How To Beat Germany As Czechoslovakia?

[BrotherJonathan]

I just picked up DoD during the Steam Summer Sale, and decided to give the game a go as Czechoslovakia. Its September 1938, and Germany has just invaded after I refused the Munich Diktat. My question is: how am I supposed to beat them? They outnumber me three to one, and I have no tanks or motorized units at all. I'm allied with Yugoslavia and Romania, but neither of them have been very helpful thus far. Is there anything I can do (without ussing cheats or exploits), or am I simply doomed?

P.S. I am playing with v. 1.4.1, all DLCs, no mods, Ironman mode enabled.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Never mind, I literally just lost the game. Still, I wonder what I could have done differently to avoid be steamrolled like that. This is my second game of HOI IV, and in both cases, I was completely murdered by the Germans within weeks of war breaking out. I'm thinking of playing as one of the Commonwealth nations next, maybe Canada or Australia. That way, I can still participate in the war, but I won't have a thousand tanks in my backyard as soon as it begins.

 

[epicmemory]

20 width mountaineers + engineers + do all your Sudetenland focuses. I add in arty as it becomes more available, and AT and AA for piercing. Build up your forts all around to as high as you can. Don't forget that Hungary will join the Axis, and if you hold on enough, Germany will invade Poland, meaning you need forts to cover the new front.

CZE gets some insane armour and plane boosts, but I wouldn't worry about that. Focus on spamming a lot of mountaineers + heavy weapons, repair your forts as they take hits, and eventually you'll be fine. France and the UK will help, but I've been in a situation where Germany surrounded me as CZE, conquered France, and it wasn't until the Soviets got involved that the German assault ended

 

[Bernard95]

Standard 7 INF and 2 ART divisions hiding behind Level 5 or higher forts will do the trick pretty easily. Your Skoda Works national spirit will let you produce more than you think- as long as you focus primarily on guns, support equipment, and arty. Just hold the line until they're drained of manpower and equipment, then counter-attack. Get the Allies involved too, and that'll just speed up Germany's demise.

 

[Joonnnyy]

surviving as chzechoslovakia can be done very reliable if you have 3 things:
1st all sudetenland fortress NF
2nd at least bulild lvl 5fort in northern Zaolize and lvl 3fort most western porvince of southrn slovakia, as here you will only get a +2 fort from poland line(zaolize) and 3+fort form hungaryian line(southern slovakia)
3rd an ally, USSR or GB/FR are great depending on if you gop commintern or democratic
if you lack the ally it is still possible but much harder, if you lack any of the forts your dead meat from what i know

if your lucky, very lucky hungary will enact the rome protocol and italy will defent austria from anschluss, but dont count on it even after hungary joined with italy, italians often bugger out and cower befor germany instead of fight for glorious death

if your not extremly lucky but somewhat WT is above 25 so UK will guarantee you and you may have a proper ally from start of war which helps reduceing the amount of german division drastically(50-75%) on your border

if evrything goes as it should not and hungary joins axis befor of shortly after the sudeten crisis you should be ready with lvl5 or better forts to the hungaryan border, but this is useless as long as hungary is neutral or defendiong austria so always look what they do in terms of NF

for what you can actially do to survive is relativly much
most important is dig in with as much entrenchment as possible, i usually use engeneer brigade, devensive FM and trench warfare for more then 40% entrenchment
build at least some fighters, 1 factory is just enough to not loose to much defensive fro air supiriority
also consider AA batalion, as there reduce air superiority by about 8% flat (so from 30%->22%) and add minor piercing (about 13-14 piercing for division) so you can pierc the light tanks without expensive AT
for NF there are some very usefull ones beside the fortification ones(which at up to 1.2% manopwer, around 180k soldiers) very important are the idustrial and the political branches, but imo to do the strategic decision and the military stuff is just not enough time, remember you have ~2.5-3.5 years depending on rng/historic befor war will break out
i usually go for political decision followd by fortification1 and the idiolegy of choice(dem/fas/com) and then fort2 followed by industral/skoda works untill i can advance my ideology choice and fort2, fort3 will only be taken once germany takes (NOT finishes) anschluss because that is the queue 140 days for war
if you go democratic the beacon of liberty and defensiv preperation are of utmost impotance once you have the democratic supoort needed ( free 5% techbost, 10% def and 3.5% manpower for only 84 days)
the last of skoda work equal acceys gurantee is almost useless though at least in the opening and divided nation is managable since you get 1.2% manpower from fort NF and dont plan to loose prag i hope so industry does not need to be finished by war

usually japan has attacked chine before anschluss so guarantee of UK should be present but dont count on it, same with romania/jugoslavia/hungary
while jug/rom may be possible allies they fail hard, jug always and rom whenever they border GER
hungary when defending austria often folds within 70 days so you have to improvise on the southern front as you now have a vast and almost unprotected belly for GER to just dive into
also once the sudetenland is breached, as in 2 or more provices have fallen and have at least 1 german division with more then a slither of org you are close to dead as you will most likely not get the provices back, lvl7 fort and all, and they will just funnel tanks into prag for an easy fast deathblow, and zaolize is a very likely canditate for this since as mentioned above you dont get free forts here that are worth anything, western slovakia has a river but is also under threat

for military i go cheap and resilliant, 7/2 inf with engeneer and aa, not even suport art as they cost precios org(~8%) and production(~11%) but offer only ~15% firepower, same with mountaneers as they cost 40 more small arms(~15% cost of division) but offer only ~8% combat ability in mountan 4% in hills when defending
similar with tanks/mot to high cost for to little gain if any
for strategy think of turtles, wait for GER to attack and hope hun does not join them, but always be prepared for it
once allies/comintern go for germany you will most likely succed if you still own all your provinces and can deflect the attack form south, if you switch to slightly less turtle mode you may be able to snatch sachsen and ober/unterschlesien from the germans but that depends on luck and ability

and if you die just think about which decision killed you and restart, my first czech game i did not build any fort in zaolize and was dead within 2weeks outflanked through that province so i started with there and imporved to this wall of text

 

[henzington]

I did the achievement by joining the Comintern and invading Poland so when Russia pushed into Germany I controlled the land

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Thanks for the feedback. The trouble is that I totaly ignored the fortification focuses, and rejected the Western Allies in favor of resurrecting the Little Entente. Thus, I wound up with no border defenses and useless allies (Romania literally did nothing) when war came. I think I'm going to play my next campaign as one of the British dominions, thsu greatly reducing the liklihood of "sudden death".

 

[epicmemory]

Thanks for the feedback. The trouble is that I totaly ignored the fortification focuses, and rejected the Western Allies in favor of resurrecting the Little Entente. Thus, I wound up with no border defenses and useless allies (Romania literally did nothing) when war came. I think I'm going to play my next campaign as one of the British dominions, thsu greatly reducing the liklihood of "sudden death".

I'm fairly sure it's pretty much mathematically impossible to win as CZE against a strong GER without forts, you just can't produce the divisions required. Cheesing the AI with Paras or something like that might work, but GER has such a high level of national unity...maybe.

Plus those fort national focuses give you some extra manpower, can't go wrong with those.

 

[Lipscomb407]

Maybe only Eithopia is in as poor of a starting position in this game. As the other posters stated trying anything other than a defensive shell will get you beat. Having an ally will help but only if they have a common border (will invade) with Germany. The problem you have is you are potentially surrounded by enemies and will be alone in your war for a year before another front opens. If you can last until after Danzig or War AND the the M Line focuses the number of troops you will face will drastically reduce. Plus with over a year battling you WWI style with your fortresses the Germans will take a ton of material and manpower losses almost guaranteeing them and early loss to the war even if they manage to finish you off. (This is why I prefer to play where I can tag switch in SP as Germany would be a fun country to play after taking so long finishing off the Czech's.

 

[Gamer_1745]

You might like to check out this series:

Full series here on Youtube.

 

[Tomnoddy]

I managed it, a case of the usual turtle for a year, once German casualties go over the million mark their equipment reserves are depleted and their army goes into a death spiral.

Intensive defense needs micromanagement. The frontline province will be attacked nonstop for year(s), the troops in it will never be able to re-org and so will eventually retreat no matter how strong the fort. The key is to make sure you have enough divisions in each province under attack to fill all the front width , but if there are any units waiting in reserve with less than full org, retreat them manually to a non combat province so they can regen org.

Signals companies are crucial to ensure reinforcements can join the battle quickly. Other than that, adequate piercing.

When I'm on the defensive as France, I don't add more ART than strictly necessary for a defensiveness bonus. I am likely defending Eindhoven from attacks over a natural barrier (the Rhine). My soft attack vs. the enemy is not important, it will bring forward the date of German equipment depletion but what matters to my survival is being able to regen org with the resting divisions faster than the enemy can reduce the org of the fighting ones. Hence moto-heavy tank divisions with +5 Armour +5 Reliability +5 Engine Variants and no points in Gun and no Artillery at all. Eng. , Maintenance, Logistics, Signals and Hospitals as support companies.

Maybe if you're defending a fort it is necessary to add a load of ART to bring enemy org down faster, so that there are gaps between attacks that give you a chance to repair damage to the province's forts and infra.

Obviously air superiority is also something you want. It is doable but you have to spend less on infantry research, maybe leave out the moto/arm and not go with so many flavors of support brigade as i do with France.