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So I've decided to give this game another try. I loved reading about it, but the learning curve is pretty high and never got really into it.

Any tips I could use to have a succesfull game? Or certain mods that are worth a try?

Specifically, I'm planning to try a game as Belgium and invade Holland for a start

Lots of vanilla INF. That gets you the most bang for your buck, which is vital if you have a limited IC. Don't bother with brigades unless you start to run into manpower problems, in which case it's probably best to just go with INF-ART. Don't bother with a navy; you don't have the time or resources to actually do anything worthwhile. If you do put resources into an airforce, don't bother with anything other than TAC and INT.

Lastly, get yourself a bigger ally, and stick to them like glue. While it is possible to crush all before you as a minor (I once conquered the whole of Europe as Czechoslovakia), doing so relies on the AI being an idiot (in the aformentioned conquest, GER just sat there like a lemon, which led to amusing ridiculousness, such as surrounding five or six armoured divisions and destroying them with only a single INF). If the AI actually does what it's supposed to, you could not, for example, defeat GER all on your own. There's no possible way you could build enough divisions to stop them simply steamroling you.

If you want to get into HoI I suggest not starting out as a little shitty nation with no tech teams, no army, and no options. I did a game as belgium, I allid with UK/France (Republican spain too), and bunkered down with over 150 divisions along a heavily fortified border. Eventually UK/GB/Spain made enough troops to push the germans back and poor little Belgium suddenly controlled Berlin. However, it was totally stupid.

Start with big powerful nations, to learn how to play. Once you know what you are doing move on to shitty nations (Austria, Hungary and Romania can become moderately powerful nations).

Regarding what to build - it depends on the terrain. When fighting in the planes and rivers of Europe you want mobility, as a poor nation that means infantry with engineer brigades (without engineers rivers are murderous to cross).

If you want a fun challenge, I suggest Czechoslovakia. Hint: Take Germany by mid fall 1936 and DoW the soviets as soon as the mud clears in 1939. Italy makes an excellent puppet and Poland makes an ideal ally.

Britain is a good place to start for your first couple of games. You're closer to the action than the US, so you can go and play, but you've got the channel and the RN to keep the hun away. They've got a pretty good starting social policy as well, lots of Free Market, and you get lots of free interventionism moves.

Britain is too dammed big. They have colonies in Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia. There's a good chance you'll be sending troops, and especially the RN, to fight across three continents.

My first serious game was a Romania. If you play your cards right you can make Bulgaria and Hungary your bitches. Just make sure you attack them before they join the Axis. You can also take Greece and a good chunk of Yugoslavia when the Axis go for the Balkans. At that point it's your choice whether to go Axis, or Commie. Both are easy as the Axis are favorably disposed toward you, and you get events that can make your government Soviet friendly. Going Axis gives you the chance to try and seize the Ukraine, while favoring the Soviet Union allows you to attack the Germans in their rear when they're busy wrestling with the Red Army.

As Romania you should probably not bother with armour, stick to infantry and some cavalry. Dump your navy, and air superiority wise it's probably best to just stick with Fighters, as they can double as really cheap CAS.

Also remember your strongest card: oil. Use your oil to get resources you need, and even sometimes use lump sums to get techs.

I still keep meaning to play as Argentina one of these days.

Wow, pretty addictive game. Probably the reason why I overslept this morning


Anyway, started off as Belgium in 1937 as my first game. Did the freedom cheat to make it leaning a bit more to the fascist side. Not suprisingly, Luxembourg got "liberated" pretty quickly.
Made good buds with Germany and joined the Axis.
When the war started, it took some effort to hold against France, but eventually it got beaten by Germany. I managed to snoop 2 provinces of them. Then I war declared friendly neighbour Holland which got gangbanged pretty hard and ended with more than half their provinces.

Then I couldn't really do much except seeing my Afrikan colony seeing chewed up by French and Britisch scum while Germany overran Scandinavia (bar Sweden) and eastern Europe.
Later at Barbarossa, my lil' army of 15 divisions did their part in taking the Crimean peninsula and was among the first to arrive at Stalingrad. After that, they got sent direction Middle East, since resistance there was weak (aka, stuff I could handle). Moscow and Leningrad fell in early 1943, but by then the USA caught us with our pants down by landing armies in Calais, Normandy and the mediterranean coast. Normandy got beaten back, but the other landings were successfull to quickly connect to eachother, cutting whatever supplies of my allied troops in western France. My own country was in the process of steamrolled while my main army was weeks away in the middle of nowhere. Then the game crashed and I went to bed

Addendum, after lurking the relevant forums, I just saw the funniest thing that I'll read this day:

My biggest goof:

I was ferrying some men across the med to Africa (I think I was SU) and figured "I'm not at war with any countries with access to the sea, why do I need escorts?"

My transports got sunk by the Tibetan Navy

sunk by the Tibetan Navy

Tibetan Navy

I love this game

See if you can find the alt-hist Tibetan Empire AAR. That one's fucking hilarious.

Vendetta wrote:See if you can find the alt-hist Tibetan Empire AAR. That one's fucking hilarious.

Just found it. Only passed the first page and it has gotten me interested enough to wade trough the 40isch pages. Arm ze armoured yaks!

wautd wrote:

Vendetta wrote:See if you can find the alt-hist Tibetan Empire AAR. That one's fucking hilarious.

Just found it. Only passed the first page and it has gotten me interested enough to wade trough the 40isch pages. Arm ze armoured yaks!

I am currently in the process of subjugating the world as Poland (without cheating!) so it's nothing unusual

Vendetta wrote:See if you can find the alt-hist Tibetan Empire AAR. That one's fucking hilarious.

The best AARs are ones where ridiculously awesome shenanigans happen. Like the one where Romania conquers Eurasia, the Soviets enter Berlin in '41 (after a German DoW, no less), and all of the 'handicap' ones, ie, Using only the airforce and paratroopers as the US, not researching anything as Germany, all militia army as Germany, etc. Those ones are great.

wautd wrote:

Vendetta wrote:See if you can find the alt-hist Tibetan Empire AAR. That one's fucking hilarious.

Just found it. Only passed the first page and it has gotten me interested enough to wade trough the 40isch pages. Arm ze armoured yaks!

Would you mind posting the link to it? I'm afraid I'm not quite patient enough to find it on my own.

RRoan wrote:

wautd wrote:

Vendetta wrote:See if you can find the alt-hist Tibetan Empire AAR. That one's fucking hilarious.

Just found it. Only passed the first page and it has gotten me interested enough to wade trough the 40isch pages. Arm ze armoured yaks!

Would you mind posting the link to it? I'm afraid I'm not quite patient enough to find it on my own.

A few more reincaarnations.

Be wary - it's HUGE

PeZook wrote:I am currently in the process of subjugating the world as Poland (without cheating!) so it's nothing unusual

Well, Poland is pretty good for twatting Germany as long as you do it early, so your only real problem is the Big Red Horde to the east. Get in the swing of conquering a few good economies and puppet them off though, and you can use their full IC to create cannon fodder. (Japan can do the best puppeting, your starting forces can conquer China quite happily, and a unified puppet China is a beast)

I found it more useful to keep just the good territories and give away the crap ones (leaving small corridors to transport goods to port). All the IC and none of the partisans

You don't get all the IC though, unless you mod the game files or are playing Armageddon, you get at most about 20% of it. A puppet nation gets all your tech and 100% of it's IC, and remains your political and military bitch.

Vendetta wrote: Well, Poland is pretty good for twatting Germany as long as you do it early, so your only real problem is the Big Red Horde to the east. Get in the swing of conquering a few good economies and puppet them off though, and you can use their full IC to create cannon fodder. (Japan can do the best puppeting, your starting forces can conquer China quite happily, and a unified puppet China is a beast)

Well, I found it ridiculously easy, to be honest. Conquered Germany in 1937, them took part in fighting in Burma (saved Singapore, actually ) and then sucker-punched Japan with naval bombers and Marines.

After that, I invaded Italy. I now have 250 IC, 150 divisions, a nuclear carrier strike gorup and don't know where to go next

Invade the Soviet Union, of course

InnocentBystander wrote:Invade the Soviet Union, of course

I'm waiting untill I get 9 nukes ready, so that I can annihilate half the Red Army within the first hour.

...and building a massive line of forts in case it doesn't work

Along the way, I think I will destroy what's left of fascism in Europe...or maybe become fascist myself and destroy the Allies

Taking care of the soviets early on is always important to me. They've got a lot of IC on day one, and a country that could take two years to annex after you've defeated most of their army. As the Czech I went after them in 38 or 39 with great success.

Real fun is invading America/Canada via Halifax. Plunk down enough troops to hold it, and wait as the allies pile up divisions nearby - then nuke the lot of 'em!

InnocentBystander wrote:Taking care of the soviets early on is always important to me. They've got a lot of IC on day one, and a country that could take two years to annex after you've defeated most of their army. As the Czech I went after them in 38 or 39 with great success.

Yeah, you want to do the SU early, before they've put that fucking massive population to use. If you want to be really cheeky, do it just after the purge of the officer class, so they're fucked for leadership.

HoI - impossible alt-histories and all the wanky dreams. Nigeria, subjugate the world and rule undisputed

Taking a major world power like USSR, USA, Germany or UK is just making an easy job easier... you'd have the rest of the world singing their hymns in a moment.

How is one able to play as on of the nations that the scenarios don't have in the list? eg I want to play as Hungary, which the '36 scenario doesn't have in the country selection list.
I remember seeing somewhere that you need to mod a txt file but I have been unsuccessful in finding which one, googling has brought no results.

Doesn't the purge modifier go away if you attack the soviets?