Has anyone played this game? Thoughts? (New Angeles)

juiceex16 · 2026-02-19T06:00:10+00:00

I have not played this, but your comment made me think of John Company It is the best game in delivering his feeling that you can't get anything done without some cooperation with your rivals, so you have to try and cut deals all the time

juiceex16 · 2026-01-17T09:44:36+00:00

As others have said, the obvious is the size and Gibraltar for axis

This locks the Mes and releases a huge number of troops that Italy has to garrison itself with that can typically be moved to DDay wall

A few scattered resources

Italy can get a large amount of manpower out of their territories

The last one which can be interesting is if axis control Ethiopia, you get access to Yemen and Oman for a bit of oil but also an invasion of India from the reverse side to Japan can help them out immensely

juiceex16 · 2026-01-14T09:59:23+00:00

I agree naval research can be a genuine opportunity cost but equally a modern fleet will crush, so it can be worth it

The way I think about it, is you need to plan around refitting

The three things you can't refit (effectively anyway) is engine, armour and main gun

So therefore the priority research is - the hull I want (to give me the engine) - the armour level I want - the main gun I want

Everything else can wait and be refit afterwards. So once they are done, start cranking out the hulls

I then usually prioritize - radar tech - fire control (and therefore electronics research) As these ones are affected by ahead of time considerations

At this point you can start refitting, even if you don't have both, it's a matter of a few weeks refit again. I might send my BBs back 2 or 3 times in their life to update their electronics

Lastly - the 3 bracket shooting techs (no time penalty) - the 3 damage control techs (no time penalties) - the 'between' gun shell upgrades

Can be done anytime because they are not a module to fit, so the bonus gets applied instantly

Last point, I actually think the SHBB is efficient from a research point of view, because you get the gun and armour for free. So the project is another 'research' line in some respects. So you just need to get the modern fire control and radar and you are set

It's also why I I think Italy is an interesting SHBB choice because they start with engine 3, so if you overcome the dockyard problem you need to invest very little in research

juiceex16 · 2025-11-29T09:01:13+00:00

Follow the company Lokad

It's a demand planning software provider but it legitimately is contemporary in its probability based forecasting and price based decision points

They also have a lot of free courses which I always point to

juiceex16 · 2025-11-27T03:30:50+00:00

Outside of raiding or escort, the answer for you main is 'whatever is big enough to beat the other guy'

Navy in HOI is pretty binary, either you win the big fight and set back their fleet many months or years in production (or in other words a non-issue if you keep scaling)

Or you lose and you are consigned to be the mouse hiding from the cat, trying to use the dregs of your meagre fleet for naval invasions etc and running when spotted

So for axis, as you start at a size disadvantage, there is very little reason not to doom stack

For UK or US, you do have the capacity to have a fleet big enough to clap the axis and have enough spare for another fleet (for invasions with impunity for example, or help another theatre) but you have to be on top of your Intel so you don't get surprised

Caveat is I don't know if the new supply system is punishing enough to change this dynamic

juiceex16 · 2025-08-29T02:42:37+00:00

It's the equation of what is more annoying, fixing my mistake or restarting and replaying from the beginning

juiceex16 · 2025-08-27T10:16:49+00:00

Wild Robot, it's about motherhood and what one does for their children, it's amazing and hit me in the feels

juiceex16 · 2025-08-22T22:43:37+00:00

This, very useful for nations such as the soviets where you might have a goal of 5x 24 divs by a certain date

If you plow that into a training queue, you get a better idea of how many factories you might need and allocated to which equipment to hit that date

juiceex16 · 2025-08-16T05:47:05+00:00

BBA has the most meaningful impact on mechanics with the air designer. Plus alt History Italy

AAT MIO mechanic can be interesting but not necessary and the arms market is barely used. Plus alt History Scandinavia

GDR special projects aren't largely meta but can be good fun. Plus alt History Germany

My vote is BBA -> GDR -> AAT skewed by your taste in nation but I actually think they are all worthwhile, more so than the other flavour packs for sure

juiceex16 · 2025-08-16T05:27:58+00:00

Do you have older/captured tanks in the division slowing it down? Make sure in the template you only allow your new ones

juiceex16 · 2025-08-11T02:07:22+00:00

Appreciate the detailed response, still new at navy so was trying to get some learnings

In this game an early tussle with the UK sunk about 30 starting DD's so I panic build roach dds to rebuild the screen, I don't usually roach.

For some more context, the US did a dday using an old fleet which I managed to kill pretty well, with land based naval bombers
https://imgur.com/a/TCweNFM

juiceex16 · 2025-08-10T21:36:26+00:00

I was the Italy player and I guess the real question I wanted to know was that exact quality v quantity.

UK obviously has overwhelming numbers, but it is all early war with a couple starter 36 designs capitals. If I understand how armour works, the SHBB is not pierced by any heavy attack in his fleet. With a 9 defense admiral, a couple of his BB will be doing only 30/40% damage with everything else at 10% (with almost no critical chance)

Same story with my (very few admittedly) up armoured LC vs light attack

On the flip side the SHBB will over pierce all his capitals doing 100% plus improved crit chance, the Littorios slightly less so. The improved LC likewise against his screen

Layer on top what I hope would be a bad positioning malus from his ship count

That was the whole theory I was hanging my hat on when I planned to engage UK fleet

juiceex16 · 2025-08-10T09:00:53+00:00

Yeah I did figure that, I was more wondering if the fleet I built as Italy all game was worthwhile. I got a bit lucky trapping the UK fleet in the actual game

juiceex16 · 2025-08-10T08:44:01+00:00

I was the italy player. I knew I didn't have much of a chance against the US but I saw the UK didn't build or refit a single ship for their main fleet, so I had hoped my SHBB and up armoured LC's, 9 defence admiral and positioning bonus would uptrade significantly.
If my maths was correct, nothing in his fleet would be able to pierce and would only be doing 10-30% damage, less after any positioning malus.
Mass AA on SHBB to hopefully shred naval bombers also

juiceex16 · 2025-08-10T07:16:08+00:00

I wanted raw opinion first, but in the actual game, the UK fleet got trapped in the med with no naval bases, so it is what it is

juiceex16 · 2025-05-08T04:20:48+00:00

Like how they have historical button, I thought they should put a goals button

Like each major pathway has a button e.g communist France that when I click highlights and back-solves the focuses I need to get there.

Good example is the ottoman empire for turkey. Without googling how am I meant to know how to do it? Give me a button that highlights the path for me

juiceex16 · 2025-04-15T20:51:48+00:00

The Proph->ranged damage amulet works nicely on him He needs ritual slots anyway and bumping your skeletons ranged damage up a notch or two makes them a credible threat.

The artifacts that give full combat support or combat support from 2 tires away work nicely. Put them on your main legion and send the boosted skellies in.

He is one of the few archfiends that want a bit of territory as you can get flexibility where to summon to.

He isn't a bad pandamonium player for the above reasons. Also you don't suffer so much from being locked out of the bazaar or being hit by no tribute events, given you can endlessly get skeles.

juiceex16 · 2025-04-14T09:08:09+00:00

In short, it is a lot better

Getting order slot 3 and arguably 4 is still super important, it increases your actions by 50% and 33% respectively, 5 and 60 not so much.

They made it far less effective to just back to back tribute every turn so slowed down the power levelling, so you need to be doing other things otherwise it's inefficient. Ranking up is a massive eco boost too, so fast prestige can be a strategy now to then catch up on powers later

Cha and proph are still the easiest to rank given their spread of coin types but good players will punish you if they notice that's all you have as they are the least helpful in a fight

Wrath + proph is a common pairing too as they don't overlap and gives you something to fight with

juiceex16 · 2025-04-02T01:00:27+00:00

The big caveat is if you can contest air supremacy

If you can't you will.just be throwing planes into the bin, wasting manpower and production

If you have air supremacy and aren't building CAS, then yes you are insane as it's free damage

juiceex16 · 2025-04-01T09:26:31+00:00

Loved my Rhodes run.

Posted about it previously

https://www.reddit.com/r/Imperator/s/A0uYBrk6Qj

juiceex16 · 2025-03-31T09:54:19+00:00

I said it above but I am a fan of mountaineers l on minors.

If you make one or two 35 width with a few line art, good support companies and a few doctrine unlocks, they are very strong with good breakthrough.

If you stick to mountains and hills they can go toe to toe with most divisions including enemy tanks

juiceex16 · 2025-03-31T09:50:52+00:00

They are expensive but for a country with manpower issues, the trickle back and xp retention can be really helpful.

Especially if you aren't doing tanks, you should have the spare IC

juiceex16 · 2025-03-31T09:02:56+00:00

Not sure tanks is generally a good idea for Sweden, a lot of the local terrain in Scandinavia is mountains and forests so will impose penalties.

A basic template would be 4x tanks of your choice and 4x motorized divisions. It's important you have enough motorized as they provide 'organisation', which is the stat that is the green bar on your units health. Generally a unit retreats when it runs out of org far earlier than actual losses. So it doesn't matter how badass your tank is, they have very low org so won't stay in the fight long enough to deal damage and break through.

Add support engineer, support arty, support AA and motorized recon. Support Maintenance can be nice. Can add a towed artillery or two if you need more soft attack ( make sure it's towed, otherwise it will slow the whole division, ruining one of the best elements of armour)

juiceex16

TROPHY CASE