HOI3

[KDSonoma]

I know this huge post will bore most, but I loved HOI3 forum posts where guys described their experiences in HOI3. So I am posting this for the few other PAS that play this game.

My first experience I played the Germans on easy mode (second easiest setting) at the start of the Polish invasion. I got clobbered in Poland and it was real ugly. I had forgotten the mechanics of Hearts of Iron 1 & 2 and decided to jump in and test things.

So that ended my first game *smiles*.

Then I read the online manuals, checked forums for about 5 hours, read cool threads that gave a lot of basic advice, and things started coming back to me.

Game 2 - Germans again at Polish invasion. This time I used two things I didnt use in game 1, air attacks and support attacks. Wow what a difference that made. Captured Poland pretty quickly, was amazed to hear that the Japanese had defeated both Chinas, and was able to do the normal invasion of France and although it took much longer than the real war, I did win in the end. Moved my troops to defend the frontier, a few to Denmark to invade there, and the bulk to the border with Spain.

Denmark was easy, but Spain was a mess. I couldnt move through the stupid Vichy French to open up a bigger attack front, so I was stuck attacking the 2 or 3 provinces, and it wasnt long before stupid British divisions showed up opposing me along with the Spanish. Well that mess pretty much ended that method.

Back to the forums, read another 6 hours of posts, saw someone comment on Germany invading Switzerland and then France that way.

Game 3 - Germans at start of Polish invasion. Took Poland faster this time, shifted forces to Swiss border, declared war and beat them in 1-2 weeks, and piled up at the Swiss-French border. Started attacking, and the French computer seemed confused. While I did this I shifted the balance of troops to Low Country borders and took Denmark. Ended up beating the bulk of the French army to Paris, and France quit fairly soon after that. Then I saved the game and decided to let the computer invade England to se how that worked. It sucked hehe dang computer never really tried even though I set everything to invade aggressively. Then I tried to invade England, and I noticed every few weeks another country joined the alliance, and Romania and Hungary were not interested in joining the Axis. Also noticed that I was getting creamed on national unity from English strategic bombing and convoys being attacked. Tried several things but could not find a way to slow this down except with spies raising unity in Germany, but that only slowed the decrease down a bit. So that ended this game for me.

Back to the forums, read more about invading England, about national unity, intelligence, etc.

Game 4 - took my saved game from 3 and decided to try something different by sneaking my invasion transports through the English channel to a port on the western side of France. Got lucky and all made it through. Shipped 30-40 divisions to that port (must have been crowded there hehe). Invaded south west England but on the west side, between ports in open space. This worked perfectly and I was able to take both of those ports immediately, while the British computer threw everything at me. Formed lines of 5-6 divisions each and then reinforced with a transport from the French port to one of the controlled English ports. Spread them out and started attacking, and quickly realized that England did not have many troops, and many of those fell back to London as I attacked. End result, it took me 2 months but I took all of Britain. Bad news was USA joined the war and landed in France. As I had about 40 divisions defending England, I had enough to stalemate the US troops but they gradually moved in and ended this game for me. I did notice that my national unity was going up fairly decently now since I got rid of the British airbases etc.

Game 5 - decided to try Italy, at a 1936 start, on the very easiest mode. Built infantry like mad, researched all infantry technology, ignored all naval and air tech as I figured I would win or lose on the ground since it took so long to build real decent bombers or any capital ships, and Italian subs stunk hehe. Transported 40 infantry divisions to Libya and moved them to the Egyptian border. Kept another group of 8 divisions on transports for a possible landing behind English troops in Egypt. Also took Greece with about 30 divisions (was interesting that I had as many land forces as Germany by this time, although they werent anywhere near as good. Kept the Ethiopia attack on until their capitol was surrounded, then waited to get better war production for like 3 yrs hehe (kinda a cheat). But that made my resources drop over time pretty quick.

Declared war, drove the Brits back to El Alamein, and then dropped invasion divisions between them and Suez canal. This freaked the Brit computer out and everyone went running east to Suez. One nice thing about Northeast Africa was many provinces could not be moved through, so that limited how many divisions I lost to cover my flank as I moved east. Ran into an issue with Suez though, as I finally captured the western port, but the Brits had a lot of troops on the eastern port opposite me. Tried to move south to find another crossing, but Brits had divisions there too. Finally was able to figure I needed to capture all west Suez provinces to get a decent crossing point, but by this time the Germans were having a tough time in France. I had built 6 of my best infantry divisions (2 inf, 1 art, 1 anti tank brigade), and left them on the south province of the French-Italian border. I read on a forum that if the Italians took provinces in what was to be Vichy France, when France quit, Italy would keep them. So what that happened, the French were withdrawing to defend Paris, and my Italian divisions captured the entire south beach of Vichy France. But when France quit and made Vichy France, it gave them the historic Vichy French border, and the Italians got nothing *arg*.

So back to Suez. Battled like mad, and barely beat the Brits and made them retreat towards Jerusalem etc. But by this time the stupid German computer was losing to the USA forces again in France, and I got bottled up where I was in Africa. That ended this game.

Game 6 - Italy, 1936, this time I built a few tactical bombers to help in Africa, built more troops transports, invaded Greece, but left token defense in Italy, and ignored Yugoslavia and France. I had that same invasion force in port deep in Italy in a port near Germany. Used only 15 divisions in Greece, and this time Bulgaria and Hungary had joined Axis side, but I forgot to realize this meant they could invade countries any Axis declared war on. So the stinking Hungarian computer decided to take Greece, and I was paying more attention to Africa, so I didnt notice they were there till they had most of Greece. So I took my invasion force meant for Egypt and invaded Greece on the south and Crete, and then linked with my other forces and went for Athens as fast as I could. Unfortunately, Hungary and I attacked Athens at the same time, but the computer gave Greece to Hungary, so I lost those resources *arg*.

Luckily I could then focus just on Africa. I kept building infantry and got another 10 divisions ready for an invasion like last time. But fortunately my guys were pounding away by air and land and got through Suez prior to my invasion force being prepped. So I got creative and manually picked the path around where the Brit fleet was defending (Egypt mostly) and landed far back of the Brits next to Damascus or whatever the port near that was. It worked perfectly, and now the Brits stiffened in place and my guys slowed down the advance from Suez. Planes needed a rest so I sat them out for 3 weeks. I also noticed that I could cut off the Brits between Suez and Damascus by holding 3 provinces near Damascus. With no ports for supply, I could eliminate the 13-15 divisions the Brits had there, which was most of their forces in Africa and the Mid East. My second invasion divisions (10 more infantry) landed to support my taking those 3 provinces, and the Brit computer started attacking everywhere to try to take one of those provinces back to get resupplied.

This was the fun part for me. It was very tenuous near Damascus, and I only had 2-3 divisions in those provinces blocking Brit supply (it was nice that Saudia Arabia was neutral and blocked most of the lines of supply for the Brits). So by now I have about 45 infantry divisions near Suez punching east, and those 20 or so divisions spread out at Damascus.

I had to keep sending one unit to attack a Province that was trying to overwhelm my supply blocking Province to stop their assault (then moved my troops back to no move so they wouldnt complete the fight and lose that province by moving out. Now my air was used for interdiction also, to slow the Brits movements and help defend the supply blocking Provinces. Well, after about 2 weeks, I eliminated all of those Brit divisions. WOOHOO!

So now with another 25 divisions landed in Egypt, I start them south along the coast of Africa, beating the few Brits back as I went at a fairly good clip. The intriguing thing was I had these 65 divisions in Damascus area, and I looked on the map and realized that Iraq had lots of oil etc, so I started punching my way east and easily routed the remaining Brit divisions. I ended up taking Iraq and Kuwait from the Brits, and lined up against Persia (Iran). I then looked at the Germans and they had invaded England, although were not getting farther than owning the middle of the country. They also had their hands full with the Russians on the eastern front, and my hope was my 60 or so divisions would cream through Persia and open another whole front for the USSR. Then I realized I needed to lower my neutrality from 43 to 30 to declare war on Persia, and I knew that would take awhile, so I started it. Then the uncrossable provinces blocked me in Egypt, and I couldnt go farther *arg*. I still had all my troops bunched in Mogadishu, but they were small divisions and had no experience. So I transported 10 good divisions to Mogadishu, then another 10, and punched the Brits back to the Sudan port that was their last west African port, and captured them. The rest of Africa was so huge there was no way to take that in less than 2-3 years. And then the US came into the war *arg*.

So I have 60 divisions sitting there looking at Persia and unable to do anything, and so I dragged all the troops I could spare and headed for Tobruk where my transports were waiting. I also delayed placing about 20 new divisions coming off the assembly line. By now I was at like level 16 for infantry tech, so I had most likely the best infantry divisions in the world. By the time I got ready to transport from Tobruk, the US had landed in France again *arg*, and the German eastern front was holding for Germany. So I placed the 20 new infantry at the Italian/German border, and transported the Africa divisions up there over 2 weeks. the next problem I learned about was I could not use strategic redeployment outside of Italian soil. I loved using SR to move troops quickly if I needed a division or two to save my butt for missing a province that was in retreat. So all these Italian divisions had to march on foot to the front. By now the US had all the ports up to the Hague, and on western France. it looked impossible, as I didnt see stacks of Germans to help. So I ran to the Hague and started attacking southwest along the coast, liberating the ports. the Germans also had lost England, although they still had a few divisions causing problems there. But my Italian infantry absolutely kicked butt, and I the German computer was smart enough to follow up with my attacks and follow me down the line. The German computer wasnt smart enough to leave a division at each port as we moved, and sure enough another US invasion took place behind my lines. Luckily for me, I had another 8 divisions (all new with no experience though) just arriving and they pushed the US troops back into the sea. But the Germans by now were really not doing much, and when I looked at the Russian front I knew why. The Russians were kicking the Germans and had them back to Estonia already, and almost that far along the whole line. Checked my Persia declaration of war possibility, and I was at 33 and Persia was 30, so I was still a good 3 months or more away from attacking there to get another Russian front going.

Since the US was starting to cream the Germans in western France now, I decided to break into smaller groups of 5-6 divisions and spread out to try to push the US back. I was able to do this, but it was slow, and eventually there were no German troops in France, so it my Italian infantry against the Brits and mostly Americans.

So that game ended last night.

the most fun of all, but it was on the very easy level. Even though I know the results were silly, that was fun to play.

I also conclude that once I start ramping the AI up against me, the fun will go away and the challenge will go up.

Amazing game.

KD

[DevilSpawn]

Wow that sounds great.

I haven't had much time for HoI3 yet, but!

My first game:

I start at Germany in 1936. I use my old HoI2 strat of building a ton of factories until about 1938 (when they finish around january) and I switch to about 50% air/50% ground and some subs if I'm bored. I don't know how many divs I had by mid-39, but I accidentally declared war on Poland in like March by clicking on the Danqig or WAR option, not thinking that it would start a war until the historical date in September. I was wrong. Poland hit me hard, lol, they had more units than I did by then. France invaded in the west and I had to really split my forces like 50-50 to hold it. I knew the game was over for Germany, but I stuck it out to see how it'd go and learn to play the game.

In the game, starting in '36, I easily aligned yugoslavia, japan, italy, whichever franco spain is, and the balkan states (though in another game I played the 'good' spanish beat the 'bad' spanish. I think it's even possible for germany to align with Poland in the axis, but I haven't tested it.

In my HoI2 games, I would easily beat poland and hold france off with basically just my starting 1936 units. If I started building in '38, I would easily roll over france and then whoever I wanted after--england, spain into africa to south africa and india at the same time, or Russia(though I find invading russia in HoI2 to be extremely boring and it just turns into me spamming run ways and using a paratrooper to capture province after province and it gets to be a real chore after the russians have no military and it takes years).

Anyway, 2nd game I'm thinking that the AI is really great. I don't remember what difficulty I'm playing on, but I'm sure it's whatever the middle one is.

I start as Germany in 1936 again and this time I build no factories. I start spamming armor and aircraft mostly (another HoI2 strat that I use on Russia mostly so I don't run out of man power by the late game). This time I align yugoslavia, spain, and I'm lined up for the Balkan states, Finland, and Argentina. Japan is doing worse this game though than they did last game when they beat the communist Chinese by 1939.

I invade Poland much more effectively this time and easily take it, but it takes much longer than it did in real life. France pushes on me hard while I'm fighting in Poland, but they only take like one province that I take back. I turned around after Poland and went for Denmark, the netherlands, belgium, and set up for Norway, but didn't take it before I quit.

...and that's about it for my experience in the game so far.

I've got a lot of games lined up to play soon (starcraft 2 promises for 2v2, league of legends, UO, etc) so I don't know when I'll get good game-time to spend in HoI, but I'm excited about it.

Do you have forum links to anything good that you read? There are a lot of things that I don't know about this game.

[KDSonoma]

just google:

HOI3 manual

or HOI3 and whatever u want to know about

you will find a ton of the forums at their site that has tons of threads already.

And yep, in HOI2 I killed the Russians but it took forever to try to capture all of their provinces because it took like 2 weeks to march between each one and there were a buttload of them. HOI3 expanded it and theres like 4-5x the number of provinces as HOI2 and the AI is incredibly good imho so far at least.

Yeah I built industrial capacity in all my games as early as possible, and learned to build some escorts and convoys to keep those numbers up because the enemy always eats away at them over time.

Yeah Spain is interesting, I almost got Republican Spain to join the Axis in one game, but it was really rough. I'm surprised how different each game is just because of how your allies do. Eventually I want to play as the Japanese and lastly as the US simply because those are the two most complicated countries to play (even more so than Germany).

I wish I could get reports like "friggen Americans invaded France" hehe or some such. I turned almost all messages off because there were tons of them. Will try to flip through them sometime to see if theres one that talks about seeing invaders or some such. That would sure help as I dont pull back and check on all the fronts that I should, and that really hurts to let the enemy invade and get more troops there and gain provinces while my guys just sleep unless they get attacked.



Im still going to play a lot of UO when I get better, but for now I can play HOI3 without the pain more easily than I can play UO at this point. And remember guys when I was 10 yrs old I said "when I grow up Im going to have a metal wall and play my huge board games on it". And I did, one wall of my garage room is thick sheet metal, and forever I had the War in Europe map up there with counter magnets etc. But when they started computerizing the games I loved, that was something even I didnt dream about when I was a kid. thats why these all appeal so much to my inner General.

KD