Hearts of Iron 4 is a grand strategy game where players control any country in the world during the Second World War and try to win it all.
Since you can control any country around the globe, you will likely have problems transporting troops from the western hemisphere to the eastern hemisphere, where most of the action is going to take place. Sometimes, you will have problems even if you’re close by if you don’t have a border.
Recommended Read: How to Release Nations in Hearts of Iron 4
Unfortunately, transport over water is going to be mandatory for all the American nations or island nations, so here is exactly how to get your troops on the other side of the globe.
To transport troops over water in Hearts of Iron 4, you can either select your troops and right-click on a port of an ally, prepare a naval invasion and execute it properly, or paradrop troops onto enemy lands.
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How to Transport Troops Over Water in HOI4
There is only one way to transport troops over water to allies in HOI4 and two ways to do it into hostile lands:
- Right-click on an allied port or set up a line in that ally’s territory.
- Set up a Naval Invasion order.
- Set up a Paratroop Order.
By Sea into Allied Land
The easiest way to transport your troops over water, by sea, in HOI4 is to just click on them, right-click to send them to the closest port in your country (you can see a blue anchor icon there), and, once they reach their destination, right click on an allied port (on the blue anchor of an allied province) to send them.
Doing this should create a long blue line showing you the way that your troops are going to take by water to reach their destination.
You will need Convoys to actually send your troops on this adventure, which should be equal to the Weight of the divisions you are sending.
If you want to stop the command to send them onto those lands, you can’t just press right-click back in the port to stop them.
Select the divisions and press H to command them to hold their ground, stopping from any orders they had before.
Since you likely want to send more than just a few divisions to your allied territories, you can also just draw a line where you want to send them.
For example, if you set up a frontline with one of their neighbors, your troops will find a way to get there by themselves.
If you don’t want to send them close to your enemies, you just need to drag a fallback line in their territories. All of these commands (frontline, fallback line) can be found in the lower part of the screen after selecting a division/army.
As long as you have the necessary Convoys, the AI will do all the work for you, and you can start micromanaging after reaching your destination.
By Sea into Enemy Land
If you want to send your troops over the water into enemy territories in HOI4, you will need to set up a Naval Invasion order.
Naval Invasions are generally confusing for newer players, however, all the requirements to get them done aren’t that hard to meet.
You will need the technology Transport Ship technology to even think about doing this. Once you do, here is how to launch a naval invasion:
- Select one of your armies and press the Naval Invasion Order button (anchor icon with an arrow).
- Left-click on the province where you want your troops to leave from.
- Right-click on the enemy province where you want your troops to land.
- Activate the execution of the plan.
In theory, if you manage to meet all the necessary requirements, your troops will start leaving once they finish their preparation, and you can watch them as they make their way toward enemy lands.
Here are the requirements you need to meet for a Naval Invasion to actually start in HOI4:
- 50% Naval Supremacy in all sea regions where the troops will have to navigate.
- Enough Convoys to carry the troops.
- Enough Naval Invasion Capacity.
By Plane into Allied Land
Unfortunately, there is no way to transport troops by plane in HOI4 besides Paratroopers. All the other divisions will have to use ships to move over water.
Also, you can’t drop Paratroopers into allied lands, but you will almost never need to do that since you can easily just go by sea there.
By Plane into Enemy Land
The second method to get into enemy lands that you can’t reach by land is to drop Paratroopers into their lines by plane.
The same as with Naval Invasions, you will first need to research the Paratrooper special forces battalion. Once you do, you will need to deploy a couple of them as divisions.
Here is exactly how you can paradrop in HOI4:
- Recruit and deploy Paratrooper divisions.
- Select them and combine them into an army (press the man silhouette with the green + at the bottom of the screen).
- In the missions tab above the army generals, click the parachute icon to choose the beginning and landing points for the Paratroop Order.
- To begin carrying out the plan, press the green arrow hanging above the general of the army’s head.
Here are the requirements you need to meet for the Paratroop order to actually start in HOI4:
- Enough Transport Planes to carry the troops.
- More than 50 Transport Planes in the Air Base you want to use.
- Paratrooper divisions made solely out of Paratrooper battalions.
- At least 70% Air Superiority in the region you want to land.
That’s everything you need to know about how to transport troops over water in Hearts of Iron 4!
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