Man of Honour
I wouldn't say dumbed down, just abstracted. But now it's better than HOI3. More realistic anyway.
Hearts of Iron 4
- Thread starter JimJoeRooney
- Start date
Soldato
I feel like I need a nice safe campaign as the USA, figure out railways and supplies and front lines. I've not worked out supply hubs or building optimal rail routes yet, and as ever the Soviets are a mystery to me. Lots to figure out.
All in a good way though, the DLC is amazing. Now all we realistically need is a decent Italy focus tree and a bit of tlc towards the Italians in general and the game would be close to a finished article I reckon.
All in a good way though, the DLC is amazing. Now all we realistically need is a decent Italy focus tree and a bit of tlc towards the Italians in general and the game would be close to a finished article I reckon.
Soldato
Man of Honour
Finished maybe, apart from some love in South America, Finland, and the Middle East. But yes, almost 
Soldato
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.
Did exactly this tonight but as the USA - supply is absolutely ridiculously difficult if you are trying to wage a war overseas! I'm a bit at a loss how the USA fights wars that aren't on its homeland! If you don't have rail or poor terrain then you are screwed hard.
Even capturing a port, my logistics in Norway were absolutely terrible and caused a full on rout! One thing I utilised when defending the Philippines (really poor supply and infra) was building transport planes, parking them on a nearby airfield and then using them to resupply the troops in the jungles - worked REALLY well. Might be utilising that a bit more from now on.
Man of Honour
Yes, transport planes are now vital! Build hundreds. Their resupply alone is worth the cost, providing of course they can reach! I haven't worked out how the hell to supply my men during an invasion - apparently you can build mobile supply depots, but I can't get it work for me. Maybe a bug, or might be because I'm Canada invading from Britain. Unsure.
Soldato
Same, from my exploits last night, even capturing a port in Norway isn't enough. I build up the infra, rail and dockyards in Washington DC but that isn't the bottleneck and it isn't naval route efficiency. I forgot also that you need yo change your logistics over from horses to trucks etc for your army so that will make a difference.
Transport planes could be a bit of a magic bullet to save you constantly building railways and infrastructure in newly captured territory.
Transport planes could be a bit of a magic bullet to save you constantly building railways and infrastructure in newly captured territory.
Man of Honour
It's much more realistic this way, even if it makes it hard work. It doesn't stop the AI from making naval invasions either. In fact, I think the AI has had a serious kick up the backside. I don't know if it's just me, but Japan here has attacked me on two fronts at once, (as China) and naval invaded a port I didn't defend, due to never having to bother in the past. Took me by almost complete surprise!
Soldato
Currently doing a non historical Soviet campaign (cowards campaign!) and helped in German civil war to defeat the third reich. I then turned them communist and they have kept quiet whilst i have advanced through Poland and ramped up my production. Takes a long time to get rid of all the negative spirits and bad army traits and build up a remotely competent army. Its now 1941 and I'm hoarding my supplies to build strength to attack through Romania (who now have Italy). I'm going for a few achievements here, No Step Back - not concede any core territory before 1945, Proper Ganda - conduct 30 propaganda campaigns before 1945, then the achievement to conquer Rome, then go full on world conquest to build the railway and then be surrounded by puppets. Should be a long one.
Did a quick achievement earlier to declare war on Poland and Germany before Germany declares on Poland, easy and pointless, but in the bag.
114/152
Did a quick achievement earlier to declare war on Poland and Germany before Germany declares on Poland, easy and pointless, but in the bag.
114/152
Man of Honour
How you finding it? I'm currently running the beta opt in patch which fixes a few issues. Transport planes no longer resupply a whole army
Soldato
Not used the transport planes as I've not fought any overseas wars, I figured trains and trucks better serve this purpose. Thought I'd found an absolute diamond with the transport planes!
Gonna build up my cas to destroy Romania, wont have to invade through Italy as I will probably be able to capitulate them or at least anhilate their manpower by heading straight to Budapest. Then I am going to play around with some heavy tanks to crash through Italy then Germany. Then once I'm pretty much safe from threat i am gonna experiment on the eastern Japanese front with different infantry division types.
If all goes to plan it should net me 5 achievements though i am not sure whether I will do all the propaganda campaigns before 1945, I forgot and started them a bit late and haven't kept track of how many I've done.
Need to recruit loads of infantry divs and build forts all over my Asian borders so I have at least got a bit of buffer if I get a suprise invasion from somewhere, maybe build a load of forts. You can never have enoigh civs as Soviets, and I built nothing but civs till mid 1939...!
Gonna build up my cas to destroy Romania, wont have to invade through Italy as I will probably be able to capitulate them or at least anhilate their manpower by heading straight to Budapest. Then I am going to play around with some heavy tanks to crash through Italy then Germany. Then once I'm pretty much safe from threat i am gonna experiment on the eastern Japanese front with different infantry division types.
If all goes to plan it should net me 5 achievements though i am not sure whether I will do all the propaganda campaigns before 1945, I forgot and started them a bit late and haven't kept track of how many I've done.
Need to recruit loads of infantry divs and build forts all over my Asian borders so I have at least got a bit of buffer if I get a suprise invasion from somewhere, maybe build a load of forts. You can never have enoigh civs as Soviets, and I built nothing but civs till mid 1939...!
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Soldato
Five new achievements in this run, with two more to go, The Soviet Onion and the one to build a railway from Singapore to Gibraltar.
Performance in this new patch is really bad though, my game has ground to a complete halt so will be quite torturous to complete next two. Apart from UK, Europe is mine, just need to wipe Japanese from Asia, which shouldn't be too hard to grind down their manpower against mine across an enormous front. My Atlantic Wall is huge too, got scores of divisions protecting from Spain all the way to the Baltic. Its a shame really, I hope it gets better optimised, otherwise I will be needing a new CPU at some point.
Also very cheesily got the achievement of invading Germany as the USSR and suffering less than 1 million casualties - after the peace deal to beat the original Germany, Spain and Italy, I took most states but the UK puppetted a tiny Germany that I late reconquered when I went to war with them! Pretty sure its not what the devs intended but hey ho.
118/152
Performance in this new patch is really bad though, my game has ground to a complete halt so will be quite torturous to complete next two. Apart from UK, Europe is mine, just need to wipe Japanese from Asia, which shouldn't be too hard to grind down their manpower against mine across an enormous front. My Atlantic Wall is huge too, got scores of divisions protecting from Spain all the way to the Baltic. Its a shame really, I hope it gets better optimised, otherwise I will be needing a new CPU at some point.
Also very cheesily got the achievement of invading Germany as the USSR and suffering less than 1 million casualties - after the peace deal to beat the original Germany, Spain and Italy, I took most states but the UK puppetted a tiny Germany that I late reconquered when I went to war with them! Pretty sure its not what the devs intended but hey ho.
118/152
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Associate
Going to delve into this today, bought it, any advice for a new player, havent really played a game like this before, was always more into real time tactics games and real time strategy, this more like turn based ? cheers !!
Man of Honour
The beta patch addresses the performance issues.
Man of Honour
It's real time, but single player can pause as much as you like. Just play it slowly. Watch video tutorials, and practice with a smaller nation to begin with. Are you getting the DLC? I'd recommend, erm. All of them
Associate
no dlc yet, i'll get to grips with the base game first and see how i get on 
Soldato
Depends if you play historical or not. It also depends on how you want to play it, do you want to turn USA fascist and have a civil war? Do you want to invade France in 1938? You can kinda write your own story.
If playing historical, the time before the action kicks off must be spent wisely building your industry.
Understand that all the DLC together is expensive, but it really does enhance the experience so much.
If using Yourube video guides, try and find them within the past year as some of the earlier ones may be a little out of date but they won't be far off.
If playing historical, the time before the action kicks off must be spent wisely building your industry.
Understand that all the DLC together is expensive, but it really does enhance the experience so much.
If using Yourube video guides, try and find them within the past year as some of the earlier ones may be a little out of date but they won't be far off.
Soldato
A game restart actually made a lot of difference, it was much better today. Turning the screw in this world conquest against Japan now - they took a lot of east Asia and Russia. The supply issues are really debilitating though, as you would expect in mountainous areas of nowhere but my advances really are SLOW! After each little push you need to stop, buold your railways up etc and I am also having to build airbases and supply depots as east Asia has virtually nothing!
For expediency in this campaign I'm resorting to nuclear weapons to get this run over with. Got to get to Siam and build that damned railway, then release a load of puppets on my borders until I get the Soviet Onion achivement, massive grind this though.
Man of Honour
It's slow for sure, but it's realistic don't you think? I used to hate it when an armoured division could traipse all over the mountains unhindered. Or dozens of divisions could self-sustain in deepest Africa. It actually pays to use smaller divisions now, but with more in the way of support companies. Logistics is your friend.
When you look at the division maker now, you'll find that support companies have been given a percentage of "breakthrough" now, probably to counter the smaller size. So a division with 6 brigades but with all 5 support slots now has more breakthrough than an older division with 9 brigades.
When you look at the division maker now, you'll find that support companies have been given a percentage of "breakthrough" now, probably to counter the smaller size. So a division with 6 brigades but with all 5 support slots now has more breakthrough than an older division with 9 brigades.