Hearts of Iron

General informations

Real time grand strategy games focused on WW2.
Consensus is that no one played HoI1, most like HoI2, some love HoI3, and a whole lot of people play HoI4, which is considered oversimplified and appealing to casuals by (obnoxious) veterans of the series.
Me, I like 4 (played a small bit of 2 back in the days but it was far too complex for me at the time). 4 is cool and has an incredibly good-looking dieselpunk interface, and I love how production works, but damn the game is SLOW. It takes hours for two years to pass, especially once the war has started. So, I'd like to mod the game to make some values smaller to speed up things and also simplify the game a bit.

Hearts of Iron IV Modding

So let's get straight to business. This page is mainly to savekeep the python scripts I wrote to modify the txt files of the game. HoI4 is made to be easy to mod, and it shows; but there's still a great number of txt files and sometimes just modifying them through a Python script is easier.

The main one is for modifying units value painlessly (or rather, with as little pain as possible). Script is still WIP and only works for some parameters of infantry units.
Let's try and see if I can upload .py and how they turn out in the browser. Turns out I can't upload a .py file here without paying (which I might actually do at some point).
Let's go and make it a txt for now. That's python 3 (not 2) and the modifying of the values is still made inside the script.
_modify_equipment.txt

RFFs/AARs

First time as Italy, completely lost after the tutorial.
Second time as the United States 1939. Found it rather easy to learn the mechanics while playing the US. Sent ships to fight the Japanese after they declared war somewhere in 1940. Didn't lose many ships but didn't sink many JP ships either.
Third time as UK 1936. Make unit, go through the Focus Tree branches that grants research bonuses, etc. I sent my Suez Canal units to help the Ethiopians against Italy. Then the Germans/Italians slipped through from the East and took the Suez Canal. Well that was a clever move from my part. Italy then proceeds to conquer almost all of Africa. Italians even get to Paris before the Germans. I send one or two aircraft carriers + several Task Forces to help the French defend Morocco. At some point one of my non-carrier fleets is completely sunk by the Italian fleet, and Italians suffered zero losses. I don't get it! I retreat back to the Channel. Time to wait for the United States to bail us out!
Move the camera over the US to see what they're doing. Uh-oh: they're now the Free American Empire and they're mostly facists. Yikes, they even lend-lease supplies to the Germans. At this point I realized my manpower was basically zero. I sign some conscription laws to get more manpower. It works, now I have several millions men available, don't know what to do with them though.
Then I realize I have no fuel, none at all. I trade all I can but my fuel is still zero. Air power and Navy and Armored divisions therefore useless. I decide to go and mod the game. Out of spite I make a focus in the UK National Focus Tree that gives UK 45 more military factories and 5000000 manpower from the get go. But now my modding ambitions are bigger so I may never come back to this UK playthrough.
2019-08-03: Well I do continue this UK playthrough. The situation in Eastern Europe is grim, as the Germans and their allies keep progressing East. Poland has fallen, and the Kingdom of Romania is on the verge of collapse. In Western Europe, the last remnants of democracy are gone for good now that both the Netherland and Luxembourg have been defeated.
Fortunately, there's one front that doesn't go awful: North Africa. Free French forces are slowly pushing back the Italians east. There's a LOT of people fighting here: Italians, Germans, Free French, British Malaya, Australia, etc. Seeing serious chances of success, we've sent 4 infantry divisions that we cut from the Home Army (after figuring out how to move divisions across the sea). This is not much, but eh. I also try to send the Reserve Fleet (3 battleships, some cruisers and destroyers) to bombard Italian-held shores, but the task force stops suddenly in the Bay of Biscay because it ran out of fuel... our fuel situation is really awful and I don't know what to do about it. On the ground, after a few days of vain attacks aiming to take Algiers, I sent an additional 3 infantry divisions, and I create several air wings in North Africa, using available planes that were sitting unused in our reserves. To my surprise, there is progress. After a few weeks I realize that in that messy kerfuffle, the frontline has moved beyond Algiers for some reasons. I send my 7 divisions there. The fight continues!
2019-08-09: Incredible advances have been made in North Africa. In just a few months, we have liberated almost the whole coastline. We are now in September 1941 and the Suez Canal is ours for the taking.
The method was to send no more than 4 infantry divisions per attack on provinces borders, because of alleged combat width considerations, and to create pockets (encircling the enemy) and aiming for the big cities. I also sent 5 more infantry divisions and a tank division to Africa to help. After taking Tobruk it was smooth ride to Benghazi and then Tripoli. Now we're pushing East across Egypt at incredible speed and we can almost see Cairo. Italy has effectively lost the Sahara.
Other divisions from allied countries were also helping out, like units from India, the British Raj, Australia, South Africa and Malaya. But despite good intentions they were often not enough against Italian infantry units. Fortunately my 10+ divisions were up to the challenge. As we advanced and captured airbases, I moved my squadrons closer to the frontlines. And since we captured many ports, I also sent the Mediterranean Fleet back to the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Fleet is a carrier group composed of 1 carrier with 33 Close Air Support (CAS) airplanes and 9 fighters, escorted by one battleship, several heavy cruisers and 18 destroyers that I've detached from the reserve fleet (with great pain due to the poor naval interface).
Among other news, China and some of its allies have asked for non-aggression pacts, that I've gladly signed. Germany declared war on the Soviet Union. And seeing our fuel reserves dwindling again, we traded all our factories against oil with the Confederated United States for a single day, and it gave us 50 days worth of fuel. Then I just decided to permanently trade 3 factories to them against oil, and our fuel reserves are said to last for about 1 year.
Also, some of our civilian factories at home are sometimes busy repairing infrastructure such as airbases or dockyards. I guess the Italians or the Germans must be bombing us. We have been strategically bombing them since the beginning of the war, too.
2019-08-10: Our momentum in North Africa is gone. Our armies managed to advance as far Alexandria, but couldn't take Giza or Cairo. We did not expect such stiff resistance from Italian forces. Our only armored divisions in the theater has been wiped out, too. After several unsuccessful attacks, I had to regroup all my forces into El Alamein. I have then sent 7 additional infantry divisions as well as 1 armored division. We now have 21 divisions in North Africa, but wether we can take Cairo and, most importantly, Suez, is still to be seen.
Also of note, divisions from the Confederated States have been spotted in Italian territories and in the warzone. We're not at war with the Confederated United States though, so this remains to be cleared out.
2019-08-14: Dire news: we've managed, painfully, to take back Cairo and the Suez Canal from the Italians, at long last... but our rear may be severely compromised. Nationalist Spain has joined the Axis, has taken Gibraltar, and has begun a military campaign in North Africa, taking away important land from Free France.
With Europe completely in the hands of the Axis, the United States turning fascists, and the Soviet Union having a bad opinion of the UK, North Africa was the only front that didn't go terrible. And now that will be taken away from us... The situation sure looks grim.
2019-08-17: A few months passed and nothing of note happened. Nationalist Spain and the Italians are taking back most of North-Africa and Sahara. The Italians have withdrawn their divisions near Cairo and sent them South for some reason. I sent a few divisions to take Tel Aviv and Damascus, as it was Italian territory but without any Italian units, so basically free real estate. After that I sent my troops back West near El Alamein to engage advancing Italian and Spanish troops.
Other than that we are plagued with missing resources and the number of convoys is running low rather fast, and the two are linked. Enemy submarines from Spain, Italy and Germany are hitting our convoys pretty hard.
Also I've planned a naval invasion in Germany but despite the invasion being planned successfully, we can't launch it because we lack naval supremacy in the required areas. Hmm. I guess having 150 ships sitting idle in the Reserve Fleet is useless after all.