Someone should probably make a mod at least starting Benelux with guarantees from England and France.
Constructing a HoI4 Germany Guide
- Thread starter Tanicius
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I'm gonna try blitzing Netherlands tonight. Before it turned out to be an awful idea when I attacked them, as britain and france were guarantees of their independence and of course shit went downhill very fast.
Yeah. I have a feeling that that will get fixed by PI, even.
And seriously, that Netherlands / Pacific Ocean-colonies-coup-rubber exploit defeats one of the whole points of the Axis's war strategy, which was to secure vital resources they did not yet have access to. If you're going to get your rubber through such an absurd exploit, then you might as well just acquire your resources via console commands, because they share the same realism value of 0.
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Well, the resources are a nice bonus, but to be honest the main reason why I figured I'd try this route was to get a quick route around the Maginot line and a staging area for the war on the UK. If you want to keep things more "realistic" you could just have the colonial holdings break off when the mainland gets conquered. They'd be a pushover, but you'd still need to actually ship troops over to control the area.
Well, the gamey aspect of it is that controlling some islands in the Pacific would have no bearing on whether you can actually get that rubber to mainland Germany. Japan could just as easily control that rubber in their inevitable takeover of the Dutch Indies. That doesn't matter when the UK sinks pretty much every convoy you send, but of course the designers forgot to model the UK blockade in version 1.0.
Thanks for the guide. In my first game I stalled during Barbarossa. I probably didn't have enough divisions but I still don't understand why my better tech didn't help.
I used the guide and followed the historical sequence (Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland), but started the war in mid 38. I also fabricated claims against Holland and Belgium at that point, to avoid the long delay of using the Focus. This resulted in the fall of France in September 1938 and I did a rush on England. I got across safely but my navy and air-force got destroyed covering the crossing. The UK fell in January 1939 (peace treaty as US hadn't joined). I got drawn into the Winter War. I wasn't ready for Russia but used everything I had and they fell in March 1940.
The unintended pace resulted in me having almost no artillery, very few Panzer 3s, and only half the MOT/ARMD that I intended. My air-force had still not recovered from invading England, so I had about 200 fighters when the war started with Russia. On the early start of that war, I had accepted Finland into the Axis (knowing the risk) and then they asked me to join the Winter War. I had 28 days to respond. It was late so I went to bed. When I restarted the game, I was automatically at war so I lost the only 4 weeks of prep time!
It's important to understand the mechanics of the game but I am annoyed at those who say it is broken. The more we game the situation, the more unrealistic the outcomes. I will game it, when I am going for an achievement but I will set personal rules when I want a challenge.
I used the guide and followed the historical sequence (Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland), but started the war in mid 38. I also fabricated claims against Holland and Belgium at that point, to avoid the long delay of using the Focus. This resulted in the fall of France in September 1938 and I did a rush on England. I got across safely but my navy and air-force got destroyed covering the crossing. The UK fell in January 1939 (peace treaty as US hadn't joined). I got drawn into the Winter War. I wasn't ready for Russia but used everything I had and they fell in March 1940.
The unintended pace resulted in me having almost no artillery, very few Panzer 3s, and only half the MOT/ARMD that I intended. My air-force had still not recovered from invading England, so I had about 200 fighters when the war started with Russia. On the early start of that war, I had accepted Finland into the Axis (knowing the risk) and then they asked me to join the Winter War. I had 28 days to respond. It was late so I went to bed. When I restarted the game, I was automatically at war so I lost the only 4 weeks of prep time!
It's important to understand the mechanics of the game but I am annoyed at those who say it is broken. The more we game the situation, the more unrealistic the outcomes. I will game it, when I am going for an achievement but I will set personal rules when I want a challenge.
greetings 
one question, is it somehow possible clone german tech tree to i have pics of panzers n stuff except blank tanks or planes places?
thanks
one question, is it somehow possible clone german tech tree to i have pics of panzers n stuff except blank tanks or planes places?
thanks
In response to your earlier comments as well around gamey. Notice it's a guide... Not a discussion on how to play sub optimally or badly for role playing purpose. Sure role playing types may not like it, but it wouldn't be a guide if we didn't give optimal advice.
Also seems kind of silly to unilaterally declare what developer intention was on how the game was meant to be played, but I would hazard a guess that if they didn't think Germany should be able to do early dows ... They wouldn't have designed the system so gurantees can only happen at 25 tension.
You should create a great seperate guide on how to sub optimally play Germany for elitists.
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I would like to add some thoughts here.
Having played a few games as Germany with Historical AI, Normal on Ironman and have made it to 48 with 4 or 5 of them and the majority of the time I get the same results.
Civilian factories are a huge time sink and waste IMO and in my last three games I have never built any and all three times have made it to 48 easily. I get the the guy who gives the bonus to military construction time first then swap to war economy. I also never build any of the synthetic factories anymore either. Doing that allows me to pump out a large amount of military factories and quite a few dockyards since I like having a few BB focused fleets.
If making a large surface fleet isnt your thing you can just pump out as many as military factories as you want instead and skip the naval rearmament focuses, this will save on resources over trying to supply both naval and military factories and you can even entirely drop production to take it to the extreme.
I also no longer drop arty production either I just micromanage my production and juggle factories around until I get a slight surplus per day with it and I have a few more factories. This isnt really a problem and had I dropped half or all of my dockyard production I could had easily been overproducing all ground force supplies.
To give an example, the last (current) game I played as Germany I didn't go to war until 1940 and I had 2 BB focused fleets and a third with a single carrier and screen, two small Uboat fleets. 71 ships in total.
180+ infantry divisions and around another 30 light tanks and 20 or so motorized but I was short on fighters by about 500 units give or take 100. That shortage could have easily been balanced out had I cut CAS and Naval bomber production some and I wont be making that mistake with my new game tonight but it wasnt a major game changer as I only really lost coverage of France and Greece as I shuffled planes around.
I also had a few paratrooper units trained up and ready to land in London and Paris so I could leave the Netherlands and Belgium alone. I feel pretty strongly that I could have knocked down France, England and Poland in under 6 months to a year by dropping troops into the capitals and avoiding the french forts and English navy.
Also I never intervene in the Spanish civil war anymore as it simply raises world tension too much and Japan always manages to muck things up as well. France and England will ally every time at 25% tension. My goal is always to conquer/annex as much as I can as quickly and peacefully as I can to avoid building civilian factories. I also stopped letting Japan into the Axis along with Italy because they always drag the U.S into the war and I like keeping things as small as I can.
If you want to get in on the SCW just send two tanks, its all it takes and I can easily win it every time. Dont even make any plans just put Rommel as the leader and line drive for Madrid, then send one tank to cut off the ports in the south and send the other along the coast into the last major city. On normal, iron man the AI never reacts fast enough to stop you and the war is over inside 1-2 months tops.
Also, juggle the advisers based on what you are going to build/research next to get the bonus to that thing then dump them for someone else. When I am done researching industry for the moment I swap to the electronics bonus and grab some of them at 10% off.
If you want to play the long game get the political power bonus people and start boosting fascism everywhere and improving relations while building up your forces and just dont go to war. let the rest of the world bleed its military out then jump in and mop up.
Edit.
I also like to place all my normal infantry under a field marshal, give him a fall back line and a bogus attack plan. Let him sit and dig in for the bonus.
Give your good units, tanks, motorized and specialized units to a general, they will be doing the actual attacking wile the FM just holds the line and fills the gaps. You can easily create pincer attacks and get good encirclement movements going.
Having played a few games as Germany with Historical AI, Normal on Ironman and have made it to 48 with 4 or 5 of them and the majority of the time I get the same results.
Civilian factories are a huge time sink and waste IMO and in my last three games I have never built any and all three times have made it to 48 easily. I get the the guy who gives the bonus to military construction time first then swap to war economy. I also never build any of the synthetic factories anymore either. Doing that allows me to pump out a large amount of military factories and quite a few dockyards since I like having a few BB focused fleets.
If making a large surface fleet isnt your thing you can just pump out as many as military factories as you want instead and skip the naval rearmament focuses, this will save on resources over trying to supply both naval and military factories and you can even entirely drop production to take it to the extreme.
I also no longer drop arty production either I just micromanage my production and juggle factories around until I get a slight surplus per day with it and I have a few more factories. This isnt really a problem and had I dropped half or all of my dockyard production I could had easily been overproducing all ground force supplies.
To give an example, the last (current) game I played as Germany I didn't go to war until 1940 and I had 2 BB focused fleets and a third with a single carrier and screen, two small Uboat fleets. 71 ships in total.
180+ infantry divisions and around another 30 light tanks and 20 or so motorized but I was short on fighters by about 500 units give or take 100. That shortage could have easily been balanced out had I cut CAS and Naval bomber production some and I wont be making that mistake with my new game tonight but it wasnt a major game changer as I only really lost coverage of France and Greece as I shuffled planes around.
I also had a few paratrooper units trained up and ready to land in London and Paris so I could leave the Netherlands and Belgium alone. I feel pretty strongly that I could have knocked down France, England and Poland in under 6 months to a year by dropping troops into the capitals and avoiding the french forts and English navy.
Also I never intervene in the Spanish civil war anymore as it simply raises world tension too much and Japan always manages to muck things up as well. France and England will ally every time at 25% tension. My goal is always to conquer/annex as much as I can as quickly and peacefully as I can to avoid building civilian factories. I also stopped letting Japan into the Axis along with Italy because they always drag the U.S into the war and I like keeping things as small as I can.
If you want to get in on the SCW just send two tanks, its all it takes and I can easily win it every time. Dont even make any plans just put Rommel as the leader and line drive for Madrid, then send one tank to cut off the ports in the south and send the other along the coast into the last major city. On normal, iron man the AI never reacts fast enough to stop you and the war is over inside 1-2 months tops.
Also, juggle the advisers based on what you are going to build/research next to get the bonus to that thing then dump them for someone else. When I am done researching industry for the moment I swap to the electronics bonus and grab some of them at 10% off.
If you want to play the long game get the political power bonus people and start boosting fascism everywhere and improving relations while building up your forces and just dont go to war. let the rest of the world bleed its military out then jump in and mop up.
Edit.
I also like to place all my normal infantry under a field marshal, give him a fall back line and a bogus attack plan. Let him sit and dig in for the bonus.
Give your good units, tanks, motorized and specialized units to a general, they will be doing the actual attacking wile the FM just holds the line and fills the gaps. You can easily create pincer attacks and get good encirclement movements going.
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Nice guide, Tanicius. I've tried two runs as Germany, only to see my airforce demolished in the first few weeks. I'll try your guide and see what goes w/ the next one.
In regard to sending your tanks to the Spanish Civil War, it is absolutely possible to crush the Republican before the end of Summer, sending volunteers to crush Ethiopia faster is also a good idea since the Italian will also send volunteers to Franco once they won(plus you don't have to worry about Ethiopia still being around when you invade Poland)
One thing I REALLY recommend is sending volunteers to Japan when they Invade China, but Japan will generate more than 100% World Tension annexing them, allowing anyone to go to war with anyone for whatever reason. It's a double edged sword, on one hand, you remove Japan most dreadful front, boosting their industrial strengh and exposing the Soviet Union and British Rajs to Invasion... On the other hands, with World Tensions so high, the allies are pretty much free to guarantee anyone they want and could even declare war on you right out of nowhere, plus minors possibly joining them.
Then again, maybe I went overkill by sending Rommel, Guderian and von Manstein to China in Panzers IIIs
Even Hitler did Nazi this comming
EDIT : I will probably not upgrade my divisions so soon now, it's true it just waste ressources before 1939
One thing I REALLY recommend is sending volunteers to Japan when they Invade China, but Japan will generate more than 100% World Tension annexing them, allowing anyone to go to war with anyone for whatever reason. It's a double edged sword, on one hand, you remove Japan most dreadful front, boosting their industrial strengh and exposing the Soviet Union and British Rajs to Invasion... On the other hands, with World Tensions so high, the allies are pretty much free to guarantee anyone they want and could even declare war on you right out of nowhere, plus minors possibly joining them.
Then again, maybe I went overkill by sending Rommel, Guderian and von Manstein to China in Panzers IIIs
Even Hitler did Nazi this comming
EDIT : I will probably not upgrade my divisions so soon now, it's true it just waste ressources before 1939
Is there any reason to try to turn Brittan fascist. I tried this and forced a coup but the coup stood no chance unless i joined wars. Is there a chance they will elect fascists? If they do will they remain in the Allies?
The answewr is: Yes, No, Depends.
1. Yes they can turn fascist
2. No they wont stay with allies for long
Thanks for your input. Next try I'll have to stick it out and wait for the fascist to take over without forcing a coup.
I did 3 fabrications. Then declare on one war goal first. Seems to lost the other two war goal when peace trigger.
The day 1 get claim and subsequent war on Netherlands is a vert god way to Get yourself self-sufficient. The war is mostly executed in max 7 days. After that you have a surpulus of every resource.
Thats true but than you have to worry and defend in Asia. The Sumatra Netherland Reich has no such problems, at last he got ignored until i opened Suez late in the war and was able to send reinforcements.
Also World Tension....i used the *free* amount to conquer Sweden at start for all the metall and a Coup cost only minimal..2% or so.
Sweden and Netherland at same time would start the World War way too early for me so had to pick.
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