Overall difficulty "curve" of the game and tips for a new player

[Linio]

Hello all.
I've seen this conversation here and there and saw also a lot of "outdated" information. I also saw a lot of contrary information, so I felt I would come and ask myself.
I've 50 hours in the game, so not so much, saw quite a bunch of tutorials. (For information purposes I own all expansion expect By Blood Alone, No Step Back and La Resistance)

I've played with Germany and "won" the game, crushed France and UK and also USSR (okay Italy and new fascist US helped a little), so although I cannot boast much, I think I understand a bit how the game works. I now switched to playing France, and it's been my third run with them and third complete defeat so far.

I think I'm managing "quite well" the focuses, aiming for removing political instability and upping the military production, trying to make decent weapons, but then when the attack comes, I always get crushed by the germans.

So I have a few questions : First, and it may seem a bit dumb but... Is the game supposed to be this hard? I understand France is not supposed to be that OP but I can't even begin to wonder how you're supposed to handle countries like Poland, or any eastern european state for that matter.

On another note and assuming the real issue lies between my screen and my chair... What am I missing? I read very contradictory stuff like "you should change your army templates" or "don't change them", "only do military factories", "you can start with civil", etc...

Taking the example of France specifically (and not going on a fascist run) is there really only one "path" to victory of several could lead to it? What should be my focus? If I need to work on template what should I focus on? Bear in mind : I'm not talking about crushing germans, but at least resisting to the first assault.

I really want to play this game but between that and the UI that I find a bit horrible in general (missions for boats and squadrons (don't understand their use apart be a pain ...), land warfare and frontlines really annoying to manage etc), I tend to find it difficult to start a new game.

Thanks for reading this far.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

these historically defeated countries are normally hard, but theres always workarounds and tricks.

 

[Sevinceur]

Hello all.
I've seen this conversation here and there and saw also a lot of "outdated" information. I also saw a lot of contrary information, so I felt I would come and ask myself.
I've 50 hours in the game, so not so much, saw quite a bunch of tutorials. (For information purposes I own all expansion expect By Blood Alone, No Step Back and La Resistance)

I've played with Germany and "won" the game, crushed France and UK and also USSR (okay Italy and new fascist US helped a little), so although I cannot boast much, I think I understand a bit how the game works. I now switched to playing France, and it's been my third run with them and third complete defeat so far.

I think I'm managing "quite well" the focuses, aiming for removing political instability and upping the military production, trying to make decent weapons, but then when the attack comes, I always get crushed by the germans.

So I have a few questions : First, and it may seem a bit dumb but... Is the game supposed to be this hard? I understand France is not supposed to be that OP but I can't even begin to wonder how you're supposed to handle countries like Poland, or any eastern european state for that matter.

On another note and assuming the real issue lies between my screen and my chair... What am I missing? I read very contradictory stuff like "you should change your army templates" or "don't change them", "only do military factories", "you can start with civil", etc...

Taking the example of France specifically (and not going on a fascist run) is there really only one "path" to victory of several could lead to it? What should be my focus? If I need to work on template what should I focus on? Bear in mind : I'm not talking about crushing germans, but at least resisting to the first assault.

I really want to play this game but between that and the UI that I find a bit horrible in general (missions for boats and squadrons (don't understand their use apart be a pain ...), land warfare and frontlines really annoying to manage etc), I tend to find it difficult to start a new game.

Thanks for reading this far.

You can focus on making as much 9/1 inf-arty divisions (21w) with engi, arty and aa support companies. Once the Germans assault dwindles you can make some 42w assault divisions to push.

Or you could try contesting the air with your own fighters. If you're serious about it you can ditch the arty of the 21w and make it 18w with only infantry. But you need air for that to work or else the german's division won't take much damage from only infantry and will stay in combat forever, as such their CAS planes will always be on top of your guys doing damage. Then if you survive the onslaught you got air to push with, which is very useful especially if you put one or two factories on CAS.

Frontlines can be difficult to deal with at the beginning but it becomes easier with time, one advice would be to experiment between offensive lines and spearhead orders. But you usually want to micro your units anyway. That is to make them move and attack yourself.

 

[Linio]

I read here and there that you should use frontline only for the "bonus" and micro everything.
I will try this. So I should aim for 21w divisions?

Last run I saw the german had like 100 attack versus ~25 for me, this is also what I don't get, and the difference seems huge...

 

[Secret Master]

okay Italy and new fascist US helped a little

Italy was actually helpful?

So I have a few questions : First, and it may seem a bit dumb but... Is the game supposed to be this hard? I understand France is not supposed to be that OP but I can't even begin to wonder how you're supposed to handle countries like Poland, or any eastern european state for that matter.

I'm glad you asked. Because it's sometimes easy for veteran players to remember that the game has some real technical difficulty to it. Even the best players just don't know quite everything. Ask away.

On another note and assuming the real issue lies between my screen and my chair... What am I missing? I read very contradictory stuff like "you should change your army templates" or "don't change them", "only do military factories", "you can start with civil", etc...

Yep. There's a lot of contradictory advice because there are multiple paths to victory against the AI. Also, different players prioritize different things. And the game changes with some frequency in minor ways that have more impact than you'd thing.

There's also some cases where advanced advice might be more suitable for more experience players, but newer players don't know enough to implement it properly. Like, I could teach you a method for playing the Soviets that lets you win the war without every removing the bad Red Army spirits or even taking a single land doctrine... but you'd need a 4 year degree in HOI4 and lots of practice before my advice would even be understandable, let alone something you could implement.

Taking the example of France specifically (and not going on a fascist run) is there really only one "path" to victory of several could lead to it? What should be my focus? If I need to work on template what should I focus on? Bear in mind : I'm not talking about crushing germans, but at least resisting to the first assault.

Let me give some basic new player advice on playing France.

1) You want to take focuses so that you remove disjointed government ASAP. Disjointed government is a gigantic pain for all players, but newer players feel the pain even more.

2) By the time you get to mid 1938, I'd go ahead and extend the Maginot line manually to the coast. (Yes, there are focuses that also do this, but you might not get to them.) You should try to build level 4 forts on all tiles between the existing Maginot and the English channel on the Belgian border. Forts, plus the existing rivers, will make withstanding the initial onslaught easier.

3) I'd invest in designing a heavy TD with existing technology at game start. You'll need some army XP, but once you have it, design that TD and put it into production. You'll make a division template that uses that TD with 1 battalion of TDs. This will be your best infantry division. That production line will run continuously basically until the end of the war. These divisions will have armor advantage against most German formations and will be able to pierce anything the Germans can throw at you in

Here's an example to get you started:

There are a lot of other things you can do, but this TD uses off the shelf technology and has just enough armor to make basic German infantry have a hard time piercing the division it is a part of. And all of this is off the shelf technology in 1936.

Put it in a division that looks kind of like this:

You might put LOG in it if you get fancy, and over time you might want other support companies or put a line ART in, but this is perfectly doable and usable by Danzig or War even for a new player. Not all of your divisions will be like this, but these will be your best infantry divisions sitting along Belgium's border in the forts.

For what it's worth, here's an example of an AI German division from 1941:

Note that this division can't fully pierce your interwar tank destroyers from 1936.

4) Your best infantry divisions should cover the forts facing Belgium. Your worst divisions should be in the Maginot proper.

5) You need AA guns. For your first run as France, I wouldn't even bother building aircraft before 1939. And after that, your production will be slow. So, you want the entire French army to have AA guns. And it's easier to spam AA guns than build aircraft in sufficient numbers to beat Germany.

6) You can leave Syria and Indochina undefended. Leave a small force covering the Italian border in North Africa. Bring everything else home to defend France. I'd also turn all of those tiny divisions from the colonies into normal infantry divisions. You don't need 10 stray tiny divisions that can do nothing.

7) Once the war starts, give the UK an attache unless you already have one in China. You'll thank me later when you soak up a decent amount of air XP in time to research and build your own planes.

8) Have enough ships on strike force covering continental France's coastline and French Algeria. This should prevent Italy and Germany from backdooring you in case the RN leaves gaps in their coverage. You don't need to waste fuel actually sortieing the fleet on missions. Just have it on strike force quietly reminding the Germans and Italians that they can't invade.

9) I'd also build some forts along the Italian border. Yes, I know there are focuses for that as well, but you might not get to them.

10) Don't forget to cover Sedan. You'll feel like a real snickerdoodle if the Germans march right through Luxembourg into France unopposed.

11) Do Not Execute The Historical Dyle Plan. Defend your forts along the Belgian border where the rivers are. Going into Belgium to try and stop the Germans is a fool's errand without more experience. Also, it's more expensive than sitting in you forts and letting the German AI waste tons of manpower and material trying to break through.

The above advice should be valid for most combinations of ministers and focuses. And it's easier to implement than other things you might try to do. Germany will oblige you by attacking your forts with considerable enthusiasm for months on end until it realizes how much manpower and equipment it's lost. When you see German divisions operating consistently at lower than 100% strength, you can consider counter-attacking.

 

[blahmaster6k]

I'd chime in with some advice that might seem completely unintuitive and maybe overwhelming for a new player. I would try jumping into a big (20+ players) historical multiplayer game with a discord lobby, and playing as a smaller minor. If you can find one that's a group of nice people and not raging tryhards, you will learn and improve as a player ten times as quickly as you will learn by playing singleplayer.

That might not make a whole lot of sense, but let me explain. When you play multiplayer as a minor, you (and everyone else) are mostly just going to be following the instructions of your faction leader, whose job it is to come up with a game plan for the whole team. This means the UK, Germany, USSR, or Japan. The faction leader's instructions are typically going to be pretty specific, he'll give each minor a job to do, and you'll do yours. Multiplayer is an environment which typically has every minor extremely specialized in one thing. They do one thing very well, and ignore every other aspect of the game.

To use a couple common examples from back when I played, South Africa would focus their entire research and economy on producing two-ish divisions of heavy tanks by 1939. These divisions would be sent to Egypt, and participate in the defense of North Africa against the Axis. South Africa does nothing but build those tanks the whole game. It doesn't produce infantry, planes, or anything else. Another example, Canada would use its focus tree to get its research bonus for fighters as quickly as possible, research fighters, and then put all of its factories on planes the entire game. The rest of the Allies would lend-lease all of their planes to Canada, and Canada would manage the air force for the entire Allies faction and do nothing else the whole game. No infantry, no navy, only the air force.

The point I'm trying to get at is that by playing multiplayer, you are put into an environment where you can learn the game one aspect at a time and not have to worry about anything but that one aspect. Other players on other countries will cover the other parts of the war, whereas in single player you are forced to have your one country do everything itself with its limited research slots, political power, and most importantly for a new player, brain power. And the whole time you have more experienced players on the majors in your faction giving you instructions and telling you what to do, who you can ask questions in real time if you need help. As you play different minors, you will learn how to specialize your economy to do different tasks, and eventually you can put all the pieces you've learned together and manage a whole country in single player or a major in multiplayer.

Another thing you can do in multiplayer is watch what your teammates are doing, so you can learn not just from your own actions but the actions of the other players in the game. You might not get complete strategies for other countries, but you can get a good general idea of a game plan, and you can look at the save game after the game ends to see how other players were managing their countries, what division templates they used, how they allocated factories, and more.

You can learn the game over time in single player just fine, but the resources that are out there in the form of youtube videos, text based guides on the forums, Reddit, Steam, and elsewhere, are of highly variable quality and not nearly as conducive to learning as just "learning by doing" in a multiplayer game with people to hold your hand and cover for your weaknesses.

Edit: Disagree if you want, but I'd bet that the average player with 500 total hours and 250 of them being in multiplayer is more skilled than the average player with 1000 hours, all single player. Multiplayer really does make you learn fast by throwing you into the deep end.