Hearts of Iron IV

[Josephus]

The Expert AI mod helps.

might try it

[KRonn]

I've been playing HOI4 lately. I've always liked it, really liked the building phases and research also. Playing a recent game as the Soviets. The Germans attacked over two months ago and they've made gains but are finding it very slow going.

[Josephus]

I find in current version, the Italians seem too buffed. In my current game as England, they occupied all France, before Germany finished off Belgium  (doesn't help that France capitulated too quickly; Paris wasn't even taken. I, as England, had troops in Paris, which all got obliterated once France capped.

[DGuller]

I think it's more a function of Germany being debuffed.  Italians continue to die in droves, it's just that Germans get stuck in Benelux far more often now.

[The Brain]

I think it's more a function of Germany being debuffed.  Italians continue to die in droves, it's just that Germans get stuck in Benelux far more often now.

Are they friends with Benelux?

[Josephus]

It effects the game so much. If France caps to Italy, then you don't get Vichy France, which, ironically, is bad for Italy in Africa.

Also, when this happens, Germans don't seem to base their planes in France, which means England doesn't really have to worry much about air attacks.

My other beef (well, one of several others) is that even on "historical", Nationalist always joins the war. Even once when Republican Spain won the civil war, they joined the allies. Either way it's bad for the allies, because Nationalist Spain gobbles Gibraltar, which in connection with Nat Spain in North Africa, blocks the mediterranean to Allied traffic. When Republican Spain wins the civil war and then joins the war, then Axis-occupied France sweeps through Spain in a matter of weeks and then takes Gibraltar.

[KRonn]

I've  played two games as the Soviets up to Barbarossa. Germans have done very well, advanced quickly, in both games.  They easily rolled over Poland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg months before historical dates. Took Norway, and in one game took Sweden. Yugoslavia fell.

Germans invaded the Soviet Union in summer 1940 in both games, a year before historical. I restarted my first game as the Soviets because I had just started playing the game again and was getting accustomed to it and playing the Russian side. Second game I'm still playing.

[Razgovory]

I think it's more a function of Germany being debuffed.  Italians continue to die in droves, it's just that Germans get stuck in Benelux far more often now.

I was playing the Expert AI on, and this happened to me while playing Germany.  Apperently tanks have been weakened which really weakens Germany since their Doctrine is heavily reliant on tanks.  Enventually I just left all the heavy lifting up to Italy and swooped in at the last moment to capture Paris.

My God, that's pathetic.

[DGuller]

I've  played two games as the Soviets up to Barbarossa. Germans have done very well, advanced quickly, in both games.  They easily rolled over Poland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg months before historical dates. Took Norway, and in one game took Sweden. Yugoslavia fell.

Germans invaded the Soviet Union in summer 1940 in both games, a year before historical. I restarted my first game as the Soviets because I had just started playing the game again and was getting accustomed to it and playing the Russian side. Second game I'm still playing.

You need to station units on the border with Germany, as many as you can muster, otherwise Germans can break the NAP early.  Time is on your side, so you want to delay the war as much as possible.

[garbon]

I read the beginner's guide (and the Italy guide as that's the nation in the tutorial) and started playing the tutorial. It felt like a lot of work.

I agree, though it felt like less work than HoI3.

Just 'finished' tutorial. I see that it taught me about say 20% of the interface?

I've finally played this a fair bit with a continued post tutorial Italy campaign. I did break down and do something I never do - I watched a video tutorial by quill. He said in it, that really seemed quite true, which is that at least for beginner play, you don't really need to know that all the little fiddly bits are about. I've no idea about a lot of the differences between the exact same type but different model of plane (so say different fighters in the same era) but that didn't really matter.

My Italy campaign went fairly well in WWII. I founded my own faction comprised of Romania, Greece and Bulgaria after I ate Yugoslavia and disavowed Germany. Italy was thrust into the fray when Romania was split by its scripted civil war and suddenly found myself with a wide front on Romanian, Hungarian and Austrian border. Managed to hold Germany back enough while the Allies marched through to Berlin.

Unfortunately, having Romania in my faction proved my undoing as the Soviets wanted their land. When I made a play to take out Turkey, the USSR moved on Romania and also went to defend Turkey who joined Comintern after I declare war. While I managed to kill Turkey and the Turkish Empire was reborn, we ultimately were all swept under the red tide. When I quit playing, it was as a puppeted Italian Union.  One thing that struck me as odd was that nothing happened with my generals. All of them that had been actively pressing Fascism on the world were now happy to fight for the Communist side.

[DGuller]

It's annoying that you can't do anything with the generals even if you wanted to.  Playing as Soviet Union, it gets really tiresome to have to keep scrolling past the retard threesome of Kulik/Budyonny/Voroshilov every time you have to assign someone.

[garbon]

Sounds like a prime area for DLC.

[Josephus]

after owning the game for two years, I've come to the conclusion, it's not very good.

[garbon]

That may well be.

One very strange thing was that after just a couple years influence as Italy, I turned the US 45% Fascist.

[Syt]

Played my first real HoI4 game. As Germany I started building mot. and tank Divisions. Hungary rebuilt the Austro-Hungarian empire (plus Czechoslovakia). I ended up allied with them, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Spain, and the USSR. In 1943 Japan also joined. France, Scandinavia, Belgium/Netherlands got steamrolled, and then ... yeah. Even ran out of National Focus options.

AI kept trying ineffective amphibious landings in France, Netherlands, and Spain. And I couldn't be bothered to sort out my production/resources to prepare an invasion of the UK. Considering I had only limited ideas of what I was doing and bungled a lot I think this was somewhat successful (though my allies did most of the heavy lifting). I'm not sure I like how the AI allies send their troops around. I had Japanese divisions and air wings defending the Channel Coast in Europe and Spanish troops fighting in Mongolia.