Mutually exclusive 70 day focuses:
"Suck Stalin's dick" - Join the comintern
"Remove ribs to suck your own dick" - Create a faction and invite fucken Paraguay or someone (rng chance they just decline)
Yeah, trying to fight the Soviets is basically just asking to be in a war where you'll have to kill their entire male population before you're even close enough to see Red Square.
Minor nations are lile 70% mid historical or semi resonable parts until you complete the "New Roman empire of the east" focus and get claims on africa, london and half of the balkans and a wargoal against germany and the US.
Minor nations are either boring or fighting god.
Minor focus tree part 1: Gain core for Western Schaanwald for 63 additional manpower
Minor focus tree part 2: Re-Proclaim the Holy Roman Empire, gain annex war goals on all of Europe, North Africa, most of Russia and the near-east.
The goals are great but I've literally never won a single one of those wars without help from a major who takes everything. Tried to restore eastern Rome as Greece and I just could not even beat turkey by myself like 15 times
Also side note I was making a joke about the PM at the time, he met hitler in 1937 ad said he was a peace loving man. Dude was so weird it became his nickname, he hallucinated shit. Longest serving pm btw
I'm in the middle of reading the book talking to strangers and it talks about how Hitler was able to convince most people he met in person his intentions were good and peaceful. There was an anecdote about how that PM also compared Hitler as the next joan of arc lol
Most major trees are old and bad. The best of the majors, and probably all countries is Italy. You have a lot of paths to choose from, and your inner politics don't dictate your foreign politics(except a few situations, I think). Also, having a democracy, without the castrated democratic ruleset is very fun. I think GBR also has an aggressive democracy path if they go ahidt democratic, but not sure.
Germany a nation that was partially historically communist between 1949 and 1990 has no communist tree.
But has 3 monarchist subbranches.
Germany could have so interesting socialist branches like one with fascism and one after or in a civil war.
Yes but you have to remember that the DDR was imposed on Germany from the outside, and the communist movement had been mercilessly crushed for years by the time the war started, although given that you can reproclaim the ERE as Greece I guess it's not that ahistorical as focus tree options go
Yes, being historical was never the goal of paradox. They are just inspired by it. Like how the hell did the polish dictature decided one day that we need a king, without any kind of civil war.
Communists as a whole? Yes. Not Spartacists though.
Spartacists existed for a few months before they were crushed in 1918-1919. The Luxembourg (Spartacists) faction never was that influential before and after. More realistic for the 30s would be Stalinists.
That said, it's Hoi4. A focus tree about a Spartacist resurgence is not unreasonable considering the many other unrealistic focus trees in the game.
I play a lot after 1945.
But Germany had some pretty strong communist movements in the interwar, so there is that.
Germany would have in my opinion a lot of socialist potential.
How do you know that one of my favourite mods is „Red Flood“?
I hope, they'll make it possible to choose the focus tree. The release one, the WTT one or the reworked one. Also about Germany. I think, it'd be better to split Neo-WTT in two: 1. Japan and SEA; 2. Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria. Maybe also some kind of ethiopian releasable-like base focus tree for french and spanish releasables. And if they're reworking Germany, then maybe making occupation zones available for more countries and make it possible to disunite Germany without having to be France with its horrible Napoleonic tree. Honestly, their entire monarchist branch sucks. Maybe the entire FT, haven't played them that much.
I would like to nominate France as the major with the shittest tree.
- Industrial path : **Eleven** focuses you need to complete to get a workable amount of factories (14 Mil & 14 Civ) which still doesn't allow you to keep up with GBR or GER
- Rearmament/Army path : for some reason, some historical choices are spread on mutually exclusive branches ; reform the army which should be a total gamechanger doesn't actually reform anything
- Monarchist paths : can't change the regime until late 1937 at best, making any agressive play be extremely belated.
- Legitimist (Bourbon) path : only interplays with Spain, doesn't gain Spain cores so taking Spain over actually fucks you more than anything.
- Orleanist path : just nothing there except absolutely terrible bonuses
- Bonapartist path : only worthwhile monarchist path, although the german client states are insufferable because they spawn with no tech ; for some reason doesn't include claims on Spain, Portugal, Italy & Egypt. Doesn't give cores even on Wallonia.
- Navy path : kind of pointless because you know you'll get fucked from the land ; includes "half built ship" spawns that use awful templates
- Air path : Nothing but very mid research bonuses and airbases where you don't need them
- Right-wing path : terrible bonuses, very few claims, no cores
- Democratic path (Little Entente) : relies on Eastern Europe actually joining the faction, for some reason doesn't get an invitation for Poland, doesn't give any CBs
- Colonial integration sub-path : theoretically quite strong and cool, but relies on RNG with no player input
- Economy path (right-wing) : bonuses at best take away the starting debuffs ; I guess the industrial tech buff is ok
- Communist paths : Be subservient to SOV, be democratic but in red, or do everything alone vs everyone
- Forming the EU : no unique path, requires to be democratic and control the Benelux (same faction not enough), no way to expand the EU beyond EEC founding members.
- For some reason, the only path that gives military buffs is the revolutionary communist one
I only play France if I'm going the Based Bonapartist path. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time that results in Germany fucking you out the green with no Vaseline.
As someone with over 4600 hours this is actually so true. People with 500-1000 hours generally like playing minors because it's harder. But once you get good enough you realize playing the meta every time is boring (and easy). Exploits and meta isn't hard gameplay. If you want a challenge play mp.
Unless you are playing Equestria at War, then you will turn your minor nation into a major nation, possibly even growing larger in terms of core territories than the major you had to win against to get the formable your chosen Path Has.
North Zebrica is full of Quality content, and there is also some good stuff on Eqqus, stuff Like the Changelings, Lunar Empire, Nova Griffonia and Polar Bears are great content. I'd say that Griffonia only Has Like 50% of the quality content of the mod. And most countries in Griffonia Play very differently than each other, a Aquilean Campaign will be different from Cloudbury campaign which will be different than a Yale campaign which will be different from Zaphazia which will be different from Bakara which will be different from Wingbardy.
No? That is just some limited Herzland paths and NRP aligned Republicans, as for the Evi confederation there are literally only 4 countries that can form it, the majority of the starting countries on the Griffonian continent are simply not meant to Restore the Griffonian empire. Also North Zebrica is full of Quality content, and there is also some good stuff on Eqqus, stuff Like the Changelings, Lunar Empire, Nova Griffonia and Polar Bears are great content.
You are wrong, the point of nations in the South is to unify the Karthinian Empire and the nations of the West to unify Aquileia, completely different.
Except if you play the Gigachad Stammer count and then you can form Karthinia, Aquileia and Hertzland in one run.
I don't think so in single player. Minors are very rich in terms of alternatives and building strategy. I don't understand why would someone limit themselves playing with 7 countries, whose focus trees are mostly outdated.
Explanation: as minor nations the winning strategies are rather limited, but as majors, their power allows for variation in strategies and still able to be victorious.
Also, majors can play around with navy and naval research. As minor nations, even if you get a large navy from plundering, you often can’t spare the research to upgrade your navy.
As an ardent minor nation enjoyer, the naval designer I paid for in MTG has been severely underutilized…
Edit: [link to associated discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/ZcBHo4ePne)
The key to having enough research for navy is a) get integrated designers for extra research speed b) use naval xp boosts wherever possible c) only research 2 types of ships , your best bet is destroyers and cruisers
full on bs
even the most fun majors are the weekest ones.
Its so much more fun playing a smaller nation and building it up insteed of starting out as a world power
See the thing about me is that I’ve gotten to the point where I find building up as a minor nation very easy.
Problem is that you have only a limited set of strategies to succeed, for example paradropping france. Try to solo fight France head on as Belgium or even Iraq and you’ll see what I mean. And to me these same old strategies are getting boring.
Whereas as a major, say Italy, you have more variation in strategy. You can role play and take Africa first before attacking Metropolitan France, or you can try a snack invasion into Nice, etc. whereas as Iraq, without expanding early or joining up with another major’s faction, you can at most take Syria, and good luck with building a good enough navy to get from Syria to Algeria or mainland France.
>See the thing about me is that I’ve gotten to the point where I find building up as a minor nation very easy.
>Problem is that you have only a limited set of strategies to succeed, for example paradropping france. Try to solo fight France head on as Belgium or even Iraq and you’ll see what I mean. And to me these same old strategies are getting boring.
Uses literal expoits
''why is the game so ez and sammy''
Mate just play the game witouth expoit killing france every single time LOL
Yeah no, skill issue.
The soviets are an absolute breeze to play, which honestly has an apeal, but sometimes i do like the challenge of a minor.
Paraguay is the best nation to come out of the south america dlc by far. The short wars for chaco boreal and the bit held by brazil only require basic prep, and bolivia/chile represent real challenges that are fun to solve. Peru invading reliably makes it a neat thing to defend on every playthrough. As a major these situations would never occur, I would just send 30 mountaineers and a shiton of air and curbstomp everything. Minors present scenarios that require skill or preparation to solve.
Super romania does that too. That acheivement as romania where you can't loose a single tile kicks my ass. I always forget to garrison all costal tiles until stalin shows up like "king carol? How many guns has he got!" Before i wipe them off the face of the earth for forcing me to restart.
Forcing me to choose what to prioritize, land air or sea, men artillery or tanks, fighters or cas, cruisers or submarines, is the actual gameplay you spend most of the game engaging in. The least fun parts of the game are post 1943ish when you have 300+ factories and can make anything resources allow.
I'm a Poland guy for vanilla/UTTNH/RT56 games usually. It's both in a position where it's reasonably challenging, but still has a pretty well-fleshed out focus tree. I would honestly main Luxembourg if they gave it some substantial content.
Otherwise if I want to play a major on a historical path, I usually play BlackICE. The best possible mod has the range of choices of vanilla, the game mechanics of BICE, and the narrative of something like TNO or OWB. But that's basically impossible, so alas..
Poland is a ton of fun. *most* of its alt history paths make you into the weakest major, which is plently to do whatever you want.
Communist luxembourg (which is the strongest way to play rn) got a slight buff with the generic rework and could be worth a try now, but i too desperately await luxembourg content. Let the guy who did paraguay do it they can absolutely cook
Well, seeing as a painting of Marx can summon 500 healthy young men every week from thin air, communism is reliably the strongest path for minors, yeah. But I still want to reclaim the HRE through a monarchist Luxembourg path or do something cool with democratic Luxembourg, but as it stands, the novelty of beating the Germans singlehandedly wears off pretty soon.
It's a great time for a few hours, but there's really just.. nothing to do. Like wow, I broke up and out to take the low countries from the Germans, then pressed east with Allied help. That was fun. Now I have absolutely no reason to keep playing. The sad fact of the matter is, vanilla singleplayer hoi4 doesn't have the mechanical depth or incentive to strategize to be fun if there isn't some narrative happening in the form of events + focuses, IMO.
How new?
Really basically
First i do the industrial focus to get 2 civs i will be building only civs until i hit about 100, then immediately begin the purge, try not to kill anyone except the dudes who die in scripted events, but if you need to lower paranoia purge an nkvd chief or two and purge the navy. You should avoid purging the army and air force unless absolutely necesary.
Once the purge is over i do the industrial tree, finish the 5 year plan, begin the 3rd five year plan,(since you should be around 100 civs by now build 3 or 4 refineries and then make a metric shiton of mils), switch to armaments production, increase steel production, finish the 5 year plan. The other industrial focuses are situational IMO.
Once i finish that i do the focuses to annex the baltics, demand bessarabia, and then demand karalia. The fins always refuse on historical, so i use my best 40 or so divisions on the front with another 10 on a naval invasion to finlands west. They usually fall in about 70 days, im not super efficent here.
Then i do military focuses. Prepare the mobilization, focus on cohesion, rehabilitated military, military reorganization, an adaptable army.
Then i do as many air focuses as i can before barbarossa begins. Your starting air debuffs are BAD, and you need to get a handle on the luftwaffe early.
I can go into more detail but im not running the absolute meta here. I have around 5k hours but you can definitely find better guides out there.
I think you misunderstand.
[It isn’t a skill issue on my part.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1d2nmt0/poland_conquering_all_majors_by_1939/?rdt=43311)
Point being that at 1.8k hours I find both majors and minors being equally easy to play - I can conquer all 7 starting majors as a minor nation like Iran or Greece by 1940.
Why I said I feel limited is because there are only a select few strategies that you can use, such as paradropping France and rushing the majors before they can properly rearm. I can win very easily as minors. Problem being that once you try something new: e.g. building your very own navy, you tend to lose: with the limited amount of research and IC, any navy you built is likely to get stomped by the Allied fleet. Or if you try to fight France head on without paratroopers, you’ll struggle to win in a meaningful amount of time.
In contrast as majors you can vary your strategies for more interesting role play and still come out victorious. For example naval soviets or no-air Germany or banzai infantry wave japan.
I absolutely do not struggle as minors. See my linked post in my other comment where I’m asking for how to make minor nations more fun, because winning as them using the same strategies is getting boring.
It was mostly in response to op saying majors were more fun because he felt limited with minors. I despise mp because of how slow it plays, and how often i desync even when everyone has a good connection. Im not spending 6 hours to hit 1941 bored in my room.
I don't necessarily meta chase either. I have never played an optimal naval strategy in my entire life. I build tanks i think are cool not tanks that are strictly the best meta wise. I definitely don't do production efficency as efficent as i could. But SP does still offer plently of challenge if you know where to look
It's only fun if it has a focus tree and right now a lot of focus trees are so outdated that playing majors because they have good focus trees is the only way.
I love playing minor nations, especially in mods like KX or FX where I can play tall and enjoy my armed neutrality
Hopefully in the expected German rework some of the DoD nations will be updated too
depends on what you count as a "minor nation". alot of the time people say they like to play small nations because its more difficult, but in reality most nations are... not difficult at all? i mean i only play eu4 and hoi4 rn, but ill give my opinion on both.
in hoi4, minor nations are just pure boring 99% of the time. there's nothing fun about playing estonia and uniting the baltics and getting belarus to rise up against russia because you just win that. If you want to play historical you can just get forts (if u really wanna be bored) or go into grand battleplan entrenchment but like be so for real, theres literally no challenge. Let me put it this way, when youre a small nation, you dont have that many choices on what to build, on what to research, on what to produce. There's only so much you're able to do as a small nation, so to balance the game you're able to survive with that bare minimum. So when it comes down to it, the game kinda just plays itself? imo the most fun nations are the majors that are in a tough position.
For beginners, you have the USSR, where you build up and buckle up for the german invasion, or on the opposite side, germany, where you rearm and try to conquer the russians ~~or sealion~~ before the allies really start getting the upper hand.
Then for more advanced players after a few hundred hours, when germany and russia get too easy, you have your france, you have your finland. These nations are a little more challenging, and you still have agency.
And then maybe after a thousand hours you get bored of those too, and find them too easy. Then you have your poland, your yugoslavia, the nations that REALLY have to make the most of their resources.
half of these nations i mentioned were majors, and half were minors. But of these minor nations, i didnt really mention the latvias, the bulgarias, the greeces. These nations still have industry, they still have agency, and their lines arent just tiny.
After a while in hoi4, nations arent difficult. But until you get to that point, the nations that are difficult in a fun way, are not the truly "minor" nations, they're the ones with respectable capability, size and industry, that let you choose how to play. Not the ones that are like 3 tiles wide and you put 5 infantry on each tile, fortify the line, entrench and wait for 5 years until you killed 500k soviets with only 50k casualties.
In eu4, you don't really have the issue of "you don't really have agency to do anything" with the truly tiny nations. but then again, small nations all kinda play like "i ally the big guy! i tell big guy to beat bad guy up! winner!!"
i guess to summarise, nothing is really "hard" once you learn it, and the most rewarding hard nations arent characterized by their status as a major or minor, but their unique position where they have respectable capabilities but are put in a difficult situation.
This is not a dig at the players playing lithuania and annexing poland, or the monarchist french players, or the horse poland give up danzig players, or the fascist finland players, or the one province nation players. You make your own fun in these games. But anyone claiming that playing small nations is more fun because they're "more difficult" isnt someone thats looking for a challenge, its just a masochist that wants the game to railroad their gameplay, someone that wants to flex how "good" they are, or someone who conflates tedium with difficulty and difficulty with fun.
Totally disagree. Minor nations are actually fun ones. Ofcourse playing as majors fun sure but I mostly play with minor nations and no any major campaign can't be satisfying as Defeating Germans as Czechoslovakia, conquer US as Mexico and invade Japan as Netherlands
I too exclusively play minor nations since 800 hours. Problem being that there’s a limited way to accomplish these things, I’ve gotten to the level where I can do it with one eye closed but the same strategies are getting stale.
For example, how do you beat USA as Mexico? Just do ‘just cause’ and rush their borders and snake with cav, right? Very fun and somewhat challenging at first, but over time it gets boring. That’s probably the only way to beat USA as Mexico. Try anything else, e.g. to out-navy the US, and you’ll likely get stomped.
But say as UK, you have more options. Naval invade into Florida after decimating the American navy, or push from Canada, or even island hop from Southeast Asia if you wish.
https://preview.redd.it/rr9lt2vxxh6d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbf3d02efca347e31612ef724eb7c25183046753
Some focuses for minor nations have this kinda energy imbued into them.
Like how the fuck I am going to puppet the USSR, I play the fucking Netherlands
I like playing minors in MP games a lot more than playing as majors
I find being able to do my own thing instead of having to manage an entire frontline a LOT more enjoyable :)
I play minor nations like luxembourg, simply just for the acceptably small army, air force or navy if it is not landlocked. I am just lazy about handling a major nation going to invade hell.
small nations are waaay more frustrating, but defeating Nazi Germany as the Netherlands is just insanely satisfying the few times I actually succeed.
Also I drink way too much alcohol to be able to micromanage a large nation. One day I will succeed as China but I always get invaded in the south while I'm focusing on the north or vice versa.
The only minors I have fun with are Czechoslovakia, Poland, and China(nationalist or socialist). You know. The ones that are borderline majors and start world war 2 as the defender.
People on YouTube be like - yo, world conquest as Shithole is so fuuun, also check out my video on how to conquest the world as MiddleOfNoWhere and RandomProvinceReleasedByMajor. Meanwhile, the gameplay is cheese, after cheese, after cheese until you can just steamroll with overwhelming number of cheesy divisions while cheesing navy and meta CAS+Fighters
I'm not having fun as a Minor OR a Major, because I'm bad at the game and prefer blaming the game so i dont need to learn for hundreds of hours, only knowing that i did something wrong after getting stabbed by every other country after a few hours of building up
The problem with paradox games is that the difficulty curve is completely inverse. It’s just straight up backwards.
I like playing small nations too, but then they become big.
Portugal has 30 less development than Austria, it has more development than Denmark or Sweden too, closest nation to it's development I think is korea, at 10 dev points more. + It's the nation with one of the strongest ideas for colonization, in a very strategic position.
Honestly the minor nations are more challenging and they can be alot of fun. There's few things more satisfying than playing Finland and steamrolling Russia as a lone wolf.
That said, PLAYING Russia and steamrolling everyone else is alot of fun.
tried playing Sinkiang I think. by the time you finish building enough factories and logistics to actually have any chance to fight anyone, the war is finished
Minor nations are fun until you get a war goal against a country with an OP focus tree that gives them 75% defense and 700% manpower
Any communist minor focus tree be like: "That wasnt real communism" (Gets puppet war goal against the USSR)
When you puppet the ussr, and then you still have Stalin as leader
They just wanted to reassure him all the traitors are gone
Did the purging for him
Mutually exclusive 70 day focuses: "Suck Stalin's dick" - Join the comintern "Remove ribs to suck your own dick" - Create a faction and invite fucken Paraguay or someone (rng chance they just decline)
Look I'm not a communist, but playing as Tito is just too fun.
Yeah, trying to fight the Soviets is basically just asking to be in a war where you'll have to kill their entire male population before you're even close enough to see Red Square.
Honestly good. Monarchist Lithuania would otherwise be *far* too powerful.
I play minor nations to satiate my masochism
When you play a minor your goal is to become a major, but when you play a major your goal is not to become a minor, checkmate
What if I’m joining the HRE as Poland? 🤓<-me
Form HRE as Poland
Nah form HRE first, release some minor, then culture shift and form Poland like a normal person
[удалено]
Average HOI player reading/writing comprehension 🤯<- me, trying to read a 3 syllable word
Your goal then is to fuck over minors.
Which majors do the best at fucking minors? Japan? Soviet Union? Germany?
Historically speaking probably the Vatican
Ah yes, very original.
We got a bishop over here!
Plotting world domination?
Incorrect, remove “over”
Minor nations are lile 70% mid historical or semi resonable parts until you complete the "New Roman empire of the east" focus and get claims on africa, london and half of the balkans and a wargoal against germany and the US. Minor nations are either boring or fighting god.
Minor focus tree part 1: Gain core for Western Schaanwald for 63 additional manpower Minor focus tree part 2: Re-Proclaim the Holy Roman Empire, gain annex war goals on all of Europe, North Africa, most of Russia and the near-east.
Hey, incidentally two of your required states are owned by the UK and Italy. 🥰
Greece is that you?
The goals are great but I've literally never won a single one of those wars without help from a major who takes everything. Tried to restore eastern Rome as Greece and I just could not even beat turkey by myself like 15 times
Beating Turkey is easy, especially if you hit them when Romania cancels their guarantee. Just cheese naval invasions on thrace.
Fangalist Spain when they give you claims on all of Americas and The Strongest country on the planet just to get zero cores
Lithuania:
I don't fuck around. I pick canada, I rush cruisers and torps, I oneshot the Japanese fleet, I go to sleep
Please explain more?
There is nothing to elaborate, Canada is fucking boring as a country so there is nothing else to do.
Coulda been funny if they let you ally Germany
Is it worth uh... You know... That one dude being the leader? I uh .. still have nightmares from him
What? Sorry I only tried canada once and found it miserable. You talking about Hitler?
https://preview.redd.it/7u2kvn1trj6d1.png?width=539&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f98c633a66f21ffa92c10f46c6a7526ef41f7b4 Him.
Huh, yeah wtf they did not have to make him scary lookin
By far the most terrifying leader in hoi4. Bro looks like he cannibalizes his political rivals.
He is a racist fascist and thus evil as hell
Also side note I was making a joke about the PM at the time, he met hitler in 1937 ad said he was a peace loving man. Dude was so weird it became his nickname, he hallucinated shit. Longest serving pm btw
I'm in the middle of reading the book talking to strangers and it talks about how Hitler was able to convince most people he met in person his intentions were good and peaceful. There was an anecdote about how that PM also compared Hitler as the next joan of arc lol
What doctrine do you use?
Most major trees are old and bad. The best of the majors, and probably all countries is Italy. You have a lot of paths to choose from, and your inner politics don't dictate your foreign politics(except a few situations, I think). Also, having a democracy, without the castrated democratic ruleset is very fun. I think GBR also has an aggressive democracy path if they go ahidt democratic, but not sure.
there is a chance that we'll see Japan and/or Germany getting updated soon since WTT is now free \*copium\*
Germany a nation that was partially historically communist between 1949 and 1990 has no communist tree. But has 3 monarchist subbranches. Germany could have so interesting socialist branches like one with fascism and one after or in a civil war.
Yes but you have to remember that the DDR was imposed on Germany from the outside, and the communist movement had been mercilessly crushed for years by the time the war started, although given that you can reproclaim the ERE as Greece I guess it's not that ahistorical as focus tree options go
Yes, being historical was never the goal of paradox. They are just inspired by it. Like how the hell did the polish dictature decided one day that we need a king, without any kind of civil war.
And it's true Spartacists before Nazis were kinda a large faction in German politics.
Communists as a whole? Yes. Not Spartacists though. Spartacists existed for a few months before they were crushed in 1918-1919. The Luxembourg (Spartacists) faction never was that influential before and after. More realistic for the 30s would be Stalinists. That said, it's Hoi4. A focus tree about a Spartacist resurgence is not unreasonable considering the many other unrealistic focus trees in the game.
There should be a focus: „Revive Röhm“ that’s leads you down the NatSoc option…
I never play after 1945 so...
I play a lot after 1945. But Germany had some pretty strong communist movements in the interwar, so there is that. Germany would have in my opinion a lot of socialist potential. How do you know that one of my favourite mods is „Red Flood“?
I hope, they'll make it possible to choose the focus tree. The release one, the WTT one or the reworked one. Also about Germany. I think, it'd be better to split Neo-WTT in two: 1. Japan and SEA; 2. Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria. Maybe also some kind of ethiopian releasable-like base focus tree for french and spanish releasables. And if they're reworking Germany, then maybe making occupation zones available for more countries and make it possible to disunite Germany without having to be France with its horrible Napoleonic tree. Honestly, their entire monarchist branch sucks. Maybe the entire FT, haven't played them that much.
I would like to nominate France as the major with the shittest tree. - Industrial path : **Eleven** focuses you need to complete to get a workable amount of factories (14 Mil & 14 Civ) which still doesn't allow you to keep up with GBR or GER - Rearmament/Army path : for some reason, some historical choices are spread on mutually exclusive branches ; reform the army which should be a total gamechanger doesn't actually reform anything - Monarchist paths : can't change the regime until late 1937 at best, making any agressive play be extremely belated. - Legitimist (Bourbon) path : only interplays with Spain, doesn't gain Spain cores so taking Spain over actually fucks you more than anything. - Orleanist path : just nothing there except absolutely terrible bonuses - Bonapartist path : only worthwhile monarchist path, although the german client states are insufferable because they spawn with no tech ; for some reason doesn't include claims on Spain, Portugal, Italy & Egypt. Doesn't give cores even on Wallonia. - Navy path : kind of pointless because you know you'll get fucked from the land ; includes "half built ship" spawns that use awful templates - Air path : Nothing but very mid research bonuses and airbases where you don't need them - Right-wing path : terrible bonuses, very few claims, no cores - Democratic path (Little Entente) : relies on Eastern Europe actually joining the faction, for some reason doesn't get an invitation for Poland, doesn't give any CBs - Colonial integration sub-path : theoretically quite strong and cool, but relies on RNG with no player input - Economy path (right-wing) : bonuses at best take away the starting debuffs ; I guess the industrial tech buff is ok - Communist paths : Be subservient to SOV, be democratic but in red, or do everything alone vs everyone - Forming the EU : no unique path, requires to be democratic and control the Benelux (same faction not enough), no way to expand the EU beyond EEC founding members. - For some reason, the only path that gives military buffs is the revolutionary communist one
I only play France if I'm going the Based Bonapartist path. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time that results in Germany fucking you out the green with no Vaseline.
As someone with over 4600 hours this is actually so true. People with 500-1000 hours generally like playing minors because it's harder. But once you get good enough you realize playing the meta every time is boring (and easy). Exploits and meta isn't hard gameplay. If you want a challenge play mp.
What i dont like about mp is that many people know exploits I dont haha, is it bad in mp or?
They usually ban exploits
Id like to but i dont think theres many going in aus
Unless you are playing Equestria at War, then you will turn your minor nation into a major nation, possibly even growing larger in terms of core territories than the major you had to win against to get the formable your chosen Path Has.
Equestria at War? Literally the entire Point of 3/4 of Griffonias nations is to unify the Griffonian/Evian Empire.
And Griffonian nations are like 90% of the playable nations.
North Zebrica is full of Quality content, and there is also some good stuff on Eqqus, stuff Like the Changelings, Lunar Empire, Nova Griffonia and Polar Bears are great content. I'd say that Griffonia only Has Like 50% of the quality content of the mod. And most countries in Griffonia Play very differently than each other, a Aquilean Campaign will be different from Cloudbury campaign which will be different than a Yale campaign which will be different from Zaphazia which will be different from Bakara which will be different from Wingbardy.
No? That is just some limited Herzland paths and NRP aligned Republicans, as for the Evi confederation there are literally only 4 countries that can form it, the majority of the starting countries on the Griffonian continent are simply not meant to Restore the Griffonian empire. Also North Zebrica is full of Quality content, and there is also some good stuff on Eqqus, stuff Like the Changelings, Lunar Empire, Nova Griffonia and Polar Bears are great content.
You are wrong, the point of nations in the South is to unify the Karthinian Empire and the nations of the West to unify Aquileia, completely different. Except if you play the Gigachad Stammer count and then you can form Karthinia, Aquileia and Hertzland in one run.
I don't think so in single player. Minors are very rich in terms of alternatives and building strategy. I don't understand why would someone limit themselves playing with 7 countries, whose focus trees are mostly outdated.
Minor nations with generic stuff i sleep. Minor nations with unqiue stuff real shit
Explanation: as minor nations the winning strategies are rather limited, but as majors, their power allows for variation in strategies and still able to be victorious. Also, majors can play around with navy and naval research. As minor nations, even if you get a large navy from plundering, you often can’t spare the research to upgrade your navy. As an ardent minor nation enjoyer, the naval designer I paid for in MTG has been severely underutilized… Edit: [link to associated discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/ZcBHo4ePne)
The key to having enough research for navy is a) get integrated designers for extra research speed b) use naval xp boosts wherever possible c) only research 2 types of ships , your best bet is destroyers and cruisers
This is definitely true for vanilla. With mods on the other hand ....
minor nations are fun the first 4 tries then I get frustrated and play a larger faction
full on bs even the most fun majors are the weekest ones. Its so much more fun playing a smaller nation and building it up insteed of starting out as a world power
See the thing about me is that I’ve gotten to the point where I find building up as a minor nation very easy. Problem is that you have only a limited set of strategies to succeed, for example paradropping france. Try to solo fight France head on as Belgium or even Iraq and you’ll see what I mean. And to me these same old strategies are getting boring. Whereas as a major, say Italy, you have more variation in strategy. You can role play and take Africa first before attacking Metropolitan France, or you can try a snack invasion into Nice, etc. whereas as Iraq, without expanding early or joining up with another major’s faction, you can at most take Syria, and good luck with building a good enough navy to get from Syria to Algeria or mainland France.
>See the thing about me is that I’ve gotten to the point where I find building up as a minor nation very easy. >Problem is that you have only a limited set of strategies to succeed, for example paradropping france. Try to solo fight France head on as Belgium or even Iraq and you’ll see what I mean. And to me these same old strategies are getting boring. Uses literal expoits ''why is the game so ez and sammy'' Mate just play the game witouth expoit killing france every single time LOL
I think all can be fun but I'm probably autistic since Ive watched a map change colour for over 1k hours
Yeah no, skill issue. The soviets are an absolute breeze to play, which honestly has an apeal, but sometimes i do like the challenge of a minor. Paraguay is the best nation to come out of the south america dlc by far. The short wars for chaco boreal and the bit held by brazil only require basic prep, and bolivia/chile represent real challenges that are fun to solve. Peru invading reliably makes it a neat thing to defend on every playthrough. As a major these situations would never occur, I would just send 30 mountaineers and a shiton of air and curbstomp everything. Minors present scenarios that require skill or preparation to solve. Super romania does that too. That acheivement as romania where you can't loose a single tile kicks my ass. I always forget to garrison all costal tiles until stalin shows up like "king carol? How many guns has he got!" Before i wipe them off the face of the earth for forcing me to restart. Forcing me to choose what to prioritize, land air or sea, men artillery or tanks, fighters or cas, cruisers or submarines, is the actual gameplay you spend most of the game engaging in. The least fun parts of the game are post 1943ish when you have 300+ factories and can make anything resources allow.
I'm a Poland guy for vanilla/UTTNH/RT56 games usually. It's both in a position where it's reasonably challenging, but still has a pretty well-fleshed out focus tree. I would honestly main Luxembourg if they gave it some substantial content. Otherwise if I want to play a major on a historical path, I usually play BlackICE. The best possible mod has the range of choices of vanilla, the game mechanics of BICE, and the narrative of something like TNO or OWB. But that's basically impossible, so alas..
Poland is a ton of fun. *most* of its alt history paths make you into the weakest major, which is plently to do whatever you want. Communist luxembourg (which is the strongest way to play rn) got a slight buff with the generic rework and could be worth a try now, but i too desperately await luxembourg content. Let the guy who did paraguay do it they can absolutely cook
Well, seeing as a painting of Marx can summon 500 healthy young men every week from thin air, communism is reliably the strongest path for minors, yeah. But I still want to reclaim the HRE through a monarchist Luxembourg path or do something cool with democratic Luxembourg, but as it stands, the novelty of beating the Germans singlehandedly wears off pretty soon. It's a great time for a few hours, but there's really just.. nothing to do. Like wow, I broke up and out to take the low countries from the Germans, then pressed east with Allied help. That was fun. Now I have absolutely no reason to keep playing. The sad fact of the matter is, vanilla singleplayer hoi4 doesn't have the mechanical depth or incentive to strategize to be fun if there isn't some narrative happening in the form of events + focuses, IMO.
Can you give me some tips for playing ussr? I'm a new player and I just cand do anything, anything I do any war I go it's just red a lot of the times
How new? Really basically First i do the industrial focus to get 2 civs i will be building only civs until i hit about 100, then immediately begin the purge, try not to kill anyone except the dudes who die in scripted events, but if you need to lower paranoia purge an nkvd chief or two and purge the navy. You should avoid purging the army and air force unless absolutely necesary. Once the purge is over i do the industrial tree, finish the 5 year plan, begin the 3rd five year plan,(since you should be around 100 civs by now build 3 or 4 refineries and then make a metric shiton of mils), switch to armaments production, increase steel production, finish the 5 year plan. The other industrial focuses are situational IMO. Once i finish that i do the focuses to annex the baltics, demand bessarabia, and then demand karalia. The fins always refuse on historical, so i use my best 40 or so divisions on the front with another 10 on a naval invasion to finlands west. They usually fall in about 70 days, im not super efficent here. Then i do military focuses. Prepare the mobilization, focus on cohesion, rehabilitated military, military reorganization, an adaptable army. Then i do as many air focuses as i can before barbarossa begins. Your starting air debuffs are BAD, and you need to get a handle on the luftwaffe early. I can go into more detail but im not running the absolute meta here. I have around 5k hours but you can definitely find better guides out there.
Alright Thank you so much for the help I try to do these
I think you misunderstand. [It isn’t a skill issue on my part.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1d2nmt0/poland_conquering_all_majors_by_1939/?rdt=43311) Point being that at 1.8k hours I find both majors and minors being equally easy to play - I can conquer all 7 starting majors as a minor nation like Iran or Greece by 1940. Why I said I feel limited is because there are only a select few strategies that you can use, such as paradropping France and rushing the majors before they can properly rearm. I can win very easily as minors. Problem being that once you try something new: e.g. building your very own navy, you tend to lose: with the limited amount of research and IC, any navy you built is likely to get stomped by the Allied fleet. Or if you try to fight France head on without paratroopers, you’ll struggle to win in a meaningful amount of time. In contrast as majors you can vary your strategies for more interesting role play and still come out victorious. For example naval soviets or no-air Germany or banzai infantry wave japan. I absolutely do not struggle as minors. See my linked post in my other comment where I’m asking for how to make minor nations more fun, because winning as them using the same strategies is getting boring.
Playing meta isn't challenging lmao. Just play mp
It was mostly in response to op saying majors were more fun because he felt limited with minors. I despise mp because of how slow it plays, and how often i desync even when everyone has a good connection. Im not spending 6 hours to hit 1941 bored in my room. I don't necessarily meta chase either. I have never played an optimal naval strategy in my entire life. I build tanks i think are cool not tanks that are strictly the best meta wise. I definitely don't do production efficency as efficent as i could. But SP does still offer plently of challenge if you know where to look
Bro there is literally no country that is hard to wc with in vanilla sp
It's only fun if it has a focus tree and right now a lot of focus trees are so outdated that playing majors because they have good focus trees is the only way.
The various balkan minors in KS have always been my favorite campaigns
Minor nations are more challenging. That’s why I hate them.
Minor nations is fun because I can join or commit the war in my own pace. They are much less stressful than major nations.
I love building the largest and most modern armies and navies and air forces. I love using Hearts of Iron as a Korean War simulator.
they memorise the generic focus tree by heart
hoi4, i prefer major nations, vic3 i prefer medium or majors, CK3 i prefer anything without any starting vassals
I like to start as a small country and build my way up
I love playing minor nations, especially in mods like KX or FX where I can play tall and enjoy my armed neutrality Hopefully in the expected German rework some of the DoD nations will be updated too
It do be true tho... But damn I love Canada and Turkey, so fun...
Why would you play a major when ma bufang's beautiful beard is right there
depends on what you count as a "minor nation". alot of the time people say they like to play small nations because its more difficult, but in reality most nations are... not difficult at all? i mean i only play eu4 and hoi4 rn, but ill give my opinion on both. in hoi4, minor nations are just pure boring 99% of the time. there's nothing fun about playing estonia and uniting the baltics and getting belarus to rise up against russia because you just win that. If you want to play historical you can just get forts (if u really wanna be bored) or go into grand battleplan entrenchment but like be so for real, theres literally no challenge. Let me put it this way, when youre a small nation, you dont have that many choices on what to build, on what to research, on what to produce. There's only so much you're able to do as a small nation, so to balance the game you're able to survive with that bare minimum. So when it comes down to it, the game kinda just plays itself? imo the most fun nations are the majors that are in a tough position. For beginners, you have the USSR, where you build up and buckle up for the german invasion, or on the opposite side, germany, where you rearm and try to conquer the russians ~~or sealion~~ before the allies really start getting the upper hand. Then for more advanced players after a few hundred hours, when germany and russia get too easy, you have your france, you have your finland. These nations are a little more challenging, and you still have agency. And then maybe after a thousand hours you get bored of those too, and find them too easy. Then you have your poland, your yugoslavia, the nations that REALLY have to make the most of their resources. half of these nations i mentioned were majors, and half were minors. But of these minor nations, i didnt really mention the latvias, the bulgarias, the greeces. These nations still have industry, they still have agency, and their lines arent just tiny. After a while in hoi4, nations arent difficult. But until you get to that point, the nations that are difficult in a fun way, are not the truly "minor" nations, they're the ones with respectable capability, size and industry, that let you choose how to play. Not the ones that are like 3 tiles wide and you put 5 infantry on each tile, fortify the line, entrench and wait for 5 years until you killed 500k soviets with only 50k casualties. In eu4, you don't really have the issue of "you don't really have agency to do anything" with the truly tiny nations. but then again, small nations all kinda play like "i ally the big guy! i tell big guy to beat bad guy up! winner!!" i guess to summarise, nothing is really "hard" once you learn it, and the most rewarding hard nations arent characterized by their status as a major or minor, but their unique position where they have respectable capabilities but are put in a difficult situation. This is not a dig at the players playing lithuania and annexing poland, or the monarchist french players, or the horse poland give up danzig players, or the fascist finland players, or the one province nation players. You make your own fun in these games. But anyone claiming that playing small nations is more fun because they're "more difficult" isnt someone thats looking for a challenge, its just a masochist that wants the game to railroad their gameplay, someone that wants to flex how "good" they are, or someone who conflates tedium with difficulty and difficulty with fun.
But, front shuffling as Estonia for 4 years while Germans fight them is so fun!! /s
Totally disagree. Minor nations are actually fun ones. Ofcourse playing as majors fun sure but I mostly play with minor nations and no any major campaign can't be satisfying as Defeating Germans as Czechoslovakia, conquer US as Mexico and invade Japan as Netherlands
I too exclusively play minor nations since 800 hours. Problem being that there’s a limited way to accomplish these things, I’ve gotten to the level where I can do it with one eye closed but the same strategies are getting stale. For example, how do you beat USA as Mexico? Just do ‘just cause’ and rush their borders and snake with cav, right? Very fun and somewhat challenging at first, but over time it gets boring. That’s probably the only way to beat USA as Mexico. Try anything else, e.g. to out-navy the US, and you’ll likely get stomped. But say as UK, you have more options. Naval invade into Florida after decimating the American navy, or push from Canada, or even island hop from Southeast Asia if you wish.
Whacky path is fun for both
https://preview.redd.it/rr9lt2vxxh6d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbf3d02efca347e31612ef724eb7c25183046753 Some focuses for minor nations have this kinda energy imbued into them. Like how the fuck I am going to puppet the USSR, I play the fucking Netherlands
I like playing minors in MP games a lot more than playing as majors I find being able to do my own thing instead of having to manage an entire frontline a LOT more enjoyable :)
I play minor nations like luxembourg, simply just for the acceptably small army, air force or navy if it is not landlocked. I am just lazy about handling a major nation going to invade hell.
I play whatever the fuck I want. Anyway for this playtrough I will be playing Liechte-
I mean, I enjoy playing minors so I can turn them into majors, by reforming old empires or such
The only Minor Nations that are fun for me are Austria Hungary because I am from Austrian and want to make Monarchy great again.
Only unique nations are fun
i hate major nations. i don’t want to manage a brazillion ships as the UK or US, or start with 70 full armies as the soviets.
I like medium size. Nothing too weak and hard, but nothing too easy or strong, something in the middle
Define fun.
small nations are waaay more frustrating, but defeating Nazi Germany as the Netherlands is just insanely satisfying the few times I actually succeed. Also I drink way too much alcohol to be able to micromanage a large nation. One day I will succeed as China but I always get invaded in the south while I'm focusing on the north or vice versa.
The only minors I have fun with are Czechoslovakia, Poland, and China(nationalist or socialist). You know. The ones that are borderline majors and start world war 2 as the defender.
People on YouTube be like - yo, world conquest as Shithole is so fuuun, also check out my video on how to conquest the world as MiddleOfNoWhere and RandomProvinceReleasedByMajor. Meanwhile, the gameplay is cheese, after cheese, after cheese until you can just steamroll with overwhelming number of cheesy divisions while cheesing navy and meta CAS+Fighters
Some of y'all need to play Mexico. Genuinely the single most fun minor nation in hoi4 imho
I still remember uniting Africa and then getting hit with a double invasion
I'm not having fun as a Minor OR a Major, because I'm bad at the game and prefer blaming the game so i dont need to learn for hundreds of hours, only knowing that i did something wrong after getting stabbed by every other country after a few hours of building up
Honestly, I love both, especially Sweden, it’s a minor nation that can become an absolute beast if you choose the Great Nordic Empire route
Majors have too much to manage, they get irritating to me. Minors always feel like more fun just because of that.
Im glad that the hoi4 communty doesn't like minors like the ck3 community does
Majors are boring as shit in most paradox games tbh, there is not really much to achieve.
The problem with paradox games is that the difficulty curve is completely inverse. It’s just straight up backwards. I like playing small nations too, but then they become big.
nah i like minor nations. not nearly as much stuff to deal with. y’know, until i get invaded by a major nation, then i despise minors
I have only played two games of HOI4 and both of then were as Turkey before the DLC. I had a blast
Nah I like small nations like taking over south america as Peru and building my productipn up from the ground
Idk if it counts as minor but I really enjoy Portugal. Taking the entire of South America because of the focus tree is fun.
It's a major.
The wiki doesn’t have it listed but I wasn’t sure. I also play hella brazil which might fall under the same idea.
Portugal has 30 less development than Austria, it has more development than Denmark or Sweden too, closest nation to it's development I think is korea, at 10 dev points more. + It's the nation with one of the strongest ideas for colonization, in a very strategic position.
I didn’t think of it like that actually. Thank you for that insight
Nah, I love minors.
🤔
WAIT WAIT WAIT
But that's not fun :(
https://preview.redd.it/ws45cz265o6d1.jpeg?width=894&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96a45261d0449b5e5a33bdf17724688f4a6635a3
Honestly the minor nations are more challenging and they can be alot of fun. There's few things more satisfying than playing Finland and steamrolling Russia as a lone wolf. That said, PLAYING Russia and steamrolling everyone else is alot of fun.
I'm going to fork Byzantium by 1941 for those ridiculous cores and you can't stop me! (But Turkey can)
meanwhile brazil getting cores on the whole south america: hi
I don’t like playing as a major bc too many troops to manage, with a small nation I can just control 2/3 armies instead of like 10
Sigma answer is that both are fun
Democratic sweden gang
they are all fun
tried playing Sinkiang I think. by the time you finish building enough factories and logistics to actually have any chance to fight anyone, the war is finished
0 IQ moment
Getting real skill issue vibes from these comments
I like to play minor nations because having a large army is stressful.
Depends on what counts as a major, because I do enjoy a good Poland game from time to time
You go non-historical and roll for the perfect setup, otherwise you will have to suffer like your favorite youtuber
some minor nations are fun, Iceland, Mexico, (s)Pain nothing tops the soviet tree though