Hearts of Iron IV: My Personal 10 Beginner Tips

Hearts of Iron 4 is an understandably intimidating game, especially for newcomers if this is their first Hearts of Iron game. It throws a lot of information at you spread across multiple screens, tabs and overlays with a bare bones tutorial being the only in-game help you get.

I am by no means an expert at the game, far from it in fact but I feel if I can help even a handful of people at least figure out enough so they can enjoy it as I do then that is a big win. There will likely be more Hearts of Iron 4 content on my blog going forward as well. I am certainly open to ideas for that content.

I realised part way through writing this 'small' set of tips that I couldn't cover everything, so anything more specific when it comes to tips or even guides will be made in separate posts in the future.This is also assuming you are playing single player, multiplayer would be an entirely different story altogether and I have not yet tried it myself.

Tip #1: Do the Tutorial

The tutorial might not cover everything but it's a good place to start.

I know I said it was bare bones and it does miss a lot of aspects of the game out and explains the ones it does look at poorly but it is at least a starting point. It does feel as if it literally teaches you how to move units around and set up some basic production of equipment but barely touches on any one thing in any depth.

However I still recommend doing the tutorial to start off, bare bones as it is as it will at least give you something to start with. Part of me hopes they do an improved tutorial at some point especially as new DLC's and patches add or change existing mechanics.

Tip #2: Starting Nation

You can play literally any nation that existed at the time.

Honestly I've seen a lot of good arguments for quite a lot of choices of nation to start you off in your Hearts of Iron 4 journey and you can pick literally any nation that existed at the time. Taking a large nation can seem tempting but it means far more to organise which may not be much fun if you are still learning the interface.

On the flip side taking a smaller nation can be a good way to learn the game relatively safely but you may quickly find yourself unable to expand without drawing the ire of larger nations.

My own personal recommendation is Italy, for several reasons the first of which being you have plenty of options with how to play them and where you could expand to. You start at war with Ethiopia and after you have won that you have a solid foothold in Africa if you feel like expanding there. In Europe itself you can also even expand East into Yugoslavia and on from there.

You also have access to a fairly solid navy and air force right off the bat without either one being so vast and spread out to make organising it a chore. Italy isn't the only possible good choice for a beginner but it is whom I started with. 

Tip #3: Spend Some Time Learning the Interface

There's a lot of info to take in and yes that is republican Spain winning the civil war.

I can't overstate this one enough, spend a while clicking every button, reading every tooltip and getting yourself comfortable with where everything is located, it will really help in the long-run. If you do this during the tutorial the game will give you some extra information

There are a lot of buttons, menu's and overlays which can be overwhelming for anyone just starting out even if you did the tutorial. It may take some time as this game throws a lot of information at you at once, so leave it paused or on the slowest speed and just take some time figuring out where everything is.

Also depending which nation you opt to play as you may have a lot of potential organising to do of things like your navies. The United Kingdom, Japan and America all have pretty extensive navies and also in a lot of cases far flung colonies.

Take it one step at a time and don't worry about it all at once.

Tip #4: Take Care of the Alerts at the Top

As in most Paradox Grand Strategies, alerts sit in the top center of the UI

Much like other Paradox grand strategy titles this is usually a good first stop and the tutorial even indicates this even if it doesn't explain much along the way.

There are some alerts you shouldn't worry about too much such as having 'Unassigned Divisions' or 'Low Manpower' at the start anyway.

Unassigned divisions are basically any division that hasn't been assigned to an army which is quite prevalent for nations with a lot of colonies like the UK and France. Low manpower is to do with conscription laws (those can be changed by spending political power and is located at the top left of the laws and government section, click on that to change conscription laws when you need it.)

Tip #5: Early Research Choices & Why

11 separate tabs of research categories can make it hard to know what to pick first.

Again the tutorial gives you some vague impression of the what to aim for but doesn't really explain too well why those are best.

In general anything that increases production efficiency cap, factory output, construction speed and research speed are best researched as early as possible. So Production, Basic Machine Tools, Mechanical Computing and the like.

The first couple of years before the war starts are usually best spent improving your industry and generally building up. You will also have to make a choice between concentrated industry or dispersed industry. The difference is basically whether you want the most bonus production from concentrated or feel you want the added resistance to damage from dispersed industry at a cost of some production.

Also never research anything ahead of time if you can help it the penalty it carries to research speed seldom makes it worthwhile.

Tip #6: National Focuses to Aim for First

That extra research slot is what I often go for first.

Most of the major nations have their own unique national focus trees so take this tip as a rough guideline.

Until you know what you are doing and have specific plans in mind for what you want to achieve with your chosen nation a good first set of focuses to aim for are the ones that lead to the extra research slot.

Along with the research slot, anything that gives free factories or building slots are also good choices as well.

Tip #7: Division Templates

This really needed it's own tutorial.

Another area the tutorial seems to lack on a little and something that is fairly complex and intimidating. It only applies to land divisions such as armour and infantry and you can only change, edit or make new ones by accruing 'Army Experience' (Seen at the top centre of the UI with a gold star.) This is typically gained by engaging in combat or training exercises.

There are likely some in-depth guides for this out there when you want to really start getting into the fine details of this. Adding support companies to your divisions is usually a good first step once you have those unlocked.

Adding artillery companies to your infantry divisions is a good way to vastly improve their offensive capabilities.

Also adding in maintenance companies to armour divisions can help deal with reliability issues and I also find adding in Anti-Air support can be beneficial as well.

Tip #8: Construction, Civilian & Military Factories

So many factories to build, so little time.

In short each province has access to a number of building slots for factories and dockyards. Civilian factories are basically what build all your other buildings as well as produce consumer goods to keep the population happy and their output can be traded for resources from other nations.

At the start of the game it is best I find to start building civilian factories, I don't generally max out every province, leaving some slots for additional military factories when the war starts. You can convert civilian factories to military ones as well if need be.

Other buildings are typically given a level of construction that doesn't affect the building slots, such as infrastructure, state anti-air, radar and the air base.

Military factories build all your military equipment from rifles and uniforms to tanks and aircraft.

Dockyards are not unsurprisingly the buildings responsible for constructing your naval units.

Tip #9: Front-Lines, Offensive Lines & Battle-Plans

A very basic battle plan.

This confused me for a while when I first started as well but I think the best way to view battle-plans is they are orders for your AI commanders.

Front-lines are set on borders of other nations and will be where the army you assign to it will move to and build up.

An offensive line is basically where you would like that particular army to attempt to move the front-line to. It's basically an attack-move to break it down to it's very basics and your divisions will attempt to take everything between the current front-line and the offensive line.

The spear-head is a more focused form of the offensive line, it will take the provinces in the order in which you painted the spearhead line. Useful if you want to push toward specific areas like ports, air-bases and victory points.

A fallback line is basically the opposite of an offensive line, it's where your units will reposition if pushed back into friendly territory. So you can use it to make use of defensive terrain like rivers or even forts.

The garrison area command is something I use a lot to make sure my armies cover all important things that need defending in my own territoryl like victory locations, ports etc

You can also issue the command to perform a training exercise to increase the experience level of your troops and to gain a little bit of army experience. It does however consume equipment (and I imagine supplies when that is added.) So make sure you have a surplus when using it.

Tip #10: Production & Trade

The screen where you build the weapons to fight with.

The production tab is basically where you assign equipment production orders to your military factories and dockyards so long as you have the material to run them for that particular order. The more factories you assign to something, the faster you will produce things.

There are some quirks to this system such as production efficiency, which basically means how well that factory line produces things and the longer they produce the same thing the more efficient they get at it.

Trade is a little strange in this game as you don't technically trade one resource for another, you trade the output of a civilian factory (essentially removing it from your use) to gain resources from someone.

There is no stockpiling of resources so trading to build up a surplus is seldom required, ensure you have enough to keep your factories running and that should be good enough.

World of Tanks: My Personal Top 5 Tips!

Now, before I get into the meat of this particular post just a quick disclaimer. I don't claim to be an incredible player, my personal rating hovers between 5500 and 5600 or so but the amount of silly mistakes I see people making even at tier seven or higher is a bit worrying. So, rather than slump across my keyboard wondering how they even got that IS-3 I figured I'd share a few of my own personal tips, if it helps one or two people do a little better then I am happy!

Tip #1: Use Your Map

Always, always use your map, this cannot be stressed enough not just to get an idea of where enemies are but also so you know where your allies are as well. It doesn't really matter what kind of tank you are playing, the map is always your friend. 

There is often little point charging ahead as a scout if there are no friendly tanks there to shoot at what you spot. Nor is there much point sitting on an empty side of the map for five minutes when the entire enemy team has been spotted elsewhere. 

Tip #2: Never Give an Enemy Free Shots

Never advance around a corner if an enemy already knows you are there. Seriously I see this one so often it's a little frightening, I know it's tempting to roll around that corner and do a bit of damage, believe me, even I used to do it. However, they are more likely to hit your front drive wheel and track you, keeping you in place and barring a few tanks with forward mounted turrets, you can find yourself unable to fight back.

It's usually best to simply try and pull back and go elsewhere or simply find another angle to attack them from that doesn't expose you. Failing that you can if your tank is capable of doing so effectively, you can attempt to side-scrape.

It doesn't just apply to rounding a corner though, if you know that an enemy is waiting for you to pop out. Don't. 

Tip #3: Never Be Afraid to Retreat

Tempting as it is to try and be the hero and fight off five enemy tanks by yourself whilst the rest of your team goes full lemming train on the other side of the map, sometimes it's best to pull back. Put yourself in a more defensible position, behind solid cover and preferably behind something that will shield you from artillery as well.

Make sure to ping the map to inform your team but only do it once every so often, if you spam it people will likely just ignore you. If they don't come to help you then it's on them, not you!

Whilst there are some tanks which can at least stall a flank by themselves such as certain hull down heavies or heavily armoured tank destroyers. It is usually best to just pull back rather than get overrun and destroyed as typically it'll be you against many and at best in my experience you will never kill more than one or two if they are even half-way competent.

Also if anyone starts pinging on you or trying to tell you to go cover that flank without themselves moving to help you? Ignore them. 

Tip #4: Know Your Tanks

I mean this in a very general way, not just for tanks you play but those of your allies and enemies as well. Whilst tanks are generally divided between the five classes that doesn't mean every heavy tank plays exactly the same as every other heavy tank, a Tiger I plays differently to an IS for example.

Play your tanks to their strengths and try to exploit the weaknesses of enemy tanks as best you can. I know that's easier said than done for the most part but it's a good thing to always keep in the back of your mind as you play.

Telling a thinly armoured heavy tank to push or expecting a tank destroyer to scout for you is not likely the best of ideas.

Tip #5: Don't Get Frustrated or Angry

Believe me I know this one is harder to do than it is to say, there are times even I get so frustrated I could bite my keyboard in half but in the end it doesn't help anyone. You are in the end only responsible for how well you play, if you get six kills, do 4000 damage and still lose that is not your fault in the end.

Getting angry or frustrated over it will make you just play a whole lot worse and more importantly, you'll stop having fun, defeating the point of playing the game in the first place!

A rule I started to follow about a year into my playing of World of Tanks was to always try and do more damage than the hit-points of my own tank. Following that one simple goal in every battle slowly saw my average XP and credit earning increasing and my overall frustration diminishing.

Raging, ranting and cursing at other players no matter how badly they may be playing from your perspective is never really justified. Also if you find yourself the target of someones frustrations, simply mute them or add them to your blacklist. Remember, don't feed the trolls.

If you see someone doing something wrong, then perhaps try to explain to them why it may be they just didn't know! (It is not as if the WoT tutorial is that comprehensive let's face it.)