After playing a full game as Germany, I’ve come to the conclusion that PDS should really reorganize the production tabs. One for civilian, one for military, and one for naval.
Ok my campaign literally just went to hell and I’m still not sure why. I was using historical accuracy, and was trying to do the annexation thing in the Baltics via focus tree to annex Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland. Latvia and Kithuania went as expected, but when I tried to annex Estonia - France, Britain, and half the rest of the world declared war on me. I went ahead with invasion anyways and it was going smooth until I noticed I was losing in their capital. Couldn’t understand why til I zoomed in and saw a million troops from their new allies. At the exact same time, there was a sudden revolution out of nowhere and a huge chunk of the Soviet Union became Russia. Everything had been nice and stable right up until that point so I was mighty confused especially since I’d stayed away from that whole revolution side of the focus tree. So in about 30 minutes went from solid domination to total crap lol.
Also, organizing Navy stuff is a nightmare. I just wanted to run some subs out of zleningrad but when it try to click stuff, all these icons are highlighted on the right who’s groupings make no sense whatsoever.
I don’t know why the Allies didn’t let you take Estonia, but the revolution - maybe you didn’t do the Purge? Looking at events it seems like this can start a civil war?
I was under the impression that if I stayed away from that entire section of the focus tree I wouldn’t have to deal with any of that? Correct I did not do the purge because there was no information saying something like this revolution was brewing under the skin.
I desperately need help with the Navy. I don’t understand why it uses different management conventions than air and land. For example in the screenshot I click on Leningrad. I’ve been making a lot of subs and I want to send them out to patrol. But why does clicking Leningrad port highlight different symbols on different lines?
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Why are the same marine symbols used on the top line as what is listed below it?
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What are reserve fleets?
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How does the game decide where to put ships if when producing them you leave “deploy target base” as auto?
A few more non-Navy questions…
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France and Britain promised to guarantee Czech independence but didn’t declare war on Germany when they took them over. Why? It would have been very helpful to me if those two had been distracted by Germany.
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My guess is maybe my aggressiveness pushed war upon me from Britain and France (not sure if there was a treaty - it was late last night). Where should I have been able to see this risk?
The great purge is really painful at the time, you end up killing about half your available advisers and generals. It does prevent some nasty events down the line though.
The naval interface is brand new. First thing to know is that it’s pretty similar to the land interface: you have theatres off to the right subdivided into navies, each of which can be led by an admiral. These are then subdivided into task forces, which have no leader.
A navy is a grouping of task forces that work together in a specified sea zone or set of zones. Within the navy, each task force has its own orders, chosen from a small set at the bottom of the screen.
A classic setup for a navy is several small task forces of destroyers only, plus a large task force consisting of capital ships and lots more destroyers and light cruisers.
During wartime, you give the order Patrol to the destroyers. This makes them zip around looking for enemy ships. Your large task force gets the order Strike Force, whcih means it sits in port until the destroyers find something, then comes steaming out to deal with it. This is a good idea because capital ships eat fuel at an alarming rate, so it’s nice to have them sat in port unless they’re needed.
If you have submarines, it’s generally a good idea to have them in small task forces with Convoy Raiding orders, in a separate navy. This is because they often want to cover different regions to the ones you are patrolling.
You can specify the sea zones the navy works in by right clicking on them; shift-right click removes the zone again. The navy splits its available task forces with Patrol or Convoy Raiding orders between the sea zones it’s tasked with covering. A task force with Strike Force orders will cover all areas; it’s a good idea to have it sat in port somewhere central.
It’s important to know that Patrol and Strike Force will completely ignore enemy convoys, including troop convoys. It’s a good idea to make sure anywhere the AI might try to ship troops to has something waiting to intercept them with Convoy Raiding orders.
Clicking on the port there has selected all three task forces that are currently located in the port. Two of them are in the second navy listed, the other one is in the reserves. To select just one, click Select on the relevant task force off to the left. That will get you a list of its ships.
I don’t know, it’s a bit weird. I think it’s so you can collapse the theatre and keep a vague idea of what’s in it.
Reserve fleets are where newly-built ships go, if you don’t tell them otherwise. You can grab them from there and form new task forces. You can also set your task forces to auto-reinforce when they lose ships. These reinforcements come from the ships in the reserves.
Reserves are shared per theatre, so as Russia you may want a separate Far East theatre with its own reserves, so replacements don’t have to sail all the way around the world.
Don’t know, I’m afraid. It probably just chooses your largest port.
Hoooo boy. I really thought I’d grasped a lot of this game until the Naval stuff. My brain is having trouble assembling this into logic. I will split and make 2 theatres to start. So task forces… are they independent of ports? Like a task force could be based on of multiple ports? When people assign subs to raiding, or destroyers to patrol - do they assign a whole bunch of sea zones? Or is a task force supposed to only be assigned to one sea zone for optimal workiness?
If the Revolution stuff is going to happen no matter what you do in Soviet Union… seems like you should get it out of the way ASAP? And what does Permanent Revolution mean? The country keeps splitting over and over again?
I think a lot of problems with the game come from the national focuses being basically a lot of special-case code, that isn’t always supported well by the UI. You have to either know this stuff or be very careful reading the focus descriptions and even then, it is tricky. In this case, the Purge focus reads:
There is a dangerous Trotskyist plot brewing among the officers; even in the highest ranks. Though Trotsky’s personal involvement remains unknown, the threat is great. The USSR could even be thrown into another civil war.… unless we are prepared to break some eggs.
Germany’s Munich conference focuses circumvent normal limits. Did Britain and France actually guarantee Czech? Or was that sort of flavor text? I don’t remember. Anyway, as the USSR in historical mode, don’t expect the allies to stand up to Germany until they go after Poland.
If they had guaranteed your target, that would explain it. I don’t know why they did though. Did you do other (non-focus) wars? Historically the USSR waited until the Allies were already at war with Germany to grab the Baltics. Maybe that is it. If you skipped the Purge, your other focuses are way ahead of the historical timetable, making you seem like the greater threat…
You need to purge to avoid the Civil War. You’re kind of faced with a choice: either Purge and deal with some real pain up front, or avoid the Purge and deal with the civil war down the line.
Each country has one designated main port, I believe. For the US, it’s Virginia. I believe a tooltip will tell you what port it is if you hover over the “Auto” button.
Just my recommendation, I wouldn’t worry about grokking Navy along with everything else right up front. For me personally, I’d just focus on getting the core of the game and land mechanics down and then worry about the Navy stuff once you have your feet underneath you. Do whatever works best for you, though!
And for me, I’m never ever afraid to restart and hone my early game from what I have learned from the previous games. :)
That’s good advice, particularly as the USSR.
Wow, I’m a history buff and still messed up my WWII timeframes. I wasn’t paying atre nation but you’re right. I am wayyyyy ahead of history so I apparently kickstarted WWII while Germany sat backing saying, “Russia dude… WTF”!
Something else that’s very confusing. For the focus “Improve the Stalin Line”, you supposedly get all these free forts. But they don’t show up and it appears you have to build them just like normal. What’s the point of getting “Add 6 Land Fort to Pskov” as a bonus if you have to do it the same way you’d do it without the focus event? I think I’m still a little confused on the Construction screen.
And thanks everyone for your help. It’s so exciting being able to find dig into this game. Can’t beleive it was released way back in 2016 and only just learning how to okay for reals.
I’m excited that you’re digging in now! I know we’ve talked about HOI4 off and on for a few years now.
I don’t play the USSR much so I’m not familiar with their focus tree, but it should actually construct the following forts for you. A requirement for this focus is that you are not involved in an offensive war, so is there a chance you invaded someone before the focus finished and it was cancelled?
From the wiki, here’s where the forts should be built:
(Pskov):
- Add 6 land forts to a province;
(Nevel):
- Add 4 land forts to a province;
(Vitebsk):
- Add 4 land forts to 3 provinces;
(Minsk):
- Add 4 land forts to a province;
(Kiev):
- Add 7 land forts to 2 provinces;
(Cherkasy):
- Add 7 land forts to a province;
(Odessa):
- Add 5 land forts to 3 provinces
Nope I definitely was not in conflict, because I only used focus war options further done the focus tree.
You have to deal with it either way. Sometimes Trotsky comes back and does his own Purge.
I am sick as a dog today, so not sure it’s good time to try to learn but oh well.
Next thing I don’t quite understand is I’ve unlocked heavy tanks and several other new classes of units, but I don’t have enough of those star icons to build new type of division to actually field them. How do I get lots of those so I can field new units?
Political leaders can sometimes provide a small trickle while focus events can sometimes provide a one-time chunk. Mainly though, you get experience by using your military: training provides some, but the bulk comes from fighting. That’s one reason why sending volunteers can be so powerful in the early game.
Yep, the stat you’re looking at is Army Experience. When you deploy troops, put them in an army and train them until they Regulars (star icon). You can probably get some from your Focus tree as well. Mostly it’s from fighting though.
The navy is much more complicated now. Overly so IMO. But as Russia is pretty much irrelevant so don’t sweat it, just build subs and when the war comes just try and sink German convoys.
I personally like to take the pain of the purge as early as practical, civil wars are ugly.
What is early for you? mid-1938?