Help a newb out with his Italy game please

[MJAnderson]

So after many years of playing Hoi3 finally took the plunge. First game as Australia had Japan beat China and take out Raj. Germany easily took out Russia. Quit.

Second game as Italy. Took Yugo and Greece. Sealed the Med. Helped Germany take out Russia. Focused on Navy and have taken out the Royal Navy completely. It's now near the end of 43 and England is ripe for conquest now that we have air superiority. Land at 3 points in England to find....145 divisions! Tag over and England is short of many resources since Japan has the Dutch East Indies But they are producing 20 more infantry divisions to put in England. All infantry. They continually throw themselves at my lines and die in droves but I can't swap them out fast enough so I can't move forward. First month 100k+ casualties in their side vs about 5k on mine. Realize this is going to be boring and quit. So couple of questions (BTW I am playing Vanilla + as mod):

1) by working to starve England and destroy the navy did I keep them from being able to send troops out? So the AI just keeps making them but can't send them overseas? or is this normal buildup due to the late time period?

2) I've been producing 1939 infantry weapons for 3+ years at 1 line with 3 rows of factories but my efficiency is still very low. I can max out planes in a year but have made 90k weapons and efficiency still 40%? Bug or are some lines just harder than others?

3) I'm using destroyers 2 with a few upgrades. Run into the American Fleet with 6 Aircraft carriers, 8 battle ships and a series of CA, CL and DD all type 1. I have 4 AC, 6 BS and various smaller, most type 2. I take out 1 AC, 3 BB, 14 CA and only a few smaller ships. They take out 80 DDs, 3 CLs and nothing else. Any thoughts on why the huge loss of screens on my side vs. capital on theirs? It actually hampered my invasion because I didn't have enough screens and had to go back to port.

4) Is there anywhere I can check to see the stats on the foreign equipment I've captured?

Thanks.

 

[a_sophist]

1. No, the AI will send its convoys on suicide runs all the time. Division spam is one of the most oft-cited problems with playing the game past '42, and Vanilla+ actually reduces some of it. If you want to invade the UK without a boring war of attrition, do so by 1941, by which time they'll have their production and manpower in order.

2. A screenshot would be helpful, but did you have enough steel to produce them? That's the most common cause of reduced efficiency. If you mouse over the green/red efficiency line it should tell you that rate of increase/decrease per day. As a note, a "line" usually refers to a full set of 15 factories, so I just want to clarify what you meant.

3. It depends on the number of screens and the amount and type of aircraft involved. Screens are weak in the game in general and any vessel that relies on torpedoes for attack are not worth building for that purpose (which is not to say screens and subs are not worth building). If you watch the naval combat as it happens you can see which ships are engaging and when.

4. Not that I know of. If you're not playing on ironman you could use the tag switch console command to check, and if you weren't aware all basic equipment types have the same stats across countries, so the only things I'm aware of that you can acquire with different stats are tanks and planes.

 

[MJAnderson]

Thanks for the reply.

1) bummer. Oh well...should only take me 6 months or so to deplete their manpower and equipment
2) OK, I thought a line was one "slot" of up to 15 factories. I've run 1 1/2 lines before after an upgrade. So I guess I mean I have been running 1/2 a line for 3 years. No shortages.
3) From watching it looked like my DDs got killed by BBs while their capital ships got killed by my planes. But their planes weren't effective vs my capital ships (assuming due to air superiority?). Don't know why my BBs didn't kill their DDs. All BBs were type 1s, so not a range issue. Seems like my DDs were faster so was the only thing the Americans could shoot at? Since they didn't do any real damage, seems a waste to build better ones as screens as they only exist to soak up shells.
4) Yea. Not so much of a WWII buff that I know what all the Russian tanks I captured are by name...can't tell if they are the 36 or 39 variants. Same with planes.

 

[grandad1982]

On your point 4 about not knowing which tank etc are which year tier, this is one of my big grips with the ui! Pretty sure I've mentioned it in the suggestions forum (along with others). Hopefully one day it'll change.

 

[MJAnderson]

My god this game is awful. I can't get the game to play decently. Was having a decent Britain game until Germany declared war on SU with 90% of it's forces in Norway. Germany capitulated by Oct 1941. Tried to play a game where England helps France hold the line but the AI was so stupid --- 500k dead attaching the german forts. No troops vs. italy. After Germany declared on the lowlands they moved a ton of troops up there only to get them cut off because they left the Maginot line. With my 24 divisions I just couldn't keep plugging gaps. Invest 4 hours in a game getting to the point where the war starts then it all falls apart.

 

[xMer]

Hoi4 SP is most suited for hunting achievements in current shape. Once you learn game it doesn't provide much challenge to play as major.
If you look for reasonable game then check hoi4 organised MP communities like PFU or games organized by Beethoven

 

[PG908]

My god this game is awful. I can't get the game to play decently. Was having a decent Britain game until Germany declared war on SU with 90% of it's forces in Norway. Germany capitulated by Oct 1941. Tried to play a game where England helps France hold the line but the AI was so stupid --- 500k dead attaching the german forts. No troops vs. italy. After Germany declared on the lowlands they moved a ton of troops up there only to get them cut off because they left the Maginot line. With my 24 divisions I just couldn't keep plugging gaps. Invest 4 hours in a game getting to the point where the war starts then it all falls apart.

I would look into multiplayer. There's a multitude of communities, I'd suggest the commonwealth.co teamspeak since they're welcoming to new players and host regularly (6pm UK time, 1pm EST) Fair warning, you won't get to play majors until you prove you've learned enough; which will probably be a while -- this goes for most servers, especially the ones where you'll actually learn. You won't learn anything playing an unorganized all welcome game, you'll probably just die.

The AI is really bad. They'll make planes and never use them (when invading the USA as mexico, you might see the USAF by the time you reach the Mississippi), they'll deploy every division green and train it up, and so many other things. AI performance has fluxuated.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

How about sticking to the subject instead of "hurrdurr AI bad" all over again.

To the OP:

Division Spam is annoying (and I was there, trying to conquer the USA with 80+ divisions cramped into NY ).
BUT if the Homeland gets invaded it's what I would expect of any...well reasonably mad warmonger. Throw enough sh*t at the wall and something will stick. Its a strategy the USSR used in the early stages of war until the Lend Lease kicked in...

Naval Battle: Short Story, it's strange. Screens are weak especially against CA/CL. Air Superiority in Naval Battles is as important (or even more so) than on Land. So while your screens get slaughtered your planes wrecked the main enemy Fleet...good

The Rest of it well...Efficiency is strange but the Tooltip usually tells you everything you need to know.

 

[safe-keeper]

The Expert AI mod is your friend . The AI actually takes some thinking to beat now. It's the #1 must-have mod in my inventory right now.
There's a major patch coming out March 8th, though, and it will improve the AI .

 

[MJAnderson]

Thanks Safe Keeper. I've been playing with the Vanilla+ mod which I don't think is compatible. Maybe I'll switch.

As for Fortress Britain, while I can understand it, still very disappointing that England let the empire fall (Australia, Burma and Raj to Japan, Africa to me as Italy) and sent no troops but instead just spammed them on the homeland. I CAN win by just starving them out then destroying weakened divisions. Just boring.

I've played several games in total since getting the game and can't find a good balance. Too easy as SU or Germany, too random as anyone else. I know some people enjoy the "take US Fascist, side with Germany and stamp out Democracy and Communism" type of games but I really wanted a WWII-ish game. Even on historical it seems to go off the rails due to poor AI large scale strategic decision. I cranked up the difficulty and have had fun in my africa campaign vs. England or fighting the Japanese in Burma when playing GB but always ruined by major decisions outside of those isolated actions.

Guess it's just not for me. Back to HOI3! (which I do love, flaws and all)