HOI4 Germany Guide 2026: Focus Order, Templates and MIOs

Patch not stated in the video; the creator confirms running all current DLC by name (Arms Against Tyranny, By Blood Alone, No Step Back, La Résistance, and No Compromise, No Surrender). Treat the upload date, 31 Jan 2026, as the reference point.

🎯 The core idea

A historical-focus, Iron Man German plan: rush the economy and doctrines through Rhineland → Four-Year Plan → Anschluss; pad the Anschluss army-size check with a throwaway 96-division cavalry "meme army" that never fights; then chain Poland into the Low Countries, France, Britain, the Balkans, USSR and USA with the same plains-toward-supply-hubs pincer every time. For the monarchist path, see the Kaiserin Germany guide.

• free costs nothing
• cheap small cost
• setup needs preparation
• grind pays off slowly
• skip the thing to avoid

Focus order

As posted in the video's description, matching the order taken on screen; Days is filled only where the video states or implies a date.

MIO and company picks

1. One MIO per equipment category, kept all game setupHenschel/tanks, Focke-Wulf/most aircraft, Rheinmetall/artillery, Mauser/guns, Walther/rest; assign each once via create-variant, since it isn't automatic. 1:26

Initial construction and production

1. Max core infrastructure, then 5 civilians, +5 guns, +2 artillery; collapse the ship queue to one copy each setupShift-click big ships to the back, then max their dockyards — ~2 per capital ship finishes them before the war. 2:29

Division designer: the cavalry rush

96 throwaway cavalry divisions exist purely to satisfy the Anschluss army-size check, not to fight (the shot above is the Panzer-Division template covered in Division templates below).

1. Queue 96 cheap cavalry divisions, force-deploy each at ~20% training grind"I like them worthless" — they never fight, so training them is wasted time. Right-click the field marshal after deploying to auto-distribute them. 9:06

1. Top option on the Austrian DNSAP-ban event (50 PP); spend early army XP on "assign political loyalty" cheapSets up an easier diplomatic Anschluss; stability feeds PP gain, consumer goods and factory output at once. MEFO-bills penalty is offset by Price Controls, gold-reserve decisions, and eventually Autarky Achieved. 10:48

Ship design: the "meme cruiser"

1. Rebuild the Admiral Hipper as a light cruiser with Blohm & Voss setupMain batteries → Light Cruiser Battery II, two slots → Secondary Battery II, AA and armor upgraded. Result: 30.3 knots, Light Attack 27.0, HP 136.5, Production Cost 5088 — meant to shred a screening line for torpedoes. 15:45

The navy guide covers fleet composition for the Channel fight ahead.

Spain: volunteers and trait farming

1. Send 6 volunteers plus air support to San Jurjo; optionally trait-farm, stopping at ~99% grind3 motorized + 3 armor + 2 air wings. Armor for Panzer Leader, rivers for Engineer; overshooting past 99% wastes the cheap early traits. 17:55

Tank design: the free flame tank

Tooltip: "Has 100.00% discount on this design / Spend ★0" — confirming it's genuinely free.

1. Design the flame tank first, then clone it into your real medium tank for 4 XP freeBasic medium chassis, 3-man turret, flamethrower, Christie suspension — swap the flamethrower for a howitzer to get your production tank. Later swap wet ammo storage for Easy Maintenance (44:17). 37:41

Aircraft design

1. Upgrade BF 109, Ju-87 and the naval bomber with fuel tanks for range setupSwap light MG turrets for fuel tanks; add a second cannon to the BF 109; add Fieseler to the naval bomber. Without By Blood Alone, just research CAS and the fighter line. 22:54

Research and doctrines

Four research slots; Aerodynamics and Avionics mid-selection — Helicopter 547 days, Radar 330 days, numbers never narrated.

1. Motorization Drive, then "Streamline Deployment" in armor doctrine; hire Guderian setupMotorization Drive makes armor/motorized conversions free; Guderian gives +15% doctrine mastery and faster tanks. Without No Step Back, just produce the plain "medium tank" design. 20:06

The right half of the focus tree, Sudetenland through Crossing the Atlantic.

The left (Economy) half of the tree.

The war with Poland

"Fall Weiss": a 48-division arrow toward Lublin, a pincer converging on Warsaw.

1. Stage everything before declaring, don't call allies, push railways toward supply hubs setupNaval invasion planned for Norway, land invasion for Denmark, armor on plains tiles. "They're a liability." Łódź, then Warsaw — not the big red attack button. 51:24
2. On "future of the German rearmament program," pick the top option setupConverts MEFO bills to economy of conquest, allowing gold seizure to offset the consumer-goods penalty. 53:50

Low Countries, France, and Britain

1. Declare on the Netherlands alone, drive Utrecht → Amsterdam → The Hague → Rotterdam grindBelgium's one border tile is forested/defensible; under 7 days to knock the Netherlands out. 58:51
2. Redeploy to Antwerp, then cut south through France to Paris setupWith Götterdämmerung, Belgium capitulates by event once any state outside the Ardennes falls. On Historical, France's disjointed government halves its surrender limit; stated capitulation: 9 days. 60:36

Flotta 1 under Admiral Lütjens, en route to the Channel.

1. Mass fighters near Calais, set the navy to "never repair, engage at high risk," launch at 150+ naval dominance grindPushed to a shown 710 and launched immediately rather than waiting ~20 days for the timer bonus. Mass CAS over southern England, land infantry, then armor: "as soon as the armor lands, it is all over." 73:42

Peace deal, USA, and the pivot east

1. Core-annex only actual German claims; puppet the rest, call Canada into the US war setupPoland/Belgium/Luxembourg/Netherlands/France/most of Switzerland annexed; overseas holdings puppeted. Airbases in eastern Canada stage the US strike. 80:24

The war with the USSR

The late-game Panzer-Division: support anti-air dropped, a logistics company added for Siberia. That jump comes from stacking soft-attack bonuses — see the modifier-stacking guide.

Organisation 42.6 is read off the designer panel. The creator says "35" aloud nearby; it does not match this template, so the screen value is used.

The same pincer scaled up: Kovel and Rovno toward Proskurov. The Soviet Union guide covers the USSR's own focuses and designs.

1. Break the pact with Japan yourself before ~early 1941; consider puppeting rather than fully occupying the USSR setupSkipping Anti-Comintern lets Japan declare on you instead. Full occupation creates an undefended border with Japan, who can then break its own pact over your Southeast Asian puppets. 90:40

Trade and resources

1. Trade with land-connected, non-belligerent partners; build synthetic refineries setupUK, Dutch East Indies, British Burma named. No low-fuel warning exists. Natural rubber sits with France/Netherlands/UK — the three countries this build fights early. 6:40

Day counts are stated aloud for only a handful of focuses; the rest are unmarked. Auto-captions mangle several proper nouns (a German province name, general names like "Von Munchstein" for likely von Manstein); and the Anschluss army-size multiplier as a game constant vs. testimony.

Where to go next

Germany does not fight alone. The Italy guide covers what the junior Axis partner can actually do with its own focus tree instead of following you into the Mediterranean, and the Kaiserin path is the non-aligned monarchist alternative to everything on this page. Once the industry is running, the Tank Designer guide covers what to actually put in the panzer divisions, module by module, with the costs read from the current game files.

Sources

Bitt3rSteel, "Building the ULTIMATE GERMANY in 2026! - Germany Guide," 1:46:14. Top comments were reviewed and used where they added, corrected, or disputed a claim in the video.