Sweden WC - Crazy? Possible?

[Grallak]

So yeah, I have been wondering how far fetched a Swedish WC would be. Now I never really got much hang of Hoi3 because it was too scary for me to handle but I believe HOI4 will overcome it's former self.

This will pretty much just be a long and tedious rabble on how I want (Very optimistic outlook) to go about and have Sweden become a super power. While a lot of things have yet been confirmed and many questions yet remain, I am still going to go about and see what can or can't be done.

Facts (<.>)
Sweden has a lote of iron tungsten and an educated population, they have relatively good relations with their neighbours and are located safely out of the way from most dangers. Sweden would want to be as neutral and have as good relations with everyone as long as possible until it can produce an army which can feed itself.

1. Conquer Norway and Denmark (Literally takes like no effort), aswell as Finland and all the baltics including Lithuania before they get annexed (Will need some transport ships most like so go suck up to England and US)
2. Pretty much just suck up whatever countries that don't really have much relevance and nobody will mind if you take AKA Portugal Ireland Spain Turkey (Assuming Spain is tired after civil war and not part of axis and none of the countries are guaranteed). Turkey Might require a bigger navy but most of their cities like constantionpel will be most important. Might invade from some random baltic country.
3. Sweden will need to get some bigger guns and better stuff before it can take on any big guys like Germany and USSR so invading England through Ireland while the battle of britain is going on might be worth a shot. What we want to achieve with this is acquiring England's colonies so that we can get some rubber and oil for the upcoming showdown.
4. Prepare two armies. One in Finland and one if Turkey. Once the Soviet is preoccupied with fighting the germans we will grab Stalingard and the oil fields aswell as Stalingard in order to acquire WP. While the Germans gather for the attack on moscow we will have regrouped our troops and do a launched assault at Moscow from north and south, beating them off.
5. having all three major cities should be enough to annex Muscovy or atleast puppet them. I might puppet them and have them fight the germans while I regroup my armies to invade Berlin from the north. We would then basically cut off the germans while they are stuck in Russian lands and then round them up.
6. Probably Grab France and then prepare to deal with Japan and China to suck up whatever is left and make the US irrelevant and basically WIN.

Biggest issues (aside from great lack of knowledge in how HOI works in general.)

Sweden has little manpower to spare and the fact that they are a silly democracy and have to reform is a hinderance.
While pretty much everything I wrote assumes Paradox is being Paradox and everyone else being too busy to care about me pretty much sucking up the map like there is no tomorrow, the fact remains that Sweden was rather capable of doing many of these things (Atleast the first task.)
Sweden has pretty much all it takes too do those things none would bother doing since it is so politically neutral and because Hitler will pretty much harness all WT which allows Sweden too avoid a Coalition.

So finally my biggest question is. If Sweden invades Ireland and then tries for Britain, would it be able to launch an attack on the main island by stacking up supplies and then rushing to secure Scotland and then go for London? England has pretty much everything Sweden needs along side it's colonies to make the final stage of my plans a possibility, but can Sweden really muster a large enough fleet to make a quick D-Day for Lancashire?

Toughts? Ides? Criticism? I am all ears.

Since England's continental army might have died at Dunkqirk, it might be an actual possibility, assuming Churchill is too busy with hating on Hitler. Also most Capitals of the countries I will capture are located by the seaside so having a elite Marine Viking Division which can basically set foot wherever and hold the Capital will pretty much take most stuff. Only real issues might be England if it hasn't suffered too many casualties, Spain (Probably tired) and Turkey since they have a navy, but once you capture Istanbul then it's pretty much just smooth sailing and capturing whatever is left.

 

[Evan05]

In the Third World War Wensday stream, they said that while Sweden does have more potential than Finland, Finland does start out stronger. And if yu've aleady used your military resources on taking Denmark and Norway, they will be even stronger.

I also see hopping around to different countries (From Sweden to Portual or Turkey for instance) problematic. You're naval forces would be traveling a long ways and trying to supply your troops from the Baltic states to Turkey will be difficult.

That's not taking into account the political side of it. Annexing all of those countries will definitely make World Tension very high if not maxed out. You'll also have to become rather Fascist or Communist to attack other Democracies. This will make the Allies shift their focus toward you well before you have a chance of taking Britain.

 

[Grallak]

In the Third World War Wensday stream, they said that while Sweden does have more potential than Finland, Finland does start out stronger. And if yu've aleady used your military resources on taking Denmark and Norway, they will be even stronger.

I also see hopping around to different countries (From Sweden to Portual or Turkey for instance) problematic. You're naval forces would be traveling a long ways and trying to supply your troops from the Baltic states to Turkey will be difficult.

That's not taking into account the political side of it. Annexing all of those countries will definitely make World Tension very high if not maxed out. You'll also have to become rather Fascist or Communist to attack other Democracies. This will make the Allies shift their focus toward you well before you have a chance of taking Britain.

Thank you for your input. I agree that Finland, England, Turkey and Spain all have stronger armies than Sweden. I am merely taking the most optimistic outlook on things. (Finland being at war with USSR, Spain suffering hard in the Civil war and Britain losing almost it's entire army at Dunqirk. I would definitely focus on Denmark Norway the baltics then Finland. Then I would take ireland quickly before I have ratched up to much WT and then immediately prepare for an Invasion on the Weakened Brittish home islands. My hopes are that if I can stay out of Axis long enough to gather most things while being able to keep good relations with England so that I can trade with them to build up a strong army. If I manage then to finnish England then the Allies will pretty much fall apart of itself and then I would be able to align with Axis or atleast keep close enough to them to make a difference. If I do choose to help the Axis I will atleast be Able to get India Russia And England aswell as Scandinavia. Perhaps Even Iberia and Turkey if I manage. This would help me with my manpower problems and I could then suck up whatever countries remain to become the strongest country. (Extremely Optimistic)

Also, sucking up all those minor nordic countries can hardly be super evil. I mean, it's better to unite them under one banner rather than having them go fascists or Communists. What I really want to know is whether it is possible to make some kind of Monarchist faction which basically supports atleast the idea of Swedish supremacy in the Baltic. (Let's keep in mind that all those countries were at one time under swedish control with exception to Lithuania and Denmark, (Although they could have been if the Dutch Bastards had minded their own god damn business) *Shakes fist*

 

[Denkt]

We don't know how much manpower or industry you can use from annexed countries, if the gains outweight the cost you could increase your power by annexing countries.

Sweden's neighbours are far weaker then Sweden, both Norway and Finland have very little strategic resources while Sweden have 200 steel, Sweden probably have better starting technology with some basic tanks and artillery researched. You need to change your ideology to facist or communist, but you may get help from other countries that follow the same ideology if you go to war.

It should not be to hard to conquer Norway, Finland and Denmark but doing so may give you more powerful enemies so you need a powerful ally like Germany. Given how peace treaty work in HOI4 it is impossible to make your ally do all the work and you take all the spoils so you need to backstab your ally, it may be a good idea to play very conservative but at the same time you probably wan't your ally to win as your enemies will not become your allies.

 

[Grallak]

We don't know how much manpower or industry you can use from annexed countries, if the gains outweight the cost you could increase your power by annexing countries.

Sweden's neighbours are far weaker then Sweden, both Norway and Finland have very little strategic resources while Sweden have 200 steel, Sweden probably have better starting technology with some basic tanks and artillery researched. You need to change your ideology to facist or communist, but you may get help from other countries that follow the same ideology if you go to war.


It should not be to hard to conquer Norway, Finland and Denmark but doing so may give you more powerful enemies so you need a powerful ally like Germany. Given how peace treaty work in HOI4 it is impossible to make your ally do all the work and you take all the spoils so you need to backstab your ally, it may be a good idea to play very conservative but at the same time you probably wan't your ally to win as your enemies will not become your allies.

I am working on the idea that if we look at contemporary Nordic countries we would have the population of Taiwan. (Yes it is bloody sad how we have so few people even though we have so many rights but I guess humans like being treated like dirt <.<) So with SDNFELATLIT = 35 Million.
Sweden will never have enough soldiers to fight a protracted war nomatter how many small countries it sucks up, that was never a precondition that I was working under.
I will definitely suck up the baltics and denmark. I might skip Finland and Norway since they don't have too many resources, but once I have taken out Britain and WT won't matter so more when I am part of the Axis then they will also be sucked up. I just really wish Sweden could have a serious chance of taking those territories without looking too much like a bad boy. Most of them are of the same culture and the baltics had ties to Sweden and were at serious risk of being sucked up and becoming communist. Let's keep in mind that it wouldn't have been too hard to imagine a monarchist clique to unite the country considering every other faction appeared so very hostile and the democratic countries had already proven that they didn't have what it took to contain Hitler, Mussolini or Japan. It's not like Sweden wouldn't still have democratic values at the core, but it would still be nationalistic traditionalist conservative Royalism sort of government.
So what I am basically hoping for is some milder version of Japan, where people are united under one banner but still retain their human rights and aren't exploited to death. Honestly, that is more than what most countries could hope for at that time and since International Rule had basically been tossed out the window then is it really that hypocritical to do something like that. Let's keep in Mind that England wasn't exactly the most democratic country itself and had serious problems with basic human rights and so on.

It all really comes down to, how fast and how well can Sweden Reform itself (Frankly that was it's biggest issue IRL) while still maintaining relatively good relations long enough to pay off.

 

[Sharp163]

Well, that depends.
Is normal Sweden going to be in HOI4, or Paradox Sweden?

All you EU4 players know what I mean...

 

[Premu]

Well, there was a HOI 3 AAR in which someone did a WC with Albania...

I'm sure sooner or later someone will find enough exploits to repeat such a stunt. The question is just: how crazy have you to play to manage this WC?

 

[Denkt]

Given how the ai is unable to take action in HOI3, I will say that it will be much harder in HOI4.

 

[FOARP]

I really hope that HOI4 models conquest more realistically. The basic fact is that occupying other countries normally just resulted in your country becoming weaker because of the cost of occupation and the low usability of the territory that you've occupied - I cannot think of a minor country that was strengthened by territorial annexation in this period. The exception is where the territory that you occupy has a significant population that will side with you (e.g., Austria and the Sudetenland for Germany). Just as much to the point, no minor country historically could conquer another without finding itself faced with the threat of intervention by the great powers.

WC for small countries in HOI3 only worked because you could conquer -> exploit -> conquer continually until the whole world was beaten. The AI-controlled majors wouldn't stop you, and the countries you occupied wouldn't resist your occupation - for some reason millions of Belgians, Irishmen, El Salvadorians, were only too happy to join your Albanian empire and serve in the glorious Albanian armed forces.

1. Conquer Norway and Denmark (Literally takes like no effort), aswell as Finland and all the baltics including Lithuania before they get annexed (Will need some transport ships most like so go suck up to England and US)
2. Pretty much just suck up whatever countries that don't really have much relevance and nobody will mind if you take AKA Portugal Ireland Spain Turkey (Assuming Spain is tired after civil war and not part of axis and none of the countries are guaranteed). Turkey Might require a bigger navy but most of their cities like constantionpel will be most important. Might invade from some random baltic country.
3. Sweden will need to get some bigger guns and better stuff before it can take on any big guys like Germany and USSR so invading England through Ireland while the battle of britain is going on might be worth a shot. What we want to achieve with this is acquiring England's colonies so that we can get some rubber and oil for the upcoming showdown.
4. Prepare two armies. One in Finland and one if Turkey. Once the Soviet is preoccupied with fighting the germans we will grab Stalingard and the oil fields aswell as Stalingard in order to acquire WP. While the Germans gather for the attack on moscow we will have regrouped our troops and do a launched assault at Moscow from north and south, beating them off.
5. having all three major cities should be enough to annex Muscovy or atleast puppet them. I might puppet them and have them fight the germans while I regroup my armies to invade Berlin from the north. We would then basically cut off the germans while they are stuck in Russian lands and then round them up.
6. Probably Grab France and then prepare to deal with Japan and China to suck up whatever is left and make the US irrelevant and basically WIN.

I really, really hope this kind of strategy doesn't work in HOI4. This is not simply because I am a kill-joy. It is because, if you can do this, then the game really isn't going to be that much of a challenge because the AI will be rubbish and the in-game mechanisms will allow massive exploits.

 

[Grallak]

I really hope that HOI4 models conquest more realistically. The basic fact is that occupying other countries normally just resulted in your country becoming weaker because of the cost of occupation and the low usability of the territory that you've occupied - I cannot think of a minor country that was strengthened by territorial annexation in this period. The exception is where the territory that you occupy has a significant population that will side with you (e.g., Austria and the Sudetenland for Germany). Just as much to the point, no minor country historically could conquer another without finding itself faced with the threat of intervention by the great powers.

WC for small countries in HOI3 only worked because you could conquer -> exploit -> conquer continually until the whole world was beaten. The AI-controlled majors wouldn't stop you, and the countries you occupied wouldn't resist your occupation - for some reason millions of Belgians, Irishmen, El Salvadorians, were only too happy to join your Albanian empire and serve in the glorious Albanian armed forces.



I really, really hope this kind of strategy doesn't work in HOI4. This is not simply because I am a kill-joy. It is because, if you can do this, then the game really isn't going to be that much of a challenge because the AI will be rubbish and the in-game mechanisms will allow massive exploits.

I agree that beyond all nordic countries and baltics Sweden doesn't really have much sense in going anywhere. All I did was propose how Sweden could achieve WC.

TBH WC has never really been very interesting, but I still want to see Sweden become strong enough to be able to sustain itself without having to rely on others.
In that sense I mean that We need to achieve oil and a decent amount of manpower.

Even so I really prefer seing some sort of Nice Sweden which helps bringing down communism and Fascism in europe while still getting something out of it (Not that I need a reason to destroy the USSR or Nazis since they basically want to ruin for everyone)

I just feel no matter how you look at it, pretty much whatever sweden does as long as it isn't axis really isn't EVIL. Why is humanistic imperialism impossible? And all the countries I would conquer had cultural and historical ties to Sweden, and even if they hadn't it would be much better if a relatively strong North could ward of Axis and Communism rather than fueling one of the evils. I just can't picture myself seeing Churchill going like "Man, those damn Swedes manages to unite all nordic countries and are now fighting the Axis and Communism. How dare they?" Nope, I just don't see Churchill being pissed. I am not saying I am going to join the Democratic block, but in the very least stay alive long enough to weather the worst of the storm. Let's remember France and England were totally cool with invading Norway to prevent it being occupied by the Axis, so this WT or whatever is just some random Victoria 2 generator which arbitrarily generates ANGER against you because you are not being nice and peaceful and respecting the League of Nations. :'( Bu hu hu
It is because we are small and insignificant that we have a real chance to get away with it. <.<
I truly distasted the kind of arbitrarily generated BAD BOY status and frankly if taking those countries is what is required of us to maintain our sovereignity then it's practically self defense. I also doubt Stalin would wish to invade the Baltics and Finland in 1939 if Sweden Norway and Denmark actively supports them with arms, I just don't see Stalin doing something like that. It would have cost way too much manpower and Churchill would certainly have supported Sweden in their fight against communism with lend lease and technology to prevent us from falling into communist hands. Again, we don't know just how Aggressive the AI will be in the game, but from what I make out, it will vary. Also, if USSR would seem likely to attack Sweden then we might just join one of the other factions.

But again, is that possible? Let's say Sweden has all those countries but doesn't go for britain or anything and just waits for barbarossa to happen. Either the Axis wins and then it's only a matter of time before we either have to join them like Italy or be crushed. On the other hand if the soviet union wins we might find ourselves having to deal with them eventually if we choose to do nothing and no USA who wants to help us since we aren't democrats. But regardless of the scenario Sweden still has a relatively good chance of being unscathed until the end of the war and just going on about it's own business, creating it's own baltic sphere of power and enjoying meatballs and other fun things. I just don't know if it will be possible to grab all the baltics and then just chill.

But again, why would anyone ever play a country unless it has atleast a small chance at WC? Sweden could just chill the entire war as it did historically but if we wanted historical Sweden we could just read a book or something. Again, everything here is just speculations, and I wouldn't conquer all those countries unless it gave me a shot at WC. Since democrats and communism is pretty much of the table (Democracy definitely is since they just release everything the dumb bastards) the only real option left is Fascism or atleast some sort of imperialism. But just because I am AXIS or facist or whatever doesn't mean I symphatize with genocides or some crazy marum lebe whatever and just want to conquer stuff because why not? Everything I do will be in the name of total control, obviously.

Yes, I agree HOI3 Country jumping was kind of ugly, and perhaps beyond the north I might skip Britain or whatever, but I will atleast have to try my luck at Russia since helping Stalin isn't going to give me any oils or manpower I need to continue ruling.

Having read all this, I reached the conclusion that allying, becoming a facist imperialist state (but not joining Axis faction) would be the best option, so in the very least making a super run from Leningrad > Muscow > Stalingrad > Baku oil would be the absolute minimum for any kind of ealistic WC which doesn't inolve any bloody sea lions is possible. I would still have to fight Germany but hopefully I will be able to kill him before he kills me, or atleast befriend him long enough for the allies to make a push for D-day. I did actually do something like this in HOI3 and managed to contain Allies in Bergen but they Paradropped so I lost, but that was relatively realistic and still doable.

So to sum it all up. A swedish baltic marum with russia aswell so that basically all countries of the North is united under one banner and then make a push into mainland europe to finish of Germany from both Baltics and Denmark, while the Democratic countries attack France or so. What we would end up with is basically USSR 1945 BUT with all Scandinavian countries in it and some kind of quasi democratic imperialistic mild fasistic moose Federal Empire <.> Russia makes sense because KIEV = Kärring Novogrod = Ny gård Russia = Roslagen and Muscow = Musko. :O Illuminati confirmed.

Thoughts on that?

 

[Loke]

Sweden WC in HoI IV.

#1 Crazy? Well it doesnt seem very sane...

#2 Possibly? Errr...No.

Try type IDKFA in console mode... Anyway I would recommend you EU IV, there it might just work and have some fun doing it.

 

[nhsk]

Someone will do it, someone will conquer the world with Tibet as well

 

[SuiciSpai]

Well, maybe with help? I made a WC on Hoi 2 Doomsday with republican spain (allied with the URRS, until the end,then they were the final boss). Was fun, but I hit the last year ingame (1951 in doomsday if IIRC)

 

[CptWilly]

Because of the much shorter timeline, I find WC with minors in HOI to be much more difficult (someone will do it, but probably out of the reach of most mere mortals) compared to EU and CK, where you can conquer the world as more or less anyone.

 

[Beagá]

Well, that depends.
Is normal Sweden going to be in HOI4, or Paradox Sweden?

All you EU4 players know what I mean...

The swedish start is tough enough that you won´t do a WC as Sweden, in one century.

The math simply doesn´t hold Between manpower, administrative and overextension, EU4 does make fast WC impossible, even with big countries, let alone Sweden-level.

The realistic achievements would be to make your FACTION rule the world (not individual country AKA Sweden) and stuff like forming Scandinavia or baltic Empire or something like that.

 

[Cynical Dreamer]

Well, considering the USSR lost for times as much population than Sweden had people living in it, I find it far fetched to imagine it conquering the world. It simply doesn't have the manpower, let alone the industrial capacity, even with all the nordic countries combined, to take on one of the world's super-powers of the time, be it the soviets, nazis, Americans or even Japanese. If Sweden could go from second rate power to world's sole superpower within a decade without cheating, I'd be disappointed in the game. Become much stronger yes, a decisive player in the winning coalition fine, but certainly not a world conquest by 1948.

 

[Victor Cortez]

Toughts? Ides? Criticism? I am all ears.
.

The expression 'wildly optimistic' comes to mind if I have to be honest.
Taking Scandinavia, plus Finland sounds like a good achievement already for the average player.

 

[Razor]

Disclaimer: I don't want to destroy your day, just give you a push in a more feasible direction

Without thinking too deeply about your plans for Sweden or a Swedish WC for that matter, I believe it's quite impossible without some really heavy modding.
It was never possible i real life and most of us (I believe) do not want the game to be that implausible per design.

So start modding! We want a fantasy game anyhow right? Add some manpower, industries, techs and units at the start and see how far you can get with that. What's on your computer should bother no one but you.

And by learning to mod you can correct a few things that the developers will leave out, such as leaders for minors and such.

I wouldn't hesitate more then a week or so after install

 

[CptWilly]

So start modding! We want a fantasy game anyhow right? Add some manpower, industries, techs and units at the start and see how for you can get with that. What's on your computer should bother no one but you.

Or just open the console and cheat like a beast! A goal of conquest as a minor power in HOI is hard enough even with more or less any cheat you can imagine, that you can still have fun in the (way fictional) attempt.

 

[Razor]

Or just open the console and cheat like a beast!

Well, that will do the trick. But cheat doesn't sound as nice as modify