Johnny, you're a maniac

I haven't played the HOI series for years but i may look into it again as it keeps on popping up in Steam.

Thanks Ajay! I did wind up nuking someone, though I don't remember who. It was not as satisfying as I had hoped. It had a nice animation and a bit of an explosion sound effect, but I was hoping there would be some sort of permanent mark on the map. I also remember that I nuked a capital city, and it seemed to have no effect on the war that was going on.

If you do pick up HOI again, I can highly recommend the "La Resistance" DLC - it's the one that adds espionage into the mix. It is a great addition and gives some interesting abilities.

As far as my latest run goes, I have attempted to invade the UK a few times and it's been far more difficult that I thought it would be. I think I'm getting there too late and the Brits have had a chance to fortify their island. On some of the runs, my forces have been split with only half of them winding up on the island due to British naval interference.

So I'm scrapping the game and starting over. Again I think I'm not getting through Poland and France fast enough to be able to hit Britain before she builds up a bit. So I'm focusing on the tightening up my strategy - I think I spent too much time building my civilian infrastructure before building military factories.

Started over and still can't crack the UK. This has been a much different run though. Hotspots of France kept popping up and I had to exterminate them. They gained a good foothold with the help of Britain and I had to once again wipe them out.
Meanwhile, Yugoslavia and Italy are going at it. I sent a couple of armies over there, but when the Spanish civil war started taking some of the French territory I won fair and square I had to come back and put my foot down. France is now Northern Africa.

Spain won the Spanish civil war, so I'll go and put them down now. I'll keep this run going. My general plan is to build up my navy a bit, and acquire some oil. That's a real bottleneck for me now. Then I'll turn my attention to the UK.

Good luck, a seaborne invasion of the British Isles must be a tough nut to crack. As Germany it may be difficult to build a navy of the size required?

Is it possible to use diversions? I mean, is it plausible to draw the Home Fleet off with some sort of feint, like say Greece or North Africa, and then launch Sea Lion while the cat is away?

I'll have to build my navy up considerably. I left it in port but it still got obliterated by the Brits. Wasn't expecting that quite frankly. Anyway, I'm down to very little in sea power, so I'm looking at the Middle East and wondering if I can get through Turkey to get myself some of that beautiful black gold. And while that is going on, I'm going to be working on building up my navy. Unfortunately, though, ships take a considerable amount of time. The solution of course is to build them in parallel, but that requires dockyards, so I'll have to go heavy on dockyard construction for a bit.

Meanwhile, Nationalist Spain has taken over the Iberian peninsula (minus Portugal, they still exist). Italy has pretty much wiped out Yugoslavia, and I am helping them take care of Greece as well. And when I had a few free minutes, I wound up taking Denmark.

For a brief moment, I was on top. We (The Axis) had conquered Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The Allies put some mighty efforts in and started invading from Northern France. They also pretty much conquered Italy. The final straw was when Stalin decided he wanted in. I thought I could handle it, but in the end the limited manpower available to Germany did me in. I think to be more successful I would have to be more aggressive earlier. When I failed to take out the UK I think I sealed my fate.

So needless to say, I've ended that game. I'll pick a new country and try from that perspective. There is an achievement I may try for first - I've actually already accomplished it but since I wasn't playing Ironman, it didn't count. It's called "True Blitzkrieg" and it requires you to conquer both Poland and France before Jan 1 1940.

I went ahead and got the "True Blitzkrieg" achievement - I managed to conquer both Poland and France by Oct '39, well in advance of my Jan. 1 '40 deadline for the achievement.

Along the way I also picked up "Play It, Sam," for having a spy network over 50% in Casablanca and "Transport Tycoon" for having over 1,000 convoys.

Congrats on the ironman achievements! That's the only way to play for me. The fact that every decision is final adds weight to each one. I love that

Last night I was on Steam having a look around after deciding not to fire up EUIV at this time. Back when HOI 4 was released I said it would be certain buy, day of release, which as I recall was June 6th (2016?). That didn't happen as the early word put me off. So I added this to my wishlist but didn't pull the trigger. Anyone playing this?

I'm specifically looking for DLC opinions. JCs thread here convinced me the campaign is is good shape, or reasonably so anyway. What I'm hoping for is a player familiar with all the DLC to give a run down of which they consider essential, and which are less so. Helpful, but not necessary, are assessments of the campaign play, so feel free to embelish (if anyone actually replies!)

I think it's time to give this a go, get my Paradox on, but I want to have an idea of how to approach the DLC. With my experience in both Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis I am a proponent of their games, but an opponent of their DLC policy, so hoping to sort that if I can.

I really tried hard to get into HOI 4 back when I bought it a couple of years ago but I just got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of micromanagement involved. I also found the gameplay to be a bit bland? I'm not ruling out giving it another shot but I'm afraid this is simply a case of a game not ticking the right boxes for me .

Understood PM, and yeah, I think you and I have discussed it before. Maybe earlier in this thread? Paradox's formula isn't for everyone. It suits me very well however, with lots of time sunk in to Crusader Kings and EU IV. Matter of fact EU IV remains my most-played Steam game of all time, and that's seventeen years!

Micromanaging is a big part of the appeal for me, but that's not for everyone. What really appeals to me is how intricately the mechanics are interwoven, which I've talked about before but I'll save you the blabbering.

You did like Imperator though if I recall, right?

I did enjoy it even though it fell way short of what it should have been. I think what really carried me through that game was my long established interest in Roman history.

Yes, that sure helps doesn't it?

I put it on the wishlist, and I'll keep an eye out for a sale. I was hoping at least one member here could give me some insight in to the DLC, but there ya go. When I was looking to get back in to EUIV a couple years ago I found a great guide on the net, with each DLC listed, discussed and included an 'is it worth it?' assessment. Very useful.

So with no replies here I had a look and found this

https://www.wargamer.com/hearts-of-iron-4/dlc