Hearts of Iron 4 is a grand strategy game where players get to control any country of their choosing through the Second World War. The starting date is 1936, and there is no real end date.
This means that many of you will reach a point where World War 2 is done and it doesn’t seem like there is much left to do. Most of the research ends around 1945, the focus trees are mostly complete, and the armies are gigantic.
Recommended Read: How to Pacify Ethiopia in Hearts of Iron 4
Everyone’s economy should be booming, and there shouldn’t be a lot of factions left at this point in the game. So, what can you do once WW2 is done?
Some of the things that players can do after WW2 is done in Hearts of Iron 4 is to fight their old allies for total supremacy, completely conquer the whole world, or just restart the game and play from 1936 again.
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How WW2 Ends Almost Every Time
Depending on the faction you helped at the start, three things can happen at the end of WW2:
- The Allies and the Comintern are the only powers in the world.
- The Axis and the Co-Prosperity Sphere are the only powers in the world.
- Your newly created faction and another one with a similar ideology are the only powers in the world.
If none of the scenarios are true for you, it means WW2 is not over yet. The Axis will always attack both the Allies and the Comintern, which means either side has to be destroyed.
However, in the weird case where you’ve created your own faction, the end game might be similar, but you’ll just be a third faction next to those two that would normally win.
Either way, the war will be over and the Cold War period will start, where you will have to decide if you want to fight the remaining powers or just start over the game.
This is usually only true when playing with historical AI focuses on. If you are playing ahistorical, you are likely to witness post-WW2 scenarios that nobody could ever imagine. Even WW2 can be avoided if the right things happen.
What to Do After WW2 in HOI4?
There are only two things you can do after completing WW2:
- Fight and defeat the other existing factions.
- Betray your faction and fight your old leader.
These options are usually available for Communist, Fascist, and Non-Aligned countries. If you are a Democracy, it’s very likely that nothing interesting will happen anymore in the game.
In that scenario, you’ve basically saved the world from oppressors, so you can just restart and play around with different countries of focus tree paths.
Fighting your Major Ally
If you are the leader of your faction and the most powerful country in it, then your only job that remains is to defeat the other remaining faction.
The only problem is that they are also very likely extremely powerful at this time in the game and the war is likely to be complicated.
The Allies usually have a very hard time fighting the USSR after 1943, and this is usually an impossible task without the constant use of nuclear bombs to destroy their units or planes.
Their Supply in Siberia is also atrocious, and they tend to capitulate only after conquering 90% of the country.
Germany and Japan will usually have a more interesting conflict since it spans the whole world, but it can be annoying to go from Europe to Asia and vice versa.
If you can steal the Navy from the Allies as Germany, you might have a chance to finish things relatively quickly. Otherwise, it will be a long slog through China.
The USSR will likely have the worst time trying to get rid of the Allies since the US now has more than enough troops to constantly send naval invasions all over your oceanside borders.
Your easiest way of getting there would also be conquering Latin America, where there is absolutely no Supply.
Betraying Your Faction
If you’re not the leader of the faction and you just wanted to defeat your enemies using the alliance, the next step is to leave the faction and fight your old allies.
This way, you can establish yourself as the hegemon of the century by defeating almost everyone that stood in your way.
Generally, your best bet would first be to cause a war between the two remaining factions. If you are neutral and the Allies and Comintern still exist, you need to somehow force a war between them.
A good idea is freeing a country in the USSR’s focus tree that they can get a war goal on during the war with the Axis.
Otherwise, just join a side and force a war between them. You can then later betray your current leader and take over the world.
Things get a lot more complicated in these circumstances. Your best bet is to make Poland survive long enough for the USSR to attack them during WW2 and force all factions to be at war with each other.
This way, when everything is done, you’ve only got one faction to worry about at the end of the war.
Either way, the game really doesn’t work that well past 1945 since everything becomes extremely laggy.
If your super computer can handle it, then you might make it to 1950, but a mod, like The Road to 56 would make things a lot more fun to continue past the base dates of WW2.
Still, generally, the best idea once you are done with WW2 is to just start over as a different country or attempt to do something even grander during it with your original country.
That’s everything you need to know about what to do after WW2 in Hearts of Iron 4!
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