HoI4 Guide: Bulgaria - Master Puppeteer Achievement

A guide for HoI4 Batle for the Bosporus as Bulgaria, now with up to 9000% more PP spending!
Following the steps laid out in this guide will help you to get the achievement "Master Puppeteer"
The strategy for this video was inspired by community member Spaniard, our professor of HoI4-ology. check out his excellent Al-Andalus video here: • Video
And a Big Thank you to our community member Zatwinki (Zatwinki#2839) over on our Discord server for providing these absolutely lovely Countryballs!
I upload new video's frequently, so subscribe for more regular content!
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Twitter: @Bitt3rSteel
Intro Music: Wild Pogo
I do not own any of the games, all rights are reserved by their respective companies. Paradox games: Copyright © 2016-2020 Paradox Interactive AB. www.paradoxplaza.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[@christopheranderson8429]

Getting a bigger navy than UK as Switzerland!

[@raippakeisari2342]

Switch ideology, conquer Austria, conquer yugo, gain a shoreline, build dockyards, spam out the cheapest subs ever, wait, wait, wait, done.

[@theemperor-wh40k18]

@@raippakeisari2342 or bomb to UK navy to the bottom of the sea.

[@JS-iu3ce]

@@theemperor-wh40k18 have you ever attempted putting the raid on Medway to shame? Because trust me that achievement is not fun

[@janslavik5284]

Does annexing UK puppet, thus gaining its navy count?

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Yessss

[@Kandall05161]

Glad to see an achievement with more than one way of completing it. I apparently misread it initially, I thought that "complete the focus...while having 5 or more Balkan puppets" meant you had to have the puppets before you complete the focus. So I went for Ferdinand to get the free wargoals focus and just 1V1'd Yugo with ~30 7/2s. Balkanize Yugo (there's enough releasables there to take your territorial claims and still get 5 puppets), then you just complete the focus and you get it. You can convince England to let you rearm fairly early, and some of the tsarist focuses are pretty powerful (Bulgarian Irredentism I recall being totally broken), which lets you build your army strong enough for the fight alone.

[@MahDryBread]

Thanks for the help man!

[@josephcola9662]

Tried this myself. Worked out perfectly, though I took a 70-day detour on the focus tree to get the path to integrate the fascist faction (permanent 500 weekly manpower for doing the focus). So thanks for the guide. Also, in the interest of having nice borders, I took the extra time to manually integrate Yugoslavia and spat out their constituent states for the finish. Also found a bug: The achievement itself states that you need 5 Balkan puppets (Hungary qualifies, and if you aren't continuing the game, so will Albania if you wanna release it), but the checks for the achievement require 6 Balkan puppets. I don't have an account on the Paradox forums, so if you see this comment, could you report it so it's fixed by the time Barbarosa drops?

[@samjadk2681]

Hell yes I’ve been looking forward to this!

[@nonautemrexchristus5637]

Even after completing the achievement on day one I still tune in to see how bitter does it. Banging video mate

[@Voute-sf6xt]

A video plus a live... just awesome ! Keep the excellent work.

[@enricogiordano8407]

The best hoi4 youtuber, helped me thousand times, we love you bitter, keep the work

[@kimhernandez7645]

Finally! Always looking forward to watching your vids, man.

[@OverlordMalarkey]

He's just standing there... MENACINGLY!

[@nverdice9333]

Thanks man! I got the "Master Puppeteer" Achievement because of this guide

[@arctic5156]

Love you videos, dude! Please never stop!

[@craniusdominus8234]

Dude, this is a fairly tedious way to go about doing this achievement. I got Master Pupeteer when I went for This is getting Childish. I rushed Form a Regency Council, then Fate of the Balkans and then I just built factories until Yugoslavia overthrew the ruler (its 100% guaranteed on historical) and worked on building divisions. I had about 18 divisions (20 width pure infantry with Engineers, Support Artillery, Maintenance Company and Filed Hospitals) When they got their child leader, I sent the ultimatum to Yugoslavia, which they refused (since I didnt improve relations with them). I declared war on them, which immediately got me This is getting childish. But then I decided to, and when Yugo capitulated, I satellited every single tag I could in the peace deal. Turns out, you can get 5 puppets out of Yugoslavia alone

[@KappinhoCRO]

Your videos are amazing, I really hope this channel becomes one of the most popular HOI4 channels!

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Wow, thank you!

[@malex1712]

I think it to, Bitt3rsteel for the win! :)

[@callumvantriet2941]

I was wondering how to do this achievement because i'm bad at the game, thank you! A suggestion I have for an achievement is 'Bad Romeance' or 'Balkan Problem Solved'.

[@Yellowpuffin]

I think Bad Romeance is bugged at the moment, isn't it?

[@callumvantriet2941]

@@Yellowpuffin idk it could be

[@BBraun-gw4hs]

@@Yellowpuffin Yea it is. I had to download the 1.10.2 beta and load up the savegame to get it.

[@mati-yr1ym]

I was playing for 5 hours as Greece, I defeated allies, then axis, but I forgot to puppet fcking Romania and the USA puppeted them :(

[@hzcyd101]

@@BBraun-gw4hs When does Yugo choose 'end the regency'? Can't get it to do that under historic but I heard that's the only way?

[@max.m3937]

I really enjoy your video , keep going the good work ^^.

[@AdamSkerven]

Thank you for a awesome video. I did try my best to complete the task before watching your video, but your video provided me were I went oops. thanks again.

[@Marcin1997konrad]

Finally, thank you for this guide

[@tjardon]

Definitely become my favorite HOI4 KZbinr...a legend!!

[@savage5975]

Wow that looked really easy I’m going to give it a try Thanks mate

[@awerewolf299]

Could you do a guide on 'Dracula’s Revenge ' or 'Totally Not Cool, Bromania'?

[@anormalderpscout5944]

I just discovered your channel and I love your content.

[@yoranvangils9903]

I love how you use countryballs in your videos! :D

[@doogralyks87]

Love your vids, this is probably the best path in the tree

[@khalidshoukri7364]

New Bitt3rsteel video? *Cracks knuckles* *Launches HoI IV*

[@Bitt3rSteel]

The ride never ends!

[@6th_Army]

Never ends? The facg that WWII never actually ended : Exists World : Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[@SwedishWaste]

If you follow this it's a breeze to complete "Prussia of the Balkans" ach aswell, just annex through suppressing your subjects, release and conquer. Also, if you declare on the Soviets, not joining the war vs the allies the win would be swift effectively bypassing the "Dominance of the seas"-focuses with its attatched missions which will buff the Prussia of the balkans focus even more if you wanna go for an even longer game. And as always; very nice guide @Bitt3rSteel

[@pojitapejito]

If you're strill trying to make a guide for Sèvres, I think it's easier to do with the WTT decision than Bftb focus tree, since you can have an early war with italy before they join the axis and dont suffer all the debuffs

[@xiaoting1112]

thanks for the guide man! easy to follow, time to get this achievement :D

[@RyoheiTendo]

From my experience just improving relations with the UK and the using the decision to negotiate (and if it doesnt work) pressure them for rearmament works 99% of the time, otherwise they just give you a "sign a non aggression pact with x balkan nation", and then i sign one with turkey which they break 2 years later. Cooperating with the VMRO gives either 5k manpower for each macedonian province or a few useless (for me) divisions you cant disband. Edit: For some reason condemning them makes the provinces total bugged out hell with bad modifiers even if you complete everything, Ferdinand is good for aggressive games, approach germany is good for planes and the italians almost never give me ships. Integrate the zveno and national socialists first, destroy the broad socialists and agrarian union or they give some boost to the fatherland front when attacking the USSR. The ratniks + brannik + prussia of the balkans and some other focuses give around 50%+ manpower boost. Ive never played anything other than non-aligned/neutral Bulgaria with either Ferdinand or Boris so thats all i have after 7 games.

[@onionskin3254]

I love the thumbnails

[@DonutOfNinja]

This guide works with italy's new focus tree from BBA btw Edit: you should start justifying in early June 1938

[@Litterbugtaylor]

Huh, i misread the wording on the achievement and thought it said that you had to have 5 puppets before you took fate of the balkans

[@lewanjosephnimick9359]

I've attempted this achievement 5 times getting super frustrated because that's how I read it. Was trying to conquer them all

[@just_hris]

As a Bulgarian I love how these territories look like.

[@raippakeisari2342]

Play as Poland, stay non-alligned, create your own faction (Międzymorze) and then defeat both the Axis and the Comintern.

[@alvarohernaez5689]

Viewing the video, waiting for direct 😎

[@Bigdeathy]

Worked great (comment for the algorithm)

[@clarksonbryan4595]

Can you do the communist bulgaria achievement? I literally cannot find a legitimate way to do it.

[@hzcyd101]

Time it well and use the decisions to flip both Greece and Romania into communist and use the focuses to integrate them. Could be done by mid 1940. Then is just a matter of time to defeat Axis and take Turkey.

[@clarksonbryan4595]

@@hzcyd101 Thanks, but I found the most easy way to do it was flipping yugo rushing the unify the balkans and annexing greece, romania, and hungary then taking out the axis and turkey to get albania.

[@GRM_lol]

If you restore Greater Bulgaria through the decisions and have the Balkans in your faction it all feel so satisfying

[@yesatitsfinest]

Awesome video, as a video suggestion, you should form macedonia

[@tsohuwaz4570]

Could you do a guide for Bad Romance achievement ?

[@kiriseraph9674]

I believe this can be done with only yugoslavia and greece if you do the decisions to split new puppets from them. Simplifies things if you dont need to do the paradropping or any fighting that could piss off the allies or the axis. Esp. since paradropping is kinda buggy right now.

[@sauronmordor7494]

top!

[@sklatvia_]

Stupid Challenge Idea: As Latvia, annex Ireland, or vice versa. They're both potato-topias.

[@skittybug6937]

Found this comment 7 months later but here we go: Play as Latvia. Get a navy - albeit small. Like, 5 Bathtubs. Flip Fascist and Justify ASAP. Naval Invasion Support all the way to Ireland, take Dublin with a 10 division naval invasion (4 on Dublin, 3 each side), and then you're basically done. Historical focuses are basically a moot point since this can be done by 1938 and doesn't really interact with majors.

[@frankencat8005]

Hey, I was having issues with this guide, I started the justification on Albania exactly when you said but Italy was ahead of me by a few days. Idk if you will see this just thought I would say it.

[@danrobidoux]

I've just finished up the communist run and now I'm here (I think I did it backwards.) This one is wayyy less frustrating. It's almost like RNG isn't that fun...? Anyway, thanks for another great video. You strike an excellent balance between the dreaded 2-3 hour full playthrough vod and the over-edited "wait, wasn't Germany still there before that cut?" guide that doesn't provide nearly enough info. I really appreciate your using downtime to explain future plans and offering a bit of explanation behind your decisions. It's nice to actually learn the new focus trees instead of just mindlessly copying someone else's run.

[@audiogynephile]

if you try to invite albania to the faction with the decision and they fail, you instantly get a war goal on them that doesn't expire for like 2 years

[@Fyres11]

Was a bit unlucky with both Yugo and Romania refusing, but I was ready to war so I declared on Yugo and lucky Romania join without France and took some micromanagement to beat them. Italy took a big chunk of Yugo, But let me with 3 small satelite. When Italy made a government in Croatia. I tried to subjugate them and it worked for a extra puppet.

[@hanorio6435]

can you make a video of making the nordic unian as democret norway

[@DeathEatsCurry]

Is the military strength calculation based on divisions, like it usually is? If so, you could spam out 1 Infantry divisions and possibly knock a bunch of the countries out a lot earlier (since the mil strength is usually the bottleneck).

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Manpower in the field, I believe

[@scottderemer316]

@@Bitt3rSteel i rolled back to the relevant patch to do these achieves. 1 div inf counts as stronger army

[@fret1]

10:26 we live in a society BOTTOM TEXT

[@InvertedGigachad]

Why we need transport planes? It's a surprise tool that will help us later

[@failuretv814]

May i suggest you try playing as greece following the right to rule path? No one is doing this path and i kinda want to know what am i suposed to do

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Ah, that one. I've considered it, since it's a change from the usual Byzantium stuff

[@scott3017]

From what I've seen in the new update if you declare on Hungary after they flip to fascist they immediately join the axis.

[@TheXenomorphGuySMSE]

once in a multiplayer game i was told to play as Bulgaria as a punishment for sabotaging the previous game by dragging the usa into the war. boy, did they not see this coming

[@ChristianHopchas]

Never thought that I'd hear that the Axis is significantly weaker without Italy.

[@chainsawblue3639]

That’s cool and all but you should try Anything But Sevres, as Ottoman Turkey hold the capitals of Uk, france, Italy and Japan. Was horrible to get in my run.

[@skittybug6937]

Welp. Greece refused to join my faction (despite all modifiers being positive) and it killed my run.

[@jeremyramsey8804]

How do you force a puppet to leand lease to you?

[@malaysianmapping9767]

Hey man can you do a challenge British Malaya gaining independence (THROUGH DEMOCRACY) and having all of SEA

[@lyndonbjohnson2865]

Could you do a guide for sun tzu or the wojtek one?

[@dylanb2990]

You can get sun tzu with all the other red China achievements if you do the bulk of your fighting with the same general for the whole game and then make him a field Marshall once he’s lvl 9.

[@lyndonbjohnson2865]

@@dylanb2990 yea I started a game as red China since my wifi was off and one of my games didn't render. But its just really cancerous its worse than any of the other ones imo.

[@dylanb2990]

@@lyndonbjohnson2865 yeah I had to play to 46 grinding against the axis to get it

[@asilalvarez8363]

Can you do the "Once more mate" achievement?Also if you read this comment please do the "One nation under Atatürk,Indivisible" with any achievement in same video.You would just need to deselect the "Battle for Bosporus" DLC and unpause the game.

[@boweniscool]

right when I went to click on some popup the Regency Council came up and i clicked whatever the bottom option is!! 😭 Lol whatever, if this means a restart then so be it

[@TheGmaxMan]

You should have done the paramilitary focus. It gives you 500 manpower a week

[@yunus1074]

challenge idea:getting every country's sea borders as Chile

[@crylia8666]

This is autism at its peak... i like it. But only take sea provinces

[@trite4654]

Literally just a world conquest dude

[@ThugRammus]

Im not sure what i did wrong but EVERYONE declined to join my faction even though every modifier was on Green and i improoved relations

[@olmo3134]

A video forming the European Union could be pretty cool

[@martinillerbrand]

Do Nordic empire world conquest please

[@markwiles6803]

Do Sun Tzu Reborn I've never seen it done 👀

[@SC4RRiGAN]

Its not that hard just play communist china level your generell and promote him to field marshall. Bittersteel has a Communist china vid out 4 months ago so it should be easy and its also fun as hell :)

[@Nowyuiiiseee]

If this achievement doesn’t work for you don’t worry. You need six puppets, not five (I hate Paradox)

[@TheXenomorphGuySMSE]

did you say you "hardly recommend it" or "heartily recommend it" ????

[@fedorshcheglov5534]

I always spam out a ton of 2 width divisions and everybody accepts. You can get like 60 of them.

[@user-dj1kn1ek7q]

if you chose the tsar"s regime, you will get more stability and the people will love you more, but if you play with Zveno, the people are going to make you more problems, and USSR will hate you

[@temporelucemtenebris5313]

"I promise" he said "Bulgaria, very fun country" he said

[@averagerocenjoyer3152]

You can actually divide Yugoslavia to get more puppets

[@KazakhHold]

What are your thoughts on this update I’m kind of disappointed honestly all 3 of the countries kind of had trash focus trees imo

[@Bitt3rSteel]

I'm liking Bulgaria so far, it has options. Turkey is just a meme at this point. Haven't tried Greece yet

[@KazakhHold]

@@Bitt3rSteel I tried playing turkey couldn’t do anything fun until 1940

[@ethanh.6240]

"gamers rise up ideology" you fucking madman I loved that

[@Mephisto43]

Why exactly do you need to take Albania?

[@jackhiggs3829]

Tried this, got stuck with a Lovely Macedonian debuff that wouldb't go away lmao.

[@radio-active8522]

Dude in the end you could make Serbia by another territory and Macedonia not as separate country because these were Bulgarian national territories.

[@SyamuNekoSan]

So, Bulgaria is the real Master of Puppets

[@kylekevin9651]

Any good tips for hoi4 help me please I'm in hell in hoi4

[@daltonprinzluckyluke8790]

You could make a Imperium Romanum Guide

[@Bitt3rSteel]

I have one on my channel, actually

[@daltonprinzluckyluke8790]

Oh i didnt see that thank you 😊 I like your videos really much

[@Ieva_Leonardo]

Bordergore

[@Marcin1997konrad]

Anyone know how to get actual regency council ruling? Because whatever i click, i always end up with this Georgi Kyoseysomething

[@Bitt3rSteel]

There's an event a few days after completing the regency council focus. Georgi is a stop-gap measure

[@Marcin1997konrad]

@@Bitt3rSteel yes but in my games it doesnt matter which government i appoint (pro axis pro democratic or independent) i always end up with him

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Huh, sounds like a bug

[@al.bay24]

Macedonian Empire challenge?

[@Hatsuzu]

>didn't bring back Tsar Ferdinand I My day was ruined.

[@baloghbotond4250]

Why don`t the achievements ever pop up so we can see them work?

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Mostly because I already have them, fam

[@baloghbotond4250]

Holy crap. I didn`t actually think I would ever get a response. mad respect for doing so, but I want to ask how can I do this achievement "today" since I followed your instructions to the letter and I still can`t get Italy into a faction, and if I do yolo world domination like I would with any other major/ minor I run out of manpower like crazy. With Prussia of the Balkans focus done, and all the manpower focuses done I still feel like I owe manpower to some fictional bank. (Tried with no garrison order too)@@Bitt3rSteel

[@mydloSA]

Because he tricked us! It's actually a modded Hearts of Iron 3!

[@tuturg7454]

Any Idea to expand this tuto into "Prussia of the Balkans" ? Now with the more recent patch, Albania won't fold to Italy if they are in a faction, so no need for paratroopers. Continue by joining the war against the USSR to get Moldova back, then hope Italy release italian Croatia to pressure it into servitude or just kick Benito and invade him while also freeing Turkey and attacking them, making them join the Axis. Did anyone try this ?

[@LucasCastro-ox6qi]

I had some issues as the ottomans, the tree didnt work and I couldnt puppet Iran, iraq and afghanistan. Plus this manpower thing is fucking hell, im in 1942 and with no manpower, aways getting worse and worse, when I try to core the kurds (+70% collaboration) the decision simply doesnt work. Plus, when I tried to combat the kemalist the decisions didnt work either

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Great isn't it? I've decided to wait for a patch

[@LucasCastro-ox6qi]

@@Bitt3rSteel do you have a discord group for your subscribers? Sometimes I want to play hoi4 multiplayer but there are few players out there

[@turkboy7thst]

Paratroopers are not landing for some reason, anyone encountered this?

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Seems a bug that's been popping up, no real work around exceptnreloading

[@jippy33]

Didn't work for me, Italy never joined my faction due to being a major (even with 100 relations).

[@pablorobredosaria652]

Italy has to do the focus "befriend Bulgaria"

[@jippy33]

@@pablorobredosaria652 Well yeah. If they didn't I wouldn't say "it didnt work".

[@Sophiebryson510]

Ok

[@The_good_guy_rabbit]

This is a old video. It doesn't even have the intro music.

[@AS1501-]

I lost it at 10:24

[@6th_Army]

I was wondering why you had so much pp compared to me when it came to the early decisions. Then I realized I took the 21 day decision while you took the 14 day decision twice. So you were doing stuff about 2 weeks later on then when I was able to do them. I don't yet know how that effects things later on in my run. I hope it makes things go more smoothly. Edit : 1 : First hiccup already. Somehow, my research is 30 days behind. I don't know how that's the case since I'm not even 10 months in yet. Is it something to do with La Resistance? 2 : First maybe good thing. Since I got a democracy event. I can do the non partisans focus one focus early. I don't know if I should take it right away or not. So I'll simply ignore it for now and do it at the same time as Bitt3r did.

[@thejp361]

"Kingdom of Greece accepts to join the Greater Bulgarian Federation" "Kingdom of Greece changed our diplomatic relations: Leave faction"

[@Bitt3rSteel]

I blame Paradox :(

[@konkelbar3796]

Haven't had time to play (ironically because I'm in the military) so I'm gonna ask instead. Isn't it possible to turn fascist, invade Yugoslavia and make puppets of every separate state?

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Yeah, if that's your fancy.

[@leoguarizo2]

My fighters air wings are just disappearing during a war. I couldn't pin down the reason. Are you guys having the same problem, or nobody gives a **** about green air?

[@Bitt3rSteel]

If the enemy takes an airport, or an airport just changes ownership, the planes stationed there are destroyed. Bug in 1.10

[@leoguarizo2]

@@Bitt3rSteel Just checked the beta version. They are aware and the said that the bug should be gone. I gonna test it now.

[@SerLagsalot]

Well this is annoyingly unfortunate. I invited Italy in, and got dragging into their "war" with Ethiopia. No choice, just am in it. This means that war with the Allies is absolutely unavoidable.

[@MistixMC]

u did something wrong fam

[@hzcyd101]

Hardly Anything Sevres? I'd rather beat Soviet than have to do agonizing para-drop on Japan.

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Just waiting for the new balance patch!

[@hzcyd101]

@@Bitt3rSteel Good idea! Turkey and Greece are definitely need some buff. Also the new Byzantine achievement, tried it and found Greece is even weaker than when I was doing 'I Swear I'm Not a Byzantophile '.