Carlist spain is literally impossible (Rant)

[KingCornelius]

Unless you are a HOI 4 pro, have 2000 hours and are able to cap the republicans before the carlist uprising even happens its literally impossible.

2 front war madness. Soviet volunteers will mop up your key defensive points and you have 40K manpower. When I finally managed to cap the nationalists the game gave all their equipment to the republicans for some reason and then they just mass attacked my defence for a year years without running out of guns somehow. I feel the main issue is it makes you use up all your pp on installing carlist cells (50 pp per cell) when you need that to do offensives so if you dont wanna get crushed by the fascists you need to spend pp that stops you from caping the repubs without cheesing them

I've tried like 10 times as them (as nationalist focus tree sucks).It really should be a coup instead of another faction Idk what paradox was thinking, I guess it makes for a fun challenge but locking away Spains most fun paths behind massive difficulty makes me feel like I wasted my money on la Resistance .

(Also don't try say you beat them legit when you was reloading 30 saves until you got lucky and the repubs left madrid open or sm im talking about on ironman as thats what I play)

[Geobor]

I have 2000 hours and I'm a hoi 4 pro and I can do Carlist Spain. You don't really need to care about the republicans, just build military factories in the states that you infiltrate. There is a focus in the tree that gives you decisions that allow you to infiltrate the nationalist states, just rush that and then rush the focus that breaks you out. Take care of the nationalists as quick as you can. plan your offensives in states that the nationalists will occupy to help you with this. Then just beat and republicans and eat up the anarchists if you have the chance.

[ШРГВ Arka]

sounds like a skill issue

[No I think Not]

It is really hard, but not impossible, a good word of advice is to make sure all of your army of africa divisions are on the tile where you have your carlist cell located so they dont get encircled and destroyed. Outside of that it can somewhat come down to luck depending on who fights who and what not.

[velvetcrabman]

I think it's bittersteel did a very quick and straightforward youtube guide to this one

[Chozer]

Originally posted by Cornelius:

Unless you are a HOI 4 pro, have 2000 hours and are able to cap the republicans before the carlist uprising even happens its literally impossible.

2 front war madness. Soviet volunteers will mop up your key defensive points and you have 40K manpower. When I finally managed to cap the nationalists the game gave all their equipment to the republicans for some reason and then they just mass attacked my defence for a year years without running out of guns somehow. I feel the main issue is it makes you use up all your pp on installing carlist cells (50 pp per cell) when you need that to do offensives so if you dont wanna get crushed by the fascists you need to spend pp that stops you from caping the repubs without cheesing them

I've tried like 10 times as them (as nationalist focus tree sucks).It really should be a coup instead of another faction Idk what paradox was thinking, I guess it makes for a fun challenge but locking away Spains most fun paths behind massive difficulty makes me feel like I wasted my money on la Resistance .

(Also don't try say you beat them legit when you was reloading 30 saves until you got lucky and the repubs left madrid open or sm im talking about on ironman as thats what I play)

if you think carlist spain is hard in vanilla try road to 56 carlist spain. the way you win is to inflict massive casulties to the republic early the nationalists are easy enough to get rid of. push to the leftside of spain next to portugal and use the border to encircle troops. i made it to seaville pretty quickly after that it just snowballs

[Drax]

The problem with Spain isn't that it's impossible, it just isn't fun. The planned/unplanned offensive mechanics make it so that the fighting takes ages, and there's too many external factors and specific requirements you have to do (like certain focuses and decisions) so that it's like rolling a dice as to whether you have a quick civil war or if you just have to restart.

[The Dank Lord [GER]]

This post in half a year old and it aged like fine wine... I tried it 3 times now and always fail because I never have equipment and manpower while facist and republicans never seems to have problems with that....

[Chozer]

carlist very hard but only until you understand what to do lol

[Dagoth Brain Made Of Tired]

play civil war learn how to win win as carlists

[KingCornelius]

Originally posted by The Dank Lord GER:

This post in half a year old and it aged like fine wine... I tried it 3 times now and always fail because I never have equipment and manpower while facist and republicans never seems to have problems with that....

I gave up in the end. It should let you choose when to rise up as carlists so you dont get stuck in 4 way civil war with republicans controling half the country

[jawatermelondreon]

The civil war is the easy part. I beat the Republicans so fast that I have months to ie attack France (I don't do it via focus war goal, I do 2 primo de riveira speeches, flip to fascism via decision [referendum], then immediately get a war goal for France; that way you have all the civil war units available), regardless of SOviet Union units, who these days send 7 or 8, not just 5 like in the past.

I don't even take Italian or German volunteers, as that would drive up the war tension so high (just over the threshold) that UK will guarantee France.

I then beat France with enough time left (even one time I forgot to do the war goal right away, so you get it by April instead of January, basically starting the WG not long b4 the SCW starts.. so I started the France war in April 37 but STILL beat them with like a week or 5ish days left before the nationalist crack down, which is in very late July or early August 37) to redeploy all my units in a fallback line at the edge of Burgos and Navarra, and I don't grab any extra territory via the focus and carlist infiltration decisions. Just the one I get from the Contact Union Militar focus, which I usually grab at the other side of the country, to force Nationalist Spain to redeploy it's units to two fronts.

I then move as fast as possible to all the victory points, pinning with some units and going around with the rest. I don't even need the planning offensives thing. You can grab the victory points before they have time to set up a front line, despite getting help from Germany and Italy (they get it, not you).

You just have to be fast with beating the Republicans. In my last two runs I beat them before the Anarchists could even rise up. Time your offensives planning carefully, grab Basque country and Asturias asap at the start of the CW, but don't waste your time trying to kill the encircled units there, jsut keep them hemmed in.. because even with no supply, encirclement penalty etc you will not kill them, unless you waste all of your best units.

So I deploy a few 2width infantry just to keep them encircled, and use the rest of my units at the front. When the CW starts grab as much as you can as fast as you can. I usually get to Madrid and a few other major victory points like Valencia before unplanned offensives kicks in.

It's usually Barcelona that slows me down and is the last to fall, along with eastern Aragon and that one VP there...

However what I did have problems with a few times was France. They're not hard to beat once you've broken through (especially if you don't side track towards Marseilles etc and go straight for Paris), but out of my last 3 runs (where I started from scratch each time...) EVERY time just before I surrender them they get a civil war, mostly with Fascist France. This despite them NOT having taken the Fascist path or even the Communist one or the Monarchist one!!!

Basically once I get close enough to Paris it's like "France Civil War breaks out" / "Nation Francaise has declared war on France" or whatever. In the peace deal I end up getting everything (fleet, all colonies etc) including all the mainland cores, except the 2-3 provinces that Fascist France starts with...

and even if I get a war goal on them, they usually end up joining the Axis... it takes like a week or two for Germany to join the war, but because everytime I played it their capital was Calais they have the river and only 1 or 2 open tiles bordering me, and their best units including tanks are usually up there, and then they either get Bordeaux or (I took that in my last run) Savoy. With Savoy you have again a huge river line, with the rest being mountain tiles, so you have to do a fall back line where you let them come out of the mountains, and then push through.

But it takes too long before Germany starts the war. I can't hold the Maginot AND defeat Fascist France, not to mention even if you DO hold the Maginot, they'll simply ferry troops into Calais/Dunkirk and/or Marseilles. And those German tanks will cut through my infantry like nothing. I don't have the manpower either to hold them in the long term, even if I set up an effective defense.

So I reloaded my last run, and instead of going for Fascist France I got involvd in the Italian Civil War (Italy messed up Ethiopea, got most of it but made piece, then Communists rise up and despite Italy having MORE divisions and MORE factories they lose each time.. they start with the whole North where all the factories are + sicily + all the overseas ♥♥♥♥).

I did the WG too soon (instead of having enough time to wait to launch the WG until Fascist Italy capitulates, I had to launch like a month or so b4 it would have ended), and so despite me going in SLOW they didn't finish Fascist Italy, instead concentrate too many troops around my naval invasion, to the point that Fascist Italy not only holds Sicily, but retakes some ♥♥♥♥ in the North)... when I did surrender them Fascist Italy was barely alive still, I had conquered most of the country, yet because it's their cores and they got so much warscore from the 150k casualties and the fighting I couldn't grab a single province from them, instead I only got one battleship and escorts..

I started a WG on fascist italy before the CW ended, but it's bugged. When the CW ends Fascist Italy goes back from default focus tree to Italy tree. The world tensions from the WG is STILL there, it STILL continues to go up (you now don't get all the tension all at once anymore, it goes up slowly), Italy STILL hates me from having a WG justification against them, BUT the war goal itself / justification disappears.

AND Fascist France joined the Axis again, despite me not justifying against them this time..

So now I have 4-5 options...

1) Start the WG justification against Italy with enough time for the WG to finish so I can declare war just before midnight, before Commie Italy surrenders, and then kill them (although I hope this doesn't result in some ♥♥♥♥ peace deal where they get all the land again, and then my troops being exiled instead of me continuing to occupy it).

2) Don't go for Italy this time, but go for France and pray that I can finish them before Germany gets involved (which would have been MUCH easier esp. with Savoy, if I could force them to put troops on the Italian-French border also).

3) Restart again and hope I can finish France WITHOUT ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Fascist France (or some other civil war) rising up yet again or at least get a WG justification against them and pray that it finishes before I finish France, so I can destroy them with their troops being all over the place & before they join the Axis...

4) OR (but I don't think that will work, hence 4 to 5 options, and I probably won't take this one) wait for Germany to attack Poland, and then do around Maginot and use the focus to get a WG on france and hopefully they will kick them out of the faction... but they probably won't.

I could also replay the France war and release a French puppet only in Alsace-Lorraine, hoping to kill Fascist France BEFORE Germany can land any troops (or sufficient troops) in either Dunkirk or down in Savoy. I think that's my best option, as much as it sucks, and that will also mean I probably won't have time to get an Italy war goal b4 their civil war ends (hence 30ish days, instead of 150-160, because "major war").


THAT is the "hard" part (or that's just me being VERY unlucky) about playing Carlist Spain.

Basically my goal was to get the One King, 2 Crowns achievement, and once I got it make a back up of the save (so I can later continue normally as Carlist Spain) and RELEASE France (but not as a puppet) + hit "Play As". Then essentially uno reverse Spain and conquer it as France + use the focus to core Spain (unfortunately & despite being also a Bourbon, you can't do it with either Alfonso or with Javier - you need the latter for the achievement, I think, as he's the Carlist candidate).

I played on non historical focuses, because I was hoping Portugal would go down the Monarchist tree and conquer/puppet Brazil, so I could get that after ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up Portugal. However I was very unlucky and in each run I played Portugal started turning Communist. In my 2nd run I had even worse luck, because Germany decided to oppose Hitler, and that focus + the ensuing civil war was enough to bring world tension over 25%, so Britain guaranteed France a couple of days before my war goal finished, and I'm simply not strong enough to defeat France when Britain is also attacking, bombing and naval invading, so I had to restart...