UK Guide - Taking out Germany by Late 1941 - Historical

Taking out the Axis without the USA's help by the End of 1941 while still allowing France to Fall. This build is light on air through the beginning of the war. It produces enough air to win the air war but not any more than that. Do not need to go past limited conscription to win the war. Could probably optimize slightly better and capitulate Germany before Barb.
Better Focus Order:
1. Limited Rearmament
2. Steady as She Goes
3. Service Overseas
4. Encourage Colonial Elite
5. Home Defense
6. Shadow Scheme
7. Industrial Effort
8. Royal Ordnance Factories
9. General Rearmament
10. Air Rearmament
11. Fighter Command
12. Extra Research Slot
13. Naval Rearmament
14. Aircraft Production Group
15. A Motorized Army
16. Royal Tank Regiment
17. Prepare for The Inevitable
18. Issue Gas Masks
19. Chief of Staff Committee
20. Military Training Act
21. Air Defense
22. Radar
23. Whatever you want, doesn't really matter.
Twitch.tv/71Cloak

[@71Cloak]

So, it turns out democratic countries can't form collaboration governments and that's why the mission for it wasn't showing up. Who Knew.

[@abiraljha8752]

can u do op UK one empire achievement as a Democratic country? It is possible if u take global defense

[@Daniel-en1on]

I don’t think it works if you are in the Allies faction either.

[@musAKulture]

im surprised with all your experience you didn't know this before. beautifu video

[@sharadowasdr]

Okay that is just STUPID !

[@quickstergamestutorialsgam3899]

​@@sharadowasdr Lol I learned that when I was playing as the USA. Tried to form a collab government on Japan but I couldn't.

[@cc0767]

45:30 Hamburg isnt actually on the coast. Its an inland city. It only has a huge ass river. Would be kinda interesting if they added ports to cities with big rivers.

[@dissapointingopinions4877]

Hungry sailing down the Danube with superheavy BB

[@isaacpowrie465]

@@dissapointingopinions4877 dont think a superheavy battleship would survive on it

[@dissapointingopinions4877]

@@isaacpowrie465 true probably not deep enough.

[@MrGreghome]

@@dissapointingopinions4877 danube blue waltz intensifies

[@johenlo9564]

@@dissapointingopinions4877 river ship tech or something like that could work i mean it did work in ww2

[@willwalsh7591]

8:10 the political power you got came from Greece paying debts from BftB dlc.

[@behemothlogistics]

You really nail the right blend of content in your guides - detailed enough to be informative, without becoming tedious. Keep up the good work, my dude! I'm looking forward to your Warhammer 3 videos. As an aside, as soon as I heard you say "out", I knew you were a fellow Canuck.

[@ddjay1363]

@71Cloak The UK starts with RDF/RPF in 1936 as they were working on these things at the time and these became useful for the navy and particularly the RAF and defence of the country. This lead on to Radio Detection And Ranging, AKA 'RADAR'. Funny thing though... For some reason in Hoi IV the UK has to 'research' Royal Marines even though marines had been part of the Royal Navy for a couple of centuries by the time-frame the game is set. ;-)

[@jjquinn295]

It took them like 6 DLCs for the US to have trucks at the start, so they will fix UK marines eventually.

[@minderbart1]

same with dutch royal marines. and probably a lot of others too.

[@ddjay1363]

@Aran_G Aye, but you shouldn't have to 'research' Royal Marines. They have been part of the Royal Navy for centuries. ;-)

[@henrykri2067]

Thanks for your nice guides 71Cloak. I just want to make a point about game difficulty setup. You discuss it at 0:11. Okey, playing on Veteran or Elite difficulty makes the game harder, but mostly it makes the games more boring for myself. More boring because of that you gain Political Power (PP) slower and your research goes slower. For me PP and Research is a very fun part of HOI4. So if you want a harder game it is much better to use the Custum Game Rules and strengthen the nations you want to make stronger. Then you can stay on regular difficulty and still get a more challenging game.

[@joegx4450]

Appreciate the UK guide my guy! Loving the videos!!!

[@populistrevolution5197]

That was brilliant, iv only started the game, thank you for your input

[@scotch_mist]

That was fascinating, i learned a lot of tips from this - you make it look easy! :D Thank you! :)

[@scotch_mist]

I was so confused when Free France... never appeared, they just went straight to Vichy. I've never seen that before. not only that, but Poland never asked to join the Allies and I couldn't join the war until I was able to invite Belgium and the Nederlands to join my faction and Germany declared war on them. The France refused to let me have any of their divisions. :D

[@gabrielniklasschildt5612]

can't wait for the Italy Guide

[@FulmenTheFinn]

It's better to take Steady As She Goes later, because if you take it as 2nd focus you can't farm PP and stability from the Abdication of Edward VIII event chain. What you do is you pick morganatic marriage, wait for event where you set the date for the wedding, hope to also get the one where Edward VIII holds his radio speech, and then abdicate anyway on the next bad event.

[@datboi7893]

Very informative video, can you please demonstrate how you force your fleet to engage in a naval battle that it doesn't want to join? I mean many times I have had my fleet on always engage and there is a flotilla of enemy escorts(defending their convoys in a naval battle) in the tile in front of the port but my fleet won't move. A short video on this would be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

[@71Cloak]

With your fleet on always engage. Remove it from the order its on and send it to the province the battle is in. It should engage in the battle. Be careful you will lose half of your org.

[@datboi7893]

@@71Cloak Thank you once again. Do you have any idea why this might be happening?

[@28lobster28]

I prefer the attache to Spain -> Partial -> Workhorse build. You still get SW before Baldwin dies so SW is discounted and you don't have to demobilize, just get Home Defense and/or Burma Road when Chamberlain comes to power and send an attache to China when Spain ends. SP has China war on 7th focus, I rarely see Spain end that early. I also like to hard research F2s but that's definitely not necessary in SP with the AI being potato in the air.

[@oldpersonmc18yearold46]

agreed. i think even if you're doing tanks it's still better to do that strategy (which is basically just the MP one). sacrificing a research slot to be able to have air superiority the whole game with only 30-40 on fighters is very worthwhile.

[@OverlordMalarkey]

Would like to see you play as the UK again but do Imperial Federation

[@chengzhou8711]

I actually just took out Germany as the UK in 1939. This happened when I used a bunch of the tank regimens to smash a weak part of the line on the French border. At first my strategy was defensive, but it quickly went off and serve one I took the troops of the Belgium border to assault this small weak point. Once I made the initial breakthrough, I trash the troops that we’re going to attempt a breakthrough through broil John and I cut them off from supply, and after that, the war was pretty much decided. Huge amounts of German troops Scott and circled in Stuttgart and other places like Köln. I also naval invaded Italy and North Africa in order to get a little bit of army experience as well as tie down the Italians in a war of attrition. Somehow, I did this all as Chamberlain. Possibly one of the best timelines. Am I have a war with the Spanish on my hands as well as something about the Soviets, although I really don’t care about them unless they provoke the Allie’s instead.

[@colintulloch]

Is it just me or is there some army organization and general assignments skipped over from 22:07->22:08? And shortly after. Can't tell which armies are covering which spots and where the divisions are going anymore

[@user-lp1qz7gj6w]

5:59 I have done Sonar, how to implement it now? I thought this is going to be ship which is supposed to be converted anyway.... So should I do Type 144 Asdic?

[@czintrpt5585]

A question: I hear and read often, that AT and Artillery support companies are not worth it, because AA does enough piercing for infantry and with tank company the tanks do the piercing and soft attack. That would free up 2 support slots. What's your take on this?

[@71Cloak]

Part of it depends on what you are playing against. In multiplayer most people will go engineers and aa and that's it. This is because they are working under the assumption that the enemy is going to push with tanks. If that is true then artillery is useless and in thr past at would be able to pierce the tanks. With the current meta being no armour tanks then the piercing from at will let even you infantry pierce enemy tanks so that now has value. Sup Art is S tier in singleplayer though. It is the most cost effective source of soft attack in the game. AT is good when going up against Germany because they are going to try and build tanks (they suck but still have armour high enough to normally not be pierced by aa). In this case using at will reduce their tanks org damage by 28% even if it doesn't do much to damage them just by making them piercable. So they have value, and they are definitely better then what you would replace them with. So the question is do you want the support companies at all or no. I like slightly higher quality infantry so i use them.

[@czintrpt5585]

Thanks for the answer, just got the notification today

[@UCKszbcV]

@71Cloak is the trick of training only 1 division still valid? thanks!

[@aeht9156]

if you dont want to demobilize you can just do the home defense focus it gives 5% ws

[@bojangles17fettman3]

@71Cloak Just curious if you were to take out La Resistance DLC how much of the strategy gets altered since Vichy France will be fighting in the Africa campaign when playing as the UK?

[@71Cloak]

Just keep pushing across north africa then. It really shouldn't make that much of a difference. Vichy France is quite weak.

[@NECATEA]

Does that light tank conversion trick still work? 12:22

[@user-pn7jz9vr2z]

On August 18th I randomly got 5 more military factories Any idea why?

[@ComanderSev]

What would be your guide for beating the allied navy as germany? Most guides always focus on Japan, UK or USA but those are 3 nations which have the biggest starting fleet to begin with. I figured heavy cruiser and DD spam together with subs is the best bet?

[@71Cloak]

Dont bother actually trying to build a better navy than them. Build 10 cheap DDs and then sub 2s and go for a sealion in 1940 before the USA joins so that the allies cap and you can puppet the UK and steal their navy. I did a video on sealion if you need help with it. Otherwise yes CAs with cheap dds and a lot of air cover is your best bet. Get naval bombers is your really worried about it otherwise just use your cas/tacs.

[@ComanderSev]

@@71Cloak Ah well there goes Wilhelms dream of a high seas fleet

[@casualboomer3593]

Really enjoy the video. Curious about a couple things: 1. Why not hold Belgium against the AI? With the new supply system, it's fairly easy to hold enough of Belgium that they never capitulate, and holding southern France just requires a supply hub (which building in allies allows now). 2. Using your conversion strat, I was capable of amassing excess light tanks even converting both types. Would it be worth going a step or two further and using armored recon companies and flame tanks on your larger infantry templates? Or would the math fail at that point?

[@scotch_mist]

Would you still make light tanks for this or maybe medium tanks? I can't really make the light tanks work for me anymore. Could just be lack of micro managing skill though :)

[@71Cloak]

I think you can still make the light tanks work. Their biggest strength is still the gun so the rest shouldn't really matter. You should really only be dealing with infantry and the odd tank. So, they should be enough if you micro.

[@scotch_mist]

@@71Cloak Cheers. I'm not very efficient it seems, even with medium tanks, i got bogged down in north africa for almost a year and a half trying to take Tobruk. Managed eventually when I thought to move a fleet to the sea beside the port to blockade and they started running out of supplies. Eventually I destroyed 38 divisions in that little encirclement. It was beautiful!

[@radiacia_3511]

How did you get France to give you their divisions?

[@kyallokytty]

8:10 Ive been noticing that too, playing france I just get 20 pp out of nowhere

[@ignasanchezl]

Having never played allies i took out germany with france mid 1941 on historical focuses. Surprisingly easy ngl. The USA did join kinda late, but the ussr never got to war

[@Gregatron13]

On your focus list in the description, shouldn't the second one be Reinforce the Empire if Service Overseas is third?

[@71Cloak]

If you have to do reinforce the empire to do service overseas. Do I really need to list both.

[@grandengineernathan]

As France it is easy to do it by 1940. Contest the rhineland, if the british join then good else challenge done by 1936, then help the Czechs, occuoy the rhineland with motorized, germany won't stop attacking until it runs out of equipment (2 million casualties in a year or so), then push. If italy joins the war don't worry they won't have divisions on the border, if they do deploy your fleet so they will garrison coast and wait a bit for them to remove their divisions. without contesting rhineland you don't run the risk of an early war if you think you can't win it, but germany is reluctant to commit suicide on the Maginot

[@williamday9628]

FYI I wondered about the collaboration government too, it turns out that a democratic nation cannot perform that operation (or have them all together).

[@Bodhran67]

I tried as hard as I might, but over five different saves, I was never able to convert the Hermes over the the new design. The conversion button never appeared next to the ship. All other CV's were ok. Maybe I should start again from scratch and not from the same root save. Or it is a bug.

[@71Cloak]

You have to use a converted cruiser hull to convert it.

[@Bodhran67]

Well, actually, that is a glitch. It does not show as being convertible, but it is, I just had to click on the ship's silhouette. The convert button is missing but it works anyway.

[@johncarter449]

you could invite POrtugal and deny the Germans that sweet tugsten

[@maximfunfstuck5741]

hey, sry if this has been asked before, but why do you pick dispersed? im not exactly sure what the buffs are, but to me concentrated always seemed like a nobrainer with air superiority.

[@71Cloak]

Dispersed has higher base production efficiency and gets retention. You produce more ib the short-term with dispersed than concentrated. Game doesn't really go long enough to see the benefits of concentrated.

[@maximfunfstuck5741]

@@71Cloak thanks for the answer!

[@TheyCalledMeT]

you left out grinding air xp. you can do so extremely well in china. you can send further and recall your air troops when ever you want, not just when the war starts/ends and you make stupid amounts (well over 1k -- primarily with CAS) of air xp (it definitively works when you support japan, may try support china aswell)

[@71Cloak]

What? I'm democratic. I can't send volunteers until 50 world tension which doesn't happen until after Germany starts WW 2. Once your at war you can't send volunteers.

[@TheyCalledMeT]

@@71Cloak my bad, i'm used to play fascist :D

[@bravo2966]

I play UK almost exclusively and I've never, not even once, had a game where Vichy didn't declare on its first day of existing. I've tried all kinds of things and they always declare day one. Is there one of the DLCs that fixes this issue? I only play with MtG.

[@bravo2966]

@@truckerdave6503 It's coded in, I read the code. The author even wrote an apology about it in the comments. La Resistance solves it true, but from what I've read from the reviews it's an awful DLC and I really can not be bothered having to send individual spies in a grand strategy game.

[@Man_of_Various_Cultures]

I was playing a japan game and dominated asia and went through the middle east to get to the Mediterranean to save the capped Italy and dying Germany. As i was busy sinking the British fleet, my strike force also split into a million different pieces for some reason.

[@ICXC07]

how much of this applies to multiplayer games against the axis ?

[@monkas1833]

nothing. MP UK just builds a shit ton of planes and mostly garrisons

[@28lobster28]

In MP you definitely go for partial mob with Spain attache, hard research fighter 1/2, license fighter 1 from Soviets, license fighter 2 from Australia, and put 90% of your mils on fighter 2 when it unlocks. You also lend-lease trucks/trains to SAf, get convoys from Raj, and you may be sending planes to Canada if they're AC (if not you should be getting at least 5 doctrines in SD before war). Definitely don't build arty 1 either. Beyond the air stuff and the attache to Spain, the build mostly works for MP. The main difference in MP is that UK needs to coordinate the Allies. Who's the tech steal target? Who's rushing AT, arty, rocket arty, etc? Who's making mech for Africa, who's bringing marines, can someone pop their "reorganize railways" to make a supply hub in Sudan? Team coordination makes MP a vastly different experience, even if the builds are similar (and MP also makes air builds useful because your Allies will have decent ground troops).

[@monkas1833]

@@28lobster28 He won‘t have mils for tanks tho

[@canter1ter]

23:19 "You wont have PP" rude

[@klioblue9771]

It is a bit sad that navy doomstack is the easiest way to go, and beside us there is no one to challenge royal navy

[@Finlzz]

The US and Japan can easily challenge the Royal Navy. The US also starts off with more capital ships in production than the UK so has more by 37

[@bdcopp]

The easiest way to beat Germany is to start the war in 1938 by siding with the Czechs. Then give them air superiority and loads of cas.

[@scotch_mist]

My last few games Poland has not joined the Allies when attacked by Germany, as the UK do I have to now manually guarantee their independence?

[@71Cloak]

Either you or France needs to guarantee Poland.

[@scotch_mist]

@@71Cloak Ah that probably explains why my first try Poland did join, France must have guaranteed them. Then after that, for whatever reason, France did not guarantee them.

[@71Cloak]

@@scotch_mist France probably didn't have the pp to guarantee them the 2nd time around.

[@scotch_mist]

@@71Cloak That makes sense. It's odd how many countries on historical seem to go ... non-historical lately. Ah well... Thanks for your time and thanks for the awesome videos!

[@zzooeecastles]

steady as she goes focus used before you are at war wastes stability tick up, if you wait till george the 6th it will go up to 100% with out steady as she goes

[@71Cloak]

Base stability over 100 gets tracked by the game. There is no benefit from it but it isn't wasted.

[@VelkejAjik]

I managed to defeat Germans in early 1943 with keeping France alive, just send 1 army to the north and one to south, another 2 armies in Africa (one in Egypt, one in central Africa - btw 15 width works great on no one step back in africa!) and one army in reserve. After I secured Africa by the end of 1940, I just naval invaded sicily and sardinia and after some time Italy itself, making it surrounding by the mid 1941. Then I just liberated all of Balkans, defeated all eastern European german sattelites and afterwards crush Germans themselves. Was a lot of fun, Germany didn't declare on USSR because of their unability to defeat France, so post-war peace deal was very sweet for UK.

[@ufuker5754]

Hey i know you are not that kind of channel but plase do send volunteers to ethiopia as soviets please as part of italy it is super meme but can be done in sp and mp and it works sort of if you get port you could send 10000 guns that dubbles the power of ethiopia Just look at it

[@scotch_mist]

I'm really struggling with pushing across north africa. My divisions just can't seem to push through their 7-8 divisions per tile and I have to keep making naval invasions past their lines. Somehow it just seems harder than it did a few months ago. Or maybe I just started sucking more :D Edit: At last I have taken North Africa! Stupidly during my invasion of Sardinia I left my 24 divisions on auto and was busy looking at something else and came back to find the island entirely in Italian hands and my army gone. I suppose they naval invaded behind me. This time, I left 2 units to guard the port i entered at! And have almost succeeded. Just trying to take the north island now.

[@engels754]

I thought collab govs are only available for neutral, fascist and communist countries to perform. Democracy is just too friendly for that kind of policy... at least in hoi4...

[@mountaindew418]

if this gonna go multiplayer. would i have enough air force?

[@71Cloak]

Probably not. I didnt rush fighter 2s or go that heavy on planes. In Mp you're going to have allied minors providing the tanks and stuff allowing you to out a lot more on air. Germany will have at least 3000 fighters by jan 1 1940 and have access to fighter 3s if they do it properly.

[@lolomgwtfkaya6066]

Great video 71Cloak, but I have an issue regarding the “XP exploit” you did at the start of the game. I started as Britain, deleted all my divisions expect for one, and put him on training all the way to 1937. Yet, the daily XP gain is stuck at 0.006. Any-way to solve this problem?

[@71Cloak]

It takes about 9 months as the Uk for the game to forget your number of divisions. So if you didn't do it immediately that could be why. Otherwise, divisions in training also count towards your number of divisions so that could be it. You need to make sure you have only have 1 divison period.

[@ichdu4493]

How the hell people micromanage each single division lol. i just make a plan, draw a line, click execute and they do what i want them to do. so far it was enough for me lol

[@Pax.Britannica]

Using 20 real chunky Inf/AT/AA/Arty/tank divisions & 'Tip of the Spear', invade Germany near Denmark, then strike at Berlin before the hun can reposition units. When you stop gaining territory, hold place, entrench & let the Soviets will ROFL stomp them.

[@arkivuo5284]

Good tempo in the guide but then you skipped the entire army setup :S

[@steveyford7127]

Hmm. Everything looked suspiciously easy 😮. North Africa was empty, the invasion was easy . I've done this run a thousand times on regular

[@scotch_mist]

I always forget to guarantee Poland which is awkward when in Ironman :(

[@g2ltt733]

Usually France guarantee them anyway so it is not that impactful

[@scotch_mist]

@@g2ltt733 They do if they have enough PP, but that only seems to be about 1 game in 3 for me. Naturally, having a memory like a sieve I forget about 2 games in 3. :D

[@Aiphiae]

I'll never understand how the people who are good at this game can get so much done with infantry. My infantry divisions get absolutely nowhere on offense. The AI defends and I'm stuck in a stalemate for the next year or two like I'm LARPing WW1.

[@s0lsticefr4]

make sure your infantry has good soft attack and that you have air superiority with cas if possible planning bonus gives you more attack if the AI division are in bad shape it'll be easier for you tu push

[@brankomirkovic1730]

@71Cloak As a democratic country, you cant make colaboration goverments, only as fasist, non alligned or comunist. :) Cheers

[@zzooeecastles]

twice before war the uk gets an unexpected pp boost:)

[@71Cloak]

I'm going to be honest, I don't know why.

[@zzooeecastles]

@@71Cloak me too but i like it:)

[@timra9309]

Democracies don't do collaboration governments

[@philippelhaus]

Regular Difficulty 😂

[@71Cloak]

I did this exact same build on stream using either veteran or elite difficulty. Managed to cap them around the same time without the US getting involved. Most people who need a guide aren't going to be playing on that difficulty so some of the things you do there aren't really applicable for Normal difficulty or below.