This was done in a near-vanilla game. The only mods enabled were mods that change visuals, and nothing else. This guide however, does use the effects of an exploit to allows access to parts of a focus tree you should not have access to at the same time.

This guide is also not the only way to do this, this is just one way I found that works incredibly well while additionally giving you many puppets and a loyal faction to help in conquest


Additionally, this guide is long and uses a lot of images.




Enabled Mods

• Better Political Map 1.5.4
  
• Coloured Buttons
  
• HOI4 U.I. Overhaul - (1.5)
  
• Filled in Millitary Arrows and Borders

(I have to relationship with any of these mod authors, I just have them enabled and realized I should link them incase anyone wants to use them. They are fairly nice and reccomend them)

For country selection, we have 6 options. France, Itally, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. For this guide, I plan on establishing the Europian Union as Germany, as they have an easy way to conqour all of Europe and an easy way to become a Democracy.


Additionally, I reccomend doing this with historical focuses enabled as it makes some events poredictable.

Starting out with contruction, everything in Eastern and South-Eastern Germany needs to be converted to Civillian Factories. Additionally, for research I recommend researching "Construction 1", "Basic Machine Tools", "Electronic Mechanical Engineering", and "MG 08 & leichter Minenwerfer". Ater these, it is up to you what you research and when you do. Although for this guide I used the "Mobile Warfare" doctrine and used the "Blitzkrieg" and "Desperate Defence" subdoctrines.


With production, this table shows what I did at the start. You may want something different, but this is what I did.


For devisions, I converted all of my non-Infantry to Panzers and then trained 24 more devisions. Assign them all to one Army, and set a fallback line here:
Move all of your navy here and set it to their home base as well


Dont select a focus yet, and unpause the game.

After 21 Days, you shoudl have 51 Political Power. Use this to begin a war justification on Bhutan.


Why are we justifing on Bhutan? It serves two goals:

1. It rases World Tension for the Least Amount to allow us to bypass the "Rhineland" focus, and
   
2. It keeps German generated World Tension low enough to complete the "Great Red Menace" focus post Civil War

Here is further detail into what we are doing and why it works:


Now that we have started our war justification on Bhutan, were going to do the "Four Year Plan" as our first focus. For me, the Spanish Civil war started during this period, and I didnt support either side. You can if you want, but it ultamatly does not matter which side wins. Additionally, save your policical power and get a "Democratic Reformer" followed by a "Captain of Industry" then a "Army Offence" officer.
For MEFO Bills I paid them off to keep them in effect till the civil war.

Here are the three focuses to do before "Oppose Hitler" and the advisors I obtained:

(NOTE you will not be able to get all three advisors till the civil war kicks off)


Now, this part is going to rely pretty heavily on timing. When you start the "Oppose Hitler" focus, you should have around 55 days till your justification on Bhutan is complete. When that is complete:

1. Pause the game
   
2. Declare War
   
3. Bypass the "Rhineland" focus
   
4. Unpause the game and move to the civil war
   
5. When the event pops up, pause the game again
   
6. Move you army stationed at that dock in Schleswig-Holstein the sea towards the port in Weser-Ems
   
7. Respond to the event when they are in the naval tile BEFORE they get back on land
   
8. Unpause the game
   
   
   
   The civil war should be able to be won easily, the strategy I have in the screenshot below has allowed me to win the civil war in 21 days without any micromanagement. In this run it took 32 days for me. and ended on the 23rd of November, 1936.
   
   
   During the Civil War, I did the "Autarky" focus.
   
   When you win the Civil war, I reccomend just Imprisoning the Nazi Leadership, rather than killing them.

After the end of the civil war, I reccomend Training 4 sets of 24 Infantry Devisions, and 3 sets of 6 Panzer Devisions. After repairs, for construction I built 5 Syths, 19 CIVs, and and 26 MILs to start with.


Political Power Spending

1. Industrial Concern
   
2. Infantry Equipment Designer
   
3. Blitzkrieg Theorist
   
4. Infantry Expert
   
5. Medium Tank Designer
   
6. Fortification Engineer
   
7. Army Logistics Export
   
8. Army Regrouping Expert

Focus Order

1. "Autarky"(started during the civil war, should finish it after the war ends)
   
2. "Securing the New State"
   
3. "Re-Establish Free Elections"
   
4. "The Monarchy COmpromise"
   
5. "The Great Red Menace"
   
6. "Rebuild the Nation"
   
7. "A New and Better Germany"
   
8. "Fan Prussian Militarism"
   
9. "Westwall"
   
10. "Anschluss" (Boost relationship with France and England when you are about 30-40% done with the focus)
    
11. "Grossraumwirtschaft"
    
12. "State Controlled Industry"
    
13. "Reverse the Brain Drain"
    
14. "Bulwark Against Bolshevism"

These Focuses convert your ideology to Democratic and mostly build up reseach abillity, industrial power, and expand fronts/set up for expansion.



Spend command power to ensure you keep your generals fully upgraded

Events

• If any democratic events pop up, do whatever it takes to not lose Political Power
  
• Is you get "Public Protests Rearmorment" do not lower your Economy Law
  
• For Yugoslav aircraft purchases I gave them Bombers
  
• For pressure on Yugoslavia just dont go to war with them

At some point, France Should start going Fascist. This is good either way as it means the either join Italy to try to attack you are they for their own Faction.This means that they stay out of the Allies, meaning you can ignore the British or even Ally them.

For construction add level 4 forts allong the French Border, build 31 NDs, 25 CIVs, 7 Synths, 23 MILs, and 2 more Synths to the queue regaurdless if you are complete with the old constrions or not. After this only build MILs and level 4 forts along the Polish and Italian Borders.


Modify your production order to this:


Focus Order:

1. "Demand Sudetenland" (Boost Relationship with France, UK, and Czechoslovakia)
   
2. "Demand Slovenia" (Boost With Yugoslavia)
   
3. "Reassert Eastern Claims"
   
4. "First Vienna Award"
   
5. "Fate of Czechoslovakia"
   
6. "Align Hungary"
   
7. "Central European Alliance"
   
8. "Danubian Membership" (When I completed this focus, The soviets declared war on Poland, this section ends the focuses here, but they continue in the next section)

Political Power Spending:

1. Decisive Battle Expert
   
2. Raiding Fleet Designer
   
3. Light Aircraft Designer
   
4. Air Reformer

Events:

• "Hungarian Bomber Competition" i selected to not give them anything
  
• "Fate of Czechoslovakia" i selected to set up a slovakian puppet

Optimal German Territorial Extent at the birth of the Central European Alliance:

Focus Order:

1. "Danubian Expansion"
   
2. "Scandinavian Membership"
   
3. "Shared R&D Programs"
   
4. "Pool Technical Know-How"
   
5. "The Mannheim Project"
   
6. "Integrate War Economies"
   
7. "Wolkswagen"
   
8. ""Extra Research Slot"
   
9. "Reichsautobahn"
   
10. "Coal Liquidization"
    
11. "Synthetic Rubber"
    
12. "Air Innovation"
    
13. "Tactical Air Effort"
    
14. "Air Innovations 2"
    
15. "Rocketry"
    
16. "Wunderwaffe"
    
17. "Finnish Membership"
    
18. "Anti-Comintern Pact"
    
19. (Bypass) "War With the USSR"
    
20. "Befriend Turkey"
    
21. "Naval Reamament"
    
22. "Naval Effort"
    
23. "U-Boat Effort"
    
24. "Trade Interdiction"
    
25. "Modular Construction"

Political Power Spending:

1. Extensive Conscription
   
2. save political power till you have 250
   
3. "Total Mobilization" and "Women in the Workforce"
   
4. (Optional but recommended) Save 600 pp to annex Hungary and Romainia

Events:

• "Pro-Unification Sentiments" despiote doing anchluss you may still get an event for unifying with Austria, just unify again
  
• "Hungary Demands Lordship over Slovakia" let them have it, but take all their troops first, if your game crashes, try clearing game cache and trying this again, and then the other option if you have the troops to spare.

War with the Red Menace

I invited poland to my faction and set up a fall back at this location before joining the war. If you can keep supply, you should be able to hold here. The river acts as a defensive boundry and you can build Lvl 3 forts along the German-Soviet Border



For air and naval commands I set up mine up like so:




When the Polsih start pushing, you can move your army onto the front line but I wouldnt push untill the soviet front line is shorter. Additionally, make sure all of your faction is in the war to maximise your sides troop count.



Continue to hold the Polish Line even after the Poles run out of manpower. Our goal is to ensure the Soviets run dry and exhaust their equipment supply. For those wondering, these are the main devisions im using and they can hold fairly well.



After completing "Integrate War Economies" take all of Romainia and Hungary's troops. Use these troops as extra to garrison the front line. Then, if you wish to start preparing to annex them, send them lend leases of Infantry Equipment (as you should have several thousand excess) and build MILs in their territory. Build MILs in Slovakia's territory as well if Hungary didnt claim overlordship.



Creating enciclements is the best way to deplete soviel numbers, and one of the best spots for this is here in Latvia. If you play your cards right, you can easily trap 100+ devisions, but here I only got aboud 50.



Make sure you watch your back and keep troops on the Italian and French Borders. If you built forts in your territory you will be relativly fine, but Italy will. generally Justify on Greece (if they arent in your faction then thats perfectly normal) and Yugoslavia. Watch the latter as it will drag you into a terrible position if you dont garrison the border.



When Italy and Bulgaria go after Greece, they will almost always get Greece to want to join your faction. Only do it when you are sure you have enough troops on the border to hold. I joined in and helped Greece. Doing so caused France to join Italy's faction, but they dont join the war at the start. Begin by ensureing Italy's holdings in Yugoslavia and Albainia, in addition to Bulgaria are taken out first.



France will eventually join the war against you, but when they do if you built up llike I said to iearlier, you will have at least lvl 6-7 forts on the border and easily hold. Additionally, the Itallians wont be able to push through the south for the same reasons.



All across the board you should have good defence along all fronts. Keep holding till the Soviets deplete their manpower.



Around now I was able to annex one of my pupet states, I shose Hungary first because they arent on any front line and that makes freee factories without a chance to lose them sooner. The boders will look stupid for a while, but theyll be fixed later.


As time moves on, youll slowly be able to push into the soviets, while whittling them down. Additionally, the Italians and French should have stagnated long ago which will make an easy but long push later. Don't invite Finland to the war for as long as possible, as theyll drag soviet manpower away from your main front as a destraction. Other than that, you are free to push and defend till the Soviets get whiped out.



Call in allies when you get the chance, and also trade interior land for territory your allies control on the front to expand warscore.



When the war finally ends, you should try top get an optimal peace deal. This is if everything geos perfectly:



Now, we can focus on the other fronts.

Focus Order:

1. "Expand Dockyard Facillities"
   
2. "Low Countries Membership"
   
3. "Army Innovations 2"
   
4. "Naval Air Effort"
   
5. "Long Range Escorts"
   
6. (continuous) "Construction Engineering"

After your war with Imperium Romanum ends

1. "Construction Repair"

Once Everything is repaired

1. "Danzig or War" (Kick Poland from faction)
   
2. "Befriend Japan" (Just used to pass time)
   
3. "Around Maginot"
   
4. "War with France"
   
5. "Atlantikwall" (onlt after you have full control of the lowlands)
   
6. "Operation Tannenbaum"
   
7. "Reintegrate Alsace Lorraine"
   
8. "Improve National Spirit"

Political Power Spending:

1. "Prosect for Resources" decisions
   
2. "Service By Requirement" (if manpower gets low)

The Western Wars

Start out by just deleting as many factores as possible in your spanish territory. Your trrop will not make it in time to defent it so it is not worth the effort of losing troops over. In an unlikely case, I managed to get a small army over before they took all the territory, thus creating a second front to push from.



After inviting the low countries, get Belgium in the war as quickly as possible and blitz into France. Most of their troops should be on the Maginot or in Spain, so you should be able to take the easily. Italy should have most of their troops on their Eastern front, so if you can keepo them distracted, you should have no trouble pushing into the other side and taking them out.



Once Belgium Joins in the war, you should be able to blitz all the war to Paris or even further. Something I reccomend is rushing tanks down south to try to encircle the Maginot. This will shorten your line later and kill of hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen.





The French should fall rather quickly, use nukes if needed to break through thier lines. After this, just slowly push into Italy. I reccomend starting the other sides push just to destract and occupy Italy's units so you can push more with the other side. Maintain airial supperiority to make this whole thing easier.



After the war, just annex everything you can. Some of your allies may liberate or change the governemnts of things, but you should be able to take their cores so you should be fine. This is ideal:



Spend some time to repair all of your constructions, the kick Poland from your faction. Set up troops along the border and do Danzig or war. In an ideal world, theyll start the "Between the seas concept" focus and will reject your demands.



Poland should fall relativly quickly, even without micromanaging. If you got lucky and they formed their own faction, that makes iteasy as you arent at war with the allies yet.



After your war with Poland, kick Belgium and Luxembourg from your faction. Theyll quickly join the allies and well declare war on them soon. Ensure you have a large stock of plans and nukes to drop and clear out all the devisions in the lowlands. Declare war as soon as you can.



The lowlands will fall reletivly quickly, and when they do start off your naval invasion of England.



At this point, you own all the needed territory to form the Europian Union! Go on and form that ♥♥♥♥!

Now that youve formed the Europian Union, finishing off this war should be fairly easy and play out like a traditional WW2 axis victory run. Just go take out all the majors in the Allies and call it a day. If you decide to you can take out your faction members one by one by going communist and kicking them out one by one.

I know this isnt the most efficient way to form the Europian Union, and I know that it can be done a lot sooner than 1947, but this is the way that I found the easiest and gave the most terrirtory and forgivness.

I hope this guide was helpful to anyone who reads it.
-Informal Informant