Getting pissed. How the hell do you declare war?

[Revshawn]

What is this crap with neutrality points and threat levels? What kind of bullshit is this?

Revshawn, newbie here. I'm playing as Mexico and I want to build a South America empire, culminating in a war with the USA. The problem is that I have no idea how the F*** to play this game and I don't know how to declare war, or war in general. Can someone at least tell me how to get to the point where I can declare war on other nations? That by itself would be pretty helpful.

 

[Revshawn]

Wrong forum by the way. Can someone move this to the main HOI3 forum?

 

[peterhoi3]

There is no bullshit in the game in this respect.

What is this crap with neutrality points and threat levels? What kind of bullshit is this?

Revshawn, newbie here. I'm playing as Mexico and I want to build a South America empire, culminating in a war with the USA. The problem is that I have no idea how the F*** to play this game and I don't know how to declare war, or war in general. Can someone at least tell me how to get to the point where I can declare war on other nations? That by itself would be pretty helpful.

There is no bullshit in the game in this respect. You should be more humble and respectful in how you speak, taking into account your game ignorance.

If you do not like the subtleties of neutrality and threat you can cheat. Open the console (Alt + 2,1) and write ¨noneutrality¨. Then close the console (ALT +2,1) and that´s it, you are no longer neutral.

 

[Revshawn]

There is no bullshit in the game in this respect. You should be more humble and respectful in how you speak, taking into account your game ignorance.

If you do not like the subtleties of neutrality and threat you can cheat. Open the console (Alt + 2,1) and write ¨noneutrality¨. Then close the console (ALT +2,1) and that´s it, you are no longer neutral.

Ok. Here's what you do. You go blow 50$ on a game and expansion over Steam that you buy on account of Europa Universalis 3 being such a good game, and you want to support Paradox and their future endeavors. 50$ that you can neither get refunded nor compensated because it is an online product. You read that the game is very complex, but you trust that the provided tutorial will provide you with all the tools you need to play the game. And it doesn't. All it does is shows you the general interface of the game, and that's it! You're left to learn the game on your own.

I'm relatively new to the Hearts if Iron series. I don't know if Hearts of Iron 1 or 2 was easier, and they just stacked things on in addition to it so that the veteran gamers would be happy for new material or what they did. Either way, the learning curb is so tremendous that I have no idea where to start. Is it better to lower my own neutrality, and how do I do that? Is it better to try to raise the threat of my enemies? Can I even do these things efficiently as a country like Mexico on the Western Hemisphere with the USA Superpower drifting so close nearby?

The questions are as numerous as there are stars in the sky, and I get frustrated when they are not answered. That's why I am irritated. And I deserve rightly to do so! I am a customer that paid for their game and I am unsatisfied with the finished product! At least with Europa Universalis 3, the game is flexible enough so that you can mess around with it and slowly figure out the game. With HOI3, you can't do any of that. You're left to this huge interface where they provide the briefest explanation to what each control does, and you're somehow expected to take your country and raise it into a huge empire.

So I ask again. Is there someone out there that can at least shoot me a link to the game manual? Or someone that can tell me the quickest way to wage war against another nation so I can start to learn the game? Please.

 

[unmerged(65128)]

Ok. Here's what you do. You go blow 50$ on a game and expansion over Steam that you buy on account of Europa Universalis 3 being such a good game, and you want to support Paradox and their future endeavors. 50$ that you can neither get refunded nor compensated because it is an online product. You read that the game is very complex, but you trust that the provided tutorial will provide you with all the tools you need to play the game. And it doesn't. All it does is shows you the general interface of the game, and that's it! You're left to learn the game on your own.

I'm relatively new to the Hearts if Iron series. I don't know if Hearts of Iron 1 or 2 was easier, and they just stacked things on in addition to it so that the veteran gamers would be happy for new material or what they did. Either way, the learning curb is so tremendous that I have no idea where to start. Is it better to lower my own neutrality, and how do I do that? Is it better to try to raise the threat of my enemies? Can I even do these things efficiently as a country like Mexico on the Western Hemisphere with the USA Superpower drifting so close nearby?

The questions are as numerous as there are stars in the sky, and I get frustrated when they are not answered. That's why I am irritated. And I deserve rightly to do so! I am a customer that paid for their game and I am unsatisfied with the finished product! At least with Europa Universalis 3, the game is flexible enough so that you can mess around with it and slowly figure out the game. With HOI3, you can't do any of that. You're left to this huge interface where they provide the briefest explanation to what each control does, and you're somehow expected to take your country and raise it into a huge empire.

So I ask again. Is there someone out there that can at least shoot me a link to the game manual? Or someone that can tell me the quickest way to wage war against another nation so I can start to learn the game? Please.

Apparently you didnt bother reading the tutorial? It's all there pretty much on black and white. Just look at the gamersgate site were you got the game.

 

[jmschaub]

You can use your intelligence screen to lower your neutrality. Also concentrate on the target country and increase threat level. Now you also will have to contend with the treaty with the US. But that will eventually expire, and there are a couple of countries that aren't protected by this, I think Cuba is one example.

 

[mathers]

The Strategy Guide can be found here:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=416099

There is a very good Wiki at
http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi3wiki/Main_Page

And do not forget. Starting in 36 Mexico wouldnt be able to Warmonger much in Central America in real life either. At first the goverment of it should have difficulty to explain its people why do they want to declare war on someone. It is a long process to convince local population to convince war is necessity. Put more war loving news in internal sources and at the same time forge proofs that your intended target is the bad boy (And convince US that it is in its own self interest to support/tolerate your warmongering).

In HoI3 terms: It in general takes several year to be free to declare war: Using intelligence increase threat of your target and decrease neutrality of your own.

You might want to join Axis as well with its known consequences....

An all this not guarantee US will not intervene....

 

[unmerged(65128)]

USA will most certainly interfere probably UK to since they have a shared interest there along with USA.

 

[unmerged(91248)]

I'd advise you to play as Spain or Italy for your first game if you want some combat quickly. Also they're not too big, so it shouldn't melt your mind.

 

[unmerged(187441)]

Don't try Spain, for all that is good in life!

The civil war is a terrible teacher for how HOI works, because there are not enough troops to build anything resembling a front.

If you want combat early, go with Hungary, and set spies to lower your neutrality.

Now, as far as complexity goes, HOI3 makes EU3 look like Risk. But, since you bought it, you can download a strategy guide from this very forum to get you started.

The game is just too complex to teach in a tutorial: You might as well ask for a 10 minute tutorial of Advanced Squad Leader.

 

[Darkrenown]

Reading the manual might be a nice place to start:

Any country can declare war upon another country
which has a Threat value beyond its own Neutrality.

So if you have, say, 60 neutrality you can DoW anyone that has at least 60 threat. If you can't declare war you'll want to both lower your neutrality and raise your target's threat.

 

[Krocsyldiphic]

okay guys, come on. Even if he is unfriendly let's try to help him out as good as we can:

1. The manual is available on Steam. Right click on the game in Steam and select "view player manual". If the player manual does not show up, look at the link in steam and copy it in the webbrowser. The reason for the manual not showing is steams or adobes fault, don't know. The manual is there, steam just refuses to download huge PDFs.

2. The neutrality/threat system is in place to simulate that you can't make decisions against your country. You might want to wage war against your neighbour, but, if you don't have a reason, your people, Generals, Parliament, whatever just scream "NO!!!" and you can't do it.

You want to go to war?
Two possibilities:
First: The country you want to go to war against must be a threat to you. Your people must fear the country. They must agree with your will to go to war against that country. This is simulated by threat. Your spies can increase the threat of a country (propaganda).
Second: You don't care about threat, you just want to intervene. Meaning you give up your neutrality. But this means, your country, ministers, etc must be not neutral. You have to lower your neutrality level. You can do that, again, with spies.

Now, you can declare war when your neutrality is lower than the enemies threat. So either high threat by the enemy or missing neutrality on your side allows you to declare war.

If you feel this is overly complicated, you can use the cheat mentioned above. The idea of this system is, that no unrealistic wars occur and destroy your experience of HoI3. If you want unrealistic Wars, you have to cheat.

Does this help you?

edit:
Now if you are new to HoI3, I recommend to you to play a nation that is meant to go to War, like Germany. Germany is actually very easy to play, has a well connected landmass and does not overwhelm you with a huge navy (like Italy). And after playing Germany you might appreciate the neutrality/threat system more, because it's what keeps the USA from attacking you too early or from small scale wars popping up around you.

 

[peterhoi3]

There are some quite interesting tutorials posted in youtube. Among some others this one seems to be very extensive, in 16 chapters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIE8bASuOtY

If you know nothing about the game you should follow some of these tutorials to get a general idea of all aspects of the game and then little by little learn the details.

The tutorials are all for Hoi3, I have not yet seen any for Semper Fi, but I guess these will appear sooner or later.

 

[Darkrenown]

Also, if you just google "hoi3 manual", it's the very first hit.

It's all very well wanting help with a new game, but vehemently demanding answers when it's clear he's made no effort to actually look for himself is a bit much.

 

[unmerged(148805)]

okay guys, come on. Even if he is unfriendly let's try to help him out as good as we can:

Why?

While I applaud your sentiments, there are already a large number of rude and arrogant individuals on this forum. From my point of view, I see no point helping them since this gives them no incentive to improve their attitude.

Afterall, if being arrogant gets them what they want why should they take the time to re-phrase their posts in a more acceptable manner?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Why?

While I applaud your sentiments, there are already a large number of rude and arrogant individuals on this forum. From my point of view, I see no point helping them since this gives them no incentive to improve their attitude.

Afterall, if being arrogant gets them what they want why should they take the time to re-phrase their posts in a more acceptable manner?

Let's not get into that discussion, he has received a warning for the tone of his first post, that should be enough.

 

[Breyer]

At least with Europa Universalis 3, the game is flexible enough so that you can mess around with it and slowly figure out the game. With HOI3, you can't do any of that. You're left to this huge interface where they provide the briefest explanation to what each control does, and you're somehow expected to take your country and raise it into a huge empire.

No, your not. This is not europa universalis. You are not expected to take any country and raise it into a huge empire. Lots of people try to do exactly that, and I never see them complaining. The game is meant to play ww2, so for you i would recommend either playing as germany/japan/ussr or realizing that as mexico, at least until you learn how to play the game, your gonna end up helping a major power at best.

So again, if you wanna make a huge empire, wrong game. People normally do that for fun, not as a matter of course.

 

[unmerged(148805)]

Let's not get into that discussion, he has received a warning for the tone of his first post, that should be enough.

My apologies.

 

[unmerged(57661)]

it is easier to open your country's txt file and edit neutrality there.

find MEX - Mexico.txt in the folder

Program Files\Paradox Interactive\Hearts of Iron III\history\countries

then edit your neutrality to the point you want.

 

[vertinox]

Ok. Here's what you do. You go blow 50$ on a game and expansion over Steam that you buy on account of Europa Universalis 3 being such a good game, and you want to support Paradox and their future endeavors. 50$ that you can neither get refunded nor compensated because it is an online product. You read that the game is very complex, but you trust that the provided tutorial will provide you with all the tools you need to play the game. And it doesn't. All it does is shows you the general interface of the game, and that's it! You're left to learn the game on your own.

I'm relatively new to the Hearts if Iron series. I don't know if Hearts of Iron 1 or 2 was easier, and they just stacked things on in addition to it so that the veteran gamers would be happy for new material or what they did. Either way, the learning curb is so tremendous that I have no idea where to start. Is it better to lower my own neutrality, and how do I do that? Is it better to try to raise the threat of my enemies? Can I even do these things efficiently as a country like Mexico on the Western Hemisphere with the USA Superpower drifting so close nearby?

The questions are as numerous as there are stars in the sky, and I get frustrated when they are not answered. That's why I am irritated. And I deserve rightly to do so! I am a customer that paid for their game and I am unsatisfied with the finished product! At least with Europa Universalis 3, the game is flexible enough so that you can mess around with it and slowly figure out the game. With HOI3, you can't do any of that. You're left to this huge interface where they provide the briefest explanation to what each control does, and you're somehow expected to take your country and raise it into a huge empire.

So I ask again. Is there someone out there that can at least shoot me a link to the game manual? Or someone that can tell me the quickest way to wage war against another nation so I can start to learn the game? Please.

If you want to declare war, willy nilly, you need to first start as a dictatorship and use your spies to lower your neutrality. Say like Argentina.

Democracies can eventually get there, but it takes a while.

You should play as a hostile major first... Say Germany, Japan, or Soviet Union.

Actually Japan gets into the action before anyone else. Germany can get in earlier than the Danzig or War event but they'll be underpowered.

With the Soviets, if you beat the initial German invasion you can basically roflstomp the rest of the world.

The point of you nations not being able to declare war has to do with plausibility and realism, as most people complain when the USA enters the war too soon. Or if the Allies declare war on the Germans before 1939.