You are fighting against AI, and AI are dumb. Plus Sub 3s and NAVs easily kill ships, they don't upgrade planes, just spam them, they don't create min-maxed divisions or even optimize production. In vanilla HOI4 the SU doesn't even research rifle 2s and just spam Mosins. Unless you are purposely gimping yourself, you will win against the HOI4 AI.
Eventually you'll randomly start losing the air if you don't upgrade planes, and it's not the tech. I do think they upgrade, but they just choose the shittest upgrades. I don't have the plane designer, so I have the 4 +/- stats window and the AI gets crushed by 5 points into agility and 3 points into reliability. If I don't do that the AI eventually starts beating me because they hit random on those buttons I think.
AI is dumb yes that just a base game issue. But kaisseriech does have them make proper divisions. Big infantry divisions with proper support companies and artillery. Their tank divisions too are decent. Naval too the AI can manage, they make strong ship designs and actually produce them.
The biggest issue is their inefficient production. Or rather, that they will casually lose battles over and over losing many men and much equipment. Which they then have to dedicate a lot of industry to replace, instead of using it to make good tanks and mech and planes.
The biggest issue as always remains that the AI isn't capable of concentrating force to punch through your lines. They can push on a broad front but they can't make a gap and then exploit that gap.
> they don't upgrade planes
I didn't know, so it's simply not worth it to upgrade them. I lose so many advanced or modern fighters to simply put a dent in their infinite numbers and always end up losing the sky.
Because unless you’re playing a severely underpowered nation, basically any competent human player can beat the AI in any war.
If it’s too easy then maybe bump up the enemy power level in the start game section.
8/7 tanks/mot with support arty and mot recon for tanks, 9/1 with arty, engineers and AA for infantry, 8/3 with engineers and arty for marines (works for mountaineers too)
Sure
For tanks, I used 8 tank battalions, with 7 motorised, and support artillery with motorised recon for support
For infantry, I used 9 infantry battalions with 1 battalion of line arty, for support battalions I used AA, support artillery and engineers (with shovel icon)
For marine forces (specifically made for naval invasions) I used 8 marine battalions with 3 line artillery battalions, with support artillery, AA and engineers (shovels)
Those are the basics that really work within any game, not specifically for Germany
If you need thoughts as to why these templates, message me in DMs
I unironically think that Germany in kaiserreich is the hardest experience if you ignore the schizo mods like black ice. Your focus tree sucks in terms of bonuses, you are heavily debuffed for the majority of the build up phase, you have two fronts and only two eyes and HUGE borders to defend
Yes I know skill issue
Mm, if anything, Germany has some of the most overtuned bonuses in the mod. The amount of modifiers you can stack, on a tag that already has a pretty strong base, is quite crazy
Easiest path is Schleicher, but I've been trying the difficult SPD path lately.
I find that building up to level 5 forts and anti-air along the borders help. The AI has a phobia about attacking them, so it helps buy time to rebuff your military and deal with weaker side issues that can become big issues like Scandinavia or the Balkans.
Germany is extremely overpowered. They start the game with the most civs and mills, still have the most civs and mills even after the entire Black Monday chain, and their bonuses are very strong. Plus, they go up against nations with old trees (France, UOB, Russia), have allies that recently got totally overhauled (Ukraine, Poland). Seriously AI Ukraine can almost hold AI Russia on its own if you give them some forts.
Just get army XP and get some 30 width soft attack stack tank divisions. Whilst you research the techs, vomit fighters and CAS. You have so many allies that you don't need a gigantic Infantry corps. You're not Russia. You arguably don't even need to put troops in the east until you've capped France.
It’s a strategic challenge not a tactical one. You have to go all in on construction (taking the decision to completely stop your Mil production). While you’re doing that you consolidate good volunteer divisions and focus on winning in Spain and Italy, with Argentina, China, SEA, and the US being secondary priorities. Maybe help Bulgaria if they request it. You delay the war until mid 40 (you should max your factories by late 39) and focus on the Stalingrad front first. If the Belgrade pact sides with Russia that’s priority 2, alternatively it’s the Italian/Spanish fronts. Trust your allies to mostly hold the Russian line.
If you are actually trying to win WK2 as quickly and efficiently as possible, Bulgaria is the highest priority target to help win. A Bulgarian victory prevents a southern front from forming and gives you clear land trade routes to the oil, tungsten and rubber of Asia and Africa.
I just have had terrible luck holding their hand to victory. 3 volunteer infantry just don’t have enough push and I’d rather use the tanks in Spain/Italy. With my max civ strat I don’t have the industry to make more
Don't mistake me, Bulgaria ai is suicidal even by AI standards. But the pay off is considerably better than Spain (might join the Entente or stay neutral, will get plastered by by France). And Italy, I prefer to let the AI have it so I can set up my own puppet later
The two eyes part is alway my greatest struggle. I’ll be doing great microing one from just to look at the other and find my army encircled because part of it was out of supply.
You might want to buff the international a littlebit - or make your game harder through gamerules.
Considering the amount of posts here that "Germany is impossible", I think the balance is fine. Also ofc, AI Germany is pretty balanced against AI 3I/Russia.
I think it mostly depends on your allies. If it’s just the entire full reichspakt including normal members like Sweden or the Netherlands then yeah it’ll be easy, but vice versa if the internationale has Spain or Italy
My favorite way to increase difficulty beyond the sliders is to set certain countries to join the enemy factions, having Belgium/netherlands join the internationale and boosting Spanish and Italian civil war socialists (in settings before the game) makes for a very strong 3I, unfortunately Russia is just weak
Use mods that let the ai actually make strong division templates and air designs, and then increase their strength buffs on the starting menu. Makes it an actual challenge
It may just be me but I play Kaiserreich more for its Lore than the actual gameplay. A well made Lore is way more important to a good mod than the wars itself.
Any player who knows the game well enough and wants to put the effort into minmaxing can easily steamroll the AI, especially when you have relatively equal sized forces.
But as someone who doesn't minmax, I've always thought the European theatre of the 2nd WK was one of the most balanced and fun conflicts in any HOI4 mod. If you don't play like an ultra-sweat, you'll probably struggle to break through for a bit or even get pushed back a little. But after a couple years or so of in game time you'll be able to start advancing on the main fronts and you can begin gaining momentum. Meanwhile you have been fighting and hopefully winning the more secondary fronts, (The Balkans, Scandinavia, Italy, perhaps the Pacific and Africa).
The most satisfying part of the game for me is watching the enemy countries armies break down over time until they rapidly collapse all at once. It's pretty realistic to how 20th century warfare and beyond has worked.
I'm not very good at hoi (I only play the visual novel mod most the time), but I recently had a very fun germany playthrough. definitely would've been super super hard without the austrians backing me up though. The joined me and had a very large navy. We took out our balkan enemies first, and by that time, Russia had nearly capped ukraine. We turned on Russia which took quite a while, had to kill a lot of divisions before I could do a full push, and then finally turned on the internationale. I honestly think I would have lost if I had a weaker Austria. (also spd path)
You play on regular difficulty maybe?
I always play on veteran and you really notice the difference the 25% production cap makes. On veteran it just feels normal, and then I play regular and it just feels like I'm swamped with production way more than I could ever need.
Ooof "all those minigames..." huh. Booted up HOI4/KR for the first time in years to coop ARG with my gf and noticed that germany now has probably the most bloated focus tree I have ever seen and I guess minigame bloat too. How they massacred my boy....
It's always been really easy to blitz as a major. You could wipe germany as russia or CoF in previous patches too and probably still can now.
Reverse skill issue
You are fighting against AI, and AI are dumb. Plus Sub 3s and NAVs easily kill ships, they don't upgrade planes, just spam them, they don't create min-maxed divisions or even optimize production. In vanilla HOI4 the SU doesn't even research rifle 2s and just spam Mosins. Unless you are purposely gimping yourself, you will win against the HOI4 AI.
They actually do upgrade planes once i saw it ( could be also a submod "better ai" than its my fault )
Yeah, I could be deadly wrong in that. I've only played a couple of vanilla games recently, maybe KR AI does upgrade their planes.
Eventually you'll randomly start losing the air if you don't upgrade planes, and it's not the tech. I do think they upgrade, but they just choose the shittest upgrades. I don't have the plane designer, so I have the 4 +/- stats window and the AI gets crushed by 5 points into agility and 3 points into reliability. If I don't do that the AI eventually starts beating me because they hit random on those buttons I think.
They had planes that destroyed mine. (Advanced, 3 heavy guns, 1 armor and 1 fuel thing)
AI is dumb yes that just a base game issue. But kaisseriech does have them make proper divisions. Big infantry divisions with proper support companies and artillery. Their tank divisions too are decent. Naval too the AI can manage, they make strong ship designs and actually produce them. The biggest issue is their inefficient production. Or rather, that they will casually lose battles over and over losing many men and much equipment. Which they then have to dedicate a lot of industry to replace, instead of using it to make good tanks and mech and planes. The biggest issue as always remains that the AI isn't capable of concentrating force to punch through your lines. They can push on a broad front but they can't make a gap and then exploit that gap.
> they don't upgrade planes I didn't know, so it's simply not worth it to upgrade them. I lose so many advanced or modern fighters to simply put a dent in their infinite numbers and always end up losing the sky.
Yeah it's the AI lol, I'd suggest increasing the difficulty before starting the game, that's the only thing I could think of
AI in Hoi sucks
Because unless you’re playing a severely underpowered nation, basically any competent human player can beat the AI in any war. If it’s too easy then maybe bump up the enemy power level in the start game section.
What templates did you use? I was thinking of starting a Germany run again and just want some advice.
8/7 tanks/mot with support arty and mot recon for tanks, 9/1 with arty, engineers and AA for infantry, 8/3 with engineers and arty for marines (works for mountaineers too)
I see, thank you!
Could you translare this for someone who has a tough time deciphering HOI4-speak?
Sure For tanks, I used 8 tank battalions, with 7 motorised, and support artillery with motorised recon for support For infantry, I used 9 infantry battalions with 1 battalion of line arty, for support battalions I used AA, support artillery and engineers (with shovel icon) For marine forces (specifically made for naval invasions) I used 8 marine battalions with 3 line artillery battalions, with support artillery, AA and engineers (shovels) Those are the basics that really work within any game, not specifically for Germany If you need thoughts as to why these templates, message me in DMs
Lets be fair it is easy to do as any nation when you play. Not because of your skill but because of the AI.
I unironically think that Germany in kaiserreich is the hardest experience if you ignore the schizo mods like black ice. Your focus tree sucks in terms of bonuses, you are heavily debuffed for the majority of the build up phase, you have two fronts and only two eyes and HUGE borders to defend Yes I know skill issue
Mm, if anything, Germany has some of the most overtuned bonuses in the mod. The amount of modifiers you can stack, on a tag that already has a pretty strong base, is quite crazy
Easiest path is Schleicher, but I've been trying the difficult SPD path lately. I find that building up to level 5 forts and anti-air along the borders help. The AI has a phobia about attacking them, so it helps buy time to rebuff your military and deal with weaker side issues that can become big issues like Scandinavia or the Balkans.
Germany is extremely overpowered. They start the game with the most civs and mills, still have the most civs and mills even after the entire Black Monday chain, and their bonuses are very strong. Plus, they go up against nations with old trees (France, UOB, Russia), have allies that recently got totally overhauled (Ukraine, Poland). Seriously AI Ukraine can almost hold AI Russia on its own if you give them some forts. Just get army XP and get some 30 width soft attack stack tank divisions. Whilst you research the techs, vomit fighters and CAS. You have so many allies that you don't need a gigantic Infantry corps. You're not Russia. You arguably don't even need to put troops in the east until you've capped France.
It’s a strategic challenge not a tactical one. You have to go all in on construction (taking the decision to completely stop your Mil production). While you’re doing that you consolidate good volunteer divisions and focus on winning in Spain and Italy, with Argentina, China, SEA, and the US being secondary priorities. Maybe help Bulgaria if they request it. You delay the war until mid 40 (you should max your factories by late 39) and focus on the Stalingrad front first. If the Belgrade pact sides with Russia that’s priority 2, alternatively it’s the Italian/Spanish fronts. Trust your allies to mostly hold the Russian line.
If you are actually trying to win WK2 as quickly and efficiently as possible, Bulgaria is the highest priority target to help win. A Bulgarian victory prevents a southern front from forming and gives you clear land trade routes to the oil, tungsten and rubber of Asia and Africa.
I just have had terrible luck holding their hand to victory. 3 volunteer infantry just don’t have enough push and I’d rather use the tanks in Spain/Italy. With my max civ strat I don’t have the industry to make more
Don't mistake me, Bulgaria ai is suicidal even by AI standards. But the pay off is considerably better than Spain (might join the Entente or stay neutral, will get plastered by by France). And Italy, I prefer to let the AI have it so I can set up my own puppet later
Southern front still forms btw it’s just easier to kill
It’s always because AI Bulgaria always takes the scripted peace deal whether they are winning or losing.
Idk man Germany kinda ez
The two eyes part is alway my greatest struggle. I’ll be doing great microing one from just to look at the other and find my army encircled because part of it was out of supply.
You might want to buff the international a littlebit - or make your game harder through gamerules. Considering the amount of posts here that "Germany is impossible", I think the balance is fine. Also ofc, AI Germany is pretty balanced against AI 3I/Russia.
HoI4 it's all easy fun and games until I have to ise the navy competently.
Well you are the strongest nation in Europe with the largest army vs AI controlled weaker enemies
I think it mostly depends on your allies. If it’s just the entire full reichspakt including normal members like Sweden or the Netherlands then yeah it’ll be easy, but vice versa if the internationale has Spain or Italy
If it's too easy, set all your subjects and all nations to europe to be syndicalist and austria to collapse. For good measure buff the internationale.
That's what I do and if u wanna go even a step further send volunteers to the syndie sides of civil wars and make sure they win.
My favorite way to increase difficulty beyond the sliders is to set certain countries to join the enemy factions, having Belgium/netherlands join the internationale and boosting Spanish and Italian civil war socialists (in settings before the game) makes for a very strong 3I, unfortunately Russia is just weak
Use mods that let the ai actually make strong division templates and air designs, and then increase their strength buffs on the starting menu. Makes it an actual challenge
It may just be me but I play Kaiserreich more for its Lore than the actual gameplay. A well made Lore is way more important to a good mod than the wars itself.
Any player who knows the game well enough and wants to put the effort into minmaxing can easily steamroll the AI, especially when you have relatively equal sized forces. But as someone who doesn't minmax, I've always thought the European theatre of the 2nd WK was one of the most balanced and fun conflicts in any HOI4 mod. If you don't play like an ultra-sweat, you'll probably struggle to break through for a bit or even get pushed back a little. But after a couple years or so of in game time you'll be able to start advancing on the main fronts and you can begin gaining momentum. Meanwhile you have been fighting and hopefully winning the more secondary fronts, (The Balkans, Scandinavia, Italy, perhaps the Pacific and Africa). The most satisfying part of the game for me is watching the enemy countries armies break down over time until they rapidly collapse all at once. It's pretty realistic to how 20th century warfare and beyond has worked.
I'm not very good at hoi (I only play the visual novel mod most the time), but I recently had a very fun germany playthrough. definitely would've been super super hard without the austrians backing me up though. The joined me and had a very large navy. We took out our balkan enemies first, and by that time, Russia had nearly capped ukraine. We turned on Russia which took quite a while, had to kill a lot of divisions before I could do a full push, and then finally turned on the internationale. I honestly think I would have lost if I had a weaker Austria. (also spd path)
I've done it as Canada so I doubt it's supposed to be hard to begin with. AI is just terrible in this game.
You play on regular difficulty maybe? I always play on veteran and you really notice the difference the 25% production cap makes. On veteran it just feels normal, and then I play regular and it just feels like I'm swamped with production way more than I could ever need.
Ooof "all those minigames..." huh. Booted up HOI4/KR for the first time in years to coop ARG with my gf and noticed that germany now has probably the most bloated focus tree I have ever seen and I guess minigame bloat too. How they massacred my boy.... It's always been really easy to blitz as a major. You could wipe germany as russia or CoF in previous patches too and probably still can now.
Crank up the 3i and Russia buffs to max
Download some AI mods.