Hearts of Iron IV

[Jarhead0331]

^You make it sound so easy...

[glen55]

If it makes you feel any better, I lost a few times before I looked up strategies on the Paradox forum. Rushing your infantry at 20% training and then training them up in the field is the key, and sending volunteers to get the experience you need doesn't hurt, either. Build 25 infantry divisions from the get-go, 15 in one spot as a one-time build, but set the other 10 for infinite runs.

[Ian C]

Spending Political Power on your Tank, Air and Ship building design companies early on, gives bonuses ahead of the AI. Ignore the industry/electronics/material companies -they only give you a reduced time bonus (usually -10% to research time).
Anything to give you an edge helps. The 1936 aircraft techs and 1936 Naval Units with bonuses can be a great help, as well as 1936 Light Tanks & SP Armour. Also, if you choose a General as your Theorist, you get a steady increase in Land Experience.
List of design companies and bonuses: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/List_of_design_companies

National Focuses with bonuses for research are a good investment early on, as long as you don't need to choose ones with important events (Anschluss, etc.).

[mikeck]

Man...im trying to learn to play this game but no matter how many YouTube videos I watch, I sit down and stare at the screen. There is just SO MUCH you can do. I play EU IV all the time too

[jomni]

Man...im trying to learn to play this game but no matter how many YouTube videos I watch, I sit down and stare at the screen. There is just SO MUCH you can do. I play EU IV all the time too

Don't worry the game can play itself without user input. Just watch and be entertained.

[Ian C]

Roundup of all the new features for the upcoming patch and DLC released next week. There's a heck of a lot of game-changing stuff (no pun intended).

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-recap-episode.1073904/

[Jarhead0331]

ummmmm...

These often give you access to Command Power Abilities. These are special abilities you can fire off from your commanders and they use a new resource called Command Power (it has more uses than this also).

Command Powers...really?

A lot of the other stuff sounds really great though...

[mirth]

Command Powers activate!

[Ian C]

Command Powers...really?

They describe it as:


"The Red Phone"
Many of you may have been wondering about the new topbar icon and it's finally time to start talking about it today. It's a new resource called Command Power and it symbolizes the ability of the government to go in and directly mess with the military - much like Hitler would use his red phone to bypass chain of command or prioritize things. Command power is used for promoting generals, taking certain military related decisions, managing air supply, assigning traits to generals who qualify and using command power abilities to affect divisions. There are also two more features that use them we will cover in future diaries.

These command power abilities are mostly unlocked by traits and apply to divisions under the general. They cost command power to trigger and run for a certain amount of time giving bonuses or other effects which offer up some neat new tactics.

Here is a breakdown of the abilities:

Force Attack - Units gain attack bonuses, take no org damage while attacking, but take increased strength damage. They are also unable to retreat from attacks when this is active. As the active units take damage this will also hurt your nation's war support.

Last Stand - Similar to Force Attack but when on defense. Use it if you must absolutely hold somewhere no matter what while attacking elsewhere. We also have some national flavor version of these for China and Japan.

Probing Attack - Divisions can launch attacks without losing entrenchment, but have a penalty to attack while doing so.

Staff Office Plan - Increases planning speed for the cases when you need to finish and launch a new plan quickly.

Siege Artillery - Combat bonus vs fortifications and also increases damage to the fortifications themselves substantially.

Glider Planes - Used in combination with paratroopers they let you drop more paras per transport and give them a boost to organization and defense towards enemy AA.

Makeshift bridges - Gives a substantial reduction to the river crossing penalty.

Extra supplies - Increases the time troops can be without supplies before suffering penalties.

Naval Assault Plan - Cuts down time needed to complete preparations for naval invasions.

Command power abilities, assignable traits and the new leader details view are part of the DLC. Most of the personality/background traits are part of the 1.5 "Cornflakes" update.


https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi-4-dev-diary-leaders-abilities-and-traits.1058045/


They've also fixed submarine warfare. It's now not easy to detect or sink subs (as was previously so).

[jomni]

Roundup of all the new features for the upcoming patch and DLC released next week. There's a heck of a lot of game-changing stuff (no pun intended).

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-recap-episode.1073904/

Can the AI cope?

[Ian C]

Can the AI cope?

Allegedly so: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-performance-and-ai.1070758/

[BanzaiCat]

If the AI gets better, iSorrowProduction's channel on YT is going to have to start doing more serious vids... ;D

[FarAway Sooner]

I'm only downloading these latest patches if they let me take the form of a monkey, or the shape of an ice catapult howitzer.

[bbmike]

I think those are called Wonder Powers. Activate!

[PanzersEast]

GMG is having their March Madness sale: I picked up both expansions for $12 once logged in and added to cart.