Hearts of Iron IV: How to win the Spanish civil war as Republicans (Tips, no dlc)

1. You should not build on the enemy territory (Galicia, Navarra, Burgos, Leon, Valladolid, Western Aragon, Salamanca, Extremadura, Sevilla, Cordoba and the colonies and islands) so you should develop them after the civil war

2.Fortifying is better but it’s not mandatory, and you should in my opinion not fortify directly on the borders, but on the strategic spots (like supply hub, big cities…) because of the lack of time

3.It’s doesnt matter mobilizing early game because you’ll get around 60division and the Nationalist will also get around 70 so priorizing saving you supplies and not wasting them too much on mobilizing.

4.So you don’t need much preparation but do like other games early game (training the troops, getting new generals and marshals etc)

5.You should get Grand Battleplans as a doctrine, it’s the best for early game defense.

6.For the National Focus, i recommend taking Political Effort first for free political pts then army efforts for free Army EXP and research speed, that will make a huge difference for no cost.

7.Get Marshals and generals, and prepare plans (be careful because some of them can switch sides)

8.Setup your planes, 1 fleet per regions is enough, they’ll eventually get the upper hand.

9.Setup your subs to convoy raid and your ships to Naval invasion Support for a bonus in combat.

Also, for advisors, do not get Francisco Franco as one, he’ll leave during the Civil War
Get Carlo Masquelet for defense and Jose Miana Menant for Infantry attack and defense.
You can also get Diego Hidalgo Duran for less air superiority.
Nicola Mereros is also useful for a less costly doctrine.
For manufacturers, you should get infantry equipment research speed and CASA air designer, but use them after you got all of the above.

So the war will start around july so make sure to be prepared to fight, i recommend pressing space when the war starts and make the frontline.

Also make sure every army has a general by recruiting some, even a 1,1,1,1 can do the job, it’s better than having none.

Raise your conscription a bit, until you have at least 100k mannpower, it’s better to not form soldiers, your divisions are already enough.

A VERY IMPORTANT THING IS TO :
Evacuate Pais Vasco and Asturias, the two provinces in the north, except if you’re a master general, you should not attempt defending this piece of land, you’ll en up losing 12 divisions, so evacuate by the Bilbao or Oviedo Naval bases, losing 1 to 4 divs is not a big deal, the important thing is to save units, then put those troops with the rest of the frontline.

You should use a marshal front line even if you dont have a marshal(you can also get a new general and promote him real quick) and put an offensive line (le funny arrow on the orders)
This frontline should hold off

You should encircle, it is a priotity, you’ll get the advantage if you shred their troops instead of wearing them off, here is an example :
The first encirclement that you can pull off :
-Get some troops on Ciudad real and Granada and you can hard push the far left part of Cordoba.

But i recommend before that defending a bit and exhausting them so it’ll be easier to push.
When you see the green bar below the marshal (or general if you took a general frontline and offensive line) you can click on the arrow to push, making your troops attack on all of the frontline, it is quite good to prevent microing every single encounter.

Just pay attention on red encounters, and maybe get 1 or 2 divs to reinforce from a nearby province that a too much troops.

So in general, you should encircle after weakening them and you’ll get dozens of divisions that’ll surrender.

Here’s some encircled spots that i got during my playthrough :

After you encircled a lot of these pesky nationalists, you can put a final blow on Franco, try to macro the troops to encircle even more or too push them further, at this point in the war, his troops are very weak compared to yours, so you’ll have a ratio of 1 republican against 2 nationalists so take advantage of that.

Take the Supply lines and the big cities for free mannpower and supplies to weakened them further.
Just wait a bit and the nationalists will eventually fall.

I’m lazy, it’s been 3hrs since im writing this, don’t forget to suggest some advices i can put it in my guide.
If i messed up something you can also tell me (i have only 250hrs so i’m not the greatest strategist)
Here’s a picture of your victory!

Now enjoy seeing 50divs leaving and having only 10divs lol but at least you got an achievement.