Thread 2070984

As Graveyard of Empires finally receives the polish it should have had from day one, how are anons finding it? And with the devs hinting and finally working towards on the Asia-Pacific Front of the Second World War as well as reworking the faction mechanics of the game, what do you hope to see?

Old Thread: >>1970026

Playing late game is such ass.

>>2071009
Bretty mcuh

I haven’t played in years, but I recently returned with Götterdämmerung and loving it! I’m especially looking forward to the Japan rework.

get so annoyed by the combat system that i cant play anymore
especially when you have multiple fresh divisions on the tile where the battle takes place being forced to withdraw because they didnt get invited to the actual battle
so annoying

>>2071932
>no Vladivostock
>no Sakhalin
4/10

Bump

>>2072112
>t. persians at battle of thermopylae

Maybe I'll reinstall when they revamp the navy yet again.

>>2075153
They're revamping the navy + adding some naval mechanic flavor like contesting sea lanes for the next DLC

what special projects are worth going for?
the interesting ones like for instance nuclear submarines come so fucking late i have literally never seen one
the land cruiser was very strong, but also pretty late
the cruiser submarine is the only one i can think of that comes early and is strong enough to be worthwhile

>>2070984 (OP)
>you have to have all DLC to enjoy the game
it pisses me off

>>2075766
You don't.
In fact the dlc half ruins it because it adds a lot of bloat. Waking the tiger was probably the pinnacle of the game.

>>2075309
Cruiser Subs aren't worth the investment considering that they're just tier IV Subs with more construction IC.

But from what I recall, It's worth investing into Helicopters and Engineering Vehicles because of the added entrenchment and armor bonus.

>>2075807
WtT may have been good but it's showing its age post NSB/BbA. It's in dire need of a rework.

It's kind of nuts how gotterdammerung is probably the best dlc paradox has ever released across all of their games.

>>2076830
Unironically. I still remember when anons were thinking that Uranium is going to be the new resource to drop because of the Congolese focus tree.

>>2075766
CreamAPI bro

>>2076829
>Cruiser Subs aren't worth the investment considering that they're just tier IV Subs with more construction IC.
they are, but you can get them far earlier

>>2077364
For most of my runs, they're not really worth the investment considering that you can get the same perks for tier IV Subs. The extra modules are cool but max torp + a strong radar does wonders for me.

Interesting, we getting coal as a limiter for endless industrial expansion.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-corner-thermodynamics.1803015/

>>2077863
i usually mix them in with the normal subs and give them all the float planes and spotting i can fit
then the normal subs have max damage
i honestly have no idea if this even does anything, its mostly just larp, but i like the idea
hard to understand what specifically has an effect and what kind of effect in the naval system

>>2077865
Unless they fix the awful resource distribution, this is just going to fuck over minor countries.

>>2077903
Indeed. The good news is that dams and civilian nuclear reactors help alleviate the need for coal.

>>2077910
This would’ve been a good solution if dams were actually constructible. Not even touching on the nuclear reactors lmao

>>2077929
The fact they locked dam building is such a waste.

>>2077865
>Make economy laws less one dimensional
good
>Do it in the most gamey way of making the previously better laws require arbitrarily more energy.
I hate this kind of shit. Instead of modelling the actual issues with mobilisation & war economies, they cope out and make them entirely abstract.

>>2077865
>industrial expansion
No, it's actually a Germany nerf, because you can't just get fuel and rubber yourself, anymore, because it's COAL liquification. Say good-bye to your Synthetic Oil refineries.

>>2077951
Cope, seethe, and go back to HoI3. This is still WW2 sim, not politics, espionage or economics sim. The "gamey way" is why it's popular in the first place.

Holy shit, I fucking LOVE marines
t. new player

I can't help but feel like they're trying to reinvent the wheel.

>>2077865
...Are they just taking the energy system from black ice?
>>2077974
>No, it's actually a Germany nerf
Coal is the one resource Germany had a metric fuckton of.

>>2070984 (OP)
How the fuck are you supposed to manage the navy in this game?
>inb4 in-depth explanation of parts
No, I know all that, 1 spotter plane on patrol with your main fleet to fuck them up when they find something, torpedo spam destroyers, main gun LC, 4 carriers...
I'm more wondering what the fuck you're supposed to do with your starting navy which is always dog shit combinations that are unusable.
So which do you do:
1. Disband the entire thing and solely build good ships with good templates.
2. Refit all the crap ships to use good components
3. Just use the crap ships whatever but solely build good ships from then on.

Mainly asking in terms of the UK, where they have the largest navy on the planet at start but it's all just terrible. It might be historical but I fucking hate it.

>>2077974
Did you read I said limiter for industrial expansion? I didn't specified just for Germany. This is a global nerf overall.

>>2075309
Basically anything that gives a support battalion is good, flame tanks and assault engineers being particularly good for the bonuses they give and how early and cheap they are
Land cruisers are kind of the exception, they give fantastic bonuses, so much so that you can build your entire army around them, but are locked behind a now literally useless dead end 1943 tech and the project itself is pure cancer with 20 events that are "take 3 years of setbacks or suffer crippling debuffs"
Proxy fuses unlock a hefty attack bonus for land AA and artillery
Fleet subs with anechonic and AIP are the best subs, but take a while to research and you're still cucked out of torpedo 4s without 1944 sub research
Mothership aircraft and ice carriers are supposedly good but I've never used them

>>2078119
>Coal is the one resource Germany had a metric fuckton of.
Historically, yeah. But we're not playing by historical resource distribution, are we? Half the world's tungsten production isn't in China, is it? Sweden and France produce Steel, instead of Iron, do they?

>>2078133
>destroyers and light cruisers
Refit what can be refit into something usable. Relegate to reserves what can't
>everything else
Doomstack

>>2077865
>https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-corner-thermodynamics.1803015/
FUCKING BASED
NOW ADD IN MONEY, RESOURCE FACTORIES AND FOOD.

>>2078208
Zased. Thanks, king.
Destroyers are so cheap I may as well just shit out new, but LC can get refit.

Speaking of navy are heavy cruisers still OP?

>>2078480
Last I played they were primarily decent as a surface raiding option but everyone just doomstacked their strike fleets because everything else was too much effort for the payout.

I only am interested in playing this game for the navy but it just sucks. I love building up the ships and customizing them but all that work just boils down to the rare engagement that matters and the way the game delivers battle information to you is not interesting at all. You can't even see a record of all the ships and classes sunk in the game outside of looking at individual ships.

Also the game incentivizes you to escort carriers with capital ships which is not realistic. Heavy cruisers are realistic in a carrier group but not a battleship or battlecruiser. Also the game incentivizes you to have way too many escorts than was realistic in a single fleet.

>>2078348
NTA but from my experience I'd also suggest you to not merge your entire navy into a single doomstack. Speed is one of the most important stats for ships, so really old and slow ships (like engine 1 pre-1936 BBsl should go in their own secondary fleet.

>>2077897
Spotting ( or Surface Detection ) increases the chance of your fleet finding an enemy fleet/convoy to raid. What you'd want is to balance spotting and torpedo attack. There's also Sub Visibility which helps in ensuring your submarines survive from fleet escorts and iirc Radars offsets Sub Visibility so I always go with them.

>>2077865
Based. In relation to Japan's DLC rework, it would basically push players into investing into Coal Liquefication ( which the Japanese tried but failed to do due to how they were far behind technology-wise ).

>>2078133
>I'm more wondering what the fuck you're supposed to do with your starting navy which is always dog shit combinations that are unusable.

Submarinemaxxing + Investing on Minelayers + pivoting towards an Aviation Fleet and creating a Fleet Air Arm of land based torpedo bombers.

Does vanilla feel just boring and shallow to anyone else?
I'm trying to return to the base game after playing so many total overhaul mods but I'm having a hard time genuinely enjoying it.
It feels like there's barely anything to do. You prepare for the incoming war, 4 years slowly go by where nothing aside from Spain happens, and then the big war starts.

>>2079198
hoi 4 vanilla is pretty shallow as a ww2 sim. Theres no food. Theres no money. Theres no real political simulation. Theres not even resource factories.
Its barren.

>>2079251
>ww2
>political simulation

>>2079262
If not politics, then add in food, money and resource factory shit at least

>>2079269
Overrealism is killing the games and I'm tired of it.

>>2079280
I think there is very little realistic about HOI4. I don't consider it a good historical strategy game. The game is pure fantasy. It's a sandbox for people to roleplay as random insignificant third world countries

>>2079290
Nobody fucking asked for your shitty opinion. Go play Black Ice, if you want that kind bullshit.

>>2079314
I don't play mods for HOI4. It's a shitty wargame in general I stay away.

>>2079346
Did you, at least, pirate it, or are you being a typical /v/irgin right now?

Can't play this game.
My autism makes me want to build perfect 5 army stacks with 24 identical divisions in them, regardless of whether that's useful/sustainable or not. In my mind 120 divisions is the lowest unit size. I can't stand having generals not min-maxed.

>>2079394
Meds?

>>2079394
Unironically not the worst because of how general xp works.

>>2079381
I've owned HOI4 since 2016

>>2078133
Option 3.
I just reorganise and use. Anything with depth charges goes in its own ASW fleet. Anything without depth chargers get distributed to strike fleets. If you start off with any roach type destroyers I use them for patrol scouting and later refit with radar. I've dabbled in maritime patrol planes for scouting as well but not quite sure if 10 is enough each sea region or if I need more, I don't quite understand how they work.

Why is there a faggot getting triggered by politics in a fucking paradox game thread

>>2079700
Retards do be retarding

>>2071009
Yeah, I always picture some epic missile based cold War where I start using my intelligence agency to start coups and proxy wars but instead it's almost 99% a Forever War where half the world wants you dead and they just swakp the border with fodder forcing you to just focus on land production

Can anyone recommend me an optimal offensive infantry template? I've see multiple videos and read multiple reddit posts, and it seems that everyone has a different answer.

>>2082996
Because that really depends on your IC and pop.
I think 7/2's are the most basic offensive division that you just modify from there depending on how big your population is and how many factories you have.

>>2082996
9:1 for everything, always. Offense, defense, everything.

>>2083071
It doesn't matter, this game is bullshit. Optimal set ups are always gay and have no basis in history

>>2083266
>there is no optimal setup because what is best depends on a number of factors and changes from situation to situation
>Optimal setups are gay and have no basis
So we agree that there is no optimal setup, great.

I know Byzantium is better overall, but I still prefer doing Hellas most of the time as Greece.

>>2070984 (OP)
> play as USA
> go with no civil war fascist path
> randomly join war against Japan anyways
How do I avoid that? Literally picked every decision where I abandon China and do not support them against Japan, but still end up at war with them by August '40. No events or choice presented, just the "we are at war!" notification.
If I'm on Ironman, is there a way to force a white peace with Japanese and ditch the Chinese? I really don't want to re-do this for the third time and just want to continue my little comfy Monroe Doctrine campaign.

>>2083868
>White Peace
>Hoi4
Lol

>Set Italy and Soviets to maximum boost
>Go democratic Germany.
I'm going to die

>>2083868
Dump all you weapons to the Philippines and lower their autonomy so you can annex them. Then release them as a free nation since Japan declaring war against them would drag you to war with Japan as well.

>We may be getting Korea in the new rework
>GEACPS path will finally be interesting to play


https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-corner-faction-dynamics-part-2.1820997/

>>2083868
>How do I avoid that?
Maybe don't have a puppet they get a focus war goal on

>>2083868
Wait you can skip the civil war?

>>2074807
Persians won at Thermopylae. I don't understand why so many people think they didn't.
HoI IV rules not only would Spartans win, they'd route the Persian army despite only ever fighting a fraction of it.

>>2084657
Because pyrrhic victories result in lost wars

>>2084657
Ignore that anon, it's more like Brits at Singapore.

>>2072112
>>2084657
Also, git fucking gud, shitter. Signal Companies raise Initiative specifically to counter this, and Last Stand button exists for a reason.

If you're playing some dogshit mod, that's a (you) problem.

I always forget how easy it is to save France by just trying a little.

>>2084877
That's historically accurate

>>2084878
Most of the British Army was in France Historically, though and they couldn't stop it.

>>2084882
The Germans were extremely lucky during the French campaign too, but I'm talking about France actually carrying out the planned offensive western Germany during the invasion of Poland

>>2084911
Half the rules in multiplayer matches are there to enable Germany to do it's thing.

Is putting tanks in infantry division templates worth it if I don't have the industry to support proper tank divisions?

>>2084990
No outside cheapo flame tanks (which you should already be putting in every division)

>>2084988
Maybe that's what happened in real life as well

>>2070984 (OP)
Honestly I'm not sure HoI4 was ever in a 'great' spot but they really fucking ruined the game after circa Waking the Tiger
>Focus tree bloat and stupid minigames (Italy, Germany, and USSR are anti-fun to play now)
>Designer bloat (As if this ever really added anything to the game)
>Ticky-tacky poorly tacked-on mechanics (Espionage, 'world market)
Every campaign is just drowning in friction and pointless clicky busywork instead of being a WW2 grand strategy game
Was it too much to ask for them to actually revisit some of the game's core combat mechanics so, idk, barbarossa (as Germany OR the USSR) would actually be a challenge, or that you cant just shit out infantry with a support AA and ART and CAS spam to utterly buttblast the AI?

>>2085218
Only Marburg Files know.

>>2085244
...building an AI that can put up with a human player doing everything in their power to WAAC is basically impossible though.

What do I do in this situation? The enemy is incredibly well-defended, no matter what I try with paratroopers they die immediately.

>>2075766
Fake news. I stopped playing with DLC 200 hours ago. I just wish Parajew made all of the features paid so I could completely disable raids and special projects too.

>>2085552
Sit there 10 years and bleed them to death.

>>2082996
8 mountaineers 3 artillery with ranger support is the best offence you can get from infantry but you can only have so many of those. If you want something spammier then 9 infantry 2 artillery works just fine too. But at that point you might as well just get tanks or spam planes.

>>2085552
Put up 10 million fighters and CAS so that the enemy instantly evaporates into thin air.

>>2085568
Thanks, that's more or less exactly what I did. Getting a foothold was the difficult part, but it's done. I fucking hate islands.

>>2085552
>self-censorship
lame

>>2085621
Can't be breaking rules on 4channel, anon

>>2077951
>Manpower is just a number
>War economy is good
>Consumer goods is bad
>Food does not exist
>Factories don`t take up manpower
>Stability is just a number
>Entire population in the frontlines is good.
Apparently this happens cause paradox is scared of presenting war as bad.

>>2085722
>Factories don`t take up manpower
That does kind of exist in the form of conscripting a quarter of your population tanking factory output

>>2085722
Everything in a computer is just a number.

>>2085624
A really funny thing I noticed from the 4chan staff getting doxxed was the revelation that one of the jannies here in /vst/ also was a janny in /mlp/. I highly suspect he was the fag deleting EAW related posts with ponies appearing in screenshots.

>>2085479
It's not about the AI being supercomputer level brilliant and doing epic 999IQ strategic maneuvers, it's about the core design of the game being pretty bad.
Hearts of Iron 3 was not the hardest game in the world once you learned the systems but it at least posed a reasonable level of challenge, because the core combat mechanics were better designed.
For instance ... As USSR, you can simply spam a bunch of the most basic infantry division with just a support AA and support ART piece and Germany will never take a single tile. It's just that easy.
Meanwhile you can battleplan all the way to USSR capitulation using nothing but that exact same infantry division with a bunch of CAS.
I'm sure the AI is bad and does fall over when trying to do the stupid equipment designers and making 'good' division designs, particularly for tank divisions, but the bigger issue is that HoI4 just has extremely trivial combat that the AI can't fight and org and manpower regens so fast that you can just battleplan everything.
It's such a glaring issue that has been in the game for so long I really don't understand why it hasn't been fixed.
It's not even really 'cheese' either like abusing some obscure mechanic, it's just a ridiculously trivial game. And I'm not making fun of anyone either, I want to like the game, it's just silly at some point.

>>2085479
>WAAC
we're all just pretending we know what the fuck this means, yeah?

>>2085933
...but this is false. Mods that have OOBs that have the AI put AA in divisions, and build proper divisions can't just be pushed on mass.

>>2085938
Win at all costs. This is a definitionregardless if you have some other definition in your head.

Grand Battle Plan... I fucking kneel.
I thought Superior Firepower being trash was just an exaggeration.

>>2085942
Since when was this an acronym?

>>2085940
>Mods
Does not contradict what I was saying which is that the base game is trivially easy but OK, let's try it. Which specific mod should I install and we'll put it to the test.

>>2085949
It does though? Your point is that game is fundamentally flawed, when it is just that the nations have terrible OOBs? OOBs can be changed and aren't fundamental in any way.

>>2085948
...as far as I was aware always.

>>2085955
After some googling it's from Warhammer. Explains why I haven't heard it. Never got into that.

>>2085953
Nigga is so scared he won't actually recommend a mod (To reiterate: 3rd party intervention is still required to make this game apparently less than trivially easy, despite it having been released a decade ago with like 10 DLC's since) to test his hypothesis and is just spouting LARP words like "OOB"

What you're actually saying in human English is that in the base game the AI can't properly use the division designer and/or build equipment and/or deploy armies to actually do anything against the player, but that the core combat mechanics are good.

Well I for one would view that as a pretty fundamental flaw in the game's design, but leaving that aside let's try it then. What's a good mod? I'll shit out a bunch of meme infantry divisions and CAS like in vanilla and see what happens.

Got 100 hours into HoI4 and despite really wanting to like it I simply don't. Only really played the USSR, Communist China, and Japan.
The reason I don't like the game and the thing that spooked me out of playing the other majors (especially Germany) is the whole thing is based on implicitly understanding the meta.
There's a direct order you're supposed to take the focus trees in and your options are:
>research which exact focus you're supposed to take at which exact time
or
>eat fucking shit and die because you took "reinforce the barricade" as your 7th focus instead of "barricade the reinforcements"
Neither of which are fun.

An unrelated issue, and this might just be me not having used it enough, but the UI feels clunky as shit. Refitting ships is cancer. You have to go into each individual ship and see what it has and then mentally retain that information while you check every other ship because the UI is so cumbersome to reopen. Comparing ships is also cancer because they're not divided by type, you have to memorize what class is what type and vice versa. It would have been incredibly easy for them just to put a little "DD" or "LC" label in the corner so you didn't have to check.

>>2085969
It's not just you, focus tree bloat has really added a ton of friction to the game.
Even if you aren't a sweaty metagamer you are essentially forced to read through a gigantic, byzantine list of branching choices (1) even figure out what the fuck is going on and what focus does what; and (2) do a bunch of work to try to get the stuff you want, which of course inevitably results in even a middling casual player trying to figure out how to time certain focuses so they get the bonuses at the right time for research, etc.
This is made all the worse by a lot of nations now having convoluted, pointless mini-games like the Stalin purge which essentially force you to be constantly in the decision and focus tree menu to manage the Fuck You Meter, or constantly dealing with stupid bullshit like the Italian "Balance of Power" nonsense or the German "Hitler's Inner Circle" shit.
Not to mention all of the times you will not realize you needed to take a certain focus or a bad thing will happen, or that some focus has some weird unintended outcome, or that some mechanic is locked out unless you read through all of them and found some focus way off to the right that you need to unlock, it's ridiculous.
It is completely anti-fun and has gone way too far.

>>2085979
Coming from HoI3 I (playing as USSR) assumed stuff like the winter war, annexation of the Baltic states, etc happened via scripted event. Turns out you have to manually do them. In every other Paradox game it'd be a "tensions on the Finnish border" event that either started it or prompted you to take the focus. There is nothing that tells you you're supposed to do it yourself.
Your airforce is gimped by a modifier that you remove with focuses, your industrialization is tied to taking the exact right focus at the exact right time. Which leaves you watching videos on how to play it. "You're going to want to... Then you're gunna... After that it's..." That's not playing a game, that's building flatpack furniture.
I get that this is probably fun for someone who knows what to do either from trying and failing, reading the forums for hours on end, or watching a youtuber play the game for them but for everyone else it's bullshit.

All Paradox games suffer from this to some extent, if you don't buy the game at launch and follow it's development cycle to the letter you're in the wilderness and then if you try to jump on later it's 100 worth of DLC and having to learn which mechanics were worked and reworked and re-reworked. HoI being the worst for this.

>People ITT can't sight read focus trees
???

>>2086011
What does that even mean?

>>2085969
It goes deeper in that the focuses don't mesh with the game's other systems. In the communist china instance, you have a focus that allows you to initiate border conflicts with your neighboring warlords to escalate and go to war with them. Except the game still has the built in justification system and it's substantially faster to justify and go to war normally, ignoring these focuses.

>>2086030
I was about to start explaining what everything did, but you were going accuse me of having played Afghanistan enough to memorize the tree, or just have the wiki open in another tab.
Should have posted Germany, or Itally or USSR, where there trees are actually poorly designed and impossible to sight read.

>>2085948
Americans fucking love acronyms for some reason

>>2086040
No, I'm genuinely asking. I'm the 100 hours guy, I have no idea how you "sightread" this. I could understand if it was a beaker vial meaning a research slot but all this crap is impossible for me to parse.
How are you supposed to know what to take and when?

>>2085969
>An unrelated issue, and this might just be me not having used it enough, but the UI feels clunky as shit.
UI is generally pretty good
>Refitting ships is cancer.
...but anything naval is indeed barely functional turbocancer.

>>2086030
You have your economy tree and your political tree split into two parts, I'm assuming royalist and rebel, and one of the rebel branches looks to be expansionist like the greek republican branch. The army tree is going to be your standard professional army vs militia army fare.

>>2086040
>Germany
German tree is fairly straightforward and neatly separated, the only meta knowledge you need to know is to get rid of MEFO bills from the economy branch and to grab land/do civil war from the political branch as soon as you're able.

>>2086066
I mean, I can't literally actually take one look at a screenshot and know exactly what to do.
...but I don't have to slowly read the entire rest of the tree either, there are small group of focuses that I can immediately recognize that by skimming I would understand how to navigate the tree (assuming the tree isn't shit). I shpuld also be able to guess the general purpose of each section.
>what
The group under "expand the telegraph network" appears to be research and economy buffs.
"Support King Zahir" and "Against Kabul" are obviously the political paths. Those tend to have a bit of everything and are hard to sight read. Everything under "against Kabul" looks pretty aggressively expansionist, while everything under "Support King Zahir" looks less expansionist, I can clearly see at least a communist path fused with the economic tree and I can see what is probably a democaratic path too, and probably a really short non-aligned path under "biding our time"
That's a pretty obvious set of military buffs under "maintain quami" and "adopt nufus" what exactly they mean, I would need to skim them.
The next group over, either gives you expansion or puts you in a faction, and the section probably gives group buffs to the nations whose flags are pictured, before shoving you into a faction or maybe combining you into one country.
>when
You start by either rushing down to a civil war, and/or building your economy and research base. Any expansion you want will have to be done before WWII starts, or will be done as part of WWII, barring special exceptions. Then, whatever your major war is, you want to stockpile military buffs before it happens. This is all trees always.

>>2071932
Gotter was probably the best DLC Paradox has ever released, bugs aside.

>>2086161
They know it too since they never discount it during big sales.
>omg guys we finally made a dlc that's worth the bix price.

>>2086050
I wonder why the USA is so enamoured with acronyms. Truly a mystery.

>>2086167
We don't use that acronym here, though. Everyone just calls it America.

>>2085953
>>2085940

Just popping back in this thread to note that I downloaded the EXPERT AI 5.0 VGH ROMMEL GOTTERDAMMERUNG GREATER EVROPA STRATEGIC OVERHAUL MOD FOR SERIOUS GENERALS ONLY and then I just made shitty infantry divisions with support art and aa and fighters and cas and then the AI just battle planned into me endlessly and I didn't lose a single tile until they took like ten million casualties then i battle planned to berlin and won

game still too easy sorry that your precious combat mechanics cant handle someone lazily and sloppily adding support companies to the default infantry template

>>2086246
Try this one
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3265939166

Which youtubers make the best advanced tutorials for this game? I'm somewhat of an advanced player myself, but I think I still can learn some tips and tricks I was not aware of. I already checked a bunch of them, but they all seem to have their own personal meta, it's kinda confusing.

>>2088554
None, they are all shit. Especially if you are an advanced player you should already know what playstyle works for you, and then you should just forcus on perfecting that. I have never listened to any HOI4 tutorial.

>>2088554
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMSLt3_dqfs&list=PLIY632rOtuKBW7-K9PDZZeaIfLWej_7Ji

This guy. You listen to him while playing and pick up on it. Some HOI 4 players really hate him.

I personally like Ludi's guides but I don't have all the DLC.

Ludi et Historia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UraAxWfT76k

I didn't about shift clicking to add orders to tank divisions until about 3k hours in. I was so good at templates and research to over come that I was winning historical 1936 Barbarossa's with ease. Anyone who considers the SS units Germany gets is trash and doesn't know what they are talking about. You can win Barbarossa in June 22 1941 with those and the 3 light tanks you start with as Germany. Lookup historical HOI 4 templates as well and make sure to set your garrison to Schnell units so as to not eat up supplies via garrison.

I'm at almost 5k hours mostly on historical German runs, but I do play OWB mod. The AI goes off a count of the players units on 1936 setting. So sometimes Russia can have 5-10 divisions a tile or have gaps at the start. Luxemburg can be empty or have two stacks. It depends on how the player built up. A 1939 run will have most countries empty of units and that's were the SS divisions the game gives you really shine because they cost no army exp to make and the AI isn't built up absurdly so. Just make to sure to micro your panzer divisions with shift click to get your first few encirclements instead of learning about it post 3k hours. And never go past 4 tiles on the first ones or you will be encircled yourself.

>>2088590
>Some HOI 4 players really hate him.
Why?

>>2088577
I see where this is coming from, but this game in particular has a ton of obscure mechanics even devs barely know how they work. It's guaranteed that you'll still manage to learn about some button or modifier you knew nothing about even after hundreds or thousands of hours.
In my case I spent several days watching videos and reading reddit posts to learn how the navy works and how you should manage it.
>>2088590
Much appreciated anon, I'll check them out.

>>2079394
This is just how I always play Equestria.

I'm playing fascist Belgium for the achievement and I've never seen such a wide power-gap between two mutually exclusive paths of the same ideology.

VNV Belgium gives you free war goals and cores on the Benelux and northern France, and extra compliance for the Dutch colonies, while Rexist Belgium gives you... a couple of factories? You get way more by coring just Holland. Rexists do get some combat bonuses but they're way too small IMO.

Is doing convoy raids in the same sea tiles where I'm using my main navy in strike force mission bad?
I've read in an old reddit thread that subs will get stuck in battle with the main fleet, unable to leave. I can't verify myself if this is true.

>>2095569
They do. But they also have the added advantage of your screen ships focusing on them iirc

>I can't believe I'm supposed to read things in my Hitler map simulator
Why are you people playing this game if you don't want to read? Go play mario

I'm playing a Guatamala campaign right now. I've just formed a fascist Central American Empire (I've annexed El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica).
I am uncertain as to next move. There's a communist Mexico to the north. I've been maintaining relations with them because I was worried they might attack. They are stronger than me I think.
Or I can invade Panama. I'm uncertain what happen regarding the canal, like will I suddenly have a USA problem?

>>2097811
Communist Mexico will attack you sooner or later the moment they finish their focus March Southwards, so better get a NAP quickly because they will roll over you with their superior forces. If you manage to beat them you can annex Yucatan to core it via decision.
Go get Panama, the US or the Allies will not bother you if you haven't increased the world tension too much, you'll get more industry and another core.

'stra'ya is still my favorite HOI country. I think what I'm doing to Thailand right now might count as genocide.

>>2098478
You were right. They came for me and I beat them back, now annexed Mexico. Did the Yucatan thing.
Problem is Panama joined the allies, America made their own faction with Cuba and Philippines. I mistakenly declared war on Colombia, thinking to take as much of South Merica as possible. I didn't realise Cuba was guaranteeing Colombia's independence. So, Cuba declared, followed by USA.
My only option, with the undefended north of Mexico being invaded by USA, was to join the allies (lead by fascist Britain).
With allied help, I am pushing back the Americans.
Unexpectedly, Panama was a member of the allies. So USA took Panama, allowing me to roll over it, free up Panama with their canal, and start a land invasion of Colombia.
Things are going well for the Central American Empire.
ATM I think manpower is my biggest problem. Not sure what I can do, if anything, about that.

>>2098506
I like to Annex New Zealand and put them under brutal oppression

>>2070984 (OP)
>how are anons finding it
Finding what?
If you are using any other DLC than WtT and NSB, you are a retard. And not just buying (lmao at people paying PDX money), but simply using at fucking all.
Maybe only TfV gets a pass, but only if you are playing MP and as a faction, rather than against each other (which is retarded anyway).
And any DLC after NSB in particular is just pure, unfiltered sewage.

>>2085244
WtT used to be the only DLC you ever needed.
NSB is a mixed bag, because on one hand, logistics at least are in the game with it. On the other, Soviets are pain to play (not hard, just fucking tedious) and the AI can't into logistics for shit (and most of people online can't either), so it's... eh.

>>2085479
>HoI2 managed with a .txt file containing less than 3k letters in it
>HoI3 managed with three such files, accounting for new mechanics
>HoI4 meanwhile has no AI at all, it's only railguarded by the focus trees, but no actual script for AI to fight
>uh, akshuelly, it's impossible to make good AI
The game has NO AI whatsoever. None. The computer-controlled nations have no idea how the most basic elements of the game work, waste resources on bullshit projects (like AI making bazillion different division templates, none of them useful in any fucking way), can't fight wars at fucking all in any way (I wish AI would just stop building tanks entirely, rather than watching it positioning HArm in fucking mountains and get gobbed down with ease) and the only thing AI can do is follow the focus tree, shit out as many units as it can and die horribly against a 10 yo that's pulling baby's first offensive (and using the same front-painting tool as the AI, but still winning on the virtue of not being so dogshit bad as the AI, despite making horrendous mistakes).
AI in HoI4 doesn't exist. What you have is bunch of very rudimentary weighted decision-making, that can be boiled down to "if MP > 0, build divisions" and "frontline on blind charge forward, unless insufficient divisions to stack the front, then fall back and try again"

>>2085933
>It's such a glaring issue that has been in the game for so long I really don't understand why it hasn't been fixed.
Because it would require to redesign (at this point) 2/3 of the game from a scratch. And even right after premiere, it would still require to redesign nearly half of the game. Which, ironically, they were doing all the way till about MtG, but then figured out they can make easy money on meme shit and stroking national ego of some ESLs, giving them bloated meme trees, rather than trying to unfuck the game. The game is on a perpetual decline since MtG, and it peaked with WtT.
That was 7 years ago. They did nothing, but dumb additions and no fixes of any kind for past 7 years.

>>2086115
Nta, but do me a favour:
Go check Chinese Warlord tree. Or the Czechoslovak one. That's what a flavour minor focus tree should look like.
Then compare it with Afghan tree. Or the Uruguay one. Or the Swiss.
Then tell me with a straight face this is fine.

>>2083868
>How do I avoid that?
You don't, the tree is broken.

>>2098646
>not being able to determine another nation's focus is broken
what level of retardation do you have? Why should the USA be able to determine what Japan does?

>>2099034
Based on what he wrote it sounds like Japan didn't do the pearl harbor event, he just got randomly sucked into the war, which makes me think It's an issue with the US tree rather than Japan taking the focus.

>>2099095
Then it wasn't "random", he actively did a focus which results in war.
>I don't want to read in my Hitler map painting simulator

>>2083868
Historical Japan declares war on you because a historical focus makes them go to war with your puppet, the Philippines. If you don't want that, you can set Japan to a different focus path in the pregame options. Ahistorical paths are all kind of designed assuming you have historical focuses off, otherwise it's just you being a retard while the rest of the world follows the script.

Historical Japan will sometimes choose to bypass the Philippines to target the British colonies in Asia instead. I don't know exactly what triggers the AI to do that but I assume it's based on how much you actually have set up to defend the Pacific, so they don't just end up suiciding into you in '41

Play Sheep's Mod, it's better than Expert AI.

>>2099164
Or, as the USA, you can release the Philippines to their own, unaligned, fate.

Does anyone bother changing priorities in air wings? Are prioritized/de-prioritized air wings actually useful?

>>2099256
I assumed/thought prioritisation impacted preferential allocation of newly built planes to offset losses. So a higher priority wing gets replacements over a low priority airwing.
With this assumption, if an army is fighting low-tech nations, I give any attached airwings a lower priority. Same with bomber interception in the heartland, they get low priority.

>>2099144
I've done the US fascist tree a bunch and encountered a bunch of bugs. It's believable that one of the focuses on that tree would cause a war with Japan as a glitch without mentioning it. Most of the alt-his trees are totally broken. USA, Spain, and Turkey being the worst ones.

>>2084543
Yes.
Essentially just don't do focuses that have the red warning about civil war on them.
Just do the one where you get the fascist advisor and he'll seed fascism to electoral victory, then the civil war-trigger focuses will bypass.

>>2099406
I've done it too and never encountered a "bug"
I suspect you don't understand the game mechanics or are too lazy to appreciate what happens. If you do a focus, it tells you the effects of the focus. If those effects, in turn, chain react into war, that's not a bug. It's the intended outcome of the system.

>>2099656
Huh, I didn't know that. Nice.

I just came back to the game after quitting for a year. I decided to play Spain with no dlc enabled and god dammit. It's so much nicer, the mid/late game runs at double the speed, you don't have to pause every 10 days to check or plan some cheap gimmick, you just pick a focus, do some tech and wait in speed 5 a little while. Once the war starts there is no bullshit like designers or MIO to slow you down, you can focus on moving your units. The focuses are less unbalanced too, the emphasis is more on the natural game mechanics instead. And the AI is a little bit harder since you can't rape them with howitzer tanks or meta fighters

The only thing i miss are QoL stuff that shouldn't be locked behind a dlc, like disallowing use of certain sea zones, the ability to promote generals to your cabinet (also vanilla Spain has 0 political advisors kek).
I feel pity for those who paid for all the bloat that made the game less fun.

>disable spy dlc
>game dramatically improves

I dont care how many MP players sperg about how line artillery isnt meta and flame tanks are, it's ahistorical nonsense. Im putting flame tanks in nothing and artillery in everything whether Paradox balances it properly or not.

>>2099197
>>2101906
this mod sure is something, i destroyed the entire british navy but i don't think this sealion will go anywhere.

>>2102064
4 months of non-stop combat, London is going to look worse than Berlin in 45

>>2102065
fuck forgot pic

I find it funny how meta light cruisers cost more in IC than meta heavy cruisers.

>>2099197
The AI is more effective, yes, but makign entire armies out of divisions that are half marines and half heavy tank destroyers is so fucking stupid I cant stand it. This is why I hate multiplayer.

Speaking of tank destroyers, I have never built any armor units besides flame tanks and regular light/medium tanks.
What's the use for tank destroyers, SP artillery and anti air? I'd guess they are more of a multi-player thing.

>>2102108
>tank destroyers
Pretty much useless in SP since AI armor designs suck dick, I use them to armor meme sometimes
>SP artillery
They suck in the early game compared to regular artillery but IMO they're worth using once you unlock heavy howitzers. Make sure to load them up with as many soft attack modules as possible.
>anti air
My endgame tank divisions generally use engineers, recon, flame tanks, SP super arty and either logistics or helicopters, so I like to use them to save a support slot that would otherwise go to AA.

>>2102108
>sp anti air
Space marines, since SP Anti Air gives armor and requires less equipment to fully equip than other tanks.

Otherwise support anti-air company gives max anti-air benefit and they don't stack with each other.

TFR is the worst fucking hoi4 mod. the entire dev team are satanist pedophiles

I've never understood why people whine about balance in this game. The starting position of nations is completely asymmetrical, balance does not exist and isn't supposed to.
Playing optimally by meta is also just dumb. Use only historical templates, or, create believable templates only. This is a Hitler RPG Map Painting Simulator, play it as such and it's a much more fun game.
>>2101906
Play the game enough and you'll get bored. The DLC minigames can be fun. For example, having a specially designed army to counter the exact equipment and templates your enemy has, discovered via your spy network, accomplishing a daring raid before hand to cripple their fuel infrastructure. Selling equipment to them beforehand so you become the arms dealer. There's lots of ways the DLC makes for a better game, but you do have to put in the effort to find the fun, the systems aren't coupled together in such a way that they're mandatory.

>>2104272
Well, by picking what units I find most reasonable or historical, I'm effectively choosing not to engage with the mechanic and I gimp myself for doing so. By playing in such a way I will not be challenging myself and will not be making gameplay choices. It extends to pretty much every part and detail - there is the natural, reasonable way, and the effective way. The two never overlap, and only the latter asks you to actually consider the mechanics in any real way.

A game could be made for satisfying roleplay, or so that roleplay is a proper and interesting way to play, but this game is not like that. You go meta, or you resign yourself to simply sit back and watch how it goes.

I need a little help with infantry divisions, anons.
Some mods like kaiserreich have division limits (which you can turn off but that's not the point of the post) and that's particularly felt when you're fighting a bigger enemy that can reach up to 300 divisions when you're stuck with max 100 divs, so 18 width 9-0 meta divisions are not viable anymore. Should I pump them to 35/36 width to match the terrain bonuses? Something like 18-0 or 15-2 or even 16-1 would be enough to counter an AI that vastly outnumbers you?
Obviously also using supports like engineers, artillery, anti air and field hospitals.

>>2106666
It really just depends on where you're fighting. If you're like fighting across the width of Europe then 100 divisions should be more than enough to max out combat width across the front, which is really the only point of infantry. They're linefilling meat.

Honestly if you actually need more than 100 infantry divisions to cover your frontage as a small nation with a div cap you're just playing the wrong area of the map. You should withdraw to a narrower, more defensible frontline and focus on pushing somewhere else. Against the soviet union rather than grinding forward until the frontline is too vast to cover, you should take the Central Power's WW1 strategy and just hold a narrow front in Eastern Europe where you can concentrate force and just repeatedly encircle and destroy the eurasian hordes until their gun stockpiles are depleted.

I mean obviously if you're at the div cap with a lot of manpower to spare, then making your infantry divisions bigger is the natural choice since guns cost so little to produce, but 100 divisions is actually a lot. Like I don't think I've ever needed to field more than 100 infantry divisions except when fighting in Russia or across China

>>2102108
>tank destroyers, SP artillery
With later tech, they do the towed guns' job much better
TDs are just about worthless in singleplayer, but SPGs can be a big improvement over artillery if you can afford them
They also have some armor/hardness and benefit from blanket armor buffs
>anti air
Cheap source of armor for meme divisions, otherwise pretty shit at actually being AA

What's the point of motorized rocket artillery when motorized artillery exists?

>>2106653
What mechanic aren't you engaging in? The template designer? Honestly have no idea what you're trying to say, redditor.

"Reasonable" can obviously mean you build whatever your nation is capable of. I separated the word "reasonable" from "historical" specifically.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/developer-corner-aerohydrodynamics.1852938/

tldr
>new rangers special forces type, basically mountaineers but for forests and jungles
>special building cap modifiers for certain strategic provinces (not states, just single islands/tiles)
>CV fighters will now actually defend their carriers against naval strikes

>>2107430
Not bad, I do like the addition of wood rangers and I'm glad that finally CV fighters will no longer sit idle while naval bombers wreck havoc.

>>2107430
>>2107474
Also, looks like Escort Carriers are gonna be added to the game, neat.

>>2107430
Not really much to go on here, but I wonder if having an actual Jungle specialist unit type means they'll change the branch of the Marine tree that gives them jungle fighting bonuses.

Honestly I feel like rather than creating a whole new SF doctrine, they probably should have just made forest/jungle fighting into a branch of the mountaineer tree instead.

>>2107557
Maybe they thought mountaineers are too strong as is

>>2107591
Should have just replaced the winter warfare branch nobody uses with a Chindits branch. Then you have to pick between specializing your rough terrain light infantry for forest/jungle or mountains.

The winter warfare branch was stupid in the first place because only 2 factions on the whole map have the terrain to make it worthwhile and both of them get enough direct bonuses to winter fighting via focuses, decisions and national spirits. They could just implement the winter mountaineer bonuses to them directly that way.

>>2107615
That's a totally arbitrary restriction, even for Paradox

>>2107972
Greece's focus tree turns all of their regular infantry into pseudo mountaineers and negates terrain penalty for artillery.
This kind of shit has been common in hoi4 for ages now

>>2107477
Finally

Spammable CVEs. I hope they can be converted from Merchant Vessels/Convoys because both Japan and the US did so historically.

>>2109152
>because both Japan and the US did so historically.
Germany and FOTM minor shithole game

Tried online did not reach 39 on 3 random games host crash and people leaving. Or host leaving when someone dod not follow his gay rules minors attacking eachother. Man Where i find people to play with?

>>2099197
The game is literally unplayable without Sheep's mod. PDX should just implement it into the game and give the guy who made it like $1000 (what they earn in 1 nanosecond)

>>2102030
The dumbest thing is that there's a simple fix that probably would make it viable. Just reduce the fucking combat width to 2. SPArt too.

Also I've posted it once already but the thread died, I'll try again here.
Here's my simple rework of Mobile warfare to make it more spicy and make MP meta nerds grind their teeth.
1. Make tank-only bonuses also affect armour variants. It may be 60% of the effect but do it. Currently the metanerd way is to ignore the blitzkrieg path because in MP you don't use tanks that much. Can't fight it without heavily reworking some of the mechanics(like how unit armour is calculated) so just embrace it.
2. Nobody turns on the game and thinks, yes, today I will go mobile warfare into desperate defence. While it was always meant to be situational, I think it's just too weak as such and there's flavourful way to make it possibly pretty decent choice. First, change the name and icon of fire brigades on the other branch, the effects stay. Then move fire brigades to be the first doctrine in DD, but it gives reinforce rate and some amount of HP(needs testing) for tanks and armour variants(to simulate the fact that fire brigades are basically about taking small part of a "good" unit and attaching it to "shit" units and try to do more with less) then Volksturm is the second one, it gives 4% manpower. Last tech is the same, since it's the one useful one anyway.

>>2114413
>2. Nobody turns on the game and thinks, yes, today I will go mobile warfare into desperate defence.
R56 straight up moves it into its own gorilla warfare doctrine and replaces the MW branch with something not shit. Don't remember what it was but IIRC it was slightly more useful than the right path.

Next dev diaries dropping in late August, starting in 10 days.

this game just isn't clicking for me, for a game that focuses more on war and combat why do those aspects feel worse and less satisfying compared to EU4?

>>2119016
Because you're retarded, and can't deal with a meta that isn't completely solved. Fuck off back, and go spend mana on Quantity, again.

>>2119042
>meta that isn't completely solved
>hoi4
lmao

I hate with a burning passion how long researching special projects take.
I get it's for historical accuracy and making the late game worth playing, but holy fuck.
Just to get nukes you have to:
- atomic research tech
- wait ~600 days for nuclear reactor special project
- build nuclear reactor
- wait 600 days for atomic bomb special project
- research on purpose large airframes if you already haven't
Getting other projects done also is such a painful slog.

>>2085969
This has been my experience with Germany and the USSR. It feels like there's only one right way to win which is so boring. And if you don't do the right way that right way, you have to surrender another 3 hours of your life to endless factory construction and clicking national focuses to get back to the part we all want to play which is the war

>>2117079
It got updated again

HOI V wishlist

>TFR style conditional leader traits
>Grand Marshalls and admirals autonomously assign generals to fronts
>CK traits for all named individuals
>Ministers autonomously pursue goals (logistics minister autonomously creates supply networks etc)
>TFR style economy (GDP and economic systems actually matter)
>dynamic state devastation and civilian refugee mechanics
>Air Marshalls automatically assign air wings based on larger goals
>replace focus trees with national goals, that the AI autonomously pursues in a dynamic matter
>historical personalities better influence AI motivation and competence
>ideologies adapt and respond to changing circumstances. literally develop your ideology as a game mechanic
>split PP into more time categories (domestic power, operational power, diplomatic power etc)
>include ethnic composition in states and make it matter for gameplay (funding Kurdish separatists to undermine turkiye for an example)
>better control over national aesthetics, have a native flag designer etc
>more in depth diplomacy mechanics (national worldview, ideology, personal characteristics matter, not just investing PP to improve relationship)
>full NBC mechanics. have more WMDs than just nukes
>weather service mechanics, you don't just automatically know weather conditions in areas, more dynamic weather like floods, monsoons, blizzards etc
>medical mechanics for casualties, have to evacuate casualties to hospitals, with their own dynamics and mechanics, like a reverse supply system


basically make everything more autonomous, with the ability to step in and micro when necessary. You are better able to delegate tasks to subordinates, but it's still very dependent on the particular personalities involved. Idea is to better simulate realistic counterfactuals based on particular scenarios

what else?

>>2123149
>automate everything and add more visual novel slop
No thanks

>>2123153
increased automation directly increases the competency of AI opponents, retard

>>2123149
HoI 5 shouldn't exist.

>>2082996
Honestly infantry outside of the mountain division the other anon suggested just ain't that good. Personally I use motorized/mechanized/armored/or a mix of them for the major offensive and just use a 3x3 infantry build (with support engineers, arty and AA) to hold territory and do some opportunistic strikes and take a few tiles

>>2085969
Honestly my best advice would be to just do whatever feels right and fun and just thug it out, there are very few things in hoi4 you can't bounce back from even if you're not that good

>>2099256
It's useful once in awhile if you want a particular squadron to get filled up with whatever the latest design is

New diary is out, complete China rework confirmed

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/chinas-war-from-resistance-to-liberation.1855764/

>>2125963
They basically copied EYWOR for the lore instead of reading the source material.

>>2125963
>mfw new BoP mechanics for Chinese Warlords/NatChina/ComChina


Army vs Navy BoP mechanic confirmed?

Forgot to post this as well

>>2125984
Holy shit they are doing the air raid thing from Gotterdamerung and it looks like just as much of a useless waste of time as it is if you air raid

>>2114413
>Just reduce the fucking combat width to 2. SPArt too
Sure but then also reduce their soft attack by 1/3. And you made their dogshit HP and their IC or supply cost even worse.

>in MP you don't use tanks that much
You don't use them in SP that much either. And what do they get, breakthru and a touch of org? Alright cool, I can have more BT than I need on my say 120 tank Battalions OR I can have even better stats on my 680+ mechanized and motorized that also benefit my armor divisions.

anons, how much weather affects the
navy?..
never thought about it until now, when i got an option to increase "weather resistance" or some such, during the research of a "super carrier" for Japan

>>2129668
For carriers and vanilla-ish? Very.

>>2129674
would you kindly explain how? or is there a good article you can recommend?
im playing vanilla
still researching the carrier, but its to late to roll back

>>2129692
It's a paradox game for fucks sake. You can scroll over the tooltip when there's a storm in that sea area or move over the stats in combat.

>>2125963
>doubling down on the Warlord shit
This feels like some kind of Eurocentric mistake they made back in HOI1 they're too proud to admit they made so they keep porting into every HOI game. The game does not take place in the 20s, the "warlords" in no universe should operate like separate fucking countries, especially since the only warlord actually left separate from the KMT by 1936 was Sheng Shicai. It feels like these retarded Swedes didn't understand the history involved, thought the Warlord Era lasted longer than it did, and have simply never admitted to fucking that up in the entire history of the franchise, choosing instead to pretend they never made a mistake.

I always use the toolpack mod to annex all the warlords except Sheng into China at the start of the game.

>>2129713
+500 social credit

>>2129721
You can cope all you want Euroid, Paradox didn't understand the Warlord Era when they made HOI and have chosen to double down for 20 years instead of fixing it. They can only get away with it because 99% of their players are Euroids who want to rebuild old Pre-WW1 Euroid empires in the 1940s for some reason.

>>2129730
And a fine ching chang ping pong wing wang to you to friendo!

>>2129742
>China doesn't matter because...it just doesn't!
WW2 started in China whether you admit it or not

>>2129713
>annex all the warlords except Sheng into China
i do the same but to reduce the pointless lag

>>2129757
So did covid, black death and the spanish flu lol. Point being if you think paradox incompetence to do any part of the world or any period justice is limited to china you're, well, deluded or larping at best and a buttblasted ricenigger at worst. I'm betting on the second but all kinds of weirdos around here and I don't especially care either way.
That said, why do they get away with it? Lack of competition on the market and a fanbase groomed into being milked for ever shitter and ever lazier dlc, my 2c at least.

I haven't played for a while any tips on infantry, navy and airforce?

>>2131027
What country brother?

>>2131036
Frankly no clue I was never a fan of majors but I think that gimped my understanding of the game mechanics so I'm trying to find a nation that gets to fight early on and that forces me to work with navy.
Japan is probably my best choice but I'm open to suggestions

>>2131169
Got me there. I'm more an armyfag myself and that means ghetto navy with converted carriers and a shitton of naval bombers and subs.

>>2131214
I don't know I've recently got really interested into navy stuff and the only game that I own that has anything related to do with it was HOI 4.

Whats a healthy amount of Navy? I feel like I make too much and just destroy all my fuel. No idea what to do.

Also how do I use subs? Do I give them a "job" or do I hand place them? I have no idea what to make.

Same with planes. I feel like I dont have enough factories to make any good amount of planes. No idea what im doing wrong.

Tips for playing as austrofascist Austria?

>>2131169
Play Italy.

>>2131540
>hand place them
This. Place them in esoteric shapes governed by God's will and feng shui.

DLC I should use and DLC I shouldnt use at all?

No idea wtf I was doing but it was fun. No idea why I got thrown into the world war though.

>>2131711
Also WTF HOW COULD I EVER DO ANYTHING AGAINST THIS.

>>2075309
radar
proximity fuses under the naval path give big aa attack to everything with aa
flame tanks are flame tanks
the armored support companies are good for space marines because you get more armor
the non specialised helicopters are amazing too, basically combining recon, logistics and field hospitals while also providing some armor and decent attack stats.

>>2131678
With some disagreement over la resistance everything through no step back adds some crucial mechanics. I wish the DLC's were more modular because I would disable half of what they add if I could.

Philippines confirmed to get some content and a minor tree. It'd probably get the same treatment as the Belgian Congo Tree where it would have a shared focus with the USA.

>>2131763
It's out
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/developer-corner-the-phillipines-pearl-of-the-orient-seas.1857069/

>>2131775
ew

>>2131775
>Filipino-Polynesian Fascist path
Kek.Not bad for a minor tree though. I was expecting a Falangist Path considering that there was an offshoot of the Spanish Falangists operating in the Philippines at that point.

I like how the Communist Path is basically EU4's Pirate flavor but painted in red.

played the game again after ages, and I sorta have to ask but, are stronghold networks a complete and utter meme?
played as belgium, and even despite getting that tech literally for free it was still a colossal waste of IC with instead just building forts being drastically superior for everything

>>2131779
I posted in the Forum.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/developer-corner-the-phillipines-pearl-of-the-orient-seas.1857069/

I brought up Spanish-Philippine Falange.

>>2131899
Also, I notice that the Communist Path for the Philippines looks underdeveloped as fuck. Which is weird considering that Tan Melaka ( one of the PKI members ), lived in the Philippines during those points in exile. I figured that maybe they should add a path on the right where you can send the guy back to Indonesia to start a revolt with the Revolutionary Government's support.

>>2131857
imho like at least 90% of the content added since release it's luxury at best

>>2131938
I just kinda expected it to be good at least in Belgium's niche since your entire focus tree kinda pushes you towards fort building, and most of it works out really well, ended up killing a million germans while losing only 5k men in the first year when I actually built forts

but the stronghold network just didn't seem to do anything, at least not something that would justify the immense cost, I can't imagine actually going out of your way to research it as another nation

>>2131942
>Increases the maximum amount of Land forts and Coastal forts in a state by +2, increases construction speed for forts by +10%, increases local supply and enemy attrition by +10%.
It's a meme for sure but I can see that being a bitch in say el-alamein and you don't need two dozen other things and ~1945 to get a worse plane than prop fighter 4. End of the day you really don't need much to bully AI.

>>2131962
Best use case I can think of would be to use the +attrition to bleed the enemy's equipment dry, but doing that is unintuitive since instead of going full No Pasaran like you'd expect I'm pretty sure you'd have to give up some the state's provinces to make them eat the attrition.

>>2132317
well I guess maybe for belgium in particular a good use of it would be in the ardennes province, since usually a good defensive line sees you give up a bunch of provinces there, so in theory that could work
still, immense cost and not like you really need it since the AI suicides into your entrenched positions

>>2132317
Can't really help you there anon. I usually play with humans and bleeding them dry doesn't really apply in that situation. Could be neat to get higher fort level without investing into tech or bypass hard limit on forts if you're playing with that.

>you'd have to give up some the state's provinces to make them eat the attrition
I'm 90% sure it doesn't apply if you don't control it. That attrition is the tick when he's moving in to attack you, countering some of his reliability and such. Could be nasty on early tanks if someone went tracktor meme with like ~30% and didn't expect that on a bottleneck.

>>2132386
>I'm 90% sure it doesn't apply if you don't control it
worse, if the opponent controls the state you get the attrition penalty
so it's only really useful to build in a state where all the VP's are located in a single province that is also the hardest province to take

>>2132394
Would be an interesting safari if you had it in congo that's for sure

>>2129757
>Marco Polo Bridge incident
>7 July 1937
>Spanish Civil War
>17 July 1936
>>WW2 started in China
jajajajajajaajajajajajaja

>>2132766
You can't really argue the Spanish Civil War as the beginning of WW2 because:
Neither of the primary belligerents would ultimately join the rest of the war
The conflict ended before any of the other conflicts connected to WW2 began.

The Spanish Civil War is similar to the Italian invasion of Ethiopa or the first phase of the Chinese Civil War in that it's a background conflict that helped set the stage for the 2nd World War but was separate from it and not actually a part of the war. You very much could argue that the 2nd Sino-Japanese War was the beginning point of WW2, because it involved two major WW2 combatants, the conflict extended throughout the entirety of WW2 and was resolved in the surrender and peace terms that ended WW2. Traditionally the main reason we hesitate to acknowledge this is simply because there are almost no chinese historical sources regarding their side of the conflict that haven't been vandalized by communist propagandists, while similarly most japanese academia surrounding the conflict is poisoned by propaganda, coverups, apologism and denialism, making it impossible to reconcile contradictory historical evidence.

This is the same issue with the Eastern Front, and why we in the west knew so little about its specifics until the fall of the Berlin wall gave us access to archived Nazi records. More than 2/3s of modern WW2 historiography began in the 90s.

>>2132766
Saaaarrr Nationalist Spain didn't fight in World War Two saaarrr unlike Japan and China did Saaaarrr

>>2132813
Sure I can because fuck you :)

>>2132833
jajajajajajaajajajajajaja

>>2131857
Second only to modern/nuclear ships
+10% enemy attrition could potentially be really good in some meme mountain or desert chokepoint, but the amount of times that's actually useful (and you can actually afford building it) is probably close to zero, and it's just about worthless for the other 99.99% of the game.

>>2132766
The Spanish Civil War ended in March 1936 and Franco did not participate in WW2. It was a separate war - a proxy between the Nazis and the Soviet, yes, but still separate.

Most DLC in this game is stupid bloat. I only use MTG, NSB and BBA because the AI literally doesn't work right if they can't use the equipment designers. The rest is bloat.

Gotterdammerung proves they shouldn't have cancelled East vs West. It makes no sense for ICBMs and Helicopter Brigades to exist in a WW2 game, but they refuse to make a game set closer to the present.

>>2132925
Sit down kid

>>2132924
it really should have just upon completion instantly given you a lv 10 fort in the province in which it was built, would actually be worth building then

>>2133000
That'd be both dumb and broken as all fuck. Now it ain't cheap but you can use it to cheese local supply.

>>2133000
That would still make it pretty bad in general and stupid broken for anyone actually able to afford spamming them. Since unlike a railway station with a few boxes, big fortifications actually were expensive, I think it should get a cost hike to like 25-30k IC, go to state buildings and just copy EU4 forts by having it give +2-3 (still capped at 10 or maybe 11) fort levels to the whole state.
>>2133013
>Now it ain't cheap but you can use it to cheese local supply.
Or you can build the other 20k IC (plus about 17 more IC hooking it up to your logistics system) building that's all about supply.

>>2133020
Different situations. Yeah, it's kinda niche and planning to get broken but that thing helps some supplies flow down the line even if you're cut off. Yeah.. how often will you play france, get schliffened and counterattack from the maginot. Or if you took like straya or philippines and the US is raiding all your convoys into the shitter. Or if you absolutely want to hold scandinavia but can't control denmark for some reason. Could be a lifesaver or a cool braptrap but, yeah, why bother?

>>2132948
I meant to type 1939 you pedantic fuck, kys, youre wrong.

>>2133037
Seethe and cope kiddo

>>2133036
If it did something massive like X0% max supply of what you'd get had you put a supply hub there even when cut off for Y months, then yeah, it would very much be worth building or at least considering over supply hubs. But if your supply's already in the shitter 10% local isn't gonna save you.

Fortress Networks should literally be supply hubs. Simple as

>>2133140
they should act to actually store supplies properly
as in secondary stash of equipment that can be filled up and used by local units for prolonged periods, but also is captured by the enemy if fully overrun

>>2133165
Those mechanics are already in the game...

>>2133167
isn't it purely on a division level that this operates?
unless I'm completely missing something

>>2133169
What do you mean? If a division overruns/destroys an enemy division it captures part of its supplies, fuel and equipment modified by eqcaprate. How else would you implement it? Let them have double max supply while they stand in that province or something?

>>2133174
meant it more as in having an actual long term supply cashe made out of guns and support equipment that can keep resupplying units stationed on/adjacent to the stronghold network province for like a month or 2

>>2133140
Just build a supply hub too.

>>2133198
So technically a more expensive and temporary supply hub? I'd honestly just give it a flat reduction against cas and say protected fort levels so they can't be bombed instead.

>>2133225
what could be really interesting is if stronghold networks added victory points
in large enough numbers that unless the state also contained a major city you basically had to take the stronghold network province to gain control over the state, and especially for smaller nations would make them harder to capitulate without taking the strongholds

>>2133236
That would be fucking broken for any nation with colonial holdings or endless worthless lands in bumfuck nowhere like Russia.

>>2133256
Russia absolutely does not have enough IC to build enough of them to significantly matter in low infrastructure provinces in bumfuck nowhere and obviously it wouldn't add VP's in colonial land

intention would be less for than and more that if Denmark actually spends it's entire industry building a stronghold network, you're going to have to take it before they capitulate

>>2133256
Yeah, sounds dumb af

I just tried a Poland in 1939 campaign and got my shit pushed in by the Germans. I lasted until 15OCT39 so better than OTL at least.

More simulation and less abstraction is actually more fun actually
EUV looks like it fixed every single problem with IV and they did it by just toning back on abstraction, its basically the same game if you dont count the pop system yet it seems like a true generational leap
If you had for example pops working factories and dying during strategic bombing or famines then HOI not only would be a better simulation, strategic game but also more fun as it would allow you to play the game differently

>>2134083
Paradox will never have the balls to do pops in prime warcrime decade.
>but warcrimes are already in
You know damn well what I'm talking about.

>>2132852
>muh meme Division Azul means they fought in WW2
Franco bitched out of fighting WW2 and used them to appease Señor Hitler saaaar.

>>2134101
The whole point of not adding the Holocaust + Japan's romp in Asia is because Paradox's main focus was on the Military aspect of the war tho and not wanting to turn HOI4 into a Holocaust sim. And even then, shit like Police Garrisons in occupied territory and scorched earth tactics are the closest you can get to War Crimes in the game.

Something that flies over everyone's head whenever people ask why there's no war crimes simulation in the game.

>>2134104
Holocaust isn't even a warcrime strictly speaking. The moment you introduce civilians as a strategic resource you'll have one group bitching about the "tamer" warcrimes the Allies did being represented as such, another wanting the even more unsavory but still militarily motivated crimes as well, which absolutely includes Germany and Japan murderhoboing their way through the rest of Europe and China, and yes, a fuckton of people suddenly screaming at Paradox to add holocaust on top of all that. It's just a can of worms they dare not touch.

>>2134115
>Holocaust isn't even a warcrime strictly speaking.
The average Hoifag, everyone.

>>2134483
Yes. Shocking, I know, but words have meanings. War crimes occur between belligerent nations. The holocaust targeted Germany's own subjects, as well as people from occupied territories and thus, although with some overlap with their actual warcrimes, qualifies as a crime against humanity.

>>2134115
>Holocaust isn't even a warcrime strictly speaking
Yes, because war crimes have to be real things that happened

I've finally accepted there's no way to have a historical game and intelligent AI because the game's systems aren't balanced around being historical, they're fundamentally busted and if you don't make the AI play in a meta way they crumple like tissue paper. So I'm keeping Sheep's mod on, permanently, with the hardest "player killer" options selected. Germany using Mass Mob infantry spam is the total opposite of their historical doctrine, but it makes the AI vastly more difficult to defeat. The Americans never making any Strat bombers is also ahistoric, but the AI can't do it properly anyway so having them spam CAS instead is way more of a threat to the player. And of course, I have to play meta as well to counter this shit. So I'll have to content myself with historical strategy - who to attack, when to attack, etc - while metagaming my actual combat units for maximum effectiveness. The only concessions I'll make are to not mix battalion types enough to change the "type" a division is marked as (ie I won't add enough tanks to a marine division to give it an armored division icon), because that just looks silly, and I won't use a type of equipment if that country genuinely didn't have it - I'm not going to invent fictional shit.

>>2134483
He's right. "Crimes against humanity" are not warcrimes. Warcrimes are when you gas the enemy trench, not some civilian prisoners. Although, maybe if those civilians were polish or something.

>play game until July 1945
>it just fucking crashes
>save corrupted
I hate Paradox. I fucking hate Paradox so much.

>>2134686
The game is fundamentally broken so that their dlc model will work. It can never be fixed.

>disable espionage dlc
>game dramatically improves

>>2134743
I play a lot of czechoslovakia because I like their position and goals, and lack of any navy. I have played espionage games and games where I ignore espionage entirely. The games where I ignore espionage ALWAYS go more smoothly. Germany always has a harder time breaking through my forts, I have an easier time pushing germans off tiles. It's mindboggling how useless espionage is.

>>2134748
The only thing that's slightly worth it is the collab government but even then some countries don't have the economy to pull it off.

>>2084911
>>2084911
Everyone who ever won a military campaign was "extremely lucky" and things would have gone differently if not for X, Y, and Z.
The French army was doctrinally petrified, had horrible interservice cooperation with the air arm even for the time, and couldn't even attempt to really fix these issues in the 30s due to the constant political shuffling.
It's not wehrabooism to recognize the French military was just not cut out for the war that was there in 1939-40.
Don't get me wrong the what-ifs are fun though. But a French army that doesn't fall for the strategic deception, that has the aggressive reconnaissance to enable maneuvers, and makes an audacious offensive into the Rhineland isn't the French army that they had.
But that's just my opinion. It's fun to engage in military history discussions with internet buddies : )
>>2134686
Last time I tried to play historical in vanilla several majors went down blatant alt-hist paths and Hungary started blobbing in 1938.

Japan dev diary dropping soon. From the look of it, I guess the devs will tackle the alt-paths first since it features the icon of the old Tokyo Stock Exchange as well as the icon of the Mine Warfare Unit ( established after WW2 ).

Either that or it's just going to be the icons for the generic economic/navy focuses.

>>2135649
Is that King Ghidorah

>>2135649
Who let the golden dipshit in

>>2135649
Another one got posted a couple of minutes ago.

>>2135693
No. It's a reference to the Mine Warfare Unit which was created after WW2.

>>2135695
First icon is a reference to the Propaganda film Momotaro: Sacred Sailors.

Fun fact: Osamu Tezuka loved the film so much that he was moved to tears when he saw it for the first time.

>>2135751
looks like king ghidorah to me

>>2135751
Why is King Ghidorah on the icon of the Mine Warfare Unit which was created after WW2?

>>2135778
Anon shocked to learn that the Kaiju boom was a direct cultural response to postwar politics, and that the monster designs were largely inspired/shaped by real world iconography as people who had been born and raised under a militant autocracy processed their new reality.

Doing a France Ironman campaign today. The war with Germany started on 2NOV40 because in MAR36 I contested the Rhineland. Has anyone else ever done that path? The Germans backed down so I didn’t face a civil war.

I've given up on trying to make this pile of shit fun and started a Dex build in Elden Ring instead.

>>2135979
Breaking history that early usually breaks the historical AI and ends up with a short and easy clownshow game because you either kill Germany before it's ready or fuck it over so it starts its ramp-up super late and never hits that powerspike it needs to be a threat. It's novel shitting on Germany as France the first few times but if Germany loses by 1940 then there's nobody else to fight and basically no game to play

>>2136138
When BBA first came out it was funny as Italy to justify france, win war, seize navy, justify uk, win war, seize navy.

Are the faction/peace changes out yet?

Even more japanese focuses. Looks like Pearl Harbor will be inevitable.

>>2136487
its a welcome, yet way overdue addition
my favorite because of its location/gameplay, but vanilla focustree is rather boring

>>2136487
Welcome back

Pearl Harbor Gambit

>>2136736
Shit that's a blast to the past I never thought I would feel again.

Japan DD finally dropped
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/developer-corner-japans-dilemma-internal-strife-and-imperialism.1857616/

>>2136941
Sound like some pretty significant changes. I appreciate the commitment to Japan's actually historical situation being a total cluster fuck but the prose in some of those descriptions read like fanfic so I hope that's not the final text.

The combination of a 4 way balance of power and hard railroading seems weird since it sounds like it'll basically just play itself and the bonuses from each rivalry sound pretty small outside of Zaibatsu giving 20% civ factories.

When are they gonna pretend this isnt a WW2 game anymore and just extend to the end of the Cold War?

>>2136947
I like how they fleshed out japan's BoP mechanic to it as well. I honestly can't wait to see the full extent of the dlc country's focus tree

Went back to playing vanilla, decided to try historical Portugal. Realized theres a fucking 140 day focus to get my cruisers. Why? For what purpose? Then there's getting production up for guns and stuff.

Anyone made this path work? What's the trick, focus on the land army production first? Support companies over tanks or cannons? Destroyer focus over Cruisers?

>>2136988
Why would you go historical for a minor non-aligned power in the first place? Historical focuses aren't designed to be balanced and make you equal to nazi germany, they're designed to keep your historical role. If your historical role was marginal then your historical focus path will keep you on the margins. Because otherwise your historical games as germany or britain would be derailed by the emergence of the Suriname Imperium. Ahistorical focus paths exist to give you the power fantasy you want or at least give you enough eco cheats to let your irrelevant backwater play with the big boys.

>>2136956
They'll just make a cold war focused game instead. Teasing cold war content in Hoi is just market testing for some future project. They'll release Hoi5 before they reach the point where actually expanding into the cold war is necessary.

I made a 30W tank division and it cut through the AI. I had no idea how big of a deal a shift from 20W to 30W would be on offense.

>>2138090
Try Sheep's mod if you want the AI to use meta widths and divisions.

>>2138090
Depends on the terrain and what those tanks are. Chunky divs drain supply like crazy too.

>>2136988
>why does a historical minor have weak focuses?!?! :O
This is what an addiction to Workshop mod troglodyte ideas of "balance" does to a motherfucker.

I hate that causalities mean basically nothing, 4 million dead yanks and they still keep pushing endlessly, up into the alps. You'd think they'd want to peace out with Hungry over me taking Romania instead of lose another 3 million men.

Everyone joining a mega faction and separate peace being practically impossible sucks as well. Yes, that's what ended up happening IRL, but it wasn't nearly as set in stone as people think.

>>2138349
Rigid factions exist to simplify the retarded AI.
A surprising number of design decisions on PDX games revolve around scripting the AI so that it doesn't need to make real decisions.

>>2131027
>Airforce
Build something cheap but that ever so slightly mogs the enemy in terms of stats so you get a good exchange going, only attack where they don't have AA to passively fuck you over and try to goad their air somewhere where you get a better exchange
>Navy
Carriers are still meta, get good naval CAS and aircraft on there, reinforce your navy with doodoo ships otherwise to tank shit, cruisers are good and battleships are a waste
>Army
Get flamethrower tank support divisions honestly, its meta

>>2131027
CAS strapped with heavy machine guns like you would for fighter shreds airplanes to dust apparently.

>>2138474
On CAS missions?

>>2138474
For that to work you need a lot of compromises. Rockerails over better cas damage, no night ops, can't really use the cas mio, you need the bs doctrine for the agi, turrets for enough attack to deal with which means less range and pricier overall. And you'll still get clowned on by motherships or either AI spamming a shitload of fighters in a small zone or a player that knows what you're doing and knows how to use heavy fighters.

I finished my last campaign for the year. I went through the Maginot Line in the Spring of 1937. Has anyone else ever done that offensive?

>>2138829
Yeah. You got almost a decade of meemshit on youtube to check that out.

How do you beat Japan as a Chinese minor in Kaiserreich? I'm playing as Yiguandao Shandong and won the league war, but afterwards I can't expand at all and am just a sitting duck until the Sino-Japanese war starts, which ends up being a stalemate because Jap divisions are miles ahead of my own.

I still have the save right after the league war and have tried multiple strategies but none work. What kind of divisions should I make, and which doctrine should I pick, and is it better to prioritise the doctrines or reforming the army?

Suck less

>>2138722
I saw a post on the hoi4 subreddit talking about how they decimated an entire Air Force by pumping out fighter-bombers and sending them on CAS Missions.

>>2138474
There was some exploit a while back where the optimal fighter was actually a CAS plane because of some Mio bug but it's been fixed for a while I think.

How do i into this game as a noob bros?

>core audience are actual mouth breathing retards
I can believe it now

>>2139129
It's neither an exploit nor it's been fixed. Refer to >>2138722 You just get the 20% from BS and stack agi from like a Messerschmitt.

>>2138722
BS doctrine?

Yes it's 200% overkill and yes I'm gonna do it anyway

>>2139603
Get the idea? Japs especially can shit out a ton of these and if you say lendlease it to krauts that build their actual CAS they can clown on allies or slavs something awful. Related is air superiority rush (not ideal for china obviously but it helps in india and adapted/converted for rubber/lack of it) and you can adapt it to actual CAS with turrets or something that drains their fighters in smaller sea zones while also killing subs and or convoys.
It is not better than dedicated fighters or dedicated CAS but it's flexible and very easy to get on some nations. Very simple to use or pivot/convert too.

>>2139631
Interesting. Think I'll try this one with Iran because they can rush rocket tech and get it ridiculously sooner compared to other nations.

>>2070984 (OP)
I'm soon going to hit 5000 hours of playtime and I still haven't found friends to play HOI4 with. I watched Bokoen's each video about 30 times at this point. I don't know what hope is there for me. Man I just want to have a group of good people to play mappies with. Anyone else like this?

>>2139712
The main benefits are that you can put a lot of factories on a single main line or two and still be flexible to convert as the situation demands and that if you have two very similar craft as in both you and they have fighter 2s with similar loadouts yours will trade somewhat better because more agi. Or trade less shit because they have rubber and you don't for example.
Minors appreciate this because you rarely have enough mils for both types of air + trucks + armor + whatever so you can have SOME air in respectable numbers. Again, actual multipurpose is never as good as dedicated but better lots of decent CAS that does some air supremacy than great CAS that can't fly or great fighters that don't do shit in actual battles. (And then as a minor you're usually better off with medium heavy fighters with CAS modules since you get more modules on earlier models.)
Majors don't really need this unless you're also going for dedicated medium CAS or even strats or if you want to do some cheese like above jap.

It is a thing basically but it's nothing gamechanging unless you as part of your build decide to make it so, so you can go ham early on mech while also not ignoring air for example. Same as amph AA tanks for another example.

>>2139717
Sorry anon but I'd rather take a powerdrill to my head instead of listening to some lonely squeaky trannimefag for five hours.

I'm playing Sheep's Mod now and I'm trying to figure out meta infantry. Am I on the right track here?

>36width
>17 INF
>1 AA to counter CAS
>1 AT to pierce armour
>ENG for defence modifiers and entrenchment
>LOG to fit more units into the line
>MED for HP and XP retention
>MP for reinforce rate to maintain org wall
>SIG to reinforcecuck attackers

>>2139812
Depends.
Sheep's AI is built on MP meta with adjustments for HOI4's AI behavior.
Sacrificial infantry divisions to delay, not stop the enemy. All your IC is concentrated on tank divisions and planes.

>>2139812
The AT is optional. Tank divs are hard enough that your soft attack does fuck all to them so it doesn't matter if you pierce or not, and AA has enough piercing to avoid being memes for the most part.
You can put multiple AT guns into line battalions to give them enough hard attack to attrite tanks but don't waste IC on just one support company for piercing.

Also if you're winning air superiority you don't need AA. Green air basically negates enemy cas. Infantry exists to eat damage and take casualties so you don't want to put any equipment in them that they don't absolutely need to do their job. HP is their most important stat.

>give some anon advice
>some nutjob carboncopies how you formatted your post
>it's apparently also well meaning advice
ngl kinda wholesome.

>messing around with Sheep Mod
>keeping trying different Soviet AI profiles
>none of them, not even the Player Killer ones, can beat the most powerful Player Killer German AI (Offensive MA-R)
Germany truly is unnaturally overpowered in this fucking game to be literally capable of out-Sovieting the Soviets.

>>2102066
How do you see that screen ingame?

>>2139867
Unironically play the tutorial

>>2139865
Mass Assault is just broken, which is why it's generally the best doctrine. Germany needs to be strong because they're the main driver of the game's conflict. If they can't beat france then there's no war. If they can't beat the soviets then there's no timer and US/UK can just sit in their islands and slowly outscale it. It especially benefits the AI because even with all the benefits of mods, it's still not smart enough to make really efficient use of tanks and is better off just bashing you with an inf wall behind a bunch of eco cheats.

The conceit of Hoi's take on the WW2 scenario is that Germany gets a head start from which it can snowball its military economy and it has to use that head start to consolidate Europe and defeat the soviets before the allies, whose larger economies are initially handicapped, can catch up. If the Soviets were naturally stronger than the Germans then there would be no game.

>>2139867
click this little button that looks like a sheet

>>2139717
Just start a YouTube. The algorithm will push you to the people who want to hang out with you. Have your discord ready.

Mass Assault is good? I thought it was only good as china

>>2140501
Mass Assault infantry beats all other infantry in the game. The only way to beat it is with tanks and aircraft. That's why it's so dangerous when a country that's not poor as shit like Germany uses it, because they can not only spam infantry divisions but give those divisions enough AT to pierce any tanks that attack them and give them air cover. Mass Assault infantry with AT and air superiority is literally unbeatable all else being equal.

>>2140501
You thought correctly.

>>2140501
Bro MA has been banned in mp for like years. It's broken, but what makes it broken mostly pertains to sweaty mpfag meta play and not your typical sp game, which is why nobody recommends it. But sheep's mod exists to make the ai play the sweaty mpfag meta, so meta becomes relevant.

>>2140594
AI going MA-R in SP makes them much strong especially in vanilla.
Try modding vanilla hoi4 so your opposing nation goes full MA-R, and give them the land xp to do so. You'll notice it's much more of a challenge.
Most players blindly regurgitate failed truisms like mobile warfare is for best for tank etc. The truth is GBP is best for tanks, MA-R is best for defense.

>>2140501
Kinda. Most people use it to spam infantry or just to widen the front, which is absolutely fine. The buffs are there mostly for foot infantry and doesn't really buff their core stats other than recovery that much. And you can make a much better defencive brick unit with MW which also buffs their base org to obscene levels while allowing you to go motorized or mech, or especially with right side GBP which also buffs all leg inf while both cheaper on IC/manpower and more flexible on forces you can use.
That said MA allows you to deploy more CAS in battles or use line artillery (and not bankrupt yourself doing it) or tanks in combination with leg infantry for some truly chunky and well hard units. Bit redundant if you also went mountaineer SF doctrine though.

>>2140597
>Most players blindly regurgitate failed truisms like mobile warfare is for best for tank
Sure, but you're not going to be using that many tanks vs infantry anyway, and there's only so much breakthru you need and more HP from MA is great value. But MW is even better than GBP for pure base org and quite comparable to MA for org recovery while also offering the unique speed bonus.

>>2138349
Also WW2 ending with winner take all and not UK cucking out, which was Germany's whole plan.

>>2140501
No since it's not superior firepower

>>2140541
>AT

Hot take: I always use a country's historical doctrine and would never consider switching to anything else, even if it's better.

>>2140854
This is fine for vanilla but if you play sheep you cannot under any circumstances use superior firepower as you'll just lose. It's weird there's 4 land doctrines anyway, naval air and spec ops all have 3, so I'm fine with SF getting cut. Since MW, GB and MA are all meta-viable, I pick it based on what that country historically did with its army. Both Germany and the Soviets relied heavily on armored forces to advance and had relatively weak infantry, which means I play them both as Mobile Warfare with tanks + org wall infantry. The US and UK had heavily armed infantry divisions and relatively few armored divisions - since GB buffs both armor AND foot infantry breakthrough and org I use that doctrine for those two. Japan and China fought almost entirely without tanks at all and relied on massed infantry, so when I play either of them I go Mass Assault (Mass Mob obviously - Deep Battle is just MW but worse).

>>2140917
Dunno what sheep is, I used to use expert AI and max everything out. Only ever LARPed in single player, no interest in multiplayer or min max meta. I haven’t played in a couple years, not sure how the game has changed since then. I didn’t care for all the DLC bloat. If I ever played again I’d roll it back to the last patch before any DLC came out.

>>2140927
Expert AI is out of date. Sheep's Mod is the new AI buff mod, it (to the extent the AI can be made to) plays by multiplayer meta, meaning its unit composition, equipment designs and research/build priorities are min-maxed.

>>2140927
He's just constantly shilling his pet mod in all three threads

>>2140949
You must have me confused with someone else given I have no idea what other two threads youre talking about

>>2140917
>It's weird there's 4 land doctrines anyway, naval air and spec ops all have 3
Because they all do very different things with mostly the same material whereas the rest is "use doctrine X if you want to use thing Y"

So, GBP (offensive) > MA (Defensive) > MW > SF, ?

>>2141069
MA-R > GBP-L > GBP-R > SF-L < SF-R > MA-L > MW-L > MW-R

>>2141069
For vanilla multiplayer it's:
GBP-L for tanks specialists or tank+inf (like Germany)
MA-R for infantry if it's allowed. MA-L if MA-R isn't allowed.
A lot of multiplayer mods alter doctrine balance so that there's a reason to use all of them.

There's a good video that explains it but basically in multiplayer the pace of combat can easily outstrip any major's production, which means HP (to reduce losses in combat) matters a tonne. Since for the most part meta tanks will have similar stats on either side, the attacker usually needs planning to attack successfully, GBP is the best for planning, and with planning it gives more stats to your tanks than any other doctrine. It lets you carry out offensives in short bursts to make encirclements or breach rivers or whatever.

MA is the best for infantry because it gives them a lot of effective stats via the combat width bonus and gives them the most HP by far. When you have a wall of inf with tonnes of HP you can just throw them at the enemy forever until they start running out of equipment. If you can do this over a wide front (like russia) you can keep the other side's holding infantry under constant pressure until they start running out of guns. Then they either need to take factories off of tanks or their infantry loses strength and their lines collapse. This is the thing that really fucks over the AI, because the AI is dumb and just bashes no matter what doctrine it's using, and because it won't shift production to address shortages so an MA build can just drain its gun stockpile and it falls apart.

The counter to MA builds is soft-attack stacked lawnmower tanks and CAS but if the MA build has air superiority then it's basically unbeatable.

In mutliplayer, infantry soft attack isn't very important which is why SF is shit. In singleplayer the AI only spams inf so you can get a lot more use out of it.

>>2141193
MA also has one of the best army spirits for attritional warfare.

>No Theatre Training
>No Logistical Focus
>No big entrenchments
>No big green planning bonus
other 'doctrines' cant compete

I'm still gonna use Superior Firepower. Jokes aside, what's the best naval and air doctrines, then?

>>2141174
>>2141193
>>2141210
I'd just love to know which mouthbreathing troglodytes you're playing with that can't counter your GBP with spies, scout planes or at least radars since even stock paradox AI can do two out of those three and oh, your battleplanning bonus is now in the shitter.

>ma
>soft-attack stacked lawnmower
>contested air
>>players will not do either when they see your tides of mordor
Nuff said about mass inf MA.

>infantry soft attack isn't very important which is why SF is shit
No anon, you just have a very specific way to play and keep pushing that as the ONLY way to play. MW-L-R is good because ORG walls and speed and bad because you need a ton of IC into either planes, tanks, arti or all of the above to do your killing. SF-R is good because pure stats and that makes it very simple to use and adapt. Also support arti + other soft attack stacking support companies are cheap as all fuck for the pain they bring. MA-R is good because wider fronts = more CAS, great recovery and basically a free signal company on pervitin for the reinforce memes and bad because wider fronts is based on a RNG tactic, your stacked infantry has mid ORG and increased supply drain and attrition since there's almost double of them per division, and if the air is contested, and even major AIs will do that let alone any player it's just as expensive on the IC as MW.

So what's the best then? Whichever you make work I suppose. Personally in vanilla or vanilla adjacents I'd stick with either MW or SF because they're adaptable and braindead easy to use.

>>2141348
No, this is cope. You've fallen into the noob trap. SF-R only has one stat it really buffs and that's soft attack. Stacking soft attack is only useful in vanilla SP due to the AI making infantry-heavy shit templates. It wont defeat MW because it has crap breakthrough, meaning it cant push through org walls, and neither high org nor high recovery rate, meaning it gets easily pushed itself. For that same reason, GB can also push them around. And while SA will cause an MA user higher losses, it wont matter because their recovery and reinforce rate means they can inexorably push you back, even easier than other docs because SF buffs attack, not defence stats, so you'll run out of your more limited org even quicker

>>2141363
No mate, that's me playing the game since the launch and you not taking a closer look. Or being used to some weird ass mod or house rules that changes things significantly. SF also boosts defence, breakthru and a lot of ORG with just a touch of recovery or air superiority depending on what you're going for. For something that can be adapted to whatever the fuck you're doing at the moment, with or without air, with or without armor, and works on both budget support + rocket arty and on say mounties with sh howitzers is aces in my book.

>shitload of cheap softattack is bad
Speaking about cope.

>>2141348
autism speaks...

I accept your capitulation. Now shill your shitty mod some more.

>>2141402
Has more downloads than whatever trash you made.

>>2141387
If you trust what you say then why don't you try it in MP?
Also
> support arti + other soft attack stacking support companies are cheap as all fuck for the pain they bring
Melts against meta tank divs.

First settle on what you want to talk about: sp, mp or either with mods. Dogshit and as obnoxiously shilled as they may be :) All I'm seeing from you is a samefagging baitnigger *convenietly* switching his tune when confronted about one or another.
That said people have broken max boosted AI, with AI improving mods at that, with no doctrines with objectievly dumb memeshit like all armored cars or all line arti only and there's years worth of absolute mouthbreathers playing mp on youtube so ymmv whatever you do.

>>2141431
>people have broken max boosted AI, with AI improving mods at that
>with objectievly dumb memeshit like all armored cars or all line arti only
Show me a single case where they did so against AI using meta divisions.

>>2141387
If you weren't retarded and actually A) compared the stat boosts each doctrine gets and B) considered what stats are actually relevant for a unit to perform a given task you would see SF is statistically the worst doctrine. This isn't debatable. The way Paradox has designed the game makes defence stats and org more important than offence stats. Defensive units need Org, Recovery and Reinforce rate to keep fights going as long as possible; attack stats are secondary, what matters is being able to keep the fight going so the enemy can't take the tile. Offensive units need breakthrough and HP to maximize the time they can spend attacking (giving them a chance of breaking the org wall) and minimize losses (which makes attacking more economical, keeps attacking units at higher capability and allows them to force attack without committing suicide).

>still doesn't specify sp, mp or either with mods
>immediate samefag and baitniggery
Try again anon. I've got a couple more hours of wagecuckery to burn and this amuses me.

Someone's mad.

>>2141455
MP in these games has always been dumb gamey trash where every game has 5 bazillion rules slapped on it because the game itself is busted. Vanilla SP can be memed with literally anything because the AI is fucking braindead. I've made this clear already. Playing the game without AI mods is just baby mode, it's a joke. Before 2025 it would have been Expert AI, now it's Sheep's Mod. There's no point in even discussing the game balance for vanilla because it doesn't matter.

Has any mana-less WWII grandstrat appeared since HoI4? The game's already old at this point.

I use GBP because of the planning buffs and night attack bonuses.

>>2141455
>xyr is desperate enough to reply to that
lmao

>>2140594
>Bro MA has been banned in mp for like years
thanks for reminding me to never play with mpfags

>>2141476
House rules mainly exist because hoi4 isn't designed or balanced for mp (good) and there are tonnes of ways to cheese, exploit or just clown on the game. Everyone basically agrees they play hoi4 mo for a vaguely historical wargame and not to have Poland flip monarchist and revive the Austria-Hungary empire or have France deny Rhineland and end the game by '38

So my first real game as germany i capitulated poland and france. I then decided to send over some divisions to libya to help italy beat the brits since i all but ignored africa and they took over, but my divisions couldn't push through for some reason. I'm talking 20 divisions on two tiles can't push past 2 divisions. I think it may have something to do with england completely raping the mediterranean sea with their navy? how the fuck do you beat britain's navy?

>>2141564
Supply and combat width
Even if you had unilateral control of the sea you'll struggle to keep 20 divisions supplied in 2 tiles in north africa. And because of the combat width only 2-3 divisions are going to be fighting at one time in a tile. So you have a total of 6 divisions actually doing something and 14 divisions sucking supplies from the 6 that are fighting.

>>2141564
Never fight in Africa as the axis. You're totally dependent on AI Italy to supply you through ally-controlled waters and they just won't.

>>2141660
>not going thru spain or turkey

Did a three day war against the Netherlands as Germany. Feels good.
Why were my tanks so slow though? < 3 KM.

>>2142059
A division is as fast as its slowest unit.

I've been testing playing with three nations at once. So far I've been doing well.

Are there any good quality up to date written up meta multiplayer guides or are these people gatekeeping like crazy?

>>2139717
We can play together and you can teach me hoi4! I am 500 hours into the game but have no idea what the helly I am doing!

>>2139717
I just passed 5000 hours too!

Are there even MP games here?

>>2144897
Here's a guide. Don't do it if you have to ask. If you're playing a random lobby you'll lose hours to desyncs or fags altf4ing when you start kicking their ass. If you're playing with an established group 99.9.9.9.9% they have their own homebrew mod and a shitton of server rules so they have their own meta and they'll push your shit in and then laugh at you being a dumbass. And if you absolutely need a guide for figuring shit out in a game where just about any fun it has comes from figuring shit out you should reevaluate why in the actual fuck are you playing that game in the first place.

>>2145243
This. Mp is only worth it with a dedicated group, and they'll have their own mod and guides and shit. Solo you're just going to waste an afternoon juggling desyncs and crashouts without actually playing.

>>2145243
>>2145250
Ok and what Group/Mod/Ruleset is the best in your opinions?

>>2145251
Sheep's is the only one that opened their private MP mod to SP community.
The rest don't share.

>>2145254
So it is a MP mod that also works in SP? How good does it work in SP?

>>2145266
It's purely a SP mod, but it's based on their MP mod and meta. It puts expert AI to shame.
MP mods aren't open to players outside of their clique.

>>2145267
Damn I hate cliques!

Either way I will try it then but it wont be worth putting thousands of hours into if I cant join the clique!!

>>2079314
BlackICE for 4 is railroaded event faggotry, with tech and mechanic bloat. and the mechanics all suck dick.

Now BIce for 3? Kino. Pure Kino.

>>2145251
Ideally one made from people you know irl. Second place is one you played for years and know they won't waste your time and finding that requires luck and time Vast majority are some streamer groups with already established main characters and or some discord where 500+ people are exchanging furry inflation porn while maybe 5 out of them actually play. I'd avoid any public persistent lobby that actively recruits since I'm not a fan of some squeaky troon yapping for hours but you do you.

I'll give you one general advice tho. Be flexible and be pragmatic. If it works it works and if it doesn't work be prepared to pivot and pivot hard. Basically don't double down on something that doesn't work, learn to anticipate what will and don't sleep on espionage and speaking to other people.

>>2145250
There's nothing wrong with going hezbolah on some random lobby if you actually know what you're doing.

>The rest don't share.
Bullshit. How many are worth playing with is another thing tho.

>>2145342
That sounds like some solid advice dad

>>2145513
>one day you'll also make the trains run on time

>>2145342
Ok I played like 3 multiplayer games with the number of people ranging between 3 and 16

The 15 Player game with the mod Road to 56 with the Discordian RP submod was ok but that was just a mess in the offficial hoi4 discord.... we had to remake the lobby 3 times cause hosts were retards and it was so laggy

I also played a vanilla game with 2 other people but I got out real fast cause I messed up my focus tree so yea but still fun


I enjoyed the GFU Mod the most and the community was fairly coordinated for the game.
the mod doesnt add too much like R56 so you could stilll learn the normal game

>>2146071
I also learned some new things I can do like unassinging an attack order to still keep the planning bonus but I am STRUGGLING with shitty minors and getting them up and running do you guys have tips for that?

>>2146091
Yeah, do one thing and do it well; tanks, marines or mech for example. If it's vanilla or vanilla adjacent and you're not on the front as in you're playing SAF or mexico you can convert all your mils to civs and greed for a year or two. Ask for majors to buy your resources and don't be a sperg about it.

I have 500 hours and I've yet to play a single game of vanilla. I was thinking of trying USA, Germany, or Japan. I've heard Japan is very gay and shit.

>>2146271
Japan will hopefully improve when they rework navy yet again. Right now the war in china is kind of fun but anything having to do with navy is kind of shit because properly setting it up at the start is reminiscent of hoi3 OoB but without the kino part.

https://pdxint.at/4mkxhDh

New dev diary up, also
>Indonesia/Dutch East Indies content confirmed?

>>2146312
>>Indonesia/Dutch East Indies content confirmed?
Nigga malaysia and siam will get more content than japan

>>2146374
Really? With the advancements that Paradevs has made, I think its time they give Indonesia proper content.

I can see them doing a Vichy-style focus tree for the Japanese collaborationist path.

>>2146312
shut up, mektapis

>>2146312
Hirohito finally doesn't look like a potato

>>2146468
>historical revisionism

>>2146509
Pretty much, yeah.
On a side note we're getting double diaries for the 22th and 23th, East Asia content plus the countdown.

>>2146468
Finally

I hope Manchukuo actually gets a proper focus tree as well ffs

>>2146468
Bretty much

>>2146873
It looks like it will, alongside other countries East Asia if the title of the next Dev Corner is to be believed.

>>2147012
I hope so. It's severely fucked up how Manchukuo's relationship with Imperial Japan wasn't explored in WtT beyond "you get free factories, your own version of CAMCO and a research slot - maybe you can be free if you're friends with the Kwantung Army or some shit"

They better add a BoP mechanic for Manchukuo that's always veering to the Kwantung side to show how Puyi was basically castrated. And if they want to do an reworked independence path, it should atleast require you to veer towards the Imperial Faction of Manchukuo ( along with some ideology tree so we can "create" Manchukuo's ideology using what Puyi was shilling at that point as your basis ). And I guess the Qing path should atleast give you free claims over SEA and East Asia to recreate the Tributary System and basically be the GEACPS but with Qing China on top.

>>2147012
I hope so. It's severely fucked up how Manchukuo's relationship with Imperial Japan wasn't explored in WtT beyond "you get free factories, your own version of CAMCO and a research slot - maybe you can be free if you're friends with the Kwantung Army or some shit"

They better add a BoP mechanic for Manchukuo that's always veering to the Kwantung side to show how Puyi was basically castrated. And if they want to do an reworked independence path, it should atleast require you to veer towards the Imperial Faction of Manchukuo ( along with some ideology tree so we can "create" Manchukuo's ideology using what Puyi was shilling at that point as your basis ).

And I guess the Qing path should atleast give you free claims over SEA and East Asia to recreate the Tributary System and basically be the GEACPS but with Qing China on top ( along with some Century of Humiliation flavor ).

>>2147036
>>2147037
Fuck phoneposting

Is there any way to change AI Behaviour in Custom Game Rules to make them go down a specific path, but still have achievements on?
Have tried everything to get one fucking country do what I want but can't make it happen

when do I do the German Civil War? before or after some industry or military focuses?

>>2147929
Typically any alt hist path that requires a civil war, you want to rip off the bandaid ASAP.

>>2147927
You can set countries to (attempt to) stick to their historical path, which cuts down some of the random chance, but I don't think there's an ironman-friendly way to force them down alt-history paths

>>2147927
With the way focuses and certain other triggers work that's not going to happen unless you manually edit and gut the entire system

how the FUCK does the battle planner work?
I swear I'm having a better performance just microing the units around

>>2148878
What do you mean?

>>2147993
Are you referring to turning Historical AI Focuses off but then turning it on manually / specifically for certain countries in custom game rules? Have tried that and haven't had any luck
>>2148083
Dam. Guess I will just have to do an ironman and then another non-ironman if I want this to work.

Only thing I can think of is editing the file to fix the checksum, but that seems like a pain in the ass

>>2148883
>ironman
Never understood what you people got of out this shit. Anyway you can change the weights for the focuses to gorillion+1 but that still won't change dumb situations like UK does focus for Iran, Iran feels threatened and joins the comitern, soviets are now hostile to US and you have a threeway gangbang in 1943. Or you know Italy being Italy.

>>2148878
It's pretty simple
>designate a front line for an army/army group
>every division will line up on this front line with roughly equal distribution
>now draw an offensive line, designating an objective you want them to fight towards
>they will gain planning while sitting on the frontline, which will multiply their stats when they attack
>click to activate the plan to make every division assigned to the plan begin their offensive
>attacking units will select an adjacent tile in the direction of their objective and bash into it until they take it, roughly attempting to draw the shortest path to the objective line
>after reaching their objective they won't stop the offensive and will continue to randomly attack adjacent tiles until you cancel the offensive.
It's totally inefficient, full of bugs and just terribly designed in general. You basically only ever actually launch an offensive and let the AI control your units when you're lazy and have such an overwhelming material advantage that you can shut your brain off and let a bad algorithm play the game for you.

For the most part the 'correct' way to use battleplans is to cheat the system so you can gain the planning bonus while retaining manual control of your units. Look up a youtube video to see the various ways to do so.

>>2148961
sounds cool in idea, I want to be a general and draw plans, but the execution is.... not very good

>>2148966
I quite like it honestly. Using it for a secondary army to fill in the gaps automatically is a major qol improvement alone.

>>2148966
It just doesn't work very well on a technical level and it seems like Paradox doesn't know how to make it more robust while keeping it optimized enough to not crater performance.
If they could at least fix the shuffling issue it would be somewhat usable for lazy people but in its current state you basically always want to unassign units on a frontline so that they actually stay in place.

Does Italy still fold instantly and fuck up your front for the next 4 months if they lose 2 villages?

>>2149005
iirc they fixed that bug now.

>>2149005
Yes. Any core territory under occupation leads to civil war modified by either stab or ws. Forgot which one.

what determines an unit strength? equipment, composition, etc? how do I see it?

>>2149176
Yellow bar dumbass.

>>2149183
I mean what makes an unit strong or weak, not the fighting strength mechanic

>>2146893
Damn, the Emperor has some kissable lips.

>>2149184
Retarded much?

>>2149200
if a question is too hard for you, just say you dont know buddy

Fuck off baitnigger.

>>2149262
meant for >>2149256

>>2149184
Its stats, basically. There's a whole massive page of all the stats that affect a division's performance and it would be pointless to just list all of them here. There's a million youtube tutorials that explain everything for new players and tell you how to design your divisions to succeed.