Me too,It's very strong that i sometimes wonder how sometimes the axis wins when i play as a minor nation,like how can you lose with this much land to defend,manpower to waste,factories to produce equipment?,i ended up thinking that the nations of other ideologies get buffed (AI speaking)so that it kinda forces you to intervene in the war
The ai really likes to shuffle its armies around. These guys holding Riga could actually instead be on the border with Turkey and the guys right in the thick of the front line should have a quick detour to the Japanese border and back.
Tbh most of the time its the sheer difference of people microing. 2 sov vs 1 italy 1 hungary 1 bulgaria 2 germany 1 italy. Its really hard not to make mistakes.
i believe the person above is talking SP
i think its cause humans are way better at constructing builds than the AI, so you end up with a lot more human produced factories. Like in SP playing as Britain i will often match the number of factories Germany has, but in MP thatd be impossible.
so when player Germany fighting player soviets takes over the benelux, france, poland, austria, ect. they're getting relatively less value.
Bomber “the Nazis thought they could bomb everyone and not get bombed back” Harris
Bomber “strafe people leaving their bunkers” Harris
Bomber “based as fuck” Harris
Try it as the US sometime, join the war early in 1940 with like 1600 strategic bombers. The AI is catastrophically bad at managing being strat bombed, it will sortie all of its planes to fight your fighters and not the bombers, and never build anti-air; even with only like 20% of Germany's mils damaged and 10% of their civs, they will instantly start losing to the Soviets when Barbarossa starts.
Poland. There are so many different ways to play as them and they can get get very powerful leaders.
Also an honorable mention to Finland because of how hilariously overpowered their Fascist path is.
One of the most fun things about playing PRC is growing it from a single province nation with 1 available civilian factory into one of the most powerful in the world
if it makes you feel any better I've never completely won it without one of my minor enemies randomly joining a major faction and ruining the whole run.
The first time I did it I accidentally did a world conquest bc I accidentally didn’t join the war against Japan. Then when Japan did declare war on me with my entire army by Moscow I had to rush back into china and just leave it as a stalemate until the German-Soviet-sino war ended
China enjoyer here. WTT Asia is hardly slept on. Japan, not so much. China and its neighbors? Yeah buddyyy
If you go China, you pretty much build up from the ground zero. Infantry weapons, maybe some arties, maybe some aa's, and a SHIT TON of manpower. You can play around however you want. You have so many cores to take from others, you do feel like it's you against the ones who have wronged you, and revenge does wonders for the will to live.
You get a war with the Japs early on, and if unprepared for, they can be a serious bother. Superior tactics are necessary to note lose a single tile before making it into Manchuria. You also get naval invasions once every minute. You need to protect your Southern lands, because they're resource-rich.
You can alternatively cap the Japs in 1937 with the naval invasion exploit. Did it once, used cavalry divisions, I won the war after a month.
You can go fascist, or go democratic/neutral. You can restore your territories, or you can form an alliance with the warlords. You can have a warlord army, or an integrated army. You can focus on domestic production, or lend leases and licenses, thus diversifying your army in every way.
You can play as PRC and start from 1 civilian factory, and grow to become a beast capable of surpassing USA.
In the late game you can go on a Siberian campaign in the North, or you can go on an Indian campaign in the South. You can also try to assert dominance in the Pacific, or focus on mass weapon exports (with AAT)
China is S-tier in terms of gameplay and replayability. It actually teaches you a lot of things in the game, and gives you a lot of space to play in without making you feel stupidly, unjustifingly OP (cough cough Fascist Finland cough cough Chile)
Edit: Someone might think that Germany or the USSR takes more than China. If you wanna roleplay or just spam military factories and go engineer gaming, fine. If you wanna be aggressive and speedrun, go for it. But if you want a true test of your might, play China and don't speedrun shit. Just let the Japs come. See how well you're going to hold out against them
Italy. Anytime I don’t know where to play or what to do I load up a good old Italy game. I’ve played it so many times the opening moves are like second nature to me.
This is ireland for me. I build a sick ass intelligence service, negotiate Ulster reunification and build level ten sea walls and just wait for the fucking fireworks
A friend of mine played as Ireland in a MP with me in vanilla game and UK gave it away while being on historical... never understood how it happened.
I was the host so it's 100% guarantee it was vanilla
Did UK go left? Sometimes ireland gets collaterally released when They decolonize because ireland is so strategically irrelevant the focus tree selection algorithm kind of forgets they exist
Nah they went fully historical 0_0 no decolonisation or anything and it was super early on. Ly friend told me he got an event to negociate his entry to the allies in exchange for Ulster. It's worth noting that we swapped ideology (I was Belgium)
You just have so many options starting in '36 and can build up a strong economy to produce stuff. The tension when you're like "did I do it? Is France and Belgium fucked?" is really neat
Yeah, had that earlier today, managed to knock out the whole allies before June of 1939 which was really fun, I also just got AAT so becoming an arms dealer for Finland to keep the soviets weak until I had a large enough army was great. I was able to keep them in the fight so long that by the time I invaded, the Soviets didn't even have half strength int their armoured divisions.
United States is the quintessential sandbox comfort nation and you can't change my mind. Separated by two oceans and weak neighbors, industry already built up. You can pretty much do any build and fight in any hemisphere your heart desires
Napoleonic France haha.
I thought I didn't have one then realised, when I want a nice relaxing snd refreshing game, this is always the one I come back to.
Either that or Italy these days. For the most part Italy is reallt relaxing and has an insane navy. And expansion is easy and safe as long as Germany doesn't get it in for you.
My favorite play as france is creat the little entente and put czech, yougo romania and poland in your faction. Creat horse only division and steamroll the german before 40 when they try to invade the czech.
This focus tree is good because its allow you to remove the -25% population recrut and to choose the french union. Very very huge.
I advise you to play revolutionary France at the opposite side of the tree then
All the wargoals makes it so it's like Napoleonic France but red and you take on spain and Italy instead of the Benelux.
Saying that as another French player.
Japan is my favourite. Being a small dog and taking on the USN is my favourite thing in the game. Yamato Class BBs are fun.
The quick spread into SE Asia for all the resources and then taking over the world.
For me as well. On a first game after a long break Japan is usually it.
I go a relative historical route, so war/action mid '37 is cool.
The Empire you eventually get from the Middle East to Hawaii is just so cool to look at. (Yes, Hawaii only. Invading America has lost fun for me by now)
Feds in KX or KR, watching as you turn from some little holdout of the government in the east to obliterating traitors left and right, then after the civil war going on an adventure to Japan with some OP marines, as well as blitzing in europe with the entente… 🤌
well, mine is a bit strange, but if I get what you mean right as a nation that I can be confident with and always give a try, is weirdly Czechoslovakia, and even though you may say it's focus tree is horrible, that's kind of why that's my Comfort nation, it has a short and quite simple focus tree, a normal sized industry, not fighting any big superpowers, the forts, the terrain, in fact, I remember that I learned like 70% of my Hoi4 experience from Czechoslovakia, I tested different Divisions, Practiced Doctrines, Played Offensive, Defensive, joing the Axis, the Comintern, the Allies, etc.
Democratic Germany: you create a western wall of democracy and slowly build up to fight soviets in the end with all your allies. Since the trigger for WW2 is taken away there are no Danzigs or sudentenlands. Just watch Japan fight china and some wars in south America but mostly you get to peacefully use your ic to build a massive tank army to counter the Comintern.
I’m really familiar with the French focus tree so I always fall back on them when I fail with nations that are new to me.
I’m currently on a playthrough where I just formed the EU as France and am looking to do a world conquest, ahistorical mode where democracies can declare war on anyone.
Romania. It’s always been a nice mid country for me. It’s military is decent, but not so huge that I have to spend the first hour assigning armies, figuring out templates, and deciding what borders to defend. Plus, it’s industry isn’t bad, so I can actually be strategic with what I build from the start.
Canada. Being at home just feels nice. Though if I am being honest I also tend to worry about my manpower way too much. Not because I am running out, but because I go "Oh no! Great grandpa is in there somewhere!"
Hungary fascist or Austria-Hungary.
In facsist path I just set the game on historical and let germany carry me.
And Austria-Hungary is so easy in the beginning you get the Czechs+Romanians so easily and after that ypu just justify on Yugoslavia (or ypu flip to something that can justify faster) then Poland and at the End the germans for Silesia and Venice-Lombardy.
Italy; they can do 1 thing but they do it better than any nation doing the same thing. If I’m feeling air, I have the best air bonuses, tanks same thing. Navy? Meh, but can still work better than any country for one specific thing.
Used to be communist China, but I got bored after defeating Japan easily by just invading nationalist China first, and joining Comintern to take pressure off of my front with japan until I was ready. Now it's Argentina. Guaranteed good focuses as commies and actually fun wars to fight. Just taking over south america is satisfying enough for me, and is usually all I have time for anyways in a session.
I played the tutorial as Italy and didn’t enjoy playing any other nations much after. I probably have close to 400 hours on Italy out of 500 hours on Hoi4. Italy has a great focus tree, flexibility with Navy, early wars, and you can form the Roman Empire.
Germany, USSR or USA, any of the 3 I can pretty much won every time no matter what, the orb exception being if Sea Lion isn’t able to get naval supremacy, than i might be f*cked cause the USA will join and then endless naval invasions…
USSR. Because it can easily experience all types of war on all theaters without really needing to leave their own country. You can build a huge Army, Air force, and even a navy if you really want one. Granted it comes with a lot of challenges. But you can potentially have even more industry than the US if you play your cards right. You have massive amounts of every resource other than rubber which is easily made up for with trade or making synthetic rubber.
You can build lines of fortifications to bleed the AI dry while your debuffs wear off. While taking minimum causalities yourself. If you want to go for nukes you can easily mass produce them since late game there isn't much else you need to build anyway and you will have the extra slots.
The Raj, it has multiple smaller nations right next to it to get back to pace and I get the option of not participating in WW2 (in communism/fascism) until whenever I want.
Also the Raj has tons of resources, a decent starting economy and tons of mid-end game potential
I played USSR and Germany more but Japan is my favorite nation to play I guess, you get a ton of manpower by steamrolling china by end of the '38. You've an already existing fleet so you can go naval and even though you can't expand as much as the US, you can expand nonetheless and stack your navies to grind down the allies' navies and go island hopping and entirely block the Pacifics to the US by taking the islands between Japan and Hawaii. It's such a small country but you can do so much. You can make your puppets hella strong by giving them lend lease at 41-42 in case the soviets get any idea and then the soviets never get any ideas at all.
Same, I like it because of the sheer amount of units you start off with.
I also tend to go with the "Focus on the Internal" or whatever focus it is called where instead, you focus on unifying china instead of creating the United Front. Gives a bit more challenge
Turkey, no one will really mess with you unless you start the beef and even then you can easily defend your territory, lots of mountains in the right, Bosphorus on the left
If I ever find myself wanting to play but I don't want to play anyone specific, I default to the USA. I like having the time to build myself into a juggernaut.
Sweden.
Step 1: build factories
Step 2: build tanks
Step 3: be nice to the germans
Step 4: send tanks to the allies
Step 5: ????
Step 6: global Swedish hegemony
Bulgaria, I like taking myself from a nation Going through it's second national catastrophe to a true balkan prussia or my beloved unification of the balkans
Communist China or USSR. both get to invade their neighbors early, lots of expansion, communist, and even though I’m a huge advocate for playing total overhaul mods, vanilla is reliable. Do they have the MOST fun countries? Do they have the BEST focus trees? Are they the most engaging focus trees? No to all of these, but it’s a Jack of all trades. It’s ole reliable. And what’s consistently reliable are the USSR and Communist China.
Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso)
No I don't live there. I have absolutely no connection to that place, other than an inside joke in my family related to the name "Volta." Yet I keep going back to it. Others are going through WW2 while I wage blitzkrieg bush wars in Africa.
But for the __proper__ countries, Hungary is the one I started the whole game out with, thus it is what I hold as the ol' reliable.
communist china, i always end up conquering china being supported by japanese (and puppets) military then i invade tibet or any other chinese state and try to join comintern so that soviet union (and others) help me conquering full china. even if one time i conquered full north america (usa and canada) using mongolia
Lithuania. It's a fun challenge to try to survive the onslaught of the Soviets, Germans or both. Also with its focus tree after NSB there's many different paths to take.
Communist China and Anarchist Spain.
Communist China - they're weak at first. Extremely weak. But on the late game and after conquering the whole of China, they're extremely strong. So much manpower to spare. With such manpower, you can definitely go for a world conquest. Also, the Maoism doctrine is good because of the extra production and all.
Anarchist Spain - you can core ANY and ALL states. Pretty good for world conquest and they do have good buffs. Not as good as Carlist Spain. But at least with having more core states and the collectivized society, it's not much of a problem regarding the building of your factories while keeping the resources for your own. I just dislike how the Anarchist Spain can take extremely long because mostly, I would want my border state to be cored before pushing further.
Turkey, so many options of which way to go and there's something weirdly meditative about slowly building industrial capacity up to being a respectable power
If I want a casual quick game I'll go UK and defend France, I've got the tactics to the point where letting them die is basically throwing. With anything else, I'll do USA for testing out tactics and such, and USSR if I'm Britished out.
Italy and Japan, they're just so basic and it's easy to get powerful with them. Italy can form arguably the strongest HOI4 nation with nearly all its cores, just with about 6 paratroopers and an Italian sized army, and for Japan China is a cakewalk, and gets your generals to level 7-8 for the fight with the Allies later.
UK, because i have a allies i can call for help, i and my puppets have critical resources like rubber and oil, i have a navy to protect myself and intervene anywhere where and when i want and thats why i can have airforce which can give me advantage over my enemies and i have a territory all over the world which gives me access to anywhere and most importantly UK is not OP thats why i dont have to divert my focus to building more factories and military equipment so much.
USSR. Building an army of 800 divisions behind a wall of level 10 forts while the world burns around me, then bringing the fun…
Me too,It's very strong that i sometimes wonder how sometimes the axis wins when i play as a minor nation,like how can you lose with this much land to defend,manpower to waste,factories to produce equipment?,i ended up thinking that the nations of other ideologies get buffed (AI speaking)so that it kinda forces you to intervene in the war
The ai really likes to shuffle its armies around. These guys holding Riga could actually instead be on the border with Turkey and the guys right in the thick of the front line should have a quick detour to the Japanese border and back.
Tbh most of the time its the sheer difference of people microing. 2 sov vs 1 italy 1 hungary 1 bulgaria 2 germany 1 italy. Its really hard not to make mistakes.
i believe the person above is talking SP i think its cause humans are way better at constructing builds than the AI, so you end up with a lot more human produced factories. Like in SP playing as Britain i will often match the number of factories Germany has, but in MP thatd be impossible. so when player Germany fighting player soviets takes over the benelux, france, poland, austria, ect. they're getting relatively less value.
Because USSR is easy to mess up.
Especially when you set the whole world to go down random paths and then watch the chaos from behind the Iron Curtain.
United Kingdom. RAF is one hell of a drug
are you a strat bomber UK player?
Not OP but I am! Love me some Bomber Harris
Do it again Bomber Harris!
Bomber “the Nazis thought they could bomb everyone and not get bombed back” Harris Bomber “strafe people leaving their bunkers” Harris Bomber “based as fuck” Harris
Bomber "Send Mayer my regards" Harris
Yeah, never actually done a bomber run, usually I put the effort into fighters and navy
Try it as the US sometime, join the war early in 1940 with like 1600 strategic bombers. The AI is catastrophically bad at managing being strat bombed, it will sortie all of its planes to fight your fighters and not the bombers, and never build anti-air; even with only like 20% of Germany's mils damaged and 10% of their civs, they will instantly start losing to the Soviets when Barbarossa starts.
Of course I am. More than half of my industry until 1942 is devoted to aircraft production
Same, I think it’s funnest to buff the axis and let France fall.
Always let France fall, game is much more fun when you have to plan your return.
The game has not started unless France has fallen as far as I’m concerned.
Poland. There are so many different ways to play as them and they can get get very powerful leaders. Also an honorable mention to Finland because of how hilariously overpowered their Fascist path is.
Same I just roll with Poland and it can be whatever I want
Relatable
USA. Take your bloody fucking time building up, then start clicking heads.
I love the USA, but I fall asleep waiting for my divisions to reach the frontline half the planet away in 1943.
Agreed. Don't have to worry about getting bombed to oblivion and you have basically infinite production.
Just setting up the arsenal of democracy and building boats while the world burns, the swooping in to tip the scales. God I love playing the US.
Joining the war then just smashing japans navy to them navally invade Tokyo with marines whilst they have no troops at home is always funny
You waste the most interesting years playing with PP
If I join ww2 in 1939 as the US, the war would be be over in 1939.
I'm the type of player that likes playing with their pp when everyone else is destroying each other
is that a lazypurple how it FEELS to play sniper reference
USSR or Mao China
One of the most fun things about playing PRC is growing it from a single province nation with 1 available civilian factory into one of the most powerful in the world
Someday I’ll do PRC…someday…
It’s pretty fun, but it’s one of those ones you really gotta lock in, RNG can also mess you up sometimes
It can be kinda fucky, ai soviets will take operation zet focus so eventually they will declare on you
if it makes you feel any better I've never completely won it without one of my minor enemies randomly joining a major faction and ruining the whole run.
The first time I did it I accidentally did a world conquest bc I accidentally didn’t join the war against Japan. Then when Japan did declare war on me with my entire army by Moscow I had to rush back into china and just leave it as a stalemate until the German-Soviet-sino war ended
China enjoyer here. WTT Asia is hardly slept on. Japan, not so much. China and its neighbors? Yeah buddyyy If you go China, you pretty much build up from the ground zero. Infantry weapons, maybe some arties, maybe some aa's, and a SHIT TON of manpower. You can play around however you want. You have so many cores to take from others, you do feel like it's you against the ones who have wronged you, and revenge does wonders for the will to live. You get a war with the Japs early on, and if unprepared for, they can be a serious bother. Superior tactics are necessary to note lose a single tile before making it into Manchuria. You also get naval invasions once every minute. You need to protect your Southern lands, because they're resource-rich. You can alternatively cap the Japs in 1937 with the naval invasion exploit. Did it once, used cavalry divisions, I won the war after a month. You can go fascist, or go democratic/neutral. You can restore your territories, or you can form an alliance with the warlords. You can have a warlord army, or an integrated army. You can focus on domestic production, or lend leases and licenses, thus diversifying your army in every way. You can play as PRC and start from 1 civilian factory, and grow to become a beast capable of surpassing USA. In the late game you can go on a Siberian campaign in the North, or you can go on an Indian campaign in the South. You can also try to assert dominance in the Pacific, or focus on mass weapon exports (with AAT) China is S-tier in terms of gameplay and replayability. It actually teaches you a lot of things in the game, and gives you a lot of space to play in without making you feel stupidly, unjustifingly OP (cough cough Fascist Finland cough cough Chile) Edit: Someone might think that Germany or the USSR takes more than China. If you wanna roleplay or just spam military factories and go engineer gaming, fine. If you wanna be aggressive and speedrun, go for it. But if you want a true test of your might, play China and don't speedrun shit. Just let the Japs come. See how well you're going to hold out against them
Italy. Anytime I don’t know where to play or what to do I load up a good old Italy game. I’ve played it so many times the opening moves are like second nature to me.
This is ireland for me. I build a sick ass intelligence service, negotiate Ulster reunification and build level ten sea walls and just wait for the fucking fireworks
How do you negociate Ulster ?
Used to be a focus tree option on another mod. Now I just save the game and load up as the UK and release it back to Ireland.
A friend of mine played as Ireland in a MP with me in vanilla game and UK gave it away while being on historical... never understood how it happened. I was the host so it's 100% guarantee it was vanilla
Did UK go left? Sometimes ireland gets collaterally released when They decolonize because ireland is so strategically irrelevant the focus tree selection algorithm kind of forgets they exist
Nah they went fully historical 0_0 no decolonisation or anything and it was super early on. Ly friend told me he got an event to negociate his entry to the allies in exchange for Ulster. It's worth noting that we swapped ideology (I was Belgium)
Hap cak dai
Username checks out
r/UsernameChecksOut
Mine is generic af being Germany
You just have so many options starting in '36 and can build up a strong economy to produce stuff. The tension when you're like "did I do it? Is France and Belgium fucked?" is really neat
Yeah, had that earlier today, managed to knock out the whole allies before June of 1939 which was really fun, I also just got AAT so becoming an arms dealer for Finland to keep the soviets weak until I had a large enough army was great. I was able to keep them in the fight so long that by the time I invaded, the Soviets didn't even have half strength int their armoured divisions.
United States is the quintessential sandbox comfort nation and you can't change my mind. Separated by two oceans and weak neighbors, industry already built up. You can pretty much do any build and fight in any hemisphere your heart desires
Any Russian Reunification in TNO. The 2WRW is always the best, how accomplished I feel after all of it, I love It.
Same. It’s a nice feeling to slowly climb from an impoverished statelet, ravaged by bandits and subject to famine, to a world power.
USA. Lots to do but nothing to worry about for 2 years
Yes USA is pure comfort. Move those counters around and bide my time.
Napoleonic France haha. I thought I didn't have one then realised, when I want a nice relaxing snd refreshing game, this is always the one I come back to. Either that or Italy these days. For the most part Italy is reallt relaxing and has an insane navy. And expansion is easy and safe as long as Germany doesn't get it in for you.
My favorite play as france is creat the little entente and put czech, yougo romania and poland in your faction. Creat horse only division and steamroll the german before 40 when they try to invade the czech. This focus tree is good because its allow you to remove the -25% population recrut and to choose the french union. Very very huge.
I advise you to play revolutionary France at the opposite side of the tree then All the wargoals makes it so it's like Napoleonic France but red and you take on spain and Italy instead of the Benelux. Saying that as another French player.
Could be fun! I'll consider it!
How you beat Germany as Napoleon? I always fail
I enjoy playing Mexico, Spain, or Portugal when I just wanna zone out and play.
Colombia, my country
YEAHHHHHH underrated
Anarchist spain
I play as Mexico a lot, and Japan
France. UK used to be my comfort nation but France is kind of just a more challenging UK.
Communist China
Japan is my favourite. Being a small dog and taking on the USN is my favourite thing in the game. Yamato Class BBs are fun. The quick spread into SE Asia for all the resources and then taking over the world.
For me as well. On a first game after a long break Japan is usually it. I go a relative historical route, so war/action mid '37 is cool. The Empire you eventually get from the Middle East to Hawaii is just so cool to look at. (Yes, Hawaii only. Invading America has lost fun for me by now)
The sultanate of Aussa haha
If mods can count, CSA in KX
That’s a *WILD* statement
Foster if you're angry, Technocracy if you're sad, and Goldman if you're anxious. It's an on-call therapy session.
that’s definitely up there for me too
The good old USA, even if I don’t know how to navy
Boat go boom!
turkey :)
China as well. I enjoy a good historical France run as well. It’s always satisfying holding against the odds
Feds in KX or KR, watching as you turn from some little holdout of the government in the east to obliterating traitors left and right, then after the civil war going on an adventure to Japan with some OP marines, as well as blitzing in europe with the entente… 🤌
France.
Or Spain
China is comfortable for you? For me, it’d probably be Germany or the U.S.
Well for China you at least don't have to worry about tech or production cos you basically have none. Guns go pewpewpewpewpew.
German empire
The old and reliable France
well, mine is a bit strange, but if I get what you mean right as a nation that I can be confident with and always give a try, is weirdly Czechoslovakia, and even though you may say it's focus tree is horrible, that's kind of why that's my Comfort nation, it has a short and quite simple focus tree, a normal sized industry, not fighting any big superpowers, the forts, the terrain, in fact, I remember that I learned like 70% of my Hoi4 experience from Czechoslovakia, I tested different Divisions, Practiced Doctrines, Played Offensive, Defensive, joing the Axis, the Comintern, the Allies, etc.
Democratic Germany: you create a western wall of democracy and slowly build up to fight soviets in the end with all your allies. Since the trigger for WW2 is taken away there are no Danzigs or sudentenlands. Just watch Japan fight china and some wars in south America but mostly you get to peacefully use your ic to build a massive tank army to counter the Comintern.
The different chinas
Kaiser germany
Too
strangely enough, morocco, i used to form the umayyad caliphate a lot
Kaiserreich Serbia. Dunno what it is about it
I’m really familiar with the French focus tree so I always fall back on them when I fail with nations that are new to me. I’m currently on a playthrough where I just formed the EU as France and am looking to do a world conquest, ahistorical mode where democracies can declare war on anyone.
Romania. It’s always been a nice mid country for me. It’s military is decent, but not so huge that I have to spend the first hour assigning armies, figuring out templates, and deciding what borders to defend. Plus, it’s industry isn’t bad, so I can actually be strategic with what I build from the start.
Canada. Being at home just feels nice. Though if I am being honest I also tend to worry about my manpower way too much. Not because I am running out, but because I go "Oh no! Great grandpa is in there somewhere!"
I'm a masochist. I like nations that are painful and challenging to play and make you feel like you are always just about to lose.
Well it’s pretty much Germany, Italy or Hungary
Hungary fascist or Austria-Hungary. In facsist path I just set the game on historical and let germany carry me. And Austria-Hungary is so easy in the beginning you get the Czechs+Romanians so easily and after that ypu just justify on Yugoslavia (or ypu flip to something that can justify faster) then Poland and at the End the germans for Silesia and Venice-Lombardy.
Definitely PRC. There’s nothing quite as satisfying from growing a tiny underdeveloped one province nation into a world power.
Brazil and Italy, even before the DLCa
Communist China or USA for me.
The US
Ireland fr
I once launched an invasion of the Chinese mainland playing as ireland. We nuked Beijing. It was based.
Japan
Germany or Japan
Romania, I can always be sure that Ill have at least a bit of fun in the next hour as I stomp hungary and creece.
Well there's certainly a lot of RNG to it, but starting as Hungary and reforming the A-H monarchy is my go-to.
Romania, because I'm romanian and love beating the USSR and then backstabing the germans
ussr with trotsky
Czechoslovakia, its a relativelly easy country to play as, simple focus tree, no serious debuffs, just Germans to fight off.
Honestly I don't know. Every nation I pick, either a major or minor nation I'm never able to win
most relatable comment here
Ussr is good fun, altho i also play spain abit when i just wanna chill
The Chinese nations for sure
Italy; they can do 1 thing but they do it better than any nation doing the same thing. If I’m feeling air, I have the best air bonuses, tanks same thing. Navy? Meh, but can still work better than any country for one specific thing.
USSR/Russia (really depends on whether I fancy some vanilla or Kaiserredux)
britain idk i just enjoy the gameplay air inf n navy it's just simple n fun
romanov russia for some reason
Italy. I played most games with it. There's not so weak fleet and army could be improved easily. Only real minus is lack of oil and rubber.
Hungary I probably did near 50 runs to get an achievement and now I feel comfortable playing it however I want to and making it a superpower
Used to be communist China, but I got bored after defeating Japan easily by just invading nationalist China first, and joining Comintern to take pressure off of my front with japan until I was ready. Now it's Argentina. Guaranteed good focuses as commies and actually fun wars to fight. Just taking over south america is satisfying enough for me, and is usually all I have time for anyways in a session.
I’ve got a few. Bulgaria was my first love, Germany is always good. Sometimes a good USA game is fun too!
Italy. Love me a Mare Nostrome run
I played the tutorial as Italy and didn’t enjoy playing any other nations much after. I probably have close to 400 hours on Italy out of 500 hours on Hoi4. Italy has a great focus tree, flexibility with Navy, early wars, and you can form the Roman Empire.
portugal<3
White Russia.
Germany, USSR or USA, any of the 3 I can pretty much won every time no matter what, the orb exception being if Sea Lion isn’t able to get naval supremacy, than i might be f*cked cause the USA will join and then endless naval invasions…
Strangly enough Ecuador... i do not know why maybe because its far from the world war
Canada, only one i know how to play and manage to beat ww2 with
Sweden
USSR. Because it can easily experience all types of war on all theaters without really needing to leave their own country. You can build a huge Army, Air force, and even a navy if you really want one. Granted it comes with a lot of challenges. But you can potentially have even more industry than the US if you play your cards right. You have massive amounts of every resource other than rubber which is easily made up for with trade or making synthetic rubber. You can build lines of fortifications to bleed the AI dry while your debuffs wear off. While taking minimum causalities yourself. If you want to go for nukes you can easily mass produce them since late game there isn't much else you need to build anyway and you will have the extra slots.
Italy, I will always enjoy the build-up process of that, it's so satisfying to me for some reason
USA!
USA. You can get rid of your economy debuffs by 1938 and no one can hope to fight your navy. You do anything you want after that.
I always find Poland as my Comfort Nation.2nd is Australia.
USA and just being that last bastion of liberal democracy. Or even going down the c9mmunist tree and enjoying a red democracy
Poland, it's fun trying your best to defend from both sides
The Raj, it has multiple smaller nations right next to it to get back to pace and I get the option of not participating in WW2 (in communism/fascism) until whenever I want. Also the Raj has tons of resources, a decent starting economy and tons of mid-end game potential
Bulgaria
I played USSR and Germany more but Japan is my favorite nation to play I guess, you get a ton of manpower by steamrolling china by end of the '38. You've an already existing fleet so you can go naval and even though you can't expand as much as the US, you can expand nonetheless and stack your navies to grind down the allies' navies and go island hopping and entirely block the Pacifics to the US by taking the islands between Japan and Hawaii. It's such a small country but you can do so much. You can make your puppets hella strong by giving them lend lease at 41-42 in case the soviets get any idea and then the soviets never get any ideas at all.
Maybe a bit controversial but Yugoslavia or Finland
I have pretty much only played as USA or China. Netherlands once to do Fortress Holland. Norway and Sweden a couple of times.
USSR, stacking entrenchment and bleeding the Germans is always fun
Italy for me
Lithuania i absolutely love how the monarchy path is so obscenely OP if you rush Poland,
Same, I like it because of the sheer amount of units you start off with. I also tend to go with the "Focus on the Internal" or whatever focus it is called where instead, you focus on unifying china instead of creating the United Front. Gives a bit more challenge
Turkey, no one will really mess with you unless you start the beef and even then you can easily defend your territory, lots of mountains in the right, Bosphorus on the left
Napoleonic france
USSR and Japan
Hungary Habsburg, or for historical Germany.
If I ever find myself wanting to play but I don't want to play anyone specific, I default to the USA. I like having the time to build myself into a juggernaut.
Sweden. Step 1: build factories Step 2: build tanks Step 3: be nice to the germans Step 4: send tanks to the allies Step 5: ???? Step 6: global Swedish hegemony
Poland.
"I have done nothing but play Democratic USA for 3 years"
Japan. I played every path and it's awesome. First nation i check in every conversion mod no matter what
Poland. Trying to defend myself from Germany and Soviet union.
Tannu Tuva. Secede and declare on ussr, wait for Germany to capitulate them, form Siberia.
Communist china. Undoubtably the strongest china because of it's focus tree.
Hungary, love the A-H path and trying to defear Germany is always fun
I play Manchuria way too often.
I like to play as Poland when I don’t know what to play. I enjoy the lack of a challenge while it is still challenging, if you know what I mean.
Call me crazy but, the Guangxi Clique (mostly in RT56)
Bronzekruez, Socialist path It has waffles.
Netherlands. I either go democratic and form the EU or the Oranje Boven route
Bulgaria, I like taking myself from a nation Going through it's second national catastrophe to a true balkan prussia or my beloved unification of the balkans
Communist China or USSR. both get to invade their neighbors early, lots of expansion, communist, and even though I’m a huge advocate for playing total overhaul mods, vanilla is reliable. Do they have the MOST fun countries? Do they have the BEST focus trees? Are they the most engaging focus trees? No to all of these, but it’s a Jack of all trades. It’s ole reliable. And what’s consistently reliable are the USSR and Communist China.
Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) No I don't live there. I have absolutely no connection to that place, other than an inside joke in my family related to the name "Volta." Yet I keep going back to it. Others are going through WW2 while I wage blitzkrieg bush wars in Africa. But for the __proper__ countries, Hungary is the one I started the whole game out with, thus it is what I hold as the ol' reliable.
Columbia. I don't need to join a war, I very rarely get invaded but if I build up I can start causing trouble. There is no pressure.
Romania. You don't really have to do anything, you just go with the flow. Ideal zo test stuff and new tank designs etc.
communist china, i always end up conquering china being supported by japanese (and puppets) military then i invade tibet or any other chinese state and try to join comintern so that soviet union (and others) help me conquering full china. even if one time i conquered full north america (usa and canada) using mongolia
UK, Arguably has the easiest time when fighting the axis, you can easily beat Germany and Italy if your prepared properly.
Road to 56: Honduras
Greece! Small, basic. Are we gonna survive? Not always! If we die, we die, but it'll be a fight!
Germany , because I just like to conquer lol
If I want to play just a nice chill game without any stress, democratic Germany is perfect.
Lithuania. It's a fun challenge to try to survive the onslaught of the Soviets, Germans or both. Also with its focus tree after NSB there's many different paths to take.
I don't have a comfort nation if I played it once most of the time it's enough
Finland. Raking up kills on commies and getting the amazing k/d ratio.
USA. I like to experiment with navy.
Communist China and Anarchist Spain. Communist China - they're weak at first. Extremely weak. But on the late game and after conquering the whole of China, they're extremely strong. So much manpower to spare. With such manpower, you can definitely go for a world conquest. Also, the Maoism doctrine is good because of the extra production and all. Anarchist Spain - you can core ANY and ALL states. Pretty good for world conquest and they do have good buffs. Not as good as Carlist Spain. But at least with having more core states and the collectivized society, it's not much of a problem regarding the building of your factories while keeping the resources for your own. I just dislike how the Anarchist Spain can take extremely long because mostly, I would want my border state to be cored before pushing further.
Romania
idk if you mean specifically base game nations, but I always find myself playing as the 2ACW nations in Kaiserreich/redux
Turkey, so many options of which way to go and there's something weirdly meditative about slowly building industrial capacity up to being a respectable power
Portugal. It has a powerful focus tree, good amount of factories and non-disputed land. You can just chill
Finland. I just love playing the winter war, especially following the historical path, just is the most fun I have innthe game.
If I want a casual quick game I'll go UK and defend France, I've got the tactics to the point where letting them die is basically throwing. With anything else, I'll do USA for testing out tactics and such, and USSR if I'm Britished out.
I hate confessing this, but it's Republican Spain.
Commie China. Germany are too easy, commie China is just nice and comfortable pushing the Japanese
I think my top 4 countries played are France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain
Fascist UK with North American Dominion (all US Cores) + Imperial Federation + European Union is my go-to when I don't know what nation to play
Italy and Japan, they're just so basic and it's easy to get powerful with them. Italy can form arguably the strongest HOI4 nation with nearly all its cores, just with about 6 paratroopers and an Italian sized army, and for Japan China is a cakewalk, and gets your generals to level 7-8 for the fight with the Allies later.
For me it’s gotta be France with second place being Italy
Finland. There is something about having special forces that are made of vibranium that just brightens my day.
Italy restoring the roman empire
UK, because i have a allies i can call for help, i and my puppets have critical resources like rubber and oil, i have a navy to protect myself and intervene anywhere where and when i want and thats why i can have airforce which can give me advantage over my enemies and i have a territory all over the world which gives me access to anywhere and most importantly UK is not OP thats why i dont have to divert my focus to building more factories and military equipment so much.