EARLY Hearts of Iron IV ADVANCED GUIDE
ADVANCED GUIDE
FOR BEGINNERS
TABLE OF CONTENT
2
TABLE OF CONTENT
THE EARLY GAME 5
WHAT IS YOUR PLAN? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO
ACCOMPLISH IN THIS GAME? 7
SETTING EARLY RESEARCH PRIORITIES 9
EARLY PRODUCTION PRIORITIES 12
FIRE POWER OR STAYING POWER? 18
SPENDING POLITICAL POWER 24
MIDGAME 26
ORGANIZING AN ARMY 27
USING AIR POWER 34
USING NAVAL POWER 37
MID-GAME RESEARCH 39
MID-GAME PRODUCTION 41
THE LATE GAME 43
NAVAL INVASIONS 44
SPECIALIZED UNITS 47
UPGRADES AND REINFORCEMENTS 50
NUKES AND ROCKETS 52
RESISTANCE 54
IS THERE A STRATEGY TO THE PEACE TREATY? 56
INTRODUCTION
3
Hearts of Iron IV is one of Paradox Development
Studio’s most popular titles, but also a bit of an outsider.
Unlike the broad open-ended stories that are available to you in Crusader Kings II or Europa Universalis IV,
Hearts of Iron is a ruthlessly focused game. You are not
shackled to history, but the game is about World War II
and World War II will happen.
Of course, the World War II you encounter in a game will bear only a passing
resemblance to the one we know from history. Maybe Germany goes after
the Soviet Union first, and maybe Italy decides to go its own way in 1938. But
Hearts of Iron is still a game about war – preparing for war, researching war related technologies, developing attack plans and then keeping that war machine going until the issue is settled.
To this end, Hearts of Iron has a much greater emphasis on military matters
than political or economic matters. You acquire new weapons through factories. Money is irrelevant. Trade is highly abstracted and focused on specific
materials. Your population exists not to be taxed, but to be given a gun and a
mission. Diplomacy is a blunt instrument to pull someone closer to your side,
or push them into war.
Hearts of Iron’s focus on military matters, especially the act of war itself (battle plans, amphibious invasions, supply routes, equipment upgrades) make it
closer to a traditional wargame than a grand strategy game in many respects.
That means that its mechanics require a dierent way of thinking than most
Paradox strategy games, and general advice can be hard to come by. Many
people have been able to understand the basics, but then are unsure about
how to think about getting better.
INTRODUCTION
4
1. This guide is intended to help players make that next step. It assumes a few
things.
2. You have a basic understanding of how things work in the game. You understand movement, can read tooltips, know what the fundamental terminology
is, and so on.
3. You do not already have hundreds of hours of time in Hearts of Iron IV, including a game where you conquered the world as Cuba. Expert players will
find little of value in these pages.
4. You want to get better at Hearts of Iron but have diculty understanding
some major relationships between systems or don’t know what (or when)
you should prioritize.
There is an assumption that you will have played through the ocial Tutorial,
which takes you through the early game as Italy – winning the Ethiopian war,
learning the basics of combat, production, and assigning units and commanders.
The tutorial is not especially clear on some things like supply, infrastructure, or
how to adjust early game strategies to fit mid and late game situations. Hopefully this short guide will help guide you into, at least, asking the right questions about your game situation and help ease you on a path to stopping the
pernicious ideologies that threaten your homeland.
the
early game
THE EARLY GAME
6
re going to assume, for the purposes of this guide, that you are playing one
We’
of the seven major powers in Hearts of Iron IV – the United States, the United
Kingdom, France, German, Italy, the Soviet Union or Japan. These are the nations with the most to do in the game (at this point), and the ones with the greatest potential to rise to dominance.
We are also going to assume that you are using the 1936 scenario, since the
1939 scenario pretty much locks you in to the historical war and you are thrown
into the thick of military planning. If you prefer to play the 1939 scenario, skip
ahead to the mid-game section of this guide, starting on page 26.
When you start the game, you will be inundated with a bunch of alerts at the top
of your screen demanding your attention. If you have many hours in the game, it
will take you little time to dispose of these and get to work. But if you sometimes
struggle with these choices, then there are some things to consider before you
jump forward.
THE EARLY GAME
7
WHAT IS YOUR PLAN? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO
ACCOMPLISH IN THIS GAME?
You want to win the war, obviously, but let’s break that down.
The early game of Hearts of Iron IV has very little true action unless you are
playing Italy (starting at war in Ethiopia) or Japan (who will very quickly find itself
in war in China). But, even here, the early game will be about setting the table for
fighting the war on your terms.
Since war is inevitable, you need to think about how you will choose to fight it.
There are the grand strategic considerations of where you want to fight and,
if you can control it, when. But there are also the small strategic choices about
what types of research to pursue and what types of production lines to focus on
to get you to your larger strategic vision into place.
For example, ge rma ny starts the game with very few dockyards compared to
France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Since odds are that the Royal Navy will be a great obstacle to any successful conquest of Great Britain or
dominance in the Mediterranean, the German player will have to make early decisions about how to use those dockyards until more can be built or conquered.
Germany also has to import rubber and oil, so some of these precious dockyard
slots will have to produce convoys to keep the resources flowing in case of a
blockade. Challenging the Royal Navy with battleships or cruisers will take a lot
of time, carrier research starts far behind other powers, and submarines are only
moderately eective against large surface fleets.
But you cannot invade the United Kingdom across the English Channel without
clearing some sort of a path for your armies.
Of course, if you follow the historical path of Germany and plan to strike out for
Romania’s oil fields, or are able to invest in synthetics factories then maybe you
won’t need as many convoys and can use those dockyards for something else.
THE EARLY GAME
8
Every decision connects to another decision, and many choices won’t bear fruit
for months or years down the line. Therefore, you need to spend the early game
thinking about what you want your situation to be when the world war starts.
The key questions are:
✯ Who are my likely enemies and who are my likely friends? If you expect to go
to war with the Soviet Union, and plan to bring along Italy, then you have to
consider the timing.
✯ Where will I attack and where will I defend? If you expect a two front war,
then you may need to prioritize where your focus will be. Will you need forts
or anti-air guns in one location more than another?
✯ What are my military priorities? You can’t perfect research in every technolo-
gy, so you will have to decide whether superior air power will be more useful
in your war plan than better marines.
✯ How quickly will I need to turn my industrial power into a war machine? At
some point, building more civilian factories is a waste of time. But when is that
time?
✯ How many ships will I need? Since amphibious invasions require visibility
along the sea lanes, as well as a secure supply line, the decision on how to
defend your shores or when to project power overseas is important.
✯ Do I want advanced weapons? Atomic weapons, jet aircraft and advanced
rockets take a lot of time to research, but can change the course of the war.
Can you aord to push for these technologies?
The rest of this section will go through some major concepts and guide you
to making the right decisions for you. There is no “one-size fits all” strategy
in Hearts of Iron IV, but there are general rules that will make you better
immediately.
THE EARLY GAME
9
SETTING EARLY RESEARCH PRIORITIES
Most nations in Hearts of Iron IV start with three research slots – four if they are
lucky. This means that in the early going, you will need to focus your research
on capability mulitpliers, i.e., things that will let you accomplish your goals more
quickly.
When we get to the National Focus section, we will talk about opening up new
research slots, which should be a very high priority for every nation. But let’s assume you are starting with only three research slots, like the USSR or Italy.
1. Industrial production should be your number one focus. In the early
months, you should be researching technologies that let you build factories faster, open up new factory slots or make your current factories more
productive or ecient.
On the research tree, the
Industry tab is the farthest
to the right. You should
focus your early energies on the Construction
and Production trees.
Construction will let you
build factories more
quickly, and Production
will increase the eciency
of your military factories.
Production has a secondary tree that lets you
choose between concentrated and dispersed industry; this will allow you
to build more factories in
your territories.
THE EARLY GAME
10
Industrial production is a capability multiplier since building factories more
quickly will allow you to use those new factories to build more factories
more quickly. It’s a self-reinforcing loop, especially for the vital construction
of civilian factories in the early game. And, the more eciently and productively your factories can make weapons and vehicles the more quickly you
can keep your divisions at an appropriate strength level.
2. Research things that speed your research. Right beside the industrial research tab you will find the electronics tab. This is where you can research computing, radar, atomic weapons and rockets. Computing is crucial for speeding up
the rate of your research. And the more research you can complete, the more
quickly you can unlock better weapons and better tactics for your armies. Radar and decryption are also very important, but the computing branch is most
important capability multiplier on this screen.
3. Choose political/military advi-
sors that will speed production
and production research. We
will talk more about this when
we get to the Political Power
section of this guide, but
focusing your early political
choices on people that compli-
ment research or production
instead of military abilities is
a good use of early Political
Power if there are no pressing
political or industrial goals on
the Political Focus tree.
4. Do not forget to research
support companies and
doctrines. When the time comes to edit and expand your division templates,
attaching support companies will help your troops last longer in the field.
Military doctrines take a long time to research, so do not neglect making
progress in this area.
THE EARLY GAME
11
Other early research questions:
✯ Should I research advanced technologies even though there is a research
penalty for moving too quickly? If you have a research bonus attached to a
national focus or military/political advisor that will reduce the research penalty
for looking at 1940 tech in 1937, then it does not hurt to take a chance so long
as this is a technology you will be using while the advantage matters. Do not
try this on more than one research slot at a time.
✯ What about atomic or rocket weapons? Can I look at that early? Atomic rese-
arch is tempting, but also requires a lot of time and infrastructure to produce
first the science and then the weapons. Probably only the USA, the USSR and
Germany have the room for beginning this research in the 1930s.
✯ Should I research modified vehicles like tank destroyers or carrier aircraft?
Japan and the United States will rely heavily on aircraft carriers to project
power and so will have to have carrier versions of their warplanes. You will
not need carrier versions of every upgrade, however. It might be OK to skip a
generation. As for tank modifications, they are best seen as a mid-game research problem once you have an idea of what you are fighting against and on ly
af ter you have your standard division templates in place.
✯ Is it ever good to change military
doctrines? The major powers start
with a military doctrine chosen for
them based on their historical tendencies. If you do decide to change
this, do it immediately – do not start
research on one doctrine path and
then change your mind.
✯ Should I research synthetic oil? Ja-
pan, Germany and, to some extent,
the USSR and Italy, will have to invest in synthetic oil research and the
Axis must make this a priority early
to prevent being cut o from rubber
too soon.
THE EARLY GAME
12
EARLY PRODUCTION PRIORITIES
Maintaining the idea of capability multipliers, early civilian production should
feed back into more civilian production. The Allied powers, especially, will find
their construction of new factories held back by the fact that their civilian population will require consumer goods.
Construction speed is relative to the infrastructure in a state or province.
In the early game, these should be your priorities.
CIVILIAN FACTORIES: A maximum of 15 civilian factories can work on any single
construction project. A good target for a major power is to have three complete
construction lines going in peace time, so, 45 civilian factories devoted to building the military industrial power and infrastructure. This means your earliest
civilian production lines should be focused on building more civilian factories
until you get close to this point.
Note, 45 factories is a bit of a reach for Italy. If you are playing a smaller power, it
is a completely unreasonable target. And, of course, once the United States gets
out of isolationism and the Great Depression, 45 is a puny figure. But it is not a
bad target to keep in the back of your mind.
THE EARLY GAME
13
REMEMBER.
This will not necessarily hamper your military productivity when the war comes because
you can – and should – convert a bulk of civilian factories to military ones soon after
the war starts.
ALSO.
You only have limited factory construction slots in your states and provinces. So don’t
go crazy filling up those places with just civilian factories if you want to also add more
military factories or synthetic factories. Keep in mind that some industrial technologies
and National Focus ideas will increase available factory slots.
MILITARY FACTORIES: It is important to build some military factories in the early
phase so you have the equipment reserves to fill your divisions. There is debate over the point at which you should move heavy into military focus. The more
civilian factories you have, after all, the more quickly you can get the military
factories going. If you plan on going an early oensive, in fact, it might be better
to focus on military factories, since you can steal civilian power from your conquered areas. Here your strategic situation should guide you. American splendid isolation and industrial might means it can wait until it has its civilian factory
situation all sorted.
There is also no firm guide on how many military factories you should have since, generally speaking, more is always better. Military factories should be as far
from your threatened borders as possible.
INFRASTRUCTURE VS DOCKYARDS: It is most important to build infrastructure in under-
developed territories with a lot of free building slots. Higher infrastructure allows
you to build factories more quickly, so, as your war machine gets moving into
the mid-game, having faster construction will be a useful bonus, but only where you can plan a lot of construction. There is diminishing returns for improving
infrastructure in already highly developed territories unless you have a crippling
supply problem in a crowded region.
Germany, and the USSR have the greatest need for supply related infrastructure. Germany and the USSR will have the greatest distances to send their new
divisions – in most cases – and will usually field very large armies, sometimes in
tight spaces.
14
Since these two nations will also
have the least interest in building major naval forces, dockyards are a minor issue. The
United Kingdom and the United
States should probably build
as many dockyards as they are
able, and Italy and Japan should
also focus on dockyards more
than infrastructure in the homeland but their narrow shape
means that some space must be
reserved for traditional factories.
THE EARLY GAME
Forts, Radar and Anti-Air: Placement of these structures will
be highly dependent on the
war you fight and with whom you are fighting. Radar and AA will make it easier
to intercept enemy planes, but it’s not like you need to build them in Nebraska.
Similarly, forts are for protecting only those regions where you can expect an
attack. (Note that for Germany and the USSR, there are National Focuses that
will automatically give you forts in strategic areas, further decreasing the need to
build them on your own.)
Early Arms Production and Division Design
The one thing you can be sure of is that you will need to make the manufacture of infantry equipment your priority throughout the war and you can’t start
too soon on this. Likewise, support equipment will prove to be essential as you
expand your divisions. Work towards having the maximum 15 factories dedicated
to infantry equipment by 1938. By the time the war is in full swing, you should
have a second group of factories working on this, as well.
What you choose to build in your military factories will be highly dependent on
the types of divisions you choose to recruit as you fill your army.
THE EARLY GAME
15
REMEMBER:
You can only edit or design divisions (or modify planes and ships) by spending Experience, and, unless you are in an early war, you will not gain Experience by just sitting
around. You will need to exercise your troops (click on an army and choose the exercise
option at the upper right of the army detail menu) or recruit a military advisor with Political Points who will add experience to your forces. Fascist nations (Germany and Italy)
can send volunteers to the Spanish Civil War for easy experience, and Italy, of course,
starts at war. Armies that are exercising will incur attrition, so it will cost you equipment.
INFANTRY DIVISIONS: Ideally, you will want to be building two or three infantry
divisions simultaneously, since this will be the backbone of your military force.
However, your divisions will most likely start either under-strength (less than ten
combat battalions) or with zero or one support companies. Research signal and
medical support companies since these will be useful add-ons to any infantry
division – radio will speed up execution of battle plans and medical will maintain
your manpower.
THE EARLY GAME
16
Busting through enemy lines is a huge priority, so consider attaching a couple of
artillery battalions – not just support companies – to add that extra firepower. If
you have nine battalions in an infantry division, at least one should be an artillery
battalion – two if you can support that production.
Add on additional infantry or motorized battalions when you can, especially if
you have a large surplus of small arms.
ARMOR DIVISIONS: There is no need for most nations to be building cavalry divi-
sions, so once you are able to build tanks, you should. Armor divisions can be
tricky since you usually begin with only light tanks, and may want to upgrade
these divisions as you unlock heavier armor. Also, armor divisions will definitely
require mechanic support companies and, since they rely heavily on supply, a
logistics support company to reduce supply based attrition.
Even once you have a lot of medium and heavy tanks, it might be worthwhile
to keep a division template for light armor for those skirmishes against infantry
focused minor nations. Producing light armor is also a much smaller drain on your
resources than heavy armor. By the start of the war, however, your core armor division template should be mostly medium armor with appropriate support companies, a few heavy armor and maybe a tank destroyer if you have researched this.
WHAT TO DO WITH ARTILLERY: Artillery research is one of the things that is most easy
to forget or neglect, but you should be attaching artillery to your motorized
and infantry divisions. It is usually not worth making entire divisions for artillery, though you may want to create artillery battalions (not as support) for those
types of divisions – especially since you are limited in the number of support
companies you can attach to a division template.
KEY VALUES FOR DIVISIONS: You can see a full breakdown of the Hearts of Iron IV
division statistics at the ocial wiki here: http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Land_warfare.
The following values are probably the ones you should know about when you
are building a division.
Loading...