Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV – Finnish Him Achievement Guide

This guide will be covering the steps on how you can obtain the achievement called Finish Him! in Hearts of Iron IV. If you’re one of the players having a hard time obtaining this achievement, this one is for you.

Finnish Him! Finnish Him!
As Finland, defeat the Soviet Union without joining a faction.

First things first, you’re gonna have to disable historical focuses. Why? There are various reasons and here are three of them.

  • Britain or France can lock you from the rest of Scandinavia with a guarantee.
  • Germany can lock you out of Denmark and Norway by invading them first.
  • The Soviet Union gets claims on you and justifies war when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed.

You can try to do the achievement with historical focuses but I’d advise against it.

However, turning off historical focuses does not guarantee that you’ll be left to your devices in Scandinavia; Britain could go down the Fascist path and guarantee Denmark while Britain is still democratic. Germany could stay Fascist and rush Operation Weserübung and take all of the lands before you declare war.

Uniting Scandinavia

First thing you want to do to Defeat the Soviet Union is uniting Scandinavia. Uniting Scandinavia will give you the Industry and Manpower to muster a force large enough to withstand the endless horde called the Red Army.

Supporting the Extreme Right

You want to go Fascist so you can get the manpower from Militarism and Military youth which are very important for minor powers. Besides, Fascists can justify war goals whenever they please. You could make an argument for going communist, but you’re going to war with a COMMUNIST superpower and you don’t get manpower from going down the communist path in the generic focus tree.

You want to rush going Fascist by going down these focuses: Political Focus (Use the political power to get a Fascist Demagogue.), Collectivist Ethos, Nationalism, Militarism (for the Manpower because Finland has around 4k spare manpower at the beginning of the game). After doing those focuses, you should focus on your industry and get more research to fuel this Finnish, later Scandinavian, War Machine you’re making.

You could get some events that give you more Fascist Support in your country which is great. If you don’t get them you could still get the achievement, but it is going to take more time.

Sweden

Sweden should be your first target because its industry and manpower will be significant for this war against the Soviet Union. Plus, the Swedes lived with the Finnish for 200 years under the Swedish Empire so reuniting the two countries is as logical as the German Anschluss.

Start justifying on Sweden as soon as possible and have a naval invasion with your good infantry directly on Stockholm and have your bad infantry and your cavalry guarding the Swedish-Finnish Border. The Swedish should be distracted on the land border and have fewer troops in Stockholm. You can build some level 1 forts on the Swedish-Finnish border so Sweden doesn’t start aggressively pushing or you could not and see if the Swedish AI is willing to grind on you for 1 province.

Now it’s time to go to war. The Swedish Navy is better than yours but Sweden just has to put down its navy for one second and your boys are going to Stockholm! Landing in Sweden should be easy, capitulating them without getting encircled is the hard part. By hard, I mean micro-intensive. The Swedish have more troops and guns than you but you have a brain! Keep on encircling the Swedish whenever you get the opportunity and snake around their lines to Sweden’s remaining Victory points that are above 1. Remember that land border? If a point in that border is weak, you can push through and convince the Swedish AI to draw more troops to the land border instead of the Naval invasion.

Denmark and Norway

“Denmark! It just doesn’t exist, it can’t exist!” – iSorrowProductions on Denmark circa January 12, 2019.

After you defeated Sweden, all you have to do is take out Norway and Denmark. You should start justifying on Denmark so that there’s an actual owner to the part of the “Danish Straits.” If you’re lucky, France and Britain should not be democratic and Norway should guarantee Denmark. If this is the case, then you can unite Scandinavia with one war goal! If Norway doesn’t guarantee Denmark it’s not the end of the run; it’s just gonna take longer to form the Nordic Empire.

You should have 2-3 divisions on the strait from Denmark to Sweden so that the non-existent country starts to make your country cease to exist. Attacking across the strait is similar to attacking the Maginot Line, don’t do it. Instead, you should naval invade behind the Danish lines and take Copenhagen out from there. Don’t worry about Iceland getting out while it still could, you’ll annex Denmark before the event fires.

You shouldn’t need help invading Norway since you have Sweden.

War with the Soviet Union

Preparation

After your successful conquest unification of the Scandinavian peoples, it is time to prepare against your mortal enemy, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet industry and manpower are several times higher than yours, but it can win against them because you have
a brain.

To prepare against the horde you should have 72 infantry divisions of 20-width infantry with support artillery, engineers, and anti-aircraft support (you could use 7-2’s but these worked for me and they should work for you.) on the Soviet border and build level 1 forts across the border. You might want to put some higher defenses in Leningrad because Soviet AI gets pretty ferocious down there! Some aircraft are not a bad idea because the Soviets tend to use their tactical bombers as CAS and could bomb your factories and hinder your war machine.

Since you have Sweden’s resources, it might be worth your time to build some light tanks or some medium tanks to encircle more Soviet troops and make more breakthroughs in the Soviet lines.

If you can, make a collaboration government (60%-75%) in the Soviet Union so they capitulate faster and you have less resistance in Soviet lands if you continue the game after killing the Soviet Union.

Ideally, the Soviets would declare war on you through their focus tree so that you get more war support and the Soviets do not get the great patriotic war. However, if the Soviets find themselves in a war, you will have to justify the Soviet Union because they do not justify on you if they are at war.

The Great Winter War

If everything went according to plan, the Soviets should be grinding endlessly on you and they shouldn’t push you back. If the Soviets take away 1 province, it’s not the end. If the Soviets start pushing deeper and deeper into your territory, then you’re doomed. The Soviets should think they’re stronger than you, so they waste their equipment grinding in the Finnish snow. You’ll know when it’s time to start your big counterattack when an in-game day has passed and the Soviets haven’t been bothered attacking you.

Pushing the Soviets back when their entire army has to share their weapons is easy as cutting butter with a hot knife; it doesn’t require brainpower and it’s beautiful to see your men run over the Soviets. If you get to this point, you can sit back and stroll the streets of Moscow with your soldiers.

Another major power like the German Reich could capitalize on Soviet weakness and declare war. If this happens, DON’T JOIN THEIR FACTION and get more war score than the Germans. You do not have to annex the Soviet Union or puppet the Soviet Union for the achievement; all you have to do is make sure the Soviet Union capitulates to you.

After 4 million Soviets dead, there you go! You asserted Finnish rule over the Soviets and secured a Fin-tality!

In addition, the achievement “Northern Lights” can be obtained by releasing Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as puppets and forming a faction with them.

Summary

All in all, defeating the Soviet Union as Finland takes a lot of work but you can do it with enough practice and determination.

Here are some key things to remember if you want to get this achievement if you’re in a hurry.

  • Kill Sweden, Denmark, and Norway in that order.
  • Get 72 Infantry divisions.
  • Let Uncle Joe grind on you until he gets tired.
  • Finnish off Uncle Joe.

I hope you found this guide helpful and I wish you a great day.

Written by Roy Boi 21.

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