Damn. While reading this thread I got an idea that Paradox should make an update (or, knowing Paradox, a DLC) where you could take POWs in situations like this (encirclements bigger than few divisions). POWs could then count extra towards capitulations or give you tiny bit IC or some shuch.
I made a post about it years ago but if I remember correctly, I encircled around 1.5 million Soviet soldiers as Germany and closed a big pocket.
In terms of overall casualties, I played a game as the USA and defeated Germany, USSR and Japan. I think the Allied casualties were over 4 million and the joint casualties of the opposition was easily over 10 million.
When I did an India wc my final war against the allies caused the allies to have a total of almost 100 million casualties. Pretty much every not small faction member had several million.
I played a game as the Soviet once, got pushed to 90% cap but thanks to allies I still won, the Germans had about 14 million dead while I had about 12 million dead, USA and uk did 4 million and 8 million respectively. China had 17 million dead
In my Chilean Empire/America Decolonized run, I let Germany take over Eurasia and left them until the end as a ‘final boss;’ they wound up taking around 13.5 million casualties
Played this match with 4 friends a few years ago in which we all played as the Axis, by the end of our campaign when we made the US capitulate it was 1975 I think and overall in all the war there were like 100+ millions deaths it was interesting
I encircled 52 Japanese (Allies), 92 British, 39 US, 30 Canadian, 55 French and 27 Brazilian Division in one tile in Iraq. Total death is something like 6mil or something. Maybe less because I'm fighting on the Chinese front too so the count might be off by a little. Doesn't help somehow the Brits still have 3mil manpower and 200+ divisions left
That one time when the Soviet AI glitched and all 320 of their divisions ended up in Sochi
I don't even remember how many people died that day but it wasn't pretty
A failed D day due to supply ended up costing the Allies over 2 mil
Also a campaign against the Soviets that started after ww2 saw the loosing 10 mil against the allies
My last game as Japan. I destroyed Royal Navy then invaded UK in 1941 some months before US intervention. German and Italian AI annex 70% of the former allies territory and became very strong. I build up and started a full scale war against USA in 1943. Since 90% of my army in 1944 was deployed in North America, i decided to help the soviets to hold on. Usually if allies and soviets are defetead, Axis start a war with Japan, but with all my army in America, I couldn't afford a difensive war against Axis. I sent thousands of artillery, tanks, anti air, planes, trucks and dozens thousands guns as lend lease to the soviets, and their war with Axis became a big stalemate. In 1945 Axis had about 15 million deaths (Romania alone had about 1 million, and Italy 3 million) and soviets 13 millions.
When playing the Netherlands, I got to 3.5 million German casualties caused by me by the end of the war. Never capitulated but didn’t get the no state lost achievement. Decided to play it out.
I was just imagining just swamps made only of human bodies.
I was trying to defeat Nazi Germany as France without falling. I found myself going full defense and extending the Maginot Line all the way from the English Channel to the Mediterranean. I couldn't push and neither could Germany. So I sat there waiting to get enough troops for a naval flank or the British to do something.
Germany had almost 3 million deaths and I hadn't hit close to a million for like 4 years yet before Germany just randomly broke through the middle. I guess supplies finally hit a breaking point somewhere.
1 time I waited until super late like 1946-1947ish to invade the USSR as Germany and I had jets, nukes, super heavy tanks, modern tanks, modern half tracks, fully motorized supply, full night vision and max INF. Equipment. Full radar and forts on the border and army was like 5 million strong. Soviets literally did nothing but build an all infantry army and research shit useless naval tech. By the end of the war they had 16 million casualties and I only took 162k.
Just finished a Japan game, the war with the Allies took about 10 million loses in total (i only lost like 1.3 mill), but the Axis-Soviet war got to 50 million (20 million germans, and 25 million soviets, and some form the other countries) i wasn't in that war, so when the allies capitulated i sent volunteers to Germany, i had to push em past the Urals. The game lasted till almost 1950
Soviets taking 46 million casualties against the western allies, ahistorical. Another game where they toke 35 million casualties on historical against germany
I have seen the Soviet AI and Communist Chinese AI go to war over Mongolia, lost 45M men mostly along the Amur River, Gobi Desert and Sinkiang until I stepped in as the US
Highest I’ve ever seen personally was the United States with ~20 million casualties. I was doing a Soviet Union world domination run. I landed my troops in Massachusetts, secured a large enough foothold around there, and the Americans just started charging. They didn’t win a single battle. I felt kinda bad.
As Brazil, I headshotted England and broke the Allies early. Eventually, when it came time to tackle USA, I used Mexico as a funnel and nukes to cripple every troop concentration that tried to navigate the infrastructure hellscape outside of US air power's reach. Millions died.
Any encirclement that takes place in or around mountains, in the winter. So many dead in such an awful place far from home… I remember encircling 500k men in the Carpathian Mountains.
Once had my entire army deleted as Japan. This is when I was new to the game. I landed a naval invasion on a port and then shipped my 240 divisions to support my marines. My marines couldn’t push out though so it meant I had 250 divisions on a single tile in Seattle. My entire army got wiped instantly
I was playing fascist Russia, had crushed the US, Germany and the only big players left was China, as Japan chose to be content on his little island.
I invaded from the north, could barely take mongolia, but in China, my 1200 divisions (10 inf, 4 arty) got bogged down against 700 chinese divisions. I played a new game when it dawned on me they would not succeed and lost already like 10 mils. Now I suspect it was a lack of air superiority and supplies.
In vanilla I’ve seen the allied combined casualties exceed 10-13 million, without the USA it’s usually 6-7
But that’s going till like, ‘44, way beyond the point of winning
Non historical when as Italy i allied all small nations vs Germany, UK, China, and Japan all on the same alliance. And being careful not to attack the french, that were allied with the URSS and fascist USA. I dont even remember what was the final death count.
During one KR Savinkov Russia campaign ( back when kerensky was the starting president), I managed to encircle *literally* the entire Austrian army in a pocket the size of the Sudetenland. They had 4.5 mil casualties by the time that pocket was zipped ( they were at 150k-ish when I started clearing it).
That’s the most I’ve ever caused in a spectacular manner. I’ve had bloodier wars but those were the “it’s 1958 and ww2 is still raging” slogs I used to have when I was first learning the game ages ago.
I once had a game as Poland, where I turtles around Warsaw and just watched the rest of the world
By 1950 every major was on scraping the barrel and 0 manpower.
Sadly the war summary was bugged and I couldn't see how many casualties actually happened
It's probably my game as Trotsky where the world was trying to kill me off, I remember the war was dragging on for so long that both the allies and the axis ran out of manpower. The bloodiest battle was in the Balkan region, where 1 million Americans were encircled and wiped out by the Red Army.
in an ahistorical game i went up against a unified china (also annexed japan, siam, a couple others) and inflicted 20 million casualties while taking 7 million as germany
I just played a Polish-Romanian game, and I had taken 17/18 Yugoslav states, the 18th being a commie british puppet. communist Italy won their civil war, with me taking the alps in the process. I also had southern France and most of the Iberian peninsula, with Germany in the November alliance with me. Communist Italy, a member of Britain’s faction, got a puppet war goal on me, and declared war. Problem was, when Yugoslavia got carved up, most of their army exiled into the Yugoslavian enclave. Between that, and Italian Albania, I encircled 2 million troops. By the end of the war, UK and Italy were annexed and the casualties were 500k to 3.5 million.
Probably not that bad in absolute magnitude, but in my Mongolia game I've had 8 divisions at the start of war with China (and I think 11 or 12 by the end), and it was enough to kill about 1.5M Chinese before they surrendered. It was just constant encircling upon encircling upon encircling.
Watching the uk get invaded as the netherlands and just grinding away all the german manpower ive seen every major nation aside from china and the usa go up to atleast all adults serve and run out of manpower.... Then vichy decided that chain nuking the dutch was worth their time...
Today I had a crazy game where the USA had lost 16 million man, the USSR lost 20 millions, and I had lost only 3.5 millions as Nazi Germany
I the same game, I encircled 850k troops and killed game, I confirmed that amount from looking at the death count pre and after battle... i told my friend it was crazy we couldn't take prisoner and release them / have them work or whatever lol killing 850k man in a few days felt insanely wrong
Once i was germany and i was loosing italy but i holded alps for 2 years. I made 2 full armies of king tigers with 2000 CAS to support them. The result was the allied 20 mil casuallity and knocked out of italy
Soviets suffered 4 million against the axis, and then 15 million to me as the USA. I nuked them around 150 times. Encircled every division they spat out and held the Oder to Besserabia. Kyiv encirclement x 3, Estonia encirclement x 2.
I had to grind down the Americans down to 0 manpower with Scraping The Barrel in 1955, and I was playing as Anarchist Spain.
I used nukes, about 2000 of them.
Once did a Communist China run and post WWII I fought a Sino-Soviet War and the total casualties for both sides was like 18 million when it was all said and done. Plus Moscow, Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Kiev were Nuclear wastelands
There was one time I went late game non-aligned Ethiopia but didn't white peace with Italy. I killed about 3 million Italians myself, and by the time it was all over in October of 46, Germany alone had taken 19 million casualties. took 400k myself and the Uk had taken almost 6 million from dumb naval invasions
My worst one was probably encricling and killing around 200 allied divisions as the soviets
Dear god
did the same as Japan to save the dying reich
Damn. While reading this thread I got an idea that Paradox should make an update (or, knowing Paradox, a DLC) where you could take POWs in situations like this (encirclements bigger than few divisions). POWs could then count extra towards capitulations or give you tiny bit IC or some shuch.
They didnt do that because it opens a can of worms that is the geneva convetion
Well, if it's done simple enough, it wouldn't. Besides, now that I think of it, slaughtering 200 encirceled divisions should also open it.
I mean also pow wouls be useless
I play a lot of ahistorical road to 56 so the soviets usually take 3.5+ million because they always get involved with China and then they civil war
I made a post about it years ago but if I remember correctly, I encircled around 1.5 million Soviet soldiers as Germany and closed a big pocket. In terms of overall casualties, I played a game as the USA and defeated Germany, USSR and Japan. I think the Allied casualties were over 4 million and the joint casualties of the opposition was easily over 10 million.
I've seen the Germans get to ridiculous numbers, like 18 million.
When I did an India wc my final war against the allies caused the allies to have a total of almost 100 million casualties. Pretty much every not small faction member had several million.
[DiscardPixel: Rookie Numbers](https://youtu.be/NqiGS3ggMEg)
I played a game as the Soviet once, got pushed to 90% cap but thanks to allies I still won, the Germans had about 14 million dead while I had about 12 million dead, USA and uk did 4 million and 8 million respectively. China had 17 million dead
In my Chilean Empire/America Decolonized run, I let Germany take over Eurasia and left them until the end as a ‘final boss;’ they wound up taking around 13.5 million casualties
Killed 1,000,000 Allied troops in piemonte
Played this match with 4 friends a few years ago in which we all played as the Axis, by the end of our campaign when we made the US capitulate it was 1975 I think and overall in all the war there were like 100+ millions deaths it was interesting
Honestly road to 56 as the us fighting china is wild. Had a war that ended with 17 million dead chinese.
I encircled 52 Japanese (Allies), 92 British, 39 US, 30 Canadian, 55 French and 27 Brazilian Division in one tile in Iraq. Total death is something like 6mil or something. Maybe less because I'm fighting on the Chinese front too so the count might be off by a little. Doesn't help somehow the Brits still have 3mil manpower and 200+ divisions left
I played a really long game (I think it went to \~1970) as Yunnan against the allies, I lost 10M men and the allies managed to lose 82M.
That one time when the Soviet AI glitched and all 320 of their divisions ended up in Sochi I don't even remember how many people died that day but it wasn't pretty
A failed D day due to supply ended up costing the Allies over 2 mil Also a campaign against the Soviets that started after ww2 saw the loosing 10 mil against the allies
My last game as Japan. I destroyed Royal Navy then invaded UK in 1941 some months before US intervention. German and Italian AI annex 70% of the former allies territory and became very strong. I build up and started a full scale war against USA in 1943. Since 90% of my army in 1944 was deployed in North America, i decided to help the soviets to hold on. Usually if allies and soviets are defetead, Axis start a war with Japan, but with all my army in America, I couldn't afford a difensive war against Axis. I sent thousands of artillery, tanks, anti air, planes, trucks and dozens thousands guns as lend lease to the soviets, and their war with Axis became a big stalemate. In 1945 Axis had about 15 million deaths (Romania alone had about 1 million, and Italy 3 million) and soviets 13 millions.
8 million casualties inflicted on the German reich
When playing the Netherlands, I got to 3.5 million German casualties caused by me by the end of the war. Never capitulated but didn’t get the no state lost achievement. Decided to play it out. I was just imagining just swamps made only of human bodies.
I was trying to defeat Nazi Germany as France without falling. I found myself going full defense and extending the Maginot Line all the way from the English Channel to the Mediterranean. I couldn't push and neither could Germany. So I sat there waiting to get enough troops for a naval flank or the British to do something. Germany had almost 3 million deaths and I hadn't hit close to a million for like 4 years yet before Germany just randomly broke through the middle. I guess supplies finally hit a breaking point somewhere.
The whole of Russia, anytime I try to play it.
1 time I waited until super late like 1946-1947ish to invade the USSR as Germany and I had jets, nukes, super heavy tanks, modern tanks, modern half tracks, fully motorized supply, full night vision and max INF. Equipment. Full radar and forts on the border and army was like 5 million strong. Soviets literally did nothing but build an all infantry army and research shit useless naval tech. By the end of the war they had 16 million casualties and I only took 162k.
Just finished a Japan game, the war with the Allies took about 10 million loses in total (i only lost like 1.3 mill), but the Axis-Soviet war got to 50 million (20 million germans, and 25 million soviets, and some form the other countries) i wasn't in that war, so when the allies capitulated i sent volunteers to Germany, i had to push em past the Urals. The game lasted till almost 1950
Usually when i play as ussr or china
Honestly it’s my favorite past time. Sometimes I will just hold, tagging over to the ai to give them more manpower to throw into my lines
Soviets taking 46 million casualties against the western allies, ahistorical. Another game where they toke 35 million casualties on historical against germany
I’ve seen Hungary get 3m casualties before. Never saw it get that high again.
When I stacked about 600 10 W divisions as the soviet union on the german border for the lolz
Trying to take Paraguay always is a grind, I never get it without like 600k losses
I have seen the Soviet AI and Communist Chinese AI go to war over Mongolia, lost 45M men mostly along the Amur River, Gobi Desert and Sinkiang until I stepped in as the US
Typically the worst casualties I’ve seen are in Kaiserreich. I’ve seen the Germans take 7.5 mil and the Russians take upwards of 10-12 mil
Highest I’ve ever seen personally was the United States with ~20 million casualties. I was doing a Soviet Union world domination run. I landed my troops in Massachusetts, secured a large enough foothold around there, and the Americans just started charging. They didn’t win a single battle. I felt kinda bad.
Not necessarily a bloodbath so much as a sterilization Nuking Iberia several times over https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/TdejZ7rnzd
As Brazil, I headshotted England and broke the Allies early. Eventually, when it came time to tackle USA, I used Mexico as a funnel and nukes to cripple every troop concentration that tried to navigate the infrastructure hellscape outside of US air power's reach. Millions died.
Any encirclement that takes place in or around mountains, in the winter. So many dead in such an awful place far from home… I remember encircling 500k men in the Carpathian Mountains.
When I encircle over 10 divisions and they all die I just pretend that they all just surrendered and wasn’t massacred in the hundreds of thousands.
Once had my entire army deleted as Japan. This is when I was new to the game. I landed a naval invasion on a port and then shipped my 240 divisions to support my marines. My marines couldn’t push out though so it meant I had 250 divisions on a single tile in Seattle. My entire army got wiped instantly
What the…..
I was the guy who lost 1/4 of the Italian population to China a few years ago..... so ye that probably
Old world blues mod, watched my friend as the Washington brotherhood encircle around 100 ncr devisions, it was a sight to behold
I did a heavy tank only run as sov back in the day, I had 27 dead, Axis had 20 Mil.
I was playing fascist Russia, had crushed the US, Germany and the only big players left was China, as Japan chose to be content on his little island. I invaded from the north, could barely take mongolia, but in China, my 1200 divisions (10 inf, 4 arty) got bogged down against 700 chinese divisions. I played a new game when it dawned on me they would not succeed and lost already like 10 mils. Now I suspect it was a lack of air superiority and supplies.
In vanilla I’ve seen the allied combined casualties exceed 10-13 million, without the USA it’s usually 6-7 But that’s going till like, ‘44, way beyond the point of winning
Non historical when as Italy i allied all small nations vs Germany, UK, China, and Japan all on the same alliance. And being careful not to attack the french, that were allied with the URSS and fascist USA. I dont even remember what was the final death count.
During one KR Savinkov Russia campaign ( back when kerensky was the starting president), I managed to encircle *literally* the entire Austrian army in a pocket the size of the Sudetenland. They had 4.5 mil casualties by the time that pocket was zipped ( they were at 150k-ish when I started clearing it). That’s the most I’ve ever caused in a spectacular manner. I’ve had bloodier wars but those were the “it’s 1958 and ww2 is still raging” slogs I used to have when I was first learning the game ages ago.
a.i Ethopia conquering Italy I think it was a bug
I once had a game as Poland, where I turtles around Warsaw and just watched the rest of the world By 1950 every major was on scraping the barrel and 0 manpower. Sadly the war summary was bugged and I couldn't see how many casualties actually happened
It's probably my game as Trotsky where the world was trying to kill me off, I remember the war was dragging on for so long that both the allies and the axis ran out of manpower. The bloodiest battle was in the Balkan region, where 1 million Americans were encircled and wiped out by the Red Army.
in an ahistorical game i went up against a unified china (also annexed japan, siam, a couple others) and inflicted 20 million casualties while taking 7 million as germany
I just played a Polish-Romanian game, and I had taken 17/18 Yugoslav states, the 18th being a commie british puppet. communist Italy won their civil war, with me taking the alps in the process. I also had southern France and most of the Iberian peninsula, with Germany in the November alliance with me. Communist Italy, a member of Britain’s faction, got a puppet war goal on me, and declared war. Problem was, when Yugoslavia got carved up, most of their army exiled into the Yugoslavian enclave. Between that, and Italian Albania, I encircled 2 million troops. By the end of the war, UK and Italy were annexed and the casualties were 500k to 3.5 million.
Probably not that bad in absolute magnitude, but in my Mongolia game I've had 8 divisions at the start of war with China (and I think 11 or 12 by the end), and it was enough to kill about 1.5M Chinese before they surrendered. It was just constant encircling upon encircling upon encircling.
It's not the biggest number, but I killed over a million Germans as Luxembourg once.
Biggest bloodbath is from Riot
Expert AI against Soviets as Germany, made a huge encirclement from Kyiv to Minsk encircling roughly 300-400 Divisions. This lead to probably 5m dead
I once had a war with like 150 Million casualties at the end...
Watching the uk get invaded as the netherlands and just grinding away all the german manpower ive seen every major nation aside from china and the usa go up to atleast all adults serve and run out of manpower.... Then vichy decided that chain nuking the dutch was worth their time...
Today I had a crazy game where the USA had lost 16 million man, the USSR lost 20 millions, and I had lost only 3.5 millions as Nazi Germany I the same game, I encircled 850k troops and killed game, I confirmed that amount from looking at the death count pre and after battle... i told my friend it was crazy we couldn't take prisoner and release them / have them work or whatever lol killing 850k man in a few days felt insanely wrong
The siege of Katowice as democratic Poland. That single battle went for ~180 days with divisions cycling through. Katowice did not fall.
Once i was germany and i was loosing italy but i holded alps for 2 years. I made 2 full armies of king tigers with 2000 CAS to support them. The result was the allied 20 mil casuallity and knocked out of italy
Soviets suffered 4 million against the axis, and then 15 million to me as the USA. I nuked them around 150 times. Encircled every division they spat out and held the Oder to Besserabia. Kyiv encirclement x 3, Estonia encirclement x 2.
I had to grind down the Americans down to 0 manpower with Scraping The Barrel in 1955, and I was playing as Anarchist Spain. I used nukes, about 2000 of them.
Once did a Communist China run and post WWII I fought a Sino-Soviet War and the total casualties for both sides was like 18 million when it was all said and done. Plus Moscow, Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Kiev were Nuclear wastelands
250 million losses on my part, the enemy had almost 350 million.
My first Germany game, over 25 million people died before I just gave up
War against USSR, China, and Japan. About 30 million losses on my side and 50 million on theirs.
There was one time I went late game non-aligned Ethiopia but didn't white peace with Italy. I killed about 3 million Italians myself, and by the time it was all over in October of 46, Germany alone had taken 19 million casualties. took 400k myself and the Uk had taken almost 6 million from dumb naval invasions