The complete guide to playing the UK in Hearts of Iron IV

Just got back into hoi4 after years out and this helped a lot. Cheers brother.

Cool video, really useful!
Do you have a guide for japan too?

Italy guide please! ❤

How did you have the spy tab I don’t see that in my modded version ??

Bro, I was playing UK yesterday, I did it step by step and when I got to the part of invading North Africa after the naval invasions, the Italians filled it with troops, what should I do?

I aim to become this great of a player. Still learning each time I play.

Bfdi mouth in thumnail

Whatsup! New player here and i only got 4 dlcs, (Together for victory, death or dishonor, waking the tiger and MTG)
I did a few runs as a democratic uk, I have no problems for the navy as i always manage to reduce the italian navy to 10% of their original size by 1942 and in the air i pretty much have dominance however when it comes to land i always get pushed back or even destroyed by the germans.
So i managed to secure the whole africa and the middle east inflicting abt 1m casualties or more to the axis, then took sardinia corsica and sicily but when i tried landing in mainland italy or defend greece from the germans my troops get obliterated. (I had 2000+ planes up in italy)
So what infantry/marines templates are you using to get all those green bubbles against the germans? pls i need help

Don't suppose you have a complete guide to playing Japan do you? 😅

Very helpful. Now we just need Russia and USA… then Japan then.. you get the idea

I just used this guide to learn how to play UK. It was a huge help so thank you very much. There are some minor gaps that were missed most likely from editing but I was able to more or less fill in the blanks. I didn't win as fast as you but I have a great basis to continue to refine the UK strategy to my own style. This is a great guide for a new player.

Also, i think its better to build mils in the Raj & Malaya than non-core territory. You reduce autonomy and the mil output is split between you and the puppet, so no waste, rather than just losing production for it being non-core.

Nice video, subbed! WRT navy exercising, its a bit more micro-management, but I think the amount of XP generated is determined the number of ships exercising, so a sub generates as much XP as a carrier, but uses a fraction of the fuel. I'd recommend training all the ships to the max, then docking all larger ships. The subs and destroyers generate lots of XP. The other advantage is that exercising does put a small drain on dockyards (for repairing any accidents) and I think that this is much lower duration on cheaper ships.

Some more ideas and suggestions.
1. For convoy battles you need to hit with 4 up to date depth charges to sink a sub. So two fully up to date destroyers will sink a sub in one hit. If you can put 4 on a single ship, do it for the lulz.
2. There are three ways to spot subs
- a) patrol spotting your fleet on patrol will find the subs eventually and then start the battle with the subs spotted and have 4 rounds of combat
- b) active spotting in battle your average sub detection for the entire fleet has a medium chance of spotting subs in battle, put radar 3 on everything since it has sub detection
- c) passive spotting any fleet that has any sub detection has a low chance of finding subs in combat. Any roach destroyer has 1 sub detection.
run mostly cheap escort destroyers with some depth charges to escort convoys, back them up with high sub detection fleets (cl-asw and dd-asw setup) on patrol and/or strike force to kill the subs, and put radar 3 on everything since it will always help find subs in regular battles.
3. Subs on default agressiveness will always retreat from a destroyer, even if it has no depth charges or sonar or radar. Subs on high will still attack, players might set sub agresivveness to high.
4. Upgrade ships to suit their purposes, e.g. a default cl1 is mostly useless while an cl1 upgraded with sonar, depth charges, float planes and radar is a sub and convoy killer. If you have the dockyards upgrate air defense on capital ships. Always upgrade sonar, radar and firecontrol, its super cheap and gives massive bonuses in combat.
5. Aircraft have attack priorities, they attack from the back forwards, so CV and CONV first, BB, BC and CA second, DD, CL, SS last. Prioritize AA on carriers, battleships, battlecruisers and heavy cruisers. Ships mostly just defend themselves, this game does not model escorting ships providing aa support as happened historically.
6. With the exception of ethiopia almost all of your battles will be defensive, don't design tanks, design self propelled guns.
7. When building fighters compare your air attack to air defense. The stats are damage and hp for planes, you do not need more than air-defense +1 on your planes.
8. Put self sealing fuel tanks and drop tanks on all planes you can. Upgrade planes, especially the IW planes at start, they wont have agility, but they can have air attack and defense, the un upgraded ones will be slaughterd the upgraded ones can fight, not well, but htey can fight.
9. Use 'Request Forces' from your non-player dominions, they will give you their entire army. It does mess up their AI so be careful and if you aren't using them let them have their army back.
10. If mines are allowed or you are in SP put them everywhere. Upgrade your at start subs to lay mines, they will be slaughtered if htey fight anything and cl, ca and dd are much better convoy raiders. Areas of importance are Between norway and denmark (be careful of getting stuck here if denmark falls), sice that can stop an invasion of norway and the 'inland sea' areas in and around italy and japan. If you lay the south and east china seas up to 100% pre war then japan invades nothing. Also lay in the waters around britain since that will prevent cheap or silly invasions. You might even want to build 20-100 specialist mine laying destroyers just to fill all your rear areas up to 100% too. Doing the areas around america's pacific islands would also be super useful pre-war.
11. Be aware of speed on ships, your battleships are very slow BB1 is 22 knt, while the CV1 and BC1 are 30 knt. Your destroyers even with engine 1 are all over 30, so no need to spend resources on that, unless you want to make very speedy cruisers. Use the equipment tags to separate ships for role AND speed. putting your specialist fast fleet destroyers on convoy escort is something the AI WILL DO.
12. Ports are cheaper than supply hubs and also work as supply hubs, built them where you need them. It's important to remember that your main problem will be supply in ethiopia, egypt and burma-thailand. Spend time and resources thinking about supply before the war (basically build a rail road to and a supply hub in south sudan to keep your ethiopia army in supply. Try not to build rail roads in north africa since the axis can use htem if htey can connect the network while you still can always use boats while they can't. Never attack without supply and motorize supply and use air supply if you have bad supply.

and the final tip

13. Get the licence for the American Clemson destroyer. This will allow you to create a, and only one, useful variant of the ship when you get 43 of them with ships for bases. I suggest slapping on two depth charge 3s a radar 3 and sonar 2 and use them to fight subs letting your own dd2s work as fleet destroyers.

an extra final tip

14. Use the cruiser designer option to get a -80% pp cost for naval designers, use your first 35 exp to add the coastal naval designer to build your at start navy and then change later to build specialized ships since they can give +15% hard attack and armor on your battleships by simply adding radar 3 when you research it.

Could you do more of these types of videos but for other nations? I REALLY love detailed videos and this one's just top notch. Also, UK being one my fav countries might've played a role 😂 Maybe new ones for US and USSR?

200 hours and I still haven’t got a clue about navy, usually I just put them into one group and set them on patrol.

UK for SP is way too easy, you destroy Germany in like 1942-43, you have to build CLs spotters and DDs anti sub for convoy escort, keep 5 naval dockyards on CV and your set, refiting BBs is optional (important for MP), 1936 hulls are good to go in like 99% of the times, I don't agree tho with the screen, DDs with no fit like in your video / cannon fodder is for countries with little to no navy such as Germany or Italy, UK can be better off with CLs for light attack, CAs is not worth it right now, SHBBs are great for MP because nobody builds them, but they are powerhouses, pretty expensive but they shred normal BBs. Subs as of right now don't matter how many you group anymore, the more you group the more they sink, here hulls matter so try to have the latest hull and latest torpedo + snorkel/radio, as UK subs are optional, you can make spotter subs as Germany combine them with Naval Bombers and profit. CVs should have AA and Hangar Space the rest is a waste of PC, such as Armor which is useless, the more Hangar Space you have the better. As for the CVs airplanes, you can go for 60% naval bombers and 40% fighters or 100% naval bombers (I usually add to my naval bombers a HMG, or a LMG just for some attack if I go for 100%). Anyway great video and tutorial, especially for MP. Cheers!

The little jabs are what make this video for me lol. "Let's use our fairly compensated and unionized labor force" is probably my favorite. Amazing video though!! Exactly the type of HOI4 guide that can benefit both new players and vets

I just got the game, and i'm using your guides to learn the game. You are a lifesaves, as a new player, thank you. It's a very good base, and i'm already changing my playthroughs as it fits me. (I'm still contemplating if it was a good idea to start with the british, looking back they are kind of overwhelming for a beginner lol.....well that's what i get for trying to learn using the Navy )

watching this at 4am makes me want to play hoi4