Forming the European Union in Hearts of Iron 4 is one of the most elusive – but also one of the most powerful decisions in all of Hoi4. It can only be achieved under specific circumstances whilst playing as specific nations, but once achieved, forming the Hoi4 European Union gives you cores upon almost all Western European states – making you an absolute powerhouse and launching you to superpower status immediately. Due to the power of this decision – Paradox have chosen to keep it locked behind multiple stages in order to maintain the balance of the game – despite this, there are ways that we can utilise one nation’s focus tree in particular to form the union with relative ease.
Who Can Form The European Union In Hoi4?
(This guide requires either the ‘Waking The Tiger’ or the ‘Man The Guns’ DLCs)
The Hoi4 European Union can only be formed by a few nations – with specific requirements on their ideology and the land in which they control – these requirements can be found below:
- Country is fully independent
- Controls the following states:
- Luxemburg
- Controls all mainland Dutch states in Europe
- Controls all mainland Belgian states in Europe
- Controls all French states in Europe
- Controls all Italian states in Europe
- Controls all German States
In addition, only the following nations can form the EU – they all must be Democratic at the time of unifying Europe, except from the UK, who must be Fascist and have Oswald Mosley leading the nation:
- The Netherlands
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- France
- Italy
- Germany
- West Germany
- United Kingdom
- Country leader is Oswald Mosley (must be Fascist)
- Has completed the focus Imperial Federation (Requires ‘Man The Guns’ DLC)
In this Hoi4 European Union guide – we’ll be using Germany in order to form the EU – as they probably have the easiest path to be able to form it – it should also be able to be formed with just one of the ‘Waking The Tiger’ or ‘Man The Guns’ – rather than needing both.
So, Where Do We Start?
(This guide is based upon the Hoi4 European Union Guide from 71Cloak which can be found here)
As a summary, the purpose of this guide will be to avoid doing the “Rhineland” focus, in order to allow us to still initiate the German civil war – in order to eventually turn democratic, which as discussed above is required for this formable nation.
To begin, we will exercise our army, build civilian factories, followed by military factories for the rest of the game as shown below:
Following from there, we’ll set up our industry and tech. Starting with industry, set it up as shown in the screenshots below. As a general rule of thumb – we won’t really be making much of an army in this game, rather making our forces just strong enough to be able to beat who we need to in order to form the EU. So we are doing quite a balanced production line this time around.
For our tech, we will mostly be focusing on industry buffs, as well as quick improvements and buffs to our army – as we won’t really have the time to improve and retrofit our forces very much.
Moving on, we’ll take the “Four Year Plan” focus, which will lead us to eventually getting an extra research slot, along with a bunch of factories. Though to be honest – we won’t really be covering foci much in this guide – as long as you do not take the “Rhineland” focus, you can do this strategy with basically any combination of foci – but industry is probably the strongest to focus on at first.
Hoi4 European Union Guide – Next Steps
Now that we’ve got the initial setup out of the way, we can move onto the next steps in this Hoi4 European Union guide, firstly – play the game, and as soon as you get 50 political power, justify a war goal upon France. (We’re going for an early war).
Upon finishing your first research, begin working towards radio – the reinforcement bonus it provides will come in handy for an early war. Then, wait until you have 150 political power, and then hire the “Fascist Demagogue” – Joseph Goebbels, whom we need for his war support bonus.
Your next research slots should just really be used upon industry – it will gives us the most benefit for this sort of game. Then, once you have 15 army XP, stop exercising your divisions, and create the following divisions by duplicating your existing infantry and panzer divisions.
Once you’ve done that, train as many of the original infantry as you can, these units should be deployed ASAP regardless of training, as these will just be needed to hold the line for now. In addition, once you have another 150 political power, hire an infantry expert for the additional attack and defence and convert one of your infantry armies (24 divisions) to your new infantry template to ready us for the war with France
War With France
Speaking of which, you should now begin placing your units in position. You won’t be able to place your divisions in the Rhineland yet – this is fine, instead, you should create a fallback line on the Rhineland border. This fallback line should consist of your better infantry that you converted earlier The northern army, along with the tank brigade (Orange and Red armies) will be used to invade the Benelux after the frontline with France is secure, while your newly “trained” infantry should go on the frontline with France. Make sure you also set your planes up where they need to be depending on where your divisions are attacking.
As a general guide, upon declaring war on France, do the following:
- Move half of your northern infantry army to solidify the frontline with France is the Rhineland, ensure that you don’t lose any territory.
- Move the rest of your norther infantry army and your tanks to the Dutch border
- Once the frontline with France has been solidified, move the rest of your better infantry units up north to the Dutch border, then justify on the Netherlands
Upon capitulating the Netherlands, set your default occupation policy to “Local Police Force”, and create a new division template with just one cavalry in – this will be our garrison and resistance template.
Once you’ve done that, justify upon Belgium. Once that’s completed, declare war and push through Belgium to the French border ASAP – you’ll probably have to use your tanks here, in addition, make sure you justify a war goal on Luxembourg too – you need them to form the EU!
Once you reach the French border, rush towards the victory points for a quick victory – you can also consider bringing in the Italians in order to draw some of the Allied forces away from you. And before long, the French will have fallen.
Upon defeating France, ensure that you select the “No, Germany will conquer all!” option, we need all of the French land for this to work. Next, finish up any pockets of resistance that you may have on the mainland and begin setting up naval invasions against the British.
Hoi4 European Union Guide – Time For Operation Sea Lion
This next bit in this Hoi4 European Union guide will be tricky. The easiest thing to do here is to invade the East coast of England around Hull and Newcastle, as trying to invade through the English channel directly almost never works. In this instance, we can avoid going through the English channel and instead invade through the North Sea which the British Royal Navy typically only lightly defends.
From here, it’s as simple as setting your navy and airforce into position and beginning the invasion, you should occasionally achieve naval supremacy, which will allow your invasion to begin.
Once you’ve landed, secure the ports, and just push into Scotland and the Rest of England and Wales, the UK typically doesn’t defend the home isles particularly well, so this should be easy.
Once you’ve beaten the UK, that should end the war, ensure that you full annex France and Britain, as if you just puppet them it could cause issues with what we do later. Beyond that is up to you, puppetting any of the British or French empires shouldn’t matter.
With the allies dealt with, we have just one more enemy to fight, Italy. Kick them from your faction as soon as the war finishes and justify a war goal upon them. They should be pretty easy to deal with, as they will tend to garrison their overseas colonies more than their homeland. If in doubt, you can always recruit a few extra divisions to help.
Once the war goal has completed, simply declare war on them and annex Italy – this shouldn’t take too long at all. I will note that you may have the event where you gain an Italian puppet, this is unfortunate as we need to fully annex italy. The easiest thing to do here is just to build in their territory and lend lease to them – this will slowly reduce their autonomy until you can eventually annex them. With that, we are almost done, we now actually need to return back to our focus tree.
The Beginnings Of Peace In Europe
In order to form the EU, we must be democratic, and to do that, we need to complete the following foci – following completing “The Monarchy Compromise” we will become democratic and are free to form the EU.
But first, we have to remove the Nazis via a civil war. Set your army on a frontline like this:
This will put your army in the best position to attack once the civil war begins. Once this is done, begin the “Oppose Hitler focus”.
We won’t go into how you win the German civil war here, if you struggle with this part, be sure to take a look at our Hoi4 Germany guide, which you can find here!
However you win the civil war, you are now in the final stretch of this guide. The first thing you should do is hire several advisors with your banked up political power, hire the following advisor to begin with:
Then, once you’ve completed the “Re-establish Free Elections” focus, you’ll be able to hire the following advisors:
These three advisors in tandem will give you a substantial boost to your support for democracy, which we need at 40% to complete the final focus of this guide. In addition, you could ban Fascism and Communism to further boost the support of the democratic faction.
Finally, once you have reached at least 40% support for democracy, you can do the final focus:
“The Monarchy Compromise” which makes you democratic.
From there, forming the EU is as simple as going to the decisions menu and pressing the button…
Hoi4 European Union Guide – Conclusion
There we have it, you have successfully formed one of Hoi4’s strongest nations! If you enjoyed this Hoi4 European Union guide, or found it helpful, be sure to check out our other Hoi4 guides at Console Bandit, which you can find here! Have a great rest of your day.
