Hoi4 World Conquest Speedrun guide for a fast world conquest on Ironman! Version 1.12 is absolutely the best one for a one-tag world conquest in Hearts of Iron 4. I've played Japan this time, but might give it a go with other nations sometime as well. The run was recorded in v1.12.6, but I've tested the strat again prior to releasing the video in v.1.12.9 and it still works.

You don't need DLCs for this strategy, although they are pretty helpful. Only By Blood Alone is disadvantages, unless you play as Germany or Italy, because of Switzerland's neutrality national spirit. Germany and Italy get war goals on Switzerland through the focus tree, everyone else has to justify for at least 300 days, often way more. Doesn't really make sense, if you ask me, especially in scenarios where Switzerland is the only other nation left on the planet and neutrality is supposed to deter us from war. Weird.

---

Unedited run (4 hours and excruciatingly slow micro, be warned): https://youtu.be/2r2x0dGoSdo

---

Reason for annexing France again quickly:

As soon as the French divisions engage in combat, France will gain lots of autonomy quickly. So much in fact that we cannot get them to zero autonomy through land-lease again, we just don't have enough equipment and convoys. If you now think: well, sooner or later we're going to have plenty more equipement, then you're right, but also very wrong. If we don't annex them before the end of the war with the Soviets, we're going to run into problems.

The new peace conference system is going to ruin your day, because in order to get a single conference with all participants, you'll need to call France into the war again every single time when a new hostile nation joins a faction. If you forget to call them even once or if France refuses to join, you're in deep trouble. You'll get messed up conferences with only a fraction of the participants due to multiple wars going on.

---

If you're interested in speedrunning Hearts of Iron IV, make sure to read the general AND category rules before recording and submitting your run!

Leaderboards: https://www.speedrun.com/hoi4
Discord: https://discord.gg/wZ5ychC

---

Music: All music used in this video is part of the official Hearts of Iron IV soundtrack.

---

This speedrun has been in the making for roughly three years and has been adopted to various versions and changes of Hearts of Iron 4. It's currently working in all versions up until 1.12, but requires extra steps in version 1.11 and prior, because of the "Untouched Mechanic". Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the strategy over the years!