Volunteers guide in Hearts of Iron IV

One way to help a friendly country, for example in a civil war, is by sending volunteers. I like to play this tactic especially for Germany in which I can improve my units and gain army experience which can then be used to modify my units.

Why use volunteers?

As I indicated in the introduction. There may be several reasons. For me, the most important motivation is always to improve units to veteran level while gaining more green (army) experience. By being involved in the war you have the ability to determine who wins and if your friendly mode wins you theoretically have allies for future wars.

If you send troops to war as volunteers, word tensions will rise, but you are not officially participating in the war. That’s a pretty comfortable state for you. I always try to micro-manage them to bring them to a successful end.

How send volunteers?

Sending volunteers abroad is easy. Look at both sides of a local conflict and see which side needs a better outcome. There are usually two sides facing each other with different ideologies (and also different strengths). The goal is to support the side that has the same ideology.

Then I recommend you look at the state, click on send volunteers and see how many divisions you can send. According to the official wikipedia, the rule is that for every 20 divisions you have in the field you can send 1 division of volunteers, rounding down. So if you have 39 divisions in the field you can still only send 1 division as volunteers…

Sending volunteers in Hearts of Iron IV

… then I will take as many divisions as I can send, put them under my general, and then send those divisions as volunteers.

Subsequently, it will take several days for volunteers to reach the conflict site. Exactly when they will be on the ground can be determined from the information under the volunteer icon.

Volunteers on the road

How send aircraft volunteers?

If you have the Waking The Tiger DLC, you can also send your air units into battle. Again, only a portion of your aircraft can be sent as volunteers, so I recommend combining the following air units:

  • fighters >> to support other air wings
  • tactical bombers >> to destroy supply routes / strategic targets
  • close air support >> for quick support of your troops
  • transport planes >> to support your units

And you will have the power to send them to an airport owned by your friendly party. Be careful not to send aircraft to an airport that is too close to the front. Since you won’t have 100% control over how the friendly units will behave when defending, you don’t know if they will let the airfield fall…

… aircraft arrive on site almost immediately after deployment, so you can work with them properly right from the start. Before they come back, make sure the fighters don’t have any spare hiring capacity, because then they’ll drop a level.

Jak stáhnout dobrovolníky?

Unfortunately, volunteers from abroad cannot be recalled. Once they’re in a friendly country and involved in combat. The war must either end (by winning) or you must start your own war and then they will most certainly have to return to help the rest of your army. This will withdraw the troops and they will return to you alive and with experience.

Report of troops returning home.

When you will not thrive and you support the side that will not win so unfortunately you have to leave the units on the friendly territory and probably you will destroy them.

Martin
I'm Martin, the main creator of this site. I love city builders, transport, and war strategy games. So I create this site to share my love with others! Let's make Tycoon games great again!