How the FUCK do you play this game? I’ve played Hearts 2 years ago in high school and it didn’t feel as absolutely daunting as this one. I’m playing as Spain during the revolution (which just might be a hard campaign) and everything ends up as a stalemate with the fascists until I run out of supplies.
Setting up AI attacks seems goofy and difficult. Is there a better way to organize/run armies? Do I have to babysit certain battalions/armies to sit and wait until they’re organized and the pincer enemy positions? Like I said, Hearts 2 seemed really straightforward and I never really had issues defeating like, the fucking Nazi’s in Stalingrad or killing Argentina as Brazil.
This might not work because HoI4 doesn’t simulate all these elements, but here are some tips based on Felix Morrow’s account of the war:
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CNT and POUM leadership joined the popular front alongside the succdems, Communist Party, and libs. Assuming you’re playing one of these parties, don’t do this.
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Cooperate with Trotskyists in a united-front capacity if that option is available; MLs will go full sectarian and use covert tactics to kill your revolution for fear of pissing off England and France.
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If you’re playing as POUM, purge the Maurinite right-oppositionist elements of the party, or split from POUM and join the 4th International.
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If you’re playing as CNT, don’t let the CNT’s syndie tendency railroad you into fetishizing trade unions at the cost of building other aspects of working-class power.
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Promote friendly relations with French socialists (besides the useless CP of France) in opposition to the liberal and fascist factions there. Make agitprop appeals to the people living in the territory controlled by Franco (including Morocco!). Make appeals to Moroccans sympathetic to independence from Spain on the same basis as you appeal to those fighting for Catalonia’s independence.
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If the game railroads you into the popular front, address the grievances raised by Libertarian Youth of Catalonia and Friends of Durruti.
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Commies will actively sabotage and attempt to purge the most forward-thinking elements of the workers’ militias. They will sabotage circulation of CNT and POUM newspapers to slow the spread of important news.
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Make absolutely sure to have full working-class control of the press, the financial levers, land, and trade and customs. DO NOT let the liberal elements of the popular front seize control of these from the CNT or POUM.
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Keep the working-class armed, and disarm the liberal police and military, folding loyal soldiers into the workers’ militias. Don’t let the libs ban soldiers from being members of political parties. Make every decision possible to prevent the libs from disarming the workers or letting them fold workers’ militias into their military command.
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Never stop developing instruments of dual power before you’re ready to deal the finishing blow to the capitalist and fash enemies’ bases of power. Keep the workers’ councils running smoothly, and keep workers’ and peasants’ morale up by not betraying them. Your window of opportunity from mid-1936 to early 1937 is quite short. You want ironclad working-class control to progress from dual power to full socialist revolution.
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Do Not send only worker-militamen to the front lines and let the liberal military’s soldiers hang back. They will fucking notice and resent leadership.
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If you consistently fuck up and let the May Days happen, you’re all but doomed to lose the war.
For reference this advice is more of a stress test for the verisimilitude of HoI4’s war simulations than it is likely to actually work within the parameters of the game. I have never played HoI4.
As cool as this would be, unfortunately none of this is represented in the base game.
You have got to be fucking kidding me. Seriously? None of them? How the fuck do they model the path to victory for the Red Army in the Russian Civil War then? That was more or less the strategy Lenin and Trotsky used (or tried to use) to beat the Whites and the imperialists (minus the parts about the 3rd international being a counterrevolutionary element, and swapping out a few of the proper nouns).
