I can say that I didn’t see any allied naval invasion up to February 1940 in my German game with the beta patch. They also included something that would cause the AI to better evaluate strategic bombing targets, which led to a fun “chase the bombers around Europe” minigame.
Glad paradox are reading my posts closely.
Well, I just got started, but it doesn’t look like it will be super-hard.
I set up a 10-division invasion from Cherbourg to Portsmouth and the two adjacent provinces. As the time for the attack drew near, I loaded up the English Channel airzone with lots of fighters, CAS and my few TAC and NAV planes. This mod has an optional feature enabled by default that AI nations can’t run out of convoys, so I never built any subs in this game, instead building escorts for the Kreigsmarine. So I sent that fleet into the channel on escort duty just before the invasion. The UK fleet defending the channel initially was not very strong, consisting mostly of destroyers, subs and heavy cruisers. My KM with bountiful air support pretty much wrecked them for the loss of a couple of destroyers.
Though I had planned the invasion for 3 provinces centered on Portsmouth, the game chose to send at least 90% of the divisions to Portsmouth proper (1 division got delayed due to interception battle). I don’t know why the divisions don’t end up equally divided. Anyway, invasion force actually won the battle for Portsmouth by direct assault, though it was a bit hard-fought. Ten divisions managed to fight out of the port as the other 12 divisions of that infantry army shipped across the Channel. Then 5 panzer and 5 motorized divisions, followed by another 24 infantry divisions a week later. I guess I am fortunate that Ports don’t seem to take much damage in direct fighting or the supply situation would have been dire.
Resistance around the perimeter solidified pretty quickly. I redirected most of the fighter and CAS coving the channel to Southern England. The British infantry divisions I was fighting had good firepower (comparable to my divisions) but many were still green, while all my armies were at least Regular. I think the AI emptied their infantry training queue once the invasion landed. Probably too many of their fully trained units were overseas? With the use of the Panzers, I was able to push out toward London. I actually had to take two cracks at it, because the first direct assault wasn’t working, and I had to go for a near-encirclement of the city. Eventually it fell.
That’s about where I stopped for the evening. The US declared war shortly before London fell, but the USSR so far is quiet. I do have 48 divisions dug on along the border there, mostly recently upgraded with a lot of anti-tank weapons. Another British fleet with carriers and BBs moved into the channel but I still had so many aircraft assigned that I was still able to win, though most of the destroyer screen is now gone. I’m confident I can maintain air superiority in the Channel, but the UK still has a lot of BBs out there, so I don’t know if the KM can keep the supply lines open.
Overall, I think I should be able to take Britain out. They have a lot of infantry in front of me, but I don’t see any tanks or strong enough AT weapons. Right now the UK infantry has nine infantry and 3 line artillery, and support AT guns aren’t enough against the PzIV’s that are my main tank right now. I may have timed it right since there seem to be a dozen UK infantry divisions on their way to Egypt and twenty or so well-equipped but green divisions on the field. If those divisions were on the coast at the start, my initial attack on Portsmouth probably would have been repulsed.
This thing worth it at $20 vanilla? Or do you pretty much need the expansions?
You do NOT need the expansions.
Cheers! Appreciate it.
Absolutely worth $20. The expansion are just icing, unless you have a desire to play minor countries like the Commonwealth powers (Together in Victory) or countries in Central Europe/Balkans e.g. Rumania or Yugoslavia .(Death Before Dishonor.)
Thanks! I actually do only play minor countries in any Paradox game. I assumed in HOI you CAN play as any nation in the base game its just you need DLC to play it with extra detail or is that wrong?
Thanks again!
Yes you have it correct. You can play any country inHOI IV. But it is different in HOI IV than say in EU IV, or Victoria II playing a minor. You don’t have the time to turn the Papal States into a world power in a game the basically goes 10-15 years.
All of the majors (except surprisingly “the Chinas”) have a unique focus tree. So for example the Japan one allows you to go after, China and either Russia/or the US but not easily both. Focus on battleship or carriers. Beef up the economy first, the Navy first, or the army, and a bunch of other things.
All of the minor have single generic focus tree beef up the economy, army, navy, or science first. Chose between going fascist, democracy or commie.
Playing India in the vanilla HOI IV was pretty dull, Brazil even more so. However, India after the first expansion was quite interesting with many choices on how to overthrow British colonial rule and become an independent country. I have not tried the minors in the latest expansion. But it seems to possible with Yugoslavia that you can actually recreate the Ottoman emperor through diplomacy and conquest.
sweet! Thank you!
I will bet dollars to donuts that the next DLC will focus on China (really looking forward to some weird ass focus trees for the CCP where Wang Ming knocks off Mao and joins the fascists)
Ugh be careful with using the 1.4.1 patch on existing games. When I loaded my 1938 none of my design company state increases were recognized :(
So I pushed on until the UK armies in Britain capitulated, though it was a bit of a slog. My infantry divisions really couldn’t make any headway on their own as they just didn’t have the breakthrough. I mostly relied on concentrated armor attacks, and even those ran into trouble at the rivers or rough terrain. Eventually I stopped trying to be systematic and just drove an armored column up the coast to nab the last few victory points.
While redirecting air power from the Channel to southern England, then northern England, then Scotland, I must have stripped the channel of it’s last fighter coverage. That was when a UK carrier group attacked my exposed fleet in the Channel. I didn’t end up losing any battleships (though a couple were heavily damaged), but I lost the heavy cruisers and most of the remaining screen. The proud KM limped back to port and stayed there for 4 months. Despite constant air coverage of the Channel, I am still losing convoys to the UK on a regular basis to USN attacks. The USN also wiped out my remaining subs in the Atlantic.
The Soviets revoked the non-aggression pact about a month ago. Should be interesting!
Thinking of getting HOI4 while it’s on the Steam sale. Worth a buy after the latest patch? I had the original HOI and liked it but never kept up with the series.
There are a lot of things about the game that I wish were done differently, but I am having a great time playing. Definitely worth a buy in my opinion, though I am a bit obsessed at the moment.
Thanks. I saw where you can ask the AI to play historically. Will that prevent nonsense like Brazil conquering the world while still allowing for at least some non-historical events?
Historical mode means that the AI will take the historical decision in pre-programmed events as they come up, and pursue their national focuses in a historical order. So AI Germany will demand Sudentenland at around the historical date, and AI Britain and AI France will accept it.
It doesn’t really prevent the game from going off the rails though. On fairly common scenario is that Germany’s initial wars don’t go as well for them as historically, but they still end up declaring additional wars on the original timetable, further multiplying their enemies. That’s one of the major outstanding problems. All of the major problems in the game seem to come from the AI lacking much of any strategic sense.
I haven’t seen much of a problem with AI minor powers trying to take over the world, though crazy world conquests are definitely possible in the player’s hands.
OK, thanks again. Would you recommend playing with the historical AI set to off then or does that immediately move the game away from anything resembling history?
Unfortunately, turning off historical focuses doesn’t prevent the AI from doing strategically dumb things. If the AI picks a focus that allows them to declare a particular war, they tend to declare right away. The problem is that the national focuses seem to route around the AI’s logic for who to go to war with.
As for divergence, I don’t think it goes too bad. I played a game as Canada with historical focuses off. Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia ended up banded together in their own alliance. So when Germany demanded Sudetenland, they went to war with those three countries. Since I buffed AI Germany, they ended up winning that war handily, and subsequently declared on the low countries, kicking off the war with the Allies. After trashing France, Spain joined the Axis and they ended up invading the USSR in I think 1940.
So that’s kind of an alternate history, but not too crazy. The problem as I understand it is that a lot of wars are the result of national focus trees, so things that made sense in the original timeline maybe don’t make sense given the new situation, but can happen anyway once the country in question gets around to activating that focus.
Thanks for the insights Mike.