Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV

245 ratings
Ultimate guide World Conquest as Germany
By Casual909
A good clear guide for how to succesfully conquer the world and some nice tips for beginners. No mods also this guide doesn't go too far off from historical events but still beating the world, the most enjoyable way playing in my opinion. Idk if there is already a guide but idc kek so let's get into it :-)

Note: this guide might be old however it still worked for me. It definitely got more difficult on some aspects however easier at some others. I still would recommend using it however keep in mind some things might be changed, remember changing your version is also an option. I have updated the guide a bit to help you get through the newest version of the game :)
   
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Before starting
  • Turn on historial (probably possible without but haven't tested it yet)
  • Read everything behind the "-" very carefully before doing anything in that chapter of the guide
  • Train some troops (like I did 10 inferatry, 3 tank, 3 motorized and 1 mountaineer division(s))
  • Do the production stuff, build a ton of fighters, naval bombers, submarines and boats
  • Put all your boats in Hinterpommern and the production of the boats ect. btw don't forget a general
  • Gather all your troops, get the best general and draw a border at the Netherlands and draw a border around the whole country (part of the province zealand is not needed)
  • Gather all your planes and asign them at the benelux except the naval bombers, put those in the sea just right above the Netherlands and leave them there, they will destroy some ships (I always leave these naval bombers there for the whole game because it seems the british never has interested at destroying them
  • Choose some nice techs like always do the research bonus tech and industry tech at the start
  • Do not accept any faction requests or volunteers in the whole game (except from Romania and Hungary if you are playing on the newer version since you can puppet them through a focus)
  • Pay the MEFO Bills until your first small war
  • Start the focus: Rhineland
Early Game
After you have done the Rhineland focus then start to do the following things and this will tell you what to do before you do the Anschluss focus:

We are gonna conquer 2 countries: the Netherlands and Belgium. Why? Well because
the netherlands has a nice airport, a few harbors, a tiny resource bonus, a few factories and most important of all indonesia which we need for the resources and the conquest of the british (Malaysia and Aussie). We need Belgium because Belgium has also a few nice recourses & factories and it will speed up conquering france and the Allies will send some troops to africa so it will reduce the troops in Europe just like we did with Indonesia. Besides this all the spanish revolution will occur so sending troops to help is optional.

- Accept the Japan advisor event thingy when it pops up.

- You also may wanna get the USA to facist to avoid them to get involved into the war but this is optional because you can do this before they even have the chance to get involved. Although I still recommend doing so because winning the war may take a little longer.

Pick the following Laws and Advisors in this order:

  • A Silent Workhorse guy
  • Second Silent Workhorse guy
  • Save up 100pp and start fabricating a claim on the Netherlands and *then* Belgium
  • Blitzkrieg Theorist
  • Start Staging in the USA [OPTIONAL]
  • War Economy/Industrial Concern

- After this point it is pretty much up to you but you probably wanna get Captain of Industry and Fortification Engineer early on. Don't forget your manpower, you don't wanna get it down to 0 at any point of time.

- Add Rcon to your infantry devisions as soon as you have 10 army tradition.

- As soon as you are done with fabricating claims on the netherlands don't declare war yet but wait until the last day of the claim to expire and then start the war because you wanna start as late as possible. Just defend the border for a while until you can declare war on Belgium and the Dutch probably try to navel invade so just defeat them because you probably have like 50 divisions. Start attacking and win the war. Do this in the peace treaties:

For Belgium: Full annex.

For the Netherlands: Save up points until you can satilate Indonesia, then full annex the Netherlands itself.

Eventually you might receive an event from yugoslavia about approving planes through out the game. Choose the option about bombers to receive a small factory bonus.

Follow the following focusses after you done the Rhineland focus:

  • Reichsautobahn (Four Year Plan for new version)
  • Westwall (Autarky for new version)
  • Industrial Effort (Hermann Göring-Werke for new version)
  • Industrial Effort II (KdF Wagen for new version)
  • Army Innovations
  • Treaty with the USSR (if you are lucky then they accept)
  • Army Innovations II
  • Anschluss

- Forget westwall at the newer version since you can easily defend it with some troops in France. It would only be a waste of time.
Early-Mid Game
After you have done the Anschluss focus then start to do the following things and this will tell you what to do before you start World War II:

- Be sure to research parachutes for later on.

- At this point I increased the amount of tank & motorized divisions training to 5 but this is optional and building military factories.

- Start training at least 3 parachute divisions at the moment you have researched it.

Okay we now want to annex as much as possible so put your full army on the border of Czechoslovakia for the treat bonus chance to annex. If you weren't be able to annex it then too bad, you need to restart. If you succeeded then congrats and choose full annex. The next thing you wanna do is put half of your army at the border of Poland and draw an offensive plan around the capitals and most important cities. Put the other half at the border of Yugoslavia. If you are lucky you will be able to annex Slovenia and then full Yugoslavia. If not, too bad. You may wanna restart but it's not needed. After this split your army of Yugoslavia between France and Poland. Put your new divisions at the old Belgium-France border and draw a plan from there. Just put something like 10 divisions at the Germany-France border just to defend. After this put all your planes above Poland. Annex Memel if you are lucky, just a nice little bonus for the factories. After you done the Danzig or War focus start the war and the plan in Poland. Do not call Indonesia in war yet. We need distraction for less troops in Europe.

Follow the following focusses after you done the Rhineland focus:

  • Demand Studetenland
  • First Vienna Award
  • Fate of Czechoslovakia
  • Demand Slovenia
  • First Ljubljana Award
  • Fate of Yugoslavia
  • Reassert Eastern Claims
  • Danzig or War
Mid Game
After you have done the Danzig or War focus then start to do the following things and this will tell you what to do before do operation Sea Lion:

- Build Refinaries for rubber if needed for the planes.

- Be sure to research naval transport

After we won the war at the polish front we move all our troops to the old Belgium-France border and start the attack plan. Move all your planes to Norhern France. Defeat France and we skip the Around Maginot focus because we only get a claim on Luxembourgh so pretty much useless. Start stationing your troops around the coast from the Netherlands to Belgium and then go all the way to almost the whole coast of France. Start fabricating a Claim on Romenia just before you win the war against France. Put half of your troops at the border of Romenia because they have a ton of oil. Draw a plan and start the war. Fabricate a claim on luxembourgh and don't forget the border in Yugoslavia if you annex it. It can be a bit difficult but you should be able to defeat it without too much effort. After this Start the war in Luxembourgh by moving a few troops from the coastal line. Fabricate a claim on Switserland and put most of your coastal troops there for only this war start, the war as soon as possible and win. put them back as soon as possible. Around this time we should get the Greece events. If you are lucky then you get a whole new puppet which is very very very useful because it attracts the allies like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to girls. After this you should have researched or almost done researching the naval transport.

Follow the following focusses after you done the Danzig or War focus:

  • Second Ljubljana Award
  • Fate Of Greece
  • Operation Weserübung
  • Air Innovations II (Großraumwirtschaft for the new version)
  • Rocketry (Align Romania for the new version)
  • Extra Research Slot (Intergrate War Economies for the new version)
  • Wunderwaffe (Extra Research Slot for the new version and do Wunderwaffe right after)

- After this you do whatever you want but don't get friends with anyone and do not try to annex your puppets yet.

- Do not start a war against Denmark nor Norway yet because of their naval and iceland wil be free in the newer version.
Mid-Late Game
After you have conquered or conquering switserland then start to do the following things and this will tell you what to do how to win world war II:

Okay now the most tricky part of all: Conquering the British Empire. You need luck too and it can be pretty frustrating though and the borders in Indonesia, Greece and Belgium will distracting the British. Okay start creating a naval plan to a port in England. Create a leader for all your parachute divisions and start producing transport planes really fast until you have like 5-10 of them. Put your parachutes somewhere near or on a port, it can be a different port than the one you are naval invading or just the same one to help out. Okay so before you start attacking you need boats. Well you have saved up a ton of boats from all the way at the beginning at one place so create 1 massive fleet and send them to the English Channel. Put all your planes above the English Channel and South-England. Don't be stubborn and put your naval bombers above South-England please... Start the war plans and attack and be lucky. if you got to the mainland, start moving your divisions in every direction immediately! Also start asigning more troops to the generals who are fighting in England. Do this as quick as possible and rush through england. Create a nice border and call Indonesia in war so they will be able to get Malaysia and put more pressure on the British. Push them all the way back to the North. Try more naval invasions. It is tricky but you should be able to do this. Do not wait too long!

- You still have your troops in Eastern Europe while you do this all so claim the baltics and conquer them. After that fabricate a claim on Bulgaria and Yugoslavia if you haven't got it yet and annex it all.

- Start the war against Denmark after you almost have won against the British Empire (especially in the new version since iceland become independent . Conquer Denmark at the very end if you play on the newer versions)

- Don't forget to do the Improve National Spirit focus whenever you can or some other focus you would like to do.

If you have done everthing succesfully then congratulations! :D
You should be able to annex everything including almost all the british vassals except South-Africa and New Zealand (if you play on an older version you can pick South-Africa and New Zealand too) otherwise you failed and waited too long. RIP it probably has ruined your world conquest run if that happens.

- It is now safe to annex all your puppets if you want.
Late Game
After you have won World War II then start to do the following things and this will tell you what to do how to win World War III:

- Start spamming forts around the soviet border with all your factories [Optional]

This part won't be super hard anymore, we are gonna conquer soviet union via your extremely giant border and turkey also conquer a few more conquest here and there so put all your troops at the border of the USSR ad create a plan. Put like 15 on the border of Turkey and 10 in Denmark (Start war against Denmark if you haven't got it yet). Start creating a naval plan against Norway and when it is done start the war with the claim you still got from ww2. The allies will probably join which is probably only South-Africa so be sure to put troops there too. Fabricate a claim on Ireland while doing this war. It will only be a few days and start the war against Ireland. Super easy so yeah. You may wanna get Sweden too after Ireland but that's up to you.

If you have done that then start the war against the USSR with the focus or claim. If you haven't done the focus yet the start doing it and conquer Italy or Spain (if Spain isn't communist) in the meantime. Fabricate a claim on Turkey and you can destroy the USSR with 2 strats:

Waiting and defending; they will lose a ♥♥♥♥ ton of soldiers and you will only lose a few because of all the forts.

Pushing and attacking; well yeah just what it does but risky.

It's up to you so start a war against Turkey as soon as possible so you can remove kebab and you should be able to win it without a lot of effort. Fabricate a claim against Iraq and put these 10 divisions at the border of the USSR and let it reinforce with extra fresh new divisions and push. Get some other 10 divisions and put them at the border of Iraq. Start the war against Iraq, win and keep doing this with these 10 divisions with the following countries:

  • Saudi-Arabia
  • Oman
  • Yemen
  • Iran
  • Afganistan

- You might wanna pick Liberia too

You should be able to conquer them super fast and when you are done your other armies should be very deep in the ussr so get these 10 divisions at the Afganistan-Russia & Iran-Russia border and manually try to go to the allies of the the USSR so we can annex them even if you only conquer like one state. Well it all shouldn't be too hard. Annex all.

An optional thing you can do is justify war on china if japan hasn't won the war yet before you win the war with the USSR. This will reduce their power in the future if you can pick some land too.
End Game
After you have won World War III then start to do the following things and this will tell you what to do how to conquer the world:

Put a lot of troops on the border of the USA and fabricate a claim on venezuela and put like 20-25 troops on that border and 1 division on one of these islands in the Caribbean so you can easily take porto rico from the usa and naval invade the countries there. Just keep justifying war goals on countries and conquering with your 20-25 divisions until you have most or all of the american continent so also mexico to open a new front and conquer usa's port in Panama. It's just a matter of time until the world is conquered. It shouldn't be extremely difficult with all the resources you own.

- Be careful for bad supply lines on the american continent
- Building a ton of infrastructure and forts with all your factories in Canada will help against the USA
Last Word
- Suggestions are always welcome

- This guide is not finished yet (need end game info, more lay-out, missing info, maybe some pics and maybe more)

- Kekistan will rise!
105 Comments
jimmy12707 12 Apr @ 5:15am 
I love you
niftly 6 Feb, 2023 @ 3:12pm 
use "annex all"
crazy rocker 24 Jan, 2021 @ 11:12pm 
better option start justifying against poland as soon as u have enough points. Poland wil be gone by the end of 36 long before the allies garuntee them. then just build up ur troops ready to go after the soviets. do rhineland after Poland has been annexed. most of the time it will bypas saving u time to do other focuses.
then u will be free to go after the Soviets without having to worry to much about the allies. the Soviets usualy go after Iran and iraq and finland. that wil tie up some of their troops for when u strike while their busy elsewhere. time it for when they invade other countries.
Dont let any countries join the axis or they will get u into a war with the allies too soon.
dont do any focueses against countries that have been garunteed by the allies till after the soviets r gone.
Casual909  [author] 1 Jan, 2021 @ 6:41am 
@G_Tugg you get a lot of pp out of that. That's why but you could skip it if you really feel the need to.
G_Tugg 31 Dec, 2020 @ 12:16am 
"After you have done the Rhineland focus".... Who even does the Rhineleand focus when you can skip it entirely by taking Netherlands lol
Gravitywaveman 15 Dec, 2020 @ 12:26pm 
load and save
Bacchuss 27 Jun, 2020 @ 5:59am 
is this still working?
Picobacsi 17 Mar, 2020 @ 12:37pm 
Now I tried justify on the Netherlands, and timed declaring war on them after demanding Sudetenland. As soon I got Anschluss UK guaranteed the Dutch.
So I don't think that (with this version and Waking Tiger enabled) Early Game could be executed as written.
Picobacsi 16 Mar, 2020 @ 11:21am 
Well I tried annexing only Netherlands, Czechs refused... :( so sad
Picobacsi 16 Mar, 2020 @ 10:18am 
I don't know if it's because a new version or what, but there is no way getting the Sudetenland "peacefully". By the time I get to demand it, the WT is around 50. UK and France guarantees the Czechs, and they always refuse. I restarted like 10 times.
I have my full army, 770k men around their borders, with offensive lines. I even improve realtions with them, cause I read somewhere that helps. I even had my planes planned over Czechoslovakia.
After the Conference they become allied to UK (and minions) and France.

In one run I tried with liberating African countries, to lower WT, but that didn't helped with the demand.

I tried to mess up the order a bit, and have Sudetenland before attacking Netherlands, but by the time I got there UK guaranteed them.

I think I will try attacking only the Netherlands, and leave Belgium for Around Maginot, maybe that helps.