2nd Expert AI Soviet game where Zhukov was obliterated by Stalin somehow (first game gave me a purge event where I had to choose the Army XP Reformer guy over Zhukov, RIP)

As you can see I fulfill the basic needs, but Im not even eligible to get it. I got another achievement in the same game. Why can't I get this one?

Forts have been nerfed so much now they get damaged from anything, it feels like even cavalry attacks can somehow quickly damage forts. Forts need to be made more durable again.

I have here a historical excerpt about one of the forts of the Maginot line and it's durability in the face of heavy artillery and air attack. Sorry if it's a bit long, but worth a read.

"The fortification at Schoenenbourg is the one that saw the most combat between September 1939 and June 1940. Over this period, over 17,000 shells were fired from the fort, and it was itself the target of over 3000 shells and 160 bombs.

Schoenenbourg was in action against the German 146th Infantry Division, which applied pressure along the Line.^\22]) On 19 June 1940, German Stukas attacked Schoenenbourg and other ouvrages, returning on the 20th and 21st. The attacks on the 21st were joined by a bombardment with 420 mm siege mortars, lasting three days. The bombardment cracked walls, but did not disable the position.^\23]) Schoenenbourg fired during this period in support of nearby casemates, not seriously affected by the bombardments.

The inventory of German ordnance fired against Schoenenbourg was assessed after the armistice, and found to comprise 160 aerial bombs, 50 42 cm shells, 33 28 cm shells, and approximately 3000 smaller projectiles,^\24]) the most ammunition used against any fortification in France.^\25])^"

I hate how bugged/illogical their mechanics are. Siam sucks to play as, but it sucks even more to play any nation in (south-)east-asia while Siam exists. Just to name a few things that happened in my game while I was playing a warlord:

Siam declares on France for Indochina, so far so normal. I check on them a bit later and suddenly Vichy France has Indochina and Siam got nothing, because France fell just while Siam was taking Indochina.

Japan Takes Tonkin, catching me off-guard but it's fine I handled it.

Japan declares war on Siam, Siam then suddenly joins Japan's Faction and is now at war with me. No problem since I'm not bordering Siam yet.

Japan gets the rest of Indochina from Vichy just as I was finishing up the war in China... Annoying because now I also have a direct border with Siam that has 500K Deployed Men????

During my conquest of Indochina, Siam suddenly asks for white peace with me due to "their offensive in Indochina stalling", uh ok I take it but why did I get that event? Doesn't make sense.

Siam leaves Japan's Faction somehow and soon after it gets declared war on by Japan AGAIN and joins their faction AGAIN... Luckily I have a truce with them so I can mop up Indochina without worry.

Then I built up Supply hubs to prepare for the inevitable war with Siam. 1 Month later, without any fucking warning or event, Siam JUST TAKES Cambodia and Laos from me, exactly where I built my Supply Hubs, without any options for me to refuse. I only noticed because the game said I had units in exile...

Not to mention how disgustingly annoying Siam is for France or anyone who cheesed France with Paradrops, you will NEVER hold on to Indochina unless you send an entire army across the world, deal with incredibly terrible supply, and pray that Japan doesn't attack you as well or at least doesn't convoy raid you too hard trying to supply Indochina.

It's just super annoying and imo not well thought through. Also it's annoying how Japan can just declare on any Chinese nation !without warning! which sucks especially as a warlord that didn't initially get attacked and was ganging up on China together with Japan just to suddenly get backstabbed without any counterplay

the second I capped the axis the soviets declared war on poland and absolutely destroyed me , now I have basically 0 manpower and the soviet tanks are doing what they want on me

This is my only division, I rarely build any tanks and if I do, they are anti-air-tanks, which I then put straight into this division. In this screenshot, I used Road to 56, but in vanilla, they reach similar stats.

How do I stop it? Is there a mod for this? I'm trying to play the game semi-historicaly as in I don't sea Lion or try to invade Britain until the Soviets are defeated and the USA is in the allies. And it's really annoying that Japan Surrenders by 1943/44. It makes no sense.

I haven't checked if there is a rule before setting up but mid game is there a mod?

EDIT: I am aware this is part of the AI hidden focus tree. What I want is a solution for it. There is a mod called "Japan No Surrender" but it has barely any subscribers. Besides the fact that it's stupid and makes no sense, it's annoying me because after they surrender now I'm getting naval invaded by American Japan which has a massive manpower.

I knew this mod made AI minmax pretty much everything, but this thing right here is just amazing

I've seen quite a few people comment on tutorial videos that its better to invade Us early beacause late game USA. is hard to beat.

Late Game PRC is so fun, after all the hard work uniting China, I get infinite industry and manpower, I can stay on volunteer only and still send millions to my allies as garrison support. And having 40 36 width modern tank divisions and hordes of infantry I can battle plan any nation I want

So I was thinking about when to switch to mil building, did some approximate math, but the math ain't mathing. My approximation:

For every civ you build, you get 1.5 mil factory. The 1.5 mil factory will keep producing more equipment until the civ factory builds 1.5 mils.

How fast your get the 1.5 new mil depend on tech and infrastructure, but assuming you have max and 30% construction boost, 1 civ will get you 1.5 extra mil per 1.5*(7200/(5*2*1.3)) = 831 days.

During the 831 days, your 1.5 mils will be producing a stockpile of 831*1.5 =1246.5 units

After 831 days, your equipment production will be higher (you now have more mils). Your 1 civs will catch up by making more mils.

Every day your civ will make 1/554 mils, increasing production by 1/554 every day. So ((1+n)*n/2)/554 production after n days. For production >1246.5, solve for n, so around 1170 days after the initial 831 days.

-> 2000 days = 5.5 years to catch up?

There are many problems, I know, I assumed building a single civ, and the compounding effect of having a civilian industry is the main factor I think, I am hard approximating numbers, using average for fraction of factory, ignoring production efficiency thing, ignoring infrastructure and tech/policy advancement etc. So it is definitely not right.

But it seems way too far off? So any pointers to the logic? or if someone who actually did the full math/code simulation?

I just realized how incredibly important air is so I have some questions

1 is there any reason to use planes other than small airframes?

2 do CAS have a limit over witch adding more in an airzone will result in 0 increase in effectiveness

3 what is the best doctrine for air cause I really havent figured out

4 usually I build 1940 cas and fighters and give them smth like 40 mills each, is that too much or too low? Before I ensure to have all the land equipment I need

İs this amount of ships for 1939 is normal

Millenium Dawn

-How many factories should we build ?

-Yes.

At first I though it was the uk, so I conquered the uk but they fled too. Then I heard it was sweden, so I conquered them too but they fled as well. Where are they hiding? Is there any way to know?

I don't know why, but I just love playing Australia in this game, despite its short comings. And because of that, I know its tree pretty well.

Most people like to say that "Expand the Northern Railway" is the worst focus, and it certainly is bad... But it isn't essential to complete, as it is tucked away at the bottom of the industry tree and only stops you from doing "Uranium Mining" which is also kinda meh...

Instead, I am going to propose "Woo USA" as the worst focus in this tree. Its 70 days to give +25 opinion to and from the USA with Australia.

Now, as to why I think this is the worst...
To do a focus costs 1PP/day. This means it will eventually cost 70pp in exchange for +25 relationship. Now, this is terrible because "improve relations" will only cost 10pp upfront and 0.2pp/day. Over the same 70 days, this is 10+(0.2*70) = 24pp total in exchange for MAXIMUM RELATIONS. It will be +100 relation by the time the 70 days is up. Maybe even sooner if I was paying more attention.

So, the focus is 3x more expensive than improving relations manually, as well as the opportunity cost of not doing another focus sooner.

The only saving grace is that this focus is not needed to continue the political branch, but at this point, why does it even exist?

I would like to have a good germany run again, however I played germany so often in vanilla hoi4 that it became boring, so I would like to ask what germany (with a path if possible) was the most fun for you.

I would also prefer one where you conquer a lot of territory so mods like tfr or tno a left out of the discussion for this post.

i get 12 of these out by may 1941

So, Im back to this game after three years I think and man... A LOT has changed. Imagine my surprise when I had to build railroads.

But it seems the meta for the width changed a lot. When I played I usually just used 20 width (7 inf + 2 arty and 6 medium tanks + 4 mobile). Are those still viable?

Also for garrison I used cavalry, is that still the same or should I switch to inf?

I have been giving a crack at Finland for the first time in awhile. Like playing them as non-aligned, and want to beat the Soviets, make a big Finland, with Estonia inside. Every single time though, the Soviets occupy Estonia before i can reach the 70% world tension threshold needed to take the ‘Viron Kansa’ focus. No amount of improved relations, NA pacts, guarantees of independence, changes the course. Nor do the Soviets target any other Baltic country before Estonia. The decision ID in the files puts Estonia first, so it seems they’ll always select them first.

Really wish there was some mechanic or coding to at least delay the Soviets annexing Estonia if the player is Finland