I don't really know how this happened I was messing around with the toolpack mod but yeah this makes sense 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

with this path, you'll want to immediately create a spy agency as soon as possible and use the diplomatic pressure mission on estonia as well as improve relations to the highest possible, you should be able to get a non-aggression pact which makes them extremely likely to accept annexation. this gives you the entire estonian army which you can use the bolster your front with russia, and the extra factories allow you to get some more stuff done before you lose estonia during the war with the soviets (you will not hold estonia, the front is massive once latvia is annexed by the soviets)

after this you can raise relations with the swedes and norwegions, and this combined with being democratic (like them) means you will very reliably annex and core the entirety of the sapmi land in these countries. this land includes a good bit of population as well as all of sweden's infinite iron and tungsten provinces.

you are very unlikely to get murmansk from the soviets, but I believe if you capture it it will automatically core, so it isn't a huge negative.

on top of all the aforementioned benefits, you reliably get the entirety of scandinavia in northern defence front extremely early, which means you have all the really good focuses that are locked behind the faction tree.

Fourth part of military historian Bret Devereaux analysis of HOI4, this time focusing on the economy

The Russian WW1 victory scenario

Every April 1st, people post cursed loading screens thinking it's a mod or a glitch. I checked hoi4.exe to see how the mechanic actually works under the hood.

Back in 2018, a partial dump was found, prompting dev Groogy to reply: “Aaaw man that's cheating! I spent a good hour on trying to hide that stuff :/". Here is the confirmed complete breakdown:

How it works:

Hardcoded in binary: Stored directly inside hoi4.exe, not in any text/mod files.

English only: The check requires the game language to be English.

The cross-shuffle: On April 1st, the game merges normal + joke quotes and normal + joke authors, then shuffles them all together. That’s why historical figures end up quoting pop songs or being credited as "Twitch chat".

The 25 joke quotes:

Do, or do not, there is no try
Hold my beer
Whoops
Veni vidi vikipedia
They started it
Ross rifle, best rifle
Video games were a mistake
Work harder, not smarter
The T34 is the best tank of the war
The Panther is the best tank of the war
The Sherman is the best tank of the war
The Bob Semple tank is a marvel of engineering
My hips don't lie
Giraffes are very sensitive creatures
Not much fun in Stalingrad
As a True Man, we never asked for any directions on the Road to Victory
Roosevelt and Churchill would make for a great dating game
War. War never changes. Until the next patch
The FG42 was arguably the first assault rifle
The person who said the FG42 was the first assault rifle is demonstrably wrong
Victoria III, when?
No Party like the Communist Party
Hostile Fleet Detected
Don't start a naval war in Switzerland
Waka Waka

The 16 joke authors:

Pocahontas
Dan Lind (podcat, former game director)
Philippe Petain
Voltaire
Anonymous HoI 4 Dev
Pliny the Elder
Aristotle
Gaius Marius
Captain Blackadder, Hero of Mboto Gorge
Frederick the Great
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
Queen Victoria III
Twitch chat
That Reddit user
Lieutenant Glitterhoof
Error Dog

I don't know if this still triggers in 2026, but finding this hardcoded in the binary was hilarious :)

Ecuador doesn't have a focus tree, and that's a pity because it has some potential. Regardless, there is an event chain about the '41 war against Peru. I don't know if it's part of the base game; you may need the South American DLC.

I imposed some rules on myself to make it more interesting:

1. Stay democratic for the whole game.
2. Don't enter any faction and don't accept a white peace. (Lend-lease is allowed and I strongly recommend requesting it)

As you can see from the death toll, you will have to fight an army that's twice as big as yours. I found it quite hard.

I would be interested to see someone end the conflict faster; I'm sure there is room for optimization.

Ig Küchler and Rommel were listening to a bit too much Von. Küchler alone pushed up from greece all the way to constanta and rommel just drove from krakow to odessa as if nothing was there.

Heavy Weapons Companies mainly provide extra defence.

Just about the only place they could be useful that I can see is on defensive tanks. Defensive, line-holding infantry by definition does not really need extra defence.

Everywhere else, Infantry guns are cheaper and much better due to the soft attack they provide.

Motorised Heavy Weapons do provide some extra breakthrough, but it's not nearly as much as I thought. They certainly can't be used as a replacement for tanks.

Heavy Weapons Companies also require research that can now be skipped in favour of other technologies if you don't use them.

Am I missing something?

I was bored one day so despite having only around 100 hours of play time i decided to try and form the ggr without tanks, motorized, navy or air as fast as i could.

It was honestly easier then i expected so I have no idea if this is has actual value as a challenge or if Germany is just easy to play.

(The screenshot is like 10 days after france capped and ignore the border gore).

I really dislike the fact that in some countries, constitutional monarchs are a national spirit (e.g., the United Kingdom), whereas in others, they are advisors who can't be fired (e.g., the Kingdom of Iraq). Like, could you just make up your mind, Paradox? Make it one or the other and just stick to that representation. Is it that hard? Any way is good for me; I just crave some consistency.

What are your thoughts on this?

Well, here is mine. 1953: a large chunk of Axis forces cut off from any ports, with nowhere to return home.

i was observing the great war redux and all that germany did was declare war on the entente before very quickly white peacing the west and for some reason that immediately caused the collapse of france, the uk and italy

180+ divisions I sent to reinforce the coast and I died. I know not all of them are necessarily completely manned but I split by main force up north to commit to a coastal assault and I still could not push them. How am I supposed to beat them?

R5 - Doing an Achievement run as the Guangxi Clique on historical... and almost half a billion people later its finally over, in the year of our lord 2006...

Plagued by bugs: stability and war support froze, tension disappeared after the end of the actual WWII, and i couldn’t see naval results if no naval bombers were involved (new one on me).

All in all, would Hoi4 again.

Do I just give it up and start over instead of wasting another 4 hours to come to the reality of this being unwinnable

As communist indonesia, I've noticed that for some reason, I seem to have the entirety of china claimed as core states, and only china. I know the aslia focus lets you annex and core your subjects, which I did to the guangxi clique, Siam, and phillipines. But I don't see how I would somehow get cores on all of China?

title

I've never had a chance to test it nor been victim to it. what happens if a convoy carrying a general is sunk? do they become prisoners or just get killed?

I find that a lot of features in HoI4 that were absolutely crucial to the war effort of every country irl are simply nerfed/ non-existant in the game to the point you can straight up ignore them, even in the optimal multiplayer meta(not gonna talk SP cause the AI is already so braindead everything works):

As the USSR you ignore both air and navy, whereas irl the soviets outproduced the axis in both tanks and planes.

The espionage system is reduced to collab goverments and reducing enemy planning and entrenchment instead of everything it was actually used for irl like getting to know other countries' plans, getting troop concentrations and planned axes of attack(which I think would be way better than the flat buffs and de buffs we get from etrenchment and planning rn).

Artillery being the thing that literally dealt 70% of casualties in irl WW2 yet being objectively not meta in the game.

Do you think these need fixing or is the game fine as is?

whats the best way to quickly gain compliance if you dont care about anything else like factories and resources and such? Like for getting the % needed to reform the commonwealth and such?