How to Play Hearts of Iron IV

welcome to hearts of iron for get ready to purge your officers forget to escalate the war in China and become a Nazi you didn't ask for this you didn't choose this oh you can call me as a heel this is hearts of iron for Lance jump in okay you're worse than Hitler too late for flattery pick a country any country no not that one it's big much better each country has a focused tree it's pretty much a choose your own adventure book that affects how the game plays out most trees also include alternate history branches but we'll talk about those later on the top of your screen you'll see a row of numbers they represent political power which is spent on modifying your government and activating decisions stability and war support which do a bunch of things but obviously you'll want them to be high if either one is low while you're a war very bad things can happen Manpower's how many troops you have to staff your military this is how many factories you have we'll get into how they work in a bit fuel is how much fuel your country has stored you gain fuel from the oil resource convoys is how many ships you have to transport troops and resources and last or command power and military experience which we'll cover later this is the laws and government screen you use it to change their laws and staff your government only raise your conscription law when you need more manpower when it comes to trade policy free trade is the best it has big productivity bonuses as well as a huge research boost feel free to change your trade policy if you find yourself low on resources in regards to economy law you want to get to total mobilization as soon as possible don't worry about the recruitable population penalty you just cancel it out with the women in the workforce decision each country has an ideology you can use advisors to help change it if two countries share an ideology they'll have an easier time engaging in diplomacy let's talk about that in hearts of iron for there's nothing unusual about basic diplomacy make an offer and hope they say yes a more interesting diplomatic features world tension it's closely tied to the focus treats fascist countries can usually do whatever they want however doing naughty things raises the world tension as certain tension thresholds are met the democracies will get access to their more powerful focuses this dynamic means in the fascist will get ahead early game but as the tension goes up the democracies will catch up and then surpass them like the other paradox games you need to cast this valley before you can start a war well you can fabricate one manually most focus trees give you any cast as badly as you might need you can also never declare war and just join a faction that's already at war factions or group alliances they're usually formed along ideological lines with non-aligned countries joining the Democratic factions if one faction member goes to war the rest of the faction is very likely to follow them the wars don't end until every major power and a faction is capitulated to win a war you'll need weapons lots of them at the center of the economy are buildings and the most important kind of buildings are factories the first kind are civilian factories civilian factories build more buildings that's big so you'll want to build nothing but civilian factories for the first few years of the game another important building type is infrastructure infrastructure does a lot of things but one of the most important is to extract more resources many states produce resources if you build infrastructure in one of these states it'll produce even more resources this can be very valuable in industry poor poor resource rich countries like Romania if you find yourself needing more resources than you have you can import the difference you trade one civilian factory to another country for eight units of a resource but you can get a better ratio if you're importing from one of your puppets if there's no land connection between you and your trade partner you'll need convoys to transport the resources dockyards and military factories which are the other two type of factories turn your resources into war materials these include guns tanks ships and those disgusting potato flavor chocolate bars military factories have something called production efficiency this is basically how good the factory is of producing something when a factory starts production it'll have low production efficiency as time goes on this will improve if you change what a factory produces this process will start all over again the products of military factories are used by divisions let's talk about them ah damn it mahjong Tom not you Yeltsin come on girls we're going on a queer huh the Army is made out of divisions these are important sir we're going in depth with them a division is made out of battalions and support companies battalions determined the vast majority of the division stats while support companies provide unique bonuses like reconnaissance the physical placement of a battalion in the division doesn't do anything as long as it's in the division it'll do its job here's what you need to know about stats unless something has gone horribly wrong divisions never get destroyed instead they retreat this one Li happens when the organization reaches zero that makes organization the most important stat to consider when making a division soft attack is how much damage the division does to soft targets like infantry heart attack is how much damage it does to hard targets like tanks defense is a bit odd just know that the higher the number is the better the division will be at defending infantry have a lot of defence so if you need a line held infantry will be your friend breakthrough does the same thing as defense but it comes into play when attacking tanks have a lot of breakthrough so when you want to attack try to do it with tank divisions Armour is how well armoured the division is generally speaking more and heavier tanks means more armor if an enemy division can't pierce your division it'll suffer some serious penalties the piercing stat determines how much armor a division can pierce last is combat with all you need to know is that unless you're doing something really fancy your combat width should always be 10 20 or 40 with 40 being best you can see what equipment a division needs on the right here are the divisions I use this is the classic 7 - it's not as strong as it was when the game launched but still gets the job done this is the 14 4 it's literally just a 7 - but doubled in size however due to weird mechanics I don't fully understand making a division double the size makes it much more than 2 times stronger this is a shovel division it's kind of awful at attacking but extremely cost effective on the defensive especially when it's had time to entrench we'll talk about how entrenchment works in a bit this is an anti rebel cavalry division unless you're Poland these guys won't see much fighting they're best used to suppress rebels which rise up in occupied territories to make the rebels disappear just set a few of these divisions to garrison the trouble spot here's a good 40 with tank division there's no point in having a 20 with tank division notice how there are no leg infantry only motorized infantry this is because the division moves as fast as its slowest unit and you always want to keep tank divisions moving feel free to slide in SPG's SP AAS and tank destroyers as needed if you want something overpowered and also kind of dumb throw a heavy tank or two into an infantry division due to the way the game calculates armor it acts as though every single infantryman is wearing tank armor this means that if the enemy wants to kill basic infantry they'll have to use anti-tank guns now for actually controlling your troops divisions are organized into armies and armies are organized into army groups each army has a general and each army group has a Field Marshal these commanders give bonuses to their divisions you can upgrade the commander's here some countries can field hundreds of divisions and have to manage them across multiple fronts manually controlling every single one would be a bit ridiculous that's what the battle planner is for the battle planner can be used to execute plans by army or if you really have a lot of divisions by army group to make a battle plan you create a frontline this will distribute the divisions along the front you can then make attack plans for the troops to execute on just remember that the battle plan AI isn't that smart so you should micro your divisions to get the most out of them think of the battle planner is more of a big picture thing and you as the details guy even if you want to totally ignore the battle plan or always make battle plans for your armies regardless of whether you actually use the plan divisions assigned to a plan will build up planning bonus which makes them more effective when attacking on the other side of that coin if the division is standing around not doing anything it'll entrench itself which makes it more effective when defending when a division tries to move into a province controlled by a hostile division a battle will begin if the defender reaches zero organization it'll be forced off the province and the attacker will move in if the attacker reaches your organization it'll stop attacking divisions recover their organization when not in combat if you're facing stiff resistance you can use a trick called cycling this is where you have multiple divisions on a tile and only attack with a few at a time since the enemy is constantly in combat they'll never recover their organization while some of your divisions will always be recovering there's you can see how much organization and equipment and division has via the green and orange bards if you need an extra boost parts of iron for features special orders which can use to temporarily buff their troops they're very gamy though so I don't like using them if you find yourself drowning in so many divisions that even army groups can't help you you can split your armies into theatres you can see how each theater is performing from its combat log it includes all sorts of fun stats alright that's it for the army up next luckily the Air Force is a lot simpler you create air wings for each type of airplane and airports you assign your wings to do missions and Arizonans if a wing can't cover the whole zone it'll be less effective different types of planes perform different missions fighters fight for air superiority and intercept enemy bombers close air support dive bomb enemy divisions who are in combat these can do tons of damage strategic bombers bomb enemy factories and infrastructure they can also do this I think we got them naval bombers bomb ships and tactical bombers do a little bit of everything but not as well as dedicated bombers there are aircraft carrier versions of Fighters close air support and naval banners speaking of carriers and so much with man the guns pleats have gotten a lot of attention you assign shifts to task forces and task forces to fleets all task forces in a fleet share an admiral and operate in the same seasons but they can each perform different tasks naval combat comes in two parts finding the enemy and then actually fighting them heavy ships like battleships and aircraft carriers or fuel guzzlers you don't want them patrolling for enemies this means that your combat fleet should be split into two task forces patrols made of light chips to find the enemy and strike forces made of heavy ships to blow them up please can also do other things including convoy reading which is best done with submarines convoy escort which is best on with anti-submarine destroyers lay in sweep for mines which is best on with mine laying and minesweeping destroyers and naval invasion support which is best on with big ships to provide the best security and Shore bombardments up next is experience technology and doctrines step up your being did look break out the O word lesbian the other l word Lebensraum the Army Navy and Air Force each have their own experience you get experience by fighting or doing exercises experience can be spent on a few things but army experience is particularly important because it's used to customize divisions something that all experience can do is customize equipment army experience can customize tanks when upgrading tanks armor is most important unless you know the enemy will penetrate it anyway in which case just invest in the guns air experience can be used to upgrade planes for fighters engines matter the most because they give agility for bombers close air support and other air-to-ground units attack and bombing matter the most naval experience can be spent on customizing ships the Navy has what is by far the most advanced editor and the same hole can be used to create radically different designs another use for experience is to speed up doctrine research you research doctrines as well as other technology using your research slots doctrines buff the Army Navy and Air Force we can only have one doctrine for each branch the land doctrines are tanks infantry with heavy gun support kind of all over the place but the entrenchment bonus is good and also all over the place but best for small countries that need as much manpower as possible the air doctrines are fighters and strategic bombers close air support and all over the place and the naval doctrines our battleships convoy raiding and aircraft carriers before we get into the meta stuff like DLC in mods I want to give an overview of my favorite countries in the game and the United States first is why hungry because it's great for new players it's big enough that it can have an influence but not so big that you'll be totally overwhelmed hungry is also landlocked so you won't have to worry about Navy mechanics which can be confusing at times I doubly recommend hungry if you have death or dishonor since then it could do cool stuff like restore austria-hungary but even vanilla hungry is fine I need winter Germany's the opposite of a good country for new players it's big has no strong allies to rely on and is basically the driving force behind the whole game that's a lot of pressure although once you're ready for it it'll probably end up being your favorite country to play Germany is very well suited for a tank focused mobile war game where big encirclements are the goal unless the AI does something truly incompetent there's really no other way to play Germany you have to be France and the Soviet Union quickly or you'll just get out produced speaking of losing I'd like to add that even losing as Germany can be fun desperately trying to resist the Allies in the West while barely holding on in the East is a great challenge plus if you lose you won't have to think of the consequences of a Nazi dominated world if you want to try your hand at the naval side of the game Italy is a great country to learn it with it's Halle an industry kind of sucks except for its dockyards on land you'll always be overshadowed by Germany but that's not what matters if you can wrestle control of the Mediterranean from France and Great Britain you're otherwise weak army will be able to pull off all sorts of crazy maneuvers Osos are red violets are blue I'm stuck on the Eastern Front and so are fucking you if one word describes the USSR its preparation the fascists are coming and you need to be ready there's nothing more intense than seeing all the armies of Europe line up against your border and hoping that whatever you did to prepare was enough failure to properly prepare means a struggle to the death where your only hope of survival is an allied landing success on the other hand means your boys will be in Berlin by Christmas or whatever the Communists celebrate I once listened to the hearts of iron for developers discuss their design challenges one of their most interesting challenges was the fascist have all the fun there's a certain amount of truth to this countries like the USSR spent half the game just waiting around others have a more interesting experience France is in a precarious position it will never be fully prepared for the German invasion but it can get close if you play your cards right you can turn the Western Front into another trench warfare hellscape by doing so the Germans will slowly but surely get crushed by the combined industry of the French and British Empire's watching the German war machine spontaneously stop your Ford line can be quite hilarious no where's the problem of fascist have all the fun more pronounced than in the United States of America this isn't a country about preparation and execution it's about waiting lots and lots of waiting and an effort to make things interesting the United States features Congress mechanics but the way it's implemented Congress is basically just random chance there is an alternative to Congress and that's in fighting an alternate history second Civil War but that's kind of dumb I'm sorry the south isn't rising again in the 1930s especially with a weight you need to elect a Republican to do that a Republican in 1936 you know what let's talk about the DLC in mods I feel like we'll find something better there and a we the bad days now for the DLC together for victory gives focus trees to the Commonwealth that's Canada South Africa Australia the British Raj and New Zealand death or dishonour does the same thing but for Hungary Romania Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia waking the tiger focuses on Japan Germany and China but also includes a bunch of mechanics changes last is man the guns which massively improves the Navy mechanics and messes with the United States United Kingdom the Netherlands and for some reason Mexico a paragraph ago I mentioned that the alternate history in this game can be kind of dumb even a good amount of it's pretty fun there are much better options out there this is where the mods come in let me tell you out of any paradox game parts of ir4 has the best mods it has mods for World War 1 modern day and even fallout but there's one mod that is by far my favorite Kaiser Reich is amazing it's a what if Germany won World War 1 mod but it's so welded up that's practically its own universe in this timeline it wasn't Russia that fell to communism it was the West after a humiliating defeat in the First World War Britain and France collapsed and becomes syndicalist state the British royal family in a French Republic of an exile to the colonies leaving a barely held together Germany to fight the Syndicates but that's about to get a whole lot harder seeing as the Berlin stock market the center of the world economy is about to crash hell this one is so good it finds a way to make playing the United States interesting very very interesting so yeah that was hearts of iron for feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments I'll get back to you pretty quick up next we'll learn how to play mountain blade in space see you then the higher right in the Buddhist space not to love food it's a great day space don't be high I won't write in the for his face then her gamble saves the owned world in space

Channel: CallMeEzekiel

Views: 209,610

Rating: 4.9439139 out of 5

Keywords: CallMeEzekiel, How to Play, Gameplay Footage, Tutorial, Guide, Strategy, Memes, Funny, Review, History, Hearts of Iron IV, Hearts of Iron 4, HOI4, Divisions, Encirclement

Id: GufD3sJsgrU

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/patricthomas]

Not bad, the best part is you talked about it vs showing it. That always I think makes the other tutorials too long.

[u/The_Kiddoo]

nukes japan

“I think we got em“

[u/yunior01]

Really good. The rest are long and boring

[u/ShafinR12345]

Thanks I actually need your short guide for EU4

[u/Superablelemur]

nice video, said everything that I took 1 year to learn in under 20 minutes

[u/Christianwm7707]

Make one for eu 4 pls

[u/DoYouEvenMaxRank]

What situations would you recommend using 7/2 over 14/4?

[u/OlegPavel]

New player here, this helped a lot! Thanks!