Kaiserreich Combined Syndicates of America

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-12 00:58:04 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich as Combined Syndicates of America.

So this time as red America. As usual soon as war started I rushed to grab as much land as possible. Before the enemies showed up I took Washington and New England, getting rid of whole frontline.

My enemies got a lot more volunteers this time, and compared with shitty militia everybody uses even a few divisions make a difference.

I could only advance with a series of relatively small pockets, but unlike AUS I had plenty of militias to hold all fronts, so I finished it by May 1937.

I had choice of 4 capitals - Chicago, New York City. Philadelphia, and Washington. Last one would cost me 100pp, so I kept Chicago.

After that WK2 started - Entente took over Panama Canal, and Mittleeuropa expanded to include both PSA and Russia, so basically I need to world conquest just to get my lands. WC it is then!

CSA probable deserves a nerf, they win every time even as AI. The key was grabbing land between me and AUS as well as New England - that would reduce frontline length and give me free troops to use offensively.


After that I basically advanced from Washington along the coast.


I need to fight all major factions. I inherited fraction of US navy, so even getting my troops over will be a challenge.

Third Internationale seems hopeless, and I'd rather not join a faction to avoid silly peace conference fails.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-12 13:30:49 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich as Combined Syndicates of America.

First target was Yucatan Pact, ruled by Radical Socialists. I'm not entirely sure what's the difference between Radical Socialists and Syndicalists, but they're different, therefore there need to die.

My small navy was at least bigger than Mexican navy, and I had enough medium tanks for that parts of my army, so between two naval landings and come coastal advance it was crazy one sided.

Sadly I didn't occupy any tiles in Panama by the time they capitulated, so Panama needed a second war.

Pacific States of America ended up joining peacefully when workers' strike overthrew their government, so I might not have to fight Mitteleuropa.

Well, time for Entente. There was one naval doomstack battle where I lost 18 old destroyers, 1 light cruiser, and 1 heavy cruiser, while sinking 5 carriers, 7 battleships, 4 battlecruisers, 16 light cruisers, 4 heavy cruisers, 19 destroyers, and 43 planes. I wonder what happens to remaining planes on sunk carriers - knowing the game, they probably just return to storage.

I'm not even sure why it was so one sided. It was my whole fleet (except subs) vs only about half of Entente's fleet, and my ships were heavily damaged afterwards, but it was still unexpectedly good performance.

After that I discovered that ship repair is faster if I split damaged ships between naval bases - the opposite of how naval supply system works where highest level of naval base counts and others are ignored.

I've been trying to figure out naval combat system and it's super dumb. My doomstack fleet couldn't protect my convoys against a single ancient destroyer somehow.

I tried to use my naval and air supremacy to invade Newfoundland and Cuba somehow, but that was a disaster that cost me 9 divisions. Game having shitty interpretation of the orders (10 divisions attacking 3 tiles is always 8/1/1, ffs) had something to do with it, but generally small islands are far too difficult to take.

Fortunately I didn't have to do anything, as Austria managed to take Rome, kicking out last major Entente power out of the war, so all my work was done. Well, except Hawaii, but let's not worry too much about such minor things.

Kaiserreich Ottoman Empire

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-03 22:50:42 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich as Ottoman Empire. This ought to be easy, but AI always loses.

We need to deal with:
• larger than usual stack of starting penalties
• inevitable attack by the Axis of Egypt, Hashemite Arabia, and usually Persia
• rebellions by Kurds and Cyprus
• long term possible attack by Russia
• puppet rebellions
• parts of focus tree being marked as "Work In Progress"

On the upside we have 3 puppets - Albania, Armenia, and Tripolitania, and fairly safe Balkan border.

Germans sold me Crete for some pp, which I released as puppet. Kurds rebelled, but achieved nothing.

Egypt and Hashemites attacked, but took their sweet time, and I was very much ready. They had rebels pop up in random places, which is a fun idea, but in practice it meant there's a lot of pre-pocketed divisions. I walked from Tripolitania to Alexandria while half of enemy army tried to guard Suez Canal crossing, crossed Nile upstream, and got to Cairo without much trouble. Persia did not join any of that.

I got a compromise constitution with the parliament - I suspect optimal path is to just dissolve it, as usual in this game. I told my German and Austrian creditors that they can shove it. While trying to root out corruption and reform government a coup happened, sultan died, and his heir took the throne.

I did a quick war with defenseless Oman. War with Bulgaria was like from CK2 - with both monarchs leading armies.

Next war was Persia. Albania and Tripolitania decided to rebel mid-war. Still can't get Albania, as I don't want to naval invade for no reason, so got Azerbaijan as a new puppet instead.

The game decided to arbitrarily fuck up and would not deliver steel imports from anyone in Europe or arbitrary 3/4 of the world (couldn't see the pattern), really limiting my production. I suspect if I get a direct border with mainland Germany I should be able to import their steel, so that means I need to get Vienna.

For some reason wars against Bulgaria and Persia were going far worse than I expected. Against Bulgaria I was defending and had 4:1 K:D, which was tolerable, but still way below 10:1 or better I expected. Against Persia I was attacking into mountains, and I had more losses than kills, which is such a rare situation.

No idea what's going on. By this time I usually have space marines, but all the Ottoman penalties really delayed me and I don't have a single tank and only just started building some planes beyond my starting WK1 collection.

Even without tanks, 7/2s should be somewhat competent. I guess I don't have doctrines finished, only one support company, no general staff etc., while AI by now trained theirs to veteran and researched all that, so it all adds up.

Preparation for a 3-way war. 2/3 of Hashemite VPs are one tile away from my border, so main thrust there while cavalry tries to get the third. Egypt can be invaded from Tripolitania on flat ground while holding Suez (later I added naval invasion to Alexandria, but never executed it). I wanted to simply hold Persia border in difficult terrain until those two surrendered.

In the end Persia didn't join, the rest of the plan worked flawlessly.


I wasn't prepared for those rebel spawns. Persia didn't join, but I wasn't sure if they won't surprise attack me, so I only took half of Persian frontline troops, Alexandria naval invasion, and some cavalry to deal with rebels.

This war was all easy. Bulgaria/Persia on the other hand, way harder and I have no idea why.


Belgrade Pact attacked Danubian Federaton, who puppeted Greece, but left rest of it.

Plan is to get Belgrade Pact and my rebellious puppet Albania, then get Vienna. After that I need that one Suez Canal South tile, and if the only way to get it is to destroy German Empire, so be it. Or maybe I'll get Crimea/Caucasus from Russia. Or Tunisia from Entente.

There's a good deal of restoring to do, and since focus tree says that sultan is also the caliph, we have totally legit claims to a lot of historically caliphate lands.

Internationale losing WK2 so hard even London fell is rare.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-04 16:56:36 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich as Ottoman Empire.

I dealt with Romania, Serbia, and rebellious Albania. After that I decided to make a detour and take Ukraine, but bastards got into war with Poland and rest of Mittleeuropa.

Germany managed to take Kiev first, but somehow Ukraine capitulated to me, and I was able to get most of it - except some totally reasonable border states Poland took, and two completely pointless Black Sea border states Germany took just to annoy me.

For sake of nicer borders I took useless lands from Ethiopia and Somalia - and Germany and Austria were both sending volunteers against me. Like I needed another reason to take Vienna.

For Austria war, they have::
• 2875k army, 43k artillery (and on average more modern than mine, congrats on that AI!)
• 8.4k light tanks, mostly crazy outdated
• 3.2k fighters, 360 bombers
• 4 battleships, 5 heavy and 9 light cruisers, 26 destroyers, 18 subs
• 110 mil, 110 civ, 18 naval industry

I have:
• 1917k army, 27k artillery
• 6.5k medium tanks in dedicated divisions (only 11/48 finished training)
• 2.1k heavy fighters, 520 captured fighters, 240 captured bombers
• 4 battleships, 1 battle cruiser, 2 heavy and 15 light cruisers, 14 destroyers, 4 subs
• 171 mil, 160 civ, 21 naval industry

The way I expect it to go is that Austria will keep suiciding their troops until it runs out of them. I thought about naval invasion to speed things up, but we're too close.

One of the most annoying UX crap about HOI4 is that when deploying planes, every captured 5 interwar fighters create a new line, and only 3 are displayed at time, without any order.

I got a brilliant idea of just donating them to my puppets so they can stick them in a museum or something, but apparently I can't donate captured equipment, only what I produced. WTF game, just how shitty can your UX be?

You can deploy them somewhere irrelevant, but it costs you a lot of manpower to just babysit them there. That's what I eventually did, but as minor countries it's not really possible.


Fancy naval invasion plan.

Game only allows selecting tiles next to a single naval tile per invasion, but doesn't actually follow that later. Those two divisions going East because narrow point of Crimea touches both zones.

Now imagine naval invading Panama and game deciding it will send half the troops around Argentina to the other ocean.


Can't play Turks without taking another go at Vienna.
I absolutely love simple terrain map mode mod.


5 tiny uncrossable mountain chains in Romania really mess up the frontlines.

The optimistic plan is to push along coastline of Greece West and East, coastline of Adriatic, and go for Lwow - the only areas without mountains and major rivers blocking the way.

But most likely AI will keep attacking me for months before I'm able to do anything.

After that Entente (with Russia) or Mittleeuropa? Unless I run out of manpower first, which is a possibility.

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-04 20:15:32 UTC

It was a fun war. I got Greece as expected.

Then I tried to break through Galicia, but game's dumb supply system decided that it won't let me do it - so I had to withdraw, secure what game considered proper supply routes, and only then send the tanks through.

I doubt they'll ever fix it, so maybe I should plan with its faults in advance instead of patching problems only after my army has to fight at half supply for weeks.

I almost lost Serbia as I forgot to cancel frontline orders of my troops which were supposed to just sit in place while Greek and Galician fronts advance. Even with static frontline orders AI will start reshuffling and by the time I noticed Beograd was nearly surrounded, and without fresh troops arriving from Greek front I'd need to hide behind next river. Instead I used them to push a bit until reaching some river border, and stopped there.

Once that got Galicia's supply and Serbia's frontline AI fixed, I managed to get the tanks to break to, and then South using flat two tile corridor between two major rivers (Danube on the West, one of its tributaries on the East) as natural path of attack. Counter-attacks were really impossible thanks to the rivers, even though my tank army was really tiny compared with number of Austrians on both sides. I wish game displayed names of rivers, I don't really know most of the small ones, but they're very important.

Meanwhile Adriatic army managed to break through mountains of Montenegro and from there on it was unopposed walk to Vienna. Even if they didn't, 2/3 of Austrian army was encircled, so that wouldn't be too hard.

After getting Vienna I decided that's enough for this campaign.
#hoi4 #kaiserreich

Tanks drive South through Budapest meeting Beograd's small push North was the most fun part of the war.

Overall in recent patches AI is much more aggressive, and previously overpowered strategies (7/2 superior firepower, all-mil industry path etc.) got nerfed just a bit, so the game is to a degree more challenging and enjoyable than it used to be.

Kaiserreich Bulgaria

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-01 15:31:18 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich Bulgaria - country with 200k total manpower, and half of its focus tree locked behind DoWing Serbia, who's by that time faction leader with Romania and Greece.

Of course that was of little importance, as Serbia preemptively attacked me, with Romania joining. Fortunately nobody told Romanians beforehand, so I rushed Bucuresti, getting my troops bleeding hard, but eliminating them amazingly quickly.

That opened a one tile gap in Serbian frontline just far North, so I railroaded all my Romanian front troops there, and rushed Beograd (suffering the usual losses to keep Serbian army pinned), winning that in weeks and paying -300pp for the privilege of not just white peacing them.

After that came long wait until world tension got high enough that I could start fabricating. I got Albania, Greece, and after that choices were very limited - Russia/Ukraine, Austria-Hungary, or Turkey.

Russia/Ukraine would take forever even if I succeeded somehow. Turkey would take forever due to straits. That leaves only one possible direction.

Playing without xp-free division template changes, as I'm wondering if it's making AI somehow dumber. I forgot just how hard it was to get that early XP. I wasn't really planning that, and wars I had so far involved very little fighting, so now my first tank divisions will come out in May, 4 months into the war.

Starting small and at inevitable war with everyone.


I think Danubian Federation is a new way for Austria-Hungary to reform. They have a lot more troops and planes than I do, but that's pretty much a given in the kind of wars I tend to fight.

Mitteleuropa fights Russians and Internationale, so I don't expect them to do well.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-07-01 17:16:05 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich Bulgaria

AI in AUS campaign was very passive. Austria had none of that. They were vicious and in two months lost 822k of their initial 1086k army. I've never see anything that aggressive.

The war took from 22nd of January to 2nd of July, and Austria never for a second completely stopped viciously attacking, even when all hope was lost - but it slowed down a bit out of necessity, and had 0 manpower at current law level.

All of Austria had far more mountains and rivers than I expected, and I had regular 7 infantry / 2 artillery with just support artillery and maintenance, nothing fancy like marines or mountaineers or tanks or engineers.

Just as soon as I won, my whole focus tree completed. I think that's the first time I've ever had this happen - Bulgaria has really tiny tree, even smaller than most generic trees. Well, if that doesn't say I won the game, I'm not sure what would.

The only focus that was not taken was demanding Thrace from Turkey, but that requires Turkey to be 80% losing some other war, and they white peace out all their enemies before capitulation progress reached that level.

I finally finished training tank divisions (3 mtank 3 mot) last few weeks before war ended, but with poor supply and weak state of Austrian army I didn't even deploy them.

I like those short one afternoon campaigns, much better action to time ratio than a month of CK2 or EU4.

About the point where Austria fell. Tank divisions still not ready. It's crazy how few non-mountain non-river paths there are.

And as usual AI decided to naval invade me. Before that Greece naval invaded me. Why is AI so in love with sending troops to their death?


This short campaign is just Constantinople short of perfect borders.

If I had focus to join one of WK2 factions, I'd probably do it, but without such possibility I'll just end it here.

Kaiserreich American Union State

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-06-30 18:50:59 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich as American Union State.

A nice thing about Kaiserreich is how neat and simple tech tree is after Road to 56. The less nice is how complicated focus trees are, so I needed to figure out what those choices even mean eventually.

The war was a lot of fun, fighting with militia, and nothing even resembling 7inf 2art. I had to leave gaps in frontline to even have enough 6militia units for some offensive. But my enemies suffered from similar shortages, I had a lot of military factories in my focuses, so I managed to win - first getting Washington, then going up Atlantic Coast, and then rolling West.

Mexico tried to use our civil war to grab some land, but that war stalled, so they got nothing.

After we won, just days before WK2, somehow 80% of US was not our cores, and it only slowly became it by events, events costing pp. I find this annoying.

I had some time to setup proper division templates and for increasing my armies drastically. Going from 2 to 80 mil factories feels good.

There were two probems - Pacific States joined the Entente, so any war of reunification meant conquering Canada. And French Syndicalists took Berlin, asking me to join Mitteleuropa and the war. How about no?

As Canada was the only major power in Entente, and their whole population is within a few day's walk from AUS border, I got not only Pacific States and Canada, but most of Entente's lands, where I setup a bunch of puppets.

Coming next - revenge on Mexico. Eventually I'll need to fix Europe, but I have fraction of original US fleet.

EDIT: And I got Mexico and Centroamerica, and couldn't be bothered to continue beyond that point.

So we start as least populous, and least industrial part of the US. Pope sent two divisions, but they did nothing. At least we got a lot of militia - 300k vs 500k each for both our enemies.


Quick land grab moved borders here. Maybe expansion West was a bad idea, and I should have focused exclusively on pushing North - I don't really have enough troops to even man frontlines I have, but then neither have my enemies.


The decisive fight - Syndicalist armies never recovered from losing that many divisions. 1 division of French volunteers delayed fall of Boston for months, as somehow volunteers ignore supply system, and it was regulars to my under-equipped militias.


After surprisingly quick war against Entente I setup own faction (needed console to invite own puppets). West India is in my faction as well. I think my best route to victory would be moving my armies to India and going to Europe from there - I don't think tiny African colonies will be of much use.

Kaiserreich Brazil

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-06-03 17:53:08 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich as Brazil, goal is to dominate New World.

I often complain about events that cost pp, but "have civil war, also -800pp" went really too far. 5 divisions joined the rebels and 23 remained loyal, so war lasted only about a month, but that pp penalty was ridiculous.

So far the wars have been one big snoozefest - I can't switch to good conscription law or to war economy because the mod thinks my enemies are too weak. I guess I'll have to fight the Entente next - that's Canada, occupied Mexico, and some minors - including West India, Australia, and French Africa, so there's no way in hell this war will ever actually end.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-06-03 21:24:17 UTC

The game bugged out and peace conference against Panama (puppet of Centroamerica) had nothing to select.

Russia decided to join the Entente just days before capitulation of Canada to Soviet USA.

I got Mexico, but it ended up capitulating to nearly nonexistent Pacific States of America. The game is real bad at multi-side wars.

Then Soviet USA got Pacific States, so Americas are divided between two of us - with Entente, Netherlands, and independends holidng just a bunch of minor islands.

Time to make USA regret not building a wall. No idea if this game can ever end, since Russia is on list of enemies.
#hoi4 #kaiserreich

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-06-04 02:23:52 UTC

Before the USA war:
• Brazil - 910k troops, 12k artillery, 5k medium tanks, 720 planes, 5 awful ships
• Soviet USA - 2389k troops, 3k artillery, 80 obsolete tanks, 3800 planes, 26 ships
• Entente - 6591k, 7k artillery, 540 obsolete tanks, 2500 planes, 233 ships

AI has build prioritie which seem totally crazy to me - just drafting a lot of peasants, giving them rifles, and hoping for the best.

Meanwhile my army is 16th largest, behind even Ukraine and Poland and barely ahead of Ireland and Finland. But heavy equipment - we sure have it. We have 1.8% of world's soldiers, but 10% of world's artillery, and 30% of world's tanks - actually every single medium tank ever produced.

Supposedly next patch will fix AI templates to use medium tanks, but they've been claiming that every patch.

The war with Soviet USA took nearly a year - it was pure 6mar+2art+1mtank advance. I got first pocket of about 10% of their units in Veracruz before frontline stabilized properly.

Then inland Mexico is all mountains, so I sent one push along West Coast - which wasn't stopped until Portland, and another push along East Coast, which went a lot slower. I couldn't really push into mountains in between, but I got two big pockets by just joining coastal snakes together.

Key to the strategy was extreme abuse of strategic redeployment - I can make my armies move ridiculously fast - far faster by any dedicated mobile divisions (which I couldn't really afford anyway) - by strategically redeploying them. The downside is that their organization goes down to 10%. But space marines at 10% org still wreck all but most dedicated enemy - and after they arrive org regain in extremely fast.

Maybe someday they'll patch those overpowered tactics and I'll have to fight fair.

If Russia didn't join, it would end all my wars. Since Russia is at war with nearly every other faction (including even Turkey which survived in just Constantinople while piling up Russian bodies trying to force the straits), I probably could just wait a few years for them to collapse without doing anything.

But that would be boring, so let's just call it a success.

On picture Soviet USA day before surrender.
#hoi4 #kaiserreich

Kaiserreich Battle Pope

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-26 21:29:15 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich battlepope

• I start with North/Central Italy (17 divisions), facing commie South Italy (6 divisions) who's allied with commie France (65 divisions)
• I can get CB on South Italy with one immediately available focus. I tried to rush South Italy while holding France, but my navy ignored how France managed to transport 30 divisions there. OK, I don't get how navies work. Let's restart and try something else.
• Austria - Hungary got into civil war, so I attacked them for Trento/Veneto by event, and we peaced out with me taking that and land-locking them.
• ... and Hungary got into war with Romania. And Romania got into civil war. Because every Kaiserreich war turns into instant Syria Civil War. In the end Austria won.
• And yet, my navy got wrecked by Austria's. The barely having any ports Austria. Seriously?
• After that I waited for WW2 to happen, rushed South Italy, then very slowly pushed against France.
• Germans kept dying trying to get through Maginot line, so I got 90% of France.
• So once I defeated France, there was the usual event asking me to puppet them or suffer penalty - except this time it was not -100pp but -400pp. FFS!
• At least it had options to setup some puppets (Normandy, Britany, Occitaine), so I'd keep half of France at least...
• And due to stupid bug I got that event second time, so yeah, fuck you, you're losing -400pp anyway.
• Endless "fuck you and fuck your pp" events are really obnoxious.

On screenshot: Maginot Line is almost the last to surrender (France lost when I overran Brittany, rest of the borders still pretty much the same).

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-28 23:33:26 UTC

So I actually released those 4 puppets in France region - mostly because otherwise other factions would take that by warscore nonsense.

Turns out I couldn't create faction. And after I enabled that option allowing me to create faction, I couldn't invite my puppets to faction.

I crushed army of the Third Internationale in Spain, but there was no way to end the way - Union of Britain is at war with pretty much whole world (German faction, my faction, Canada faction, Ireland etc.), but nobody can touch them.

Since that war shows no interest in ending I attacked Austria, then Albania, then Belgrade Pact, and now I'm about to attack Turkey for Constantinople.

Union of Britain has nearly 200 divisions, so I have no idea how they could possibly lose this. I hoped they'd try suicidal naval invasion, but Germany actually has naval superiority.

For now I have Eastern Roman Empire to reconquer, I'll deal with Britain later. I might need to conquer Germany for it, just to let Britain suicide its troops.
#hoi4 #kaiserreich

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-29 21:18:37 UTC

#hoi4 #kaiserreich

• I just forced my way through Bosphorus strait on both ends with no problem.
• I forced my way through Egypt/Hashemite Axis up to Suez Canal destroying 80% of their armies, but couldn't get through. Instead I used paratroopers to get Alexandria, which made Egypt abandon Suez Canal to try to reform new front, and then I could push through with my main force.
• Paratroopers lost 6k in the drop. My army lost 3k in the rest of the war, so it's not exactly free. Somehow that 6k wasn't included in war summary. Probably worth testing how it works exactly, especially if I was playing a smaller power. Papal Italy is tier 2 country populationwise (still no cores on the South).
• I released a bunch of puppets just for testing
• France managed to make itself from puppet into autonomous puppet
• I have non-aggression pact with Germany, and they fixed the trick where I could fabricate on another country in their faction to ignore it

So my options now are:
• attack Entente - but it won't end up unless I get Canada
• get all the troops on German border, and break NAP early
• attack Russia (but border is awkwardly small)
• try to force my way into Britain
• I could pass time until things change - possibly taking some minors on the way, but not really sure what I'm waiting for

Russia is about to finish focus to form own faction, which they offer to random country from the list - but I don't see many countries without a faction. It could get messy if they pick like Mexico or whoever won USA civil war.

Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-30 15:22:30 UTC

Devolution of Britain was a mistake. There were over 250 divisions protecting England, but Wales had only 3, and Scotland 8. The only Welsh port was just next to England so it wasn't the best target, but Scotland was ridiculously easy to invade and I captured level 8 port of Scapa Flow with my mountaineer divisions.

Of course then everybody rushed to meet me - leaving other ports undefended, so there were instant 10 other successful landings by everybody and their puppet - including two of my French puppets taking ports in South England, opening second front.

Russian took this opportunity to create alliance with Japan (who had own faction before) and attack Germany, but apparently factions can reform like that.

In the end I got pretty respectable Roman Empire - and I have focuses to demand Tunisia and Malta (which AI would probably accept), so I could expand a bit further.

Late game once again suffers from worldwide steel shortage.
#hoi4 #kaiserreich

Kaiserreich Bharatiya Commune

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-19 15:26:02 UTC

So I played #hoi4 #kaiserreich as Bharatiya Commune - or Socialist East third of India.

I wanted to try something different, and not base my army on 7mar 2art - going for tanks early. Well, tiny war with Nepal showed me that this is completely non-viable. Until I changed my armies to 7mnt 2art I couldn't get anywhere at all. There's just no way without artillery. Using mnt instead of mar since I already start with them researched, and the difference isn't that huge.

So as step two instead of superior firepower and infantry support tanks to take mobile warfare and have separate infantry (7mnt 2art) and armored divisions (4mot 2mtank), which are on budget side of armored divisions. So far it's been going OKish.

Politically I got through a lot of horrible events, had two major wars and some minor ones, and I'm only coring rest of India by fairly slow events.

I didn't join any faction yet, but I somehow joined French faction's research group, so I got some massive discounts (up to -50%) - I even got some air doctrines this way as they were so cheap.

West India was even part of Entente, but after I fully occupied them we peaced out rest of faction by event. I'll continue going down the focus tree, and I'll probably try get access to resources - one I'm lacking the most is steel, and nobody near me really has any significant amounts except for Russia.

Not falling for mistake of attacking someone at war. Like Mongolia is fighting Tibet, Japan, and that pink Chinese minor; Turkestan and Don-Kuban are fighting Russia. If I attack any of them AI will grab almost the whole warscore as usual, so no point.

I'll get some CBs on Siam in focus tree (I think, or maybe event to puppet them; well in any case something Siam related), and I have zero ships to invade Ceylon, so these criteria leave me with Persia/Egypt/Arabia Axis as the only direction of attack. Sadly they don't have much steel, and they have a lot of divisions, but after Persia it's flat enough to try tank warfare.

The mod is seriously fun, at least for countries which are reasonably complete (my focus tree lacks a few icons, didn't see any other issues yet).

WW2 between Germany and France is ongoing. On the map it looks like nothing is happening, but Germans somehow lost like 7.9M to 2.3M somehow.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-20 14:40:14 UTC

Mongolia conquered Tibet, and was fighting Japan. I decided to attack them anyway, hoping to get at least a few provinces at peace conference, no matter how unfair it will be - nope, Japan got it all by event.

I had massive steel shortage and no way to buy more. I suspect the reason is that there are for more strong countries in the mod trying to get same limited amount of resources, and #hoi4 economy model is fairly dumb and not working well under any kind of stress.

After finally getting pp, I got into wars with Qing on one side, and with Persia/Arabia/Egypt on the other.

Against Persia/Arabia/Egypt I did quite OK. Tanks running through deserts were fine, and their armies were located all over the place before the war, so I had some ability to maneuver.

I still had to stop after Persia fell just because infrastructure got completely destroyed in the fighting, so everybody had almost maximum penalty. Maybe I need to build more civilian factories just for repairing infrastructure faster?

I destroyed 90% of their divisions, but the last obstacle was Suez Canal. I couldn't force my way through (with 7mnt2art, probably could with usual 6mar2art1mtank), so I built a few subs just so AI would let me press naval invasion button.

Against Qing I rediscovered that not having infantry support tanks is indeed completely awful, and dedicated tank divisions do nothing with so many divisions out there. I'd be much better off disbanding all the tank divisions and making those tanks into infantry support.

Qing had no artillery or tanks, so I thought I'd have no trouble running over their pure infantry divisions, no matter how numerous, but they quickly showed me I was wrong (mostly due to playing without infantry support tanks - it would probably work otherwise). Instead I was on defensive and watching Chinese bodies pile up.

And just to be sure that I won't be attacking infrastructure got completely wrecked in fighting, so nobody had any supplies.

It took 3m Chinese (to 80k mine) before their attacks started weakening.

After 5m Chinese died, Japan's puppet decided to join the war to stealr some warscore - fortunately they got nothing for the trouble.

I'm not even close to getting united India focus button, as that's based on coring a bunch of provinces, and that's a very slow event. Quite disappointing.

It's pretty clear that alternative army builds are awful, and 6mar 2art 1mtank (or very similar) is the only way.

That's not to say tanks divisions were useful - they definitely were - but infantry without tank supports is just not good enough.

Even after all that I'm nowhere near getting enough steel. It's plentiful in Russia and Europe I guess.

That's it for now. I might try the mod again next version, depending on which countries get new focus trees.
#hoi4 #kaiserreich

Kaiserreich Russia

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-15 09:00:59 UTC

So I tried playing #kaiserreich #hoi4 as Russia.

Instead of starting preparation for war, game was just throwing random shitty event at me. A few months in, I was totally happy to accept all worker demands - like does it matter if I have -120% penalty to production or -150%? Not really, either way, my armies won't see a single gun.

There's a bunch of complex event chains, and game of course won't tell you future consequences of your choices. I made Orthodox patriarch into prime minister, and that screwed me a lot.

I've seen a lot of bugs. Not terribly serious.

One weird bug was that White Russia was in German's faction, Germany got into war with France, and White Russia flipped to my faction by event, but didn't leave that war.

I managed to avoid civil war. I got Caucasus by threats. Then in December 1938 I finally got my first war, but by then WW2 was already ending, with France in Berlin. And then German Empire magically teleported itself to Africa.

France also got into war against Entente led by Canada - and French Republic in Africa.

I was fighting Mongolia/Tibet, and I was justifying war on Persia and its puppets - twice I was hit by -100 mana event during this, and that pauses claim justification, even though that doesn't actually cost any mana, you pay it all upfront! That's probably bug in vanilla, it just never matters as vanilla doesn't have such dumb events.

And then Japan attacked me - without any warning whatsoever I'm supposed to get while someone fabricates.

I should just send the rest of troops from Europe to Far East - it's not like France will suddenly attack me, right?

My empire

Europe after France mostly won WW2.

There are 2 Frances, 2 Germany, and there were 4 USAs for a while. Entente France and Mittleeuropa Germany in Africa.  Socialist versions are in Europe.

There are 2 Frances, 2 Germany, and there were 4 USAs for a while. Entente France and Mittleeuropa Germany in Africa.  Socialist versions are in Europe.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-16 03:40:15 UTC

More notes on #Kaiserreich #hoi4:

• it has associated Kaiserreich music mod, which I really disliked and turned off after 15 minutes
• mod almost completely replaces politics system, but military and tech stuff is only minimally changed, so 7/2 etc. all works just fine
• nobody can join factions other than by events/focus trees. This is amazing.
• there were cases of countries with no land being listed as allies in war, or destroyed countries still having troops on the map
• the "-100pp because fuck you" events never stopped coming, like seriously game, chill out
• in addition to other kinds, I'm now getting "do you want to puppet them or take -100pp" event for pretty much every country I occupy

Government:
• my new tsar died, leaving 12 year old ruling, and regency council in charge. Which game is this again?

Europe:
• White Russia was in German faction and joined WW2
• it flipped to my faction by event, but stayed in WW2
• Soviet Poland ended up annexing and releasing them as puppet.

Caucasus:
• I got it all cleanly by threats and events.

In Central Asia:
• I fought Alash Orda, but it also fought Turkestan. Turkestan got most of it
• I wanted that land, so I attacked Turkestan. But Turkestan also fought Persia. Persia got most of it.
• I justified war on Persia, but Persia released that land as a bunch of puppets, so fabrication quietly stopped.
• I justified second time on their puppet, no surprised from this point on, I got it all.

In Mongolia:
• Mongolia/Tibet were in separate faction
• they were fighting Ma Clique, and were winning
• I attacked Mongolia/Tibet, crushed them, and yet when it came to warscore, Ma Clique got most of it
• this time I waited for Ma Clique to release puppets, and fabricated on them directly
• and Uyghuristan rebelled against Ma Clique, cancelling my fabrication, seriously?
• second try, attacked Ma Clique (and their puppets Mongolia and Tibet)
• Uyghursitan only got 1 state, but still managed to trap way too many of my armies in Tibet with zero supplies
• there's no way to increase supplies - infrastructure and ports just let me move supplies faster, but when exclase is disconnected, they do nothing
• so I conquered Uyghuristan, just to get supplies through - in HOI4 there's pretty much no way to just ask for military access to get troops back home

Against Japan:
• they atacked me, with puppets Manchuria and Vladivostok (ok, they had some fancy names, but it's probably easier this way)
• I crushed them, got events asking me if I want to puppet Manchuria, I've chosen not to, so control over Manchuria's lands flipped back and forth a few times
• and 3 of my divisions somehow got destroyed by this flipping while fighting was going on
• once I took by force Manchuria, Vladivostok, Japanese Korea, and Japanese Sakhalin and I was overrunning last Japanese armies in them
• I got separate peace event - I took all of that, plus somehow Taiwan
• I did a fairly cheesy thing of deploying divisions directly to frontline as if they're some paratroopers

Plans:
• Next I'm planning to fight Qing, Yunnan Clique,, and Afghanistan
• My Qing army is 96 vs their 174, plus maybe 40 naval invasion army
• My Yunnan army is 48 vs their 83
• My Afghanistan army is 24 vs their 21
• I finally got decent number of fighters - just upgrading all air fields to deploy them all
• medium tanks are only just being researched

Global situation:
• there used to be tons of wars, now it's much fewer
• France faction - Germany faction
• France faction - Canada faction
• Canada - Denmark
• Japan - Indonesia
• Ottomans - Cyprus rebels
• none of them seem to have any active fighting, as AI doesn't know how to naval invade

So far I'm really enjoying it.

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-05-17 04:39:15 UTC

More #hoi4 #kaiserreich notes:

• terrain view in the game is absolutely awful - I can't even tell which tiles are mountains and which are not; it's probably worst of all Paradox Games
• can this game stop fucking unpausing?
• slow fabrication time (from recent patch) + fabrication pausing due to negative pp (from Kaiserreich event) = massive pain; one of the two would be tolerable, but not together

Qing war was so sweet:
• 6 armies of 24 divisions, each with separate directions
• only one of them got tanks in time
• 38 divisions in 3 separate naval invasions
• air and naval support
• and still everything fit on a single screen
• it was a sweet spot of war that's not trivial, but not forcing me to flip screen back and forth
• Yunnan fell a month before war started - so Qing tried to quick reshuffle their armies, Beijing was basically unprotected
• most of their armies were on West and North fronts, I pushed some weak points, but tried not to waste troops - Qing had way more than me
• North landing didn't capture any port, but managed to meet troops which took loosely defended Beijing
• Middle landing took a few ports and Nanjing, was unsupported for very long time
• South landing took a bunch of ports, was unsupported for very long time - until my Yunnan army somehow managed to squeeze itself to connect
• strategically redeploying forces from one part of front to another to push faster than Qing can reshuffle its frontlines in order was pretty much the key - I just had to push random single divisions out of the way
• alternative strategy would be to just send more troops after landing party by boat, and rush from there - if I had spare troops for it

Other wars:
• Yunnan was trivial, I mostly wanted more directions to attack Qing from
• Burma/India was very easy - finally had tanks in infantry divisions
• Siam was crazy trivial - they had nearly 100 divisions and put most of them onto just a few tiles, so their frontline had huge gaps. I had my first 12 armored divisions who rolled into capital unopposed, meanwhile my infantry just pocketed 50 enemy divisions which stood on two tiles and were asking for it - than's way worse than AI usually is; rather disappointing as up to this point AI was OKish
• after that I fabricated on Ottomans via focus, but didn't even bother to put any troops on the border - to be fair they only had 14 days. I feel such short focuses are really design mistake as long as AI is what it is.

Anyway, there's probably little point continuing this, only trivial stuff ahead, even major factions would get trivially crushed.