Hearts of Iron IV - The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game

[Raghar]

So I discovered that carriers do not give airsupport during a naval invasion support mission. Which is the stupid and really counter-intuitive. Not sure why Paradox doesn't allow that. I guess they don't watch war movies?

You are supposed to park CV group near and select mission and air zone manually. How a carrier group should know which invasion should support?
BTW HoI2 also didn't have automatic CV support. You had naval barrage from battleships.

You could park, but then you lose naval supremacy for that fleet. Which is a problem. Apparently fleets on hold don't detect nor engage enemy fleets, which is kind of silly.

Well, if a CV group is supporting invasion, it wants to be away from any naval action hidden far away from the enemy. Thus CVs that are used to support land attack, and theirs escort ships definitely don't want to participate in any naval combat in the sector.

But of course the whole idea of letting a fleet siting in the port and blocking an invasion because of some naval supremacy number. That's totally bogus and they invented that ad hoc solution because AI was keeping successfully invading UK, which Paradox didn't bother to garrison.

 

[Average Manatee]

Unfortunately normal air missions are not really balanced for CVs. To make a significant impact in CAS or Air superiority you need, like, 500 planes minimum. To have that many planes active launched from carriers you'd need like the entire end game USA fleet in 1945 doomstacked together. Absent that you're only sending up like 100 planes which are gonna do nothing vs. more efficient and powerful and numerous land planes.

You could try mongolia.

Interesting meme idea. Unfortunately you need naval XP for marines. And starting with 1 mil factory is... a bit of a joke even if I have efficient divisions.

 

[Joggerino]

So I discovered that carriers do not give airsupport during a naval invasion support mission. Which is stupid and really counter-intuitive. Not sure why Paradox doesn't allow that. I guess they don't watch war movies?

You guys put cas on carriers?

 

[Raghar]

So I discovered that carriers do not give airsupport during a naval invasion support mission. Which is stupid and really counter-intuitive. Not sure why Paradox doesn't allow that. I guess they don't watch war movies?

You guys put cas on carriers?

CAS are critical for naval invasions on heavily fortified islands. They are also nice for support of combat units in China.

The only problem is you need these carriers for naval battles. So it typically ends as duty of older CV classes.
In addition, when you want to invade some island as New Zeland, like Indonesia, Siam, or Ceylon. Carrier CAS are critical. Last time I tried that I had two CV each carrying 20 airpanes. 10 FIG + 10 CAS, and 20 CAS. And it helped immensely to kill enemies.

I'm still not sure if CV that carries only 20 (or 18) aircraft isn't too much ghetto. It's cheaper than high end CA, but 40 aircraft carrying CV cost about as much as high end CA and it can be doable even for New Zeland, India, Manchu, or similar. ComChi obviously goes for 50+ size of CV, or 100+ CV. But faster way to win against Japan navy as ComChi is fighting asymetrically and protect Bejing area by NAV, FIG, and SUBs.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

CAS also help in ship battles, but they aren't as good as Naval Bombers.
So really for your combat carriers you should have Fighters and Bombers and for Invasion Carriers you should have fighters and CAS. Well, assuming Fighters actually do something during naval battles.

 

[Joggerino]

So I discovered that carriers do not give airsupport during a naval invasion support mission. Which is stupid and really counter-intuitive. Not sure why Paradox doesn't allow that. I guess they don't watch war movies?

You guys put cas on carriers?

CAS are critical for naval invasions on heavily fortified islands. They are also nice for support of combat units in China.

The only problem is you need these carriers for naval battles. So it typically ends as duty of older CV classes.
In addition, when you want to invade some island as New Zeland, like Indonesia, Siam, or Ceylon. Carrier CAS are critical. Last time I tried that I had two CV each carrying 20 airpanes. 10 FIG + 10 CAS, and 20 CAS. And it helped immensely to kill enemies.

I'm still not sure if CV that carries only 20 (or 18) aircraft isn't too much ghetto. It's cheaper than high end CA, but 40 aircraft carrying CV cost about as much as high end CA and it can be doable even for New Zeland, India, Manchu, or similar. ComChi obviously goes for 50+ size of CV, or 100+ CV. But faster way to win against Japan navy as ComChi is fighting asymetrically and protect Bejing area by NAV, FIG, and SUBs.

I guess my AI opponents are just too stupid because my marines steamroll everything (with shore bombardment support). Otherwise I'd use medium bombers because I like to streamline my army composition.

 

[Joggerino]

CAS also help in ship battles, but they aren't as good as Naval Bombers.
So really for your combat carriers you should have Fighters and Bombers and for Invasion Carriers you should have fighters and CAS. Well, assuming Fighters actually do something during naval battles.

But you'd need to manually send those carrier cas to ground attack an air region and their range is limited. Just seems like a hassle to me...

 

[Average Manatee]

Is there any good use for medium airframes? Seems smaller ones just do everything more efficiently and you give them more fuel tanks if you want the range.

 

[sser]

Is there any good use for medium airframes? Seems smaller ones just do everything more efficiently and you give them more fuel tanks if you want the range.

I use them as the U.S.A. You can also get advanced versions way ahead of time because of the 300% focus. The range is what you need to fight in Pacific, bomb Europe, and invariably fight Russia if you go into the 'post-game.' I only put a few factories on regular fighters/CAS to pair up with the armies. The rest of enemy aircraft are fighting the bombers/escort fighters or else the entire industrial center will be completely smashed. You can also put them on long-range scout planes, though I've never figured out if those things are even worth investing in or not; a lot of the details concerning intel is vague.

 

[Raghar]

CAS also help in ship battles, but they aren't as good as Naval Bombers.
So really for your combat carriers you should have Fighters and Bombers and for Invasion Carriers you should have fighters and CAS. Well, assuming Fighters actually do something during naval battles.

But you'd need to manually send those carrier cas to ground attack an air region and their range is limited. Just seems like a hassle to me...

That's because Paradox don't care about game ballance. In some versions attacking against well entrenched army full of shore fortification is suicide without using amphib armored tanks.

 

[sser]

A bit bored so trying out new USA strats:

Spoiler

- Infra/Civs until August of 1938 which is where I get wake the giant. Usually got 150+ civs by then.
- Build 1 CV slot specifically for Naval CAS, using the cheap Escort Carrier variant. Dedicate it to Naval Invasion Support fleets. (For funsies.)
- Focus on Synthetic industries for Rubber. Get the Focus for that to boost the last two research slots. Build a lot of refineries.
- Get Mechanized up and early. Get Patton/Hodges w/ 20+ mechanized divisions by 1941.
- Get 1940 Heavy Fighters up and early --> research into 1944 sometime around 1942 using Focus x300% boost.
- Only need two advisors: -15% Consumers, and then Workhorse later on. Others are a waste of PP because:
- Spend assloads of PP/civs on developing resources; pay attention to the days spent on these as they go from 30-60-90-etc.
- Goal is to maintain Free Trade for its big production bonuses which is then paired with:
- Start with General Electric, but switch to General Motors for 5%+ production and also start Industrial research way ahead, sometimes 1year ahead.
- Get all the chief of staff guys later. Relief of Command makes them very cheap. Military advisors can be whatever.
- Constantly sell old or surplus equipment on the markets for free civs.


This route probably isn't min-maxed at all or even great, but it's made the USA military way different come 1941. Hyper focused on Marines+Paratroopers & Mechanized Infantry w/ motorized arty/anti-tank. Because I have ample Rubber, the rest of industry goes right into planes and more slots than usual go to dockyards so I can flood the oceans. What I've ended up with is a slightly smaller airforce, albeit a far more advanced one; a smaller but far more mechanized army; and a much larger navy. The main experiment is to see what these industries look like come 1943ish when I start swapping civs to mils and if I can maintain Free Trade.


What I lose out on is simply the vast quantities. In my ordinary USA runs I just min-max mil factories and have so much material on hand I lend lease thousands of trucks, tanks, planes, weapons, etc. to all the Allies while I go beat up on Japan. I also don't have to spend large sums on the Division Designer to get the mechanized up and running. Doing something different's been fun, though.


Update, 1year into war. Japanese fleet pretty much nuked 6months in, which is kinda stupid as that's also the time when Japan has a ton of bonuses.

I'm actually vomiting out so many boats and planes at the moment that I had to trade for fuel from Venezuela and that's with a substantial amount of oil coming in from refinery spam.

Heavy Fighters + Bombers are blanketing the entirety of Germany proper while big fuck huge stick of navies run around the Pacific, Med, and Atlantic smashing anything that splish-splashes into the water. I'm not sure what the point of the conversion advisor is: without him I still convert civs to mils almost instantly. I still only have 2 advisors. I built up everything so fast that I went ahead and built up every island, and everything for my Allies. All the industrial stuff is researched by Fall of 1942.

BTW, that 1-aircraft in the battle below is worth two lives, because after that fight my casualty ticked up to 127.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

sser Honestly it doesn't matter what you do with US. Just for lulz I tried couple of times to make AI Japan actually dangerous by boosting them with console (infrastructure, factories, research, equipment etc) and giving them production bonuses with Strengthen Japan slider, they still literally never do anything and can barely make it to Australia.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

They had the free weekend this week (still ongoing) so I loaded it all up and I totally remembered I hate this game and uninstalled.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

So, about The New Order: Last Days of Europe...
Is it still a boring visual novel that awkwardly mixes memes with attempts to create more serious history, ultimately ending with the morale "Nazism is bad?"

My only interest in this mod was because I wanted a more complex economy in Hearts of Iron. However, while boring stories can be clicked through and clumsy UIs can be learned, new mechanics are both fascinating when they work and very annoying when they don't, which is more often the case.

The mod team should stop debating whether Reformed Nazism is qualitatively different from Orthodox Nazism and finally fix their own game. They behave like Paradox who prefers National Goals as a replacement for properly functioning diplomacy and economics.

 

[sser]

sser Honestly it doesn't matter what you do with US. Just for lulz I tried couple of times to make AI Japan actually dangerous by boosting them with console (infrastructure, factories, research, equipment etc) and giving them production bonuses with Strengthen Japan slider, they still literally never do anything and can barely make it to Australia.

TBH as any of the majors you can pretty much fuck around; with USA I just like to figure out how to economically minmax the most efficient military possible. If I want to have some fun, I'll do things like build only civs until 1940, not support the Philippines at all, and just sorta let Japan run around for a year or two before actually engaging them.

I do think AI Japan in general needs a rework. I've only 1 game in memory, over hundreds of hours, where they went hogwild and conquered all of SE/China/India/etc. Right now, it seems like a lot of focuses are timed poorly, such that Germany is overly aggressive out the gate, but then launches Barbarossa very late (and gets nowhere), and Italy gets too quickly brought into the war with the Allies, so they get rinsed from Africa very quickly. Japan attacks the U.S. in August every single time and then launches into SE Asia way too late, if at all. This keeps rubber supplies freely in Allied hands. I still think the game very poorly demonstrates the utility of islands. They need to implement stronger naval supremacy via geography or something. Like the naval supremacy around Japan itself can be swept away and the home islands invaded almost immediately; same for UK, as well. It's just silly. If you hold the majority of islands in a sea lane, you should then get very large intel bonuses if fighting naval battles there. Islands like England, Malta, Crete, the Philippines, Taiwan, Iwo Jima, etc. should confer large advantages into their surrounding oceanic/air territories.

 

[Raghar]

I just had massive fight with US over Halifax. US nuked Halifax about 3x. And Italians meanwhile occupied Washington and some other areas of US because US AI tough prioritizing me and fighting over Canadian capital is smart idea.

sser Honestly it doesn't matter what you do with US. Just for lulz I tried couple of times to make AI Japan actually dangerous by boosting them with console (infrastructure, factories, research, equipment etc) and giving them production bonuses with Strengthen Japan slider, they still literally never do anything and can barely make it to Australia.

TBH as any of the majors you can pretty much fuck around; with USA I just like to figure out how to economically minmax the most efficient military possible. If I want to have some fun, I'll do things like build only civs until 1940, not support the Philippines at all, and just sorta let Japan run around for a year or two before actually engaging them.

I do think AI Japan in general needs a rework. I've only 1 game in memory, over hundreds of hours, where they went hogwild and conquered all of SE/China/India/etc. Right now, it seems like a lot of focuses are timed poorly, such that Germany is overly aggressive out the gate, but then launches Barbarossa very late (and gets nowhere), and Italy gets too quickly brought into the war with the Allies, so they get rinsed from Africa very quickly. Japan attacks the U.S. in August every single time and then launches into SE Asia way too late, if at all. This keeps rubber supplies freely in Allied hands. I still think the game very poorly demonstrates the utility of islands. They need to implement stronger naval supremacy via geography or something. Like the naval supremacy around Japan itself can be swept away and the home islands invaded almost immediately; same for UK, as well. It's just silly. If you hold the majority of islands in a sea lane, you should then get very large intel bonuses if fighting naval battles there. Islands like England, Malta, Crete, the Philippines, Taiwan, Iwo Jima, etc. should confer large advantages into their surrounding oceanic/air territories.

Well if US is not penalized for fortifying Philippines in an obvious preparation for war with Japan. If US is not penalized for using it's industry for obvious preparation for entry into a war. Then obviously there is some drastic imbalance in HoI4.

Could Roosevelt declare some war on German, or Japan, or Italy or Australia without being impeached for dragging US into dumb war? Remember when US senators smell money, Senate is ruled by a War Party. But if Roosevelt has like zero excuses why would they by able to rob Japan/Germany/UK legally. Well, they would simply block Roosevelt decision, or impeach him for having 3rd term when only 2 terms are legal.

Look at historical economic situation. Imagine what would happen when US would get into war, and then US would no get the costs they spend back. Historically Stalin said US/UK demands for unconditional capitulation is craziness, it would only force enemies to fight to the death, and that would only prolong war without any sensible gain. But west decided, robbed Germany, hanged German leaders who didn't commit suicide, re-educated population into thinking the whole war was fault of some nazi leaders (and possibly also theirs fault as well)... Population got indoctrinated by a guilt.

Basically US would damage it's economy by war without getting anything in return. (Aside of gratefulness of UK and France... Czechs hated US and UK for throwing them to Germany, and Slovakians were happy with attention of BIG MULTICULTURAL WESTERN STATE that deals with mere Slovakians. Russians would see capitalists murdering each other for no sensible reason whatever.)

The problem is Paradox didn't make enough sinks for US civilian factories, and didn't try to nerf pre-war US in a interesting way.
Frankly US had its economic interests in China, but these interests were by US businessmen. And why would US impoverish itself for some businessmen?

 

[sser]

Not sure I fully understood that post, but I do think the only country that plays with any feeling of historicity to it is the Soviet Union, as the maluses and focuses combined get reasonably close to the real-world situation. You can try to min-max, but the maluses do not magically go away, nor are there any magic exit points or gameification. You also have a lot of in-game decisions to make, there's always something to do, always something to balance out, a pull/push feeling to running it. Most other countries you can min-max almost instantly and completely ignore historical precedents. It's more or less up to an experienced player to set the parameters to be what they want. Otherwise it's just too gamey (like doing a world conquest with a handful of divs level of gamey). If all the Majors got reworks in line with the quality of the Soviet Union, it would really help the game a lot.

 

[Raghar]

And there is an example of a current HoI4 multiplayer balance. As everyone see, Finland conquered Leningrad. And Germans used this as a distraction to conquer Moscow in 1942 with mere 12 tank divisions.

Russia lost 20 tank divisions somewhere. And German's player performance was called we didn't see such lame Germany for a while. (Shortly before Russia folded, German player was heard saying I need to make equipment before I'd be able to start new offensive.)