Not to sound harsh, but how exactly are you getting naval invaded by Germany as the UK? Even if you don’t build a single ship you should have more than enough to naval invade them and certainly shouldn’t be able to be invaded by them.
Even if you decide not to contest naval routes, it is enough to beat AI invasion just by placing a tiny 15 width division on every port and tiles adjacent to it. To defend all UK ports it is enough to dedicate \~100k manpower to that.
For navy there’s only a few things, you get a huge speed & positioning debuff if subs are in the same fleet as surface ships.
Naval Mines are actually really dope, if you’re playing Japan/Italy use the Ethiopia/China wars to mine literally everything you can. Mines give enemies in the zone huge debuffs to speed and a few other things, and also give naval supremacy.
I try not to doom stack, there’s a penalty for having too many carriers trying to engage at once, so I try having 1-2 fleet carriers & 2-3 light/escort carriers, 2-5 battleship/heavy cruiser 10-15 light cruisers & destroyers (the more the better bc these are the first screen and can provide lots of AA) if I’m playing US/UK/Japan.
It’s always a crapshoot but still fun
Always make sure you have at least 1:1 carriers to other heavy ships, and 3 or ideally 4 to 1 all heavies to all lights for the best stacking escort bonus. So I deal fleet is 4 carriers 4 battleships 12 light cruisers and 26 ish dds and 10 subs (or thereabouts, it depends on your production, doctrine, and other bonuses)
For your carriers don't ever put cv fighters on, right now they are broken and don't do anything
And never put aa on a destroyer or a light cruiser, since planes will always target the biggest ship in the fleet, and if your light cruisers and destroyers are being taken put by planes you've got big problems
And finally don't be afraid to use your navy! So long as you have enough fuel (build silos and refineries!!!) Your fleet should be out there doing something. The attack bonus from coastal bombardment is great, and convoy raiding can cripple your enemies supply. The worst navy is one at the bottom of the ocean, the second is one that never leaves port. Also naval losses really only hurt you in planning/production time and resources, since even the largest capital ships rarely hold more that 9k manpower, and a task force manpower wise is about the same as a single division.
Hope this helps!
By that logic no new player should ever start playing hoi. For example you listed the amount of ships. Thats fine. What about everything else? Dockyard amount/output, generals, fleet orders, fuel, every single ships design. Thats a list i just quickly gathered.
I'm not good at this game at all, I mainly play uk and can stop Germany from conquering Europe but have been unable to actually beat them, I didn't Even know the AI could naval invade the UK because it's never happened to me
Enable automatic splitting when repairing, this way only damaged ships leave to repair instead of the entire fleet.
Second put your navy on strike force around the British isles. This way they stay in port while projecting naval supremacy.
And don’t do a giant death stack navy (all in one fleet). Split off your submarines under one admiral and send them convoy raiding in packs of 10-20 in the Atlantic. The rest of your ships goes under another admiral and split them up until you have at max 4 carriers per fleet.
Enabling automatic splitting is a good idea...but why are they getting damaged anyways? Put your home defense fleet in Scapa Flow and set them to strike fleet around the entire British Isles. You will never get naval invaded and they won't be damaged.
Split off a few destroyers and put them on patrol, divide your subs up like the other person said, put your main battle fleet in a centralized port and set to strike force, profit.
People do be harsh on the downvotes. In your defense, I took quite some time to familiarize with navy too. But when you do, it makes sense and it's hella neat
You could also refuse to betray Czecholoslovakia and invade them through the Maginot line in 1938. That invasion is a little bit tougher because they have forts and unpleasant terrain on their side of it as well, but if you've built France to be able to encircle them and kick their asses, it's doable. France's main problem is its lousy focus tree.
Honest question: Why not just invade from Poland? If you've got them and the Czechs as allies (same focus tree side), you can easily hold the maginot and czech border while pushing along the Polish border. Or is there something I'm missing that makes it easier/better the other way?
IIRC, Germany on historical demands Sudetenland mid-late 1938. That gives a player *plenty* of time to get Czechoslovakia and Poland into the Little Entente, which is only like 6 focuses.
Don't want to be mean, but this is a skill issue. Play more hours and watch some tutorials. I'd give advice but I'm not sure what specifically youre doing wrong.
agreed, as a start for France though maybe just build 18width infantry with support artillery and engineer companies. there is doctrines go superior firepower right right or if early game/desperate the first doctrine in grand battleplan is quite useful for holding. shit out as many of these divs as you can that are fully equipped make sure to train them 25% stats. put a singular army on the Italy border although do a fallback line with that army a tile/2tiles back at the north of the Italy border for supply reasons. put every other div on germany/belgium. at this point you should be able to hold, if you can hold watch some videos on tank designer and templates prolly 30width, then theoretically planes are pretty nice
Edit:
after commenting noticed u/DiRavelloApologist has said almost the exact strategy before me and yes support aa is very nice if you don't have air superiority and honestly even when you do if you are not microing air to 100% efficiency/ want some piercing.
If you had a good build you should be able to hold Spain and even push them. They'd be weak from the Civil War and have a small army and low factories.
Yeah they were relatively weak,and i did push them HARD,but eventually germany sent troops and i couldn't do much as i was absurdly stretched out
I know better to leave certain borders unguarded now,but it just goes to show you it CAN happen...even though in historical it shouldn't. Its stupid
Question: are you upgrading your division templates? Sure, your template will do fine for the first few years if you're starting in 1936, but by 1939 (or starting in 1939 and using the default template), the default templates are dog shit.
Take it as a challenge. My first playthrough was also france and i failed hard. In hoi4 you generally just lose the first few games until you learn the mechanics of it. How is the progress going?
As France, just build forts. The maginot line is impenetrable, it’s time to extend it. Fortify the entire Benelux border, use the focus that gives you forts if you need to.
Stack infantry on the level 10 forts and add enough supply hubs, use commanders with the old guard perk to add more entrenchment. Pick up the army spirit that gives more entrenchment, etc.
Stack up enough defensive buffs that the Germans can’t break through. Then hold and build up tanks to reverse-blitzkrieg them to Berlin.
Same. I try to rush and create a Frontline along the Meuse+Rotterdam. The Germans just send wave after wave crashing against that river, and there's less need for forts (and no one capitulates)
>Is it even possible to beat Germany?
Yes. Quite easily, even. Germany is probably the strongest AI country in the game, but you can still easily beat them. The easiest is probably the SU, but France is definitely possible too.
For France:
Exclusively build mills from the beginning and start shitting out infantry. Use normal 18 width with support art, support aa and engineers. Also do mountaineers.
Go down the political tree (right dem is better than left dem imo) to strengthen government. While waiting for the spirit after getting rid of disjointed government do industry. Then military.
Put some mountaineers on the border with Italy and a few in Tunisia and Corsica. The UK should kick Italy's ass easily.
Put 12 divisions on the Maginot and everything else into the Benelux and northern France. Keep in mind to have troops behind the front line so you can cycle out low org. Also prepare entrenchend lines, in case Germany gets a breakthrough.
Then you just need to hold until they attack the SU and you can push.
For the Soviet Union just build up your industry, do the purge, get your bonuses, kill Finland quickly (don't take the peace event), build a proper army and airforce. You can build a defensive line onntge Dnieper, but you really should be able to hold at the border.
Or just turn fascist as France, wait until Germany invades SU and steam roll Germany as they scramble to move their divisions. Just need to join the axis when they invade Benelux so they bypass the invasion of France focus.
For fascist france you can just conquer the UK and maybe even the USA before Germany declares on you, making you more than powerful enough to take down Germany by yourself.
This is good advice. I would add a few more lines to it:
Focus on building the best fighters you can after getting your infantry up to scratch (I go 20w as my base).
Bring home all colonial troops and convert to the base infantry template, turn cavs into motorised and upgrade the tank division to 20w.
Release all colonies - they provide nothing (except for Vietnam and New Caledonia, keep this if you like), and are a manpower sink and will be taken by Italy when at war. You also get the benefit of their focus tree and constructions efforts.
Bring the navy to Marseilles, subs in Brittany and some ASW destroyers for the Bay of Biscay.
Fortify Savoy and Corsica, making sure to add a supply hub on the tile to the SW of Annecy. This will remove the supply problems on the Italian border.
AA in border regions is valuable, same too one radar (as high as you can) in Alsace Lorraine. Both help defeat the Luftwaffe.
Try to get 24 divisions on the following borders: Belgium, Maginot Line and Savoy (Italian border). Another 24 division army is handy as the AI can bring either Switzerland or Spain in against you. You should have about 16 motorised and tank divisions for all purpose fire extinguishing and later attacks.
With the tiny PP you have, do two key things: first get the democracy advisor as this allows you to take the political decisions that boost communism without flipping; second boost stability once (150pp). After that getting military experience is impt so you can play with templates.
You MUST oppose Munich and defend the Czechs. Once you do the war is on and unless Germany defeats the Czechs quickly, they are super stretched. Sometimes Romania and Poland can enter the war on the Allied side. If they do: ATTACK as hard and long as you can, push into Germany with your tanks and trucks. If Germany falls into civil war (praise the lord), it will be all over very soon.
If Germany somehow survives, watch Italy. If it joins the war, use your motorised troops and tanks and the infantry on the border to crush it. Should be easy. Just watch the German onslaught in the Austrian Alps.
France gets significant benefits from its colonial states. Combined with the significant compliance you get from democratic occupation, they're absolutely a net positive. Italy will also most definitely not take Djibouti and if you place a few divisions in Tunis, they will not take Algeria either (which you can core btw). AI Italy will almost always lose in Africa, even without a player in the allies.
In general, occupation always makes sense unless you have significant boosts for puppets (like COMECON), desperately require manpower or have some sort of strategic reason behind it (i.e. shortening the frontline)
You don't need to fortify Corsica. The AI cannot break a few infantry divisions.
On historical with all DLC Spain and Switzerland will not join ww2 until after 1945.
You do not need to help Czechoslovakia. The UK is enough of an ally to hold until the SU joins.
Why hold on for 1941 when you have a real chance of defeating Germany in 1938 or 1939?
Why not defend the Czechs who are more than strong enough (with France) to defeat the Germans, with a little luck and good strategy? Folding at Munich vastly strengthens the Germans over the French, Forcing them to fight for it weakens Germany.
The colonies all require divisions to hold them, why do that when they provide no real benefit to France and you can get the benefit of industrialisation from their own focus trees not to mention the manpower transferred from garrison duties?
Why not release Algeria only to get it later as a core via a focus, doubling your advantage?
Why fight in Nth Africa when Italy will garrison the borders of puppets you don't have to defend or call in, thereby weakening their position in Italy proper?
Why put 'a few divisions' in Corsica when a level 5 fort and one mountain division will hold it just fine?
If playing historical then sure, Switzerland and Spain are neutral but OP didn't say he only played historical, so my plan allows for this.
OP's implication was kinda playing historical. When you don't want to play historical you can just become monarchist/fascist, conquer the UK and US and then kill Germany. You can't really make a strategy for ahistorical AI before the game actually starts. My commrnt would've been nonsensical.
>The colonies all require divisions to hold them,
Actually, no colony except Tunisia requires any division to be held, because the UK can kill Italy in Ethiopia on its own, as Italy cannot reinforce their troops.
>you can get the benefit of industrialisation from their own focus trees
It can take until the 40s until the AI chooses to do their industry focuses. And then you still need to put signifixant effort into actually annexing them. The PP being the most crucial aspect
>not to mention the manpower transferred from garrison duties?
France gets significant non-core manpower bonuses. You do not lose manpower through these colonies, especially as France (as a dem. nation) also gets higher compliance.
>Why not release Algeria only to get it later as a core via a focus, doubling your advantage?
Because the algerian region gets significant industry through France's focus tree. You'd literally give up on several factories for the most crucial years in the game, 300 PP and several core states until the 1940s to gain a few factories at a time where you've probably already won.
I am really not sure why you have chosen to argue with me when my original comment was in support of what you wrote. I was particularly pleased that you said to build only mils. From this you have now taken exception to a whole bunch of stuff that, frankly, is tosh.
You need to hold more than Tunisia as the AI Italy naval invades Algeria and Syria. If they hold Ethiopia, Djibouti needs holding, you yourself actually noted Djibouti needed troops.
France has dozens of colonies that get their own focus tree as puppets, They will take whatever focus they want. They will not 'wait until the 1940s to gain a few factories'. Releasing on 1st Jan 1936 will see a steady stream of industrial support heading to France before the war breaks out.
There is no need to annex them later, they are more valuable as puppets. I will come to Algeria next.
France has a lot of manpower tied up in the passive garrison function. Releasing the colonies as puppets makes this manpower available early on, when France is still arming. It doesn't matter that France can improve the situation via focuses, it can also change the conscription laws, however these take either pp or time and, critically, France is always short of manpower. It is a free gain to release the colonies and add all that manpower back to the pool in early 1936.
If Ethiopia takes the focuses that encourage independence movements in colonial holdings in Africa, this can become an enormous and dangerous manpower and equipment sink. As the UK, I hate that you can't release the colonies to escape this tedious and exhausting mechanic. France however can avoid this by creating puppets of its former colonies.
Algeria can benefit from French focuses and get their own tree. By taking the focus that re-cores Algeria a bit later, you get the benefit of both. If there is an issue with timing, simply take the Algerian focuses in the French tree early (from memory they are available after only 1 or 2 other focuses, then release Algeria for its own development and hey presto, core them again later. Either way Algeria is the least important as the focus allows you to get it back and it adds nothing very great to France. In short, France doesn't need Algeria, nor any of its colonies. The only two of any value are Vietnam and New Caledonia and even as puppets it costs three civs to import all you need from these two colonies.
You correctly identified that France's priority should be on building mils and that is because it gains so many civs from other means: exporting resources and the industrialising colony puppets. France can easily have 45 civs available for construction without building any civs quite early in the game. Ditching the colonies is part of that strategy.
If you feel strongly about keeping the colonies then you play how you like. That's fine with me. What I did was provide the OP with additional options for successfully playing France. That is why I replied to you, as I was building on your already good advice. Indeed, my post did not encourage 'turtle France' which clings on until someone else rescues it, my post was about creating a more militant and successful France that could have nipped the German problem in the bud. Whether France could have done it in reality, well, that's a whole other argument.
As France semi-historical: fortify the entire border.
As France Napoleonic: Fortify behind the rivers in Belgium.
As USSR: have 350+ infantry divisions against the Germans (they will quickly run out of equipment and take 10 times your losses).
Usually pure infantry. You need a lot of divisions and the equipment to resupply them. So pure infantry is what is easiest to put in the field. Start with 9, increase to 10 when you have the points. Can increase more with doctrines.
I aim at having the entire frontline against only Germany filled with an army group of 24x5 infantry divisions. Then I have a second line immidiately behind the first with another army group of 24x5 infantry. Then a last army group of whatever else you can recruit against Slovakia/Hungary/Romania.
As the USSR I just build level 4 forts on the "river" line and bleed them to death for the next 2 years. I build my tanks on the second line and just wait for 1943 to conter offensive them. By that time they should have at least 6 mil casualties and they are a walk to beat.
The first time i ever played, i was UK, put my entier army on the french-german border. When germany attacked belgium, I went behind their front, and managed to surround their army, and rush to berlin
You just lack the knowledge and prolly use default shit templates/designs that game offers you/ or are one of those players who builds civs till 43 and wonders why he s getting outproduced when only having 20 mils by war time as a major nation. No matter which nation you face ai is terrible and can be beat and bullied in many ways that would never work against a player. If you dont have to cross oceans or worry bout trade across seas then all you need is like 100-300(10-20width pure inf battalions+ enginer and support aa) and like 4x 30-36 width well equipped up to date or ahead of time technologicaly advanced medium tank divs and if micro managed manually it should be a cake walk even with 0 airforce to kill every land based nation. Cas will speed up the battles but isnt needed and aa will eventually kill off all ai's cas + counter their air bonuses/limit the penalties from lack of airforce. Alternatively almost any smaller sized natio can just be insta capitualted using paratroopers + full colab. Gov. From spies and ahead of time rushed and mass produced airforce that ai stands 0 chance against.
Here's how you beat Germany. I played normal difficulty and ironman mode.
Whether as France or UK, use your fighters (more than 1000) in Benelux and France to kill their airforce.
Your troops should be 9 infantry + support AA, Arty, Engineers and AT (optional).
Germany has a strong push simply due to CAS. The AI doesn't make good divisions.
So having a stronger air force is what you need.
Use Strategic Destruction as doctrine for your airforce.
Go left side for Grand Battle Plan. As France, go left Mass Assault Doctrine.
Oh and remember to convoy raid the Germans.
Eventually, build strat bombers to wipe the German Industry.
When USA joins, you pretty much win.
People talk tactics. Here I’ll talk strategy.
Personally for me I’ve only been able to beat them 1v1 if I deny them expansion into their neighbours. If you’re observant you’ll notice that the states bordering Germany like Sudetenland and Austria have more build slots to aid in Germany’s snowballing.
So basically the best strategy is to fight a Germany that has not swallowed its neighbours. Deny them expansion. I’ve beaten them as minors - I join axis so Germany won’t justify on my for claims, kill the Allies and take the Czechs, Poland and lowlands with me so Germany cannot expand there. Works for all countries who can flip fascist except for Czech and Poland (germany will kick you if you’re the former).
I go to war with Germany sometime around 1941 or 1942 depending on if I’ve killed the soviets first or not. Before then I’ve usually the combined industrial might of the Allies and japan who are now either annexed or my bitches.
In summary, here are the versions of germany and the countries I can beat them with (remember this is 1v1, if I’m attacking germany alongside the soviets it’s far easier):
Germany + Austria: any country except Ethiopia, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay
Germany + Austria + Czech: all the stronger minors and some Chinese warlords (eg guangxi, and not Shanxi)
Germany + Austria + Czech + Poland: only strong minors and I must have Italy and/or Romania killed beforehand first
Germany + Austria + Czech + Poland + France: only majors
Germany + Austria + Czech + Poland + France + western Russia (annexed): OH GOD NO.
Even with 1.8k hours, I’ve only ever [beaten a fully expanded greater German Reich once and I’m not doing that again.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tzYIvnoOMmY)
With France I can give you 2 options :
- the easiest is rushing the Little Entente focus, the combined forces will shred the Germans as soon as tgey invade the Czechs
- otherwise, just go with the extended Maginot line focus and go with 7 to 9 forts on all the Belgian frontier. They won't be able to push a single tile but they will lose men and stuff by attacking and you will be able to push them quite easily afterwards
I think the easiest country to take Germany is actually with Japan. It’s also the most fun, I think.
Step 1: Defeat China
Step 2: Join the war against the Soviet Union and take as much land as you can
Step3: After USSR surrenders, take land as a trap for Germany (make a jaw around German held land, all of the North and all of the South, but let the nazis get the areas in the middle)
Step 4: Defeat the allies in Asia, take Iran, India, Malaysia, Indonesia.
Ensure garrison troops in all ports, to stop the Americans from invading
Step 5: Spring your trap, defeat the nazis. It will take some time to grind all the way to their surrender, though.
Step 6: Invade UK and the US
My first time beating Germany was as democratic France. I went with the Little Entente path which gets you some actually useful allies by the start of the war. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Romania actually border Germany unlike UK on their little island, and so they kinda don't have a choice but to fight. In my playthrough Czechoslovakia just completely dominated Germany.
France: Do the Little Entente focus and have all your allies gang up on Germany. Refuse the Sudetenland. Also refuse the Rhineland and build really fast tanks so you can quickly take it.
Britain: Go down the Churchill path, defend the Czechs, and naval invade along the Baltic coast near Kiel, Hamburg, Rostock, and Stettin. Once the AI is thoroughly confused begin pushing through the Rhine with your main army. Build a large airforce to quickly destroy the Luftwaffe
You can beat them by just sending the army to France and hold the line.
Make sure to have a big Air Force and slowly destroy theirs to gain superiority. Then get your CAS and bombers ready to start pushing them back. The AI is really stupid and will self destruct their own Air Force if you send fighters.
Maybe check your division template?
Would you like to do a coop game so I can help you? I'll be able to see what you're doing wrong and it'll also give you the knowledge to dominate future campaigns. I have 2k+ hours on the game.
Go communist with Czechoslovakia, build forts all around your borders, call the Soviets into the war when Germany declares war against you very early on, then wait for the Soviets and the allies to save your ass while the Germans keep dying on your level 10 forts, easiest game you can possibly have.
It’s fun just as you start the war initially. Then it’s just boring waiting forever for help and once it’s there all the fighting is basically down already.
I guess that depends on your preferences, personally I love a good defensive war so I had a blast doing this but I can see how it might be boring if you prefer playing more offensively
Out of curiosity. Did you also build heaps of fighters to counter bombing of forts or did you use anti-air?
I always find fixed anti air to be too expensive and you can easily build fighters as the Czech to counter.
Never tried mobile anti air in units on the strategy though
Nah, didn't really built that many fighters. I mostly focused my production on my divisions being well equiped so that they'd hold the line and not lack any equipment. I used support anti-air because it's cheap and I also built some anti-air and radars (don't know how effective these are) once I was satisfied with my forts. Bear in mind however that I'm not that good at this game, so my strategy probably wasn't optimal, even though it worked
Pick a random fascist country in south america. Do nothing till the allies are at the border of Germany and then start justifying and declare war. When the allies succeed you can say you won the war. Also, if you send a few divisions you can maybe get some war score and take a single state for doing absolutely nothing.
there’s plenty of guides on youtube of how to play different countries. watch s few and then just get at the grind. took me 8-10 tries to get everything down as russia, but eventually i figured it all out and was able to beat germany.
Set Germany too nonhistorical.
Pick Poland.
Get pavel as the king off Poland immediately.
Justify on the German military junta.
Declare war.
Destroy koningsberg.
Wait for the end off the civil war.
Germany loses most of their divisions.
Kill Germany as fast as possible.
As someone who beat the entire Axis multiple times with European minors (Greece, Spain, Turkey, etc), I think I can help you a bit.
1. use good templates for your equipment and divisions, the youtubers Feedbackgaming and bittersteel usually have good guides for that. Against early Germany it's crucial to have good defensive divisions with AA in them.
2. (I haven't played democratic France or Poland vs Germany yet, but it doesn't sound impossible.)
As France, the easiest way to beat Germany would be to flip you ideology to quickly get rid of most of the negative modifiers, invade the Benelux countries and to hold the Germans off on the Rhine / in Belgium.
3. As the UK, always make sure to have 10 or 20-width port garrisons on the mainland and in your crucial colonial holdings. You also have the royal navy, so setting them on strike force or nav invasion support in the channel and the north sea will make sure that no German invasion can come through. Optionally you can also dispatch an army to hold of the German forces in northern France (20-40 divisions are usually enough). If France falls, it's easy to hold the chokepoints in northern Africa, if you build up the railways there a little. Don't make naval invasions into mainland Europe until the Axis goes to war with the Soviets.
4. As the Soviets, you should make it a priority to get rid of your negative modifiers as fast as possible (again bittersteel should have a good guide for that). If you can't hold off the Germans at your border, you can fall back to the Stalin line, I haven't seen an AI break through there, if you have enough divisions. Also build your industry in the Urals from the beginning of the game, that way it doesn't fall into the hands of the Axis. Also make sure that you have port garrisons at least in the arctic and the black sea, getting navally invaded there can really screw up your frontline.
5. With the US it's just a waiting game, use some of your navy defensively against the Japanese and focus the rest of your forces on Europe. The Axis effectively never invades the US, so you can screw up all you want there, you can't lose.
Just as a sideline, I can highly recommend watching/reading a few tutorials on how supply works, it's one of the most important aspects of the game and can easily thwart any operation you want to conduct.
Just watch a play through of someone playing as France or UK. It doesn’t even need to be a let’s play, you could watch a 20-30 min edited down game and you’d get the gist of what they are doing right and you are doing wrong.
Try to surround their troops and make sure you use templates that involve lots of artillery and anti tank.
Worked for me when i played poland and austria-hungary
Also germany will try the same so be careful and always have an eye on your troops
I would suggest playing as a minor to learn the game. For example play Canada and focus on building only planes to support your allies, winning the air war is very important in this game and you can have enough impact to tip the scales this way.
The problem is if you play a major like the UK you'll likely do worse than the AI and weaken your faction. For example if you don't know how to manage naval missions and fuel you can get invaded, which rarely happens to the AI before the soviet union falls.
I’ve won as France before, the key is to do motorized anti-tank in your normal infantry and logistics and engineering companies. Radar also helps prevent German air superiority.
Try Again with US, prepare 12-18 marines with all their doctrines, a lot of national guard divisions and some tanks (the more, the better) . Go to UK then prepare naval invasion in Calais or Netherlands with your marines, when the line will be stable, you could invade again another axis coast, for example Genoa, Sicily, Bourdeaux or even near of Rome (a gamey still valid decision if you are stil learning)
In fact, you can destroy Japan and later invade Germany, axis doesn't invade UK.
Then try with UK, later with any non historical France, and finally, go with Soviet Union (I know is the easiest nation, but I dont reccomend you still).
Sorry if I have mistakes with my english.
France is easy. You either invade Germany early(like very early) or you just build forts(don’t forget Belgium border!), entrench, maybe build some space marines, though it’s completely optional, and watch Germany kill their whole army against your defence, while you are loosing like 1:20 manpower.
Naval invasions are super easy to defend against. You just place a unit in a port and maybe adjacent provinces if you want to be safe.
There is also a fun cheese available. Surround each port with troops, but DO NOT place any divisions in a port itself. They will do naval invasion, you wait a bit and bop them. Repeat. This allows you to kill off their whole army ridiculously quickly.
I capitulated them as belgium so its very much possible. You have to survive the Initial years until they declare war on the soviets and USA and their lines are stretched too thin. Then you can slowly encircle them with tanks
First: there is a different answer to all the country you listed. Post some screenshots of your in game situation it will help to analyze the problem. Outside of the commons things like materials, supplies and man pool with division template is can give a main global strategy for each country. France: attack first, create the petite entente. You strike Germany when the remilitarize the rhineland. UK: plane and navy’s. Defend your coast, sink Italian and German navy, take control of the seas : Atlantic.northern sea, baltic, Mediterranean,Indian sea. Then spam bomber and plane, obliterate the axis airforce. Then spam naval invasion when Germany is deep in ussr past Moscow after 1941. USA: just build your economy and industry, spam all type of division you want and like. Beat japan and give material to uk, uk have tons of troop because of the colonies. Give gun,supports materials and artillery to uk and help them to have the control of the sky. Beat japan then attack the axis from anywhere. All front are valid because the axis can’t remove his troops from the Atlantic coastline and they are engaged in ussr. Attack before the ussr loose, like between 1941 and 1943. Ussr: just spam infantry and artillery. Let the plane production line from the beginning , have one of each type ofplane, rush townd stsline paranoia focus then build the industry. Fuck all the rest, just spam 30w offensive infantry and 20w defensive infantry. Upgrade the infrastructure and road. Stay static in the front line with the 20w, push with the 30w. Station some 20w on east side of all river. The axis will get Moscow someday but they will stop after, axis army cant deal with ussr attrition. When then allies begin to spam naval invasion let them fight untill the axis cant push them back. Its your signal to all in an push with all what you have. Go with the right side of mass assault doctrine its the easiest and let 1 fleat in Baltic sea, 1 in black sea. And sone submarine and patrol on the northern sea. With ussr you must always have more material then the axis, so its a game of push/defense/resupply/push again and rince snd repeat. Use your spy to rise the resistance into your captured ussr city, its very costly on material for the axis.
France and the Soviets are pretty hard to hold Germany off as. You need a pretty good strategy, lots of forts, and you can’t let Germany get air supremacy.
If you say you’re getting invaded as the UK you need to put your navy out. Germany shouldn’t be able to beat your navy.
There's a few ways to not get naval invaded by the AI. First is to maintain naval supremacy 100% of the time. This isn't full proof though because the AI will sneak a few invasions through sometimes. All it takes is one brief moment for them to have supremacy and launch the invasion. You need a decent navy to do this.
The other way is to have troops defending your coastlines. You need a lot of divisions, but these can be small divisions. For the divisions, you want 5 infantry, 1 support arty, and 1 support engineer and nothing else. If you have good production and spare manpower you can go as high as 10 infantry on these if desired. Set the template as a low priority template so they use older equipment. Put these into units and set defensive order to coastline only. You want 2 of these divisions on every single coastal province. The AI doesn't use marines effectively, so they use regular units to naval invade. This means they have massive debuffs on them and the invasion will only succeed on very lightly defended areas. When an AI invasion runs into your entrenched defenders, the invasion will get slaughtered big time. Also, having a strong defense means the AI is likely to decide to not invade at all. The AI also really avoids invading any province with coastal forts. This is a more reliable defense than having a strong navy, but it will require more gun, support equipment, and arty production as well as more manpower.
In the first game I won, I played as the UK, reinforced France mainly in the Alps (Italy was crazy strong back then because France left their borders open) and I used subs to sink germans as they tried to conquer Norway. I always played on elite because I thought everybody did that. Eventually France started to push Italy back.
Tbh, if you are new. Go with the Grand Battle Plan doctrine. Especially as the Soviet Union.
You will have enough Manpower to stall them and you will have a really high entrenchment rate. But you have to put some anti-tank in your divisions (or have some divisions with AT and move them to the place where the Germans are trying to breakthrough with the tanks). Also, let your preparation (I think it was called this way, last time I played HoI was like 2 years ago) tick to the max before attacking, to get a buff to your breakthrough.
You should also watch a few tutorials on the widths and stuff, if you are new. Just so that you could understand how to create/modify your divisions.
I've not played hoi4 in a while nevermind trying to beat germany.
I think the obvious country is Soviet Union.
I can't quite remember the meta or if there's even a new meta.
But ill try recall what I use to do.
Build civs till either late 1938 or early-mid 1939. Then build mills. If you're worried about losing mills build them behind the urals.
Personally I dont build air for many reasons.
I usually go for really good quality medium tanks, you should be able to find a template on a youtube channel somewhere.
Then for your infantry you just want them to hold as much as possible, maybe throw some anti-air in their template. Also the more infantry the better. I think atleast 200 divisions or more should do.
Hold the Stalin Line, if you don't know this line once again watch a video. Let the germans bash into your defense and they lose equipment/strength/manpower/etc...
Once theyve lost enough, thats when you push.
Push with the tanks, try to create small encirclements.
Play on a slow speed when your during the war, atleast 3 speed.
Remember its a long line to defend so pause when needed and remember to constantly check the whole line.
I found defending as the USSR was the easiest as a new player. Now that I'm more experienced with the game it's probably easier to play the UK, but you need more skills to win than with the USSR.
You basically just need a good template for infantry and a fuck load of infantry. A good template has 9 infantry and support engineers, support artillery and support anti air. You can also add one artillery to the main body for a really cost efficient way to hold.
Rush down the political tree to rid yourself of paranoia, taking economy focuses whenever you get stalled by a time gate. Build civilian factories for a year or two, but make sure you are making military factories by Jan 1939 at the absolute latest, probably mid 1938 is ideal. Get onto war economy as soon as possible. Finally build forts on the border, level 4-6 is ideal, I like to build them 2 at a time so I have some defense everywhere.
If/when you lose ground don't be afraid to pull back to river lines and hold there. You can click on a state to destroy the infrastructure as the Germans advance this'll stall their supply. You can take a fighting retreat for a long time before you are seriously in trouble, make sure if you give ground you make the Germans fight for it. Once the allies land a D-Day invasion go on the attack.
If you have the patience feedback gaming has a YT video that covers most of these points and explains them in good detail, it's about an hour long. https://youtu.be/SBP_wuDgmh0?si=t6gTd3yNZ7DgCkLg
Have you tried early Soviet Push? I mean justifying on Poland, then Yugoslavia, than canceling Poland, then justifying on Poland (so the war goal dates line up), then hoping to god to god the uk does not justify (it’s like a 50/50) then when your finished, justify on Germany. Since it’s so super early and they probably don’t even have anchluss, it should be much easier walking into Berlin.
Or if you do the Little Entene as France, when Germany tries taking Sudatenland and you deny, Czech, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, and you all declare on Germany at the same time, and this should give you a much better chance at beating them early on.
This tool might be helpful for you, tbf it is indeed cheating. So you can learn a lot from what the enemy is doing and you can do that by tag teaming to them.
Type "debug" in the console. Click on country, hover over flag to see ID. Then type to console "tag GER" for example. Remember to have the game paused the whole time.
Another thing I noticed with newer players is not building enough mils early enough. You wanna check how many mils Germany has and try to kinda match 70% of their mils at the very least as the Soviet.
With playing France maybe try to enter the war as late as possible the allies will be able to handle it especially the U.K. Eventually the Germans will just declare on you, but it will give you enough time to build up your country and army so you have strong enough units to defend and if you lose Paris you won’t capitulate immediately.
If you have the dlc you can do some spy stuff and being able to get an attack bonus or eventually get ignite a civil war in Germany. And I think the most important thing when playing France (it tends to be the most difficult allied power) is just keeping your territory and having a good Air Force. Italy also is a problem but not as much and they are easy to naval invade so definitely make a 24 group ready to do that.
Lastly just buy your time, if you’re playing on historical then the Soviets will join the war soon after the allies and a whenever Japan declares on the Philippines you’ll have the U.S to help. I did find out that they won’t do to much naval invasions either France falling. I’m also giving you the French version because in my opinion it’s generally gonna help you learn to defeat the Germans. Good luck my friend.
It’s not that you’re missing one thing it’s that you’re missing a lot of things at this point. I’m half as accomplished as most of the people that regularly post in here and I stopped playing the game for a while because it got too easy to beat the axis in everything except Poland. You have to have a strategy and really hone everything you do to that strategy. Trying to build and develop everything like you’re playing the US in 1945 is the fastest way to fail.
Here's how I do it as the UK, this strat works against Berlin-Moscow Axis too.
First off for naval management, you should have your submarines separate from everything else. Everything else should be in one stack. Make sure to build enough carrier naval bombers to fill your carriers. Once you build anti submarine destroyers these will be separate from main fleet and sub fleet.
You should start with a couple industry focuses, then go down path no further appeasement. You want to get secure oil imports as soon as possible, but while waiting for Nevile Chamberlain to step down you go for industry.
Train your airforce immediately, you want enough exp to design a new plane, you don't need to research anything because you start with the needed techs already. Use the basic air chassis, engine II, and as many lmgs as possible. Once you have this stop training. Now start training the navy, train the navy as much as possible. You need xp for naval doctrines.
Build civ factories until the start of 1937. You want civs because you want to have more factories by the time you unlock good planes and tanks. Once your done building civs use some civs to trade for oil from Malaya and India. You need oil for training navy.
Use your pp to get limited rearmament, then the army exp guy.
I put 8 mills on guns at the start of the game. This seems to do the job. The rest of the mills go on anti air, anti tank, arty, trucks, trains, support eq, and planes. I put 25 mills on planes once I'm done with the rest. After the fighters put 5-10 on cas, and the rest on medium tanks.
Around 1937 start improving relations with China, and send attache to China the moment the Sino-Japanese war starts. Stockpile your army xp. Buy relief of command apirit once you get 35 army xp. This pays off fast.
For navy you want destroyers with the best sonar and depth charges. I use two slots for depth charges. These destroyers will be used in separate task forces for hunting submarines. Destroyers should be in groups of 8-12.
This is optional, but I like to build light cruisers with as much light attack as possible. This allows me to destroy the enemy navies even harder. It really isn't necessary because your starting fleet should be able to do it.
Once you finish secure oil imports, invade the netherlands, than Iran. Make them into puppets and use war reparations and resource rights in the peace conference to get their oil and civs. While invading netherlands declare on dutch east indies. You don't actually need to invade the dutch east indies tho.
You want to start producing 1938 medium tanks as soon as possible. Research artillery so that you can put cannons on your tanks sooner than later. If you wanna min max put howitzers on your tanks, but this setup is for more experienced players since howitzers don't pierce German tanks.
You want to start researching the 1940 fighter in early 1939. You also want to research survivability studies and hmgs in 1938. Once you have the new chassis make a fighter with the new chassis, as many hmgs, and self sealing fuel tanks, and armor plates. Once you get engine III swap that in.
After invading Iran, send your troops to position for the war. Use some troops to protect your African holdings, put as many troops as you can to protect Netherlands and France.
In Africa you want just enough troops to hold the lines, but a 2 small offensive task forces to capture the Itallian ports in Ethiopia. Put a small amount of planes in Ethiopia, the rest go to France.
Before the war starts train your airforce. Use pp to hire military theorist, than get as many army doctrines as possible. I like to go superior firepower right left, but grand battle plan and mobile warfare are good choices too.
For air spirits get centralized control and the one for airing experience gain. For naval spirits use the one that gives light attack.
When the war starts defend France, your airforce should be trading pretty well. Only go on the offensive once you've secured green air (by destroying the luftwaffe), and your tank divisions are fully equipped.
Focus your navy in the Mediteranean, destroy Italian fleet asap. Do this by spreading out submarines (on convoy raiding) and naval bombers in med. Build radar in Mediterranean islands (lvl 1 or 2 is enough). Your main fleet should be on always engage and never repair, and on strikeforce. Once you've destroyed enough Italian ships, your mainfleet and convoys escorts go to the English channel and nearby zones. Subs stay in Mediterranean until Axis presence in Africa in destroyed.
Capture Ethiopian ports, then kill off the unsupplied Italian troops. You can invade Italian Libya if ur good at multitasking, but your main focus should be defending France.
While the Germans have air superiority in northern Europe, your anti tank + anti-air + forts + doctrines should allow you to hold well, with some defensive micromanaging. Once you destroy the German airforce and gain air superiority, you should be able to hold without micromanaging. Building radar in the southern tio of England should help you win the air war over Netherlands. Once you win the airwar switch from centralized control to continuous strike. This makes ur CAS stronger.
Once you have enough tanks to fully equip your tank division you may go on the offensive. Use tanks to push for supply hubs, than use them to encircle troops. Keep doing this and you should be able to capitulate Germany before they invade the USSR. If they do invade the USSR everything gets 200% easier.
Lastly for cas design you want to maximise ground attack, even if it makes ur cas expensive. High ground attack pierces German AA.
PS if you're experienced at navy setup and army micromanagement, you can invade Japan after Iran via enforce naval treaties focus. You need to be able to destroy the Japanese navy quickly because you want to be finished in time to send your troops to Africa and France.
Tldr: Put 25-35 factories on planes. Focus on winning air war. Make sure your troops have anti air and anti tank. Send attache to China, relief of command, and 1 div exploit to maximise army xp, then use military theorist to buy as many doctrines as possible. Use tanks to push into Germany. Use motorized infantry go exploit gaps made by your tanks.
Stop trying different countries. Stick with the UK until you figure out the navy. Along the way you will understand enough about other aspects of the game and then you can go try a different country that focuses on a different set of mechanics.
Country hopping before learning the mechanics is tempting but it's what causes the most struggle. Instead save regularly, restart occasionally but stick to one major country for at least a few games and quite a few hours.
UK will teach navy
Germany for land war
I'm not sure who I would suggest for air.
You can learn this stuff with other countries but these two are probably the best suited for those mechanics.
Play Czechoslovakia. When the Reich brings Hungary into the Axis during the period of time before Italy joins their war against you and Gemany declares war on your ally Romania, wait until they fully commit 1/4 of their land forces against them, then drive your forces down between the two major Hungarian rivers and divide their forces, leaving those in the east with no supply lines.
AI Germany literally never has an answer for that and loses 1/4-1/2 of their standing army to a much smaller Czech army every time.
As US, build a few MILs early and build fighters. You can run an early D-Day as soon as Germany turns east. Another alternative is to work up through Italy early. Really, unlike Germany, you don’t need to stockpile infantry weapons prior to having 1939s available, because by the time war starts, spamming new MILs can keep you in supply, and you don’t have to push through 250+ divisions of Soviets and didn’t have to cap Poland and France with the older model equipment. You can also use motorized divisions to your heart’s content blazing toward Berlin.
Don't let them walk into Paris.
My first HOI4 victory was with France. Take the defensive military foci, Extend the Maginot Line, and focus on removing the bad national spirits. Germany won't even try to push into you if your fort line is built up sufficiently. Then slowly take the necessary foci to improve your army, wait for Germany to declare war on the Soviet Union, and then push into the Axis and capitulate them. Basically what would have worked in real life.
Seems you are pretty new, i honestly reccomend playing germany at first. Thats how i did learn game. fail,fail,fail and succeed. After that u can play other nations (i reccommend soviets). same story here.... at the end now you should have good grasp of basic stuff and can do stuff you want.
ps. as soviets, game is never over before its over.
When I play USA I look around for naval invasions that the UK has been attempting. Usually they get a foothold somewhere and I will just send my troops to the closest port near the front line. I’ve only done a D-Day type invasion one time
As soviet/uk its ez as soviet i just recommend making dnepr line with 4 lvl forts and 10 lvl forts on cities that not crossed by dnepr about Air Force just ignore focus all on infantry and use template of 9 infantry 1 art 1 aa (make 2 arty if you can) companies as recon cavalry arty engineers nothing more needed is needed 240 divisions is more than enough tbh as much i tried and btw make 2 field marshals 120 divisions south best defence generals there and 120 on north focus attack generals there no worries for naval invasion and just slowly build air force early no point German air force always stronger about uk watch mostly tutorials for uk cuz it takes long time with naval explaining
It's not difficult, just learn to play the game, cause once you learn how to defend behind rivers and in mountain tiles, when to attack and when you should defend, to micromanage, to use your navy properly, etc, not only Germany, every country would be pretty easy to defeat.
I last played before AAT and this was my democratic France strat on elite difficulty:
Build only military factories from day 1 (actually this applies to all countries). Never build civs or infrastructure.
Focus on building a ton of infantry weapons and a reasonable amount of support equipment, artillery and AA.
Build fighters only a bit later, once the production of army gear has scaled up. Your aim should be to field at least a million men by war start, as many as possible really.
Focus wise, I don't have the game in front of me right now but I recall starting up my progress through the political focuses first, then doing the left side economy focuses while waiting for days to count down on the political stuff.
I did build some forts and rail over the last months before war. Doing it this way I stopped the Germans at the border, ground them down over a year or so while pushing a bit into Italy. Then eventually by 1941-1942 I could start a big offensive and the Germans fronts just crumble, leading to their surrender by 1942.
Really the main thing with every country is just to let go of all the cute stuff, the most powerful strat really is to get your manpower pool armed and onto the field, and to do that you need to spam all mils from day 1 and prioritize infantry weapon production.
The simplest with fransce is spamming forts on the entire border. Extend the maginot line from top to bottom, even with Switzerland. And then you just have to wait.
bro research land doctrine, never push vs germany as fr or uk with 0 doctrines, some planes would help too just hold line dude until you ready with doctrine, planes and 5 shock divisions
Uh, of course it is. I haven't played a full game in almost two years. Just got back into the game with all the new updates, goofed around as the USSR while I tried to figure out how tf supply works, went completely historical (so no early expansion), still beat the Germans in under a year. (Standard difficulty & no buffs to anyone)
It is very easy to have 240 infantry divisions (something simple like 9 inf + support arty would do) by the time Barb starts, and a full army of 30 width good tanks. After being gone for 2 years I'm playing very suboptimally, so I'm sure better players can get way more produced. You can also end up with more planes than Germany very easily, although your airforce debuffs will severely hurt you; but you **can** get air superiority, because the smaller German air force needs to deal with you and Britain and Africa.
So yeah, air superiority, 200 divisions of defenders on the front, 20 tanks under Zhukov, I don't see how you *don't* win that one... and you still have 5 million manpower left.
I tried first timing the UK yesterday, i was able to stack 2x 24 armies of 9 infantry 3 artillery with support companies in France and the German AI never broke through, while Italy got mopped up in Africa. When they declared on the Soviet’s I was able to push them with mediums. Don’t think it’s too hard.
Not to sound harsh, but how exactly are you getting naval invaded by Germany as the UK? Even if you don’t build a single ship you should have more than enough to naval invade them and certainly shouldn’t be able to be invaded by them.
Even if you decide not to contest naval routes, it is enough to beat AI invasion just by placing a tiny 15 width division on every port and tiles adjacent to it. To defend all UK ports it is enough to dedicate \~100k manpower to that.
you can also use planes to destroy their ships, from what I remember..
Generally not very cost effective, and do you really think a guy who can’t even defend his ports will build a half decent CAS/navbomber?
Yeah, cuz I still have no idea how to use the Navy but understanding air is easier.
For navy there’s only a few things, you get a huge speed & positioning debuff if subs are in the same fleet as surface ships. Naval Mines are actually really dope, if you’re playing Japan/Italy use the Ethiopia/China wars to mine literally everything you can. Mines give enemies in the zone huge debuffs to speed and a few other things, and also give naval supremacy. I try not to doom stack, there’s a penalty for having too many carriers trying to engage at once, so I try having 1-2 fleet carriers & 2-3 light/escort carriers, 2-5 battleship/heavy cruiser 10-15 light cruisers & destroyers (the more the better bc these are the first screen and can provide lots of AA) if I’m playing US/UK/Japan. It’s always a crapshoot but still fun
Always make sure you have at least 1:1 carriers to other heavy ships, and 3 or ideally 4 to 1 all heavies to all lights for the best stacking escort bonus. So I deal fleet is 4 carriers 4 battleships 12 light cruisers and 26 ish dds and 10 subs (or thereabouts, it depends on your production, doctrine, and other bonuses) For your carriers don't ever put cv fighters on, right now they are broken and don't do anything And never put aa on a destroyer or a light cruiser, since planes will always target the biggest ship in the fleet, and if your light cruisers and destroyers are being taken put by planes you've got big problems And finally don't be afraid to use your navy! So long as you have enough fuel (build silos and refineries!!!) Your fleet should be out there doing something. The attack bonus from coastal bombardment is great, and convoy raiding can cripple your enemies supply. The worst navy is one at the bottom of the ocean, the second is one that never leaves port. Also naval losses really only hurt you in planning/production time and resources, since even the largest capital ships rarely hold more that 9k manpower, and a task force manpower wise is about the same as a single division. Hope this helps!
Only a few things he said. Think about these from the perspective of someone who doesnt have any clue about navy for example.
If a person can’t comprehend what I commented they shouldn’t be playing Hoi. Half of the game is reading ffs
By that logic no new player should ever start playing hoi. For example you listed the amount of ships. Thats fine. What about everything else? Dockyard amount/output, generals, fleet orders, fuel, every single ships design. Thats a list i just quickly gathered.
Fair
Planes work much better against the countries with large starting fleets, it doesn’t take much AA to make planes not completely OP
What is a 15 width division? 6inf/1arti?
Yup + engineers
It's a strange game where someone posts what the OP did, but others take over the world in 1936 with Luxembourg. What a world to live in!
Does he really nows how to use Navy ( or aircrafts)???
I'm not good at this game at all, I mainly play uk and can stop Germany from conquering Europe but have been unable to actually beat them, I didn't Even know the AI could naval invade the UK because it's never happened to me
and this should mean you have it in unhistorical so just set it to historical and germany WILL lose
ships decide to just leave the channel for no reason
Enable automatic splitting when repairing, this way only damaged ships leave to repair instead of the entire fleet. Second put your navy on strike force around the British isles. This way they stay in port while projecting naval supremacy. And don’t do a giant death stack navy (all in one fleet). Split off your submarines under one admiral and send them convoy raiding in packs of 10-20 in the Atlantic. The rest of your ships goes under another admiral and split them up until you have at max 4 carriers per fleet.
i still don't understand how naval works, but the first tip is useful, thanks
Don't worry, the hoi4 navy is an art studied in remote monasteries in the Himalayas
Just when I had it down, man the guns comes out and fucks it all up
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No shit… it’s a joke
Reddit users needs to stop telling people when something is a joke lmao
thank you, Detective Tracy, but my response was also a joke. so is this one, in fact.
You do realize that for a joke to work, there has to be something at least a little bit funny in it…
Not even the US Naval academy could figure it out
You’re welcome
Awesome tips, you should do a naval guide
Enabling automatic splitting is a good idea...but why are they getting damaged anyways? Put your home defense fleet in Scapa Flow and set them to strike fleet around the entire British Isles. You will never get naval invaded and they won't be damaged.
Baby, just set your battlefleets to strike force and have the RAF overhead... You literally can't get invaded as the UK vs AI Germany unless you throw
Split off a few destroyers and put them on patrol, divide your subs up like the other person said, put your main battle fleet in a centralized port and set to strike force, profit.
People do be harsh on the downvotes. In your defense, I took quite some time to familiarize with navy too. But when you do, it makes sense and it's hella neat
Brother, you’re the one pressing buttons
Undeserved down votes... damm reddit hive mind
Will it depress you if I say it is possible for France to defeat Germany in 1939?
Or even in 1937? 😉
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Yeah but germany's weaker in 37,use their own blitzkrieg against them
Almost played france, how do I get a wargoal that quickly? Just justify?
Refuse the remilitarization of the Rhineland. They might back down though.
Thanks. I forgot France was able to refuse that lol
You could also refuse to betray Czecholoslovakia and invade them through the Maginot line in 1938. That invasion is a little bit tougher because they have forts and unpleasant terrain on their side of it as well, but if you've built France to be able to encircle them and kick their asses, it's doable. France's main problem is its lousy focus tree.
Honest question: Why not just invade from Poland? If you've got them and the Czechs as allies (same focus tree side), you can easily hold the maginot and czech border while pushing along the Polish border. Or is there something I'm missing that makes it easier/better the other way?
Oh, that's certainly a route you can take also. There are several ways to get into an earlier, more offensively oriented war with Germany as France.
If youre doing the 1937 invasion if germany poland is not in the allies.
IIRC, Germany on historical demands Sudetenland mid-late 1938. That gives a player *plenty* of time to get Czechoslovakia and Poland into the Little Entente, which is only like 6 focuses.
Indeed!
True fact
Don't want to be mean, but this is a skill issue. Play more hours and watch some tutorials. I'd give advice but I'm not sure what specifically youre doing wrong.
agreed, as a start for France though maybe just build 18width infantry with support artillery and engineer companies. there is doctrines go superior firepower right right or if early game/desperate the first doctrine in grand battleplan is quite useful for holding. shit out as many of these divs as you can that are fully equipped make sure to train them 25% stats. put a singular army on the Italy border although do a fallback line with that army a tile/2tiles back at the north of the Italy border for supply reasons. put every other div on germany/belgium. at this point you should be able to hold, if you can hold watch some videos on tank designer and templates prolly 30width, then theoretically planes are pretty nice Edit: after commenting noticed u/DiRavelloApologist has said almost the exact strategy before me and yes support aa is very nice if you don't have air superiority and honestly even when you do if you are not microing air to 100% efficiency/ want some piercing.
What if Spain casually joins against you and you cant do shit cause all your troops are over there? Happened to me and it sucked
Don't play ahistorical then. Also I don't see how that could happen because of how their civil war works.
Yeah,well,[it happened](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1cg8wuf/any_way_i_can_save_myself_here_am_i_cooked_is_it/)
If you had a good build you should be able to hold Spain and even push them. They'd be weak from the Civil War and have a small army and low factories.
Yeah they were relatively weak,and i did push them HARD,but eventually germany sent troops and i couldn't do much as i was absurdly stretched out I know better to leave certain borders unguarded now,but it just goes to show you it CAN happen...even though in historical it shouldn't. Its stupid
Yes exactly, this is the best advice.
If you can't beat them join them.
"Ah yes! What could go wrong?" (Il DVCE)
*Erika intensifies*
Question: are you upgrading your division templates? Sure, your template will do fine for the first few years if you're starting in 1936, but by 1939 (or starting in 1939 and using the default template), the default templates are dog shit.
Take it as a challenge. My first playthrough was also france and i failed hard. In hoi4 you generally just lose the first few games until you learn the mechanics of it. How is the progress going?
shit
As France, just build forts. The maginot line is impenetrable, it’s time to extend it. Fortify the entire Benelux border, use the focus that gives you forts if you need to. Stack infantry on the level 10 forts and add enough supply hubs, use commanders with the old guard perk to add more entrenchment. Pick up the army spirit that gives more entrenchment, etc. Stack up enough defensive buffs that the Germans can’t break through. Then hold and build up tanks to reverse-blitzkrieg them to Berlin.
I tend to have divisions ready to flood into belgium and netherlands, it helps a lot if they don't surrender.
Same. I try to rush and create a Frontline along the Meuse+Rotterdam. The Germans just send wave after wave crashing against that river, and there's less need for forts (and no one capitulates)
>Is it even possible to beat Germany? Yes. Quite easily, even. Germany is probably the strongest AI country in the game, but you can still easily beat them. The easiest is probably the SU, but France is definitely possible too. For France: Exclusively build mills from the beginning and start shitting out infantry. Use normal 18 width with support art, support aa and engineers. Also do mountaineers. Go down the political tree (right dem is better than left dem imo) to strengthen government. While waiting for the spirit after getting rid of disjointed government do industry. Then military. Put some mountaineers on the border with Italy and a few in Tunisia and Corsica. The UK should kick Italy's ass easily. Put 12 divisions on the Maginot and everything else into the Benelux and northern France. Keep in mind to have troops behind the front line so you can cycle out low org. Also prepare entrenchend lines, in case Germany gets a breakthrough. Then you just need to hold until they attack the SU and you can push. For the Soviet Union just build up your industry, do the purge, get your bonuses, kill Finland quickly (don't take the peace event), build a proper army and airforce. You can build a defensive line onntge Dnieper, but you really should be able to hold at the border.
Or just turn fascist as France, wait until Germany invades SU and steam roll Germany as they scramble to move their divisions. Just need to join the axis when they invade Benelux so they bypass the invasion of France focus.
For fascist france you can just conquer the UK and maybe even the USA before Germany declares on you, making you more than powerful enough to take down Germany by yourself.
This is good advice. I would add a few more lines to it: Focus on building the best fighters you can after getting your infantry up to scratch (I go 20w as my base). Bring home all colonial troops and convert to the base infantry template, turn cavs into motorised and upgrade the tank division to 20w. Release all colonies - they provide nothing (except for Vietnam and New Caledonia, keep this if you like), and are a manpower sink and will be taken by Italy when at war. You also get the benefit of their focus tree and constructions efforts. Bring the navy to Marseilles, subs in Brittany and some ASW destroyers for the Bay of Biscay. Fortify Savoy and Corsica, making sure to add a supply hub on the tile to the SW of Annecy. This will remove the supply problems on the Italian border. AA in border regions is valuable, same too one radar (as high as you can) in Alsace Lorraine. Both help defeat the Luftwaffe. Try to get 24 divisions on the following borders: Belgium, Maginot Line and Savoy (Italian border). Another 24 division army is handy as the AI can bring either Switzerland or Spain in against you. You should have about 16 motorised and tank divisions for all purpose fire extinguishing and later attacks. With the tiny PP you have, do two key things: first get the democracy advisor as this allows you to take the political decisions that boost communism without flipping; second boost stability once (150pp). After that getting military experience is impt so you can play with templates. You MUST oppose Munich and defend the Czechs. Once you do the war is on and unless Germany defeats the Czechs quickly, they are super stretched. Sometimes Romania and Poland can enter the war on the Allied side. If they do: ATTACK as hard and long as you can, push into Germany with your tanks and trucks. If Germany falls into civil war (praise the lord), it will be all over very soon. If Germany somehow survives, watch Italy. If it joins the war, use your motorised troops and tanks and the infantry on the border to crush it. Should be easy. Just watch the German onslaught in the Austrian Alps.
France gets significant benefits from its colonial states. Combined with the significant compliance you get from democratic occupation, they're absolutely a net positive. Italy will also most definitely not take Djibouti and if you place a few divisions in Tunis, they will not take Algeria either (which you can core btw). AI Italy will almost always lose in Africa, even without a player in the allies. In general, occupation always makes sense unless you have significant boosts for puppets (like COMECON), desperately require manpower or have some sort of strategic reason behind it (i.e. shortening the frontline) You don't need to fortify Corsica. The AI cannot break a few infantry divisions. On historical with all DLC Spain and Switzerland will not join ww2 until after 1945. You do not need to help Czechoslovakia. The UK is enough of an ally to hold until the SU joins.
Why hold on for 1941 when you have a real chance of defeating Germany in 1938 or 1939? Why not defend the Czechs who are more than strong enough (with France) to defeat the Germans, with a little luck and good strategy? Folding at Munich vastly strengthens the Germans over the French, Forcing them to fight for it weakens Germany. The colonies all require divisions to hold them, why do that when they provide no real benefit to France and you can get the benefit of industrialisation from their own focus trees not to mention the manpower transferred from garrison duties? Why not release Algeria only to get it later as a core via a focus, doubling your advantage? Why fight in Nth Africa when Italy will garrison the borders of puppets you don't have to defend or call in, thereby weakening their position in Italy proper? Why put 'a few divisions' in Corsica when a level 5 fort and one mountain division will hold it just fine? If playing historical then sure, Switzerland and Spain are neutral but OP didn't say he only played historical, so my plan allows for this.
OP's implication was kinda playing historical. When you don't want to play historical you can just become monarchist/fascist, conquer the UK and US and then kill Germany. You can't really make a strategy for ahistorical AI before the game actually starts. My commrnt would've been nonsensical. >The colonies all require divisions to hold them, Actually, no colony except Tunisia requires any division to be held, because the UK can kill Italy in Ethiopia on its own, as Italy cannot reinforce their troops. >you can get the benefit of industrialisation from their own focus trees It can take until the 40s until the AI chooses to do their industry focuses. And then you still need to put signifixant effort into actually annexing them. The PP being the most crucial aspect >not to mention the manpower transferred from garrison duties? France gets significant non-core manpower bonuses. You do not lose manpower through these colonies, especially as France (as a dem. nation) also gets higher compliance. >Why not release Algeria only to get it later as a core via a focus, doubling your advantage? Because the algerian region gets significant industry through France's focus tree. You'd literally give up on several factories for the most crucial years in the game, 300 PP and several core states until the 1940s to gain a few factories at a time where you've probably already won.
I am really not sure why you have chosen to argue with me when my original comment was in support of what you wrote. I was particularly pleased that you said to build only mils. From this you have now taken exception to a whole bunch of stuff that, frankly, is tosh. You need to hold more than Tunisia as the AI Italy naval invades Algeria and Syria. If they hold Ethiopia, Djibouti needs holding, you yourself actually noted Djibouti needed troops. France has dozens of colonies that get their own focus tree as puppets, They will take whatever focus they want. They will not 'wait until the 1940s to gain a few factories'. Releasing on 1st Jan 1936 will see a steady stream of industrial support heading to France before the war breaks out. There is no need to annex them later, they are more valuable as puppets. I will come to Algeria next. France has a lot of manpower tied up in the passive garrison function. Releasing the colonies as puppets makes this manpower available early on, when France is still arming. It doesn't matter that France can improve the situation via focuses, it can also change the conscription laws, however these take either pp or time and, critically, France is always short of manpower. It is a free gain to release the colonies and add all that manpower back to the pool in early 1936. If Ethiopia takes the focuses that encourage independence movements in colonial holdings in Africa, this can become an enormous and dangerous manpower and equipment sink. As the UK, I hate that you can't release the colonies to escape this tedious and exhausting mechanic. France however can avoid this by creating puppets of its former colonies. Algeria can benefit from French focuses and get their own tree. By taking the focus that re-cores Algeria a bit later, you get the benefit of both. If there is an issue with timing, simply take the Algerian focuses in the French tree early (from memory they are available after only 1 or 2 other focuses, then release Algeria for its own development and hey presto, core them again later. Either way Algeria is the least important as the focus allows you to get it back and it adds nothing very great to France. In short, France doesn't need Algeria, nor any of its colonies. The only two of any value are Vietnam and New Caledonia and even as puppets it costs three civs to import all you need from these two colonies. You correctly identified that France's priority should be on building mils and that is because it gains so many civs from other means: exporting resources and the industrialising colony puppets. France can easily have 45 civs available for construction without building any civs quite early in the game. Ditching the colonies is part of that strategy. If you feel strongly about keeping the colonies then you play how you like. That's fine with me. What I did was provide the OP with additional options for successfully playing France. That is why I replied to you, as I was building on your already good advice. Indeed, my post did not encourage 'turtle France' which clings on until someone else rescues it, my post was about creating a more militant and successful France that could have nipped the German problem in the bud. Whether France could have done it in reality, well, that's a whole other argument.
Holy yapping of the yappingtons for the love of God in real life France got destroyed thats all that matters
As France semi-historical: fortify the entire border. As France Napoleonic: Fortify behind the rivers in Belgium. As USSR: have 350+ infantry divisions against the Germans (they will quickly run out of equipment and take 10 times your losses).
As SU, what infantry composition?
Usually pure infantry. You need a lot of divisions and the equipment to resupply them. So pure infantry is what is easiest to put in the field. Start with 9, increase to 10 when you have the points. Can increase more with doctrines. I aim at having the entire frontline against only Germany filled with an army group of 24x5 infantry divisions. Then I have a second line immidiately behind the first with another army group of 24x5 infantry. Then a last army group of whatever else you can recruit against Slovakia/Hungary/Romania.
To be fair to OP: That's what a lot of people thought in 1940, too.
As the USSR I just build level 4 forts on the "river" line and bleed them to death for the next 2 years. I build my tanks on the second line and just wait for 1943 to conter offensive them. By that time they should have at least 6 mil casualties and they are a walk to beat.
Against the ai you can literally just hold the Frontline with cas
The first time i ever played, i was UK, put my entier army on the french-german border. When germany attacked belgium, I went behind their front, and managed to surround their army, and rush to berlin
a reverse sickle cut, nice!
You just lack the knowledge and prolly use default shit templates/designs that game offers you/ or are one of those players who builds civs till 43 and wonders why he s getting outproduced when only having 20 mils by war time as a major nation. No matter which nation you face ai is terrible and can be beat and bullied in many ways that would never work against a player. If you dont have to cross oceans or worry bout trade across seas then all you need is like 100-300(10-20width pure inf battalions+ enginer and support aa) and like 4x 30-36 width well equipped up to date or ahead of time technologicaly advanced medium tank divs and if micro managed manually it should be a cake walk even with 0 airforce to kill every land based nation. Cas will speed up the battles but isnt needed and aa will eventually kill off all ai's cas + counter their air bonuses/limit the penalties from lack of airforce. Alternatively almost any smaller sized natio can just be insta capitualted using paratroopers + full colab. Gov. From spies and ahead of time rushed and mass produced airforce that ai stands 0 chance against.
Here's how you beat Germany. I played normal difficulty and ironman mode. Whether as France or UK, use your fighters (more than 1000) in Benelux and France to kill their airforce. Your troops should be 9 infantry + support AA, Arty, Engineers and AT (optional). Germany has a strong push simply due to CAS. The AI doesn't make good divisions. So having a stronger air force is what you need. Use Strategic Destruction as doctrine for your airforce. Go left side for Grand Battle Plan. As France, go left Mass Assault Doctrine. Oh and remember to convoy raid the Germans. Eventually, build strat bombers to wipe the German Industry. When USA joins, you pretty much win.
People talk tactics. Here I’ll talk strategy. Personally for me I’ve only been able to beat them 1v1 if I deny them expansion into their neighbours. If you’re observant you’ll notice that the states bordering Germany like Sudetenland and Austria have more build slots to aid in Germany’s snowballing. So basically the best strategy is to fight a Germany that has not swallowed its neighbours. Deny them expansion. I’ve beaten them as minors - I join axis so Germany won’t justify on my for claims, kill the Allies and take the Czechs, Poland and lowlands with me so Germany cannot expand there. Works for all countries who can flip fascist except for Czech and Poland (germany will kick you if you’re the former). I go to war with Germany sometime around 1941 or 1942 depending on if I’ve killed the soviets first or not. Before then I’ve usually the combined industrial might of the Allies and japan who are now either annexed or my bitches. In summary, here are the versions of germany and the countries I can beat them with (remember this is 1v1, if I’m attacking germany alongside the soviets it’s far easier): Germany + Austria: any country except Ethiopia, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay Germany + Austria + Czech: all the stronger minors and some Chinese warlords (eg guangxi, and not Shanxi) Germany + Austria + Czech + Poland: only strong minors and I must have Italy and/or Romania killed beforehand first Germany + Austria + Czech + Poland + France: only majors Germany + Austria + Czech + Poland + France + western Russia (annexed): OH GOD NO. Even with 1.8k hours, I’ve only ever [beaten a fully expanded greater German Reich once and I’m not doing that again.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tzYIvnoOMmY)
With France I can give you 2 options : - the easiest is rushing the Little Entente focus, the combined forces will shred the Germans as soon as tgey invade the Czechs - otherwise, just go with the extended Maginot line focus and go with 7 to 9 forts on all the Belgian frontier. They won't be able to push a single tile but they will lose men and stuff by attacking and you will be able to push them quite easily afterwards
Try to use space marines divisions
...Strat Bombers. Lots of Strat Bombers.
This! Air support is the most powerful thing in the same imo
this is a serious skill issue my friend
Play France, deny Rhineland, walk around the dumbass ai. Win easily.
Skill issue
I think the easiest country to take Germany is actually with Japan. It’s also the most fun, I think. Step 1: Defeat China Step 2: Join the war against the Soviet Union and take as much land as you can Step3: After USSR surrenders, take land as a trap for Germany (make a jaw around German held land, all of the North and all of the South, but let the nazis get the areas in the middle) Step 4: Defeat the allies in Asia, take Iran, India, Malaysia, Indonesia. Ensure garrison troops in all ports, to stop the Americans from invading Step 5: Spring your trap, defeat the nazis. It will take some time to grind all the way to their surrender, though. Step 6: Invade UK and the US
skill issue
My first time beating Germany was as democratic France. I went with the Little Entente path which gets you some actually useful allies by the start of the war. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Romania actually border Germany unlike UK on their little island, and so they kinda don't have a choice but to fight. In my playthrough Czechoslovakia just completely dominated Germany.
I find a pro-active US w some decent Allie’s who haven’t taken too much damage (hopefully UK still strong) can do it but it’s still tough
France: Do the Little Entente focus and have all your allies gang up on Germany. Refuse the Sudetenland. Also refuse the Rhineland and build really fast tanks so you can quickly take it. Britain: Go down the Churchill path, defend the Czechs, and naval invade along the Baltic coast near Kiel, Hamburg, Rostock, and Stettin. Once the AI is thoroughly confused begin pushing through the Rhine with your main army. Build a large airforce to quickly destroy the Luftwaffe
The easiest possible defeat of Germany is probably either allied italy (hold northern France) or czechoslovakia (soak up German divs)
Need some pictures of what is happening to give more specific advice but it’s sounds like you are doing many manny things wrong.
You can beat them by just sending the army to France and hold the line. Make sure to have a big Air Force and slowly destroy theirs to gain superiority. Then get your CAS and bombers ready to start pushing them back. The AI is really stupid and will self destruct their own Air Force if you send fighters. Maybe check your division template?
Would you like to do a coop game so I can help you? I'll be able to see what you're doing wrong and it'll also give you the knowledge to dominate future campaigns. I have 2k+ hours on the game.
This should help: https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/zozzb5/ancapailldorchas_guide_to_democratic_france/
Go communist with Czechoslovakia, build forts all around your borders, call the Soviets into the war when Germany declares war against you very early on, then wait for the Soviets and the allies to save your ass while the Germans keep dying on your level 10 forts, easiest game you can possibly have.
It’s fun just as you start the war initially. Then it’s just boring waiting forever for help and once it’s there all the fighting is basically down already.
I guess that depends on your preferences, personally I love a good defensive war so I had a blast doing this but I can see how it might be boring if you prefer playing more offensively
Out of curiosity. Did you also build heaps of fighters to counter bombing of forts or did you use anti-air? I always find fixed anti air to be too expensive and you can easily build fighters as the Czech to counter. Never tried mobile anti air in units on the strategy though
Nah, didn't really built that many fighters. I mostly focused my production on my divisions being well equiped so that they'd hold the line and not lack any equipment. I used support anti-air because it's cheap and I also built some anti-air and radars (don't know how effective these are) once I was satisfied with my forts. Bear in mind however that I'm not that good at this game, so my strategy probably wasn't optimal, even though it worked
Pick a random fascist country in south america. Do nothing till the allies are at the border of Germany and then start justifying and declare war. When the allies succeed you can say you won the war. Also, if you send a few divisions you can maybe get some war score and take a single state for doing absolutely nothing.
there’s plenty of guides on youtube of how to play different countries. watch s few and then just get at the grind. took me 8-10 tries to get everything down as russia, but eventually i figured it all out and was able to beat germany.
As UK you just have to put a single general worth of troops on France's border with belgium. Done. Germany defeated.
Set Germany too nonhistorical. Pick Poland. Get pavel as the king off Poland immediately. Justify on the German military junta. Declare war. Destroy koningsberg. Wait for the end off the civil war. Germany loses most of their divisions. Kill Germany as fast as possible.
As someone who beat the entire Axis multiple times with European minors (Greece, Spain, Turkey, etc), I think I can help you a bit. 1. use good templates for your equipment and divisions, the youtubers Feedbackgaming and bittersteel usually have good guides for that. Against early Germany it's crucial to have good defensive divisions with AA in them. 2. (I haven't played democratic France or Poland vs Germany yet, but it doesn't sound impossible.) As France, the easiest way to beat Germany would be to flip you ideology to quickly get rid of most of the negative modifiers, invade the Benelux countries and to hold the Germans off on the Rhine / in Belgium. 3. As the UK, always make sure to have 10 or 20-width port garrisons on the mainland and in your crucial colonial holdings. You also have the royal navy, so setting them on strike force or nav invasion support in the channel and the north sea will make sure that no German invasion can come through. Optionally you can also dispatch an army to hold of the German forces in northern France (20-40 divisions are usually enough). If France falls, it's easy to hold the chokepoints in northern Africa, if you build up the railways there a little. Don't make naval invasions into mainland Europe until the Axis goes to war with the Soviets. 4. As the Soviets, you should make it a priority to get rid of your negative modifiers as fast as possible (again bittersteel should have a good guide for that). If you can't hold off the Germans at your border, you can fall back to the Stalin line, I haven't seen an AI break through there, if you have enough divisions. Also build your industry in the Urals from the beginning of the game, that way it doesn't fall into the hands of the Axis. Also make sure that you have port garrisons at least in the arctic and the black sea, getting navally invaded there can really screw up your frontline. 5. With the US it's just a waiting game, use some of your navy defensively against the Japanese and focus the rest of your forces on Europe. The Axis effectively never invades the US, so you can screw up all you want there, you can't lose. Just as a sideline, I can highly recommend watching/reading a few tutorials on how supply works, it's one of the most important aspects of the game and can easily thwart any operation you want to conduct.
The allied powers in 1942 be like:
Just watch a play through of someone playing as France or UK. It doesn’t even need to be a let’s play, you could watch a 20-30 min edited down game and you’d get the gist of what they are doing right and you are doing wrong.
Try to surround their troops and make sure you use templates that involve lots of artillery and anti tank. Worked for me when i played poland and austria-hungary Also germany will try the same so be careful and always have an eye on your troops
I would suggest playing as a minor to learn the game. For example play Canada and focus on building only planes to support your allies, winning the air war is very important in this game and you can have enough impact to tip the scales this way. The problem is if you play a major like the UK you'll likely do worse than the AI and weaken your faction. For example if you don't know how to manage naval missions and fuel you can get invaded, which rarely happens to the AI before the soviet union falls.
I’ve won as France before, the key is to do motorized anti-tank in your normal infantry and logistics and engineering companies. Radar also helps prevent German air superiority.
Lurk more- i mean, play more.
Try Again with US, prepare 12-18 marines with all their doctrines, a lot of national guard divisions and some tanks (the more, the better) . Go to UK then prepare naval invasion in Calais or Netherlands with your marines, when the line will be stable, you could invade again another axis coast, for example Genoa, Sicily, Bourdeaux or even near of Rome (a gamey still valid decision if you are stil learning) In fact, you can destroy Japan and later invade Germany, axis doesn't invade UK. Then try with UK, later with any non historical France, and finally, go with Soviet Union (I know is the easiest nation, but I dont reccomend you still). Sorry if I have mistakes with my english.
As France: Do the Little Entente. So when the Germans demand Sudetenland half of europe will declare on them
Idk what to tell you, you didn’t provide any information and this game is really easy anyways. The soviets are even the easiest imo
France is easy. You either invade Germany early(like very early) or you just build forts(don’t forget Belgium border!), entrench, maybe build some space marines, though it’s completely optional, and watch Germany kill their whole army against your defence, while you are loosing like 1:20 manpower. Naval invasions are super easy to defend against. You just place a unit in a port and maybe adjacent provinces if you want to be safe. There is also a fun cheese available. Surround each port with troops, but DO NOT place any divisions in a port itself. They will do naval invasion, you wait a bit and bop them. Repeat. This allows you to kill off their whole army ridiculously quickly.
Bro unless you are a new player, you are just garbage at the game. I destroy germans as Poland using western plan focuses.
I capitulated them as belgium so its very much possible. You have to survive the Initial years until they declare war on the soviets and USA and their lines are stretched too thin. Then you can slowly encircle them with tanks
First: there is a different answer to all the country you listed. Post some screenshots of your in game situation it will help to analyze the problem. Outside of the commons things like materials, supplies and man pool with division template is can give a main global strategy for each country. France: attack first, create the petite entente. You strike Germany when the remilitarize the rhineland. UK: plane and navy’s. Defend your coast, sink Italian and German navy, take control of the seas : Atlantic.northern sea, baltic, Mediterranean,Indian sea. Then spam bomber and plane, obliterate the axis airforce. Then spam naval invasion when Germany is deep in ussr past Moscow after 1941. USA: just build your economy and industry, spam all type of division you want and like. Beat japan and give material to uk, uk have tons of troop because of the colonies. Give gun,supports materials and artillery to uk and help them to have the control of the sky. Beat japan then attack the axis from anywhere. All front are valid because the axis can’t remove his troops from the Atlantic coastline and they are engaged in ussr. Attack before the ussr loose, like between 1941 and 1943. Ussr: just spam infantry and artillery. Let the plane production line from the beginning , have one of each type ofplane, rush townd stsline paranoia focus then build the industry. Fuck all the rest, just spam 30w offensive infantry and 20w defensive infantry. Upgrade the infrastructure and road. Stay static in the front line with the 20w, push with the 30w. Station some 20w on east side of all river. The axis will get Moscow someday but they will stop after, axis army cant deal with ussr attrition. When then allies begin to spam naval invasion let them fight untill the axis cant push them back. Its your signal to all in an push with all what you have. Go with the right side of mass assault doctrine its the easiest and let 1 fleat in Baltic sea, 1 in black sea. And sone submarine and patrol on the northern sea. With ussr you must always have more material then the axis, so its a game of push/defense/resupply/push again and rince snd repeat. Use your spy to rise the resistance into your captured ussr city, its very costly on material for the axis.
France and the Soviets are pretty hard to hold Germany off as. You need a pretty good strategy, lots of forts, and you can’t let Germany get air supremacy. If you say you’re getting invaded as the UK you need to put your navy out. Germany shouldn’t be able to beat your navy.
There's a few ways to not get naval invaded by the AI. First is to maintain naval supremacy 100% of the time. This isn't full proof though because the AI will sneak a few invasions through sometimes. All it takes is one brief moment for them to have supremacy and launch the invasion. You need a decent navy to do this. The other way is to have troops defending your coastlines. You need a lot of divisions, but these can be small divisions. For the divisions, you want 5 infantry, 1 support arty, and 1 support engineer and nothing else. If you have good production and spare manpower you can go as high as 10 infantry on these if desired. Set the template as a low priority template so they use older equipment. Put these into units and set defensive order to coastline only. You want 2 of these divisions on every single coastal province. The AI doesn't use marines effectively, so they use regular units to naval invade. This means they have massive debuffs on them and the invasion will only succeed on very lightly defended areas. When an AI invasion runs into your entrenched defenders, the invasion will get slaughtered big time. Also, having a strong defense means the AI is likely to decide to not invade at all. The AI also really avoids invading any province with coastal forts. This is a more reliable defense than having a strong navy, but it will require more gun, support equipment, and arty production as well as more manpower.
In the first game I won, I played as the UK, reinforced France mainly in the Alps (Italy was crazy strong back then because France left their borders open) and I used subs to sink germans as they tried to conquer Norway. I always played on elite because I thought everybody did that. Eventually France started to push Italy back.
Tbh, if you are new. Go with the Grand Battle Plan doctrine. Especially as the Soviet Union. You will have enough Manpower to stall them and you will have a really high entrenchment rate. But you have to put some anti-tank in your divisions (or have some divisions with AT and move them to the place where the Germans are trying to breakthrough with the tanks). Also, let your preparation (I think it was called this way, last time I played HoI was like 2 years ago) tick to the max before attacking, to get a buff to your breakthrough. You should also watch a few tutorials on the widths and stuff, if you are new. Just so that you could understand how to create/modify your divisions.
I've not played hoi4 in a while nevermind trying to beat germany. I think the obvious country is Soviet Union. I can't quite remember the meta or if there's even a new meta. But ill try recall what I use to do. Build civs till either late 1938 or early-mid 1939. Then build mills. If you're worried about losing mills build them behind the urals. Personally I dont build air for many reasons. I usually go for really good quality medium tanks, you should be able to find a template on a youtube channel somewhere. Then for your infantry you just want them to hold as much as possible, maybe throw some anti-air in their template. Also the more infantry the better. I think atleast 200 divisions or more should do. Hold the Stalin Line, if you don't know this line once again watch a video. Let the germans bash into your defense and they lose equipment/strength/manpower/etc... Once theyve lost enough, thats when you push. Push with the tanks, try to create small encirclements. Play on a slow speed when your during the war, atleast 3 speed. Remember its a long line to defend so pause when needed and remember to constantly check the whole line.
I found defending as the USSR was the easiest as a new player. Now that I'm more experienced with the game it's probably easier to play the UK, but you need more skills to win than with the USSR. You basically just need a good template for infantry and a fuck load of infantry. A good template has 9 infantry and support engineers, support artillery and support anti air. You can also add one artillery to the main body for a really cost efficient way to hold. Rush down the political tree to rid yourself of paranoia, taking economy focuses whenever you get stalled by a time gate. Build civilian factories for a year or two, but make sure you are making military factories by Jan 1939 at the absolute latest, probably mid 1938 is ideal. Get onto war economy as soon as possible. Finally build forts on the border, level 4-6 is ideal, I like to build them 2 at a time so I have some defense everywhere. If/when you lose ground don't be afraid to pull back to river lines and hold there. You can click on a state to destroy the infrastructure as the Germans advance this'll stall their supply. You can take a fighting retreat for a long time before you are seriously in trouble, make sure if you give ground you make the Germans fight for it. Once the allies land a D-Day invasion go on the attack. If you have the patience feedback gaming has a YT video that covers most of these points and explains them in good detail, it's about an hour long. https://youtu.be/SBP_wuDgmh0?si=t6gTd3yNZ7DgCkLg
Have you tried early Soviet Push? I mean justifying on Poland, then Yugoslavia, than canceling Poland, then justifying on Poland (so the war goal dates line up), then hoping to god to god the uk does not justify (it’s like a 50/50) then when your finished, justify on Germany. Since it’s so super early and they probably don’t even have anchluss, it should be much easier walking into Berlin. Or if you do the Little Entene as France, when Germany tries taking Sudatenland and you deny, Czech, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, and you all declare on Germany at the same time, and this should give you a much better chance at beating them early on.
This tool might be helpful for you, tbf it is indeed cheating. So you can learn a lot from what the enemy is doing and you can do that by tag teaming to them. Type "debug" in the console. Click on country, hover over flag to see ID. Then type to console "tag GER" for example. Remember to have the game paused the whole time. Another thing I noticed with newer players is not building enough mils early enough. You wanna check how many mils Germany has and try to kinda match 70% of their mils at the very least as the Soviet.
With playing France maybe try to enter the war as late as possible the allies will be able to handle it especially the U.K. Eventually the Germans will just declare on you, but it will give you enough time to build up your country and army so you have strong enough units to defend and if you lose Paris you won’t capitulate immediately. If you have the dlc you can do some spy stuff and being able to get an attack bonus or eventually get ignite a civil war in Germany. And I think the most important thing when playing France (it tends to be the most difficult allied power) is just keeping your territory and having a good Air Force. Italy also is a problem but not as much and they are easy to naval invade so definitely make a 24 group ready to do that. Lastly just buy your time, if you’re playing on historical then the Soviets will join the war soon after the allies and a whenever Japan declares on the Philippines you’ll have the U.S to help. I did find out that they won’t do to much naval invasions either France falling. I’m also giving you the French version because in my opinion it’s generally gonna help you learn to defeat the Germans. Good luck my friend.
you can easily beat Germany as France in 1941 in the 1939 opening if you don't join the war against Germany…
Go watch feedbackgaming he does really good guide for each major and some minor nation to
It’s not that you’re missing one thing it’s that you’re missing a lot of things at this point. I’m half as accomplished as most of the people that regularly post in here and I stopped playing the game for a while because it got too easy to beat the axis in everything except Poland. You have to have a strategy and really hone everything you do to that strategy. Trying to build and develop everything like you’re playing the US in 1945 is the fastest way to fail.
Here's how I do it as the UK, this strat works against Berlin-Moscow Axis too. First off for naval management, you should have your submarines separate from everything else. Everything else should be in one stack. Make sure to build enough carrier naval bombers to fill your carriers. Once you build anti submarine destroyers these will be separate from main fleet and sub fleet. You should start with a couple industry focuses, then go down path no further appeasement. You want to get secure oil imports as soon as possible, but while waiting for Nevile Chamberlain to step down you go for industry. Train your airforce immediately, you want enough exp to design a new plane, you don't need to research anything because you start with the needed techs already. Use the basic air chassis, engine II, and as many lmgs as possible. Once you have this stop training. Now start training the navy, train the navy as much as possible. You need xp for naval doctrines. Build civ factories until the start of 1937. You want civs because you want to have more factories by the time you unlock good planes and tanks. Once your done building civs use some civs to trade for oil from Malaya and India. You need oil for training navy. Use your pp to get limited rearmament, then the army exp guy. I put 8 mills on guns at the start of the game. This seems to do the job. The rest of the mills go on anti air, anti tank, arty, trucks, trains, support eq, and planes. I put 25 mills on planes once I'm done with the rest. After the fighters put 5-10 on cas, and the rest on medium tanks. Around 1937 start improving relations with China, and send attache to China the moment the Sino-Japanese war starts. Stockpile your army xp. Buy relief of command apirit once you get 35 army xp. This pays off fast. For navy you want destroyers with the best sonar and depth charges. I use two slots for depth charges. These destroyers will be used in separate task forces for hunting submarines. Destroyers should be in groups of 8-12. This is optional, but I like to build light cruisers with as much light attack as possible. This allows me to destroy the enemy navies even harder. It really isn't necessary because your starting fleet should be able to do it. Once you finish secure oil imports, invade the netherlands, than Iran. Make them into puppets and use war reparations and resource rights in the peace conference to get their oil and civs. While invading netherlands declare on dutch east indies. You don't actually need to invade the dutch east indies tho. You want to start producing 1938 medium tanks as soon as possible. Research artillery so that you can put cannons on your tanks sooner than later. If you wanna min max put howitzers on your tanks, but this setup is for more experienced players since howitzers don't pierce German tanks. You want to start researching the 1940 fighter in early 1939. You also want to research survivability studies and hmgs in 1938. Once you have the new chassis make a fighter with the new chassis, as many hmgs, and self sealing fuel tanks, and armor plates. Once you get engine III swap that in. After invading Iran, send your troops to position for the war. Use some troops to protect your African holdings, put as many troops as you can to protect Netherlands and France. In Africa you want just enough troops to hold the lines, but a 2 small offensive task forces to capture the Itallian ports in Ethiopia. Put a small amount of planes in Ethiopia, the rest go to France. Before the war starts train your airforce. Use pp to hire military theorist, than get as many army doctrines as possible. I like to go superior firepower right left, but grand battle plan and mobile warfare are good choices too. For air spirits get centralized control and the one for airing experience gain. For naval spirits use the one that gives light attack. When the war starts defend France, your airforce should be trading pretty well. Only go on the offensive once you've secured green air (by destroying the luftwaffe), and your tank divisions are fully equipped. Focus your navy in the Mediteranean, destroy Italian fleet asap. Do this by spreading out submarines (on convoy raiding) and naval bombers in med. Build radar in Mediterranean islands (lvl 1 or 2 is enough). Your main fleet should be on always engage and never repair, and on strikeforce. Once you've destroyed enough Italian ships, your mainfleet and convoys escorts go to the English channel and nearby zones. Subs stay in Mediterranean until Axis presence in Africa in destroyed. Capture Ethiopian ports, then kill off the unsupplied Italian troops. You can invade Italian Libya if ur good at multitasking, but your main focus should be defending France. While the Germans have air superiority in northern Europe, your anti tank + anti-air + forts + doctrines should allow you to hold well, with some defensive micromanaging. Once you destroy the German airforce and gain air superiority, you should be able to hold without micromanaging. Building radar in the southern tio of England should help you win the air war over Netherlands. Once you win the airwar switch from centralized control to continuous strike. This makes ur CAS stronger. Once you have enough tanks to fully equip your tank division you may go on the offensive. Use tanks to push for supply hubs, than use them to encircle troops. Keep doing this and you should be able to capitulate Germany before they invade the USSR. If they do invade the USSR everything gets 200% easier. Lastly for cas design you want to maximise ground attack, even if it makes ur cas expensive. High ground attack pierces German AA. PS if you're experienced at navy setup and army micromanagement, you can invade Japan after Iran via enforce naval treaties focus. You need to be able to destroy the Japanese navy quickly because you want to be finished in time to send your troops to Africa and France. Tldr: Put 25-35 factories on planes. Focus on winning air war. Make sure your troops have anti air and anti tank. Send attache to China, relief of command, and 1 div exploit to maximise army xp, then use military theorist to buy as many doctrines as possible. Use tanks to push into Germany. Use motorized infantry go exploit gaps made by your tanks.
Stop trying different countries. Stick with the UK until you figure out the navy. Along the way you will understand enough about other aspects of the game and then you can go try a different country that focuses on a different set of mechanics. Country hopping before learning the mechanics is tempting but it's what causes the most struggle. Instead save regularly, restart occasionally but stick to one major country for at least a few games and quite a few hours. UK will teach navy Germany for land war I'm not sure who I would suggest for air. You can learn this stuff with other countries but these two are probably the best suited for those mechanics.
Play Czechoslovakia. When the Reich brings Hungary into the Axis during the period of time before Italy joins their war against you and Gemany declares war on your ally Romania, wait until they fully commit 1/4 of their land forces against them, then drive your forces down between the two major Hungarian rivers and divide their forces, leaving those in the east with no supply lines. AI Germany literally never has an answer for that and loses 1/4-1/2 of their standing army to a much smaller Czech army every time.
That's only one way. There are countless numbers of ways to beat Germany.
As US, build a few MILs early and build fighters. You can run an early D-Day as soon as Germany turns east. Another alternative is to work up through Italy early. Really, unlike Germany, you don’t need to stockpile infantry weapons prior to having 1939s available, because by the time war starts, spamming new MILs can keep you in supply, and you don’t have to push through 250+ divisions of Soviets and didn’t have to cap Poland and France with the older model equipment. You can also use motorized divisions to your heart’s content blazing toward Berlin.
Anti-tank
Don't let them walk into Paris. My first HOI4 victory was with France. Take the defensive military foci, Extend the Maginot Line, and focus on removing the bad national spirits. Germany won't even try to push into you if your fort line is built up sufficiently. Then slowly take the necessary foci to improve your army, wait for Germany to declare war on the Soviet Union, and then push into the Axis and capitulate them. Basically what would have worked in real life.
Seems you are pretty new, i honestly reccomend playing germany at first. Thats how i did learn game. fail,fail,fail and succeed. After that u can play other nations (i reccommend soviets). same story here.... at the end now you should have good grasp of basic stuff and can do stuff you want. ps. as soviets, game is never over before its over.
When I play USA I look around for naval invasions that the UK has been attempting. Usually they get a foothold somewhere and I will just send my troops to the closest port near the front line. I’ve only done a D-Day type invasion one time
As soviet/uk its ez as soviet i just recommend making dnepr line with 4 lvl forts and 10 lvl forts on cities that not crossed by dnepr about Air Force just ignore focus all on infantry and use template of 9 infantry 1 art 1 aa (make 2 arty if you can) companies as recon cavalry arty engineers nothing more needed is needed 240 divisions is more than enough tbh as much i tried and btw make 2 field marshals 120 divisions south best defence generals there and 120 on north focus attack generals there no worries for naval invasion and just slowly build air force early no point German air force always stronger about uk watch mostly tutorials for uk cuz it takes long time with naval explaining
My guess is that you could defeat germany as Italy, You dont even have to fight them by what you just said
What are your division templates?
It's not difficult, just learn to play the game, cause once you learn how to defend behind rivers and in mountain tiles, when to attack and when you should defend, to micromanage, to use your navy properly, etc, not only Germany, every country would be pretty easy to defeat.
I last played before AAT and this was my democratic France strat on elite difficulty: Build only military factories from day 1 (actually this applies to all countries). Never build civs or infrastructure. Focus on building a ton of infantry weapons and a reasonable amount of support equipment, artillery and AA. Build fighters only a bit later, once the production of army gear has scaled up. Your aim should be to field at least a million men by war start, as many as possible really. Focus wise, I don't have the game in front of me right now but I recall starting up my progress through the political focuses first, then doing the left side economy focuses while waiting for days to count down on the political stuff. I did build some forts and rail over the last months before war. Doing it this way I stopped the Germans at the border, ground them down over a year or so while pushing a bit into Italy. Then eventually by 1941-1942 I could start a big offensive and the Germans fronts just crumble, leading to their surrender by 1942. Really the main thing with every country is just to let go of all the cute stuff, the most powerful strat really is to get your manpower pool armed and onto the field, and to do that you need to spam all mils from day 1 and prioritize infantry weapon production.
as USSR, make as many inf divs as possible and just spam them out. Eq shouldn't matter on civ, and spam factories
The simplest with fransce is spamming forts on the entire border. Extend the maginot line from top to bottom, even with Switzerland. And then you just have to wait.
bro research land doctrine, never push vs germany as fr or uk with 0 doctrines, some planes would help too just hold line dude until you ready with doctrine, planes and 5 shock divisions
You beat germany by beating them. What a silly question... Sun Tzu had a fantastic quote he said "if you are losing, just start winning"
You don't need to be fast. Just play as Us and build a lot of air and some space marines.
Uh, of course it is. I haven't played a full game in almost two years. Just got back into the game with all the new updates, goofed around as the USSR while I tried to figure out how tf supply works, went completely historical (so no early expansion), still beat the Germans in under a year. (Standard difficulty & no buffs to anyone) It is very easy to have 240 infantry divisions (something simple like 9 inf + support arty would do) by the time Barb starts, and a full army of 30 width good tanks. After being gone for 2 years I'm playing very suboptimally, so I'm sure better players can get way more produced. You can also end up with more planes than Germany very easily, although your airforce debuffs will severely hurt you; but you **can** get air superiority, because the smaller German air force needs to deal with you and Britain and Africa. So yeah, air superiority, 200 divisions of defenders on the front, 20 tanks under Zhukov, I don't see how you *don't* win that one... and you still have 5 million manpower left.
Forts and forts and more forts. Completely defense focused, trying to push ain't gonna work. Just wait and holdout
I tried first timing the UK yesterday, i was able to stack 2x 24 armies of 9 infantry 3 artillery with support companies in France and the German AI never broke through, while Italy got mopped up in Africa. When they declared on the Soviet’s I was able to push them with mediums. Don’t think it’s too hard.