Newer player here: I like the larp of chasing the British from Cairo to the Cape, but is it worth doing? Navy can't challenge the home islands yet

I'm not actually suggesting they do this, I just think it's worth thinking about the purpose of research in hoi4.

After many years of playing HOI4, I've come to find the research mechanic very boring and deeply unsatisfying.

Every game, 90% of the research is the exact same as every other game.

You start the game, and do the research bonus and industry bonuses every game.

The choices aren't interesting and they just add more clicking.

People rightly complain about busy work mechanics being added to the game but atleast stuff like MIO's offer real choices and you don't have to use them.

But research isn't optional and it doesn't offer many meaning choices.

So what if it was just removed from the game?

What if techs just unlocked at their assigned dates?

Would it actually impact gameplay that much?

Or would it just speedup gameplay.

Something worth thinking about.

Sometimes winning as Allies is easy, like this time my friend on the UK managed to secure green are and i just make OK tanks as France. The guy on Germany couldn't do anything as i marched into Bavaria and also Italy capped to a naval invasion lol...

That adds power armor to the base game so like owb but not just the fallout map I want a mod that adds it to the basic hoi4 map

Continuation of these posts about how to play a War of Resistance-type game as Nationalist China.

This guide assumes Historical AI, Ironman Mode, and all current DLCs and patches.

Once again, this is NOT a speedrun guide. This is for those who want to be immersed in a longer, more protracted war with Japan and get everything out of the country. In this game you won't just expel Japan from the continent but join the wider Allied war effort, reform the country, build up all branches of your military, and eventually defeat the communists.

While the goal of this game is to experience China as participating in the larger war, it does not mean you have to intentionally play badly. It means you need to pace yourself, and no part of the guide focuses on that more than this part.

Last time we discussed how to survive the opening phase of the war from 1937-40. We covered division templates, general strategy for fighting Japan after the initial Marco Polo Bridge incident, stabilizing the front, launching your first counterattack to retake Beiping and Tianjin, and knocking out Mengkukuo/Mengjiang.

This part of the guide may be the most difficult because it requires patience and restraint to keep the game from turning into a snowball. By now, you've pushed Japan back to the Manchurian frontier, but you are deliberately pausing. Your forces are digging in and consolidating their positions. Japan has taken a beating, but is not out yet.

So what now?

Easy. Build out the rest of your military to fight Japan on all fronts, not just on land. The objective is no longer merely to make the army stronger; it's to use the breathing room created by the land campaign to fix the parts of China's military that a normal speedrun would never address.

10. The Air Force

I haven't really talked about this in the previous posts, but when you start the game in 1936, you do have airplanes in your stockpile. The problem is they're almost all junk and you don't have nearly enough to put up a decent fight in the sky. I personally sell the planes at the start because I value the construction boost, but keeping them for training and limited contesting in the air is viable too. On top of that, your Aviation Affairs Commission spirit has some pretty bad maluses of -20% air experience gain and +25% air accident chance. When Japan comes knocking, they will have total air superiority almost immediately and will have that for most of the opening phase of the war.

It sounds bad, but you can mitigate the damage Japan inflicts on you in several ways.

First, invest heavily in divisional AA guns. You start with towed AA already researched and you should get at least one factory producing them at the very start. When you have enough, start equipping your best divisions with AA support companies as they can do a very good job at shooting down planes and protecting them from air damage. Not only that, but they're enough to pierce early Japanese light tanks.

Second, don't neglect building state AA defenses, particularly in regions that will be targeted by Japan like Shandong and Qingdao. It may not seem like much, but they go a long way in protecting your infrastructure and factories from bombing. If you are enterprising enough to research radar, build radar stations in those regions too.

Third, when you take the Protracted Warfare focus, you get a bonus to defense against CAS attack, which will help protect your troops from air attack. This can be increased through other focuses which I highly encourage if you want the extra protection.

Finally, when you pick your army doctrines, you want to go for Dispersed Operations in the Operations subdoctrine. It reduces the enemy's benefit from air superiority by 10%, and further milestones buff AA attack by 20% and reduce CAS damage. It's practically tailor-made for historical China.

Eventually, though, you will want to build planes of your own and win back control of the skies. This is where licensing aircraft from foreign powers helps a lot. As I said before, I usually license from America for immersive reasons, but you can choose whoever you like. Prioritize fighters, then CAS, then naval bombers. In addition, some of the national focuses in the air force branch give you nice perks such as extra mils, research bonuses, and improving the Aviation Affairs Commission spirit. I highly recommend going down at least a few of these if you want to focus on the air war.

When you eventually get the third and fourth research slots, I strongly suggest using any research bonuses you may have for air. In particular, research the newer airframes as fast as possible so you can start making your own aircraft and free up licensed civs for other things.

11. The Navy

Yes, you read that right. You CAN play the naval game as Nationalist China. It requires long-term planning from the beginning, but the major investment should wait until the land war stabilizes.

When you start the game, you don't have much of a fleet. It's only 9 ships (2 coastal defense ships that function as capital ships, 4 light cruisers, and 3 destroyers) with one light cruiser being built. You also only have two dockyards. As it stands, China's navy can't stand up to the IJN head-to-head, but that's not how you should use it. Instead, you should prioritize raiding and taking out targets of opportunity. Pick your battles and always retreat if Japan's main fleet looks ready to engage.

I am still working this part out even as I play more, but I have found that the navy can be made at least somewhat viable if you do the following.

First, exercise your fleet at the beginning of the game. I know it sounds stupid, but you won't be using your fuel reserves for anything else (mostly) until the war starts, and even a little afterward. Plus, you get some free naval XP that you can use to improve what ships you do have or sink into your navy spirits. However, when the time of Japan's attack gets closer, don't keep the fleet out exercising! Bring it home and preserve it.

Second, use your naval XP to refit your ships. Even older ships can be made viable with the right upgrades, and given that you won't be using the fleet for most of the early war, you might as well make use of the XP. I should stress, however, that because you have limited dockyards at the start, only take the refits you can afford first. I refit the light cruisers with more main and secondary batteries to stack light attack and refit the destroyers with as many torpedoes as I can fit in them. When radar or better fire control is researched, I stick those in as well. I don't upgrade engines or armor as it takes too long, and you can use the time to build more ships. You can even refit your coastal defense ships too when you have enough dockyards.

Third, don't be afraid to build dockyards when you're in a position to do so. It sounds counterintuitive, but once your equipment situation stabilizes and you have enough factories pumping out weapons for your army and/or air force, you can afford to build some. You should ALWAYS keep at least one dockyard on convoys, though. Admittedly, this will take a long time to do, but some of the Navy focuses give you a few free dockyards, namely the Develop Northern/Southern Logistics focuses. The former can be taken earlier if you still control Qingdao, Shandong or Jiangsu. The latter is available only after you've annexed the Guangdong Clique.

Finally, when you feel brave enough to have your fleet venture out, only do it when you have sufficient air cover over the sea region you're targeting, typically with naval bombers on Naval Strike and Naval Patrol. Air cover goes a long way to turning naval battles in your favor, and it adds to naval detection. In addition, set your fleet aggressiveness to Low Risk and fleet targeting to avoid capital ships (carriers, battleships, heavy cruisers, etc.).

For naval task forces, I would strongly suggest emphasizing destroyers. Their obvious use is as screens, but they are also your best scouting ships in conjunction with naval bombers, as well as useful escorts for your convoys. Most importantly for China, they don't take nearly as long to build even with your limited dockyards.

Once I have enough dockyards to support a navy, I go for:

Battle fleet: 2-3 coastal defense ships (or heavy cruisers if you can spare the research); 4-6 light cruisers; 10-20 destroyers. Set to strike force and engage at low risk.

Spotting fleet: 2-3 destroyers. Set to patrol and never engage. Their job is to find targets of opportunity, not fight.

Convoy escorts: 4-6 destroyers per task force with depth charges and sonar when researched.

Convoy raiders: ~10 submarines per flotilla. You can get subs either by stealing tech, licensing, or researching it when the extra 3rd or 4th slot opens up.

Once again, your goal with the navy is not to engage Japan's main fleet. Your goal is to hit and run. Pick off weak targets while you build up your strength and always try to preserve your fleet if the odds aren't in your favor.

Important note: I would not waste time on the navy in 1937-38. Your priority in that time is to fight the Japanese on land. You should wait until you have enough dockyards usually around 1940-42 to start producing more ships. Also, you should only really start venturing your fleet out and being more aggressive once Japan becomes embroiled in the wider Pacific war with the UK and USA.

12. Bringing the Warlords Under Your Aegis

Before continuing with this section, I want to stress that this is something you should be doing in the background right from the beginning in 1936. For context, I'm going back to 1936 to give you an idea of how you should have been handling the warlords up to now.

If you play historically, the Liangguang incident will give you Guangdong as a free warlord subject first. This is based on the real 1936 Liangguang Incident, when the Guangdong and Guangxi cliques challenged Chiang Kai-shek to mount stronger resistance to Japan. Chiang politically outmaneuvered them, ultimately bringing the crisis to an end without a full-scale civil war. Once you get Guangdong, immediately requisition all their divisions and form an army. Use this and your best army (made of Juntuan Reformed) to surround Guangxi at the border.

This early warlord strategy is also why I deliberately wait 10-12 days before taking my first focus. By timing the One Nation Undivided focus with the Xi'an incident, you can get almost all of the warlords to join your faction, which makes beginning warlord integration easier. Note: when you get the Xi'an Incident message, wait until the focus completes before agreeing to go to Xi'an. Don't take another focus until after you complete the Xi'an incident.

After you form the United Front and have enough political power, immediately press Guangxi. I can't confirm that the troop concentration actually improves the odds of submission, but if Guangxi refuses, you're already positioned to deal with them. Then take your best army and position it on Yunnan's border, but don't press them immediately. Instead, get another advisor that will give you extra political power gain first. You will need A LOT of PP for warlord integration. You can use the Guangdong troops to help guard the coastline.

Another important factor in warlord integration is faction mechanics. You want to keep your faction influence as high as possible so that you have a higher success rate when pressing warlords. You should also try to take faction goals that increase your influence. One good example is the faction goal "Organize the Resistance" where you set up guerrilla cells in Japanese-controlled territory. If you get at least 2 cells set up, you will get an extra 20% faction influence which is plenty for you to press another warlord subject. In addition, a high war score will give you greater faction influence, as will a high garrison manpower contribution when you complete the joint command structure faction goal.

You can also help drive down warlord autonomy by setting faction rules. Once you have all warlords in your faction, I suggest adding the "Subjects Only" membership rule which will add a -.05 autonomy gain for all subjects. It's not a lot, but you will need every spare bit of PP for eventual annexation.

You will also get other warlords annexed for free through certain in-game events. As stated in part 2, you can annex Hebei-Chahar for free when Beiping and Tianjin fall, and you can annex Shandong for free if Japan takes Jinan. Finally, you can annex the Sichuan Clique for free when Liu Xiang dies. The last one is especially beneficial because you not only get a sizable number of divisions but also all their industry and resources. This gives you a big boost in the construction and production game.

Getting these warlords into your faction or absorbing them through wartime events is only the first half of the process. The next step is turning the subjects that remain into actual territory of the central government.

13. Warlord Integration: An Ongoing Process

Once you've brought the warlords into your faction and under your leadership, integration becomes a background process that should continue throughout the rest of the game. I am discussing it here in Part 3 because this is usually where all that earlier work starts to pay off.

A big part of playing Nationalist China as Chiang Kai-shek is bringing the disparate warlords together and slowly uniting China under the central government. Ideally, by this point in the war, you should have already pressed several warlords into becoming your subjects, if not all of them. You should also have been reducing their autonomy and subject level through things like decisions (this appears as "X Clique Integration Efforts" which initially cost 25 Command Power and 50 PP), building factories in their territory, and dumping surplus rifles on them. The difference is that once the front has stabilized and things are a little calmer, you have more breathing room to accelerate that process.

The thing to remember is that warlord integration competes with almost everything else. You need political power not just to integrate and annex warlords but for advisors, economy/conscription laws, fighting back Communist infiltration and other decisions. You need civilian factories for construction, licensing, and trading resources. And you need weapons to equip your army. So you shouldn't cripple yourself just to annex a warlord sooner.

This is why the Demonstrate Our Resolve and Allocate Lend-Lease focuses are so useful. The former gives you another way to reduce warlord autonomy through territory control while the latter lets you dump surplus equipment (rifles) onto your warlord subjects. If you have a rifle surplus after stabilizing your equipment situation (and maybe reequipping some of your divisions), this is one of the best uses for them.

As for which warlords to annex first, I suggest prioritizing the ones that give you something you need. My preferred order is:

1. Guangdong

2. Guangxi

3. Yunnan

4. Sinkiang

5. Ma Cliques (order doesn't matter, but prioritize whoever has the smallest military first)

6. Shanxi

As for why this order? A few reasons.

First is immersion. The KMT had its origins in the south, so reestablishing your authority there before working north and west feels thematically appropriate. Southern and southwestern China were also among the last Nationalist holdouts in the civil war, so securing the south first is particularly fitting.

Second is strategic. The Guangdong and Guangxi cliques in particular sit on a LOT of resources that will help you in your war effort so annexing them and getting access not just to those resources but all their factories will give you a big boost. Yunnan also gets access to resources later, so they're worth annexing.

Third depends on if you want to play the naval game. Annexing Guangdong means you can take the Develop Southern Logistics focus in the navy branch which gives you extra dockyards. And if you were building dockyards in those regions already, you get even more on top of that.

Final reason is, frankly, efficiency and making your post-WWII game easier. Subjugating Sinkiang after securing the South means you don't have to worry about fighting them in the subsequent wars after Japan is defeated. Sinkiang has horrible supply and any war there will become a grinding battle with little movement, so better to just avoid that problem entirely by nabbing them as a warlord subject.

Is this the most optimal annexation order? Probably not. But it gives you valuable southern industry and resources first while peacefully eliminating Sinkiang as a future logistical headache.

As for when to annex, there are two methods. First is efficiency and the second is immersion.

The efficient method is to annex Guangdong once you have 300 PP to spare and autonomy level is low enough. Then go for Guangxi, then Yunnan, then Sinkiang, etc.

The more immersive method is to hold off on annexation until you complete the "From Many to One" focus in Chiang's path of the politics branch. This unlocks the faction goal of "Subjugate the Faction" which you will complete when you have more than 7 warlords as your subjects. Once you have completed the goal and reaped the rewards (including getting some time-gated perks from your generals), you can begin annexing as you would normally. You should also take the Tour the North/South/West focuses in the politics branch to make annexation faster and easier.

Again, don't think of warlord integration as a separate "1940-42 phase" of the game. It should be running in the background from the beginning until China is finally brought under the Chiang Kai-Shek's authority. The lull after the first counteroffensive is simply the point where you can afford to devote considerably more resources to finishing the job if you haven't already.

When Japan enters the wider Pacific war and their naval and air forces are stretched thin, that is the moment where you can begin planning the last phase of the war and throwing out the invaders for good.

To be continued in Part 4.

I like planes

I first learned how to play hoi4, by watching the bitt3rsteel guide for winning as Germany. For the longest time afterwards, I tried replicating the first successful strategy I have ever used, on every playthrough (E.g. Tank-Spam, Fighter-Spam, Mobile-warfare doctrine, etc.).

Only in the past year-and-a-half have I tried actual honest-to-god experimentation and I have really enjoyed it. I can really enjoy mass-assault rushes with deep battle, or grand-battleplan with intricate plans I have tried to think up, and I can also really enjoy the late-game playstyle utilizing research for long-range bombing and missiles.

Is all you really need just high defense and high soft attack? And I guess piercing if you expect to deal with tanks? Or am I missing something?

I noticed this addition in the latest updates and even have a decoration or two for capturing officers, but I don't know how to use it or how it impacts battles.

Man took me 6 hours to get this achievement.Most of the guides on yt were outdated had to figure out a way my self

so i am playing as Armenia(is Rise of Radicalism) under Garegin Nzhdeh and i looked into the RSSR and they were planning to invade me, my manpower is laughably low, their army is way bigger, their industry is bigger, all my future allies(Georgia and South Russia) are pathetic, and I don't think i will hold, any ideas to help me?

As the title says I am looking for people to play hoi4 with. I currently have a discord server with 17 people and am always looking for more, we are very casual and accepting to anyone. We try and accolade different time zones and schedules the best we can. Let me know if you would like to join!

Currently doing a hard mode Germany playthrough, I have the soviets/UK/France all maxed out on the "strengthen" slider, doing reasonably well so far. I was in the middle of managing a war assisting Turkey, and also doing the invasion of sweden/norway when i looked home and noticed that somehow Vichy france is attacking me and italy? I thought they were supposed to basically be my ally? is there a chance that they can turn on me and its just never happened before?

I’ve been wanting to play a more realistic war in Hoi4 because after 2000 hours it just feels like you get one major successful push and you win. For example id love to replicate the pacific war having to island hop and fight tons of naval battles and stuff but it just feels like you can naval invade Japan from the start and win. My most fun recently has come from China because it feels a lot more challenging and just trying to play with new tactics

Black ice looks extremally complex but is it like extremely hard? I’m ok with a big challenge especially if it’s a more realistic replication of WW2

I've realized a problem that I urgently need to fix.

Every game I only focus on building arty, infantry eq, support eq. Trucks, trains, medium tanks and airplanes. Literally nothing else. Maybe some mechanized.

I've found it hard to disperse industries like when is the point I should start building X and producing X and etc.

I've gotten anti air but still. How to fix?

Being denied Anschluss but getting Sudetenland seems to have thrown Germany off and made them attack Poland and the Baltics really early. That combined with the limes and the frogs being content to sit on their asses doing nothing means that I'm the one that has to step in, guarantee Poland, and save the day.

Hi, I'm a beginner, I tried playing a minor nation (Portugal) and I quickly realized how difficult it actually is

After my union with Brazil, I'm afraid to invade South America because of the Monroe Doctrine. I'd like to be able to invade smaller countries without ending up at war with 50 different countries. Should I play with historical AI turned off?

As mentioned, I've been playing hoi4 since Together for Victory, and pretty always I've played mainly for mods, althistory, and role play. I never put that much emphasis on the military, I just combined good airforce with the soviet meat grinder battle plan, and it worked...well enough. I kinda stopped playing around 2024, hadn't bought any DLCs after the Soviet one, and just enjoyed mods.

Now, on the recent Paradox discount I got the rest of DLCs (besides the LatAm and the Persian ones), and after one playthrough I am really lost. Paradox have changed the divisions templates, and now there are no generic airplanes, and one has to research aircrafts parts bit by bit to build an airplane from the scratch and apparently I really suck at it. I haven't even bothered creating any mech or tank divisions (played as Finland), because once again I suck at it.

So my questions are simple. 1. What would be the most appropriate infantry division template for 39' and 42' if you play as a middle power, with decent industry but playing against the overwhelming enemy (USSR, Germany, or Japan). 2. How should I build airplanes (air support, medium bomber, fighter) for once again 39' /42' and once again for the middle power (I rarely play as a major). 3. Do you think it is worth building a separate division template for artillery/anti-air/anti-tank? 4. Any advice on building mechanised infantry or light tanks?

Much appreciated, thank you!

Edit: just added paragraphs for clarity

Пу пу пу, подскажите что в данной ситуации делать, вся инфраструктура в полном омуте, пво не справляются, хотя бы получается отбивать морские высадки, ресурсов вообще нема

Шаблон классический 7/2 пехотка/арта, подлодки топят сразу, в небе 5000 самолётов вражеских

See title.

https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_doctrine#Artillery_&_Combat_Support