Hearts Of Iron: Take Three.

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

Hearts Of Iron: Take Three.
A TFH tutorial.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to an expansion of my Hearts Of Iron III tutorial. This adjunct will deal primarily with the last expansion, Their Finest Hour.

I am going to do this a bit different from “Germany: Take Two”, my For The Motherland tutorial. I will not deal with a single country exclusively. Instead, I will play a couple of mini-campaigns with different countries. Each mini-campaign will focus on a certain aspect of the game. After that, I will put it all together in a Germany campign.

Important note: I will not go into details about the basics of the game that have not changed since For The Motherland. Instead, I suggest you read chapters 1 through 4 of “Take Two”. Nothing in these chapters has changed since I posted them. You can find the tutorial in my signature or in the Hearts Of Iron III Major Threads sticky. At certain parts of the tutorial, I might reference specific chapters from Take Two or quote parts of it, if I find this more efficient.

Doing it this way, allows me to dive right into the important stuff of making the game work.

Written in cooperation with Secret master and 21Oliver.

Content:

CommonCanadian · Jun 12, 2015

Sounds cool. Good luck!

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

CommonCanadian said:
Sounds cool. Good luck!

Thanks.

Avindian · Jun 12, 2015

Unexpected, but very welcome! I'm sure I'll learn something.

Iwo Jima · Jun 12, 2015

hope to see smth new. good luck!

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

Avindian said:
Unexpected, but very welcome! I'm sure I'll learn something.

Iwo Jima said:
hope to see smth new. good luck!

Thank you both. I hope you'll like it, even though you probably won't learn anything new from it.

CptEasy · Jun 12, 2015

Interesting. Very interesting.

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

CptEasy said:
Interesting. Very interesting.

Captain! Welcome to my little corner of the world!

Gormytorysh · Jun 12, 2015

Nice! I hope you can induce me with new insights and such

.

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

Gormytorysh said:
Nice! I hope you can induce me with new insights and such .

That's the general idea

EduJGlez · Jun 12, 2015

Subscribed!
perfect timing... been away from HOI3 for a while and I was coming back, so this is just perfect.

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

Chapter 1: Choosing Your Destiny.

Take Two: It is important to read chapters 5 and 5B which fully explain the mechanics behind diplomacy, threat and neutrality.

Whatever the nation you choose to play, the very first decisions you will have to make are the following: what do I want to achieve and how do I want to achieve this? These questions can be the hardest ones to answer sometimes, especially when you are new to the game, but they are also the most essential ones, because the answers to them will tell you what you need to do before the war starts.

Some metagaming does take place here. Let’s make one thing clear, first and foremost: World War II depends largely on the actions of Germany, and, to a lesser extend, Italy and Japan. So here is a timeline of the usual course of events:

1) Spring 1936: Germany will remilitarise the Rhineland, giving UK and France a small Neutrality reduction.

2) April 1936: By this time, Italy will win the Abessinian War. They usually puppet Ethiopia, but I have seen them annex it as well.

3) 1936: At some point, the Spanish Civil War happens. The direct results are minimal for the countries around Spain, but the outcome of the war (roughly 60% of the time, the fascists will win) will determine whether the allies or Germany have a potential threat to watch out for. They stay neutral 99% of the time, but I have seen Franco react to my invasion of North Africa as the US by mobilising and joining the Axis, endangering the vital gateway into the Mediteranean that is Gibraltar. Note that this is not written in stone. In my hands-off run as Brazil, the civil war didn’t start until January 1938. I have not been able to find the trigger for the SCW in the game files, though.

4) June 1936: France decides on the Popular Front, giving them better National Unity.

5) First half of 1937: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident will allow Japan to declare war on China and Shanxi. Most of the Chinese minors will usually side with Nationalist China. This can be vital for nations with interests in the region, allowing Japan to project their power more easily to the rest of Asia. They will usually join the Axis shortly afterwards. Japan usually annexes Shanxi after a couple of months.

6) March/April 1938: The Anschluss allows Germany to peacefully annex Austria, gaining a lot of Manpower, along with IC and Leadership.

7) September 1938: The Treaty of Munich: Germany grabs the heavily fortified border provinces from Czechoslovakia, which is a first step towards…

8) March 1939: The First Vienna Award: Germany annexes the western half of Czechoslovakia and pupputs the eastern half. At this point, the UK will guarantee Polish independence. This is a pivotal moment in history, as war will be all but inevitable by this point. Shortly afterwards, Germany will take Memel from Lithuania and Italy will annex Albania.Several nations will start to mobilize. Italy usually joins the Axis in 1938 or 1939. Hungary often joins the Axis at this junction as well.

9) 1938-1939: At some point, Japan will enforce their wargoal of annexing most of the Nationalist China coastline, ending the Sino-Japanese war. This has been an addition to TFH, allowing Japan a more free reign in later years during the war against the US in the Pacific.

10) August 1939: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact gives Germany a Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union. By this point, Germany will start mobilising. The threat this raises in other nations, allows most of Europe to mobilise in response as well.

11) September 1939: Danig Or War. Germany launches World War II by invading Poland. They typically need about 4 weeks to defeat Poland. The outbreak of war in Europe allows the US to get rid of the New Deal and begin to ramp up their military production. Several Commonwealth nations join the Allies at this point, Canada nearly always the first one to do so. The Soviets demand eastern Poland for themselves.

12) October 1939: Germany declares war on Denmark, closing off the Baltic Sea from Allied navies in a matter of days, provided they can cross the strait to Copenhagen. UK will take control of Greenland and Iceland.

13) November 1939: Soviet-Finish War: The Soviet Union goes to war to gain vital border provinces, paving the way for Finland later joining the Axis. This war will last for a couple of months. Sometimes the SU wins after 1 month, but I have seen it last into early 1940 as well.

14) March or April 1940: Germany declares war on Norway. By this point anything can happen. Sometimes they lose most of their navy. Sometimes they get stuck in to Norwegian mountains. Usually, though, they need several months to a year. Sweden will usually give them Military Access after their victory.

15) Spring 1940: Germany declares war on Netherlands, overpowering the nation in a short time. This will be followed by DoWs on Luxemburg and Belgium, usually in this order. This will give them a way to bypass the Maginot Line. This is another pivotal moment. Any further German moves will depend on what happens in Norway and the Western Campaign. If you are playing an Allied nation, this is where you have an opportunity to make Germany bleed for every inch of ground. Note that there is simply no way to save an AI France by this point. Their defeat is a foregone conclusion. How much Germany pays for that victory will determine the further course of the war.

16) June 1940: The Soviets demand Bessarabia from Romania, giving Romania an incentive to join the Axis later. Hungary and Bulgaria will opportunistically also take a bite from their Romanian rival.

17) Summer 1940: Soviet Union annexes Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

18) During Germany’s Western campaign, Italy will join the war, forcing the British to pay attention to the Mediteranean theater or risk losing the vital Suez Canal.Anything is possible here. I have seen Italy lose all their African holdings in less than a year, but I have also seen them steamroll everything between Libya and Lebanon. They will almost always lose just about their entire navy in record time.

19) August or September 1940: This is usually when Germany enforces their demands on France, creating Vichy in the process. Japan will lay claim to France’s Vietnam holdings and puppet Siam, putting them within easy range of Singapore and Birma.

20) Fall 1940 to Spring 1941: If Germany is not fighting in France, they will declare war on Yugoslavia. Either they or Italy will declare war on Greece. The combined fall of both Paris and Belgrade (or a massive UK surrender progress) typically enable the US to enact War Economy, start the Undeclared War against German subs, begin handing out Lend-Lease and such more. By this time, Finland, Bugaria and (sometimes, but not always) Romania will have joined the Axis and entered the war on Germany’s side.

21) IF Germany is secure and IF Germany is not fighting in France or Norway and IF Germany feels powerful enough, they will launch Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. These factors are very important. In a recent game, everything went according to plan for Germany, while I was watching from the sidelines as Soviet Union. I think I did a little too good on enlarging the Red Army, though, because there had not been an invasion by 1944. When I checked, about half the German army had been send as Expeditionary Forces to the Axis minors. With both nations under AI control, Barby usually happens in june or July 1941. By this time, predictions become a little troublesome. I don’t think I have ever seen Germany win on the Eastfront, the war dragging on until 1945 or later. Any further Allied moves depend on their success on other fronts as well. Most of the time, the Soviets will cross the Oder river into Germany proper at some point in 1944 or later. Germany will send more forces east to protect Berlin. Quite often, this weakens them in the west to the point where the Allies launch an Overlord-style invasion.

22) November-December 1941: IF they feel powerful enough, Japan attacks Pearl Harbour and the UK. The US join the Allies most of the time, focusing most of their efforts on the Pacific, where 3 years of mutual island hopping tends to keep them both occupied. On those occasions where the US come out on top, they can and do invade Japan, but their ability to invade Manchuria or the Japanese-held coastline of China seems rather limited. Outside of Asia and the Pacific, the US typically has only limited influence when controlled by the AI. The US will almost always declare war on Vichy after joining the Allies, but they will also do nothing about it in most cases. Germany will take mainland Vichy for themselves. The UK’s ability to invade North Africa depends on what has happened so far in the war. Typically, American nations such as Mexico tend to join the Allies at this point.

In most games where player intervention is of no importance, the Soviet Union tends to be the big winner.

Why am I telling you this? The reasons are twofold. Some nations, like the US, depend to a large degree on Axis aggression. Second, not everybody wants to play Major Powers. Not everyone wants to follow history. Sometimes it can be very fascinating and fun to create a “What If” timeline.

Join me next time, as I attempt to do just that and recreate the Austria-Hungarian empire under Romanian flag. See you then!

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

mikerohan said:
Subscribed!
perfect timing... been away from HOI3 for a while and I was coming back, so this is just perfect.

Sorry. I missed you earlier. Welcome back to the game. I hope you'll enjoy the AAR.

Iwo Jima · Jun 12, 2015

misterbean said:
as I attempt to do just that and recreate the Austria-Hungarian empire under Romanian flag. See you then!

Hmm... I already like this idea! I gather my own inspiration to start CZE AAR to do the same)))

I also want to note, that TFH has a lot of new ideas, so your brilliant Take2 AAR should be revised carefully. For example, the role of division generals have increased, because of Combat Tactics Events.

And also, what is your approach to deal with bugs? My highest pain is that half of ministers is useless, but I want to give them some new nice little bonuses in my AAR. It's kind of modding, but I see this as compulsory measure.

misterbean · Jun 12, 2015

Bugs are always a huge pain. Some are easy to fix. Others are not. The ministers being useless is a very old pain that can only be dealt with by modding the game, as you suggest, but it's not something I would advocate new players to start with.

misterbean · Jun 13, 2015

Chapter 2: How to manipulate threat and neutrality.

Allow me to present to you Romania. With this plucky minor, we are going to put an end to the eternal rivalry in the Balkan region and bring about a new era of peace. We are going to do this by reuniting all the former Austria-Hungarian lands through conquest.

This presents us with a couple of dilemmas. First, as I explained in the previous chapter, we need to subdue Austria before February 1938 at the latest. If we are going to be complete, we will also need to take Czechoslovakia before September 1938, if we want to keep the Sudetenland. In other words time is of the essence.

This is our second problem. Hungary is sitting between us and Austria, and will obviously have to go first. Our Neutrality, however, is much too high. As the tooltip explains, we will need to get to 0 Neutrality before we can declare war. Usually, your neutrality will go down on its own as the Soviets and the Germans start expanding their military. This will not be enough to get anything done in time.

We have to lower our neutrality so drastically that we could hopefully be at war by the end of the year. How to do this?

Any nation that has less than 30 IC, gets the decision to Prepare For War. This will change our neutrality drastically, but it will still take a lot of time. Majors can achieve this by ensuring they get massive dissent, which will lower their IC. If you try this, however, make sure that you have enough IC left to pull out of the nosedive you set your nation on.

What will we do in the meantime?

One thing we could do is to make sure our army is as modern as our current tech will allow it to be. Since we don’t have a ton of Manpower or IC, the option to expand our army is not acceptable at the moment anyway.

Our home spies will focus primarily on increasing our National Unity, because some laws require you to be above 70. At the same time, I will be sending spies to both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, where they will increase threat. As the Soviets are already scary enough, in and by themselves, they don’t really need that much of a push, but every bit helps. Yugoslavia, though, is the one that matters, and I will explain why.

Increasing another nation’s threat does not only affect your nation. It also affects everyone else. This effect depends on a combination of proximity, relations and having the same ideology or not. Raising threat too much might send all of Europe into a spiral where everyone starts mobilizing together. As a major, this only gets worse when you do it on the Soviets. In Take Two, I used this to draw all of Eastern Europe into the Axis corner. Now, however, I will need to be careful how far I want to go with it.

Yugoslavia, on the other hand, is a minor, just like us, and the effect they have on, say, the UK or Japan, is nonexistent. I can keep my spies working there for as long as I have to.

What this does mean, is that Yugoslavia has to maintain its independence. If I invade Yugoslavia first, and, by some miracle, manage to win, their threat will end. I would have to start over.

So, as you can see, with some rational deduction, we have come to a clear course of actions.

Hungary will have to go first, partly because they are in the way, partly because we hate each other, and partly because we don’t want to give them an opportunity to join the Axis. I may be reasonably good in this game, but I don’t fancy my chances against the likes of Germany. Austria will be second, followed by Czechoslovakia, because with those nations there is a small window of opportunity.

Since Yugoslavia will have to stay, that means that Bulgaria will come before them. We have to finish Yugoslavia before late 1940 (remember the timeline, when Germany tends to invade Yugoslavia themselves).

Next problem. Romania currently has crappy, democratic laws. Thankfully, by lowering our Neutrality and increasing our National Unity, that problem will erase itself over time.

So, now we know what we want to do. Let’s see what we have to do it with.

First thing I do is to put everyone under the same theater and assigning a Field Marshall with Logistics Wizard talents, to decrease our supply needs. We have 18 infantry divisions. Each one consists simply of 3 infantry brigades. I would like to add artillery to them, but I doubt I could build that many in time. We also have 4 Mountaineer Divisions (each one 2 Mountaineers and an artillery brigade). I take the arty away from them and give those to infantry divisions. Three cavalry divisions. Why not. Might come in handy at some point.

Surprisingly enough, Romania has tanks. They’re crappy tanks, but still, they’re tanks. I split this division in two, each with 1 Light Armour Brigade and 1 Motorised Brigade. This could be good. I can add 2 Armoured Car brigades to each division, which will benefit their speed as well as their Soft Attack.

We also have 1 Interceptor, 1 Tactical Bomber and 1 Naval Bomber. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

The Romanian navy, 1 destroyer flotilla and 1 submarine flotilla, will be all but useless, but I keep them around for now. You never know.

And with that, the waiting game begins. We trade away fuel and crude oil to whomever wants it, in order to pay for Energy, Metal and Rare Materials. These resources fuel our economy. Each IC needs 2 Energy, 1 Metal and ½ Rares. This is another piece of the puzzle. We are going to compete against the big boys. Anything we can do to get better relations with them, helps. As such, I am going to buy Energy exclusively from Germany, Metal from the Soviets and Rares from UK and Italy.

Each trade gives a relations boost of +15. What you should do, is buy in small quantities, so that you have multiple trades going, further increasing your relations. I don’t really do that, in my own games. I just want the resources as fast as possible. But remember that you can do this if you want to play a diplomatic game. Besides, as my laws become better, I will get more IC and require further trades to keep fueling the factories.

I have put my total of 6.48 Leadership points into training spies. Time is of the essence, and research will have to wait.

After little over a month, Neutrality has already dropped about 9 points. And no, I am not planning to commit suicide. Hovering over the “Declare war” button will give you an excellent tooltip to know at a glance exactly what your exact Neutrality is.

By late February, I have 10 spies in both SU and Yugoslavia. I wll now be able to spread my Leadership around some more, putting 4.2 points into research and 0.22 into Diplomacy. There is no point in training officers when we have a Volunteer Army. I am going to research Agriculture and the two Industry techs plus the infantry techs, since those are the most obvious shortcomings.

Late March ’36. We now have Specialist Training (more experienced units but they take longer to build), Three-Year-Draft (More MP, more officers) and War Economy. This last law will raise our IC from its initial 19 to 45 and gives me the IC I need to get started on those Armoured Car brigades. I will need 4 of them (2 for each division), requiring 21.73 IC and they will be done by October. I have 8 Mountain brigades. I reorganise them into 2 divisions with 3 brigades and 1 division with 2 brigades. I will need an extra mountain brigade to round out the last division. This is added to the queu as well.

I also do my next batch of trades for Energy (from Germany), Metal (from the Soviets) and Rares (from Netherlands and Belgium because UK does not want to sell any to me even though they have a surpluss – must be suspicious after my laws upgrade).

The Spanish Civil War has started and I accept Nationalist Spain’s offer to sell me supplies, freeing up 2 extra IC. It might not be much, but beggars can’t be choosers, and every IC counts.

If you do this, make sure to always keep some money in reserve. You don’t want someone to cancel a trade on you and go into the negative at the wrong moment.

By April, my Neutrality has dropped below 50. At this rate, I will be ready for war before the year ends.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but this is a handy new feature in TFH. Hovering over your flag in the corner will give you a list of Strategic Effects and what they do.

By mid-October ’36, our neutrality has dropped to 0 and we can get ready for war, right after I attach my new Armoured Cars to the tank divisions.

This is so much better than those crappy photoshopped arrows from Take Two, isn’t it? The Battleplanner is a handy little tool that I use quite regularly to figure out what my army composition needs to be.

I build 2 armies. First Army will have 2 full infantry corps (10 divisions), the 2 finished Armour Divisions and the Cavalry dvisions, each in their own corps. Second Army has the Mountaineers and 8 infantry divisions in 2 corps. In case you’re wondering why I put the Mountaineers in the North, they will be attacking from the woods there. Since they lack firepower, I want them to have some solid cover in case their initial attack fails and Mountaineers have a small bonus to fighting in the woods.

Unfortunately, I made a mistake. I did not put enough Leadership Points into Officers and I have less than 100% Officers Ratio, which would give me a combat penalty. I have to stop research and put all my points into Officers to get back to a safer level in less than a month. oh well, everyone makes mistakes on occasion.

Join me next time as we begin our invasion. See you then!

SgtPepper20 · Jun 13, 2015

Damnit, now I want more. This is a really good way to show what you could do with a country. I really like the tip to cause dissent so you could enact the prepare for war event. Maybe this could be used to get the USA to lose its neutrality.

misterbean · Jun 13, 2015

SgtPepper20 said:
Damnit, now I want more. This is a really good way to show what you could do with a country. I really like the tip to cause dissent so you could enact the prepare for war event. Maybe this could be used to get the USA to lose its neutrality.

I have never tried it with the US, because I am convinced it can't be done while the New Deal is still in effect. The US' Consumer Goods Needs are too high. You can't recover from that with just 30 IC. Sorry.

edited to add: Maybe after the war has started and you can shed the New Deal, but by then it's '39.

Iwo Jima · Jun 13, 2015

misterbean said:
As the tooltip explains, we will need to get to 0 Neutrality before we can declare war. Usually, your neutrality will go down on its own as the Soviets and the Germans start expanding their military. This will not be enough to get anything done in time.

In fact, to declare war to any country you need neutrality be less than the threat of this target country.

So, here is little description, how it works for readers, who wants to know some formulae

Your CurrentNeutrality is calculated as StartingNeutrality minus(or plus) some modificators minus maximal threat among all countries/
Prepare for War gives -0.2 neutrality each day for 300 days. So, -60 in the end.

To DoW Hungary you need your CurrentNeutrality be lower than HungaryThreat.
You can increase HungaryThreat with your spies.
RomaniaCurrentNeutrality after N days will be 75%-N*0.2%-MaximalThreat (N from 0 to 300)
If the only country that threats is Hungary, than you need the following condition to be true:

75% - N*0.2% - HungaryThreat < HungaryThreat, or
75% - N*0.2% < 2*HungaryThreat

If any country has Threat higher than Hungary, condition will be:

75% - N*0.2% - MaximalThreat < HungaryThreat, or
75% - N*0.2% < HungaryThreat + MaximalThreat

Countries that could have high threat to you usualy are Majors or your neighbours. They also shoud have opposing type of governement and, iirc, low neutrlality.
So, if we want to DoW asap, we need to understand what country will get MaximalThreat faster. Candidates are Germany(opposing Major), USSR(opposing Major, also neighbour), Hungary, Bulgary, Poland and Yugoslavia(all neighbours). Czechoslavika, due to democracy, will get threat very slow. They also have minister, that makes this proccess even more slowly. Without experiment, I think, that USSR will get Threat faster then other countries. So, the condition of DoW will be:

75% - N*0.2% < HungaryThreat + USSRThreat

It is clear now, that you can declare war much faster, if you will rise threats of two countries - the one, you targeting, and the other, that could get a threat much quickly.

It's also trick here, that you can use your own Threat on Hungary instead of Hungary's threat on you, if it is higher. But this is another story.

misterbean · Jun 13, 2015

Yeah, I heard about using your own threat in this regard, but I could never figure out how that works.

Thank you for this contribution, Iwo Jima.

Hearts Of Iron: Take Three.

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People's Commissar of the Navy

Veni! Vidi! Calculi!

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Colonel

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Captain

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Sergeant

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Second Lieutenant

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