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So do we have any idea on what the two expansions might be? I uh, never played any of the other HoI games because they seemed a bit too dense/spergy for me. This looks accessible enough ( and I've now played enough CK2 ) that I think I'll be able to jump in. Only thing is, PDoX DLC tends to be in the $10-$15 range, so two $25 expansions seem like they'll probably be pretty significant. Just curious as to what kind of stuff expansions of that size could actually add.
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May 21, 2016 00:30
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Nitrousoxide posted:But if you just didn't spend that money you'd have that money when the content came out and you'd be able to acertain if it was garbage? It's $50 worth of DLC according to Paradox themselves. ( not counting the tank packs, the two "Expansions" they want to release that are presumably $25ish a piece and thus quite large ). With the deal, you can get it for $17 along with the game. Who the gently caress cares if it's good. It'll be 2020 before those DLC packs go on sale combined to $17 even with Paradox's love of sales. At a certain point that's such a good price unless the game is terrible it's worth it. Even if only one is good, and the other is garbage, you are still getting both for the price that one would be on sale 6 months after it came out.
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May 22, 2016 00:29
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Nitrousoxide posted:You have literally no idea what those dlcs are supposed to be. Sure let's go there. Paradox makes three DLC types. $2-$5 packs that add music/units, $10 packs which add new cultures/maybe religions, and $15 packs which add more content/landmasses/ways of playing. They used to offer $20 Expansion Passes for EU3 and older games which offered extreme overhauls to regions of the map that weren't in the base game/shown as well in the base game, but that hasn't really been seen since. The description for the Expansion Pass says that it adds "Expansion Pass: Includes the first 2 expansions and its related content, to an estimated value of $49.99" So, we have two expansions for an estimated value of $50. That's roughly $25 per expansion. Oh wait, "and it's related content". There's the unit packs/music that comes with them. So if we look at how Paradox does DLC, we can make some quick guesses. Either it's two $15 DLC packs plus $5 worth of unit packs/music ( no wait, that doesn't actually add up to $50, only $40, so hmm ), or they are going back to the old model of DLC for HoI4, and we'll get two $20 sized expansions plus their unit packs/music. Either way, we get it for.....$17. Which is either $2 more then a single pack if they both are $15 packs, or $3 less then the cost of a single pack if they are $20 expansions. At that money rate, we can make some quick guesses about how lovely this gamble is. If HoI4 is an outright embarrassment of a game, and utterly terrible, I'm out money. Bummer. But I'd be out most of that money anyway by buying the game. If both DLC are garbage, then I hosed up and lost....$17. Whatever, that's not a huge loss ( it's $2 more then it'd have cost me to buy the DLC when it comes out on day one, which I'd have done anyway ), and I'll learn my lesson for future Paradox games. If even one DLC is good though, the worst I'll lose is $2, which is nothing. However if both DLC are good ( very likely, Paradox DLC is at worst something you want to buy just so the AI has more tools ), I'm getting ( bare minimum, if I only care about content ) $30 worth of content DLC for $17, which saves me $13. And that's if I operate under the assumption they are sticking to their guns and doing $15 DLC like they've been doing in modern times, rather then $20 DLC again. If they go back to $20 DLC, the scales tip even further towards my favor. Basically, there are four outcomes here. Outcome A is the game is bad and I lost all my money. Worst scenario, none of us win. Outcome B is the game is good, but both DLC are bad. This is a bad scenario for me. Outcome C is the game is good, but only one DLC is good. We break even, we both spend $15ish to get that DLC. Outcome D is the game is good, both DLC are good. I win by getting them both for the price of one. Good deal. Hell, let's throw in Outcome E, and say game is good, both DLC are good and $20, in which case ding ding ding, I'm the best winner. With only two bad options, one break even, and two potential good options, I'd say that's a pretty loving good gamble. ( especially if I wait a week after the game releases to gauge how good it is. Then it becomes bad/break even/good/good. ) And this is now probably the spergiest thing I've ever written down. Lets go back to talking about WW2. Rookersh fucked around with this message at 02:40 on May 22, 2016 |
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May 22, 2016 02:31
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Popete posted:Whats a recommended nation to play for beginners, big or small? I've played some HOI3 but that was years ago. Poland!  But really, look at history. Who did the best in WW2?
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Jun 6, 2016 23:07
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slavatuvs posted:I don't mind a little "what if" even with historical focus on. France doing well is cool. Poland surviving into '41 is just strange. Uh, a little what if could have very easily lead to Poland surviving into '41. Poland didn't just collapse overnight or anything man, it lost because two giant armies invaded it on both sides at the same time, and completely cut off it's army from being able to do anything. And even then they held off long enough that the UK/France could have stopped the war very quickly had they engaged. Poland fell so quickly because it's government/military read the writing on the wall as soon as Soviet troops hit their borders, and evacuated pretty much everything to England to start the underground war. There's like, a billion whatifs that could have led to a Poland surviving the war scenario.
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Jun 7, 2016 01:36
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Poland is a little too good right now. Joining the Axis or Soviets is extremely simple/easy, and both countries are glad to have you over Molotov-Ribbentop. Once you've joined with one, the other basically never decides to attack you. Once your core factions starts fighting, the bigger issues crops up. Territory gain seems less about army size in HoI4, and more about which territory you were attacking from. Since Poland is inbetween Germany/Russia, this means any war between the two with you as an ally means Poland will suddenly siphon up territory like mad. I joined Comintern, and by 42 owned most of Germany thanks to the Soviets backing my push. This'd be silly enough if not for the sheer amount of bonuses Poland gets through it's focus tree. I'm quickly outpacing Russia in terms of economy/manpower/research because of it, which is more then a little ahistorical. Even if you don't go for the "easy" route of joining one of the big leagues, it's not as hard as it's theoretically supposed to be. I set up a second game to test the AI and invaded Germany before 39. On the games that I attacked Germany first, they never went for the MR, which meant I only had to deal with Germany. This was a hard fight, but not impossible, and eventually France/England joined up because I'd been fighting Germany so long, which basically ended WW2 before it had a chance to start. Once again, I hit midgame with a bunch of territory/allies and a huge amount of bonuses coming up in research. Like the biggest issue for Poland is the 39 deadline, but since you know it's coming/how the historical AI will act, you can gently caress with it pretty easily, and the focus tree gives you a whole bunch of ways to adapt to it. And once you've dealt with the initial start of the war, if any of the outs occur ( Allies attack Germany, you join the Axis, you join Comintern, you form the Baltic Alliance ) you have free reign to outpace everyone else and start your own invasion of the Slavic states/Germany/Netherlands/Scandinavia. I'm not sure this needs to be fixed at all, since it's actually really hilarious. It's just.....odd.
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Jun 13, 2016 04:16
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I think what I want most outside of AI changes is a greater allowance of ahistorical fiddling. Like it's not hard to stop WW2 from happening, or from messing with Germany. As Poland just give them Danzig and they'll never attack you, giving you free reign to invade the hell out of them as they move on France. As France just defend Belgium/garrison around Paris and let them die by attrition. As the Soviets just don't agree to MR, or attack Germany as they head into France. Making the Fascists never get to the point they conquer Europe is super easy to do for pretty much every major player. And that's fun for your first/second game, but after that the meat of the game starts to thin out a little. Doing an Allies vs Comintern slugfest is.....not great right now, and could really use a larger event chain to support it, same with Fascists vs Comintern. And a lot of "dumb" plays just don't really go anywhere fun. Fascist Poland overtaking Germany and conquering Europe/the Soviet Union sounds hilarious on paper, and is totally doable. It's just a slog with no real events/you cutting off the WW2 event tree at a certain point and having no real allies/enemies because England/France/the US won't realize what's going on every thanks to a lack of you invading Paris/Pearl Harbor being tied to you. Causing the US to go into a Civil War thanks to it's Fascist President is hilarious, but doesn't really go anywhere after you unite the country again, and doesn't open up new dumb stuff to do, just the same dumb stuff with your allies being the other guys now. And the unhistorical option really isn't what I mean either. In that everyone just does random nonsense, and you end up with poo poo like Communist France by '39, or Democratic Russia joining the Allies for kicks after Ethiopia took Japan. I want -the- WW2 like it happened, but noticing the player is breaking history in a lot of ways and adapting to it with equally strange but reasonable things/events to keep the nonsense going in a fun way. Like if I Democratize Russia by '37/'38, and start trying to join the Allies, Germany shouldn't just keep going for MR and the invasion of Poland, it should start switching gears to ways to stop me and France from joining the Allies, or something else that's interesting and unique to my current game. Like it'd be fun if instead Hitler went down the ally with Poland route, and encouraged them to go Fascist or something, because I'm already changing history, why can't Hitler also change history in small ways that tie into what I'm doing ( rather then just being silly and going Communist like he would if I removed the Historical flags. ). Basically I want a middle ground option. Right now Historical is "will do what they did in History, even as History unravels around them", and unHistory is "will do whatever off a random number gen.". I'd really like a "Will follow history until you obviously start deviating from it, then will deviate in ways to counter/adapt to what you are doing.". setting.
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Jun 15, 2016 04:56
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So I'm finishing up my second game, and probably last game until the expansions, and I think? I've figured out how to put my issues with the game into words. - Beating Hitler is easy. This is fine, althistory is great. Except once you've beat Hitler nothing else really stands out as a goal to accomplish, because nobody really capitalizes on it. Nothing really happens to spice up the after Hitler bits. So if you stop the Axis early, it's piss easy to finish cleaning up Europe as Soviets, or finish cleaning up Russia as Europe ( or just end it at beating the Axis powers. ). Neither Japan nor Italy can really stand on their own versus the Allies/Comintern which makes fighting them pretty simplistic, albeit somewhat annoying with Japan. And the bigger problem is, this isn't an "AI" issue so much as it is knowing how history plays out. I know if I go France and attack Germany when they remilitarize the Rhineland/attack Poland, I'll catch Hitler with his pants down in a bluff, and win. If I go Poland and give him Danzig he'll move his entire force west to take France, giving me ample time/space to retake not just Danzig, but Ostprussen and Berlin as well, and often times force Hitler to capitulate with the much smaller Polish army. So I'm basically encouraged instead to just leave Hitler be, so he can take Eastern Europe/France, and build his fleet/wall up to make the Axis a credible issue to deal with. Which fine, whatever, but that basically takes half the factions out of the game, and really spoils "althistory" in a lot of ways. If I go France or Poland I want to fight back and not capitulate obviously, so I'll end up beating Hitler well before this actually becomes a legitimate WW2. And I'll do it with ease just because I know he spent the vast majority of his initial moves bluffing the French/English. If I'm Soviets or UK, I can also stop the war well before it ever hits my lands just by knowing what to agree to/when to attack. This is a problem largely because of issue 2, which is that.... - The game doesn't really take much advantage of the althistory idea. This current game I started as Soviets, and got both France and Poland to switch to Communism well before '39. I had them both join Comintern, and they were under my sphere of influence. Now at this point I've obviously started going down the althistory route pretty hard. What does Hitler do? He still does the MR pact and asks if I want to join. I say no. He then still goes down Danzig or War, and when Poland chooses war, suddenly ends up at war with me, France, and Poland. Needless to say the German Reich died near instantly. This is baffling, and really destroys a lot of the cool aspects of the game. It'd have been much more interesting if he instead went down the Second Lubj to go for Yugoslavia and Greece, finished conquering Slovakia, or even potentially turned north to go after the Scandinavian states. Or hell, done a devils bargain with the UK/USA to stop the spread of Communism. These are all interesting scenarios that could have played out in an alt history fashion and provided me with an enemy similar in strength/power to the Axis in real WW2. Instead I got a suicide attempt and a quickly wrapped up game. In my mind, the "Follow History" and "Althistory" checks are.....off. And don't really do what you want for either. If you check History, you will be changing History regardless of what you do, unless you want this to be a perfect simulation WW2 fantasy. And as soon as you change, it utterly refuses to change alongside you, meaning you basically have total power over the AI, and total power over how to modify the world. And that's cool up until the point you basically are having to clean up island nations like Japan, or thinking about starting your second game and realizing it's not going to be much different then your first game was. Meanwhile if you check althistory, every game I've played of that has been super silly to the point I'm just not interested in it. My first attempt had Hitler switch to German Republic before '38, Russia invade China/Japan and miss the Purges, etc etc. I want the game to follow history, but not so slavishly that it won't adapt as I start to change the world around it. It's a similar issue if you go either either Axis power. It's super easy to know what traps Hitler/Mussolini fell into, and if you avoid them, it's trivial to conquer the world. Hell, this thread itself calls both of them the tutorial states, and really they are. Basically what I want from future updates is more reactivity from the game to my choices to create WW2 like scenarios for me to have to deal with even as I try to "fix" history. Beat Germany back before it conquers France as the Allies? Well they do have that treaty with the Soviet Union, what if Hitler sold Eastern Europe to Russia in exchange for a military alliance. Soviets cockblocking Hitler's attempts at Poland/Eastern Europe? Well maybe it's time for an Alliance against Communism. Etc etc. Ways for the AI to not just kill themselves doing what they did historically against a person who has planned 100% to block that action because they know when it's happening to the exact date/time. That to me is more important then any "AI" fixes.
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Jun 17, 2016 01:48
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Farecoal posted:Steam reviews are saying there's a lot of oversimplification in the game design and there's a lot of problems with the AI; true? This game has problems like every Paradox game, but this games problems can and likely will be fixed within the first/second patch. You also won't notice those problems until those patches get released anyways. Also the oversimplification only matters if you are the neckbeardiest grognard of them all. This is still a complex Paradox game, it just doesn't require you to memorize a billion goddamn NATO symbols/understand the important of setting up a spreadsheet traderoute with the West Indies/plan out your government over ten years just to keep things from exploding. ie it's about as complex as Crusader Kings 2, not as complex as HoI3. This is fine.
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Jun 19, 2016 00:25
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DeceasedHorse posted:Yeah the tutorial was less than helpful, and so far my best showing as Germany I still took 3 months to take Poland, possibly because,I don't get how planes or battle plans work Ok. Go to the Recruit and Deploy Panel. Make a new unit of infantry. Now on that panel should be "Add Unit". Do this 3 times if you are a Minor ( small scale, like Yugoslavia or Belgium ), 5 times if you are a medium sized Minor ( Poland, Spain ), or 10-15 times if you are a Major ( Germany, England, etc. ). Keep an eye on these units growth. You'll want to adjust based on.... Production. Go to the Production tab now. You should see Infantry Weapons 1 suddenly saying it needs to make 10k or so Guns. Maybe you'll see 400 Artillery needs to be made etc. This is what's needed to be constantly making new divisions, while also resupplying your current divisions. These numbers stabilize over time ( if you put in a huge order for guns it takes awhile to get the bulk of it done, but after that your factories can make guns pretty quickly for future troops ), but you can speed them up by learning more industry growth stuff from the Research Tree. Make sure all your bars are in the Green. If they aren't, you are lacking resources somewhere. Check and see what's missing. Whatever it is, go trade with the country you have the highest Influence with to get that thing. Yes even if it takes Civilian Factories, that's what they exist for. Go back to your Recruit and Deploy Tree, and click on the "Edit" button of your Infantry Unit. It should should 6? little Infantry men helmets in the middle. If you look at the side, one of the stats says "Combat Width 18". This is the amount of space your Infantry takes up fighting on the map, and why you'll often see dudes just standing around not fighting behind other guys in a fight. It's because they can't get to the front lines, since a battle is already being fought. CW is rounded by 20's, so you should make sure all your divisions are about 20 CW, that's the lucky number. I usually do this the fun way, by adding a Medium tank into my initial Infantry divisions. See that side thing that says Support? Well here's where things get more personalized. You can add support units/bigger guns to this side, and they'll add in better stats to your Infantry as a whole. So if you scroll over every unit, everyone has pros and cons attached to them. Infantry at base are basically HP sticks, which are great ( Mountaineers are HP sticks that do better in hilly regions. Marines are HP sticks that do better in watery regions. Paratroopers are HP sticks that can be dropped out of planes. ). Tanks give armor which helps keep your units alive longer against things that lack Hard Attack. Soft Attack is attack vs Infantry, which means artillery helps kill other infantry units faster. Reconnaissance makes the AI smarter, meaning your General gets more intelligent about how to play the plan you give him. Engineers give a better Entrenchment bonus ( higher defense when just standing still/not moving ), but ALSO give +10% to attack and defense in pretty much every zone type. Etc etc etc. You can and should personalize your army as you will. This is how people are "breaking" the games AI and beating it in larger conflicts. The AI doesn't do any of this poo poo, it just gives it's Infantry a single Artillery support and calls it a day. If you stack artillery/anti tank/engineers/recon/medics/a tank into your divisions, you'll basically have unstoppable doomstacks compared to what the AI brings to the field. The problem of course is you actually need to produce this stuff! As soon as you edit that template, ALL DIVISIONS of that template currently in the field/being produced will send in a requisition for those items. Add artillery to your army? Well you need to build it as well. So go back to Production, see how many Artillery it'll take to modernize your army ( hint it takes awhile if you lack military factories ) and queue them all up. Eventually your old divisions will have their requisitions met, and you'll go back to only needing to produce artillery for new units. Then add everyone together into an army, give them a general, and set the front line against whatever you eventually want to conquer. Then when you can finally invade them, set the offensive line pointing directly at the thing you want. Your general if he has high enough Recon will handle the rest. If you have multiple generals, you can set multiple offensive lines that do a variety of things like hopefully have one group block the majority of their army while you claim their capitols, etc etc. Strudel Man posted:I really wonder what's up with the number of planes the AI has. I thought I'd give a shot at holding out against Germany as Poland, but things started falling apart when Hitler sent three thousand bombers over Western Poland to my ~1000 fighters and CAS. If you want some advice as holding out as Poland? You can't. You can't win in '39 without more land/options, unless you plan on going Facist/Communist and joining either faction ( or giving up Danzig and joining a faction, then just playing the long game. ). Go Revanchism early and as soon as Japan starts declaring war around '37, you can quickly claim Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Yugoslavia before Hitler can even proc Anschluss. Once there, he can't actually go down his invasion tree at all, and you've basically landlocked him into Germany proper. Sweep through Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania on your way back up, and turn all those factories to making guns/tanks/upgrades, and get your divisions up to snuff. If you can also get the +2.50% Recruitable ( and potentially War Youth if you want to be Fascist to get you a free 5% ), you should be able to have 50-80ish divisions on the field by '39, all with full support lines/tanks for the armor buff ( if you go down Modernizing the Army, you can have the medium tank which is VERY GOOD ). At that point you can either go toe to toe with Germany OR Russia ( but it's still not the best idea, because even if you join the Allies they won't help you, and you can't really take both at the same time, Russia has way too many divisions. ), or you can play the supreme dick card and give Danzig to Germany, only to declare on him as soon as he enters France, and conquer him before he can turn his armies around to stop you. Never join the Allies. Even on ahistorical if you ever attack Germany they'll just sit there with their dick in their hands. They seem to be hardcoded not to actually move on Germany until after Paris falls. gently caress 'em. Invade them after you take Germany so you can put their factories to better use. If you want to be really silly, you could potentially form Intermarium on a historical game before France joins England ( if you conquer Eastern Europe you'll skyrocket Stability well past 40% before France/Italy are hardcoded to join their factions through Nationals ), and should theoretically be able to invite France/Spain/Italy/Turkey into Intermarium. You'll obviously need to plan ahead on getting them to be ok with you ( probably a good amount of improve relations/maybe going Democracy after you recruit Turkey? ), but if you can pull it off, it'd be a great game screenshot.
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Jun 19, 2016 03:34
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Has anyone found a good use for Africa yet? Like it seems like a bad idea to go there at all. None of the countries in Africa really have much in the way of factories, so they don't help in Production. Few have any sort of resources compared to Europe, so that's a wash as well. Getting Gibraltar/Suez seems to be the only reason to even bother with Africa, but that only really seems to matter for Italy ( or for blocking Italy in as the Allies, but the Italy AI isn't smart enough to utilize those passes anyways. ). Nobody really has any sort of real forces in Africa either, which fits history, but makes it this really odd place you can conquer in a few months if you actually send a real army or two down there. But you get nothing for conquering it, and then you have to deal with the billion Naval invasions that'll spread up and down the coasts. Like historically the fight over Africa was for resources and getting close enough to invade Italy right? Yet here it's just.....there.
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Jun 20, 2016 21:14
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MegaZeroX posted:When Poland has been befriended by Germany, and they are willing to join the Axis, but they formed the Miedmorze (they have no one else in it), is it possible to get them to leave it and join the axis, through normal means or having a fascist if necessary? Click your main pane, and next to the black circle thing that says Miedmorze there should be a little symbol. Mouse over that, it's how you leave created factions.
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Jun 20, 2016 23:02
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MegaZeroX posted:I'm not playing as Poland now. I'm currently having a fascist uprising that I intend to assist, though I don't know if that will make the new Poland leave the faction or not. Sadly, you can never get people to leave a faction once they've joined. Maybe if you conquer them yourself, then release them and invite the new Empire that forms? Or just outright vassal them after conquest.
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Jun 21, 2016 00:54
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Tahirovic posted:That whole befriend tree for Poland is dumb as hell to begin with, it's the easiest way to go fascist/commie but the axis/comintern hate you anyway and you're permanently blocked from making your own faction. No they don't. If you go Fascist Hitler will gladly let you into the Axis, and Italy/Turkey/Nationalist Spain will gladly join the Intermarium if you form the faction before they have a chance to join the Axis. Hell, if you can start working France early enough, it's even possible to get France into Intermarium before they befriend England ( I wouldn't do this on Historical though, because the AI is hardcoded to never change it's path even as you change poo poo, so you'll have to deal with the Hitler AI moving to attack his Fascist brothers in France which'll draw you into the conflict. ). I'd advise -against- forming Intermarium because you'll have to fight Hitler/Stalin when they push Danzig or War and literally none of the allies in this game are worth a poo poo so you'll still probably die, but it's something you can do. If you join the Axis, Hitler can't actually choose Danzig or War. The y/n on it is "Is Poland in faction, if y cannot choose.". If you really want, the best way to play Poland solo/make Intermarium is to gently caress with game mechanics. Take Sudetenland before Hitler can demand it. It needs to be owned by Czechoslovakia for him to demand it, so if you do, he can't ask for it. That blocks off that whole tree for him. Take Slovakia before he demands that as well, and that blocks off that whole tree for him. He also has a lot of very specific rules for Danzig or War that can help you get around it, and he'll never come back to it on Historical if you cause him to skip it. If you are in a Civil War he can't push Danzig or War. If there are any German Divisions volunteering in your theaters ( and there will be if you are Fascist and conquering Eastern Europe ) he can't push it. Or if you are in the Axis he can't push it. Easiest way is obviously to just join the Axis until Hitler makes a move on France, then drop the Axis and tech Between the Seas before inviting Turkey/Spain. You'll have to conquer then vassal Germany and Italy to get them to join, but eh. Or just give Hitler Danzig. The y/n variables on a lot of that stuff is odd but pretty workable. Hitler will never declare war on Poland if you give him Danzig, and if you've been playing Poland right you should own all of Eastern Europe by that point, so really who cares about that region. Russia will still invade, but having a strong enough Alliance ( either joining the Allies, Axis, or forming Intermarium will do it ) will keep him from invading for seemingly indefinitely. Obviously if you join the Allies, leave once France gets invaded, because fuuuuuck them. Don't join in the war for France, because France will wait to die, and Germany will move over and conquer you with their entire France invasion force. Or if you go Communist, Russia will gladly invite you into Comintern, and when Hitler attacks after Danzig or war, you can bring Communism to Europe rather fast.
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Jun 21, 2016 13:44
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Here's the thing about France Hitlers entire domino based tree? If at any point you throw a wrench into that tree, Hitler can't jump ahead. France going to bat over the remilitarization of the Rhineland has a very, very slim chance of causing WW2 to just start off the bat, with a civil war popping off at the same time if Hitler starts a war. If that happens, you are 90% chance boned and lose in the first 90 days. But if Hitler backs down ( which will happen in Historical, and seems to happen in ahistorical most times as well, it's just a power option for German players it seems ) you never get the Civil War. France can now play the rest of the game as the main power/can do whatever. Hitler can never demand Sudetenland, Slovakia, or Poland. He can never do the awards. Hell, he can't even take Austria anymore. He can't even declare on France. The AI becomes locked into building up fortress Germany without the support of the German people, and eventually peters off to kill himself against Russia. France is a lot of fun to play. You basically have the trigger on how much you want to control WW2 pacewise. e: Or yeah, just hit Hitler when he's going for Poland. Just like history, Hitler invades Poland with his pants down, and if you invade as France, he'll capitulate. It's also a great Polish strategy if you give up Danzig when Hitler moves on France.
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Jun 22, 2016 03:23
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The entire Air/Naval UI is garbage. I still have no real idea how it works, outside of "Put all your fleets into Sink and Destroy on any nearby Canals/your main water way. Keep adding more ships over time." Or "right click the Fighter Wings somewhere near the front line." I hope there isn't more steps, because if there is, my planes ain't doing it.
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Jun 23, 2016 14:50
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I wish Fascist Poland had a cooler name then Falangist Poland. It's such a boring name. Who calls themselves that.
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Jul 3, 2016 22:54
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Eimi posted:Ah, I'll see if they have the cities then. It would be a serious hamper to my push if I had to push through the mountains and around to paint the Reich the proper blue. Also you can't conquer allied lands. If you are fighting in their lands, even if they've fully capitulated/left the war, you'll always auto give them back their original territory as you go. If you are both members of the Allies, you are technically fighting to get them back their lands.
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Jul 4, 2016 02:40
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Eimi posted:
Yeah, it's the two hit combo of one of the dumbest design issues in the game. You are fighting for an Allied state. Since you are doing that, the Allied state is reclaiming it's lands. Since your war is now taking place through an Allied state, they are the ones receiving the territory, not you. Belgium will eat up every chunk of territory all the way to Moscow if you let them. This is also the trick for how people get massive Poland blobs on the map. If you join the Soviets/Germans as Poland, when they start their invasion of the other side, you'll get all the territory since technically you are the one pushing ( you aren't but the game sees it that way. ). The only thing you'll get at this point are either territories you have claims on ( which'll turn French as you conquer them ), or whatever you ask for in the Peace. If it helps, think of it as less of "Belgian" territory, and more of "Allied, we haven't really figured out who this belongs to yet." territory.
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Jul 4, 2016 03:40
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Hmm, I wonder if joining the Allies before '39 and giving Germany Danzig would cause the Soviets to back down from their conquest of Poland. Trying to do a Ignacy only Poland challenge run ( so no cheesing joining Axis/Comintern to avoid war. ). Not allowed to go Fascist, Democratic, or Communist because I have to end with Ignacy as the leader. I did a test game last night and was able to fully conquer Czechoslovakia and Hungary before '39. I also had modernized the military and all my divisions were sporting Infantry Weapons 2 and 7 Inf/2 Arty plus full Support. I also had 20-30 Medium Tank divisions. Total divisions was about 80-100ish total, though I bet I could have gotten past 100 had I not focused so much on modernizing and just let divisions keep spawning with Light Tanks/no Arty. Gave Germany Danzig when they pushed Danzig or War, and was prepping to hit either Berlin from behind, or Yugoslavia after they moved into France. Then the Soviets started justifying against me and even though I joined the Allies ( but I joined after they started justifying ) they invaded. My troops were superior in every way and held the Polish line just fine. I was an idiot though and formed Intermarium, so they instantly conquered Lithuania/Estonia/Latvia even with my troops up there, and encircled half my army. Wondering if it'd help to not form Intermarium so Stalin can't invade through Lithuania, and instead focus on building a ton of forts along the Eastern Border. The question is how do I then beat back the Soviets. Who becomes the Polish President if you go Democratic? Sikorski? Or Raczkiewicz?
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Jul 4, 2016 18:01
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Well this a loving souring game. Went Poland, captured Czechoslovakia and Hungary to start. Looked at Yugoslavia and decided it was fine to risk it. Even though it was guaranteed, no way would UK/France go out of their way to defend it ( and how could they, it's on the other side of the world. I'll just defend Danzig and easily capture it. It's not like they'll boat more then a few volunteers over anyways! ) so I should be fine. Noooooope as soon as the war starts, something like 80-100 UK and French divisions appear out of the ether to help defend Yugoslavia. I decide to hunker down and play defense until Germany declares on France, so they hopefully pull these troops away. Hitlers AI broke so that didn't happen. Since I took the Sudetenland before he could demand it, he just got stuck in an endless loop of trying to Demand Sudetenland. He also stopped being an AI entirely because of this, and didn't actually invade anyone, or use his armies outside of setting up a Front Line and waiting. It took Japan declaring on the Netherlands to kickstart WW2, and get all the troops out of Yugoslavia. Since I spent so long fighting an attrition war over Yugoslavia, I join the Axis to help prep for Soviet invasion. Fully modernize my army, 120 Divisions ready, etc etc. Soviets attack as planned, I easily counter them, am pushing them back to Moscow, etc etc. Then suddenly the US joins the war! And it's D-Day! And D-Day is happening in Danzig! Here's several hundred US, UK, and French soldiers landing on the beaches of Danzig! Oh look, they've taken Warsaw and you have to capitulate, even though you were hours from taking Moscow. The UK, France, Greece, and US never once launched a Naval Invasion anywhere but Danzig. They kept constantly trying to take Danzig. They threw everything they had into Danzig over and over again throughout the war, which was fine by me, because I fortified Danzig. I just couldn't take on the Soviets and hold off D-Day by myself, especially with the Hitler AI staring at a wall, and Italy losing a war against Greece somewhere. I'm just baffled as to why they chose Danzig above all else. The AI went out of it's way to make sure I got hosed.
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Jul 5, 2016 03:45
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GreyPowerVan posted:Try playing a stronger country so you don't have to lose. Oh, I'm cool with the losing. I was expecting it to happen as soon as I got bogged down in Yugoslavia, and was mainly checking to see how far I could get after that. The thing that got me was D-Day in Danzig. I was playing historical, and every previous D-Day happened in Normandy. I'm mainly confused by why the AI chose Danzig not just for D-Day, but everything. They never tried to take Amsterdam or anything else along the German coast, so they lost millions of troops trying to send Convoys to Danzig, since the German fleet was guarding those waters. The only reason they got through in the first place was because they just sent so many waves at it. I went back and checked the game, and the USA had lost over 5 million troops before even starting D-Day just from the constant attempts at landing on Danzig. It was baffling, and I'd really love to know what the AI thought process was. I wasn't Fascist, and was still on pretty good terms with the UK/USA despite being part of the Axis. Hell, the only reason I joined the Axis was to give myself a bulwark while I dealt with Russia, and I was hoping to leave and attack Germany with the Allies once Russia was out of the picture.
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Jul 5, 2016 13:53
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Kaza42 posted:Army XP goes through a peculiar arc. First it is crucial, and you are starving for every last drop as you design your division templates and try to optimize everything you can. Then you have the templates you want and you basically ignore it until you reach 500, at which point you just slap a dozen upgrades on your latest tank model. Then you just ignore it for the rest of the game. I really think that army XP should be used to develop doctrines, so that it stays useful the entire game and you don't have 90% of your tree researched by the time a war breaks out Wasn't that by province even? LegoPirateNinja posted:Paradox desperately needs to do something about ONE submarine tying up literally hundreds of ships for years in a single endless naval battle. Naval in general needs a full rework from the ground up. Neither side needs to build boats at all. If you are the Allies/Russia, the UK has you covered. If you are Axis/Independent/Russia, you'll never match England, and can't win naval engagements because of it. Trade Interdiction is pointless. For everyone outside of England they can ( and will ) just start trading with land neighbors. For England it cripples them, but it takes so long you'll have to deal with the US/Russia anyway, and they are crippled enough anyway thanks to odd AI choices you can just invade by Paratroopers without ever stopping their convoys. Invasions can only happen at Docks. Docks are for some reason all super fortified, and a single division on every dock will guard your entire coast from entire D-Day style invasions. 5 divisions and some Coastal Forts can stop the apocalypse from landing on your shores. If you've been going Army Modernization ( and you should....) this is a super cheap price to pay to keep your shores safe. In exchange for ignoring Navy, the enemy Navy can......make it harder for you to build more boats!!! Oh no!! If you want to invade across a body of water, you have two options. If you go with a Navy, you have to fully conquer the region to send convoys across, and for some reason the game still sinks a solid half of them. Or you just need to contest the skies to send transports by air. Which you can contest the skies with a few hundred Fighters you whipped up in a few months specifically to handle this mission. I've now done air invasions on multiple UKs, multiple Norway/Sweden, and used it a couple times to get past the Russian front line. I've never lost a single transport to enemy fire once I have air contested, so I'm pretty sure that's a bugged mechanic but whatever! And this is outside of the severe balance issues like single sub holding off the entire Royal Navy for the entire duration of the war events that people keep saying happens in their games. I've never messed with Naval stuff after I realized how little it seemed to matter, so maybe there is a huge trump card for boats here I'm just not seeing. But I've never seen any of my allies/enemies bombard my divisions with boats/"artillery" ( which would be cool/realistic ), or gain any bonuses for fighting near their Navy ( fire support? ). There are airbases literally everywhere, and they are super cheap to make, so I've never seen much use for Carriers, especially with how much it'd cost to protect them. Naval seems to wholly exist as this padding thing that only really feeds itself, but if you completely disengage from it, doesn't hurt you at all.
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Jul 9, 2016 00:14
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Bremen posted:Which, I'd like to point out, is exactly what the allies did in the D-Day he mentioned. Because they considered taking a defended port in an amphibious invasion to be virtually impossible. Danzig is a dock. And that's exactly what they did, the US suffered almost 5 million in casualties taking Danzig from the 3 divisions I had there ( from a mix of losing convoys sailing through the German controlled North Sea/Baltic and trying to land what they had in Danzig ), it's just they kept coming until they took it. I wasn't paying attention because I assumed the AI wouldn't do....that. Nevermind that Konigsberg is literally a tile away and was completely undefended by Germany. Or that dock in Hinterpommern which is also near Danzig that had no defenders. That game's AI was not working quite right. That's why I was so baffled by that game. I'm honestly not sure I actually believe that the AI can or will invade anything other then docks. Every D-Day against Germany I've seen has come not through Normandy proper, but Cherborg and Nantes both of which have docks. When the UK fucks with Belgium/Netherlands, it starts in that port in Gent and that port in Rotterdam. Every game I've played as Germany, I've been fine not building a single boat, but instead just garrisoning 2-4 divisions on every dock along the coast, and the British never actually make landfall and take territory. Maybe I can invade wherever I want as the player and just haven't fiddled with it since I've never seen a need for boats, but the AI most definitely does not use it. e: Coming back, this post is a lot more hostile then I intended. I'd really like to see some peoples games where the AI has been invading them in nondock regions. Or someone willing to do a pass of the AI to check it to see if they can/what causes it. I've been doing no Navy runs now for a good 3-4 days straight now and had no real negatives because of it. I'm so sure of the dock thing because it's been working fine for me to just put 2 or so divisions on each port and then casually checking them every few months to make sure big pushes aren't happening/really check around '42 to see where D-Day might be. Even if that's still the case though, I shouldn't be able to completely disengage from the mechanic like I am right now with as much success as I'm having. Rookersh fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jul 9, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 02:03
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The Spanish Civil War, Chinese/Japanese War, and African Campaign all feel super lacking compared to the main push of the war for Europe/Pacific Campaign ( which only has the problem that the Japanese AI is miserable and needs a few tweaks. ). I expect if anything they'll be the focus of the various DLCs. Giving more options, more diplomatic options to play with, their own focus trees, etc. It's ironic, but you can tell which factions got made first when it comes to Focus Trees. The British focus tree barely gives them any real difference from the neutral one, same as France and the US in a lot of ways ( France however has a billion events to keep things interesting in the form of internal issues with Communism ). Meanwhile the Italian, Polish, and Japanese trees have a lot of fun options to explore that drastically change history. I'm hoping future Spanish/Chinese Focus Trees go the same way. Maybe offering a way to wholly stop the Civil War which would play with World Tension in some neat ways, ways to prop up the Allies more, etc etc. Rookersh fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Sep 8, 2016 |
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Sep 8, 2016 23:20
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There really needs to be a way to poach from/force disband AI factions. If I've gone Democratic Italy/New Rome, and went 100% all in on the defense of France, ending with us besting the Nazis France shouldn't then turn around and join the Allies anyway. Especially since by this point the UK doesn't even exist anymore, since Germany also invaded the Home Islands and beat them. The "Allies" in my game is England holding Gibraltar, plus France. It's the same the other way around though to. If I go Fascist Italy/New Rome and choose to say gently caress Hitler and beat up the Nazis, Japan shouldn't autojoin them, they should looking at my faction as a real option. I get that there are historical triggers, and yeah, those should have some precedent for what the AI does. But if you bloody England/Germany enough, or they don't help out enough, or you coup the leader or something, the AI should be able to adapt to those moves and leave factions/make new factions accordingly.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:14
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The Cheshire Cat posted:I like playing as Italy because they're basically Germany-lite - they start off super weak but have a lot of growth potential, and the alt-history Italy first focus tree is fun. Plus they don't quite feel as icky as playing the nazis. Maybe because even though they invented fascism, they just failed so hard historically that it's kind of hard to really hate them for it. Yeah, Italy is my go to because there is so many fun things you can do with it. You can try to form New Rome and be independent, join the Allies, join the Axis, try to protect or conquer the Baltic States, etc etc. Germany was fun twice for the sake of seeing if I could actually conquer the world, followed by a run where I went Democratic and attempted to help the Allies stop the spread of Communism. Compare that to the Allies where France is fun for the sake of stopping WW2, or joining the Comintern. The UK is ???. The US is fun? for playing the historical setting and winning the war ( but secretly way too annoying because I don't want to plan a massive naval invasion. ). The big problem with the UK and US is if you try to do anything alt history with the UK you end the war there, since you either join the Axis and France is already prepped to fall, or you join the Comintern and nothing really changes from the historical setup just you have a new flag. And alt history for the US leads to you loving around in North and South America all game beating up banana republics with a massive military force. Russia also lacks a lot of longterm options. You can follow historical, get betrayed, and then join the Allies. You can go fascist and end the game right there because lol. Or you can go Democratic and still join the Allies and go historical, just without the whole Stalin thing. The majority of the fun from this game comes from subverting history, and you have the most options to subvert history as Italy or Poland, followed by Germany, France, all the various big minors, and lastly maybe Russia.
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Apr 14, 2017 17:09
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The Baltic States seem a bit out of the way for Italy, but I suppose it does give you the chance to open another front against the Germans. Haha, good catch. I meant the Balkans.
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Apr 14, 2017 17:52
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The Cheshire Cat posted:I have in the past. It's kind of funny because even though you've gone democratic, you can still take all the national focuses that give you CBs against your neighbours and invade them anyway. Alternatively you can opt for a lot of the peaceful alternatives like trading land with Poland instead of invading, and the AI doesn't really know what to do when Germany doesn't start the war. I think eventually Japan and the US will go to war but Europe will be pretty quiet. It doesn't stay that quiet. Eventually the Soviet Union will still attack Poland/Germany, and without the kind of territory Nazi Germany usually has it's a much tougher fight. You really need to figure out a side strategy since I don't think Germany can ever leave the Axis/join the Allies even if they do go Democratic.
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Apr 14, 2017 20:08
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buglord posted:Does anyone else feel morally conflicted playing as the axis powers or is that just me Japan yes. Italy no, because I always do something like Democratic New Rome, or Defender of the Balkans. gently caress the British and French, they weren't up to bringing us to the new age, time to fix the wrongs of the past. There's enough leeway there in how the Italians actually were historically ( refusing to participate in the Holocaust, helping the Jews escape into the hills when Hitler started cracking down. Having a decent amount of justification due to how they got treated during/after WW1. ) for me to view them as a good group of people once I depose Mussolini. Germany it depends. I've never been able to finish a Germany game, because uh. It kind of really sets me on edge after the Allies start to lose/Russia falls. But there's a certain sort of enjoyment to viewing it as the 1v1 battle royale of Germany vs the Soviet Union.
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May 5, 2017 02:31
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Wasn't 90% of the German "blitzkrieg" just the fact they had automatic weapons and an actual army, and were facing largely militias/very untrained groups with little experience that were still using single shot/preWW1 stuff? Like I've read more then a few books that have gone into how absolute poo poo the Germans were at actual combat as soon as they faced a force that wasn't fighting them at either a tech disadvantage/had actually been in a conflict before. They pushed so quickly not because of advanced military techniques, but because they had the bigger guns initially.
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Jan 10, 2018 01:42
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I think it could be interesting to have it set so that if you go Communist Germany, you piss off Stalin by doing so. If it really is a balance thing. Have your revolution be pushed by Trotsky and have a whole bunch of difficult triggers to set up. So that you can form a new communist bloc with non Soviet nations, but you still have to be the bulwark against the Soviets. e: make it a guaranteed civil war ( unlike the Democratic stuff which last I checked can be done without a civil war ), and leave you exposed and hated by Stalin with no real friends. But hey, if you can pull it off.... Rookersh fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Mar 14, 2018 |
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Mar 14, 2018 00:07
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ArchangeI posted:Just to comment on the "omg why Portugal before Italy/USSR/Luxembourg!?!?!" issue: We aren't working off of a list. We know a bunch of countries are popular, and we do know that we want to rework them, but we don't just pick the first three or four and call it a day. In this case Italy was on the shortlist because it does make a lot of sense, and then we did a round of estimations (including an Italy rework) and our producer came to us and told us we needed to cut 25 dev-days worth of content because we were hilariously overscoped. I figured it was something like that. Still going to be kind of funny to have "Husky", and several trees focused around working with Italy yet.....no Italy. Is there anything you view as just never going to happen? I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from future DLCs off the roadmap, but there's some interesting things out there like Egypt which did quite a lot during WW2, but are currently represented as a big ol' UK blob. Also Belgium seems to be getting more and more unlikely. ( As an aside. Totally unverifiable and probably untrue story that's been circulated in coffee circles for a long time. Might be a fun/dumb event to add in this Espionage DLC, who knows. During WW2 the US needed information out of Vichy France. So they gathered together a bunch of second generation Frenchmen to turn into spies. They made sure they knew the area perfectly. Spoke perfect French. Looked the part, and knew the fashions, and then sent them in. Within a week, all but one had been captured. OSS was baffled. How could this have happened? Were they compromised? Was there a traitor? After the war, the US asked the German government to explain what had happened. They responded. All those agents went into a cafe and ordered lattes. Milk was scarce during the war, and any true Frenchmen would have realized that. The survivor drank straight espresso. )
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Oct 25, 2019 03:30
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HerraS posted:If WW2 breaks over the Sudetenland Hitler might get assassinated, the chances are higher if the Czechs can hold on and Germany is losing Which is why the Czech game is so fun. You've got two real options. Hold yourself until the German Civil War then just take them out. or Form the Little Entente, and when Germany comes knocking millions of angry Slavs appear and just start destroying Germany. The first time I did that I was not expecting the combined Balkans to just straight up overrun Germany within weeks with me not even leaving the fortified Sudetenland.
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Nov 7, 2019 17:22
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:I've tried this but can't kill Germany fast enough to also be able to fight the USSR I mean you've got a ton of options depending on how you want to handle things. The game is....weird as Poland. You can hold the Vistula for basically ever against Russia. Two Urban cores, plus a river that goes from German territory to the mountains? Yeah, the Soviets straight can't take that if you fort it and send some troops to defend. And with only a few troops holding back the entire Soviet line, it's actually not hard to beat Germany. Same on the other side. Fort up Lodz/Krakow ( or just the border, whatever Germany will declare on France shortly after attacking you and take most of it's troops out. ) then push Russia. If you don't want eternal war, then give up either Danzig or Ukraine and then beat up the other side. Or just....declare on the Soviets before the Germans even attack you. Historically impossible, but hey, HoI!
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Nov 8, 2019 04:28
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On the topic of fixing up old DLC. Any chance we could get a fix for the Dem Soc's Commie China in WTT? Currently when they take over China they get all the China malus with zero way of handling them since they don't have the China focus tree. -50% Attack and Defense you cannot alter kinda makes it an impossible path. Wondering if it was a bug/oversight or intended.
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Nov 14, 2019 09:09
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The Cheshire Cat posted:Be communist South Africa, where the colonized overthrow the colonizers and then proceed to kick out the REST of the colonizers too. The trick for SA is subs. Just focus subs with your limited tech, and try to get l2 subs out by the time you switch to either Communist or Fascist. Put out as many as you can. The AI won't send fleets to engage you, so your subs have full authority over the coast. Then when you declare on Portugal/Belgium they'll send tons of troops down only for you to sink all their unsupported convoys. Even your undergeared troops can handle the hilariously awful colonial military Portugal and Belgium have. If France doesn't give Madagascar ( and they wont if you do it early ), you get a free war with not in the Allies France to exploit the same way. Suddenly you own 90% of Africa, and haven't even engaged England yet. Keep building subs, build CAS/anti Naval and put it all in Algeria. When you finally feel teched enough to take on Colonial Britain, hit it. Put you sub fleet in Cape/Mediterranean and give them air support through Algeria. You should be able to sink their Navy pretty decisively if you've been focusing Navy. Then just blockade Australia/England, and you've won.
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Jan 6, 2020 03:14
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Morrow posted:When I want to hate myself I take another shot at the "Miklos Horthy and the Hapsburg Prince" achievement. ? It's super easy to do. Balanced Budget > Strengthen the Monarchies > Elect a King > Invite the Hapsburg Prince > Industrial Revitalization > Reintegrate the Railroads > Demand a Referendum > Restoration of Austria-Hungary > Secret Rearmament > War Games > Bled Agreement > Protect Czechoslovakia Austria will always accept the ref if you've got your forces on the border and have Reintegrated the Railroads. This gives you their armies as well. Then do the reset for Protect Czechoslovakia ( they will 100% accept if Germany is doing Demand Slovenia, just have to reset your focus trees so that Protect will proc before Demand ) Germany will ignore you and focus on Poland, which gives you plenty of time to keep going down the Monarchy tree and rip up Romania. By the time you've got Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania gobbled up, you can sit idle for a bit and build an army. Then just declare on Germany as they attack France, and gobble up Germany/Poland and use the rep to join the Allies. Then you are the new Germany ez game, this time no Hitler.
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Feb 4, 2020 03:56
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Hey Archangel, did you ever get a chance to look into the SocDem China thing? Been wanting to do another run of them with La Resistance, but didn't see anything in the patch notes about fixing the malus issue. If you guys intended for them to have the malus to signify a way too split country, that's fine, just want to make sure it's not a bug. I'm down to hardmode China, just gimme an Achievement for it!
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Feb 29, 2020 17:40
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Archangel, do you accept passionate writeups to encourage you to consider a Belgium focus tree. Cause boy do I have one in me if it'd actually work. Just got back from a Belgium centric WW2 tour of a museum in Poland. Largely from a Polish WW2 vet talking about how much Belgium betrayed them.
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Apr 19, 2020 03:09
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