This is based on my first serious run, playing as England and winning the Europe war by the end of 1942. I tried to run historically, but was limited by other issues, mainly in the AI.
The German-Poland war started on 24th Aug 39 and WW2 on 8th Sep following Poland requesting arms. At this point it worked very much as expected. Germany went for Holland, Belgium and France very quickly, with some interference from me and having to recover 4 armies from France, along with Dutch and Belgian expeditionaries. France fell on 18th Dec.
By that time, France and I had managed to clear out the Italian forces in Africa. Vichy France was never formed and that part of France was held by Italy. By Mar 40 Denmark was lost, and then Italy made a number of attempts on Norway with single divisions. Eventually, in 1941 Germany managed to land and took a year to acquire Norway. Hungary joined Axis in Jun 40, Romania in Aug 40 and Bulgaria in Sep 41. Germany declared war on Soviet Union on 23rd Jan 41 and, with Romania, worked east, ending in a line just west of Stalingrad and Moscow, all the way up to the Arctic Sea.
On the other side, the Japan-China was frozen at about 58% on the Japanese side. Basically China and PRC held the south-west half from Hong Kong to Suiyuan and Japan the areas north and east. Japan joined Axis in Oct 39 and joined the German-Poland war. I have a debate about that - should we have one war or two. Japan totally ignored Hong Kong and took a couple of islands in Ellice and Gilbert's (which I took back). Major issue there was naval encounters. Siam joined Axis in Oct 1940 and was taken out by me, France and Raj by the end of the year, with no reaction from Japan.
Japan had joined both of the German wars and was under attack from Soviet Union and Mongolia. In Jan 1942 I moved 2 armies to Hong Kong and started working north to Nanjing and Shanghai. At that point most of Manchukuo and Mengkukuo was lost along with the Chinese lands as far as Yan'an. But Japan did recover those during 1942.
On the naval side I kept sinking the German Kriegsmarine when ever it appeared and in the end it did not appear until its harbours were acquired. The submarines I never saw until the end when they had to appear. The Italian navy was more of an issue until we managed to get rid of the submarines - so why was the Italian navy AI better than the German one. The Japanese navy was a major issue and took at lot of my navy. Japan - 42, Italy - 14 and Turkey - 6.
On the air force, I generally had total control. The biggest problems was from naval bombers and CAS. As far as I know, no bombers got through the the UK while I was destroying German factories in the west. However, all of the German and Italian fighters were based in Japan and not in action in the earlier parts of the war. One point I noticed was that there were Air Wings active in the Channel which were actually based in China and Japan. I could not tell if they were actually active or if they were blocked because of the distance.
The other issue was the unexpected occupation of my airbases by other players, which originally was totally overloading them. Quite often, they just sat there with no instructions.
In Feb 1942 the US offer for destroyers appeared - DO NOT TAKE THAT OFFER since it means that you actually transfer Bermuda, Newfoundland, Leeward islands, Southern Bahamas, Jamaica and Trinidad to USA, and you lose the civilian and military factories, and 16 Oil.
At the end of Mar 42, Turkey joined the Axis and I attacked with an army from Syria, along with a Raj army and a few French. At the end of Apr 42, USA issued concerns against fascism and then declared war on Germany. At the same time, Spain switched from fascist to democracy, and in Jun 42 joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. Starting in May 42 I prepared a naval invasion of Italy, following the historic route. At the end of Jun 42, Germany declares war on Yugoslavia, who then take Albania and Zara.
The 5 month war
In mid-Jul 42 I am able to invade Italy with three armies - but where are the defenders? On 9th Sep Italy capitulates and I get most of it - damn USA gets Sardinia and Istria for doing nothing. But what was Germany doing - just assuming that Italy can look after itself after it had given all of its army to Germany. At that point Germany had 160 divisions on the Spanish border against about 65 Spanish. So I put 1 army on the Italian-Austrian border and sent the other two to France. One was set to attack the Germans from behind and the other as a protection from the north, and to try and get to the coast. I also moved an army from the UK to the north of Spain and pointed it at Bordeaux.
This was my second attempt at that, as first time I found 5 months later that New Zealand had stolen the UK Home Fleet. This time was much more successful and I managed to block the German retreat by taking La Rochelle. We must have destroyed at least 100 divisions along the Pyrenees. I also managed to move my last 2 armies from UK to La Rochelle.
By then, I was occupying most of France south from the line between Nantes and Metz. I moved forwards to the coast and caught German 35 divisions in Dieppe. Turkey capitulated on 20th Oct and I moved two armies through Bulgaria, 15th Nov to USA (why?), and Romania, 16th Nov to Soviet Union.
From that point, with 8 armies and 160 divisions in Europe I was unstoppable. Germany still had 350 divisions, mainly in Soviet Union against 120 divisions, but will very low supply. I had reached the River Oder down to Bohemia by 25th Dec and Germany capitulated to Soviet Union even though I am occupying most of Germany.
Issues
1. USA - They have been a disaster. They only managed to get a couple of divisions into Europe, apart from a few expeditionaries given to them. Why? - CONVOYS. They had no free convoys and were only using 1 dockyard to build new ones. They were totally out of support for most resources, apart from Oil, because of convoys.
2. Convoys - Managing convoys is a problem, both in knowing how many you really need and what for. Add to that what seems to be problems with system and the inability of the AI to manage how many it needs and you get totally screwed. In addition, it looks like USA started shipping divisions and then 'lost' the convoys, just leaving them in sea and not moving.
3. Naval Invasions - These need convoys and acquire them when the battle plan is fired - WRONG. Not so much of an issue if your divisions are already in the launch location, but a disaster if they are not and need convoys to get there. This is the USA plan to invade the Pacific Islands, which will never occur since it never has enough convoys.
The sequence should be to move the divisions to the launch point (and release the convoys), activate the battle plan without the convoys (why waste 70+ days you could use them for elsewhere) and finally, at the end, acquire the convoys.
4. Occupied countries - These frequently leave 'dead' ships and air planes in place. These should either be deleted or, better, transferred to an active country.
5. New Zealand - very nicely decided that it should have two light cruisers from the UK, but instead took the largest UK fleet. Thanks for that, in the end I had to split the fleet into 209 fleets with the 2 light cruisers in one, and single in the rest, and then put back together afterwards.
6. Occupation - when we acquire an area of territory or a countries capitulates it is not obvious to see who will get the acquired land. It should be the country that took it, but that does not always occur. Sometimes it is split across multiple countries, even those who were not involved in the fighting.
7. Capitulation - Who gets the territory and should there not be a discussion between the involved countries.
8. Multiple wars - Effectively, WW2 was 3 wars and the game runs it that way. However, since Japan joined the Axis and therefore joined both of the German wars taking down Germany does not end of the wars since Japan is still active, leaving me with the issue of moving armies to Japan. One solution would be to remove Japan from the European wars, but that cause issues since the Japan-China war does not involve Allies or Comintern. A better idea might be to split Japan et al from the German wars and create two new wars which we can carry on with while closing the German wars.
9. Resource management - One of issues has been balancing the number of items that I need to build against its usage in building new divisions or maintaining existing divisions. It would be very useful if the system could indicate how many of each item is needed and the number of convoys needed for delivery. Alongside that, is the question of new or upgraded items being NEEDED because it is new even when the current items might not need to be replaced.
10. British Commonwealth - Did very little, apart from Raj. Canada, Australia and New Zealand took a longer time to produce anything, apart from a few Canadian expeditionaries. Some divisions, on their own, were sent out occasionally. South Africa did supply expeditionaries fairly regularly. On the other side, Raj built a large army and was active in using it into Europe.
11. Battle plans against China - Both Raj and China had battle plans against each other, with about 35 divisions each way. When USA joined, it also created a battle plan against China. This almost seems to be based on China losing the Japan war, and therefore a need to attack it.
OK, that is enough. Good, but needs a lot of development in the AI. For a HOI1 that would be acceptable, but this is HOI4 with several years development and DDs, so that is not so good. It probably works better as a MP game with the major players being non-AI.
I hope you like my comments and will tell me where I am wrong.
The German-Poland war started on 24th Aug 39 and WW2 on 8th Sep following Poland requesting arms. At this point it worked very much as expected. Germany went for Holland, Belgium and France very quickly, with some interference from me and having to recover 4 armies from France, along with Dutch and Belgian expeditionaries. France fell on 18th Dec.
By that time, France and I had managed to clear out the Italian forces in Africa. Vichy France was never formed and that part of France was held by Italy. By Mar 40 Denmark was lost, and then Italy made a number of attempts on Norway with single divisions. Eventually, in 1941 Germany managed to land and took a year to acquire Norway. Hungary joined Axis in Jun 40, Romania in Aug 40 and Bulgaria in Sep 41. Germany declared war on Soviet Union on 23rd Jan 41 and, with Romania, worked east, ending in a line just west of Stalingrad and Moscow, all the way up to the Arctic Sea.
On the other side, the Japan-China was frozen at about 58% on the Japanese side. Basically China and PRC held the south-west half from Hong Kong to Suiyuan and Japan the areas north and east. Japan joined Axis in Oct 39 and joined the German-Poland war. I have a debate about that - should we have one war or two. Japan totally ignored Hong Kong and took a couple of islands in Ellice and Gilbert's (which I took back). Major issue there was naval encounters. Siam joined Axis in Oct 1940 and was taken out by me, France and Raj by the end of the year, with no reaction from Japan.
Japan had joined both of the German wars and was under attack from Soviet Union and Mongolia. In Jan 1942 I moved 2 armies to Hong Kong and started working north to Nanjing and Shanghai. At that point most of Manchukuo and Mengkukuo was lost along with the Chinese lands as far as Yan'an. But Japan did recover those during 1942.
On the naval side I kept sinking the German Kriegsmarine when ever it appeared and in the end it did not appear until its harbours were acquired. The submarines I never saw until the end when they had to appear. The Italian navy was more of an issue until we managed to get rid of the submarines - so why was the Italian navy AI better than the German one. The Japanese navy was a major issue and took at lot of my navy. Japan - 42, Italy - 14 and Turkey - 6.
On the air force, I generally had total control. The biggest problems was from naval bombers and CAS. As far as I know, no bombers got through the the UK while I was destroying German factories in the west. However, all of the German and Italian fighters were based in Japan and not in action in the earlier parts of the war. One point I noticed was that there were Air Wings active in the Channel which were actually based in China and Japan. I could not tell if they were actually active or if they were blocked because of the distance.
The other issue was the unexpected occupation of my airbases by other players, which originally was totally overloading them. Quite often, they just sat there with no instructions.
In Feb 1942 the US offer for destroyers appeared - DO NOT TAKE THAT OFFER since it means that you actually transfer Bermuda, Newfoundland, Leeward islands, Southern Bahamas, Jamaica and Trinidad to USA, and you lose the civilian and military factories, and 16 Oil.
At the end of Mar 42, Turkey joined the Axis and I attacked with an army from Syria, along with a Raj army and a few French. At the end of Apr 42, USA issued concerns against fascism and then declared war on Germany. At the same time, Spain switched from fascist to democracy, and in Jun 42 joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. Starting in May 42 I prepared a naval invasion of Italy, following the historic route. At the end of Jun 42, Germany declares war on Yugoslavia, who then take Albania and Zara.
The 5 month war
In mid-Jul 42 I am able to invade Italy with three armies - but where are the defenders? On 9th Sep Italy capitulates and I get most of it - damn USA gets Sardinia and Istria for doing nothing. But what was Germany doing - just assuming that Italy can look after itself after it had given all of its army to Germany. At that point Germany had 160 divisions on the Spanish border against about 65 Spanish. So I put 1 army on the Italian-Austrian border and sent the other two to France. One was set to attack the Germans from behind and the other as a protection from the north, and to try and get to the coast. I also moved an army from the UK to the north of Spain and pointed it at Bordeaux.
This was my second attempt at that, as first time I found 5 months later that New Zealand had stolen the UK Home Fleet. This time was much more successful and I managed to block the German retreat by taking La Rochelle. We must have destroyed at least 100 divisions along the Pyrenees. I also managed to move my last 2 armies from UK to La Rochelle.
By then, I was occupying most of France south from the line between Nantes and Metz. I moved forwards to the coast and caught German 35 divisions in Dieppe. Turkey capitulated on 20th Oct and I moved two armies through Bulgaria, 15th Nov to USA (why?), and Romania, 16th Nov to Soviet Union.
From that point, with 8 armies and 160 divisions in Europe I was unstoppable. Germany still had 350 divisions, mainly in Soviet Union against 120 divisions, but will very low supply. I had reached the River Oder down to Bohemia by 25th Dec and Germany capitulated to Soviet Union even though I am occupying most of Germany.
Issues
1. USA - They have been a disaster. They only managed to get a couple of divisions into Europe, apart from a few expeditionaries given to them. Why? - CONVOYS. They had no free convoys and were only using 1 dockyard to build new ones. They were totally out of support for most resources, apart from Oil, because of convoys.
2. Convoys - Managing convoys is a problem, both in knowing how many you really need and what for. Add to that what seems to be problems with system and the inability of the AI to manage how many it needs and you get totally screwed. In addition, it looks like USA started shipping divisions and then 'lost' the convoys, just leaving them in sea and not moving.
3. Naval Invasions - These need convoys and acquire them when the battle plan is fired - WRONG. Not so much of an issue if your divisions are already in the launch location, but a disaster if they are not and need convoys to get there. This is the USA plan to invade the Pacific Islands, which will never occur since it never has enough convoys.
The sequence should be to move the divisions to the launch point (and release the convoys), activate the battle plan without the convoys (why waste 70+ days you could use them for elsewhere) and finally, at the end, acquire the convoys.
4. Occupied countries - These frequently leave 'dead' ships and air planes in place. These should either be deleted or, better, transferred to an active country.
5. New Zealand - very nicely decided that it should have two light cruisers from the UK, but instead took the largest UK fleet. Thanks for that, in the end I had to split the fleet into 209 fleets with the 2 light cruisers in one, and single in the rest, and then put back together afterwards.
6. Occupation - when we acquire an area of territory or a countries capitulates it is not obvious to see who will get the acquired land. It should be the country that took it, but that does not always occur. Sometimes it is split across multiple countries, even those who were not involved in the fighting.
7. Capitulation - Who gets the territory and should there not be a discussion between the involved countries.
8. Multiple wars - Effectively, WW2 was 3 wars and the game runs it that way. However, since Japan joined the Axis and therefore joined both of the German wars taking down Germany does not end of the wars since Japan is still active, leaving me with the issue of moving armies to Japan. One solution would be to remove Japan from the European wars, but that cause issues since the Japan-China war does not involve Allies or Comintern. A better idea might be to split Japan et al from the German wars and create two new wars which we can carry on with while closing the German wars.
9. Resource management - One of issues has been balancing the number of items that I need to build against its usage in building new divisions or maintaining existing divisions. It would be very useful if the system could indicate how many of each item is needed and the number of convoys needed for delivery. Alongside that, is the question of new or upgraded items being NEEDED because it is new even when the current items might not need to be replaced.
10. British Commonwealth - Did very little, apart from Raj. Canada, Australia and New Zealand took a longer time to produce anything, apart from a few Canadian expeditionaries. Some divisions, on their own, were sent out occasionally. South Africa did supply expeditionaries fairly regularly. On the other side, Raj built a large army and was active in using it into Europe.
11. Battle plans against China - Both Raj and China had battle plans against each other, with about 35 divisions each way. When USA joined, it also created a battle plan against China. This almost seems to be based on China losing the Japan war, and therefore a need to attack it.
OK, that is enough. Good, but needs a lot of development in the AI. For a HOI1 that would be acceptable, but this is HOI4 with several years development and DDs, so that is not so good. It probably works better as a MP game with the major players being non-AI.
I hope you like my comments and will tell me where I am wrong.
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