Hearts of Iron IV

[Zanza]

I agree the UI with a lot of this kind of stuff is annoying.

The thing I hate the most in the early game is figuring out where all my fleets are, and re-organizing them.

Everytime I start a new game, now, I'm saving the initial set up so I won't have to keep doing it.

Just play Germany or the Soviets then. 

[crazy canuck]

Ideally I'd like to set up air wing creation in the division builder, then be able to assign newly created air wings either to a region or to a leader (just like you can with divisions).  Air wings assigned to a leader would follow them as they moved, rebasing as necessary.

That would be sweet.

I agree that would be a huge improvement

[Josephus]

I'm having my best game with HOI IV so far. And the reason is I'm playing in the ideal situation: Historical and as Italy.

Key to any ww2 game is German behaviour.

If you play ahistorical then Germany goes crazy DOWing anything that moves. By 1941 it self destructs.

If you play historical, Germany plays conservatively, DOWing everyone in order and only after other fronts are over. So it DOWs poland, then France, then the lowlands , Denmark and only after that Russia.
However, as I've said before, in historical, the problem is Barbarossa nearly never happens because AI Italy hands Germany African territory it takes from UK and France. Because of this Germany is in a state of perpetual war with France, even after continental France falls, and because of the way it is programmed won't go to war with Russia as long as it's at war with someone on its border.

So Playing as Italy, as I am now, I make sure Germany doesn't get any African territory and after France falls, it will go after Russia as it should.

[Grallon]

Well I played Germany until 1941 - after befriending Poland and securing a peaceful eastern border but as soon as Italy fumbled into Greece and I joined I got overwhelmed.  I had 130 divisions on the western front but to my surprise the enemy had air superiority from the get go.  I have no clue how to attack anyone - I seem to be losing everywhere except with the subs which are sinking some convoys.  I think I prefer the years of prep phase to the actual execution.  I'll restart and see if I can do any better.


G.

[Josephus]

My perfect historical game as Italy is not going according to plan anymore.

Yes, Germany invaded Russia in June, 1941. But apparently Japan joins that war, thus tossing history out the window and having Russia fight on two fronts.

[crazy canuck]

My perfect historical game as Italy is not going according to plan anymore.

Yes, Germany invaded Russia in June, 1941. But apparently Japan joins that war, thus tossing history out the window and having Russia fight on two fronts.

That has happened in every game I have had.

[Josephus]

Finsihed my Italy game. Well, I quit it.

It was by far the best game I've had with HOI IV. Mostly because by playing Italy and playing historical, was able to prevent some of the weird stuff up to a point. As I said, everything went normally and pretty historical up to Barbarossa.
Then maybe because Japan got involved in that war, things started to change.
Kiev fell in Oct 42, Leningrad and Stalingrad in July 43 and in August Moscow fell. Russia capitulated completely in November 43. It got divided up haphazardly (as is common with pdox) between Italy, Germany, Japan Hungary, Romania and little bits of "Russian Empire". I (italy) got bits in the Crimea.

The USA DOWd Japan (and rest of Axis) in Dec 41. The Axis tide did change a bit then. At first the Allies launched invasion pockets here there and everywhere but were soundly defeated each time. They came after me in Sicily, Greence (which I had since 1940) and Africa. I was able to hold them off in Africa but started to run into supply issues, while they kept steam rolling. Soon I just held onto my small enclave in Suez.

Things werent' made easy for me because I think German went with "NO Exports" mode at this point which meant I had no one to give me steel and that obviously effected my production.
Also by 1946 everyone started joining the war. Switzerland joined Allies (and was annexed a week later). Sweden joined the Allies as did Mexcio.

I saw a small invasion in occupied Holland/Belguim but didn't pay attention, focussing more on Africa. When I looked up a few game months later, it seemed the Allies were gaining ground. I sent two-three divisions to hold the line and by 1946 the game became a bit of a WW1 style sitzkrieg. I held the line outside Koln. The Germans gained terriroty but then lost it again. Along with the Japanese I was able to hold the line around Suez.

At this point the game got boring so I quit.

[DGuller]

If you play the game long enough, the AI suicides itself by packing the frontlines with gazillions of units.  It looks scary, until you realize all the enemy allies are destroying each other's supplies, and can't actually do anything with those units.  Just make one medium or modern tank army and D them to death.

[Grallon]

This game frustrates me.  I can't seem to lay out battle plans properly, even though I've watched a number of how to vids on YouTube.  I mean they are drawn and the subsequent operations, there are divisions assigned to them, the tooltip tells me they're favorable to me yet when I execute them they falter after some initial advances.  So I delete them and redraw new ones according to my new positioning but after that it fails and my lines get breached.



G.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I've found that using battleplans for small offensive operations with concentrated forces work pretty well, especially if you have a an army of reserves with the fallback-line plan present at your operation's starting point (a good use for the expeditionary forces your allies send you). Use panzers (usually under manual control) to pierce the front on specific places and execute encirclements. Make sure you have a lot of divisions (even if it means going a bit over supplylimit, but not too much or the enemy will eat you alive).
Having a modicum of success with it in my current try against the ussr where I used the battleplans to take the baltic regions (without human interference), the Ukraine (with me guiding the panzers), the Caucasus (spanish expeditionaries after Italy threw a 100 divisions over the strait :p). Now I'm battleplanning my way to Moscow.
In Africa Franco-Romanian expeditionary forces batlleplanned all the way to Capetown, starting in the Congo.
But it took some experimenting because, like you, the battleplans kept failing earlier

[MadImmortalMan]

If you play the game long enough, the AI suicides itself by packing the frontlines with gazillions of units.  It looks scary, until you realize all the enemy allies are destroying each other's supplies, and can't actually do anything with those units.  Just make one medium or modern tank army and D them to death.

The Comintern always seems to die this way if you leave them long enough. Especially if they have Chinese states in the faction. Once I see Sinkiang in the European front, I know it's time to set the thing on autopilot. I conquered all of Asia as Greece yesterday while I was out shopping.

[Josephus]

Anyone still playng this?

[frunk]

I check out the new mods and give it a spin every once in a while.  Mostly I'm waiting for the next patch.  The Black ICE mod just came out, and it's about as over the top as I expected even if it is incomplete.  I don't think I really want to manage factories for uniforms, but apparently they felt that it was important.

[mongers]

I check out the new mods and give it a spin every once in a while.  Mostly I'm waiting for the next patch.  The Black ICE mod just came out, and it's about as over the top as I expected even if it is incomplete.  I don't think I really want to manage factories for uniforms, but apparently they felt that it was important.

Well that's were Napoleon failed, didn't he. 

[Phillip V]

I am waiting for patches+DLC.  I bought the Field Marshal pre-order.

Currently focused on CK2 and then EU4.