Hearts of Iron II: War Stories

[Harovan]

Still playing it DC?

I started a Germany game again, inspired by this thread. A World Power game this time. If you're interested, I can post some thoughts (can't be arsed to write a full AAR though).

If you're not interested, just let it sink.

[DarkCloud]

Oh, I'd be interested in hearing what happened.

I played a few more times since writing on this thread, but didn't make too much progress, since I didn't want to reload.

Next time I fire up the game, I'll probably try something different... maybe Russia?

[Harovan]

Ok, here it goes. First, some strategical considerations and decisions I met at the beginning. Some of them are common stuff, some not. Btw I am playing Normal/Normal, which is the way the game is supposed to be played. On World power games I don't seek a challenge, and overall I am not in favor to restrain myself, I rather make my enemy's life easier (the Civ approach).

• Economy: Starting with two rounds of factory buildup, 18 factories each. Aye, that cost me 90 IC from Januar 1st, 1936 until November 27th, 1937 and it will pay off only after 1941, but it serves several good purposes anyway. First, I can't build anything good so early, mainly because I don't have researched yet all the cool stuff. Second, what I can build, is obsolete by 1939 and needs to be upgraded. Third, my slider settings aren't optimized yet, I need to max out especially the hawk slider, because it makes building cheaper and last not that long. These slider moves I get for free beginning with the Austria event. Fourth, it does give me not only additional base industrial capacity, but more importantly, transport capacity. That is important for somebody who intends to control many foreign provinces. And lastly, units I don't have yet, don't cost me supplies; why would I build and feed masses of troops, whom I intend to use only 3 years later?
• Research facilities: Building a third level rocket test facility in a safe place (Stralsund, where it really was). It is very expensive (20 IC over 16.5 months), but it speeds up rocket research tremendously. Not for missiles, but mainly for turbojet planes. Additionally, practically every troop research after 1942 contains a rocket component, the research of which will be sped up as well. Overall it more than pays off, and as I said, I build it in a time where I don't use my IC for troops anyway.
• Research priorities: The game hints me to follow the original German research routes (tanks and motorized infantry, close air support, interceptors, trade warfare by submarines etc.), but other than the historical Germany I don't want to limit myself to a land power in Europe. So I met the decision to not research hardware and doctrines for CAS planes (focus on tactical and naval bombers instead for the longer range), interceptors (build multi-role fighters instead, also for the longer range) and submarines (I build a powerful blue water navy instead). I still keep the naval research focused on battleships (not carriers), because until 1943 I will mainly operate in the North Atlantic, the weather of which is too bad to use carriers effectively, and after 1943 hopefully the only power, who's carriers can threaten me (the USA), will be defeated.
• Army: Until Barbarossa I aim for about 150 infantry divisions. A few of them will get artillery brigades and guard key points like Copenhagen, Island, Gibraltar, Suez and the oil provinces. The rest gets armored cars. I'm much in favor of these; they don't improve the troops onesided like artillery, anti tank guns and military police, but spread their benefits over all attributes. Some soft attack, a little hard attack (from the 2nd model on), some extra organization (a biggie!) and some hardness. Most importantly, they don't slow the units down. A dozen mountain and some airborne divisions (all with artillery) will do the "special" tasks. My mobile force will contain armored and motorized divisions, about two dozens of each. Eight HQ units will support my offensive armies. Lastly, I build enough garrisons with MP to contain Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece and (most importantly) the British islands.
• Air force: Six corps (4 wings each) of tactical bombers, six corps of multi-role fighters and four corps of naval bombers are planned and should suffice for everything.
• Navy: The navy is a tricky thing, especially for a newbie, you can do a lot wrong here. 3 main rules: 1st - have always at least as many screens (light cruisers and destroyers) as capital ships (heavy and battle cruisers, battleships and carriers) in your fleets, 2nd - keep your big guns all at approximately the same firing range, and 3rd, don't split it up, the more you mass, the better. Until Sea Lion I expect to have 4 Bismarck class battleships, 3 heavy cruisers, 2 old battlecruisers and 15 of each light cruisers and destroyers (~10 of each modern ones). That's not enough by far to face the Royal Navy one on one, but it's better than nothing. After the start of Barbarossa I will have 3 more battleships and start a dozen more (lots of freed up IC), so that I'll have almost 20 modern battleships by the time I go for America. A last word about the screens - light cruisers give more air defense, destroyers more sub defense. Choose what you need more; I build a long series of both.

At the moment I am at the beginning of 1940, about 60% of the stuff mentioned above is built. Poland is defeated, the Altmark incident has triggered, the SU is invading Finland. All as it should be.

1940 is a very busy year, Weserübung (including Iceland), France and Benelux, Spain (the Republicans won the civil war), Sea Lion and the Balkans (Yugoslavia and Greece - I prefer to do it earlier than 1941) and the securing of the Mediterranean (Gibraltar and Suez). I don't think I can do all of that today, but some I will, so stay tuned.

[Harovan]

Just finished Weserübung. The event triggered March 8th, and all in all I needed full four weeks, which is a lot.

First I sent a cavalry division (my only one, inherited from Austria) up to Kolding to trigger the Danish surrender, which took about a week.

Then I split my small naval transport capacity (3 own built ships, 3 gotten by event) into 2 halves, let a mountain corps land in Narvik and an infantry corps in Oslo, as I didn't deploy my other mountain corps in Rostock. Which I would come to regret, because the infantry corps was defeated and had to retreat, despite air support from my naval bombers (the only air force in reach). The mountain corps landed in Narvik no problem, although it too was protected by a division. Only in the second run I took Oslo with my reserve, 2 fresh divisions and the Kriegsmarine doing coastal bombardement. I annexed Norway and placed divisions in every other province, 5 overall. Later, after Sealion, I will pull 3 divisions out and guard only the victory point provinces.

During these 2 operations my 4 battleships sunk 1 Danish ship and the whole Norwegian navy, which tried to escape to Britain.

The landing in Iceland went without any problems. I only brought 2 infantry divisions, which is enough, because Iceland is not guarded. I landed from the North, to make it harder for the Royal Navy to intervene. I still got a visit from a fleet from Scapa Flow and a French fleet, but the AI is horribly bad in sea fights (among other things). I had no casualties (not even screens), while the Brits lost an escort carrier, and the French a heavy cruiser and the carrier Bearn. It's rare that I don't lose ships while taking Iceland, though.

Finally I deployed a corps naval bombers (4 wings) and the bulk of the Kriegsmarine in Reykjavik and set them to "vacuum cleaner duty" in the North Atlantic, which means to suck it dry from Canadian and British destroyers and light cruisers. Every screen I sink can't be used to escort their capital ships, and if they're not escorted, they are easy prey because they get steep penalties. Some way to make up for my chronical lack of ships.

That concludes it for today, I'm too tired to play further. Tomorrow I have raid night in EQ2, so I may continue only Thursday.

[DarkCloud]

Sounds like a solid strategy for the economy.

... How much benefit do rockets actually add in terms of benefit per unit/capita? I sort of avoided rockets in my games.

the advice for the ships will be useful. How to use a successful navy escapes me. I can do well as a land force, but am flummoxed by water...

[Harovan]

As I wrote, for the time being I don't plan to build missiles. They just fly and make boom, and their range is limited. Why would I fire missiles at anything I could invade with less effort?

Rocket test facilities speed up rocket research, and rocket research is a part of a lot of technologies that don't directly concern missiles. You can see it at the small blue rocket icon, that is attached to quite some modern techs. Later infantry, for instance, always contains a rocket icon (stands probably for rocket artillery). Or think of turbojet planes, the engine research of which is all rocket icons. Without the facility von Braun takes forever to research the rocket engine, with the facility he's done in 1-2 months. You can do without the facility (in fact I didn't build it either until lately), but later its presence feels.

Not to talk about nukes, which are pretty useless in this game, but somehow are a part of the right "world power feeling". Germany usually doesn't build strategical bombers; so the only other way to deliver nukes would be ICBMs - lots of rocket research here.

If you just want to do the usual (historical) stuff, you can easily do without the facility. It pays off later, however.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
the advice for the ships will be useful. How to use a successful navy escapes me. I can do well as a land force, but am flummoxed by water...

If you limit yourself to the historical Germany, you can do without a navy. But if you plan overseas invasions, you'd better build some big ships. The American Navy is veeeery strong and it can't be dealt with by naval bombers like the Royal Navy or the French.

EDIT: Here I post you a link to Pro_Consul's HoI2 Naval Primer, pretty much the standard article for the beginning admiral. Just keep in mind that it is almost 3 years old and some things mentioned are meanwhile obsoleted by patches.

[DarkCloud]

Thanks again for the advice!

[Harovan]

Continued with the game, a bit Friday, most yesterday.

"Fall Gelb" went very smoothly. I like to do it close to the original, just a bit south of the route, i.e. I drive an armored wedge along the route Liege, Reims, Compiègne, Paris, Le Havre. They're also the "anvil" for the forces coming through the North, secure Holland and Belgium and crush the remaining forces in northern France.

Most of my infantry takes the route Liege, Reims and then goes south to Tours. I collect in both Reims and Tours about 20 divisions. These cut the bulk of the French forces (who guard the Maginot line) off from their way back to Paris and let my tanks uncontested go wild along the channel and Atlantic coast. Following this strategy, you can get the Vichy event in about 3-4 weeks.

I regrouped my forces for the operation "Trident" (my own name). One "dent" is Sealion, one Spain/Gibraltar and one Yugoslavia/Greece/Suez. I started all 3 operations simultaneously.

Sealion went well, but this time my navy expectedly had to cut some major losses. Overall in the 3 months that "Trident" lasted, I lost 2 heavy cruisers and pretty much all light cruisers and destroyers in exchange for sinking the bulk of the Royal Navy. I managed to keep all four battleships, which is good, because my future navy will be battleship based. So I use the remaining heavy cruiser as guard for my transports, and my seven (3 new built) battleships together with an escort carrier and some new built light cruisers and destroyers now rule the Atlantic ocean.

The Brits managed to ship in over 20 divisions from the colonies, plus some from Canada, but that didn't help much, after 2 months it was over.

Republican Spain put up a hard fight, they had a lot of divisions and their armor and cavalry made me some problems; I even had to retreat after a too hasty advance and an armored division was cut off from supplies, but they didn't manage to destroy it. It took full 3 months to get to Gibraltar and take it finally. I released National Spain as puppet, for resource purposes. Spain has some rare materials around Seville and if I puppet them, I get 100% of them instead of only a part, as explained above. That was worth even 5% disorder. In the aftermath Spain lost West Sahara to the Brits, who have over a dozen divisions now there to guard the sand. They also lost the Canary Islands to Brazil no less, explanation below. Attempts to land in the Fortress Europe failed, because I guard all Spanish beaches to the Atlantic, and since I own Gibraltar now they can't get to the Mediterranean.

Yugoslavia and Greece were the usual pushovers. Right after Greece fell I gave its west coast to Italy (I'm allied with the usual suspects, yada yada), which I usually do. Bulgaria, who usually gets the east coast, Dardanelles and Cyclades wasn't yet my ally, so I kept these provinces for the time being, which would prove good later.

I let an infantry corps and an armored corps land in Suez, after it had been taken by my only airborne division. The armor then took the provinces of the British middle east mandate. I created Palestine and Jordan as puppets, not because they're useful but because I frankly can't be arsed to guard these worthless areas myself. That net me another 5% disorder, but oh well. Thanks to me cutting off the Med, Mussolini doesn't have problems in Africa and I can keep Rommel to myself.

Now some unexpected things happened. When I got hold of Palestine, as usual Iraq left the Allies, turned friendly to me (although not allied) and granted me right of passage. This usually doesn't have consequences. Except this time it had, because for some reason unknown to me Turkey declared war on Iraq and marched into Kirkuk.

I couldn't leave Iraq to Turkey, because that would void the useful right of passage. So I gathered together all armor and I had to date (about 20 divisions) and about ten mountain divisions, declared war and invaded. It was hard to get over the Bosporus, because it was blocked by ships, but finally I managed to get over and from this moment on the war was over in about two weeks. I annexed Turkey, and since I didn't give eastern Greece to Bulgaria, I have now a land connection from Berlin to the Caucasus mountains, which means I can put newly built units there without having to ship them - a great asset!

In the aftermath, some other countries declared war on Iraq, Brazil (as mentioned above), Panama and even Natinoal China. I don't know why, nor do I bother as long as they don't invade, which I doubt they will.

It's May 1941 now and I'm ready for Barbarossa, which I will play next week.

[Harovan]

By the way, despite me having over 200 now, I'm in the convoy hell. I have convoy routes to Norway, Iceland, Britain, Northern Ireland, Crete, Cyprus, Suez... Guess after the 1941's round of unit upgrades is over, it's time to have some parallel rounds of convoys.

[Main_Brain]

Usually attacking Turkey quickly leads to an Soviet Declaration of War?

[Harovan]

Considering that I'm about to invade it myself, that doesn't really concern me .

[Ninot]

I havent played in a while, but some questions:
Have the patches nerfed submarines any? I remember them being overpowered.

Also: Won't your navy be weak against anythign with a half decent Aircraft Carrier if the weather is nice?

And: I never managed a propper invasion of France as Germany. I always get bogged down just outside Paris. I am afraid my armor isnt strong enough or perhaps I'm not dividing their troups enough. any tips?

[Spaced Cowboy]

Yeah subs are now nerfed.

I'm still playing my Italian game. Too much going on right now to detail, but it is the start 0f '38 and I own yugo, albania, romania, and hungary, I'm at war with germany and spain, Russia just owned poland (who allied with germany), and the allies are also at war with germany.

Germany is going to be toast. They should have never declared on me when I declared on yugo.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ninot
I havent played in a while, but some questions:
Have the patches nerfed submarines any? I remember them being overpowered.

Nerfed, and overdone by far. It's no longer worth building them.

I remember the time, when all you needed was ~60 subs (and cheap ones at that) and every navy could be sunk with a half decent commander. That is, of course, wrong. So the first nerf was justified. After this they still could be used for trade warfare, which was their original designation. They had a chance to be discovered and after this it was pretty much a 50-50 for them to survive. But they were nerfed again (or may be destroyers buffed). Now they're discovered very often and if they're discovered, they are toast. They only thing you still can do, send them on trade warfare in packs of at least 12 and take the hassle to get them back to the base after 2 weeks and repair. Not for me.

Also: Won't your navy be weak against anythign with a half decent Aircraft Carrier if the weather is nice?

Early carriers are weak, they get their overwhelming power only with the late (43..45) doctrines. They can't kill battleships, just bomb down their org. If you have a good admiral (like Raeder for the Germans), and have them escorted by an escort carrier for detection and positioning, you can sink a few ships with your sheer fire power and decide after 4 hours (minimum duration of naval battles) if you want to continue, or just cut it and escape. Usually I continue and let the carriers have some cheap screens, while my big guns bomb them down.

Also: Germany operates in the North Atlantic, which has a very big rate of bad weather.

The only navy who can endanger your fleet is the US Navy. So if you take America 43 or 44, you're safe.

And: I never managed a propper invasion of France as Germany. I always get bogged down just outside Paris. I am afraid my armor isnt strong enough or perhaps I'm not dividing their troups enough. any tips?

Build armor and try to do what I described. I usually have 14 armored divisions by the day I take on France. With 3 I start, then after the 1st round of factories (1937) I build a series of 8 "Panzer I", which conveniently are ready summer '39. 1 I get from the Czechoslovakia event, and 2 I build after Poland. During Winter 39/40 some upgrading improves my puny Pz I to at least IIc or IIf, that is enough for France.

Most important thing is, cut off the infantry at the Maginot line from getting back to Paris. If you fail with that, France becomes an awful slugfest (which I believe is what you experience). That, and speed - think of Guderian!