Hearts of Iron

[PanzerKnacker]

Hell yeah, Torenico! Go show them!

And gratz on finishing the 1944 game, did you win? (VP wise)

[Dukat]

I can recommend Italy, it was the greatest of all games I had. The potential of Italy is enourmous if played correctly.

• Italy is in the war with Ethopia from the start and the war can be prolonged at your will, allowing you to lower consumer goods consumption and production.
• Italy got lots of submarines and a huge fleet which serves perfectly for carrier support and carrier warfare.
• If you manage to lock the mediteranean sea at Gibraltar and Suez, you get a "mare nostrum".
• If you take Spain(1936), Albania(1938), Yugoslavia(1939), Greece(1940) and Ethiopia(1940), you can almost double your industrial output.
• Africa is the natural latitude of Italy which provides exciting battles and requires a good supply coordination.

[Torenico]

Hell yeah, Torenico! Go show them!

And gratz on finishing the 1944 game, did you win? (VP wise)

Allied Victory!, for some reason..., but my objetive was complete: Survive.

I can recommend Italy, it was the greatest of all games I had. The potential of Italy is enourmous if played correctly.

• Italy is in the war with Ethopia from the start and the war can be prolonged at your will, allowing you to lower consumer goods consumption and production.
• Italy got lots of submarines and a huge fleet which serves perfectly for carrier support and carrier warfare.
• If you manage to lock the mediteranean sea at Gibraltar and Suez, you get a "mare nostrum".
• If you take Spain(1936), Albania(1938), Yugoslavia(1939), Greece(1940) and Ethiopia(1940), you can almost double your industrial output.
• Africa is the natural latitude of Italy which provides exciting battles and requires a good supply coordination.

It's been a while since I played Italy, never had a serious game as Italian in HoI3 and had a very good one in HoI2. It's quite of a challenge, starting with limited resources, with a big but not-very-strong Army, an airforce that needs upgrade and a good Navy... it's interesting.

I will be looking into that.

[Torenico]

Playing on Hard is not... hard, it's just a bit silly.

You know, a single division, constantly attacking your 12 divisions-strong unit, keeping their score at 0 (No chance of winning, AT ALL) BUT, it keep all your 12 divisions busy, therefore making them static, unable to move until they deal with this piece of shit division suicideattacking them.

That is what happens on Hard, that's how the AI wins on hard, it's frustrating... and because of that, it's October 1940 and I still haven't beat France. It's only a matter of time before they collapse, I mean, I have their capital and slowly advancing towards their last remaining VPs..., gaining air superiority in Battle of France is kinda impossible, not only you have to deal with the French Air Force, but also against the superaircraftcarrier known as the UK... and you can't thrown in all your fighters because, who defends the cities against strategic bombers?!

Rivers are overpowered, too.

[PanzerKnacker]

Do what I did, mass a giant bomber fleet (I mean EVERYONE) and a giant V1/V2 fleet and blast everything to pieces in 2-3 mass bombing raids (everyone included), concentrating on ports and coastal regions, and then just invade them. piece of cake

[Torenico]

Yep. I'm building a large Strategic Bomber fleet and a even larger Tactical Bomber fleet to evaporate UK defenses for Sea Lion. It's one of those "Intercept-my-bombers-i-dont-give-a-fuck" kind of strategies, no matter how many fighters you got, I have more bombers and I wont stop.

I need to beat the RN too!, I built the Bismarck and Tirpitz, they were both ready by 1939. But I also built the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier and two more escort carriers, Weser and Elbe with some cruisers among them.

The idea is quite simple, but it's hard to do it. I need to destroy the RN slowly, not in a all-out decisive battle, I don't have the ships, the doctrines and the resources for that. I have one complete battle fleet and one incomplete battle fleet, Carriers aren't Germany's business so my plan is to fight along the coast, with support from the Luftwaffe. I have to, somehow, invite the RN to fight under my conditions, I must have numerical superiority.

A good naval combat would be Iceland, after annexing Denmark I got Iceland and Faroe Islands, Faroe were invaded and seized by France, yes, France, and Iceland was captured by the UK. Sending an invasion force that way would force the RN to come after me, but things need to be damn accurate.

[PanzerKnacker]

Yep. I'm building a large Strategic Bomber fleet and a even larger Tactical Bomber fleet to evaporate UK defenses for Sea Lion. It's one of those "Intercept-my-bombers-i-dont-give-a-fuck" kind of strategies, no matter how many fighters you got, I have more bombers and I wont stop.

My man, my man 

I need to beat the RN too!, I built the Bismarck and Tirpitz, they were both ready by 1939. But I also built the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier and two more escort carriers, Weser and Elbe with some cruisers among them.

The idea is quite simple, but it's hard to do it. I need to destroy the RN slowly, not in a all-out decisive battle, I don't have the ships, the doctrines and the resources for that. I have one complete battle fleet and one incomplete battle fleet, Carriers aren't Germany's business so my plan is to fight along the coast, with support from the Luftwaffe. I have to, somehow, invite the RN to fight under my conditions, I must have numerical superiority.

A good naval combat would be Iceland, after annexing Denmark I got Iceland and Faroe Islands, Faroe were invaded and seized by France, yes, France, and Iceland was captured by the UK. Sending an invasion force that way would force the RN to come after me, but things need to be damn accurate.

Use your naval bombers (or stukas, or anything disposable) for a quick port-strike within range on all ports. That should give you information if there are ships in there. If there is a fleet in, say, Dover, just wipe it out, the whole port and the fleet with your bombers.

Use your submarines to lure out the ships, if you like. But in the end, here's a suggestion. Organize your best ships (both capital and screen) into one fleet. And then use the rest (Levels I and II, maybe III) as the invasion fleet and fill it up with truppentransporterflottilen. The fierce looking 20+ ships lvl IV fleet will fight the RN and cover the invasion fleet, which will just transport troops across the channel, no need to bring them from Kiel. Then when you transport some 40ish divisions on the island, you're good to go. Then merge the remains of both fleets and carry on with the show, and start building more ships

[Torenico]

Sea Lion is a bit tricky. I did it twice in HoI 2 but because the UK was kinda bugged and left some of it's coats without defenses, I was never able to do a Sea Lion in HoI 3.

Shouldn't be THAT hard actually, you have a perfect base (France) to strike, no big deal. But you know the problem is that Germany starts with a small navy AND terrible naval doctrines with NO carrier techs at all, and to win naval wars you need carriers. Plus, you must win with what you have against a navy that was made to knock out two navies at the same time, the Kriegsmarine and Regia Marina. I was never able to win the naval war as Germany in the long run, I was able to sink a few ships from time to time but I had to send my ships back to port for repairs, and when the repairs were complete the US had already joined the war, and good luck beating the USN.

Bombing the shit out of the RN in their ports is a good idea, they, however, tend to keep their big ships on Scapa Flow and, iirc my Tacticals can't reach there but my Ju-89s can, but they will be annihilated by the RAF.

France resisting is making things bad, I don't like Vichy France, so I decided to CONQUER ALL, yes, it's way more fun and way more rewarding. It's november now and let's say by December I finished with France, losing no time I have to invade the balkans, starting with Yugoslavia, probably creating Croatia, then Greece and PROBABLY Romania, puppet them and get good oil income from these guys. At the same time, an invasion force heading towards Norway, either with a paratroopers+amphibious force or a land invasion trough Sweden, which will give me total control of the Baltic sea and good metal resources. After that it's possible (IIRC) to create some sort of union between Norway and Sweden called "Scandinavia" which will keep rebels out AND provide cannon fodder men for any big war.

Then the Soviet Union, that will consume 80% of my land troops, assuming the 20% remaining will be for defense, occupation and reserve..... so, where does Sea Lion fit in?.

That is the problem of Sea Lion :/

[PanzerKnacker]

Sea lion 1st, barbarossa 2nd. Or even postpone Barbarossa for 1943, you're not losing anything really

[Torenico]

Problem with Barbarossa is that, sooner or later the URSS will DoW you, but they only do it when they are "prepared", and by prepared I mean +200 divisions going straight for Berlin. If you give the USSR too much time, it's gonna be bad.

You must get Stalin with his pants down, and an invasion in early 41 is perfect (I did it once in 1940 in HoI2, after YOLOrushing Poland in 1937 haha). Sea Lion is crucial, but not as much as Barbarossa. You have a huge land connection with the USSR and you can't really stop an invasion that easy, however you have a channel with the UK, and the only thing they do is send in bombers, and you get warned when they launch in an invasion.

First I start Barbarossa, if things are going well (and by well, I mean reaching Leningrad, Smolensk and Rostov in all three fronts), I can start build up for Sea Lion.

[PanzerKnacker]

I played from 1936 and the Soviets didn't do anything except take their part of Poland when I conquered it in 1943. I attacked them in August 1947 after I occupied UK, and never finished the game. I still have a save from 1945 somewhere though

[Torenico]

I got DoW'd by the USSR in all my games (except for those where I was the one DoWing them), but after all, when you play Germany, you play to destroy the USSR, dont you? xD, in all my games as German I built my Army around Barbarossa.

France fell, I must deal with pockets of resistence in the Maginot Line (Duh, desperate soldiers + level 10 forts, what could go wrong?). I will wait till they run out of supplies.

Sending an entire Army Group to the border with the USSR for the great invasion, they will also help the occupation forces deal with a massive revolt in Poland, the invasion of France left some doubts, the performance of my army was quite poor in some areas (some of my best units were pushed back quite a lot by French counteroffensives), they capitulated when I was desperate and running out of time.

Setting up positions to defend my new territories and off to the east! the Reds are not mobilized, I can exploit that, their divisions guarding the border are quite weak atm

[PanzerKnacker]

Nah, I never bothered with the Reds that much, they're just too much of a hassle. Also mission impossible.
Here, last round (starting '36) I conquered Spain after the nationalists lost, got Portugal into Axis. Then got Turkey in Axis and invaded Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and Egypt, and got the UAE into Axis. Then overran everythin from Kairo to Lybia and conquered the entire north african coastline, and gibraltar. And then sent 1 panzer and 1 motorized division to on the run through allied colonies on the west coast of Africa. I was thinking of getting Persia into the Axis or conquering them but the Soviets got them first and I didn't want to risk a full scale war. If I had time until, say, 1960, I'd have invaded the reds. 
P.S. What does DoW mean?

[Hjaldrgud]

Declaration of War

[Ciupita]

I go back to good old HoI2 Armageddon to have some fun. HoI3 is "too complex" to get enjoyment from (aka I'm too lazy to learn all the stuff).

Anyways, did a round as Republican Spain and here is the current situation.



Oops.