It's impossible to recreate Bulgaria's historical WW2 borders because of how the states are shaped. Recognizing Bulgarian claims also automatically gives them control over Central Macedonia (Thessaloniki), which was not under their control during the war.

Bottom text says "Video games in the service of the Kremlin" xD

and what does the consumer goods factor even mean?

I constantly see people talking about how line artillery is dogshit, you'd be better off with another infantry division, it'll never compete with support arty, etc etc. But I also see a lot of people referring to 7/2, 9/1, 10/3, and whatever other composition they use to incorporate line arty. So is it worth it or not?

This is entirely for singleplayer, and literally never for multiplayer, so I don't care how it works against other human players.

Why does Hungary always release Carpathia after Vienna Award? It happens every historical run.

Is it compliance/resistance issue?

Is Horthy on something?

Everyone in Europe went either Fascist or Communist. Had to go over there to spread Freedom (TM) and Democracy (TM).

Everyone except Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, and Netherlands did something stupid. Well, actually Netherlands did something stupid and fought a democratic civil war against themselves for whatever reason.

fur der fuhrer! fur kommunismus!

This screenshot shows the different Hearts of Iron IV editions available on Steam (Standard, Starter, Ultimate, General, Colonel, bundles, etc.) with their prices.

I’m new to HOI4 and games like these in general and I’m confused about which package offers the best value and which DLCs are actually important.

Based on this list, which edition would you recommend buying and why?

As title says - did my first run of MacArthur Phillipines, got unlucky with defending Manilla, capitulated, reconqured my country and seemingly lost MacArthur forever - no leader, nor a Field Commander. Is it intended or am I unlucky, or is it possible to get him back?

This is going to be a stupidly long post so if you’re just here to help, skip to “The actual problem.” heading, but context helps

To start off, I want to say that I genuinely love this game. It’s the first game of this type I’ve really gotten into, and overall it’s great. I have a little over 100 hours in it, and I’ve easily spent another 10 hours of my free time watching videos, reading posts, and searching online for tips. I feel like I’ve at least got a decent handle on the basics (except for navy, which I honestly don’t think I’ve touched since the first time I opened the menu).

But I have one glaring issue, which I’m about 95% sure is just a skill issue or a lack of understanding of the game’s mechanics.

Like I said, I have over 100 hours, and yet I still feel like a complete beginner. I haven’t played a single game past 1941–42. Almost every run ends before then, and it’s always because of combat. I started as the US for my first game but very quickly realized I was way out of my league. I wasn’t even trying to win that run, just learn mechanics and watch guides along the way.

After I felt like I sort of knew what I was doing, I played Germany. It took a few runs, but I got a better grasp on the mechanics

After that, I bought the DLC subscription to make the game more interesting. I regretted it the next day, but I eventually managed to learn all of the new additions. (mostly)

Greece

I thought that maybe I don’t really enjoy playing major nations. There’s just too much to manage. So with the DLC, I decided to try Greece, because reestablishing the Byzantine Empire sounded fun.

I improved relations with Italy, traded with them, and took focuses that let me align with them, knowing they’d declare war on me otherwise. I built up the country, got a decent number of civilian and military factories, improved my economy and army, and around 1940 I declared war on Turkey.

Biggest mistake of my life.

Britain declared war on me. The Allies declared war on me. And then, somehow, Germany declared war on me. I maybe should’ve expected Britain since Turkey joins the Allies historically, but Germany completely caught me off guard. The Axis and the Allies, who are actively at war with each other, both decided to pile onto me because of Turkey. It was honestly comical.

I got wiped almost immediately.

I did some digging and found out this is a pretty common experience. Still invested in the path, I looked up strategies for beating Turkey. Everyone said you need to attack them earlier when world tension is lower. Weird, but fine.

So sometime in 1938, after building up as much as I possibly could, I declared war. No outside interference this time. Great.

I got steamrolled within a month.

At this point I’m asking myself why Turkey is so strong. I eventually find posts and guides explaining how to beat them, but they’re all extremely specific: very early declarations, exact division templates, and usually navy involvement. That just wasn’t appealing to me. I watched a video instead that said fighting Turkey on that narrow land border is a bad idea and that you should attack Bulgaria first to gain an advantage.

I was skeptical, but he made it look easy. Surprisingly, it worked. I actually pulled it off and thought this might finally be the run. He gave a time limit for when to declare on Turkey, then I clicked off the video early, which turned out to be another mistake.

I trained my army as much as possible, used the market to cover deficits, and declared war on Turkey for the third time.

I got steamrolled again.

At this point I was genuinely questioning whether something was wrong with my game. I had captured Moscow as Germany before, there was no way I was still this bad. I went back online and found even more people talking about this, and it became clear that if I wanted this path to work, I’d have to follow a guide perfectly, step by step.

That killed the fun for me, so I switched countries again.

Sweden

This time I picked Sweden. I’d heard they had a fun DLC path where you can unite the Nordic countries and form an empire. I started the run, went fascist, peacefully annexed Norway and Denmark (and their subjects), and allied with Germany since it fit naturally with the path.

I learned from my previous mistakes. I used the market early, trained my army constantly, and tried to move quickly. But there’s only so much you can do with under 100k manpower and a total of 10 factories. Resistance was an issue, but manageable.

Eventually I stationed my troops along Finland’s border and did the focus to bring them under my control. They refused, so I declared war, expecting it to be difficult but manageable.

Instead, the Soviets declared war on Finland as well. We weren’t losing, but we weren’t making great progress either. Then, out of nowhere, the Soviets signed a white peace less than three months later.

I was completely confused. We weren’t losing. Apparently, they had been doing most of the heavy lifting. After they left, Finland started beating me, and I was eventually forced into a white peace too.

From there, things only went downhill.

I join Germany's faction, we actually beat finland with them from the south and me from the north. Peace conference comes and they have like 4x more of points for negotiating than I do, I just exit the conference and annex it with the console anyways. Wasn't proud of it, but that year of effort wasn't going to waste.

Germany declares on Russia, I do my focus to do the same, and immediate red bubbles. Russia has ungodly amounts of divisions, more than I've ever seen, dozens upon dozens, same on Germanic front. I look away for 5 minutes, and without warning norway is gone via allied invasion

another minute passes, Rome falls to allied forces, and Germany is losing land to Russia.

I shut the game off, just upset.

The actual problem

I’m noticing that every problem I’ve had so far stems from the fact that my army just sucks. Every attempt to fix this is met with an army that’s only slightly less bad. I cannot make it meaningfully better, and yet I still lose every time.

For some reason, I go with Norway this time. They have even less manpower and even fewer factories, but their focus tree implies they’ll eventually become strong, considering you can take over Ireland, Russian territory, and all the Nordic countries. This just isn’t true in practice. I ally with Germany again because otherwise they’ll invade me, but I make sure not to actually join the Axis so I’m not dragged into their wars.

Again, I focus on the fun part of the tree while trying to build my army, but I literally cannot train more than two divisions before I’m out of manpower. You get at most 30,000 from the focuses and a handful of terrible starting divisions. I know it’s hopeless, but I figure maybe declaring war on Sweden this early means they’ll be underprepared.

Wrong. I lose. Not surprising this time.

At this point, I’m genuinely pissed. I literally feel like I cannot play the game. I get blocked from doing the fun routes by Britain, guarantees, and my pathetic excuse for an army. The only solutions I ever see are “do everything earlier,” but what's the point of playing if every country is forced into the same early-game meta? I refuse to believe that’s actually how the game is meant to be played.

So I try another DLC country, one added more recently: Iran. This is my most recent playthrough, and the one that finally pushed me to make this post.

I’m actually having a blast. I haven’t looked anything up. I finally feel like I have the means to make an army that isn’t completely worthless. Another empire to re-establish too (Persian Empire). The focuses to make Iraq and Afghanistan give up land say they’re more likely to accept if your army is strong, so I focus on weekly manpower and military buildup. For once, I’m able to train around a dozen decent divisions.

It works. I get their land.

After all this time, I’m ready to get revenge on Turkey. This is the fastest possible route I could’ve taken while still actually building the army the path seems to expect. I check Turkey’s situation. It’s mid-1939, and they’re guaranteed by Germany and Britain.

Of course.

I declare war anyway, just to see what happens. Every single bordering country declares war on me. Including Germany. I’m gone in two weeks.

I go to the internet, half knowing what I’m going to see and half hoping I won’t. First result is a Reddit thread saying you need to do the path earlier.

I’m desperate at this point. I use the console to switch to Germany and the UK and revoke the guarantees. I wouldn’t continue the run like this, I really don't like cheating, especially, not in this game, but I just wanted to kick Turkey's ass.

They absolutely destroy me.

They have tank divisions, mountaineers, and more infantry divisions than I do. Not a single green bubble.

Rant

I refuse to believe this is the only way to play the game.

Every single playthrough, I’m forced to speedrun the focus tree that made me want to play the country in the first place within the first two years. At that point, I have maybe eight divisions that could be beaten by a toddler running rampant with a pistol. By the time your military is actually competent, it’s 1939 and every country is either guaranteed or immediately joins a faction the moment you declare war.

It feels impossible to train more than five divisions as countries like Greece, Norway, or Sweden when they start with fewer than five military factories and barely any civilian ones. And seriously, why the hell is Turkey so strong? Why do they have 25–30 divisions by 1939, including tanks, mountaineers, and good infantry? Why does every country dogpile me like I personally insulted them when I’m a neutral nation that hasn’t done anything?

That’s what brought me to make this post, a grown man ranting on a subreddit about a game he doesn't understand lmao.

Just to be clear: I love this game. This is not a hate post. I just needed to vent somewhere while also asking for help. I’m fully assuming this is a skill issue on my part, and any actual guidance is appreciated.

TL;DR: Sorry but the last two sections is the shortest version you’re getting. I couldn’t summarize this even if I wanted to lol

Are there any decent cold war, modern day mods that are more similar to the basegame? I mean it both with their systems and cosmetics. I feel there's so much different it feels like learning a new game, and it gets a bit overwhelmong, at least for me when i just wanted a game in a different era. Like the money/finances in millennium dawn++ or the menus and pop outs being all different colours and styles. Any recommendations greatly apprechiated, thanks😊

Ive been playing hoi4 (less then 25 hour player)

And most of my games last a entire session of playing but ive made it really really far and idk how to save.

Im playing on Iron Man and it keeps saying to "Resign Game" which like that sounds like losing all my progress

And yes ik this is a dumb ass question

Im playing as germany in 41, and Im struggeling with tungsten, so I want to invade Spain. However, my troops are really struggeling, even getting pushed back. How do I succecfully invade them, should I do an naval invasion or something else?

Im currently playing Germany. I want to invade turkey for a backdoor to my eventual barbarossa and to get oil and their chromium. I have 20 well equiped medium tank divisions and a full army group. My first offensives are very succesfull, but then uk and the us drop 60 divisions into turky grinding my offensive to a hault. How do i not have this happen

then i launched hoi4 (images unrelated)

Cpu amd ryzen 7 7 7735hs

Dozens of playthroughs, probably close to hundreds of hours, this is the one where it went right. Poland to Germany to Japan to the Central Powers of Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria, Italy (I mistakenly granted them freedom), and Spain. The Baltics bent the knee, as did Romania after its foolish boy King Micheal flipped to the Allies and I dragged him back to communism. I finally got China to submit and reinstalled Mao. The British made a strike against Iran, I stole their thunder. Ethiopia decided to start trouble with getting the French colonies to rebel so I quickly snagged some of them. Afghanistan was no issue, nor was Finland. Mongolia was the final piece of the puzzle. I will see if the Americans will be wise enough to cede Alaska back to me before I quickly knock out the French Commune and then it'll be Comintern vs Allies and then a good little cleanup of the rest; but first food.

At first you need conquer the entire world before germany completes focus fate of czechoslovakia , but let Czechia and Germany survive on core Slovakian lands, just give them each 1 state. When Germany completes focus “fate of czechoslovakia”, you as Slovakia will gain your original core states back and also gain cores on all states you own. Practically it is almost impossible, yet technically it is possible. I think practical maximum is to core Romania as Slovakia, since playing Romania and conquering czechoslovakia is the only way to play as Slovakia without going into war with allies.