Let's Sperg Kiwis at War, a Hearts of Iron Playthrough. -

[Strelok]

So, one of my favorite paradox series is coming back with it's fourth installment next week, Hearts of Iron. Now HoI3 was a game that I liken to complexity for complexities sake, where the various features were just people jamming shit in because they could. HoI4 however seems to be a return to the form brought out by the substantially better HoI2 as well as incorporating many of HoI3's improvements, such as a smaller scale for indidual combats.

So, with that in mind, I figure why not do a playthrough here, where you all help me decide various offensives, fallbacks, political decisions, and much more, as we attempt to either save the world or doom it in world war 2.

With that in mind, I've decided to list the best nations to play as so we can choose who to take the helm of.

In no particular order.

Germany - Heil Hitler! As Germany we will have many possible decisions to make, and the entire state of Europe will depend on us. While we can simply follow the Fuhrer's footsteps and attempt to conquer everything east of the Pyranees and west of the Pacific, we could also attempt to divert hostilities, perhaps forming an anti-communist pact with the Western powers instead.

France - Contrary to popular belief, France should have been able to hold Germany off for a long time, perhaps even invoking the sort of hellish battles the Soviets were known for. The problem was while their soldiers were willing and their technology pretty good, their commanders were complete retards. The Manigot Line, contrary to popular belief, actually did what it was supposed to, force the Germans to attack down a much narrower band, which makes it all the more spectacular that the French commanders couldn't stop the attack they knew would come. (In addition, the reason for not extending it past Belgium was because of various political, logistical, and especially engineering issues compounded by a high water table) With us at the helm, it may be possible to force Germany to truly fight a two front war, instead of a full war with the USSR, and just tossing airplanes at the UK.

Italy - Idiot leaders. Shitty equipment. Undersized divisions. Backwards uneducated civilians. And most of all, a treacherous bastard of international diplomacy that will turn at the drop of a hat. So, we could take over as Mousollini and try not to suck quite as hard as in real life. It should be noted Italy is the tutorial nation, but we won't be doing the tutorial as it sets the game on recruit difficulty.

Soviet Union - Massive frontline war against Germany is all but guaranteed, and the entire war effort would hinge on our performance. An intervention in China may also be possible, and there would always be the threat of Japan in the east. We also have the internal threat of the Trotskyists taking power and overthrowing Stalin though political intrigue.

Spain - Spain starts in the midst of a civil war between republicans and fascists both seeking to take control of the country. No matter who wins, we could easily take the country in several directions in the aftermath, and it should be noted that IRL Spain was always on the verge of joining the Axis, but never took the plunge for various reasons.

China - Get fucked by fractional warlords, then get fucked by Japan, and then get fucked by Commies. Actually attempting to stop all of this would be a hell of a ride, although we could convince Germany to back us instead of Japan.

With that said, here are some nations I will not play as no matter what

America - America, despite forming a massive part of the Allies even pre-war, funneling industrial output to the British and Soviets long before Pearl Harbor, are just dull as dirt to play as in HoI if you choose the earliest start, as you spend the first half of the entire game with your thumb up your ass hoping Japan finally fires the Tora! Tora! event and you can have some war.

Poland - Fuck you, that shit is impossible

United Kingdom/Glorious Nippon - Same reason for both. I'm just really not ready to tackle naval stuff on day 1. Italy is stretching it enough as it for me.

So, any thoughts, or suggestions for other nations to play as that would still be interesting?

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

I'll bite.

France would be cool. Though I've never seen them do well in an HoI game. Communist China would also be neat if you think you're good enough to do it. I know I'm not.

 

[Strelok]

So we're doing 1936 France, with the AI NOT set to historical focuses, which means it will do things ahistorically, and possibly break horribly. But it's more fun that way for a LP. However, we will not be going full retard if we can help it, so I'm not going to attempt to turn France commie or fascist in the early game or something else insane like that.

It should be noted even without AI focuses, the AI will still be following branching pre-set routines.

Anyway, let's look at our setup and then go to our first event. In 1936 France starts with 53 divisions on the continent, as well as 457 fighter planes, 44 naval bombers, and 204 tactical bombers.

The French Navy consists of 1 Carrier, 3 Battleships, 7 Heavy Cruisers, 7 Light Cruisers, 52 destroyers, and 57 submarines.

As shown by the red area, the Rhineland is a DMZ at the moment, but we can be sure the Germans will quickly be moving to test the waters. The border with Italy is less of a concern at the moment, but if they join the Axis we could see some issues.

For research, we will be focusing on infantry at the moment, to avoid expensive refitting later down the line. Improved support equipment is the main order, as well as better artillery. We are also researching the concept of large scale battle plans, a weakness in the last world war. This will give us a bonus to offensives later.

Meanwhile, on the production end, we're just going to be getting infantry divisions ready. They're cheap, easy to produce, and can help if things go south faster than expected. We're producing 4 infantry divisions in parrallel and on a repeating order, but will adjust if nessecary.

Now for the first decision, our national focuses. Nation Focuses replace the old event driven system, but function much the same way. They are various decisions and bonuses that determine how the nation will proceede. At the moment I'm going to narrow it down to our first mutually exclusive choices. A defensive focus that will eventually allow us to extend the fabled Maginot line to the Belgian border, which will secure us, but cause Belgium to dislike us and like the Germans, or to focus on an offensive army for a strong counter offensive.

So, what shall it be?

 

[RJ MacReady]

Aggressive Focus.

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

Play as The Polacks you wussy!

Seriously though, I love this game so much just wish you could give orders to your allies like they promised.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Fuck Belgium, they would get steamrolled by the Germans anyway, who gives a shit if they like you? The UK is the only ally you need right now until the Axis starts growing. I might be wrong, but since you're focusing on infantry it would be better to have them dug in hard anyway.

Move to extend the Maginot line as fast as you can and turn Northern France into a fortress. Only worry about Italy once they actually join the Axis. (The border is small anyway and I doubt they'll go through Switzerland.)

 

[Strelok]

Since we've got 1 for Agressive, and one for Defensive, we'll hold the decision off, and focus on something else for now. Each focus takes 70 days more or less, so we're not in a huge rush if Germany sticks to the schedule.

So, as you can see, for now the focus will be on building up the French Industry. While the bonuses from this aren't overmuch, they do still help, and the tree eventually results in another research slot, and the ability to start our own version of the Manhattan Project.

One pitfall I will point out is going too far in the focus tree. While parts of the focus tree may list very latewar techs, it should be noted all they do is reduce the research cost. So you're just grabbing bonuses far before they actually come into play. So no, getting "Jet Effort" by the end of 1939 won't actually mean we can field jets anytime soon.

With that in mind, it's time to organize the Continental Army. We're going to just do two, one to defend against any aggression from the Italians, and a second to cover the main border. Now, the Italians currently have 9 divisions on the Franco-Italian border, so in response our garrison will be 15 divisions. The remaining 38 divisions will be sent to the German/Belgian border. While that may seem overmuch focus on the Italians, again remember we are raising new troops and those will mostly be sent to the German border.

As of the 9th of January, here is the French Order of Battle. Feel free to suggest better army names. To clarify, the difference in HoI IV between Generals and Marshalls is that Generals can only command 24 divisions before penalties, and tend to have more specialized skills aimed twords specific unit types.

Army Group 1, lead by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny consisting of 15 Divisions guards the alpine passes to Italy. For all intents and purposes this should be an impenetrable barrier for the pasta eaters, at least unless they seriously increase their military might.

Meanwhile, Field Marshal Alphonse Georges leads the massive 2nd Army Group, consisting of 38 divisions. Like most of his compatriats, Alphonse is the textbook example of "generals always prepare for the last war", favoring entrenchment and letting the enemy come to him. However, with France's manpower losses, and the possibility to extend the Line, he may yet prove useful. Regardless, he is a skilled commander and will hopefully help us agaisnt the fascist menace.

Militarily, we can see the results of the Treaty of Versailles, as the Germans have almost no military presence in Wurttemburg, and none in the still DMZ'd Rhineland. The Swiss border of course needs no defense, and Luxembourg if it comes to it will be contracted into the natural lines. As it stands though, getting everyone into place will ensure if things DO kick off, they'll be ready.

However, I will touch on a point I raised earlier. Manpower. In HoI4, Manpower is every able bodied man that can be recruited into the armed services. This amount raises very slowly by population growth, representing the coming of age of the younger generations. The only way this can be signifigantly increased is through increasing the conscription laws, but this has a vast array of negitive effects. First off, you're recruiting people who for various reasons normally would be turned away. The older men, the slightly sickly, the less than bright. As such, especially new divisions will suffer penalties. In addition, you are pulling more and more of your industrial base out of factories and into combat.

So what's France's manpower at the start of the slow descent of Europe into another war?

As you can see, our total military manpower consists only of 1.01 million men, out of France's 1936 population of 41 million according to census data. This is expected to grow by 1.25k men every month. This means France has manpower issues.

However interesting news comes from Germany. Our intelligence agents have reported that Germany is looking into the "Westwall" strategy.

Inspired by our own Maginot Line, the damn krauts have decided to build their own. Weather this means they intend to focus on the Soviets, or send even more divisions through Belgium when they eventually attack is unknown however.

And finally, we end on the 6th of April, 1936. The Spanish Civil War has started. Fascist elements in the military of Spain, spurrned on by the recent election of a radical left wing coalition, have announced a coup, and are mobilizing to defeat the red menace from within their country, even if it means abandoning democracy. The republicans appear to be little more than Soviet puppets now that war has broken out, and should they stand victorious, it is questionable if democracy will return to Spain. Our people though, tired of war and conflict, do not see this as a matter that is pressing to us, and we are prevented from sending divisions as "volunteers" to assist. However, we can be sure the Nazis and Soviets will support their brethren. No matter who wins, a totalitarian Spain is ill news for France.

And so comes the end of this update. The Germans pursuing a defensive strategy, France attempting to pull its industry out of the depression era gutter, and Spain descending into anarchy. Where to next?

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Will you be spending any time defending your colonies?

I'm still for the impenetrable wall of death strategy. Lots of arty and forts along the border. The only thing I'd be worried about then is a German sea landing. Do you have the boats to deal with that?

 

[RJ MacReady]

I think a good offensive would be a kick in the dick for Nazi plans no matter what. It'd either force them to split their attention between us and the Soviets or complicate a concentrated attack on us.

Also, didn't the Nazi blitzkrieg have a serious vulnerability to air power? I'd say see what you can do for the Air Force.

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

Defence never won a war IMHO

get the armoured core upto snuff so you can smash the Krauts inevitable assault.

 

[ActualKiwi]

Will you be spending any time defending your colonies?

I'm still for the impenetrable wall of death strategy. Lots of arty and forts along the border. The only thing I'd be worried about then is a German sea landing. Do you have the boats to deal with that?

The Maginot Line strategy? It could be viable, given we're France.

 

[Strelok]

This LP is on hiatus untill paradox fixes the fucking lag bug that causes the game to completely bogg down for no reason at times.

 

[ActualKiwi]

This LP is on hiatus untill paradox fixes the fucking lag bug that causes the game to completely bogg down for no reason at times.

How bad are we talking?

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Has anyone figured out how to do a naval invasion? I have 3 whole armies ready to invade the UK but after setting up the naval invasion arrow, I never seem to be able to assign units to the objective. Is this a bug?

 

[ActualKiwi]

Has anyone figured out how to do a naval invasion? I have 3 whole armies ready to invade the UK but after setting up the naval invasion arrow, I never seem to be able to assign units to the objective. Is this a bug?

Haven't played yet, but maybe it's like Diplomacy and you need another unit to shuttle them to the invasion site?

 

[Wood Glue]

Has anyone figured out how to do a naval invasion? I have 3 whole armies ready to invade the UK but after setting up the naval invasion arrow, I never seem to be able to assign units to the objective. Is this a bug?

Only naval invasion I had to make as French was landing to Japan and it went like this:

[0. March your troops across Siberia]
1. Pick the units you want to do the invasion with
2. Draw your invasion squiggles to the map and press enter when done, transports are requisitioned from the convoy pool automatically
3. Wait for the invasion to prepare for month(s)
4. Send some naval units or air forces to recon the sea areas
5. Launch the invasion
6. Capture or build a port before you run out of supply

 

[Strelok]

Even with the beta patches I'm still having issues, and a bunch of the mods I'm running have irrevocably wrecked the save game, although it wasn't that far along. Plus there are AI issues that make an LP iffy.

However, with the announcement that Kaiserreich, the single greatest mod in the history of ever is being ported to HoI4, I'm thinking of instead doing a LP of Kaiserreich for Darkest Hour.

If we did that, would everyone be ok with this instead being a USA Kaiserreich LP? The USA in Kaiserreich actually has interesting pre-war things to do.

 

[RJ MacReady]

Even with the beta patches I'm still having issues, and a bunch of the mods I'm running have irrevocably wrecked the save game, although it wasn't that far along. Plus there are AI issues that make an LP iffy.

However, with the announcement that Kaiserreich, the single greatest mod in the history of ever is being ported to HoI4, I'm thinking of instead doing a LP of Kaiserreich for Darkest Hour.

If we did that, would everyone be ok with this instead being a USA Kaiserreich LP? The USA in Kaiserreich actually has interesting pre-war things to do.

Fine by me. I've never played any Paradox game and I'd just like to see how a forum LP would turn out.

 

[Strelok]

Crap, I completely forgot that Darkest Hour is 16 bit color, which means getting screenshots out of it is a complete PITA.

So instead we're back to square 1, and we'll just power through this, and if the game starts fucking up immensely, we're along for the ride. Expect AI oddity, border gore, and for everything to explode in a big ball of fire. Ok, so I'll just get us back up to speed where we were.

 

[Strelok]

Ok back where we started. Same army choices, same production, same focuses. Germany appears to be going for the Westwall again to, so all's good. We're again gonna stop at the Spanish Civil War's start.

However I will note the mods I'm using. Or the important ones anyway. One adds no man's land to certain areas that would be unpassable by troops and uninhabitible by humans IRL, such as the Sahara. Another adds historical flags and better nation names, especially for alt history nations. Another adds historical photos instead of the drawn portraits or the generic pictures, although it's only up to C nations for minors. A few others are graphical touchups, more NATO counters, and so on.

We also are adding a commander to the African theater. That would be General Alphonse Juin, a certified badass who lost his arm in WW1. During the collapse of the French front at the start of WW2, he held out against the Germans long enough to help the evacuation of Dunkirk, and his men fought till they literally ran out of ammo and were captured. After France fell, he was recognized as a baddass, and was put in charge of the fascist Vichy French forces in North Africa. Then as soon as the British and Americans arrived during Operation Torch, he turned traitor and kicked the German's asses again despite not trusting the Americans nearly as much as his mistrusted the Germans. He has control of the 14 African divisions, which are given the order to garrison the three port cities of Casablanca, Algeirs, and Tunis.

And.. Germany just threw us for a loop. They, after doing the Reichsautobahn focus, switched over to Re-militarizing the Rhineland. Which means we have our first decision way earlier than I thought we would.

So, here's the breakdown. If we tell Germany to piss off, we ask the British to back us up. If they do, we join the Allies, which precludes us from re-forming the Little-Entente, which could help prevent eastern Germany expansion. In addition, if Britian doesn't back us up, Germany may decide it can call our bluff, and France is so fucked from the last war this could trigger a civil war. We are currently only at 15% national unity due to a workers strike and the recent elections, and attempting military posturing will further incense our war weary populace, bringing us to only 10% unity (the lowest it can go, 90% is highest IIRC). Which means if Germany declares against us, the Communists will almost assuredly overthrow the Republic.

So, what do we do?