What will be a good "starter nation" in this game?

[Lord Pounce]

So I'm relatively new to Paradox (Got CK2 about a year ago, and EUIV 6 months later), and excited about playing this game.

It looks to me like it will have a steep but manageable learning curve, and with that in mind, I was wondering (since i've never played the HOI series), what would be a good nation to play for my first game.

In CK2 it made sense to go small, either as an independent count in Ireland or a vassal count somewhere else. EUIV was quite the opposite though, in that it made much more sense for a new player to go big. How is it with HOI. I watched the video of the guy playing as Japan and that looked like it might work well for a first game, but is it better to go smaller?

 

[77Hawk77]

Germany is probably the best learning experience.

 

[Quendallon]

Well int the WWW it has been repeatedly stated that Italy will be the Ireland of ck2.
There will also be a tutorial featuring Italy in the game on release.

 

[Number 7]

if you're fine with possibly losing in your first games (as a player, i'm very happy to embrace the possibility of losing, not everyone is though) - i am a complete champion of Germany being the best nation to learn HOI3 and no doubt HOI4 with. lots of IC, lots of (hoi3) leadership, hoi4 has a "front loaded" doctrine tree for them apparantly.

basically you get room for errors, you get enough freedom to do your own thing, seems like great stuff.

a slower pace would be canada (very peaceful, very low chance of failing, simple operations such as Torch and later on assisting D-Day and invasion of italy), or Italy (harder than canada, but being second fiddle to germany means you aren't dictating the pace of the war)

 

[Lord Pounce]

if you're fine with possibly losing in your first games (as a player, i'm very happy to embrace the possibility of losing, not everyone is though) - i am a complete champion of Germany being the best nation to learn HOI3 and no doubt HOI4 with. lots of IC, lots of (hoi3) leadership, hoi4 has a "front loaded" doctrine tree for them apparantly.

basically you get room for errors, you get enough freedom to do your own thing, seems like great stuff.

a slower pace would be canada (very peaceful, very low chance of failing, simple operations such as Torch and later on assisting D-Day and invasion of italy), or Italy (harder than canada, but being second fiddle to germany means you aren't dictating the pace of the war)

Interesting, sounds like there are lots of different ways to approach it even from a beginner level. Playing as Canada sounds kind of fun. I've never played as my own country in a paradox game before

 

[Ctanr]

Tannu Tuva

definitely tannu tuva

 

[nastydisease]

Yeah Japan looked super appealing to me too during the latest WWW. With garrison area the whole defense of the western Pacific looks like about a millionth of the pain and micromanagement of HOI3.

Italy does look very fun tho, as it was in HOI3. HEAPS of smaller nations in the balkan and iberian peninsulas to pick on with limited wars in the lead up to WW2. Also will require use of all three forces for victory. If you manage to secure Gibraltar and the Suez you can make Italy itself quite safe from attack and then you can push into the rest of Africa, the middle east and India, or help Germany finish Russia if she's having trouble doing so.

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

If previous games are any indication, playing as Germany will be challenging for a new player, but the odds are stacked in your favor in the early years, and you learn most of the systems (except perhaps naval combat) pretty quickly. If you want something less challenging, or are new to Paradox games, try Argentina or Brazil.

 

[Denkt]

USA: While it is a large nation it also one of the most powerful nations and thus pretty friendly then it comes to making mistakes. You will have to use both a navy and a army and you will likely also build up an airforce. USA have so many resources you can make use of everything, so you can see what work and what don't works.

 

[Victor Cortez]

Canada all the way.
The numbers are small but not too much so. You don't need to defend at all as long as you're friends with the US, and if you're not friends with them, it's game over anyway.
You get to experience naval warfare and can send troops to wherever you prefer (pacific, africa, europe).

You're also very polite and don't mind the cold.

 

[kviiri]

The official tutorial island is Italy, for reasons I think are fairly easily seen:

• Italy starts with an easy war against Ethiopia - good for learning the basics
• Italy is moderately strong but not huge - not too much to manage at first
• Italy's real military achievements are extremely easy to surpass making new players feel good about themselves (ok, I jest)
• Italy doesn't have the responsibility of being a faction leader, they can leave the recruitment aspect to the Germans (or found a faction themselves should they like)
• Italy has both ground and sea based power so both can be learned

 

[illidan1371]

The official tutorial island is Italy, for reasons I think are fairly easily seen:

• Italy's real military achievements are extremely easy to surpass making new players feel good about themselves (ok, I jest)

OMG this made me LOL IRL xD

 

[77Hawk77]

Maybe I should have elaborated on why i think Germany is a learning experience.

1. If you are playing this game, I assume you know the basic chronology of events leading up to WW2 most of which include Germany.
2. The nations you fight as Germany increase in difficulty over time ranging from very easy(Poland) to quite hard(UK and Soviet)
3. You have the ability to research everything usually
4. You have a high industry cap that can increase by conquest.
5. You have many potential allies
6. You decide when the war starts if you play it not overly aggressively.
7. You get country flags (which i guess are national spirits now) for your troops in the first few years of ww2 that make them even stronger on the attack.

All of these allow many mistakes as Germany while learning about expansion, research, invasions etc. Its one of the nations that have a good pace from the beginning and gradually increase over time, unlike a lot of countries which do very little, or suddenly gets thrown in ww2 with no much to work with.

That's speaking from Hoi3 experience though.
I am very much against learning the game playing as an insignificant nation because you'll teach yourself tactics that won't work against serious enemies, in order to learn the game you have to fight enemies who are actually dangerous, you'll learn a lot more from winning against UK and the Soviet Union as Germany, than you will beating Uruguay as Paraguay

 

[Ragnar89]

OMG this made me LOL IRL xD

Indeed

Now i'm really proud of my country

In Topic: Italy, as other people already told, seems to be an "easy" country to learn the game.
Otherwise USA, with its huge industrial potential and relatively safe geographical position could be another easy option.

 

[Admiral Piett]

Italy is a good choice. That is what I learned HoI III with back in the day.

 

[LostAlone]

I'm going to be doing my learning with the UK for a few reasons. I'm not saying that's the easiest one but I do think it's a good way to learn the game.

• You're very unlikely to be completely overrun so it's forgiving of mistakes.
• You've got a big enough war machine that you can absorb losses, learn from them and win next time.
• Land, sea and air are all very important to the UK so you'll always have stuff to do through the whole length of the game even playing on the easiest difficulty.
• As the UK you can just aim to play historically and be reasonably certain you'll do ok so you don't have to worry about undoing historical mistakes to succeed.
• Assuming a historical game all you need to do is survive until Soviet and US forces come to bear.
• Tea, crumpets and mustaches. All very important.

All of this comes together to make for a side with a lot of stuff going on but not a lot of high pressure stuff. Your whole game won't ever come down perfectly winning one specific battle, for the UK it'll be a long struggle with time to figure out what you did wrong instead of just starting the game over. You'll get exposed to all the important mechanics and be on a big enough scale to have interesting choices to make, not just the obvious ones.

 

[Khelder]

I usually start my first game with Germany because it as said starts with quite easy conquests like poland and gets harder as the time goes by also if you are in doubt about what you should do next I have noticed that following the German expansion in IRL is good choice up to soviet union cause only way you usually can mess things up before that is if France sneaks up on you when you are not watching.

But as LostAlone said UK is forgiving option for new players as you can easily keep the germans out of the isles with Royal Navy and you have lots of possibilities for taking more active part in the war starting from defence of France where you can try out the fighting without having to bear the main responsibility. Also you can get a grip of air/sea and land warfare as UK has both good navy and air force for over all warring experience. Only thing I don´t like in UK is that it has land and subjects spread out around the world which though gives them abundance of resources also requires extensive focus in multiple fronts like egypt, India, etc.

 

[themunck]

Hmm....I've never been able to get into HoI before this installation, myself. How easy would the USSR be to learn, given how much we've seen can be automated now?

 

[kviiri]

Hmm....I've never been able to get into HoI before this installation, myself. How easy would the USSR be to learn, given how much we've seen can be automated now?

I guess Soviets have three main challenges. Their country has huge potential but starts out underdeveloped, so it requires some strategic insight to get them up to speed. They also lack any strong friends at start, being the only communist major. And finally, they have to choose between the painful Trotsky plot and the pains of purging, which is not going to be nice either way.

 

[77Hawk77]

yeah USSR will probably still be one of the hardest nations to play as.