Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV

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Strong Germany Early Game
Av Jdee
The German Reich may already be in a strong starting position but through this guide you can learn how to make it even more powerful.
   
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The Strategy
***Disclaimer*** This guide is not intended to be followed word for word, instead use it as a general guide and adapt its ideas for your own game strategies.

TLDR: Read the bold and you'll probably understand

Now for the Strategy
As a facist nation, Germany has the ability to justify war goals without any minimum world tension requirements. This strategy takes advantage of this and is intended to use early wars (1936) to empower the early game in order to strengthen the late game. The strongest first justifications I've identified are on the Netherlands and Czechslovakia. I will elaborate on the specifics in later sections.

Why the Netherlands?
The Netherlands in Europe are not very strategically important however their overseas holdings (specifically Indonesia) are what this war is after. Simply justify a conquer war goal on any province and then when the war is over annex the entire nation and all of their oil and rubber now belongs to the German Reich. This is a powerful early war because you only need to take the victory points in Europe to end the war because the Allies will not join the war, provided you do not wait until world tension is high enough for them to invite to faction.

Why Czechslovakia?
This war is more of an optional choice as the Netherlands is basically the point of this strategy. I choose Czechslovakia only for the extra factories it nets you. Gaining extra early civilian factories creates a snowball effect of industry creation. The choice was between Czechslovakia and Poland, and even though Poland would be more benefitial, in my experience Poland will join the Allies before the war is over and Czechslovakia will not. The point of the strategy is to start early wars that end quickly and give the most benefit, and dragging in the Allies early is to Germany's detriment, not benefit.
Execution of the Strategy
How to Execute the Strategy
1 (optional). National Focus: Rhineland
2. Wait until 100 politcal power is accumulated (should be 50 days, give or take depending on difficulty) then justify conquer war goal on both the Netherlands and Czechslovakia for any state, it doesn't matter
3 (recommendation). You probably want a full line of Infantry Equipment and then you can divide the rest of the military factories to what you prefer, tanks, airplanes, artillery, etc. The infantry equipment is important to creating new divisions which are very useful in the early wars.
4 (recommendation). If you decided to do the last one, around the first week of June (give or take based on difficulty) you should have enough equipment to make around 13 divisions of the regular infantry. Start producing these divisions in early June and they will finish just in time for the wars (assuming you justified the war goals right when you hit 100 politcal power).
5. Conquer the countries at the same time, putting 10-15 divisions on the Netherlands to finish them quickly and the rest on Czechslovakia. Both the wars will end quickly. This will take place around October - November of 1936.
6. Cancel outdated trade deals!!! Once you acquire the rubber and oil from the overseas holdings previously belonging to the Netherlands, you should no longer have a need for either resource.
Aftermath
This is where the guide ends and your decision making begins in full. The state of the world will be at high world tension and the Spanish Civil War could have started. Within a year, this strategy provides the German Reich with overseas holdings (from which future invasions and be staged into South America and Asia), more resources (tons of rubber and a good bit of oil which will greatly reduce the number of civilian factories that need to be traded away), and more factories (which will turn into more and more factories as the years progress).

My vague recommendation is to spend a decent amount of time preparing for your next war which is nearly guaranteed to be against the Allies. Build a lot of planes (which is now possible due to massive gains of resources). From here you can play mostly historically and you'll probably achieve earlier and more success than real life Germany. You could also go off course and continue other side conquests, however world tension is high enough to where any additional justifications will be guaranteed by Britain and France.
Recap / Summary / TLDR
In Summary
1. Justify wars agianst the Netherlands and Czechslovakia about 50 days into 1936 SIMULTANEOUSLY.
2. You can focus on infantry equipment production and produce extra divisions to help with the early conquests.
3. Declare war on both nations SIMULTANEOUSLY (doing it one after the other will give the Allies a chance to guarantee the other) and conquer them both. It shouldn't be too difficult of a war.
4. Profit from the gained oil and rubber resources as well as additional factories (and as a bonus a longer front line with Poland).

Thanks for reading and happy conquests!
29 kommentarer
Yhvh10 6. nov. 2022 kl. 14.32 
The problem with this strategy is that in later versions of the game, the French are guaranteed to back Czechoslovakia in the "Demand Sudenland."
Tocharius 11. mai 2022 kl. 6.01 
the last time i did this, it was years ago - but what made it work should still work now. justify war goal against netherlands, take it out - don't worry about getting the colony, you'll puppet it anyway and can, in time, incorporate it... the point is, you put paratroopers in netherlands and, as soon as possible, parathute them into london. years ago you could take out an acquire the whole british empire this way. conversely, if you take out poland first, then if your timing is right, early on you can take out ussr. once, but this was years ago on ironman, very early on i got uk and ussr this way.
76561198880822813 7. apr. 2020 kl. 10.02 
you can trade the east indies stuff and then just annex them
granim 4. mars 2019 kl. 17.40 
This does not work anymore. Only worked in early versions of the game.
BetterBite 17. juli 2018 kl. 13.02 
Heres a problem: You cannot annex the Dutch East Indies meaning you still have to trade.
DragomirKingsman 30. mars 2018 kl. 13.21 
Captain Shitskin, have you noticed the pass button? If you demand nothing in one turn of the peace conference, then you get a little extra score at the expense of your allies possibly taking what you wanted.
Karl 29. mai 2017 kl. 15.13 
This guide is old, it was made around when the game first came out.
Lancaster 14. apr. 2017 kl. 9.47 
PSYCON, When you get to the peace conference, you satilllite them. this essentially makes them your puppet
Psyco 25. mars 2017 kl. 16.10 
I have a question what about the dutch east indies whenever the netherlands capitulated the dutch east indies would still be at war wtih me
Sader 16. des. 2016 kl. 23.57 
Can confirm that this still works in 1.3.0 + TfV. Though the addition of Belgium doesn't work, as the last of the three standing automatically join the allies after annexing the other two. Also, I don't think you can take Dutch East Indies now, since they're a seperate entity (not enough warscore) so not really worth it, I think.