How to play Romania (Axis infantry minor) in Horstorical

This guide is for playing Romania mostly but is quite applicable to other minors. The main difference is that with this
build Romania can fight in France and Africa in 1940. Most other minors build Civs longer and research modifiers
much later.

Research:
Light tank td 2 or medium td 1 (takes 1) -> Electronic mechanical engineering -> Doctrine (Mass Assault for infantry
minors; skip Guerilla Warfare)

Anti-Tank Upgrade -> Anti-Tank 2 -> … -> Anti-Tank 3

Construction 1 -> Construction 2 -> Mechanical Computing -> Concentrated 2 -> … -> Concentrated 5 (interrupt this
for important combat modifiers)

Basic Machine tools -> Concentrated 1 (for build slots) -> Improved Machine Tools -> … -> Streamlined Line (interrupt
this for important combat modifiers and wait for 100% bonus for tools 3, you need overall research)
(You could also do concentrated 2 before going for tools 3 with this slot)

Extra research slot:

Other arm of doctrine -> own gun 2 -> own gun 3 (interrupt this for important combat modifiers)

Why TD? You can put them into your infantry as assault guns, which give you breakthrough. Infantry mainly lacks
breakthrough.

Why Mass Assault? This doctrine gives you HP for special forces. Barbarossa will be a prolonged fight against an
experienced Soviet. You will be able to sustain your losses much better. The doctrine also gives you breakthrough, if
you use tank support companies (you should!).

How is Romania different to other infantry minors? You are often expected to help out in the early stages of the war
(France, Norway, Africa) (ask your Germany). You need to build military factories earlier than other minors (more in
construction) and you can’t afford to rush industry techs as much. You should be getting concentrated 5 way after
Barbarossa and should not research construction 3, except for when you need Excavation 3 in the late game (way
after 1939). You need to research combat modifiers way earlier therefore like support weapons.

Don’t I need Artilley/ Rocket Artillery/ guns? Yes! License Arty and Rocket Arty from Italy, always check his research
for that and guns from another Axis minor. Guns should take up most of your production, so it’s worth getting your
own gun 2 & 3 afterwards and switching to them. It will be difficult to get your own Arty 3 and Rocket Arty 2, so just
license produce (it will be enough).

Why not dispersed? With well-coordinated Axis research you get all important equipment early enough. Unlike
majors you can’t really build mills well into the late game due to trade and consumer goods, so concentrated gives
you the most production for Barbarossa and the rest of the game.

What makes infantry different to tanks? The stats of a tank template largely come from the tanks and the
mechanized. Good infantry is the product of many different equipment types and researched modifiers. It is harder
to balance this in your build.

Which combat modifiers do I need?

You need all three techs for the special forces type you are relying on (for Barb) and the first 2 generic special forces
techs (for breakthrough).

You need as many gun techs as possible (careful with bonuses).

Aim for all techs up to Arty 3 and Rocket Arty 2, if you are using rocket arty as line. Else you could skip them for tank
destroyer research, as Soviet infantry is often inferior to Axis infantry and only effective against tanks. This depends
on the game:
For support companies, you should get logistics 3 around Barb. Engineer 3 is nice but not a must. Some research of
military police (gives extra organisation if you get 1939 and 1942 MP), recon and signals should be done.

Air superiority can be useful but all the other techs listed are more important.

Focus:

Get the remaining focuses when you need them / have enough PP for advisors / can afford to take them in terms of
research bonuses.
Save days for 16, so you get War Economy earlier. Change 11-15, if you can get the 40 factories for the research slot
earlier.

Why get the dockyards? You can delete them for build slots and you need factories for your research slot. So delete
them after you have done the focus.

Why not get the mills earlier? Mills give you consumer goods and infra etc. is more important. Get them when you
start building mills.

Why do the Anti-tank focus so late? You need the PP and the consumer goods for a decent eco and you get AT early
enough.

Why do ZB-53 and Artillery Focus so late? You want to use the bonuses on gun and arty 3 (and the techs just before
that). If you license produce from Italy you can also use them on the techs before arty 3. You will waste these
bonuses, if you do the focus early and you don’t really need the focuses below until much later. If Germany wants
marines, research them without bonus or make sure, you have at least the 1938 ‘Improved Infantry Equipment’ tech
researched. Careful! These bonuses also apply to support weapons, while Artillery bonuses also apply to AA (never
research that anyway).

PP buys:
Silent workhorse -> Partial Mobilisation -> Captain of Industry (now gives an extra civ, keep him all game) -> Artillery
Designer (applies to AT) -> Free Trade (you get -100% resources to market) -> Industrial Concern -> Promises of
Peace -> Military Theorist -> Anti-Democratic Raids -> Armaments Organiser (gives an extra military factory) -> War
Economy (after Appoint Pro Axis Government) -> raids -> Advisors

Do as many raids as you can but make sure you have enough pp for War Eco. You need enough war support to be
above 50% when you are at war (war takes 20%), so do war propaganda for a few months. You don’t need 100% war
support, so don’t waste too much PP.

If you want to research a better tank destroyer or light tank, get the Brawler Tank Designer (Alkett for Axis).

Make sure you have at least an Army Offense Expert and an Infantry Expert ready for war (ideally also the
Commando Expert).

Late game you can pick the Compassionate Gentleman, when you run out of civs to build with. He gives you stability
and factory output at the cost of consumer goods.

Construction:
This is fairly simple. Build Civs until January 1938, you should get between 20-22.

Start building in Banat and only build in Muntenia once you get level 9 infra, should work out.

Don’t worry if your last Civ finishes 2 months later, but don’t build any more. After that build only mils until the rest
of the game.
Since you are mostly requiring steel and since you might run out of civs to trade, you can build up infra in Banat. Do
this in mid 1940.

In 1941, you can press Emergency Factory Conversion for 5 more mils, you should be barely building with any civs at
that point.

With this build you can expect to have 45+ Vanilla mills with more than 100% factory output.
Production:
Put 1 factory on light tank 2 (earlier light tanks also work and are cheaper to build but slightly less effective). This can
be used for amored (light tank) recon. You need the breakthrough. A 2nd factory might be needed if you suffer harsh
losses.

Put 1 on light tank destroyer 2 or medium tank destroyer 1 and you use them as support assault guns (not support
TDs!) and put a 2nd factory on later. If you research or license better TDs later, you will have to go up later. With
medium TDs 5 factories are needed at least, but you get significantly more breakthrough.

Build some motorised with one factory during the build up spirit. This should give you enough all game. You can
delete the line after the build up spirit.

Keep one factory on support equipment and AA, this should be enough all game. With heavy losses go up 1 factory
each or take out some support companies.

Put 3 mills on Anti-Tank once you get AT 2. Go up to 5 if you want to heavily use your infantry against tanks.

Put 2 factories on Artillery, once Italy gets it. Go up later for the Norway garrison (and/or get Germany to LL you
some arty 1). Go up, if you want to use artillery as line in your templates later.

Put 3 factories on rocket artillery, when Italy gets it, so you get enough support companies for France and Africa. If
you want to use line rocket artillery late game, drop to one factory on artillery and put about 6 factories on rocket
artillery.

Put 1 factory on guns at the start for your Norway garrison later (Germany can help with some extra gun 1). Always
build the best available guns possible with the remainder of your mils. This should be at least 60% of your factories.

Gun 3 and tank support companies are particularly important for an infantry build! Infantry lacks breakthrough and
this is how you get it.
Templates:

As an infantry minor you can definitely fight tanks in Horst, provided you have gun 3 and AT 3 in the late game (for
Africa and France you obviously don’t have those). However, you also need to fight infantry.
A big struggle for Germany is dealing with large numbers of Anti-tank infantry by the French, UK and Soviet players.
Helping Germany overcome this wins the Axis the game!

You can do a mixed template and it will work fine:

This is fine, but not the best you can do.

You can also do specialised units:

Against tanks and

Against infantry. This is harder to micro of course.

Why is this better? In Horst, most units have either no (infantry) or exclusively hardness (tanks and mechanized
divisions). Therefore, with a specialised template, more of your attack applies. By the same logic, you are more likely
to do critical damage (when your attack exceeds the enemy’s defense). You could minmax even harder with more AT
and Arty, especially on other minors with Artillery Advisors.

Obviously, you can and should swap the rangers out for mountaineers in Africa or Marines, if the Axis struggles with
large rives (rarely the case). Don’t bother making mountaineers for the few hill tiles in the Soviet Union for now, just
use rangers throughout.

Why 40w? In older versions of the mod, Superior Firepower 20w divisions were much better. They still excel at raw
stats. But 20w require twice as many support tanks (really expensive with mediums) and 20w divisions suffer more
losses.

If the game is going badly for Axis, consider making 20w mountaineers or rangers with signal companies to roach
out the defence of Greece or Italy. Some mixed template will work here, since you can’t choose which of your
templates gets attacked by the enemy if you make specialised templates. Use these more defensively.

Lastly, you will often be expected to do the Norway garrison as Romania. Just use 7/2s or 9/2s with Mass Assault:

It is not unreasonable to expect some support from Germany or Italy to put up the garrison. 4 divisions on each port
(except Oslo) and 4 divisions next to each port should suffice, yet it could be worth putting more than 4 on each
port. This depends on the game and the allies. Losing Norway is detrimental to the Axis, so make sure this doesn’t
happen!