Hearts of Iron 4

Soldato
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Ok, so somebody tell me how I win as the Soviets. Been playing it all day and get atomped every time by Germany. They just break through my lines and then I'm done. Its so hard and my troops seem to shed guns like nobodies business. For such a strong nation, I am really finding it hard work.

(53/132 achievements now)
 
Man of Honour
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Okay. Soviet win. I've beaten Germany quite a few times as SU. Firstly, do not focus on Japan. If playing historical, get the non aggression pact and keep a token force on the Manchurian border.

Put almost everything into your front line with Germany, and Romania. But have 100,000 men or so as a mobile reserve. Use armour/motorized divisions for speed.
Do not focus on navy. Just build the minimum, and maybe focus on subs. You will need the factories.

Send 6 divisions to aid the Spanish republic. You can use your montain divisions as they are the best you have, but look after them. Use this war to improve your Generals.

Concentrate your factories on air power, armour and inf weapons. You will need about 6-7000 aircraft at the start of the war with Germany just to break even. Do not let Germany gain air superiority.

The first thing you should do is change your doctrine. Do not use mass assault. Focus on superior firepower or grand battleplan, depending on how you want to fight.

Build forts on the front line. Max level 5. At level 10 the axis wont attack, and you need them to attack and wear themselves out.

Change your templates asap. Use them in line with your doctrine, but focus on defensive templates. So plenty of infantry, Art and AT. Build some armoured divisions where possible.

Above all, airpower. Focus on building as many fighters as you can, and concentrate on getting the air doctrine up to scratch.

When the war starts the Axis will attempt to send their armour in first, and will try to encircle. Providing you have forts and AT in your template you will hold and wear them down. If they break through the line anywhere, do not panic. Keep your other front line units dug in. But use the secondary force in reserve to encircle their attempt to break the line. This way you can safely let in a few hundred thouand men, encircle and wipe them out. Above all, keep your units dug in. Do not lose that defensive bonus unless you're absolutely sure you can win. The Axis attacks will be relentless for a while until they run low on Inf weapons, then their org will suffer.

Watch the line with Romania. Even though there is the river to cross they will focus Hungarian and Romanian units in large numbers here. If you are weak here they will break through.

Use the focus to issue demands to the baltic states, and do what you wish with Finland. But be careful if Finland turn axis, because you will have another front to defend.
 
Soldato
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Thank you for the reply, as always, phil.

I think maybe I need to focus less on tanks and perhaps more on anti tank, arty and fighters. My strategy before has been 10-0 infs with support arty and trying for maybe 20 divs of light to medium tanks. I did try level 3 forts in my last game, but I built too little too late.

Anti tank, inf weapons, arty and fighters seem like only 4 things I need to focus on then in my next game and just hope they wear themselves down. I kept mass assault but may switch to superior firepower and 7-2s with support anti tank and see how that goes.

It also doesn't help that the AI allies are so freaking useless! Can't believe how hard I've found this just chasing the one achievement to puppet Germany as Soviets!!

Finally got the Pride and Extreme Prejudice achievement through naval bombers as Japan and occupying France. Not managed to get the Tour de France achievement yet though as I can't quite figure out a way to beat France without Germanys help yet. But that was with me focussing on naval bombers rather than something more helpful so will try that next.
 
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You will need better divisions. 24 width is ideal. The AI will have 24 width. So you need to counter. You will get eaten quickly if you have smaller divisions. But its good to have an army of pure 20 width infantry on the front line. SF is probably the best doctrine in the game, but in your case I would go GBP. The defensive bonus is probably what you need. For the love of god, do not use the battle planner. It's pretty awful unless you have a very dynamic front line. You want your front line as static as possible. Work out where the shortest front line will be, and try and utilise the terrain. Behind rivers is best.

I can't believe I've never played Ironman and I've never played achievements. 5,800 hours lol..
 
Soldato
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I'll never get them all, probably not even close but it is giving me a bit of direction with playing the game. Each one I have tried has led to me doing a different technique each time. I'd say Bevridjing was the hardest I've done so far, that and building a battleship as Hungary.

There are loads of Balkan state avhievements to do but I simply don't understand enough of how they play yet to make a good go of it and avoid getting swallowed up by the bigger boys.

Ironman can be incredibly frustrating at times though, especially if you spend ages in the pre war phase then make one tiny slip and mess everything up in seconds!!
 
Soldato
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Well...I'm going to try your plan:

OLGDtR4.jpg

My fighter production levels aren't quite there yet, but I think I've got a little more time to go...looking strong elsewhere though in terms of equipment. Tanks holding a small fall back line and my main inf armies holding a long fallback line mostly behind rivers, with level 5 forts!

Lets do this!!
 
Man of Honour
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Good man! I'm playing it now as well. Just to see if I forgot to tell you something important lol.. Do you have the DLC by the way?

Just to add: I see you're not producing any AA. If you don't get air superiority you WILL NEED AA dispersed amongst your divisions otherwise you'll get turned into mincemeat.
 
Soldato
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Good grief. What to say about that!!?!?!!?

First: Achievement completed! The Revolution Triumphant!

Second, omg. OMG!!!! That was one of the craziest games I've ever had.

Germany declared war not long after the image above. I held my ground for a fair while but they soon broke through right in the north near Danzig. After that, just a small narrow finger of my forces was standing, next to where my fort lines were in eastern Poland, with the Germanys going behind. Tried to scramble them to a fall back position but was soon getting pushed back along the northern half of then line and was losing divisions hand over fist. I still had a fair stockpile of guns so I scrambled making emergency infantry divs as fast as I could and force deploying them as soon as possible. They advanced still and took Moscow but my fighters were absolutely smashing them. Managed to obtain green air just when I was thinking the game was lost.

I honestly thought I was done at one point but the Germans just stopped attacking, which gave me breathing space to make some more equipment, absorb their attacks and arm up again. The USA then got involved and then started invading northern France. Then after what seem like an age of attacking along the front, pausing then attacking again I managed to wear them thin. It was then the case of targeting weak Hungarian divisions along the front to try and get small encirclements of like 2-5 divisions, then slowly but surely whittled them away until a full frontal attack just smashed them. Then had to invade down through Egypt and the peace conference fired. Germany puppetted and achievement unlocked!

In the end I had about 6 Million casualties but managed to just inflict more on the Germans, eclipsing any of the allies on war score so the conference was fairly easy (still don't really understand them!!! Especially the whole "passing" thing). It was a crazy game, really hooked me in.

Didn't make use of anti air in the end, had enough factories pumping out fighters that I eventually overcame them. When I was at my lowest ebb, pushed way beyond Moscow I was having to massively over-stack my airfields - had no other choice! Unless there is any other way, I think you have to expect to get pushed back by the Germans as the Soviets. Then once the USA get involved it becomes a little easier and the Germans just can't cover so many fronts. I can't count the amounts of times I lost Sevastapol to an Italian invasion though, was nuts!

The whole plan of using tanks on a fallback line to plug various gaps straight up didn't work with the templates I had. That plan got chucked fairly quickly and they just got thrown onto the front line!

One funny little thing that happened: there was a row of level 10 forts on the Romanian border down to the black sea, maybe 4 tiles and I got around 35 divisions accidentally cut off there. They stayed in those forts for the whole game and didn't get wiped out! They inflicted around 500k casualties on the Romanians, for about 20k deaths on my side, was an hilarious accidental thorn in their side the whole game. They just couldn't push me out and I couldn't rescue them!

Good man! I'm playing it now as well. Just to see if I forgot to tell you something important lol.. Do you have the DLC by the way

Let me know how you found it - I watched FeedbackGaming's guide, but I think its from a much earlier patch whereby you start with way more guns and tanks - unless I missed something - it wasn't straightforward to follow his guide with the current patch.

One thing I had to be careful with was to not agree to the allies suggestions at the Yalta conference. I chose the option to continue to dictate peace on my own terms, rather than splitting Germany up, as I needed to puppet them for the achievement. That was an unexpected little curve ball at the end, but made the right choice!

(got all the DLC)
 
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Soldato
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From this achievement I am next going for Die, Perfidious Albion (as fascist France, occupy all ok UK) and complete it with Vive la France (survive till 1948). Should be much more straightforward.
 
Soldato
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Completed "Its 1812 All Over Again" and was going to do it in tandem with Rule Britannia (as any British subject state, conquer all of Britain).....but I messed up the peace conference (as Canada capitulating the USA) and didn't puppet them, so had to re-capture them all over again, which meant the war started and despite capitulating Britain because I'd joined the Axis Germany and Italy got most of the war score and hence I had no British states after the conference. So I can either leave the axis and attack Germany or start again but not mess about with the USA.

Unfortunately you need to join the axis to naval invade from somewhere close enough to get naval supremacy (though I can acquire the US Navy by annexing them when they are a puppet, so that helps). I then just release them as a puppet and build more mils in their territory to keep their autonomy low.

Got Die, Perfidious Albion (conquer Britain as fascist France) fairly easily though, along with En Svensk tiger (acquire a Tiger tank licence as Sweden) and Med Plutonium (nuke Denmark as Sweden). The Swedish ones weren't too hard, but it did get tricky in parts because joined the axis and took Norway I was subject to repeated naval invasions from Britain and USA until the point at which I could research my nuclear tech and produce a bomb to drop then on the Faroe Islands. It was hectic in places and needed lots of help from German and Italian divisions, which somewhat weakened their campaigns against the allies and Russia elsewhere.

Its a weird game at times. Sometimes when I play on historical and do something very anti-historical (like turning France fascist), the game sometimes doesn't know what to do. Very often if I join the axis as a minor nation, Germany massively underperforms, and if I join the allies as a minor nation then Germany overperforms! (maybe its just me!)

The AI also does some funky stuff at times, such as Germany justifying against me as fascist France despite me being in a faction with them. It never actually comes to anything as something in the coding never fulfils the justification, but its weird and slightly worrying!

@philstanbridge How did your Soviet campaign get on? I was watching somebody do a strat of immediately converting military factories to civs at the start of the game, then switching massively to mils half way through in territory well behind the front lines but by that point you have a load of civs and construction time is significantly less. In my 470 hours of HOI4 I have NEVER converted a factory!



Achievement progress: 63/132 (48%)
 
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Man of Honour
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It's going ok - I play slowly, only on speed 1 or 2, so it takes a while. I also like to micro manage. I have focussed on my spy agency and diplomatic relations in ths campaign. I got Finland to turn Communist and then asked to be my puppet without a shot fired. I annexed the baltic states. I've now 1.8 million men in 104 divisions sitting on the front line with Germany, Hungary and Romania. Hungary is Axis, Romania is borderline, but I'm sure they will coup shortly as they are on the axis path in their national focus. It's middle of 1940. So a way to go before Germany declares.

I've not been idle however. I've been farming XP for my Generals by sending as many divisions as I can to foreign powers in need. I sent 7 divisions to Spain during their civil war and was going great guns until rather bizarrely the Republican army combusted. They lost about a dozen divisions overnight, through no apparent reason. Game over after that for the Republicans, rather annoyingly as it was 50/50 at that point. They would have turned Communist with my help, and then I would have had two fronts.

I've also sent diviisons to all of Chinas, and now I've got 5 divisons in Norway, and 700 aircraft. Farming XP is a great way of amassing experience and the points you need for upgrades, without cheating.

I am now awaiting the German onslaught, but until that happens I am rushing out forts, radar and improving my airfields, along with AAA defensives on the front line. My intention is to hold the Axis for as long as I can on a static front. Where breakthroughs occur I will encircle with backup divisons and crush. I have 2 forts in every sector, and 5 near Odessa. I haven't got time to build more.

I am converting loads of CIVS to MILS.

You'll find the AI follows a national focus on historical mode, regardless, and it can cause a few bizarre issues like what you mentioned above. For what it's worth I have never played it in ahistorical mode.
 
Soldato
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Tour de France and Sunrise Invasion ticked off the list!

5aqV13G.jpg

All done by close of play 1939 as Japan. Own Canada, Mexico, USA, France, GB and Australia, plus puppets of Netherlands and East Indies.

Going to research nukes then release USA then immediately nuke them for the Tojo Shot First achievement.

Was fairly easy in the end, though it took advantage of a ludicrous exploit whereby you can send 3 of your aircraft carriers to Germany, then right click the rest of your fleet to join them, despite them being out of naval range....bit of a bug that as it allowed me to get naval supremacy in Europe to invade Netherlands first, then same trick for USA for Curacao. Britain and France fell pretty easily too.

68/132 now, soon to be 69/132 and if I decide to, I may continue this game to make all nations fascist achievement, then finished off by forming Kurdistan. Gonna be a long old game though.

Interestingly, only 0.6% of players have Tour de France.
 
Soldato
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I'm currently boosting ideology in Brazil to move them from unaligned to fascist and plan to do the same with Portugal (I took over as spy master for the axis). Pretty much all of Africa are fascist puppets in one way or another. Soviets have been crushed by Germany and I've now got a LOT of the eastern Russian territory up the the Barents Sea. Germany have all the good industrial bits, but I don't mind so much - we are in a faction together, so I'm not worried.

Going to concentrate on knocking out the various Chinese warlords next, before a final invasion of China itself. This could be my toughest test yet as its 1942 now and they have had chance to build up their manpower.

I, on the other hand, have such a massive industrial might that I can build almost anything I want to, so I don't think it should be too difficult. I will certainly have naval supremacy also. Knocking out China knocks out Asia, just a quick sweep up of the Middle East and then anything else I need to to do to turn South America fascist. New Zealand is one of the few countries left still standing for the allies and they could be tough to naval invade, but instead I'm just going to strat bomb them to bits until a naval invasion is a cakewalk. May need heavy fighters for their extra range to gain air supremacy though.
 
Soldato
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That's good going! Well done that man. I've started a new campaign as the UK. They're probably my favourite nation to play due to their versatility. I like to focus on different fronts at the same time, thus delaying the Germans trouncing everyone.

UK are a nation I really haven't played much with at all. I'm not sure I've actually even had a proper go with them.

The thing that freaked me out a bit to start with playing as the UK was that they have territories here, there and everywhere, and as you said a lot of fronts to fight on. Some important, some not. The UK is definitely going to be one of the next nations I play as though.

I am also trying to figure out a strategy for completing the achievement as the Netherlands to sink all British capital ships. Naval bombers and air supremacy I guess, once you have joined the axis, but its going to be hard. I think I shall have to gain fighter supremacy then I will be able to bomb their ports at will. If they move their ships around the world it will be a bit of a pain.
 
Associate
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Just wanted to chime in and say to keep giving up updates @physichull !

I've got about 250 hours into the game, but haven't played in months. I've been enjoying your HOI4 journey from afar, and as I don't play much these days, I've been playing vicariously though you via your updates :)

We all started somewhere and it looks like you picked up the game a lot quicker than I did! Keep up the good work :)
 
Soldato
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Gutted.

Absolutely gutted.

Basically conquered the world with the axis as Japan, and after what seemed to take FOREVER, I had managed to make all nations fascist. Apart from one. Portuguese Angola....which was a puppet of Portugal. Portugal was fascist and in the axis, but Portuguese Angola was their democratic puppet.

There was literally nowhere left to go as you can't use spies to turn them fascist. So I left the axis. When I left the axis, almost everybody declared war on me. So quickly I released the USA and nuked them to get the "Tojo Shot First" achievement in the bag and then Alt-F4'd it.

I put soooooooo many freaking hours into getting all nations fascist to be absolutely ripped off at the last minute. The game is maybe salvageable, but I've got so many enemies now that I simply can't be bothered. I'm wide open exposed to almost all of them with no divisions in the right place.

Oh meh.

In hindsight, I should have just made tonnes of troops to the point where I could take over as faction leader from Germany then boot Portugal out of the faction and go from there. Nevermind.

This game has just destroyed my soul. I think I could actually do a little cry right now.

One click, that's all it takes. One click and you destroy hours worth of gameplay.

Oh well, 69/132.
 
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Soldato
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where's the best place i can get a idiots guide for this game i downloaded it tried it and was way out of my depth

Youtube is a really good place to start. There are literally a tonne of guides for every nation out there. I am really enjoying a channel by Bitt3rSteel, he has some really amazing achievement guides.

I actually really learnt a lot by chasing achievements - it forced me to do lots of different things and learn lots of different tactics and game features that I wouldn't ordinarily have tried had I had just played off my own back. @philstanbridge is also a great source of knowledge! :D

Unfortunately the real answer is just a bit of perseverance, to be honest with you. But its well worth it in the end (except for tonight, tonight I just want to die - see my previous post).

Reddit is pretty good too, but I mostly use Youtube. There are loads out there, FeedBackGaming, Bitt3rSteel, Dankus Memecus, Dustin796, Taureor, ThatJamesGuy01 and TommyKay.

TommyKay is quite brash in his style, but I am now experiencing a little bit of how he felt when he was going for all the HOI4 achievements. Basically a broken man.
 
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Soldato
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Just wanted to chime in and say to keep giving up updates @physichull !

I've got about 250 hours into the game, but haven't played in months. I've been enjoying your HOI4 journey from afar, and as I don't play much these days, I've been playing vicariously though you via your updates :)

We all started somewhere and it looks like you picked up the game a lot quicker than I did! Keep up the good work :)

Much appreciated mate, though tonight I just wish the game didn't exist! :D

If you do manage to make more time for gaming, then HOI4 is really worth a go if you can pluck up the enthusiasm again to share more conquests with us!

Unfortunately its quite niche which means that its almost impossible to encourage any of my mates to play it.
 
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