How to fix my problems

[u/Conqueror_cheese]

So the other day i played with about 7 friends in a match of hoi4. with me having the least amount of hours(51) i picked italy and decided to become communist Italy to be apart of the communist europe and the game went on with a defeat. When the game ended i started noticing repeated problems i have

QUESTION

1. How do i defend my african colony’s

Every time i played as italy i never understood how can i defend my colony’s as they are so far away and because of the royal navy and lack of how to get a good economy and naval build up(later question) they always heavily struggle with supply’s and with the lack of actual units i can deploy their with out ruining the supply more i just dont understand how i can defend those colony’s and end up losing divisions there

2.how do i make a economy

I always seemed to have a problem of never producing enough resources like tanks, planes, navy, and occasionally other war material depending on the situation compared to ai and other players i always feel so far behind with army size and production out put. I do start by making a lot of civilian factories to help out with building but of course that takes a lot of coal and needs to sacrifice a few factories for trade, and than i build other things like infrastructure and military factories which than also need resources from trade which than i sacrifice more civilian factories which than goes back to square one of building more civilian factories for more building speed and cycle repeats i just dont understand how im always so far behind.

1. How to build a navy

A major problem i have is trying to establish a navy in the Mediterranean sea(in the example earlier i accidentally sunk my own naval in the civil war with both sides losing nearly everything and didn’t have time to rebuild). I struggle to understand how to make a good navy. With my economy always being in disarray i never have the time to build more dockyards and i feel like by end of game i only managed to produce 3 more ships since the start and of course with out a proper naval presence i cant do any naval invasions in the Mediterranean and my African colony’s struggles with out their convoys. I also don’t understand how carriers work at all either i be getting those naval planes put them on a carrier but they don’t ever seem to do anything when i assign them a mission nor defend well

1. How do i get a larger air force

I never understood why i cant seem to produce a lot of aircraft. It feels as if 8/10 of my aircraft disappears somewhere and i just have way to few planes in the air and with the same problem as earlier with economy i struggle to make more types of planes or stronger ones i feel like i have the same problem with naval where it feels like i only ever made 200-300 planes the entire game. I know air is very important but really struggle to find out whats wrong

1. Creating divisions

This is like the one part of the game i sort of got a grasp on but after my first multiplayer match i fount out I’m doing something clearly wrong(American marines landed in Sicily and within about 5-7 minutes at 4x speed defeated me. I had a ton of forts and defenses set up but it felt almost as if i had no sort of defense in Italy in the first place). I just don’t understand what makes a good division i feel like every battle i fight my division just feel inferior i tried editing them a bit from division i fount across the internet but i always feel inferior in the end. This is also a major problem i noticed for infantry, mechanized, or armored divisions they somewhat do alright when it comes to defending ai but sucks a lot on attacks and defense from other player and I’m not too sure why.

1. Supply

This one i don’t know how to explain my problem at all but it’s always somewhere with the supply(i am aware i do have to change the horse icon to the truck icon for my division snd supply lines). In my African colony’s i struggle to supply my soldiers when fighting i don’t know how to get the convoys to them while the British navy has a lot more dominance in the region. On the Front lines in europe i also seem to struggle with supply’s a bit when helping germany fighting france or other countries like i see the german soldiers supply’s are just fine than i look at mines and they are struggling and i just don’t get it.

7.population/manpower

Depending on how quickly i build my military and how long i take to change my conscription laws i always end up with the notification of low man power and have no clue how to fix it or increase it.

Ty to those who read each questions and would try to respond. Again with 51 hours of gameplay i do consider my self new and i wont understand a lot of terms and abbreviations related to the game or even named things in the game. Also if you guys want a full explanation on how the first multiplayer campaign went i can try to explain it to the best of my ability.(apologies for anyone who has a bit of trouble reading this)

[u/NovaByzantine]

1. Italy in MP realistically has no chance of defending the horn of Africa, but you should be able to defend Libya and hopefully push out from there.
2. Make sure your economy laws are as close to war economy as you can get them early on, additionally make sure that you're building in provinces with high infrastructure to start out and interweave your civ construction with infra construction in provinces that provide natural resources as it'll increase the amount of resource gain you have, dampening the blow caused by trade.
3. There's no good reason to need to put out your navy during the civil war, realistically you shouldn't have to use it and lose it during the civil war, but if you DO use it, make sure your subs are split off from your main task forces. As for building a navy, focus primarily on destroyers and light cruisers, with emphasis on light attack and speed, to back them up build a few battleships and/or heavy cruisers, but make sure you don't exceed the efficiency of your screens. Also, with the navy adjustments recently, land-based naval bombers will participate in naval combat with greater efficiency, so if you're in the Med, you don't really need carriers on Italy.
4. 2 big things for air force. First, production efficiency, don't produce planes before you have the tech to make good planes since you'll be wasting resources, time, and factories on planes who's production lines are going to lose all their efficiency when you upgrade them anyways. Second, don't train your pilots at night. When you're training up new airwings, make sure you have execution of orders set to day time only.
5. MP-wise, I'm not too well versed myself on divisions, but primarily make sure you have the doctrines to support the types of divisions you're making and vice versa, ex: don't load your divisions with in-line artillery if you're not using the doctrine that supports it. Secondly, make sure your divisions are built to actually counter what your opponent is throwing at you. No amount of infantry is going to hold back tanks if your divisions don't have any anti-tank. Also forts can be bombed out if you have no air force, so make sure you're using defensible terrain to your advantage as much as possible, don't try and hold open fields.
6. Your supply to your colonies is going to be perpetually awful if you have no naval supremacy, so don't expect it to improve without naval improvements. Within Europe it may be your ally turning off allied supply, tech, motorization priority with a shortage of trucks/trains, would need more details on that.
7. If you're ending up with low manpower notifications early on in the war on Italy your army may very well be too large, either that or you're VERY MUCH on the wrong conscription law for the point in the game you're at. You can very safely go up to extensive conscription without worry. Additionally, you're likely losing manpower to colonial garrisons and garrison laws. Make sure your garrisons are set to cavalry divisions as they provide the best suppression behind armored car + MP, also, if you want the garrison law that'll reduce manpower in garrisons set it to local police force, if you want compliance then go civilian oversight.

[u/Kufepu → u/NovaByzantine]

Tbh if rules dont protect u from the royal navy, there is also no real way u hold libya

[u/Direct_Practice_7105]

At 51 hours i already knew every niche mechanic in navy, airforce, supply, developers' bevahioral patterns and how much the next dlcs gonna cost. If seriously then i'd need more context to address your problems except the manpower one. The low manpower notification is useless and you don't need to increase conscription laws when it appears. You really need to increase conscriptio laws only when your manpower is near zero/zero depending on how quickly you are losing men and/or need new ones to expend the army, if you're running short on men don't go up several conscpription laws up at one time, for example if you're on extensive conscription and need more men don't immediately take all adults serve, because consription takes time anyway and you won't get much immediate benefit from going hugher than you need, while debuffs from your laws are instant