I know that it is distressing to some people that at times HOI4 does not mimic the actual struggle on the Eastern Front, mainly years of back and forth, intense, death struggle combat. I'd like to share my experiences from a game I just completed to give an example that this can happen in the game, even while dealing with some of the problems people point out.
I decided to try out Turkey based on a previous thread. One thing I have learned from HOI play is that you better make sure your equipment is sufficient so in my early days with Turkey I used my limited resources to build up infantry equipment. I knew I was going Fascist so was setting Fall 39 as the date I needed to be ready by. It took me a rather long time to bring the Turkish people over to the Axis I was beginning to worry that I would not shore up my initial problems before world wide war - mainly the lack of resources. I finally was able to effect a Fascist take over, justified on Iraq and doing my best W impression went looking for WMDs on 24 September 38. Turkey starts out with a fairly nice sized army and I had concentrated on getting them up to full combat readiness rather than building new divisions. The invasion of Iraq went well and they surrendered on 17 October. After annexing them I had solved my oil shortage. I could now build two units which would assist my infantry divisions - Motorized Infantry and Cavalry backed up with LSPA.
As Europe was speeding along toward war, I decided I wanted a foothold in the Balkans and justified against Bulgaria who had not yet decided if they were going Fascist or Democratic. I invaded them on 19 May 39 and after a couple tough initial fights accepted their surrender on 29 July. A small prelude to the conflict that would soon engulf Europe. Germany started WW2 with all the usual dominos falling. I was immediately worried however because Germany didn't conquer Poland until late October. Usually the AI takes a couple weeks to Poland, this time it took them over a month. That didn't bode well. I went into the war right away with Germany swinging through the Middle East taking out French Palestine, sweeping into Egypt and taking Cairo before 40.
On 22 March 40 I declared war on Greece for their resources which were still a major problem. By 19 May they surrendered. Everything was going well when an international thunderbolt struck - Finland joined the Axis on 8 October 40 and dragged the whole Axis into a war with the Soviet Union. Before this I had luckily reallocated my main army from Greece to the mountainous border with the Soviets so I had divisions there, they did not, the border was undefended. My 30 divisions swarmed forward in a mad, desperate drive for Stalingrad. We reached the outskirts of the city before being driven back by Soviet strategic reserves. The Soviets pushed us back and what followed from that fall into June of 41 was an battle of attrition between us and them. They far outnumbered us but lacked equipment. Finally on June 9 Turkish troops took Stalin's city but our success was short lived. The oft reported problem of AI troop movement struck as the Germans, who had sent troops to assist our advance abandoned our right flank and a Soviet counter offensive threw us back. We lost Stalingrad on 27 June and were forced to contract our lines. I dug in and was forced on the defensive trying to hold onto my gains with limited counter attacks on the Soviets.
The Allies looked ot alleviate the pressure on the Soviets in September when they invaded the Turkish homeland. Romanian allies in the area shuffled around and didn't do anything so I had to scrape together whatever I could from Bulgaria and Greece and rush them into Turkey. On 14 October the invasion was repelled with great losses to the Allies. Troop shuffling had an effect in both of these instances but they actually enhanced the game. Australia and GB attempted an invasion of Iraq from the Persian Gulf in November but they too were turned back. With these invasions turned back I could focus once again the Soviets. I retook Stalingrad in January of 42. Things started to look as the Soviets were in desperate shortage of equipment. I was desperately short of steel, I started making my advances based on where the Soviet steel depots were located. My soldiers were performing heroics - I had no armored divisions at all relying on highly advanced machine guns and anti-tank weapons in my infantry divisions plus the cavalry and motor divisions. Once again though there was a big reversal as Germany DoW on Yugoslavia despite Germany being in desperate straights.
I barely had the men to garrison Bulgaria as I already had to block the ports in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, the Middle East and Southern Iraq. Luckily Romania and Italy were able to at least form a semi-threatening ring around Yugoslavia so they didn't pour through Bulgaria to the gates of Istanbul. Meanwhile in Russia we took Kharkov in early April of 42 linking up with Romanians. Germany no longer had any offensive capability but Romania and us were pushing hard. The USA entered the war on 30 April 42. Now began the desperate struggle. It looked like a frantic race - could the Soviets be knocked out before the Germans fell? The Allies were flooding into Western Europe and it was going to be a near run thing. I was forced to take chances, lost a couple divisions to encirclements but Moscow fell on 3 Sept 42. The Soviet divisions where mere ghosts having barely enough guns to equip recon companies. Leningrad fell on 22 December 42 as the snow fell thick, however the Allies had arrived and Belgian and British troops flooded into the East from a liberated Poland. Leningrad was cut off and 60,000 Turks dug into the city hoping to last out the winter.
1943 was the breaking point for many nations. The Western Allies had liberated most of the, well West. I noted in a manpower post the extreme number of divisions the Allies were able to field. Rome fell on 9 March 43, though Italy was able to recapture it a few weeks later. Germany was 90% to surrender, the Soviets 95%. If the Soviets didn't fall before the Germany the war was lost. Romania and Turkey were desperately trying to close a large pocket of Russians in Poland to force the surrender. On 25 May Yugoslavia finally surrendered caught in a three pronged advance between the remains of Italy, Romania and Turkey. On 12 June Spain surrendered, largely a non factor in the Axis. Finally on 24 July the Soviets surrendered. In the resulting peace conference Germany and I split up the Soviet Union, and the Western part of Russia became the de facto home of Germany as all of their original lands were now occupied except Austria. I now had all the resources I would ever need and no longer had to worry about partizans.
This was not the end however, only the beginning as the war in the East would rage on. A trench line formed in Eastern Russia/Poland. In 43 I fielded my first armored divisions of Modern Tanks. The Allies had countless forces in the East however and the fighting was slow, ponderous and deadly. On 12 October 43 Italy surrendered, the peninsula occupied once and for all. I now had to fight off invasions from Finland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Asia Minor, Africa and Far Eastern Russia (Though Russia there was a puppet). Slowly I was able to grind forward taking Warsaw, Lodz and Posen. For every advance though the Allies would make a landing. Africa turned into a fluid war with the Allies pushing to Cairo and into Iraq then being cut off and me liberating Tobruk. It felt like a desert war. I made new armored divisions from captured T-34s and sent those to Africa.
After several desperate years of struggle on this axis I figure the war would have ended. I called it in September of 46 after 7 years of war I think I managed to fight the most destructive war possible. Since this game only tracks military losses I can't imagine the nations involved would have fought on. The Soviets lost 7 million in the long past concluded Soviet-Finland war. When I called the game in 46 the Western Allies had lost 12 million more. That's a staggering sum. I don't remember the losses from the Axis in the Soviet war, but their losses vs the Allies were 5.2 million. A highly enjoyable game but some game play questions that it raises.
1. The already stated man power of minor nations. Plus war exhaustion. 12 million in losses. I think the game could benefit from some degree of war exhaustion and the possibility of white peace/peace conferences without the need for unconditional surrender. I can't imagine how horrible this 7 year war I just fought must have been for the digital soldiers. I just don't know if any of these nations would have had the stomach for it.
2. Man power allows the creation of many, many units. This really reduces the effectiveness of all your units. First, it is the first time I get game performance issues in that it moves slowly when zoomed in on so many units in 45 and on. Second, it doesn't matter how elite my modern tanks were you can only go so far when confronted with endless enemies. Especially when you can literally be invaded anywhere and constantly have to fight off naval invasions.
3. I like the improved naval invasions and I like that the AI launches them - but they are a bit too frequent. Historically, each naval invasion required a ton of planning, preparation and support once it landed. A suggestion might be that each nation can only have X amount of bridgeheads at any given time. Even with today's military advances, could the USA supply and manage 5 different naval bridgeheads? I am hesitant to limit player options but at one point in 45 I was fighting naval invasions in Finland, Estonia, Vladviosk, Trieste, Southern Greece, 2 in Asia Minor, one in Jerusalem, one in Alexandria and one in the wastes of northern Russia. Some of this might be resolved simply by reducing the man power available to minor nations as they won't be wandering the globe wondering what to do with their 60 divisions.
4. For me, the biggest thing I would like to see addressed is the post WW2 world. All this ties in with the above white peace diplomacy. Right now if you are fighting the Allies you are stuck in one long endless war. My above game could go well into the 50s and I doubt either side could win. While Germany never surrendered I also had man power issues and was on service by requirement. I was never going to push to London or even Paris but they weren't going to get to Istanbul or Moscow either. I really would have liked to play a major power Turkey which I made them into for a year or two of post WW2 peace as we jockey for position in the Cold War.
Even so, it was a highly enjoyable game a real death struggle on the Eastern Front for 3 years with the Soviets then another 3 years against the Allies. A very satisfying experience and a memorable, titanic struggle on the steppe.
I decided to try out Turkey based on a previous thread. One thing I have learned from HOI play is that you better make sure your equipment is sufficient so in my early days with Turkey I used my limited resources to build up infantry equipment. I knew I was going Fascist so was setting Fall 39 as the date I needed to be ready by. It took me a rather long time to bring the Turkish people over to the Axis I was beginning to worry that I would not shore up my initial problems before world wide war - mainly the lack of resources. I finally was able to effect a Fascist take over, justified on Iraq and doing my best W impression went looking for WMDs on 24 September 38. Turkey starts out with a fairly nice sized army and I had concentrated on getting them up to full combat readiness rather than building new divisions. The invasion of Iraq went well and they surrendered on 17 October. After annexing them I had solved my oil shortage. I could now build two units which would assist my infantry divisions - Motorized Infantry and Cavalry backed up with LSPA.
As Europe was speeding along toward war, I decided I wanted a foothold in the Balkans and justified against Bulgaria who had not yet decided if they were going Fascist or Democratic. I invaded them on 19 May 39 and after a couple tough initial fights accepted their surrender on 29 July. A small prelude to the conflict that would soon engulf Europe. Germany started WW2 with all the usual dominos falling. I was immediately worried however because Germany didn't conquer Poland until late October. Usually the AI takes a couple weeks to Poland, this time it took them over a month. That didn't bode well. I went into the war right away with Germany swinging through the Middle East taking out French Palestine, sweeping into Egypt and taking Cairo before 40.
On 22 March 40 I declared war on Greece for their resources which were still a major problem. By 19 May they surrendered. Everything was going well when an international thunderbolt struck - Finland joined the Axis on 8 October 40 and dragged the whole Axis into a war with the Soviet Union. Before this I had luckily reallocated my main army from Greece to the mountainous border with the Soviets so I had divisions there, they did not, the border was undefended. My 30 divisions swarmed forward in a mad, desperate drive for Stalingrad. We reached the outskirts of the city before being driven back by Soviet strategic reserves. The Soviets pushed us back and what followed from that fall into June of 41 was an battle of attrition between us and them. They far outnumbered us but lacked equipment. Finally on June 9 Turkish troops took Stalin's city but our success was short lived. The oft reported problem of AI troop movement struck as the Germans, who had sent troops to assist our advance abandoned our right flank and a Soviet counter offensive threw us back. We lost Stalingrad on 27 June and were forced to contract our lines. I dug in and was forced on the defensive trying to hold onto my gains with limited counter attacks on the Soviets.
The Allies looked ot alleviate the pressure on the Soviets in September when they invaded the Turkish homeland. Romanian allies in the area shuffled around and didn't do anything so I had to scrape together whatever I could from Bulgaria and Greece and rush them into Turkey. On 14 October the invasion was repelled with great losses to the Allies. Troop shuffling had an effect in both of these instances but they actually enhanced the game. Australia and GB attempted an invasion of Iraq from the Persian Gulf in November but they too were turned back. With these invasions turned back I could focus once again the Soviets. I retook Stalingrad in January of 42. Things started to look as the Soviets were in desperate shortage of equipment. I was desperately short of steel, I started making my advances based on where the Soviet steel depots were located. My soldiers were performing heroics - I had no armored divisions at all relying on highly advanced machine guns and anti-tank weapons in my infantry divisions plus the cavalry and motor divisions. Once again though there was a big reversal as Germany DoW on Yugoslavia despite Germany being in desperate straights.
I barely had the men to garrison Bulgaria as I already had to block the ports in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, the Middle East and Southern Iraq. Luckily Romania and Italy were able to at least form a semi-threatening ring around Yugoslavia so they didn't pour through Bulgaria to the gates of Istanbul. Meanwhile in Russia we took Kharkov in early April of 42 linking up with Romanians. Germany no longer had any offensive capability but Romania and us were pushing hard. The USA entered the war on 30 April 42. Now began the desperate struggle. It looked like a frantic race - could the Soviets be knocked out before the Germans fell? The Allies were flooding into Western Europe and it was going to be a near run thing. I was forced to take chances, lost a couple divisions to encirclements but Moscow fell on 3 Sept 42. The Soviet divisions where mere ghosts having barely enough guns to equip recon companies. Leningrad fell on 22 December 42 as the snow fell thick, however the Allies had arrived and Belgian and British troops flooded into the East from a liberated Poland. Leningrad was cut off and 60,000 Turks dug into the city hoping to last out the winter.
1943 was the breaking point for many nations. The Western Allies had liberated most of the, well West. I noted in a manpower post the extreme number of divisions the Allies were able to field. Rome fell on 9 March 43, though Italy was able to recapture it a few weeks later. Germany was 90% to surrender, the Soviets 95%. If the Soviets didn't fall before the Germany the war was lost. Romania and Turkey were desperately trying to close a large pocket of Russians in Poland to force the surrender. On 25 May Yugoslavia finally surrendered caught in a three pronged advance between the remains of Italy, Romania and Turkey. On 12 June Spain surrendered, largely a non factor in the Axis. Finally on 24 July the Soviets surrendered. In the resulting peace conference Germany and I split up the Soviet Union, and the Western part of Russia became the de facto home of Germany as all of their original lands were now occupied except Austria. I now had all the resources I would ever need and no longer had to worry about partizans.
This was not the end however, only the beginning as the war in the East would rage on. A trench line formed in Eastern Russia/Poland. In 43 I fielded my first armored divisions of Modern Tanks. The Allies had countless forces in the East however and the fighting was slow, ponderous and deadly. On 12 October 43 Italy surrendered, the peninsula occupied once and for all. I now had to fight off invasions from Finland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Asia Minor, Africa and Far Eastern Russia (Though Russia there was a puppet). Slowly I was able to grind forward taking Warsaw, Lodz and Posen. For every advance though the Allies would make a landing. Africa turned into a fluid war with the Allies pushing to Cairo and into Iraq then being cut off and me liberating Tobruk. It felt like a desert war. I made new armored divisions from captured T-34s and sent those to Africa.
After several desperate years of struggle on this axis I figure the war would have ended. I called it in September of 46 after 7 years of war I think I managed to fight the most destructive war possible. Since this game only tracks military losses I can't imagine the nations involved would have fought on. The Soviets lost 7 million in the long past concluded Soviet-Finland war. When I called the game in 46 the Western Allies had lost 12 million more. That's a staggering sum. I don't remember the losses from the Axis in the Soviet war, but their losses vs the Allies were 5.2 million. A highly enjoyable game but some game play questions that it raises.
1. The already stated man power of minor nations. Plus war exhaustion. 12 million in losses. I think the game could benefit from some degree of war exhaustion and the possibility of white peace/peace conferences without the need for unconditional surrender. I can't imagine how horrible this 7 year war I just fought must have been for the digital soldiers. I just don't know if any of these nations would have had the stomach for it.
2. Man power allows the creation of many, many units. This really reduces the effectiveness of all your units. First, it is the first time I get game performance issues in that it moves slowly when zoomed in on so many units in 45 and on. Second, it doesn't matter how elite my modern tanks were you can only go so far when confronted with endless enemies. Especially when you can literally be invaded anywhere and constantly have to fight off naval invasions.
3. I like the improved naval invasions and I like that the AI launches them - but they are a bit too frequent. Historically, each naval invasion required a ton of planning, preparation and support once it landed. A suggestion might be that each nation can only have X amount of bridgeheads at any given time. Even with today's military advances, could the USA supply and manage 5 different naval bridgeheads? I am hesitant to limit player options but at one point in 45 I was fighting naval invasions in Finland, Estonia, Vladviosk, Trieste, Southern Greece, 2 in Asia Minor, one in Jerusalem, one in Alexandria and one in the wastes of northern Russia. Some of this might be resolved simply by reducing the man power available to minor nations as they won't be wandering the globe wondering what to do with their 60 divisions.
4. For me, the biggest thing I would like to see addressed is the post WW2 world. All this ties in with the above white peace diplomacy. Right now if you are fighting the Allies you are stuck in one long endless war. My above game could go well into the 50s and I doubt either side could win. While Germany never surrendered I also had man power issues and was on service by requirement. I was never going to push to London or even Paris but they weren't going to get to Istanbul or Moscow either. I really would have liked to play a major power Turkey which I made them into for a year or two of post WW2 peace as we jockey for position in the Cold War.
Even so, it was a highly enjoyable game a real death struggle on the Eastern Front for 3 years with the Soviets then another 3 years against the Allies. A very satisfying experience and a memorable, titanic struggle on the steppe.
