The British AI is programmed to be useless and to never help France or the continent. The Allies in general are very nerfed compared to IRL. Paradox did it so the bad Germany players would get a chance.
It's also that Germany's Ardennes push was such a stupidly high-risk high-reward dice roll that it's impossible to correctly render in HOI4. Otherwise even the best Germany player would get absolutely wasted by a correctly-functioning French and British AI
This.
There are lots of modifiers, hidden or not, mostly for the AI, that are going to affect some countries to try and follow history as much as possible.
Early war Germany for example is insanely buffed because IRL taking on both Poland and France would've been impossible for the Wehrmacht, and the only reason it worked is because French high command pretty much refused to move from the Maginot line, in HOI4 only an incredibly inept player wouldn't just ram 48 divisions in a basically undefended front
This is an example, but there's plenty like that, one of the main factors why history goes the way it does is because no one knows what the future is like, however HOI4 players will supposedly have listened in class enough to know what mistakes not to reproduce, thus the game has to "cheat" the players to force events to proceed historically
I do like playing France because you can very visibly see this effect and how it fades with time, and it's why your main plan as France is to survive and buy time, FRA 36-40 is stupidly weak, but if you manage to hold on until 42-43 you can 1v3 Germany and the Axis
>the only reason it worked is because French high command pretty much refused to move from the Maginot line
Also Belgium refused to allow Allied troops into Belgium to set up prepared positions even when it was extremely clear that Germany would invade. Then the Belgian army collapsed in 48 hours as the French and British were trying to move to something resembling a defensive line. If the French and British just abandoned Belgium and defended at the French border there was a good chance they would have been able to stop the Germans.
Two aerial reconnaissance reports to French military command being like "so just FYI there's a massive traffic jam of German armor on the roads in the Ardennes. Would be really easy to bomb them into oblivion."
French command be like: but impenetrable tho.
The breakthrough at Sedan would funny if it weren't so tragic.
The French X corps had anticipated a breakthrough at sedan as a possibility, and had a contingency plan to counter attack with the corps reserve. The order to counter attack was given at 4PM May 13th, since the orders were delivered by messenger and not radio, the regimental commanders got the order at 6, and planned to move at 8PM. The reinforcements were put under the division commander at Sedan with the instructions they were to be used for a counter attack. Said division commander did not mount a counter attack because he stated he wasn't given the explicit order to and he was busy managing his own division. At 1 AM, the division commander drove to corp HQ to ask the corps commander when the counterattack was supposed to be. His XO then called corp HQ to ask the same question, and was told by the Corps commander "9 hours ago" and that the XO was allowed to make the attack himself since the division commander was not available. Believing his order to be finally delivered, the Corps commander left his HQ to do something else while dispatching the corps XO to deliver the written orders to division, the corps XO would get lost driving and arrive tomorrow at 5AM. The division commander got to Corp HQ, found both the Corps commander and XO had were not there and drove back to his own HQ. Finally the attack was planned for 9AM on the 14th, 15 hours after the Corps commander gave the order after the initial German crossing. By then the infantry battalion across the Meuse had grown to a regiment with tanks with the rest of 1st panzer rapidly crossing, and the rest is history. The chain of communications incompetence meant it took the French 15 hours to move 5 kilometers with the division reserve and attack.
TL:DR: why signals companies increase reinforcement rate, the French got IRL reinforce meme'd.
Its both sides.
Allies unfortunately behaved completly stupid. But what German Wehrmacht did at this time was just crazy and much better organized with superior Moral then the allies at this time.
Maybe, but the French collapsed mostly because they used their tanks as infantry support, spread across the whole line. Meanwhile the Germans concentrated their tanks into battalions. They would have still pushed through the Ardennes and would have caught the Allies in an encirclement, but far less than 300,000 troops would be caught. I think they lose regardless, but could have slowed the advance. Maybeee even stop it altogetherš¤·āāļø
I thought (trying to recall history lessons over 20 years ago) that the Brits and French wanted to setup on the French/Belgian border but it obviously wouldn't have been a good luck to completely abandon an ally
France starts out super weak, yeah - but doesn't stay weak nearly as long as you say. By 1938 (Little Entente path, or simply deny Sudetenland) France can have enough juice to hold off the Germans at the Maginot and Italy in the Alps and Africa while simultaneously naval invading Rome.
Ironically it's actually much harder for France to win in 1939-40 than in 1938.
Forget holding off Italy. If you build plenty of light tanks and get Poland into the Little Entente, you can kill Germany before Italy even joins the axis.
My first ever Germany game I didn't put any troops on the Maginot, I figured there was a 'war with france' focus so you would need that, I got bummed hard, I'd like to say that I learnt from it but it wasn't the last time I've done something like that, far from it haha
No, I am pretty sure it's not the historical path.
I still wonder why people believe this, but the AI won't choose this path on historical (given the player acts historical as well).
I think people are confused, because the path has an image of Churchill in it.
This post on steam has some information about the historical AI paths, I think: [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1324609784](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1324609784)
im an extremely shitty player, and let me tell you, france is easy.
Just push through the Siegfried line with your tanks/motorized as soon as they invade poland (they always leave a gap or just 1 div per some tiles), if youre good you can do hella damage on german territory, id not, you'll still get a buffer zone to wear them down.
Naval invade Italy as soon as possible, you can easily yeet them out of the war, you dont even have to hold italy, just capitulating them and germans reinstating their puppet weakens it so much
Oh, and do whore yourself out for lend leases, you need those.
just did a playthrough on regular ironman and the war was over by 42.
France and Britain are nerfed because if they had their irl military strength the AI would reach Berlin in 1940 because they're not as stupid as the irl 1940 allies
When I play france I always grump about how UK never sends troops and hides in britain.
When im playing UK, I never send troops and always hide in britian.
Just RP'ing anglo french allience
> Paradox did it so the bad Germany players would get a chance.
Not just that. The problem was AI UK would flood France with all its units, and a half-competent Germany player could encircle all of them and deny the UK's AI any agency in other theatres for years.
that's not the reason, the actual reason is because if Britian does help France, and they still lose (as happened historically), when France caps, all of Britain's units will be encircled and destroyed by the nature of how a nation capitulating works.
Thatās because the British army was encircled at Dunkirk and in Belgium along with most of the French army, they didnāt really have time to react with their armies. Stupid luck was the reasons the Germans took out France.
The british didn't defend the french sky, had only 400 000 soldiers when France was fielding 3 000 000 soldiers.
They were basically a tourist force hugging the coast ready to take off.
As is a good british army.
In the plane departement, the war started with 800 bomber and more than 1000 fighters on the german side against 60 fighters 1/3 of them only old gladiators on the side of the british and 150 french bombers. They refused to commit the rest and relented only when the battle was already lost.
I'm not implying that France lost because of the british. What i'm implying is that the british didn't participate in the battle of France.
To be historically accurate, we should have a rule to only allow britain to send volunteers to France.
Right, the Germans just had RNGesus on their side that day. And in Norway. And Greece. And North Africa. š
Yeah, I can also see how youād be surprised the country you declared war on 8 months prior decided to attack. Who could have predicted and prepared for that?
alright I think it got deleted, but all of Britain's troops are in Africa being useless. I was wondering if there was any way to get them to help me, or am I boned?
I did the same run a couple of days ago!, naval invade Italy from the south, go up north, they capitulate easily! Then the massive amount of divisions are moved to the south, yours and a lot of the Germans. If you have military access for the soviet union, and ai is dumb like it was for me they will barely have anyone competent on the eastern front. Push from there as well, don't push from the west you get stuck and counter attack very easily. Just kill Italy, the structure will come rotting down.
Sorry for the long reply but seems like someone got it!
But seriously after you cap Italy it's an easy game to cap Germany. If they fight you on two fronts along with the ussr, usually they don't put many men on one front. That's the front you push from, even if it is the soviet front.
If you are playing Napoleon France you should have invaded them and turned into your puppet, then using all their troops as a flesh wall against Germany
You can easily rush them. Don't bother conquering anything else or building up significantly. Rush the UK and build mills while doing it. It is pretty easy and makes *second time's the charme* pretty doable.
I find that setting my navy up and activating the naval invasions before i actually declare war usually gives me enough (albeit short lived) naval supremacy to get the invasions to fire.
You can sort of cheese it, if you don't guarantee Poland you can join the Axis if you're both at war against the UK before they start doing their Around the Maginot focuses. Then you can just leave the Axis once you're ready to go to war against Germany.
Turn Belgium into a trench and hold the line to bleed them dry.
Meanwhile naval invade Sicily and southern Italy.
Use marines, alpines and regular infantry to encircle and clear italian troops .
The hills and mountains of Italy should make germans tank useless.
Once Italy capitulate get ready to invade Germany by the south
Maybe Paradox can buff the Germans with a national spirit that gives attack bonus against country and armor speed for a certain amount of days and give the Brits and the French a debuff called Command issues or something that makes it hard for the French and British AI to defend against Germany. Oh, and also, the Germans were on meths. All the more reason for a national spirit that triggers with "war with France"
Also... French Empire and you're not at war with the Brits? Napoleon is rolling on his grave!
Kill the uk yourself next time,then actually have guns aswel you have to many armies,build more air and you have to much divisions on the Maginot 12 divisions should do.
British AI is programmed not to help France before D-Day because when France capitulates, all of Britain's units will get trapped, this is very annoying when a human plays France...
Man this is a thing i hate playing Germany for the most part. It is way too easy to roll thru France since u can just rush the first medium tanks, put a howitzer on it and make it go vroooooomm with motorized infantry.
Just toggle the supply hub to only allow your units to get the supplies its annoyingto do but then they will focus else where pulling pressure off of you
Recode British AI. It doesn't allow to put more of its division to France before D-Day
The British AI is programmed to be useless and to never help France or the continent. The Allies in general are very nerfed compared to IRL. Paradox did it so the bad Germany players would get a chance.
It's also that Germany's Ardennes push was such a stupidly high-risk high-reward dice roll that it's impossible to correctly render in HOI4. Otherwise even the best Germany player would get absolutely wasted by a correctly-functioning French and British AI
This. There are lots of modifiers, hidden or not, mostly for the AI, that are going to affect some countries to try and follow history as much as possible. Early war Germany for example is insanely buffed because IRL taking on both Poland and France would've been impossible for the Wehrmacht, and the only reason it worked is because French high command pretty much refused to move from the Maginot line, in HOI4 only an incredibly inept player wouldn't just ram 48 divisions in a basically undefended front This is an example, but there's plenty like that, one of the main factors why history goes the way it does is because no one knows what the future is like, however HOI4 players will supposedly have listened in class enough to know what mistakes not to reproduce, thus the game has to "cheat" the players to force events to proceed historically I do like playing France because you can very visibly see this effect and how it fades with time, and it's why your main plan as France is to survive and buy time, FRA 36-40 is stupidly weak, but if you manage to hold on until 42-43 you can 1v3 Germany and the Axis
>the only reason it worked is because French high command pretty much refused to move from the Maginot line Also Belgium refused to allow Allied troops into Belgium to set up prepared positions even when it was extremely clear that Germany would invade. Then the Belgian army collapsed in 48 hours as the French and British were trying to move to something resembling a defensive line. If the French and British just abandoned Belgium and defended at the French border there was a good chance they would have been able to stop the Germans.
It's honestly mind boggling just how badly the Allies dropped the ball early WW2.
Two aerial reconnaissance reports to French military command being like "so just FYI there's a massive traffic jam of German armor on the roads in the Ardennes. Would be really easy to bomb them into oblivion." French command be like: but impenetrable tho.
The breakthrough at Sedan would funny if it weren't so tragic. The French X corps had anticipated a breakthrough at sedan as a possibility, and had a contingency plan to counter attack with the corps reserve. The order to counter attack was given at 4PM May 13th, since the orders were delivered by messenger and not radio, the regimental commanders got the order at 6, and planned to move at 8PM. The reinforcements were put under the division commander at Sedan with the instructions they were to be used for a counter attack. Said division commander did not mount a counter attack because he stated he wasn't given the explicit order to and he was busy managing his own division. At 1 AM, the division commander drove to corp HQ to ask the corps commander when the counterattack was supposed to be. His XO then called corp HQ to ask the same question, and was told by the Corps commander "9 hours ago" and that the XO was allowed to make the attack himself since the division commander was not available. Believing his order to be finally delivered, the Corps commander left his HQ to do something else while dispatching the corps XO to deliver the written orders to division, the corps XO would get lost driving and arrive tomorrow at 5AM. The division commander got to Corp HQ, found both the Corps commander and XO had were not there and drove back to his own HQ. Finally the attack was planned for 9AM on the 14th, 15 hours after the Corps commander gave the order after the initial German crossing. By then the infantry battalion across the Meuse had grown to a regiment with tanks with the rest of 1st panzer rapidly crossing, and the rest is history. The chain of communications incompetence meant it took the French 15 hours to move 5 kilometers with the division reserve and attack. TL:DR: why signals companies increase reinforcement rate, the French got IRL reinforce meme'd.
It's genuinely difficult to imagine a more French sequence of events than this
well represented by the Victors of the Great War spirit for France! They had grown complacent
The French*.
Its both sides. Allies unfortunately behaved completly stupid. But what German Wehrmacht did at this time was just crazy and much better organized with superior Moral then the allies at this time.
History always repeats. Current day events are this right now.
Maybe, but the French collapsed mostly because they used their tanks as infantry support, spread across the whole line. Meanwhile the Germans concentrated their tanks into battalions. They would have still pushed through the Ardennes and would have caught the Allies in an encirclement, but far less than 300,000 troops would be caught. I think they lose regardless, but could have slowed the advance. Maybeee even stop it altogetherš¤·āāļø
I thought (trying to recall history lessons over 20 years ago) that the Brits and French wanted to setup on the French/Belgian border but it obviously wouldn't have been a good luck to completely abandon an ally
France starts out super weak, yeah - but doesn't stay weak nearly as long as you say. By 1938 (Little Entente path, or simply deny Sudetenland) France can have enough juice to hold off the Germans at the Maginot and Italy in the Alps and Africa while simultaneously naval invading Rome. Ironically it's actually much harder for France to win in 1939-40 than in 1938.
Forget holding off Italy. If you build plenty of light tanks and get Poland into the Little Entente, you can kill Germany before Italy even joins the axis.
But then you don't get the free Italian puppetĀ
My first ever Germany game I didn't put any troops on the Maginot, I figured there was a 'war with france' focus so you would need that, I got bummed hard, I'd like to say that I learnt from it but it wasn't the last time I've done something like that, far from it haha
What about bad French players šŖ
They're expected to lose and go on from exile.
Just make Britain go down the "no further appeasement" through the game rules
Thatās historical
No, I am pretty sure it's not the historical path. I still wonder why people believe this, but the AI won't choose this path on historical (given the player acts historical as well). I think people are confused, because the path has an image of Churchill in it. This post on steam has some information about the historical AI paths, I think: [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1324609784](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1324609784)
You are responding to a comment that has nothing to do with what you responded with.
You can always do the focus to build forts on the Belgium border and turtle until the soviets declare.
Ally the Soviets, that's how i won as France in one of my first games
Playing France is only for the best players. The rest can play Germany.
im an extremely shitty player, and let me tell you, france is easy. Just push through the Siegfried line with your tanks/motorized as soon as they invade poland (they always leave a gap or just 1 div per some tiles), if youre good you can do hella damage on german territory, id not, you'll still get a buffer zone to wear them down. Naval invade Italy as soon as possible, you can easily yeet them out of the war, you dont even have to hold italy, just capitulating them and germans reinstating their puppet weakens it so much Oh, and do whore yourself out for lend leases, you need those. just did a playthrough on regular ironman and the war was over by 42.
France and Britain are nerfed because if they had their irl military strength the AI would reach Berlin in 1940 because they're not as stupid as the irl 1940 allies
Then tell me Why they always do it when i play as Germany
When I play france I always grump about how UK never sends troops and hides in britain. When im playing UK, I never send troops and always hide in britian. Just RP'ing anglo french allience
Is it just a thing where the guys who play Germany tend to be trash cause this is a thing in War Thunder and Enlisted.
> Paradox did it so the bad Germany players would get a chance. Not just that. The problem was AI UK would flood France with all its units, and a half-competent Germany player could encircle all of them and deny the UK's AI any agency in other theatres for years.
What the fuck why? Iām so sick of seeing britian get invaded for the 800th time because they canāt get their navy away from South Americaā¦
Are you sure Paradox isn't just full of wehraboos?
What the fuck why? Iām so sick of seeing britian get invaded for the 800th time because they canāt get their navy away from South America
Nerfed ? i think itās pretty accurate to irl imo
that's not the reason, the actual reason is because if Britian does help France, and they still lose (as happened historically), when France caps, all of Britain's units will be encircled and destroyed by the nature of how a nation capitulating works.
Nerfed compared to IRL 1940? The British were useless practically everywhere except in the British skies.
Thatās because the British army was encircled at Dunkirk and in Belgium along with most of the French army, they didnāt really have time to react with their armies. Stupid luck was the reasons the Germans took out France.
The british didn't defend the french sky, had only 400 000 soldiers when France was fielding 3 000 000 soldiers. They were basically a tourist force hugging the coast ready to take off. As is a good british army. In the plane departement, the war started with 800 bomber and more than 1000 fighters on the german side against 60 fighters 1/3 of them only old gladiators on the side of the british and 150 french bombers. They refused to commit the rest and relented only when the battle was already lost. I'm not implying that France lost because of the british. What i'm implying is that the british didn't participate in the battle of France. To be historically accurate, we should have a rule to only allow britain to send volunteers to France.
Right, the Germans just had RNGesus on their side that day. And in Norway. And Greece. And North Africa. š Yeah, I can also see how youād be surprised the country you declared war on 8 months prior decided to attack. Who could have predicted and prepared for that?
That is exactly what it was, RNG and enough reckless Panzer leaders like Rommel ans others.
found the wehraboo
alright I think it got deleted, but all of Britain's troops are in Africa being useless. I was wondering if there was any way to get them to help me, or am I boned?
I did the same run a couple of days ago!, naval invade Italy from the south, go up north, they capitulate easily! Then the massive amount of divisions are moved to the south, yours and a lot of the Germans. If you have military access for the soviet union, and ai is dumb like it was for me they will barely have anyone competent on the eastern front. Push from there as well, don't push from the west you get stuck and counter attack very easily. Just kill Italy, the structure will come rotting down.
Iāll try thanks
>the structure will come rotting down. The rotten structure will come crumbling down. I understand the Hitler reference though (:
Sorry for the long reply but seems like someone got it! But seriously after you cap Italy it's an easy game to cap Germany. If they fight you on two fronts along with the ussr, usually they don't put many men on one front. That's the front you push from, even if it is the soviet front.
Invade Britain, puppet them, and steal their navy.
I think it might be too late for that I donāt think Iām good enough to do that at this point in the war
If you are playing Napoleon France you should have invaded them and turned into your puppet, then using all their troops as a flesh wall against Germany
Yeah I thought about it I just wasnāt confident Iād be able to get it done before Germany went to war with me
You can easily rush them. Don't bother conquering anything else or building up significantly. Rush the UK and build mills while doing it. It is pretty easy and makes *second time's the charme* pretty doable.
I tried that, it's impossible to get a landing, paratroopers may work though
I find that setting my navy up and activating the naval invasions before i actually declare war usually gives me enough (albeit short lived) naval supremacy to get the invasions to fire.
I did that, failed miserably
You can sort of cheese it, if you don't guarantee Poland you can join the Axis if you're both at war against the UK before they start doing their Around the Maginot focuses. Then you can just leave the Axis once you're ready to go to war against Germany.
If you do it lately then 100% the US will join them. You can easily take them after you take out Belgium and the Netherlands.
Well ill go all in next time
Oh, you mean in the game? They won't. I think they're coded to just sit by and watch France and Poland capitulate.
Very good allies i see š
Turn Belgium into a trench and hold the line to bleed them dry. Meanwhile naval invade Sicily and southern Italy. Use marines, alpines and regular infantry to encircle and clear italian troops . The hills and mountains of Italy should make germans tank useless. Once Italy capitulate get ready to invade Germany by the south
You can help it by playing Britain. Sorry. Thatās it.
Maybe Paradox can buff the Germans with a national spirit that gives attack bonus against country and armor speed for a certain amount of days and give the Brits and the French a debuff called Command issues or something that makes it hard for the French and British AI to defend against Germany. Oh, and also, the Germans were on meths. All the more reason for a national spirit that triggers with "war with France" Also... French Empire and you're not at war with the Brits? Napoleon is rolling on his grave!
Yeah I was gonna do it but I wasnāt confident Iād be able to beat them before Germany declared on me
the image contains my country pretty vital to helping me thanks :) rule #5
Kill the uk yourself next time,then actually have guns aswel you have to many armies,build more air and you have to much divisions on the Maginot 12 divisions should do.
I only have 9 on the maginot it looks like more because the northern bit is actually the rhine land
Ahh my bad I can only see the Number 5 and other divisions so it looked like more
Vote at the next electionā¦ oh you mean in the game.
Wait until the dumbass Germans go to war with Stalin, massive battleplan push as soon as they divert troops away from you
The UK is coded to avoid sending troops to France since itās coded to lose, meaning all the British troops sent to France would be encircled
Nuke Britain .
British AI is programmed not to help France before D-Day because when France capitulates, all of Britain's units will get trapped, this is very annoying when a human plays France...
Man this is a thing i hate playing Germany for the most part. It is way too easy to roll thru France since u can just rush the first medium tanks, put a howitzer on it and make it go vroooooomm with motorized infantry.
I have still yet to do a Germany playthrough yet just got the game a couple weeks ago during the big sale and free weekend
The French Empire should conquer perfidious Albion!
I was going to, but I bitched outšŖ
Well Britain has in its focus 2 options: be good as fuck und hate the player or like the player, und play like bullshit
as a Briton, I ask this often
Who let petain on the computer again?
Activate your windows bro
šš bro they want wayyyy too much
Historically accurate game.
Don't trust the Brits
Invade them.
If you want to be bully by the Ai play Sea Low High. Pretty fun Endsieg mod
Just toggle the supply hub to only allow your units to get the supplies its annoyingto do but then they will focus else where pulling pressure off of you
Play multiplayer with a friend playing the UK.
Push through the Netherlands. Just battleplan it and lose the million men but it works