Hearts of Iron 4

[physichull]

"Around Eurasia in 80 days: Have a railroad from Gibraltar to Singapore" - so basically, a world conquest and build a massive railway.

"The Soviet Onion: As the Soviet Union, have only puppets as neighbors" - another world conquest.

"Not a step back!: As the Soviet Union never lose 1 core territory to anyone before 1945" - given how terrible I am as the Soviets...this will be hard....all the Soviet achievements will be hard for me!

"No more Partitions: As Poland, be independent and ensure that both Germany and the USSR are either in your faction or don’t exist" - I was going to do the "30 Minutes of Hel" achievement next, but might wait till this is released and do both these in one go.


What I am finding now is that I can't do one run for multiple achievements. I have to focus on just one achievement and generally the runs take repeated efforts or are 10-15 hour grinds. The worst ones are those that depend on luck of the AI doing something very particular - they can be quite frustrating, as well as the fact you categorically cannot save scrub if you make an error. Its very unforgiving.

 

[physichull]

OK, really low hanging fruit achieved...."Assuming Direct Control"

Play as Mongolia then go AFK until the Soviets lose and the leadership of the Comintern passes to you....

Probably not in the spirit the achievement was intended, but oh well...

105/132

 

[physichull]

Now This Is Getting Childish completed, only 0.4% of the player base completed this - says something I suppose - its not hard, just a bit dull and niche.

Basically as Bulgaria Form the Regency Council that puts the kid in charge, then wait till Yugoslavia do the "Sign the Tripartite Pact", wait about 30 days when the British issue a stern warning to put their kid in charge, then wait till that happens and declare war.

There are quite a lot of these Balkan country achievements that I haven't done yet and for some reason I don't particularly enjoy them. They aren't particularly powerful countries but I know that they have the potential to be if you can just de-mystify all the politics, decisions, events and focuses to subjugate others. I guess I should keep going until I even vaguely understand the politics of it all.

106/152 (new achievements now loaded into Steam.... )

 

[philstanbridge]

106/152 (new achievements now loaded into Steam.... )

Muhahahaha

 

[physichull]

Munich Disagreement completed.

Very, very easy, as Czechoslovakia, just build forts via the focus, don't cede the Sudetenland to Germany, build a decent army to hold the forts and build fighters early on to get air superiority over Munich. Then, simply paradrop a few days after war is declared (I made the mistake of paradropping as soon as war was declared but they still had an army in Munich and they destroyed all 3 of my paratroop divisions instantly on landing!

107/152

 

[physichull]

Dragon Swallowed the Sun - as Manchukuo, break free from Japan and annex your former overlord without being in a faction.

Actually pretty straight forward. Managed to get my economy going and waited till I'd built up a big enough army to heave the Japs off the mainland and Korea, this forced a peace. Then I was able to again bide my time to build my forces, particularly my artillery (Chinese forces get munched by it) and attacked through China. Once that was done, it was all about just protecting my coastline (pretty easy now with a big economy and driving down the autonomy of the last remaining Chinese states, particularly the southern coastal ones that have all the natural resources (near Hong Kong). Annexed them, whilst building hundreds of fighters and naval bombers to whittle down the Japanese navy.

It takes forever to build any kind of navy (submarines, really) to get enough naval supremacy (you only have a handful of dockyards), but I used my spies to see that their manpower was almost nothing in their army (their futile naval invasions crushed them), so instead of taking on their navy I just launched some paratroopers onto Nagasaki and crushed them from there.

Achievement achieved and was actually surprisingly fun! Its crazy how you can go from being a Japanese subject with one mil factory to taking over all of China and Japan!

108/152

 

[physichull]

One rule that I am really not sure should be allowed:

When I paradropped into Nagasaki, I was then able to bring over a fully armed 24 division army to the port completely unimpeded despite having 0% naval supremacy. It feels like a bit of an exploit really.

 

[philstanbridge]

What spyt mssion are you using to kill manpower?

Yes, para drops are terrible exploits. The only godsend is their range.

 

[philstanbridge]

Did the Japanese have any subs? I've found my forces get absolutely mauled by them if i transport them without naval escort/supremacy

 

[physichull]

What spyt mssion are you using to kill manpower?

Yes, para drops are terrible exploits. The only godsend is their range.

I just used my spies to see what their level of manpower was, nothing more than that. Their futile naval invasions ground down their manpower and the British pushed them out of Vietnam.

The Japs did have subs at the start but my naval bombers absolutely annihilated them early on in the Yellow Sea - I was literally deleting them - with every naval invasion I was naval bombing plenty of troop transports too. I traded with the Soviets until they closed their economy but by then I was almost self-sufficient, so I didn't need any overseas trade (hence very few convoys sunk). Because the Japanese never got a foothold in China, they never had a big industry so hence their airforce was pretty small and they had no rubber to build more new planes - they couldn't advance further into Indonesia, etc.

 

[physichull]

Feedbacks summary on the achievements - Russia is my massive Achilles heel - definitely my bogey team! So its going to be hard for me! One of the hardest achievements I did was The Revolution Triumphant (see post Hearts of Iron 4).

Just been reading back through some of my old posts on here....wow I've actually done quite a lot on this game! It brought back so many memories of frustrating games or events, but also some stuff that I can't remember how I even did it! Like as Japan having conquered UK, USA and France by the end of 1939....!

Some of the frustrations I laugh about now as I am now experienced enough to know why certain things went like they did - particularly an early effort at The Dragon Swallowed the Sun - I think I conquered all the land but only occupied it (rather than acquiring it in a peace deal) - hence the achievement never fired (must to my confusion).

 

[philstanbridge]

Something you need to consider is that the game has definitely got harder to win over the course of time, due to the patches. I have played Germany no end of times, and managed to conquer the UK with relative ease way back. I tried it again recently and failed miserably. Things have improved for sure, unless I have got worse..

 

[physichull]

A couple of achievements that I have had half-hearted attempts at but failed and not looking forward to doing:

Awake and Angry - as China, reconquer all of China and kill Japan - I find normal China SOOOOO hard....beating the Japanese in the mainland is tough as old boots - but I think I have to try your trick of 24 width divisions rather than 20 widths and see if I can overcome them that way - maybe just adding more infantry battalions to a traditional 7/2.

Well, I Didn't Vote for You - I'm hopeless as Spain, really hopeless. I have no real idea what to do with the garrison boosting at the start and the fact that all the divisions in the war seem to have sooooo much org in the war is confusing to me (you can encircle them but they don't lose org, I guess because they are considered on home turf???), let alone winning as the anarchists! There are no good guides that are up-to-date on that either, I find it a right old struggle.

 

[philstanbridge]

China is difficult but I can kick Japan out every time. The trick is definitely a good template, but also let the naval invasions land, surround, and wipe out. Don't let them get a foot hold. Attrition will get to them eventually, and they will run out of manpower too. Focus on building up your inf weapons, support and arty. USe Grand Battle Plan for the defensive bonus.

I also love Spain. Once you understand the politics it's a great campaign. The devs enabled something which is supposed to represent a 'front line' of sorts. The biggest complaint was that the game finished too quickly, usually in favour of the Nationalists. So the devs added a static front line to slow it down, and various ways to combat it. If you look at the battles, the modifiers are all negative. You need to spend PP (I think it is?) to focus on a part of the battlefield. This resets the modifiers. So it allows a sort of concentrated battlefield. Its different and it works for the single player. But the AI doesn't really utilise it.

The largest problem for me is the civil war that becomes a civil war lol.. 4 sides fighting at once. Pretty crazy. But once the war is won, its plain sailing and you get a lot of buffs to build up your industry quickly. I usually play Republic, historical, but then go Communist and help the Soviets.

 

[physichull]

Awake and Angry done. Sheesh that was hard.

I had to play non-historical just to give me chance to build up my forces after 6-7 failed attempts at historical (I put diplomatic pressure and improved relations with Japan until I could get a non-aggression pact). All five Chinese warlords refused to be subjugated so had to go round crushing them all, then bided my time to build up my equipment to decent levels then went after the Japanese. Unfortunately in my run the allies were terrible and the Soviets capitulated almost as soon as I had just managed to push the Japanese off the mainland (enough to get the achievement). I'm not sure how winnable that game will be if I carry on - I now have to defeat a very strong Germany, but, India is intact and the USA is yet to be drawn into the war (not sure what to do to get them in). Might just give up on it though.

Tough one that - basically took me a good 6 hours today to crack. The other thing that makes it difficult, although your manpower is amazing, your raw materials are absolutely dire! I had zero fuel and all the infrastructure in the world didn't help me for enough natural resources (steel).

109/152

 

[physichull]

Rule Britannia out of the way with prior to the next patch!

Basically re-did my campaign as Canada going fascist then rushing the USA with poor cavalry units (2 width! lol!). Once you get the USA, puppet them and then build in the nation to drive down their autonomy, annex them and nick their navy, then release them as a puppet again because you have no manpower and need to use their troops. 40 width divisions created (14/4s) and then naval invade the UK, capturing every bit of land, then London last to get the achievement (I joined the axis). Not too difficult in the end, but your manpower as Canada is just crippling.

110/152

 

[physichull]

Anarchist Spain done! I think I'm finally getting round to understanding the civil war mechanics now! Was a really tough civil war and was very much touch and go at one point. Decided to carry on with it and form the Global Defence Council! Was quite fun! Downloading new patch now.



111/152

 

[physichull]

Two of the easiest achievements in the bag....At Least They Run on Time - max level 5 railways in Italy....easy afk achievement.

And...Poland Peasant Revolution - win the civil war in the peasant uprising as the peasants - very, very easy - took me 10 mins. I do kinda get the whole thing about cutting chunks out of your enemies railway lines though to cut supplies - that's a cool mechanic. Makes individual wars a little more tactical, it was fairly bland and featureless before that (besides rivers and arguably terrain - though who hasn't smashed a 40 width tank division across the Alps before??? ).

It would be interesting if they then made more of a thing about bridges - Remagen, Market Garden etc would become more important to capture bridges / cut supplies - could be a really fun way to use paratroopers rather than their current meme/capturing of ports.

The rest look much harder, that's just the low hanging fruit!

I think performance has taken a little bit of a hit for me - definitely feels much laggier than it used to. Not really sussed much of it out yet, other than doctrines are no longer researched in the usual way but are "purchased" using army/navy/air XP. That's going to take some getting used to - all part of the officer corps stuff.

Not sussed out trains and supply or divisions yet though, but its looking like smaller divisions win the wars, and specialist units like mountaineers and marines come into their own a bit more - I virtually never used marines except for the USA in the hot pacific jungles.

113/152

 

[philstanbridge]

The patch and DLC are fabulous. But loaded with little bugs and quirks. It also fixes a helluva lot of issues too, which is great. Supply is now the key factor when deciding where to invade, how to invade, and what with. I am playing a little test campaign as Canada just to get a feel for everything before I jump in with the big boys. I sent 9 infantry divisions into Norway, and successfully managed to grab a foot-hold with a port. I soon realised I couldnt supply my men at all. I didn't builld a harbour, and the route was cut to the capital, so my men had 0 supply and were sitting ducks. I sent them back home asap!

I haven't worked out how to implement harbours yet. But I'm really liking what I've seen.

 

[Bubo]

Was supply one of the things they massively dumbed down in HoI4 compared to 3?