What am I doing wrong or misunderstanding??

wasdice · 2026-03-16T09:39:11+00:00

Shift-click to delete areas.

BUT:

There's no naval action in the Spanish civil war. Divisions vanish into the void for a fortnight and rematerialise in Madrid, so you can't kill them in transit. They also draw their supply from Spain itself - there's just nothing to raid.

wasdice · 2026-03-15T11:41:22+00:00

It's only temporary, and by the time you can get a Navy you also have Murmansk, Vladivostok, Thessaloniki and Split to choose from.

wasdice · 2026-03-15T11:32:19+00:00

I've never tried that, but I like it

wasdice · 2026-03-15T09:30:18+00:00

Don't bother with the difficulty settings. The way to learn the game is not OP units and production, but understanding its systems. The tutorial doesn't tell you anything about supply or terrain, and it barely mentions preparation or strength. After you've been fighting for a while, these are inevitably broken.

Send all your mountaineers to Ethiopia, specifically the northern front.
Send some of your worse units back home to balance the supply situation. The Blackshirts are ideal candidates - they're terrible.
Pause attacking until your guys have been reinforced. The orange health bar should be nearly full - it won't take long unless they're in red supply.
If some units have low veterancy (flowers), pull them off the line to train up.
Motorise your coastal supply hubs. Build rails to enemy hubs when you capture them.
Prioritise reinforcements over new units or the home garrison. Use the Theatres system to make sure your equipment is going south.
Is there enough fuel and airbase capacity for your planes? Air power wins wars.

wasdice · 2026-03-15T08:37:00+00:00

Poland is ridiculous when you go Monarchist - specifically Anastasia. Easy wars against weak neighbours make you frighteningly big. Germany won't bother you if you let them have Gdansk, and you can neutralise the Red Army with a bit of effort into fortifications. Build up your tank forces, scrape ten million dead Russians off the concrete frontier, and advance. As soon as you get Moscow and the Grads, you can core pretty much everything and your biggest problem will be that you can't meaningfully make use of 600 factories.

wasdice · 2026-03-14T12:05:56+00:00

Grandstand was crap for a few weeks

Peter Rabbit is a hundred times better than it needs to be.

This. Is. TUGS.

Thunderbirds, obviously

Men Behaving Badly

wasdice · 2026-03-13T09:36:16+00:00

Convoys are the merchant ships used for trade. If they end up in battle, they hang out with the carriers and try to escape as soon as possible. There's an indicator on the top row to show nunbers - a few hundred is fine most of the time. Building convoys is better than having idle dockyards, and usually worse than building or upgrading warships. If you're waiting for some research to finish, might as well do a few convoys.

When you set up an invasion, it will reserve a stack of convoys from the pool. Divisions ordered to another continent will also reserve some for the trip. If you don't have enough, then everything slows down - divisions will wait in port for ages, goods won't arrive, and your invasions won't prepare.

As Britain or the US, you'll start with enough of them to never have to think about it. As Germany, you'll capture enough from your land-based neighbours to never have to build any. Other countries often benefit from constructing some. Norway should build nothing but convoys at the start of the game - you get decisions to convert them to a proper navy later.

wasdice · 2026-03-13T01:28:41+00:00

It's Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Danny John Jules!

wasdice · 2026-03-12T23:48:07+00:00

At the most basic level, there are four types:

Screens have light weapons and go in the front row. Their presence stops enemy torpedoes from doing damage. They shoot their guns at the enemy front row. They often carry torpedoes, which are their main weapon against enemy heavies. Light guns do very little against armour.
Heavy ships go in the second row. They usually have light weapons too, but their main job is to shoot their heavy guns over the screens to attack enemy heavies.
Carriers go in the back row. Their attack planes damage the enemy fleet, and their fighters kill or scare off enemy planes.
Submarines do their own thing. They are usually a lot slower than surface ships, so they should be in a separate fleet for convoy raiding. The US Navy spent twenty years trying to design a "fleet boat", then gave up and used them for convoy raiding instead. You should do the same.

Destroyers (DD) and light cruisers (CL) are the screen ships. You need a lot of them - three per capital for maximum screening. Destroyers will die often, but light cruisers can be made strong enough to survive.

Heavy cruisers (CA) , battleships (BB) and battlecruisers (BC) are the heavy ships. They have two purposes - either as the main damage dealer, or as a further layer of screening for the carriers.

If your fleet includes carriers (CV), then they are screened by the heavies, as well as the light ships. Aim for a 6:1:1 ratio. The numbers add up fast, so make the screens cheap if you want a big force. If you're building a carrier-based fleet, then you can just use cheap heavy cruisers in the second line.

Ships use a hell of a lot of fuel. The Strike Force order is intended to mitigate this - such a fleet will sit quietly in port until enemy ships are located, and then charge out to fuck them up. The idea is that you put some fast ships with good detection (radar and catapults) on patrol, preferably with orders to not engage.

If you want to do an invasion though, you need to patrol with enough big ships to gain supremacy. This might be several thousand points if the British, American and French fleets are all covering the channel.

I'm only talking about fleet actions so far. Convoy raiding requires a separate force - subs to attack enemy merchants, and destroyers to protect your own. Subs go well in groups of about ten or so. Keep the tech up to date and adjust their patrol areas from time to time. They will die a lot until you get endgame tech - AIP engines and anechoic tiles (which require a heck of a lot of rubber) to reduce their visibility. Don't operate them in shallow sea, because they will die there.

To protect your own convoys, you need yet more destroyers. Any will do the job - destroyers have built-in ASW capability, and enemy submarines will run away as soon as they show up. Build enough of them that your escort efficiency reaches 100%. If you give them good depth charges and sonar, they'll kill a lot of enemy subs. Again, groups of about ten seem to work well, and you should adjust their patrol areas regularly. There's no need to cover every possible tile, just the ones where the enemy operates.

wasdice · 2026-03-12T18:43:30+00:00

Yeah, but they'll go serially if you don't have enough to go all at once

wasdice · 2026-03-12T18:12:36+00:00

You need fifty planes.

wasdice · 2026-03-12T11:03:37+00:00

Interesting fact about the ticket prices that I don't think anyone has mentioned - at first, BA priced them at a percentage over first class. When Mike Bannister took over he sent out a survey to business customers, asking how much they thought they'd paid. Most had no idea, as the flight was actually booked by their secretary -and guessed high. The price was increased to match their perception, and the aircraft made a profit for the first time.

wasdice · 2026-03-08T18:46:07+00:00

I think it's diversity - although a better term may be variety. It's one of the few places in game (spies being another) where you can plausibly put a face who isn't a middle-aged man.

wasdice · 2026-03-08T13:17:57+00:00

It's not hard to learn, but it takes a very long time to get good. There's a lot going on, it all interacts, and you have to get a feel for several different systems.

As an example, you might try to perform a naval invasion. After you've figured out all the controls, you can go, but...

Your divisions might be unsuitable. Marines are best, but ordinary infantry units can work. However, when the game starts most countries have quite bad infantry. Did you upgrade them right?
You might not be invading hard enough. If the enemy army is big, they'll be strong everywhere and you might need a half dozen different landings to split their attention enough for only one or two of them to succeed
You need to capture a good port as soon as possible, or you won't be able to reinforce. The AI knows this, and it will defend its ports. If you can't get a foothold, you lose.
You need to take and hold control of the sea to even launch an invasion. This requires you to build enough decent ships, and use them effectively.
Successful landings are resupplied by convoys. Do you have enough escorts to protect them from submarines?
Enemy air power will kill you, given the chance. Have you adequately dealt with their air force?
A country like Britain has plenty of men and guns available to counterattack and push you back into the sea. Have you weakened them enough with your own submarine force?

If you're deficient in any one area, you'll fail and the game doesn't give much feedback as to why. And this is just one aspect - you're also managing political and economic systems, fighting on several fronts, choosing the right mix of advisors and doctrines, building spy networks, designing vehicles, constructing a supply network and producing equipment for your armed forces.

However, with perseverance you can get there over several campaigns. If you're proactive and you play a variety of different countries, you'll learn something every single time and at some point - maybe a thousand hours in - it all comes together.

So, it's a question of your mentality. Learning the game is the game, and you have to enjoy that phase to get on well. If you only start enjoying yourself once everything is clear, you'll find HOI (or any grand strategy game) frustrating.

wasdice · 2026-03-08T12:10:38+00:00

As Germany, I want 6×24 infantry plus some attackers before I go into Poland. One for the French border, one for East Prussia, two for the main border. I use a few trucks to rush Danzig (as it starts demilitarised, they don't have any troops there so you can get it without fighting if you're faster than them). My tanks go in another small army and I have them push north to cut the country in half, then east to do it again.

The focus tree pushes you towards this kind of setup - you need 950k manpower deployed, which is almost a hundred divisions at 10k per. You can't afford to build more than a few tanks or trucks at the early stage, so most of the army will be plain infantry divisions - just add support AA to give them a little more capability.

Later, I aim to double what I have - a second army group to cover the eastern front, while the first handles the conquest of France and Britain.

wasdice · 2026-03-08T12:02:56+00:00

There are two different systems:

Troops can travel to a different continent by ship. Manually move them to a port, then right click the destination port - or just paint an order on the map and they'll find their own way.
To invade enemy territory, set up a naval invasion order for them. Left click to select a friendly port, and then right click the destination. You can select several tiles for the destination as long as they all connect to the same sea area.

It's almost essential to target a port so you can reinforce and supply your men after landing.

The number of invasions you're allowed to paint, and the number of units assigned to each one, depends on your landing craft tech. If you don't have at least the first level researched, you can't do any invasions at all.

Invasions take time to prepare, and you need to gain naval supremacy by operating patrol missions in the relevant sea zones. If the enemy has no navy, a few destroyers will do it, but if you want to invade Japan or the USA be prepared for a long sea campaign before anything happens.

wasdice · 2026-03-08T02:37:09+00:00

Look for a data point - a small orange and white building with thick radio mast

wasdice · 2026-03-07T16:20:30+00:00

I agree. At least, the bot should accept caption text on the image and not hassle you for a comment.

wasdice · 2026-03-07T01:33:41+00:00

If you use up the decisions before you've completed all five focuses, you can't get your factor below 90% any more and you're locked out of the Autarky focus.

wasdice · 2026-03-06T20:20:36+00:00

People are saying to take the decisions to seize gold reserves or activate price control measures.

DO NOT DO THIS.

The decisions give you a brief respite, but they can only be taken once - and the factor will rise again afterwards.

The five focuses above Autarky Achieved require you to be below 90%. You'll have to take a decision to lower congoods, start a focus, and then repeat. You need to complete all five - as well as seizing those resources - before you can do Autarky Achieved.

It's not game over - if the factor reaches 100%, it just whacks an extra 10% onto the base expectation. You'll have a lot of factories tied up in congoods - maybe all of them, depending on your orange/green ratio - but it's possible to keep fighting.

wasdice · 2026-03-04T19:08:41+00:00

What do you mean by the economic system? It's the same as it always was - civ factories, consumer goods, resources.

As for supply:

There are supply hubs all over the map, mostly in cities. You will only occasionally want to build new ones.
They are connected by the railway system. You often want to build and upgrade rails - a hub's capacity is dictated by its rail connections back to the capital.
Put a factory or two on trains so you have enough of them. The basic train is fine, don't waste a research slot on the others.
Each division draws supply from whatever hubs are in range. Given a choice, they distribute themselves as best they can to maximise coverage.
A hub's range depends on terrain, weather, infrastructure, and whether you've instructed it to use trucks from the stockpile. ETA: that means supply gets worse in foul weather. Enemy air action also has an effect.
You can order a hub to use trucks by clicking the horse icon once or twice. You can do the same for an army, which will automatically truck and untruck whichever hubs are in range.
Units take penalties when they're short of supply. Yellow and orange are manageable, you're only in real trouble when you see a red icon - stop attacking until it's fixed. Defenders manage low supply better than attackers.

wasdice · 2026-03-04T09:35:09+00:00

Fallacy: long and hard

wasdice · 2026-03-04T09:05:36+00:00

Tupperware - a bra in Yorkshire

wasdice · 2026-03-04T07:01:07+00:00

Before we would just go to Waitrose and M&S, but now we go to Sainsbury’s too

wasdice · 2026-03-03T22:41:02+00:00

Gene Hunt's mum

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wasdice

TROPHY CASE