Sad so sad... (Yes I need encouragement)

[-MoRiDin-]

I've played HoI since the first game. I love them. They are so immersive and fun.

I finally caught up and bought HOI IV and a bundle of DLC (la resistance and Bosphorus all I don't have I think)

I'm trying to play a game, just a 'learn the game' game, picked France expecting this great power to be fun, but not a cakewalk, and also expected there would be some detailed guides.

I've read the guide, done the tutorial, read the country guide, searched for others and the depth has lost me...

I've no idea what to do, my industry is tiny, I'm building more, I'm following the advise national focuses, and I've killed off all my colonial division which are in France,

I know I need to man my borders and have sorted out armies to do so and am extending the forts to cover the Benelux and Italian borders.

That makes sense.

I can't fix my rubbish division template, I've no army XP and no idea how to get some, I exercised one army to get 0.89 army xp and immediately blew out all my stockpiles of supplies. I don't even know how to find what I do have stockpiles of!

My Navy I've no idea what to do with it, it looks like I'm building ships that are too big for the naval treaties, no idea how, but it looks like they won't be ready until after the war anyway.

My air force? no clue what to do, some guides say have factories building cas and fighters all the time, but as my factories, cant even supply 1/3 of my army doing exercises for 2 months I don't know what they mean.

I know the military ic will grow as I expand it, and I know this won't all be so daunting but I've no clue how to proceed.

Some guides are literally: Help Britain in Africa then naval invade Italy. and I'm lost as to what on earth I need to do to do that. I've no idea what I need to defend against Germany with...

I know, I should just play the game more, but I get so little time to play games these days, I'm just lost in it all!

I hate feeling this way, but I don't have hours to watch other's play a run through...

Has anyone got any advice?

 

[CrasherZZ]

Don't play it, is my advice.

I have 195 hours so far and I still haven't completely figured out how to play it right. If you don't have the time to learn how to play it then it's not going to work for you. In addition to the 195 hours playing time, I have spent several hours just reading and researching on Reddit, the Wiki, Youtube and this forum. You won't really being able to succeed in the game if you don't have the time to put into it. There are lots of other good games that are fun to play and don't require hundreds of hours to learn how to play well.

 

[goodcigar]

I recommend (Almost) No Experience for Division Design (1.10) mod because XP requirement for organize Division and ship is very annoying. It was first mod on Workshop and has 40,000+ subscriber.

Steam Workshop::(Almost) No Experience for Division Design (1.10)

steamcommunity.com

Also yes HOI4 does very bad job at explaining itself and give feedback. You have to use Wiki/YouTube/Reddit/Forum to learn mechanic.

 

[-MoRiDin-]

Don't play it, is my advice.

I have 195 hours so far and I still haven't completely figured out how to play it right. If you don't have the time to learn how to play it then it's not going to work for you. In addition to the 195 hours playing time, I have spend several hours just reading and researching on Reddit, the Wiki, Youtube and this forum. You won't really being able to succeed in the game if you don't have the time to put into it. There are lots of other good games that are fun to play and don't require hundreds of hours to learn how to play well.

Yeah... I get that... I really do, but... these grand strategy games? I love them! I've EU1,2,3,4 CK1,2 Vikki1,2 HoI1,2,3,4 and Stellaris... but it's been years since I really have the time! Oh and I have the early Rome game too...

I'm sure I'll sus it out, if France is a total blow out, I'll load up Germany and learn from there.. more forgiving I expect!

I recommend (Almost) No Experience for Division Design (1.10) mod because XP requirement for organize Division and ship is very annoying. It was first mod on Workshop and has 40,000+ subscriber.

Steam Workshop::(Almost) No Experience for Division Design (1.10)

steamcommunity.com

Also yes HOI4 does very bad job at explaining itself and give feedback. You have to use Wiki/YouTube/Reddit/Forum to learn mechanic.

Ah Mods... I may, just so I can design some stuff; until I learn how to game some XP some... somewhere? Not sure I can intervene in Spain without some major upsets, so hard to get my stability to grow... grrr

 

[Bunnytob]

France is heavily nerfed in basically all permutations of HOI4 to the point of """balance""".
HOI4 in of itself is heavily Germano-centric, so you'll have few problems playing as them (*cough* Demand Slovenia is broken in the "glitched AF" sense *cough*) and the Soviets get more time to make up their equipment deficits. Other than that it's a case of "just build more mils lol".

For my part, I'm mostly staying out of actually playing HOI4 until they fix most or all of the things that (I personally think) they messed up in MtG.

 

[-MoRiDin-]

Well, I'm not sure I will learn much in this run through...

Britain has gone Fascist!

I'm not sure what to do I assume I should try to build a Faction or something? But short of going Fascist myself, (now not an option as I went for Blum) erm I think this won't last long!

I've got divisions building, but no idea how many I need with the forts I've built? It's about Feb 1938 and I still only have 23ish Mil Factories.

Edit: How did I not notice Oswald take over Britain until he withdrew from the Naval Treaties?

Actually, where is the news? Where do I hear about what other countries are up to?

 

[Bunnytob]

Ah yes, I see you've met the default AI.

A typical Germany would have up to 100 mils by 1940, and 23 mils in early 1938 as France is definitely doing quite well.

You should probably be aiming for 72 divisions (3 full armies) by about 1941, though against the AI you'll only need something closer to 12-18 divisions on the alps + 7 on the Maginot + 1 army for Belgium, so ~50 would suffice until you start pushing.

 

[brainiac1530]

My Navy I've no idea what to do with it, it looks like I'm building ships that are too big for the naval treaties, no idea how, but it looks like they won't be ready until after the war anyway.

Basically, the initial naval build queue for every nation is total garbage and needs extreme day 1 intervention. Depending on what's in the queue, that'll mean either just deleting that line or clicking to limit it to 1 unit so that the dockyards are freed up after that one is done. The simple answer is that you should just delete all of them, but anymore I tend to let screens and subs finish and deploy before reassignment.

My air force? no clue what to do, some guides say have factories building cas and fighters all the time, but as my factories, cant even supply 1/3 of my army doing exercises for 2 months I don't know what they mean.

Don't build CAS as France. If you must build planes, with your tiny amount of MILs, then build fighters. (And in this game, where you won't have Britain on your side, maybe just can it entirely. In most games, you can count on a significant amount of British planes contesting the Germans.) Putting AA in your divisions might work better, as you can be sure the German AI will be using CAS, which AA will punish.

I've got divisions building, but no idea how many I need with the forts I've built? It's about Feb 1938 and I still only have 23ish Mil Factories.

If you already have troops on the borders, look to see how many you have per tile. To compensate for the front line logic's insanity, you need at least 2 per tile so it can shuffle shit around without leaving a hole. Ideally, on a limited front in a developed area like Northern France, you want to saturate the combat width (80). Hopefully, you're building either 20 or 40-width infantry so that this is easy to manage.

I can't fix my rubbish division template, I've no army XP and no idea how to get some, I exercised one army to get 0.89 army xp and immediately blew out all my stockpiles of supplies. I don't even know how to find what I do have stockpiles of!

I think the only real option is to send an attache to either Republican Spain or China. Of course, finding 100 PP to spend on that when you have Disjointed Government is going to be painful, but you need some XP. Unfortunately, you have another debuff that also makes it hard to research land doctrines ... so any leftover XP will be hard to turn into land doctrines. Spend it all on division templates; in the unmodded game this takes a disgusting amount of XP anyway.

 

[Bronterre]

I don't play France very often so I can't really comment on the focus free that much but I'll give some general advice and some things that would give me pause fighting against them.

1st. Get a military theorist that gives you army xp, consider giraud to start and switch to de Gaulle later when you go on the offensive.

2nd. If you can send lend lease, volunteers or attaches any where do so, builds army/air xp, unit and general experience, also as the main areas of action are Spain and China. If you can keep Spain out of axis control then that's to the good and if you can bring them towards you even better. Also both give you the chance to destroy enemy units before the war, Germany and Italy will send divisions to spain, pocket them if you can.

3rd. You have limited resources focus on one area, for France I would suggest army with any spare towards airforce.

4th. The ai is dumb about lend lease, they will send you stuff but won't let you stockpile, if you have squadrons and divisions that need equipment (embodied or training) then they send it. Mostly little bits from like Honduras but the USA, UK and Commonwealth will be dependable routes of supply in reasonable amounts. Keep your combat fronts on high priority and put replacement, upgrade and garrisons on high and everything else on low. If your combat units are running low on anything simply disband some of these reserve units and the equipment/manpower will go back into your pool to be redeployed. just don't let your equipment stockpile till up or you'll get your lend lease canceled.

5th. Use doctrines and support companies, these boost your units for a flat/no equipment and manpower cost. For France I would suggest minimum engineer, hospital and maintenance in any front line unit and either mobile warfare or grand battle doctrines.

6th. With your air force aim for contesting a couple of areas of dominance in one, basically use it as a force multiplyer where it counts to win easier or when you otherwise wouldnt .

7th. I would suggest you go for 20 or ideally 40 width units as best for combat frontage and I would suggest 40 if you can as they are stronger and use less equipment due to support company savings compared 1:2 vs 20 width.

8th. Strategy wise I would suggest either an armour heavy push into the Rhineland while they are busy in Poland or fortify your land borders and win a defensive war of attrition.

Hope that helps.

 

[CrasherZZ]

Well, I'm not sure I will learn much in this run through...

Britain has gone Fascist!

Actually, where is the news? Where do I hear about what other countries are up to?

I always finish run throughs because I learn a lot more from losing than from winning. Are you playing historical? For learning it's probably better to play historical.

There is news but not as much as much as HOI3, IIRC. If you are playing non-historical I'm not sure how the news is generated. I've seen fake news too. One pop-up said "Fall of Rome" but when I looked, it was firmly in Italy's possession and had always been since the beginning.

 

[-MoRiDin-]

I'm not really in control of my combat width, I've had no options I can see to send units to China or Spain (nationalists are winning) With Britain already Fascist I'm very much surrounded!

I know to build to 20 or 40 combat width but I need XP, I'm about at the point where I'll soon be able to appoint a theorist that will give me a trickle.

At the moment I'm stuck with the starting templates, so far I have 1 XP. as I need 10 to make even one change to a template I have oh so far to go.

Can I turn on a mod mid game? lol

 

[brainiac1530]

I've had no options I can see to send units to China or Spain

Democratic nations are a lot more limited in regards to farming XP. By default, they can't send volunteers, though some national ideas can change that. Lend-lease is limited by world tension. Sending an attache is just a diplomatic option, though. I mean, you do have that DLC, right?

 

[commonJoe886]

1) Build an economy.
- USA gives you the most time and resources for this
- Build mostly: Civ's if you expect a later war start (1939-40)
Mil's for an early start (1937-38)
Dockyards and one of the above if you're playing a naval heavy country
- Also lay down a line of max-infrastructure from capital to a lvl 10 port and to areas you expect to have heavy combat (supply skeleton)

2) Build and equip an army, airforce and navy.
- Japan and Germany are good for practice because they both set the tempo for the war, so you can go as slow/fast as you determine.
- Build a continuous stream of Rgt size infantry (~10 w)
Force deploy early and change to appropriate divisions
The only limiting factors for the above are recruitable population and equipment stockpiles, so maintain both (see below)
- (IMO) Equipping your appropriate divisions requires a baseline of: Infantry divisions = Rifles (15-30 Mill's) Arty (5-10) Support Eq (5-15)
Armor divisions = Med Ar (15-30) Lt Ar (5-15) Trucks/Halftracks (10-30)
optional - Med Aty (5-10) Med AT/AA (5)
- (IMO) Air Production baseline: Fighter/CAS groups = Fighters (30-150+) CAS (5-15) Scout Planes (5)
Naval Bomber groups = Naval Bombers (5-15) Scout Planes (5)
Tactical Bomber groups = Tactical Bombers (5-10)
- (IMO) Naval Production baseline: Submaines 1936 (10-20 Dockyards) Submarines 1940+ (20-50+)
Screens DD & CL (40-80)
Capital Ships (15-80)

3) Research Priorities.
- (In this order): Industry, Construction, Excavation and Machine Tools
Computing
Latest Fighter and Med Ar models
Latest Arty, AA models and Radar
Latest Weapons/Eq and Support Companies
IMO - Air Doctrine when WW2 starts, so you'll have 100 air exp to constantly run it
optional - Always have Land Doctrine going.

4) Division Templates.
- Army xp won't come until you dispatch an attache, expeditionary force, start a war or are attacked
- You can exercise your army for exp but this is slow and costly in equipment
- You can exploit/exercise for exp, but unless you're 9 yrs old, why even bother playing a game if you're gonna exploit
- Different templates are used for MP and SP
40w meta for everything MP
40w meta for almost everything in SP with some 20w mixed in
IMO - 20-27w in SP gives a great balance of challenge and immersion

5) Analyze how to better organize your playstyle.
- After the mess called a UI, the next biggest challenge to overcome is how to avoid being overwhelmed by the avalanche of critical tasks you're required to execute. Bite off a piece and patiently chew it is the only method I've found.
- I always start with Naval Placement and Orders, to counter enemy navies and provide support fires and intel
- Then, Army Placement and Orders to provide offensive ops, counter and garrison
- Next, Air Placement and Orders, to counter and provide support fires and intel
- Lastly, do what I call the builds (the row at top, decisions to logistics).

6) Combat:
- Is surprisingly simplistic. Critical aspects are curiously abstracted (unit widths) or needlessly absent (naval combat without carrier air ranged attack). The good news is, because of this, you only have to make one decision. Use the Battle Planner or go micro. The BP has its benefits but before long will definitely wreck your painstakingly made dispositions. Miro is fun but leaves bonuses on the table and will be painful for a game that is already borderline sadistic.
- The bad news is that after making this simple decision, combat and all of its multitude of variables, devolves into an extraordinary obtuse mechanism, covered in riddle and indistinguishable from madness.
- All of this means, randomly dragging 20 divisions around the map irrespective of supply and terrain will always fail. On the other hand, the old grognard techniques of: monitoring supply, eq and fuel levels - studying map features, approach angles and unit intel - launching feints flank attacks and gambits - playing to your strengths while exploiting their weaknesses - and most importantly, patience and fortitude, will chart a path toward victory (most of the time).

Notes:
- Logistics pg/Stored icon shows equipment totals by type. Use this to see how much you have of something
- Production pg/Needed for Reinforcement shows the latest demand for type. Use this to see how much you're using of something
- If you're not USA you must build fuel silos and import a surplus of oil to store for future ops.
- Other nations Trade Opinion of you is a big hidden factor which determines if you can actually build that air force and navy, or just look at your stalled production lines.
- Recruit and Deploy red/yellow/green buttons used in conjunction with the Division Designer reserves/default/elite is an effective way to direct eq to your target units.
- Diplomacy/Ask for Military Access/Docking Rights as soon as you can to allow your fleet to use its range
- Not joining a Faction or better yet, starting your own, is a reliable way to avoid many buggy aspects of the game
- Justifying War Goals or National Focus's can take some time to trigger and are the only way to start a fight, so plan accordingly

 

[Vin55]

Best is though to play Germany, to learn the game, you need to build up, need to grind army exp in civial war, and also attack the allies and ussr, for this you need airplanes, tanks and also good front managment.
You than can learn about naval invasions with sea lion or norway, or even paratroopers (Which are a cheat atm because of how ai cannot anser them).
France is way harder, especially since your allies are braindead morons who only eat supply and are not reall helping (at least US does now but UK sucks).

 

[Roland Traveler]

I’d shelve this game until you have more experience. France is a hard mofo to play due to it being designed to fall so Germany doesn’t die in 1941. I’d recommend the US due to it giving you a wide, wide margin of error to work with or playing Spain if you just want to get a hang of the army side of things.

If you stay with France, though, I’ve got some good news for you! Since Britain went Fascist (double check this, because if they went non-aligned, you’re screwed), they’ll still be opposing Germany but will be aligning with Italy. If you’re lucky, that means you’ll be able to ignore the Italians thanks to Britain dragging them into the war with Germany. Yes, the British won’t be helping you, but the troops you can take off the Alps should make up for that.

Second thing to know as France is that your focuses to build forts are God, and you can increase their utility by playing smart. When a focus says it will be building forts in a state, for France that always means it will be on the border. I would recommend investing in level two forts on the Belgian and Italian borders before you take those focuses to give you extra defense on the cheap.

When it comes to war with the Germans, you have two options: leave the Low Countries to die or try to defend the Dyle Line. Since Belgium doesn’t have a focus tree to construct extra forts and the AI only fortifies Victory Points, moving into Belgium isn’t the smartest idea, and I would recommend just holding position on your border. This action will save the lives of your men and their equipment while also making sure you have maximum entrenchment (a value that adds extra defense based on how many days you’ve been in the same province without moving; France fortunately gets extra amounts of it). At this point it’s all about your ability to micromanage troops on the border and reenforcing weakening positions before they collapse and the front breaks. Unfortunately, Northern France sucks as defensive country and will make this a challenge, as will German planes. As others have already suggested, you should invest in AA support companies to minimize German air support. If you have the spare industrial capacity, building up anti air batteries on the state level can also help decrease their effectiveness. But make no mistake, playing as France will most likely be stressful and really shouldn’t be your first choice of country unless you just join up with the Axis. And since you seem to be playing without Historical AI on, the Germans will likely attack Switzerland and a victorious Nationalist Spain might join the Axis, so make sure you’ve got troops to deal with that too.

 

[Sbrubbles]

I agree that HOI4 has some absolutely byzantine mechanics that are barely documented, even more so than other paradox titles. But it also has the best combat by far, so, yeah.

Funnily enough, I recently discovered one of these mechanics while messing around with trying to defend France, and it makes things crazy easier: just put spies in the border state (say, southern Germany then Luxembourg after they take it). The intel network reduces the planning bonus proportionally by its strength, and you can usually max it out at 70% +-. With that, instead of a massive 40% planning bonus, they'll have only 10-15%.

With that said, I recommend avoiding France as your first country. It requires some good understanding of the terrain and combat mechanics to be effective, and you're in a very disadvantageous position to begin with (though I suppose the difficulty sliders can help you adjust). The USSR might be best one to start learning, I think, or even Germany tbh. Also, play with historical AI until you've got the basics down

 

[Pete0714]

Don't play it, is my advice.

I have 195 hours so far and I still haven't completely figured out how to play it right. If you don't have the time to learn how to play it then it's not going to work for you. In addition to the 195 hours playing time, I have spent several hours just reading and researching on Reddit, the Wiki, Youtube and this forum. You won't really being able to succeed in the game if you don't have the time to put into it. There are lots of other good games that are fun to play and don't require hundreds of hours to learn how to play well.

I don't care how niche a series may be, but a game should never be that hard to "get gud" at. If you are in over 100 hours of play plus research time and still have no complete handle of the game, that is a flaw in design. I have not put in many hours in this game with my attention drawn more to eu4, ck3, and stellaris, but if that is truly the time amount you need to invest in it to get the game, I probably never will do so.

 

[Sbrubbles]

I don't care how niche a series may be, but a game should never be that hard to "get gud" at. If you are in over 100 hours of play plus research time and still have no complete handle of the game, that is a flaw in design. I have not put in many hours in this game with my attention drawn more to eu4, ck3, and stellaris, but if that is truly the time amount you need to invest in it to get the game, I probably never will do so.

I agree with you that no game should require such commitment from players, but I'd say Crasher's assertion is flawed to begin with. You don't need hundreds of hours to "win" at this game.

You might need a two hour youtube session to get started though, and arguably this is already too much. I wish Paradox would make actually decent tutorials.

 

[CrasherZZ]

I agree with you that no game should require such commitment from players, but I'd say Crasher's assertion is flawed to begin with. You don't need hundreds of hours to "win" at this game.

You might need a two hour youtube session to get started though, and arguably this is already too much. I wish Paradox would make actually decent tutorials.

Just to clarify - I consider myself a competent player now, after 200 hours, but not an expert. Just for comparison, I had "only" 450 hours total in HOI3 but I was probably better than average in the same amount of time. The definition of "winning" in HOI4 might be kind of loose and open to interpretation but I have "won" before. It's been much harder to achieve really large scale, HOI3 type victories so far and it's been a slog learning all the little details that can make a huge difference when all added up. The learning curve is quite steep.

My point is that it has sucked up way more of my time than I anticipated. I'm not complaining about the game itself but the documentation is really lacking for a game of this complexity. I'm looking forward to when I can just play it without having do research, testing, and looking things up.

 

[Áurum]

I've played HoI since the first game. I love them. They are so immersive and fun.

I finally caught up and bought HOI IV and a bundle of DLC (la resistance and Bosphorus all I don't have I think)

I'm trying to play a game, just a 'learn the game' game, picked France expecting this great power to be fun, but not a cakewalk, and also expected there would be some detailed guides.

I've read the guide, done the tutorial, read the country guide, searched for others and the depth has lost me...

I've no idea what to do, my industry is tiny, I'm building more, I'm following the advise national focuses, and I've killed off all my colonial division which are in France,

I know I need to man my borders and have sorted out armies to do so and am extending the forts to cover the Benelux and Italian borders.

That makes sense.

I can't fix my rubbish division template, I've no army XP and no idea how to get some, I exercised one army to get 0.89 army xp and immediately blew out all my stockpiles of supplies. I don't even know how to find what I do have stockpiles of!

My Navy I've no idea what to do with it, it looks like I'm building ships that are too big for the naval treaties, no idea how, but it looks like they won't be ready until after the war anyway.

My air force? no clue what to do, some guides say have factories building cas and fighters all the time, but as my factories, cant even supply 1/3 of my army doing exercises for 2 months I don't know what they mean.

I know the military ic will grow as I expand it, and I know this won't all be so daunting but I've no clue how to proceed.

Some guides are literally: Help Britain in Africa then naval invade Italy. and I'm lost as to what on earth I need to do to do that. I've no idea what I need to defend against Germany with...

I know, I should just play the game more, but I get so little time to play games these days, I'm just lost in it all!

I hate feeling this way, but I don't have hours to watch other's play a run through...

Has anyone got any advice?

France is no country for beginners, because, you know, it got crushed by Germany in WW2. It's not meant to be easy. Try Italy as a secondary country that goes in the winning side.

I know how to play France and defeat Germany, but I have 1.000 hours, so you aren't interested in that yet.