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.
Messpublican Spain’s a bad start for a newbie to party in. Playing Romania, Hungary, Italy, or one of the majors might be an easier experience to learn with.
A lot of the game comes down to logistics, strategies, and army composition. Build up your civ then mil factories, never keep default brigade formations, prioritize getting your army armed with basic wargear first and fancy stuff like airplanes and tanks later. An underarmed army or an army with very few brigades are easy to get steamroller with.
Infantry armies are meant to hold the line and be the Cliff face that breaks the oncoming waves of enemy, attacking with them is a waste of manpower and equipment - barring circumstances such as superiorly designed and equipped brigades, holes in the enemy’s line that you can snatch up without compromising your own line of defense, or to tie up and hold the enemy’s forces from moving if you have an armored unit attempting a breakthrough and encirclement movement.
And so forth and so on. sniff
Infantry armies are meant to hold the line and be the Cliff face that breaks the oncoming waves of enemy, attacking with them is a waste of manpower and equipment
When attacking, infantry are necessary to hold down enemy divisions so your faster units (and more infantry) can exploit breakthroughs.
- Choose break through points, something poorly defended, plains are ideal.
- Send your breakthrough units to attack there .
- Attack every single enemy unit in the line with the infantry, it’s fine if they’re losing.
- Send fast units+infantry through the gap you’ve created and surround those units your infantry are holding down.
- Close noose and repeat.
Infantry armies are meant to hold the line and be the Cliff face that breaks the oncoming waves of enemy, attacking with them is a waste of manpower and equipment - barring circumstances such as superiorly designed and equipped brigades, holes in the enemy’s line that you can snatch up without compromising your own line of defense, or to tie up and hold the enemy’s forces from moving if you have an armored unit attempting a breakthrough and encirclement movement.
last part of the sentence bruh
You have to prioritize breakthrough in specific tiles for strategic purposes.
There are like 2 primary ways to destroy an enemy frontline. Either go around or bust thru. If you aren’t fast enough to get around your opponent with trucks and tanks, you need breakthrough and heavy firepower to force your enemy off tiles.
That requires compositions you probably don’t have access to at the start. If you have any trucks or light tanks I would send them to your edges and try to overwhelm a flank with the majority of your forces. As the line faces resistance you can keep going wide or find a spot in the line that’s weak and manually select units to push those tiles
Be glad that it’s not HOI3. That shit was insane.
If you’re just starting out, I would absolutely not start with Republican Spain. They start at a disadvantage and, at least in my experience, require you to micro your divisions in order to actually get anywhere. Also, a lot depends on how much support both sides are getting from the major powers. The major powers will be much more beginner friendly. The Soviet Union is pretty good because you’ll have about 5 years of prep time before you get into a meaningful war, and by then you’ll probably have done the winter war which will give you some practice in using front lines and battle orders.
Do I have to babysit certain battalions/armies to sit and wait until they’re organized and the pincer enemy positions?
If you want to micro your units, this is pretty much how you do it. It’s a lot easier if you have tanks or motorized to do it
I would highly recommend you look up videos on parts you’re confused about as you go, there’s a ton to learn about this game. I have 1,500+ hours and I still feel like I’m missing a lot. I’ll put some basic tips here so that combat is less frustrating. Division templates are very important, they’re what dictate the stats of your divisions. For various reasons that I still don’t quite understand, divisions should have a width of either 20 or 40. A generally good infantry division would look like 7 infantry battalions and 2 artillery battallions, or 14 inf/4 arty. Add support companies if you can afford them, I typically go with Signal, Engineers, Recon, AT, Support Artillery. For armored divisions you want something like 5 motorized or mechanized infantry and 5 tanks (medium is good all around, light is fast, I don’t know much about heavy). You can up this to 40 width by just going 10/10. For armored support companies I would probably do Engineers, Recon, Signal, Maintenance, and Support Artillery. I generally don’t deviate from these but you definitely can, these are just some decent divisions with good stats that make sure you’re hitting 20 or 40 width. The best land doctrine right now is Superior Firepower, and when you come to the decisions go Integrated Support and Shock and Awe. Last thing, the air war is SO important if you can afford an airforce. Air superiority over a zone grants something like +25% combat bonus, or something like that.
I hope this helps somewhat. HoI4 is very fun once you get a handle on it, especially with the plethora of mods available, but there’s a very steep learning curve.
For various reasons that I still don’t quite understand, divisions should have a width of either 20 or 40.
Combat width (which determines how many divisions you can have actively doing damage in a fight) is always a multiple of 20, so 20-width divisions ensure none of it is wasted and you can always bring maximum firepower to bear.
Anyone who is trying to learn, I’d be happy to join your game and teach while handling some fronts/aspects of your country until you’re ready to take the reigns.
DM me your steam name when you’re and if I’m on I’ll add you.
I’m good with TNO, EoW, KR, or OWB if you want to jump right to mods.
I’m using the legit version, but if you can figure out how to make mp work on a pirated version via hamachi or whatever, that’s fine too.
