This is serious. I am a big PDX fun, I've played 2000+hrs EU4 and have 0 problems, earned many achivs. But for almost 200hrs in HOI4 I have never won a single big campagn like USSR vs Germany, or for Poland in NSB I attack Germany after giving up Dancig, and while Germany is taking Paris I try to stab in the back, but just fail. What am I doing wrong? I try to choose the path wisely, I watch a lot of videos on youtube and twitch, but still. I loose every single big campagne. I know I miss a key point, but what is it?
Why am I always losing? What am I missing?
- Thread starter Belwhale
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The point you are missing is probably the understanding how everything works.
For your example, as Poland trying to backstab Germany while its at war with France is not going to properly work because you are outmatched by a lot. France bot is absolutely terrible. Intentionally coded to be terrible. Therefore France bot is useless for you. (Just like reallife France was useless for reallife Poland during 39).
Germany has a lot of airforce. Beating that as Poland is almost impossible.
But only if you know that an enemy airforce is probably your main problem when playing Poland, you can take countermeasures.
That is what I mean when I say "understanding how everything works"
You have to have an understanding, *why* things have failed.
Keep on failing. There is no shame in failing.
But what you must do, every time, is finding out why you are failing, when you are in the process of failing.
Someone to teach you goes a long way. But analyzing what happens as soon as it happens is probably the key.
For your example, as Poland trying to backstab Germany while its at war with France is not going to properly work because you are outmatched by a lot. France bot is absolutely terrible. Intentionally coded to be terrible. Therefore France bot is useless for you. (Just like reallife France was useless for reallife Poland during 39).
Germany has a lot of airforce. Beating that as Poland is almost impossible.
But only if you know that an enemy airforce is probably your main problem when playing Poland, you can take countermeasures.
That is what I mean when I say "understanding how everything works"
You have to have an understanding, *why* things have failed.
Keep on failing. There is no shame in failing.
But what you must do, every time, is finding out why you are failing, when you are in the process of failing.
Someone to teach you goes a long way. But analyzing what happens as soon as it happens is probably the key.
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I build a lot. I try to add AA in support. If economy is allowing I add artillery in support. I even build a comb train 3 of them. but didn't help against Germany. Maybe I need more manual work during battles?
While there are many helpful and knowledge people on the forums, unfortunately none of them I know are mind readers.
A question like, "What am I doing wrong?" in a game as massive and complex as HOI4 simply can't be answered without enough information about your game.
I would suggest either adding screenshots of your most recent campaign to your post, or simply attach your save game file so that others can load it up and take a look around in it to see what happened. Also, don't feel down about it, only 200 hours is still very new to HOI4, and Germany is much stronger in game than in real life for balance reasons.
A question like, "What am I doing wrong?" in a game as massive and complex as HOI4 simply can't be answered without enough information about your game.
I would suggest either adding screenshots of your most recent campaign to your post, or simply attach your save game file so that others can load it up and take a look around in it to see what happened. Also, don't feel down about it, only 200 hours is still very new to HOI4, and Germany is much stronger in game than in real life for balance reasons.
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Poland vs Germany is one of the hardest possible setups in the game. It's not at all an even playing field.
Sure, use your micro. In singleplayer that is your biggest strength. The bot doesn't micro.
But as Poland there is really not much you can do in a historical setup, because the enemy comes from all sides and also vastly outmatches you in industry. You simply dont have enough stuff to throw at them.
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OK. Let's forget about Poland. Mostly I care about why I always loose as USSR against Germany. I have less plans, but all my divs are with AA support and log supports and all the others support. I have tanks, mot-ed divs, inf, but still loose. All my divs I try to make 18-22 width. I do all, but...
This is not saying much at all. Like mercader said, you need to provide much more information.
It sounds a bit like "I have some ingredients. Why dont I have a meal?"
Maybe you doing "everything" instead of "something" is the problem.
The way that hoi (and most other strategy games) work is that you simply cannot do everything. If you do everything, then everything is going to suck. You gotta specialize on something. That thing is your strategy.
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Do you have a save game from right before Germany attacks you when playing Poland?
Or do you have a save game from one of your failed Soviet or Germany games from before the shooting starts? We could diagnose the problem that way.
Or do you have a save game from one of your failed Soviet or Germany games from before the shooting starts? We could diagnose the problem that way.
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I will play one more Stalin way and I'll provide you with screenshots and saves. I will go mid tanks, will produce as much artillery as possible and will take baltic states and Finland. I want to make it historical.
If you struggle that much you should play a walktrhough as Germany or an other beginner friendly state. Poland is very difficult indeed.
My advice, don't try to learn on uphill battles.
Poland is probably hard / very hard unless you ally USSR (my only experience).
USSR vs Germany is hard. As in I have 500 hours in the game and I am cursing and making mistakes and the Germans broke my lines even though they are too stupid to even build enough tanks, they still broke my lines in the south.
This isn't EU. The numbers really matter. Poland has a weak economy. USSR is weaker than Germany in the short term.
Play Germany. That teaches you a lot. Because it goes from very easy to very hard.
The way to win USSR vs Germany? time, winter, attrition, good supply, keep making divisions, infantry equipment 1, 2 and 3 (make them all IMO), AA. keep deploying divisions. When it is bad, like 12 to 20width , shovels, engineers. Deploy them. Even if they are half trained. Even if they are missing a lot of crap. State AA in big states.
Pull all your tanks and motorized away. Save them for when the tide turns.
Don't bother with airforce. Controversial opinion but you won't be able to out build or out fight them in the air until 1944 probably. Whatever you have in the air, you have to use selectively. Like put your entire airforce in Ukraine for instance.
Two field marshalls. One with defensive stats. Use field marshall lines.
Fallback lines for extra troops. North, middle, and south.
Poland is probably hard / very hard unless you ally USSR (my only experience).
USSR vs Germany is hard. As in I have 500 hours in the game and I am cursing and making mistakes and the Germans broke my lines even though they are too stupid to even build enough tanks, they still broke my lines in the south.
This isn't EU. The numbers really matter. Poland has a weak economy. USSR is weaker than Germany in the short term.
Play Germany. That teaches you a lot. Because it goes from very easy to very hard.
The way to win USSR vs Germany? time, winter, attrition, good supply, keep making divisions, infantry equipment 1, 2 and 3 (make them all IMO), AA. keep deploying divisions. When it is bad, like 12 to 20width , shovels, engineers. Deploy them. Even if they are half trained. Even if they are missing a lot of crap. State AA in big states.
Pull all your tanks and motorized away. Save them for when the tide turns.
Don't bother with airforce. Controversial opinion but you won't be able to out build or out fight them in the air until 1944 probably. Whatever you have in the air, you have to use selectively. Like put your entire airforce in Ukraine for instance.
Two field marshalls. One with defensive stats. Use field marshall lines.
Fallback lines for extra troops. North, middle, and south.
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Beating Germany as Poland is a relatively difficult challenge in this game.
Have you played as Germany or other majors first? You should learn about good strategy and mechanics with more advantaged nations first.
You need to know the strengths and weaknesses of every nation, and be able to limit and maximize those. It's impossible to answer such a general question as noted by others.
Also, you're fighting against the disadvantage with the Soviet Union. Rather than struggling with producing expensive equipment, use Soviet manpower advantage. Consider how your Land Doctrines complement that. You will not being able to outproduce Germany until possibly much later, so you're wasting your resources. Make them fight your way.
BTW, got a laugh about your starting with "This is serious".
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After 800 hours in the game I am still learning. My best advice like many others did in this thread. Start with Germany and play historical. Then you know what is going to happen and when. In 1939 you don’t need tanks for example to beat Poland or even NL/BE/FR. Some motorized is handy. Don’t use big templates before 1939. 20w inf (7 inf/2 Art) with support units are good enough.(I know not the meta.. but in SP it will do) For Barbarossa you will need more. Built enough planes to have air superiority and CAS of course. For Barbarossa… you will need more but when you got most of Europa you got enough military factories to get that.
when you win Barbarossa with Germany you can go for the world with Germany or play countries like UK then USA and last Japan. If you can win with these major… then you know all and can play with minors (I did NL and won! But also Greece and Won as well and some minors in asia). USSR is last… did it before NSB and was easy to win from Germany. With the new NSB dlc I need to see how it goes… not that easy anymore.
One last advise. Make a lot of saves! Even Ironmode you can save! Reason is that when you made somewhere a mistake you can go back to that save and try it from there again.
have fun! Winning is not the only fun this game can give you. (I know from experience)
when you win Barbarossa with Germany you can go for the world with Germany or play countries like UK then USA and last Japan. If you can win with these major… then you know all and can play with minors (I did NL and won! But also Greece and Won as well and some minors in asia). USSR is last… did it before NSB and was easy to win from Germany. With the new NSB dlc I need to see how it goes… not that easy anymore.
One last advise. Make a lot of saves! Even Ironmode you can save! Reason is that when you made somewhere a mistake you can go back to that save and try it from there again.
have fun! Winning is not the only fun this game can give you. (I know from experience)
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To add on, the actual land invasion is actually just one component of your strategy.
You should start by first noting the strength and weakness of an opponent. Then attack their weakness and avoid strength.
Resource availability is the source of fundamental strength for every nation. Other than manpower.
I tend to be guided by taking away access to resources of enemies, and trying to control world supply of a particular resource.
Once you cutoff supply or resource access to an enemy, you can let them got hungry for a while weakening them without putting a single unit into direct battle.
The same is true for you, where a resource shortage will be a limiting factor, so you want to ensure access to that first sometimes, before engaging in direct enemy invasion. Germany's resource limitation is Oil, so there is only so much armor they can run, before getting imports and access to it, or building synthetics.
There are many aspects to consider, but wanted to highlight the importance of resources.
You should start by first noting the strength and weakness of an opponent. Then attack their weakness and avoid strength.
Resource availability is the source of fundamental strength for every nation. Other than manpower.
I tend to be guided by taking away access to resources of enemies, and trying to control world supply of a particular resource.
Once you cutoff supply or resource access to an enemy, you can let them got hungry for a while weakening them without putting a single unit into direct battle.
The same is true for you, where a resource shortage will be a limiting factor, so you want to ensure access to that first sometimes, before engaging in direct enemy invasion. Germany's resource limitation is Oil, so there is only so much armor they can run, before getting imports and access to it, or building synthetics.
There are many aspects to consider, but wanted to highlight the importance of resources.
Biggest early lesson I learned from this game is realizing under-equipped divisions fight at a penalty, really realizing it, not just hearing the words. Pull back, resupply, return to the front.
Just making more units doesn’t help at all if they have no guns. It can actually hurt… Adding support companies to your templates without enough support equipment does the same, no help at all. Waiting to resize your templates until you have “enough” equipment to get your full bonus is a good thing.
Just making more units doesn’t help at all if they have no guns. It can actually hurt… Adding support companies to your templates without enough support equipment does the same, no help at all. Waiting to resize your templates until you have “enough” equipment to get your full bonus is a good thing.
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