Unlike other Paradox games where the larger army usually means victory, Hearts of Iron IV is much more complex. Although it can be successfully played by massing infantry, at least in singleplayer, a few tricks will make your singleplayer experience easier and also teach you some basics of the game.

Since you've finished the tutorial you already know how to move and produce units and how factories work, but the game has a lot more mechanics than that, I will not even scratch the surface here, I will only teach you what you need to know for an easy singleplayer victory.

The game is easy to learn and hard to master, once you get to know how divisions work in-depth, how supply lines work, and how air and sea combat works as well, you will discover a whole new game that's especially fun in multiplayer. That being said, let's learn how to beat the singelplayer.

The AI plays poorly and doesn't do most of the mentioned things, giving you a huge advantage.

This may sound like a joke but it isn't. Unless you're playing Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain or Russia. As soon as the game starts, select your whole army and delete everything except for one infantry division. If you play with nations that have colonies such as France or UK check for troops in colonies too. Once you are left with only one division, assign it to a general and start training it.

To quickly do this, select your whole army then hold SHIFT and click on the unit you don't want to disband. Keep the infantry division that has as many battalions as possible, if you don't know what a battalion is you'll find out in the Division Designer section.

This gives you army experience. You will need army experience to costumize your divisions. You gain army experience based on how much of your army is currently training, if you only have 1 division that is training basically 100% of your army is currently training so you get a lot of army experience.

You don't lose manpower or equipment, when you disband your divisions their manpower returns to the manpower pool and their equipment to the equipment section.

You don't need to do this with Germany because you need troops in the field for focus trees, with Italy you can gain army experience from the war with Ethiopia and with Spain from the civil war. And with Japan and Russia you have so many starting troops that it's not worth it. Instead, select the troops youre currently not using for in fights and train them for army experience.

It's worth noting that training units costs you some equipment, how much equipment costs depends on how many units are training. With only 1 unit training you won't even notice it.

Technically it's not an exploit because the devs know about this and they allow it, but it's called an exploit because it makes no sense in real life.

Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, France, US, Russia and Poland have their own focus trees. If you have Together for Victory DLC: Canada, South Africa, British Raj, Australia and New Zeeland will also have their own focus trees. If you have Death of Dishonor DLC: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania will also have their own focus trees.

But every other nation has a generic focus tree. This is what to pick in a generic focus tree:

- The red ones are the picks if you want to go Democratic or stay Neutral.
- The brown ones are the extra picks if you want to go Fascist or Communist.

Start with the Political Effort focus for early Political Power. If you want to go Fascist/Commie go to Nationalism / Internationalism focus so you can get an early Fascist / Communist influence. If you don't, follow the industrial path right away until you unlock another Research Slot. The research that other one that gives you 2 extra civillian factories. Then complete the military factories focus trees. Then if you're fascist or communist follow the politica focus trees until Ideological Fanaticism. If now, start with the military focus tree right away, the equipment ones reduce the time you need to research infantry equipment and the land doctrine ones reduce the research time for land doctrines.

- Militarism and Military Youth are overpowered since they increase you military manpower by +5.00% and then by +2.00%, that's huge, but you can only get them if you are fascist.

- If your country isn't landlocked take a Naval Effort focus too as it gives you 3 Dockyards.

- Almost all focus unlocks take 70 days. Civilian factories are more important early on because they help you build other factories faster.

Research is basically buffs for your nation. Different nations start with different techs already unlocked but the difference is so small you won't even notice.

- Start researching from 1 to 8.
- The red ones are single picks.
- The brown ones are different picks of equal importance, the pick order is optional.
(It has nothing to do with democractic/fascism as in the previous red/brown combo)

- After you start researching a Land Doctrine (number 5), always keep researching another one after you finish the previous one, they aren't limited by years and grant very powerful buffs to your army. You'll want to have as many Land Doctrines researched as possible before the war beings.

- This plans assumes you start with a nation with 3 research slots, in case you start with a nation with 4 research slots or one that has any of the first 3 reseraches already unlocked, research a Land Doctrine on the 4th slot then proceed as usual. (unless you're France, until you get rid of the national spirit from the focus tree, don't research Land Doctrine)

General guidelines after you finish the plan above:

- Always be up to date in Electronics and Industrial researches.

- Concentrated Industry is almost always better.

- Try to not research ahead of time, especially more than 6 months ahead of time.

- 50% research bonus may make ahead of time research worth it, especially for important equipment models such as weapons, planes, ships or tanks.

- Having a better decryption than another country's encryption allows you to see the composition of their troops and their current focus tree. They are more useful in multiplayer and kind of useless in singleplayer.

- I didn't mention anything about Naval, Air and Tank research because they are not needed for the purpose of this guide, you can beat the AI with infantry alone, but they are very important in multiplayer.

- The radio is very useful in multiplayer but kinda worthless in singleplayer. Except for the first research that gives +5% reinforce rate.

- Most researches take over 100 days.

Land Doctrines:

Mobile Warfare
-> Focus on speed and maneuver to cut off and disorganize enemy forces.
-> This is a great focus is you want to use many vehicles.
-> Your army will have a lot of speed and organization.
-> Organization is useful so your divisions will keep fighting.
-> When you reach the end of this tree you get a +2.00% then +3.00% recruitable manpower. (OP)

Superior Firepower
-> Focus on doing damage, hard attack and soft attack.
-> One of the most used focuses in multiplayer.
-> Best used with artilery in your division template.

Grand Battleplan
-> Offensive and defensive bonuses when you make plans with your generals.
-> You get some organization, some breakthrough, some soft attack, some defense.
-> Unique increased max entrenchment, useful when defending and have an entrenchment company in your division. (For example with the 1936 equpment and this focus you get 39% defensive bonus, with the 1939 equipemnt you get 50% defensive bonus).
-> Unique up to +60% max planing. This means that after you make a plan with your army, if you wait a couple of days, as soon as you activate the plan your army will have an offensive bonus for a short time. Normally this is only +50%, but with this focus you can make it +110%.
-> If you don't make plans with your generals a lot or tend to play flexible don't use this focus.

Mass Assault
-> Bonuses for out of supply or attirition situations. (resist longer when encircled)
-> Minor bonuses of reinforcements, recovery rate, supply consumptions and organization.
-> An OP +5.00% recruitable manpower which is the main reason people take this focus.
-> Larger combat width so you can make larger divisions.
-> A very short focus, which is not a good thing because you get to the end of it fast.

Mobile Warfare is when you want to outmanuver the enemy and also has that juicy +2.00% then +3.00% at the end. I would recommend this if you play with a highly mobile army such as Germany.

Superior firepower is the most useful focus in 90% of the situations. But it doesn't give you that +5.00 manpower like Mobile Warfare or Mass Assault.

Grand Battleplan is intereting and powerful if done right but rather rigid and if you don't use generals well you have basically little to nothing. I don't like this one because even if you use the generals right I'm still sure that the Superior firepower one is more useful. I would recommend this if you know what you're doing and have everything prepared so you won't have a new surprise front. The strength of this focus is on preparation.

Mass Assault is basically the Soviet Union in World War II, lots of troops that are despendable and don't need much care, don't need that much supplies and can survive longer without them, and you get that +5.00% really fast but the military focus also ends really fast. I would only recommend this if you play with a minor nation with small manpower and you desperately need manpower.

Once you reach 150 Political Power you can hire a minister. Each country has different types of ministers to pick from. If you don't find the mentioned minister for the country you picked skip the step.

The best way to start is to hire the Silent Workhouse since he gives you +0.30 more political power if you have any. And then the Backroom Backstaber since he gives you +0.10 more political power. Be careful with the Backroom Backstaber though as he gives you Ideology Drift Defense which is not good if you want to change your ideology. If you want to change your ideology hire the Backroom Backstaber only after you've changed your ideology.


You can also check if your country has Old Guards in Navy and Aviation. They give you +0.20 more political power. However, they are rare. I only know of Czechoslovakia who has an Air Old Guard and Poland who has a Navy Old Guard. If you have both an Old Guard and a Backroom Backstaber, hire the Old Guard first.


After you got all extra Political Power politicians you should now hire politicians that influence facist / communist / democratic ideology if you want to change ideology.

Hire a Military Theorist now. He gives you more army experience. Every contry has a military theorist.


Now Industrial Concerns. This allows you to research industry faster.


Now start with the army, first the Chief of Army then Military High Command. After that at least for the purpose of the singleplayer it becomes less important, you can pick the Infantry Equipment research reduction then the tanks, navy and air.


I left this at the end because it's the most important yet the most ignored law by new players. It is even more important than Silent Workhouse - Economy Law.

It makes wonders for your industry. It increases your construction speed by +20% and descreases the consumer goods, less consumer goods means more Civillian Factories will work in building new factories. By far the most important law. You will want to reach War Economy as soon as possible.

However, there's a catch. Unless you're communist or facist you will need: 5% World Tention for Early Mobilizaiton, 15% World Tension for Partial Mobilization and being at war for War Mobilization. In some singleplayer games, if you're lucky the world tension will reach 6% after a few 70 days or so, keep your political power so you can pick Early Mobilization if it happens, if it doesn't continue as usual. Unless you're playing Japan, at the end of 1937, Japan will declare war on China which will increase World Tension over 15% allowing you to pick Partial Mobilization.

If you are fascist or communist you don't need world tension to pick Partial Mobilization, unless you already have it this should be your first pick. And you need 15% world tension for War Mobilization.


Also, whenever you're out of manpower you can increase the Consciption Law (top left) for more manpower. The quality of your units doesn't change based on the conscription law.

- With nations such as China you will want the hire army earlier because you start the war faster.

- The more world tension, the less wargoal justification time required.

- Territorial claims make justifications faster.

- Democracies can’t justify war against countries that didn't increased world tension.

- Justify war for 1 single state as it takes less time, you can still take the whole country in the peace treaty anyway.

- The amount of volunteers you can send depends on the number of divisions you have.

- Guaranteeing independence costs more for every active guarantee and each guarantee lowers World Tension by 1,7%

- If a nation surrenders without being in a faction it doesn’t produce resistance and the peace treaty will begin.

- A faction surrenders when all its major members surrender. Hover over surrender bar in the war screen for details.

- Faction members that haven't been invaded cannot be annexed or affected by the peace treaty. They will end up out of faction, at peace and with a peace treaty with the victor.

- Field Marshals have no limit on how many divisions they can control, Generals have a limit of 24 units but they level up 8 times faster and have better traits.

- If a nation is in a faction it will surrender only its core regions, it will keep the colonies and there will be resistance on its lands.

- There are 2 type of regional control: core territories where you get to enjoy the manpower from the population and 100% of factories slots, and colonies where you don't get more manpower from the population and have only 50% of the normal factory slots for that region. Click on a territory and hover over the flag to see whether it's a core or a colony territory.

Your Civillian Factories are the builders and what you use for trade when you buy resources from other nations. The more civillian factories you have the faster you build. I usually build until I have 8 - 11 Civillian Factories then I start building Military Factories. With extra Civilian Factories from focus tree and economic laws I will end up with over 15 Civillian Factories. When I play with small nations with limited factories slots I usually make less Civillian Factories before I start making Military Factories.
When it comes to production I usually start with a few Weapons and a bit less Infantry Equipment then a lot of Artilery. If I notice I don't have enough weapons or not as much as I need to train the troops I want I will add more Weapons / Infantry Equipment factories. It's all about having a nice balance.

Notice the White/Red line in Production picture, that's Production Efficency. When you make a new producation line the production efficency starts at 10% and gardually increases over time. The more Production Efficency you have for an item line the more is produced for the same number of factories.

When you switch to a different level of the same equipment, such as Infantry Weapons I to Infantry Weapons II, your efficiency is cut in half.

If you are missing some resources needed for production the item will still be produced but slower.
This shows how much equipment you have for each item. Everything that happens in production goes here. When you train new troops part of what is here goes in the hand of those new troops.
What items and how much a division needs is mentioned in the Division Design.

Go to the production section and select the naval icon.

Pick what type of navy you want, assign as many Dockyards as you want (the more Dockyards the faster it builds) and then select where you want to build the navy. Convoys don't need a specific building location because they are not battle ships but used for transporting units and resources.

If everything so far only gave you an advantage over the AI, this will make you wipe the floor with the AI because it's one of the most important mechanics of the game yet one the AI doesn't care about. Almost as if the devs wanted this to be a game simple in singleplayer yet complex in multiplayer.

Here is where you spend all that army experience you've been farming so far.

A Division (1 unit on the map) is made of regiments (columns) that are made of battalions. Regiments don't affect the game mechanics at all, but it's nice to know what a regiment is.

You can experiment with Division Designer and learn from the internet a lot, but for the purpose of winning World War II in singleplayer you only need to use 2 infantry divisions: A 7 - 2 offensive one.
And a 10 defensive one for France and China in the early stages of the war.
With these divisions your units will be superior to the AI's units.

And if you want to use tanks try this division of 6 Medium Tanks and 4 Vehicles.

After you make your new divisions (the division you change should be the same division type as that only unit in the field you used to farm army experience, so that that division will change too) stop the training and start recruiting units of this division. Make sure you don't do this within a few months before the war starts because you won't be able to train as many divisions as you want right away.

General Guidelines if you want to make your own divisions:
- You can rename, duplicate and change equipment options of a division for free.
- You can mark divisions as Reserve, Regular or Elite - it affects the order they get their equipment.
- Adding a battalion costs 5 army experience. Adding a support brigade costs 10 army experience.
- A new type of unit in a division costs 25 army experience, the next ones cost 5 army experience.
- Support brigades have no effect on width or speed. Tanks need infantry to counter low organization.
- Recon and Engineer are worth in almost every division. Anti-air is useless in both support and front.
- The organization of the division is the average of the organization of all its battalions.
- The speed of your division is the speed of the slowest battalion.
- Your division should always have a Combat Width of 20, 10 or 40. (remember the magic numbers)

1) What are some good basic divisions template?
Some good divisions are:
- 20 width 10 infantry divisions for defense (basic for defense)
- 20 width 7/2 infantry/artillery divisions for attack (basic for attack)
- 20 width 6/2/1 infantry/artillery/light tank divisions for attack
- 40 width 20 infantry divisions are never good. They don't have the damage to defeat enemies on the attack and have lower organization than 2 divisions of 20 width 10 infantry meaning they will fall faster when defeated. They have a huge defense, that is never needed, the 20 width 10 infantry already have a decent defense, any hit below that huge defense mark still deals 10% damage.
- 40 width 14/4 infantry/artillery for attack
- 40 width 13/4/2 infantry/artillery/anti-tank divisions for attack
- 40 width 13/4/1 infantry/artillery/heavy tank divisions aka "Space Marines" (be careful, they are banned in multiplayer!)
- Best support are recon, artillery and trenches.
As for tank divisions:
- 20 width 6/4 tanks/motorized divisions for attack (can be either light, medium or heavy)
- 40 width 15/5 tanks/motorized division for attack (can be either light, medium or heavy)
- Lighter tanks are faster and cheaper to produce but also have less armor and less damage.
- If the enemy division's piercing stat is higher than the tank division's armor stats, then the armor is pierced and the tank divisions take the full damage of the enemy division, if the armor is not pierced then they only take half the damage of the enemy division.

2) What are some good support companies?
Recon is very important and generally used on all divisions. Recon determines the probability to pick better tactics which will help you win more battles more easily.

Recon, Trenches and Artillery support units are good for every infantry template.

3) How important is air supremacy? Is it better to counter their fighters with Anti-Air support and Anti-Air buildings or make fighters of my own?
Air superiority is very important because it gives the enemy land units a defense and breakthrough penalty and allows you to to deploy air support to the region without risk of being shot down.

Anti-Air buildings are a counter to strategic bombing, therefore bombers.
Each level of Anti-Air building reduces bombing effectiveness in the province by 12%, up to a maximum of 60%.

Anti-Air battalions or support units are a counter to fighters and grant some extra piercing.
Counter fighters are better than AA battalions since you can use the AA battaions space for something else in the division template, ideally artillery.

As for whether you should make Anti-Air Buildings or try to get Air Superiority, the answer is situational of whether the frontline is static or dynamic, I prefer to try both but with an ephasis on Air Superiority, it's never bad to invest in fighters.

4) Are Light Tanks the best at pushing the enemy?
The amount and type of damage that you take depends on the percentage of the hardness of your division, that can range from 0% to 100%. Infantry have 0% hardness, Motorized have 10% hardness, light tanks have 80% hardness and medium tanks have 90% hardness.

A division of 6 Light Tanks and 4 Motorized has 52% Hardness. If your armor > the piercing of your opponent, then it halves both the number of soft and hard attacks. A 1936 Light Tank has 15 armor while a 1936 medium tank has 60 armor, your division's armor is equal to 30% of the highest armor in the division plus 70% of the average armor in the division.

A 10 INF division has 4 piercing and a 7 INF 2 ART division has 4.5 piercing, so your 15 armor light tank divisions will do well against them. However, with Anti-Tank support unit a 10 INF will get 20 piercing so your 15 armor light tank divisions won't get the armor protection and take the full damage.

So if you fight 10 INF or 7 INF 2 ART divisions without Anti-Tank your Light Tanks will beat them easily. But if you go against armored divisions or infantry with Anti-Tank there will be a huge difference between the performance of Light tanks and Medium or Heavy Tanks.

A Light Tank division whose armor is pierced is not the same thing as a regular infantry division when attacking. A 6 LT2 4 MOT division had 112 HP and 30 organization, compared to a 10 INF division's 250 HP and 60 organization. Light Tank are good early game but you're definetly not going to conquer the world with them once you get past the early part of the game. Eventually you will encounter opposing divisions that can pierce you and a pierced tank division won't be able to win sustained battles even with their higher breakthrough because of their lower HP and organization.

5) What is the most important difference between light, medium and heavy tanks?
A 1936 Light Tank has 15 armor while a 1936 medium tank has 60 armor, this is very imporant when it comes to piercing. If the division you are fighting against can pierce your armor then nothing changes, but if they can't pierce your armor then it halves both the number of soft and hard attacks you take, basically you take half the normal damage you should take from that division.

6) What does command power do?
Command Power allows you to promote generals to field marshals. And if you have Waking the Tiger DLC (the 3rd one) you get to assign traits to generals using command power.

7) What are flying aces? what do they do?
Ace pilots give bonuses to the airwing they are attached to, so if you have an airwing of 500 the ace pilot's bonus is going to be very small, if you have 10 planes the bonus is going to be huge. Best to keep airwings in series of 100.

There are 3 type of aces: Good, Unique and Genius. Let's say you have a good fighter ace, that gives you a +3% Air Attack, +3% Speed and +5% Agility at 100 planes. If you only have 10 planes they get: +30% Air Attack, +30% Speed and +50% Agility, while this sounds great keep in mind that there are only 10 planes. At 500 planes you will get +0.6% Air Attack, +0.6 Speed and 0.25% Agility, not much, is it?

Every 24 hours in combat, there is a 0.9%, 0.4%, and 0.05% chance for a good, unique or genius ace. In the middle Air Doctrine called Battlefield Support you have to choose between "Formation Fighting" that gives more air superiority and "Fighter Ace Initiative" that gives a greater ace chance. It depends what you need, an ace will make your planes better against enemy planes but it's also a matter of luck whether you get an ace, while the air superiority will make your planes better as a whole for when you select the air superiority mission, it is more like the difference between playing is safe and taking a risk.

8) Is building infrastructure worth it?
Not more than military factories, civillian factories, radar, anti-air and in some cases fort.

What infastructure does:
- Increases resources in a region
- Makes building build fasters when built in that region.
- Increases the supply distribution, go bottom right and click on the supply map to see.

9) What is the radar doing?
A radar gives you more intelligence on enemy troops and ships in provinces within the Radar's coverage and a +25% bonus detection chance of enemy aircraft during a mission. Leveling up the radar won't increase the +25% bonus but will increase the range of the radar. Building multiple radars however will increase the +25% bonus.

10) How important is it to deal with lacking resources?
Lacking resources gives you a penalty in equipment production, you can look at the penalty yourself in the game and judge whether it's worth trading one more civillian factory to get full production or it's better to keep things that way. I don't consider it worth trading for if you are 3-4 units in negative, better to have 1 extra civillian factory than 4-5 resources on the plus side.

11) How can I get better generals?
Generals level up as their divisions battle other division, so the short answer is fight. Keep in mind that generals gain experience a lot faster than field marshals, so promoting every general to field marshal is a bad idea, only promote 1 general per frontline to field marshal.

12) The enemy has 2-3 divisions while I have 7-8 divisions and I keep losing.
Because they have 2-3 very good divisions and you have 6-7 very bad divisions. The division template matters hugely, make sure to have divisions of 10, 20 or 40 width, you can use 7 INF 2 ART for attack and 10 INF for defense divisions. Ideally, use artilery, recon and trenches as support companies, but if you can't afford that much support equipment use artilery for attacking and trenches for defending. Entrenchment and terrain matter hugely. Make sure to have them all trained to level 3 before the war starts, assign the best generals to the divisions that will do the most of the battle.

Micromanagement is key to defeat entrenched enemies unless you have a massive superiority in terms of division template quality, numbers and even air support. A few things to consider:

- A 7/2 is a good division for a minor nation early game to fight against other minors, but requires careful micro and support companies (at the very least, engineers and artillery support, recon also useful) along with concentrated pushes.

- Watch out for the terrain of the province you are attacking: mountains are bad for pushing (60% penalty) so avoid them unless there's no alternative, and be careful if you are crossing rivers (the bigger the river, the bigger the penalty). You get -60% attack for mountains, -60% for large rivers, -30% for hills, -30% for cities, -30% attack for small rivers, -20% for forests and -70% when naval invading. Occasional weather modifiers like mud or extreme cold/heat can also play a role.

- The usefulness of the 7/2 infantry divisions decays after 1939 and/or against majors (unless you have some serious combat micro skills). You want to upgrade them to 14/4 infantry divisions when possible and add Anti-Air support (it will allow you to pierce light tanks and negate most of the enemy CAS damage, if they have any). As a minor you rarely ever have the luxury of winning by just painting a frontline and clicking go.

- Try to do encirclements, but an encirclement doesn't necessarily have to be a big one, you can focus on making one small pocket at a time to practice until you learn when you can afford to go for a bigger (and more risky) one.

- Consider the combat width mechanics: when you attack 1 province from 1 province, the combat width is 80 (which is why the 7/2 is useful, it has 20 combat width and you can fit 4 into combat without "wasting" space). If you want to increase it, attack that province from a second province at the same time and you will add additional 40 combat width (you can fit 2 additional 7/2 in combat) and the enemy will get penalties for being attacked from several directions), and so on.

- When you start a combat, take your time, pause the game, click on the combat bubble and read the statistics, you will get useful information about offensive and defensive modifiers so you can see what are the main factors that are affecting you.

- If you are using 7/2 divisions and are on the offensive, you want to use Superior Firepower as your doctrine. I would recommend having at least the first 5 techs of the doctrine (unless you war is happening really early, then make do with that you got, but prioritize doctrine reasearch).

With patch 1.9 on 25th February 2020, a new game mechanic was added, that you will have whether you have DLC or not - ressistance on occupied territory. This includes colonies as well as territory that you took via a peace treaty but it isn't core territory. Any occupied territory that you don't have a core on is going to generate ressistance, regardless of whether they have been occupied or annexed in peace treaties.

It may seem complicated, but it's actually very simple, all you have to do is create a cavalry division with only 1 cavalry regiment and assign it to the occupied territory.


How does the new mechanic of ressistance and compliance work?

Every such state will grow in ressistance, you want to keep ressistance as low as possible because it will reduce the change for sabotage in that region as well as loss of men and equipment from your garrisoning troops. Worse, if ressistance in a state reaches over 90% you are at risk of open rebellion.

To keep ressistance low, you need to assign a garrison to those regions. Garrisoning is now different in 1.9, you don't need to physically train troops and manually assign them in that region like in previous versions. You just select what kind of division you want to garrion that region and the manpower and equipment will be automatically deducted from your stockpile.

The amount of garrison required for a state is picked automatically by the game based on the division template you assigned to garrison that state. So if you have a state with 3.57 the game is automatically using 4 divisions of the division template you assigned to keep that region in check. So the quantity of the divisions you need to use is never a problem as the game will automatically do that for you, the only question you have to ask yourself is what is the best garrison division template you can have?

The best infantry garrison unit is the horse. That's right, the Cavalry while obsolete on the frontline has its use in suppressing ressistance. The game will automatically use as many divisions as needed to suppress ressistance in an occupied region, so you don't need to bother figuring out how many divisions or how big should the divisions of a certain occupied region be. Just create a cavalry division with only 1 cavalry battalion, and the game will automatically use as many divisions as needed. So if a particular region needs 3 divisions, the game will automatically use 3 such divisions leading to a supprssion of 6 to keep the region in check.


The Military Police used to be useful back when you actually had to train troops to suppress ressistance and territories gained via peace treaty didn't create ressistance. But nowdays, Military Police has become obsolete. Only a cavalry division of 1 Military Police and 25 Cavalry battalions is more cost efficient than a cavalry division of 1 Cavalry battalion and even that is only in certain cases, so you might as well not want to bother with it.

You have 8 occupation laws, from Civillian Oversight to Harsh Quotas, the more strict the occupation law you choose the larger the garrison needed to enforce that stricter occupation law. Harsher laws will give you more military resources and factories from that state, but this comes at the cost of more garrison troops needed to keep ressistance under control.

But there is a way to get more military resources and factories from that state without having to use more garrison troops to keep ressistance in check, and that is called Compliance. By enabling a softer occupatin laws such as Civillian Oversight you can enable compliance to grow over time, giving you more resources, factories and manpower from the occupied state.

Colonies of France and England already start out the game with about 70% Compliance and therefore not much is needed to keep them in check. This new occupation mechanic gives you a choice:
A) Use harsher occupation laws for immediate benefits with much higher costs to suppress ressistance.
B) Use softer occupation laws for long-term benefits with low costs to suppress ressistance but also low taken resources and factories until the population grows compliance.

What are the best garrison division templates that you can have?
It's simple: A cavalry division with only 1 cavalry regiment.

Don't bother with support divisions:
Field Hospital - Useful in divisions because it saves some lives but here you only have 1 cavalry.
Military Police - Not cost efficient unless you use 25 cavalry battalions and only in certain cases.

The stats like attack or defense of the divisions don't matter at all. You are not fighting in the frontline, you are trying to keep a population compliant. For example artillery, it's useless, what are you going to do with artillery when keeping a population compliant? bomb them into submission?

The only stat that matters is suppression, and the cavalry has twice the suppression of other units. This is why a cavalry division with only 1 cavalry regiment is the best garrson division template. And make sure you are giving the worst equipment you have to the garrison, by selecting the red button from the recruitment tab. Let the frontline division templates get the best equipment.

Summary For Air Battles:

- It is best to keep planes in Airwings of 100.
- Ace bonuses are tailored for that size and it makes it easy to move them around.
- Air superiority is very important because it gives the enemy land units a defense and breakthrough penalty and allows you to to deploy air support to the region without risk of being shot down.
- Anti-Air buildings are a counter to strategic bombing, therefore bombers.
- Each level of Anti-Air building reduces bombing effectiveness in the province by 12%, up to a maximum of 60%.
- Anti-Air battalions or support units are a counter to fighters and grant some extra piercing.
- Counter fighters are better than AA battalions since you can use the AA battaions space for something else in the division template, ideally artillery.
- As for whether you should make Anti-Air Buildings or try to get Air Superiority, the answer is situational of whether the frontline is static or dynamic, I prefer to try both but with an ephasis on Air Superiority, it's never bad to invest in fighters.
- Ace pilots give bonuses to the airwing they are attached to, so if you have an airwing of 500 the ace pilot's bonus is going to be very small, if you have 10 planes the bonus is going to be huge. Best to keep airwings in series of 100.
- Your bombers can actually defend themselves fairly well, but will operate rarely and may achieve their actual objective without a fighter coverage.
- Detection chance and bombing damage are decreased at night.
- If you are unable to challenge enemy air superiority you should put your Fighters on “Intercept” mission. It will allow you to semi-reliably stop enemy bombers while not engaging enemy Fighters head on. Your forces will still suffer air superiority penalties.
- Agility and Speed are two most important statistics of a fighter only then followed by Air Attack.
- Strategic bombing can cause serious damage to the industry and infrastructure of an enemy.
- Both Radar and Air Superiority in a region provide Naval intelligence.
- When starting a campaign you should disband all your airwings and create a new ones.
- Disbanded planes go back to your reserves.

Summary For Sea Battles:

- Destroyers are cheap and best at dealing with Submarines.
- Light Cruisers provide the best surface detection allowing you to find enemy ships.
- Heavy Cruisers and Battlecruisers are good against Destroyers.
- Battleships have the highest health points and damage.
- Carriers aren't as good as Battleships but have a nice damage if they aren't attacked from too many sources, you can strike with bomber and flighter Aircraft in land and annoy major powers.
- Submarines are the best against Convoys, but they can also be efficient in fleets if the enemy doesn't have many Desteoyers.

Germany:
(1) Conquer Switzerland.
(2) Get Austria and Czechoslovakia as soon as possible (take all Czechoslovakia)
(3) Puppet Broken Yugoslavia by focus tree (Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia)
(4) Make Bulgaria Join You. (by focus tree)
(5) Puppet Greece. (by focus tree)
(7) Send a few troops to defend the Italian fronts in Africa.
(8) Attack Poland.
(9) Attack France. (If you want to take their territory after you win don't create Vichy France)
(10) Place 1 unit in each port so that the Allies won't be able to naval invade you.
(11) Invade UK in Cornwall. (You need naval superiority, spam submarines)
(12) As soon as you land manually rush some troops through Wales then Scotland.
(13) Try to occupy their ports.
(14) After the Allies are defeated go for Russia.
(15) Congratulation, you won!
(16) You can annex USA then just for the sake of it.

Additionally, if you want more allies before attacking Poland you can go for "Plan Z" focus tree and influence Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

France:
(1) Do the one division exploit for army experience.
(2) Start with the factories focus in Algeria until you complete "Extra Research Slot".
(3) Continue with the Poltical focus "Government Reform" all the way to "Strengthen Government".
(4) Followed by the Military focus (Defensive focus) to get rid of that "Victors of the Great War" spirit.
(5) Extend Magriot line. (focus tree)
(6) Build forts on the western borders.
(7) Make fallback lines on the Magriot line and assign defensive units.
(8) Have some troops in Africa and Corsica to defend against the italians.
(9) When the war begins if you did everything right your troops should hold Germany and Italiy.
(10) Build forts on the border with Spain as well.
(11) Make new troops and place them on Spian's border to defend.
(12) Start creating offensive troops. (The italians and germans don't have forts on their sides)
(13) Push back and defeat the Germany and Italy (If you find it too hard wait for the war with USSR)

Russia:
(1) Change your motorized divisions into infantry divisions.
(2) Make a western front with Poland, a Finnish front and an eastern front with Manchuko.
(3) Select 5 tanks on the western front and place them under 1 general.
(4) Train all troops except for the tanks for army experience.
(5) Start "The Great Purge" focus right away. (it takes 210 days)
(6) In the first trial purge Khrushchev.
(7) In the second trial purge Rokossovsky.
(8) In the third trial purge Navy and Airforce
(9) When the Spanish Civil War begins, send the tanks as volunteers.
(10) Continue your focus with "Finish the 5 years plan".
(11) Then go for "Positive Heroism" and "Extra research slot".
(12) Then go for "NKVD Divisions" then for "Found the PCDI".
(13) When 1941 begins go for "Closed City Network".
(14) In the meantime, make more infantry units and change your infantry division into 7-2, you'll want huge Weapons surplus before you start the war, at least 50.000.
(15) When the event with Japan pops up, pick retreat your forces from the border.
(16) When Germany proposes Ribbertrop-Molodov pact, accept it.
(17) Justify war on: Estonia, before the war starts an event will pop up and they will become yours.
(18) After do the same for: Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia and Finland. (one justification at a time)
(19) Finland may fight back, if they do take all of their country.
(20) Defeat Germany when they invade. (7-2 divisions and Purge debuffs almost gone)

Poland:
(1) Do the one divsion exploit.
(2) Start with "Strenghten the Polish State" focus.
(3) Continue with "4 Years Plan" until "Additional research slot I" and "Develop Upper Silesia"
(4) Go for "Central Industrial Region" until "Expand Central Industrial Region"
(5) Then go for "Defensive Focus" and "Polish Militarism" then the political focus tree.
(6) If you want to join Axis (easier) go for the military focus tree "Prepare for the Next War".
(7) If you want to make your own faction (harder) go for "The Baltic Alliance" focus tree.
(8) When Germany asks Danzing or War give them Danzig.
(9) Mass troops and conquer the Soviet Union.
(10) Turn your forces to Germany, if you're in Axis you need to defeat the Allies first.

China:
(1) Go for a truce with Communis China.
(2) Remove all your troops but one and train that one. (You should do this with every nation except the facist ones but with China is a must)
(3) When you get 30 experience go to divisions and add infantry troops until you have 20 width. (The position on the table is purely esthetic)
(4) Start making new divisions at the start of 1937.
(5) After the divisions are out in the field train them until they get level 3.
(6) Send 10 divisions to the fortified ports and the rest of your divisions to the border with Japan.
(7) When the war starts even if you lost some territory if you reach a stalemate you should be fine.
(8) When China unites don't send the new divisions yet, convert them to the 20 width divisions then train them level 3 then send them.
(9) Start making offensive troops (7 infantry and 2 artilery).
(10) Use the offensive troops to push Japan out of the continent.
(11) Naval invade Japan and win the war.
(12) Declare war to USSR and expand your territory.

Italy:
(1) Puppet Ethiopia. (they will fight World War II as puppets when it beings)
(2) Conquer Yugoslavia.
(3) Place divisions in Africa, Sardegna and the border with France.
(4) Invade France as soon as the war starts.
(5) Do the same you did with Germany but with Italy this time.

Spain:
(1) Win the civil war with whatever side you like.
(2) Annex Portugal.
(3) Attack France.

Romania:
(1) First make the Silent Powerhouse politician followed by the facist politician.
(2) Go fascist as soon as possible.
(3) Annex Bulgaria
(4) Join the Axis before "Second Vienna Award". (so they won't attack you if you refuse)
(5) Mass troops on USSR's border.
(6) When they demand Bessarabia, refuse it.
(7) Invade them and win.

Brasil/Argentina:
(1) Conquer all of South America. (USA's guarantee is only against non-south american nations)
(2) Use the new territory and factories to conquer the world.

Thanks for reading so far, I hope this guide helped you. I know it's focused more on how to make your army and industry than on how to play with each individual nation but this is because if you make your army and industry right then winning is easy regardless of the nation.

If you want an in-depth look at the division template and the best divisions check this guide:
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1741169150