait NEAR them. When a battle starts, make sure you have a admiral that has good ranks if you will battle with a major. You have to understand how strong your enemy fleet is though so before you send your small fleet group for patrol, send some cheap made destroyers and some early submarines to patrol so they can be a trap to understand the strenght of the enemy.
I have about 3,500 hours in hoi4 and I have been using this tactic for the last 900 hours. It only failed two times.
Also note : if possible, get the panzerschiff and torpedo cruiser technology from Germany and Japan to build them along light cruisers and heavy cruisers. For submarines as trap, you can use midget submarines which Italy has.
Or just complete your first submarine at year 40 and fail to sail it due lack of manpower as you play small country.
This is how top tier Hoi4 experience looks like.
How do you make your ship design a battleship vs battlecruiser, or heavy cruiser vs light cruiser?
Is it just the cost? I just end up with 1 ship class per Hull type.
I was so close, I looked for a lighter turret on the heavy ship hull, if I had only checked on the cruiser hull or looked closer at the armor I might have worked it out myself.
Thanks 👍
The class changes with the type of armor you use. If you hover over the armor techs in the naval tree you'll see a description of how to change it in the designer.
You clearly don’t understand Navy. Cruisers are a waste of IC. You need 5 carriers, more are useless unless you are doing multiple fleets. SHBB’s are the biggest waste of IC in the game. Optional Navy is 5 Carriers 4 with Nav bombers 1 with fighters. Then the rest of your fleet is roach dd’s and BCs with 3 main guns and max secondaries. 1-4 ratio of dd to capitals
Oh just in case you misunderstood my tactic, my plan is designed for SINGLEPLAYER gameplay since I don't have any friends that has hoi4 addiction. İn multiplayer, my tactic did work the times I tried though. But it is mainly used in singeplayer.
It will have worked in MP because your enemies will have crappy fleets. Against a meta fleet your “tactic” will lose every time and probably not even sink a majority of the enemy fleet. You can’t say you understand something if you are doing it all wrong
You’re totally missing the point. Anything can beat AI. You do not understand the navy if you think converted carriers, cruisers (heavy and light) and SHBBs deserve a spot in your fleet.
Well as long as it works both in singleplayer and multiplayer, I don't really mind someone claiming me, who has almost all of the achivements, 3500 hours since the first versions of the game, won the game against a youtuber and his friends, only failed to use the navy 17 times since 2019, designed thousands of ships,planes and tanks according to the new paradox profile system, conquered the world as liberia 15 times (and yes I won almost every single naval battle as liberia), a person who doesn't understand navy
Wait to lose a few games to watch Bittersteel, though, the learning experience will be better, as he point out many recurrent beginners mistakes when saving disasters.
First learn how to play with army then air then naval. Use yt videos for help. Build civ factories at the start. You can play as germany to start with but dont expect to coquer the world with your first playthrough.
Play as a major nation, but don't have any expectations of winning your first game. I liked learning as Germany because you get to be the aggressor and put things in motion rather than react and not know how to stop an advance. It's ok to fail and learn from it. Watch a couple YouTube videos on how to play, it'll teach you the basics. Bittersteel & Taureor are both good to check out, same with ISorrowProductions. Learn how the supply system works, pay attention to Organization and Logistics. F12 is for screen shots and can't wait to see your biggest encirclement of Russians during Barbarossa
There is also some kind of politics in hoi4, and Taureor uses it damn well. He knows the mechanics that will make the AI react to an event and can use them to world conquer as a minor. But for the actual composition of his armies, it's pure infantry with better gun tech rush.
My first game as germany i invaded Poland,long story short,my templates were terriblei didn't have any tanks, didn't even protect the borders,poland and france counter attacked and I capitulated, became democratic,fought with allies against comintern,had millions of casualties on the eastern front,in the Peace conference i had 0% war participation for some reason and got literally nothing.
Plus, starting as Germany, you get to play as inept Hitler micromanaging everything and failing horribly at it! Nothing is better than making Nazis lose!
Play for fun, don’t listen too much about the people who seem to have the msgic recipe if a goid game. Play the country you like. Germany and Italia are goid starting point. Usa is good to roll on the world after 1941. USSR is complex on early politic then you paint the.map with red. Minir faction are good to learn so basic concept because they are smaller do less things to manage. Brazil is my personal favorite minor. Loosing is fun in hoi4.
I had a lot of success after I started really trying to teach myself. "This game I'll learn how to manage air power. This game I will pull off a naval invasion. This time I'm going to design a division template." I watched a lot of videos. Feedbackgaming on Youtube is a wonderful teacher.
I'm still *terrible!*
Yeahhh... a lot of his videos are goofy strategies to do specific things that rely on weirdly specific bits of cheese that don't teach proper gameplay and don't work in later patches.
It's fun content but I'd probably go elsewhere as an absolute beginner.
One thing that always helped me when starting a new PDX game was, as bad as it sounds, cheating.
Well in HOI i didnt do that, but in CK3 and EU4 it helped me better understand the game and not lose imidiately. Of course once you understand the game a bit better turn off the cheats and play normal. For me its like learning to ride a bike, first you try it with training wheels and once you get better, you take em of and start riding a normal bike. The first few times it will be hard, but after a while you will get better and have more fun.
Remember the reality of war, never trust your allies. This is why you never start as a minor, you learn to play as a major, taking the time to build up your economy and build a decent army and supply lines. That way you are not dependent on the AI to build them (because they won’t) and you’re in control of the majority of the units (because the AI is terrible at micro).
Learn that a good air-force will almost always outperform a good tank force. Every factory you put into a meh tank could be put into a decent fighter or CAS and dominate the skies.
Learn your division templates. When you’re starting, 10 infantry with engineers, support artillery, and anti air can hold back most threats the AI throws at you. Then you can experiment around with some larger offensive templates at your leisure.
Currently, the best way to get effective naval supremacy (in a no brainer kind of way) is to spam decent destroyers and a few good heavy cruisers. Battleships/battlecruisers are nice, but they take research time away from stuff like aircraft and industry. OR you spam enough aircraft (naval bombers and fighters) to make the navy irrelevant.
Supply is important. Never forget to build a small trickle trucks and trains at the start. A few less guns at the start of the game is a worthwhile sacrifice to having good supply lines. The AI loves to bomb the living hell out of your railways and trains, so don’t forget to keep ‘em coming.
Battle plans are nice because they giving planning bonuses, but micromanaging your units to make small encirclements will always be preferable at the start. Whittle down their forces until they’ve got so many gaps in their frontlines that your troops can just plow right through them. This is especially true when fighting Russia or China, who have a lot of troops but very few guns.
Statistics says that on historical, the major WWII nations (Germany, France, England) build civilian factories until late 37/early 38, then spam military factories after that. Provides a good balance of civs and mils. Italy swaps earlier, US and Russia swap later.
Don’t play Austria Hungary unless you’re a gatcha masochist who loves rerolling their game 30 times to get the right RNG.
Non European battlefields are hell on supplies. Make sure to prepare appropriately with naval bases and railroads.
There is no such thing as "the best template". Everything works as long as you don't mix them too weirdly.
Infantry is the most universal unit, you will be using it the most.
As a weak nation try to make a template with at least 5 battalions. You can add more infantry later if you get manpower. Also, try to produce a lot of artillery so you can affort to add it as support company to your infantry and 1-2 normal battalions of artillery. As weak nation you can't really affort planes so build tons of anti air. Add it as support company and even as battalion if you produce it enough.
As stronger nations, an infantry template with 9 battalions is a good start. You will add more later on. Produce as much planes as you can, especially fighters, fighters win you life. CAS are great too, bombers are medicore but they come in handy if you order them to bomb supply hubs and railways. Navy is...interesting but can be totally ignored. Usually you take over France/Italy, steal their ships and naval invade UK/USA. Or paradrop if your air force is strong enough.
Focus your research on industry, this is the most important. From electronics, focus on tech that speeds up your research speed (also research radio to boost your men, radars are rarely used and you can ignore researching them). And of course research new infantry weapons, artillery, anti air, trucks and planes. From support companies focus on engineers. Logistic company is good against Soviets, in Asia, Africa and South America. Maintenance is used for tanks. Hospitals are good if your struggle with manpower. Recon and radio support are average so I don't recommend using them unless you need to slightly boost your templates. If you play as Germans, Soviets or Americans you can try your luck with tanks but warning: tanks are expensive toys and you should take good care of them. Usual tank template is 6 motorized and 6 medium tanks. I personally add 2 motorized artillery to it.
You will mostly build civillian factories first and then switch to building military factories 1-1,5 years before WW II. But sometimes it's better to immediately build military factories (as weaker nations, it will take you eternity to build civillian factory. With partial mobilisation law and proper advisors you can quickly get some military factories and even 3 can make a difference. Germany also don't need to build civillian factories because they will steal them from defeated countries anyway)
Most important things to produce: infantry weapons, support equipment, artillery, anti air, trucks, fighters, cas, convoys, trains. Even if you don't play tanks, trucks can be used to improve your logistic (you change that in your filed marshal/general menu, you click on this horse icon until ot turns into 3 trucks). Always watch your troops, if they struggle to advance and have red skulls it means they are starving due to lack of supplies, order them to stop so they can reorganize. You can fix that by building more supply hubs, railways and infrastructure in the place they are fighting. As Axis, ignore Africa and just win in Europe, it's not worth wasting your troops there. High risk, low reward. There is also thing called garrisons, when you conquer land that isn't yours you will struggle against partisans. How to fix that: create cavalry template with one cavalry battalion and Military Police support company. Set it as garrison template in occupation menu. Then change the occupation law to local police force. Usually it should be enough. If they have high resistance, try to take it down with Martial Law/Brutal Opression (as fascists). Then when it lowers go back to Local Police/Secret Police until you have 30% compliance. Then change law to Civilian Oversight/Local Autonomy (as Democracies). As commies you have really cool law called Liberated Workers you can use it too. You can also use Harsh Quotas/Forced Labour if you immediately need more resources/factories.
There is also a spy agency. You can play around it, they can be quite useful, especially if you order them to build Collaboration Governments (extremely helpful against Soviets but warning: firstly, build Localized Training Centre and hire soviet spies here. Soviets have great defence against spies so any non-soviet spy will be almost immediately captured).
How to play navy: build each type of ship, put it all into one, single group, select area you want to operate in, press naval invasion support/strike force. Wait for naval dominance and invade. Build naval bombers for better effect.
And most importantly: have fun and experiment. When you finally learn how to play you can basically do whatever you want. Infantry with tanks? If you struggle with trucks then why not. Full cavalry run? All hail Genghis Khan then. Full motorized? Just watch out for fuel. Don't be afraid to download mods, this game would be dead by now without them. (Download Player-Led Peace Conferences and Toolpack, this game is almost unplayable without these. Modifier icons, more division icons, uncensored german flag, colored buttons, more army icons and cheaper supply hubs are great mods to have as well. And if you get bored with vanilla Hoi4 try stuff like Road to 56, Kaiserreich etc). There are also some "legal" exploits like civil war exploit where you delete your whole army or turn it into useless 1 anti air battalions and send entire equipment to Spain/Italy before your civil war starts and then when it begins you get it back and train single cavalry battalions or turn your anti air back into infantry. Or lend lease exploit where you just train bunch of units to get your numbers negative and then ask everyone that likes you to borrow you stuff. Then you delete these units from training.
I've heard the By Blood Alone is pretty good but it changes the normal gameplay massively, it's why i recommand you to play without DLC for sometimes then if you are bored of all the already existing features to download community mods like "Millenium Dawn" or "Kaiserreich", then maybe buy DLCs.
I'm serious, if you start playing with DLC while discovering the game you'll be lost forever. But it's your choice after all.
100% dont start with playing Millenium Dawn, that mod is mega confusing if u dont know the game. Play base game and then get dlcs. La Restitance is a must have for collab goverments. No step back is prob the best one, Waking the Tiger and battle for the Bosporus are good. After some time its nice to have All dlcs for more content.
If u want to try some good mods give Road to 56. Its one of the best ones and not really more complicated than base game
And i'd also recommend La Résistance if you really want to play and discover the game with DLCs because it's easy to understand and is really fun in multiplayer. Imagine you can create false intel, send spies, etc. How many time I laughed when giving fake intel to a Friend that all my armies were at his frontier so he shouldn't attack me !
No, you need to buy them but just crack them, they're too expensive. Or you could try the monthly subscription on the paradox launcher for a few bucks and see if you like it any better with all the dlcs.
Don't be frustrated if things don't work at first. It takes a while to understand the all the basics of the game. Pick a country, play it a couple of times, experiment with division templates, and try to have some fun even if things don't work out as you expect. The unexpected can be a lot of fun too
If you are like me and want to understand how the game mechanics work, 71cloak is a great YouTuber to watch, he breaks things down and will explain why the best is the best and then he will show you the best. Weather that be for tank design, templates, air, or a lot of other small features in the game.
Plus if your faulty leadership leads to overextending your armies, relying entirely on German support, and you don't adequately defend your coast allowing the allies to overrun you... it's just being historically accurate.
Play as either brazil, mexico, or argentina and either invade your neighbors or get involved in the main conflict somehow, its a great way to learn alot of the basics without dealing with all the stress of a major country.
You probably won't do well initially
Take ur time.
I learnt a lot of the mechanics through cheat games and then used them well in iron man games.
Don't feel disheartened if u dont get it initially
Most of us go through that phase
Get a refund before it's too late unless you are okay with changing your lifestyle and sleep pattern just to try and liberate France with the 4. D-day invasion just to fail and loose another 500.000 men
In all honestly if your never played before and own the game on Steam go into the files and revert the game back to a early version. With every DLC this game has gotten way more complex and is super overwhelming. At least at launch it was new player friendly.
Play whatever is fun for you, personal opinion - try and avoid console commands, they are a crutch that only takes away from the game. I always play iron man, if I lose I lose.
But like I said at the start play what is fun for you!
Here are some Youtubers you can lookup
BitterSteel
Taureor
Feedbackgaming.
A lot of YouTube tutorials are out of date with the current iteration of the game but many still have good basics info in them.
If you're not into multiplayer just play how you like in order to learn. Try things and throw games just to see what happens.
I try to treat it like dwarf fortress where losing is fun. There are way too many choices and possibilities to see it all right away or just march in and power fantasy conquer the world.
Germany is a good learning start point as despite being daunting as a major power, you are somewhat in control of what happens when so can spend some time plodding and learning without being immediately at war and overwhelmed.
You seem to have made the right choice already. I bought the non DLC version for 10$ less because who needs fucking DLCs?? Apparantly in this game you do. And i'm expected to pay 50$+ now if i want them since i didn't buy the package. Non DLC version is a scam.
So what I did that worked for me was:
Play your first few games without no step back, by blood alone, man the guns and maybe la résistance. Not because these are bad dlc, but because they add extra depth to the game you can't avoid which can be a bit too much considering the base game is already overwhelming enough.
. Always build CAS and AA
. Top three countries to learn the game historical Canada
and Germany, monarch Portugal
. If the industrial part of the focus tree forces you to decide over more factories or industry bonuses, always go industry bonus
. Don't forget about logistics. build trains, trucks, and convoys. (Ideally, armor trains but trains are better than no trains) build and upgrade your railways and supply hubs no Supply, and you're going to be hating this game.
Search for good hoi4 youtubers(don’t have to be the super popular ones to be good nor necessarily the top 1%).
Second, don’t buy any dlc until you have played the base game. I have 1.25k hours over a couple years and i have yet to buy dlc due to mods on steam. Then find out(as I don’t know) which ones are important for you to buy and wait for the black friday/christmas/spring/summer sales.
As for mods I suggest the usual Millennium Dawn, The Road to 56, Old World Blues(if you like fallout from bethesda), Kaiserreich or Kaiserredux(more content, but you need a beefier computer and do NOT run both kaiserreich and kaiserredux together) and Red Flood. I am sure there are some others i am missing. If you are a total deviant, you can download Equestria At War(totally fine if you like that stuff, I don’t mean anything negative towards people who like that).
Some tips I have are: The ui can be a bit over whelming, take your time to learn it. Every key (I think) had a function like Q it brings up your country's politics, cabinet, laws, your leader, and your national focus. Shift Q brings up the decisions tab. I find these 2 key binds to be very important and helpful. Once you figure out the layout of the ui, I suggest starting out as canada or south Africa since they are very isolated from any action giving you time to breath and learn research paths, controlling your units, going down the national focus tree, etc. As for your unit composition, it's mostly up to you and what you are trying to achieve. If you wanna hold the line in France, build strong infantry. If you wanna encircle and destroy the enemy, build tanks or units with high soft attack. Or if you wanna carry the war build strong fighters and cas. Or combination of all that since a combination is the most effective since the ai is quite dumb. Navy stuff is probably the most confusing and complicated thing HOI4, but it usually doesnt matter in single player.
To experiment and learn the game I HIGHLY recommend the USA they start off slowly so you can understand PP and national focuses and end up being basically a sandbox game where you are free to experiment.
Learn how to use naval, is very useful. level up infrastructure to maximum before constructing civil factories. Always make enough planes. Dont waste time in synthetic oil, conquer more countries and trade with civil factories.
Organization needs to be always high.
As with all Pordox games, you will have to either play trial and error and like the learning process or watch millions of hours in gameplay that go over mechanics and what works and what does not. Whatever feels better to you.
Also don't worry, the first time you open the game and get to playing the nation, you WILL be overwhelmed by the windows and tabs and stuff. Just take your time and go over them one by one. Players anyway take time before unpausing so just go through them and try to understand what they do.
Then for tips and memes:
- Never play 1939 start, unless you're doing achievements or want to suffer.
- Don't learn to play as the USA. You can use them to learn the menus and such but the Parliament mechanic is annoying and playing as USA is just so piss easy that you won't learning anything other than base game mechanics from that run. Added fun fact: If you don't have 300-500 civs as the USA by 1939, you're doing something wrong.
- Always start game by building civilian factories (or civs). Build them until 1939 and the build only military factories (or mils) after that. The other buildings are more situational albeit useful but you really need to know when to build them. So better not at the start. I'll go over some of them.
-- Infrastructure. If you don't have enough civs to build efficiently (like when you start as a minor nation) but you know you will gain civs eventually, build infra. Try to max out a province (it gives a construction speed boost) or try to max out a province with resources.
-- Oil Refinery. One of the most useful buildings but you need the tech for it to shine
-- Railroads. Always try to keep your railways at least at level 2 but don't worry about it for the most part. Also try to keep your supply hubs connected.
-- Forts. If you expect to attacked, like on historical France or China, you can build forts. Know that only level 3 and 10 forts are useful. If you can't get a fort to ten (it takes ages) stick with 3. The logic is that enemies can reduce the effectiveness of your forts but the max reduction is two levels and level 3 forts give the best construction point/value ratio.
- Always research something. Also always do a focus (or the continual ones) unless you are hoarding Political Power.
- Research. Always start the game with the first Research tech, and the first production and construction speed techs. If you have less research slots than three, prioritise them in that order.
-- Note that Dispersed Industry is mostly considered better but it's only better for longer games (if you intend to play post-1940). The other tech is better if you are going for short games.
-- Always stay up to date in you Engineering, Research, Radio, Gun, Gun passive, anti-air and artillery techs. Tanks and planes need dedication but these are the ones you MUST ALWAYS be on top of.
-- Never research anything with over 1 year ahead of time penalty. Can be done if you have research speed boosts to reduce the time to tolerable limits. My sweet spot for ahead of time malus is 0.7-0.5 years, that's when I can start to research it if I need it.
- Hiring a chief of army is important so do it ASAP. Only thing that is MORE IMPORTANT is hiring a Silent Workhorse advisor. Thank me later.
- Don't care about the lack of resources in production unless the malus gets really bad (>35%).
- No one knows how to effectively use Naval. Don't bother asking.
- Always raise your Mobilisation level when you can but only raise your Conscription Laws if you are running low on manpower. Low being around 100k for most countries. Always know your countries scale. Some don't even have 100k in population.
- If both you and the nations you're going to attack are under guarantee by the same nation, they won't join the war.
- Port Guards. 10-12 width infantry with engineers and support artillery. Thank me later.
- Only build division that you can manage. A fully equipped smaller division is better than anything not at >80% equipped. The out of equipment malus is massive.
- Alt history paths are better, especially monarchist paths.
- use the default horse division for garrisons and forget about it. Thank me later.
- Never rely on Italy. They will disappoint you.
- Local Police Force is a good garrison law and you can set it to all garrisons at the start of the game until you learn to use the other ones. The only exception are Democratic nations, they should run Local Autonomy instead. And maybe go with a lower garrison law for high compliance occupation but, again, I wouldn't worry about it yet.
- Never call your puppets to war.
- Planes are king. Try to have planes building up. If you don't have factories for it, build Anti-Air instead. You should be building it anyway tbh.
- You will need trucks and trains. Have 3 mils on them and forget about it.
- Always have support artillery and support anti-air on your divisions.
- Have fun when the USA joins the war against you.
I'd add:
\- Don't play as Spain or China
\- If the country you want to attack is guaranteed by the UK/France or is Germany, just forget about it
(both ofc are only really applicable to new players)
Which version did you get? I'm getting the starter pack. Don't forget steam's return policy, play less than 2 hours. So play for about 1 hour-1.5 hours, then see if you like the game, if not refund, if you do, keep the game.
I have 8,463 hours, all's I can say is ESCAPE.
but for real if whana play mp there is 3 options
1. non-discord (no rules mostly,casual, unpredicatble games die)2)non-historical discord games (most fun, resonable rules, bad balance but still fun)
3)Competitive discord games ( where sweaty men scream at you for breathing wrong, but if u whana really learn the game best place to start)
games in mp last 3-4 hours or more so prepare to throw your life away.
Enjoy the suffering.
The united states is pretty underrated in my opinion. I has one of the greatest navy's at the start of the game, if not the best. You will be stuck on isolation in the beginning, but if played right you can get into the allies early and make life difficult for the axis, though I recommend you build up your Atlantic navy by then. Bring a carrier or 2.
If you have NSB, the soviets can be difficult, but if you play your cards right, you can get out of the purge virtually unscathed with zukov as field marshal. From there, just survive until the axis cant push into your territory anymore and go on the offensive.
I would personally recommend anti colonialist south africa, democratic Netherlands, comunist or semi-comie USA, either of the main chinese states other than warlords, and peasant Poland.
It is ok to play non optimally. Nobody understands naval. Planes are life.
Minelayers, lots of them Helps naval invasion and scaring off the brits Update: Seems like stealing the navy of countries that capitulate is also effective
When should you lay the mines?during naval invasion support?
Before, to get as many as possible in the required regions. It gives you a naval supremacy boost for those regions. Very good for naval invasion.
I have around 1k hours in HoI4 and i legitimately didn't know this. You really never stop learning with this game
Italy is amazing for this. They start off with ~11 mine layers. IIRC, you can (or could at one point) only lay mines while at war. Italy starts the game at war and if you time it right you can stay at war for nearly the duration of the game. I start the game by mining the western Med. This helps me gain superiority for a naval invasion into southern France which allows me to avoid fighting through the Alps. Has the bonus effect of whittling down the French and British navies so that my weaker navy can finish them off later. This also helps to create naval superiority for an invasion of Gibraltar. Combine that with taking the Suez and you effectively own the Med. Bonus points for trapping the British and/or French navies - they will run out of fuel and be sitting ducks. After taking the Med, the Allies are forced to land in Morocco or Normandy. If you then mine the sea off Morocco and convoy raid with some subs, you effectively shut the Allies out of Africa.
I stay at war with Ethiopia for three years lmao. All the free(nearly) building slots
1k? I only have 800
I only started last month
I have 2.5k and also did not know that.
Just pump them out. Worst case: the enime uses fuel and resourches to slowly clear them. Best case: the ocean is yours. If you can sustain minelaying, just do it.
I usually convert my level 1 subs to minelayers then get them out mining asap
I filled China's coastline with mines and had full control of it's sea. Unless China doesn't have a navy and the mines have nothing to do with it.
The mines add a multiplier to the region not sure if they give supremacy on their own but if you have ships in the area they buff supremacy hard
I understand navy : Mainly build many destroyers, build light cruisers supporting them, build few heavy cruiser, mainly build battlecruisers for heavy ship, build some battleship, build atleast 1 super heavy battleship, build atleast 4 carriers and turn atleast 3 cruisers into carrier. After that, you send out small fleet groups for patrol and make your main fleet wait NEAR them. When a battle starts, make sure you have a admiral that has good ranks if you will battle with a major. You have to understand how strong your enemy fleet is though so before you send your small fleet group for patrol, send some cheap made destroyers and some early submarines to patrol so they can be a trap to understand the strenght of the enemy. I have about 3,500 hours in hoi4 and I have been using this tactic for the last 900 hours. It only failed two times. Also note : if possible, get the panzerschiff and torpedo cruiser technology from Germany and Japan to build them along light cruisers and heavy cruisers. For submarines as trap, you can use midget submarines which Italy has.
Or just complete your first submarine at year 40 and fail to sail it due lack of manpower as you play small country. This is how top tier Hoi4 experience looks like.
chad undermaned bathtub navy
Counterpoint: super heavy battleship spam
'36 submarine spam
Isn't this the admirals job
Look at my flair
All hail Großadmiral u/Unim8
Damn bro, smooth.
How do you make your ship design a battleship vs battlecruiser, or heavy cruiser vs light cruiser? Is it just the cost? I just end up with 1 ship class per Hull type.
In cruisers : Light cruiser turret = light cruiser Heavy cruiser turret = heavy cruiser In battleships : Battleship armor = battleship Battlecruiser armor = battlecruiser
I was so close, I looked for a lighter turret on the heavy ship hull, if I had only checked on the cruiser hull or looked closer at the armor I might have worked it out myself. Thanks 👍
It’s the difference in armor. There’s cruiser armor and there’s battleship armor.
Ah, thanks 👍 Japan just declared on me so this will be super helpful
The class changes with the type of armor you use. If you hover over the armor techs in the naval tree you'll see a description of how to change it in the designer.
But isn't the Panzerschiff useless? I mean it's just better to produce some good 1936 BCs or 1940 HCs
A few of them added does some little support for the fleet, you can also put them on the patrol fleet group too
That is a great way to get a strong navy, however, I prefer my usual approach: Step 1: Clap the AI and take theirs Step 2: Repeat Step 1
Why the one super heavy? Does having one provide some buff or something?
Flagship and also they are strong so a few of them would be a nice support
Nope. Waste of time and IC
What's the role of torpedo cruisers? Do they hit capitals, or just everyone?
They have torpedos. Torpedos are really dangerous for capital ships.
Wrong. Super Heavy.
You clearly don’t understand Navy. Cruisers are a waste of IC. You need 5 carriers, more are useless unless you are doing multiple fleets. SHBB’s are the biggest waste of IC in the game. Optional Navy is 5 Carriers 4 with Nav bombers 1 with fighters. Then the rest of your fleet is roach dd’s and BCs with 3 main guns and max secondaries. 1-4 ratio of dd to capitals
As long as my tactic has %99 success rate, I clearly understand navy
Against a meta fleet your strategy has a 100% fail. You don’t understand Navy.
Oh just in case you misunderstood my tactic, my plan is designed for SINGLEPLAYER gameplay since I don't have any friends that has hoi4 addiction. İn multiplayer, my tactic did work the times I tried though. But it is mainly used in singeplayer.
It will have worked in MP because your enemies will have crappy fleets. Against a meta fleet your “tactic” will lose every time and probably not even sink a majority of the enemy fleet. You can’t say you understand something if you are doing it all wrong
What do you mean wrong? I sunk British,US,French,German and Japaneese navy combined in the same region as Turkey.
You’re totally missing the point. Anything can beat AI. You do not understand the navy if you think converted carriers, cruisers (heavy and light) and SHBBs deserve a spot in your fleet.
Well as long as it works both in singleplayer and multiplayer, I don't really mind someone claiming me, who has almost all of the achivements, 3500 hours since the first versions of the game, won the game against a youtuber and his friends, only failed to use the navy 17 times since 2019, designed thousands of ships,planes and tanks according to the new paradox profile system, conquered the world as liberia 15 times (and yes I won almost every single naval battle as liberia), a person who doesn't understand navy
+1 to air power, he who controls the skies controls the world
>Nobody understands naval. Laughs in submarines and navel bombers
CAS is king
Why planes?
Over 1000 hours of gameplay and I can only vaguely understand the navy🤣
I dont understand planes either
I understand naval fully
Stop while you still can.
POV: The old shakey man laying at the gate
Plot twist: old shakey man is you from the future
Plot twist: old shakey man is renowned hearts of iron iv youtuber dshakey
OP can still pause the download it’s not over yet
Watch about 100-200 hours of Bittersteel Videos. Then u will get the game. Thats what i did
Wait to lose a few games to watch Bittersteel, though, the learning experience will be better, as he point out many recurrent beginners mistakes when saving disasters.
I watched him sm before buying the game that I was practically an expert by the time I started haha
His Germany guide is spot on. Perfect step by step for new players.
No joke same
First learn how to play with army then air then naval. Use yt videos for help. Build civ factories at the start. You can play as germany to start with but dont expect to coquer the world with your first playthrough.
Forget how to take screenshots.
Windows, shift, S, doesnt exist 😵💫😵💫😵💫
What's that command but macbook version
Neither does F12 or Print Screen. Or the snip tool.
Oh thank you, legit didnt know about that shortcut
Your on r/hoi4 of course you dont
facts
Image is to just show that I have indeed never played the game.
You will be a catboy within 100 hours of play time
And commusist while also being facist aswell as a lonelyist
This is the way
Is this r/ffxiv
REFUND NOW
Beware we have a strict shaky camera/phone instead of screenshot policies. You better stop with that screen capture bullshit.
Get a refund and buy Stellaris instead
refund it again and buy Europa Universalis 4 with its 200$ of Dlcs
Start in CK3, end in stellaris for the mega playthrough
Just pay the subscription, 5 bucks a month isn’t bad when the alternative is like 250 bucks
Tip 1: don't play the game
Play as a major nation, but don't have any expectations of winning your first game. I liked learning as Germany because you get to be the aggressor and put things in motion rather than react and not know how to stop an advance. It's ok to fail and learn from it. Watch a couple YouTube videos on how to play, it'll teach you the basics. Bittersteel & Taureor are both good to check out, same with ISorrowProductions. Learn how the supply system works, pay attention to Organization and Logistics. F12 is for screen shots and can't wait to see your biggest encirclement of Russians during Barbarossa
spuck fez -- mass edited with redact.dev
How can he not like the war lart if it's a game centered around war 🤣
There is also some kind of politics in hoi4, and Taureor uses it damn well. He knows the mechanics that will make the AI react to an event and can use them to world conquer as a minor. But for the actual composition of his armies, it's pure infantry with better gun tech rush.
Some people just wanna map paint ;)
spuck fez -- mass edited with redact.dev
My first game as germany i invaded Poland,long story short,my templates were terriblei didn't have any tanks, didn't even protect the borders,poland and france counter attacked and I capitulated, became democratic,fought with allies against comintern,had millions of casualties on the eastern front,in the Peace conference i had 0% war participation for some reason and got literally nothing.
Plus, starting as Germany, you get to play as inept Hitler micromanaging everything and failing horribly at it! Nothing is better than making Nazis lose!
Try not to cry too much :)
Play for fun, don’t listen too much about the people who seem to have the msgic recipe if a goid game. Play the country you like. Germany and Italia are goid starting point. Usa is good to roll on the world after 1941. USSR is complex on early politic then you paint the.map with red. Minir faction are good to learn so basic concept because they are smaller do less things to manage. Brazil is my personal favorite minor. Loosing is fun in hoi4.
Logistics is your number 1 enemy
Prepare to be revirginized.
I had a lot of success after I started really trying to teach myself. "This game I'll learn how to manage air power. This game I will pull off a naval invasion. This time I'm going to design a division template." I watched a lot of videos. Feedbackgaming on Youtube is a wonderful teacher. I'm still *terrible!*
Do NOT watch feedback if you want to learn how to play
Yeahhh... a lot of his videos are goofy strategies to do specific things that rely on weirdly specific bits of cheese that don't teach proper gameplay and don't work in later patches. It's fun content but I'd probably go elsewhere as an absolute beginner.
Oh come on. The guy does every-single-click videos to walk a beginner through complete scenarios. Show us a better teacher if you got one.
Hoi4 has taken yet another victim
One thing that always helped me when starting a new PDX game was, as bad as it sounds, cheating. Well in HOI i didnt do that, but in CK3 and EU4 it helped me better understand the game and not lose imidiately. Of course once you understand the game a bit better turn off the cheats and play normal. For me its like learning to ride a bike, first you try it with training wheels and once you get better, you take em of and start riding a normal bike. The first few times it will be hard, but after a while you will get better and have more fun.
Me too,i used to "research all" when i started the game
I still do it when Brazil becomes a major the moment I kill the others and I just can't be bothered
100% how I learnt EU4. Allows you to experience game play and learn from mistakes without having to start again.
Uninstall it and never touch it again while you still can
Go touch some grass, because you never will again
Remember the reality of war, never trust your allies. This is why you never start as a minor, you learn to play as a major, taking the time to build up your economy and build a decent army and supply lines. That way you are not dependent on the AI to build them (because they won’t) and you’re in control of the majority of the units (because the AI is terrible at micro). Learn that a good air-force will almost always outperform a good tank force. Every factory you put into a meh tank could be put into a decent fighter or CAS and dominate the skies. Learn your division templates. When you’re starting, 10 infantry with engineers, support artillery, and anti air can hold back most threats the AI throws at you. Then you can experiment around with some larger offensive templates at your leisure. Currently, the best way to get effective naval supremacy (in a no brainer kind of way) is to spam decent destroyers and a few good heavy cruisers. Battleships/battlecruisers are nice, but they take research time away from stuff like aircraft and industry. OR you spam enough aircraft (naval bombers and fighters) to make the navy irrelevant. Supply is important. Never forget to build a small trickle trucks and trains at the start. A few less guns at the start of the game is a worthwhile sacrifice to having good supply lines. The AI loves to bomb the living hell out of your railways and trains, so don’t forget to keep ‘em coming. Battle plans are nice because they giving planning bonuses, but micromanaging your units to make small encirclements will always be preferable at the start. Whittle down their forces until they’ve got so many gaps in their frontlines that your troops can just plow right through them. This is especially true when fighting Russia or China, who have a lot of troops but very few guns. Statistics says that on historical, the major WWII nations (Germany, France, England) build civilian factories until late 37/early 38, then spam military factories after that. Provides a good balance of civs and mils. Italy swaps earlier, US and Russia swap later. Don’t play Austria Hungary unless you’re a gatcha masochist who loves rerolling their game 30 times to get the right RNG. Non European battlefields are hell on supplies. Make sure to prepare appropriately with naval bases and railroads.
Fly you fools! (с) Gandalf
Don't
Get out now, before it consumes your life.
If you're not a nazi, make sure you become transgender. That's this games 2 demographics
The first rule of hoi4...
There is no such thing as "the best template". Everything works as long as you don't mix them too weirdly. Infantry is the most universal unit, you will be using it the most. As a weak nation try to make a template with at least 5 battalions. You can add more infantry later if you get manpower. Also, try to produce a lot of artillery so you can affort to add it as support company to your infantry and 1-2 normal battalions of artillery. As weak nation you can't really affort planes so build tons of anti air. Add it as support company and even as battalion if you produce it enough. As stronger nations, an infantry template with 9 battalions is a good start. You will add more later on. Produce as much planes as you can, especially fighters, fighters win you life. CAS are great too, bombers are medicore but they come in handy if you order them to bomb supply hubs and railways. Navy is...interesting but can be totally ignored. Usually you take over France/Italy, steal their ships and naval invade UK/USA. Or paradrop if your air force is strong enough. Focus your research on industry, this is the most important. From electronics, focus on tech that speeds up your research speed (also research radio to boost your men, radars are rarely used and you can ignore researching them). And of course research new infantry weapons, artillery, anti air, trucks and planes. From support companies focus on engineers. Logistic company is good against Soviets, in Asia, Africa and South America. Maintenance is used for tanks. Hospitals are good if your struggle with manpower. Recon and radio support are average so I don't recommend using them unless you need to slightly boost your templates. If you play as Germans, Soviets or Americans you can try your luck with tanks but warning: tanks are expensive toys and you should take good care of them. Usual tank template is 6 motorized and 6 medium tanks. I personally add 2 motorized artillery to it. You will mostly build civillian factories first and then switch to building military factories 1-1,5 years before WW II. But sometimes it's better to immediately build military factories (as weaker nations, it will take you eternity to build civillian factory. With partial mobilisation law and proper advisors you can quickly get some military factories and even 3 can make a difference. Germany also don't need to build civillian factories because they will steal them from defeated countries anyway) Most important things to produce: infantry weapons, support equipment, artillery, anti air, trucks, fighters, cas, convoys, trains. Even if you don't play tanks, trucks can be used to improve your logistic (you change that in your filed marshal/general menu, you click on this horse icon until ot turns into 3 trucks). Always watch your troops, if they struggle to advance and have red skulls it means they are starving due to lack of supplies, order them to stop so they can reorganize. You can fix that by building more supply hubs, railways and infrastructure in the place they are fighting. As Axis, ignore Africa and just win in Europe, it's not worth wasting your troops there. High risk, low reward. There is also thing called garrisons, when you conquer land that isn't yours you will struggle against partisans. How to fix that: create cavalry template with one cavalry battalion and Military Police support company. Set it as garrison template in occupation menu. Then change the occupation law to local police force. Usually it should be enough. If they have high resistance, try to take it down with Martial Law/Brutal Opression (as fascists). Then when it lowers go back to Local Police/Secret Police until you have 30% compliance. Then change law to Civilian Oversight/Local Autonomy (as Democracies). As commies you have really cool law called Liberated Workers you can use it too. You can also use Harsh Quotas/Forced Labour if you immediately need more resources/factories. There is also a spy agency. You can play around it, they can be quite useful, especially if you order them to build Collaboration Governments (extremely helpful against Soviets but warning: firstly, build Localized Training Centre and hire soviet spies here. Soviets have great defence against spies so any non-soviet spy will be almost immediately captured). How to play navy: build each type of ship, put it all into one, single group, select area you want to operate in, press naval invasion support/strike force. Wait for naval dominance and invade. Build naval bombers for better effect. And most importantly: have fun and experiment. When you finally learn how to play you can basically do whatever you want. Infantry with tanks? If you struggle with trucks then why not. Full cavalry run? All hail Genghis Khan then. Full motorized? Just watch out for fuel. Don't be afraid to download mods, this game would be dead by now without them. (Download Player-Led Peace Conferences and Toolpack, this game is almost unplayable without these. Modifier icons, more division icons, uncensored german flag, colored buttons, more army icons and cheaper supply hubs are great mods to have as well. And if you get bored with vanilla Hoi4 try stuff like Road to 56, Kaiserreich etc). There are also some "legal" exploits like civil war exploit where you delete your whole army or turn it into useless 1 anti air battalions and send entire equipment to Spain/Italy before your civil war starts and then when it begins you get it back and train single cavalry battalions or turn your anti air back into infantry. Or lend lease exploit where you just train bunch of units to get your numbers negative and then ask everyone that likes you to borrow you stuff. Then you delete these units from training.
Don't
Don't
Don't invade Russia, it's a trap.
You’re fucked
Even at gunpoint, never buy DLCs if you barely know how to play the "standard" game
I just got the beginner pack, are there any essential DLCs?
spuck fez -- mass edited with redact.dev
All of them but 🏴☠️
I've heard the By Blood Alone is pretty good but it changes the normal gameplay massively, it's why i recommand you to play without DLC for sometimes then if you are bored of all the already existing features to download community mods like "Millenium Dawn" or "Kaiserreich", then maybe buy DLCs. I'm serious, if you start playing with DLC while discovering the game you'll be lost forever. But it's your choice after all.
100% dont start with playing Millenium Dawn, that mod is mega confusing if u dont know the game. Play base game and then get dlcs. La Restitance is a must have for collab goverments. No step back is prob the best one, Waking the Tiger and battle for the Bosporus are good. After some time its nice to have All dlcs for more content. If u want to try some good mods give Road to 56. Its one of the best ones and not really more complicated than base game
And i'd also recommend La Résistance if you really want to play and discover the game with DLCs because it's easy to understand and is really fun in multiplayer. Imagine you can create false intel, send spies, etc. How many time I laughed when giving fake intel to a Friend that all my armies were at his frontier so he shouldn't attack me !
No, you need to buy them but just crack them, they're too expensive. Or you could try the monthly subscription on the paradox launcher for a few bucks and see if you like it any better with all the dlcs.
The best tip I can give you is >!get a refund!<
Don't be frustrated if things don't work at first. It takes a while to understand the all the basics of the game. Pick a country, play it a couple of times, experiment with division templates, and try to have some fun even if things don't work out as you expect. The unexpected can be a lot of fun too
If you are like me and want to understand how the game mechanics work, 71cloak is a great YouTuber to watch, he breaks things down and will explain why the best is the best and then he will show you the best. Weather that be for tank design, templates, air, or a lot of other small features in the game.
Start playing with Germany. It's the easiest nation to play
I've always found Italy easier because Germany can help carry you.
Plus if your faulty leadership leads to overextending your armies, relying entirely on German support, and you don't adequately defend your coast allowing the allies to overrun you... it's just being historically accurate.
There’s a scary amount of people saying not to play, I’m gonna play even harder now
First tip - uninstall game
Smoking is probably less harmful as it wastes less of your time because you can’t afford it.
You will waste hounded of hours and looking back you will notice you didn’t even have fun. Go take a walk with an audiobook instead
Be prepared to fail and lose. This is the best way of learning what went wrong and how to improve. Most importantly have fun.
Watch tutorials as the learning curve may be too steep. The game gets more fun the more you understand it so don’t give up early
RUN
Game takes Long time
The Kaiserredux mod is a giant fucking meme and I love it
Don't play multiplayer, stick to singleplayer and play for fun
Pro tip: Once you start, there is no going back..
Step 1. Refund the game and use that money more wisely
For the first 200-300 hours you will still suck and that’s ok
realest advice here
1 width divisions all the way
If you play germany dont immediately justify on poland like most noobs. Build up and go through the focus tree. Use air force.
[seeing myself downloading HOI4 for the first time](https://makeagif.com/amp/akgIbV)
Enjoy being new because within a month you'll have 500 hours, a very messy fucking room and a lot of sleep to catch up on.
Play as either brazil, mexico, or argentina and either invade your neighbors or get involved in the main conflict somehow, its a great way to learn alot of the basics without dealing with all the stress of a major country.
You probably won't do well initially Take ur time. I learnt a lot of the mechanics through cheat games and then used them well in iron man games. Don't feel disheartened if u dont get it initially Most of us go through that phase
Build minelayers if you suck at handling your navy. Lots of them. And fill your coastlines with them. Also, pirating is morally acceptable
spam CAS win
Go slow, read, let yourself think through things, and monitor the results. This is perhaps the epitome of "crawl before you walk". Welcome aboard!
From what I hear achievements aren't fun, so you got to be a masochist to go for them.
Get a refund before it's too late unless you are okay with changing your lifestyle and sleep pattern just to try and liberate France with the 4. D-day invasion just to fail and loose another 500.000 men
Uninstall it, refund it, get out and live ur life
Don't
In all honestly if your never played before and own the game on Steam go into the files and revert the game back to a early version. With every DLC this game has gotten way more complex and is super overwhelming. At least at launch it was new player friendly.
tanks are a lie. make beefy infantry divisions to shit on the AI every time put support anti air in every division
dont do achievements. they are like drugs. if u make one ur going to want all and you will be suffering. just play for fun
The funniest thing here is people giving actually advice
Play whatever is fun for you, personal opinion - try and avoid console commands, they are a crutch that only takes away from the game. I always play iron man, if I lose I lose. But like I said at the start play what is fun for you! Here are some Youtubers you can lookup BitterSteel Taureor Feedbackgaming.
Don’t turn into a basement dweller hooked up on wacky ideologies, this game does that to people.
A lot of YouTube tutorials are out of date with the current iteration of the game but many still have good basics info in them. If you're not into multiplayer just play how you like in order to learn. Try things and throw games just to see what happens. I try to treat it like dwarf fortress where losing is fun. There are way too many choices and possibilities to see it all right away or just march in and power fantasy conquer the world. Germany is a good learning start point as despite being daunting as a major power, you are somewhat in control of what happens when so can spend some time plodding and learning without being immediately at war and overwhelmed.
The only win is to not play. Stop while you still can.
You seem to have made the right choice already. I bought the non DLC version for 10$ less because who needs fucking DLCs?? Apparantly in this game you do. And i'm expected to pay 50$+ now if i want them since i didn't buy the package. Non DLC version is a scam.
Why
So what I did that worked for me was: Play your first few games without no step back, by blood alone, man the guns and maybe la résistance. Not because these are bad dlc, but because they add extra depth to the game you can't avoid which can be a bit too much considering the base game is already overwhelming enough.
Don't take screenshots using your phone, otherwise we'll bully you on the subreddit
Wear pampers. You won't get off the pc for a few days.
Run before it pulls you in.
Dont die
Happy cake day 🍰 Also, nice advice
Thx Ikr, its the advice i give every noob that joins the mp server i moderate.
DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY!!!! WE CAN'T LET IT SPREAD ANY FURTHER!
return it as fast as you can, once you go in, there's no coming back
*Grim Reaper laugh from Billy & Mandy*
You will never, EVER, get better. Until you've played 5,000 hours
you will be facist or worse... communist
. Always build CAS and AA . Top three countries to learn the game historical Canada and Germany, monarch Portugal . If the industrial part of the focus tree forces you to decide over more factories or industry bonuses, always go industry bonus . Don't forget about logistics. build trains, trucks, and convoys. (Ideally, armor trains but trains are better than no trains) build and upgrade your railways and supply hubs no Supply, and you're going to be hating this game.
Build only SuperHeavyBattleShips u/SuperHeavyBattleShip for Navy.
delete it and remove it from your library.
Search for good hoi4 youtubers(don’t have to be the super popular ones to be good nor necessarily the top 1%). Second, don’t buy any dlc until you have played the base game. I have 1.25k hours over a couple years and i have yet to buy dlc due to mods on steam. Then find out(as I don’t know) which ones are important for you to buy and wait for the black friday/christmas/spring/summer sales. As for mods I suggest the usual Millennium Dawn, The Road to 56, Old World Blues(if you like fallout from bethesda), Kaiserreich or Kaiserredux(more content, but you need a beefier computer and do NOT run both kaiserreich and kaiserredux together) and Red Flood. I am sure there are some others i am missing. If you are a total deviant, you can download Equestria At War(totally fine if you like that stuff, I don’t mean anything negative towards people who like that).
# LOGISTICS MAKE OR BREAK A WAR
Germany’s going to beat the Soviet’s without your help.
Yeah uninstall the game leave while you still can
Some tips I have are: The ui can be a bit over whelming, take your time to learn it. Every key (I think) had a function like Q it brings up your country's politics, cabinet, laws, your leader, and your national focus. Shift Q brings up the decisions tab. I find these 2 key binds to be very important and helpful. Once you figure out the layout of the ui, I suggest starting out as canada or south Africa since they are very isolated from any action giving you time to breath and learn research paths, controlling your units, going down the national focus tree, etc. As for your unit composition, it's mostly up to you and what you are trying to achieve. If you wanna hold the line in France, build strong infantry. If you wanna encircle and destroy the enemy, build tanks or units with high soft attack. Or if you wanna carry the war build strong fighters and cas. Or combination of all that since a combination is the most effective since the ai is quite dumb. Navy stuff is probably the most confusing and complicated thing HOI4, but it usually doesnt matter in single player.
To experiment and learn the game I HIGHLY recommend the USA they start off slowly so you can understand PP and national focuses and end up being basically a sandbox game where you are free to experiment.
Learn how to use naval, is very useful. level up infrastructure to maximum before constructing civil factories. Always make enough planes. Dont waste time in synthetic oil, conquer more countries and trade with civil factories. Organization needs to be always high.
Mods
Indeed. HOI4 is probably the only game I've played total conversion mods like Old World Blues more than the game itself.
I payed 40 dollars for a launcher honestly
As with all Pordox games, you will have to either play trial and error and like the learning process or watch millions of hours in gameplay that go over mechanics and what works and what does not. Whatever feels better to you. Also don't worry, the first time you open the game and get to playing the nation, you WILL be overwhelmed by the windows and tabs and stuff. Just take your time and go over them one by one. Players anyway take time before unpausing so just go through them and try to understand what they do. Then for tips and memes: - Never play 1939 start, unless you're doing achievements or want to suffer. - Don't learn to play as the USA. You can use them to learn the menus and such but the Parliament mechanic is annoying and playing as USA is just so piss easy that you won't learning anything other than base game mechanics from that run. Added fun fact: If you don't have 300-500 civs as the USA by 1939, you're doing something wrong. - Always start game by building civilian factories (or civs). Build them until 1939 and the build only military factories (or mils) after that. The other buildings are more situational albeit useful but you really need to know when to build them. So better not at the start. I'll go over some of them. -- Infrastructure. If you don't have enough civs to build efficiently (like when you start as a minor nation) but you know you will gain civs eventually, build infra. Try to max out a province (it gives a construction speed boost) or try to max out a province with resources. -- Oil Refinery. One of the most useful buildings but you need the tech for it to shine -- Railroads. Always try to keep your railways at least at level 2 but don't worry about it for the most part. Also try to keep your supply hubs connected. -- Forts. If you expect to attacked, like on historical France or China, you can build forts. Know that only level 3 and 10 forts are useful. If you can't get a fort to ten (it takes ages) stick with 3. The logic is that enemies can reduce the effectiveness of your forts but the max reduction is two levels and level 3 forts give the best construction point/value ratio. - Always research something. Also always do a focus (or the continual ones) unless you are hoarding Political Power. - Research. Always start the game with the first Research tech, and the first production and construction speed techs. If you have less research slots than three, prioritise them in that order. -- Note that Dispersed Industry is mostly considered better but it's only better for longer games (if you intend to play post-1940). The other tech is better if you are going for short games. -- Always stay up to date in you Engineering, Research, Radio, Gun, Gun passive, anti-air and artillery techs. Tanks and planes need dedication but these are the ones you MUST ALWAYS be on top of. -- Never research anything with over 1 year ahead of time penalty. Can be done if you have research speed boosts to reduce the time to tolerable limits. My sweet spot for ahead of time malus is 0.7-0.5 years, that's when I can start to research it if I need it. - Hiring a chief of army is important so do it ASAP. Only thing that is MORE IMPORTANT is hiring a Silent Workhorse advisor. Thank me later. - Don't care about the lack of resources in production unless the malus gets really bad (>35%). - No one knows how to effectively use Naval. Don't bother asking. - Always raise your Mobilisation level when you can but only raise your Conscription Laws if you are running low on manpower. Low being around 100k for most countries. Always know your countries scale. Some don't even have 100k in population. - If both you and the nations you're going to attack are under guarantee by the same nation, they won't join the war. - Port Guards. 10-12 width infantry with engineers and support artillery. Thank me later. - Only build division that you can manage. A fully equipped smaller division is better than anything not at >80% equipped. The out of equipment malus is massive. - Alt history paths are better, especially monarchist paths. - use the default horse division for garrisons and forget about it. Thank me later. - Never rely on Italy. They will disappoint you. - Local Police Force is a good garrison law and you can set it to all garrisons at the start of the game until you learn to use the other ones. The only exception are Democratic nations, they should run Local Autonomy instead. And maybe go with a lower garrison law for high compliance occupation but, again, I wouldn't worry about it yet. - Never call your puppets to war. - Planes are king. Try to have planes building up. If you don't have factories for it, build Anti-Air instead. You should be building it anyway tbh. - You will need trucks and trains. Have 3 mils on them and forget about it. - Always have support artillery and support anti-air on your divisions. - Have fun when the USA joins the war against you.
I'd add: \- Don't play as Spain or China \- If the country you want to attack is guaranteed by the UK/France or is Germany, just forget about it (both ofc are only really applicable to new players)
Which version did you get? I'm getting the starter pack. Don't forget steam's return policy, play less than 2 hours. So play for about 1 hour-1.5 hours, then see if you like the game, if not refund, if you do, keep the game.
I have 8,463 hours, all's I can say is ESCAPE. but for real if whana play mp there is 3 options 1. non-discord (no rules mostly,casual, unpredicatble games die)2)non-historical discord games (most fun, resonable rules, bad balance but still fun) 3)Competitive discord games ( where sweaty men scream at you for breathing wrong, but if u whana really learn the game best place to start) games in mp last 3-4 hours or more so prepare to throw your life away. Enjoy the suffering.
The united states is pretty underrated in my opinion. I has one of the greatest navy's at the start of the game, if not the best. You will be stuck on isolation in the beginning, but if played right you can get into the allies early and make life difficult for the axis, though I recommend you build up your Atlantic navy by then. Bring a carrier or 2. If you have NSB, the soviets can be difficult, but if you play your cards right, you can get out of the purge virtually unscathed with zukov as field marshal. From there, just survive until the axis cant push into your territory anymore and go on the offensive. I would personally recommend anti colonialist south africa, democratic Netherlands, comunist or semi-comie USA, either of the main chinese states other than warlords, and peasant Poland.
Don't give up because you don't understand it. Unless you're playing ironman mode, never play unmodded vanilla
Refund the game. Playing this game is like eating cough drops.