The best kittens, technology, and video games blog in the world.

Monday, August 08, 2016

HOI4 USA AAR

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-12 01:37:23 UTC


Watching the world burn, or Democratic USA campaign.

The obvious way would be to go brown or red (I even have Trump/Sanders mod), but I might try Democratic game for a change.

USA starts triple wrecked, none removable except by focus buttons:
• disarmed nation: 1% recruitable population
• undisturbed isolation: consumer goods factories +40%, civ/mil construcition speed -50%
• great depression: recruitable population factor -50%, consumer goods factories +30%, daily mana -1

A small upside is that we have free trade, which gives +15% military factory output, +15% construction speed, -10% research time, and 80% of our abundant resources go to the market. We might have to lower it to export focus (50% resources exported, +10% factory output, +10% construction speed, -5% research time), but these are the good laws, limited exports/closed economy are pretty crap.

So in total we have:
• cidiculous 70% of our factories going to goods (vs 15% at war economy)
• -35% construction speed
• +15% military factory output
• -10% research time
• 0.5% recruitable pop
• 20% of own resources
• zero spare mana after we do our focus

A minor upside is that construction speed and factory output modifiers are applied to base not total, so after researching a few construction techs the penalty will naturally get smaller. Oh and construction penalties don't apply to dockyards, so I could technically build those, as I even plan to do a bit of naval warfare, but let's be serious - navies are currently irrelevant, so civ factory spam it is.

And then playing on speed five.
• I got to civilian economy (down to just 60% consumer goods) and volunteer only army (0.70% recruitable pop due to strange rounding, should be 0.75% I think)
• France joined Allies
• Poland seems to be starting Miedzymorze
• Franco won civil war
• Japan attacked China
• Soviets got civil war

So far I haven't bothered to build anything of military value - no military factories, no division template changes, nothing. A few light carriers to keep dockyards busy only.

I don't think I'm going to go 7mnt+2art. Maybe I should try something cute, like 7mot+2mspart. More traditional way would be to go 7marines+2mspart or even just 7marines+2art as I'm going to be invading by sea a lot more than fighting in the mountains, and plain infantry is just not that great. (mot later to be upgraded to mechanized)

Then I could use 5mot5mtank as my tank divisions, or possibly something smaller like 3mot2mtank.

I don't plan to get involved in the war early unless something really drastic happens, like fall of the UK. 1941 or 1942 for intervention probably, maybe even a bit later.

 #hoi4



Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-12 03:43:08 UTC


• I got confused about focuses, Poland took "Poland first", but not the following one which lets it create a faction, so it ended up joining the Allies after all.
• Soviets won civil war - I'd be very surprised if it was possible to get it otherwise, it's RNG for AI to choose it, and then player would need to send a crap ton of divisions for rebels to have a shot. Germans sent some, but not enough to stop immediate collapse.
• Hungary and Italy joined the Axis
• Japan annexed China, getting world tension to 100%.

Then fun stuff started - Finland rejected Soviet demands, Soviets declared on Finland, then because of world tension Finland joined the Axis and Axis-Comintern war begun!

Japan took Northern Expansion (CB on Soviets) which is exclusive with focus buttons giving it CBs on Allies. Then it declared its independent war on the Soviets, and joined the Axis merging the wars.

You know what? I need to prepare for war, but the only way to get rid of my horrible penalties is to be at war with one of original major powers (can't even use trick to declare on "major" Mongolia). So how about I'll fabricate on Soviets - at 100% world tension I can fabricate on whomever I like as long as they generated some world tension.

For let's say Crimea! Of course Crimea is ridiculously far away, so I invaded that tiny island next to Kamchatka, then Kamchatka itself - where I quickly built a small port, just to show the voters it's a real war.

Fortunately that got rid of great depression, I switched to war economy, and bonuses started rolling in.

My phoney war escalated as Italy attacked Greece and Greece joined Comintern. France guaranteed Greece, so it joined Comintern's war on Axis - but without any of their Allies. Then Luxembourg joined the Comintern after getting attacked by Germany.

It looks like this was going to backfire spectacularly and I'd end up at war with Netherlands and Belgium and everybody else... UK invited me to Allies second time, which I took this time, and called them all into war against Comintern.

And then a huge WTF happened, France capitulated, and that separate peaced it out of the war. Ouch, so if members of two factions are in same way on same side, it only waits for every major of given faction to surrender, not all majors. That is really painful.

I finished industrial expansion plan with 185 civilian factories (plus 32 net from trade), and started building military factories (up to 82 now), which would slowly get their production lines going, which would then build equipment, which I'd then use to build an actual army.

So far I have 7 motorized regulars (7mot 2mspart) and 10 armored (3mot 3mtank) divisions so far, all underequipped, and weird thing I discovered is that division missing even just a few tanks or sparts moves at infantry speed. Ouch.

I'd probably need at least 200 fully equipped divisions to seriously consider getting into war against the Axis. There's no point actually fighting war against Soviets, that would only strengthen the Axis. My Kamchatka might at some point be useful for rolling tanks into China, but that's really far away.

 #hoi4

That's the nastiest non-player Axis I've seen and I'm at war with Comintern, so I'll have to wreck a lot.


WW2 begun. Also testing endonym country names mod


We showed them!


Russian menace


This is a real war, not just PR to sell war bonds as conspiracy theorists claim


France is up to good start before surrendering




Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-12 14:13:29 UTC


In patch 1.0 Japan-China usually stalled - or Japan would win but after years of slow war. In 1.1 Japan usually crushes China very quickly, sending world tension to 100% way faster than it was designed for. By the time countries press their pre-war focus buttons, like Italian annexation of Albania (in my previous campaign, I had to reload and work around it), or Soviet claims on Finland (in this one), these buttons cause everyone-vs-everyone world war instead of localized conflict.

It's not a huge deal if you rush into action as most red/brown countries do, but if have to wait for world events, this fast world tension (and very strong Axis) really messes things up.

I got impatient with Comintern attack, but things were progressing much too fast.

I massively ramped up military production, and I had to click on trade screen every week or so. It was far more obnoxious than in a typical game.

I ended up replacing Roosevelt by Willkie, of whom I've never heard in my life.

I discovered that supply system doesn't care about number of naval bases in supply region, just the highest level naval base - so a good amount of my construction in Kamchatka was wasted.

I also discovered that logistics companies are not that great when allies decide to send their crappy troops to land in Kamchatka and eat your supplies. Overall I'm not impressed by mot/mspart, classic 7mnt2art would probably work better in hard terrain.

My plan was that I'd wait for Poland (on our side, at war with Soviets) to fall, following fairly inevitable fall of Finland (on Axis side), giving Germans and Soviets nice big border and great opportunity to start bleeding each other to death, but neither will be able to realistically win. By the time I'd get into the war, I'd be able to just roll over everybody with my tanks.

It turns out that Soviets massively underperformed, and Poland and Finland both took tons of land from them instead. So I guess best I can do is just finish Soviet war, and hope Poland takes Moscow first, so good share of spoils comes to our side. Right now it seems Soviets will be divided about equally 3-way between Germany, Japan, and Poland.

 #hoi4





Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-12 17:50:53 UTC


G+ seems to be deleting captions I put for screenshots. I wonder for how long it's been going.

I was getting zero value out of high speed divisions, the stack of penalties they suffer from in Siberia makes them move at minimum speed, except they consume a lot more supplies. On the other hard replacing art with mspart gave my divisions unpenetrable armor, so that part was probably worth it.

So here's new army composition:
• 7 marines 2 mspart
• 3 mtank 3 mot
• 5 para - because Japan isn't going to invade itself

Soviet Union collapsed, and weirdly Poland took most of it. By the time I got my choices, there was almost nothing left, so I took 2 states in Far East, and weirdly Crete.

So now I have army of 128 real divisions, so there are only two questions:
• How to position it for the final war
• How to trigger the war

 #hoi4

I tried to grab a few more victory points


Polska strong


This is enormous Axis


Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-13 13:30:06 UTC


I had really cute battle plans, but it turns out that truces last 1 month, and it takes like half a year to move troops around, all of them of course taking paths to Alaska by road, then between Japanese islands, so if I let AI handle that, so I'd lose all my troops before the war even started.

I also expected that they'd need to fabricate fresh CBs, which takes fairly long time when at peace, even at 100% tension. In fact Bulgaria starts fabricating one right away, with 6 months time, which sounds like perfectly sensible to move troops in place.

Unfortunately Germany somehow keeps its CB on Greece, it has one month truce with it, and any attacked country is of course guaranteed to join opposing faction and restart world war. It's a mess.

Of course if I had any idea whatsoever, I'd have placed my troops in proper places like Raj, Philippines, and Suez years ago (the only unknown was Kamchatka area) - I just assumed the game to be reasonable, silly me.

Well, the game is what it is, so I manually moved anyone I could within 40 days, and the rest just to the nearest halfway point like San Diego or Hawaii - they'll continue by taking the long safe way to Raj through Australia, or wait for Japanese fleet to get hopefully wrecked.

This one month truce timer also means that however few divisions my allies have, they probably won't make it home in time, so Germany can just walk right in and take over the rest of Europe.

And even worse - when they inevitably take Poland, all Siberia will become German, as it's connected to Polish capital (so won't continue fighting past surrender) but not cored (so counts as nothing for victory point reasons), which is an uniquely bad combination. I feel they should fix that, but I'm not entirely sure what would be the "fix".

And as if I didn't have enough problems, now the game tells me I need huge amounts of convoys for supplies for troops I sent overseas, so I can't do things like launching naval invasions, or even getting enough trade now. Well, if I had any idea I'd have built tons of convoys before - tooltip of course won't give any hint how many is enough:

• I have 1279
• 79 used for troop transport
• 1200/622 used for supplies and trade, whatever that means, it doesn't seem like math adds up unless every convoy travels with a friend for company
 #hoi4



Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-13 19:46:19 UTC


It was massive pain in the ass to wait for convoys to become available for things I wanted. I assumed 1200+ convoys would be enough (because there's no way to know), but apparently I need 2000+, reduce free trade (80% exported) to export oriented (50% exported), or both. Well, I shifted production to convoys, and that solved the problem in a month, so I guess free market stays. Hurray for Reagan and his 10% research bonus!

I lost one divisions (that I know of) in convoy to Italians of all people. By the way, for fuck's sake - why doesn't that get some kind of notification, like all other kinds of naval battles do? It feels like massive oversight.

Other than that, I landed 7 marines on Hainan and pushed from there and my enclave, later joined by 7 tanks I managed to sneak into Hong Kong before war started - but I didn't push from Hong Kong, I moved them to Hainan by sea so occupation is in my name not British. AI can be a bitch about transferring occupations, especially big countries.

In Europe, Greece, Netherlands, and Poland capitulated fast surprising nobody. My cute idea of garrisoning every Polish coastal tile in Kamchatka worked, and from there it was time to retake Siberia. Denmark took Kiel, but then started losing. That leaves UK, Norway, leftovers of Denmark, and random islands as last Ally presence in Europe.

Generally war was going well, but there weren't any decisive strikes. In two months of war I managed to expand operations until I got secure and reasonably supplied base. Japan lost like 20% of their navy so far I guess, lack of ledger, and lack of accurate reports means it's sort of guesswork. But I didn't expect Italians. Vichy France got most of their air force shot down. Everybody has huge number of planes, but nobody bothers to deploy them at all - it's one thing which used to work in 1.0 but patch broke it.

Another problem with the game - I really fucking hate main map mode. Instead of nice solid colors with solid borders for actual controls, it has no borders, and applies shitty shaders to everything, so I had to zoom out over and over to see if this shade of blue is American blue or French blue. I guess I need to prioritize the French, as that's just way too distracting.
 #hoi4

Poland capitulated, but bases were secure for government in exile.


Blue on Blue violence. I can sort of see French blue vs American blue when zoomed out, it's even worse zoomed in.


2 months into the war.


Troops preparing for inevitable Polish capitulation.


Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-13 22:00:46 UTC


Hawaii-Australia way is not safe due to Italian fleet, fortunately Alaska-Kamchatka way seems secure at least.

The Axis put ridiculous number of troops in Siberian. I guess AI logic is that murica scary, that's German-murica border, so everybody goes there.

I have major steel shortage, as Germans took over Denmark, so now I can't import steel from Sweden - and enormous amounts I'm producing somehow magically disappear.

I also had aluminum problems which were more mysterious, as Guyanas produce huge amounts, so I was able to get it all from UK and Netherlands before. Then I randomly noticed that UK doesn't get all the resources from its colonies as it lacks sufficient convoys, so I sent them some.

Somehow Japan managed to pressure Siam to become their puppet even though they were surrounded from all sides by Allies, and I had my army on their border ready to strike. Well, no big deal.

Right now the focus is on finishing off Siam, and encircling as many Germans as possible in Korea.

It seems I've sunk about 1/3 of Japanese ships, their planes are all taking holidays, so the best way is probably the most straightforward naval invasion. Actually I don't even need Korea for that, I could launch it from Vladivostok, but I don't have that many spare troops in the area.

If I knock Japan out of the war quick I don't have a good followup. Slow push through Siberia, Central Asia, or invasion of Africa all sound fairly miserable, and transporting my troops to UK would take half a year minimum.

Oh and Poland became fascist. Can't beat 'em, join 'em I guess.

 #hoi4

Japan might fall before the slow route of San Diego - Hawaii - Guadalcanal - Australia - rail to West Australia - Borneo - rail to West Borneo - Saigon - rail to frontline finishes for everyone.


Paratroopers forgot to paradrop, I had to ship them instead. I've seen this bug a lot unfortunately.


Axis put ridiculous number of divisions in Siberia. If this game had manpower attrition, they'd be scrapping the barrel already.


Siberia is irrelevant, go straight for Korea, then Japan. South China army will probably connect to Beijing.


Japan was pressing Siam button. Ugly French blue spots look like scary face.


40+ divisions pocketed already. The whole Korea will be one big pocket.


Post 8 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 00:55:39 UTC


Using medium self-propelled artillery instead of regular artillery has been a ridiculously good idea. My infantry divisions all have unpiercable armor now, at only moderately higher cost. The obvious downside is that mspart is two techs into 1939, so you can't really do it before 1940 - I'm not sure if light spart you get access to right away would be that great. There's third option of heavy spart, which you get access to right away, maybe that's the right way.

Light/medium sparts are fast battalions, so their mobility gets wasted in infantry divisions, but my experience with mobile infantry so far has been poor - they use far too many supplies and have far too many terrain penalties.

Using marines has been less impressive - so far I did one naval invasion - 7 marine divisions from Philippines to Hainan - and it was unopposed. Marines also get lower penalty for attacking through major rivers, but mountaineers' bonus would be a lot better.

Overall I think 7mnt 2mspart is optimal 1940+ layout. Not sure if earlier 7mnt 2art, 7mnt 2lspart, or 7mnt 2hspart would be best. If AI used more tanks and anti-tank weapons, maybe 7mnt 2hspart would work better even now?

As for my tank divisions, they're currently 3mtank 3mot. I made enough mechanized to replace one of mot battalions with mech (the idea being to replace the rest later obviously), but that would slow it down from 9.7km/h to 8km/h for mechanized 1. Not sure if that's worth increase in stats. Next level of mechanized has 10km/h speed, but I'm short on steel so I'm not sure I want to build a ton of it.

And the war:
• South-East Asia is all taken
• all of coastal China is taken, I finally just connected South and North fronts
• Japanese army in Korean is defending in Pusan
• invasion of Japan is coming next
• my armies are completely disorganized, I'll need to redo OOB before I go after Japan
• British Middle East was doing well for a while, but it's collapsing now
• Japan lost like 40% of its navy. I'm not sure the rest is even near Japan, or if they sent it to the other side of the world.

I think I'll setup big front, armored spearhead into Central Asia, and try to create huge pockets for Axis armies in Asia. With Middle East falling going through Central Asia is the most likely direction anyway.

UK doesn't seem interested in using its ridiculous air force, so I think I'll just sent some of spare planes to various corners of the world.

 #hoi4

Finally connected. Invasion of Japan coming next.


Axis forces in Korea collapsed, but they still ended up with 25 surviving divisions in Pusan.


Middle East is falling, so going through Africa doesn't seem realistic. Denmark and Gibraltar somehow hold, not sure if for long.


Post 9 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 03:13:05 UTC


I got overwhelmed by micro, so I paused to setup new OOB:
• a third of my army invade Japan by naval invasion, paratroopers, naval and air superiority, and then followed by tanks and additional marines into established ports
• most of my infantry to now single frontline
• two armored columns to break the frontline - one to Xinjiang (pocketing everybody South of it), one to Irkutsk (not really pocketable, as I can't push from Polish Siberia due to shitty infrastructure, but big lakes tend to be useful to have)
• spare planes moved to wherever fighting is, as AI seems to keep theirs in reserve forever nowadays

I sent UK 100 more convoys as well, as they couldn't get their aluminum from British Guyana.

Armored spearheads underperformed, instead of massive pushes best I got was fairly small encirclements. They're not even that tiny, it's just that Axis still has over 1000 divisions, which is about twice as many as we do, so destroying 10 here or 20 there won't change much.

I had endless shortages of steel, so I finally abandoned free market (80% exported) and went down to export focus (50% exported). That solved my trade issues. I noticed British Raj has trouble importing my oil, so I sent them 50 convoys as well.

Lend-Lease would be very useful if this game had a damn ledger - even if just for your faction.

And Gibraltar fell, so that's another problem to the long list of problems.
 #hoi4

New OOB. Little came out of these ambitious armored strikes.


Tokyo! Japan was close to undefended.


I hold every single city in their core territory. The remaining 10% feels like a bug, but then again, I can't tell without victory points mapmode.


After fall of Japan. With Middle East nearly fallen I have few choices other than all-in push for Central Asia, but supplies might disagree with putting that many heavy divisions there.
Maybe I should spare a few divisions for Africa after all?


Post 10 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 05:20:10 UTC


Frontline is moving very slowly. Germany's only significant frontline is with me, so it has enormous number of divisions on it - and every attempt at breakthrough merely creates a pocket which takes a few weeks to clean up.

Bodies pile up high. Axis went from ~1100 divisions after fall of Japan to ~900, which sounds about right considering pockets they've been getting into.

That's still far more than ~500 me, UK, and Raj have.

With enemy frontline so strong, I could only breakthrough with overwhelming force, but infrastructure wouldn't really allow using overwhelming force. Even level 3 logistics company in every division is not enough, but it definitely helps. On the other hand the pockets are starting to add up.

I want a ledger, so I switched to observe mode to get some idea of everyone's manpower:

• Germany - 17% laws - 1.95m dead - 8.51m left
• Italy - 10% laws - 332k dead - 1.69m left
• Japan - 9.5% laws - 1.81m dead - nobody left due to lack of core territory
• Spain - 14% laws - 129k dead - 3.50m available

Nobody else in the Axis seem to have any armies, but that's really because minors all gave Germans control over their armies, and it appears in all stats as German. All the minors are probably another 10m+ manpower, to be given to Germany.

So their manpower is abundant, German industrial capacity is extremely high, and I can't significantly damage either of them from where I am now.

I moved some tanks and paratroopers away from frontlines due to bad supply, and I think I could use them to invade East Africa. That's another low resource, low industry, no core population region, but I can't think of any better options, and recapturing Suez might open some.

As for sanity check, I've taken a quick look at Germans science, production etc. They seem to have researched fairly reasonable set of technologies, the weirdest thing is that they have all tank techs, and massive industry to make medium/heavy tanks, but are still only making light tank + mot divisions they started with.
 #hoi4



Post 11 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 14:51:28 UTC


I did a few more panzer/paratrooper pushes, all invariably turning into "oops, there are no supplies here, I guess we'll pocket some Germans instead", gaining small bit of land and reducing Axis estimated division count from peak of about 1100 to about 730, which is getting close to our 600 or so.

Dead bodies are definitely piling up, advance is mostly limited by dreadful infrastructure.

I also opened a small front in East Africa, unfortunately paratroopers landed in British Somaliland, so everything I took (including Italian lands) went under UK control, and they won't give it back. This would be a lot less annoying if I was allowed to build infrastructure on allies' lands.

African plan right now is to cut Italian forces in Kenya from supplies and crush them, then turn North to Suez.

 #hoi4

Italians were protecting one port from naval invasion (by tanks, that was a bad idea), but they left second port undefended so I just paradropped there.


This ugly shape is called "another million dead Germans"


If this game had pocket clearing orders AI could deal with, that would cut my micro in half.


All the pockets dealt with, now everybody waiting for infrastructure repairs. Plan is still to reach Xinjiang and cut there. Not attacking North, as I can't fix infrastructure there.


Post 12 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 19:51:47 UTC


Most Axis minors were already at scrapping the barrel, so East Africa-Suez-Turkey route actually seemed viable.

Meanwhile my supplies in Central Asia were eaten by fucking allies, who made completely impossible to attack. I guess that's one upside of accepting expeditionary corps offers - you can tell them to go fucking home and stay there.

Oh well, fuck supplies, plan Xinjiang is a go! There's a narrow strip of dessert between two mountain ranges and if I push there with 47 tank divisions (in three waves to reduce supply issues) and press sideways with as much infantry as I can find, I might just be able to cut Axis forces on my left flank completely.

Meanwhile East Africa received 40 divisions of infantry, and as was planned Axis forces in East Africa got crushed.

Axis midpoint division estimate is 660. Counting minors (which I forgot to previous estimates) Allies have 785 divisions. Total Axis body count is 7.14m, vs ours 1.99m.

And I figured out the mystery of Japanese victory points - a lot of their Pacific islands are actually thier cores and have unreasonably high number of victory points.

As for plans:
• Axis minors have almost no armies, so I could probably attack from East Africa and reach Constantinople before meeting serious opposition.
• There are nasty mountain chains between my frontline and Central Asian steppe, so it's fairly difficult to do panzer push. Then again, if I manage do push (or go through narrow range of hills a bit to the North), it's plains pretty much all the way to Berlin.

By the way this game really desperately needs simplified terrain map mode.

 #hoi4

Allies stealing my supplies.


Supplies or not, we charge!


In the end it wasn't that bad, as Ally supply thieves didn't join.


The map looks surprisingly neat and organized now.


British attempts at naval invasions mostly mean dead Brits, but eventually Axis will run out of divisions.


Post 13 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 21:38:48 UTC


I paused Central Asia, mostly because it's tiring to micro multiple fronts, and focused on Africa offensive.

Tanks kept rolling until they reached Suez canal, which was decently defended on the other side - and then decided to evacuate their Suez troops by ship somehow, opening road all the way to Constantinople.

Axis puppets Lebanon capitulated. Their puppet Syria didn't, even though tooltip said it would, but it was fairly small so I took all the land. All with barely any fight.

Turkey was defended somewhat, but the force rolling was quite overwhelmin, so I got Constantinople and all other victory points, and got Turkey to capitulate.

Considering how AI focuses on one front at a time, if I keep rolling I'll probably only be stopped somewhere near Vienna or Venice.

I sent a few tank divisions along the coast, and they reached all the way to Tunis, but I might fall back with them - it's a long and pointless border to defend.

We are finally in Europe, but all Axis majors - Germany, Italy, and Spain - are still quite far.

 #hoi4



Post 14 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-14 23:30:02 UTC


Bulgaria indeed capitulated to my Constantinople force almost immediately. I was surprised by Axis performance as they managed to scramble some kind of defense before I reached Belgrade, and not by Munich as I expected them to.

Of course they got into nice pocket right away. But then something crazy happened - they were attacking me, instead of just happily forming frontlines. I guess my forces there are not that strong, I left too much behind in Africa and Caucasus, and it's now real German army they're facing, not Italian colonials.

In Central Asia I decided to do another all-panzer all-everything push - this time not for any spectacular pocket, just to grab as much territory as possible from the now much weakened enemy frontline.

I reached Caspian Sea on the West and Polish Siberia in tho North. If they don't get any defense, I want to pocket whole Siberia with one cut, and whole Caucasus with another - but if it doesn't work, it's still fine. I'm not even sure how I'd close Siberia-sized pocket.

I even somehow got Ceuta, blocking Gibraltar straits for everyone from the other side.

Axis has about 530 divisions left. Less than half of what they started the war with.

 #hoi4

Offensives in Central Asia, Balkans, and Ceuta all working quite well.


Axis managed to gather defenders quite fast. Blue arrows shows what I think of that.


This wasn't exactly 300.


Why are you attacking me, what kind of Ardennes offensive level nonsense is this?
I guess they could plausibly push me back to Constantinople straits if it succeeded - wouldn't exactly save them, but it would make my life difficult.


Post 15 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-15 02:44:13 UTC


Balkan front was facing fairly strong opposition, so it was time to megapocket all of Siberia, and then all of Caucasus in a second one.

It turned out that resistance was a bit too fierce, so I gave up on that Caucasus idea, and just pressed with everything I've got to turn Siberia into a pocket.

Hilariously as soon as I pocketed that, Germany transferred occupation to Japan. Yeah, not their defeat, as far as newspapers are concerned.

Hitler figured out that Balkan front is a distraction meant to keep his troops busy, so he started withdrawing them. I pressed a short advance for a few provinces, it was enough to get him to bring back the troops. 80 divisions, huge chunk of Axis army, is standing there instead of doing something useful.

Axis is down to ~413 divisions, maybe 100 or so of them trapped in Siberia, and quite a few in Africa.

What Axis had left Africa got almost completely crushed, so Allies mostly cleaned it up while I wasn't paying attention. They got so weak that Netherlands expanded all the way to Switzerland, Denmark retook Sjaelland, and British landing in Spain got Portugal-sized, and will soon join their second landing at Bordeaux.

Unfortunately AI can't clean pockets, so it will take a while manually. In the meantime I'm just pushing a bit West from that Siberian cut, but mostly I want to make that Caucasus pocket.

 #hoi4

Here's the sophisticated battle plan - everybody go!


Germans thought they could ignore this front and started pulling away troops, so I kicked them a bit.


Biggest pocket I've ever made


Now that it's pocketed Hitler gave it all to Japan.


It's going to take a while to clean this up. Then again, it's not exactly urgent, they have absolutely no chance to break out.


Axis lost so hard even the Dutch wreck it. Look at the green balls, they'll probably take Berlin before me.


And so end Italian imperial ambitions


Post 16 - Originally published on Google+ on 2016-07-15 04:02:49 UTC


I decided that it's really long past time for cute pocketing, moved troops from Africa to Caucasus, and told everybody to go for it.

Caucasus got surrounded from both sides into huge number of tiny pockets, and that was it.

My Balkans army got all Axis Balkan minors to surrender, and then entered Germany and Italy.

By the time I met the Dutch it was race to Berlin - I sniped it with two tank divisions, and I wanted the nice "American soldiers in Berlin" newspaper for screenshot, instead Germany capitulated and Berlin flipped to the Dutch. Damn Dutch!

I found out that most of Axis fleet - including Japan's - was somehow in Black Sea. That's about as sensible as what AI does with its planes - hiding them instead of using them.

Rome was pretty much undefended, of course Italy kept fighting until I got to Sicily. That left Spain which defended itself for only a short while longer, and then Axis was done.

So tl;dr:
• 7mnt 2mspart is best division layout
• logistic companies are good, but they don't magically solve supply problems
• fascist/communist campaigns tend to be a lot more fun and flexible, as democratic country you don't decide how wars will happen, you just have to respond to what the kids with cool ideologies do
• taking out USA early sounds like a great idea - the downside is that is has somewhat legit fleet. For Japan campaign fabricating on USA is probably best first move
• it seems that Axis is consistently way stronger than Comintern
• AI air/navy strategy is even more broken than it was under 1.0 - it just avoids confrontation at all cost
• AI obsession with focusing on a single front in 1.1 patch is just as poor strategy as its attempts at balancing were in 1.0, but I'd say it's more enjoyable

 #hoi4

And Spain surrenders to UK. Fortunately thanks to my fix Finland didn't become major. (Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Portugal, and Poland did)


Logistic companies made a huge difference compared with my Japan campaign. By this point Axis lost its ability to fight.


Meeting with the Dutch. Race to Berlin.


Another one down. Of course crazy national unity is the norm.


The Dutch were standing two provinces from Berlin so I took it. Then it flipped to them anyway, even though Germany surrendered to me. Is it because they had majority of land in Berlin's state?

No comments: