I have nowhere to post this since HOI1 forums are defunct but I believe people should give props to the original. There are links to pics that are underlined.
While I have HOI 2-3, HOI 1 is my favorite. Maybe I am getting old and don't have the time to really master a new one but HOI 1 brings me back to being a freshman in college and ignoring my girlfriend to try to take over the world.
You can still get HOI 1 but there are some caveats. On my setup, about 1/3rd of your games will also randomly crash at some point and since you cannot save, you are out of luck.
In the years after it came out, they patched it up to version 1.06c. The earlier versions allowed you to invade the US as Germany fairly consistently by invading Canada or Mexico first. With the updates they imposed a heavy "logistics" penalty from being far away from your capital in battles. For North America, this was a about a -66% penalty. Add on the difficulty of very hard settings and its an additional -20%.
Since then (about 10 years or so) I have resigned myself as Germany to not invading the US. Before you could do it after taking on Russians and pour 200 divisions into North America. Now, by 1943 the Americans have a massive military and combined with the penalty its pointless.
So this week I fired up HOI1 again and tried to invade the US in 1939. At that time their tech is low and their military smaller. I figured I had at most until 1942 (when the Soviets declare war if you don't do it in 1941) to knock out Canada/US. This time I got access from Mexico and decided to build a large transport fleet to quickly ferry 80 divisions into Mexico.
After troubleshooting methods I finally annexed the US and Canada in early 1941. An early try involved allying with Mexico and we were able to puppet the US (I had to pull out all my troops because it was 1942 and the Russians were going to DOW). Then the game crashed in 1943 and it was back to the start.
Anyways, here is how its done. I have pictures to show the penalties you face in combat in N. America.
How to invade:
Invasion of US
After trouble shooting I realized that: 1) Only Panzers are useful. Infantry dies a lot and you may win, but by the time of the Soviet Invasion/War you will be out of manpower and short on divisions. Infantry is only useful to hold territory. I built about 36 basic panzer divisions (Mark IIIs with 70mm+ guns). The US has very little ability to do damage to tanks and no tanks of its own at this time. I did build about 12 mountain with arty brigades for West Virginia but I got lucky and was able to take it unopposed with a panzer. 2) Use the panzers to slice up North America. It is vital to split North America in two. It is not enough to get the US split, they will move units and supply through Canada. Splitting California is vital as well. 3) Do not take all the land in the eastern coast; leave the capital on the east. Once the West is cut off, they will slowly die. You cannot win via battle in the West as it is full of mountains and tanks are useless.
US End Game
When I cut the West off, the US had about 70 divisions there. If you can't cut them off from supply your best hope is to Puppet the US because you cannot take this area if it is supplied.
I got two big breaks in this play. I was able to send panzers into Toronto and the Canadian capital unopposed. Canada is tough as crap to take because you have the distance penalty, the difficulty penalty, and the likely "its always a blizzard" penalty. All I had to do was take Vancouver to annex and that was done by surrounding with panzers and attacking. I also got West Virginia unopposed and West Virginia, if held on to with a capital, is very costly to take because its a mountain area and you would need all infantry.
Here are the penalties/proof of difficulty you face in Florida for instance: Penalties
I Annexed the US in early 1941 and had my army back to invade Russia in 1941. My manpower was near zero because usually you build lots of infantry but I had to catch up due to the massive panzer build.
I will still able to do the game plan against the Soviets but as you can see I had no manpower. Soviet Invasion
Total victory came in 1946 after I turned down Stalin's Peace offer and annexed a few more countries for the heck of it.
Victory
I know there are more recent ones but this one will always be my fav! I wish they'd release the source code so people could fix the save and crash issues. Its a very quirky game and at times silly. For instance it is always storming almost over the entire map at times. When I invaded N. Africa it was raining over all of North Africa.
While I have HOI 2-3, HOI 1 is my favorite. Maybe I am getting old and don't have the time to really master a new one but HOI 1 brings me back to being a freshman in college and ignoring my girlfriend to try to take over the world.
You can still get HOI 1 but there are some caveats. On my setup, about 1/3rd of your games will also randomly crash at some point and since you cannot save, you are out of luck.
In the years after it came out, they patched it up to version 1.06c. The earlier versions allowed you to invade the US as Germany fairly consistently by invading Canada or Mexico first. With the updates they imposed a heavy "logistics" penalty from being far away from your capital in battles. For North America, this was a about a -66% penalty. Add on the difficulty of very hard settings and its an additional -20%.
Since then (about 10 years or so) I have resigned myself as Germany to not invading the US. Before you could do it after taking on Russians and pour 200 divisions into North America. Now, by 1943 the Americans have a massive military and combined with the penalty its pointless.
So this week I fired up HOI1 again and tried to invade the US in 1939. At that time their tech is low and their military smaller. I figured I had at most until 1942 (when the Soviets declare war if you don't do it in 1941) to knock out Canada/US. This time I got access from Mexico and decided to build a large transport fleet to quickly ferry 80 divisions into Mexico.
After troubleshooting methods I finally annexed the US and Canada in early 1941. An early try involved allying with Mexico and we were able to puppet the US (I had to pull out all my troops because it was 1942 and the Russians were going to DOW). Then the game crashed in 1943 and it was back to the start.
Anyways, here is how its done. I have pictures to show the penalties you face in combat in N. America.
How to invade:
Invasion of US
After trouble shooting I realized that: 1) Only Panzers are useful. Infantry dies a lot and you may win, but by the time of the Soviet Invasion/War you will be out of manpower and short on divisions. Infantry is only useful to hold territory. I built about 36 basic panzer divisions (Mark IIIs with 70mm+ guns). The US has very little ability to do damage to tanks and no tanks of its own at this time. I did build about 12 mountain with arty brigades for West Virginia but I got lucky and was able to take it unopposed with a panzer. 2) Use the panzers to slice up North America. It is vital to split North America in two. It is not enough to get the US split, they will move units and supply through Canada. Splitting California is vital as well. 3) Do not take all the land in the eastern coast; leave the capital on the east. Once the West is cut off, they will slowly die. You cannot win via battle in the West as it is full of mountains and tanks are useless.
US End Game
When I cut the West off, the US had about 70 divisions there. If you can't cut them off from supply your best hope is to Puppet the US because you cannot take this area if it is supplied.
I got two big breaks in this play. I was able to send panzers into Toronto and the Canadian capital unopposed. Canada is tough as crap to take because you have the distance penalty, the difficulty penalty, and the likely "its always a blizzard" penalty. All I had to do was take Vancouver to annex and that was done by surrounding with panzers and attacking. I also got West Virginia unopposed and West Virginia, if held on to with a capital, is very costly to take because its a mountain area and you would need all infantry.
Here are the penalties/proof of difficulty you face in Florida for instance: Penalties
I Annexed the US in early 1941 and had my army back to invade Russia in 1941. My manpower was near zero because usually you build lots of infantry but I had to catch up due to the massive panzer build.
I will still able to do the game plan against the Soviets but as you can see I had no manpower. Soviet Invasion
Total victory came in 1946 after I turned down Stalin's Peace offer and annexed a few more countries for the heck of it.
Victory
I know there are more recent ones but this one will always be my fav! I wish they'd release the source code so people could fix the save and crash issues. Its a very quirky game and at times silly. For instance it is always storming almost over the entire map at times. When I invaded N. Africa it was raining over all of North Africa.
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