I generally just play achievement runs in Paradox games because otherwise I have great difficulty in picking who to play and what goals to set. While I feel this has done me well in EU4, there are a multitude of achievements in HOI4 that I think are just not fun, most of them due to tedium. I know EU4 has some similar candidates, such as requiring you to play to 1821, and reaching tech 32 as Poland and the Victorian Three, but they are few and far between, while in HOI4 there seem to be far more of them.
In this post I'm just going to be focusing on the achievements that require you to play as a certain country - there are still tons of bad generic achievements (getting to 1948 and researching technology achievements for example), but you're not likely to be focusing a campaign around getting those as you are the nation-specific ones.
Perhaps the most obvious of them is the swathe of achievements centered around nukes:
Destroyer of Worlds - Deploy a nuke.
Our Words Are Backed With Nuclear Weapons - As India, develop and deploy a nuke. You must have the Quit India Movement national spirit.
Team America - As the U.S.A., drop a nuclear bomb on Paris.
Tojo Shot First - As Japan, Nuke a core territory of the US before the US develops nuclear weapons.
Duce Nuked'em - Nuke Los Angeles as fascist Italy.
Med plutonium... - Nuke Denmark as Sweden.
The weapons of the Third Emu War - As Australia, use a nuclear bomb on core Australian territory.
These achievements are not only uninspired and repetitive, they're incredibly tedious as you need to progress well into the 1940s to research nukes for most nations. HOI4 does not simulate WW2 well - most of the time the war is over, in the player's favour, well before 1945. This means intentionally handicapping yourself and sitting around for years doing little to nothing, which, combined with poor late-game performance, makes these an absolute chore. However, these aren't the only bad ones.
HOI4 is a war game, pure and simple. There is nothing else to do in the game. The politics, economy, and trade in the game are absolutely barebones and not interesting in any way. Therefore, all achievements should require some sort of warring in order to have you do more than occasionally click focuses, research, or construction, but there are plenty that don't. Some of these are easy and fast enough (BFFs, for example), that they're not worth complaining about. However, many more, like the nuke ones, require a large amount of waiting around to complete, and these most certainly are complaint-worthy:
Braaaaains! - As Canada, complete the Send in the Zombies focus. (This one has the potential not to be too bad, but you're locked out of half your focus tree as Canada with WT and war requirements, so enjoy waiting.)
District 9 - As South Africa, have 9 civilian factories in Transvaal. (Again, if you could just rush this one it mightn't be so bad, but having to research for more factory slots adds years to this.)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms - As China, puppet and then annex Yunnan and Guangxi Clique. (Going down your focus tree, then waiting for PP. Exciting! Also, it has to be done with a long series of decisions rather than the game's autonomy system because...?)
Spies Trade - As India, become the spymaster for the Allies. (Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Wouldn't be too bad, but you need Dominion autonomy level so enjoy spamming Infantry Equipment and lend-leasing it.)
Arsenal of Democracy - As the U.S.A., have more than 300 military factories.
En Svensk Tiger - As Sweden, acquire a production license for a Tiger or Tiger II tank from Germany. (A particularly awful one - not only are you waiting ages for a tech, but you don't even have control over it!)
Monarchy is Back in Fashion - As Germany, Bring back the Kaiser and ensure that Italy is controlled by Victor Emmanuel by killing Mussolini. (I like waggling my Willy as much as the next guy, but this is just going down a focus tree.)
Underpaid, Undersexed, and Under Eisenhower - As the U.S.A., assume faction leadership of the Allies, and have over 50 expeditionary divisions from the United Kingdom. (First building up loads of troops and factories, then getting the damn AI to give you your troops.)
Vive la France - Reach 1948 as France without capitulating or surrendering.
Vive la Jeune Ecole - As France, have at least 150 Destroyers and research the maximum torpedo launcher technology, before 1945.
I'm going to leave it at that because I'm already sick of this listing, but keep in mind these are just the achievements the wiki considers very easy and easy, there are loads more.
I want to just finish this post now because making it is getting as boring as these achievements themselves, but before I wrap up I want to give a shoutout to the cheevos that require you to control certain states, that can easily be ruined by your AI "friends" stealing them from you with little you can do other than start WW3 immediately after WW2 is over - Australia-Hungary, Britzkrieg, Tour de France, and numerous others (again, stopped after "Easy" achievements on the wiki for sanity's sake).
TL;DR: Many achievements are not fun. The devs seem to see an opportunity for a funny pun or stupid meme (le epic Emus) and immediately jump on it before thinking about how it's actually likely to play in game.
In this post I'm just going to be focusing on the achievements that require you to play as a certain country - there are still tons of bad generic achievements (getting to 1948 and researching technology achievements for example), but you're not likely to be focusing a campaign around getting those as you are the nation-specific ones.
Perhaps the most obvious of them is the swathe of achievements centered around nukes:
Destroyer of Worlds - Deploy a nuke.
Our Words Are Backed With Nuclear Weapons - As India, develop and deploy a nuke. You must have the Quit India Movement national spirit.
Team America - As the U.S.A., drop a nuclear bomb on Paris.
Tojo Shot First - As Japan, Nuke a core territory of the US before the US develops nuclear weapons.
Duce Nuked'em - Nuke Los Angeles as fascist Italy.
Med plutonium... - Nuke Denmark as Sweden.
The weapons of the Third Emu War - As Australia, use a nuclear bomb on core Australian territory.
These achievements are not only uninspired and repetitive, they're incredibly tedious as you need to progress well into the 1940s to research nukes for most nations. HOI4 does not simulate WW2 well - most of the time the war is over, in the player's favour, well before 1945. This means intentionally handicapping yourself and sitting around for years doing little to nothing, which, combined with poor late-game performance, makes these an absolute chore. However, these aren't the only bad ones.
HOI4 is a war game, pure and simple. There is nothing else to do in the game. The politics, economy, and trade in the game are absolutely barebones and not interesting in any way. Therefore, all achievements should require some sort of warring in order to have you do more than occasionally click focuses, research, or construction, but there are plenty that don't. Some of these are easy and fast enough (BFFs, for example), that they're not worth complaining about. However, many more, like the nuke ones, require a large amount of waiting around to complete, and these most certainly are complaint-worthy:
Braaaaains! - As Canada, complete the Send in the Zombies focus. (This one has the potential not to be too bad, but you're locked out of half your focus tree as Canada with WT and war requirements, so enjoy waiting.)
District 9 - As South Africa, have 9 civilian factories in Transvaal. (Again, if you could just rush this one it mightn't be so bad, but having to research for more factory slots adds years to this.)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms - As China, puppet and then annex Yunnan and Guangxi Clique. (Going down your focus tree, then waiting for PP. Exciting! Also, it has to be done with a long series of decisions rather than the game's autonomy system because...?)
Spies Trade - As India, become the spymaster for the Allies. (Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Wouldn't be too bad, but you need Dominion autonomy level so enjoy spamming Infantry Equipment and lend-leasing it.)
Arsenal of Democracy - As the U.S.A., have more than 300 military factories.
En Svensk Tiger - As Sweden, acquire a production license for a Tiger or Tiger II tank from Germany. (A particularly awful one - not only are you waiting ages for a tech, but you don't even have control over it!)
Monarchy is Back in Fashion - As Germany, Bring back the Kaiser and ensure that Italy is controlled by Victor Emmanuel by killing Mussolini. (I like waggling my Willy as much as the next guy, but this is just going down a focus tree.)
Underpaid, Undersexed, and Under Eisenhower - As the U.S.A., assume faction leadership of the Allies, and have over 50 expeditionary divisions from the United Kingdom. (First building up loads of troops and factories, then getting the damn AI to give you your troops.)
Vive la France - Reach 1948 as France without capitulating or surrendering.
Vive la Jeune Ecole - As France, have at least 150 Destroyers and research the maximum torpedo launcher technology, before 1945.
I'm going to leave it at that because I'm already sick of this listing, but keep in mind these are just the achievements the wiki considers very easy and easy, there are loads more.
I want to just finish this post now because making it is getting as boring as these achievements themselves, but before I wrap up I want to give a shoutout to the cheevos that require you to control certain states, that can easily be ruined by your AI "friends" stealing them from you with little you can do other than start WW3 immediately after WW2 is over - Australia-Hungary, Britzkrieg, Tour de France, and numerous others (again, stopped after "Easy" achievements on the wiki for sanity's sake).
TL;DR: Many achievements are not fun. The devs seem to see an opportunity for a funny pun or stupid meme (le epic Emus) and immediately jump on it before thinking about how it's actually likely to play in game.
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