How to Get Sunrise Invasion Achievement in Hearts of Iron IV

This is a guide for the achievement “Sunrise Invasion,” where you must occupy a coastal state in Europe as Mexico without joining a faction. Despite only 1.4% of players having it, it’s actually extremely easy to obtain. Just follow these steps, and you can’t go wrong.

How to Get Sunrise Invasion Achievement

1. Play without any DLCs. The version shouldn’t matter, but I played on the newest one (1.12.14).
2. Turn on Historical AI Focuses.
3. Once in the game, delete all units except for 10 and change them to the main infantry division template. Focus your military factories on producing infantry equipment and artillery only.
4. Allocate your dockyards to submarines.
5. Choose the Political Effort focus as your first focus. After completing it, immediately hire José Vasconcelos and justify a war goal against Republican Spain when the civil war starts. Next, prioritize the dockyard focus to ensure you have enough naval supremacy later on.
6. Declare war on Republican Spain once the war goal is finished and request military access from Nationalist Spain. Immediately justify another war goal on Albania.
7. Ship your units to “Islas Baleares” (aka Mallorca) and initiate two naval invasions on Albania. Ensure that your invasions cover all of Albania’s states since they don’t have enough troops to defend them all. Meanwhile, bring your ships to Mallorca and set them on naval invasion support in all required regions. For this, you will need to create a separate task force for submarines due to their higher range.
8. Start the naval invasion preemptively by clicking on the arrow.
9. Once the war goal is complete, declare war on Albania and watch your naval invasion unfold before they can call Italy into the war.

And there you have it! You’re done. Although it may sound incredibly difficult given that only 1.4% of players have achieved it, it’s actually easy as hell.