The Dutch East Indies can talk its way out of the Dutch empire, absorb its own overlord, and finish 1941 sitting on London. This page gives you the whole route in order: the decision loop that buys autonomy, the four templates the army is built from, the diplomatic setup that keeps Germany pointed at Belgium instead of you, and the naval invasion that only becomes possible once Vichy France exists. It assumes you are comfortable reordering focuses and designing divisions, and it is written to be repeatable rather than improvised.
Quick answer
| What | Answer |
|---|---|
| Opening build | Three infrastructure in Medan for rubber, then civilian factories in Batavia |
| Union date | September 1938 |
| Land doctrine | Grand Battle Plan, then Elite Special Forces and Cold Weather Specialist |
| Mountaineer stats | 27.6 combat width, 624 soft attack, +24% in mountains |
| Mountaineer count | 12 total - recruit the maximum 8 once Tip of the Spear is in |
| Germany | Non-aggression pact, set up with a spy on diplomatic pressure |
| Naval bombers | 15 to 20, on naval strike and patrol in the English Channel |
| Deadline | The United States joins in August, leaving roughly five months of buffer |
Build up autonomy and break away from the Netherlands
Independence is bought with civilian factories and political power, so the opening is a construction order and a decision loop running side by side. Three infrastructure in Medan comes first because the rubber it unlocks funds the political power chain and still matters in the late game 1:30. After Batavia's civilian factories, every subsequent build is military factories in whichever province has the highest infrastructure — that rule holds for the rest of the run and is not repeated below.
- rubber first, factories second
- once only — the chain you repeat is a different one
- every time the event fires
- 25 PP each · 3:25
- focus rewards become military factories from here
Each Volksraad decision is a request the Netherlands can refuse, and a refusal means no autonomy from it. Acceptance runs at roughly 99%, so a refusal is rare — but if it lands on one of the first requests, restarting costs you less time than playing the run out behind schedule.
Manage the autonomy RNG the Netherlands throws at you
Once you raise to colony the Netherlands unlocks a branch of its own focuses. Most are neutral or actively good for you. Only two subtract autonomy. The first is taken every game and costs a flat -100, which the focus order below already absorbs — you never have to react to it. The second is a 250-point swing, and it is the only genuine RNG in the whole run 4:52.
If the Netherlands completes the 250 focus, you will not have the autonomy to raise to dominion when you expect to. This is not a failed run. Take the following focus first, and the autonomy arrives in time to raise afterwards — the cost is one focus of delay and nothing else.
You can also lean on the outcome. Select a focus that the Netherlands could otherwise start, let nine or ten days pass, then cancel it 6:20. You lose nothing by doing this, and if the Netherlands would have committed to that focus during the window, it may no longer be available to them. It is not guaranteed, and it can be repeated for every focus. Officialize the Indonesian Flag is worth blocking the same way — not because the run needs it, but because every point of variance removed here is one you do not have to manage later.
Design the four templates the run is built on
Four templates carry the entire campaign, and they are built in this order because each one depends on army experience you do not have yet at the start.
| Template | Composition | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Line infantry | The starting template, later trimmed to exactly 18 combat width | Holds fronts and fills the second army; every inherited Dutch division becomes this |
| Garrison | Eight battalions, support: local police force and cover | Occupation duty only. Far cheaper in manpower and production than line infantry, which is the entire reason it exists |
| Offensive infantry | Line infantry plus three infantry guns and support artillery; later three more infantry battalions, two more infantry guns, support anti-air and rangers | The Belgium and France push |
| Mountaineers | Six mountaineer battalions, SPGs, a couple of infantry guns, support recon rangers, artillery and anti-air; marked elite | Every hard push — Spain, the northern front, Britain |
Build battalions in groups of three. Regimental companies attach per group, so a template widened in threes accepts more of them than one widened arbitrarily — that single rule shapes the offensive template's final form.
Six mountaineer battalions is the required base; the SPGs go in as soon as the design is saved, and the infantry guns and support companies fill in as army experience arrives. Recruit the maximum four straight away, then eight more once Tip of the Spear is in, for twelve in total 14:31.
Constant-train the mountaineers. Do not train them to regular. Constant training burns equipment, but it is what unlocks the mastery perks, and the third perk is the combat width reduction that the final template is built around 25:37. Once it lands, widen to 27.6 combat width with a lot of infantry guns, and add motorised heavy if you want the breakthrough — that part is optional and expensive. The finished division reads 624 soft attack, +24% in mountains and roughly 55 organisation.
Regular infantry substitutes for mountaineers everywhere in this run. The pushes are slower but they still work, and skipping Elite Special Forces and Cold Weather Specialist frees a large amount of army experience for the regular land doctrine tree instead.
Choose doctrines, advisors and production priorities
Land doctrine opens with Grand Battle Plan and stays there. On top of it go Elite Special Forces and Cold Weather Specialist, which are expensive in army experience and pay for the mountaineers 7:48. Later picks, in order: Grand Assault, Assault Infantry, Self-Propelled Support, Streamline Deployment and Well Planned Attack.
Naval doctrine is Trade Interdiction into Selective Engagement into Torpedo Primacy into Line of Battle; past that point nothing you pick will matter to this run. Air doctrine goes down the torpedo bomber tactics branch, because the only air force you build is naval bombers.
Advisors, in the order you can afford them: air reformer expert, the cheap military theorist, army defense expert, minister of finance, decisive battle specialist, war industrialist, and the inspector of engineers genius for -15% supply consumption 17:27. A later focus grants another -15%, and the two stack. Swap Robert for the collaborationist to gain autonomy faster; war support dips as a result and climbs back above 25% on its own, so the demobilisation event is not a problem.
On production: design the SPGs as soon as the research lands, put five military factories on them and move them to the top of the priority. Infantry equipment goes to 10 factories but sits at the bottom. Convoys drop to one. At 25 navy experience, design the basic torpedo destroyer and build as many as the dockyards allow. Fix trade deficits only when they exceed two — below that, ignore them.
Two industry focuses are worth waiting for rather than routing around: -15% consumer goods factories, and Industry Boom for +20% construction speed. The stretch of the run where nothing military is happening is exactly when they compound.
Form the Netherlands Indonesia Union and rebuild your setup
The union focus completes in September 1938. You become the Netherlands Indonesia Union under the Dutch queen, non-aligned at 100%, and inherit a navy, a lot of dockyards and a pile of divisions. The next few minutes are pure housekeeping and they decide how strong the rest of the campaign is.
- protects the 100% non-aligned figure
- losing the research speed hurts; better advisors are coming 11:37
- this is your only source of navy experience
- the dockyard count varies by game
- 12:35
- manpower is the run's long-term ceiling
The Netherlands is your base of operations from this point. Everything that follows stages out of Europe, not the islands.
Position three fronts before the war starts
Non-aligned countries cannot found a faction at low world tension, so nothing moves until Germany starts the war. Use the wait to place every division where it needs to be, because once Belgium is attacked you will want to push the same day.
- 13:33
- Singapore is the hardest and the most important — force attack if it stalls
- naval liaison also works in the third slot
- do not skip this 18:24
Without the diplomatic pressure the non-aggression pact does not happen, and Germany attacks you instead of Belgium. If you have no spy capacity at all, invert the plan: justify on France before Germany can reach you, attack France, and Germany invites you into its faction anyway — the pact was never the only door in.
Justifying directly on Belgium is possible once world tension is high enough, and it gets you in roughly 20 days earlier. It also costs considerably more, and waiting for Germany to attack Belgium costs nothing. Wait.
Take France and secure Vichy France
The trigger to watch for is Germany declaring war on Denmark. Justify your wargoal on France at that moment and the claim matures around the time Germany hits Belgium, so both fronts open together.
- 19:22
- a request is refused; the event expires 1 June
- 50 PP · 21:16
- until 1 June you can expand without being entangled
- Vichy France does not appear otherwise
- you need at least one bordering tile to attack
- 24:12
Moving the capital cuts your access to the island rubber during parts of the war. Take the hit — supply rotating around Amsterdam is what makes the push into France, and later the push into Spain, survivable at all. Ignore trade for a while rather than trying to patch the deficits.
Vichy France is not a bonus objective. A small fleet can no longer defeat the Royal Navy outright, so Vichy's ports and ships are the practical prerequisite for landing in Britain. The alternative is a large air investment this path has no room for.
Beat Spain and invade the United Kingdom
This is the long chain, and it runs against a clock: the United States joins in August, and the schedule leaves roughly five months of buffer 35:37. Late is survivable. Idle is not.
- 27:02
- they must be in position before the capitulation 28:29
- stops Vichy granting Germany military access 30:24
- 32:17
- bombers alone are enough; full air superiority is not needed
- this is what makes the basic torpedo destroyers effective
- speed beats tidiness against the UK
Always engage is deliberate and it is the risky part. What you want is the British patrols destroyed before their main strike forces arrive; with naval bombers overhead, dominance in the Channel usually follows quickly 33:41. If the fleet you meet first is the strike force rather than a patrol, the engagement is far more expensive — that is the coin flip you are accepting.
Make a backup save before the British operation begins. The naval phase is the one part of this run that can be lost to a single bad engagement, and nothing else in the campaign is worth re-running to recover it.
Close out the peace conference
War participation on this route lands around 37%, close behind Germany's own share, which buys almost everything worth having. Spend it deliberately rather than annexing by reflex: puppet the regions where annexing is expensive, and annex only where the price is genuinely lower. The United Kingdom is one of those — annexing it outright costs less here than the alternatives.
Two claims are about the next war rather than this one. Annex the part of Canada that borders the United States, which gives you a land route for a future American invasion. Then puppet Belgium and deliberately leave the French interior to Germany: that builds a large German pocket with poor access, sitting inside territory you control, and it is trivially encircled whenever you decide to turn on them.
Reserve roughly 2,000 points for the Royal Navy 38:29. Taking a large share of it removes naval problems for the remainder of the campaign, and there is no cheaper moment to buy a fleet that size.
The end state is 238 factories in 1941, the Allies defeated and the United States never involved. Two things constrain what comes next. Manpower is the binding limit and only a few more cores are available in the region. And the focus tree is largely closed: several focuses require being a Dutch subject or being at war with Japan, and the extra research slot is unreachable because it hangs off Mismanaged Administration, which the union removed. Three research slots is what this path gets.
Also worth knowing
- The focus-blocking trick is faster than ten days. Select the focus and swap off it on the second day — the Netherlands will already have committed to theirs, so the wait buys nothing.
- SPG is not a class in the tank builder. Self-propelled artillery is a role you assign to a chassis in the tank designer, which is why searching the class tab for it finds nothing. Its combat width was also revised to 2 rather than 3, so it takes less room in a template than older guidance assumes.
- Attack Vichy France before you are at war with the Allies. If the Allies are already fighting you when you go in, Vichy joins them, and its ships stop being a capitulation prize — you only see them at the peace conference, far too late to use them in the Channel.
- Ask Germany for the bordering state the moment it is willing. Its appetite for territory swaps flips within a day. Banking states to trade later regularly ends with a partner that has stopped answering.
- The peaceful loyalist route can dead-end. Forming Maphilindia that way depends on the UK handing over Singapore, and a refusal ends the attempt with nothing to salvage — one concrete reason to take the independence path instead.
- Spare dockyards have a second use. Put them on Submarine IIs and the hundred-convoys achievement comes along in the same run. Paratroopers are a workable backup plan if the naval invasion of Britain keeps failing.
- An alternative Channel setup exists. Basic cruisers with every surface vessel in a single fleet on patrol at low risk, submarines split into groups of one raiding convoys around the island, all under green air. It is a different bet on the same problem.
- Two formables are gone. The Insulindia decision was removed in Thunder At Our Gates, and Indonesia does not inherit the Benelux formable from the Netherlands — do not plan a run around either.
The third Volksraad decision has been reported to get vetoed and leave the decision chain bugged, blocking the remaining decisions entirely across repeated attempts. There is no known workaround. If your chain locks up there, restarting is the only route forward.
Frequently asked
What is an SPG in Hearts of Iron IV?
SPG stands for self-propelled artillery, and it is not a separate unit you research directly. You build it in the tank designer by taking a tank chassis and choosing the self-propelled artillery role, which is why it does not appear as its own class in the tank builder's class tab. In this run five military factories are put on SPGs and moved to the top of the production priority so they arrive in time for the mountaineer template.
Do you need mountaineers for the Dutch East Indies run?
No. Regular infantry works for every push in the run, and the strategy still succeeds without a single special forces battalion. Mountaineers are stronger, but going without them frees the army experience that would have gone into Elite Special Forces and Cold Weather Specialist for the regular land doctrine tree instead.
How many research slots does this Dutch East Indies path give?
Three. The focus that would grant a fourth slot is tied to Mismanaged Administration, and once the Netherlands Indonesia Union forms that prerequisite no longer exists, so the slot cannot be taken. Several other branches of the tree also lock out after the union forms because they require either being a Dutch subject or being at war with Japan.
What happens if the Netherlands refuses an autonomy request?
The request is accepted around ninety-nine percent of the time, but a refusal means no autonomy from that decision and a noticeably slower run. If a refusal lands on one of the first requests, restarting is usually faster than playing on. Later refusals are absorbed by the focus order and simply push the timeline back by one focus.
Can you invade the UK without taking Vichy France?
Not realistically with a small fleet, because the Royal Navy can no longer be defeated outright by a minor navy. Taking Vichy France gives you the ports and the navy needed to contest the English Channel, and it is the practical prerequisite for the landing. The alternative is a large investment in air, which this path does not have room for.
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