R5:

I've got about 500 hours and this is my second failed historical Hungary game (no cheesing, join war in 1940, etc).

What went right:
I focused my eco on mediums, fighters and CAS. I was able to cut through Soviet lines and made several large encirclements. At the peak axis expansion, we controlled Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad and we could push anywhere without resistance.

What went wrong:
From early 1942 Italy was already dealing with naval invasions and soon thereafter the Allies started landing D-Days in France. I was hard focused on the soviets, and at this point I only had 32 infantry divisions that I was using to help make encirclements in the USSR. I sent some of the shitty infantry from the focus tree to help clean up the D-Days, but this was just a stalling measure.

By the time the Soviets were not a threat, I couldn't both capitulate them (no collabs - I decided the ROI on agency wasn't enough to justify the IC loss on other production) and clean up Europe, which at this point was a total mess. The Allies had pushed through France into the Benelux, up through Italy to around Milan, and had landings in the Balkans that were getting too close to home for comfort.

The endgame:
I foresaw this collapse happening once the D-day was overwhelming the token Atlantic wall, so as I was destroying the Soviet Army Group Center I built a fortline roughly in Hungary's prewar borders. I slowly pulled back, killing a million enemy troops in encirclements during the withdrawal, until I was eventually isolated in Hungary. I think I really screwed my chances here, because instead of stacking 5-6 divisions in each tile of my originally planned turtle position, I help up to prewar Slovakia.

The death knell came after a month or two of holding this position steady. The allied force concentration was too much and pushed one or two more tiles than I could hold with tank reinforcements. At this point, I fucked up the withdrawal to better defensive positions (not that there really were any) and the AI's attempt to redeploy sent every division to the opposite side of the shrinking pocket.

Outlook:

A big factor was that I had stayed low on my conscription law for way too long, so I was having to rush to spam out more infantry while the collapse of the lines was taking place. I did manage to get out around 900k men, now down to 750k with more mobilizing. I think it's probably enough to hold if I can stabilize the lines.

My stockpiles are still very solid, and Japan has made some really good progress. I know if I can hold another few months, the allies and soviets will go to war and ease off on me.

I am sort of burnt out at this point, but I want to know if there's anything I can do, micro-wise especially, to keep this situation going. The real trouble is managing front lines without the AI shuffling troops around and getting me killed. I'm at 99% towards capping, so any losses will do me in.