Germany without Hitler (or the Nazis)? in the base game?

[Billrovia]

Is there a way to play as Germany without playing as Hitler in the base game of HOI4? I'm a Jew, so playing as Hitler would be emotionally very bad for me, even compared to playing any of the other bad historical people in Paradox games.

This is an issue for me because the new player guides I have found for HOI4 tell me a new player must play as Germany in order to successfully learn and understand the game. AFAIK, this advice is correct because I am too bad at this game overwhelmed to play as another nation for long enough to learn how the game works. So I am hoping for a way to play as Germany until I am competent enough to meaningfully play as another country and take the Nazis down.

I know there is a DLC that lets Germany players Oppose Hitler, but I don't want to spend money on a DLC for a game I can't tell if I like yet. Therefore, I am hoping it is possible to change the government of Germany in the settings, although I have not figured it out yet. Is there a way to do this?

 

[unmerged(485085)]

It's been a while since I've played without the DLC, but I'm fairly certain that without it you can switch Germany to democracy by appointing a democratic advisor. This will gradually shift your government to democracy, resulting in a referendum or civil war. This takes a year or more to happen.

Germany is a good country for learning the game, but you can also learn by playing other countries with simple geography and some breathing space in the early game, such as Turkey or Canada.

 

[xtfoster]

Short of editing the files (i.e., modding), there is no way start without the mustached Corporal. Even with the DLC you start with Hitler and have to go through a Civil War to replace him. You might check Steam to see if there are any mods that remove him, but wouldn't hold out hope for there to be one that works with the base game.

 

[Reni Malaj]

France is a pretty good starter nation. Pull all your troops into the mainland and let the UK fight the overseas battles and just hold. Try to make breakthtoughs only when you have absolute superiority.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

this is definitely bait, but regardless Romania or Hungary are just as good if not better for beginners.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

In what universe is Germany good for learning the game? Play Italy, or Spain, or a minor.

Also, yes, this is bait.

 

[Wixelt]

In what universe is Germany good for learning the game? Play Italy, or Spain, or a minor.

Also, yes, this is bait.

OP has a long way to go before they master baiting.

 

[Cpt.Cross]

Bait.

But you can turn off historical German portraits in the launcher then he appears as a shadow man instead along with all the other head Nazi's.

 

[Wixelt]

Bait.

But you can turn off historical German portraits in the launcher then he appears as a shadow man instead along with all the other head Nazi's.

Before 2020 PDX had to provide options for censored versions to comply with the federal German law.

 

[him_15]

What is worse is that there is also Heinrich Himmler in your politicians pool.

 

[LastButterfly]

This is an issue for me because the new player guides I have found for HOI4 tell me a new player must play as Germany in order to successfully learn and understand the game. AFAIK, this advice is correct because I am too bad at this game overwhelmed to play as another nation for long enough to learn how the game works.

That's a terrible advice.

Germany typically leads its own game and receives little to no assistance from allies. You need to already have a grasp on how the game's played to have a good go at it. It's not hard, but it's not easy either. Germany is kinda like the game's normal mode.

Absolute beginners who need to familiarize with game mechanics are typically advised to toy with isolated minors powerfuler than their neighbours (usually Brazil or Sweden). Following that, the typical "training your skill" nation wanted by the game is Italy, but other cases can be made (USA offers the possibility to ignore defensive play and pay less attention to production, allowing a new player to focus on one thing at a time ; playing Japan, you can ignore the Pacific and first focus on Asia, training your skills at playing a major while avoiding most outside interferences).

Germany and the USSR, which are usually the sole drive of their campaigns - in other words, mistakes come at a high price, you're basically playing without safety nets ; defensive challenges like France and Poland (although Poland is a lot harder by nature) and the UK, which requires multitasking on several fronts, are best played once you already know what you're doing a bit. In other words, they're not for "beginners beginners". You don't need 1000 hours in the game to play them, but some things should come first.


That having been said, I personally learnt the game with the UK and the Dutch. Everything's possible - which is an advantage for you because, once again, you don't have to play Germany to learn, or at all, if you don't want to.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Yes, but therefore you have to play a-historical.

First you have to set in the Focusses the Anti-Hitler-Focus instead of Rhineland. And after you have enough PPs integrate an Neutral, Democratic or Kommunist Minister.

Then see what happens.

 

[Federkiel]

It's been a while since I've played without the DLC, but I'm fairly certain that without it you can switch Germany to democracy by appointing a democratic advisor. This will gradually shift your government to democracy, resulting in a referendum or civil war. This takes a year or more to happen.

Germany is a good country for learning the game, but you can also learn by playing other countries with simple geography and some breathing space in the early game, such as Turkey or Canada.

AFAIK this does not work anymore. Several years ago they had blocked the advisor / the events to allow for a regime change without the DLC. If it worked now, it would be an oversight that arose during a patching process, like, say AI USA and AI JAP unlearning to produce carrier planes (which is a fact ATM). I thik the DLC is a set requirement.

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

That's a terrible advice.

Germany typically leads its own game and receives little to no assistance from allies. You need to already have a grasp on how the game's played to have a good go at it. It's not hard, but it's not easy either. Germany is kinda like the game's normal mode.

Absolute beginners who need to familiarize with game mechanics are typically advised to toy with isolated minors powerfuler than their neighbours (usually Brazil or Sweden). Following that, the typical "training your skill" nation wanted by the game is Italy, but other cases can be made (USA offers the possibility to ignore defensive play and pay less attention to production, allowing a new player to focus on one thing at a time ; playing Japan, you can ignore the Pacific and first focus on Asia, training your skills at playing a major while avoiding most outside interferences).

Germany and the USSR, which are usually the sole drive of their campaigns - in other words, mistakes come at a high price, you're basically playing without safety nets ; defensive challenges like France and Poland (although Poland is a lot harder by nature) and the UK, which requires multitasking on several fronts, are best played once you already know what you're doing a bit. In other words, they're not for "beginners beginners". You don't need 1000 hours in the game to play them, but some things should come first.


That having been said, I personally learnt the game with the UK and the Dutch. Everything's possible - which is an advantage for you because, once again, you don't have to play Germany to learn, or at all, if you don't want to.

In my opinion the British are the best beginner nation. With their navy and geography, you arent really at risk of a game over, but at the same time they give you enough research, resources and production that youre able to try out a little bit of everything. Theyre fairly lenient in terms of what foci you pick as well so you dont feel screwed over if you dont pick ‘optimally’. Historical focus at least, the alt paths can really screw you over. Plus you even get elements like navy, puppets, faction leader, government in exile, etc by default that are somewhat hard to come by for other nations.

So they're a great and relatively safe sandbox to try out different things in the game. Even if you screw up completely and lose everything other than the British Isles, theres a decent chance that the US and Soviets will just crush the Axis between the two of them anyway.

 

[JohnnyDepressio]

I disagree that you need to play as germany. However If you want to play germany without Hitler you could use console commands to change Party popularity and the ruling party.

 

[Modious]

I played a fair amount of Argentina when I was learning the systems. You're small, but most of your neighbors are smaller, and the generic focus tree is easy to understand.

 

[unmerged(485085)]

AFAIK this does not work anymore. Several years ago they had blocked the advisor / the events to allow for a regime change without the DLC. If it worked now, it would be an oversight that arose during a patching process, like, say AI USA and AI JAP unlearning to produce carrier planes (which is a fact ATM). I thik the DLC is a set requirement.

No, it does work, just tested it by disabling all of the DLC. You can appoint the democratic adviser as soon as you have enough PP. The adviser alone brings in a trickle of democratic support, but also enables political decisions to increase democratic influence. There are also decisions to prep for a civil war and another decision to hold a referendum, but they are disabled until you have sufficient democratic support. You need 10% democratic support to prep the civil war, and 50% to hold a referendum. You can kick off a civil war fairly quickly, but for a new player, this will probably be difficult to win. A referendum is easier, it just takes a long time to get the 50% support (mid-1937). Once you win the civil war, or hold the referendum, Germany becomes democratic and Konrad Adenauer is president.

The limitation on getting democracy this way actually comes with the DLC. With the DLC, you can't appoint the democratic adviser until you complete the focus to hold free elections, which means you have to start the Oppose Hitler focus tree.

 

[LastButterfly]

In my opinion the British are the best beginner nation. With their navy and geography, you arent really at risk of a game over, but at the same time they give you enough research, resources and production that youre able to try out a little bit of everything. Theyre fairly lenient in terms of what foci you pick as well so you dont feel screwed over if you dont pick ‘optimally’. Historical focus at least, the alt paths can really screw you over. Plus you even get elements like navy, puppets, faction leader, government in exile, etc by default that are somewhat hard to come by for other nations.

So they're a great and relatively safe sandbox to try out different things in the game. Even if you screw up completely and lose everything other than the British Isles, theres a decent chance that the US and Soviets will just crush the Axis between the two of them anyway.

It's not the hardest but a beginner could easily be overwhelmed by everything that's going on. Playing the British, you have to handle army, navy and airforce alone most of the time ; your production leeway is not infinite, and overproducing in one domain - such as tanks - could leave you much weakened in another, like planes. Also, you are responsible for your entire empire, which is a most critical point. You can't expect a new player to correctly spread the ressources throughout every theaters as needed. The beginner will try to defend France, put too much divs there, lose big chunks of Africa as a result, try to save what can be and realize late that they overcomitted navy to Europe for this purpose as Malaya falls and they lose a bunch of critical ressources which in turn shoots their production and makes it harder to come back. They might survive, sure, holed up in their island waiting for the AI to defeat the AI, but that's not a situation in which people learn most - or have fun.

It feels automatic to do these things when you know the game, but for a beginner handling multiple theaters and aspects of the game at once can be really hard until they get a feel for what might be needed where. A nation that can afford to focus on one theater at a time at first might be best - which is why I'd still make a case for Italy, USA or Japan before getting into other majors.

 

[Federkiel]

No, it does work, just tested it by disabling all of the DLC. You can appoint the democratic adviser as soon as you have enough PP. The adviser alone brings in a trickle of democratic support, but also enables political decisions to increase democratic influence. There are also decisions to prep for a civil war and another decision to hold a referendum, but they are disabled until you have sufficient democratic support. You need 10% democratic support to prep the civil war, and 50% to hold a referendum. You can kick off a civil war fairly quickly, but for a new player, this will probably be difficult to win. A referendum is easier, it just takes a long time to get the 50% support (mid-1937). Once you win the civil war, or hold the referendum, Germany becomes democratic and Konrad Adenauer is president.

The limitation on getting democracy this way actually comes with the DLC. With the DLC, you can't appoint the democratic adviser until you complete the focus to hold free elections, which means you have to start the Oppose Hitler focus tree.

Thanks for testing it! I had last tested it about two / three years ago and it really didn't work back then. The decisions were not present for sure. Good to know that the option is back now - and be it by errouneously patching them back in. Admittedly i cannot swear on having had the DLC deactivated...

However, without the extended focus (DLC) tree the play might turn out pretty bland anyway.

 

[grommile]

However, without the extended focus (DLC) tree the play might turn out pretty bland anyway.

Yeah, democratic Germany without the DLC focus tree is basically sandbox mode – and sandbox mode is pretty boring for Team Blue.

(I would just like to say, in passing, that I love your signature.)