The Wargamer

Introduction

Strange portents and omens filled the air. All months had 30 days.  The USA was a rich blue color when observed from a plane or tall building. President Roosevelt felt it in his bones that bad times were coming. It was time to prepare for war.

This guide provides strategic suggestions for playing the USA in the 1936 start of Hearts of Iron 2 by Paradox Interactive. It is a strategy guide against the AI, not a human opponent. This is not a guide to tactical or even theater combat. This is a guide for shaping overall strategy, research, and production to win the 1936 USA game. 

For any successful long-term strategy, the player needs to determine their overall objectives. In HOI2 this axiom is even more true than in most games. A player must research a technology before it is employed and must research the doctrines on how to use the technology before it can be used effectively. Units must be manufactured the before they are deployed. The research, doctrine development, and production all take time - lots of time. For major items such as aircraft carriers or coastal forts it can take years. If poor decisions are made in 1936 they will come back to haunt in 1942.

Initial Strategic Situation

Pause the game and look around.

Strengths of the USA in 1936:

1. A huge surplus of every raw material on the planet. No other country even comes close. Factories never shut down for lack of raw materials.
2. No enemies close. The player doesn’t have to rush into producing technologically weak units simply to survive.
3. A large and strong navy second only to the UK.

Weaknesses of the USA in 1936:

1. The ground forces are pathetic. The USA starts with only 4 army corps & 1 cavalry unit. Mexico could re-annex Texas if they really put their minds to it.
2. The air force is almost non-existent.
3. Air and ground research (both in units and doctrines) is weak.
4. The oceans on either side make it critical to have both bases and a strong navy to deploy troops.

A successful USA strategy is also more difficult in HOI2 as compared to HOI1, for three reasons. First, each country regardless of its wealth can only field 5 research teams at one time. In HOI1 playing the US with its huge production and resource pools meant you could research literally everything and wait on producing much of anything until you had astoundingly effective units. Why produce weak air escorts and pay for them again by upgrading when you can research 1944 air escorts in 1939? This prevented the USA from having to deploy and then subsequently upgrade poor units.

Second, HOI2 makes the player pay dearly for developing technology before it historically appeared. This means that players can’t have jet fighters in 1942 for the USA like they could in HOI1.

Third, producing a unit is far, far less expensive if the player produces a bunch of them in sequence. The player wants to produce acceptable quality units and then lock into long production runs because the cost per unit falls dramatically (this is also true in the real world of weapons manufacturing - it is called a “learning curve”). The player must decide which individual units he wants and then produce the daylights out of it.

HOI2 is very, very flexible. The strategic goals that an individual player has are virtually limitless. Strategic goals should also drive your research, production, and base building strategy. There are several obvious strategic options.

One idea is to build up the ground forces quickly and conquer all of North America followed by South America. The problem with this strategy is that the USA is so isolationist in 1936 that it is hard, if not impossible for it to declare war early in the game. So unless a mod has been applied to the game, conquering Mexico and Canada would have to wait until 1943 or so.

Another strategy is to join the allies early and launch ground forces into Europe quickly. This would hopefully prevent France from falling to Germany in 1940 and make it easier to defeat Hitler. It is far easier for the USA to declare war on Germany because of the tendency of the German AI to quickly start taking out countries in Europe just like Hitler did. The disadvantage of this strategy is that the USA has such weak ground forces that it is difficult to build up and deploy an effective army quickly enough to make a difference in France in 1940. Germany concentrates on land forces and the USA is so far behind in both quantity and quality that it takes a long time to catch up.

The third strategy and the one detailed in this guide is to take out Japan fast. There are some real advantages to this strategic goal. First, the Japanese AI tends to get embroiled in a massive land war in China and leave the home islands relatively undefended. Second, Japan can’t both build up a huge army and attack China while also building up a navy and air force big enough to take on the USA. Third, the map position of the USA makes it relatively easy to attack the Japanese Islands while making it difficult for Japan to attack the mainland of the USA. Last, Japan has a weak industrial base compared to Germany which means it is easier to knock Japan out of the war or cripple them industrially. 

Most Japanese production comes from the home islands. Take the homeland and Japan is crippled (and there are not a lot of provinces to take). Japan tends to attack its neighbors, which makes it possible for the USA to declare war in 1940-1941. However, Japan is not as aggressive as Germany. It is easier to declare war early (1940) on Germany. Conquering and annexing Japan makes the USA even stronger when it comes time to take on the next adversaries - Germany or the USSR.