Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV

Führerreich [LEGACY]
ProgramTheta 15 Aug, 2019 @ 10:05pm
Unique balancing method causing issues?
I only have a limited amount of expierence with this mod, so bear with me. I love this mod and have been having alot of fun in it with my friends. One issue I'm seeing though is the way the mod balances the main conflict.

In order to make an alt history mod fun, it has to be balanced. The main conflict in this mod is Germany vs France. Usually, a mod balances the two sides by making them roughly equal in strength with a bunch of variables thrown in to make each nation unique without throwing the fight out of balance where 1 side always wins.

Fuhrerreich, in my opinion, takes a very very unique method of balancing it's main conflict. France and its alliance is almost always overwhelmingly stronger than Germany. France can build a ton of factories and troops, but the biggest thing is allies. France can get a huge amount of strong allies compared to Germany. If France does things right, they can totally surround Germany with their alliance. To give Germany a chance to win this lopsided fight, Germany's focus tree is incredibly stacked. Their focus tree is filled with seemingly endless focuses with massive bonuses and insane combat national spirits. You can get like 35% reinforce rate and +30% recovery rate, -20% supply consumption, etc etc.

These bonuses are extremely powerful and make Germany's troops almost unstoppable. However, because Germany can only muster a few weak allies, if any at all, the fight is long and difficult and France can definitely still win. The problem arises when Germany fights anyone else other than the massive French alliance. Germany's combat bonuses are so insane in this mod that nobody can stop them except France. Against anyone else, Germany's troops will win any battle against any odds in a few hours and take no damage to org or strength. In one case, I attacked Denmark over Kiel Zone before the war with France, and I defeated more than 20 fully equipped Danish infantry divisions in a 1 hour battle with 4 motorized and then overran all of them because they couldnt retreat fast enough.

This also makes the soviet union an absolute joke against Germany as well. The Soviets can muster plenty of troops, but the German bonuses are so good that they just kill everything anyway.