Game ruined by an ally

[Pricey]

TLDR - Netherlands automatically took occupation of Germany, Capitulated with occupation of most of Germany instead of handing it over, got all of our armies stuck and encircled deep in central Europe because of it

So, I'm a new player in HOI4, after having a few mock games to get a feel for the mechanics I decided to try a proper campaign as Britain.
For the first year or 2 after war broke out with Italy and Germany things were going great, I took Africa and was making good progress wiping out the German and Italian troops then Japan beat the Chinese coalition, they then declared war on British Malaya with their new puppets, bringing it to two big factions against us, not a problem though I thought I'd deal with the Axis and then focus on them.
so we're invading Germany and doing a great job, my allies even recovered some Polish land, which the Soviets instantly declared war on the Exiled Polish government for, so the 3 major factions in the game are now after us, but Germany is 80%+ towards capitulation and we've got a good grasp with a good push forwards going on.
But then the Spanish and Italians started making their way through the now capitulated France to the Netherlands, so I ask them for control of all the German lands as they're about to capitulate because despite doing very little it all went to them for sharing a border with Germany but they refuse because "Netherlands doesn't want to give away occupied land" they then immediately capitulate handing back all occupation besides what we was stood on at the time to the Germans, with the Soviets coming in from Denmark, Spain and Italy coming from France and Germany and a few Baltic minors coming from the South with no decent front lines we can form, what followed was the most disgusting and avoidable encirclement ever.

Why is this even a thing? the European front was almost won yet the whole game was ruined because of the way the game handles occupation and because the AI thought it was better to lose with all of occupied Germany than hand it over to an ally

[Pricey]

https://imgur.com/MhQnEOu https://imgur.com/FJV1Amn

A picture moments before disaster and the immediate aftermath

[Ryan]

Yea that sucks. I've seen that happen for people defending France. France capitulated, and all their divisions were immediate encircled because they didn't have a path to the port. I think it is a design flaw that the player has to be aware of and work around. On the flip side it can also work to your advantage when your enemy surrenders, and you get all the land around enemy divisions causing them to instantly be surrounded.

It is worth posting this on the PDX HOI4 forums as feedback.

[Ryan]

On a side note, it looks your divisions were woefully low on equipment based on your screenshot. You will want to manage your production and logistics, so your armies have the equipment they need to fight at full strength.

[Pricey]

I can imagine it's a lot more satisfying when the opposite happens but man first time experiencing it and it got me salty, as for the divisions I believe it's because they were getting supplied with the new infantry equipment I researched and started producing in place of the old one or it could've been the anti tank equipment I gave them but I could be wrong being new and all, I'm assuming the green bar represents how well equipped they are I've uploaded a photo that took place between the second and first picture that shows the green bar mostly full for the troops in Germany, I originally took the screenshot to show Netherlands' reasoning though so the first general is slightly covered along with the guy commanding them https://imgur.com/DXciPz7

24 at the end were newly exiled divisions from France that were on their way to try and defend the Netherlands

[andersrlarsen]

not really sure who you are trying to convince you had any chance even if they had given you their territory...

and your screenshots even say that holland think that you havent participated enough warscore for them to give you any territory, so why would them give it to you?

lets say that they had, and that you somehow managed to force germany to surrender (how you would be able to do that with 90 divisions, with that long frontline, is a different matter), then what do you think would happen?
that war would be over and you had won? No, you would been completely overwhelmed by the 3-400 soviet divisions that is at standing ready at the soviet-german border. and since you would taken over german territory, and therefore had common borders with soviet, you would have been in a 3 front war in europe.

you have probably noticed that you made several mistakes (im not going to even bother start mentioning the 20-30 mistakes you have done that i noticed in the screenshot and your post), so instead either try to start over and learn from your mistakes, or continue that game.

but the point is that it wouldnt have made any difference wheter or not holland gave you the territory..!!

[Pricey]

Originally posted by andersrlarsen:

not really sure who you are trying to convince you had any chance even if they had given you their territory...

and your screenshots even say that holland think that you havent participated enough warscore for them to give you any territory, so why would them give it to you?

lets say that they had, and that you somehow managed to force germany to surrender (how you would be able to do that with 90 divisions, with that long frontline, is a different matter), then what do you think would happen?
that war would be over and you had won? No, you would been completely overwhelmed by the 3-400 soviet divisions that is at standing ready at the soviet-german border. and since you would taken over german territory, and therefore had common borders with soviet, you would have been in a 3 front war in europe.

you have probably noticed that you made several mistakes (im not going to even bother start mentioning the 20-30 mistakes you have done that i noticed in the screenshot and your post), so instead either try to start over and learn from your mistakes, or continue that game.

but the point is that it wouldnt have made any difference wheter or not holland gave you the territory..!!

I'm not saying I would've easily rolled over the Axis and the Soviet union single handedly and who knows I probably would've lost in the end, but not having all the territory go back to the Germans would've at least given me a chance, as for the warscore I contributed 30%, the most contributing member of the alliance but that is irrelevant, the AI should be able to judge their own situation when deciding to hand off their occupied land, as for the many mistakes I've made I've got less than 100 hours, maybe even 50 and I'm still learning, but thanks for your elitism and taking your time to bless my screenshots with your expert eyes

[glythe]

To prevent that from happening again...

ask control for a "bridge" of land that leads to more enemy lands. Push out from that land and it will be held in your map color. The AI will pretty much say no if you want ALL the land they are holding. But if your war score is really high and theirs isnt then you can ask for 2-3 territories. Next time for example let the AI take Rhineland but then take the next few vertical provinces so that any further push goes from land you now hold. That means further pushing will paint your colors.

Just like the board game Axis & Allies the struggle trying to win as the Allies is making sure everyone cooperates.

You can also force control of enemy land by doing an amphibious landing from your territory. Having more boats should not be a problem as the UK so you should be able to dictate where you want to invade. Once you have the proper tech for it you can que up invasions for multiple ports with 5-10 troops per stack. If the invasion of ports sprawls across a wide area.... say SW France all the way to W Germany it becomes very tedious to cover everything adequately.

It takes effort to make naval landings a breeze as you need marines, ships to cover the path as well as shore bombardment, planes in range of the landing and possibly amphibious vehicles depending on how long you wait.

In the case of UK to France or Germany there are tons of places you can choose to attack where there are allied airfields in range. That means you can paradrop troops or supplies. You could even get super fancy and paradrop troops behind the shore line at the same time you tie up the troops on the beach with naval invasions on the port and adjacent tiles.

The point I am trying to make here is that water landings from UK to GER are about 5x easier than the reverse.


Don't worry about a few mistakes as everyone makes them even seasoned players.

[Pricey]

Originally posted by glythe:

To prevent that from happening again...

ask control for a "bridge" of land that leads to more enemy lands. Push out from that land and it will be held in your map color. The AI will pretty much say no if you want ALL the land they are holding. But if your war score is really high and theirs isnt then you can ask for 2-3 territories. Next time for example let the AI take Rhineland but then take the next few vertical provinces so that any further push goes from land you now hold. That means further pushing will paint your colors.

Just like the board game Axis & Allies the struggle trying to win as the Allies is making sure everyone cooperates.

You can also force control of enemy land by doing an amphibious landing from your territory. Having more boats should not be a problem as the UK so you should be able to dictate where you want to invade. Once you have the proper tech for it you can que up invasions for multiple ports with 5-10 troops per stack. If the invasion of ports sprawls across a wide area.... say SW France all the way to W Germany it becomes very tedious to cover everything adequately.

It takes effort to make naval landings a breeze as you need marines, ships to cover the path as well as shore bombardment, planes in range of the landing and possibly amphibious vehicles depending on how long you wait.

In the case of UK to France or Germany there are tons of places you can choose to attack where there are allied airfields in range. That means you can paradrop troops or supplies. You could even get super fancy and paradrop troops behind the shore line at the same time you tie up the troops on the beach with naval invasions on the port and adjacent tiles.

The point I am trying to make here is that water landings from UK to GER are about 5x easier than the reverse.


Don't worry about a few mistakes as everyone makes them even seasoned players.

Thanks for the advice, I think that's what I'll try doing next time, as in requesting control of some land so I get an occupation area. I didn't really know you could request occupied land until Netherlands was already close to capitulating, as for the second option a lot of this current game was learning more about using planes and ships, I'm slowly getting a grasp of it but I probably wont get a good feeling for naval invasions until I have to do a big one, but I look forward to losing a few stacks when I do

[Ryan]

FYI the Orange bar is your equipment. The Green bar is your Organization. Organization is how long your troops can stay in the fight before they retreat. IMO the purpose of infantry is to provide just enough Org while the damage is done by artillery. Of course it depends on your industrial power, but artillery is cheap. Use lots of artillery for tons of damage. Not everyone uses this approach. I just prefer quality over quantity.

Click your Logistics button and check your Infantry Equipment. I bet you have -10,000 infantry equipment.

[Pricey]

Originally posted by Ryan:

FYI the Orange bar is your equipment. The Green bar is your Organization. Organization is how long your troops can stay in the fight before they retreat. IMO the purpose of infantry is to provide just enough Org while the damage is done by artillery. Of course it depends on your industrial power, but artillery is cheap. Use lots of artillery for tons of damage. Not everyone uses this approach. I just prefer quality over quantity.

Click your Logistics button and check your Infantry Equipment. I bet you have -10,000 infantry equipment.

Gotcha, Green is Organization which I imagine is HOI4's stamina and Orange is supplies, I'm still learning troop compositions, I did have a twenty width infantry with artillery at first but I moved it up to 40 later on, and towards the end I swapped out some artillery for anti tank, the infantry divisions performed really well but I've seen people just destroy the enemies with tanks and such so I figured it's best to try and figure out how to use them effectively (something I'm still working on)

As for the equipment I've gone to check, I can only check post-Netherlands because of Ironman but Infantry Equipment were producing 168 a day (new upgrade so I had to switch the line so production is down) with 6243 needed to reinforce, 18 Art a day with 7 needed to reinforce, 36 support equipment with 507 needed to reinforce, and anti tank which was a last minute add which needed 8548 to reinforce which wasn't even producing (I think they need rubber and Japan has a monopoly on it)

I also discovered how OP lend lease was towards the end of that game so I may use it more in my next game

[Ryan]

I think you are looking at the Production button. Click the Logistics button which is the last one on the right. -6000 infantry equipment & -8000 anti-tank equipment is not good. It means you have soldiers on the battlefield with no gun to shoot with.

Here's a tip: when you want to modify your stock infantry division to add anti-tank or whatever, don't just edit the template directly. Instead, make a Duplicate of the division and edit that (give it a new icon so you can see the difference). Now you have two templates: the old one and the new and improved. No division is using the new template yet, but you can now slowly switch them over to it as equipment allows. This is better because you won't have all your divisions suddenly operating at 50% effectiveness because they don't have enough equipment to operate properly.

How to change divisions: select a division(s), then in the upper left corner you will see a button with two green arrows pointing in opposite directions. Click that and choose a new template. Make sure you have the equipment for the divisions you are changing. It takes several days for the equipment to arrive.

Now you can gradually change your divisions around without having to do an all or nothing approach. You can also change infantry to tanks to special forces, etc. You will take an XP hit for doing this, but you can always train them back up.

Hope this helps.

[Pricey]

Oh right got it, I have 61k infantry Eq in storage with a production deficit of -2.1 per day but I think the production penalty may have affected it, I also have 3.6k Support Eq in storage with a 12 surplus, but I've realised what I've done while checking logistic, I must've accidently switched out towed artillery for anti air when I meant to replace it with improved artillery in the production line, I have a deficit of 6.1k and I'm losing 22 a day, I've been using production to keep an eye on my stock so the logistics tab will help and the rest is solid advice too man I'll try making new templates between upgrades as you suggested, I appreciate it.

[MeDaDaddy]

You could also consider having multiple factory lines producing equipment and keeping some producing old stuff until production of new stuff reaches a decent productivity level.
This way, you always have some stuff producing at maximum efficiency.

So, for example, you could have 2 instances each of 10 factories producing Inf Equipt 1 and then when research on Inf Equipt 2 finishes, just swap out 1 of the lines initially.
Another way would be to have a line of 15 factories and a line of 5 factories producing and just switch out the 5 factory line initially and then, as productivity rises on the new stuff, take a factory off old stuff and add to new 1 at a time.
Same for towed Artillery/AA/AT etc.
Or any combination of the above etc

EDIT: Also keep in view that IRL in 1940, Allied (French, Polish, Belgian, Dutch and British) troops were "encircled" following the surrender of France and the Benelux countries and a lot never made it off the beaches at Dunkirk.
And they had a port they could use!
So you could view your own situation as a replay of that. Even though it's different 'cos you'd managed to push into Germany.

[Pricey]

Originally posted by MeDaDaddy:

You could also consider having multiple factory lines producing equipment and keeping some producing old stuff until production of new stuff reaches a decent productivity level.
This way, you always have some stuff producing at maximum efficiency.

So, for example, you could have 2 instances each of 10 factories producing Inf Equipt 1 and then when research on Inf Equipt 2 finishes, just swap out 1 of the lines initially.
Another way would be to have a line of 15 factories and a line of 5 factories producing and just switch out the 5 factory line initially and then, as productivity rises on the new stuff, take a factory off old stuff and add to new 1 at a time.
Same for towed Artillery/AA/AT etc.
Or any combination of the above etc

EDIT: Also keep in view that IRL in 1940, Allied (French, Polish, Belgian, Dutch and British) troops were "encircled" following the surrender of France and the Benelux countries and a lot never made it off the beaches at Dunkirk.
And they had a port they could use!
So you could view your own situation as a replay of that. Even though it's different 'cos you'd managed to push into Germany.

Thanks for the advice man, I've started a new game and things are going more swimmingly, Ryan pointing me in the direction of the logistics tab has helped a lot in terms of keeping my troops equipped and the tips to slowly phase out old equipment and have multiple lines for switching from old to new equipment is helpful too.

On this new game I've pre-empted the Japanese and I'm fighting them along side the Chinese, Poland has formed it's own faction so hopefully the Soviets will be the Nazi's problem and the battle for Africa was over in a matter of days, the last game was a nightmare for Europe, Germany had 0 recruitable population with All Adults Must Serve, I lost between 1 mil and 2 mil and the Soviets were building up the whole time and had a recruitable population of like 16 mil.

I'm hoping for this game that if I hold the line in Europe long enough that the Soviets and the Axis will declare war and ware each other out while I build more troops and get some decent tanks for breaking the line later on.

[MeDaDaddy]

Originally posted by Pricey:

Originally posted by MeDaDaddy:

You could also consider having multiple factory lines producing equipment and keeping some producing old stuff until production of new stuff reaches a decent productivity level.
This way, you always have some stuff producing at maximum efficiency.

So, for example, you could have 2 instances each of 10 factories producing Inf Equipt 1 and then when research on Inf Equipt 2 finishes, just swap out 1 of the lines initially.
Another way would be to have a line of 15 factories and a line of 5 factories producing and just switch out the 5 factory line initially and then, as productivity rises on the new stuff, take a factory off old stuff and add to new 1 at a time.
Same for towed Artillery/AA/AT etc.
Or any combination of the above etc

EDIT: Also keep in view that IRL in 1940, Allied (French, Polish, Belgian, Dutch and British) troops were "encircled" following the surrender of France and the Benelux countries and a lot never made it off the beaches at Dunkirk.
And they had a port they could use!
So you could view your own situation as a replay of that. Even though it's different 'cos you'd managed to push into Germany.

Thanks for the advice man, I've started a new game and things are going more swimmingly, Ryan pointing me in the direction of the logistics tab has helped a lot in terms of keeping my troops equipped and the tips to slowly phase out old equipment and have multiple lines for switching from old to new equipment is helpful too.

On this new game I've pre-empted the Japanese and I'm fighting them along side the Chinese, Poland has formed it's own faction so hopefully the Soviets will be the Nazi's problem and the battle for Africa was over in a matter of days, the last game was a nightmare for Europe, Germany had 0 recruitable population with All Adults Must Serve, I lost between 1 mil and 2 mil and the Soviets were building up the whole time and had a recruitable population of like 16 mil.

I'm hoping for this game that if I hold the line in Europe long enough that the Soviets and the Axis will declare war and ware each other out while I build more troops and get some decent tanks for breaking the line later on.

Fun fun fun :)

G'luck &