Miklos Horthy and the Habsburg Prince - Late Game Tips?

[LokalHero]

Hey all,

Picture the scene... 1943... The Communist Austro-Hungarian Empire is vast, but fragile.

I've capitulated most of Europe with the help of my comrades. Britain recently fell, alongside its Irish brethren.

However, I'm still fighting (read: mexican stand-off) a war on 3 fronts in Europe. Namely mid-Italy, Southern Bulgaria/Northern Greece, and a 2 province pocket of 30+ divisions of Americans on the Western-France coast.

Basically, I have 3 full armies tied up in a stand-off, but also 15 divisions of paratroopers, and a standing army of about 40 divisions of mountaineers. I do not have a navy.

My plan is to now drop into Iceland, then para-bunnyhop to Canada, building infrastructure along the way, then hope for the best when I send my standing army over there by sea to invade the USA via Canada.

My biggest problem is that I've burned through my manpower. 2.5mil dead, most of which occurred in my war against an astonishingly strong France. They get good if they survive past 1940 it seems!

I can't push the pocket out of France, nor can I push the Allies back through Italy, and contain them in Palermo. I can't advance in South Europe either. There's just too many of them.

I'm scraping the barrel too, but now I've stopped the offensive, and just playing the defensive game, all nicely dug in around my enemies (for now), my manpower is slowly rising. I have 280k in reserve, but I just know that'll burn through pretty quick against a late game USA if I'm not careful.

Has anyone got any tips? I really want this achievement before WTT drops.

Thanks in advance.

 

[stl3l9n]

Get nukes...

 

[Darth.]

Has anyone got any tips? I really want this achievement before WTT drops.

I'm honestly not great at playing with low manpower countries, so I'm not sure I'm the best guy to listen to. Still;

Can you delete a few divisions to free up manpower? Switch most of your stuff to 20/22 width if they're 40 width. Delete unnecessary planes. Every bit of manpower counts.

If I were in this position I'd save scum and try a Hail Mary with infantry pinning the US units, a bunch of 1 unit naval invasions to distract them since the AI is dumb (forgot you don't have a navy), and a lot of paradrops onto victory points on the western and eastern coasts and pray for the best. Because I honestly have no idea how else you'd defeat 1943 USA with just 280k manpower.

If Hail Mary doesn't work, if you have the equipment try making a handful of space marines and use those to break through the US lines, (there's this place on the north eastern US-Canadian border that's just 2 provinces and if you take those, a whole bunch of American units get cut off without ports). Use encirclements and careful maneuver against the US forces. Make paradrops if necessary - one of my favorite ways to cheese is to paradrops units into France as Germany behind the Maginot Line all along it, cutting off supply for the French forces defending the forts. You could try something similar here, at least on the west coast if not the east.

Remember to have a lot of close air support and tactical bombers.

 

[Darth.]

Get nukes...

It'll take him a year or 2 and the US will get those before him.

 

[stl3l9n]

It'll take him a year or 2 and the US will get those before him.

The AI doesn't use nukes tacticlly, and he should be able to get nukes by 44 if he uses the right advisors/focuses.
LokalHero do you have air superiorty?

 

[Darth.]

The AI doesn't use nukes tacticlly

You sure? I've played till 1944-1945 in vanilla only once, and I did get nuked by the USA as Japan. Unless that's scripted?

(I don't research nukes - they're way too broken a mechanic right now. And not broken in the overpowered sense, broken in the utterly crap sense)

 

[stl3l9n]

I don't mean that they don't use nukes, I mean that they don't use them on troops (tacticlly). If he had nukes and bombed that American pocket in France, then he would proubaly break through.

Also your plan of paradrops across Iceland etc sounds like a good idea, but you need to make sure that you can win if you drop on a division.

 

[LokalHero]

Wow, quick responses, nice!

I logged into my game. The situation is worse than I thought. It's June 1944, 12 divisions of paratroopers, that 40 division strong standing army of 40 divisions is actually 35, and I have 160K manpower in reserve. <sigh>

By the looks of it, the 3 fronts, small as they are, still stand. I don't have the grunt to push.

But to answer you all in turn.

No nukes. I only managed to start on that in '43, so I'm a couple of years away. Don't forget, I'm scraping the barrel too, which is killing my economy.

My divisions are 20 width mountaineers (7+2 ART) with engineers and recon. That's my main infantry. I also have East Germany and Czechoslovakia as puppets, and all their armies (which are crap) working as garrisons to my ports.

My plan is once the invasion of the USA starts, I aim to drop paras into minor ports and points as the main army advances on the line. It should disrupt the AI enough to weaken it.. I'm hoping.

I was also thinking of converting some of my mountaineers into more paras, to strengthen the initial attack.

Other noticeable events are the rise of Nationalist Spain. Yes the Axis still exists through Spain, Bulgaria, and Japan, although I'm not at war with them. That said, Spain is making me nervous, so I'm having to leave a contingent of troops on the border, just in case, which hampers my invasion plans further. I really need to end the 3-front war in Europe, but I just haven't got the attack.

Also, I know I need to annex the czechs to get the achievement (so no save-scumming), but I'm currently afraid to, as my armies depend on their support (that is, half my army is Czech and German). Annexing them would be suicide at this point I reckon.

I do have planes however... Lots of planes. Fighters and Support. Level 2 too, so not too bad. No bombers though. Air superiority is fine now that I've pushed the Allies out of main Europe.

I did do the drop-behind-the-maginot trick, which worked a bit, but I lost many troops in the onslaught that followed. What helped me in the end was Spain declaring on the Allies, thus pulling the French from the line. I was almost ready to restart before that happened. I couldn't have pushed without it.

It's quite a pickle!

 

[stl3l9n]

If you get to war with the Czechs your units won't defect, although they kinda should (or atleast be taken in as POWs). You shouldn't need anything on the Spanish border, what are the Soviets doing?

 

[Darth.]

Why not exploit puppet's manpower for divisions? Exploit their ka power, delete some of your divisions if necessary and request all forces from them.

 

[LokalHero]

If you get to war with the Czechs your units won't defect, although they kinda should (or atleast be taken in as POWs). You shouldn't need anything on the Spanish border, what are the Soviets doing?

The Czechs are already my puppet, but so is much of my army. I'm worried that if I annex them, I'll lose the units. I simply cannot afford that. I would lose the lines in Italy and Greece.

The Spanish are looking pretty strong, and it's not unknown for the Axis to declare on Communists. I have managed to crush the French pocket, and free up 18 divisions for the line. It's a bit of a Godsend that I'm not at war with the Spanish really, as it's given me time to retrain my exhausted troops. The Soviets are doing little. I think they may be broken.

Why not exploit puppet's manpower for divisions? Exploit their ka power, delete some of your divisions if necessary and request all forces from them.

My puppets are dry, and I can't afford to lose troops off my line. My so-called standing army of 40 divisions has been reduced to 25 just to reinforce the ports and borders. Oh, and after my paradrop into the Scottish Islands, the little island off the North of Scotland, ended in all 12 divisions slaughtered, I've had to convert more of my mountaineers into paratroops... So that's a bit of a kicker.

It's looking bleak. I may yet have to restart...

 

[LokalHero]

On the flip-side. My clandestine works in the USA are almost complete. It's over 55% Communist now, and I'm in the middle of staging a coup. It could be what I need. I might not have to invade the USA at all.

 

[TheDutchWarlord]

The Czechs are already my puppet, but so is much of my army. I'm worried that if I annex them, I'll lose the units. I simply cannot afford that. I would lose the lines in Italy and Greece.

The Spanish are looking pretty strong, and it's not unknown for the Axis to declare on Communists. I have managed to crush the French pocket, and free up 18 divisions for the line. It's a bit of a Godsend that I'm not at war with the Spanish really, as it's given me time to retrain my exhausted troops. The Soviets are doing little. I think they may be broken.





My puppets are dry, and I can't afford to lose troops off my line. My so-called standing army of 40 divisions has been reduced to 25 just to reinforce the ports and borders. Oh, and after my paradrop into the Scottish Islands, the little island off the North of Scotland, ended in all 12 divisions slaughtered, I've had to convert more of my mountaineers into paratroops... So that's a bit of a kicker.

It's looking bleak. I may yet have to restart...

Assuming you got TFV, you can annex the Czechs through the Autonomy system, that should give you anotther 15M+ core population from which you can draw manpower, you also keep the units they had deployed. It's a tactic as Britain to just let your subjects build up and then instantly annex them by sending literal tons of equipment. Doing so will give you the upwards of 1m manpower that you puppets combined field, since you can disband the units or just make them a different template.

 

[pdx mm]

Sorry to say that invading USA with only 15 paratroopers and no navy is not going to end well for you. I was going to suggest you try to flip their government and I see you are already doing so. Even that won't last long for how strong 1944 USA usually is for me so if you are a faction leader be ready to invite them so you can use that land to get your troops over there. You will have to be quick as that coup will get crushed pretty quickly and with no navy be ready to lose troops in transport. I still have not gotten this achievement so my advice isn't worth much but I wish you the best of luck comrade!

 

[LokalHero]

Thanks for all the input. So, a little update:

I managed to push the Allies out of France, which freed up 45 divisions. In the meantime, my coup went ahead, which made the USA have a civil war. Thankfully the Commie party joined the Comintern, so I was able to send out one whole army and all 10 divisions of paratroopers on a brave voyage across a hostile Atlantic.

Only lost 2 divisions in the process. Then it was a case of plugging holes and making little pushes. Whilst that was happening, I was slowly pushing the Allies back out of Bulgaria/Greece and still holding the line in Italy. The USA civil war definitely weakened their lines.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and relocate the army on the Spanish border to the USA, and any further available unit. My biggest problem was manpower. My frontline troops couldn't reinforce on their own, so I sent any spare man or tank I could.

It was slow to start, and I had to hold my paratroopers just outside Washington, as they just couldn't push any further. My first army pushed up through the middle, splitting the country in two, then I sent a second army West. Eventually, once I'd pushed the Allies off mainland Europe entirely, I sent a third army to reinforce the Eastern line, which by now was almost completely out of fighting strength.

It was touch and go for a while, I was completely out of manpower, and my supplies were getting shafted, but the US eventually collapsed on all fronts. I think I starved them of factories. It was then simply a case of walking into Canada to get the peace deal.

Once peace filled the Earth again, I simply opened a lend-lease with Czechoslovakia, and annexed them within days.

Oh, and I didn't lose the units when I annexed Czech, so that was nice to know for the future.

That's 100% achievements done again... until the 8th...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Siphoning manpower out of puppets can cause crazy outcomes like having 3x your total core population in manpower:



When I did this achievement I stayed neutral and took the path: Join axis briefly (allies guarantee Yugoslavia/other Balkans and Axis will accept you once they're also fighting allies) to cap allies before USA joins --> Beat down USSR in solo war --> Beat down axis. You get more from allies by leaving axis just before war ends. Aside from a handful of paratroopers to grab a UK port I used exclusively puppet force requests and divisions with 10 batallions of cavalry:



But with air superiority this does stupid stuff:







You get an achievement for making a battleship to attach that admiral anyway, I just teched those and got to ~10 before naval invading Japan. Definitely worth building a navy as these guys, though you won't have it in time for UK.

 

[LokalHero]

Once I united Hungary and Austria, and Czechoslovakia puppeted, I went for Italy. By joining the Axis first helped stop all the BS that comes when Hitler gets his boner. However, I didn't call Germany into my war. In turn, I didn't join their war against the Allies when that kicked off. All the while I was converting to Commie.

By the time that flipped, Germany was struggling against the Allies, so I left the faction, joined the Comintern, and declared. I had pushed Italy into Palermo by this point. I managed to puppet East Germany and annex the required provinces for my achievement from the winnings, and was once again at peace.

That lasted about two months, which helped my troops recover, before the USSR declared on Poland. I held back from joining again until my fort line was complete. Then I joined in and took the French on.

The rest of the strategy is written above in this post.

 

[davej]

Hey all,

Picture the scene... 1943... The Communist Austro-Hungarian Empire is vast, but fragile.

Thought you had to stay non-aligned, why would they call it "Habsburg Prince"?

 

[LokalHero]

Thought you had to stay non-aligned, why would they call it "Habsburg Prince"?

Yeah, I thought the same originally, but no, you can go any way you like, but you must do the NF before you flip to Fascist. Otherwise it bypasses it and cancels the achievement.

 

[Bernard95]

Thought you had to stay non-aligned, why would they call it "Habsburg Prince"?

No, as long as you go down the non-aligned portion of the focus tree you're golden. The Wiki even recommends going Communist in the mid to late game, since the Soviets are the one nation you don't need anything from and you might as well have them as allies.